IklLi

GEO. C. HOITT, I
Manchester, N. H, I i

i£!> al

Dr. ASA FITCH.

THE

popuLAE scie:i^ce

MONTHLY.

CONDUCTED BY K L. AND W, J. YOUMANS.

VOL. XVI.

NOVEMBER, 1879, TO APRIL, 1S80.

NEW YORK :

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,

1, 3, AND 5 BOND STREET.

1880.

COPTRIGHT BY

D. APPLETON AND COMPAKY,

1880.

10^3^

THE

POPULAR SCIEKCE
MONTHLY.

NOVEMBER, 1879.

THE EECENT PEOGKESS OF SOLAE PHYSICS.*

By Professor' S. P. LANGLEY,

OF THE ALLEGHENY OBSEEVATOEY.

LEAVING to those of wider knowledge the survey of the whole
field of scientific labor, it has seemed to me that I could best
present to you some account of that branch of it with which I am
most familiar, which is that of "Solar Physics."

This study is essentially a modern one. Astronomy, which in the
earliest times could only mark the annual path of the sun, or count
the stars, with the invention of the telescope still concerned itself
more with the motions of the heavenly bodies than with their physi-
cal nature. It sought out new methods of precision to fix the places of
these stars and to mark out for the navigator the path of the moon on
the celestial dial ; it united itself intimately with the sister science of
mathematics in predicting the places of the heavenly bodies from the
law of gravitation, but it was still as a surveyor and marker of boun-
daries in the field of space that the observer chiefly labored, and we
associate the most striking triumphs of the classic astronomy with this
work of precision. It is this aspect that appeals even to the imagi-
nation, and which is seized as distinctive by the poet of Urania :

" That little Vernier on whose slender lines
The midnight taper trembles as it shines,
Tells through the mist where dazzled Mercury burns,
And marks the spot where Uranus returns."

These are noble aims, and noble results ; but it is curious to see
how observers of the last century, who had learned this excellent lesson

* Address before the Phj-sical Section of the American Scientific Association at Sara-
toga

TOL. XTI. — 1 ,

2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of precision, had learned no other, and remained indifferent to a great
question to which the old methods did not apply. We are called into
existence by a great central fire, the sun, by which we continue to
exist from one hour to another. What is it ? what is this heat which
it pours into space, and wiih whose cessation we shall cease ? How
long will it continue to feed our lives ? A few years ago, with almost
the sole exceptions of the Herschels and Pouillet, no one even asked
these questions, much less intelligently sought their solution.

It is hard to say to whom the awakening of attention is due ; yet
if any one were to be named, it should perhaps be the Italian physicist
Melloni, "the Newton of heat."

His book, " La Thermochrose," has to me an attraction of its own,
for the author, with the ingenuous confidence of his nation, begins,
not by describing his thermopile or galvanometer, but by taking the
reader into his j^ei'sonal experience, and telling him how even as a
child he felt an invincible curiosity about what we have just seen
hardly any one else then cared for, and how, rising long before dawn,
he loved to seek some quiet spot, to wait there in the silence of the
sleeping world the first beams of the sun, and as he felt their warmth
and heard the stir of life they awakened round him, how he too was
stirred with wonder and interest as to the nature of that mysterious
thing, radiant heat, and resolved to give his future to its study. If to
distinguish a cause for wonder and inquiry in what to the common
mind has called for neither be a characteristic of genius, then Melloni
must be allowed its possession, and in his. but too short years he
showed the world how much interest and importance lay in this then
neglected stiidy, which so many with clearer knowledge and better
methods follow to-day.

Fraunhofer's previous work had prepared the way for the spec-
troscope, and with the now awakened interest in these questions, its
employment by Kirchhoff in 1860 may be said to inaugurate the pres-
ent study of solar physics, as distinguished from the classic astronomy,
which concerned itself with number and measure first, and in a wholly
secondary degree with the physical characteristics of the heavenly
bodies. This study occupies itself with the former, indeed, but chiefly
in aid of other investigations, and by the study of solar physics then,
we mean much more than a telescopic examination of the sun ; we
mean besides this the analysis of its radiations by the spectroscope,
their summation by the photometer and thermopile, the determina-
tions of its heat and the possible effects of changes in it on teirestrial
meteorology, and generally the pursuit of all those problems which
unite the methods of physics and astronomy.

In 1860 we already knew that the sun was surrounded by an en-
velope then visible only during total eclipses, and which was surmised
to be gaseous ; and of the sun itself we knew very little more than
that it was a hot globe with spots upon it ; for, though Schwabe had

THE RECENT PROGRESS OF SOLAR PHYSICS. 3

observed the periodicity of the spots, and Carrington was already at
work, their results were not wholly public, and the facts of the variable
velocity of the sun's rotation were rather the surmises of a few than
part of the body of acquired knowledge. Since then this branch of
astronomy has grown almost to the position of an independent science,
and, though it has not yet been distinctly divided into specialties in
its turn like its elder sisters, yet we already see a tendency to their
formations. Thus, with the study of the motions of the solar surface
we associate with the names just mentioned those of Sporer, De la
Rue, and Wolf ; with eye-studies of the photosphere or solar meteor-
ology, those of Dawes, Secchi, and others ; with the telescopic use of
the spectroscope those of Huggins, Janssen, Lockyer, Secchi, Young,
and Tacchini. The work of mapping the spectrum, begun by Kirch-
hoff, has been continued by Angstrom, Mascart, and Cornu, while pho-
tography, in the hands of Rutherfurd, Janssen, and Draper, has largely
superseded telescopic studies of the photosphere, and the list might be
enlarged indefinitely. Let us glance at part of the work done by these
during the past twenty years, for their labors make the history of our
study.

The work of Carrington, completed in 1861, taught us what had
before been suspected — both the periodicity of the spots and that this
great globe, so far as we can see it, has diflferent periods of rotation,
its equatorial zones completing a revolution in less time than its polar
ones. We know very little more on this point now, the cause of both
phenomena remaining wholly mysterious to-day.

In the next year (1862) an impulse was given to the study of the
solar surface by the announcement of a supposed discovery of gigantic
individual bodies in it, of from 500 to 1,000 miles in length, distinct
from each other, and existing in countless numbers. This extraordi-
nary statement was not easily disproved, as it is with great difficulty
that the real structure is discernible by the best telescopes. Forms,
we can scarcely call them " bodies," are undoubtedly there, of a size
and in numbers which could only exist on so vast a surface, and which
are no doubt the chief immediate cause of the sun's light and heat
— but what are their causes in turn, and what is their real nature ?
The suggestion was made at the time by the then, perhaps, most emi-
nent living astronomer, that they might be, in a sort, living things —
beings, in fact, whose vital force gave us the solar heat ; a suggestion
which we may smile at now, but which was received at the time with
a kind of awe, as adumbrating some possible truth. Of its author I
would speak with all possible respect in citing it, which I do here, as
nothing can better indicate the obscurity of our knowledge, even at so
recent a period. We may look back on such a possible suggestion
and its connection with that " vital force,'^ now itself banished by
physiology, as a kind of landmark on the road we have traveled. Our
science, young as it is, is old enough to have had its age of fable.

4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Since that time, in France, in Italy, in England, and here, thou-
sands of telescopic studies have been made with the purpose of defin-
ing these forms, and of learning more about the growth of those
mysterious objects with which they are associated — the sun's spots,
which drew the attention of Fabricius and Galileo, and which still
attract our own more than ever to-day, with problems which seem
nearly insoluble. Everything we see convinces us that the solar sur-
face in which they are formed is neither a solid nor a liquid, but com-
posed of volumes of whirling vapors ; yet through this vapor, which
seems to offer no resistance, come eruptions of explosive violence such
as one would suppose must arise from the sudden bursting of some
rigid shell. The turmoil within the areas of disturbance is so great,
the area itself so vast and inclosing such diversities of action, that we
are still doubtful how far this action is downward, how far upward.

Under the. circumstances, we can hardly say that twenty years of
observation in this department have brought us results commensurate
with the labor expended, nor have we derived great aid from photo-
graphy until some recent advances of which I have presently to speak.

A review of our past studies of the corona is a review of the solar
eclipses during the past twenty years ; for it is a fact, unparalleled in
the sciences of observation, that the opportunities for this knowledge
last only minutes, and are separated by intervals of years. Till 1860
it was uncertain whether the protuberances belonged to the sun or
moon, but in that year the then newly applied photographic method
made it nearly certain that they were parts of the former, and previous
surmises that they were extensions of an envelope everywhere sur-
rounding the sun were confirmed. In 1868 some traces of the corona
were first photographed. The spectroscope was used upon the promi-
nences, their gaseous nature was proved, and nine of the chromospheric
lines were determined ; and nearly together Messrs. Janssen and Lock-
yer made the discovery that these lines could be seen without an
eclipse ; 1869 brought that eclipse which traversed our own territory,
and in this the distinctive coronal line was first observed by Young
and by Harkness ; while in this, and yet more in the eclipse of 1870
and 1871, we obtained better photographs of the corona, and greatly
increased our knowledge of its apparent structure.

It is hardly possible to present even in the briefest way any review
here of the separate history of spectroscopic reseai'ch since 1860,
during which time it has been connected with most of the important
steps in every field of our study. It has, in the hands of Messrs. Hug-
gins, Zollner, and Young, made visible to us the forms of the chromo-
sphere, and enabled us to measure the velocity of motions upon the
sun otherwise beyond estimate, while at the same time it has given us
independent data for the absolute velocity of other suns in space, and
for that of the rotation of our own solar photosphere. It has, in the
hands of Secchi and others, connected our knowledge of our sun's

THE RECENT PROGRESS OF SOLAR PHYSICS. 5

physical constitution, and perhaps of its past history with that of other
suns, and even assumed to give us information whence we might infer
something as to their mass, as well as physical constitution, while it
has immensely increased the number of lines mapped twenty years
since in the spectrum, and modified the ideas we then entertained as
to the interpretation of these lines themselves.

The important question of the amount of heat received from the
sun has been the subject of almost uninterrupted experiment and
study during the period under review, but without essentially altering
the data of Herschel and Pouillet which we already jiossessed. In
this field the French physicists and our countryman, Mr. Ericsson,
have been prominent workers, and we have attained results possessing
all desirable certitude relatively to our knowledge in other branches.

Investigations on the solar temperature have been carried on by
many observers, but with results which ai'e thus far less satisfactory.

I am painfully sensible of the inadequacy of this review of the
history of solar physics, but the brief time before me warns me to
come from its past to its present. Within the last two years the difii-
culties I have alluded to, as so great in eye-studies of the solar sur-
face, have been singularly modified by the remarkable advance of solar
photography at the hands of M. Janssen. When I recently visited
his observatory at Meudon, I found him producing original negatives
on a scale of nearly thirty English inches to the solar diameter, and
which bear enlargement to nearly ten feet with remarkable precision ;
and one of these negatives, which presents over a million discrete
cloud-forms, can be taken in ^-^ of a second. In another branch of
photography, that of the reproduction of spectral lines, for which so
much is due to Rutherfurd and Draper, I know nothing more surpris-
ing than the recent success of Captain Abney (of the Royal Engi-
neers) at South Kensington, who has photographed the red end of the
spectrum, and far beyond the red end, to a wave-length of about 12,-
000. As this statement may of itself convey no clear idea to some of
my audience, let me explain in less technical language that it means
we can now photograph objects in absolute darkness — objects which
are not luminous — simply by the heat they give out. This is a dis-
covery which obviously lends itself to important practical applications,
while it is of further interest as bringing another proof of that identity
of heat and light, with radiations differing only in wave-length, long
since surmised by physicists, and asserted prominently by Dr. John
Draper, wliose photographs are also the earliest in the path which
Captain Abney has carried on by indei^endent methods. Theoretically,
there Avould seem to be no limit to this power of photography so long
as objects radiate any heat whatever.

Of recent coronal studies, I have only to speak of the opportunity
afforded by the eclipse of last year in our own Western territory.
Observed as it was in the pure air of the Rocky Mountains, we found

6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

an immense and hitherto almost unsuspected extension of the corona
in the direction of the solar equator, such as to make it increasingly
probable that the outer corona and the zodiacal light are different ap-
pearances with a common origin. The physical constitution of the
inner corona seemed to be modified by the weakness or absence of a
former constituent, and perhaps we may say that some additional
knowledge was gained as to its telescopic structure and its absolute
light, while the polariscopic evidence was contradictory.

In the light of our latest knowledge, what, then, is the corona ?
We do not know. We have literally had but about twenty minutes
in the last twenty years to look at it, and from that brief study it re-
mains every way problematical. The extent of this vast solar appen-
dage is unknown, its constitution is unknown, its function is unknown,
and it is still uncertain whether we can devise any means for its study
which will free us from this dependence upon momentary glimpses.
Our only hope, since the most powerful telescope is useless in our
lower atmosphere, seems to be to transport our observatory to some
mountain-height, like that of Etna or the elevated table-lands of Colo-
rado. There, even, we can not be sure of seeing it without an eclipse;
but there, if anywhere, ingenuity will be hopefully employed in an
endeavor to remove the difficulties which bar the way. After spend-
ing some weeks this year myself upon Mount Etna, on which the new
solar observatory is to be built, I can testify to the excellence of such
a station ; and yet, when we have sites equally good, I can not but
regret that it should be left to others to first enter such a promising
field.

Of recent spectro-photographic observation, I may mention the
valuable work of M. Cornu, who, working at the other extremity of
the spectrum from Captain Abney, has extended it beyond the violet
to a wave-length of 2,900, far beyond which the solar spectrum prob-
ably exists, but where M. Cornu finds our own atmosphere to inter-
pose an almost impassable barrier. The solar spectrum, therefore, is
now known by photography through three times the extent of the
visible portion, and this great gain on our former knowledge may be
said to have been completed for us in the past year.

In last November and subsequently, Mr. Lockyer has made the ex-
tremely important announcement that, reasoning from analogies fur-
nished by known compounds, he has been able to show that many ele-
ments are really compound bodies, which, incompletely dissociated at
the highest temperatures we can command, furnish under the form of
feeble lines the spectra of their components.

I do not enter here into discussion of points still in debate ; but
that which has arisen round this and the recent communications of
Dr. Henry Draper, at any rate elicits the evidence of the immense
labor now requisite in establishing new facts in our science, and the
refinement of some of the adverse explanations suggested in contro-

THE RECENT PROGRESS OF SOLAR PHYSICS. 7

versy shows us to how limited a company of si^ecialists we must look
as judges in matters so important.

The instrumental aids of our study have grown in the period un-
der review with the demand for greater accuracy, until the detached
prisms of Kirchhoff's apparatus are replaced by trains of automatically
adjustable mechanism, giving us in Thollon's recent instrument the
equivalent dispersion of thirty prisms of fliiit, or what has replaced
the " gitter " of Fraunhof er, that wonderful product of skill, the Ruth-
erf urd grating, which for a large variety of uses has already supplanted
the prism. Observatories especially devoted to solar physics are being
established by European governments, as at Potsdam by Prussia, and
at Meudon by France. I have already alluded to that on Etna, and I
hope it will not be long before we have a distinctly physical observa-
tory within our own territory. There is no step in our power to take
which promises so much for immediate advance as the installation of
one in a suitably elevated station, for certain investigations can be
made only under this condition, and no amount of instrumental appli-
ance, patience, or skill, at a lower altitude, supplies their place.

In now reviewing the acquisitions which this twenty years' labor
has brought us, we can not but agree that we have achieved a great
deal, and yet must admit, with wonder at the field still before us, how
little is our progress in comparison w^ith what remains unknown.

"VVe have found out how to detect daily the outbursts from the sun
which were before invisible, but we watch these outpourings of enor-
mous forms without yet knowing what drives them forth, without be-
ing sure how far our very view is not in part illusion.

We have learned how to study and fix many of the wonderful de-
tails of spot-actions without knowing what spots are. We see them
presenting themselves in increasing importance through a term of
years, and then diminishing, and we attempt to assign a period to
these cycles of gi-owth and decay. This period is often fixed at about
eleven years, with a perhaps unjustifiable confidence, for we can not
be said to know whether what we have seen in so brief a time is con-
stant or variable, nor whether it be not the mere incident of some
greater cycle, whose course began before man was here to see it, and
whose term may not be complete till he has gone.

We are possibly now led to ask what our science has taught us on
the connection of these remote changes with questions which affect
our daily lives, and perhaps to put the utilitarian question, " What is
all this worth ? "

We find at the present time our study growing into a closer union,
not merely with stellar astronomy on the one hand and terrestrial me-
teorology on the other, but with all the physical sciences, than would
once have been supposed possible. Thus, to give a single instance,
whatever be the result of the discussions aroused by Mr. Lockyer's
statements, it seems likely that we are to look to the analysis of the

8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

solar radiations for the most favorable evidence of that resolvability of
our so-called elements to simpler forms, which our chemists are now
very generally ready to admit as possible.

It is in the solar spectrum that we are now searching for the laws
of the molecular groupings which affect the ultimate constitution of
matter, and in recent questions as to the real nature of certain ter-
resti-ial elements, which our laboratories can not yet deal with, the
Mount Sherman observations of Professor Young on the appearance
of their analogues in the sun have been accepted by both parties in
debates before the Royal Society, as pertinent evidence, the only doubt
as to which lies in its interpretation.

Of problems " practical " in the sense that their utility is apparent
alike to the learned and the unlearned, there are two at least of the
highest importance which now occupy us.

The solar heat, which grows for us the food by which we live, is
no doubt in one sense the final cause of every meteorological change,
bringing those years of want and years of plenty which are due to
local variations of climate, that depend, through a chain of causes very
remote and obscure, no doubt, yet finally, upon the sun. We have
seen the magnetic needles vibrating all OA^er the globe together at the
time of a sudden commotion upon the solar surface ; we watch the in-
crease and decrease of auroras, and find we can almost predict their
frequency, so apparently united are they by some mysterious bond
with the changes of solar spots ; and we look with natural hope for
other signs of union which may enable us to anticipate more impor-
tant effects on our meteorology. Extreme pains have been devoted
— in some cases misdevoted — to researches aiming to establish such a
connection, by collecting data as to the changes in rainfall, the move-
ments of storms, the prices of grain, and of almost every feature of
terrestrial meteorology, in order to see whether these run through
periods coincident with those of known changes on the solar surface.
It will be admitted by the most utilitarian that the end aimed at is
a worthy one, for the practical result of success, such as some be-
lieve possible, would be to enable its attainer to predict the price of
breadstuffs years in advance, to control the markets of the world ; to
bestow, if unselfish, an almost priceless knowledge to man, or, if self-
seeking, to acquire wealth beyond wish.

I need hardly say that the attempt has thus far been unsuccessful.
There is hardly any topic on which there is more popular interest,
hardly any on which there is more popular error, than this of the sup-
posed influence of the sun on the weather. By means of the study of
what Professor Sraythe terms the "rain-band" in the spectrum, we
appear to have lately gained increased facility in predicting local
weather-changes ; but, excepting this comparatively unimportant con-
tribution, studies connected with the sun have as yet done very little
for us here, and it seems necessary to say that, as far as prophecy is

THE RECENT PROGRESS OF SOLAR PHYSICS. 9

concerned, none of us are yet prophets, or more able to tell from our
knowledge of the sun what the weather will be next week than what
the harvest will be next year.

There is another utilitarian aspect of our study about which there
is less public interest, but more real promise — I mean that which con-
cerns the direct application of solar heat to arts and manufactures.
These are now all using it indirectly — by the water, for instance, which
it lifts into the clouds to turn the mills of Lowell or Lawi'ence, as it
flows back to the sea, or by the coal which it stored in former ages to
drive our engines to-day. These indirect means use but the feeblest
portion of the solar heat, which is in theory capable of furnishing
nearly one horse-power for each square yard of the earth's surface
under full sunshine.

What we have actually realized in experiment is still considerable.

The visitor to the last Paris Exposition may have seen upon its
grounds a machine of strange appearance, in the open air, pointing
sunward the axis of an immense reflector, shaped like a truncated
cone, which gathered the rays to a linear focus upon the boiler of a
working steam-engine, which it drove thus by direct solar heat. Many
not dissimilar solar engines have been built in this country and in
India, the particular one of which I speak, due to M. Mouchot, having
actually realized about one horse-power to ten feet square of surface.

We are startled when we make the computation, to find the immen-
sity of the force thus placed at our disposal, or to see what the util-
ization of the waste places of the earth would bring us. Upon the
limited area of the Adirondack wilderness to the north of us, for
instance, the daily wasted sun-power actually realizable, and after
every allowance for loss, is many times that of all the estimated steam-
power at present in use in the whole world. I am not myself so far
utilitarian as to wish to see this use made of our pleasant summer
haunts, but thei'e are regions of the earth at present as entirely worth-
less as that great African desert which it is now proposed to partly
reconvert to an inland sea, a sunburned area now apparently hopeless-
ly useless to man, and yet on which an amount of power is every
year poured in utter waste which could not be made good by the con-
sumption of all the coal known to underlie the soil of Great Britain.

Such machines as those of M. Mouchot, owing to the expense of
construction and attendance, cost more than an engine driven by
coal, though the sun supplies its power gratis ; but it is simply, it
seems to me, a question of time when, with another form which I be-
lieve our researches already indicate, such engines may become an
economical as well as a mechanical success, and in a larger sense it is
stijl only a question of time when the rapidly consuming coal-beds of
Great Britain yield their last, and her manufacturing empire is trans-
ferred to countries which have not exhausted their supply. But these
will exhaust their own in turn ; the stock, though great, is finite and

10 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

not renewable ; and we must look, for the only power we know which
can replace coal, to those regions of the earth now desolated by solar
heat, and to which future empire may probably tend.

We have considered the past and the present of our study ; for its
future, lies the solution of all the great problems I have already al-
luded to, but these questions are so interlocked that the complete
answer to one will probably not be given till we are nearly ready to
answer all.

I have spoken of the fallacy of the popular impression of the result
of our study as enabling us to predict the weather, or to anticipate the
character of coming harvests. Repeating my belief that we as yet
know nothing here, or next to nothing, I yet do not mean to dispai'age
the object of such researches, nor even to deny the possibility of their
ultimate success. We can look forward, among other fair dreams for
our science's future, to a time when it will enable us to predict the
years of plenty or play the part of a beneficent Providence, by warn-
ing in season against those of famine, which have cost in our time so
many million lives in China and in India. These are, I repeat, still
dreams only, but we may call them hopes if we will — hopes of which
increased knowledge may deprive us, but of which we can not say it
may not bring fruition.

There remains among the greatest problems of the future of our
science the all-important one to the whole human race of -the future
constancy of the sun's heat, of which we have, it seems to me, no
assurance of the present rate of supply. We have, it is true, every
assurance that in the contraction of the solar mass and in the supply
of meteoric matter, we have heat to warm the human race for periods
almost beyond limit ; but we learn also that this heat is tempered to
us by a solar envelope, which seems to be, as far as we know, in con-
ditions which do not favor stability. It is constantly being added to
by eruptions from within the sun, caused by we know not what, and
constantly diminished by some counter-process which we understand
as little. When we consider that the thickening of this solar atmos-
phere would bring back the age of ice, or its thinning carry our polar
regions to tropical temperature, and when we remember that rhyth-
mical action, not uniformity, seems to be the law of nature here, we
can feel no certainty of the future constancy of the solar heat, nor of
our protection against such changes as seem to have befallen other
suns in space, and against which we are powerless to guard.

But such considerations of our ignorance and helplessness, while
they may prevent us from any undue pride in what our science has al-
ready attained, may teach us renewed confidence from the very brevity
of our life. These green fields around us were once covered with gla-
cial ice, and the change has been absolute from that condition to the
one of to-day. Yet in the lifetime of any one of the thousands of
insect generations which have succeeded each other in these fields.

THE DISEASES OF WILD ANIMALS. ii

there must have seemed no alteration ; and, remembering what instants
our own lives are, in a like comj^arison Avith the uncounted ages of the
sun's history, we may well reckon that our generation shall see no
change.

In the little span which is allowed us, however, we will try to learn
something more of that source of light, life, and power of which we
are materially the creatures ; and, if we can leave a knowledge which
will not die with ourselves, feel that we have left also the record of a
something in us " which owes no homage to the sun."

THE DISEASES OF WILD ANIMALS.*

By Professor JEAN VILAIN.

SOME naturalists have asserted that wild animals, when in a state
of liberty, are almost entirely free from disease, and that the lat-
ter afflicts them only when in captivity. I know that this is entirely
erroneous, and it can be proved that captive wild animals are more
exempt from ailments than those roaming at large.

While First Surgeon of the Thirty-first Regiment of the Line,
then stationed at Alabera, in Algeria, I dissected the carcasses of about
fifty lions. The lungs of twenty of them were affected ; one half of
them were almost gone, showing that consumption is prevalent among
the lions of the Sahara and the Sahel.

At the Jardin des Plantes, here in Paris, seven lions have died since
1869. All of them were born here. I dissected them, and found that
their lungs were entirely healthy. To what was the difference due ?
They received their food regularly, and were carefully protected from
inclement weather, while the lions in Africa had to go without food
for days, had to inhale the sandy air of the desert, and were frequently
drenched by terrible rains.

There is at the Jardin des Plantes a wolf from the Ardennes, He
was caught when about six years old. He was suffering from cough,
and at one time we thought he was dying. He hawked and spat, and
was always sullen and morose. Often he abstained from food for sev-
eral days. At last we chloroformed him, and examined his throat.
He was found to be suffering from nasal catarrh in its most aggra-
vated form. Under proper medical treatment ■ he recovered rapidly.
Nine wolves born at the Jardin never showed the slightest sign of
disease.

M, Jacquemart, the famous Indian hunter, often told me that he
had seen tigers spitting blood, which exhausted them so that they
could be approached within a few feet with impunity.
* Translated from the " Revue Zoologique."

12 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

All monkeys are very delicate animals. They are not gluttonous ;
and haying so much exercise, they are rarely afflicted with diseases of
the bowels. But they have weak lungs, and the reason why so many
of the most interesting among them die when brought to Europe is the
too sudden change of aii', diet, and water. There is no more intelligent
monkey than the chimpanzee, a truly wonderful animal. While in
Berlin I dined at the Zoological Gardens by the side of a pet chim-
panzee. He partook of every dish like a human being, put sugar into
his teacup, stirred it with the spoon, and drank the beverage with evi-
dent relish. But his eyes looked supernaturally bright. I felt his
pulse. It was 125. " He will not live long," 1 said to his keeper,

" Why not ? " he asked with a sorrowful mien.

" He is consumptive," I replied.

"Indeed ! He often coughs."

The chimpanzee died a month later. His left lung was entirely
gone.

Carnivorous animals suffer from digestive disorders only when fed
upon poor meat. I dissected three hyenas : two in Paris, one in Lon-
don. Their bowels presented an entirely healthy appearance, and so
did their stomachs. But the reverse was the case of an old Abyssin-
ian hyena belonging to a Greek menagerie-keeper, who had caught
the animal himself in Africa. He managed to keep it alive for two
years, but told me : " The beast always vomited, and often lay on the
ground, moaning piteously. What was the cause ? " I dissected the
hyena. The stomach was in a terrible condition. It was dotted with
the scars of boils.

Dogs are gluttons. Wild dogs are worse. We have at the Jardin
one of these able to devour meat enough to gorge a tiger or a lion ;
but the animal has to pay dearly for its voracity ; it is always suffer-
ing from aggravated constipation, and will not live long.

Foxes are shrewd about everything, and so they are about their
food. What hunter has ever found a fox that died from disease ?
Zoologists admire the dissected body of a fox because there is never
anything unhealthy to be found in its organs. Hence, foxes are long-
lived.

Six months ago we received at the Jardin four buffaloes from the
North American Plains. Two of them died three days after their
arrival. They were found to be suffering from a multiplicity of dis-
eases—dyspepsia, imperfect action of the kidneys, and fatty degenera-
tion of the heart. The other two have been ailing ever since, and yet
the young buffalo born at the Zoological Gardens of Cologne is the
embodiment of health.

The elephant is one of the most temperate and abstemious of ani-
mals. He eats for his size so little food that it is a wonder how he is
able to exist upon it. True, he dies in captivity before his time, but
not from physical causes. There is no doiibt that he is one of the

O.y RADIANT MATTER. 13

most sensitive of animals. A slight or a disappointment mortifies him
deeply. The elephants of South Africa, which are rough animals when
compared with those raised in captivity, die from diarrhoea or constipa-
tion, as Le Vaillant has stated. Their tamer brethren are free from
disease ; and, if they die before their time, they generally do so from
the above-mentioned causes. Sultan, the pride of the Jardin, the most
amiable elephant I ever knew, was unable to survive the death of his
companion, the pet dog Jean.

OX RADIANT MATTER.*

By WILLIAM CROOKES, F. E. S.
I.

TO throw light on the title of this lecture I must go back more than
sixty years — to 1816. Faraday, then a mere student and ardent
experimentalist, was twenty-four years old, and at this early period of
his career he delivered a series of lectures on the general properties of
matter, and one of them bore the remarkable title, " On Radiant Mat-
ter." The great philosopher's notes of this lecture are to be found in
Dr. Bence Jones's " Life and Letters of Faraday," and I will here
quote a passage in which he first employs the expression radiant
matter :

If we conceive a change as far beyond vaporization as that is above fluidity,
and then take into account also the proportional increased extent of alteration
as the changes rise, we shall perhaps, if we can form any conception at all, not
fall far short of radiant matter; and as in the last conversion many qualities
were lost, so here also many more would disappear.

Faraday was evidently engrossed with this far-reaching speculation,
for three years later — in 1819 — we find him bringing fresh evidence
and argument to strengthen his startling hypothesis. His notes are
now more extended, and they show that in the intervening thi-ee years
he had thought much and deeply on this higher form of matter. He
first points out that matter may be classed into four states — solid,
liquid, gaseous, and radiant — these modifications depending upon dif-
ferences in their several essential properties. He admits that the ex-
istence of radiant matter is as yet unproved, and then proceeds, in a
series of ingenious analogical arguments, to show the probability of its
existencc.f

* A lecture delivered before the British Association for the Advancement of Science,
at Sheffield, Friday, August 22, 1879.

f I may now notice a curious progression in physical properties accompanying changes
of form, and wliic-b is perhaps sufficient to induce, in the inventive and sanguine philoso-

14 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

If, in the beginning of this century, we had asked, What is a gas ?
the answer then would have been that it is matter, expanded and rare-
fied to such an extent as to be impalpable, save when set in violent
motion ; invisible, incapable of assuming or of being reduced into any
definite form like solids, or of forming drops like liquids ; always
ready to expand where no resistance is offered, and to contract on
being subjected to j)ressure. Sixty years ago such were the chief at-
tributes assigned to gases. Modern research, however, has greatly
enlarged and modified our views on the constitution of these elastic
fluids. Gases are now considered to be composed of an almost infinite
number of small particles or molecules, which are constantly moving
in every direction with velocities of all conceivable magnitudes. As
these molecules are exceedingly numerous, it follows that no molecule
can move far in any direction without coming in contact with some
other molecule. But if we exhaust the air or gas contained in a closed
vessel, the number of molecules becomes diminished, and the distance
through which any one of them can move without coming in contact
with another is increased, the length of the mean free path being in-
versely proportional to the number of molecules present. The further
this 23rocess is carried the longer becomes the average distance a mole-
cule can travel before entering into collision ; or, in othel- words, the
longer its mean free path, the more the physical properties of the gas
or air are modified. Thus, at a certain point, the phenomena of the
radiometer become possible, and on pushing the rarefaction still fur-
ther— i. e., decreasing the number of molecules in a given space and
lengthening their mean free path — the experimental results are obtain-

pher, a considerable degree of belief in the association of the radiant form with the otli^rs
in the set of changes I have mentioned.

As we ascend from the solid to the fluid and gaseous states, physical properties dimin-
ish ill number and variety, each state losing some of those which belonged to the preced-
ing state. When solids are converted into fluids, all the varieties of hardness and softness
are necessarily lost. Crystalline and other shapes are destroyed. Opacity and color
frequently give way to a colorless transparency, and a general mobility of particles is
conferred.

Passing onward to the gaseous state, still more of the evident characters of bodies are
annihilated. The immense differences in their weight almost disappear ; the remains of
difference in color that were left are lost. Transparency becomes universal, and they
are all elastic. They now form but one set of substances, and the varieties of density,
hardness, opacity, color, elasticity, and form, which render the number of solids and fluids
almost infinite, are now supplied by a few slight variations in weight, and some unimpor-
tant shades of color.

To those, therefore, who admit the radiant form of matter, no difficulty exists in the
simplicity of the properties it possesses, but rather an argument in their favor. These
persons show you a gradual resignation of properties in the matter we can appreciate as
the matter ascends in the scale of forms, and they would be surprised if that effect were
to cease at the gaseous state. They point out the greater exertions which Nature makes
at each step of the change, and think that, consistently, it ought to be greatest in the
passage from the gaseous to the radiant form. — (" Life and Letters of Faraday," vol. i.,
p. 308.)

ON RADIANT MATTER.

15

able to which I am now about to call your attention. So distinct are
these phenomena from anything which occurs in air or gas at the ordi-
nary tension, that we are led to assume that we are here brought face
to face with matter in a fourth state or condition, a condition as far
removed from the state of gas as a gas is from a liquid,

3Iean Free Path — Radiant Matter. — I have long believed that a
well-known appearance observed in vacuum-tubes is closely related to
the phenomena of the mean free path of the molecules. When the
negative pole is examined while the discharge from an induction coil
is passing through an exhausted tube, a dark space is seen to surround
it. This dark space is found to increase and diminish as the vacuum
is varied, in the same way that the mean free path of the molecules
lengthens and contracts. As the one is perceived by the mind's eye
to get greater, so the other is seen by the bodily eye to increase in
size ; and, if the vacuum is insufficient to permit much play of the
molecules before they enter into collision, the passage of electricity
shows that the " dark s^jace " has shrunk to small dimensions. \Ye
naturally infer that the dark space is the mean free path of the mole-
cules of the residual gas, an inference confirmed by experiment,

I will endeavor to render this " dark space " visible to all present.
Here is a tube (Fig. 1), having a pole in the center in the form of a

metal disk, and other poles at each end. The center pole is made neg-
ative, and the two end poles connected together are made the jDositive
terminal. The dark space will be in the center. When the exhaus-
tion is not very great, the dark space extends only a little on each side
of the negative pole in the center. When the exhaustion is good, as
in the tube before you, and I turn on the coil, the dark space is seen
to extend for about an inch on each side of the pole.

Here, then, we see the induction-spark actually illuminating the
lines of molecular pressure caused by the excitement of the negative
pole. The thickness of this dark space is the measure of the mean free

i6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

path between successive collisions of the molecules of the residual gas.
The extra velocity with which the negatively electrified molecules re-
bound from the excited pole keeps back the more slowly moving mole-
cules which are advancing toward that pole. A conflict occurs at the
boundary of the dark space, where the luminous margin bears witness
to the energy of the discharge.

Therefore the residual gas — or, as I prefer to call it, the gaseous
residue — within the dark space is in an entirely different state to that
of the residual gas in vessels at a lower degree of exhaustion. To
quote the words of our last year's President, in his address at Dublin :

In the exhausted column we have a vehicle for electricity not constant like
an ordinary conductor, but itself modified by the passage of the discharge, and
perhaps subject to laws diifering materially from those which it obeys at atmos-
l)heric pressure.

In the vessels with the lower degree of exhaustion, the length of the
mean free path of the molecules is exceedingly small as compared with
the dimensions of the bulb, and the properties belonging to the ordi-
nary gaseous state of matter, depending upon constant collisions, can
be observed. But in the phenomena now about to be examined, so
high is the exhaustion carried that the dark space around the negative
pole has widened out till it entirely fills the tube. By great rarefac-
tion the mean free path has become so long that the hits in a given
time in comparison to the misses may be disregarded, and the average
molecule is now allowed to obey its own motions or laws without in-
terference. The mean free path, in fact, is comparable to the dimen-
sions of the vessel, and Ave have no longer to deal with a continuous
portion of matter, as would be the case were the tubes less highly ex-
hausted, but we must here contemplate the molecules individually.
In these highly exhausted vessels the molecules of the gaseous residue
are able to dart across the tube with comparatively few collisions, and

radiating from the pole with enormous velocity, they assume proper-
ties so novel and so characteristic as to entirely justify the application
of the term borrowed from I'araday, that of radiant matter.

ON RADIANT MATTER.

17

Radiant Matter exerts Powerful Phosphorogenic Action v)here it
strikes. — I have mentioned that the radiant matter within the dark
space excites luminosity where its velocity is arrested by residual gas
■outside the dark space. But if no residual gas is left, the molecules
will have their velocity arrested by the sides of the glass ; and here we
come to the first and one of the most noteworthy properties of radiant
matter discharged from the negative pole — its power of exciting phos-
phorescence when it strikes against solid matter. The number of
bodies which respond luminously to this molecular bombardment is
very great, and the resulting colors are of every variety. Glass, for
instance, is highly phosphorescent when exposed to a stream of radiant
matter. Here (Fig. 2) are three bulbs composed of different glass :
one is uranium glass («), which phosphoresces of a dark-green color ;
another is English glass {b), which phosphoresces of a blue color ; and
the third (c) is soft German glass — of which most of the apparatus
before you is made — which phosphoresces of a bright apple-green.

My earlier experiments were almost entirely carried on by the aid
of the phosphorescence which glass takes up when it is under the influ-
ence of the radiant discharge ; but many other substances possess this

phosphorescent power in a still higher degree than glass. For in-
stance, here is some of the luminous sulphide of calcium prepared ac-
cording to M. Ed. Becquerel's description. When the sulphide is ex-
posed to light — even candle-light — it phosphoresces for hours with a
bluish-white color. It is, however, much more strongly phospho-
rescent to the molecular discharge in a good vacuum, as you will see
when I pass the discharge through this tube.

VOL. XVI. — 2

i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Other substances besides English, German, and iu*anium glass, and
Becquerel's luminous sulphides, are also phosphorescent. The rare min-
eral Phenakite (aluminate of glucinum) phosphoresces blue ; the min-
eral Spodumene (a silicate of aluminium and lithium) phosphoresces a
rich golden yellow ; the emerald gives out a crimson light. But, with-
out exception, the diamond is the most sensitive substance I have yet
met for ready and brilliant phosphorescence. Here is a very curious
fluorescent diamond, green by daylight, colorless by candle-light. It
is mounted in the center of an exhausted bulb (Fig. 3), and the mo-
lecular discharge will be directed on it from below upward. On dark-
ening the room you see the diamond shines with as much light as a
candle, phosphorescing of a bright green.

Next to the diamond the ruby is one of the most remarkable stones
for phosphorescing. In this tube (Fig. 4.) is a fine collection of ruby-

pebbles. As soon as the induction-spark is turned on, you will see
these rubies shining with a brilliant rich red tone, as if they were
glowing hot. It scarcely matters what color the ruby is, to begin
with. In this tube of natural rubies there are stones of all colors — the
deep-red and also the pale-pink ruby. There are some so pale as to
be almost colorless, and some of the highly prized tint of pigeon's
blood ; but under the impact of radiant matter they all phosphoresce
with about the same color.

Now the ruby is nothing but crystallized alumina with a little color-
ing-matter. In a paper by Ed. Becquerel,* published twenty years
ago, he describes the appearance of alumina as glowing with a rich red
color in the phosphoroscope. Here is some precipitated alumina pre-
pared in the most careful manner. It has been heated to whiteness,
and you see it also glows under the molecular discharge with the same
rich red color.

The spectrum of the red light emitted by these varieties of alumina
is the same as described by Becquerel twenty years ago. There is one

* " Annales de Chimie et de Physique," third series, vol. Ivii., p. 50, 1859.

ON RADIANT MATTER. 19

intense red line, a little below the fixed line B in the spectrum, having
a wave-length of about 6,895. There is a continuous spectrum begin-
ning at about B, and a few fainter lines beyond it, but they are so faint
in comparison with this red line that they may be neglected. This line
is easily seen by examining with a small pocket spectroscope the light
reflected from a good ruby.

There is one particular degree of exhaustion more favorable than
any other for the development of the properties of radiant matter
which are now under examination. Roughly speaking it may be put
at the millionth of an atmosphere.* At this degree of exhaustion the
phosphorescence is very strong, and after that it begins to diminish
until the spark refuses to pass, f

I have here a tube. Fig. 5, which will serve to illustrate the de-
pendence of the phosphorescence of the glass on the degree of exhaus-

* 1-0 millionth of an atmosphere = O-OOOTG millim.

1315"789 millionths of an atmosphere = I'O millim.
1,000,000- " " " = 760-0 millims.

" " " " =1 atmosphere.

f Nearly a hundred years ago, Mr. WilUam Morgan communicated to the Royal Society
a paper entitled " Electrical Experiments made to ascertain the Non-conducting Power of
a Perfect Vacuum," etc. The following extracts from this paper, which was published
in the " Philosophical Transactions " for 1 785 (vol. Ixxv., p. 272), will be read with in-
terest :

A mercurial gage about fifteen inches long, carefully and accurately boiled till every par-
ticle of air was expelled from the inside, was coated with tin-foil five inches down from
its sealed end, and being inverted into mercury through a perforation in the brass cap
which covered the mouth of the cistern, the whole was cemented together, and the air
was exhausted from the inside of the cistern, through a valve in the brass cap, which,
producing a perfect vacuum in the gage, formed an instrument pecuharly well adapted
for experiments of this kind. Things being thus adjusted (a small wire having been pre-
viously fixed on the inside of the cistern to form a communication between the brass cap
and the mercury, into which the gage was inverted), the coated end was applied to the
conductor of an electrical machine, and, notwithstanding every effort, neither the smallest
ray of light, nor the slightest charge, could ever be procured in this exhausted gage.

If the mercury in the gage be imperfectly boiled, the experiment will not succeed;
but the color of the electric light, which in air rarefied by an exhauster is always violet or
purple, appears in this case of a beautiful green, and, what is very curious, the degree of
the air's rarefaction may be nearly determined by this means ; for I have known instances,
during the course of these experiments, where a small particle of air having found its
way into the tube, the electric light became visible, and as usual of a green color ; but
the charge being often repeated, the gage has at length cracked at its sealed end, and in
consequence the external air, by being admitted into the inside, has gradually produced
a change in the electric fight from green to blue, from blue to indigo, and so on to violet
and purple, till the medium has at length become so dense as no longer to be a conductor
of electricity. I think there can be little doubt, from the above experiments, of the non-
conducting power of a perfect vacuum.

This seems to prove that there is a limit even in the rarefaction of air, which sets
bounds to its conducting power ; or, in other words, that the particles of air may be so
far separated from each other as no longer to be able to transmit the electric fluid ; that
if they are brought within a certain distance of each other, their conducting power begins,
and continually increases till their approach also arrives at its limit.

20 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tion. The two poles are at a and b, and at tlie end c is a small' supple-
mentary tube, connected with the other by a narrow aperture, and
containing solid caustic potash. The tube has been exhausted to a
very high point, and the potash heated so as to drive off moisture and
injure the vacuum. Exhaustion has then been recommenced, and the
alternate heating and exhaustion repeated until the tube has been

brought to the state in which it now appears before you. When the
induction spark is first turned on nothing is visible — the vacuum is so
high that the tube is non-conducting. I now warm the potash slightly
and liberate a trace of aqueous vapor. Instantly conduction commences,
and the green phosphorescence flashes out along the length of the tube.
I continue the heat, so as to drive off more gas from the potash. The
green gets fainter, and now a wave of cloudy luminosity sweeps over
the tube, and stratifications appear, which rapidly get narrower, until
the spai'k passes along the tube in the form of a narrow purple line. I take
the lamp away, and allow the potash to cool ; as it cools, the aqueous
vapor, w^hich the heat had driven off, is reabsorbed. The purple line
broadens out, and breaks up into fine stratifications ; these get wider,
and travel toward the potash-tube. Now a w^ave of green light ap-
pears on the glass at the other end, sweeping on and driving the last
pale stratification into the potash ; and now the tube glows over its
whole length with the green phosphorescence. I might keep it before
you, and show the green growing fainter and the vacuum becoming
non-conducting ; but I should detain you too long, as time is required
for the absorption of the last traces of vapor by the potash, and I
must pass on to the next subject.

Radiant Matter proceeds in Straight Lines. — The radiant matter
whose impact on the glass causes an evolution of light, absolutely re-
fuses to turn a corner. Here is a V-shaped tube (Fig. C), a pole being
at each extremity. The pole at the right side {a) being negative, you
see that the whole of the right arm is flooded with green light, but at
the bottom it stops sharply and will not turn the corner to get into the
left side. When I reverse the current and make the left pole negative,
the green changes to the left side, always following the negative pole
and leaving the positive side with scarcely any luminosity.

In the ordinary phenomena exhibited by vacuum-tubes — phenomena
with which we are all familiar — it is customary, in order to bring out
the striking contrasts of color, to bend the tubes into very elaborate
designs. The luminosity caused by the phosphorescence of the residual

ON RADIANT MATTER. 21

gas follows all the convolutions into which skillful glass-blowers can
manage to twist the glass. The negative pole being at one end and
the positive pole at the other, the luminous phenomena seem to de-
pend more on the positive than on the negative at the ordinary exhaus-

tion hitherto used to get the best phenomena of vacuum-tubes. But
at a very high exhaustion the phenomena noticed in ordinary vacuum
tubes when the induction-spark passes through them — an appearance
of cloudy luminosity and of stratifications — disappear entirely. No
cloud or fog whatever is seen in the body of the tube, and with such
a vacuum as I am working with in these experiments, the only light
observed is that from the phosphorescent surface of the glass. I have
here two bulbs (Fig. 7), alike in shape and position of poles, the only
difference being that one is at an exhaustion equal to a few millimetres
of mercury — such a moderate exhaustion as will give the ordinary lu-
minous phenomena — while the other is exhausted to about the millionth
of an atmosphere. I will first connect the moderately exhausted bulb
(A) with the induction-coil, and retaining the pole at one side {a) al-
ways negative, I will put the positive wire successively to the other
poles with which the bulb is furnished. You see that as I change the
position of the positive pole, the line of violet light joining the two
poles changes, the electric current always choosing the shortest path
between the two poles, and moving about the bulb as I alter the posi-
tion of the wires.

This, then, is the kind of phenomenon we get in ordinary exhaus-

22 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tions. I will now try the same experiment with a bulb (B) that is
very highly exhausted, and, as before, will make the side pole {a') the
negative, the top pole {l>) being positive. Notice how widely differ-
ent is the appearance from that shown by the last bulb. The negative
pole is in the form of a shallow cup. The molecular rays from the

cup cross in the center of the bulb, and thence diverging fall on the
opposite side and produce a circular patch of green, phosphorescent
light. As I turn the bulb round you will all be able to see the green
patch on the glass. Now, observe, I remove the positive wii'e from
the top, and connect it with the side pole (c). The green patch from
the divergent negative focus is there still. I now make the lowest
pole {d) positive, and the green patch remains where it was at first,
unchanged in position or intensity.

We have here another property of radiant matter. In the low
vacuum the position of the positive pole is of every importance, while
in a high vacuum the position of the positive pole scarcely matters at
all ; the phenomena seem to depend entirely on the negative pole. If
the negative pole points in the direction of the positive, all very well,
but if the negative pole is entirely in the opposite direction it is of
little consequence ; the radiant matter darts all the same in a straight
line from the negative.

ON RADIANT MATTER.

23

If, instead of a fiat disk, a hemi-cylinder is used for the negative
pole, the matter still radiates normal to its surface. The tube before
you (Fig. 8) illustrates this property. It
contains, as a negative pole, a hemi-cyl- ^^^- ^'

inder (a) of polished aluminium. This
is connected with a fine copper wire, h,
ending at the platinum terminal, c. At
the upper end of the tube is another ter-
minal, d. The induction-coil is connect-
ed so that the hemi-cylinder is negative
and the upper pole positive, and when
exhausted to a sufficient extent the pro-
jection of the molecular rays to a focus
is very beautifully shown. The rays of
matter being driven from the hemi-cyl-
inder in a direction normal to its sur-
face, come to a focus and then diverge,
tracing their path in brilliant green phos-
phorescence on the surface of the glass.

Instead of receiving the molecular
rays on the glass, I will show you another
tube in which the focus falls on a phos-
phorescent screen. See how brilliantly
the lines of discharge shine out, and
how intensely the focal point is illumi-
nated, lighting up the table.

Radiant Matter when intercejited by Solid Matter casts a Shadow.
— Radiant matter comes from the pole in straight lines, and does not
merely permeate all parts of the tube and fill it with light, as would

be the case were the exhaustion less good. Where there is nothing in
the way the rays strike the screen and produce phosphorescence, and
where solid matter intervenes they are obstructed by it, and a shadow

24 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

is thrown on the screen. In this pear-shaped bulb (Fig. 9) the nega-
tive pole (a) is at the pointed end. In the middle is a cross {b) cut
out of sheet-aluminium, so that the rays from the negative pole pro-
jected along the tube will be partly intercepted by the aluminium cross,
and will project an image of it on the hemispherical end of the tube
which is phosphorescent. I turn on the coil, and you will all see the
black shadow of the cross on the luminous end of the bulb (c, d).
Now, the radiant matter from the negative pole has been passing by
the side of the aluminium cross to produce the shadow ; the glass has
been hammered and bombarded till it is appreciably warm, and at the
same time another effect has been produced on the glass — its sensibility
has been deadened. The glass has got tired, if I may use the expres-
sion, by the enforced phosphorescence. A change has been produced
by this molecular bombardment which will prevent the glass from re-
sponding easily to additional excitement ; but the part that the shadow
has fallen on is not tired — it has not been phosphorescing at all and is
perfectly fresh ; therefore, if I throw down this cross — I can easily do
so by giving the apparatus a slight jerk, for it has been most ingen-
iously constructed with a hinge by Mr. Gimingham — and so allow the
rays from the negative pole to fall uninterruptedly on to the end of
the bulb, you will suddenly see the black cross (c, d, Fig. 10) change
to a luminous one {e,f), because the background is now only capable

of faintly phosphorescing, while the part which had the black shadow
on it retains its full phosphorescent power. The stenciled image of
the luminous cross unfortunately soon dies out. After a period of rest
the glass partly recovers its power of phosphorescing, but it is never so
good as it was at first.

Here, therefore, is another important property of radiant matter.
It is projected with great velocity from the negative pole, and not only
strikes the glass in such a way as to cause it to vibrate and become
temporarily luminous while the discharge is going on, but the mole-
cules hammer away with sufficient energy to produce a permanent im-
pression upon the glass.

JOHN STUART MILL.

JOHN STUART MILL.

By ALEXANDER BAIN, LL. D.,

PROFESSOR OF LOGIC IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN.

IV.

THE year 1842 was memorable for the American repudiation, in
which Mill was heavily involved. He had invested, I am told, a
thousand pounds of his own money, and several thousands of his
father's money which he had in trust for the family, and which he
would have to make good. The blow completely shook him for the
time. From whatever cause, or union of causes, his bodily strength
was prostrated to such degree that, before I left London that autumn,
he was unequal to his usual walk from the India House home, and
took the omnibus before he went far. The disaster must have preyed
upon him for a year or more. He alluded to his state in the Comte
letters, in which he described his depression as both physical and
moral. It appears that in a letter to Comte of the 15th of November,
he gave assurances of his being much better. So in writing to me on
the 3d of October, he says, " I am quite well and strong, and now walk
the whole way to and from Kensington without the self-indulgence
of OTombV But on the 5th of December he says, " I have not been
very well, but am a little better." He was now in the middle of the
very heavy winter's work 6f getting the " Logic " through the press.
There is no more heard of his health till the following June, in which
he wrote to Comte in a very depressed tone. I remember, either in
that or in the previous summer, his confessing to me that he was in a
low state. I naturally urged that he had a long continuance of very
heavy work. He replied hastily, " I do not believe any man was ever
the worse for work," or something to that effect. I listened in mute
astonishment, being quite ignorant that other circumstances besides
his intellectual strain were at work. In writing to Comte, who, unlike
him, believed in the bad consequences of prolonged study, he said his
doctors advised him to rest his brain, but, as they knew so very little,
he preferred to abide by his own feelings, which taught him that work
was the only thing to counteract melancholy. Comte, however, urged
that a " true positive therapeutics " involved rest and diversion ; and
Mill believed in regular holiday tours. It was during this dreadful
depression of June and July, 1843, and after the American repudia-
tion had beggared him, that he made his offer of pecuniary assistance
to Comte. He had had no holiday for two years, and, except for his
customary Sunday walks, he did not leave town that autumn : I sus-
pect that his money affairs had something to do with his still postpon-
ing his holiday. In October his letters announce an improved state
of health.

26 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

His work in 1843, after the publication of the " Logic," was his
*•' Michelet " article, written in autumn. In September he writes : " I
am now vigorously at work reviewing Michelet's ' History of France '
for the ' Edinburgh.' I hope to do Napier, and get him to insert it
before he finds out what a fatal thing he is doing." On November 3d
he says : "My review of Michelet is in Napier's hands. If he prints it,
he will make some of his readers stare." The article appeared in
January, and had none of the serious consequences predicted. We
have a difficulty, reading it now, to see anything very dreadful in its
views. But a philosophic vindication of the Papacy and the celibacy
of the clergy, as essential preservatives against barbarism, was not
then familiar to the English mind. Mill had worked himself into sym-
pathy with everything French, and echoed the importance of France
from the French historians. He always dealt gently with her faults
and liberally with her virtues.

While writing this article, he was projecting in his mind his next
book, which was to be on the new science, first sketched in the
" Logic," to be called " Ethology." With parental fondness, he cher-
ished this subject for a considerable time ; regarding it as the foun-
dation and corner-stone of Sociology. " There is no chance," he says,
" for social statics, at least until the laws of human character are bet-
ter treated." A few months later he wrote : " I do not know when I
shall be ripe for beginning ' Ethology.' The scheme has not assumed
any definite shape with me yet." In fact, it never came to anything ;
and he seems shortly to have dropped thinking of it. I do not believe
there was anything to be got in the direction that he was looking. He
was all his life possessed of the idea that differences of character, indi-
vidual and national, were due to accidents and circumstances that
might possibly be, in part, controlled ; on this doctrine rested his
chief hope in the future. He would not allow that human beings at
birth are so very different as they afterward turn out.

His failure with "Ethology" fatally interfered with the larger
project, which I have no doubt he entertained, of executing a work on
Sociology as a whole. The opinion was long afloat in London that he
had such a work in view ; but I do not think he ever said so ; it was
not his way to give out what he was engaged upon, at least before
making himself sure of going through with it. That he despaired, for
the present at least, of making anything out of " Ethology," at the
time I refer to, is proved by his betaking himself soon after to the
composition of his " Political Economy."

I have now disposed of all my memoranda relating to 1842 and
1843. The beginning of 1844 saw the publication of the article on
Michelet to which I have adverted. In a letter dated 8th of January,
I find this upon Beneke : " I am reading a German professor's book on
Logic — Beneke is his name — which he has sent to me after reading-
mine, and which had previously been recommended to me by Austin

JOHN STUART MILL. 27

and by Herschel as in accordance with the spirit of my doctrines. It
is so in some degree, though far more psychological than entered into
my plans. Though I think much of his psychology unsound for want
of his having properly grasped the principle of association (he comes
very close to it now and then), there is much of it of a suggestive
kind."

From the Comte letters it appears that he had another relapse of
his indisposition at this time. Comte earnestly urges him to try a
change of climate — Naples or Lisbon — to fortify him for the next few
years against "le sejour spleenique de Londres." "What is the
opinion, I do not say of your doctors, whom you have little faith in,
but of those of your friends who are biologists ? "

I passed three months in London in the summer of 1844, and saw
him frequently as before. I have no special recollections of his work
this summer. In the autumn he took his long-deferred holiday, and
was absent from London two months. He came back quite recruited,
and in the course of the winter wrote his admirable article on " The
Claims of Labor," which appeared in the " Edinburgh " in the follow-
ing spring.

I had several letters from him in the winter of 1844-'45, but they
say little about himself. He remarks of the review of his " Logic " in
the " Eclectic Review," that the reviewer differs from him on the
Syllogism which he understands, and agrees with him on the rest of
the book without seeming to understand it. He announces with satis-
faction, as a most important conquest for Comte, the appearance of
Littre's papers in the " National " newspaper. This, however, was im-
mediately followed by his renewed and final exclusion from the Poly-
technic examinership ; for which one resoui'ce was suggested — to start
a Positive Review ; a scheme that bulks largely in the correspondence
for some months, and receives from Mill a qualified support. In March,
1845, he writes to me : " Have you seen Ward's book, ' The Ideal,' etc.?
It is a remarkable book in every way, and not the least so because it
quotes and puffs me in every chapter, and Comte occasionally, though
with deep lamentations over our irreligion." The Comte correspon-
dence shows that he had written to Comte informing him of Mr.
Ward's allusions. Comte is very much flattered, and thinks the com-
pliments deserved, because of the justice he had rendered to Catholi-
cism (p. 323).

The summer of 1845 was marked by an interesting incident. In
June the British Association met at Cambridge, Sir John Herschel in
the chair. I was at the meeting, and listened to Herschel's address.
One notable feature in it was the allusion to the recent works on the
" Logic of Science," by Whewell and Mill especially, on both of whom
Sir John bestowed high encomiums. He also mentioned Comte, but
in a very different strain. There was, I remember, a good deal of
buzz among Mill's friends that were present, at this unexpected men-

28 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tion of him. Mill was of course extremely gratified on his own ac-
count, but considered that Comte was very unfairly handled. Her-
schel brought up the nebular hypothesis, as advocated by Comte, but
treated Comte's mathematics with contempt, and spoke of his book as
"a philosophical work of much mathematical pretension, which has
lately come into a good deal of notice in this country." To dismiss
Comte in this summary fashion, even supposing he had laid himself
open by his supposed mathematical proofs of the hypothesis, was a
little too strong. Mill naturally thought it an evidence of some weak-
ness in Herschel's mind that he should be so blind to the abundant
manifestations of intellectual force in the " Philosophic Positive. " *
He wrote to Herschel, thanking him for the mention of himself, and
remonstrating on his treatment of Comte ; but went a little out of his
depth in attempting to uphold Comte's calculation. Herschel, in reply-
ing, reiterated his approval of the "Logic," stating that it was his
intention to have reviewed it in the " Quarterly," as he had done
Whewell ; but as regarded Comte, he was obdurate, and demolished
at a stroke the proof that Mill had relied upon. I think Mill wrote a
rejoinder. It is to be hoped that these letters are preserved. Mill
copied them and sent them to Comte. It was not the first time that
Herschel's name had come up between them ; he must have previously
written to Mill in acknowledgment of the " Logic." In Comte's letter
of date 21st October, 1844 (p. 276), he refers to the information given
him by Mill, that Herschel meant to read " mon grand ouvrage," but
does not count upon its making a favorable impression, " du moins
intense." He then gives the reasons : one being Herschel's preposses-
sions in favor of sidereal astronomy ; the other his analogy to Arago,
although "without the charlatanism and immorality of that disastrous
personage." Such was the previous reference. The result of his see-
ing the present correspondence appears on page 362. Comte is very
much touched with the zeal displayed by Mill on his behalf ; but
declines Mill's suggestion that he should himself take up the cudgels
in his own defense. Mill, he says, had sufficiently proved, although
in a polished way, the malevolent spirit and even the bad faith of
Herschel, He is, however, quite satisfied with his former explanation
of Herschel's motives, namely, the soreness caused by his discarding
sidereal astronomy, on which Herschel's father and himself rested
their chief fame.

In the summer of 184.5 1 became personally acquainted with Grote.
For several years previously, Mill appears to have seen little of him,

* The following sentence in Mill's review of " Comte and Positivism " does not apply
to the scientific magnates of England, at the date of Herschel's address : " He " (Comte)
"has displayed a quantity and quality of mental power, and achieved an amount of suc-
cess, which have not only won but retained the high admiration of thinkers as radically
and strenuously opposed as it is possible to be to nearly the whole of his later tenden-
cies, and to many of his earlier opinions."

JOHN STUART MILL. 29

but they had now resumed their footing of intimacy. Grote was liv-
ing chiefly in the country, but when he came into town he made a
point of arranging walks and talks with Mill. From the time of my
introduction to Grote, I was usually asked to join them. I remember
well our first meeting at the London Library, and subsequent walk in
Hyde Park. Their conversation took an exceptional turn ; how it
came I can not exactly remember, but they went over all the leaders
of the Reformation, discussing their several characteristics. The sub-
ject was not one that either was specially informed upon. As Grote
was then on the eve of bringing out the first two volumes of his " His-
tory," this was a natural topic ; but much more so, after the volumes
were out. But Grote was never satisfied if we parted without coming
across some question in metaphysics or philosophy. Although his
time was mainly given to the " History," he always refreshed his mind
at intervals with some philosophic reading or meditation, and had
generally a nut to crack when we came together. Plato and Aristotle
were never long out of his hands ; he was also an assiduous reader of
all works on science, especially if they involved the method of science;
but the book that was now oftenest in his hands, in the intervals of
work, was Mill's " Logic." I doubt if any living man conned and
thumbed the book as he did. " John Mill's ' Logic,' " I remember his
saying, " is the best book in my library." He had not the same high
opinion of any of Mill's other books. He was himself one of nature's
logicians ; he was a thoroughgoing upholder of the Experience-phi-
losophy, and Mill's " Logic " completely satisfied him on this head.
Often and often did he recur to the arguments in favor of a priori
truth, and he was usually full of fresh and ingenious turns of reply.
It was only in Mill that he could find a talker to his mind in this re-
gion, as in philosophy generally. Equally intense was his devotion to
utility as the basis of moi'als, and still more varied was his elucidation
and defense of the principle ; on that topic also he had few that he
could declare his whole mind to, and this was another bond of attrac-
tion to Mill. Toward himself, on the other side. Mill had an almost
filial affection, and generally gave him the earliest intimation of his
own plans ; but, much as he loved Grote's company, his movements
were under the control of a still greater power. Notwithstanding their
wide agreement, and numerous bonds of sympathy from this cause, as
well as from long intimacy, Grote had always a certain misgiving as
to his persistence in the true faith. He would say to me, " Much as I
admire John Mill, my admiration is always mixed with fear," meaning
that he never knew what unexpected turn Mill might take. This I
regarded as an exaggeration due to Grote's gloomy temperament, as
well as to the shock of the " Bentham " and " Coleridge " articles ;
and to Mill's consequent making himself at home with Maurice, Ster-
ling, and Carlyle, with whom Grote never could have the smallest
sympathy.

30 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The first opinion held by both that I found occasion to controvert,
in those early conversations, w^as the Helvetius doctrine of the natural
equality of human beings in regard of capacity. I believe I induced
Grote at last to relax very considerably on the point ; but Mill never
accommodated his views, as I thought, to the facts. With all his
wide knowledge of the human constitution and of human beings, this
region of observation must have been to him an utter blank.

This summer (1845) produced the article on Guizot, the last of his
series on the French historians (apart from Comte). It seems to have
been a great success, even in the point of view of the old " Edinburgh
Review" connection, to which it was often an effort to accommodate
himself. Jeffrey ("Napier Correspondence," p. 492) is unusually
elated with it : "a very remarkable paper," " passages worthy of
Macaulay," " the traces of a vigorous and discursive intellect." He
did not then know the author ; when made aware of the fact, he adds,
" Though I have long thought highly of his powers as a reasoner, I
scarcely gave him credit for such large and sound views of realities
and practical results." The reader will remember that the most prom-
inent topic is the Feudal System.

We are now at the commencement of the " Political Economy,"
which dates from the autumn of this year. The failure of the " Ethol-
ogy " as a portal to a complete sociology left the way clear for this
other project, at a time when his energy was still up to great things.
Indoctrinated as he was from babyhood in the subject, and having
written on it in articles and discussed it, both in private and in the
Political Economy Club, with all the experts of the time, it seemed to
offer a fine field for his expository powers. Add to which, he found he
could attach to it his views as to the great social questions ; although,
it must be allowed, the bond of connection was somewhat loose, and
the larger sociology would, have been a more fitting occasion for such
wide-reaching topics.

In a letter dated February, 1846, he announces that the third part
of the " Political Economy " is written. He says, in the " Autobi-
ography," that it was the most rapidly written of any of his books ;
which showed that the subject had been well matured. He turned
aside to write an article for the "Edinburgh" on French politics, the
text being a series of political papers by Charles Duveyrier. Louis
Philippe was now at the height of his prosperity ; but the political
system was very unsatisfactory : and Mill returned for a little to his
old interest in France, and discussed in his usual style the workings of
the constitutional system, its weakness and its remedies. His author
— a calm, clear-sighted reasoner — put much stress upon a second Cham-
ber made up of old oflficials, and Mill sympathizes with his object in
desiring a counterpoise to democracy ; but remarks, with his usual
acuteness, " It is not the uncontrolled ascendancy of popular power,
but of any power, which is formidable." The article came out in

JOHN STUART MILL. 31

April, 1846. It appears that the editor thought fit to omit a passage
controverting the prevailing notion of the warlike propensity of the
French. Mill wished the passage had been retained : " The opinion is
a very old and firm one with me, founded on a good deal of personal
observation." He adds, " The ' Edinburgh ' has lately been sometimes
very unjust to the French." He fui'ther interrupted the "Political
Economy " to write his review of Grote's first two volumes, which ap-
peared in the " Edinburgh " in October. This was, in every sense, a
labor of love — love of the subject, love of the author, and admiration
of the work. Writing in September, he says : " I have just corrected
the proof of my review of Grote, in which I have introduced no little
of the Comtean philosophy of religion. Altogether I like the thing,
though I wrote it in exactly four days, and rewrote it in three more,
but I had to read and think a good deal for it first." His reading, I
remember, included the whole of the Iliad and Odyssey, for the sake
of the Homeric discussion in which he perilously ventured to differ
somewhat from Grote. There was no man whose opinion Grote was
more sensitive to, but the objections raised did not alter his views. In
deference to Mill, he made some slight changes in the next edition.
One, I remember, was to leave out of the preface the words " femi-
nine " and " masculine," as a figurative expression of the contrast of
the artistic and scientific sides of the Greek mind. Mill could never
endure the differences of character between men and women to be
treated as a matter of course.

In the letter above quoted, he announces that he has " got on well
with the ' Pol. Ec' I am on the point of finishing the third book (Ex-
change)." He was now beginning his hardest winter, after 1842-'43.
It was the winter of the Irish famine, and he thought he saw an oppor-
tunity for a grand regenerating operation in Ireland. He began in the
" Morning Chronicle " a series of leading articles, urging the reclama-
tion of the waste land to be converted into peasant properties, and iter-
ated all the facts showing the potency of the proprietary feeling in
strengthening the disposition to industry. In the months of October,
November, December, and January, he wrote two or three leaders a
week on this topic ; we used to call these, in the language of the medi-
cal schools, his " Clinical Lectures." He was pushing on the " Politi-
cal Economy " at the same time. Moreover, a letter to his brother
James (2d November) shows that he was laboring under illness — " had
been ill, now better, but still a bad cold." In the middle of Novem-
ber he wrote that the articles " have excited a good deal of notice, and
have quite snatched the initiative out of the ' Times.' He adds : "It
is a capital thing to have the power of writing leaders in the ' Chroni-
cle ' whenever I like, which I can always do. The paper has tried for
years to get me to write to it, but it has not suited me to do it before,
except once in six months or so." On the 28th of December, he says :
" I continue to carry on the ' Pol. Econ.' as well as I can with the arti-

32 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

cles in the ' Chronicle,' These last I may a little slacken now, having
in a great measure, as far as may be judged by appearances, carried
my point, viz., to have the waste lands reclaimed and parceled out in
small properties among the best part of the peasantry." In another
month he changes his tune. On the 27th January (1847) he writes :
" You will have seen by this time how far the Ministry are from having
adopted any of my conclusions about Ireland, though Lord J. Russell
subsci'ibes openly to almost all the premises. I have little hope left.
The tendency of their measures seems to me such that they can only
bring about good to Ireland by excess of evil. I have so indoctrinated
the ' Chronicle ' writers with my ideas on Ireland that they are now
going on very well and spiritedly Avithout me, which enables me to
work much at the * Political Economy,' to my own satisfaction. The
last thing I did for the ' Chronicle ' was a thorough refutation, in
three long articles, of Crocker's article on the Division of Property in
France." Two months later, he announced that the first draft of the
" Political Economy " was finished. As to public affairs : " The people
are all mad, and nothing will bring them to their senses but the terri-
ble consequences they ai-e certain to bring on themselves, as shown in
Whately's speech yesterday in the House of Lords — the only sensible
speech yet made in either House on the question, Fontenelle said that
mankind must pass through all forms of error before arriving at truth.
The form of error we are now possessed by is that of making all take
care of each, instead of stimulating and helping each to take care of
himself ; and now this is going to be put to a terrible trial, which will
bring it to a crisis and a termination sooner than could otherwise have
been hoped for."

Before passing from this memoi'able winter, I may mention that
Liebig, in a reprint of his "Animal Chemistry," handsomely repaid
the notice taken of his researches in the " Logic," saying of his amended
views that " he feels that he can claim no other merit than that of
having applied to some special cases, and carried out further than had
previously been done those principles of research in natural science
which have been laid down " in Mill's book. Mill exultingly remarked :
" The tree may be known by its fruits. Schelling and Hegel have done
nothing of the kind."

Before arriving in London this year, I had another letter (5th of
May). He delays to commence rewriting till he sees the upshot of
the Ii'ish business. " The conduct of the Ministers is wretched beyond
measure upon all subjects ; nothing but the meanest truckling at a
time when a man with a decided opinion could carry almost anything
triumphantly." I saw him as usual during the summer, but do not
remember any incidents of importance. Grote was in town for several
weeks on the publication of his third and fourth volumes, which was
a new excitement. I went down to Scotland in the autumn, but hav-
ing no longer any teaching-appointment there, I returned to London in

JOHN STUART MILL. 33

November, and entered the Government service, and was therefore in
constant residence until I saw fit to resign in 1850. For this interval,
I have not the advantage of possessing any letters from Mill, and can
only give a few scattered recollections of the more impressive occur-
rences.

The " Political Economy " was published in the beginning of 1848.
I am not about to criticise the work, as I mean to do the subsequent
writings, but I have a few remarks to niake upon it. One modification
in the laying out of the subject he owes, as I have already said, to
Comte's sociological distinction into Statics and Dynamics. This is
shown in the commencement of the fifth book, entitled " The Influ-
ence of the Progress of Society in Production and Distribution." I
can believe, although I am not a political economist, that this distinc-
tion may have been as useful in political economy as in politics. He
spoke of it to me at the time as a great improvement.

But what I remember most vividly of his talk pending the publica-
tion of the work, was his expectation of a tremendous outcry about
his doctrines on property. He frequently spoke of his proposals as to
inheritance and bequest, which, if carried out, would pull down all
large fortunes in two generations. To his surprise, however, this
part of the book made no sensation at all. I can not now undertake to
assign the reason. Probably people thought it the dream of a future
too distant to affect the living ; or else that the views were too wild
and revolutionary to be entertained. One thing strikes me in the
chapter on property. In section 3, he appears to intimate that the
children even of the wealthy should be thrown upon their own exer-
tions for the difference between a bare individual maintenance and
what would be requisite to support a family ; while in the next sec-
tion he contemplates " a great rftultiplication of families in easy cir-
cumstances, with the advantage of leisure, and all the real enjoyments
which wealth can give, except those of vanity." The first case would
be met by from two to five hundred pounds a year ; the second sup-
poses from one to two thousand. The whole speculation seems to me
inadequately worked out. The question of the existence of large for-
tunes is necessarily a very complex one ; and I should like that he
had examined it fully, which I do not think he ever did.

His views of the elevation of the working-classes on Malthusian
principles have been much more widely canvassed. But there is still
a veil of ambiguity over his meaning. Malthus himself, and some of
his followers, such as Thomas Chalmers, regarded late marriages as
the proper means of restricting numbers ; an extension to the lower
classes of the same prudence that maintains the position of the upper
and middle classes. Mill prescribes a further pitch of self-denial, the
continence of married couples. At least, such is the more obvious in-
terpretation to be put upon his language. It was the opinion of many,
that while his estimate of pure sentimental affection was more than
VOL. XVI. — 3

34 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

enough, his estimate of the sexual passion fell a good deal below the
truth.

The strong leanings toward some form of socialism, indicated in
the " Autobiography," would have led us to believe that his opinions
nearly coincided with those of the Socialists commonly so called. The
recent publication of his first draft of a projected essay on the subject
shows the wide gulf that still separated him and them. The obstacles
to the realizing of socialistic schemes could not be more forcibly ex-
pressed. Above all, the great stress that he always put upon individ-
uality would be almost impossible to reconcile with the constructions
of Fourier, Owen, Louis Blanc, and the American communities. His
socialism is thus to be the outcome of a remote future, when human
beings shall have made a great stride in moral education, or, as Mr.
Spencer would express it, have evolved a new and advanced phase of
altruism.

The publication of the " Political Economy " was followed by
another very serious break-down in his health. In the summer of 1848,
an affection of the thigh (I am not sure whether it began in a hurt)
was treated by his doctor with iodine ; the consequence of which was
a speedy impairment of his eyesight. I remember him in a state of
despair from the double misery of lameness and blindness. His elas-
ticity of constitution brought him through once more ; but in the fol-
lowing year (1849) he was still in an invalid condition. I introduced
to him that year Dr. Thomas Clark, of Marischal College, himself a
permanent invalid from overwork, who spoke a good deal to him about
regimen, and endeavored to induce him to try the water-treatment,
then just started. He was, however, not to be moved from his accus-
tomed routine. His view of the medical art (at the time I speak of)
was, that it should restore a shatterect frame by something like magic.
In other respects, his intercourse with Clark gratified him much, and
led to a permanent friendship.

His work, as a great originator, in my opinion, was now done.
The two books now before the world were the great constructions that
his accumulated stores had prepared him for ; and I do not think that
there lay in him the materials of a third at all approaching to these.
It is very unlikely indeed that he was even physically capable of re-
newing the strain of the two winters — 1842-'43 and 1846-47. His
subsequent years were marked by diminished labors on the whole ;
while the direction of these labors was toward application, exposition,
and polemic rather than origination ; and he was more and more ab-
sorbed in the outlook for social improvements. Not that his later
wi-itings are deficient in stamina or in value ; as sources of public
instruction and practical guidance in the greatest interests of society,
they will long hold their place. But it was not within the compass of
his energies to repeat the impression made by him in 1843 and again

OCEAN METEOROLOGY.

35

in 1848. We must remember that all through his severest struggles,
he had a public official duty, and spent six hours every day in the air
of Leadenhall Street ; and although he always affected to make light
of this, or even to treat the office-work as a refreshing change from
study, yet when his constitution was once broken, it would tell upon
him more than his peculiar theories of health and work would let him
confess.

In another article, I propose to review the writings subsequent to
the date now reached.

OCEAN METEOROLOGY.

Bt Lieutenant T. A. LYOXS, U. S. N.

WERE the captain of a ship to contemplate making a passage in
a sea he had never before traversed, he would find it desirable
to be supplied with charts of two different kinds : one kind showing
the rocks, shoals, and other dangers scattered throughout its expanse,
the contour of its islands and bounding shores, and the soundings of
its shallow waters ; the other kind giving full and reliable information
regarding its winds and weather, storms and currents, barometric and
thermometric fluctuations. The first is essential to safe navigation ;
the second an invaluable auxiliary to a speedy jjassage. It is of this
second kind — meteorological charts — that this article is to treat.

And, first, partly to introduce the subject, partly to illustrate it, I
will very briefly touch upon a similar work for the land — a work which
has now become familiar to all — I mean the daily synopsis and forecast
of the weather published by the United States and several European
Governments for the benefit of their people.

The value of an extensive organization for observing atmospheric
phenomena was early appreciated in Europe, and as long ago as the
year 1780 the Society of the Palatinate was established under the au-
spices of the Elector Charles Theodore, who entered with spirit and
ability into its pursuits, and furnished it w^ith the means of defraying
the expense of instruments of the best construction, which were gra-
tuitously distributed to all parts of Europe, and even to America.
Some idea may be formed of the comprehensive scale of the journal
of this society, when it is known that it contains observations three
times in the day of the barometer, thermometer in the shade and in
the sun, hygrometei', magnetic needle, direction and force of the wind,
quantity of rain and of evaporation, the height of any neighboring
water, the changes of the moon, the appearance of the sky, and the
occurrence of meteors and of the aurora borealis. To these must be
added, in some places, observations upon the electrical state of the

36 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

atmosphere, upon the progress of vegetation, the prevalence of dis-
ease, changes of population, and migration of animals. The field of
observation extended from the Ural Mountains in the east to Cam-
bridge, in the United States, in the west ; and from Greenland and
Norway in the north to Rome in the south. This range included also
stations upon three high mountains in Bavaria and upon the summit
of St. Gothard. The observations of each year are summed up and
compared with those which precede, in copious and most laborious
tables of mean and extreme results, and many very interesting essays
upon various branches of meteorology are interspersed throughout the
volumes of the society.

Unfortunately for science, the secretary, Hemmer, died in the month
of May, 1790, and from that time the society appears to have languished,
and finally to have become extinct amid the troubles and the wars of
the French Revolution.*

It might be of interest to trace the progress of meteorology since
the days of the Palatinate Society — to recount the many improvements
in the instruments, the new auxiliaries impressed into its service, the
successive unfolding of its laws as immense masses of data came into
view, and the gradual passing of the subject from the care of amateurs,
who pursued it mostly as a pastime or matter of curious inquiry, into
trained hands and organized bodies maintained by liberal government
support. But this is not my purjaose here : with a passing glance at
an important guide-post erected about the year 1840 on the highway
of this science, I will make a single stride over all this field and come
at once to the problem proposed to the meteorologist of the present
day, and the means at his command for its solution.

The writer of this guide to the way beyond gives in clear-cut out-
line all that has since been realized both in this country and England.
After stating the necessity of making observations on land coordinate
with those at sea, in order to study the atmosphere in its entirety, he
uses these prophetic words : " This extension of the system landward
was proposed in the beginning as a part of the original plan. I have
never ceased to advocate it since, and to couple with it a system of
daily weather reports through the telegraph. As much as we have
accomplished at sea, more yet can be accomplished through the mag-
netic telegraph on the land. With a properly devised system of me-
teorological observations to be made at certain stations wherever the
telegraph spreads its meshes, and to be reported daily by telegrams to
a properly organized ofiice, the shipping in the harbors of our seajoort
toMTis, the husbandman in the field, and the traveler on the road, may
all be warned of every extensive storm that visits our shores, and while
yet it is a great way off. The laurels to be anticipated from such
extension of our beautiful field of research would crown the results

* For these particulars of the Society of the Palatinate I am indebted to the valuable
treatise on meteorology by the late Professor John Frederick Dauiell, of England.

OCEAN METEOROLOGY.

37

already obtained, and probably entitle the whole to be regarded as
among the most splendid achievements of the age. With this system
established, and conducted as it ought to be, no ship need ever put to
sea from any of our seaports in ignorance of the approaching storm.
A like system for the British Islands and the Continent would lead to
like results there ; many storms, after visiting our shores, travel across
the ocean and carry devastation there. Should the sub-Atlantic tele-
graph be laid, and, when laid, should it answer its ends, warnings of
all such storms may be sent across the ocean several days La advance."
— (" Sailing Directions," by Lieutenant M. F. Maury, U. S. N., vol. i.,
p. viii. of Introduction.)

To recur to the problem of the meteorologist) of to-day, it assumes
three distinct phases : first, from a number of observations extending
through many years and over a large expanse of land or sea, to dis-
cover the laws of atmospheric phenomena ; second, from an unbroken
series of observations at any one place, through a sufficiently long pe-
riod to eliminate all merely adventitious changes, to determine the
climate of that place ; and third, from a number of simultaneous ob-
servations at different points of any circumscribed area, to predict
what the weather will be over that area for any short time.

The solution of the first phase is all but complete : the great gov-
erning principles of our atmosphere are now quite well known — it is
only the details that need defining. That of the second phase can
scarcely be said to be more than begun : in only a few places on the
globe have accurate observations been continued for a long enough
period to reliably define their climates ; but of late years, especially
during the last twenty, such an interest has been awakened in this
subject, that ere the century closes very many cities will possess the
data for thoroughly describing the atmospheric changes to which they
are subject, not according to the recollection of the oldest inhabitant,
but by accurate records — figures that never deceive.

The effect of the weather upon mankind is only too well known :
with the invalid or convalescent it is often a matter of life or death ;
with us all, how different our feelings on a fresh, genial day, when the
air is dry and bracing, and a bright sun illumines an azure sky — ^how
elastic, how full of vigor are we, compared with the lethargy that
seizes us in somber, bleak weather, when dense, misty clouds hang in
heavy folds around us, and shade even our very sensations with their
gloom !

In Boston, the east wind of spring and autumn is a source of an-
noyance to its inhabitants; it comes laden with moisture and — coughs.
In California, it is an equally unwelcome visitor, but for a very differ-
ent reason : it parches and all but cracks the skin. In both places,
the relative prevalence of this wind is a fact important to know. In
Buffalo, the storms that sweep in from the lakes are disagreeable in
the extreme ; in Texas, the fierce blast of the norther is often very

38 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

destructive. But all these instances are peculiarities singled out from
a variety of items, highly interesting to any one contemplating either
a temporary or permanent residence in a place new to him. The
storms, the rain, and the snow he has to encounter ; the average hu-
midity and tenuity of the air he has to breathe; the variety and char-
acter of the winds that are to blow upon him ; the mean and extreme
of the daily, monthly, and yearly temperature to which he will be sub-
jected ; the relative number of cloudy and clear days — all this, con-
stituting the climate of a place, should be known to one ere he hazards
his comfort, his good feeling, or, it may be, his health, by a change
of residence. And it is probable that, with the great number of ob-
servers noAV carefully noting and recording these items in various
cities, the day is not far distant when their laborious experience of
long years will be classified, reduced, and published in such a compen-
dious form, that a stranger to any given place may, by half an hour's
study of this publication, inform himself correctly as to its climate.

The solution of the third phase of the problem is the one produc-
tive of most immediate benefit to all, how much soever their callings
may differ ; and this universal interest warrants my stating its condi-
tions more at length than I have done with the other two. This phase
may be likened unto an algebraic equation — a combination of known
and unknown quantities, which, being operated uj)on according to cer-
tain rules, gives a desired result.

First, to determine the known quantities, a variety of instruments
must be read and recorded at stated periods. These are, anemometers,
to indicate the direction and velocity of the wind ; barometers, to mea-
sure the pressure of the air ; and hygrometers, its humidity. Suppose
sets of these, standard in quality, to be furnished a corps of trained
observers stationed at various points throughout a given area, say a
thousand square miles ; let each observer note his instruments at pre-
determined hours, or, better, let the observation be automatic and con-
tinuous, which is now often done by means of mechanical contrivances;
let a network of telegraphy connect all the stations with some central
point : then, at any moment he wishes, a person at this point can as-
certain the prevailing weather all over the area, or, in other words,
the known quantities of his equation. Now, the atmosphere that en-
circles our globe is but an ocean of less density than the watery ele-
ment that surges upon its surface ; like that, it moves, contracts, and
expands according to well-known physical laws, and these laws consti-
tute the rules whereby the person at the central station operates on
his known quantities, solves the equation, and obtains for a result the
forecast of the weather for the next few hours.

Having a due regard for the conformation of the ground over
which his prognostics extend, he well knows that, according to the
relative variation of pressure, temperature, and moisture, there will be
a corresponding variability of weather : that if the pressure is great

OCEAN METEOROLOGY. 39

at one place and slight at another, the air will as naturally flow from
the former toward the latter as water will down an inclined plane ;
and as the velocity of the water will depend on the inclination of the
plane, so will the violence of the wind be chiefly due to the difference
of pressure : hence the direction and force of the wind are predicted.
Again, whether the day will be warm or cold depends mostly on the
temperature of this wind ; and, furthermore, if it contains much vaj)or
and blows toward a point where the temperature is lower than that
from which it started, clouds, or rain, or snow will follow, according
to the difference of temperature and the supply of vapor ; but if a
saturated wind blows toward a place where the temperature is high,
and air dry, its moisture will be licked up by the thirsty air, and a
mere haze will ensue, or clear weather continue.

This problem in its ever-varying conditions is the one daily solved
by the Weather Bureaus of several Governments, in the interest of
agriculture, comfort, and commerce ; and perhaps nowhere more suc-
cessfully than by our own. With its large corps of trained observers,
its military discipline, variety of standard instruments, extensive field
of operations covered by telegraphic lines, liberal Government support,
and educated intelligence to guide the whole, there is every reason for
the confidence so generally felt in the weather prognostics of the Sig-
nal Office of the United States Army.

With this preliminary glance at meteorology on the land, I shall
now pass to a consideration of it as regards the ocean — the subject
proper of this article ; and as I have already divided the problem
into three phases, it will be convenient to maintain this distinction —
only, that for the ocean, the cases reduce to tAVO : first, to seek out
the hidden cause of the winds, whether as the gentle trades that
scarcely ruffle the waters over which they glide, or as the violent hur-
ricane that lashes the waves into a tempest of confusion ; and, sec-
ondly, to determine the many items that, together, make up the cli-
mate of small areas of every sea.

The third phase of the problem on land is entirely excluded from
the ocean. There we can not establish fixed stations and spread a
web of electric wu'e over them, with some guiding genius ensconced
in the midst. We can not (as is done every morning in the United
States, England, France, and Germany, for the limits of each country)
say what the weather will be, and how the winds will blow, for the
ensuing twenty-four hours, in the Indian Ocean, the South Seas, or the
North Atlantic. But we can give information yielding in no degree
in importance to this purely ephemeral benefit ; and the manner in
which this is obtained and published is what I shall fully describe
hereafter.

To the late Commander M. F. Maury, of the United States Navy,
is due the credit of having given to ocean meteorology that vigorous
impulse that placed it in the foremost rank of pursuits, and justly

40 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

obtained for its advocate his distinction in this branch of physical sci-
ence. He planted a germ which, under his own assiduous care, grew
and overspread the globe : its seed fell in every maritime nation, and
to-day they are producing meteorological charts of the ocean — all
modifications or elaborations of his useful idea. It is therefore but
proper that I should here give a short sketch of both himself and his
great work.

Matthew Fontaine Mauet was born in Virginia, January 4, 1806.
He entered the navy as midshipman in 1825, and was promoted to the
grade of lieutenant in 1836, having in the interval been attached to
various cruising-vessels, on which he performed the customary duties
of a sea officer. It was during one of these cruises that the outline of
his future work acquired form and shape in his brain.

In 18.39 an accident permanently incapacitated him for further
service at sea, and he was therefore given charge of the depot of
charts and instruments in Washington : this was soon afterward
united to the Naval Observatory, and he became superintendent of
both, retaining the position uninterruptedly until 1861 — a period of
more than twenty years. Later still, the scope, character, and impor-
tance of the chart department grew to such dimensions as to necessitate
its separation from the observatory : this was done, and it became the
Hydrographic Ofiice, which it continues to this day, under the man-
agement of a naval ofiicer. At present, it has no closer intimacy with
the observatory than being under the guidance of officers of the same
branch of the Government — the navy.

Maury was promoted to the grade of commander in 1855, and it
was then also that he attained the height of his scientific fame : he
had written his "Physical Geography of the Sea"; he had been chiefly
instrumental in bringing about the Brussels Conference, whereby the
civilized nations of the world entered into his plan of " ocean meteor-
ology " .; he had prepared his ponderous volumes of " Sailing Du-ec-
tions " ; he had received the encomiums of numerous scientific bodies
both native and foreign ; and, with the constant aid of a large number
of naval officers, he had compiled, with incredible labor and pains, that
series of charts that has made his name so familiar to sailors, whatever
the flag they sail under.

On the 1st of February, 18T3, after having done more than any
other man that preceded him toward tracing the wind in its circuits,
and showing the navigator how to take advantage thereof, he died at
Lexington, Virginia, in the sixty-eighth year of his age.

I will now give an outline of the charts compiled under Maury's
direction. A full description would necessitate the reproduction of
specimen-sheets, and that is impracticable here.

First and most important are the Pilot Charts. These give for
small areas of ocean — every five degrees square — the relative frequen-
cy of different winds during each month. The following figure is a

OCEAN METEOROLOGY.

41

sample square of the whole series, and a few explanatory words will
disentangle this web of figures. The radii extending from the inner
to the outer circle inclose sixteen points of the compass — as north,
north-northeast, northeast, etc. Every two concentric circles contain
the data for each season. The problem being, then, to compare the
relative prevalence of the same wind in different months, it is done as
follows : suppose it a northerly wind ; looking at the figures between

the two radii opening toward the top and between the outer and
second circles, we see that, of periods of eight hours each, there were
32 in December, 21 in January, and 29 in February ; the figures be-
tween the same radii and the second and third circles show that there
were 41 periods in March, 33 in April, and 6 in May ; and similarly,
for each wind between every two radii. To compare different winds
for the same month, say December, we look at the first figure to the
left in each space between the outer and second circles, and find that,
of periods of eight hours each, the wind was 32 times from the north,
29 times from north-northeast, 56 from northeast, and so on round the
compass.

The figures 416, 385, and 408, in the upper right-hand corner, de-
note the total number of observations in December, January, and Feb-
ruary, respectively ; and similarly for the other months in the other
corners. The figures in the center express the periods of calm in the
several months.

Though this arrangement is compact and ingenious, still, when we
come to make the comparison that is the real object of the chart, viz.,
the relative frequency of different winds in several adjoining squares,
we find the task a little irksome.

Second, the Thermal Charts. These show the temperature of the

42 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sea- water at the surface for every month, isothermal lines bring drawn
at every 10° from 40° to 80° Fahr. By using three colors, and a dif-
ferent arrangement of the figures for each season, all the observations
of each month are made separately visible on one sheet in the sjDOt
where taken. The sheet thus appears to the eye a continued inter-
mingling of curves and figures — blue, red, and black — generally open
and easily traced where the observations are moderate in number, but
an inextricable tangle where frequent.

As difference of temperature in adjacent portions of the sea indi-
cates difference of density, which in turn denotes a mobility of the
waters, that is, oceanic currents, these currents are therefore indirectly
shown by this series of charts.

Third, the Track Charts. Such a quantity and variety of infor-
mation is crowded into these, that I despair of giving any intelligible
idea of them.

Imagine an artist perched a thousand feet above the center of New
York and provided with canvas on which to delineate the city below
— to trace in outline every street, house, and tree ; every railway and
telegraph line ; all the moving objects, man, horse, and vehicle — what
a complicated picture it would make ! Yet this would by no means
represent the intricacy of the network on the Track Charts. On
them the experience of a large number of all the vessels that sailed
the ocean for a period of fifty years is spread before us. Most promi-
nent are their jagged courses from port to port ; along these are sym-
bols to represent the direction and force of the wind : roman numerals
to express the magnetic variation ; arrows and figures to indicate the
set and strength of currents ; figures to show the temperature of the
sea-water ; great circle routes ; trade-wind limits ; the name of each
ship and date of making the passage — and all this in distinctive colors
and peculiarity of line, so that each item can be determined with great
exactness as regards both time and space.

Indeed, this profuse interweaving and crossing of lines and figures
taxes the patience of even the most painstaking mariner. What the
charts show forcibly at a glance, are the great ocean highways, but
this chiefly by the multiplicity of tracks through the beaten paths,
compared with their sparseness over less frequented routes.

Fourth, the Storm and Rain Charts. For every five degrees
square and each month, they clearly show the relative prevalence (com-
pared with the whole period of observation) of the following phenom-
ena : gales from eight cardinal points of the compass, calms, fogs,
thunder and lightning, and rain (including hail, snow, and sleet).

The arrangement of these charts is excellent, and they are easily
understood.

Fifth and last of the entire set, the Trade- Wind Charts of the
Atlantic Ocean. By a judicious use of colors, figures, and lines, the
limits of both trades, of the calm belt between, and of the calm zone

THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. 43

on the outer border of each system of ti-ades, together with the sev-
eral observations by which these limits were determined, are all clearly
and distinctly shown for each month, on a single sheet.

In 1863 the publication of Maury's charts was discontinued ; but
in 1876 other charts, similar in nature, though entirely different in the
method of compilation, were begun, are now in progress, and will be
continued, until sets for all the navigable waters of the globe are com-
pleted ; and it is a description of these new charts that will constitute
the second paper of this article.

THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY.

Bt p. h. pye-smith, b. a., m. d.,

VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE BIOLOGICAL SECTION OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION.

BIOLOGY is the science of the structure, the functions, the distri-
bution, and the succession in time of all living beings. If the
proper study of mankind be man, he has learned late in the inquiry
that he can only understand himself by recognizing that he is but one
in the vast network of organic creation ; that intelligible human anat-
omy must be based upon comparative anatomy ; that human physiology
can only be approached as a branch of general physiology, and that
even the humblest mold or sea-weed may furnish help to explain the
most important problems of human existence.

The branch of physiology which is concerned with man, not as an
individual, but a family, the branch which we now call Anthropology,
is obviously related to practical politics, and it was not without reason
that the late illustrious pathologist Rokitansky began a speech in the
Upper House of the Austrian Parliament on the autonomy of the Bohe-
mian nation with the words, " The question really is, whether the doc-
trine of Darwin be true or' no."

In another dej^artment, that of psychology, the physiology of the
nervous system has already thrown more light upon the mysterious
phenomena of consciousness than was gained by the acutest minds of
all ages without the help of anatomical methods.

All the improvements of modern agriculture and stock-breeding
rest upon more or less fully understood scientific principles, and the
more perfectly the results have been first worked out in the laboratory
the more safe and the more luci-ative will be their application in the
field.*

Still more important is the relation of physiology to the national
health. The commonplaces of hygiene which are now, one may be

* I need only refer to the fruitful labors of Mr. Lawes and Dr. Gilbert in this di-
rection.

44 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

thankful to say, taught, if not practiced, in almost every schoolroom
and factory in England, are the direct results of the abstruse researches
of Boyle and Priestley, of Lavoisier and Pasteur. Ages of experience
did not teach mankind the value of fresh air, or the innocence of clean
water. Indeed, I have myself heard astonishment expressed by a Ger-
man professor at the peculiar immunity with which English skins will
bear the daily and unstinted application of soap and water.

If the art of keeping a community in health is but the application
of plain physiological laws, it is no less true that the art of restoring
the health, curative as distinct from preventive medicine, rests upon
the same basis. In former days the physician was one who recognized
what he called the disease of his patient, who referred to his books of
precedents as a lawyer to his statutes, and who prescribed a proper
remedy to cast out the disease. We now know that disease is, as the
name implies, a purely subjective conception. The disease of a host
is the health of the parasite, and we cure a human sufferer by poison-
ing the animals or plants which interfere with his comfort. The same
changes which in the old man are the natural steps of decay, the ab-
sence of which after a certain age would be truly pathological, are the
cause of acute disease in the young. Pathology has no laws distinct
from those of physiology.

When these now obvious considerations are thoroughly understood,
it clearly follows that all "systems of medicine" are in their very
nature condemned. All that the art of medicine can do is to apply a
knowledge of natural laws, of mechanics and of hydrostatics, of bota-
ny and zoology, of chemistry and electricity, of the behavior of living
cells and organs when subjected to the influence of heat and of cold,
of acids and alkalies, of alcohols and ethers, of narcotics and stimu-
lants, so as to modify certain deviations from ordinary structure and
function which are productive of pain, or discomfort, or death. It is,
therefore, plain that rational medicine, or keeping right and setting
right the human body, must rest upon a knowledge of its structure and
its actions, just as a steam-engine or a watch can not be mended upon
general principles, but only by one who is familiar with their construc-
tion and working, and who can detect the source of their irregularity.

An objector may say : " Admitting that medicine is an art, it is a
purely empirical art. You can not detect the origin of many of the
maladies which you are yet able to cure ; your best remedies have not
been obtained by scientific experiment, but by chance, observation, and
accumulated experience ; and, if you doctors would give more time to
practical therapeutics, that is, to finding out what is good for the sev-
eral aches and pains we complain of, you would spend your time better
than in abstruse researches into microscopic anatomy or the properties
of a dead frog's muscle."

The answer to the objection is an appeal to fact. For centuries so-
called observation and experience left medicine in the condition it

THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. 45

occupied at the end of the seventeenth century. The progress of
therapeutics is to be marked, not by the labors of " practical raen "
(who, by the way, are of all the most theoretical, only that their theo-
ries are wrong), but by the, at first sight, unconnected studies of Des-
cartes and Newton, of Hooke and Grew, of Lavoisier and Davy and
Volta, of Marshall Hall and Johannes Miiller.

The history of science proves that unconnected, unsystematic, in-
accurate observations are worth nothing. For untold ages men have
had ample opportunities of studying the indications of the weather,
and have felt the utmost desire to obtain a knowledge of what they
portend. Yet it may fairly be said that nothing had been done to the
purpose until combined and systematic observations were made in this
country and America. The fact is, that popular notions do not rest
upon experience or observation. They rest, with scarcely an excep-
tion, upon metaphysical theories. In dealing with uneducated per-
sons, both of the lower and higher ranks, physicians find abundance
of theories as to the nature and the origin of disease, and of sugges-
tions as to its cure. The only thing which would be of value is what
we can scarcely ever get — an accurate observation of what they see
and feel. Every fallacy of popular medicine, every solemn medical
imposture, is the ghost of some long defunct doctrine of the schools.
Therefore it is that common experience is almost absolutely useless in
practical arts. They, without exception, depend for their progress
upon the advance of science— that is, upon methodical, continuous,
and scrupulously accurate observations and experiments.

Many important advances in the practice of medicine have been
gained by direct and intentional experiments instituted with a thera-
peutical object. Such was the Hunterian operation for aneurism, the
process of skin-grafting, and subperiosteal operations ; such was the
administration of chloroform and the introduction of nitrite of amyl,
chloral hydrate, and carbolic acid. Such direct experiments still go
on, and among them deserve mention, for the skill and the untiring
patience with which they were carried out, those investigations upon
the action of various drugs on the secretion of bile for which we are
indebted to Professor Rutherford and his coadjutors. Even appar-
ently accidental discovei'ies were not made accidentally. Hundreds of
country surgeons must have been familiar with the cow-pox, and have
seen examples of the immunity it conferred from the more tcn'ible
variola, but he who discovered vaccination was no falsely-called prac-
tical man. He was a man of science, the friend of Hunter and of
Cavendish, an anatomist and natural philosopher. The fruits of Jen-
ner's discovery are spread over the whole earth. This humble village
doctor has saved more lives than the most glorious conqueror de-
stroyed, but his name is little honored, and the only monument to his
memory has been banished from association with vulgar kings and
skillful homicides to an obscure corner of the great city where his

46 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

only homage is the health and beauty of the children who play around
his statue.

But, after all, it is not so much by direct and immediate contribu-
tions to the art of healing that Physiology has vindicated her ancient
title of the institutes of medicine, numerous and important as these
contributions have been. It is still more by the scientific spirit which
has transformed the empty learning so justly ridiculed by Moliere
and Le Sage into the practical efficiency of modern surgery. Let me
give an instance of what I mean. The notion of measuring the tem-
perature of the body is simple enough, and the rough observation that
in inflammation the temperature is raised had led to the various terms
by which it was denoted in ancient medicine, and to numberless theories
now happily forgotten. But although the thermometer was well known,
and had been applied by many scientific physicians, notably by De
Haen, by Dr. John Davy, and by Sir Benjamin Brodie, yet the practi-
cal value of the clinical thermometer which now every practitioner
carries in his pocket was not understood until the other day. Those
only who had been trained in accurate physical and physiological in-
vestigations, who had learned the worse than uselessness of " rough
observation," were able to see the enormous importance of clinical
thermometry. This most practical of modern improvements in medi-
cine would never have been dreamed of by " practical men " ; we owe
it to the scientific training of German laboratories.

If physiology is of such great national importance, if the necessity
of experimental research is so vital to the common national wealth, to
agriculture and commerce, to health and well-being, ought not its well-
ascertained results to be taught in our common schools, and its prose-
cution directly encouraged by the state ?

There is no question of the great importance of children being
taught the rudimentary laws of health, the bodily evils of dirt and
sloth and vice, the excellence of temperance, the danger of the first
inroads of disease. Such teaching, now broadcast in many excellent
manuals, as " The Personal Care of Health," by the late Dr. Parkes,
and Dr. Bridges's " Catechism of Health," is no doubt extremely val-
uable, and happily is daily more and more diffused. But when beyond
the direct utility of such knowledge we attempt to make it an intel-
lectual discipline, there are, I conceive, difficulties which will always
prevent even elementary physiology from forming an important part
of general education. First, there is the practical difficulty of the
necessary dissections ; next, the impossibility of making j^hysiology
demonstrative ; and, thirdly, the abstruseness of the subject. It is
impossible to have even an elementary knowledge of the laws of liv-
ing beings without a very considerable familiarity with those of phys-
ics and of chemistry, and even in medical schools it requires all our
efforts to prevent it degenerating into a mere dogmatic statement of

THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. 47

results, or a labored repetition of hearsay statements. As an intellec-
tual discipline, for facility of demonstration, for the simplicity of the
objects, their beauty and interest, their associations with the green
lanes and broad moors of England, with the poetry of " Cymbeline "
and " Lycidas," Avith fairy tales and local folk-lore — botany is to my
mind the branch of natural science which is above all others to be
chosen where one only can be taught. Next in importance I would
place elementary physics, the knowledge of the simplest laAvs of masses
at rest and in motion, of heat and light. Its great recommendations
are its precision, its constant and useful illustrations in daily life, the
interest it gives to the handicrafts and manufactures in which so large
a number of English boys and girls are busied, and the necessity of
such knowledge as the first step in acquiring all other natural sciences.
First, then, I would that every Sheffield girl should love flowers
with the deep and abiding affection of familiar knowledge, and that
every Sheffield lad should know every common plant in your beautiful
woods, and find his purest pleasure on the heights of Bell Hagg and
the broad expanse of Stanage Moor. And next I would that your
workmen and work-boys should know so much of mechanics that they
may take an intelligent pride in your vast factories, and that in some
of them may be awakened the genius to which we trust to repeat in
future generations the national services of Ai'kwright, and Watt, and
Stevenson.

With regard to the endowment of research in biology, I must con-
fess that I should be sorry to see it undertaken by government funds.
That such investigations are of public interest, that they are difficult
and expensive, and that at present they languish for want of adequate
support, is all true. But this country is not so poor, nor our country-
men so wanting in public spirit, that Ave need appeal to the national
purse to supply every ascertained want. Great as is the national im-
portance of science, the nation is more important still ; and even if
that were the alternative, I would rather that we should indefinitely
continue dependent on Germany for our knowledge than give up the
local energy, the unofficial zeal which has made England what she is.
Far better for the strength and the civilization of the nation that a
thousand pounds were raised every year for the endowment of unre-
munerative researches in this wealthy toAvni of Sheffield than that ten
thousand were paid you by a paternal monarch or an enlightened de-
partment.

But surely there is no need for us to go to Parliament for such
sums as we require. In the first place, scientific men themselves show
a good example of not asking before they give. There is the modest
sum M'hich we raise in this Association, there are the funds for help-
ing research of the Royal Society, the Chemical Society, the British
Medical Association, the Iron and Steel Institute, the Whitworth

48 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Scholarships. Next we have the resources of our universities, which
have scarcely begun to apply themselves to the task. I need do no
more than allude to the Cavendish Laboratory, or to the Physiological
School at Cambridge, where a simple college tutor of i-are ability, and
of still more rare sympathy and energy, has in ten years achieved
results which we need not shrink from comparing with those of the
great Continental laboratories. The magnificent Museum of Anatomy,
maintained by the College of Surgeons almost entirely out of their
own funds, is another instance of private care for science to which we
find no parallel abroad ; and the Zoological Society wisely spends a
large part of its income in prosecuting comparative anatomy, and in
publishing its beautifully illustrated memoirs.

But besides the efforts of scientific bodies and the wealth of our
national universities, we may surely look to the public spirit of ancient
companies and corporations to do something for the cause of science.
In the middle ages our country was covered with parish churches by
private munificence ; in the sixteenth century most of our public and
grammar schools were endowed ; in later times our great religious and
charitable societies were founded. May we not hope that, before the
close of the present century, the discriminating knowledge which alone
prevents gifts of money from being a curse instead of a blessing to a
community, may lead to the establishment of libraries, and museums,
and laboratories by universities and towns, which shall bear compari-
son, I will not say with those of Paris, or Leipsic, or Bonn, but with
the poorer but scarcely less distinguished schools of Heidelberg and
Gottingen, of Wiirzburg and of Utrecht ?

Where we have institutions already under government control and
patronage, let them be maintained as efficiently and liberally as pos-
sible. The British Museum, and its library, the Royal Observatory at
Greenwich, and the Royal Gardens at Kew (happily preserved for the
present from the short-sighted eagerness of those who would destroy
their scientific value) — these are great national institutions of which we
are justly proud. Successive governments will have enough to do to
maintain their efficiency and to guard them from incompetent inter-
ference.

Whatever may be thought of the duty of the state directly to en-
courage the pursuit of animal and vegetable physiology, one would
have supposed that at least what diplomatists call a benevolent neu-
trality would be shown to a pursuit so laborious and costly, which
demands trained workmen and the devotion of a lifetime, which is so
important for the national wealth and health, and which, by reason,
by experience, and by testimony, we know to be the only guarantee
for advance in the various branches of the healing art. Why is it
then that institutions which owe nothing to government assistance,
and men who spend their time and talents in self-denying and unre-

THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. 49

munerative service for the public good, are not suffered to pursue their
beneficent work in peace ?

You know that certain persons who profess to be shocked by the
methods of physiological research have succeeded in placing this
branch of science under as great disabilities as that sense of humor
would allow which so often redeems British ignorance from its most
mischievous results.

The method that has given rise to so much excitement is the per-
formance of experiments upon living animals. Now, if this were in-
jurious to the greatest good of the greatest number of the community,
or if freedom to perform these experiments interfered with the free-
dom of other persons to abstain from them, or if such experiments
were forbidden by any religious or moral authority, by the ten com-
mandments, or by Mr. Matthew Arnold, of course they must be given
up ; but, equally of course, the science of physiology must also come
to a stop, and the farmer, the cattle-breeder, and the physician must
be content with such knowledge or such ignorance as he at present
possesses. I know it has been asserted that the science of the func-
tions of living organs is quite independent of experiment upon living
organs. But this is said by the same persons who have denied that
the art of setting right the functions of the body when they go wrong
has anything to do with the knowledge of what those functions are.

If you could be persuaded that chemistry can make progress with-
out retorts and balances, that a geologist's hammer is a useless incum-
brance, or that engineers can build bridges just as well by the rule of
thumb as by the knowledge gained in a workshop, then you might
believe that physiology also is independent of experiment.

It is absurd to object to the difiiculties of the research or even the
contradictory results sometimes obtained. The functions of a muscle
or a gland are more complicated than those of water or gas, and
their investigation needs greater skill, more caution, and more frequent
repetition. Imperfect experiments can lead to nothing but error ;
criticism from other physiologists, or from scientific men experienced
in other branches of research, is not wanting, and is always welcome.
But vague assertion that further progress is impossible by the very
means which have led to all our present knowledge, coming from those
" who are not of our school," or any school, is undeserving of serious
notice.

The real contention, of course, is a moral one, that we ought to
relinquish the advantage of all experiments which are accompanied
with pain to the creature experimented on. The botanist may serve
his plants as he pleases, and even the animal physiologist may cut, or
starve, or poison all sentient organisms which happen not to possess a
backbone, and he may try experiments with all backboned animals,
including himself and his friends, so long as they do not hurt ; but that
must be the limit. On the most extreme humanitarian views no ob-

TOL. XVI. — i

50 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

jection can be made to experiments upon animals in a state of insen-
sibility to pain, and as these constitute, happily, the vast majority of
physiological experiments, the question is narrowed to comparatively
restricted limits. Is it wrong to inflict painful experiments upon ani-
mals for the sake of science ? In the absence of any authority to ap-
peal to, we can but judge of the matter by analogy. Now, it has been
the practice of all mankind, and is still allowed by the common con-
sent both of law and feeling, that we should destroy by more or less
painful means, that we should enslave and force to work, and mutilate
by painful operations, and hunt to death, and wound, and lacerate,
and torture the brute creation for the following objects : for our own
self-preservation, as when we offer a reward for the killing of tigers
and snakes in India ; for our comfort, as when we poison or otherwise
destroy internal parasites, and vermin, and rats, and rabbits. Our
safety, our food, our convenience, our wealth, or our amusement — all
these objects have been and are regarded by the great mass of man-
kind, and are held by the laws of every civilized country, to be suffi-
ciently important to justify the infliction of pain or death upon animals
in whatever numbers may be necessary. The only restriction which
Christian morality or in certain cases recent legislation imposes upon
such practices is, that no more pain shall be inflicted than is necessary
for the object in view. Killing or hurting domestic animals when
moved by passion or by the horrible delight which some depraved na-
tures feel in the act of inflicting pain was until lately the only recog-
nized transgression against the law of England. I trust I need not
say that it is only under such restrictions that physiologists desire to
work.* Any one who would inflict a single pang beyond what is ne-
cessary for a scientific object, or would by carelessness fail to take due
care of the animals he has to deal with, would be justly amenable to
public reprobation. And remember it is within these limits that the
whole controversy lies, for, after a long and patient examination of all
that could be said by our accusers, the Royal Commission which was
nominated for the purpose unanimously reported that in this country
at least scientific experiments upon animals are free from abuse.

What is deliberately asserted is, that within the restrictions which
all humane persons impose upon themselves, it is lawful to inflict pain
or death upon animals for profit or for sport, for money or for pastime ;
that property and sport are in England sacred things ; but that the
practices which they justify are unjustifiable when pursued with the
object of increasing human knowledge or of relieving human suf-
fering.

Of those persons who answer that they consider vivisection for the
sake of sport to be almost as detestable as vivisection for the sake of
duty, I would only ask first that they should deal impartially with

* They are, in fact, the very limits that were put on record by this Association long
before the agitation against physiology began. (See Report for 1871, p. 144.)

THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. 51

both offenses, and secondly that since in the one case their opinions
are opposed to the practice of genteel society, and in the other to the
convictions of all who are qualified to judge, they should at least con-
template the possibility of being mistaken. Putting the question of
field sports altogether aside, you know perfectly well that in every
village in England an extremely painful mutilation is constantly per-
formed upon domestic animals in no registered laboratory, under no
anaesthetics, and with no object but the convenience and profit of the
owner. You remember how, when an epidemic threatened the destruc-
tion of valuable property, every booby peer now eager to stop, so far
as in him lay, the advance of knowledge, was no less eager to have
carried out at the public expense any slaughter and any experiments,
painful or otherwise, which would save his pocket.

But you will say: All this seems reasonable enough; but if so, how
do you account for the prejudice against you ; what has induced so
many amiable and otherwise sane persons to join in the outcry against
physiology ?

First, I answer, it is due to the most frequent cause of folly — ig-
norance. Many persons, supposed to be educated, are so destitute of
the most ordinary conceptions of natural science that they do not un-
derstand the necessity for experiments. So little do they appreciate
the difference between formal knowledge and real knowledge, that a
distinguished statesman once assured me that he would as soon have
his leg set by a man who had gained what he called his knowledge
from books, as by one who had " walked the hospitals." Next, there is
the vulgar dislike of whatever is not obviously and immediately useful.
When knowledge for its own sake is in question, those of the baser
sort are always ready to cry, with equal ignorance of literature and of
science, " Cut bono ? "

In another class of persons, less ignorant and less stupid than these
two, opposition to physiological experiments appears to spring from
what may fairly be stigmatized as sentiment, that is to say, excitable,
rather than deep feeling, uncontrolled by reason. People first gratify
their fancy by calling cats and dogs our fellow creatures, which, in
one sense, undoubtedly they are, and then, by the familiar fallacy of an
ambiguous middle term, argue that it is cruel to put our fellow crea-
tures to pain ; or, as some would add, to reduce them to slavery, or to
use them in any way for our own, rather than their good. Such per-
sons compel their fellow creatures to drag them through the streets,
they eat their fellow creatures when sufiiciently vivisected to be pala-
table, and then find philosophical excuses for those who kill their fel-
low creatures for fun. But they are properly shocked when their fel-
low creatures are hurt or killed for the benefit of mankind. Such
persons have been accused of feminine weakness ; but I must say that
I never have found an intelligent woman who could not see the rights
of the case when fairly explained to her, whereas I have met a few

52 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

men wlio in this, as in other matters, consistently refuse to give up to
argument the notions which were formed by prejudice.

This sentiment is, I admit, the degradation of just feeling. To
many unaffectedly compassionate hearts there is a peculiar pang in
thinking of suffering which is deliberately inflicted, with only the jus-
tification of duty, instead of the excuse of ignorance or passion. They
see in the helplessness of the dumb animals an appeal for pity, almost
like that of childhood, and are justly indignant with the selfish cruelty
so often exercised upon them. All honor to the efforts which have
banished so many cruel sports from England ; all honor to the society
which seeks to prevent cruelty to animals ! If it can point to any ad-
ditional means by which the sufferings of animals in the cause of sci-
ence can be diminished, we shall be anxious to adopt them. If it can
point to any abuse in one of our laboratories, we will hasten to correct
it. This society has honorably declared that they know of none.
That physiologists have been heedless, or even callous, in their experi-
ments upon animals in past times, when men were strangely insensible
even to human suffering, or in countries where a healthy result of
Christian civilization has not yet been seen in habitual gentleness to
animals, I need not deny. Such cases have been eagerly sought and
sometimes most unfairly judged. Only lately a learned body felt
itself not strong enough to retain the admittedly invaluable services of
an eminent foreigner, who had once admitted that when absorbed in
scientific and beneficent researches he lost sight of any pain that might
be inflicted.* Is not this the very excuse which is held valid in the case
of sport ? Doubtless we ought to be ever mindful of every branch of
duty, but such occasional forgetfulness does not show hardness of
heart. It is an excusable weakness for a student of medicine to shud-
der or to faint at the sight of blood, but he learns that this merely
physical sensibility becomes selfish and mischievous if indulged : he is
taught to suppress all such exhibition of emotion, and to let it stimu-
late without j^aralyzing his efforts to relieve. But no one surely would
think the hysterical youth more truly humane than the surgeon whose
compassion is shown in the very firmness with which he inflicts a tem-
porary pain for an ultimate good,

I have hitherto rested the whole argument upon the lawfulness of
inflicting pain and death iipon the lower animals for the sake of sci-
ence and humanity, but as a matter of fact I may again assure those
who, while assenting to the justice of the plea, yet shrink from what it
may involve, that the great majority of experiments upon animals are
rendered painless, and that the remainder are mostly those experiments
which are most immediately and directly subservient to medical art,

* Fortunately, Dr. Klein, whose researches in raicroscopic anatomy and pathology are
so well known and appreciated, knows that he retains the confidence and respect of his
scientific brethren, and we hope that his honorable connection with the largest school
of medicine in London will strengthen other and closer ties in binding him to England.

THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. 53

and happily even these are generally productive rather of discomfort
than of pain. Let me give you an example of such a vivisection, far
more painful than the immense majority of those of the laboratory.
Suppose a country surgeon were sent for late at night to some case of
urgent peril ; knowing that his ride is for life or death, and unsparing
of himself or his horse, he rides him to the utmost limits of endurance,
and beyond: who would not applaud the action ? Those only who ap-
pear deliberately to believe that our life is worth less than that of many
sparrows, those legislators only who look forward to the time when
wars will cease, not because of human slaughter, of devastated homes,
of all the horrors which the world has endured for centuries, but be-
cause of the cruelties to which the horses in the artillery are subjected.
TVe, who are familiar with human suffering and sorrow, which our
knowledge is all too feeble to prevent, best understand how, in testing
some new remedy on a less precious fellow creature than a man, one
who is truly humane may be tempted to forget the comparatively
trivial suffering of a rabbit or a frog.

But some enthusiastic opponent will say : " I can not pretend to
doubt that these experiments are in every sense of the word useful ;
but we ought not to purchase the benefit they confer by inflicting
pain upon innocent creatures. I would sign a petition to-morrow to
put down all field sj^orts by law, I would allow no operation upon
domestic animals, and I will abstain from all animal food until I am
certain that I can eat creatures which have been killed without suffer-
ing pain. But if I were lying at the point of death, and you brought
an animal to my bedside and assured me that by putting it to pain my
life would be saved, I would refuse to j^urchase it on such cruel
terms." We may hope that the excellent person who made this heroic
profession would, in the hour of trial, be better advised, but if not we
may surely reply: "Eight reverend sir, you are the best judge of the
value of your own life, and, if you think proper to sacrifice it to the
comfort of a Guinea-pig, we must submit to the loss with such resigna-
tion as we can muster ; but when you say that in obedience to this
silly whim you will let your dearest friend suffer, allow the sacrifice
of the most important life, and forbid those studies which have already
rescued multitudes from deformity and misery and death, then those
of us who have to do with the real responsibilities of life, and on whom
presses the awful sense of impotence to which our defective science
too often leaves us, answer that we too have duties to fulfill, and to
the best of our power we mean conscientiously to fulfill them."

There is, I fear, another reason which animates much of the oppo-
sition to physiological experiments. It is nothing else than aversion
from the methods and the results of science. It may be that an excuse
for this dislike has been furnished by the pretense of false science,
and the arrogance of much even which is true. But surely no reason-
able creature, from such trivial irritation, can deliberately wish to

54 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

check the progress of accurate knowledge by observation and experi-
ment. There are, indeed, some who, fearing (as I think prudently)
that, " while a little philosophy inclineth men to atheism, depth in phi-
losophy bringeth men's minds about to religion," and desiring to sub-
ject the human mind to a bondage as hard and more degrading than
that of medieval Rome, would gladly call off interest from the unre-
munerative labors which are prompted only by the thirst for knowl-
edge and faith in the possibility of learning more and more of the
divine order of the world, to pursuits which bring obvious and material
utility. There are those again who, fearing (as I think foolishly) that
increasing knowledge of this divine order will lower our admiration of
its beauty, or that the better a man understands the laws of God the
more likely he is to break them, have an unfeigned dislike for natural
science in general, and for biology in jDailicular. They rejjeat over
again the error of which the Dominican friars, with far greater excuse,
were guilty when they imprisoned Galileo. If any such are here, may
I venture to tell them^in quietness and in confidence is your strength :
the vast fabric of Christian morals is in no danger of being over-
turned by the discovery of a new chemical method in the laboratory,
or of a hitherto undescribed animalcule. If noisy attacks are made in
the injured name of science, you have only to Avait, and you will see
these attacks repelled by the true leaders of science themselves, or, at
the worst, by the next generation. But if, leaving your secure for-
tress of defense, you come down with your rhetoric and your senti-
ments, your petitio principii, your ignoratio elenchi, and all your
familiar fallacies and tropes, thinking that with such weapons you can
meet, on their own ground, men who have spent their lives in the
study of science, then no wonder if you suffer grievous defeat. Happy
for you if you learn, like another discomfited pilgrim, to betake your-
selves to another " weapon."

But I imagine that some of my audience are saying : " This de-
fense would have been necessary before the Royal Commission made
their report ; but when that was made, and affirmed the necessity of
physiological experiments, and the groundlessness of accusations of
cruelty against physiologists, when an act was passed which licenses
physiological laboratories, under the very restrictions which you had
already imposed upon yourselves, may we not regard the controversy
as closed, and the result as satisfactory ? "

I answer that I have taken up your time with this defense of phys-
iological experiments partly because I would fain help, however feebly,
in the enlightenment of the public conscience, but also because the
result of recent legislation is 7iot satisfactory.

Science does not work readily in fetters. A system of licenses and
certificates, numerous and complicated, obtained with trouble and
delay, and revocable at the will of a minister who may, by the acci-
dents of party, be at any time amenable to anti-scientific influences,

THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. 55

such a system adds serious difficulties to those already in the way of
experiments.

SujDpose, as an illustration, that certain persons opposed on various
groxmds to learning, and especially hostile to Greek, had attacked the
study of Plato. They would point out the danger of modern ladies
becoming as well read in his writings as was Lady Jane Grey. They
would show that the laxity of modern manners was coincident with
the popularity of the " Symposium," and that the notorious increase of
infanticide was the result of the teaching of the " Republic." Asso-
ciations for the total suppression of Plato would be formed, with hired
advocates, and anonymous letters, and " leaflets," spreading a knowl-
edge of his most objectionable passages. Scholars would be threat-
ened with eternal punishment, and schoolmasters with the withdrawal
of their puj)ils. Then a royal commission would be appointed — a great
Latin scholar, a Whig, and a Tory statesman (who, having taken a
B. Sc. degi'ee at Oxford would be impartially ignorant of Greek), the
most intelligent despiser of Plato who could be found, the master of a
grammar-school on the modern side, and (perhaps the most efficient of
all) a lawyer, who knew nothing about Greek, but hated cant. This
commission would take evidence that the Platonic writings were not
all immoral, that they had been quoted with approval by Fathers of
the Church, that they were of great importance to literature and phi-
losophy, and even to the elucidation of the Sacred Writings. It would
also be proved that the Platonic dialogues were far less immoral than
multitudes of other widely circulated books, or than a French novel
which one of the royal commissioners happened to be reading ; and,
lastly, that the morals of Greek scholars, and of clergymen who had
read Plato at college, were not obviously degraded below those of
other people. On the other hand, witnesses would depose that a
knowledge of Plato was of no consequence to a student of philosophy ;
that, if it were, the text was in so corrupt a condition that no two
scholars agreed as to a single chapter, and that, after all, philosophy
was of no practical use, least of all to clergymen. Others would affirm
that, though they had never read a line of him, they knew that his
style was as vicious as his sentiments ; and perhaps some cross-grained
scholar might be found who, having once edited a play of Euripides,
would declare that all studies in Greek literature ought to be restricted
to the tragedians, and that for his part he had never opened any other
authors and had never felt the want of them.

At last the commission would report that there was no question of
the value of the works of Plato, that it would be mischievous and im-
practicable to prohibit their study, and that there was no evidence
that schoolmasters habitually chose the least edifying passages as les-
sons for boys. Then what is called a compromise would be made. It
would be enacted that Plato might be read, but only in colleges annu-
ally licensed for that purpose ; that every one wishing to read must

56 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

have a general certificate signed by certain professors, and setting
forth his object, also to be renewed every year ; and that" special cer-
tificates might be severally obtained for reading certain excepted dia-
logues, for copying from them, for publishing them, or, in rare cases,
for translating them.

However reasonably such a system might be administered, who
can doubt the result would be a diminution of the number of scholars,
and a check to the progress of learning ?

Now this is what legislation has done for physiological experi-
ments. The act (39 and 40 Victoria) was hastily drawn and hurriedly
discussed ; for noble lords and honorable gentlemen who had been
taught from childhood to vivisect for unscientific purposes were eager
to hurry off to their own merry vivisections, for which they were ready
provided with license and certificates. And it works as might be
expected. Some shrink from seeing their names figure in disreputable
newspapers, and receiving more or less savagely abusive anonymous
letters. Others have no laboratories, and find difficulty in licensing
their houses. Others are refused the certificates they require.

In one case two thoroughly qualified men were anxious to cany
out an important investigation on the treatment of snake-bites. They
procured venomous snakes from a distance, and applied for the special
certificates necessary. Considerable delay ensued ; various objections
were raised, and set at rest ; and at last all the certificates were ob-
tained ; but meantime the snakes had died.

MYTHOLOGIC PHILOSOPHY.*

By Major J. W. POWELL.

IL

IV. — Outgrowths from Mtthologic Philosophy.

THE three stages of mythologic philosophy that are still extant in
the world must be more thoroughly characterized, and the course
of their evolution indicated. But in order to do this clearly, certain
outgrowths from mythologic philosophy must be explained, certain
theories and practices that necessarily result from this philosophy, and
that are intricately woven into the institutions of mankind.

Ancientism. — The first I denominate ancientism. Yesterday was
better than to-day. The ancients were wiser than we. This belief in
a better day and a better people in the elder time is almost universal
among mankind. A belief so widely spread, so profoundly enter-

* An Address delivered before the American Association for the Advancement of Sci-
ence, at Saratoga, New York, August 29, 1879, by Major J. W. Powell, Vice-President of
Section B.

MYTHOLOGIC PHILOSOPHY. 57

tainecT, must have for its origin some important facts in the constitu-
tion or history of mankind. Let us see what they are.

In the history of every individual, the sports and joys of childhood
are compared and contrasted with the toils and pains of old age.
Greatly protracted life, in savagery and barbarism, is not a boon to
be craved. In that stage of society where the days and the years go
by with little or no provision for a time other than that which is pass-
ing, the old must go down to the grave through poverty and suffering.
In that stage of culture to-morrow's bread is not certain, and to-day's
bread is often scarce. In civilization, plenty and poverty live side by
side ; the palace and the hovel are on the same landscape ; the rich
and poor elbow each other on the same street : but, in savagery,
plenty and poverty come with recurring days to the same man, and
the tribe is rich to-day and poor to-morrow, and the days of want come
in every man's history, and when they come the old suffer most, and
the burden of old age is oppressive. In youth, activity is joy ; in old
age, activity is pain. No wonder, then, that old age loves youth, or
that to-day loves yesterday, for the instinct is born of the inherited
experiences of mankind.

But there is yet another and more potent reason for ancientism.
That tale is the most wonderful that has been most repeated, for the
breath of speech is the fertilizer of story. Hence, the older the story,
the greater its thaumaturgics. Thus, yesterday is greater than to-day
by natural processes of human exaggeration. Again, that is held to
be most certain, and hence most sacred, which has been most often
affirmed. A Brahman was carrying a goat to the altar. Three thieves
would steal it. So they placed themselves at intervals along the way
by which the pious Brahman would travel. When the venerable man
came to the first thief he was accosted : " Brahman, why do you carry
a dog ? " Now, a dog is an unclean beast which no Brahman must
touch. And the Brahman, after looking at his goat, said : " You do
err ; this is a goat." And when the old man reached the second thief,
again he was accosted : " Brahman, why do you carry a dog ? " So
the Brahman put his goat on the ground, and after narrowly scrutiniz-
ing it, he said, " Surely this is a goat," and went on his way. When he
came to the third thief he was once more accosted : " Brahman, why
do you carry a dog ? " Then the Brahman having thrice heard that
his goat was a dog, was convinced, and throwing it down, he fled to
the temple for ablution, and the thieves had a feast.

The child learns not for himself, but is taught, and accepts as true
that which is told, and a propensity to believe the affirmed is implanted
in his mind. In every society some are wise and some are. foolish, and
the wise are revered, and their affirmations are accepted. Thus, the
few lead the multitude in knowledge, and the propensity to believe
the affirmed started in childhood is increased in manhood in the great
average of persons constituting society, and these propensities are in-

58 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Lerited from generation to generation, until we have a cumulation of
effects.

The propagation of opinions by affirmation, the cultivation of the
propensity to believe that which has been affirmed many times, let us
call affirmatization. If the world's opinions were governed only by
the principles of mythologic philosophy, affirmatization would become
so powerful that nothing would be believed but the anciently affirmed.
Men would come to know new knowledge. Society would stand still
listening to the wisdom of the fathers. But the power of affirmatiza-
tion is steadily undermined by science.

And, still again, the institutions of society conform to its philosophy.
The explanation of things always includes the origin of human insti-
tutions. So the welfare of society is based on philosophy, and the
venerable sayings which constitute philosophy are thus held as sacred.
So ancientism is developed from accumulated life-experiences ; by the
growth of story in repeated narration ; by the steadily increasing
130wer of affirmatization, and by respect for the authority upon which
the institutions of society are based ; all accumulating as they come
down the generations. That we do thus inherit effects we know, for
has it not been affirmed in the Book that "the fathers have eaten
grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge " ? As men come to
believe that the "long ago" was better than the "now," and the dead
were better than the living, then philosophy must necessarily include
a theory of degeneracy, which is a part of ancientism.

Theistic Society. — Again, the actors in mythologic philosophy are
personages, and we always find them organized in societies. The
social organization of mythology is always found to be essentially
identical with the social organization of the people who entertain the
philosophy. The gods are husbands and wives, and parents and chil-
dren, and the gods have an organized government. This gives us
theistic society, and we can not properly characterize a theism without
taking its mythic society into consideration.

Spiritism. — In the earliest stages of society of which Ave have
practical knowledge by acquaintance with the people themselves, a
belief in the existence of spirits prevails — a shade, an immaterial ex-
istence, which is the duplicate of the material personage. The genesis
of this belief is complex. The workings of the human mind during
periods of unconsciousness lead to opinions that are enforced by many
physical phenomena.

First, we have the activities of the mind during sleep, when the
man seems to go out from himself, to converse with his friends, to
witness strajage scenes, and to have many wonderful experiences.
Thus the man seems to have lived an eventful life, when his body was,
in fact, quiescent and unconscious. Memories of scenes and activities
in former days, and the inherited memories of scenes witnessed and
actions performed by ancestors, are blended in strange confusion by

MYTHOLOGIC PHILOSOPHY. 59

broken and inverted sequences. Now and then the dream-scenes are
enacted in real life, and the infrequent coincidence or apparent verifi-
cation makes deep impression on the mind, while unfulfilled dreams are
forgotten. Thus the dreams of sleepers are attributed to their imma-
terial duplicates — their spirits. In many diseases, also, the mind seems
to wander, to see sights, and to hear sounds, and to have many won-
derful experiences, while the body itself is apparently unconscious.
Sometimes on restored health, the person may recall these wonderful
experiences, and during their occurrence the subject talks to unseen
persons, and seems to have replies and to act, to those who witness, in
such a manner that a second self — a spirit independent of the body —
is suggested. When disease amounts to long-continued insanity, all
of these effects are greatly exaggerated, and make a deep impression
upon all who witness the phenomena. Thus the hallucinations of fever-
racked brains, and mad minds, are attributed to spirits.

The same conditions of apparent severance of mind and body wit-
nessed in dreams and hallucinations are often* produced artificially in
the practice of ecstacism. In the vicissitudes of savage life, while
little or no provision is made for the future, there are times when the
savage resorts to almost anything at hand as a means of subsistence,
and thus all plants and all parts of plants, seed, fruit, flowers, leaves,
bark, roots — anything in times of extreme want — may be used as food.
But experience soon teaches the various effects upon the human sys-
tem which are produced by the several vegetable substances with which
he meets, and thus the effect of narcotics is early discovered, and the
savage in the practice of his religion oftentimes resorts to these native
drugs for the purpose of producing an ecstatic state under which divi-
nation may be performed. The practice of ecstacism is universal in
the lower stages of culture. In times of great anxiety, every savage and
barbarian seeks to knoAV of the future. Through all the earlier gene-
rations of mankind, ecstacism has been practiced, and civilized man has
thus an inherited appetite for narcotics to which the enormous propen-
sity to drunkenness existing in all nations bears witness. When the
great actor in his personation of Rip Van Winkle holds his goblet
aloft and says, " Here's to your health and to your family's, and may
they live long and prosper," he connects the act of drinking with a
prayer, and unconsciously demonstrates the origin of the use of stimu-
lants. It may be that when the jolly companion has become a loath-
some sot, and his mind is ablaze with the fire of drink, and he sees
uncouth beasts in horrid presence, that inherited memories haunt
him with visions of the beast-gods worshiped by his anoestors at the
very time when the appetite for stimulants was created. But ecsta-
cism is produced in other ways, and for this purpose the savage and
barbarian often resorts to fasting and bodily torture. In many ways
he produces the wonderful state, and the visions of ecstasy are inter-
preted as the evidence of spirits.

6o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Many physical phenomena serve to confirm this opinion. It is very
late in philosophy when shadows are referred to the interception of
the rays of the sun. In savagery and barbarism shadows are supposed
to be emanations from or duj)licates of the bodies causing the shad-
ows. And what savage understands the reflection of the rays of the
sun by Avhich images are produced ? They also are supposed to be
emanations or duplications of the object reflected. No savage or bar-
barian could understand that the waves of the air are turned back and
sound is duplicated in an echo. He knows not that there is an atmos-
phere, and to him the echo is the voice of an unseen personage — a
spirit. There is no theory more profoundly implanted in early man-
kind than that of spiritism.

Thaumaturgics. — The gods of mythologic philosophies are created
to account for the wonders of nature. Necessarily they are a wonder-
working folk, and having been endowed with these magical powers in
all the histories given in mythic tales of their doings on the earth, we
find them performing most wonderful feats. They can transform
themselves ; they can disappear and reappear ; all their senses are magi-
cal ; some are endowed with a multiplicity of eyes, others have a mul-
tiplicity of ears ; in Norse mythology the watchman on the rainbow
bridge could hear the grass grow and the wool on the backs of sheep ;
arms can stretch out to grasp the distance, tails can coil about moun-
tains, and all powers become magical. But the most wonderful power
with which the gods are endowed is the power of will, for we find that
they can think their arrows to the hearts of their enemies ; mountains
are overthrown by thought, and thoughts are projected into other
minds. Such are the thaumaturgics of mythologic philosophy.

Mythic Tales. — Early man having created through the develojj-
ment of his philosophy a host of personages, these gods must have a
history. A part of that history, and the most important part to us as
students of philosophy, is created in the very act of creating the gods
themselves. I mean that portion of their history which relates to the
operations of nature, for the gods were created to account for those
things. But to this is added much else of adventure. The gods love
as men love, and go in quest of mates. The gods hate as men hate,
and fight in single combat or engage in mythic battles ; and the history
of these adventures impelled by love and hate, and all other passions
and purposes with which men are endowed, all woven into a complex
tissue with their doings in carrying out the operations of nature, con-
stitutes the web and woof of mythology.

Belig ion.'— Agdiin, as human welfare is deeply involved in the op-
erations of nature, man's chief interest is in the gods. In this interest
religion originates. Man, impelled by his own volition, guided by his
own purposes, aspires to a greater happiness, and endeavor follows
endeavor, but at every step his progress is impeded : his own powers
fail before the greater powers of nature ; his powers are pygmies, na-

MYTHOLOGIC PHILOSOPHY. 6\

ture's powers are giants, and to him these giants are gods -with wills
and purposes of their own, and he sees that man in his weakness can
succeed only by allying himself wdth the gods. Hence, imj^elled by
this philosophy, man must have coriimunion with the gods, and in this
communion he must influence them to work for himself. Hence, re-
ligion, which has to do with the relations which exist between the gods
and man, is the legitimate offspring of mythologic philosophy.

Thus we see that out of mythologic philosophy, as branches of the
great tree itself, there grow ancientism, theistic society, sj)iritism,
thaumaturgics, mythic tales, and religion.

y. — The Evolution of Mythologic Philosophy.

I shall now give a summary characterization of zootheism, then
call attention to some of the relics of hecastotheism found therein, and
proceed with a brief statement of the higher stages of theism. The
apparent and easily accessible is studied first. In botany, the trees
and the conspicuous flowering plants of garden, field, and plain were
first known, and then all other plants were vaguely grouped as weeds ;
but, since the most conspicuous phenogamous plants were first studied,
what vast numbers of new orders, new genera, and new species have
been discovered, in the progress of research, to the lowest cryptogams !

In the study of ethnology, we first recognized the more civilized
races. The Aryan, Hamites, Shemites, and Chinese, and the rest were
the weeds of humanity — the barbarian and savage, sometimes called
Turanians. But, when we come carefully to study these lower people,
what numbers of races are discovered ! In North America alone we
have more than seventy-five — seventy-five stocks of people speaking
seventy-five stocks of language, and some single stocks embracing
many distinct languages and dialects. The languages of the Algonquin
family are as diverse as the Indo-European tongues. So are the lan-
guages of the Dakota, the Numa, the Tinne, and others ; so that in
North America we have more than five hundred languages spoken to-
day. Each linguistic stock is found to have a philosophy of its own,
and each stock as many branches of philosojihy as it has languages
and dialects. North America presents a magnificent field for the
study of savage and barbaric philosophies.

This vast region of thought has been explored only by a few
adventurous travelers in the world of science. No thorough survey of
any part has been made. Yet the general outlines of North American
philosophy are known, but the exact positions, the details, are all yet
to be filled in — as the geography of the general outline of North
America is known by exploration, but the exact positions and de-
tails of topography are yet to be filled in as the result of careful sur-
vey. Myths of the Algonquin stock are found in many a volume of
Americana, the best of which were recorded by the early missionaries
who came from Europe, though we find some of them, mixed with

62 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

turbid speculations, in the writings of Schoolcraft. Many of the
myths of the Indians of the South, in that region stretching back from
the great Gulf, are known — some collected by travelers, others by edu-
cated Indians.

Many of the myths of the Iroquois are known. The best of these
are in the writings of Morgan, America's greatest anthropologist.
Missionaries, travelers, and linguists have given us a great store of the
myths of the Dakota stock. Many myths of the Tinne also have
been collected. Petitot has recorded a number of those found at the
North, and we have in manuscript some of the myths of a Southern
branch — the Navajos. Perhaps the myths of the Numas have been
collected more thoroughly than those of any other stock. These are
yet unpublished. Powers has recorded many of the myths of various
stocks in California, and the old Spanish writings give us a fair collec-
tion of the Nahuatl myths of Mexico, and Rink has presented us an
interesting volume on the mythology of the Innuits ; and, finally, frag-
ments of mythology have been collected from nearly all the tribes of
North America, and they are scattered through thousands of volumes,
so that the literature is vast. The brief description which I shall give
of zootheism is founded on a study of the materials which I have thus
indicated.

All these tribes are found in the higher stages of savagerj^, or the
lower stages of barbarism, and their mythologies are found to be
zootheistic among the lowest, physitheistic among the highest, and a
great number of tribes are found in a transition state, for zootheism
is found to be a characteristic of savagery, and physitheism of bar-
barism, using the terms as they have been defined by Morgan. The
supreme gods of this stage are animals. The savage is intimately
associated with animals. " From them he obtains the larger part of
his clothing, and much of his food, and he carefully studies their habits
and finds many wonderful things. Their knowledge and skill and
power appear to him to be superior to his own. He sees the mountain-
sheep fleet among the crags, the eagle soaring in the heavens, the
humming-bird poised over its blossom-cup of nectar, the serpents swift
without legs, the salmon scaling the rapids, the spider weaving its
gossamer web, the ant building a play-house mountain — in all animal
nature he sees things too wonderful for him, and from admiration he
grows to adoration, and the animals become his gods." *

Ancientism plays an important part in this zootheism. It is not
the animals of to-day whom the Indians worship, but their progenitors
— their prototypes. The wolf of to-day is a howling pest, but that
wolf's ancestor— the first of the line — was a god. The individuals of
every species are supposed to have descended from an ancient being —

* Vide "Outlines of the Philosophy of the North American Indians," by J. W.
Powell. Read before the American Geographical Society at Chickering Hall, December
29, 1876.

MYTHOLOGIC PHILOSOPHY. 63

a progenitor of the race ; and so they have a grizzly-bear-god, an eagle-
god, a rattlesnake-god, a trout-god, a spider-god — a god for every
species and variety of animal.

By these animal-gods all things were established. The heavenly
bodies were created and their ways appointed, and when the powers
and phenomena of nature are personified, the personages are beasts,
and all human institutions also were established by the ancient animal-
gods.

The ancient animals of any philosophy of this stage are found to
constitute a clan or gens — a body of relatives, or coyisangidnii, with
grandfathers, fathers, sons, and brothers. In Ute theism, the ancient
Togoav, the first rattlesnake, is the grandfather, and all the animal-
gods are assigned to their relationships. Grandfather Togoav, the
wise, was the chief of the council, but Shinauav, the ancient wolf,
was the chief of the clan.

There were many other clans and tribes of ancient gods with
whom these supreme gods had dealings, of which hereafter ; and,
finally, each of these ancient gods became the progenitor of a new
tribe, so that we have a tribe of bears, a tribe of eagles, a tribe of rat-
tlesnakes, a tribe of spiders, and many other tribes, as we have tribes
of Utes, tribes of Sioux, tribes of ISTavajos : and in that philosophy
tribes of animals are considered to be coordinate with tribes of men.
All of these gods have invisible duplicates — spirits — and they have
often visited the earth. All of the wonderful things seen in nature
are done by the animal-gods. That elder life was a magic life ; but
the descendants of the gods are degenerate. Now and then as a medi-
cine-man by practicing sorcery can perform great feats, so now and
then there is a medicine-bear, a medicine-wolf, or a medicine-snake
that can work magic.

On winter nights, the Indians gather about the camp-fire, and then
the doings of the gods are recounted in many a mythic tale. I have
heard the venerable and impassioned orator on the camp-meeting
stand rehearse the story of the crucifixion, and have seen the thou-
sands gathered there weep in contemplation of the story of divine
suffering, and heard their shouts roll down the forest aisles as they
gave vent to their joy at the contemplation of redemption. But the
scene was not a whit more dramatic than another I have witnessed in
an evergreen forest of the Rocky Mountain region, where a tribe was
gathered under the great pines, and the temple of light from the blaz-
ing fire was walled by the darkness of midnight, and in the midst of
the temple stood the wise old man telling in simple savage language
the story of Tawats, when he conquered the sun and established the
seasons and the days. In that pre-Columbian time, before the advent
of white men, all the Indian tribes of North America gathered on
winter nights by the shores of the seas whei-e the tides beat in solemn
rhythm, by the shores of the great lakes, where the waves dashed

64 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

against frozen beaches, and by the banks of the rivers flowing ever in
solenan mystery — each in its own temple of illumined space — and lis-
tened to the story of its own supreme gods, the ancients of time.

Religion, in this stage of theism, is sorcery. Incantation, dancing,
fasting, bodily torture, and ecstacism are practiced. Every tribe has
its potion or vegetable drug, by which the ecstatic state is produced,
and their venerable medicine-men see visions and dream dreams. No
enterprise is undertaken without consulting the gods, and no evil
impends but they seek to propitiate the gods. All daily life, to the
minutest particular, is religious. This stage of religion is character-
ized by fetichism. Every Indian is provided with his charm or fetich,
revealed to him in some awful hour of ecstasy produced by fasting,
or feasting, or drunkenness, and that fetich he carries with him to
bring good luck, in love or in combat, in the hunt or on the journey.
He carries a fetich suspended to his neck, he ties a fetich to his bow,
he buries a fetich under his tent, he places a fetich under his pillow of
wild-cat skins, he prays to his fetich, he praises it, or chides it ; if
successful, his fetich receives the glory; if he fail, his fetich is disgraced.
These fetiches may be fragments of bone or shell, the tips of the tails
of animals, the claws of birds or beasts, perhaps dried hearts of little
warblers, shards of beetles, leaves powdered and held in bags, or crys-
tals from the rocks — anything curious may become a fetich. Fetich-
ism, then, is a religious means, not a philosophic or mythologic state.
Such are the supreme gods of the savage, and such the institutions
which belong to their theism. But they have many other inferior
gods. Mountains, hills, valleys, and great rocks have their own spe-
cial deities — invisible spirits — and lakes, rivers, and springs are the
homes of spirits. But all these have animal forms when in proper
persons. Yet some of the medicine-spirits can transform themselves,
and work magic as do medicine-men. The heavenly bodies are either
created personages or ancient men or animals translated to the sky.
And, last, we find that ancestors are worshiped as gods.

Among all the tribes of North America, with which we are ac-
quainted, tutelarism prevails. Every tribe and every clan has its own
protecting god, and every individual has his " my god." It is a curi-
ous fact that every Indian seeks to conceal the knowledge of his " my
god " from all other persons, for he fears that, if his enemy should
know of his tutelar deity, he might by extraordinary magic succeed in
estranging him, and be able to compass his destruction through his
own god.

In this summary characterization of zootheism, I have necessarily
systematized my statements. This, of course, could not be done by
the savage himself. He could give you its particulars, but could not
group those particulars in any logical way. He does not recognize
any system, but talks indiscriminately, now of one, now of another
god, and with him the whole theory as a system is vague and shad-

MYTHOLOGIC PHILOSOPHY. 65

owy, but its particulars are vividly before bis mind, and tbe certainty
witb wbicb be entertains bis opinions leaves no room to doubt bis
sincerity.

But tbere is yet anotber jDbase of tbeism discovered. Sometimes
a particular mountain, or bill, or some great rock, some waterfall,
some lake, or some spring receives special worsbip, and is itself be-
lieved to be a deity. Tbis seems to be a relic of becastotheism.
Feticbism, also, seems to bave come from tbat lower grade, and all
tbe minor deities, tbe spii'its of mountains and bills and forests, seem
to bave been derived from tbat same stage, but witb tbis development,
tbat tbe tbings tbemselves are not worsbiped, but tbeir essential
spirits.

From zoutbeism, as described, to pbysitbeism tbe way is long.
Gradually, in tbe progress of pbilosopby, animal-gods are detbroned
and become inferior gods or are forgotten ; and gradually tbe gods of
tbe firmament — tbe sun, tbe moon, tbe stars — are advanced to suprem-
acy : tbe clouds, tbe storms, tbe winds, day and nigbt, dawn and gloam-
ing, tbe sky, the eartb, tbe sea, and all tbe various pbases of nature
perceived by tbe barbaric mind, are personified and deified and exalted
to a supremacy coordinate witb tbe firmament gods ; and all tbe gods
of tbe lower stage tbat remain — animals, demons, and all men — be-
long to inferior tribes. Tbe gods of tbe sky — tbe sbining ones, tbose
tbat soar on brigbt wings, tbose tbat are clotbed in gorgeous colors,
tbose tbat came from we know not wbere, tbose tbat vanisb to tbe
unknown — ai'e tbe supreme gods. We always find tbese gods organ-
ized in great tribes, witb migbty cbieftains wbo figbt in great combats
or lead tbeir bosts in battle, and return witb much booty. Sucb is tbe
tbeism of ancient Mexico, sucb tbe tbeism of tbe Nortbland, and sucb
tbe tbeism discovered among tbe ancient Aryans.

From tbis stage to psycbotbeism tbe way is long, for evolution is
slow. Gradually men come to differentiate more carefully between
good and evil, and tbe etbic character of tbeir gods becomes tbe sub-
ject of consideration, and tbe good gods grow in virtue, and tbe bad
gods grow in vice. Tbeir identity witb physical objects and phenom-
ena is gradually lost. Tbe different phases or conditions of tbe same
object or phenomenon are severed, and each is personified. Tbe bad
gods are banished to underground homes, or live in concealment, from
which they issue on their expeditions of evil. Still, all powers exist
in tbese gods, and all tbings were established by them. With the
growth of their moral qualities no physical powers are lost, and the
spirits of the physical bodies and phenomena become demons, subor-
dinate to tbe great gods who preside over nature and human institu-
tions.

We find, also, that these superior gods are organized in societies,
I have said the Norse mythology was in a transition state from pbysi-
tbeism to psycbotbeism. The Asas, or gods, lived in Asgard, a

66 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

mythic communal village, with its Thing or Coimcil, the very coun-
terpart of the communal village of Iceland. Olympus was a Greek
city.

Still further in the study of mythologic philosophy we see that
more and more supremacy falls into the hands of the few, until mono-
theism is established on the plan of the empire. Then all of the in-
ferior deities whose characters are pure become ministering angels,
and the inferior deities whose characters are evil become devils, and
the differentiation of good and evil is perfected in the gulf between
heaven and hell. In all this time from zootheism to monotheism,
ancientism becomes more ancient, and the times and dynasties are
multiplied. Spiritism is more clearly defined, and sj)irits become
eternal ; mythologic tales are codified, and sacred books are written ;
divination for the result of amorous intrigue has become the prophecy
of immortality, and thaumaturgics is formulated as the omnipotent,
the omnipresent, and the infinite.

Time has failed me to tell of the evolution of idolatry from fetich-
ism, priestcraft from sorcery, and of their overthrow by the doctrines
that were uttered by that voice on the Mount. Religion, that was
fetichism and ecstacism and sorcery, is now the yearning for some-
thing better, something purer, and the means by which this highest
state for humanity may be reached, the ideal worship of the highest
monotheism, is "in spirit and in truth." The steps are long from
Shinauav, the ancient of wolves, by Zeus, the ancient of skies, to
Jehovah, the "ancient of days."

Comparative theology furnishes grand illustrations of the pro-
cesses of evolution. It presents a multiplicity of events occurring in
orderly succession in obedience to the laws of adaptation, heredity,
and survival of the fittest, and, in passing from the lower to the higher
state, it demonstrates the fundamental law of progress, that evolution
is from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous by successive differen-
tiations and integrations.

THE EYOLUTION OF A NEW SENSE.

By WILLIAM A. EDDY.

WE find that the degrees of perception in people vary. In other
words, one may receive more impressions than another, so that
we measure the extent of a person's life by the number of objects or
ideas that produce a lasting effect and modify the disposition or mental
tendency. This suggests a comparison of the senses in different per-
sons. Then arises the general question of the possible evolution of
new powers, for with a wider meaning we may term the telegraph,
the i^rinting-press, and particularly the telescope, approximations to

THE EVOLUTION OF A NEW SENSE. 67

what we may consider new senses. The subject may be thus carried
to the higher point concerning the increase of all the mental powers.

In " our little life . . . roimded with a sleep," we are cut off by
invisible barriers from even a comj)rehension of the peculiar tastes for
enjoyment manifested by some others. It is difficult to understand
Livingston's contentment during a life of exile and exposure. There
was in him an inextinguishable mental tendency which appeared in his
strange delight in conquering difficulties. But we need not cite an
example from the other hemisphere. We see this bias or mental mo-
mentum (if a mechanical phrase be allowable in affairs of the mind)
all around us. It is true the force is not always effective, but this does
not invalidate the reality of this peculiar tendency, which too often
shows in how singularly narrow a manner the mental powers act. The
minds of men are like circles which allow elongation in a given direc-
tion, but at the expense of another part of the circle which contracts
in a corresponding degree. The addition of a sixth sense would result
in a resource which would not lessen the effectiveness of other facul-
ties by a withdrawal of force to supply the new demand.

That we are mentally inadequate appears in our ever-recurring
errors. This narrowness of view is also illustrated by the misunder-
standings that arise between ideal and practical men. Some persons
who are devoted exclusively to every-day affairs can not easily com-
prehend how others can look at a printed page and then form imaginary
images or be greatly interested in fiction. On the other hand, the
imaginative reader is forced to admit the importance of practical peo-
ple, yet he can not see why they take pleasure in trade, which to the
reader of intense literary taste involves necessary monotony — like that
of a mill at which tramps in England were forced to grind before they
could obtain lodging. The ideal and the practical are apparently at
opposite poles, yet the general result conforms to the law of liquids
in hydraulics : a proper balance is maintained in spite of particular
variations. But this intense progressive action, or bias, on one side
or the other, should be distinguished from the primary power which
would be added were another subjective connection opened with the
objective world. The perceptions of a new sense would be positive,
like those of our present senses, and would in no manner seem the
result of effort or of the skill that comes by practice.

Mr. Gladstone, in an article contributed to the " Nineteenth Cen-
tury," tried to demonstrate theoretically that the perception of color
among the ancients was especially defective. In support of this
he cited numerous passages from Homer as showing that the great
Greek poet could not distinguish fine shades of color. After noticing
Homer's comparison of the objects in nature with the colors of ani-
mals, he argues that a person with the average modern eye for the
perception of color would not have made such comparisons without
being aware of their inaccuracy. But he does not maintain that every-

68 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

body in Homer's time was color-blind. He simply quotes many pas-
sages from Greek literature as supporting his position that, we will
say, where one person is color-blind now, nine were color-blind then.
Looked at hastily, this question of color seems of small importance.
But let us look carefully. Is it not startling to think that the primary
senses may be widening? It would follow, if additional evidence
should be found to sustain Mr. Gladstone's theory, that the highly
civilized portions of the human race are capable of perceiving finer
shades of color, owing to a more delicate material development of the
sense of sight. Once admit the development of one of the senses to
be a demonstrated process, and the door is opened to tremendous con-
sequences and possibilities of power, and consequently to a Avider scope
for the soul in the coming generations of men. For comprehension of
the methods of Nature inevitably results in that form of control which
opens the way to further perceptions.

In some respects the development of the senses is not quite as in-
conceivable as it may at first appear. The following analogies can
hardly be considered sufiiciently connected by evidence to be j^roperly
called theories, yet they are only relatively visionary. For example,
imagine that we should acquire the power to become aware of the
smallest change of material particles many miles away. Tait and Stew-
art have ingeniously argued that, according to the law of attraction,
the slightest vibration or change of particles in the human brain during
thought infinitesimally influences the remotest fixed star. This does
not appear wildly theoretical, because it is mathematically demon-
strable to the imagination. The visionary theory is in supposing
that owing to corresponding vibrations of nerve-fiber we would be
definitely conscious of distant material changes. This would result
in a form of universal consciousness and consequent confusion, un-
less the perception were specialized in the form of a concentrated
effort. The singular analogy is that the effect arising from the mu-
tually attractive vibrations of particles would resemble the process
by which sound reaches us — an accordance of the vibration of the
ear-drum with that of the air. George Henry Lewes has shown that
" the physiologist can lawfully speak of unconscious sensations as
the physicist can speak of invisible rays of light — meaning those rays
which are of a different order of undiilation from the visible rays,
and which may become visible when the susceptibility of the retina
is exalted." This is in part applicable to Mr. Gladstone's theory of
the development of the perception of color. It is believed that the
heat-rays of the sun, largely consisting of what are called the dark
rays, do not produce a luminous effect, simply because the vibra-
tions of the nerve-substance of the retina are not in unison with the
invisible ray. In the same way the perception of color may involve
a special series of vibrations absent in color-blind persons. Then
arises the question here noticed, as to whether the sensation of color

THE EVOLUTION OF A NEW SENSE. 69

is owing to individual education, or is the result of slow and contin-
uous physiological evolution during thousands of years. Owing to
lack of evidence the question seems at present unanswerable. But it
is obvious that our present senses might reveal more to us, because we
are inferior to many animals in detecting objects by smell, hearing, or
sight. Our comparative dullness is apparently due to the fact that
there is with us no incessantly impending danger, and in consequence
some of these senses are not as often excited.

It is unquestionably our wish that we could have greater powers
of discernment. The telegraph and printing-press are indications of
this longing for a wider life. Science has taught us that we perceive
only an infinitesimal part of the objective world and of its processes.
The theoretical addition of another sense does not satisfy us. It
would seem only a new working- wheel of the mechanism. In fact,
greatly magnified powers of perception without the assistance of in-
struments seem possible only through slow methods of development.
If a sixth sense should confer upon us with our present range of fac-
ulties the power to be everywhere at once, we would be reduced to a
state of confusion equivalent to the nullification of consciousness. The
attempt to conceive it results in absurd contradictions. It is precisely
this condition of omnipresence which is vaguely imagined as possible
in clairvoyance. One of the difficulties in regard to accepting clair-
voyance as an indication of a sixth sense is that the effect arises from
a diseased condition of the sensibility. The result is unaccountable,
but at the same time unwholesome. It is at variance with the steadily
increasing scientific knowledge of our day in the fact that its phenom-
ena evade verification or reduction to a consistent law of action. Men
have been learning for the past five thousand years or more that phys-
ical or mental work and obedience to natural law increase the force
and effectiveness of the individual and of his descendants. The geo-
logical discoveries of Huxley and Marsh, and the development of the
simplest forms of vegetable life, denote an irresistible evolutionary
sequence or working power in nature. It seems as necessary that
those animals with the greatest power of adaptation should survive
and express the later result, as that, to use Spinoza's geometrical illus-
tration, the sum of the angles of a triangle should equal two right
angles. And it is probable that a finer and higher grade of percep-
tions would not be altogether through the physiological development
of our present senses, because such senses imply an inevitable relation
or result from the action of the outer world ; but many such percep-
tions would be due to a greater command of material potencies — such
as that outlined in the possible extension of knowledge through the
telephone, the phonograph, or the liquefaction of all the gases.

Among the many singular and original ideas attributed to Edgar
A. Poe, was one to the effect that during a silence of about twenty
minutes it is possible to know an intimate friend's line of thought as

70 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

well as if the ideas had taken form in words. In order to be success-
ful, this would require a very intimate acquaintance with the friend's
habits of thought. In fact, we all try to interpret the thoughts of
others during silence, but we are generally wide of the mark, because
we do not know the peculiar law of association of ideas applicable to
each person. There is a general process by which one idea suggests
another in all minds, but there are also j^articular variations. Never-
theless, unless the person is on his guard, fully seventy-five per cent,
of his ideas will be known to any one who is accustomed to following
the thoughts of others. The first thoughts, which arise in the mind
automatically, are limited in number, because the connection with
more remote ideas has not yet been made. It is probable that with
increased knowledge of the j^eculiar laws of mental action, great skill
will be shown in thus following the ideas of others, and it is clear that
such a science of mind-reading would be built upon metaphysical data,
just as mathematical data are now necessary factors in estimating the
distance and motion of a planet. In some respects the limit of mental
penetration may not be as absolute as we imagine. It is certainly not
advisable to set limits like those astronomers who claimed that they had
discovered the center around which the visible universe is revolving
in a mighty orbit. It was found that this so-called center was describ-
ing a vast arc of a circle around another center inconceivably distant.
The discoveries of the past indicate that others as important are to be
made. The horizon recedes, revealing new objects.

In the light of past discoveries it seems highly improbable that so
important a physiological gift as a sixth sense could come to us sud-
denly and mysteriously. This is not the manner in which Nature
works. Everything is paid for, and our advantages come only from
work and its accompanying natural growth, or by the hereditary trans-
mission of a fortunate balance of powers in a line of ancestors. The
first impulse arises from the necessity of work, and from the actions of
events which stimulate the ingenuity. The increased activity is ac-
companied by an increase of fiber or power of continuance. Tyndall
has admirably illustrated the fact that this law of mental supply and
demand applies with precision to the processes of nature : " No parti-
cle of vapor was formed and lifted without being paid for in solar
heat. There is nothing gratuitous in physical nature, no gain with-
out equivalent expenditure." It is our tendency to look for theatrical
or imposing manifestations of human power not paid for by work, and
when a result appears mysterious owing to our ignorance of its source,
we too often settle the difficulty in accordance with a convenient and
visionary theory. In this way we hear a coincidence called a prophetic
dream. No one has adequately estimated the enormous number of
dreams that drift through the mind during a lifetime, and when a
dream coincides in a measure with an event which takes place long
afterward, the assumption then is that some dreams are of a pro-

WffV BO SPRINGS AND WELLS OVERFLOW ? 71

phetic nature. It seems clear that the only element of prophecy is due
to a coincidence or similarity between the dream and the event. The
minute particulars missing from the dream will be filled in by the
imagination almost unconsciously, because the events of the dream
and the real events become confused in the recollection.

All this does not divest the unknown of its mysterious possibili-
ties. But there is a striking contrast between the so-called unaccount-
able results of clairvoyance and mesmerism, in their relation to tran-
scendental knowledge, and the theories of science founded upon verified
experiments. The obscurity or apparent mystery of the scientific
theory steadily decreases with each addition of evidence, until the
astonishing possibility "hardens into a fact." The clairvoyant theory
not only evades all attempts to analyze it, but utterly fails in regard
to any valuable results which could serve as starting-points for future
discovery. The coming fact at once seems " reasonable and real,"
and does not rest upon the mere belief of one person. It can be veri-
fied from more than one point of view, and carries with it the convinc-
ing force of an axiom. Emerson, in his lecture in the Old South
Church, Boston, on February 24, 1878, finely said, "The gracious
lesson taught by science to this country is, that the history of nature
from first to last is incessant advance from less to more, from rude to
finer organization, the globe of matter thus conspiring with the prin-
ciple of undying hope in man."

We must look to the onward march of progressive development
for new power, and not to the mysterious and so far valueless results
of clairvoyance, with its examples of trickery or nervous organisms
thrown out of balance. There is more of the spiritual element in a
beautiful sunset than in the table-rapping and other dramatic effects
of animal magnetism or jugglery.

WHY DO SPRINGS AXD WELLS OVERFLOW?

By nelson W. GREEN.

SINCE water tends to find a level, we infer that flowing water is
acting in harmony with this natural law, unless it be put in motion
by some equivalent force. The overflowing of wells and springs has
hitherto been accounted for by scientists only upon the supjiosed
existence of hydrostatic pressure. But a more careful investigation
seems to justify the conclusion that, while in exceptional cases this
may occur, yet as a proposition it is fallacious, and it will be the aim
06 the following discussion to expose the fallacy.

In 1844 Rev. William Buckland, Professor of Geology at Oxford,

72 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

England, was invited, on account of his learning and character, to give
an address, in which he made the following statements : * " Wells
sunk to a greater depth through stratified rocks often afford large
supplies, but rarely rise to the surface ; and in cases where they do
so they are called artesian wells, from the circumstance of such arti-
ficial flowing wells being common in Artois (France). In all these
cases [among which the Professor included the flowing wells at Gre-
nelle, near Paris] the water was forced up by hydrostatic pressure to
various distances from the surface. At Brentford, England, there
were many wells that continually overflowed their orifice, which is a
few feet only above the Thames. In the London wells the water rises
to a less level than in those at Brentford."

By hydrostatic pressure, the Professor, of course, means a head,
i. e., that the water flowed to these wells from a higher point. If this
rise were due to hydrostatic pressure, why did the water rise to a lower
level at London than at Brentford among the hills? Professor Buck-
land continues : " In November, 1840, notice was given of an applica-
tion to Parliament to obtain a new supply of water for London from
wells and water- works to be made at Wetf ord in the chalk-hills. A
company had been proposed to effect this object, which would probably
have been carried out, had not Mr. Clutterbuck demonstrated, by a
long-continued series of measurements of the water in the chalk-hills
of Hertfordshire, near Wetford, that every drop of water taken from
that neighborhood would have been abstracted from the summer and
autumn supplies of the river Coin and would have robbed the jDropri-
etors of more than thirty mills upon this river and its tributaries, and
the owners of adjacent water-meadows, of rights they had had from
time immemorial. One intelligent manufacturer, Mr. Dickinson, had,
during many years, found arithmetical evidence that the quantity of
summer water in the river Coin varied with the rain in the preceding
winter. He could always tell, at the end of February or March, what
water there would be in the following eight or nine months ; and he
regulated the contracts he made in every spring, for paper to be deliv-
ered in the summer and autumn, by the quantity of water in his win-
ter rain-gauge. This rain-gauge, the invention of Dalton, being buried
three feet below the surface, showed that except in December, Jan-
uary, and February, rain-water rarely descended more than three feet
below the soil, so as to add anything to the supply that sinks into the
earth to issue during summer, and from springs and rivers; and, when-
ever Mr. Dickinson found by this instrument that but little rain had
fallen in the three months of winter, he proportionally limited his con-
tracts for the following summer and autumn, thus proving the practical
advantage of inductions from j^hilosophy."

The following abstract from Professor Buckland's speech may also
be in order : " As persons who have no experience in these subjects
* Copied into vol. iii., p. VO, of " Littell's Living Age," from the " Edinburgh Journal."

WHY DO SPEnYGS AND WELLS OVERFLOW? ji

may be surprised at the knowledge geologists profess to have acquired
respecting the internal structure of the earth, he (the Professor) would
endeavor to confirm the above theoretical explanation of the origin
and supply of springs by appealing to practical proofs in the proceed-
ings of water companies and well-diggers, and in the pounds, shillings,
and pence in the ledgers of manufacturers." It certainly must be a
matter of " surprise " to most people that, while the rain-water rarely
sank deeper than three feet into the soil, it could yet influence the
water-supply to be drawn from deep wells in the earth, so much as to
draw upon the water-supply of the river Coin, which like that of all
rivers is more or less dependent upon surface influences in addition to
overflowing springs. Wells to supply London, the Professor thinks,
must not be utilized to draw water from a depth of thirty or forty feet
because it would cut off the supply due to the rains Mdiich do not sink
deeper than three feet ! It should have been the easiest possible thing
to supply London without in any way drawing upon the supply of the
river Coin, since the river and the wells draw from different sources.
The learned Professor had no idea of the existence of any force in the
premises other than hydrostatic pressure, and yet he proceeds in the
next paragraph to give important evidence of some other force :

" In Germany, Mi-. Buckmann, of Heilbronn, published in 1835 an
octavo volume on artesian wells in the valley of the Necker, from
which it appeared that there were manufactures in Wurtemberg near
Constadt where the mills were kept in work during the severest cold
of winter by means of the warm water from artesian wells which
overflowed into the mill-ponds and prevented them from freezing. And
at Heilbronn, also, there were persons who saved the expense of fuel
by conducting artesian warm water in pipes through their houses and
greenhouses. . . . Let those who doubt go to Grenelle and see the
majestic column of warm water from the philosophically discovered
fountain rising thirty feet above the surface, at the exact temperature
foretold by Arago, and learn the correctness and value of practical
deductions from geology applied to the useful purposes of life."

From which quotations it appears that the Professor is in a remark-
able position. At Wetford these wells could not be utilized because the
river-supply of the Coin would be exhausted ; but in Germany they
were a new and important source of supply to the rivers themselves.
Imagine the " majestic column " at Grenelle rising thirty feet high and
the overflow in the other cases being due to hydrostatic pressure — i. e.,
due to the fact that all these immense floods were the result of a flow
from some other higher bodies of water. Why did it not occur to
Professor Bucklarid that, however high and abundant the source, such
drains must of necessity have sooner or later exhausted the supply, if
no equivalent streams were flowing into that also ? But suppose this
to be so, whence could come the higher head to flow into and supply
that in turn ? Carry this on until a flow is secured from the high-

74 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

est land on the earth, and then whence comes the flow to supply that ?
The mere statement of the case proves the existence of some force in
nature other than hydrostatic pressure by which these vast bodies of
water are driven to the surface. This hydrostatic pressure Pro-
fessor Buckland thus illustrates and explains : " The portions of a
water-logged, porous bed between two beds of clay may be illustrated
by a tea-saucer placed within another tea-saucer, and having the nar-
row space between filled with sand and water. If a hole were drilled
through the bottom of the upper saucer and a quill or small pipe fixed
vertically in the hole, water would rise in the pipe to the level at
which it stands within the margin of the lower saucer, its rise being
caused by the same hydrostatic pressure that raised the water in the
well at Southampton, coming from subterranean sheets of the fluid
which exists in the fissured chalk-beds of the Hampshire basin, as
they do also in the chalk under the basin of London."

Should these exceptional and assumed conditions occur in nature,
the result would be substantially as indicated ; but, as will be seen at
a glance, the flow from a well sunk under such circumstances would be
limited to the amount of water between the two saucers, and this will
be limited to the quantity of rainfall. Since flowing wells and springs
are seldom if ever thus limited, we infer that the case supposed does
not occur. But whether it does or not is of no importance, since it in
no sense satisfies the conditions of the "majestic column" at Grenelle,
and other cases where the flow is perpetual. We must, therefore, look
for some other force to explain this class of phenomena. Professor
Faraday followed Professor Buckland's lead six years later. M. Gar-
nier, the celebrated French engineer, whose essay in 1822 upon this
subject took the governmental prize, also takes this position ; as does
Dr. Halley. This theory we combat not merely from speculative mo-
tives, but in the interest of public health.

Various other theories have been advanced besides hydrostatic
pressure. Aristotle and Seneca suggested the central heat of the
earth. This theory has been more fully and scientifically stated by
E. S. Chapin, in his work on gravity. But this is not the force that
we seek. It is inadequate, as the following simple experiment shows :
If a moderately flowing spring is surrounded by an air-tight iuclosure
which shall contract, and terminate in a tube, and this tube be allowed
to have a discharge some distance beloAv the surface of the water in
the spring before its inclosure, it will be found that the water-flow
from the spring has been greatly increased, though no change of tem-
perature has occurred. Again, it has been suggested that the over-
flow of springs was due to capillary action ; but this 'can hardly need a
serious consideration in view of the amount and character of those
overflows.

There are three classes of water to be taken into account in this
discussion : 1. The surface waters mainly influenced by rainfalls ; 2.

WHY DO SFRI.VGS AXD WELLS OVERFLOW ? 75

Subterranean waters, seldom if ever influenced by rains ; 3. A class
of waters coming from both of these sources. This discussion relates
mainly to the second class. But what are the facts as to the flow of
water in this class ? Arago says of the well at Grenelle, 1,800 feet
deep, " The water to suj^ply it may have come from 40, 80, or 100
miles." There is a " large and important spring called Pales's Hole
which issues permanently in quantities sufficient to run a mill at Otter-
bourne (England). . . . Springs of fresh water often rise even from
fissures at the bottom of the sea, and one near Chittagong was 100
miles distant from the land." " The artesian well at Tours rose with
a jet that sustained a cannon." " Chautauqua Lake rests like a jewel
in the crown of a high mountain-ridge. The basin is shallow, with not
more than 80 feet of water at the deepest points, and an average depth
of about 20 feet. The surrounding hills are low, 100 to 150 feet
higher than the water. Viewed from the hills near Jamestown, four
miles distant, the lake has the appearance of being lifted up above its
shores ; you seem to be looking up to a ' hanging lake,' and you Avonder
the M'hole concern does not fall over into some of the valleys close
around it. It is a wonder to the unpracticed observer where the water-
supply of Chautauqua Lake comes from. The lake nearly fills its own
valley. There is not a live stream emptying into it, save one, and that
would run through a six-inch pipe. Of course, it is supported like a
weary sleeper by the springs in its bed. These must be innumerable
to maintain a body of water 20 miles long and two miles wide. Where
the water is shallow you can plainly see these springs bubbling up from
the bottom of the lake. Their warmth cuts the ice out in large spots
in winter at points where they are most numerous. You see floating
in the lake tufts 'of water-grass, which have been uprooted from the
bottom by these under-currents." — (" New York Semi-\Veekly Trib-
xme," August 2, 1878.)

This lake is on the highest land in the State, west of the Catskill
Mountains, and yet it is but a vast overflowing spring from which
issues a large mill-stream. To account for this large flow from the top
of this elevated region by supposing it to fall from some other higher
elevation is absurd, since there is no such higher ground from which
it could flow Avithout being exhausted. The whole mountain-region of
northern Pennsylvania may be referred to as another good illustration
of high springs. At every step the traveler notices abundant streams
of the purest water, gushing sometimes from the very tops of moun-
tains, and it is in these thickly clustering springs that the great rivers
of that wild labyrinth of high ridges and deep valleys find their abun-
dant sources. Within sight of the main road which crosses the sum-
mit dividing the waters of the Alleghany River from those running
into the Genesee is to be seen a cluster of abundant streams which
unite and cross the highway — a noisy torrent — rejoicing in being
among the head- waters of the latter river, and the brightest product of

■je THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

overflowing springs. No possible head to this overflow could exist ;
and, in general, this class of springs flowing out of the mountain-tops
can not be materially influenced by the rainfall. There is no land
above them from which such torrents could flow in such constant abun-
dance. The White and Adirondack Mountains are also full of similar

" Scribner's Monthly " (vol. xi., p. 784) has a very interesting article
by Martin A. Howell, Jr., entitled " Is there a Subterranean Outlet to
the Upper Lake Region ? " While we are sorry to quarrel with Mr,
Howell as to his conclusions, we are very hajDpy to accept his facts.
He speculates upon the premise that, because " an area of some 400,000
square miles is drained by the tributaries of Lake Winnipeg alone,"
a certain amount of this accumulation of waters Avhich do not find an
exit " toward the Polar Sea and through the Mississippi Valley " may
pass by subterranean channels into Lakes Superior and Huron ; and he
says that "while Lakes Superior and Huron are supplied largely
through such subterranean channels on the one hand, they suffer se-
verely through losses by similar channels at some point in their vast
expanse." He show^s by a map the track of this supposed underground
current to be down the valley of the Illinois from Lake Superior to the
valley of the Mississij^pi. The facts he gives tend strongly to support
his novel theory of underground flow southward from the lakes, how-
ever it may be as to the amount of it. He gives no evidence that it
comes from the direction of Lake Winnipeg, but, on the contrary, the
balance of his evidence goes to prove that the Northern lakes are no-
thing more or less than great, overfloAving springs. " That there exist
channels of communication with some of these lakes," Mr. Howell
says, " has long been believed and admitted by many " ; and then,
having shown that Lake Superior at its surface is 600 feet above the
Atlantic and at its bottom 5T3, and Ontario to be 235 feet above, with
the same depth as Superior, he proceeds to make the following signifi-
cant statement, which is not at all conclusive as to the intercommuni-
cation between the lakes, but is unanswerable as proof that these lakes
are overflowing springs :

" And that a great subterranean influx into the upper lakes exists
there is little doubt, as a comparison of the discharge through the
mighty St. Lawrence with the limited supply from the country border-
ing on the upper lakes clearly demonstrates, leaving the problem to be
settled in the mind as to where this volume does come from in its
course to the ocean. Again, the discharge through the St. Lawrence
is equal to double the volume poured into Ontario through the Ni-
agara, or into Erie through the St, Clair ; suggesting that from the
shallowness of Lake Erie and the great depth of Superior and Huron a
subterranean channel may connect Superior and Huron with Ontario,
giving to the latter, through this source, to be discharged by the St.
Lawrence, a greater volume than is given through St, Clair, It is also

WHY DO SPEIXGS AND WELLS OVERFLOW? jj

a well-demonstrated fact that the volume of water escaping from the
lakes through the mighty St. Lawrence is far greater than the amount
discharged from the upper lakes into Ontario by the proper channels —
the St. Clair and Niagara ; and it is also well settled that the supply
of Lake Erie from St. Clair is about equaled by its discharge through
the Niagara ; showing that it receives from no subterranean source
any perceptible surplus of water. And this is generally attributed to
its comparative shallowness as compared to the greater depth of Su-
perior, Huron, and Ontario " — from Avhich it follows that the immense
difference between the outflow and the inflow of Ontario is due to its
greater depth, thus making it a possible deep spring ; and that this
applies also to the other deep lakes ; and that Superior, Huron, and On-
tario, and possibly Michigan, are overflowing springs of subterranean
water. The conclusion is therefore inevitable that this great overflow
must be accounted for upon some other hypothesis than that of hy-
draulic pressure, since there is no higher land which could furnish an
adequate supply. Indeed, if we suppose all the land on the continent
which is higher than Lake Superior to be but shells tilled with water,
the difference between the outflow and inflow of Ontario would ex-
haust the supply in a short time. But the subterranean supply is
known to be constant, and has always been so. But Mr. Howell sup-
poses this vast surplus in Ontario to come through a subterranean
channel, connecting it with Superior. And here, again, we must thank
Mr. Howell for his facts. The surface of Superior is, he says, 600
feet above the sea, and Ontario but 235 above. Therefore, the differ-
ence of level between the two is 365 feet. If this channel exists as
supposed, the surfaces of these lakes would find a common level, in-
stead of a difference of 365 feet !

Mr. Howell, in presenting the proof that there is a great under-
flow from Superior southward under the valley of the Illinois River,
says : " And here on this bank of the old Illinois, oi:)posite the junc-
tion of the Fox River, are the celebrated Mineral Springs. . . . These
waters are somewhat similar to the waters of Saratoga County, New
York," which certainly proves that they do not come from Superior,
the waters of which are not of this class. The editor of " Scribner's
Monthly " naively adds this note : " Whether the Great Lakes are the
true reservoirs from which our Northern wells, springs, and subterra-
nean streams receive their constant supply of water, is a question of
suflicient interest and significance to merit a thoughtful consideration.
The data upon which the advocates of this theory found their conclu-
sions are manifold and forcible, and, though there may be breaks in
the line of evidence, the facts as now established would seem to favor
the views which the author of this paper now proposes to define and
defend." While Mr. Howell jiresents strong evidence of a possible
underflow from Superior southward, he has hardly claimed that the gen-
eral supply of the " Northern wells, springs, and subterranean streams,"

78 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

all comes from the Northern lakes. A hundred facts are at hand
which prove the contrary, even in the vicinity of the lakes. Among
these are the magnetic wells at Three Rivers and other places in
Michigan and other States. Certainly, Chautauqua, in New York,
which has been shown to be but a large overflowing spring, does not
draw its supply from these lakes, as its surface is many feet above
even that of Superior, the highest of the four Northern lakes.

At different times irregular tidal influences have been observed on
these lakes, an example of which is given in this news-note printed in
the " Springfield Republican," June 26, 1876 : " The water in the
canal at Sault Ste. -Marie, Michigan, began rising about ten o'clock Fri-
day morning without any apparent cause, and reached a greater height
than has been known for many years. Its variation was four feet nine
inches in one hour and twenty minutes." All this without apparent
cause. Continuous western winds would have been an " apparent
cause," but this did not exist. This and other irregular tidal influ-
ences on these lakes are in harmony with the supposed internal force
for which we seek.

The following is also well authenticated : " Silver Springs, one of
Florida's curiosities, is a subterranean river bubbling up into a basin
nearly 100 feet deep and an acre in extent, which sends out a stream
60 to 100 feet wide to the Ocklawaha River six miles distant. To this
natural inland port I'un three streams from St. John's, and in the basin
the fish and everything on the bottom can be seen through the crystal
waters." Here is a case for which no adequate cause recognized by
scientists can with certainty account. A singular case occurs on the
shore of the Gulf of Mexico, opposite the town of Alvarado. A ridge
of sand has formed on the beach by the action of the wind. It is
Avithin memory that, before this ridge formation, " a fresh-water spring-
was known to exist at its northern extremity, which was then but a
few feet in height. The spring is there still, though the ridge is
twenty feet in height, the water rising to the top of the ridge."

But instances need not be multiplied. The ordinary observer will
recall the common fact that the highest land is universally best sup-
plied with flowing springs, and that these overflows can not be ac-
counted for on the supposition of the fall of waters from higher grounds,
since such higher grounds do not adequately exist. " The cataract issu-
ing from the Himalayas, or as it is sometimes called Roodroo, is the
source of the river Jumna — a rapid and lai-ge river ; and in fact, many
of the largest rivers of the world proceed immediately from moun-
tains and lakes that are formed from cataracts." Thus the Ganges,
Nile, Indus, Senegal, Rhine, Rhone, Vistula, Elbe, Loire, Guadiana, Po,
Adige, Swale, Tay, Severn, Don, Monongahela, Platte, Missouri, and
numerous others have their sources directly in mountains, and many
of these " receive no increase from tributary streams, but issue with
such astonishinir abundance from rocks as to overflow and fertilize the

I

war BO sPIiI^^GS and wells overflow? 79

countries through which they pass." This has been more than con-
firmed by the discoveries of Dr. Livingstone and Mr. Stanley in the
heart of Africa, where some of the greatest rivers of the world flow
out of the highest part of the African Continent. And in this con-
nection the important element of the rainfall is not ignored. These
countries are subject to long and weary droughts. But, while the
volume of these great rivers is sensibly affected by the rain and the
want of it, they continue to flow within their banks, subject to l»ss by
absorption and evaporation — great and navigable rivers, throughout
the longest dry season ; and the Nile has no tributaries for five hun-
dred miles of its course.

And, lastly, from the highest mountains in the world — the Hima-
layas— out of their highest points, great cataracts and streams have
poured and still do pour, with an abundance that not only is astonish-
ing, but that wovdd exhaust any possible reservoirs at their extreme tops.
Since this is the highest land of the Avorld, no such higher source is
possible. Hence the conclusion is inevitable that some force not yet
identified exists to which these great overflows are due. It should be
remembered that up to this time it is generally held, to use the words
of M. Garnier, that "unless there be a reservoir higher than the sur-
face whence we intend to bore, we can not hope to obtain an over-
flowing fountain." And, as if conscious that there might be some mis-
take about this theory, he says further that gases may force water up,
by which he means to suggest a cause other than hydrostatic pressure.
But the experiment which may be seen any day at the gas-works will
show that gases do force water down when both are inclosed by a
common receiver. There is no conceivable situation in which gases
could be expected to force subterranean water in a direction opposed
to gravity in such quantities as to satisfy the conditions.

Is it possible, then, to point out any other force in nature which
not only may, but which positively must, force waters out of springs at
high elevations ?

Let a, a, a, be a great circle of the earth attained by passing a plane
through the earth's center C, perpendicular to its axis, and I, h, b, the
circle cut by the same plane through the inner surface of the earth's
supposed crust. In order to obtain room in the figure for illustration,
this section is exaggerated. Let the line A B represent the force of
gravity, and A E the centrifugal force, at the point A, which will
operate in the direction of the tangent A G. These two forces, for the
purposes of this discussion, may be assumed to be equal, as the ques-
tion of their relative intensities does not enter into the problem. Erect
upon the line A B the square A B D E, and draw the diagonal A D
produced to F. By a well-known law we shall have A D represent-
ing the resultant of the forces A B and A E — that is, the line A D
will represent the direction A F, and the intensity of the resultant of
the force of gravity and the centrifugal force, acting at tlie point A.

So

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

It will be observed that since the diagonal either of a square or
of a parallelogram is longer than either of its sides, the resultant, A D,
will have a greater intensity than gravity represented by A B. Now,
suiDpose the point A' to be some point inside the earth's crust, and some

distance from the surface, and suppose also that it is a particle of
water in a body of water imprisoned by surrounding rocks. This par-
ticle will be acted upon by a continual impulse to raove in the direc-
tion A' F', with an intensity represented by A' D'. This will be true
of every other water-particle in the imprisoned body of water.

If, now, in an hermetically sealed vessel of water a set-screw is
turned and pressed upon the water inside until the resistance to it is
equal to one pound, that one-pound pressure will be duplicated upon
every other equal space of the vessel : and thus, if the end of the screw
has one square inch of surface, every square inch of the inside of the
vessel M'ill feel a pressure of one pound. Exactly this Avill occur in
the case of the water imprisoned in the rocks. The resultant of the
two natural forces, centripetal and centrifugal, will be duplicated upon

WBT BO SPEnVGS AXD WELLS OVERFLOW? 81

every point of the inside surface of the supposed rock-prison. The in-
tensity of this resultant will be represented by the aggregation of all
the resultants of all the particles of water. Now, suppose a small open-
ing to be made in this rock-prison. Immediately, the water will be
forced out with a velocity equal to the influence of these aggregated
resultants modified by the laws of friction, and this velocity will not
be at all influenced by the direction of the original impulses given to
the water-particles. Although the direction of the resultant itself is
say 45° from the direction of the force of gravity, its transmitted force
will be unimpaired should the opening lead in a direction opposed to
gravity, or in fact in any direction, since the tendency of water expansion
or reaction under pressure is uniform in all directions. Moreover, since
the resultant has been shown to be greater under all circumstances
than gravity, certainly the vast aggregations must also be greater than
the aggregated gravity, and will be able to overcome it under the con-
ditions stated.

Hence, if fissures exist in rocks that lead to imprisoned waters it
would happen that through these outlets the waters must certainly
flow ; and, if by any artificial means, as by boring, an opening should
be made between a body of confined water and the surface of the earth,
a flowing well would result.

But, of course, it must be understood that this would not happen
if the body of water supposed were an isolated one and completely un-
connected with other bodies of water through channels and intercom-
munications known to exist in the various ramifications of the earth's
surface. The subterranean water circulation which interpenetrates the
crust of the earth is clearly caused by the centrijoetal and centrifugal
forces of nature, reenforced no doubt often by differences in tempera-
ture and other minor causes. And it also might and probably does
occur that the overflowing of a well or spring is due to the fact that
the water flows from a higher to a lower level, but this will be found
to be too rare to form a rule.

The intensity of the centi'ifugal force will increase with the dis-
tance from the center of the earth, while gravity will decrease ; the
resultant will also increase. Thus, we find the strongest and most
abundant overflows at the tops of mountains or on high plateaus. But
suppose it had been fully proved that a particular overflowing spring
was caused by hydrostatic pressure, it would still remain to be ac-
counted for how the water got to that higher point. This can best be
done by the force demonstrated, which is always acting upon the
partially confined water-beds and water-channels forming the inter-
nal water-structure of the earth's crust. The conditions necessary to
the realization of the best results are that these water-deposits shall be
more or less imprisoned and the outlets comparatively limited. The
overflow will be continued and upward until the resultant is overcome
by friction. The lengthening of the channel of overflow, as in the

TOL. XTI. — 6

82 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

spring at Alvarado, furnishes a corroborating instance of how this law
of overflow operates. The spring was originally on the level of the
shore until the sand drifted by degrees and formed a ridge twenty feet
high, hut the water appeared at the top of the ridge.

This law can be utilized in increasing the flow of water. As above
mentioned, it was found that, by inclosing an overflowing spring
tightly and allowing the inclosure to be terminated by a tube with an
opening carried to a level below the fountain, the flow was increased
because the channel was increased, and the resultant of the natural
forces with it.

If an artificial connection be made with a stratum of water or
water-bed, as by a tube tightly set in the earth or a series of tubes, and
the suction-tube of a pump be attached thereto, we shall have the best
conditions for a utilization of this newly discovered force in obtaining
water for domestic purposes. The natural channels will thus be con-
tinued to the pump, and when this is operated (the air being lifted ofi^)
the new force acts as a handmaid in lifting the water. Many experi-
ments fully prove this. As the water-deposits di'awn upon are subter-
ranean they are ample for all practical purposes; and, if these facts had
been within the knowledge of Professor Buckland and the proposed
company to which he has given such prominence, London could have
been supplied with pure water without the least occasion for anxiety
that the manufactories on the banks of the river Coin would be robbed
of their portion.

The force, then, which we have demonstrated may be thus formu-
lated : The resultant of the earth's centripetal and centrifugal forces
acts impulsively upon the subterranean water-deposits, and tends to
force them into and through the natural channels of the earth's crust.

MARS AND HIS MOONS.

By Professor JOHN LE CONTE,

OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.

THERE is no member of the solar system, with the exception of
our moon, which can be studied under such favorable circum-
stances as the planet Mars ; for, although Venus, when in inferior
conjunction, is nearer to us than Mars in opposition, yet Venus, at this
time, turns her darkened hemisphere toward the earth. Moreover,
although Mars does not appear so large an object in the telescope as
Jupiter, yet he is in reality seen on a much larger scale, not only on
account of his much greater proximity to us, but because, being like-
wise much nearer the sun, his surface is much more brilliantly illumi-
nated, so that a much higher telescopic power can be advantageously

MARS. AND HIS MOONS. 83

employed. Accordingly, ever since the invention of the telescope,
Mars has been a favorite object of observation. The largest and most
powerful instruments have been employed to scrutinize this planet,
and the varied physical details of its surface have been most carefully
mapped by many astronomers.

When, therefore, it was announced two years ago* that the Ameri-
can astronomer. Hall, had discovered two satellites belonging to Mars,
we ought not to be surprised at the astonishment with which the
news was received by the scientific world. Moreovei', there can be
no question that for more than two centui'ies past astronomers have
recognized the probability of the existence of satellites to this planet.
In fact, analogy would lead us to expect that Mars would be furnished
with one or more moons ; for, being situated at a greater distance
from the sun than the earth, it seems more especially to need such
luminaries to cheer its dark nights. Under the influence of these an-
ticipations, the astronomers, who have so carefully studied the physi-
cal features of Mars, have doubtless been looking for these satellites.
In fact, many of them have contended that the failure to discover
them is not by any means a conclusive proof of their non-existence ;
since, Mars being a very small planet, we might expect his moons to
be proportionally small, in which case they miglit escape detection
by the telescope. Thus, for example, the second satellite of Jupiter
is only about the forty-second part of the diameter of the planet ; and
a satellite which would only be the forty-second part of the diameter
of Mars would be about one hundred miles in diameter. At the least
distance of the earth from Mars a satellite of this dimension would
subtend an angle of less than one half of a second ; so that, even in
the most favorable position of Mars, powerful telescopes might fail to
reveal such an object, especially if it do not recede far from the disk
of the planet.

Thus, Thomas Dick (" Celestial Scenery," American edition, p.
123, 1838) remarks in relation to this question : " If such a satellite
exist, it is highly piobable that it will revolve at the nearest possible
distance from the planet, in order to afford it the greatest quantity of
light ; in which case it would never be seen beyond two minutes of a
degree from the margin of the planet, and that only in certain favor-
able positions. If the plane of its orbit lay nearly in a line with our
axis of vision, it would frequently be hidden either by the interposition
of the body of Mars or by transiting its disk. It is therefore pos-
sible, and not at all improbable, that Mars may have a satellite, al-
though it has not yet been discovered. It is no argument for the non-

* It was on the memorable night of the 11th of August, 1877, that Professor Asaph
Hall, of the Naval Observatory at Washington, caught the first glimpse of these diminu-
tive companions of Mars. The intervention of unfavorable weather kept him in a state
of anxious suspense, and postponed, for a period of five days, the complete verification
of his great discovery.

8+ THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

existence of such a body tliat we have not yet seen it ; but it ought
to serve as an argument to stimulate us to apply our most powerful
instruments to the regions around this planet with more frequency and
attention than we have hitherto done, and it is possible that our dili-
gence may be rewarded with the discovery. The long duration of
winter in the polar regions of Mars seems to require a moon to cheer
them during the long absence of the sun ; and, if there be none, the
inhabitants of those regions must be in a far more dreary condition
than the Laplanders and Greenlanders of our globe."

This state of doubt and uncertainty in relation to the question of
the existence of Martial moons afforded legitimate game for the satiri-
cal writers of the last century. Thus, Jonathan Swift, in his " Gulli-
ver's Travels," published about 1727, in giving an account of the ex-
traordinary race of abstract philosophers who inhabited the " Floating
Island " called Laputa, informs us that " they spend the greater part
of their lives in observing the celestial bodies, which they do by the
assistance of glasses far excelling ours in goodness ; for, although their
largest telescopes do not exceed three feet, they magnify much more
than those of one hundred with us, and show the stars with greater
clearness. This advantage has enabled them to extend their discov-
eries much farther than our astronomers in Europe ; for they have
made a catalogue of 10,000 fixed stars, whereas the largest of ours
does not contain above one third of that number. They have likewise
discovered two lesser stars or satellites, which revolve about Mars ;
whereof the innermost is distant from the center of the primary planet
exactly three of its diameters, and the outermost five ; the former re-
volves in the space of ten hours, and the latter in twenty-one and a half;
so that the squares of their periodical times are very near in the same
proportion with the cubes of their distances from the center of Mars ;
which evidently shows them to be governed by the same law of gravi-
tation that influences the other heavenly bodies."

About twenty-five years after Swift wrote the foregoing, that is in
1752, the celebrated Voltaire (apparently in imitation of " Gulliver's
Travels ") cuttingly ridicules the pretensions of the class of reasoners
who found their conclusions upon analogy. In one of his satirical
tales, Micromegas, an imaginary inhabitant of Sirius, is supposed to
make a voyage of discovery through the solar system in company with
a denizen of Saturn ; they philosophize as they go. Approaching the
planet Mars, Micromegas and his companion plainly descried two
moons acting as satellites to that body — moons which have certainly
escaped the ken of terrestrial astronomers. " I know perfectly well,"
continues the author of the tale, "that Father Castel" (an astronomer
of the time) " will write, and write sufliciently pleasantly, too, against
the existence of these two moons ; but I appeal against his decision to
logicians, who reason from analogy. These excellent philosophers are
perfectly aware how difficult it would be for Mars — a planet so far re-

MAES AND HIS MOONS. 85

moved from the sun — to get on with less than two of these satellites."
(" (Euvres de Voltaire " — Micromegas, chapter iii.) How completely
the recent discovery of the American astronomer has "turned the
tables" on the renowned satirist of the last century ! The previsions
of those " excellent philosophers " who founded their conclusions upon
analogical reasoning, although slumbering in the domains of the un-
proved for more than two centuries, have at last been verified by direct
observation.

As the moons of Mars are very small objects, it is only under the
most favorable circumstances that they can be seen by the most power-
ful telescopes. Mars is nearest to us when his opposition occurs, when
he is near his perihelion ; and the greatest possible proximity to us
occurs when Mars is in opposition in perihelion and the earth is in
aphelion at the same time. The oppositions of Mars near perihelion
occur at intervals of fifteen and seventeen years successively. A very
good opposition occurred in 1862, and a great many distinguished
astronomers embraced the opportunity of scrutinizing Mars with the
aid of excellent instruments. A still more favorable opportunity was
presented in the summer of 1877, when Mars was nearer to us than it
has been since 1845. It was at this time that Professor Asaph Hall
was fortunate enough, by means of the new 26-inch refractor of the
Naval Observatory at Washington, to discover two moons belonging
to this planet. It is true that this was probably the first time that so
powerful a telescope had ever been directed to the examination of Mars
under similar favorable conditions ; yet it is a significant fact that,
since the announcement of the discovery, the satellites have been de-
tected by means of telescopes of more moderate power. The secret
of Professor Hall's discovery seems to have consisted in devising the
means of cutting off, from the field of view of the telescope, the glar-
ing light of Mars. In like manner, M. Henry, of the Observatory of
Paris, on August 27, 1877, was able to see the satellites when Mars
was screened from view. These diminutive moons nestle so closely to
the planet that it is difficult to see them in the blaze of light reflected
from Mars. Had similar means of screening the planet been employed,
it is probable that one or both of these satellites might have been dis-
covered in 1862.

The distance of the inner satellite from the center of the primary
is about 2*73 times the radius of Mars ; that of the outer one about
6'846 times the same radius. Assuming the diameter of Mars to be
about 4,200 miles, these distances become, respectively, 5,733 and
14,376 miles from the center of Mars. The nearest satellite of Jupiter
is distant about six times the radius of the primary, and the innermost
satellite of Saturn is distant a little more than three times the radius
of that planet.*

* The following table exhibits the mean distances of the satellites from the centers of
the primaries, expressed in equatorial radii of the latter. ("Nature," December 13, IS??.
p. 129.)

86

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Earth.

Mars.

Jupiter.

Saturn.

Uranus.

1 Neptune.

1

60-27

2-72
6-82

5-70

9-07

14-46

25-44

2-98

3-83

4-75

6-08

8-47

19-67

24-80

57-28

7-71
10-75
17-63
23-67

14-55

2

3

4 ...

1

]

6

1

6

■

7

8

1

Professor Newcomb gives, for the period of revolution of the inner
satellite around Mars, about 7'65 hours, or 7h. 39m., and 30-25 hours,
or 30h. ISm., as that of the outer moon. Both of them, like our moon,
revolve around the primary from west to east. Mars rotates on its
axis from west to east in 24*623 hours, or 24h. 37m. 23s. ; this is the
duration of the Martial day. We have seen that the period of revo-
lution of the inner satellite is less^ while that of the outer is greater,
than a Martial day. It is evident, therefore, that, as seen from the
surface of the planet, the apparent motion of the satellites will be in
opposite directions, the inner rising in the icest and setting in the east,
the outer (like our moon) rising in the east and setting in the west.
This anomalous condition of things must have greatly perplexed the
primitive astronomers of Mars, and probably led them to the invention
of cycles and epicycles to account for these appearances.

It follows that the phenomenon of two moons meeting in mid-
heavens will be no unusual occurrence to the observers on the surface
of Mars. The apparent motion of the fixed stars from east to west,
produced by the rotation of the planet upon its axis, is at the rate of
14-62° per hour. The real motion of the inner satellite among the
stars from west to east is at the rate of about 47*06° per hour, while
that of the outer one is at the rate of 11*90° per hour. Hence it fol-
lows that the api^arent motion of the inner satellite from west to east
across the heavens, to an observer on Mars, will be at the rate of about
32*44° per hour, while the apparent motion of the outer moon from
east to toest will be at the rate of nearly 2*72° per hour.

It likewise follows from the preceding calculations that the time
elapsing between two successive meridian passages of the inner ^tel-
lite will be about 11*09 hours, and the time elapsing between two suc-
cessive conjunctions of the inner with the outer moon will be about
10*24 hours ; consequently two conjunctions will occur in less time
than it takes for Mars to rotate on its axis, or than a Martial day.
This satellite completes more than three orbital revolutions in a Mar-
tial day.

As the apparent motion of the outer satellite from east to west is
at the rate of only about 2*72° per hour, it is obvious that the time
elapsing between two successive meridian passages of this moon will
be about 132*35 hours ; so that there will be no less than twelve con-

MABS AND HIS MOONS. 87

junctions with the inner moon in the course of its lunar day. It is
likewise evident that the outer satellite will frequently be above the
horizon of Mars more than sixty hours, during which period six con-
junctions with the inner may occur. Moreover, as the outer moon will
go through its cycle of phases in a little more than thirty hours, all of
these changes may be accomplished while it is above the horizon of
the observer on the surface of Mars.

The apparent diameter of Mars, as seen by an observer on the in-
ner satellite, would be no less than 41 '8°, or about seventy-eight and a
half times the apparent diameter of the sun as seen from the earth ;
and from the outer moon the diameter of Mars would subtend an angle
of 16"T°, or about SI'S times the apparent diameter of the sun as seen
by us. Of course the apparent areas of the disk of Mars, as seen
from his two satellites, would be in the ratio of the squares 6i these
numbers, that is, the apparent area of the disk of Mars, as seen from
his inner moon, would be 6,167, and from the outer 980 times the ap-
parent area of the solar disk, as seen from the earth.

From the innermost satellite of Saturn, the diameter of the primary
would subtend an angle of 35*8° ; from the nearest satellite of Jupi-
ter, the diameter of that planet would subtend an angle of 18-6° ; and
from our moon the earth's diameter would subtend an angle of less
than 2°.

Astronomers are, as yet, ignorant of the real magnitude of the
Martial satellites ; but, assuming each of them to be one hundred
miles in diameter, it is easy to calculate their apparent magnitudes as
seen by an observer on Mars.* The inner moon being 5,733 miles
distant from the center of Mars, would, when in the zenith of the ob-
server, be only 3,633 miles distant from the surface of the planet.
Hence it appears that, when this satellite is seen in the horizon of the
observer on the surface of Mars, its diameter would subtend an angle
of about 60', or nearly twice the apparent diameter which our moon
presents to us ; but, when it is in the zenith of the observer, it would
subtend an angle of 94-3', or more than three times the apparent
diameter presented by our moon. In other tei'ms, in rising from the
western horizon to the zenith, the apparent diameter of this moon
would be increased nearly in the ratio of two to three ; and, of course,
its apparent area would be augmented nearly in the ratio of four to
nine.

* Professor E. C. Pickering, of the Harvard College Observatory, has attempted to
determine the real magnitude of the satellites of Mars, by comparing the intensity of
the light reflected from the primary with that reflected from each of his satellites. He is
thus led to estimate the diameter of tlie inner satellite to be about seven miles, and that
of the outer one to be about six miles ! (" Annual Report of the Director of Harvard
College Observatory," November, 1877, page 17.) It is very questionable whether esti-
mates, founded on photomctrical comparisons in which the relative reflecting powers of the
bodies compared are unknown, can inspire the confidence of astronomers in relation to
the accuracy of the deduced diameters.

88 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The outer satellite would, under like positions, jDresent apparent
diameters, respectively, of 24' and 28', or considerably less than the
apparent diameter of our moon. The nearest satellite of Jupiter
(having a diameter of 2,310 miles) would, in like positions, present to
an observer on the surface of that planet apparent diameters, respec-
tively, of 31' and 37'.

As we have seen, the inner satellite of Mars completes three orbital
revolutions in less than a Martial day. " This anomalous fact in the
planetary system would seem, at first view, to be utterly inconsistent
with the nebular hypothesis." According to this hypothesis, the or-
JiYa^periods of the satellites should be approximately equal to the
rotation-periods of the primary at the epochs when the satellites were
thrown off from it. The acceleration of the rotation-period of the
primary, in consequence of its subsequent contraction, would neces-
sarily render its time of rotation less than the orbital-period of any
satellite. As far as yet known, the inner satellite of Mars affords the
only instance in which the rotation-period of the primary is greater
than the orbital-period of the secondary.

It must be remembered, however, that if we regard the rings of
Saturn as comjjosed of clouds of independently revolving minute satel-
lites, those constituting the innermost portions of the inner ring must
revolve in less time than the rotation-period of that planet. Under
this view, therefore, the case of the inner satellite of Mars is not
unique.

There are, however, several methods by which the apparently
anomalous fact may be accounted for consistently with the nebular
hypothesis :

1. In the first place, it has been suggested that Mars may not have
obtained his satellites by means of the usual process of moon-forma-
tion, but by the appropriation to himself of a couple of the numer-
ous asteroids or planetoids, some of which, in their perihelion excur-
sions, approach comparatively near to Mars in his aphelion positions.
Thus, the planetoid called Phocea, when it is at its least distance and
Mars at his greatest distance from the sun, would only be about
11,000,000 miles from each other. It is, therefore, possible that some
of the planetoids, moving in orbits of greater eccentricity than any yet
discovered, may, at some former period, have approached so near Mars
as to have become permanently attached to it as satellites.

2. In the second place, it is possible that these Martial moons may
have originally revolved in larger orbits, and therefore in longer peri-
ods than at present, but that the retarding influence of a resisting
medium on such synall masses might, in the course of myriads of ages,
have contracted their orbits and consequently shortened their orbital-
periods. In this connection it must be borne in mind that, according
to the nebular hypothesis. Mars must be a vastly older planet than
the earth ; so that this retardation may have been in progress for an

MAES AND HIS MOONS. 89,

incalculable number of centuries before the earth became a separate
planet.

Until quite recently, it was generally conceded that tico comets of
short period have revealed the existence of a resistmg medium in the
celestial spaces. It is well known that the celebrated Encke inferred
the existence of a resisting medium from the fact that the periodic
times of the comet which bears his name were progressively diminish-
ing.

Thus he found the following values of these times :

1786-1795, periodic time = 1208-112 days.
1795-1805, " " = 1207-879 ''

1805-1819, " " =1207-424 "

1845-1855, " " = 1205-250 "

In this view he was sustained by Olbers and most contemporary
astronomers, although Bessel and some others dissented from it. But
Encke continued steadfast in his theory of a resisting medium in space
for more than forty years ; in fact, up to the period of his death in
1865.

There are two other periodical comets which were expected to fur-
nish important evidence on this question. These are Faye's and Win-
necke's comets, which have periods of seven and a half and five and a
half years respectively. The orbit of the former has been carefully
determined by Professor Axel Moller, of Lund, Sweden. At first his cal-
culations indicated that the period of this comet was shortened at each
revolution by about seventeen hours ; and Encke, in his declining
years, thought that this fact was a complete proof of his hypothesis of
a resisting medium. But, in 1865, Professor Moller revised his calcula-
tions, and found that it was j)ossible to harmonize all of the facts loithout
the assumption of the resisting medium.

With regard to Winnecke's comet, it seems that, according to the
computations of Professor Oppolzer, of Vienna, it is scarcely necessary
to call in the assistance of a resisting medium to account for its mo-
tions. It thus appears that, up to the present time, Encke's comet
stands alone in demanding the existence of a resisting medium to ex-
plain its motions. Nevertheless, it must be recollected that such in-
vestigations involve the computing of complex planetary perturbations,
and that, consequently, more accurate data and better mathematical
methods may, in the future, place these two comets in the same cate-
gory, in relation to a resisting medium, as that of Encke.

In the mean time, divers physical considerations press upon us the
inherent prohahility of the existence of a resisting medium in the
celestial spaces. The connection between our organs of sense and re-
mote bodies necessarily implies the existence of some intervening
medium ; and, moreover, to convey a p'hysical impression to the organ
of sense, this medium must be material. Whatever theory of light we

90 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

adopt, we are equally driven to the conception of the existence of some
form of matter in the celestial spaces. The fact that light and heat
are propagated from one part of si:)ace to another in time demands
that the medium of communication should possess inertia — an essen-
tial property of matter. According to the wave theory^ the celestial
bodies move in an attenuated and subtile ethereal medium ; according
to the corpuscular theory, they move in a perpetual shower of cor-
puscles emitted by the sun and stars. In both cases matter exists — in-
ertia exists — therefore resistance must be encountered. The smalhiess
of the resistance, however small we choose to suppose it, does not al-
low us to escape this certainty. There is resistance, and therefore the
movements of satellites cannot escape its influence. Nevertheless, such
attenuated and htdky masses as comets are best adapted to test the ex-
istence of a resisting medium.

3. In the last place, it is possible that Mars may have originally
rotated on his axis in five or six hours, but that the tidal rotation-
retardation produced by the action of his moons might have brought
about its present rotation-period. It is evident that the solar tides, on
a planet so small and so remote from the sun, must be inappreciable ;
and, at first sight, the lunar tides produced by such small masses might
be supposed to be equally insignificant. But it must be recollected
that the tide-generating power of a moon is (other things being equal)
inversely proportional to the cube of its distance ; so that nearness
might more than compensate for smallness of mass. To be more spe-
cific : In the mathematical language, the tide-generating power is in
proportion to the Thus,

Diameter of Primary X Mass of Satellite
(Distance of Satellite.)'
for example, let us suppose the diameter of our moon to be twenty
times the diameter of the inner satellite of Mars, and both moons to be
equally dense ; then the mass of our moon would be 8,000 times that
of the Martial satellite. Taking the diameter of the earth as equal to
twice the diameter of Mars (and it is not so great), and the distance of
our moon from the center of the earth to be forty-one and a half times
the distance of the inner satellite from the center of Mars, we then
have the tide-generating power of our moon acting on the earth, will

be to that of the inner satellite acting on Mars as — to 1, or as

r^^A^c) to 1, or as -—.J— to 1, or as 1 to ^\. Hence, the tide-generating

power of this small satellite would, in consequence of its nearness to
Mars, be about four and a half times as great as the tide-generating
power of our moon on the earth.

This view, however, is not free from the most serious p)hysical
difficulties. For it is evident that the tidal rotation -retardation pro-
duced by the moons would be limited by the final condition, that the

MARS AND HIS MOONS. 91

rotation-period oi the primary becomes exactly the same as the orhital-
period of the satellite. When this condition is attained, the tides can
no longer retard the rotation-period of the planet. So far, therefore,
as the inner moon of Mars is concerned, it must long ago have ceased
to retard the rotation of the primary. For, the orbital-period of this
satellite being far shorter than the present rotation-period of Mars, its
tidal action would tend to accelerate instead of retarding the time of
rotation of the planet. So far as the outer moon is concerned, it is
evident that its tidal action must tend to retard the rotation-period
of Mars ; but, in consequence of its greater remoteness, the magni-
tude of its influence must be small compared with that of the inner
satellite. It is, therefore, difficult to conceive how the tidal influ-
ences of the moons of this planet can explain the anomalous fact
that its rotation-period is longer than the orbital-period of one of its
satellites.

In connection with the idea of the rotation-period of Mars having,
at &0Tae former time, been much shorter than it is at present, it may
be noticed that the great compression or ellipticity of this planet is
totally inconsistent with its observed rotation-period.*

In 1784 Sir William Herschel estimated the ellipticity of Mars at
^. Schroter refused to admit this result ; he contended that, if the
ellipticity existed, it would not exceed -gV Bessel failed to discover
any appreciable ellipticity of Mars, even with the celebrated heliom-
eter of Konigsberg. On the other hand, Arago's measurements, ex-
ecuted at the Observatory of Paris, from 1811 down to 1847, all con-
firm the existence of an ellipticity in this planet of about ^*^. (" As-
tronomie Populaii-e," tome iv., p. 130. Paris, 1867.) More recent
observations give somewhat contradictory results. Professor Kaiser,
of Leyden, makes the ellipticity y-fr ; Main, of the Radcliffe Observa-
tory, deduced -^^ in 1862 ; and Dawes's measurements give negative
results.

To show the discordance of these results with what may be deduced
from the theory of gravitation, it must be recollected that the ellip-
ticity of a rotating planet depends upon the ratio of the centrifugcd
force at its equator to the /brce of gravity at the same place. Thus,
to compare the earth and Mars —

Let r and r' = equatorial radii of earth and Mars respectively.
" t ^ t' = time of rotation " " " " "

" Q " Q' nr mass " " " " "

" / " /' = centrifugal force at equator " "

" <7 " g' z=L force of gravity " " " " "

* The oblaleness or compression or ellipHciti/ of an oblate spheroid Is the difference of
its equatorial and polar radii, divided by its equatorial radius. Thus, if a and 6 are the

equatorial and polar radii respectively, then ellipticity = -^.

92 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

J J f f.

Then, by dynamical principles, we have —

r , r'

and ^:^'::_._.

Now, .for these two planets we have —
r = 3962-8 miles, and r' = 2100 miles.
t = 86164 seconds, " t' = 88643 seconds.
Q = 3-^ 6^6 5 0? and Q' = -g-owooo- of mass of the sun.
Substituting these numbers in foregoing proportions, and performing
the arithmetical operations, and we have —
/:/::l : 0-500704, and
(J : g'::l : 0-376482.

Hence we have '-C'^ '' ^ ' ao^?!o1- or 1 : 1-32996. But, for the earth,
g g 0*376482

f \ If

owQ » ^ence we have -— : ^ :: 1 : 1-32996. Consequently for
g /wOt/ /i'Oi/ g

f 1-32996 1
Mars we have -^, — — -— ^ — = — ■. Now, according to the elesrant
g 289 217 '^ ^

theorem of Newton, if the rotating planets were homogeneous liquid
masses, their elli^yticities would be f of -^i-w = tsi ^^r the earth, and
f of 8TT == TTT ^or Mars. These are the greatest jyossible values of the
ellipticities for these two planets with their present rotation-periods.*
In the case of the earth, we know that it is much smaller ; being about
-5-^ instead of 3^. Hence, for Mars also, we should expect an ellip-
ticity smaller than j^ ; whereas, as we have seen, nearly all the
measurements indicate a much greater ellipticity.

It is evident that a more rapid rotation of the planet would aug-
ment its ellipticity ; hence the question naturally suggests itself :
Might not this great ellipticity of Mars have been the result of solidi-
fication having taken place when his rotation-period was much shorter
than it is at present ? This explanation is not free from serious diffi-
culties. For, if aqueous and aerial agencies were in action after solidi-
fication took place, they would have tended to make the shape of the
planet conform to its new rotation-period.

* That the values of ellipticity deduced from the assumption of an homogeneous liquid
mass in the rotating planet must be maxima is evident from the consideration that, if
the density augmented from the surface toward the center of the planet (which must, from
the compressibility of matter, be the real condition of things), it would render the com-
puted ellipticity smaller. The problem of the theoretical figure of a rotating planet is
greatly complicated as soon as we abandon the assumption of homogeneousness.

INTELLECTUAL STRAINING IN AUTHORSHIP. 93

INTELLECTUAL STRAINKs^G IN AUTHORSHIP.

WE hear a good deal of the joylessness of the present generation,
and no doubt there is a greater unrest and a greater impatience
among those who lead the forward movement of thought than in any
former time. And partly, no doubt, this is due to want of trust, want
of power to lean on any invisible hand ; partly, too, to a habit closely
connected with this want of trust — a habit contracted by men of the
greatest intellect, of straining to see or say something new, as if such
straining were the only healthy condition of the mind, as if without it
one must sink into a sort of death. Carlyle was one of the first to set
the example of this straining. His genius, great as it is, may be al-
most said to have grown out of the taste for abrupt changes of light
and shadow, in the flickerings of which he has contrived to set so
considerable a tract of life, both domestic and historic. His peculiar
dialect itself is a great instrument for startling men, for giving them
little shocks or thrills of unexpected impression. Very often, too, he
lias succeeded, as some great photographers have succeeded, in pro-
ducing a very powerful impression by deliberately taking his portraits
out of focus. Carlyle's influence is in this res2)ect more or less reflect-
ed in Ruskin, who has taught the younger generation of Oxford men
so much and yet often so grotesquely, who has fostered so much more
excitement of mind than is healthy, and who has accustomed them to
so much disproportion between the vehemence of what he says and
its truth. And, of those of our younger generation who go abroad for
tuition, how many prefer Victor Hugo to any home-bred master for
this very reason alone — that his genius is so irregular and grotesque,
that it combines so much excitement with so much insight, that there
is such a piercing glance and so little law ! It is the same in the New
World. There are many who believe that Ralph Waldo Emerson is
the greatest of living sages. And certainly his career has been calm
and sedate enough, and there is real penetration in his glance. But,
though he has never thrown much of emotional excitement into his
teaching, his philosophy means nothing, if it does not mean that you
get a truer view of life by standing on intellectual tiptoe and straining
at a universal truth that is not quite within your reach than you do by
humbly putting together what you may really be said to understand.
There is no greater contrast between intellectual men than there is
between the sedate calm of Emerson and the transcendental exulta-
tion or anguish of Victor Hugo. But, on a purely intellectual theme,
the one reminds us curiously of the other. Here is a preface furnished
by Emerson to a series of portraits of the hundred greatest men of the
human race, which has just been begun by an enterprising publisher.*

* Messrs. Sampson Low & Co.

94 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

How does he try to interest the reader in the images of these hundred
greatest figures of history ? Why, by writing thus : " The great are
our better selves, ourselves with advantages. It is the only platform
on which all men can meet. If you deal with a vulgar mind, life is re-
duced to beggary. He makes me rich, him I call Plutus, who shows
me that every man is mine, and every faculty is mine — who does not
impoverish me in praising Plato, but contrariwise, is adding assets to
my industry." Well, that alone seems to us pure strain to say some-
thing new, without much care whether or not it be true. Beethoven's
faculty is not mine, whether I like to say so or not — nay, nothing can
make it mine ; probably nothing can make me even understand it.
Great men are not our better selves, they are only something that our
better selves very slowly learn to apprehend. But as if that were not
overstrained enough, Emerson goes on : "An ethereal sea ebbs and
flows, surges and rushes hither and thither, carrying its whole virtue
into every creek and inlet which it bathes. To this sea, every human
house has a water-front. Every truth is a power. Every idea, from
the moment of its emergence, begins to gather material force, after
a little while makes itself known. It works first on thoughts, then
on things ; makes feet, and afterward shoes ; first hands, then gloves ;
makes men, and so the age and its material soon after. The history
of the world is nothing but a procession of clothed ideas. As certain-
ly as water falls in rain on the tops of mountains, and runs down
into valleys, plains, and pits, so does thought fall first in the best
minds, and runs down from class to class until it touches the masses,
and so makes revolutions."

We have heard that kind of thing from Mr. Emerson now for so
many years, that it has almost the charm of an old, old landscape, to
find him saying again now what he said in the first volume which Mr.
Carlyle introduced to the British public with the unique emphasis of
one of his peculiar redundancies of repetition, " The words of such
a man, what words he thinks fit to speak, are worth attending to."
But no one, we think, who puzzled out Mr. Emerson in his youth, and
has since compared his mode of presenting the Pantheistic idea with
that of other thinkers, will regard it as a simple or natural mode —
quite apart from any opinion as to the truth or falsehood of the idea
itself. It is emphatically an unnatural and paradoxical mode of pre-
senting it. It is the mode of a man who wishes to say something
grander than any clear thought he can express, something that does
not fit the thought so much as attract attention to it by phraseological
unsuitability and extravagance. It is the style of one of the Illuminati,
not of simple, sincere philosophy.

And even among a very different school — the school of what we
may call physical skepticism, as distinguished from transcendental
skepticism — there is the same tendency to intellectual strain, as in the
case of the late Professor Clifford — a man of whom his biographer

INTELLECTUAL STRAINING IN AUTHORSHIP. 95

tells us that, before taking his degree at Cambridge, and for some
little time afterward, he was " an ardent High Churchman," but who
within ten years of that time gravely assui'ed his Sunday audience as
follows :

" On the whole, therefore, we seem entitled to conclude that, during
such time as we can have evidence of, no intelligence or volition has
been concerned in events happening wathin the range of the solar sys-
tem, except that of animals living on the planets. The weight of such
probabilities is, of course, estimated differently by different people,
and these questions are only just beginning to receive the right sort of
attention. But it does seem to me that we may expect in time to
have negative evidence on this point of the same kind, and the same
cogency, as that which forbids us to assume the existence between the
earth and Venus of a planet as large as either of them."

It is hardly possible to regard a statement of that kind, made by a
brilliant young man to a popular audience, within a few years of the
time when he was himself an ardent Christian, and on the mere
strength of the assumption that " mind without brain is a contradic-
tion," except as the result of a delight in intellectual straining for its
own sake. It is not merely that the atheistic drift is inti'insically so
audacious and violent, but that the mode of its statement is still more
audacious and violent. To assert that a disproof of a divine intelli-
gence might be expected of the same degree of validity as the dis-
proof of the existence of a large inferior planet, in a position in which
its influence would long ago have been detected, both directly and in-
directly— where, indeed, it would have vitiated every calculation made
for a century and a half at least — can hardly have been the result of
anything but a sheer desire to inflict a great intellectual shock, to pro-
duce the excitement of a new intellectual strain. It was, indeed, the
product of the same state of mind which made the same brilliant par-
adox-monger enjoy saying, when at college, " There is one thing in the
world more wicked than the desire to command, and that is the will
to obey." But that startling saying was commonplace itself com-
pared with those statements w^hich he made as a mature man many
years later, to a large and indiscriminate popular audience. And, in
his great philippic against the sin of credulity, he strains matters often
to a point as shrill. Nay, even Mr. Pollock, in writing his memoir of
his friend, appears anxious to strike a similar chord. Speaking of
Clifford's last days, he says : " Far be it from me, as it was far from
him, to grudge to any man or woman the hope or comfort that may be
found in sincere expectation of a better life to come. But let this be
set down and remembered, plainly and openly, for the instruction and
rebuke of those who fancy that these dogmas have a monopoly of hap-
piness, and will not face the fact that there are true men, ay, and
women, to whom the dignity of manhood and the fellowship of this life,
undazzled by the magic of any revelation, unholpen of any promises

9+ THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

How does he try to interest the reader in the images of these hundred
greatest figures of history ? Why, by writing thus : " The great are
our better selves, ourselves with advantages. It is the only platform
on which all men can meet. If you deal with a vulgar mind, life is re-
duced to beggary. He makes me rich, him I call Plutus, who shows
me that every man is mine, and every faculty is mine — who does not
impoverish me in praising Plato, but contrariwise, is adding assets to
my industry." Well, that alone seems to us pure strain to say some-
thing new, without much care whether or not it be true. Beethoven's
faculty is not mine, whether I like to say so or not — nay, nothing can
make it mine ; probably nothing can make me even understand it.
Great men are not our better selves, they are only something that our
better selves very slowly learn to apprehend. But as if that were not
overstrained enough, Emerson goes on : "An ethereal sea ebbs and
flows, surges and rushes hither and thither, carrying its whole virtue
into every creek and inlet which it bathes. To this sea, every human
house has a water-front. Every truth is a power. Everj^ idea, from
the moment of its emergence, begins to gather material force, after
a little while makes itself known. It works first on thoughts, then
on things ; makes feet, and afterward shoes ; first hands, then gloves ;
makes men, and so the age and its material soon after. The history
of the world is nothing but a procession of clothed ideas. As certain-
ly as water falls in rain on the tops of mountains, and runs down
into valleys, plains, and pits, so does thought fall first in the best
minds, and runs down from class to class until it touches the masses,
and so makes revolutions."

We have heard that kind of thing from Mr. Emerson now for so
many years, that it has almost the charm of an old, old landscape, to
find him saying again now what he said in the first volume which Mr.
Carlyle introduced to the British public with the unique emphasis of
one of his peculiar redundancies of repetition, " The words of such
a man, what words he thinks fit to speak, are worth attending to."
But no one, we think, who puzzled out Mr. Emerson in his youth, and
has since compared his mode of presenting the Pantheistic idea with
that of other thinkers, will regard it as a simple or natural mode —
quite apart from any opinion as to the truth or falsehood of the idea
itself. It is emphatically an unnatural and paradoxical mode of pre-
senting it. It is the mode of a man who wishes to say something
grander than any clear thought he can express, something that does
not fit the thought so much as attract attention to it by phraseological
unsuitability and extravagance. It is the style of one of the Ilhiminati,
not of simple, sincere philosophy.

And even among a very different school — the school of what we
may call physical skepticism, as distinguished from transcendental
skepticism — there is the same tendency to intellectual strain, as in the
case of the late Professor Clifford — a man of Avhom his biographer

INTELLECTUAL STRAINING IN AUTHORSHIP, 95

tells us that, before taking his degree at Cambridge, and for some
little time afterward, he was " an ardent High Churchman," but who
within ten years of that time gravely assured his Sunday audience as
follows :

" On the whole, therefore, we seem entitled to conclude that, during
such time as we can have evidence of, no intelligence or volition has
been concerned in events happening within the range of the solar sys-
tem, except that of animals living on the planets. The weight of such
probabilities is, of course, estimated differently by different people,
and these questions are only just beginning to receive the right sort of
attention. But it does seem to me that we may expect in time to
have negative evidence on this point of the same kind, and the same
cogency, as that which forbids us to assume the existence between the
earth and Venus of a planet as large as either of them."

It is hardly possible to regard a statement of that kind, made by a
brilliant young man to a popular audience, wdthin a few years of the
time when he was himself an ardent Christian, and on the mere
strength of the assumption that " mind without brain is a contradic-
tion," except as the result of a delight in intellectual straining for its
own sake. It is not merely that the atheistic drift is intrinsically so
audacious and violent, but that the mode of its statement is still more
audacious and violent. To assert that a disproof of a divine intelli-
gence might be expected of the same degree of validity as the dis-
proof of the existence of a large inferior planet, in a position in which
its influence would long ago have been detected, both directly and in-
directly— where, indeed, it would have vitiated every calculation made
for a century and a half at least — can hardly have been the result of
anything but a sheer desire to inflict a great intellectual shock, to pro-
duce the excitement of a new intellectual strain. It was, indeed, the
product of the same state of mind which made the same brilliant par-
adox-monger enjoy saying, when at college, " There is one thing in the
world more wicked than the desire to command, and that is the will
to obey." But that startling saying was commonplace itself com-
pared with those statements which he made as a mature man many
years later, to a large and indiscriminate popular audience. And, in
his great philippic against the sin of credulity, he strains matters often
to a point as shrill. Nay, even Mr, Pollock, in writing his memoir of
his friend, appears anxious to strike a similar chord. Speaking of
Clifford's last days, he says : " Far be it from me, as it was far from
him, to grudge to any man or woman the hope or comfort that may be
found in sincere expectation of a better life to come. But let this be
set down and remembered, plainly and openly, for the instruction and
rebuke of those who fancy that these dogmas have a monopoly of hap-
piness, and will not face the fact that there are true men, ay, and
women, to whom the dignity of manhood and the fellowship of this life,
undazzled by the magic of any revelation, unholpen of any promises

96 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

holding out aught as higher or more enduring than the fountain of hu-
man love and the fulfillment of human duties, are sufficient to bear the
weight of both life and death. Here was a man who utterly dismissed
from his thoughts, as being unprofitable, or worse, all speculations on
a future or unseen world ; a man to whom life was holy and precious,
a thing not to be despised, but to be used with joyfulness ; a soul full
of life and light, ever longing for activity, ever counting what was
achieved as not worthy to be reckoned in comparison of what was left
to do. And this is the witness of his ending, that as never man loved
life more, so never man feared death less. He fulfilled well and truly
that great saying of Spinoza, often in his mind and on his lips, 'Homo
liber cle nulla re minus quam de morte cogitat. ''''''

There is surely a clear straining after startling announcements in
the very manner of this passage. Why does Mr. Pollock fall into the
manner of our translators of Scripture, with his " unholpen of," and
the unmeaning adjective which, from his point of view, he chooses for
Professor Clifford's view of life, namely, " holy," unless he wants to
emi^hasize, by the use of such affectations, the antithesis between his
meaning and the meaning of the book of which his turns of phrase re-
mind us ? And, however true it may be, as it doiibtless was, that
Professor Clifford met death with the courage and calmness that befit
a man in meeting the inevitable, it is clearly nothing but an exaggera-
tion, and an attempt to strain beyond the truth, to endeavor to make
us believe that, if, as we are told. Professor Clifford was a man of warm
affections, he did not fear death any the more, believing it, as he did, to
be the extinction of love, than he would have done if he had thought
it but the entrance on a life of deeper and truer love. What Spinoza
says is well said for a man of action and for a man of thought, but
very ill said, indeed, for a man of loving nature. Thought and action
are so full of the present that they do not live in the future. True
affection can not but shiver at the thought of extinction, and with
Professor Clifford, too, doubtless it was so, as it would be with any
one else. It does not follow that, because a man is brave and reticent,
he does not suffer from the pang he conceals. If it could be shown
that in relation to his personal affections he really feared death less
than those who do not regard it as the end of either life or love, all
we can say is that the only proper inference would be that he feared
it less, because to him it signified less, because he loved less. And
that is not at all the inference we should draw from the facts of his
life. We suspect that Mr. Pollock is only imitating his friend in
straining after a startling saying, without considering that what is
intellectually startling is not, on that account, the more, but the less
likely to be true.

This tendency to strain after intellectual excitements and surprises,
which has flowed from so many quarters upon the present generation,
is a very natural accompaniment of an age of discovery and of popu-

RESPECTING RUBBISH. 97

lai" education — an age when people have been taught to expect con-
stantly new advances, and, in a rough kind of way, even to approciate
the enjoyment of an intellectual change of air. But though this love
of change may be appropriate to a state of progress, we must remember,
after all, that it is most inappropriate to a state of knowledge. The
condition of the highest knowledge is the condition of least surprise.
The more we have that is real to lean upon the less excuse there will
be for this straining and craning of the neck after startling intellectual
novelties. Even now we are sure that the tendency to grasp at new
ideas is often fatal, not merely to the utilization of old truths, but to
the mere holding of the ground which had been gained by' our ances-
tors. All this razing to the earth of the moral and religious beliefs of
former days is far more loss to man than the best of the new glimpses
of truth are gain. And, indeed, the tendency is to eradicate the tem-
per of repose, the heart of confidence in what has been gained, and to
substitute for it a constant reliance on the stimulus of an intellectual
excitement the very essence of which depends on change. Professor
Clifford begins one of his lectures by pointing out that if any one will
consider what he has done during that day, that which he has done
oftenest is to change his mind — i. e., not to alter his resolves, but to
change the subject-matter of thought and resolve. It is very true, but
the tendency of Professor Clifford's and his clique's teaching is to
something much more dangerous — to make change of mind an object
of aspiration, and almost of moral duty ; to depreciate the value of the
leaning disposition which rests on what is old, and to overrate that of
the mercurial disposition which cares only for what is novel. — Spectator,

EESPECTING KUBBISH.

MOST of the substance we call the rubbish of our houses finds its
way sooner or later into the dust-bin, and thence into the dust-
man's cart, which conveys it to the dust-contractor's yard ; and there
we are for the most part contented to lose sight of it. It is worth-
less to us, and we are thankful to be rid of it, and think no more of it.
But no sooner does it reach its destination in the yard than our rub-
bish becomes a valuable commodity. The largest cinders are bought
by laundresses and braziers, the smaller by brickmakers. The broken
crockery is matched and mended by the poor women who sort the
heaps, that which is quite past repair being sold with the oyster-shells
to make roads ; and the very cats are skinned, before their dead bodies
are sent away with other animal and vegetable refuse to be used as
manure for fertilizing our fields. Nothing is useless or worthless in the
contractor's eyes; for rubbish, like dirt, is simply "matter out of place."

VOL. XVI. — 7

98 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The term is an entirely correlative one ; what is rubbish to one
person under certain circumstances being under altered conditions ex-
tremely valuable to another. Gold itself is rubbish in the eyes of a
man who is starving on a desert island ; and the pearls which adorn a
royal diadem, and have made the fortune of the lucky finder, were
probably felt to be worse than useless by the poor oyster, tormented
by the presence of some particle of matter which he felt to be de-
cidedly " out of place " within his shell. Many a cook, no doubt, has
washed the little fresh'-water bleak, a fish about four inches long, and
had thoughtlessly poured away the water after the operation, before it
occurred %'o the French bead-maker that the lustrous silvery sediment
deposited at the bottom of the vessel might be turned to account in
the manufacture of artificial pearls, or pearl-beads.

It is, indeed, strange to consider how many of our most highly
prized adornments and our most useful and important manufactures
are derived from our own and Nature's refuse. The jet which brings
in some twenty thousand pounds a year to the town of Whitby alone
is merely a compact, highly lustrous, and deep-black variety of lignite
a species of coal less ancient in origin than that of the Carboniferous
era which we usually burn. And coal itself, as we know, is merely
the refuse of ancient forests and jungles, peat-mosses and cypress-
swamps, which has been mineralized in the course of ages and stored
for our use in the bowels of the earth. Amber, too, which is also used
for ornaments, especially in the East, is but the fossil gum or resin of
the Pinites succinifer, large forests of which seem to have existed in
the northeast portion of what is now the bed of the Baltic. To the
pine-tree this gum was certainly nothing but refuse, a something to be
got rid of ; but Nature, who rejects nothing however vile and con-
temptible, received it into her lumber-room, her universal storehouse,
and, after keeping it patiently much more than the traditional seven
years, sends it out again, transformed and yet the same, to adorn the
Eastern beauty, and to give employment to many a skillful pair of
hands. Bogwood, which, like jet, is used for bracelets, brooches, etc.,
is merely oak or other hard wood which has lain for years in peat-bogs
or marshes, and has acquired its dark coloring from the action of
oxidized metal upon the tannin it contained.

Turning, however, from Nature's processes to those of man, we
find that he is doing his best, however clumsily, to follow the thrifty
example she sets him. For many and many a year no doubt the pine-
tree shed its pointed, needle-like leaves in the Silesian forests, and
there they were left to decay and turn into mold at their leisure,
until M. Pannewitz started a manufactory for converting them into
forest-wool, which, besides being eflicacious in cases of rheumatism
when applied in its woolly state, can also be curled, felted, or woven.
Mixed with cotton, it has even been used for blankets and wearing
apparel. The ethereal oil evolved during the preparation of the wool

RESPECTING RUBBISH. 99

is a useful medical agent, besides being serviceable as lamp-oil and
also as a solvent of caoutchouc ; and even the refuse, left when the
leaves have yielded up their oil and wood, is not looked upon as
rubbish, but is compressed into blocks and used for firewood, while
the resinous matter it contains produces gas enough for the illumi-
nation of the factory.

Truly, as one man's meat is another man's poison, so one man's
rubbish is another man's treasure. While the Russians export or
simply waste all their bones, other more thrifty people boil them, to
extract their grease and gelatine ; convert them into charcoal, to be
used in refining sugar ; pass them on to the turner, to be made into
knife-handles and a thousand other useful articles ; or grind them
up to supply phosphate of lime for the farmer's crops. The com-
monest and roughest kinds of old glass are now bought up by a cer-
tain manufacturer, who melts them up, colors the liquid, by a secret
process of his own invention, to any tint he desires, and finally jDours
it out to cool in flat cakes. These are broken by the hammer into
fragments of various size and shape, which are used to produce most
effective decorations, such as might be introduced with advantage
in many a now plain unattractive-looking building. The cost of this
variety of mosaic is less than that of any other, and no doubt it will
be extensively used as it becomes better known.

Even such insignificant things as cobwebs are turned to account,
not merely for healing cut fingers — Bottom's sole idea as to their use —
but for supplying the astronomer with cross-lines for his telescopes.
Spiders' threads have even been woven, though one can not imagine
where or how, except in fairy-land, by fairy fingers, and for fairy gar-
ments ; and among the curiosities which travelers bring home from the
Tyrol are pictures painted upon cobwebs, the drawing of which is per-
fectly clear and distinct, with the spider's handiwork at the same time
plainly apparent. High prices are charged for these strange works of
art, and no wonder, for the cobweb paper — ^which resembles a fluffy
semi-transparent gauze — looks as if it must be extremely unpleasant to
draw upon ; and no doubt the eccentric artist fails many times before
he succeeds in producing a salable article. But we may descend even
lower than cobwebs in the scale of refuse, and still find that we have
not reached the dead-level at which things become utterly worthless
and good for nothing. Nay, much that is sweetest and associated in
our minds with luxury and refinement may now be produced from
that which is in itself most repulsive ; for, while artificial vanilla can be
made from the sap of the pine-tree, essence of almonds from benzine,
and the delicate perfumes of woodruff and melilot from coal-tar, other
scents as fragrant can be obtained from the unsavory refuse of the
stable.

Perhaps there is nothing more interesting and instructive, as show-
ing how the meaning of the word " rubbish " varies, than the history

102 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. .

Such is the essayist's introduction ; and that he deems his ambitious
project to have been triumphantly accomplished is evident from the
words of his conclusion : " But it is unnecessary to pursue this point
any further. We have already said enough to satisfy our present
object, which is simply to expose the weakness of the reasoning (if
reasoning it could be called) by which the theory before us is assumed
to be maintained. The question is essentially one to be decided by
the exercise of the judicial faculties, . . , and if so dealt with, apart
from all fanciful speculation, we feel no hesitation in asserting that the
conclusion will be that at which we ourselves have long since arrived,
viz., that development by evolution is merely a rhetorical expression,
a form of words, and nothing more."

It will thus be seen that the reviewer's purpose is sufficiently sweep-
ing ; and, considering he is not blind to the fact that the weight of
competent authority is against him (p. 225), we must at least be startled
by the boldness of the man who, without any armor of fact either on
the right hand or on the left, rushes like David full of self-confidence
against the Goliath of modern thought. The stone which is hurled
is indeed in one respect a stone of tremendous weight, the style of the
article being ponderous to a degree that borders on pomposity. But,
unfortunately, if there is a hole in the armor of the giant, the stone
has certainly failed to hit it ; and, as the modern champion of Israel
has evidently found the armor of fact too heavy to put on, he must
not now object to receiving some rough treatment at the hands of the
foe which he had the courage to attack.

The allusion to the writer's evident ignorance of science leads me
to say at the outset that it is not my intention to waste time by trou-
bling him upon this subject. He expressly says in the passage already
quoted that he does not intend to contemplate matters of scientific
fact, but to discuss the whole question of evolution " on broader philo-
sophical grounds." It is impossible not to recognize the wisdom of
this resolve. When a man supposes that elemental matter is now
affirmed to be only one substantial form, at present subsisting in the
condition of a gas (the hydrogen — p. 221), or that it is the rule "in
the case of ophidian reptiles, serpents, etc.," that "the places assign-
able to the arms and legs in other animals are occupied by rudimental
representatives of those organs imbedded in the surrounding tissues "
(p. 228) ; that paleontology reveals only " a solitary case of approxi-
mation to the equine species " ; that the sum total of animal species
amounts to only one hundred and twenty thousand ; and so on — a
man, I say, who supposes such things, is no doubt wise to abstain
from "critically reviewing" scientific facts. I shall proceed to show
that he would have been still wiser had he also abstained from tres-
passing "on the broader philosophical grounds" of scientific theory.

Taking the features of his article seriatim, we may first observe
that in his opening paragraphs he displays an altogether erroneous

A REPLY TO ''FALLACIES OF EVOLUTION:' 103

estimate of what is meant by the faculty of scientific observation.
He makes a broad distinction between the "faculties of observation
and of ratiocination or reasoning,'''' and states that "they are, in fact,
the distinctive characteristics of two different classes of men, regarded
with reference to their intellectual endowments. The man of observa-
tion, prone to notice and apt to discern the peculiarities of form and
substance — all, in short, that comes within the cognizance of the
senses — is by no means equally apt to discern, or competent to appre-
ciate, the conclusions to which they are calculated to conduce ; while,
on the other hand, the man of reasoning, accustomed to deal with the
suggestions of the mind rather than of the senses, prone to speculation
rather than to experiment, is comparatively unfitted for the more mat-
ter-of-fact employment of investigation and research. Both classes of
minds and of men are equally essential to the progress of scientific
discovery, though it can not be said that both stand on the same level
in the estimation of their respective faculties. The faculty of observa-
tion, important as it is, is a faculty common, not merely to all men,
but more or less to all animated beings, whereas the faculty of reason-
ing, at least in its higher grades, is peculiar to man alone."

Now, that there is a distinction to be drawn between an observant
and a contemplative mind — between a man who sees and a man who
thinks — there can be no question. But, that the distinction is of the
kind here drawn, no one in the least degree acquainted with experi-
mental research could for a moment suppose. The idea of the wi-iter
seems to be that all scientific observation consists merely in a refined
use of the senses, the things to be observed lying in Nature already
formed, like shells upon the beach. Such an idea is applicable only to
the pursuits of a species-hunter, or " systematist " — a man who holds
merely the rank of a private in the scientific army. For the discovery
of all that deserves the name of scientific truth, for the classifying of
hidden analogies and the unveiling of general principles, the highest
faculties of the human mind, in the highest degree of their develop-
ment, must be taxed to the highest degree of their power. "With a
clear perception of the problem to be solved, a man of science must
either think out the particular conjunction of conditions occurring in
Nature, which, if found to occur, would give an unequivocal solution,
or he must devise such an artificial conjunction of conditions as may
lead to the same result. And whether, as in astronomy and geology,
the former method be employed, or the latter method be employed, as
in all the experimental sciences it must be, I fearlessly affirm that in
no department of intellectual activity is there a greater demand made
upon that particular faculty of mind which our author terms the facul-
ty of ratiocination. If we follow the intellectual operations by which
any of the greater results in science have been achieved, their most
conspicuous feature will always be found to consist in the number, the
length, and the intricacy of the chains of reasoning converging now

104 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

upon this point and now upon that, as each is made the securely-fast-
ened point of attachment for the next. The great distinction between
the reasonings, say of the metaphysician and the man of science, con-
sists, not in any difference of degree, but in a difference of subject-
matter. For, while the man whom our author calls the " man of rea-
soning " has no other test by which to estimate the accuracy of his
conclusions than the subjective processes of reason itself, " the man of
observation " has the uncompromising court of objective fact whither
to bring his conclusions for a trial that is sure to be remorseless, and
for a judgment from which there can be no appeal. And because the
court of Nature is alone infallible, the man of science shows his wis-
dom as a seeker of truth by directing his best faculties of thought
toward the arguing of his case in such a way that the judgment of
this court upon the issue presented shall be final. The issue is that
concerning the truth of a laboriously reasoned hypothesis ; the argu-
ment is a perhaps no less laboriously reasoned experiment ; and the
judgment is either a triumphant verification or a crushing non-suit
with costs — the latter being now happily to some extent defrayed by
government. In a word, to disparage those faculties of mind which
elaborate scientific generalization, as contrasted with those which
elaborate philosophic speculation, is surely too preposterously absurd
to be entertained even by the most benighted reader of the " Edin-
burgh " or any other Review.

The author of this attempt appears, from the authoritative style in
which he writes, to regard himself as among the favored " men of
reasoning, prone to speculation rather than to experiment." That he
would be " comparatively unfitted for the more matter-of-fact employ-
ment of investigation and research," we can not entertain the shadow
of a doubt, and therefore I see no reason why we should hesitate to
place him in the category of those who are " accustomed to deal with
the suggestions of the mind," without condescending to bring these
suggestions to the test of fact. If so, I grieve to observe that .in this
case the suggestions of the mind have certainly been of a most unfor-
tunate character.

He first briefly considers the present balance of authority regard-
ing the question of spontaneous generation, or the development of
living from non-living matter. On this subject I have no remark to
make, except that, so far as the doctrine of evolution is concerned,
there is no a priori reason to anticipate the occurrence of spontaneous
generation within the limits of time that are possible to human obser-
vation. Miserably small as is our knowledge of protoplasm, we at
least know enough to be astounded at its enormously complex chemi-
cal constitution, and the no less enormously complex physical proper-
ties with which it is endowed. The numerous species of elaborately
sculptured shells which owe their varied and intricate forms to the
vital activities of protoplasm ; the fact that all cells, and therefore all

A REPLY TO ''FALLACIES OF EVOLUTION:' 105

organizations, ultimately owe their forms and their functions to the
apparently same material ; and, lastly, the fact that all specific organ-
isms spring from minute specks of this substance, which specks there-
fore contain and transmit the vital record of billions on billions of
hereditary qualities, specific and individual — these things show that
the term protoplasm must be considered as merely a general term for
all living matter, the constitution of which may perhaps in some cases
be comparatively simple, while in others it must be immensely com-
plex, the only common feature of protoplasmic material being that its
constitution is too minute for the microscope to analyze. But even if
we suppose that the constitution of the simplest form of existing pro-
toplasm— whatever that may be — is as simple as we choose to suppose,
it must at least be enormously complex as compared with any known
form of non-living matter. Therefore an evolutionist, or a man who
believes in the doctrine of gradual development in nature, is certainly
not the man who would be prepared a x^fiori to expect the spontane-
ous production of protoplasm within any period that it is competent
for experiment to span. If experiment should ever succeed in une-
quivocally producing protoplasm by artificial means, the fact would,
of course, be an immense gain to science, and by bridging the chasm
between the physical and the vital would be also a gain to the doctrine
of development. But the absence of any such experimental proof of
continuity is no presumption against that doctrine, so long as the pre-
sumption remains that if the passage from the non-living to the living
ever took place it must have taken place by slow degrees.

Passing over the reviewer's comments on the theories of Lamarck
and the author of the " Vestiges," I shall at once proceed to examine
the main portion of his review, which is simply an attempt at a criti-
cism of Mr. Darwin's work. Here he says : " With the facts, our only
concern is to understand them, that we may be able to reason from
them. Our business is with the conclusions, to test their correctness
in accordance with the recognized principles of right reasoning, that
error may be eliminated and truth secured." "VYe shall see that it can
not well be said whether it is in understanding the facts, or in testing
the conclusions, that this writer has shown himself the more deplorably
incompetent.

First, he undertakes to expound and to criticise what he properly
terms the distinctive " peculiarity " of Darwinism — the doctrine of
natural selection. It may well be thought incredible that at the pres-
ent day an educated man, writing in a respectable review on the sub-
ject of Darwinism, and introducing his criticism with all the solemn
floui-ishes of pedantry that I have quoted, should at once proceed to
show that he is entirely ignorant of what the doctrine of natural se-
lection is. Yet such is the fact, and the heavy charge of uninstructed
arrogance which I thus level at the writer in question is but too easily
maintained by the following quotations (pp. 225-227) :

io6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

This instrumentality was at first supplied in the theory of Dr, Darwin by the
" struggle for life," occasioning the disappearance from the scene of the feeblest
and the " survival of the fittest " to carry on the race. The notion is a striking
one ; and with the advocacy of its able author, his charming style, and the in-
teresting illustrations by which it was supported, naturally produced a powerful
impression upon the public mind. A little consideration, however, gradually
weakened the first effect. It was presently observed that such a description
was only properly applicable to a certain class of animals — the polygamous^ in
which one male in the herd or flock assumes possession of all the females ; and
to that class but imperfectly, making no account of the females, whose influence
in determining the condition of the offspring is at least equal to that of the
males. . . .

With regard to the two propositions upon which the Darwinian theory essen-
tially depends, we have already alluded to an apparent objection to the first
mentioned, the " struggle for life," and which is indeed equally predicable of
the other, the principle of " selection in relation to sex " — namely, that it is lim-
ited in its application to certain classes of animals, and those neither the most
numerous nor the most important. For we confess we can not understand how
either of them could be supjjosed to prevail at all in at least one whole depart-
ment of animal life — the aquatic. Surely there is but scant room for the
hypothesis of a "struggle for life," and still less for that of "selection in rela-
tion to sex " among fishes ! And these, with the other denizens of the deep,
constitute more than one half of the animal kingdom. But there is yet another
point of view in regard of which both the conditions in question are obviously
inadequate to the conclusion that is built upon them — namely, that it is only in
the already advanced stages of animal subsistence that they come into operation
at all. The "struggle for life" and " selection in relation to sex " could have
no scope for exercise among the lower forms of life ; many of them without the
power of locomotion, incapable of either seeking their food or choosing their
mates. And yet these are, in the theory before us, the foundation of the ani-
mal superstructure, comprising the earlier stages of that progressive develop-
ment which by those means is supposed to be accomplished.

From these passages we can only suppose that their writer believes
what he states, viz., that Mr. Darwin's theory of natural selection in
the struggle for life is limited to natural selection in what Mr. Darwin
has called " the law of battle." In all animals that fight among them-
selves Mr. Darwin supposes that strength, courage, and all other quali-
ties conducive to success in battle, are some of the qualities which in
such animals constitute that " fitness " to survive which is laid hold
upon by natural selection in the struggle for existence, and perpetuated
in advancing degrees by heredity. But to suppose that the struggle
for existence is limited to a literal fighting among animals is a miscon-
ception so extraordinary that it could scarcely be suspected, were it
not so carefully enforced by the writer himself. Why else should he
mention only " the feeblest " as those individuals which must disappear
in the struggle for life ? or why else should the process of natural se-
lection be restricted in its operation to such animals as are " polyga-
mous " ? And how else can there be any meaning in the statement
that " we confess we can not understand how either of them could be

A REPLY TO ''FALLACIES OF EVOLUTIONS 107

supposed to prevail at all in at least one whole department of animal
life — the aquatic,'''' or " that the struggle for life could have no scope
for exercise among the lower forms of life," etc., etc, ? The truth can
only be that this A\Titer has either never read Darwin at all, or that he
has forgotten the most distinctive principles of which Darwinism con-
sists. For, it would be needless to tell nine persons out of ten who
may read this reply, that Darwin is most explicit in assigning a very
subordinate place to the function of actual contest in the struggle for
existence ; he supposes a host of other agencies to be of far more im-
portance in determining the fitness of the survivors— a host, indeed,
which it is literally true that no man can number. Doubtless the
poetic force of Mr. Darwin's metaphor has ludicrously misled his
critic ; and, if the latter were to substitute for it some such term as
Competition for Life, it is impossible that we could hear anything
more even from the " feeblest " unfortunate among the strugglers
against evolution, about being unable to understand how the principle
could apply to the lower forms of life.

The remarks, then, which I have quoted concerning natural selec-
tion clearly prove that that writer has either never read, or has entirely
forgotten, the " Origin of Species." His remarks simultaneously quoted
concerning sexual selection further prove that he has either never read,
or has entirely forgotten, the " Descent of Man." Otherwise it would
have been imposgible for him to waite, with all the added emphasis
supplied by a mark of admiration, " Surely there is but scant room for
the hypothesis of a * struggle for life,' and still less for that of ' selec-
tion in relation to sex,' among fishes ! " A reviewer has a perfect right
to differ to any extent he pleases with the writer whom he reviews,
provided that he gives some evidence of having read the works of that
writer ; but a man who, " listening to the suggestions of his o^oi
mind," thinks that he is making a strong point by propounding, as a
reductio ad absurdicm, a belief which the author he reviews has brought
a large quantity of evidence to support — such a man can only be
deemed a foolish adventurer in the province of criticism. Whether or
not sexual selection obtains among fish may properly be regarded as
an open question, and the supposition that it does may, perhaps, seem
to some persons unlikely, even after they have read all that Darwin
has to say upon the subject. But any dubiousness of the doctrine
itself does not affect the evidence, which is supplied by the reductio
ad ahsurdum form, that the reviewer is ignorant that Darwin has
seriously advocated the possibility of sexual selection occurring among
certain aquatic animals.

Having spoken of the reviewer's ignorance of the " Origin of Spe-
cies " and the " Descent of Man," I may next allude to his ignorance
of the "Variation of Plants and Animals under Domestication."
Here, at least, total ignorance of the work he names is the most chari-
table construction that we can put upon the following passage :

io8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

We can not admit that anything deducible from such premises can have any
application in the case before us. What we are here concerned to determine is
the effect of the operation of the laws of nature in the state of nature ; and this
can not be affected by anything that could be achieved in a state in which those
laws are superseded by wn-natural restraints. The conditions of existence in a
state of domestication, whereinsoever they differ from those in the state of
nature, are by their very definition peculiar to the state of which they are pred-
icated, and consequently out of place in an argument that concerns the ages
which preceded the advent and dominion of man. Granted the very utmost
that is sought to be established by such means, even to the extent of the actual
production of a new species — and nothing of this kind is pretended to — it would
leave the question of development by evolution (in the abstract) wholly un-
touched."

Whether or not this passage has been written after a perusal of
the "Variation," it displays an inability to appreciate the function of
experiment that to most persons will appear, and rightly appear, la-
mentable. Comment on so astonishing a passage would be useless, for
nothing that I could say could throw its condensed absurdity into any
stronger relief. As well might it be said that all our study of elec-
tricity is useless for the purpose of furthering our knowledge of natu-
ral forces, except so far as observations on the subject are confined to
the phenomena of lightning.

Next in order we come upon the writer's estimate of the argument
from classification :

The validity of this argument [he says] disappears altogether in view of
the fact that just the same state of things would be practicable in the case of a
creation according to the vulgar hypothesis of an exercise of the divine power.
Considering the mass of animal life to be dealt with, amounting, as just observed,
to 120,000 different species, it is almost of necessity that they should be formed
upon one or more types or models, implying a certain uniformity of character
among the members of the same typical construction, which it is not unreason-
able to suppose intended to be evidenced in those animals that were apparently
least, amenable to it, by the otherwise inexplicable indications of imperfectly de-
veloped organs.

Disregarding the error that it is not only in such animals that
rudimentary organs are present — seeing that, on the contrary, their
occurrence is so general that almost every species presents one or
more of them — the idea Avhich is conveyed by this passage is one of
the wildest attempts at criticism that I have ever encountered. The
instances of afiinities in the animal and vegetable kingdoms would, if
they could be enumerated, run up into the thousand millions, and ex-
tend to the most complex and delicate traits of structure that it is
possible to imagine. That such a state of things may be due to intel-
ligent design is a suflSciently reasonable hypothesis, and as such may
be properly opposed to the hypothesis of hereditary descent. But the
supposition that such a state of things can be due to any *' necessity "

A REPLY TO ''FALLACIES OF EVOLUTION:' 109

arising out of "the mass of animal life to be dealt with," is a suppo-
sition that could only occur to a mind altogether unacquainted with
anatomical science. The marvel always is, not the accidental simi-
larity of organs, due to the exigencies of their performing similar
functions, but the adaptation of anatomically homologous organs
to the performance of widely different functions. To take only one
instance by way of illustration. Where is the " necessity " that no
one among the many species of bats should not have the wing formed
in any other way than by the highly peculiar and distinctive modifica-
tion of the hand ? Or where is the " necessity " that all the still
greater number of species of birds should have their wings formed by
another highly peculiar and equally distinctive modification of the
arm ? Both structures serve equally well for flight ; as, indeed, do
the wings of insects and did the wings of the pterodactyl. So far,
then, as the exigencies arising out of " the mass of animal life to be
dealt with " are concerned, there is no reason why these four types
of wings should not occur indiscriminately among the four classes of
animals in question — and this even if we follow our author in confining
the possibilities of creative invention to the anatomical structures of
which we are cognizant. This, of course, is but a general refutation.
The absurdity of the argument from " necessity " becomes the more
apparent the more numerous and more minute the homologies of struc-
ture are found to be within the limits of the same type, without ever
transgressing on the equally numerous and minute homologies of any
other type. But the fact that homologies never thus commingle —
that no one of a vast congeries of organs characteristic of one group
of organisms ever appears in any other group of organisms — this fact
is of such overwhelming force as evidence of genetic descent, that its
supposed failure of application in one solitary instance was, as Sir
Charles Lyell wisely observed, to his mind the strongest argument
against evolution with which he had met. This solitary case of fail-
ure had reference to the eye of a mollusk (the cuttle-fish), which was
alleged to be anatomically similar to the eye of a true fish. The alle-
gation proved to be wholly false ; but, so far as any " necessity " aris-
ing from the difficulty of inventing new forms is concerned, there is
no reason why the allegation should not have been true.

Our reviewer next treats of the argument from embryology, and
in doing so his ideas present that same crudity of cast which gives to
his whole essay its grotesque character. He says : " Certainly these
remarks are exceedingly curious, and even in a sense imposing. . . .
But these resemblances, be they never so close, infer no real connection
between the objects thus heterogeneously associated. It is not pre-
tended that the objects compared together are ever entirely alike —
that the unborn young of the higher animal is, at any stage of its
development, identical with any of the lower animals, but only that
some of the features of the one are like the analogous features of the

no THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

other. . . . That some such resemblance should, in fact, be found to
prevail is only what might naturally be expected, considering that each
full-grown individual is itself the result of a process of gradual devel-
opment from a sizeless and shapeless germ, in which development all
its organs equally participate," etc. Here, again, we encounter the
same argument from "necessity" that has just been considered ; and
here, again, it is no less preposterous than it was in its previous con-
nection. For to an embryologist nothing could appear more ridicu-
lous than the statement that " in such a case of gradual development
it follows, almost as a matter of course, that both the entire animal
and all its component members should, in their advance to maturity
from a mere pimctum saliens, exhibit some faint resemblance " to other
and allied animals. As a matter of fact, the resemblance is never
" faint " but profound, affecting all the structures which constitute
the essential framework of the organism. The kind of resemblance
on which the reviewer would appear inclined to place most reliance
would be a superficial resemblance of specific details. But although
even this is supplied by many facts — such as the hair on the unborn
child, clothing the body except on the palms of the hands and the
soles of the feet, which are also denuded in apes — it is not of so deep
a significance to a i^hilosophical mind as are the deeper resemblances of
anatomical structure. Hence, even if the unborn young of a higher
animal were, " at any stage of its development, identical with any of
the lower animals," the fact would not speak so strongly in favor of
its derivation from a lower form as does the fact of its passing through
a whole series of changes, each stage of which refers, in some point of
anatomical significance, to some stage in the existing grade of animal
organizations. Actual identity is not what the theory of descent with
modification would lead us to expect, seeing that, according to this
theory, the comparable features usually refer to features that are de-
rived from a common ancestor lower down in a branching stem of
descent. In a family tree we may expect the constituent members to
inherit in common some peculiarities possessed by their common an-
cestors, but we do not expect the personal appearance of all the indi-
viduals to be identical. Lastly, when we consider the enormous com-
plexity of organisms, the marvel is how the more complicated, in
attaining their higher complexity, mimic so closely the anatomical
structures of the organisms lower in the scale of complexity. Far
from its being " almost a matter of course," it is in the last degree
astounding that a vertebrated animal, for instance, should begin its
course of development by the same process of yolk-cleavage that oc-
curs in the rest of the animal kingdom, that its first differentiation of
body-layers should present the essential anatomical features of the
body-layers that characterize the jelly-fish, and so on. In short, when
any one at all acquainted with the facts of embryology regards them
e7i masse, the last of all notions to enter his mind will be that they

A REPLY TO ''FALLACIES OF EVOLUTIONS in

must be as they are " almost as a matter of course." Rather will he be
constrained to ask, " How can these things be ? " audit is fortunate
that there is now a voice of authoritative teaching to answer, " Art
thou a master in Israel and knowest not ? "

Next we come to the argument from geographical distribution.
Here the alleged fallacy of evolution is as follows : " If the environ-
ment be taken to be the cause of the specific characters of the animals,
similar environments ought to be productive of similar species. But
this is very far from being the case." This is, perhaps, as good an
instance as we have met of our author's inability to view all the area
of an extensive problem. His idea of what constitutes an " environ-
ment " is about as adequate as the idea of space that a baby shows
when it tries to grasp the moon. The following expresses his idea :
" If the environment be taken to be the cause of the diversification of
the species, how is it that, where the scope for diversity of environ-
ment is apparently the least, the greater is the variety of species ?
We have before observed that there are about 120,000 species of ani-
mals; of these more than one half are aquatic, the inhabitants of seas^
lakes, and rivers ; to which distinction, combined with temperature,
the grounds of diversification seem almost exclusively confined."
This is really exquisite — so exquisite that it seems a pity to mar its
comicality by a prosaic answer. But, even though I may spoil the joke
by explaining it, I must at least explain to the author himself how
good a joke he has made.

First, then, besides varying in temperature, the ocean, in its differ-
ent parts, varies somewhat in depth, in the nature of its bottom, the
strength of its currents, the degree of its saltness, and its relations to
the laud. Next, as contrasted with the land, the water on the globe
presents an immensely greater — not only area — but cubical capacity
for sustaining life. Again, and of still greater importance, it is a mat-
ter of fact, whether or not the doctrine of evolution is true, that geol-
ogy reveals the existence of multitudinous forms of aquatic life as
preceding in time the advent of terrestrial life. And, as the theory
of evolution supposes that all the latter forms of life are the lineal
descendants of the former, it is clear that by the terms of this theory,
no less than by those of geological fact, far more time has been allowed
for the differentiation of aquatic than for that of terrestrial species.
Indeed, looking to the degree in which water, as contrasted with land,
has thus been favorably handicapped in the time allowed for the pro-
duction of species, the only wonder is, that the water does not show a
greater comparative wealth of specific forms than it does. But, lastly,
and most important of all, it is a huge blunder to imagine that an
" environment " consists merely in the physical conditions as to me-
dium, climate, etc., to which an organism is exposed. Of far more
importance are the innumerably complex relations of the organism to
its neighboring organisms, whether of its own or other species, to

112 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

which must be added the effects of hereditary endowment from a long
line of ancestors occupying other and changing environments, to all
of which these ancestors must have been structurally adapted. The
word " environment " is a term of the most comprehensive kind, em-
bodying, in every case that it is used, an assemblage of conditions pre-
senting an amount of complexity that is not only inconceivable but
wholly unnamable. It is nothing less than amazing to- find a man at
this time of day seeking to argue that environments can not " be the
cause of the diversifications of species," on such grounds as that differ-
ent species flourish in " parts of South Africa and Australia which are
wonderfully similar in their soil and climate." Indeed, not to prolong
the discussion of nonsense, I will conclude this part of my reply by
quoting the sentence with which he concludes his statement of this
particular " fallacy of evolution." I do so because, while he appears
to think that the question is of so unanswerable a character as to de-
serve the place of anti-climax in his argument, it really presents as
good an example as could anywhere be found of misconceiDtion blatant.
Here it is : " And then, what is to be said for the multitude of species
to be found in the same localities, the same forests, the same jungles,
the same lakes, the same streamlets, where there is literally no room
for any difference in the environments at all ? "

After an exj^ose of ignorance so crass I do not think that I should
be performing any useful function by following the writer any further
in his luckless flounderings. The rest of his article consists in a trite
statement of the facts that species are not producible by artificial
selection, and that some specific forms have remained unchanged
through long geological epochs — neither of which facts has the small-
est tendency to negative the doctrine of descent.

He also devotes a page or two to sustain the theory that the lake-
dwellers and other prehistoric men were the " degraded descendants
of a civilized ancestry." Of course, in so doing he has no facts to
adduce — merely maintaining that " it is just as possible, just as likely,
that the artificers in stone, and the dwellers in the caves of the earth,
were the degraded descendants of a civilized ancestry, as the barba-
rous ancestors of a civilized posterity " — forgetting, on the one hand,
that, if the general theory of evolution be true, this is not so possible
or oiot so likely ; and, on the other hand, that it is a very unfortunate
fact for the possibility and the likelihood in question that the " civil-
ized ancestry " should have been so much less fortunate in leaving
behind them relics of their existence than have been their " barbarous
posterity," Next, he treats of "the distinction and equable distribu-
tion of the sexes." This is, indeed, a subject which the theory of
evolution has not yet been successful in completely explaining ; but
our author, by again displaying his ignorance of Mr. Darwin's writ-
ings, has not made so strong a case as he might have made. He ap-
pears to think it self-evident that over such things " the struggle for

A REPLY TO ''FALLACIES OF EVOLUTION:'

113

life and natural selection must be equally powerless" — a statement
which is self -evidently absurd ; for, although a man may doubt wheth-
er the alleged cause (natural selection) is competent to effect all that
Darwinians here suppose, this writer only weakens his own case by
showing that he is ignorant of such a cause having been alleged. And
no less unfortunate is he when " attending to the suggestions of the
mind " in the matter of protective coloring. Foi', after stating one or
two cases of protective coloring, he makes the startling announcement :
"Here, then, are examples of the adaptation of the species to the con-
ditions of their existence which can not .... be by virtue of any
law of nature ; for Ave neither know of any such law, nor can we con-
ceive of any that could produce the effects in question exclusively in
the case of the few species alluded to without regard to the multitudes
inhabiting the same localities." Here, again, the most charitable sup-
position we can make is, that the wi'iter has never read the doctrines
which he undertakes to criticise. For, if, after having read all the
evidence in favor of protective coloring, he could think to dispose of
it by so absurd a criticism as this, we must refuse to consign him a
place even among those whom he calls " men of reasoning." If three
animals — A, B, and C — inhabit the same locality, and if A is protec-
tively colored, while B and C are not, what must we think of the
reasoning which from these premises alone definitely concludes that
the imitative coloring of A can not conceivably be due to the opera-
tion of a natural law ? There may be a thousand and one reasons
why B and C should not be affected by the law of protective coloring ;
yet, merely on the ground that all animals in the same locality are not
so affected, we are told to conclude that all the thousands of cases in
which animals are thus affected constitute no evidence of the opera-
tion of a natural law ! Did ever our " man of reasoning " hear of a
method of reasoning called the method of concomitant variations ?

Lastly, the reviewer enlarges upon the absence of paleontological
evidence of connecting specific forms ; but, as we have already sufii-
ciently gauged his competence to deal with such subjects as the imper-
fection of the geological record, I will not occupy further space by
considering what he says, fui'ther than to show by one concluding
quotation the truly appalling state of things, which " it can require
but little reflection to perceive " would have been the result of organic
evolution, had the world been so unfortunate as to have been subject
to such a process. " It requires but a very small stretch of thought
further to perceive that, so far from such a principle of creation afford-
ing reasonable grounds for the inference of the development of the
species, according to the present intent of the term, the result must
have been the absolute exclusion of all species whatever — the produc-
tion of an indiscriminate mass, or rather moh of animals, extending in
indistinguishable series from one end of the creation to the other."

Here I gladly stop. It is not to be expected that the majority of

TOL. XTI. 8

114 ^^^ POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

those who read the criticism can themselves be in a position to esti-
mate the full extent of its impudence ; and for this reason I have
taken the trouble to show how, as a criticism, it is beneath contempt
— useful only as a warning to those whom it concerns to abstain from
meddling with any subject which, neither by mental constitution,
thought, nor training, are they in the lowest degree competent to
treat. — Fortnightly Mevieio.

THE INAUGURATION OF ARAGO'S STATUE.

THE statue to Arago recently unveiled at Perpignan is not the first
erected to that great astronomer and greater physicist. In 1867
M. Isaac Pereire, then representative of the native place of Arago in
the Imperial Chamber of Deputies, erected one at his own expense at
Estagel. The inauguration was accompanied by speeches delivered
by the generous donor, M. Bertrand, the Perpetual Secretary of the
Academy of Sciences, and others. It was stated then that Arago had
supported against his own party the construction of the railways by
public companies, and had been grossly abused by some of his political
friends. Although a political leader, it must be said, to the glory of
Arago, that he never was influenced by party considerations. He was
always writing, and speaking, and voting according to the dictamina
of his own judgment. These facts should be remembered, as efforts
have been made, in the recent Arago celebration, to degrade him into
a mere politician, which never was the case. Arago was made a mem-
ber of the Provisional Government of France in Februarj^, 1848 ; it
was owing to his personal exertion that the abolition decree was pro-
claimed before the convocation of the National Assembly. It is true
that he was appointed in the beginning of May one of the qidnquem-
virs of the Executive Commission. But this Government was over-
thrown by the popular rising of the end of June, and from that time
he abstained from taking any prominent part in politics.

Arago was not rich, his works having been mostly published in the
" Annuaire du Bureau des Longitudes " without any copyright, and
sold for the benefit of the Bureau, of which he was the most influential
member. His paying works were all of them posthumous, and edited
by M. Barras, the Perpetual Secretary of the Agricultural Society of
France. The sale was not so large as anticipated, and the publisher
who purchased the copyright fi-om the inheritors failed. The sale of
the " Annuaire " was so large during Arago's lifetime that the Bureau
had a profit by it. Since his death it has become necessary to provide
special funds for the publication of that useful work.

Arago had no salary at all as director of the Observatory. He was

THE INAUGURATION OF ARAGO'S STATUE. 115

appointed every year by the Bureau, receiving only £200 for his mem-
bership. His other salaries were £50 as a member of the Academy
of Sciences, £250 as Perpetual Secretary, and when he was lecturing
on astronomy, £50. The functions of deputy and member of Munici-
pal Council of Paris being entirely gratuitous, he was no receiver of
any other public moneys. Under the republic his membership of the
Assembly brought him one pound a day.

From the eloquent eloge pronounced by M. Paul Bert at the recent
inauguration, we take the following extract : " To contemplate Arago
under all the aspects that may attract the admiration of posterity we
must think of him as a man of science overturning the Newtonian
hypothesis of the emission of light, determining the physical constitu-
tion of the sun, explaining the scintillation of the stars, the nature of
the aurora borealis, discovering magnetization by currents, the origin
of the electric telegraph, extending to all bodies magnetic properties ;
finally, for I must limit myself to the most prominent points, indicat-
ing to the most eminent of his disciples the star still unknown and in-
visible, whose discovery introduced order among the perturbed planets,
and which still remains the most extraordinary mark of the power
of human genius. As a professor, again, before three thousand audi-
tors at the Observatory, or in his chair as Perpetual Secretary, writing
his incomparable scientific notices, or dictating, when blind, his popu-
lar astronomy, always, by speech or by pen, marvelous for his clear-
ness, his accuracy, his power and fullness, elevating all he touched,
returning to the astonished inventor his discovery developed and fer-
tilized, sowing broadcast his ideas, and rejoicing when others, friends
or foes, were enriched by the precious fruits of his genius. As a sci-
entific historian he excelled Condorcet, equaled Cuvier and Fontenelle,
and was characterized above all others by his eagerness to give every
one his due, and his jealous love of justice. As an orator he carried
into the tribune the vigor and clearness of the scientific chair, vivified
by the emotions of master-spirits, and dominating the assembly by
his lofty stature, with his beautiful southern head, and his eye full of
fire. He was a man, in fact, in whom the will to act was united with
the consciousness of power, an intelligence marvelously comprehensive
and powerfully creative, so bold and yet so prudent at times that it
never committed an error that required to be retracted. Of an ardent
but loyal nature, ready for power, but incapable of hatred, and thirst-
ing for justice, a heart sensitive and valiant, sometimes drawn, says a
contemporary, to show itself severe to the strong in order to support
the weak ; a soul austere but a brow serene ; a father and citizen wor-
thy of the ancient legends, and able, like Carnot, on quitting life to
bear the noble witness, 'My hands are clean and my heart pure.'
From the extent of the sketch you may judge what will be the nature
of the picture." — Nature.

ii6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

SKETCH OF DR. ASA FITCH.

By E. p. THUKSTON.

THERE is in the world a class of men whose characters, labors, and
attainments well entitle them to be called great, who are yet so
modest in their self -estimate, so unassuming in their knowledge, that
those who dwell about them recognize only the common characteristics
of average men ; or if, from peculiar ideas and habits, they are found to
be different, the difference is accredited them with complacent tolerance.
They are so guileless in life, so pure in thought, and withal so generous-
hearted, that in ordinary affairs the world holds them at a disadvan-
tage, quietly appropriating the fruits of their laboi-s with little if any
sense of obligation. To this class belonged Dr. Asa Fitch, well known
in the scientific world as a distinguished entomologist, whose writings
and investigations have contributed largely to our present knowledge
of American insects.

Dr. Fitch was the descendant of a long line which in this country,
in early colonial times, was linked with the Brewsters of the May-
flower, and other distinguished families. He was the second son of
the Hon. Asa Fitch, M. D., a man eminent in the medical profession,
and equally so in various positions of public trust to which the people
called him.

The subject of our sketch was born at Fitch's Point, Salem, Wash-
ington County, New York, February 24, 1809. His childhood was
passed on a farm, and until twelve years of age he attended the dis-
trict school. He was then sent to the academy at the neighboring vil-
lage of Salem, and at about the same time began a journal of the
interesting and important events of his daily life, which, with two or
three brief lapses, was continued until his death. Early entries in this
record betray the possession in a marked degree, even in his boyhood, of
keen observing powers, and a rare faculty for accuracy and lucidity of
description, characteristics which in later life grew into striking prom-
inence, and gave to his scientific work an exceptional value. He was
an unusually studious pupil, and early evinced a preference for the
natural sciences, botany first claiming his attention. In his fifteenth
year he began, according to a note in his diary, to arrange the botani-
cal collection of his preceptor in classes and orders. His studies at the
academy completed, he remained at home until his eighteenth year,
engaged a portion of the time as clerk in a neighboring store.

In the spring of 182G his father sent him to Rensselaer School, at
Troy (now the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute), where he soon be-
came deeply interested in natural history, zoology almost immedi-
ately awakening his enthusiasm. The bent of his mind toward en-

SKETCH OF DR, ASA FITCH. 117

tomology quickly declared itself, and it was not long before the insects
had more or less complete possession. He graduated with honor at the
Rensselaer School with the class of 1827, and immediately after, at
the instance of his father, began a course of medical studies, attending
lectures at the Vermont Academy of Medicine, at Castleton, but still
giving much of his time to the study of insects, the observation of which
had now become almost a passion. He persevered, however, in the
medical course, graduating M. D. in 1829, and afterward attended lec-
tures at Rutgers Medical College, in New York City, concluding his
preparation for the profession in the office of the late Dr. March,
of Albany. While thus engaged he made industrious use of the libra-
ries of that city so far as they could aid in advancing his knowledge
of entomology. Being unable to purchase the books he needed, and
determined to possess all the information they contained about the in-
sects of this country, he copied with gi-eat accuracy and rapidity, from
the various entomological works in both the State and academy libra-
ries, all that had then been written on American insects.

His medical studies terminated, in the capacity of Assistant Pro-
fessor of Natural History he accompanied the Rensselaer School Expe-
dition of 1830 to Lake Erie, having then just attained his majority.
The President of the school, Professor Eaton, regarded him at this
time as the best entomologist in the United States, and he was urged
by his friends to publish on the subject. He replied that " Sir Walter
Scott was above half right, * Study in youth, and publish in mature
life,' " a precept the youthful investigator followed. At the western
terminus of the expedition, Dr. Fitch left the party and traveled ex-
tensively in the Western States, collecting and analyzing the rare
species of insects found in the localities visited. He returned home in
the summer of 1831, and almost immediately began the practice of his
profession at Fort Miller, New York, having his office with Dr. Tayler
Lewis, afterward the distinguished Professor of Greek in Union Col-
lege.

November 15, 1832, Dr. Fitch married Elizabeth, daughter of John
McNeil, of Stillwater, New York, and soon after removed to that
place, continuing the practice of the profession he cordially hated, for
six years. In 1838 he gave up practice and returned to Salem, to as-
sume the management of his father's business, for which the latter had
become incapacitated by ill health. From this time he devoted him-
self largely to agricultural pursuits, which gave more ample opportu-
nities for investigation in his favorite field, that he was not slow to im-
prove. It is related that he would frequently be seen after a shower,
on his hands and knees, searching about for insects and all manner of
" creeping things," and would finally return to the house with his tall
old hat completely covered inside and out with the writhing victims
of his scientific greed. He was nicknamed " The Bug-Catcher " by his
neighbors ; and so eager became his quest for curious specimens in

ii8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

wood, field, and stream, that many thought him demented, while
others declared that he destroyed more grain than his scientific inves-
tigations were worth.

At its organization he became identified with the Washington
County Agricultural Society, and soon began to give attention to the
public need by various contributions to the local journals on economic
entomology. In 1845 he published in Dr. Emmons's " American Quar-
terly Journal of Agriculture and Science " an article of thirteen pages
on " Insects of the genus Cecidomyia," in which he described a new
species of willow gall-fly, illustrating it by. figures of the insect in
different stages of growth, and of the excrescence it produces on the
willow. This was his first formal entomological essay. Six months
later he sent another of thirty pages to the same journal on " The Wheat-
Midge," and, in 1846, a third of sixty-three pages on "The Hessian
Fly." This was afterward revised and republished in the " Transac-
tions of the New York State Agricultural Society." In 1847 he pub-
lished a valuable paper on " Winter Insects," of which he was the first
to write specifically ; and also in the " Transactions " gave an account
of the currant-worm and its moth. This paper, beautifully illustrated
with colored engravings, was widely copied in foreign scientific jour-
nals, and brought its author prominently into notice as a scientific
investigator. At this period Dr. Fitch was employed for a time col-
lecting and naming the insects of the State of New York, for the State
Cabinet of Natural History. In the Report of the Regents of the
University for 1851 he gave a descriptive catalogue of the insects of
New York of the order Homoptera^ in which he named and described
a number of new species.

In 1854 Dr. Fitch was appointed New York State Entomologist,
and held the position seventeen years, during which period he devoted
himself exclusively and most assiduously to scientific woi-k. The little
ofilce a few yards from his residence became his workshop, and night
and day sent forth light to the world. So close was the watch he
kept at the hatching-time of the various larvae collected, that for a
week together he would catch his sleep in an arm-chair, waking at
intervals to note the wonderful changes taking place in the insect-life
before him. At such times, his meals, and an extra hour after tea
to read the news, was all the recreation he allowed himself, and even
then his pocket-net was always within reach, to capture any unwary
moth or curious beetle whose love of light attracted it to the room.
Dr. Fitch was a most devout Christian, and reading the Scriptures and
prayer with his family was a daily habit of his life. But even when
thus engaged it was not safe for an attractive insect to come in his
way. A daughter, the one to whom he was indebted for many of the
beautiful drawings which illustrate his writings, relates that on one
such occasion when he had the Bible in his hands, and was about to
begin reading, a moth of peculiar appearance alighted on the book

SKETCH OF DR. ASA FITCH. 119

before him. The ruling passion was too strong for either time or
circumstance : glancing about, as if conscious of the incongruity of
the proceeding, he quickly seized his net, bagged the curious speci-
men, and with a half-guilty look proceeded with the reading. The
capture was an important one, as the moth proved to be new to sci-
ence.

"While State Entomologist, his correspondence grew so large as to
seriously interfere with other work, and he was at last reluctantly com-
pelled to answer only such letters as were of most importance, devot-
ing the remaining time to research and the preparation of his annual
reports. These reports, of which there were thirteen in all, were pub-
lished in the " Transactions of the State Agricultural Society " ; the
first nine being also issued in three bound volumes, which were widely
circulated both here and abroad, and attracted very favorable atten-
tion. His researches were thus brought to the knowledge of foreign
entomologists, their value promptly recognized, and the Doctor was
soon enrolled as corresponding member of several foreign entomologi-
cal societies, and later became the recipient of their diplomas, medals,
and other testimonials of the appreciation m which his woi*k was
held.

The great entomologists of Europe — Westwood and Curtis, of Lon-
don ; Dr. Signoret, of Paris ; Dr. Gerstacker, of Berlin ; Baron d'Osten-
Sacken, of St. Petersburg — were quick to avail themselves of his dis-
coveries, not only by gleaning from his published works, but through
the avenue of personal correspondence. His portfolios of foreign cor-
respondence ai-e literally filled with letters of inquiry and acknowledg-
ment from such noted specialists as Dr. Sickel, M. Selys de Lonchamp,
and the Abbe Marseul, of France ; Professor Boheman, of Sweden ;
M. Malde, of Germany ; and Andrew Murray, of Edinburgh, together
with many others of equal reputation.

The success Dr. Fitch achieved was not in any sense the result of
favoring circumstances, but the legitimate outcome of his patience in
observation and study — study which was always directed by a well-
defined plan to a definite object, which as early as 1840 he thus laid
down :

*' I have undertaken a very great work, and have laid upon my-
self a task both hard in the plan and difiicult in the execution. To
unite in one very limited body the most essential facts of the history of
insects ; to class them with precision and accuracy in a natural series ;
to delineate the chief traits in their physiognomy ; to trace in a laconic
and strict manner their distinctive characters, and follow a course
which shall correspond with the progress of the science and the emi-
nent men who have contributed to its advancement ; to single out the
useful and obnoxious species, those which from their manner of living
interest our curiosity ; to mark the thousand sources where the knowl-
edge of the original authors may be consulted ; to render to Entomolo-

120 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

gy that amiable simplicity wliicli she has had in the times of Linnseus,
of. Geoffrey, and of the first productions of Fabricius, and yet j^resent
her as she is to-day, with all the richness which she has acquired from
observation, but without surcharging her with it ; to conform her, in
one word, to the model which I have under my eyes, the work of
Cuvier — such is the end which I have taken upon myself to attain."

Dr. Fitch, to a large extent, accomplished this work ; but his pub-
lished treatises form only a small portion of his labors in that direc-
tion. One hundred note-books filled with complete and accurate en-
tomological descriptions still remain on the shelves of his ofiice, nearly
or quite ready for the press ; and it is much to be regretted that his
life Avent out before he had finally completed and published them, and
before he had arranged for the permanent retention in this country of
his cabinet of insects.

The position of Dr. Fitch as State Entomologist, and the wide cir-
culation of his published writings, brought to him from all quarters
insects of rare and little known species to be named and classified.
This, joined to his own untiring energy as a collector, enabled him to
fill his cabinet to overflowing with the rarest and least known species
of many lands. It is rich in all the orders, and especially so in useful,
obnoxious, and curious species ; and is probably one of the most valu-
able collections in this country, and one that it would be impossible
to duplicate. As such it should be purchased and retained by the
State.

It is impossible to summarize the benefits which scholars of Dr.
Fitch's character confer upon the world. But it is safe to assume
that they are of incalculable value. It is many millions the richer for
Dr. Fitch's researches in the science of entomology, and would have
been had he written only of the wheat-midge, the Hessian fly, and the
currant-worm.

Dr. Fitch lived to the age of seventy. His life was full of strong,
pure manhood — full of such labor and study as few men have physical
power to endure — full of the gentleness, the kindliness, and peace
which come of well-living, and full of the honors which his labors had
earned. He died April 8, 1879, the death of a good man.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

THE SOLAR APPENDAGES.

FROM Professor Langley's address
at the Saratoga Scientific Asso-
ciation, on the recent progress of solar
physics, which is herewith printed, we
get a vivid idea of the rapidity with
which knowledge upon this subject has
advanced within a very few years. We
have found out more about the most
conspicuous and familiar object in the
universe in the last twenty years than
all that was known before put together.
A late writer in the London " Times "
draws attention to the views now taken
in regard to the solar surroundings. He
considers that recent observations have
tended toward marked agreement in the
opinions entertained respecting coronal
phenomena, and their relation to the zo-
diacal light. In presenting the results of
observations on the eclipse of 1878 those
are first taken which give the luminous
effects displayed nearest the sun. Mr.
Lockyer's drawing represents the black
body of the moon as surrounded by a
narrow ring of light, the inner corona.
Outside this ring are three projections
nearly in the ecliptic, and therefore co-
inciding with the axis of the zodiacal
light. The longest of these projections
extended to about one and a quarter of
the sun's diameter, or not far from one
million miles. General Myer described
the corona as showing five radial lines
of a golden color, beyond which in the
direction of the ecHptic were prolonged
bright silver rays. General Myer had
observed effects so similar in the eclipse
of 1869 as to make probable the infer-
ence that the objects extending far away
from the sun are not subject to change
like the prominences. Mr. Alfred C.
Thomas also observed streamers of light
extending for abomt one and a half time

the diameter of the moon, and also in
the plane of the ecliptic. Professor
Cleveland Abbe saw the streamers
which other observers had compared to
a wind-vane, but he traced them to a
much greater distance than they had
done. The point of the vane as he saw
it reached away from the sun to fully
six diameters, or more than five million
miles. The breadth of the vane, where
it crosses the sun, is almost exactly
equal to the solar diameter. On the
other side of the sun the double streamer
forming the tail of the vane did not ex-
tend more than three million miles. He
also saw other luminous streaks at right
angles with these, but of less breadth
and length. Professor Langley saw the
coronal light extending farther than the
long rays observed by Professor Abbe.
He traced it to a distance of twelve
diameters of the sun on one side and
three on the other. Its extension was
in the direction of the ecliptic and the
light resembled the zodiacal. At its
extreme distance from the sun it was a
faint and softly graduated luminosity,
and not the separate rays discerned at
about half the distance. Professor New-
comb saw a similar luminosity, and
traced it to the same distance from the
sun that had been assigned by Professor
Langley. The results are thus summed
up by the " Times " writer :

From a comparison of all the observations
the following important conclusions seem es-
tablished beyond all possibility of doubt or
question : Outside the solar sierra, averaging
some 6,000 or 7,000 miles in height, comes
the prominence region, extending about 100,-
000 miles from the sun's surface. Outside
this comes the inner corona, shining in part
with its ovai light, sometimes coming chiefly
from multitudes of solid or liquid bodies in
a state of incandescence, sometimes chiefly
from glowing vaporous matter. This region

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

extends from 200,000 to 500,000 miles from
the sun. Beyond the inner corona is the
outer corona as already known and photo-
graphed during the eclipses of 1870 and 1871,
and extending about a million miles from the
sun. But far outside the outer corona there
is a region occupied by matter so situated
and so illmninated (or possibly self-luminous)
as to present the appearance of long rays ex-
tending, if we may judge from observations
hitherto made, directly from the sun to a
distance of 5,000,000 miles. Outside this re-
gion again lies another in which, whether by
the combination of multitudes of such rays
as are seen separately close to the sun or
through the presence of matter in other
forms, a softened luminosity prevails which
during total eclipse can be traced along the
zodiac at least 10,000,000 miles from the sur-
face of the Sim. Lastly, from observations
made during evening twilight in spring and
during morning twilight in autumn (at which
twilight hours the zodiac near the sun is most
nearly upright during the year) we can trace
the extension of the zodiacal luminosity seen
by Langley and Newcomb, to distances ex-
ceeding seven or eight times at least those
to which they traced it during total eclipse.
Nay, there are reasons for believing that
at times this luminosity has been traced
to such a distance from the sun as to
show that the zodiacal matter extends much
farther from him than the orbit of our own
earth.

Now, in one sense, the relations here pre-
sented are not new. The zodiacal light has
been known from the time of Childrey, if
not from that of Tycbo Brahe. Mathemati-
cians have long seen that it must belong to a
solar appendage, rejecting utterly the doc-
trine advanced by some that it comes from
matter traveling round our own earth. Again,
the long coronal rays had been very confi-
dently regarded by most mathematical as-
tronomers, and indeed by all who had suffi-
ciently studied the evidence, as belonging to
matter near the sun. And though the zo-
diacal had never before been recognized dur-
ing totality, and so the gap between the
outermost coronal rays and the innermost
part of the zodiacal seen during twilight had
never been observationally filled up, yet the
mind's eye of science had clearly discerned
even that portion of the zodiacal. Still the
recognition of the whole range of solar sur-
roundings, in such sort that no question can
any longer, it should seem, be raised as to
their reality, even by those least able to fol-
low scientific reasoning, can not but be re-
garded as an important step.

CONCERNING EONOBS TO SPIES.

Me. CTRtrs "W. Field has dedicated
a memorial stone to the memory of
Aiidr6. It marks the place of his exe-
cution and hurial. It was uncovered
at noon, October 2d, as nearly as pos-
sible at the same hour that Andre was
hanged. But few persons were pres-
ent, and not a word was spoken by any
one.

The monument is a plain polished
block of Maine granite, five feet in
height and three and one half feet
square. On the side toward the west
is the following inscription :

" Here died, October 2, 1780, Major John
Andke, of the British Army, who, entering
the American lines on a secret mission to
Benedict Arnold for the surrender of West
Point, was taken prisoner, tried and con-
demned as a spy. His death, though ac-
cording to the stern code of war, moved
even his enemies to pity, and both armies
mourned the fate of one so young and so
brave. In 1821 his remains were received
at Westminster Abbey. A hundred years
after his execution this stone was placed
above the spot where he lay, by a citizen of
the States against which he fought, not to
perpetuate the record of strife, but in token
of those better feelings which have since
united two nations one in race, in language,
and in religion, with the earnest hope that
this friendly union will never be broken."

Beneath was the name —

" Aethue Penehyn Stanley, Dean of
Westminster."

On the south side the inscription
reads as follows:

" Sunt Lacrymaj rerum et mentem mor-
talia tangunt." — Viegil, " jEneid," I., 462.

The only other inscription is upon
the north side, and is this:

" He was more unfortunate than criminal.
An accomplished man and a gallant officer."
Geoege Washington.

An inscription wUl be placed on the
east side next year, the centennial of
the execution.

The spot where the monument stands

EDITOR'S TABLE.

123

is about two miles from tlie Hudson
Kiver, and is high ground, overlooliing
a beautiful country. Mr. Field has pur-
chased thirteen acres of land surround-
ing it, which he proposes to convert
into a park ; and, when completed, he
will present the property to the citizens
of Tappan, The shaft is to be surround-
ed by an iron railing, and around it at
the cardinal points are to be planted
four trees, oaks or elms, two English
and two American.

The remains of Major Andre repose
with the illustrious dead in Westmin-
ster Abbey. They were exhumed and
carried to England in 1821 by the Duke
of York, who was sent over by the
British Government for that purpose.

We are glad that this monument has
been erected. It indicates the strength-
ening and a triumph of the nobler sen-
timents of civilization and a decline of
the intensity of international prejudice.
And it is especially fitting that Mr. Cy-
rus W. Field, to whom we so largely
owe that grandest of all unifying agen-
cies among nations, the intercontinen-
tal telegraph, should have carried out
the spirit of this great work, by doing
honor to the memory of an enemy of
his country, which has been especially
odious for these hundred years. To be
sure, Andre was hanged, but that was
merely one of the chances of war.
Washington would have been hanged
also, if the luck of war had run differ-
ently. Is it not time to begin to judge
of the merits of men independently of
the casualties that happen to befall
them ? We should be sorry not to go
behind the gallows, the cross, and the
axe, in estimating the characters of
their victims.

But another aspect of the matter is
noteworthy: Mr. Field is reported to
have said that, if he were granted per-
mission, he would erect a monument to
the memory of Nathan Hale, the Amer-
ican spy, who was hanged in the pub-
lic grounds near Hamilton Park in this
city. It would have been especially

graceful if Dean Stanley had recipro-
cated Mr. Field's generosity by taking
the initiative as an Englishman in doing
honor to the memory of Hale. But
that was not necessary. The main thing
is the concession that the monument
was deserved. No one will deny that
the young American who gave his life
for his country, and only lamented that
he had but one to give, well deserves a
monument.

But in thus doing honor to the mem-
ory of spies it is important to discrimi-
nate between the motives that animate
them and the traits of character dis-
played. The military spy represents
his country's side in war, and is justi-
fied by the ethics of patriotism. The
soldier encounters the chance of an
honorable death on the field of battle,
but is safe if taken prisoner. The spy,
on the other hand, if he fails, is certain
of an ignominious death. He takes a
deadlier risk than the soldier, and re-
quires a firmer courage to meet it. Let
the military spy, therefore, who perils
and loses his life, have his posthumous
honors, the honors due to courageous,
unselfish conduct, on whatever side en-
listed.

But there is another class of spies
who should be hanged without the
benefit of monuments; we mean Sher-
man's custom-house spies. We have rev-
enue laws so scandalous that the regu-
larly appointed ofiicers are ashamed to
enforce them. They shrink from brand-
ing all American citizens upon their
return home after foreign travel as
thieves and swindlers, and so the Gov-
ernment sets spies upon its own officers
to see that they carry out our revenue
regulations in the full measure of their
meanness. These spies, employed by
Government in time of peace, from
purely sordid considerations on both
sides, and who are destitute of every
manly impulse, abundantly deserve the
ropes they do not get, and the spies
that are hanged should not be (
by being classed with them.

124

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

VENTILATING STOVES.

The season has again come whicli
drives people into their houses to pass
a large portion of their time in closed
apartments where they can keep warm.
But the house so tight as to exclude
the cold excludes also the air, so that
good warmth is apt to involve bad
breathing. There will be renewed
complaints of deficient ventilation, and
plenty of grounds for them. And as
people suffer they will exclaim against
the backwardness of the art of venti-
lating, and wonder that science does
not bring forward some satisfactory
system of furnishing fresh air and plen-
ty of it to those who are shut up in
houses during the cold season. Yet
the inventors and constructors are
ahead of the people, and ah-eady fur-
nish many excellent devices which are
not appreciated or used. It is perfect-
ly well known, not only that fresh air
ought to be furnished to inhabited apart-
ments, but how much should be fur-
nished in given conditions, and how it
may be effectually introduced. The
problem was in fact practically solved
more than a hundred years ago with
the invention of the Polignac fireplace,
which not only warmed the room where
it was set up, but provided for ventila-
tion by bringing in a stream of air from
without through suitable ducts, warm-
ing it and then throwing it into the
apartment. Various modifications of
this contrivance have appeared in the
shape of ventilating grates which fur-
nish warm fresh air to occupied rooms.
But grates are constantly put into
bouses now which have no more refer-
ence to ventilating arrangements tban
as if nothing of the kind had ever been
thought of. Steam and hot-water ap-
paratus, and furnaces to warm large
quantities of air for distribution through
buildings, have come into extensive use,
by which heat and adequate ventilation
are well secured ; but, after all, these
engines are employed by but a small

part of the population. A large pro-
portion of the inhabitants of towns,
and the great majority of country peo-
ple, use stoves for warmth ' in cold
weather. But here, again, we see the
same neglect in providing fresh air to
breathe that is observable in the current
use of grates. Stoves are economical
and efficient means of warming, and
their use for this purpose must long
continue. But they are generally non-
ventilating, and give us the worst ef-
fects of bad air. They draw off from
apartments only the air required for
combustion, and which is replaced by
more air from without to be used for
the same purpose. Then there is com-
plaint again, and with abundant rea-
son, of bad ventilation. It seems to be
forgotten that there are such things
as ventilating stoves. But they have
long been in use. The Franklin stove
as originally constructed had a provi-
sion for ventilation. Euttan's "Air
Warmer" is a double box-stove, which
heats by radiation, and also by air
which is brought from without, warmed
by passing between the inner and outer
plates, and delivered into the apart-
ment. The inventor, however, was so
intent upon a " system of ventilation "
which implied the adaptation of. the
house to it, that he failed to make his
stoves readily available for ordinary
use.

The best contrivance we have seen
of this kind is the ventilating stove or
fireplace known as the "Fire on the
Hearth." This combines the advan-
tages of a stove within the room to
warm by radiation, a grate giving an
open fire, which is prized by many, and
a passage or chamber open below and
above through which warm air ascends
into the room. An opening in the floor
with a duct leading to the outside of
the house brings in a supply of fresh
air which is passed through the stove,
warmed, and streams into the apart-
ment. We have tried this stove, and
found it satisfactory, both as a heater

LITERARY NOTICES.

125

and a ventilator, TTe used one of mod-
erate size, which, as tested by the ane-
mometer, gave from eight to ten thou-
sand cubic feet of air per hour in the
room, and thus secured excellent ven-
tilation. The difference between an
ordinary stove and this ventilating
stove in an occupied apartment was
most marked to all the inmates, while
to gain its advantages it is only needful
to incur the small outlay necessary for
bringing in the outer air. Fresh air is
happily very cheap, but it must have
a channel for introduction. If people
will not go to the small trouble and
expense required to give it entrance,
they should not complain of the diffi-
culties and imperfections of ventilation.

TRE WORKS OF PROFESSOR YAUGHAy.

We have received various communi-
cations from widely different and dis-
tant sources in relation to the reputa-
tion and works of the late Professor
Daniel Vaughan. Severe animadver-
sions have been passed upon the depre-
ciatory tone of comment that has been
indulged in with regard to his person-
ality and life ; and there has been in-
quiry as to -where his writings may be
obtained. Several suggestions have
been made respecting the publication
of an edition of the most important and
popular of his scientific contributions,
A correspondent of Salem, Massachu-
setts, suggests that a very attractive and
valuable volume could be made up by
his papers on "The Tides," "The Rings
of Saturn," "The Origin and End of
the World," " The Advent and Appear-
ance of New Stars," " The Nebular Hy-
pothesis," "The PluraHty of Worlds,"
"The Primitive Earth," " The Ancient
Atmosphere," "Physics of the Internal
Earth," "Volcanoes," "The Moon,"
"Revelations of Spectrum Analysis,"
and " The Catastrophes in Celestial
Space."

These are certainly interesting top-
ics, and they were handled by Professor

Vaughan not only with the ability of
an able expositor, but with the fresh-
ness of an independent thinker, who
had formed his own opinions upon
many of the questions involved. Pro-
fessor Vaughan, as we, however, under-
stand, left no property to pay for the
publication of his works, and whether
such a volume can be issued will depend
upon how publishers regard the venture,
or whether he has any friends sufficient-
ly interested in his memory and pro-
ductions to cooperate in bringing out a
collection of his essays.

LITERARY NOTICES.

Ethics, or Science of Duty. By John
Bascom, author of " Principles of Psy-
chology," etc. New York : G. P. Put-
nam's Sons. Pp. 385. Price, $1.75.
Dr. Bascom has here given us a freshly-
reasoned and excellent manual of morals.
It is attractively written, and very judicious
as an exposition of practical duty.

But the title chosen raises expectations,
at the present time, which the work seems
to us hardly to fulfill. The author recog-
nizes that the subject he is dealing with
belongs among the sciences, and is there-
fore a branch of improvable or progressive
knowledge. He, moreover, admits that
there is some force in the claim that ethics
requires both a new foundation and a
new method. The subject is therefore con-
fessedly in a state of transition, or is under-
going a development such as all sciences
experience from a less perfect to a more
perfect form. Dr. Bascom does not give
suflScient prominence to this fact and its
important implications. Had he confined
himself merely to summarizing the empirical
rules of morality as they have been arrived
at in social practice, this objection would
be less pertinent ; but he goes analytically
into the subject, works out its principles,
reviews ethical systems, discusses ethical
methods, and reasons his way to full con-
clusions respecting the right and wrong of
conduct, and the grounds of moral obliga-
tion. The whole subject being thus opened,
we think the author should have gone fur-

126

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ther in the scientific direction than he has
seen fit to go. He should have placed his
exposition upon a scientific groundwork, or
have given the reasons for not doing so.
His omission is the more surprising when
we observe how far he has actually pro-
ceeded in the right direction.

It is sufficiently obvious that ethical
method passes to a new stage of develop-
ment with the establishment of the doc-
trine of evolution. If evolution be true,
the foundations of old systems are subvert-
ed, and it is necessary to build anew.
When he wrote his late elaborate book on
" Methods of Ethics," Mr. Sidgwick could
not see that evolution' had much to do with
the subject. If the doctrine had been de-
veloped in the universities, he would have
probably found its bearings more impor-
tant. He has found more in it for his sec-
ond edition, and will be likely to discover
still more for the third. Should he finally
be compelled to admit that the relation is
fundamental, it will be but another instance,
of which the history of science is so full, in
which what was at first insignificant comes
to be supreme.

Dr. Bascom begins better. His first
chapter is on "The Remote or Physical
Conditions of Duty " ; and if this starting-
point of a treatise on morahty would have
seemed surprising a generation or two ago,
still more surprising would have been the
considerations he has brought forward in
this chapter. It does not require a very
long memory to recall the time when evo-
lution in any form and to any degree was
visited with universal malediction. It was
the one poisonous heresy of thought that
could not be too severely denounced. But
now we see the able President of an influ-
ential university planting this doctrine in
the opening chapter of a text-book upon
morals! If Dr. Bascom assumes rather
than formally avows the doctrine, he is
but doing what Professor Marsh says the
whole scientific world must henceforth do
— assume the theory, and go on. But let
the author here speak for himself.. He
says : " The body has been brought up to
its present serviceablencss through so pro-
tracted a development, and the power of
the mind is now so measured by it, and is
hereafter to be so much extended by means

of it, that a brief survey of this middle term
between the spiritual and physical worlds
becomes very desirable. . . . This power "
(the plastic power of life) " has as many
forms as there are kinds of living things.
In the higher varieties of animals this plas-
tic power which controls the structure,
which receives and transmits tendencies,
has been built up into a wonderfully com-
plex and mysterious potency by the entire
development of Ufe from its first appearance
on the globe. This is plainly true if we
accept the theory of evolution with definite
or indefinite increments. It is also true,
though less manifestly so, if we believe in a
series of distinct creations. . . . The first
term in this plastic power is an organic
one. This has every grade of complexity,
from that shown in a globule of protoplasm
to that manifested in the human body. In
it functions and organs are developed co-
etaneously, are united into a life increasing-
ly complex and single, are left susceptible
to a thousand modifying circumstances, and
are transmitted with a full entail of estab-
lished tendencies." After pointing out the
gradations of unfolding life through auto-
matic action, instinct, and the higher com-
plexities of mind, the author says : " An-
other consideration of utmost moment, in
estimating our moral activity in its relations
to the physical world, is that of inheritance.
The power of to-day is not that of a cen-
tury since, nor will it be that of a century
to come. Nor are these forces, in their
transition from one stage to another, inap-
proachable by man. On the other hand,
the stream of descent is flexible at every
point, as flexible as it can be and retain
its general direction. Physical descent is
made up of three laws. The primary and
central one is, that all organic powers tend
to pass from parent to ofi'spring. There is
a momentum in the waters of life by which
they flow steadily along the slopes prepared
for them. A second law, which directly
modifies the first, and without which it
would lose much of its beneficence, is, that
organs and functions are subject to changes,
which changes may be transmitted. A
third law, of less significance, yet one of
moment, is, that living forms easily revert
to a long antecedent state. As the new con-
ditions impressed upon living things, which

LITERARY NOTICES.

127

are shaken off by this atavism, have refer-
ence to secondary adaptations, to new cir-
cumstances, and, in many cases, to the
wants of man, this reversion is virtually
a retrogression under feeble progressive
forces. . . . New powers and new beauties
may arise in the transfer of inheritance un-
der inscrutable causes, and yet may be tak-
en up by heredity and consolidated among
more primitive endowments."

Now, having gone so far, we see not
how Dr. Bascom could refrain from going
further, and carrying out the doctrine to
its logical consequences. For, if evolution
be true at all, its truth is fundamental ; and,
if it have any influence upon ethical method,
it must be a determining influence. If de-
velopment be the method of nature, as Dr.
Bascom tacitly admits, then must the moral
sentiments and faculties of man be a prod-
uct of it ; and, if man's moral attributes
have been evolved in immense time by slow
experience, if our present morality has been
derived from a lower stage by processes
that are carrying it to a higher stage, then
surely we have upon us the most important
of all ethical questions, viz., by what causes
and under what conditions is morality grow-
ing better ? We have forced upon us the
problem of the genesis of moral relations —
how lower conduct is passing into higher
conduct — what are the present imperfec-
tions of moral impulse and guidance which
may be expected to disappear in the future
— and how far is ethical requirement rela-
tive to the progress of the social state. It
may not detract from the practical value of
Dr. Bascom's manual, that these considera-
tions are not pursued with the thoroughness
and in the direction implied by his title
and commencing chapter ; but the failure
of the exposition in this respect leaves it
open to the charge of not fully representing
the present state of ethical inquiry.

Dr. Bascom makes frequent and critical
reference to the ethical views of Herbert
Spencer as presented in his " Social Statics,"
published twenty -nine years ago. But it is
nowhere stated, as we observe, that this
was a transitional work that no longer ac-
curately represents Mr. Spencer's views,
and that, because of its unsatisfactoriness,
he entered into a more extensive develop-
ment of the subject, in which the " Princi-

ples of Morality " were to be treated after an
exhaustive elucidation of the chief sciences
that bear upon the subject. If it was
worth while to quote Spencer at all — if his
views of a generation ago have still suffi-
cient insight to demand critical attention —
it would certainly have been propcr'to state
that the author held them so insufficient
that he has devoted his life to the task of
placing morals upon a sounder and more
scientific basis than was possible when his
first work was written.

Freedom in Science and Teaching. From
the German of Ernst Haeckel. With
a Prefatory Note by T. H. Hpxley, F.
R. S. D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 121.
Price, $1.

The collision of two such minds as those
of Yirchow and Haeckel over the evolution
question could not fail to strike fire and
create light. Much able discussion has fol-
lowed, in which certain important aspects of
the question have been scanned and sifted
with a thoroughness that would hardly have
been secured in the absence of conflict.
The reply to Virchow that has been called
out from Haeckel and fills this volume is
an extremely interesting and instructive
contribution to the popular literature of the
subject.

It needs hardly to be said that in his
celebrated address, which has been received
with such favor by the non-scientific por-
tion of the public, and by such scientific
persons as are dominated by traditional
ideas, Virchow took the ground that evolu-
tion is an hypothesis not proved, and that
therefore it should not be taught in the
German schools; that the evidence of an-
thropology is thus far against the doctrine
of the derivation of man from lower forms
of life ; and, finally, that there is such an
affiliation of Darwinistic theories with mod-
ern communism as to raise the question
whether the state is not justified in inter-
fering for the suppression of a dangerous
teaching. For the reply that Professor
Haeckel makes to Virchow's charge that
evolution is an "unproved hypothesis," we
must refer the reader to the book, which is
valuable as showing — 1. What kind of evi-
dence is required ; 2. That it is abundant in
quantity ; and, 3. That the difficulty with

.128

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Virchow is, that he don't understand or ap-
preciate it. In regard to the anthropologi-
cal objection, Professor Huxley declares in
his preface that Virchow is entirely in the
wrong. Authority is here opposed to au-
thority; and Huxley asserts that all we
know concerning the most ancient men har-
monizes with the view that they have origi-
nated under the general law of evolution.

In regard to Virchow's attempt to bring
evolution into reproach by associating it
with communism. Professor Huxley says :
" I think I shall have all fair-minded men
■with me, when I also give vent to my repro-
bation of the introduction of the sinister
arts of unscrupulous political warfare into
scientific controversy, manifested in the at-
tempt to connect the doctrines he (Haeckel)
advocates with those of a political party
which is at present the object of hatred and
persecution in his native land."

Professor Haeckel in dealing with this
charge says that "those two theories are
about as compatible as fire and water," and
remarks upon the subject as follows : " With
all these empty accusations, as with all the
empty reproaches and groundless objections
■which Virchow brings against the doctrine
of evolution, he takes good care in no way
to touch the kernel of the matter. How, in-
deed, would it have been possible, without
arriving at conclusions wholly opposed to
those which he has declared ? For the the-
ory of descent proclaims, more clearly than
any other scientific theory, that the equality
of individuals which socialism strives after
is an impossibility ; that it stands in fact in
irreconcilable contradiction to the inevitable
inequality of individuals which actually and
everywhere subsists. Socialism demands
equal rights, equal duties, equal possessions,
equal enjoyments for every citizen alike;
the theory of descent proves, in exact op-
position to this, that the realization of this
demand is a pure impossibility, and that in
the constitutionally organized communities
of men, as of the lower animals, neither
rights nor duties, neither possessions nor
enjoyments, have ever been equal for all the
members alike, nor can ever be. Through-
out the evolutionist theory, as in its biologi-
cal branch, the theory of descent — the great
law of specialization or differentiation —
teaches us that a multiplicity of phenomena

is developed from original unity, heterogene-
ity from original similarity, and the compos-
ite organism from original simplicity. The
conditions of existence are dissimilar for
each individual from the beginning of its
existence ; even the inherited qualities, the
natural " disposition," are more or less un-
like ; how then can the problems of hfe and
their solution be alike for all ? The more
highly political life la organized, the more
prominent is the great principle of the
division of labor, and the more requisite it
becomes, for the lasting security of the whole
state, that its members should be variously
distributed in the manifold tasks of life ;
and as the work to be performed by diflFer-
ent individuals is of the most various kind,
as well as the corresponding outlay of
strength, skill, property, etc., the reward of
the work must naturally be also extremely
various. These are such simple and tangi-
ble facts that one would suppose that ev-
ery reasonable and unprejudiced politician
would recommend the theory of descent and
the evolution hypothesis in general as the
best antidote to the fathomless absurdity of
extravagant social leveling.

"Darwinism, I say, is anything rather
than socialist ! If this English hypothesis is
to be compared to any definite political ten-
dency— as is, no doubt, possible — that ten-
dency can only be aristocratic, certainly not
democratic, and least of all socialist. The
theory of evolution teaches that in human
life, as in animal and plant life everywhere
and at all times, only a small and chosen
minority can exist and flourish, while the
enormous majority starve and perish miser-
ably, and more or less prematurely. The
germs of every species of animal and plant,
and the young individuals that spring from
them, are innumerable, while the number
of those fortunate individuals Avhich develop
to maturity and actually reach their hardly-
won life-goal is out of all proportion tri-
fling. The cruel and merciless struggle for
existence which rages throughout all living
nature, and in the course of nature must
rage, this unceasing and inexorable compe-
tition of all living creatures, is an incontes-
table fact ; only the picked minority of the
qualified ' fittest ' is in a position to resist
it successfully, while the great majority of
the competitors must necessarily perish mis-

LITERARY NOTICES.

29

erably. We may profoundly lament this
tragical state of things, bat we can neither
controvert it nor alter it. ' Many are called,
but few are chosen.' The selection, the
picking out of these chosen ones, is inevita-
bly connected with the arrest and destruc-
tion of the remaining majority. Another
EugHsh naturalist therefore designates the
result of Darwinism very frankly as the
' survival of the fittest.' At any rate, this
principle of selection is nothing less than
democratic ; on the contrary, it is aristo-
cratic, in the strictest sense of the word.
If, therefore, Darwinism, logically carried
out, has, according to Virchow, an ' uncom-
monly suspicious aspect,' this can only be
found in the idea that it offers a helping
hand to the efforts of the aristocrats. But
how the socialism of the day can find any
encouragement in those efforts, and how
the horrors of the Paris Commune can be
traced to them, is to me, I must frankly
confess, absolutely incomprehensible."

Report of the Geological Sprvet of Ohio.
Vol. III. Geology and Paleontology.
Part I. Geology. Published by Author-
ity of the Legislature of Ohio. Colum-
bus: Nevins & Myers, State Printers.
1878.

This volume, the third in the series, fully
sustains the high character which the two
previous ones gave to this important work.
The officers on whom rests the responsibility
of the survey are J. S. Newberry, chief geol-
ogist ; E. B. Andrews and Edward Orton, as-
sistant geologists ; T. G. Worniley, chemist ;
and F. B. Meek, Paleontologist, A corps of
local and special assistants have rendered
important service. Those of the corps who
have contributed reports for the present
volume are Messrs. John J. Stevenson, M.
C. Read, A. W. Wheat, John Hussey, F. C.
Hill, A. C. Lindemuth, J. S. Hodge, and F.
Hesser. All of these reports are of a high
order, and show in how careful and thor-
ough a manner the work is being done.
Reports of surveys of six counties are by
the geologist-in-chief, who also contributes
an important paper reviewing the general
geological structure of the State. This pa-
per is a wonderfully clear statement of the
facts brought out by the local surveys, and
of the conclusions which they suggest. It is

VOL. XVI. — 9

the more interesting from the fact that it
reviews conclusions presented in previous
reports of the survey which had been criti-
cised by several eminent geologists in other
States. Much of the uncertainty which ex-
isted as to the age and geological equiva-
lence of the Ohio rocks seems now to be
removed. Concerning the Cincinnati uplift
it is said that " the Cincinnati axis in Ohio
is an anticlinal ridge of which the arched
strata of the Cincinnati Group form the
core." This uplift formed an elevated ridge
through the Upper Silurian, Devonian, and
Carboniferous ages. Many of the great de-
posits thin out on the sloping sides of this
elevation. It constituted, indeed, two isl-
ands, one in Tennessee, the other in Ken-
tucky and Ohio.

The Cincinnati Group referred to is
shown to contain the characteristic fossils
of the Hudson River Group, Trenton Lime-
stone, and some which are found in the
Black River and Birdseye Groups. But,
says Professor Newberry, they are so inter-
mingled as to make it impossible to identify
any one of the subdivisions of the Cincin-
nati Group with either of the Lower Silu-
rian Limestones of the East.

The Oolitic Iron-ore band of the Clin-
ton is in Ohio, sometimes two or three feet
in thickness, sometimes it is scarcely more
than a ferruginous stain. This is stated to
be in no sense a clay iron-stone, as has
been suggested. It is a red hematite, and
is called dye-stone ore in Tennessee. It is
a marine not a marsh deposit, as shown by
the fossils present. The iron was probably
brought by drainage water from ferruginous
districts and deposited.

The Corniferous Limestone in this State
is a vast storehouse of fossils. Extensive
collections of these will be fully described
in Part II., which treats of paleontology.
The land-plants found in this limestone at
Sandusky and Delaware may have formed
part of the luxuriant vegetation that covered
the Cincinnati Island in the Devonian age,
" the first land flora of which we have any
traces in the United States."

Of the Huron Shale, much has been writ-
ten. It occurs through Central Ohio in a
line of outcrop with a maximum thickness
of 350 feet. This formation is a nearly ho-
mocreneous bituminous shale, containing at

130

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

least ten per cent, of combustible matter.
It is known in the Western States as black
shale. Its precise geological horizon has
been a subject of debate. The conclusion
of the author is that " the Huron Shale of
Ohio is made up of the black shales of the
Lower Portage and Genesee." This depos-
it is an interesting one, from the fact that it
is the most important source of supply of
petroleum in this country, and also that
most of the gas-wells of Ohio and Pennsyl-
vania derive thence their supply of carbu-
retted hydrogen.

If space permitted, we would be glad to
present the views of Professor Newberry
on the buried river channels — evidences of
glacial action — clay deposits of the Drift
age, and other subjects of interest to the
geologist.

The reports of the local surveys by coun-
ties and districts are not only valuable to ge-
ologists, but are throughout of a thoroughly
practical character. These include thirty-
four counties of the State, besides reports
of the Hocking Valley coal-field. Perry, and
portions of Athens, and Hocking Counties,
and the Hanging Rock District.

The reports of counties are illustrated
by maps and charts, of which there are twen-
ty, while fifty-three illustrations are printed
with the text.

In the preface we are informed that Vol.
IV., Zoology and Botany, is now in the print-
er's hands, and that Vol. V., Economic Ge-
ology, is in progress. Besides these, full and
elaborate maps are in course of preparation.

The work has been issued in editions of
20,000 copies — to the honor of Ohio, be it
said.

Distribution of Heat in the Spectra of
Various Sources of Radiation. By
William W. Jaynes, Ph. D. Cambridge,
Mass. : University Press. Pp. 24.
This pamphlet is the thesis presented to
the Faculty of Johns Hopkins University
by the author upon applying for the degree
of Doctor of Philosophy. It first gives an
account of former experiments to determine
the distribution of heat in the spectrum ;
and then details the author's elaborate ex-
periments for the determination of the re-
sult. There is one plate of apparatus and
three large plates of the curves of thermal
intensity in different parts of the spectral

region. He thus sums up the inquiry : " In
concluding this paper there is a strong
temptation to speculate upon the meaning
of the results obtained. That the geomet-
rical form of the curve should be so nearly
the same at all temperatures, and of the
same general form for all substances, is a
fact that probably must have an important
physical interpretation. Does not the simi-
larity of the curves for different substances
show a similarity of movement of the ulti-
mate components of the several substances,
and so point to a similarity of ultimate com-
position of all matter, the slight differences
in the grouping of these parts giving rise to
the comparatively slight variations from the
same form ? Certainly this is not proof, but
is it not evidence ? And is it not probable
that the superposition upon the radiations
from the ultimate atoms of the radiations
from the groupings of these atoms should
cause the curve, as a whole, to move slight-
ly to a shorter or longer wave-length, as the
weight of a group is lighter or heavier?
But I am aware that such speculations are
founded on too insufficient data, and I offer
these results merely as an experimental con-
tribution to the science of radiant energy."

A Defense of Philosophic Doubt, being an
Essay on the Foundations of Belief. By
Arthur James Balfour, M. A., M. P.
Pp. 355. Price, $3.50.
The object of this book would not be
guessed from its title. It would be sup-
posed to imply an argument in favor of skep-
ticism, unbelief, or freethinking, in their
customary applications to religious belief.
But this is not the author's aim. On the
contrary, the work is " a piece of destruc-
tive criticism " directed against the founda-
tions of science. According to the author,
it is the function of philosophy to give an
account of the grounds of all belief and
disbelief, and he labors to show that all
the assumptions, principles, postulates, and
criteria of truth that are usually taken as
the basis of scientific knowledge are illusive
and indefensible. The independent exist-
ence of an external world is denied ; Kant,
Hamilton, Mill, and Spencer are refuted;
and the conclusion is reached that "science
is a system of belief which, for anything
we can allege to the contrary, is wholly
without proof. The inferences by which it

LITERARY NOTICES.

131

is arrived at are erroneous; the premises
upon which it rests are unproved." In a
closing chapter on " Practical Results," the
object of the work is disclosed — it is to
harmonize religion and science by showing
that religion is, at any rate, as well off for
fundamental proofs as science. The con-
ceptions of causality, uniformity, and per-
manence of order in nature being held as
unproved, it is argued that supernatural
interferences are logically admissible, and
science and religion come into agreement
by opening the doors of ancient and modern
spiritualism.

The Science of the Bible ; or. An Analysis
of the Hebrew Mythology, wherein it is
shown that the Holy Scriptures treat of
Natural Phenomena only. By Milton
"WooLLKY, M D. Chicago: Knight &
Leonard. Pp. 613. 8vo. Price, $4.

This elaborate book is alleged by its
author to have had the following origin:
Impressed by the sentiment that human
nature in every age and country is much
the same, he inferred that cosmologies and
mythologies generally resemble each other.
But, if this be so, then the Hebrew mythol-
ogy is probably like the rest. So the author,
after he was turned sixty, studied the He-
brew language to find the key to the He-
brew mythology and the Hebrew Scriptures.
He claims to have succeeded, and this vol-
ume is the exposition of his view.

His notion is, that the Bible from begin-
ning to end is but a mass of astronomic
myths. On the cover of his book is
stamped in gilt the old almanac diagram of
the twelve constellations of the zodiac.
This diagram reappears printed on a card
at the close of the book, with a movable
index to show the position of the sun
throughout the year. Now, the writer
claims that the whole Bible is to be inter-
preted as referring to the phenomena of
the year — the changes of seasons, and the
movements and places of the sun, moon,
planets, etc. Armed with this clew. Dr.
WooUey marches deliberately through the
Old Testament, taking its narratives, " Crea-
tion," "Adam and Eve," "Cain and Abel,"
" Flood," " Tower of Babel," " Abram and
Sarai," all the way through to " Job " and
" Jon:\h," explaining, right and left, that
what is really meant by these stories is to

symbolize natural phenomena, terrestrial and
celestial. For example: " 'Now when Moses
was grown ' (i. e., when Aquarius rises he-
liacally as before the sun) ' he spied an
Egyptian smiting a Hebrew, (winter smiting
summer), ' and he looked this way and that
way, and perceiving himself unseen ' (the
sun's rays hid him) ' he slew the Egyptian '
(i. e., winter was followed by summer). ' But
when he went out the second day ' (i. e.,
after he passed the summer solstice) ' he saw
two Hebrews ' (the two halves of summer)
' striving together.' In attempting to pacify
them he was reminded by the first half of
summer, which witnessed his act, of his
murder the day before, became frightened,
and on learning that Pharaoh (the winter
sun) intended to slay him, fled into the land
of Midian (strife = the point between win-
ter and summer). Here ' he sat down by a
well.' Beer-sheba = the end of the seventh
month, when the ' former rain' begins."

And so everything is construed. This
exegesis would get monotonous and tiresome,
but the author peppers his text so profusely
with sarcasms at the expense of those who
hold to the I'teral interpretation of Biblical
narratives that the tediousness of the expo-
sition is somewhat enUvened. The work
evinces much ingenuity, great learning, and
indomitable perseverance, though whether
these accomplishments have been wisely
expended in its preparation is perhaps a
question.

Nests and Eggs of American Birds. By
Ernest Ingersoll. Published in Parts,
50 cents each. Part I. Pp. 24, with
Plates. Salem, Mass. : S. E. Casino.

Hitherto there was no American work
on the nests and eggs of birds, and informa-
tion on that subject existed only in detached
form in a multitude of publications or in
the minds of ornithologists. Mr. Ingersoll
has done a valuable service to ornithology
by compiling the present work. When com-
pleted it will form a handsome volume, beau-
tifully illustrated with tinted lithographs.

The Evidence of the Senses. Inaugural
Address before the Poughkeepsie Soci-
ety of Natural Sciences. By W. G. Ste-
venson, M. D., President.

Dr. Stevenson has here brought together
many illustrations of errors and delusions

132

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

to which persons are often subject through
defective action of the senses or false inter-
pretations of their impressions. The facts
are well interpreted and the accompanying
comments judicious. He closes with a ref-
erence to spiritualism, and insists upon the
need that it should be investigated by ex-
perts in matters of evidence.

Haeckel's Genesis of Man ; or, History
OF THE Development of the Human
Race. Being a Review of his Anthro-
pogeny ; and embracing a Summary Ex-
position of his Views, and of those of
the Advanced German School of Science.
By Lester F. Ward, A. M. Philadel-
phia : Ed. Stern & Co. Pp. 64.

We have read this able and admirable
pamphlet with much pleasure. As a review
of the principal works and a condensed ex-
position of the thought of the great German
biologist, it is executed with judgment, and
as an introduction to the study of evolution
from a point of view with which the public
is not generally familiar, it will prove use-
ful and be welcomed by many readers. And
to these merits of the brochure it must be
added that it is clearly, effectively, and at
times eloquently written. To any beginner
who proposes to enter upon Haeckel's
works, we should say, read this first ; and
that he will not be misled is sufficiently
sure from the fact that Haeckel himself tes-
tifies to the substantial correctness with
which this essay represents his position.

In stating this position, and in estimat-
ing Haeckel's claims, the writer inevitably
opens the question of the claims of other
men, and has to dwell on points of rivalry,
priority, and originality. To whom belongs
mainly the credit of working out the theory
of dissent, or of establishing the doctrine
of development ? Thus far Mr. Darwin has
had a virtual monopoly of the honor ; but,
while nobody will grudge him a liberal share
of it, it begins to be seen that justice has
something to do with it, and that there has
been a great deal of loose exaggeration of
Mr. Darwin's share in the work. Mr. Ward
says that " Professor Haeckel is no mere
disciple of Darwin," but has independently
cultivated a gre::t biological province, which
bears directly upon development, but which
Darwin hardly touched, viz., the province
of embryology, which has for its object the
study of transformations. This department

Haeckel has made his own, and, as Mr. Ward
shows, it furnishes the most impressive and
overwhelming proofs of the truth of evolu-
tion that are to be gathered from any spe-
cial source. This subject Mr. Darwin bare-
ly touched in his first book.

Mr. Ward recognizes that Darwin was
" diaplomatic," and there can be no doubt,
both that this is true and that it had much
to do with the success of the " Origin of Spe-
cies." In that work be invoked supernatu-
ral intervention where his scientific explana-
tions were faulty ; and he abstained from ap-
plying his theory to man. Haeckel had no-
thing of this quality ; he was simply logical,
and applied the law of descent to the human
race at the outset. The consequence was,
that he was bitterly attacked, not only by
anti-Darwinians but also by Darwinians,
who charged that " he was more Darwin-
istic than Darwin himself" Darwin after-
ward published " The Descent of Man," but
Haeckel had to take the first brunt of the
opposition in Germany.

In reviewing the history of the subject,
Mr. Ward, following Haeckel, credits Eras-
mus Darwin, Goethe, and Lamarck with the
honor of founding the doctrine of evolution.
Lamarck's " Philosophic Zoologique " was
published just fifty years before the " Ori-
gin of Species," yet Mr. Ward goes so far as
to say that every important principle em-
braced in the latter work is also contained
in the former — except the principle of
" natural selection." That principle, more-
over, had been long recognized, and the
doctrine of the fixity of species was under-
mined. Mr. Darwin and Mr. Wallace inde-
pendently showed how " natural selection "
may give rise to new species.

It would have afforded a still further il-
lustration of the ripeness of thought upon
this subject, and increased the equity of
Mr. Ward's distribution of honors, if he
had stated that, before Mr. Darwin had pub-
lished at all on the subject, Spencer had
drawn up in full detail his prospectus of the
evolution philosophy, covering the whole
ground, in ten volumes, and that the subse-
quent contribution of Mr. Darwin did not
make it necessary to disturb the order of
his work by so much as the introduction of
an additional chapter. The new contribu-
tion fell into its proper place in an already
organized body of thought.

LITERARY NOTICES.

33

Easy Lessons in Popular Science. By
James Monteith. New York : A. S.
Barnes & Co. Pp. 252. Price, $1.

This is a very mixed book, as it treats
of almost everything pertaining to air, land,
and water. There is a good deal of geog-
raphy, and something about ships, machin-
ery, plants, animals, etc., etc., with maps and
numerous woodcuts drawn in outline with
a view to being copied by pupils upon the
blackboard. «rhe book can no doubt be
made useful in the hands of judicious teach-
ers, and the drawing exercises for which it
provides are a good feature ; but we do
not think that its leading topics are the best
to begin with in early science teaching, and
it does not sufficiently provide for the direct
study of things themselves.

Hints toward a National Culture for
Young Americans. By S. S. Boyce.
New York : E. Steiger. Pp. 69.

The author's object here is to recom-
mend and enforce a practical system of
industrial education for American youth.
He points out the deficiencies of the present
modes of popular culture, and is favorable
to the Kindergarten as a foundation in pri-
mary instruction.

Scientific Lectures. By Sir John Lub-
bock. London and New York : Mac-
millan & Co. Pp. 187. Price $2.50.
Of this book, we must speak of Mac-
millan's part first. Paper, type, printing,
and illustrations are elegant, so that to read
it is a luxury. It is such a book as an Eng-
lish baronet might with graceful propriety
present to his friends. Imported into this
country, it comes rather expensive, consid-
ering the amount of its contents ; but, hap-
pily, they are not of a sort that makes it
necessary for anybody to procure the vol-
ume. Yet Sir John's lectures are very
pleasant reading. He discourses of flow-
ers, plants, and insects, and of the habits
of ants, and gives us a great deal of curious
and interesting information on those mat-
ters which he has made a special study.
The fifth and sixth lectures are on "Prehis-
toric Archaeology," and epitomize the views
developed in the author's larger works,
" Prehistoric Times " and " On the Origin
of Civilization."

Science Lectures at South Kensington.

Vol. ir. Macmillan & Co. Pp. 344.

Price, $1.75.

This volume, like the one that preceded
it, is filled with good, soUd work. There is
no attempt at extreme simplification, and
not a word for effect ; but each lecturer has
aimed to make a sound, instructive presen-
tation of his subject. The names are strong,
and the subjects well chosen. President
Spottiswoode treats of " Polarized Light " ;
Professor Forbes of " Thermal Conductivi-
ty " and " ThermoDynamics " ; H. W. Chis-
holm of " Balances " ; Professor Pigot of
" Geometrical and Engineering Drawing " ;
Froude of " The Laws of Fluid Resistance " ;
Dr, Siemens of " The Bathometer " ; Bar-
rett of " Sensitive Flames " ; Pigot of
" Lighthouse Illumination " ; Burdon-San-
derson of " Apparatus for Physiological In-
vestigation " ; Lauder Brunton of " Appa-
ratus for Physiological Chemistry " ; Mac-
leod " On Audiometers " ; and Roscoe on
"Technical Chemistry."

Zoology of the Invertebrate Animals. By
Alexander Macalister, M. D. Special-
ly revised for America by A. S. Pack-
ard, Jr., M. D. Pp. 143. Price, 60
cents.

This volume belongs to Holt's series of
handbooks which claim to be intermediate
between the larger text-books and the so-
called " primers." In what way the Ameri-
can editor has " revised " the English work
for use in this country is not explained, nor
does it much matter ; the book is well
adapted to introduce pupils into the study
of zoology, as it will attract and interest
them. The information furnished has been
selected with good judgment, and is no
doubt entirely trustworthy.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

The Younp Folks' Cyclopaedia of Common
Things. By John D. Champlin, Jr. With nu-
merous Illustrations. New York : Holt & Co.
1879. Pp.695. $3.

Key to the Universe, or a New Theory of its
Mechanism. By Orson Pratt, Sen. Salt Lake
City : The Author. 1879. Pp. 118. $1.50.

Primitive Manners and Customs. By J. A.
Farrer. New York: Holt & Co. 1879. Pp.345.

The Value of Life : Reply to Mallock's Essay
"Is Life worth Living." New York : Putnam's
Sons. 1879. Pp.253. $1.50.

Illustrated Dictionary of Scientific Terms.
By William Rossiter. New York: Putnam's
Sons. Pp. 350. $1.75.

134

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Wonders of the Flora. By H. A. Kresken.
Dayton, O. 1879. Pp. 204. $1.50.

The Rosicrucians, their Rites and Mysteries.
By Hargrave Jennings. With numerous Illus-
trations. Kew York : J. W. Bouton. 1879.
Pp. 388.

Report of the Commissioner of Education for
the Year 1877. Washington : Government Print-
iDg-Offlce. 1879. Pp. 850.

First Step in Chemical Principles. By H.
Leffmann, M. D. Philadelphia : E. Stern & Co.
1879. Pp. 52. 50 cents.

Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Sym-
bolism. By Thomas Inman, M. D. With Illus-
trations. New York : J. W. Boutou. 18i0.
Pp. 147.

Lessons in Inorganic Chemistry. By W. G.
Valentin. With Illustrations. New York: Put-
nam's Sons. 1879. Pp. 186. $1.

Report on Copper-Tin Alloys. By R. H.
Thurston. Washington: Government Printing-
Offlee. 1879. Pp.300.

Local Government. By R. P. Porter. From
" Princeton Review." Pp. 24. 5 cents.

The Public Library and the Common Schools.
By C. F. Adams, Jr. Boston: Estes & Lauriat.
1879. Pp. 52. 25 cents.

The South Pass Jetties. By M. E. Schmidt.
From " Transactions of the American Society of
Civil Engineers." Pp. 36, with Plates.

Address to the New Orleans Sanitary Associa-
tion. By Dr. J. H. Rauch. Pp. 13.

Domestic Sanitation. New Orleans : Graham
Print. 1879. Pp.20.

Milk and Dairies in New Orleans. New Or-
leans : Rivers Print. Pp. 16.

Tracheotomy with Galvano-Cautery. By Dr.
W. A. Byrd. From " St. Louis Clinical Record."
Pp.7.

Shall the Metric System be made compulsory "
By H. T. Blake. From " The New-Bnglander."
Pp. 22.

Petroleum. By P. Schweitzer. Columbia,
Mo. : " Statesman " Print. 1879. Pp. 64.

Report of the Entomologist. By C. V. Riley.
Washington : Government Printing-Ofllce. 1879.
Pp. 52, with Plates.

Phenol. By David Cerna. From "Philadel-
phia Medical Times." Pp. 5.

American Industries and the Proposed Fran-
co-American Commercial Treaty. San Francis-
co : " Alta California " Print. Pp. 211.

History of Massage. By D. Graham, M. D.
New York : W. Wood & Co. 1879. Pp. 80.

The Pocasset Tragedy. By W. Denton. Bos-
ton: The Author. 1879. Pp.38.

Biographical Notice of Joseph Henry. By
Joseph Levering. Pp. 11.

Sanitary Condition of Montreal. Bv F. P.
Mackelcan, C. E. Montreal: Lovell Print. 1879.
Pp. 41. 10 cents.

The More Common Families of Insects. By
L. C. Wooster. Whitewater, Wis. : " Register "
Print. 1879. Pp.52.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

Experimeats with Platinum.— A paper
by Mr. Edison, on the behavior of plati-
num under the influence of the electric cur-
rent, was read at the last meeting of the
American Association by Professor F. R.
Upham, the author being absent. Hav-

ing found that a platinum wire, heated by
the electric current and suspended in the
air, loses weight in proportion to its mass,
its heat, and the length of time during
which the current passes through it, Mr.
Edison took a platinum wire ifg-y of an
inch in diameter, and wound it in the form
of a spiral one eighth of an inch in diameter
and one half inch in length. The two ends
of the spiral were secured to clamping-
posts, and the whole then covered with a
small glass shade. After the spiral had
been made incandescent for twenty minutes,
the shade opposite to the spiral on both
sides was slightly darkened, and after five
hours was no longer transparent, a film of
the metal having been deposited on it. Mr.
Edison is convinced that this effect, namely,
the loss of weight in the spiral, is due to
the washing action of the air, to the wearing
away of the surface of the platinum by the
impact of the stream of gases upon the
highly incandescent surface, and not to vol-
atilization. That this supposition is correct
is shown by the very different behavior of
platinum wire in vacuo. Mr. Edison placed
a spiral of platinum in the receiver of a
common air-pump, and arranged it so that
the current could pass through it while the
receiver was being exhausted. At the pres-
sure of two millimetres the spiral was kept
incandescent for two hours before the de-
posit on the glass shade became visible. In
another experiment, when the exhaustion
was higher, the deposit became visible only
after five hours. The same paper contained
observations on other phenomena of still
greater interest. It has been known for some
time that platinum, when long subjected to
a high temperature, becomes disintegrated.
A platinum wire which has been heated to
incandescence for twenty minutes, on being
examined under a microscope, is seen to be
full of cracks, and appears shrunken. If
the current is continued for a considerable
time the wire will fall to pieces. Now, Mr.
Edison finds that this shrinking and crack-
ing of the wire are due entirely to the ex-
pansion of the air in the pores of the metal,
and its contraction on the escape of the air.
If these air-spaces be previously eliminated,
the platinum can be heated to incandescence
without disintegration. How this is to be
done is best told in Mr. Edison's own words :

POPULAR MISCELLANY

135

" I had made a large number of platinum
spirals, all of the same size and from the
same quality of wire ; each spiral presented
to the air a radiating surface of three six-
teenths of an inch ; five of these were
brought by the electric current up to the
melting-point, the light was measured by a
photometer, and the average light was equal
to four standard candles for each spiral just
at the melting-point. One of the same
kind of spirals was placed in the receiver of
an air-pump and the air exhausted to two
millimetres ; a weak current was then passed
through the wire slightly to warm it for the
purpose of assisting the passage of the air
from the pores of the metal into the vacu-
um. The temperature of the wii'e was
gradually augmented at intervals of ten
minutes until it became red. The object of
slowly increasing the temperature was to
allow the air to pass out gradually and not
explosively. Afterward the current was in-
creased at intervals of fifteen minutes. Be-
fore each increase in the current the wire
was allowed to cool, and the contraction
and expansion at these high temperatures
caused the wire to weld together at the
point previously containing air. In one
hour and forty minutes this spiral had
reached such a temperature without melting
that it was giving a light of twenty-five
standard candles, whereas it would undoubt-
edly have melted before it gave a light of
five candles had it not been put through
the above process. Several more spirals
were afterward tried, with the same result.
One spiral, which had been brought to these
high temperatures more slowly, gave a light
equal to thirty standard candles. In the
open air this spiral gave nearly the same
light, although it required more current to
keep it at the same temperature. Upon ex-
amination of these spirals, which had passed
through the vacuum process, by the aid of
a microscope, no cracks were visible ; the
wire had become as white as silver, and had
a polish which could not be given it by any
other means. The wire had a less diameter
than before treatment, and it was exceed-
ingly difficult to melt in the oxyhydrogen-
flame. As compared with untreated plati-
num, it was found that it was as hard as
the steel wire used in pianos, and that it
could not be annealed at any temperature."

Animal Mounds in the Pyrenees.— An

interesting paper was read by Dr. Phene at
the last meeting of the British Association,
on a discovery of animal mounds in the Pyr-
enees. The author said that this discovery
was, in a great measure, due to tlie descrip-
tion given by Sir Vincent Eyre in 1869 of a
remarkable custom of burning living ser-
pents at a particular spot in the Pyrenees.
While investigating the region around this
place of immolation. Dr. Phene found in
certain directions indications which always
accompany animal mounds. The churches
abounded in features expressive of the sub-
version of a pagan faith, of which the ser-
pent or dragon had evidently been the cen-
tral point. Following the track where these
indications were plainest, he had eome upon
mounds as distinct in resemblance to ani-
mal forms as any of the American mounds :
they were altogether artificial, and shaped
into an appearance of animal outline so real
as to seem like life. In the parts forming
the heads the chamber had been replaced
by an arched chamber of Roman work, in
another by a descent of several feet into the
body of a small church. On the spire of the
best preserved animal mound had been a
tumulus in which, the cure of the church in-
formed Dr. Phene, had been found several
of the most primitive cinerary urns, con-
taining bones, Celtic articles, and above
them objects of the Gallo-Roman descrip-
tion, and again above these later or Chris-
tian Roman works. One of the most inter-
esting of the latter had been laid aside, and
the cure sought it out for Dr. Phene among
some d'ehrh ; it was the stem of an ancient
cross, and on it were sculptured serpents —
not in the usual position of subjection to a
superior power, but evidently as being in a
condition of supremacy ; but, as there were
also several dead ones represented, it might
be that the sculpture figured the condition
of the real serpents before and after the cer-
emony of burning. In the district there
were many emblems of the serpent or drag-
on, and the mounds were distinctly of such
a form. On the mountains overlooking
these mounds were a number of stone cir-
cles, like those so well known in Britain.
Dr. Phene promised to give further details
in a paper which he was to have read before
the Congress of Americanists at Brussels.

136

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Carl Vogt on the Archseopteryx. — Tlie
Congress of Swiss Naturalists held its sixty-
second annual meeting this year at St. Gall.
Professor Carl Vogt delivered one of the
public lectures, choosing for his subject the
archa3opteryx, an animal intermediate be-
tween birds and reptiles. Of the archaeop-
teryx there exist only two (fossil) speci-
mens, one of which, that first discovered, is
in the British Museum ; the other, which is
by far the more perfect of the two, was dis-
covered a few years ago at Solenhofen, Ger-
many. It is the property of Dr. Haeber-
lein, of Pappenheim. It was once fondly
hoped that the Emperor of Germany would
purchase this treasure and preserve it for
the Fatherland ; but, as Professor Vogt re-
marks, a petrified cannon or musket would
have found infinitely more favor in that
quarter ! The naturalists who studied the
specimen in the British Museum pronounced
this Jurassic animal to be a bird, inasmuch
as it had a beak, nails, and feathers. But
the Solenhofen archseopteryx proves, un-
doubtedly, that the animal was a bird-like
reptile, of the size of a pigeon, which had
both scales and feathers, a beak provided
with teeth, armed wings, bird-like feet with
nails, and a reptilian tail, consisting of twen-
ty vertebra".

Stilling the Waves with Oil.— A few

months ago we printed some observations
on the use of oil as a means of calming
a tempestuous sea in cases of danger to
mariners. A later number of the journal
(Chambers's) from which those observa-
tions were quoted contains the ofBcial re-
port of a ship-master, whose vessel ap-
pears to have escaped disaster through the
timely use of oil in a storm. This report
was sent to " Chambers's Journal " by Mr.
Sprunt, British Vice-Consul at Wilmington,
North Carolina. It is as follows :

"British brigantine Gem, of Sackville,
New Brunswick, Richardson, master. On
the 1st of April last, bound from Wilming-
ton, North Carolina, for Bristol, took a
heavy gale of wind about a degree to the
eastward of Bermuda, from the south, veer-
ing rapidly to the northwest, whence it blew
a hurricane for thirty-six hours, with a
cross-breaking sea, ship laboring heavily —
' started ' the after-house and boats, stove

lazarette hatch, and took try-sail from the
mast. All hands aft in the cabin in case
the sea should break over and carry away
fore-house. 8 p. M., sea getting worse, the
master thought of resorting to the oil ex-
periment, which he had read of in ' Cham-
bers's Journal.' Had a canvas bag pre-
pared, holding about three quarts of kero-
sene oil, with a rope of six fathoms attached,
and kept trailing to windward ; the oil leak-
ing through the canvas greatly broke top-
ping sea, and made matters much more
favorable for the ship. This was kept up
through the night ; and at 3 a. m. on the
2d of April the weather began to moderate.
The mate, who had himself lashed to the
rigging during the whole of his watch, be-
lieved with the captain that the resort to the
oil saved the ship, as such fearful weather
had never during the captain's experience
of fourteen years been witnessed by him.
A drop of the oil will smooth about four
feet circumference of sea. Captain Rich-
ardson suggests that a canvas bag to hold
about six gallons is the best size, pierced
with small holes with a penknife, the holes
to be enlarged as the canvas becomes wet
and its texture closer."

Petrolenm for Steam-making.— A suc-
cessful exhibition was recently made at
Pittsburg of a method of using petroleum
as fuel on board steamers. In its main
features this new method resembles other
methods which have been tried with more
or less success — air, steam, and oil-spray
being injected into a suitable fire-box. The
spray is said to be immediately converted
into inflammable gas, becoming a pure,
bright, powerful flame, free from smoke.
To accomplish this result, the inventor re-
sorts to a very simple contrivance, described
as follows in the " Journal of the Franklin
Institute " : A small hole is drilled into the
iron front of the fire-box, and into this
passes a tube which branches, as it leaves
this point, into two pipes. One of these
connects with the boiler itself, and the
other with a receptacle containing crude
oil. At the junction of these pipes there
is an aperture for the admission of atmos-
pheric air. Valves of peculiar construction
regulate the quantity of steam or oil ad-
mitted to the furnace. Our contemporary

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

137

gives the following account of the experi-
ment made to test the efficacy of this meth-
od of employing petroleum in place of
coal: "The little steamer Billy Collins was
selected by Mr. Campbell for the test. A
preliminary blaze of wood under the boiler
raised the small quantity of steam neces-
sary to start the burner into operation.
The oil-valve was opened ae trifle, the steam-
valve ditto. The petroleum trickled into
the feed-pipe, was caught up by the steam,
and both plunged into the depths of the
fire-box, a mass of many-tongued, roaring,
brilliant flame. As the pressure of steam
increased, this flame grew in fury and in-
tense heat. The needle of the steam-gauge
climbed rapidly up the dial, and in twenty
minutes the safety-valve blew off at 120
pounds pressure. ... To ocean-going
steamers this device must prove of extraor.
dinary interest. A tank of oil, situated at
a remote end of the ship, would hold fuel
BuflScient for a double trip, and supplant
the great coal-bunkers with their attend-
ant dirt."

What ]Vordenskjdld has done.— A cur-
rent misapprehension of the work done by
Nordenskjold (pronounced Nordenshuld),
in his recent memorable voyage, is cor-
rected by the " Pall Mall Gazette." He
is supposed to have discovered the " North-
east Passage." He has discovered nothing,
not even the shore along which he sailed.
Every part of his route was known be-
fore, and the whole coast-line had been
laid down by the expeditions which, for
more than three hundred years, have pene-
trated from the east and west, or, descend-
ing the great Siberian rivets, have crept
along the European and Asiatic arctic shores
in boats or in dog-sleds. What Norden-
skjold has actually done is to have sailed,
in one continuous voyage and in one ship,
from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and to have
made en route a series of scientific collec-
tions and observations such as no other ex-
plorer in these seas — unless, perhaps, him-
self in former voyages — had been able to
carry away. Professor Nordenskjold is san-
guine that he has proved the feasibility of the
northeast passage for ships during most sea-
sons. This the " Pall Mall Gazette " pro-
nounces too hopeful a view, and assuredly a

passage which requires over twelve months
for its accomplishment can hardly be called
" feasible " in any remunerative sense. But
one tiling is made clear by this voyage, name-
ly, that the great Siberian rivers drive the ice
off the coast during several of the late sum-
mer and autumn months, and that the Yeni-
sei and Obi may be reached during average
years. So confident is the Russian Govern-
ment that the products of their Asiatic em-
pire will find their way to European mar-
kets by way of the Siberian rivers and the
Arctic Sea, that they have already estab-
lished custom-houses at the entrance to the
Yenisei and the Obi.

Eflfects of Tobacco on the Teeth. — Habit-
ual users of tobacco will draw some comfort
from observations made by the author of a
paper read before the Odontological Society
of London. This writer, Mr. Hepburn, says
that the direct action of nicotine on the
teeth is decidedly beneficial. The alkalini-
ty of the smoke must necessarily neutralize
any acid secretion which may be present in
the oral cavity, and the antiseptic property
of the nicotine tends to arrest putrefactive
changes in carious cavities. The author is
inclined to believe that the dark deposit on
the teeth of some habitual smokers is large-
ly composed of the carbon of tobacco-smoke.
This deposit takes place exactly in those
portions where caries is most likely to arise,
and on those surfaces of the teeth which
escape the ordinary cleansing action of the
brush. That tobacco is capable of allaying
to some extent the pain of toothache is, he
thinks, true — its effect being due not only to
its narcotizing power, but also to its direct
action on the exposed nerve ; and he is in-
clined to attribute the fact of the compara-
tively rare occurrence of toothache among
sailors in great measure to their habit of
chewing.

Distribntion of Lnminons Power in the
Snn's Rays. — With the aid of a new spec-
trometer based on the optical principle that
a light becomes invisible when it is in pres-
ence of another light about sixty-four times
more brilliant, Professor J. W. Draper has
been enabled to prove that all the rays of the
sun's light possess the same luminous pow-
er. In the prismatic spectrum the luminous

138

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

intensity is greatest, not in the yellow but
in the red ; and this effect is due to the
action of the prism, which narrows and as
it were condenses the colored spaces more
and more as we pass toward the red, in-
creasing the intensity of the light as it does
that of the heat. But in the grating or
diffraction spectrum the luminous intensity
is found by Dr. Draper to be equal in all
the visible regions, all the colors being si-
multaneously obliterated by an " extinguish-
ing light," that is, a light about sixty-four
times more brilliant. Dr. Draper describes
his new spectrometer in the " American
Journal of Science and Arts " for July.

The Wild Cattle of Great Britain.— In a

work recently published in England is given
an account of the origin, history, and pres-
ent condition of the wild " white cattle " of
Great Britain. The supposed primogeni-
tors of these wild cattle were abundant in
the Pleistocene age, both in the British Isles
and on the neighboring continent, and in
later prehistoric times they still existed, as
their fossil remains testify. Advancing to
historic times, the author, Rev. John Storer,
quotes from Herodotus a passage in which
mention is made of " large, ferocious, and
fleet white bulls " abounding in the country
south of Thrace. Poland, Lithuania, and
Muscovy were their last strongholds on the
Continent of Europe, and they became ex-
tinct there in the fifteenth or sixteenth cen-
tury. But they have still living representa-
tives in England, the Chillingham herd being
the most noted. This herd is kept in the
park attached to Chillingham Castle in
Northumberland, the residence of Lord
Tankerville. The earliest historian on this
herd, Mr. Storer says, is Thomas Culley,
whose book on "Live Stock," published
in 1786, is pretty well known. The date
of the inclosing of the park of course
would probably indicate the period when
the wild cattle were first confined, but
there seems to be no clear evidence on
this point. As long ago as the year 1692,
however, there is direct proof in Macken-
zie's " View of the County of Northum-
berland," published in 1825, that the herd
then existed, for among other curious notes
given therein are those of William Taylor,
the steward of Chillingham : " May, 1692 —

Beasts in the parke. My lorde's, 16 white
wilde beasts," etc. Since that period they
have flourished in fluctuating numbers,
never increasing very rapidly, but retaining
all their wild characteristics. The herd is
now generally kept up to about threescore.

Regarding the herd of wild cattle in-
closed in Chartley Castle Park, Stafford-
shire, the property of Earl Ferrers's family,
accounts alluding to them show of their
existence as far back as 1658. They are
more massive in character than their con-
geners of Chillingham, and are not so wild.
From what we gather from this most inter-
esting work, the characteristics of the two
herds are such as might lead one to infer
the descent of the domestic breed of short-
horns from the Chillingham herd, and the
old and almost extinct " long-horn " breed
from the Chartley stock. It is a remark-
able fact in connection with both these
iierds that the animals individually are built
on perfect lines, and their general contour
is such that many of our great fat-stock
breeders would be glad of such correctly
formed frames to work upon.

Of the existing Scotch herds of wild
cattle, the only one now found retaining to
any great degree its pristine condition is the
Hamilton herd in Cadgow Park, Lanark-
shire. In 1874: this herd numbered some
forty animals.

Other herds have existed, and some
half-wild herds still are preserved in a few
instances in the British Isles ; of all of
these Mr. Storer has given most entertain-
ing information.

Circnlatlng Libraries and Contagions
Disease. — The question having been raised,
at a meeting of the directors of the Chicago
Public Library, whether books in circulating
libraries may become a means of spreading
contagious diseases, a committee was ap^^
pointed to investigate the subject. Letters
of inquiry were addressed by this commit-
tee to medical and sanitary experts, also to
librarians in different parts of the country,
and the replies (nineteen in number) are set
forth by a member of the committee in a
communication to the "Library Journal."
None of the writers of the replies could give
any fact falling under his own observation
tending to show that a contagious disease

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

139

was ever imparted by a book from a circu-
lating library, and hence the question had
to be discussed simply as one of theory.
The doctors differed, of course, some of
them asserting the risk of contagion to be
great, while others held it to be nil. The
conclusion reached by the committee is
that, " while there may be a possibility that
contagious diseases may be transmitted by
books of a circulating library, the real dan-
ger of such transmission is very small."
Nevertheless, they recommend to the direc-
tors of the library " to act under the advice
of the Commissioner of Health, and adopt
such regulations as he had suggested, name-
ly: that he furnish to the library, whenever
he thinks proper, a list of the premises in-
fected with contagious diseases, and of their
residents ; that no books be loaned to such
houses until they are reported by the health
office to be free from contagious diseases,
and that all books returned from such
houses during this period be disinfected
before they are replaced on the shelves of
the library."

Bird-Reasoning. — The first winter after
the erection of a telegraph line on the coast
of Antrim, Ireland, numbers of starhngs
migrating from Scotland were found dead
or wounded on the roadside, they having,
evidently, in their flight in the dusky morn-
ing, struck against the wires. Strange to
say, during the following and succeeding
winters, hardly a death occurred among the
starlings on their arrival. The inference
drawn from all this by a wsiter in " Nature "
is that " the birds were deeply impressed and
understood the cause of the fatal accidents
among their fellow travelers, that previous
year, and hence carefully avoided the tele-
graph wires ; not only so, but the young birds
must also have acquired this knowledge and
perpetuated it — a knowledge which they
could not have acquired by experience or
even by instinct, unless the instinct was really
inherited memory derived from the parents
whose brains were first impressed by it."

Habits of the Thresher-Sharlc.— Having

received a fine specimen of the fox, or
thresher-shark, Mr. Frank Buckland sends
to " Land and Water " an account of all he
has been able to learn concerning the habits

of that animal. Premising that what he
says has to be taken with many '' grains of
salt," we subjoin the main points of his com-
munication. This shark, it appears, is called
" the thresher," from the power it has, in
company with the sword-fish, to destroy a
whale, by jumping into the air and striking
the whale with its tail, the sword-fish in the
mean time striking the whale from beneath.
Mr. Buckland has never seen a thresher
hunting mackerel, but believes that this
shark " rushes into a shoal of these fish,
and lays about right and left with his long
tail ; when the frightened mackerel are en-
deavoring to fall into their ranks again, the
shark has a good opportunity of seizing
them one by one." Of the contests between
thresher-sharks and whales he gives the fol-
lowing animated account, on the authority
of one Captain Hill, and in that worthy
skipper's own words : " The thresher-sharks
just do serve out the whales. The sea some-
times is all blood. A whale once got under
our vessel — the Hurricane — to get away
from these threshers, and when she was
there we was afraid to throw a rope over-
board, almost to walk about, for fear she
should chuck her tail and punch a hole in
our vessel. She was full length, in water
as clear as gin, right under our bottom, and
laid as quiet as a lamb for an hour and a
half, and never moved a fin. Where they
had been a-threshing of her, the sea was
just like blood. I have seen these 'ere
threshers fly out of the water as high as the
masthead, and down upon the whale while
the sword-fish was a pricking of him from
underneath. There is always two of 'em —
one up and one under ; and I think they
hunt together, and you can see the poor
whale blow in great agitation ; and I be
bound the pair of them don't leave him
till they have had their penn'orth out of
him. I don't think they leaves him till
they kills him."

Cost of the Proposed Lake in Algeria.—

M. Roudaire, the engineer in charge of the
preliminary surveys for flooding the Alge-
rian shotts (dried up lake-beds), estimates
the cost of the proposed work at not ex-
ceeding 20,000,000 francs. It is only ne-
cessary to cut through the narrow isthmus
separating the head of the Gulf of Gabes

140

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

from the extremity of the shott El-Djerid, to
form the proposed sea. In a letter from
M. Roudaire to M. de Lesseps, the advan-
tages which may be expected to result from
the creation of this new sea are stated to
be " an immense amelioration of the climate
of Algeria and Tunis, since the moisture
caused by the evaporation from the vast ex-
panse of water will be driven by the prevail-
ing southerly winds over these countries,
forming a layer of humid atmosphere which
will greatly mitigate the intensity of the so-
lar rays and retard the cooling of the earth
by radiation during the night. The proposed
sea, too, being navigable for ships of the
greatest draught, will also open a new com-
mercial route for the districts lying to the
south of the Aures and the Atlas range ; while
watercourses which from the south, west,
and north converge toward the shotts, but
which are now dry during the greater part
of the year, will again become rivers, as they
once undoubtedly were, leading ultimately
to the fertilization of vast tracts of now
desert land on their banks."

On the Antiqaity of Man. — Starting from
the opinion generally accepted among geolo-
gists, that man was on the earth at the close
of the Glacial epoch, Professor B. F. Mudge
adduces evidence to prove that the antiquity
of man can not be less than 200,000 years.
His argument, as given in the " Kansas
City Review of Science," is about as fol-
lows : After the Glacial epoch geologists fix
three distinct epochs, namely the Champlain,
the Terrace, and the Delta, all supposed
to be of nearly equal length. Now, we have
in the Delta of the Mississippi a means of
measuring the duration of the third of these
epochs. For a distance of about two hun-
dred miles of this delta are seen forest-
growths of large trees, one over the other,
with interspaces of sand. There are ten
of these distinct forest-growths, which have
begun and ended one after the other. The
trees are the bald cypress {Taxodium) of
the Southern States, and some of them were
over twenty-five feet in diameter. One con-
tained over 5,Y00 annual rings. In some
instances these huge trees have grown over
the stumps of others equally large; and
such instances occur in all, or nearly all, of
the ten forest-beds. This gives to each

forest a period of 10,000 years. Ten such
periods give 100,000 years, to say nothing
of the time covered by the interval between
the ending of one forest and the beginning
of another — an interval which in most casts
was considerable. " Such evidence," writes
Professor Mudge, " would be received in any
court of law as sound and satisfactory. We
do not see how such proof is to be discarded
when applied to the antiquity of our race.
There is satisfactory evidence that man lived
in the Champlain epoch. But the Terrace
epoch, or the greater part of it, intervenes
between the Champlain and the Delta epochs,
thus adding to my 100,000 years. If only
as much time is given to both those epochs
as to the Delta period, 200,000 years is the
total result."

Tbe Immensity of tlic Stars. — We take
from " Le Monde de la Science " the fol-
lowing interesting " Considerations on the
Stars," by Professor J. Vinot : " It is known
that the stars are true suns, that some of
them are larger than our own sun, and that
around these enormous centers of heat and
light revolve planets on which life certainly
exists. Our sun is distant from us 38,000,-
000 leagues, but these stars are distant at
least 500,000 times as far — a distance that
in fact is incommensurable and unimagi-
nable for us. Viewed with the unaided eye
the stars and the planets look alike, that is,
appear to have the same diameter. But,
viewed through the telescope, while the
planets are seen to possess clearly appreci-
able diameters, the stars are still only mere
luminous poiuts. The most powerful of
existing telescopes, that of Melbourne, which
magnifies 8,000 times, gives us an image of
one of our planets possessing an apparent
diameter of several degrees. Jupiter, for
instance, which, seen with the naked eye,
appears as a star of the first magnitude,
with a diameter of 45" at the most, will in
this telescope have its diameter multiplied
8,000 times, and will be seen as if it occu-
pied in the heavens an angle of 100°. Mean-
while a star alongside of Jupiter, and which
to the eye is as bright as that planet, will
still be a simple dimensionless point. Never-
theless that star is thousands of times more
voluminous than the planet! Divide the
distance between us and a planet by 8,000,

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

141

and you have for result a distance relatively
very small ; but divide by 8,000 the enor-
mous number of leagues which represents
the distance of a star, and there still remain
a number of leagues too great to permit of
the stars being seen by us in a perceptible
form. In considering Jupiter, or any of the
planets, we are filled with wonder at the
thought that this little luminous point might
hide not only all the visible stars, but a
number 5,000 fold greater — for of stars
visible to our eyes there are only about
5,000. All the stars of these many constel-
lations, as the Great Bear, Cassiopeia, Orion,
Andromeda, all the stars of the zodiac, even
all the stars which are visible only from the
earth's southern hemisphere, might be set
in one plane, side by side, with no one
overlapping another, even without the
slightest contact between star and star, and
yet they would occupy so small a space that,
were it to be multiplied 5,000 fold, that
space would be entirely covered by the disk
of Jupiter, albeit that disk to us seems to
be an inappreciable point."

A Scientifie Detective. — One of the most
remarkable among recent inventions is the
induction - currents balance, briefly de-
scribed as follows in the " Athenaeum " : " It
consists of two induced currents from sepa-
rate induction coils, which are so equal that
they neutralize each other. They are con-
nected with three elements of a Daniell's
battery, with a small clock and microphone,
and a receiving telephone. If a piece of
metal is placed in one of the coils, the bal-
ance of the currents is disturbed, and the
clock is heard to tick ; but if another piece
of metal, exactly similar, is placed in the
opposite coil, the balance is restored, and
silence again prevails." From this brief de-
scription it will be understood that in this
new instrument the phy.sicist has an exqui-
sitely sensitive test of the molecular con-
stitution of many substances, for it detects
the presence of mixtures and alloys, how-
ever small the quantity. Hence a scale of
qualities may be formed ; and if the value
of silver be placed at 115° there can be no
question that everything that marks 115°
must be silver, 52° will be iron, 40^ lead,
and 10° bismuth ; and, further, the instru-
ment is at once affected bv magnetism, heat,

or strain in the substance under examina-
tion, and will indicate even the effect of
half a minute's rubbing of a piece of metal
between the thumb and finger. The induc-
tion-currents balance 'u a contrivance of
Professor Hughes's.

Stained Windows. — The method of con-
structing stained-glass windows is described
as follows in " Chambers's Journal " : " The
design of the window being determined
upon, and the cartoon or full-sized drawing
being prepared, a kind of skeleton drawing
is made showing only the lines which indi-
cate the shape of each separate piece of
glass. It is apparently not generally un-
derstood that a window is not one piece
of glass, to which are applied the various
colors displayed, but a number of small
pieces, which are united by grooved lead,
which incloses each individual fragment,
and that each different color we see is the
color of that particular piece of glass, the
only painting material employed being the
dark-brown pigment used to define the
more delicate and minute details. This
skeleton or working drawing then passes
to the cutting-room, where sheets of glass
of every imaginable shade are arranged in
racks, each bearing a number, by which a
particular tint is known. The drawing
being numbered on each separate piece of
glass by means of a frame containing small
pieces of every shade, and each numbered
according to the rack containing the glass
of that color, the use of this frame renders
unnecessary the tedious process of visiting
each rack in search of the particular shade
required ; the glass is laid bit by bit on the
drawing, and each piece is then cut to the
required shape by means of a diamond.
After the glass is cut, it passes to the paint-
er, who, laying it over the drawing, traces
upon it with his brush all the details of
features, folds of drapery, foliage, etc., as
designed by the artist. But as the action
of the weather and the continually varying
conditions of the atmosphere would speed-
ily remove every vestige of paint if left in
this state, it is necessary to sutyect the
painted glass to the action of heat by plac-
ing it for several hours in a kiln, under
the influence of which the paint is fused
into absolute afiinity with the glass, and

142

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

becomes actually incorporated with its sub-
stance. After tbis burning process, it only
remains for the different pieces to be united
with the grooved leaden framework which
binds the whole together. The places
where the leads join are then carefully
soldered together, and nothing remains but
to thoroughly work over the whole surface
with a thick kind of cement, which fills up
any interstices between the glass and lead,
and renders the whole panel perfectly water-
tight and weather-proof. "

Assimilative Power of Plants. — In a paper
read before the Dublin Royal Society, Dr.
C. A. Cameron states the result of a prelimi-
nary experiment made by him to determine
the possibility of substituting for some of
the elements in plants other elements of the
same atomicity. A sod was taken from a
field in which a crop of the so-called artifi-
cial grasses (which are chiefly leguminous
plants, and not grasses at all) was just peep-
ing over ground. It was placed in a box,
and one half of the plants were watered
twice a week with a weak solution of potas-
sium selenate. The total quantity of potas-
sium selenate applied to the plants during
four weeks amounted to twenty grammes.
The result showed that selenic acid, at least
when applied in small quantity, does not
injure plants. Secondly, it was found that
selenic acid had been absorbed by the
plants. To determine this point, the plants
were partially dried and boiled in strong
nitric acid until thoroughly destroyed. The
solution was evaporated to dryness, and the
residue was treated with dilute hydrochloric
acid, which dissolved it nearly completely.
The solution was concentrated and mixed
with a saturated solution of sulphurous acid,
whereupon the liquid assumed at once a
deep, blood-red color, from the separation
of selenium. The plants had been carefully
washed before being dried. In concluding
his paper. Dr. Cameron writes as follows:
" I think this experiment proves that selenic
acid is not injurious to plants when used in
small quantity, and that the acid is taken
up and retained by plants, or at least by
certain varieties of plants. The experiment,
however, did not prove whether or not there
was a partial replacement of sulphur triox-
ide by selenium trioxide or of sulphur by
selenium. Having lately become possessed

of large quantities of selenium compounds,
I propose to grow plants in soil or water
free from sulphur in any form, but supplied
with potassium and ammonia selenates.
Should the results of this proposed experi-
ment prove interesting, I shall do myself
the honor of submitting them to the so-
ciety."

Honey-making in the United States. —

The annual production of honey in this
country is estimated at about 35,000,000
pounds, and the business of bee-keeping is
being rapidly systematized. One firm of
wholesale grocers in New York keeps as
many as 12,000 swarms ; other keepers
have often from 3,500 to 5,000 swarms.
Arrangements are made with farmers and
owners of orchards to allow an apiary of a
certain number of swarms to be placed in
their grounds. At the distance of three or
four miles another apiary is placed with
another fanner, and so on. For this accom-
modation the bee-keepers pay either in
money or in shares. It is estimated that on
an average an acre will support twenty-five
swarms, yielding fifty pounds of honey each.
The apiaries are cared for by men in the
employ of the bee-owners. Many ingenious
contrivances have been introduced for the
purpose of saving the labor of the bees and
the keepers. About ten years ago a Ger-
man suggested that thin, corrugated sheets
of wax, which he called " artificial tablets,"
should be provided for the bees to make
their comb from. These, however, did not
come into general use ; but a few years ago
Mr. W. M. Hoge effected an improvement
by starting the side-walls of the cells. When
these "foundations," as they are called,
were presented to the bees, the intelligent
little creatures at once took advantage of
them, and extended the side-walls so as to
form the regular hexagonal cell. The ma-
chine by which the impression is made on
both sides of the wax is very simple, and
somewhat resembles a clothes-wringing ma-
chine, only the iron rollers are studded with
little hexagonal-headed pins just the size of
the section of a cell, so that, when the thin
sheet of wax is pressed up between the pegs
to the height of about one sixteenth of
an inch, it offers a substance for the con-
struction of the cell-walls. Another re-
markable adaptation of machinery is afford-

NOTES.

143

ed by the use of a rotating frame, which
causes the cells of the comb placed in it to
be emptied by centrifugal force. The empty,
uninjured comb is afterward replaced in the
hive, and again used by the bees. As about
three fourths of the time of the bees, it has
been computed, is taken up in the construc-
tion of the comb, it will be seen that by
these contrivances a great saving of bee-
labor is effected.

Brain-Textnre and mental Make-ap. —

The members of the Paris Anthropological
Society were not a little surprised by the
tenor of a report made by M. Thulie upon
the appearance of the brain and cranium
of M. Asseline, one of their fellows, lately
deceased, at the age of forty-nine. M. As-
seline belonged to a "society for mutual
autopsy," and the examination of his brain
was made by his bereaved cosociefaires, who
were prepared to find in it all the common-
ly received external indications of a highly
refined and intellectual nature. He had
been a republican and a materialist ; pos-
sessed enormous capacity for work, great
faculty of mental assimilation, and an ex-
traordinarily retentive memory ; had a gen-
tle, kindly disposition, keen susceptibilities,
refined taste, and subtile wit. As a writer
he had always displayed great learning, un-
usual force of style, and elegance of diction ;
and in his intercourse with others he had
been unassuming, sensitive, and even timid.
But " the autopsy showed," says " Nature,"
" such coarseness and thickness of the con-
volutions that M. Broca presumed them to
be characteristic of an inferior brain. The
fossae or depressions regarded by Gratiolet
as of a simian character, and as a sign of
cerebral inferiority, which are often found
in women, and in some men of undoubted
intellectual inferiority, were very much
marked, especially on the left parieto-oc-
cipital. But the cranial bones were at some
points so thin as to be translucent ; the cer-
ebral depressions were deeply marked, the
frontal suture was not wholly ossified, a
decided degree of asjTnmetry was mani-
fested in the greater prominence of the
right frontal, while, moreover, the brain
weighed 1,468 grammes — i. e., about sixty
grains above the average given by M. Broca
for M. Asseline's age."

NOTES.

The important statement is made by
Professor C. V. Riley that for the feeding of
silkworms there is no appreciable dilier-
ence between the leaves of the osage or-
ange and the mulberry, provided care is
taken to reject the more tender and milky
leaves of the former, as they are apt to pro-
duce flaccidity and disease.

A WRITER in " Nature" suggests the em-
ployment of carrier-pigeons in the British
meteorological service as a means of bringing
accounts of the weather at different points
in the Atlantic Ocean 300, 400, or even 500
miles out, the pigeons being dispatched on
outward voyages of ships leaving such
ports as Queenstown, Southampton, etc.
The present great difficulty of the meteoro-
logical service of Europe is that storms
reach the coast unannounced over the At-
lantic.

Upon the publication of Siemens's re-
marks on conveying to a distance, by means
of electricity, the power developed by the
Falls of Niagara, several electricians de-
clared the idea to be preposterous. Thus
one writer calculated that the thickness of
the cable required to convey to the distance
of several hundred miles the current which
could be produced by the power of Niagara,
would require more copper than exists in
the whole of the Lake Superior region.
Another statement estimates the cost of the
cable at about sixty dollars per lineal foot.
But calculations made by Professor Elihu
Thomson and Edwin J. Houston, of Phila-
delphia, show that these estimates are er-
roneous, and that it is possible to convey
the total power of Niagara a distance of five
hundred miles or more by a copper wire not
exceeding one half inch in thickness. Even
though in practice this result be unattain-
able, the important fact still remains that,
with a cable of very limited size, an enor-
mous quantity of power may be transferred
to considerable distances.

Bernhard von Cotta, the eminent Sax-
on geologist and Professor of Geology in
the University of Freiberg, died at that
place September 14th, at the age of seventy-
one years. He was an indefatigable student
and writer, and his published works are
very numerous. His first book, on " The
Dendroliths," was written while he was yet
a student at Freiberg. Later he was asso-
ciated with Naumann in preparing the geo-
logical map of Saxony. The first volume
of his " Geognostic Travels " appeared in
18.S6, and the second in 1838. One of his
principal works, namely the " Introduction
to the Study of Geognosy and Geology,"
first published in 1839, passed through sev-

144

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

eral editions. But his greatest work was
undoubtedly his "Geologie der Gegenwart"
(The Present State of Geology). This work
has passed through five editions. A few of
his works have been translated into English
and other languages of Europe.

The metal scandium, obtained by its dis-
coverer Nilsson from ytterbine, has lately
been found by P. Cleve in yttrotitanite from
Norway. The only oxide of scandium, scan-
dine, appears to possess the formula SC2O3.
The atomic weight of the new metal is 45.
Scandine is a pure white powder, light, in-
fusible, and resembling magnesia. The hy-
drate of scandium is a white and bulky pre-
cipitate like hydrate of alumina. The scan-
dium salts are colorless or white ; they have
an astringent and very sour taste, very dif-
ferent from the sugary taste of the other
yttria earths. Scandium is one of the met-
als predicted by Mendelejef ; he gave it the
name of ekabor, and fixed its atomic weight
at 44. The characters of ekabor correspond
pretty closely with those of scandium.

By means of his new spectroscope, with
compound sulphide of carbon prisms, M.
Thollon has produced a remarkable map of
the solar spectrum. This map is no less
than ten metres in length, and is composed
of about 4,000 lines. M. Thollon has de-
voted great care to reproducing the physiog-
nomy of each line; and there are many new
features revealed which will doubtless be
utilized for theory.

The German Empress, Augusta, soon
after the death of the young Prince Walde-
mar, son of the German Crown-Prince, of-
fered a considerable sum of money as a prize
for the best essay on " Diphtheria, its Nature
and Treatment." A commission of eminent
physicians has been appointed, with Dr.
von Lansenbeck, of Berlin, as chairman, to
award the prize. The lists will remain open
until December 16, 1880. The competing
essays may be written either in German,
French, or English.

During the first six months of the pres-
ent year, regular tides have been observed
in the subterranean waters of the Fort-
schritt mine in Bohemia. This strange phe-
nomenon has attracted the attention of the
Academies of Science of Berlin and Vienna,
but as yet no adequate explanation of it
has been proposed.

A Chinaman was fined ten pounds for
" sweeping the streets " in an Australian
town. In explanation, it may be mentioned
that the streets are metaled with quartz,
which is crushed to powder by vehicles, and
that the sweepings often give a very lucra-
tive return in gold-washing. Here the gold
return is largest when the streets are left
unswept !

The Rev. Dr. Barnard, President of Co-
lumbia College, New York City, in his last
annual report, warmly advocates the co-edu-
cation of young men and young women in
colleges. It is, he says, mainly the spirit of
conservatism which opposes the opening of
colleges to women, rather than anything
inherently objectionable in the proposition
itself. That this is so, is made evident by
the fact that no such opposition manifests
itself to the association of students of both
sexes in academies and high-schools, many
of which profess to teach the same subjects
as the colleges, to the same extent, and to
pupils of similar ages.

The historian of civilization in some dis-
tant future period will probably quote the
following passage from a letter written by
a British officer in Zululand, as an illustra-
tion of the state of civilization existing iu
the last quarter of the nineteenth century.
This officer writes : " I flatter myself that I
put an end to six promising young Zulus.
We expected no quarter and gave none.
When the fighting was over, some of our
native troops were sent out on the errand
of dispatching the wounded, many of whom
had crawled away into the long grass, and
even into the ant-bear holes, but our allies
were even with them all round."

At Baku, on the Caspian Sea, the resi-
due {astalki) left after the final distillation
of petroleum is produced in such enormous
quantity that its price is only nominal, and
much of it is poured into the sea for lack
of stowing space or demand. For years
it has been the only fuel used on board the
war-ships and mercantile steamers of the
Caspian. It is employed in cooking also,
and for the production of illuminating gas.
In the latter case it is allowed to trickle
slowly into retorts raised to a dull-red heat,
pure gas with a little graphite being the
result. Weight for weight, astalki gives
four times as great a volume of gas as ordi-
nary coal.

According to Gerard von Schmitt, phy-
sician and traveler, the plant Alikania guaco
possesses medicinal properties very effica-
cious in the treatment of cancer and allied
diseases.

The following is Hersch's test for sew-
age contamination, or the presence of pu-
trescible organic matter in water: Fill a
clean pint bottle three quarters full with the
water to be tested, and in it dissolve half a
teaspoonful of the finest sugar ; then cork
the bottle and set it in a warm place for
forty-eight hours. If, meanwhile, the water
becomes cloudy or milky, it is unfit for do-
mestic use. If it remains perfectly limpid,
it is probably safe to use.

HEINRICH WILHELM DOVE.

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY.

DECEMBEE, 1879.

EECENT ANTHEOPOLOGY.*

By EDWAED B. TYLOR, D. C. L., F. E. S.

IN surveying modern scientific opinion, the student is often remind-
ed of a doctrine proclaimed in the ancient hymns of the Zend-
Avesta, that of Zrvdna akarana, or "endless time." Our modern
schemes of astronomy, geology, biology, are all framed on the assump-
tion of past time immense in length. In fact, one reason why the lat-
ter sciences grew so slowly till almost our own day, was their being
shackled by the bonds of a short chronology, allowing no room for the
long successive periods through which it is now clear that the earth
with its plants and animals passed into their present state. Even the
science of man, though concerned with the later forms of being, be-
longing to times which geologists treat as almost modern, has never-
theless to deal with periods of time extending far back beyond the
range of history and chronology.

Looking back four thousand to five thousand years, what is the
appearance of mankind as disclosed to us by the Egyptian monuments
and inscriptions ? Several of the best-mjtrked races of man were al-
ready in existence, including the brown Egyptian himself, the dark-
white Semitic man of Assyria or Palestine, the Central African of two
varieties, which travelers still find as distinct as ever, namely, the
black or negro proper, and the copper-colored negroid, like the Bongo
or Nyam-nyam of our own time. Indeed, the evidence accessible as
to ancient races of man goes to prove that the causes which brought
about their differences in types of skull, hair, skin, and constitution,
did their chief work in times before history began. Since then the
races which had become adapted to their geographical regions may

* Address before the Anthropological Section of the British Association, at Sheffield.
VOL. XVI. — 10

146 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

have, on the whole, undergone little change while remaining there,
but some alterations are traced as due to migration into new climates.
Even these are difficult to follow, masked as they are by the more
striking changes produced by intermarriage of races. Now, the view
that the races of man are to be accounted for as varied descendants of
one original stock is zoologically i:)robable from the close resemblance
of all men in body and mind, and the freedom with which races inter-
cross. If it was so, then the fact of the different races already exist-
ing early in the historical period compels the naturalist to look to a
prehistoric period for their development to have taken place in. And,
considering how strongly differenced are the negro and the Syrian,
and how slowly such changes of complexion and feature take place
within historical experience, this prehistoric period was probably of
vast length. The evidence from the languages of the world points in
the same direction. In times of ancient history we already meet with
families of languages, such as the Aryan and the Semitic, and as later
history goes on many other families of language come into view, such
as the Bantu or Caffre of Africa, the Dravidian of South India, the
Malayo-Polynesian, the Algonquin of North America, and other fami-
lies. But what we do not find is the parent language of any of these
families, the original language which all the other members are dia-
lects of, so that this parent tongue should stand toward the rest in the
relation which Latin holds to its descendants, Italian and French. It
is, however, possible to work back by the method of philological com-
parison, so as to sketch the outlines of that early Aryan tongue which
must have existed to produce Sanskrit and Persian, Greek and Latin,
German, Russian, and Welsh, or the outlines of that early Semitic
tongue which must have existed to produce Assyrian, Phoenician, He-
brew, and Arabic, Though such theoretical reconstructions of parent
language from their descendants may only show a vague and shadowy
likeness to the reality, they give some idea of it. And what concerns
us here is that theoretical early Aryan and Semitic, or other such re-
constructed languages, do not bring our minds appreciably nearer to
really primitive forms of speech. However far we get back, the signs
of development from still . earlier stages are there. The roots have
mostly settled into forms which no longer show the reasons why they
were originally chosen, while the inflections only in part preserve traces
of their original senses, and the whole structure is such as only a long-
lost past can account for. To illustrate this important point, let us
remember the system of grammatical gender in Greek or German, how
irrationally a classification by sex is applied to sexless objects and
thoughts, while even the use of a neuter gender fails to set the confu-
sion straight, and sometimes even twists it with a new perversity oj
its own. Many a German and Frenchman wishes he could follow the
example of our English forefathers who, long ago, threw overboard the
whole worthless cargo of grammatical gender. But, looking at gender

RECENT ANTHROPOLOGY. 147

in the ancient grammars, it must be remembered that human custom is
hardly ever willfully absurd, its unreasonableness usually arising from
loss or confusion of old sense. Thus it can hardly be doubted that
the misused grammatical gender in Hebrew or Greek is the remains of
an older and reasonable phenomenon of language ; but, if so, this
must have belonged to a period earlier than we can assign to the theo-
retical parent language of either. Lastly, the development of civiliza-
tion requires a long period of prehistoric time. Experience and history
show that civilization grew up gradually, while every age preserves
recognizable traces of the ages which went before. The woodman's
axe of to-day still retains much of the form of its ancestor — the stone
celt in its wooden handle ; the mathematician's tables keep up in their
decimal rotation a record of the early ages when man's ten fingers first
taught him to count ; the very letters with which I wrote these lines
may be followed back to the figure of birds and beasts and other ob-
jects drawn by the ancient Egyptians, at first as mere picture-writing,
to denote the things represented. Yet, when we learn from the monu-
ments what ancient Egyptian life was like toward five thousand years
ago, it appears that civilization had already come on so far that there
was an elaborate system of government, an educated literary priest-
hood, a nation skilled in agriculture, architecture, and metal-work.
These ancient Egyptians, far from being near the beginning of civili-
zation, had, as the late Baron Bunsen held, already reached its half-
way house. This eminent Egyptologist's moderate estimate of man's
age on the earth at about twenty thousand years has the merit of
having been made on historical grounds alone, independently of geo-
logical evidence, for the proofs of the existence of man in the Quater-
nary or mammoth period had not yet gained acceptance.

My purpose in briefly stating here the evidence of man's antiquity
derived from race, language, and culture, is to insist that these argu-
ments stand on their own ground. It is true that the geological argu-
ment from the implements in the drift-gravels and bone-caves, by
leading to a general belief that man is extremely ancient on the earth,
has now made it easier to anthropologists to maintain a rationally sat-
isfactory theory of the race-types and mental development of mankind.
But we should by no means give up this vantage-ground, though the
ladder we climbed by should break down. Even if it could be proved
that the flint implements of Abbeville or Torquay were really not so
ancient as the pyramids of Egypt, this would not prevent us from still
assuming, for other and sufiicient reasons, a period of human life on
earth extending many thousand years further back.

It is an advantage of this state of the evidence that it to some
extent gets rid of the " sensational " element in the problem of fossil
man, which it leaves as merely an interesting inquiry into the earliest
known relics of savage tribes. Geological criticism has not yet abso-
lutely settled either way the claims of the Abbe Bourgeois's flints from

148 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

Thenay to be of niiocene date, or of Mr. Skertclily's from Brandon to
be glacial. The accepted point is, that the men who made the ordi-
nary flint implements of the drift lived in the Quaternary period char-
acterized by the presence of the mammoth in our part of Europe.
More than one geologist, however, has lately maintained that this Qua-
ternary period was not of extreme antiquity. The problem is, at
what distance from the present time the drift-gravels on the valley-
slopes can have been deposited by water-action up to one hundred feet
or so above the present flood-levels ? It does not seem the prevailing
view among geologists that rivers on the same small scale as those at
present occupying mere ditches in the wide valley-floors could have
left these deposits on the hillsides at a time when they had not yet
scooped out the valleys to within fifty or a hundred feet of their pres-
ent depth. Indeed, such means are insufiicient out of all proportion
to the results, as a mere look down from the hill-tops into such valleys
is enough to show. Geologists connect the deposit of the high drift-
gravels with the subsidence and elevation of the land, and the power-
ful action of ice and water at the close of the Glacial age ; and the
term " Pluvial period " is often used to characterize this time of heavy
rainfall and huge rivers. It was then that the rude stone implements
of palaeolithic man were imbedded in the drift-gravels with the remains
of the mammoth and fossil rhinoceros, and we have to ask what events
have taken place in these regions since ? The earth's surface has been
altered to bring the land and water to their present levels, the huge
animals became extinct, the country was inhabited by the tribes whose
relics belong to the neolithic or polished-stone age, and afterward the
metal-using Keltic nations possessed the land, their arrival being fixed
as previous to 400 b, c, the king of the Gauls then being called by the
Romans by the name Brennus, which is simply the Keltic word for
" king " — in modern Welsh brenin. To take in this succession of events
geologists and archaeologists generally hold that a long period is re-
quired. Yet there are some few who find room for them all in a com-
paratively short period. I will mention Principal Dawson, of Montreal,
well known as a geologist in this Association, and who has shown his
conviction of the soundness of his views by addressing them to the
general public in a little volume, entitled " The Story of the Earth and
Man." Having examined the gravels of St. Acheul, on the Somme,
where M. Boucher de Perthes found his celebrated drift implements, it
appeared to Dr. Dawson that, taking into account the probabilities of a
different level of the land, a wooded condition of the country, and great-
er rainfall, and a glacial filling up of the Somme Valley with clay and
stones subsequently cut out by running water, the gravels could scarce-
ly be older than the Abbeville peat, and the age of this peat he esti-
mates as perhaps less than four thousand years. Within this period Dr.
Dawson includes a comparatively rapid subsidence of the land, with a
partial reelevation, which left large areas of the lower grounds beneath

RECENT ANTHROPOLOGY. 149

the sea. This he describes as the geological deluge which separates
the post-glacial period from the modern, and the earlier from the later
prehistoric period of the archaeologists.

My reason for going here into these computations of Dr. Dawson's
is, that the date about 2200 b. c, to which he thus assigns these great
geological convulsions, is actually within historic times. In Egypt
successive dynasties had been reigning for ages, and the pyramids had
long been built ; while in Babylonia the old Chaldean kings had been
raising the temples whose ruins still remain. That is to say, we are
asked to receive, as matter of geology, that stupendous geological
changes were going on not far from the Mediterranean, including a
final plunge of I know not how much of the earth's surface beneath
the waters, and yet national life on the banks of the Nile and the
Euphrates went on unbroken and apparently undisturbed through it all.
To us in this section it is instructive to see how the free use of parox-
ysms and cataclysms makes it possible to shorten up geological time.
Accustomed as we are to geology demanding periods of time which
often seem to history exorbitant, the tables are now turned, and we are
presented with the unusual spectacle 'of Chronology protesting against
Geology for encroaching on the historical period.

In connection with the question of quaternary man, it is worth while
to notice that the use of the terms " primeval " or " primitive " man,
with reference to the savages of the mammoth period, seems some-
times to lead to unsound inferences. There appears no particular rea-
son to think that the relics from the drift-beds or bone-caves represent
man as he first appeared on the earth. The contents of the caves espe-
cially bear witness to a state of savage art, in some respects fairly high,
and which may possibly have somewhat fallen off from an ancestral
state in a more favorable climate. Indeed, the savage condition gen-
erally, though rude and more or less representing early stages of cul-
ture, never looks absolutely primitive, just as no savage language ever
has the appearance of being a primitive language. What the appear-
ance and state of our really primeval ancestors may have been seems
too speculative a question, until there shall be more signs of agreement
between the anthropologists, who work back by comparison of actual
races of man toward an hypothetical common stock, and the zoologists,
who approach the problem through the species adjoining the human.
There is, however, a point relating to the problem to which attention is
due. Naturalists not unreasonably claim to find the geographical cen-
ter of man in the tropical regions of the Old World inhabited by his
nearest zoological allies, the anthropomorphous apes, and there is at
any rate force enough in such a view to make careful quest of human
remains worth while in those districts, from Africa across to the East-
ern Archipelago. Under the care of Mr. John Evans a fund has been
raised for excavations in the caves of Borneo by Mr, Everett, and,
though the search has as yet had no striking result, money is well

150 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

spent in carrying on such investigations in likely equatorial forest re-
gions.

It would be a pity that for want of enterprise a chance, however
slight, should be missed of settling a question so vital to anthropol-
ogy.

While the problem of primitive man thus remains obscure, a some-
what more distinct opinion may be formed on the problem of primitive
civilized man. When it is asked what races of mankind first attained
to civilization, it may be answered that the earliest nations known to
have had the ai't of writing, the great mark of civilization as distin-
guished from barbarism, were the Egyptians and Babylonians, who in
the remotest ages of history appear as nations advanced to the civilized
stage in arts and social organization. The question is, under what
races to class them ? What the ancient Egyptians were like is well
known from the monuments, which show how closely much of the pres-
ent fellah population, as little changed in features as in climate and
life, represent their ancestors of the times of the Pharaohs. Their
reddish-brown skin, and features tending toward the negroid, have led
Hartmann, the latest anthropologist who has carefully studied them,
to adopt the classification of them as belonging to the African rather
than the Asiatic peoples, and especially to insist on their connection
with the Berber type, a view which seems to have been held by Blu-
menbach. The contrast of the brown Egyptians with the dark-white
Syi'O- Arabians on their frontiers is strongly marked, and the portraits
on the monuments show how distinctly the Egyptian knew himself to
be of diflPerent race from the Semite. Yet there was mixture between the
two races, and, what is most remarkable, there is a deep-seated Semitic
element in the Egyptian language, only to be accounted for by some
extremely ancient and intimate connection. On the whole, the Egyj)-
tians may be a mixed race, mainly of African origin, perhaps from the
southern Somauli-land, whence the Egyptian tradition was that the
gods came, while their African type may have since been modified by
Asiatic admixture. Next, as to the early relations of Babylonia and
Media, a different problem presents itself. The languages of these
nations, the so-called Akkadian and the early Medic, were certainly
not of the same family with either the Assyrian or the Persian which
afterward prevailed in their districts. Their connection with the Tartar
or Turanian family of languages, asserted twenty years ago by Oppert,
has since been further maintained by Lenormant and Sayce, and seems,
if not conclusively settled, at any rate to have much evidence for it, not
depending merely on similarity of words, such as the term for " god,"
Akkadian dingira, being like the Tartar tengri, but also on the simi-
larity of pronouns and grammatical structure by post-positions. Now
language, though not a conclusive argument as to race, always proves
more or less as to connection. The comparison of the Akkadian lan-
guage to that of the Tartar family is at any rate prima facie evidence

i

RECENT ANTHROPOLOGY. 151

that the nations who founded the ancient civilization of Babylonia,
who invented the cuneiform writing, and who carried on the astro-
nomical observations which made the name of Chaldean famous for
all time, may have been not dark- white peoples like the Assyrians who
came after them, but perhaps belonged to the yellow race of Central
Asia, of whom the Chinese are the branch now most distinguished in
civilization. M. Lenormant has tried to identify among the Assyrian
bas-reliefs certain figures of men whose round skulls, high cheek-bones,
and low-bridged noses present a Mongoloid type contrasting with that
of the Assyrians. We can not, I think, take this as proved, but at any
rate in these figures the features are not those of the aquiline Semitic
type. The bronze statuette of the Chaldean king called Gudea, which
I have examined with Mr. Pinches at the British Museum, is also, with
its straight nose and long, thin beard, as un-Assyrian as may be. The
anthropological point toward which all this tends is one of great in-
terest. We of the white race are so used to the position of leaders in
civilization, that it does not come easy to us to think we may not have
been its original founders. Yet the white race, whether the dark-
whites, such as Phoenicians or Hebrews, Greeks or Romans, or the fair-
white's, such as Scandinavians and Teutons, appear in history as fol-
lowers and disciples of the Egyptians and Babylonians who taught
the world writing, mathematics, philosophy. These Egyptians and
Babylonians, so far as present evidence reaches, seem rather to have
belonged to the races of brown and yellow skin than to the white
race.

It may be objected that this reasoning is in several places imper-
fect, but it is the use of a departmental address not only to lay down
proved doctrines, but to state problems tentatively as they lie open to
further inquiry. This will justify my calling attention to a line of
argument which, uncertain as it at present is, may perhaps lead to an
interesting result. So ancient was civilization among both Egyptians
and Chaldeans, that the contest as to their priority in such matters as
magical science was going on hotly in the classic ages of Greece and
Rome. Looking at the literature and science, the arts and politics of
Memphis and of Ur of the Chaldees, both raised to such height of cul-
ture nearly five thousand years ago, we ask. Were these civilizations
not connected ? did not one borrow from the other ? There is at present
a clew which, though it may lead to nothing, is still worth trial. The
hint of it lies in a remark by Dr. Birch as to one of the earliest of
Egyptian monuments, the pyramid of Kochome, near Sakkara, actu-
ally dating from, the first dynasty, no doubt beyond 3000 b, c, and
which is built in steps like the seven-storied Babylonian temples.
Two other Egyptian pyramids, those of Abu-sIr, are also built in steps.
Now, whether there is any connection between the building of these
pyramids and the Babylonian towers, does not depend on their being
built in stages, but on the number of these stages being seven. As to

152 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the Babylonian towers, there is no doubt, for, though Birs-Nimrud is
now a ruinous heap, the classical descriptions of such temples, and the
cuneiform inscriptions, put it beyond question that they had seven
stages, dedicated to the seven planets. As to the Egyptian pyramids,
the archaeologists Segato and Masi positively state of one step-pyramid
of Abur-sir, that it had seven decreasing stages, while, on the other
hand, Vyse's reconstruction of the step-pyramid of Sakkara shows
there only six. Considering the ruinous state of all three step-pyra-
mids, it will require careful measurement to settle whether they origi-
nally had seven stages or not. If they had, the correspondence can
not be set down to accident, but must be taken to prove a connection
between Chaldea and Egypt as to the worship of the seven planets,
which will be among the most ancient links connecting the civiliza-
tions of the world. I hope, by thus calling attention to the question,
to induce some competent architect visiting Egypt to place the matter
beyond doubt, one way or the other.

While speaking of the high antiquity of civilization in Egypt, the
fact calls for remark that the use of iron as well as bronze in that
country seems to go back as far as historical record reaches. Brugsch
writes in his '* Egypt under the Pharaohs," that Egypt throws scorn
on the archaeologists' assumed successive periods of stone, bronze, and
iron. The eminent historian neglects, however, to mention facts
which give a different complexion to the early Egyptian use of metals,
namely, that chipped flints, apparently belonging to a prehistoric Stone
age, are picked up plentifully in Egypt, while the sharp stones or stone
knives used by the embalmers seem also to indicate an earlier time
when these were the cutting instruments in ordinary use. Thus there
are signs that the Metal age in Egypt, as elsewhere in the world, was
preceded by a Stone age, and, if so, the high antiquity of the use of
metal only throws back to a still higher antiquity the use of stone.
The ancient iron-working in Egypt is, however, the chief of a grouj)
of facts which are now affecting the opinions of anthropologists on
the question whether the Bronze age everywhere preceded the Iron
age. In regions where, as in Africa, iron-ore occurs in such a state
that it can, after mere heating in the fire, be forged into implements,
the invention of iron-working would be more readily made than that
of the composite metal bronze, which perhaps indicates a previous
use of copper, afterward improved on by an alloy of tin. Professor
Rolleston, in a recent address on the Iron, Bronze, and Stone ages,
insists with reason that soft iron may have been first in the hands of
many tribes, and may have been superseded by bronze as a preferable
material for tools and w^eapons. We moderns, used to fine and cheap
steel, hardly do justice to the excellence of bronze, or gun-metal as we
should now call it, in comparison with any material but steel. I well
remember ray own surprise at seeing in the Naples Museum that the
surgeons of Herculaneum and Pompeii used instruments of bronze.

RECENT ANTHROPOLOGY. 153

It is when hard steel comes in, that weapons both of bronze and
wrought iron have to yield, as when the long, soft iron broadswords
of the Gauls bent at the first blow against the pikes of Flaminius's
soldiers. On the whole, Professor Virchow's remarks in the " Trans-
actions of the Berlin Anthropological Society for 1876," on the ques-
tion whether it may be desirable to recognize instead of three only
two ages, a Stone age and a Metal age, seem to put the matter on a
fair footing. Iron may have been known as early as bronze or even
earlier, but nevertheless there have been periods in the life of nations
when bronze, not iron, has been the metal in use. Thus there is no-
thing to interfere with the facts resting on archseological evidence,
that in such districts as Scandinavia or Switzerland a Stone age was
at some ancient time followed by a Bronze age, and this again by an
Iron age. We may notice that the latter change is what has happened
in America within a few centuries, where the Mexicans and Peruvians,
found by the Spaniards living in the Bronze age, were moved on into
the Iron age. But the question is Avhether we are to accept as a
general principle in history the doctrine expounded in the poem of
Lucretius, that men first used boughs and stones, that then the use of
bronze became known, and lastly iron was discovered. As the evi-
dence stands now, the priority of the Stone age to the Metal age is
more firmly established than ever, but the origin of both bronze and
iron is lost in antiquity, and we have no certain proof which came
first.

Passing to another topic of our science, it is satisfactory to see
with what activity the comparative study of laws and customs, to
which Sir Henry Maine gave a new starting-point in England, is now
pursued. The remarkable inquiry into the very foundations of soci-
ety in the structure of' the family, set afoot by Bachof en in his " Mut-
terrecht," and McLennan in his " Primitive Marriage," is now bringing
in every year new material. Mr, L. H. Morgan, who, as an adopted
Iroquois, became long ago familiar with the marriage laws and ideas
of kinship of uncultured races, so unlike those of the civilized world,
has lately made, in his "Ancient Society," a bold attempt to solve the
whole difiicult problem of the development of social life. I will not
attempt here any criticism of the views of these and other wi-iters on
a problem where the last word has certainly not been said. My object
in toitching the subject is to mention the curious evidence that can
still be given by rude races as to their former social ties, in traditions
which will be forgotten in another generation of civilized life, but
may still be traced by missionaries and others who know what to seek
for. Thus, such inquiry in Polynesia discloses remarkable traces of a
prevalent marriage-tie which was at once polygamous and jjolyan-
drous, as where a family of brothers were married jointly to a family
of sisters ; and I have just noticed in a recent volume on " Native
Tribes of South Australia," a mention of a similar state of things oc-

154 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

curring there. As to the general study of customs, the work done for
years past by such anthropologists as Professor Bastian, of Berlin, is
producing substantial progress. Among recent works "I will mention
Dr. Karl Andree's " Ethnologische Parallelen," and Mr. J. A. Farrer's
" Primitive Manners." In the comparison of customs and inventions',
however, the main difficulty still remains to be overcome, how to de-
cide certainly whether they have sprung up independently alike in
different lands through likeness in the human mind, or whether they
have traveled from a common source. To show how difficult this
often is, I may mention the latest case I have happened to meet with.
The Orang Dongo, a mountain people in the Malay region, have a
custom of inheritance that when a man dies the relatives each take a
share of the property, and the deceased inherits one share for himself,
which is burned or buried for his ghost's use, or eaten at the funeral
feast. This may strike many of my hearers as quaint enough, and
unlikely to recur elsewhere ; but Mr. Charles Elton, who has special
knowledge of our ancient legal customs, has pointed out to me that it
was actually old Kentish law, thus laid down in law-French : " Ense-
ment seieut les chateus de gauylekendeys parties en treis apres le
exequies e les dettes rendues si il y est issue mulier en vye, issi que la
mort eyt la une partie, e les fitz e les filles muliers lautre partie e la
femme la tierce partie." — (" In like sort let the chattels of gavelkind
persons be divided into three after the funeral and payment of debts,
if there be lawful issue living, so that the deceased have one part, and
the lawful sons and daughters the other part, and the wife the third
part.") The Church had indeed taken possession, for pious uses, of
the dead man's share of his own property ; but there is good Scandi-
navian evidence that the original custom before Christian times was
for it to be put in his burial-mound. Thus the right of the rude
Malay tribe corresponds with that of ancient Europe, and the question
which the evidence does not yet enable us to answer, is whether the
custom was twice invented, or whether it spread east and west from a
common source, perhaps in the Aryan district of Asia.

It remains for me to notice the present state of comparative my-
thology, a most interesting but also most provoking part of anthropol-
ogy. More than twenty years ago a famous essay, by Professor Max
Mulier, made widely known in England how far the myths in the
classical dictionary and the story-books of our own lands might find
their explanation in poetic nature-metaphors of sun and sky, cloud and
storm, such as are preserved in the ancient Aryan hymns of the Veda.
Of course it had been always known that the old gods and heroes were
in some part personifications of nature — that Helios and Okeanos,
though they walked and talked and begat sons and daughters, were
only the Sun and Sea in poetic guise. But the identifications of the
new school Avent further. The myth of Endymion became the simple
nature-story of the setting Sun meeting Selene the Moon ; and I well

RECENT AXTHROPOLOGY. 155

remember how, at the Royal Institution, the aged scholar. Bishop
Thirlwall, grasped the stick he leaned on, as if to make sure of the
ground under his feet, when he heard it propounded that Erinys, the
dread avenger of murder, was a personification of the Dawn discover-
ing the deeds of Darkness. Though the study of mythology has grown
apace in these later years, and many of its explanations will stand the
test of future criticism, I am bound to say that mythologists, always
an erratic race, have of late been making wilder work than ever with
both myth and real history — finding mythic suns and skies in the kings
and heroes of old tradition, with dawns for love-tales, storms for wars,
and sunsets for deaths, often with as much real cogency as if some my-
thologist a thousand years hence should explain the tragic story of
Mary Queen of Scots as a nature-myth of a beauteous dawn rising in
splendor, prisoned in a dark cloud-island, and done to death in blood-
red sunset. Learned treatises have of late, by such rash guessings,
shaken public confidence in the more sober reasonings on which com-
parative mythology is founded, so that it is well to insist that there
are cases where the derivation of myths from poetic metaphors is
really proved beyond doubt. Such an instance is the Hindoo legend of
King Bali, whose austerities have alarmed the gods themselves, when
Yamana, a Brahmanic Tom Thumb, begs of him as much land as he
can measure in three steps ; but when the boon is granted, the tiny
dwarf expands gigantic into Vishnu himself, and striding with one step
across the earth, with another across the air, and a third across the
sky, drives the king down into the infernal regions, where he still
reigns. There are various versions of the story, of which one may be
read in Southey ; but in the ancient Vedic hymns its origin may be
found when it was not as yet a story at all, only a poetic metaphor of
Vishnu, the Sun, whose oft-mentioned act is his crossing the airy re-
gions in his three strides. " Vishnu traversed (the earth), thrice he
put down his foot ; it was crushed under his dusty step. Three steps
hence made Vishnu, unharmed preserver, upholding sacred things."
Both in the savage and civilized world there are many myths which
may be plainly traced to such poetic fancies before they have yet
stiffened into circumstantial tales ; and it is in following out these,
rather than in recklessly guessing myth-origins for every tradition,
that the sound work of the mythologist lies. The scholar must not
treat such nature-poetry like prose, spoiling its light texture with too
heavy a grasp. In the volume published by our new Folk-Lore So-
ciety, which has begun its work so well, Mr. Lang gives an instance of
the sportive nature-metaphor which still lingers among popular story-
tellers. It is Breton, and belongs to that wide-spread tale of which
one version is naturalized in England as " Dick Whittington and his
Cat." .The story runs thus : The elder brother has the cat, while the
next brother, who has a cock left him, fortunately finds his way to a
land where (there being no cocks) the king has every night to send

156 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

chariots and horses to bring the dawn ; so that here the fortunate
owner of Chanticleer has brought him to a good market. Thus we
see that the Breton peasant of our day has not even yet lost the mythic
sense with which his remote Aryan ancestors could behold the chariots
and horses of the dawn. But myth, though largely based on such
half -playful metaphor, runs through all the intermediate stages which
separate poetic fancy from crude philosophy embodied in stories seri-
ously devised as explanations of real facts. No doubt many legends
of the ancient world, though not really history, are myths which have
arisen by reasoning on actual events, as definite as that which, some
four years ago, was terrifying the peasant-mind in North Germany, and
especially in Posen. The report had spread far and wide that all
Catholic children with black hair and blue eyes were to be sent out of
the country, some said to Russia, while others declared that it was the
King of Prussia who had been playing cards with the Sultan of Turkey,
and had staked and lost forty thousand fair-haired, blue-eyed children ;
and there were Moors traveling about in covered carts to collect them ;
and the schoolmasters were helping, for they were to have five dollars
for every child they handed over. For a time the popular excitement
was quite serious : the parents kept the children away from school and
hid them, and w^hen they appeared in the streets of the market-town
the little ones clung to them with terrified looks. Dr. Schwartze, the
well-known mythologist, took the pains to trace the rumor to its
sources. One thing was quite plain, that its prime cause was that
grave and learned body, the Anthropological Society of Berlin, who,
without a thought of the commotion they were stirring up, had, in
order to class the population as to race, induced the authorities to have
a census made throughout the local schools, to ascertain the color of the
children's skin, hair, and eyes. Had it been only the boys, to the Gov-
ernment inspection of whom for military conscription the German peas-
ants are only too well accustomed, nothing would have been thought of
it ; but why should the officials want to know about the little gii-ls'
hair and eyes ? The whole group of stories which suddenly sprang up
were myths created to answer this question ; and even the details
which became embodied with them could all be traced to their sources,
such as the memories of German princes selling regiments of their peo-
ple to pay their debts, the late political negotiations between Germany
and Russia, etc. The fact that a caravan of Moors had been traveling
about as a show accounted for the covered carts with which they were
to fetch the children ; while the schoolmasters were naturally impli-
cated, as having drawn up the census. One schoolmaster, who evi-
dently knew his people, assured the terrified parents that it was only
the children with blue hair and green eyes that were wanted — an ex-
planation which sent them home quite comforted. After all, there is no
reason why we should not come in time to a thorough understanding
of mythology. The human mind is much what it used to be, and the

ON RADIANT MATTER.

157

principles of myth-making may still be learned from the peasants of
Europe.

When, within the memory of some here present, the science of
man was just coming into notice, it seemed as though the study of
races, customs, traditions, were a limited though interesting task,
which might, after a few years, come so near the end of its materials
as no longer to have much new to offer. Its real course has been far
otherwise. Twenty years ago it was no difficult task to follow it step
by step ; but now even the yearly list of new anthropological litera-
ture is enough to form a pamphlet, and each capital of Europe has its
anthropological society in full work. So far from any look of finality
in anthropological investigations, each new line of argument but opens
the way to others behind, while these lines tend as plainly as in the
sciences of stricter weight and measure toward the meeting-ground
of all sciences in the unity of nature. — Nature.

ON RADIANT MATTER.*

By WILLIAM CEOOKES, F. E. S.

n.

Eadiant Hatter exerts Strong Mechanical Actioji ichere it strikes.

WE have seen, from the sharpness of the molecular shadows, that
radiant matter is arrested by solid matter placed in its path.
If this solid body is easily moved, the impact of the molecules will
reveal itself in strong mechanical action, Mr. Gimingham has con-
structed for me an ingenious piece of apparatus which, when placed in

the electric lantern, will render this mechanical action visible to all
present. It consists of a highly-exhausted glass tube (Fig. 11), hav-

* A lecture delivered before the British Association for the Advancement of Science,
at Sheffield, Friday, August 22, 1879.

158

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ing a little glass railway running along it from one end to the other.
The axle of a small wheel revolves on the rails, the spokes of the wheel
carrying wide mica paddles. At each end of the tube, and rather
above the center, is an aluminium pole, so that whichever pole is made
negative the stream of radiant matter darts from it along the tube,
and striking the upper vanes of the little paddle-wheel, causes it
to turn round and travel along the railway. By reversing the poles
I can arrest the wheel and send it the reverse way ; and if I gently
incline the tube, the force of impact is observed to be sufficient even
to drive the wheel uj) hill.

This experiment, therefore, shows that the molecular stream from
the negative pole is able to move any light object in front of it.

The molecules being driven violently from the pole, there should
be a recoil of the pole from the molecules, and by arranging an appa-
ratus so as to have the negative pole movable and the body receiving
the impact of the radiant matter fixed, this recoil can be rendered
sensible. In appearance the apparatus (Fig. 12) is not unlike an ordi-

nary radiometer with aluminium disks for vanes, each disk coated on
one side with a film of mica. The fly is supported by a hard steel
instead of glass cup, and the needle-point on which it w^orks is con-
nected by means of a wire with a platinum terminal sealed into the
glass. At the top of the radiometer-bulb a second terminal is sealed
in. The radiometer, therefore, can be connected with an induction-
coil, the movable fly being made the negative pole.

ON RADIANT MATTER. 159

For these mechanical effects the exhaustion need not be so high as
when phosphorescence is produced. The best pressure for this elec-
trical radiometer is a little beyond that at which the dark space round
the negative pole extends to the sides of the glass bulb. When the
pressure is only a few millimetres of mercury, on passing the induction-
current a halo of velvety violet light forms on the metallic side of the
vanes, the mica side remaining dark. As the pressure diminishes, a
dark space is seen to separate the violet halo from the metal. At a
pressure of half a millimetre this dark space extends to the glass, and
rotation commences. On continuing the exhaustion the dark space
further widens out and appears to flatten itself against the glass, when
the rotation becomes very rapid.

Here is another piece of apparatus (Fig, 13) which illustrates the
mechanical force of the radiant matter from the negative pole. A
stem (a) carries a needle-point in which revolves a light mica fly {b b).
The fly consists of four square vanes of thin, clear mica, supported on
light aluminium arms, and in the center is a small glass cap, which
rests on the needle-point. The vanes are inclined at an angle of 45°
to the horizontal plane. Below the fly is a ring of fine platinum wire
(c c), the ends of which pass through the glass at cl d. An aluminium
terminal (e) is sealed in at the top of the tube, and the whole is ex-
hausted to a very high point.

By means of the electric lantern I project an image of the vanes
on the screen. Wires from the induction-coil are attached, so that
the platinum ring is made the negative pole, the aluminium wire (e)
being positive. Instantly, owing to the projection of radiant matter
from the platinum ring, the vanes rotate with extreme velocity. Thus
far the apparatus has shown nothing more than the previous experi-
ments have prepared us to expect ; but observe what now happens.
I disconnect the induction-coil altogether, and connect the two ends
of the platinum wire with a small galvanic battery : this makes the
ring c c red-hot, and under this influence you see that the vanes spin
as fast as they did when the induction-coil was at work.

Here, then, is another most important fact. Radiant matter in
these high vacuS, is not only excited by the negative pole of an induc-
tion-coil, but a hot wire will set it in motion with force sufficient to
drive round the sloping vanes.

Radiant Matter is deflected by a 3Iagnet. — I now pass to an-
other property of radiant matter. This long glass tube (Fig. 14) is
very highly exhausted ; it has a negative pole at one end {a) and a
long phosphorescent screen (J), c) down the center of the tube. In
front of the negative pole is a plate of mica {b, d) with a hole (e) in
it, and the result is, when I turn on the current, a line of phosphores-
cent light {e,f) is projected along the whole length of the tube. I
now place beneath the tube a powerful horseshoe magnet : observe
how the line of light (e, g) becomes curved under the magnetic influ-

i6o

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ence waving about like a flexible wand as I move tbe magnet to
and fro.

This action of the magnet is very curious, and if carefully fol-
lowed up will elucidate other properties of radiant matter. Here

(Fig. 15) is an exactly similar tube, but having at one end a small
potash tube, which if heated will slightly injure the vacuum. I turn
on the induction-current, and you see the ray of radiant matter
tracing its trajectory in a curved line along the screen, under the in-
fluence of the horseshoe magnet beneath. Observe the shape of the
curve. The molecules shot from the negative pole may be likened to

a discharge of iron bullets from a mitrailleuse, and the magnet be-
neath will represent the earth curving the trajectory of the shot by
gravitation. Here on this luminous screen you see the curved trajec-
tory of the shot accurately traced. Now suppose the deflecting force
to remain constant, the curve traced by the projectile varies with the
velocity. If I put more powder in the gun, the velocity will be greater
and the trajectory flatter ; and if I interpose a denser resisting medium
between the gun and the target, I diminish the velocity of the shot,
and thereby cause it to move in a greater curve and come to the
ground sooner. I can not well increase before you the velocity of
my stream of radiant molecules by putting more powder in my bat-
tery, but I will try and make them suffer greater resistance in their

ON RADIANT MATTER.

i6i

flight from one end of the tube to the other. I heat the caustic pot-
ash with a spirit-lamp and so throw in a trace more gas. Instantly
the stream of radiant matter responds. Its velocity is impeded, the
magnetism has longer time on which to act on the individual mole-
cules, the trajectory gets more and more curved, until, instead of
shooting nearly to the end of the tube, my molecular bullets fall to
the bottom before they have got more than half way.

It is of great interest to ascertain whether the law governing the
magnetic deflection of the trajectory of radiant matter is the same as
has been found to hold good at a lower vacuum. The experiments I
have just shown you were with a very high vacuum. Here is a tube
with a low vacuum (Fig. 16). When I turn on the induction-spark, it

passes as a narrow line of violet light joining the two poles. Under-
neath I have a powerful electro-magnet, I make contact with the
magnet, and the line of light dips in the center toward the magnet. I
reverse the poles, and the line is driven up to the top of the tube.
Notice the diiference between the two phenomena. Here the action is
temporary. The dip takes place under the magnetic influence ; the
line of discharge then rises and pursues its path to the positive pole.
In the high exhaustion, however, after the stream of radiant matter
had dipped to the magnet it did not recover itself, but continued its
path in the altered direction.

By means of this little wheel, skillfully constructed by Mr. Giming-
ham, I am able to show the magnetic deflection in the electric lantern.
The apparatus is shown in this diagram (Fig. IT). The negative pole
{a, h) is in the form of a very shallow cup. In front of the cup is a
mica screen (e, d), wide enough to intercept the radiant matter coming
from the negative pole. Behind this screen is a mica wheel {e,f)
M-ith a series of vanes, making a sort of paddle-wheel. So arranged,
the molecular rays from the pole a h will be cut off from the wheel,
and will not produce any movement. I now put a magnet, g, over the
tube, so as to deflect the stream over or under the obstacle c d, and the
result will be rapid motion in one or the other direction, according to
the way the magnet is turned, I throw the image of the apparatus on
the screen. The spiral lines painted on the wheel show which way it

VOL. XVI. — 11

l62

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

turns. I arrange the magnet to draw the molecular stream so as to
beat against the upper vanes, and the wheel revolves rapidly as if it
were an overshot water-wheel. I turn the magnet so as to drive the
radiant matter underneath ; the wheel slackens speed, stops, and then

begins to rotate the other way, like an undershot water-wheel. This
can be repeated as often as I reverse the position of the magnet.

I have mentioned that the molecules of the radiant matter dis-
charged from the negative pole are negatively electrified. It is prob-
able that their velocity is owing to the mutual repulsion between the
similarly electrified pole and the molecules. Tn less high vacua, such
as you saw a few minutes ago (Fig. 16), the discharge passes from one
pole to another, carrying an electric current, as if it were a flexible
wire. Now it is of great interest to ascertain if the stream of radiant
matter from the negative pole also carries a current. Here (Fig. 18)

is an apparatus which will decide the question at once. The tube con-
tains two negative terminals {a, h) close together at one end, and one
positive terminal (c) at the other. This enables me to send two streams
of radiant matter side by side along the phosphorescent screen, or, by
disconnecting one negative pole, only one stream.

Oy RADIANT MATTER.

163

If the streams of radiant matter carry an electric current, they will
act like two parallel conducting wires and attract one another ; but if
they are simply built up of negatively electrified molecules, they will
repel each other.

I will first connect the upper negative pole {a) with the coil, and
you see the ray shooting along the line d, f. I now bring the lower
negative pole {b) into play, and another line {e, h) darts along the
screen. But notice the way the first line behaves : it jumps up from
its first position, df, to d r/, showing that it is repelled, and if time
permitted I could show you that the lower ray is also deflected from
its normal direction : therefore the two parallel streams of radiant
matter exert mutual repulsion, acting not like current carriers, but
merely as similarly electrified bodies.

Radiant Matter produces Heat when its Motion is arrested. — Dur-
ing these experiments another property of radiant matter has made
itself evident, although I have not yet drawn attention to it. The
glass gets very warm where the green phosphorescence is strongest.
The molecular focus on the tube, which Ave saw earlier in the evening
(Fig. 8), is intensely hot, and I have prepared an apparatus by which
this heat at the focus can be rendered apparent to all present.

I have here a small tube (Fig. 19, «) with a cup-shaped negative
pole. This cup projects the rays to a focus
in the middle of the tube. At the side of
the tube is a small electro-magnet, which I
can set in action by touching a key, and
the focus is then drawn to the side of the
glass tube (Fig. 19, i.) To show the first
action of the heat, I have coated the tube
with wax. I will put the apparatus in
front of the electric lantern (Fig. 20, r7),
and throw a magnified image of the tube
on the screen. The coil is now at work,
and the focus of molecular rays is projected
along the tube. I turn the magnetism on,
and draw the focus to the side of the glass.
The first thing you see is a small circu-
lar patch melted in the coating of wax.
The glass soon begins to disintegrate, and
cracks are shooting star wise from the cen-
ter of heat. The glass is softening. Now the atmospheric pressure
forces it in, and now it melts. A hole [e] is perforated in the middle,
the air rushes in, and the experiment is at an end.

I can render this focal heat more evident if I allow it to play on a
piece of metal. This bulb (Fig. 21) is furnished with a negative pole in
the form of a cup (a). The rays will therefore be projected to a focus
on a piece of iridio platinum {h) supported in the* center of the bulb.

b

(U'

164

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

I first turn on the induction-coil slightly, so as not to bring out
its full power. The focus is now playing on the metal, raising it
to a white-heat. I bring a small magnet near, and you see I can de-
flect the focus of heat just as I did the luminous focus in the other
tube. By shifting the magnet I can drive the focus up and down or
draw it completely away from the metal and leave it non-luminous.
I withdraw the magnet, and let the molecules have full play again ;

ON RADIANT MATTER.

165

the metal is now -white-hot. I increase the intensity of the sj^ark. The
iridio-platinum glows with almost insupportable brilliancy, and at last
melts.

The Chemistry of Radiant JIatter.— Fig. 21.

As might be expected, the chemical dis-
tinctions between one kind of radiant mat-
ter and another at these high exhaustions
are difficult to recognize. The physical
properties I have been elucidating seem
to be common to all matter at this low
density. Whether the gas originally un-
der experiment be hydrogen, carbonic acid,
or atmospheric air, the phenomena of phos-
phorescence, shadows, magnetic deflection,
etc., are identical, only they commence at
different pressures. Other facts, however,
show that at this low density the mole-
cules retain their chemical characteristics.
Thus by introducing into the tubes appro-
priate absorbents of residual gas, I can see
that chemical attraction goes on long after
the attenuation has reached the best stage
for showing the phenomena now under
illustration, and I am able by this means to
carry the exhaustion to much higher de-
grees than I can get by mere pumping. Working with aqueous vapor,
I can use phosphoric anhydride as an absorbent ; with carbonic acid,
potash ; with hydrogen, palladium ; and with oxygen, carbon, and
then potash. The highest vacuum I have yet succeeded in obtaining
has been the ^-o.o-oV.Tro o^ ^^ atmosphere, a degree which may be bet-
ter understood if I say that it corresponds to about the hundredth of
an inch in a barometric column three miles hish.

It may be objected that it is hardly consistent to attach primary
importance to the presence of matter, when I have taken extraordinary
pains to remove as much matter as possible from these bulbs and these
tubes, and have succeeded so far as to leave only about the one mil-
lionth of an atmosphere in them. At its ordinary pressure the atmos-
phere is not very dense, and its recognition as a constituent of the
world of matter is quite a modern notion. It would seem that, when
divided by a million, so little matter will necessarily be left that we
may justifiably neglect the trifling residue, and apply the term vacuum
to space from which the air has been so nearly removed. To do so,
however, would be a great error, attributable to our limited faculties
being unable to grasp high numbers. It is generally taken for granted
that when a number is divided by a million the quotient must neces-

i66 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sarily be small, whereas it may happen that the original number is so
large that its division by a million seems to make little impression on
it. According to the best authorities, a bulb of the size of the one
before you (13"5 centimetres in diameter) contains more than 1,000000,-
000000,000000,000000 (a quadrillion) molecules. Now, when exhausted
to a millionth of an atmosphere we shall still have a trillion molecules
left in the bulb — a number quite sufficient to justify me in speaking of
the residue as matter.

To suggest some idea of this vast number, I take the exhausted
bulb, and perforate it by a spark from the induction-coil. The spark
produces a hole of microscopical fineness, yet sufficient to allow mole-
cules to penetrate and to destroy the vacuum. The inrush of air im-
pinges against the vanes and sets them rotating after the manner of a
windmill. Let us suppose the molecules to be of such a size that, at
every second of time, a hundred million could enter. How long,
think you, would it take for this small vessel to get full of air ? An
hour ? A day ? A year ? A century ? Nay, almost an eternity ! —
a time so enormous that imagination itself can not grasp the reality.
Supposing this exhausted glass bulb, indued with indestructibility,
had been pierced at the birth of the solar system ; supposing it to
have been present when the earth was without form and void ; sup-
posing it to have borne witness to all the stupendous changes evolved
during the full cycles of geologic time, to have seen the first living
creature aj^pear, and the last man disappear ; supposing it to survive
until the fulfillment of the mathematicians' prediction that the sun,
the source of energy, four million centuries from its formation will
ultimately become a burned-out cinder ; * supposing all this — at the
rate of filling I have just described, one hundred million molecules a
second — this little bulb even then would scarcely have admitted its
full quadrillion of molecules, f

But what will you say if I tell you that all these molecules, this
quadrillion of molecules, will enter through the microscopic hole be-

* The possible duration of the sun from formation to extinction has been variously
estimated by different authorities at from eiahteen million years to four hundred million
years. For the purpose of this illustration I have taken the highest estimate.

f According to Mr. Johnstone Stoney ("Philosophical Magazine," vol. xxxvi., p.
141), 1 c. c. of air contains about 1000,000000,000000,000000 molecules. Therefore, a
bulk 13-5 centims. diameter contains 13-53 >< 0-5236 X 1000,000000,000000,000000 or
1,288252,350000,000000,000000 molecules of air at the ordinary pressure. Therefore
the bulk, when exhausted to the millionth of an atmosphere, contains 1,288252,350000,-
000000 molecules, leaving 1,288251,061*747,650000,000000 molecules to enter through
the perforation. At the rate of 100,000000 molecules a second, the time required for
them all to enter will be —

12882,510617,476500 seconds, or

214,708510,291275 minutes, or

3,578475,171521 hours, or

149103,132147 days, or

408,501731 years.

THE GENESIS OF SEX. 167

fore you leave this room ? The hole being unaltered in size, the num-
ber of molecules undiminished, this apparent paradox can only be
explained by again supposing the size of the molecules to be dimin-
ished almost intinitely — so that, instead of entering at the rate of one
hundred millions every second, they troop in at a rate of something
like three hundred trillions a second ! I have done the sum, but fig-
ures when they mount so high cease to have any meaning, and such
calculations are as futile as trying to count the drops in the ocean.

In studying this fourth state of matter we seem, at length, to have
within our grasp and obedient to our control the little indivisible par-
ticles which, with good warrant, are supposed to constitute the physi-
cal basis of the universe. We have seen that, in some of its proper-
ties, radiant matter is as material as this table, while in other properties
it almost assumes the character of radiant energy. We have actually
touched the border-land where matter and force seem to merge into
one another, the shadowy realm between known and unknown, which
for me has always had peculiar temptations. I venture to think that
the greatest scientific problems of the future will find their solution in
this border-land, and even beyond ; here, it seems to me, lie ultimate
realities, subtile, far-reaching, Avonderful,

" Yet all these were, when no man did them know,
Yet have from wisest ages hidden beene ;
And later times thinges more unknovvne shall show.
Why then should vvitlesse man so much misweene,
That nothing is, but that which he hath seene? "

THE GENESIS OF SEX.*

Br Professor JOSEPH LE CONTE.

THE subject on which I address you to-day is one which is still
veiled in much obscurity — so much so, indeed, that it is barely
alluded to by evolutionists, is not touched upon by physiologists, and
is regarded by the popular mind, even the intelligent popular mind, as
wholly beyond the possible ken of human science.

1, Defining the Subject. — In regard to the origin of sex there
are two distinct yet closely-related questions : 1. The origin of sex in
the history of the individual ; 2. The origin of sex in the history of
the organic kingdom. The one question is, " What are the conditions
which determine the appearance of the one or the other sex in the de-

* In order to explain the forms of expression in some parts of this article, it is neces-
sary to state that it was delivered in 1877 as a lecture to the class in Comparative Pb.ysi-
ology in the University of California, and again in 1878 to the class in Physiology of the
medical department of the same.

i68 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

velopment of the embryo?" The other question is, "What is the
process and what are the steps by which sex was developed and then
gradually differentiated in the evolution of the organic kingdom ? "
The one is the genesis of sex in ontogeny ; the other the genesis of
sex in phylogeny. It is this latter question which I wish to bring be-
fore you to-day.

The two questions, however, though distinct, are yet closely re-
lated. The ontogeny is a rapid recapitulation of the main points of
the phylogeny. As in the former, sex was developed out of a primi-
tive sexless condition of the embryo, so in the latter the sexed condi-
tion so universal now among mature organisms was evolved out of a
primitive sexless condition of the organic kingdom. In the ontogeny
some of the conditions which determine sex have been determined and
others surmised. In some animals, as, for example, in some insects
and crustaceans, the fact of fertilization or non-fertilization deter-
mines with certainty the sex, as proved by the well-known observa-
tions of Siebold and others on parthenogenesis. In others it is prob-
ably the degree of maturity of the ovule at the moment of fertilization
that determines it, as shown by the experiments of Cornaz under the
direction of Thury.* In still others, as, for example, in butterflies, it
seems to be the kind and degree of nutrition of the larvae, as shown by
the observations of Mrs. Treat.f In still others it may be the prepo-
tency of the one parent or the other, or still other causes wholly un-
known. In any case, however, the subject lies fairly within the do-
main of science ; the conditions will eventually be discovered, and,
being known, will be artificially arranged so as to determine the one
sex or the other with certainty.

But this is not the question which now concerns us, for we have
already discussed this in a previous lecture. We wish in this lecture
to show that, in the history of the organic kingdom also, sex has been
gradually evolved out of a primitive sexless condition, and if possible
to catch some glimpses of the main steps of the process. The most
important steps are indeed very obscure ; but this is only because these
are among the very earliest steps of evolution.

2. The General Law under which the Process falls. —
Now, the law under which I wish to bring the process of evolution of
sex is that most universal of all the laws of evolution, viz., the laio of
differentiation. We have already explained to you and illustrated in
many ways how, from an almost unorganized condition, in which every
part is like every other part, and each part performs in an imperfect
manner all the functions necessary to life — how, I say, from this primi-
tive generalized condition, the several organs were gradually differen-
tiated, the several functions separated and localized, and thus the com-
plex work of the body parceled out by division of labor, until in the

* " Biblioth^que Universelle," September, 1863.

f "American Naturalist," 1873 ; "Popular Science Monthly," June, 1873,

THE GENESIS OF SEX. 169

highest organisms each part or organ has but one function to perform,
and therefore does it thoroughly. You will observe that the final
cause, the end to be attained, the raison cFetre, in all this process is
better xcorl; a better result. Now, my object will be to bring the ori-
gin of sex under this general law — to show some of the steps, and that
each step was attended with better results.

3. The Ki>"ds and Grades of Repeoduction. — You already
know that there are two fundamentally distinct kinds of reproduction,
viz., sexual and non-sexual — so distinct, indeed, that there seems to
be no possible connection between them. But remember that not only
are our distinctions in science far more trenchant than they are in na-
ture, but also that the distinctions in nature noio are far more trench-
ant than they were in early geological times. It is the peculiarity
of modern science, under the guidance of the doctrine of evolution, that
it loves to dwell upon the gradations rather than upon the distinctions
— it seeks for the missing links which make the chain of nature con-
tinuous. Now, there are several grades of sexual as well as of non-
sexual reproduction ; and through these grades they closely approxi-
mate each other. For example : sexual reproduction consists essen-
tially in the union of two different cells, the germ-cell and the sjyerm-
cell, to form one cell, the ovum. It is in the most literal sense a union
of diverse ticain to form one flesh. These two cells may be called the
sexual elements. This is all that is absolutely necessary to the idea of
sexual reproduction, even though the tico elements may be formed by the
same organ. But, further, the two elements are usually elaborated by
two distinct organs, viz., the ovary and the spermary. These are the
essential sexual organs. When these two organs are found in the
same individual, the condition is called bisexuality, or hermaphroditism.
Further, in the higher animals these two organs exist in different in-
dividuals. This condition is called unisexuality . Thus there are sev-
eral grades of sexuality. The sexual elements only may be separated,
or in addition the sexual organs may be separated, or in addition there
may be distinct sexual individuals. Any mode of reproduction not
answering to this description is non-sexual. But non-sexual reproduc-
tion also is of different grades. The lowest is fission. A cell or a
community of cells grows and divides itself into two. Each half, again,
grows and divides, and so on ad infinitum. Next above this is bud-
ding. A spot on the external surface of an organism groAvs more rap-
idly than contiguous spots, and forms a tubercle which grows into a
bud, assumes the form and structure of the parent, and finally sepa-
rates. In the next grade the budding is internal, from a sj^ecial organ
simulating an ovary, though not a true ovary, as in aphides. Finally,
in parthenogenesis we have a perfect ovary forming true ova and per-
fect embryo without fertilization or cooperation of the sperm-cell.

Now, my object, more specifically stated, is to show — 1, that
the highest form, viz., unisexuality, was developed out of bisexuality

170 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

or hermapbroditism ; 2, that bisexual reproduction was developed out
of non-sexual reproduction ; and, 3, that non-sexual reproduction is
but an unessential modification of the ordinary process of growth.

4. Facts which furnish a Key to the Process of Deriva-
tion.— There are certain facts which throw light on each of these
steps, but, as might be expected, the light is far clearer on the higher
steps, because these were also the last taken.

(a.) Facts lohich hear on the Last Step, viz., the Derivation of
Tlnisexuality from Bisexuality. — These facts are taken from both the
vegetable and the animal kingdom, but especially the former. They
are comprehended under the general term " cross-fertilization of hi-
sexuals?''

Plants. — It is a familiar fact that most plants are bisexual, i. e.,
have both ovary and spermary (anther-cell), in the same individual
plant and in the same flower ; and that nearly all such cases are capa-
ble of self-fertilization. But Mr. Darwin has shown that, although
capable of self-fertilization, yet cross-fertilization — i. e., the fertiliza-
tion of the ovules of one flower, or, still better, of the flowers of one
plant by the pollen of another — produces more seeds, larger seeds, and
stronger seedlings ; in other words, produces better results. Now, it is
a law which necessarily results from the principle of the survival of the
fittest that Nature ever strives to secure better results. Therefore,
she immediately sets to work to contrive methods of insuring cross-
fertilization and preventing self-fertilization. The cross-fertilization
is insured — 1, by winds, aided by the lightness of the pollen ; and, 2,
by insects which carry the pollen from flower to flower. The beauty,
the fragrance, and the honey of flowers are undoubtedly intended pri-
marily to attract insects, and thus to insure cross-fertilization. But
this alone is not sufficient. It is necessary also to prevent self-fertili-
zation. This is done sometimes, as in orchids, by sticking together
the pollen in masses by means of a gummy substance, so that it can
not fly, and placing these masses entirely beyond the reach of the
stigma, and sometimes by the maturation of the ovules and of the pol-
len at entirely different periods. In these cases the plant is wholly
dependent upon insects for their fertilization, and we accordingly often
find the most curious and ingenious contrivances in the structure of
the flower to make sure that there be no failure in this respect. In
other cases self-fertilization is still more effectually prevented by^
separation of the sexes in different flowers {Ifona'cia), or in different
plant individuals {Dioecia) — of course, winds and insects being still the
carriers between the two sexes. This separation of the sexes was un-
doubtedly a gradual process. In bisexual plants, habitually cross-fer-
tilized by winds or by insects, the one organ or the other became
aborted until first only rudiments remained, and finally even these are
lost and unisexuality is complete. These stages are sometimes detect-
able.

THE GENESIS OF SEX. 171

Animals. — In animals the process is probably similar. Many ani-
mals, such as oysters, polyps, etc., are bisexual and self-fertilizing.
But even in these, cross-fertilization must be very common, if not the
rule. These animals usually live together in great numbers ; the sperm-
particles are extremely light and abundant. These are therefore car-
ried by waves and currents, so that the waters are full of them, and
a promiscuous cross-fertilization is unavoidable. In fact, there can be
no doubt that it is in oi'der to insure this cross-fertilization that the
sperm-particles are so light and abundant ; and the final cause of this,
again, is that cross-fertilization produces better results than self-fertili-
zation. But if so, then Nature will take steps not only to insure cross-
fertilization, but to prevent self-fertilization. This in animals as in
plants can only be done in two ways, viz., either by so placing the two
organs that self-fertilization is impossible, or else by separating them
in different individuals. A curious example of the former method is
found in snails. These animals are bisexuals — i. e., have both ovary
and sperraary perfect, but these are so placed that self-fertilization is
impossible. They, therefore, mutually cross-fertilize. The latter meth-
od, of coarse, produces unisexuality, so universal in higher animals ;
but the process was probably the abortion, in habitually cross-fertiliz-
ing bisexuals, of one organ or the other in different individuals until
unisexuality is established.

If, then, we compare plants and animals, we find the steps similar in
the two kingdoms. Bisexual animals living together in numbers, and
cross-fertilized by waves and currents, correspond to aneraophilous
flowers cross-fertilized by winds. Mutually fertilizing bisexuals like
snails correspond to orchidaceous plants, except that the cross which is
voluntary in the former is effected by insects in the latter. Finally,
unisexuals in animals correspond to Dicecia in plants. In both king-
doms unisexuality is derived from bisexuality * — in both because thus
self-fertilization is prevented and cross-fertilization secured ; and this,
again, because thus a better result is secured in the offspring.

But the question has probably dwelt in your minds, " Why is it
that cross-fertilization produces better results, i. e., stronger progeny,
than self-fertilization ? " There are probably two reasons : 1. The
elaboration of both ovules and sperm in the same individual is loaste-
fal of vital energy. The concentration of vital energy on one repro-
ductive element secures that one product in a higher degree of perfec-
tion. Thus better sperm and better ovules combine to produce better
ova and a stronger embryo. This is in accordance with the effect of
differentiation of functions and organs of all kinds. 2. Again, in all
cross-fertilization different individual characteristics are inherited by

* This must be taken as a general statement only. It is probable that in many cases
the opposite or retrograde change occurred, and that the difficulties in the way of cross-
fertilization compelled a return to self-fertilizing bisexuality. Such retrograde changes
are common in evolution.

172 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the common offspring. Now, among the many characteristics thus
inherited from both sides in the offsj^ring, there is a sort of struggle
for life and a survival of only the fittest and strongest, and thus the
cffsjiring improves by the cross. Now, such cross is most completely
secured by the separation of the sexes in different individuals — i. e., by
unisexuality.

{p.) Facts which bear on the next Preceding Stex>, viz., the Deriva-
tion of Bi sexuality from Asexiiallty. — This is doubtless the most ob-
scure step ; yet I believe some light is visible. Here is the greatest
gap in the process ; yet this gap may be largely filled.

Remember, then, that there is a striking correspondence between
the embryonic or ontogenic series and the evolution or phylogenic
series — that the former is a rapid recapitulation, as it were by memory,
of the main points of the latter. The embryo repeats by a kind of
organic memory the main point of its descent from primordial proto-
plasm. The lesser points, and especially the earliest points, often in-
deed drop out of memory, but usually the main points remain. Now,
in all the higher animals, ontogeny is a continuous change without
break, and completed in one generation. In many lower animals, how-
ever, there are apparent pauses, and sudden great changes in this pro-
cess of ontogenic development. These are called metamorphoses. In
insects, for example, there are two active conditions, the larva and
the perfect insect, and a soi*t of second passive egg-stage between — the
pupa. Here we have a semblance of, but not really, two generations.
Of course, only the perfect insect reproduces. But in many still lower
animals we find the metamorphoses occupying two or even more dis-
tinct generations. It follows, of course, that in these animals (contrary
to what occurs in all higher animals) reproduction takes place both in
the larval condition and in the perfect or mature condition. Now,
the mode of reproduction in these two conditions is of wholly dif-
ferent kinds, the former being non-sexual and the latter sexual. A
single example will suffice : The common medusse or jelly-fishes, as
you know, are unisexual — i. e., male and female. The fertilized females
produce eggs which grow, not into medusae, but into polyp-like ani-
mals which are the larval form. These polyps produce buds which
open into flower-like bells, then separate and swim away as male and
female medusae, which again produce eggs that spring up as polyp-
like larvae, etc. Here ontogenesis requires two generations to complete
itself. In ontogenesis when both kinds of reproduction occur, the
non-sexual (gemmation) precedes the sexual (ovulation). This fact
strongly suggests, in fact renders almost certain, that the same is true
in phylogenesis, or at least in the phylogenesis of this class.

But again : Aphids (plant-lice) also rejjroduce in the larval condi-
tion, and only reach maturity after many successive generations, some-
times as many as nine or ten. In spring these insects are hatched from
eggs in a larval wingless condition. From an internal organ analogous

THE GEXESIS OF SEX. 173

to an ovary, but not a true ovary, these larvae end another generation
of larvae like themselves, which in their turn, by internal budding,
form a third generation, and so on until autumn, when the last genera-
tion develop into perfect winged insects, male and female. These
last cooperate to produce eggs which hatch next spring, to commence
another cycle of changes.

Here, then, we observe as before the lower form of reproduction in
the larva, and the higher in the perfect insect. Here, again, we have
non-sexual mode preceding the sexual mode in ontogenesis, suggesting
a similar succession in phylogenesis. But in addition we observe
here that the form of non-sexual reproduction very closely simulates
sexual reproduction ; for the budding is from an internal organ set
apart for the purpose and very closely resembling a true ovary.

The next step in the chain of approximation is found in imrtheno-
genesis or virgin generation. This consists in the formation, in a per-
fect female capable of sexual generation, of ovules which develop into
embryos loithout the cooperation of the male element. In bees and
wasps the ovules are sometimes fertilized and sometimes unfertilized.
The fertilized eggs always produce females, the unfertilized always
males. In this case the analogy to non-sexual reproduction is not close ;
because the female is, of course, the sex absolutely necessary to carry
on the succession of generations, and it is this sex which it requires
fertilization to produce. But in other cases, for example, in certain
moths and in some j)hyllopod crustaceans, according to Siebold, the
unfertilized eggs produce females and the fertilized males. In such
cases, it is evident, a succession of females may be formed without the
cooperation of the male ; and thus we have continuous generation
which is completely intermediate between sexual and non-sexual. It
is sexual in that an embryo is developed from an ovule formed in a
perfect ovary, it is non-sexual in that the cooperation of the male ele-
ment is unnecessary even for an indefinite succession of generations.

On the other hand, the case of moths and phyllopod crustaceans
a]iproaches equally the case of aphids already mentioned — so much so,
indeed, that the larval reproduction of these latter have often been
classed under parthenogenesis. The difference is this : true partheno-
genesis takes place in perfect females, capable of sexual union and of
fertilization, possessing perfect ovaries and producing true ovules which
develop into embryos without fertilization. The larval aphid, on the
contrary, is not a perfect female, is not capable of sexual union nor of
fertilization ; its ovary-like organ is not a true ovary, does not produce
true ovules which develop into embryos, but forms an embrj'o at once
within, which then is born in an active state. Still the resemblance to
parthenogenesis is undoubted, and together they almost wholly fill up
the gap between the sexual and non-sexual modes of reproduction.

There is still another fact which must be brought forward to fill
this gap. True sexual reproduction, as we have seen, consists essen-

i

174 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tially in the union or conjugation of two diverse cells (sperm and germ
cell) to produce one cell (ovum). Now, in the lowest forms of sexual
reproduction, among unicelled organisms, the conjugating cells are not
2')erceptihly different ; so that the element of diversity in the conju-
gating cells may be eliminated from the essential conditions of this
mode. In parthenogenetic reproduction of female offspring, as in the
case of moths and phyllopods, we have the other element, i. e., the
necessity of tioo cells, eliminated ; so that there remains nothing which
is absolutely essential.

(c.) Facts which bear on the First Step, viz., Derivation of Non-
Sexual Modes from Ordinary Processes of Growth. — The transition
between the lowest form of non-sexual reproduction, viz., fission, and
ordinary growth, is so obvious that it is hardly necessary to insist on
it. A single cell divides itself into two ; each half grows, and again
divides itself into two, and so on. Now, if the cells cohere, we call it
growth ; if they separate, we call it reproduction. Again : a mass of
cells grows by continued cell-multiplication, as above. Finally, the
increasing mass or community becomes too large to be managed well
from one center ; it therefore divides itself into two masses or com-
munities, each of which continues to grow as before. It is plain that
a slight difference only in the degree of cohesion determines whether
the same process be called growth or reproduction.

Thus we have shown the easy gradation, and therefore the prob-
able derivation, of the highest mode of sexual reproduction — the uni-
sexual— from the ordinary processes of growth, through the different
grades of asexual and bisexual reproduction. The derivation of dif-
ferent modes of sexual reproduction from each other will not, I think,
be questioned. Still clearer is the fact that non-sexual reproduction
is but a modification of the ordinary process of growth. The only
place where there is any gap is between the asexual and the sexual
modes. Throughout growth and non-sexual modes of reproduction we
have everywhere only cell-nndtiplication — everywhere we have divis-
ion of one to form two: in sexual reproduction, on the other hand, we
have the contrary process, viz., tJie Pinion of tico to form one. Yet
this gap is certainly partly filled by the larval reproduction of aphids,
by those cases of parthenogenesis in which unfertilized ovules pro-
duce females, and those cases of true sexual generation in which the
conjugating cells are similar.

5. Outline of Probable Histoet of the Process. — The grad-
ual evolution of the higher forms of sexual reproduction probably took
several different roads. There is little doubt that in some cases sexual
reproduction in its simplest form was reached at a very early period.
It is probable, for example, that in very early times unicelled organisms
multiplying usually by fission (asexual) from time to time conjugated
(sexual). The simple form of sexual reproduction thus reached was
afterward perfected. But it is also probable, nay, judging from the

THE GEXESIS OF SEX. 175

transitional stages still in existence, almost certain, that in other cases
sexuality was reached by a slower process and at a later period. It is
this slower jDrocess which I now wish to trace in outline :

{a.) Fission. — In the loAvest animals the individual cells which form
their structure are almost wholly independent. The independent life
of the cell is strong, the common life of the aggregate is feeble. By
continued cell-multiplication, the aggregate, becoming too large to be
held together by the common life, divides. Thus arises the lowest
form of reproduction, viz., by fission. Many lower animals still prac-
tice this mode.

{b.) Budding on Any Part. — In the next step excess of growth
occurs on any part indifferently, gives rise to a tubercle which grows
into a bud, assumes the structure of the parent stem, and finally sepa-
rates to become a new individual. This is higher than the last, be-
cause the original individual is not sacrificed, but only a part separated.
Many larval medusa3 and many polyps still practice this mode.

(e.) Budding on a Specicd Bart. — In the last case the budding oc-
curs in any part. In the next step a particular part is selected, and to
it is assigned the function of forming buds which form new beings.
Many larvse of medusse belong to this category ; for they bud only on
the mouth-disk. This is a higher form than the last, inasmuch as the
assignment of a function to a particular place, or localization of a
function, is an invariable stej) in evolution, and always attended with
better results.

(d.) Special Budding Organ, internal. — The next step was probably
the relegation of the function of producing buds to an internal organ,
as being far safer and more certain of success, which organ thus be-
comes by position and function strongly analogous to an ovary. This
is the case in larval aphids. The reproductive organ of these larvai
has been regarded by some as an ovary, by others as an internal bud-
ding organ. It is certainly not a true ovary, but rather perhaps an
organ uniting the yet undiffei'entiated functions of ovary and sperm-
ary, an organ producing cells having the properties of both germ-cells
and sperm-cells, and therefore capable of directly forming an embryo
by cell-multiplication.

(e.) Differentiation of Sexual Elements. — The interior reproductive
organ last described next forms two kinds of cells which by conjuga-
tion produce the ovum ; the sexual elements are now differentiated, but
not yet the sexual organs. It is not absolutely certain that this con-
dition actually exists in any species now living ; but it is jwohable that
it does. According to Kleinenbei-g,* the reproductive organ of the
hydra produces both ovules and spermatozoids. In many mollusks
and polyps the separation of the ovary and spermary is not yet made
out. In some gasteropods the epithelial cells of the oviduct seem to
become mother-cells, in which are produced spermatozoids. The sepa-
» " Annals and Magazine of Natural History," vol. ii., p. 351, 1818.

I

176 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ration here is only partial. Preceding the condition represented by
the hydra, and connecting with the last {d), we ought to find one in
which two similar cells elaborated by the same organ unite or conju-
gate to commence the new life — a condition in which the sexual ele-
ments are potentially but not visibly differentiated. This condition is
realized, as far as we yet know, only in the conjugation of unicelled
organisms.

(/.) BisexuaUty. — The next step is of course the complete differen-
tiation not only of the sexual elements, but also of the sexual organs.
This is bisexuality or hermaphroditism, very common, as is well known,
among lower animals and almost universal among plants.

{g.) Uniseximlity. — The last step is the separation of the sexes in
different individuals. This of course effectually prevents self-fertiliza-
tion in both animals and plants. But cross-fertilization must be in-
sured. This, as already seen, is done by winds and insects in the case
of plants, and by waves and currents in some lower animals. These
agents do not, however, insure fertilization in higher animals. There-
fore, in them there is added sex-appetite and all associated feelings for
tbat purpose.

(A.) After the separation of the sexes has been a sufficiently long
time accomplished, the evidence in the ontogeny of former conditions
is gradually obliterated — the memory of them is lost.

6. Differentiation of the Two Sexual Individuals. — We have
now reached complete unisexuality — i, e., the separation of the sexes
into different individuals, but not yet the very best results. Unisexuality
is better than the orchid and snail method of mutual fertilization, only
because the latter method is incapable of further differentiation, and
therefore of any further improvement of results. In cases of mutual
fertilization the individuals are all alike, except these small individual
differences, which occur even in self -fertilizing bisexuals. But as soon
as the sexes are separated into different individuals, then there is room
for indefinite differentiation of the two sexual individuals. Now, as
we go up the animal scale we find that such differentiation has indeed
taken place, and that progressively. The sexual differences — i. e., the
difference between male and female individuals of the same species
— become greater and greater as we rise in the scale. They are also
greater, we believe, in the higher as compared with the lower races of
man, and in the cultivated classes as compared with the uncultivated
classes. From this sexual difference springs sexual attractiveness, and
from this lowest root, it is not too much to say, springs much if not all
our noblest altruistic nature. For, as our physiological functions are
primarily divisible into two great groups, viz., the nutritive and the
reproductive, the one including all that assemblage of functions which
conserve the individual life, the other all that assemblage of functions
which conserve the continuous life of the species, so all our psychical
functions are also primarily divisible into two groups, the egoistic and

THE GENESIS OF SEX. 177

the altruistic — the one concerned only about the well-being of self, the
other about the well-being of the race. These correspond each to
each. Traced to its deepest physiological roots, the one in its last
analysis is connected with the nutritive functions and the appetite for
food, the other with the reproductive functions and the sexual appetite.

It seems to me not inappropriate to draw passing attention to the
fact that that form of woman's rights which would assimilate as much
as possible the two sexes is certainly in direct conflict with the law of
evolution which we have been tracing. If founded in nature at all,
we must seek for its justification in a higher law than that of animal
evolution.

7. Crossing of Varieties, — Are there still further differentiations
and still better results possible ? Yes ; by judicious crossing of varie-
ties. Groups of individuals of both sexes, under the influence of dif-
fering environment, become different. This difference may be slight
(slight varieties), or decided (strong varieties), or still more decided
(races), or may become in time so great as to constitute distinct
species. Now, it has been found that the indefinite interbreeding of
individuals subject to identical conditions (close-breeding) produces
weakness and degeneracy ; and, on the contrary, the judicious cross-
ing of slight varieties produces improved results. The reason is ap-
parently this : Among all the qualities, good and bad, strong and
weak, inherited from both sides by the offspring, there is a kind of
struggle for life, and a survival of the best and the strongest qualities.
It is probable that this improvement is more decided in the psychical
than in the physical nature, and therefore is more conspicuous in man
than in animals. Too close breeding — i. e., the interbreeding in iso-
lated communities of individuals subject to identical conditions, and
therefore with identical customs, habits, feelings, thoughts — tends to
deteriorate the mind and character, even when the physique is unim-
paired ; tends to petrify the communal character and destroy that plas-
ticity on which all progress depends.

Now, it is quite certain that toithin certain limits the improved
results of crossing increase with the diversity of the crossing varieties.
But mark, only within certain limits, beyond which they again decrease
until deterioration is reached ; and the deterioration increasing with
the increasing divergence, when the crossing varieties reach a diver-
gence represented by the term species, Nature practically forbids the
ban. Thus, when species cross, there is either {a) no fertilization, and
therefore no offspring ; or {h), the offspring is an infertile hybrid, and
therefore perishes in the next generation ; or (c), if the offspring be
fertile, the progeny is feeble, and perishes in the struggle for life in a
few generations, or {d) is absorbed by crossing with the stronger
parent species. If this were not so, species, in many cases at least,
could not exist. Many species of oak or of pine grow in the same
grove ; the air is full of the pollen of many species ; the conditions
VOL. XVI. — 12

178 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

necessary for the crossing of different species must constantly occur,
and yet the species remain distinct. The same is true of many her-
maphrodite species of marine animals living in great numbers togeth-
er ; the water is full of the sperm of several species, and the condi-
tions of cross-contact of sexual elements are constantly present, and
yet species remain substantially distinct.

It is evident, therefore, that in close-breeding, and in the crossing
of varieties of different degrees of divergence, there is, first, a less than
average result, then an average, then better than an average, then this
better result quickly reaches a maximum and again declines, crosses
the line of average and becomes bad, and finally infinitely bad, or dies
out. In the human species it is probable that the crossing of those
varieties called national varieties, even strong national varieties, pro-
duces good results ; but the crossing of varieties so divergent as those
called primary races is probably bad — these approaching too nearly
the nature of different species.

The general law of the effect of breeding may therefore be graphi-
cally represented by the following diagram, in which the absciss A B
represents the level of average result, distance on this absciss from
the middle point a represents the divergence of crossing varieties, and
ordinates positive and negative represent the result of crossing, wheth-
er good or bad. Further, the middle point a represents no divergence
or identical individuals, the distance b h individual differences, c c di-
vergence constituting slight varieties, d d strong varieties, // races,
and g g species. By inspection of the figure it is seen that close-breed-
ing (a) produces negative ordinates or bad results, then going from this

point the curve crosses the line of average at h h, then the ordinates
become positive and reach maximum at d d, or strong varieties, then
again crosses the line of average and becomes negative at //, indicat-
ing the bad effect of crossing races, and finally becomes infinitely neg-
ative before it reaches g g, showing the practical infertility of crossing
different species under natural conditions.

If I am right in this view, then the mixing of primary races is bad,
and such mixed races, as weaker varieties in the struggle for life, must
perish. There is one possibility which may save these races. Admit-
ting the fact of deterioration as an immediate result of universal cross-
ing of existing races, it is possible that by judicious crossing again of
the slight varieties which must eventually arise in the mixed race, this

OCEAN METEOROLOGY. 179

common, inferior result may again be raised to a higher level. Thus,
if the present higher races could consent to sacrifice their present supe-
rior position for several, perhaps many, generations, it is conceivable
that the human race may be again raised, and possibly to a still higher
plane. From a lower plane but broader base, it may be possible to
build up again to a higher point than any yet reached. Or, to put it
differently : the effect of true breeding is doubtless excellent in one
direction, and for the perfecting of one or a few qualities, but it tends
also to specialize, and therefore to petrify, and thus to prevent indefi-
nite progress. Mixing, on the other hand, it produces a more plastic
nature or better clay, a more generalized and therefore a more pro-
gressive form — for the line of true progress has ever been through
generalized forms. Therefore it may be that, after the best results of
true breeding have been attained in the production of the best varie-
ties in several limited directions, then the general mixing of these
perfected varieties will produce a generalized hi\man type capable of
more universal progress in all directions.

OCEAN METEOROLOGY.

By Lieutenant T. A. LYONS, U. S. N.

THE frequent examination of Maury's charts for the purpose of
shortening tedious passages under sail, led to the idea of remod-
eling them for greater ease of consultation, and at the same time of
adding the vast store of data accumulated since their publication.

The first conception of the new charts embraced only their salient
features : from time to time, during the progress of the work, vai-ious
details occurred and were added, so that to-day the undertaking may
be said to be systematized, and it is this system which I shall de-
scribe.

The sources whence the information for the charts is derived, are
two : log-books of ships of our own navy, and journals of merchant-
vessels.

On board every vessel of the United States Navy it is obligatory
to keep an official daily record, called the log-book. The first part
contains full and explicit directions for keeping it ; lists of the officers
and men composing the ship's company ; plans and sections of the
ship ; a description of the armament, boats, and small-arms ; a table of
deviations of the compasses ; and a description of the meteorological
instruments used, their location, and comparisons with standards.
Following this matter are blank pages, suitably ruled, for a six months'

i8o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

record, two pages for each day ; the left-hand page is chiefly for
meteorological observations — the right, for miscellaneous events.

At the end of every hour, both day and night, and in port as well
as at sea, the following items are observed by the midshipman of the
watch, and recorded in their respective columns : the speed of the
ship ; direction and force of the wind ; leeway ; height of mercurial
barometer and its attached thermometer ; temperature of the air and
of evaporation (dry -bulb and wet-bulb, both in a lattice-work case) ;
temperature of the sea at the surface ; weather by symbols ; forms of
clouds ; portion of sky clear ; condition of the sea ; and the sail the
ship is under. At the end of every four hours, the lieutenant in
charge of the deck enters on the right-hand page such particulars of
the weather as could not be described in the columns, together with
whatever events occurred during his watch. Every day at sea, the
navigator enters on the left-hand page the distance run since the pre-
ceding noon ; the latitude and longitude at noon, both by observa-
tion and by account ; the current (if any) experienced during the day ;
and the variation of the magnetic needle with the position in which it
was determined.

The watches or tours of duty on board a vessel of war are divided
into four-hour periods, each watch being in charge of a lieutenant, as-
sisted by a midshipman ; the number of observers throughout the
twenty-four hours will, therefore, vary with the number of watch-
officers : generally there are four.

Each lieutenant is solely responsible for the correctness of the log
during his watch ; but, as different officers contribute to the record of
a day, this lays the log-book open to both error and incongruity, if a
general supervision were not exercised by some one person. Such
is daily done by the navigator, who, after examination, certifies to
its correctness, and then the commanding officer examines and ap-
proves it.

With accurate instruments, careful observers, and this system of
scrutiny, there remains nothing to be desired in the way of a continu-
ous, complete, and accurate record of the experience of a ship, whether
cruising on the high-seas or at anchor in a landlocked harbor ; and it
is believed that more trustworthy observations are never taken at sea.
Furthermore, they are made at such short intervals — every hour — and
the atmospheric phenomena and corresponding instrumental changes
are so closely contrasted side by side that no error, break, or flaw can
enter, without easy detection.

I have been thus explicit regarding the log-books, in order that the
accuracy of the charts which are based upon them may be fully ap-
preciated.

As regards the data furnished by merchant- vessels, in 1878 a very
complete meteorological journal was prepared at the Hydrographic
Office for the use of ship-masters, and is issued to them free of charge

OCEAN METEOROLOGY. i8i

either from the office directly, or from one of its agents in the princi-
pal commercial ports of the world. It is essentially like the log-book
of the navy, and is for observations at sea only. AVhen full, it is to
be transmitted to Washington at the expense of the office. A number
of sailing charts and all the latest hydrographic information are sup-
plied gratis as an inducement to keep the journal. Hundreds of them
are already afloat on ships of various nationalities, and are being filled
with valuable data regarding every sea known to commercial enter-
prise.

Before proceeding to describe the method of compilation, I shall
dwell for a moment on one of the items of record in the log-book, viz.,
the ascertainment of the ship's speed. Besides probably being of in-
terest to many who yearly cross the sea in quest of either pleasure or
health, a knowledge of this will tend to elucidate another matter of
which I shall speak hereafter — the determination of whatever currents
are drifting a ship, it may be, into serious danger.

The ship's speed is found by " heaving the log." The principle in-
volved is the same as if one were to fasten the end of a tape-line,
which is coiled on a spool, to a post, and then, holding the spool in his
hand, he walked from the post at a uniform pace, allowing the line to
easily roll off, but not become slack. If at the end of one minute
he had walked 300 feet, in an hour he would have walked (at the same
rate) 18,000 feet, or about three nautical miles.

Now, no stationary point exists in the ocean from which to mea-
sure, but this desideratum is attained by means of a thin flat board,
sector shape, of eight inches' radius, and with the rounded edge loaded
with lead to keep it upright in the water. Short lines connect the
three corners of this "log-chip," as the sector is called, with the "log-
line " — one of them by means of a wooden plug which is gently forced
into a hole in a piece of wood fastened to the log-line about two feet
from the chip. After well soaking and stretching, the log-line is
marked as follows : A length of it about 100 feet from the chip is
allowed for " stray-line," and then the length of a " knot " (for the
sand-glass that runs for 28 seconds) is determined by this proportion.
As the number of seconds in an hour is to the number of feet in a
nautical mile, so is the length (in time) of the sand-glass to the length
(in feet) of a knot ; or 3600 : 0086=28 : 47*33.

The limit of stray-line from the log-chip is marked by a piece of
red bunting six inches long, and each length of 47'33 feet after that by
a piece of fish-line with one, two, three, etc., knots in it, according to
its number from the limit of stray-line. Each length of 47'33 feet
(the " knot ") is subdivided into five equal parts, and a small piece of
white bunting two inches long is turned into the line at every two-
tenth division thus formed.

" To heave the log " is performed thus : one person holds the sand-
glass, another the reel on which the log-line just described is coiled,

i82 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and a third throws the log-chip with the line attached over the ship's
stern ; the chip, floating upright, is kept stationary by the resistance
of the water, while the vessel moves on, and the line runs out ; the
midshipman watches it until the limit of stray-line just passes the rail,
when he sharply says " Turn " ; the glass is quickly reversed, the sand
begins to run into the lower compartment, and both time and space
are reckoned from the word turn. The " knots " reel off slowly or
rapidly according to the ship's velocity, and, when the last grain of
sand runs out, the line is instantly stopped. The number of knots
and tenths run out denotes the speed at the moment of making the
experiment, and, according to the conditions of wind, sea, and sail for
the whole hour, the speed is deduced for the hour, and so entered in
the columns.

To draw in the line, a quick, strong jerk on it frees the plug, when
the chip floats horizontally, and can be hauled aboard with little re-
sistance.

The " course steered," which is always a coordinate entry with the
velocity, is obtained from a standard compass, whose every error is
found and tabulated, to be applied when necessary. As the course
and velocity are entered every hour in the log-book, we have thus a
continuous record of each direction in which the ship headed, together
with the distance she proceeded in that direction.

The courses and distances are the data by which, with the aid of a
traverse-table, the ship's position may be found at any time — the
position by " dead reckoning," or " account," as it is called. Inde-
pendently of this, the position — " by observation " — is daily found by
the navigator by altitudes of the sun, the moon, or the stars.

Suppose a ship to leave New York at noon of any day, and that
her " run " is accurately kept until noon of the next day, when the
latitude and longitude by account are found. The ship may not really
be in this position : currents may have borne her along or athwart her
course, yet we can not discover them ; they act on log-chip and vessel
alike : but let the position " hy observation " be determined for the
same instant that it is " by account,^'' and we have at once a standard
of comparison whereby the treacherous streams are made known. If
none exist, the position by the two methods should agree within the
small limit of error due to the unavoidable imperfection of both ob-
servers and instruments.

A third mode of ascertaining the ship's run is by the patent log —
an instrument constantly towed astern at the end of a long line. It
has a small propeller which the motion through the water causes to
revolve. This revolution is communicated to a series of cogged wheels
connected with hands that point to a circular scale — an arrangement
not imlike a gas-meter. Every noon the log is hauled aboard, read,
reset, and then thrown overboard, to record again the number of miles
by which the ship nears her port. Being entirely independent of both

OCEAN METEOROLOGY. 183

dead reckoning and observation, it forms a kind of check on those two
methods.

I will now enumerate some corroborating circumstances that must
be considered in connection with the difference between the position
by observation and that by account, ere this difference — its set and
velocity — be tabulated as one of the permanent, ever-flowing currents
of the ocean :

I. Temperatuke. — Of two contiguous bodies of water — one hot,
the other cold — the latter, being specifically heavier, will displace the
former, and hence 2i permanent current is established,

II. Evaporation. — Since no salts are taken up in the vapor, a body
of salt water from which great evaporation takes place will be specifi-
cally heavier than an adjoining one that gives off less vapor, and so
a continuous flow from the dense to the light fluid will be main-
tained.

III. "Winds. — In a gale, the waves roll one after another in huge
volumes toward the point to which the wind blows ; and the friction
of the wind upon the water produces a temporary surface set to lee-
ward.

IV. Difference of Barometric Pressure. — In gales of wind, it
is common for the barometer to fall from, say, 30*20 to 29-70 — half an
inch — in less than a day, and while the ship is passing over a compara-
tively small extent of ocean. Take a very extreme case, merely for
illustration. Suppose two contiguous square miles of ocean, the barom-
eter standing 30*20 over one of them, and 29*70 over the other. This
difference of half an inch in the barometer is equivalent to a difference
of about one quarter of a pound pressure per square inch of surface,
or 36 pounds per square foot. Taking 6,086 feet as the side of a
square mile, it will contain 37,039,396 square feet ; each square foot
sustains a difference of j^ressure of 36 pounds, so that there are in all
1,333,418,256 pounds more pressure on the square mile over which the
barometer stands 30*20 than on the one over which it stands 29*70. It
is evident that, in order to attain an equality of level, a very decided
temporary set must take place from the former square mile toward
the latter.

Instead of confining the case to the impossibly small area of two
square miles, let us suppose a gradual fall of the barometer from one
part of the ocean to the other — such a fall, in fact, over such an area
as often comes within the experience of every naval ofiicer — and it
stands to reason that waves of the ocean, like those of the air, only
smaller and more sluggish, are consequent upon every change of the
barometer.

V. Rotation op the Earth. — From being at' rest, suppose the
earth to begin to revolve, as now, from west to east. On starting, the
water of the ocean would, owing to its inertia, recede from the western
shores of all the continents, and, as the earth continued to revolve, it

i84 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

would flow to the westward. For two reasons, however, it would
be confined to equatorial regions : first, the centrifugal force there
is greatest ; and, second, the meridians converge as we near the
poles.

This second reason will appear evident if we suppose a body of
water of five degrees area and any depth to set out from the equator
toward either j)ole. At each remove it would find the linear dimen-
sions of a degree smaller. The depth remaining constant, its volume
would be too great for an area of five degrees square in latitude 30°,
still more so for one in latitude 60°, and so on. This constant crowd-
ing in extra-tropical zones would therefore constitute an opposing
force sufiicient to confine the flow of water to a zone where its volume
would undergo little or no compression — that is, in the vicinity of the
equator.

Arriving, then, at the eastern shores of the continents to the west-
ward of those from which it started — at the North and South Amer-
ican shores, for instance, having started from Europe and Africa — and
being banked up by constantly arriving volumes of water, it would be
forced to the northward and to the southward along the coast-line of
each continent ; it would then flow to the eastward in high latitudes
until reaching the western shores of the continents from which it
started, where, owing to the divergence of the meridians toward the
equator and the greater centrifugal force at that parallel, it would
flow from the north and from the south along the shore-lines of the
continents until reaching the intertropical zone, where it would again
start westward on its circuit.

Imagine this system of circulation once set up, and nothing is more
natural than that it should continue while the earth revolves ; indeed,
a glance at any current chart of the world will suffice to show the
force of this reasoning.

It will now be seen how important a part the thermometer and hy-
drometer play in the discovery of oceanic currents : by the former a
difference of temperature, and by the latter a difference of density, is
quickly detected ; and, if a decided difference of either kind is found,
a permanent current may be fairly inferred. A consideration of the
winds, whether an accidental gale, the constant trades, or the seasonal
monsoon, may lead us to deduce intelligently whether a set that may
have been experienced for days is a temiiorary surface-flow or a per-
tnanent current. So, also, keeping in view the range of the barometer
for a few days — the locality and amount of its rise or fall — may assist
in deciding whether a certain set be due to its extreme range or not.
A consideration of the rotation of the earth is of assistance only in
determining the general direction of the great ocean-currents.

A few other entries of the log-book require a passing notice. The
direction of the wind is indicated by a vane in connection with a
compass, and its force is estimated according to the following scale :

OCEAN METEOROLOGY.

185

Force of
wind,

scale.

Kautical designation.

Sail that a full-rigged «hip may
carry, close-hauled by the
wind; also her probable
speed.

Sail that a full-rigged ship may
carry, wind on quarter ; alio
her probable ipeed.

Force of
wind

in poundi

per square

foot.

Velocity
of wind
inmUes
per hour.

0

Calm.

All sail.

All sail.

0

0

1

Light aibs.

All plain sail and stay-
sails; smooth sea; 0-5 to
1 knot per hour.

All plain sail and stud-
ding sails; smooth sea;
1 to 1*5 knots per hour.

0 004

to
0-019

lto2

2

Light breezes.

All plain sail and stay-
sails; smooth sea; about
2 knots.

All plain sail and stud-
ding-sails; smooth sea;
2 to 3-6 knots.

0-08

4

8

Gentle breezes.

All plain sail and stay-
sails ; smooth sea ; 3 to 4
knots.

All plain sail and stud-
ding-sails ; smooth sea;
4 to 5 knots.

0-36

9

4

Moderate breezes.

All plain sail and stay-
sails ; smooth sea ; 5 to 6
knots.

All plain sail and stud-
ding-sails; smooth sea;
6 to 7 knots.

10

14

5.

Stiff breezes.

Courses, top-sails; to'-
pallant sails, and stay-
sails ; mod. sea ; 6 to 7 kts.

All plain sail and stud-
ding-sails; moderate sea;
8 to 9 knots.

1-5

17

6

Fresh breezes.

Courses, single-reefed
top-sails, to'gallant sails ;
moderate sea; 7 to 9
knots.

Courses, top-sails, to'-
galLint sails, lower and
topmast studding-sails ;
mod. sea; 10 to 12 kts.

2

20

7

Very fresh breezes.

Courses, double-reefed
topsails, fore topmast
stay-sail; moderate sea;
about 7 knots.

Courses, single-reefed
top-sails, to'gallant sails ;
moderate sea; 12 to 14
knots.

3

24

8

Moderate gale.

Single-reefed courses,
treble-reefed fore and
main top-sails, close-
reefed, mizzen, fore top-
mast stay-sail ; rough sea ;
4 to 5 knots.

Single-reefed courses,
double-reefed fore and
main top-sails, close-
reefed mizzen ; rough
sea ; about 10 knots.

5

30

9

Strong gale.

Close-reefed courses,
close-reefed fore and main
top-sails, storm stay-sail ;
rough sea.

Close-reefed courses,
close-reefed fore and main
top-sails, storm stay-sails;
rough sea.

8

40

10

Very strong gale.

Close-reefed fore sail,
close-reefed main top-sail,
fore storm stay-sail ; very
rough sea.

Close-reefed fore-sail,
close-reefed main top-sail,
fore storm stay-sail ; very
rough sea.

28

67

11

Violent gale.

Storm-sails, or close-
reefed main top-sail and
fore storm stay-sail ; very
rough sea.

Close-reefed fore-sail,
close-reefed main top-sail,
fore storm stay-sail.

32

SO

12

I Hurricane,
\ Typhoon,
( Cyclone.

None; lying to; drift-
ing bodily to leeward.

Scudding under bare
poles.

50 and
upward.

100 and
upward.

The above sail and speed, corresi^onding to various forces of the
wind, are but approximations to what really takes place according to
particular circumstances, such as model of ship, course steered with
reference to the wind, condition of the sea, etc.

The customary designations of the clouds are employed, and the
portion of clear sky is denoted by figures — 10 representing a wholly
clear sky, 0 an entirely cloudy one, and intermediate numbers a sky
partly clear and partly cloudy.

In the column descriptive of the weather, the following sym-
bols are used, and by means of them, all the possible variations of

i86 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

weather that can occur in an hour, may be succinctly and accurately
described :

b. — Clear blue sky.

c. — Cloudy weather.

(7. — Drizzling or light rain.

f. — Fog, or foggy weather.

g. — Gloomy, or dark, stormy-looking weather.

A.— Hail.

/. — Lightning.

m. — Misty weather.

o. — Overcast.

2). — Passing showers of rain.

q. — Squally weather.

7\ — Rainy weather, or continuous rain.

s. — Snow, snowy weather, or snow falling.

^.— Thunder.

i(. — Ugly appearances, or threatening weather.

V. — Variable weather.

vj. — Wet, or heavy dew.

z. — Hazy.

We now arrive at the method of compilation, and for this several
blank forms are used which will be described as the necessity arises to
speak of each kind.

First, however, eveiy log-book and journal is closely examined for
any errors it may contain, and, if such exist, they are scored with a
red pencil, and hence do not enter into the compilation or charts.

Whatever judgment of the log-book this scrutiny warrants, is en-
tered in it for guidance of the compiler.

The first blank to be used is Form A — a sheet 36 inches by 20.
It is a projection according to Mercator of that pai't of the sphere
between the 70th parallels of latitude north and south. Beginning
with the equator and the meridian of Greenwich, parallels and meridi-
ans are drawn at every fifth degree, thus dividing the ocean, like a
chess-board, into small squares. These are numbered consecutively
from 1 to 1,G67, so that, either by its number or its limits in latitude
and longitude, the expanse of ocean covered by any square can be
designated.

When a ship makes a passage under sail, she will cross certain of
these squares on devious courses, and be in each square a short or a
long period according as the winds and weather favor or oppose her.
The particular square in each day can be ascertained by referring the
noon position to Form A ; and the hour of entering and of leaving it
can be found by working the ship's run, by means of the courses
and distances, backward or forward as necessary, from the noon posi-
tion. Then, drawing heavy lines across the left-hand or meteoro-
logical page of the log-book at the hours of entry and of exit, it

OCEAN METEOROLOGY. 187

is evident that all the observations between these lines Avere taken in
that square.

The limits of all the squares traversed are determined and marked
in like manner, the number of each square is written between its
bounding lines, and, when thus wholly prepared, the observations taken
in each square during whatever length of time the ship was in it —
whether one hour or several, provided it was continuous time in the
same month — are compiled on one blank of Form B. This is a sheet
of thick, durable paper, so ruled into columns with appropriate printed
headings that each of the following-named items has a place for en-
try : the limits in latitude and longitude of the square, its number,
and the number of hours the ship was in it ; date of passing through
the square, name of the ship, and the period covered by her log-book
— all, that direct reference may be had at any time to the original
sources. In a series of columns the thirty-two points of the compass
are printed in regular order ; blank spaces are provided on the right
and left of each point — those on the left for the number expressing
the wand's duration from that point, and those on the right for the
figure denoting its mean force for the period of that duration. To
compile the direction of the wind, the number of hours it w^as from
the same point, whether consecutively or at different intervals, are
counted, and the sum total is entered on the left opposite the point ;
for the force, the mean of the several hourly forces corresponding to
the period of direction just mentioned is found and entered on the
right of the point. Similarly for each point from which the wind
blew while the ship was in the square.

As the entries regarding the wind in the log-book are hourly esti-
mates of both its direction and force, for the hour — an interval that
permits little variability in either quantity — accuracy to this degree is
insured in both the compilation and charts. There is no averaging the
force or direction for longer periods than an hour, and, as far as I am
aware, this is the only system pursued by any nation wherein these
items are comj^iled with such detail.

When calms or light, variable airs occur, the number of hours of
each is counted, and the sum entered in its proper place. "When a
gale — that is, wind of a force of 8 and upward — happens, the number
of hours it blew from any of the eight principal points of the compass
(supposing it to have varied in direction), together with the force
during each period, are duly tabulated.

The total number of hours of fog, of rain (including snow and
mist), and of squalls (heavy, moderate, and light) ; the state of the
weather by symbols ; quantity of clear sky ; and variation of the
magnetic needle, with the location in which it was observed, are all
entered in their respective places.

The mean of the mercurial barometer, attached thermometer, dry-
bulb, wet-bulb, and temperature of the sea-water at the surface — that

i88 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

is, the mean of all the hourly observations of each of these quantities
while in the square — is found and entered. Beside each is placed its
daily range, by which is to be understood the mean of the differences
between the daily maxima and minima for the number of days the
ship was in the square.

Throughout a wide zone on both sides of the equator, the barom-
eter has a remarkably regular oscillation, attaining two maxima and
two minima every day. In order to discover the extent of this phe-
nomenon, the hours of its recurrence, and the amplitude of the alter-
nate rise and fall, the daily record of the barometer is carefully
examined, and, whenever the phenomenon is found clearly defined,
the hours of the two extreme lowest and two extreme highest read-
ings, together with the readings themselves, are noted and tabulated
on the blank. To save repetition, I will state here that all compila-
tions of the barometer are reduced to 32° Fahr. and sea-level. As
two more items of interest, the highest and the lowest readings of
the barometer and dry-bulb that occurred during the whole time the
ship was in the square are noted and entered. A miniature chart of
a five-degree square, but on a sufficiently large scale to allow of con-
siderable accuracy, is printed on the Form, for plotting the ship's
track : the position of the shij) being determined at 8 a. m., noon, and
8 p. M. of each day, these points afford the data for tracing the track.
Whenever currents exist, their set in points and their velocity in knots
and tenths of a knot per hour are written on this little chart at each
noon position ; an arrow is also projected from the track to indicate
their direction. At every noon the temperature of the sea- water at
the surface is very carefully taken, and entered on the chart on Form
B, beside the noon position of the ship ; it assists in coming to a con-
clusion as to the existence of currents.

This completes the tabulated portion of the compilation on Form
B ; but, to unite the whole, to trace the connection of the several re-
lated quantities, and to describe such matters as could not be other-
wise noticed, ample remarks are made on the blank.

Thus, at a glance, are all the observations of a ship in each square
visible on a single sheet ; it is not assumed that what she experienced
prevailed over all the expanse of the square ; her track lies before us
on the little chart that represents that square, and the tabulated obser-
vations beside it relate to that track only — a single line ! If we
have the observations and tracks of a large number of vessels, all over
every part of a five-degree square for each month — in other words,
if we have a multitude of sheets of Form B compiled — it is evident
that we can easily deduce the meteorological features of that square,
and judge whether they be like or dissimilar throughout its entire
extent.

To follow up the fate of Form B, compilations having been made
on many thousand sheets of it from all the log-books and journals that

OCEAN METEOROLOGY. 189

could be obtained relative to the expanse of ocean under consideration,
the next step is to classify these, and to reduce the observations. The
classification consists in grouping together all the sheets of the same
square for the same month, without distinction as to year or ship ;
and, to reduce, all the observations on the blanks of each group are
first transcribed to a single sheet of another blank, Form D — a kind
of ledger, as it were, to which the separate sheets of Form B bear the
relation of so many entries in a day-book.

It may not be entirely devoid of interest to some of my readers, to
have here such a description of Form D as will enable them to repro-
duce it : a fac-simile before one would render the details of the reduc-
tion more easily intelligible.

At the top of the form are spaces for entering the number of the
square and the name of the month. Under this are six vertical col-
umns crossed by thirty-four horizontal lines. The headings of the
columns in succession, from the observer's left to right, are as follows :
1st column, " Total No. of hours of wind from every alternate point " ;
2d, " No. of hours of wind from every point " ; 3d, " True direction
of wind" (under this heading the points of the compass, beginning
with north, are printed — one point on each line — down the first thirty-
two lines of the blank, and " calms " and " variable wdnds " are on the
last two lines ) ; 4th, " Mean force of wind from every point " ; 5th,
" Final mean force of wind from every alternate point " ; and, 6th,
" Percentage of wind from every alternate point."

To illustrate the use of Form D, suppose that for any square for
any month — say No. 643 for July — there are fifty sheets of Form B.
To collect the numerous observations of the wind scattered through-
out these, each point is considered separately and in succession. The
sum of the different periods that the wind was of the same force from
the same point on all the sheets of Form B is found ; the direction of
the wind on this Form being magnetic, it is corrected for the varia-
tion of the compass, and then the sum is entered on Form D opposite
that point w^hich it becomes as a true direction.

Take a specific case, and let it be the magnetic north of Form B,
with the variation one point westerly for the square under reduction :
suppose that all the hours the wind was a force of 5 amounted to 80 ;
then " 80 " would be entered in the 2d column, and " 5 " in the 4th
column of Form D, on the horizontal line on which " N. by W." is
printed ; because a magnetic north wind becomes a true north-by-
west wind when the variation is applied. Again, if all the hours the
wind was of another force, say 3, from the same point (magnetic
north) amounted to 120, then " 120 " would be placed in the 2d col-
umn, on the right of the previous sum 80, and " 3 " in the 4th column,
on the right of the other force, 5. Similarly, with all the hours of
each force, and with every point of the compass, the order being pre-
served throughout of havinor the first sum of hours in the 2d column

ipo

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

correspond with the first force in the 4th cohimn, the second sum of
hours with the second force, and so on.

As the direction of the wind is given on the charts for only the
alternate points, the observations of the intermediate points are dis-
tributed among those adjacent. Suppose the transfer of the observa-
tions of the sheets of Form B, for one point, to stand on Form D
thus : 80 + 120 -|- 300 + etc. . . . (hours) . . . . N. by W. . . .
5 ; 3 ; 2 ; etc. . . . (Force). The point N. by W. not being used,
all these observations must be distributed between !N'orth and North-
northwest — half to each : i. e., 40 hours, force 5 ; 60 hours, force 3 ;
and 150 hours, force 2, must all be placed opposite North, and the
same opposite N. N. W., just as if they had come from the sheets of
Form B. The " Total No. of hours of wind from every alternate
point " is now found by adding up the separate periods, and the sum
is placed in the 1st column opposite its own point. To obtain the
mean force for this sum, each separate period of hours is multiplied
by the force peculiar to it, the products are added together, and their
sura is divided by the " Total No. of hours of wind from every alter-
nate point " ; the quotient is the " Final mean force," which is accord-
ingly placed in the 5th column. The totals of " Calms " and of
" Variable winds " are now found, and carried out to the 1st column ;
then all the figures in this column are added up, and the result is the
" Total No. of hours of wmds, calms, and variables " observed in
square No, 643 during the month of July. To complete the treat-
ment of the winds, the percentage that the total number of hours
from every alternate point, as well as the percentage that the calms
and the variables are of the total number of hours of observation in
the square, are worked out and entered in the 6th column.

On the back of Form D are columns for collecting the other data
scattered over the sheets of Form B, viz. : 1, Barometer and thermom-
eters. Beside the mean of each of these quantities transcribed from
Form B is placed the number of hours of observation from which that
mean is deduced, so that, in obtaining Wq filial mean of the square for
the month, due weight can be given to each individual mean. 2. The
separate mean daily ranges of the preceding items, with the number of
days of which the mean is formed written beside it ; 3. The regular
daily oscillations of the barometer ; 4. The highest and the lowest
readings of the barometer and dry-bulb, with the period during which
each separate observation was made ; 5. The total number of hours of
fog, of rain, of squalls (heavy and light), and of gales from each quar-
ter, with their strength ; and, 6. A summary of the currents, weather,
and magnetic variations. To complete Form D, a resume of the re-
marks on the various sheets of Form B is made — a generalization of
the experiences of the several ships — and transcribed to the back of
the form. When the observations of every square for each month are
collected on sheets of Form D in the manner described, the reduction

OCEAN METEOROLOGY.

191

of the data is complete for the part of the ocean under consideration.
The final step is to arrange the matter in shape for the engraver and
printer. This is done on sheets of Form C — a blank eight inches by
ten — which is a fac-simile of one of the squares of the monthly charts
enlarged to a size suitable for writing all the data in the proper spaces.
The data for all the squares for one month are transcribed from Form
D to Form C ; these are sent to the engraver ; a proof-sheet comes
back in due time ; this is read and corrected ; and eventually the
charts themselves issue complete from the press. Until the year 1876
no systematic use was made of the log-books of our vessels of war.
Every six months they were sent from each squadron to the ISTavy De-
partment, where they have been accumulating since the days when
Maury had the supply then on hand compiled for his charts.

Now, a large number await examination — a rich mine of valuable ma-
terial. A set of charts for the Pacific Ocean between the equator and
latitude 45° north, and from the American coast to the 180th meridian,
are the first fruits of labor in this mine. The complete set consists of
fifteen different sheets : 1. Twelve on which the information peculiar
to each mouth is given on a separate sheet ; 2. One that summarizes
all the observations of the direction and force of the wind of every
month and year ; 3. One that similarly gives all the observations of
the barometer, thermometer, and weather ; and, 4. One in colors show-
ing the wind systems, stormy regions, and areas of equal heat and
equal pressure — a graphical exhibit of what the other charts contain.

Preceding the set are, a table giving for every month the latitude
and longitude in which each ship entered or lost the trade-winds ; a
list of the log-books whose data enter into the charts ; and a preface
chiefly descriptive of the method of compilation. All are printed on
thick paper and bound together in a folio volume convenient for use.

los^w

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f^ w.

N:2.o'

,V /5'

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192 THE POPULAR SCIENCE ' MONTHLY.

The method of compilation having been described, the charts will
now be easily understood.

The figure on page 191 is a fac-simile of two adjoining squares of a
monthly sheet — February. They cover the small area of ocean west
of the Mexican coast between the parallels of 15° and 20° north and
the meridians of 95° and 105° west. The month and square constitute
jointly the unit for which all the information is given ; for some
squares this is meager, for others full — always dependent on the length
of time ships were in the square and the number of log-books examined
for it.

The explanation of one of the above squares — No. 106 — will afford
a key to the whole series. The figures inclosed by circles relate to
the winds ; those between the outer and the middle circle indicate its
duration and force; and those between the middle and the inner circle,
its percentage, from every alternate point. The points are inclosed
by parts of radii that extend from the outer to the inner circle : thus,
the two radii opening toward the upper left-hand corner, and containing

the figures l^^-y inclose the N. W. point ; the two containing

inclose the N. N. W. point, and so on to the right through North, N.
N. E., etc. If we add together the hair-line figures between the outer
and the middle circle, as 226, 85, 76, etc., they will amount to 1,062 ;
add to this the figures under the heading " calm " (38), and " var." (wind)
(10), and the total is 1,110. This means that if the hours all the vessels
spent in the square were added together, the total would be 1,110
hours, or 46 days 6 hours ; this is the whole period of observation in
this square for this month ; it is composed of fragments of February
collected from many years. An hour is the unit of observation, and a
vessel had to be a whole hour in a square in order to have it constitute
an observation. In this square, then, there were 1,110 observations of
the wind : of this number, it was 226 hours from the N. W. ; 85 hours
from the N. N. W. ; 76 hours from North, etc. The small dark figures
to the right of the hair-line figures indicate the force of the wind :
thus, the 3 annexed to 226 signifies that the mean force for those 226
hours was 3, according to the scale already given. The number of
hours of wind from any one point may have been the experience of
one or several vessels ; and that number may be composed of hours of
light, gentle, fresh, and strong breezes ; but, however such variations
may have occurred, the mean force is indicated by the small dark
figures.

It would, no doubt, be desirable to give the percentage of different
forces of the wind from each point, but this would greatly detract
from the simplicity and ease of consultation of the charts. The defect
is, however, approximately met by giving, as is done, the extreme
variations of the wind, i. e., the number of calms as well as of heavy

OCEAN METEOROLOGY.

193

squalls and gales. The figures between the middle and the inner circle
denote the percentage of wind from every alternate point : thus, of the
1,110 hours of observation, the wind was 20 per cent, of the time from
the K TV. ; 8 per cent, from N. N. W. ; 3 per cent, was calm ; and
one per cent, light variable winds. The little table below the number
of the square is to be read thus : of the 1,110 hours, 30 were calm ;
10 were characterized by light airs flying all round the compass ; no
fog ; 9 hours were rainy ; no heavy squalls ; and no light squalls. In
the upper left-hand corner is the mean of the barometer, 30-05 — the
mean of all the hourly observations taken in the square during the
month ; under it is the mean daily range, 0*09 inch — the mean of the
differences between the daily maxima and minima for 46 days. In the
upper right-hand corner, under D. B. (dry-bulb) is the mean tempera-
ture of the air (in the shade), 80° Fahr. ; the 5° under it is the mean
daily range, both means obtained as for the barometer. Similarly, in
the lower right-hand corner, is the mean temperature of evaporation
and its daily range ; and, in the lower left-hand corner, the mean tem-
perature of the sea-water at the surface and its mean daily range.

The remarks within the circles are drawn from the experience of
all the vessels that passed through the square in all the months of the
year. It is their aim to fill up the outline character of the square
afforded by the figures. While these remarks run through all the
squares that have sufficiently similar features to be described together,
the figures are applicable only to the square and month in which they
appear. Thus are the climatic features of each small area of ocean de-
lineated.

It should be understood that these charts merely exhibit the ex-
perience of the past reduced to a scale of probabilities for the future :
if, then, the conditions stated in any square be not exactly realized,
the system should not hence be condemned.

Let any navigator consider the degree of dependence he will place
on a trustworthy record of a passage he once made ; the confidence
with which he will refer to that record — to the experience of a single
voyage ! — for his guidance in traversing the same ground again : now,
it is not the record of one passage alone, but of many — all conveniently
arranged, with every discernible error and inaccuracy eliminated— that
is given in any square of these charts.

As a fair way of regarding them, let us consider the data of the
square 106 : of the 1,110 observations of the wind, it was 226 hours, or
20 per cent, of the whole time, from the N". W. ; hence, at any future
time, there are twenty chances for a N, W. wind of a force of 3, against
eight for a N. K W, wind, force 2 ; against seven for a N, wind,
force 3 ; against three for calms and one for very light airs.

The observations of the direction of the wind on Maury's pilot
charts have been incorporated with those extracted from log-books and
journals of recent date, and, although they outnumber the latter, still

VOL. XVI. 13

194 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

they do not form the basis of the charts. That basis is the variety of
observations comi^iled and reduced in the careful and laborious manner
already described, and which have then been examined from every
standpoint to elicit whatever beam of information they might contain
to illumine the ocean highways. Therefore, in justice to the amount
of thought, care, and labor bestowed on these charts, it must be stated
that they are not a rearrangement of old matter, but are essentially
new, and from original sources.

The second series of charts (now in course of compilation) embraces
a series for the whole Atlantic between the parallels of 60° north and
60° south. The observations of the direction of the wind on Maury's
pilot-charts, to the number of about 2,600,000, or 300 years, will be
embodied in them : the actual period over which these observations
extend is from the year 1800 to 1855. But, as with the Pacific charts,
the real groundwork of the Atlantic series is the various kinds of ob-
servations at present compiled in the careful manner already described
from recent log-books and meteorological journals. In number, these
observations will amount to about 650,000 hours, or 75 years. The
actual period over which they will extend is from the year 1855 to
1881, the time when it is confidently hoped this set will be ready for
issue. By far the greater part of the compilation is already done.
The Atlantic charts, then, will contain hourly observations to the num-
ber of about 3,250,000, or nearly 375 years : in other words, if it were
imposed on a single ship to collect this mass of data, she would have
to cruise in all parts of the Atlantic during every month of the year,
for a period of 375 years, without ever going into port !

As, however, these observations were collected by a multitude of
vessels and during a continuous series of 81 years, several vessels were
observing at the same time in different jsarts of the ocean. Surely,
this is an abundance of facts that must render indisputable the in-
formation contained in the more frequented squares : more would be
mere accumulation, without perceptibly affecting the mean results.

On some accounts it would be desirable to have the areas for which
the "information is classified smaller than 5° squares, as 1° squares, for
example ; but, again, there are objections, all but insuperable, to such
a system :

1. To collect data for it suflicient to give trustworthy results,
would require a fleet of cruisers almost as large as the combined mer-
chant marine of the world — all to be assiduously engaged for many
years. This is unattainable. Even with the inducements now offered,
and notwithstanding that the undertaking is mainly for their benefit,
only a very small percentage of all the masters of merchant-vessels
will take the trouble to keep a meteorological journal with the requi-
site accuracy and care. Were it not for the excellent log-books of our
ships of war, our knowledge of the phenomena of the ocean would
indeed be most meager and inaccurate.

OCEAN METEOROLOGY. 195

2. Supposing the data obtainable, the organization essential to deal-
ing with it in such detail would be immense : a lifetime would hardly
suffice to reach a practical result.

3. Its publication would require five times as many volumes as the
present system — a series already bulky enough to deter any one from
increasing it.

4. Throughout by far the greater part of the ocean, the several
quantities do not vary rapidly enough to warrant compiling them for
such small areas.

The prevailing direction and force of the wind are substantially the
same in many adjoining 1° squares ; and so also are the pressure and
temperature of the air, the weather, etc. : therefore, to classify them
for 1° squares Avould only be multiplying what, for the most part, was
equally applicable to the whole extent of a .5° square.

Besides, the object sought by the 1° system, the determination of
the well-defined limits of the different phenomena, is more accurately
attained by a method pursued in connection with the 5° system : on a
Mercator's projection of very large scale, all the observations relating
to one subject of inquiry are plotted in the position where they were
observed. For example, the winds : at each noon position of the ship,
an arrow is drawn to indicate its direction, and a small figure placed
beside it to denote the force ; a circle represents calms, and several
short lines radiating from a point, light variable airs.

This continued until the whole sheet is studded with symbols, it is
evident that we can determine, not to the closeness of one degree
only, but to within a few miles, the precise area covered by the trades,
or calms, or monsoons, or irregular breezes. The observations of the
temperature of the air, of the sea-water, and of the barometer, are all
similarly plotted, each on a sheet by itself. In every instance the sym-
bols are in different colors, to distinguish the data peculiar to each
month.

In order to determine with the greatest possible precision the limits
of the Gulf Stream, as well as the veins of varied temperature that per-
meate it, a separate sheet for each month on an unusually large scale is
provided for the observations relating to it.

It might seem that, instead of publishing such elaborate charts as
the series described, a single sheet containing merely the conclusions
arrived at would suffice — a chart showing those courses fi-om port to
port on which the most favorable winds and weather would be found.
As well lay railway-tracks over the ocean and expect ships to glide
upon them ! In matters pertaining to their profession, none are more
tenacious of their opinions than sailors — and justly so : they form
them after hard experience. To dislodge those opinions it must be
proved wherein they are faulty and others correct ; and this can not be
done by mere results. To lay down a rigid rule for a man to follow
is to deprive him of the exercise of discretion and judgment — quali-

196 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ties in which it is eminently proper a sailor should be untrammeled.
No, a track-chart is a useful auxiliary — it partly solves the problem of
tracing the best course from port to port, and such a chart will eventu-
ally form part of the entire set ; but a full exhibition of all the data
on which the judgment is based is essential to every intelligent sea-
man.

It is the log-books of ships of our own navy from 1855 to 1877 —
the large accumulation of twenty-two years — that are now undergoing
compilation at the Hydrographic Office for the series of charts de-
scribed : since 1877, by an order of the Navy Department, the compi-
lation is made by the navigator of each cruising ship. Being an offi-
cer of many years' experience at sea, and having direct and daily
supervision of the log-book, there is great advantage in having the
data ari-anged in the requisite form, on the spot and at the time of its
occurrence, by such a competent person.

Both the observations and compilations are made with a definite
object in view, and, as that is to furnish charts for their future guid-
ance, it is an incentive to the officers engaged in their preparation to
make them as trustworthy as possible. The compilation is to con-
tinue until charts for all the frequented portions of every ocean are
published.

When a log-book is full, both it and the compilations are sent to
Washington, where they are examined, compared, and used as found
necessary.

In an article in a former number of this magazine, I have said that
it is impossible to predict, as is done on the land, what the weather
will be in various parts of the ocean for any short period ; there we
lack the stationary points of observation with direct and instant com-
munication : as pointed out by Maury, the most that can be done in
this way is to warn European countries by telegraph of the approach
of storms that traverse the Atlantic from the American Continent ;
and of late this has been successfully done by the " New York Her-
ald."

In conclusion, I will merely allude to the utility of the charts
that form the subject of this article. If, on land, it be optional to
choose one's residence according to the salubrity of the climate, so at
sea, the mariner, with a panorama of the winds and weather spread
before him, can direct his course through only those squares that are
favorable and avoid the stormy.

Moreover, the novice to the sea or the philosopher in his study can,
by a mere inspection of them, see what has passed over the waste of
waters during the last hundred years, and be more fully and accu-
rately informed regarding what in all probability he would have to
encounter, in the way of aerial phenomena in an ocean-voyage, than
the most weather-beaten tar that plows the main.

FIRST-HAND AND SECOND-HAND KNOWLEDGE.

197

FIRST-HxVND AND SECOND-HAND KNOWLEDGE.*

By ^y. B. DALBY, F. R. C. S.

IN every system of education in which natural science forms no part,
whatever knowledge the pupil gains is acquired from what he
reads or from what he is told, and the truth of facts so presented to
him he must take either upon trust or, in so far as they can be demon-
strated to his reason, by logic or mathematics. In the study of natu-
ral science, on the other hand, he sees, he feels, he hears the same fact
repeated again and again under the same conditions ; and his inform-
ant is Nature — Nature, who never errs. Which is the better mode
of acquiring information ? Which information is the more likely to
be true, to be the more worthy of trust, and safer to be acted upon ?
These questions need no reply. We shall all agree that one of the
most important elements in education is English literature, and cer-
tainly in this department history must be included as not the least use-
ful and delightful. But consider for a moment how entirely different,
as a force in mental culture, is the information acquired by learning
anything in science or in history. Take, for example, the character,
or even the acts, of Mary Stuart. Although the events in her life
occurred only some three hundred years ago, I dare say I could find
among the students I am addressing as much difference of belief in
many of her recorded actions, and certainly of opinion in regard to her
character, as on any subject I could raise. To do this it would only
be necessary to select a student fresh from the reading of Mr. Fronde's
history, and another who had derived his impressions from earlier his-
tories, and had not laid aside the romance with which Scott's novels
have surrounded this Queen. Mr. Froude's references to existing doc-
uments may be sufficient to induce me to receive his facts for purposes
of history ; but, accept his accounts as much as I will, my belief is of
a very faint sort if I compare it with anything I have seen for myself.
Viewed in the light of actual knowledge, the facts derived in the two
Avays have a different kind of value to me, both no doubt good in
themselves, but still widely apart. With all due respect to the author-
ities at our old universities, I can not but think that the time will come
when the elements of physiology and chemistry \\i\\ be considered as
valuable a method of mental training as the production of what are
fancifully termed Latin verses, as the study of the traditional records
of Jewish history, or the learning by heart of sentences from Paley's
" Evidences." In the work which you now propose to undertake you
will require no one's evidences but those of your own senses, and any
statement from your teachers you will be able to subject to such tests.
In whatever degree you do this your studies will be useful; when once
* Part of an address delivered at St. George's Hospital, London, October 1, ISYQ.

198 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

you omit this they will be feeble and barren in their results. When
you read or are told that an artery pulsates, that it is composed of so
many coats, each possessing peculiar properties and uses, you will see
and feel the artery to beat, you will examine its coats, you will see
their properties exemplified in life, in death, in health, and in disease :
in health, when it is divided by the knife, or tied to arrest haemor-
rhage ; in disease, when it is the seat of aneurism and other changes.
Of what service would it be to you to read of all this ? You would be
better almost without such miserably insufficient information. Besides,
what you read may not be true ; you will decide for yourselves wheth-
er it is or not. If you wish to see the result of an education which
makes a man arrive at an opinion accurately, act boldly, display man-
ual dexterity, and effect good results, you may see it in any of the sur-
geons while deligating an artery to cui-e an aneurism. Again, suppos-
ing you to have made yourselves acquainted with the most complete
account of typhoid fever, and simply to have supplemented what you
have so learned by looking at any number of cases, and hearing what
others have to say upon them. Until you have tested for yourselves
the truth of all that you have heard or read about the disease, your
knowledge would be worse than useless, for you might fancy that j^ou
know something about it, and, armed with such conceit, have the ef-
frontery to take charge of a patient so suffering. When you have seen
patients every day from the beginning to the end of the fever, have
taken the temperature of their bodies and noted its variations, become
so familiar with their pulses that you recognize the period at which it
may be necessary to administer stimulants, examined the excretions,
watched the changes in symptoms, noted the effects of treatment, ob-
served every detail in diet and nursing, made j^ourselves acquainted
with the affections which the fever leaves behind, witnessed the modes
of death with patients who do not recover, examined the 2^ost-mortem
changes in those who die from it, and, lastly (most important of all)
have discovered the source whence the fever arose — if you have done
all these things, your knowledge of the subject will be real, and you
will have learned that, though books have their uses, they should in
science and medicine be only used for the purpose of directing atten-
tion to what is to be looked for, and as a means of comparing the
observations of others with your own. Thus far, then, books may be
relied upon and no further. If this be so, the very essence and good-
ness of a scientific education is lost when a student endeavors to pass
his examinations by learning from text-books what he should have
taught himself by observation, and from pictures what he should have
learned from realities. Those whose information is so gained have
seized the shadow instead of the substance, and their work will for
ever bear the marks of their indifferent education.

The results of the two modes of acquiring knowledge will be seen
in the different classes of practitioners which they respectively pro-

FIRST-HAND AXD SECOXD-HAND KNOWLEDGE. 199

diice. In the first order is the pliysiciau who intelligently studies phys-
iology, who recognizes in pathology what I would for the moment
call an eccentric physiology ; who says to himself when contemjjlating
disease : " I here see such and such organs of the body out of order,
such and such functions imperfectly performed ; let me try to place
these organs at rest, so that they may recover themselves (where
recovery is possible) and perform, perhaps, in time their functions as
heretofore " ; who appreciates that in pneumonia the tendency is
toward recovery when not interfered with, if the patient's strength is
so supported that he can tide over the period during which the lung
recovers itself ; who sees in typhoid fever the same necessity for sup-
port, Avith the additional one of resting the intestine until the ulcera-
tion has time to heal ; who, in the case of diseased kidneys, rests these
organs by putting their work on to other organs, such as the skin and
intestines, and allows no food which requires the special exercise of
the kidneys for purposes of elimination. Similar management with
other diseased organs. Here knowledge of physiology precedes knowl-
edge of disease, and disease means to this physician disorded physiol-
ogy. How different from the meddlesome apothecary of not long ago
— never easy without he was pouring his medicines into his patient
every few hours, having for every symptom a fresh drug Avhich added
to his patient's difiiculties, and for every pain some outward applica-
tion which increased his discomfort ! Now, his modern counterpart is
he who has learned chiefly from books and untrained observation what
he knows of disease ; for, please observe, that constantly seeing pa-
tients by no means implies that the faculty of accurately observing
has been attained, and if this faculty is not acquired by a man early
in life he will blunder on into old age. Such a one does much the
same as his predecessor in a milder way when his first consideration
takes the form of the inquiry, What is a good medicine for this, and
what for that ? He knows what will cure something or other, and so
prescribes it. So well is what I am saying beginning to be under-
stood that the very expression " cure," unless applied Avith a special
meaning, as to an aneurism, a hernia, or the like, has become almost
offensive, and will ere long be used only by the ignorant and preten-
tious. The physician does not pretend to cure his patients ; he places
them in the conditions most favorable to recovery, and is thus often
the means of averting death and conducting them to health. You
must not think that I am underrating the value of -medicines ; a large
number of drugs we know well to be most useful and often necessaries
in the treatment of disease, but the practice of ordering medicines to
every patient who applies for relief is no longer the practice of phy-
sicians, although perhaps it may be followed by those who would on
occasions be the last to resort to it, if they had the courage of their
opinions. But pathology is better understood than it was a few years
since, and with a more comi^lete knowledge of morbid processes has

200 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

come a corresponding knowledge of the frequent inability of drugs to
control them ; add to this that, with a fairly intelligent patient, the
man M^ho possesses an intimate acquaintance with the morbid change
which produces the symptoms has the power of explaining his disease
to him, and so successfully insisting upon the requisite conditions for
treatment, irrespective sometimes of little, if any, assistance from
drugs — such a knowledge can not be attained without a thorough
scientific training, and I could multiply examples where this kind of
education is as useful as it is to the physician.

At the risk of being tedious, I can not help repeating that the
mental training which encourages the habit of careful observation, of
accumulating facts, the reality and truth of which are tested by ex-
periment, which sweeps away opinions based upon imperfect premises,
which succeeds in leaving upon its pupil a profound regard for accu-
racy in all his work, must be a valuable addition to any course of
education — an addition, for I should be sorry to urge that it was a
complete substitute for any branch of knowledge except it be philoso-
phy and metaphysics. How science has superseded philosophy was
well told by George Henry Lewes when he wrote : " The method of
verification, let us never forget, is the one grand characteristic distin-
guishing science from philosoj^hy, modern inquiry from ancient inquiry.
The proof is with us the great object of solicitude ; we demand cer-
tainty, and, as the course of human evolution shows certainty to be
attainable on no other method than the one followed by science, the
condemnation of metaphysics is inevitable. Philosophy was the great
initiator of science ; it rescued the nobler part of man from the do-
minion of brutish apathy and helpless ignorance, nourished his mind
with mighty impulses, exercised it in magnificent efforts, gave him
the unslaked, unslakable thirst for knowledge which has dignified his
life, and enabled him to multiply tenfold his existence and his happi-
ness. Having done this, its part is played ; our interest in it is purely
historical." — Lancet.

EDUCATION OF BEAm-CELLS.

By J. MORTIMER GRANVILLE, M. D.

THE very interesting and important case recently narrated by Pro-
fessor Sharpey in this periodical * recalls one that fell under my
owm observation rather more than twenty yeai'S ago. I will state its
principal features, without going into details, and then venture to
make the two cases an occasion for a few brief speculations which
I am desirous of laying before medical-psychologists, with a view to

* See " Popular Science Monthly " for August, ISTO — article " Reeducation of the Adult
Brain."

EDUCATION OF BRAIN-CELLS. 201

obvious practical inferences in respect to the treatment of what I con-
ceive to be a not uncommon cerebral condition.

In 1858 I was requested to see a daily governess and teacher of
music, who had been suddenly attacked with what Avas thought to be
acute mania. I found a spare, somewhat angular, eccentric-looking
young woman, aged twenty-six, in a state of great excitement, hysterical
and choreic. Within a few hours — after a paroxysm of considerable
violence, during which she talked and sang wildly and was with diffi-
culty restrained by those around her — she fell into a state verging on
suspended animation, which lasted a week. The skin was cold, and pre-
sented a dark, mottled appearance ; the pulse was scarcely perceptible
at the wrist ; the breathing slow and seldom deep ; there seemed to
be complete loss of consciousness, and scarcely any trace of sensibility.
The muscles were cataleptic, and the extremities dropped slowly when
raised. It was barely possible to feed the patient by the mouth, by
holding forward the larynx and placing the fluid far back in the
pharynx with a spoon, when it seemed to flow down the oesophagus as
through a flaccid tube. This condition, which was treated with the
interrupted current from the occiput and nape to the hypogastrium,
and mustard-poultices down the spine, subsided very gradually. Then
came the state I am chiefly interested to note. There had clearly been
an exciting cause for the attack in religious excitement, acting on a
nervous system exhausted by protracted toil as a teacher.

When consciousness began to return, the latest sane ideas formed
previous to the illness mingled curiously Avith the new impressions
received, as in the case of a person awakening slowly from a dream.
When propped up with pillows in bed near the window, so that pass-
ers in the street could be seen, the patient described the moving ob-
jects as "trees walking " ; and, when asked where she saw these things,
she invariably replied, "In the other gospel." In short, her mental
state was one in which the real and the ideal were not separable. Her
recollections on recovery, and for some time afterward, were indistinct,
and, in regard to a large class of common topics which must have
formed the staple material of thought up to the period of the attack,
memory was blank. Special subjects of thought immediately anterior
to the malady seemed to have saturated the mind so completely that
the early impressions received after recovery commenced Avere imbued
with them, while the cerebral record of penultimate brain-work in the
life before the morbid state was, as it were, obliterated. For example,
although this young woman had supported herself by daily duty as a
governess, she had no recollection of so simple a matter as the use of
a writing implement. When a pen or pencil was placed in her hand,"^
as it might be thrust between the fingers of a child, the act of grasp-
ing it was not excited, even reflexly : the touch or sight of the instru-
ment awoke no association of ideas. The most perfect destruction of
brain-tissue could not have more completely effaced the constructive

202 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

effect of education and habit on the cerebral elements. This state
lasted, some weeks, and the " recollection " of what had been " forgot-
ten," to use conventional terms, was slow and painful, needing, or, as I
would now say, seeming to require, a process of reeducation as distinct
as (though, I judge, less prolonged than) that which proved necessary
in the case detailed by Professor Sharpey. In the end recovery was
mentally and physically satisfactory.

I can not assume that anything in these two narratives will strike
the practical psychologist as novel, or of even unfrequent occurrence.
The clinical aspect of such cases has been sketched times without num-
ber. Nevertheless they present features of interest, as viewed from
an etiological standpoint, which may be worthy more than a passing
notice.

Either of three conditions may, I believe, be set up by brain dis-
turbance, or disease, causing "loss of memory" : 1. Complete destruc-
tion of cerebral cells ; 2. Withering or blighting, which amounts to
obliteration of the cells without destruction of their nuclei ; * 3. A sus-
pension of function without arrest of nutrition, as though a particular
area of the cerebral organism were thrown out of the circuit of energy.

In the first event there will be final effacement of the records of
ideation. So far as the cells destroyed are concerned, they and their
properties are lost for ever. If the functions previously performed by
these strata or tracts reappear, it must be because some other part of
the brain has taken up the business vicariously — as I believe is possible
with nearly every function or manifestation of mental energy. In the
second event, when the cells are withered but the nuclei remain, a new
crop of cells may spring from the parent organism, and, after a la^ise of
time sufficient for development, the educationary record will reappear,
the seed reproducing its kind, plus the effect of training and ideation.
It may be that there will need to be so much reeducation as to culti-
vate the new growth, and pei;haps a reimpression of purely objective
ideas, but it may, and probably in the majority of instances does, hap-
pen that the new cells will be developed with all the characteristics of the
old. In the third event recover)^ may occur instantly, almost at any
moment, if the obstacle to communication is overcome or breaks down
in convalescence, so that the isolated, but scarcely injured, congeries
of brain-cells may again be energized. I speak of brain-cells instead
of " nerve-molecules," because, even accepting the vibration theory, it
must be assumed that the vibrating particles are cellular vital organ-
isms.

Supposing the states I have described to exist, I venture to suggest
that the development of a new crop of cells from denuded germs or
nuclei will account for the facility with which reeducation, in cases
like that described by Professor Sharpey, reproduces knoicledge, even

* I use the term nucleus here and throughout in a non-physiological sense, simply to
designate the seat of life in a cell, whatever that may be.

EDUCATIOX OF BRAIX-CELLS. 203

at a period of life when it is not easy to learn. What the new train-
ing and teaching does is not so much to impart infoi'mation as to foster
the growth of a new crop from the old seed, just as an after-crop may
be procured by breaking up an overstocked soil and applying the
stimulus of manure. It is always possible that in the first process of
instruction more seed may have been sown than germinated. Some
good mental seed doubtless falls on barren ground, and it is perhaps
due to the vitality and subsequent germination of this seed, that ideas
which we do not seem to have cultivated deepen as the years go on.

Meanwhile I fancy it is as the progeny of old nuclei that the phys-
ical' bases of a revived memory are restored during general recovery in
cases of the class before us. It seldom happens that the reeducating
process needs to be very explicit or prolonged. Far less teaching than
would have sufficed to implant the knowledge originally Avill cause it
to reappear. In cases where the cells only are destroyed and their cen-
ters of vitality remain, it may even happen that the mere establish-
ment of health will suffice to bring about complete restoration. When
the new cells grow, the old memories will be revived. This is what
takes place in ordinary cases, when, although no especial pains are
taken to reeducate, the " lost " knowledge returns. The completeness of
the recovery will probably depend on the vigor of the first growth, and
is doubtless governed by the same law which determines permanence
or tendency to revert to an old type in the propagation of recently im-
pressed or acquired qualities of species or family. Ideas, or an organic
tendency to form particular conceptions, are certainly transmitted from
parent to child. The cells first developed in a foetal cerebrum are
probably imbued Avith the qualities and properties of the brains of the
mother and father, in different proportions. The transmission of germs
of mental character which slumber through one generation and awaken
with all their ancestral energy in the next is a recognized fact. It will
therefore probably happen that the new crop does not at first present
all the features of that which was blighted by disease, but develop
part of its characteristics later on. Thus vigorous health at an ad-
vanced period of life will sometimes produce a perfecting of the re-
covery commenced, but not consummated, years before.

Cases of the first and third class are very likely to be confounded
in practice. Final destruction may be assumed when, perhaps, a tract
has been isolated without being destroyed. In this way I venture to
think hopeless dementia is occasionally diagnosed, Avhen what has
happened is the disconnection, or throwing out of the circuit of cere-
bral energy, of a particular tract or stratum of element ; and, unless
watched, partial recovery, susceptible of treatment, may happen with-
out being observed and helped at the critical moment.

Treatment for the first class of cases is valueless ; for the second,
the cure must consist in the reproduction of brain-cells, or rather, as I
have suggested, the development of a new crop from the denuded

204 TH^ POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

nuclei of blighted cells. The so-called " reeducation " is only in a
limited and scarcely physiological sense educationary. It is a repeti-
tion of the training, not so much to teach as to stimulate the growth
of new organic elements from preexistent germs imbued with forma-
tive forces and characteristics which must themselves determine the
physico-mental result. If new cells are produced, they will be found
already educated, that is, endowed with inherited characteristics which
constitute the physical bases of memory. The educated germ natu-
rally produces an educated cell. Upon this hypothesis rests the whole
theory of heredity, species, and transmission.

In the third class of cases, recovery occurs as an accident of treat-
ment, except -when in the presence of a constitutional cachexia like
syphilis, specific medication may remove the grip of disease which, so
to say, holds the mental organism in fetters that its energy can not
act. It will, I think, be often found that the seemingly permanent
losses of memory which occur after acute disease are due to the isola-
tion of special strata of cerebral tissue by the stasis of syphilitic or
gouty disease. Mercury, iodide of potassium, or colchicum may in
this way serve as a " memory-powder," and work a cure.

The two points I am chiefly anxious to place on record, without
any claim to novelty of suggestion, are, first, that what is called reedu-
cation is often simply the fostering of a natural growth — never harm-
ful unless overdone, but of less value than may at first sight be sup-
posed ; second, that, in the absence of sj)ecial indications that what
seems to be helpless dementia is actually w^hat it seems, i. e., a physical
destruction of brain-cells, it is always possible the patient may recover,
and therefore never justifiable to write a case off as incurable, and
leave it to drift unnoticed and unhelped. — Brain.

EAELY METHODS IX AKITHMETIC.

By E. 0. VAILE.

IN our day arithmetic is looked upon as a science of which every
boy at fourteen ought to be master. Such was not the case a cen-
tury or so back. In England, as well as upon the Continent, arithmetic
was long considered a higher branch of science, and a university study,
like geometry. In part, this is accounted for by the strong conviction
which has always possessed mankind until within the last two hundred
years, that numbers have about them very potent and mystical proper-
ties. During the middle ages this science had its skilled professors.
The partial title of a work gives an idea of its exalted claims even
after the time of Shakespeare and Bacon. The book appeared in Lon-
don in 1624. Its title-page read thus : '* The Secrets of Numbers

EARLY METHODS IN ARITHMETIC. 205

according to Theological, Arithmetical, Geometrical, and Harmonical
Computation. Pleasing to read, profitable to under stande, opening
themselves to the capacities of both learned and unlearned y being no
other than a Keg to lead Man to any Doctrinal Knoicledge ichatsoever.^^

But, in addition, there was difficulty and complexity in the science
as practiced then that made it no boy's play. Even making allowance
for the great advantage of " being used to a thing," the middle-age
processes in the fundamental rules were often much more intricate
than those practiced nowadays. In his incomparable history of the
science of arithmetic, in the " Encyclopedia Metropolitana," Dr. Pea-
cocke gives many interesting illustrations, some of which will doubt-
less strike the reader as novel. Some of their steps are easily ex-
plained, but others are by no means so simple. It might prove of
interest and advantage to test the higher grades in some modern
schools in regard to their actual comprehension of the first four rules
by requiring them to explain the philosophy, not the process merely,
of a few of these medieval "sums." Explanations further than a
description of the process are purjDosely omitted.

In subtraction they usually began at the left hand instead of the
right. Inconvenient as it is, the method was continued as late as the
end of the sixteenth century. The difference was placed above the
numbers instead of below.

Example 1. Subtract 35843 from 54612.
When the digits in the subtrahend are greater
than those in the minuend, units are placed be-
neath them as in the example ; 3 being increased
by the unit in the next place to the right, and
similarly for 5, 8, and 4.

Process. Example 2. Subtract 23245 from 30024. Of

06779 remainder. course with such an arrangement it is of no con-
2991 sequence whether the operation proceeds from right

30024 minuend. to left or from left to right. It will be easily seen
23245 subtrahend, how the substituted minuend is obtained, with the
exception of the one ten. Suppose the figure 4 in
the subtrahend had been 1 ; then to what device would the boys and
girls of the time of Luther and of Queen Elizabeth have had to resort
to save their credit ?

There is reason for thinking that the modern method of subtrac-
tion was the invention of an English mathematician of the first part
of the seventeenth century, by the name of Gath.

In multiplication there were some ten or twelve different processes
in practical use ; but, strange to say, our present mode is not found
among them. A few of the subjoined examples are easily intelligible.
A little study will make the others plain :

Example 1. Multiply 135 by 12.

Process.
18769 remainder.
54612 minuend.
35843 subtrahend.
1111

206

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Process 1.

13 5
12 12 12

Process 2.
1 3

1 2

60
G

1 6

0

0

1

2

0
3

0
5

6

1
0

Process 3.
135
12

10
11
5
1

1G20

The commentator considers
this method as difficult, and
not to be learned by dull schol-
ars without instruction.

Example 2. Multiply 15 by 12.

15 = 4 + 5 + 6. 12 = 2 + 4 + 6.
Process.

8

16

24

48

10

20

30

60

12

24

36

72

30

60

90

180

Process.

1610

35

X

46

Example 3. Multiply 30 by 46.

This method was called " crosswise," from the manner
in which the partial products to be added were obtained.
It is not improbable that our present sign of multiplica-
tion was derived from the crossing of the lines in this pro-
cess, as being somewhat indicative of the operation.

Here is a larger example worked by the cross-method :
Example 4. Multiply 456 by 456.
Process.

ft

To indicate the successive steps the link-

ing-lines are numbered, so as to show the

groups in which the products are to be taken

for addition.

2 0 7

Process.

456 added mentally, and one will better appreciate how much

456 -^e depend upon mere mechanism in our own mental opera-

207936 tions.

.Q 3 6

Let the products be found and properly grouped and

EARLY METHODS IN ARITHMETIC.

207

The method by the little castle was much practiced at Florence.
Why the name was given to it is not very clear.
Example 5. Multiply 9876 by 6789.

Process.

9 8 7 6

6 7 8 9

6 110 1

.5431

2

4 7 5

2 3

4 0

7 3

4

67048164

The method by the square was regarded as elegant, not requiring
the operator to attend to the places of the figures.

Process.

9 8 7 6

6 7 8 9

8

7

8

9
9

8
0
1
2

0
3
5

4

8

6

2

5

6

0

Latticed Multiplication.

Process.

9 8 7 6

9

8
7
6

1
8

2

7

3
6

4
,5

2
7

4
6

6

8
4

3

6

6

9
4

2
4

4
5

2
4

6
3

6 7

Some authors wished to elevate the character of the study, so as to
save the labor of carrying tens. Here are two processes, or rather one
process under different forms, which save that labor :

Example 6. Multiply 234 by 234.

Example 7. Multiply 5142 by 43.

2o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Processes.
Ex. 6. Ex. 7.

2 3 4
2 3 4

4 6 116

6 8 2
1 2
9
8

5 4 7 5 6

5

1

4

2

4

3

1

0

6

1 5

3

2

1

0

8

2 0 4

6

2 2 110 6

Though the multiplication-table was in use by the Arabians and
Italians at an early date, no notice Avas taken of it during the middle
ages in the rest of Europe. It may give us more charity for the boys
and girls who are now wrestling with it — although nowadays it
does not seem to require the struggle that it used to — to know that
grown men, and wise men probably, sought for devices by which the
labor might be avoided which we go through in childhood. Outside
of Italy, many writers considered it necessary to relieve the memory
from retaining the products of digits above five. The principal rule
— known as the " sluggard's rule " — given for this purpose during the
last half of the sixteenth century, the half century after the time of
Luther, Melanchthon, and Erasmus, was this : Subtract each digit from
ten, and write down the differences ; rtiultiply the differences together
and add as many tens to their product as the first digit exceeds the
second difference, or the second digit the first difference.

Examples. 7 X 8 == (3 X 2) + (7 — 2 = 5) tens = 56.
6X9= (4X1) + 5 tens = 54.

The method which we call short division was largely used in the
middle ages, as was also the method of dividing by using the factors
of the divisor. The process by long division was known, but was not
so commonly used as others. It was called the process " by giving,"
since after subtraction we give or add (bring down) one or more fig-
ures to the remainder. Here is an example set down after the fashion
of those times :

Example 8. Divide 97335376 by 9876.

Divisior. Proveniens.

9 8 7 6 9 8 7 6

9 7 3 3 5 3 7 6

8 8 8 8 4

8 6 5 13

7 9 0 0 8

7 5 0 5 7

6 9 13 2

5 9 2 5 6
5 9 2 5 6

EARLY METHODS IN ARITHMETIC. 209

De Burgo, the most noted medieval writer on arithmetic, thinks this
last process — our long division — much less pleasant than the following
method. Surely tempora mutcmtur, et )ios mutamur in illis.
Example 9. Divide 97535399 by 98T6.

1 5

7 G 5

8 2 9

14 5 4 4

8 6 10 2 2

9 7 5 5 6 5

16301373

97535399

9 8 7 6 6 6 6

9 8 7 7 7

9 8 8

1^ 9 8 7 6

9

In this work the divisor is placed next below the dividend, and
removed one place to the right since it is not contained in the first four
figures of the dividend. The process with the first figure of the quo-
tient, placed as usual at j^resent, is as follows : The first number of
the divisor, 9, is contained in 97 nine times with a remainder 16. The
first figure of the divisor having been used is canceled ; as are also
the first two figures of the dividend. (The " scratches " or canceling-
marks are omitted in the illustration.) The remainder, being of the
same denomination as the first two figures of the dividend, is put
directly above them. The next number to be used is 165. Multiply-
ing the second figure of the divisor, 8, by 9, and subtracting from 165,
93 remains ; 165 and 8 are now canceled, having been used. The
remainder 93 is placed above in the proper orders, the 6th and 7th
places. So it continues, leaving, after completing the work with the
first figure of the quotient, the remainder 8651399. The divisor is
now set down again, taking one place to the right as it should to cor-
respond to the highest order now in the dividend ; the last figure
being raised to the line above, probably for symmetry. The process
is continued as before.

All writers upon arithmetic appear to have agreed in commenda-
tion of this method as late as the end of the seventeenth century. It
was, in fact, the only method thought necessary to notice. The Eng-
lish arithmeticians, from evident cause, called it the " scratch way "
of division. Our present method was known specifically as Italian
division, and was not introduced until the beginning of the last cen-
tury.

One writer on arithmetic, a pious monk, furnishes a good illustra-
tion of medieval logic. He is embarrassed by the usage and meaning
of the term "multiplication" in the case of fractions in which the
product is less than the multiplicand, and he proposes the question,

VOL. XTI. 14

2 10 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

" Whether the multiplication of fractions is an increasing process ? "
In order to prove that to multiply means to increase, he bases his ar-
gument on Scripture, and clinches the whole by quoting the promise
to Abraham, " I will multiply thy seed like the stars of the firma-
ment," To this devout logician there would be no joke in the com-
mon conundrum that proves Abraham to have been a mathematician
because he increased and multiplied on the " face of the earth." But
how is this to be reconciled with the numerical result in the cases
under consideration ? He supposes the units of the product to be of
greater virtue and significancy than those of the factors : thus, if ^
and ^ represent the sides of a square, their product will represent the
area of the square.

The first actual mention of real decimal fractions is in a Flemish
work published in 1590. There the mixed number 2T'847 is written

2 V' ^J ^7 7 To the present advocates of the metric system it may
afford encouragement to know that Stevinus, in this work, enumerates
the advantages which would result from the decimal subdivision of
the units of length, area, capacity, value, etc.

In 1619 the contents of the Flemish book were embodied in an
English work — " The Art of Tens, or Decimal Arithmetike, exercised
by Henry Lyte, Gent., and by him set forth for his Countries Good."
After enlarging upon the value of his system to all classes, he adds :
"If God spare me life, I. will spend some time in most cities of this
land for my countries good to teach this art. I hold the lively voice
of a mcane sj^eculator somewhat practised, furthereth ten fold more
in my judgement than the finest writer that is." Rather severe on those
" meane speculators," his contemporaries, Francis Bacon and William
Shakespeare.

SPENCER'S DATA OF ETHICS.

By ALEXANDER BAIN, LL. D.,

PROFESSOR OF LOGIC IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN.

IN the immense abundance of literary production a great deal of
criticism is avowedly calculated to supersede the jDerusal of the
works themselves. Such a book as the present, however, is among the
rarest ; and being on the most interesting of all themes, and withal
lucid and short, the critic would be much mistaken in assuming that it
will not be read by his own readers and many besides.

The field of ethics has been crossed and recrossed in many direc-
tions ; and we are now called to follow a new and unbeaten track.
Our interest and expectation are awakened, not simply on account of
the general philosophic ability of the writer, which disposes us to

BAIN ON THE DATA OF ETHICS. 211

listen to him on any topic that he may see fit to take up, but also be-
cause he regards the work before us as the end and outcome of all his
labors, the object to which all the preceding parts of his systematic
elaboration are preparatory. The philosophy of evolution, which he
has spent his life in constructing, is here to reach its application to
practice. With a view to the popularity of the work, this may seem
a disadvantage, as comparatively few of those that are attracted to a
book in morals have followed the author through his long precursory
series of magna opera ; yet the disadvantage is not so great as might
be so supposed, for such is the expository clearness gained from long
familiarity with the materials, that the work is self -explaining in a
remarkable degree.

Although thus disclaiming the purpose of dispensing with the inde-
pendent perusal of the work, yet without making a general survey of
its plan and leading ideas I am unable to criticise any portion intelli-
gibly.

The preliminary question necessarily is the definition or province
of ethics. What is meant by conduct, and what by good and bad con-
duct ? Conduct is the adjustment of acts to ends. As to good and
bad, we must i^roceed systematically through the animal series ; or
trace the "Evolution of Conduct." The lowest creatures are charac-
terized by insufficient adaptation of actions to the ends of existence ;
they move about at random, and live at the mercy of chance. But
proceed upward from the infusorium to the rotifer, and we find the
actions better accommodated to the situation, and as a consequence
greater chances of preservation. Move still upward to the higher
vertebrates, and look at the superiority of an elephant to a cod ; go
yet further, and compare the civilized with the savage man : we find
the same expression to apply — the multiplication of activity in the
serving of useful ends, whereby life is increased both in length and in
breadth. Turn next to the conservation of the species by the treat-
ment of the young, and we find the same progress ; in the lowest
creatures only one germ in ten thousand comes to maturity. Lastly,
take into account the social situation, where individuals act and react
on each other, whether for prey or for assistance. There is here a
like progress, shown in the like results ; in the lower stages, mutual
destruction ; in the higher stages, mutual cooperation, with greater
security of life and greater amounts of enjoyment.

This survey being premised, let us ascertain the meanings of good
and bad. A good action is one that subserves either individual life,
or the rearing of offspring, or the interests of the society at large.
The relatively good is the relatively more-evolved. The highest con-
duct of all is what best reconciles all the three ends. Having reached
this point, the author asks. Is there any postulate involved in these
judgments of conduct? and answers yes, namely, the question. Is
life worth living ? which question he briefly discusses, making out that

212 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

both optimist and pessimist must assume that life is satisfactory or
otherwise, according as it does, or does not, bring a surplus of agree-
able feeling. He disposes of the ascetic theory as being the product
of the inferior religious creeds ; and in so far as any persons in the
present day retain the ascetic view, he runs them into absurdity by
asking what they mean by the virtue of administering to a sick per-
son ; is it to increase the pains of illness ? He then reviews the ethical
end expressed by " perfecting " one's nature, and shows that there is
no other test of perfection than " complete power of all the organs to
fulfill their respective functions." Then as to making " virtue " the
standard, he criticises Aristotle and Plato, and finds that they are
playing off juggles of language. He next argues that virtue could not
be upheld as virtue unless on the supposition that it is pleasurable in
its total effects. Again as to the " intuitional " theory, he shows that
the holders can not, and do not, ignore the ultimate derivations of
right and wrong from pleasure and pain. He admits, however, that
there is still among us a survival of the devil-worship of the savage,
seen in our delight in contemplating the exercise of despotic power —
the worship that owns Carlyle as its prophet, disguising itself by de-
nouncing happiness as pig-philosoi^hy, and substituting " blessedness "
as the end. So much for good and bad conduct.

In a new chapter, the author pursues the criticism of the ethical
theories, under the title, " Ways of judging Conduct." As a prelimi-
nary remark, he shows us with what exceeding slowness the idea of
causation has been evolved. He is struck with the fact that all the
theories — theological, political, intuitional, utilitarian — are character-
ized either by the entire absence of the idea of causation, or by an in-
adequate presence of it. Thus the theory of the " will of God " origi-
nates with the savage whose only restraint besides fear of his fellow
men is fear of an ancestral spirit. Now, the notion that actions are
good or bad simply by divine injunction is tantamount to saying that
they have not in their own nature good or bad effects. After review-
ing Hobbes and the Intuitionists, he tells us that even the utility
school is very far from recognizing natural causation. In other words,
he enunciates his known principle, of which the present volume is the
expansion, that morality is not an induction from isolated facts, but a
deduction from the processes of life as carried on under established
conditions of existence. The proof of this principle needs a survey of
ethics under four aspects — Physical, Biological, Psychological, Socio-
logicah

In the four chapters devoted to the survey, Mr. Spencer's ethical
foundations are laid. To begin with the Physical view. This treats
conduct as so much motion suited to its purposes by paying respect to
the law of conservation of force ; in which view the ethical progress
is progress to duly-proportioned conduct ; and that conduct is increas-
ingly coherent and definite, increasingly heterogeneous or varied, and

BAIN OX THE DATA OF ETHICS. 213

tending to balance or equilibrium. " Complete life in a complete so-
ciety is but another name for complete equilibrium between the co-
ordinated activities of each social unit and those of the aggregate of
units." The author admits that there is some strangeness in thus pre-
senting moral conduct in physical terms.

The Biological view takes account of man's nature as an organism,
or an aggregate of organs, to be maintained in due condition by regu-
lated exercise, rest, and nutrition, and as liable to disorder by excess
or defect. According to this view, the moral man is he whose func-
tions— numerous and varied though they be — are all discharged in
degrees duly adjusted to the conditions of existence. It is immoral to
treat the body so as in any way to diminish the fullness or vigor of its
vitality. One leading test of actions is. Does the action tend to main-
tenance of complete life for the time being, and does it tend to pro-
longation of life to the full extent ? This position is not simply the
consequence of the necessity of living in order to be happy ; it takes
us up to the further docti-ine that happiness is fulfillment of function
in each and all of the organs. In fact, the law of pleasure and pain —
connecting pleasure with vitality and pain with the opposite — is here
invoked as an indispensable link in ethics, and as one of the ways of
rendering the science deductive, and of superseding the laborious if
not impossible calculations of empirical Hedonism. In this chapter Mr.
Spencer illustrates the truth at great length as a practical and moral
lesson, and one as yet very imperfectly apprehended. The dependence
of the mental on the physical, so completely neglected by our fore-
fathers in all but the most obtrusive instances, has been gradually
receiving more attention, and Mi\ Spencer will be hereafter distin-
guished for giving it an additional impetus, as well as for contributing
to its more precise definition. It must necessarily enter more and
more into the guidance of human conduct, and must to that extent
become an ethical factor. The doctrine in his hands cuts closer than
ever ; he proceeds upon the assumption that pleasure points out the
way to the healthy discharge of the functions, and pain to the opposite.
He is not unaware of the exceptions, and regards them as an imper-
fection of adjustment destined to pass away as evolution reaches its
term.

The Psychological view takes us to the genesis of the moral con-
sciousness through conflict of states, and through the subordination of
lower ends to higher. In order to this we must conceive pleasures
and pains in the future, and by such conceptions hold in check all
present urgencies incompatible with remoter interests. The yielding
of the lower to the higher may, however, be carried to excess ; the
subordination is a conditional subordination. The pleasures of the
present are not to be absolutely sacrificed to the pleasures of the fu-
ture ; the present is always to be counted at its own value in striking
the balance. Mr. Spencer illustrates this by the practical absurdity of

214

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

men living entirely for the future. The source of the feeling called
moral obligation is now indicated. The essential trait being the con-
trol of some feelings by some other feelings, Mr. Spencer traces the
different species of control from without, in political govei-nment, re-
ligious fear, and the general influence of society. All these have
evolved with society, as means of social self-preservation. The pen-
alties accompanying them impart the feeling of coercion ; in other
words, the sense of moral obligation. At the same time we are not to
exclude from the aggregate the earlier and deeper element of self-
regarding prudence^ based on the penalties of improvidence. But now
the moral motive, arising at first from external sources, is destined to
transformation when the individual mind is completely accommodated
to the social situation. The higher actions required for the harmo-
nious carrying on of life will be as much matters of course as are those
lower actions prompted by the simple desires.

The Sociological view, already implied, is the sujjplement of the
physical, the biological, and the psychological views. It teaches the
modes of conduct for reducing individual antagonisms, and bringing
about mutual cooperation. Out of this, by necessary deduction, we
obtain the reasons for fulfilling contracts, for assigning benefits in pro-
portion to services, which is Justice ; and further for the rendering of
gratuitous services, in a certain degree, which is Beneficence. We see
how social life is furthered, not merely by mutual abstinence from
harm, but by exchange of services beyond agreement.

In a separate chapter, entitled " Criticisms and Exj^lanations," Mr.
Spencer compares his deductive theory of conduct with the utilitarian
computation, as handled by Bentham, Mill, and Sidgwick. I will re-
turn to this on completing the survey of his entire scheme. His next
chapter is an illustration of the dependence of pleasures and pains on
the state of the organism, and is equally necessary for his purpose, as
being the completion of the theory of pleasure. People have often
supposed that pleasurable agents, such as sugar to the taste, are so by
intrinsic and absolute quality, the same to all persons in all situations.
This is soon shown to be a mistake ; and the opposite truth is one of
great importance in the ethical point of view. Physical pain is im-
mensely greater in a highly developed nervous system. Exercises that
give great pleasure to some creatures give none to others ; the system
being in the one case adapted to them, and in the others not. Emo-
tions presuppose a suitable organization. Destructiveness will give
way to amity, if the nervous arrangements for one are atrophied by
disuse, and those for the other persistently exercised. The civilized
man is distinguished by contracting the same delight in peaceful in-
dustry as the savage feels in war and the chase.

The next two chapters — " Egoism versus Altruism " and " Altruism
versus Egoism " — are the most incisive in the whole book. The rela-
tion of altruism to egoism is subject to habitual exaggeration even to

BAIX ON THE DATA OF ETHICS. 215

the extent of self-contradiction, and Mr. Spencer brings a rigid scrutiny
to bear on the whole question. His position is — the permanent suprem-
acy of egoism over altruism ; and he elucidates this in his systematic
way. He cites numerous striking examples to bring home the truth
that the first condition of the performance of duty to others is the per-
fect vigor and competence of the agent's self. As a pertinent moral
lecture, nothing could be more effective. He allows that his view is
the one practically recognized among men, and only regrets that the
nominally accepted beliefs should be at variance with it.

In the chapter on altruism, Mr. Spencer, by a review of the entire
social situation of human beings, endeavors to assign the exact scope
and value of our sympathetic regards. While avoiding all exaggera-
tion, he proves by numerous and striking examples the value of altru-
istic conduct to all and to each. The dependence of egoism upon
altruism tends ever toward universality, becoming greater as social
evolution advances.

He next proceeds to consider the conflict of the two principles,
which leads him a second time to discuss the utilitarianism of Bentham
and John Mill. Ho inquires what guidance the principle of " the
greatest happiness of the greatest number" offers (1) to public policy
and (2) to private action ; and pronounces it defective as undertaking
an impracticable operation, viz., first to gather all the happiness of
mankind into one stock, and then to apportion it properly among indi-
viduals. I doubt, however, whether either Bentham or Mill conceived
the doctrine of utility as necessitating any such operation. The es-
sence and strength of the doctrine seem to me to be brought out by
Bentham's two negatives of it — asceticism and unreasoning sentiment;
to both of which Mr. Spencer is as much opposed as Bentham. The
positive expression — the greatest happiness of the greatest number — is
not itself happy, and was ultimately reduced by Bentham to the simple
expression, " greatest happiness," which in its convenient vagueness
seems to defy hostile criticism. How the greatest happiness of man-
kind is to be arrived at remains open for discussion. ■ There is a gen-
eral agreement at the present day that the best course is for each indi-
vidual to occupy a limited sphere without thinking of the universal
happiness. Mr. Spencer seems to me to be arguing for sevei*al pages
without an opponent. The expressions that he quotes from Bentham
and Mill need to be taken along with their whole system, which is, to
my mind, not so very far from Mr. Spencer's own. They would say
that society should confine itself to protecting each man and woman in
the pursuit of their own happiness in their own way. This is the text
of Mill's " Liberty." I admit that they are not able to prove beyond
dispute that the greatest happiness will be attained in this form ; but,
as far as the needful computation can be carried, they think it is in
favor of such an arrangement.

The discussion has, at all events, been brought to the point of stat-

2i6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ing that ethics is a regulated compromise between egoism and altruism.
What remains is to consider the possibility of an ultimate conciliation.
The position at present being that egoism is too strong or altruism too
weak, the conciliation must work by finding some means of strength-
ening the altruistic promptings. Mr. Spencer sees in the tendencies of
evolution a progress in this direction. In an interesting dissertation
on the sources of sympathy, he endeavors to point out that the faculty
admits of development in two ways, viz., the natural language or ex-
pression of the feelings, and the susceptibility to that expression as
witnessed. He expects such an increase in these two powers as to re-
I verse the predominance of egoism, and to make altruism the prevalent
fact of our constitution in minds generally, as it is at present in a few.
There will then be as much competition in rendering services as there
is at present in exacting them. Indeed, the difficulty will be to find
scope for the altruistic cravings. The spheres finally remaining will
be chiefly (1) family life, in which the care of children by parents and
of parents by children will be better fulfilled, (2) social welfare, in the
improvements of the social state, and (3) private relations, where the
casualties of life will always afford occasion for help to the sufferers.
" Far off as seems such a state, yet every one of the factors counted on
to produce it may already be traced in operation among those of high-
est natures. What now in them is occasional and feeble, may be ex-
pected with further evolution to become habitual and strong ; and
what now characterizes the exceptionally high may be expected event-
ually to characterize all. For that which the best human nature is
capable of is within the reach of human nature at large,"

In a chapter entitled " Absolute and Relative Ethics," Mr. Spencer
defines absolute ethics as formulating the normal conduct for an ideal
society, such as we shall have in the future, and relative ethics as the
science that interprets the phenomena of existing societies in their
transitional states, laboring under the miseries of non-adaptation.
The coexistence of a perfect man and imperfect society is impossible ;
and, could the two coexist, the resulting conduct would not furnish
the ethical standard sought. Among people that are treacherous and
without scruple, entire truthfulness and openness must bring ruin,
" Hence it is manifest that we must consider the ideal man as existing
in the ideal social state. On the evolution hypothesis, the two pre-
suppose one another ; and only when they coexist can there exist that
ideal conduct which absolute ethics has to formulate, and which
relative ethics has to take as the standard by which to estimate diver-
gences from right, or degrees of wrong."

The final chapter — " The Scope of Ethics " — is the summary and
outcome of the whole, and offers the easiest means of comparing the
author's point of view with the prevailing theories. The ethics of per-
sonal conduct is the best defined of all, from the requirements being
so largely affiliated upon physical necessities. If this ethics could be

BAIN ON THE DATA OF ETHICS.

217

made perfectly definite, it would necessarily go a far way toward set-
tling the social ethics, which is made up of individual interests, and
has for its function the balancing of each against the rest. The first
division of social ethics is Justice, which is the prime condition of co-
operation. The final division is Beneficence, negative and positive,
involving all those nice adjustments of egoism and altruism previously
commented on.

While there are many questions of great interest propounded for
debate in this highly original work, I must be content with adverting
to what I gather to be the author's main position — the displacing of
utilitarian calculation or empirical Hedonism by an ethics of evolution.
Not that the acceptance of the evolution hypothesis is an essential pre-
liminary ; if it were so, a great many people would at once refuse a
hearing to the whole speculation. The relationship of the physical
and mental, taken as a matter of fact, is in reality the chief corner-
stone of the whole ei-ection.

Mr. Sidgwick, after stating the difficulties attending an empirical
Hedonism, as a means of investigating right and wrong, examined the
various alternative methods " of determining what conduct will be
attended with the greatest excess of pleasure and pain, so as to dis-
pense with the continual reference to empirical results, which it has
been found so difficult to estimate with accuracy." In book ii., chap-
ter vi., of his " Methods of Ethics," he took up Mr. Spencer's views as
propounded in " Social Statics." To this chapter Mr. Spencer ex-
pressly replies in his " Criticisms and Explanations." The real reply,
however, is the entire volume. We must peruse and assimilate the
whole, before giving an opinion on the question as between evolution
and empirical Hedonism. I had occasion to remark, in noticing Mr.
Sidgwick's work ("Mind," vol. i., p. 185), that the Hedonic or utilita-
rian calculation admits of being helped out by a variety of devices
such as to mitigate the apparent hopelessness of the problem. Every
suggestion of this nature should be welcomed and made the most of.
Now Mr. Spencer recasts the mode of propounding the problem, with-
out altering its essential character as an inquiry into the best means of
attaining happiness. But he does more than this. He provides cer-
tain new lights that were not possessed by the earliest theorists on the
side of utility.

The comparison Avith empirical Hedonism is best taken in the per-
sonal ethics. It is admitted that a code of personal conduct can never
be made entirely definite. " But ethical requirements may here be to
such extent affiliated upon physical necessities as to give them a par-
tially scientific authority. It is clear that between the expenditure of
bodily substance in vital activities, and the taking in of materials
from which this substance may be renewed, there is a direct relation.
It is clear, too, that there is a direct relation between the wasting of

21 8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tissue by effort, and the need for those cessations of effort during which
repair may overtake waste. Nor is it less clear that between the rate
of mortality and the rate of multiplication in any society, there is a
relation such that the last must reach a certain level before it can bal-
ance the first, and prevent disappearance of the society. And it may
be inferred that pursuits of other leading ends are, in like manner, de-
termined by certain natural necessities, and from these derive their
ethical sanctions. That it will ever be practicable to lay down i^recise
rules for private conduct in conformity with such requirements, may
be doubted. But the function of absolute ethics in relation to private
conduct will have been discharged, when it has produced the warrant
for its requirements as generally expressed ; when it has shown the
imperativeness of obedience to them ; and when it has thus taught the
need for deliberately considering whether the conduct fulfills them as
well as may be,"

Mr. Spencer's great advantage, then, consists in the jirimary and
constant reference to the physical side of our being. For a very large
part of our happiness, physical tests may be assigned ; and the prob-
lem is transferred fi'om the purely subjective estimates, which are
so vague, to objective conditions which are comjDaratively well de-
fined— from the inward and spiritual grace to the outward and visible
symbol. The author's antagonism is not toward the utilitarians as such,
but toward the almost universal disregard of physical conditions by our
forefathers. He is not the first to call attention to this great desid-
eratum ; but he makes a more thorough and systematic employment
of it for the ends of happiness. Lord Shaftesbury said long ago that
there were among us human creatures in such vile physical conditions
that even religion was not possible to them. It would not be difficult
to assign the lowest pitch of worldly means compatible with the fair
requirements of a human being. The settlement of this point pre-
cedes all computations of pleasures and pains ; or rather it is a short
cut to the goal. The utilitarian has more or less enjoyed the advan-
tage, without being so fully aware of it as he might be ; for he has
not scrupled to use worldly abundance as a first rough test of well-
being ; and, if the test were only rigorous and thorough, there would
be nothing perplexing in the Hedonistic calculation ; it would be as
simple as common arithmetic. Personal ethics would be. Make a suf-
ficient amount of money : social ethics. Do not defraud any one, and
be ready, on suitable opportunity, to help those that are in need. The
Hedonistic difficulties begin where money gained and expended is not
commensurate with happiness. Moralists in all ages (Aristotle per-
haps excepted) have delighted to dwell upon the occasions where the
two things are incommensurable. A better consideration of the hu-
man organism, supplying a better knowledge of physical conditions,
explains many of the exceptions, and helps to reinstate the problem on
a definite basis.

PALEONTOLOGICAL DISCOVERY. 219

The best way to compare the two methods would be to try them
upon some of the contested questions of life and society. Mr. Spencer
incidentally overhauls a good many of the commonplace usages and
views, and rectifies them upon his principles. He shows the absurdity
of men living and woi'king all for the future, and depriving themselves
of nearly every present indulgence. He earnestly inculcates the neces-
sity of counting the present loss in the estimate of the future gain.
This, it might be said, is merely empirical Hedonism. So it is, with
this addition, that loss of pleasure is loss of vitality ; the question of
pleasure and pain being now resolvable into the question. To be or not
to be ? Of course, such a sweeping doctrine is to be held with certain
qualifications and exceptions ; and the point is. Can these qualifica-
tions be rendered definite ? A rule with well-defined exceptions is
practically universal.

Without assuming that Mr. Spencer has propounded a new doc-
trine, the antithesis of the doctrine of utility, he may claim to have
put forward a new point of view, in the working out of the doctrine ;
a point of view that does not admit of being reargued until it has been
tried. "Who shall say what amount of gradual transformation of ethi-
cal conceptions will follow from steadily regarding conduct under the
lights that he has afforded ? He will be a bold man that can treat the
regard to the physical organism, its capacities and developments, as of
no importance in the Hedonic computation ; and, if it is of importance,
Mr, Spencer shows the way to turn it to account.

The bright future of complete accommodation of man to his cir-
cumstances, brought about by evolution, is cheerful to contemplate ;
and, if it be a work of imagination, it is at least based on science.
The socialism that Mill would work out by a long course of education
is clinched, according to Mr. Spencer, by inherited modifications and
material suarantees. Our fervent wishes are with both. — 3find.

HISTORY AND METHODS OF PALEOXTOLOGICAL
DISCOYEEY.*

By Professor 0. C. MAESH.

I.

IN the rapid progress of knowledge, we are constantly brought face
to face with the question, What is life ? The answer is not yet,
but a thousand earnest seekers after truth seem to be slowly approach-
ing a solution. This question gives a new interest to every department
of science that relates to life in any form, and the history of life offers
* President's address delivered before the American Association for the Advance-
ment of Science, at Saratoga, Xew Yorlv, August 28, 18'79.

2 20 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

a most suggestive field for research. One line of investigation lies
through embryology, and here the advance is most encouraging. An-
other promising path leads back through the life-history of the globe,
and in this direction we may hope for increasing light, as a reward for
patient work.

The plants and animals now living on the earth interest alike the
savage and the savant, and hence have been carefully observed in every
age of human history. The life of the remote past, however, is pre-
served only in scanty records, bui'ied in the earth, and therefore readily
escapes attention. For these reasons, the study of ancient life is one
of the latest of modern sciences, and among the most difficult. In
view of the great advances which this dej^artment of knowledge has
made within the last decade, especially in this country, I have thought
it fitting to the present occasion to review briefly its development, and
have chosen for my subject this evening " The History and Methods
of Paleontological Discovery."

In the short time now at my command, I can only attempt to pre-
sent a rapid sketch of the principal steps in the progress of this science.
The literature of the subject, especially in connection with the discus-
sions it provoked, is voluminous, and an outline of the history itself
must suffice for my present purpose.

In looking over the records of paleontology, its history may con-
veniently be divided into four periods, well marked by prominent
features, but, like all stages of intellectual growth, without definite
boundaries.

The first period, dating back to the time when men first noticed
fossil remains in the rocks, and queried as to their nature, is of special
historic interest. The most prominent characteristic of this period
was, a long and bitter contest as to the nature of fossil remains.
Were they mere " sports of Nature," or had they once been endowed
with life ? Simple as this problem now seems, centuries passed before
the wise men of that time were agreed upon its solution.

Sea-shells in the solid rock on the tops of mountains early attracted
the attention of the ancients, and the learned men among them seem
to have appreciated in some instances their true character, and given
rational explanations of their presence.

The philosopher Zenophanes, of Colophon, who lived about 500
B. c, mentions the remains of fishes and other animals in the stone-
quarries near Syracuse, the impression of an anchovy in the rock of
Paros, and various mai-ine fossils at other places. His conclusion from
these facts was, that the surface of the earth had once been in a soft
condition at the bottom of the sea ; and thus the objects mentioned
were entombed. Herodotus, half a century later, speaks of marine
shells on the hills of Egypt and over the Libyan Desert, and he in-

PALEONTOLOGICAL DISCOVERY. 221

ferred therefrom that the sea had once covered that whole region.
Empedocles, of Agrigentum (450 b. c), believed that the many hip-
popotamus-bones found in Sicily were remains of human giants, in
comparison with which the present race were as children. Here, he
thought, was a battle-iield between the gods and the Titans, and the
bones belonged to the slain. Pythagoras (582 b. c.) had already an-
ticipated one conclusion of modern geology, if the following statement,
attributed to him by Ovid, was his own : *

" Vidi ego quod fuerat solidissima tellus,
Esse fretum : vidi factas ex sequore terras ;
Et procul a pelago conchoB jacuere marina3."

Aristotle (384-322 b. c.) was not only aware of the existence of
fossils in the rocks, but has also placed on record sagacious views as to
the changes in the earth's surface necessary to account for them. In
the second book of his " Meteorics," he says : " The changes of the
earth are so slow in comparison to the duration of our lives, that they
are overlooked ; and the migrations of people after great catastrophes
and their removal to other regions, cause the event to be forgotten."
Again, in the same work, he says : " As time never fails, and the uni-
verse is eternal, neither the Tanais nor the Nile can have flowed for
ever. The places where they rise were once dry, and there is a limit
to their operations : but there is none to time. So of all other rivers ;
they spring up, and they perish ; and the sea also continually deserts
some lands and invades others. The same tracts, therefore, of the
earth are not, some always sea, and others always continents, but
everything changes in the course of time."

Aristotle's views on the subject of spontaneous generation were less
sound, and his doctrines on this subject exerted a powerful influence
for the succeeding twenty centuries. In the long discussion that fol-
lowed concerning the nature of fossil remains, Aristotle's views were
paramount. He believed that animals could originate from moist
earth or the slime of rivers, and this seemed to the people of that
period a much simpler way of accounting for the remains of animals
in the rocks than the marvelous changes of sea and land otherwise re-
quired to explain their presence. Aristotle's opinion was in accordance
with the Biblical account of the creation of man out of the dust of the
earth, and hence more readily obtained credence.

Theophrastus, a pupil of Aristotle, alludes to fossil fishes found
near Heraclea, in Pontus, and in Paphlagonia, and says, " They were
either developed from fish-spawn left behind in the earth, or gone
astray from rivers or the sea into cavities of the earth, where they had
become petrified." In treating of fossil ivory and bones, the same
writer supposed them to be produced by a certain plastic virtue latent

* " Metamorphoses," liber xv., 262.

222 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

in the earth. To this same cause, as we shall see, many later authors
attributed the origin of all fossil remains.

Previous to this, Anaximander, the Miletian philosopher, who was
born about 610 years before Christ, had expressed essentially the same
view. According to both Plutarch and Censorinus, Anaximander
taught that fishes, or animals very like fishes, sprang from heated
water and earth, and from these animals came the human race ; a
statement which can hardly be considered as anticipating the modern
idea of evolution, as some authors have imagined.

The Romans added but little to the knowledge possessed by the
Greeks in regard to fossil remains. Pliny (23-79 a. d.), however,
seems to have examined such objects with interest, and in his renowned
work on natural history gave names to several forms. He doubtless
borrowed largely from Theophrastus, who wrote about three hundred
years before. Among the objects named by Pliny were : ^^Bucardia,
like to an ox's heart " ; "Brontia, resembling the head of a tortoise,
supposed to fall in thunderstorms " ; " Glossoptra, similar to a human
tongue, which does not grow in the earth, but falls from heaven while
the moon is eclipsed"; "the Horn of Amnion, possessing, with a
golden color, the figure of a ram's horn"; '■'■Ceraunia and Omhria,
supposed to be thunderbolts " ; " Ostracites, resembling the oyster-
shell" ; '^Spongites, having the form of sponge"; '•'■Phy cites, similar
to sea-weed or rushes." He also mentions stones resembling the teeth
of hippopotamus ; and says that Theophrastus speaks of fossil ivory,
both black and white, of bones born in the earth, and of stone.s bearing
the figure of bones.

Tertullian (160 a. d.) mentions instances of the remains of sea-
animals on the mountains, far from the sea, but uses them as a proof
of the general deluge recorded in Scripture.

During the next thirteen or fourteen centuries, fossil remains of
animals and plants seem to have attracted so little attention, that
few references are made to them by the writers of this period. Dur-
ing these ages of darkness, all departments of knowledge suffered
alike, and feeble repetitions of ideas derived from the ancients seem
to have been about the only contributions of that period to natural
science.

Albert the Great (1205-80 a. d.), the most learned man of his time,
mentions that a branch of a tree was found, on which was a bird's
nest containing birds, the whole being solid stone. He accounted for
this strange phenomenon by the vlsformativa of Aristotle, an occult
force, which, according to the prevalent notions of the time, was ca-
pable of forming most of the exti-aordinary objects discovered in the
earth.

Alexander ab Alexandro, of Xaples, states that he saw, in the

PALEOXTOLOGICAL DISCOVERY. 223

mountains of Calabria, a considerable distance from the sea, a varie-
gated hard marble, in which many sea-shells but little changed were
heaped, forming one mass with the marble.

With the beginning of the sixteenth century, a great impetus was
given to the investigation of organic fossils, especially in Italy, where
this study really began. The discovery of fossil shells, Avhich abound
in this region, now attracted gi'eat attention, and a fierce discussion soon
arose as to the true nature of these and other remains. The ideas of
Aristotle in regard to spontaneous generation, and especially his view
of the hidden forces of the earth, which he claimed had power to pro-
duce such remains, now for the first time were seriously questioned,
although it was not till nearly two centuries later that these doctrines
lost their dominant influence.

Leonardo da Vinci, the renowned painter and philosopher, who was
born in 1452, strongly opposed the commonly accepted opinions as to
the origin of organized fossils. He claimed that the fossil shells under
discussion were what they seemed, and had once lived at the bottom
of the sea. " You tell me," he says, " that Xature and the influence of
the stars have formed these shells in the mountains ; then show me a
place in the mountains where the stars at the present day make shelly
forms of different ages, and of different species in the same place."
Again, he says, " In what manner can such a cause account for the
petrifactions in the same place of various leaves, sea- weeds, and marine
crabs?"

In 1517, excavations in the vicinity of Verona brought to light
many curious petrifactions, which led to much speculation as to their
nature and origin. Among tlie various authors who wrote on this sub-
ject was Fracastoro, who declared that the fossils once belonged to liv-
ing animals, which had lived and multiplied where found. He ridi-
culed the prevailing ideas that the plastic force of the ancients could
fashion stones into organic forms. Some writers claimed that these
shells had been left by Noah's flood, but against this idea Fracastoro
offered a mass of evidence, which would now seem conclusive, but
which then only aroused bitter hostility. That inundation, he said,
was too transient ; it consisted mainly of fresh water ; and, if it had
transported shells to great distances, must have scattered them over
the surface, not buried them in the interior of mountains.

Conrad Gesner (151G-'65), whose history of animals has been con-
sidered the basis of modern zoology, published at Zurich, in 15G5, a
small but important work entitled " De omni rerum fossilium genere."
It contained a catalogue of the collection of fossils made by John
Kentmann. This is the oldest catalogue of fossils with which I am
acquainted.

George Agricola (1494-1555) was, according to Cuvier, the first
minei-alogist who appeared after the revival of learning in Europe.

224 "^HE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

In his great work, " De Re Metallica," published in 1546, he mentions
various fossil remains, and says they were produced by a certain ^^ ma-
teria /»^V^^^^^5," or fatty matter, set in fermentation by heat. Some
years later, Bauhin published a descriptive catalogue of the fossils he
had collected in the neighborhood of Boll, in Wurtemberg.*

Andrew Mattioli, a distinguished botanist, adopted Agricola's no-
tion as to the origin of organized fossils, but admitted that shells and
bones might be turned into stone by being permeated by a " lapidify-
ing juice." Falloppio, the eminent professor of anatomy at Padua,
believed that fossil shells were generated by fermentation where they
were found ; and that the tusks of elephants, dug up near Apulia,
were merely earthy concretions. Mercati, in 1574, published figures
of the fossil shells preserved in the Museum of the Vatican, but ex-
pressed the opinion that they were only stones, and owed their peculiar
shapes to the heavenly bodies. Olivi, of Cremona, described the fossils
in the Museum at Verona, and considered them all " sports" of nature."

Palissy, a French author, in 1580, opposed these views, and is said
to have been the first to assert in Paris that fossil shells and fishes had
once belonged to marine animals. Fabio Colonna aj^pears to have first
pointed out that some of the fossil shells found in Italy were marine
and some terrestrial.

Another peculiar theory discussed in the sixteenth century deserves
mention. This was the vegetation theory, especially advocated by
Tournefort and Camerarius, both eminent as botanists. These writers
believed that the seeds of minerals and fossils were diffused through-
out the sea and the earth, and were developed into their peculiar forms
by the regular increment of their particles, similar to the formation
of crystals. "How could the Gormt Ammonis^'' Tournefort asked,
" which is constantly in the figure of a volute, be formed without a
seed containing the same structure in the small as in the larger forms ?
Who molded it so artfullj^, and where are the molds ? " The stalac-
tites which formed in caverns in various parts of tlie world were also
supposed to be proofs of this vegetative growth.

Still another theory has been held at various times, and is not yet
entirely forgotten, namely : that the Creator made fossil animals and
plants just as they are found in the rocks, in pursuance of a plan be-
yond our comprehension. This theory has never prevailed among
those familiar with scientific facts, and hence needs here no further
consideration.

An interest in fossil remains arose in England later than on the
Continent; but when attention was directed to them, the first opinions
as to their origin were not less fanciful and erroneous than those to
which we have already referred. Dr. Plot, in his " Natural History
of Oxfordshire," published in 1G77, considered the origin of fossil

* " Historia novi et admirabilis Fontis Balneique BoUensis, in Ducatu Wirtembergico."
Montbeliard, 1508.

PALEONTOLOGICAL DISCO VERY,

225

shells and fishes to be due to a " i)lastic virtue, latent in the earth," as
Theophrastus had suggested long before. Lhwyd, in his " Lithophy-
lacii Britannici Ichnographia," published in Oxford in 1699, gives a
catalogue of English fossils contained in the Ashmolean Museum. He
opposed the vis plastica theory, and expressed the opinion that the
spawn of fishes and other marine animals had been raised with the va-
pors from the sea, conveyed inland by clouds, and deposited by rain,
had permeated into the interior of the earth, and thus produced the
fossil remains we find in the rocks. About this time several impor-
tant works were published in England by Dr. Martin Lister, which
did much to diffuse a true knowledge of fossil remains. He gave fig-
ures of recent shells side by side with some of the fossil forms, so that
the resemblance became at once apparent. The fossil species of shells
he called " turbinated and bivalve stones," and adds, " either these
were terriginous, or, if otherwise, the animals which they so exactly
represent have become extinct."

During the seventeenth century there was a considerable advance
in the study of fossil remains. The discussions in regard to the nature
and origin of these objects had called attention to them, and many
collections were now made, especially in Italy, and also in Germany,
where a strong interest in this subject had been aroused. Catalogues
of these collections were not unfrequently published, and some of
them were illustrated with such accurate figures, that many of the
species can now be readily recognized. In this century, too, an im-
portant step in advance was made by the collection and description of
fossils from particular localities and regions, in distinction from gen-
eral collections of curiosities.

Casper Schwenkfeld, in IGOO, published a catalogue of the fossils
discovered in Silesia ; in 1G22 a detailed description of the renowned
Museum of Calceolarius, of Verona, appeared; and in 1642 a catalogue
of Besler's collection. Wormius's catalogue was published in 1652,
Spener's in 1663, and Septala's in 1666. A description of the Muse-
um of the King of Denmark was issued in 1669, Cottorp's catalogue
in 1674, and that of the renowned Kirscher in 1678. Dr. Grew gave
an account in 1687 of the specimens in the Museum of Gresham's Col-
lege in England ; and in 1695 Petiver, of London, published a cata-
logue of his very extensive collection. A catalogue by Fred. Lauch-
mund, on the fossils of Hildesheim, appeared in 1669, and the fos-
sils of Switzerland were described by John Jacob Wagner in 1689.
Among similar works were the dissertations of Gyer, at Frankfort,
and Albertus, at Leipsic.

Steno, a Dane, who had been Professor of Anatomy at Padua,
published in 1669 one of the most important works of this period.*
He entered earnestly into the controversy as to the origin of fossil re-

* " De solido intra solidum naturaliter contento."
VOL. XTI. — 15

226 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

mains, and by dissecting a shark from the Mediterranean, proved that
its teeth were identical with some found fossil in Tuscany. He also
compared the fossil shells found in Italy with existing species, and
pointed out their resemblance. In the same work, Steno expressed
some very important views in regard to the different kinds of strata,
and their origin, and first placed on record the important fact that the
oldest rocks contain no fossils.

Scilla, the Sicilian painter, published in 1670 a work on the fossils
of Calabria, well illustrated. Pie is very severe against those who
doubted the organic origin of fossils, but is inclined to consider them
relics of the Mosaic deluge.

Another instance of the power of the lusus naturcB theory, even at
the close of the seventeenth century, deserves mention. In the year
1696 the skeleton of a fossil elephant was dug up at Tonna, near
Gotha, in Germany, and was described by William Ernest Tentzel, a
teacher in the Gotha Gymnasium. He declared the bones to be the
remains of an animal that had lived long before. The medical facul-
ty in Gotha, however, considered the subject, and decided oificially
that this specimen was only a freak of Nature.

Besides the authors I have mentioned, there were many others who
wrote about fossil remains before the close of the seventeenth century,
and took part in the general discussion as to their nature and origin.
During the progress of this controversy the most fantastic theories
were broached and stoutly defended, and, although refuted from time
to time by a few clear-headed men, continually sprang up anew, in the
same or modified forms. The influence of Aristotle's views of equiv-
ocal generation, and especially the scholastic tendency to disputation,
so prevalent during the middle ages, had contributed largely to the
retardation of progress, and yet a real advance in knowledge had been
made. The long contest in regard to the nature of fossil remains was
essentially over, for the more intelligent opinion at the time now ac-
knowledged that these objects were not mere " sports of Nature," but
had once been endowed with life. At this point, therefore, the first
period in the history of paleontology, as I have indicated it, may ap-
propriately end.

It is true that, later still, the old exploded errors about the plastic
force and fermentation were from time to time revived, as they have
been almost to the present day ; but learned men, with few excep-
tions, no longer seriously questioned that fossils were real organisms,
as the ancients had once believed. The many collections of fossils
that had been brought together, and the illustrated works that had
been published about them, were a foundation for greater progress,
and, with the eighteenth century, the second period in the history of
paleontology began.

The main characteristic of this period was the general belief that

PALEONTOLOGICAL DISCOVERY, 227

fossil remains xoere deposited hy the Mosaic deluge. We have seen
that this view had already been advanced, but it was not till the
beginning of the eighteenth century that it became the prevailing
view. This doctrine was strongly opposed by some courageous men,
and the discussion on the subject soon became even more bitter than
the previous one, as to the nature of fossils.

In this diluvial discussion theologians and laymen alike took part.
For nearly a century the former had it all their own way, for the gen-
eral public, then as now, believed what they were taught. Noah's
flood was thought to have been universal, and was the only general
catastrophe of which the people of that day had any knoAvledge or
conception.

The scholars among them were of course familiar with the accounts
of Deucalion and his ark, in a previous deluge, as we are to-day with
similar traditions held by various races of men. The firm belief that
the earth and all it contains was created in six days ; that all life on the
globe was destroyed by the deluge, except alone what Noah saved ;
and that the earth and its inhabitants were to be destroyed by fire,
was the foundation on which all knowledge of the earth was based.
With such fixed opinions, the fossil remains of animals and plants
were naturally regarded as relics left by the flood described in
Holy Writ. The dominant nature of this belief is seen in nearly
all the literature in regard to fossils published at this time, and some
of the works which then appeared have become famous on this
account.

In 1710 David Biittner published a volume entitled " Rudera Dilu-
vii Testes." He strongly opposed Lhwyd's explanation of the origin
of fossils, and referred these objects directly to the flood. The most
renowned work, however, of this time, was published at Zurich in
1726, by Scheuchzer, a physician and naturalist, and professor in the
University of Altorf. It bore the title " Homo Diluvii Testis." The
specimen upon which this work was based was found at Oeningen, and
was regarded as the skeleton of a child destroyed by the deluge. The
aiTthor recognized in this remarkable fossil, not merely the skeleton,
but also portions of the muscles, the liver, and the brain. The same
author was fortunate enough to discover, subsequently, near Altorf,
two fossil vertebrae, which he at once referred to that " accursed race
destroyed by the flood ! " These, also, he carefully described and
figured in his " Physica Sacra," published at Ulm in 1731. Engravings
of both were subsequently given in the " Copper-Bible." Cuvier after-
ward examined these interesting relics, and pronounced the skeleton
of the supposed child to be the remains of a gigantic salamander, and
the two vertebras to be those of an ichthyosaurus !

Another famous book appeared in Germany in the same year in
which Scheuchzer's first volume was published. The author was John
Bartholomew Adam Beringer, professor at the University of Wurz-

228 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

burg, and his great work* indirectly had an important influence upon
the investigation of fossil remains. The history of the work is instruc-
tive, if only as an indication of the state of knowledge at that date.
Professor Beringer, in accordance with views of his time, had taught
his pupils that fossil remains, or " figured stones," as they were called,
were mere " sports of Nature." Some of hig fun-loving students rea-
soned among themselves, " If Nature can make figured stones in sport,
why can not we ? " Accordingly, from the soft limestone in the neigh-
boring hills, they carved out figures of marvelous and fantastic forms,
and buried them at the localities where the learned Professor was
accustomed to dig for his fossil treasures. His delight at the discovery
of these strange forms encouraged further production, and taxed the
ingenuity of these youthful imitators of Nature's secret processes. At
last Beringer had a large and unique collection of forms, new to him
and to science, which he determined to publish to the world. After
long and patient study his work appeared, in Latin, dedicated to the
reigning prince of the country, and illustrated with twenty-one folio
plates. Soon after the book was published the deception practiced
upon the credulous Professor became known ; and, in place of the
glory he expected from his great undertaking, he received only ridicule
and disgrace. He at once endeavored to repurchase and destroy the
volumes ah-eady issued, and succeeded so far that few copies of the first
edition remain. His small fortune, which had been seriously impaired
in bringing out his grand work, was exhausted in the effort to regain
what was already issued, as the price rapidly advanced in proportion
as fewer copies remained ; and, mortified at the failure of his life's
work, he died in poverty. It is said that some of his family, dissatis-
fied with the misfortune brought upon them by this disgrace and the
loss of their patrimony, used a remaining copy for the j^roduction of a
second edition, which met with a large sale, suflicient to repair the
previous loss and restore the family fortune. This work of Beringer,
in the end, exerted an excellent influence upon the dawning science of
fossil remains. Observers became more cautious in announcing sup-
posed discoveries, and careful study of natural objects gradually re-
placed vague hypotheses.

The above works, however, are hardly fair examples of the litera-
ture on fossils during this part of the eighteenth century. Scheuchzer
had previously published his well-known " Complaint and Vindication
of the Fishes," illustrated with good plates. Moro, in his work on
" Marine Bodies which are found in the Mountains," 1740, showed the
effects of volcanic action in elevating strata, and causing faults. Val-
lisneri had studied with care the marine deposits of Italy. Donati,
in 1750, had investigated the Adriatic, and ascertained by soundings

* "Lithographia^Virceburgensis, ducentis lapidum figuratorum, a potiori, insectifor-
mium, prodigiosis imaginibus exornata." Wirceburgi, 1726. Edit. II. Fraiicofurti et

1767.

PALEONTOLOGICAL DISCOVERY. 229

that shells and corals were being imbedded in the deposits there, just
as they were found in the rocks.

John Gesner's dissertation, " De Petrificatis," published at Leyden
in 1758, was a valuable contribution to the science. He enumerated
the various kinds of fossils, and the different conditions in which they
are found petrified, and stated that some of them, like those at Oenin-
gen, resembled the shells, fishes, and plants of the neighboring region,
while others, such as Ammonites and Belemnites, were either unknown
species, or those found only in distant seas. He discusses the struc-
ture of the earth at length, and speculates as to the causes of changes
in sea and land. He estimates that, at the observed rate of recession
of the ocean, to allow the Apennines, whose summits are filled with
marine shells, to reach their present height, would have taken about
eighty thousand years, a period more than " ten times greater than the
age of the universe." He accordingly refers the change to the direct
command of the Deity, as related by Moses, that " the waters should
be gathered together in one place, and the dry land appear."

Voltaire (1694-1778) discussed geological questions and the nature
of fossils in several of his works, but his published opinions are far
from consistent. He ridiculed effectively and justly the cosmogonists
of his day, and showed also that he knew the true nature of organic
remains. Finding, however, that theologians used these objects to
confirm the Scriptural account of the deluge, he changed his views,
and accounted for fossil shells found in the Alps by suggesting that
they were Eastern species, dropped by the pilgrims on their return
from the Holy Land !

Buffon, in 1749, published his important work on natural history,
and included in it his " Theory of the Earth," in which he discussed,
with much ability, many points in geology. Soon after the book was
published, he received an official letter from the Faculty of Theology
in Paris, stating that fourteen propositions in his works were repre-
hensible, and contrary to the creed of the Church. The first objection-
able proposition was as follows : " The waters of the sea have pro-
duced the mountains and valleys of the land ; the waters of the
heavens, reducing all to a level, will at last deliver the whole land over
to the sea ; and the sea, successively prevailing over the land, will leave
dry new continents like those we inhabit."

Buffon was politely requested by the college to recant, and, having
no particular desire to be a martyr to science, submitted the following
declaration, which he was required to publish in his next work : " I
declare that I had no intention to contradict the text of Scripture ;
that I believe most firmly all therein related about the creation, both
as to order of time and matter of fact ; and I abandon everything in
my book respecting the formation of the earth, and, generally, all
which may be contrary to the narration of Moses."

This single instance will suffice to indicate one great obstacle to

230 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the advancement of science, even up to the middle of the eighteenth
century.

Another important work appeared in France about this time, Bour-
guet's "Traite des Petrifactions," published in 1758, which is well
illustrated with faithful plates. In England, a discourse on earth-
quakes, by Dr. Robert Hooke, was published in 1705. This author
held some views in advance of his time, and maintained that figured
stones were " really the several bodies they represent or the moldings
of them petrified, and not, as some have imagined, a lusus naturae,
sporting herself in the needless formation of useless things." He an-
ticipates one important conclusion from fossils, Avhen he states that
" though it must be very difficult to read them and to raise a chronol-
ogy out of them, and to state the intervals of time wherein such or
such catastrophes and mutations have happened, yet it is not impos-
sible." He also states that fossil turtles, and such large Ammonites
as are found in Portland, seem to have been the productions of hotter
countries, and hence it is necessary to suppose that England once lay
under the sea within the torrid zone. He seems to have suspected
that some of the fossils of England belonged to extinct species, but
thought they might possibly bo found living in the bottom of distant
oceans.

Dr. Woodward's "Natural History of the Fossils of England"
appeared in 1729. This work was based on a systematic collection of
fossils which he had brought together, and which he subsequently
bequeathed to the University of Cambridge, where it is still preserved,
with his arrangement carefully retained. The descriptive part of this
work is interesting, but his conclusions are made to coincide strictly
with the Scriptural account of the creation and deluge. He had pre-
viously stated, in another work, that he believed " the whole terres-
trial globe to have been taken to pieces and dissolved at the flood, and
the strata to have settled down from this promiscuous mass." In sup-
port of this view, he stated that "marine bodies are lodged in the
strata according to the order of their gravity, the heavier shells in
stones, the lighter in chalk, and so of the rest." *

The most important work on fossils published in Germany at this
time was that of George Wolfgang Knorr, which was continued after
his death by Walch. This work consisted of four folio volumes, with
many plates, and was printed at Nuremberg, 1755-'73. A large num-
ber of fossils were accurately figured and described, and the work is
one of permanent value.f A French translation of this work appeared
in 1767-'78. Burton's " Oryctographie de Bruxelles," 1784, contains
figures and descriptions of fossils found in Belgium.

Abraham Gottlieb Werner (1750-1817), Professor of Mineralogy

* " Essay toward a Natural History of the Earth," 1695.

f " Lapides ex celeberr. viror. sententia diluvii universalis testes, quos in ordines ac
species distribuit, suis coloribus expremit," etc. 272 Tab. 1755-"73.

PALEONTOLOGICAL DISCOVERY. 231

at Freyberg, did much to advance the science of geology, and indi-
rectly that of fossils. He first indicated the relations of the main
formations to each other, and, according to his pupil, Professor Jame-
son, first made the highly important observation that " different for-
mations can be discriminated by the petrifactions they contain."
Moreover, that " the petrifactions contained in the oldest rocks are very
different from any of the species of the present time ; that the newer
the formation, the more do the remains approach in form to the or-
ganic beings of the present creation." Unfortunately, Werner pub-
lished little, and his doctrines were mainly disseminated by his enthu-
siastic pupils.

The great contest between the Vulcanists and the Neptunists started
at this time, mainly through Werner, whose doctrines led to the con-
troversy. The comparative merits of fire and water, as agencies in
the formation of certain rocks, were discussed wath a heat and acri-
mony characteristic of the subject and the time. Werner believed in
the aqueous theory, while the igneous theory was especially advocated
by Hutton, of Edinburgh, and his illustrator, Playfair. This discus-
sion resulted in the advancement of descriptive geology, but the study
of fossils gained little thereby.

The "Protogrea" of Leibnitz, the great mathematician, published
in 1749, about thirty years after his death, was a work of much merit.
This author supposed that the earth had gradually cooled from a state
of igneous fusion, and was subsequently covered with water. The
subsidence of the lower part of the earth, the deposits of sedimentary
strata from inundations, and their inturati^, as well as other changes,
followed. All this he supposed to have been accomplished in a period
of six natural days. In the same work Leibnitz shows that he had
examined fossils with considerable care.

Linnaeus (1707-1778), the famous Swedish botanist, and the founder
of the modern system of nomenclature in natural history, confined his
attention almost entirely to the living forms. Although he was fa-
miliar with the literature of fossil remains, and had collected them
himself, he did not include them in his system of plants and animals,
but kept them separate, with the minerals ; hence he did little directly
to advance this branch of science.

During the last quarter of the eighteenth century, the belief that
fossil remains were deposited by the deluge sensibly declined, and the
dawn of a new era gradually appeared. Let us pause for a moment
here, and see what real progress had been made — what foundation had
been laid on which to estoblish a science of fossil remains.

The true nature of these objects had now been clearly determined.
They were the remains of animals and plants. Most of them certainly
were not the relics of the Mosaic deluge, but had been deposited long
before, part in fresh water and part in the sea. Some indicated a mild

232 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

climate, and some the tropics. That any of these were extinct species
was as yet only suspected. Large collections of fossils had now been
made, and valuable catalogues, well illustrated, had been published.
Something was known, too, of the geological position of fossils.
Steno, long before, had observed that the lowest rocks were without
life. Lehmann had shown that above these primitive rocks, and de-
rived from them, were the secondary strata, full of the records of life ;
and above these were alluvial deposits, which he referred to local
floods, and the deluge of Noah. Rouelle, Fuchsel, and Odoardi had
shed ncAV light on this subject. Werner had distinguished the tran-
sition rocks containing fossil remains, between the primitive and the
secondary, while everything above the chalk he grouped together, as
the " overflowed land." Werner, as we have seen, had done more than
this, if we give him the credit his pupils claim for him. He had found
that the formations he examined contained each its own peculiar fos-
sils, and that from the older to the newer there was a gradual approach
to recent forms. William Smith had worked out the same thing in
England, and should equally divide the honor of this important dis-
covery.

The greatest advance, however, up to this time, was that men now
preferred to observe rather than to believe, and facts were held in
greater esteem than vague speculations. With this preparation for
future progress, the second period in the history of paleontology, as
I have divided it, may appropriately be considered at an end.

Thus far, I have said nothing in regard to one branch of my sub-
ject, the methods of paleontological research, for, up to this time, of
method there was none. We have seen that those of the ancients who
noticed marine shells in the solid rock called them such, and concluded
that they had been left there by the sea. The discoveiy of fossils
led directly to theories of how the earth was formed. Here the prog-
ress was slow. Subterranean spirits were supposed to guard faithfully
the mysteries of the eai-th ; while above the earth, Authority guarded
with still greater power the secrets men in advance of their age sought
to know. The dominant idea of the first sixteen centuries of the pres-
ent era was, that the universe was made for man. This was the great
obstacle to the correct determination of the position of the earth in
the universe, and, later, of the age of the earth. The contest of as-
tronomy against authority was long and severe, but the victory was
at last with science. The contest of geology against the same power
followed, and continued almost to our day. The result is still the
same. In the early stages of this contest there was no strife, for
science was benumbed by the embrace of superstition and creed, and
little could be done till that was cast off. In a superstitious age, when
every natural event is referred to a supernatural cause, science can not
live ; and often as the sacred fire may be kindled by courageous, far-see-

PALEONTOLOGICAL DISCOVERY. 233

ing souls, will it be quenched by the dense mists of ignorance around
it. Scarcely less fatal to the growth of science is the age of Author-
ity, as the past proves too well. With freedom of thought came
definite knowledge and certain progress ; but two thousand years was
long to wait.

With the opening of the present century began a new era in pale-
ontology, which we may here distinguish as the third period in its his-
tory. This branch of knowledge became now a science. Method re-
placed disorder, and systematic study superseded casual observation.
For the next half century the advance was continuous and rapid.
One characteristic of this period was, the accurate determination of
fossils by comparison with living forms. This will separate it from
the two former epochs. Another distinctive feature of this period
was the general belief that every species, recent and extinct, icas a
se2yarate creation.

At the very beginning of the epoch we are now to consider, three
names stand out in bold relief — Cuvier, Lamarck, and William Smith.
To these men the science of paleontology owes its origin. Cuvier
and Lamarck, in France, had all the power which great talent, educa-
tion, and station could give ; William Smith, an English surveyor,
was without culture or influence. The last years of the eighteenth
century had been spent by each of these men in preparation for his
chosen work, and the results were now given to the world. Cuvier laid
the foundation of the paleontology of vertebrate animals ; Lamarck,
of the invertebrates ; and Smith established the principles of strati-
graphical paleontology. The investigator of fossils to-day seldom needs
to consult earlier authors of the science.

George Cuvier (1769-1832), the most famous naturalist of his time,
was led to the study of extinct animals by ascertaining that the re-
mains of fossil elephants which he examined were extinct species.
"This idea," he says later, "which I announced to the Institute in
the month of January, 179G, opened to me views entirely new respect-
ing the theory of the earth, and determined me to devote myself to
the long researches and to the assiduous labors which have now occu-
pied me for twenty-five years." *

It is interesting to note here that in this first investigation of fossil
vertebrates, Cuvier employed the same method that gave him such
important results in his later researches. Remains of elephants had
been known to Europe for centuries, and many authors, from Pliny
down to the contemporaries of Cuvier, had written- about them. Some
had regarded the bones as those of human giants, and those who
recognized what they were considered them remains of the elephants
imported by Hannibal or the Romans. Cuvier, however, compared the
fossils directly with the bones of existing elephants, and proved them
* " Ossemens Fossiles," second edition, vol. i., p. 1V8.

234 ^^^ POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

to be distinct. The fact that these remains belong to extinct species
was of great importance. In the case of fossil shells, it was difficult
to say that any particular form was not living in a distant ocean ; but
the two species of existing elephants, the Indian and the African, were
well known, and there was hardly a possibility that another living one
would be found.

It is important to bear in mind, too, that Cuviei-'s preparation for
the study of the remains of animals was far in advance of any of his
predecessors. He had devoted himself for years to careful dissections
in the various classes of the animal kingdom, and was really the
founder of comparative anatomy, as we now understand it. Cuvier
investigated the different groups of the whole kingdom with care, and
proposed a new classification, founded on the plan of structure, which
in its main features is the one in use to-day. The first volume of his
"Comparative Anatomy" appeared in 1800, and the work was com-
pleted in five volumes in 1805.

Previous to Cuvier, the only general catalogue of animals was con-
tained in Linnaeus's " Systema Nature," In this work, as we have
seen, fossil remains were placed with the minerals, not in their appro-
priate places among the animals and plants. Cuvier enriched the ani-
mal kingdom by the introduction of fossil forms among the living,
bringing all together into one comprehensive system. His great work,
" Le Regne Animal," appeared in four volumes in 1817, and with its
two subsequent editions remains the foundation of modern zoology,
Cuvier's classic work on vertebrate fossils — " Recherches sur les Osse-
mens Fossiles," in four volumes, appeared in 1812-'13. Of this work
it is but just to say that it could only have been written by a man of
genius, profound knowledge, the greatest industry, and with the most
favorable opportunities.

The introduction to this work was the famous " Discourse on the
Revolutions of the Surface of the Globe," which has perhaps been as
widely read as any other scientific essay. The discovery of fossil
bones in the gypsum-quarries of Paris by the workmen, who consid-
ered them human remains ; the careful study of these relics by Cuvier,
and his restorations from them of strange beasts that had lived long
before, is a story with which you are all familiar. Cuvier was the
first to prove that the earth had been inhabited by a succession of dif-
ferent series of animals, and he believed that those of each period
were peculiar to the age in which they lived.

In looking over his work after a lapse of three quarters of a cen-
tury, we can now see that Cuvier was wrong on some important points,
and failed to realize the direction in which science was rapidly tend-
ing. "With all his knowledge of the earth, he could not free himself
from tradition, and believed in the universality and power of the
Mosaic deluge. Again, he refused to admit the evidence brought for-
ward by his distinguished colleagues against the permanence of spe-

PALEONTOLOGIGAL DISCOVERY. 235

cies, and used all his great influence to. crush out the doctrine of evo-
lution, then first proj^osed. Cuvier's definition of a sjDecies, the domi-
nant one for half a century, was as follows : " A species compre-
hends all the individuals which descend from each other, or from a
common parentage, and those which resemble them as much as they
do each other."

The law of " Correlation of Structures," as laid down by Cuvier,
has been more widely accepted than almost anything else that bears
his name ; and yet, although founded in truth, and useful within cer-
tain limits, it would certainly lead to serious error if applied widely
in the way he proposed.

In his discourse he sums uj) this law as follows : "A claw, a shoul-
der-blade, a condyle, a leg or arm bone, or any other bone separately
considered, enables us to discover the description of teeth to which
they have belonged ; so also reciprocally we may determine the form
of the other bones from the teeth. Thus, commencing our investiga-
tion by a careful survey of any one bone by itself, a person who is
sufiiciently master of the laws of organic structure may, as it were,
reconstruct the whole animal to which that bone had belonged."

We know to-day that unknown extinct animals can not be restored
from a single tooth or claw, unless they are very similar to forms
already known. Had Cuvier himself applied his methods to many
forms from the early Tertiary or older formations, he would have
failecl. If, for instance, he had had before him the disconnected frag-
ments of an Eocene Tillodont, he would undoubtedly have referred a
molar tooth to one of his pachyderms ; an incisor tooth to a rodent ;
and a claw-bone to a carnivore. The tooth of a Hesperornis would
have given him no possible hint of the rest of the skeleton, nor its
swimming feet the slightest clew to the ostrich-like sternum or skull.
And yet the earnest belief in his own methods led Cuvier to some of
his most important discoveries.

Jean Lamarck (1744-1829), the philosopher and naturalist, a col-
league of Cuvier, was a learned botanist before he became a zoologist.
His researches on the invertebrate fossils of the Paris Basin, although
less striking, were not less important than those of Cuvier on the ver-
tebrates ; while the conclusions he derived from them form the basis
of modern biology. Lamarck's method of investigation was the same
essentially as that used by Cuvier, namely, a direct comparison of fos-
sils with living forms. In this way he soon ascertained that the fossil
shells imbedded in the strata beneath Paris were many of them ex-
tinct species, and those of different strata differed from each other.
His first memoir on this subject appeared in 1802,* and, with his later
works, effected a revolution in conchology. His " System of Inverte-
brate Animals " appeared the year before, and his famous " Philosophie
Zoologique " in 1809. In these two works, Lamarck first announced
* " Memoires sur les Fossiles des Environs dc Paris," 1802-'6.

236 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the principles of evolution. In the first volume of his " Natural His-
tory of Invertebrate Animals " * he gave his theory in detail ; and to-
day one can only read with astonishment his far-reaching anticipations
of modern science. These views were strongly supported by Geoifroy
Saint-Hilaire, but bitterly opposed by Cuvier ; and their great contest
on this subject is well known.

In looking back from this point of view, the philosophical breadth
of Lamarck's conclusions, in comparison with those of Cuvier, is clear-
ly evident. The invertebrates on which Lamarck worked offered less
striking evidence of change than the various animals investigated by
Cuvier ; yet they led Lamarck directly to evolution, while Cuvier
ignored what Avas before him on this point, and rejected the proof
offered by others. Both pursued the same methods, and had an abun-
dance of material on which to work, yet the facts observed induced
Cuvier to believe in catastrophes, and Lamarck in the uniform course
of nature. Cuvier declared species to be permanent, Lamarck that
they were descended from others. Both men stand in the first rank
in science, but Lamarck was the prophetic genius half a century in
advance of his time,

[To be continued. '\

THE BEGINNINGS OF GEOGEAPHICAL SCIENCE.

By GEOKGE a. JACKSON.

"^VTO other science has to-day so distinguished a patronage as that of
^^ geography. In September, 1877, there convened at Brussels, in
a palace of the King of the Belgians, and at his invitation, a Congress
made up of the presidents of the leading geographical societies, and
the most distinguished geographical writers, and explorers, and patrons
of explorations, in the world. At that Congress was formed an associa-
tion, under the presidency of King Leopold II., which has for its object
the exploring, and opening up to science and civilization, of the whole
unknown territory of Central Africa. Branches of this organization
are formed in nearly all the nations of Europe, and are, as a rule,
under the direction of the royal houses. Mr. Stanley also, in his " Dark
Continent," makes hearty acknowledgment of encouragements and re-
wards received at royal hands. And as in these last days, so in the
first days of its history, royal patronage did much to promote geo-
graphical science. The very earliest knowledge of geography was
doubtless gained in a blind way, as men went to neighboring countries
in the pursuit of trade ; but Herodotus tells us that so far back as 640

■*"Histoire naturelle des Animaux sans Vertebres," 7 vols., Paris, 1815-1822.
Second edition, 11 vols., 1835-1845.

THE BEGINNINGS OF GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE. 237

B. c. a voyage for geographical discovery was undertaken, under the
patronage of a king, Pharaoh Necho of Egypt. This monarch engaged
a company of Tyrians to circumnavigate Africa. Setting out by the
Red Sea, these voyagers sailed southward until autumn, when they
landed and sowed corn, and waited for it to ripen. Reaping their crop,
they set sail again, and in this manner, having consumed two years, in
the third year they turned the pillars of Hercules and came back to
Egypt. They asserted, said Herodotus, that which he could not be-
lieve, though others might, that, in sailing around Libya, they had the
sun on the right hand. The arguments for and against the actuality of
this voyage need not here be given. Suffice it that it was not an im-
possible achievement for mariners of that age ; and that Eratosthenes,
one of the earliest geographers, represented Libya as circumnavigable.

Accustomed as we are to-day to think of all science as of modern
development, most men are content to have read a summary of the
" Ei'dkunde," to have followed Humboldt in his principal researches,
and to have formed some acquaintance with Buffon, and Zimmermann,
and Blumeubach, If, besides, they know something of Malte-Brun,
they think they have compassed the history of the science. A hun-
dred years ago there was no such feeling. The vast advances of tliis
century had not been made. Scholars were not far enough removed
from the Renaissance to have lost all reverence for the ancients ; and,
although they no longer turned to Ptolemy for information, they had
a lingering affection for the work which had been the geographical au-
thority down to two hundred years before their day. Elaborate works
were written in exposition of the ancient systems, with a patience that
would hardly be exercised to-day. The father of such study was
D'Anville ; but pei'haps no single work upon the subject is of more
value to us than that of M. Gosselin.* In our sketch we have made
large use of this work.

Tradition takes us back to days when men thought of the earth as
a flfit disk, covered with the arching vault of the skies, whose edges
rested upon far-off giant pillars ; and even to the time when they be-
lieved that the earth rested upon elephants, who stood on the back of
a tortoise, who in turn were encompassed in the folds of a serpent ;
but those were not the days of science. The first among the Greeks
to teach the doctrine of the sphericity of the earth was Thales (b. c.
640). He held that the equator was cut obliquely by the ecliptic, and
he divided the earth into five zones. His successor was Anaximander,
who also taught that the earth was a sphere (Diogenes Laertius),
though some said (Plutarch) that he called it a column. The latter
statement could hardly be true, as he was sufficiently scientific to erect
at Lacedsemon a gnomon for observing the solstices and equinoxes.

* Geographic des Grecs Analysee; ou Les Systemes d'Eratosthenes, dc Strabon, etde
Ptolemee compar^e entre eux et avec nos Gonnoissances modernes. M. Gosselin, h Paris,
MDCCLXXXX.

238 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

He is even said to have been the inventor of this instrument — which
was a simple column, the length of whose shadow determined the posi-
tion of the sun — though more probably Thales had brought the knowl-
edge of it from Egypt. To Anaximander is also assigned the honor
of having made the first geographical chart known among the Greeks.
He is even claimed to have made an artificial globe representing the
earth, with divisions of land and water. He was not, however, the
inventor of maps, since among the Egyptians Sesostris, long before his
day, is said to have caused maps to be made. Passing over Anax-
imenes and Anaxagoras, the next name worthy of mention is that of
Pythagoras (b. c. 570), who, like Thales, had traveled in Egypt, where
he is said to have learned the obliquity of the ecliptic. But the great
thing for which Pythagoras is remembered by scientists was his doc-
trine that the earth revolved about the sun — a truth, however, which
he taught only esoterically, his open doctrine being the common one
that the sun revolved about the earth. Herodotus (b. c. 484), notwith-
standing his extensive travels, contributed nothing to mathematical
geography, and had very incorrect ideas as to the several divisions of
the world. " Europe," he said, " was as long as Asia and Africa to-
gether. The river Nile, before entering Egypt, flowed eastward from
near the west coast of Africa." This opinion he formed partly from
the account which he said had been given by certain youths who were
taken prisoners and carried into the interior of Africa, to a city on the
bank of a great river flowing eastward, in which were crocodiles. An-
other reason he had was that to the north of the Mediterranean Sea a
great river, the Ister (Danube) was known to flow from the extreme
west to the east of Europe ; and so, ^'inferring the unknoion from the
hnoiim^'' he concluded that the Nile must flow through Africa in a
similar way.

Of more value to science were the observations of Pytheas (about
320 B. c), a Greek seaman of Massilia (Marseilles), who sailed far north-
ward from the coasts of Britain, where he said the longest day was
nineteen hours long, to what he called Thule (probably Iceland), where
he said " the summer tropic served for the arctic circle." Notwith-
standing certain wild statements of Pytheas, such as that at this place
there was found neither earth, air, nor sea, but a mingling of them all ;
and that the days and nights there were six months in length, we can
not help believing that he did reach the arctic circle, and observe the
phenomenon of the sun remaining above the horizon throughout the
twenty-four hours. To Pytheas also is due the first suggestion of a
computation of latitude. He recorded that the length of the gnomon
at Marseilles, the day of the summer solstice, was to the length of the
shadow as 120 to 41*8, which, reckoning the tropic at 23° 51' 15",
where it was placed by Eratosthenes, would give a latitude of 43° 3'
35". If allowance be made for the penumbra, this reckoning will be
found very nearly correct. Other names to be noticed are Eude-

THE BEGINNINGS OF GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE. 239

mus, the first Greek to give the angle of the ecliptic — as subtended
by the side of a pentadecagon, or equal to 24° — and Eudoxus, who
wrote a work on the " Period or Circumference of the Earth."

This brings us down to the school of Alexandria. Alexander had
founded near the Canopic mouth of the Nile a city which was destined
long to perpetuate his name and glory. The glory was to come not so
much from its commercial importance, though it rose to be the chief
commercial city of the world, as from its intellectual supremacy. It
Avas the ambition of the Ptolemies to make their capital the intellec-
tual center of the world, and in this they were successful. The Attic
and Ionian scholars gave place to the Alexandrian, not only in the
department of letters, but also in the domain of science. One of the
librarians of the great Alexandrian Library was Eratosthenes (b. c.
270), who may justly be called the Father of Geography. His work is
in great part preserved to us in the pages of Strabo and Pliny. Hav-
ing under his eye everything that had ever been written upon the
subject, he first combined the whole into a complete system, which can
to-day be restored. The map of the world which he prepared, if less
perfect in some respects than Ptolemy's, was in other respects far
more perfect ; indeed, was the most correct which the world was to
see down to the sixteenth century a. d. Besides other and doubtless
very important data, of which we have no information, Eratosthenes
must have had a record of an expedition undertaken in the fifth cen-
tury B. c. by Hanno, under the direction of the Carthaginian Senate,
in which he sailed down the west coast of Africa as far as to the Gulf
of Benin ; as well as an account of the observations made by the fol-
lowers of Alexander during his march through Asia, and by his naval
commander Nearchus, who conducted the fleet from the mouths of the
Indus along the coast to the Euphrates.

After him came Hipparchus, who lived at Rhodes (b. c. 160-145).
His great merit was in his use of astronomical observations to deter-
mine positions upon the earth, instead of depending upon itinerary dis-
tances from a few known points, as had been the method of Eratos-
thenes. But the age did not appreciate his work, and the science was
not to realize the advance which was thus made possible; nearly three
centuries must elapse before the fruit of his labors was to appear. Era-
tosthenes had been able to determine latitude by the heavenly bodies,
but not longitude. Hipparchus showed how this also could be done,
by observing the eclipses of the sun and moon. Again, he invented
the method of projection in map-making, another most valuable con-
tribution to the science which was to be despised until a coming
age.

Posidonius is a name to be remembered for an error which he in-
troduced into the science, so successfully that it remained for many
centuries. What it was we shall see under Ptolemy.

Strabo (54 b. c), notwithstanding his voluminous work on geogra-

240 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

phy, which, indeed, is of great value as a compilation of the facts then
known about the different countries of the world, was not, like Eratos-
thenes, Hipparchus, and Ptolemy, a scientific geographer. He neglect-
ed mathematical and astronomical data, and, instead of following
Hipparchus's method of projection, of which he knew, he expressly
says that he describes the world as if it were spread out as a vast plain.
Indeed, there is some reason to think that Strabo did not even prepare
a map to accompany his work. From his descriptions, however, a map
may be made, as was done by both D'Anville and Gosselin, and we find
that it does not differ greatly from that of Eratosthenes. Almost the
only improvements are in a better outline of the coasts of Iberia and
Gaul, in a truer longitude for the Sicilian Straits, and in a correct dis-
tance from these straits to Rhodes. On the other hand, Strabo loses
sight of Thule, says that Africa is not circumnavigable, and makes
greater errors in latitude and longitude than his distinguished prede-
cessor.

The leading Roman writers on geography were Pomponius Mela,
who wrote a treatise in three books, and Pliny, who devoted a part of
his great work on natural history to geography.

Marin of Tyre deserves a glance. Phoenicia was the great com-
mercial nation of the earlier ages. Her mariners brought tin from
Britain and spices from the far East. She certainly had opportunities
to surpass all other nations in geographical work. But we should
almost infer that, when Cadmus brought letters from Phoenicia to
Greece, as we learned in boyhood, he left no letters there ; for, with
all her wealth and opportunities, Phoenicia did little for literature or
science. Wholly absorbed by the commercial spirit, she forgot all
else. It is the same to-day. Commerce alone has never opened any
great field to science. Arab traders have known the region about the
sources of the Nile for centuries, but science was never the gainer.
Some disinterested spirit must enter in. Patrons of science must send
out explorers, or missionary workers must give their lives to opening
up the dark places of the earth. In the last days of Tyre, however,
one scientific name does appear — that of Marin. He collected some
valuable information in regard to the east coast of Africa, of which
Ptolemy made use. He also attempted in a crude way to use the
method of projection in map-making.

Lastly appears the great name of Ptolemy (middle of the second
century). As the scholars of Alexandria had the honor of collecting
and carefully editing all the great literary works of antiquity, pre-
paratory to the centuries of darkness through which the world was to
pass, so, under the hand of Ptolemy, was put into compact and dura-
ble form what had then been gained of geographical science. If he is
the great man who makes grand use of his knowledge, then was Ptol-
emy greater than Hipparchus ; for, what Ilij^parchus had thought out
three centuries before him, Ptolemy now used to reestablish — almost

THE BEGINXINGS OF GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE. 241

to transform — geographical science. He carried out both Hipparchus's
plan of determining latitude and longitude by astronomical observa-
tions, and that of representing the earth by the modern method of pro-
jection— with the " curved meridians and parallels " which Strabo had
despised. We can see from the errors which he makes that he did not
fully understand Hipparchus's ideas, but he did measurably; and he
had the energy to stamp his knowledge upon the world, and thereby
became the master of geography.

To examine now the work of the two greatest geographers of an-
tiquity, Eratosthenes the father, and Ptolemy the master.

We have seen Eratosthenes in the library of Alexandria, surround,
ed by every existing appliance of learning. Besides the data to which
we have referred, he had before him what Hipparchus calls the " An-
cient Map," possibly that of Anaximander, which Hipparchus prefers
in some respects to the map of Eratosthenes. But, with all these appli-
ances, he had not the one great essential to their accurate combination
into a system of the world, viz., the length of the earth's circumfer-
ence. He had, however, made certain astronomical observations that
were to help him. By observing the difference of the shadows at the
summer and winter solstices, he had calculated the angle of the eclip-
tic. He had also learned that the city of Syene, in Upper Egypt, was
directly under the northern tropic, since there, at the summer solstice,
the rays of the sun illumined the bottom of a deep well. Ascertain-
ing by the gnomon, or by the armillary spheres, which he invented,
the latitude north of the tropic of Alexandria, which he considered to
be on the same meridian with Syene, he found the arc between Syene
and Alexandria to be one fiftieth part of the earth's circle. Learning
then from the itineraries that the distance between the cities was 5,000
stadia, he multiplied this by fifty and had his circumference, 250,000
stadia ; or, as he divided the circle into 300°, each of 700 stadia, he
called the circumference 252,000 stadia. Not knowing the precise
length of the stadium, we can not tell how exact this measurement was ;
but to have measui-ed the earth at all was surely a brilliant beginning
of Eratosthenes's geographical work. His method, it may be said, is
the same that is followed to-day in measuring the earth. Having, then,
a basis upon which he can convert degrees into stadia and stadia into
degrees, he proceeds to construct his map. He makes no recognition
of the lines so prominent in all our maps of the world, the equator and
the tropic, and polar circles ; but simply establishes a few parallels at
irregular distances, viz., of the limits of the inhabitable eai-th — Meroe,
Syene, Alexandria, Rhodes, the Hellespont, Byzantium, the mouth of
the Borysthenes, and Thule. Some of the distances between these
parallels were determined by itinerary measurements, some by astro-
nomical observations. For example, the distance from Alexandria to
Rhodes was determined by estimating the arc between the cities at the
rate of 700 stadia to the degree. Again, the latitude of the Borys-

VOL. XVI.— 16

24-2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

thenes having been determined by itineraries, and the latitude of Thule
being known from Pytheas, as the same number of degrees from the
pole that the tropics were from the equator, this distance was determined.
The most important of these parallels was that of Rhodes, since upon
this he measured the entire length of the world. He reckoned his
measurements of longitude from Cape Sacrum in Iberia (now Cape St.
Vincent), this being considered on a parallel with the Straits of Gades
(Gibraltar), the Straits of Sicily, Rhodes, the Gulf of Issus (eastern
extremity of the Mediterranean), the Caspian Gates (mountain passes
south of the Caspian Sea), andThinse on the Eastern Ocean. Not hav-
ing here any astronomical data, his longitudes are less correct than his
latitudes. The principal points established are Carthage, the Straits of
Sicily, and Rome, which he erroneously places on the same meridian,
Alexandria and Rhodes, which he also places on the same meridian,
Issus, the Caspian Gates, the source of the Indus, and the mouth of
the Ganges. Though using a plane chart, he yet recognized the fact
that a degree of longitude on the parallel of Rhodes had not the same
value as at the equator, but was as 555 to 700, which is very nearly
correct. Dividing now the distances from Cape Sacrum, which he
gives us only in stadia, by 555, we find for Carthage a longitude of
21° 15' 40", which is only two degrees in excess of its true longitude ;
for Alexandria we have 45° 35' 8", which is an excess of between six
and seven degrees ; for Issus we have 54° 35' 40", making the Mediter-
ranean too long by between nine and ten degrees ; for the Indus the
longitude of 100° 10' 48" is between twenty-three and twenty-four
degrees too great ; while for the Ganges 126° 7' 34" is an excess of be-
tween forty-five and forty-six degrees. These excesses, it will be seen,
increase uniformly toward the east, as they would by using too short a
measure for the degree ; and since Eratosthenes expressly states that the
degree at Rhodes is only four fifths of that at the equator, it has been
conjectured that he has used stadia of different values. An argument in
favor of this is that, if we use a stadium of such value that there would
be 700 to a degree (as at the equator), the length of the Mediterra-
nean would be very nearly correct, nearer indeed than upon any subse-
quent map down to the eighteenth century a. d., while the mouth of
the Indus would be within three degrees of its true longitude. Know-
ing Eratosthenes's coi-rectness upon other points, one can hardly resist
the conviction that he did use stadia of different lengths, and that
Strabo and Pliny have failed to quote his statement and explanation
of the fact. "VYe are further confirmed in this opinion when we con-
sider that his age believed the inhabitable world to be very nearly
twice as long as it was broad, and that this estimate makes its length
to its breadth as 106 to 54.

Nevertheless, we have given here a representation of his map, in
which 555 stadia, of the same length with the stadia of latitude, are
allowed to each degree of the parallel of Rhodes.

THE BEGINNINGS OF GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE. 243

IVe call attention to only a few of its noticeable features. First
of all, the accuracy of most of its latitudes is to be noted, some of them
being more accurate than those given by Gosselin, less than a hundred

J= S

- •saSang

innjasg

8dB0

years ago. Not only is the Mediterranean unduly elongated, but the
placing of the Sicilian Straits and Carthage on the same meridian, and
Alexandria and Rhodes on the same, necessitates much too great a

244 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

distance between tlie straits and Rhodes. Since the length of the
Macedonian coast was placed within its proper limits, no way re-
mained to adjust the distances but to prolong the Thermaic Gulf to
the westward, and make of Greece a long peninsula stretching from
west to east. The Caspian Sea, owing to reports that had been brought
by certain followers of Alexander, appears as an arm of the Northern
Ocean. The most striking feature, however, is the representation of
India as extending east instead of south, with the Ganges flowing into
the Eastern Ocean. This would seem to have arisen in this way : The
mouth of the Indus had been reported by Alexander's officers too far
south. It was also well known that from the Indus to the island
known as Taprobane (Ceylon) there was a long stretch of coast such
as is given in the map. But, if this extended southward, it would
carry India below what was considered to be the limit of the habitable
world, seen in the map at latitude 11° 51' 26". So it was turned away
to the eastward. The distance from the Indus to the mouth of the
Ganges had been learned through the mission sent to India by Seleu-
cus ; and, since the latter river did not enter the sea on the southern
coast, it must have an eastern embouchure. But as the traditional limit
of the earth — a length twice its breadth — was now reached, it only
remained to extend the coast-line to the northward to complete the
map.

In accordance wnth the principles upon which his map was con-
structed, Eratosthenes said that India could be reached by sailing west-
ward from Spain — a suggestion by which Columbus is said to have
been influenced. Before leaving Eratosthenes it may be mentioned
that Gosselin contends that this ancient geographer had been preceded
by geographers far better informed and more skillful than himself,
and that all the best features of his map are due to them. Indeed, he
claims that there was a period long before Eratosthenes, when the
geography of Europe was as well known as in his (Gosselin's) day,
and he even intimates that projected maps, similar to our modern ones,
had then been used. His arguments in support of this, however, will
not bear scrutiny.

Ptolemy, we have said, prepared the science for the ages of dark-
ness on which the world was soon to enter. In a sense, the first
shadows of that darkness had already fallen. The science had gone
backward perceptibly since the days of Eratosthenes. True, there was
a larger fund of information in regard to the countries of the Roman
Empire ; but, as we see in Strabo, there was no scientific grasp of the
world as a whole. Ptolemy was therefore almost as much of an excep-
tion to his age as Hipparchus had been to his. Still he had helps which
none of his predecessors had had, such as the works of Strabo and
Pliny, and Marin of Tyre, for statements of facts, and those of Era-
tosthenes, and, above all, Hipparchus for scientific statement. The
work which he composed with these helps was to be the standard and

THE BEGINNINGS OF GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE. 245

10 -0 Sd 4i) oJ GO TO 8J 90 100 110 liiO 13 1 14J loO UO lit)
PTOLEMY'S MAP OF THE WORLD.

only authority foi* more than thirteen centuries. Happily it has
come down to us entire, though the different manuscript copies
vary considerably among themselves. Through the generosity of
the Emperor of Russia, fac-simile copies have been made of the old-
est extant Greek MS., written about the year 1200 a. d., and now
at Mount Athos ; and these copies are in the more important libra-
ries of the world. The method of projection which Ptolemy used in
his maps had been slow of practical realization. Ilipparchus's work
had not gained a circulation. Marin of Tyre had had but poor
success in attempting it, so that Ptolemy's approach to success seems
the more commendable. We present a map drawm upon his system.
In it are to be noticed two great errors. We have spoken of Posido-
nius as the originator of an error. Dissatisfied with Eratosthenes's mea-
surement of the earth, he had measured it anew. To do this he had
observed by a star the arc between Alexandria and Rhodes, and had
ascertained the distance as nearly as he could from the number of
days' sail between the cities. But soon becoming dissatisfied in regard
to the distance he had employed, he adopted Eratosthenes's distance,
which the latter had obtained by computing the arc at 700 stadia to

246 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the degree. With this distance, and with his own observed arc, he
made such a computation of the earth's circumference as gave him 500
stadia to the degree. But the absurdity of thus employing the 700-
stadium degree as an element in the computation, by which he obtained
the 500-stadium degree, did not prevent even Ptolemy from adopting
the latter estimate. A degree of 500 stadia at the equator gave him
one of 400 stadia on the parallel of Rhodes. On this basis, reckoning
from the Fortunate Isles (Ferro 18° 9' 45" west), he obtained the fol-
lowing longitude : Carthage 32° 20', Rhodes 56°, Issus 66° 30', Indus
122° 30', Ganges 146°, Thinae (conjectured to be Tenasserim, in farther
India) 177° 30' — errors respectively of about four, ten, twelve, thirty,
forty, and sixty-one degrees. These large errors he had no means of
recognizing, but when he came to his latitudes he did have a correc-
tive. Accepting, as he was disposed to do, Eratosthenes's distances,
all his own latitudes became too high. Pytheas's Thule, instead of
being at the arctic circle, would have been beyond the north pole. He
therefore did what is so often done, allowed one error to force him
into another, viz., the use of a degree of one length (500 stadia) for his
longitudes, and of another length (700 stadia) for his latitudes. Like
those of Eratosthenes, therefore, his latitudes are tolerably correct.
A few features of this map should be noticed in comparison with for-
mer maps. Thule, which was unnoticed by Strabo, reappears, though
it is not the Thule of Pytheas, but an island much nearer to Britain.
The Sicilian Straits are no longer on a parallel with the Columns of
Hercules, nor the straits and Rome on the same meridian. Alexan-
dria and Rhodes are on different meridians, as also the Hellespont and
Byzantium. The Caspian becomes again an inland sea. In the East,
the great peninsula of the Deccan disappears, the island of Taprobane
occupying its place. The Indian Ocean is an inland sea, Africa being
connected by unknown lands with the lands of the far East.

In our map we have followed Gosselin's opinion that the Golden
Chersonese was the region about the mouths of the Irrawaddy River,
not the Malay Peninsula. But the most important of the minor fea-
tures of the map, with which we must close our sketch, is its repre-
sentation of the sources of the Nile.

Nili caput qucarere was a work projDosed to itself by the ancient
as seriously as by the modern world. In the days of Herodotus the
source of the river was considered a question of antiquity. The an-
cient dynasties, the Persian conquerors, and later the Greeks and the
Romans, all made more or less of effort to solve the problem. We
have seen how Herodotus answered the question. In the days of Era-
tosthenes, opinions were far more correct. Speaking of the Astaboras
(Atbara), and the Astapus or the Astasobas (Blue Nile), he says,
" Certain authors pretend that this last name applies to another river,
which flovjs from lakes situated to the south, and forming the principal
affluent of the Nile." This is the first definite reference to the south-

EXPECTED METEORIC DISPLAY. 247

ern lakes, and how a knowledge of them had then been gained we do
not know. It seems certain that no one in ancient times had ascended
the river to them. Expeditions were repeatedly sent out with this
object, notably one by Nero, which ascended higher than any other,
but was finally stopped by impenetrable marshes, apparently in about
9° north latitude. But in ancient as in modern times the problem was
finally approached in a different way. Marin of Tyre had furnished
Ptolemy with information in regard to the east coast of Africa. Trad-
ers had gone as far south as the promontory of Prasum (Cape Delgado),
and doubtless information gained there in regard to Madagascar had
given rise to the conjecture of lands inclosing the Indian Ocean. But
in trading along the coast these men had heard of two lakes in the
interior, which were called the sources of the Nile. Ptolemy would
seem to have made particular inquiries about these lakes, for he says
that a Greek trader had told him that they were farther inland than
he had supposed. He accordingly placed them, as seen in our map, in
latitudes 6° and 7° south, and longitudes 57° and 65° east, or on either
side of the meridian of Alexandria. Information like this was worthy
of the greatest geographer of antiquity, and which should not so long
have been despised ; for it was only when modern explorers, following
ancient traditions, went in from the coast of Zanzibar, that they — not
solved but re-solved the ancient problem of the sources of the Nile.

EXPECTED METEOPJC DISPLAY.

By EICHARD A. PKOCTOE.

IT is expected, by nearly all astronomers who have given attention to
the subject, that there will be a display of falling stars on or about
November 27th next, though the night of the shower may perhaps fall
earlier or later, within a week or so either way. The display, should
it occur, will possess far more interest than any ordinary shower of
shooting stars, or even than the displays which have been witnessed on
the night of November 13th-14th, in 1799, 1833, 1866, and other years.
For, though we now know that when these showers of Leonides (as the
meteors of November 14th-15th are called) occur, the earth is passing
through the track of a comet which is followed by uncounted millions of
meteors, and the like when on the nights of August 10th, 11th, and 12th
the meteors called Perseids are seen, yet the comets corresponding to
these longer-known meteoric showers are less interesting to astronomers
than the comet along whose track those bodies travel which produced
the shower of falling stars seen on the night of November 27, 1872,
and which are expected to produce a similar display this year. It was
well remarked by M. O. Struve, at the last meeting of the German As-

248 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tronomical Society, that no object has thrown more light on the gen-
eral nature of cometic bodies than the comet known as Biela's. I pro-
pose now to give a brief sketch of the history of this interesting body,
and then to consider the reasons why astronomers expect that during
the last week of November, 1879, there will be a display of shooting
stars as the earth passes through the comet's track.

In the year 1826 Biela discovered a comet, the path of which was
calculated by Gambart, a French astronomer, insomuch that, accord-
ing to the usual rule in such cases, the comet should be called Gam-
bart's, not Biela's. It was found to revolve around the sun in a period
of about six and two thirds years. It was not a conspicuous body — in
fact, it has seldom been much more than barely visible under the most
favorable conditions by the naked eye. Yet it differed from most tel-
escopic comets in showing not only a nucleus and a coma, but a tail
also. In 1832, 1839, and 1846, this comet returned to the earth's
neighborhood, and on two of these occasions it was well seen. In 1839
it was so situated as to be lost in the sun's rays. In fact, at every
third return astronomers knew that it would be hopeless to search for
the comet. Thus, it was discovered in 1826, and well seen in 1832,
but not seen and not even looked for in 1839. So, again, it was seen
in 1846 in its calculated place, and again in 1852, but it was not looked
for in 1859. In 1866 and 1872 it should have been visible, but, as will
presently be explained more fully, it was not seen. In this present
year, 1879, supposing all had gone on as in the forty preceding years,
the comet would not have been visible, passing too near the sun's place
in the sky. Astronomers have been set to search for it this year (but
quite fruitlessly), because there were reasons to believe that, if seen at
all, the comet would not be seen on its former track. But we must
not pass to this part of the comet's history until the strange circum-
stances connected with former returns and with former expected re-
turns of the comet to visibility have been briefly considered.

In the year 1846, when Biela's comet was well seen, it divided — or
rather, after having apparently been single, it was seen to be divided
— ^into two distinct comets, each having coma, nucleus, and a short
tail of its own. These two comets traveled along side by side until
they passed out of view ; but in 1852 both returned into view, though
the distance between them was then greatly increased. Whether in
1859 the companion comets would have been seen had the earth been
more favorably situated, is not known. The comet was not even
looked for in that year, so hopeless did the search seem for so faint an
object, close as the comet then was to the sun's apparent place in the
sky. But in 1866 the comet should have been seen as favorably as in
1846. The superintendent of the " Nautical Almanac " published an
ephermis of the comet's motions — in other w^ords, he stated where the
comet was to be looked for day after day, and a number of the most
skillful practical observers in Europe searched carefully for it, but it

EXPECTED METEORIC DISPLAY. 249

was not seen. " There was not the slightest room," I wrote in 1872
(and, despite the opinions which have been since expressed by several
astronomers, I see no reason for changing my opinion), *' for question-
ing the accuracy of the calculations by which its path had been pre-
dicted. Astronomers were certain that, if undestroyed or undissi-
pated, the comet would follow the assigned path — as certain as a
station-master would be that a train would enter a station along the
line of rails assigned to it, unless some accident or mistake should
occur. But comets do not make mistakes, though, as we now see,
they are not free from accidents. This comet had already met with
an accident, being broken by some mischance into two parts, under
the very eyes of astronomers. Possibly in 1859 it met with further
misadventures. At any rate, something had happened to the comet
since its retreat in 1852. ' It is now,' Sir J. Herschel wrote in Feb-
ruary, 1866, ' overdue. Its orbit has been recomputed, and an ephem-
eris calculated. Astronomers have been eagerly looking out for its
reappearance for the last two months, when, according to all former
experience, it ought to have been conspicuously visible, but as yet
without success — giving rise to the strangest theories. At all events,
it seems to have fairly disappeared, and that without any such excuse
as in the case of Lexell's, viz., the preponderant attraction of some
great planet. Can it have come into contact or exceedingly close
approach to some asteroid as yet undiscovered? or, peradventure,
plunged into, and got bewildered among, the ring of meteorites,
which astronomers more than suspect ? ' "

But, as I pointed out at the time, there was a convincing objection
against the first of these theories in the circumstance that, the two
comets into which Biela had separated being more than a million
miles apart when they passed out of view in 1852, it was not in the
least likely that both would be so far perturbed by asteroidal perturba-
tions as to remain thenceforward undiscoverable. " It would be a sin-
gular chance," I said (this was before November 27, 1872, when fresh
light, presently to be noted, was thrown on this object), " which
should bring one of these objects into collision with a minor planet,
or so near as to occasion an important disturbance. But, supposing
this to happen, then the fellow comet, not traveling in the wake of the
first, but side by side, would certainly have escajjed. For it must be
remembered that, although 1,250,000 miles is a very small distance
indeed by comparison with the dimensions of the solar system, it is an
enormous distance compared with the dimensions of the minor planets,
some of which have a surface not much greater than that of an Eng-
lish county. The minor planet occasioning the comet's disturbance
would presumably be one of the smallest, since it has not yet been
detected, and the newly-discovered planets are on the average much
smaller than those first detected. Now, the earth herself would have
no very marked influence on a comet or meteor passing her at a dis-

2 50 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tance of 1,250,000 miles ; for it is to be remembered that the comet
as well as the earth would have an enormously rapid motion, and the
disturbing power of the earth would therefore only act for a short
time. But a minor planet — even the largest of the family — would not
have the twenty-thousandth part of the earth's power to disturb a pass-
ing comet. At a distance of 200,000 miles a comet would pass such
an asteroid without any marked disturbance of its motions," and at a
distance of 1,250,000 miles there would practically be no disturbance
at all. " It is, of course, not absolutely impossible that one of the
comets of the pair should have been encountered by one minor planet,
and the other by another, but the probability against such a contin-
gency is so great, that we need scarcely entertain the idea even as a
bare possibility."

On the other hand, the supposition that the comet was destroyed
or dissipated by meteor - streams, though not altogether untenable,
seems little likely to be correct. I was disposed, when I wrote the
article from which I have quoted the above passages, to think other-
wise. " The comet," I said, " had been seen to divide into two parts
in a portion of the solar system where certainly no bodies but meteor-
ites can be supposed to travel. It seems reasonable to suppose that on
that occasion the head of the comet had come upon some group of
meteors, and so had divided, as a stream of water divides against a
rock. Assuming this, we find reason for believing that the track of
this comet crosses a rich meteor region. The particular group which
had caused the division of the comet would of course pass away, and
would not probably come again in the comet's way for many years or
even centuries ; but another group belonging to the same system
might in its turn encounter the comet, and complete the process of
dissipation which the former had commenced. On this theory the
distance between the companion comets would introduce no difficulty.
For not only is it quite a common circumstance for meteoric systems
to have a range of several millions of miles, but — a much more impor-
tant consideration — both the comets would be bound to return to the
scene of the former encounter. It was there that each had been sent
off on a new track, but each new track started from there, and there-
fore each new track must pass through there." The reasoning here is
correct enough as far as it goes, but it does not duly take into con-
sideration the extreme sparsity of meteoric distribution and the ex-
treme tenuity of the heads and even of the nuclei of comets. As I
pointed out in an essay which appeared in the "Popular Science
Review " two months only after the essay from which I have quoted
above had ajspeared in the "St. Paul's Magazine" (if I remember
rightly), the meteors of even one of those comparatively rich clusters
which produce an important display are strewed so sparsely that each
occupies on the average a space corresponding in volume to a cube one
hundred miles in length, breadth, and height. The largest meteor in

EXPECTED METEORIC DISPLAY. 251

the solid form is probably not many inches in diameter (I am speaking,
be it remembered, of the meteors producing displays of ordinary
shooting stars or falling stars, not of those masses which thrust their
way through the upper regions of the air, and, exploding, cast their
fragments often over many square miles of the earth's surface). It
will be understood how small is the chance that a flight of bodies so
minute compared with the average space occupied by each could cause
the dispersion of a mass so rare, and therefore so free to pass through
a meteor-flight without disintegration or disturbance, as a comet.

How Biela's comet came actually to be divided into two distinct
bodies, and later to be so far dissipated as to be no longer visible even
in the most powerful telescopes and under the most favorable circum-
stances, will probably be understood when we know the nature of
those processes of repulsion which lead to the formation of comets'
tails. For our present purpose it is only necessary to observe that
these processes of repulsion do most obviously carry away parts of the
substance of a comet's head to enormous distances, and that, in some
way, Biela's comet was divided, even as it were under the eyes of
astronomers, into two distinct comets ; for we thus learn to recognize
the further disintegration of the comet as part of a process undoubt-
edly commenced in 1846 and undoubtedly competent to effect the
dissipation of the comet's substance. As the comet was searched for
in vain in 1866 in the region which unquestionably it would have
traversed had it remained unchanged, there can be no reason for
doubting that it had thus been thoroughly dissipated and disinte-
grated. If anything could have made this more certain, it would have
been the circumstance that in 1872, also, the comet was searched for
in vain. Remembering that the observations made during the first
few weeks after the comet's discovery in 1826 gave astronomers such
a mastery over its motions that they could successfully predict its
return in 1832, and show precisely where it would appear, nay, even
calculate back its path and recognize its identity with a comet discov-
ered by Montaigne in 1772, and rediscovered (though not recognized
as the same) by Pons in 1805, it is obvious that in 1866, after several
carefully observed returns and nearly a century after its first discoveiy,
the comet's motions must have been much more thoroughly under-
stood. It would have been much more easily detected that year than
in 1846 and 1852, even as Halley's comet was much more easily de-
tected at its return in 1835 than at its return in 1759.

If the comet had been like most of its fellows, astronomers must
have given up all idea of obtaining further information respecting it.
But in one important respect it differed from them. It is one of the
few known comets whose paths cross, or at least pass very close to,
the track of the earth. Already in 1832 attention had been called to
this circumstance. Indeed, fears had been excited among those un-
familiar with astronomical relations by the announcement that the

252 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

comet would cross the earth's path in that year, although it was ex-
plained that the comet would pass a month before the earth reached
that point of her path. " We escaped that time," Sir John Herschel
wrote in 1866. ''Had a meeting taken place, from what we know of
comets, it is probable that no harm would have happened, and that
nobody would have known anything about it." But from what we
have since learned we have reason to believe that we should have
known a great deal about the encounter, though it remains altogether
probable that no harm would have happened. For we have learned
that as a rule the tracks of comets are followed by millions of meteoric
bodies, which, as the earth passes through the flight, produce displays
of falling stars, each meteor in its rush through the earth's atmosphere
producing a trail or streak of light ; and doubtless in the head itself
of a comet meteoric bodies are much more richly strewed, so that an
encounter with the head would produce an unusually splendid display
of falling stars. It is, however, very noteworthy, as will presently
appear more clearly, that no display of meteors is recorded as having
occurred in the last week of November, 1832, though the comet had
crossed the earth's track less than a month before. Yet in 1872 as-
tronomers were led to expect somewhat confidently that, as the earth
passed the track of Biela's comet, which had gone that way only some
ten or twelve weeks before, there would be a shower of falling stars
produced by the bodies following in the comet's path.

I may pause here, by the way, to remark on the clear way in which
this expectation, and what w^as actually observed, should show every
one who has clear mathematical conceptions that it is the train, and
not the tail, of a comet, which is followed by meteoric attendants.
Professor Tait, of Edinburgh, who is a master of mathematical analysis,
but apparently wanting in the power of clearly conceiving geometrical
relations, has based on the mistaken idea that comets' tails are made
up of meteors a wild theory of the phenomena presented by these ap-
pendages, a theory which could not be accepted even if it had been
proved that comets' tails are formed of meteor-flights. For he explains
the appearance of a long cometic tail as due to the circumstance that
at the time the earth is in the plane of a vast meteoric stratum attend-
ing on the comet, though it is certain that not one of the known long-
tailed comets can have kept its stratified meteoric tail (assuming al-
ways that it had one) directed with its plane earthward during half
the time of the tail's actual visibility. But so far as real evidence is
concerned, the probability is that there are no meteors in or near the
tail of a comet. For, on the one hand, on the only occasion ichen the
earth is known to have passed through the tail of a comet — namely,
when she passed through the tail of the splendid comet of 1861 — no
meteors were seen which could have belonged to that appendage ; and
on the other, in every single case in which meteors have been associated
with a comet, those meteors have not been in or anywhere near the

EXPECTED METEORIC DISPLAY. 253

comefs tail. As I have -said, Biela's comet is a case in point, and so
obviously in point that it is difficult to understand how any mathema-
tician could follow the history of the case without at once recognizing
the error which nevertheless has misled and still misleads Professor
Tait. That double comet, with its tails projecting from the sun, crossed
the earth's path in or about the first week of September, 1872, travel-
ing on a path slanted to the plane of the earth's orbit at an angle of
twelve and a half degrees, and with a velocity considerably exceeding
that of the earth in her orbit. Moving at this rate, and with this in-
clination, the companion comets would of course attain in ten weeks a
position many millions of miles south of the plane of the earth's orbit.
Thus a line from the sun to either comet would not, where prolonged
into the tail, approach within many millions of miles of the earth's
orbit — that is, of any position which the earth can possibly occupy.
Both comets were even farther away from the actual position occupied
by the earth at the time when, nevertheless, astronomers predicted a
star-shower, and when, as they predicted, such a shower occurred.
For the comets had left that place ten or twelve weeks before, and
nearly the whole of the comets' motion had carried them away from that
place, whereas only a small part of their motion had carried them away
from the plane of the earth's orbit. In fact, no one who had studied
with any attention the circumstances of any predicted meteor-display
could have fallen into the mistake made by Professor Tait, a mistake
actually so elaborated as to be made the basis of an entirely novel,
and for other reasons utterly impossible, theory of comets' tails.*

* I may here remark that the tone of the above paragraph is, in my opinion, altogether
objectionable, considered in itself. It is almost impossible even for the most careful
students of science to avoid making mistakes from time to time, and occasionally mistakes
of the most egregious nature. There is scarcely one of the great thinkers whose work
has most effectively advanced science, who has not made mistakes even in dealing with
his own special subject ; while those who, like the Herschels, Humboldt, and others, have
dealt from time to time with subjects outside their own labors, have naturally been ex-
posed to more serious misapprehensions. It is not wonderful that Professor Tait, engaged
chiefly in analytical and physical researches, should fall into errors in dealing with astro-
nomical matters, as when he discusses comets' tails, the solar corona, and so forth. But
such errors should be corrected genially and pleasantly, not sneeringly (which, indeed, I
have not done) nor censoriously. I must point out, however, that Professor Tait lays
himself open to the severer forms of correction by the perfect savagery of his own cor-
rections of mistakes made by those who chance to have offended him. The man who,
in his lecture on " Force," so fiercely denounced Tyndall for mere errors, or, rather, in-
exactnesses of verbiage which could mislead none ; the man who jeeringly exchiimed,
" These be thy gods, 0 Israel," because one of the greatest physicists of the age omitted,
in defining work done in raising bodies, to mention that such bodies were on the earth,
not on Jupiter or elsewhere ; the man who has even honored me by his sneers at real mis-
takes of mine, and who with ingenious garbling has invented mistakes for me which I had
never made (apparently for no other reason than because I pleasantly expostulated with
him on one occasion for his attacks on Tyndall) — can hardly object to be corrected in the
hard though not harsh tone adopted above. If the tu quocpie defense be considered in-
sufficient, then let me note that Professor Tait, by advancing a theory capable of being
tested by evidence without being at the pains so to test it, and by refusing even to ex-

254 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The predictions made in November, 1872, were not so precise as
they would probably have been if the comet had been seen in 1866
and in 1872, as had been expected. Indeed, astronomers had very little
experience as to the meteors of Biela's comet. They were in doubt
what showers among those recorded by various observers of meteors
as occurring during the last week of November and the first week of
December could be associated with this particular meteor system.
For until the astronomical significance of meteoric disjjlays had been
fully recognized, the observers of shooting stars, even when these were
seen in showers, had been more careful to record the brightness and
the number of the meteors than their course among the stars. So that
the criterion which at present distinguishes one meteor system from
another, even though both meteor systems may show falling stars on
one and the same night or at one and the same time, is not applicable
to most of the records of star-showers. That criterion, it need hardly
be said, is the position of what is called the radiant point of the star-
shower, the point from which all the meteor-tracks on the sky seem to
tend. The reader must not fall into the mistake of suj^posing that
every meteor-track absolutely extends from the so-called radiant. On
the contrary, it may truly be said that not one such track does or can
extend from that point. But each tends from the point in the sense
that, if the course pursued by the meteor be supposed to be extended
backward in a straight line (or, more correctly speaking, in a great
circle of the heavenly sjDhere), the line would pass through the radiant
point. The expression is used in the same general sense, and has, in
fact, the same significance as the statement usually made about par-
allel lines and their vanishing point in perspective. Lines which are
really parallel are so drawn in perspective that they all tend from one
and the same point, but they do not extend from it. An artist might
indeed draw them all in pencil from that point, but he would after-
ward rub out pai'ts of the pencil-lines, leaving the rest all tending
from the vanishing-point, but none of them extending actually from it.

Now, what is the radiant point of a meteor system ? It is in real-
ity that infinitely remote point from which all the meteors seem to be
traveling — the point toward which all the parallel lines on which they
are actually traveling seem to converge. No meteor, then, approach-
ing the earth on the course thus indicated could possibly seem to move
actually from the radiant point. If moving directly toward the ob-
server, it would be visible at the radiant point, all the time, not seem-
ing to move/rom it ; if not moving directly toward the observer, but
on a course parallel to that from the radiant point to the observer, it
would be seen, from the beginning to the end of its flight, at points
removed from the radiant, but all on a line tending from it. Thus the

amine the evidence brought forward by others, has committed an offense against scientific
morality (scientific morality only, be it understood) such as he can allege against none of
those whom he so warmly denounces.

EXPECTED METEORIC DISPLAY. 255

actual path pursued by a meteor may be on one side of the heavenly
sphere, while the radiant is on the other ; precisely as any particular
yard of a set of parallel railway lines and telegraph wii-es may be to
the right or the left, or above or below, or may be behind an observer,
while the point from which all these lines converge is in front of him.
Yet two meteor-tracks, carefully observed, will suffice, unless abso-
lutely coincident, to show the radiant point belonging to them, assum-
ing of course that they belong to the same system. And when on any
night many meteors of the same system are seen, the radiant point of
the system, w^hich indicates the direction from which with respect to
the earth they all seem to travel, can be most accurately determined.
In this way each meteor system is perfectly distinguishable from all
others ; and also, from the position of the radiant point of a system,
the question whether the meteors are or are not bodies following in the
track of any known comet, can be at once set at rest. The path of
such bodies can be calculated with perfect exactness. The apparent
path resulting from the combination of their motions with the motions
of the earth can equally well be determined. This gives the radiant
point of such bodies, if such bodies there are, as they appear in
shooting-star displays in our skies. No scattered meteors, still less
any meteor-shower, can be mistaken for attendants on such a comet —
at least, if we set aside the bare possibility (for such it is) that bodies
really traveling in a different course may appear to travel on the same
course. This can happen ; but it is so exceedingly unlikely, that if
a meteor-flight appears at the time, and from the radiant point, cor-
responding to the attendants of a particular comet, it may be confi-
dently assumed that they really are such attendants.

But, as I have said, on former occasions when displays of meteors
occurred during the last week in November or the first week of De-
cember, which might therefore have indicated the earth's passage
through the train of Biela's comet, no special observation was made of
the tracks of individual meteors, so that it was not possible to ascertain
afterward whether such showers might or might not be thus explained.
Nor were any observations made for Biela meteors when the earth
passed through the track of the comet in 1836, when, from what we
now know, a display of such bodies might have been expected.

It was otherwise in 1872. Biela's comet itself having been searched
for fruitlessly, several astronomers called attention to the circumstance
that in the last week of November the earth might be expected to pass
through a train of meteors following in the track of the now disin-
tegrated comet. They showed also how Biela meteors, if such existed,
could be distinguished from other shooting stars ; the radiant point
corresponding to attendants on Biela's comet lying in the region where
the constellation Andromeda borders on Cassiopeia, near the feet of
the former of these celestial bodies. I myself wrote in the following
terms, in a paper written in October, and which appeared in the " St.

256 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Paul's Magazine " for November, 1872 : *' There will probably be a
display of meteors following the track of Biela's comet. At any rate,
the skies should be carefully watched. The shower of meteors (should
one occur) will fall in such a direction that shooting stars might be
looked for at any hour of the night. Those belonging to Biela's comet
could be very readily distinguished from others, because their tracks
would seem to radiate from the constellation Cassiopeia. So that
should any one observe, on any night between November 25th and De-
cember 5th, a shooting star following such a track, he will have the sat-
isfaction of knowing that in all probability he has seen a fragment or
portion of a comet which has divided into two if not three distinct
comets, and has followed up that process of dissipation by dissolving
altogether away."

The prediction thus made was abundantly fulfilled. On November
27, 1872, there was a display of shooting stars second only in magnifi-
cence among those seen since the middle of the present century to the
shower observed in the early morning hours of November 14, 1866.
In numbers, indeed, the shooting stars of November, 1872, fully
equaled, if they did not exceed, the shooting stars of Novembei-, 1866.
Professor Grant, of the Glasgow Observatory, counted no fewer than
10,579 meteors between 5h. 30m. p.m. and llh. 50m. p. m. Four ob-
servers in Italy, w^ho severally limited their observations to the four
quarters of the heavens between the four cardinal points, counted in six
and a half hours 33,400 shooting stars. It appears that the greatest
number were seen between 7h. and 9h. p. m. Between 6h. 55m. and 6h.
56m. the whole of the sky around the radiant of the system seemed to be
occupied by a meteoric cloud. This region lay, as predicted, near the
feet of Andromeda. There remained no doubt that the earth on the
night of November 27th had crossed a stream of meteorites, following
in the track of Biela's comet.

But now followed w^hat gave rise to considerable misapprehension,
by which it would seem that even some mathematicians of consider-
able skill have been misled. A German astronomer, Klinkerfues, tel-
egraphed to Pogson, the Government observer at Madras, " Biela
touched eai'th November 27th ; look for it near Theta Centauri " : mean-
ing, doubtless, what was in reality the case, that the earth had passed
through the meteoric train of Biela, and that it might be worth while
to look out for the retreating flight in the part of the heavens directly
opposite the point from which the meteors had seemed to arrive.
Whether Klinkerfues meant this, or whether, as some seem to suppose,
he meant that possibly Biela's comet might have been delayed ten or
twelve weeks, and so have certainly encountered the earth on Novem-
ber 27th, need not for the moment be considered.* Suffice it that Pog-

* Strangely enough, Mr. Hind, the Superintendent of the " Nautical Almanac," has
written (in " Nature ") as though the comet had been in some way delayed ten or twelve
weeks between 1852 and 1872, so that the earth did actually " touch Biela," as Klink-

EXPECTED METEORIC DISPLAY. 257

son examined the heavens in the region indicated, and there, in the
early morning hours of December 2, 1872, detected two cloud-like ob-
jects. These he saw again on the morning of December 3d — by which
time their position on the star-vault had charged, so that it was clear
they were not nebulte or star-clouds, but veritable attendants on the
sun, though whether comets or meteor-flights was not clearly made
out. It was, however, clearly shown that neither of these objects
could possibly have been the meteor-flight crossed by the earth on
the night of November 27, 1872. It was equally certain that neither
the meteor-flight nor these two cometic objects could have been Biela's
comet itself — though all three were traveling in such courses that they
might be called attendants of that body.

There for the time the history of Biela's comet has closed. No-
thing more has been seen of it, either as a comet or as a meteor-flight,
though scattered meteors traveling in its train were seen toward the
end of November, 1877, and more would probably have been seen at
the same part of last year if the skies then had not been overclouded
in nearly all European countries.

The next passage of the earth athwart the track of the comet is the
first, since that of November 27, 1872, during which a meteor shower
could be expected to occur. The comet crossed the earth's track, or
passed very near to it, early in April last ; and though the interval is
considerably longer between then and the end of November than
elapsed between the comet's passage in 1872 and the display of that
year, yet it is most probable that many meteoric attendants of the
comet will be seen on some nights (or perhaps on several nights) be-
tween November 25th and December 1st, and quite possible that a very
fine shower may be seen. The meteors will be well worth looking for
in any case, since, if they are carefully observed and counted hour by
hour, astronomers will probably obtain some further insight into the
nature of the processes which lead to the dissipation of a comet and
cause its path to be occupied over a range of many millions of miles by
scattered meteoric attendants. To others than astronomers, the me-
teors will be full of interest ; and it is not at all unlikely that they
will appear in such numbers as to produce an exceedingly beautiful
display. — Belgrama.

erfues telegraphed to Pogson, "on November 27, 1872." But this is quite impossible.
Any perturbation active enough to delay the comet's perihelion passage ten or twelve
weeks would have entirely changed the character of the comet's orbit. But the very cir-
cumstance that the earth crossed the train of cometic attendants on November 27, 1872,
showed that they were in the track of the comet, whose path could not, therefore, have
been greatly altered. The case may be simply put thus : Either the comet's motions had
been or Aat/ no< been very greatly disturbed between 1852 and 1872: now, if they had
been, the comet's path would no longer have passed near the earth's, and the comet could
not have encountered the earth either on November 27, 1872, or at any other time ; and
if they had not been, the comet must have crossed the earth's track early in September,
1872, and therefore, in this case also, must have been far away from the earth on Novem-
ber 27, 1872.

VOL. XVI.— 17

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

MANY-TOED HOKSES.

WHEN Professor Huxley gave his lectures in New York, three years
ago, on the evidences of evolution, he brought forward the gene-
alogy of the horse as made out by recent fossil discoveries, and claimed
that it was decisive in establishing the principle of descent, derivation,
and development through the geological periods. There was a good
deal of wise shaking of heads and shrugging of shoulders, at his presen-
tation of the case, on the part of many who attended the lectures ; and
all who were perfectly ignorant of comparative anatomy and could not
comprehend the course and force of the argument, were certain that
the great biologist had for once made a total failure. No doubt if
these critics had been questioned they would have readily pronounced
the case closed for ever against evolution ; but knowledge grows and
evidence accumulates, and so it will be worth while to recall the sub-
ject, that we may appreciate some of the further points of illustration
that have been made out since.

Professor Marsh, of Yale College, who has had this inquiry especial-
ly in hand, has made a short communication to " Silliman's Journal,"
on "Polydactyle (many-toed) Horses, Recent and Extinct," the sub-
stance of which we here reproduce.

It is stated that America is the original home of the horse, and that
during the whole of Tertiary time, which the geologists divide into
three periods — the Eocene, Miocene, and Pliocene — early, middle, and
later — this continent was occupied with horse-like mammals of many
and various forms. These all became extinct before the discovery of
the country, but their abundant remains furnish the materials for mark-
ing out the genealogy of the horse in an almost unbroken succession
of forms.

The study of fossils has shown that the oldest representatives of
the horse on this continent all had many toes, and were of small size.
In the course of development there was a gradual increase in size and
a diminution in the number of toes, until the present type of horse was
produced. The line of genealogy has been made out through seven
successive stages, and the fossil proofs of its validity and completeness
are all to be seen in the Yale Museum of Natural History. In vol. x.
of " The Popular Science Monthly," page 295, the figures are given
that illustrate the whole subject ; we here simplify the representation
by indicating the succession of changes that have taken place in the
structure of the fore-foot of this series of quadrupeds (Fig. 1). All
the facts go to show that the horse tribe is derived from an original
ancestor having five toes on each foot, but this parent of the race has
not yet been discovered. The oldest member of the group that has
become known is the Eohlppxis, which had four well-developed toes
and the rudiment of another on each fore-foot, and three toes behind.

MANY-TOED HORSES.

259

It was about as large as a fox, and
the base of the Tertiary formation.
Huxley's lectures were given, and
since the diagrams we follow were
made, and we therefore have no
figure of it. The Orohippus^ in the
next higher division of the Eocene,
resembled its predecessor in size,
but had only four toes in front, as
the diagram shows. The Mesohip-
pus came later, was about as large
as a sheep, and had three usable
toes, and the splint of another, on
each fore-foot. In the later Mio-
hippus, the splint-bone is reduced
to a short remnant. In the Plio-
cene above, a three-toed horse {Pro-
tohippus), about as large as a don-
key, was abundant ; and, still higher
up, a near ally of the modem horse
(Pliohippus) makes his appearance.
The series is completed in the sub-
sequent appearance of a true Equus,
as large as the existing horse.

The horse has thus advanced in
his development by getting rid of
superfluous toes or digits ; but, un-
der the principle of reversion to an
early ancestral type, to which it is
now well understood that animals
are liable in various ways, these sup-
pressed splints or digits break out
as extra hoofs. Professor Marsh
says : " In addition to each main
digit of the ordinary horse, the anat-
omist finds concealed beneath the
skin two slender metapodial ' splint-
bones,' which are evidently the rem-
nants of two other toes originally
possessed by the ancestor of the
horse. It is an interesting fact that
these splint-bones are sometimes
quite fully developed, and may
even support extra digits which are
much shorter and smaller than the
main foot. As these small hooflets

appears in the lower Eocene or at
It was discovered since Professor

puonsppcs.

PKOTOKIPPCS

iUipparioii).

MTOnrPPTTS

{^Andiitherium).

IIESOHCFPITB.

PLIOCENE.

MIOCENE

{NeartJiS base\

OEOHipprs.

Eonippus. z

{Four toes and the 'fi EOCENE

ritdime,nt of another g {_2i'ear the base),

on each fore-foot.) «

(Original f/te-toed
ancestor of the
horse.)

26o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

are usually regarded as a serious detriment to the animal, they are gen-
erally removed from the colt soon after birth; but, in such cases, the en-
larged splint-bones not unfrequently indicate in the adult their former
existence. Numerous cases of extra digits in the horse have been re-
corded, and in nearly all of them a single lateral hooflet was present on
one of the forelegs."

Professor Marsh states that the first recorded instance of extra
digits in the horse known to him are two mentioned by George Simon
Winter, in his famous book on horses, published at Nuremberg in
1703. One of the horses referred to, and figured in this work, was
" eight-toed," having a small extra digit on the inside of each foot.
Winter states that this horse was exhibited in Germany in 1663, and
a portrait of it preserved in Cologne. His account was derived from
a person who had examined the animal. The other horse described by
Winter had a small hoof in the inside of each fore-foot ; and this
steed, Winter states, he had not only seen but ridden. Other instances
of this phenomenon are referred to, on the authority of Geoffrey Saint-
Hilaire, Owen, and Leidy.

Fig. 2.— Outline op Horse with Extra Digit on Each Foot.

Professor Marsh has described an interesting case of this reversion
in the horse, which he has personally examined, and which is repre-
sented in Fig. 2. He says : " This animal was on exhibition in New

SKETCH OF HEINRICH WILHELM DOVE. 261

Orleans in the spring of 1878, and Dr. Sanford E. Chaille, of that city,
first called the attention of the writer to it, and likewise sent a photo-
graph from which the cut was made. This same horse was subse-
quently brought to the North, and a few days since was on exhibition
at New Haven, Connecticut, where the writer examined him with
some care. The animal is of small size, about ten years old, and is
said to have been foaled in Cuba. He is known among showmen as
the 'eight-footed Cuban horse.' With the exception of the extra
digits he is well formed. The four main hoofs are of the ordinary
form and size. The extra digits are all on the inside, and correspond
to the index-finger of the human hand. They are less than half the
size of the principal toes, and none of them reach the ground.

" Among the instances of recent polydactyle horses described to the
writer by those who have seen them are two of special interest. One
of these was a colt with three toes on one fore-foot, and two on the
other. The animal recently died in Ohio. Another is a mare, raised
in Indiana, and is still living, which is said to have three toes on each
fore-foot, and a small extra digit on each hind-foot. In regard to
the latter animal, the writer hopes soon to have more definite infor-
mation.

" Besides the instances mentioned above of extra digits in place in
the existing horse, there are many cases on record of true monstrosi-
ties, as, for example, additional feet or limbs attached to various por-
tions of the body. Such deformities now admit of classification and
explanation, but need not be considered in the present discussion."

SKETCH OF HEINEICH WILHELM DOYE.

By FREDERICK HOFFMANN.

THE veteran savants who inaugurated the great advances in modern
physical research are passing away, one after another, leaving their
achievements for completion to the succeeding generation, and their
imperishable fame to the records of human history. Foremost among
the centers of exact and productive inquiry and learning ranked the
University of Berlin, founded in the years of Prussia's deepest hu-
miliation at the hands of the great Corsican adventurer, out of the
royal motive " to raise the down-trodden nation to strength and great-
ness by intellectual and mental vigor and virtue." Among the brilliant
array of famous scholars of the first period of that university were
Wilhelm and Alexander von Humboldt, Leopold von Buch, Carl Rit-
ter, Fichte, Plegel, Enke, Boekh, Kunth, Link, Ehrenberg, Johannes
Mttller, E. Mitcherlich, Heinrich and Gustav Rose, Poggendorf, Dove,

262 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Magnus, and others. Dove, being one of the youngest, outlived
them all.

Heinkich Wilhelm Dove vras born at Liegnitz, Silesia, on Octo-
ber 6, 1803, and at the age of eighteen passed from the schools of that
town to the Universities of Breslau and Berlin, where for the next
three years he devoted himself to the study of mathematics and phys-
ics. In 1826 he took the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Uni-
versity of Berlin, his thesis on the occasion being an inquiry regarding
barometric changes ; and it is significant of his future life-work that
his first 2:)ublished memoir was a paper on meteorological inquiries
relative to winds, these two subjects holding a paramount place in the
great problem of weather-changes.

Dove began his public career as a professor at the University of
Konigsberg, where he remained till 1829, being then invited to Berlin
as supplementary Professor of Physics. His strikingly clear-sighted,
bold, and original intellect turned forcibly to that intricate group of
questions in the domain of physics which comprise the sciences of
meteorology and climatology. In these fields, then but imperfectly
understood, his success as an original explorer was so marked and raj^id
that it at once attracted the attention of the scientific world and of the
governments throughout Europe ; and these were but the first of a
long series of consummate researches and deductions by which Dove,
besides Humboldt, opened new fields of inquiry and laid the foundation
of those sciences. Stimulus and encouragement were not wanting ;
for he entered upon his brilliant career at a time when a most produc-
tive era prevailed in the rise of the exact physical sciences in Germany :
Goethe was still living, the glory and the giant mind of his age ; Al-
exander von Humboldt had stirred the world of science and culture by
his ever-famous popular lectures on physical and cosraical geography,
in the great hall of the Berlin University in 1827 to 1828, and his fas-
cinating " Views of Nature," translated into most civilized languages,
had delighted and inspired all Europe ; the first German Geographical
Society had been established in Berlin in 1828, second in time only to
that of Paris, the oldest European Geographical Society. Ehrenberg *
had returned from his six years' explorations in Africa and Asia with
immense treasures of collections and geographical and meteorological
observations. Leopold von Buch, geologist and geographer, stood in
the zenith of his fame. Carl Ritter, the father of comparative geog-
raphy, inspired both the youth and the learned of Germany by his
masterly exposition of that science in his lectures and writings. Dove,
then in the prime of youth, soon took a foremost rank as a lecturer at
the university, and among the cultured circles of the Prussian capital ;
the combined qualities of accomplished scholarship, of vivid and clear
exposition, of tine imagination, of humorous and sarcastic wit, com-
bined with a commanding presence, and the extent over which his elo-
* " Popular Science Monthly," vol. xiv., p. 668.

SKETCH OF HE IN RICH WILHELM DOVE. 263

quent utterances were heard, marked him as the Arago and Brewster
of Germany. For more than a quarter of a century his audiences were
among the largest and most accomplished in the great hall of the Ber-
lin University, overcrowded as it was by students and scholars of all
ages and from all stations in society and in the army, Germany show-
ered on him in profusion those honors which it but sparingly bestows
except on the highest order of learning and science ; and other coun-
tries amply recognized the successive results of Dove's masterly re-
searches ; there is scarcely a learned or scientific society of any note
that has not his name enrolled among its honorary members. The
Berlin Academy of Sciences elected him, in 1837, one of its youngest
members ; and in 1845 he was raised to the distinguished position of
the chair of Physics in the University of Berlin, now held by his suc-
cessor Professor Helmholtz.* When Alexander von Humboldt died.
May 6, 1869, the insignia of the high order pour le merite, worn by
him, were bestowed upon Dove ; and in 1867 he was chosen Vice-
Chancellor of that most exalted rank for scientific achievement in Ger-
many.

It would far surpass the limit allotted to this brief sketch to enter in
detail upon the scientific labors and works of Dove ; his scientific pa-
pers published in the memoirs of the Berlin Academy of Sciences, in
Poggendorf 's " Annalen," in " Zeitschrif t f ilr Erdkunde," in " Zeit-
schrift des Preussischen Statistischen Bureau's," etc., between the years
1827 and 1876 number more than two hundred and fifty, besides his
lai'ger published works and treatises, of which the most noted are :

" tJber Maas und Messen," 1835 ; " Meteorologische Untersuchun-
gen," 1837 ; " tJber die Nichtperiodischen Veranderungen der Tempera-
tur-Vertheilung auf der Oberflache der Erde," 6 vols., 1840-1859 ; " Un-
tersuchungen im Gebiete der Inductions Electricitat," 1843 ; " Uber
den Zusammenhang der Warme- Veranderungen der Atmosphare mit
der Entwicklung der Pflanzen," 1846 ; " Temperaturtaf eln," 1848 ;
"Uber Electricitat," 1848; "Monats Isothermen," 1850; "Verbrei-
tung der Warme auf der Erdoberflache durch Isothermen und Isano-
malen," 1852 ; " Darstellung der Farbenlehre," 1853 ; " Monats-und
Jahres Isothermen in der Polarprojection," 1864 ; " Darstellung der
Wiirme-Erscheinungen durch fiinftiigige Mittel," 3 vols., 1856-1870 ;
" Die Witterungs-Erscheinungen des nordlichen Deutschlands," 1858-
1803 ; " Das Gesetz der Stiirme," 1857 ; " Optische Studien," 1859 ;
" Anwendung des Stereoscopes zur Erkennung falschen Papier Geldes,"
1859 ; " Die Stiirme der gemaessigten Zone," 1863 ; " Klimatologische
Beitrage," 2 vols., 1857-1869 ; " Klimatologie von Nord Deutschland,"
2 vols., 1868-1871 ; " Eiszeit, Fohn und Sirocco," 1867 ; " Der schwei-
zerische Fohn," 1868 ; " Der Kreislauf des Wassers auf der Erde,"
1868 ; " Gedachtnissrede auf Alexander von Humboldt," 1869, etc.

They show Dove to have been a most thorough and successful
* "Popular Science Monthly," vol. v., p. 231.

264 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

worker and investigator in electricity, magnetism, optics, crystallog-
raphy, and in such practical subjects as measures and weights, and
the metric system of civilized nations. Among other discoveries, he
also first recognized the presence of a secondary electric current in a
metallic wire, at the moment that the circuit of the principal current is
completed. The large number of physical instruments originated and
devised by his genius and skill, among them his polarization apparatus,
his differential inductor, his rotating polariscope, and numerous other
important devices, bear evidence of his many contributions to the ad-
vancement of physics.

But it was to meteorological, hydrographical, and climatological
inquiries that Dove devoted his full strength and the great powers of
his mind ; and by his comprehensive and well-directed labors he has
written his name in imperishable characters on the records of science.
His fame rests preeminently on the successful inquiries which he car-
ried out with a view to the discovery of the laws regulating atmos-
pheric phenomena, which apparently are under no law whatever, and
on his isothermals and isabnormals of temperature for the surface of
the globe, in which labors one can not sufficiently admire the breadth
of view which sustained and animated him as an explorer, during the
long, toilsome years spent in, and requisite to, their preparation.
Equally charactei'ized by philosophic depth and by what really seemed
a love for the drudgery of detail, even to profuseness, when such
drudgery appeared necessary or desirable in attaining his object, are
his various works on winds, the manner of their veering, and their
relations to atmospheric pressure, temperature, humidity, and rainfall,
and the important bearings of the results on the climatology of the
globe ; and on the relation of the variations of temperature to the
development of plants and their life and distribution. The origin of
storms and their connection with the general circulation of the atmos-
phere has been much elucidated by Dove's comprehensive and exact
researches ; and the " laws of the rotation of the winds and storms,"
of so vast importance to the mariner, are for ever linked with his
name.

Alexander von Humboldt had originated the Prussian Meteorologi-
cal Bureau, and Dove, since 1848 its director, gradually organized,
extended, and summarized throughout Germany, the valuable system
of meteorological observations and publications, since widely and suc-
cessfully accepted and introduced in most civilized countries.

When we consider the condition in which Dove found man's
knowledge of the weather, and the large accessions and development
it received from his hand, the breadth of his views, and the well-
'directed patience rising into high genius, with which his mind was
inspired and his researches were pursued, there can be but one opinion,
that these give Dove claims, which no other physicist can compete
with, to be styled " the Father of Meteorology."

SKETCH OF H BIN RICH WILHELM DOVE. 265

So much of Dove as an original investigator and scholar. As pro-
fessor at the Berlin University he accomplished more than one hun-
dred lecture terms (Semester), and among the many thousands who
have been instructed and inspired by his masterly and impressive lec-
tures and occasional orations, most of the eminent physicists of our
generation and the scientists of Germany may be counted, who all will
remember with pleasure and veneration the great teacher's exquisite
style, his humor and wit, the lucidity and precision of his logic and
demonstration, and the elegance and perfection of his experiments.
Pie did not address himself to beginners, but presupposed the full
intellectual maturity and learning of the German gymnasium educa-
tion, and his audiences were composed of men of every age and of the
highest stations of society. Dove was also for years Professor of
Physics at the Military and the Polytechnic Academies of Berlin, and
a member of the highest boards of the Prussian Government for state
examinations in the various branches of civil and military vocations.
Governments, learned institutions, and societies from many countries
resorted to him as the highest authority.

The celebration of Dove's fiftieth year of his Doctorate in Philoso-
phy, March 4, 18T6, was the occasion of well-deserved felicitations
from all parts of Germany, from the people and Government, and
from institutions and seats of science and learning. The feeling was
general that the fifty years of Dove's active life in a very large degree
represented and I'eflected the recent history of physics, and of mete-
orology and climatology in particular. Congratulations and honors
poured in upon the veteran savant from all parts of the civilized
globe, as his name and fame were well known, and his labors and
achievements are still of inestimable value on all continents and to the
mariner on the seas. Three years later, after a protracted illness, Dove
passed peacefully away on the 4th of April, 1879, in the seventy-sixth
year of his age, one of Germany's greatest and most gifted naturalists
and teachers of the present century.

266

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

CORRESPONDENCE

CURIOUS EFFECT OF LIGHTNING.

Messrs. Editors.

rriHE following remarkable freak of light-
_L ning seems to me worthy of record :
There was a severe shower, accompanied by
vivid lightning and peals of thunder, in Sa-
lem, Massachusetts, August 6, 1879. A lady,
while passing through a room in range of two
open windows, was suddenly enveloped in a
blaze of light from her feet to her waist.
She was not in any way unpleasantly affect-
ed by it, but from a sense of fright threw
herself on the bed beside a friend ; both de-
tected the smell of sulphur and of burned
leather. Nothing more was thought of the
matter till two days after, when the lady
went to her dress, which had hung in a
closet ever since the afternoon of the storm,
to get her purse from the pocket. The
purse contained eighty-five dollars in green-
backs. What was her astonishment, when
it was opened, to find the money gone, and
in its place only charred fragments of the
same and ashes ! The remnants of the bills
were adherent to the sides of the central
pocket in which the money was contained.
Nothing was left of it sufficient to identify
it as bills. The pocket of the purse in
which it was held was surrounded by a rim
of nickel with a central clasp. The clasp
was bent and blackened. The band was
riveted on by two steel pins. A car-ticket
in an adjoining compartment of tlie purse
was blackened ; a silver half-dollar was
blackened and also bent. The purse was
not burned or marred externally, but there
was a crisp, burned spot at one end. The
purse was in a cotton pocket between two
woolen stuffs. It has been seen by hun-
dreds, and by all it is considered a remark-
able freak of this most subtile agent.

M. J. Safford.
Boston, Jvly 20, 1879.

WHY DO WELLS AND SPRINGS OVER-
FLOW?
lles.9rs. Editors.

I HAVE read with interest the paper in
your November number, " Why do Springs

and Wells overflow ? " The theory ad-
vanced by the writer is ingenious, but it
would have been more satisfactory if he
had told us how the water which is forced
out of subterranean reservoirs in the man-
ner he describes is first forced into them.
He says, " If fissures exist in rocks that
lead to imprisoned waters, through these
outlets the water must certainly flow."
Then, of course, such fissures can never
serve as inlets ; for the same cause — " the
resultant of the force of gravity and the
centrifugal force " — which sends the water
out, would for ever prevent any water from
sinking in. If the rainfall, as I suppose he
would admit, is more or less remotely the
source of supply for these reservoirs, or if
they have any source external to them-
selves, and are not miraculously inexhaust-
ible, his theory seems to involve a contra-
diction.

I am, sir, in the interest of science, very
respectfully yours,

J. T. Trowbridge.
Arlington, Massachusetts, October 27, 1879.

ON ATLANTIS.

Messrs. Editors.

Dear Sirs : I have read the article on
" Atlantis " in your October number, but
can not agree with its conclusions. It is
unlikely that any such geological convul-
sions could have taken place in times when
mythology was forming, and if they had
done so the myth based upon them could
not have taken so realistic a shape. We
must agree that myths are petrified de-
scriptions of natural processes expressed in
language which can now only be under-
stood figuratively. I think, then, there is
room for the probability that the Atlantis
myth is founded on the observation of low-
lying clouds in a sun-flushed sky which
looked like islands in a golden sea. Yours
respectfully, A. R. Grote.

Society Natural Sciences, *
Buffalo, October 1, 1879. )

EDITOR'S TABLE.

267

EDITOR'S TABLE.

GOLDWIN SMITH ON MORALS.

PROFESSOR GOLDWIX SMITH
is a student of history, and in the
November " Atlantic Monthly " he has
given us the fruits of his historical stud-
ies in relation to morality. He con-
tributes an article on " The Prospect of
a Moral Interregnum," which, being in-
terpreted, means a moral break-down.
He says that morality is based upon re-
ligion, and that in the past the coUapse
of religious systems has always been fol-
lowed by periods of moral debasement.
He then shows that in the present age
there is an extensive decline of religious
belief, which promises, and has already
brought forth, another period of moral
debasement. Goldwin Smith is an elo-
quent writer, and always sure of a large
number of readers ; whatever he says,
therefore, is entitled to attention, and
this article is entitled to especial atten-
tion. We dissent from some of his
views, and propose to give the reasons
for it.

His first historic illustration is from
the Greeks, Hellenic life, public and }
private, is stated to have been full of j
religion, while the fear of the gods Avas
a mainstay of morality. " Hellenic re-
ligion, however, was entangled with a
gross mythology, immoral legends, a
worship of sacrifices, a thaumaturgic
priesthood, an infantine cosmogony, a
polytheistic division of the physical uni-
verse into the domains of a number of
separate deities." We are told that it
fell before awakened intellect, while its
fall was conducive to progress ; but mo-
rality felt the withdrawal of its basis,
as is variously shown, especially in the
pages of Thucydides.

Rome is next taken up, and we are in-
formed that here also public and private
virtue was sustained by reverence for

the gods. Polybius is quoted as attest-
ing the strength of the religious senti-
ment among the Roman people, and the
necessity of maintaining superstitions
" as a concession to the requirements of
the multitude." But the Roman reli-
gion, like the Greek, broke up, though
" practical good sense probably played
a more important part in the over-
throw of superstition at Rome than in
Hellas." This was followed by wide-
spread immorality, but it is admitted
that the case is complex : " At the same
time a tremendous strain was laid on
public morality by the circumstances of
the empire. There ensued a cataclysm
of selfish ambition, profligate corruption,
and murderous faction, which left to
society only the choice between chaos
and a military corruption."

Professor Smith next points out the
marked religious character of life and
society in the middle ages under Catho-
lic predominance, and enumerates many
moral conquests of that period. Be-
sides the triumphs of religious art there
grew up the conception of the brother-
hood of mankind, the sanctity of life,
the value of virtues other than military,
and the happy transition of society from
slavery through serfage to free labor.
" Catholicism fell through the supersti-
tions and impostures which had gath-
ered around it, and which intellect,
awakened by the Renaissance, spurned
away ; through Papal tyranny and cler-
ical corruption, through the general os-
sification, so to speak, of a system which
had onCe in all its organs ministered to
spiritual life. With it fell the morality
that it had sustained, and once more
we find ourselves in a moral interreg-
num."

Now, if we assume that these are
correct historical representations, what

:68

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

is the obvious inference? Why, that
religion has hitherto proved an inse-
cure foundation for morals. Be there
or be there not an indestructible core
of truth in all religions, morality, ac-
cording to Professor Smith, has been
planted upon their perishable parts,
their mutable elements, and has lost
its hold upon men as these have passed
away, A foundation that crumbles
and permits its superstructure to fall
is a bad foundation ; and the i*eal ques-
tion forced upon us by Professor Smith's
historical lessons is, Shall we continue
to build the edifice of morals upon this
unstable basis, or shall we seek a better
and more enduring basis? Are the
rules of conduct to be derived from
what men know concerning this world,
or what they conjecture concerning
another? Or will it be maintained
that morals can have no other possible
foundation than that which history and
experience have proved to be incapable
of supporting it ?

Professor Smith assumes that his-
tory will repeat itself. He draws a
vivid picture of the extent and depth
of the prevailing unbelief, and insists
that it must be followed by the same
perilous decline of morals as in former
times.

But he here overlooks the altered
condition of the question. He seems
to have forgotten that the circum-
stances in this age are profoundly differ-
ent from what they were in the former
great periods of religious decadence.
In those times, when a set of supersti-
tions was worn out and discarded, the
state of knowledge was not such as to
prevent their reentrance in new forms.
But it is not so in this scientific age,
when the doubt of traditions is due to an
increasing knowledge of nature. The
profound and widespread questioning
that characterizes our time is charged
upon science, which is a new factor in
human affairs of modern growth, and
in so far as it is connected with sci-
ence it springs from allegiance to truth.

The skepticism engendered by science
is not a blind passion for sweeping
things away, but everything is exam-
ined, that it may be proved what will
stand. The active mind of the period
is vigorously engaged in getting opin-
ions off of their illusive traditional
foundations, that they may rest upon
their intrinsic merits and go for what
they are honestly worth. Doubt does
not lead to negation, but to construc-
tion. The search for principles, and
trust in them when established, are
becoming, through the influence of
science, intellectual characteristics of
the time. Morality has its principles ;
and right and wrong are grounded in
the nature of things. Goldwin Smith
goes for the sandy foundation of my-
thology and theology, which may lead
to further moral collapses; while sci-
ence is unweariedly laboring to avoid
them by planting morality upon a basis
that will be permanent.

It is significant that Professor Smith
never refers to any element of truth
in his religious foundation of morals.
These foundations, however, consist of
fear of fabulous gods, superstitious le-
gends, and perishable dogmas, and he
declares that now for the fourth time
on a great scale they have rotted away.
Morality has, therefore, not rested on
any divine, immutable basis, but upon
crude and transitory belief, mere human
devices. But is it not a vicious system
which plants morals upon a basis that
can be carried away by the necessary
progress of knowledge? And what
more effectual way could be devised
to subvert morality than to make it
depend upon that which is not valued
for its truth, and is liable to be discred-
ited at every step of advancing intelli-
gence ? In short, what immorality can
work such profound and far-reaching
evil as to place the motives and rules
of human conduct upon a false, facti-
tious, and transitory basis ?

From this point of view there is a
fallacy in representing morality as based

EDITOR'S TABLE.

269

upon religion, as a statue stands upon
its pedestal. Morality and religion have
grown up together, supernatural beliefs
being mixed with ethical ideas as with
everything else. Astronomy was mixed
up with religion in the astrological pe-
riods. Chemistry was mixed up with
religion in early times when the al-
chemist always began his experiments
with prayer. But who would say that
astronomy and chemistry were based
upon religion ? In the progressive dif-
ferentiations of knowledge they have
become freed from superstitions, and
are now independent branches of sci-
ence. Morals is later in its separation,
but it must follow the same law, and
become also an independent branch of
science. But in these past interactions
Professor Smith does not tell us to what
extent religious superstitions have cor-
rupted morality and hindered its devel-
opment ; nor does he intimate to what
extent the life of such superstitions may
have been prolonged by the conserva-
tive influence of their accompanying
codes of morals.

But the Professor comes to closer
quarters with his subject when he as-
serts that the moral debasement result-
ing from change of religious belief is a
matter of fact, and already upon us.
Religion has succumbed, and its place
is taiien by materialism, agnosticism,
and evolution. A frightful catalogue of
public crimes is made out and charged
upon evolution. His curious logic here
is, that evolution involves the concep-
tion of force, and therefore represents
the execrable doctrines of brute force,
outrage, and violence in human affairs.
He says : " The worship of success sig-
nally exemplified in the adoration of a
character such as that of Napoleon
seems to be the morality of evolution
supplanting that of Christianity." The
" seeming " is here quite illusive. Evo-
lutionists as a class are neither worship-
ers of success nor adorers of Napoleon.
The parties addicted to these practices
will be found in the opposite camp.

The most signal and representative ex-
ample of this adoration that we know
was that of a Christian clergyman, the
Eev. John S. C. Abbott, who wrote the
life of Bonaparte in a strain of extrav-
agant eulogy, and found hundreds of
thousands of Christian readers who
shared the admiration of the reverend
author for his hero. It was not in the
school of evolution that Abbott and his
multitudinous readers were trained to
the worship of brutal military success.

Mr. Smith cites the barbaric policy
of England in the treatment of inferior
races, the Zulu and Afghan wars, and
the English sympathy with the slave
power during the American civil war,
as further illustrations of that ascen-
dancy of brutality which he considers
due to the present prevalence of evo-
lutionary doctrine. The proposition is
preposterous. The Avorship of success
and the practice of national atrocities
upon inferior races are not things of
yesterday. They belong to the historic
policy of Christian peoples. Afghan
and Zulu wars are not novelties in Eng-
lish experience. Many in England may
have sympathized with the slavehold-
ers in our war, but what of the his-
tory of the slave system itself in rela-
tion to religion and morality? Were
the negroes stolen and enslaved by evo-
lutionists or Christians? Did religion
abolish or nourish that stupendous im-
morality during the two centuries of its
growth ? Did not religion through its
organizations lend itself to the perpetua-
tion of this " sum of all villainies," which
was only at last brought to an end solely
by the indiscretion of its partisans, who
went a little too far, and thus brought
on the horrors of a fratricidal war ?

And as to war itself, the subversion
of aU morality and the very revel of brute
force, has it not ever been the pastime
of religious nations ? And do regiments
ever want for chaplains to bless their
brutal and bloody vocation ?

Professor Smith further illustrates
the ascendancy of brute-force ideas in

270

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

England by citing the case of Governor
Eyre. He says : " Moral phenomena of
the same kind marked the controversy
arising out of the Jamaica massacre;
the enthusiastic supporters of Governor
Eyre perfectly recognized in him an
organ of the sanguinary vengeance of
the dominant race, even if they did not
believe that he had committed a foul
judicial murder."

But still the question is, Upon whom
is this savagery chargeable ? Professor
Smith says it is a result of the present
predominance of evolution supplanting
Christian moi*ality. He utters " the
thing that is not." Who was it that
held up Governor Eyre to reprobation,
prosecuted him, and demanded his pun-
ishment ? And who was it that excused
his conduct and organized to defend
him? It was Carlyle, the great apostle
of the brute-force philosophy, who was
very properly chairman of the commit-
tee of defense ; and he was backed up
solidly by the Christian lord-bishops.
But no one, except under the desperate
necessity of making out a case, will
charge that either Carlyle or the bish-
ops were animated by evolutionary sen-
timents. On the other hand, John Stu-
art Mill, the agnostic, was chairman of
the committee that prosecuted Govern-
or Eyre, and on that committee, and
among the most earnest and vigorous
in its work of resisting the control of
brute force, were the eminent evolu-
tionists, Charles Darwin, Professor Hux-
ley, and Herbert Spencer. Professor
Smith ought to have more respect for
the facts of his case.

MORALITY AMONG THE CHINESE.
Early in his article in the " Atlan-
tic," Professor Goldwin Smith says:
" Be the significance of the fact what it
may, a fact it seems to be, that only men
with a religions belief and a sanction
for morality which they believe to be
divine, have been able to live under a
government of law." Yet a few pages

further on he remarks : " China is
without any real religion ; she is thor-
oughly positive."

Professor Smith will reconcile these
propositions as best he can with the
fact that China is the oldest govern-
ment and the largest nation in the
world. She has a recorded history of
more than four thousand years, and
gives law to one third of the human
race. It will be instructive to glance
briefly at the state of morality among
these " positivists," that we may see
how it compares with that of confess-
edly religious countries.

It will be remembered that our in-
formation concerning the Chinese is
largely from prejudiced sources — from
missionaries who went there to get
them out of their heathenism, and the
official representatives of foreign gov-
ernments bound to open this dark re-
gion to the light of civilization. These
witnesses will, at any rate, not be biased
in favor of the Chinese.

In the last edition of the " Encyclo-
poadia Britannica " it is said, " Educa-
tion is probably more widely spread
among the male population in China
than in any other country." The
British Governor, Sir John Davis, in
his able work on this country,* says :
" It is deserving of remark that the
general prosperity and peace of China
have been very much promoted by the
diffusion of intelligence and education
through the lower classes. Among the
countless millions that constitute the
empire, almost every man can read and
write sufficiently for the ordinary pur-
poses of life, and a respectable show of
these acquirements goes low down in
the scale of society." S. Wells Wil-
liams, missionary, interpreter, and sec-
retary to the British Legation in China,
in his " Middle Kingdom " says, " Edu-
cation has always been highly esteemed
and exerted a dominant influence on
the manners and tastes of the people."

* Davis's "China," addressed to Lord Palm-
erston, vol. i., p. 25T.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

27]

Now, this universal Chinese educa-
tion differs widely from ours. It is not
a smattering of acquisitions of all kinds;
it is an able, well-tried system of train-
ing, narrow but thorough, and directed
to the practical end of fitting men for
the discharge of their moral duties in
domestic and social life. Williams re-
marks : " The great end of education,
therefore, among the ancient Cninese,
was not so much to fill the head with
knowledge as to discipline the heart
and purify the affections. One of their
writers says: 'Those who respect the
virtuous, and put away unlawful plea-
sures, serve their parents and prince to
tlie utmost of their ability, and are
faithful to their word — these, though
they should be considered unlearned, we
must pronounce to be educated men.' "

Five hundred years before the Chris-
tian era China produced one of the most
eminent moral teachers that the world
has seen — the philosopher Confucius.
The simple, pure, and sublime morality
of that old master forms the staple of
Chinese education. His ethical inculca-
tions constitute the chief element of the
old Chinese classics, which are drilled
with such tedious minuteness into the
minds of Chinese youth. They are
trained in his maxims with an assiduity
that is unparalleled. Rational or scien-
tific morality is taught nowhere. It is
everywhere a matter of dogmatic, em-
pirical lesson-learning, and from this
point of view the moral education of
the Chinese is superior to that of any
other country. And here has been the
stumbling-block of the missionaries.
They have not been successful with this
people, and acknowledge that they have
nothing to encourage them to keep on
save " Scripture promises." What else
could be expected? When they tell
those persons that " their righteousness
is all as filthy rags," and that they want
a theological system as a basis of morals,
it is not surprising that they make but
very little impression.

The authorities we have quoted at-

test that this extensive moral teaching
has not been without practical influence
upon the national character. The va-
riety and minuteness of the instructions
of Confucius for the nurture and educa-
tion of children, and the stress he lays
upon filial duty, tell powerfully upon
Chinese social life. The " Encyclopfe-
dia Britannica " says (article " China ") :
" There is a vast deal of quiet, happy
domestic life in China. . . . In the or-
dering of a Chinese household there is
much that might be imitated with ad-
vantage hy European families. The
duty of filial piety, which is the first
object of Chinese religious teaching,
represents much more than the cere-
monial observances which outwardly
mark its performance. The reverence
with which children are taught to re-
gard their parents fosters the affection
of which that reverence is the outward
and visible sign ; and the peace of each
household is assured by the presence of
a supreme authority against whose dicta
there is no appeal." Such principles
pervading the household can not be re-
stricted in their influence, and accord-
ingly we are told that in China " the
whole theory of government is the em-
bodiment of parental and filial piety."

In regard to the common virtues,
the same authority says : " In daily life
the Chinese are frugal, sober, and in-
dustrious. Their wants are few, and
they are easily satisfied. . . . Spirits —
they have no wine— appear to have no
great attraction for Chinamen. They
drink them occasionally, and sometimes
to excess, but a reeling Chinaman is
rarely to be seen upon the streets."

The "American Cyclopedia" (arti-
cle " China") says: "As to the moral
and intellectual characteristics of the
Chinese, great injustice has been done
to them. . . . The Chinese, so far as
they have come in contact with Euro-
peans and Americans, are industrious,
skillful, polite, and provident. ... In
the use of food and drink they are re-
markably temperate. . . . Cookery is

272

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

almost esteemed as a science in China.
Mr. Wingrove Cook assigns to the Chi-
nese in cookery a middle position — be-
low the French and above the English.
The Chinaman considers the English-
man's mode of feeding the nearest ap-
proach to that of the savages of For-
mosa; 'for,' says he, 'the Englishman
does the chief work of the slaughter-
house upon his dinner-table, and he re-
mits the principal work of the kitchen
to his stomach.' . . . The social life of
the Chinese is generally described as a
mass of ceremonials and cold formali-
ties, devoid of all real kindness of heart ;
but this opinion is based upon incom-
plete observations. In their common
intercourse the Chinese are not more
formal than is elsewhere considered to
be well bred. Whether in the crowded
and narrow thoroughfares, the village
green, the bustling market, the jostling
ferry, or the thronged procession, wher-
ever the people are assembled promis-
cuously, good humor and courtesy are
observable."

The Chinese are eminently a peace-
able people. In this respect they con-
form more perfectly to the theoretical
standard of Christian morals than any
Christian nations. Duels are unknown
among them ; and they consider a re-
sort to force as proof of an inferior
kind of civilization. They are conserv-
ative, and dread all violent disturb-
ance. Governor Davis says, " They
have lived so much in peace that they
have acquired by habit and education a
more than common terror of political
disorders"; and again, "Their common
maxim is, ' Better be a dog in peace
than a man in anarchy.' "

The ancient and permanent policy
of the Chinese Government has accord-
ed with the spirit of its population, and
has been peaceful. " Happy the people
■whose history is wearisome," remarks
Montesquieu ; and Governor Davis ob-
serves, " If this be the character of
Chinese history — if we find the even
current of its annals for a long time

past (before the late rebellion) less
troubled by disorders and anarchy than
that of most other countries — we must
look to the causes in the fundamental
principles of the government, and in
the maxims by which it is adminis-
tered." * Such habits of life are of
course not favorable to the virtues
of the prize-ring and the battle-field.
Christians have hence reproached the
Chinese for practicing the pacific mo-
rality of Christ, and, because they have
not been given to internal discord and
external war, have accused them of
cowardice— the leading characteristic,
by the way, of the American militia.
If the reader will look over the first
article in the November " Atlantic
Monthly," on " Our Military, Past
and Future," he will find it proved
that, in the various wars that make
our annals such lively reading, Amer-
ican citizens have always proved the
most arrant cowards, who will never
stand up to fight unless they have
been so long subject to military disci-
pline that all manliness is drilled out
of them, and they become mere pup-
pets, good for nothing but to obey or-
ders. And it further turns out that
the " courage " of even the old disci-
plined soldier, in nine cases out of ten,
is a differential result of his opposing
fears, and that he fights the enemy be-
cause he is more afraid of his friends.

We used to hear many years ago
about a quality called moral courage,
and the stand for principles in defiance
of brute force ; but since our great war
less has been heard of that very unmili-
tary virtue. It will therefore be re-
freshing to recall a conspicuous Chinese
instance of it. On the 28th of Decem-
ber, 1857, a mile of gunboats, English
and French, were drawn up in line be-
fore the city of Canton. They sum-
moned the Viceroy to surrender, but
he did not comply. The allies then
opened fire, and kept up for many hours

'Davis's " China," vol. i., p.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

273

a hot bombardment. Nothing entitled
to be called resistance was ofiered;
there was no enemy. Having battered
down a sufficient number of dwellings,
and got tired of their " glorious " sport,
the allies stopped the cannonading. A
squad was then sent to demand of the
Viceroy Yeh the formal surrender of
the town. " We shall surrender no-
thing," was the reply, "because we are
right, and you are wrong." " Then we
will take you prisoner." " You have
the power." " Come with us, then."
But the Viceroy did not move. There-
upon they lifted up the chair in which
lie sat, and carried him on board Lord
Elgin's ship. As to who were the real
victors in this case may be safely left
to the future verdict of civilization ; un-
less, indeed, General Grant anticipates
it in the great work on " The Philoso-
phy of the Chinese Policy," which it is
to be hoped he will soon publish.

Mr. Wells Williams remarks,* '' It
was about a. d. 600 that Taitsung, of
the Tang dynasty, instituted the pres-
ent plan of preparing and selecting ci-
vilians by means of study and degrees."
That is, more than twelve hundred
years ago China adopted its present
thoroughgoing policy of competitive
civil-service examinations to secure
honesty and efficiency in the discharge
of political duties and trusts. Whatev-
er may have been its results, England,
within a generation, has adopted a sim-
ilar system, confessedly in imitation
of the Chinese. We, too, have feebly
tried to secure something of the kind ;
but such is the degraded condition of
American political morality that the
effort has been little else than a ridicu-
lous farce. Perhaps Goldwin Smith
will show us that the beastly condition
of our politics is due to " evolution
supplanting Christian morality."

It is said that the Chinese are un-
truthful ; but Mrs. Opie, in her classi-
cal book on lying, did not have to go to

* " Middle Kingdom," vol. i., p. 422.
VOL. XVI.— 18

China for her illustrations either of the
nice gradations or the great popularity
of this practice. She dealt with it en-
tirely as the phenomenon of a religious
country. Moreover, as we are just fresh
from a political campaign, perhaps the
less we say about veracity the better,
even in comparison with the pagans.
An intelligent gentleman, many years
a resident of China, and accustomed to
large business transactions with their
merchants, informs us that among these
merchants in the great centers of com-
merce the standard of mercantile honor
is higher than anywhere else in the
world. The tea and silk sent us from
China are no doubt often adulterated,
which is, of course, very immoral ; but
the highest English authority, Dr. Has-
sall, declared, in his big book upon the
subject, that in his country every article
under heaven that can be adulterated is
adulterated.

" But they are such dreadful opium-
smokers!" ejaculates the complacent
tobacco-chewing deacon, as he seeks
the spittoon. Very true ; and we are
not bringing forward these godless hea-
then as models of all the virtues. But
speaking of opium recalls another pas-
sage in Chinese history, which throws
light on this comparison of Christian
and pagan morality. The Chinese
Government undertook to suppress the
opium-traffic, so as to cut off the for-
eign supply and arrest the demoralizing
influence of its use among the people.
Profoundly impressed by the dreadful
evils of this increasing habit, the au-
thorities did their utmost to stop the
smuggling of the article ; but, when its
vigorous measures began to be effective,
the great Christian nation which was
embarked in the villainous trade, made
war upon the country, and forced the
accursed drug upon it at the cannon's
mouth. The conduct of England in
this " opium war " will be infamous
through all time ; but its policy was as
deliberate as its motives were execra-
ble. In the prehminary discussion of

274

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the subject in the British Parliament,
before war was declared, no consider-
ations of morality or humanity were
recognized, and Wells WilHams informs
us that Lord Melbourne but echoed the
common sentiment when he said, " We
possess immense territories peculiarly
fitted for raising opium, and, though
he would wish that the Government
were not so directly concerned in the
traffic, he was not prepared to pledge
himself to reUnquish it." And when
the war was over "members of Par-
liament expressed their gratification at
being at last out of a bad business;
while now the light of the gospel and
the blessings of Christian civilization
might be introduced among the be-
nighted millions of China."

The war was over for the English,
and they had gained their disgraceful
object; but the end had not come for
the Chinese. The spell of their pacific
history and the prestige of the impe-
rial Government were broken together.
In a previous quotation Governor Davis
speaks of the peaceful current of Chi-
nese history till the disturbance of the
"late rebellion." He refers here to
the great Taiping rebellion, which
threatened the subversion of the es-
tablished Government, and which Gov-
ernor Davis says " can be clearly traced
to changes produced by our war'''' — the
opium war.

The Taiping rebellion broke out in
southern China in 1850. There had
been repeated failure of crops in the
district where it originated, followed
by sufi'ering and disaftection, A man
of humble origin, named Hung Siu-
tsuen, seized the occasion to incite an
outbreak. He had failed in the civil-
service examinations, and had no pros-
pect of ofiice under the Government.
He had read some of the tracts issued by
the missionaries, got a notion of Chris-
tian supernaturalism, gave out that he
was a recipient of divine messages, as-
sumed the title of " Heavenly Prince,"
and conceived the idea of founding a new

religion and at the same time of expel-
ling the existing dynasty. His schemes
were favored by the foreigners, who
professed to beheve that the cause of
Christianity would be promoted by
their success. The insurrection was
pushed with great vigor and effect.
Battles were won, towns captured, dis-
tricts ravaged, and multitudes of people
butchered, while the Government was
able to check the disastrous movement
but partially. For centuries "the em-
pire had been peace"; the Christians
had suddenly brought war and insti-
tuted the reign of brute force, and with
this the nation, by its habits and cir-
cumstances, was but poorly prepared to
cope. The rebellion, accordingly, smol-
dered along for sixteen years before it
was finally suppressed. The foreign
officials, seeing at length that there was
little chance of succeeding with Chris-
tianity as they had with opium, and
that the rebellion meant simply anar-
chy, the destruction of law and order,
with danger to trade, threw their influ-
ence at last in favor of the existing
Government, and helped to end the in-
surrection.

Surely the morality of these pagan
positivists, said to be without any real
religion, does not suff'er in comparison
with that of a nation which boasts of a
"great religion" at the foundation of
its moral system.

ROOD'S Cim03IATICS—A MISLEADING
CRITICISM.

We early expressed a high opinion
of Professor Rood's work on Chromat-
ics, both as an admirable popular expo-
sition of the science of colors and also
as to its bearing on their artistic man-
agement. This estimate has been ratified
by discriminating criticism both in lead-
ing American journals and the best
English periodicals — all of which have
been emphatic in their commendation
of its judicious and instructive treat-
ment of the artistic relations of the

EDITOR'S TABLE.

275

subject. It was not without some sur-
prise, therefore, that we read in the
"Nation," of October 16th, a review
of this work, which, though in some
respects cordially appreciative, was in
important respects at variance with the
common verdict. The writer speaks
of the scientific character of the book
in a very pronounced way as "a work
so laden with untiring and skillful ob-
servation and so clear and easy to read,
that it is plainly destined to remain the
classical account of the color-sense for
many years to come." But before he
gets through he talks in so different a
strain as to occasion some perplexity
with reference to his real state of miad
upon the subject.

The critic in the " Nation " raises
the question whether scientific inves-
tigation can be of use to artists, and
he assumes that Professor Rood be-
lieves it may be. That question, how-
ever, we do not here propose to con-
sider, but merely to show that the
writer in the " Nation " has been both
unfair and unfortunate in the examples
he cites as proof of the bad consequences
flowing from the assumption he attrib-
utes to Professor Rood. He says: "As
to the question whether scientific in-
vestigation is an aid to artistic produc-
tion or to artistic judgment, the author
seems to assume that it may be. In
the preface it is asserted that while
knowledge of the laws of color ' will
not enable people to become artists,' it
may help in artistic work. Now, wheth-
er this is so or not, there is no chance
to discuss in these columns, but a chap-
ter of Professor Rood's book might
well have been devoted to the exami-
nation of that question, and we regret
to find instead of such examination the
whole argument of the last two or three
chapters resting upon the assumption
of what we think ought to have been
proved." Again he says : " The last
chapter is devoted to the use of color
in painting and decoration ; and in this
the evident knowledge and right feel-

ing of the author are made useless by
the false system adopted — the system
of arguing from assumed principles to
results instead of comparing results to-
gether with the view of establishing
principles." As an example of this
"false system," the fact is then pointed
out that four pages are devoted to state-
ments respecting the good, bad, and in-
different combinations of colors in pairs.
The fact is, however, that Professor
Rood has taken especial pains, in the
very instances selected, to explain that
the method complained of is precisely
the one he has not followed ; and that
the information contained in the tables
is not derived from scientific experi-
ments, but by observation of the results
of artistic experience. Professor Rood
has carefully guarded himself here in
the very opening paragraph of the chap-
ter " On the Combination of Colors in
Pairs and Triads." He there says : "In
the previous portion of this work we
have dealt with facts that are capable
of more or less rigorous demonstration ;
but we now encounter a great series of
problems that can not be solved by the
methods of the laboratory or by the aid
of a strictly logical process. Why a
certain combination of colors pleases us
or why we are left cold or even some-
what shocked by another arrangement,
are questions for which we can not al-
ways frame answers that are satisfac-
tory even to ourselves. There is no
doubt that helpful and harmful con-
trasts have a very great influence on
our decision, as will hereafter be pointed
out ; but, besides this, we are some-
times influenced by obscure and even
unknown considerations. Among these
may perhaps be found inherited ten-
dencies to Hke or dislike combinations
or even colors; influence of the gen-
eral color-atmosphere by which we are
surrounded ; training ; and also a more
or less delicate susceptibility. The au-
thor gives below, in the form of tables,
some of the results furnished by expe-
rience, and takes pleasure in acknowl-

276

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

edging his indebtedness to Briicke and
to Chevreul for niucli of the informa-
tion contained in them."

These tables, then, are given as em-
bodying the results of artistic experi-
ence solely, and contain a comparison
of artistic results collected " with a
view of establishing principles." The
different triads of colors that are men-
tioned further on in the chapter belong
in the same category : we read on ])age
299 that " the triads tliat have been
most extensively used are spectral, red,
yellow, and blue," etc. These are fol-
lowed by a triad which, it is stated,
was much used in the middle ages, and
again by one which, it is claimed,
was a favorite in the Italian schools.
Throughout the whole list of pairs and
triads, good and bad, we fail to i3nd a
single case which it is not claimed em-
bodies the results of artistic experience.
It seems to us, then, that in this chap-
ter the first and main aim has been the
collection of " results with the view of
establishing principles." Our author,
then, having accepted without question
these fruits of artistic labor, proceeds
to analyze them for the purpose of as-
certaining the principles that have been
at work in their production. Among
these, he finds helpful and harmful con-
trast, the desire to employ warm rather
than cold color, etc. A less cautious
writer than Professor Rood would prob-
ably have endeavored to construct a
theory for practice based on the prin-
ciples thus more or less established, but
he attempts nothing of the kind. The
facts and their suggested explanations
are simply handed over to the student
for his consideration. Thus the method
pursued in this chapter by our author
is precisely that which the writer in
the " Nation " blames him for not fol-
lowing.

A word may here be added respect-
ing the greater or less success with
which this correct method has been ex-
ecuted. The critic in the "Nation " is
apparently not aware that by far the

larger part of the statements contained
in the tables is taken not from Chevreul
but from Briicke, and now for the first
time appears in an English dress. This
distinguished scientist states in the pref-
ace to his work (" Physiologie der Far-
ben," Leipsic, 1866), that he is the son
of a painter, has always been in con-
stant intercourse with painters, and
that from his youth he has studied op-
tics in connection with its artistic appli-
cations. His statements with reference
to the combination of the colors in
pairs and triads he asserts embody the
results furnished by artistic experience,
and he adds that he has been unable to
find any general rule which presides
over the facts he has collected. These
observations of Briicke are alluded to
by Von Bezold, in the preface to his
" Chromatics " ( " Die Farbenlehre,"
1874), as a great mass of delicate
observations ; and, from the fact that
they are quoted by Professor Rood, we
may also safely conclude that he has
taken every pains to verify them as far
as possible. As to what value they
may ultimately be found to have for
the artist and decorator, time alone can
show, but for the present it will hardly
answer to dismiss them contemptuous-
ly without study, particularly when we
remember that they are not the fruits
of scientific investigation, but of obser-
vation on artistic results.

We pass now to the second point
made by this critic : Should the artist
regard Chevreul's " laws of contrast " ?
The writer in the " Nation " thinks
that our author would say " Ay," but
he declares that most artists would say
"No," Now, the laws of contrast sim-
ply express in a condensed form the ef-
fects that colored surfaces experience
owing to the presence of other colored
surfaces ; it seems to us that to this
question there can be only one reply,
viz., that, consciously or unconsciously,
artists always have and always will
respect them ; a delicate obedience to
these laws in then- most subtile appli-

LITERARY NOTICES.

277

cations constituting, indeed, one of tbe
great merits of an accomplished color-
ist. Concerning this matter of con-
trast Euskin well remarks : " Every
hue throughout your work is altered
by every touch that you add in other
places ; so that what was warm a min-
ute ago becomes cold when you have
put a hotter color in another place." *
The so-called laws of contrast simply
point out the nature of these subtile
changes. The merit of a colorist is
not that he formally follows these laws,
but that consciously or unconsciously
he is so completely permeated with
them in all their varied applications,
that they have become a part of him-
self, enabling him to apply them to
complicated cases with a delicate cer-
tainty which often appears magical.
We are surprised that the critic who
assumes to know so much about artists
should ask the question, "Ought the
artist to regard the laws of contrast ? "
Established laws can never be disre-
garded with impunity by any class of
men ; they are self-executing.

LITERARY NOTICES.

Gray's Botanical Text-Book. Sixth Edi-
tion. Part I. Structural Botany, or
Organography on the Basis of Morphol-
ogy. To which are added the Principles
of Taxonomy and Phytography, and a
Glossary of Botanical Terms. By Asa
Gray, LL. D., etc., Fisher Professor of
Natural History (Botany) in Harvard
University. New Yorlc : Ivison, Blalie-
man, Taylor & Co. 1870. Large 8vo.
Pp. 442. Price, $2.50.

This is the first volume of what, in the
end, is to be a full botanical course of
study. Part II., by Professor Goodale, will
treat of physiological botany. Part III.,
by Professor Ilarlow, will be an introduc-
tion to cryptGgamic botany; and Part IV.,
which Professor Gray hopes to accomplish
himself, will contain a sketch of the natural
orders of phajnogamous plants, and of their

* " Elements of Drawing," p. 196.

special morphology, classification, distribu-
tion, products, etc.

The title-page of this important install-
ment of the sixth edition will be made more
intelligible to the general reader by the
following extract from its introduction :
^'■Structural botany comprehends all inqui-
ries into the parts and the organic compo-
sition of vegetables. This is termed organ-
ography Yih^n it considers the organs or ob-
vious parts of which plants are made up,
and morphology when the study proceeds
on the idea of type." By taxonomy is meant
"the principles of classification," and by
phytography " the rules and methods of de-
scribing plants." Ill the opening paragraph
of Chapter I. it is further explained that
morphology, the doctrine of forms, as the
name denotes, is used in natural history in
nearly the same sense as the older term
comparative anatomy. If it were concerned
merely with the description and classifica-
tion of shapes and modifications, it would
amount to little more than glossology and
organography. But it deals with these from
a peculiar point of view, and under the idea
i of unity of plan or type.

The first edition of Gray's " Text-Book
of Botany " was published in 1842, in one
moderate-sized octavo volume. The four
subsequent editions were each a little en-
larged from its predecessor ; but, until now,
one volume has sufficed for tbe treatment
of the entire field of botanical science.
When it appeared, botany was not gener-
ally studied in our schools. The analysis
of flowers by the Linnfean system was fash-
ionable in girls' seminaries, where there was
a pretense of studying plants themselves;
but it resulted in the merest pedantry. The
system of classification was artificial ; it did
not appeal to the rational faculties, as did
natural philosophy and chemistry; and sen-
sible boys and girls repudiated the subject.
To give it rank, it had to be placed on a
new basis and Gray's " Text-Book " accom-
plished this by the masterly way in which
he presented the life-history of plants. The
structure and development of colls was
clearly set forth, the natural system of
classification was adopted, and the study
became both rational and attractive.

But other changes besides increase of
size have taken place in this text-book. In

278

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the old editions, structural and physiologi- |
cal botany were considered together. There
was no attempt to deal with them separate-
ly. But the present volume is specially de-
voted to structural botany, and leaves out
physiology as far as possible. This diifer-
ence is really greater than at first appears.
Although structural botany was given along
with physiology in the old editions, yet phys-
iology was the only division of the science
that was really learned from its pages. Of
course, this was not intended by the au-
thor ; but, with the human mind what it
is, and the public schools such as they are,
no other result was possible. When this
work first appeared, and for long years
thereafter, studying objects was undreamed
of in our schools; lesson-learning ^was their
sole occupation. But a descriptive science
can not be learned from the pages of a
book. Physiology could be acquired by
the prevailing method, since it takes little
account of the differences among plants,
and would be much the same if the vege-
table world consisted of only one species.
The impression made upon pupils by the
descriptive portions of " Gray's Class-Book "
was so slight that, to the average student,
the science of botany and the physiology of
plants were about the same thing.

And so it happened that class after class
of our youth left school complacently think-
ing that they knew botany, but with only
the merest book-smattering concerning the
classification of plants. Of course, if the
forms and modifications of the organs of
plants were not regarded, there could be
little occasion for glossology ; and, by the
neglect of both organography and glossolo-
gy, the sketch of the natural orders at the
end of the volume was unintelligible. This
could only be understood when the actual
features of a large variety of plants were
familiar to the mind, and the memory was
also furnished with the exact terms applied
to them. Educationally considered, there-
fore, this chapter of illustrations of the nat-
ural orders, covering more than a hundred
pages, was little better than waste-paper.

The order of publication now adopted,
which presents structural botany by itself
at the outset of the study, will compel the
teachers of botany to change their practice,
and make the study of plants by direct ob-

servation a serious business. For, interest-
ing and fundamental as is the physiology
of plants, the discoveries of the last twen-
ty years have rendered their morphological
study more captivating still, so that the in-
terest of the science reaches its highest
point in systematic botany, or classification
on the basis of genetic relationship. But
the only possible admission to this delight-
ful portion of the subject is through such a
genuine knowledge of the contents of the
present work as will come from wide and
careful observation of living vegetable forms.
Another noticeable change in this treat-
ise is the substitution of the doctrine of the
development of species by natural selection
for that of the special creation of species,
which was taught in all former editions.
The fifth was published in ISSY, and Dar-
win's work on the " Origin of Species " did
not appear until 1859. The new direction
given to inquiry in natural history by this
work, and the copious literature of the sub-
ject which followed it, have profoundly al-
tered the aspects of biological science. The
old system of comparative anatomy, which
was based upon the doctrine of special cre-
ations, has given place to the modern sci-
ence of morphology ; which, from being,
before Darwin's time, merely a descriptive
study of forms, has become an analytical
science of form, pervaded throughout by the
principle of descent with variation. The
following extract from his chapter on "The
Principles of Classification " will sufficiently
indicate the present attitude of Professor
Gray toward the question of the evolution
of species :

The theory of descent, that is, of the diversi-
fication of the species of a geuus through varia-
tion in the lapse of time, aftbrds the only nat-
ural explanation of their likeness which has yet
been conceived. The alternative supposition,
that all the existing species and forms were
originally created as they are, and have come
down essentially unchanged from the beg^inning,
offers no explanation of the likeness, and even
assumes that there is no scientific explanation
of it. The hypothesis that the species of a ge-
nus have become what they are by diversifica-
tion through variation is a very old one in bot-
any, and has from time to time been put for-
ward. But, until recently, it has had little in-
fluence upon the science, because no clear idea
had been formed of any natural process which
I might lead to such result. Doubtless, if varia-
I tion, such as botanists have to recognize within

LITERARY NOTICES.

79

the species, be assumed as equally or even more
operative through long anterior periods, this
would account for the diversification of an orig-
inal species of a genus into several or many
forms as diflereut as those we recognize as spe-
cies. But this would not account for the limita-
tion of species, which is the usual characteris-
tic, and is an essential part of the idea of spe-
cies. Just this is accounted for by natural selec-
tion. This now familiar term, proposed by Dar-
win, was suggested by the operations of breed-
ers in the development and fixation of races
for man's use or fancy— breeding in each gen-
eration those individuals only in which the de-
sired points are apparent and predominant ; in
the seed-bed, by rigidly destroying all plants
which do not show some desirable variation,
breeding in and in from these with strict selec-
tion of the most variant form in the particular
line or lines, until it becomes fixed by heredity,
and as difi'erent from the primal stock as the con-
ditions of the case allow. lu nature, the anal-
ogous selection, through innumerable genera-
tions of the exceedingly small percentage of in-
dividuals (as ova or seeds) which ordinarily are
to survive and propagate, is made by competi-
tion for food or room, the attacks of animals,
the vicissitudes of climates, and, in fine, by all
the manifold conditions to which they are ex-
posed. In the struggle for life to which they are
thus inevitably exposed, only the individuals
best adapted to the circumstances can survive
to maturity and propagate their like. This sur-
vival of the fittest, metaphorically expressed by
the phrase natural selection, is, in fact, the de-
struction of all weaker competitors, or of all
which, however they might be favored by other
conditions, are not the most favored under the
actual circumstances. But seedlings, varying,
some in one direction and some in another, are
thereby adapted to diflferent conditions, some to
one kind of soil and exposure, some to another,
thus lessening the competition between the two
most divergent forms, and favoring their preser-
vation and further separation, while the inter-
mediate forms perish. Thus an ancestral type
would become diversified into races and species.
Earlier variation, under terrestrial changes and
vicissitudes, prolonged and various in geologi-
cal times since the appearanceof the main types
of vegetation, and the attendant extinctions, are
held to account for genera, tribes, orders, etc.,
and to explain their actual affinities. Aflinity
under this view is consanguinity; and classi-
fication, so far as it is natural, expresses real
relationship. Classes, orders, tribes, etc., are
the earlier or main and successful branches of
the genealogical tree, genera are later branches,
species the latest definitely developed ramifica-
tions, varieties the developing buds. Briefly :
Taken as a working hypothesis, the doctrine of
the derivation of species serves well for the co-
ordination of all the facts in botany, and afi^ords a
probable and reasonable answer to a long series
of questions which, without it, are totally unan-
swerable. It is supported by vegetable paleon-
tology, which assures us that the plauts of the

later geological periods are the ancestors of the
actual flora of the world. In accordance with it
we may explain in a good degree the present
distribution of species and other groups over
the world. It explains, by inheritance, the ex-
istence of functiouless parts, throws light upou
the anomalies of parasitic plants, and, indeed,
illuminates the whole field of morphology with
which this volume has been occupied.

In looking through Part I. we are struck
by the many new illustrations, and the new
headings of pages and sections, all bearing
witness lo the recent rapid growth of mor-
phological science. There is an entire sec-
tion of nearly thirty pages given to the sub-
ject of " Adaptations for Intercrossing" — a
subject the interest in which began in 1862,
with the publication of Darwin's book on the
fertilization of orchids by the aid of insects.

But, important and interesting as is the
volume before us, and rejoicing as we do in
the promise of those to come, we are chiefly
glad that Professor Gray has proceeded upon
the method of putting structural botany first
in this elaborate course of study. It is
now possible in some of the schools to
study living plants, and this' arrangement
is an assurance that students of Gray's Bot-
any will rationally pursue the subject of
classification.

A Treatise on Hygiene and Public Health.
Edited by Albert Buck, M. D. In Two
Volumes. Illusti-ated. New York:
William Wood & Co. Pp. 1450. Price,

There is something ludicrous and pitia-
ble in the estimates which men form of the
relative importance of difi'erent subjects of
thought. It seems to be still the law that
the popular solicitudes are in inverse ratio
to the vital usefulness of the questions to
which they are directed. Men lash them-
selves into furious excitement over the dif-
ferences between tweedledum and tweedle-
dee in politics, while they can be aroused to
only a languid and careless attention to the
life-and-deatb interests of daily family life.
Say what we will, the next great subject in
order in the development of civilization is
that of hygiene. To use this world rightly,
and get the most out of it, health is the first
condition, and there is no interest so impor-
tant both to the individual and to the com-
munity as its promotion and preservation.
But to accomplish these objects knowledge

28o

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

is necessary. Valuable and trustworthy in-
formation upon hygienic topics such as can
be followed with confidence to beneficent
results has been but slowly acquired, and is
yet far from perfect ; but enough has been
accumulated to work a sanitary revolution
in society if reduced to general application.
Of course, in matters of personal hygiene
everything depends upon individual knowl-
edge, and the disposition to use it ; but the
efficiency of measures for the promotion of
public health is hardly less dependent upon
popular intelligence. Needful sanitary laws
may be passed, but the essential thing, after
all, is that they shall be faithfully and vig-
orously carried out and not remain dead let-
ters in the statute-book. This must depend
upon the degree to which the people are in-
structed in hygienic subjects and are alive
to the care of health. Hygiene has grown
in recent years into an important branch of
study, with a copious literature of mono-
graphs and manuals. Cyclopaedias have
been attempted, but they have hitherto been
hastily compiled and are altogether inade-
quate for their purposes. We can, however,
no longer complain of the want of a com-
prehensive and authoritative treatise upon
this many-sided subject. The work before
us covers the full ground, is thoroughly di-
gested, and constitutes of itself a tolerably
complete hygienic library.

This elaborate work seems to have had
the follo'iv'ing origin : In reproducing Ziems-
sen's " Cyclopfedia of Practical Medicine"
from the German, the editors and publishers
found that the first volume, relating to the
subject of public health, had been prepared
so entirely from the German standpoint,
and took cognizance of a state of things so
materially different from that which exists
in this country, that it was considered ad-
visable to omit it in the American edition.
But as the subject was of fundamental im-
portance, it was felt that this omission must
be repaired, by taking up the subject with
special reference to the different climates,
conditions of soil, habitations, modes of life,
and laws of the United States. lu this way
the deficiency of Ziemssen's " Cyclopfedia "
would be amply repaired, so that its sub-
scribers might possess the work in its com-
pleteness, while the hygienic volumes would
be of interest to physicians generally, and

also to the educated classes, who are acquir-
ing a growing interest in the subject.

The introduction by Dr. John S. Billings,
besides prefatory explanations, treats of the
causes of disease and the jurisprudence of
hygiene. After considering the various
definitions of hygiene, and showing how its
meaning may be so extended as to sweep in
immense tracts of human knowledge, Dr.
Billings says : " The hygiene of which this
volume is to treat has not so broad a scope
as that just hinted at, since the intention
has been to produce a practical treatise
fimited to a consideration of the most usual
preventable causes of disease in civilized
countries, and more especially in the United
States, and of the surest and most economi-
cal means of diminishing or destroying these
causes."

The following remarks are still further
illustrative of the ideas involved in the
scheme of this work : " To what extent the
prevention of disease, the prolongation of
life, and the improvement of the physical
and mental powers in man may be carried,
we do not know ; but no doubt the tendency
of those who write and speak most on this
subject is to exaggerate the possibilities of
improvement ; since it does not seem prob-
able that the conditions of perfect personal
and public health are attainable, except in
rare and isolated cases, and for compara-
tively short periods of time ; yet ' that the
average length of human life may be very
much extended, and its physical power
greatly augmented ; that in every year with-
in this Commonwealth thousands of lives
are lost which might have been saved;
that tens of thousands of cases of sickness
occur which might have been prevented;
that a vast amount of unnecessarily impaired
health and physical debility exists among
those not confined by sickness ; that these
preventable evils require an enormous ex-
penditure and loss of money, and impose
upon the people unnumbered and immeasu-
rable calamities, pecuniary, social, physical,
mental, and moral, which might be avoided ;
and that means exist within our reach for
their mitigation or removal ; and that
measures for prevention will effect more
than remedies for the cure of disease ' — will
probably be admitted by every one who has
carefully studied the subject and made him-

LITERARY NOTICES.

281

self familiar with what has been accom-
plished in certain limited localities."

It will not be possible in our space to go
into any analysis of the varied and extensive
contents of this treatise, much less to at-
tempt a criticism of its plan or execution.
It has evidently been done with admirable
judgment, and the names of its contributors
are a sufficient guarantee that its pages faith-
fully reflect the present state of hygienic
knowledge. Part I. of the first volume is
devoted to individual hygiene, and begins
with the treatment of " Infant Hygiene," by
Dr. A. Jacobi, of New York. This is fol-
lowed by " Food and Drink," by Dr. James
Tyson, of Philadelphia. Professor William
Ripley Nichols, of Boston, writes " On Drink-
ing Water, and Public Water Supplies."
The article on " Physical Exercise " is by
Dr. A. Brayton Ball, of New York ; and the
last essay of Part I. is on "The Care of the
Person," by Dr. Arthur Van Harlingen, of
Philadelphia. Part II. of Volume I. treats
of " Habitations," and its first essay is on
" Soil and Water," by Dr. William H. Ford, of
Philadelphia. Dr. D. F. Lincoln, of Boston,
next takes up " The Atmosphere," and Dr.
Francis H. Brown, of Boston, closes Volume
I. by a disquisition on the " General Prin-
ciples of Hospital Construction." Part I. of
Volume II. treats of "Occupation." The
first essay is on the " Hygiene of Occupa-
tion," by Roger S. Tracj', M. D., of New
York. Charles Smart, M. D., C. M., assist-
ant Surgeon U. S. Army, takes up the "Hy-
giene of Camps " ; and Dr. Thomas J. Tur-
ner, Medical Director U. S. Navy, treats of
" Hygiene of the Naval and Merchant Ma-
rine." Heniy C. Sheafer writes on the
" Hygiene of Coal Mines," and Rossiter
W. Raymond, New York, contributes an
essay on " The Hygiene of Metal Mines."
Part II. of Volume II. is devoted to the
general subject of "Public Health." Dr.
Thomas B. Curtis, of Boston, presents the
subjects of " Infant Mortality " and " Vital
Statistics " ; Professor Stephen P. Shar-
pies, of Boston, considers " Adulteration of
Food " ; and Dr. Roger S. Tracy develops the
subject of "Public Nuisances." "Quaran-
tine," with reference to seaport towns, is
by Dr. Vanderpoel, of New York ; and Dr. S.
S. Herrick, of Louisiana, writes on " Inland
Quarantine." "Small-pox and other Con-

tagious Diseases " are treated by Drs. Ham-
ilton and Emmett, of New York, and " The
Hygiene of Syphilis " by Dr. F. R. Sturges,
of New York. "Disinfectants" is by Dr.
Elwyn Waller, of New York ; " Village
Sanitary Associations" is by Dr. R. S.
Tracy ; and Dr. Lincoln, of Boston, closes
the work by an essay on " School Hygiene."
The treatise has an excellent index, and
a very valuable feature of it is the copious
bibliography appended to each contribution.

First Lines of THERAPEriics : As based on
the Modes and the Processes of Healing
as occurring spontaneously in Disease ;
and on the Modes and Processes of Dy-
ing as resulting naturally from Disease.
In a Series of Lectures. ByALEXANDEii
Harvey, M. A., M. D., Edinburgh, Eme-
ritus Professor of Materia Medica in the
University of Aberdeen ; Lecturer on
the Practice of Medicine, etc. New
York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 278.
Price, — .

This important work is addressed to a
fundamental question in practical medicine
— the old question of the relations subsist-
ing between nature and art in the cure of
disease — what is the value to be assigned
to the vis mcdicatrix naturce, or the sponta-
neous processes of healing and recovery in
the diseased constitution ? That the follow-
ers of the medical art should magnify their
vocation, and that practitioners should be
led to favor those theories which enlarge
the sphere of practice, is perfectly natural,
but there can be no doubt that the conse-
quence is greatly to exaggerate the efficacy
of drugs in the treatment of disease. The
doctors want business, and the people want
medicine ; and so the profession is at any
rate not pecuniarily interested in belittling
the administration of remedies. But able
physicians have appeared from time to
time who recognized very clearly that there
is far too much medical meddling, and too
little recognition of the forces and tenden-
cies of nature in the eradication of disease.
It is to the credit of the profession that its
best mind is in cordial sympathy with all
rational hygienic measures which have for
their object the prevention of disease ; but
the use of hygienic agencies in disease is a
lesson which many think has yet to be more
enforced in the sphere of medical practice.
Many medical men have ranged them-

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

selves on the side of this question repre-
sented by Dr. Harvey in the present volume,
prominent among whom have been Alison
Gubler and Sir John Forbes — the latter
author, indeed, having carried his views so
far as to be ranked as a therapeutic nihil-
ist. But it is diflScult to take up a position
strongly without being charged with exag-
geration and exclusiveness. Dr. Harvey,
at any rate, is not open to the charge of ex-
treme partisanship, and has done an excel-
lent service to his profession by this digest
of information from wide sources, and the
analysis which he has made of the nature of
the curative powers of the organism, and the
quality of disease ; and while he strongly
asserts the supremacy of nature over art,
he yet gives to art that which is fairly its
due. The final chapters of the work, on the
"Physiology of the Several Processes of
Dying," are of especial interest.

The author publishes an extract from a
letter written him by Sir Thomas Watson,
author of the well-known " Principles and
Practice of Physic," a portion of which we
here append. Dr. Watson says : " You
have thoroughly thrashed out the great
theme which you proposed to discuss. It
is certain that a sound system of therapeu-
tics must rest on a consideration of what
nature in many cases is capable, and in
some fewer cases is incapable of doing in
disease ; and, on the other hand, on what
art may do in helping or hindering nature.
All this, I say, you have most fully ex-
plained ; and I feel sure that the student
of your volume can not fail to have his
mind cleared up and settled on these most
important subjects."

The reception of Spencer's " Data of
Ethics " by critics generally has been most
gratifying, and indicates a favorable change
in the habits of these parties. Formerly
they seem to have been chiefly anxious to
put before the world their own views of Spen-
cer's works ; now they conclude it is better
to let him speak for himself. This may
somewhat belittle the function of the criti-
cal go-between, but it will be much more
satisfactory to both the author and the pub-
lic, besides the incidental advantage of get-
ting more truth into circulation. A large
number of the reviews of the "Ethics"

have consisted of able and discriminating
summaries of Spencer's doctrines ; and even
Professor Bain, whose position certainly en-
titles him to assume the function of judge,
is chiefly concerned to get Spencer's opin-
ions fully and fairly before his readers. We
reprint his article because of its authority
in this branch of thought.

Mr. Spencer has resumed labor upon
the "Principles of Sociology," and will
shortly publish that part of Vol. II. which
treats of the " Development of Ceremonial
Institutions." This is a most interesting
subject, and becomes very attractive in
Spencer's hands. This will be followed by
the " Development of Political Institutions,"
one of the most important parts of his phil-
osophical undertaking.

Neurility : Correlated Converted Physi-
cal Forces. By S. V. Clevenger, M. D.
Pp. 24.

The point which the author aims to es-
tablish in this essay, if we rightly under-
stand him, is that physical energy is suffi-
cient for the production of all the phenom-
ena of life without the intervention of a
so-called " vital " force ; and that the ner-
vous system is capable of holding in its sub-
stance all forms of physical energy which
by means of " cells and ganglia may be in-
terchanged into different higher and lower
forms or held as originally absorbed."

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Seeing and Thinking. By the late W. K.
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First Book of Qualitative Chemistry. By A.
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283

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Publishers, preceded by an Order List for 1879 ;
a Classified Summary and Alphabetical Refer-

ence List of Books recorded in the " Publishers'
Weekly," from July 1, 1878, to June 30, 1879. wiih
Additional Titles, Corrections, Changes of Price
and Publisher, etc., forming a Third Provisional
Supplement to the "American Catalogue " ; and
the " American Educational Catalogue " for 1879.
Seventh year. New York : F. Leypoldt. 1879.
$1.50.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

PliysioIo?y of the Turkish Bath.— Most

accounts of the Turkish bath have been
confined to general descriptions of the de-
tails of the process, and of the sensations
experienced during its use ; while compara-
tively httle attention has until lately been
paid to the more important consideration of
its influence on the bodily functions. To
supply this need, Mr. William James Flem-
ing, M. B., Lecturer on Physiology in Glas-
gow, began some years since a series of
careful experiments with the action of the
bath on his own person. These were con-
tinued down to a recent period, and we now
have the results of the investigation in the
form of a valuable paper published in vol.
xiii. of the " Journal of Anatomy and Physi-
ology."

To those not acquainted with this form
of bath it will be sufficient to say that the
essential part of the process consists in the
immersion of the body in dry air at a tem-
perature varying from 130° to 200° Fahr.
for from half an hour to an hour generally,
and subsequent douching with cold water.

Mr. Fleming's experiments were all made
between lunch and dinner, usually from 4
to 6 p. M., in a bath heated by Constantine's
system. This is an arrangement of stoves
by which a constant current of pure air is
drawn from the outside atmosphere, heated
by passing through a species of oven, and
driven into one of the apartments of the
bath with such force that it traverses the
whole suite of rooms, parting with some of
its heat in each, and ultimately escaping
from the last into the outer air again. By
this means not only the air for breathing
but also that in contact with the skin is
constantly renewed, so that a layer of wa-
tery vapor does not, as in all baths heated
with stationary air, soon cover the body,
and thus convert the bath into a vapor one.
The experiments usually began with a heat
of about lYO' Fahr. for a few minutes, in

284

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

order to produce sweating rapidly, followed
by a temperature of about 130° Fahr. during
the remainder of the stay in the hot rooms.
This the author regards as the best practice
for habitual bathers, as perspiration, being
once freely established in the hottest room,
is kept active by ihe lower degree of heat.

The investigation was specially directed
to the effect produced by immersion in hot,
dry air on — 1. The amount of material elim-
inated from the body in excess of the nor-
mal ; 2. The alteration produced in the
temperature of the body; 3. The influence
on the pulse-rate ; 4. The influence on the
rate of breathing ; 5. The alteration in the
composition of the urine ; 6. The compo-
sition of the sweat ; and, 7. The arterial
tension as sliown by the sphygmograph.
The results of the investigation are pre-
sented in the form of averages representing
a large number of observations.

Omitting a description of the manner in
which the experiments were conducted, and
also the detailed results obtained, the fol-
lowing are the conclusions drawn by the
author from those results. It was shown —
1. That a very large quantity of material
can be eliminated from the body in a com-
paratively short time by immersion in hot,
dry air; and, although the greater part of
this is water, still solids are present in
quantity sufficient to render this a valuable
emunctory process ; 2. The temperature of
the body and the pulse-rate are markedly
raised. The respiration falls at first, but
afterward is less influenced than would
be expected. The urine is increased in
density, and deprived of a large portion of
its chlorides, while, if anything, an increase
in the amount of urea is produced. Arte-
rial tension is increased, due probably to
the rapid action of the heart and the gorged
condition of the capillary circulation.

From these the following practical con-
siderations as to the use of the Turkish bath
in medicine are deduced : Its most impor-
tant effect is the stimulation of the emunc-
tory action of the skin. By this means we
are enabled to wash as it were the solid
and fluid tissues, and especially the blood
and skin, by passing water through them
from within outward to the surface of the
body. Hence, in practice, one of the most
essential requisites is copious draughts of
water during the sweating.

The elevation of the temperature, and
more especially of the pulse-rate and blood-
pressure, point to the necessity of caution
in cases where the circulatory system is dis-
eased.

Excessively long duration of the bath
seems to produce more or less depression,
as shown by the fall of the pulse and tem-
perature after fifty-five minutes.

The great advantage of the bath seems
to be the power it gives of producing a free
action of the skin in persons of sedentary
habit, or suffering from disease interfering
with fluid excretion, and by its means prob-
ably a considerable elimination of morbid
matter may also be brought about. Be-
sides, and along with this, it is an efficient
means, if resorted to sufficiently early, of
relieving internal congestion.

Distributiou of the Electric Light.— A

recent trial, in San Francisco, of Molera's
and Cebrian's system of dividing and dis-
tributing the electric light, is thus described
in the San Francisco " Morning Call " of Sep-
tember 30th : "An exhibition of a new sj^s-
tem of utilizing and dividing the electric
light, recently discovered by Messrs. Molera
and Cebrian, civil engineers, of this city,
was given last night at 412 Market Street.
Quite a crowd of spectators witnessed the
experiments, which had a very satisfactory
result. Two floors were well and uniformly
lighted by the light obtained from a genera-
tor placed in one corner of the upper story
of the building. The manner of thus divid-
ing the electrical current consists of the use
of a system of reflecting mirrors and lenses,
which concentrate and conduct the parallel
rays or beams of light by the medium of
tubes to any desired distance without weak-
ening, except in a comparatively small de-
gree, its intensity. The main advantages
claimed by the inventors for this system
arc, that the light may, through the agency
of a diffusing lens, be distributed from a
single beam throughout all the rooms of a
house or hotel, and may be divided without
material loss of power. The supply of light
is also controlled by the reflector, and in any
or all of the rooms the brilliancy of the light
may be increased or diminished at will. It
is further argued that the system dispenses
with the necessity for regulators or lamps,
thit the loss consequent upon the use of

P OP ULAR MIS CELL ANY.

285

electrical conductors is avoided, and that the
capital invested is smaller than is required
for gas-works. Heretofore the difficulty ex-
perienced by electricians has been to divide
the light without weakening in too large a
degree its power. Should the system of
Messrs. Molera and Cebrian prove a practical
success, it may be economically used in light-
ing not only private residences and public
institutions, but even whole cities."

Color-Bllndncss of Seamen. — An article
on color-blindness, in a lute number of
the " English Mechanic," quotes some very
important facts from the records of the
British Board of Trade, derived from exam-
inations of seamen applying for " mate's "
or " master's " certificates, concerning their
ability to distinguish colors. We select
a few from the many instances of color-
blindness detected by these examinations.
One seaman, a candidate for a second mas-
ter's certificate, described green glass as
" dark red " ; in another case a green card
was called " yellow " ; and a man who had
been over eighteen years at sea was report-
ed as quite unable to distinguish any of the
colors. Another who had been more than
seven years at sea described the red glass
by daylight as " green," the dark green as
"red," and the yellow as " red" ; while by
gaslight he named the light blue "green,"
the dark green " red," and the yellow " red."
This appears to be a case of Daltonism, or
incapability of perceiving the red end of the
spectrum. There are several similar in-
stances which differ only in details ; but per-
haps the most interesting case is that of
a candidate for a second mate's certificate
who had served nearly five years at sea — a
case that ought to have been sent to a court
of appeal. By daylight he described the
red card as " green," the yellow and green
glasses " red," and the red glass as " dark
green." By artificial light he called the
yellow and green glasses "red," and the
white glass " dark green." This man ob-
tained a certificate from the London Oph-
thalmic Hospital testifying that he was not
color-blind, but on reexamination he still
described dark green as " red," light green
as "neutral," and yellow as "red" by arti-
ficial light, while by daylight he called the
green glasses "red" once and" yellow"
once. This last difference may have been

caused by the manner in which the ques-
tion was put, and ignorance of the names
of colors. In view of these facts, the query
suggests itself, may not the recent dreadful
accident to the steamer Champion have been
due to the inability of the lookout to distin-
guish the Hghts on the other ship, which
was discovered only when near enough to
take in her general outline ?

Apprentice-Schools in France. — This is
the title of a highly suggestive paper on
the subject of science teaching in the pub-
lic schools, read by Professor S. P. Thomp-
son at the last meeting of the British As-
sociation. As the subject is daily acquiring
new importance in this country, we present
a pretty full abstract of the paper as it ap-
peared in "Nature." The problem to be
solved, in the author's opinion, is, how to
give that technical training and scientific
knowledge to artisan children which their
occupation demanded, without detaining
them so long at their schooling as to create
a distaste for manual labor. There were
four solutions of the problem, all of which
had been tried, and illustrations of which
could be seen in Paris. They were : 1. Send
the children to work in the factory or work-
shop at an earlier age, making it obligatory
all through their apprenticeship that they
should have every day a certain number of
hours' schooling in a school in the work-
shop or attached to it ; 2. Keep the chil-
dren at school as long as their education
was unfinished, but set up a workshop in
the school, where they should pass a certain
amount of time every day so as to gain at
least an aptitude for manual labor; 3.
Organize a school and a workshop side by
side and coordinate the hours given to study
with an equal number of hours devoted to
systematic manual labor ; and, 4. Send the
children half the day to the existing schools,
and the other half to work half-time in the
workshop or factory. Schools of the first
type had existed in France for nearly thirty
years, and at the close of 1878 there were
no fewer than 237 schools of this character.
So far as he was aware, there was only one
school of the second type — the Ecole com-
munale d'Apprentis, in the Rue Touruefort,
Paris. The peculiarity of this school was
that workshop training was being given to
lads who had not yet completed a course

586

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of elementary education. Of the third type
some admirable examples were to be seen
in Paris. Some very interesting particulars
were given of the progress of the horologi-
cal school at Besan9on. The fourth type
or half-time school, which was English in
its origin, was rarely to be found in France.
Since the old apprenticeship had virtually
lapsed, there was nothing to save the young
artisan of the rising generation from de-
generating into a mere machine, unless a
new agency could be practically organized.
What was claimed for the apprenticeship
school was that its pupils do not possess
just a bare minimum of knowledge suffi-
cient to procure them means of subsistence
in one narrow department of one restricted
industry, but that they possess both manual
dexterity and a fair technical knowledge
which would enable them not only to earn
more and to turn out better work, but also
to be less at the mercy of the fluctuation
of trade for the means of subsistence. Be-
sides the new apprenticeship being better
for real instruction in technical principles,
it was also better for practical work in so
far as it shortened the needlessly long years
of the apprenticeship, and imparted at an
earlier age all the manual capacity that ap-
prenticeship in any form could impart.
There were not wanting on our horizon
signs of significance in the problem of the
relation of science to labor. We had real-
ly skilled workmen, and no foreign work-
men were their equals, but they were only
units in a crowd. Take which view they
would, technical education, and, above all,
the technical education of the artisan classes,
was a sine qua non of the future industrial
prosperity of Great Britain. What steps,
then, must be taken to give effect to the
new apprenticeship? Two things would
determine the success or failure of the
school : 1. The obtaining of the right kind
of teachers ; and, 2. The adoption of a sys-
tem of instruction based upon drawhig,
which was the language of the manufac-
tures, the handicrafts, the constructive in-
dustries of all kinds. It was evident that
the first step would be the foundation of a
system for training competent teachers.
Then there must be a central technical col-
lege, for through such an institution alone
could community of thought and method of
work be obtained.

Two Remarkable Epidemics. — In the

spring of 1878 an epidemic of typhoid fever
broke out at Zurich, Switzerland, which
possesses peculiar interest. A musical fes-
tival was held in that town in May, and out
of the seven hundred persons who attended
it five hundred were attacked by typhoid
fever, of whom one hundred died. A mi-
nute inquiry into the circumstances left but
little doubt that the epidemic was due to
the use of bad veal furnished by an inn-
keeper of the place. It may be claimed by
those who attribute to general causes the
power of originating specific diseases that
the typhoid fever was due to a septic poison
present in the veal, depending possibly on
a beginning fermentation, which was not
destroyed by the cooking to which it had
been submitted. On the other hand, as the
animal from which the meat was taken was
sick, it may be asked whether it might not
have been suffering from typhoid fever, al-
though this disease has never yet been rec-
ognized among animals. It is a remarkable
fact that in 1839 a similar but much less
fatal epidemic occurred in a neighboring
locality. After a reunion that took place
under similar circumstances, four hundred
and forty persons were taken sick with all
the symptoms of typhoid fever. It is proba-
ble that in this case also the meat of a sick
calf gave rise to the disease.

South - African Cannibals.— At the late
meeting of the British Association, the French
explorer Brazza read a paper on " The Na-
tive Races of the Gaboon and Ogowai." A
preceding speaker, Major Serpa Pinto, had
spoken of races having European character-
istics inhabiting the region about the head-
waters of the Zambesi. M. de Brazza was of
opinion that these people had come from
the north of Africa, because, under the
name of Ubamba, he had found races very
much resembling them to the south of the
Congo. The negroes Pinto saw wei'e prob-
ably the advance-guard of an invasion which
had overrun the country to the east of the
Gaboon. Stanley spoke of a great emigra-
tion very much resembling what had taken
place among the Fan cannibals. There had
been much talk indulged in adverse to the
cannibal races of this part of Africa. Du
Chaillu, who had visited for one day only
one of the Fan villages, had given a descrip-

NOTES.

287

tion of this race, which had been too much
influenced by accounts he had received from
a tribe at war with the cannibals. He had
said that in their villages he had found quar-
ters of human flesh exposed for sale ; that
they killed and ate their prisoners of war,
and that they sold the bodies of their own
dead who had died of disease to their neigh-
bors. M. de Brazza denied the truth of
such accounts. As a proof that the Fans
had kindly and generous sentiments, he
told how a Fan chief had been kind to him
when he was obliged to leave his people
sick in the bush. He owed his life to the
Fan chief, and he should always be grateful
to him and his people. He wished, there-
fore, to do all he could to remove the pre-
judice against the Fans which had been
excited by Du Chaillu. They were a very
generous, courageous people. It was true
they were cannibals — that they ate their
prisoners of war ; but it was with them a
religious idea, for they believed that in eat-
ing the heart of a brave man the courage
of the dead passed into themselves. M. de
Brazza also gave an interesting sketch of
the Akkas, a dwarf race he found scattered
up and down among the different peoples,
like what the Jews or the gypsies were in
Europe. The height of the Akkas was
from three to four feet.

Raising Snnlten Vessels. — In the Plotzen
Lake, which is not far from Berlin, and the
depth of which is very considerable, reach-
ing in some parts to twenty-eight metres,
an interesting attempt has been made to
raise sunken vessels. The method, which
is the invention of Herr Eidner, a Vienna
civil engineer, consists in applying carbonic
acid in the following manner : In an empty
balloon a bottle half filled with sulphuric
acid, surrounded with Bullrich's salt, is
fixed ; the bottle is destroyed by turning a
screw, and the two substances mix and pro-
duce carbonic acid, which fills the balloon.
It is obvious that, when this apparatus is
brought into operation in the hull of a sunk-
en ship, the effect must be, if a sufficient
number of balloons are filled, to raise the
vessel. In the experiments on the Plot-
zen Lake, a small vessel or boat weigh-
ing several hundred-weight, was first sunk.
A diver then went down with the necessary
apparatus, which he set in operation in the

interior of the ship. Hardly had he done
so before the vessel began to rise to the
surface, where it was maintained by the
balloon. In a second experiment five heavy
sacks filled with sand were thrown over-
board, in a part of the lake which was six-
teen metres deep. The diver descended,
fastened all the sacks together, and, fixing
the balloon apparatus to them, set it going,
with the effect that the whole of the sacks
were brought up to the surface.

Petroleum in Iron-making. — The suc-
cessful employment of petroleum as a fuel in
the manufacture of iron, has, according to
the "Engineering and Mining Journal,"
been accomplished by a process invented by
Dr. C. J. Fames, and now in practical opera-
tion at Titusville, Pennsylvania. The pe-
troleum is vaporized by means of highly
heated steam, thrown into a chamber in
which the oil is caused to trickle over a se-
ries of horizontal shelves ; and the mixture
is then driven onward to the combustion-
chamber, where it is ignited and forced into
the furnaces by the air-blasts which it en-
counters at this point. " The evident advan-
tages," says the "Engineering and Mining
Journal," " of petroleum-fuel, are the perfect
control under which the heat is held ; the
extremely high calorific intensity of this ' wa-
ter-gas ' ; and the freedom of the fuel from
any elements injurious to the iron. It is
claimed that the work can be performed
much quicker, and the quality of the pro-
duct can be made much more uniform and
of higher grade, than can be secured with
coal-fuel."

NOTES.

According to Professor Lintner, Presi-
dent of the Entomological Club, the study
of entomology is making very gratifying
progress in this country ; collections are
multiplying, and the literature of the sub-
ject is growing rapidly. The Club has
compiled a list of persons engaged in the
study of entomology in the United States ;
it already contains eight hundred and thirty-
five names.

Dr. Krummel, of Gottingen, estimates
the mean depth of the sea at 1,877 fathoms,
and then makes a comparison of the vol-
ume of the land above sea-level with the
volume of the sea. Accepting Leipoldt's

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

estimate of the mean height of Europe,
viz., 300 metres, and estimating the mean
heights of Asia and Africa, of America and
Australia, to be 500, 830, 250 metres re-
spectively, Dr. Kriimmel obtains the mean
of 420 metres or 0'0566 geographical mile.
The surface ratio of land to water being
considered as 1 to 2'75, the volume of all dry-
land above sea-level is inferred to be 140,-
086 cubic miles, and the volume of the sea
3,138,000 cubic miles. Thus the ratio of
the volumes of land and water is as 1 to
22-4. That is, the continents, so far as they
are above sea-level, might be contained 22-4
times in the sea-basin. But reckoning the
mass of solid land from the level of the sea-
bottom, the former would be contained only
2"443 times in the sea-basin.

The circulation of scientific works in
Russia is so small, that native men of sci-
ence find it nearly impossible to get their
labors published. Kovalevsky, according
to the London "Examiner," left at his death
no less than thirty works in MS. ; he could
find no publisher for them. Professor Yasi-
lief, the eminent Orientalist, has several vol-
umes on " Buddhism and Philolog)^" which
he is compelled to keep in his portfolio for
want of means to publish them.

The "Gazette des Hopitaux " records
an extraordinary case of loss of hair from
fright. A girl seventeen years of age one
day nan-owly escaped death by crushing,
and was much frightened. For three days
she suffered headache, chills, and itching of
the scalp. The symptoms were then allayed,
with the exception of the itching, which con-
tinued. On combing her hair, it came out
in great quantities, and soon she was quite
bald. This baldness was permanent.

Of the views adopted by modern chem-
ists concerning the structure of the carbon
compounds. Professor Ira Remsen holds
that they are correctly based and fairly de-
monstrated, but that they are steps in a
path where greater progress is yet to be at-
tained. Some of them will no doubt be
disproved, yet, like the search for the phi-
losopher's stone, they will serve to advance
chemical science.

The usual average of rainfall in Eng-
land, as reckoned for the first six months
of the year, is a fraction less than twelve
inches. This year the fall from January to
June — five months — was eighteen and a
half inches. Again, in the first six months
of 1878, according to observations made at
Greenwich Observatory, there were six hun-
dred and forty-three hours of sunshine.
This year there were only four hundred and
seventy-one hours of sunshine in the same
time. June, 1878, was regarded as a gloomy
month ; but it had one hundred and eighty-

one hours of sunshine, whereas June, 1879,
had not quite one hundred and nineteen
hours.

From experiments made by Arloing, it
appears that chloral does not act as an an-
esthetic on the sensitive-plant, while ether
and chloroform have an effect upon it simi-
lar to that which they exert on animals.
M. Arloing in his experiments caused the
anaesthetics to be absorbed by the roots of
the plant.

Near Stramberg, in Moravia, have been
discovered certam caves which, in prehis-
toric times, were inhabited by man. The
contents of these caves clearly prove the
existence of man in very remote times — the
age of the mammoth and the cave-bear.
Thousands of bones have been found at the
depth of two or three metres, representing
mammoths, rhinoceroses, bears, horses, deer,
reindeer, and with them well-preserved im-
plements of stone and bone, objects in
bronze, rings, needles, pottery, arrow-heads,
and knives.

An exhibition was lately given in Paris
of a method of employing electro-magnet-
ism as a means of subduing vicious horses.
With bits, bridles, nose-bands, and curbs
specially constructed so as to apply a gen-
tie current from a portable electro-magnet"
to the requn-ed place, seven particularly
violent horses were reduced to obedience,
and suffered themselves to be shod.

In the " Journal of the Asiatic Society
of Bengal " is published an account of a
very remarkable snowfall in Cashmere, which
began in October, 1817, and continued al-
most uninterruptedly up to May, 1878, the
general depth of the snow being then esti-
mated at from thirty to forty feet. Houses
and villages were crushed under the enor-
mous weight, avalanches were frequent on
the hillsides, and wild animals perished in
great numbers.

Messrs. Martin and Tessier propose a
mixture composed as follows for making
uninflammable textile fabrics, paper, etc.,
viz. : Pure sulphate of ammonia eight parts
by weight, carbonate of anmionia two and
a half parts, boracic acid three parts, pure
borax 1*7 part, starch two parts, water
one hundred parts. The articles are to be
steeped in the mixture (boiling) till they
are thoroughly saturated ; then they are
dried and pressed.

The French Association for the Ad-
vancement of Science takes a surprising
" new departure " next year by selecting
Algiers as the place of its meeting in 1880.
To avoid the inconveniences of the great
heat of August, the meeting will be held in
April.

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY.

JANUARY, 1880.

THE mTEKXATIOIs^AL WEATHEPw-SERYICE.

By Professor T. B. MAUKY.

THE " weather " is that mystic word which sums up the physical
influences most affecting the human frame for good or ill. The
splendid, ever-varying panorama of the sky, the benign mutations of
the seasons, the immense pulsations of the atmosphere furnished, how-
ever, for ages, themes for the poet rather than for the philosopher. In
the presence of its tremendous though cloud-veiled forces, as the high
priest of old on the entrance of the sanctuary, we tread with awed
footstep. From time immemorial its phenomena have engaged the
daily and deepest attention of men ; and the ever-popular, ever-com-
pulsory study of their changes, in the language of all civilized nations,
has been called "meteorology," which literally means "the science of
the sublime." "Distance and time," says the physical geographer
Ansted, " seem annihilated when we watch the action of these mys-
terious influences, and we may almost recognize the reality of an ex-
istence unhampered by natural impediments when we find an instanta-
neous response of our innermost senses to a material stimulus applied
within the burning atmosphere of the sun." But the overmastering
interest and awe, awakened by the terrestrial atmosphere, through
which this stimulus reaches us, are intensified by the consciousness
that upon it we depend for vital breath, and that it is the medium
through which an invisible hand sweeps every chord of humanity.

It is to that grand and systematic investigation of this physical
agent, which has recently been commenced by the concert of the na-
tions, in a system of world-wide " Simultaneous " observations, known
as The International Weather-Service — to its history, methods, and
utilities — we would now direct the reader's indulgent attention, Be-

TOL. XVI. — 19

290

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

fore doing so, however, it will be necessary to glance at the advances
in weather-research that have led to this undertaking.

The exploration of the vast body of water which surrounds the
land-masses of the globe has been, since the sixteenth century, rapidly
prosecuted. Its configuration has been determined, its tides have been
weighed, its gulf-streams and counter-currents gauged, and even its
abyssal depths sounded and surveyed, until we can now hardly speak,
save by poetic license, of "the dark, unfathomed caves of ocean." But
the exploration of that other and almost boundless ocean of air which
envelopes the whole earth and w^hose winds sweejJ its surface, swaying
the waters of the sea and affecting every form of terrestrial life, has
progressed but slowly. The upper atmosphere is pierced by but few of
the earth's mountain-peaks upon which meteorological stations can be
efficiently maintained, while the spasmodic attempts at aeronautic in-
vestigation of the cloud-land, daring as they have been, have realized
less knowledge of its currents than that which Columbus in his voy-
ages of discovery acquired of the circulation of the equatorial waters.
Investigation has been, therefore, perforce restricted for the most part
to the phenomena of storms, cyclones, and anti-cyclones, moving at
the bottom of the great sea of air — phenomena involving such insig-
nificant portions of the atmosphere, when compared Avith the superin-
cumbent mass, that a leading meteorologist has hyperbolically likened
them to ordinary "smoke-rings." Eveii in the lower atmospheric
strata, the different national bands of observers have been widely sepa-
rated— here and there an ocean unsentineled rolling between them —
so that their collated reports conveyed no clearly connected account of
the transcontinental movements of air ; and it is to-day disjiuted by
some that North American storms cross the Atlantic to western Eu-
rope. But, worse than all else, the observations taken by the most
painstaking and indefatigable observers were, until recently, systemat-
ically vitiated, not only by a lack of uniformity in the methods, but
by the more fatal lack of uniformity in the hours of observation.
What would be thought of a little army confronting immense odds,
some of whose regiments had one plan of battle and some another,
some asleep when others were engaged, but none acting simultane-
ously ? Yet, such is a fair representation of the world's observational
force which was expected to attack the great problems of meteorology,
as it was until less than a decade ago.

In 1870 the United States entered the field of weather-research ;
and, for the first time in the history of meteorology, there was then
established a broad system of simultaneous observations and simul-
taneous reports of the weather. These reports were immediately
worked up and graphically embodied in the simultaneous weather-
maps, issued thrice daily from the office of the Chief Signal-Officer,
U. S. A,, General Albert J. Myer, whose original and announced plan
was to observe the weather over the whole country " at the same mo-

THE INTERNATIONAL WEATHER-SERVICE. 291

ment of actual (not local) time,'''' as was stated on every weather-map.
This conception aimed at the rescue of meteorological researches from
that disorder and disconnectedness which had always characterized the
observational work. The prime object was to gain a daily conspectus
of the atmosphere over the country as it actually was, and as it would
be seen if a photographic view of it, so to speak, could be taken. The
simultaneous method, when announced, seemed so natural and simple
that one might have wondered that any other was ever attempted.
Observations called " synchronous " had been, indeed, before this time,
energetically made in several countries ; but the term " synchronous "
was used to signify that every observer read off his instruments at
given hours of his own local time, and not at the same moment of
physical time. Etymologically, there might be little or no difference
between " synchronous " and " simultaneous," but, for all the jjurposes
of atmospheric investigations over a vast territory like that of the
United States, the practical difference was by no means insignificant.
When observers, who on the old " synchronous " method reported the
weather-status each at the same hour of local time, were separated by
hundreds of miles, their reports failed to represent the actual fluctu-
ations of the atmosphere and the true bearings of its cyclonic and anti-
cyclonic movements ; so that, when the meteorologist came to compare
and chart the combined data, they yielded necessarily a distorted or
untrue picture of the ever-restless aerial ocean. On the other hand, in
the " simultaneous " method, since all the observers over the wide field
of the research read their instruments at one and the same moment
(7.35 A. M. Washington mean time), their reports, when charted, gave
a true and life-like representation of the physical phenomena as they
actually coexisted and conspired. As on the screen of the artist's
camera the sun instantly paints the true image of the human face
before its expression can be changed, so does the process of simul-
taneous observation seize and secure all the elements necessary to de-
lineate the current physical features and conditions of the atmosphere,
as existing at o. fixed moment, and before they can have time to un-
dergo change. Simple as this expedient is, it is evidently the key to
all effective research in a vast gaseous ocean whose currents and waves
are ceaselessly rolling and rapidly altering their geographical bearings,
even while the sun is quickly passing from one meridian to another.
W^ere all the weather observers of the world to read off their instru-
ments as it were by a given tick of one clock, their collective data
would furnish materials for the most exact delineations of the complex
atmospheric machinery which it is possible to obtain. Instead of piling
up a mass of weather bulletins unsuited for purposes of a rigidly
scientific inter-comparison, as was so long done,* they would contribute

* In the old system of telegraphic weather-reports established by the Smithsonian
Institution, the observers reported at 8 a. m., 2 p. m., and 9 p. m., each at his own local
time. Accordingly, their reports could not give exact results. To take a not uncommon

292 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

solid and coherent facts of nature, all ready to be put together and
worked up by the meteorologist into a noble and useful science.

Having noticed the first attempt ever made to establish a system of
" Simultaneous weather-reports," and indicated the unique character of
the system, as carried out by the United States since 1870, we hasten
on to the history of its extension to the vast field of international
meteorology. In September, 1873, the International Meteorological
Congress was convened at Vienna, to consider all the graver questions
that were then agitating public and private investigators, as to the
progress of weather-science. The Congress was composed of ofiicial
representatives, charged with the meteorological duties pertaining to
the researches of their respective Governments. It was then proposed
by the representative of the United States, General Myer, that " it is
desirable, tcith a view to their exchange, that at least one uniform
ohset'vation, of such character as to be suited for the preparation of
synoptic charts, he taken and recorded daily and simultaneously at as
many stations as p>racticable throughout the world.'''' This proposition
was unanimously concurred in, and its hearty adoption by the Congress,
the members of which virtually legislated for the nations they repre-
sented, at once secured the extension of the American " simultaneous "
system (as inaugurated in 1870 for the United States) to the entire
field of weather investigation then covered or yet to be covered by the
observers of all the nations.* Soon after the adoj^tion of this proposi-
tion at Vienna, by the courteous cooperation of scientific men and the
chiefs of the meteorological weather-bureaus of the different countries,
records of uniform observations, taken daily and simultaneously with
the observations taken over the United States and the adjacent islands,

example of a storm central at Omaha at 8 a. m. and moving toward New York : since the
difference of actual time between the two cities is nearly one and a half hour, and the
storm-center might be progressing at the rate of forty-five or fifty miles an hours, the
Omaha report would represent its bearings, as respects New York, from sixty to seventy
miles out of its true place ? So also all observers not on the meridian of New York would
more or less mis-locate the center. Since neai-ly all cyclones and anti-cyclones move from
east to west or from west to east, and very few in a meridional direction, the systematic
misrepresentation of their relative positions in point of longitude works grave defects, A
weather-map based on such non-simultaneous reports, instead of faithfully mirroring the
sky overhanging a continent, necessarily gives it rather a wry face. Even at this date, we
can not say that all European weather-stations take observations simultaneously. So
far as they do, their present method is shaped after that introduced originally in this
country by General Myer, in 1870. Professor Espy called his observations " simulta-
neous, or nearly simultaneous " ; but evidently they were taken at the same hour of local
time, and were, therefore, less " simultaneous " than the Smithsonian.

* Referring to an exchange of United States weather-reports with those of Canada,
the Chief Signal-Officer, in his annual report for 1872, said: "It is to be hoped the
system, may be extended in the Canadas, and the cooperation be yet closer, this connec-
tion of the services becoming the first link in the grand chain of interchanged interna-
tional reports destined with a higher civilization to bind together the signal-services of
the world " (p. 83). The same scheme he had foreshadowed in a public document dated
January 18, 1870, and also the plan of using ocean-cables for storm-warnings.

THE INTERNATIONAL WEATHER-SERVICE. 293

were commenced, and since then have been exchanged in semi-monthly
communications. These reports, steadily increasing, now cover the
combined territorial extent of Algiers, Australasia, Austria, Belgium,
Central America, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain,
Greece, Greenland, Iceland, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, the
Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland,
Tunis, Turkey, British North America, the United States, the Azores,
Malta, Mauritius, the Sandwich Islands, South Africa, South America,
and the West Indies, so far as they have been put under meteorological
observation. On July 1, 1875, the daily issue of a printed bulletin, ex-
hibiting these international simultaneous reports, was commenced at
the Army Signal-Office in Washington, and has since been maintained.
A copy of this " International Bulletin " is furnished each cooperating
observer. This publication combines for the first time of which we
have any record the joint labors of the nations in a research of this
kind for their mutual benefit. As the network of cooperating stations
already spreads over so vast a proportion of the land-surface of the
globe, there is needed only the more general cooperation of the naval
and merchant fleets of the world to supply ample data for a compre-
hensive study of the atmosphere as a unit. This need is now grow-
ingly appreciated, and nine series of marine reports, each containing
the simultaneous observations of a number of sea-going vessels,*
have been added to supplement the similar reports contributed by
the land-observers, swelling the total observational force to 500
laborers. The harvest of physical data already garnered by this force,
and daily increasing, will be invaluable for all future weather investi-
gations. As the Committee of the Scottish Meteorological Society
recently said, " This truly cosmopolitan work, which the United States
are alone in a position to undertake, thanks to the liberality and enter-
prise of their Government, will bring before us month by month the
general circulation of the earth's atmosphere, and raise if it does not
satisfy many inquiries lying at the very root of meteorology, and inti-
mately affecting those atmospheric changes which meteorologists have
been recording." It will greatly enrich the meteorology of the ocean
and aid navigation, by supplying data for deducing those true mean
physical values which teach the mariner at sea where he may find " a
fair wind and a favorable current," how he may best utilize the forces
of nature and elude its terrors. It will afford material for the renova-
tion of the climatology and sanitary meteorology of regions not now
fully investigated. But, above all, it will facilitate the elucidation of
the laws of storms and those associate phenomena which conspire to
produce the many-colored phases of " the weather."

The cardinal object of this vast scientific enterprise, as the reader
may anticipate, is the study of the atmosphere as a unit. The atmos-
pheric ocean must be viewed by every thinking mind as a whole, whose
* The number of marine observers now exceeds one hundred.

294 ^^^ POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

complex jiarts act interdependently — as the various parts of a steam-
engine — yet all constituting one grand mechanism. Nature's forces
respect no national frontiers ; and, if their mighty play is to be
watched by science, its observational corps must be expanded to
cover every accessible part of the globe. This will be made more
apparent if we consider the intensities and movements of cyclones.
The storms generated over the sea often jDush with resistless energy
against the loftiest mountain-walls, and, surmounting their acclivities,
press on as if they had felt no retardation, to sweep across an entire con-
tinent, and then, untired, to take a fresh start on a long ocean-voyage.
In a rigid examination of the Signal-Service data for a period of twen-
ty-six months, twenty-eight storm-centers, it was found by Professor
Loomis, traveled eastward across the Rocky Mountains, and reached
the Mississipi^i Valley in unimpaired vigor, having scaled that impos-
ing barrier, 10,000 feet high, as easily as the steamship on its rapid
course overrides a wave. In discussing the two cyclones which visited
the Bay of Bengal in October, 1876, Mr. Elliott, Meteorological
Reporter to the Government of Bengal, incidentally gives us some
idea of the cyclopean forces which are developed by such storms.
The average "daily evaporation," registered by the Bengal instru-
ments, in October, is " '2 inches." * The amount of heat absorbed by
the conversion of this amount of water daily over so large an area as
the Bay of Bengal is enormous. " Roughly estimated," says Mr. El-
liott, *' it is equal to the continuous working power of 800,000 steam-
engines of 1,000 horse-power." A simple calculation will show that it

/ ,

l/ifimi/m/il/iii/ii iiniiiiii/i i ' ^ ^ ^ / //'//////////////////////////////////////////////

Vertical Section op the Heakt of a Ctclone. (Arrows show direction of wind and the
ascending current in storm-center; the dark-shade, nimbus, or rain-cloud.)

suffices to raise aloft over 45,000 cubic feet of water in twenty-four
hours from every square mile of the bosom of the bay, and transport
it to the clouds which overhang it. When we extend the calculation
from a single square mile to the area of this whole Indian gulf, the

* "Report of the Vizagapatam and Buckergunge Cyclones of October, 1876," by J.
Elliott, p. 182.

THE INTERN'ATIONAL WEATHER-SERVICE.

295

mind is lost in the effort to conceive the force which, in a clay's
time, can lift 50,000,000 tons ! Yet, it would be easy to show that
such figures, fabulous as they seem, do not adequately represent the
cyclonic forces of a single storm. " The usual size of the cyclones in
the Bay of Bengal," according to Piddington, "is from 300 to 350
miles ; but," as he adds, "it would appear that they sometimes much
exceed that extent " ; and others give the average diameter as still
greater than 350 miles. Now, in the passage of a cyclone over such a
sheet of water, the vapor which has been slowly generated over its sur-
face for many days is rapidly condensed and reconverted into water,
and falls in the shape of torrential rains — as Dampier declared, " faster

North

KG'

South

Horizontal Movements op Air around Center of Cyclone in Northern Hemisphere.—
(Lar^e arrow shows path of storm ; smaller arrows, the winds taking a more radial direction,
and increasing in velocity, as they near the ceuter.)

than he could drink it." On the coasts of India, twenty inches have
been known to fall in a single night ; in the Bengal storm just men-
tioned, 15-2 inches fell in eighteen hours. Assuming that the mean

296 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

daily precipitation within the areas of storms like those just referred
to is only three inches, it is evident that Mr, Elliott's calculation of the
mechanical force daily exerted in the work of evaporation falls short
of expressing the force exerted in the work of precipitation during a
day's march of a cyclone. The latter is, however, but one of the
many tremendous agencies engaged in the development of a storm of
ordinary magnitude in the intratropical regions. In the extratropical
and high latitudes, cyclones are much more extensive, " being seldom
less than GOO miles in diameter, but oftener two or three times that
amount, or even more " (Buchan) ; while the waves of the sea, driven
by their winds, beat upon the seacoast, as Mr. Stevenson, the well-
known English engineer, has estimated, with the almost incredible
force of " 6,000 pounds on the square foot." In the hurricane of last
August, the winds on the North Carolina coast blew at the rate of
from 138 to 165 miles an hour.

In citing these illustrations of the storm-phenomena which modern
meteorology is charged with investigating, we have not alluded to the
equally important yet far grander phenomena of " anti-cyclones," or
those " atmospheric waves " of high pressure which, emanating from
the higher latitudes, submerge a whole continent at once — around
whose borders cyclones move as diminutive eddies playing around a
rock in mid-stream. But enough has been said to show the imj)erative
necessity for the prosecution of wide-extended or international research
(including of course oceanic observations) if the laws of weather are
ever to be discovered and defined. In no branch of physics is it so
true, as in that of weather-lore, " a little learning is a dangerous thing."
An approximation to the conception and study of the atmospheric ma-
chine as a unit is the sine qua non of all future advance in this knowl-
edge. Phenomena such as we have just glanced at, by their immen-
sity and by the intensity of the forces which resistlessly propel them
across seas and continents, will for ever defy adequate investigation,
save by an army of observers, acting simultaneously, both on the ocean
and on the land, whose outposts stretch from the rising to the setting
sun and from the equator to the polar circle. For, as another has so for-
cibly and felicitously said : " The atmosphere, unlike the ocean, is undi-
vided and uninterrupted; and every change of state, in any part of its
expanse, sends forth a pulsation of energy which is speedily felt far and
wide." If the oracles of Him by whom are all things declare that he
spreads " the cloud of dew in the heat of harvest," who " gathereth the
winds in his fists," and once hushed the roar of the Galilean tempest,
well may these wonders, ever fresh from his hand, enlist the earnest
and inspiring study and observation of intelligent men everywhere.
Our favored planet, not like the airless moon, is folded in the kindly bo-
som of an atmosphere which, while ministering nourishment to man and
accommodating itself to all his movements and vicissitudes, interposes
as his shield against the fiery influences of the solar system, even to

THE INTERNATIONAL WEATHER-SERVICE. 297

arresting and consuming those countless meteoric stones, showered
upon us from stellar space, before they can penetrate to the lower
aerial strata. For us, at least, in respect to this sublunary scene, it is
of engrossing interest, as that all-pervading organism Avhich

"Lives through all life, extends through all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unspent."

In the technical execution of this purely pioneer work, the first step
was the preparation of a daily graphic and synoptic chart exhibiting
all the weather observations taken simultaneously in the northern
hemisphere. On the 1st of July, 1878, the Signal-Office at Washing-
ton began the regular publication of a daily international loeather-
map, charted daily and issued daily, each chart being based upon the
data appearing in the " International Bulletin of Simultaneous Re-
ports " of similar date. The daily issue of a weather-chart of this kind
and scope is without a precedent in history. It illustrates the cooper-
ation, for a single purpose, of the civilized powers of the globe north
of the equator, and brings the atmospheric phenomena over the whole
field of the research, and in their true relations to each other, within
the easy comprehension of the student's eye. (See frontispiece.) As
these charts in successive order are spread out day after day, the
investigator has before him a vivid panorama of the physical forces
in pictured action, so that he can readily trace their mutual depen-
dence and interaction in the normal working of the ponderous, yet
beautiful, atmospheric machinery.

The history of progress in the discovery of physical phenomena and
their laws is intimately connected with the introduction of technical
contrivances so simple that at first they attract little notice. After
the invention of the mariner's compass, and the astrolabe, nothing
perhaps that was done for geographical science gave it such an im-
pulse as the chart introduced in 1556 by Gerard Mercator, by which
the earth's entire surface was presented in a single picture to the geog-
rapher's eye, and by which (the degrees of latitude and longitude at
all places bearing to each other the same relations they bear on the
sphere itself) the navigator could readily steer his ship in straight lines.
This simplest of contrivances became, in a word, an invaluable instru-
ment of maritime exploration and discovery, the present and almost
exclusive employment of which by mariners of all nations, as the chart
for the ocean, has brought the name of Mercator down to this day in
honored remembrance. Not to dwell upon the charts of Paolo Tosca-
nelli in the fifteenth, and of Martin Behaim in the sixteenth century, so
justly celebrated — the former as guiding Columbus on his great west-
ward voyage, and the latter as blazing Magellan's perilous way toward
the southern shore of South America, to circumnavigate the globe — we
may well say, " Accurate maps are the basis of all inquiry conducted on
scientific principles." The " International Weather-Map of Simulta-

298 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

neous Observations " is a generalization in itself, and offers the meteor-
ologist every day a hird''s-eye view of the aerial world as it actually
was at that fixed moment of physical time when all the observations
embodied in it were made. Nothing can be simpler or more intelli-
gible to even unscientific eyes than a chart which, by means of sugges-
tive symbols, displays the different elements of the weather over a
hemisphere, each in its own color. Just as Mercator's projection rep-
resents the entire ocean to the mariner — as if there were no horizon or
sphericity — and all objects in their true meridional bearings to each
other, so the " International Weather-Chart " depicts the aerial ocean in
its beautiful integrity and all its parts in their true jjhysical relations
to each other, as certified by strictly simultaneous reports. Of course,
the two charts are entirely independent and different ; but we refer to
the invention of the old Flemish geographer merely to illustrate and
enforce the immense value of every really synoptic chart as a weapon
of research and as a medium of scientific discovery.

The cartographic method, by which truly synoptic views of the
atmosphere are obtained, is indeed the natural accompaniment and
handmaid of the method of "simultaneous weather-reports," both of
which are peculiar to the national weather-service inaugurated at
Washington in 1870, and, through the adoption of General Myer's
proposition at Vienna, in 1873, extended to the new international
weather-sei*vice. Without " simultaneous " weather observations, it is
obvious, no truly " synoptic " weather-chart is possible ; and, as has
been said, the first " simultaneous " observations were those instituted
by the United States in 1870. The unique and novel feature of the
international weather-charts, and the feature which will most commend
them to meteorologists, is that they furnish a faithful pictorial history
of the atmosphere and its revolutions, enabling the inquirer to trace its
currents and counter-currents, to witness the behavior of its cyclonic
storms and other barometric waves as they traverse continents and de-
ploy upon the ocean, and to form clarified conceptions of its massive
yet orderly machinery. The well-known English journal of science,
" Nature," " earnestly hopes that the navies and the mercantile vessels
of all nations will soon join in carrying out this magnificent scheme of
observations, originated by the Americans in 1873, and since then fur-
ther developed and carried on by them with the highest ability and
success." Its French namesake, " La Nature," said recently, when
speaking of this service, " One ought not to be surprised to learn that
the United States, encouraged by their first successes, are to attempt a
new extension of a system of observations which has already, in so few
years, produced considerable results." It would not be an easy task
to predict the future results to be obtained by such a system of investi-
gation ; but we may confidently conclude that no system of weather
inquiry ever before undertaken promised a richer harvest of meteoro-
logical lore than that which rigidly follows up its simtdtaueous obser-

THE INTERNATIONAL WEATHER-SERVICE. 299

vations and amasses its corresponding charts. Every cooi^erator in the
work, it should be added, is encouraged and stimulated by the fact
that a daily copy of both the " International Bulletin " and " Chart "
is furnished by the United States, without cost, to each observer, on
land or at sea, of whatever nation, who, at the request or with the sanc-
tion of the Chief Signal-Officer, cooperates in the enterprise.

We come now to the question of the practical application and util-
ity of the data and charts jDublished in connection with the interna-
tional weather-service. And here the embarrassment arises from the
multiplicity of matters, affecting almost every interest and industry of
mankind, upon which this service will bear. There is not a profession,
or trade, or handicraft in society which is not at every turn more or
less influenced by the weather, and compelled to act upon some kind
of weather-forecasts. No sooner had the Weather Bureau commenced
its daily publication of "Probabilities " or "Indications," in 1870, than
" whole troops of practical applications " of the data sprang into exist-
ence. It will be so with the international bulletin and charts of simul-
taneous meteorology.

One of the first practical applications of the simultaneous obseiwa-
tions over the northern hemisphere will be realized in the elucidation
and correction of "^Ae laio of storms,'''' and of the rules for the extri-
cation of ships from the storm-vortex. Great have been the intellect
and learning employed in the settlement of this question, so important
to commerce and navigation. The time-honored researches of Red-
field, Reid, Espy, Piddington, Thom, and others of the past, supple-
mented and harmonized in a measure by those of living laborers in
the storm-field, have indeed established the existence of a " law of
storms " upon an unassailable foundation. But they have not defined
some of its cardinal conditions. The definition of stomis as " revolving
gales," in which the winds blow in concentric circles around a calm
center, has been rudely damaged by the facts every day brought to
light. And the contrary theory, that the storm-winds blow in radial
lines toward the vortex, has not fared much better. The intermediate
hypothesis, that the winds blow in regular spirals around the center,
while it apparently reconciles some of the otherwise conflicting facts,
and has given a temjjorary quietus to the storai controversy, strictly
speaking, is not less objectionable than either of the theories it affects
to correct : for it apparently obliterates, or seemingly ignores, the two
large and distinct classes of indisputable wind-phenomena upon which
the rival deductions of Redfield and Espy were respectively based.
Time has fully demonstrated the insufiiciency of both the " circular "
and the " centripetal " theory to account satisfactorily for all the
salient and phenomenal featui-es of a cyclone, but it has attested the
immense value of them both as scientific approximations to the truth.
But, it must also be said, the theory of " spiral " currents arranged
symmetrically around the storm-center does not furnish a complete so-

300 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

lution of the problems raised by a study of cyclone observations. In
the domain of practical " nautical meteorology," and in its applications
to the handling of ships on the outer circles of revolving gales, it is
especially yet to be sifted in the light of the most exact " simultaneous "
observations. The international weather-charts, illustrating the exacter
forms of marine storms, show us that they assume very eccentric shapes
(see chart, p. 305), and consequently develop variant wind systems.
On the liquid expanse of the stormy North Atlantic, crowded with the
steamers and sailing-ships of all nations, there exists the finest field for
this investigation to be found on the globe. When these vessels be-
come " floating observatories," rendering up accounts of their daily
simultaneous weather experience, it will be comparatively an easy
matter to set for ever at rest the yet disputed questions of the phenom-
ena of cyclones, and to formulate rules for manoeuvring ships so as to
elude their crushing forces.

MLiNCEtrvRiNG Ships on the Exterior of a Ctcloke. (The dotted lines Aa, Bb, Cc\ Pd, and
Se show the pathss o{ escape from daii<rerous positions ; the large arrow, the storm's progres-
sive direction ; the small arrows, the cyclonic winds.)

The birth, life, and death of storms ; their translations from conti-
nent to continent, with the times and directions they take in such
transits ; the thermometric, baric, and wind conditions around the globe
at various parallels ; the distribution and amount of rainfall and snoAV-
f all ; the laws of our great " hot waves " and " cold waves," with many

THE INTERNATIONAL WEATHER-SERVICE. 301

other data for settling questions of climatology, and possibly of fore-
casting in some degree the character of coming seasons — are some of
the practical pi'oblems of every day's life which the international
charts and bulletins will serve to simplify or solve. Among these,
none perhaps calls for an earlier and exacter solution than the trans-
lation of cyclones from the Asiatic waters over the North Pacific
Ocean to the Pacific slopes of the United States, and the kindred
question of the transatlantic passage of American storms to western
Europe, As we have already seen, so far as critical examination has
been made of the Signal-Service weather-maps, more than one cyclone
from the Pacific coast every month, on an average, overleaps the
Rocky Mountains and travels eastward, reaching the Mississippi Val-
ley and the Lakes, with its original (perhaps ocean-born) strength. The
ocean is preeminently the birthplace and habitat of storms. Thence,
when fully formed and densely stored with aqueous vapor — the fuel
of the cyclonic engine — they assail the land-masses of the earth, and,
traversing them, unless in transitu, they pei'ish for want of water, and
return to their native element. This is no less true of the Great Ocean
that washes our Western shores, notwithstanding its name, than of
the " stormy Atlantic." Uncomfortably near as the West Indian hur-
ricanes ajsproach our Atlantic seaboard, they affect but comparatively
a small strip of the Eastern half of the United States, and often give
us a wide berth. But the storms which invade our Pacific seaboard,
from southern California to the mouth of the Columbia River, exert
or expend their full force within the national limits, and frequently
cut their broad swaths entirely across the country. The golden key,
therefore, to our continental meteorology is the adequate knowledge
of the barometric depressions and associate " waves of high pressure "
which roll over the continent from the westward, and, in their prog-
ress, dominate the weather to the north of the thirty-fifth parallel.

Off the California coast there exists, throughout the year, a per-
manent area or wave of high atmospheric j^ressure, or a vast " anti-cy-
clone " — the diameter of which is something like one thousand miles.
The barometer in this area reads 30-20 inches (see chart, p. 309). From
its northern and western slopes, westei'ly and northwesterly wind-belts
extend in an easterly direction across the Coast and Rocky Mountain
ranges. The immense stationary anti-cyclone, from which flows off
this broad belt of westerly winds, is probably due to the continental
barrier an'esting and accumulating the perennial eqiiatorial current
from the central zone of the Pacific Ocean ; and has its counterpart in
the similar area of high pressure lying in the Atlantic, off the coast
of Spain and south of the Azores. The great '■^ highway^'' therefore,
along which the chief atmospheric currents move and introduce on our
continent the storm-controlling and weather-producing influences, be-
gins on the Pacific coast and traverses the country from west to east.
As the Atlantic dominates the weather of Europe lying on its eastern

302 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

shores, so in the Pacific Ocean is the cyclopean workshop of the
atmosphere, in which are produced and whence are sent forth the
meteors that perpetually travel over North America, and substantially
mold its climate and weather. To cover the North Pacific, therefore,
with a network of " floating observatories," contributing their " simul-
taneous weather-reports " to the Signal-Service Bureau, is one of the
grand desiderata of American meteorology. A ship at sea is one of
the best of stations for a simultaneous meteorological system. The
value of its records is enhanced by the considerable change of the
ship's location occurring once every hour ; and the law of self-interest
at least should compel every shipowner and shipmaster to enlist in a
joint observational work which inures to his own safety and lends a
helping hand to every meteorologist. Without the data, to be collected
only by vessels sailing on the North Pacific, the prevision and predic-
tion of storms and weather-changes that transpire in the Pacific and
Western States, and are thence projaagated to the East, can not be put
upon a sure footing. With such marine simultaneous data, the work of
weather-forecasting and storm-warning for the Pacific coast and the
whole country will be greatly simplified, and the accuracy of the work
much enhanced, if not assured. If the solar light of day comes first
from the East, we may nevertheless predict that the flood of scientific
light necessary to elucidate the still obscure phenomena of American,
and especially Western meteorology, will break upon us from the Great
Western Ocean. "The improvement'''' in the national tri-daily "In-
dications," etc., of the Signal-Service, which General Myer hopes for,
as his oceanic simultaneous work " progresses," can not be doubted.

If anything more is needed to enforce this view of the immense
value of North Pacific researches for the development of American
weather-telegraphy, it is found in the fact that the cyclones of that
ocean recurve from the Asiatic coast, and follow the warm current
known as the " Kuro Shoo,^^ or " Japan Current " — ^the congener of
our Atlantic "Gulf Stream" — in its northeasterly extension to the
northwestern coasts of the United States. This mighty " river in the
sea " is a natural storm-channel. " The influence of the Kuro Siwo,"
says Captain Silas Bent, the original and careful investigator of its phe-
nomena, " upon the climate of Japan and the west coast of North
America is, as might be expected, as striking as that of the Gulf
Stream on the coasts bordering the Atlantic." And Kerhallet, the well-
known French hydrographer, tells us that it " crosses all the northern
part of the Pacific Ocean, and makes itself felt on the northwest coast
of America." " The track of typhoons in th^ rihina Sea," according to
one of the highest nautical authorities, Labrosse, " lies between north-
northwest and south-southwest, then toward the north, and afterward
turns sharp around tovHird the east, in the direction of the Bashee Isl-
ands," whence in 1854 Mr. Redfield traced a number of them far away
toward the American coast. These terrific rotatory gales rival, if they

THE INTERNATIONAL WEATHER-SERVICE. 303

304

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

do not exceed, in intensity, the fiercest Atlantic hurricanes. The cyclone
or typhoon of the U. S. steamship Mississippi, October 6, 1854, with that
of the TJ. S. storeship Caprice, and the steamship Susquehanna, July 17
and 19, 1853, in Commodore Perry's Japan Expedition, are among the
most memorable storms of history on any sea, and illustrate the mag-
nitude and might of those atmospheric forces so characteristic of the
Great Ocean, whose meteorology is now to be brought under strictly
simultaneous surveillance and studied in its close causal connections
with that of our own country.

As the investigation of the Pacific's meteorology is so important
to America, the same system of observations applied to the Atlantic
reaches to the roots of European meteorology. It is well known that
the atmospheric conditions which shape European weather and climate
are propagated over the French and British coasts from the Atlantic,
so that every intelligent storm-warner and weather-forecaster in Eu-
rope casts a wistful eye to the western waters to catch some premoni-
tion of what is to befall his coasts. Propositions to buoy in the mid-
Atlantic ships, equipped with self -registering barometers and weather-
indicators and connected by telegraphic cables with the shore, which
would flash reports of precursory changes to the central Signal-Office,
were suggested by General Myer to meet a deeply-felt need. It
has also been very seriously proposed to dispatch carrier-pigeons by
the westward-bound English steamships, to bear back weather-reports
from points two hundred or more miles at sea, in the hope that the
London office might have data for more timely weather-warnings.
" It is possible," says the Russian meteorologist Woeikof, " that in
October Atlantic storms may reach as far as Yakutsk'^'' (in northeast-
ern Siberia) which is farther from the Atlantic than England is from
the Pacific Ocean. " In Europe," Mr. Buchan tells us, " stormy weather
is accompanied by a diminution in the atmospheric pressure, the center
of which, after traversing more or less of the Atlantic, arrives on the
coast of Europe." One weather-report from the Atlantic, if only made
a few hundred miles from the British coast, would be worth, for all
practical purposes of storm-prediction, more than dozens of continental
reports. If, indeed, the international system does not supply the
needed ocean-reports in time for the European work of daily storm-
warning, its daily charts show the conditions which usher in the vari-
ous weather-changes upon the European coasts. They show, moreover,
the tracks which, at each season, Atlantic cyclones are wont to select
and pursue as they approach Europe, and the rates at which they trav-
erse these tracks. Given these mean data, deducible from the inter-
national weather-charts, and the chief elements are had for deciding
any special question of weather that arises in the daily work of fore-
casting. As a late writer says: " The most abstruse discussion of mete-
orological data have hardly another object than the determination of
the average conditions of the climate of ench place, and- of the amount

THE INTERNATIONAL WEATHER-SERVICE. 305

of variability which may be anticipated in the march of each element.
What is this but forecasting?" Every increase of simultaneous re-
ports is, therefore, another approximation to that knowledge which
would, if sufficiently full, enable the European meteorologist to foresee

8O' 10" 60

Low Barometer," or Cyclone, crossing the Atlantic from America to Europe.
(From " lutemational Weather-Map," Febniary 9, 1878.)

and to give every day more timely forewarning of impending varia-
tions in the weather and " the march of each element," But this is
the grand end which all such international research contemplates.
"From the use of synchronous weather-maps," another prominent
English meteorologist tells us, " there has sprung up in recent years a
new science of the winds. With the principles of this science all the
more reliable rules of weather-forecasting are most intimately con-
nected. We no longer think of judging of coming weather merely by
the aspect of the sky and an examination of an individual barometer.
We invariably refer — I do not say to the weather-reports of a few
hours previous, for we often have neither these nor any weather-re-
ports at all at hand — but loe invariably refer to rules already deduced
from the long study of roeatlier-maps. The man who ignores these
rules had better, in my opinion, leave all attempts at weather-forecast-
ing alone. At best his weather-lore will not rise much above that of
the bees, Avhich fly to the hive, often to their own detriment, whenever
a dark cloud covers the sun." We cite these words as expressive of
the wise dependence which the most skillful Eui'opean meteorologists

TOL. XVI. — 20

3o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

put upon the weather-charts of the past. How much more light will
they derive from the new international " sinmltaneoiis " weather-maps !
While the scientific world is despairing of finding adequate mechanical
means of mooring a floating weather-station in mid- Atlantic to cable
its reports to land, the necessity for such a station is being gradually
superseded by the development of researches which if studied will
supply adequate rules for weather-forecasting without mid- Atlantic
reports. The immediate value of every means which offers any approxi-
mation to correct storm-warnings for the British and French coasts —
frequented by the navies and merchant marines of every flag — is be-
yond calculation in dollars and cents.

The ultimate value of the temperature and rainfall statistics ob-
tained by this research, especially in their application to agriculture,
can not be questioned. Even if such data were of no avail for the
general work of weather-forecasting, they reach into the sj^here of all
farming operations, and are utilized by all classes. One of the most
striking exemplifications of this fact has been furnished by Governor
Rawson, of the island of Barbadoes, who, in an ofticial paper, has used
the rainfall reports " in calculating the probability, or expectation, of
coming seasons as respects the yield of the sugar-plantations."

The long-protracted and often torrential precipitation that drenched
the British Islands and large portions of western Europe last summer
(1879), had been preceded by long-protracted and abnormal chilling of
those countries, whose crops were blighted or dwarfed for want of sun-
shine and ruined by too frequent down-pours. Now, it is a fact worthy
of deep reflection that on June 12th, before this dreary and desolating
summer had set in, the English journal of science, " Nature," published
a summary of thermometric data from ninety-two stations, which
demonstrated that " the cold weather, for the six months ending May
1, 1879, exceeded in intensity" (that of) " any other past period of cold
weather in these islands of like duration, of which we have an exact
and authentic record." Great Britain on the 1st of May was then
abnormally refrigerated ; these islands, and we may add the adjacent
continent, were ready to act as powerful condensers of the tropical
and North Atlantic vapor wafted over them in enormous volumes by
the southwest or "anti-trade" winds, which especially prevailed in
summer. But more significant still were the barometric conditions
prevailing over Iceland, which so greatly affected the weather of the
British Isles. The spring of 1879 was unusually co?(7, and the interna-
tional weather-charts, prepared by our Signal-Service, show unusually
high pressures throughout April, 1879, over Iceland, just as occurred
in July, 1867, when there was a memorably cold spell in Great Britain
— owing to the fact, as Mr. Buchan explains it, that "the pressure
being low in Norway and countries surrounding the Baltic, and hic/h
in Iceland, Scotland was thus placed in the cold Arctic current which
set in from Iceland toward the Baltic."

THE INTERNATIONAL WEATHER-SERVICE. 307

Now, with such clear barometric and thermometric conditions in and
around Great Britain, a " cold, wet summer " in 1879 was almost inevit-
able, and a prediction to that effect, based on the simultaneous inter-
national data, would have been justifiable. Of course, new conditions
might arise late in June, but the conditions prevalent, according to all
physical probability, authorized such a forecast at the commencement
of the summer, and would have been of incalculable value. Ask the
British farmer what he would have freely paid in June to have gained
some idea of the July weather ! Or ask the English merchant what
he would have freely given in June for a tolerably correct crop-fore-
cast for the summer of 1879 ! Yet this is no hypothetical case, but
one familiar to all, involving a whole nation in agricultural and finan-
cial distress, against which, with international reports from the Faroe
Islands and Iceland, it could have been forewarned.

The collection of the "international" cloud-observations — especially
those taken at sea — opens one of the most fertile and fascinating fields,
not only for the elucidation of the profoundest atmospheric problems
by the theoretical scientist, but for the popularization of meteoric
knowledge. The clouds are Nature's weather-guides, at all times
serving to preannounce the approach of storms, or the return of clear
weather. Until the middle of the seventeenth century (when Torri-
celli's experiments led to the invention of the barometer), and long
after, the clouds furnished the only weather-indications which the
world had. And, the more modern meteorology is developed, the
more do the ablest of its leaders seek to understand these unen-ing
monitors of every weather-change. Varied as they are, their forms
may be reduced to two or three types, so defined and imposing that
the most unscientific can learn to recognize them and construe their
meaning. The international observers enter on their blanks the amount
and direction of clouds. " The most valuable of weather-signs," says
Mr. Ley, " are obtained not so much from the shape of the clouds as
from the directions from which clouds of different levels are observed
to travel, and it is these weather-signs which, in the present state of
our knowledge, can be most readily reduced to definite rules."

Take a single illustration of the utility which such rules would
have for the farmer, the sailor, or any close observer of the sky. Our
storm-centers are generally preceded by a great bank of those clouds
to which the name cirro-stratus is given. They are composed largely
of freezing or frozen vapor, floating at great elevations, and often very
far in front of the depression and over the belt of country which is to
receive its rainfall. They move in parallel lines, and are distinguished
by their thread-like and attenuated delicacy, as well as by their alti-
tude— from 20,000 to 40,000 feet — from all local clouds. Outlying
streaks of the cirro-stratus, frequently visible from twenty to one hun-
dred miles in advance of the main pack, " like pioneers of the coming
army," can easily be detected. But the main body, since it forms the

3o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

familiar halo, can not be overlooked. It is the timely omen of imj^end-
ing disturbance, delivering its faithful warning long before the barometer
begins to fall and tell its confirmatory tale. The accompanying cloud-
illustrations, constructed, with some variations, after Mr. Ley's designs,
will illustrate the chief weather-changes. Fig. 1 represents cirrus and
cirro-stratus forming far in front of a cyclone, while yet the barometer
has not begun to fall decidedly. Fig. 2 shows the cloud-system attend-
ing one of our storm -centers, as viewed from a point say 25,000 feet
high (above the disturbance), the whole system borne along in the
broad, horizontal " antitrade-wind " belt, from southwest to northeast,
the scale of miles 200 to the inch, and the rate of progress fifteen miles
an hour.

Could the rural populations and those whose occupation calls them
much out of doors be assisted in interpreting these and similar phenom-
ena, however untutored they might be in meteorologic terms and the-
ories, they would soon learn to forecast many of the great weather-
changes for themselves. But as the storm-signaling clouds, conspicu-
ous to all, fly aloft in those mighty " upper currents " which, observation
shows, attain not uncommonly velocities of one hundred and twenty and
sometimes even one hundred and fifty miles an hour, none but strictly
" simultaneous " weather-reports can adequately or truthfully reflect
their actual, ever-flitting movements as related to storm-vortices and
other atmospheric phenomena, whose approach and force they fore-
token.

Once more. The most popular and profitable use to which meteor-
ologic observations can possibly be put would be, if it is practicable,
to forecasting in part the character of coming seasons — whether the
next winter will be mild or severe, or the approaching summer wet or
dry. It is certain that such forecasts will not be made until the net-
work of observing stations is so enlarged as to record the temperature
and other conditions over extensive portions of the oceanic, as well as
the solid face of the globe. The northern hemisphere at least must
be belted with stations returning simultaneous reports before season-
predictions can be successfully attempted. But, with a broad girdle
of observations around the middle latitudes, would it even then be pos-
sible to foreshadow the abnormal or extreme heat or cold of a coming
summer or winter ? It may seem premature to offer any reply to such
an interi'ogatory ; and yet it may not be as unanswerable as it seems.
It is now pretty clearly ascertained that the earth in its orbital revo-
lution is subjected to very decided periodic planetary influences, which
sometimes destroy the balance of the seasons. The researches of Mr.
Meldrum and others appear to corroborate the long-suspected physical
connection between terrestrial cyclones and those grand solar atmos-
pheric storms which produce or constitute sun-spots. A recent wi'iter,
summing up the latest results obtained from these and many like
investigations, concludes that "the solar spots and temperatures

THE INTERNATIONAL WEATHER-SERVICE. 309

change in parallel cycles, and affect every feature in terrestrial mete-
orology."

But, apart from every aid furnished by cosmic meteorology to that
of our individual planet, the extension of the international simultaneous
weather-reports will, we believe, ultimately afford the data requisite
for approximately forecasting some main features of the seasons. A
single example (the great heat of last October on the eastern side of
the United States) will illustrate the possibility of attaining in some
degree this long-desired object, which, like an ignis fatuus, has eluded
the pursuit of men for so many ages. The summer of 1879 presented
in North America no strongly marked high pressure ; but after the
24th of July the barometric conditions were generally "low," and
in the " Monthly Weather Review " for August, the Signal-Service
stated : " The bai'ometric pressure, as compared with the means of the

Chart of Equal Bakoitetric Peessukes during August, in and around North America.
(Anows shov) prevailing winds for August.)

seven preceding years, shows that the mean of the entire country has
been abnormally loio." We may compare the atmosphere then resting
upon the interior to a vast and fixed dry cyclone, the elongated cen-
tral area of which covered the Upper Lake region, and the country
stretching northward, probably to the sixtieth parallel of latitude — the
whole extent of the depression not less than 1,500,000 square miles,

310 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and the pressiire ranging from 29*90 to 29"70 inches. It has long been
known that such a "barometric trough," or stationary depression,
forms over the northwestern portion of this continent every summer,
when the soil is highly heated by the sun, and the air-strata above it
become highly rarefied by terrestrial radiation ; Mr. Buchan, on his
isobaric charts, assigns to it in July a mean pressure of 29*80 to 29"70
inches. Now, by " the law of the winds," the effect of this baromet-
ric depression would be to set up an indraught, somewhat resembling
that caused by an ordinary cyclone, around whose center, in our hemi-
sphere, the air draws from right to left, and moves on all sides toward
the vacuum. Necessarily, therefore, toward the central belt of this vast
continental depression (which during last August covered the interior
of our continent up to the Arctic Circle), as into an aerial hollow, the air
would flow from the surrounding regions of high pressure, which in
that month always lie to the southward in the Gulf of Mexico, and in
the extratropical parts of the Pacific. Could the Signal-Service baro-
metric observations have been supplemented in August by like simulta-
neous observations taken in central British America, so as to determine
the extent and intensity of the low pressure there, the anomalous au-
tumn of 1879 could have been in no small measure foreseen and f orean-
nounced. A " warm wave " was then rolling northward and likely to
continue. Could the international system of reports have been ex-
tended to the upper valley of the Saskatchewan before this enormous
barometric anomaly developed, the prevailing weather of last Sep-
tember and October could have been then measurably foreshadowed,
with almost as much certainty as, when a " cold wave " from the north
is moving over the Lakes any day in January, the Signal-Ofiice indicates
" cold weather " for the interior of the country.

But enough has been said on this part of our subject. The neces-
sity of studying the atmosphere as a unit need not be further pressed ;
for, as Dove forcibly said, " it is, as its name shows, a great steam-ap-
paratus, whose reservoir is the ocean, its furnace the sun, and whose
condensing vessels are the higher geographical latitudes," so that only
when viewed as a whole can its operations be clearly understood. The
simultaneoiisness of the present international system insures the accu-
racy of the results that may be deduced. And the international chart
acts as a sort of lens by means of which the scattered rays of meteor-
ological light are concentrated in a focus upon the dark points of the
science. It is but just to add that the credit of originating, organiz-
ing, and elaborating this simultaneous system, both of the ocean mete-
orology and that of the land, belongs to General Myer, who, in the
execution of his plans, has been seconded by the indefatigable labors
of his assistants in the Washington Weather Bureau, and sustained by
the energetic cooperation of all foreign weather-services.

The extension of this research can not fail to afford the diligent in-
vestigator a magnificent view of the complicate and exquisite adapta-

JOHN STUART MILL. 311

tions of the atmospheric forces. Humboldt records the circumstance
that, when, like Balboa on the summit of the Sierra de Quarequa in
Darien, he and his companions from the top of the Andes caught their
first view of the Pacific Ocean, so great was their joy, they forgot to
open their instruments, and every thought was hushed that they might
drink in the scene expanding before them. How much more will the
meteorologist of the near future, whose mental eye catches a clear
glimpse of the Aerial Ocean, mirrored in the modern chart, be lost in
admiration, yet constrained to admit with the ancient seer, "Lo ! these
are but parts of His ways ; how little a portion is heard of Him, but
the thunder of His power who can understand ? "

JOHN STUAET MILL.

By ALEXANDER BAIN, LL. D.,

PROFESSOR OF LOGIC IN THE TNIVERSITT OF ABERDEEN.

WHAT I have to say on the ten years from 1848 to 1858 may be
conveniently introduced by a reference to the " Autobiogra-
phy," p. 237. Mill states that, for a considerable time after the publica-
tion of the " Political Economy," he published no work of magnitude.
He still occasionally wrote in periodicals, and his correspondence with
unknown persons on questions of public interest swelled to a consid-
erable amount. He wrote, or commenced, various essays on human
and social subjects, and kept a watch on the progress of public
events.

The year 1850 was chiefly noted for the first important revision of
the " Logic," namely, for the third edition. He had to answer many
attacks upon it, including a pamphlet by Whewell. As I was absent
from London while this was going on, I had a good many letters from
him, chiefly on Whewell's criticism, of the weakness of which he had
a very decided opinion. I suggested some alterations and additional
examples, but I scarcely remember what they were. The edition was
printed in November ; and no revision of anything like the same extent
was undertaken till the eighth edition came out in 1872,

The " Political Economy " was subject to more frequent revisions,
and occupied a good deal of his attention at one time or other, but I
did not keep pace with him on that subject.

In the spring of 1851 took place his marriage to Mrs. Taylor, In
the autumn of that year I took up my abode in London again, and re-
mained there or in the neighborhood till 18G0. I continued to see him

312 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

at intervals in the India House, but he had changed his residence, and
was not available for four-o'clock walks. He could almost always
allow a visitor fifteen or twenty minutes in the course of his official
day, and this was the only way he could be seen. He never went
into any society except the monthly meetings of the Political Economy
Club. On some few occasions a little while after his marriage, Grote
and he and I walked together between the India House and his railway-
station.

Only three of his reprinted articles belong to the period I am now
referring to ; but he must have written for the " Westminster Review "
at least one or two that were not reprinted. I can not help thinking
that the failure of his energy was one chief cause of his comparative
inaction. As an instance, I remember, when he first read Ferrier's
" Institutes," he said he felt that he could have dashed off an article
upon it in the way he did with Bailey's book on " Vision " ; and I can
not give any reason why he did not.

He wrote for the "Westminster," in 1849, a vindication of the
French Revolution of February, 1848, in reply to Lord Brougham and
others. In French politics he was thoroughly at home, and up to the
fatality of December, 1851, he had a sanguine belief in the political
future of France. This article, like his " Armand Carrel," is a piece
of French political history, and the replies to Brougham are scathing.
I remember well, in his excitement at the Revolution, his saying that
the one thought that haunted him was — " Oh, that Carrel were still
alive ! "

It was for the "Westminster" of October, 1852, that he wrote the
article on Whewell's " Moral Philosophy." What effect it had upon
Whewell himself I can not say ; he took notice of it blandly in a sub-
sequent edition of his " Elements of Morality," in reviewing objectors
generally, omitting names. John Grote thought that, in this and in
the " Sedgwick " article. Mill indulged in a severity that was unusual
in his treatment of opponents. I could not, for my own part, discover
the difference. Yet it is no wonder, as he told me once, that he
avoided meeting Whewell in person, although he had had opportuni-
ties of being introduced to him (I suppose through his old friend Mr.
Marshall, of Leeds, whose sister Whewell married).

In 1853 he wrote his final article on Grote's " Greece," in which he
enters with enthusiasm into Grote's vindication of the Athenians and
their democratic constitution. Ho was, quite as much as Grote, a
Greece-intoxicated man. Twice in his life he traversed the country
from end to end. I remember, when I met him at the India House
after his first tour, he challenged me to name any historical locality
that he had not explored.

In 1854 he had an illness so serious that he mentions it in the
" Autobiography." It was an attack in the chest, ending in the par-
tial destruction of one lung. He took the usual remedy of a long

JOHN STUART MILL. 313

tour, being absent about eight months, in Italy, Sicily, and Greece. I
remember Sir James Clark giving a very desponding view of his state;
the local disease, however, he said, was not so serious as the general
debility, and, in all likelihood, he never would be fit for any other con-
siderable work. According to a remark made to Grote by Peacock,
the head of his office, his absence was severely felt at the India House.
He rallied, nevertheless, and resumed his usual routine.

In the year following his recovery, 1856, his two seniors in the Ex-
aminer's office retired together, and he became head of the office. This
made an entire change in his work: instead of pre^Daring dispatches in
one department, he had to superintend all the departments. The en-
grossment of his official time was consequently much greater ; and he
had often to cut short the visits of friends. In little more than a
year after his promotion, in the end of 1857, the extinction of the Com-
pany was resolved upon by the Government, and he had to aid the
Court of Directors in their unavailing resistance to their doom. For
this purpose, he drafted the " Petition to Parliament " in behalf of the
Company, in which he brought to bear all his resources in the theory
and practice of politics. The petition, as ultimately submitted, after
some slight amendments by the Court of Directors, was pronounced
by Earl Grey the ablest state-paper he bad ever read. I do not mean
to advert to its contents, further than to quote the two introductory
sentences, the point and pungency of which the greatest orator might
be proud of :

" That your petitioners, at their own expense, and by the agency
of their own civil and military servants, originally acquired for this
country its magnificent empire in the East.

" That the foundations of this empire were laid by your petition-
ers, at that time neither aided nor controlled by Parliament, at the
same period at which a succession of administrations under the con-
trol of Parliament were losing to the Crown of Great Britain another
great empire on the opposite side of the Atlantic."

Several other documents were prepared by Mill for the Court of
Directors, while the abolition of the Company was under discussion in
Parliament. It so happened that the Liberal Government, which first
resolved on the measure, retired from office before it was carried, and
the Government of Lord Derby had to finish it. Under the manage-
ment of Lord Stanley, as President of the Board of Control, the new
India Council was much more assimilated to the constitution of the old
Court of Directors ; and I am inclined to believe that the modification
was in great measure owing to the force of Mill's reasonings.

The passing of the bill led to his retirement from the India House.
He told Grote that, but for the dissolution of the Company, he would
have continued in the service till he was sixty. An attempt was made
to secure him for the new Council. After the chairman, he was the
first applied to by Lord Stanley to take office as a Crown nominee. In

314 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

declining, he gave, as his reason, failing health ; but, had he been
stronger, he would have still preferred retirement to working under
the new constitution.

His deliverance from official work in 1858 was followed by the
crushing calamity of his wife's death. He was then on his way to
spend the winter in Italy, but immediately after the event he returned
to his home at Blackheath. For some months he saw nobody, but still
corresponded actively on matters that interested him. His despon-
dency was frightful. In reply to my condolence, he said : "I have
recovered the shock as much as I ever shall. Henceforth, I shall be
only a conduit for ideas." Writing to Gi'ote, he descanted passion-
ately on his wife's virtues : " If you had only known all that she
was ! "

In the beginning of 1859 I was preparing for publication my vol-
ume on " The Emotions and the Will." I showed the manuscript to
Mill, and he revised it minutely, and jotted a great many suggestions.
In two or three instances his remarks bore the impress of his lacerated
feelings.

He soon recommenced an active career of publication. The " Lib-
erty" was already written, and, as he tells us, was never to be re-
touched. His pamphlet on " Parliamentary Reform," written some
years previously, was revised and sent to press. On this he remarked
in a letter : " Grote, I am afraid, will not like it, on account of the
ballot, if not other points. But I attach importance to it, as a sort of
revision of the theory of representative government." A few days
later he wi'ote, " Grote knows that I now differ with him on the bal-
lot, and we have discussed it together, with no effect on either."

Of course the pamphlet was well reasoned, but the case against the
ballot had not the strength that I should have expected. The main
considerations put forward are these two : First, that the electoral vote
is a trust, and therefore to be openly exercised ; second, that, as a
matter of fact, the coercion of the voter by bribery and intimidation
has diminished and is diminishing. The argument from " a trust "
was not new ; it had been repeatedly answered by Grote and by others.
The real point at issue was, whether the withdrawing the elector from
the legitimate control of public oj^inion be not a less evil than expos-
ing him to illegitimate influence ; and this depends on the state of the
facts as to the diminution of such influence. Experience seems to be
against Mill on this head ; and it is unfortunate for his political sa-
gacity and prescience that the Legislature was converted to the ballot
after he had abandoned it.

The "Liberty" appeared about the same time. The work was
conceived and planned in 1854. While thinking of it, he told Grote
that he was cogitating an essay to point out what things society for-
bade that it ought not, and what things it left alone that it ought to
control. Grote repeated this to me, remarking, " It is all very well

JOHN STUART MILL. 315

for John Mill to stand up for the removal of social restraints, but as
to imposing new ones I feel the greatest apprehensions." I instantly-
divined what the new restraints would be. The volume must have
been the chief occupation of his spare time during the last two years
of his official life. It is known that he set great store by the work,
and thought it would probably last longer than any of his writings,
except perhaps the "Logic."

The old standing question of freedom of thought had been worked
up, in a series of striking expositions, by his father, in conjunction
with Bentham and the circle of the "Westminster Review" ; he him-
self, from his earliest youth, was embarked in the same cause, and his
essays were inferior to none in the power and freshness of the han-
dling. The first part of the " Liberty " is the condensation of all that
had been previously done ; and, for the present, stands as the chief
text-book of freedom of discussion. It works round a central thought,
which has had a growing prominence in later years, the necessity of
taking account of the negative to every positive affirmation ; of laying
down, side by side with every proposition, the counter-proposition.
Following this cue, Mill's first assumption is, that an opinion authori-
tatively suppressed may possibly be true ; and the thirty pages de-
voted to this position show a combination of reasoning and eloquence
that has never been surpassed, if equaled, in the cause of intellectual
freedom. The second assumption is that an opinion is false. Here his
argument takes the more exclusive form of showing the necessity of
keeping in the view the opposite of every opinion, in order to main-
tain the living force of the opinion itself. While there is much that
is effective here also, I think that he puts too great stress upon the
operation of negative criticism in keeping alive the understanding of
a doctrine. It is perfectly true that, when an opinion is actively op-
posed, its defenders are put on the qui vive in its defense, and have,
in consequence, a far more lively sense of its truth, as well as a juster
view of its meaning and import ; but the necessity of keeping up im-
aginary opponents to every truth in science may easily be exaggerated.
We need not conjure up opponents to gravitation so long as a hundred
observations and a hundred thousand ships are constantly at work
testing its consequences. This is the substitute that Mill desiderates
(page 80) for the disadvantage of the cessation of controversy in
truths of great magnitude.

When he proceeds to illustrate the enlivening influence of negation
by the case of ethical and religious doctrines, I think he fails to make
out his case. It may be true enough that, when a creed is first fighting
for reception, it is at the height of its fervor, but the loss of power at a
later stage is due to other causes than the absence of opponents. Mill's
illustration from Christianity is hardly in point. Kever since the sup-
pression of pagan philosophy was Christianity more attacked than
now ; but we can not say that the attacks have led, or are likely to

3i6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

lead, to a resuscitation of its spirit in the minds of Christians : the op-
posite would be nearer the truth.

The last branch of the argument for free thought is constituted by
Mill's favorite doctrine that conflicting doctrines usually share the truth
between them. This view is, I think, both precarious in itself, and of
very doubtful relevance to the author's main thesis. The example from
the two state parties — the party of order and the party of progress —
will not stand a severe scrutiny. Not to mention, what he admits,
that there is perfect freedom of discussion on the matter, the war of
parties is, in point of fact, scarcely conducted according to his ideal.
More to the point is the well-known passage on Christian morality,
which he regards as a series of half-truths, needing to be made up by
truths derived from other sources. As far as his main purpose is con-
cerned, I think all this belongs to the first branch of the argument,
and might have been included there : that first branch containing,
to my mind, the real strength of the contention for freedom of
thought.

The second half of the book is on liberty of conduct, as against the
restraints of our social customs. This is introduced by a chapter on in-
dividuality, considered as one of the elements of well-being. Excellent
as are many of the author's remarks, there are various openings for
criticism. The chief thing that strikes me is the want of a steady view
of the essentials of human happiness. I shall have to notice again the
defects of Mill's Hedonic philosophy, I think that he greatly exag-
gerates the differences between human beings as regards the conditions
of happiness. The community of structure in our corporeal and men-
tal framework far exceeds the disparities : there are certain easily
stated requisites, in the possession of which no one could be very
unhappy ; while the specialties needed to impart to a given individual
the highest degree of felicity are seldomer withheld by the tyranny
of custom than by causes that society can not control. Mill pleads
strongly for the energetic natures, for the exuberance of spontaneity
and strong impulses. But energy as sucli is not thwarted ; and the
difficulty will always remain, that superabundant energy is exceedingly
apt to trench upon other people's rights. Mill too closely identifies
energy with originality or genius, and genius with eccentricity. In
regard to all these characteristics, many fine distinctions need to be
drawn, over and above what Mill gives us. When he talks of the pres-
ent state of Englishmen as a state of collective greatness and diminish-
ing individuality, it takes a little reflection to see what he is driving at.
Nor is his reference of the unprogressiveness of the East to the despot-
ism of custom a wholly satisfactory explanation ; the laroblem of sta-
tionary societies is still undecided.

The chapter following, entitled " The Limits to the Authority of
Society over the Individual," helps us better to his real meaning. He
lays it down as an axiom that society should interfere only in what

JOHN STUART MILL. 317

concerns itself. One might sixppose that this "svould have passed as an
axiom, instead of being caviled at on all hands. Why should society,
more than any other entity, interfere with what does not concern it ?
Even accepting the axiom, we may yet work it in society's favor by
those numerous pretexts whereby individual action is alleged to have
social bearings ; but to refuse the axiom itself argues some defect of
intelligent comprehension.

As a piece of vigorous composition, this chapter is not inferior to
any in the book ; it is admirable as an exposition in practical ethics,
and might be enshrined as a standing homily in the moral instruction
of mankind. It does what homilies rarely do, namely, endeavor to
draw precise lines between social duty and individual liberty ; and
reviews the more notable instances where society still tyrannizes over
minorities. Still, the instances adduced seem scarcely to justify the
denunciations of the author ; they are the remains of past ages of in-
tolerance, and are gradually losing their hold.

It is in his subsequent chapter of " Applications " that we seem to
approach his strongest case — but it is little more than hinted at — I
mean the relationship of the sexes. It hardly admits of question that
any great augmentation of human happiness that may be achieved in
the future must proceed first upon a better standard of worldly cir-
cumstances, and next upon the harmonizing and adjusting of the social
relations. After people are fed, clothed, and housed, at a reasonable
expenditure of labor, their next thing is to seek scope for their affec-
tions ; it is at this point that there occur the greatest successes and
the greatest failures in happy living. The marriage relation is the
most critical of any ; and we have now a class of thinkers that main-
tain that this is enforced with too great stringency and monotony. To
attain some additional latitude in this respect is an object that Mill, in
common with his father, considered very desirable. Both were strong-
ly averse to encouraging mere sensuality ; they were not prepared
with any definite scheme of sexual reform ; they merely urged that
personal freedom should be extended in this respect, with a view to
such social experiments as might lead to the better fulfillment of the
great ideal that the sexual relation has in view.

The " Liberty " was exposed to a good deal of carping in conse-
quence of Mill's admitting unequivocally that a certain amount of dis-
approval was proper and inevitable toward persons that behaved badly
to themselves. It was said, What is this, after all, but a milder form
of punishing them for what does not concern either us or society at
large ? He fully anticipated such a remark, and I think amply dis-
posed of it, by drawing the very wide distinction between mere low-
ered estimation and the treatment proper to offenders against society.
He might have gone further, and drawn up a sliding scale or graduated
table of modes of behavior, from the most intense individual prefer-
ence at the one end to the severest reprobation at the other. At least

3i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

fifteen or twenty perceptible distinctions could be made, and a place
found for every degree of merit and demerit. Because a person does
not stand high in our esteem, it does not follow that we are punishing
or persecuting him ; the point when punishment in any proper sense
could be said to begin would be about the middle of the scale. Mill
remarks justly : " If any one displeases us, we may express our distaste
and stand aloof from such an one ; but we shall not therefore feel
called on to make his life uncomfortable," still less to send him to
prison or to the stake.

A KOGUISH HOUSEHOLD PET.

By FEANK BUCKLAND.

AS company for the monkeys and myself, for many years past, I
have had a " Jemmy." All my Suricates I call " Jemrays." The
Latin name is Suricata Zenich. Jemmy is a very pretty little beast,
somewhat like a small mongoose or very large rat. His head is as like
the head of a hedgehog as can be imagined. His color is light brown,
with darker strijje down the sides. He is an African animal, and
lives in burrows on the plains, whence he is sometimes called the Afri-
can prairie-dog, or the meercatze. Captain Adams tells me that, when
in South Africa, he has frequently come across a camj) of Jemmys.
The plain will appear covered with them, sitting up motionless like so
many ninepins ; at the least notice, they simultaneously and in an in-
stant disappear down their holes.

SuRicATE {Suricata Zenick).

I would like now to say something of the habits of this pretty little
fellow, which was kindly given to me by Mr. Forbes Nixon. Jemmy
the Third (for I have previously had two Jemmys) was allowed the
free range of the whole house. He was full of curiosity and restless-

A ROGUISH HOUSEHOLD PET.

319

ness, running continually from one room to another. He very seldom
walked; his pace, on the contrary, was a short gallop, or rather canter.
When on the move he always gave tongue, like a hound on a scent.
It is impossible to describe his melodious cry in words. When han-
dled and petted he would utter a sharp bark, not unlike that of a dog;
and, if in a very good humor, I could, by imitating him, make him bark
alternately with myself. His great peculiarity was his wonderfully
intelligent and observing look. He had the peculiarity also of sitting
up on his tail, like a kangaroo ; his fore-paws on this occasion were
like a dog's when begging. He was very fond of warmth, and would
sit up inside the fender and warm himself, occasionally leaning back
against the fender and looking round with the satisfied air of an old
gentleman reposing after dinner. When the morning sun came into the
room. Jemmy would go and sit in the sunbeams and look out of the
window at the passing cabs and omnibuses. When doing this he had
a way of turning round very sharply, and looking with his little pig's
eyes at me and back, as much as to say, " What do you think of that ? "
When breakfast came up he would dance round me on his hind-legs,
watching for something. I often put him on the breakfast-table ; if
I did not put him up he would climb up uninvited. It was very amus-
ing to see him go and smell the egg, and, in his own language, swear at
it for being hot. He could not understand its being hot enough to
burn his nose ; raw eggs were his special favorites. His great delight
was to be allowed to upset the sugar-basin, and then scratch about
among the lumps of sugar. He was also very fond of cream, and it
was most amusing to see him try to get the little drops of cream I had
left for him out of the cream-can, as left by the milk- woman. I am
obliged to have my cream in this little can, as the cats, marmoset, or
something else would be sure to have it before I came down. I placed
the cream-can on the floor, and it was fun to see Jemmy try to force
it open with his teeth, to get the cream out ; he used quite to lose his
patience with this metal cream-can.

After breakfast, Jemmy generally had a stand-up fight with the
monkeys. He would inspect (from the outside) the bottom of the
monkey-cage. If he discovered any portion of the monkeys' break-
fast which he thought might suit him, he would immediately try to
steal it by thrusting his arms through the bar. The monkeys invari-
ably resented this indignity. The carroty, old, crippled monkey,
Jane, could only make eyes and faces at him. The wicked, impudent
" Little Jack " would jump up and down like an India-rubber ball, all
the time well inside the cage, where Jemmy could not get at him.
When Jemmy was fighting the monkeys, he would stand on his hind-
legs and show his lovely white, carnivorous teeth at tliem, turning up
his sharjD, mole-like nose in a most contemptuous manner, all the time
keeping up a continuous bark, into which fun the parrot generally
entered and barked like Jemmy also.

320 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

One morning, in the middle of the fight, Jemmy forgot himself for
the moment in turning round, and gave the ever-vigilant Little Jack a
chance. Little Jack seized Jemmy's tail with screams of delight, and
pulled him straight up to the bars. Carroty Jane then joined in, and
they were getting the best of it, when suddenly Jemmy turned sharp
round and made his teeth meet in Little Jack's hand. Little Jack
skirmished round the cage three or four times on three legs ; then,
holding up his wounded hand, gazed mournfully and piteously at it,
every now and then leaving off looking to make fiercer faces, and cock
his ears at Jemmy. Never since has Little Jack ventured his hands
outside the bars when a Jemmy-fight came on.

One of the funniest scenes that ever happened with Jemmy was as
follows : Some seaside specimens had been sent me, and among the
seaweed was a live shore-crab about the size of a five-shilling piece.
Little " Chick - Chick," the marmoset, who will eat any quantity of
meal-worms, blue-bottle flies, etc., came down at once off the mantel-
piece and examined Mr. Crab, who was crawling about on the floor.
None of my animals had evidently seen a live crab before. The mon-
keys were very much frightened, and made the same cry of alarm as
when I show them a snake or the house-broom. Chick-Chick evi-
dently thought that the crab was a huge insect. The crab put out
his two nippers at full length, and gave the marmoset such a pinch
that he retreated to the mantel-piece, and from this safe height gazed
down iipon the still threatening crab, uttering loud cries of " Chick,
chick, chick ! " alternated with his plaintive, bat-like, shrill note. Pres-
ently round the coi'ner comes Mrs. Cat. The cat evidently thought
that the crab, which was gently crawling about, was a mouse. She in-
stantly crouched, head, eyes, and ears all intent, as if trying to make
up her mind whether the crab was a mouse on which she ought to
pounce or not. Hearing the row caused by the crab and mai-moset
fight, up comes Jemmy in full cry, with tail cocked well in the air.
He also attacked the crab, but could not make head or tail of him.
He did not like the smell, still less did he like the sundry nips in the
nose that he received from the crab's claws. Jemmy has teeth half
carnivorous, half insectivorous. When he is at home in Africa he
lives upon mice, beetles, etc. He probably digs these creatures out of
the ground, for, whenever he sees a crack in the floor, or a hole in a
board, he will scratch away at it, as though much depended upon his
exertions. When he is fed, it is curious to observe how he always
pretends to kill his food before eating it. He invariably retreats back-
ward while he is scratching and biting at his supposed lively food.
The living food evidently is in the habit of escaping forward. Mr.
Jemmy takes good care that he shall not do so, by scratching incessant-
ly in a backward direction. A grand crab and Jemmy fight, which
lasted nearly half an hour, then took place, ending in the discomfiture
of the crab, whose carcass the marmoset and the cat, both coming for-

A ROGUISH HOUSEHOLD PET. 321

ward, evidently desired to share. Although it was apparent that the
taste of the crab was not agreeable to Jemmy's palate, yet he gradu-
ally ate him up, claws, shells, and all, simply to prevent the other ani-
mals from getting a single bit.

The cat's-meat man comes punctually every day at half-past one ;
when the cats hear the cry " meat," they rush down into the area,
and Master Jemmy, seeing them bolt, would run also, his object being
to steal the ration of meat from one of the cats. By instinct or ex-
perience he had somehow found out that the cat's claws are very sharp,
and whereas his mode of attack upon the monkey was face to face, the
monkeys being clawless, he attacked the cats by ruffing his hair up and
pushing himself backward.

The cat, annoyed by being disturbed at dinner, would leave off
eating and strike sharply at Jemmy with her paw ; that was his oppor-
tunity. In a moment he would seize the cat's-meat and bolt with it,
but by a most peculiar method, for when within striking distance of
the cat's paw he would turn round and back up to the cat's face, and,
directly she struck at him, he caught the blow on the back, then he
would put his nose down through his forelegs, and through the hinder
ones, and have the meat in a moment, leaving the cat wondering where
it was gone. Jemmy had by this time taken it into a i^lace of safety.
Under the table in Mr. Searle's office there is just room for him to
crawl ; here the angry cat could not of course follow him. In this
retreat he would finish up what he had stolen, and then emerge, lick-
ing his lii^s, and probably laughing to himself at the disappointed face
of the cat. Jemmy was always fond of getting under anything or in
any kind of hole, and his great delight was to get into a boot, and
when he got to the end scratching it as though he wanted to get far-
ther into the burrow. Frequently I found my boots going round the
room, propelled, apparently, by some internal machinery. This machi-
nery was Master Jemmy.

Jemmy was a greedy little fellow. John could not bring up any
kind of food into my room without Jemmy. He would watch the
cook broiling the chop down stairs, and when John brought it up
would follow close to his heels, and what between Jemmy's pretty,
begging manner, the monkey's plaintive cries, and the parrot's demand,
it often happens that I get very little of the chop.

I had hoped to have written a fuller biography of our poor little
Jemmy the Third, but alas ! on Sunday last Jemmy was taken with a
fit. I did everything I could to relieve the poor little fellow, but the
fits were too much for him, and Mr. Searle and myself have been
busily occupied in making his skin into a mat and his bones into
a skeleton. The last Jemmy died of eating cotton-wool ; this Jem-
my died, I think, of eating too much, for he was as fat as a little
bacon -pig, and weighed two pounds — a great weight for such a
little animal. It is curious how fond I become of dear little animals

VOL. XTI. — 21

322

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

such as Jemmy, and how much I miss his pretty little ways as I
sit in the "Monkey-room" writing this memoir of my little pet. —
Land and Water.

01^ THE MIGRATIONS OF RACES *

By FKIEDKICH MtLLEE.

IN endeavoring to subject this question to a brief examination, it
must be previously understood that we only refer to those migra-
tions which explain the distribution of existing and contemporaneous
races and peoples, and such as can be deduced with some certainty
from acknowledged facts. Neither will we consider migrations of in-
dividual races from some hyjaothetical ethnic center, nor those which
many tribes have made that at present no longer exist. Except the
aborigines of Australia, every people has undertaken migrations of
greater or less extent, and many weighty reasons can be given to
explain why the Australian has not ventured outside of his primi-
tive abode. In the first place, from the very character of his coun-
try, through the absence of those animals and plants which contrib-
ute to enjoyment and prosperity, he had not raised himself to a
knowledge of the pleasures of living incident to an advancing culture ;
and, in the second place, the country was itself large enough to contain
the limited number of inhabitants, and to satisfy their simple wants.
Whether the immediate neighbors of the Australian — the Papuans —
have ever undertaken migrations is questionable ; on account of the
circumstance that they universally inhabit islands, and their dwellings
built along the coasts resemble the pile-villages discovered in central
Europe, it is easier to say they did migrate than to deny it. Yet the
whole question is most intimately united to another, viz.. Shall we
consider that the ancient continent, of which the islands of the Indian
Archipelago are fragments, was already peopled before its submer-
gence, or were these separate islands successively occupied by expan-
sion from some center ?

None of the known races has undertaken so extended a migration
as the Malayan. The distribution of this race from Madagascar in the
west to Easter Island in the east, and from the Sandwich Islands in the
north to New Zealand in the south, illustrates this. Notwithstanding
its extent, this dispersion is traced from an ascertained point to the
several islands as the traditions of each and the related character of
the idioms of the individual branches unanswerably demonstrate.

Africa shelters at present five races distinct from one another, viz.,
the Hottentot in the extreme south and southwest, the Caffre, spread
northward from the Hottentot, as far as and beyond the equator^
* Translated from the " Allgemeine Ethnographie," by L. P. Gratacap.

ON THE MIGRATIONS OF RACES. 323

the negro races in the so-called Soudan, the Fellahs inclosed between
the negroes and reaching from east to west in a straight line, and the
central races spread from the north and northeast to the equator.

Of these five races, the first four only can be regarded as autoch-
thonous, while the last, comprising well-established groups, migrated
from Asia.

The Hottentots were formerly the exclusive inhabitants of south-
easterly parts of Africa, from the Cape up to 18° or 19° south lati-
tude. They were driven from their settlements by the invading
Caffres streaming from the north, and at first were pressed back into
the most southerly regions, and then later from this extremity north-
ward along the west coast until they fixed themselves in the districts
they now occupy. The northern neighbors of the Hottentots, the
Caffres, are not aboriginal in the southern country, where at pre-
sent they most numerously exist, but have immigrated here. They
settled originally farther north, and stood in close relations for a long
period with the Hamitic peoples, which migrated from Asia, as is
clearly shown by their idioms. Since by reason of their type and
intimate relationship they could not, for any length of time, have been
separated by their primitive languages, which were continually approxi-
mating, they may have formed an individual group at the time of the
invasion of the Hamites from the north into Africa ; but they exhibit,
in fact, so close points of resemblance with the Hamitic idioms that,
without attributing this to direct contact, the coincidence appears inex-
plicable. Besides this drift from the north to the south, which is
established from already ascertained facts, another from east to west
diagonally across the continent was later instituted. From this cir-
cumstance it happens that the language of many stocks in the extreme
northwest of the Caffre area show the most intimate relationship with
those of the extreme northeast — a relationship not to be accounted for
by a reference of both to the primitive tongue common to the Caffre
or Bantu tribes, but completely through derivation from a branch of
this original speech.

That the Fellah races are not aboriginal in those regions which
they at present occupy is proved by their distribution among the
negro races. Such a stratification of two races can not be aboriginal,
but indicates distinct migrations of each. According to our view, the
Fellah originally settled north of the negroes, probably in the territory
now possessed by the Berbers, and pressed from the northwest into
the land occupied by them, whence they spread toward the east to
Nubia. This opinion is confirmed by the close relationship of the
Fellah races with the central tribes, which appears to demonstrate an
intermixture, as also by the many points of resemblance which the
Fellah idioms offer to the Hamitic tongue.

That the individual peoples into which the negro race is divided
have undertaken many migrations is at the very outset established by

324 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the great number of stocks, which are linguistically distinct, and of
which only a few show any relationship with each other. Slavery
may have contributed not a little to assist this dispersion, as that
institution is by no means an invention of white men, but was long
practiced by the blacks among themselves. It is not infrequent to
see many negro tribes experience, through expulsion from their home,
the same fate which among us overtook the Jews and Armenians.

These migrations of the four aboriginal races of Africa were not
voluntary, but were pursued under the pressure of external circum-
stances. It certainly was owing to the immigration en masse of the
central races, and especially the Hamitic stock, that compelled the
aborigines of Africa to recede before their mentally and bodily supe-
rior invaders, and withdraw to the south of the continent. The
inception of these emigrations is of great antiquity, and may be ap-
proximately described as follows :

The Egyptians were the last of the immigrated Hamitic stock,
as we find them located immediately on the boundary of Suez, over
which arm of land the migrations found their path. The accepted
history of the Egyptians goes back four thousand years before Christ,
at which time they had already erected a monarchical unit based on
a highly developed culture. After allowing the shortest possible time
for the Egyptians to have developed their culture from the rude
beginnings to that height which is noticed in their monuments, viz.,
one thousand years, we find the year 5000 b. c. the latest date for
their entry into Africa. Now, before the Egyptians, their relatives,
the Berbers, with their collateral branch, the extinct Guanches, the
Bedsha, the Somali, the Dankali, the Galla, and other tribes, wan-
dered into Africa, and as ethnic movements are customarily slow and
siTCcessional in nature, we may take one thousand years for the mi-
gration period. Thus at the lowest reckoning we reach the year 6000
B. c, from which we can date the movements of the autochthonous
races of Africa.

As to the New World, according to our own view and that of other
inquirers, at least two distinct races are represented, viz., the Esquimau
in the extreme north, and the Indian distributed from the settlements
of the Esquimau down to the extreme south. Other students take the
ground that the type which we have named the Indian should be split
up into many races, how many is not agreed. Whatever the facts in
regard to this, all agree that the Esquimau is to be sharply separated
from the Indian, and that he is not autochthonous in the New World,
but a recent immigrant from the extreme north of Asia.

Among the Indian races, of whom only a few can be united lin-
guistically in groups — as in respect to language the same hetero-
geneity prevails in America as among the negroes of Africa — still
further migrations have been undertaken. These can easily be traced
to their objective points. In North America such a point is the

Oy THE MIGRATIONS OF RACES. 325

fruitful table-land of Mexico, toward which that stem, which in the
north had attained among its kindred to a higher culture and greater
strength, directed its victorious march. We find here many succeed-
ing peojiles of whom it is as yet not clearly shown whether they
were fundamentally distinct, or in some particulars structurally re-
lated. The last of these invaders, the Aztecs, came from the north,
and, as the language proves, are represented there to-day. Accord-
ing to the most recent investigations, the gigantic moimds which are
found in Korth America are to be attributed to a people nearly related
to the Aztecs of Mexico, and represent the rude precursors of the co-
lossal structures of Central America. At any rate we must recognize
in the northern division of the American Continent an ethnic drift
whose direction was from north to south.

As to South America, the plateaux of Peru formed the destination
of the migrations, as did Mexico in North America. Here also we en-
counter successive peoples, the last of whom — the conquering Incas —
were found by the Spaniards on the discovery of Peru. Like the
Aztecs in Mexico, the Quichuas were in no respect the originators of
the indigenous culture, but have appropriated the same from a nation
which preceded them. Although it is not improbable that the civili-
zation of Mexico and Peru is at bottom congenital, as old elements of
civilization could have been transported over the isthmus and on either
side independently developed — in such a case the Muisca of Colombia
might have formed the intermediate link — yet it is certain that the
Mexicans and Peruvians wei'e isolated, and as in the Old World with
China and the rest of Asia, the one had no positive knowledge of the
civilization of the other.

In regard to the two continents of Europe and Asia, which in fact
form but one, inasmuch as the separation by the chain of mountains
lying between them could not serve as an isolating boundary, we recog-
nize, apart from the early Malayan, four autochthonous races, viz. : the
Hyperboreans in the extreme north, stretching along the borders of the
Arctic Sea ; the Dravida race, in southern India ; the Upper Asiatic race,
filling central and eastern Asia ; and, finally, the midland races, which at
present occupy the south of Asia from India westward, the northeast
and north of Africa, and, with the exception of the extreme north and
some spots in the middle and south, all Europe.

The Hyperborean race was formerly much more imposing than it
is at present, reduced as it is to an insignificant remnant. They
formerly settled farther south, and were pushed to the extreme north
by the expanding Upper Asiatic race. The circumstance of finding
in central Asia representatives of this race, though to be sure deprived
in large measure of their national characteristics, confirms this. We
refer to the Yenisei Ostiaks, together with other small stems which
are philologically diverse from the Ural Altaians, and presumably are
allied to the Yukagiren, Koriaks, Tchuktchis, and Ainos.

326 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MOXTHLY.

The Dravida race once possessed all India from Cape Comorin
to the Himalayas, and spread also across the Indus out to Beloochis-
tan. Invaded by the immigrating Aryans, they were forced south-
ward, until finally they contracted their limits within the southern
half of the Indian Peninsula, the so-called Deccan.

That this race formerly reached so far northward as we have indi-
cated is proved by the Brahuis in Beloochistan, whose existence in
this country can only be accounted for by such an hypothesis. The
beginning of the migrations of the Dravida race coincides with the
appearance of the Aryan in the Punjaub and may be placed some-
where about the year 2000 b, c.

Central Asia must be considered the early home of the so-called
Mongolian, more properly Upper Asiatic race. From this point this
race radiated in all directions, but predominantly to the east and south.
The leading people of this race, the Chinese, according to ancient tra-
ditions, came from the west into the great valleys of the Hoang-ho and
Yang-tse-Kiang. But before them this region was already occupied
by another people, as their vestiges, seen in the so-called Miao-tse,
demonstrate. This ' stem is not, as we know now, a member of a
distinct race, but only of a separate people, and is allied to the people
of upper India, especially to the Thai. Thus, before the migration of
the Chinese, itself hidden in a gray antiquity, there took place another
migration of the aborigines of China belonging to this same race.

The inhabitants of Japan are also not autochthonous, but have
immigrated from the west. They found on their settlement here na-
tives who were, in their physical features, very distinct from the intru-
ders. Indeed, the fact that in the southern districts the color of the
skin of the inhabitants is dark, and their hair somewhat curly, points
to a mixture with a darker race. It is not improbable that the Papuan
race, whose existence on the Philippine Islands, and perhaps also on
Formosa, has been established, diffused themselves originally as far
as Japan.

The migration of the Upper Asiatic race, to the west must have
begun early, as we already find in the far past the Lapps and Finns
in northern and northeastern Europe, peoples belonging to this race.
It is not improbable that this race before the entrance of the Celts into
Europe occupied the entire north and northeast, and possibly also a
great part of central Europe. Many wi'iters consider the people who
used unpolished stone implements and weapons, found in northern and
middle Europe, as being a branch of the Mongolian race.

Hence Europe may have been inhabited by only two races before
the entrance of the Indo-Europeans, which latter is coincident with the
appearance of the Etruscans and Celts, viz., by the Basques and Ligu-
rians — a people of unknown ethnological character in the south, and the
Upper Asiatic stems in the north. This settlement of the Upper
Asiatic race in Europe, long before the immigration of the Indo-Euro-

ON THE MIGRATIONS OF RACES. 327

peans, presumes a migration of tlie former in the earliest dawn of an-
tiquity.

In our opinion, it was this race which first gave the migratory im-
pulse to the men inhabiting the Old World. The members of this race
are well known to be almost exclusively nomads, whose support is
derived from the abundance of their herds and the fertility of their
pastures. It would only need one bad year, or a plague among their
flocks, to constrain these powerful hordes to invade the territory of
their neighbors and expel them from their lands. These latter were
compelled in a similar manner to press upon tJieir neighbors, where-
upon the various tribes were set in motion upon every side.

If we regard the Indo-Europeans as neighbors of the Upper Asiatics,
and the Semitic and Hamitic peoples next to them, we can under-
stand how in consequence of a pressure of the Upper Asiatics on the
Indo-Europeans these must again impinge upon the Semitic and Hamit-
ic race. Whereas the latter were pushed toward Africa, where they
imparted their migratory motion to the autochthonous races, as de-
scribed above, the Semitic pressed into the seats occupied before by
the Hamites, and allowed the Indo-Europeans room to expand un-
hindered east and west. Thus they in turn urged the Dravidas on one
side into India, and on the other various tribes into Europe, compelling
those migrations which we have briefly sketched above.

After this first migration of the Upper Asiatic races, which oc-
curred before the commencement of the civilizations of China and
Egypt, we encounter a second which originated those commonly known
ethnic movements which can be more closely followed, as they fall
within the historic period.

In consequence of this migration, the Hungarians and Osmanli
reached the grounds occupied by them, and there was caused, through
the entrance of the Germanic and Slavic peoples into the heart of Eu-
rope, that intermixture in consequence of which the Roman people
arose, and the various Germanic and Slavic tribes attained their
marked individuality.

As to the last of the races, the' central or midland, it appears that
their primitive seats should be looked for in the Armenian highlands.
The migration from this center of the four branches of this race, viz.,
the Basques, the so-called Caucasians, the Hamito-Semites, and the
Indo-Europeans, can thus be easily understood, though the displace-
ment of this original seat farther east would certainly make the dis-
tribution of the Indo-Europeans, if not that of the other three, more
comprehensible.

From the midland tribes the Basques first separated, turning to-
ward the west, to Europe ; the Caucasians followed, and their hordes,
pushing to the north, found in the mountains of Caucasus a barrier
Avhich permitted them to extend their limits but slowly. The two re-
maining clans, viz., the Hamito-Semitic and Indo-Europeans, were

328 THE POPULAR SCIEXCE MONTHLY.

for a considerable period neighbors, which is confirmed by the inti-
mate correspondence of their religious and tribal traditions, so that, ■
even after a separation, the Hamites and Semites yet formed an indis-
soluble unit. Their identity continued during the period of speech-
growth, and was first lost when, through the pressure of the Upper
Asiatic bands, the Hamites were sundered from the Semites, and were
pushed on one side into the region bordering the Tigris and Euphrates,
and on the other into Africa.

As we have already considered the immigration of the Hamites into
the north of Africa in reviewing the peoples of this continent, there
only remain to be examined the Semitic and Indo-European stocks.

Everywhere where the Semites appear we find them successors of
the Hamites. It is so in Mesopotamia, in Palestine, in north Africa,
presumably in Arabia, as it would seem from the dialects retained
in south Arabia, entirely distinct from the Arabian tongue, and, last-
ly, in Abyssinia, a settlement effected from southwestern Arabia and
across the Red Sea. In most places the Hamitic cultus disappears,
ethnologically speaking, in that of the Semites, only leaving traces of
its influence behind in the national characteristics. So in Mesopota-
mia, in Palestine — the Phcenicians are, for instance, Semiticized Ham-
ites— in Abyssinia. And only when we know that the inhabitants of
Mesopotamia are Semiticized Hamites is the harmony or coincidence
of the Assyrian-Babylonian culture (Semitic) with that of the Egyp-
tian (Hamitic) explained.

As regards the Indo-Europeans, we have first sought their aborigi-
nal center about the sources of the Oxus and the Jaxartes, on the table-
lands of Pamir, presumably because this point is nearest to the homes
of two of the most easterly removed branches of this stock, viz., the
Iranians and the Indians, and both these people certainly entered their
territory from the northwest and northeast. But of late it has not
unreasonably been insisted that the vocabulary of the Indo-European
affords no evidence which intimates an acquaintance with the fauna
and flora of Asia. On the contrary, the names of most trees known to
all the Indo-European peoples, as birch, beech, oak, point rather to
eastern Europe than to Asia. Therefore many authorities incline to
locate the primitive home of the Indo-Europeans, or that point where
they last composed an homogeneous unit, in the Lithuanian-Russian
plains, or even farther west.

When, in conformity with this view, which has a very strong like-
lihood in its favor, we assume the original center of the Indo-Europe-
ans to have been in southeastern Europe, then we can not but regard
them as autochthonous at this point, yet as having first reached here
from the Armenian highlands in the indefinite past. We are driven to
this hypothesis by the racial unity of the Indo-Europeans with the Ha-
mito-Semitic and Caucasian stocks, for it is impossible for both to have
emigrated from the west into the highlands overlying Mesopotamia.

ox THE MIGRATIOXS OF RACES.

329

As is known, the Indo-Europeans are subdivided into eight groups,
viz., Indians, Iranians, Thracian-Illyrians — whose fragments may be
identified with the modern Arnauts, Albanians, or Skipetars — Greeks,
Italians, Celts, Slaves, and Germans ; which, again, according as they
were earlier or later sundered from the common tree, or have among
each other formed a single society a longer or shorter time, separate
into subordinate groups. A. Schleicher, who has with especial assiduity
pursued this inquiry, conceives in the first place that the Indo-Europe-
ans split into two groups, viz., Germanians and Slaves on one side,
and Aryans (Indians or Iranians), Greeks, Italians, and Celts on the
other, whereby the Thracian-Illyrians are numbered among the Greeks,
Later, on one side, the Germans divided from the Slaves, on the other
the Aryans from the remaining three stems, and then that group in the
same way disintegrated.

Many weighty considerations oppose this view of Schleicher's, and
we shall permit ourselves briefly to explain our theory, which rests upon
a careful examination of these very facts. According to our view,
the Thracian-Illyrians first broke away from the common stock and
withdrew southward, where they took possession of the Balkan Penin-
sula and the coasts along Italy. Later the original body split into
two parts, viz., on one side the Celts, Italians, and Greeks, on the
other Aryans, Slaves, and Germans. Thereupon the Celts separated
from the first group, going westward, while the Italians and Greeks
yet remained together for some time ; in the same way the Germans
separated from the Aryans and Slaves, turning northward. Finally
the Italians parted from the Greeks, and the Slaves from the Aryans,
which on their aide again divided into Iranians and Indians. But, in
spite of this concentric diffusion, many nations maintained an intimate
union, as the Italians and Greeks, the Iranians and Indians, the Slaves
and the Germans, whereby many points of contact in the social habits
of these peoples were instituted. These resemblances, secured after
the primal separation, are not to be confounded with the fundamental
features held in common and extending back anterior to their subdi-
visions.

After this briefly outlined family tree of the Indo-Europeans, the
peoples embraced therein undertook important migrations. There was
an easterly migration of the Iranians, to whom belong the modern Per-
sians, Kurds, Ossets, Armenians, Belooehees, and Afghans, and among
whom in ancient times most of the peoples in Asia Minor were num-
bered, as the Phrygians, Cappadocians, and the Indians who at present
occupy the peninsula of India from the north to the Deccan, with the
exception of the territory in the mountainous interior. Far west and
southwest the Celts first spre'ad, when they came upon the Basques
and Ligurians and ousted them ; later came the Italians, spreading
themselves from their peninsula outward, through the triumphs of Ro-
man arms; over the whole of southwest Europe, invading the Celts ;

330 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and finally appear the Germans and Slaves, the two mightiest peo-
ples of to-day.

In conjunction with these migrations of races, widely extended
wanderings are apparent among the related divisions of the central or
midland races, and especially of the Semites and Indo-Europeans,
which wanderings are conjoined with the sad fate of the peoples con-
cerned.

The fate of the Jews is well known, at present scattered over the
whole world as traders and bankers. The Phoenicians played the same
role in antiquity as the Jews in modern times ; we find them every-
w^here at that time, wherever the country was open to commerce.
The Armenians, among the Indo-Europeans, may be compared with
the Semitic Jews. The migrations of the Armenians, who like the
Jews have no particular fatherland and in great measure live by traf-
fic, are in no way behind those of the Jews ; besides, the history of
both people has a great resemblance, as in large part their move-
ments have been the result of religious persecution.

A people who have migrated widely are the notorious gypsies
According to their descent, the gypsies, who call themselves Roman,
are Indian. They speak an idiom which finds a relative in the present
dialect of India — the Enkelinnen of the noble Veda tongue. Indeed
there is impressed on this idiom a mixture of foreign elements from
all the tongues of Asia and Europe, through whose areas the fugi
tives passed. We find in it Persian, Armenian, Greek, Magyar,
Slavonic, German, and Roman terms, and increasingly as we follow
the jargon westward. In every country that the gypsy has reached,
he has picked up morsels and incorporated them in his own idioms.
But these very philological fragments are of the greatest value to the
student, as they surely indicate to him the road which the fugitive
from the far East has pursued in his migration.

YACCINATIOX IjST NEW YOPJv.

By E. OSGOOD MASON, M. D.

THE question of the usefulness and safety of vaccination as prac-
ticed in the principal cities of the United States is fairly settled.
The general voice pronounces it both safe and useful. A small minor-
ity only of the intelligent refuse to acquiesce in the verdict, and com-
paratively few among the ignorant now refuse to test its benefits. In
Europe, notably in England and Germany, the same can not be said.
It is among the German population that even here the greatest preju-
dice exists, and in England there is at the present time a controversy
going on, growing out of efforts to extend and enforce a compulsory

VACCINATION IN NEW YORK. 331

vaccination law, which opens up all the old issues and aiiords oppor-
tunity for sending broadcast statements of the most sensational and
mischievous character. These have recently been collected by a well-
known litterateur and forwarded as a newspaper letter to this country,
where, on account of their startling and sensational character, they
have been somewhat widely copied.
It is charged in these statements —

1. That several terrible diseases, such as syphilis, cancer, consump-
tion, and scrofulous diseases generally are Avidely scattered and com-
municated by vaccination. One vaccinator of twelve years' experience
is made to say, " If I had the desire to describe one third of the vic-
tims ruined by vaccination, the blood would stand still in your veins."
Another, "I have seen hundreds of children killed by it." A medical
journal is quoted as saying that consumption has widely spread since
the introduction of vaccination ; which is very likely also true as
regards lawn-mowers and pedestrian matches. A physician to the
London Cancer Hospital declares that many of the cases of cancer
treated at that institution originated with vaccination ! A physician
testifies before a Parliamentary committee that eleven out of thirteen
children whom he vaccinated became syphilitic. Another declares
that a large proportion of apparently inherited syphilis is really im-
parted through vaccination. A large number of cases of various kinds
are cited with full and harrowing details, some of which have been
subjects of discussion in medical circles during the past twelve or four-
teen years.

2. It is charged that vaccination does not protect its subjects from
small-pox. It is pronounced " not only an illusion but a curse to
humanity" ; "The greatest mistake and delusion in the science of
medicine " ; "A fanciful illusion in the mind of the discoverer, devoid
of scientific foundation." It states that, out of 22,000 cases of small-
pox treated in five London hospitals in five years, 17,000 had been vac-
cinated ; and, furthermore, that, since compulsory vaccination had been
established, the death-rate from small-pox had more than doubled.
Such, in brief, according to these very remarkable statements, have
been the results of vaccination in England, and it is in contrast with
these statements that the results of vaccination as j^racticed in the city
of Xew York are here presented.

Previous to the epidemic of small-pox in 1874-'75, vaccination had
been fairly practiced, but in the same loose and unsystematic manner
as was formerly the custom everywhere. Some physicians vaccinated
the children of the families in which they were medical attendants
and some did not. Vaccination was performed free to those who
desired it at all the dispensaries, but no special care was taken to see
that all the children in the several districts were vaccinated. Some
physicians exercised skill and judgment in collecting the virus and
doing the work of vaccination, while others were careless and slovenly.

332

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

There was no uniformity, no general supervision, and no responsi-
bility.

In the autumn of 1874, notwithstanding some special attention was
given to the matter, the number of cases of small-pox increased so
rapidly, and the number of unvaccinated persons was found to be so
g]-eat, that it was evident some more effective means must be adopted
to meet the danger of a great epidemic. It was at this time that a
permanent corps of vaccinators was organized under the charge of Dr.
James B. Taylor, " Inspector of Vaccination," and under the general
management of the Board of Health. The object of this corps was to
visit systematically throughout the city, especially among the tene-
ment-house population, offering free vaccination to all, and urging its
advantages and even its necessity, in view of the epidemic character of
the disease then prevailing.

During the following fifteen months ending in December, 1875,
fifty-eight different physicians were connected with the corps, and an
average of seventeen were constantly employed during that whole
time. During this j)eriod, over 126,000 vaccinations were performed,
all of which, so far as possible, were carefully watched and studied by
competent medical men, not only for immediate practical results but
also for the purpose of scientific" deductions.

The method of procedure was as follows : It was important to
commence the work with pure virus. Among those who had been in-
terested in the careful study of vaccination here in New York was the
late Dr. Jonas P. Loines, for many years house physician to the East-
ern Dispensary. Twenty years earlier he had secured from abroad
what was considered the best and purest virus to be obtained in any
country. The use of this virus he personally superintended, and its
results were carefully watched. It was kept separate from all other,
and had proved protective and thoroughly satisfactory. This was the
virus first used by the newly organized Vaccinating Corps.

At first no separate districts were assigned, but those localities most
threatened with small-pox were sought out, and particular streets,
blocks, or houses were designated for special attention. Later the
city was districted and thoroughly canvassed. Each vaccinator made
semi-weekly returns of his work to the inspector. These returns were
on printed forms which required the name and address of the patient,
whether front or rear house, number of room, age, nationality, parent-
age, and whether a primary or revaccination. At the inspector's
office all these rejjorts were carefully classified and recorded for future
reference, primaries being kept separate from all others.

On the eighth day every case of primary vaccination was visited
by a member of the corps specially qualified for the work, to observe
the character and condition of the vesicle, whether perfect or in any
way deficient, to revaccinate any cases of failure and to collect virus
from perfectly healthy infants presenting perfect vesicles. All vac-

VACCIXATION IX NEW YORK.

333

cinations not considered perfect, even though they had to a certain
extent " taken," were either immediately revaccinated or the parents
informed that the protection was not perfect, and advised to have the
operation repeated at an early date. This work was also reported to
the inspector, and the revaccinated cases again visited on the eighth
day.

Between the twentieth and thirtieth days each case of primary
vaccination was visited a second time to make sure that all was right,
and deliver certificates of vaccination. If any unusual symptoms had
occurred or the sore was tardy in healing, the case was taken in charge
and treated until well. But even here the care did not cease. In each
family where vaccination was performed a circular was left, printed in
English and German, giving directions for the care of the vesicle, and
directing parents to bring their children to the inspector's office at any
time afterward, should any unpleasant effects appear which they might
attribute to the vaccination — a privilege which they were not back-
ward in claiming.

All the schools, institutions, asylums, workshops and factories
were visited and vaccination offered. Two physicians were assigned
specially to the public schools and the same care regarding reports,
records, and revisiting was observed. Certificates were also given to
those thoroughly protected in order to avoid the annoyance and labor
of unnecessary examinations.

Thus the work of vaccination was for the first time carried on in a
tliorough and systematic manner, and thus it has been kept up ever
since. Twice a year the tour of inspection and vaccination is made
throughout the tenement-house region, factories, and all places where
people are habitually brought together in large numbers in a more or
less confined atmosphere. The schools are thoroughly canvassed about
once in three years. Five years of such extensive, systematic and
thoroughly studied work coiild scarcely fail of results of some kind
either for good or for evil. During that time 270,970 vaccinations
were performed by the Vaccinating Corps alone, independent of the
great number performed at the dispensaries, and by physicians in their
private practice. It remains to examine these results as regards the
protection which vaccination affords against small-pox, and as regards
the transmission of disease, which has constituted the great ground of
prejudice against the practice of vaccination. Regarding the advan-
tages or disadvantages of vaccination two main points present them-
selves :

1. Is vaccination a protection against small-pox ?

2. Is it a vehicle for the communication of other diseases ? Let
the facts themselves speak ; and the facts here presented, all of which
occurred during the epidemic of 1874-75, are di-awn from the published
reports of the Board of Health and from personal conversations with
Dr. Taylor, the very efficient Inspector of Vaccination, whose excel-

334

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

lent judgment and ample experience entitle both his facts and opinions
to great weight.

1. Conceniing protection. 1. In a large tenement-house in East
Third Street were nine German families. An unvaccinated child was
taken sick with small-pox, and the case was kept secret until the
child died. All the other people in the house were vaccinated except
one family consisting of parents and three children. The parents did
not believe in vaccination and persistently refused it for their children.
All three children had small-pox and two died. No other cases oc-
curred in the house.

2. The inmates of No. — East Eleventh Street were exposed to
small-pox. The vaccinators found three babies whose parents refused
to have them vaccinated. Within three weeks all three children died
of the disease. There were no other cases in the house.

3. No. — St. Mark's Place. Three cases of small-pox had already
occurred in the house. The inspectors found three unvaccinated chil-
dren, but vaccination was refused. The two eldest children took the
disease ; the youngest was already dying of marasmus. No other
cases occurred.

4. At No. — Tenth Avenue was a concealed case of small-pox al-
ready of twenty-one days' duration. He had been vaccinated in in-
fancy, but not since. He died before he could be removed. His wife
and four children had been successfully vaccinated just before the
husband took sick, and, though they had all slept in the same room
with this fatal case of small-pox twenty-one nights, not one of them
took the disease.

Cases of this character, where the unvaccinated were selected and
attacked by the disease, while the vaccinated, though equally exposed
escaped, could be multiplied almost without limit. Here is one from
the inspector's own experience :

Small-pox was in a tenement-house of eighteen families. Most of
the inmates submitted to vaccination, but two children were found
upon one floor and three upon another whose parents refused to allow
it, though repeatedly urged. Within a short time all five of these
children had the disease and three died. The parents of the three un-
vaccinated children had a fourth child who had been successfully vac-
cinated at school, and for which she received a severe beating at the
hands of her father. This child, although sleeping in the same room
with those who were sick and dying of the disease, entirely escaped.

No more striking examples of protection afforded by vaccination
could exist than that furnished by placing infants on the first day of
their vaccination in a small-pox hospital, filled with patients in every
stage of the disease. This was frequently necessary during the epi-
demic, where the mother was attacked, and the infant must accom-
pany her to the hospital ; and, says the inspector, " not a single in-
stance has occurred where the infant so exposed has contracted the

VACCINATION IN NEW YORK.

335

disease," even though the infant nursed the mother throughout the
illness.

Experience has abundantly proved that, when babies not vaccinated
are so exposed, the result has invariably been directly the opposite.
In fact, the evidence in this matter is so abundant and of so con-
clusive a character that all who have taken the trouble to observe or
study it during the past five years must be convinced that perfectly
vaccinated persons are absolutely protected from small-pox^ at least to
the same extent as if they had. already experienced the disease.

Why, then, it may be asked, do vaccinated persons have the dis-
ease at all ? Simply because, in order to have the protection perfect,
the vaccination must be perfect ; and to this end two things are
absolutely necessary : 1. The primary vaccine vesicle must be of
proper size and character, and must run its proper and normal course.
2, Revaccination must be performed at proper intervals, namely,
within five years after the primary, and again soon after puberty in
those who are vaccinated in infancy, and at least one revaccination in
those whose first vaccination was after maturity.

It is here that the great fallacy of statistics upon this subject is
found ; and this is why the English statistics before quoted show that,
out of 22,000 cases of small-pox treated in the hospitals, 17,000 had
been vaccinated. They had been vaccinated in infancy — perhaps
properly, perhaps improperly — but in all probability had never been
revaccinated. It should be once for all understood that, in order to
have full protection, revaccination at the proj^er periods is just as ne-
cessary as the original vaccination.

It should be understood that a primary vaccination is not expected
to protect for a long series of years, but only for a few years ; and
that after a limited time, although it may modify more or less the
severity of the disease, it ceases to be absolutely protective, and must
be renewed.

Statistics, however, show that, of persons attacked with small-pox,
from three to four times as many deaths occur among those who have
not been vaccinated at all as among those who are reckoned as vac-
cinated, though it may have been only in infancy. They also show
that such vaccinations are nearly worthless as protection against small-
pox after several years have elapsed, and very uncertain even in their
power to modify the disease.

II. Concerning the transmission of other diseases by means of vac-
cination.

It may be presumed that if bad results of any kind were to follow
vaccination, it would happen in primary cases, where the virus exerts
its full influence of every kind. It has been seen with what care all
these primary vaccinations have been watched during the past few
years, the oversight extending even beyond the perfect healing of the
arm. A circular was left in each family, requesting that any unfavor-

336 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

able symptoms which might subsequently arise, apparently as the re-
sult of vaccination, should immediately be reported to the inspector
at his office. As a consequence of this invitation quite a number of
complaints were received, every one of which was thoroughly investi-
gated. It is fair, therefo-re, to suppose that every case of importance
thus came under the observation of the inspector. Out of 24,395
primary vaccinations, 145 complaints were entered — scarcely more
than one in 150 cases. On examination these were divided into four
classes :

1. Ulceration and sloughing of the arm about the sore.

2. Inflammation and erysipelas,

3. Inflammation of the neighboring glands and sometimes abscess.

4. Various eruptions on the skin.

Two deaths occurred, both from erysipelas. Both these cases were
in bad subjects, one being complicated with meningitis, the other
being in a poor antemic child with " such miserable surroundings as to
preclude the possibility of recovery." In such subjects any operation,
even the slightest, or any accident, an ordinary cut or bruise, without
inoculation of any kind, is liable to be followed by most serious results.
The vaccine virus can not be held responsible for the mischief in these
nor any of the cases complained of, since in the same streets, even in
the same houses, many other children were vaccinated with the same
virus with perfect results. The fault was in the children themselves,
their parentage, their constitutions, their habits and surroundings.
So true is this that, if vaccinators could choose their cases, avoiding all
bad or doubtful subjects for the sake of avoiding the prejudice aroused
by a single unfavorable result, seldom indeed would a complaint be
entered ; but, on the other hand, many a child fairly entitled to the
benefits of vaccination might be left unprotected. These results are
mentioned, however, that nothing may be covered up which was
actually found as a sequel even if not a result of vaccination.

Looking for statistics or even single cases of disease actually trans-
mitted from one person to another by means of vaccination, no such
cases exist. Concerning syphilis the inspector says, "Among all the
cases of bad results which we have seen, we have failed to find a single
one showing any indications of syphilitic inoculation, nor have we ever
met a case of this kind in all our experience." Only a very few such
cases have been brought to notice as even suspected, and none which
would bear investigation. They were either not syphilis at all, the
most usual result of examination, or else showed some other and more
probable way of receiving the infection.

But what of other terrible diseases — cancer, consumption, and all
the other forms of scrofula — for which vaccination has been blamed ?
No such cases have ever been brought to the notice of the inspector.
The idea that such diseases can be so transmitted is absurd on its face,
since it is certainly most difficult, if not utterly impossible, to repro-

THE MOST POWERFUL TELESCOPE.

337

duce any of them by any process analogous to that employed for vac-
cination.

All these reports and facts relate to vaccinations performed with
humanized lymph, and previous to 1876. The most careful examina-
tion of every reported or suspected case among the 120,000 vaccina-
tions performed up to that time failed to furnish a single case of the
transmission of disease of any kind whatsoever from one person to
another by means of vaccination.

In order, however, to avoid as far as possible the prejudice which
was at one time so widespread in this matter, no humanized lymph
has been used by the Vaccinating Corps for nearly three years. All
the virus now used is eighth-day lymph taken from healthy calves
carefully selected and kept in the country under the supervision of the
inspector, exclusively for this purpose.

No very special advantage is claimed at present for this over prop-
erly selected humanized lymph ; if, however, any difference is ob-
servable in the results, it is in favor of the bovine lymph, as affording
fewer cases of troublesome inflammation.

One advantage is decided : it has tended to diminish a prejudice,
and so remove in some degree an objection to vaccination.

It is in the face of an abundance of facts such as these, instead of
the badly observed and badly studied facts of fifteen years ago, that
intelligent people now must doubt the safety and utility of vaccination.

THE MOST POWEEFUL TELESCOPE IN EXISTENCE.

By E. NEISON, F. K. A. S.

WHICH is the most powerful telescope in existence ? Define the
meaning which ought to be attached to the adjective " power-
ful " in this question. The most powerful telescope in existence is
that existing telescope which can do the most work. The work of a
telescope may be said to be to enable you to see and to enable you to
measure. Therefore, that telescope with which you can see most and
can measure best is that which can do the most work, and is unques-
tionably the most powerful telescope in existence.

Which is the most powerful telescope in existence ?

Every one has heard of the two giant telescopes which were con-
structed nearly forty years ago by the late Lord Rosse, and which
were erected at his residence at Parsonstown, about fifty miles from
Dublin. The first great telescope constructed by Lord Rosse was a
reflecting telescope with a speculum three feet in diameter and twenty-
six feet in focal length. It was carried in a ponderous tube moving
in a massive iron mounting by means of ingenious machinery. When

TOL. XTI. — 22

338 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

it was iinished in the year 1840 it was considered the grandest instru-
ment in existence, and from its emj^loyment in the study of the heav-
ens enormous advantages were expected to be gained for astronomy.
Scarcely, however, was this telescope out of the hands of its maker,
than Lord Rosse resolved to construct a second telescope of still larger
dimensions. With enormous skill, patience, and ingenuity Lord Rosse
carried out this intention, and by the year 1846 had finished his second
grand telescope, the instrument commonly known as " Lord Rosse's Tel-
escope." It has a metal speculum six feet in diameter and fifty-four
feet in focal length. This enormous mirror, which weighs nearly four
tons, is placed in a great tube eight feet in diameter and fifty feet in
length, and this tube is carried by a massive iron mounting supported
by two lofty castellated buildings, each nearly sixty feet in height.
The weight of the telescope and its mountings is enormous. By in-
genious methods the observer who is using the telescope is placed in a
kind of cage, suspended in the air from the mounting of the telescope,
and carried up and down along with the instrument.

To this day this giant telescope of Lord Rosse's retains its position
as the greatest telescope in existence. In its enormous size it has still
no rival, in its massiveness and weight it is long likely to retain its
preeminence.

Which is the most powerful telescope in existence ?

Lord Rosse's giant telescope, of course, will be the answer of most
people ; it will be the answer of the great majority of scientific men ;
it would be almost the unanimous answer of the British Association,
of that Section A which is supposed to keep the world informed of the
great achievements of astronomy and of optics.

Is this the true answer ? No.

To most people, to most scientific men, this answer will come like
a shock, for to them it has long been a cherished tradition, an article
of faith, almost an axiom, that Lord Rosse's giant telescope was the
most powerful telescope in existence. To those astronomers who ai'e
observers, astronomers not star-gazers, it is well known that for years
this giant telescope of Lord Rosse's has been beaten in power by far
smaller and more compact rivals. In fact, it is doubtful whether in
real power it is much superior to its smaller companion, the three-foot
telescope.

There are many who judge a telescope by its size alone, who com-
pute its excellence by aid of a two-foot rule, and a knowledge of its
cost in pounds. With them a telescope with a metallic speculum
weighing four tons and measuring six feet in diameter, with a tube
fifty feet long, and costing a thousand pounds, ought to give so much
light, have such and such separating power, and show this or that ob-
ject. It is true with small telescopes a great deal may be done in this
way, but experienced observers know that the real power of a telescope
•can only be ascertained by a study of what it has done. Tried by this

THE MOST POWERFUL TELESCOPE. 339

test, the giant telescope of Lord Rosse breaks down. It has not the
accuracy of definition which constitutes the real power of a telescope,
for it is mainly upon this that depends its capability for doing work.
Compared w^ith the metal specula w^hich were made at the time when
Lord Rosse's telescope was constructed, the great speculum of Lord
Rosse's instrument might come out with credit. But great improve-
ments have since then been introduced into the manufacture of re-
flecting telescopes, and the present silver-on-glass reflecting telescopes
successfully rival the finest achromatic telescope in definition and in
power.

In days gone by repeated reference was made to the wonderful
things w^hich could be seen upon the surface of the moon with these
two giant telescopes of Lord Rosse's. Picturesque descriptions were
given of the minute features which were visible ; amazement was often
expressed at the small objects which could be seen. Still more inter-
esting accounts were given of what ought to be visible — a carpet of
pronounced pattern as big as Lincoln's Inn Fields, the Castle at Dub-
lin, the Court-house at Cork, a house, or even a man, provided he were
big enough. All these ought to be seen if they happened to be on the
lower surface. Yet when we come to consider what it really is w^hich
is described as being seen, when we calmly examine the various draw-
ings which have been made by the aid of one or the other of these
great telescopes, then we find that they show nothing which can not
be distinctly seen and drawn by the smallest astronomical telescope of
high excellence. An enormous blaze of light is gathered by the tele-
scopes, but all this light reveals nothing which can not be seen with
far greater ease in a far smaller telescope. There are in existence a
number of drawings of the planets, and observations of their satellites ;
there are also observations of close double stars, or faint companions
to bright stars, all made with one or the other of these two telescopes.
Yet nothing has been seen which is beyond the power of a good astro-
nomical telescope of comparatively moderate aperture. It is only in
observing the dull, ill-defined nebulse that Lord Rosse's great telescope
has any exceptional advantage, though even in this respect it is prob-
ably much overrated. As an astronomical telescope either of Lord
Rosse's telescopes would be fairly beaten by either of the fine eighteen-
inch reflectors which are now in existence.

If, then, Lord Rosse's great telescope is not the most powerful in
existence, what answer is to be given to the question with which Ave
commenced ? Which is the most powerful telescope in existence ?
There are the great refractors of Poltava and of Cambridge, United
States, each of fifteen inches in diameter and twenty-three feet in focal
length. There is the still larger refractor of Chicago, with an aperture
of eighteen inches and a focal length of twenty-three feet. All these
instruments are of high excellence in defining power, the essential point
where Lord Rosse's breaks down. There is the reflector of Mr. Las-

340 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

sells, with its metal speculum of two feet in diameter and its tube
twenty feet in length. There is the great Melbourne reflector, with
its great metal speculum of forty-eight inches in diameter, the second
largest telescope in the world, but by no means so sharp in definition
as might be desired, so that it failed to reveal the satellites of Mars
which were seen with an instrument of not one sixth the diameter in
Europe.

There is also the great reflector of the Paris Observatory, with a
silver-on-glass speculum nearly four feet in diameter, an instrument
whose power is seriously injured by the imperfect definition arising
from the flexure of its thin speculum. There is also the lai'ge refrac-
tor constructed for Mr. Newall, of Gateshead, with an object-glass
twenty-five inches in diameter mounted in a tube nearly thirty feet in
length.

But all these instruments must yield the palm to the great refractor
of the United States Naval Observatory at Washington, a splendid
instrument, with an object-glass twenty-six inches in clear aperture
and thirty-three feet in focal length. This magnificent instrument is
equatorially mounted and driven by clockwork, so that it is complete
as an astronomical telescope. The Washington refractor is, however,
not merely a telescope of great dimensions ; like more than one of
those previously mentioned, it is an instrument of high optical excel-
lence. Its definition is crisp and sharp, and it brings every ray of the
enormous amount of light which it collects to a sharp focus as a very
minute point, so that none is wasted. It was with this fine telescope
that Professor Asaph Hall made his famous discovery of the satellites
of Mars, that Mr, Burnham discovered a number of the most minute
companions to the brighter stars, and that Professors Newcomb, Hol-
den, and Hall have observed and measured the smallest satellites of
Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. It is this magnificent instrument which
is supposed by most astronomers to be the most powerful telescope in
existence. Then our answer to the question with which we have com-
menced ought to be — the great refractor of the Washington Observa-
tory. No !

Then which is the most powerful telescope in existence ?

The most powerful telescope in existence is the magnificent new
reflecting telescope which has been just finished by Mr. A. Ainslie
Common, and is erected at his residence at Ealing. This telescope has
a silver-on-glass speculuiu, thirty-seven and a half inches in diameter,
and a focal length of just over twenty feet. It is equatorially mounted
in a novel but most efiicacious manner, and is driven by a powerful
clock controlled in an ingenious manner by a method invented by Mr.
Common. This new telescope, which has only been finished about a
month, has turned out a great success, and is unquestionably the finest
and most powerful telescope in existence.

For the last three years Mr. Common has had in his observatory a

THE MOST POWERFUL TELESCOPE. 341

fine silver-on-glass reflector, with an aperture of eighteen inches and a
focal length of nearly ten feet. This telescope was mounted by him
on an equatorial stand of his own design, on what is known as the
" Sissons " principle. For efficiency, power, and excellence this eigh-
teen-inch reflector is as yet without a rival in England, and was only
beaten, perhaps, by the great refractor of the Washington Observatory.
With this instrument were made a number of observations of the faint
satellites of Saturn and Uranus, which rendered the Ealing Observa-
tory a familiar name to all astronomers. When, in 1877, the astro-
nomical world was electrified by the announcement of Professor Asaph
Hall's discovery of the two satellites of Mars, it was to Ealing that
astronomers looked for systematic observations of these faint objects,
and it was from Ealing Observatory that came the only systematic
series of raeasm-es of these objects which has been furnished by Eng-
land, Astronomers may congratulate themselves, therefore, upon this
new telescope being in good hands, and in an observatory where it will
not be allowed to rust in idleness like so many of the finest instruments
in England.

Satisfied from the performance of his eighteen-inch Newtonian re-
flector that it would be possible to successfully construct much larger
instruments of this kind, it seems to have been about two years ago
that IVIr. Common first seriously thought of constructing a very large
reflecting telescope with a silver-on-glass speculum. It was obvious
that this would be a serious undertaking, and one which would require
much thought and ingenuity to carry it out successfully. Many diffi-
culties would require to be boldly faced and successfully overcome.
The expense alone would have been sufficient to deter most men. Ex-
perience, skill, courage, perseverance, money — all would be required if
success was to be won.

It was decided to first undertake the manufacture of a telescope
with an aperture of thirty-seven and a half inches and a focal length
of about eighteen or twenty feet. This was a much shorter focus than
had usually been thought essential for an instrument of this large aper-
ture. Generally instruments of this kind are made with a focal length
of from nine to ten times their diameter. This would correspond to
about thirty feet focus for a speculum of the given size. The fine per-
formance of his eighteen-inch telescope had convinced Mr. Common
that it was not necessary to give a greater focal length than fifteen or
sixteen feet. But there were two conflicting interests to be reconciled.
The shorter the instniment the easier it would be to mount, and the
easier to observe with; but, on the other hand, the longer the focus
the better it would be for taking photographs of the heavenly bodies,
and this last was one of the main uses that the new telescope was in-
tended for. With the view of best reconciling these two views the
instrument was designed with a focus of some twenty feet.

The very first step to be taken was to undertake the manufacture

342 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of the glass speculum, and here at the outset an enormous difficulty pre-
sented itself. To make a speculum of the required dimensions it was
necessary to have a disk of good crown glass about thirty-eight inches
in diameter and from six to nine inches in thickness. Well, purchase
such a disk ; or rather, as it was not likely that such a thing could
be bought ready-made, why order one. This seems feasible enough.
But there was not a firm in England who would undertake to make
such a thing. In fact, at the time, the opinion was freely expressed
that such a thing could not be made. This was a serious obstacle, for
nearly all the glass used for optical purposes came from England.
Determined not to be baffled, Mr. Common applied to a French firm,
and they produced the disk of glass which was essential before a single
step could be taken. The first difficulty was faced and overcome.

After mature consideration the grinding and polishing of the
speculum into which this glass disk was to be turned was intrusted
to Mr. G. Calver, of Widford, a well-known maker of glass specula.
From its enormous size, over twice as large and ten times as heavy as
any speculum which had ever been manufactured before, it was neces-
sary to construct new and more powerful machinery and even a new
building. Nothing daunted, however, Mr. Calver agreed to do his
best to turn this great mass of glass into an excellent speculum, though
of course he could not guarantee anything, the entire risk necessarily
remaining with Mr. Common,

This settled, the greater portion of the task remained to be faced.
Given a speculum of the specified size, how was it to be mounted, and
how was it to be used ? 1. The glass speculum must be mounted with
such care that, despite its enormous weight, it must nowhere bend by as
much as one ten-thousandth of an inch. 2, The glass speculum and
the iron cell which supports it must be fastened at the end of a tube
some twenty feet in length, and this tube must be supported by an
elaborate mounting by which it can be pointed to any desired part of
the heavens, and moved by clockwork so as to follow the apparent
motion of the celestial bodies. 3. Arrangements must be made so that
an observer can always use the telescope, and be enabled to look
through the eye-piece of the telescope whatever position it may be in
— no slight task, seeing that the said eye-piece must in some positions
of the instrument be over twenty feet from the ground. Lastly, the
telescope must have an observatory which will shield it from the
weather, and yet permit any part of the heavens to be examined with
the telescope.

When the instrument has a metallic speculum, like the large re-
flecting telescopes of Lord Rosse and Mr. Lassells, and that at Mel-
bourne, it is much easier to satisfy the first condition than when the
speculum is made of glass ; for it is possible to cast the speculum with
grooves, projections, and recesses in its back, by means of which the
task of supporting it is much simplified. With a glass speculum it is

THE MOST POWERFUL TELESCOPE. 343

not practicable to have these aids, so that the back of the speculum is
cast quite flat, and usually rests on a flat plate of metal. By an in-
genious method of balanced arms Mr. Common has contrived to sup-
port the speculum so that it is perfectly free from flexure. Thus the
first point was secured.

The second point, or the method by which the telescope should be
mounted, was a problem which required long and serious considera-
tion. Mr. Common devised a new and most ingenious method, which,
after long consideration, he thought would furnish a means of steadily
supporting the telescope. In this steadiness is most essential, the
slightest vibration, vibrations absolutely invisible to the eye, would
ruin the performance of a telescope. The weight of the moving part
of the telescope amounts probably to four or five tons, and this has to
be kept in motion by a clock, yet it must not be liable to the least
tremor or vibration. The difficulty of the problem is evident. His
plan of a mounting was submitted by Mr. Common, for criticism, to
several well-known astronomers, who might be supposed competent to
advise on this subject. As might have been expected, very diverse
opinions were expressed ; at most, one seemed to decidedly favor the
plan, others seemed doubtful, and more than one were decidedly ad-
verse. The result was, to leave that matter much as it stood at first,
so that Mr. Common decided to persevere in his original design. The
success which has crowned his labors shows that he was correct in his
judgment. It would be impossible to describe the method of mount-
ing employed without the aid of several detailed drawings, but ref-
erence may be made to one ingenious point. As in all equatorial,
mountings, nearly the entire weight of the moving part of the tele-
scope (in the present telescope five tons) rests on the bottom pivot of
the polar axis. This pivot, therefore, is exposed to enormous friction,
and is a common cause of vibration. To obviate this, Mr. Common,
by an ingenious arrangement, supports the whole polar axis in mer-
cury, thus taking off nearly the entire friction, and the whole instru-
ment moves as if it were floating. By this means he is enabled to
drive the whole telescope with an ordinary train of clockwork, regu-
lated by the governor, which he had invented for his smaller tele-
scope.

The last two points specified above are obtained by making the
observatory itself the ladder by which you approach the eye-end of
the telescope, and the whole observatory revolves on iron wheels run-
ning on a circular railway. By means of a wheel on your left, you
can raise or lower yourself at pleasure, and observe with the telescope
in any position. The whole observatory only requires moving about
once in two hours, and can be moved with ease by one hand.

Within a year of its being begun, the telescope was rapidly ap-
proaching its completion. The great speculum had been brought to
the right shape, and was partially polished, and every day the an-

344 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

nouncement was exj^ected that it was completed, or at least only
required the final finishing touches. Suddenly a telegram arrived —
an ominous thing. Was it to announce an imperfect figure ? This
would be a most annoying thing, for it would require the whole to be
reground and repolished. But no, it was very brief, but it announced
a terrible misfortune. It was a pressing request to come down at
once. The lohole speculmyi had burst i?ito a thousand pieces.

It was a terrible blow, for it was the very misfortune which had
been prognosticated by the English manufacturers and by the greater
number of astronomers, including those who had had much experience
in the construction and use of specula. The explosion had been ter-
rific. The whole workshop was covered with jagged, torn masses of
glass, varying in weight from ten or twelve pounds to an impalpable
dust. Mr. Calver had had a narrow escape, but he and his workmen
escaped without serious injury. The monetary loss was great, and bade
fair to be greater, for with the loss of the speculum the rest of the
telescope became useless. It might well seem that they were right
who held the view that large silver-on-glass specula were impractica-
ble, as from the difficulty in annealing large masses of glass they might
be expected to break at any moment.

Within an hour or two of receiving the telegram announcing this
terrible mishap Mr. Common was in the library of the Royal Astro-
nomical Society. While there he was met by a friend, a fellow astron-
omer, who, being aware that news was daily expected of the com-
pletion of the great speculum, asked him for the latest intelligence.
Mr. Common calmly handed him the fateful telegram. He was thun-
derstruck, for it was so unexpected, and he was one of those who had
looked for much gain to astronomy to accrue from the construction
and subsequent employment of this grand new instrument. After
expressing, no doubt imperfectly enough, his sorrow, sympathy, and
disappointment, he naturally put the question, "What can you do
now ? " The answer came gently enough : " Do ? Why, I have tele-
graphed over to Paris to see if I can't get two more disks of glass.
It will be one to spare in ca-se of another explosion."

Success must crown indomitable courage like this. The new disks
arrived, and were duly transferred to Mr. Calver. One was selected,
and, after much labor, ground, polished, and finished. The remaining
portion of the instrument and the observatory were pushed on as
quickly as possible. On August 1, 1879, the instrument was complete,
and the grandest and most powerful telescope in existence stood
finished before its maker, designer, and owner.

An instrument of this large aperture will take a long time to thor-
oughly test, but it has stood triumphantly all the tests which have
been applied hitherto. It has been tested on the moon, a most crucial
test in experienced hands, on Jupiter and Saturn, and on faint com-
panions to bright stars. In all cases satisfactory results have been

THE MOST POWERFUL TELESCOPE.

345

obtained.* This proves that the telescope must be at least of fine
quality, and it bids fair to turn out of the highest excellence. It has
been used to take photographs of the moon, Avith results very satis-
factory to those who are experienced in these matters. There can be
no doubt, therefore, of its claims to be a success, so that ere long it will
take its place, in the eyes of most astronomers, as the greatest optical
instrument in existence, and the credit of having manufactured and
of possessing the most powerful telescope in existence has now passed
from America back to England.

It may be legitimately asked. What will be the future work of this
grand instrument ? Will it be used to increase our knowledge of
astronomy, or will it be allowed to rest in idleness like so many other
fine instruments ? It is to be trusted, and it may be safely anticipated,
that the former will be its fate. It will wear out, not rust out. There
is much in astronomy which this grand telescope can do. It can be
used for observing the faint and difficultly visible satellites of Mars,
Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. All these pressingly want observing
and measuring, and there are few telescopes of sufficient power and
excellence to do the work wanted. It can be easily done with the new
one. Then there is the important question to be settled, Are there
other satellites to those planets than those known ? To this telescope
will fall the task of searching for a third and more distant satellite of
Mars, for a fifth satellite to Jupiter, for a ninth and tenth satellite to
Saturn, for a fifth and sixth satellite to Uranus, and perchance half a
dozen new moons of Neptune. Moreover, there are the extremely
interesting problems connected with the minor planets. Does Vesta,
Juno, or Pallas, possess a satellite or satellites ? If so, their discovery
would be a great thing for astronomy. Astronomers suspect that
away beyond Neptune there may be still another giant planet, still
another member of the solar system. If so, it will be very faint, and
it will require a powerful telescope to search for and discover it.

There is yet another field in which this new telescope may reap
great advantages for astronomy. It is suspected that more than one
of the stars, those distant suns, may be attended by opaque, dull plan-
ets. Mathematical analysis has already pointed to the existence of
these attendants. It remains for the telescope to discover them. If
the new Ealing reflector be really of the very highest excellence, it will
be with that instrument we ought to look for these attending planets,
these members of a foreign solar system.

Lastly, there is the great field of photography. The new telescope
takes instantaneous photographs of the moon two and a half inches in
diameter, photographs which can be enlarged with ease to good pic-
tures of the moon a foot in diameter — pictures which will be valuable
for astronomy, not mere interesting curiosities of science. It will,

* Lately this telescope has shown the outer satellite of Mars three weeks before it
was thought possible it could be seen with the great telescope at Washington.

346 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

moreover, take photographs of Venus, Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn, show-
ing much detail, and capable of being enlarged to half an inch in
diameter. These planetary photographs will be of great use, as re-
cording in unmistakable characters the true position and aspect of
these planets and their satellites at different known epochs.

The foregoing sketch will show that in constructing this new in-
strument Mr. Common has contributed in a most important degree to
the advancement of astronomy. — Popular Science Bevieio.

THE MORAL SENSE IN THE LOWER ANIMALS.*

Bt W. LAUDER LINDSAY, F. R. S. E.

ALL the ordinary definitions of what is variously called in man
the moral sense — sentiment, feeling, faculty, or instinct — apply,
though not necessarily equally, in the same degree, with quite the
same sense or force, to an equivalent mental attribute or series of
psychical qualities in other animals, and which attribute or qualities
in other animals there is no good reason for distinguishing by any
other name, simply because they are to be found in animals zoologi-
cally lower than man.

Thus the moral sense in man has been defined by different classes
of authors to be, or to include —

1. A knowledge, appreciation, or sense of —

a. Right and torong.

h. Good and evil..

c. Justice and injustice.

2. Conscience, involving feelings of approbation or the reverse in
relation to ideas of right and wrong,

3. The approval of what is conducive to well-being, and the disap-
proval of the reverse.

4. Sense of duty and of moral obligation.

5. Appreciation of the results of honesty and dishonesty.

6. Virtue or virtuousness, including especially such moral virtues
as conscientiousness, scrupulousness, integrity, compassion, benevo-
lence, fidelity, charity, mercy, magnanimity, disinterestedness, chas-
tity, modesty.

There is not one of these moral qualities that is not possessed,
sometimes in a high degree, by certain of the lower animals, and more
especially the dog ; and there are many authors, who have been desir-
ous of drawing marked psychical distinctions between man and other
animals, who have nevertheless felt themselves compelled by the evi-

* From advance sheets of " Mind in the Lower Animals." By W. Lauder Lindsay,
M. D., F. R. S. E., etc. 2 vols. In press of D. Appleton & Co.

THE MORAL SENSE IN THE LOWER ANIMALS. 347

dence of facts to concede to these other animals, or certain of them,
the possession of morality akin to that of man. Agassiz, for instance,
grants them morals ; Froude speaks of their principles of morality ;
Brodie refers to the moral sentiments as occurring in gregarious ani-
mals ; Shaftesbury allows to them a sense and practice of moral rec-
titude ; Watson gives instances of their moral feeling, and Wood of
their conscience. And certain animals have even been described as
possessing a moral law and codes of morals.

The dog, at least, frequently exhibits a knowledge of right and
wrong, making a deliberate choice of the one or the other, perfectly
aware of and prepared for the consequences of such a selection. The
animal has occasionally the moral courage to choose the right and to
suffer for it, to bear wrong rather than do it (Elara). Not only does
this frequently noble animal know the right, but it dares to do it, en-
during the expected, the inevitable, consequent suffering. One of the
many evidences that the dog is sensible of right doing is to be found
in the familiar fact that when it performs an action which to it seems
meritorious, or which it has reason to believe its master will deem so
— when it saves a life, or successfully defends a trust, or resists some
great temptation — it looks at once for some sign of the said master's
approhation, perhaps for some reward. There are both the self-appro-
bation or self-satisfaction of the mens conscia recti and an expectation
of man's approval. The animal is gratified if such approval is in any
form vouchsafed, disappointed if it be withheld.

It must also distinguish between the right and the expedient —
what would be most for its own interest to do. In other words, it is
just as apt as man is, and not more so, to take a selfish view of all af-
fairs— to consider how they are likely to affect its own personal inter-
ests. The choice that is finally made between the right, the expedi-
ent, and the wrong is determined by a variety of considerations — by
conflicting emotions, by the balancing of probabilities and inclina-
tions, by the degree or kind of temptation, by the presence or absence
of witnesses, especially human, by other specialties of an animal's
position, by the nature and extent of its moral training, by the char-
acter of the rewards and punishments offered on previous occasions.
In the dog there is sometimes obviously the same kind of conflict and
collision between virtue and selfishness, between a sense of what is
right — which is too generally also what is painful, what calls for ter-
rible self-denial and suffering, including the physical pangs of hunger
and thirst, as well as the moral pangs, say, of unsatisfied revenge —
and a sense of what is simply pleasant and profitable.

Temptation frequently begets in the dog, cat, and other animals
the same kind of mental or moral agitation, and the same sort of
result, as in man. Sometimes we can see — in the dog, for instance —
the whole play of the animal's mind — the battle between its virtuous
and vicious propensities, its promptings to the right and its endeavors

348 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

to stick by the right, its longing for the wrong — for the titbit, which
it knows it would be improper to steal — and the final triumph either
of virtue or temptation. The poor animal, knowing or feeling the
weakness of the flesh, sometimes has the moral strength, the force of
character, the good sense, to avoid temptation altogether. But dogs,
like men, are apt to have the most trying temptations thrust unexpect-
edly upon them, and then comes the tug of war of the appetites and
passions — the moral turmoil that may make shipwreck of or that may
strengthen virtue. Sometimes, then, by the dog, as by the man, temp-
tation is successfully resisted after perhaps a series of protracted and
painful moral struggles that have been very apparent to the onlooker.
Unfortunately, however, equally in dog and man, the resistance of
temptation is less common by far than non-resistance or non-success in
resistance, the result of which is various forms or degrees of wrong-
doing.

But in the dog, cat, and other animals this wrong-doing is accom-
panied by a perfect consciousness or conception of the nature of their
behavior. They are quite aware of being engaged in actions that will
bring inevitable punishment, which penalty, moreover, they are sen-
sible they deserve. Miss Buist gives the history of a pet canary that
was given to prancing about on her piano-keys, and that knew it was
wrong in so doing.

Abundant evidence of a consciousness of vorong-doing is to be
found either generally in the —

1. Pricks, stings, or pangs of conscience.

2. The various expressions of a sense of guilt — for instance, the —

a. Sneaking gait.
h. Depressed head, ears, and tail.
c. Temporary disappearance.
. d. Permanent absconding ; desertion of home and master.

3. The multiform exhibitions of contrition, regret, repentance, self-
reproach, remorse —

Or more specifically in the —

4. Efforts at reconciliation and pardon, including the giving of
peace-offerings.

5. Various forms of making atonement.

6. Concealment of crime or its proofs.

7. Artifices for escaping detection or conviction.

8. Non-resentment of punishment.

9. Sensitiveness to reproof, or even under more reference to former
delinquency.

10. Punishment of offenders by and among each other.
Conscience is frequently as severe a monitor in other animals as in

man, its reproaches as stinging and hard to be borne, its tomients
sometimes intolerable. We may speak quite correctly, for instance,
of the conscierice-stricken animal thief, the cat or dog caught in the

THE MORAL SENSE IN THE LOWER ANIMALS.

349

act of pilfering from the larder. The signs of detected and acknowl-
edged guilt are the same in kind as would be exhibited under parallel
circumstances by the human child. The animal, like the child, if ren-
dered sensitive by previous moral training, shows unmistakably its
coiisciousness of delinquency. Its look and demeanor alike eloquently
bespeak its sense of detection and disgrace. It understands its mas-
ter's accusation as conveyed by eye, tone, word, gesture, and it either
makes instant effort to escape the punishment which it knows it has
incurred and deserved, or, if escape be hopeless, it, as calmly as may
be, awaits the said punishment, and does not resent it, as it would did
it feel it to be unmerited. A bitch having once eaten a quantity of
shrimps intended for her master's dinner sauce, had only to be asked
ever after, " Who stole the shrimps ? " to cause her to take to igno-
minious flight — ears and tail down — going to bed, " refusing to be com-
forted .... the picture of shame and remorse," while we are told
"she never stole again" ("Animal World"),

A young dog having committed some offense against the established
rules of his master's household, " after we had shaken our heads at him
and turned away .... although he must have been very hungry,
would not touch his food, but sat close to the door, Avhining and cry-
ing, till we made it up with him by telling him that he was forgiven
and taking his offered paw, when he ate his supper and went quietly
to bed." Another dog, " if he has done anything wrong, comes up
looking very much ashamed of himself and voluntarily offers his paw "
(Wood). Hei*e we have decided efforts ^i 2^ro2ntiatioti of an offended
master or mistress, and after the fashion of man's reconciliations by
the shaking of hands, as nearly as the dog can imitate this arrange-
ment. There are cases in which regret or remorse leads to the restora-
tion of stolen goods, A dog that had murdered a duck was caught in
the act of burying its dead body — that is, of concealing the evidences
of his crime. " So deeply was his conscience pricked that when he
found himself arrested by a bush he ran the risk of dying of cold
and hunger rather than allow himself to be discovered " (Wood),
When a large, magnanimous, powerful dog — for instance, of the New-
foundland breed — has allowed impulse or passion to hurry it into some
rash act, such as killing or too severely punishing some puny pug that
has been merely forward, impudent, or annoying, it frequently and
eloquently expresses its shame, regret, or remorse.

As in man, conscience or conscientiousness sometimes has its strange
or striking vagaries, eccentricities, or inconsistencies in other animals.
Thus a retriever that would himself touch no food belonging to his
master, yet offered no objection to theft of the same food by a cat, nor
did he decline to accept a share of her plunder (Wood).

Not only do animals feel their own wrong-doing, but they appre-
ciate evil or evil deeds in their young and in their fellows, including
other genera and species, and man himself. They show this, for in-

350 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

stance (1), by the punishment of offenders, if not of offenses, as well
as (2) by the prevention of threatened wrong-doing or the defense of
the wronged, or (3) by the resentment or revenge of injury or injustice
of any kind. Thus various animals resent and revenge the wrongs
committed by man not only on themselves or their fellows, but even
on brother man ; and this sense of wrong or injury inflicted upon
others leads sometimes to their defetise of man against his fellow man.
A case happened recently in Ireland of a pet cow that defended its
mistress against the ill usage of its master, its mistress's husband ; and
many instances have been recorded of the dog, elephant, and horse
doing similar kindnesses to their human favorites. It ought to be not
a little humiliating to man's pride that the so-called " lower " animals
have so frequently to act as mediators in human quarrels — to defend
lordly man against his own species.

In the same sense in which it can be said that the dog and other
animals are endowed sometimes with a perception of wrong, it may
also be said that they acquire a sense of the illegality of certain not
only of their own actions, but also of man's. Human tribunals have
apparently regarded sheep-stealing dogs as conscious of the illegality
of their deeds, as sensible of the nature of their nefarious employment,
as aware of the character of their offense or crime, as alive to the
chances of detection and of the necessity for secrecy or concealment,
for nocturnal operations, for the avoidance of being found associated
with any of the evidences of guilt, as feeling that they deserve punish-
ment and that they will receive it on capture or conviction. These
tribunals have, in other words, recognized the power the guilty animals
have possessed of selecting between the right and the wrong, and of
their having chosen the latter with full knowledge of consequences.
And in all these respects human judges have so far formed correct
conclusions or decisions, though they have erred in forgetting that the
criminality in such cases has been the evil fruit of man's education of
his animal accomplices. The dogs of the brigand, smuggler, or poach-
er, like those of the sheep-stealer, display a knowledge of the illegality
of the operations in which they are habitually engaged. They take all
means of avoiding custom-house officers or gamekeepers, deliberately
making use of all kinds of deception ; but to all this they are trained
by man.

No doubt what is popularly spoken of as a sense of right or wrong,
of legality or illegality, in the lower animals may, or will if strictly
analyzed, be reduced to a distinction between what is forbidden and
what is permitted by man, who is recognized as a sufficient lawgiver
and administrator — what will bring punishment on the one hand and
reward on the other. But this is just the kind of feeling as to right
and wrong, legality and illegality, that exists in the savage adult, that
is generated at first in the civilized child, that is exhibited (if at all)
in the criminal, the lunatic, or the idiot. It can not be truthfully

THE MORAL SENSE IN THE LOWER ANIMALS. 351

affirmed that abstract or refined ideas of moral good and evil are com-
mon to all ranks of men, or are innate even in civilized man. In our
brother man, and with all the help that spoken and written language
can give lis, there can be no doubt of the difficulty, frequently the
utter impossibility, of knowing whether any and what conceptions
exist as to right or wrong, good or evil, justice or injustice, honesty or
dishonesty. It need, therefore, be no matter of surprise if we can not
ascertain or demonstrate the presence or absence of any sort of definite
conceptions on such subjects in the dogs, fow^ls, or other domestic ani-
mals that are so constantly under man's observation. Practically,
however, as has been seen, as practically as in whole races of man, the
dog and other animals give unquestionable evidence that they know
what, according to man's law to them, is right and wrong, and they
prefer to do the one or the other according to their individuality and
the character of their previous moral training.

Monkeys and other animals sometimes show, as much as does the
human child, a very decided enjoyment of forbidden pleasures, not
only knowing that they are, but because of their being, interdicted.

The dog, horse, mule, elephant, and other animals have frequently
a distinct sense, feeling, or knowledge of duty, trust, or task ; and
this not only as regards their own personal obligations, but in so far as
duty of various kinds is attachable to other individuals of the same spe-
cies, or to those of other genera and species, including man himself —
when, for instance, such duty of man's has any immediate reference to,
or connection with, themselves. In other words, they have clear con-
ceptions of their own duties and of the duties of others, including man,
in relation to them.

The discharge of their own duties, which in many instances are
self-imposed, involves, or is characterized by —

1. An understanding of the nature of the work to be executed — of
the duty required, for instance, by man.

2. Conscientiousness in the discharge of duty, which again im-
plies—

a. Sterling honesty and fidelity.

b. Willingness or zeal.

c. Megidarity, including perseverance, patience, and method.

d. Accuracy, based on high intelligence.

The working elephant requires that the nature of its work should
be explained to it, to as great an extent as possible demonstratively —
by illustration. It very quickly and readily comprehends what it is
that man wishes and expects it to do, and it very soon learns to execute
its task without supervision, bringing to the discharge of its duty so
much zeal or heartiness, so much conscientiousness, that it frequently
displays an obvious dread of failure in, or of inability for, the due ful-
fillment of its trust, even when the causes of such failui'e or incompe-
tency, where they exist, scarcely come within, or are altogether beyond.

352 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the animars control. There are such things in the dog, elephant, horse,
and other animals as excess of zeal, wrong ideas of duty, mistakes
in the mode of discharging it, and morhid conscientiousness. Man's
cruel taunts not unfrequently lead the too willing horse or elephant to
the attempting of tasks for which their strength, or lack thereof, does
not qualify them, and death in or from such attempts is the occasional
result ; while the dog sometimes carries its honesty or fidelity in the
defense of a trust to a ridiculous extent, or displays qualities, noble in
themselves, under absurd circumstances. The dog's anxiety to learn
his duty has been pointed out by the Ettrick Shepherd, who thus writes
of his celebrated Sirrah : '* As soon as he discovered that it was his
duty [to turn sheep], and that it obliged me, I can never forget with
what anxiety and eagerness he learned his different evolutions."

Duties that are voluntarily assumed, that are frequently of an irk-
some and even of an unnatural kind, are sometimes discharged in the
most admirable way — for instance, by self -constituted foster-parents
that have adopted orphaned or deserted young, often belonging to
other genera and species, and even to natural enemies.

Quite as frequently, perhaps, parental or maternal duties of a nat-
ural and important character are delegated or left to any other animal
possessed of a sufficiently powerful charity or compassion, a sufficiently
strong maternal or parental " instinct." The duties of pai-entage or
otherwise may be simply left undischarged without the slightest regard
to the results of such neglect ; every opportunity may be taken of
shirking work that is disagreeable, or a task of whatever nature is exe-
cuted in a very perfunctory, perhaps merely nominal way. There is,
in other words, in some cases just as decided an insensibility to the
claims of duty, just as marked a cold indifference to its discharge, as in
other cases there are conscientiousness and kindliness. It is only fair,
however, to bear in mind that such a2Xtthy, frequently of an obviously
unnatural character, is one of the common results of mental defect or
disorder, just as it is too frequently in man himself.

The dog frequently makes duty and its discharge paramount to all
other considerations. To it are sacrificed even revenge on the one
hand, or temptations to the pursuit of game, or to access to food, on the
other. Death itself is sometimes preferred to the desertion of a trust
or charge (Watson). Many a dog restrains all its natural propensities
under a sense of duty and responsibility. When on " duty," intrusted
with a message from a master, it very literally places " business before
pleasure " ; its self-control may even prevent desirable or necessary
self-defense.

Whether it be from a sense of justice, of duty, or of conscientious-
ness, it is a fact that certain working dogs and other animals not only
attend faithfully to their own duties, but see that their companions
give equal attention to theirs. They exact duty or work from, or en-
force it in, their colleagues (Watson).

THE MORAL SEN'SE IN THE LOWER ANIMALS. 353

Certain of the lower animals have a very decided sense of Justice
and injustice, of equity or fairness and the reverse. Thus the dog,
horse, mule, ass, camel, elephant, and other working animals have a
feeling that " the laborer is worthy of his hire " ; that they deserve a
certain meed of praise, credit, or reward — a certain return in food and
drink, in domestic comfort or personal attention — for service rendered.
There is a clear recognition of the value of service — a knowledge of
personal deserts. Hence they so frequently exhibit a sore sense of ill-
requital of hard labor or of self-sacrifice. Punishment which they
know to be undeserved they resent — sometimes dangerously to man —
and in doing so they discriminate and estimate man's injustice.

The bread-buying dog does very much the same thing — detects and
protests against man's unfair dealing when, offering its penny for a
roll, a baker tries, waggishly or otherwise, to cheat it by giving it
something of inferior value or refusing it a quid pro quo at all.

There must further exist in certain animals some perception of the
distinction between spoken as well as acted truth and falsehood, fact
and fiction ; for we are told, for instance, that the parrot sometimes
not only detects but denounces with the utmost indignation man's
verbal falsehoods (" Animal World "). On the other hand, one of the
occasionally base or bad purposes to which the same bird applies its
wonderful gift of speech is mendacity : so that it is capable at once of
" telling lies " itself and of detecting and reprimanding falsehood in
man.

A certain sentiment of decency, modesty, or propriety occurs in va-
rious social animals, illustrated as it is by —

1. Their sexual bashfulness and chastity.

2. Their care of the dead, including the —

3. Use of dying-places and cemeteries.

4. Their employment of latrines or their equivalents.

It has to be remarked that the moral virtues are illustrated mainly
by or in those animals that have directly or indirectly received their
moral training from man — such animals as the dog, elephant, and horse.
As a general rule — to which there are exceptions both in man and
other animals — the human child and the young animal can equally be
educated both to distinguish and do the right. In the formation of
their characters moral virtue may be made to dominate over moral vice
though it is probably impossible in either case to extinguish the latter.
IVIoral perfectibility may be aimed at, though it can not be attained ;
but the degree of moral excellence attainable is such in other animals,
as in the child, that it should stimulate man to put forth all efforts in
the moral training of both.
VOL. XVI. — 23

354 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

MIDDLE-AGE SPIEITUALISM.

THE doctrine of human intercourse with invisible beings or spirits
is as old as superstition, and has its fashions, or, rather, it takes
on different phases according to the degrees of ignorance and stu-
pidity that characterize society. It was one thing in Greece and
Rome, and a very different thing in the middle ages. In the former
there was a mythologic machinery of gods and goddesses, who med-
dled actively with terrestrial affairs, both in peace and war. This
was the dignified sort of spiritualism that is embalmed in classical
literature, and which continues to form the corner-stone of a " col-
lege education."

The spiritualism of the middle ages took a very different shape.
It was more intense, realistic, practical, and vulgar — more earnest,
and, we are bound to say, more honest. The spirits were brought to
bear, so to speak, more intimately upon common life. The line be-
tween good and bad spirits was more sharply drawn ; they were
angels or demons, ever working mischief or benefit to mankind.
The art of evoking spirits became a kind of craft under the names of
divination, magic, sorcery, enchantment, necromancy, and witchcraft.
In the modern survival of these old practices of evoking spirits we get
very different results. The ghosts believed to be called up by ma-
nipulation are of a more harmless character ; and the object seems to
be rather to get the spirits out, than to get anything out of them.
They are summoned more as a matter of curiosity, and for the solemn
amusement of credulous and vacant minds.

Science has worked a great change in relation to this subject. It
has drawn the teeth of mediaeval ghostology. Though it has not ex-
tirpated the belief in spirits, it has greatly transformed and subdued
it, so that it is no longer the scourge and curse of society that it was
in the pre-scientific ages. We are apt to forget what we owe to
science in this respect, and the horrors that modern society has
escaped by getting rid of the grosser and more malignant forms of
belief in ghostly supersensuous and diabolic agency. But fully to
appreciate our advantages it is necessary, once in a while, to turn
back and contemplate the condition of things in the ages of ignorance,
when men were given over to the terrors of vicious and cruel supersti-
tions. An admirable book has been lately published, which presents
a vivid picture of the general state of mind and society a few cen-
turies ago in Western Europe, resulting from the current belief in
supernatural agencies, and we propose to cull a few statements from
its pages in illustration of the subject.*

* The Magic of the Middle Ages. By Yiktor Rydberg. Translated from the Swedish
by August Hjalmar Edgren. New York : Henry Holt & Co.

MIDDLE-AGE SPIRITUALISM. 355

The author first finds the theological root of his subject. During
the middle ages it was held that all power or force was spiritual, that
it came from a spiritual source — from God — and was communicated
to the earth by spiritual agents or angels. No inevitable causation
was admitted. The laws of nature were the precepts in accordance
with which the angels executed the will of God. Sometimes he sus-
pended their agency, acting everywhere himself, or he delegated un-
usual power to them, when their operations were known as miracles.
Hence a knowledge of nature was at this time chiefly a knowledge of
the angels. Lucifer, the highest of these angels, rebelled against
God. The contest ended with the overthrow of the rebel and his
followers ; but God, calm in the consciousness of his omnipotence,
determined that Lucifer, now changed by his rebellion into a spirit
wholly evil, should enjoy liberty of action within certain limits. The
activity of the fallen spirit consists henceforth in incessant warfare
against God. Man is tempted and falls. The earth is divided into
two antagonistic kingdoms, those of good and evil. Over one reigns
God and his angels of light, over the other the devil and his minions.
Such was the dualistic conception of the middle ages, and to it may
be traced the magic of the Church, the astrology, alchemy, and sorcery
of the learned, as well as the diabolic forms of witchcraft believed in by
the common people.

The Church, exercising its watch-care for man, surrounded him
from the cradle to the grave by the safeguards of magic. Thus,
soon after the birth of the child the priest must be ready to sprinkle
it with holy water, which has been purified from the pollution of
demons by prayer and conjuration ; and so strong was the impression
that the child, begotten in sin and by nature Lucifer's property, would
be doomed to the torments of hell without the grace of baptism, that
certain conscientious servants of the Church attempted to devise some
means by which the saving water might be brought in contact with
the child before it saw the light.

Holy water, when drunk by the sick and infirm, healed and strength-
ened ; if sprinkled upon the field it promoted fertility, and given to
domestic animals it aiforded them protection against witchcraft.

Says Thomas Aquinas : " It is a dogma of faith that the demons
can produce wind, storms, and rain of fire from heaven. The atmos-
phere is a battle-field between angels and devils. The latter work the
constant injury of man, the former his melioration ; and the conse-
quence is that changeableness of weather which threatens to frustrate
the hopes of husbandry. And, when Lucifer is able to bestow even
upon man — sorcerers and wizards — the power to destroy the fields, the
vineyards, and dwellings of man by rain, hail, and lightning, is it to be
wondered at if the Church, which is man's protection against the devil,
and whose especial calling it is to fight him, should in this sphere also
be his counterpoise, and should seek, from the treasury of its divine

356 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

power, means adequate to frustrate his atmospheric mischiefs? To
these means belong the church-bells, provided they have been duly
consecrated and baptized. The aspiring steeples, around which cluster
the low dwellings of men, are to be likened, when the bells in them are
ringing, to the hen spreading its protecting wings over its chickens ;
for the tones of the consecrated metal repel the demons and avert
storm and lightning."

During protracted drought it was the custom for the priests to
make intercession and inaugurate rain-processions, and it is narrated
that, in the year 1240, in Liittich a large rain-pi'ocession failed, three
times, to produce any effect, "because, in the supplication of all saints,
God's mother had been forgotten." A new procession was formed,
due respect was shown her Majesty, and the rain immediately came
down with such violence that the devout procession was dispersed.

If the fields were visited by destructive insects, the Church had
remedies against them also. It commanded them in the name of God
to depart ; and, if they did not obey, regular processes were instituted
against them, which ended in their excommunication by the Church.
In the year 1474 the May-bug committed great depredations in the
neighborhood of Berne. The authorities of the city sought relief
against the scourge from the Bishop of Lausanne, who issued a letter
of excommunication, which was solemnly read by a priest in the
churchyard of Berne. The letter began thus : " Thou irrational, im-
perfect creature, thou May-bug, thou whose kind was never inclosed
in Noah's ark ; in the name of my gracious lord the Bishop of Lau-
sanne, by the power of the glorified Trinity through the merits of
Jesus Christ, and by the obedience you owe the Holy Church, I com-
mand you, May-bugs, all in common and each one in particular, to de-
part from all places where nourishment for man and cattle germinates
and grows." The letter ends with a summons to the insects to present
themselves at Wivelsburg on the sixth day thereafter, at one o'clock,
if they do not disappear before that time, and assume the responsibility
before the court of the gracious lord of Lausanne ! Arrangements were
made beforehand for a legal trial ; the accused, of course, was to have
a lawyer, and the Bishop devised the plan of summoning from hell the
spirit of an infamous one named Perrodet, who had died a few years
before. But, in spite of many summonses, neither Perrodet nor the
May-bugs deigned to appear, and finally the episcopal tribunal gave its
verdict of excommunication in the name of the Holy Trinity — " to you
accursed vermin, that are called May-bugs, and which can not even be
counted among the animals." The Government ordered the author-
ities of the afliicted district to report concerning the effects of the
measure ; but a chronicle of the time reports that " no effect was ob-
served, because of our sins."

The most scrupulous attention to legal forms was given to the fre-
quently recurring processes against May-bugs, grasshoppers, worms,

MIDDLE-AGE SPIRITUALISM.

357

and other noxious vermin, for any neglect of these forms was supposed
to deprive a judgment of its magical power. The question whether
they were subject to a spiritual or legal tribunal was much agitated,
but without being definitely settled. A civil prosecution of the field-
rats in the Tyrol, 1519-'20, proves that sometimes such suits were de-
cided by secular tribunals.

The peasant, Simon Fliss, made complaint to the judge, William of
Hasslingen, that the field-rats were committing great depredations in
his parish. The court then appointed Hans Grinebner advocate for
the accused, and the plaintiff chose as his advocate Schwarz Minig.
Numerous witnesses established the fact that the rats had committed
great destruction, and the decision was rendered against them in the
following terms : " After accusation and defense, after statement and
contradiction, and after due consideration of all that pertains to justice,
it is by this sentence determined that those noxious animals which are
called field-rats must, within two weeks after the promulgation of this
judgment, depart and for ever remain far aloof from the fields and the
meadows of Stilf. But if one or several of the animals are pregnant,
or unable on account of their youth to follow, then shall they enjoy,
during further two weeks, safety and protection from everybody, and
after these two weeks depart."

Nothing was too absurd, nothing too superstitious, for the credulity
of this period. The consecrated machinery was so various and com-
plete that, if one explanation did not serve the purpose of the Church,
another could usually be found. One question, however, did not read-
ily find an answer, namely : How are the divine miracles to be dis-
tinguished from the infernal ones ? Attempts of the acutest scholas-
tics failed to establish a rule of definite separation ; for the two kinds
of miracles were revealed under identical forms, and Satan could
transform himself into an angel of light. The grossest doctrines re-
ceived the sanction of the Church, and thus was laid the foundation of
that labyrinth of superstitions among the people in the darkness of
which humanity groped for a thousand years. If the miracles worked
by the apostles of the Church had their source in divine agencies, then
those performed by its opponents must have been instigated by the
devil. The white magic stood opposed to the black, and the idea of a
conscious league between the devil and man became a well-established
dogma.

In the fifteenth century there came a terrible crisis. This was pre-
ceded by the trial of the Templars and by several local witch-processes
with subsequent executions, until finally, December 5, 1484, the bull
of Pope Innocent VIII. appeared. This, with its companion, a book
called " The Witch-hammer," brought the evil to a climax. Some idea
of this bull may be gathered from the following extract. The Pope
begins by asserting that, as the guardian of souls, he must exercise
care in promoting the growth of the Catholic faith and driving her-

358 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

esy f ar from the faithful. "But," he continues, "it is not without
profound grief that I have learned recently that persons of both sexes,
forgetting their own eternal welfare and erring from the Catholic faith,
mix with devils, with incuhi and sttccuM, and injure by witch-songs,
conjurations, and other shameful practices, revelries, and crimes, the
unborn children of women, the young of animals, the harvests of the
fields, the grapes of the vineyards, and the fruit of the trees ; that
they also destroy, suffocate, and annihilate men, women, sheep and
cattle, vineyards, orchards, meadows, and the like ; visit men, women,
cattle and other animals with internal and external pains and sickness;
prevent men from procx*eation and women from concej)tion, and render
them entirely unfit for their mutual duties, and cause them to recant,
besides, with sacrilegious lips, the very faith which they have received
in baptism." The Pope therefore appoints the professors of theol-
ogy, Henry Institor and Jacob Springer, to be prime inquisitors, with
absolute power over all districts which are contaminated with those
diseases. Finally, he proclaims that no appeal from the tribunals of
the inquisitors to other courts, not even to the Pope himself, will be
allowed. The inquisitors and their assistants are invested with unlim-
ited power over life and death, and are exhorted to fulfill their com-
mission with zeal and severity. The bull contains no directions as to
how the judges should proceed in the trial of witches, but " The Witch-
hammer," bearing the sanction of the Pope, is most explicit upon the
subject. This book became juridical authority, and was followed even
in Protestant countries until early in the eighteenth century. It be-
gins by attempting to show that its theories are entirely founded upon
the Scriptures. The history of Job, the temptation of Jesus in the
desert, and the many demoniacs mentioned in the New Testament, are
adduced to prove that Satan can dwell in man and use the human body
as his implement. Moreover, Moses ordained that witches should be
put to death, a command which would be entirely superfluous, if
witches had not existed. " The Witch-hammer " then broaches the
question why it is that women are especially addicted to sorcery, and
devotes thirty-three pages to the proof thereof. The following is an
example of its argument : The holy fathers have often said that there
are three things which have no moderation in good or evil — the tongue,
a priest, and a woman. Concerning woman this is evident. All ages
have made complaints against her. The wise Solomon, who was him-
self tempted to idolatry by woman, has often in his writings given the
feminine sex a sad but true testimonial ; and the holy Chrysostom
says : " What is woman but an enemy of friendship, an unavoidable
punishment, a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable affliction,
a constantly flowing source of tears, a wicked work of nature covered
with a shining varnish ? " Already had the first woman entered into
a sort of compact with the devil ; should not, then, her daughters do
it also ? The very word femiyia (woman) means one vmntlng in

MIDDLE-AGE SPIRITUALISM. 359

faith ; iorfe means "faith," and minus "less." Since she was formed
of a crooked rib, her entire spiritual nature has been distorted and
inclined more toward sin than virtue. If we here compare the words
of Seneca, " Woman either loves or hates ; there is no third possibility,"
it is easy to see that when she does not love God she must resort to
the opposite extreme and hate him. It is thus clear why women "es-
pecially are addicted to the practice of sorcery.

The crime of the witches exceeds all others. They are worse than
the devil, for he has fallen once for all, and Christ has not suffered for-
him. The devil sins, therefore, only against the Creator, but the witch
both against the Creator and Redeemer. The theology of the case is
perfectly clear.

These and similar questions the first part of " The "Witch-hammer "
attempts to settle. The second part describes the various kinds and
effects of witchcraft. It claims that they produce hail, thunder, and
storms ; they fly through the air from one place to another ; they can
make themselves insensible on the rack ; they often subdue the judge's
mind by charms and confuse 1dm through com2Kission ; they change
themselves and others into cats and were-wolves ; nay, they are able to
enchant and kill men and beasts by their very looks. Their strongest
passion is to eat the flesh of children ; still they eat only unchristened
children : if at any time a baptized child is taken by them, it happens
by special divine concession.

Their compact with the devil may be of a private nature, or a
solemn one entered into with due formalities. When the latter, it is
concluded in the following manner : The witches assemble upon a day
set apart by the devil. He appears in the assembly, exhorts them to
faithfulness, and promises them glory, happiness, and long life. The
older witches then introduce the novices, who are put to the test and
take the oath of allegiance. The devil then instructs them how to pre-
pare from the limbs of new-born babes witch-potions and witch-salves,
and presents them with a powder, instructing them how to use it to
the injury of men and beasts.

The witch accomplishes her voyages in the air by smearing a vessel,
a broom, and a rake, a broomstick and a piece of linen, with the witch-
salve ; then rising she moves forth throiigh the air, visible or invisible.
" The Witch-hammer" reminds those who doubt these air- voyages that
the devil carried Jesus up through the air to the pinnacle of the temple
(Matthew iv, 5).

The third part of this remarkable book gives the criminal law of
the witch-courts, with instructions how " sorcerers, witches, and here-
tics, are to be tried before spiritual as well as civil tribunals." " The
Witch-hammer " states " that the trial may commence without any pre-
vious accusation." When an inquisitor comes to a place he must
exhort everybody by means of proclamations nailed to the doors of
churches and town-halls, and by threats of excommunication and

360 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

punishment, to give information of all persons suspected of witch-
craft.

Two or three witnesses are sufficient to prove guilt. In case so
many do not present themselves, the judge may find and summon them
and force them to tell the truth under oath. The qualifications neces-
sary for witnesses to possess will appear from the statement that the
excommunicate, accomplices, outlawed, runaway and dissolute wo-
men, are irreproachable witnesses in cases where the faith is involved.
A witch is allowed to testify against a witch, wife against husband,
husband against wife, children against parents, and so on ; but, if the
testimonies of accomplices or relatives are to the advantage of the ac-
cused, then they are of no validity, /or blood is of cotirse thicker than
water, and one raven does not willingly pick out the eyes of another.

An accused may have an advocate, but " The Witch-hammer " adds:
" If the counselor defends his suspected client too warmly, it is right
and reasonable that he should be considered as far more criminal than
the sorcerer or the witch herself ; that is to say, as the protector of
witches and heretics he is more dangerous than the sorcerer. He
should be looked upon with suspicion in the same degree as he makes a
zealous defense." " The Witch-hammer " then informs the judge of five
" honest and apostolic tricks " by means of which the accused and their
lawyer may be confused. The quality of the questions put to the ac-
cused may be appreciated from the following examples : " Do you
know that people hold you to be a witch ? Why have you been ob-
served upon the precincts of N. N. ? Why have you touched N. N.'s
child (or cow) ? How did it happen that the child (or the cow) soon
after fell sick ? What was your business outside of your house when
the storm broke forth ? How can you explain that your cow yields
three times as much milk as the cows of others ? "

Before the trial of a person accused of sorcery, he was put on the
rack in order that his mind might be inclined to confession. The
" worst witches " were those who allowed themselves to be torn asun-
der, limb by limb, and their endurance is explained by the supposition
that "the devil hardens them against their tortures." If confession
was not wrung from the witch the first day, the torture was to be coti-
tiniied the second and third day. The civil law forbade the repeating
of the torture. Hence the following formula used by the judge : " We
ordain that the torture shall be continued (not repeated) to-morrow."
The second day the instruments of torture were exhibited, and the ac-
cused was adjured, by all holy names, if innocent, to pour forth imme-
diately abundant tears ; but, if guilty, no tears at all.

If tears should flow, the judge was directed to see that it be not
saliva, or other fluid ; and the witch was led into the court-room back-
ward, that the judge might see her before she saw him. Otherwise he
might be moved to criminal compassion by her enchantment.

It was still further provided that the limbs of the accused should

MIDDLE-AGE SPIRITUALISM. 361

be examined to see if they bore deviPs marks. The absence of such
marks, however, did not prove innocence.

With the fullest directions as to the ways and means to be adopted
for the ensnaring of witches this dreadful book concludes. The effect
of the fires kindled by the bull of Pope Innocent was felt far into
the eighteenth century. The victims were counted by millions. Says
an author of the seventeenth century, " When they had commenced
in one place to burn wdtches, more w^ere found in proportion as they
were burned " ; and it is also stated that in certain communities in
Germany and France all the women were sent to the stake ; and in
many instances princes and potentates were forced, from fear of seeing
their subjects exterminated, to stay by authoritative command the
madness of the inquisitors.

No age was exempt. Children were brought to the stake with their
mothers. A gloomy presentiment pervaded the community when the
proclamation on the church-doors announced the arrival of the inquisi-
tor. Work in the shops and fields ceased ; and the person who had
an open enemy, or suspected secret envy, knew beforehand that he was
lost. And the arch-fiend was the agent and instigator of all this mad-
ness. " He was in the castle of the knight, the palaces of the mighty,
the libraries of the learned, on every page of the Bible, in the churches,
in the halls of justice, in the lawyer's chambers, in the laboratories
of physicians and naturalists, in cottages, farm-yards, stalls, every-
where."

The popular literature of this period consisted of legends of saints
and stories about the devil. There were imps, giants, trolls, forest
spirits, elves, and hobgoblins on the earth ; nicks, river-sprites in the
water, fiends in the air, and salaiuanders in the fire. There were mon-
sters such as dragons, griflins, were-wolves, witch-kind, Thor's-swine,
and supernatural beings derived from the human world, but of dimmer
outlines than the preceding.

Among these last was the mandragora, which was supposed to
reveal to its possessor hidden things and future events, and to secure
the friendship of all men. The root of the mandragora, or mandrake,
often divides into two parts, and thus presents a rude resemblance to
a human figure. It was believed that this plant could not be found
except below the gallows where a pure youth had been hanged.
When torn from the soil it was said to sigh, shriek, and moan so
piteously that it caused whoever heard it to die. To find this plant it
must be sought before sunrise Friday morning. The person seeking
it should carefully fill his ears with cotton, wax, or pitch, and take
with him a black dog, without a single white hair. The sign of the
cross was to be made three times over the mandragora, then the soil was
to be carefully removed, so that it was attached only by its fine root-
lets. It was then tied by a string to the tail of a dog, who was at-
tracted forward by a piece of bread. The dog pulled the plant from

362 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the earth, but fell dead, struck by the shriek of the mandragora. The
jDlant was then taken home, washed in red wine, and wrapped in red-
and-white silk, laid in a shrine, washed on successive Fridays, and
dressed in a white frock. If the mandragora is bought it remains
with the person who thus secures it, regardless of where it is thrown,
until sold again. If kept until death, the person must depart to hell
with it.

In the demoniacal fauna of the middle ages were-wolves played an
important part. They were supposed to be men who changed them-
selves for a time into wolves, and roved about hunting for children.
Augustine, one of the most prominent of the fathers and authors of
his time, taught that it was the devil who wrapped a wolf's hide
around a witch. Melanchthon also believed in this doctrine, and the
Emperor Sigismund had the question investigated " scientifically " in
the presence of theologians, and they came to the general agreement
that the were-wolf is " a positive and constant fact " ; for, the exist-
ence of the devil being accepted, there is no reason to deny that of
the were-wolf, supported as it is by the authority of the fathers of the
Church and by general experience.

Another ghastly superstition of those times was that of belief in
vampires. These were disembodied souls, which had reclothed them-
selves in their buried bodies. In this garb they stole at night into
houses and sucked from the nipples of the sleeping their blood. The
person thus bereft of his vital fluid was in turn changed into a vam-
pire. The corpse of a person suspected of vampirism, if dug up,
was found well preserved, and an abundance of fresh blood would
flow from its mouth on pressing the stomach. To this horrible belief
is ascribed a kind of psychical pestilence, which spread terror in the
Austrian provinces even down into the eighteenth century.

We have here given only a few examples of middle-age spiritual-
ism, and must refer the curious reader to the instructive pages of
Professor Rydberg's book for the fuller presentation of this painful
subject. The statements we have given may seem in the last degree
ludicrous and incredible, but they imply tragic realities and an unspeak-
able wretchedness in the mental states where such notions could be
harbored. The age that built the cathedrals of Europe was one of
fanatical religious earnestness, and from this we may infer the terrible
sincerity of the horrors of insane superstition by which the minds of
people were darkened and poisoned.

PALEONTOLOGICAL DISCOVERY. 363

HISTORY A>TD METHODS OF PALEONTOLOGICAL
DISCOVERY.*

By Pkofessob 0. C. MAKSH.

II.

WHILE the Paris Basin was yielding such important results for
paleontology, its geological structure was being worked out with
great care. The results appeared in a volume by Cuvier and Alex-
andre Brongniart, chiefly the work of the latter, published in 1808.f
This was the first systematic investigation of Tertiary strata. Three
years later, the work was issued in a more extended form. The sepa-
rate formations wei'e here carefully distinguished by their fossils, the
true importance of which for this purpose being distinctly recognized.
This advance was not accepted without some opposition, and it is an
interesting fact that Jameson, who claimed for Werner the theory
here put in practice, rejected its application, and wrote as follows :
" To Cuvier and Brongniart we are indebted for much valuable in-
formation in theii- description of the country around Paris, but we
must protest against the use they have made of fossil organic remains
in their geognostical descriptions and investigations." J

William Smith (1769-1839), "the father of English geology," had
previously published a " Tabular View of the British Strata." He
appears to have arrived independently at essentially the same view as
Werner in regard to the relative position of stratified rocks. He had
determined that the order of succession was constant, and that the
different formations might be identified at distant points by the fossils
they contained. In his later works, " Strata identified by Organized
Fossils," published in 1816-20, and " Stratigraphical System of Or-
ganized Fossils," 1817, he gave to the world results of many years of
careful investigations on the Secondary formations of England. In
the latter work, he speaks of the success of his method in determining
strata by their fossils, as follows : " My original method of tracing
the strata by the organized fossils imbedded therein is thus reduced
to a science not difficult to learn. Ever since the first written account
of this discovery was circulated in 1799, it has been closely investi-
gated by my scientific acquaintances in the vicinity of Bath, some of
whom search the quarries of different strata in that district with as
much certainty of finding the characteristic fossils of the respective
rocks as if they were on the shelves of their cabinets."

The systematic study of fossils now attracted attention in England
also, and was prosecuted with considerable zeal, although with less

* President's address delivered before the American Association for tbc Advance-
ment of Science, at Saratoga, New York, August 28, 1879-

f " Essai sur la Geographic Mineralogique des Environs de Paris," 4to, 1808.
X Translation of Cuvier's discourse. Note K. (B.), p. 103, 1817,

364 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

important results than in France. An extensive work on this subject,
by James Parkinson, entitled '' Organic Remains of a Former World,"
was begun in 1804, and completed in three volumes in 1811. A second
edition appeared in 1833. This work was far in advance of previous
publications in England, and, being well illustrated, did much to make
the collection and study of fossils popular. The belief in the geologi-
cal effects of the deluge had not yet lost its power, although restricted
now to the later deposits ; for Parkinson, in his later edition, wrote as
follows : " Why the earth was at first so constituted that the deluge
should be rendered necessary — why the earth could not have been at
first stored with all those substances and endued with all those prop-
erties which seemed to have proceeded from the deluge — why so many
beings were created, as it appears, for the purpose of being destroyed
— are questions which I presume not to answer.*'

William Buckland (1784-1856) published in 1823 his celebrated
" Reliquiffi Diluvianse," in which he gave the results of his own obser-
vations in regard to the animal remains found in the caves, fissures,
and alluvial gravels of England. The facts presented are of great
value, and the work was long a model for similar researches. Buck-
land's conclusions were, that none of the human remains discovered in
the caves were as old as the extinct mammals found with them, and
that the deluge was universal. In speaking of fossil bones found in
the Himalaya Mountains, he says : "The occurrence of these bones
at such an enormous elevation in the region of eternal snow, and con-
sequently in a spot now unfrequented by such animals as the horse and
deer, can, I think, be explained only by supposing them to be of ante-
diluvian origin, and that the carcasses of the animals were drifted to
their present place, and lodged in sand, by the diluvial waters."

The foundation of the " Geological Society of London," in 1807,
marks an important point in the history of paleontology. To care-
fully collect materials for future generalizations was the object in
view, and this organization gradually became the center in Great
Britain for those interested in geological science. The society was in-
corporated in 1826, and has since been the leading organization in
Europe for the advancement of the sciences within its field. The Geo-
logical Society of France, established at Paris in 1832, and the German
Geological Society, founded at Berlin in 1848, have likewise con-
tributed largely to geological investigations in these countries, and to
some extent in other parts of the world. In the publications of these
three societies the student of paleontology will find a mine of valua-
ble materials for his work.

The systematic study of fossil plants may be said to date from the
publication of Adolphe Brongniart's " Prodrome," in 1828.* This was
very soon followed by his larger work, " Histoire des Vegetaux Fos-
* " Prodrome d'une Ilisfoire des Vegetaux Fossiles," 8vo, Paris, 1828.

PALEONTOLOGICAL DISCOVERY. 365

siles," issued in 1828-'48. Brongniart pursued the same method as
Cuvier and Lamarck, viz., the comi^arison of fossils with living forms,
and his results were of great importance. In his " Tableau des Genres
Yegetaux Fossiles," etc., published in Paris in 1849, he gives the classi-
fication and distribution of the genera of fossil plants, and traces out
the historical progression of vegetable life on the globe, as he had
done to a great extent in his previous works. He shows that the cryp-
togamic forms prevailed in the Primary formations, the conifers and
cycads in the Secondary, and the higher forms in the Tertiary, while
four fifths of living plants are exogens.

In England, Lindley and Hutton published, in 1831-'37, a valuable
work in three volumes, entitled " Fossil Flora of Great Britain." This
work was illustrated by many accurate plates, in which the plants of
the coal formation were especially represented. Henry Witham also
published two works in 1831 and 1833, in which he treated especially
of the internal structure of fossil plants. " Antediluvian Phytology,"
by Artis, was published in London in 1838. Bowerbank's " History
of the Fossil Fruits and Seeds of the London Clay " appeared in 1843.
Hooker's memoir " On the Vegetation of the Carboniferous Pei'iod as
compared with that of the Present Day," published in 1848, was an im-
portant contribution to the science. Bunbury, Williamson, and others,
also published various papers on fossil plants. This branch of paleon-
tology, however, attracted much less attention in England than on the
Continent.

In Germany, the study of fossil plants dates back to the beginning
of the century. Von Schlotheim, a pupil of Werner, published in
1804 an illustrated volume on this subject. A more important work
was that of Count Sternberg, issued in 1820-'38, and illustrated with
excellent plates. Cotta, in 1832, published a book with the title " Die
Dendrolithen," in which he gave the results of his investigations on
the inner structure of fossil plants. Von Gutbier, in 1835, and Germar,
in 1844-'53, described and figured the plants of two important locali-
ties in Germany. Corda's " Beitrage zur Flora der Vorwelt," issued at
Prague, in 1845, was essentially a continuation of the work of Stern-
berg. Lunger's " Chloris Protogsea," 1841-45, " Genera et Species
Plantarum Fossilium," 1850, and his larger work, published in 1852,
are all standard authorities. It the latter, the theory of descent is ap-
plied to the vegetable world. Schimper and Mougeot's " Monograph
on the Fossil Plants of the Vosges," 1845, was well illustrated, and
contained noteworthy results.

Goppert in 1836 published a valuable memoir entitled " Systema
Filicum Fossilium," in which he made known the results of his study
of fossil ferns. In the same year, this botanist began a series of experi-
ments in which he attempted to imitate the process of fossilization, as
found in nature. He steeped various animal and vegetable substances
in waters holding, some calcareous, others siliceous, and others metal-

366 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

lie matter in solution. After a slow saturation, the substances were
dried, and exposed to heat until the organic matters were burned. In
this way Goppert successfully imitated various processes of petrifaction,
and explained many things in regard to fossils that had previously been
in question. His discovery of the remains of plants throughout the
interior of coal did much to clear up the doubts about the formation
of that substance. In 1841 Goppert published an important work in
which he compared the genera of fossil plants with those now living.
In 1852 another extensive work by this author appeared, entitled "Fos-
sile Flora des Uebergangs-Gebirges."

Andrae, Braun, Dunker, Ettingshausen, Geinitz, and Goldenberg,
all made notable contributions to fossil botany in Germany during the
period we are now considering.

The systematic study of invertebrate fossils, so admirably begun
by Lamarck, was continued actively in France. The Tertiary shells of
the Seine Valley were further investigated by Defrance, and especially
by Deshayes, whose great work on this subject was begun in 1824.*
Des Moulins's essay on " Spherulites " in 1826, Blainville's memoir on
" Belemnites " in 1827, Ferussac's various memoirs on land and fresh-
water fossil shells, were valuable additions to the subject. A later
work of great importance was D'Orbigny's " Paleontologie Fran9aise,"
1840-44, which described the mollusca and radiates in detail, accord-
ing to formations. The other publications of this author are both nu-
merous and valuable. Brongniart and Desmarest's " Histoire naturelle
des Crustaces Fossiles," published in 1822, is a pioneer work on this
subject. Michelin's memoir on the fossil corals of France, 1841-'46,
was another important contribution to paleontology. Agassiz's works
on fossil Echinoderms and Mollusks are valuable contributions to the
science. The works of D'Archiac, Coquand, Cotteau, Desor, Edwards,
Haime, and De Verneuil, are likewise of permanent value.

In Italy, Bellardi, Merian, Michellotti, Phillipi, Zigno, and others,
contributed important results to paleontology.

In Belgium, Bosquet, Nyst, Koninck, Ryckholt, Van Beneden, and
others have all aided materially in the progress of the science.

In England, also, invertebrate fossils were studied with care, and
continued progress was made. Sowerby's " Mineral Conchology of
Great Britain," in six volumes, a systematic work of great value, was
published in 1812-'30, and soon after was translated into French and
German. Its figures of fossil shells are excellent, and it is still a stand-
ard work. Miller's " Natural History of the Crinoidea," published at
Bristol, in 1821, and Austin's later monograph, are valuable for refer-
ence. Brown's " Fossil Conchology of Britain and Ireland " appeared
in 1839, and Brodie's " History of the Fossil Insects of England " in
1845. Phillips's illustration of the geology of Yorkshire, 1829-'36, and

* " Description des Coquilles Fossiles des Environs de Paris," 3 vols., Paris. 1824-'3'7.

PALEONTOLOGICAL DISCOVERY. 367

his work on the Palaeozoic fossils of Cornwall, Devonshire, and West
Somerset, 1843, contained a great deal of original matter in regard to
fossil remains. Morris's " Catalogue of British Fossils," issued in 1843,
and the later edition in 1854, is most useful to the working paleon-
tologist. The memoirs of Davidson on the Brachiopoda, Edwards,
Forbes, Morris, Lycett, Sharpe, and Wood on other Mollusca, Wright
on the Echinoderms, Salter on Crustacea, Busk on Polyzoa, Jones on
the Entomostraca, and Duncan and Lonsdale on Corals, are of especial
value. King's volume on Permian fossils, Mantell's various memoirs,
Dixon's work on the fossils of Sussex, 1850, and McCoy's works on
Palaeozoic fossils, all deserve honorable mention. Sedgwick, Murchi-
son, and Lyell, although their greatest services were in systematic
geology, each contributed important results to the kindred science of
paleontology during the period we are reviewing.

In Germany, Schlotheim's treatise, " Die Petrifactenkunde," pub-
lished at Gotha in 1820, did much to promote a general interest in
fossils. By far the most important work issued on this subject was
the " Petrifacta Germanica," by Goldfuss, in three folio volumes, 1826
-1844, which has lost little of its value. Bronn's " Geschichte der
Natur," 1841-'46, was a work of great labor, and one of the most use-
ful in the literature of this period. The author gave a list of all the
known fossil sj^ecies, with full references, and also their distribution
through the various formations. This gave exact data on which to
base generalizations, hitherto of comparatively little value.

Among other early works of interest in this department may be
mentioned Dalman's memoir on " Trilobites," 1828, and Burmeister's
on the same subject, 1843. Giebel's well-known " Fauna der Voi'welt,"
1847-56, gave lists of all the fossils described up to that time, and
hence is a very useful work. The " Lethrea Geognostica," by Bronn,
1834-'38, and the second edition by Bronn and Roemer, 1846-'56, is a
comprehensive general treatise on paleontology, and the most valuable
work of the kind yet published.

The researches of Ehrenberg, in regard to the lowest forms of ani-
mals and plants, threw much light on various points in paleontology,
and showed the origin of extensive deposits, the nature of which had
before been in doubt. Von Buch, Barrande, Beyrich, Berendt, Dun-
ker, Geinitz, Heer, Homes, Klipstein, Von Miinster, Reuss, Roemer,
Sandberger, Suess, Von Hagenow, Von Hauer, Zeiten, and many
others, all aided in the advancement of this branch of science. An-
gelin, Ilisinger, and Nilsson, in Scandinavia ; Abich, de Waldheim,
Eichwald, Keyserling, Kutorga, Nordmann, Pander, Rouillier, and
Volborth, in Russia ; and Pusch in Poland, piiblished important re-
sults on fossil invertebrates.

The impetus given by Cuvier to the study of vertebrate fossils
extended over Europe, and great efforts Avere made to continue dis-
coveries in the direction he had so admirably pointed out.

368 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Louis Agassiz (1807-1873), a pupil of Cuvier, and long an honored
member of this association, attained eminence in the study of ancient
as well as of recent life. His great work on Fossil Fishes * deserves
to rank next to Cuvier's " Ossemens Fossiles." The latter contained
mainly fossil mammals and reptiles, while the fishes were left without
an historian till Agassiz began his investigations. His studies had ad-
mirably fitted him for the task, and his industry brought together a
vast array of facts bearing on the subject. The value of this grand
work consists not only in its faithful descriptions and plates, but also
in the more profound results it contained. Agassiz fii-st showed that
there is a correspondence between the succession of fishes in the rocks
and their embryonal development. This is now thought to be one of
the strongest points in favor of evolution, although its discoverer inter-
preted the facts as bearing the other way.

Pander's memoirs on the fossil fishes of Russia form a worthy sup-
plement to Agassiz's classic work. Brandt's publications are likewise
of great value ; and those of Lund, in Sweden, have an especial inter-
est to Americans, in consequence of his researches in the caves of
Brazil.

Croizet and Jobert's "Recherches sur les Ossemens Fossiles du De-
partement du Puy-de-D6me," published in 1828, contained valuable
results in regard to fossil mammals. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire's researches
on fossil reptiles, published in 1831, were an important advance. De
Serres and De Christol's explorations in the caverns in the south of
France, published between 1829 and 1839, were of much value.
Schmerling's researches in the caverns of Belgium, published in 1833
-'36, were especially important on account of the discovery of human
remains mingled with those of extinct animals. Deslongchamp's me-
moii's on fossil reptiles, 1835, are still of great interest. Pictet's gen-
eral treatise on paleontology was a valuable addition to the literature,
and has done much to encourage the study of fossils.f De Blainville,
in his grand work, " Osteographie," issued in 1839-'56, brought to-
gether the remains of living and extinct vertebrates, forming a series
of the greatest value for study. Aymard and Pomel's contributions
to vertebrate paleontology are both of value. Gervais and Lartet
added much to our knowledge of the subject, and Bravard and He-
bert's memoirs are well known.

The brilliant discoveries of Cuvier in the Paris Basin excited great
interest in England, and, when it was found that the same Tertiary
strata existed in the south of England, careful search was made for
vertebrate fossils. Remains of some of the same genera described by
Cuvier were soon discovered, and other extinct animals new to science
were found in various parts of the kingdom. Konig, to whom we owe

* " Recherches sur Ics Poissons Fossiles," 1833-45.

f " Trait e Elemcntaire de Paleontologie," etc., Genera. 4 vols. 1844-46, second
edition, Paris, 1853-55.

PALEONTOLOGICAL DISCOVERY. 369

the name Ichthyosaurus, and Conybeare, who gave the generic desig-
nation Plesiosanrus, and also Mosasaurus, were among the earliest
writers in England on fossil reptiles. The discovery of these three
extinct types, and the discussion as to their nature form a most inter-
esting chapter in the annals of paleontology. The discovery of the
Iguanodon, by Mantell, and the Megcdosaurus, by Buckland, excited
still higher interest. These great reptiles differed much more widely
from living forms than the mammals described by Cuvier, and the pe-
riod in which they lived soon became known as the " age of Reptiles."
The subsequent researches of these authors added largely to the exist-
ing knowledge of various extinct forms, and their writings did much
to arouse public interest in the subject.

Richard Owen, a pupil of Cuvier, followed, and brought to bear
upon the subject an extensive knowledge of comparative anatomy, and
a wide acquaintance with existing forms. His contributions have en-
riched almost every department of paleontology, and of extinct verte-
brates especially, he has been, since Cuvier, the chief historian. The
fossil reptiles of England he has systematically described, as well as
those of South Africa. The extinct Struthious birds of New Zealand
he has made known to science, and accurately described in extended
memoirs. His researches on the fossil mammals of Great Britain, the
extinct Edentates of South America, and the ancient Marsupials of
Australia, each forms an important chapter in the history of our
science.

The personal researches of Falconer and Cautley in the Siwalik
Hills of India brought to light a marvelous vertebrate fauna of Plio-
cene age. The remains thus secured were made known in their great
work, " Fauna Antiqua Sivalensis," published at London in 1845. The
important contributions of Egerton to our knowledge of fossil fishes,
and Jardine's well-known work, " Ichnology of Annandale," also be-
long to this period.

The study of vertebrate fossils in Germany was prosecuted with
much success during the present period. Blumenbach, the ethnologist,
in several publications between 1803 and 1814, recorded valuable ob-
servations on this subject. In 1813 Summering gave an excellent
figure of a pterodactyl, which he named and described. Goldfuss's
researches on the fossil vertebrates from the caves of Germany, pub-
lished in 1820-23, made known the more important facts of that
interesting fauna. His later publications on extinct amphibians and
reptiles were also noteworthy. Jilger's investigations on the extinct
vertebrate fauna of Wurtemberg, published between 1824 and 1839,
were an important advance. To Plieninger's researches in the same
region, 1834-'44, we owe the discovery of the first Triassic mammal
[Microlesfes), as well as important information in regard to Labyrin-
thodonts. Kaup's researches on fossil mammals, 1832-'41, brought to
light many interesting forms, and to him we are indebted for the
VOL. XT:. — 24

370 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

generic name Dinotheriwn, and excellent descriptions of the remains
then known.

Count Miinster's " Beitrage zur Petrifactenkunde," published
1843-'46, contained several valuable papers on fossil vertebrates ; and
the separate papers by the same author are of interest. Andreas Wag-
ner wrote on Pterosaurians in 1837, and later gave the first description
of fossil mammals of the Tertiary of Greece, 1837-'40. Johannes Miil-
ler published an important illustrated work on the Zeuglodouts in 1849,
and various notable memoirs ; and Quenstedt interesting descriptions
of fossil reptiles, as well as other papers of much value. Riitimeyer's
suggestive memoirs are widely known.

Hermann von Meyer's contributions to vertebrate paleontology
are by far the most important published in Germany during the period
we are now considering. From 1830 his investigations on this sub-
ject were continuous for nearly forty years, and his various publica-
tions are all of value. His " Beitrage zur Petrifactenkunde," 1831-'33,
contains a series of valuable memoirs. His " PaliBologica," issued in
1832, includes a synopsis of the fossil vertebrates then known, with
much original matter. His great work, " Zur Fauna der Vorwelt,"
1845-'60, includes a series of monographs invaluable to the student of
vertebrate paleontology. This work, as well as his other chief publi-
cations, was illustrated with admirable plates from his own drawings.
Other memoirs by this author will be found in the *' Paheoutographi-
ca," of which he was one of the editors. In the many volumes of this
publication, which began in 1851, and is still continued, will be found
much to interest the investigator in any branch of paleontology.

The " PalfBontographical Society of London," established in 1847,
has also issued a series of volumes containing valuable memoirs in va-
rious branches of paleontology. These two publications together are
a storehouse of knowledge in regard to extinct forms of animal and
vegetable life.

It may be interesting here to note briefly the use of general terms
in paleontology, as the gradual progress of the science was indicated
to some extent in its terminology. At first, and for a long time, the
name "fossiP'' was appropriately used for objects dug from the earth,
both minerals and organic remains. The term " oryctology," having
essentially the same meaning, was also used for this branch of study.
For a long period, too, the termination ites {Xt^og, a stone) w\as applied
to fossils to distinguish them from the corresponding living forms ; as,
for instance, " ostracites,''^ used by Pliny. At a later date the general
name "figured stones" {lajyides Jigurati) was extensively used ; and, less
frequently, "deluge-stones" (Japides diluviani). The term "organ-
ized fossils " was used to distinguish fossils from minerals when the
real difference became known, although the name '•'■ rcliquim'''' was
sometimes employed. The term " petrifactions " {petHficata) was de-

PALEONTOLOGICAL DISCOVERY. 371

fined by John Gesner in his work on fossils in 1758, and was afterward
extensively used. Paleontology is comparatively a modern term, hav-
ing only come into use only within the last half century. It was intro-
duced about 1830, and soon was generally adopted in France and Eng-
land ; but in Germany it met with less favor, though used to some
extent.

It would be interesting, too, did time permit, to trace the various
opinions and superstitions held at different times in regard to some of
the more common fossils, for example the Ammonite or the Belem-
nite — of their supposed celestial origin ; of their use as medicine by
the ancients, and in the East to-day ; of their marvelous power as
charms among the Romans, and still among the American Indians. It
would be instructive, also, to compare the various views expressed by
students in science concerning some of the stranger extinct forms — for
instance, the Nummulites, among Protozoa ; the Rudistes, among Mol-
lusks ; or the Mosasaurus, among reptiles. Dissimilar as such views
were, they indicate in many cases gropings after truth — natural steps
in the increase of knowledge.

The third period in the history of paleontology, which, as I have
said, began with Cuvier and Lamarck at the beginning of the present
century, forms a natural epoch extending through six decades. The
definite characteristics of this period, as stated, were dominant during
all this time, and the progress of paleontology was commensurate with
that of intelligence and culture.

For the first half of this period, the mai-velous discoveries in the
Paris Basin excited astonishment and absorbed attention ; but the real
significance and value of the facts made known by Cuvier, Lamarck,
and William Smith were not appreciated. There was still a strong
tendency to regard fossils merely as interesting objects of natural his-
tory, as in the previous period, and not as the key to profounder prob-
lems in the earth's history. Many prominent geologists were still en-
deavoring to identify formations in different countries by their min-
eral characters rather than by the fossils imbedded in them. Such
names as " Old Red Sandstone " and " New Red Sandstone " were
given in accordance with this opinion. Humboldt, for example, at-
tempted to compare the formations of South America and Europe by
their mineral features, and doubted the value of fossils for this pur-
pose. In 1823 he wrote as follows : "Are we justified in concluding
that all formations are characterized by particular species ? that the
fossil shells of the chalk, the muschelkalk, the Jura limestone, and the
Alpine limestones are all different ? I think this would be pushing the
induction much too far." * Jameson still thought minerals more im-
portant than fossils for characterizing formations ; while Bakewell,
later yet, defines paleontology as comprising " fossil zoology and fossil
* "Essai Geognostiquc sur le Gisement des Eoches," p. 41.

372 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

botany, a knowledge of which may appear to the student as having
little connection with geology."

During the later half of the third period, greater progress was
made, and before its close geology was thoroughly established as a
science. Let us consider for a moment what had really been accom-
plished up to this time.

It had now been proved beyond question that portions at least of
the earth's surface had been covered many times by the sea, with alter-
nations of fresh water and of land ; that the strata thus deposited
were formed in succession, the lowest of the series being the oldest ;
that a distinct succession of animals and plants had inhabited the earth
during the different geological periods ; and that the order of succes-
sion found in one part of the earth was essentially the same in all.
More than 30,000 new species of extinct animals and plants had now
been described. It had been found, too, that from the oldest forma-
tions to the most recent, there had been an advance in the grade of
life, both animal and vegetable, the oldest forms being among the sim-
plest, and the higher forms successivelj'^ making their appearance.

It had now become clearly evident, moreover, that the fossils from
the older formations were all extinct species, and that only in the most
recent deposits were there remains of forms still living. The equally
important fact had been established that in several groups of both
animals and plants the extinct forms were vastly more numerous than
the living, while several orders of fossil animals had no representa-
tives in modern times. Human remains had been found mingled with
those of extinct animals, but the association was regarded as an acci-
dental one by the authorities in science ; and the very recent appear-
ance of man on the earth was not seriously questioned. Another im-
portant conclusion reached, mainly through the labors of Lyell, was,
that the earth had not been subjected in the past to sudden and vio-
lent revolutions ; but the great changes wrought had been gradual, dif-
fering in no essential respect from those still in progress. Strangely
enough, the corollary to this proposition, that life, too, had been con-
tinuous on the earth, formed at that date no part of the common stock
of knowledge.

In the physical world the great law of " correlation of forces "
had been announced and widely accepted ; but, in the organic world,
the dogma of the miraculous creation of each separate species still held
sway, almost as completely as when Linnfeus declared, " There are as
many different species as there were different forms created in the
beginning by the Infinite Being." But the dawn of a new era was
already breaking, and the third period of paleontology we may con-
sider now at an end.

Just twenty years ago, science had reached a point when the belief
in " special creations " was undermined by well-established facts, slowly

PALEONTOLOGICAL DISCOVERY. 373

accumulated. The time was ripe. Many naturalists were working at
the problem, convinced that evolution was the key to the present and
the past. But how had Nature brought this change about ? While
others pondered, Darwin spoke the magic words — " natural selection^'''
and a new epoch in science began.

The fourth period in the history of paleontology dates from this
time, and is the period of to-day. One of the main characteristics of
this epoch is the belief that all life, living and extinct, has been evolved
from simple forms. Another prominent feature is the accepted fact
of the great antiquity of the human race. These are quite sufficient to
distinguish this period sharply from those that preceded it.

The publication of Charles Darwin's work on the " Origin of Spe-
cies," November, 1859, at once aroused attention, and started a revo-
lution which has already in the short space of two decades changed
the whole course of scientific thought. The theory of " natural selec-
tion," or, as Spencer has happily termed it, the " survival of the
fittest," had been worked out independently by Wallace, who justly
shares the honor of the discovery. We have seen that the theory of
evolution was pi'oposed and advocated by Lamarck, but he was before
his time. The anonymous author of the " Vestiges of Creation," which
appeared in 18^4, advocated a somewhat similar theory, which attracted
much attention, but the belief that species were immutable was not
sensibly affected until Darwin's work apj^eai'ed.

The difference between Lamarck and Darwin is essentially this :
Lamarck proposed the theory of evolution ; Darwin changed this into
a doctrine, which is now guiding the investigations in all departments
of biology. Lamarck failed to realize the importance of time, and the
interaction of life on life. Darwin, by combining these influences with
those also suggested by Lamarck, has shown hoio the existing forms
on the earth may have been derived from those of the past.

This revolution has influenced paleontology as extensively as any
other department of science, and hence the new period we are discuss-
ing. In the last epoch, species were represented independently, by
parallel lines ; in the present period, they are indicated by dependent,
branching lines. The former was the analytic, the latter is the syn-
thetic period. To-day, the animals and plants now living are believed
to be genetically connected with those of the distant past ; and the
paleontologist no longer deems species of the first importance, but
seeks for relationships and genealogies, connecting the past with the
present. Working in this spirit, and with such a method, the advance
during the last decade has been great, and is an earnest of w^hat is yet
to come.

The progress of paleontology in Great Britain during the present
period has been great, and the general interest in the science much
extended. The views of Darwin soon found acceptance here. Next

374 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY .

to his discovery of "natural selection," Darwin was fortunate in
having so able and bold an expounder as Huxley, who was one of the
first to adopt his theory and give it a vigorous support. Huxley's
masterly researches have been of great benefit to all departments of
biology, and his contributions to paleontology are invaluable. Among
the latter, his original investigations on the relations of birds and rep-
tiles are especially noteworthy. His various memoirs on extinct rep-
tiles, amphibians, and fishes belong to the permanent literature of the
subject. The important researches of Owen on the fossil vertebrates
have been continued to the present time. He has added largely to his
previous publications on the British fossil reptiles, birds, and mam-
mals, the extinct reptiles of South Africa, and the Jjost-Tertiary birds
of New Zealand. His description of the ArchcmpUryx, near the begin-
ning of the period, was a most welcome contribution.

The investigations of Egerton on fossil fishes have likewise been
continued with important results. Busk, Dawkins, Flower, and San-
ford have made valuable contributions to the history of fossil mam-
mals. Bell, Giinther, Hulke, Lankester, Newton, Powrie, Miall, Tra-
quair, and Seely have made notable additions to our knowledge of
reptiles, amphibians, and fishes. Among invertebrates, the Crustacea
have been especially studied by Jones, Salter, and Woodward. Da-
vidson, Etheridge, Lycett, Morris, Phillips, Wood, and Wright have
continued their researches on the mollusks ; Duncan, Nicholson, and
others have investigated the extinct corals ; and Binney, Carruthers,
and Williamson the fossil plants. Numei'ous other important contri-
butions have been made to the science in Great Britain during the
present period.

On the Continent the advance in paleontology has, during the last
two decades, been equally great. In France, Gervais continued his
memoirs on extinct vertebrates nearly to the present date ; while
Gaudry has published several volumes on the subject that are models
for all students of the science. His work on the fossil animals of
Greece is a perfect monograph of its kind, and his later publications
are all of importance. Lartet's various works are of permanent value,
and his application of paleontology to archreology brought notable
results. The volume of Alphonse Milne-Edwards on fossil Crustacea
was a fit supplement to Brongniart and Desmarest's well-known work ;
while his grand memoir on fossil birds deserves to rank with the
classic volumes of Cuvier. Duvernoy, Filhol, Hebert, Sauvage, and
others have also published interesting results on fossil vertebrates.

Van Beneden's researches on the fossil vertebrates of Belgium
have produced results of great value. Pictet, Riitimeyer, and Wie-
dersheim in Switzerland ; Bianconi, Carnalia, Forsyth-Major, and Sis-
monda in Italy ; and Nodot in Spain, have likewise published impor-
tant memoirs. The extinct vertebrates have been studied in Germany
by Von Meyer, Carus, Fraas, Giebel, Ileckel, Ilaase, Hensel, Kayser,

PALEONTOLOGICAL DISCO VERY.

375

Kner, Ludwig, Peters, Portis, Maack, Salenka, Zittel, and many oth-
ers ; in Holland by Winkler ; in Denmark by Reinhardt ; and in Rus-
sia by Brandt and Kowalewsky.

The fossil invertebrates have been investigated with care by D'Ar-
chiac, D'Orbigny, Bayle, Fromentel, Oustalet, and others in France ;
Desor, Loriol, Mayer, Ooster, and Roux in Switzerland ; Capellini,
Massalongo, Michellotti, Meneghini, and Sismonda in Italy ; Barrande,
Benecke, Beyrich, Dames, Dorn, Ehlers, Geinitz, Giebel, Gilmbel,
Feistmantel, Hagen, Von Hauer, Von Heyden, Von Fritsch, Laube,
Oppel, Quenstedt, Roemer, Schliiter, Suess, Speyer, and Zittel in Ger-
many. The fossil plants have been studied in these countries by Mas-
salongo, Saporta, Zigno, Fiedler, Goldenberg, Gehler, Heer, Goppert,
Ludwig, Schimper, Schenk, and many others.

Among the recent researches in paleontology in other regions may
be mentioned those of Blanford, Feistmantel, Lydekker, and Stoliczka
in India ; Haast and Hector in New Zealand ; and Krefft and McCoy
in Australia — all of whom have published valuable results.

Of the progress of paleontology in America I have thus far said
nothing, and I need now say but little, as many of you are doubtless
familiar with its main features. During the first and second periods
in the history of paleontology, as I have defined them, America, for
most excellent reasons, took no part. In the present century, during
the third period, appear the names of Bigsby, Green, Morton, Mitchell,
Rafinesque, Say, and Troost, all of whom deserve mention. More
recently the researches of Conrad, Dana, Deane, DeKay, Emmons,
Gibbes, Hitchcock, Holmes, Lea, McChesney, Owen, Redfield, Rogers,
Rominger, Shumard, Swallow, and many others have enlarged our
knowledge of the fossils of this country.

The contributions of James Hall to the invertebrate paleontology
of this country form the basis of our present knowledge of the subject.
The extensive labors of Meek in the same department are likewise
entitled to great credit, and will form an impoitant chapter in the his-
torj^ of the science. The memoirs of Billings, Gabb, Scudder, White,
and Whitfield are numerous and important ; and the publications of
Derby, Hartt, Hyatt, James, Miller, Shaler, Rathbun, Vogdes, Whit-
eaves, and Winchell, are also of value. To Dawson, Lesquereux, and
Newberry we mainly owe our present knowledge of the fossil plants
of this country.

The foundation of our vertebrate paleontology was laid by Leidy,
whose contributions have enriched nearly every department of the
subject. The numerous publications of Cope are well known. Agas-
siz, Allen, Baird, Dawson, Deane, DeKay, Emmons, Gibbes, Harlan,
Hitchcock, Jefferson, Lea, Le Conte, Newberry, Redfield, St. John,
Warren, Whitney, Worthen, Wyman, and others have all added to
our knowledge of American fossil vertebrates. The chief results in

3/6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

this department of oui* subject I have ah-eacly laid before you on a
previous occasion, and hence need not dwell upon them here.

In this rapid sketch of the history of paleontology I have thought
it best to speak of the earlier periods more in detail, as they are less
generally known, and especially as they indicate the growth of the sci-
ence, and the obstacles it had to surmount. With the present work in
paleontology, moreover, you are all more or less familiar, as the results
are now part of the current literature. To assign every important dis-
covery to its author would have led me far beyond my present plan.
I have only endeavored to indicate the growth of the science by citing
the more prominent works that mark its progress, or illustrate the
prevailing opinions and state of knowledge at the time they were
written.

In considering what has been accomplished, directly or indirectly,
it is well to bear in mind that without paleontology there would have
been no science of geology. The latter science originated from the
study of fossils, and not the reverse, as generally supposed. Paleon-
tology, therefore, is not a mere branch of geology, but the foundation
on which that science mainly rests. This fact is a sufficient excuse,
if one were wanting, for noting the early opinions in regard to the
changes of the earth's surface, as these changes were first studied to
explain the position of fossils. The investigation of the latter first
led to theories of the earth's formation, and thus to geology. When
speculation replaced observation, fossils were discarded, and for a
time the mineral characters of strata were thought to be the key to
their position and age. For some time after this, geologists, as we
have seen, apologized for using fossils to determine formations, but
for the last half century their value for this purpose has been fully rec-
ognized.

The services which paleontology has rendered to botany and zool-
ogy are less easy to estimate, but are very extensive. The classifica-
tion of these sciences has been rendered much more complete by the
intercalation of many intermediate forms. The probable origin of
various living species has been indicated by the genealogies suggested
by extinct types ; while our knowledge of the geographical distribu-
tion of animals and plants at the present day has been greatly im-
proved by the facts brought out in regard to the former disti-ibution
of life on the globe.

Among the vast number of new species which have been added are
the representatives of a number of new orders entirely unknown among
living forms. The distribution of these extinct orders among the
different classes is interesting, as they are mainly confined to the
higher gi'oups. Among the fossil plants no new orders have yet been
found. There are none known among the Protozoa or the Mollusca.
The Radiates have been enriched by the extinct orders of Blastoidea,

PALEONTOLOGICAL DISCOVERY. 377

Cystidea, and Edrioasterida ; and the Crustaceans by the Eurypterida
and Trilobita. Among the vertebrates, no extinct order of fossil
fishes has yet been found ; but the amphibians have been enlarged by
the important order Labyrinthodonta. The greatest additions have
been among the reptiles, where the majority of the orders are extinct.
Here we have at the present date the Ichthyosauria, Sauranodontia,
Plesiosauria, and Mosasauria, among the marine forms ; the Pterosau-
ria, including the Pteranodontia, containing the flying forms ; and the
Dinosauria, including the Sauropoda — the giants among reptiles ; like-
wise the Dicynodontia, and probably the Theriodontia, among the ter-
restrial forms. Although but few fossil birds have been found below
the Tertiary, we have already among the Mesozoic forms three new
orders : the Saurura?, represented by Archceopteryx ; the Odontotor-
moB, with Ichtliyornis as the type ; and the Odontolca;, based upon
Ilesperornis ; all of these orders being included in the sub-class Odont-
ornithes, or toothed birds. Among mammals, the new groups re-
garded as orders are the Toxodontia and the Dinocerata, among the
Ungulates ; and the Tillodontia, including strange Eocene mammals
whose exact affinities are yet to be determined.

Among the important results in vertebrate paleontology, are the
genealogies, made out with considerable probability, for various exist-
ing animals. Many of the larger mammals have been traced back
through allied forms in a closely connected series to early Tertiary
times. In several cases the series are so complete that there can be
little doubt that the line of descent has been established. The evolu-
tion of the horse, for example, is to-day demonstrated by the speci-
mens noAv known. The demonstration in one case stands for all. The
evidence in favor of the genealogy of the horse now rests on the same
foundation as the proof that any fossil bone once formed part of the
skeleton of a living animal. A special creation of a single bone is
as probable as the special creation of a single species. The method
of the paleontologist in the investigation of the one is the method
for the other. The only choice lies between natural derivation and
supern atural creation.

For such reasons it is now regarded among the active workers in
science as a waste of time to discuss the truth of evolution. The
battle on this point has been fought and won.

The geographical distribution of animals and plants, as well as
their migrations, has received much new light from paleontology.
The fossils found in some natural divisions of the earth are related
so closely to the forms now living there, that a genetic connection
between them can hardly be doubted. The extinct Marsupials of
Australia and the Edentates of South America are well-known ex-
amples. The Pliocene hippopotami of Asia and the south of Eu-

378 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

rope point directly to migrations from Africa. Other similar exam-
ples are numerous. The fossil plants of the Arctic region prove the
existence of a climate there far milder than at present, and recent
researches at least render more probable the suggestion, made long
ago by Buffon, in his " Epochs of Nature," that life began in the polar
regions, and by successive migrations from them the continents were
peopled.

The great services which comparative anatomy rendered to paleon-
tology at the hands of Cuvier, Agassiz, Owen, and others have been
amply repaid. The solution of some of the most difficult problems
in anatomy has received scarcely less aid from the extinct forms
discovered than from embryology ; and the two lines of research
supplement each other. Our present knowledge of the vertebrate
skull, the limb-arches, and the limbs, has been much enlarged by
researches in paleontology. On the other hand, the recent labors of
Gegenbaur, Huxley, Parker, Balfour, and Thacher will make clear
many obscure points in ancient life.

One of the important results of recent paleontological research is
the law of brain-growth, found to exist among extinct mammals,
and to some extent in other vertebrates. • According to this law, as
I have briefly stated it elsewhere, " all Tertiary mammals had small
brains. There was, also, a gradual increase in the size of the brain
during this period. This increase was confined mainly to the cerebral
hemispheres, or higher portions of the brain. In some groups, the
convolutions of the brain have gradually become more complicated.
In some, the cerebellum and the olfactory lobes have even diminished
in size." More recent researches render it probable that the same gen-
eral law of brain-growth holds good for birds and reptiles from the
Mesozoic to the present time. The Cretaceous birds, that have been
investigated with reference to this point, had brains only about one
third as large in proportion as those nearest allied among living
species. The Dinosaurs from our Western Jurassic follow the same
law, and had brain-cavities vastly smaller than any existing reptiles.
Many other facts point in the same direction, and indicate that the
general law will hold good for all extinct vertebrates.

Paleontology has rendered great service to the more recent science
of archaeology. At the beginning of the present period, a reexamina-
tion of the evidence in regard to the antiquity of the human race was
going on, and important results were soon attained. Evidence in
favor of the presence of man on the earth at a period far earlier than
the accepted chronology of six thousand years would imply, had been
gradually accumulating, but had been rejected from time to time by
the highest authorities. In 1823, Cuvier, Brongniart, and Buckland,
and later, Lyell, refused to admit that human relics, and the bones of
extinct animals found with them, were of the same geological age,

PALE ON TO LOGICAL DISCOVERY. 379

although experienced geologists, such as Boue and others, had been
convinced by collecting them. Christol, Serres, and Tournal, in
France, and Schraerling in Belgium, had found human remains in
caves, associated closely with those of various extinct mammals, and
other similar facts were on record.

Boucher de Perthes, in 1841, began to collect stone implements in
the gravels of the valley of the Somme, and in 1847 published the
first volume of his " Antiquites Celtiques." In this work he described
the specimens he had found, and asserted their great antiquity. The
facts as presented, however, were not generally accepted. Twelve
years later. Falconer, Evans, and Prestwich examined the same locali-
ties with care, became convinced, and the results were published in
1859 and 1860. About the same time, Gaudry, Hebert, and Desno-
yers also explored this valley, and announced that the stone imple-
ments there were as ancient as the mammoth and rhinoceros found
with them. Explorations in the Swiss lakes and in the Danish shell-
heaps added new testimony bearing in the same direction. In 1863
appeared Lyell's work on the " Geological Evidences of the Antiquity
of Man," in which facts were brought together from various parts of
the world, proving beyond question the great age of the human race.

The additional proof since brought to light has been extensive,
and is still rapidly increasing. The Quaternary age of man is now
generally accepted. Attempts have recently been made to approxi-
mate in years the time of man's first appearance on the earth. One
high authority has estimated the antiquity of man merely to the last
glacial epoch of Europe as 200,000 years ; and those best qualified
to judge would, I think, regard this as a fair estimate.

Important evidence has likewise been adduced of man's existence
in the Tertiary, both in Europe and America. The evidence to-day is
in favor of the presence of man in the Pliocene of this country. The
proof offered on this point by Professor J. D. Whitney in his recent
work* is so strong, and his careful, conscientious method of investiga-
tion so well known, that his conclusions seem irresistible. \Yhether
the Pliocene strata he has explored so fully on the Pacific coast corre-
sponds strictly with the deposits which bear this name in Europe, may
be a question requiring further consideration. At present, the known
facts indicate that the American beds containing human remains and
works of man are as old as the Pliocene of Europe. The existence of
man in the Tertiary period seems now fairly established.

In looking back over the history of paleontology, much seems to
have been accomplished ; and yet the work has but just begun. A
small fraction only of the earth's surface has been examined, and two
large continents are waiting to be explored. The " imperfection of the
geological record," so often cited by friends and foes, still remains,
* " Auriferous Gravels of the Sierra Nevada of California," 1879.

38o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

although much improved ; but the future is full of promise. In filling
out this record, America, I believe, will do her full share, and thus aid
in the solution of the great problems now before us.

I have endeavored to define clearly the different periods in the his-
tory of paleontology. If I may venture, in conclusion, to characterize
the present period in all departments of science, its main feature
would be a belief in universal laws. The reign of Law, first recog-
nized in the physical world, has now been extended to Life as well.
In return, Life has given to inanimate Nature the key to her pro-
founder mysteries — Evolution, which embraces the universe.

What is to be the main characteristic of the next period ? No one
now can tell. But, if we are permitted to continue in imagination the
rapidly converging lines of research pursued to-day, they seem to meet
at the point where organic and inorganic nature become one. That
this point will yet be reached, I can not doubt.

INTEROCEANIC CANAL EOUTES.*

By CHAELES DE FOURCY, C. E.

INSTEAD of delaying the discussion by a series of resolutions, I
ask your permission to develop, at some length, the question as it
strikes me in its entirety ; and, that you may know the drift of my
argument, I will begin by stating the conclusion at which I have
arrived, viz., that the Interoceanic Canal should be constructed in
the Isthmus of Panama, between the Bay of Colon and the Gulf of
Panama. This canal, using merely the water of the ocean, should
h.ave no appreciable current, and it should be of the same level as the
average tide in the Bay of Colon, where the rise and fall are hardly
perceptible. To show you why I am firmly convinced of this, I will
enter with some detail into the labors of your second sub-committee,
over which I had the honor of presiding, and of which you warmly
received the report presented by M. Voisin Bey. The report of this
sub-committee, which is to be printed, will show you how impartially,
with what scrupulous care, with what exhaustive discussion, and finally
with what unanimity its decisions were taken. I am wrong in saying
decisions, for none were taken. Of every one of the plans submitted
then to its examination, and now to your vote, it showed lap the ad-
vantages and the difficulties, the strong and the weak side ; it prepared
no form of resolution, giving to each of its members full liberty to ex-
press an opinion, as you can now. It is therefore in my personal name

* The Interoceanic Canal. Speech delivered by M. Charles de Fourcy before the
Technique Committee of the Paris International Congress, on May 28, 1879.

INTEROCEANIG CANAL ROUTES. 381

and on my own responsibility that I offer you my solution and the
following explanations.

I shall examine successively the various plans for lock-canals, show-
ing which one seems to me to be the best, if such a system should be
regarded as most advantageous.

I shall compare, in the same way, the projects for a tide-level canal.
Finally, I shall compare the best plan for a lock canal with the best
one for a tide-level canal.

[Peixcipal Projected Routes of the Interoceanic Canal ex-
amined BY THE International Congress, (See map on the follow-
ing page.)

1. Plan hy the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Length, 148 miles ; num-
ber of locks, 120 ; time for passage, twelve days.

2. Plan by the Lake of Nicaragua. Length, 180 miles; number
of locks, 17 ; time for passage, four and a half days.

3. Pkm for Level-water and Deep-cut Canal by the Isthmus of
Panama. Length, 45 miles ; time for passage, two days.

4. Plan by the Isthmus of San Bias. Length, 33 miles ; time for
passage, one day,

5. Plan by Atrato-Napipi. Length, 179 miles ; number of locks,
3 ; time for passage, three days. — Editor.]

Comparison of the Different Plans for a Lock-Canal. — I shall
at once refuse a canal by the line of Tehuantepec, although it seems to
me to be one of the easiest to be constructed : but it would demand a
great number of locks ; the passage through it would take a great deal
of time comparatively ; and, moreover, the canal would pass through a
country which, from the unstable nature of the soil, is very undesirable
for such a work. We have been told, I am aware, that these " move-
ments," which I hardly dare to call earthquakes, were not to be feared ;
that during these " movements," to which the inhabitants of the coun-
try are well accustomed, sometimes in the walls of houses and of pub-
lic buildings, cracks would appear wide enough for the light to be
seen through them, but soon these cracks would be closed to crevices,
mere lines, and that then the buildings threatened for the time would
again become solid until there was a new " movement." These expla-
nations do not entirely satisfy me, and I admit that such possibilities
seem to me very objectionable for a canal with locks ; simple crevices
in the lateral walls, especially in the raised portions, would seriously
compromise the working of the gates, and might necessitate, when
least expected, long and costly repairs, and, what is more serious still,
interrupt for a number of days, entire months perhaps, the passage of
ships. Can one, therefore, readily imagine what would happen if
fleets of vessels, becoming more numerous every day, should find them-
selves stopped in their passage, some on the Pacific and others on the
Atlantic side, and compelled, in order to reach their destination, to
continue their journey by Cape Horn or the Straits of Magellan, to

382

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

INTEROGEANIC CANAL ROUTES. 383

■which they were no longer accustomed ? What would then become
of the insurance which had been arranged for the expected passage
through a canal which was no longer of any use ?

If, in speaking of Tehuantepec, which line, however, is no longer
thought of for a canal, I have somewhat enlarged on the inconven-
iences which would arise from earthquakes, it is because they also ap-
pear to me to apply to the canal by Nicaragua, and to put it out of
consideration, even were thei'e no other reasons.

Let us look, all the same, at other contingencies which are notice-
able at Nicaragua.

It would be a long and difficult task to actually begin the work,
because, before the great dockyards of the canal could be built, it
would be necessary to make a harbor at Greytown, the success of
which does not appear to be assured, and which at any rate would be
very expensive.

Starting at this harbor, the canal, when leaving the San Juan River,
would for sevei-al kilometres be suspended over the valley by immense
dikes holding continuously a weight of water 8*50 metres high. There
the slightest leak would become a breach, any breach a serious rupture,
and any rupture a complete disaster. At what possible expense could
the absolute security of these great dikes be assured ?

To continue : we enter the San Juan River, kept in bounds by a
large dam, which, however, is not enough to assure everywhere suffi-
cient deptli of water in the shallowest parts ; where there is not
depth enough it would be necessary to blow up or excavate by dredges
a channel one hundred metres wide by eight and a half meti'es deep.
To make this channel would be difficult, to maintain it against what
would constantly come in to fill it up might be still more so.

Let us go on until we reach the lake ; here comes another difficulty.
At the place where the San Juan leaves it, other torrents bring sand
into it, and also mud to a considerable extent. A new bar would have
to be dredged, but probably only for a time ; a channel would have
to be kept open in an immense sliding sand-bank by very long and
costly dikes, an objection which does not seem to have been provided
for in any of the plans offered.

The passage of the lake seems easy ; the cut to be made to reach
the Pacific offers no remarkable difficulties \ but this descent, on ac-
count of its short length, can only be done by locks close together,
and locks so arranged offer for a quick movement of vessels serious
objections, and necessitate a considerable loss of time.

Without dwelling too much on this subject, let us be content to
take as an example the Caledonian Canal. In visiting it some years
ago, as an engineer and a tourist, I was struck at seeing that, to avoid
passing through it, a reshipment was considered preferable. I have said
enough to show my reasons for refusing to accept the Nicaragua plan.

Next comes the project by Panama with locks. Here, as if

384

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

INTEROCEANIC CANAL ROUTES. 385

Nature herself had wished to get ready foi' man's work, the soil, as at
Darien, has for a long time been free from earthquakes. The study
for a lock-canal was made in 1845 by Garella, Engineer-in-Chief of
Mines, sent there on a mission by the French Government. I desire
to bring to your attention this name, which has been too much forgot-
ten, because this mission, courageously and conscientiously performed,
honors not only the man who carried it out, but also the administration
which confided it to him, and because his splendid studies seem still
to be the best that have been made there, and which should now be
taken, in part at least, if it should be desirable to connect the two
oceans by a lock-canal.

Condensing this too long expose of the situation, I conclude by
saying that, of all the lock-canals studied or proposed, the least ob-
jectionable is that which would go from the Bay of Limon to the
Gulf of Panama.*

Comparison of the Tide-level Canals. — Let us now examine
the different plans for level-water canals which have been presented to
our consideration.

The one which is called Atrato-Napipi would have our entire sym-
pathy if we could thus adequately express our appreciation of the
devotion of Commander Selfridge, who for several years has been
exploring that part of the country, so wild and difficult of access ; and
yet, interesting as this plan seems to be, we must absolutely refuse to
accept it.

The Atrato is neither the Mississippi nor the Amazon, but it is,
nevertheless, a very powerful river, with heavy, overflows, which bring
to its mouth immense deposits, forming a great bar. To make arti-
ficially across this bar, and to keep it always open, a channel wide
enough and deep enough for the largest vessels, is a very great under-
taking, the success of which, however, should not be regarded as im-
possible or even as improbable. But still there is no instance of a
work of such importance, and we find ourselves facing a problem the
solution of which — a very laborious and very expensive matter — is by
no means certain.

With such an obstacle before us, and with no certainty of over-
coming it, would it be prudent to undertake a canal, the expense of
which is estimated at more than eleven hundred million francs ?

On the other hand, the canal, properly considered, would be on the
Pacific side a branch of the Atrato, and, to a great degree, unless it
was entirely shut off by a sluice-gate, subjected to the variations of the
Atrato. Would it be, moreover, easy to keep up, where it branches
from the river, a channel with a depth always assured of eight and a
half metres ? Would not the point of branching, under any circum-
stances, be liable to be filled up with sand, which doubtless it would
be difficult and expensive to keep continually removed ?
* This also is the plan recommended by General Tottcn.
VOL. XTI. — 25

386 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

While keeping honorably the name of Commander Selfridge in our
thoughts, with all regret we must put out of sight a plan the success
of which is at best doubtful, while its cost would be relatively enor-
mous.

Shall we now take up the San Bias project ? This line is the short-
est which joins the two oceans, but to carry it out a harbor must be
built on the Atlantic, and then you soon find yourself facing a moun-
tain-chain which has to be passed by a tunnel sixteen kilometres long ;
next you come to the Bayano, with elbows in its course too square to
be straightened out, and a bar also on the Pacific side, which it is not
certain could be mastered. The expense calculated for all this is four-
teen hundred million francs.

The plan of a tunnel does not frighten M. Favre,* the contractor
of the one through the St. Gothard Mountain, nor would it frighten
me, especially if he were willing to undertake it ; but shipmasters do
not take kindly to so long a passage without fresh air and the light of
day ; and, although it is proposed to give electric light instead, which
will be as bright as day, there would still be an unconquerable antipa-
thy against this project.

For these reasons I decline to accept the San Bias plan, which,
moreover, has only been hastily surveyed, and it is possible that a more
careful examination of it would bring to light other difliculties of which
we are not now cognizant.

Therefore, throwing out other plans, we find ourselves in a position
to examine the j^roject of a tide-level canal from Colon (Aspinwall) to
Panama, a project which has been so patiently and courageously ex-
plored and worked out by Messrs. Wyse and Reclus, lieutenants of
the French navy.

This plan demands two changes, important and absolutely neces-
sary, the success of which, while not easy, seems to me perfectly
certain.

In the first place, a large part of the ship-canal must be made in the
valley of the river Chagres, a river so inconvenient and dangerous
that we must have nothing to do with it, at no matter what cost, if we
desire that the canal should have a regular water-level — a condition
absolutely necessaiy for its success.

For this, two plans offer themselves. The first is to keep the canal
above any possibilities of overflow. Theoretically, nothing is easier ;
the railroad, now in operation between Colon (Aspinwall) and Panama,
which the canal should follow, and as near as possible, is above the over-
flow of the Chagres. By prolonging the level of this roadway to the
sides of the valley a winding line would be traced, bringing us to the
place beyond which the canal can be constructed, without danger from

* This great engineer died at his post in the St. Gothard Tunnel, from a stroke of apo-
plexy, a short time after the adjournment of the Paris Congress, of which he was one of
the most valued members.

INTEROCEANIC CANAL ROUTES. 387

the highest overflow of the water ; but this line will, doubtless, be too
tortuous to enable one to follow it correctly, or to be always above it ;
one should, in order to obtain reasonably straight lines, or curves not
too sharp, bring the canal partially to the Thahceg of the valley ; it
will therefore be necessary at several places to change the bed of the
Chagres, the bends of which multiplied would encroach upon the route
of the canal. But the land, coming from this partial changing of the
line, as well as that which would come from digging out the canal
itself, turned up to a moderate height, quite equal to the corresponding
height of the embankment of the railroad, would make a dike which
the water of the Chagres could not pass over. At the place where the
line of the canal will necessarily cross the bed of the Chagres to fall
into the Bay of Limon, the Chagres will be turned from its course to
allow the canal to pass at its left.

On the other bank the river Trinidad, a left tributary of the Chagres,
would be, on the contrary, kept on the right side of the canal, and, by
means of an easy change of its course, would flow in the actual bed of
the Chagres to that very river to the north of Limon Bay, taking there-
fore, to become itself a river, the river of which it was only a tributary.
AVhat, then, would be the expense of this radical change ? We have
not at hand all the details necessary to calculate it ; but, allowing an
expense of fifty million francs for this work, we think it would amply
be provided for.

But, should this plan not prove successful, there is another suggest-
ed by Messrs. Wyse and Reclus, which is also perfectly feasible, and
the expense of which can be more closely calculated. This is, to build
over Cruces an immense reservoir, capable of holding more than six
hundred cubic metres of water — that is to say, more than the volume of
water which could possibly be formed during several days of the great-
est overflows of the Chagres, which, we are told, amount to occasional-
ly, but for a very short time, twelve hundred cubic metres a second.
This work would cost twenty-five million francs, but it would free us
from all apprehension of the devastation occasioned by this river, which
at times becomes a torrent, for the letting it off under the reservoir
would be done gradually and without danger into a bed arranged be-
forehand, leaving the canal always on the left. For opening this bed,
which would not at all be the same one as that of the Chagres, for
straightening it at different places, and for doing the same for the
river Trinidad, seventeen million francs should amply suffice.

Freed, therefore, from all fear, nothing more remains but to regu-
late, I can say even to a few centimetres, the height of the water in the
ship-canal ; and then comes in the second change that we suggest to
the plan of Messrs. Wyse and Reclus, which is, merely to provide
against the occasionally very rapid currents which would come from
the great rise and fall of the tide on the Pacific, which sometimes
amount to six metres. This can easily be managed by a tide-barrier

388 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

in such a way that the level of the water in the canal will be regulated
by that of the Atlantic, which varies but very little.

With these two modifications that we have pointed out to the plan
of Messrs. Wyse and Reclus, and in fixing at four kilometres the great-
est length of the tunnel — which can probably be reduced in length
when the work is actually in hand, and perhaps be entirely done away
with by a deep cut — your first sub-committee, over-estimating perhaps
the expense calculated, brings the sum total to somewhat less than
eleven hundred million francs, including the interest on the capital
embarked during the time of construction, and the working expenses
capitalized at five per cent. I feel confident that this figure will not
be exceeded, and I am even confident that it will not be reached. In-
deed, it is well known that the building of the railroad from Colon
(Aspinwall) to Panama did not cost much more than such a work
would had it been done in Europe ; and here we shall have to aid us
in putting up the great workshops of the canal, at short notice, a rail-
road already built, which is in excellent running order from one end
to the other, and has a good harbor on either side.

I have said enough to show, I think — and here is the second point
in the programme of my address — that, whatever may be the plan
adopted, canal with locks or canal on a tide-level, it is from the Bay
of Colon to the Gulf of Panama that it should go.

Comparison of the Tide-level Canal with the Lock-Canal. —
Let us now compare the relative advantages of these two systems. In
a technical point of view the preceding discussion would seem to make
any further development superfluous. Moreover, have we not heard, in
the first sittings of the committee, M. Cotard himself, an advocate, I be-
lieve, of the former system, declare without contradiction that, if the
tide-level canal was possible and could be made to pay, it would be
preferable to one with locks ? Have we not heard and applauded the
report of M. Fontane, the General Secretary of the Suez Canal Com-
pany, in which he tells you, in behalf of the Committee on Statistics,
of which he is a member, that a tide-level canal is the only one that
can supply the demands of the navigation of the entire world ?

After having shown that the construction of a tide-level canal is
possible, and under what conditions it is possible and assured, it would
only remain to prove that it would pay. Here the fine report of M.
Levasseur, in behalf of the Committee on Statistics, a report which
you heartily applauded at the last meeting of the Congress, makes my
task an easy one. The report declares and proves that, at the time
when the canal should be opened, it can reasonably count upon a com-
merce of more than seven million tons. Very well, the Suez Canal,
which cost almost five hundred million francs, with three million tons
only, and subjected to demands which the Interoceanic Canal will not
have to undergo, is proposing a diminution of its charges to only seven
or eight francs for actual tonnage, a tariff which could easily be dou-

PREMATURE BURIALS. 389

bled without depriving the canal of a ton of the merchandise which is
passing through it to-day. Under these conditions the Suez Canal is
a prospei'ous enterprise. Its stock, which was issued at 500 francs, is
now quoted at 750 francs, and its bonds, payable at only 500 francs,
are sold for 570 francs.

Suppose, then, for the Interoceanic Canal an original outlay of
double this sum, more than double, if you please, and put opposite this
figure a traffic reduced in the first years to four million tons, instead
of seven, and a charge of fifteen francs, which will be a very slight
tax on commerce.

Can it therefore not be admitted that this great enterprise is of a
kind to attract large capital seeking an advantageous investment ?
But these large sums will not be the only ones on which we can count.
Let us not pay our century the poor compliment of supposing that
everything is done on a mere money-making basis. The Interoceanic
Canal will bring in subscribers from those who, captivated by the
grandeur of the work, will wish to help it with their mite, without
thinking whether or not they will get anything back. These sub-
scribers— who will come from America, from Asia, and from Europe —
these subscribers will have for their name legion. Once already, and
under less favorable circumstances, they have answered the appeal of
him who built the Suez Canal ; they will not be wanting for the Inter-
oceanic Canal Company, which will have as its chief and responsible
head Ferdinand de Lesseps,

PEEMATURE BURIALS.

By G. EEIC MACKAY.

THE difference between death and a state of trance — or, as the
Germans put it, Todt and Scheintodt — has never been quite
clearly understood by the generality of mankind. Society, which
sometimes does its best for the living, does not always do its best
for the dead (or those who ajjpear to be dead), and he would be a bold
man who, without statistics, should assert that men, women, and chil-
dren are never, by any chance, buried alive. Are the bodies of the
poor always examined with care before burial ? Are deaths properly
verified in days of epidemic, that is to say in days of social panic ?

I propose in this article to call attention to a few instances of pre-
mature burials on the Continent of Europe : instances which involve
stories of trance, or Scheintodt — a trance, the semblance of death,
holding its sway over the human body for hours and days, and not
merely for minutes, as in the case of ordinary fainting-fits. In days
when land is dear, and burial rights are less sacred than the rights of

390 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

builders and contractors, coffins have been opened with the pickaxe,
in the act of converting cemeteries into streets and gardens. Here a
grave has been discovered whose inmate has turned in its shroud ; here
a corpse clutching its hair in a strained and unnatural position : dead
men and dead women lying in their graves as dead men never lie in a
Christian land at the moment of burial. The presumption is, that these
people have been legally murdered.

A few months ago a young and beautiful woman, on the eve of her
marriage with the man she loved, was buried in the neighborhood of
Lodi, in Piedmont, in accordance with the doctor's certificate. The
doctor was of opinion that the girl had died from excitement— over-
joy, it is said, at the prospect of being married, but the legal name for
the catastrophe was disease of the heart, and with this verdict her
place in society was declared vacant. When the first shovelful of
earth was thrown down on the coffin, strange noises were heard pro-
ceeding therefrom, " as of evil spirits disputing over the body of the
dead." The grave-diggers took to flight, and the mourners began
praying ; but the bridegroom, less superstitious than the others, in-
sisted on the coffin being unnailed. This was done ; but too late : the
girl was found in an attitude of horror and pain impossible to describe;
her eyes wide open, her teeth clinched, her hands clutching her hair.
Life was extinct ; but, when laid in her shroud the day before, her eyes
were closed, her hands were folded on her breast as if in prayer.

The " Medical Academy " of Milan, in one of its weekly reports,
published on Wednesday, March 22, 1848, quotes a case of trance
which occurred to an ex-nun of the suppressed convent of St. Orsola,
named Lucia Marini. The lady was taken ill, and, to all outward ap-
pearance, died : she was known to be subject to a peculiar kind of fit,
which required peculiar treatment, and was staying at the time of the
catastrophe in the house of a friend, who had been a nun. The hec-
chini (grave-diggers, who in this case were the undertakers) insisted
on burying the body before night ; the surviving ex-nun remonstrated,
urging that she must first try the effect of friction and mustard-plasters
applied to feet and stomach. Fearing to lose their fee, the men of death
waxed wroth in their contention, and, seizing the body by the shoul-
ders, were about to drag it out of its bed, when the " dead lady," moan-
ing and muttering inarticulate sounds, turned restlessly on her pillow.
The friend of Lucia Marini broke out into prayers, inten-upted by
tears ; the men let go their hold, and one of them (the elder of the
two) crossed himself devoutly. The other, with a great oath, declared
it was " spasms " ; the dead, in his opinion, being liable to convulsive
movements if not properly straightened. But humanity prevailed
over ignorance, and cupidity gave way to medical skill. The lady was
thoroughly revived by a medical practitioner of the neighborhood, and
lived for many a long day to tell the story of her escape from the
tomb.

PREMATURE BURIALS.

391

Another case in point is that of Cardinal Espinosa, sometime Presi-
dent of Castile, Philip II., King of Spain, one day, in a moment of
irritation, addressed him as follows : " Cardinal, take heed ! You are
speaking to the President of Castile." The Cardinal understood that
he was dismissed from office (the King being his own president), and
fell to the ground as if stunned. The pulse showed no signs of life ;
the parted lips emitted no breath — the King's wrath had slain his min-
ister. It was decided that the unfortunate Cardinal should be cut open
and embalmed. The surgeon arrived and commenced his operations,
when lo ! in the midst of the cutting the patient awoke, and, with
screams of agony, attempted to struggle with his operator ! But it
was too late. The wounds were mortal, and the Cardinal expired be-
fore the comforts of religion could be administered to him.

In some instances the victims of trance have been known to rise
out of their coffins. A case is recorded of a young lady in Leipsic,
who, being reported dead during a nervous attack, was placed in her
coffin in her parents' house, and there kept duly dressed for the grave,
with the lid of the coffin still unnailed. While the family were at
supper she appeared in her winding-sheet at the parlor-door, pale and
frightened, but fair to see, as before her supposed death. Father and
mother and sisters started up with cries of horror, and rushed out of
the room by another door, believing her to be a ghost. It was only
after a long interval, during which they entered and found her at table,
eating and drinking, that they persuaded themselves that the girl still
lived. They found her coffin empty ; ergo, the ghost in the parlor
was a living soul ! The doctor, the priest, and the undertaker saw
the error of their ways, and the deed was canceled which declared the
lady a corpse. On the following year another deed was made out for
the same lady, and the same priest officiated, but not the doctor or the
undertaker. The lady was married, and lived to be the mother of
many childi-en.

But let us go back a century or two in these inquiries. We come
npon the story of the Abbe Prevot, author of " Manon Lescaut," and,
earlier still, upon that of Petrarch.

Prevot was found in a forest, one fine summer's day, in a state of
complete unconsciousness. The village doctor, who examined the body,
declared that life was extinct, and commenced what he was pleased to
term his j^ost-mortem examination. But at the first thrust of the knife
the unlucky author awoke, and, with a piercing shriek, gave up the
ghost. Bruchier, the biographer of Prevot, deplores this event as a
serious loss to literature. " Manon Lescaut," which Jules Janin com-
placently calls the " Paul and Virginia " of vice, might, he opines,
have had a successor, if not a rival, from the same pen.

Petrarch, when a middle-aged man, lay in Ferrara twenty hours in
a state of trance, and was to be buried on the completion of the time
laid down by law, that is to say in four hours, when a sudden change

392 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of temperature caused him to start up in his bed. He complained of
the draught and reprimanded his attendants. They had allowed a cur-
rent of cold air to fall on his couch ! Perhaps if the door had been
kept shut, the poet, showing no signs of animation, would have been
buried that day. Petrarch would have been defrauded of a large por-
tion of his life, and the world would have lost, in consequence, some of
its finest sonnets.

Misson, in his " Medical Anecdotes," tells a story of a lady who, in
1577, was buried alive in Cologne. This lady was the wife of a con-
sul, and was placed in the family vault in gay attire, with rings on her
fingers and a golden chain round her neck, as on her wedding-day.
Robbers repaired to her grave at dead of night to steal her jewelry,
and were taking the rings from her fingers, which were damp and
swollen, when the lady awoke, and, sitting bolt upright, as if galvan-
ized, stared and smiled at her visitors. One of the three men fell
down in a fit, fearing the devil or his agency, and the others took to
their heels "as if pursued by fiends." The lady walked home, and was
received by her husband, first with fear, and afterward with transports
of joy, and lived for many a long day in health and happiness. In the
Church of the Holy Apostles at Cologne is a picture of the Consul's
wife waking from the tomb, but the event is ascribed to a miracle,
and death, and not a trance, is the subject of the picture.

But the resuscitated victims of apparent death do not always return
safe and sound — hale in body and in mind — from the land of shadows.
A carbineer in the Pope's service, named Luigi Vittori, was, not long
ago, conveyed to the Roman hospital, and there, after a few days' acute
suffering, registered as dead, his disease being "asthma." A doctor,
glancing at the body, fancied he detected signs of life in it. A lighted
taper was applied to the nose of the carbineer — a mirror was applied
to his mouth ; but all without success. The body was pinched and
beaten, the taper was again applied, and so often and so obstinately
that the nose was burned, and the patient, quivering in all his frame,
drew short, spasmodic breaths — sure proofs, even to a non-professional
witness, that the soldier was not altogether dead. The doctor applied
other remedies, and in a short time the corpse was declared to be a
living man. Luigi Vittori left the hospital to resume his duties as
carbineer, but his nose — a scarred and crimson beacon on his face —
told till he died (which was soon afterward) the sad story of his cure
in the very jaws of the grave.

Stories are told of men who, after sentence of death at the hands of
the doctors, returned to life blighted in intellect. Some of these vic-
tims of medical incapacity were men of position in society, but others
— the great majority — were poor and friendless. Hospital cases have
principally to do with the poor, and, in hospitals in warm countries, pa-
tients who show signs of approaching dissolution are quickly disposed
of. Camillo de Lellis, the founder of an order of hospital monks, or

PREMATURE BURIALS.

393

Brotliers of Charity, speaks in his memoirs of the frequency of pre-
mature burials in Italy, "Ah, merciful God !" he exclaims piously,
" how many living men and women are annually taken to their graves
in this Christian country ! " Camillo was of opinion that the victims
might be numbered by many scores — nay, by hundreds — in the course
of a single year.

One day, after visiting the beds of the sick in a certain hospital in
Lombardy, of which the name has been left in blank, Camillo entered
the morgue, and found strewed upon the floor a great number of corpses,
one of which was bleeding profusely from the head. " A dead man
can not bleed in this way," thought Camillo, and had the body taken
to another room, and there examined. The man was alive, and but
for an accident would have received burial. He had been thrown to
the ground with some violence a short time previously, and, then and
there receiving the wound above alluded to, recovered consciousness.
But he only survived his sentence of death three days ; he died of
the blow which had awakened him from his trance.

But there are double deaths — twofold burials — which are perhaps
the most horrible of all. Society thinks it is burying one person, but
the " deceased," being a woman, may from the point of view of ma-
ternity include two lives, or even more. Gasparo Rejes tells the story
of a child born in the tomb whose mother was buried alive. The lady
was the wife of a man of property named Francesco Orvallos, and
" died," while far advanced in pregnancy, during her husband's ab-
sence. Orvallos, returning home the day after the funeral, had the
tomb opened, not because he suspected foul play, but because he wished
to gaze once more on the face of his beloved. The lady was in truth
dead, but death had transpired in the grave. A child, struggling into
existence, met the gaze of the bereaved husband, and was removed with-
out difficulty by a medical assistant. The mother was once more con-
signed to the dust, but the child lived to be a man, and, carrying till
his death the name of " Fruit of the Earth," occupied for several years
the post of lieutenant-general on the frontiers of Cherez, This story
is reproduced by the late Professor Comi in his treatise on " Apneol-
ogy." Those who doubt it have only to read the following account
of what is called "Involuntary Homicide," which happened in the
south of Italy (at Castel del Giudice) in November last, and of which ,
accounts were published at the time in the Neapolitan and English
papers :

A poor woman at Castel del Giudice, in the province of Molise, was
taken ill with the premonitory symptoms of childbirth, and, having
fainted away while the doctor was being sent for, was, on his arrival,
declared dead. Burial follows death very rapidly in southern coun-
tries, especially in Italy : it is the night of the tomb setting in without
the twilight of the death-chamber ; and eight-and-forty hours in the
north of Italy, and four-and-twenty in the south, is the time allowed

394 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

by law. If the " dead " awake in that time it is well. If not, they
are doomed, and no one — not even a father or a mother, a husband or
a wife — can save them from the hands of the grave-digger. This was
the case with the poor woman of Molise. Her friends had doubts as
to one, at least, of the deaths — that of the unborn babe — but the doc-
tor was inexorable. He refused to operate on the " corpse " to save
the infant-life, and the syndic, approving of his conduct, ordered the
body to be buried. The funeral took place exactly at the twenty-fourth
hour — that is to say that the body (being a poor one) was thrown into
the ground like a dog. Dog-like, too, it had no rights, for a few days
afterward it was unearthed to make room for another corpse — that
of a girl — which was to be thrown in over it. But the becchini (the
grave-diggers) perceived while doing their work that the woman buried
the week before " had moved in the grave." Her hands were up to
her mouth ; her eyes were wide open and staring frightfully — she had
been trying to bite the bands by which her wrists were fastened. But
the bands of her legs were rent asunder, and there, in the dust beside
her, was a dead child ! The woman and the babe (a boy) whom law
and medical incapacity had slain were taken out of the earth to be
medically examined and legally provided for, and the new corpse (was
it a corpse ?) was thrown in in their stead. The doctor and the syndic
were arrested, and condemned to three months' imprisonment, and the
mother and child were buried again with two medical certificates in-
stead of one. The legal authorities — somewhat late in the day — wished
to do everything in " proper form," and the child, born in the grave,
procured for its mother a second burial.

This horrible crime — the crime of burying a woman alive and mur-
dering an unborn babe five or six feet underground by medical sanc-
tion— could with difiiculty have occurred in England. English law
provides an interval of a week (more or less) between death and burial,
and the seeming-dead may in a week's time return to life — that is to
say, that the body, with the suspended life dormant within it, may, by
chance or by medical treatment, reassume its functions, or a portion
of its functions, before burial has become a legal or a sanitary neces-
sity ; but it can not be stated with certainty that all persons buried
in a northern climate — such a climate, for instance, as England — are
in reality dead after the delay of a week has been accorded. Hasty
and sudden burials are not always a question of climate or of temper-
ature. In times of pestilence the week's delay is in many cases, even
in northern climates, reduced to a few hours ; and in Italy, where the
minimum interval between death and burial is a day and a night, and
the maximum two days and two nights, the victims (or the supposed
victims) of epidemic are buried as soon as dead — that is to say, as
soon as they appear to be dead, which, in exceptional times, amounts
much to the same thing. The manifest blunder is that of supposing
all dead persons — i. e., all persons dying in days of pestilence — to be

PREMATURE BURIALS. 395

dead of that particular pestilence ; and the excuse for it, if excuse it
be, is the desire to remove from the living all possibility of conta-
gion from the bodies of the dead, dispensing with experiments with
a view to reducing risk ; and making sure, so to speak, of the corpse
without giving it the benefit of a doubt.

The fact is, that the modern inhabitants of Italy — i. e., modern
Italian legislators — are extremely intolerant of what may be called the
romance of the death-chamber. Reverence for the deceased, a craving
for the companionship of the unburied corpse, is not encouraged in Italy.
As soon as life is extinct, or is believed to be extinct, the human being
ceases to be sacred. It is earth or clay and nothing more, and the
glamour of a beloved face which no longer smiles does not, to an Italian
mind, speak of a soul hovering near the body, a soul asleep, not dead,
which haunts the chamber of woe, and makes itself felt, as it were in-
stinctively, in the presence of the mourners. Theology teaches Italians
that the soul of the deceased is in purgatory, and that the altar and
not the death-bed is the place to kneel at ; so that, by kneeling and
praying and doing penance(by fees and masses), mourners may be able
to comfort the souls of the departed in the limbo they inhabit. Corpses
belong in the first instance to the priests (who, after the unction by
sacred oil, light tapers by the bedside) ; and in the second instance to
the legal or sanitary authorities who employ the grave-diggers. The
death-chamber is abandoned by the mourners, who flock to the church ;
and the room, and sometimes the whole house, is furbished up, and
even whitewashed, as if the death of a near and dear relative had
brought contamination upon it.

Now, it would be interesting to discover at what period of history
the Italians began to be so severe in their treatment of the dead. The
ancient inhabitants of Italy were by no means so rigorous. They were
tender in the death-chamber, and careful at the funeral-pyre ; though
pagans, they were merciful in matters of life and death. Their burial
laws were to a great extent similar to those of England — similar as
regards the interval between death and funeral, and only different as
regards the funeral itself.

The Romans had indeed many experiences of official and medical
blundering, and that is perhaps the reason why they were, at certain
periods, so careful in their funeral rites. Pliny tells the story of the
Consul Acilius, who, being reputed dead, was placed on the pyre, and
started up to shriek for assistance while the flames were gathering
round him ; but too late to be saved. Lucius was burned alive ; and
Tuberus, waking from the trance of death while preparations were
being made to burn him, was removed by his friends and others from
the stake. The interval between death and funeral was fixed at eight
days. It was seldom less, and it was sometimes more ; for Licurgus,
in his anxiety to prevent accidents — i. e., medical and judicial murders
— fixed the interval at eleven days. Why do the modern Romans,

396 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and all the modern inhabitants of Italy, insist on burying their dead
within forty-eight hours ? Simply — say the legislators — because the
climate requires it ; i. e., because it would not be fair to the living to
allow the dead to remain unburied for a longer space than two days
and two nights. Query : was the climate of Italy under Julius Caesar
very different, in point of heat or moisture, from the climate of Italy
under King Humbert ?

But it has always, and in all countries, been difficult to ascertain
the difference between Toclt and Schemtodt — death and the semblance
of death. Dr. Gandolfi, a learned Italian writer, whose work on
" Forensic Medicine " * was revised by the illustrious Mittermayer, is
of opinion that medical men are themselves liable to make mistakes on
this important question. He says — 1. That " the organic phenomena
which precede apparent death can not of themselves be distinguished
from those which precede real death, and that for a certain time it will
be difficult to decide, scientifically, whether life be suspended, or ex-
tinct " ; and, 2. That " many phenomena which announce real death are
the common and necessary indications of apparent death, as for in-
stance the want of motion, of sense, of breathing, and of pulsation."

These are terrible sentences ! How many persons are denounced
as dead simply because they have ceased to breathe and move and show
signs of a pulse — persons who, according to Gandolfi, may not, in all
cases, be ready for burial ! It is Gandolfi's opinion that persons " de-
nounced as dead " may in some rare instances be the witnesses — the
mute and fear-stricken witnesses — of their own funeral ; that they may
know perfectly well that they are going to be put into coffins, and
thence into the earth, and yet be powerless, alive as they are, to avert
the catastrophe of a legal murder ! The following illustration of this
point is authenticated by Bruhier, and is quoted, in slightly different
words, by Dr. Gandolfi :

A schoolmaster in Mohlstadt, named Wenzel, was legally denounced
as dead, and got ready for burial. He was to be buried on a certain
fixed day, but his sister, who lived far off, had not arrived ; and it was
decided that the funeral should be postponed. The " deceased," in
his winding-sheet, unable to move, and apparently unable to breathe,
heard with joy of this delay, and tried, but utterly in vain, to open his
eyes, which were fast closed. His sister arrived, and, finding him dead,
burst into a paroxysm of tears, and, seizing his hand, reproved him
passionately for thus dying without one word of farewell. She took
his head between her hands, and, pressing it wildly, looked at him
with a fixed and half-demented scrutiny. The eyelids of the " de-
ceased " were seen to quiver ; the eyes half opened ; he was saved !
He had succeeded in putting his latent self in communication with the
outer world ; and what he himself had begun the doctors completed.
Here was a man who, but for his sister's delay, would have been buried
* "Medicina Forensa Analitica," by Giovanni Gandolfi, Milan, 1863.

WHY DO SFEIiVGS AND WELLS OVERFLOW? 397

alive ! Bruhier's story is, in fact, the confession of Wenzel. It is the
story of a patient describing his horror on finding himself a dead man;
and, without much confusion of terms, it might fairly be called the
" Confessions of a Corpse." Dr. Gandolfi asserts that many such cases
have been recorded in various parts of Europe, and that in most in-
stances the cases have been "proved and authenticated." Gandolfi is
an authority ; and all persons of a quibbling or skeptical nature would
do well to consider the matter thoroughly before condemning his evi-
dence.

But it is needless to prolong the list of examples. Enough has
been said to show the wickedness of hasty funerals, and the necessity
of establishing a proper system of tests. But these tests, so long ex-
pected, are not forthcoming. Many physicians are, indeed, of opinion
that no such system is obtainable in the present state of medical science.
There are, they affirm, a great many ways of proving death, if suffi-
cient time allowed be for experiments ; but during the experiments, or
before the experiments have begun, the supposed corpse may, they
declare, pass from apparent to real death, and thus, without sign or
warning, frustrate all inquiry. Celebrated physicians can not be at
the death-beds of all sick persons. The poor, and even the rich, must
oftentimes content themselves with the services of doctors who are not
famous either for learning or intuition ; and the medicines and appli-
ances by which distinguished physicians might succeed in testing the
existence of life, in persons suffering from ti'ance, would, in the case
of poor people, cost too much ; and no one is willing to guarantee their
final success. For it is important to bear this point in mind : it is
one thing to certify that a " corpse " is not really dead ; it is another
thing to revive that corpse after the inner life — latent and slow to as-
sert itself — has been properly recognized. No ; what is wanted is a
sitnple test, and not a complicated test, or a complicated series of tests,
which would be out of the reach of the poor, and beyond the power of
inexperienced or badly-paid doctors. Let us have that test as soon
as possible ! No doctor deems it an impossibility. It is a matter of
difficulty, and that is all. But difficulties as great as, or greater than,
this have been mastered over and over again by modern science.
— Belgravia.

WHY DO SPEINGS AND WELLS OYEEFLOW?

By JOSEPH J. SKINKER, Ph. D.

THE commonly accepted answer to the above question is that the
water of springs and of flowing wells is forced out by the pres-
sure of other water at some higher level, this pressure being transmit-
ted to the water of the spring or well through continuous underground

398 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

channels, either containing water alone or water filling the interstices
of some porous material, these waters being the product of rainfall,
dew, and snow. But this answer has sometimes been found not to
satisfy a certain class of minds ; and, as long ago as 1834, Arago
thought it not beneath him to publish in the " Annuaire du Bureau
des Longitudes " for 1835 a considerable essay, in which he shows con-
clusively that the rise and flow of water in springs and artesian wells
are sufficiently explained by the cause assigned above. Further on
will be found a translation of some passages from this elegant essay.

Arago was so certain of the correctness of his views, that from his
knowledge of the geological formations of France he not only fore-
told that potable water would be found by boring an artesian well at
Grenelle, near Paris, but that the water would rise and overflow the sur-
face. In 1833 he succeeded in getting the French Government to un-
dertake the boring of this well, and although about eight years were
required to complete it and it was for some time in danger of being
abandoned, his urgent representations prevailed in obtaining a further
prosecution of the work, and in 1841 his foresight was rewarded with
the splendid success familiar to the public. Modern engineers, in judg-
ing of the chances of getting flowing water from an artesian well in
any particular locality are guided by the same general theory as that
held by Arago.

But a writer in the November number of this magazine combats
this theory, " not merely from speculative motives, but in the interest
of public health," and ofl^ers an explanation of his own, involving a
" newly discovered force " which " not only may, but which positively
must, force waters out of springs at high elevations." This " new
force" as it is called in another sentence, is "the resultant of the
earth's centripetal and centrifugal forces," and it produces springs and
flowing wells by acting *' impulsively upon the subterranean water de-
posits," tending " to force them into and though the natural channels of
the earth's crust." It is proposed here to examine Mr. Green's article
in some detail, in connection with a consideration of the generally
accepted theory of springs and flowing walls.

A peculiarity in one or two of Mr. Green's quotations led me to
verify them in the works cited by him, and in doing so I could but
notice that he had apparently made a number of slips of the pen,
which, though perhaps unimportant in themselves, yet give indica-
tion of some carelessness. For instance, in quoting from " Littell's
Living Age," he changes Golne to Coin, Watford to Wetford, Pole's
Hole to Pales's Hole, Dickenson to Dickinson, Canstadt to Constadt,
Bruckman (which should have been Bruckmann) to Buckmann, and
predicted to discovered. Another of his quotations from the same
source is this, "The artesian well at Tours rose with a jet that sus-
tained a cannon." The original said, "An artesian well at Tours rose
with a jet that sustained in the air a cannon-ball." As the account of

WHY BO SPHnVGS AND WELLS OVERFLOW?

399

Professor Bucklancl's address given in " Littell's Living Age " was not
a verbatim report, even this statement seemed to me likely enough to
have suffered a slight change at the hands of the reporter ; so I went
one step further back, to Professor Buckland's " Bridgewater Treatise,"
of which he spoke in his address, where I find this statement : " At
Perpignan and Tours, M. Arago states that the water rushes up with
so much force, that a cannon-ball placed in the pipe of an artesian
well is violently ejected by the ascending stream." Something like
this is probably what Professor Buckland said in his address ; and the
difference between the ejecting of a ball from a pipe and the sustain-
ing of it in the air may have seemed to the reporter of the address of
slight consequence ; but when you go from ejecting a hall from a pipe
to the sustaining of it in the air, and then to the sustaining of a can-
non, one is reminded of the man who was said to have thrown up some-
thing as black as a crow, and as the story passed from mouth to mouth
he was finally declared to have thrown up three black croics.

On page 76 of the Is ovember " Popular Science Monthly," in dis-
cussing Mr. Howell's article on the " Subterranean Outlet " to the Up-
per Lake region, Mr. Green says of Mr. Howell that " having shown
that Lake Superior at its surface is 600 feet above the Atlantic and at
its bottom 573, and Ontario to be 235 feet above, with the same depth
as Superior, he proceeds to make the following significant statement."
This quotation would make Lakes Superior and Ontario each only
twenty-seven feet deep, which is evidently a mistake ; and on refer-
ring to Mr. Howell's article in " Scribner's Monthly " we find that he
did not say that the bottom of Lake Superior is 573 above the At-
lantic, but that " we find its bed descending 573 feet below the level of
the Atlantic " ; neither did he say that Ontario has the same depth as
Superior, but that it " descends to an equal distance below the level
of the Atlantic."

But let us begin at the beginning of Mr. Green's article, and see
how he starts off. After a few words of introduction, he quotes from
the account of Professor Buckland's address a few sentences ending
as follows : " At Brentford, England, there were many wells that con-
tinually overflowed their orifice, which is a few feet only above the
Thames. In the London wells the water rises to a less level than in
those at Brentford." Mr. Green then says : " By hydrostatic pres-
sure, the Professor, of course, means a head, i. e., that the water flowed
to these wells from a higher point. If this rise were due to hydro-
static pressure, why did the water rise to a lower level at London than
at Brentford among the hills ? " Now, Professor Buckland's state-
ment, just quoted, makes the orifice of the Brentford wells "a few
feet only above the Thames," and Mr. Green makes his first imaginary
difficulty by placing these wells "among the hills." He then quotes
largely from Professor Buckland's address, and afterward exclaims :
"Wells to supply London, the Professor thinks, must not be utilized

400 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

to draw water from a depth of thirty or forty feet, because it would
cut off the supply due to the rains which do not sink deeper than three
feet ! " But the Professor had not said that " rains do not sink deeper
than three feet." He had, indeed, said that one intelligent manufac-
turer, Mr. Dickenson, had found by a rain-gauge that " except in
December, January, and February, rain-water rarely descends more
than three feet below the soil," etc. This statement apparently con-
vinces Mr. Green that rain-waters never get deeper into the earth than
three feet. But there are soils and soils.* And Professor Buckland
did not neglect to point out their differences. He said, "The rain
that falls on the uncovered chalk within the area of these basins (like
that of London) descends, by countless crevices, into the loioer re-
gions of the chalk strata,^'' etc. And even Mr. Dickenson's observa-
tions during many years had shown him that, in spite of the fact that
in the drier part of the year the rain-waters rarely sank into his soil
more than three feet, yet the quantity of summer water in the river
Colne varied with the rain in the preceding winter. He probably
knew, therefore, that these winter rains must be largely absorbed by
the sponge-like chalk formations in the neighborhood, and slowly
work their Avay downward many feet, to issue gradually at lower
points in the form of springs to feed the river in summer.

Mr. Green quotes further from Professor Buckland's address, show-
ing the great value of artesian wells in Wurtemberg, and then goes
on : " From which quotations it appears that the Professor is in a
remarkable position. At Wetford" {sic) "these wells could not be
utilized because the river-supply of the Coin" {sic) "would be ex-
hausted ; but in Germany they were a new and important source of
supply to the rivers themselves." The Professor's position may be
remarkable, but it is certainly reasonable. For it is a well-known
fact that in some localities, that of Tours for one, as stated by Arago,
artesian wells may be bored to any number hitherto tried without sen-
sibly affecting the flow of those first sunk in the immediate neighbor-
hood, while in other localities every new well either diminishes the
flow of old wells or makes the level of the water in them sink. This
last is the case near London. The " American Cyclopsedia," article
" Artesian Wells," says : " In the vicinity of London it is observed
that the height to which the water rises diminishes as the number of
wells is increased. In 1838 the supply of water from them was esti-
mated at six million gallons daily, and in 1851 at nearly double the
amount, and the average annual fall of the height of the water is
about two feet." Professor Buckland had also stated that " Mr. Clut-
terbuck demonstrated, by a long-continued series of measurements of
the water in the chalk-hills of Hertfordshire, near Watford, that every
drop of water taken from that neighborhood would have been ab-

* Arago said — but he apparently lived too early — " Every one knows that in many
places the upper ground is of sand, and that sand lets water through it like a sieve.

WHY BO SFEINGS AND WELLS OVERFLOW? 401

stracted from the summer and autumn supplies of the river Colne."
Hence, even if the -wells in Germany were, as stated rather strongly
by Mr, Green, "a new and important source of supply to the rivers
themselves," it would not alter the fact, shown by experiment, that
the proprietors of mills on the river Colne, and the owners of adjacent
water-meadows, would have been robbed of rights which they had
inherited from time immemorial, by drawing the water-supply of the
great city of London from wells in the chalk formations of Hertford-
shire,

But Mr, Green's two propositions that differ most essentially from
the commonly accepted theory of artesian wells are — 1, That the flow
of water from them is not due to pressure transmitted from water at a
higher level, but to " some force not yet identified " ; and, 2. That the
supply of water for such wells, and indeed for ordinary springs, comes
from " subterranean waters, seldom if ever influenced by rains " (p. 75,
line one), Mr, Green identifies the required force as " the resultant
of the earth's centripetal and centrifugal forces," and, having found
that the tendency of this resultant is to force water iip, wherever
there is an opening upward in the earth's crust, of course it is neces-
sary to suppose that there is a plenty of subterranean water already
down. He seems to think it entirely unnecessary to suggest any
means of replenishing the supply of this subterranean water, or even
to imagine that it could ever need replenishing.

Listen to Mr, Green : " Imagine the ' majestic column ' at Grenelle
rising thirty feet high, and the overflow in the other cases being due
to hydrostatic pressure — i. e,, due to the fact that all these immense
floods were the result of a flow from some other higher bodies of water."
Ordinary people will find it as easy to imagine this as to suppose that
these floods are the result of flow from loioer bodies of water uncon-
nected with higher ones. But he goes on : " Why did it not occur to
Professor Buckland that, however high and abundant the source, such
drains must of necessity have sooner or later exhausted the supply, if
no equivalent streams were flowing into that also ? But suppose this "
{sic) " to be so, whence could come the higher head to flow into and
supply that in turn ? Carry this on until a flow is secured from the
highest land on the earth, and then whence comes the flow to supply
that ? " This is beautiful. Why did it not occur to Mr. Green that,
however loic and abundant the source, such drains must of necessity
have sooner or later exhausted the supply if no equivalent streams
were flowing into that also ? But suppose this to be so, whence could
come the loicei^ head to flow into and supply that in turn ? Carry this
on until a flow is secured from the center of the earth, and then where
are you ?

In another place (p. 81) Mr. Green says : " Suppose it had been fulli/
proved that a particular overflowing spring was caused by hydrostatic
pressure, it would still remain to be accounted for how the water
VOL. XVI. — 26

4o:

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

got to that higher point. This can best be done by the force demon-
strated," etc. But sujjposing, if you can suppose, that a particular over-
flowing spring were caused by Mr. Green's " newly discovered force "
acting on a lower body of water, it would still be for him to show how,
according to his theory, the water got to that lower point. His po-
sition plainly is (see p. 81), that if any openings exist between bodies
of water imprisoned in the earth's crust and the surface of the earth,
these waters, unless entirely isolated bodies, would as a rule flow up-
ward. If there were millions of cubic miles of water in accessible sub-
terranean i-eservoirs, and no drain on them but that caused by the wells
made by man, the supply might be considered " ample for all practical
purposes," no matter how it got thei-e or what forced the water up ;
but Mr. Green argues that not only flowing springs but the bulk of the
waters of the rivers St. Lawrence, " Ganges, Nile, Indus, Senegal,
Rhine, Rhone, Vistula, Elbe, Loire, Gaudiana, Po, Adige, Swale, Tay,
Severn, Don, Monongahela, Platte, Missouri, and numerous others"
must be derived from a subterranean water-supply, which, he says
(p. 77), "is known to be constant, and has always been so." One
would think that rivers like those mentioned, flowing for centuries, if
fed by a subterranean loater-siipply, would ultimately make a serious
drain on the subterranean reservoirs ; but, although Mr. Green's theory
does not admit the possibility of any water getting back into these
reservoirs, rivers and wells still flow.

After giving Professor Buckland's illustration of the theory of ar-
tesian wells, in which he likens the case in nature to a layer of sand
and water between two saucers, Mr. Green says, " Should these excep-
tional and assumed conditions occur in nature, the result Avould be
substantially as indicated." But we know that similar conditions do
occur, and not very rarely either. He continues, "But, as will be
seen at a glance, the flow from a well sunk under such circumstances
would be limited to the amount of water between the two saucers, and
this will be limited to the quantity of rainfall." This is veiy true. He
adds, " Since flowing wells and springs are seldom if ever thus limited,
we infer that the case supposed does not occur." On the contrary, we
have every reason to believe that flowing wells and springs are almost
always thus limited. Mr. Dickenson's observations, already quoted
by Mr. Green, proved that the quantity of summer water in the river
Colne varied with the rain in the preceding winter. In every particular-
ly dry summer springs by the thousand are entirely dried up, and the
flow from the majority of others is greatly diminished. On the other
hand, in wet seasons all but the most extraordinary springs have their
flow increased. In some geological formations increase of flow occurs
very soon after the beginning of rains. Arago states as the uniform
observation of miners, especially those of Cornwall, that in mines sit-
uated in the midst of certain limestones water increases in the deepest
drifts a very few hours after it has begun to rain on the surface of the

WHY DO SPRINGS AND WELLS OVERFLOW? 403

earth. He also refers to springs on tlie coast which gush out from
vertical cliffs of chalky limeBtone, which in the same way increase
largely in strength immediately after rain.

That artesian wells are not sensibly affected by particular rain-
storms is no proof that they are not ultimately supplied by rains, but
only shows that the quantity of water furnished by the wells is ex-
ceedingly small compared with the total quantity at any time in the
layer of porous material tapped by the wells. Such layers, between
two saucer-like formations of impermeable matter, would generally
have some points of their outcrop at a lower level than others. At
these low points of the outcrop natural springs would occur, which
would have a flow more or less constant in proportion to the extent
and height of the porous layer above them, and their flowing w^ould
continually tend to draw the level of the water in the porous layer
down to their own altitude. Rains, falling on the exposed edges of
the porous layer, would in great part be absorbed, and, gradually trick-
ling through the pores, be slowly discharged by these natural springs.
If an artesian well had its opening into the porous layer far below the
lowest of these natural outlets, no ordinary rain would sensibly change
the effective head of water that supplied it ; but, if rains should cease
entirely, the springs and the well would ultimately stop flowing. In
a work on " Water-Supply Engineering," which contains much valu-
able information, Mr. J. T. Fanning says of such a geological forma-
tion as the common theory of artesian wells assumes, that when first
discovered it " is invariably full to its lip or point of overflow. Its
extent may be compax-atively large, and its watershed comparatively
small, yet it will be full, and many centuries may have elapsed since
it was molded and first began to store the precious showers of heaven.
A few drops accumulated from each of the thousand showers of each
decade may have filled it to its brim many generations since ; yet this
is no evidence that it is inexhaustible. If the perennial draught ex-
ceeds the amount the storms give to its replenishment, it will surely
cease, in time, to yield the surplus." (Compare with this the extract
given above from " The American Cyclopaedia," showing an annual
sinking of two feet in the level of the water in the artesian wells near
London.)

Mr. Green can not account for the flow of streams from the moun-
tain-region of Pennsylvania and from Lake Chautauqua without the
intervention of his " newly discovered force." He quotes approvingly
a statement that " it is a wonder to the unpracticed observer where
the water-supply of Chautauqua Lake comes from." " L^npracticed
observer," indeed ! But the practiced observer will tell you without
hesitation that the water-supply comes from the clouds. Mr. Fanning
{op. cit.) states, as the estimate from experiments, that " in the Eastern
and Middle United States the evaporation from storage reservoirs,
having an average depth of at least ten feet, will rarely exceed sixty

404 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

per cent, of the rainfall upon their surface." It follows that any nat-
ural exposed basin, under these circumstances, would surely fill up,
just from the rains on its surface, if there were not some outlet for the
water. Mr. Fanning gives the mean annual rainfall at Fredonia, New
York, a few miles from Lake Chautauqua, as 36*55 inches. If we
assume that the lake has an area of forty square miles, and take the
annual rainfall on its surface at three feet in depth, the total volume
of this rainfall would be 3,345,408,000 cubic feet. Supposing that
sixty per cent, of this is lost by evaporation, there will yet remain in
average years 1,338,163,200 cubic feet of water to be somehow disposed
of, which is more than would supply a stream eight feet wide and one
foot deep, running for a year at the rate of three and a half miles per
hour. Besides the rain falling directly on the surface of the lake, a
calculation of the area of the land around it, at a higher elevation than
its water-level, would undoubtedly show, no matter what unpracticed
observers might anticipate, that the rain-water known to fall on this
area would be ample to supply all the springs that flow into the lake,
and leave a good margin of surplus to evaporate from plants and soil,
and to filter away into the earth.

It seems as if Mr. Gi-een must be somewhat imaginative when he
says that, " from the highest mountains in the world — the Himalayas
— out of their highest points, great cataracts and streams have poured
and still do pour," etc. Has any man ever been anywhere near the
highest points of the Himalayas to verify such a statement ? I trans-
late the following from Arago's work already mentioned :

" The argument chiefly depended upon by those who felt obliged
to seek the origin of subterranean waters in the precipitation which
intensely hot aqueous vajjors, coming from central regions, had expe-
rienced at the moment of their contact with the cold, earthy layers
near the surface, was drawn from a fact well worthy of examination :
I mean the pretended existence of tolerably abundant springs at the
summit, at the culminating point, of some mountains. Our little
Montmartre itself figured in this polemic. There was, indeed, upon
this hillock, a spring (perhaps it still exists) which was hardly sixteen
metres (fifty feet) below its highest part. No water, it was said, could
constantly feed a spring thus placed, without coming from beneath in
the state of vapor. Upon examination, however, it was found that
the portion of Montmartre above the spring, and which could conse-
quently transmit its waters by the method of simple interior draining,
was about five hundred and eighty-five metres long and one hundred
and ninety-five metres wide. Now, the mean volume of rain which
falls in Paris upon such an extent of ground, between the 1st of Janu-
ary and the 31st of December, much exceeds the quantity of water
which the little spring in question annually yielded.

"It was necessary, then, to seek for the difficulty at another
point.

WHY DO SFEIJVGS AND WELLS OVERFLOW? 405

" This was believed to have been found in a locality not far from
Dijon ; but there as well, in spite of appearances, the rain-waters re-
ceived on the portion of land overlooking the spring could amply suf-
fice for its supply."

After referring to the former ignorance of people concerning the
quantity of rain, of dew, and of snow, falling in different regions,
Arago continues : " For example, people did not believe that the basin
of the Seine .... received annually by rain a quantity of water equal
to the tribute which the Seine bears to the sea in the same space of
time. Perrault and Mariotte first studied the question experimentally^
and they found, as is usual in such cases, that the vague conceptions
of their predecessors were precisely the opposite of the truth. . . .
The volume of water which passes yearly under the bridges of Paris
is hardly the third of that which falls in rain into the basin of the
Seine. Two thirds of that rain either return into the atmosphere by
evaporation, or sustain vegetation and the life of animals, or drain
into the sea by subterranean passages."

Without insisting further on the fact that the rain-waters, dews,
and snows falling on higher grounds must be sufficient to account for
all flowing springs and wells (except, possibly, such cases as the gey-
sers), let us see how Mr. Green's subterranean water-deposits are to be
driven to the surface of the earth by his " newly discovered force."
Why, by making the eartb's centrifugal force act in the direction of
the tangent to the earth's surface, and then getting the resultant of
this force and of gravity ! Further, since the question of the relative
intensities of these two forces " does not enter into the problem," you
may assume that they are equal, and thus you will find that "the
direction of the resultant itself is, say, 45° from the direction of the
force of gravity. . . . Moreover, since the resultant has been shown "
(by saying that the diagonal either of a square or of a parallelogram
is longer than either of its sides) " to be greater under all circumstances
than gravity, certainly the vast aggregations must also be greater than
the aggregated gravity, and will be able to overcome it under the con-
ditions stated. . . . The intensity of the centrifugal force will increase
with the distance from the center of the earth, while gravity will de-
crease ; the resultant ioill also increase. Thus we find the strongest
and most abundant overflows at the tops of mountains or on high
plateaus."

As a specimen of mechanical exposition this is almost unique,* but
it is too ludicrous to mislead. In point of fact, as every schoolboy ought
to know, the centrifugal force due to the earth's rotation, on a particle
at any place on the earth, does not act in the direction of the tangent

* Mr. Green is not quite the first writer who, in undertaking to overthrow a well-
established mechanical explanation of natural phenomena, has assumed that the earth's
centrifugal force acts in the direction of the tangent to its surface. (See discussions on
" The Tides," in vols. xi. and xii. of this magazine.)

4o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

to the earth's surface, but in the outward direction of the radius of the
circle of latitude of the place ; a diagonal of a parallelograim is fre-
quently shorter than either of its sides ; the centrifugal force acting
on a particle, due to the rotation of the earth, is never more than
about the -^ part of the force of gravity ; the direction of the re-
sultant of this centrifugal force and of gravity is always very nearly
that of gravity ; the intensity of this resultant is always less than that
of gravity ; and instead of increasing with the distance from the cen-
ter of the earth it decreases. Perhaps these are points that make no
difference in the value of Mr. Green's theory ; but still they are woith
the consideration of any one who proposes by contraries to upset the
doctrines of such men as Arago, Faraday, Garnier, and Halley.

Not even the wonderful fact mentioned by Mr. Green, that " by
inclosing an overflowing spring tightly, and allowing the inclosure to
be terminated by a tube with an opening carried to a level below the
fountain, the flow was increased " — not even this will overthrow the
principles of mechanics, as any one who ever understood a siphon
would know. Mr. Green says, " the flow was increased because the
channel was increased, and the resultant of the natural forces with it."
But if the resultant increases with the distance from the center of the
earth, then why could he not increase the flow still more by running
the tube to a great height above the fountain instead of below it ?
But even Mr. Green would hardly expect to increase the flow by such
means. For it is well known that by confining the water of an arte-
sian well to a tube in which it must rise above the ground, the natural
flow is rapidly diminished as the height of the tube increases. The
" American Cyclopaedia " says : " The flow from this Avell (at Passy,
two miles from Grenelle) began slowly, but on September 27th (three
days after striking the water) bad reached over 5,500,000 gallons per
day. The yield at the mouth was greatly decreased Avhen raised
through a tube twenty-five feet high ; a like result followed at
Grenelle, where the yield was 440 gallons per minute at the surface,
but decreased to 135 gallons when forced through a tube thirty-three
feet high." Mr. Green will have to charge this great decrease of flow,
to something besides increase of friction ; for it is easy to see that, if
the tube were extended up just to the point to which the water would
rise without flowing out, there would then be 7io friction. In fact, the
laws of hydraulics and hydrostatics have something to do with the
subject of artesian wells.

I have already mentioned some inaccuracies of statement in Mr.
Green's discussion of Mr. Howell's article in " Scribner's Magazine."
Mr. Green, finding that the difference of level between the surfaces of
the water in Lakes Superior and Ontario is three hiindred and sixty-
five feet, becomes certain that there can be no subterranean water-
connection between these lakes ; for, he says, " If this channel exists
as supposed, the surfaces of these lakes would find a common level,

WRV DO SPEIJYGS AND WULLS OVERFLOW ? 407

instead of a diiference of three hundred and sixty-five feet " ! Here
is where Mr. Green should have brought in his ideas on friction, and
have studied Professor Buckland's address more closely. In that
address it is stated that "the surface-line of any subterranean sheet
of water may be ascertained by measuring a series of wells at distant
intervals along the dip of the stratum under examination. . . . Mr.
Clutterbuck had further observed that the surface-line of subterranean
sheets of water was not horizontal, like the surface of a lake, but
inclined at a rate varying from fourteen to twenty feet per mile, in
consequence of friction caused by the particles of the strata through
which those sheets of rain-water descended with retarded motion to
be discharged by springs. This inclination of the subterranean water-
line in the chalk of Hertfordshire had been found, by Mr. Clutterbuck,
to be nearly at the rate of twenty feet per mile in the chalk between
Sir John Sebright's park at Beechwood and the town of Watford ; and
fourteen feet per mile in the chalk under tertiary strata in some parts
of the basin of London. The engineers of the Southampton Railway
had found a similar fall of about sixteen or seventeen feet per mile in
the wells at the railway-stations between Basingstoke and South-
ampton." Without expressing an opinion of my own as to whether
there really is or is not a subterranean water-channel between Lakes
Superior and Ontario, it is evident enough that, even if there is, its
size and character, as being more or less obstructed by solid or porous
materials, together with its length, would have sojne influence in de-
termining the quantity of water which could flow through it, even
with a difl^erence of water-level over its extremities equal to three
hundred and sixty-five feet. Unless, therefore, Mr, Green's " newly
discovered force" should suddenly cease to make Lake Superior an
"overflowing spring of subterranean water," or, rather, unless the
region from which Lake Superior gets its water should be deprived of
its yearly rains, we need not immediately look for a common level of
the water in Lakes Superior and Ontario.

4o8

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

CORRESPONDENCE.

"WASTED FORCES."
Messrs. Editors.

A RECENT issue of your " Monthly " con-
tained a criticism, by Mr. J. W. Cloud,
of some points in my paper on " Wasted
Forces " published in yours of July, in which
it is alleged I am in error. I had intended
replying at once to this criticism, but have
been prevented until now by circumstances.
My critic makes the point that, in my at-
tempt to account for the low duty of the
steam-engine, I have ignored one of the
chief elements of the problem, namely, " the
low efficiency of the medium."

To this criticism I beg to reply that for
the purpose of showing the margin for pos-
sible improvement in engines, whether de-
riving their motive power from steam or any
other medium, the only elements entering
into the problem are those I have named in
my article, to wit: 1. The amount of work
that should be given out, and which is the
equivalent of the number of heat-units im-
parted to the medium by the combustion of
the fuel ; and, 2. The amount of work ac-
tually realized. The difference is the loss,
and this loss is due not to " the low efficiency
of the medium," but to the low efficiency of
the machine.

To make myself quite plain, I will add
my understanding of what a perfect engine
should be. The perfect engine, hypothcti-
cally stated, is an apparatus that will utilize
all the heat-units evolved by the complete
combustion of fuel in the generator in the
generation of steam ; that will use all the
steam that the generator supplies, convert-
ing it into water in so doing ; that will put
that water back again into the generator
whence it came ; and that will give out dur-

ing a given time an amount of work that
shall be the equivalent of the number of
heat -units that have disappeared during
that time.

I confess my inability to perceive what
the question of latent or sensible heat has
to do with the problem ; and, in view of the
fact that my critic has taken the pains to
warn the readers of the " Monthly " that my
statements might give false impressions, I
wish to reaffirm the strict correctness of the
theoretical view I have advanced ; and to
assert, my critic to the contrary notwith-
standing, that the difficulties in the way of
increasing the duty of the steam-engine to
a very close approximation to that which
theory calls for are purely of a mechanical
nature, and therefore not beyond the power of
mechanical science to overcome.

This is the gist of the matter, and Itake
direct issue with my critic in denying that
the element of the high latent as compared
with the low sensible heat of the medium,
whether it be steam or any other, that is
used, is the impassable barrier to future im-
provement that he would make it appear.

On another point that my critic makes,
namely, that I throw too much of the re-
sponsibility of the low duty of the steam-
engine on the generator, I have no hesita-
tion, after further inquiry into the subject,
to yield to him, and to admit that fifty per
cent, would have been nearer the truth than
twenty-five per cent., which I gave in my pa-
per. I gave that figure simply as an opin-
ion derived from a practice that is exceed-
ingly variable and complex, and therefore
liable to wide differences of result.
Very truly,

William H. Wahl.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

RECEPTION OF THE "^ DATA OF ETHICSr

THE science of morals is as legiti-
mate as the science of rocks, and
far more important. When, therefore,
a new step has been taken in its de-
velopment and exposition, we are inter-
ested in all the indications of its rec-
ognition. The reception of Spencer's
" Data of Ethics" shows on the whole

a very marked progress of religious
liberality. There is much protest but
large concession, while the expressions
of intelligent appreciation and cordial
sympathy are many and emphatic. We
give some illustrations, with comments,
of the manner in which his position is
now regarded.

We certainly never expected to live

EDITOR'S TABLE.

409

long enough to see the name of Herbert
Spencer received with applause in a
great religious convention of orthodox
people ; but, if the report of the London
"Times" can be trusted, this extraor-
dinary phenomenon has actually oc-
curred. That paper of October 10th
contains a report of the Church Con-
gress held this year at Swansea, and
presided over by the Bishop of St. Da-
vids, in which the question of " Internal
Church Unity " came up for discussion.
The Eeverend Professor Pritchard gave
an eloquent and powerful address on
the " Religious Benefits from Recent
Science and Research," in which the
doctrine of evolution was assumed as
true, and as in entire harmony with all
essential religious truth. He was fol-
lowed by the Reverend Professor Wat-
kins, of St. Augustine College, Canter-
bury, who spoke on the same subject.
He said : " The currents of higher re-
ligious thought in England were being
influenced by two main forces ; one was
the theory of evolution, the other com-
parative theology, or the so-called sci-
ence of religion itself. The theory of
evolution came to them with much of
the charm of novelty, and commended
itself as emphatically of British growth.
It was probable, indeed, that this in-
duction of inductions was but a step
to higher inductions. Still he felt sure
that, when the history of this century
came to be written from the standpoint
of the future, the name of Herbert
Spencer would be found in the very first
rank among English thinkers. [Cheers.]
In ultimate principles he differed from
Spencer toto ccelo, but he was therefore
the more anxious to acknowledge the
greatness of his work, and the philo-
sophical spirit in which it had been
conducted. [Hear, hear!]"

It is a common remark that all tran-
sitions of belief are painful, and none
know better than intelligent mission-
aries how painful are transitions of re-
ligious belief. It matters little that the
change is from a lower to a higher faith ;

violence is done to long-cherished ideas,
and there is a sense of bereavement
whatever the superiority of the new
creed. Those, therefore, who are in
the habit of having their morality gar-
nished with theology and are accus-
tomed to mix these conceptions and
their terminology, will naturally shrink
from the attempt to separate the ethics
and treat it merely as an independent
system of scientific principles. Such
devout people will naturally look upon
the "Data of Ethics" as a cheerless
book. They yearn for the blessed
words that have become polarized by
long and sacred association. The re-
viewer in "Harper's Monthly," after
giving a very fair account of the work,
closes by expressing this idea as fol-
lows : " The treatise is a model of con-
densed and lucid statement, and of sub-
tile reasoning, but the reader will be
struck by the inexpressible dreai-iness
of its tone, as if its author had vezi-
fied in his own experience the simile
of one of our greatest living poets, that
' the setting of a great hope is hke the
setting of the sun — the brightness of
our life is gone.' "

It is possible that the writer believed
what he here says, but it is more prob-
able, we must say, that he was merely
writing with the delicate caution thought
necessary under the circumstances. The
penalty of a " hundred thousand circu-
lation " is that writers must be solicit-
ous to reflect public sentiment rather
than to lead it, and the practical result
is that they generally ,/b??()w it afar off.
Our whole nation is ahead of this senti-
mental craving to keep things mixed
which ought to be separated. We
have separated the Church from the
state, with great distress to many, no
doubt, but with the most wholesome
consequences. We have secularized
our public instruction, and, although
there are still many who bemoan the
inexpressible dreariness of our godless
education, the good sense of the coun-
try has long since ceased to heed the

410

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ecclesiastical lamentations over our pol-
icy. The disentangling of ethics from
theology and the treatment of it as an
independent science were demanded as
a logical requirement of our educational
system, for morals must be taught in
public schools, while religion is left to
the special agencies of spiritual instruc-
tion. And, if the country has thus
decreed the divorce, why mourn over
a book which merely conforms to it,
and which furnishes the best defense of
the national wisdom in making the di-
vorce ?

But the characterization of Spen-
cer's work as dreary and the sugges-
tion about " the setting of a great
hope " are untruthful, and are probably
morbid subjective illusions of the writer.
The "Data of Ethics," so far from
being a dreary book in its spirit and
tone, is, on the contrary, a book more
buoyant with hope and more full of
rational encouragement than any for-
mer philosophical treatise upon morals
ever written. It connects the moral
duty and improvement of man with
pleasure and happiness more closely and
profoundly than any other ethical sys-
tem hitherto promulgated. It arrays
the grand results of modern science
against a spurious metaphysics to stem
the black tide of advancing pessimism ;
and it appeals to the unfolding of the
universe as giving trust of something
brighter and better for man — yet to
be realized this side of his chances of
perdition. Other reviewers of " The
Data of Ethics " have not ftiiled to rec-
ognize and to declare this quality of
the book.

A writer in the " Home Journal "
of November 16th closes an interesting
account of Spencer's work as follows :
" To whatever criticism the system of
ethics which is thus logically developed
from the law of evolution may be sub-
jected on the part of the opponents of
the evolution theory, yet this at least is
evident — that as an instrument for the
acceleration of the progress of society

toward the beautiful ideal which it
sketches out, as a stimulus to individual
exertion in furtherance of this high aim,
the new system is immeasurably supe-
rior to all antecedent theories of life.
While other systems have encouraged
the hope, none have supplied the data
of a rational faith in the ultimate re-
alization of a lofty morality among the
masses of mankind. ISTay, the prevalent
codes which claim for themselves a su-
pernatural origin make it their duty to
proclaim the native irapotency of man,
and place the realization of their ideal
quite beyond this * vale of tears.'

"Believe in the perfectibility of
men, believe that society in the very
conditions of its existence is impreg-
nated with the potency that insures this
perfectibility, and a great step is made
toward the end desired. Faith in this
preestablished destiny — the faith that
the laws of the universe are working in
and through and side by side with the
aspirations and endeavors of individual
men, can not fail but impart a new im-
pulse to these aspirations and a new
vigor to these endeavors."

Equally to the point are the words
of a critic in "The Nonconformist"
of November 5th — a journal which is
the leading organ of English orthodox
Dissenters. After an excellent analysis
of the work, tbe writer remarks : " The
value of the discussion in this volume
is the glimpses it affords into the future
which its author anticipates. No loftier
view, we venture to think, was ever en-
tertained. Whatever may be the opin-
ions we hold respecting the origin of
our ideas of right and wrong, and of the
sanctions by which they are enforced,
we can not refrain from admiring the
optimism of Mr. Herbert Spencer. It
is as pure and sublime as that of the
most spiritual seers of the past, and it
involves as radical a change in human
nature as that demanded by the New
Testament. It is, in his own words, ' a
rationalized version of its ethical prin-
ciples.' He feels, as we feel in reading

EDITOR'S TABLE.

411

his works, that his conclusions will
not meet with any considerable accept-
ance. The fact that they are Christian
in their essence is rather a hindrance
to their acceptance, since conventional
Christianity practically repudiates the
ideal morality of its founder."

The presidents of colleges have found
tliemselves called upon to define their
position in regard to the " Data of
Ethics," and their outgivings, though
somewhat discordant, are none the less
instructive.

It is now nearly ten years since
President Porter, of Yale, in a little
book on " Man," said in relation to Her-
bert Spencer: "No well-read student
of philosophy can hesitate to believe
that, notwithstanding the zeal of his ad-
mirers, he will cease to be the wonder
of the hour; that as soon as the secret
of his plausibility is exposed he will suf-
fer a more complete neglect than he
will fairly deserve." These were omi-
nous words, and coming from such a
source they led many to expect that
very soon some powerful hand would
strip the mask from a pretender and
consign him to speedy oblivion. Mean-
time, the lugubrious prophecy remained
unfulfilled. Dr. Porter, however, con-
tinues to be of the same mind, aad
after this long time he comes forward
and with unseemly malediction again
foretells the unmasking of this preten-
tious wn-iter, whom he elsewhere likens
to a " dexterous juggler." Yet, instead
of collapsing and vanishing in accord-
ance with this portentous Porterian pro-
gramme, Spencer emerges in a new
field into which the President of Yale
finds it necessary to follow him with a
six-columned article in "The Indepen-
dent." Some pleasant things are said of
the " Data of Ethics " and its author,
but Mr. Spencer is sharply indicted for
not making enough of the metaphysical
notion of personality. Dr. Porter de-
clares : " Indeed, personality is a concep-
tion which is utterly foreign to any and

every part of his theory, as it logically
should be. This grand and damning
defect will one day be discovered and
confessed when the factitious glamour
which now invests it is dispelled."

Theologians have ever been free in
the application of damnatory expletives
to scientific ideas which do not conform
to their standards, and the President is
here merely conforming to the long-
prevalent custom of his party. But, so
long as these execrable defects of Spen-
cer's theories are yet spoken of as
things to be " one day discovered,"
would it not be well to pretermit this
little game of sinister augury, and be
content to curse defects already discov-
ered ?

The President of the College of
New Jersey has also paid his respects
to the " Data of Ethics " in the
" Princeton Review," but he is at
wide disagreement with his brother
of Yale. In fact, they are squarely
antagonistic in their estimates of Spen-
cer, past, present, and future. Dr.
McOosh does not think that he is ei-
ther a sham to be exposed, or a thinker
to be soon forgotten. He opens his
article by saying: "Herbert Spencer
commands our respect by his terrible
earnestness. He has an end to live for,
! and he lives for it. For it he has given '
up professional pursuits and profits (he
was an engineer), and for many years
immediate fame and popularity. For
at least thirty years a grand system of
speculative physics founded on the re-
cent discoveries in biology has been
developing in his brain, and he must
unfold it and give it forth in spite of
obstacles, witli or without encourage-
ment from surroundings in the world.
He is to a large extent the author, and
is certainly the organizer and the very
embodiment, personification, and ex-
pression of development." Again Dr.
McCosh says: "What may be the esti-
mate of his philosophy at the end of
this century I will not take upon myself
to predict. As embracing so many es-

412

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tablished facts, I believe there is much
in his system which will abide; and I
adhere to the opinion that ' his bold
generalizations are always instructive,
and that some of them may in the end
be established as the profoundest laws
of the knowable universe.' '.' *

That eminent logician and mathe-
matician. Professor J, Stanley Jevons,
has been recently reviewing the philos-
ophy of J. S. Mill in a series of arti-
cles in the " Contemporary Eeview."
In the November number he takes up
Mill's " Utilitarianism," and considers
his contributions to the subject of mo-
rality in relation to the present state of
knowledge. He recognizes that Mill
belonged to a past dispensation, and
was incompetent to deal scientifically
with those great moral problems by the
handling of which Herbert Spencer
has made a new epoch in philosophic
thought. "We give some of the closing
passages of his article :

Such are the intricacies and wide extent
of etliical questions, that it is not practicable
to pursue the analysis of Mill's doctrine in
at all a full manner. We can not detect the
fallacious reasoning with the same precision
as in matters of geometric and logical sci-
ence. This analysis is the less needful, too,
because, since Mill's essays appeared, moral
philosophy has undergone a revolution. I
do not so much allude to the i-eform effected
by Mr. Sidgwick's " Methods of Ethics,"
though that is a great one, introducing as it
does a precision of thought and nomencla-
ture which was previously wanting. I al-
lude, of course, to the establishment of the
Spencerian theory of morals, which has
made a new era in philosophy. Mill has
been singularly imfortunate from this point
of view. He might be defined as the last
great philosophic writer conspicuous for his
ignorance of the principles of evolution. . . .
The whole tone of Mill's moral and political
writings is totally opposed to the teaching
of Darwin and Spencer, Tylor and Maine.
Mill's idea of human nature was that we
came into the world like lumps of soft clay,
to be shaped by the accidents of life, or the
care of those who educate us. Austin in-

* This estimate Dr. McCosh had the sagacity
to make and the courage to express many years
ago in his " Intuitions of Mind."

sisted on the evidence which history and
daily experience afford of " the extraordinary
pliability of human nature," and Mill bor-
rowed the phrase from him. No phrase
could better express the misapprehensions of
human nature which, it is to be hoped, will
cease for ever with the last generation of
writers. Human nature is one of the last
things which can be called " pliable." Gran-
ite rocks can be more easily molded than the
poor savages that hide among them. We
are all of us full of deep springs of uncon-
querable character, which education may
in some degree soften or develop, but can
neither create nor destroy. The mind can
be shaped about as much as the body ; it
may be starved into feebleness, or fed and
exercised into vigor and fullness ; but we
start always with inherent hereditary powers
of growth. The non-recognition of this fact
is the great defect in the moral system of
Bentham. The great Jeremy was accus-
tomed to make short work with the things
which he did not understand, and it is thus
he disposes of " the pretended system" of a
moral sense : " One man says he has a
thing made on purpose to tell him what is
right and what is wrong, and that it is called
a moral sense ; and then he goes to his work
at his ease, and says such a thing is right
and such a thing is wrong. Why ? Because
my moral sense tells me it is." Bentham
then bluntly ignored the validity of innate
feelings, but this omission, though a great
defect, did not much diminish the value of
his analysis of the good and bad effects of
actions. Mill discarded the admirable Ben-
thamist analysis, but failed to introduce the
true evolutionist principles; thus he falls
between the two. It is to Herbert Spencer
we must look for a more truthful philosophy
of morals than was possible before his time.
The publication of the first part of his
principles of morality, under the title " The
Data of Ethics," gives us, in a definite form,
and in his form, what we could previously
only infer from the general course of his
philosophy and from his brief letter on utili-
tarianism addressed to Mill. Although but
fragments, these writings enable us to see
that a definite step has been made in a mat-
ter debated since the dawn of intellect. The
moral sense doctrine, so rudely treated by
Bentham, is no longer incapable of recon-
ciliation with the greatest happiness princi-
ple, only it now becomes a moving and de-
velopable moral sense. An absolute and un-
alterable moral standard was opposed to the
palpable fact that customs and feelings dif-
fer widely, and Paley, on this ground, was in-

I

EDITOR'S TABLE.

413

duced to reject it. Now, we perceive that
we all have a moral sense ; but the moral
sense of one individual, and still more of
one race, may differ from that of another in-
dividual or race. Each is more or less fitted
to its circumstances, and the best is ascer-
tained by eventual success.

At the tail end of an article it is, of com-se,
impossible to discuss the grounds or results
of the Spencerian philosophy. To me it pre-
sents itself, in its main features, as unques-
tionably true ; indeed, it is already difficult
to look back and imagine how philosophers
could have denied of the human mind and
actions what is so obviously true of the ani-
mal races generally. As a reaction from the
old views about innate ideas, the philoso-
phers of the eighteenth century wished to
believe that the human mind was a kind of
tabula rasa, or carte blanche, upon which
education could impress any character. But,
if so, why not harness the lion, and teach
the sheep to drive away the wolf? If the
moral, not to speak of the physical charac-
teristics of the lower animals, are so distinct,
why should there not be moral and mental
differences among ourselves, descending, as
we obviously do, from different stocks with
different physical characteristics ? . . . .
Many persons may be inclined to like the
philosophy of Spencer no better than that of
Mill. But, if the one be true and the other
false, liking and disliking have no place in
the matter. There may be many things
which we can not possibly like ; but, if they
are, they are. It'is possible that the princi-
ples of evolution, as expounded by Mr. Her-
bert Spencer, may seem as wanting in "ge-
niality" as the formulas of Benthara. . . .
Nevertheless, I fully believe that all which
is sinister and ungenial in the philosophy of
evolution is either the expression of miques-
tionable facts, or else it is the outcome of
misinterpretation. It is impossible to see
how Mr. Spencer, any more than other peo-
ple, can explain away the existence of pain
and evil. Nobody has done this ; perhaps
nobody ever shall do it ; certainly systems
of theology will not do it. A true philoso-
pher will not expect to solve everything.
But, if we admit the potent fact that pain
exists, let us obser^'c also the tendency
which Spencer and Darwin establish toward
its minimization. Evolution is a striving
ever toward the better and the happier.
There may be also infinite powers against
us, but at least there is a deep-built scheme
working toward goodness and happiness.
So profound and widespread is this confed-
eracy of the powers of good, that no failure.

and no series of failures, can disconcert it.
Let mankind be thrown back a himdred
times, and a hundred times the better ten-
dencies of evolution will reassert themselves.
Paley pointed out how many beautiful con-
trivances there are in the human form tend-
ing to our benefit. Spencer has pointed out
that the universe is one deep-laid framework
for the production of such beneficent con-
trivances. Paley called upon us to admire
such exquisite inventions as a hand or an
eye ; Spencer calls upon us to admire a
machine which is the most comprehensive
of all machines, because it is ever engaged
in inventing beneficial inventions ad injird-
tum. Such, at least, is my way of regarding
his philosophy.

Darwin, indeed, cautions us against sup-
posing that natural selection always leads to-
ward the production of higher and happier
types of life. Ketrogression may result as
well as progression. But I apprehend that
retrogression can only occur where the en-
vironment of a living species is altered to
its detriment. Mankind degenerates when
forced, like the Esquimaux, to inhabit the
Arctic regions. StiU in retrograding, in a
sense, the being becomes more suited to its
circumstances — more capable, therefore, of
happiness. The inventing machine of evo-
lution would be working badly if it worked
other^vise. But, however this may be, we
must accept the philosophy if it be true, and,
for my part, I do so without reluctance.

According to Mill, we are little, self-de-
pendent gods, fighting with a malignant and
murderous power called Nature, sure, one
would think, to be worsted in the struggle.
According to Spencer, as I venture to inter-
pret his theory, we are the latest manifesta-
tion of an all-prevailing tendency toward the
good, the happy. Creation is not yet con-
cluded, and there is no one of us who may
not become conscious in his heart that he is
no automaton, no mere lump of protoplasm,
but the creatiu-e of a Creator.

RAILROAD CASUALTIES.

Ottr half century's experience with
railroads is full of various instruction.
Charles Francis Adams, Jr., has occu-
pied himself with the lessons of railroad
casualties. He has investigated them
officially in Massachusetts, and studied
them elsewhere, and he has made a lit-
tle volume which he modestly calls

414

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

" Notes on Railway Accidents," but
which is the first digest of information
we have regarding great railway disas-
ters, their causes, and the progress of
security in this mode of travel. The
book is interesting and valuable, no less
for its reflections and conclusions than
for its well-collated facts.

Mr. Adams begins by calling atten-
tion to the melancholy fact that there
are few things of which nature or man
is more lavish and careless than hu-
man life. There is really but little care
about the waste of life so long as the
fatality is unobtrusive. The destruction
of life by war is as nothing to that by
intemperance, bad sewerage, and worse
ventilation; but, as it does not come
by crush and shock, it attracts small
attention. Eailroad "horrors" make
a strong impression upon the public
mind ; and each fresh catastrophe, by
arousing public opinion, by inciting the
courts to hold the companies to a more
rigorous responsibility, and, above all,
by the damage and detriment they work
to the corporations, leads to increasing
vigilance and greater security, " until
it has been said, and with no inconsid-
erable degree of truth, too, that the
very safest place into which a man can
put himself is the inside of a first-class
railroad-carriage, on a train in full mo-
tion."

But, on the other hand, all these ap-
palling disasters seem to have been ne-
cessary to secure the improvement of the
railway system. There can be no great-
er mistake than to suppose that men are
guided and governed by reason. Most
of them are creatures of habit, stupid,
sluggish, and prejudiced, and can only
learn slowly through calamitous expe-
rience. As Mr. Adams says, " To bring
about any considerable reform, railroad
disasters have, as it were, to be empha-
sized by loss of life." Indeed, the most
instructive part of his volume is the
profuse illustration it aiFords of that
inveterate stolidity on the part of rail-
road managers and officials which no-

thing could overcome but slaughter,
public indignation, murmurs, pecuniary
losses — and all this over, and over, and
over again — while it has proved impos-
sible even yet to get rid of some of the
most serious sources of danger.

The bell-cord for signaling the en-
gineer is a simple device for an impor-
tant purpose, but it has had a curious
history. Nothing certainly would seem
to be more essential than for a passen-
ger in case of grave accident to be able
to communicate instantaneously with
the engine-driver of his train. This is
perfectly accomplished by the bell-cord,
which has been accordingly long in use
in this country. Yet it was not used in
England, and its adoption, singular to
say, w^s actively resisted, although they
had nothing else to replace it. Mr.
Adams says, " An English substitute
for the American bell-cord has for more
than thirty years set the ingenuity of
Great Britain at defiance."

In 1857 the British Board of Trade
issued a circular to the railroad compa-
nies, pointing out the dangers that arise
from lack of proper signal-connection.
They say : " From the beginning of the
year 1854 down to the present time
(December, 1857) there have been twen-
ty-six cases in which either the acci-
dents themselves or some of the ulterior
consequences of the accidents would
probably have been avoided had such a
means of communication existed." But
there had not been funerals enough to
enforce the recommendation. To get a
string attached to a bell for the safety
of travelers required a succession of
shocks to thrill the country ; and they
came, of course, in due time. Not only
did accidents continue from the setting
fire of carriages and throwing them
from the rails, but several dreadful
instances of assault by maniacs, men
with delirium tremens, and criminals,
and even outright murder took place,
which would undoubtedly have been
avoided if there had been any means of
communication to stop the train. Sev-

EDITOR'S TABLE.

415

eral examples are given by Mr. Adams
of these terrible occurrences, which
"indicate the tremendous nature of the
pressure which has been required to
even partially force the American bell-
cord into use in tliat country."

But the stolid indifference of rail-
road conservatism is by no means con-
fined to England. Mr. Adams remarks:
" It will not do for the American rail-
road manager to pride himself too
much on his own greater ingenuity and
more amicable disposition. The An-
gola disaster has been referred to, as
well as that at Shipton. If the ab-
sence of the bell-cord had indeed any
part in the fatality of the latter, the
presence in cars crowded with passen-
gers of iron pots full of living fire lent
horrors almost unheard of to the for-
mer. The methods of accomplishing
needed results which are usual to any
people are never easily changed, wheth-
er in Europe or in America ; but cer-
tainly the disasters which have first
and last ensued from the failure to de-
vise any safe means of heating passen-
ger-coaches in this country are out ot
all proportion to those which can be
attributed in England to the absence of
means of communication between pas-
sengers on trains and those in charge
of them. There is an American con-
servatism as well as an English; and
when it comes to a question of running
risks it would be strange indeed if the
greater margin of security were found
west of the Atlantic. The security af-
forded by the bell-cord assuredly has
not as yet, in this country, offset the
danger incident to red-hot stoves."

Mr. Adams gives an interesting ac-
count of the introduction of various
other safety appliances on railroads, and
shows that they were mostly repeti-
tions of the bell -cord experience.
Among these improvements none are
more important than the brakes under
the control of the engineer, for quickly
stopping trains running at high speed.
The American Westinghouse brake, by

which an air-pump, attached to the
boiler of the locomotive and controlled
by the engineer, forces atmospheric air
through tubes running under the cars,
by which the brake-blocks are pressed
against the wheels, is incontestably the
most perfect contrivance for quickly
stopping trains that has yet been in-
vented, as by means of it the hand of
the engine-driver is in fact upon every
wheel in the train. This contrivance
was of course delicate, and was at first
liable to get easily out of order ; but it
was gradually perfected so as to become
automatic and thoroughly trustworthy.
" In this country, the superiority of
the Westinghouse over any other de-
scription of train-brake has long been
established through that long prepon-
derance of use which in such matters
constitutes the final and irreversible
verdict." But in Great Britain its in-
troduction was vigorously resisted, and,
as it was energetically pushed, there
grew up a war among the different
contrivances, to which Mr. Adams de-
votes an interesting chapter under the
title of "The Battle of the Brakes." A
royal English commission on railroad
accidents was appointed, and undertook
a series of competitive trials with the
different inventions. "Eight brakes
competed, and a train consisting of a
locomotive and thirteen cars was spe-
cially prepared for each. With these
trains some seventy runs were made,
and their results recorded and tabu-
lated ; the experiments were continued
through six consecutive working-days.
The result of the trials was a very de-
cided victory for the "Westinghouse au-
tomatic, and upon its performances the
commission based its conclusion that
trains ought to be so equipped that in
cases of emergency they could be
brought to rest when traveling on level
ground at fifty miles an hour within a
distance of 275 yards." Tlie result was
sufficiently decisive, and the Board of
Trade urged upon the English companies
the adoption of the brake which had

4i6

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

proved to be loost efficient for its pur-
pose. But there were too many par-
ties interested in rival devices, and the
superior one came into use, but very
slowly. It did make progress, how-
ever, and we are told that the issue is
now narrowed down to a struggle be-
tween two American brakes, the West-
inghouse and the Smith vacuum, which
has been its strongest rival.

As to the comparative safety of
travel on the railroads in England and
in this country, it is conceded that the
former have the advantage, although ex-
actly to what extent it is impossible to
say, owing to the gross incompleteness
of American statistics. But the causes
of accidents act very unequally in the
two countries. For example, while from
failure of bridges, viaducts, or culverts,
there were, in six years, in England,
only twenty-nine accidents, there were
in this country, for the same time, one
hundred and sixty-five accidents due to
similar causes. The English lead in ac-
cidents from collisions of trains, and we
in accidents from trains being thrown
from the track. "The English colli-
sions are distinctly traceable to con-
stant overcrowding ; the American de-
railments and bridge accidents to infe-
rior construction of our road-beds."

The subject of railroad statistics,
including accidents, has received more
attention in Massachusetts than else-
where iu this country. The following
statement by Mr. Adams will excite
some surprise : " During the four years
1875-78 it will be remembered a sin-
gle passenger only was killed on the
railroads of Massachusetts in conse-
quence of an accident to which he, by
his own carelessness, in no way con-
tributed. The average number of per-
sons annually injured, not fatally, dur-
ing these years, was about five; yet
during the year 1878, excluding all
cases of mere injury, of which no ac-
count was made, no less than fifty-three
persons came to their deaths in Boston
from falling down stairs, and thirty-

seven more from falling out of win-
dows ; seven were scalded to death in
1878 alone. In the year 1874, seven-
teen were killed by being run over by
teams in the streets. During the five
years, 1874-'78, there were more per-
sons murdered in the city of Boston
alone than lost their lives as passengers
through the negligence of all the rail-
road corporations in the whole State of
Massachusetts during the nine years
1871-'78 ; although in these nine years
were included both the Eevere and the
Wollaston disasters, the former of which
resulted in the death of twenty-nine
and the latter of twenty-one persons.

The most prolific source of railroad
accidents is reckless walking and saun-
tering upon the tracks — a practice in
violation of the law, and for which the
companies are not responsible. Walk-
ing upon the railroad-track is, in this
country, regarded as a kind of right of
the American citizen which be pays
for liberally, nearly fifty per cent, of
all accidents which occur being due to
this cause. Under the English mon-
archy the people are kept oflf the tracks
more eflfectually, and the accidents from
this source are accordingly only about
seven per cent, of the whole number.

REMOVING THE BARRIERS OF COM-
MERCE.

"We print a translation of the ad-
dress delivered before the International
Congress at Paris, by M. Charles de
Fourcy, on the several projected routes
of an Interoceanic Ship-Canal across
the Isthmus of Darien. M. de Fourcy is
a distinguished French engineer, and
Inspector-General of Eoads and Bridges
in France, an eminent and responsible
position in that country. He was a
delegate to the Congress, a member of
its "Technique" Committee, and Presi-
dent of the second Sub-Committee into
which it was divided to simplify its
labors. On the afternoon of the day
preceding the final vote he reviewed

LITERARY NOTICES.

417

the subject in a speecli which was lis-
tened to with close attention, and, as
we are informed by Mr. Nathan Apple-
ton, who was a critical observer of the
proceedings, his statement of the rela-
tive advantages and disadvantages of
the different contemplated lines was
undoubtedly influential in determining
the vote of the Congress in favor of the
Panama route.

We have had engraved, to accom-
pany the article, two very instructive
maps, one representing the location of
the different routes under considera-
tion, and the other showing the relation
wliich this project bears to the oceanic
commerce of the world.

Without venturing to decide which
is the best route — a question that be-
longs to the engineers — we are clear as
to certain of the considerations which
should have weight in determining it.
That the canal jnust come is inevitable.
The Isthmus barrier is a hindrance to
commerce — a kind of natural tariff that
must be removed in the interest of ad-
vancing free trade. It must disappear
with other old restrictions on the world's
exchanges. It will be a step forward
in civilization, and is in the strictest
and largest sense an international affair.
Commerce is pacific ; war and the mili-
tary spirit are its deadly foes. It is,
therefore, of the first necessity that the
enterprise should be " hedged about
with ample international guarantees of
perpetual neutrality." The opening of
a water-way across the narrow strip of
hind that separates two oceans is a
world's measure, and ought not to be
complicated with any local political
considerations. The talk about " pa-
triotism " and the "Monroe doctrine"
in connection with this great project is
therefore impertinent. It springs from
the same narrowness of national feel-
ing that has killed our foreign com-
merce by prohibiting American citizens
from buying ships where they please,
and it is a policy which will be con-
demned by all liberal-minded people.

VOL. XVI. — 27

LITERARY NOTICES.

Is Life worth Living? By William
HcRRELL Mallock. Ncw York : G. P.
Putiiam'a Sons. Pp. 323. Price, $1.50.

This work, which has recently attracted
considerable attention, is a sort of theologi-
cal manifesto directed against the tenden-
cies of modern science. Those who have
arrived at what may be called the conun-
drum-stage of mental development, and do
not object to irreverent impudence, may be
pleased with it. Its author is a young Eng-
lish writer, who made a hit with his imper-
tinent satire, "The New Republic," and,
having sustained his reputation by various
sensational contributions to the periodicals,
he now comes jauntily forward with his
grand question as to the worth of life, to
which his book is an answer. He antici-
pates the work of the day of judgment by
summing up the experiment of universe-
making and estimating the net value of the
result.

Mr. Mallock is well skilled in rhetorical
and dialectic art, and writes in a lively and
spirited way. To the amusement-seeking,
novel-reading mind, ever on the lookout for
a new sensation, and with a frivolous side-
interest in religious matters, we should say
that the book may be entertaining; but,
viewed as a deliverance of sober thought
addressed to sensible people, it is a book of
nonsense.

The pert effrontery of Mr. Mallock's
question, and the unutterable stupidity of
the conclusion to which his logic brings him,
are apparent at a glance. The question
whether life is worth living, of course in-
volves the question of the value of exis-
tence and the universe, for life is the grand
outcome of the order of Nature. It is
something that has arisen by slow degrees
and through innumerable forms and grades,
during immeasurable time, and is the agen-
cy by which the human mind has come into
being and reached its present perfection.
Life is therefore the thing that has been
aimed at, in the onworiiing of universal
law, for more millions of years than we are
at hberty to talk about. Life is not a for-
eign and mysterious something that has
been thrust into the system of nature, but

4i8

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

it is itself the property and purpose and
highest issue of that system. The completest
type of organism has been reached through
countless ages of struggle and profuse de-
struction of the lower grades of creatures.
In those distant periods Mallock was only a
potentiality, and it has been a very expen-
sive process to bring him to pass. A few
years ago Mallock was but a globule of
English protoplasm, involving whatever life-
possibilities heredity had imparted to it.
He grew from a germ until his brain ac-
quired the power of thinking and asking
questions. He is a product of that long
process of life-unfolding that makes him
now competent to reason about the uni-
verse, and to deduce from it ideas of the
existence and attributes of God. Having
been brought forth in this way as a result
of cosmical operations to which no bounds
can be discovered either in time or space,
he looks about him and asks whether the
whole concern is not a blunder and a fizzle.
And the question he raises he is abundant-
ly ready to settle. We might perhaps ask
for some suspension of judgment on the
ground that, as the universe is in a state
of evolution, and has come up from a lower
or more worthless condition to a higher or
more worthy one, it will go on increasing
in worthiness so as finally to become toler-
able, if not valuable. Granting that Mal-
lock is no great result, possibly we might,
after a time, get something better than Mal-
lock. But he allows no postponement of
judgment. He has all the data of the case,
and is prepared with a final conclusion.
He argues the subject through three hun-
dred and twenty-three pages of his book,
and the upshot is a contingent answer.
Life is worth living, if you belong to a par-
ticular theological school ; if you belong to
any other theological school, or to no school
at all, it is not worth a pin. If you are a
Methodist, or a positivist, or a pagan, life
is not worth living, but if you are a Roman
Catholic, it is. When the mental evolution
of man lands him in the bosom of the Pa-
pal Church, the long process was well worth
while ; when it leaves him elsewhere, it is a
dead failure. We have here the last bril-
liant exploit of the theological mind in its
warfare with modern science.

The logical implications of Mr. Mal-

lock's position are somewhat curious. He
holds that there is no sound morality with-
out Christianity, and no Christianity without
a hell. When the heretic and the unbe-
liever and all beyond the pale of Mother
Church die, they sink into perdition, but
when the true Catholic dies he has a pass-
port to the happiness of heaven. Now, one
would think that this is decisive as to which
parties should most prize the continuance
of life. Life ought to be best worth living
to those who have most to lose when it ter-
minates, and least worth living to those
who have everything to gain when it comes
to an end. But great is the mystery of
logic to those who vacate their reason in
deference to infallible authority.

Naval Hygiene : Human Health and the

MEANS OF PREVENTING DISEASE. With

Illustrative Incidents derived from Na-
val Experience. By Joseph Wilson, M.
D., Medical Director, U. S. N. Second
edition, with Colored Lithojiraphs. Phil-
adelphia : Lindsay & Blakiston. 8vo, pp.
274. 1879. Price, $3.
Wherever human beings live together
in considerable numbers for any length of
time, we expect the conditions of health will
soon become impaired unless constant and
well-directed efforts are made for their pro-
tection ; and, in spite of the popular notion
to the contrary, life on shipboard is no ex-
ception to the rule. Indeed, there are few
places where sanitary precautions are more
necessary, or where they may be applied
with better effect.

The present work is intended as a help
in this direction, and contains much that, if
brought together in a compact form, would
be of service to medical officers and others
filling responsible positions in the naval and
mercantile marine. The author has chosen,
however, to include a great deal that has
only a remote relation to the subject, and
that here serves merely to encumber and
obscure what could otherwise be made prac-
tically available. Fifty pages, for example,
are given to zoology and botany, while the
immensely more important subjects of cloth-
ing, food and its preservation, the storage
and management of the water-supply, and
the cleansing and ventilation of the ship, are
compressed into an almost equal space ; and
much of this even is taken up with matter

LITERARY NOTICES.

419

that has little bearing on the topic under
discussion.

The chapter on epidemics adds nothing
whatever to our knowledge of their causes
or prevention, saj's not a word concerning
the measures requisite for their manage-
ment when occurring on shipboard, and
leaves us in doubt as to whether the author
is even acquainted with the results of mod-
ern investigations on the subject. Had he
been, we should scarcely expect to find
such a paragraph as this on epidemic influ-
ences : " The cause and nature of this epi-
demic influence are quite unknown. The
most ancient theory is as true as any God
so ordained it ; has thus organized his crea-
tures. Anciently, these diseases were most-
ly attributed to his wrath; and certainly
they mostly result more or less directly from
violations of his known laws. When we seek
for the instruments of his will in this mat-
ter, we get into a labyrinth of guesses, and
ingenious and plausible theories, in which
hydro-carbons, fermentations, organic germs,
microscopic animalcules, and cryptogamic
vegetations are made prominently to figure.
They nearly all refer to impurities or dis-
' temperatures of the atmosphere."

After this, we are not surprised to find
the following statement concerning the
spread of yellow fever : " In regard to the
question of quarantine in this disease, we
may safely say that all restraints that pre-
vent the sick from reaching a healthy local-
ity are absurd, and, with our present knowl-
edge on the subject, outrageously cruel —
little better than deliberate murder. A yel-
low-fever patient, even carrying his clothing
and bedding with him, has never been
known to communicate the disease to an-
other person in a healthy locality, and the
experiment has been tried thousands of
times. "

Chapters XXIV. to XXVIII. inclusive
are devoted to certain endemic diseases,
among which scorbutus and typhus are the
only ones particularly liable to occur on
shipboard, and even in the case of these
there is a conspicuous absence of specific
directions for their prevention. "Why such
diseases as plica polonica, goitre, elephan-
tiasis, cholera infantum, milk-sickness, and
puerperal fever should be discussed in a
work on naval hvgiene, we fail to under-

stand ; and for the addition of an appendix,
devoted exclusively to the subject of weights
and measures, there seems no other explana-
tion than a desire to fill up the book. In-
deed, from beginning to end, the idea is
forced upon us that bulk rather than quality
has been the principal object.

As before remarked, there are scattered
through the pages of the book many good
suggestions, that might be made of use had
readers the time and patience to hunt them
out ; all, however, so far as we have ob-
served, may be found in other works on
hygiene, and in a far more accessible and
less costly shape.

The Silk Goods of America : A Brief Ac-
count of the Recent Improvements and
Advances of Silk Manufacture in the
United States. By William C. Wykoff.
Published under the Auspices of the
Silk Association of America. New York :
D. VanNostrand. 1879. Pp. VlO. Price,
$1.50.

The author of this work claims that
American silk goods are better as well as
cheaper than foreign, and that it is time
their actual merits were laid before the pub-
lic. Every wearer of silk goods, or con-
sumer of sewing-silk and twist, will be in-
terested in the information conveyed in the
various chapters upon raw silk ; upon sew-
ings and twist ; upon weaving ; upon black
dress-goods ; various piece-goods ; spun silk;
handkerchiefs and ribbons ; trimming and
passementerie; silk laces; dyeing, etc.

From the profusion of interesting infor-
mation with which the pages of this volume
are crowded, we extract quite at random the
following. The lengthier statements and
explanations are, perhaps, more instructive
than the brevities we have chosen.

We are told that the manufacturer wants
reeled silk and not cocoons. Its value de-
pends upon the way it is reeled, which is
best done at a filature, where cheap skilled
labor can be obtained. There are no fila-
tures in this country. Our raw silk comes
from abroad— about twenty-four per cent,
from Europe and the rest from Asia. The
Japanese now have filatures, and send us
silk equal to the best from Europe. The
coarse, inferior silks are kept at home, and
America gets the best and finest. Raw silk
is costlv and of small bulk, so that its freight

420

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

is trifling, though it comes so far. By the
opening of direct routes to Asia, our silk
comes more quickly, thus diminishing the
cost of insurance, of interest on capital, and
the risk of change of price while on the way.
Our importation was greater last year than
ever before, being 1,690,666 pounds. The
market for silk goods is little affected by
the fluctuation in price of raw silk.

The manufacture of silk thread has
reached a point with us that defies compe-
tition. The superiority of our spooled silk
over the foreign was apparent at the Cen-
tennial Exposition, and the Europeans have
lost their trade here. At first our sewing-
silk was made in skeins, but the sewing-ma-
chine has revolutionized this branch of the
business. Our silk thread did not at first
permit the shuttle to pass through the loop
that was carried down by the needle ; but
after many experiments it was found that,
by twisting the strands from right to left
instead of the other way, it answered the
purpose perfectly, and this is machine-twist.
The most sedulous care is taken in the man-
ufacture and dyeing. " There is still some
difference of opinion in the trade as to
whether one ounce of dye to twelve ounces
of pure silk, or four to twelve, will give the
most serviceable thread. The two kinds
are known as thirteen-ounce or pure dye, I
and sixteen-ounce or standard dye. The
standard of purity is closely adhered to, and
has helped us to win in the struggle with [
the foreign thread. Few European threads i
equal our own in purity. In making colored |
silk thread, we have reached a high point of
delicacy. If we depended for this upon Eu-
ropean mills, the color desired would be out
of fashion before the thread arrived.

As to the weaving of silk, it is said that
we are obliged to import the very best raw
silk, owing to the high price of labor here —
poor silk requiring great cost in labor. " It
costs five times as much to tie a knot here
as in France." In the best silk, the thread
is not lumpy ; but, in weaving the lumpy
thread of poor silk, the weaver is constantly
busy picking off the imperfections. This is
in hand-weaving, which is the prevalent mode
in Europe. We use power-looms. In the
manufacture of plain black-silk goods we
have a system of our own which has grown
up in this country. We quote the following j

method of testing the purity of silks : Ravel
out a few threads and pass them through
and over the fingers. " In heavily dyed silk
the particles of dye will make the threads
feel rough and lumpy to the touch. Then by
wetting the lint, the goods weighted by dye
will be readily distinguished by the dye com-
ing out under pressure. Another simple but
effective test of purity is to burn a small
quantity of the threads. Pure silk will in-
stantly crisp, leaving only a pure charcoal ;
heavily dyed silk will smolder, leaving a
yellow, greasy ash." One of our most san-
guine manufacturers declares his belief that
within ten years the dress-silks of this coun-
try will bear a higher reputation than those
made anywhere else in the world.

In figured dress-silk goods, raw material
bears a greater proportion to labor. Our
designs are original, changing in color and
pattern with the seasons. They are mostly
made on power-looms, are firm, serviceable,
and very cheap. The Jacquard machines
on which they are woven came at first from
England and Fraqce; but they are now
wholly made here, and adapted to our re-
quirements. They are the same in principle
but run more smoothly, and can be applied to
more intricate patterns, and obtain a higher
speed. In making satins and grenadines we
have also produced great improvements. Al-
though these goods are so unlike, we were the
first to make grenadines with satin stripes,
and have added a brocaded pattern that
permeates both. We do not yet succeed with
silk velvet. Eefinishing is a large business
here. Heavy calenderiug-machines of 300
tons' power are used, and the pressure can
be varied from five pounds to 60,000. Some
goods go through hot rolls and some through
cold, and the surface of the roll may convert
plain silks into striped ones or into moire
antique. The proper pressure gives to bro-
cade definiteness of outline, and to satin
its full luster. Damaged goods acquire
freshness, old fashions are changed to new,
and "hard silk" to soft, by the finishing
process. In the matter of umbrellas we
are at last achieving success. Some made
here, from ferule to handle, have survived
the storms of successive years, and are still
fit for service.

Spun silk is made from " waste " silk.
The sources of waste silk are, cocoons of

LITERARY NOTICES.

421

irregular formation, the tangled floss from
filatures, and raw silk more or less tangled
in the silk-mill. It is pure silk that can not
be reeled. It is prepared for spinning by
the most delicate processes, and when ready
looks like the whitest of combed fleeces,
and has a luster equal to that of spun glass.
It can be spun with perfect smoothness and
of any size. Spun and reeled silks are be-
coming more and more interchangeable in
the manufacture of fabrics. The two meth-
ods of making cheap, showy silks are either
by weighting slight material with dyestufif,
or by using spun silk. Brocades for ball-
and wedding-dresses are oiten of spun silk.

American-made handkerchiefs, scarfs,
neckties, and milUnery goods, compete suc-
cessfully with the foreign supply, and keep
down prices for consumers. In ribbons our
success is complete. Only inferior ribbons
are now imported in any quantity. In com-
parison with ours the foreign ribbons are
overweighted and of inferior silk. The
designs originate in our own factories, and
are much admired abroad. They are made
upon power-looms, of which we have the
best in the world. In the making of trim-
mings and of lace, the details given in this
work are very interesting, but we have no
more space at our command. We must
also omit the subject of dyeing, which,
though the last in order, is by no means
the least interesting.

The remainder of the volume is taken
up with statistics of the silk manufacture ;
and the " Seventh Annual Report of the
Silk Association of America," in which the
progress of the past year is summarized, is
also added.

A Contribution to the Geology of the
Lower Amazonas. By Orville A. Der-
by, M. S. Pp. 24.

The scientific world is chiefly indebted
to the late Professor Hartt for recent ac-
curate and detailed investigations of the
geological structure of eastern Brazil, and
of the lower Amazon and its tributaries.
But the untimely death of Professor Hartt,
with various other causes, has delayed the
publication of the extensive reports he had
prepared ; and we have in the present pam-
phlet a resume of the work which they cover,
furnished by his friend and assistant Mr.

Derby. The author also includes the results
of some of his own researches in the same
field, made subsequently to those of Profes-
sor Hartt. The great valley of the Amazon,
according to these investigators, first ap-
peared in early Silurian times as a wide
strait between two islands or groups of isl-
ands, one forming the base of the Brazilian
plateau, and the other that of the plateau of
Guiana. The rise of the Andes converted
the western part of the strait into a basin,
and subsequent oscillations have determined
the character and succession of deposits in
the geological development of the region.
The evolution of the great valley terminated
with the formation of the vast flood-plain
which now covered with forest extends from
the Atlantic to the foot of the Andes.

Primitive Manners and Customs. By
James A Farrer. New York : Henry
Holt & Co. Pp. 315. Price, $1.76,

This book will do very well as a step-
ping-stone to the ethnological treatises of
Tylor, Lubbock, Bancroft, and Peschell, on
the hfe of the lower races of mankind. It
gives an entertaining account of the ideas,
habits, and peculiarities of savage and half-
civilized tribes, taking up in successive
chapters their " Myths and Beliefs," their
" Modes of Prayer," " Proverbs," " Moral
Philosophy," "Political Life," "Penal
Laws," " Wedding Customs," " Fairy
Lore," and "Comparative Folk Lore."
The author writes in a liberal spirit, but
rather avoids the controversial topics raised
by investigators in this field. In his intro-
duction he remarks :

The vexed question, whether savage life rep-
reseuts a primitive or a decadent condition,
whether it represents what man at first every-
where way. or only what he may become, has
throuffhout the followins chapters been avoided,
that controversy being regarded as "laid" by
1 the exhaustive researches of Mr. Tylor and
I other writers. But, while the state of the low-
' est modern savages is taken as the nearest ap-
proximation we have of the primitive state from
which mankind has risen, it is not pretended
that the state of any particular tribe may not be
one to which it has fallen. As the low position
of many Bushmen tribes is quite explicable by
their long border warfare with the Dutch, and
the consequent cruelties they were exposed to.
or as the state of many Brazilian savages may
be traced to similar contact with the Portugneee,
so any case of extreme savagery may be the re-

422

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Biilt of causes whose operation has no histori-
cal or no written proof to attest them. The gi-
gantic stone images on Easter Island, or the
great earthworks in America, are among the
proofs that but for such material traces of its
existence it is possible for a whole civilization
to vanish, and to leave only the veriest savages
on the soil where it flourished. As we know
that Europe was once as purely savage as parts
of Africa are still, and can conceive the cycle of
events restoring it to barbarism, so in the depths
of time it may have happened in places where
no suspicion of such a history is possible. As
the surface of the earth seems subjected to pro-
cesses of elevation and subsidence, land and sea
constantly alternating their dominion, so it may
be with civilization, destined to no permanent
home on the earth, but subsiding here to reap-
pear there, and varying its level as it varies its
latitude.

As the practical infinity of past time makes
it impossible to calculate the influence exercised
in difl'erent parts of the world by migrations, by
conquests, or by commerce, except within a very
limited period, so it precludes any definite belief
in ethnological divisions, and relegates the ques-
tion of the unity of the human race, like that of
its origin, to the limbo of profitless discussion.
No characteristic has yet been found by which
mankind can be classified distinctly into races :
and with all the difi'ereuces of color, hair, skull,
or language, which now suffice for purposes of
nomenclature, it remains true that there is no- j
thing to choose between the hypothesis tliat we j
constitute only one species and that we consti- I
tute several. The world is so old as to admit of I
several divergences from a single original type [
quite as wide as any that exist ; while, on the
other hand, similarity of customs (such, for in-
stance, as that Tartars in Asia, Sioux Indians
in America, and Kamschadels should all regard
it as a sin to touch a fire with a knife) fail us as
a proof of a unity of origin, in the face of our
ignorance of prehistoric antiquity.

Should he have succeeded in making any one
think better than before, with more interest
and sympathy of those outcasts of the world
whom we designate as savage, something will
at least have been done to claim for them a
kindlier treatment and respect than in popular
estimation they either deserve or obtain.

Papers read before the Pi Eta Scientific
Society, 1878-79. Rensselaer Poly-
technic Institute, Troy, N. Y. Pp. 69.

This is a collection of ten papers on va-
rious subjects, most of which fall under the
head of engineering. The first, by S. Edward
Warren, on " Graphic Science in Text-book
and Teaching," is an explanation of " the
idea and intended use" of each volume of a
series of text-books prepared by the author
on this subject. The second is a technical
paper by Hugo Gylden, Director of the Uni-

versity Observatory, of Stockholm, " On the
Relations between the Number, Brightness,
and Relative Mean Distances of the Fixed
Stars as seen from the Earth," translated
by Professor E. S. Holden, of the Washing-
ton Naval Observatory and Lieutenant Eric
Bergland, U. S. Engineer Corps. Among
the remaining papers, " Iron and its Uses
in Permanent Structures," by C. J. Bates,
and " Tides in the Upper Hudson," by John
A. Ferris, are of considerable popular inter-
est. A list of the members of the society is
appended.

American Ornithology ; or, The Natural
History of the Birds of the United
States. Illustrated with Plates made
from Drawings from Nature. By Alex-
ander Wilson and Charles Lucien
Bonaparte. Philadelphia : Porter &
Coates. Pp. 788. Price, $7.50.

This book does not sufficiently explain
itself Thei'C are two volumes bound in
one ; there are prefixed to it twenty-seven
plates containing three or four hundred en-
gravings of birds ; there is Baird's list of
American species of 1856 ; and a biography
of Alexander Wilson, made up chiefly of
his letters. Two names appear upon the
title-page as authors, but, if there is any
statement of their respective shares in the
production of the work, we have failed to
observe it.

Alexander Wilson, the ornithologist, was
a Scotchman, born in 1766, the son of a dis-
tiller, and who himself became a weaver.
He early dabbled in poetry, and emigrated
to Pennsylvania in 1794. He maintained
himself at first by peddling and teaching
school. During his journeys he became in-
terested in birds, and at length devoted
himself to that branch of natural history.
He learned drawing, coloring, and etching,
and projected a comprehensive work on
American birds. Having prepared a large
number of fine illustrations, he made tours
through the country to extend his ornitho-
logical observations and to get subscribers
to his work, which was to appear in succes-
sive volumes, and to cost altogether $120.
He was but poorly sustained, getting many
compliments for the beauty of the pictures
he presented, with but very little substan-
tial support. The first volume appeared in
1808. He had completed the ptiblication

LITERARY NOTICES.

423

oi' seven volumes when he died, in 1813,
and the eighth and ninth volumes were sub-
sequently edited by George Ord.

Charles Lucien Bonaparte, son of Lucien
Bonaparte, the second brother of Napoleon,
was born in Paris in 1803, and in 1822 he
married the daughter of Joseph Bonaparte
and went to Philadelphia, where he joined
his father-in-law. He was an ardent natu-
ralist, and devoted himself especially to the
subject of birds. He published " American
Ornithology," in four volumes (1822-'33),
thus continuing Wilson's great work. He
added descriptions of over one hundred new
species of birds discovered by himself, and
which are designated in the lists of the
work before us.

The present popular edition of " Amer-
ican Ornithology," now issued in one portly
volume by Porter & Coates, is evidently
based upon the elaborate publications of
these two naturalists, and the work has a
permanent interest, both from its early and
original observations, and as representing a
portion of the history of American science.

The Rosicrucians : Their Rites and Mys-
teries, with Chapters on the Ancient Fire
and Serpent Worshipers, and Explana-
tions of the Mystic Symbols represented
in the Monuments and Talismans of the
Primitive Philosophers. 300 Illustra-
tions. Bv Hargrave Jennings. New
York : J. W. Bouton. Pp. 372.

We gather but little more from looking
over this book than is conveyed by the title.
It has a great number of mysterious sym-
bolic pictures ; and its text is of mysterious
people and mysterious things. There may
be wisdom in it, nevertheless.

The Antiqcities and Platycnemism of the

MOfND-BuiLDERS OK THE StaTE OF WIS-
CONSIN. By J. M. De Hart, M. D. Pp.
15. Illustrated.

In this pamphlet Dr. De Hart briefly
describes a few of the more remarkable
mounds belonging to a group found near
Lake Mendota, in the State of Wiscon-
sin. Like the mounds in other parts of the
State, these are mainly of two sorts, animal
mounds, or those made in imitation of the
forms of animate objects, and mounds of cir-
cular or oblong form, with a more or less
conical or pyramidal elevation, some of
which contain human and other remains.

Of the former, which usually represent the
animals they are meant to imitate, on an
immensely extended scale, the author de-
scribes one that is shaped like a bird with
wings expanded, each wing measuring about
300 feet in length ; another in the form of
a squirrel with a tail over 500 feet long ; a
third representing a deer ; a fourth a bear,
etc.

The largest of the circular mounds was
opened by the Doctor, and found to contain,
besides ashes, flints, and other debiHs, three
human skeletons, presenting in each case
types of structure characteristic of the
mound - builders. The most marked of
these peculiarities, viz., the flat shin-bones,
and the perforation at the inferior extrem-
ity of the humerus, are discussed by the
author.

The Silkworm. Being a Brief Manual of
Instruction for the Production of Silk.
With Illustrations. Bv Professor C. V.
Riley. Washington, 1879. Pp. 31.

This forms Special Report No. 11 of
the Department of Agriculture, of which at
the time of its publication Professor Riley
was entomologist. It opens with an intro-
duction in which the causes that have hith-
erto retarded the growth of the silk indus-
try in this country are pointed out; and
the subject of profits in the different
branches of the business quite fully consid-
ered. Next we have an interesting and
instructive account of the natural history
of the silkworm, including its diseases ; fol-
lowed by directions for rearing, and for
the management required in order to ob-
tain the largest returns, either in silk or
eggs. The operation of reeling both by the
old and the improved methods is described ;
and the pamphlet closes with a brief descrip-
tion of the food-plants of the silkworm. A
glossary is appended, explaining the few
technical terms the author was obliged to
employ.

The Geology of the DiAMOSTiFERors Re-
gions OF THE Province of Parana, Bra-
zil. By Orville A. Derby, M. S. Pp.
8.

This short paper contains a good many
interesting facts about the geological rela-
tions of the diamond and the methods adopt-
ed in mining for them. They are found in

424

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the valley of the Zibagy and tributary
streams, in the sands, in pot-holes, and in
gravel-banks. The diamonds appear to
have been washed out of the Devonian sand-
stone of that region, but the author thinks
they were previously derived from meta-
morphic rocks, and deposited in the sands
which afterward went to lorm these sand-
stones. That they did not originate in the
latter is proved, he thinks, by the fact that
it contains no traces of metamorphism or of
crystallization.

First Step in Chemical Peinciples. An
Introduction to Modern Chemistry, in-
tended especially for Beginners. By
Henry Leffman, M. D. Philadelphia :
Edward Stern & Co. Pp. 52. Price,
50 cents.

A beginner of some maturity of mind,
say a young medical student, who knew
nothing whatever of the subject, might de-
rive advantage from reading over this brief
introduction; but it is not a "First Step"
in any sense that it could be used in a pri-
mary school to start young beginners. It
contains a very readable summary of chem-
ical principles, but they are presented in the
elaborated thought and technical language
of the developed science.

The Young Folks' Cyclopedia of Common
Things. By John D. Champlin, Jr.
With numerous Illustrations. New
York: Henry Holt & Co. Pp. 690.
Price, $3.

Mr. Champlin has here hit upon an ex-
cellent idea, and has carried it out very
successfully. There was room for a popular
book on common things much more full
than the current " familiar science " manu-
als. A great deal of miscellaneous infor-
mation on ordinary objects and subjects has
been collated and digested in alphabetical
order convenient for reference, and the edi-
tor is right in calling attention at the outset
to the need of encouraging in the young
the practice of consulting works of refer-
ence. The volume will be found most use-
ful in families, as both the knowledge it
imparts and the form of its presentation
are well suited to satisfy the curiosity of
young minds. A good deal of information
is given about the common sciences, such as
astronomy, chemistry, physics, natural his-

tory, and physiology, and about heat, light,
air, electricity, and the parts and operations
of the human system. There is much about
the modes of manufacture of common arti-
cles, and the natural history of the more
familiar and important animals and plants
is fully presented. The book is compiled
with judgment, Mr. Champlin having under-
gone his apprenticeship at this kind of
work on the " American Cyclopaedia." We
are glad to notice that Holt puts the book
at a quite reasonable price.

Twenty Lessons in Inorganic Chemistry.
By W. G. Valentin, F. C. S. G. P.
Putnam's Sons. Pp. 184. Price, $1.

This claims to be an elementary book
for students to begin with, but the begin-
ning must be in the old lecture-room form
of instruction. The author says : " It is not
enough, as every teacher knows, to exhibit
experiments before a class, unless they are
made subservient to explain the theory of
the science, and to place it on a sound basis.
All theoretical explanations should be based
upon experiments which fix it upon the
memory. This is the plan which I have
laid down for my guidance." As might
therefore be expected, the book is filled with
illustrations and descriptions of lecture-
room experiments, and the usually accom-
panying explanations and information. It
is clear, accurate, and well executed.

The Value of Life. A Reply to Mr. Mal-
lock's Essay, " Is Life worth Living ? "
New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp.
253. Price, $1.50.

An anonymous writer, thinking Mr. Mal-
lock's book worth answering, has replied to
his arguments very fully and ably in this
volume. The book is written from the Pos-
itivist point of view, in the more special
sense of the term. By Positivism, Mr. Mal-
lock means those later tendencies and the-
ories of science which bear upon the higher
questions of religion, morality, and polity,
and as illustrated in the writings of such
thinkers as Clifford, Huxley, Tyndall, and
Mill, but Mr. Mallock's critic rather means
by " Positivism " the doctrines of Comte ;
and this reply is chiefly interesting as deal-
ing with Mr. Mallock's questions from that
point of view.

P OP ULAR MIS CELLAXr.

425

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The Mound-Builders. By J. P. Maclean. Il-
lustrated. Cincinnati: Robert Clark & (Jo. 1879.
Pp. 23:3, with Map. $1.50.

The Arctic Voyasjes of Adolf Erik Nor-
denskjold, 1858-1879." With Illui^trations and
Maps. London: Macniillan & Co. 1879. Pp.
447. $4.50.

A Text-Book of Physiology. By M. Foster,
M. D., F. R. S. With Illustrations. Third edi-
tion, revised. Loudon ; Macmillan & Co. 1879.
Pp. 720. $3.50.

The Native Flowers and Ferns of the United
States. By Thomas Mehan. Vol. I. Pans I. to
V^IL Illustrated.

Insect Liveii, or Born in Prison. By Julia
P. Ballard. Cincinnati : Robert Clark & Co.
1879. Pp. 97. $1.

Electricity, as related to Medicine and Sur-
gery. By A. D. Rockwell, M. D. New York :
William Wood & Co. 1879. Pp. 99. $1.

American Health Primers. The Throat and
the Voice. By J. Solis Cohen, M. D. Pp. 159.
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Report of the Geology of the Henry Moun-
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York: G. P. Putnaii's Sous. 1879. Pp. 304.
$3.

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ard Rathbun. Pp.20. From " Transactions of
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in America. By Dr. Elliott Coues. Pp. 18.

The Brush-Svitem of Electric Lighting.
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Neurotomy, a Substitute for Enucleation. By
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Unity Pulpit, Boston. Sermons of M. J
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POPULAR MISCELLANY.

Edncation of the Color-Sense.— Though
it i3 but a few years since general attention
has been directed to the subject of color
blindness, the study of its phenomena has
shown that there are two forms of the de-
fect, not perhaps sharply separable, but
nevertheless quite distinct. In one form
there appears to be simply an imperfect
or undeveloped sense of color, the power
of distinguishing the different colors, though
not wholly absent, being far below the nor-
mal. In the other form of the defect there
is an entire inability to recognize one or
more of the primary colors — that is, the
blindness is complete so far as particular
colors are concerned. Dr. Swan 31. Bur-
nett, surgeon in charge of the Ophthalmic
Division of the Central Dispensary in Wash-
ington, in a short paper entitled "A Sys-
tematic Method for the Education of the
Color -Sense in Children," expresses the
opinion that cases of the first-mentioned

426

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

variety are susceptible of decided improve-
ment by early and persistent training of
the individual. In cases of the other kind,
however, which are generally hereditary, he
believes that amelioration can be brought
about, if at all, only by a course of educa-
tion applied to successive generations. The
author finds fault with the general neglect
of the subject in our schools, and also with
the methods practiced in the few instances
where such training has been attempted.
In the Washington schools the practice is
to use a chart on which the various colors
are painted. These colors soon become so
faded and dim as to no longer represent
what was originally intended ; and, even
with this imperfect chart, no systematic
instruction is given in the comparison of
the colors. The first requisite, in Dr. Bur-
nett's opinion, for succeessfuUy teaching
color to children is, that the method shall
be simple and easy. The study should also
be made interesting, so that the children
will pursue it more as a diversion than a
task. Each child should be taught separate-
ly, but the instruction may be carried on in
such a manner that the other children can
participate. As the main object is to en-
able the child to discriminate between the
various colors, the comparison of one color
with another will be the principal part of
the work. Bat the pupil should at the
same time be taught the names of the
colors and shades, so as to be able to con-
vey the impressions he has received in
definite language. To carry out these in-
dications in a simple and effective way,
there are required — first, a set of sample
colors with which comparisons are to be
made; and, second, a collection of colors
from which the pupil may choose such as
are to be compared with the sample. Tor
the former. Dr. Burnett recommends the
following : " Take a half-sheet of white
perforated cardboard (42 x 26 cm.) with
the largest size perforations, and work into
it, with Berlin wool, bars 18 cm. in length
and 35 mm. in width, of each of the follow-
ing colors : red, green, and blue, with a dis-
tance of 1'5 cm. between them. These
should be as pure as possible, and represent
the three primary colors. Then, beginning
3 cm. below, work in at the same distances
apart each of the following colors of me-
dium shade and as pure as can be got:

purple, orange, yellow, pink, brown, and
gray. A single skein of Berlin wool is
generally enough to work a bar of the re-
quired length and width, which is sufficient-
ly large to be seen distinctly across any
ordinary schoolroom by a normal eye. This
card is to be placed on a white background
on the wall in sight of all the pupils." In
the process of instruction the pupils are
fix'st familiarized with this card, and with
the names of the colors represented on it,
and, when able to designate each of these
correctly, the teacher will explain what is
meant by a " shade," and, taking a package
of Berlin wools containing all the shades of
the nine colors on the card, will pick out
and exhibit to the class all the shades of
one of the colors. After this, the shades
are tiioroughly mixed with the other colors
in the pile, and the pupils are then called
upon to do the choosing, arranging them in
regular order from darkest to lightest. The
same process is to be repeated with each
of the colors on the card.

Popalation of Africa. — Accurate statis-
tics of the population of Africa, and espe-
cially of the interior portions of the conti-
nent, are of course not yet obtainable, and
it will probably be many years before sev-
eral of the populous districts now known
will be sufficiently accessible for a thorough
census ; but much important information
has been gathered about the distribution of
the inhabitants and the density of the popu-
lation in the different parts of the country.
In the region of the great lakes, for exam-
ple, there are countries as thickly peopled
as many of the states of Europe — relatively
small areas which, according to Stanley,
possess millions of inhabitants. Behna
states that the negro regions are by far the
most populous, while the desert parts repre-
sent the other extreme. M. A. Rabaud, in
a paper published in the " Bulletin of the
Marseilles Geographical Society," gives the
following as the population of the different
subdivisions of the continent : In the Sou-
dan, the population is estimated at 80,000,-
000, or about fifty-three per square mile ;
the town of Bida, on the Niger, contains
80,000 inhabitants. The population of
East Africa is estimated at 30,000,000, and
that of Equatorial Africa at about 40,000,-
000. One of the latest authorities divides

P OP ULAR MIS CELL ANY.

427

the population as follows among the great
families into which ethnologists have sepa-
rated the peoples: Negroes, 130,000,000;
Hamites, 20,000,000; Bantus, 13,000,000;
Foolahs, 8,000,000; Nubians, 1,500,000;
Hottentots, 50,000. This would give a total
population of 172,550,000. These figures
are, of course, only approximate, and both
German and English geographers think
them too low, the former estimating the
population at 200,000,000.

Abont Herrings. — From statistics of the
Scottish herring-fisheries, furnished by a
writer in " Chambers's Journal," we may
get a partial idea of the enormous produc-
tiveness and abundance of that species of
fish. During a recent year the herrings
taken in Scottish waters and cured were
sufficient to fill one miUion barrels, each
barrel containing an average of seven hun-
dred fish. This quantity it must be ob-
served represents cured fish only, and only
those which are caught in Scotland under
the superintendence of the Fishery Board.
It is pretty certain that as many herrings
are captured and ofifered for sale as fresh
fish and " reds" as are cured for the mar-
kets in Scotland and oSered for sale as salt
herrings; which gives us the prodigious
total of fourteen hundred millions with-
drawn annually from the sea; and even
this number, vast as it is, does not include
what are used in the form of white-bait, or
those which are sold as sprats.

After draining the sea to such an ex-
tent, it might almost be supposed that there
would be scarcely herrings enough left to
suffice for a breeding-stock; but the de-
mands of man are a mere fraction of what
are taken out of the shoals. All that are
captured, as well as all that are wasted
during the capture, and destroyed in the
process of curing, sink into insignificance
when compared with the vastness of the
quantities which are devoured by other en-
emies of the fish. Cod and ling are known
to prey extensively on the herring ; and a
calculation, based on the number of cod
and ling annually caught under the auspices
of the Scottish Board of Fisheries (three
million five hundred thousand were taken
in 1876), assumes that there is a capital
stock of these fish in the Scottish firths and

seas of seventy million individuals ; and that
each individual consumes four hundred and
twenty herrings per annum, which at the
rate of two herrings every day for seven
months in the year, shows a consumption
of twenty-nine thousand four hundi-ed mil-
lion individual herrings. Nor does the ac-
count stop at this point. The commission-
ers who recently collected information on
the Scottish herring-fisheries, assume that in
Scotland alone the gannet (a sea-bird) will
annually draw on the shoals to the extent
of one thousand one hundred and ten mil-
lion herrings ! In addition to dog-fish, cod,
gannets, and other sea-birds, the herring
has many other enemies ; porpoises, seals,
coal-fish, and other predaceous fishes are
constantly lying in wait to fall upon and
devour them. A female herring, we know,
j yields over thirty thousand eggs; but at
I the shoaling-time myriads of those eggs are
' devoured by a variety of enemies ; besides
[ which, hundreds of thousands of the eggs
! are never touched by the fructifying milt of
the male fish, and so perish in the waters.

j A Fabled Eastern City,— In a communi-
! cation to the Royal Asiatic Society of Bom-
; bay, M. C. Doughty gives an account of a
I visit to the so-called rock city of El-Hejjer,
which lies upon the Haj road in Aral)ia, at
twenty camel-journeys' distance from Da-
mascus, and about which many extravagant
stories are current among the Arabs. In
I the days of Ptolemy, who calls it Egra, the
place was an emporium on the trade-road
of gold and frankincense to Syria. Having
got there after great fatigue, Mr. Doughty
I found the fabled seven cities of the Arabs
i — said to be hewed in as many mountains —
to be about a hundred funereal chambers
j excavated in the sandstone rocks. The city
appears, by the traces remaining of founda-
j tions, to have been a cluster of four or five
palm villages in clay, each surrounded by a
wall in the ordinary Arab fashion. In their
interiors the funereal monuments are plain
sepulchral chambers with sunken tombs in
the floor and recesses, while in the walls
are shallow shelves of a man's length. In-
scriptions are seen handsomely engraved in
a panel above the doorways in many of the
monuments. Above these again, in the no-
bler monuments, there is very commonly

42i

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the thick figure of a biid with outstretched
wings. The Arabs say it is a buzzard or a
fafcon, but Mr. Doughty suggests that the
eflBgies are those of the mortuary owls of
the old Arabians. Mr. Doughty's visit has
disposed of the singular fables propagated
by the Arabs as well as by Turkish and Per-
sian pilgrims, p.nd which, he says, have been
accepted in some works of learned Oriental-
ists in Europe.

Cases of Remarkable Precocity.— From

an entertaining paper in " Chambers's Jour-
nal" w^e select a few instances of "preco-
cious cleverness." Anne Maria Schurmann
was, in her day, the boast of Germany.
At the age of six, and without instruction,
she cut in paper the most delicate fig-
ures ; at eight, she learned in a few days
to paint flowers, which, it should be added,
were highly esteemed ; and two years later
it cost her only five hours' application to
learn the art of embroidering with ele-
gance. Her talents for higher attainments,
we are told, did not develop themselves
till she was twelve years of age, when
they were discovered in the following man-
ner: Her brothers were studying in the
apartment where she sat, and it was no-
ticed that, whenever their memories failed
in the recital of their lessons, the little girl
prompted them without any previous knowl-
edge of their tasks except what she had
gained from hearing the boys con them
over. In her education she made extraor-
dinary progress, and is said to have per-
fectly understood the German, Low-Dutch,
French, English, Latin, Greek, Italian, He-
brew, Syriac, Chaldean, Arabic, and Ethio-
pian languages. Her knowledge of science
and her skill in music, painting, and sculp-
ture were also extraordinary ; and her talent
for modeling was shown by the wax portrait
she contrived to make of herself with the
aid of a mirror.

Another prodigy was Dorothy Schlozer,
a Hanoverian lady, who was thought wor-
thy of the highest academical honors of the
t^niversity of Gottingen, and had the de-
gree of Doctor in Philosophy conferred
upon her when she was only seventeen
years of age. Before she was three years
old she was taught Low-German ; and three
years later learned French and German;

and, after receiving ten lessons in geometry,
was able to answer abstruse questions. Oth-
er languages were next acquired with singu-
lar rapidity; and before she was fourteen
she knew Latin and Greek, and had become
a good classical scholar. She also made
herself acquainted with almost every branch
of polite literature, as well as many of the
sciences. As an instance of this lady's in-
defatigable industry, it may be mentioned
that she visited the deepest mines in the
Harz Forest in the common garb of a la-
borer, to gain proficiency in mineralogy.

It is said that Blaise Pascal, one of the
most profound thinkers and accomplished
writers of France, exhibited precocious
proofs of genius, especially in mathematics,
from his earliest childhood. Having been
purposely kept in ignorance of geometry,
lest his propensity in that direction should
interfere with the prosecution of other stud-
ies, his self-prompted genius discovered for
itself the elementary truths of the forbid-
den science. When quite a boy, he was
discovered by his father in the act of de-
monstrating on the pavement of an old hall
where he used to play, and by means of a
rude diagram he traced with a piece of coal
a proposition which corresponded to the
thirty-second of the First Book of Euclid.
At the age of sixteen he composed a tractate
on conic sections, which excited great ad-
miration. Three years later he invented his
celebrated arithmetical machine ; and at the
age of twenty-six he had composed the
greater part of his mathematical works, and
made those brilliant experiments in hydro-
statics and pneumatics which ranked him
among the first natural philosophers of his
time.

Discrimination and Memory of Sonnds.

— Some very extraordinary feats of mem-
ory are by the " Scientific American " cred-
ited to a youth named Hicks, residing in
Rochester, New York. Hicks has not lived
long in Rochester, having removed thither
lately from Buffalo ; yet he is able to give
the numbers of nearly three hundred loco-
motives on hearing their bells. During the
day he is employed at so great a distance
from the railway that he rarely hears a pass-
ing train ; but at night he can hear every
train, as his house is situated near the rail-

P OP ULAR MIS CELL AN Y

429

road. Men who have for years been con-
nected with railways admit that at most
they can distinguish the sounds of only very
few locomotive-bells as compared with the
great number Hicks can name almost with-
out thought. Not long ago an old switch-
engine, used in the yards at Buffalo, was sent
to Rochester for some special purpose. As
it passed near Hicks's house he heard the
bell, and remarked that the engine was num.
ber so-and-so, and that he had not heard its
bell for six years. A boarder in the house
ran to the railroad and found that the num-
ber given was the correct one. Not long
since the young man went to Syracuse, and,
while there, hearing an engine coming out
of the round-house, remarked to a friend
that he knew the bell, though he had not
heard it in five years. The number which
he gave proved to be the correct one.

Lnbbock on Science in the Primary
Schools. — Sir John Lubbock, advocating in
the British House of Commons the cause of
Science-teaching in schools, urged that ele-
mentary science should be placed on an
equality in the education-code with gram-
mar, geography, and histoi-y. The practi-
cal difficulties in the way could be easily
overcome, and his proposal, so far from up-
setting the equilibrium of the code, would
really establish it, seeing that, at present,
the code was entirely one-sided, all knowl-
edge of natural phenomena being excluded.
It was often said, he urged, that it was
ridiculous to teach " ologies " before the
children could read and write thoroughly.
But, in the first place, it was a misnomer
to call the lessons he proposed " ologies " ;
secondly, it should be remembered that,
when children were leai'ning to read, they
had to read something, and the question
was what that something was to be. He
wished for nothing difficult or abstruse,
nothing beyond the range of the children's
minds and daily experience. " In mechan-
ics, the simple forces might be explained to
them — why carts were put on wheels, how
levers and pulleys acted, the use of the
screw and wedge ; then the nature and
relative distances of the principal heavenly
bodies, the primary facts relating to air and
water in agricultural districts, the charac-
ter of the soil, the reason for the rotation

of crops, the origin and principal qualities
of such substances as chalk, coal, iron, cop-
per, etc. ; the succession of the seasons, the
flow of rivers, the growth of plants; the
fundamental rules of health, the necessity
for ventilation and cleanliness, and, last,
not least, the need for industry, frugality,
and economy. Explanations of these sim-
ple and every-day things would be most in-
teresting and useful to the children. So
far from cramming and confusing them, you
would introduce light and order into their
minds, and give them an interest in their
lessons, which, under the present system,
they rarely felt."

j Ancient I'ses of Corli. — A writer in the
i " Pharmaceutical Journal " has collected
' a large amount of interesting information
on the subject of the cork-tree and its
bark, and the uses of the latter in both
ancient and modem times. The tree, and
the application of its bark to useful purposes,
was well known to the Egyptians, Greeks,
and Romans. The former used to construct
their coffins of this material. Theophrastus,
the Greek philosopher, who wrote on bot-
any, etc., four centuries b. c, mentions this
; tree among the oaks, under the name of
i phellus, and says that it has a thick, fleshy
bark, which must be stripped off every
three years to prevent it from perishing.
He adds that it was so light as never to
sink in water, and on that account might
be used for many purposes. Pliny de-
scribes the tree under the name of subcr,
and relates everything said by Theophras-
tus of phellus. From his account we learn
that the Roman fishermen used it as floats
to their nets and fishing-tackle, and as
buoys to their anchors. The use of these
1 buoys in saving life appears to have been
well known to the ancients, for Lucian
("Epist. 1," 17) mentions that two men,
one of whom had fallen into the sea, and
another who jumped after to afford him
assistance, were saved by means of an
anchor-buoy. The use of this substance
in assisting swimmers was not imknown to
the Romans. By Plutarchus, in his " Vita
Camilli," we are told that, when the impe-
rial city was besieged by the Gauls, Camil-
lus sent a Roman to the Capitol, who, to
avoid the enemy, swam the Tiber with

43°

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

corks under him, his clothes being bound
upon his head, and was fortunate enough
to succeed in the attempt. The use of
cork for stoppers was not entirely unknown
to the Romans, and instances of its being
thus employed may be seen in Cato's " De
Re Rustica," cap. cxx. ; but its application
to this purpose seems not to have been
very common, or cork stoppers would have
been oftener mentioned by authors who
have written on agriculture and cookery,
and also in the works of ancient poets.
The convivial customs of those days had
no connection with the bottle, glass bot-
tles being of a much later invention. In-
stead of having dozens of sparkling cham-
pagne or hock, to be hberated from the
bottle by the corkscrew, at their feasts, the
guests filled their drinking - cups of gold,
silver, crystal, or beech-wood from a two-
handled amphora, a kind of earthenware
pitcher in which their choice wines used to
be kept. The mouths of these vessels
were stopped with wood, and covered with
a mastic, composed of pitch, chalk, and
oil, to prevent air spoiling the wine or
evaporation taking place. Columella, who
wrote one of the earliest works on agricul-
ture, gives directions for preparing this ce-
ment. Pliny, in describing the cork-tree,
says it is smaller than the oak, and its
acorns of the very worst quality. He tells
us the cork-tree did not grow throughout
Italy, and in no part whatever of Gaul. At
the present day it is abundant in France,
and Fee states that the acorns of Qnercus
snber are of an agreeable flavor, and the
hams of Bayonne are said to owe their
high reputation from the pigs having fed
on the acorns of the cork-tree. Some an-
cient authors speak of the cork-tree as the
female of the holm-oak ( Qnercus ilex), and
in countries where the holm does not grow,
they used to substitute the wood of the cork-
tree.

Traditional Origin of Social Distinctions.

— In the latter part of the fourteenth cen-
tury social distinctions became the subject
of theological controversy in England — the
Lollards, a religious association including
large numbers of the common people, main-
taining the natural equality of man ; while
the Roman Catholic preachers, on the other

hand, encouraged the belief that the divi-
sion of society into distinct classes was a
permanent judgment of God, the origin of
which, according to Alexander Barclay, a
poetical writer in the reign of Henry VII.,
they thus accounted for : '* One day, while
Adam was absent occupied with his agri-
cultural labors. Eve sat at home on their
threshold with all her children about her,
when suddenly she became aware of the
approach of the Creator, and ashamed of the
great number of them, and fearful that her
productiveness might be misinterpreted, she
hurriedly concealed those which were the
least well-favored ; ' some of them she placed
under hay, some under straw and chaff,
some in the chimney, and some in a tub of
draff; but such as were fair and well made
she wisely and cunningly kept with her.'
God told her that he had come to see her
children that he might promote them in
their different degrees, upon which she pre-
sented them in the order of their birth.
God then ordained the eldest to be an em-
peror, the second to be a king, and the third
a duke to guide an army ; of the rest he
made earls, lords, barons, squires, knights,
and hardy champions ; some he appointed
to be 'judges, mayors, and governors, mer-
chants, sheriffs and protectors, aldermen
and burgesses.' While all this was going on,
Eve began to think of her other children,
and unwilling that they should lose their
share of honors, she now produced them
from their hiding-places. They appeared,
with their hair rough and powdered with
chaff, some full of straws, and some covered
with cobwebs and dust, ' that anybody might
be frightened at the sight of them.' They
were black with dirt, ill-favored in counte-
nance, and misshapen in stature, and God
did not conceal his disgust. 'None,' he said,
' can make a vessel of silver out of an earth-
en pitcher or goodly silk out of a goat's
fleece, or a bright sword of a cow's tail ;
neither will I, though I can, make a noble
gentleman out of a vile villain. You shall
all be plowmen iind tillers of the ground,
to keep oxen and hogs, to dig and delve,
and hedge and dike, and in this wise shall
ye live in endless servitude. Even the
townsmen shall laugh you to scorn ; yet some
of you shall be allowed to dwell in cities,
and shall be admitted to such occupations

P OP ULAR MIS CELL ANY.

431

as those of makers of puddings, butchers,
cobblers, tinkers, costard-mongers, hostlers,
or daubers.' " Such, the teller of the story
informs us, was gravely taught as the begin-
ning of servile labor.

Experiments in Punishment. — The pres-
ent convict system of England is an out-
growth of the transportation system, which
it has supplanted. It has grown up by suc-
cessive alterations and improvements, made
in accordance with varying circumstances
and demands; and, to understand it fully,
it is necessary to know something of the
various experiments which have from time
to time been tried with different methods of
punishment. But, without going into this
part of the subject, we give below the con-
clusions of a writer in the "Nineteenth
Century" regarding the principles which
experience seems to have established. They
are : " 1. That a well-devised system of sec-
ondary punishment should provide for sub-
jecting those sentenced to it to a uniform
course of penal deterrent discipline. 2.
That every means possible should be adopt-
ed for developing and working on the high-
er feelings of the prisoners directly by
moral, religious, and secular instruction,
and indirectly by insuring industrv, good
conduct, and discipline, through appealing
to tlie hope of advantage or reward, as well
as by the fear of punishment. 3. That,
with a view to deterrence as well as refor-
mation, it is desirable that the first part of
every sentence should be undergone on the
separate system, as developed at Penton-
ville. 4. That, before discharging the con-
vict to a full or modified degree of liberty,
he should be subjected to further training,
in which he should be associated under
supervision, while at labor, but separated
at all other times. 5. That properly con-
structed prison-buildings, providing among
other things for this separation, are all-
important requisites for the success of the
system. 6. That employment should be
provided, and industry enforced or encour-
aged for all. 7. That care should be taken
to select and train a good staff of skilled
and responsible officials to supervise and
carry on the work of the convict establish-
ments, and means adopted to prevent their
work being hindered or defeated by the
prisoners being brought into close contact,

on works or otherwise, with free men who
were under no such responsibilities. 8.
That those who on discharge are disposed
to follow honest courses should be guided
and assisted in their endeavors, and that a
careful watch should be kept over all till
they have reestablished their character."

Anthropometric Observation. — The re-
port of the Anthropometric Committee of
the British Association showed that con-
siderable progress was made during the past
year in the matter of collecting valuable
statistical information. Returns had been
obtained, giving the birthplace, origin, and
sex, age, height and weight, strength of arm,
and eyesight, of pupils at Sundry public

I schools, London policemen and letter-sorters,
workmen, rifle volunteers, soldiers, and crim-
inals. By this means the committee were
put in possession of nearly 12,000 original
observations on the main question of weight
and height in relation to age, in addition to
50,000 already collected. The committee
submitted a series of tables made up from
the information contained in the returns.
From these it was shown that the London

' letter-sorters were the lowest in height, the
average heights between the ages of twenty

I and thirty -five bemg 64 to 071 inches. The
letter-sorters were also at the bottom of the

I weight table, their average weights in pounds
being 122-5 to 139-9. The metropolitan police
were at the head of both hsts : height 69*2
to 71-5 inches and weight 122-5 to 182-7
pounds. Other tables were given, showing
that the average height and weight vary with
the'social position and occupation of the peo-
ple, and that to obtain the typical proportions
of the British race it would be necessary to
measure a certain number of individuals of
each class. Taking the census of 1871, they
find that a model community — that is, a
community which would exhibit the typical
proportions of the British race — must consist
of 14-82 per cent, of the non-laboring class,
47-46 per cent, of the laboring class, and
37-72 per cent, of the artisan and operative
class. Ic is found that the full stature is
reached in the professional class at twenty-
one years, and in the artisan class between
twenty-five and thirty years. The growth
in weight does not cease with that of the
stature, but continues slowly in both classes
up to the thirtieth year.

432

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

NOTES.

" Nature " records the death of Mr.
Henry Negretti at the age of sixty-two
years. He was the well-known optician,
and the inventor of the deep-sea thermome-
ter which bears his name.

Os the authority of a fish-dealer at Sack-
ctt's Harbor, Mr. Seth Green states that shad
in considerable numbers, and from two to
four pounds' weight, were caught in the
nets set for whitefish near Sackett's Harbor,
in Lake Ontario, last summer. He thinks
the fish have never visited salt-water, but
are landlocked, and may form a permanent
addition to the fauna of the lake. If this
is confirmed, we have in it an interestmg ex-
ample of the adaptation of an organism to
new conditions, the shad being a salt-water
fish, frequenting fresh-water only at the
spawning-season. It will also be interest-
ing to observe the extent of the modifi-
cations likely to follow such a change of
habit.

Languishing scientific organizations and
lukewarm members of the same have, in the
career of the Portland (Maine) Natural His-
tory Society, an example that should awaken
their interest and arouse their activity. This
society was incorporated in 1850, has been
burned out several times, losing almost ev-
erything ; but has nevertheless maintained
its organization, and, largely through the in-
terest and personal effort of Mr. C. B. Ful-
ler, present curator of its museum, a very
creditable collection of natural history ob-
jects has been got together again. Last
winter the society purchased a site and have
since erected a twelve-thousand-dollar build-
ing on it, which will, when all completed,
furnish ample accommodations.

The public -will be interested to know
that there are signs of renewed activity on
the part of the trustees of the Lick Obser-
vatory fund. Mr. S. W. Burnham, the ob-
server of double stars, spent the month of
August on Mount Hamilton with his tele-
scope, in order to test this site for the pro-
posed observatory. He reports the atmos-
pheric conditions excellent, and it is hoped
that this favorable result will lead to a new
interest in the project.

The death of Dr. Eduard Fcnzl, of Vi-
enna, at the age of seventy-two years, is an-
nounced. He was Professor of Botany and
Director of the Imperial Botanical Cabinet,
a member of the Vienna Academy of Sci-
ences, and Vice-President of the Vienna Hor-
ticultural Society.

In a recent pamphlet on the history of
language. Dr. Samuel Wilks aims to prove
that, in its larger sense, language has its
basis in the lower animals. As to the par-

rot's faculty of acquiring the power of
speech, his observations show that "it has
a vocal apparatus of a most perfect kind,
that it can gather through its ear the most
delicate intonations of the human voice, that
it can imitate these perfectly by continued
labor, and finally hold them in the memory ;
also, that it associates these words with cer-
tain persons who have uttered them ; also,
that it can invent sounds corresponding to
those which have emanated from certain ob-
jects."

Professor Nordenskjold has announced
his intention of starting soon on another jour-
ney of exploration to the Siberian Polar
Sea. He will make the New Siberian Isl-
lands, visited in 1809-10 by Hedenstroem,
his base of operations.

The Eussian monthly review, " Svet," an-
nounces a translation of Spencer's " Data
of Ethics," to be published in its successive
issues. As Spencer is a great favorite in
Russia, the translation is being widely ad-
vertised, and a large demand for the num-
bers containing it is anticipated.

In is*?*? twenty-two hundred persons
were injured by passing vehicles in the
streets of London, most of the accidents
occurring at crossings in crowded thorough-
fares. In 1878 the number of such acci-
dents rose to thirty-three hundred, or an in-
crease of one third. On account of this large
increase, measures for the further protection
of pedestrians at dangerous crossings were
proposed in the House of Lords, but were
objected to on constitutional grounds, and
subsequently withdrawn. The recent nar-
row escape from being run over, of a prom-
nent official and former Lord Mayor of Lon-
don, has again called attention to the danger,
and now the city authorities are about to
take the matter in hand.

A STRIKING example of the effect of bad
conditions in increasing the fatality of epi-
demics is afforded by the recent outbreak of
measles on the Island of Cape Clear, at the
southern extremity of Ireland. This island
is some three or four miles from the main-
laud, and contains between five and six hun-
dred inhabitants, who live in small, low,
dark, poorly-ventilated cabins, and pick up
a scanty subsistence by farming and fishing.
The contagion was introduced by a young
girl, returning to her home from the main-
land, where measles were prevalent. Of the
first forty cases reported sixteen died, a mor-
tality of forty per cent. This enormous
death-rate arrested the attention of their
neighbors on the mainland, and measures
were at once taken for their relief. A
temporary hospital with adequate sanitary
provisions was established, and with this,
aided by a corps of good nurses, they ex-
pected soon to arrest the epidemic.

BENJAMIN SILLIMAN.

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY.

FEBRUARY, 1880.

THE OEIGIN OF CEIMmAL LAW.

By WILLIAM W. BILLSON.

ANTERIOR to all regulations for the punishment or suppression
of wrongs by an exercise of public authority, there was, as is
generally agreed, a time when injuries found redress only through the
resentment and retaliation of the injured party or his kin.

The progress of society from this rude sort of vindictive justice
toward approved systems of criminal law presents some suggestive
examples of the devious paths through which early communities were
led to the recognition of truths which to us appear elementally. Nor
is the history of this progress less intelligible or instructive to the
general reader than to the professional student of the law ; since it
derives its interest not from its professional bearings, but from the
interesting illustration which it affords of general methods of institu-
tional development. In order to secure an accurate conception of the
legal system, the early growth of which it is proposed to examine, it
may be well to premise that the criminal law, which with a substantial
uniformity of cardinal ideas now prevails in all civilized states, is well
defined as "that branch of juridical law treating of those wrongs
which the government notices as injurious to the public, and punishes
by what is called a criminal proceeding, in its own name,"

If it is desired to ascertain the point at which public authority be-
gan to supersede private revenge in the punishment of wrong-doers,
it is worthy of observation that instances abound of tribes among
whom the only offenses punishable by public authority are treason
and its cognates, such as cowardice and desertion. Such was at one
time the condition of the old German nations, and a similar paucity of
recognized crimes is still discoverable among many of the Polynesian
and American Indian tribes, and is indeed quite characteristic of un-
VOL. XVI. — 28

434 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

civilized races. On the other hand, probably no instance can be cited
where public authority has been exercised in the punishment of other
offenses prior to its employment against those of a treasonable nature.
Indeed, we can scarcely imagine a phase of society so primitive
but that treason if committed would be so punished. The traitor
deals his blow not at a particular individual but equally at every mem-
ber of his community, each of whom is therefore impelled to retalia-
tion by the same natural impulse to which he responds in avenging a
personal injury. Consultation and combination among the members
of the betrayed community, with a view to revenge, are then as much
a matter of course as in the case of an ordinary private injury they
are among the family of the injured party. But, if proceeded against
only by virtue of this general sense of personal injury, treason would
still be destitute of the characteristics of a true crime. It may be
said with perfect accuracy that every criminal law has for its object
either to preserve the existence of government or to secure the ade-
quate discharge of its functions. Many acts involving no moral de-
linquency are declared crimes. Others of an immoral nature are not.
The one thing that can be said without exception of every crime is
this : that it is supposed to militate against either the existence or
the functional efficiency of government. Given a government and a
recognized governmental function, and a resort to penal sanctions in
their aid must always have been an obvious necessity. The tardy
growth of criminal law is to be ascribed not to a failure of primitive
societies to perceive this, but to their ignorance of what the true func-
tions of government are. That which invested treasonable offenses
with the character of true crimes before other species of wrong-doing
had attained that dignity was the circumstance, now well attested,
that after the family and gens the earliest governmental organizations
were offensive or defensive military confederations, entered into with
sole reference to organic movement against common external foes,
and not with a view to internal or police regulations. That this was
so no further evidence is required than to consider on the one hand
how obvious and universal an expedient, even among savages, military
confederation is, and on the other by what slow and unsteady steps
and circuitous paths early societies have, as will be hereafter shown,
found it necessary to advance toward the conception and inauguration
of a general administration of justice. The institution of govern-
ments for military purposes involved the immediate rise of those
branches of criminal jurisprudence which have for their objects re-
spectively to preserve the government and to secure the efficient dis-
charge of its military function. There are many of the American
Indian tribes among whom the exercise of public authority for the
protection of the person or property of individuals from injury is un-
known, who yet in times of war organize a temporary government
by the election of a military chieftain whose powers within their lim-

THE ORIGIN OF CRIMINAL LAW. 435

ited sphere are absolute, and are rigorously exercised in the punish-
ment of treason, cowardice, desertion, and military insubordination or
inefficiency. This is the extent of their criminal law.

Acts of violence by one person upon the person or property of
another are not punishable, since the suppression of such acts is not
among the purposes for which such a government is organized. But,
for the treasonable or military offenses of which they do take notice,
penalties are imposed upon the true theory of criminal jurisprudence,
to uphold the government or to aid its efficiency.

It is, therefore, in this class of offenses that ci'iminal law must
have had an early but meager origin under the military confederations
to which the most primitive societies intuitively resort.

It might be supposed that communities thus familiarized with the
punishment of crime by public authority would rapidly develop a
criminal jurisprudence by the simple and direct process of adding
from time to time new crimes, pei'haps in the order of their supposed
enormity, to their catalogue of offenses. There are some tribes so
circumstanced as at first glance to countenance this view — tribes, for
instance, which, while not taking cognizance of ordinary offenses, are
known occasionally to prosecute notoriously hardened or habitual
offenders against the persons or property of their fellows : the mur-
derers of general favorites, obnoxious medicine-men, or persons guilty
of grossly impious or sacrilegious acts, or acts involving the people in
intertribal controversies.

But it will be observed that in none of these cases does the con-
certed action against the offenders proceed upon the notion that it is
the function of government to protect its citizens against crime. It
is induced in each case simply by a widely prevailing feeling of per-
sonal resentment or fear. The murderer of the popular favorite falls
a victim not to any theory of government, but to the sense of individ-
ual injury and loss shared in common by all the members of the com-
munity. The habitual offender is pursued in some such spirit as that
in which we shoot down a pirate ; not as a violator of law", but as an
acknowledged enemy of all mankind. The medicine-man, the sacri-
legist, and the offender against neighboi'ing tribes, fall victims to the
terror they inspire, the one by his reputed affinity with the powers of
darkness ; the second by his provoking, as is supposed, an indiscrimi-
nate visitation of divine wrath ; the third by subjecting all his fel-
lows to the hostility of adjacent tribes. They are not so much pun-
ished as sacrificed : the first two to avert the wrath of Heaven ; the
third to appease the offended tribes. These sporadic and personally
revengeful or propitiatory punishments throw little if any light on the
development of the law of crimes. They are not an essential part of
that movement — the most important, interesting, and difficult in the
history of criminal jurisprudence — by which society abandoned its
original assumption that acts of violence or fraud between individuals

436 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

are purely private grievances to be redressed by private remedies, and
charged government with the function of protecting its citizens from
such wrongs through j^roceedings conducted and punishments admin-
istered in its own name. The secret of that movement and the influ-
ence by which its progress was shaped can be gathered only from
study of the antecedent practice of private retaliation. For both by
its weakness and its strength the old system exercised a controlling
influence over the development of the new. It was at once the chief
inducement to the change and the chief obstacle to its accomplish-
ment. In so far as public authority assumes by penal remedies to pro-
tect individuals from the criminal acts of one another, it was first
called into existence, not by ordinary wrong-doing, but by an effort to
restrain the abuses and excesses of retaliation as a remedial system.
Its subsequent extension so as to displace the avenger and assume the
punishment of wrong-doers generally was an afterthought. Thus the
movement had its origin in a desire rather to mitigate punishments
than to insure or increase them.

That this was true in the history of the Germanic tribes was long
ago pointed out by Montesquieu with characteristic learning and in-
genuity in his " Spirit of the Laws." He regarded it, howevei", as an
experience peculiar to the Germans : to use his own language, " as
contrary to the practice of all other nations." In this he was mis-
taken. The Germanic line of progress in criminal law, as it was point-
ed out by Montesquieu, instead of being unique, is substantially that
which must have been pursued by all primitive communities with pos-
sibly rare and insignificant exceptions. Not only is this proposition
justified by an examination of the actual processes of legal develop-
ment among all races presenting the materials requisite for such an
inquiry, but an analysis of the inducing causes among the Germans
of this phase in their legal development will show them to have been
such as were universally prevalent among mankind, and such as must
have operated with remarkable uniformity.

It is to the illustration of these propositions that this paper will be
mainly devoted. So far was the practice of private retaliation from
being a preservative against crime, that it universally propagated
more violence than it restrained. Under the most favorable circum-
stances, its punishments, being administered without an authoritative
proceeding for the ascertainment of guilt, must frequently have fallen
upon those who either were in fact, or by their relatives were thought
to be, innocent. From this single infirmity of the system there must
have arisen great numbers of bloody feuds, each having a tendency
to propagate itself through generations. It also appears that, even in
cases of acknowledged guilt, it was the custom in some communities
for the family of an offender to protect him against the avenger, and
to resent an attack upon him as an original injury. A family feud
must then have inevitably ensued from every wrongful act of violence.

THE ORIGIN OF CRIMINAL LAW. 437

Even where the system, had so far matured that the right of retalia-
tion against a willful wrong-doer was recognized by his own family,
revenge (as among the Israelites) was frequently taken on account of
accidental or self -defensive acts of violence. It was a matter of course
that the legitimacy of such revenge should be denied, and its exercise
resented by the family upon which it was wreaked.

Again, the injured family in most instances claimed a right of
revenge not only against the offending individual, but, in his absence,
against any member of his family — a claim which was naturally and
uniformly denied and resisted. In some societies the avenger seems
to have thought it incumbent on him not only to take life for life, but
to take two or more for one. Among the Congo people, according to
Tuckey, if one be killed by an inferior, his family proceed to put all
the male relatives of the guilty party to death. The prostitution of
the practice is complete where, as among the Bushmen described by
Reade, in his "Savage Africa," the stain of an injury suffered may
be washed out by spilling the blood of any innocent third person, in
case the guilty party is unknown or inaccessible. Superstition has
occasionally operated as an additional irritant to an insane revenge.
Schoolcraft relates that among some of the Dakota tribes of Indians
each clan supposed the others to have supernatural powers whereby
they could cause death. They hence frequently retaliated for deaths
which they imagined to have been thus occasioned, though they were
really due to natural causes.

From such diversities of view concerning the right of retaliation,
and the justice of its application in particular instances, there inevi-
tably ensued high carnivals of bloodshed and embroilment. While
differing widely in degree among different races, the social disorder
thus occasioned everywhere stood out in conspicuous contrast with
that dearth of ordinary criminal acts which is characteristic of nearly
all uncivilized tribes. Apart from the violence proceeding from blood-
feuds, the unfrequency among such tribes of most of the acts we con-
sider criminal is very noteworthy. The great mass of offenses, whether
against person or property, which disgrace and disfigure civilization,
are the product of evil passions engendered by the exasperating in-
equalities of condition which are unknown to the experience of un-
civilized races. Of the instances of general and extreme addiction to
crime which are occasionally found in the loAver tribes of mankind, a
few, perhaps, must be classed as exceptions to this rule, but most of
them are to be explained by the fact that the races so characterized
are not really primitive, but are suffering, probably in an aggravated
form, from the vices of a civilization which they formerly enjoyed, or
with which they have at some time come in contact.

The inducements to crime in a primitive community are too weak
and public opinion is too strong to admit of the rapid growth of crimi-
nal practices. Offenses against property necessarily partake of the

438 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

scantiness of property itself. If, however, through the prevalence of
an esj^ecially quarrelsome disposition in any tribe, altercations and
murders increase in numbers, the far greater calamities of retaliation
are aggravated in the same proportion, and, where one life is taken in
original altercation, whole families and generations are consumed in
retaliatory feuds.

Hence, wherever we catch glimpses of societies before they have
commenced to administer a general criminal justice, we find them
already busy in devising expedients for the amelioration of feuds.
Tacitus, in enumerating the affairs of state transacted at the great
feasts of the Germans, mentions first in the order of business " the
reconcilement of enemies."

The large place occupied by blood-feuds in ancient Semitic socie-
ties and the dark shadow which they cast over social life have been
vividly portrayed by Michaelis in his work on the Mosaic laws. The
notoriously blightful prevalence of such feuds among the American
Indians is such as to prepare us for Schoolcraft's account of a tribe to
the south of Lake Superior, which he found almost extinct through,
intestine feuds. Indeed, such instances are by no means uncommon.
A passage in which Mr. Bellew describes the condition of the feud-
ridden Berdurani, or northeastern Afghan tribes, so forcibly illustrates
the demoralization ensuing from feuds as to justify its quotation at
length : " Indeed," he says, " the quarrelsome character of this people
and the constant strife that they lead are declared by a mere glance at
their villages and fields, which bristle in all directions with round
towers. These are constantly occupied by men at enmity with their
neighbors in the same or adjoining villages, who, perched up in their
little shooting-boxes, watch the opportunity of putting a bullet into
each other's body with the most persevering patience. The fields,
even, are studded with these round towers, and the men holding
them most jealously guard their lands from any one with whom
they are at feud. Nothing belonging to their enemies is safe from
their vengeance. If even a fowl strays from its owner into the
grounds of another, it is sure to receive a bullet from the adversary's
tower. So constant are their feuds that it is a well-known fact that
the village children are taught never to walk in the cenxer of the road,
but always from force of early habit walk stealthily along under cover
of the wall nearest to any tower." These, it must be conceded, are
extreme cases ; yet they are a perfectly logical outgrowth of unaided
and unhampered private retaliation. If most nations have outgrown
the system without suffering so extreme wretchedness from its preva-
lence among them, it is to be ascribed to the promptness and ingenuity
with which they have applied themselves to its modification. Instead
of being, as has been considered, a necessary though rude expedient of
primitive communities for the suppression of crime, it was from the
beginning and under all circumstances preeminent in its fruitfulness

THE ORIGIN OF CRIMINAL LAW. 439

of violence and disorder. It is more than doubtful whether it was
either conceived or maintained with a view to the discouragement of
crime. It had its origin in natural feelings of resentment, and after-
ward became a matter of honor. But, though vicious in its operation,
the system had become so deeply rooted in the habits, the passions,
the pride, the sense of honor, and the almost religious convictions of
mankind, as to be among the most obstinate of institutions. Thus,
among the Israelites, even after the Mosaic dispensation, the avenger
was by public opinion so obligated to retaliation that in the words of
Michaelis " the neglect thereof drew after it the greatest possible in-
famy, and subjected the man who avenged not the death of his rela-
tive to unceasing reproaches of cowardice or avarice." Among the
Arabs, in the language of the same author, the avengement of blood
constitutes " the prevailing point of honor among the whole nation " ;
and the acceptance of pecuniary compensation is, notwithstanding its
recommendation by the Koran, considered vulgar. "Writing of the
Swedes, Geiger says — and his words apply with equal force to nearly
all the early German nations — " Revenge for blood was a sacred ob-
ligation. It was at once the dearest hei'itage and the condition of
every other, for in the olden time, if the father lay slain, the son could
not inherit until he had avenged him." The old Salic laws likewise
so linked the feuds of the family with its inheritances that a renun-
ciation of the one worked an incapacity for the other. The loss of
reputation which among the American Indians and other existing
barbarians is universally incurred by failure to avenge blood is a
matter of general notoriety. The difficulty experienced in some
modern States in suppressing the duel is a faint illustration of the in-
corrigibility of blood-avengement ; it being borne in mind that the
modern code of honor is the conventionality of one class of society,
while the old principle of retaliation rested on a universal passion and
inflamed all classes alike, and that, while the modern duelist can forego
his personal remedies, assured of the advantage of a matured system
of law, the avenger was obliged to choose between his vengeance and
a pecuniary composition, with the third alternative, in some instances,
of a crude and inefficient judicial proceeding.

When King Alfred, outstripping the age in which he lived, and
probably inspired by the example of Moses, denounced against willful
murderers the punishment of death, his law was a dead-letter, and re-
mained unexecuted during his own reign and those of several of his
successors. The people preferred to redress their own grievances.
Even long after pecuniary compositions for felonies had been aban-
doned, the laws of England continuing to provide two concurrent
methods of prosecution for murder, one by indictment in the name
of the king, and the other by appeal of felony at the suit of the kin-
dred of the deceased, the latter was so confessedly the more favored
remedy that, lest it might be barred by an acquittal under an indict-

440

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ment, no indictment was tried until after tlie expiration of the year
and a day within which an appeal of felony might be instituted. This
remained the practice until third Henry VII., when, in order to avoid
these delays, it was enacted that acquittal on trial of an indictment
should be no bar to an appeal of felony for the same offense. In
the legislation of some countries, the conflict with reference to blood-
avengement between the dictates of public policy on the one hand and
the prevalent passions and notions of honor on the other was produc-
tive of a laughable incongruity. The law of Gottland, while making
express provision for the appearance of the wrong-doer in court under
safeguard, in order that he might offer the prosecutor a price in atone-
ment of his offense, at the same time declared the prosecutor who ac-
cepted it at the first offer, even after the expiration of a year, to be a
shameless person.

The tenacity with which the avenger adhered to his right of re-
dress and the difficulty of controlling him in the exercise of this right
are further attested by the character of the expedients by which it was
sought to fortify measures aiming at his restraint. Thus Moses,
though the Isi'aelites were in his day quite familiar with the public
prosecution of crimes, some of which were entirely withdrawn from
the domain of private retaliation, found it still necessary to recognize
the blood-avenger's right personally to pursue and slay without form
of law the willful murderer : " The avenger of the blood shall slay the
murderer ; when he meeteth him he shall slay him."

But, as under most primitive codes of honor, so among the early
Israelites the principle of blood-avengement was so malignant as to
require retaliation even against the involuntary man-slayer. The in-
strument of death, whether man or beast, the avenger was in honor
equally bound to destroy, without reference to the malicious or acci-
dental character of the homicidal act. The flagrant injustice of pun-
ishing with death involuntary acts void of moral guilt, was in the
Mosaic age, probably as manifest to large numbers of the Israelites as
to Moses himself ; yet so deeply rooted was the practice in the tra-
ditions of the people that the great law-giver dismissed as impractica-
ble the idea of abolishing it. His scheme for ameliorating the hard-
ships of both the willful murderer and the involuntary homicide by
the designation of cities of refuge within the limits or vicinity of which
they could find protection from the avenger, the former until he should
have opportunity to prove his innocence, and the latter until the occur-
rence of some event with which his final discharge from liability could
be plausibly linked, bears witness upon its face to the difficulty he an-
ticipated in its enforcement. That his plan might be fortified by re-
ligious reverence and sacred associations, he provided for the selection
of the cities of refuge from among the cities of the Levites, and dated
the freedom of the excusable homicide from the death of the high
priest. It is likely that among all early races the right of sanctuary

THE ORIGIN OF CRIMINAL LAW. 441

has derived its strength from the considerations lying at the root of
these Mosaic regulations. For although the absolute exclusion of vio-
lence from sacred precincts may have been originally suggested by
religious sentiment, the widespread and tenacious application of the
principle to criminal refugees must be mainly ascribed to the necessity
so widely experienced of interposing obstacles to the avenger of blood ;
as is perhaps indicated by the circumstance that, as the exercise of
avengement has been superseded by public prosecutions, the right of
sanctuary has almost uniformly fallen into disrepute. Analogous in
origin and aim to the right of sanctuary are the customs quite various
and widely prevailing by which avengement has been prohibited during
certain sacred seasons or occasions. Among the Swedes, for example,
the Church contributed, as described by Geijer, to the abolition of
blood-feuds by declaring all holidays and periods of some length at
the great festivals consecrated to peace ; and, ultimately, by throwing
a similar protection over the sowing and harvest times. The Frisian
was not to be molested by the avenger while going to or returning
from church. There are some tribes of American Indians with whom
all crimes except murder are buried in oblivion by the yearly sacrifice ;
so that the mention of them, or of any occurrence which brings them
into recollection, is forbidden. If a Kenisteno chief wishes to settle
any difference between his people, he announces his intention of open-
ing his medicine-bag and smoking in his " sacred stem " ; and no man
who entertains a grudge against any of the party there assembled can
smoke with the sacred stem.

The tenacity with which men clung to their right of personal re-
taliation can not be too strongly emphasized. When, by the demoral-
izing prevalence of feuds, society was first awakened to the necessity
for taking measures to mitigate or suppress them, it is undoubtedly
true that even if there had been a general willingness to abandon pri-
vate revenge in favor of public prosecutions, the men of that period
were incapable of either conceiving or executing so comprehensive a
remedial scheme.

On the contrary, without any thought of the ultimate displacement
of their revenge, they sought by various devices only to mitigate its
excesses. But that displacement was made doubly difticult and the
movement by which it was accomplished was in its details controlled
by the stubbornness with which, even after comprehending the possi-
bility of the new system, the people insisted upon adhering to their
rights under the old. If further evidence or illustration of these truths
is desired, it can be abundantly gathered from the sketch which it is
now proposed to give of some of the steps by which societies, in their
efforts to control the avenger and regulate avengement, were slowly
and at first unconsciously led toward the cardinal doctrine of criminal
jurisprudence, that it is the function of government to protect by suit-
able penalties its citizens in person and property from the violence and

442 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

fraud of one another. " In order that revenge might not continually
generate new revenge," says the historian of the Swedes, "the law es-
sayed its earliest exercise of authority in reconcilement." At a time
when murder was a purely private wrong, of which government took
no cognizance, and the right of retaliation was thought too sacred for
government to deny, the public interested itself only by discouraging
revenge through the agency of public opinion, and by inviting and
recommending pecuniary compositions with wrong-doers at rates which
were usually fixed by law or custom, without, however, assuming to
coerce either party into a settlement. Under such circumstances, if
the avenger accepted the sum fixed by law as the price of composition,
and afterward also took his revenge, this, as Montesquieu says, re-
ferring to the law of the Lombards, contained a public as well as a
private offense ; was a contempt of the law itself — a crime which the
legislators never failed to punish. Later, the law, in order to avert
feuds, declared it a crime to refuse to offer or accept pecuniary compo-
sition for murder. Government, while it had not yet undertaken to
prevent or punish ordinary murders or larcenies, had been driven to
apply itself to the suppression of feuds ; and the withholding or rejec-
tion of composition money tending to defeat its efficient discharge of
that function had the properties of a true crime, and was promptly
recognized and punished as such. That pecuniary compositions for
bloodshed were everywhere first made obligatory, rather to avert feuds
than to punish wrong-doers, is attested by a great variety of circum-
stances. For instance, in fixing the amount to be paid in composition,
the chief and usually the sole question or criterion seems to have been,
What sum will offer to the avenger a sufficient inducement to forego
his revenge ? Rotharis, in the law of the Lombards, declares that he
had increased the compositions anciently accustomed for wounds, to
the end that, the wounded person being satisfied, all enmities should
cease. LTpon the same principle is to be explained the well-known ten-
dency of early laws to adjust their penalties with principal regard to
the aggrieved person's probable degree of exasperation at the time of
detecting the wrong-doer.

The law of the Allemans, which, while undertaking to enforce com-
positions for stale offenses, conceded to injured parties the privilege
of righting themselves on the spot and in the first transport of pas-
sion, finds a counterpart in the curious and yet under the circum-
stances perfectly natural distinction made in the Twelve Tables be-
tween manifest and non-manifest theft. Persons detected in the act
of stealing, or with the booty in their possession, were liable to the
punishment of death if slaves, and, if freemen, became thereby the
bondmen of the owner of the property ; while, if detected under other
circumstances, they were only obligated to refund double the value of
the stolen property. The marked incongruity, from a modern stand-
point, of these two punishments was supposed by Montesquieu to have

THE ORIGIN OF CRIMINAL LAW. 443

originated in Lacedaemonian theories of theft, and to have been handed
down from ages when the crime of stealing was a small matter com-
pared with the blunder of being found out. In other words, that the
real crime consisted in being detected, and that hence, the longer de-
tection was postponed and the more effectually the booty was disposed
of or concealed, the lighter was the penalty imposed. Whatever may
be said of the accuracy of this explanation, its ingenuity can not be
denied.

On the other hand, Sir Henry Maine traces the widely discrepant
penalties under consideration to a tendency, on the part of early ad-
ministrators of justice, to "simulate" the probable acts of persons
engaged in a private quarrel. "It is curious to observe," he says,
" how completely the men of primitive times were persuaded that the
impulses of the injured person were the proper measure of the ven-
geance he was entitled to exact, and how literally they imitated the
probable rise and fall of his passions in fixing the scale of punish-
ment."

Viewing these provisions of the Roman code in connection with
other primitive laws, there can be no doubt that their scale of penal-
ties was graduated, not with reference to the vengeance the injured
party should be "entitled to exact," but with reference to the least
amount of punishment by which, under given circumstances, he could
probably be appeased. Pecuniary compositions for bloodshed, pre-
vailing, as they presumably have, at some period in the history of
every race, can not indeed be accounted for on any theory of punish-
ment. They were conceived and established for purposes of pacifica-
tion, apart from considerations of punishment or discipline. Blood
for blood is an instinct of human nature ; it is the justice which
among every race was meted out with unsparing hand by the kindred
of the slain when the burden and privilege of redi-ess were upon them,
and again by the state when she assumed the punishment of crimes.
Pecuniary compositions prevailed only in the enforced absence of
truly primitive remedies during that transition period when govern-
ment was too wise to countenance the avenger, and not wise enough,
or too feeble, to administer penal justice. It must be admitted that
compulsory compositions, after they had superseded the practice of
retaliation, came ultimately to be maintained with a view largely to
the punishment and prevention of wrong-doing, and by a kind of in-
ertia were carried over into periods capable of sustaining a true crimi-
nal law and already in the partial enjoyment of it. Even then, how-
ever, they proceeded upon our theory of damages against tort feasors.
They were never at any time entitled to a place in the law of crimes.
Returning from our digression, it is to be remarked that the adoption
by the state of regulations for the control of parties at feud necessi-
tated public prosecutions and punishments in order to insure their
observance. One of the earliest methods of mitigating feuds was to

444 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

allow the relatives of the wrong-doer to withdraw themselves from his ■
feud on condition that they should entirely abandon him. If, after I
taking advantage of this law, they gave the wrong-doer assistance,
they not only forfeited the protection which the law guaranteed them,
and so were involved in the feud, but they so obviously sinned against
the dignity of the state and its law that they were finable to the king.
Such was the law of King Edmund of England. So, if, after the law
had guaranteed the relatives of the culprit immunity from the feud in
consideration of their abandonment of him, the injured party still
took revenge on them, all his property was forfeited, and he was de-
clared to be an enemy to the king and all his friends. In like man-
ner, government in some instances undertook to give legal force to
customs, many of which occur among our Indian tribes, which sought
to discourage feuds by limiting the time within which revenge could
be taken, or to restrictions uj^on the mode or measure of redress sug-
gested by considerations of humanity. Although Mohammed, in the
Koran, adheres to the law of personal retaliation for bloodshed, he
counsels forgiveness or composition on the part of the aggrieved per-
sons. But, against the person who, after receiving composition money
as contemplated by his law, still proceeds to take his revenge, he de-
nounces a "grievous punishment." The process of enforcing these
and other limitations upon parties at feud resulted in developing and
illustrating the idea of regulating by criminal laws the conduct of
citizens toward one another, and thereby paved the way for the sub-
sequent more general application of the same principle. There was
another class of measures which tended to the same end by serving
especially to mature a judicial machinery, and to familiarize the peo-
ple with its operation. Next to its total abolition, the most effective
remedy for the evils of blood-avengement was to forbid its exercise
until the accused person should have had an opportunity to submit
the question of his guilt to investigation in court. Under such cir-
cumstances a court was not a bar of justice at which accused persons
were arraigned, but a place of refuge to which ihej fled. The Israel-
ites had under the Mosaic laws in one respect passed this stage of
development, since the public had undertaken to execute judgment
against offenders when the avenger so desired. Yet an accused per-
son only became entitled to a hearing in court after reaching a city of
refuge, up to which time the avenger was at liberty to take his own
redress without legal intervention. Having arrived at the city of
refuge, the fugitive was entitled to have the question of his guilt in-
vestigated. If found guilty, he was either delivered into the hands
of the avenger, or at the option of the latter was publicly executed,
the prosecuting witnesses casting the first stones. That among the
Germans, also, the first entertainment by courts of criminal charges
was in the interest of the accused, is, as already remarked, settled be-
yond controversy by Montesquieu. Additional and curious illustra-

THE ORIGIN OF CRIMINAL LAW. 445

tion of the fact is aflforded by the Swedish law, which not only threw
the protection of the court around the accused while he negotiated
with the adverse party for composition, but in case of the rejection of
his reasonable overtures restored him to libei'ty with the right to carry
full arms, and to defend himself against his enemies as well as he
could. The custom very widely prevailing, by which a party found
guilty of crime is delivered by the court to the prosecutor, to be ex-
ecuted or otherwise disposed of at his pleasure, is obviously an out-
growth and incident of the original protective function of courts, and
wherever found is indicative of the former prevalence of that kind of
judicial interference. This may be said to be the universal method
of execution among such of the barbarous tribes as have attained to
any judicial investigations at all. The same is generally true of Mo-
hammedan countries.

Even in England, until as late as Henry IV., it was the custom in
appeals of felony for the appellor and his kindred to drag the con-
victed appellee to the place of execution.

For the time employed in the trial, and the protection afforded by
it, a reasonable compensation, called Fredum by the Germans, was
usually paid by the accused to-the judge or king. Under the Koran
this debt of gratitude took a peculiar form. In order to compound
for murder it was necessary not only to satisfy the family of the de-
ceased, but also to ransom a brother Moslem from captivity. It is not
difficult to understand how impositions of this sort, exacted at first for
time consumed and protection afforded by the state for the accused,
might readily adapt themselves to and even assist in the development
of criminal law, by gradually assuming the character of fines for the
offenses charged. Another line of progress of importance in some
societies consisted in a gradual enlargement of the classes of offenses
in which the king or state was supposed to have such an immediate
interest as to justify a claim to a part of the composition money.
Thus an injury to the person or property of any of the king's house-
hold, retainers, officers, or agents, was early construed to be an injury
to himself. So, likewise, with wrongs committed against the guests
of the king or persons of a household by whom he was entertained ;
or violence committed in the immediate presence of the king or in his
castle, and afterward in the city or province where he was residing ;
or under other circumstances which, within the slowly expanding ideas
on the subject, could be construed as involving an offense against the
king's peace or dignity. It is an observation of M. Say that, in every
branch of knowledge, example has preceded precept. So it was in the
early history of criminal law. To a very great extent it was practiced
before its theory w^as conceived or its first principle formulated. It
was only after its judicial machinery had been developed by such
random or diverse considerations, and for such special purposes as
those heretofore enumerated, and after the people were thereby famil-

446 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

iarized with its employment in favor of or against many classes of
wrong-doers, that the practicability and propriety of its application to
offenders generally were first perceived.

SAPORTA'S WOELD OF PLANTS BEFORE THE
APPEARANCE OF MAN *

Translated fkom the Feench by Miss E. A. YOUMANS.

MEN of science, whose patient researches have accumulated the
proofs of the theory of evolution, have perhaps found more
facts in support of this great philosophical doctrine in the vegetable
than in the animal world. When we say the vegetable world, we of
course mean chiefly fossil vegetables. It is only by the study of ex-
tinct forms, and their comparison with the living flora, that the af-
finities between actual types and distant ancestors have been discov-
ered, and their mode of evolution revealed. Vegetable paleontology,
it is true, is yet in its infancy, and has many great gaps ; still, the ra-
pidity with which it is being developed, and the prodigious number of
facts that have been already collected, give good ground for the hope
that the day is not far distant when we shall have surely determined
the ancestral lines of most of our plants. To this the efforts of pale-
ontologists are tending, and their activity is beyond all praise. Dur-
ing the last twenty years their discoveries have furnished the matter
for large volumes and for many memoirs, published in the reports of
academies of science, in the bulletins of geological societies, etc. But
the profound lessons derived from these discoveries have hitherto been
almost the exclusive possession of scientific men. People of general
intelligence, who are interested in all progress have known little of the
results obtained. This injustice could be no longer tolerated. A com-
plete treatise was required, written in a style that all could compre-
hend, and summing up the progress thus far accomplished ; and M. de
Saporta, one of the most eminent authorities in vegetable paleontology,
has just published such a work.

He devotes his first chapter to the theory of evolution, passing suc-
cessively in review the most important arguments in its favor. Not-
withstanding the great interest of this subject, it will not detain us
now, for we wish to examine the main body of the work. Besides,
Saporta is now writing for the " International Scientific Series " a
book devoted to the study of evolution in the vegetable kingdom,
where he will show the line of descent of the great families of plants.

* The World of Plants before the Appearance of Man. By Count de Saporta, Corre-
spondent of the Institute. 8vo. 416 pages, with Thirteen Plates, of which five are col-
ored, and One Hundred and Eighteen Figures in the Text. Paris: G. Masson. 1879.

SAPORTA'S WORLD OF PLANTS. 447

The study of fossil flora not only enables us to follow the evolution
of plants from their remotest known ancestors to their present actual
descendants, but it throws much light upon the past mysteries of the
earth, and especially upon the climatic conditions which controlled its
surface while the slow revolutions of organic life were going on. We
know what numerous causes concur to form a climate ; latitude and
longitude, the direction of winds and of currents of water, the nature
and relief of the soil, and the distance from the sea. All these causes
have their respective known effects, and have acted in the past as they
act now ; yet we know that, if it were needful to determine the amount
of influence due to each of these agencies in the different geological
epochs, we could not do it ; the difficulties are too great. But in one
case, that of latitude, we can find out its ancient effects by analogy
with what is passing under our eyes, and by abstracting all other in-
fluences. We know that the obliquity of the sun's rays increases with
latitude, and that temperature diminishes in the same proportion ; that
the higher the latitude of a region the less heat has its climate. But
we know also that vegetation marches with temperature, provided al-
ways that soil and moisture are favorable. The floras of the temperate
and polar regions show clearly the decrease of temperature from the
equator to the pole. There exists between a flora and the climate in
which it lives a relation so close that, knowing the one, we can repre-
sent the other. Palms do not grow in Greenland nor fir-trees on the
plains of equatorial Africa. Each climate has its flora, and each flora
its climate.

Paleontology has established the permanence and universality of this
law ; but it has at the same time established a singular fact which re-
mains inexplicable. It is this : the different climates of the earth have
not always been what they are now, either as to temperature or distri-
bution. We speak only of those epochs which have succeeded each
other since the time of the most ancient known plants. If we trans-
port oiirselves in thought to a time toward the end of the Tertiary
period, and then, leaving behind us the Quaternaiy epoch, follow the
course of the ages, we find, as an increasing enlargement of the tropical
zone, that which is equivalent to an increase of temperature for the
whole earth. More extended in the Pliocene epoch than in our day,
this zone was still greater in the Miocene epoch, and yet greater in the
Eocene, and so on till we reach a time when it embraced the whole
surface of the earth, bestowing everywhere an equal temperature,
feebly oscillating between certain limits. This climatic equality, which,
according to Saporta, reaches at least as far back as the time of the
coal, would probably cease at the epoch of the inferior chalk. Such is
the fact established by examination of the flora of different ages.

Let us proceed to details. The Quaternary epoch, contrary to
the opinion of the majority of geologists, was not, in France, and
probably also in other countries, a period of universal cold. The term

448

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

glacial which has been applied to it is certainly appropriate, because
of the enormous and unknown extension of the glaciers, the traces of
which are the principal character of the epoch. But at certain dis-
tances from existing glaciers there doubtless existed valleys with a

warm or at least a temperate climate. The mixed fauna and flora
of this period abundantly prove this. The remains of huge animals
gathered in the ancient alluvium of the Seine and Somme, as deter-
mined by MM. Larted and Gaudry, demonstrate that many species

SAP ORTjVS WORLD OF PLANTS. 449

indicating a very cold climate are found associated with those of a
diametrically opposite character. Besides the mammoth, we encoun-
ter the ancient elephant, approaching that of India ; the hippopotamus
of African rivers peopled the waters of the Seine ; while the hyena of
the Cape frequented the meridian of France. The study of the forest
flora, of which we find numerous remains in the contempoi-aneous tufa,
leads to the same results ; the vine, the laurel, the ivy, are found in
abundance, not only in our southern regions, but also at Moret, near
Paris. "We find there also the much tenderer laurel of the Canaries.
The northern trees of the same epoch were pines, lindens, maples, and
oaks.

All these facts prove that the quaternary animals and plants char-
acteristic of a cold climate existed only in the neighborhood of gla-
ciers ; and that, close by, in the valleys, lived creatures whose presence
indicated a climate softer and more humid than ours. The mean an-
nual heat necessary to their existence would be, at least, 14° or 15°
centigrade. But, if we place ourselves now in the full Pliocene
period, say near Lyons, we encounter the same vegetables, with others
of a more southern character. At this epoch, in fact, the laurel-rose
flourished on the banks of the Saone in company with the laurel, the
avocatier of the Canaries, the bamboo, the magnolia, and the evergreen
oak. The well-known climatic needs of these species warrant us in
assigning to the country a mean annual temperature of 17° or 18°
centigrade, and, as the actual mean temperature of Lyons is only
11°, we can judge of the difference of temperature which separates
our epoch from that of the Pliocene. Moreover, as Saporta remarks,
the figures which express the climate of Lyons during the Pliocene
epoch are not only higher than those which apply to the neighborhood
of Marseilles in Quaternary time, but, in place of corresponding to
the 43° of latitude, these higher figures coincide with the 46°, They
mai'k a progression of heat corresponding with latitude, the effect
of which is to raise the temperature of northern regions in proportion
as we bury ourselves in the past.

These curious phenomena appear still more evident and more gen-
eral, if we transport ourselves in thought to the Miocene epoch. The
entire unbroken documents abound in the boreal hemisphei-e, and we
can there exactly determine the climates of all latitudes from 40° to
80°. Admirably preserved fossil plants, brought from the polar re-
gions by different travelers, show that glaciers have not always deso-
lated the pole. One of the principal deposits of these vegetables was
found on the western side of Greenland at Atanekerdluk in 70° of
latitude in the adjacent island of Noursoak. On the steep sides of a
ravine one thousand feet deep, there exist entire beds of petrified
leaves and other debris imbedded in a very ferruginous rock. The
vast accumulation of leaves is truly surprising — trunks yet in place ;
flowers, fruit, insects accompanying them. M. Heer, who has studied

VOL. XTI. — 29

450

TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

these precious remains, says that here arose a vast forest where abounded
sequoias, poplars, oaks, magnolias, ebony, holly, walnut, and a host of
other species. Still farther north, at 80*^ of latitude, were found aquatic

Fig. 3.— Principal P.vlms and Ctcade^ of the Middle Tertiary in Eitrope.

plants, pond-weed, water-lilies, rushes, etc., and terrestrial plants — bald
cypress, thyme, fir, plane, linden, maple, mountain-ash, and even mag-
nolias, forming a grand forest. The illustrious Professor of Zurich,
M. Heer, regards many of these plants as miocene, and concludes that

SAPORTA'S WORLD OF PLANTS. 451

if these latitudes at this time were disposed as they are now — that is,
if the earth's axis has not been displaced — all the earth received more
heat, and the line of the tropics must have risen toward the north.
The difference of the Miocene period may be valued at 25° or 30° of
latitude — that is, we must at present descend 40° or 45° to find the
temperature which then existed in Greenland.

The study of the more ancient floras brings new proof of this phe-
nomenon of the extension of heat into the higher latitudes, and con-
ducts us finally to that equality of climate of which we have spoken.
" We are forced to conclude, hoAvever," remarks Saporta, " that when
we reach the time of the coal and the most remote period in the his-
tory of organic beings, if there has been no change in the relations of
the heat that falls upon our globe, there have doubtless been other
changes profound enough to impress upon it a very different aspect
from that which it has since presented, and to create conditions of
existence about which we can form no idea." "We are, in fact, igno-
rant of the conditions in which living beings first made their appear-
ance and were developed. There have been many hypotheses about
it, but the facts on which they rest are yet neither sufficiently numer-
ous nor convincing. For the settlement of this question we must
await the future.

As to the cause of climatic equality over all the earth in the Pri-
mary and Secondary epochs, we are equally in the dark. All the
explanations that have been given have been successively rejected.
The displacement of the axis of the earth, the inclination of that axis
on the orbit of our planet, the precession of the equinoxes, etc., are
some of the hypotheses put forth on this subject. We can not here enu-
merate them all ; but there is one on which Saporta insists, not because
it explains everything, but because it agrees more or less with the cele-
brated cosmogony of Laplace, and accords with the phenomena of the
primitive world as revealed by science. This hypothesis was put forth
some years ago by M. Blaudet. We know that, according to the
theory of Laplace, the entire solar system was originally an immense
nebula which has since condensed little by little, and successively given
off rings of cosmical matter which have become planets. The central
star is hence more and more reduced, has become more dense, more
luminous and more ardent, until it has attained the dimensions and
properties of our actual sun. In other words, if we could trace back-
ward the course of the ages, we should find the sun progressively aug-
menting in volume, but its heat and light would diminish in intensity
in the same proportion. We do not know what sun lighted the earth
when life first appeared upon it, but, from the theory of Laplace, we
may suppose that it was much larger than ours.

Such conditions, however, would explain many phenomena. This
great sun, occupying a good part of the horizon, would give a twilight
so luminous and so prolonged as perhaps to annul the night. Sending

452 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

his perpendicular rays much farther from the equator than now, the
torrid zone would be thus enlarged. The calmer light, the more gen-
tle and equalized heat, the thicker and more humid atmosphere, explain
that equalization of temperature, those days half veiled and transpar-
ent nights, and that tepid climate of the polar regions, that we might
consider as presiding at the development of primitive life. Finally,
the primitive sun, by its slow condensation, passing insensibly into its
present state, necessarily forced the retreat of the torrid zone, thus
ending the anterior equality of the climate, permitting cold to become
established at the pole, and concentrating heat at the equator. Such
is the bold but attractive hypothesis of M. Blaudet. No doubt it
leaves many points obscure, but the numerous partisans of the theory
of Laplace will not hesitate to acknowledge its importance, for, in
reality, it is part of the theory itself.

It remains now to review the remarkable chapter that Saporta has
given to the study of vegetable periods. We may remark at the out-
set that this word " period " implies no such general convulsions as the
first geologists believed in, who supposed the history of the globe
broken into sharp periods, each of which was inaugurated by a distinct
creation and terminated by a sudden and universal destruction. Sa-
porta takes care to warn us against this error. " Nature, always ac-
tive," says he, " has had no intermittence nor time of sleep. Life,
since its first appearance, has not ceased to inhabit the earth. De-
pressed sometimes, interrupted never, there has circulated without
respite a constantly fertile sap. The epochs and revolutions which
geologists have named are valuable only as serving to introduce great
dividing lines in the bosom of an incalculable duration, but a closer
view reveals these beings always succeeding each other; the extinction
of some among them would not prevent survivors from occupying
their place. Physical revolutions, essentially accidental and unequal,
have never been radically destructive. If some periods have been
less favorable than others to the development of life, these relatively
impoverished intervals have possessed organized beings that, afterward
multiplying and diversifying, have easily repeopled the globe."

Saporta divides the world of fossil vegetables into four great peri-
ods : 1. The Primordial or eophytic, corresponding to the Laurentian,
Cambrian, and Silurian ; 2. The Carboniferous or paleophytic, compre-
hending the Devonian, Carboniferous, and Permian ; 3. The Secondary
period or mesophytic, commencing with the Trias and reaching to the
end of the chloritic chalk ; 4. Finally, the Tertiary or neop>hytiCy em-
bracing all the formations from the chalk of Rouen up to and includ-
ing the Pliocene.

The flora of the eophytic period is unknown. The debris which
represents it has in general a character so vague that there is yet no
agreement upon its true nature. The graphite found in the Laurentian
indicates, however, that from this epoch vegetables existed in great

SAPORTA'S WORLD OF PLANTS.

453

abundance. In the Cambrian and Silurian, fossils are found that are
differently interpreted, and in which at present some think they see
algte. The famous bilobites, so abundant at the base of the Silurian,
appear also to have been algae of very great height. Finally, certain
marine plants, as those that are represented by Fig. 3, are connected
with a type of algs^ so marked that it is difficult to mistake them.

Fig. 3.— Primordial Marini: Plants: 1. Spyrophyton of Hall (Silurian of America).

sonites Forbesi (Goepp) (Silurian of Ireland). 3. Chondrites Jruticulosus (Goepp).

Many of these plants are undeniably linked with more modern types,
of which they bear the generic form, and prove that this primordial
flora is not really separated from that which followed it. We can
even affirm that certain Silurian algoe have had a duration so prodi-
gious and a tenacity of character so pronounced that their last direct
descendants were living in the European seas in the middle of Tertiary
time. As to primordial land-plants they are excessively rare, and
those that we have gathered seem to demonstrate that in the Silurian
epoch to which they belong the vegetable forms represented types
that we encounter in subsequent formations, and that are characteris-
tic. In Fig. 4 are shown those that M. Lesquereux observed in the
Upper Silurian of the United States. Among them are the Psilophy-
ton, which disappeared with the Devonian, and the ambiguous charac-
ters of which approached at the same time the ferns by the Hymeno-
phyles, the Lycopodiaceae by Psilotum, and the Rhizocarpes by Pilu-
laria.

454

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

With the Devonian things changed. The bad state of preservation
of fossil vegetables belonging to this formation has not permitted us
to study them perfectly ; but, from the aspect of those which we pos-
sess, we conclude that at this epoch the vegetable kingdom was al-
ready vigorous and varied, and that nature while in its infancy put
forth the carboniferous flora, the almost inconceivable exuberance of

Fig. 4.— Phimobdiai Teerestbial Plants observed bt M. Lesquereux in the Upper Silurian
OF America : I. Psilophyton cornutum. (Lesquereux). 2-4. Syheno'phylluin pritnosis- 5. Annu-
laria Bomingen. tj. Protostigma sigillarioides.

which has never since been equaled. This flora, to the description of
which numerous works have been devoted, is still more interesting and
important as furnishing the elements of the coal — the soul of industry,
as it has so justly been called. "We know that the conditions in which
the coal-beds were formed very much resembled those in the midst of
which the peat is now actually being formed. As Saporta has ob-
served, in the Carboniferous epoch there were emersions upon a grand
scale, emersions succeeding each other, flowing over and receding from
the insular or continental space, until its recovery from the waters.
This action of the waters would produce a low bank or shore around
the primitive land, the relief of which would tend to become more
accented, and at length would retain the waters coming from the inte-
rior and unite them at the bottom of extensive depressions. In this
way were formed vast lakes, with vague banks and shallow waters, easi-
ly invaded by plants loving an aquatic station. If we join to this the
humid warmth, the thickness of the atmosphere, charged with vapors,
causing frequent and violent rains, we perceive how favorable were
the conditions for the development of the carboniferous vegetation.

The plants of this flora belong exclusively to the two classes
of vascular cryptogams and gymnospermous phanerogams. At the
head of the cryptogams were the Calamarias, which recall on a gigan-
tic scale the Equisetaceoe of our day ; by their side Asteraceae, Annu-
laria, Sphenophyles ; then come ferns of very varied form and struc-
ture, and Licopodiaceae of the type Lepidendroidese. Certain plants,
the Bornia, Calamodendreoe, and Sigillaria, form connecting links be-
tween cryptogams and phanerogams. These were gymnosperms, that
is, plants assimilable by the class Ci/cadece to the conifers and the ac-

SAPORTA'S WORLD OF PLANTS.

4-55

tual Gnetacete, The true phanerogams, the angiosperms, appeared
much later. Further, the carboniferous flora comprehended some
Cycadea?, such as the Noeggerathia foUosa, and a pterophyllum dis-
covered recently by M. Grand' Eury ; some true conifers, as the
Walchia ; some Taxineae more or less like our Ginkgo ; and, finally, a
great number of Cordaiticse, most of which were great trees so per-
fectly preserved that they could not only be placed at the head of the
gymnosperms, but their affinities with the class of angiosperms could
also be observed.

The Permian flora, which succeeded the Carboniferous, is only a
pale reflection of it. The characteristic type of the preceding age
has disappeared, while the others, the Cycadese, the conifers (Fig. 5),
and the Taxinea3, tend to preponderate. The Permian is an epoch of
transition, having ambiguous characters. The constituent elements
of the coming vegetation were being developed. Saporta says of the
Trias, which commences the Secondary or mesophytic period, that " it
appears to correspond to one of those periods of revival where the

ff^rrr'V f\,

Fig. 5.-CHARACTERISTIC Pershak Plants : Conifers. 1, 2. Walchia piniformis (Stronb)-l,
branch; 2, detached cone. 3,4. Ulmannia frumenfaria (Goepp)— .3. branch; 4, strobile. 5.
Gmkgophyllum Grasset(i—Sa.p, branch, leaves (Permian Schist of Lodove and Herault).

failing types finally disappear, while those which displace them are
successively introduced. The first leave chasms because they are re-
duced to a decreasing number of individuals ; the last are yet obscure
and rare. Both old and young are equally feeble, and, when these two
extremes meet, the apparel of nature seems poor and monotonous."
At the beginning of the Jurassic period a transformation is already

456

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

manifest, and we soon find ourselves in the presence of a new flora,
where the carboniferous types have disappeared, but where, except
some rare monocotyledons, the angiosperms are still wanting. Always
cryptogams and gymnosperms, the first represented by ferns and
Equesitacese, the second by Cycadeae and conifers. From Spitzbergen
to Hindostan, from Europe to Siberia, everywhere the same vegetable
forms, so that the character of the Jurassic flora is monotonous, lifeless,
and relatively indigent. However, we quickly perceive two sorts of
vegetation : one peculiar to low and humid plains, including beautiful
ferns and Cycadese (Fig. 6) ; and the other covering the hilly regions,
and composed of different genera of the same families, but chiefly of
tall conifers, which in great part composed the forests of that time.

Fig. 6.— Chakacteristic Jurassic Plants ; Types of Ctcade^e op Hcmid Localities : 1. Podo-
zamites dUtans (Presl.) ; yonng plant. 2. Pterophyllum JUegeri (Brongn.) ; summit of a leaf.
3. Pterozamites comptus (Schim.) ; interior part of a leaf.

We know not under the influence of what conditions organic evo-
lution, and especially the appearance of dicotyledons, has taken place ;
but we do know that from the horizon of the cenomanne chalk com-
menced the neophytic period, these plants appear in a multitude of
places and multiply with great rapidity. Wherever the cenomanien
is found we find the remains of that age, proving the predominance
of dicotyledons and the decrease of Cycadese and conifers. "This
revolution," says Saporta, " has been as rapid in its progress as univer-
sal in its effects." It would certainly be interesting to follow the
author in his enumeration of the ancestors of our common plants, and
his description of the progenitors of the poplar, the beech, the ivy, the
chestnut, the plane-tree and others, but it would extend this article
beyond the limits of our space. Besides, we have followed vegetable
evolution through its principal phases — that is to say, we have in some

SAPORTA'S WORLD OF PLANTS.

457

sort witnessed the successive appearance of different classes of plants,
we have seen the rising and falling movements of vegetation, periods
of activity alternating with periods of relative repose, and that succes-
sion, or better, that procession of phenomena which has enabled us, if
not to comprehend, at least to prove the transformations of life that
all together are called evolution.

We shall find analogous phenomena in the series of Tertiary time,
to which Saporta has given his longest chapter. This part of his work
contains many descriptions of plants. They show us more than the
simple succession of flora. The growing differentiation of the divers
types and the consequent multiplication of species conduct us insensi-
bly to the actual vegetable world. We see the growth of local flora,
some of which are so clearly defined that we are able, by the aid of
the imagination and of some well-preserved fragments, to reconstruct
the principal genera and species of which they were composed. Fig. 1
represents a group of these plants so restored. The numerous modifi-
cations undergone by the vegetable kingdom during the Tertiary age,
the formation of local floras, etc., are easily explained if we recall
what was before said, of the influence of the medium upon living beings,
and especially upon plants, that can not escaj^e. Climatic equality no
longer exists. The European Continent, up to this time made up of
islands, tends now to aggregate and take on its present form ; the soil

Fig. 7.— HoMOLOooua Forms op Paleocene and Eocene Oaks compared (Tjyes of entire
leaves): 1. Quercus Lairiberti (Wat.) (Paleocene). 2. Quercus taniata (Sap.) (Middle Eocene).
3. Quercus maciknta (Sap.) (Middle Eocene). 4. Quercu.t paleophellos (Sap.) (Upper Eocene).
5. Quercus eUiptica (Upper Eocene). 6. Quercus salicina (Upper Eocene).

is subject to movements of oscillation, which often change the config-
uration and relief of various countries. Lakes of fresh water are
formed, and then disappear. The nature of the soil varies as marine
deposits recapture it from deposits of fresh water ; and reciprocally.

458

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

This instability of the environment has produced an instability of the
flora, and caused those differences which have resulted in the Europe-
an vegetation of our time.

As before remarked, in speaking of ancient climates, when we go
back in time, and particularly Tertiary time, we see the vegetation
taking more and more of a tropical character. Hence in these epochs
there existed in Europe a multitude of forms which can not live there
now. Palms and Cycadeae (Fig. 2) and large, beautiful ferns were
long ago exiled. Other forms, as the laurel, the vine, the ivy, have
never quitted the region where they were born, or, at least, where they
appeared for the first time.

The number of figures that Saporta has interspersed with his text,
representing the principal vegetable types of the past, offer us the still
further advantage of comparing species of the same type, and verify-
ing by inspection the respective modifications of these species, and
their passage from one to the other. Without doubt, we are far from
possessing all the terms of all the series ; but what we know of some
enables us to judge by analogy that what has happened with one genus
may happen with others. See, for example, the forms of Pliocene
and Eocene oak (Fig. 7), which show clearly how climate has affected
this species from the formation of Gelinden at the base of the Pliocene
to the gypsum of Aix, that is, the superior Eocene. The forms repre-

PiG- 8.— Successive Forms of the LAtmEL TrPE, sho'wing the Passage from Lauras primige-
niaioL. Canariemis : 1-3. Laurus primigenia. 4. L.princeps. 5. L. Canariensis.

sented here belong to the group of oaks with entire leaves ; but there
is another group with leaves toothed or lobed, in which we discover
analogous modifications. We see that leaves at first oval tend to be-
come more and more slender, and these lanceolate forms express very

SAPORT.VS WORLD OF PLANTS.

459

truly the action of the warm, dry climate of the Eocene, which suc-
ceeded the warm but humid climate of the Pliocene.

Other striking examples of these affinities of species are furnished
by the laurel type (Fig. 8) and that of the ivy (Fig. 9). The large

Fig. 9.-STTCCE9SIVE Modifications op the Type Eedo-a in the Course or the Tertiarj
Epoch : 1. Hedera pnsca. 2. H. Philibertii. 3. H. Kargii. 4. H. Acutelobati. 5. H. 2Iac-
auri. 6. B. Slrozzl.

varieties of Laurus 2yrimigenia pass insensibly into Laurus Canarien-
sis. " It seems," says M. de Saporta, " that the narrow forms of this

460 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

same Laurus primigenia, which at the same time are the most ancient,
mark the existence of a race -due to the Eocene climate. This influence
is gradually lessened, as seen in the expansion of the leaf as we advance
toward the Aquitanian, and in the Armissan at first, and Manosque
afterward. The relation between the amplified leaves of the Laurus
primigenia and those of Laurus Canariensis and Laurus nohilis is
more and more pronounced. The Laurus princeps of the superior
Miocene approaches still nearer to our laurel ; while, finally, the
Canarian race has all the characters of Meximieux in the inferior
Pliocene.

As to the ivy, its most distant ancestor is a species of the cenomani-
enne chalk of Bohemia, the Hedera priniordialis, whose large leaves
bear witness to the moistness of the climate under which it lived. The
Pliocene species, Hedera prisca, found at Sezanne, is sensibly removed
from the preceding species by the salient angles of its leaves and its
much smaller dimensions. The Hedera Philihertii, recently discovered
in the gypsum of Aix by Professor Philiberti, testifies clearly, by its
narrow and pointed form, to the influence of the Eocene climate. It
recalls to our astonishment the most slender forms of the ivy of Al-
giers, and also the forms that the European ivy takes when it runs on
the ground, so that these two races may well have had the Hedera
Philibertii for their common point of departure. The Hedera Kargii,
characterized by its very small leaves, seems to be derived from the
Hedera prisca. The Hedera acutelohata scarcely differs from the
actual species ; in the same way the Hedera Mac- Cluri is confounded
with the ivy of Ireland. Upon the whole, if we consider the varieties
presented by our actual ivy we are tempted to believe that the ancient
forms have only been races of the same species.

We must here close this analysis. Readers wishing a better knowl-
edge of this important subject than we have been able to give must
be referred to the work of M. de Saporta, which will be found as agree-
able as it is instructive. — Hevue Scientijique.

HOW TYPHOID FEYER IS CONYEYED.

By De. T. J. MACLAGAN.

TYPHOID fever is one of the most common of the serious ailments
of civilized life. No household is safe against it ; there is no
family which it may not invade. In Great Britain alone not much
short of 200,000 people suffer from it every year. Of these nearly
20,000 die, most of them in the prime of life. It is even more preva-
lent on the Continent.

The question of the contagiousness of such a disease is one of vital

HOW TYPHOID FEVER IS CONVEYED. 461

importance ; and yet it is one on which the most antagonistic opinions
are held.

Among the many ailments which may be transmitted from the sick
to the healthy, the ones with which we are most familiar in this coun-
try are those which are grouped together iinder the name of "the
eruptive fevers." To this group typhoid fever belongs. It includes
also small-pox, typhus fever, scarlet fever, and measles. Each consists
of an attack of fever of more or less definite duration, and of a local
inflammation or eruption : during the course of each its poison is
largely reproduced in the system ; and each may be transmitted from
the sick to the healthy.

There are several ways in which a disease may be transmitted :

1. Its poison may be introduced directly by inoculation, as is daily
done in the case of vaccination,

2. It may pass directly into the surrounding atmosphere from the
persons of the sick, and be inhaled by those in their neighborhood, as
constantly happens in small-pox, typhus fever, measles, and scarlet
fever.

3. It may be conveyed indirectly, and to a distance, in articles of
clothing, bed-linen, etc., and, passing from them, may be inhaled by
those who wear or handle them, as often happens in the same diseases.
Or it may be conveyed in food or water, and enter the system through
the digestive organs, as frequently happens with the poison of typhoid
fever.

When we wish to say that a disease is transmitted from person to
person, without defining the mode of transmission, we say that it is
coMMUJfiCABLE, The term is a general one, which includes every mode
of transmission.

When we wish to say that a disease may be transmitted by inocu-
lation, we say that it is inoculable.

When we wish to say that the poison may be conveyed in articles
of clothing, in linen, in food, in water, etc., we say that these articles
have been infected by the poison, and that the disease is iis^fectigus.

When we wish to say that a disease is produced by personal con-
tact with one suffering from it, and that the danger of catching it
increases with the closeness and intimacy of such contact, we call it

CONTAGIOUS.

A contagious disease, therefore, is one in which the danger of con-
tracting it increases as we approach, and diminishes as we recede from,
a person suffering from it. It is contactuous.

Contagion may be defined as direct infection ; and infection as in-
direct contagion. In both a poison passes from the sick to the healthy.
It is the difference in the mode of conveyance of the poison that makes
the difference between the two. The distinction is one of the utmost
practical importance, and must be borne in mind in discussing the
question of the contagiousness of any disease. An ailment may be

462 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

infectious without being contagious. When, with reference to a case
of typhoid fever in his own house, a man asks the question, " Is it con-
tagious ? " he does not wish to know whether or not some one in the
next street may take the disease, but whether or not there is a likeli-
hood of its spreading among the members of his own household, and
whether or not there is danger in going near the sufferer. The only
accurate and proper meaning of the word is that attached to it in the
definition which I have given. That, therefore, is the sense in which
it is used in this paper.

What is the nature of the poisons which j^ass from the sick to the
healthy ? Their most distinctive peculiarity is, that they are largely
reproduced in the system during the course of the maladies to which
they give rise. The minutest possible portion of small-pox matter,
for instance, may be introduced into the system of a person who has
not had that disease, and who has not been vaccinated, with the cer-
tainty of giving rise to a malady during whose course there will be
formed many thousand times as much of the poison as sufiiced to set
the disease agoing.

Contagion, then, consists physically of minute solid particles. The
process of contagion is the passage of these from the bodies of the sick
into the surrounding atmosphere, and in the inhalation of one or more
of them by those in the immediate neighborhood. If contagion were
a gaseous or vapory emanation, it would be equally diffused through
the sick-room, and all who entered it would, if susceptible, suffer alike
and inevitably. But such is not the case ; for many people are exposed
for weeks and months without suffering. Of two persons situated in
exactly the same circumstances, and exposed in exactly the same de-
gree to a given contagion, one may suffer and the other escape. The
explanation of this is, that the little particles of contagion are irregu-
larly scattered about in the atmosphere, so that the inhalation of one
or more of them is purely a matter of chance, such chance bearing a
direct relation to the number of particles which exist in a given cubic
space. Suppose that a hundred germs are floating about in a room
containing two thousand cubic feet of air. Th«r-e is one genn for
every twenty cubic feet. Naturally the germs will be most numerous
in the immediate neighborhood of their source, the person of the suf-
ferer ; but, excepting this one place, they may be pi-etty equally dis-
tributed through the room ; or they may be very unequally distributed.
A draught across the bed may carry them now to one side, now to the
other. The mass of them may be near the ceiling, or near the floor.
In a given twenty cubic feet, there may be a dozen germs, or there
may be none at all. One who enters the room may inhale a germ
before he has been in it ten minutes ; or he may remain there for an
hour without doing so. Double the number of germs, and you double
the danger. Diminish the size of the room by one half, and you do
the same. Keep the windows shut, and you keep the germs in ; open

HOW TYPHOID FEVER IS CONVEYED. 463

them, and they pass out with the changing air. Hence the importance
of free ventilation ; and hence one reason why fever should be treated,
if possible, in large, airy rooms. Not only is free ventilation good for
the sufferer, but it diminishes the risk to the attendants.

We see in this, too, the reason for banishing bed-curtains, carpets,
and all unnecessary furniture from the sick-room in cases of contagious
fever. The germs are apt to adhere to such articles, and so make them
the means of conveying the disease to others.

All organisms consume in their growth nitrogen and water. Those
with which we are now dealing are no exception to the rule. Growing
in the system, they must get these elements there. But nitrogen and
water are the chief materials required for the nutrition and repair of
the various organs and tissues of the body. The propagation in it of
millions of organisms, having wants identical in the main with those of
its own tissues, must cause serious disturbance. And so it does. This
disturbance declares itself by that aggregate of phenomena to which
we apply the term fever.

An organism which thus grows in and at the expense of another is
a parasite. One of the peculiarities of parasites is that they flourish,
not in any part of their host, but only in some particular organ or
tissue, which is called the nidus, or nest of the parasite. The organ-
isms with which we are now dealing (the poisons of the eruptive fevers)
show similar peculiarities. Each has its own nidus, its own localized
habitat, in which it is propagated, and out of which it ceases to be
reproduced. The poison of small-pox has its nidus in the deep layer
of the skin ; hence its characteristic eruption. That of scarlet fever in
the superficial layer of the skin and in the throat ; hence the rash and
the sore-throat of that disease. That of measles in the skin and in
the mucous membrane of the air-passages ; hence its characteristic
symptoms. That of typhoid fever in the glands of the intestine ;
hence that disease consists of fever and of ulceration of the bowel.

The contagiousness of a given eruptive fever must be directly as
the number of germs which, in a given time, pass from the body of a
sufferer into the surrounding atmosphere. This, in its turn, must
depend on the seat of the propagation of the poison, and on the rela-
tion which this bears to that atmosphere. In small-pox, scarlet fever,
typhus fever, and measles, the seat of this propagation is the skin and
mucous membrane of the air-passages ; it is, therefore, in direct, free,
and constant communication with the external air. The poisons of
these diseases are accordingly freely given off into the atmosphere of
the room in which the sufferer is, and they themselves are highly con-
tagious.

In typhoid fever, the poison is propagated in the bowel, and is
thrown off with the discharges from it. It thus passes from the system
in a manner and in a combination which insure its speedy removal
from the neighborhood of the sufferer. The typhoid-germs are there ;

464 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

but they are mingled with discharges which may be removed, and as
matter of course are removed, before the germs can pass off from them
into the surrounding atmosphere. The seat of the propagation of the
typhoid-poison has no direct relation with this atmosphere ; germs
can not pass directly from the one to the other ; the disease, therefore,
does not display the property of contagiousness.

The danger in typhoid fever is not contact with the person of the
sufferer, but contact with his stools. If these are properly managed
and disposed of, the disease can scarcely spread. But, if they are
allowed to pass into drains which are imperfectly trapped, inadequately
ventilated, or insufficiently flushed, or if they are carelessly thrown
on the ground, or allowed to percolate through the soil into drinking-
water, then one case of typhoid fever may give rise to many others.
The occurrence of a case of typhoid fever in a house is a sharp test of
the efficiency of its sanitary arrangements. If these are perfect, and
the stools properly managed, all will go well ; if they are defective,
one case may give rise to many others. But the communication of the
disease is not direct, by contact ; it is indirect, by infection of drinking-
water, or of an atmosphere which may be remote from the person who
is the source of the poison. A case of typhoid fever is introduced
into a locality. The stools are thrown out on the ground or into a
cesspool, whence they percolate through the soil into a well. The
person who drinks water from that well runs a greater risk than one
who sleeps in the same room as the sufferer and is in constant attend-
ance on him.

The practical outcome of all this is — 1. That the mother may nurse
her son, the wife her husband, the sister her brother, without the risk
involved in the case of typhus or scarlet fever ; and, 2. That there is
little or no danger to the other inmates of the house, if its sanitary ar-
rangements are perfect and the stools properly managed.

On this view of the nature and mode of action of contagion, it is
easy to see, not only how the process of contagion and its varying
phenomena may be explained, but how, by care, much may be done
both to prevent the poison from passing into the atmosphere and to
diminish its chance of acting after it has got there. We have only
to consider what is the chief channel by which the contagion gets exit
from the system, to know by w^hat means we are most likely to pre-
vent its passing into the surrounding atmosphere. In typhoid fever
the poison passes off in the stools ; and what we have to do is to see
that these are promptly and properly disinfected and disposed of. In
small-pox, scarlet fever, typhus fever, and measles, it is eliminated by
the skin, and we can not altogether prevent its getting into the atmos-
phere ; but, by frequent sponging with some disinfecting fluid, or even
with plain water, many germs may be arrested in their outward course.

The apostolic mode of anointing with oil is also an efficacious way
of fixing and arresting the germs : it is specially useful during conva-

HOW TYPHOID FEVER IS CONVEYED. 465

lescence from scarlet fever in fixing the particles of peeling skin, which
are a source of much danger. They are dangerous because they con-
tain the germs which have been produced in them. What we see hap-
pen in the larger particles of skin happens also in many of the much
smaller particles of contagion.

By the adoption of these various measures, by rigorously isolating
the sufferer, and by having the room well ventilated, much, very much
may be done to check the spread of contagious fevers. The matter
of which organisms are composed is one of the most perishable things
in nature. Contagion is no exception to the rule. By exposure to the
air much of it is destroyed ; hence such exposure is one of the best of
all disinfectants.

Sanitary science has done much to show us how some of the diseases
with which we are now dealing might be extinguished, and how all of
them might have their prevalence greatly diminished. It rests with
those who have such ailments in their houses to carry into effect the
measures calculated to destroy and get rid of the poison, before it has
had time or opportunity to be a source of danger to those around.
But the adoption of proper measures presupposes a knowledge of the
nature of the poison with which we have to deal, and of the manner
in which it passes off from the system. In not one is this knowledge
more necessary than in typhoid fever ; in not one are the measures
which such knowledge dictates more easily applied, or more likely to
be effective. But, to regard typhoid fever as contagious in the sense
that small-pox and typhus fever are so, is to divert attention from the
true source of danger, to lead to the adoption of measures which are
uncalled for, to the neglect of those which are urgently required ; is
to cause unnecessary concern to the sufferer and his friends, and to
deprive him and them of the mutual comfort and solace which a little
daily intercourse affords. The peculiarities of the illness may be such
as to make it right to exclude the friends ; but isolation is not requi-
site for the same reason that it is so in typhus.

One more point. The receiver as well as the giver of the poison
has something to do with the determination of its action. Not every
person into whose system a germ passes necessarily suffers from its
action. A man who has had small-j^ox, for instance, is no longer sus-
ceptible to the action of its poison — and why ? Not because the poison
can not get into his system, for we can make sure of that by inocu-
lating him with it, but because, during the first attack, the nidus, the
special material necessary to its propagation, was exhausted, and has
not been reproduced. This immunity from a second attack is a gen-
eral characteristic of the eruptive fevers ; individual exceptions there
are, but the rule is that one attack confers immunity from a second.

A germ does not act unless it reaches its nidus ; it may enter the
system, make the round of the circulation, and again pass out without
ever coming in contact with its nidus, and therefore without doing harm.

VOL. XVI. — 30

466 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The more widely the nidus is diffused, the less likely is this to happen.
In small-pox, in scarlet fever, and in measles, the nidus is widely scat-
tered. In none of them is a germ likely to make the round of circulation
more than two or three times, without being conveyed to its nidus.

In typhoid fever the nidus is situated in a limited portion of the
bowel, the sole route to which, by way of the circulation, is through
an artery the size of a crowquill ; a typhoid-germ may be taken in
through the lungs, and may make the round of circulation two or three
dozen times, without being likely to enter that particular vessel. The
more often this may occur, the greater the chance of its being thrown
off f ro.m the system without acting. But, if the typhoid-germ be taken
in through the digestive organs, it is brought into direct contact with
the seat of its nidus, and can scarcely fail to act. Hence the great
danger of drinking water or milk contaminated with the typhoid-
poison.

The glands which constitute this nidus are not equally prominent
and active all through life. In infancy they are quite rudimentary.
At two or three they begin to grow, and gradually increase in size,
and presumably in functional activity, till the age of puberty. They
continue to be very distinct for twenty or twenty-five years. After
forty they begin to get less, and gradually diminish till at seventy they
have dwindled away so much that they can no longer exercise any
active function. Their period of prominence and of functional activity
corresponds exactly to the period of susceptibility to the action of the
poison of typhoid fever. That disease is extremely rare in infancy ;
from two to six, or seven, it is more common, but is generally very
mild. At fifteen or sixteen commences the period of greatest liability
to it ; and from that age until thirty-five and forty it is very common
and very fatal. After forty -five it begins to decline both in frequency
and severity ; and goes on declining as years advance, till at seventy
the liability to it may be regarded as practically worn out. When it
occurs in advanced life it is generally mild ; but its occurrence then is
as rare as in infancy. Increased and diminished susceptibility to the
action of the poison of typhoid fever correspond exactly to the in-
crease and diminution in the size and functional activity of the glands
which constitute its nidus.

The insusceptibility to the action of the poison, which is naturally
and slowly developed in old age, is artificially and rapidly produced
by the destruction of the nidus during an attack of the disease.

Using the word contagious in its proper sense of communicable by
contact, and regarding the typhoid-poison as a parasite whose nidus is
in the glands of the bowel, we are led to the conclusion that the disease
to which it gives rise, though undoubtedly infectious, can scarcely be
contagious. We know from our experience that it is not so ; for it
never spreads in hospitals, and attendants on the sick suffer no more
than other people.

HANOVERIAN VILLAGE LIFE. 467

The difficulty has been to reconcile these facts with the reproduc-
tion of the poison in the system. The source of this difficulty is the
rooted belief that this reproduction takes place in the blood. On this
view all the eruptive fevers ought to be equally contagious. But let
us once adopt the view that the poisons of the eruptive fevers are
parasites, and that the seat of the local lesion of each is the nidus of
its parasite, and therefore the seat of its propagation, and the whole
difficulty vanishes. We at once see why each has a definite period
of duration, why one attack protects against a second, why each has
its own characteristic lesion, why each presents such varying degrees
of severity, and why they possess different degrees of contagiousness.
— Abridged from the Nineteenth Century.

HANOYERIAlSr TILLAGE LIFE.

By WALTEE NOEDHOFF.

THE Hanoverian village of E lies a few miles distant from a
famous university town, in a district which still maintains many
old-time customs, and which presents, therefore, a curious image of
German rural life thirty or forty years ago.

The approach to E from G is very pretty. The thorough

culture of German fields and the absence of fences make a rural pros-
pect especially pleasing to an American. At the foot of a low hill,

and completely embowered in green, lay E , with nothing of it

visible as we neared it except the church-steeple and the red-tiled
roofs of the pi'incipal houses. My lodgings wei-e in a house near the
church ; my room — the best in the house — commanding a view and
smell of the stable and barnyard, with its manure-heap, which we
passed on our way from the street to the front door. I still wonder

Avhy in E the parlor, dining-room, and best sleeping-rooms are

made to face the barnyard, while the kitchen and servants' rooms look
out upon a pretty garden in which the family spends most of its sum-
mer days.

The commune or village of E has about six hundred inhabi-
tants. It has no manufactures, and all its people, even its officials
except the clergymen, live either partly or entirely upon the produce
of the soil tilled by themselves. The tilled land is very minutely sub-
divided, the pasturage and forest-lands being held and used in com-
mon, while the laws and customs governing this use, and the general
system of land tenure, culture, and improvement, are in many ways
curious to an American.

The land belonging to the commune or village of E is divided

into tillable, pasture, and wood land. The tilled land amounts to

468 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

eleven hundred and forty acres, and is owned in plots of from thirty
to fifty acres. The Hauermeister, or head of the village, owns one
hundred and fifty acres, but he is exceptionally wealthy. The church-
lands are two hundred and eighty acres, and there are also two hun-
dred and ten acres owned by a noble family, non-resident. The till-
able church-lands are let to factory and railroad laborers in small
plots, and the women of these tenants form a part of the general
laboring force in the harvest-season.

Twenty acres is the least amount of land that a peasant, who lives
on the produce of his farm alone, can cultivate profitably in this re-
gion, and the living thus obtained is so miserable that those who own
so little generally eke out their subsistence by renting land from

richer farmers. Sixty acres of the land around E have been set

apart, by old usage, as common, on which those of the villagers who
own " village rights " graze their animals, and from which they get
clay and stone for building and a certain amount of hay for winter

use. The extreme subdivision of the land around E is the result

of the laws which govern the inheritance of land in the province. At
the death of the head of the family his land is divided equally among
his children, his wife having first taken out of the estate the amount
of money or land she brought her husband at marriage, and, in addi-
tion to this, a part equal to the share of one of the children. The
mother's property at her death goes to the children in the same way.

Church-lands can be sold when the consent of the minister, church
trustees, and church government has been obtained, but such sales
rarely take place. Land belonging to the commune as commons can
not be sold unless special authority has first been given by the state.

The highest value I heard set on any land in E was three hun-
dred dollars an acre for a garden-spot in the village itself. Land

near E is not worth so much as near some of the towns around

it, because it has never been verko2:)pelt or " married," as the process
is called, by means of which a peasant obtains one compact farm in
exchange for a dozen or more widely scattered, small fields. This
Verkoppelung and the laws and customs which make such a process
necessary show so much of the German farmer's mc^de of life that I
will explain the manner in which it is carried out : In accordance with
the laws which govern inheritance, each daughter must receive either
at her marriage or at the death of her parents a certain share, varying
with the number of children, of all the land belonging to her parents.
The chances are, of course, very much against the land which she thus
inherits adjoining that of her husband, so that, in the first generation,
the family have two fields which may be a mile or two apart. Now,
when this couple die, each one of their children receives its share, not
of the whole, but of each field owned by the parents. Suppose this
process to go on for a century, and it will be readily understood that
a peasant may own thirty or forty fields, each containing but a small

HANOVERIAN VILLAGE LIFE. 469

fraction of an acre, and no two of wliieli lie together. To remedy the
evils of this system, Verkoppelung commissions were created for each
province by the state, which also undertook the draining, irrigation,
and laying out of roads through the land on which they worked.

Any landholder in a village may, by merely notifying the district
magistrate, call a meeting of the farmers to consider whether the land
of the village shall be verkoppelt, but, if less than half the landowners
respond to the call, or if a majority are against the measure, the caller
of the meeting has to pay its legal expenses. If half the landowners'
respond, and the question is favorably decided, notice is at once sent
by the magistrate to the general Verkoppelung commission. This
commission decides whether the village meeting did its work in a
legal way, and, if the requisite amount of red tape proves to have
been used, appoints an inferior commission to see that the roads,
canals, and ditches are properly placed, and to be responsible for the
honest performance of the work to be done. The first work of this
commission is to register the value of the land owned by each farmer ;
then the land is ditched, and canals and roads are built. After the work
is finished, all the land of the village is divided into a certain number
of grades, generally eight, the first of which contains the best farming-
land ; the remainder containing continually poorer and poorer land un-
til in the last are placed the mountain pasture-fields. Upon each one
of these subdivisions a value is then set by the commission ; the total
value put upon the land being, of course, equal to the value of all the
village land before the Verkoppelung. The commission then retires,
and a farmers' meeting is called to ratify its valuation. If at this
meeting any one objects to the value set upon any piece of land, his
objection is noted and sent to the general commission, and, if thought
to be reasonable, the land is valued anew ; but, if the question is de-
cided adversely to the objector, he has still the right to refuse to take
the land in dispute, and it can not be forced upon him. If, however,
a considerable number of objections are made to the valuation, a new
inferior commission is appointed, this time from among the farmers
who have objected to the former valuation ; and the decision of this
last commission is final, no appeal being allowed.

The preliminaries having been successfully adjusted, the general
commission then allots to each farmer arbitrarily an amount of land
equal in value, although perhaps not in quantity, to that he had be-
fore his land was taken. Whenever there is pasture-land among that
belonging to the village, each farmer receives, after the Verkoppelung,
a certain amount of it ; in which case his farm lies in two parts. The
average cost per acre of the whole process is about five dollars, and
this is assessed on each peasant according to the value of the land he
receives. In case any farmer can not pay his share of the expenses,
his land is sold, just as it would be for unpaid taxes.

When a person has land to let, he sends notice to the town crier,

470 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

who then parades the streets, beating a drum and stopping at each
corner to announce that such a person has so much land which will be
rented on such a day. On the day mentioned, all those interested
meet in the public square, and a lawyer, or the village magistrate,
states to the assembly the quantity and location, and the general terms
on which it will be rented. He then auctions off the lot field by field.

The highest price paid per acre per year, in E , is seven dollars and

fifty cents, and poor land rents as low as twelve cents a year. Leases
run from six to eighteen years. Each renter of land deposits with the
magistrate, at whose oflfice his lease is drawn up, a sum of money equal
to the rental of the land he has taken for one year, and in most cases
for two years. The money thus deposited remains with the justice
during the whole term for which the land is rented, and is then re-
turned to the depositor if he has paid everything due the landowner.
The amount of ready money thus required is so great that farmers can
seldom afford to rent more than a few acres of land. Owing in part
to the excessively high rent paid for land, and in part to this deposit,
farmers can make little more than their living expenses from rented
land. In fact, even those who own their land are glad to get through
the year without having to run in debt or to deny themselves some of
the necessaries of life.

Without exception, the methods of cultivation employed around

E would be thought in this country old-fashioned and ineflScient.

Even such simple tools as the scythe and cradle are seldom used, almost
all the grain being cut handful after handful with a sickle, and then
carefully laid out to dry before being bound into small bundles. A
whole family works day after day over the grain, handling each straw
at least three times, and yet showing no trace of mental fatigue at the
(to me) awful monotony of the work, I could only wonder at the
temerity of a government which dares to educate a people before
whom, from their childhood, lies nothing but the prospect of drudgery
so constant and so stupefying. The farmers, to economize time, gen-
erally do their threshing at night, rising for this purpose at twelve or
one o'clock, and working at it until it is time for their regular day's
labor to begin.

Grains of different sorts and leguminous plants are the main crops

grown around E , to which each farmer adds whatever he needs

for his own use. In most cases, also, they do a little market-garden-
ing for the neighboring city market. According to the method by

which all the land belonging to the community of E is cultivated,

the whole arable soil of the village is divided without regard to pri-
vate ownership into three parts, called "Winter, Sommer, and Brach-
feld, or fallow. In the Winterfeld are grown those crops which are

planted in the fall, or early in the spring — being for E mainly

rye and wheat. The Sommerfeld has the spring-sown crops, of which
barley and oats are good examples. The Brachfeld is, as its name de-

HANOVERIAN VILLAGE LIFE. 471

notes, allowed to lie entirely fallow, or at most is used for pasture, or
for the growth of such light crops as esparsette and the legumes.
Next year the Brachfeld of the former year becomes Winterf eld ; the
former Winterf eld is used for Sommerfeld ; and so on year after year,
and century after century.

A part of the commune-land is used as pastui-e, and on it each per-
son holding a village right may pasture a certain number of cattle,
sheep, pigs, and geese. A second part is meadow-land, and every
twelve years this is divided into as many parts as there are holders of
village rights, and each one receives a share, of which he has the ex-
clusive use until the redivision at the end of the duodecade. Still a
third part of the commune-land is planted with fruit-trees ; the prod-
uce of which is sold for the benefit of the communal treasury. A
fourth, and largest part, is planted with forest-trees, and from it each
person receives yearly a certain amount of building and tire wood.

During the months when farm-work is possible the peasants in
E rise between four and five, and, after a breakfast of coffee, sau-
sage, and bread, go at once to the fields. At half -past nine or ten the
whole family sit down in the field and eat black bread, washed down
with a kind of coarse brandy called schnapps. Then work goes on
again until twelve, when, if the day is hot, they return home and rest
for an hour or two, making their noonday meal of bread and the re-
mains of the coffee prepared in the morning and kept warm on the
embers, or, if wood is scarce, by wrapping the coffee-pot in the bed-
clothes ! After their return to work, an afternoon meal of bread and
schnapps is eaten at half -past three, and an evening meal of bread,
coffee, and a wann soup, when they stop work at seven or eight. Con-
stant toil of this sort leaves but little time for reading or self-im-
provement, and only six papers are taken in E , not more than

twelve or fourteen persons in all reading them. These weeklies and a
few story-books, loaned out by the pastor, are the only reading ma-
terial of a village of five hundred and ninety-one souls. The bread
eaten by the peasants is made of coarse black flour, baked once or at
most twice a month, and eaten without butter. On Sunday morning
a little beef or mutton is sometimes eaten by a few families, but other-
wise no animal food is taken except in the form of sausage-meat.
Children do not work in the fields until about ten years of age, nor is
much work done by them for five or six years later, as from six to
fifteen or sixteen years of age they are compelled to attend school.
In summer, from June 24th to September 29th, there is no afternoon
session of the school, and the children then help in the harvest. The
toil of a peasant being so constant, is also done slowly and poorly. A
wood-sawyer, for instance, holds and works his saw with only one hand,
and draws a breath between each stroke.

A compulsory school law in the province of Hanover forces the
peasants to study during ten years of their lives, and during this time

472 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

a little reading, writing, and arithmetic is acquired ; but beyond this is
and a slight knowledge of High German they do not advance. Clean-
liness is not a peasant virtue in this region, and perhaps I had better
say nothing on the subject, further than that the pig is at all times a
welcome member of the highest village society, and generally goes
into the house by the front door.

All work and no play makes the peasant a dull fellow, and the little
education he gets does not help him much. Many stories of their
blunders are current, involving oftenest the local Dogberries. To this

sort belongs the sign said to have been posted in a stable in G , and

which notified the stablemen that " it is forbidden to feed the horses
or cows with lighted pipes or cigars." A trespass notice, still to be

seen near E , gives perhaps the best idea of this sort of muddle-

headedness. Written in Plattdeutsch, it gives the warning : " This road
is no road, but he who will travel it notwithstanding is fined four
marks and two days in jail ; the informer to receive half." Laws are
so strict and well enforced that there are few crimes. Such as do

occur in E are mainly fights caused by liquor and family quarrels,

which the pastor commonly has influence enough to settle.

Owing to the small land-holdings there is in E no distinct class

of what we in this country call farm-help ; but, when a man has not
money enough to hire land in the ordinary way, he goes to a f amier and
asks for six or eight acres of land, agreeing to pay so much rent, and
giving no deposit, but binding himself to work for the farmer at rates
much below those usually paid day laborers — twenty-five cents a day or
thirty-five cents for cutting an acre of grain being the prices paid to
such boundmen.

House-servants are employed in E only by the minister. They

are hired at Easter, or on the 16th of November, and one year is the
usual length of the term for which they engage. Housemaids receive
from fifteen to twenty-five dollars a year, and a present of twenty yards
of linen and a pair of shoes ; it is also customary to give them small
money fees once or twice a year if they have done their work well.

I ought to have explained before, that the village, besides being a
collection of people assembled together for protection and to afford
church and school facilities, is also a commune in the sense that it is a
closed corporation without the power of self-extension or contraction.
The village can and does own property, and hires men to do village
work, as, for instance, to take care of the cattle owned by members of
the corporation. This system of land tenure is said to have originated
in the following way : In the earliest times a single family held all the
land around it in common. At that time all the land was divided, as
it still is, into three parts, to provide for the alternation of crops and
the resting of the land. Each man then received his share of the land
for a year only, a redivision being made at the end of each season.
As time went on, the term for which land was allotted increased, until

HANOVERIAN VILLAGE LIFE. 473

gradually the principle of private property was introduced and the
ownership of land became fixed. But this change did not affect pas-
ture or forest land. The result of all this has been the retention of the
communal idea in regard to the so-called village rights which belong

to the citizens of E , but not to all its inhabitants. There are only

sixty-six of these rights, and this number can not be increased or di-
minished, so that only a small part of the six hundred inhabitants of

E are citizens. Each one of the 7'ights can be halved — thus, of

course, also halving the privileges of the possessor, but the subdivision
can go no further. Each right gives its possessor the privilege of graz-
ing a certain number of sheep, cattle, geese, and swine on the public
pasture ; of mowing a certain amount of meadow-land, and of getting
stone and clay for building from the village pits, besides a considerable
amount of wood each year from the communal forest. Village rights
have thus a considerable value, and are sold at prices i-anging from two
hundred and twenty-five to three hundred dollars each. In order to
possess a right a man must own a house in the village, and he can not
own more than one right unless he increases the number of houses he
owns in the same proportion.

Since the number of rights can not be increased, and since each
one can only be halved, there must, of course, be numbers of people
in the village who are not corporators. Such persons have none of
the privileges belonging to the rest except the permission to graze
cattle on the common pasture when they have paid to the commune
authorities a fixed price per head for each animal thus fed ; nor have
such persons any vote when communal affairs are to be passed upon.

E is entirely independent of the neighboring city of G ,

but offenses against the law are tried by an inferior court sitting in

the latter place. Each male in E who has attained the age of

thirty years, and who is not a pauper or criminal, has a single vote in
the election of those officers who are to govern his village. These
officials are, first, a Bauermeister, having the combined powers of
sheriff and town clerk ; under him are two deputies and a Council of
twelve men, all elected for a period of six years. The Bauermeister,
who is genei'ally one of the wealthiest and most intelligent of the citi-
zens, keeps the village accounts ; makes the state and military reports;
registers births, marriages, and deaths, also sales and rentals of land ;
places criminals and insane in safe keeping ; receives applications from
the village poor ; gives notice of the commencement of military ser-
vice, to which each young man is bound ; and reports to the state at
specified times upon communal and village affairs. He is also Presi-
dent of the Council and of all village meetings. For all this hard
work he receives only forty dollars a year, and his assistants get no-
thing but the barren honor of election. Over the Bauermeister is
placed a state official who has control of a number of villages. Pro-
vincial and village taxes are collected by an officer elected for a term

474 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of six years, who receives about thirty dollars per annum for his ser-
vices.

E has two foresters appointed by an imperial forester, under

whose control they are. These officers receive about forty-five dollars
a year, and for this sum must decide all matters in regard to the cut-
ting or planting of trees ; must see that no wood is stolen, and during
the wood-cutting season must prevent any one cutting more than his
share, and see that only marked trees are cut. They must, moreover,
preserve all the game in the forest for the use of that person to whom
the right to kill game has been let.

The pastor of E is supported by the rental of two hundred and

eighty acres of land, belonging to the church, and his income is also
slightly increased by marriage, burial, and other fees. Since the min-
ister is the only cultivated man in the village, he has of course great
influence over all village affairs, and acts as peacemaker in all disputes
or quarrels. To him each farmer comes as occasion demands for ad-
vice or instruction, but he never visits his people, except when severe
illness or death calls for his good offices, nor have I ever seen a peas-
ant enter the parsonage, except when called there by business. This
total sei^aration of the pastor from his flock seemed to me to make the
church a mere formal affair incapable of doing much good, yet I could
not wonder at the refusal of an educated man to associate with the
peasants. Village ministers are appointed by the church consistory,
and hold their places for life, unless they break some church rule or
preach false doctrine. They are always university men, and are gen-
erally well-read, but their views are apt to be narrow — Darwin being
looked upon as an arch-fiend, and science, in so far as it does not agree
with literal translations of the Bible, as " science falsely so called."
They revolve in a little circle, independently of all the secular world,
around some bishop or church dignitary. Their social life consists of
an interchange of afternoon and evening calls, at which coffee is drunk,
and the world, the flesh, and the devil, discussed in a very innocent
way ; occasionally this monotony is interrupted by a birthday party or
a church celebration. The latter are, however, a delusion and a snare
to outsiders, as each preacher goes with a sermon or two in his pocket
and with his mind made up to read them. As a consequence of this,
and of the German peasant's love for sermons, I once stood up in a
crowded church from 7 a. m. to 5 p. m., with only an hour's intermis-
sion for dinner, listening to an endless series of sermons, varied only
by a change of speakers ! I left the church at five, but was afterward
told that there was an evening session and that the preaching w^ent on
for three days.

The pastor is president of a board of trustees, consisting of four
church-members, by whom all church expenses are audited, and also of
a school board, of four electors and the teacher, which controls school
matters. The members of these boards, with the exception of the

HANOVERIAN VILLAGE LIFE. 475

minister and teacher, are chosen for six years by the votes of all the
male church-members.

The schoolmaster unites in one person the duties of sexton, grave-
digger, and bell-ringer. All teachers must have jDassed an examination
held by the state, for which they are prepared by some years' study
at preparatory schools and a three years' course at one of the eight
normal schools in Hanover. In order to enter these schools, the appli-
cant must be eighteen years old and be able to pass an examination in
the elementary studies. Teachers earn from one hundred and seventy-
five to two hundred and twenty -five dollars a year. In E the

teacher received eighty-seven cents a year from each of his one hun-
dred pupils, fifteen dollars a year from the church for his services as
sexton, besides fifty cents for each adult's and twenty-five cents for
each child's grave dug by him. From the state he got eighty-two
dollars, and from the village seven dollars and fifty cents a year, with
six acres of good farming-land and a house. All the books and maps
I saw were of the most old-fashioned sort, and the teacher was drunk
whenever he had money enough to buy schnapps. The church con-
sistory appoints and removes the village teachers throughout Hanover.
Teachers are not considered socially equal to nor do they associate
with ministers. With the teacher ends the list of village ofiicers, and
next come those communal servants for whom we in this country have
no equivalent. In what follows, the distinction between village elec-
tors and commune citizens or corporators must be borne in mind.
Those that I have called electors comprise all males over thirty who

live in E , while there are only sixty-six citizens of the commune.

Electors have no rights except that of voting for village ofiicers, while
village corporators possess many valuable privileges, a list of which I
have given above. Communal servants consist of a shepherd, a cow-
herd, who also looks after the swine, and a gooseherd, who, in addi-
tion, is town-crier, and runs on errands for the Bauermeister. All these
men are elected yearly at a meeting of the corporators. Such places
are much sought after, but do not descend from father to son. Each
full corporator may send out daily with these herders four cows, six
sheep without lambs, four pigs without shoats, and twelve geese. The
animals are collected every morning at stated hours by the herders,
who go through the streets playing peculiar airs on their horns, at the
sound of which those corporators who wish to send their animals out
turn them into the street to be collected. In the evening the animals
are brought back from the pasture by their herders, and turned loose
in the village to find their own way home. Sheep, however, are not
returned to their owners each night in this M^ay, but remain with the
herder during the summer season. For their labor the herders receive
very little ready money, most of their salary being paid in agricultural
products. Each of the herders receives a house and a quarter of an
acre of land from the commune. In addition, the shepherd has the

476 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

privilege of pasturing fifty sheep of his own, and receives seven dollars
and a half a year from the commune and about fifty dollars yearly in
grain from the citizens. The cow-herder makes about forty dollars a
year, and the goose-herder receives a hundred loaves of bread from
the citizens and twenty-two dollars in money from the commune, for
which he must do all the town-crying and go daily for the orders of
the Bauermeister.

I could get very little information in regard to the modes of taxa-
tion of the village, each person being willing to tell me what taxes he
paid but no one seeming to know just how they were assessed. A

farmer with forty acres of land paid, the year I was in E , five

dollars as land-tax, three dollars as poll-tax, one dollar as house-tax,
and four dollars as village-tax. He would also, if he had kept a shop
or inn, have had to pay a special license. Incomes of less than one
hundred and ten dollars are exempt from taxation. Ministers and

teachers pay state but not village taxes. The pastor of E paid

a tax of nine dollars on his income of four hundred and fifty dollars,
and a land-tax of twenty-four dollars on two hundred acres of land.
Communal taxes vary greatly in rate according to the wealth of the
commune. Some communes, which own valuable mines or forests, not
only exact no tax from their citizens, but divide annually a surplus
among the corporators. A case of this sort is rare, but it is not un-
common to have most of the communal taxes paid by the sale of wood
from commune forests.

Almshouse accommodations are so poor and the food and treatment

so bad that but few of the inhabitants of E feel pauperism to be

their vocation. Only one villager receives food and shelter from the
village, and a second food alone. Their provisions are obtained by
going from house to house in the village, each house being bound by
law to provide food for the paupers so many days each year. I asked
why the poor-house was not repaired, and was told that the peasants
had purposely built it poorly, fearing that if it were comfortable it
might encourage pauperism in the village. The poor are supplied
with clothes either from the church or village treasury according to
circumstances. A residence of two years in a village compels its in-
habitants at the expiration of that time to support the applicant, nor
can he be forced to do any work in return for his living. The one

pauper in E was so distressing to the eye that I never passed

him if I could avoid it. Blind and lame, hatless, coatless, shoeless,
and covered with the mud in which he had slept, he seemed, as he crept
from fence-post to fence-post, muttering curses on those who passed
without giving him alms, to be forsaken alike by God and man. I can
imagine him being, in the words of a dying tramp, " glad to have a hell
to go to," but I can not believe that any moderately respectable imp
would touch him without the aid of a pair of tongs. A gift of one
cent would cause him to bless you until he had reached the nearest

HANOVERIAN VILLAGE LIFE. 477

dram-shop ; more than this I never dared to give, for fear of causing
an inroad of beggars upon the village.

An imperial forester, with one or more deputies in each village of
his district, has complete control of all the woodland in his circle. By
him it is decided how much wood shall be cut each year for the use of
the commune or corporation, and without his consent not a stick can
be cut in any forest of his district. The commune of E owns fif-
teen hundred and thirty-eight acres of land, which has, since the set-
tlement of the village many generations ago, been planted in forest-
trees, None of this forest-land has ever been stripped of its trees and
devoted to agriculture, with the exception of a small part, which, on
account of its position near a much-traveled road, served during the
Thirty Years' war as a refuge and place of ambush for brigands and
highway robbers. This was, toward the end of the great war, cleared
and the land divided among the corporators. The forest-land belong-
ing to E is divided into forty parts, one of which may be cleared

each year. On account of the large amount of extra labor caused by
the keeping up of nurseries, but few villages plant the land cleared by
them each year, most of them allowing the natural growth to spring
up on the cut portions. Although the natural growth of wood on

which E depends for its supply does away with the need for a

large nursery, the corporators are yet compelled to keep up a small
one, in order to plant high, wind-swept ridges where no seed has
lodged. This nursery, or Bcmmschule as it is called, is planted and
kept up by the labor of all the corporators. As a general thing, only
two days out of the year are spent by each citizen at commune work.
In the fall a meeting of the corporators is called, and it is then decided
when and how much wood shall be cut. The imperial forester is at
once notified, and, in company with the village forester, goes through
the part which is to be cut that year and marks all trees under an inch
in diameter except those which, from their fine form or good situation,
seem likely to make first-rate timber. The whole of the woodland to
be cut is then divided into sixty-six parts, and each corporator receives
a part, allotted by chance, on which he at once goes to work and clears
off the brush and marked trees. When this has been accomplished
throughout the whole tract, the imperial forester is again called, and
goes through the forest, marking all trees not large enough for build-
ing timber, and which are so warped, decayed, or top-killed as to be
unlikely to grow into good timber. These trees are then divided as
before, and each citizen cuts and carries away his share. Then, for
the third and last time, the forester goes through the tract, and marks
all the large trees which seem to be hollow-hearted or to have stopped
growing. These are then divided and cut like the rest, with the ex-
ceptions that the oaks are first stripped of their bai-k to be sold to tan-
ners for the benefit of the commune, and that the teacher and minis-
ter get none of this large wood because, the peasants say that, when a

478 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

parsonage or a scboolhouse must be built, it is done, not by the minis-
ter or teacher, but by the people. The oak-bark is often worth more
than all the rest of the wood of a forest. In starting pine-forests the
cones are planted thickly in furrows, and, after the first weeding-out,
are left untouched for ten years, at which time alternate trees are cut.
This process is repeated every five years, till at the end of thirty years
all the trees are cut ; the successive cuttings being divided among the
corporators.

When any one wishes to build a house in E , he sends word to

the village court, describing the kind of house and where it is to be
constructed. Notices are then posted in the village, and, if no one sends
written objections to the coui't before the expiration of fifteen days, the
building is allowed, and can not be interfered with. It will be seen

that the population of E consists of two classes : the few more

fortunate, who possess village rights, and draw from these an income
which considerably increases their comfort ; and tbe less fortunate, but
more numerous, who possess no share in the communal property. But
no social distinction, so far as I could see, obtains between these two
classes.

MAPS AND MAP-MAKING BEFOEE MEKCATOE*

By CHAELES P. DALY, LL. D.
\ABBIBGMENT OF AN ADDRESS BEFORE THE GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY.]

THE materials for the history of cartography, or the art of map-
making, are scanty. I propose to give a brief account of what
we knew about it before the time of Gerard Krehmer, better known
by his Latinized name of Mercator, who produced a large map of the
world more than three centuries ago.

It is generally thought that the art of pictorial representation is older
than the art of writing, and, if this be so, it is probable that the art of
representation by maps is very ancient. Such delineations are in use
among very primitive peoples. The Esquimaux understood the charts
of Parry and Ross, and the North American Indians make rude maps,
which they find seiwiceable to them.

One of the eai-liest things known in the nature of a map is the
ground-plan of a town, now in the Koyunjik Gallery of the British
Museum, which has been identified by Mr. Loftus as representing with
minute accuracy the ground-plan of Susa, the Shushan of the Bible,
a city of remote antiquity, situated on one of the streams that flow

* The Early History of Cartography ; or, What we know of Maps and Map-making
before the Time of Mercator. Address before the American Geographical Society in
1819, by Chief-Justice Charles P. Daly, President of the Society.

MAPS AND MAP-MAKING BEFORE MERCATOR. 479

into the lower Euphrates, a little to the north of the head of the Per-
sian Gulf, the country whence the people or race came that built Baby-
lon, and founded the Chaldean civilization. The age of this topographi-
cal work is unknown, but it is assumed to be as old, at least, as the
seventh century before Christ, It represents, iu a rude form of design,
the plan of the town, its walls, the citadel, the king's palace, and a
central square surrounded on three sides by what is either a wall or a
colonnade of buildings of uniform character. On the remaining square
is a large gateway, and the suburbs surrounding the town are repre-
sented as planted with date-trees and interspersed with buildings to
the banks of the river.

The Egyptians had maps, although but little is known of them.
There is a papyrus preserved in the museum at Boolak containing a
map of Lake Moeris, on the Nile. It shows the plan of the basin with
its canal, and the position of towns and of certain sanctuaries upon the
borders of the basin, with explanatory texts giving information respect-
ing these places. There is also an old Egyptian map preserved at

Hvpoi

F:nlran-f<--t

'"""^Mh^

%, Vifi^'jmol^ha .

m.

Fia. 1.— Homer's World.

Turin of what is now Wady Alaiki, where the Nubian gold-mines
were situated, in the land anciently called Aki-ta. It is a mountain-
ous country, of dreary, sterile, waterless valleys, where men and beasts
died upon the roads to these mines. The map shows the mountain-
tracts, the rocks, and the places where gold was found, the ore-bearing
mountains being marked in red color. It also shows the wells, a tem-
ple erected to Ammon on the mountain, and the appurtenances and
buildings in the gold-districts. The roads, which had been abandoned,
leading to the sea, are also given. " Nothing," says Brugsch Bey, " is

480

THE POPULAR SCIJSNCE MONTHLY.

forgotten calculated to give the spectator an idea of the state of the
region, even to the stones and the scattered trees along the roads."
This description is sufficient to show that the Egyptians knew the
value of maps, and that they made and used them. These gold-mines
were worked in the reign of Rameses II., and if this map was made at
that period, as from the description given of it would seem to be the
fact, then it is the oldest map known.

It was very different, however, with their neighbors, the Phoeni-
cians. They were the great maritime nation of antiquity, making con-
stant voyages along the coasts of the Mediterranean on either side, and
along the Avestern coast of Europe, as far as Great Britain, and possibly
farther. The outlines of a coast once seen would, it is true, be suffi-
ciently preserved in the memory for the practical purposes of naviga-
tion ; but a people who had extended their voyages so far, who had
established so many colonies, and to whom is attributed the invention
of the alphabet, would naturally be led to the construction of charts.

Fig. 2.— Map op Hecat^us ,b. c. 500.

from their utility, as well as maps to give some general idea of the
world, of which they knew more than any other people. A jealous
commercial policy kept them from imparting their knowledge to oth-
ers, so that we do not know whether they had maps or charts ; which
is not remarkable, as we know, in fact, so little respecting them.

It is from the Greeks that we get our earliest knowledge of geo-
graphical maps. The first information we have upon the subject is
from passages in Herodotus and Strabo. Strabo says that Anaximan-
der, who was born b. c. 612, was the first who represented the world upon
a map. Diogenes Laertes ascribed to him the invention of geographi-
cal maps, and also of the gnomon. But this he probably introduced
into Greece, as it was in earlier use among the Chaldeans. Herodotus
says that Aristagoras, when he went (504 b. c.) to Cleomenes, the King
of Sparta, to induce him to invade Persia, produced before the Spar-
tan king " a bronze tablet, upon which the whole circuit of the earth
was engraved, with all its seas and rivers."

Hecatseus, who lived in the same century with Anaximander, is be-

MAPS AND MAP-MAKING BEFORE MERC AT OR. 4.81

lieved to have corrected and improved the map dra^vIl by Anaximan-
der. Hecatfflus was, for his time, an extensive traveler. He was well
acquainted with Egypt and Western Asia, and embodied the informa-
tion he had collected in his travels in two geographical works, that
have not come down to us, which were of great authority for several
centuries after his time.

What these early maps were we do not know, but can form a rea-
sonable conjecture. The earth at that time was supposed to be a flat
circular plain, or disk, the broadest part being from east to west, which
was entirely surrounded by an ocean, or great river, that washed it
upon all sides. In about the center of this plain Greece was supposed
to be situated. The great central sea of the inhabited region was the
Mediterranean. The farthest point known at the west was the Straits
of Gibraltar, then called the Pillars of Hercules. The southern part
comprised the north of Africa as far as the deserts ; while the region
north embraced the countries bordering upon the Mediterranean, and
an unknown hyperborean land farther to the north, with the Euxine
and Caspian Seas at the northeast. The farthest eastern point known
was about the western limit of India. This was what would then be
contained in a map as a representation of the earth. The sun was sup-
posed to pass under and around this flat plain, which was then the
mode of accounting for the changes of day and night. The space be-
neath was supposed to be a great vault, called Tartarus, the abode of
the spirits of the wicked among men, as the region corresponding to
it, above the plain, was the heaven, or abode of the gods. The un-
known region bej^ond the Pillars of Hercules was filled up with crea-
tions of the fertile imagination of the Greeks. To the northwest and

Fig. 3.— IIipparchus, 100 b. c.

north were the Cimmerians, a people living in perpetual darkness ; and
the hyperboreans, a race supposed to be exempt from toil, disease, or
wars, who enjoyed life for a thousand years in a state of undisturbed
serenity. To the west of Sicily were the enchanted islands of Circe

VOL. XVI. — 31

482

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and Calypso, and the floating island of Eolus. A little to the north of
the Pillars of Hercules was the entrance to the infernal regions ; and
far out in the Western Ocean, beyond the limits of the known earth,
was the happy region called Elysium, a land of perpetual summer,
where a gentle zephyr constantly blew, where tempests were unknown,
and where the spirits of those whose lives had been approved by the
gods dwelt in perpetual felicity. Here, also, were the gardens of the
Hesperides, with their golden apples guarded by the singing nymphs,
who dwelt on the river Oceanus, which was in the extreme west, and
the position of which was constantly shifted as geographical knowl-
edge increased.

When the idea became firmly fixed in the mind of the learned that
the earth was a sphere, it naturally followed among an artistic people
like the Greeks that some attempt would be made to give a physical

Fig. 4.— Ptolemt's Map, a. h, 150.

representation of it, and accordingly we are told that Crates (b. c. 326)
constructed a globe of the inhabited part of the earth, from the Arctic
to the Tropic, in the form of a half-circle. The zone about the tropics
he represented as an uninhabitable portion, entirely covered by water
(a belief which existed for a long time afterward), and the southern
half beyond as that of an unknown but inhabited region. Dicearchus
the Messinian (b. c. 296), a very accomplished man, and the writer of
several geographical works, which are lost, constructed a map of the
world in an oval form, which appears to have been highly estimated,
and to have been the model upon which subsequent maps were made.
It is inferable from passages in the classic writers that the maps in use
represented the unknown parts of the world, in conformity to the ideas
deeply implanted in the popular mind by the poems of Homer and

MAPS AND MAP-MAKING BEFORE MERC AT OR. 483

from other sources. With Eratosthenes, who died about the begin-
nino- of the second century before Christ, the science of geography-
may be said to have begun. He was the first to apply a purely scien-
tific method to ascertain the magnitude of the earth ; for, when a
knowledo-e of the exact circumference of the globe was once obtained,
the different countries and places could be arranged in these ancient
maps, in their relative position to each other, far more accurately.
The distances between places in what was then known as the inhabited
part of the earth were previously ascertained by the number of days it
took to go from one place to another, derived from the information of
travelers and mariners.

To rectify the errors which became more apparent and confusing
as the inhabited part of the world became better known, Eratosthenes
devised, what has ever since been employed as the most accurate means
of determining the circumference of the earth, the measurement of an
arc of the meridian. He found a confirmation of the globular form of
the earth in the fact that at Syene, in Upper Egypt, upon the tropic,
the sun at noon on the day of the summer solstice was vertical — that
is, that it cast no shadow, a well at the bottom being enlightened by its
rays ; while at Alexandria, upon the same day and time, it was distant
from the zenith one fiftieth of the circumference of the circle. Era-
tosthenes obtained by this means the length of what is called an arc of
the meridian, or a portion of the curved surface of the earth ; and
from this he was able, by a familiar rule, to determine the circumfer-
ence of the whole circle.

The happy idea occurred to Hipparchus of applying to the earth
the same method he had used in fixing the position of the stars in the
celestial sphere. Regarding the earth as a great circle, which, like any
other circle, is divisible into three hundred and sixty degrees, he so
divided it, by lines of circles drawn pei-pendicularly from the poles to
the equator, and by parallel lines at equal distances from the equator
to the poles, which was the beginning of the division of the globe by
lines of longitude and latitude into degrees.

The Romans, in their representation of the earth, at first followed
Eratosthenes and Hipparchus, The Emperor Augustus ordered the
geographers and designers to prepare for the use of the people a map
of the habitable world which should represent fully the extent of the
Roman Empire ; and, from some fragments that were preserved, it
is known that this map was a cylindrical projection of a great circle.
The Romans, however, had a map for practical use, w^hich they styled
a descrij^tive itinerary, or, as they sometimes called it, "painted roads.''''
This map was in the form of a band, about a foot wide and about
twenty feet long, upon which the habitable earth was continuously
represented along parallel spaces. It represented pictorially the great
routes or roads of the empire, the position of places with the dis-
tances between them, the ranges of mountains, and the direction of

484

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

rivers. This kind of map was mainly used for military puri^oses, and
was regarded as a map of tlie world, for the vast extent of the Roman
Empire comprised nearly all that was then known of the hahitahle
world.

FtG. 5.— Claudius Ptolemt. (Pioni an Old Map.)

Great progress was effected in map-making by Marinus of Tyre, who
lived during the second century of our era. He studied with great

MAPS AND MAP-MAKING BEFORE MERC AT OR. 485

care the works of his predecessors, collected all the information that
was procurable from travelers and mariners, and produced a geograph-
ical work far beyond anything that had preceded it, illustrated by
maps which were covered with a network of parallel and meridian
lines, cutting each other at right angles, under which the different
places were indicated according to their direction and distance from
each other. His object was to put an end to the uncertainty about
the position of countries and cities, by assigning to every locality or
place its approximate latitude and longitude. He divided the globe
into sections, each having an astronomical extent of fifteen degrees,
and the places falling within these limits he put together in what he
supposed to be their relative position to each other. He drew a line
due east from the Fortunate Islands, and arranged countries and places
in what he regarded as their proper position north and south of this
line, so as to bring them alike under the proper zone or climate, as
well as under the astronomical section he had devised.

Marinus was probably the first who undertook to combine system-
atically the results of astronomical observations with those of travel-
ers and mariners in determining geographical positions. There being
no delicate instruments to indicate direction, altitude, or time, the lati-
tudes and longitudes ascertained were at first, of course, erroneous.
Marinus corrected earlier errors, and accumulated much new material
for the preparation of a geographical work which premature death
prevented him from perfecting.

The geography of his immediate successor, Ptolemy, which has
fortunately come down to us, was written at least within half a century
afterward, and, as Ptolemy himself says, was based upon the work of
Marinus.

Ptolemy's labor was what in this day we should call editing a new
and revised edition of an existing work. Ptolemy was a much better
mathematician and astronomer, but evidently very inferior as a geog-
rapher to his predecessor. He undertook to correct Marinus's chief
error by reducing his projection of the earth, from east to west, from
225° to 180°. In making this geometrical correction, however, he fell
into a multitude of errors which, had he been a better geogi'apher, he
would readily have detected.

A period of twelve hundred years elapses from the time of Ptolemy
to the inauguration, by Prince Henry the Navigator, of Portugal, of
the spirit of maritime enterprise which led to the circumnavigation of
Africa, and the discovery of the Continent of America. This long
interval is marked by the decline in Europe of everything in the form
of geographical knowledge, until a state of ignorance was reached in
which little interest was felt in any branch of human learning. For
the purposes of our inquiry it may be divided into three periods. The
first Avas one of long-continued and nearlv incessant wars, during which

486

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the destruction of everything was so great that, when it closed, there
was little remaining but fragments of the ancient civilization. This
was followed by a period of repose, ignorance, and torpor, to which
succeeded another period, ending about the beginning of the fifteenth
century, during which a limited few were slowly recovering a portion
of the geographical knowledge that had been lost, and dimly groping
their way to a true conception of the earth's form and laws.

Map of the World, Tenth Century.

But, though geographical knowledge declined during this interval,
and from the sixth to the middle of the eleventh century the con-
dition in Europe, except in Spain and in Ireland, was one of almost
universal ignorance, there was throughout the whole of the period
some attention, at least, given to geography — to the study of maps
and to map-making. It was, it is true, very little, and the greater
part of it tended more to obscure than to enlighten ; but at no time
was the interest in the subject wholly extinct. For several centuries
after the time of Ptolemy, or up to the separation of the eastern from
the western half of the Roman Empire, there was an almost uninter-
rupted study of geography in the schools of Alexandria, in which the
fathers of the Church, the philosophers, the soldiers, and the emperors
appear to have taken a warm interest. The maps then in use were
itineraries or road-majjs, which were very numerous, as they were of
service to the soldiers during the wars that were then and which con-
tinued long afterward to be waged. In addition to these route-maps,
general maps were also constructed, to show at a glance the form and
proportions of the habitable globe ; and in the fifth century Theodo-
sius II. caused a survey to be made of the provinces of the empire,
which occupied fifteen years, from which a large map of the empire
was compiled. There was also a geograjjhical school at Ravenna, in

MAPS AND MAP-MAKING BEFORE MERC AT OR. 487

Italy, which, after Honorius (a. d. 404) made Ravenna the capital of
the Western Empire, became very active, but the cartographical labors
of this school appear to have been limited to the production of descrip-
tive itineraries or painted route-maps. The authority of Ptolemy,
during this period, declined. The Alexandrine geographers, no doubt,
were better acquainted than he was with Asia, and knew the gross
errors he had made in the configuration of countries and the position
of places. But there was another and more potent cause that led to
the discrediting of Ptolemy, as well as of all the ancient geographers.
This was the disposition of the clergy, who for some centuries after-

^

1

Fig. 7. — Arab Map of the World, a. d. 1009.

ward were the only learned class, to test all geographical knowledge
by the standard of the Bible ; and, as the Bible afforded no authority
for the opinion of the ancient geographers that the earth is a globe,
their ideas and their works were generally rejected as contrary to Holy
Writ. In the middle of the sixth century Cosmos, who had been a
merchant, an extensive traveler, and who afterward became a monk,
was the writer of several geographical works, one of which has sur-
vived, in which he maintained that the idea of the earth being a globe
was contrary alike to the Scriptures and to common sense ; sustaining
his views by ingenious arguments, which, in that age, were very con-
vincing. Cosmos was not an ignorant man ; on the contrary, his ac-
count of the countries with which he was acquainted was accurate and
valuable, and it was his topographical knowledge which made him so
formidable an antagonist in disputing the rotundity of the earth.
" There are," he says, " false Christians, contemners of the authority
of Scripture, who dare to maintain that the earth is a sphere. I com-
bat this error, derived from the Greeks, by citations from Holy Writ."
He then ridicules the idea that the earth revolves in space without
axis, or anything to support it, and characterizes the belief of antip-
odes, or people living on the other side of a round globe, as old wo-

488 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

men's tales. Having thus disposed of the anterior belief, he proceeds
to give his own idea of the earth, which he says no true Christian can
doubt. It was, that the earth was an oblong plain, inclosed at its
four extremities by huge walls of immense thickness, on which the
firmament or vault of the heavens rested ; and that near the north
pole there was a high mountain, around which the sun, the moon, and
the stars turned, the intervention of which mountain, at certain pe-
riods, caused eclipses.*

We have now approached a period when Europe sank into the
deepest ignorance, communication between places was broken up
through the long continuance of wars ; roads were destroyed, there
was little or no commerce, for traveling was difiicult and dangerous,
and people in close proximity knew comparatively nothing of each
other. Fortunately, however, this was not the state of things through-
out the world. During the period that marks the rise, the maturity,
and decline of the empire of the Ai-abs, or from the ninth to the thir-
teenth century, geography was assiduously cultivated by them as a
science, especially in Bagdad, the capital of the Caliphs, and for a part
of that period in Sj)ain. It is to the Arabians that we owe the preser-
vation of the work of Ptolemy, which they translated into Arabic and
annotated. They determined the obliquity of the ecliptic, measured
two arcs of the meridian, ascertained more accurately the longitude of
places in Asia and about the Mediterranean, and enlarged descriptive
geography by an account of the countries in Asia over which they had
extended their conquests. As early as the ninth century they trafficked
in the ports of the Indian Ocean, and had intercourse also at that
time with China, through which probably the mariner's compass was
brought to the Mediterranean. I may also mention in this connection
that the Chinese, according to the statements of their own writers, had
maps from a very remote period. These are described as representing
the moimtains, seas, rivers, lakes, plains, and basins, and were com-
piled by order of the emperors.

The Arabian geographers prepared an elaborate work (a. d. 830)
founded upon Ptolemy. It is lost, but, from the references to it by
Arab writers, we know that it gave a description of the habitable
earth, and indicated the prominent places in different countries by
their latitude and longitude, correcting, in the countries in which the
Arabs were well acquainted, the gross errors in longitude of Ptolemy.
It is from these tables of latitudes and longitudes that we know the
wide extent of the geographical knowledge of the Arabs. Their cor-
rections from west to east extended from Cadiz to the Indus, and they
restored to their true position the places in the countries watered by
the Euphrates and the Tigris. It is inferable, from statements of Arab
writers, that they had maps constructed upon a mathematical basis.

* See "Popular Science Monthly," vol. x., March, 1877, article "How the Earth was
regarded in Old Times."

I

MAPS AND MAP-MAKING BEFORE MERC AT OR. 489

As these maps have not come down to us, it is supposed that they
were rare, and were not intended for practical use, but constructed to
aid the inquiries of the learned ; for the Arabians pursued the study
of geography mainly in its connection with astronomy, and were not,
as Ave would understand the term, topographers, or only to a very lim-

FiG. S— Edri^i's Map, a. d. 1154

ited extent. It is rather for the preservation of what was previously
known that we are indebted to the Arabs ; for, though they studied
geography with great assiduity, they can not be said to have greatly
advanced it as a science.

Leaving the Arabs and their labors for the present, wo will now
return to the growth of cartography in Europe. We have maps de-
signed to represent the earth as known, or particular parts of it, from
the ninth to the fifteenth century ; and which, from the rude efforts in
the ninth century, exhibit the widest diversity in plan and execution.
Some consist of straight parallel lines drawn across a circle, with the
names of countries or places arranged along the lines. In others, the
position of the Mediterranean is indicated simply by the name of the
sea, and the names of countries and places are grouped about it in

490

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

what was supposed to be their true position. In none of these early
maps is there any attempt to give in curved lines the form of conti-
nents, or to indicate the boundaries of countries.

About the middle of the twelfth century, Roger, King of Sicily,
determined to have a map of the world constructed from the best in-

FiG. 9.— Italian Itinerary, Thirteenth Century.

formation that could then be obtained. For this purpose he sent intel-
ligent men to various parts of the known world, to take the latitude
and longitude of places, to collect itineraries, and gather every kind
of information that was desirable. Fifteen years were spent in this
preparatory work, and what had thus been obtained was intrusted to
Edrisi, an Arabian geographer and traveler, who had been invited to
the King's court, and from these materials Edrisi compiled a general
map, which was engraved upon a round table, or globe of silver. In a
manuscript in the National Library of Paris there are sixty-nine maps,
supposed to have been copied from this silver globe, and there is a
general copy of the map attached to a manuscript in the Bodleian Li-
brary at Oxford, This work of Edrisi was superior to anything that
had preceded it in the middle ages. It appears to have given a new
impulse to geographical inquiries, as it was compiled chiefly from the
new materials that had been obtained ; for Edrisi, upon examining the
works of his Arabic predecessors and the work of Ptolemy, found
that they had involved the general subject of geography in such doubt,
uncertainty, and confusion, that in constructing his map he rejected
them altogether as sources of authority. Edrisi also composed a geo-
graphical work which has survived. Wherever in it he had to refer
to the fabulous and impossible things asserted by his predecessors, he
generally accompanied the statement with the formula, " God only
knows how this is."

To understand more clearly the rapid progress which was made in

MAPS AND MAP-MAKING BEFORE MERC AT OR. 491

cartography in Europe in contrast with the little that was done for its
improvement by the Arabs, it will be necessary to draw attention to
the difference between the nature of the empire which they established
and that era of maritime enterprise and commercial activity which
sprang up, and after the twelfth century developed so rapidly in the
cities of the Mediterranean. The Arabs had a vast empire, the great
bulk of which had no connection with the sea. A highly imaginative
people, they were more attracted by speculative inquiries respecting
the earth as a whole, and therefore studied it more in its connection with
astronomy than by those careful, patient, and practical topographical
labors which constitute such an important part of geography. What
could be done by astronomical observation to show the relative posi-
tion of places they did ; but they knew nothing of the Atlantic.

The people of the maritime cities of the Mediterranean had a field
of activity very limited when compared with the great empire of the
Arabs. It was the Mediterranean. Their pursuits were maritime.
They were the carriers by water of products between Asia and Europe,
and therefore became, what the Arabs never were, a nautical people.
To them navigation and everything that tended to its improvement
were of the highest interest, and they consequently gave great atten-
tion to details. They obseiwed closely the outlines of coasts, carefully
delineated them, and, as they had an eye for form and proportion, their
maps, in design and execution, greatly excelled those of the Arabs.

These cosmographers knew very well the position of places to the
pole, or geographical latitude, but in making their maps they drew no
parallels of latitude, and paid less attention to longitude : for the mar-
iners for whose use these maps were intended knew nothing about fig-
ures representing degrees of latitude and longitude, and they are con-
sequently not found upon these maps. The distances on the land or
over the sea were laid down from certain fixed points in the direction
of the compass, and hence these maps are covered with a network of
lines running in all directions from central points, called wind-roses
{rose de vent), which, to persons familiar only with maps of the pres-
ent day, are unintelligible.

In the fifteenth century, great acquisitions were made to the knowl-
edge of the world, especially in Asia and Africa, by the journeys of
Marco Polo and Cadamosto ; and the result of this accumulation of
new information was the construction, in 1457, of a large map of the
world, by Fra Mauro. It was painted on the wall of a convent in
Venice, and was, for its time, an admirable production.

Fra Carmelite was a friar who had established a geographical
school in Venice, and whose acquisitions as a geographer were, for the
time, so extensive that he received from his contemporaries the title
of '' the incomparable.'''' He knew that the earth is a sphere — being
well acquainted with Ptolemy, but did not follow Ptolemy's scientific
method of so projecting the world as to give the longitude and latitude

492 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of places. It should be stated, as explanatory of the defective con-
struction of general maps of the world at this time, and before it, that
the belief of the ancients in the globular form of the earth was far from
being generally accepted. Even among cosmographers there was great
uncertainty as to its real form. Columbus thought it had the shape of
a pear, and in fact its spherical form was not fully admitted until Ma-
gellan's vessel, in 1521, sailed around it. In Italy, however, the belief
of the ancients, both as to the form and as to the motions of the earth,
was revived as early as the middle of the fifteenth century.

About forty years before the map of Fra Mauro was executed.
Prince Henry of Portugal, surnamed the Navigator, began to send oiit
those expeditions along the western coast of Africa which were the
beginning of that brilliant age of maritime exploration that led to the
circumnavigation of the Cape of Good Hope, the discovery of the Con-
tinent of America, and the voyage of Magellan's vessel around the
world. During this period of active discovery, the limits of Africa
were greatly extended to the south, a vast continent was revealed by
the discovery of America, and, the knowledge of the earth being thus
largely augmented, a general map of the world had to be differentlj^
arranged and represented by new methods.

The first map upon which the discoveries of Columbus appear is
that of John Ruysch, in the edition of Ptolemy printed in Rome in

Fig. 10.— Mercator's First Map, a. d. 1538.

1508. Ruysch adopted the method of Ptolemy of projecting the earth
in the form of a cone, with the Arctic at the summit, but so expanding
the cone as to bring in the Western Hemisphere and show the islands
and a part of the mainland discovered by Columbus and others. In
1511 Bernard Sylvanus produced in his edition of Ptolemy a general
map of the world, upon w^hat has since been called the cordiform or
beart-shaped projection, which, while giving the whole of the geo-
graphical features of the earth, was, from the curve and sweep of the
parallels of both latitude and longitude, better adapted than anything

MAPS AND MAP-MAKING BEFORE MERC AT OR. 493

that had preceded it to convey upon a plane surface a general idea of
the earth's globular form. In this map the newly discovered continent
of America,, under the name of " The Land of the Holy Cross," was laid
down more fully and accurately than in the preceding map of Ruysch,
In the following year, 1512, a Polish geographer, John de Stobnicza,
in an introduction to Ptolemy, published a map which I regard as of
great interest, as it was, as far as I have been able to ascertain, the
first attempt to project the spherical surface of the earth upon a plane.
If I am right in this supposition, it was the parent of the mode now in
use in all atlases of representing in a map of the world both sides of
the globe upon a flat surface by two planispheres, or circular maps
joined together, one of which includes Europe, Asia, and Africa, and
the other America, North and South. This map was constructed to
represent that half of the globe which was unknown to Ptolemy, or
substantially what is now known in maps of the world as the Western
Hemisphere.

The main object of this interesting map was to show where this new-
ly discovered land was situated, and place it in its true position with
respect to the whole globe. The map is but a partial or subspherical
projection, being cut off at the seventieth degree north latitude, and
at the fortieth degree south latitude. The Continent of America, North
and South, is represented as running northwesterly to the center of the
map, and as extending from 70° north latitude to 40° south latitude,
the shape of the continent as then understood being evidently derived
from a chart, not then published, which, from an inscription upon it, is
supposed either to have been drawn by Columbus, or under his direction.
The breadth and general shape of South America, though rudely given,
are remarkably correct. The isthmus separating South from North
America is laid down, but exaggerated in length ; and a small portion
of North America is given, its extension to the west being left unde-
fined. The position which the whole continent occupies as a part of
the globe is, as would be expected, not correctly laid down, but, as a
conjectural representation of its exact position, the map was for that
time (a. d. 1512) a very remarkable production.

I have dwelt upon this map, because it has not received from ge-
ographers the attention it deserves ; and for the further reason that it
furnishes a striking illustration of the slow progress of geographical
knowledge ; for the projection of maps of the world, upon the same
scientific method, did not come into general use until about the begin-
ning of the last century, or nearly two hundred years afterward.

In 1520 Peter Benewitz constructed a map of the world in the
form of a heart, after the method of Sylvanus, which has acquired a
celebrity as the first map upon which the name of America appears.

In 1531 Oronce Fine undertook to improve this by a projection in
the form of a double heart, so as to give, by that method, upon a plane
or flat surface, both sides of the globe ; and in 1538 Mercator, then a

494

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

young man of twenty-eight, published a map of this double-heart pro-
jection, making many corrections, especially in respect to the Continent
of America, of which only one copy is known to exist, attached to an

edition of Ptolemy of 1578, that belonged to Mercator, and which has
been liberally deposited by a member of our council, J. Carson Bre-
voort, in the library of our society.

All these maps, in their delineation of the outline of countries, were
very defective, and especially in respect to the Continent of America.
The accessions to geographical knowledge had become so vast and the

ANCIENT METHODS OF FILTRATION. 495

iletails were so enormous that the work of giving the whole of the sur-
face of the earth, as far as known, with all the details of continents,
oceans, gulfs, bays, straits, rivers, mountain-ranges, and islands, with
any marked approximation to correctness, was not accomplished until
^lercator produced his great map of the wox'ld in 1569 ; which, when the
fullness of its details is considered in connection with the new and sci-
entific method upon which he projected it, entitles him to the appella-
tion of the father of modern cartography. In this map he introduced
what has ever since been known as Mercator's projection, which not
only gave the world in one view, but by an ingenious and simple con-
trivance showed the most effectual way for a vessel to sail in a straight
line over a curved surface, and thereby solved what was before one of
the most difficult problems in navigation. That projection constitutes,
down to the present day, the basis of every chart that is constructed
to guide the mariner in his way over the ocean, and the map of the
world on his projection is to be found in nearly every English or Amer-
ican atlas that has been published for a century and more, and yet the
inquirer would search in vain in any work in the English language for
the particulars of Mercator's life, or for any satisfactory account of
what he did. How little is known respecting him, even by nautical
men, will be sufficiently indicated when I state that, upon speaking
about him not very long ago to a distinguished admiral, he looked at
me and exclaimed : " What ! was there such a man as Mercator ? I
always supposed Mercator's projection meant the merchant's projec-
tion."

ANCIE^TT METHODS OF FILTRATION.*

Br H. CAEEINGTON BOLTON, Ph. D.,

PROFESSOE OF CUEillSTET IN TRINITY COLLEGE, HARTFORD.

THE separation of a liquid from solids suspended in it, by straining
through some material pervious to the one and impenetrable to
the other, was a familiar process in the remotest antiquity. Observa-
tion of various processes in nature, such as the purification of water
by trickling through sandy soil, or perhaps the accidental passage of
rain-water through an outstretched cloth, a garment, or a tent-cover,
would obviously suggest the simple expedient. History fails to record
the period of the invention or the name of the individual who first
put it in practice. Etymological considerations show that filters were
early made of fulled wool or felt ; the Latin filtrum, " a filter," being
closely connected with feltrum, " felt," or compressed wool, and both
are related to the Greek -rnXog, signifying haii-.

Several writers on the history of science make casual reference to
* Read before the New York Academy of Sciences, October 13, 18Y9.

496 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the operations performed by the early chemists : some state in a gen-
eral way their acquaintance with the processes of distillation, sublima-
tion, filtration, etc. ; others are more explicit. Hermann Kopp, in his
exhaustive " Geschichte der Chemie," * states that " filtration as a
chemical process was first accurately described by Geber, who calls it
by a special name, destillatio per Jiltrum, ' trickling through a filter,'
in contrast to the collection of a liquid by ordinary distillation," Fer-
dinand Hoef er, in his " Histoire de Chimie " f writing of Geber, men-
tions that he recognizes two kinds of distillation — with and without
fire — the former being " per alembicum," and the latter consisting of
" une simple filtration."

Now, we propose to show that the ancients carried on the operation
of filtration in two ways, essentially distinct in principle and in the
manner of execution, and that these methods were characterized by
two different expressions which have been confounded by the authors
named. Moreover, we shall establish this by quotations from writings
covering a period of more than two thousand years.

In the first place, an examination of the very passage in Geber's
Works, referred to by Kopp and by Hoefer, shows that the method
therein described differs radically from filtration as ordinarily con-
ducted at the present time. We quote the passage as found in the
works of Geber, " the most famous Arabian Prince and Philosopher,''
" faithfully englished by R[ichard] Il[ussell]," and printed at London
in 1678. In the thirteenth chapter of the fourth part of the fii'st book
of the "Summe of Perfection," Geber treats of the three kinds of
distillation : by an "Alembeck," by a "Decensory," and "by Filter."
After describing in quaint language the well-known method of using
the alembic and the decensory (which differs chiefly in the application
of heat on the top of the apparatus), Geber writes thus of filtration :
" The Disposition of that which is made by Filter is, that the Liquor
to be Distilled be put into a Stone Concha, and the wider part of the
Filter put into the said Liquor, even to the Bottom of the Concha,
but the narrower part of it hang out over the Orifice of the said Yes-
sel. And under that end of the Filter must be set another Vessel for
receiving the Distillation. Therefore when the Filter begins to Dis-
till, the Water with which it was moistened will first Distill off ; which
ceasing, the Liquor to be Distilled succeeds. Which Liquor, if it
be not as yet serene, it must so often be 'put into the Concha again
and redistilled, as until it be Distilled most serene."

This dates from the eighth century, and evidently describes a sort
of capillary siphoning. The expressions ''placing the wider part of
the filter " into the liquid and allowing the " narrower part of it to
hang out over" the vessel admit of no other interpretation. For
convenience of distinguishing this method of filtration from that in
which porous sacs are employed, we propose to name the former
* Vol. ii., p. 26. t Vol. i., p. S35.

ANCIENT METHODS OF FILTRATION. 497

anethisis, a word made from dvd, " upward," and 7]di.aig, " a straining
off." A study of the chemical works of the middle ages further shows
that the expression " destillatio per Jiltrum " is invariably used to de-
scribe anethisis, while '\/iltratio " is applied to ordinary filtration. We
shall give quotations proving this, but first make brief reference to
early records.

The ancient Egyptians portray in the rock-cut memorials the opera-
tion of filtration in connection with the manufacture of wine. Their
simple wine-press consisted of a bag in which the grapes were placed,
and squeezed by means of two poles turned in contrary directions.
Small colanders of bronze have been found at Thebes. Views of the
interior of an Egyptian kitchen, cut in the tomb of Rameses III. at
Thebes, represent siphons in use for drawing off liquids of various
kinds. (Wilkinson.) The ancient Romans employed strainers and
colanders {colum) made of a great variety of materials. Wine-strain-
ers were made of silver and bronze ; the poorer classes used linen, and,
where nicety was not required, they used those made of broom or of
rushes. Strictly speaking, however, percolation through colanders is
not filtration, for capillary action plays no part.

It is interesting to note that the earliest mention of filtration which
a brief search has disclosed refers to the method we have ventured to
call anefhisis. This occurs in Plato's "Symposium," written about
four hundred years before the Christian era ; the passage is as fol-
lows : " Socrates then sitting down, observed, ' It would be well,
Agatho, if wisdom were a thing of such a kind as to flow from the
party filled with it to the one who is less so, when they touch each
other, like water in vessels running by means of a thread of wool from
the fuller vessel into the emptier.' " *

Ai'istotle, the pupil of Plato, in his essay " De Generatione Ani-
malia," refers to the other process in the following words : " Flesh
is produced, therefore, through the veins and pores, the nutriment
being deduced in the same manner as water through earthen vessels
not sufficiently baked."

This passage, together with others occurring in Plato, shows that
both systems of filtration were employed at that early period.

Geber, whose clear description of anethisis we have quoted, was
followed by the celebrated Arabian physician, Rhazes ; he uses the
same expression, " destillatio per filtrum," in the following passage :
" Dissolve as much [common salt] as you wish in five times as much
warm soft water, and distill per filtrum and congeal [i. e., crystal-
lize]." f Rhazes died about 930 a. d.

Among the early writers on alchemy, no one is oftener quoted than
Raymund Lulli, surnamed the Enlightened Doctor (born 1235, died

* Plato's works, Burges's translation, vol. iii., p. 480 (Bohn).

f " Collect, ex Rhasi in Margarita Pretiosa Novella " of Petrus Bonus (1330), Yene-
tia, 1546.

VOL. XVI.— 32

498 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

1315 A. D.). In his works we find the following characteristic pas-
sage : " Take, in the Name of God, great Bay Salt, as it is made out
of the Sea ; take a good quantity and stamp very small into a stone-
morter : then take Cucurbites of Glass and pour your Salt therein :
then take fair Well-water, and let your salt resolve into cleer water ;
being all dissolved then distil it by Filter ; that is to say, hang a jag
Felt or Woolen cloath in the Cucurbite ; and let the other end hang
in another Glass beside it, set as it were under it, that the water may
drop into it that the Felt or Cloath may draw out and that shall be
cleer as silver."

This unmistakable description of anethisis occurs in the first chap-
ter of a booklet bearing the follow^ing title : " Philosophical and
Chymical Experiments of the Famous Philosopher Raymund LuUi
.... wherein is contained .... the admirable and perfect way of
making the great Stone of the Philosophers as ... . sometimes prac-
tised in England by Raymund Lulli in the time of King Edward the
Third." London, 1657.

Thomas Aquinas, the eminent scholastic teacher of the thirteenth
century, who is best known by his theological and metaphysical works,
also paid some attention to scientific pursuits, possibly acquiring this
taste from his learned master, Albertus Magnus. Aquinas, or the di-
vine Thomas, as he was called by his admirers, defines distillation to
be the " purification of waters falling drop by drop, and effected by
placing a filter cut in the shape of an iron dart in the little dish con-
taining the water to be distilled." *

Libavius, in his remarkable work, "Alchymia," sometimes called
the first text-book of chemistry (published in 1595), devotes two entire
chapters to the subjects of distillation and of filtration.f In the
fourteenth chapter he describes, with much attention to detail, the
manner of filtering by means of pieces of felt (lacinia) shaped like
an ox-tongue, the broader portion of which is placed in the vessel
containing the liquid to be filtered, and " the apex in the recipient, or,
if the vessel has a narrower neck, in a suitable funnel." This demon-
strates that the method was not resorted to on account of the want of
proper funnels, and suggests that perhaps a special virtue was attrib-
uted to a liquid thus purified.

Libavius's work contains rude woodcuts illustrating different meth-
ods of procedure. For perfecting the purification a series of four
vessels was used. These were placed on steps, one above another,
and the liquid passed through a capillary siphon from the uppermost
to the one immediately below, and thence by another siphon to the
third vessel, and so on to the fourth. This series of vessels can be
inclosed in a glass-covered box for filtering volatile liquids. Another
woodcut represents the lower end of a capillary siphon hanging into a

* "Pretiosa Margarita Novella " of Petrus Bonus (1330), Venetia, 1546.
f "Commeut. Alchymia," Part I., lib. iii., edition 1606.

ANCIENT METHODS OF FILTRATION 499

funnel inserted in the neck of a flask. The method thus clearly por-
trayed is called destlllatio per lacinias, and is evidently regarded as a
process of distillation ; ordinary filtration through porous stones and
through bibulous paper is treated in another and following chapter,

Libavius makes reference to *' Ilippocrates's Sleeves," * by which
name were designated conical felt bags used in filtration.

Sir Robert Boyle, in his " Experiments touching the Spring of the
Air," writes as follows : " Some learned mathematicians have of late
ingeniously endeavored to reduce filters to siphons, but still the true
cause of the ascension of water and other liquors, both in siphons and
in filtration, [requires] a clearer discovery and explication."! And in
another place he gives this " explication " : " The parts of the filter
that touch the water being swelled by the ingress of it to their pores
are thereby made to lift up the water till it touch the superior parts
of the filter that are almost contiguous to them ; by which means,
these being also wetted and swelled, raise the water to the other
neighboring parts of the filter till it have reached the top of it, Avhence
its own gravity will make it descend." J

These passages can only apply to anethisis, which was apparently
a common method of filtration in Boyle's day.

Again, to trace this process still later, Juncker, in his " Conspec-
tus Chemiae," published in 1730, describes seven kinds of filtration.
These differ chiefly in respect to the materials used : two methods, how-
ever, are essentially distinct ; the one is styled ^'■filtratio per chartam
bibulam . . . infimdihxdovitreo'''' (filtration through bibulous paper
in a glass funnel), and the other is described in the words '■'■per seg-
tnentum pannl lanei vel laciniani hombycinmn vel funicidos gossypiV'*
(through shreds of woolen cloth, silken threads, or through little
strings of cotton).

Our friend Professor S. A. Lattimore sends us another reference to
this process from " The Laboratory or School of Arts, etc., compiled
by G. Smith, sixth edition, London, 1799" (vol. i., p. 435) ; the passage
is as follows :

" To separate Water from Wine. — Put into the cask a wick of cot-
ton, which should soak in the wine by one end and come out of the
cask at the bung-hole by the other ; and every drop of water which
may happen to be mixed with the wine will still out by that wick or
filter."

Thus we see that, so recently as the close of the last century, ane-
thisis was accounted a practical method of filtration.

* The origin of this curious term we have been unable to discover, nor is it of common
occurrence in early writings on chemistry and pharmacy. The only explanation of the
expression which we have as yet found occurs in the " Lexicon novum Mcdicum Groeco-
Latinxm" of Stephen Blancardus, published in 1702. This author writes as follows:
'^Manica Hippocrath est sacculus laneus figura pyramidali, quo vina aromatica et medi-
camentosa, aliique liquores percolantur ; ex Stto snb et /cepow/tt m/.scco."

\ Boyle's Works, London, 111% vol. i., p. 79. % Idem., vol. iii., p. 233.

500 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

"VYe have not found this method in Boerhaave (1727), nor in
Lemeiy (1675), nor does Faraday, in his " Chemical Manipulations,"
make any allusion to it. As a process of purification of solutions, it
seems to have been lost sight of in modern laboratory practice.

We have made trial of the method rendered noteworthy by more
than two thousand years' practice, and find that, while the process is
quite slow, it has certain advantages. Chief among these is the fact
that, when the capillary siphon is adjusted, it requires no further at-
tention ; there is no pouring into a constantly emptying funnel, and
there is no possibility of overflow. When properly arranged, the last
drop of liquid passes from the upper vessel to the lower, and, except
in certain cases of extreme divisibility, the filtration is perfect. The
process seems particularly adapted to the purification of weak solu-
tions, as of mineral waters, where the insoluble portion is not to be
conserved. There is obviously much choice in the material of which
the capillary siphon is made. We have tried cotton, wool, lamp-wick,
and asbestus, and we find stout, silky wads of the latter most service-
able ; it is also useful for filtering very acid and alkaline solutions.

The rapidity of filtration does not seem to be hastened by length-
ening the longer arm of the siphon, and is chiefly dependent on the
number of threads in the filter, and on their fineness. In one experi-
ment, thirty-two strands of cotton yarn filtered twice as fast as sixteen
strands, and only half as fast as sixty-four strands. Oil filters much
slower than saline solutions, and the latter much slower than pure water.

We have used the expression "capillary siphoning" in describing
anethisis, and perhaps it needs justification. The ascension of the
liquid is due to capillarity, and the descent through the longer arm of
the siphon is in obedience to gravity. Siphoning is dependent on
atmospheric pressure, and can not be strictly applied to the present
case ; yet we find by experiment that, if the lower arm of the Avoolen
threads be raised to the level of the liquid to be filtered, the action
ceases, and the form of a siphon is at all events essential to the process.

The quotations from ancient authors show that they must have
been quite familiar with capillary attraction, yet the first observance
of this phenomenon is attributed by some authorities to Franciscus
Aggiunti, physician to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, about the begin-
ning of the seventeenth century.* (Aggixmti died 1635.)

In conclusion, the object of this paper is not to propose a return to
this ancient method of filtration, the modern rapid processes being
more in accordance with present needs ; but we have thought it not
altogether useless to call attention to a neglected process which can in
certain cases be employed with advantage. Where the object of filtra-
tion is to collect the insoluble portion, it is obviously of no value ;
whether the process could be advantageously used on a large scale
remains to be tested,

* Gehler's " Physikalisches Worterbuch," article " Capillaritat."

JOHN STUART MILL. 501

JOHN STUAET MILL.

By ALEXANDER BAIN, LL. D.,

PEOFESSOR OF LOGIC IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN.

YI.

CLOSELY connected both in date of composition and in subject-
matter is the " Utilitarianism." I find from a letter that it was
written in 1854. It was thoroughly revised in 1860, and appeared as
three papers in " Eraser's Magazine " in the beginning of 1801, I am
not aware that any change was made in reprinting it as a volume, not-
withstanding that it had a full share of hostile criticism as it came out
in " Fraser."

This short work has many volumes to answer for. The amount of
attention it has received is due, in my opinion, partly to its merits,
and partly to its defects. As a powerful advocacy of utility, it threw
the intuitionists on the defensive ; while, by a number of unguarded
utterances, it gave them important strategic positions which they could
not fail to occupy.

It is this last point that I shall now chiefly dwell upon. What I
allude to more particularly is the theory of pleasure and pain embodied
in the second chapter, or rather the string of casual expressions having
reference to pleasures and pains. I have already said that I consider
Mill's Hedonism weak. I do not find fault with him for not having
elaborated a Hedonistic theory ; that is a matter still ahead of us. My
objection lies to certain loose expressions that have received an amount
of notice from hostile critics out of all proportion to their bearing on
his arguments for utility. I think that, having opponents at every
point, his proper course was not to commit himself to any more specific
definition of happiness than his case absolutely required.

It was obviously necessary that he should give some explanation of
happiness ; and on his principles happiness must be resolved into plea-
sure and the absence of pain. Here, however, he had to encounter at
once the common dislike to regarding pleasure as the sole object of
desire and pursuit — " a doctrine worthy only of swine," to which its
holders have both in ancient and in modern times been most profusely
likened. He courageously faces the difficulty by pronouncing in favor
of a difference in kind or quality among pleasures ; which difference
he expands through two or three eloquent pages, which I believe have
received more attention from critics on the other side than all the rest
of the book put together. My own decided opinion is, that he ought
to have resolved all the so-called nobler or higher pleasures into the
one single feature of including with the agent's pleasure the pleasure
of others. This is the only position that a supporter of utility can
hold to. There is a superiority attaching to some pleasures that are

502 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

still exclusively self -regarding, namely, their amount as compared with
the exhaustion of the nervous power ; the pleasures of music and of
scenery are higher than those of stimulating drugs. But the superi-
ority that makes a distinction of quality, that rises clearly and effec-
tually above the swinish level, is the superiority of the gratifications
that take our fellow beings along with us ; such are the pleasures of
affection, of benevolence, of duty. To have met opponents upon this
ground alone would have been the proper undertaking for the object
Mill had in view. It surprises me that he has not ventured upon such
a mode of resolving pleasures. He says, " On a question which is the
best worth having of two pleasures, or which of two modes of existence
is the most grateful to the feelings, opart from its moral attributes and
consequences, the judgment of those who are qualified by knowledge
of both must be admitted to be final," Apart from moral attributes
and consequences, I do not see a difference of quality at all ; and, when
these are taken into account, the difference is suflicient to call forth
any amount of admiring preference. A man's actions are noble if they
arrest misery or diffuse happiness around him ; they are not noble if
they are not directly or indirectly altruistic ; his pleasures are essen-
tially of the swinish type.

Still rasher, I think, is his off-hand formula of a happy life,* if he
meant that this was to be a stone in the building of a utilitarian phi-
losophy. As a side-remark upon some of the important conditions of
happiness, it is interesting enough, but far from being rounded or pre-
cise. It was only to be expected that this utterance should have the
same fate as Paley's chapter on " Happiness," namely, to be analyzed
to death, and its mangled remains exposed as a memento of the weak-
ness of the philosophy that it is intended to support. It was clearly
his business, in conducting a defense of utility, to avoid all question-
able suppositions, and to be content with what everybody would allow
on the matter of happiness.

His third chapter, treating of the " Ultimate Sanction of the Prin-
ciple of Utility," has been much caviled at in detail, but is, I con-
sider, a very admirable statement of the genesis of moral sentiment
under all the various influences that are necessarily at work. Here
occurs that fine passage on the social feelings of mankind which ought,
I think, to have been the framework or setting of the whole chapter.
Perhaps he should have avoided the word " sanction," so rigidly con-
fined by Austin and the jurists to the penalty or punishment of wrong.

The real stress of the book lies in the last chapter, which is well
reasoned in every way, and free from damaging admissions. Under
the guise of an inquiry into the foundations of justice, he raises the

* Happiness was " not a life of rapture ; but moments of such, in an existence made
up of few and transitory pains, many and various pleasures, with a decided predominance
of the active over the passive, and having, as the foundation of the whole, not to expect
more from life than it is capable of bestowing."

JOHN STUART MILL.

503

question as to the source of duty or obligation, and meets the intui-
tioiiists point by point in a way that I need not particularize.

By far the best hostile criticism of the " Utilitarianism " that I am
acquainted with is the posthumous volume of Professor John Grote.
It will there be seen what havoc an acute, yet candid and respectful,
opponent can make of his theories of happiness. Many of those stric-
tures I consider unanswerable. Professor Grote also makes the most
of Mill's somewhat exaggerated moral strain, and his affectation of
holding happiness in contempt ; " doing without it," if need be.

It was in 1860 that he wrote his volume on " Representative Gov-
ernment." The state- of the Reform question, which led him to pre-
pare his pamphlet on Reform, was the motive of the still larger under-
taking, his principal contribution to a Philosophy of Politics. He
says in the preface, that the chief novelty of the volume is the bring-
ing together, in a connected form, the various political doctrines that
he had at various times given expression to ; but the mere fact of
viewing them in connection necessarily improved their statement and
bearings ; and the six or eight months' additional elaboration in his
fertile brain could not but infuse additional freshness into the subject.

In my estimate of Mill's genius, he was first of all a logician, and
next a social philosopher or politician. The "Political Economy"
and the "Representative Government" constitute his political out-
come. People will differ as to his political conclusions, but certainly
any man that wishes to judge of any matter within the scope of the
" Representative Government " should first see what is there said upon
it ; and the work must long enter into the education of the higher class
of politicians. The chapter on the " Criterion of a Good Form of
Government" contains an exceedingly pertinent discussion of the rela-
tion between order and progress ; and demonstrates that order can not
be permanent without progress : a position in advance of Comte. The
third chapter demolishes the fond theory entertained by many in the
present day, that the best government is " absolute authority in good
hands." Then comes a question that needs all the author's delicacy,
tact, and resource, " Under what conditions is representative govern-
ment applicable ? " But his strongest point throughout is the exposi-
tion of the dangers and difiiculties attending on democracy. This was
one of his oldest themes in the "Westminster Review" ; he has put it
in every possible light, and discussed with apostolic ardor all the con-
trivances for withstanding the tyranny of the majority. He took up
with avidity Mr. Hare's scheme of representation, and never ceased to
urge it as the greatest known improvement that representative institu-
tions are susceptible of. He dismisses second Chambers as wholly in-
adequate to the purpose in view, however useful otherwise. The dis-
cussions on the proper functions of the local governing bodies, on
dependencies, and on federations, are all brimful of good political
thinking. He passes by the subject of hereditary monarchy. Both

504 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

he and Grote were republicans in principle, but they regarded the
monarchy as preferable to the exposing of the highest dignity of the
state to competition. From my latest conversations with Mill, I think
he coincided in the view that simple cabinet government would be the
natural substitute for monarchy.

It was in 1861 that he turned his thoughts to a review of Hamil-
ton's " Philosophy." Writing to me in November, he says, " I mean
to take up Sir William Hamilton, and try if I can make an article on
him for the ' Westminster.' " He chose the " Westminster " when he
wanted free room for his elbow. He soon abandoned the idea of an
article. In December he said : " I have now studied all Sir W. Ham-
ilton's works pretty thoroughly, and see my way to most of what I
have got to say respecting him. But I have given up the idea of do-
ing it in anything less than a volume. The great recommendation of
this project is, that it will enable me to supply what was prudently left
deficient in the 'Logic,' and to do the kind of service which I am
capable of to rational psychology, namely, to its * Polemik.' "

He was interrupted for a time by the events in America. In Janu-
ary, 1862, he wrote his paper on the civil war in "Fraser." He ex-
pected it to give great offense, and to be the most hazardous thing for
his influence that he had yet done.

After spending the summer in a tour in Greece and Asia Minor, he
wrote again on the American question, in a review of Cairnes's book
in the "Westminster." This done, he set to the " Hamilton," which
was the chief part of his occui^ation for the next two years. His in-
terruptions were the article on John Austin in the " Edinburgh," in
October, 1863, the two articles on Comte in the end of 1864, and the
revision of the " Political Economy."

I had a great deal of correspondence with him while he was en-
gaged with Hamilton. He read all Hamilton's writings three times
over, and all the books that he thought in any way related to the sub-
jects treated of. Among other things, he wrote me a long criticism
of Ferrier's " Institutes. " " I thought Ferrier's book quite sui generis
when I first read it, and I think so more than ever after reading it
again. His system is one of pure skepticism, very skillfully clothed in
dogmatic language." He was much exercised upon the whole subject
of indestructibility of force. His reading of Spencer, Tyndall, and
others landed him in a host of difiiculties, which I did what I could to
clear up. His picture of Hamilton grew darker as he went on ; chiefly
from the increasing sense of his inconsistencies. He often wished
that he was alive to answer for himself. " I was not prepared for the
degree in which this complete acquaintance lowers my estimate of the
man and of his speculations. I did not expect to find them a mass of
contradictions. There is scarcely a point of importance on which he
does not hold conflicting theories, or profess doctrines which suppose
one theory while he himself holds another. It almost goes against me

JOHX STUART MILL, 505

to write so complete a demolition of a brother philosopher after he is
dead, not having done it while he was alive."

During my stay in London in the summer of 1864, he showed me
the finished MS. of a large part of the book. I offered a variety of
minor suggestions, and he completed the work for the j^ress the same
autumn.

Of the many topics comprised in the volume, I shall advert only
to one or two of the principal. After following Hamilton's theories
through ten chapters, he advances his own positive view of the belief
in an external world. Having myself gone over the same ground, I
wish to remark on what is peculiar in his treatment of the question.

I give him full credit for his uncompromising idealism, and for his
varied and forcible exposition of it. In this respect he has contributed
to educate the thinking public in what I regard as the truth. But in
looking at his analysis in detail, while I admit he has seized the more
important things, I do not exactly agree with him either as to the order
of statement or as to the relative stress put upon the various elements
of the object and subject distinction.

In the first place, I would remark on the omission of the quality of
" Resistance," and of the muscular energies as a whole, from his delin-
eation of the object or external world. In this particular, usage and
authority are against him to begin with. The connection of an exter-
nal world with the primary qualities has been so long prevalent that
there must be some reason or plausibility in it. His own father and
Mansel are equally emphatic in setting forth resistance as the primary
fact of externality. Mill himself, however, allows no place for resist-
ance in his psychological theoiy. In a separate chapter on the " Pri-
mary Qualities of Matter," he deals with extension and resistance as
products of muscular sensibility, and as giving iis our notions of mat-
ter, but he thinks that simple tactile sensibility mingles with resistance,
and plays as great a part as the purely muscular ingredient ; thus frit-
tering away the supposed antithesis of muscular energy and passive
sensibility. Now, for my own part, I incline to the usage and opinion
of our predecessors in putting forward the contrast of active energy
and passive feeling as an important constituent of the subject and ob-
ject distinction ; and, if it is to be admitted at all, I am disposed to
begin with it, instead of putting it last as Mr. Spencer does, or leaving
it out as Mill does. It does not give all that is implied in matter, but
it gives the nucleus of the composite feeling as well as the fundamen-
tal and defining attribute.

The stress of Mill's exposition rests on the fixity of order in our sen-
sations leading to a constancy of recurrence, and a belief in that con-
stancy going the length of assuming independent existence. Although
he shows a perfect mastery of his position, I do not consider that he
has done entire justice to it from not carrying along with him the
contrast of the objective and the subjective — the sensation and the

5o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

idea. Indeed, the exposition is too short for the theme ; the reader is
apt to be satisfied with the portable phi-ase " permanent possibility of
sensation," which helps him to one vital part of the case, but does not
amount to a satisfactory equivalent for an external and independent
world. There would have been more help in an expression dwelling
upon the " common to all," in contrast with the " special to me," to use
one of Ferrier's forms of phraseology. This ground of distinction is
not left unnoticed by Mill, but it is simply mentioned.

His chapter on the application to our belief in the permanent ex-
istence of mind is, I think, even more subtile than the preceding on
matter. The manner of disposing of Reid's difficulty about the exist-
ence of his fellow creatures is everything that I could wish. It is
when, in the concluding paragraph, he lays down as final and inexplica-
ble the belief in memory, that I am unable to agree with him. This po-
sition of his has been much dwelt upon by the thinkers opposed to him.
It makes him appear, after all, to be a transcendentalist like themselves,
differing only in degree. For myself, I never could see where his dif-
ficulty lay, or what moved him to say that the belief in memory is in-
comprehensible or essentially irresolvable. The precise nature of belief
is no doubt invested with very peculiar delicacy, but whenever it shall
be cleared up it may very fairly be capable of accounting for the belief
that a certain state now past as a sensation, but present as an idea, was
once a sensation, and is not a mere product of thought or imagination.
—{Cf. "The Emotions and the Will," third edition, p. 532.)

I may make a passing observation on the chapter specially devoted
to Hansel's " Limits of Religious Thought." It is a considerable di-
gression in a work devoted to Hamilton, but Hansel's book touched
Hill to the quick ; in private, he called it a " loathsome " book. His
combined argumentative and passionate style rises to its utmost height.
Hansel sarcastically described his famous climax — " to hell I will go "
— as an exhibition of taste and temper. That passage was scarcely
what Grote called it, a Promethean defiance of Jove, inasmuch as the
fear of hell never had a place in Hill's bosom ; it was the strength of
his feelings coining the strongest attainable image to give them vent.*

Hill could not help adverting to Hamilton's very strong and para-
doxical assertions about free-will ; but, as he never elaborates a consec-
utive exposition of the question, I doubt the propriety of making these
assertions a text for discussing it at full. Hill's chapter is either too
much or too little ; too much as regards his author, too little as re-
gards the subject. The connection of punishment with free-will should
be allowed only under protest ; the legitimacy and the limits of pun-
ishment make a distinct inquiry. Punishment, psychologically viewed,
assumes that men recoil from pain ; there may be other springs of ac-

* Grote thought that the phrase was an echo of something occurring in Ben Jonson,
where a military captain's implicit obedience is crowned by the illustration, " Tell him to
go to hell, to hell he will go."

JOHN STUART MILL. 507

tion besides pain or pleasure ; but, as regards such, both reward and
punishment are irrelevant. I think Mill very successful in illustrating
the independence of moral good and evil on the question of the will.
He is not too strong in his remonstrance against Hamilton's attempt
to frighten people into free-will by declaring that the existence of the
Creator hangs upon it. It was quite in Hamilton's way to destroy all
the other arguments in favor of a doctrine that he espoused, in order
to give freer course to his own. He damages the advocacy of free-will
by his slashing antinomy of the two contrary doctrines. It is certain-
ly a clearing of the ground, if nothing more, to affirm, as he does so
strongly, that " a determination by motives can not escape from neces-
sitation." Such admissions give an opponent some advantage, but
only as respects him individually. The general controversy, how-
ever, miist proceed on different lines from his, and hence the waste of
strength in following his lead.

Hamilton's attack on the study of mathematics Avas a battery of
learned quotations brought out to confound Whewell and Cambridge.
It is not very convincing ; it hardly even does what Mill thinks tolera-
tion of hostile criticism tends to do, namely, bring out the half-truth
neglected by the other side. It was not worth while to write so long
a chapter in reply ; but Mill, partly from what he learned from Comte,
and partly from his own logical studies, had a pat answer to every one
of Hamilton's ^joints. Most notable, in my view, is the paragraph
about the disastrous influence of the mathematical method of Descartes
in all subsequent speculation. He seems there to say that the a priori
spirit has been chiefly kept up by the example of mathematics. Now,
I freely admit that the axioms of mathematics have been the favorite
illustration of intuition ; but there is no certainty that, in the absence
of that example, intuitionism would not have had its full swing dur-
ing the last two centuries. Mill admits that the crudity of Bacon's
inductive canons had an equally bad effect on English speculation ;
but all this shows simply that error is the parent of error.

The two subjects taken up while the " Hamilton " was still in hand
— John Austin and Comte — deserve to be ranked among the best of
his minor compositions. The " Austin " article took him back to his
early days when he worked with Bentham and attended the lectures
of Austin at University College. It does not seem to contain much
originality, but it is a logical treat. The two " Comte " articles are
still more valuable, as being Mill's contribution to the elucidation of
Comte's philosophy. It will be long ere an equally searching and dis-
passionate estimate of Comte be given to the world ; indeed, no one
can again combine the same qualifications for the work.

5o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

IMPERFECTIONS OF MODERN HARMONY.

By S. AUSTEN PEAECE, Mus. D., Oxok.

THE works of Helmholtz, and those of his English translator Ellis,
have drawn attention to the fact that piano-fortes and instruments
with similar key-boards are out of tune. .The recent contribution to
musical literature by Professor Pole having referred to the subject of
intonation, it becomes a duty to the public to point out the miscon-
ceptions of these theorists, and to state that musical problems are far
more complex than they believe.

Although professing to work scientifically, they allow their senses to
deceive them. Professor Helmholtz in his elaborate work " On the
Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music,"
says, for instance, " We often hear four musical amateurs, who have
practiced much together, singing quartets in perfectly just intonation."
He is deceived in this. It is a popular error that music for stringed
instruments or for voices is or can be rendered in tune ; and scientists
writing upon the subject invariably cling to this fallacy.

An unaccompanied quartet of singers returning at the close to the
exact pitch at which they began would thus most certainly prove that
they had sung out of tune. This is a startling fact — stranger than the
current fiction — and demands complete demonstration. The subject is
abstruse, and difficult to present clearly to persons not practically ac-
quainted with the points at issue, but for the benefit of all thoughtful
readers the attempt is made.

All the great Oriental nations of antiquity were familiar with the
difficidties to be overcome in establishing a tonal system. The results
of their experiments are known to the musical historian. It is suf-
ficient to say that the necessity of accurate definition was universally
desired in the earliest ages of which we have any record by j^eoples
who did not employ harmony. But our own use of chords makes ques-
tions of intonation much more intricate. We not only require a song
or melody, but several songs or melodies to be given simultaneously,
as in the ordinary church quartet or fugal chorus, where each singer
demands the right to be provided with some important subject-matter,
worthy the delivery of a feeling, acting, willing spirit — some " part "
which fully occupies him. He will not be content with a mere accom-
paniment to some leading part. The harmonizing of these several
melodies, that they may at every instant make recognized and well-
proportioned combinations called chords, constitutes the modern science
of harmony. This science is based upon the comparatively recent dis-
coveries that Nature herself supplies a full chord, or cortege of har-
monic sounds, to attend every single note, and others also to attend a
union of two notes, and so on. The ancient Greeks, not being acquaint-

IMPERFECTIONS OF MODERN HARMONY. 509

ed with these natural products, and misapplying certain mathematical
laws, failed to obtain concords sufficiently true to satisfy their refined
artistic perceptions, and therefore rejected them. The modern pagan
nations, even those competent to produce perfect concords, refuse to
adopt them ; and therefore our modern harmony still remains either
unknown or unappreciated outside Christendom. It may be that we
are generally regarded in the East as Western barbarians. The Chi-
nese, for instance, smile at the piano-forte as an ingeniously contrived
arrangement for enabling the performer to produce many different
sounds at once as required by Western harmony ; but as a mere me-
chanical instrument, in which hammers are thrown against strings in
an inartistic manner, illustrative of our insensibility. They formulate
thirty-three ways of plucking a string with the finger, and therefore are
more fastidious than ourselves respecting " touch " and the correspond-
ing delicate variations of tone due to different modes of vibration.

It is quite evident that Eastern peoples have cultivated their per-
ceptions in departments of musical art of which we are comparatively
regardless, and it is fair to assume that they reject our harmony be-
cause of its inherent imperfections. The extremely sensitive ear of the
ancient Hindoos, observed by all students of Sanskrit poetry, led them
to make, in common with the Persians and modern Arabians, finer dis-
tinctions than we recognize in the musical scale. And it is certainly
true that even our natural perceptions of perfect consonance are ren-
dered less acute by habitually listening to and accepting as true har-
monies that are systematically rendered untrue, and so far rough and
discordant in conformity with our adopted scheme of slight deviations
from strict accuracy.

Helmholtz directs us to remain satisfied no longer with this con-
dition of things, and demands that our music be rendered in tune.
Those writers who follow the lead of this great physicist take up this
cry in common with others, and assume to teach musicians their art.
Instrumentalists are advised to construct instruments having twenty-
four, twenty-eight, thirty, forty, or more sounds within the octave,
instead of allowing the ordinary twelve — the seven white and five
black keys of the manual — to do duty for the whole. It is deliberately
proposed that three rows of keys be provided, that a simple hymn-tune
may be correctly rendered. Mr. Ellis thinks that a fourth or fifth
organ or harmonium should be at hand to be used for exceptionally
brilliant and novel combinations. Similar recommendations have
often been made before. They are useless. For such instruments
would be found too complicated for general artistic purposes, and yet
would not be elaborate enough to obtain the desired perfection, be-
cause this is unattainable. It is unattainable, not on account of the
incapacity of the musician, but from the nature of the case. It is im-
possible to unite melody and modern harmony, and retain for either
its just proportions ; nor can we set one or the other aside. No such

510 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sweeping change can be made in the art by the mere musician. He
can not compose music worthy the attention of the world, under the
direction of any theorist, interested only in some one principle of
truth ; nor can he greatly alter the character of his productions.

The composer is the child of his time and nation, and can not free
himself from the conditions under which he works. Yet he obeys a
blind necessity no more than other men, equally powerless to turn
back the tide of modern civilization. It proceeds by virtue of a force
which is inconti'ollable, and at most can only be slightly diverted.
Music is one of its art-products. It broke in upon the darkness of
medineval ages, and was a factor in the general illumination that dis-
pelled the gloom, when the Western world arose refreshed as from a
deej) sleep. It appealed to the sense of hearing — the last to sink to
rest, always the first to awaken.

Counterpoint and the science of harmony aided in the formation of
this new art, which has earned the distinction of being recognized as
the only classic art of the nineteenth century. It is a glorious fabric,
and will endure, although scientific purists wish it to be destroyed and
another one erected in its stead on the principles of abstract truth.
They propound a destructive theory, and yet give no practicable mode
of procedure. They do not even remove difficulties to be overcome at
the very outset. The musician is invited to attempt the impossible,
namely, to make equal things that are unequal — to make the melodic
scale agree with the harmonic scale, their proportions being dissimilar.
He is compelled to make compromises, either acknowledged and de-
fined, as in the systems of tuning piano-fortes, or unacknowledged and
undefined, as in performances on violins. In no other manner can he
proceed.

It would be easy for him to employ a few simple chords with the
most perfect proportions, but he is required to produce a long-extended
and complicated web of harmony — some thousands of combinations in
a symphony or other similar work of art. It would be still easier for
him to present chords singly as isolated columns, that they may be
contemplated " as they stand " — each resting on a fundamental base or
bass ; but he must exhibit them connectedly — " as they move." Only
by passing on and on, from chord to chord in ever-changing forms,
from sweetest consonance to most brilliant dissonance, from exciting
successions and combinations to calming ones, is harmonic texture pro-
vided for musical compositions. Sometimes, also, the melody remains
imchanged when the harmonies are greatly altered, so that its expres-
sion may be varied, as the features of the same countenance may ex-
press varied emotions, and yet be always recognized.

Similarly, architectural purists, previous to the year 1837, made
perfectly cylindrical columns, straight lines, and plane surfaces, and,
proceeding to build on these principles of truth, made imitations of
Greek art that are res-arded with indifference in London, Paris, and Ber-

IMPERFECTIONS OF MODERN HARMONY. 511

lin. The Parthenon and Theseum were to be contemplated as wholes,
and therefore all apparently straight lines and plane surfaces were
made respectively curved and convex, that the effect might be smoother
— less hard and dry. There are, however, these notable differences in
the two cases : It was possible for the architectural purist to make
line meet line, but for the musician it would prove impossible. For
he, working in a tonal system that is a slowly ascending infinite spiral,
can not make his lines return into themselves without making delicate
modifications.

Whichever way he proceeds he is led out into infinity ; * but, with-
out passing the fourth step, he is
compelled to make modifications
to reconcile melody with harmony.
And whereas the Greek architects
made slight variations from ab-
stract truth that the effect on the
beholder might be heightened,
knowing well the peculiarities of I |A27

the human eye, the musician trusts

in the inability of the ear to detect

the modifications he is bound to \ yE8l

make, and which he hides with

subtile devices. &c"\^^ ^^^?,'iLH3

Five modes of proceeding are
now to be exemplified to prove that
it is imjjossible to observe just proportions, and that the course taken
by musicians is the best known :

1. The errors may be acknowledged and defined, by the employ-
ment of some one fixed " temperament," to determine the nature and
extent of the deviations. Whether this be Pythagorean or Helmholt-
zian, cyclic or non-cyclic, skhismo-cyclic or mesotonic, equal or un-
equal, it will have as a matter of course its own peculiar inherent im-
perfections. The "equal" temperament is the one universally em-
ployed now for piano-fortes and organs.

2. The errors may be unacknowledged and undefined. In such cases
all is left to chance or vague feeling, and the performance may be an
ignorant floundering in an open sea of tone, rather than the mathemati-
cally accurate rendering as supposed by Helmholtz in the quotation
given above. It is true that performers who have practiced long to-
gether, who sympathize with one another and with the aims of the
composer, and who are deej^ly imbued with the spirit of his work, give
artistically good renderings. The soul-state recorded by the composer
is impressed upon the auditors. This is the purport of the music, and
nothing more seems desired. It transcends all formal, cold measure-

* See article on " The Modern Piano- forte " in " Popular Science Monthly " for Oc-
tober, ISVY, p. 701.

512

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ments. If the performers tried to be true to these, the gist of the
story, as it were, would be lost in the telling. The performance,
therefore, may be psychologically true and yet mathematically false.
There is a natural tendency to raise notes under the influence of ex-
tremely excited, passionate phrases and to depress them in sinking to
a state of repose. But, irrespective of such changes, errors must cer-
tainly be made by singers and violinists of the nature of those now to
be defined, however they may be glossed over and hidden.

Mr. Ellis illustrates his system of " Duodenes " by the first line of
the hymn " My country, 'tis of thee," which is better known to Ger-
man and Anglo-Saxon peoples as " God save the Queen." It will be
employed here, for it is not only familiar and very simple, but usually
has equally simple harmonies that may be conveniently illustrated
with low numbers and a few fractions.

Whatever numbers may by chosen for convenience, the proper
proportions of the melodic notes are 15 : 16 : 18. Those of the chords
in columns 1, 4, 5, 6, are in the ratio of 4, 5, 6, and those in columns
2, 3 in the ratio of 10 : 12 : 15. It is understood that the doubling or
halving any of these chordal numbers will merely represent the note
in another octave, above or below, it will not change its character so
as to aifect the investigation.

3. When the melodic proportions are true, the chords are untrue.

1

2

3

4

C 48

C 48

D 54

B 45

G 36

A 40

A 40 \

G 36

E 30

E 30

F 321 ^

D 27

C 24

A 20

D 27/^

G 18

At the third note of the melody the chord is out of proportion, for
the interval D : A, 27 : 40, should be D : A, 27 : 40^ to be in the
required ratio of 2 : 3 or 10 : 15.

4. When the chords are true, the melody is temporarily out of
proportion.

X

2

3

4

5

«

C 128

C 1291

D 144

B 120

C128

D 144

G 96

A' 108

A' 108

G 96

G 96

G 96

E 80

E' 81

F m

D 72

E SO

B 120

C 64

A' 54

D 72

G 48

C 64

G 48

IMPERFECTIONS OF MODERN HARMONY.

513

In this case the melody leaves the scale, but returns to it again,
as shown by the notes marked [/) which are raised. This method of
altering the melody to obtain correct harmony is almost impossible to
performers. It being understood that a note repeated or sustained is
to be repeated or sustained at the same pitch, that it may become a
pivot (ligature) for the harmonies to turn on, and form a standard
of measurement. The errors would therefore more often be as fol-
lows :

5. "When the chords are true, the melody is permanently out of
proportion.

1

2

3

4

5

6

8 C 129}

24 C 1291

20 D 144\

10 B

120

8 C 128

12 D 144

6 G 971-

20 A 108-

-15 A 108

\8 G

96—

—6 G 96—

—8 G 96

5 E 81—

-15 E 81

12 F 86i-

6 D

72

5 E SO

5 B 60

4 C 64i

10 A 54

10 D 72^

4 G

48

4 C 64

4 G 48

Here the ratios of each chord are prefixed to the letters, representing
the musical notes, that the harmonies may be readily verified. At the
fifth chord the key-note is seen at once to be changed, and the melody
therefore to be untrue. Viewed vertically, all is correct ; viewed hori-
zontally, errors appear in all four lines. Such music can not be made
correct from both points of view.

No idea is more firmly rooted in the minds of musicians than that
of a fixed key-note. AVhenever the pitch is changed the belief is
universal that the chords have been out of tune. Even Helmholtz and
other scientists are unaware of the fact that perfect harmony requires
a moving key-note. It will probably surprise them as much as it
would have surprised Ptolemy Philadelphus to learn that the sun is
moving in the direction of the constellation Hercules.

For the solar system to be, as it were, in tune, the sun must move ;
for the harmonic system to be in tune, the key-note must move. In the
last illustration the pitch of the key-note (C) was depressed in the ratio
of 129f : 128. There would be three such depressions made in the first
half of the melody, and by the same chords. There is no method by
which the sum of the errors made in this direction may be atoned for
by errors in the opposite direction. If, on repeating this half, the
composer were to adopt the following harmonies, the key-note (C)
would rise in the ratio of 63 : 64.

5H

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

1

2

'

4

6

6

C 252-

-C 252\
F- sharp 180 "^

D 288

B 240

C 256

D 288

G 189

\ F-sharp 180

G 192

— G 192-

— G 192

E 157^

D 144^^^

""^C 126

/D144

, E 160

B 120

C 12ti

A 108

^^D 144/

G 96/"

C 128

G 96

After exploring the whole known field of harmony, and cal-
culating the elevations and depressions consequent on using more
elaborate chords, it is asserted that the exact pitch could not be re-
gained.

The formulated results need not be stated here ; it is sufiicient to
give the conclusions to which they point. But assuming that the
composer could succeed in so planning his chords that the second half
of this melody would so correct the eccentricities of the key-note in
the first half that at its completion the composition would be rounded
off at the true pitch, it is easy to see that if the first strain were re-
peated, and the second left unrepeated, or any such ordinary change
made, all his elaborate calculations would be of no avail.

Mr. Ellis, who proposes a system with 117 notes within the octave,
is thus shown that an infinite number of notes is required, for there is
no synonymity in any system when the key-note moves. At each change
of pitch the whole series is changed. Mr. Bosanquet, with 53 notes to
the octave, offers to provide musicians with materials for 84 scales ;
and thus we are more reminded of the musical formulse of the ancient
Hindoos — their 16,000 keys — than informed how the above simple
melody may be correctly rendered.

It is somewhat amusing to find Mr, Ellis seriously proposing to
employ three harmoniums, the three players having to touch the notes
that happen to fall to their respective instruments, not only because,
as shown above, the music would still be out of tune, but because no
performer would play a complete melody by himself, but a note here,
another there, unconnectedly. For, however neatly this might be
managed, expression or artistic rendering would be unattainable. Yet
it is remarked, " The performers would merely require a little drilling
and practice together."

Logarithms may be piled and compiled to define scales, but it is
not so easy to reconcile the conflicting principles that appear in actual
composition. The musician baffles the mathematician, who fails to
follow him in his operations, as proved by the hitherto unnoticed dis-
crepancies between melodic and harmonic proportions herein demon-
strated. Although the composer's notation is not an exact statement,
the performers do not experience practical difficulties : the intention is

IMPERFECTIONS OF MODERN HARMONY. 515

known, and the intonation is made as perfect as may be, according to
the nature of the instruments employed.

The method of tuning the piano-forte may be stigmatized as reduc-
ing music to a mere game of permutations and combinations of twelve
tones, but no better method is offered by mathematicians and physi-
cists, whose schemes for music prove them more visionary than mu-
sicians themselves, who within the limits of their art must be acknowl-
edged to be practical. They are art-workers as a rule, not talkers.
Writers on music are generally amateui-s, occupied with some one
principle, apparently forgetful of the fact that many principles have
to be regarded in the production of an art-work — sometimes one, some-
times another having the ascendancy. Therefore, false ideas readily
gain currency, for the public can more easily comprehend one or two
ideas, put forth with literary skill, than a multiplicity of considerations
requiring technical definition, and only correctly estimated by persons
practically acquainted with their relative value. Well-written trea-
tises on the plastic arts are frequently found suited to the use of the
public, engraved illustrations being more immediately understood than
musical quotations, for comparatively few persons can read, and im-
agine in silence, written harmonies. And, besides, the foi'ms being
original, neither geometrical nor taken from nature, no appeal to expe-
rience can be made.

Music appears as something quite apart, as though it held aloof
from the realities of daily life. Yet, on closer inspection, it is seen to
be connected so closely with art and life as to make its classification
difficult.

Its rhythmic forms transcend any found in poetry and dancing. Its
melodies are not merely grammatically correct constructions, but are
felicitous expressions of the highest kind of rhetorical eloquence, which
spring up as happy thoughts, and may endure from age to age with
wonderful vitality as the national songs of a whole people. It is not
merely dramatic, it is preeminently dramatic, many parts being em-
ployed not only consecutively but simultaneously. It simulates the
gestures indicated in sculptured groups, not as fixed, but in motion,
and with such ability as to create in some persons an almost irresistible
desire to make corresponding movements. Its forms are original and
independent of words, and are not copied like those of painting, which
is still dependent on drawing.

It not only resembles Gothic architecture, in the sense of parts de-
pending upon parts for the stability of the whole, so that a cathedral
may be aptly spoken of as " petrified music," ; but is more like celes-
tial architecture, in which the base is not an immovable foundation,
but moves itself ; and, in the due observance of distances (intervals)
and speeds (time), the balance is preserved — as, for instance, in the
choruses of Bach and Handel.

Its science of acoustics allies it with optics. It can be expressed in

5i6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

algebraic terms or simple numbers, as the above illustrations prove.
It transfigures the spoken word in song. For its performance gym-
nastic exercises are required. Its expressions are like words, in being
either conventional or imitative, or partly both ; and, unlike words, in
that their meaning can not change. It does not describe soul-states or
cause their formation after reflection, like poetry, but reveals and in-
duces them immediately, and so surely that Beethoven's sonatas are so
many psychologic records.

The composer is more bound by natural laws than other artists,
and yet is so free that his productions more nearly resemble actual
creations. Music, in its threefold nature, appeals to man in his three-
fold nature. With great splendor of manifestation an orchestra en-
gages the ear, and sometimes powerfully affects the nervous system ;
whatever is surveyable in the music occupies the intellect, and its sig-
nification affects the soul. It is not so much art-calculated as science-
inspired.

Here is ample evidence that a mere " physiological basis " is insuffi-
cient for the artist, and the advice that he should form a new art, less
dependent upon gorgeous harmonies, is equally futile. For, although a
composer exercises greater power over music than the philologist over
language (who can only explain and classify roots already existing,
being powerless to provide a new one), yet still the course of music is
propelled by forces that can not be long or successfully opposed. No
one affects to believe that steam, electricity, etc., will be set aside at
the bidding of Mr. Ruskin.

Modern compositions are the natural expression of our time. Even
the music of Mozart and Haydn seems to be truly Arcadian, com-
pared with that of Beethoven and Schumann. It is comparatively
artless, cheerful, and free from sighs. The works of these later writers
rise to loftier heights and sink to deeper depths, reveling in a larger
scale of human passion than those of their predecessors. Here aspira-
tions, longings, strivings, are portrayed with a vividness that mirrors
the spirit of the age. This music is not, like Tennyson's " Sleeping
Beauty," " a perfect form in perfect rest," but is as in a state of evolu-
tion. It wears not so much the expression of Raphael's Madonnas — of
the peaceful faith of the cloister — as that of strong, earnest men, exer-
cised with honest doubts in the battle of the creeds. We can not turn
back, or remain still ; the cry is " Onward ! " and, for good or for evil,
we must proceed. Our art, side by side with the civilization it repre-
sents, will continue to grow, and then perhaps begin to decay, and
finally give place to another still more glorious.

DAYLIGHT I.V THE SCHOOLROOM. 517

DAYLIGHT IN THE SCHOOLROOM.

By M. JAVAL.

WE are all agreed in preferring the light 6>f day to any other. In
spite of the extreme variations which take place in its intensity
and sometimes in its coloring, we seldom think of modifying it or
softening it for healthy eyes except when they are exposed to entirely
unaccustomed conditions. The eye is capable of accommodating itself
to most astonishing changes in the brightness of light. The light of
the sun is about a million times more intense than that of the full
moon ; yet the eye can distinguish objects bj^ the light of a star.
The changes in the diameter of the pupil contribute only in a small
degree to the faculty of adaptation, for, between the extreme dilata-
tion and contraction of the iris, the sensitive surface does not vary in
a greater proportion than that of one to a hundred. The power re-
sides chiefly in the retina, the sensibility of which is blunted in day-
light and intensified in darkness. In consequence of this remarkable
aptitude, the eye is the reverse of a good photometric apparatus.
Enormous changes in the intensity of light pass unperceived by it,
and we are able to attend to our occupations undisturbed by the fluc-
tuations which are constantly taking place.

Still, we must not demand of our organs the maximum of adapta-
tion of which they are susceptible. If we read a book with the sun
shining directly upon it, even if we do not injure the eyesight, we will
disarrange the rate of adaptation, so that we Avill not be able for some
time to see in a demi-obscurity. On the other hand, if we stay long
in the dark, we may increase the sensibility of the retina so that a sud-
den return to daylight will be painful. Bearing these facts in mind,
we should keep the direct rays of the sun out from workshops and
schoolrooms, where the place of each person is fixed, and should not
make our bedrooms too dark, lest the eye be worried by sudden changes.
On a similar principle, we should flood with diffused light the rooms
in which numerous workmen are to be gathered, some of whom must
be far from the windows. With a good light, or one which is equiva-
lent to several million candles a yard off, we use in reading only a
fraction of the cornea, and the contraction of the pupil has the effect
of greatly diminishing the diameter of the circles of diffusion which
are liable to produce in the retina faults of vision. Lender these condi-
tions, a badly formed eye may perform good service, and is subject to
only a moderate degree of fatigue. The brilliancy of the light may
vary greatly without our losing the benefit of the clearness which an
extreme contraction of the pupil assures. But as the day declines
and the image on the retina becomes insufficiently luminous for clear
vision, the pupil becomes dilated, and the inequalities of different eyes

5i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

are manifested. The diminution of light goes on almost unnoticed by
well-formed eyes, for it is compensated by the increase of the used
surface of the cornea. Less perfect eyes, on the other hand, not being
able to perform their functions with ease, have to make fatiguing
efforts to accommodate themselves to the situation, which tend to in-
crease existing defects or to induce short-sightedness.

Adults are less liable than children to suffer injury from insufficient
light, for several reasons : 1. Their pupils being less dilatable, they
are obliged to desist from their work sooner when the light dimin-
ishes ; 2, They make more frequent use of glasses ; 3, They are less
often confined, like school-children, and compelled to continue their
labors after the light has become insufficient ; and, 4, The coverings
of their eyes are less extensible, and, if they have so far escaped
myopia, they have more chances of continuing free from it.

A good management of the daylight is especially important with
regard to the construction of schoolhouses. It is not enough to lay
down a rule establishing the proportion which the surface of glass
should bear to the number of pupils ; attention must also be given to
the direction whence the light comes to each pupil. The darkest
point in the room must be light enough, and for this it is necessary
that each desk shall receive a sufficiency of light direct from the sky.
Every one who has practiced photography knows that the sky acts
more strongly than any terrestrial body upon the sensitive surface.
The least favored place in the room should be within the reach of this
light. Nevertheless, the direct rays of the sun should be avoided, for
they will dazzle. Where such an arrangement is otherwise practica-
ble, the advantage of a diffused light may be gained by opening win-
dows on the north side. Then, if the seats are placed perpendicularly
to the wall occupied by the windows, so that the pupils may receive
the light from the left side and from above, the result will be satisfac-
tory provided the width of the room does not much exceed the height
of the tops of the windows above the floor ; for, under this condition,
the least favored seat will still look upon about one twentieth of the
surface of the sky. With ceilings of the ordinary height, unilateral
lighting answers very well for rooms that do not exceed twelve or
thirteen feet in width. For larger rooms, windows may also be
opened on the other side, or behind the pupils, but never in front of
them.

If we open windows in opposite sides of the room, we must arrange
it so that they shall not be on the south side, for that would let in the
glare of noon. For this reason it would be preferable to direct the
axis of the room north and south, in which case it may be expedient
to temper the forenoon and afternoon sunshine with transparent cur-
tains. This arrangement will also give us the advantage of a better
lighting in the morning and afternoon during the short days of winter.
A certain latitude in orientation is admissible, which may extend to

HYGIENE IN THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN. 519

forty degrees on either side of the north and south line, as the disposi-
tion of the ground may require. An inclination toward the north-
northeast is preferable to one toward the north-northwest for general
hygienic reasons, for with it the room may receive the sun for the
longer time in the forenoon. The teacher should face the south, so
that the pupils facing the north may receive the stronger light from
behind. In the northern part of the country a window might be al-
lowed at the top of the southern wall, to be covered during sunshine
and used during dark weather.

We have still to consider the possibility of the schoolroom being
shadowed by neighboring buildings. This must be prevented by
acquiring enough ground to keep the buildings away. Even after we
have properly proportioned the height of the windows to the size of
the room, if there is a neighboring building the height of which is
precisely half the distance between its base and the middle of the
schoolroom, the worst situated scholars will receive the light from
only the upper half of the windows, and not enough of it. We have,
then, to establish the rule that a free space must be reserved on either
side of the schoolroom, the width of which, measuring from the mid-
dle of the room, shall not be less than twice the height of the largest
building that is likely to be put up near it. The inconvenience arising
from the shade of trees is modified by the absence of leaves in the
winter and their welcome presence in summer, and does not call for
general rules. — Revue Scientijique.

HYGIEISIE IN THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN.

By a. hughes BENNETT, M. D.

AMONG the large and increasing flocks of patients who crowd
the out-door departments of our metropolitan hospitals, there is
a class of persons who of late years have rendered themselves conspic-
uous by demanding medical assistance. These are women who have
to gain their livelihood by the exertion of their intellectual faculties,
and who follow callings which require the constant exercise of their
mental powers. An example of this is the so-called pupil-teacher,
whose career we shall endeavor briefly to sketch. A young school-
girl of about thirteen years of age is remarked to be unusually in-
telligent. It is suggested to her parents that she should become a
teacher. They consenting, the child is at once placed under training.
According to information derived from these pupils, the routine of
life for the next six or seven years is as follows : They have — 1. To
continue their education, by receiving from others several hours of

520 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

special instruction every day, and a considerable proportion of their
evenings is spent in preparing themselves for this ; 2. They themselves
have to teach the younger children in the school for from five to six
hours daily ; 3. They have to pass a Government examination at the
end of each year, which entails further special private study. This
course of instruction continues for five years ; and, being satisfactorily
concluded, the pupil becomes an assistant teacher. During the next
two years she either resides in a college and there undergoes a special
and systematic course of study, or, if her means preclude, she contin-
ues the system already described at school, and further prepares her-
self for a final examination ; after which, if she acquit herself in an
efiicient manner, she becomes a full teacher, and as such is certified by
Government.

Such a career may be said to represent the intellectual life of an
ordinary student, in which there are considerable mental strain, a con-
stant exertion to acquire and retain knowledge, anxiety as to results,
and possibly worry and irritation in details. In consequence, there
are diminished exercise, loss of fresh air, and generally deficient hygi-
enic surroundings. We have said that numbers of such young women
are constantly applying to the hospitals for medical assistance. They
complain of physical debility, anaemia, dyspepsia, and loss of appetite ;
their functions are disordered and irregular, and they present the usual
conditions of bodily weakness and depression. Their nervous system
and mental faculties are also affected. They are irritable, nervous,
depressed, and melancholic ; they do not sleep at night, partially lose
their memories, they suffer from violent headaches, and can not settle
to work ; they have all kinds of nervous and subjective pains, hysteri-
cal symptoms, and, in short, all the phenomena of nervous and mental
as well as of physical exhaustion and debility. If our patients be
asked the cause of these ailments, they will with one accord say that
it is the hard and constant brain-work, combined with worry and per-
petual anxiety.

From teachers let us turn aside for a moment to women who follow
other intellectual employments. If we examine the matter we shall
find, a certain number of exceptions always being allowed, that as a
rule when females are subjected to severe and prolonged mental exer-
tion, more especially if it is associated with anxiety and physical fa-
tigue, they break down under the ordeal. How many excellent and
clever women have we known who, either from necessity or from love
of study, have eagerly embraced and distinguished themselves in lit-
erary, scientific, and educational pursuits ! Burning the midnight oil,
contending, it may be, with difliculties, harassed with doubt and anx-
iety, debilitated from want of rest and bodily fatigue, they struggle
on, their circumstances or their enthusiasm impelling them, but at last
they, like the pupil-teachers, give way and succumb from sheer ex-
haustion. The objects of this paper are to endeavor to explain why

HYGIENE IN THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN. 521

this deterioration of health should so frequently take place in women
when subjected to bodily and mental strain, in distinction from men,
in whom, under the same circumstances, it is comparatively unusual ;
and, with the view of elucidating this, to discuss the physical and in-
tellectual capacities of the sexes, and to ascertain whether, in these
respects, the male and female are upon an equal footing. That these
propositions may be rendered intelligible, some preliminary observa-
tions are necessary.

The Physical Conformation of Woman, — It will be generally
conceded that woman is physically weaker and less powerfully built
than man. With few exceptions, this distinction between the sexes is
universal throughout the entire animal kingdom. From the lowest to
the highest species, the general structure of the male differs from that
of the female in the size and strength of his bones and muscles, the
form of his head, thorax, and limbs, and in the possession of special
weapons of offense and defense. In the human being, although this
to a certain extent is modified by circumstances, the same general law
holds good. Owing to his conformation, the man is capable of per-
forming and of enduring more physical labor and fatigue, and hence
on him, from time immemorial, has fallen the share of manual toil, and
of supporting and protecting the other and weaker sex. It is true we
sometimes meet with —

" Daughters of the plow, stronger than men,
Huge women blowzed with health, and wind, and rain,
And labor."

Such, all will admit, are exceptions, and by no means represent the
standard woman.

The generative organs form a most important distinction between
the sexes, and must, to a great extent, modify the habits and career of
the female. In the natural course of events, many years of the most
vigorous and active period of a woman's life are spent in germinating
and suckling her offspring, during which time she is physically capable
of little else. If she has not children, frequently recurring periodic
processes take place, which, under the best circumstances, render her
specially liable to derangement of her general health, and under ad-
verse conditions she is almost certain to fall a victim. This was de-
monstrated in the days of slavery, when the owners, either not know-
ing or caring about these physiological laws, forced their women to
labor continuously in the fields, in consequence of which thousands of
them died of those numerous ills to which female flesh is heir. We
can not here enter at length into this very important subject, but
merely indicate that the whole sexual system of woman has a profound
influence on her physical nature, which does not exist to the same
extent in man, and, although for conventional reasons such questions
are usually suppressed- in public controversies on the advancement

522 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of her sex, there can be no doubt that they shouhl not be forgotten,
having, as they do, a most important and practical influence on the
subject.

From these considerations the conclusion may be drawn that woman
is structurally less powerful and vigorous than man, that she is less
capable of performing acts of physical exertion, of enduring fatigue
and exposure, and of combating against adverse circumstances. That,
moreover, the natural functions of her sex, when they do not actually
incapacitate her from action, render her specially liable, under disturb-
ing conditions, to deterioration of general health.

The Nervous Conformation of Woman. — The whole nervous
system, in common with the other structures of the body, is smaller
and less voluminous in the female than in the male. Its function is
characterized by comparative weakness, as evidenced by great suscepti-
bility and instability, and also by promptness in responding to all kinds
of stimuli. In women there is less nervous capacity and vigor, dimin-
ished power of control, and a greater readiness to break down under
physical and mental strain. It is notorious that the conditions termed
nervous and hysterical are almost entirely confined to the female sex,
in which they are extremely common. Every physician at a hospital
who treats out-door patients knows that for every hundred men he
prescribes for he is called upon to treat at least five hundred women.
On the other hand, the male wards are always full, while many of the
female beds may be vacant. This simply indicates that serious disease
is most common in men, while trifling nervous ailments are almost
universal in women. Most women are naturally so predisposed that,
when subjected to fright, grief, anxiety, pain, and other such circum-
stances, they feel (in addition to the direct distressing efl'ects) various
remote subjective jjhenomena in the form of suffocations, spasms,
bodily pains, fainting, convulsions, and a general liability to violent
and explosive emotional demonstrations. If the causes are permanent
their effects may become so, and deteriorate the general health, and
there are thousands of women who are hopeless invalids, often for life,
from conditions acting on their susceptible and mobile nervous sys-
tems, which in the other sex would have produced no appreciable
results. There are, of course, in this as in other things, numerous
exceptions to the general rule, many women having their natures much
modified and approaching the male type, and in the same way there
are some men who are of a nervous and hysterical temperament. We
may, then, assert as a fact that the nervous system of the average
woman is more susceptible and impressionable than that of the average
man, that it is in consequence more readily unhinged by mental and
physical distress or fatigue, and that when thus disordered it reacts
upon the system, so as to cause permanent disease.

The Intellectual Conformation of AYoman. — The cranium
of woman is smaller than that of man. The weight of the average

HYGIENE IN THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN. 523

female brain has been estimated at from five to six ounces less than
that of the average male brain, and a general inferiority in size exists
at every period of life, from the new-born infant to old age. Not only
has this comparative decrease in size been determined, but it has been
ascertained that the female brain is relatively smaller than that of the
male, as compared to the weight of her body, and researches on this
subject have shown that, while the encephalon of the female is ten per
cent, less in weight than that of the male, her total bodily weight is
only eight per cent. less. The brains of diflFerent races vary greatly
in size, but whether it be in the most highly civilized nations, or in
the lowest savages, the encephalon of the female is always compara-
tively and relatively smaller than that of the male. These facts show
that the difference in size and weight is obviously a fundamental sex-
ual distinction, and not one which can be explained on the hypothesis
that the educational advantages enjoyed either by the individual man
or by the male sex generally, operating through a long series of gen-
erations, have stimulated the growth of the brain in one sex more than
in the other. All other circumstances being alike, the size of the brain
appears to bear a genei'al relation to the mental power of the individ-
ual. There are doubtless exceptions to this rule, but unquestionably
the general axiom holds good in large averages ; therefore, as the organ
of intellect in the female is smaller and lighter than that in the male,
we may fairly assume that it is less capable of such high and extended
mental powers. It is justly stated that quality as well as quantity
should be considered, but of this we can only judge by results, in
which case it must also be conceded that women are at a disadvantage.
This assumption, if it can not be anatomically demonstrated, is amply
proved by facts. From the beginning of the world, as man has been
characterized by his physical force as compared to woman, so has he
been remarkable for his superiority of intellectual power. At every
age, in every country and climate, and under every circumstance, we
find that in the highest qualities of mind, of reason, judgment, genius,
inventive power, capacity for acquiring and utilizing knowledge, man
stands preeminent. It is true that there have been some noble and
illustrious women who have proved themselves of the highest mental
capacity, and who have risen to the first rank in various departments
of intellectual culture, but it must be admitted that these are rare
exceptions, and that even they in every particular have been enor-
mously outnumbered and surpassed by men. It may then be reasoned
that the female has hitherto not had the opportunities or education
necessary to fit her to place herself on an equality with the other sex.
This argument of itself proves that she has not been born with the
mental force to assert her pretensions, for it can not be maintained
that physical strength alone could have forced her into a secondary
intellectual position. Besides, it is not so : for in literature, poetry,
music, art, and in numerous other branches of study in which she has

524 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

had as many if not more opportunities of perfecting herself than man,
she has rarely proved his equal and never his superior.

The intellectual powers of woman not only differ in degree from
those of man but also in character. Her mind participates with her
physical constitution in being endowed with great sensibility, and
hence her acuteness, perception, and tact. She seizes with rapidity
objects which come before her, and observes by instinct an infinity of
shades of meaning in details which might escape the most observant
of men. She often arrives at conclusions with great celerity and
adroitness, but then her results are as frequently wrong as right.
Her perception is fine and penetrating rather than extended or pro-
found. She readily occupies herself with small impressions and de-
tails, but is arrested there, being less capable of grasping general prin-
ciples. Although her mind may thus embrace a variety of particu-
lars, it is to little practical purpose, from an intellectual point of view,
as she can not fix her attention on any idea or ti*ain of ideas for any
length of time, and reason out a logical conclusion. Woman dislikes
and avoids that hard work which requires long and profound medita-
tion, her character being adverse to the study of abstract science.
Her thoughts wander, she becomes impatient, and her too mobile im-
agination is unable to rivet the attention on the dry details of a prac-
tical subject. She enters with enthusiasm and often with unnecessary
vigor at first into any new project, philanthropic, educational, or oth-
erwise, but rarely carries it steadily out to a successful termination.
Her opinions are formed by her feelings rather than by the operations
of reason. Her forte is that species of knowledge which requires more
tact than science, more vivacity than force, more imagination than
judgment. Her chief moral philosophy is directed to the study of
individuals and society, and the sagacity of a woman in acquiring
traits of character and penetrating true motive is what the logic of a
man rarely acquires. Wise women — the so-called blue-stocking — as a
rule know nothing profoundly. Their natural acuteness of perception
enables them to seize a number of details and isolated particulars, they
fancy they understand them thoroughly, they confound theory with
fact, the real difliculties they do not surmount, they can not fix the
attention long and deeply, or persevere in overcoming obstructions,
and they feel no pleasure in habits of profound meditation. They
therefore remain with their acquired superficial knowledge, pass rap-
idly from one thing to another, and there only rest in their minds
certain crude and incomplete notions, with which they are quite satis-
fied, and of which they make the most, but which in consequence lead
to false and illogical conclusions.

These observations are not for the purpose of merely lauding one
sex at the expense of the other, but for a definite practical object, as
will subsequently be seen. They serve to indicate that the average
woman has been by nature endowed with a brain and nervous system

HYGIENE IN THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN. 525

of inferior anatomical construction to that of man, and that in conse-
quence her intellectual powers differ from his, both in degree and in
character.

The Disposition of Woman, — Voltaire has said, " le physique
gouverne toujours le morale," which is strikingly illustrated by the
present inquiry. In the lower animals there is a marked difference in
the disposition and character of the sexes. The males are of a com-
bative nature, and have a great tendency to fight. They are bolder,
fiercer, and more untamable. The females have more highly exalted
perceptive faculties, they are cautious, artful, and cunning, as is abun-
dantly seen in the ingenious methods they adopt in the hiding and
protecting of their young. These properties serve them to some ex-
tent in lieu of physical force, and they are altogether more gentle and
more tractable in their nature. The same, in a different degree, is ob-
vious in the human female. Every mother knows that a male infant
is more troublesome to rear than a female. As children grow older
the difference becomes more marked. The girl is less boisterous, will-
ful, and imperious than the boy. She is more delicate, impression-
able, and artful, pleased with attention, solicits admiration, and is
readily moved to tears at suggestion of sorrow or pain. He courts
danger, is bored with solicitude, and, more blunted or careless, laughs
at what she weeps at. She, with her doll, already anticipates the gen-
tle duties of maternity. He, with his sword and trumpet, mimics the
glory of war. On the disposition of the fully-developed woman poets
have written volumes. We, however, have to take a more matter-of-
fact view of her than they have done. When Hamlet said, " Frailty,
thy name is woman," he was scientifically correct, in more senses than
he intended. Her natural muscular feebleness and delicacy of consti-
tution render violent exercise and labor distasteful to her, and her
inferiority of intellectual power makes severe and constant mental ex-
ertion a task. While the man, full of bodily and mental vigor, goes
forth seeking and braving danger and labor, proud in the responsibil-
ity of those dependent on him, the woman fulfills a welcome task at
home in the less active duties of matrimony, and of domestic and so-
cial observances, equally happy in the possession of a strong arm and
head to protect and support her. Such an existence, however, fosters
a great susceptibility of character in addition to her natural conforma-
tion. Hers is often a mixture of extreme happiness or of profound
misery. She feels pain, grief, and anxiety acutely. To these she
readily gives way, and as rapidly revives from their effects. Sensa-
tions of all kinds act on her powerfully. These she can not control,
but exaggerates into extremes, and manifests by violent demonstra-
tions. If she feels acutely it is not for long, her sentiments at the time
being easily replaced by new ones, and her mental distress, if rapidly
induced, is more poignant than deep. Woman is essentially impulsive
and emotional ; her sensitive and changeable nature is necessary for

526 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the part she has to play in life. She feels more than she thinks. A
man forces his way by power of body and intelligence. She acts on
him by tact and by all those weaknesses in which with him lies her
chief power. Her flexibility of character gives rise to caprice which
consists of a brusque passage from one sentiment to another totally
opposed. Her habitual feebleness and deficient vigor inspire her with
less confidence ; and, as a woman can not therefore act directly, she
employs indirect measures to effect her ends. Hence the natural de-
sire to please inherent in the sex, the artfulness, the dissimulations, the
little managements and intrigues, the graces, the coquetry, and other
seductive ways, which, to a certain extent, have always been ceded to
by intellectual and physical force. For the same reasons, and from
the same cause, her weaknesses and vices are greater, and no man can
compete with a really bad woman in petty jealousies, spiteful actions,
revenge, and even in the ingenuity and vindictiveness of crime. It is
this affectability which, if it be a cause of her frailties, is equally efii-
cacious in giving luster to her virtues. It is this which constitutes the
chief charm of the mother, who instinctively detects the slightest de-
sire or change in her offspring and impulsively acts for its benefit ; of
the wife, who sympathizes with and encourages her husband, fagged
and anxious for the common weal ; and of the nurse, who takes in at a
glance all the details and wants of the patient and ministers to his re-
quirements with pity and devotion. It is this which gives rise to that
compassion, sympathy, piety, and affectionate disposition which are
the chief characteristics of a woman. It is the feeling of powerless-
ness which makes her identify herself with the unfortunate and un-
happy, which natural pity is the base of all social virtues.

The Effects of Social Life and Education ox Woman. —
There can be little doubt that social manners, education, and an infin-
ity of circumstances may affect the qualities woman derives from her
matei-ial organization, and even efface the original character which
nature has given her. In the simplest condition, the man labors with
his hands and with his wits for mutual support and protection ; the
woman rears her children, tends the sick, and conducts domestic affairs.
Such, if the most primitive, is probably the healthiest and happiest con-
dition for the female. Her sympathetic and susceptible nature has
here every scope for action without being shaken by rude and oft-
repeated shocks. In civilized life, especially among the upper classes,
everything seems combined to foster and increase the natural affecta-
bility of woman's nature, and society renders her, already unfortunate
by organization, the victim of the most painful and varied series of
moral and corporeal affections. Medical philosophers have declaimed,
and will long continue to do so, in vain, against the whole system of
the education and bringing up of women, which is directed solely to
the purpose of making them personally attractive, and subsequently
securing for them brilliant settlements for life, at the expense of their

HYGIENE IN THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN. 527

health. Much might be written on this subject ; suffice it at present
to state that the useless and insipid lives that most young ladies lead,
the total want of an intelligent interest and occupation, and the un-
natural and artificial existence pursued, are highly calculated to inju-
riously enhance that natural affectability with which she has been
endowed. The system of fashionable boarding-schools, whose anxiety
to render their pupils accomplished and fascinating at all costs re-
sults in a forced and at the same time imperfect training, combined
with luxurious living, absence of exercise, and other healthy circum-
stances, tends to increase the irritability of the nervous system and to
foster a precocious evolution of character. As this is increased, tone
and energy are diminished. The girl returns from school a wayward,
capricious, and hysterical young lady, weak and unstable in mind, hab-
its, and pursuits. She enters into society, and there her whole mode
of life further contributes to her unfortunate condition. The competi-
tions, disappointed affection and vanity, the artificial excitements of
balls, public entertainments, late hours, and all the frivolities and
pleasures of fashion, tend in the same direction. The cultivation of
music, poetry, novels, and other inflammatory literature nourish illu-
sions contrary to the actual state of society. Her very dress seems
made on purpose to interfere with the healthy function of her most
vital organs, and to prevent the free play of muscular action essential
to a sound constitution. Girls subjected to such a regime, when their
minds and bodies should be guided in a totally opposite direction,
have one order of faculties alone exercised, and these, predominating
over the reasoning powers, cause a host of nervous, vaporous, hysteri-
cal, and hypochondriacal disorders. Thus women from their earliest
days are constantly subjected to the yoke of prejudices, are under the
necessity of a perpetual state of acting and deception, of dissembling
their desires and real inclinations for the sake of propriety, of keejjing
to themselves the most powerful passions and the strongest propensi-
ties, and of feigning a calmness and indifference when they are de-
voured by a burning fire.

As to education, we have already pointed out the general unsatis-
factory nature of the intellectual studies of most women. That idle-
ness and the absence of suitable and substantial occupation for the
mind which so commonly exists in the higher ranks of society are the
sources of great evils no one will deny. For the frivolous and luxu-
rious so-called duties of fashionable life, although exhausting and fa-
tiguing, can not be said to constitute that healthy exercise of mind or
body which is desirable for young women to stave off disease and
maintain sound health. Study and occupation, at the same time posi-
tive, useful, and attractive, are the best correctives of an imagination
ardent and disordered, of a nervous system susceptible and hypersen-
sitive. These considerations being made patent, many women, with
the impulse characteristic of their sex, have rushed to the opposite ex-

528 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

treme. They wisli females to receive the same education as males,
and to compete with them in the intellectual struggle for existence.
We have, however, seen that both the woman's body and mind are
inferior in vigor and power to those of the man, and accordingly, if
pitted against one another in a physical or mental race, she, to use a
sporting phrase, would be heavily handicapped. She will not, as a
rule, reach his standard, and, if she endeavors to do so, it will be at the
expense of her health. The brain and nervous system, like other or-
gans, if overworked, become the centers of activity, and are fatigued ;
this increases existing susceptibility, and hence arise symptoms of
nervousness, hysteria, hypochondriasis, and insanity. These acting on
the body produce emaciation and other diseases, the offspring of an
exhausted constitution.

The conclusion, then, to be drawn from this section is that, in ad-
dition to the natural affectability of her character, this condition in
woman is fostered and augmented by the artificial exigencies of civil-
ized life ; that, whereas idleness and want of occupation are the great-
est sources of many diseases peculiar to the sex, the opposite extreme
of mental strain is equally prejudicial.

We have endeavored, in the brief space allotted us, to point out
the physical and intellectual capacities of woman, and in consequence
the disposition and instincts which nature has implanted in her. This
fundamental difference between the sexes, Ave have seen, is not due to
education or special cultivation, but to a primary development of the
system, each having those peculiarities best fitted for the part it has
been born to fulfill. There can therefore be little doubt that the most
natural and healthy condition for a woman is a properly assorted mar-
riage, in which she has children, with whom she has useful and con-
genial occupation, and by whom all her sympathies and best instincts
are developed. In modern times great and laudable efforts are being
made to effect an improvement in the higher education of women,
and, as there are many who either from choice or circumstances can
not occupy that position which it is the pride of most to i30ssess, a
movement has been made whereby they may earn an independent
livelihood by the exercise of their mental faculties. We are informed
by energetic and doubtless well-meaning speakers from the platform,
that women have hitherto been under subjection, that they should
emancipate themselves, that their intellect is as good as if not better
than that of men, and that they are as capable as men are of the
highest mental culture, and of profiting and distinguishing themselves
thereby. It is unquestionable that suitable occupation and education
are of the highest importance to the well-being of women, and that
all due encouragement should be given to those who endeavor to pro-
vide for them an intelligent interest in life. But in avoiding Scylla
care must be taken not to drift into Charybdis. To say that the ma-
jority of women are fit to cope successfully with men in the Intel-

HYGIENE IN THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN. 529

lectual world would, we believe, for the preceding reasons, be a most
injurious doctrine, and lead to disastrous results. Our text, the pupil-
teacher, is an example. A young girl, between the ages of fourteen
and twenty-one, the most anxious and important period in her whole
life, when her mental and physical constitution is undergoing devel-
opment, is put under a severe intellectual strain. She is irritated and
worried all day by teaching children, she is fatigued by hard study,
and is rendered constantly anxious by the frequently recurring exami-
nations on which her reputation, and it may be her living, depends.
Such a career does not as a rule break down the young man, but in a
large number of cases it completely unhinges the woman. She, in fact,
is compelled to perform the work of a man without having his organic
basis to depend on, and hence, as a consequence, her entire system
suffers. So it is with women who follow other pursuits requiring se-
vere mental application ; they age before their time, and finally suc-
cumb. It is true that men occasionally give way under the same
ordeal, but these are comparatively the exception, and this is as
often brought about by the assistance of other circumstances as by
work alone. It is also a fact that there are some women who, over-
coming all difficulties, have fully acquitted themselves of the high-
est mental exertions without injury, thus proving themselves to be
of masculine capacity. Whether for these the Church, the bar, and
physic are to throw oj^en their arms, I leave for others to decide ;
but that the majority of the sex would be benefited by a syste-
matic encouragement to follow learned professions and other la-
borious callings, would be, we think, physiologically and practically
an error.

How unmarried women who require to earn their living are to do
so by the exercise of then- intellectual faculties, is one of the great
problems of the day, and by far too extensive a subject to discuss at
present. Our aim has been to point out that in controversies on the
question the medical aspect of the case is frequently lost sight of, and
it is forgotten that, in the competition for life, woman is the weaker
vessel, and liable to be broken when too roughly handled. Sage phi-
losophers may speculate what ages may effect by evolution, but, taking
woman as we find her, we believe that her welfare is to be consulted,
not by encouraging her to take an independent position in life and by
fostering a contempt for marriage, which is now the professed ten-
dency of the strong-minded young lady, but by educating her in such
a judicious and sensible manner as will make her a good wife, mother,
and useful member of society, which is unfortunately not the inclina-
tion of the present age. If this were more systematically carried out,
there would be fewer single women under the necessity of working
for their own living ; the outcry in behalf of these unappropriated
blessings would be modified, and on entering the marriage state, which
is the happiest as well as the healthiest condition, they would place

TOL. XVI.— 34

530

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

themselves in the position that it is intended by Nature they should
occupy.

" . . . . Seeing either sex alone

Is half itself, and in true marriage lies

Nor equal, nor unequal ; each fulfills

Defect in each, and always thought in thought.

Purpose in purpose, -will in will, they grow,

The single pure and perfect animal,

The two-celled heart heating with one fall stroke

Life."

Sanitary Record.

AETESIAN WELLS AND THE GEEAT SAHAKA.

By Lieutenant SEATON SCHEOEDEE, U. S. N.

OF late years public attention has been somewhat drawn to the
great North African Desert. Mainly instrumental in directing
thither even the eyes and ears of idle curiosity have been the two
plans for flooding portions of that region. Of these plans, the French
and the English, the former has assumed the more definite shape,
though both are the subject of scientific and practical inquiry.

It may be questioned if there is not another means of improvement,
more gradual, perhaps, but more sure and in many ways superior to the
creation of an inland sea — superior in point of economy, and more
widely diffused as well as more lasting benefits. Although our knowl-
edge of the geological and historical part of the Sahara, and of its
constitution, hydrography, and climate, is scarcely extended enough to
prophesy confidently as to its future, yet it may be advanced that, if
the desert is extending and the population decreasing, it is greatly due
to the bigotry, hostility, and laziness of the Saharan tribes. The one
requisite is water, whence the projects of supplying that need from the
ocean. Perhaps it may be obtained otherwise, in comparatively ho-
moeopathic doses it is true, but fresh, and in such manner as to bring
about grander results.

That water is not wanting in the Sahara is proved by the wells
dotted along the routes of caravans. These are very shallow, and the
water they afford is generally brackish and muddy, showing that they
only reached parasitic sources and not the main subterranean sheets ;
but they are only the hui-ried work of passing caravans, whose sole
thought was to supply the needs of the moment and reach the oases
where very old wells have been found having a depth of over two
hundred and fifty feet. It is a curious fact, too, well attested, that the
number of wells has been greatly reduced by the Saharans filling up
many of them as a means of defense against dreaded invasion.

These wells date back to the time of the first relations between the

ARTESIAN WELLS AND THE GREAT SAHARA. 531

blacks of Sooclan and the vai'ious peoples of white race driven into the
desert by successive invaders. Diodorus, a priest of Tarsus in the
fourth century, speaking of the great oasis in the desert forty leagues
from the Egyptian frontier, mentions it being irrigated, not by rivers
nor by rains, but by springs that issue from the ground not sponta-
neously, nor in consequence of the rains sinking into the ground, but
by great labor on the part of the inhabitants. Several Avells alluded
to by him have been cleared since 1849 by a French chemist, M. Ayme,
who established alum-factories in two Egyptian oases. These old wells
were fitted with a stone j)ear-shaped valve by which the issue could be
regulated.

About the middle of the sixth century, Olympiodorus of Alexan-
dria speaks of wells five hundred cubits deep. Ai'abian writers in the
middle ages describe them in detail ; their great historian, Ibn Khal-
doun, speaking of the spouting wells of the Sahara, considers them " a
miraculous fact."

The origin of these subterranean waters is now well known. The
streams flowing down the southern slopes of the Atlas Mountains of
Morocco, Algeria, and Tunis, and on all sides of the Tibesti, Hogar,
and other Saharan mountains, quickly disappear through the sands.
M. Vivien de Saint-Martin, in "Le Nord de I'Afrique dans I'anti-
quite," says that, " under the sandy crust through which the waters
necessarily sink, layers of clay have been found everywhere at various
depths underground, where sheets of water make actual rivers."

The natural question then arises as to what causes these streams ;
how the parched desert furnishes rivers ? Rains are quite abundant
on the summits of the mountams — so much so that, in winter esi^ecially,
the streams attain considerable proportions. The Sahara experiences
at times tremendous storms and torrents of rain that in a few moments
cause violent freshets. Dr. Barth, in his " Reisen in Nord und Central
Afrika," cites among others a deluge that he witnessed at Tintagoda
in latitude 19°. In less than an hour after a heavy rainfall on the
mountain a sheet of water was rushing by with such force as to carry
away herds of cattle and uproot trees ; it covered to a considerable
depth the whole valley, over a mile broad. In "Les Touaregs du
]^ord," M. Duveyrier says : " I had occasion on the 30th of January,
1861, while at Oursel, at the foot of the Tasli Mountains, to observe
the overflowing of one of the numerous torrents that descend from
that mountain. The rapidity of the stream was a metre a second, and
the water brought down such alluvia that afterward the Touaregs
could sow cereals where before there had been no arable ground."
Further on the same traveler says : " In the spring of 1862 a storm of
rain falling on the southern slopes of the Ahaggar brought such quan-
tities of water into the valleys of Idjeloudjal and Tarhit that a portion
of the mountain was carried away. The action of the water was so
rapid as to sweep away and destroy an entire tribe encamped at the

532 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

opening of the valleys." Also : " Up to 1856, on the left bank of the
Ouadi Titersin, there had been a line of downs called Arekka-n-Bodelka
so high that camels had been unable to cross them. A freshet in
the Ouadi came with such force as to sweep away the entire mass com-
posing the downs."

As M. Duveyrier says, the alluvial deposits from the Saharan tor-
rents are often extremely fertile. At Biskra, at the time of the French
occupation of that place (1844), a layer two yards in thickness of a
rich loam was found on an ancient pillar of Roman construction.

The existence of subterranean sheets of water being well demon-
strated, and a rude example being set by the untaught natives, it only
remained to follow that example on the grander scale made possible
by the advancement of science, and determine what benefits could be
derived from these hidden treasures. Dr. Maurin enunciated, "Dig
an artesian well in the region of sands, and the sands will become
fixed by vegetation, and a forest of palms will soon stand where there
had been a moving plain." And his saying is well borne out by nu-
merous facts. In 1872 an old marabout (Mussulman devotee or saint)
dug a well, planted palm-trees, and established himself at a place now
called Tendouf ; in less than a year it had become an important com-
mercial center !

The first attempt at boring an artesian well on Algerian soil was in
the plain of Oran, on the 7th of December, 1844. It was fruitless,
although carried to a depth of 322 feet. A second attempt was made
on the 14th of May, 1845, at Arzeu, and was likewise given up at 580
feet. Some time after the occupation of Biskra, a boring was made
there to 270 feet : no result. It seemed a hopeless task to find living
water, although it was well known that many years before the Arabs
had had artesian wells.

General Desvaux, however, commanding the subdivision of Batna,
kept studying assiduously to find means of fertilizing the barren re-
gions around him. The perusal of several works by Tournel, by Ber-
brugger, by Prax, as well as a memoir of M. Dubocq published in
1853, convinced him that boring was destined to play an important
part in the solution of the problem that so occupied him. In 1854 he
chanced to be on the summit of a sand-hill near his camp, and over-
looking the entire oasis of Sidi Rached. He saw that luxuriant vege-
tation, and turning away was confronted by the sterile waste on the
other side. More than ever struck by the contrast, he sent for the
sheik and questioned him, and learned that all the northern wells had
become filled in with sand, that the parasite waters prevented digging
any more, and that the entire population, broken-hearted, were look-
ing forward to leaving their homes. As soon as possible he communi-
cated with Marshal Randon, Governor-General of Algeria, and was
authorized by him to commence a systematic search for water in the
Sahara.

ARTESIAN WELLS AND THE GREAT SAHARA. 533

His project was then twofold : 1. To dig new wells in the Oued
Rhir, give new life to the oases then beginning to yield to the invad-
iiio- sterility, and so win the gratitude of their population : 2. To re-
vive the sandy steppes between that river and Biskra, open the desert
\o commerce as far as Ouargla or possibly Touat, so that French troops
or isolated travelers could enter that region without the fear of dying
of thirst.

He experienced some delay, of course, but finally in 1856 the mate-
rial arrived at Tamerna, and on the 1st of May of that year the first
blow was struck by Ali-Bey, the Caid of Tuggurt. The work was
pushed rapidly forward, and on the 9th of June water issued in vol-
umes. Lieutenant Rose, of the French army, describes the scene as
being most affecting, comparing it to the miracle of Moses drawing
water from the rock by the touch of his rod ; the old skeik prostrates
himself, mothers bathe their children in it, and it is blessed and named
the Fountain of Peace. The issue of water was 69,725 gallons a day,
temperature of 70° Fahr.

The news spread like wildfire, and the commandant of the prov-
ince of Constantine was besieged with petitions from other oases to do
as well by them. In eight years, 1856 to 1864, the French Govern-
ment established in that vicinity (between the Ziban oases and the
river Rhir) seventy-two artesian wells, of which twenty-four had been
previously abandoned in course of execution by the natives. They
cost altogether 290,000 francs (155,970), had an aggregate depth of
boring of 11,106 feet and a total first issue of 17,600 gallons per min-
ute. The deepest was at Chegga, 364 feet ; the least depth at which
water was found was twenty feet. The ordinary depth was between
160 and 225 feet, and the average temperature 76° Fahr. The largest
issue of any was 1,267 gallons a minute from that of Sidi Amran, 255
feet deep. In 1878 there were in Algeria 22,360 metres of wells,
yielding 22,000 litres of water a second ; their total cost was 2,350,000
francs.

The ground of the Sahara is so impregnated with various salts that
the water of these wells, pure at first, becomes temporarily brackish.
Analyses made by MM. Ville, Vatonne, and De Marigny show that
each litre contained one to three grammes of sulphate of soda, one to
two grammes sulphate of lime, besides chloride of soda, various salts
of magnesium, and carbonate of lime.

A peculiarity of the wells is that tiny little fish, resembling small
whitebait, are brought up in the water. They were first noticed by
General Zickel in the water spouting from the well of Ain-Tala, which
is 145 feet deep. The length of these little creatures does not exceed
one and a quarter inch. Their eyes are well shaped, although they
emerge froni regions so dark. They are malacopterygians, of the
species Cyx.>Tinodon cyanocaster. Similar specimens have been found
in some of the ancient wells of Egypt that were cleared by M. Ayme ;

534 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

as these, in all probability came from the Nile, and as the sand exca-
vated from those wells is much the same as that of the Algerian bor-
ings, it is supposed that in both cases the fish infiltrate through with
the water to the subterranean sheets.

It must not be supposed that, once the wells are dug, all labor is at
an end. M. Charles Grad, who visited the region in January, 1872,
found that several had ceased flowing, and that the greater part had a
less issue. A few, on the other hand, he found yielded a greater vol-
ume than at first. He studied the matter, as did also M. Ludovic
Ville, Directeur des Mines d'Algerie. The causes of the lessening of
the flow were found to be the crashing-in of the tubes, the accumula-
tion of sand in them, and the increase in the number of the wells,
which caused too great a drain on the reservoirs. The life of the wells
there without repairs seems to be twenty-five years ; some have been
known to last eighty without being cleaned.

The lesson to be drawn from this is expressed by the old saying,
" Waste not, want not." Wherever it is possible to dam up the run-
ning streams of winter and make a reservoir for the summer, it should
be done, and artesian borings made where such streams are not avail-
able. Among other places, M. Grad maintained that the fertile basin
of the Hodna, situated on the Algerian jjlateau, would be the scene of
that kind of work. These dams have already been extensively built
in the province of Oran.

In the Sahara, however, the absence of superficial streams renders
artesian borings of paramount importance. They will be limited there
not only by the underground supply, but in some places by the hostil-
ity of the nomadic tribes who oppose their immediate construction.
To what extent they can be relied on to reclaim desert-land is still an
open question, but at the very least they can be permanently distrib-
uted along the routes of caravans that penetrate into the southern
solitude, and with palm-trees planted about them form shady resting-
places. Up to 1872 one hundred and fifty thousand palms had been
planted in the vicinity of the many wells dug in Algeria ; in their
shade, after the salty ground had been well washed by the flow of
water, vegetables and grain were found to thrive. M. Ville, who has
made such a special study of the water of the Sahara, announces that,
as a rule, a well will water six times as many palms as it gives out
litres per minute.

Not a few minds dwelt many years ago upon the possibility of
establishing routes across the desert, but that was generally consid-
ered chimerical when account was taken of its dangers, known and un-
known, the hostility of the races that inhabit it, the length of the
marches under a burning sun, over a burning sand, relying upon occa-
sional wells for water, and liable to utter destruction if Saught in the
path of one of those terrific storms. Still, having a colony on the
north coast of the continent and another on the west coast, it is not to

ARTESIAN WELLS AND THE GREAT SAHARA. 535

ha wondered at that the French, with their indisputable energy, should
have thought of uniting them overland. More especially does it seem
natural in the early days of steam navigation. Nowadays, when car-
goes can be sent from Oran to Saint-Louis (Senegal) in eight to ten
days for eight dollars or less a ton, there is no great reason for send-
ing caravans there, whose best time in a straight line would be three
months and a half. Among the enthusiasts on that question may be
mentioned General Faidherbe, some time Governor of Senegal, who
displayed a wonderful amount of energy in the matter. Others were
not wanting, including several explorers ; the efforts of the latter,
however, were rather more in the interests of science than material
benefits.

It was about the year 1850 that the attention of the Algerian
Government began to be drawn to the project of facilitating communi-
cation across the desert. In 1854 the Geographical Society of Paris
offered a special reward for any one who should go from one colony
to the other via Timbuctoo. In 1858 the Algerian Historical Society
made a special order of the day a study on the best route and method
of reaching Soodan. Finally, in 1873, a company was formed in Al-
giers, with a capital of thirty thousand francs, and the rather vague
name of " Company for the Encouragement of Commercial Explorations
in the Sahara." The intention of this company seemed to be to form
at Laghouat an entrepot for merchandise suitable to the southern
tribes, and to try to draw to Algeria a part of the traffic of Morocco
and Tripoli. The Algerian Historical Society had recommended some-
what similar measures in 1860, but they were not carried out — the
cause of the failure being attributed to the lack of French agents out-
side the Algerian frontier. That indefatigible explorer M. Duveyrier,
in 1862, proposed a route following the subterranean course of the
Igharghar River southward, different from the four routes generally
taken by caravans; the Azdjer chiefs, to w^hose interest it is to encour-
age traffic across the desert, offered to guarantee the security of the
expedition, and the Algerian Government promised to render it prac-
ticable by wells. In 1867 an expedition was actually organized, but
was abandoned for reasons not generally known.

Since then the project seems to have been dropped, only to be re-
vived again under a different form. The question of a trans-Saharan
railroad has been started, which should not astonish us in America who
now think nothing of going from New York to San Francisco in less
than a week. M. Paul de Soleillet was among the first to propose the
construction of a railroad from Algiers to Timbuctoo, and thence to
Saint-Louis ; in 1872 he attempted to perform that journey to explore
the route, but he got no farther than the oasis of Insalah, about six
hundred miles south of Algiers, being stopped by the natives. It
would seem that a more practicable route would be found farther east,
clear of the Tademayt and Ahaggad plateaux, of which the latter at-

536 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tains an elevation of over four thousand feet. The journeys of Barth
and Yogel discovered that, at a short distance south of Tripoli, a series
of terraces lead gradually to the vast plains of the desert, where there
are only moderate undulations with occasional ravines and isolated
masses of rock to Soodan. The southern part of the route was over
plains slightly inclined southward. The greatest height observed in
that region was six hundred metres.

M. Dupouchel, Ingenieur en chef des Fonts et Chaussees, went in
1877 to examine the ground west of the Ahaggad, and study the prac-
ticability of opening a railway between Algeria and the valley of the
Niger of Soodan. The results of his examinations have appeared in
book form, accompanied with maps and drawings. The route that he
recommends commences at Algiers, and passes by Afreville, Boghari,
Laghouat, and the oases of Touat, finally striking the Niger at Bamba,
a short distance east of Timbuctoo. An eastern branch would descend
that river to longitude 2° east, and would run from there toward the
Tchad Lake. A western branch would ascend the Niger as far as
Kouma, and then run to Saint-Louis, The total length of the line
from Algiers to the Niger, deducting the part already constructed to
Afreville, would be about 1,700 miles, of which the total cost is esti-
mated at 400,000,000 francs (about $77,000,000). This is 115,000 less
per mile than the average of all the railroads built in the United States
during the year 1874, and $60,000 less per mile than the cost of the
Central Pacific. President Grevy has recently been written to, and
urged to appoint a commission to examine a proposal to construct that
railroad.

It will readily be seen what an important element in the construc-
tion of a railway will be the power to supply water from underground
as the work progresses. But there are enthusiasts who maintain that
the object now to be accomplished is not simply the establishing of
communication across the desert, nor the submerging of one very
small portion for the benefit of another small portion, but no more nor
less than the reclaiming — the fertilization — of the whole Sahara. This,
indeed, sounds rash, and yet no less an authority than Gerhard Rohlfs,
who has explored greater areas of Sahara than any other European, and
whose journey from Tripoli to Rhadames and Fezzau won him a gold
medal from the Royal Geographical Society of London, sustains the
idea by saying that Nature would soon begin to assist man in the
herculean undertaking. According to this traveler, three distinct zones
separate the center of the desert from the neighboring lands of the
Tchad Lake in the south ; in the third or northernmost of these are im-
mense forests of mimosas, where the ground is characterized by the
absence of the smallest stone, and which, according to the aborigines, ex-
tend from Egypt to Timbuctoo, covering the Kordof an, the Darf oor, the
Kamen, and the country of the Touaregs. Professor Rohlfs advances
the theory that these forests are encroaching on the desert, and that in

ARTESIAN WELLS AND THE GREAT SAHARA. 537

time the Sahara will disappear under a vegetation of which the mimo-
sas are the forerunner. "Thus," he adds, "while certain timorous
spirits fear that the earth may some day be overpeopled, Nature is si-
lently transforming the soil where man will in the future be abl? to
pitch his tent. The Sahara will be covered with green trees, new
lakes will be formed, and the rivers whose dry beds now fill the trav-
eler with horror will be running streams of limpid water as abundant
as that of the great streams of Europe."

Such a return to what seems pretty certain to have been the state
of things ages ago would be most extraordinary without the help of
man. The vast tract comprised between the sixteenth and thirtieth
parallels of latitude, and extending from the Atlantic to the valley of
the Nile, once fertile, became the arid waste of to-day mainly through
neglect. A M. Largeau in 1874 visited the valley of the Igharghar,
with the intention of branching off to Rhadames to study the com-
merce of that oasis and test the practicability of diverting to Algeria
the caravans that come there by the central route from Soodan. He
questioned the chambas on the causes of the drying of the great
Saharan streams, and found that all agreed in saying that these dead
rivers once ran full through a country more fertile than the Tell (the
region north of the Atlas Mountain's crest), but could only explain it by
legends more interesting than satisfactory.

M. Largeau gives the following explanation of the change : " It is
known that pastoral people have always been great destroyers of for-
ests, for they need large spaces of clear ground to feed the flocks that
form their wealth and to promote security against the wild beasts that
lurk in forests. Even noAV the Algerian Arabs are seen firing the
woods to enlai-ge the narrow limits imposed upon them by colonization.
So, although the great Saharan streams have not been explored to their
sources, yet it is known that they commence on the bare plateaux that
are but the skeletons of heights once wooded and fertile. All accounts
of the inhabitants of these regions agree on that point. Consequent
upon the destruction of the forests the periodical rains were replaced
by rare and short though violent storms, the waters from w^hich, instead
of soaking in as in past ages, slip by on the rocky masses, carrying
away the rich surface mold, and bring about the drying of the springs,
and, as a direct consequence, of the rivers."

An admission of this theory leads the way easily and hopefiilly to
the prophecy of Professor Rohlfs, and raises the question whether it
would not be better on all accounts to let the salt waters of the Medi-
terranean circulate in their own proper bed and pursue the more eco-
nomical work of conquering the desert by assistance from under-
ground. Nearly all the fluvial network of the Algerian Sahara con-
verges toward the Igharghar. Formed by the confluence of several
small streams on the slopes of the Ahaggar, it flows northward, and
soon sinks through the light sands and pursues its underground course

538 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

to the western part of the basin that the French contemplate inun-
dating, bearing in that part of its course the name of Oued Rihr, or river
Rihr. Into this same depression flows another subterranean stream,
the Oued Djeddi, which has its sources on the plateaux of Laghouat in
the west. The two streams in all probability united in past ages, and
possibly even connected with the Mediterranean. However that may
be, there seems little doubt that water in considerable quantities may
be found by boring in the dry beds of these two streams. M. Lar-
geau saw several wells in that of the Igharghar, only twenty-five feet
deep, giving very sweet water, of a temperature of 70° Fahr.

With this in consideration, and the example of the marabout of
Tendouf still in mind, it would seem possible not only to fertilize large
areas of Algerian soil, but to bore our way as it were up the slopes of
the Ahaggar and gradually restore the rain-causing forests of M. Lar-
geau, which in their turn might attack the desert from the center, as
Professor Rohlf's mimosas do from the south.

The lowest estimate of the cost of inundating the depressions in
the Algerian Sahara being $5,790,00^, we see that that sum otherwise
appropriated would j^ay for boring 7,400 wells averaging 154 feet in
depth, assuming the cost per foot to be the same as south of the Ziban
oases. Allowing the issue to be only one half that of the wells near
Biskra, the total flow would be 1,100,000 gallons per minute, which,
according to M. Ville, would suffice for the irrigation of about 24,-
600,000 palms. One tenth of this labor and expense would produce
great results.

So far facts and discussion alike have been limited to the region
bordering upon Algeria and Tunis. This is because explorations have
naturally been carried on there somewhat to the exclusion of the Tri-
politan neighborhood, and not because similar causes and effects may
not be found farther east. There is every reason to believe that the des-
olate region bordering the south shore of the Mediterranean between
the tenth and twenty-fifth meridians is destined to experience an equal
improvement with the western Sahara. The writer of this article, who
was one of a party of officers of the United States Navy engaged in
surveying along that coast in 1878, had occasion to observe in several
places, notably at Zouaga near Tripoli, and along the shores of the
Gulf of Sidra (Syrtis Major), hottest of the hot and driest of the dry,
that water was to be had by digging but a short distance. He noticed,
also, not a few oases just on the sandy horizon, that bespoke the pres-
ence of the life-giving element. An examination of the map shows
many more. While this would not be very convincing proof to a
skeptical mind, in the absence of organized investigation, it may at
least be considered encouraging. The day is not far distant, however,
when certain knowledge will confirm or disprove hazardous opinions.
The various geographical societies of the world have ceased to let the
matter rest, and Professor Rohlfs is even now in charge of an expedi-

ARTESIAN WELLS AND THE GREAT SAHARA. 539

tion sent out by the German African Society. Last January he was
two hundred and fifty miles south of Tripoli, at the foot of the Black
Mountains ; recent advices show him to be at Benghazi, on the eastern
shore of the Gulf of Sidra. Accounts of the expedition have not yet
come to hand.

In the event of an increase in the commercial importance of Xorth-
ern Africa, whether by inland seas, artesian wells, or railroads, or all
three, means of transportation to and along the seaboard and thence to
foreign ports will not be lacking. As early as 1857 a railway system
was decided upon for Algeria, which included a shore-line, ^dth branches
inland to various points. The construction of this network is jiracti-
cally completed. On the 1st of January, 1879, there were three hun-
dred and thirty miles of railroad in that colony. A line has also been
started to connect Constantine with the city of Tunis, the bondholders
being guaranteed six per cent, interest by the French Government.
This will probably be completed in a year. In Morocco the develop-
ment of roads is not great : we can not expect very much anyhow
from that sultantate, as present laws forbid the exportation of cereals,
for fear of a recurrence of the famine. In the province of Tripoli but
little is needed now ; when the time comes it will be easy work to build
a railroad in so flat a country.

In the matter of ports, Algeria points with pardonable pride to Al-
giers, Oran, Arzeu, Philippeville, Bona, and several minor harbors
that have been made secure by artificial works. The first mentioned
was begun in 1530 by Bab Aroudj {Anglice Barbarossa) and his Chris-
tian slaves, and finished by Christians guiding the labor of that pirate's
descendants. Tunis boasts of a magnificent lake at Bizerta, close to
the sea ; a little dredging in the short, narrow channel leading out
would transform it into an unparalleled harbor for ironclads, of which
both Germany and Italy are said to be particularly well aware. In
Tunis Bay a single inexpensive breakwater, built in only six fathoms
depth, would afford perfect shelter. Farther south and east, Sphax
roadstead only wants ships to fill it, and Surkennis only the Bey's or-
der to welcome foreign vessels to which it is now closed. In the prov-
ince of Tripoli may be mentioned Tripoli Port, Menelaus Bay in the
Gulf of Bombah, Marsa Euharit, Marsa Tebruk, all good natural har-
bors, or needing but insignificant works to render them secure. In
Egypt it is unnecessary to mention the splendid port of Alexandria.

The French are the pioneers in the northern part of the African
Continent, and it would seem desirable for them to extend their sway
to the eastward of Cape Roux. That, however, would cause diplomatic
complications : England, Germany, and Italy would surely protest
against any projects of annexation. But there is still scope for them
in the desert. The nomadic tribes will hardly stop the southward
course of empire when French industry and capital fan the breeze of
progress.

540 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

THE OKIGIISr OF THE GYPSIES.

IT has been repeated, until the remark has become accepted as a sort
of truism, that the gypsies are a mysterious race, and that nothing
is known of their origin. And a few years ago this was true ; but
within those years so much has been discovered that at present there
is really no more mystery attached to the beginning of these nomads
than is peculiar to many other peoples. What these discoveries or
grounds of belief are we shall proceed to give briefly, our limits not
permitting the detailed citation of authorities. First, then, there ap-
pears to be every reason for believing with Captain Richard Burton
that the Jats of Northwestern India furnished so large a proportion of
the emigrants or exiles who, from the tenth century, went out of India
westward, that there is very little risk in assuming it as an hypothesis,
at least, that they formed the Hauptstamm of the gypsies of Europe.
What other elements entered into these, with whom we are all famil-
iar, will be considered presently. These gypsies came from India,
where caste is established and callings are hereditary even among out-
castes. It is not assuming too much to suppose that, as they evinced
a marked aptitude for certain pursuits and an inveterate attachment
to certain habits, their ancestors had in these respects resembled them
for ages. These pursuits and habits were, that —

They were tinkers, smiths, and farriers.

They dealt in horses, and were naturally familiar with them.

They were without religion.

They were unscrupulous thieves.

Their women were fortune-tellers, especially by chiromancy.

They ate without scruple animals which had died a natural death,
being especially fond of the pig, which, w^hen it has thus been
"butchered by God," is still regarded even by the most prosperous
gypsies in England as a delicacy.

They flayed animals, carried corpses, and showed such aptness for
these and similar detested callings that in several European countries
they long monopolized them.

They made and sold mats, baskets, and small articles of wood.

They have shown great skill as dancers, musicians, singers, acro-
bats ; and it is a rule almost without exception that there is hardly a
traveling company of such performers, or a theatre in Europe or x\mer-
ica, in which there is not at least one person with some Romany blood.

Their hair remains black to advanced age, and they retain it longer
than do Europeans or ordinary Orientals.

They speak an Aryan tongue, which agrees in the main with that of
the Jats, but which contains words gathered from other Indian sources.

Admitting these as the peculiar pursuits of the race, the next step

THE ORIGIN OF THE GYPSIES. 541

should be to consider what are the principal nomadic tribes of gypsies
in India and Persia, and how far their occupations agree with those of
the Romany of Europe, That the Jats probably supplied the main
stock has been admitted. This was a bold race of Northwestern India
which at one time had such power as to obtain important victories over
the Caliphs. They were broken and dispersed in the eleventh century
by Mahmoud, many thousands of them wandering to the West. They
were without religion, " of the horse, horsey," and notorious thieves.
In this they agree with the European gypsy. But they are not habit-
ual eaters of mullo halor, or " dead pork " ; they do not devour every-
thing like dogs. We can not ascei'tain that the Jat is specially a
musician, a dancer, a mat- and basket-maker, a rope-dancer, a bear-
leader, or a peddler. We do not know whether they are peculiar in
India among the Indians for keeping their hair unchanged to old age,
as do pure-blood English gypsies. All of these things are, however,
markedly characteristic of certain different kinds of wanderers or gyp-
sies in India. From this we conclude, hypothetically, that the Jat
warriors were supplemented by other tribes ; chief among these may
have been the Dom.

The Doms are a race of gypsies found in Central India to the far
northern frontier, where a portion of their early ancestry appear as the
Domarr, and are supposed to be pre- Aryan. In " The People of In-
dia," edited by J. Forbes Watson and J. W. Kaye (India Museum,
1868), we are told that the appearance and modes of life of the Doms
indicate a marked difference from those who surround them (in Behar).
The Hindoos admit their claim to antiquity. Their designation in the
Shastras is sopxichh, meaning dog-eater. They are wanderers, they
make baskets and mats, and are inveterate drinkers of spirits, spending
all their earnings on it. They have almost a monopoly as to burning
corpses and handling all dead bodies. They eat all animals which
have died a natural death, and are jjarticularly fond of pork of this
description. "Notwithstanding profligate habits, many of them at-
tain the age of eighty or ninety ; and it is not till sixty or sixty-five
that their hair begins to get white." Travelers speak of them as
"gypsies." The Domarr are a mountain race, nomads, shepherds,
and robbers. A specimen which we have of their language would,
with the exception of one word, which is probably an error of the
transcriber, be intelligible to any English gypsy, and be called pure
Romany. Finally, the ordinary Dom calls himself a Dom, his wife
a Domni, and the being a Dom, or the collective gypsydom, Dom-
nipana, D in Hindostani is found as r in English gypsy speech — e, g,,
dot, a wooden spoon, is known in Europe as roi. Now, in common
Romany we have, even in Loudon —

Rom A gypsy.

Romni A gypsy wife.

Eomnipen Gypsydom.

542 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Of this word rom we shall have more to say. It may be observed that
there are in the Indian Bom certain distinctly marked and degrading
features, characteristic of the Euro^Dean gypsy, which are out of keep-
ing with the habits of warriors, and of a daring Aryan race which
withstood the Caliphs. Grubbing in filth as if by instinct, handling
corpses, making baskets, eating carrion, living for drunkenness, does
not agree with anything we can learn of the J fits. Yet the European
gypsies are all this, and at the same time " horsey " like the Jats. Is
it not extremely probable that during the " out-wandering " the Dom
communicated his name and habits to his fellow emigrants ?

The marked musical talent characteristic of the Slavonian and
other European gypsies appears to link them with the Luri of Persia.
These are distinctly gypsies ; that is to say, they are wanderers,
thieves, fortune-tellers, and minstrels. The " Shah-Nameh " of Firdusi
tells us that about the year 420 a. d., Shankal, the Maharajah of India,
sent to Behram Gour, a ruler of the Sassanian dynasty in Persia, ten
thousand minstrels, male and female, called Luri. Though lands were
allotted to them, with corn and cattle, they became from the beginning
irreclaimable vagabonds. Of their descendants, as they now exist. Sir
Henry Pottinger says ("Travels in Beloochistan and Scinde," p.
153) : " They bear a marked affinity to the gypsies of Europe. They
speak a dialect peculiar to themselves, have a king to each troupe, and
are notorious for kidnapping and pilfering. Their principal pastimes
are drinking, dancing, and music. . . . They are invariably attended
by half a dozen bears and monkeys that are broke in to perform all
manner of grotesque tricks. In each company there are always two
or three members who profess .... modes of divining which procure
them a ready admission into every society." This account, especially
with the mention of trained bears and monkeys, identifies them with
the Ricinari, or bear-leading gypsies of Syria (also called Niiri), Tur-
key, and Roumania. A party of these lately came to England. We
have seen these Syrian Ricinari in Egypt. They are unquestionably
gypsies, and it is probable that many of them accompanied the early
migration of Jats and Doms.

The Nats or Nuts are Indian wanderers, who, as Dr. J. Forbes "Wat-
son declares, in the " The People of India," " correspond to the Euro-
pean gypsy tribes," and were in their origin probably identical with the
Luri. They are musicians, dancers, conjurers, acrobats, fortune-tellers,
blacksmiths, robbers, and dwellers in tents. They eat everything, ex-
cept garlic. There are also in India the Banjari, who are spoken of
by travelers as " gypsies." They are traveling merchants or peddlers.
Among all of these wanderers there is a current slang of the roads, as
in England. This slang extends even into Persia. Each tribe has its
own, but the general name for it is Horn.

It has never been pointed out, however, that there is in Northern
and Central India a distinct tribe, which is regarded even by the Nuts

THE ORIGIN OF THE GYPSIES. 543

and Doms and Jats themselves, as peculiarly and distinctly gypsy.
We have met in London with a poor Mohammedan Hindoo of Cal-
cutta. This man had in his youth lived Tvath these wanderers, and
been, in fact, one of them. He had also, as is comman with intelli-
gent Mohammedans, written his autobiography, embodying in it a
vocabulary of the Indian gypsy language. This MS. had unfortu-
nately been burned by his English wife, who informed us that she had
done so " because she was tired of seeing a book lying about which she
could not understand." With the assistance of an eminent Oriental
scholar who is perfectly familiar with both Hindostani and Romany,
this man was carefully examined. He declared that these were the
real gypsies of India, " like English gypsies here." " People in India
called them Trablus or Syrians, a misapplied word, derived from a
town in Syria, which in turn bears the Arabic name for Tripoli, But
they were, as he was certain, pure Hindoos and not Syi'ian gypsies.
They had a peculiar language, and called both this tongue and them-
selves Bom. In it bread was called manro." Manro is all over Europe
the gypsy word for bread. In English Romany it is softened into
7ndro or morro. Captain Burton has since informed us that manro is
the Afghan word for bread ; but this our ex-gypsy did not know. He
merely said that he did not know it in any Indian dialect except that
of the Rom, and that Rom was the general slang of the road, derived,
as he. supposed, from the Trablus.

These are, then, the very gypsies of gypsies in India. They are
thieves, fortune-tellers, and vagrants. But whether they have or had
any connection with the migration to the West we can not establish.
Their language and their name would seem to indicate it ; but then it
must be borne in mind that the word Rom, like Dom, is one of wide
dissemination, Dum being a Syrian gypsy word for the race. And the
very great majority of even English gypsy words are Hindi, with an ad-
mixture of Persian, and not belonging to a slang of any kind — as in
India, churi is a knife, 7iaJc the nose, balia hairs, and so on, with others
which would be among the first to be furnished with slang equivalents.
And yet these very gypsies are Rom, and the wife is a Romni, and they
use words which are not Hindoo in common with European gypsies.
It is therefore not improbable that in these Trablus, so called through
popular ignorance, as they are called Tartars in Egypt and Germany,
we have a portion at least of the real stock. It is to be desii-ed that
some resident in India would investigate the Trablus.

Next to the word Rom itself, the most interesting in Romany is
Zingan, or Tchenkan, which is used in twenty or thirty different
foi-ms by the people of every country, except England, to indicate
the gypsy. An incredible amount of far-fetched erudition has been
wasted in pursuing this philological ignis-fatims. That there are
leather-working and saddle-working gypsies in Persia who call them-
selves Zingan is a fair basis for an origin of the word ; but then there

544 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

are Tchangar gypsies of Jat affinity in the Punjaub. Wondei-ful it is
that, in this war of words, no philologist has paid any attention to
what the gypsies themselves say about it. What they do say is suf-
ficiently interesting, as it is told in the form of a legend which is in-
trinsically curious and probably ancient. It is given as follows in
" The People of Turkey, by a Consul's Daughter and Wife," edited
by Mr. Stanley Lane Poole, London, 1878 : "Although the gypsies
are not persecuted in Turkey, the anti]5athy and disdain felt for them
evinces itself in many ways, and appears to be founded upon a strange
legend current in the country. This legend says that, when the gypsy
nation were driven out of their country and arrived at Mekran, they
constructed a wonderful machine to which a wheel was attached."
From the context of this imperfectly told story, it would appear as if
the gypsies could not travel farther until this wheel should revolve :
" Nobody appeared to be able to turn it, till, in the midst of their
vain efforts, some evil sj^irit presented himself under the disguise of a
sage, and informed the chief, whose name was Chen, that the wheel
would be made to turn only when he had married his sister Guin.
The chief accepted the advice, the wheel turned round, and the name
of the tribe after this incident became that of the combined names of
the brother and sister, Chenguin, the appellation of all the gypsies of
Turkey at the present day." The legend goes on to state that, in con-
sequence of this unnatural marriage, the gypsies were cursed and con-
demned by a Mohammedan saint to wander for ever on the face of the
earth. The real meaning of the myth — for myth it is — is very appar-
ent. Chen is a Romany word, generally pronounced Chone, meaning
the moon, while Guin is almost universally rendered Gan or Kan.
Kan is given by George Borrow as meaning sun, and we have our-
selves heard English gypsies call it kan, although kam is usually as-
sumed to be right. Chen-kan means, therefore, moon-sun. And it
may be remarked in this connection that the Roumanian gypsies have
a wild legend stating that the sun was a youth who, having fallen in
love with his own sister, was condemned as the sun to wander for ever
in pursuit of her turned into the moon. A similar legend exists in
Greenland and the Island of Borneo, and it was known to the old Irish.
It was very natural that the gypsies, observing that the sun and moon
were always apparently wandering, should have identified their own
nomadic life with that of these luminaries. It may be objected, by
those to whom the term " solar myth " is as a red rag, that this story,
to prove anything, must first be proved itself. This will probably not
be far to seek. If it can be found among any of the wanderers in
India, it may well be accepted, until something better turns up, as the
possible origin of the greatly disputed Zingan. It is quite as plausible
as Dr. Miklosich's derivation from the Acingani — 'KroiyavoL — "an
unclean, heretical Christian sect, who dwelt in Phrygia and Lycaonia
from the seventh till the eleventh century," The mention of Mekran

PREHISTORIC RECORDS. 545

indicates clearly that the moon-sun story came from India before the
Komany could have obtained any Greek name. And, if the Romany
call themselves Jengan, or Chenkan, or Zin-gan, in the East, it is ex-
tremely unlikely that they ever received such a name from the Gorgios
in Europe. — Saturday Review.

PKEHISTORIC RECORDS.

THE caves, tombs, and gravel-drifts of the earth, which are of all
objects the most uninteresting to the casual observer, have in our
days become strangely eloquent. At the touch of science they have
lent a voice to the dumb past. Raising the veil of antiquity, they
have unrolled page after page of ancient history, written neither with
pen nor pencil, but stamped on the rude implements of war or the
chase, imprinted on the few threads of decaying tissue that inwrap the
crumbling skeleton, engraved on the bracelet of bronze or silver that
encircled the slender wrist of some prehistoric beauty, or chased on
the brooch of gold that clasped the mantle of some renowned but for-
gotten chieftain.

So exact are the deductions to be drawn from these mute records
of the past that they have been divided by Sir John Lubbock, in his
" Prehistoric Times," into four well-defined ages — the drift age, the age
of polished stone, the age of bronze, and the age of iron ; each of these
marking an advance in knowledge and civilization which amounted
to a revolution in the then existing manners and customs of the
world. The drift age or Paleolithic period is marked by deposits of
rude stone implements ; to it succeeds the Neolithic, or age of polished
stone, in which the same stone implements were in use, but of a supe-
rior class, highly polished and well finished.

The wandering savage who lived by the chase and cut up his prey
with the rude, unpolished flint knives of the Paleolithic age was coeval
with many extinct animals which then ranged over the wide forests
that in those early times covered our own country in common with
many portions of the Continent. In the caves of Derbyshire and else-
where, many of the rudely chipped knives and arrow-heads of these
ancient hunters are found, the rudest occupying the lowest strata ;
showing that even in that remote age man had the same tendency to
improve as now, and that the practice of even these rude germs of art
led to a gradual perfecting of them. Some of the remains of the an-
cient Nimrods of that remote and, but for these stone records, unwrit-
ten age have been found in caves and sepulchral tumuli ; and of all
the living races of men they resemble the Esquimaux most closely.
With them are found the remains of such extinct animals as the cave-

546 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

baar, the mammoth, and the woolly rhinocei'os ; and they appear to
have- been driven along with these animals toward the north, through
the action of some geographical change whose magnitude we have
now no means of gauging.

The Neolithic era marked the dawn of a new and higher civiliza-
tion. In many parts of the country, notably at Hardham in Sussex
and in Kent, many collections of polished stone implements have been
found, such us stone axes and adzes, chisels, gouges, small saws, ham-
mers, awls for boring, stone picks for turning up the soil, pestles, mor-
tars, querns, and spindle-whorls. Needles have also been found, which
imply a knowledge of the art of sewing ; and cups and various other
vessels of rude earthenware, which show that these old-world folks
could ply the potter's craft with a considerable degree of deftness.
The bones found show also that they no longer depended for a preca-
rious subsistence altogether upon the spoils of the chase, but that they
were herdsmen and fishermen as well. They possessed the horse, a
small short-horned ox, two kinds of swine, goats, and horned sheep,
with dogs of a large breed. In architecture they were unquestionably
far behind, for their dwellings seem to have consisted of pits roofed
with wattle. The remains of these ancient Neolithic builders are
plentifully scattered over the country. They were all built or rather
scooped out upon one plan. There was a circular shaft for an en-
trance, going down to a depth of from seven to eight feet, five to seven
feet wide at the bottom, and narrowing to three at the top ; and round
this was a chamber or cluster of chambers. In these huts are found a
variety of the polished stone implements mentioned above, bones of
the domesticated animals, and shreds of pottery. In north Kent there
is a series of vertical shafts sunk in the chalk ; but these seem to
have been rather flint- quarries than the homes of our Neolithic fore-
fathers.

In the north of Scotland, modified perhaps to suit the greater in-
clemency of the climate, the Neolithic dwellings are somewhat different,
and take the form of massive circular huts or burghs, as they are called.
In these are found the same stone implements and the same bones of
animals. The flint of which these stone implements are made was
obtained by quarrying for the flint nodules in the chalk. Many of
these mines with the mining tools still remain, with great quantities
of chips and splinters ; which show that the flint implements were,
partially at least, manufactured on the spot where the flint was ob-
tained.

In some instances, caves seem to have been used as dwellings by
the Neolithic inhabitants of Europe ; and, where not employed as a shel-
ter for the living, they seem to have been frequently selected, when
within reach, as a resting-place for the dead. In these cave-mausoleums,
numerous skeletons of both sexes and of all ages are found. Where
no cave was to be had, the dead, as our readers are already aware, were

PREHISTORIC RECORDS. 547

buried in barrows or cairns ; numerous broken implements were laid
beside them ; and, from the quantities of calcined bones found in some
of these graves, it is believed that, in the case of a chief, human sacri-
fices may have been offered. From the number of these tombs and
the plentiful remains of Neolithic dwellings scattered over Britain, we
are led to the conclusion that our country, in common with Europe,
had in those days a somewhat large and tolerably civilized population,
who had flocks and herds, who practiced agriculture, and who were
hunters and fishermen.

In the pile or lake dwellings of Switzerland, which are assigned to
this era, many interesting discoveries have been made. Three kinds
of wheat— one an Egyptian variety — have been found ; also two kinds
of barley, two kinds of millet, the remains of fruit such as apples and
pears, peas, flax, and weeds. For their cattle and swine the lake-dwell-
ers seem to have laid up winter fodder in the shape of acorns and beech-
nuts. They made cloth of their flax, and could even Aveave it into an
ornamental pattern. From an examination of the human remains
found in these curious lake-dwellings and in the sepulchral caves, the
most eminent geologists are of opinion that our Neolithic ancestors
were of the same race as the Basque-speaking peoples who are still to
be found in the north of Spain and in the south of France.

However acquired, the possession of bronze marks an era of ad-
vancement. The dwellings of the people who used it were better, and
their circumstances more comfortable, than those of the Neolithic
tribes they succeeded. They had axes and sickles of bronze, gouges,
chisels, hammers, and knives ; and, as a natural consequence, all the
products of their labor were superior and better finished. They could
weave well a tough and strong fabric, and their clothes were formed
of several pieces sewed together. Their cloth is almost invariably of
linen — no woolen cloth belonging to this period having been found
either in France or Switzerland ; but in a wooden coffin discovered in
1861 at Ribe, in Jutland, the remains of a body were found inclosed
in a cloak of coarse woolen cloth ; a woolen cap covered the head, the
lower limbs having been wrapped in woolen leggings. Under the
cloak was a woolen shirt, girt round the waist by a long woolen band.
A bronze dagger in a wooden sheath had been laid beside the dead
hand ; and in a small box were a few necessary articles for the long
journey toward the spirit-land, consisting of another woolen cap, a
comb, and a knife — the whole inclosed in a bull's hide. Another cof-
fin contained the paraphernalia of an ancient belle, a brooch, a knife,
a double-pointed awl, and a pair of tweezers — all of bronze, two studs,
one of bronze and one of tin, and a javelin head of flint ; while a
third coflin, that of a baby, contained a small bronze bracelet and a
bead of amber. Sir John Lubbock considers that these bodies belonged
to the close of the bronze period. Bodies wrapped in woolen cloth have
also been found in Britain, as at Scale House barrow near Rylston in

548 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Yorkshire. It is, however, worthy of remark that it is only in the ex-
ceptional cases in which the body is turned into adipocere (an unctuous,
waxy substance), that woolen cloth is found ; in normal circumstances
that fabric would disappear far more rapidly than linen.

The bronze remains found in the Rhone Valley prove that the art
of metal-working, once acquired, was carried by these early races to
great perfection. They were acquainted with the processes of casting,
tempering, stamping, and engraving metal. With this discovery of a
new art came a simultaneous improvement in the potter's craft ; the
rude cups of the Neolithic age disappear, and are succeeded by vessels
of an endless variety of form and ornamentation, some of which are
extremely beautiful. Some of the vases are inlaid with tin, others
are marked with the same patterns employed to decorate the Etruscan
vases of Italy ; while others, found in the pile-dwellings of the Lake
of Bourget, have representations of men and animals. The collections
of bronze jewelry are also abundant and curious. They consist of
bracelets, armlets, long hairpins with decorated heads, rings, ear-rings,
girdles adorned with pendants, brooches, buttons, studs and torques
for the neck. War being in these early days as common as it appears
to be in more modern times, we find well-stored armories, comprising
battle-axes, arrows, and clubs, lances and short swords, as also helmets
and shields of thin plates of hammered bronze. Their graves resemble
those of their Neolithic predecessors, with one important difference —
dead bodies were burned as a rule instead of buried, the ashes, inclosed
in urns, being placed in the tombs.

In the lake-dwellings of eastern Switzerland the implements found
are of bone and stone ; but in those of western Switzerland there are
rich accumulations of bronze implements and utensils ; while in the
upper layers of debris iron begins to appear ; showing how in its turn
the bronze was supplanted by a metal still more universally useful,
and destined to be the type of a grand era of enlightenment and prog-
ress. Almost as interesting and instructive as the lake-dwellings of
Switzerland are the Danish kitchen-middens or shell-mounds, refuse-
heaps which have accumulated round the tents or huts of the primi-
tive population. Many of these have been examined ; and rude flasks,
sling-stones, axes, flint fragments, and the bones of various animals,
have been obtained from them.

In primeval times, many animals were abundant in our own coun-
try and all over Europe, which seem gradually to have disappeared.
Some of these enumerated by Sir John Lubbock are the cave-bear, the
cave-hyena, the cave-lion, the mammoth, the woolly-haired rhinoceros,
the hippopotamus, the musk-ox, the Irish elk, the wild-horse, the glut-
ton, the reindeer, the auroeh, and the urus or wild-ox. Simultane-
ously with these or with some of these were human beings, who har-
bored in caves, and whose skeletons are found in caverns mixed up
with the bones of these animals, and with stone or bronze implements.

PREHISTORIC RECORDS. 549

About these cave-men there is necessarily much less information than
there is about those of the Neolithic period ; comparatively few skulls
have been found which were in a state that admitted of restoration ;
and, among these few, there are great differences.

With regard to the antiquity of man, Sir John Lubbock, after care-
fully examining the views of many eminent geologists, comes to the
conclusion that man certainly existed in Western Europe during the
period of the mammoth and the Rhinoceros tichorhinus, and that the
presumption is that he also existed in Pliocene and even in Miocene
times ; but the proofs of that — the remains of the earliest representa-
tives of our race — are to be sought, he thinks, in warm, almost in trop-
ical climates.

From the manners and customs of modern savages much light may
be thrown upon the eai-ly condition of prehistoric man. After consider-
ing the condition and progress of the Hottentots, Veddahs, Austra-
lians, South-Sea Islanders, Esquimaux, and others. Sir John Lubbock
remarks that, in reading any account of the savage races at present
existing in the world, " it is impossible not to admire the skill with
which they use their weapons and implements, their ingenuity in hunt-
ing and fishing, and their close and accurate powers of observation."
By all these qualities we may suppose prehistoric man to have been
distinguished in at least an equal degree. The habits and customs of
existing savages, however, while presenting many points in common
with each other, present also many points of divergence, arising from
independent development ; and such was no doubt also the case in the
most ancient times : the degrees of civilization even in the stone age
would differ much.

It is evident that man when he first spread over the surface of the
earth must have been in a condition represented by the lowest type of
savage. Then by slow degrees, by imitation, and by the teaching of
experience, the capacity of lodging and clothing himself, and of im-
proving his simple implements, would develop and expand, until man,
physically one of the weakest and most unprotected of all animals,
would, to quote from our author, " by dint of that subtile force which
we term mind," make himself independent of nature, careless of the
inclemency of the seasons, skillful to force from the stubborn soil the
food which suited him, or the ores from which to forge the weapons
which gave him power ; till at last, " monarch of all he surveyed," he
could cope in his native coverts with the shaggy lion, and be more
than a match for the fierce wild-bull, and overtake in the chase the
fleet stag or bounding antelope.

The wild man, like the wild beast, is always timid, always sus-
picious, always on the watch ; and the condition of the savage woman
is still more cruel. " She shares," says Sir John Lubbock, " all the
sufferings of her mate, and has also to bear his ill-humor and ill-usage.
Even the possession of beauty, far from being an alleviation, is only

550 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

an aggravation of the evils of her lot, by securing for her a hard
thralldom to many masters."

With growing civilization, on the other hand, come security and
confidence, and that sense of justice and honor which is the best pro-
tection of the weak ; and, with the increasing and ameliorating influ-
ences of science, a great improvement may still be looked for in the
condition of our race. We stand perchance upon the threshold of
a future, brighter than even the brightest dreams of our past ; on
the verge of a Utopia long deemed impossible, when the moral nature,
unvitiated by an erring will, shall no longer fetter the eager soul to
base aims and unworthy aspirations, but shall leave it to its free scope
and native regality of birthright and action. Then to the human race,
still in its vast masses so ineffably degraded, a new and more mighty
civilization may unlock boundless stores of knowledge and power, and
unseal fresh fountains of pure and unfailing enjoyment. — Chambers's
Journal.

SKETCH OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN.*

THERE is no other name so long and closely associated with the
history of American science as that of Silliman. The first who
made it illustrious was Benjamin Silliman, born in 1779, and educated
for a lawyer, but who entered the field of science early in the century,
accepting the new chair of Chemistry in Yale College in 1802. He
was a pioneer in the department of geology, contributing to the for-
mation of that science, not only by observations and explorations, but
ably maintaining its claims and rights when these were strenuously
resisted by an unenlightened public opinion. Professor Silliman also
rendered an incomparable service to American science by founding, in
1818, the " American Journal of Science and Arts," but better known,
both in Europe and America, as " Silliman's Journal." Of this peri-
odical, he was for twenty years sole, and for eight years more the
senior editor. After half a century of duty in the college he resigned
his professorship, and died in 1864.

Benjamin Silliman, Jr., son of the preceding, and the subject of
the following notice, was born in New Haven, December 4, 1816, and
entered college in August, 1833. After graduation he was emj^loyed
as assistant and teacher in the departments of Chemistry, Mineralogy,
and Geology in Yale College, and in original studies and investiga-
tions in these sciences and their practical applications in the arts. He
became associate editor with his father, in 1838, of the "American

* For this sketch we are indebted to the " Yale Book," published bj Henry Holt
&Co.

SKETCH OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN 551

Journal of Science and Arts," until the close of the first series of fifty
volumes of that journal in 1845. In 1846, M'ith the accession of Pro-
fessor James D. Dana, the management of the second series of that
journal devolved upon the younger editors. In the same year he was
appointed at Yale Professor of Chemistry applied to the Arts, the
first appointment in the " Fourth Department of Philosophy and the
Arts," then inaugurated, and which is more particularly mentioned
below. His " First Principles of Chemistry " appeared in this year,
of which over fifty thousand copies have been sold. He was a mem-
ber of the Common Council of the city of New Haven in 1845-'49.
In 1845-'46 he gave in New Orleans a course of lectures on agricul-
tural chemistry, upon the invitation of the leading professional and
commercial men of that city, and this, it is believed, was the first
course of lectures on that subject given in the United States.

In 1849 he was elected to the chair of Medical Chemistry and
Toxicology in the Medical Department of Louisville University, at
that time in a highly prosperous condition, the duties of which be dis-
charged for five winters. In 1854 he resigned this chair, to take up
the instruction in chemistry in the Academical and Medical Depart-
ments at Yale, made vacant by the resignation of his father, the Ge-
ology and Mineralogy having been assigned to Professor Dana. This
instruction was given under the appointment to the chair of " General
and Applied Chemistry" (1854). He resigned his duties in the Aca-
demical Department in 1870.

In 1858 he published " First Principles of Natural Philosophy or
Physics," and a second edition of the same in 1861.

Mr. Silliman visited Europe with his father in 1851, and subse-
quently edited his father's "Visit to Europe in 1851," 2 vols.; the
work having been originally prepared for three volumes, it was cut
do^vTi to two volumes, to match the author's " Visit to England, Hol-
land, and Scotland, 1805."

He visited California in March, 1864, returning in February, 1865,
and again in 1867 and 1872, being occupied with professional work in
the mines and in mineralogical and geological explorations. He de-
livered the annual oration before the College of California in 1867,
which has been published.

Mr. Silliman has for some years been much occupied as a scientific
witness in the courts, having been employed m many important causes
in which scientific testimony and investigation were called for. His
aid has been also constantly invoked in various matters connected
with the practical aits, where a knowledge of scientific principles is in-
volved.

In addition to the works named above, he has printed many me-
moirs upon various scientific and practical subjects, addresses and
opinions too numerous to mention, besides his original investigations,
recorded in the " American Journal of Science and Arts."

552 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

He was one of the fifty original members named in the act of Con-
gress in 1863 incorporating the National Academy of Sciences, and
served the Government in this capacity during the war upon some im-
portant commissions.

He is also one of the trustees of the Peabody Museum of Natural
History, provided by the munificence of the late George Peabody, of
London ; and is a member of numerous scientific societies on both
sides of the Atlantic.

In 1849 he received the honorary degree of M. D. from the Uni-
versity of Charleston, South Carolina.

In 1853 Mr. Silliman had charge of the chemical, mineralogical,
and geological department of the Crystal Palace in New York ; and
also, in connection with Mr. Charles R. Goodrich, edited the " World
of Science, Art, and Industry," illustrated, 500 figures, pp. 207, 4to; and
in 1854, " The Progress of Science and Mechanism," 4to, pp. 258, in
which the chief results of the great Exhibition were recorded.

In 1868 Professor Silliman parted with his private cabinet of min-
erals, of his own collecting, to Cornell University, where it is now
exhibited as the " Silliman Cabinet." He has made important addi-
tions to the mineralogical collections of Yale College, and to the metal-
lurgical cabinet of the Scientific School, the results of his various ex-
plorations. He solicited the funds by which the mineralogical cabinet
of the late Baron de Lederer was added to the college collections in
1843.

In 1842 Mr. Silliman commenced to receive private pupils in ana-
lytical chemistry and mineralogy, in an apartment of the old laboratory
in Yale College, which he had fitted up at his own expense for this pur-
pose amd to conduct original investigations in science. Previously to
this time there had been no provision made for the instruction of ad-
vanced students in physical and chemical science either at Yale College
or elsewhere in the United States, and the academical students had
been instructed in chemistry almost exclusively by public lectures.
From the first it was evident that there was the germ of a new devel-
opment in the small beginning, which soon took form as the "Yale
Scientific School," and subsequently grew into the " Sheflield Scientific
School."

Among the first students who sought Professor Silliman's instruc-
tion were Mr. John P. Norton and Mr. T. Sterry Hunt, since among
the most distinguished men of science in the United States. These
studies were entirely outside the college curriculum. The college for
some years took no cognizance of this effort, which was sustained
solely as an individual enterprise. The students it brought to the
university were not even recognized as such, and their names did not
appear for some years in the college catalogue. But in 1846 a memoir
was addressed to the corporation of Yale College, drawn up chiefly by
Mr. Silliman, Jr., but adopted and ably seconded by his father, who

SKETCH OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN.

553

personally advocated it before the corj^oration at their session in July,
1846. This memoir contemplated the official recognition and organi-
zation of the new department of advanced science-teaching which had,
unbidden by and almost unknown to them, sprung into existence. The
result was the appointment of a committee and the widening of the
plan to embrace advanced instruction in other subjects, at the sugges-
tion of Mr. Woolsey. This committee reported in 1847 the plan of a
" Fourth Department," devoted to philosophy and the arts, the first
appointments to which had already been made in 1846 — Mr. John P.
Norton to agricultural chemistry and Mr. Silliman to chemistry applied
to the arts. The " Yale Scientific School " as then organized commenced
its operations in 1847, opening its laboratories in the old Presidential
Mansion (formerly the dwelling of Dr. Day and Dr. Dwight).

It is proper to record the fact — as showing under what difficul-
ties and discouragements these early efforts were made — that be-
yond an income of three hundred dollars per annum paid for a few
years by a liberal friend of the college, at the solicitation of Pro-
fessor Silliman, the new department was absolutely penniless, and
the entire cost of fitting and furnishing the laboratoi'ies, apparatus,
libraries, and cabinets, was paid out of the private means of the two
professors ; who also for two years (to the shame of the corporation
be it said) paid into the college treasury a rental for the use of the
old house they had also paid for adapting and fitting for these pur-
poses ! Little encouraging as were these small beginnings, there
were not wanting the zeal and enthusiasm which were better than
gold, and which were reproduced in the early pupils. From its very
commencement this new undertaking bore good fruit. Pupils came
up in goodly numbers, and the first classes embraced names now
widely known on both sides of the Atlantic. Of these, three —
Brewer, Brush, and Johnson— are now professors in the Sheffield
Scientific School. Out of the effort which he then commenced single-
handed, and to which he devoted some of the best years of his life
— always paying his own salary — has grown up a new college, em-
bracing more professors than the old academic college had when he
graduated in 1837, with two hundred students, and with constantly
increasing power and endowments.

554

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

CORRESPONDENCE.

INTERESTING LUMINOUS PHENOMENON.
Messrs. Editors.

A BEAUTIFUL and unusual phenome-
non was observed here on the after-
noon of the 13th instant. Between three
and four o'clock, the western sky being par-
tially covered with cirri, and obscured near
the horizon by a dense haze, about thirty
degrees horizontally north of the sun was
seen a mock-sun of dazzling brilliancy. Ex-
tending from it above and below was a
luminous haze, of too small an extent and
too indefinite outline at its extremities to
exhibit any curvature. The entire mass of
light thus appeared to have an oblate form,
very much elongated vertically, the brilliant
mock-sun forming its nucleus. On its sun-
ward side the colors of the solar spectrum
were plainly visiblfi. In the clear sky, di-
rectly over the true sun, and about half-way
to the zenith, was an inverted arch of pale
white light, of parabolic form, with its axis
to the sun, its extremities, which faded off
into the blue, being five or six degrees apart.
Directly overhead was an arc of a circle, of

still fainter light, whose apparent radius
was about ten degrees. No prismatic tints
could be detected in either of these arcs.
The situation of the objects described is
roughly shown in the diagram. The sky to
the south of the sun was so covered by
cirro-strati as to obscure any parhelion that
might otherwise have been visible there. A
noticeable feature of the phenomenon was
the distinctly 7»«/-«6oKc form of the middle
arc of light. Never having seen this partic-
ular feature described in accounts of simi-

lar phenomena, I would ask if it is a usual
accompaniment of them, and at the same
time would ask if any satisfactory explana-
tion of the cause of parhelia and the accom-
panying circles, other than the partial ex-
planations of Huygens and Fraunhofer, has
yet been given ?

On the morning following the appear-
ance described, we had light flurries of snow,
and afterward rain.

G. B. Seely.
Boston, December 15, 1879.

"THE AGE OP ICE."

Messrs. Editors.

I HAVE been placed in a false position
through your publication, without date, of
my article bearing the above title in your
October issue of the current year. I am
accused, by a paper called the " St. Louis
Globe-Democrat," of plagiarizing from Croll
and Merriman. Permit me to state that the
article was written in 1874, nearly six years
ago, and read at the session for that year of
the Kansas Academy of Science, as the
archives of that body will testify. I think
Croll's book was not at that time published.
Geikie's, if published, had not yet reached us
in Kansas ; and Mr. Merriman did not write
till a later period. I had seen nothing on the
subject but St. Pierre's "Studies of Nature,"
and a fugitive fragment from Adhemar. I
think my manuscript was handed in too late
to be printed in the " Transactions " of the
Academy for that year ; but doubtless the
record of its presentation in 1874 is on file.
I left Kansas soon after, and had seen no-
thing of my article from that time till the
day it appeared in the " Monthly." You
will testify that it was published without
my knowledge.

I should have sooner adverted to the
matter, only that I hoped the article would
remain in the oblivion to which its slender
merits entitled it ; but now that I am charged
with plagiarizing from men who, though
vastly superior in knowledge and research,
really wrote after I did, I beg space for the
above, or for some editorial statement of a
corresponding character.

I am yours, very respectfully,

H. B. Norton,
San Josf , Caufobnia, December 22, 1879.

Mr. Norton's article, referred to above,
was received by us November 2, 1874, and
was never afterward in the hands of the

EDITOR'S TABLE.

555

author, nor did he know when it was to ap-
pear. The work of Mr. CroU on " Climate
and Time " was published in London about
six months later, or in the spring of 1875 ;
and Mr. Merriman's articles, from which Mr.

Norton is accused of borrowing, first ap-
peared in " The Popular Science Monthly "
for April and June, 1876, nearly a year and
a half after the receipt of Mr. Norton's pa-
per.— Editors.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

VENOEAKCE /A" PUNISHMENT.

THOSE dainty purists who " do not
like the word Sociology,'''' and are
therefore hindered from taking interest
in the science that passes under the
name, may get a glimpse of one of its
problems in unobjectionable form by
reading the able paper of a practical law-
yer which opens the present " Monthly."
Of all the questions by which modern
society is agitated, there is none more
momentous than that of the public
treatment of crime and criminals. No
man can be found' so stupid as to main-
tain that the present practice is satis-
factory ; and but few have the wisdom
to indicate anything that is really much
better. In this state of affairs the first
thing required is to understand how
present conditions were reached ; and
what is the nature of those changes
that have brought past amelioration,
and may lead on to a still better state.
Only when the laws of social progress
are discovered and made widely known
can they be conformed to by communi-
ties with solid and lasting advantage.

We have a system of penal laws for
the protection of individual rights and
the conservation of society by punish-
ing prescribed offenses ; and the gen-
eral notion is, that this system is coeval
with government, and was originally in-
stituted essentially in its present form
and for its present purpose. This, how-
ever, is a great mistake, as is instruc-
tively shown by Mr. Billson. He points
out that the first rude governments have
only a concern for themselves. Govern-
ment arose in tribal antagonisms, was a
militant organization against external

foes, and recognized no crimes except
such as treason, cowardice, desertion, or
such acts as injured itself. There was, at
first, not the slightest idea of protecting
citizens against crime by punishing pri-
vate offenses. Individuals were left to
redress their own grievances. Murder,
for example, was a private wrong, to be
privately avenged by a relative of the
victim, who was at liberty to kill the
murderer. Government had no inter-
nal police or judicial processes, and the
rule of punishment was that of private
personal vengeance. Society, as a con-
sequence, was torn by internal feuds
and bloody violence, and was ruled by
the spirit of retaliation and revenge.
Mr. Billson shows us the extent and
atrocity and tenacity of this system,
and how criminal law arose out of the
necessity of regulating the excesses of
malignant blood-avengement.

This chapter in the criminal history
of society has a grave significance as
interpreting tlie spirit by which crime
is still treated. For, although civilized
society has made great advances in
framing penal codes on principles of
justice, and although government has
abolished private retaliation, and itself
assumes the prerogative of punishing
crime, it has not outgrown the vin-
dictive passions of the barbarous past.
The practice of dueling, a vestige of
the old private avengement of wrong,
is not extinct; and in the prison-treat-
ment and public execution of criminals
we still see survivals of the old savage
feeling of vengeance that has not yet
died out of the community. By the
abolition of torture we have conceded

5 56

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

that criminals have rights, but no con-
ception of tlie correlative rights of the
criminal and of society is allowed to de-
termine the kind and degree of pun-
ishment. A criminal is one upon whom
vengeance is to be wreaked, and this
feeling barbarizes the prison overseer,
and brutalizes the convict so as to make
his existence a curse to himself, and if
set free he is more inveterately at feud
with society than he was before "jus-
tice" took him in hand. What but
the spirit of vengeance is it in society
which prevents the convict from hav-
ing all the sympathy of treatment and
chance of self-help and amendment that
are consistent with his detention in
prison as a measure of public security ?
The surviving spirit of revenge is again
seen in the tenacity with which society
clings to its brutal modes of execution,
turning them into shows for a select
company, so that the details may be
scattered through the land, and all may
enjoy the ghastly accompaniments with
which vengeance has been satisfied. In
the course of social progress the venge-
ful feelings have been more and more
constrained by the growth of humane
sentiments, and their modes of exercise
have been transformed, but there is
plenty of room for further salutary
change.

SCIENTIFIC TEAcEiyC IN THE COL-
LEGES.

The gradual acceptance of the doc-
trine of evolution among our theologi-
cal friends is causing some perturbation
which it is important to notice. Our
orthodox contemporary, the "Indepen-
dent," recognizing the mischief that is
being done by the obstinate refusal of
religious teachers to accept the conclu-
sions of science, came out strongly in
favor of the evolution theory. Dr. Mc-
Cosh had declared, in addressing the
Evangelical Alliance in New York : " It
is useless to tell the younger naturalists
that there is no truth in the doctrine of

development, for they know that there
is truth which is not to be set aside by
denunciation. Religious philosophers
might be more profitably employed in
showing them the religious aspects of
the doctrine of development ; and some
would be grateful to any who would
help them to keep their old faith in
God and the Bible with 'their new faith
in science." The "Independent " took
this ground, and in its article upon the
subject said : " We ai'e all taught in our
best schools, by our scientific authori-
ties, almost without exception (and we
laymen in science are, therefore, com-
pelled to believe), that man was, at least
so far as his physical structure is con-
cerned, evolved from irrational animals.
We, therefore, can not help doubting,
as every thinking and scholarly young
man [in these schools] must and does
doubt, whether the story of the fall in
the first Adam is historical."

The cautious and vigilant " New
York Observer" now took the alarm.
It sent this passage to nine presidents
of colleges, and asked them if it was
true that it represented the teaching in
their respective institutions. Dr. Por-
ter, of Yale, replied, "The inclosed does
not give a correct representation of the
teaching in this college by our scientific
authorities." Dr. McCosh, of Princeton,
said: "In answer to your inquiries I
have to state that we do not teach in
this college that man is ' evolved from
irrational animals.' I teach that man's
soul was made in the image of God, and
his body out of the dust of the ground.
I do not oppose development, but an
atheistic development." Dr. Chad-
bourne, of Williams, answered : " The
doctrine is not taught here that man,
even in his physical nature, was evolved
from one of the lower animals. Wal-
lace, who claims with Darwin the honor
of the doctrine known as 'Darwinism,'
admits that its principles fail when
applied to man." President Cattell, of
Lafayette, i-eplied : I have never heard
of any of my colleagues expressing,

EDITOR'S TABLE.

557

either in private or in the class-room,
the opinion referred to in the slip you
send me. "We are keenly alive here to
the danger from what is manifestly the
infidel trend of the views generally held
by evolutionists. It is a great relief to
me to know that among all my col-
leagues there is such a cordial accept-
ance of the old faith, which it has been
the tendency or the avowed aim of
these materialistic teachers to destroy."
Dr. Brown, of Hamilton, responded :
" The doctrine of the ' evolution of man
from irrational animals ' has never, to
my knowledge, been taught in Hamil-
ton College. I trust it never will he
till it is proved to be true, as in my
judgment it has not been, and I do not
think it ever will be." President Pot-
ter, of Union, declared, " The printed
statement you forward is not a correct
statement of the teaching in this col-
lege." President Robinson, of Brown
University, replied, " We do not teach
the doctrine stated in the inclosed slip."
Dr. Anderson, of Rochester University,
protested that " we have never taught
in our institution that man is ' evolved
from irrational animals,' for the simple
reason that we believe the notion to be
an unverified hypothesis," And Presi-
dent Seelye, of Amherst, indignantly
responded : " This college does not yet
teach groundless guesses for ascertained
truths of science. So long as the notion
that man is evolved from the monkey
or from any irrational animal has not a
single fact to rest upon, and is in flat
contradiction to all the facts of history,
I think we may leave it with the scio-
lists."

Now, this unanimity of unqualified
denial has its significant implications.
For, if evolution is not taught in those
colleges, we may fairly infer that it is'
because the old alternative doctrine has
not been given up ; that is, as President
Cattell observes, there is among his col-
leagues " such a cordial acceptance of
the old faith." Hence we learn that, on
a large question of natural history, nine

of the leading American colleges teach
the old theological beliefs rather than
the conclusions of modern science.

The " Observer " of course exult-
ingly avails itself of the official decla-
rations it has elicited, and points tlie
moral of the case by restating the bio-
logical teaching of "the Holy Scrip-
tures," still inculcated in the colleges.
It triumphantly asks of the " Indepen-
dent " : " Where are the schools, ' our
best schools,' in which its vile doctrine
is taught? Degrading as the doctrine
is, opposed to the common sense of
mankind, contradicted by science and
history and the Holy Scriptures, what
reckless audacity there is in asserting
that it is taught in our best schools ! "
Again it says: "The Apostle Paul af-
firms that 'by man came death,' and
that ' in Adam all died,' and that ' death
reigned from Adam to Moses,' and that
' by one man's offense death reigned
by one.' But the 'Independent' says
that ' every scholarly young man ' must
doubt whether the fall in Adam is a fact.
The historian Luke traces the lineage
of the Son of Mary from son to father,
step by step, till he gets back to Seth,
' who was of Adam, who was of God.'
Tills is the Biblical history of devel-
opment, by which the human race is
traced to the time when Moses says God
made man and called him Adam. . , .
No young person whose mind receives
the views of the ' Independent ' can at
the same time be a believer in the ora-
cles of divine truth. To hold the one
is to despise the other. If the irrational
animal gospel is true, Christ's gospel is
a humbug."

Such is the theological biology to
which the presidents of nine American
colleges are thus authoritatively con-
strued as committing themselves and
their institutions.

Several interesting questions here
arise, and the first is an unpleasant in-
quiry as to how far these presidential
declarations are fair and true. Do they
represent the facts or do they mislead ?

558

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

We leave this question to be answered
by the " Independent." Having gone
behind the returns and looked into the
subject, it reports that, in Yale, Pro-
fessors Marsh and Dana are pronounced
evolutionists, and that what is true of
these two men is true ofVerrill, Brewer,
Smith, and of all the other teachers of
the biological sciences in Yale College ;
and it quotes Marsh as having said before
the American Scientific Association :
" It is now regarded among the active
workers in science as a waste of time
to discuss the truth of evolution. The
battle on this point has been fought and
won." As regards Princeton, the " In-
dependent " says : " Dr. McCosh is quite
outspoken in defense of the legitimacy
of evolution, though not a Darwinian
nor a naturalist. Professor Macloskie,
their only naturalist, a man who has de-
veloped remarkably within a few years,
is even more decided in the same di-
rection, as are, without reserve, the dis-
tinguished Professors of Astronomy and
Physics, Young and Brackett."

In respect to Brown University, we
are told that " Professor A. S. Packard,
Jr., is the only instructor in zoology or
botany that we recall in Brown. He
fully believes in evolution — man's physi-
cal structure no exception — and his pub-
lished books support evolution through
and through."

As to Amherst, " It is sufficient to
state that the Professor of Geology in
Amherst is an unreserved theistic evo-
lutionist, who teaches the antiquity of
the human race, and we have no doubt
the same is true of his young colleague
in natural history."

The "Independent" then presses
the question as follows :

" Why did not the ' Observer ' in-
quire of the President of Harvard Col-
lege? Probably because he was afraid
of the answer he would get. But did
he not know that Harvard is one of
those ' best schools,' having ' scientific
authorities,' which we were talking
about; and that Louis Agassiz, the

great opponent of evolution, the most
influential naturalist that ever lived in
America, was a Harvard professor,
while Asa Gray, the great American
botanist, a champion of religion against
materialism, and a devout member of
an orthodox church, is another Harvard
professor ? But its omission was wise.
Of all the younger brood of working nat-
uralists whom Agassiz educated, every
one — Morse, Shaler, Verrill, Niles, Hy-
att, Scudder, Putnam, even his own son
— has accepted evolution. Every one of
the Harvard professors whose depart-
ments have to do with biology — Gray,
Whitney, A. Agassiz, Hagen, Goodale,
Shaler, James, Farlow, and Faxon — is
an evolutionist, and man's physical
structure they regard as no real excep-
tion to the law. They are all theists,
we believe ; all conservative men. They
do not all believe that Darwinism — that
is, natural selection — is a sufficient the-
ory of evolution ; they may incline to
Wallace's view, but they accept evolu-
tion. It is not much taught ; it is rather
taken for granted. At Johns Hopkins
University, which aims to be the most
advanced in the country, nothing but
evolution is held or taught. In the ex-
cellent University of Pennsylvania all
the biological professors are evolution-
ists— Professors Leidy and Allen in
comparative anatomy, Professor Eoth-
rock in botany, and Professor Lesley in
geology. We might mention Michigan
University, Cornell, Dartmouth, Bow-
doin ; but what is the use of going fur-
ther ? It would only be the same story.
There can scarcely an exception be
found. Wherever there is a working
naturahst, he is sure to be an evolution-
ist. We made inquiry of two ex-Pi-esi-
dents of the American Association for
the Advancement of Science. One
wrote us, in reply, 'My impression is
that there is no biologist of repute
nowadays who does not accept, in some
form or other, the doctrine of deriva-
tion in time, whatever be the precise
form in which they suppose the evolu-

EDITOR'S TABLE.

SS9

tion to have occurred.' His successor
replied: 'Almost without exception,
the working naturalists in this country
believe in evolution. ... In England
and Germany the belief in evolution is
almost universal among the active
workers in biology. In France the be-
lief is less general, but is rapidly gain-
ing ground. ... I should regard a
teacher of science who denied the
truth of evolution as being as incom-
petent as one who doubted the Coper-
nican theory.' We challenge the ' Ob-
server to find three working naturalists
of repute in the United States — or two
(it can find one in Canada) — that is not
an evolutionist. And where a man
beheves in evolution, it goes without
saying that the law holds as to man's
physical structure."

These, then, are the " sciolists," the
smatterers, the shallow novices, to
whom President Seelye leaves the sub-
ject ; meantime the learned professors
of Amherst illustrate the dignity of
scholarship and the ripeness of knowl-
edge by teaching the biology of the an-
cient Hebrews. The theory of evolu-
tion is now guiding the researches of
the scientific world because it is being
constantly and increasingly verified in
the new results to which it leads; but
President Anderson will not teach it
because it is " an unverified hypothesis."
Has he a verified hypothesis, then ? or
do they, at the University of Rochester,
dodge the foremost philosophic question
of the age ?

The college presidents seem to re-
sent the imputation that they teach
the derivation of man from "irrational
animals " ; and the " Observer " calls
the doctrine " vile " and " degrading."
There is a current vulgar belief that
the idea of human derivation from in-
ferior animals is scandalous and revolt-
ing. But is not this, after all, the es-
tablished method of producing man ?
What is a new-born babe but an " ir-
rational animal," and does not each
president of a college come from such

an "irrational animal" by a process of
development ? And that is not all.
Each human individual, beginning as a
protoplasmic germ, is evolved step by
step, passing in the gestative period
through type after type of " irrational
animals " before the developed human
life begins. AVill the nine doctors of
divinity be good enough to say who it
was that they think designed this ar-
rangement? And do tliey not, more-
over, teach that the Creator first tried
the miraculous method of bringing peo-
ple into existence at once and perfect,
and then abandoned it for the present
plan of developing them gradually out
of " irrational animals " through the
common processes by which inferior
creatures are multiplied ?

EDUCATION- FOB GUIDANCE.

We heard a good thing recently of
a distinguished Professor at a distin-
guished university, eminent for its high-
toned devotion to the interests of pure
scholarship. The Professor had been
lecturing upon a favorite subject, and
declared the charm of it to be that "it
could not possibly be prostituted to any
practical or useful purpose." There is
much to admire in this plucky spirit of
devotion to truth for its own sake ; but
it is easy to make this transcendent
state of mind subservient to a very bad
utility. And, while we value great seats
of learning, which provide for the
devotees who pursue knowledge for the
love of it, we have to guard against the
prostitution of this idea to pernicious
ends in current education. For, while
the exceptional scholar may ignore the
practical and the beneficial, the mass of
mankind can not do so. They live in a
world of action and struggle, and have
minds to guide them in their labors and
conflicts. These minds require culti-
vation, that they may do their work
better. Knowledge is, therefore, for
guidance, and education for the more in-
telligent direction of the activities and

560

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

work of life. But this principle is far
from being yet recognized in current
education. The lower schools seize upon
the higher ethics of university study and
pervert them into a defense of their own
bad practices. They teach worthless
things, on the pretense that the kind of
knowledge is of but little account, as
education is only concerned with mental
training. The crudeness and ineflBcien-
cy of teaching are excused upon the
plea that mental discipline is the thing
aimed at in study. Our whole school
system is imbued with this vicious fal-
lacy, which is tiie great obstacle to ra-
tionalizing school methods. The knowl-
edge that is of most worth is either not
taught or is taught so loosely and care-
lessly that it is of but little practical
use; and the consequence is, that our
boys are turned out into the world so
ignorant and incompetent that they are
defenseless in the exposures. of every-
day experience.

"What shall we say of a system of
education which throws its students
into society unable to protect them-
selves from the grossest impostures?
To what end is a community filled
with colleges, high-schools, and com-
mon schools, upon which millions of
dollars are spent, when its graduates
go out to become the ready prey of
charlatans and sharpers, who can en-
rich themselves by pushing the most
absurd and preposterous projects ?

"We are led to these reflections by
the last curious report of lightning-rod
swindles. The proud State that gives
us our President and Chief Justice, and
makes a great ado about its education,
has also the honor of originating and
harboring " Chambers's National Light-
ning Protection Company" of Cincin-
nati. The Americans are a progressive
people, great on improvements, and the
"Westerners are specially wide-awake in
this respect. So the new lightning-rod
is a great step forward in inventive sci-
ence. It is laid flat upon the ridge of
the building, and turned up at the two

ends, and has no connection with the
ground. Its rationale seems to be that
the lightning-discharge is caught upon
one of the points, and, there being
no rod to convey it to the earth, it is
obliged to "diffuse back into the air
where it belongs and whence it came."
Of course, such an arrangement is worth-
less for protection, and is, moreover, ab-
solutely dangerous, as every intelligent
schoolboy ought to know ; and yet such
is the grossness of public stupidity that
the company drove a thriving business
with their contrivance, mounting it upon
a great number of private dwellings,
and even upon school-buildings. Pro-
fessor Macomber, of the Agricultural
College at Ames, Iowa, seeing the ex-
tent to which people were humbugged
by this so-called " Protector," publicly
denounced it as a fraud, whereupon he
was prosecuted by the company, which
laid its damages at $50,000. As the
thing was getting serious, the Professor
concluded to make thorough work with
the exposure, and accordingly appealed
to a large number of scientific men of
the highest reputation, to give their
opinion of the "Chambers rod." He
has published the replies of Morton,
Anthony, Eood, Mayer, Clarke, Baird,
TSTewcomb, Todd, Le Conte, Silliman,
Kedzie, Davies, Edison, Trowbridge,
Kowland, Young, Hinrichs, Harvey,
Pickering, Loomis, and Tyndall, who all
agree that it is a worthless humbug,
of no use for protection, and an actual
danger to any house upon which it is
placed. Yet the company will proba-
bly suflfer but little interruption in its
business, as its main stock in trade is
public ignorance and credulity. The
lightning-rod fiend may be expected to
ply his profitable vocation until the
common schools do better work than
they have accomplished hitherto.

Thk abridgment of Judge Daly's re-
cent address before the Geographical
Society, on the early history of carto-

LITERARY NOTICES.

561

graphical art, may be commended to
the attention of our readers, but we
must remind tliem that it is a very in-
complete representation of the original
lecture. A condensation in literature
is generally the worst kind of mutila-
tion ; for, instead of cutting the thing
into large sections by which considerable
portions are left unmutilated, the con-
denser performs his crushing operation
on the whole, so that very little is left
as the author puts it. Compression is
often necessary, but it is generally at the
expense of the symmetry and finish of
the performance. The President of the
Geographical Society expresses regret
that his pressure of legal duties during
the past year had not allowed him time
to work up the progress of current geo-
graphical discovery, as he has been in
the habit of doing in the preparation of 1
his annual address. But in place of it
he has given the world unquestionably i
the best monograph on the history of |
map-making in connection with the de- \
velopment of early geography that can •
anywhere be found. It is a careful
statement, laying under contribution
all the resources of geographical erudi-
tion, and the few small cuts we repro-
duce from it but poorly represent the
full series of old maps that have been
prepared to illustrate the subject, and
are contained in the pamphlet issued by
the Geographical Society. To that doc-
ument the reader is referred for the
ampler and more satisfactory discussion
of the subject.

LITERARY NOTICES.

OcTAvitTS Perinchief: His Life of Trial
AND Supreme Faith. By Charles Lan-
MAN. Washington : James Anglim. Pp.
403. Price, $2.

This is the biography of a devout clergy-
man, who was at the same time a cordial
and fearless friend of science. We call at-
tention to some features of the work that
illustrate this combination of traits.

The subject of it was born in Bermuda
VOL. XVI. — 36

in 1829. He got the rudiments of a com-
mon education there, and came to New
York at the age of eighteen. Having a
thirst for study, and deciding to become a
clergyman, he went to Amenia Seminary,
and then to Trinity College at Hartford.
After graduating there he taught a year at
Racine College, Wisconsin, and then wound
up his professional studies in the General
Theological Seminary in New York. He
was ordained by Bishop Potter as a clergy-
man of the Episcopal Church in 1857.

Mr. Perinchief's pastoral experiences
were varied. He had charge of several
parishes, beginning to preach in Brooklyn ;
he afterward went to Bridgeport, then to
York, Pennsylvania, from which he removed
to Mount Holly, New Jersey, and finally re-
turned to Bridgeport, where he died in 1877,
at the age of forty-seven years.

Mr. Perinchicf was during all his adult
life an invalid and a great sufferer. Strait-
ened in means, and fighting his way through
the educational institutions, he was often
subjected to great privations, living for long
periods on bread and water, with insuffi-
cient clothing, which, with the customary
overwork in such circumstances, permanent-
ly impaired his constitution. Besides this,
he early met with a terrible accident which
produced a lesion of the spine, that was
ever afterward a source of much pain and
prostration.

It is hardly possible that so intense and
prolonged an experience of physical suffer-
ing could have been without its influence
upon his mental life. Yet he was far from
being the victim of his bad bodily conditions.
His subjective experiences did not color or
distort his view of the world. His manhood
triumphed over the unhappy accidents of
his lot, and the influence he exerted upon
all around him was in a remarkable degree
healthful, ennobling, and purifying. He had
a large measure of that quality which is
currently characterized as "personal mag-
netism," and all who knew him were brought
under its influence, and quickened in their
aspirations after a higher and more perfect
life. He was a man of great spirituality
and profoimd devotion, but this involved'
no weakness, and he did not waste himself "
in mere fervid emotion. His judgment was
clear, his criticisms telling, and his views

562

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

independent. Though in the Church heart
and soul, he was not a blind partisan, but
saw the evils that w-ere near, and the good
that was beyond. Liberal in his ideas and
catholic in his sympathies, he was unsparing
in his condemnation of the selfish worldli-
ness that he encountered in his own sect,
and cordially responsive to all the noble
work of the age whether within or without
the pale of ecclesiasticism.

There were a simplicity, modesty, and
intense earnestness in this man's nature,
such as are but rarely observed. Though
gifted as a preacher and capable of bril-
liant mental work, he never courted popu-
larity, nor sought conspicuous positions.
Often solicited to enter the higher sphere
of churchly recognition and influence, he
steadily resisted these importunities, pre-
ferring obscurity, and quiet, unobtrusive la-
bor among the common people that had not
been spoiled by affluence. He was very
radical in his convictions in regard to minis-
terial duty, as may be gathered from various
passages of his correspondence. In a pri-
vate letter written from Boston, in 1869,
he speaks very plainly : " This morning I
preached in an old wealthy and dead church.
To preach to such a people is like preaching
to a field of old stumps and about as hopeful.
... I thank God that we are not rich, and
that our lot is not, and has not been, cast
with the rich. I tell you the rich can hard-
ly enter into the kingdom of heaven, wheth-
er they be clergy or laity. ... I feel that
we are all relying too much on money — great
stone churches, fine houses, large salaries,
etc., which have brought the Church to the
level of the world. I see the rich, full of
pride, taken up with vanity, soul all gone,
thinking their gain is godliness, no sympathy,
no true riches of any kind."

Again he breaks out : " I am more and
more convinced that a hired ministry is a
great evil. To preach honestly under such
circumstances almost kills me; to preach
tenderly is almost impossible. To take pay
for preaching is base and unmanly ; I feel
it more and more every day. To be in the
position of a divine teacher and not preach
according to my conscience is impossible, and
so, what with one thing and another, the
difficulty of doing one's duty — the sense of
begging or being a hireling — almost drives

me out of the ministry. I ask myself : Is
this all that eighteen hundred years can
accomplish for man by the Church, and in
the Church ? Italy could not be worse off
without her Church. How is it with the
United States ? "

In regard to science Mr. Perinchief was
large-minded and sympathetic, although his
acquisitions in this direction were of course
Blender. Neither his early education in the
parish-school at Bermuda, nor his subse-
quent training at Anienia Trinity College
and the New York Theological Seminary,
could have been well adapted to inform him
of the great truths of modern science, or to
create any special interest in this line of
study. But the instincts of his liberal in-
telligence were true to the spirit of im-
provement and progress, and, as his mind
widened by observation and reflection, he
saw clearly enough that science is to be the
great renovating agency of modern times.
In this relation his biographer remarks :
" The scientists who wrote on evolution, as
well as those who uttered striking thoughts
in theology, literature, art, philosophy, or
statesmanship, he devoured with equal gus-
to ; and, discriminating between facts de-
monstrated to be true and those purely theo-
retical, he was always ready with a criticism
or decided opinion on the merits of what he
read. He accordingly saw nothing in science
to cause alarm, but welcomed it as a grand
agency of human amelioration, in emanci-
pating men from superstition, and in mak-
ing those great conquests of Nature that
have been so powerful in elevating mankind
from barbarism and carrying on the work
of civilization. Nor could he understand
how a deeper knowledge of the method and
mysteries of Nature can have any other ef-
fect than to exalt and purify the conception
that man forms of the Creator and Ruler of
all things. His faith was not of a kind to
be disturbed by any progress of knowledge.
He therefore held all true men of science
who dedicated themselves to the elucidation
of the works of God as promoters of religion
in its best and highest sense. He cheered
on the labor of scientists, commending their
single-minded and unswerving devotion to
the pursuit of truth, not in any skeptical
spirit, but as a simple dictate of Christian
principle."

LITERARY NOTICES.

563

The illustrations of these sentiments, oc-
curring in Mr. Perinchief's letters, are note-
worthy. He was a careful reader of this
magazine, and thus wrote concerning it to
his friend Mr. John A. Graham, of New
York : " I am exceedingly obliged to you for
that copy of the ' Science Monthly ' ; I am
much delighted with it. This is an enterprise
I would very gladly see prosper in this coun-
try. It is very much needed, and I be-
lieve it will be sustained. It will help men
who are now thinking along their own soli-
tary lines ; it will stimulate thought in those
who have not thought before ; it will grad-
ually elevate the tone of our entire litera-
ture. If it can only get among our church
people, it will make many of them more
truly religious. Success to it."

Again he wrote to the same gentleman
regarding two books bearing in opposite di-
rections upon current controversies.

Draper's book is better than I expected to
find it. I knew it was a book with something in
it, but I find a great deal in it, and I am satis-
fled there is a great deal more in it than he has
put in so many words upon the face of it. This
book, like many others of recent origin, con-
vinces me that there is such a thing as the spir-
it of an age, a something which turns the gen-
eral mind in a given direction. It startles me a
little to find, in books, things which I have dug
out little by little. It startles me to find, in
black and white, conclusions at which I have
very reluctantly arrived, which I have tried to
resist, but at last found irresistible. And there
are yet other things which must come, for there
ia much that is "rotten in Denmark "!— other
things which have made me sick in discovering
them, and now make me sick in contemplating
them. What changes the last twenty five years
have wrought I How much greater changes the
next twenty-five years will work I All too late,
however, for me personally; I was born too
soon or too late. The churches, the ministry,
the theology of the past will not do for the fu-
ture. The new wine can not be put into the
old bottles. . . .

The Duke of Somerset's book is hardly a
book. There is really very little in it. It is not
a spontaneous production of his, it is a me-
chanical collection of scraps, things somebody
else has evolved ; many Oi those things are true
enough, but they lack life. Some of them are
not true at all, only "my Lord Duke" don't
know it. In some cases he don't even see the
idea he wants to hit. He simply fires up the
tree, violating Davy Crockett's first law of shoot-
ing. The work of the true seer is not destmc-
tion, but construction. If the Duke had lived
fifty or a hundred years ago he would have been
in his proper time. Any landsman can see the
waves and the storm and the rocks, but the

true pilot is the man who takes us safely past
them. Men like Draper and Arnold show us a
continent ahead. The Duke of Somerset only
tells us there is not one behind us.

Some of Mr. Perinchief's sermons have
been published, but are out of print ; new
editions are announced. They are remark-
able for vigorous simplicity of style, warmth
of religious feeling, and independence of
thought. Mr. Perinchief's position in the
Church was similar to that of Frederick
Robertson. There is much likeness in their
intellectual work, and in the opinion of
many the excellences of Mr. Perinchief's
discourses are quite equal to those of the
eminent and liberal English clergyman.

The Arctic Voyages of Adolf Erik Nor-
DENSKIOLD JTIOM 1858 TO 1879. With
Illustrations and Maps. London : Mac-
millan & Co. 1879. $4.50.

NoRDENSKioLD occupics an eminent posi-
tion among the explorers of Arctic lands.
For upward of twenty-one years, or since
1858, he has devoted his great abilities to
I that laborious and often perilous work. Ac-
j counts of his researches and discoveries have
j appeared from time to time, and the Swedish
' Arctic and Polar Expeditions planned by
him, or in which he took a conspicuous part,
have a wide fame, and are rich in results.
The latest expedition undertaken by the
great explorer was a successful effort to
reach Behring's Strait and the Pacific Ocean
from Norway by way of the Kara Sea and
the Arctic Ocean. In this and in two pre-
vious expeditions along the north shores of
Europe and Asia an extensive series of ob-
servations was made of the greatest impor-
tance to commerce and to science. The
coast-line was well determined and mapped,
soundings were made, and a record kept of
meteorological and magnetical observations.
Besides these, some of the great rivers which
empty into the Arctic Sea were explored ;
the important fact was shown that the
northern lands of Siberia are not only high-
ly fertile, but are susceptible of cultiva-
tion ; and that a vast pine forest of gigantic
growth extends northward of the Arctic Cir-
cle, stretching from the Ural cjuite to the Sea
of Okhotsk. Many more plants were foimd
at home in higher latitudes in Siberia than
in Sweden. The white and red currant

564

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

grow in great luxuriance on the banks of
the Yenisei in the north forest region.

The volume before us was prepared by
Alexander Leslie, Esq., of Aberdeen, and,
although largely a compilation from reports
and papers by Nordenskiold and his able
scientific assistants, has been put together
with rare tact and judgment, and forms an
interesting and timely contribution to the
literature of Arctic exploration.

The first Toyage of Nordenskiold to
Spitzbergen was made in 1858 as geologist
in Jorell's first expedition to that island-
It was then that he discovered, at Bell
Sound, on the southwest part of Spitzber-
gen, the remarkable fossil flora which was
determined by Professor Heer to be of Ter-
tiary age. He also found in the same fiord
limestone in vertical strata, which, from
its fossils, is referred to the Carboniferous
formation. In the spring of 1861 another
voyage was made, and the work of explora-
tion begun in 1858 was pushed with vigor.
On this journey, while yet many miles from
Spitzbergen, snow-buntings, exhausted in
their migratory flight, alighted in the rig-
ging of the ship. On another occasion,
flocks of the barnacle-goose were seen fly-
ing northeastward beyond Spitzbergen, per-
haps to yet unknown lands. When the
breeding-season for birds was at its height,
the vast numbers seen astonished the trav-
elers. The rocks of the coast for many
miles were literally covered with them.

Nordenskiold made six voyages of ex-
ploration to Spitzbergen, and one to Green-
land. This last was in 1 870, and the account
of his journey inland is of great interest.
He proceeded to the head of Auleitsivik
Fiord, and went thence about thirty- miles
over a region that was one vast ice-field,
dangerous and exhausting to travelers. They
reached a point twenty-two hundred feet
above sea-level. A pair of ravens were the
only animals seen, but traces of the ptar-
migan were met with. In the Polar Ex-
pedition to Spitzbergen in 1872-"73, a very
extensive exploration of the eastern shore
of Northeast Land was made. This is a
desolate, ice-covered island about ninety
miles in length by seventy-five in breadth,
separated from Spitzbergen by a strait
eighteen miles broad. The ice-covering is
probably from two to three thousand feet

in thickness, and the movement of the ice-
mass is eastward, forming the broadest gla-
cier known. Its breadth is even greater
than that of the Humboldt glacier of Green-
land.

The book abounds in fine descriptions of
Arctic scenery, and the long night seems to
be not wanting in agreeable aspects. The
darkness is lessened by the mild light of
the moon ; and a faint, reddish glimmer in
the southern horizon lingers for some time,
a reminiscence of the day and of summer.
Overhead the pole-star shines with steady
luster, and the vault is all aglow with stellar
light. On the shore, in the ice-slush, a phos-
phorescent glow is frequently observed, due,
it is supposed, to the presence of minute
crustaceans, and this phenomenon continues
even at a temperature of 10° Cent, below
freezing.

The results of Nordenskiold's last voy-
age, in which he passed Behring's Strait
and entered upon the Pacific Ocean, are
briefly stated, and the fuller account from
the pen of the explorer will be awaited
with interest. The Vega, the vessel in
which this important voyage was made, was
detained by ice but a few miles from the
strait, for two hundred and sixty-four days.
It made the passage of the strait on the
20th of July last, and demonstrated the
practicability of navigation from the North
Atlantic to the North Pacific. The volume
is appropriately dedicated to Oscar Dick-
son, of Gothenburg, whose princely liberal-
ity made the several expeditions possible.

An Illustrated Dictionary of Scientific
Terms. By William Rossiter. New
York : G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 350.
Price, ll.VS.

Books of this kind are much needed, as
our scientific literature is becoming burdened
with a great multitude of new technical terms,
many of which are not found in ordinary dic-
tionaries. But this work does not profess
to be complete. Only the most commonly
used and most important words have been
included. The compiler has aimed at accu-
racy and brevity, and seems to have fairly
secured both. We might object to the small-
ness of the type, but 14,000 entries got
within moderate limits of course necessi-
tate small type.

LITERARY XOTICES.

S^S

The English Language and its Early
Literature. By J. H. Gilmore, A. M.,
Professor of Logic, Rhetoric, and Eng-
lish in the University of Rochester. New
York: D. Appleton & Co, Pp. 138.,
Price, 60 cents.

This is a small book, but a valuable
one. It assumes that there is need in our
schools of a much more thorough study
of English, and it opens the way to this
study by a rational method. The usual
study of language, as an isolated and arbi-
trary acquisition — an accumulation of words
in the memory in their mere verbal rela-
tions— is one of the driest and most repul-
sive of mental occupations. Grammar is
undoubtedly more responsible for that ha-
tred of the schoolroom, and all that belongs
to it, which is one of the common results of
education, than any other subjects. The
laws of mind, like the physical laws, vindi-
cate themselves. The young intellect in-
stinctively revolts at the drudgery of gram-
matical word-grinding, and in all history
the teacher tries to counteract this tendency
by the use of the rod. There is no reason
or necessity for this ; it is simply the result
of a vicious method. The subject is capable
of deeply interesting all minds of sufficient
maturity to begin to recognize the relations
and meanings of things. As Professor Gil-
more says, the study of English literature
" may be made one of the most interesting
by associating the literary with the political
and social history of the people ; by with-
drawing attention from the minute details
of literary history, and fixing it only on sa-
lient points ; by studying authors as well as
studying about authors." The professor
cuts the knot at once by taking the evolu-
tion point of view. He says : " We propose,
then, to consider the origin and development
of the English language ; and to approach
that subject — as, indeed, it can only be in-
telligently approached — from an ethnologic
and historic point of view. In studying the
philology of a people, we must at the same
time study their ethnology and history. We
can have no just conception of English lit-
erature unless, as we trace its progressive
development, we couple with it the gradual
unfolding of English political and social
life." He goes on in the same strain ; " The
present character of a people is largely de-
termined by the character of their ancestors.

and the circumstances in which those ances-
tors were developed. The political institu-
tions ot a people are but the unfolding of
a germ implanted centuries ago, and ma-
tured by all the influences to which that
people has since been subjected. So it is
with the literature of a people. All the past
enters into the present, and makes it what
it is. The present will enter into all the
future, and give it character. A nation's
literary history records the germination
and growth, through shade and sunshine, of
seeds which were implanted in the soil cen-
1 turies ago — the development of principles
which arc as old, to say the least, as the
j language in which they are to-day embodied.
Hence, to apprehend fully the literary char-
acter of any age, we must submit ourselves
to the formative influences which have made
I its literature what it is. Thoroughly to un-
' derstand the dramas of Shakespeare, the
essays of Bacon, the poems of Milton, we
must go back into the dim and dusty past,
and learn how Shakespeare, Bacon, and
Milton came to think and speak as they
did ; for no one even of these master minds
was sufficient unto himself — they were all
more or less indebted to the past. What
has been said with reference to English lit-
erature is equally true — indeed, rather more
j true — with reference to the English lan-
i guage. In order thoroughly to comprehend
and effectively to use the English of the
present day, we must study the English of
the past — we must know the language, not
' merely in its developed form, but in its

germinal principles."
j The book is obviously the result of wide
I and critical reading, and much experience
in teaching. It makes no formal claim as
a text-book, but competent instractors will
find ways to make it useful. It contains
copious notes, and many references to works
suitable for consultation by students.

Darwinism and Other Essays. By John
FisKE, A. M., LL. B. Macmillan & Co.
Pp. 283. Price, $2.

This volume consists of various articles
contributed by its author to the periodicals,
and he has done well to collect them in this
convenient and accessible form. The book
opens with three or four papers on various
aspects of " Darwinism," but its chief con-

566

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tents are not described by this title, though
they all treat of kindred questions raised by
the progress of recent inquiry. Although
not a systematic treatise, this collection will
be valuable to students of contemporary
thought. It may be strongly commended to
general readers upon those subjects, as in-
troductory to more methodical works. The
book is in an eminent degree of the ex-
planatory and helpful sort which, by brief
incidental explanations, often succeeds in
aiding the learner where more formidable
disquisitions fail to be apprehended. All
who are perplexed with imperfect appre-
hension -of evolutionary doctrines will find
these essays especially instructive and use-
ful. They are not only full of valuable
thought, but they make the topics plain and
intei'esting to unproficient minds.

Memoirs of the Science Department, Uni-
versity OF ToKjo, Japan. Vol. I., Part
I. Shell-Mounds of Omari. By Ed-
ward S. Morse, Professor of Zoology,
University of Tokio. Published by the
University of Tokio, Japan. Nisshusha
Printing-office. 2539 (1879).

This monograph of Japanese archaeol-
ogy has much more than the usual interest
of such documents. In the first place, it
emanates from a university that has recent-
ly arisen in the great city of Tokio, which
has a vigorous scientific department, and is
filled with native students, who are pushing
with enthusiasm into the field of original
work. Several English-speaking professors
have been called to take positions in this
institution — the heathen being apparently
more appreciative of the missionaries of
science than the missionaries of the gospel.
Professor Morse, of Salem, who has for
the past two or three years been carrying
on the good work of zoology in the Tokio
University, has also interested himself in
Japanese ethnology and the relics of its old
civilization. It is curious that, when we get
back sufficiently far in time, modern dis-
tinctions disappear, and we are lost in a
prehistoric antiquity which discloses com-
mon features all over the world. The
mound-deposits of Japan early attracted Pro-
fessor Morse's attention. He had already
studied these phenomena in Massachusetts
apd Maine, with Wyman and Putnam, and
was prepared to keep a sharp lookout for

evidence of their occurrence in the East.
Soon after his arrival he fortunately dis-
covered a large and extensive shell-mound
on the line of the railway at Omori, six
miles from Tokio. The students of the uni-
versity joined him in exploring it, and many
interesting specimens of pottery, implements,
and weapons were obtained, which are pre-
served among the collections of their Archae-
ological Museum in Tokio. The present
memoir is descriptive of those specimens.
Appended to the text of this memoir are
eighteen large lithographic plates on folding
pages, and containing two hundred and
fifty illustrations of archaeological subjects.
These lithographic representations are ex-
cellently done, and were all drawn by Jap-
anesc artists. Nor is this all: the com-
position and press-work of the volume are
the work of Japanese printers, the type
being set by compositors unable to speak a
word of English. And, what is more, the
paper upon which the book is printed is of
Japanese manufacture. The paper is su-
perior, the typography excellent, and the
printing first rate — in fact, for a " heathen ''
production the work is highly creditable.

Fuel: Its Combustion and Economy. Ed-
ited by C. Kinnard Clark, C. E. D.
Van Nostrand. Pp. 894. Price, $1.50.
This volume is a combination of two
works, one by C. Wye Williams and the
other by J. S. Prideaux, on the general sub-
jects of the combustion of coal, the struc-
ture of furnaces, and the atmospheric con-
ditions of high thermal effects. It is fully
illustrated, and forms a very complete man-
ual of the subject.

Units and Physical Constants. By J. D.

Everett, F. R. S. Macmillan & Co.

Pp. 175. Price, $1.10.

This is a valuable digest of what may
be called the data of the physical sciences—
the units, constants, standards, and symbols
of the foundation facts of the most impor-
tant branches of physical science — mechan-
ics, hydrostatics, astronomy, sound, light,
heat, magnetism, and electricity. Treating
of the basal conceptions of quantitative
science, its expressions are of course in
mathematical form. It is a valuable book
for critical students, and done by a first-
class man.

LITERARY NOTICES.

S^7

Solar Light and Heat : the Source and
Supply. Gravitation ; with Explana-
tions of Planetary and Molecular Forces.
By Zachary Allen, LL. D. D. Apple-
ton & Co. Pp. 241. Price, $1.50.
Dr. Allen published an elaborate work
in 1851, entitled " The Philosophy of the
Mechanics of Nature." The present vol-
ume is a sequel to that publication, and, be-
sides embodying its results, it involves fur-
ther researches into the origin of molecular
forces, of gravitation, and also of solar light
and heat. The author's fundamental idea
is, that molecular forces have their origin
in the mechanical motions of great masses
of matter ; or that the heat, light, and ra-
diant energy of space, acting upon the earth
to produce all its activities, originate in the
rotary and orbital movements of the sun
and planets. The radiant forces are engen-
dered and transmitted by means of a uni-
versal, electric, ethereal medium ; and a large
portion of his volume is devoted to an elu-
cidation of electrical effects and laws which
go to prove that the solar system is a mighty
electric and electro-magnetic engine. Dr.
Allen's views are comprehensive and inter-
esting ; it is for physicists to judge of the
evidence of their validity.

First Book of Qualitative Chemistry.
By Aluert R. Prescott, Professor of
Applied Chemistry in the University of
Michigan. Van Nostrand. Pp. 160.
Price, $1.50.

This volume has been prepared primarily
for use under teachers who also employ the
author's larger work upon Qualitative Anal-
ysis. It is, therefore, a working laborato-
ry-book, useful for classes who desire to
take a short course in practical, qualitative
chemistry. It is designed to afford as much
insight as possible into chemical action, and
prepares for a more definite study of acids
and bases than is usual in such rudimentary
books. The name of the author gives as-
surance of the excellence of the work.

Electro-Metallurgy practically treated.

By Alexander Watt, F. R. S. S. A.

D. Van Nostrand. Pp. 195. Price, $1.

Here is the sixth edition of a technologi-
cal hand-book, the merit of which is thus
fully attested ; for those who have bought
it are naturally those who wanted to use it.

and it has thus been subjected to the sharp-
est trial. It describes the processes of elec-
tro-gilding, electro-plating, and coating of
surfaces by electro-deposition ; and is full
of the information required by the artisan
in this field of industry. The volume is an
interesting record of recent improvements,
and is especially full in details concerning
the electro-deposition of nickel, which is
just supplanting silver as a protective and
ornamental coating for other metals.

PUBLICATIONS RECER^ED.

The Californian. A Western Monthly Jour-
nal. Vol. I., No. 1. January, 1880. San Fran-
cisco: The A. Roman Publishiug Co. Pp. 100.
25 cents a number, $3 a year.

Industrial Education, or the Equal Cultiva-
tion of the Head, the Heart, and the Hand. An
Address, by Professor Alexander Ho<,'tr, before
the National Educational Association at Phila-
delphia, July 31, 1879. Pp. 15.

Mathematics in a Dilemma. By Lawrence S.
Benson. New York: W. T. Hyde & Co. 1879.
Pp. 17.

Prospectus of the Manual Training School of
Washington LTniversity. St. Louis, Missouri:
Globe-Democrat Printing Co. November, 1879.
Pp. 24.

The Relation between Language and Ideas.
A Lecture by M. A. Clancy, belore the Teachers'
Institute of Alexandria, Virginia, September 19,
1879. Pp.27.

Sermons of M. J. Savage. Series on the
Morals of Evolution. VII. The Relativity of
Duly. Pp.19. Vin. Real and Conventional Vir-
tues and Vices. Pp. 16. Boston, December 12,
1879.

Notice of New Jurassic Mammals. By Pro-
fessor O. C. Marsh. Reprinted from "American
Journal of Science and Arts." December, 1879.
Pp.5. Illustrated.

Legends of Sepulchral and Perpetual Lamps,
By Professor H. Carrington Bolton. London,

1879. Pp. 9.

Report of the Committee on Correspondence
appointed by the New York State Association of
School Commissioners and Superintendants, on
Modes of School Supervision and Administra-
tion in the Schools of the State. Pp. 60.

Sensibility, Intelligence, Instinct, and Mind.
By A. J. Howe, M. D. Cincinnati, 1879. Pp. 8.

The Berkeley Qu'irterlv. A Journal of Social
Science. Published bv the Fortnis^htly Club,
Berkeley, California. Vol. I., No. 1. January,

1880. Pp. 80. 50 cents a number, $2 a year.
Eighth Report of the State Entomolocist on

the Noxious and Beneficial Insects of Illinois.
Bv Cvnis Thomas, Ph. D., State Entomologist,
Springfield. 1879. Pp. 212, with Index.

Double-Star Observations made in 1877-78
at Dearborn Observatory, Chicago, comprising :
I. A Catalonne of 2.51 Now Double Stars, with
Measures ; II. Micrometrical Measures of 500
Double Stars. Bv Sherbunie Wesley Burnham.
Reprinted from the Memoirs of the Royal As-
tronomical Society. Pp. 167.

How to studv Phrenoloffv, including the First
Principles or Outlines of Phrenolotrv. By H. S.
Drayton. A.M. New York: S. R.Wells & Co.
18S0. Illustrated.

The Workshop Companion : A Collection of
Useful and Reliable Recipes, Rules, Processes,

568

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

ilethods, Wrinkles, and Practical Hints for the
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Genesis I.-II. : An Essay on the Bible Narra-
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The Art of Cooking : A Series of Practical
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The Youn£;er Edda; also called Snorre's
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POPULAR MISCELLANY.

Geology of the Far West.— Last summer
Professor Geikie, of the University of Edin-
burgh, came over here to study the geology
of om- Western Territories, the i-emarkable
peculiarities of which have excited much
interest abroad ; and he has recently made
his explorations the subject of a very in-
teresting lecture before his class. From a
summary of the discourse, published in
" Nature," we gather the following instruc-
tive particulars: Professor Geikie had three
objects in view in the expedition : 1. To
study the effects of atmospheric and river
erosion upon the surface of the land ; 2.
To mark the relation which the structure
of the rocks underneath bore to the form
of the surface ; and, 3. To watch some of
the last phases of volcanic action. In cross-
ing the prairies toward the Rocky Moun-
tains he noted the singular fact that their
surface was " veneered " with a thin coat-
ing of pinkish, fine-grained sand, its color
being due to small pieces of fresh feldspar.
It was clear that this mineral, as well as
fragments of quartz and topaz found with
it, did not belong to the strata on which
they lay. In going west, the grains of sand,

getting coarser, assumccl the form of dis-
tinct pebbles, and on reaching the moun-
tains became huge blocks and bowlders,
evidently derived from the heights beyond.
The name, "Rocky Mountains," the Pro-
fessor regards as singularly misapplied. On
most maps of Xorth America a continuous
line of lofty ridge is represented as extending
down the axis of the continent, and marked
" Rocky Mountains." No such ridge, how-
ever, is to be found. The great plateau
had been wrinkled by numberless meridio-
nal folds, which, dying out, have been re-
placed by others. Some of these folds
form mountain-ranges with wide basins be-
tween them. It is, however, possible to cross
the axis of the continent without climbing
over mountains of any kind, and the Union
Pacific Railroad follows one of these natu-
ral routes. So little did the landscape sug-
gest great altitudes that at an elevation of
eight thousand feet a wooden placard had
been erected, bearing the title " Summit of
the Rocky Mountains." Going westward to
Denver, the Professor halted on the bor-
ders of the great mountain-range that forms
the bulwarks of the parks of Colorado.
These crests of crystalline rock have been
forced up like a great wedge through the
cretaceous and tertiary strata of the prai-
ries, carrying the latter up with them in a
grandly picturesque curve along their flanks.
An excursion into some of the mountain
gorges or canons brought to light the source
of the pink feldspar sand of the prairie;
great masses of pink granite, gray gneiss,
and feldspar form the core of tbe moun-
tains ; these are visibly crumbling into the
same kind of pink sand and gravel. The
mountains have been covered with glaciers
which have flowed out into the plains, and
there shed their huge horseshoe-shaped mo-
raines. Having crossed the watershed of
the continent. Professor Geikie struck west-
ward into the Uintah Mountains, one of the
few ranges in that region that has an east
and west direction. It forms one of the
most remarkable elevations in North Amer-
ica. Unlike the other mountainous high
grounds it possesses no great central core
of crystalline azoic rocks, but consists of a
vast flattened dome of red sandstones, dip-
ping steeply down beneath mesozoic rocks
on either flank. One feature of surpassing

P OP ULAR MIS CELL ANY.

569

interest in the Uintah Mountains is the evi-
dence of enormous denudation, continued
through a protracted cycle of geological time.
The horizontality of the strata along the
central parts of the range is such that ter-
race above terrace can be traced by the
eye for miles around any commanding peak.
The rocks there have escaped crumbling and
fracture to a remarkable degree. It can
therefore be seen that the deep gullies and
clefts, the yawning precipices and cations,
the wide corries and vast amphitheatres by
which the surface is so broken up have
been produced not by underground disturb-
ances but by erosion at the surface. Most
of this tremendous denudation has doubt-
less been effected by ordinary atmospheric
action. One of the valleys in this section
he describes as crossed by beautiful horse-
shoe moraines that had once formed a suc-
cession of lakes, the sites of which are now
occupied by meadows. In these and other
high grounds, the beaver, by its dams, has
converted the small streams into a succession
of shallow lakes, and hundreds of acres of
bog-land have been thus produced. The
grand canon of the Yellowstone, gouged out
of volcanic formations. Professor Geikie de-
scribed as exhibiting, perhaps, the most
marvelous piece of mineral color to be seen
anywhere in the world. It has been cut
out of tuffs and lavas, showing sulphur-yel-
low, verdigris, or emerald-green, vermilion,
crimson, and orange tints, so remarkable
that, if transferred to paper or canvas, they
would be pronounced incredible and impos-
sible. In the Yellowstone Valley abundant
evidence of extensive glacial action was
found. On entering the second canon in
their ascent of the valley, it was seen to be
most exquisitely glaciated from bottom to
top, thus making it clear that the canon
was older than the glacial period ; it had
supplied a channel through which the gla-
cier had ground its way out from the moun-
tains. According to the indications on the
sides of the valley, this glacier must have
had a thickness of sixteen or seventeen
hundred feet. The Professor next described
the famous geyser region. The ground was
honeycombed with holes, filled with boiling
water. One geyser, known as " Old Faith-
ful," went off with wonderful regularity
every sixty-three minutes ; the others were

more variable. The " Devil's Paint-Pot," a
mud-geyser, boiled like a great vat of thick
porridge, throwing out white and brilliantly
colored mud. Professor Geikie acknowl-
edges with admiration the labors of the ex-
plorers who first made known the wonders
of this remote and inaccessible region. The
reports of Hayden and his associates were
found to be most trustworthy and useful.
Nor could one forget the sagacity with
which Ilayden proposed, and the enlight-
ened liberality with which Congress enacted,
that for all time the Yellowstone region
should be a tract set apart as a national
park for the instruction and recreation of
the people. On reaching the basin of the
Great Salt Lake, our traveler was impressed,
by the evidences on every hand of the for-
mer vast extent of this inland sea. Lines
of terrace ran along the sides of the moun-
tains, the highest standing a thousand feet
above the present level of the water. The
rocks in some of the canons descending
from the Wahsatch Mountains, in the Salt
Lake Basin, were found smoothed, polished,
and striated by the glaciers that had come
down from the heights above, bringing with
them great quantities of moraine matter.
Mounds of rubbish blocked up the valleys
here and there, and some of them were ob-
served to descend to the highest terrace.
Hence, when the Salt Lake extended far
beyond its present area, and was about one
thousand feet deeper than now, the glaciers
from the Wahsatch Mountains reached its
edge, and shed their bergs into its waters.
Bones of the musk-ox had been found in
one of the terraces, showing that Arctic
animals lived in this region during these
cold ages.

Death of Professor B. F. Madge.— We

have to record the death, at his home in
Manhattan, Kansas, on the 21st of Novem-
ber last, of Professor B. F. Mudgc, whose
geological and paleontological researches
and writings had gained for him a high
place among Western men of science. Pro-
fessor Mudge began his working life at the
age of fourteen as a shoemaker, but at
twenty fitted himself for college, and en-
tered Wesleyan University, where he grad-
uated in 1840. He then studied law ; was
admitted to the bar in 1842, and for the

570

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

next seventeen years practiced his profes-
sion in Lynn, Massacliusetts, of which city
he was elected the second Mayor. In 1859
he went West, and took the position of
ohemist for the Breckenridge Oil and Iron
Company in Kentucky. When the war broke
out he removed to Kansas, and in 1863 re-
ceived the appointment of State Geologist.
In 1865 he was elected Professor of Geol-
ogy and Associated Sciences in the State
Agricultural College, a position he continued
to fill for eight years. Since 18*74 Professor
Mudge has thoroughly explored the geology
of Kansas, describing for Professor Hayden
the Tertiary and Cretaceous formations of
the State, and making extensive collections
for Professor Cope, including among other
interesting fossils the discovery of one of
the earlier if not the earliest specimen of
toothed birds found in this country. More
recently he was employed by Professor
Marsh as field geologist of Yale College,
and has since made large collections in the
West for the Peabody Museum. Professor
Mudge was a member of the American As-
sociation for the Advancement of Science ;
and was one of the founders of the Kansas
Academy of Sciences, and its first President.
He also took a deep interest in the cause of
general education, and was offered the posi-
tion of State Superintendent of Schools in
Kansas; this, however, he felt obliged to
decline, in obedience to his preference for
active scientific work. Indefatigable as an
observer, Professor Mudge was also a clear
and interesting writer ; and it is to be hoped
that his numerous scientific papers will yet
be brought together for permanent preserva-
tion in book-form.

Zoiilogkal Wftik at the Chesapeake Lab-
©ratsry. — In a brief report to the Presi-
dent of Johns Hopkins University, Professor
W. K. Brooks, of that institution, gives an
interesting outline of the investigations car-
ried on during the past summer in the Ches-
apeake Zoological Laboratory of which he
was in charge. The laboratory opened at
Crisfield, on the eastern shore of the bay,
June 25th, having its quarters in three barges
belonging to the Maryland Fish Commission.
There were a dozen gentlemen in attend-
ance, most of them trained observers, and
the amount of work accomplished during

the session Professor Brooks describes as
very satisfactory. Later in the season the
mosquitoes made the barges uninhabitable,
and the party was obliged to move to Port
Wool, where its work was continued until
September 15th, making the length of the
session eleven weeks. Dr. S. F. Clarke,
assistant in the Zoological Laboratory of
Johns Hopkins, devoted most of the season
to the study of hydroids, and found that
many of the species which occur in the bay
are new to science. Besides describing a
number of these, he was able to make im-
portant observations on their structure,
manner of growth, and other points of in-
terest. Professor E. A. Birge, of the Uni-
versity of Wisconsin, made a very complete
series of observations on the larval stages
of two genera of crabs, tracing them from
the egg to the adult form ; and prepared a
full set of drawings showing each append-
age at each stage of development. A care-
ful study of the development of the edible
crab was attempted, but stormy weather
prevented a completion of this work, which
it is suggested should be taken up again
another season. Concerning his own inves-
tigations, which were mainly directed to the
development and artificial propagation of
the oyster, Professor Brooks states that he
obtained information on a number of ob-
scure points in moUuscan development, and
also reached very unexpected conclusions re-
garding the breeding habits of the American
oyster which he believes will prove to be of
great economic importance. Owing to the
difficulties attending such investigations at
the ocean, much of the work begun was left
incomplete ; several of the researches, how-
ever, were carried far enough to warrant
publication, and a number of papers have
been prepared that are now ready for the
press.

Progress of tbe Electric Light. — Mr.

Edison has been vigorously prosecuting his
investigations in relation to this subject, in
the laboratory at Menlo Park, and has late-
ly announced an important step forward.
His task has been to get an electric lamp
that would work satisfactoi'ily in giving out
only the light of a common gas-burner.
The carbon-points and arc would not an-
swer. He labored a long time to make

POPULAR MISCELLANY,

571

platinum in some form serve as the wick of
his lan:p, to be made luminous by the cur-
rent. But, this failing to meet his require-
ments, he cast about for other materials.
He tried carbon in various shapes, and at
length hit upon one form of it which he
thinks promises to solve his problem suc-
cessfully. He cuts out a slender piece of
paper from cardboard, in the shape of a
horseshoe, about one inch and a half long,
and not thicker than a knitting-needle. This
is then carbonized by pressing it between
metal plates, which are raised to a high
temperature. This little slender carbon-
loop, which preserves its fibrous character,
so as to make it somewhat elastic, is clamped
to the conducting wires, at each end, and is
then introduced into a little glass globe, two
or three inches in diameter, which is exhaust-
ed of air, and immediately sealed up. By im-
provements in the Sprengel pump, Mr. Edi-
son claims to get a vacuum so perfect that
but one millionth of the air remains in it.
As the current passes through the carbon it
heats it to a glowing whiteness, so that it
gives out a very pleasant, moderate light.
These lamps, it is said, can be made very
cheaply, and it is claimed that thus far the
carbon filaments withstand the influence of
the current and promise to be permanent.
It would, of course, be premature to pass
judgment upon that which time alone can
determine.

ibont Snakes. — The question how snakes
progress is answered by the books in a way
satisfactory to many minds, but Mr. H. F.
Hutchinson, who writes about them in a
recent number of "Nature," takes some
exceptions to the usual explanation. He
seems to have been a careful observer of
their habits, and concludes that terrestrial
snakes move in one or the other of the
following ways: " 1. On smooth, plane sur-
faces, by means of their rib-legs ; e. g., the
boa. 2. Through high grass, by a rapid,
almost invisible, sinuous onward movement,
as the hydrophidfc in water ; e. g., the rat-
snake. 3. Climbing trees, or ascending
smooth surfaces by erecting their abdom-
inal scales, or using them to produce a
vacuum, as lizards do their foot-scales for
ascending smooth surfaces ; e. g., tree-snakes
and cobras." Mr. Hutchinson captured a

snake nine inches long, with a head less
than half an inch broad, and presented it
with a frog two inches long and one broad.
The snake saluted the frog by seizing it by
the nose. The animal made desperate at-
tempts to shake it off, but in vain, and all
the while the process of deglutition (?) was
o-oing on, or rather the snake was slowly
but surely getting outside the frog. This
was accomplished by a sort of vermicular
process. The sharp little teeth were seen
to advance slightly, and then the whole
body wriggled up to a new hold on the frog.
In this way it very gradually disappeared,
the whole process lastiug half an hour.
The so-called snake-charming Mr. Hutchin-
son is confident is only clever legerdemain.
He describes the operation of skin-shedding
as follows : " The skin ready to be cast
yields round the snake's mouth only, and
remains adherent to the extremity of the
tail. As the animal advances, the caudal
extremity of the skin is inverted— that i?,
pulled inward — and so the process goes on,
and is completed by the tail passing through
the mouth of the skin ; and thus the direc-
tion of the abandoned skin is directly oppo-
site to the direction taken by the skin-cast-
ing snake — that is, if the mouth of the skin
lies east, the snake went out to the west."

Improvements in Bntter-makiiig.— Eng-
lish farmers of late years have been giv-
ing more and more attention to the im-
provement of their dairy products, and in
the business of butter-making, especially,
have made some very considerable ad-
vances on the old-time practice. One of
the most recent and one of the most impor-
tant of these is the discovery of an odorless,
tasteless, and quite innocuous antiseptic that
proves to be an effectual preservative of
butter, without the use of salt, and without
the usual precaution of excluding it from
the air. To test its efficacy, the patent was
submitted to Mr. G. M. Allendor, a disinter-
ested expert in London, for trial. On the
24th of July last he treated a churning of
butter in accordance with the directions
specified, and, inclosing the butter in a mus-
lin cloth, placed it in a firkin without a par-
ticle of salt — every precaution being taken
that there should be no tampering with the
experiment. The firkin remained on the

572

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

premises at St. Petersburg Place, Bayswa-
tcr, for three months, and when examined
on October 2-ith the butter was as sound
and sweet as when first put in, although
during the whole time it had practically
been exposed to the air, nothing having
been done to exclude the latter from the fir-
kin. Without treatment it would undoubted-
ly have become wholly putrid in that length
of time ; nothing, however, could be detect-
ed by either smell or taste to indicate that
the sample had suffered the slightest dete-
rioration, as it possessed all the qualities of
flavor and firmness of butter churned the
day before. Experts in different parts of
the country were furnished samples, and all
pronounced the preservation wonderful ;
they were of the opinion, however, that the
best, newly-made butter has a peculiar aro-
ma that is not quite equaled in the pre-
served butter, while the latter was consid-
ered a little "dead," a defect that is re-
moved by the addition of one per cent, of
salt. The cost of the preservative does not
exceed one halfpenny per pound of butter ;
it is worked in directly after churning, and
requires no further care or attention, except
that, like other butter, it should be kept in
a moderately cool place.

Arc Bacteria found ia Healthy Animals ?

—In the " Journal of Anatomy and Physi-
ology" for April, 18Y8, Messrs. Chiene and
Ewart asserted that bacteria did not exist in
the organs of healthy living animals. In the
August number of the " Journal fur Prak-
tische Chemie" Messrs. Neucki and Gracosa
urge the affirmative side of the question.
The chief points of the latter's argument we
abstract from a recent copy of " Nature " :
Dr. Burdon-Sanderson plunged an organ
from a newly-killed animal into paraffine
heated to 110", it was allowed to cool and
then covered with Venetian turpentine to
still further protect it from outside infec-
tion. Two days after, the organ was found
in a clotted and slightly cooked condition
on the outside, but bacteria were present in
the center. To this, Messrs. Chiene and
Ewart replied that the bacteria-germs fell
upon the organ in the interval between its
extraction and the moment of plunging it
into paraffino. This was accordingly guard-
ed against by an antiseptic method, and three

days afterward, when the specimens were
examined, no bacteria were discovered. The
conclusion, therefore, of Messrs. Chiene and
Ewart was that, if the organs were treated
antiseptically after death, neither bacteria
nor their germs will be found ; and hence
that no bacteria-germs exist in living healthy
organs. Messrs. Neucki and Gracosa, in
order to prove the contrary, filled a large
glass test-tube with mercury, closed it with
a slip of glass, and inverted it in a vessel
containing mercury. The vessel was then
heated until the tube was one third filled
with vapor of mercury. It was then allowed
to cool ; the quicksilver in the tube again
condensed ; and when that in the outer jar
was heated to 120° it was covered with a
five per cent, solution of carbolic acid. A
portion of an internal organ from an animal
recently killed was brought by means of a
pair of tweezers under the mouth of the
tube, up which it ascended. The apparatus
was kept for several days at a temperature
of 40° ; and bacteria were subsequently
found in the specimen. All experiments of
this kind led to the conclusion that bacteria
exist in the organs of living healthy ani-
mals.

Antiquity of Man. — Professor Boyd Daw-
kins, in a paper on the antiquity of man,
read before the Sheffield meeting of the
British Association, said that when he ex-
amined the great divisions of the Tertia-
ry period in their relation to the highest
forms of life, he was confronted by the fol-
lowing important facts : In the Eocene age
thei-e was not a single species of placental
mammal. There is not a single well-authen-
ticated case of any mammalian species, now
living on the earth, having lived in the Mi-
ocene age, .although the French archccolo-
gists claim that man lived then. In the Pli-
ocene age one or two living species make
their appearance. Passing to the Pleis-
tocene or Glacial period, living species are
very abundant, extinct species are rare. It
is in this period that man appears, over an
extended area. He is a mere hunter, not a
■farmer or possessor of wild animals. The
prehistoric period which succeeded the Pleis-
tocene was characterized by the absence of
the extinct species of mammalia, with the
single exception of the Irish elk. At this

POPULAR MISCELLANY

573

time, the domestic animals, the dog, sheep,
horse, and various breeds of cattle appear,
and are subject to man; and along with
them there was the cultivation of the arts
of agriculture. In conclusion, he claimed
that hopes of fixing the exact antiquity of
man would be vain, as there were intervals
of the length of which we have no record ;
but he was certainly an inhabitant of the
earth during the Glacial period.

Does Sargassnm yegetate in the Open

Sea ? — In reply to the questions of a corre-
spondent in " Nature," regarding sargassum,
Mr. J. J. Wild gives the following informa-
tion : While on board the Challenger, dur-
ing her cruise in the North Atlantic in the
year 1873, he had frequent opportunity for
observing this alga, and more than once
saw large patches of it extending from the
vicinity of the vessel to a great distance.
As regards the appearance of these sargas-
sum patches, he quotes Sir C. WjTille Thom-
son, who says: "They consist of a single
layer of feathery branches of the weed
{Sargassum baccifh-um), not matted, but
floating nearly free of one another, only
sufficiently entangled for the mass to keep
together. Each tuft has a central brown,
thread-like, branching stem, studded with
round air-vesicles on short stalks, most of
those near the center dead and coated with
a beautiful netted white polyzoon. After a
time vesicles so incrusted break off, and,
when there is much gulf-weed, the sea is
studded with these little separate white
balls. A short way from the center toward
the ends of the branches, the serrated, wil-
low-like leaves of the plant begin, at first
brown and rigid, but becoming further on
in the branch paler, more delicate, and more
active in their vitality. The young fresh
leaves and air-vesicles are usually orna-
mented with the stalked vases of a campa-
nularia. The general color of the mass of
weed is thus olive in all its shades, but the
golden olive of the young and growing
branches greatly predominates." Mr. Wild
still further quotes from the same author
to the effect that sargassum is the "one
notable exception " to the rule that the
higher algae do not live on the surface of
the sea. Mr. H. N. Moseley, in " Notes by
a Naturalist," refers to the pelagic habits of

sargassum and other sea-wccds when he
says, " They grow attached to rocks, as well
as free, but they all produce spores only
when attached."

The Salmon Industries of Oregon. — It

is well known that the salmon, which is es-
teemed a luxury, and at certain seasons of
the year is found only on the tables of the
rich, is a prolific fish. A female will yield
about a thousand eggs for every pound of
her weight, but, of the millions of eggs
deposited in spawning-beds, only a few de-
velop to adult salmon. Numberless ova es-
cape fertilization, floods carry them from
their places of deposit, and enemies destroy
both eggs and fish. Enthusiasts in fishery
economy assert that in the near future salm-
on will be as cheap as other fish. At pres-
ent, however, it is very dear, and, notwith-
standing that artificial spawning is resorted
to, the fish does not increase in proportion
to the increasing demand. This keeps up
the price, and has given rise to an impoi't-
ant industry in the preparation of canned
salmon. We glean the following concern-
ing this industry from " Chambers's Jour-
nal " : A surprising trade in this commodity
has developed in Oregon, and large quan-
tities of canned fish are exported from this
source to Great Britain and Europe. Scot-
land and Ireland yield excellent salmon,
but the canned fish may be obtained even
in remote towns of the ITnited Kingdom for
half the price of the fresh. There are flour-
ishing canneries on the Umpqna, Eraser,
Royal, and Columbia Rivers. In some of
these a capital of fifty thousand dollars
has been invested, and twice that outlay
will be required for some newly projected
establishments. The fish taken from the
Columbia River are nearly all ' canned,' and
as many as twelve million pounds of salm-
on have been taken from this source in a
single season. The Columbia is a river of
vast extent, with an enormous body of water.
Salmon run up to a distance of four hun-
dred miles from the sea, and thus obtain
ample living and spawning room in shallow
places of the main stream and its tributa-
ries. The fish selected for canning is local-
ly known as the ' chinook salmon.' Its
average size is twenty-two pounds. When
taken only for local consumption, clubs and

574

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

spears, or hook and line, serve the purpose ;
but, in order to supply the now enormous-
ly increased demand, drift-nets are used.
These are thi-ee quarters of a mile in length,
twenty feet in depth, and have a mesh suf-
ficient to allow the head of a fish to enter
as far as the gills. The fishing-season lasts
from April to July, and during this time the
work is prosecuted with vigor. Everything
required in the business is manufactured on
the premises. Foreigners are employed to
do the work ; Italians capture the fish and
Chinamen prepare it for consumption. The
fish, placed in racks in quantities, at the en-
trance of the cannery, are readily accessible.
A flexible water-pipe directs its searching
flow of water on to the salmon to cleanse
them, after which they are sorted and placed
within reach of the first opei'ator. He takes
oif head, fins, and tail ; making an incision
into the back, the intestinal matter is re-
moved, and the fish thrown into a tub half
filled with water. The second operator
scrapes and washes it, and passes it on
to man number three for inspection. The
fourth person ranges the bodies in a trough,
where by means of blades driven by a crank
they are cut to pieces. These are now neatly
packed in cans, a spoonful of salt is put into
each one, the lid is soldered down, and the
cans are then ready for the cooking-house.
Here immersed in a huge steamer they cook
an hour. Removed from the steam-bath,
they have each a small hole bored in them,
to admit of their quickly cooling. The tins
are next placed in boiling salt water, where
they remain two hours. They are again
examined, now to see that the ends have
assumed a concave shape. Such tins as
have not taken this shape are condemned,
while all others are passed forward to be
varnished and labeled. Before being sent
to market they are again examined, and im-
perfect cans are rejected.

Voice in Fishes.— Mr. S. E. Pool, in a
late number of " Nature," gives an account
of an interesting observation of his own in
support of the claim that fishes possess a
faculty of voice. He states that, when en-
gaged in a survey of the " Disang River
in eastern Assam " some six years ago, he
had occasion to sound the depth of a pool.
When seated in a small canoe and slowly

nearing it, he suddenly became aware of the
presence of a number of fish called " mah-
sir." They were evidently attracted by the
canoe, and Mr. Pool surmised that they
might possibly think it a huge dead fish.
While watching their movements, he be-
came " aware of a peculiar ' cluck ' or per-
cussive sound — frequently repeated, on all
sides, and coming from below," but near by.
This was soon traced to the mahsir, and one
of them made distinct sounds which were
answered by others. He further states that
in some parts of eastern Assam a large bi-
valve sings in concert with others.

Expansion of Bodies by Electrification.

— In a communication to the Paris Acad-
emy of Sciences, E. Duter describes some
experiments which have led him to the con-
clusion that bodies are increased in bulk by
electrification. A large thermometer-tube
is filled with water and coated externally
with tin-foil, forming a Leyden-jar or con-
denser, with the water for the interior con-
ductor, the foil for the exterior conductor,
and the tube for the insulator — a platinun
wire dipping into the water as a charging
rod or electrode. As soon as the jar is
electrified the water sinks to a lower level,
and so remains till the jar is discharged.
The inference is, that the glass is dilated
by electrification, and this inference is
strengthened by the fact that the same ef-
fects are produced whatever be the nature
of the armatures, whether tin-foil, water,
saline or mercury solutions. To remove all
doubts, M. Duter modified the apparatus by
placing the tube (or Leyden-jar) in a closed
envelope of glass, terminated also by a
thermometer-stem and filled equally with a
liquid conductor. In this arrangement the
liquid of the internal reservoir formed the
interior armature of the condenser, and the
liquid of the envelope formed the exterior
armature, the glass tube being, as before,
the insulator. On electrification, while the
inner liquid sank, the outer liquid rose to
an equal amount, thus proving the accuracy
of the inference. On discharge of the elec-
tricity, the original levels were restored.
The conclusion is, that the internal capaci-
ty of a Leyden-jar and its external volume
are increased by charging it with static elec-
tricity. Temperature can not cause this

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

575

cliano-e, since the effect is immediate in
charging and discharging. Neither can
electric pressure cause it, because that
must be the same on both sides of the die-
lectric, and a diminution of volume would
be the result. Again, it is not due to the
polarity of the armature, for on reversing
the poles the effect is the same.

Sheep poisoned at Pasture.— If we re-

trard the masses of its bloom, and the ex-
ceptionally exquisite form of its blossoms,
probably no flower can equal the kalmia, or
American laurel. All this is appreciated
in Europe, and the plant holds a distin-
guished place in its gardens. But at home
this fine shrub bears the execration of all
shepherds and herdsmen, as it is poisonous
to the sheep. Next to Australia, if not
equal, in sheep-raising, is Colorado. Un-
happily, a poisonous mallow {Malvastrum
coccineum) is found growing from Iowa
across the great Plains westward. Last
October a sheep-raiser named Ruble, in
Pueblo, Colorado, had the ill luck to have a
flock get into a patch of this terrible weed,
and twelve hundred sheep perished in four
hours! Another plant in Colorado, the
dreaded "loco" of the stock-men — the Oxy-
tropis Lamberti — is also noted for its poison-
ous qualities.

A PrecoeioHS Century-Plant. — There is
now (January) a fine century-plant {Agave
Americana) in full bloom, in the conserva-
tory of John Hoey, Esq., at Hollywood,
Long Branch, New Jersey. This plant is
only twelve years old. The notion of this
aloe only blooming when a hundred years
old is simply a tradition of the elders. It
all depends on the environment and chiefly
temperature. Blooming at the age of fifty
years is common. To get the plant into
bloom at twenty-five years is considered
quite satisfactory by the gardeners, but this
instance of one flowering at twelve years, in
a conservatory, must be accounted as unique.

The Proportion of Oxygen in the Upper
Air. — Though oxygen is heavier than nitro-
gen, and therefore ought to fall to a lower
level in the atmosphere than the latter gas,
still, no difference has ever been found to
exist in the relative proportions of the two,

even at the greatest attainable altitudes.
Up to such elevations the agitation of the
air suffices to keep its componenta uni-
formly mixed. Whether there is any want
of uniformity at still greater elevations is
an open question, the solution of which has
been attempted by Professor Edward W
Morley, of Hudson, Ohio. Accepting as pro-
visionally correct the theory proposed a few
years ago by Professor Loomis, that great
and sudden depressions of temperature are
sometimes owing to the vertical descent of
cold air from elevated regions of the atmos-
phere. Professor Morley inferred that sam-
ples of air taken at the earth's surface dur-
ing a great and sudden lowering of temper-
ature might have come from altitudes where
the proportion of oxygen had been lessened
by the action of gravity. He has therefore
made numerous analyses of air during " cold
waves," and the result has been invaria-
bly to show deficiencies in the proportion
of oxygen in the air at such times.

New Colorings Matters.— The chemists
Savigny and Colineau have discovered a
method of obtaining innocuous coloring
matters from the red cabbage. This sub-
stance is known as cauline, and is useful in
painting, for printing fabrics, and for dyeing.
The process is as follows : Cut the interior
of the cabbage and the stalks of the leaves
in small pieces and place them in boiling
water in the proportion of one and a half
kilogramme of leaves to three litres of wa-
ter. The infusion is left about twenty-four
hours to macerate, then the leaves are taken
out and submitted to pressure to squeeze
out the water, which is added to the liquid
infusion ; this cauline is of a violet-blue
color. It forms the base of a series of de-
rivatives which constitute the precipitates
of various colors. For instance, to obtain
barucauline, two grammes of baryta are
added to five hundred grammes of cauline
cold ; this produces a clear green dye. To
obtain chlorocalcicauline, which is a bluish
green, one hundred grammes of anhydrous
chloride of calcium are added to half a kilo-
gramme of cauline. A false bronze color
is obtained by adding one hundred to five
hundred grammes chloride manganese and
five grammes baryta to five hundred
grammes cauline ; this is called mangocau-

576

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

line

line. Zincocarbocauline, which is an ultra-
marine blue, is obtained by introducing
forty grammes chloride zinc and twenty-
five grammes carbonate soda to five hun-
dred grammes cauline.

NOTES.

Extensive excavations near Waldorf, in
the neighborhood of Bonn, Germany, have
brought to light the site of an old town be-
lieved to be of Roman origin, but the extent
of which is yet quite unknown. The re-
mains of a large Roman villa were discov-
ered in the vicinity, situated a little below
the site of an extinct volcano — a circum-
stance going to show that at the time of
the Roman occupation the volcanoes of the
Rhine had ceased to be dangerous.

James Clerk Maxwell, the distinguished
Professor of Experimental Physics at the
University of Cambridge, and the author of
numerous works on physics, died at Cam-
bridge, November 5, 1879, at the early age
of forty-eight years.

A CASE of serious injury to the eyes, by
the use of chloral, is given in a late mmiber
of the " Medical Record," on the authority
of Dr. G. H. Felton, of Uaverhill, Massa-
chusetts. The Doctor writes that the drug
was administered for a few days only, and
apparently in the usual small doses. It
caused severe pain in the eyes, obliged re-
tirement to a darkened room for several
days, and left a condition of weakness that
has persisted for two years, and that still
necessitates the occasional use of colored
glasses.

By the death of Dr. Karl Friedrich Mohr,
of Bonn, the science of chemistry has lost
a worker whose valuable labors have ex-
tended over half a century. He was born
in Coblenz, in November, 1806, and will be
best remembered by the " Lchrbuch der
chemisch-analytische Tetrirmethode," which
appeared in 1855 and 1856. His published
papers are mainly those devoted to meteor-
ology and those bearing on volumetric analy-
sis. Among the various subjects treated by
him are ground-ice, ozone, St. Elmo's fire,
lightning-conductors, hail, and rain. His va-
rious papers on chemical analysis extend
over a period of fifty years.

The Brussels International Congress for
Commercial Geography passed, among oth-
ers, the following resolutions : " 1. The
Congress is of opinion that, in the interest
of all nations, it is desirable that one or
more lines of railway should connect the
coasts of Africa with its interior. 2. Com-
plete freedom of trade should reign, there.

3. In the expectation of a complete aboli-
tion of custom-houses, it is desirable that as
many commercial treaties as possible should
be concluded. It is particularly necessary
that a treaty of this kind should be prelimi-
narily entered into between Belgium and Hol-
land. 4. The Congress expresses the wish
that everywhere instruction in history should
be separate from that in geography."

Died September 13, 1819, William W-
Saunders, F. R. S., F. L. S., etc., of London-
He was chiefly interested in natural history
pursuits, giving special attention to botany
and entomology, and was three times elect-
ed President of the Entomological Society
of London. His natural history collections
were extensive, and especially his cabinet
of insects, which at one time was considered
the most complete in England,

Stellar's manatee, which is supposed to
have become extinct in 1786, has until re-
cently been represented in Europe by only
a few bones preserved in the museum at
St. Petersburg. During his recent voyage
Professor Nordenskiold obtained numerous
remains of the animal in the neighborhood
of Bchring Strait.

The death is announced of Lady Lub-
bock, the wife of Sir John Lubbock, on
October 30, 1879. Besides a warm interest
in her husband's scientific pursuits, Lady
Lubbock was herself an occasional contrib-
utor to scientific journals, and among others
published several years ago a paper of much
interest on the "Shell-Mounds of Denmark,"
which attracted wide attention.

The Council for the Royal Society has
awarded, this year, the following medals:
" The Copley medal to Professor Rudolph
J. E. Clausius, of Bonn, for his well-known
researches upon heat ; the Davy medal to
Mr. P. E. Lecoy de Boisbaudran, for his
discovery of gallium ; a Royal medal to Mr.
William Henry Perkin, F. R. S., for his
synthetical and other researches in organic
chemistry ; and a Royal medal to Professor
Andrew Crombie Ramsay, F. R. S., for his
long-continued and successful labors in ge-
ology and pliysical geography.

The Apennine Railway reaches its high-
est point at an elevation of 2,000 feet above
sea-level ; the Black Forest Railway ascends
to 2,762 feet, the Semmering line to 2,892
feet, the Caucastis line to 3,168 feet. The
St. Gothard Tunnel is 3,750 feet above sea-
level ; the railway across the Brenner
reaches 4,443 feet ; the Mont Cenis Rail-
way ascends to 4,348 feet, the North Pacific
line to 5,369 feet, the Central Pacific to /
6,121 feet, and the Union Pacific to 8,167
feet. The highest is the line across the
Andes, which reaches an elevation of 15,-
500 feet.

A^

CARL RITTER.

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY.

MARCH, 1880.

THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS.

By WILLIAM JAMES, M. D.,

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF PHYSIOLOGY IN HARVARD COLLEGE.

THE manner in which trains of imagery and consideration follow
each other through our thinking, the restless flight of one idea
before the next, the transitions our minds make between things wide
as the poles asunder, transitions which at first sight startle us by their
abruptness, but which, when scrutinized closely, often reveal interme-
diating links of thought of perfect naturalness and propriety — all this
magical, imponderable streaming has from time immemorial excited
the admiration of every living man whose attention happened to be
caught by its omnipresent mystery. And it has furthermore chal-
lenged the race of philosophers to try to banish something of the mys-
tery by formulating the process in somewhat simpler terms.

Two great philosophic efforts to this end have been made. The
one is called the associationist philosophy of England, the other the
Herbartian system of Germany. Professor Bain's books are generally
regarded as the most successful expression of the first movement.
Volkmann's " Psychology " is perhaps the most finished utterance of
the last. These schools differ as to their theoretic basis (the one being
ontological and the other phenomenal), but they agree in almost all
besides ; especially in the attempt to show how all the different kinds
of mental activity (such as memory, judgment, reasoning, self-con-
sciousness, desire, etc., etc., which were formerly classed as distinct
.and original "faculties") maybe explained as resultants of the man-
ner in which, by the working of two or three simple elementary laws
of revival between images, these latter are grouped into certain charac-
teristic forms.

In fact, the easiest way of describing the entire industry of these
VOL. XVI. — 37

5/8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

schools would be to say that they seek to explain the forms of con-
sciousness by means of its materials.

Now, to another class of minds any such attempt seems so prepos-
terously absurd that they pour out the child with the bath, and disdain
even a modest ambition which should content itself with tracing out
in the jungle of the mind a few of the trails by which its materials
are brought together. As this article is born of the latter ambition,
and as its author thinks he has succeeded in making the trails broader
and smoother than previous writers have left them, it behooves him to
defend himself and his purpose by a few preliminary words addressed
'to this class of critics. They are recruited mainly from the school of
Hegel, but we find even as fertile and acute a writer as Lotze sharing
their prejudices and negations in this respect.

The intuition they start from is that thought is not a sand-heap of
juxtaposed images with associating links outside of them and between
them. It is a unitary continuum of which the items, and the logical
relations between the items, form alike integral parts, equally imbed-
ded, equally essential, equally interdependent. Any relation may
carry us from one item to another, and according as we follow one or
the other relation we shall traverse the field of -thought in this way or
in that, have one train of images or its opposite. But all the relations
are logical, are relations of reason. A thing may suggest its like, or
its opposite, its genus or its species, its cause or its effect, its means or
its purpose, its habitual neighbors in space or in time, its possibilities
or its impossibilities, its changes or its resistance to change — in short,
it may call up every consideration to which it can have a possible logi-
cal relevancy, and call up each in its turn. And the only summary
formula that can be applied to all these infinite possibilities of transi-
tion is that, as transitions of Thought, they are all alike .acts of Reason.
This monotonous appeal to " Thought " with a capital T and Reason
with a capital R is apt to irritate the ear of him bent on analysis, very
much as the stereotyped " Allah is great " of the Mussulman irritates
the ear of the scientific traveler. It is true enough, but sterile. And,
when it interdicts discrimination and the search for secondary causes,
it performs as obstructive a function as that of our dear old friend the
dog in the manger.

For these so-called " transitions of Reason " are far from being all
alike reasonable. If pure Thought runs all our trains, why should she
run some so fast and some so slow, some through dull flats and some
through gorgeous scenery, some to mountain-heights and jeweled
mines, others through dismal swamps and darkness ? — and run some
off the track altogether, and into the wilderness of lunacy ? Why
do we spend years straining after a certain scientific or jDractical prob-
lem, but all in vain — Thought refusing to evoke the solution we desire ?
And why, some day, walking in the street with our attention miles
away from that quest, does the answer saunter into our minds as care-

THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 579

lessly as if it had never been called for — suggested, possibly, by the
flowers on the bonnet of the lady in front of us, or possibly by nothing
that we can discover? If Reason can give us relief then, why. did
she not do so earlier ?

The truth must be admitted that pure Thought works under condi-
tions imposed ah extra. The great law of habit itself — that twenty
experiences make us recall a thing better than one, that long indul-
gence in error makes right thinking almost impossible — seems to have
no essential foundation in reason. The business of pure Thought is
with Truth — the number of experiences ought to have nothing to do
with her hold of it ; and she ought by right to be able to hug it all
the closer, after years wasted out of its presence. Such arrangements
seem quite fantastic and arbitrary, but nevertheless are part of the
very bone and marrow of our minds. Reason is only one out of a
thousand possibilities in the thinking of each of us. Who can count
all the silly fancies, the grotesque suppositions, the utterly irrelevant
reflections he makes in the course of a day ? Who can swear that his
prejudices and irrational beliefs constitute a less bulky part of his
mental furniture than his clarified opinions ? It is true that a presid-
ing arbiter seems to sit aloft in the mind, and emphasize the better
suggestions into permanence, while it ends by dropping out and leav-
ing unrecorded the confusion. But this is all the difference. The
mode of genesis of the worthy and the worthless seems the same. The
laws of our actual thinking, of the cogitatum, must account alike for
the bad and the good materials on which the arbiter has to decide, for
wisdom and for folly. The laws of the arbiter, of the cogitandum, of
what we ought to think, are to the former as the laws of ethics are to
those of history. Who but an Hegelian historian ever pretended that
reason in action was per se a sufiicient explanation of the political
changes in Europe ?

There are, then, mechanical conditions on which Thought depends,
and which, to say the least, determine the order in which is presented
the content or material for her comparisons, selections, and decisions.
It is a suggestive fact that Locke, and many more recent Continental
psychologists, have found themselves obliged to invoke a mechanical
process to account for the aberrations of Thought, the obstructive pre-
possessions, the frustrations of Reason. This they found in the law of
habit, or what we now call Association by Contiguity. But it never
occurred to these writers that a process which could go the length of
actually producing some ideas and sequences in the mind might safely
be trusted to produce others too ; and that those habitual associa-
tions which further thought may come from the same mechanical
source as those which hinder it. Hartley accordingly suggested habit
as an all-sufficient explanation, but failed to dispose of the difficulty
which comes in when we notice that in the highest flights of Reason
habit does not seem the link between one item and the next. Rather

58o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

are tte transitions of genius distinguished by their express defiance
of all that is habitual.

This led to the erection of other laws to supply the gaps in expla-
nation left by the law of habit alone. No sensible man now considers
the habit-philosophy of Hartley, Priestley, and James Mill to be ade-
quate to its task. Professor Bain, reverting to Hume's standpoint,
supplements the law of Contiguity by that of Similarity, and, in a sub-
ordinate degree, by that of Contrast. All the materials of thought,
without conception, are in his psychology pushed or drawn before
the footlights of consciousness by the working of these laws and by
them alone.

Mr. Hodgson, ablest of recent (if not of all) English philosophers,
supplements Bain's laws by an important principle, that of Interest.

And every one before whose consciousness, when falling asleep,
trains of faces and other disconnected images are wont to pass, and
who, moreover, after his attention has once been called to the subject,
surprises vestiges of the same process at work during his waking hours,
in the form of a sort of meteoric shower of random images, visual or
verbal, which cross the main current of thought, but are so faint
that they ordinarily arrest no attention and are forthwith forgotten *
— every such person, I say, will plead for the admission of a prin-
ciple of spontaneity or accidental arousal, along with the principles
already mentioned.

In the pages that follow I accept all these laws save that of con-
trast ; and that I do not reject, but simply ignore and disregard on
the present occasion. I try to show how they all may follow from
certain variations in a fundamental process of activity in the brain.
In particular I reduce Contiguous and Similar Associations to one, by
exhibiting their most pronounced forms as mere extremes of a common
mode. But the reader is requested to remember that in thus trying
to explain, by laws of matter, what ideas shall be presented to con-
sciousness at any moment, I expressly repudiate the pretension to
explain the form of consciousness itself. Consciousness, as I under-
stand it, is always in the midst of the present aware of the past as
that from which the present came ; and, out of the materials which
the present furnishes, she is always comparing one part with another,
to select that which most fits her ends. These peculiarities of con-
sciousness were referred to above, when it was spoken of as a "pre-
siding arbiter." I am wholly unable to picture this strange discrimi-
nating industry, this bringing of things together in order to keep them
apart, this setting of ends and choosing from equal possibilities, in
terms of any physical process whatever. The laws of association to
be treated of here might, for aught we can see, be true in a creature
wholly devoid of memory or comparison. Each of his ideas would
vanish in the act of awakening its successor ; his mind (if such it
* See Maury's classic work, " Le Sommeil et les Reves."

THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS, 581

could be called) would be shut up to the punctiform instant ; he would
obey, without noticing, the current which swept him on ; drift to his
conclusions, but never know why ; and act upon the suggestions of
experience with a fatality which would be inwardly all the blinder in
proportion as it was the more rational to outward semblance. I sim-
ply assume for his benefit the possession of a consciousness, I beg
that much from the reader's liberality ; and limit my ambition to
showing (the consciousness being granted) with what objects it is at
any given moment most likely to be filled.

The laws of motor habit in the lower centers of the nervous sys-
tem are disputed by no one. A series of movements repeated in a
certain order tend to unroll themselves with peculiar ease in that
order for ever afterward. Number one awakens number two, and that
awakens number three, and so on, till the last is produced. A habit of
this kind once become inveterate, like the manipulations of certain
trades, the balancings of the body in standing or walking, the varying
pressure of the legs in response to the swayings of a horse's gait, may
go on automatically while the mind concerns itself with far other
affairs. And so it is with thoughts. Not only poems, but the multi-
plication-table, Greek verbs, and formulas of gibberish like " ana, mana,
mona, mike,'''' etc., cohere in the self -same order in which they have
once been learned. If we have blundered once in a certain place, we
are prone to repeat the mistake again. The higher and the lower
nerve-centers, then, are subject to one and the same law ; and the rea-
son of the law must be in both cases the same. The fact that there
are isolated tracts of conduction in all the centers, and that as we pass
from below upward the different centers have in the main different
characteristic functions, leads to the notion that each function, idea-
tional or motor, is dependent on a certain tract localized somewhere,
which tract when once excited may propagate the excitement to other
outlying tracts. The reason for the law of habit would, then, seem
to be that the propagation occurs easiest through those tracts of con-
duction which have been already most in use. Descartes and Locke
hit upon this explanation, which modern science has not yet succeeded
in improving. " Custom," says Locke, " settles habits of thinking in
the understanding as well as of determining in the will, and of motions
in the body ; all which seem to be but trains of motion in the animal
spirits (by this Locke meant identically what we understand by the
words neural j^rocess), which, once set agoing, continue in the same
steps they have been used to, which by often treading are worn into a
smooth path, and the motion in it becomes easy and as it were natural."

Let us, then, assume as the basis of all our subsequent reasoning
the following law : Wheii two hrain tracts or processes have occurred
together or in immediate succession, any one of them, on reoccurring,
tends to propagate its excitement into the other.

Now, as a matter of fact, things in the brain are much less simple

582 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

than this. Every elementary tract or process has found itself at dif-
ferent times excited in conjunction with many other tracts or processes,
and this by unavoidable outward causes. Which of these others it
shall awaken now becomes a problem. Shall 5 or c be aroused next
by the present a f We must make a further postulate, based, however,
on the undeniable fact of tension in nerve-tissue, and the summation of
excitements, each incomplete or latent in itself, into an open resultant ;
h rather than c will awake, if in addition to the vibrating tract a some
other tract d is in a state of sub-excitement, and formerly was excited
with h alone and not with a. In short, we may say :

The amount of activity at any given point in the brain-cortex
is the sum of the tendencies of all other points to discharge into it,
such tendencies being proportionate (1) to the number of times the ex-
citement of each other point may have coexisted with that of the point
in question ; (2) to the intensity of such excitements ; and (3) to the
absence of any rival loccdity or process functionally disconnected with
the first point, into zvhich the discharges might be diverted.

Expressing the fundamental law in this most complicated way
leads to the greatest ultimate simplification. This will now be seen ;
but the reader will bear in mind that our limits only allow us to treat
of spontaneous trains of thought and ideation, such as occur in reverie
or musing. The case of voluntary thinking toward a certain end must
be postponed to another opportunity.

Take, to fix our ideas, the two verses from *' Locksley Hall " :

" I, the heh* of all the ages in the foremost files of time,"
and —

" For I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs."

Why is it that when we recite from memory one of these lines and get
as far as the ages that portion of the other line which follows, and, so
to speak, sj^routs out of the ages, does not also sprout out of our mem-
ory, and confuse the sense of our words ? Simply because the word
that follows the ages has its brain-process awakened not simply by the
brain-process of the ages alone, but by it plus the brain-processes of all
the Avords preceding the ages. The word ages at its moment of strong-
est activity would, joer se, indifferently discharge into either " in " or
" one." So would the previous words (whose tension is momentarily
much less strong than that of ages) each of them indifferently dis-
charge into either of a large number of other words with which they
have been at different times combined. But when the processes of " So
I doubt not through the ages " simultaneously vibrate in the brain, the
strongest line of discharge will be that which they all alike tend to
take. " One " and not " in " or any other word will be the next to
awaken, for its brain-process has previously vibrated in unison not only
with that of ages, but with that of all those other words whose activ-
ity is just dying away.

THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 583

In case of some one of these preceding words — " heir," for example
— having an intensely strong association with some brain-tracts entire-
ly disjoined in experience from the poem of " Locksley Hall " — in case
the reciter, for instance, was tremulously awaiting the opening of a will
which might make him a millionaire or leave him penniless — it is prob-
able that the path of discharge through the words of the poem would
be suddenly interrupted at the word " heir." His emotional interest
in that word would be such that its own special associations would
prevail over the combined ones of the other words. He would, as we
say, be abruptly reminded of his personal situation, and the poem
would lapse altogether from his thoughts.

The writer of these pages has every year to learn the names of a
large number of students who sit in alphabetical order in a lecture-
room. On meeting one in the street, early in the year, the face hardly
ever recalls the name, but it may recall the place of its owner in the
lecture-room, his neighbors' faces, and consequently his general alpha-
betical position ; and then, usually as the common associate of all
these combined data, the student's name surges up in my mind.

A father wishes to show to some guests the progress of his rather
dull child in Kindergarten instruction. Holding the knife upright on
the table, he says, " What do you call that, my boy ? " "I calls it a
knife, I does," is the sturdy reply, from which the child can not be
induced to swerve by any alteration in the form of question, until the
father, recollecting that in the Kindergarten a pencil was used, and
not a knife, draws a long one from his pocket, holds it in the same
way, and then gets the wished-for answer, " I calls it vertical?'' All
the concomitants of the Kindergarten experience had to recombine
their effect before the word " vertical " could be reawakened.

Professor Bain, in his chapters on Compound Association, has treated
in a minute and exhaustive way of this type of mental sequence, and
what he has done so well need not be here repeated.

The ideal working of the law of compound association, were it un-
modified by any extraneous influence, would be such as to keep the
mind in a perpetual treadmill of concrete reminiscences from which
no detail could be omitted. Suppose, for example, we begin by think-
ing of a certain dinner-party. The only thing which all the com-
ponents of the dinner-party could combine to recall would be the first
concrete occurrence which ensued upon it. All the details of this
occurrence could in turn only combine to awaken the next following
occurrence and so on. If a, h, c, d, e, for instance, be the elemen^r.r^
nerve-tracts excited by the last act of the dinner-party, call this act A,
and I, m, n, o, p be those of walking home through the frosty night,
which we may call B, then the thought of A must awaken that of B,
because a, b, c, d, e, will each and all discharge into I through the
paths by which their original discharge took place. Similarly they
will discharge into m, ??,, o, and ^:>, and these latter tracts will each re-

584

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

enforce the other's action because, in the experience B, they have
already vibrated in unison. The lines in the diagram symbolize the
summation of discharges into each of the components of B, and the
consequent strength of the combination of influences by which B in
its totality is awakened.

Hamilton first used the word " redintegration " to designate all
association. Such processes as we have just described might in an
emphatic sense be termed redintegrations, for they would necessarily
lead, if unobstructed, to the reinstatement in thought of the entire
content of large trains of past experience. From this complete redin-
tegration there could be no escape save through the irruption of some
new and strong present impression of the senses or through the exces-
sive tendency of some one of the elementary brain-tracts to discharge
independently into an aberrant quarter of the brain. Such was the
tendency of the word " heir " in the verse from " Locksley Hall," which
was our first example. How such tendencies are constituted, we shall
have soon to inquire with some care. Unless they are present, the
panorama of the past, once opened, must unroll itself with fatal literal-
ity to the end, unless some outward sound, sight, or touch divert the
current of thought.

I prefer to discard the word "redintegration " altogether, and to give
to this unobstructed process the name of Complete Association by Con-
tiguity. Whether it ever occurs in this absolutely complete form is
doubtful. We all immediately recognize, however, that in some minds
there is a much greater tendency than in others for the flow of thought
to take this form. Those insufferably garrulous old women, those dry

THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 585

and fanciless beings who spare you no detail, however petty, of the
facts they are recounting, and upon the thread of whose narrative all
the irrelevant items cluster as pertinaciously as the essential ones, the
slaves of literal fact, the stumblers over the smallest abrupt step in
thouo-ht, are figures known to all of us. Comic literature has made
her profit out of them. Juliet's nurse is a classical example. George
Eliot's village characters and some of Dickens's minor personages sup-
ply excellent instances.

Perhaps as successful a rendering as any of this mental type is the
character of Miss Bates in Miss Austen's " Emma." Hear how she
redintegrates : " ' But where could you hear it ? ' cried Miss Bates.
' Where could you possibly hear it, Mr. Knightley ? For it is not five
minutes since I received Mrs. Cole's note— no, it can not be more than
five — or at least ten — for I had got my bonnet and spencer on, just
ready to come out — I was only gone down to speak to Patty again
about the pork — Jane was standing in the passage — were not you,
Jane ? — for my mother was so afraid that we had not any salting-pan
large enough. So I said I would go down and see, and Jane said :
" Shall I go down instead ? for I think you have a little cold, and
Patty has been washing the kitchen." " Oh, my dear," said I — well,
and just then came the note. A Miss Hawkins — that's all I know — a
Miss Hawkins, of Bath. But, Mr. Knightley, how could you possibly
have heard it ? for the very moment Mr. Cole told Mrs. Cole of it, she
sat down and wrote to me. A Miss Hawkins — ' "

But in every one of us there are moments when this complete re-
production of all the items of a past experience occurs. What are
those moments ? They are moments of emotional recall of the past as
something which once was, but is gone for ever — moments, the interest
of which consists in the feeling that our self was once other than it
now is. When this is the case, any detail, however minute, which
will make the past picture more complete, will also have its effect in
swelling that total contrast between now and then which forms the
central interest of our contemplation.

This case helps us to understand why it is that the ordinary spon-
taneous flow of our ideas does not follow the law of " complete " Asso-
ciation by Contiguity. In no revival of a past experience are all the
items of our thought equally and impartially operative in determining
what the next thought shall be. Always some ingredient is prepotent
over the rest. Its special suggestions or associations in this case will
often be different from those which it has in common with the whole
group of items ; and its tendency to awaken these outlying associates
will deflect the path of our reverie. Just as in the original sensible
experience our attention focalized itself upon a few of the impressions
of the scene before us, so here in the reproduced representation of those
impressions the same partiality is shown, and some items emphasized
above the rest. What these items shall be is, in most cases of sponta-

586 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

neous reverie, hard to determine beforehand. In subjective terms we
say that the prepotent items are those which appeal most to om- interest.

Expressed in brain-terms, the law of interest will be : some one
bram-process is ahoays prepotent above its concomitants in arousing
action elsewhere.

" Two processes," says Mr. Hodgson,* " are constantly going on in
redintegration. The one a process of corrosion, melting, decay ; the
other a process of renewing, arising, becoming. . . . No object of rep-
resentation remains long before consciousness in the same state, but
fades, decays, and becomes indistinct. Those parts of the object, how-
ever, which possess an interest, that is, those which are attended by a
representation of pleasure or pain, resist this tendency to gradual decay
of the whole object. . . . This inequality in the object — some parts,
the uninteresting, submitting to decay ; others, the interesting parts,
resisting it — when it has continued for a certain time, ends in becom-
ing a new object." Only where the interest is diffused equally over
all the parts (as in the emotional memory just referred to, where, as
all past^ they all interest us alike) is this law departed from. It will
be least obeyed by those minds which have the smallest variety and
intensity of interests — those who, by the general flatness and poverty
of their aesthetic nature, are kept for ever rotating among the literal
sequences of their local and personal history.

Most of us, however, are better organized than this, and our musings
pursue an erratic course, swerving continually into a new direction
traced out by the shifting play of interest as it irradiates always some
partial item in each comj^lex representation that is evoked. Thus it
commonly comes about that we find ourselves thinking at two nearly
adjacent moments of things separated by the whole diameter of space
and time. Not till we carefully recall each step of our cogitation do
we see how naturally we came by Hodgson's law to pass from one to
the other. Thus, for instance, after looking at my clock just now, I
found myself thinking of Senator Bayard's recent resolution about
our legal-tender notes. The clock called up the image of the man
who had repaired its gong. He suggested the jeweler's shop where I
had last seen him ; that shop, some shirt-studs which I had bought
there ; they, the value of gold and its recent decline ; the latter, the
equal value of greenbacks, and this naturally the question of how
long they were to last, and of the Bayard proposition. Each of these
images offered various points of interest. Those which formed the
turning-points of my thought are easily assigned. The gong was
momentarily the most interesting part of the clock, because, from hav-
ing begun with a beautiful tone, it had become discordant and aroused
disappointment and perplexity. But for this, the clock might have
suggested the friend who gave it to me, or any one of a thousand cir-
cumstances connected with it. The jeweler's shop suggested the studs,
* " Time and Space," p. 266. '

THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 587

because they alone of all its contents were tinged with the egoistic in-
terest of possession. This interest in the studs, their value, made me
single out the material as its chief source, etc., to the end. Every
reader who will arrest himself at any moment and say, " How came I
to be thinking of just this ? " will be sure to trace a train of repre-
sentations linked together by lines of contiguity and points of interest
inextricably combined. This is the ordinary process of the association
of ideas as it spontaneously goes on in average minds. We may call
it Partial or Mixed Association.

Another example of it is given by Hobbes in a passage which has
been'quoted so often as to be classical : " In a discourse of our present
civil war, what could seem more impertinent than to ask (as one did)
what was the value of a Roman j^enny ? Yet the coherence to me was
manifest enough. For the thought of the war introduced the thought
of the delivering up the King to his enemies ; the thought of that
brought in the thought of the delivering up of Christ ; and that again
the thought of the thirty pence, which was the price of that treason :
and thence easily followed that malicious question ; and all this in a
moment of time ; for thought is quick."

Can we determine now when a certain portion of the going thought
has, by dint of its interest, become so prepotent as to make its own
exclusive associates the dominant features of the coming thought — can
we, I say, detei-mine which of its own associates shall be evoked ? For
they are many. As Hodgson says : " The interesting parts of the
decaying object are free to combine again with any objects or parts of
objects with which at any time they have been combined before. All
the former combinations of these parts may come back into conscious-
ness ; one must ; but which will ? " Mr. Hodgson replies : " There
can be but one answer : that which has been most habitually combined
with them before. This new object begins at once to form itself in
consciousness, and to group its parts round the part still remaining
from the former object ; part after part comes out and arranges itself
in its old position; but scarcely has the process begun, when the origi-
nal law of interest begins to operate on this new formation, seizes on
the interesting parts and impresses them on the attention to the exclu-
sion of the rest, and the whole process is repeated again with endless
variety. I venture to propose this as a complete and true account of
the whole process of redintegration,"

In restricting the discharge from the interesting item into that
channel which is simply most habitual in the sense of most frequent,
Hodgson's account is assuredly imperfect. An image by no means
always revives its most frequent associate, although frequency is cer-
tainly one of the most potent determinants of revival. If I abruptly
utter the word swalloxo, the reader, if by habit an ornithologist, will
think of a bird ; if a physiologist or a medical specialist in throat-dis-
eases, he will think of deglutition. If I say date, he will, if a fruit-

588 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

merchant or an Arabian traveler, think of the produce of the palm ; if
an habitual student of history, figures with A. d. or B, c. before them
will rise in his mind. If I say bed, bath, morning, his own daily toilet
will be invincibly suggested by the combined names of three of its
habitual associates. But frequent lines of transition are often set at
naught. The sight of C. Goring's "System der kritischen Philoso-
phic " has most frequently awakened in me thoughts of the opinions
therein propounded. The idea of suicide has never been connected
with the volumes. But a moment since, as my eye fell upon them,
suicide was the thought that flashed into my mind. Why ? Be-
cause but yesterday I received a letter from Leipsic informing me
that this philosopher's recent death by drowning was an act of self-
destruction. Thoughts tend, then, to awaken their most recent as
well as their most habitual associates. This is a matter of notori-
ous experience, too notorious, in fact, to need illustration. If we have
seen our friend this morning, the mention of his name now recalls
the circumstances of that interview, rather than any more remote de-
tails concerning him. If Shakespeare's plays are mentioned, and we
were last night reading " Richard II.," vestiges of that play rather
than of " Hamlet " or " Othello " float through our mind. Excitement
of peculiar tracts, or peculiar modes of general excitement in the brain
leave a sort of tenderness or exalted sensibility behind them which
takes days to die away. As long as it lasts, those tracts or those modes
are liable to have their activities awakened by causes which at other
times might leave them in repose. Hence, recency in experience is a
prime factor in determining revival in thought.

Vividness in an original experience may also have the same effect
as habit or recency in bringing about likelihood of revival. If we
have once witnessed an execution, any subsequent conversation or
reading about capital punishment will almost certainly suggest images
of that particular scene. Thus it is that events lived through only
once, and in youth, may come in after-years, by reason of their excit-
ing quality or emotional intensity, to serve as types or instances used
by our mind to illustrate any and every occurring topic whose interest
is most remotely pertinent to theirs. If a man in his boyhood once
talked with Napoleon, any mention of great men or historical events,
battles or thrones, or the whirligig of fortune, or islands in the ocean,
will be apt to draw to his lips the incidents of that one memorable in-
terview. If the word tooth now suddenly appears on the page before
the reader's eye, there are fifty chances out of a hundred that, if he
gives it time to awaken any image, it will be an image of some opera-
tion of dentistry in which he has been the sufferer. Daily he has
touched his teeth and masticated with them ; this very morning he
brushed them, chewed his breakfast and picked them ; but the rarer
and remoter associations arise more promptly because they were so
much more intense.

THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 589

A fourth factor in tracing the course of reproduction is congicuity
in emotional tone between the reproduced idea and our mood. The
same objects do not recall the same associates when we are cheerful as
when we are melancholy. Nothing, in fact, is more striking than our
utter inability to keep up trains of joyous imagery when we are de-
pressed in spirits. Storm, darkness, war, images of disease, poverty,
and perishing afflict unremittingly the imaginations of melancholiacs.
And those of sanguine temperament, when their spirits are high, find
it equally impossible to give any permanence to evil forebodings or to
gloomy thoughts in general. In an instant the train of association
dances off to flowers and sunshine, and images of spring and hope.
The records of Arctic or African travel perused in one mood awaken
no thoughts but those of horror at the malignity of Nature ; read at
another time they suggest only enthusiastic reflections on the indom-
mitable power and pluck of man. Few novels so overflow with joy-
ous animal spirits as " The Three Guardsmen " of Dumas. Yet it may
awaken in the mind of a reader depressed with sea-sickness (as the
writer can personally testify) a most dismal and woful consciousness
of the cruelty and carnage which heroes like Athos, Porthos, and
Aramis make themselves guilty of.

Habit, recency, vividness, and emotional congruity are, then, all rea-
sons why one representation rather than another should be awakened
by the interesting portion of a departing thought. We may say with
truth that in the majority of cases the coming representation will have
been either habitual, recent, or vivid, and will be congruous. If all
these qualities unite in any one absent associate, we may predict almost
infallibly that that associate of the going thought will form an im-
portant ingredient in the coming thought. In spite of the fact, however,
that the succession of representations is thus redeemed from perfect
indeterminism and limited to a few classes whose characteristic quality
is fixed by the nature of our past experience, it must still be confessed
that an immense number of terms in the linked chain of our represen-
tations fall outside of all assignable rule. To take the instance of
the clock given on page 586. Why did the jeweler's shop suggest the
shirt-studs rather than a chain which I had bought there more recently,
which has cost more, and whose sentimental associations were much
more interesting? Both chain and studs had excited brain-tracts
simultaneously with the excitement of others by the general aspect of
the shop. The only reason why the nerve-stream from the shop-tract
switched off into the stud-tract rather than the chain-tract must be
that the stud-tract happened at that moment to He more open, either
because of some accidental alteration in its nutrition or because the
incipient sub-conscious tensions of the brain as a whole had so dis-
tributed their equilibrium that it was more unstable here than in the
chain-tract. Any reader's introspection will easily furnish similar in-
stances. It thus remains true that to a certain extent, even in those

590 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

forms of ordinary Mixed Association which lie nearest to Pure As-
sociation by Contiguity, which associate of the interesting item shall
emerge must be called largely a matter of accident — accident, that is,
for our intelligence. No doubt it is determined by cerebral causes,
but they are too subtile and shifting for our analysis.

In Partial or Mixed Association we have all along supposed that
the interesting portion of the disappearing thought was of consider-
able extent, was sufficiently complex to constitute by itself a concrete
object. Sir William Hamilton relates that after thinking of Ben
Lomond he found himself thinking of the Prussian system of educa-
tion, and discovered that the links of association were a German gen-
tleman whom he had met on Ben Lomond, Germany, etc. The inter-
esting part of Ben Lomond, the part operative in determining the
train of his ideas was the complex image of a particular man. But
now let us suppose that that selective agency of interested attention,
which may convert in the way we have seen complete contiguous
association into partial association — let us suppose that it refines itself
still further and accentuates a portion of the passing thought, so small
as to be no longer the image of a concrete thing, but only of an ab-
stract quality or property. Let us, moreover, suppose that the part
thus accentuated persists in consciousness (or, in cerebral terms, has
its brain - process excited) after the other portions of the thought
have faded. This small surviving portion will then surround itself
with its own associates after the fashion we have already seen, and
the relation between the new thought and the faded one will be a
relation of similarity. The pair of thoughts will form an instance of
what is called " Association by Similarity." To make this perfectly
plain we must understand exactly what constitutes similarity between
two things. The moon is similar to a gas-jet, it is also similar to a
foot-ball ; but a gas-jet and a foot-ball are not similar to each other.
When we affirm the similarity of two things, we should always say in
what respect it obtains. Moon and gas-jet are similar in respect of
luminosity, and nothing else ; moon and foot-ball in respect of rotun-
dity, and nothing else. Foot-ball and gas-jet are in no respect similar
— that is, they possess no common point, no identical attribute. Ob-
jects are really identical with each other in that point with respect to
which they are called similar. Similarity is partial identity. When
the same attribute appears in two phenomena, though it be their only
common property, the two phenomena are similar in so far forth. To
return now to our associated representations. If the thought of the
moon is succeeded by the thought of a foot-ball, and that by the
thought of one of Mr. Vanderbilt's railroads, it is because the attri-
bute rotundity in the moon broke away from all the rest and sur-
rounded itself with an entirely new set of companions — elasticity,
leathery integument, swift mobility in obedience to human caprice,
etc. ; and because the last-named attribute in the foot-ball in turn

THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS.

591

broke away from its companions, and, itself persisting, surrounded
itself with such new attributes as make up the notions of a " railroad
king," of a rising and falling stock-market, and the like.

The gradual passage from Complete Contiguous to Similar Associ-

ation through what we have called Partial Association may be sym-
bolized by diagrams. Fig, 2 is Pure Contiguous, Fig, 3 is Mixed, and
Fig. 4 Similar, Association. A in each is the passing, B the coming
thought. In " Contiguous," all parts of A are equally operative iu

calling up B. In " Mixed," most parts of A are inert. The part M
alone breaks out and awakens B, In " Similar," the focalized part M
is much smaller than in the previous case, and after awakening its

new set of associates, instead of fading out itself, it continues persis-
tently active along with them, forming an identical part in the two
ideas, and making these, />ro tanto, resemble each other.

592 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Why a single portion of the passing thought should break out from
its concert with the rest and act, as we say, on its own hook, why the
other parts should become inert, are mysteries which we can ascertain
but not explain. Possibly a minuter insight into the laws of neural
action will some day clear the matter up ; possibly neural laws will
not suffice, and we shall need to invoke a dynamic reaction of the form
of consciousness upon its content. But into this we can not enter now.

Thus the difference between the three kinds of association reduces
itself to a simple difference in the Amount of that portion of the nerve-
tract supporting the going thought ichich is operative in calling up
the thought which comes, but the modus operandi of this active part
is the same, be it large or be it small.

The items constituting B waken in every instance because their
nerve-tracts once were excited continuously with those of A or its
operative part. This ultimate physiological law {supra, p. 583) is what
runs the train. The direction of its course and the form of its transi-
tions, whether contiguous or similar, are due to unknown regulative or
determinative conditions which accomplish their effect by opening this
switch and closing that, setting the engine sometimes at half speed,
and coupling or uncoupling cars.

This last figure of speech affords itself an excellent instance of
association by similarity. I was thinking of the deflections of the
course of ideas. Now, from Hobbes's time downward English writers
have been fond of speaking of the train of our representations. This
word happened to stand out in the midst of my complex thought with
peculiarly sharp accentuation, and to surround itself with numerous de-
tails of railroad imagery. Only such details became clear, however,
as had their nerve-tracts besieged by a double set of influences — those
from train on the one hand, and those from the movement of thought
on the .other. It may possibly be that the prepotency of the sugges-
tions of the word traiyi at this moment were due to the recent excita-
tion of the railroad brain-tract by the instance chosen a few pages
back of a railroad king playing foot-ball with the stock-market.

It is apparent fi'om such an example how inextricably complex are
all the contributory factors whose resultant is the line of our reverie.
It would be folly in most cases to attempt to trace them out. From
an instance like the above, where the pivot of the Similar Association
was formed by a definite concrete word, trai^i, to those where it is so
subtile as utterly to elude our analysis, the passage is unbroken. We
can form a series of examples. When Mr. Bagehot says that the mind
of the savage, so far from being in a state of nature, is tattooed all over
with monstrous superstitions, the case is very like the one we have just
been considering. When Sir James Stephen compares our belief in
the uniformity of nature, the congruity of the future with the past, to
a man rowing one way and looking another, and steering his boat by
keeping her stern in a line with an object behind him, the operative

DOLMENS IN JAPAN. 593

link becomes harder to dissect out. It becomes a real puzzle when the
color pale-blue is said to have feminine, and blood-red masculine affini-
ties. And if I hear a friend describe a certain family as having voices
like hlotting-paper, the image, though immediately felt to be apposite,
1)affles the utmost powers of analysis. The higher poets all use abrupt
epithets, which are alike intimate and remote, and, as Emerson says,
sweetly torment us with invitations to their inaccessible homes.

In these latter instances we must suppose that there is an identical
portion in the similar ideas and that it is energetically operative, with-
out, however, being sufficiently accentuated in consciousness to stand
out per se, attract the attention to itself and be abstracted. We can
not even by careful search see the bridge over which we passed from
the heart of one representation to that of the next. In some brains,
however, this mode of transition it extremely common. It would be
one of the most important of physiological discoveries could we assign
the mechanical or chemical difference which makes the thoughts of
one brain cling close to Pure Contiguity. while those of another shoot
about in all the lawless revelry of Similarity. Why in these latter
brains action should tend to focalize itself in small spots, while in the
others it fills patiently its broad bed, it seems impossible to guess.
Whatever the difference may be, it is what separates the man of genius
from the prosaic creature of habit and routine thinking. Professor
Bain, more profusely and cogently than any one else, has illustrated
the truth that the leading fact in what we call genius in every de-
partment of life is a high development of the power of Similar Asso-
ciation. I therefore refer the reader to his work on the "Study of
Character," Chapter XV., and to Chapter II., sections 25 to 45, of the
portion entitled " Intellect " of his treatise on " The Senses and the
Intellect."

Into the study of voluntary trains of thought there is no space to
enter. The student will find in Hodgson's " Theory of Practice," vol.
i., pp. 394-400, the best account with which I am acquainted. Mean-
while he will no doubt admit that the promise with which this article
set out has been fulfilled, and that the processes of spontaneous asso-
ciation have become already a little more intelligible to his mind.

DOLMENS K^ JAPAN.

By EDWAED S. MOESE.

f I THOUGH a large amount of material has been collected and pub-
-J- lished regarding the megalithic structures of Europe, their classi-
fication is in a somewhat unsatisfactory condition.

The misery of the systematist has already made itself apparent in

TOL. XVI. — 38

594

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

synonyms for a well-known class of monuments — namely, the dolmens.
To make the matter more perplexing, structures of quite a differ-
ent form, and possibly intended for a different purpose, are called by
the same name.

A dolmen, generally speaking, consists of an arrangement of stones,
few or many in number, supporting one or more stones in such a way
as to inclose a cavity beneath. These supporting stones may form the
four walls of a chamber, which may or may not be covered by a mound
of earth. This chamber may or may not communicate outwardly by
a long, narrow gallery {allee couverte). The mound may or may
not have one or more rows of stones encircling it. And, finally, the
stone structure may be on top of a mound of earth, instead of be-
neath it !

The simplest form of dolmen, if indeed it can be compared to the
more elaborate structures bearing the same name, consists of several
standing stones supporting one or more stones which rest upon them
horizontally. If the roofing-atones rest with one end upon the ground,
then it is called a demi-dolmen. A holed dolmen has one of the sup-
porting stones (which generally forms one side of a square chamber)
perforated. The demi-dolmens are not sufficiently specialized to es-
tablish any line of distribution. The holed dolmens are found in
France and in India, and their curious resemblance has led many to
believe in their common origin.

In the mound-covered dolmens a relationship is also seen between

Fig. 1.— Genebai Appearance op Dolmens.

those of Brittany and Scandinavia, in the passageway generally open-
ing toward the south or east and never to the north.*

From the mass of observations brought together regarding the
dolmens, Mr. Fergusson f has prepared a map showing their distribu-
tion in the Old World. From this map, dolmens are found to occur in
the greatest number in France. They are also found in various parts
of Great Britain, more abundantly on the eastern coast of Ireland,

* Lubbock, "Prehistoric Times," p. 124.

f Fergusson, "Rude Stone Monuments," 1872.

DOLMENS IN JAPAN.

595

western coast of Wales, eastern coast of Scotland, southern portion of
Sweden, and in Denmark and Northern Germany ; also on the coast
of Spain, Portugal, Northern Africa and the western portion of India.
Mr. Fergusson, at the date of the publication of his book, asserts that
the typical dolmen had not yet been found in America.

The occurrence in different parts of the world of a mound of earth
containing a stone vault or chamber can not be looked upon as evi-
dence of a community of origin, because such a structure seems to be
a most natural form for the purposes of burial. The same structures

Fig. 2.— Plan of Chamber. The dotted lines show the roofing-stones.

are built to-day in many countries. It is only when it possesses some
peculiar feature, like a perforation in one of its wall-stones, or a cer-
tain direction in which the passageway opens, that it suggests the idea
that a common origin may be ascribed to those possessing these pecu-
liarities.

In traveling across the southern part of Yeso last year, and also in
a journey overland from the northern part of Japan to Tokio, I scanned
the country carefully for mounds or monuments of any description.
At the entrances of towns, one often sees two large mounds between
which the road runs. Each mound is often surmounted by a large
tree. Though these mounds are old, they are not prehistoric. With
the exception of these, I saw nothing that would suggest a monument
coming under the names of dolmen, menhir, etc.

There are many burial-mounds in Japan, such, for example, as the
large one in Yamato, the grave of Jimmu Tenno, and others which
are known to belong to historic periods. It is not improbable that
the dolmens to be described belong to the same category.

It is difficult for one who has not traveled in Japan to realize the
almost universal state of cultivation the country is under. Having a
population of 33,000,000, largely given to agriculture, with an area
not exceding 80,000 square miles, one may imagine how few tracts
of uncultivated land are found. One is amazed at the sight of ranges
of hills and mountains extending for miles, and all terraced to their

596 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

very summits, for the cultivation of wheat and other products. The
lower levels for miles are ditched and diked for rice-cultivation. This
is specially marked along the coast bordering the Inland Sea, and along

P^SSRG-E.

S ^_ |-

O { ir V— —> -V V ^^

22 feet. ...^

^.

Fie. 3.— Plan of Chamber. Usual form.

the western coast of Kiushiu from Nagasaki round through Higo to
Satsuma, This widespread cultivation has necessitated the leveling
or other modifications of large tracts of country, and with this disturb-
ance have probably disappeared many evidences of an ancient race. My
attention was first called to the existence of some curious stone struc-
tures near Osaka, by Professor Yatabe, of the University of Tokio,
who had received a letter from Mr. Ogawa, of the college at Osaka,
with the request that I should examine them. This letter, accompanied
by a few sketches, was published by Professor Yatabe in a Japanese
periodical in Tokio.

On my return from an expedition to the southern portion of the
empire, I visited Osaka with my assistant, Mr. Tanada, for the pur-
pose of examining these structures. Mr. Ogawa and Mr. Amakusa,
both teachers in the Osaka College, kindly accompanied me and ren-
dered much assistance in the work of exploration. Our time was too
limited to do more than make a hasty reconnaissance. We left Osaka
early in the morning hj Jinrikishas (vehicles drawn by coolies), our
way leading across extensive rice-fields, and our course directed to a
range of low mountains about ten miles away. The country was as
flat as a prairie, and had evidently been the floor of the sea at no remote
geological period.

The dolmens are found in the villages Hattori Gawa and Kori
Gawa, which lie at the base of a low chain of mountains. Having
reached Hattori Gawa, we left our jinrikishas, and hunted up the head-
man of the village who was to accompany us to the dolmens.

Providing ourselves with candles, we started up a rather steep road,
and after a while diverged to the left, down through a tangled ravine
— stopping at the door of a temple to examine an old pot which was
brought out for our inspection, and which proved to be a piece of Bi-
zen-ware, not very old. Shortly after, we came to a group of dolmens.

DOLMENS IN JAPAN.

^91

They are widely scattered in groups of several along the slopes of the
mountains for a considerable distance ; and their general appearance
is not unlike the mounds of Upsala, Sweden, as represented in the
frontispiece of Lubbock's " Prehistoric Times."

The structures consist of stone chambers covered by mounds of
earth, communications with the chamber being by means of a long,
straight, narrow passage— a typical all'ee couverte. The apices of the
mounds are not so pointed as in the figure of Lubbock, and their slopes
not so steep (see Fig. 1). They average fifteen to twenty feet in

Fig. 4.— Entrance to Chamber.

height, and fifty to seventy-five feet in diameter. The entrances to
most of the chambers are partially obstructed by dirt and stone which
have tumbled from the sides and roof of the entrance. The stones
composing the walls of the passageway and chamber were not large.
In every case, however, the roofing-stones, both of the passageway and
chamber, were of very large size. In some cases the entire roof of the
chamber consisted of a single stone, and in one case four huge blocks
formed the roof of a passageway twenty-eight feet long (see Fig. 2).

598

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

In every case, too, the Btone which covered the passageway adjoining
the chamber and forming part of its wall was of great size. The vari-
ation in the length of the passageways is due to their partial destruc-
tion. The other dimensions are quite uniform, as will be seen by
comparing the following measurements of nine chambers, taken at
random :

Length

Breadth

Height

Length of

Breadth of

Height of

of Chamber.

of Chamber.

of Chamber.

Passageway.

Passageway.

Passageway.

14-0

10-6

11-6

28

4-3

5-3

9

0

7

3

8

6

22

5-6

5

8

14

0

11

8

8

9

7

4-5

5

0

13

0

7

0

8

8

20

4-6

5

0

14

0

6

4

8

6

14

4-3

5

0

11

0

5

6

8

7

11

3-6

6

3

12

0

5

8

8

3

*

41

5

0

12

4

8

2

12

0

«

4-4

6

0

13-8

7-9

10-2

*

5-0

6-3

The plans vary but little — a single chamber, with the right wall
flush with the right wall of the passageway, as in Fig. 3 ; or else the
passageway entering the chamber on a median line, leaving a jog on
each side, as in Fig. 2. Mr. Ogawa informed me that he had seen one
with a small supplementary chamber leading from the end of the larger
chamber.

Fig. 5.— Appearance of Chamber from Passageway.

The passageway was nearly a foot narrower at the top than at the
base, and in some cases was slightly narrower at the entrance.

In one case only were there signs that the chamber had been used
* Passageway partially destroyed. Measurement in feet and inches.

DOLMENS IN JAPAN.

599

as a place of residence. A small opening between two of the wall-
stones at the base of one of the chambers api^eared blackened by fire.
By removing the dirt and smaller stones which had tumbled down, I
managed with some difficulty to crawl into an irregular flue which was
blackened with smoke. This flue communicated with another smaller
flue leading back into the chamber (see Fig. 2).

A rude sort of plaster was observed in some of the caves.

The walls of all the caves examined were carefully scrutinized to
detect if possible signs of tool-marks or inscriptions, but nothing of
the kind was observed. A careful search was made also for relics of
some kind, but the floors were equally bare. Trenches were also dug
down to the undisturbed soil, but no traces of pottery or implement of
any description was found. This result is not surprising, when it is
known that during the feudal days these chambers were often used as
places of refuge for outlaws or political refugees, and during these
times the earlier relics were probably removed or destroyed.

Fig. 6.— Longitudinal Section op Dolmen, showing Chamber and Passageway.

History records the fact that the governors of various provinces in
which underground shelters occur ordered the closing of these places
as a necessary measure.

No great antiquity can probably be assigned to these structures.
That they are over a thousand years old there can be no doubt.* I am
told by Japanese scholars that their early records call attention to these
megalithic chambers existing in different parts of the country. Many
of them have been destroyed, either for the purpose of securing the
stone they contained for building materials, or to gain gi'ound for cul-
tivation.

In the vicinity of the dolmens and in the paths leading to them,

* In Fergusson's work, already alluded to, there is figured a dolmen of Uby, Scandi-
navia, page 311, and Antiquera, Spain, page 383, which resemble in many features the
dolmens near Osaka. Jewitt also, in his work entitled " Grave-Mounds and their Con-
tents," figures the dolmen of New Grange, Meath, Ireland, page 57, and the cairn of
Howth, Ireland, page 58, which again recall similar features to those of the dolmens de-
scribed in this article. In the cairn of Howth the passageway is twenty-seven feet long.

6oo

TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

fragments of a hard, blue, unglazed pottery were found ; and these
fragments are identical with vessels dug up in various parts of the
empire, which are regarded by Japanese archaeologists as being of
Corean origin, from nine to twelve hundred years old.

At the same meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History
in which I communicated the results embodied in this paper. Profes-
sor F. W. Putnam announced the discovery of chambered mounds in

Fig. 7.— Showing Arrangement of Stones in Side-wall of Chamber. Len<.'th, 14 feet ;
height, 11 feet tj iQches. The dotted line to the right shows roof of passageway.

America, and communicated the following, which is taken from ad-
vance sheets of the " Proceedings " of that Society :

These chambered mounds are situated in the eastern part of Clay County,
Missouri, and form a large group on both sides of the Missouri River. The cham-
bers are, in the three opened by Mr. Curtiss, about eight feet square, and from
four and a half to five feet high, each chamber having a passageway several feet
in length and two in width, leading from the southern side, and opening on the
edge of the mound formed by covering the chamber and passageway with earth.
The walls of the chambered passages were about two feet thick, vertical, and
well made of" stones which were evenly laid, without clay or mortar of any kind.
The top of one of the chambers had a covering of large, flat rocks, but the others
seem to have been closed over with wood. The chambers were filled with clay
which had been burned, and appeared as if it had fallen in from above. The in-
side walls of the chambers also showed signs of fire. Under the burned clay, in
each chamber, were found the remains of several human skeletons, all of which
had been burned to such an extent as to leave but small fragments of the bones,
which were mixed with the ashes and charcoal. Mr. Curtiss thought that in
one chamber he found the remains of five skeletons and in another thirteen.
With these skeletons there were a few flint implements and minute fragments of
vessels of clay. , ..

TEE STUDY OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 601

A large mound near the chambered mounds was also opened, and in this
no chambers were found. Neither had the bodies been burned. This mound
proved remarkably rich in large flint implements, and also contained well-made
pottery, and a peculiar " gorget " of red stone. The connection of the people
who placed the ashes of their dead in the stone chambers with those who buried
their dead in the earth-mounds is, of course, yet to be determined.

THE STUDY OF POLITICAL ECONOMY *

By HENEY GEOEGE.

I TAKE it that these lectures are intended to be more suggestive
than didactic, and in what I shall have to say to you my object
will be merely to induce you to think for yourselves. I shall not
attempt to outline the laws of political economy, nor even, where my
own views are strong and definite, to touch upon unsettled questions.
But I want to show you, if I can, the simplicity and certainty of a
science too generally regarded as complex and indeterminate, to point
out the ease with which it may be studied, and to suggest reasons
which make that study worthy of your attention.

Of the importance of the questions with which political economy
deals it is hardly necessary to speak. The science which investigates
the laws of the production and distribution of wealth concerns itself
with matters which among us occupy more than nine tenths of human
effort, and perhaps nine tenths of human thought. In its province
are included all that relates to the wages of labor and the earnings of
capital ; all regulations of trade ; all questions of currency and finance ;
all taxes and public disbursements — in short, everything that can in
any way affect the amount of wealth which a community can secure,
or the proportion in which that wealth will be distributed between
individuals. Though not the science of government, it is essential to
the science of government. Though it takes direct cognizance only
of what are termed the selfish instincts, yet in doing so it includes the
basis of all higher qualities. The laws which it aims to discover are
the laws by virtue of which states wax rich and populous, or grow
weak and decay ; the laws upon which depend the comfort, happiness,
and opportunities of our individual lives. And as the development of
the nobler part of human nature is powerfully modified by material
conditions, if it does not absolutely depend upon them, the laws sought
for by political economy are the laws which at last control the mental
and moral as well as the physical states of humanity.

Clearly, this is the science which of all sciences is of the first im-
portance to us. Useful and sublime as are the sciences which open to

* Lecture before the students of the University of California, April, 1877.

6o2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

us the vistas of Nature — which read for us the story of the deep past,
or search out the laws of our physical or mental organization — what is
their practical importance as compared with the science which deals
with the conditions that alone make the cultivation of the others pos-
sible? Compare on this ground of practical utility the science of
political economy with all others, and its preeminence almost suggests
the reply of the Greek : " No, I can not play the fiddle ; but I can
tell you how to make of a little village a great and glorious city ! "

How is it, then, it will naturally be asked, that a science so impor-
tant is so little regarded ? Our laws persistently violate its first and
plainest principles, and that the ignorance thus exemplified is not con-
fined to what are called the uneducated classes is shown by the debates
in our legislative bodies, the decisions of our courts, the speeches of our
party leaders, and the editorials of our newspapers. A century has
elapsed since Adam Smith published his " Wealth of Nations," and
sixty years since Ricardo enunciated his theory of rent. Yet not
only has political economy received no substantial improvement since
Ricardo, but, while thousands of new discoveries in other branches of
human knowledge have been eagerly sized and generally utilized, and
the most revolutionary conclusions of other sciences become part of
the accepted data of thought, the truths taught by political economy
seem to have made little real impression, and it is even now a matter
of debate whether there is, or can be, such a science at all.

This can not be on account of the paucity of politico-economic
literature. Enough books have been wi'itten on the subject within
the last hundi'ed years to fill a large library, while all of our great
institutions of learning have some sort of a chair of political economy,
and matters of intense public interest in which the principles of the
science are directly involved are constantly being discussed.

It seems to me that the reasons why political economy is so little
regarded are referable partly to the nature of the science itself and
partly to the manner in which it has been cultivated.

In the first place, the very importance of the subjects with which
political economy deals raises obstacles in its way. The discoveries of
other sciences may challenge pernicious ideas, but the conclusions of
political economy involve pecuniary interests, and thus thrill directly
the sensitive pocket-nerve. For, as no social adjustment can exist
without interesting a larger or smaller class in its maintenance, politi-
cal economy at every point is apt to come in contact with some interest
or other which regards it as the silversmiths of Ephesus did those who
taught the uselessness of presenting shrines to Diana. Macaulay has
well said that, if any large pecuniary interest were concerned in deny-
ing the attraction of gravitation, that most obvious of physical facts
would not lack disputers. This is just the difiiculty that has beset and
still besets the progress of political economy. The man who is, or
who imagines that he is, interested in the maintenance of a protective

THE STUDY OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 603

tariff, may accept all your professors choose to tell him about the com-
position of the sun or the evolution of species, but, no matter how
clearly you demonstrate the wasteful inutility of hampering commerce,
he will not be convinced. And so, to the man who expects to make
money out of a railroad-subsidy, you will in vain try to prove that
such devices to change the natural direction of labor and capital must
cause more loss than gain. What, then, must be the opposition which
inevitably meets a science that deals with tariffs and subsidies, with
banking interests and bonded debts, with trades-unions and combina-
tions of capital, with taxes and licenses and land-tenures ! It is not
ignorance alone that offers opposition, but ignorance backed by inter-
est, and made fierce by passions.

Now, while the interests thus aroused furnish the incentive, the
complexity of the phenomena with which political economy deals
makes it comparatively easy to palm off on the unreasoning all sorts of
absurdities as political economy. And, when all kinds of diverse opin-
ions are thus promulgated under that name, it is but natural that the
great number of people who depend on others to save themselves the
trouble of thinking should look upon political economy as a field
wherein any one may find what he pleases. But what is far worse
than any amount of pretentious quackery is, that the science even as
taught by the masters is in large measure disjointed and indeterminate.
As laid down in the best text-books, political economy is like a shapely
statue but half hewn from the rock — like a landscape, part of which
stands out clear and distinct, but over the rest of which the mists still
roll. This is a subject into which, in a lecture like this, I can not
enter ; but, that it is so, you may see for yourselves in the failure of
political economy to give any clear and consistent answer to most im-
portant practical questions — such as the industrial depressions which
are so marked a feature of modern times, and in confusions of thought
which will be obvious to you if you carefully examine even the best
treatises. Strength and subtilty have been wasted in intellectual hair-
splitting and super-refinements, in verbal discussions and disputes,
while the great high-roads have remained unexplored. And thus has
been given to a simple and attractive science an air of repellent ab-
struseness and uncertainty.

And springing, as it seems to me, from the same fundamental cause,
there has arisen an idea of political economy which has arrayed against
it the feelings and prejudices of those who have most to gain by its
cultivation. The name of political economy has been constantly in-
voked against every effort of the working classes to increase their
wages or decrease their hours of labor. The impious doctrine always
preached by oppressors to oppressed — the blasphemous dogma that
the Creator has condemned one portion of his creatures to lives of toil
and want, while he has intended another portion to enjoy " all the
fruits of the earth and the fullness thereof " — has been preached to

6o4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the working classes in the name of political economy, just as the
" cursed-be-Ham " clergymen used to preach the divine sanction of
slavery in the name of Christianity. In so far as the real turning
questions of the day are concerned, political economy seems to be con-
sidered by most of its professors as a scientific justification of all that
is, and by the convenient formula of supply and demand they seem to
mean some method which Providence has of fixing the rate of wages
so that it can never by any action of the employed be increased. Nor
is it merely ignorant pretenders who thus degrade the name and terms
of political economy. This character has been so firmly stamped upon
the science itself as currently held and taught that not even men like
John Stuart Mill have been able to emancipate themselves. Even the
intellectually courageous have shrunk from laying stress upon princi-
ples which might threaten great vested interests ; while others, less
scrupulous, have exercised their ingenuity in eliminating from the sci-
ence everything which could offend those interests. Take the best
and most extensively circulated text-books. While they insist upon
freedom for capital, while they justify on the ground of utility the
selfish greed that seeks to pile fortune on fortune, and the niggard
spirit that steels the heart to the wail of distress, what sign of sub-
stantial promise do they hold out to the workingman save that he
should refrain from rearing children ?

What can we expect when hands that should offer bread thus hold
out a stone ? Is it in human nature that the masses of men, vaguely
but keenly conscious of the injustice of existing social conditions, feel-
ing that they are somehow cramped and hurt, without knowing what
cramps and hurts them, should welcome truth in this partial form ;
that they should take to a science which, as it is presented to them,
seems but to justify injustice, to canonize selfishness by throwing
around it the halo of utility, and to present Herod rather than Vincent
de Paul as the typical benefactor of humanity ? Is it to be wondered
at that they should turn in their ignorance to the absurdities of pro-
tection and the crazy theories generally designated by the name of
socialism ?

I have lingered to inquire why political economy has in popular
apprehension acquired the character of indefiniteness, abstruseness, and
selfishness, merely that I may be the better able to convince you that
none of these qualities properly belong to it. I want to draw you to
its study by showing you how clear and simple and beneficent a science
it is, or rather should be.

Although political economy deals with various and complicated
phenomena, yet they are phenomena which may be resolved into sim-
ple elements, and which are but the manifestations of familiar princi-
ples. The premises from which it makes its deductions are truths of
which we are all conscious and upon which in every-day life we con-
stantly base our reasoning and our actions. Its processes, which consist

THE STUDY OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 605

chiefly in analysis, have a like certainty, although, as with all the causes
of which it takes cognizance are at all times acting other causes, it can
never predict exact results but only tendencies.

And, although in the study of political economy we can not use that
potent method of experiment by artificially produced conditions which
is so valuable in the physical sciences, yet, not only may we find, in the
diversity of human society, experiments already worked out for us,
but there is at our command a method analogous to that of the chemist,
in what may be called mental experiment. You may separate, com-
bine, or eliminate conditions in your own imagination, and test in this
way the working of known principles. This, it seems to me, is the
great tool of political economy. It is a method with which you must
be familiar and doubtless use every day, though you may never have
analyzed the process. Let me illustrate what I mean by something
which has no reference to political economy.

When I was a boy I went down to the wharf with another boy to
see the first iron steamship which had ever crossed the ocean to our
port. Now, hearing of an iron steamship seemed to us then a good
deal like hearing of a leaden kite or a wooden cooking-stove. But,
wo had not been long aboard of her, before my comrade said in a tone
of contemptuous disgust : " Pooh ! I see how it is. She's all lined with
wood ; that's the reason she floats." I could not controvert him for
the moment, but I was not satisfied, and, sitting down on the wharf
when he left me, I set to work trying mental experiments. If it was
the wood inside of her that made her float, then the more wood the
higher she would float ; and, mentally, I loaded her up with wood.
But, as I was familiar with the process of making boats out of blocks
of wood, I at once saw that, instead of floating higher, she would sink
deeper. Then, I mentally took all the wood out of her, as we dug out
our wooden boats, and saw that thus lightened she would float higher
Btill. Then, in imagination, I jammed a hole in her, and saw that the
water would run in and she would sink, as did our wooden boats when
ballasted with leaden keels. And, thus I saw, as clearly as though I
could have actually made these experiments with the steamer, that it
was not the wooden lining that made her float, but her hollowness, or,
as I would now phrase it, her displacement of water.

Now, just such mental operations as these you doubtless perform
every day, and in doing so you employ the method of imaginative ex-
periment which is so useful in the investigations of political economy.
You can, in this way, turn around in your mind a proposition or phe-
nomenon and look on all sides of it, can isolate, analyze, recombine, or
subject it to the action of a mental magnifying glass which will reveal
incongruities as a reductlo ad ahsurdum. Let me again illustrate :

Before I had ever read a line of political economy, I happened once
to hear a long and well-put argument in favor of a protective tariff.
Up to that time I had supposed that " protection to domestic industry "

6o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

was a good thing ; not that I had ever thought out the matter, but that
I had accepted this conclusion because I had heard many men whom I
believed wiser than I say so. But this particular speaker had, so far
as one of his audience was concerned, overshot his mark. His argu-
ments set me thinking, just as when a boy my companion's solution of
the iron-ship mystery had set me thinking. I said to myself : The
effect of a tariff is to increase the cost of bringing goods from abroad.
Now, if this benefits a country, then all difficulties, dangers, and im-
pediments which increase the cost of bringing goods from abroad are
likewise beneficial. If this theory be correct, then the city which is
the hardest to get at has the most advantageous situation : pirates and
shipwrecks contribute to national prosperity by raising the price of
freight and the cost of insurance ; and improvements in navigation, in
railroads and steamships, are injurious. Manifestly this is absurd.

And then I looked further. The speaker had dwelt on the folly of
a great country like the United States exporting raw material and im-
porting manufactured goods which might as well be made at home,
and I asked myself. What is the motive which causes a people to export
raw material and import manufactured goods ? I found that it could be
attributed to nothing else than the fact that they could in this way get
the goods cheaper, that is, with less labor. I looked to transactions
between individuals for parellels to this trade between nations, and
found them in plenty — the farmer selling his wheat and buying flour;
the grazier sending his wool to a market and bringing back cloth and
blankets ; the tanner buying back leather in shoes, instead of making
them himself. I saw, when I came to analyze them, that these ex-
changes between nations were precisely the same thing as exchanges
between individuals ; that they were, in fact, nothing but exchanges
between individuals of different nations ; that they were all prompted
by the desire and led to the result of getting the greatest return for
the least expenditure of labor ; that the social condition in which such
exchanges did not take place was the naked barbarism of the Terra
del Fuegians ; that just in proportion to the division of labor and the
increase of trade were the increase of wealth and the progress of civil-
ization. And so, following up, turning, analyzing, and testing all the
protectionist arguments, I came to conclusions which I have ever since
retained.

Now, just such mental operations as this are all that is required in
the study of political economy. Nothing more is needed (but this is
needed) than the habit of careful thought— the making sure of every
step without jumping to conclusions. This habit of jumping to con-
clusions— of considering essentially different things as the same be-
cause of some superficial resemblance — is the source of the manifold
and mischievous errors which political economy has to combat.

But I can probably, by a few examples, show you what I mean
more easily than in any other way. "Were I to put to you the child's

THE STUDY OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 607

question, " Which is heavier, a pound of lead or a pound of feathers ? "
you would doubtless be offended ; and were I seriously to ask you,
Which is the most valuable, a dollar's worth of gold or a dollar's worth
of anything else ? you might also feel that I had insulted your intelli-
gence. Yet the belief that a dollar's worth of gold is more valuable
than a dollar's worth of anything else is widespread and persistent. It
has molded the policy of great nations, dictated treaties, marched
armies, launched fleets, fought battles, constructed and enforced elab-
orate and vexatious systems of taxation, and sent men by thousands to
jail and to the gallows. Certainly a large portion, probably a large
majority, of the people of the United States — including many college
graduates, members of what are styled the learned professions, sena-
tors, representatives, authors, and editors — seem to-day utterly unable
to get it fully through their heads that a dollar's worth of anything
else is as valuable as a dollar's worth of the precious metals, and are
constantly reasoning, arguing, and legislating on the assumption that
the community which exchanges gold for goods is suffering a loss, and
that it is the part of wisdom, by preventing such exchange, to " keep
money in the country." On this absurd assumption the revenue sys-
tem of the United States is based to-day, and, if you will notice, you
will find it cropping out of current discussions in all sorts of forms.
Even here, where the precious metals form one of our staples, and for
a long time constituted our only staple, you may see the power of the
same notion. The anti-cooly clubs complain of the *' drain of money
to China," but never think of complaining of the drain of flour, wheat,
quicksilver, or shrimps. And the leading journals of San Francisco,
who hold themselves on an immeasurably higher intellectual level than
the anti-cooly clubs, never, I think, let a week pass without congratu-
lating their readers that we have ceased to import this or that article,
and are thereby keeping so much money that we used to send abroad,
or lamenting that we still send money away to pay for this or that
which might be made here. Yet that we send away wine or wool,
fruit or honey, is never thought of as a matter of lament, but quite
the contrary. What is all this but the assumption that a dollar's
worth of gold is worth more than a dollar's worth of anything
else?

This fallacy is transparently absurd when we come to reduce it to
a general proposition. But, nevertheless, the habit of jumping at
conclusions, of which I have spoken, makes it seem very natural to
people who do not stop to think. Money is our standard, or measure
of values, in which we express all other values. When we speak of
gaining wealth, we speak of "making money"; when we speak of
losing wealth, we speak of "losing money" ; when we speak of a
rich man, we speak of him as possessed of much money, though as a
matter of fact he may, and probably has, very little actual money.
Then, again, as money is the common medium of exchange, in the

6o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

process of getting things we want for things we are willing to dispose
of, we generally first exchange the latter for money and then exchange
the money for the things we want. And, as the number of people
who want things of all sorts must manifestly be greater than the num-
ber of people who want the particular thing, whatever it may be that
we have to exchange, any difficulty there may be in making our ex-
change will generally attend the first part of it ; for, in exchanging
anything for money, I must find some one who wants my particular
thing, while in exchanging money for a commodity, any one who
wants any commodity or service will be willing to take my money.
Now, this habit of estimating wealth in money, and of speaking of
gain or loss of wealth as gain or loss of money, and this habit of asso-
ciating difficulties of exchange in individual cases with the difficulty
of obtaining money, constantly lead people who do not think clearly
to jump at the conclusion that money is more valuable than anything
else. Yet the slightest consideration would show them that wealth
never consists, but in very small part, of money ; that the difficulty in
individual exchanges has no reference to the relative value of money,
and is eliminated when the exchanges of large numbers of individuals
are concentrated or considered, and, in short, a dollar in money is
worth no more than a dollar's worth of wheat or cloth ; and that, in-
stead of the exchange of money for other commodities being proof of
a disadvantageous bargain, it is proof of an advantageous bargain,
for, if we did not want the goods more than the money, we would not
make the exchange.

Or, to take another example : In connection with the discussion of
Chinese immigration, you have, doubtless, over and over again heard
it contended that cheap labor, which would reduce the cost of produc-
tion, is precisely equivalent to labor-saving machinery, and, as ma-
chinery operates to increase wealth, so would cheap labor. This con-
clusion is jumped at from the fact that cheap labor and labor-saving
machinery similarly reduce the cost of production to the manufac-
turer. But, if, instead of jumping at this conclusion, we analyze the
manner in which the reduction of cost is produced in each case, we
shall see the fallacy. Labor-saving machinery reduces cost by in-
creasing the productive power of labor ; a reduction of wages reduces
cost by reducing the share of the product which falls to the laborer.
To the employer the effect may be the same ; but, to the community,
which includes both employers and employed, the effect is very dif-
ferent. In the one case there is increase in the general wealth ; in
the other there is merely a change in distribution — whatever one class
gains another class necessarily losing. Hence the effect of cheap
labor is necessarily very different from that of improved ma-
chinery.

And precisely similar to this fallacy is that which seems so natural
to men of another class — that because the introduction of cheaper

THE STUDY OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 609

labor in any community does, in the present organization of society,
tend to reduce the general level of wages, so does the importation of
cheap goods. This, also — but I must leave you to analyze it for your-
selves— springs from a confusion of thought which does not distin-
guish between the whole and the parts, between the distribution of
wealth and the production of wealth.

Did time permit, I might go on, showing you by instance after in-
stance how transparently fallacious are many current opinions — some,
even, more widely held than any of which I have spoken — when tried
by the simple tests which it is the province of political economy to
apply. But my object is not to lead you to conclusions. All I wish
to impress upon' you is the real simplicity of what is generally deemed
an abstruse science, and the exceeding ease with which it may be pur-
sued. For the study of political economy you need no special knowl-
edge, no extensive library, no costly laboratory. You do not even need
text-books nor teachers, if you will but think for yourselves. All that
you need is care in reducing complex phenomena to their elements, in
distinguishing the essential from the accidental, and in applying the
simple laws of human action with which you are familiar. Take no-
body's opinion for granted ; " try all things : hold fast that Avhich is
good." In this way, the opinions of others will help you by their sug-
gestions, elucidations, and corrections ; otherwise they will be to you
but as words to a parrot.

If there were nothing more to be urged in favor of the study of
political economy than the mental exercise it will give, it would still
be worth your profoundest attention. The study which will teach
men to think for themselves is the study of all studies most needed.
Education is not the learning of facts ; it is the development and
training of mental powers. All this array of professors, all this para-
phernalia of learning, can not educate a man. They can but help him
to educate himself. Here you may obtain the tools ; but they will
be useful only to him who can use them. A monkey with a micro-
scope, a mule packing a library, are fit emblems of the men — and, un-
fortunately, they are plenty — who pass through the whole educational
machinery, and come out but learned fools, crammed with knowledge
which they can not use — all the more pitiable, all the more contemp-
tible, all the more in the way of real progress, because they pass, with
themselves and others, as educated men.

But, while it seems to me that nothing can be more conducive to
vigorous mental habits and intellectual self-reliance than the study
which trains us to apply the analysis of thought to the every-day
affairs of life, and to see in constantly changing phenomena the evi-
dence of unchanging law ; which leads us to distinguish the real from
the apparent, and to mark, beneath the seething eddies of interest,
passion, and prejudice, the great currents of our times — it is not on
such incentives that I wish to dwell. There are motives as much

VOL. XTI. 39

6io THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

higher than the thirst for knowledge, as that noble passion is higher
than the lust for power or the greed of gold.

In its calculations the science of wealth takes little note of, nay, it
often carefully excludes, the potent force of sympathy, and of those
passions which lead men to toil, to struggle, even to die for the good
of others. And yet it is these higher passions, these nobler impulses,
that urge most strenuously to its study. The promise of political
economy is not so much what it may do for you, as what it may en-
able you to do for others.

I trust you have felt the promptings of that highest of ambitions —
the desire to be useful in your day and generation ; the hope that in
something, even though little, those who come after may be wiser,
better, and happier that you have lived. Or, if you have never felt
this, I trust the feeling is only latent, ready to spring forth w^hen you
see the need.

Gentlemen, if you but look, you will see the need ! You are of
the favored few, for the fact that you are here, students in a univer-
sity of this character, bespeaks for you the happy accidents that fall
only to the lot of the few, and you can not yet realize, as you may by
and by realize, how the hard struggle which is the lot of so many may
cramp and bind and distort — how it may dull the noblest faculties and
chill the warmest impulses, and grind out of men the joy and poetry
of life ; how it may turn into the lepers of society those who should
be its adornment, and transmute, into vermin to prey upon it and into
wild beasts to fly at its throat, the brain and muscle that should go to
its enrichment ! These things may never yet have forced themselves
on your attention ; but still, if you will think of it, you can not fail to
see enough want and wretchedness, even in our own country to-day,
to move you to sadness and pity, to nerve you to high resolve j to
arouse in you the sympathy that dares, and the indignation that burns
to overthrow a wrong.

And seeing these things, would you fain do something to relieve
distress, to eradicate ignorance, to extirpate vice ? You must turn to
political economy to know their causes, that you may lay the axe to
the root of the evil tree. Else all your efforts will be in vain. Phi-
lanthropy, unguided by an intelligent apprehension of causes, may pal-
liate or it may intensify, but it can not cure. If charity could eradi-
cate want, if preaching could make men moral, if printing books and
building schools could destroy ignorance, none of these things would
be known to-day.

And there is the greater need that you make yourselves acquainted
with the principles of political economy from the fact that, in the im-
mediate future, questions which come within its province must assume
a greater and greater importance. To act intelligently in the struggle
in which you must take part — for positively or negatively each of you
must caiTy his weight — you must know something of this science.

THE STUDY OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 61 1

And this, I think, is clear to whoever considers the forces that are
mustering — that the struggle to come will be fiercer and more momen-
tous than the struggles that are past.

There is a comfortable belief prevalent among us that we have at
last struck the trade-winds of time, and that by virtue of what we
call progress all these evils will cure themselves. Do not accept this
doctrine without examination. The history of the past does not coun-
tenance it, the signs of the present do not warrant it. Gentlemen,
look at the tendencies of our time, and see if the earnest work of
intelligent men be not needed.

Look even here. Can the thoughtful man view the development
of our State with unmixed satisfaction ? Do we not know that, under
present conditions, just as that city over the bay grows in wealth and
population, so will poverty deepen and vice increase ; that just as the
liveried carriages become more plentiful, so do the beggars ; that just
as the pleasant villas of wealth dot these slopes, so will rise up the noi-
some tenement-house in the city slums. I have watched the growth of
San Francisco with joy and pride, and my imagination still dwells with
delight upon the image of the great city of the future, the queen of
all the vast Pacific— perhaps the greatest city of the world. Yet what
is the gain ? San Francisco of to-day, with her three hundred thousand
people, is, for the classes who depend upon their labor, not so good a
place as the San Francisco of sixty thousand ; and when her three hun-
dred thousand rises to a million, San Francisco, if present tendencies
are unchanged, must present the same sickening sights which in the
streets of New York shock the man from the open West.

This is the dai'k side of our boasted progress, the Nemesis that
seems to follow with untii'ing tread. Where wealth most abounds,
there poverty is deepest ; where luxury is most profuse, the gauntest
want jostles it. In cities which are the storehouses of nations, starva-
tion annually claims its victims. Where the costliest churches rear
the tallest spires toward heaven, there is needed a standing army of
policemen ; as we build new schools, we build new prisons ; where the
heaviest contributions are raised to send missionaries to the ends of
the earth to preach the glad tidings of peace and good- will, there may
be seen squalor and vice that would affright a heathen. In mills
where the giant power of steam drives machinery that multiplies by
hundreds and thousands the productive forces of man, there are work-
ing little children who ought to be at play or at school ; where the
mechanism of exchange has been perfected to the utmost, there thou-
sands of men are vainly trying to exchange their labor for the neces-
saries of life !

Whence this dark shadow that thus attends that which we are
used to call "material progress," that which our current philosophy
teaches us to hope for and to work for ? Here is the question of all
questions for us. We must answer it or be destroyed, as preceding

6i2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

civilizations have been destroyed. For no chain is stronger than its
■weakest link, and our glorious statue with its head of gold and its
shoulders of brass has as yet but feet of clay !

Political economy alone can give the answer. And, if you trace
out, in the way I have tried to outline, the laAvs of the production
and exchange of wealth, you will see the causes of social weakness and
disease in enactments which selfishness has imposed on ignorance, and
in maladjustments entirely within our own control.

And you will see the remedies. Not in wild dreams of red de-
struction nor weak projects for putting men in leading-strings to a
brainless abstraction called the state, but in simple measures sanctioned
by justice. You will see in light the great remedy, in freedom the
great solvent. You will see that the true law of social life is the law
of love, the law of liberty, the law of each for all and all for each ;
that the golden rule of morals is also the golden rule of the science of
wealth ; that the highest expressions of religious truth include the
widest generalizations of political economy.

There will grow on you, as no moralizing could teach, a deepening
realization of the brotherhood of man ; there will come to you a firmer
and firmer conviction of the fatherhood of God. If you have ever
thoughtlessly accepted that worse than atheistic theory that want and
wretchedness and brutalizing toil are ordered by the Creator, or, revolt-
ing from this idea, if you have ever felt that the only thing apparent
in the ordering of the world was a blind and merciless fate careless of
man's aspirations and heedless of his sufferings, these thoughts will
pass from you as you see how much of all that is bad and all that is
perplexing in our social conditions grows simply from our ignorance
of law — as you come to realize how much better and happier men
might make the life of man.

WAED'S NATURAL SCIENCE ESTABLISHMENT.

By Pkofessoe JOSEPH LEIDY.

A RECENT visit to Professor Henry A. Ward's " Natural Science
Establishment " at Rochester, New York, led the writer to some
reflections on the comparative value of a knowledge of natural history.
In the prevailing systems of education, the subject is totally disre-
garded, or receives but trifling consideration. The classical languages
and history, on the other hand, have always been taught, and are
yet considered by the greater portion of the cultivated people as
essential to a complete education, while the sciences have been treated
as only of secondary importance. The information possessed by a
country boy, gained by intelligent observation, of the birds or plants

WARD'S NATURAL SCIENCE ESTABLISHMENT. 613

of his neighborhood, is viewed by the so-called educated community
as insignificant in comparison with that of the college boy who can
relate stories, from classical history, of persons who never existed and
events that never occurred.

Considering the circumstance that all things, except what we make
of them, are natural objects, it would seem that the first and main
efforts of education, after acquiring sufficient language and arithme-
tic to express our ideas of qualities and numbers, would be to leai-n
what the objects are. The child on learning to speak at once begins
to ask about the things it sees, but unfortunately too often the parent
and teacher are incapable of giving the desired information, and ordi-
narily it meets with so little satisfaction that finally the spirit of
inquiry disappears. For most persons, after distinguishing the ordi-
nary articles pertaining to the necessities and conveniences of life,
the crudest generalities of knowledge appear to be sufticient. With
them it seems to be enough to know that things are stones, metals,
and dirt ; weeds, flowers, and trees ; bugs, animals, and men. Among
the cultivated, one is considered the no less educated if he calls a
worm a snake, or a caterpillar a nasty reptile ; while he may run
the risk of being called ignorant, or at least uneducated, if he can
not translate a Latin text. Though quartz is the most abundant
mineral substance of the land in which we live, yet perhaps not one
in a hundred of an educated community knows a quartz-pebble from
any other.

To the writer the sciences, including natural history, have appeared
to be of the utmost importance to the welfare and happiness of man-
kind, and no other branches of knowledge can equal them in these re-
lations.

To facilitate the study and to create a more general interest in
natural history, museums of characteristic specimens should not only
be connected with every college and other educational institutions, but
there should be established in every considerable town a free public
museum — not a mere show or place of amusement, a collection of curi-
osities and rare specimens, queer things, a two-headed calf, or a dried
hand of a murderer, but a series of specimens, often of familiar objects,
illustrative of the classes, orders, and other chief divisions of the min-
eral, vegetal, and animal kingdoms, together with those which illus-
trate geology and kindred subjects. A museum of this kind should
further be supplied with specimens of all the natural productions of
the vicinity, which may be collected from time to time by those who
are, or may become, most interested in the study of natural history.
Such a museum would not only be of the greatest service as a means
of instruction, but would prove useful in a variety of ways to the com-
munity, and would also give additional interest to the visits of stran-
gers to the locality.

Professor Ward's great establishment is intended to supply a com-

6i4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

plete series of illustrative specimens in all the departments of natural
history for educational museums. The writer had repeatedly seen and
admired collections of specimens from this establishment in colleges
and other institutions, but it was only recently that he was induced to
visit the former itself. It greatly exceeded his expectations, and sur-
prised him by its extent as well as delighted him from the excellence
and beauty of its collections. Many buildings were stored w4th ad-
mirably mounted and well-preserved vertebrates, snowy-white skele-
tons, a multitude of invertebrates, excellent models, fine collections of
minerals, and characteristic series of rocks and fossils. Even in the
great capitals of Europe nowhere did the writer see so great and excel-
lent a stock from which to furnish museums ; and it is in grateful
appreciation of the able and zealous services of Professor Ward, in
the interest of natural history, that the writer takes this opportunity
of recommending his establishment to those who desire to obtain col-
lections. In conclusion, to exemplify how much may be taught of
whole groups or orders from a few specimens, the writer presents the
following instance : He had in his possession a fragment of red coral,
the material so much used for ornament. Notwithstanding much ex-
planation, persons ordinarily appeared to him to be incredulous as to
its animal nature. In viewing Professor Ward's collections, he espied
among thousands of actual specimens a pair of beautiful models of the
red coral, one representing the object of natural size covered with the
soft flesh and exhibiting the tiny polyps ; the other representing a
magnified view, exhibiting a fragment of a stem with three polyps.
These were purchased for one dollar each, and are now placed together
with the natural coral fragment, and not only tell the whole story of
the animal at a glance, but tell that of the whole order to which it
belongs. Many such examples might be related, but one is enough.

It is this careful attention of Professor Ward to the scientific and
educational import of his collections which has given his natural his-
tory establishment its high appreciation among the natui'alists and the
science teachers of our country.

THE FOECE BEHIND NATUKE.

By WILLIAM B. CAEPENTEE, M. D., F. E. S.

SOME thirty years ago, I enjoyed opportunities of discussing with
John Stuart Mill (whose younger brother had been for twelve
months an inmate of my house) many questions of philosophy in
which we both felt the deepest interest. Among these was the Doc-
trine of Causation set forth in his recently published " System of
Logic" : "We may define the cause of a phenomenon to be the ante-

THE FORCE BEHIND NATURE. 615

cedent, or the concurrence of antecedents, on whicli it is invariably
and unconditionally consequent." I pointed out to my friend that,
when this assemblage of conditions is analyzed, it is uniformly found
resolvable into two categories, which may be distinguished as the
dlinamical and the material ; the former supplying the /orce ox power
to which the change must be attributed, w^hile the latter affords the
conditions under which that power is exerted. Thus, I urged, when a
man falls from a ladder because (as is commonly said) of the breaking
of the rung on which his foot was resting, the real or dynamical cause
of his fall is the force of gravity, or attraction of the earth, which
pulls him to the ground when his foot is no longer supported ; the loss
of support being only the matericd condition or collocation, which al-
lowed the force previously acting as pressure on the rung to prodvtce
the downward motion of the man who stood upon it.

To this Mr. Mill's reply was, that the distinction is one of meta-
physics, not of logic. I ventured, however, to press on him that, to
whichever department of philosophy this point is to be referred, it is
one of fundamental importance ; that, assuming experience as the
basis of our knowledge, we recognize the downward tendency of every
body heavier than air, by our sense of muscular tension in lifting it
from the ground, or in resisting its descent toward the earth ; and
that our cognition oi force through this form of sensation, being thus
quite as immediate and direct as our cognition of motion through the
visual sense, ought to be equally taken account of.

The promulgation, about the same time, of the doctrine of the
" CoiTelation of the Physical Forces " by Professor (now Sir William)
Grove, and the researches of Mr. Joule on the " Mechanical Equivalent
of Heat," seemed to me to bring this view of dynamiccd causation into
yet greater importance, by showing that what is true of that form of
force which produces or resists mechanical (or what is now distin-
guished as molar) motion, may be legitimately extended to those other
forms which are manifested in the molecidar changes that express
themselves in chemical action, or impress us with the sensations of
heat, light, etc. Partaking of the general ignorance at that time
prevalent in this country of the doctrine of " Conservation of Energy,"
already promulgated in Germany by Mayer and Helmholtz, I myself
endeavored to carry Professor Grove's principle into the domain of
biology, by showing that what physiologists had been accustomed to
call vital force may be regarded as having the same " correlation "
with the various forms of physical force as they have with each other.*
And in the introduction to the fourth edition of my " Human Physi-
ology " (published in 1853) I thus exj^licitly defined my position :

When this assemblage of antecedents is analyzed, it is uniformly found that
they may be resolved into two categories, which may be distinguished as the dy-

* " On the Mutual Relations of the Vital and Physical Forces," in " Philosophical
Transactions," 1850.

6i6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

namical and the material^ the former supplying the force or poicer to which the
change must be attributed, while the latter afford the conditions under which
that power is exerted. Thus, in a steam-engine we see the dynamical agency
of heat made to produce mechanical power by the mode in which it is applied :
first, to impart a mutual repulsion to the particles of water; and then, by means
of that mutual repulsion, to give motion to the various solid parts of which the
machine is composed. And thus, if asked what is the cause of the movement of
the steam-engine, w^e distinguish in our reply between the dynamical condition
supplied by the heat and the material condition (or assemblage of conditions)
afforded by the " collocation " of the boiler, cylinder, piston, valves, etc. . . .
In like manner, if we inquire into the cause of the germination of a seed — which
has been brought to the surface of the earth after remaining dormant through
having been buried deep beneath the soil for (it may be) thousands of years —
we are told that the phenomenon depends upon warmth, moisture, and oxygen ;
but out of these we single warmth as the. dynamical condition, while the oxygen
and the water, with the organized structure of the seed itself, and the organic
compounds which are stored up in its substance, constitute the material.

The subsequent general recognition by the scientific world of the
" correlation " between the forces of nature (under whatever form ex-
pressed) has thus given a breadth of foundation to the dynamical doc-
trine of causation which it previously lacked; and the doctrine, having
been afterward formally developed by Professor Bain, was summarized
by J. S. Mill, in the later editions of his " Logic," almost in the very
terms in which I had originally propounded it to him in conversation,
and had publicly expressed it in the extract just cited : " The chief
practical conclusion drawn by Professor Bain, bearing on causation, is
that we must distinguish, in the assemblage of conditions which con-
stitutes the cause of a phenomenon, two elements : one, the presence
of a force ; the other, the collocation or position of objects which is
required in order that the force may undergo the particular transmu-
tation which constitutes the phenomenon." * Mr. Mill himself still
preferred, however, to express the principle in terms of motion rather
than in terms of force : " If the effect, or any part of the effect, to be
accounted for consists in putting matter in motion, then any of the
objects present which has lost motion has contributed to the effect ;
and this is the true meaning of the proposition that the cause is that
one of the antecedents which exerts active force," As this mode of
expressing the facts is sanctioned by high authorities at the present
time, it may be well for me to explain more fully the basis of my
original contention, that our cognition of force is quite as immediate
and direct as our cognition of motion ; in fact (as I think I shall be
able to prove), even more fundamental, inasmuch as our cognition of
matter itself is in great degree dependent upon it.

It has been recently well said that " all true science involves both
the knowledge of nature and the knowledge of man ; it includes the
study of mind, as well as of matter. A philosopher may pursue either,
* " System of Logic," eighth edition, vol. i., p. 406,

THE FORCE BEHIND NATURE. 617

but he can have no complete knowledge of what he investigates, with-
out borrowing from the other department of investigation." * Many
of the Nature-philosophers who affirm that we have no knowledge of
anything but the matter and motion which lie within the range of
" experience " show themselves very imperfectly acquainted with what
" experience" really means ; unhesitatingly ranking as actual objective
facts their own mental interpretations of the sensory impressions they
receive from external objects. Many metaphysicians, on the other
hand, have reasoned as if our concern were with mental operations
alone, and as if the abstractions in which they deal had an existence
per se, without any relation to the phenomena of nature. But, among
the ablest thinkers of the present time, there seems to be now a pretty
general recognition of the necessity for the replacement of the abstract
definitions of metaphysics — so far, at least, as they relate to the ex-
ternal world — by psychological expressions of the modes in which the
human ego is affected by its changes. Thus the ordinary metaphys-
ical definition of "matter" is that which possesses "extension." But,
for this definition to convey any definite idea to our minds, we must
know what " extension " means ; and this, we are told, is the " occupa-
tion of space." Now, the conception of " space," in the opinion of
most psychologists, is ordinarily derived from our interpretation of
visual sensations ; and yet these may be altogether deceptive. When
we look at a Avindow from a short distance, we can not tell by the use
of our eyes alone whether the space included by its frame is void, or
is occupied by a perfectly transparent and colorless glass, A glass
globe is held up in front of it, and we can not tell by looking at it
whether it is empty, or is filled with pure water or some other trans-
parent colorless liquid. And we can take no cognizance by our vision
of the atmosphere which surrounds us, unless its transparence is inter-
fered with by mist or fog. Clearly, then, our visual sense can not^j^er
se furnish us with a satisfactory definition of matter.f

Now that we have got rid of the fiction of " imponderables," we
might fall back on a definition of matter — in use before that fiction
was invented — as that which possesses " ponderosity " or weight. But
what is weight ? The downward tendency, it may be replied, in vir-
tue of which all unsupported bodies fall to the earth. But what is

* " Natural Theology of the Doctrine of the Forces." By Professor Benjamin Martin,
of the University of the City of New York.

\ According to Professor Bain, the conception of space is essentially based on the
sense of muscular tension which, according to him, we experience in the ordinary move-
ments of our eyes. But I am satisfied that this is physiologically erroneous. These
movements are ordinarily guided, as Professor Alison long ago contended, and as Profes-
sor Helmholtz and I myself have since experimentally proved, by the visual, not by the
muscular sense ; and it is only when we put the muscles to an unusual strain — as when
our visual axes converge on an object brought nearer and nearer to the eyes, or when we
entirely exclude light from the retina — that we experience any sense of tension in their
muscles.

6i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

this " tendency " ? We might see any number of bodies falling to the
ground, and might frame a correct law of their motion, without hav-
ing the remotest conception of their possessing that downward pres-
sure which we at once recognize when we take a lump of lead or iron
into our hands ; and it is obviously on our cognition of this pressure,
that our idea of weight or ponderosity is based. Now, the instrumen-
tality through which we take cognizance of it seems to me to be three-
fold : In the first place, we have the sense of simple pressure on the
tactile surface — as when, the hand passively resting on a table, a weight
is laid upon it. Secondly, we recognize it by the sense of tension
which we experience when a weight is attached to a pendent limb, and
which we refer to the muscles and ligaments which are thus put on the
stretch ; or when, the hand resting on the top of a cylinder of glass
placed over an air-pump, the air is exhausted from beneath, so as to
make us/ee^the downward "pressure of the atmosphere." In these
two cases, the mind is the passive recipient of the sensory impressions.
But, thu'dly, when we determinately lift a weight or hold it suspended
by our hands, we experience, in addition to the sense of pressure and
the sense of tension, a se7ise of effort, which we recognize as an itnme-
cUate revelation of consciousness, not referable to any physical impres-
sion, but of the same kind as that which we experience in a purely
mental act, such as the fixation of the attention. And a little consid-
eration will, I think, make it clear that it is on this " sense of effort "
in resisting downward pressure that our cognition of weight is essen-
tially based.

For, in the first place, the continuance of a moderate pressure on
the cutaneous surface, like other sensory -7mpressions that become ha-
bitual, soon ceases to affect us sensorially ; for we cognosce rather the
changes in the states of our sense-organs than the states themselves.
Or, again, we may suffer under a temporary or permanent paralysis of
the cutaneous sense, that may prevent our feeling the contact of the
body we are lifting or supporting ; and yet, recognizing its downward
pressure in other ways, we can put our muscles into action to antago-
nize it. But, secondly, this paralysis may extend to the muscular sense,
so that the feeling of muscular tension is wanting as well as that of
contact-pressure ; and yet none the less can a weight be lifted or sus-
tained by a conscious effort, provided that the deficiency of the guiding
sensations ordinarily derived from the muscle itself is supplied by the
sight. A woman whose arm is sensorially but not motorially paralyzed
can hold up her child as long as she looks at it, and a man affected
with the like paralysis of his legs can stand and walk while looking at
his feet. But, thirdly, since the mental sense of effort is experienced
in every determinate exercise of our muscular power, and is, as all ex-
perience teaches, a necessary condition of that exercise ; since, again,
it is proportioned to the exertion we put forth, and continues as long
as that exertion is sustained — it is in this, and not in the cutaneous or

THE FORCE BEHIND NATURE. 619

muscular impressions which are (so to speak) accidental, that (as it
seems to me) we find the real basis of our cognition of the " ponderos-
ity " of matter.

But " ponderosity " can not be considered an essential property of
matter, being merely the "accident" of the earth's attraction for
bodies lying within its range. This attraction varies with the distance
of a body from the center of the earth ; and a body occupying the
common center of gravity of the earth and sun would be equally drawn
toward both, and would consequently have no "weight." We must,
therefore, seek a satisfactory definition of matter elsewhere ; and we
find the clew to it in the consideration that the sense of effort we ex-
perience in antagonizing the downward pressure of a body is but a
particular case of our more general cognition of resistance. When
we project our hand against a hard and fixed solid body, our con-
sciousness of its resistance to our pressure is exactly that which we
experience when we try to raise a weight that we have not strength to
lift ; while, if that solid be either yielding in its parts or movable as a
whole, we measure its resistance, as in lifting a weight, by our sense
of the effort necessary to overcome it. When we move our hand
through a liquid, we are conscious of a resistance to its motion, which
is greater or less according to the " viscosity " of the liquid. And,
when we move our open hand through air at rest, we are still conscious
of a resistance, our sense of it being augmented by an extension of the
surface moved, as in the act of fanning ; while, if the air is in motion,
we feel its pressure on the sail of a boat by the "pull" of the sheet
we hold in our hand, or on the sails of a windmill by the rotation it
imparts, \he force of which we can estimate by the effort we must put
forth to resist it. Attenuate any kind of air or gas as we may, its re-
sistance can still be made apparent by the like communication of its
own motion to solid bodies. Thus, in Mr. Crookes's wonderful radi-
ometer, a set of vanes, poised on a pivot within a globe of glass ex-
hausted to a millionth of its ordinary gaseous contents, is whirled
round by the movement excited in the molecules of that residual mil-
lionth, either by the heat of the radiant beam falling on the surface of
the globe or by the passage of an electric current across its interior ;
and the mechanical force required to impart that motion can be mea-
sured with precision, by bringing it into comparison with some other
force (as that of gravity) of which we can take immediate cognizance.
And thus, as Herbert Spencer remarks, by the decomposition of our
knowledge of any form of matter into simpler and simpler components,
we must come at last to the simplest, to the ultimate material, to the
substratum ; and this we find in the im2)ression of resistance we re-
ceive through what we may call our " force-sense." *

* Herbert Spencer considers the congnition of resistance to be essentially derived
from the sense of muscular tension. I have already expressed my reason for now dis-
senting from this view, which I myself formerly held.

620 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Such being the teachings alike of general and of scientific expe-
rience, I can not but feel surj)rised that any persons claiming the title
of philosophers should affirm that we knoic nothing except matter and
motion, and that force is a creation of our own imagination. One
might suppose such persons to be either destitute of the " force-sense,"
or to have based their philosophical system upon the movements of the
heavenly bodies which they can only see, instead of upon those mun-
dane phenomena in the cognition of which they can bring their hands
to the assistance of their eyes. How essential this assistance is to the
formation of correct conceptions of the solid forms and relative po-
sitions of the objects around us is known to every one who has studied
the physiology of the senses. Should we not think it absurd on the
part of any one who possesses in the use of his hands the means of de-
tecting the error of his visual perceptions, if he were to base a super-
structure of reasoning— still more to found a whole system of philoso-
phy— upon the latter alone ? Yet such appears to me to be the posi-
tion of those who deny our direct cognition of force.

Let us suppose (if possible) a man who had enjoyed the full use of
his eyes, but whose limbs had been completely paralyzed from infancy,
looking on at a game of billiards. He would see a succession of mo-
tions connected by regular sequence — the motion of the arm of the
player, the stroke of the cue, the roll of the ball, its contact with
another ball, the movement of the second ball, the change of direction
or the entire stop of the first, the rebound of balls from the cushion
in altered directions, and so on. And he might frame a statement in
" teiTns of motion " of all that passes before his eyes, thinking this all
he can know. But suppose the limbs of such a man to be suddenly
endowed with the ordinary powers of sensation and movement ; let
him take the cue into his hands and himself strike the ball ; let him
hold his hand on the table so that the rolling ball shall strike it and
make him feel its impact ; let him hold the second ball and feel the
shock imparted to it by the stroke of the first. Can any one deny
that he would thus acquire a dynamical conception linking together
the whole succession pf phenomena, which he was previously quite
incapable of forming ; that this dynamical conception is quite as di-
rectly based upon the experience derived through his " force-sense " as
his kinetic expression was upon that derived through his visual sense ;
and that this cognition of the force producing the motions is, there-
fore, fully as much entitled to be introduced into a logical doctrine of
causation as the visual cognition of the motions themselves ? If it be
replied that we have no proof that the movement of the ball we strike
is produced by the force which we consciously exert in striking it, I
simply rejoin that we have as much proof of it as we have of anything
which rests upon universal experience, and which we can verify experi-
mentally as often as we choose to try — quite as much as we have of
the existence of anything whatever that is external to ourselves.

THE FORCE BEHIND NATURE. 621

Let us take, again, the simple case of magnetic attraction. A man
who knows nothing of magnetism sees a piece of iron, brought within
a certain distance of what looks looks like a horseshoe bar of the same
metal, suddenly jump toward its approximated ends ; and might, as
before, correctly express the fact in " terms of motion." But let him
take the piece of iron in his hands, so as to feel the " pull " upon it when
brought sufficiently near the magnet, and he then becomes conscious,
through his force-sense, of a poioer of which he was before utterly
ignorant.

Thus, as it seems to me, an analysis of those psychical experiences
on which all our cognitions of the physical universe around us are
really based irresistibly lands us in the conclusion that, as Herbert
Spencer expresses it, " All the sensations through which the external
world is known to us are explicable by us only as resulting from
certain forms of force " ; the direct derivation of our conception of
force from our own experience of muscular tension (or, as I should
myself say, from our own sense of effort) being "a fact which no
metaphysical quibbling can set aside." In the words of the able
American writer I have already quoted, *' The conception of force is
one of those universal ideas which belong of necessity to the intellec-
tual furniture of every human mind." By no one has the principle for
which I am contending, been more clearly and more authoritatively
expressed than by Sir John Herschel, a philosopher who united to his
wonderful grasp of Nature-phenomena a profound insight into the
action of the mind of man in the interpretation of them :

Whatever attempts have been made by metaphysical writers to reason away
the connection of cause and effect, and fritter it down into the unsatisfactory
relation of habitual [unconditional] sequence, it is certain that the conception of
some more real and intimate connection is quite as strongly impressed upon the
human mind as that of the existence of an external world, the vindication of
whose reality has, strange to say, been regarded as an achievement of no common
merit in the annals of this branch of philosophy. It is our own immediate con-
sciousness of effort^ when we exert force to put matter in motion or to oppose
and neutralize force, which gives us this internal conviction of power and causa-
tion, so far as it relates to the material world. — (Treatise on " Astronomy " in
Lardner's " Cyclopaedia," p. 232.)

Man's position as the " interpreter of Nature " may be not inaptly
likened (as it seems to me) to that of an intelligent observer of the
working of a cotton -factory, with whose mechanical arrangements he
is entirely unacquainted, and of whose moving power he knows no-
thing whatever. He is taken into a vast apartment,* in which he is at
first utterly bewildered by the number and variety of the movements
going on around him ; but, by directing his attention to the several

* In one of the flax-spinning mills belonging to the Marshalls, of Leeds, the whole of
the work is done on one floor, covering, I believe, two acres of ground, instead of in
the usual buildins; of several stories.

622 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

machines, seriatim, he is able to arrive at a classification of them,
according to the kind of work which it does. Thus he finds one set
carding the cotton- wool supplied to it, so that its confused tangle gives
place to a parallel laying of the fibers. He would see another taking
up the bundles of carded wool, and drawing them out (after repeated
doublings to secure uniformity) into a long, soft cord. This cord he
would then trace into the ro^?^Vi<7-machine, which, by a continuation of
the drawing process, further reduces its thickness, at the same time
giving it a slight twist to increase its tenacity, so that it admits of
being then wound upon bobbins. Thence he would trace the cord into
the spi7i7dng-vn2iGhme, which at the same time stretches and twists the
cord, producing from it a yarn whose fineness might vary considerably
in different machines. Finally, he would see the spun yarn carried,
some as weft and some as woof, into the joo^^er-loom, from which it
emerges as woven cloth — the final resultant of the whole series of
operations.

Concentrating now his attention upon any one of these machines,
he studies its wheels, levers, and other moving parts, and tries to com-
prehend their several actions and the bearing of these upon each
other. By long and scrutinizing observation he masters the whole
sei'ies of sequences, and traces the distribution of motion from a single
large axis, through the hundreds (it may be) of separate pieces of the
machine directly or indirectly connected with it ; and he might thus
frame a description of the working of the machine, which might be
perfectly correct so far as it goes, and which yet would be defective
in one most essential particular — the statement of the force ov power by
which it is moved. For, so far as mere visual observation could teach
him, the machine might be self -moving ; and he might thus attribute
to each kind an inhere7it poioer of carding, roving, drawing, spinning,
or weaving, as the case might be.

Carrying his observations further, and noticing that one or another
of these machines comes to a standstill, but resumes its motion after
an interval, he may include this occasional suspension also in his gen-
eral expression ; but, perplexed by the want of any regularity in its
intervals, he will seek some further explanation. Continuing his
patient watch, he will see that the stoppage of the machine follows
the pulling of a handle by the man in attendance upon it, and that,
when the handle is pulled the other way, the machine goes on again ;
and thus he will be led to introduce a certain position of this handle
as one of the antecedent conditions of the machine's action. Still pur-
suing his inquiries, he finds out that the axes of the several machines
are all in mechanical relation with one great longitudinal shaft, being
connected with it either by continuous bands passing around pulleys,
or by trains of wheelwork ; and at last he discovers the important fact
that the movement of the handle which stops the machine breaks the
continuity of that relation, shifting a strap from a "fast" to a "loose"

THE FORCE BEHIND NATURE. 623

pulley, or throwing the wheel work " out of gear "; while the converse
movement, which restores that continuity, is followed by the renewed
action of the machine, which goes on until the Continuity is again
broken. Thus he will be led to regard its maintenance as essential to
the working of the machine ; but nothing that he has yet learned
explains to him why it is essential. He has only got at the material
collocation which his educated vision enables him to recognize ; and,
for anything he knows to the contrary, the change in that collocation
may be in itself adequate to determine the result.

But let him lay hold of the band which stretches between the main
shaft and the axis of one machine, or attempt to stay with his hand
the rotation of the train of wheels which connects it with another — he
then at once becomes conscious, through his " force-sense," of the poxoer
which the band or the wheelwork is the instrument of conveying ; and
as he finds that the "pull" upon his hand is just the same whether the
machine is in motion or not, provided that the band or wheel remains
in mechanical connection with the main shaft, he comes to the convic-
tion that the source of the power is in the shaft, and that, so far from
any one of the machines having an inherent power of movement, its
motion entirely depends upon the force supplied to it from the shaft.
And when, under the guidance of this conception, he again examines
the loorMng of the several kinds of machine, he finds that, while the
poxcer is the same for all, the diversity in their respective products is
traceable to the diversity in their construction — that is, to the material
collocations through which the one moving force exerts itself in action.

But, having thus acquired the notion of moving poicer, and having
satisfied himself of the derivation of the force that gives motion to
each of the entire aggregate of machines, from one main shaft, our
inquirer finds himself again posed. Has this shaft itself an inherent
power of motion ; or does it derive that power from any ulterior
source ? He sees the shaft apparently terminate in the two end-walls
of the building ; and, finding no evidence of its connection with any-
thing else, he may feel himself drawn toward the conclusion that it
moves of itself — that is, by the " potency " of its own material consti-
tution. But, before adopting this rationale, he sees all the machines
stop at once, and finds that the shaft also has ceased to revolve. Here
is a new and startling phenomenon. After pondering on it for an hour,
and carefully looking out for an explanation, he sees the shaft and its
connected machines resume their motion, and yet is certain that no
agency visible to him has had any concern in that renewal. By con-
tinued watching, he finds this suspension and renewal to be periodical,
so that he can frame a law that shall express them in terms of time.
Thus he might give a complete phenomenal account of the action of
the shaft which should be perfectly consistent with the assumption of
its " inherent potency," and which might be sufficiently satisfactory to
his mind to justify him in believing that there is no more to be learned

624 ^^^ POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

about it. But, not wishing to leave anything uninvestigated, he goes
round to the other side of the wall. There he finds that one end of the
shaft comes througli it, and is in mechanical connection with either a
steam-engine or a water-wheel ; and, by watching what occurs when
its motion is checked and renewed, he sees that the engineer shuts
off, or turns on, either the steam generated in the boiler of the steam-
engine, or the descending water whose motion drives the wheel.

I shall not weary the patience of such readers as may have followed
me 'thus far, by tracing out in like detail the further steps of the in-
quiry, but shall land them in the final conclusion now accepted by
every man of science — that the power exerted in both these cases is
drawn from solar radiation : the fall of the water which gives motion
to the water-wheel being merely the return of that which has been
pumped up as vapor by the sun's heat ; while the combustion of coal
from which steam-power is derived reproduces, as active force, or
" energy," the sunshine that exerted itself during the Carboniferous
period in dissociating carbonic acid and water into the hydrocarbons
of coal and the oxygen of the atmosphere, whose recombination gives
forth heat and light. And, if we look still further back for the source
of the sun's radiant energy, we should find it, perhaps, in the progres-
sive consolidation of the primeval " fire-mist " — nebular matter.

But whence nebular matter ? And whence the force which draws
its particles together, and which manifests itself as light and heat
during their consolidation ? Here we come to a wall, to the other side
of which we seem at present to have no access.

But is there no other side ? Does not the whole course of the pre-
ceding inquiry show the unsatisfaction (if I may revive an obsolete
word) of resting in any inherent " potency " of matter as the ultima
ratio of the existing cosmos ? If we think the man foolish who sup-
poses the main shaft of a cotton-mill to turn of itself merely because
he sees it apparently end in a wall which conceals from him the source
of its motive power, are we not really chargeable with the like folly
if we attribute self-motion to the ultimate molecules of matter, merely
because the power that moves them is hid from our sight ? The mere
physicist may see no possible way further. But there is a philosophy
which has fully as true and as broad a basis in man's psychical expe-
rience as can be claimed for the fabric of physical science ; and, in the
admirable words of the great master I have already quoted (Sir John
Herschel, in his " Familiar Lectures on Scientific Subjects," p. 460),
I shall sum up an argument which this paper is intended rather to illus-
trate and enforce by an appeal to the familiar facts of consciousness
than to present in strict logical form :

In tlie mental sense of effort, clear to the apprehension of every one who
has ever performed a voluntary act, which is present at the instant when the
determination to do a thing is carried out into the act of doing it, we have a
consciousness of immediate and personal causation which can not be disputed

NBW VIEWS OF ANIMAL TRANSFORMATIONS. 625

or ignored. And, when we see the same kind of act performed by another, we
never hesitate in assuming for him that consciousness which we recognize in
ourselves ; and in this case we can verify our conclusion by oral communica-
tion. ... In the only case in which we are admitted into any personal knowl-
edge of the origin of force, we find it connected (possibly by intermediate links
untraceable by our faculties, yet indisputably connected) with volition, and, by
inevitable consequence, with motive, with intellect, and with all those attributes
of mind in which personality consists.

As a physiologist, I most fully recognize the fact that the physical
force exerted by the body of man is not generated de novo by his will,
but is derived from the oxidation of the constituents of his food. But
holding it as equally certain, because the fact is capable of verification
by every one as often as he chooses to make the experiment, that, in
the performance of every volitional movement, that physical force is
put in action, directed, and controlled by the individual personality or
ego, I deem it just as absurd and illogical to afiirra that there is no
place for a God in nature, originating, directing, and controlling its
forces by his will, as it would be to assert that there is no place in
man's body for his conscious mind. — Modern Revieio.

KEW VIEWS OF ANIMAL TRAKSFOEMATIONS.*

By EDMOND PEEEIER,

ONE of the results of teaching at the Museum is, that it always has
considerable influence upon the teachers themselves. Forced by
the nature of this institution to keep himself constantly acquainted
with what is known and what is sought, with what is definitely ac-
quired to science, and with the object of aspiration, obliged to coordi-
nate recent with preceding discoveries, to test theories, to bind to-
gether the new material continually accumulating about the stones
forming the vast edifice of science, the professor sees the lines of this
structure slowly modified, he himself contributing to this result, and
sometimes ends his career under the sway of other ideas than those
which at first inspired him.

I confess that this has been my experience. Last year I began a
series of investigations upon transformation. I had not taken sides
upon this doctrine. If some general ideas had drawn me toward it, I
had ever present the reiterated objections of the most illustrious French
naturalists, among whom were the men I most love and venerate. But,
as I proceeded with my lectures, it seemed to me that these objections
were not insurmountable, that they did not touch the foundations of

* Introductory lecture to a course on Zoology at the Museum of Natural History in
Paris, delivered March, 18'79.
VOL. XVI. — 10

626 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the doctrine, and belonged rather to the way of conceiving that the
evolution of organisms has taken place. Looking not for differences
but relationships among organisms, I thought I saw that a simple and
general law had governed their formation, that they were derived one
from another by a constant procedure, and I found myself adding fur-
ther arguments to the theory of the genealogical origin of species.
The law which I now have to put forward may be called the law of
association ; and the process by which it works, the transformation of
societies into individuals.

When we have proved that all living beings are composed of mi-
croscopic corpuscles more or less alike, when we see such corpuscles
capable of leading an independent life constituting by themselves the
simplest organisms, it occurs to us to compare the higher animals and
vegetables to vast associations of distinct individuals, each represented
by one of these corpuscles or cells. In the same animal the cells as-
sume many different forms, having different physiological properties.
These forms and properties are not modified by the vicinity of differ-
ent cells. Within the organism each cell lives as if it were alone. If
it were possible to isolate a cell of the human body and surround it by
normal nutritive material, it would continue to live, to develop and
reproduce itself, and carry on all its physiological functions exactly as
before. Further, in the organism itself, the life of each cell is so inde-
pendent of that of its neighbors, that we may kill all the cells of one
kind without injuring the others. Claude Bernard has proved that
curare poisons the elements that terminate the motor nerves, thus
abolishing all movement without injuring any other part of the sys-
tem and leaving sensation intact. These researches led him to the
principle of the independence of the anatomical elements. Not only
are the elementary individuals of organisms sometimes very dissimi-
lar, but they preserve their personality, live their own way, and keep
up with their fellow citizens the relations of good neighborhood. We
may compare an animal or plant to a populous town, where each per-
son practices a particular industry on his own account, and yet helps
the general prosperity through the activity of exchange. In high or-
ganisms, a special corporation in ceaseless movement is the medium
of these exchanges. The blood-globules are true traders, taking along
in the liquid where they swim the complex merchandise in which they
deal.

Just as we had employed all the comparisons that pedigree fur-
nishes to express the likenesses among organisms before supposing
them really to be blood relations, so we have compared organisms to
societies and societies to organisms, all the while regarding these com-
parisons as mere fancies. On the contrary, in the last year, we have
reached the conclusion that association has played an important if not
exclusive part in the development of organs. We find convincing
proof of this in the history of Polyps and of Worms. The connection

NHW VIEWS OF ANIMAL TRANSFORMATIONS. 627

of Worms with the Articulata is apparent to every one, and we already
see how these same Worms are related to Mollusca and Vertebrata.
The theory, therefore, extends to the entire animal kingdom.

Now, what do we mean by association ? When we say that animal
organisms have been in great part produced by the transformation of
animal societies into individuals, what do we mean by the term society?
Are all societies in the way to become individuals ? Many animals
associate together, and their societies are sometimes admirably gov-
erned. The social manners of dogs, antelopes, beavers, and many birds
are well known, while the complex and perfectly coordinated operations
of societies of bees, ants, termites, are the admiration of the world.
Do such societies ever become individuals ? Certainly not. But there
exist other animal societies in which the relations are closer — where
the individuals are not only in immediate contact but in continuity of
tissue with their neighbors. These societies are called colonies, but
the individuals that compose them are not always indissolubly united
together. They can separate from their companions, and live a long
time and affirm their independence by forming new colonies. In the
same zoological group of neighboring species, we find some individuals
that always live solitary and others always associated, as for example
the specially remarkable group of Polyps or Acalepha.

One species of this group, the brown Hydra {Hydra fiisca), is
common in stagnant waters and even in small garden basins. It has
always excited the interest of naturalists and philosophers since Trem-
bly made known its marvelous faculties. These Hydras ordinarily live
solitary ; but frequently the larger individuals are seen carrying small-
er ones on the walls of their bodies. In a captured Hydra we can fol-
low their development step by step. They are at first simple swell-

PiG. 1.— a, diagrammatic section of Hydra ; 6, Hydra viridis, showing swellings in the body-wall ;
c, Hydra vulgaris, with an undetached bud enlarged; d, thread-cell of the Hydra, greatly mag-
nified.

ings, in the center of which there is a prolongment of the cavity of
the mother's body. These swellings enlarge and soon put out tenta-
cles, and a mouth opens in the midst of the crown formed by them.

628 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The young Hydra, like its mother, is a simple sac with its wall com-
posed of a double layer of cells, the cavity or stomach communicating
directly with the stomach of the mother, so that the contractions of the
body carry all the food taken by one into the stomach of the other,
and inversely (Fig. 1). The parent and child live awhile in this way,
but, whenever the latter has reached a certain size, it is detached and
fixes itself on some near object, where it hunts on its own account.
Soon the parent and offspring are indistinguishable, and during the
summer they never cease to produce new Hydras. But, sometimes, in
fertile waters rich in game, each Hydra retains its progeny, the little
ones grow and produce new Hydras in their turn, and thus a new
colony is founded. Trembly kept a long time a Hydra that carried
twenty-two young ones of four different generations — a living genea-
logical tree.

That which is accidental in the common Hydra is quite normal
with another fresh-water species, the Cordylophora lacustris, and in
most marine Hydroids, in which the colonies often consist of innumer-
able individuals. But then new phenomena are seen. The social life
becomes complicated, and a true division of labor occurs among the
members of the same colony. At first all were alike, performing the
same functions in the same manner. Specialization soon begins : some
hunt, others digest, others reproduce ; so that individuals that at first
had no need of each other and lived united only in a careless way, be-
come reciprocally necessary ; the society thus acquires coherence and
solidarity. In the Hydractinia we count not less than seven sorts of
individuals : 1. Nourishers or gasterozoids ; 2. Prehensers or dacty-
lozoids, provided with bunches of stinging capsules ; 3, Dactylozoids
without stinging capsules ; 4. Defenders ; 5. Reproducers of individ-
uals of both sexes ; 6. Males ; 7. Females. They are different in
shape as well as in function ; each taking the figure suited to its work,
rising or falling in organization ; so that division of labor brings with
it, as in human society, inequality of conditions. The species thus be-
come polymorphic.

Of these seven sorts of individuals that compose a colony of Hy-
dractinia, the nourishers alone seem capable of living by themselves.
The others have neither mouth nor tentacles, the sexual individuals
are reduced to simple sacs, the defenders seem to be only sharp spines,
between which the polyps can hide themselves (Fig. 5). It may seem
an exaggeration to attribute individuality to these different parts. It
may be said that they are simply organs ; but organs of what ? They
are just as independent of each other, just as independent of the nourish-
ers, as the latter can be of one another. They are, then, not organs of
those Polyps. Can they be organs of the colony ? It is already under-
stood that the colony has the character of an individual, and the trans-
formation we seek to demonstrate is admitted. But how can a colony

]Vi;W VIEWS OF ANIMAL TRANSFORMATIONS. 629

of the individuals which compose it ? We have no need of hypothe-
sis, however, to demonstrate that these colonial organs are the equiva-
lents of true individuals. The buds that give birth to the different
sorts of individuals in a colony of Hydractinia all grow alike, and re-

FlG. 2.— NAKED-BTED MEDUSiE.

main alike for a long time. This is the first presumption in favor of
their equivalence. But in the allied type, Podocoryne, we see the hum-
ble sac, which represents the sexual individual, replaced by a being
more active, more elegant, much more elevated than the Hydra itself,
by a transparent medusa, which is detached when it reaches maturity
and swims actively in the water, the colony suffering no inconvenience
from the change (Fig. 2). These medusse constitute the most general

Fig. 3.— a, fragment of Cordylophora lacustris slightly enlarged : 6, Bame, showing gonangium ;
portion of Syncoryne sarsii, with medusifonn ZoOids budding between the tentacles.

form of the sexual individuals in the group of Hydroid Polyps, but
they are very polymorphic. Their form is modified from one species

630

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

to another, and arrested at all stages of development. Sometimes,
although completely formed, they resign their freedom and end their
existence in the colony where they were bom.

In one group of Polyps the Medusse associate themselves with the
reproductive individuals to form a new unit — a small, distinct colony,
that might be taken for a peculiar organ curiously analogous to a

Fig. 4.— Gbnerative Buds or Gonophoees of the Eydrozoa diagrammatically represented.
a, simple gonophore; c, gonophoie which has the structure of a Medusa (medusoid), but is not
detached ; d, free medusiform gonophore.

flower — with a separate chamber, and called the gonangium (Figs. 3
and 4). A step further and these strongly individualized Medusae are
seen descending to the rank of organs in more complex colonies.

All the colonies of Hydras are not fixed to submarine objects.
Some of them lead a vagabond existence. They are often taken, not
without reason, for simple animals analogous to the Medusae, and called

Fig. 5.— oceanic Hydrozoa, showing the specialization of Parts. 9, Siphonophore ; w,
swimming-bells ; p, alimentary region ; t, tentacles ; 3, diagram of the composite body of one
of the Siphonifera i a a, swimming-bells ; d, spines or defensive individuals ; /, digester.

Siphonophores (Fig. 5). They sometimes attain a large size ; and the
variety and profusion of the parts which compose them, as well as the
brilliancy of color and incomparable beauty of their forms, have made
them subjects of the profound admiration of naturalists as well as
sailors (Figs. 6 and 7). Each one of these parts is the equivalent of a

^UW VIEWS OF ANIMAL TRANSFORMATIONS. 631

Hydra or of a Medusa. In one Agalma we find, as in the Hydrac-
tinia, nourishers supplied with one long tentacle, of which a single
touch produces a severe burning sensation, a sort of fish -line, which in
large species is capable of capturing fishes. Besides the nourishers,

i)-"-

Fig. 6.— Hidden-eyed Medusa.

7. — GONOPHOBE OF OKE OF

THE Campanularida.

are found individuals without a mouth, which are only reproducers, in
the neighborhood of which are sexual individuals resembling Medusae
in form. All these individuals are fixed upon a common axis, which
floats like a serpent in the water, where it is sustained by an air-vessel
forming its superior extremity. Two series of sterile Medusae appear
underneath this bell, a gang of oarsmen (physales), to which the col-
ony abandons the care of locomotion.

These various parts are in all respects too much like the Hydras and
Medusae for us to refuse them the character of individuals ; the Agalma
and other Siphoniferse are true societies or colonies. But here most of
the individuals can not separate themselves without danger of death ;
and, in certain cases, they all coordinate their movements that the col-
ony may perform certain acts. For example, in the Portuguese men-
of-war (Fig. 8) the physales frequently change their course, and then
all the individuals of the colony concur in the operation. They
have, then, a will which controls them — a will that can find the
grounds of its decisions only in a sort of social consciousness, ele-
vating the colony to the rank of a psychological unit. Composed of
individuals each of which is equivalent to those Hydras or Medusae
that live free and isolated and sufficient for themselves, every Si-
phonophore must still be considered in its turn as a single animal

632

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

— a true individual of a higher order. Here the transformation
of the colony to an individual is manifest. The Siphonophore is an

animal with organs made up of
distinct animals, each having a
particular function. Elsewhere we
see these animal organs become
less and less independent. They
come together and arrange them-
selves around a central axis which
predominates, and end by forming
a being like the Porpita or Velelle,
which, but for the study of neigh-
boring types, would not be thought
of as a decomposable animal.

At the present time most peo-
ple consider Sea-anemones (Fig. 9)
and Polyps, of the madrepores,
and coral, as simple organisms —
primitive individuals ; while to us
their origin is the same as that
of PorpitcE and Yelellm — the union
of three sorts of Hydroid Polyps.
The admirable researches of Mose-
ley on the Polyps of the family of
Stylasteridce furnish proof of this.
If we consider only their calcareous
parts, all these beings seem to be true Madrepores. The first doubt
concerning their true nature was raised by Agassiz, with reference to
the Millepores.

;, Portngruese man-of-war (after Hux-
ley) ; b, VeleUa vulgaris (after Gosse).

; b, Arachnaetis albida (after Gosse).

Between a Coralarian and a Hydroid Polyp the difference is con-
siderable. One is a simple sac with tentacles, usually solid appendages

NEW VIEWS OF ANIMAL TRANSFORMATIONS. 633

of the wall of the body, that vary in number with the species, or some-
times with individuals, but are constant for each during the great
part of its life. The other is formed of a stomach-like sac, open at
bottom, around which are hollow tentacles, which often increase in
number with the age of the Polyp (Fig. 10). These tentacles, which
are free at their extremities, and united at their bases to form the wall

Fia. 10.— DiAGRAjaMATic FiGDKE OF Sea-Anemone.

of the Polyp's body, open inward like the stomachal sac into a great
cavity, the circumference of which is divided into cells by the soldered
walls of two neighboring tentacles. On the partitions of these cells,
and so within the body, the reproductive apparatus is developed ;
while in Hydroid Polyps it is generally on the exterior in the form
of a bud. This type of structure is much more complex than that of
the Hydroid Polyp, which is well represented by the Stylasteridae. In
their colonies we find the polymorphism of the Hydroida, and also the
nourishers, purveyors, and reproducers. Among the Spinipora^ Spora-
dopora, PUohothrius, Errina, these different sorts of individuals are
perfectly independent of each other : a simple vascular network dis-
tributes among them the food seized by the hunters and elaborated by
the nourishers.

But with the Millipores the nourishers are the most important
members of the colony, as they prepare all the nourishment, drawing
around them the hunters and reproducers, but without establishing
any more intimate relations. With the Astylus, the Stylaster, the
Cryptohelia, this movement of concentration around the nourishers be-
comes pronounced ; a space forms underneath ; the tentacles, rendered
useless by the neighborhood of the hunters, disappear, and nothing
remains but a digestive sac around which the hunters perform func-
tions exactly like those of the tentacles of a Coralarian Poh^. Each
system has now a decided individuality. Another step, and the hunt-
ers, from being distinct throughout their whole length, grow together
at the base and interlace with the digesters, and the reproducers fol-
low in this movement. These different parts are, thenceforward, too
near together to require a special vascular system ; the vessels which
unite them are simple perforations of their wall which open in the
space just below the digesters, and into which the reproducers pene-

634

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

trate also. But this whole the most experienced naturalist could not
distinguish fi-om a Coralarian Polyp. Among Coral Polyps the indi-
vidual is, then, an association of parts of different form, of which each
is equivalent to a Hydroid Polyp.

A Coral Polyp with twelve tentacles is the sum of a considerable
number of Hydroid Polyps — one digester, twelve hunters, and a vari-
able number of reproducers. It is formed by the aid of Hydroid Po-
lyps, as flowers by the aid of leaves ; or, better yet, as the composite
flower is formed by its florets. It is produced in the same way as the
Porpita or the Velella ; the formation of a colony, the division of
physiological labor, the appearance of polymorphism, and the concen-
tration of the parts so elaborated — such is the succession of phenome-
na which marks the transformation of Hydroida into VelellaB and Sea-
Anemones. The Hydroid Polyps are the raw materials which are
brought into the factory, and then fashioned and gathered together to
form higher individualities.

While these morphological phenomena are taking place, others are
also occurring in a physiological order. At first the associated indi-
viduals have nothing in common except nourishment, which all are
capable of elaborating, but which passes from one to another so that
all are equal partakers. It is just here that consolidation begins, but
each polyp still preserves his personality. He has his own will, and
does not share his sensations with his neighbors ; we can wound or
even remove one without disturbing the rest. But, in proportion as the
colony becomes more coherent, sensations extend farther and farther
around the polyp that experiences them. Soon all the individuals

Fig. 11.— Morphology of Tape-worm. 5, fragment of tape-worm showing the joints ; 4, single
joint enlarged showing ovary, o, generatire pore, a, and canals, b ; 3, head of tape-worm.

are conscious of that which happens to any one of them, thus form-
ing a colonial consciousness above that of the individual, and finally a
single will bends all the special wills to its bidding. A new individ-

lYEW VIEWS OF ANIMAL TRANSFORMATIONS. 635

ual is now definitely constituted. Is not this the same law which
presides over the transformation of savages into civilized people?
Have not nations, corporations even, a consciousness and will ? Do
they not form great units which we designate by one word in cur-
rent language ?

The transformations we have followed step by step in the class of
Polyps are not restricted to these animals. It is easy to show how

Fis. 12.— Tbematode Worm.

simple forms are again associated, in the group of Worms, to obtain the
more complex forms. We find here the same laws as in studying the
Polyps. Long ago, Van Beneden, Professor at the Catholic Univer-
sity of Louvain, afiirmed that each joint of a tape-worm (Fig. 11) was

Fig. 13.— Somites op Insect.

the equivalent of a Trematode worm (Fig. 12) ; and Douve still ear-
lier taught that the rings of a worm, or of an insect, were considered

636

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

by naturalists as equal units, formed of the same parts, having each a
real individuality. The name Somites, which has been given them,
shows the tendency to consider them as true elementary animals as-
sociated in colonies (Figs. 13 and 14). The power possessed by the
segments of certain worms to individualize themselves and form new
colonies is strong evidence in favor of this view. Polymorphism and
the concentration of parts explain how a Peripatus or a Myriapod can

Fig. 14,— Lobsteb with the Somiteb separated fbom each other, the Appendages being
ALL REMOVED EXCEPT THE TERMINAL SwiMMEKETS. cu, carapacc ; t, teleon ; 2, third abdom-
inal somite with its appendages.

become a spider or an insect, how different Crustacea arise from a
common stem, how from another form of colony have arisen all the
Annelida. It has been often said that Echinoderms, Star-fishes, Ophiu-
rans, were only colonies united by the head (Fig. 15). They are, at
least, all colonies, but of a special nature.

Can we say as much of the Mollusca and Vertebrata, all the parts
of which are so closely united, and which are the giants of creation ?
Are there simple forms of association which can explain the marvelous
organization of these superior types of creation — as we have explained
the Siphoniferae, Coral Polyps, Echinoderms, and Arthropoda ?

NEW VIEWS OF ANIMAL TRANSFORMATIONS. 637

This is the question for our present course of lectures ; but, what-
ever the result of our inquiries, it will not invalidate the generality of
the principle of association. If, contrary to our past opinions, these
higher beings are not simple individuals, we must compare them with

Fia. 15.— Star-fish.

those primordial individuals which by combination have produced
other types, and which are still found at the base of each of the great
divisions of the animal kingdom. Now, how have these individuals
arisen ?

The Hydras and analogous organisms reply. We can cut a Hydra
into as many pieces as we like, and each piece, instead of dying, con-
tinues to develop and ends by becoming a complete Hydra. It fol-
lows that these different parts are independent of each other, like the
polyps forming the lowest colonies. Each cell of the Hydra is a true
individual, and the Hydras are a colony of these monocellular individu-
als as the Siphonophores themselves are colonies of Hydras. Aptitude
to social life is communicated by heredity to these cells, as it is com-
municated to the polyps. Each cell, each polyp, detached from the
colony, is a copy of it, and his after-development tends always toward
its formation. At first all the members of a colony are equally apt to
reproduce ; then this function is localized like the others, and pertains
to some individuals, or some parts, while sexual reproduction becomes
more and more important. When the society reaches a certain degree
of coherence, these different parts cease to live independently of the
others, and can not be separated without danger of dying.

We see still more clearly in the Sponges their colonial nature. The
spongarian individual is formed of two sorts of cellular individuals, the
amoeba and infusorial flagellif ere, of which we fiind analogues living, at
liberty and in isolation (Fig. 16). The flagelliferous cells of sponges
present exceptional features ; they are provided with a nucleus and
contractile vesicle, and their unique flagellum is surrounded by a mem-

638 THE POPULAR SCIEITCE MONTHLY.

branous collarette in the form of a funnel. All these characters are
found in the Codosigm, monocellular Infusoria, always living isolated,
and are to the sponges what the Hydras are to the Siphonifera and
Coral Polyps. In the Anthophysm these cellules live in colonies, but
are yet all alike. Let polymorphism step in. Let some of the asso-

V
Fig. 16.-3 and 6, Amoebae , c, d, e, sponge particles.

ciated cells preserve the flagellif erous form, while others become amoebse,
a transformation which is possible, since it constitutes one of the most
frequent modes of reproduction of the amoeboid Infusoria, and the
AnthopJiysa is transformed into a sponge. The process is always the
same, whatever the nature of the assembled materials. Cells or polyps,
it always submits to the same elaboration in developing new indi-
viduals. The cells, once assembled in the organism, yield easily to
the changes required by the division of physiological labor, and form
various organs, although these organs never become true individuals.
If the individuals of a colony often descend to the state of organs, we
must not conclude that the organs of an animal are always individuals
that have lost their autonomy ; but the animal to which they belong,
though it may never have been an assemblage of individualities inter-
mediate between its own and that of cells, is not less a colony of the
latter subjected to the laws of evolution of all the others. Thus even
if we can not prove that Vertebrates and Mollusks have resulted from
the fusion of more simple beings that have lived an independent life,
they are still colonies of cells, and the law of associatio?i has conse-
quently lost none of its generality.

It remains the fundamental law of development in the animal king-
dom, comprehending and controlling those Imos of (/roivth, of organic
repetition, of economy, which have been long accepted by physiolo-
gists, explaining hitherto mysterious homologies between different
parts of the body, or between different organs of the same animal ;
embracing in one circle all the forms of asexual generation, which are
its most powerful means of creation. Resting upon the law of the
division of physiological work, the importance of which was first
demonstrated by Milne-Edwards, and upon that of 2^olymorphism,
which without it have only a limited and indefinite meaning, conse-
quent on the law of division of protoplasmic masses, it has been the
great producer of organization, and establishes a new link between

Ni:W VIEWS OF ANIMAL TRANSFORMATIONS. 6^g

sociology and the branches of biology that are occupied with the con-
stitution and functions of organisms.

We now reach the ultimate elements of living bodies, the material
which has served to make the most simple beings, and we ask, What is
its origin ? Here we are in the presence of unity ; there is no longer
any question of association. Most living cells are composed of four
parts — a membranous envelope, a contained fluid in which is a special
globule, and the nucleus, containing the nucleolus. Of these four parts
only one, the contained semi-fluid, perfectly limpid or finely granular,
the protoplasm, is indispensable. It is in this strange substance that
life, which needs no other apparatus to manifest itself, resides. Those
remarkable beings, the Monera, are formed of it alone. They are
simple, homogeneous clots of a limpid jelly like the white of egg.
This jelly has the power of movement, captui'es animals, digests and
assimilates them, grows, and, when it has attained a certain size,
divides into two or several masses, that begin anew the life of
their mother, and divide like her when they have reached a certain
size.

This faculty of division, is an important property of protoplasm,
because it governs all organic evolution. A protoplasmic mass can
not exceed a determinate size. When it reaches this size, a parti-
tion forms, and, as its mass is perfectly homogeneous, as it is con-
stantly traversed by currents that completely mingle its substance, all
the resulting fragments possess the acquired or hereditary properties of
the protoplasmic mass from which they came. This explains all the
phenomena of heredity, by means of which each being transmits to
its progeny, even in the case of sexual generation, all its specific and
part of its personal characters.

From this incapacity of protoplasmic masses to exceed a certain
length, it follows that all beings that are larger must be formed of
several distinct masses of protoplasm — in a word, are colonies. So the
generality of the law of association appears as a consequence of one of
the fundamental properties of protoplasm. It constantly decomposes
itself into distinct masses. These separate masses are modified, each
in a particular fashion, under the influence of external agents. Hence
the wonderful variety of nature is an immediate consequence of the
law of association, of the necessity imposed upon protoplasm to sepa-
rate into small distinct individualities.

What, then, can be the nature of protoplasm ? Struck by its ho-
mogeneity, the identity of the elements that compose it with those
that form albuminoid substances, it has been taken for a mere chemi-
cal compound, and it has been boldly asked if it is not possible to pro-
duce it artificially ; if man has not power to relight the torch of Pro-
metheus and create life at will. This question, I believe, has been asked
in consequence of a strange confusion of words. If it is true that the
substances that form living matter are the same as those that enter

640 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

into certain chemical compounds, we can not infer from this that pro-
toplasm is one of these compounds. What characterizes a chemical
compound is fixity of composition. But protoplasm changes inces-
santly, without modifying any of its fundamental properties. New
substances are constantly entering into its mass while others are leav-
ing it. Protoplasm is perpetually decomposing and recomposing itself.
It is this, and not its chemical composition, that characterizes it. It
is always in movement, and motion characterizes life.

Life is, then, only a combination of movements, or, if you please, a
mode of movement of which certain substances are alone capable, and
which is not without analogy with the whirling movements to which
eminent physicists attribute the properties of chemical atoms. We
might pursue this comparison between atoms and protoplasms, and use
it to show that the latter must have been formed originally in the
greatest possible number ; that we seem to be powerless to reproduce
them ; that they appeared with a train of properties which have con-
trolled their subsequent destiny ; and that they had from the first the
individuality we see in them at the present day.

THE DUTY OF ENJOYMENT.

TO say that we are under a moral obligation to enjoy ourselves
would be, in the opinion of most persons, to utter an unmeaning
paradox. It is commonly supposed that the natural instinct for plea-
sure can take care of itself without any reenforcement from a sense of
duty. More than this, our habits of thought instinctively lead us to
set duty in antagonism to pleasure, so that to talk of a duty of enjoy-
ment sounds self-contradictory. Many influences have combined in
the past history of our race to produce this conception of the relation
of pleasure and duty. Unless this idea had been developed and fixed
in the human mind, it is difiicult to see how the moral progress already
attained would have been possible. Even that extreme form of this
doctrine of the antagonism of pleasure and duty involved in the ascetic
renunciation of all enjoyment as sinful was doubtless a useful and
necessary belief in certain stages of social evolution. But it may be
that this conception of pleasure has now lost its utility, and will have
to be displaced by a view of life which sets a positive moral value on
enjoyment. The epicurean theory that all good resolves itself into
pleasure has long been before the world, and has won many adherents.
Since the revival of letters many writers have contended warmly
against the mediseval disparagement of pleasure. Of late years a
number of writers with a keen appreciation of the aesthetic resources
at our command have in beautiful and alluring language held up a

THE DUTY OF ENJOYMENT. 641

refined hedonistic ideal of life, according to which all irksome sense of
duty will melt away in a rational cultivation of choice delights ; and
now a leading philosopher has added the weight of his name to this
tendency of ethical thought by distinctly enforcing the duty of com-
passing a pleasurable existence, a duty which he thinks to be sadly
neglected in these days.

The arguments put forth by Mr. Herbert Spencer in his latest
volume, " The Data of Ethics," in support of the proposition that the
cultivation of pleasurable consciousness is a prime duty of life, will
be sure to excite a good deal of attention. His fundamental idea is
that pleasure is good, because it is the accompaniment and mark of a
healthy exercise of a useful or life-preserving function. Pleasures and
pains have been attached to actions beneficial and injurious to the
organism by the working of the laws of evolution. Since it is an
inevitable law of our mental nature that we should seek pleasure, and
since, too, it is a condition of self-preservation and survival in the
struggle for existence that our actions should tend to organic efl&-
ciency, it follows that the coincidence of pleasurable and life-serving
activities must from the first have been a necessary condition of per-
manent existence. Mr. Spencer thinks that people have altogether
overlooked this truth. Even moralists who might be supposed to
know better have, he conceives, failed to recognize the function of
pleasurable feelings as guides to sound living. Men are excused, if
not commended, when, in pursuit of some worthy distant object, they
pay no heed to the bodily pain which should have told them that they
were not fulfilling the first conditions of all efficient action. Again,
pleasure is to be recommended as directly effecting an increase of
energy, bodily and mental, as raising " the tide of life " ; yet moralists
have altogether forgotten this when pronouncing their sweeping con-
demnations of pleasure as evil, or at least as of no moral value. Mr.
Spencer appears to feel a genuine abhorrence of the ascetic conception
of pleasure, for he speaks of the " tacit assumption, common to pagan
stoics and Christian ascetics, that we are so diabolically organized that
pleasures are injurious and pains beneficial." He does not attempt, as
an evolutionist very well might have done, to account for the genesis
and survival of the ascetic doctrine. Later on he dwells at some
length on the importance of a due pursuit of individual enjoyment as
a preliminary to an effective rendering of services to others. In this
way he would erect the study of pleasure into a double obligation — a
duty to one's self and to others.

Most readers will allow that there is much force in Mr. Spencer's
reasonings. It may be doubted, however, whether the common neg-
lect of pleasure as a good thing proceeds as much from lingering
ascetic ideas as he supposes. In their severer form these ideas are
confined to a few religious sects, and even among them they are not
now enforced so rigorously as formerly. It is to be added that the

VOL. XVI. — 41

642 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

modes of enjoyment more especially disparaged in tliis ascetic teach-
ing are of very questionable value. It may be doubted, for example,
whether much dancing, carried on into the small hours of the morning,
or much frequenting of hot and badly ventilated theatres, conduces to
a really pleasurable and efficient life. On the other hand, it deserves
to be remembered, perhaps, that society distinctly puts its mark of
approval on enjoyment by actually imposing the duty of pleasure-
seeking on its individual subjects. Many a delicate woman will attend
the social gayeties of the season because she is expected to enjoy herself
in this way ; and many a busy man will take his month or six weeks'
holiday at a fashionable pleasure resort, not because he desires the kind
of enjoyment offered, or even expects to realize it, but simply because
society tells him to act thus. What makes people neglect pleasure
much more than any form of ascetic prohibition is, we suspect, personal
indifference arising from inattention and preoccupation. More par-
ticularly in our busy age, men are very apt to be absorbed in some
exciting pursuit, so as to overlook the pleasurable resources of life.
Often this engrossing pursuit, though entered on at first from a motive
of pleasure, ceases to bring any appreciable enjoyment, and thus the
whole life becomes to a large extent robbed of its proper emotional
hue. Nor is this narrow and unreflecting disposition of opportunities
and energies simply a loss of so much enjoyment. It commonly results
in the accumulation of a large mass of pain. The non-satisfaction of
natural tastes and impulses pretty certainly brings a vague sense of
something wanting — a dreary feeling which depresses the mental tone
and throws a gloom on life. Add to this that the state of mental ab-
sorption in some one line of activity is highly favorable to a neglect of
all the many little circumstances which must cooperate in sustaining
health. The first indication of this inattention to health is probably a
development of abnormal nervous irritability. The temper is ruffled ;
sources of annoyance multiply, while those of gratification decrease in
the same ratio. The full development of this change is seen in a mo-
rose view of life, which has the same practical results as a professed
asceticism. There is a growing disposition to dwell on vexatious ele-
ments of experience, to nurse a sense of injury, and a corresponding
disinclination to seek enjoyment, or even to accept it, when close at
hand.

It seems to us that this neglect of the conditions of a full and plea-
surable life is, as Mr. Spencer suggests, a thing to be severely depre-
cated on moral grounds. For there is no doubt that it leads in a
number of ways to the infliction of suffering on others. To have to
live with an irritable and gloomy person is probably as great an afflic-
tion as to be burdened with a painful illness. Accordingly, a man
who by inattention to the conditions of a cheerful frame of mind be-
comes the source of numberless vexations to his family may really
produce as much suffering as many a well-recognized criminal. It is

THE DUTY OF ENJOYMENT. 643

almost amusing to see how men will seek to excuse themselves for
their carelessness in these matters on the ground that they are sacri-
ficing themselves to some useful object, some form of public service.
It may often be doubted whether even success in their endeavors
would result in any benefits at all commensurable with the ills brought
on their families. And in any case it may not unreasonably be con-
tended that usefulness, like charity, should begin at home. A great
novelist and moralist has recently satirized the common neglect of
public interests by the ^u^y^ paterfamilias whose largest conception
of public good is the welfare of his family. The case is no doubt
common enough ; but its commonness must not make us overlook the
evils of the other extreme, the carrying out of something which is
supposed to be of public value at the cost of the comfort and enjoy-
ment of the public benefactor's family and friends. If moral worth is
to be estimated by the amount of happiness bestowed on others, it
may well be doubted whether some of these self-sacrificing persons of
large aims are not of inferior value to many a commonplace good-
natured citizen, who is perfectly free from all lofty aspirations, who
likes to live well and to surround himself by happy faces, and whose
healthy instinct for pleasure leads him unreflectingly to add to the
enjoyment of all who have to do with him.

In many cases, then, it is clear that people do not think enough of
the simple pleasures of life. It may be added that, in order to realize
in one's self and in others the full benefit of a pleasurable existence, it
is necessary to pursue pleasure as something intrinsically desirable. It
will not do to seek it merely as a means to an end beyond itself.
Pleasure must be loved and sought in and for itself, if it is to be the
good which it is capable of becoming. A man should be steeped in
the atmosphere of happiness if he is to realize the efficient and benefi-
cent existence we have described, and this presupposes what may
paradoxically be called a disinterested liking for pleasure. It is by
no means easy to persons of a certain temperament to cultivate the
spirit of enjoyment in this way. In truth, it may be said to be the
result of a difficult art which will only be acquired by those who have
reached a high pitch of moral culture. To foster and manifest a
cheerful and gladsome mind often involves a considerable amount of
self-restraint in repressing and banishing those gloomy reflections to
which one may be constitutionally prone. There is further a certain
moral sluggishness and inertia in some natures which makes it a con-
siderable effort to rise into the pleasurable strata of the emotional at-
mosphere. How often, for example, is a fit of mental depression only
capable of being dissipated by a vigorous form of bodily exercise to
the idea of which the feeling of the moment is strongly opposed ! The
creation and sustentation of a bright and joyous consciousness is thus
often a matter of real difficulty, and deserves to be extolled as a moral
triumph over natural inclination.

644 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

It may be well to add that this conscious pursuit of a happy tone
of mind will demand a good deal of individual self-assertion in the
face of the claims of social custom. If a man is to succeed in being a
radiant center of happiness, he must, it is plain, be free to seek en-
joyment in his own way. We do not mean merely that he will natu-
rally disregard the force of example so far as to avoid the extreme
heat of the struggle for existence. It is only too obvious that, if he
desires a healthy, cheerful condition of mind, he must take life in a
measure easily and abandon all excessive ambitions. What is less
obvious is, that he will have to hold aloof from many of the forms of
fashionable enjoyment prescribed by society. These prescriptions are
often exceedingly foolish, having no relation to individual tastes. For
example, the late dinner-party, though supposed to be a source of en-
joyment, is really adapted to induce in many persons a permanent feel-
ing of depression and weariness. It would perhaps not be edifying to
inquire how much of the chronic discontent and mental discomfort of
people arises from a too ready compliance with the demands of fash-
ionable society with respect to amusements.

But the reader may object that we are here taking only one view
of our subject. Is it not, he may ask, a dangerous doctrine that plea-
sure is a good thing, deserving to be cultivated with ardor and assidu-
ity? No doubt the pursuit of personal enjoyment must not be made
the sole aim of life. To use Mr. Spencer's language, egoism must be
balanced by altruism. Yet, while allowing this, we would contend
that a wise and calm regard for a continuously happy existence is a
much less inadequate guide to right living than many moralists are
apt to think. They forget that the preservation of an habitual flow
of pleasurable feeling is not possible where exciting indulgences are
sought after as the chief thing in life. It is really a defamation of the
idea of pleasure to call a sensual person addicted to wild excesses of
enjoyment a man of pleasure. The true man of pleasure is rather he
who tries to carry the atmosphere of enjoyment into all the circum-
stances and occupations of the day. Those who thus seek pleasure
rationally, avoiding all fatiguing over-indulgence, and giving the high-
est value to the quieter and more expansive forms of enjoyment, will
not perhaps greatly fail in a due consideration of others' interests.
For, as Mr. Spencer has shown in this same volume, a considerable
dash of altruism is a necessary condition of a full experience of per-
sonal gratification. This is true even in our present imperfect stage
of social development. And if, as he thinks, and we would fain hope,
things are tending to a complete formation of the social man with an
adequate capacity of sympathy, it must happen by and by that the
most thoughtful and judicious cultivator of personal happiness will at
the same time be most serviceable to others. However this may be,
Mr. Spencer has rendered a timely service in exposing the absurdity
of an undiscriminating disparagement of the pleasurable disposition,

INTEMPERANCE IN STUDY. 645

and in showing how valuable an element in the economy of life,
individual and social, is the instinctive impulse toward enjoyment.
— Saturday Beview.

INTEMPEEANCE IN STUDY.*

By D. hack TUKE, F. R. C. P.

HAVING met from time to time with cases of brain-fag, and also
actual insanity, arising fi-om excessive mental work, I wish to
direct attention to-day to this cause of disordered mind, not because
it is so widespread a cause as many others, but because for this very
reason it is in danger of being treated with indifference, whereas at
the present moment I regard it as a serious evil, although comparative-
ly restricted in its operation in consequence of the great mass of the
people falling under opposite influences ; still I fear that it is in schools
and colleges as well as in the cottage of the laborer and manufacturer,
among students as well as among those who delve and spin, that we
must seek for the causes of mental disturbance if we wish to under-
stand them thoroughly.

It would occupy too much time to detail the cases to which I re-
fer ; I must ask you to take them as " read." For my present pur-
pose it is sufficient to say that they have taken the form of brain-fag,
mental excitement, depression of spirits (sometimes suicide), epilepsy,
and chorea. I have recently known a case of acute mania distinctly
due to this cause, confinement in an asylum becoming necessary. Of
suicidal melancholia I could cite some painful instances, and, as re-
gards epilepsy, I could detail the history of some marked cases result-
ing from overwork ; and I may state that, at the National Hospital for
Epilepsy in London, pupil teachers have been admitted laboring un-
der this disease, brought on by mental strain. Two medical officers,
resident in the institution at different times, spontaneously drew my
attention to the fact.

I fully admit that, in many instances of mischief from excess of
study, this results from anxious worry as well. The subject " preys
un the mind," as people say ; but then it was the study of too large a
number of subjects or of subjects beyond the power of the student to
master within a given time which was to blame for this harass.

Here I wish to anticipate an objection which may be raised to my
own observation and experience on this question. How is it — it may
be fairly said — how is it that, if over-mental work is often to blame
for attacks of insanity, there are not more statistics at hand to prove
it ? To this I would reply :

* Read in the Psychological Section at the Annual Meeting of the British Medical As-
sociation in Cork, August, 1879.

646 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

1. The principal statistics in regard to the causes of insanity are
derived from asylums for the uneducated classes.

2. An attack of excitement caused by mental strain in the young
is often temporary, and is treated privately.

3. When suicide is successful before the patient reaches an asylum,
the case is not to be found in lunacy statistics.

4. Cases of epilepsy often remain at home ; and the same remark
applies, of course, to brain-fag and general nervous exhaustion.

In regard to one of these points I would observe that, when I have
been able to examine into the causes of cases of insanity admitted into
non-pauper asylums, I have found a considerable number traceable to
excessive mental work either as a predisposing or an exciting cause.
No doubt this is often associated, as I have just said, with anxiety and
other emotional states. It is sufficient, however, for our present pur-
pose if it be admitted that a considerable number of attacks occur in
connection with overwork, although complicated with emotional ex-
citement. It must be remembered that the mischief thus done is only
one part of the evil wrought by the intemperate pursuit of knowledge.
The lungs and other organs also suffer. Dr. Andrew Clark writes to
me : " I am a witness to the grave and sometimes irreparable mischief
done at schools and in working for competitive examinations. As an
illustration," he adds, "of the evil effects of overwork for competi-
tive examinations, I can say that, of the young men passing the Civil-
Service Examination for Indian Service, and afterward sent to me by
the Civil Service Coramissioner for health certificates, ten per cent, dur-
ing the last three years have had temporary albuminuria."

I have before me tabular statements of the school hours and the
subjects taught in some of the principal English public schools, as well
as in private seminaries. It is utterly impossible to present them to
you in the brief period allotted me ; I can therefore only offer a few
general remarks upon them, and refer to two or three by way of illus-
tration.

The number of hours actually spent in school does not (as a general
rule) appear to be excessive in our large public schools. There are
exceptions, but this evil and the multiplicity of subjects taught apply
rather to the private schools. Where the chief danger seems to lie in
most schools is in the encroachment made on the play-hours. In some
day schools the lessons set to learn at home are absurdly long and tedi-
ous. I find that in other schools, public and private, a great deal of
work is done during the period nominally allotted to recreation only.
This is a very important part of the actual school-system, and one
which requires great care on the part of masters. I will now take the
school hours of the sixth form in one very excellent school for the mid-
dle and higher classes. There is an hour's work before breakfast, three
hours in the morning, four hours in the afternoon, and two hours in
the evening, making a total of ten hours for study. Between breakfast

INTEMPERANCE IN STUDY. 647

and supper there are about two hours allowed for recreation. While
it must be remembered that, when we speak of boys being engaged in
study for ten hours, those who are lazy are not closely and continuously
engaged in their work, and that if the master is not strict the strain is
not necessarily severe, I can not but think that it would be better for
the health of the scholars in this school if the total amount of time
engaged in school or study did not exceed eight or at most nine hours.
I am quite alive to the danger attending too liberal an amount of time
being left at the disposal of schoolboys ; they do not find it difficult
to get into mischief. Still, under proper supervision, three hours'
relaxation between ,9 a. m. and 9 p. m, does not seem to me an extrava-
gant allowance for growing lads.

I have referred to the encroachment of book-work on play-hours.
Having taken great pains to get at this point in various schools, my
conclusion is that, what with back lessons, impositions, and extra sub-
jects, this encroachment becomes in many instances a serious burden.
I have been puzzled at first to explain the ill health of some boys when
I examined the time-table, and did not succeed in explaining the mys-
tery till I discovered how much of the play-time was really spent by
them in work. This is, no doubt, often the fault of the boy, who has
not properly i learned his lessons, and has to relearn them when he
might have been at play. It would be well, however, if the masters
would consider whether they do not sometimes, by the amount of work
set the boys, render it difficult to those who have only average ability
to do all that is expected of them without encroaching on the time of
recreation.

In one school I find, as might be expected, that some boys do and
some do not complain of the pressure put upon them out of school.
I believe this arises in these instances from a difference in facility
of learning and not indisposition to work. One pupil, who has left
school, and loyally observes, in writing to me, " I feel bound to stand
up for a system to which I owe so much," reluctantly admits that the
number of lines of poetry and prose which have to be committed to
memory is quite unreasonable. The danger of overtasking the brain
is here, I believe, by no means an imaginary one. The repetition,
which goes on gradually accumulating during the term, of some six-
teen or eighteen lines of Greek or Latin verse at each lesson, becomes
at last a heavy load for the memory ; and my informant adds, " At
the end of term I have known over one thousand lines demanded, with
only a day's time to look them over in, the usual amount being four
hundred to seven hundred lines in the upper forms on the classical
side." Another scholar, in a different school, writes : " I have never
known more than thirty new lines of Greek or Latin set for one lesson.
No time is specified for learning the lines, but they have always to be
done between evening school one day and morning school the next,
unless the master chooses to set the lesson before." Here we see how

648 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

important it is, if we wish to estimate the real amount of brain activity
in the twenty-four hours, to inquire into the out-of -school tasks, for
while, when looking only at the time-table, we may picture to our-
selves a boy comfortably asleep in his bed, he may in reality be en-
gaged in hammering his Greek lines into his brain. The same pupil
writes : " The extreme variableness of the work makes it not im-
probable that some boys (as I did myself at one time) have to work
the whole day without intermission (i. e., of course, dm-ing whole
school-days), and many, especially in winter, work all the evening,
from a quarter-past six to ten o'clock, with only an interval for
supper."

A teacher of languages in England complains that his son, who is

at the grammar-school at , has lessons given him to learn which

occupy him \intil ten at night. A gentleman in Devonshire informs
me that his boy brings home from school tasks which frequently keep
him up till midnight. At a high-school in a large town, I know that
some of the pupils have suffered from overwork ; two in one family
have recently died from " brain-fever," due, it is considered by a medi-
cal man, to this cause. Dr. Fayette Taylor, of New York, has drawn
a graphic picture of what the Americans are suffering from intemper-
ance in study, and we should do well to take warning from it. " Girls
arrive at twelve or fourteen, and, at the threshold of the most impor-
tant period of existence, utterly unfitted for passing through it. Ex-
citable, with wide-open eyes and ears for every sight and sound which
can excite feeling, vapid and intense in mental activity, with thin
limbs, narrow chest, and ungainly back, we meet these twelve-year-old
products of civilization going to school with an average of thirteen
books under their feeble arms — for I have found by actual count that
thirteen is the average number of studies which they ' take ' nowa-
days."

I may here record the hours of a school for girls, which appear to
me to exceed what is wholesome, and to be well calculated to lessen
their mental elasticity and interfere with their healthy development.
These girls rise at 6.25 ; prayers are at seven, and breakfast at a quar-
ter to eight. Their studies commence at a quarter-past eight and last
till twelve, with a break of a quarter of an hour ; then dinner, during
which silence is enjoined and a book read aloud ; then an hour's
recreation is allowed. Needlework and school-work follow for two
hours ; half an hour's recreation succeeds, and then come two hours
and a half of study and instruction of various kinds. The next meal
after the twelve-o'clock dinner is at half-past six, and this is the last.
It is succeeded by half an hour's recreation, and this by half an hour's
study. Prayers end the day at half -past eight. Here we have nine
and a half hours (including religious exercises) of sedentary occupa-
tion, and only two hours and a quarter for recreation and one hour and
a half for meals. I think we shall be agreed that a little less school

INTEMPERANCE IN STUDY. 649

and a little more play would be desirable, and that there need be no
cause for surprise to find that many of the scholars suffer from head-
aches, ancemia, arrested development, and various manifestations of
exhausted nerve-force.

Then there are the school examinations, and these, I am satisfied,
require great care, while most useful means of rendering the knowl-
edge acquired by the pupils definite. A former pupil in the sixth
form writes : " With regard to examinations, an hour's examination in
each subject was supposed to take place once a month. At the end of
the term we had from a week to a fortnight's examination in all sub-
jects prepared during the term. Making felloxos learn up all their
repetition at end of term, and keeping them hack if they fail to say ity
I consider a piece of barbarism,.'''' I believe that in many schools the
examinations at the end of the term embrace so many subjects, and
lead to so much cramming of minute details, that from these causes
and the spirit of emulation excited the brain is often unduly stimu-
lated, and a state of commotion induced which is highly undesirable.
It is true that a long holiday then comes to the scholar's relief, but
even an extremely long holiday does not render it safe to imdergo
extremely severe mental strain. I suspect that with some it is thought
to do so, but it. is most important that this error should be clearly
pointed out. A schoolmaster recently remarked to me that a boy
would sometimes answer the first paper in the examination veiy well,
the next not so well, and by the time he was engaged in the last ques-
tions he would be muddled and stupid. " He seemed to have got to
the end of his brain," as the master aptly expressed it.

I wish now to refer to the present system of medical education.
How can it be otherwise than injurious when we consider that during
recent years the amount of knowledge which it is necessary to master
has prodigiously increased in every department, while the length of
time in which to acquire it remains the same ?

In regard to some examinations, a tremendous burden is laid upon
the memory. There is a long period of strain, the climax of which is
reached when the period of examination arrives, during which the
student's mind has to hold in solution the details of knowledge on
many subjects. It is often a solution saturated with minute facts and
figures, many of which are of no permanent use, and indeed can not
be remembered any longer. The mind is cramped and narrowed by
this mischievous cramming, as must necessarily happen when the
issue of an examination is made largely to hang upon a retentive
memory.

While no one proposes to go back to the old system of medical
education, it may well be doubted whether the character of these
examinations is calculated to develop the best practitioners or physi-
cians, loading the memory, as they too often do, at the expense of
breadth, depth, and originality. The lectures delivered in the medical

650 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

schools are, of course, influenced by the examinations, and is it not
notorious that these now give so many different hypotheses and enter
so much into detail that the student is often perplexed ? And (if re-
port may be credited) the lecturer himself sometimes becomes per-
plexed also.

Too rapid an acquisition of knowledge — the attempt to master too
many subjects — is a part of that Jehu speed at which we are now driv-
ing, whether in business or science. Knowledge so gained " proves
but of bad nourishment in the concoction, as it was heedless in the de-
vouring." So said Milton in his day. What would he have said now ?
Competition is not confined to trade. Our examination boards have,
in truth, not escaped from its influence. It is melancholy to see that
the errors we deplore are perpetrated by men whose knowledge of
physiological laws ought to have prevented them from pursuing so
disastrous a course. Professor Humphrey has protested in terms of
strong disapproval against the system of examinations now too gener-
ally pursued, and we of all men ought to join our voice with his in the
endeavor to stem the current of this excessive and indiscriminate brain-
stuffing. " Knowledge grows, but man stands still ; that is to say,
the intellect and powers of man are no greater now than they were
in any of the knowoi past ages ; in the days, for instance, of Homer
-or of Plato, of Confucius, of Buddha, or of Moses ; no more power-
ful to mold the material at hand, whereas the material has vastly in-
creased. . . . Had Hunter been trained upon the present system, had
be been weighed dovsm by tightly compressed facts when a student,
and subsequently, by out-patient-seeing, on the one hand, and pupil-
cramming on the other, it is scarcely to be supposed that even his mind
could have burst the iron fetters, and could have regained its elasticity
and love of work, or that even he could have found time for those re-
flections which gave such impulse to the science and practice of sur-
gery." ("Hunterian Oration," February, 1879.) One source of mis-
chief lies in the fact that an examiner constantly forgets that the de-
partment in which he examines is only one of many, and hence he
requires a degree of perfection which is simply absurd — one which,
however, suited to honors, is totally unreasonable in a pass examina-
tion ; and it must be remembered that the severity of an examination
can not be gauged by a reference to the questions which happen to be
asked at a particular examination. The student has to prepare himself
for all possible questions, ranging over very wide areas of knowledge,
and involving an acquaintance with a multitude of speculations put
forth by Continental as well as English writers. Hence it is not sur-
prising if, in the anxiety to pass the ordeal, success is too often won at
the risk of prolonged mental prostration. Failure, on the other hand,
involves, besides this, the dangers arising from disappointment and
chagrin.

I should not have thought it at all probable, when I commenced

INTEMPERANCE IN STUDY. 651

this paper, that before I conchicled it I should have listened to far
stronger remarks than any I have indulged in, in an assembly of medi-
cal teachers and practitioners in London at a meeting of the Metro-
politan branch of this Association, under the presidency of Dr. Andrew
Clark. On this occasion, Mr. Huxley said that to expect students to
pass an examination in the subjects on which they are now examined,
after only four years' study, was little short of " criminal." He char-
acterized the attempt " to cram the student with all these subjects as
utterly preposterous. The amount of work expected is simply gigan-
tic." Mr. Hutchinson said : " The best memories stagger under the
present load. . . . That after four years' study a student can be expect-
ed to bear his subjects in mind is simply an absurditT/."

But it is time to ask, What is the remedy for these evils ?

First of all it is necessary to make them widely known. Educators
and examiners must at least have no chance of sinning from ignorance,
although, as I have said, some who know most of the laws of physical
and n\ental health are the chief culprits. It must be insisted that they
are oftentimes putting too heavy a weight upon the camel's back, and
it is for them in the first instance to consider in what way they can
best diminish the tension, and, as regards medical education, rearrange
the curriculum. What I complain of is that at the present moment
the tendency in certain quarters is to render this curriculum, and con-
sequently the examinations, harder and harder, more and more unprac-
tical ; so that many can feelingly unite with the Earl of Ellesmere,
who said to a friend, shortly before his death, that he was not sorry to
go. The world was clearly becoming very disagreeable ; everybody
was going to examine everybody, and he was sure he should be
plucked !

In the second place there must either be a change in the character
of medical examinations, or the period of time occupied in study must
be extended. I believe that the first is absolutely necessary, and that
the second is in any case highly desirable. As regards the change in
the character of the examinations, it should be in the direction of les-
sening the demands made upon the memory ; and, as regards length
of time, I think a year more than is now required would be a great
advantage. It would also be an immense gain to the student if, while
he is engaged in hospital- work, he should have no examinations hang-
ing over him, except " medicine " or " surgery." This means the sub-
division of medical examinations.

Mr. Hutchinson proposes that students should be thoroughly ex-
amined during their curriculum (by hospital teachers or traveling ex-
aminers) on the various subjects, and bring up certificates of proficiency
to the Examining Boards. These would accept the certificates as
proofs of competency in details, and would give a good, general, prac-
tical examination before granting a diploma. If this course be adopt-
ed, and is not overdone, it will certainly be an immense improvement

652 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

on the present system, and would prevent students leaving too mucli
of their work undone till the last year.

Thirdly, it seems to me of great importance that the number of
subjects examined upon at the same time should, in some instances, be
reduced. The original idea of the London University in arranging
the subjects for the examination of M. D. was excellent — namely, to
spread them over a sufficient number of years and to present them suc-
cessively in a natural order of gradation. But, now that the mass of
knowledge demanded has so vastly increased, this division of labor
only partially meets the difficulty of the student, for he has now to
be prepared to answer questions in the course of a few days which
demand a painful retention of an enormous number of facts in the
memory. Some relief would be obtained here by a longer interval
being allowed between the days of examination on different subjects.

In the recent discussion on medical education to which I have re-
ferred, Mr. Huxley urged that one mode of relieving the present strain
would be to make the preliminary subjects (in an elementary .form)
necessary parts of school education. Thus a boy ought to know a
bone or a muscle when he sees it. My fear is that by so doing we
should intensify the labors of school-work, unless it is on the distinct
understanding that these subjects are not added to, but take the place
of, some which are now taught at school ; otherwise it is merely cutting
off one end of the plank and fastening it on to the other. Mr. Hux-
ley's proposition assumes, of course, that it is well to introduce these
studies into schools as a part of the education of all, whether intended
for the medical profession or not.

Fourthly^ whatever course is adopted, it is, I would hope, unneces-
sary to say that the crotchets of individual examiners should not tinge
the questions, or rather the judgment formed of the answers. If the
questions which are now asked are not too severe when taken alone,
they are regarded by many competent judges as frequently too severe
when taken in combination with the other subjects examined upon,
and also that they are sometimes calculated to puzzle the student, from
the form in which they are worded. Not long ago an examiner at the
London University, speaking to another examiner, boasted of the puz-
zling questions he had been ingenious enough to ask, whereupon the
other replied, to my great satisfaction, " You should try and find out
how much, not how little, the students know." I should have no fear
of the questions being unreasonable when put by a wise, common-sense
Professor like this, whereas some learned men expect a student to
reach in a few months the level of their own mature knowledge.

I would adopt the language, once more, of Professor Humphrey,
and say : " With Democritus ' we should strive not after fullness of
knowledge, but fullness of understanding' ; that is, that we should
strive for good, clear, solid, intelligent, producible, and available knowl-
edge, of the kind that will be useful in after-life ; not so much the re-

WATER AS FUEL. 653

finements of chemistry, anatomy, and physiology, which stupefy and
then pass away like chaff before the wind, but the essential fundamen-
tal facts and principle, welded together, and so woven into the stu-
dent's mind that he can hold them firmly and wield them effectually ;
and that he is conscious of them, not as the goods of other men, or as
dogmas which he has because they were imposed upon him, but as his
own possession, of which he appreciates the value because he knows
how to use them."

In conclusion, I would express the hope that the expression of opin-
ion in the Psychological Section of this Association will strengthen
the hands of the Metropolitan branch, which has taken up this question
with much earnestness, and, although starting from a different stand-
point from my own, has been equally impressed with the evils attend-
ing the present system of medical education. 7" am moved by the con-
viction that its influence upon the mind is injurious ; they by the fear
that it fails to produce the best men, and the belief that it is altogether
unreasonable. — Journal of Mental Science.

WATER AS FUEL.

By WM. C. CONANT.

THE satyr in the fable was not more scandalized at the man who
blew hot and cold with the same breath, to warm his fingers and
to cool his porridge, than the old acquaintances of water as the natural
cooler and refresher of the world have been to find it artificially assert-
ed as supreme in the opposite oflice of heating. It may well seem the
extreme of paradox that the same element which tempers the excess
of both solar and animal heat should also become the great source of
supply for their deficiency. And yet why should not the universal
absorbent of this power be made to restore it ? We have long known
that water is but the fuel of the universe as transformed by combus-
tion— a cold residual of a cosmic conflagration that still rages in the
central mass of our system, and has hardly subsided as yet in its prin-
cipal fragments.

Hydrogen — the " water-parent," or distinctive element of water, as
its name imports — may be regarded, metaphorically at least, as a metal,
which no degree of cold in nature, or where life exists, can reduce to
the density of a liquid. It oxidizes so eagerly, and in such infinite
abundance, as to be the only combustible comparatively worth men-
tioning : nowhere to be found, in fact, but in vehement combustion or
in its cold result as water, unless where locked in the embrace of its
secondary afiinity, carbon, in the various oily products of organic life.
In the latter condition — the hydrocarbons — hydrogen is protected

654 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

from the all-devourer, oxygen, and enters into innumerable uses. As
the inflammable ingredient of wood, of bituminous coal, of petroleum
and other vegetable and animal oils, we have it sealed up by Provi-
dence, as it were, for a temporary and portable fuel, pending the full
development of man's proper authority over the elements — temporary,
for it has long been a source of anxiety to economists that the resources
of forests and coal-fields are so finite and their prospect of exhaustion
so definite. It is evident from the coal " measures " that man was
never intended to remain dependent on what he could pick up ready
made for his needs, in respect of fuel any more than of other things ;
albeit this provisional supply for his infancy was made ample and ac-
cessible above all others. Even the novel service of carbon (which we
shall observe more particularly further on) in smelting hydrogen " ore "
from the vast mines of lake and ocean — as it does also the oxides of
other metals from telluric mines — bids fair to be divided with some
more unlimited artificial agency in due time. To the present time
carbon, diffused and heated to intense brilliancy in burning hydrogen,
has been our only artificial illuminant on a practical scale. And yet
it now seems likely enough to be superseded in this ofiice also, at no
distant day, by fixed illuminators excited by the combustion of hydro-
gen or the force of electricity.

The better hydrogen becomes known, therefore, the more interest-
ing and important to us it is found beyond all other elements, oxygen
scarce excepted. To all the vital and delightful uses of water, as we
have seen, it adds also those of light and heat. For, although scarcely
luminous in itself, hydrogen is a principal source of the heat which
makes other substances luminous, and is thus a chief condition of illu-
mination. Terrestrial flame is generally hydrogen gas in the act of
combustion, colored and made brilliant with white-hot carbon also oxi-
dizing. Carbon may therefore be called a diffused illuminant, and the
only one of any importance available at a living temperature, although
in the terrific conflagration of the sun all things, even the most stable,
are diffused in gaseous incandescence. The more stable substances
that maintain their solid form in the comparatively moderate terres-
trial heat of burning hydrogen until they become intensely bright are
called fixed illuminators. Progressive examples may be cited : in plati-
num, the most non-fusible of metals, which endures and emits in light
the intensity of hydrogen burning in air ; and in lime, a still more re-
fractory substance, which glows with dazzling power in the fierce com-
bustion of hydrogen with pure oxygen, commonly known under the
name of calcium light.

If Mr. Lockyer should succeed in verifying his startling hypothesis
that hydrogen may be in fact the only thing in the material universe
— not the water-parent only, but the all-parent — our present celebra-
tion of this great element would prove neither inopportune nor inor-
dinate !

WATER AS FUEL. 655

After all that has been said of it, the nineteenth century furnishes
an ever-fresh and amazing retrospect. Within the memory of the
living these now common facts — too vast and sublime, however, to be
called familiar — were hid, with the great bulk of modern science, in-
deed, from the sages of the world. Oxygen had but just been discov-
ered, a hundred years ago ; hydrogen was unknown ; water was sup-
posed to be an elementary substance ; fire and flame were mysteries ;
what the sun might be, and the nature of its light and heat, nobody
could guess. After hydrogen had been found elsewhere, it was dis-
covered (in 1781) that water is the result of its combustion with oxy-
gen, and in 1805 that two parts in three of the vast volume of that
element pervading and covering the earth are contributed by this ethe-
real ingredient. Several ways to dissociate the two gases were found,
but the common and practical method was and is the contact of steam
with red-hot carbon. This, in the absence of free oxygen, results in a
transfer of the water oxygen to the carbon fuel in combustion, leaving
the water hydrogen free. Red-hot iron answers a similar purpose,
forming an oxide of iron (rust) in place of carbonic acid ; but the con-
sumption of so valuable an article as iron in the process has hitherto
excluded this method from practical use, although there is now some
prospect that by deoxidizing the iron-rust it may become available
over and over for the elimination of hydrogen at a minimum of cost.

Until a recent date it has been quite generally taken for granted
that, since to separate the two gases of water must cost as much heat
as they will evolve by reuniting in combustion, there could be no pos-
sible profit in forcing the separation for the sake of fuel. Hence, the
application of water hydrogen to practical purposes has been regarded
as visionary. But there are some considerations on the other side also
that seem to have been overlooked. The unavoidable waste in burn-
ing solid fuel has been found to range from fifty per cent, as a mini-
mum in the arts up to ninety-five per cent, as a common proportion in
stoves, and thus to exceed by several volumes the whole cost of ob-
taining from water a gaseous fuel which can be used with but insig-
nificant waste. Besides this, the doubted possibility of economizing
the carbonic acid has also been realized, and that hitherto worthless
incumbrance has been incidentally recarbonized in the process and
utilized as carbonic oxide, to an economic success. Direct economies
in the process have also been achieved, preventing great waste of heat
in various ways, including that of a large amount hitherto lost in cool-
ing off the finished gas. These recent — and American — improvements
have suddenly given a practical character to the manufacture of wa-
ter-gas, and a practical purpose to the elucidation of the subject.

Notwithstanding an unbroken succession of failures in the economic
sense for more than half a century, the unlimited and ubiquitous stores
of hydrogen " ore " have mightily stimulated inventors to the task of
extracting treasure from these mines of fuel. Few objects have en-

656 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

gaged the ingenuity of the nineteenth century in so extensive and in-
defatigable researches, with (prior to 1874) so little result. Scores of
patents have been taken out, mostly by French and English inventors,
for different methods of obtaining and employing water hydrogen for
illuminating purposes ; and a number of minor towns and manufac-
tories in Europe have been and are to this day supplied, by as many
different methods, with water-gas. Want of space forbids us to review
these methods as to their successes or defects. The common inherent
obstacle to their progress is the lack of a sufficient margin of economy
to overcome the immense vested interests that oppose any departure
from the use of bituminous coal. Such a margin can never be attained
under the waste inseparable from the use of retorts, heated externally,
to which all the European inventors have adhered. One of the best of
their efforts is that of Tessie du Motay, adopted and modified by the
Municipal Gaslight Company of New York, and lately purchased of
the latter for the down-town district held by the old New York Gas-
light Company. Its advantages, however, are subjected to an obvious
di'awback, in addition to others before mentioned, in a necessity for
reheating the gas to give it a fixed character.

In short, the test of successful propagation had never been met by
any system, in any measure, on either side the Atlantic, until the in-
troduction of the recent American process, which has proved both in
theory and practice a consummation and a contrast to the whole pre-
vious history of invention in its line.

But illuminating gas, and the struggles of half a century to cheapen
it by water hydrogen, have interested us but incidentally as leading
up to a later and still more important result — the practical availabil-
ity of water-gas as fuel. In fact, the rapid progress and generally an-
ticipated success of the electric light have given pause to all present
enterprise in illuminating gas. New movements are almost suspended,
and shares in the oldest and most profitable works are no longer the
favorite investment. A probability has suddenly appeared that the
uncounted millions of irrecoverable capital invested in gas mains,
pipes, holders, etc., may eventually find no other employment but to
supply fuel-gas to the households that have hitherto depended on them
for light. In view of such a prospect the feeling of the gas interest
toward water hydrogen must become seriously modified. The lately
dreaded process begins to look like a friend in need — the only hope of
rescuing much capital from total loss in the not improbable event of a
satisfactory and economical diffusion of the too concentrated electric
light.

Our remaining space, then, will be dedicated mainly to fuel-gas,
and the process as modified for that product ; first, briefly describing
the apparatus, and the distinctive processes for producing by it illumi-
nating and non-illuminating or fuel-gas.

Disregarding details, the apparatus consists, substantially, of a

WATER AS FUEL. 657

strong brick cupola-furnace with an iron shell, as gas-generator ; this
connected by a flue with a secondary chamber as superheater, filled
with loose fire-brick nearly to the top. The gases generated from an
anthracite fire in the furnace are driven by the air-blast through the
connecting flue into the secondary or superheating chamber, at the bot-
tom ; here they meet a second air-blast, which urges them to a blaze
of intense and complete combustion ; and in this superheated condi-
tion they are forced up through the labyrinthine interstices of the fire-
brick with which the interior of the chamber is piled.

So effective are these simple arrangements that, in the few minutes
required to kindle the mass of coals in the furnace to a cherry-red, the
mass of fire-brick in the superheater becomes white-hot and ready for
use. This result is the work of carbonic oxide and other products of
imperfect combustion usually passed off in the smoke of our domestic
chimneys, and finely illustrates the main point of advantage in gaseous
fuel — its more complete utilization. If any of us could see the regular
gaseous waste from our kitchen-stoves kindled up in the chimney to a
pitch of heat sufiicient to melt iron there, it would be a convincing
proof of the estimated loss of ninety-five per cent, of our fuel, and
would resemble faintly what is done outside the fire-chamber of the
Lowe or Strong furnace, and in what answers to the chimneys of our
dwellings.

At this point (to return) the air-blast is shut off ; the outlet of the
chimney is tightly closed ; and a cock is turned which lets a jet of
steam from a boiler into the bottom of the furnace and up through
the mass of glowing coals. Instantly the process of combustion
ceases (as between the coal and atmospheric oxygen), and the genera-
tion of water-gas begins ; in other words, the coal now takes oxygen
in combustion from the steam which has been substituted for air, and
leaves the water hydrogen free. The hydrogen, lightest and thinnest
of gases, which had been pent in the form and consistency of water,
is now itself again, expanding to vast volume, like the ethereal genie
let out of the casket by the Arabian fisherman, and ready to do the
bidding of its liberator. At the same time a valve is opened in the
upper part of the furnace, which lets fall a steady shower of crude
petroleum on the fire. The pungent and fuliginous vapor in which
the oil rebounds from the burning coals is a heavy solution, so to
speak, of carbon in hydrogen. Into this thick mixture the free water
hydrogen, rushing up from the decomposition of steam below, freely
enters, diluting it to proper proportions for burning completely and
cleanly, without smoke, in the open air. Another ingredient, rolling
up from the fiery laboratory, also mingles in the tempest of hot gases,
and still further heightens the calorific and consuming powers of the
compound. This is carbonic oxide, the great value of which, either in
a fuel or illuminating gas, and its spontaneous development in place
of incombustible carbonic acid, are among the advantages which have

VOL. XTI. — 42

658 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

given to the American method the first decisive success in supplying
the public with water-gas.

The oxygen of the steatai, as we have seen, on entering the burning
coals at the bottom of the furnace, instantly unites in full proportions
with the first carbon it encounters, forming carbonic acid. But this
carbonic acid, as fast as formed, is driven upward through the fire,
and, before it reaches the other gases, its greedy oxygen has gorged
itself with a double portion of carbon from the coals, and it is now
carbonic oxide — a gas rich with carbon, which is ready to unite in
combustion with a further proportion of oxygen wherever it can find
it. But it finds no oxygen among the gases to which it is introduced,
for the air-blast was shut off when the steam was let on. Consequent-
ly, it enters into the compound, and remains as a third combustible.

Meanwhile, the mingled gases are rushing from the furnace, under
high pressure, through the flue into the secondary chamber or super-
heater, and up through the white-hot mass of fire-brick which it con-
tains. Struggling through the hot crevices in attenuated streams, the
gases reach a temperature of nearly 2,000°, at which all the elements
present are perfectly released and enabled to form such recombina-
tions as their stronger affinities dictate. As the oxygen here finds
itself in a hopeless minority, and remains dominated by the supera-
bundant carbon with which it is associated in carbonic oxide, there is
no rival to forbid the bans between the king and queen of combusti-
bles— Hydrogen and Carbon.

The charge of coal in the generator makes from five to seven thou-
sand cubic feet of gas : the process of generation taking thirty minutes.
The steam is then shut off, and the generation of gas ceases. The lid
is raised, the air blast readmitted, and ordinary combustion is resumed.
The stoker approaches the fiery pit on a floor level with its mouth and
pours in another charge — a barrel of anthracite — fastens down the lid,
and for fifteen or twenty minutes the air-blast again urges combustion
until the mass in the generator is of a lively red, and the fire-bricks in
the superheater are once more white-hot for a second run of gas. At
every sixth charge the ashes are raked out, and two barrels of coal,
instead of one, are put on.

When the eight sets of apparatus in the Baltimore works are in
operation, the actual product per twenty-four hours, with all delays,
amounts not unusually to 600,000 cubic feet ; and it has been practi-
cally demonstrated that 1,000,000 cubic feet could be made by the same
apparatus in the same time. Provision is also made for as many more
sets of apparatus as may be required by the future extension of the
business.

We are now prepared to understand clearly the later and more
important process of making pure fuel-gSiB ; which commends itself to
us as the next great economic stride of the arts, and therefore as the
true " objective point " of this article.

WATHM AS FUJSZ, 659

The first stage of the process invented by Mr. Strong is so nearly
the same with that ah-eady described that a repetition is unnecessary,
the furnace being fired up until the loose brick contents of the second-
ary chamber or superheater are at a white-heat, when, as before, gas-
making is commenced. But here the current of the process, so to
speak, is reversed. Instead of letting the jet of steam in at the bot-
tom of the furnace, we let on steam at the other end of the system,
L e., at the top of the superheater, and pass it directly downward
through the mass of white-hot fire-brick. This raises the steam to a
perfectly invisible gas, hotter than devouring flame, as it rushes from
the superheater, through an extra flue, into the upper part of the fur-
nace. There it meets a shower of anthracite coal-dust instead of pe-
troleum, sifted down into the furnace from above, and literally burns
it up with intense combustion — precisely as coal-dust would be de-
voured in the fierce flame of the blast-furnace seven times heated,
except that the oxygen of this combustion is supplied entirely by a
steam- instead of an air-blast. In other words, the steam furnishes
both heat and oxygen for the instant conversion of the coal-dust to
carbonic acid, with the consequent release of its own prodigious vol-
ume of hydrogen. Under their own increased pressure, the gases con-
tinue without pausing, down though the mass of glowing coals. In
making this passage, the carbonic acid takes up a double portion of
carbon from the hot coals and becomes carbonic oxide — the powerful
heating gas so often seen burning in a lambent violet flame on the sur-
face of anthracite fires when the air is let in on them. As there is no
access of atmospheric oxygen to the furnace, there is no opportunity
for the combustion either of this gas or of the freed hydrogen, and
accordingly both pass out together at the bottom of the furnace,
through a pipe which conducts to the gas-holder.

The product of this process, before purification, has been rigorously
analyzed by the several methods, by Professor Gideon E. Moore, Ph.
D., and proves to be 52*76 per cent, pure hydrogen, 35"88 per cent, car-
bonic oxide, and 4*11 per cent, marsh-gas, making nearly ninety-three
per cent, of the whole volume in these powerful calorific agents, leav-
ing only six to seven per cent, of incombustible waste (carbonic acid
and nitrogen). Wurtz also gives substantially the same proportions,
in Johnson's " Cyclopgedia."

The purity of this fuel is a consideration nearly sufficient of itself
to revolutionize the manufacture of iron, and especially of steel, for
which, in its perfection, few if any mineral coals are sufficiently free
from such troublesome ingredients as sulphur, phosphorus, etc. ; but of
this further on.

With respect to comparative calorific values, Professor Moore's re-
port shows, by rigorous calculation, that the Strong fuel-gas will pro-
duce 2'78 times the practical effect of the amount of coal consumed in
its manufacture, supposing the same coal were burned directly by the

66o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

most perfect methods of combustion and utilization known in the arts.
But in these methods, according to standard authorities, at least five
times as much of the fuel is utilized as in the average of stoves. The
practical heating value of our domestic fuel may therefore be multi-
plied fourteen times (5 X 2"78) by using it to make water-gas.

But, again, the material actually used at Mount Vernon in making
the water-gas analyzed by Professor Moore, instead of being our domes-
tic fuel, worth from four to six dollars per ton in New York, was most-
ly nothing but waste coal-dust, dug up from an old " fill," where it had
been used in grading the street ; and when the gas product itself is
reapplied to making and superheating the steam — as, of course, it will,
be — the use of merchantable coal may be entirely dispensed with. Of
the refuse dust we have literal mountains accumulated at our coal-
mines and depots, as well as constant deposits at every coal-yard, which
the proprietors would now be glad to have taken away gratis. Mak-
ing ample allowance for the expense of appropriating these supplies
of coal-dust, and allowing only the lowest price of chestnut coal for
the article consumed in our stoves and furnaces, we can multiply the
present equivalent for our domestic coal bill at least three times more
by the gas process — less the charges for invention and organization,
capital and interest, manufacturing management, and distribution.
The proprietors propose to have the fuel-gas delivered at fifty cents
per one thousand feet, with a good margin of profit, as it can even now
be made for ten cents. Compared with illuminating coal-gas by vol-
ume, its heating power is found to be about as three to five. Hence,
coal-gas at eighty-five cents would be as cheap fuel as water-gas at
fifty. But, in point of profit to the maker, the difference at these
prices would be greatly in favor of the water-gas ; while, in another
controlling matter, on the side of the consumer, it is not malapropos to
say that comparisons are " odorous." The mysterious but not agree-
able smell raised by a coal-gas jet of the best air-mixing or total-com-
bustion burner, when impinging on the surface of any cooking utensil
(thought by Professor Wurtz to arise perhaps from a synthetic re-for-
mation of gas) is a serious objection to coal-gas cooking, from which
water-gas is absolutely free. Its combustion is perfect, without air-
mixture, and without smell, " synthetic " or whatever. So far as the hy-
drogen is concerned, the product of combustion is pure aqueous vapor,
in a quantity not likely to overcharge with moisture the atmosj^here of
the house. The other principal ingredient, thirty-six per cent, of car-
bonic oxide, becomes, of course, carbonic acid in bui-ning, and must be
conducted away.

Using a Goodwin's gas-stove to its full capacity at once as baker,
broiler, and boiler — simultaneously baking bread and potatoes, boiling
other vegetables and coffee, and broiling steaks and chops, sufficient
for a dinner-party of " experts" — Mr. Strong found the time thirty min-
utes, and the consumption of gas thirty-two and a half feet, or sixty-

WATER AS FUEL. 661

five per hour. This (at fifty cents per one thousand feet) was three
and a quarter cents per hour for the full running of the cooking appa-
ratus or one and five eighths cent for cooking the entire dinner.

Turning from the domestic to the business arts, we encounter a
prodigious revolution on the threshold with the incoming fuel. The
gas-engine already referred to, as recently improved and extensively
introduced under the German patents of Otto, supplants the steam-en-
(rine completely, on the small scale, even at the present high cost of
coal-gas, and with certain other drawbacks peculiar to that somewhat
tarry article. It is already available up to thirty horse-power, and at
fifteen and under it is universally found a much cheaper source of
power than steam, and with gas of five times the cost and much less
adaptability than the American water-gas. Thousands of these engines
are used in England, and in London it is expected that steam-boilers
with their smoke and danger will ere long be prohibited where the gas-
engine is available. The " silent " gas-engines are also selling rapidly
in America on the lines of rural and minor manufactures. What new
stride this important substitution may take with gas at fifty cents and
free of tarry ingredients, one hardly dares conjecture. But its abso-
lute safety, automatic operation, and slight displacement, open to the
gas-engine a vast sphere of common and household uses for which no
motor had before been adapted. On the large scale, moreover, we
may perhaps live to see such things as gas-locomotives, unburdened
with coal or water, rid of their boilers, their annoying smoke, and
their destructive sparks, and satisfied with picking up at intervals a
plate-iron tender-car full of compressed water-gas.

In hope of closing with a sustained interest, the first actual and one
of the greatest possible applications of the new gas-fuel has been left
to be last mentioned — that of the manufacture of iron and steel, lately
commenced in Sweden, under the American patents and the personal
superintendence of a gentleman to whose inexhaustible energy and
tact the American water-gas is largely indebted for its diflScult yet
brilliant progress — Mr. George S. Dwight, of Montclair, New Jersey.
Siemens's gas — a product saved from the combustion of coal in a
furnace invented by that distinguished metallurgist — has long been
used with admitted advantage in various branches of iron-working.
With this well-known and standard form of gaseous fuel, Professor
Moore's report, already quoted, minutely compares the American water-
gas, showing that the former is many times more expensive and less
efficient than the latter. In fact, water-gas made under all the old dis-
advantages of method is said to have been in use twenty years ago at
the Oldbury furnaces near Birmingham, England, and was introduced
nearly as long ago in the Yorkshire blast-furnaces. It has also been
used with marked preference in France, by workers in the finer metals
particularly. Of the American water-gas. Dr. Moore says that its
special advantages in metallurgy are, besides its great economy in cost

662 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and consumption, the high and easily regulated temperature it affords
beyond all other fuel, and the relatively email volume of products of
combustion evolved — being, in short, the most concentrated form of
gaseous fuel hitherto available for such purposes. To which he might
have added (if he had not been at the moment confining his comparisons
to gases) that its freedom from the impurities rife in mineral coals, and
that greatly restrict the supply of iron fit for refining, seems alone suf-
ficient to insure its substitution for all other fuel in the manufacture of
iron and steel.

That Sweden has been first to move in this direction was natural,
from peculiar circumstances. This preeminence of "Swedes iron"
has been sustained under a singular disadvantage as to fuel. The
country is destitute of coal, and pays a monstrous tax on that grand
factor of its leading industry in the expense of importing it from Eng-
land. On the other hand, it possesses inexhaustible stores of peat,
which is well adapted to the manufacture of water-gas by the Ameri-
can process, and will henceforward supply the Swedes with that per-
fected form of fuel at a cost that will seem to them as nothing.

The operations now going on in Stockholm under the superin-
tendence of Mr. Dwight were initiated by a semi-ofiicial body styled
the Jernkontoret (or Metallurgical Association), which, under the pa-
tronage of the Government, pursues whatever investigations and ex-
periments promise advantage to the grand interest of that country.
Its voluminous published researches and reports are of standard au-
thority in metallurgy all over the world. Water-gas making was
commenced with American apparatus erected in the Atlas Works,
Stockholm, in 1879, and the product applied to the treatment of iron-
ores and the manufacture of steel. An official certificate of unqualified
strength has been published under the signatures of leading Swedish
and Russian metallurgists, and new works on a practical scale are
now being established. The subject excited extraordinary interest
throughout the intelligent classes of the nation. Preparations were
also made to conduct the gas into various establishments and man-
sions for the purposes of warming and cooking. Orders have reached
New York for fuel-gas works of the same kind in St. Petersburg,
Russia, and preparations were making at the latest advices for similar
movements in Austria and Bohemia, as well as to press forward organ-
izations for the supply of American cities with both domestic fuel and
manufacturing power in this form. The introduction of a ubiquitous
motor (for the Otto silent gas-engine) as handy, cheap, and common
as the ordinary gaslight, will mark a new era in industry, and prove
an important new factor in political economy.

THE EARLY FREE SCHOOLS OF AMERICA. 663
THE EAELY FEEE SCHOOLS OF AMERICA.

By ALICE HYNEMAN EHINE.

WITH the discovery of America, the founding of colonies in the
New World relieved the Old of so much surplus population as
gave the people of both hemispheres many new chances in life. The
advantages of education, meager as was the information given by the
schools, inspired men with a desire for larger liberty than the old mo-
narchical governments were either able or willing to give. The men
that emigrated to America were of the liberty-loving type. Unfortu-
nately, however, it was love of liberty for themselves, not for others.
The Puritan fathers, far from being the lofty minded men historians
have fondly painted, were bigots, without learning or desire for any-
thing beyond worshiping their own idea of God in their own peculiar
fashion. In some respects it was the misfortune of America that these
men were the inaugurators of her religious and educational codes. An
opportunity so splendid had never been granted to humanity. America
started into life with the civilization, the culture, the experience of
past ages as her teachers ; she was enabled to take up at the last leaf
the book of progress which had been commenced cycles before in
India, Egypt, Chaldea, Greece, and Rome. The slow emergence from
barbarism, the crude and cruel experiences of all other peoples, could
have been remitted in her favor ; like the fairy princess in the story
of the " Forest of Lilacs," her teaching was proceeding while she slept.
Had she been able, upon awakening, to make use of this culture — had
her governors been men of liberal views and greater foresight — in
America the *' Utopia" of More might have become a possibility, and
the " New Republic " of Plato a successful reality.

Instead of this enlarged freedom, the history of education in Amer-
ica is replete with theocratic superstitions. Theology interfered with
the civil laws, and both Church and state hampered with their bonds
the free development of education. Colleges were founded, not so
much for the advancement of science as to provide learned ministers
for ecclesiasticism. In the early colonial times, the Bible, Psalm-book,
and Catechism comprised in great measure not only the school-books
of the children but the family library. In 1720 we read that but one
parish library could be chronicled in the colony of Virginia. This li-
brary consisted of three books — " The Singing Psalms," *' The Whole
Duty of Man," and " The Book of Homilies.

This dearth of reading matter, as might have been expected, re-
sulted in making Biblical stories as familiar to the children of the col-
onists as the legendary tales of fairies and gnomes had been to the
dwellers on the borders of the Rhine and Rhone. The dramatic trage-

664 "THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

dies of Daniel, Samson, Jonah, Jesus, the saints, and Christian mar-
tyrs, from being studied in school-hours and talked about at home,
became things as real as the daily lives of the colonists.

The struggle for freedom, the importation of secular books, the in-
troduction of printing-press and newspapers, diverted the minds of the
people into broader and deeper channels. The men of liberal thought
and culture who founded the Republic of the West, such as Jefferson
and Madison, agitated the subject of the higher education of the
people. It was particularly the desire of Jefferson to have crusades
preached against the evils of ignorance, and to have laws established
for informing and educating the common people.

"Free schools" had always been, and justly too, a favorite scheme
among reformers for elevating the race. American statesmen and
philanthropists put this plan in operation at an early period ; it met,
however, with but ill success at first, owing to the dearth of skillful
teachers . One of the early writers says : " The business of instruction
in preparatory schools was with few exceptions under the control of
inadequate principles ; in many instances the commonest business of
life was abandoned on the demand for a teacher ; and the responsible
duties of an intellectual guide undertaken by individuals whose chief
recommendation was their dexterity with the awl and hammer."

It was not until over thirty years after the close of the war of 1776
that a regular system of schools at the public expense was established.
New England boasted with pride of being the first in education, as
she had been in war. Her example was closely followed by the other
States. In New York, in 1805, many gentlemen of prominence asso-
ciated for the purpose of establishing a free school in New York City
for the education of the children of persons in indigent circumstances,
and who did not belong to, or were not provided for by, any religious
society.

These public-spirited gentlemen presented a memorial to the Legis-
lature, setting forth the benefits that would result to society from edu-
cating such children, and that it would enable them more effectually
to accomplish the objects of their institution if the schools were incor-
porated. The bill of incorporation was passed April 9, 1805.

This was the nucleus from which the present system of public
schools started into existence. Later on, in the year 1808, we find
from annual printed reports that two free schools were opened and
were in working order.

One of these schools was situated on a large lot of ground in Chat-
ham Street, on which was an arsenal. It was presented by the corpo-
ration to the Free School Society of New York, on condition of that
organization gratuitously educating the almshouse children. In 1809
the building was ready for occupation ; it was a brick edifice one hun-
dred and twenty feet in length and forty feet in width, capable of ac-
commodating in one room five hundred children. In the lower story

THE EARLY FREE SCHOOLS OF AMERICA. 66^

was another room which would contain one hundred and fifty scholars,
with other apartments for the teachers and the meetings of the trus-
tees.

The other school was built in Henry Street, on ground donated by
Colonel Henry Rutgers in 1806 ; this building was not completed,
however, until 1811, and was then known as School No. 2. In appear-
ance it was the same as the one in Chatham Street, but was not quite
so large, having accommodations in both floors for about four hundred
and fifty pupils. About four hundred children were admitted into the
two schools ; the annual expense of each was, as near as could be esti-
mated, three dollars per head.

It was the intention of the founders of these schools — among whom
the names of De Witt Clinton, Ferdinand de Peyster, John Murray, and
Leonard Bleecker stand prominent as ofiicers — to avoid the teachings
of any religious society ; but there were among the people many who
thought that sufficient care was not being bestowed upon religious in-
struction : to please these malcontents the literary studies of the pupils
were suspended one afternoon in every week, and an association of
fifty ladies of " distinguished consideration in society " met on this
day and examined the children in their respective catechisms. The
parents and guardians designated the denomination in the tenets of
which they wished their children educated.

Every authority acquainted with these schools expressed satisfac-
tion at the literary improvement of the children. The system em-
ployed was that of Mr. Joseph Lancaster, of London, and consisted of
class-teaching in reading, wi-iting, and arithmetic. The employment
of the scholars, as made up from the printed reports, may be curious
reading to many in this era of multitudinous studies.

Children were first taught to form letters in sand ; then advanced
to monosyllabic reading on boards ; from reading on boards to Mur-
ray's first book ; from Murray's first book to writing on slates ; from
writing on slates to writing on paper — to reading in the Bible — to ad-
dition and subtraction — to multiplication and division — to the com-
pounds of the first rules — to reduction — to the rule of three.

To read, write, and know arithmetic in its first branches correctly,
was the extent of the educational advantages which the founders of
the free-school system deemed necessary for the accomplishment of
their purposes. When proficient in these studies the scholars were
apprenticed to some useful trade or given a profession, if the inclina-
tion and genius of the graduate seemed sufficient to warrant the in-
increased outlay.

This system was better than any that had preceded it. Under its
influence the blind obedience that had marked the lower orders of
Egypt, the Asiatic and Roman proletariats, and the villeins of the
feudal period, passed away. Education, which in the past had been
solely aristocratic and theological in its character, became democratic

666 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and secular ; it popularized itself in the United States so directly with
the people that the various State governments, recognizing that the
beneficiaries — who at first were of the class that, wweducated, would
have become a charge to the nation — grew self -helpful, were im-
bued with the desire to extend educational advantages. Under the
sway of popular enthusiasm large sums of money were appropriated ;
schoolhouses were erected at public expense in all large cities, and in
almost every village.

The primary thought of the founders of the new schools was lost :
this consisted merely of giving a groundwork of education for pupils
to build upon. Grammar and normal schools, as well as universities,
arose throughout the land. College text-books were multiplied seem-
ingly without end, and from them everything within the ken of human
understanding was attempted to be taught. Instead of the original
plan of three or four years being the average length of school-life for
wow-professionals, children were entered at five years of age and left
as young men and women graduates.

This system of book-cramming, which was not only without sci-
ence, but was founded upon neither experience nor observation, was
followed by the most unsatisfactory results. The exclusively scholas-
tic knowledge which was imparted unfitted the common people for the
exigencies of actual working-life. This guidance of theocratic, feu-
dalistic, and merely scholastic teaching did not result in any adequate
social, moral, and intellectual improvement. Is it not time, then, that
Science and Art shall assume control of the free schools of America,
and convert them into halls of industrial and practical education ?

PEEHISTOEIC KUmS IN SOUTHEEN COLOEADO.

By HENEY GANNETT.

FEOM the southern and western slopes of the San Juan Mountains,
in southwestern Colorado, stretches far to the south and west a
strange country. It is a country of plateaus and canons — of plateaus
whose surfaces are flat and unbroken for miles on miles ; as far as one
can see, the country presents a monotonous level, but is cut here and
there by deep, almost impassable, canons. As we recede from the
mountains, these plateaus, which are there covered with pinon pine
and sage, become more sterile, and finally vegetation ceases, except in
isolated spots, and the surface is bare rock or drifting sand — a very
Sahara.

The Eio San Juan heads in the southern slopes of the San Juan
Mountains, and, flowing at first south, at a distance of about fifty miles
turns west and keeps this course generally to its mouth. It flows

PREHISTORIC RUINS IN SOUTHERN COLORADO. 667

through the middle of this desert country, fertilizing a narrow belt
along its course.

In the region drained by this river there is little water. Of the
branches which enter it from the north, there is but one stream west
of the La Plata which succeeds in reaching the main river. This is
the Rio Mancos. All the others, and they are numerous, start from
the mountains as large, clear, beautiful streams. They reach the pla-
teau ; the water becomes discolored, alkaline, and in a few miles dis-
appears. The dry atmosphere and the parched earth have absorbed it,
and a dry canon alone remains to mock the thirsty traveler. Reaching
the edge of one of these caiions, five hundred or pei'haps a thousand
feet deep, with precipitous sides, one experiences a feeling akin to
superstitious fear when, after descending to the bottom, and fully
expecting to hear the rushing of a torrent of crystal water, he finds
only a stream-bed of hot, glistening sand. The feeling is the same
which one has on seeing any other monstrosity. Why this great canon
carved out of solid rock ? Where is the agent which has produced
such stupendous effects ?

Doubtless in the early spring, when the snows in the high moun-
tains and on their lower slopes yield to the power of the sun, these
stream-beds are for a short time — a week or two, perhaps — each filled
with a rushing torrent ; but, like the people who once dwelt near them,
the perennial streams, which in time past cut these gorges, have dis-
appeared. Throughout this vast region, with the exception of the
streams mentioned, the only water to be had is in springs and in
water-holes, where rain-water, protected from the ardent rays of the
sun, remains for a time. The sources of supply are precarious, and,
without a knowledge of their location, one might travel for days with-
out finding water.

Scattered over the region are the remains of a long-forgotten peo-
ple— a people which, judging from the few relics left for our study,
possessed a far higher degree of civilization than the wild tribes now
roaming the country, higher than the Moquis and Pueblos of the pres-
ent day, yet resembling them in many respects. We find the remains
of their homes, their houses of stone, in various places and of various
kinds : some, the homes of a happy, contented people, in full security,
leading a pastoral life ; others, mere houses built for shelter and de-
fense in stormy times, as protection from the invader, for concealment,
and for open defense. The general outline of their history is written
in characters of stone all over the country.

The northern limit of their settlements seems to have been near
north latitude 38°. Farther north than this no evidences of their oc-
cupation have been discovered, although exploring parties have exam-
ined the country thence to the Grand River. Toward the south and
west their dwellings have been found in Utah, throughout Arizona,
and in New Mexico as far east as the Rio Grande. But here, on the

668 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

Kio San Juan and its tributaries, seems to have been a center of popu-
lation. In this country, over a large area, the villages are quite near
together, showing that it was comparatively densely peopled. Their
remains consist of buildings in various stages of decay and dilapida-
tion— cemeteries, pottery, most of it in a fine state of division, arrow-
heads, a little wicker-work, stone tools of various sorts, partially car-
bonized grain, corn-cobs, etc., and a few specimens of human remains.

The ruined buildings are, as was stated briefly above, of two gen-
eral classes, representing two different periods in this ancient history,
that of peaceful occupation, and that of invasion by a foreign power
and of final expulsion of this people from their homes. All of these
structures are of stone, dressed with more or less care, or chosen with
reference to size and shape. There is little or no rough rubble-work.
In all, the stones are set in adobe mortar, which has great cohesive
power, as is shown in several examples.

The first class of structures is found on the fertile bottom-lands,
close to water, and they are not arranged wdth the least regard to de-
fense or security. They were the homes of an agricultural people, and
were doubtless surrounded by fields of waving maize and orchards of
peach-trees, while herds of goats pastured on the lower slopes of the
mesa. The men labored in the fields, and took care of the herds ; the
women assumed the household duties, wove blankets, and molded pot-
tery. But these happy days came to an end : the invader descended from
the north and sought to drive them from their country. Long and
deadly was the fray. They were driven from the fertile bottom-lands,
and were forced to build houses, like the swallows, in cracks and cran-
nies of the cliffs, wellnigh inaccessible from above or below ; or they
built strong fortifications on the mesas. But all was of no avail. One
by one their warriors fell ; step by step they were driven southward,
until at last, totally discouraged and disheartened, and with ranks ter-
ribly thinned, they abandoned the homes of their fathers, and wandered
southward, some to build on almost inaccessible heights — the Moquis
towns of the present day — some to wander to the site of Zuni, others to
the Rio Grande, where their descendants are found to-day : but, as is
so often the case with a people forcibly transplanted from their native
soil, they have deteriorated from their former state of civilization.

The buildings most frequently met with are rectangular or circu-
lar. The commonest form for dwelling-houses is the rectangle. In
all cases where possible the dwellings are semi-communistic — that is,
each of the houses is very large, intended to contain a number of fam-
ilies, but is divided into many rooms. In some cases, these dwell-
ings, especially in agricultural towns, are from one to two hundred
feet in length. At Aztec Spring, a few miles north of the San Juan,
is a very large town, built in one mass, and covering 480,000 square
feet. In the midst of this, one building, standing by itself, seems to
be the principal house of the town, judging by its dimensions, thick-

PREHISTORIC RUINS IN SOUTHERN COLORADO. 669

ness of its walls, and the care displayed in dressing and laying the
stone ; also by the presence of a circular room, which, as will be seen
hereafter, is their temple and council-house. On the La Plata there
is a large agricultural settlement, very much dilapidated, which con-
sists mainly of houses of this kind. The largest of these is one hun-
dred by one hundred and fifty feet. These dwelling-houses seem to
have been very similar to those in the pueblos of the present day. A
high wall was built, inclosing a rectangular space. The house was
built all around the interior of this wall, which thus became the back
wall of the house. In the interior was a rectangular court, on which
the house opened. There were no openings for egress or ingress
through the wall ; the only way to obtain admission being to climb
over the wall, by a ladder, and descend in the same manner to the
court. The house was divided into many rooms, and, except in a few
cases, they did not connect with one another directly.

None of the ruins of these houses thus far examined are in such a
condition as to enable one to determine whether they had more than
one story. In the pueblos of the present day they are found of three
and even four stories in height.

In the towns built in time of war, for defensive purposes, these
dwellings are usually much smaller than in the former case, and could
have accommodated comparatively few persons : but this is due to the
circumstances of building-site solely ; for everything in their history
shows them to have been a gregarious people. These towns were evi-
dently built later, and in many cases are so situated as to be much
better sheltered from the elements, and naturally are found in a much
better state of preservation than the former.

In every village, whose site would admit of it, these people have
built one or more cylindrical towers, which seem to have been used as
council-houses or temples, or both. The walls are generally double, a
tower within a tower, and, in one or two cases observed, there is a
third tower. The space between them, several feet in width, is divided
by radial partitions into rooms. Within the inner tower, the ground
is excavated, forming an hemispherical depression. Here it has been
supposed that the eternal fire was kept ; and it has been suggested
that the circular section of the building was intended to symbolize the
sun, the object of their worship. These buildings are, in all cases,
the most thoroughly constructed ; their walls are thicker and of larger
and better-dressed stones than in any other buildings. Structures
quite similar to these are found in the pueblos of the present day, and
are used for the purposes above mentioned. They are always found
in agricultural towns, and in fortified towns on the summits of mesas,
but in most collections of the cliff-houses and in the cave-dwellings
they are of necessity absent.

Well-preserved specimens of these structures have been found on
the edge of the mesa above the San Juan, a few miles from the mouth

670 THU POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of the Mancos. Here there are two towers on the very edge of the
mesa, so close that the outer walls are not complete, but are open to-
ward the cliff. In the smaller of these towers, the outer wall is twenty-
two feet in diameter, the inner twelve feet. In the larger tower, the
diameters of the walls are respectively one hundred and forty and one
hundred and twenty-three feet. Both are much broken down, so that
the original height can not be estimated. In the face of the cliff,
directly beneath these towers, are several cave-dwellings connected
with the top of the cliff by steps cut in its face.

In the caiion of the Mancos, on the river-bottom, are the ruins of a
large tower, the diameters of whose walls are respectively forty-three
and twenty-five feet.

On a low bench near the McElms, a dry canon which heads in the
plateau, and enters the San Juan below the mouth of the Mancos, is a
large settlement. On one side of the town is a large tower, remark-
able as having triple walls, whose diameters are respectively forty-five,
thirty-five, and fifteen feet. The space between the outer and middle
walls is divided by partition-walls, while that between the middle and
inner walls is not. In this and all other such structures there are no
openings through the walls into the interior apartment. Access to it
was had probably through a subterranean passage, as has been observed
in at least one case.

Connected with the agricultural and mesa towns are, in many cases,
watch-towers usually of circular form, perched on fragments of rocks
in commanding positions, whence the approach of enemies can be de-
tected. These are small and with single walls. In the neighborhood
of some agricultural settlements are holes dug in the earth, and the
earth thrown up in heaps in front, as in rifle-pits. They probably
were made for a similar use.

The rocks of which the cafion cliffs are composed are of sandstone
and shale. The former is hard and is acted on by the elements slowly,
while the latter is easily disintegrated. Hence it is common to find
that strata pathways up the cliff have disintegrated faster than those
above and below, leaving horizontal crevices of greater or less height
and depth. These crevices have been utilized by these people, when
hard pressed by their enemies, as strongholds. They built walls across
the whole fronts, leaving only little holes for egress and ingress, light
and air. Thus walled in, their position was absolutely impregnable
from above or below. It is astonishing in what a limited space these
beings contrived to exist ; some of these cave-dwellings are scarcely
large enough for a man to crawl into.

More pretentious than these are the cliff -houses, which are built in
similar situations, differing only in the height of the crevices. Many
excellent examples of these have been found. They are generally well
preserved, as their situations protect them in great measure from the
elements. There are several in the canon of the Rio Mancos. In one

PREHISTOmC RUINS IN SOUTHERN COLORADO. 671

place there is quite a large village, consisting of a series of rooms
opening toward the back of the crevice, and with a smooth wall in
front, broken only by a few small openings for air and light. Near
the middle is the council-chamber, a circular room, as elsewhere,
entered only by a very long, low, covered way, or tunnel, built of
masonry. This is one of the very few cases where, in similar loca-
tions, there was more space than was absolutely essential for mere ex-
istence, and the extra space was forthwith devoted to this building,
which shows that to it they attached great importance.

Above this village is a crevice similar to the one in which it is
built, and this has been utilized as kitchen and storehouse, as is shown
by beans and corn which have been found there in a good state of
preservation. In the main village whole earthen pots have been found.
It is a rare occurrence to find whole vessels, though fragments of them
are as plentiful on the mesa as leaves in Vallambrosa's shades.

In another place in this caiion there is a single house high up on
the cliffs, which rise still higher above it. It is of two stories. The
remarkable feature about it is that the outside is covered with plaster,
and painted to resemble the adjacent rock, in red and yellow grays, in
the hope of avoiding detection. The insides of the front rooms in
each story also are plastered and colored a deep maroon red, with a
dingy-white band. Adjacent to it is a cistern to catch and hold the
water which trickles down the rocks.

The Casa del Eco is one of the largest of these cliff villages. It
is in the caiion of the San Juan, about twelve miles below the mouth
of the Montezuma, a dry canon which heads in the Sierra Abajo. The
canon-cliffs at this place are about two hundred feet high. A vertical
and horizontal section of the cliff both present the form of a semi-
circle ; in other words, there is here a cave, in the form of a hemi-
sphere. Along an horizontal curve which passes through its deepest
part is a stratum of harder rock, ten feet wide at its widest part,
making a projecting shelf, on which is perched the single row of
houses of which the town consists. Here the people were entirely
protected from attack from above, as the overhanging wall of the
cliff projects at least one hundred feet. Below, the slope is extremely
steep, making approach in that direction slow and tedious ; and, finally,
the shelf on which the town stands projects so far that it is wellnigh
impossible to get on it without outside aid. The main building of
the town, the council-house, is, in this case, rectangular, forty feet by
ten, and twelve feet high. It is built in two stories, and each is
divided into three rooms. The floor-beams of the second story are
of the cedar so common in the country at present, prepared merely by
stripping off the bark. Whether these houses had roofs, it is impos-
sible to say. In so protected a situation as this they would be of
little use.

In the mortar of these houses there has been detected the imprint

6/2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of the fingers of the builders, showing even the fine lines of the tex-
ture of the skin, and in one or more places the impress of a complete
hand. Their hands appear to have been smaller than the average.
Indeed, everything tends to show that this was a race of small stature.

To gain access to these elevated abodes, the people made use of
ladders, and of niches which they cut in the rocks.

The amount of labor involved in the construction of these towns
was, for a people so absolutely dependent on their own unaided labor,
enormous. In some of the cliff-houses, the stones had to be carried
for hundreds of feet, up precipitous walls, where the only footing was
by holes which they had cut in the rock. All the stone used in the
enormous buildings at Aztec Spring was brought from the foot of a
cliff fully a mile away, and this without the aid of beasts of burden.

Fragments of pottery are found everywhere. Indeed, it is slight
exaggeration to say that the plateaus are paved with them. One may
ride for miles with the constant accompaniment of the ring of the
horse's hoof against the relics of the ancients. The amount of pottery
which this people used was enormous. It would seem that careless
servants are not among the innovations of the nineteenth century.
Few whole vessels have been found ; few, even, of large fragments.
These vessels are variously ornamented. The surfaces of some are
corrugated, apparently with the thumb-nail ; on some, raised figures
are seen ; others, and these are by far the most abundant, are glazed,
and covered with all conceivable figures, rudely painted.

The pottery resembles very much that made by the Moquis and
other similar people to-day, but is in many respects superior to it.
Arrow-heads seem to have been another staple article of manufacture,
judging from the abundance of the specimens. They are made of
varieties of quartz ; and beautiful specimens, made of smoky quartz,
chalcedony, moss agate, and opal, have been found.

The cemeteries which have been examined present a family resem-
blance. The graves, or family lots they may be, are surrounded by
flat stones, set on edge in the earth. The little lots thus marked out
are rectangular in shape, with sides six to ten feet in length. Several
of these were opened, but nothing was found except a little charcoal.

"With regard to the age of these ruins, and the date of the occupa-
tion of this country by these people, little has yet been learned. The
erosion of cliffs in the neighborhood of the cliff-houses gives no satis-
factory data on which to found an estimate. The cemeteries and some
of the ruins are overgi-own by large pines and cedars, some of them a
foot or more in diameter. The Moquis and Pueblos have no traditions
concerning these people, who were undoubtedly their ancestors. But
neither of these facts gives more than the very general idea that the
date of their occupation of the country was several centuries ago.

The ruins are, in many cases, found several miles from the nearest
water — a fact which shows conclusively that at the time when these

THE CONVENT OF THE CAPUCHINS. 673

dwellings were inhabited the country was better watered than now.
It has been suggested that these houses were inhabited only for a part
of the year, when the streams were high from the spring freshets ; but,
as the structures are of stone, built with great labor, and in a perma-
nent manner, and as the season when there is water in the streams is at
most of but a few weeks' duration, the theory seems scarcely tenable.
Moreover, within the observation of white men, the amount of water
has decreased. Springs, Avhich a very few years ago were important
watering-places for travelers, have decreased in size, and in a few
cases have dried up. Still, at that time the climate, though less arid,
was in a measure such as it is now, since we find the timber used for
beams, etc., in the houses, is the same species of cedar now so abun-
dant on the plateaus — a species peculiar to a dry climate.

The study of the ancient inhabitants of America is one of surpass-
ing interest, and the deep mystery in -which the past is wrapped only
adds to the zest with which we strive to draw the veil away. But
thus far little has been discovered. We know that at some time, far
back in the dim past, a great people lived in the Mississippi Valley ;
that they built there enormous structures, mere traces of which remain,
scarcely enough to mock at the seeker after their history. Whence
they came, and whither they went, we know not. In the Southwestern
Territories we find these structures of a semi-civilized people — whether
the same as the mound-builders, no one can tell. No one knows their
earlier history ; their later history has been sketched in its general
features.

THE CONVENT OF THE CAPUCHINS.

By AETHUE SEAELE.

TRAVELERS to Rome, endowed with a reasonable measure of that
taste for the repulsive which is natural to our paradoxical race,
have long been accustomed to include in their round of sights a Capu-
chin convent, noted only for the singular manner in which the bones of
its deceased inmates have been made to serve as emblems of mortality
to the devout. The published accounts of the spectacle here presented
are too generally familiar for quotation. A letter before me, dated in
November, 1821, will furnish a description which will at least have the
merit of not having already appeared in print.

" I went to the cemetery of the Capucins " (the writer adopts the
French spelling of the name), *' where we found, in the cellar of the
convent, forty graves in the loose earth, always occupied by Capucins
in their usiial dress, without coffins. When a new man dies, they take
up him who has been longest in the earth, coat and all, and place him
VOL. XVI. — 43

674 ^^^ POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

on his feet in a niche left in the walls of bones, several feet thick,
which ornament the rooms. The niches being also always full, they
are obliged to make room here, too, for the new-comer by breaking up
and scraping the skeleton which has stood there longest, and adding
his bones to the different arches and festoons which are gracefully dis-
tributed on all sides. The convent is not very full just now, so that
the poor fellows rest on the average seven or eight years in their graves;
formerly they were often dug up in two or three."

The earth affording this limited privilege is said to have been ori-
ginally brought from Jerusalem, so that quarters in it were regarded
as peculiarly desirable by the originators of the custom just described;
but no doubt an equally important reason for establishing the practice
was the desire to edify the living monks by the exhibition of the re-
mains of their predecessors. Heretic sight-seers had not then begun
to invade the city. If, however, the possibility of their visits had been
foreseen, it might well have been supposed that the silent warnings of
the dead might be more effective in their conversion than the argu-
ments of living preachers.

It will hardly be thought that any mere secular sermon may also
be preached upon the text furnished by this assemblage of bones. But
we have here one solution of the problem, so much discussed in our
times, of discovering the proper method for the disposal of dead bodies.
We need not allow the various offensive circumstances connected with
these Capuchin interments to conceal the main principle upon which
they are conducted. The corpses are left to rest some years, without
coffins, in dry, sheltered earth, before any step is taken toward their
tinal disposition. If we consider these facts alone, we shall have no
difficulty in perceiving that the chief objections to our common funeral
usages, and to those substitutes for them which are most frequently
suggested, have been met in advance by the Capuchins. The cellar,
the standing skeletons, and the festoons of bones are not essential fea-
tures of the method of interment which they have adopted.

What, in fact, are the causes which have brought coffins for the
dead, with all their disagreeable and dangerous consequences, into such
general use ? Undoubtedly, our natural wishes that the bodies of our
friends should be protected, and not left exposed to accident or vio-
lence of any kind. Interments without coffins in open cemeteries will
hardly be acceptable to civilized people, however much from a sanitary
point of view they may be preferable to the customary method. It
is needless to engage in a discussion of the repulsive incidents which
must or may attend either the use or the abandonment of coffins. We
have had them unpleasantly set forth time and again, and may assume
at once that all of them are, if possible, to be avoided. The ground
ought not to be poisoned either more or less ; and we have not room
for so wide a separation of one corpse from another as to make our in-
terments quite harmless.

THE CONVENT OF THE CAPUCHINS. 675

It may here, of course, be objected that the earth is really spacious
enough for all our wants, and that crowded cemeteries are the result
of heedlessness, not of necessity. But in this remark there is no more
truth than in the commonplace answer to Malthusian arguments, that
there are plenty of thinly settled districts still to be occupied. Space
there is, no doubt, both for the living and for the dead, if they could
be conveniently carried to it ; but there is often too little space where
people find themselves obliged to live and die. Crowds are a necessity
of progress, it seems ; at all events, the art of getting on well in soli-
tude has not yet been discovered, and we are required by nature to find
ways of helping our neighbors where they are, rather than of sending
them away. At least, let us find ways to avoid injuring them.

Provision must be made in the neighborhood of large towns for
numerous interments. The land available for the purpose is limited
by the wants of the living, who can not afford to leave large tracts un-
occupied. To make cemeteries serve the purpose of parks and plea-
sure-grounds would be certainly indecorous and probably unwholesome.
On the whole, it is scarcely possible that, under existing cii'cumstances,
our burying-grounds should not be overcrowded.

For the inhabitants of maritime districts it has been suggested that
the sea, at a sufficient distance from shore, might serve a good purpose
as a cemetery. But the practical objections to this plan, resulting from
occasional periods of stormy weather, and from the impossibility of
recovering corpses wanted for identification or for medical examina-
tion, are sufficient to condemn it. It would, moreover, be disagreeable
in most cases to the feelings of surviving relatives and friends, and ac-
ceptable only when, as at present in many cases of death at sea, it is
the only practicable method.

Most of the objections just enumerated apply with equal or still
greater force to the more frequently discussed method of cremation.
It is not desirable, either from a legal and medical or from a senti-
mental point of view, that a body should be destroyed soon after it
has ceased to live. To effect this destruction in a thoroucrh and deco-
rous manner by burning is expensive, if attempted without complicated
apparatus, the original cost of which must, in any case, be considerable.
We may neglect more remote and perhaps fanciful objections, such as,
for example, that the world's natural stock of ammonia might be seri-
ously reduced in the course of centuries, if the process of decay were
extensively replaced by that of complete combustion.

After reviewing the various substitutes for burial which have been
tried or suggested, it happens with most minds that none of them
seem on the whole to be improvements. It remains, then, to find a
form of burial which will accomplish its purpose effectively and with-
out offense or danger to the living. This form must, accordingly, be
such that the earth employed for the purpose of burial shall be free
from moisture or any other hindrance to rapid and inoffensive decom-

e-jd THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

position, and entirely separated from the ground through which the
rainfall which feeds our springs and lakes is to pass. The corpses must
be buried without coffins, and still be protected from disturbance or
defacement by animals of any kind. The only means of securing these
ends is apparently to have all interments made in dry earth contained
in secure and properly ventilated buildings.

It is, of course, impossible that under such a system the same place
should not, as a general rule, be used repeatedly for successive inter-
ments. This is mainly a question of expense. In most cases, after
the course of nature had thoroughly removed all that could decay,
there could be no objection to the disinterment of the skeleton. Cre-
mation would now be a comparatively cheap method of preserving the
remains from any treatment which might be held to be indecorous,
and the passage of time would ordinarily have removed all occasion
for the natural feeling which makes us shrink from doing any violence
to a recent corpse. The earth used for the interments might, of course,
be thoroughly heated at long intervals, to destroy any accumulation
in it of organic products ; or, indeed, unless the expense were consid-
ered a foolish one, diarcoal might take the place of earth, and be
ultimately burned with the bones contained in it.

A principal advantage of this method of interment is that it may
be employed at any time by individuals without waiting for general
adoption. A water-tight tomb may be constructed without very great
expense in any ordinary cemetery, and, if the ground around it is suit-
ably drained, may be used for a long while without fear that it is a
menace to the health of the community, as all ordinary graves and
tombs undoubtedly are. The most economical way of providing shel-
tered graves, however, would probably be to erect for the purpose
buildings of considerable size, within which space might be hired in
perpetuity or for limited terms of years. It is possible that such build-
ings might stand at no great distance from others without harm, under
suitable regulations for the interments to be made in them. If con-
stant attendance were provided for, the fear of premature interment
which distresses some people might be to a great extent removed ;
and in any case the protection of the corpses might thus be efficiently
secured. Memorial tablets, which might finally be removed to any
place selected for the reception of the harmless ashes, would be a wel-
come substitute for the clumsy monuments which disfigure our present
cemeteries ; and, without any of the offensive circumstances attending
the interments of the Capuchin convent which have served for the text
of this article, we might apparently secure their substantial advantages
of economy of space and moderate rapidity in effecting the true pur-
poses of burial.

ATHLETICS IN SCHOOLS. 677

ATHLETICS IN SCHOOLS.

THE Honorable Edward Littleton, an authority in English higher
education, has written a notable article in the " Nineteenth Cen-
tury " on " Athletics in Public Schools." He canvasses the system
with some thoroughness, and arrives at independent conclusions re-
garding it, which Avill be of special interest on this side of the Atlan-
tic, now that such vigorous efforts are making to adopt the same policy
in our higher schools. We accordingly give a summary of the chief
points of his essay.

He begins by remarking that intelligent Frenchmen are in the
habit of highl}^ commending the English public schools. But, when
asked the reason, they always refer to the admirable '■' cidte of ath-
letics " which English students enjoy. This surprises the English-
men— iirst, beKi'ause the French have no such thing in their schools, and
the Frenchman is therefore speaking about that of which he knows
nothing ; and, second, because the English themselves are beginning
to have profound misgivings in regard to the influence of this marked
feature of their educational system.

Mr. Littleton first states the undoubted advantages to be derived
from athletics. They are to be encouraged on the grounds of health,
as there is unquestionably an hygienic value in games for boys. Again,
pastimes afford a relief from the repulsive restraints and monotonous
labors of the schoolroom, and are thus promotive of enjoyment. There
is, moreover, a benefit in the discipline they afford. The boy who is a
member of an athletic club or combination is " forced to put the wel-
fare of the common cause before selfish interests, to obey implicitly
the word of command, and act in concert with the heterogeneous ele-
ments of the company he belongs to." Those, besides, who secure the
posts of command, " feel the gravity of responsible oflice, and the dif-
ficulty of making prompt decisions and securing a willing obedience."

But the diflflculty at once arises how to restrain athletics, so as to
get only their undoubted advantages. They have a tendency to excess
which becomes subversive of the fundamental objects of the school ;
and for this excess Mr. Littleton shows that the outside public is very
largely responsible. How rapidly this influence has been developed and
brought to bear upon the schools during the present generation is well
illustrated by the following passage : "Any one who played in the
Oxford and Cambridge or Eton and Hai'row cricket-matches thirty
years ago can testify that there were scarcely enough spectators to
form a continuous line round Lord's cricket-ground. In the latter
match it was not found necessary to use ropes till 1864, while now,
such is the importance of the annual pageant, that it affects the dura-
tion of the London season. At about the same date a few keen parti-

6jS THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sans gathered together to see the universities contend in rowing. Lit-
tle was said about it, scarcely anything written. Nowadays the crowd
assembled to see the practice of the crews equals the number of those
who used to watch the actual race ; moreover, the minutest facts con-
nected with the play of each oarsman's muscles are anxiously picked
up on the spot, form a paragraph in the daily papers, and are tele-
graphed to the antipodes. Deducting from all this the influence of
fashion and the mere gregarious tendencies of society, it is quite clear
that there has been a dead set of public feeling toward increasing the
importance of all athletics. In short, the tide has borne all before it,
and scarcely a warning voice has been heard hinting at the possibility
of going too far ; and, consequently, very many boys soon after they
enter the schools (some of them before) are impressed with the notion
that athletics are to be pursued as the one important thing — in con-
junction with reading, perhaps, si non^ quocunque modo — but pursued
with every nerve they must be."

Of the elements of danger developed in the system under this pow-
erful pressure, the w^riter remarks : " At first sight, any one would say
that its chief danger in the present day lies in the superfluity of time
devoted to various out-door pursuits at school. This is wrong. I do
not deny, of course, that too much time may be, and not unfrequently
is, absorbed daily by games ; but that is not the chief danger : authori-
ties could easily suppress an extra hour or two if they saw fit. But
it is not generally realized that the effects of games last far beyond
the close of play-hours. Leaving out of sight all physical considera-
tions, over-fatigue, etc., which are nevertheless very important, let us
look merely at the effects on the mind. Suppose the case of a lad in
a school where athletics are much thought of, who is perhaps just
emerging from obscurity because it is found that he can row or bowl
well. He finds himself with an unlimited prospect of fame before
him ; if he makes a great struggle, some important stej) in his ' young
ambition's ladder ' will be reached ; he will be elevated into a social
atmosphere now tenanted by the high ones of the earth, who look
down on him scornfully, but, in the event of his success, would soon
be walking arm in arm with him. A fascination, unimaginable by the
outside world, urges him onward, and, with a sense of his increasing
importance, comes an increasing appreciation of the method by which
he has risen ; so that, even with his books before him, his mind is wan-
dering among the scenes of his ephemeral triumphs and reverses while
he ruminates on his last big innings or the prospects of distinction in
a coming foot-ball match. Prizes, places in the school, are but little
things, and are treated as of little worth. This statement of the case
is not a whit exaggerated as far as the majority of athletes are con-
cerned. It needs a very exceptional boy indeed, after having been
engaged in an absorbing pursuit, to unshackle straightway his energies
and thoughts simply at the call of duty, probably uninviting, irksome

ATHLETICS IN SCHOOLS. 679

duty. But the athletes ai-e not the only ones affected. Wherever
athletics are very popular, around the coterie of successful gamesters
is formed a large hoard of hangers-on, boys who admire muscle with-
out possessing it, and who, formed by nature for a very different line,
adopt the habits and oj^inions of the superior class, till, perhaps with-
out participating, their interest, too, is absorbed by the prevailing rage,
and the tone of the whole community is affected. Under these condi-
tions, work, honest, spontaneous effort in other lines but amusement, is
impossible."

The potent fascination of athletic games for boys is undeniable,
and that they must greatly interfere with legitimate school- work it
would be also folly to question. But, admitting that they hinder in-
tellectual progress, it is common to affirm that there is a great com-
pensation for this loss in the moral benefits of athletic training. It is
said that there is a much more important thing in schools than book-
learning, and that is to improve the moral tone of students. But Mr,
Littleton insists that it is far from being established that athletic
games intensely pursued are any check upon vicious tendencies. He
maintains that, where athleticism is so engrossing as to stunt the higher
life of a school, it is not promotive of virtue, and that, " among school-
boys, the mere students are as a body moi'e virtuous than the mere
athletes." He does not affirm that among university students the
athletes are more immoral than those who neglect physical recrea-
tions. The main question, however, here, is one of mental indolence
and vacancy, and Mr. Littleton says : " An energetic athlete, without
an idea of any other pursuit whatever, is better off and less likely to
turn out vicious than a wholly idle university man or schoolboy ; and
the appreciation of this fact seems to have led people into investing
athletics with a power of stemming vice ; the truth being that they
are in a limited degree obstructive of it — but only in a limited degree ;
and it is quite erroneous to suppose that in any educational institution a
predominance of athleticism necessarily brings with it a high standard
of morals." It is the absolute supremacy of recreation over study
and the resulting lack of steady and wholesome mental occupation
that lead to immoral consequences. A positive and serious evil of
athleticism is, that it tends to become a power in the schools, rivaling
the constituted authorities, and that is capable of becoming an enemy
to discipline. The spirit of athleticism becomes organized, and the
class devoted to it, representing the most powerful feeling in the in-
stitution, grows formidable, so that the teachers must ally themselves
with it, or lose their control over the pupils. " As is sometimes remarked,
no public functionary, no clergyman, no military commander, certainly
no prime minister, assumes his powers intrusted with such absolute
and unquestioning confidence as does a prominent public schoolboy.
His opinions are not disputed, no opposition benches are ranged against
him ; but his lightest utterance carries law with it, and in questions of

68o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

right and wrong his behavior goes far to shape the yet pliant disposi-
tions of those around him. . . . These, then, are the dangerous aspects
of athleticism. It is liable, if allowed full play, to damage seriously
the intellectual interests of a school, without raising appreciably the
moral tone, and also to become a hindrance to school government.
It is quite obvious, then, that great care should be taken to control
this development of school-life. It should be looked upon as ever
tending to form an excrescence."

Mr. Littleton next proceeds to inquire how the evils of excessive
athleticism may be diminished. A boy places but little reliance upon
any representation of the teachers as to the unworthiness or secondary
claims of athletics in comparison with proper educational objects,
" He looks upon them as a class bound to preach such doctrines in the
position they hold, and that it is only to be expected they should do
so ; but as for really thinking that they are right, when as it appears
to him the whole of England is the other way, that he can not bring
himself to do." Here is the difficulty ; the motive power is the public
interest. " That motive power is the consensus of fashionable opinion
which acts externally on the feelings of the school and produces such
results." But, as it is futile to try to correct public opinion, the only
way is to prevent its taking effect by withdrawing the boys fi*om its
influence. It is in the power of the authorities to prevent those public
contests which kindle such widespread public enthusiasm, when the
interest and applause of multitudes are presented to the boys in their
most imposing and dazzling form. That is, intercollegiate regattas
and athletic contests of all sorts, which draw out great masses of ex-
cited people, had better be avoided in the interest of sound education.

But, while the prestige of athleticism might be diminished by
guarding in this way against external influences, Mr. Littleton recog-
nizes that the plan would have to be supplemented by agencies of a
very difi^erent character. The school-work itself must be made more
attractive. He sees that there is a very important change in the higher
education of late years, which is not without promise of counteraction
to the excessive devotion to sport. This change in the objects and
methods of the school is thus described : " Certain conditions have
given birth to a now widely-accepted theory of education, which in
all probability will effect still more marked alterations than it has
hitherto. The conditions are these : Owing to the increase of popu-
lation on the one hand, and the advance of learning on the other, we
are brought face to face, not only with an increasing number of sub-
jects to be learned, but also with an increasing necessity of learning
them. Many members of the class from which, thirty years ago, the
ornamental men of leisure were recruited, now find that existence has
assumed to them a more somber hue ; paths formerly open to them
are open no longer, and through knowledge alone an access to ease
and affluence is to be obtained. Accordingly, the avenues to knowl-

ATHLETICS IN SCHOOLS. 681

edge have been made smooth, and everything invites the unwilling to
learn. The results of many years' unintermittent labor are presented
in a compressed form in every description of hand-book and pocket-
primer, for it is only permitted to a comparatively few to remain
ignorant and be content therewith. The field of knowledge has thus
been greatly extended and opened out, and a great diversity of sub-
jects have been grappled with, in one way or another ; and, in spite
of the fact that much of this great movement produces a paltry cari-
cature of learning, new interests have been excited and minds stimu-
lated which would have lain stagnant beforfe. The managers of the
various seats of education have roused themselves to supply the needs
of the time and extend their resources ; and they now present to the
public a programme far broader and more inviting than that of a
quarter of a century ago. In this way various special lines of educa-
tion have been more widely adopted, and their adoption has influenced
the purely general education, with this result : Men now perceive that
boys' minds are almost infinitely various, and that knowledge of va-
rious sorts must be presented to them in various ways — anything to
awaken interest and encourage voluntary intellectual effort. Now,
it is from the development of this theory that I think we may ex-
pect results having an important bearing on the matter in hand.
The introduction of subjects likely to attract boys' interest and the
general idea of teaching them by exciting that interest tend to upset
the notion that work is valuable per se quite independently of the
subjects worked at. It must be admitted that this notion has been
allowed every chance. Men have aimed at educmg solid effort by a
curriculum of study which could only be attractive to a select few.
Let us hope that the idea has really had its day, for, besides being, as
many now think, comparatively useless in itself, its effect on an over-
grown athleticism is positively pernicious. So long as the graver occu-
pations of a boy's life are slavish and detested, he will throw himself
heart and soul into any kind of amusement, and set himself to find his
only happiness therein, while all knowledge, all that is either useful
for practical life, or merely refining in itself, he will vaguely think
must be in a way dismal ; his view of it will be colored by the memory
of the toilsome and sterile hours he has spent with his books. And,
even if he is forced to learn something, such knowledge as he gains
will be unproductive ; he has no affection for it, and does not care to
impart it. It is remarkable how many men seem half ashamed even
of such useful knowledge as they do possess. If boys' minds are to
be elevated from athletics to anything higher, it will not be by such
methods as these."

The change of method which Mr. Littleton regards as hopeful
consists, first, in modernizing the curriculum of studies, and intro-
ducing into it subjects less repulsive than those now in vogue, and
which are capable of exciting a readier and stronger intellectual in-

682 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

terest. He would strengthen what is technically called the " modern
sides," by incorporating various sciences and the living languages into
the schemes of study. Subsidiary to this fundamental improvement
several other resources are thus referred to : " But the movement has
not stopped here. A further and most satisfactory result is noticeable
in the recent establishment of workshops under proper control, where
boys can gain some idea of the value of manual labor, and the respect
due to careful handicraft. Museums too are encouraged, since they
help in extending the front, so to speak, of the intellectual interest
presented to the boys, and so increase the chance of alluring a greater
number to pursue knowledge for its own sake. For those who know
the natures of average boys know that the process of leading them to
learn is in reality a process of allurement. Thousands of boys have a
strong instinctive antipathy to intellectual effort ; their point of view
with regard to it has been modified ; and if the attempt is made
abruptly it will be ineffective ; they suspect some sinister design, not
knowing yet that what they are being led to is beautiful for its own
sake, and capable of making them useful members of society. And, to
further this innocent deception, such things as debating societies are
valuable. They may induce an intellectual activity in quarters where
there is often a marked tendency to stagnation, and stimulus may be
given to thought, arrangement of ideas, and the hearing and impart-
ing of facts, without aid of lexicons or fear of the ferule. But they
are not often made to serve this purpose without considerable efforts
being made toward sustaining them after they have once started.
Transitory conditions may start them, and then generally a crisis
supervenes demanding great care. Supposing, however, that this has
been survived in safety, the society is liable to change its character.
The debating element in its constitution is seen to lose prominence,
and a club is formed of boys elected for their popularity, an aggrega-
tion of the influence of the school. There is of course a natural
tendency to this, and the result is not unsatisfactory. Such a club
embraces a class of boys whom a purely literary or debating society
would probably exclude. They join it without the least intention of
learning anything ; but its usages should compel them, by means of
debates, to take a livelier interest in rational subjects and enlarge
their mental horizon. But there will very likely be room then for a
purely literary society of a less compound nature, to coexist side by
side with this club, and provide solely for the more studious portion
of the community. For it can hardly be expected in any school that
a club, with members elected for popularity, should coincide with
another consisting of the scholars and the foremost devotees of
learning.

" Many schools also publish periodicals, written and supported by
the boys themselves, and these periodicals are of two characters : those
devoted wholly to the record of athletics ; and those which, besides

ATHLETICS IN SCHOOLS. 683

being athletic journals, contain original compositions, both poetry and
prose. They serve a useful purpose, as well as the societies, by fos-
tering a mental activity among the class hardest to reach. Many a
young athlete must have first been induced to exert his immature
powers by writing (say) some reflections on certain aspects of foot-
ball. The theme, doubtless, is somewhat humble, but he has to do his
best, as his readers know the details of the question thoroughly, and
will express their opinion as plainly as any weekly review. Perhaps
he learns for the first time that having ideas is not the same thing as
expressing them. But to promote the existence of journals which deal
entirely with the school-games is dangerous. A very definite impres-
sion is made on the younger boys, if they are led to think there is only
one subject on which their superiors think it worth while to express
their ideas. An indefinite prestige is added to any subject, and still
more to any name, by being immortalized in a few lines of letter-press,
and it seems advisable that this glamour should not be thrown around
one set of interests solely. The periodical should have a double char-
acter, and ought to act in the same way as the two kinds of debating
society existing together ; the serious portion of the journal would be
the field for the literary effort of the studious and the scholar-like,
as the literary society would be for their speeches ; while the athletic
records can teach athletes to write, just as the debates of the fashion-
able club would help them to speak."

But again, and in another aspect, Mr. Littleton sees that the ques-
tion is complicated with outside influences. If public opinion strength-
ens excessive athleticism on a grand scale, by making it a popular show,
the feeling for it is also fostered in the family, so that boys' heads are
filled Avith it before they enter school. Here, also, as in many other
matters, the weakness and folly of parents have a baneful efiicacy in
hindering educational improvement and school reforms. On this point
it is remarked : " But what is to be said about the life at home ? It
is a farce to talk of debating societies and the like being available to
combat this or, indeed, any other diflSiculty, so long as boys are sent to
school primed, since the nursery, with the one idea that amusement is
to be sought at school, and that a boy, if he is worth anything, will
find it and make the most of it. The efforts of the professional teach-
ers depend, to a great and generally unappreciated extent, on the co-
operation of the parents. Meantime, the mischief is frequently done
before the school-training begins. It is not very uncommon to find
parents who have sent their son to a fashionable school, previously
urging him to keep out of debt and make suitable acquaintances, but
at the same time warning the poor child against getting too fond of
books. Others, no doubt, are more cautious ; but the traces of a gen-
uine stimulus hence toward useful work are lamentably rare, and more
rarely still are habits of reading encouraged away from school. Not,
however, that we need always postulate reading ; we may, perhaps,

684 '^HE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

confess to a strong bias in its favor ; we may recollect that discern-
ing men, when the great literary preeminence of Germany is talked
of in their presence, have been wont to point with pride to the broad
diffusion of pure literary interest through the upper strata of our
society, quite independent of any profession or hope of emolument,
and challenge one to find the like in foreign lands ; and we may judge
from such indications as I have spoken of, and doubt if this superiority
is as noticeable as ever. Again, we may feel, besides this, that to
bring up a boy in ignorance or contempt of reading is, from many
points of view, a deplorable error. Non-reading parents, we may
think, do not know what it is they are keeping from their son ; how
they are depriving him of a great safeguard against temptation in his
youth, and a lasting resource against weariness in his maturer age.
They can not know what it is for harassed minds to be able to turn
to literature and find there a refreshment that never fails in the midst
of petty worries or heavy affliction, and, not knowing this, they tell
him that he can do without reading, as if it were a thing of little worth.
All this we may feel, but it is only a matter of opinion ; our point of
view just now may be thought peculiar ; anyhow, we readily admit
numberless other methods of awakening in a boy a genuine interest in
one, at least, of the multitudinous forms of intellectual life which ex-
pand daily around him. There is no excuse for sending a boy to school
with a disposition framed for frivolity, with idle instincts to be freshly
infused by every holiday-time ; whenever it so happens, something has
gone wrong which need not have done so, and yet so it happens in
thousands of cases every year. Parents do not do this designedly. It
is not easy to realize at once that a boy requires incessant support if
he is to overcome his natural antipathy to learning anything, and cer-
tainly they have very little idea what are the dangers attendant on an
idle school career. Anyhow, the result is an influx into so many schools
of boys bred up to a spirit of inertia, and encouraged hence to nour-
ish it. From this unwise preparatory training the unruly growth of
athleticism has sprung."

THE MATAMATA.

By E. SAUVAGE.

PIERRE BARRi^RE, in an essay on the natural history of the
equatorial possessions of France, written in 1741, described a
tortoise of a singular form which the Indians of Guiana called the
raparara. It had, he said, a long, wrinkled neck, from which hung
small membranes, ragged or slashed like a fringe ; its head was flat-
tened and triangular, and ended in a kind of trunk shaped like a quill-

THE MAT AM AT A.

685

pen ; and the upper part of the shell was furrowed and marked with
large knobs. This concise description gives a fair idea of the principal
features of the tortoise which is illustrated in the cut. It is hard to
tell which most attracts attention, the large, triangular, depressed head,

the mouth extending behind the ears, or the doubly furrowed back
with its three knobbed ridges. The head ends in a small, movable
snout ; the eyes are very small and set far forward ; the sharp jaws
are covered with a horny sheath. The neck is thick and bristles with
tubercles, and from each side of it hang the ragged membranes which
float in the water. The scales of the carapace are raised into promi-

686 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

nent knobs, and from the tip of each knob furrows radiate in every
direction. The tail is short and obtuse. The long and hooked claws
are attached to paws which are somewhat palmated and of moderate
length. The carapace is beveled to give play to the hinder limbs, and
the cuirass is narrow and hollowed by a deep furrow in its after part.
The upper part of the body is for the most part of a brick-red ; the
cuirass, not so deeply colored, is marked by blackish marblings. Ac-
cording to M. Spix, who has observed the living animal, the scales of
the carapace are of a maroon brown, with radiating streaks, and the
lower part of the head and the most of the members are of a greenish
yellow pricked with brown. This tortoise is a native of the Guianas,
and lives in stagnant waters and half -dried marshes. Except at the
time of laying its eggs, it hardly ever goes to the land. Immersed in
the mud, which it is not unlike in color, it lies in wait for the creatures
which are imprudent enough to swim near it. The ragged membranes,
floating in the water like worms, attract fish seeking for food. When
a suitable prey passes withip reach, the head which has been bent to
one side instantly darts out as if it were hurled by a spring, and the
victim is quickly buried in the huge throat of the reptile.

This tortoise, described by Barrere as the raparara, has been called
by Schneider the Sinibrian tortoise, Bruguibre, in his " Journal d'His-
toire Naturel de Paris," has given it the name of matcmiata, which is
generally accepted by modern zoologists. The only species from which
the genus Chelys has been formed lives in the Guianas ; and the indi-
vidual, which is now to be seen in a living state in the museum at
Paris, was captured there by the French explorer, M, J. Crevaux.

FEOST-PHEIS'OMENA IN SOUTHERN RUSSIA.

SOME few people may perhaps have remarked and remembered an
unusual meteorological phenomenon which occurred in London
last Chi-istmas night. We had had several weeks of hard frost, and
the cold on Christmas morning was rendered more piercing than ever
by a bitter east wind, though indications of an approaching thaw were
not wanting. About the middle of the day, snow began to fall ; but
in tbe evening this changed to rain, which froze as it came down ; and
by ten o'clock not only were the pavements covered with a sheet of
slippery ice, but walls, lamp-posts, railings, etc., were all glazed in like
manner. Every object upon which the eye rested glittered and spar-
kled, looking as if it had received a sudden coating of glass ; while
fi-om every roof and ledge hung a fringe of icicles, some of them as
much as a foot in length. In the morning, the whole fairy-like ap-
pearance had vanished.

FROST-PHENOMENA IN SOUTHERN RUSSIA. 687

This sort of thing does not often occur in England, and, when it
does, it lasts but a few hours at the outside ; but, in certain latitudes,
the requisite meteorological conditions sometimes continue for days
and even weeks together, and then the results are most disastrous.
The rain continues to fall, and to freeze as it falls ; and the crust of
ice grows thicker and thickei-, until tall trees and miles of telegraph
wire are broken down by the enormous weight. Fortunately, the
]>]ienomenon is generally arrested before it attains this extreme degree
of development, and, when it does occur, seems to be almost entirely
confined to the steppes of Southern Russia.

It may be remembered that, during the winter of 18T6-'77, frequent
references were made in the newspapers to the state of the South Rus-
sian telegraph lines, many of which, especially those in the govern-
ments of Kherson and Taurida, were rendered perfectly useless for
weeks by just such an accumulation of ice as we have been describing.
A German gentleman, Herr Bernhard Bajohr, happened to be journey-
ing from Nicolajew to Berislaw about the middle of December, when
things were at their worst ; and as the phenomena are seldom seen so
fully developed, even in Russia, as they were at that time, it may be
worth while to give some account of what he saw. His road lay be-
tween two telegraph lines ; one the Indo-European, the other that of
the Russian government, so that he had ample opportunity of observ-
ing and comparing the different effects produced upon the two. But,
before describing these, we must say something as to the meteoro-
logical conditions required for the formation of this peculiar ice-
incrustation.

In long-continued and severe frost, the earth is frequently chilled
to a considerable depth, and to such a degree that it absorbs the
warmth from the lowermost stratum of air, w^hich becomes icily cold
in consequence ; while the trees, buildings, etc., within the cold stratum
naturally share the surrounding temperature. This cold stratum may
be from twenty to forty feet in thickness, while the air above is many
degrees warmer. If rain fall from these warmer regions, though there
will not be time for it to freeze during its short passage through the
colder air, yet, directly it touches the ground or any other ice-cold
substance, it will congeal and cover it, whatever it be, with a glaze
of transparent ice, as noticed above. Herr Bajohr observed that, •
when the ice first began to form upon the telegraph wire, it was in the
shape of a cylindrical roll, which instead of hanging from the wire, or
being crystallized round it, as one would have expected, merely rested
upon it, the wire touching its lower circumference only. As rain con-
tinued to fall, the cylinder increased in size, until its diameter measured
from half an inch to three inches. This was the first stage of devel-
opment ; but then the intensity of the cold abated somewhat, and the
rain which was still falling, instead of freezing the moment it touched
the roll of ice, had time to trickle over it, and form long rows of icicles,

688 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

remarkable for their regularity and uniformity. This was the second
stage, and the heavily laden Avires looked like nothing so much as
gigantic combs.

It is not often that the third stage of development is reached ; but
it does sometimes happen that, when icicles and cylinder have attained
their full size, the rain ceases, the sky clears, and the sun begins to
shine. Its rays are much too feeble to melt the ice ; but they pass
through it to the more sensitive black wire within, whose temperature
is so much raised that it melts the particles of ice in immediate contact
with itself ; its cohesion with the heavy roll of ice above is destroyed,
and the latter, unable any longer to maintain its balance, tAvists round
so as to describe a semicircle and exactly reverse its position. The
icicles now stand up in the air above the wire, while the roll hangs
below it ; and, if there should be more rain, a second row of icicles
will be formed opposite the first, producing a striking resemblance to
the backbone of a fish, which is rendered still more perfect if there
happens to be any wind blowing in the direction of the telegraph line,
as in that case both rows of icicles will be slightly inclined toward the
wire in the same direction. This last stage of development may also
be attained without rain, should the sun have sufiicient power to melt
some of the ice ; the water from which will then trickle down to the
under-side of the roll of ice, and there form icicles in a similar manner.
As the sun gains in power, the wire increases in temperature, and
melts away more of the ice from within ; the icicles, borne down by
their own weight, drop lower and lower, until the wire reaches the
extreme points of the upper row, when of course the whole congealed
mass soon drops off.

Herr Bajohr noticed that the effect produced by this phenomenon
on the two lines of telegraph differed considerably, that of the Rus-
sian government suffering far more than the other. The posts of the
Indo-European line are of iron, and the conducting- wires are thick and
strong ; and, though the wire was considerably stretched, it had on the
whole borne well the immense strain put upon it. Here and there,
w^here the line made a bend, the post at the angle, firmly fixed though
it was, had sometimes given way, and, wherever this was the case, sev-
eral of the neighboring posts had also succumbed. But the govern-
ment line, with its oaken posts and four thin wires, running parallel
with the Indo-European line, presented a much more dismal appear-
ance. The oaken posts, somewhat crooked to begin with, had not all
proved strong enough to sustain the weight of the four heavily laden
wires, and in some places had broken down altogether ; while, where
they remained erect, the wires were either broken, or completely
weighed to the ground by the burden laid upon them. All the posts,
both iron and oaken, were covered on the windward side with a crust
of ice several inches thick, reaching from the ground to the insulators,
where it joined the ice on the wires ; and in this way insulation was

SKETCH OF CARL BITTER. 689

destroyed, and each post was converted into a conductor, down which
the electric current passed into the ground. This was especially the
case directly the extreme severity of the weather abated and the ice
became less dry. But the iron posts had this marked advantage over
the wooden ones, that, whereas the latter kept their coating of ice for
weeks, these others threw it off directly the sun began to shine. Be-
ing black, they absorbed heat more readily, and, by melting the inner
surface of the ice, soon caused the whole to crumple up and fall off.

In conclusion, it remains for us to say a few words as to the effects
of this remarkable frost-phenomenon upon the vegetable world. Trees
are everywhere scarce in the steppes, their cultivation being attended
with very great difficulty ; nor is this to be wondered at when one
considers the various climatic influences to which they are subject.
During the winter of which we have been speaking, every tree, every
branch, every smallest twig was incrusted with ice one, two, or three
inches thick ; and accordingly the trees in the town of Kherson, chiefly
white acacias, lost nearly all their branches, while many of the smaller
ones were completely crushed to the earth. Of the fruit-trees, all of
which looked as if they were made of glass, some suffered more, some
less, according to the character of their growth. The apple-trees and
apricots for instance, with their spreading horizontal branches, were
for the most part quite broken down ; while the more erect-growing
pear-trees and cherries had maintained their balance better and suf-
fered much less in comparison. — Chambers's JournaL

SKETCH OF GAEL RITTEE.

CARL RITTER was born at Quedlinbui-g, in Saxony, the birth-
place of Klopstock, on the 7th of August, 1779. His father was
physician in ordinary to the Abbess of the convent in that place, and
was a man of noble character and gentle disposition who was held in
high esteem by his fellow citizens. He died in the prime of life and
left his widow destitute, with five children, Carl being then five years
old. The helpless situation of the widow, a well-born, refined woman,,
awakened general sympathy. Salzmann, who was about establishing
a school for young children in Schnepfenthal, heard of it and deter-
mined to adopt Carl as a gratuitous pupil and as his first scholar.
Carl found this a second home, and remained at the school eleven
years, or until it was time for him to go to the university. It was in
this lovely Thuringian town that, looking upon the manifold shapes
of mountain and plain, wood and field, he received his first impres-
sions of the relations which exist between the configuration of the
VOL. XVI. — 44

690 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

earth's surface and the life that is developed on it. Modern lan-
guages and the arts and sciences were the more prominent subjects
of study at the Schnepfenthal school, the classics receiving a secondary
consideration.

While here, and with no definite prospects for his future after he
should leave the school, Herr Hallneg, a partner in the wealthy house
of Bethraann at Frankfort-on-the-Main, visited the institution at
Schnepfenthal, and was so prepossessed by Ritter's appearance that
he offered to support him while he continued his studies, on condition
that he should engage afterward to teach in his house. So Ritter in
his seventeenth year went to the University of Halle, and was matric-
ulated as a student in branches relating to finance, in connection with
which he gave especial attention to statistics. He made many friends
while at the university, and at the age of nineteen went into Hallneg's
house as a private tutor, and there formed a friendship with the
youngest son of the rich merchant, his pupil, which endured through
his whole life. Several distinguished men were accustomed to visit
this house, and intercourse with them had such a stimulating effect
upon the young teacher that his abode there may be regarded as
having been in a certain sense a prolongation of his university career.
Chief among these men was the naturalist Sommering, whose geni-
ality and liberal knowledge gave him great influence. Another was
Alexander von Humboldt, who made a deep impression on Ritter's
mind. Full of enthusiasm, Ritter wrote to his old teacher Gutsmuth :
" It has now been eight days that I have enjoyed the happiness of
being associated with Alexander von Humboldt. He is one of the
most interesting men I have ever seen. It was my privilege to be-
come acquainted with him on the first evening of his visit, and I have
since enjoyed most precious hours in his society." At the same time
Ritter was devoting himself to a diversity of studies, particularly to
the pursuit of those branches, such as the classical languages and lite-
ratures, to which he had previously given a lesser share of attention.
For this purpose he attended the gymnasium at Frankfort, and sat on
the school-bench with his pupil Hallneg. His inclination toward geo-
graphical and historical studies did not, however, cease to preponder-
ate ; and, in order to make himself fully at home in these subjects, he
not only read the most important works upon them with great care,
but also made frequent excursions in the neighborhood of Frankfort
for purposes of independent observation. A happy skill in drawing
the objects of interest in the landscape was of great help to him.

His first geographical work, consisting of six maps of Europe, was
published in 1806 ; it was followed in 1811 by a Geography of Europe
in two volumes. These two works, his first efforts on a field in which
he was afterward to be a master, already gave indications of that com-
prehensive grasp of geographical principles for which he afterward
became distinguished.

SKETCH OF CARL BITTER. 691

In 1807, accompanied by his pupils, he started on the first of a
series of journeys undertaken for purposes of study and investigation.
This time he visited Italy and Switzerland. In Switzerland he fonned
the acquaintance of Pestalozzi, Pictet, and De Candolle, living in
Geneva a year. In Italy he enlisted Thorwaldsen, Overbeck, and Cor-
nelius among his friends. In 1813 he went with his pupils to the Uni-
versity of Gottingen, where he had an opportunity to make use of the
treasures of the library for his great geographical work. He still regu-
larly visited the lecture-rooms of the professors and attended the dif-
ferent colleges. After two years at Gottingen he went to Berlin, and
there, in 1817, piiblished the first part of his "Erdkunde im Verhalt-
nisse zur Natur und Geschichte des Menschen, oder allgemeine Ver-
gleichende Geographic als sichere Grundlage des Studiums und des
Unterrichts in physikalischen und historischen Wissenschaften (Geog-
raphy in Relation to Nature and the History of Men, or General Com-
parative Geography as the Secure Basis of Study and Instruction in
Physical and Historical Knowledge), a work in which the treatment
of geography was completely transformed, and the study was raised to
the rank of a true science. This part included Africa and a portion of
Asia. A year afterward appeared the second part, in which Asia was
concluded. In this work he delineated the form and surface of the
earth, in its horizontal and vertical features, with great accuracy.
Taking a comprehensive view, he considered the peculiarities of the
different parts of the earth's surface in their relations to each other
and to the earth as a whole, and regarded them as the underlying basis
of all living existence, and the foundation and condition of the devel-
opment of single peoples and of the whole human race in its manifold
changes of relation.

In 1819 Ritter was appointed Professor of History in the gymna-
sium at Frankfort ; but he soon exchanged this position for a higher
one, for in the next year he accepted an invitation to Berlin, where he
was appointed to the chair of geography in the military school and
the university. Here begins the second great division of his life, in
which he could enjoy both in the department of scientific research and
as a teacher the ripe fruits of his earlier activity. Berlin, where a
new, fresh life was then beginning to beat, where he was associated
with Alexander von Humboldt as his hearty friend, was the right place
for him to work, and he was fully conscious of it. After Prince Albert
became enrolled among his scholars, he was introduced to the circle of
the CroAvn-Princes, and afterward to King Frederick William IV,, be-
fore whom he gave lectures on geography. In 1825 he became direc-
tor of studies to the Cadet corps, and in 1828 founder and first Presi-
dent of the Berlin Geographical Society.

Ritter was accustomed, during his autumn vacations, to take con-
siderable journeys, which not only gave him mental and bodily recrea-
tion, but also assisted in the advancement of his geographical studies.

692 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

Tlie most extensive and important of these journeys were to Greece
and Constantinople, and back through Hungary ; to Paris and South-
em France ; and to England, Sweden, and Norway. He afterward
concentrated his whole attention upon geography, giving up for this
purpose all employment that was not connected with it. From 1832
the series of volumes on Asia appeared in rapid succession ; the nine-
teenth volume was finished only a few weeks before his death. With
the progress of this work, his fame increased from year to year, and
his connections and the influence which he exerted upon the progress
of geographical research were extended to all the countries of the
civilized world. He became one of the most important personal cen-
ters in the whole domain of geographical science, not less on account
of the incomparable richness of his knowledge than on account of the
living interest which he took in all current questions. In this position
he did not fail to receive distinctions of every kind. As a teacher he
acquired a brilliant clientage. When he published his first lecture on
general geography in 1820, it is said that he had not a single scholar;
afterward the largest lecture-rooms were not sufiicient to hold his
classes, and at Berlin it became the fashion to attend his lectures. As
a teacher, and in all his personal relations, he possessed a strong at-
tractive influence. Kramer, his biographer, says that no one ever
approached him without meeting the most kindly reception, that he
was ready to recognize every honestly meant effort, to encourage, to
help with counsel and support. N"o man ever had less of egotism.
His physical condition was generally good through the whole of his
long life. He had a strong constitution, which was hardened by exer-
cise in his youth and strengthened by the pedestrian excursions taken
on his journeys. The weaknesses of age began,to appear in his later
years, and, on account of them, he often visited the springs of Teplich
with good effects. He made a visit to these springs in 1859, the year
of his death, but returned no stronger, and died on the 28th of Sep-
tember. After his death were published his "Geschichte der Erd-
kunde und der Entdeckungen," 1861 ; " Allgemeine Erdkunde," 1862;
and " Europa," 1863.

CORRESP ONDENCE,

693

COERESPONDENCE.

Messrs. Editors.

IN a good but caustic review of Mr. Mal-
lock's book — " Is Life worth Living? "
— you make use of a sentence whicla would
seem to reilect on all alike who are engaged
in the study of theological problems : " We
have hei'e the last brilliant exploit of the
theological mind in its warfare with modern
science." Permit me, as a student of theol-
ogy and a lover of modern science, to read
you a short lecture. Many of the young
ministers to-day arc firm believers in evo-
lution, and preach it. This theory is by
no means a hindrance in our study of the-
ology, but the best instrument which has so
far been placed in our hands. If on our
desk the Bible lies, so also do Spencer's
" First Principles " and his " Sociology."
If we respect and study Jesus, so do we
Spencer and Tyndall and Clerk Maxwell.
These have a gospel for us — they have a
hope. The young theological mind is very
far from engaged in a warfare with science ;
it is anxious, and hoping, for firmer ground
than we now have. If science can help us,
and it can and does, in making this life more
valuable, the future brighter, and ourselves
better, we welcome it. Wc are not troubled
about reconciling theology and science ; we
take what we can in both, after honestly and
carefully investigating for ourselves, and
then allow them to reconcile themselves.
What we have to do with is the truth pure
and simple. Some of us will not pledge
ourselves to any " body of divinity," either
ancient or modern ; we will not swear by
Bibles, old or new, nor believe all the spirits,
either in the Gospels or the biologies. The
writer of the preface to the American edi-
tion of Spencer's " First Principles " tells
us that his hope is in the young men. Many
of them are with him. We now only aslc
you to remember this, and let us investigate
in our own fields, mindful of the fact that
we are each doing our best to find the truth.
We are side by side oftener than we imag-
ine, even if some college presidents will not
see it. None are so blind as those who will
not see.

It would not be out of place if in the
" Monthly " you would give an article, now
and then, bearing directly on the theologi-
cal questions — the higher theological ques-
tions, not the petty disputes of the sects.
You have our hand.

A Young Theologian.
KBBaTB, N H., January 21, l&SO.

THE AGE OF ICE
Messrs. Editors.

An article under the above title, pub-
lished in the October number of the
" Monthly," appears to have brought upon
its author the charge of plagiarism. But
his own note with the accompanying edi-
torial, published in the Febi'uary number,
not only completely exonerates him, but
actually converts the charge into an encomi-
um. For the writer of the article in ques-
tion can scarcely fail to appreciate the com-
pliment of being charged with borrowing,
from so reputable an author, ideas which
prove to have been made public before the
able work of Mr. Croll had seen the light.

But, if the accusing party had carefully
and understandingly read the article of Mr.
Norton as well as those which he charges
Mr. Norton with plagiarizing, he would never
have made the charge. For he would have
discovered in the former article statements
quite excusable, when the date of their writ-
ing is known, but which would never have
been made had Mr. Norton read either the
work of Mr. Croll or the articles of Mr.
Merriman. The object of the present writ-
ing, however, is neither to vindicate nor to
criticise.

But, since the " Monthly " is almost solely
relied upon by so many readers as an ex-
ponent of the latest scientific discoveries
and opinions, the publication of Mr. Nor-
ton's article, so long after it was written,
seems liable to mislead this class of readers.
The conductors of the " Monthly " may not,
therefore, deem it inappropriate to give
place in their columns to a very brief state-
ment of the points in which the article is
likely to convey an erroneous impression :

1. In the published abstract the author
says: "The southern hemisphere has at
present a winter of 187 days and a summer
of ITS days. We may justly infer that
during this winter more snow and ice ac-
cumulate than the shorter summer is able
to melt."

In the lecture this statement may have
been accompanied by such an explanation
as to prevent a misconception ; but, as pub-
lished, it must leave on the popular mind
the impression that, because the summer is
shorter, therefore the heat received from
the sun is less — an impression which many
have received ; whereas it was long since
shown that the earth receives from the sun
exactly the same amount of heat from the

694

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

vernal to the autumnal equinox as from the
autumnal to the vernal, whatever may be
the position of the apsides, and whatever
the eccentricity of the orbit.

2. In speaking of the variation in the
eccentricity, the author says : " There is one
more factor in this problem which must be
considered, and that is the periodical varia-
tion in the eccentricity of the earth's orbit.
Sometimes the line of the apsides is longer
than at other times."

I am at a loss to account for this last
statement. The author must have known
that the mean distance of a planet from the
sun is one of the two invariable elements
of the planetary orbits. Of course the line
of the apsides, which is the major axis of
the orbit, and therefore twice the mean dis-
tance, can not vary. The eccentricity is in-
creased or diminished by diminishing or in-
creasing the minor axis, the major axis re-
maining always the same.

3. In discussing the displacement of the
earth's center of gravity by an accumulation
of ice at the pole, it is said, " Now push
the center of gravity 2,000 feet toward the
north, and the Arctic Ocean would be so
much deeper over the pole, and the water
would be about 1,000 feet deeper at the
latitude of 45°. To accomplish this result,
we must calculate that the space within the
Arctic Circle was covered by an ice-cap av-
eraging, perhaps, 8,000 feet in thickness —
an entirely supposable case."

By calculation, I find that, if all the
water to form this ice-cap were taken from
within the Antarctic Circle, and if the densi-
ty of ice were equal to that of the earth, the
above statement would be approximately
correct ; but, allowing for the difference of
density, the cap must be more than eight
miles in thickness ; and, if the water to
form the cap were taken equally from all
parts of the earth's surface, the thickness
must be more than sixteen miles.

Perhaps it should be said, however, that,
according to Mr. Croll, no such amount of
displacement is required. He estimates that
the transfer of an ice-cap two miles thick
from the southern to the northern hemi-
sphere, which would displace the center of
gravity about 380 feet, would satisfy all the
demands of the glacial phenomena.

4. But, if Mr. Norton's article should be
received as an exponent of the present views
of those who advocate this theory, it would
be most seriously misleading in the date to
which it refers the age of ice. It is said :
" Unless astronomical calculations fail, the
last great summer of the northern hemi-
sphere commenced some 6,500 years ago.
When it began, northern America, Europe,
and Asia were frozen and deluged. The
Arctic Ocean extended to a line south of
the present bed of the Great Lakes. The
Alps and the Altai were also southern boun-

daries of this ocean. Europe was the home
of a swarthy, dwarfish race, who hunted the
aurochs and great hairy mastodon at the
foot of the glaciers that then half over-
flowed the continent."

Thus the age of ice is referred to the last
mild aphelion winter, when the earth's orbit
was but slightly more eccentric than at pres-
ent. But both Mr. Croll and Mr. Merriman,
from whom Mr. Norton is accused of pla-
giaiizing, refer the glacial epoch to a period
of great eccentricity, from 80,000 to 240,-
000 years ago.

Indeed, the warmest advocates of the
great year theory freely admit that, with
the eccentricity no greater than it has been
at any time within the last 80,000 years, the
age of ice could not have been the reuslt of
such a cause. It scarcely need be added that
some refer the ice age to a period of still
greater eccentricity, some 800,000 years ago
M. Lyford.
Watekville, Maine, Jamiary 26, 1880.

ARSENIC IN KINDERGARTENS.

Messrs. Editors.

There has been of late, in the local news-
papers, a good deal of discussion, pro and
tow, concerning the merits and demerits of
the Kindergarten system. Without presum-
ing to decide whether the system is good
or bad, I wish to bring under the notice of
your readers a simple fact in connection
with it that is of more than local interest.
A friend of mine in Pittsburg, who has a
little daughter being instructed (or amused)
in one of the Kindergartens here, recently
handed me some pieces of a green-colored
paper which the child brought home from
the institution, and told me that one of the
amusements of children in such institutions
was to cut figures out of various colored
papers and fashion them into designs of
different kinds, tlie aim of such amuse-
ments being to instruct in distinguishing
various shades of color and differences of
form. The green paper above mentioned I
have very carefully examined, and I find
that it contains an abundance of arsenite of
copper, which most people nowadays linow
to be poisonous. In these days of reckless
assertion by pretended men of science, it
may be well to fortify my statement, and I
accordingly send you two hermetically sealed
tubes, one of which contains a mirror of
metallic arsenic, and the other a ring of
crystals of arsenious acid, both of them de-
rived from the green paper, of which I also
send you a sample. Several mirrors were
obtained from a fragment of paper half
the size of the piece inclosed, and material
enough was procured from it to produce
several more. The crystals can be recog-

EDITOR'S TABLE.

695

nized, under a three-hundred power of the
microscope, as octahedra. Knowing well
that such paper is used in all other Kinder-
gartens throughout the country, and know-
ing also the habit of children putting every-
thing available in their mouths, and espe-
cially of swallowing paper, I think the use
of a sort colored with an arsenical pigment

deserving of the severest reprehension. You
may, if you please, show these tubes to any
of the able chemists of your city, or de-
scribe them as you may see fit.
Yours truly,

George Hay, M. D., Analyst,

Analytical Laboratory. 45 Diamond St., »
Alleghany City, Pa., January 16, 1880. S

EDITOR'S TABLE.

""LET WELL ENOUGH ALONE:'

A GOOD illustration of the tenden-
cies of officialism in education,
as well as in politics, is afforded by tlie
recent inaugural address of the new
President of the New York Board of
Education, Mr. Stephen 0. Walker. He
said he had formerly been opposed to the
policy of taxing the people to sustain
academic or high-class education. But
no sooner does he find himself in the
official saddle than all doubt is dissi-
pated, and he becomes the eager apolo-
gist of tilings as they are. And this is
the more remarkable, as he betrays a
lurking consciousness that there is a
good deal hereabout that will not bear
examination, and of which the less is
said the better. He admonishes some
[leople that they had better have a care,
and not push things much further, as
there may come a day of reckoning.
Therefore he urges quiet and acquies-
cence, and deplores all excitement and
agitation. A certain questionable poli-
cy being consummated beyond what its
promoters could have ever dreamed, he
thinks the rule should be now, "Let
well enough alone." Mr. Walker is re-
ported as saying: "We not only have
two colleges, whose expenses are met
by general taxation, with curricula em-
bracing every known subject of aca-
demic instruction, but, in the course of
.study of our grammar and primary
schools, the subjects presented num-
ber fifteen or twenty, and, of course,
embrace many which are neither essen-
tial nor elementary. Never having been

able to give full assent to the arguments
which are claimed to prove the propri-
ety of making academic education a
public charge, I am ready, and even
eager, to accept the present situation
of affairs, and to say to the champions
of what is called higher education, and
to the less eloquent and active advo-
cates of elementary instruction, let well
enough alone. I foresee dangers in
agitation and disturbance. I see much
good in things as they are. If those
who smcerely believe that the Govern-
ment should be so parental and munifi-
cent as to place within the reach of every
aspiring lad the means of the most am-
ple technical or professional education
will only rest content with the large
measure of success they have already
gained, with the crowded seats of ad-
vanced learning endowed beyond all
dreams of private munificence, by legis-
lation, which subsidizes for their sup-
port the property, real, personal, and
mixed, of the whole Commonwealth,
they will not hazard the attainments
already made. In pushing for more
tliere is, in my judgment, a possibility
of arousing a power in the community,
of great weight by reason of its wealth,
its clear judgment, its conservative and
logical methods, which shall bring all
the force of argument and capital against
the existence, at public expense, of aca-
demic education in any form."

Having got two colleges, embracing
every known subject of academic in-
struction, and grammar-schools devoted
to fifteen or twenty subjects which are

(i^

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

neither essential nor elementary, and
■endowed beyond all dreams of private
munificence by legislation which subsi-
dizes for their support the property,
real, personal, and mixed, of the whole
Commonwealth, for all of which he has
never seen sufficient reason, Mr. Walk-
er thinks we may now rest and be thank-
ful. There have been demands that
something should be done to make edu-
cation more practical in the direction
of applied science and industrial art.
But Mr. Walker says; Be quiet; these
things can only come in with a popular
boom. This is his language : "It may
be that, as a result of one or all these
demands, we shall see the time when the
turning-lathe and the sewing-machine
shall be parts of general school supplies.
The point I make is, that agitation and
discussion of this subject are not incum-
bent upon us, who are called to admin-
ister the school system as we find it, not
to revolutionize its fundamental prin-
ciples or work experiments. When the
time comes for such changes we shall
all hear of it. It will be a voice as of
the sound of many waters. The school
system and its methods and subjects of
instruction are surrounded by almost
constitutional guarantees. The people
created and cherish this system and
these methods and the existing modifi-
cations thereof." Now, we respectfully
suggest that, if President Walker pro-
poses to keep things placid, he must be
a little more circumspect in his state-
ments, and not give occasion for indig-
nant protest. It is not true of the school
system under his jurisdiction that the
people created it "and the existing
modifications thereof." Those "modi-
fications " were never called for or au-
thorized by the people. The school
system of New York has been revolu-
tionized and perverted from its original
purposes, and that not by popular ini-
tiation and approval, but by manoeu-
vring and indirection, by wire-pulling
and huggermuggery. It has been pros-
tituted to ends never contemplated by

those who established it and have sus-
tained it, and this has been done in ex-'
press defiance of tlie known convictions
and wishes of the people. President
Walker probably knows this, and hence
his apprehension of a popular explosion,
and his exhortations to a cautious and
gingerly treatment of fundamental ques-
tions. On the contrary, we think the
subject can not be too often and too
thoroughly ventilated.

The reader is referred to a previous
article in this "Monthly," which shows
that the New York school system was
founded to supply elementary instruc-
tion to those unable to obtain it in pre-
existing schools. But, with the prog-
ress and diffusion of knowledge, and
especially of practical scientific knowl-
edge that bears upon the common avo-
cations of life, there grew up a pop-
ular demand that our common-school
system should do something to qualify
boys for industrial pursuits. To give
effect to this widely expressed desire,
it was proposed to establish in connec-
tion with the public-school system a
high school of technology and practical
science, to help boys who were expect-
ed to learn trades and follow industrial
occupations. It was submitted to a
popular vote whether such an institu-
tion should be organized, and its dis-
tinctive and limited object was printed
upon each ballot. The people pro-
nounced by a large majority in its fa-
vor, and the "Free Academy" was the
result.

But the object of this institution
was never honestly carried out. Its
faculty were ashamed of its vulgar
"utihtarian" purpose; a "Free Acad-
emy " had no status among dignified
institutions, and its officers did not
cease their exertions till its object was
abandoned, and the concern was trans-
formed into a " regular college." The
Free Academy was killed, and a new
charter was obtained, instituting the
" College of the City of New York."

With this " modification thereof "

EDITOR'S TABLE.

697

the people had nothing to do. They
were never offered a chance of ex-
pressing their opinion of the repudia-
tion of the plan they had formally rati-
fied. It was diverted from its objects,
without consulting them, by ring-man-
agement ; and, as the city had got a col-
lege for boys, the cry was raised that
there must be another for girls also;
and the Normal College was the result.

There was no mistaking the charac-
ter and object of this covertly managed
revolution in the policy of popular edu-
cation in this city. When the thing was
done, all disguise was thrown off'. As
we have stated before in these pages,
but which may now be pertinently re-
called. Judge Larrimore, President of
the Board of Education, gave an ad-
dress explanatory of the new situation.
The school called for by the people was
contemptuously repudiated in its theory
and object. The new institution was
proclaimed as of the old order of col-
leges. The speaker went back to the
middle ages to get his ideal of a college,
and defended classical studies, as en-
titled to the leading place, in opposition
to the claims of science and modern
studies. How far he appreciated the
idea which the people had tried to em-
body in the Free Academy was shown
by the fact that, when an influential
work on education, that has been trans-
lated into all civilized languages, was
quoted, he sneeringly retorted that it
was written by an engineer.

Had the design of the Free Acad-
emy been carried out in good faith, its
benign results to education in this city
and this country would have been great.
A generation has passed since the peo-
ple pronounced for an advance in in-
dustrial education ; and if the plan had
not miscarried — if they had not been
cheated out of it — the salutary influence
upon the lower schools, and the conse-
quent benefits to the community, would
have been incalculable. But this re-
trogressive step has been fatal to our
educational progress. The classical col-

lege at the head of our system has re-
acted to obstruct reform in the primary
schools. Of the way this influence is
exerted we have a fresh illustration.
The new President, notwithstanding
his solicitude to let things alone, can
not refrain from meddling. He was
made chairman of the Board of Trustees
of the City College, and in his address
he said that " the college entrance ex-
aminations were not exacting enough."
That is, the screws must be put on to
the lower schools to force more vig-
orous exertion on the part of boys with
reference to the system of instruction
pursued in the classical institution.

CONANT ON INTERNATIONAL COPT-
RIGUT.

It is surprising how English ardor on
international copyright cools as Amer-
icans begin to draw the distinction be-
tween the rights of British authors and
the claims of British publishers. As
long as these were mixed up, the case
against us was strong, and we were
very frequently reminded of the turpi-
tude of our piratical practices. But
when it began to be said here, serious-
ly. We will yield the English author
his just demand, and pay him for his
literary property, but his foreign pub-
lisher we will not pay because he has
no just claims upon us, then we hear a
good deal less of foreign denunciation,
and international copyright ceases to
be urged, or much discussed.

Mr. S. S. Conant, of New York, was
asked to write a paper for " Macmillan's
Magazine," giving the American view
of the subject. He complied, and fur-
nished an able article, moderate but
decided, and discussing the question
with a view to its practical settlement.
He recognized the urgency of the ques-
tion, and took the ground that the full
rights of English authors should be ac-
corded and secured by law, but that we
in this country must be permitted to
manufacture their books. He showed

698

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

that tlie foreign book-maker has no
rights that such an arrangement would
violate, and that equity would be com-
pletely gained if the foreign author
was required to make his bargain with
some American publisher. There are
American reasons for this policy, the
force and validity of which Americans
must be left to judge of; but justice will
be satisfied when the foreign author is
put upon the same basis as the Ameri-
can author.

A reply or at least a rejoinder to
this article, by an English lawyer, fol-
lowed it in the same number of the
Magazine. Mr. Conant had said that
the need of some adequate copyright
arrangement between the two coun-
tries was pressing; his critic undertook
to be very sarcastic at this, declaring
that leading American publishers were
now beginning to suffer from the car-
rying out of their own vicious system,
and had suddenly discovered that the
case is pressing. He said that he saw
no particular symptoms of urgency in
England, and doubted if the Americans
were very eager about it, so that on
the whole the matter might as well be
at present let alone.

Mr. Conant returned a crushing reply
to his critic, but "Macmillan" declined
to print it. It, however, appeared in the
London " Academy." He showed that
the quibble over the word " pressing "
was aside from the argument, and that
that term simply indicated the actual
status of tlie question in both countries.
If business had become more demoral-
ized here, under a bad system, than be-
fore, it only furnished a more potent
reason for remedial action. No change
certainly had taken place on this side
of the water which could lessen the in-
terest of the British author in inter-
national copyright. On the contrary,
the system in this country was working
out results more and more damaging
to foreign authors. As to the state of
feeling in England, Mr. Conant showed
that her authors at any rate did not

share the assumed indifference of
" Macmillan's " critic. He showed that
the recent Eoyal Commission relat-
ing to home, colonial, and international
copyright, gave prominent and earnest
attention to the relations of England
and the United States with regard to
authors and reprints, and that their re-
port bristled with evidences of the inter-
est felt in that country over this ques-
tion. And, finally, he clinched the case
by putting in the recent statement of
fifty eminent English authors, not only
recognizing the importance of the ques-
tion, but accepting the American view
of it, and expressing their readiness to
acquiesce in it as an entirely fair and
just arrangement.

So the tables are now turned, and
the English publishers, who oppose a
measure satisfactory to the parties
rightly interested there, and which is
the only practical measure that can pos-
sibly be carried out here, are now in the
position of obstructives, and enemies of
copyright. Mr. Conant's pamphlet puts
the thing in a nutshell, and those con-
cerned with the progress of the discus-
sion can obtain it by application to
Harper «& Brothers, New York.

LITERARY NOTICES.

SPENCER'S SYNTHETIC PHILOSOPHY.

Ceremonial Institutions. Being Part 17.

of " The Principles of Sociology." By

Herbert Spencer. Pp. 237. Price,

$1.25.

Having paused for a short time in the
elaboration of his " Principles of Sociology "
to anticipate a portion of the next treatise
on "Ethics," Mr. Herbert Spencer has re-
sumed his labors in their regular order, as
the volume before us attests. The first
volume of the " Sociology " — a work of over
seven hundred pages, devoted to its funda-
mental data and inductions — was published
more than a year ago. Mr. Spencer finds
serious disadvantages in bringing out his
system in these large volumes, which are
both formidable to read and appear at such

LITERARY NOTICES.

699

wide intervala that their connections are
apt to be forgotten. He will, therefore, in
future, issue separately the successive di-
visions of these Tolumes as they are com-
pleted. The first division of Volume II. is
on "The Development of Ceremonial In-
stitutions," now published, and the next
division will be on " The Development of
Political Institutions," and upon this he is
now engaged. It will be followed by the
divisions on " The Development of Ecclesi-
astical and Industrial Institutions."

If we define government as the control
of conduct in relation to others, then it is of
two kinds — that by the coercion of the civil
power, and that by the mandates of social
custom and ceremonial observance. The
regulation of conduct is divided between
civil law and the unwritten codes of cus-
tom ; and of these two authorities the lat-
ter has by far the largest share in regu-
lating men's lives. In the genesis of social
relations, ceremonial government arises ear-
lier than political government, is more
general, and far more potent in its social
restraints and requirements. While yet
primitive society is in a wholly unorganized
condition, with no coercive rule, perhaps, but
the will of the chief, the savage nature be-
comes spontaneously amenable to impera-
tive observances in daily intercourse. And,
in the highest state of civilization, social life
is dominated by the same despotic agency.
To understand the present constitution of
society, therefore, and the forces by which
it is regulated, it becomes necessary to treat
the origin and growth of social observance
as a part of sociological science, and this is
the object of the volume on "Ceremonial
Institutions."

Mr. Spencer's conclusions throughout
rest upon a wide survey of the facts con-
cerning primitive customs and manners,
gathered from all sources, and are illus-
trated with a wealth of examples that gives
great force and impressiveness to his con-
clusions. This very full and complete il-
lustration of the subject has been objected
to by some, on the ground that such a pro-
fusion of facts and examples is unneces-
sary to his exposition, and becomes weari-
some to the reader ; and the same criticism
has been passed upon other parts of his
philosophical works. To this he replies, in

his preface, that, while not unconscious of
the defect, it is still unavoidable, as scien-
tific proof rather than artistic merit is the
end he is aiming at. He says : " If socio-
logical generalizations are to pass out of
the stage of opinion into the stage of es-
tablished truth, it can only be through ex-
tensive accumulations of instances ; the in-
ductions must be wide if the conclusions
are to be accepted as valid. Especially
while there continues the belief that social
phenomena are not the subject-matter of a
science, it is requisite that the correlations
among them should be shown to hold in
multitudinous cases. Evidence furnished
by various races in various parts of the
world must be given, before there can be
rebutted the allegation that the inferences
drawn are not true, or are but partially
true. Indeed, of social phenomena more
than all other phenomena, it must, because
of their complexity, hold that only by com-
parisons of many examples can fundamental
relations be distinguished from superficial
relations."

Some of the chapters of the volume on
" Ceremonial Institutions " have appeared in
the pages of this Monthly, but several new
and important topics are treated in the vol-
ume, which make it the completest as well
as the most original discussion of the sub-
ject that has yet appeared. It is, besides?
an extremely interesting book to read, as it
gives much curious information regarding
the origin and meaning of social usages
that concern everybody, while at the same
time there is no erudite or abstract philoso-
phy in it to task the reader's effort.

The Theory of Political Economt. By
W. Stanley Jevons, LL. D., M. A., F. R. S.
London : Macmillan & Co. Second edi-
tion. Pp. 314. Price, $3.50.

The above work presents, in the most
complete form yet given it. Professor Jev-
ons's mathematical theory of economics, first
published by him in a volume nine years
ago, though worked out and presented in its
main features as far back as 1862, The
idea that economics is essentially a mathe-
matical science appears not to be new, but,
during the ascendancy of other views, it has
for the most part been neglected, and the
work accomplished remained in obscurity.

700

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Professor Jevons has been at some pains to
investigate the bibliography of the subject,
and finds it surprisingly full and of consid-
erable value.

It appears from his researches that the
theory, as stated by him, and in a form
closely resembling his, by M. Leon Walras,
of Lausanne, has been anticipated in its
chief features by Gossen, of Germany, and
Cournot, of France. This is somewhat re-
markable, as these writers worked not only
independently of each other, but with little
or no knowledge of what had been done by
any others. They had, in fact, to begin at
the beginning and work out the entire sub-
ject for themselves. Professor Jevons re-
gards this independent arrival at substan-
tially the same views of the " fundamental
ideas of economics," by four different in-
quirers, as strong evidence of their probable
truth. He appends to the present edition
of his work a fuller list than was possible
in the first of all the writers whose names
he has been able to discover, who treat the
science on this side, that future students
may not remain in ignorance of what has
been accomplished.

The present unsatisfactory state of
economics is regarded by him as due to the
failure, on the part of economists, to dis-
tinguish between several branches of knowl-
edge which, though closely allied, are yet
separate. There should be a distinction
drawn between the abstract science which
has to do with the fundamental relations of
economic quantities and those special con-
crete scieAces which depend upon it. The
relation of this abstract science to the con-
crete ones he holds to be somewhat analo-
gous to that between the science of me-
chanics and the physical sciences, all of
which have their basis more or less in it.
Pleasure and pain are, according to him, the
ultimate factors with which economics has
to deal, and how to increase the one and de-
crease the other to the greatest extent pos-
sible is the problem to be solved, or, stated
more specifically, the problem is : " Given a
certain population, with various needs and
powers of production, in possession of cer-
tain lands and other sources of material;
required the mode of employing their labor
which will maximize the utility of the prod-
uce." In order to subject the science to his

analysis, Professor Jevons introduces into
economic quantities the physical conception
of dimension. These quantities can then
be treated geometrically, and their various
relations expressed by formulas. A feeling,
such as a pleasure or a pain, he considers
possessed of two dimensions, intensity and
duration, the amount of which can be varied .
by varying either or both of the factors. A
curve whose ordinates correspond with the
intensity of the feeling and the abcissas
with its duration will express the law of
the variation of the intensity, when this
variation is continuous.

The relations of the various economic
quantities involved would, in any case, be
known when the elements of such a curve
were determined, or, as the mathematicians
say, when the form of the function is known.
The agreement of the calculated result, when
numerical data are introduced into the for-
mulas, with the actual result, would be the
verification of the formulas. Such numeri-
cal data, consisting mainly in " accurate ac-
counts of the quantities of goods possessed
and consumed by the community, and the
prices at which they are exchanged," are
not now easily attainable, and formulas can
not, therefore, be at present verified. As
these data become available, however. Pro-
fessor Jevons thinks that the science can
gradually be raised to the position of an
exact one.

A large portion of the present work is
devoted to the elucidation of the problem
of exchange value, which is necessarily fun-
damental in any economic exposition. Ex-
change value, or, as he terms it, " the ratio
of exchange," is held by him to be directly
dependent upon utility and only ultimately
upon cost of production. In his theory of
utility he draws a distinction between the
total utility of any commodity and its de-
gree of utility at any point of supply, the
person concerned being the sole judge in
any case considered of what is or is not
useful. In illustration, the total utility of
such a thing as food is infinitely great, as it
is necessary to life ; but, when we have abun-
dance, the utility of an addition is very small
and may be zero. Considering the increase
of supply to be made by adding increments
of commodity, the degree of utility of the
last increment added, or of that to be add-'

LITERARY NOTICES.

701

ed, he terms the final degree, and it is on
this that the ratio of exchange depends.
He finds the explanation of the fact that
such a very useful commodity as water has
little or no power in exchange in the cir-
cumstance that its final degree of utility is
ordinarily very small. When water becomes
i-arce the higher degrees of utility are ap-
proached, and, if the scarcity is prolonged,
it may acquire a high purchasing power.
Geometrically, total utility would correspond
with the area inclosed between a curve and
its lines of reference, and the degree of util-
ity at any point with the ordinate of the
curve at that point. His conception of
utility corresponds closely with that as ex-
pressed in ordinary language, the total util-
ity being the entire usefulness of any com-
modity, the degree of utility the esteem or
urgency of desire, and the ratio of exchange
the purchasing power.

As viewed by Professor Jevons, the prob-
lem of exchange is properly a dynamic
one. Commodities are being continuously
manufactured, exchanged, and consumed.
The solution of the problem, therefore, in-
volves determining not only the conditions
of equilibrium at which exchange would
cease, but the rate at which it would go on
before equilibrium was established. The
statical problem — the obtaining of the con-
ditions of equilibrium — is only attempted in
the present work. He considers that the
parties to the exchange are possessed of
certain fixed quantities of commodity which
they keep exchanging until the point is
reached when they are satisfied, and have
no further desire to part with or acquire
any more. His analysis brings him to the
conclusion that "the ratio of exchange of
any two commodities will be the reciprocal
of the ratio of the final degrees of utility of
the quantities available for consumption af-
ter the exchange is completed."

The usual treatment of labor by econo-
mists Professor Jevons regards as singular-
ly perverted. The science starts with labor,
and how to use this labor to the greatest
advantage is the very problem with which
it deals. But economists generally do not
proceed far before they turn about and con-
sider labor as a commodity which capitalists
buy up. " Labor becomes itself the object,"
he says, "of the laws of supply and de-

mand, instead of those laws acting in the
distribution of the products of labor." His
conclusion is that " the wages of a working-
man are ultimately coincident with what he
produces, after the deduction of rent, taxes,
interest, and the interest of capital." Ac-
cording to his analysis, when in any case of
production the labor is distributed, the ratio
of the final degrees of utility of the products
equals the ratio of the productiveness of the
labor concerned in each product. He thus
arrives at the result that the ratio of ex-
change is ultimately determined by the cost
of production, through the eflEect which this
has in determining the final degrees of util-
ity of the commodities. The conclusions of
the work, on the subject of exchange, Pro-
fessor Jevons sums up as follows : " Quan-
tities of commodity exchanged vary directly
as the quantities produced by the same la-
bor, and inversely as their values, prices,
costs of production, and final degrees of
utility."

Professor Jevons accepts the current de-
finition of capital, though he broadens it
somewhat, and his analysis of the subject
leads him to conclusions closely agreeing
with those of Ricardo and the economists
who have followed him.

The doctrine of rent he regards as hav-
ing long been in a scientific form.

Of the value of the theory, both as to
what is obtained and as to its possible de-
velopment as a comprehensive treatment of
economics, it is for economists to decide,
but it can be studied with interest and profit
by all who desire to know one of the direc-
tions in which present economic inquiry is
tending. The book is written in the clear
manner peculiar to all the work of this au-
thor, and can be readily perused by any
one having the slightest knowledge of the
calculus.

The Chemistry of Common Life. By
James F. W. Johnston. New edition,
and brought down to the Present Time
by A. H. Chuuch. New York : D. Ap-
pleton & Co. 1880. 1 vol., pp. 592.
Price, $2.

A REVISED edition of this favorite work,
first issued twenty-five years ago, will be
welcomed everywhere. It has ever been
the model of a popular scientific work, and
has had many imitations — notably, Lewes's

702

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

" Physiology of Common Life " — but none
of them have approached the perfection of
the original. Johnston was led to prepare
it by his pioneer studies in agricultural
chemistry, which not only familiarized him
with all common subjects, but, what was of
far more importance, gave him a sympathetic
interest in the common people. No mere
passionate experimenter or laboratory devo-
tee could ever have produced such a work.
Great changes have come over the field
of chemical science during the last quarter
of a century, but they have afPected this
work much less than more theoretical trea-
tises, as facts change less than their inter-
pretations. Nevertheless, the book had
fallen behind the age, and needed to be
brought up to date. The entire work has
been carefully revised by Professor Church,
somewhat enlarged, and brought down to
the latest date. Some new matter, aside
from that necessary to embody the latest
knowledge, has been added by the editor,
the most important of which is the article
upon " The Colors we admire." The book
is written for the people, in a clear and
popular manner, without technicalities, and
seeks to answer questions that common-
ly arise in every-day life about every-day
things. It treats such things as the air we
breathe and the water we drink in their re-
lations to human life and health ; the soil
that we cultivate and the plants raised ;
the food we eat and beverages we drink ;
the odors that are agreeable and disagree-
able, and the reasons why they are so ; the
colors that stand in like relation to us ; the
physiological processes of the body, and the
condition of health. It answers, in fact, a
thousand and one questions which all ought
to know, but which they do not, and will be
found a valuable addition to the library of
every household.

Astronomy. For Schools and Colleges. By
Simon Newcomb, LL. D., Superintend-
ent of " American Ephemeris and Nau-
tical Almanac," and Edward S. Holden,
M. A., Professor in the United States
Naval Observatory. New York : Henry
Holt & Co. Pp. 512. Price, $2.50.

The presumptions in favor of this work,
which are created by the names of its au-
thors, are abundantly justified by its critical
examination. It may be commended as in

every respect a first-class astronomical text-
book for college students. The authors say
in their preface that " the work is designed
principally for the use of those who desire
to pursue the study of astronomy as a
branch of liberal education." Yet its plan
is such that it may subserve the uses of dif-
ferent grades of students, and those having
in view quite different objects. The sub-
ject-matter is divided into two classes, dis-
tinguished by the size of the type. The
portions in large type form a complete
course for the use of those who desire only
such a general knowledge of the subject
as can be acquired without the application
of advanced mathematics. This is the part
that will interest the general reader. The
portions in small type comprise additions
for the use of those students who either
desire a more detailed and precise knowl-
edge of the subject, or who intend to make
astronomy a special study. The work is
copiously illustrated, is written with great
clearness, and its explanations are admira-
ble.

Progress and Poverty. An Inquiry into
the Cause of Industrial Depressions,
and of Increase of Want with Increas-
ing Wealth ; the Remedy. By Henry
George. One Volume. New York :
D. Appleton & Co. 1880. Pp. 512.
Price, $2.

In the previous pages of this Monthly
the reader will find an article on the " Study
of Political Economy " that will be pretty
certain to interest him. He will see that
this so-called " dismal science " is capable of
being presented in an attractive way. But
after looking it over with satisfaction, as he
will be sure to do, he may still say : " This
man puts the subject very pleasantly in a
lecture, but where are the treatises which
can realize for us the interest of treatment
here promised ? All the books I have yet
found on this topic are very prosy affairs."
Well, the author of this essay has him-
self made a book on political economy, so
that he can be tried by his own test. • He
has made a pretty big book too (although
it is not expensive), and, whatever may be
its faults, dryness and dullness are not
among them. It is full of vital thought,
and is written with earnestness and power.
We might say it is the most engaging book

LITERARY NOTICES.

703

on economical subjects that we have ever
read, but some may think that is not saying
much, after all ; and so we will add that it is
,1 work hard to lay down when once begun.

The author is a man of marked intellec-
tual power, of independent convictions, and
of strong human sympathies. He lives in San
Francisco, where he has been for thirty
years, watching the growth of society in a
forming State. lie has observed the work-
ing of the forces by which a modern com-
munity has grown up from a rough and
formless to a settled, organized, and ad-
vanced condition.

The outcome of all this immediate ob-
servation and of the extensive study of the
conditions of other communities is the con-
viction that the imminent problem of the
age is the intimate association of progress
and poverty. The persistence of poverty
amid rapidly advancing wealth is a widely
recognized and deplorable fact, which has
impressed itself more and more strongly
upon thoughtful people. This century has
been characterized by an enormous increase
of productive power and au immense mul-
tiplication of riches. But this increasing
wealth has neither been equalized through-
out the population, nor has there been any
tendency to equalization. The gulf between
rich and poor has been widening, and nei-
ther the rapid strides of invention nor the
enormous development of the labor-saving
and the wealth-creating arts has been able
to arrest this widening.

Mr. George says: "The association of
poverty with progress is the great enigma
of our times. It is the central fact from
which spring industrial, social, and political
difficulties that perplex the world, and with
which statesmanship and philanthropy and
education grapple in vain. From it come
the clouds that overhang the future of the
most progressive and self-reliant nations.
It is the riddle which the Sphinx of Fate
puts to our civilization, and which not to
answer is to be destroyed. So long as all
the increased wealth which modern progress
brings goes but to build up great fortunes,
to increase luxury, and make sharper the
contrast between the House of Have and
the House of Want, progress is not real and
can not be permanent. The reaction must
come."

Again he says: "I propose in the fol-
lowing pages to attempt to solve by the
methods of political economy the great
problem I have outlined. I propose to seek
the law which associates poverty with prog-
ress, and increasing want with advancing
wealth ; and I believe that in the explana-
tion of this paradox we shall find the ex-
planation of those recurring seasons of in-
dustrial and commercial paralysis which,
viewed independently of their relations to
more general phenomena, seem so inexpli-
cable. Properly commenced and carefully
pursued, such an investigation must yield a
conclusion that will stand every test, and,
as truth, will correlate with all other truth.
For in the sequence of phenomena there is
no accident. Every effect has a cause, and
every fact implies a preceding fact."

Now, in a brief notice like this we can
neither give, nor attempt to give, Mr.
George's solution of his problem. But we
may say he finds it in the land question, and
its remedy in a very radical and thorough
reforming of our land policy. We do not
here endorse Mr. George's work, but we very
strongly recommend it to those who take
interest in the living questions of the time.
We hope soon to give a sketch of his argu-
ment, but no outline can do it justice. We
may add that, aside from his special discus-
sion, the book abounds in information on
economical principles and facts admirably
put, and which will well repay perusal.

Lectures and Essays. By the late Wil-
liam KiNGDON Clifford, F. II. S. Edit-
ed by Leslie Stephen and Frederick
Pollock. With an Introduction by F.
Pollock. In Two Volumes. With Two
Portraits. New York : Macmillan & Co.
Pp. 661. Price, $7.50.

Clifford has been so thoroughly sifted,
and his position as a thinker is so well
known, that little needs here to be said upon
this point in introducing his essays to the
reader's attention. But the massing to-
gether of his intellectual work will heighten
his fame. For only when his brilliant and
powerful disquisitions are brought together,
so that we can compare them and discern
their variety and scope, is it possible to do
justice to his genius. That he was a trans-
cendent mathematician most readers can
only recognize by what others say, but the

704

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

essays can be judged by all who are capable
of thinking. The feature that strikes us
most in repei-using these volumes, and to
which we have before called attention as a
characteristic of his writings, is the mastery
they display of the art of luminous exposi-
tion in dealing with obscure and abstruse
subjects. Here Clifford is quite incomparable,
and there are parts of these volumes which
will long survive as models of popular state-
ment, delightful to the reader from their
vividness and marvelous lucidity. Clifford
is at his best in disentangling and laying out
to view subjects which baffle ordinary grasp
and penetration. He may be said to make
perfectly clear things which ordinary people
complain that they can only partially and
imperfectly understand. To take a random
example, we open volume one, and happen
to strike, in the middle of it, a discourse
upon atoms. This might be at once taken
as a crucial test of Clifford's power of pic-
turing by language. Everybody knows some-
thing about atoms, and everybody is bewil-
dered in the attempt to form such a concep-
tion of them as will explain the mutual in-
fluences and interactions of the material
bodies which are composed of atoms. Turn-
ing to the beginning of this lecture, which
was a popular effort in a Sunday course, we
find him thus opening his subject

If I were to wet tny finger and then rub it
along the edge of this glass I should no doubt
persuade the glass to give out a certain musical
rote. So, also, if I were to sing to that glass the
same note loud enough, I should get the glass to
answer me back with a note.

I want you to remember that fact, because it
is of capital importance for the arguments we
shall have to consider to-night. The very same
note which I can get the tumbler to give out by
agitating it, by rubbing the edge, that same note
I can also get the tumbler to answer back to
me when I sing to it. Now, remembering that,
please to conceive a rather complicated thing
that I am now going to describe to you. The
same property that belongs to the glass belongs
also to a bell which is made out of metal. If
that bell is agitated by being struck, or in any
other way, it will give out the same sound that
it will answer back, if you sing that sound to it ;
but if you sing a different sound to it theu it
will not answer.

Now, suppose that I have several of these
metal bells which answer to quite different
notes, and that they are all fastened to a set of
elastic stalks which spring out of a certain cen-
ter to which tlioy are fastened. All these bells,
then, are not only fastened to these stalks, but

they are held there in such a way that they can
spin round upon the points to which they are
fastened.

And then the center to which these elastic
stalks are fastened or suspended you may im-
agine as able to move in all manners o f directions,
and that the whole structure made up of these
bells and stalks and center is able to spin round
any axis whatever. We must also suppose that
there is surrounding this structure a ceitain
framework. We will suppose the framework to
be made of some elastic material, so that it is able
to be pressed in to a certain extent. Suppose that
framework is made of whalebone, if you like.
This structure I am going for the present to call
an "atom." I do not mean to say that atoms
are made of a structure like that. I do not mean
to say that there is anything in an atom which is
in the shape of a bell: and I do not mean to say
that there is anything analogous to an elastic
stalk in it. £ut what I mean is this— that an
atom is something that is capable of vibrating
at certain definite rates; aho that it is capable
of other motions of its parts besides those vibra-
tions at certain definite rates; and also that it is
capable of spinning round about any axis. Now,
by the framework which I suppose to be put
round that structure, made out of bells and elas-
tic stalks, I mean this — that supposing you had
two such structures, then you can not put them
closer together than a certain distance, but they
will begin to resist being put close together,
after you have put them as near as that, and they
will push each other away if you attempt to put
them closer. That is all I mean, then. You must
only suppose that that structure is described,
and that set of ideas is put together just for the
sake of giving us some definite notion of a thing
which has similar properties to that structure.
But you must not suppose that there is any
special pfirt of an atom which has got a bell-like
form, or any part like an elastic stalk made out
of whalebone.

A large part of these essays is devoted
to the discussion of the moral and religious
problems which so prominently occupy the
speculative attention of the age-. These
subjects are all handled with the author's
customary originality and felicity ; but it is
impossible here to give any account of them.
He attempted no system, and his work must
be looked upon as consisting of elaborate
fragments, valuable for what they are sepa-
rately worth. We quote a portion of the
criticism passed upon him by the London
" Spectator " :

The late Professor Clifford was a meteoric
sort of moral phenomenon, who to many, even
of those who had some personal knowledge of
his extraordinary powers, was more of a bewil-
derment than a light. He was a man of rare
wit and rare powers of fascination, of extraoi^
diuary courage and extraordinary agility, both

LITERARY NOTICES.

705

jihysical and mental, very great kindliness and
very great audacity, enthusiastic disinterested-
ness and almost measureless irreverence. He
was a great master of gymnastic, vvlio, wlien lie
rame out second wrangler at Cambridge, was
much prouder of being mentioned in " Bell's
Life" as a great athlete than of being second
wrangler. "His nerve at dangerous heights,"
wrote a friend who was his rival in gymnastic
feats, " was extraordinary. I am appalled now
to think that he climbed up and sat on the
cross-bars of the weather-cock on a church-
tower ; and, when, by way of doing something
worse, I went up and hung by my toes to the
bars, he did the same." During a journey in
France, when the boat had left the quay at
Havre, Cliflford, arriving late, jumped on board
of it, " with one of those apparently unpremed-
itated sprinLjs which look so well in the gymna-
sium." His flexibilityand complete command of
his own powers, both of mind and body, were
probably as great as any human being ever pos-
sessed. And as he seems to have been entirely
free from anything like giddiness in his gymnas-
tic feats, so he seems to have been equally free
from anything like awe in the equally marvelous
gymnastic feats of his mind, treating the infinity
and eternity in which his fellow creatures be-
lieved with the same sort of contemptuous famil-
iarity with which he treated the ecclesiastical
height he had once reached, only to balance him-
self by his toes on the weather-vane. He speaks,
indeed, in the least irreverent of his antitheistic
papers, of having parted from his faith in God
"with such searching trouble as only cradle
faiths can cause."' And no doubt he must have
felt something which entitled him to use this
language, for Clifi'ord was sincerity itself. Nev-
ertheless, this is almost the only passage we
have met with which points to his having gone
through any crisis of the kind, while there are a
great many in which he treats the faith in God
with such utter, such cold contempt, that it is
not easy to understand how he could ever have
regarded it as being the light of his light and
the life of his life, and much less how he could
have realized that other men were still so regard-
ing it, while he was launching his satire at them.
In such a passage as the following, for example,
he seems to be trying to show that he was as
reckless of the awe which the faith in God and
eternal life generate, as when, hanging with his
toes on the church-vane, he was reckless of the
fears which such a position as his would impart
to most men: "For, after all, such a helper of
man outside of humanity, the truth will not al-
low us to see. The dim and shadowy outlines
of the superhuman deity fade slowly away from
before us ; and, as the mist of his presence floats
aside, we perceive with greater and greater
clearness the shape of a yet grander and nobler
figure— of Him who made all gods, and shall un-
make them. From the dim dawn of history,
and from the inmost depth of every soul, the
face of our father Man looks out upon us with
the fire of eternal youth in his eyes, and says,
' Before Jehovah was, I am.' " We transcribe
VOL. XVI. — 45

the words of this parody with reluctance, and
something almost of shame, but still with the
feeling that they are essential to the understand-
ing of the erratic man who wrote them, and who
never could have written them if he had not
been strangely deficient in those many fine
chords of sympathy with his fellow men which
in other skeptics like himself remain vibrating,
and securing for them a certain community of
sentiment with their fellows, long afterthe sym-
pathy of conviction, necessary originally to agi-
tate them to their full extent, has vanished.
Doubtless, Clifi'ord held all moral conventionality
in utter horror. As he once told an audience, in
face of the great danger which threatens nations
that they may crystallize, like the Chinese, into
inflexible habits of thought and feeling which
would shut them out from progress, "it is not
right to be proper." But still such a parody as
we have quoted on what is to so many men the
most sacred of human utterances, one indeed
embodying the most solemn passion of convic-
tion through which the heart of man has ever
passed, would not have been, in most men's
mouths, so much a violation of propriety as a
deliberate insult to the heart of multitudes.
That Professor Clifi'ord did not so regard it
seems to us quite evident. But that only
shows how curiously destitute he was of some
of those chords of sympathetic feeling, without
the help of which it is impossible to judge with
any adequacy the moral world in which you live.
And with all his wonderful talent for society,
and that extreme kindliness of his nature which
so fascinated children. Professor Chfi"ord cer-
tainly showed signs of a curious nakedness of
the finer moral sympathies, a nakedness dimin-
ishing in great degree both the impression of
cruelty which the mordant end contemptuous
character of his attacks on religion would other-
wise make upon us, and also, in some degree at
least, the intellectual weight to be attached to
his undoubted genius when it worked upon
subjects of this kind.

An Essay on the Bible Nakkative of Cre-
ation : Genesis I.-II. By Professor A.
R. Grote. New York : Asa K. Butts.
What to do with the first chapters of
Genesis has long been a perplexity with
those who hold it to be a veritable account
of the origin of the universe, and who at
the same time accept the conclusions of
modern science on that subject. Differences
are confessed and great ingenuity has been
expended in reconciling them. In a thin
volume of eighty-two pages Professor Grote
gives us the results of his study of the
question. He gives two versions side by
side, the Hebrew text in English letters,
together with the translation. Then fol-
lows a chapter on " Literary Criticism."
In this the writer follows the researches

7o6

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

of Ewald and Kuenen with regard to the
name of the Deity. He makes use in his
translation of the terms "Elohim" and
" Yahveh Elohim," because the words
" God " and " Lord God " do not translate
the Hebrew correctly, the plural form of
Elohim being lost in the English word
"God," which is a substitute for and not
a translation of the Hebrew term Elohim.
Another important deviation of Professor
Crete's translation from the King James
version lies in the fact that the word ha-
Adam is constantly translated " the man "
throughout, whereas the authorized version
from Genesis ii. 19 to the end of the crea-
tional history of the first man uses the prop-
er name "Adam," the Hebrew remaining
the same as before. The author shows that
the two chapters can not be considered as a
continuous narrative, the first account end-
ing at chapter ii. 3, and the second com-
mencing chapter ii. 4. The descrepancies
between the two accounts are very fully in-
dicated, and the different points of view
from which they were written explained.

The author then gives a chapter on the
" Testimony of Archaeology," describing the
Assyrian tablets of the Genesis, and he lays
special stress on the occurrence of the deity
II in the Chaldean Pantheon, and shows its
equivalence to the Hebrew El-Eloah, with
its plural Elohim, and of the Arabic Allah.
The author concludes that the legends of
the creation having existed for a long time
as oral traditions, were committed to writ-
ing before the union of the kingdoms, or
before 2234 b. c, when Abraham, according
to Biblical chronology, was not yet born.
The date of Moses is about 1245 b. c,
that of Menephthah, the Pharaoh of the
Exodus. The Chaldean account is thus about
a thousand years older than the composition
of the Biblical legends. Interesting chap-
ters follow on the myths of the old world
which resemble those of Genesis.

The author then proceeds to the " testi-
mony of facts." Here the descrepancies
between the two accounts in Genesis and the
discoveries of science are clearly pointed
out. In his " Conclusion " and " Philoso-
phy," the last two chapters of the book, the
author contends that the literal teaching of
the book of Genesis is hurtful to the minds
of children, and an impediment to the gen-

eral progress of mankind. Unessential as
much of the scientific criticism, directed
against the ethical portions of Scripture, is
seen to be, such criticism must be appropri-
ate when directed against a portion which
deals almost exclusively with statements of
facts. A classification of the treatment of
religion by the Indo-European and Semitic
races is attempted by the author, in which
he shows that the leaning of the Indo-Euro-
pean religions is toward the intellectual side
of the mind in its treatment of external ob-
jects. On the other hand, the leaning of
the Semitic religions is toward the emotional
side in its treatment of human conduct and
family relations. The Gods of the two ac-
counts in Genesis, expressed by nouns plural
in form, mark a reminiscence of a preceding
plurality of deities, and are plainly not con-
sistent with monotheism. There has been,
on the one hand, a growth in the direction of
a recognition of a universal God, who at
one time was tribal and national ; and, on
the other hand, there has been a progress in
the direction of a recognition of one God,
the final cause of nature, who has absorbed
the minor deities into himself.

With regard to the two accounts in Gene-
sis, the author concludes that we have to do
with an original myth which had undergone
many changes before it was cast into the two
shapes in which we find it in the Hebrew
Bible. Since that time, and when the latter
could no longer change, many differing con-
ceptions of the origin of things have found
their orthodoxy in a play upon the meaning
of the words and a distortion of their true
intent. A lax wording, a shorter and more
general statement, a monotheistic concep-
tion, give an elasticity to the story of Gene-
sis, and a certain adaptiveness to later dis-
coveries ; but, in its treatment of the heavens
and heavenly bodies in the little bit of the
earth on which its miracles are performed,
it is still akin to the notions of the Homeric
ages with regard to the universe.

The book is characterized by directness
of argument, and the best material has been
diligently used. There can be no reason-
able objection to its temper and tone, and,
we think, its thorough fairness. Written
with the object of giving a good foundation
to those who have been led to reject the in-
spiration of Genesis, there is nothing in it

LITERARY ^WTICES.

707

Mliich ought to be offensive to those who
still accept that inspiration ; rather is there
abundant material for a careful resurvey of
tlieir position in the face of the new facts.
The archaeologist and philologist will find
tuany new points in the book, which is note-
worthy for its additions to science as well
as for its distinctive literary merits.

The Physical History of the Triassic
Formation of New Jersey and the Con-
necticut Valley. By Israel C. Rus-
sell. 1878.

The Triassic of New Jersey and of the
Connecticut Valley are supposed by the
author to be parts of one formation, which
was continuous over the intervening area.
The deposit, he thinks, could not have been
less than 25,000 feet thick, all or nearly
all of which has been removed by denuda-
tion, excepting the beds which remain in
the Connecticut Valley and New Jersey.
Professor Dana, commenting on this sub-
ject in the April number of the " American
Journal of Science and Arts," says, " That
a thickness of 25,000 feet of water made
sandstone over an area of metamorphic
rock a hundred miles wide, as in the pres-
ent instance, implies a subsidence of the
region of 25,000 feet during its formation."
There must also have been an elevation
of not only 25,000 feet, but enough more
to give a pitch of the slopes of about 15° as
now shown. This would put the western
side of the Connecticut Valley 20,000 feet
above the eastern side, and the site of New
York City some 15,000 to 20,000 feet above
its present level, with 25,000 feet of sand-
stone over it.

Erasmus Darwin. By Ernst Krause.
Translated from the German by W. S.
Dallas, with a Preliminary Notice by
Charles Darwin. Portrait and Wood-
cuts. Pp. 216. Price, $1.25.

Tnis interesting little volume will be wel-
comed by many readers, as it gives a fresh
and compendious account of a man of ge-
nius whose name was celebrated in the last
century, and is now brought into new prom-
inence by the world-wide eminence of his
grandson. Dr. Erasmus Darwin, who was
born in 1731, and died in 1802, made a con-
siderable impression upon his age as a poet
and naturalist. He took a view of organic

nature very similar to that developed in our
own time by Mr. Charles Darwin, although
his speculations were crude from the imper-
fection of knowledge, and were, of course,
regarded as in the last degree wild and base-
less. His poetry, although in some respects
meritorious, was not of the highest order,
and was but little read after he had passed
away ; and, as his biological doctrines were
regarded as futile and worthless, there was
little to keep his memory alive in the present
century. But attention to what he did in
science has been recently revived, and the
more critical study of his works now shows
that his claims and character have been
greatly depreciated. The present volume
has first done justice to his fame.

Mr. Charles Darwin, in his "Origin of
Species," made a short note concerning his
grandfather's biological opinions, and this
struck the attention of Dr. Krause, a Ger-
man savant, who entered upon a careful
study of the writings of the elder Darwin,
and published a biographical and critical es-
say upon the subject in the " Kosmos." In
this essay Dr. Krause says : " This man,
equally eminent as philanthropist, physician,
naturalist, philosopher, and poet, is far less
known and valued by posterity than he de-
serves, in comparison with other persons who
occupy a similar rank. It is true that what
is perhaps the most important of his many-
sided endowments, namely, his broad views
of the philosophy of nature, was not intel-
ligible to his contemporaries ; it is only now,
after the lapse of a hundred years, that by
the labors of one of his descendants we are
in a position to estimate at its true value the
wonderful perceptivity, amounting almost to
divination, that he displayed in the domain
of biology. For in him we find the same
indefatigable spirit of research, and almost
the same biological tendency, as in his grand-
son ; and we might, not without justice, as-
sert that the latter has succeeded to an in-
tellectual inheritance, and carried out a pro-
gramme, sketched forth and left behmd by
his grandfather."

Mr. Charles Darwin procured a transla-
tion of Dr. Krause's article, and, being in
possession of much information that he had
gathered in relation to his eminent ancestor,
he has written a preliminary sketch which
occupies 127 pages of the volume before us.

7o8

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

It gives an excellent account of its subject,
supplementing Dr. Krause's paper, so that
the readers of the book will be able to form
not only a proper estimate of the man, but
the condition of science in his time. A life
of Erasmus Darwin, published in 1804, was
written by a Miss Seward, but it seems to
have contained certain gross misrepresenta-
tions of his character, which it iS one of the
objects of the present sketch to dispel. The
authoress of the biography was long an in-
mate of Dr. Darwin's family, and when his
first wife died would have been glad to take
her place. But the Doctor chose another
lady, and Miss Seward paid them both off in
her biographical book. She subsequently re-
tracted her objectionable statements, but the
erroneous impressions, created by her book,
were widely disseminated.

Mr. Darwin writes unreservedly but ju-
dicially of his grandfather's traits, and re-
marks that perhaps there is no safer test
of a man's real character than that of his
long-continued friendship with good and able
men. Darwin's intimate and almost life-
long friends were such men as Josiah Wedg-
wood, Keir the chemist. Day, the author of
" Sandford and Merton," Bolton and Watt
the engineers, and Mr. Edgeworth. A

force, aided by atmospheric and meteoro-
logical influences. ... Its force was ex-
pended in eroding, cutting down, and re-
moving mineral matter from a higher to a
lower level." He does not believe it is pos-
sible for glaciers to make erosions to so great
depths " as the beds of some of the great
Northern lakes." The volume contains an
excellent ^aper on archeology, a table of
altitudes, catalogues of fossils and of recent
flora, and, what is of especial value, "A
Catalogue and Check-list of the Trees and
Woody Shrubs of America north of Mexi-
co." This was prepared by John W. Byr-
kit, Esq., of Indianapolis. The volume has
a very full index.

Modern Meteorologt. A Series of Six
Lectures delivered under the Auspices
of the London Meteorological Society in
1878. Illustrated. New York : D. Van
Nostrand. 1879. Price, $1.50.

These lectures make a volume of 186
pages, and are a useful contribution to the
science of meteorology. The subjects are
treated in a somewhat elementary manner,
but in the light of the latest researches.
The first, and perhaps the most important
lecture of the series, is by Robert James

likeness of Dr. Darwin accompanies the vol- | ^^^°' ^- ^•' ^- 1^- ^- ^•. ^tc, on "The Phys

ume, together with engravings of his birth-
place, Elston Hall, and the Breadsall Priory,
near Derby, where he lived for many years,
and in which he died.

Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Annual Re-
ports OF THE Geological Survey of In-
diana, for the Years 1876, 1877, 1878.
By E. T. Cox, State Geologist, assisted
by Professor John Collett and Dr. G.
M. Letette. Indianapolis, 1879.

These reports make a volume of 541
pages, and are illustrated by numerous
diagrams and maps. The detailed reports
are of three counties — Wayne, Crawford,
and Harrison. These, as well as special
reports on clays, cements, building-stone,
etc., are well written, and show thorough
work. A general review of the geology of
the State by Professor Cox presents his
conclusions on several points of interest.
Of the glacial epoch, he says : " I see no
evidence of a subsidence of land to ter-
minate the glacial period, which continued

ical Properties of the Atmosphere," and
is a model of lucid scientific statement.
Others are on "Air Temperature, its Dis-
tribution and Range " ; " The Barometer
and its Uses, Wind and Storms " ; " Clouds
and Weather Signs " ; " Rain, Snow, Hail,
and Atmospheric Electricity " ; and " The
Nature, Methods, and General Objects of
Meteorology." This last, by Robert H.
Scott, F. R. S., Secretary to the Meteorologi-
cal Council, is worth careful perusal by both
scientists and the general reader.

The Great Fur Land, or Sketches of Life
in the Hudson's Bay Territory. By H.
M. Robinson. With numerous Illustra-
tions. New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons.
1879. Price, $1.75.

The fact that much of the contents of
this volume first appeared in "Appletons'
Journal " and " Harper's " and other maga-
zines, does not detract from its value. It
is a picturesque and thoroughly readable
account of life and scenery in the region

until brought to a close by its own erosive I occupied by the Hudson's Bay Company, and

LITERARY NOTICES.

709

some of the pictures are uncommonly well
drawn. The descriptions of the great fall
hunt, of the manners and habits of the
hunters, of traveling over the vast prairies
during winter, of the mirage and other at-
mospheric phenomena, are excellent, and,
although there is no attempt at scientific
statement, they give one a good idea of the
extent of an important industry, and of the
kind of life adopted by those who pursue it.

The Berea Sandstone of Ohio. By Pro-
fessor Edward Orton, of the Ohio State
University. Pp. 9.

This is a review of the facts brought
out by the Geological Survey of Ohio, con-
cerning one of the most important geologi-
cal formations of the State, the Berea sand-
stone. It extends in a continuous line of
outcrop more than four hundred miles,
through twenty-one counties, the stone of
best quality, however, being found at Be-
rea, in Cuyahoga County, whence its name.
Building-stones and grindstones, to the
amount of several million dollars, are an-
nually obtained from this enormous deposit.
The facts presented by Professor Orton are
not only interesting from an economic point
of view, but are of special value to the ge-
ologist.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Report on Magnetic Determinations in Mis-
Bonri. By Francis B. Nipher. Pp. 24, with
Map.

Report of the Commisisioners of Fisheries of
California for 1878 and 1879. Pp. 61.

Indian Corn. By E Lewis Sturtevant, M. D.,
Soath Framingham, Massachusstta. 1880. Pp.
31.

"The American Entomologist.' Edited by
Charles V. Riley and A. S. Fuller. Monthly.
Vol. I. New Series. No. 1. January, 1880.
New York : Max Jsegerhuber, Publisher, 323
Pearl Street. Pp. 24. "$2 per annum.

Responsibility restricted by Insane Delu-
sion. By T. L. Wright. Bellefontaine, Ohio.
Pp. 16.

How to learn Short-Hand. Baker. New
York: S. R. Wells & Co. 1880. Pp. 43.

Notes of Students' Work in the Chemical
Laboratory of the University of Virginia. No.
Vin. Commuuicatedby J. W. Mallet. London,
1879. Pp.14.

Relation? of Railroads to the Public. By F.
B. Thurber, of New York City. Pp. 18.

The Origin of Force. By Stephen C. Hutchins.
Albany. 1879. Pp. 8.

Some Additional Notes on Ozone. Pp. 22.
Contributions from the Laboratory of the Ste-
vens Institute of Technology. By Albert R.
Leeds, Ph.D. Pp.13. Reprints from "Journal
of American Chemical Society."

Solar Parallax from the Velocity of Light.
By D. P.Todd, M. A. Pp. 6.

Thirty-fourth Annual Report of the Director
of the Astronomical Observatory of Harvard
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New Characters of Mosasauroid Reptiles.
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710

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

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POPULAR MISCELLANY.

Action of Organic Acids oa Minerals.—

At a recent meeting of the New York Acad-
emy of Sciences, Professor H. Carrington
Bolton, of Trinity College, Hartford, com-
municated the results of a continuation of
his researches on the behavior of minerals
with organic acids. In a previous paper
(read in 18*77) he gave the reactions of
ninety-five minerals with citric acid ; in the
present paper he extended the investigation
to two hundred species. Dr. Bolton stated
that citric acid has a power of decomposing
all classes of minerals little less than that
possessed by hydrochloric acid, and that
this very difference in degree gives the or-
ganic acid an advantage over the mineral
acid in the determination of species. Be-
sides treating the minerals with a saturated
solution of citric acid, he examined the ac-
tion of the same solution, to which solid
sodium nitrate is added. This mixture
proves to be a very powerful solvent, dis-
solving bismuth, antimony, arsenic, copper,
lead, tin, mercury, and silver, and nearly
all the natural sulphides. The addition of
solid potassium iodide to the solution of
citric acid also greatly increases its decom-
posing power. Applying these reagents to
minerals, Dr. Bolton obtained the following

results : 1. Complete solution of carbonates,
with liberation of carbonic - acid gas. 2.
More or less complete decomposition of
oxides, phosphates, etc. 3. More or less
complete decomposition of sulphides, with
liberation of sulphuretted hydrogen. 4.
Decomposition of sulphides, with oxidation
of the sulphur. 5. Decomposition of sili-
cates, with separation of slimy or gelatinous
silica. 6. Decomposition of certain species,
with formation of characteristic precipitates.
7. Wholly negative action. The exact be-
havior of each of the two hundred minerals
was given in a printed table, copies of
which the speaker distributed to the audi-
ence. The application of this investigation
is twofold: 1. The utility of the methods
in field-work, owing to the portability of
the reagents in a dry state; and, 2. The
relation of these reactions to the geological
work of the organic acids of the soil. The
latter point is of much importance, and
merits further researches.

How Snakes shed their Skins.— Under
the title "About Snakes" in this depart-
ment of our last number, we gave Dr. H. F.
Hutchinson's mode of accounting for the
way snakes get out of their old skins. Pro-
fessor Samuel Lockwood, of Freehold, New
Jersey,, has witnessed the process, and, froni
a description of it given in his own inimit-
able style in a late number of "Nature,"
we gather the following interesting facts,
which, as will be seen, do not support the
hypothesis of Dr. Hutchinson: A female
snake had already begun to cast her skin
when Professor Lockwood made his first ob-
servation, but the process was going on very
slowly. The skin was slightly torn at the
snout, and the head and a little of the neck
were denuded. As it separated from the
neck it had a sort of "back-creeping as-
pect " ; there was no rubbing against exterior
objects, and indeed it looked as if the change
going on might be the work of an invisible
power. Closer observation showed that
there was a systematic alternate swelling
of the body at the neck of the skin, thus
stretching it, and making a shoulder in front
of this neck, each swelling pushing the loos-
ened skin a little backward. As soon as the
process reached the larger ribs it went on
more rapidly, and in the following way:

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

711

" Exactly at the place where the skin seems
to be moving backward, a pair of ribs ex-
pands. This action enlarges or puffs out
the body, and by stretching loosens the skin
at that place. In this movement both ribs
in the pair act at the same time, just as the
two blades of the scissors open together.
Now comes a second movement of this pair
of ribs, in which action the two ribs alter-
nate with each other. One of them — say
the one on the right side — is pushed forward
and made to slip out of and in front of the
constriction made by the swelling, when it
immediately works backward, that is, against
the neck of the double receding skin. Now
the left rib makes a like advance, and in a
similar manner presses backward." Thus,
for every backward movement of the invert-
ing skin, there are three rhythmic move-
ments : First, the expansion of one pair of
ribs ; second, the swelling of the body at that
spot ; and, third, the pushing back of the skin
by the alternate action of each rib. " The
cast-off skin is presented inside out, so that
every scale is now seen on its under or con-
cave side, and this is also true of the eye-
scales. To all this there is one exception ,'
the last scale of the tail is a hollow pyrami-
dal or four-sided spike. . . . When the shed-
ding has reached this scale a sharp shake of
the extremity is sufficient, and the unevert-
ed spike is left inside of its everted skin."
The entire process witnessed by Professor
Lockwood took only half an hour, but he
says that if a snake is in poor health the
casting of its old clothes takes longer and is
a much more difficult matter.

A New Food-Fish. — Among the many re-
markable results given in the last report of
the United States Fish Commission is the
discovery of a very important food-fish, en-
tirely unknown to our fishermen. It is a
large flounder, the Gbjptocephalus cynoglos-
sus, and is known in Europe as the pole or
craig. But in Europe it is far from being
plentiful, and is highly esteemed as having
some of the best qualities of the turbot,
especially the presence of that delicious ge-
latinous fat along the fins. Much of the
work of the Commission has consisted of
dredging in water of various depths. While
trawling with a beam at distances from five
to ten miles from the shore, the fish was dis-

covered, and in great quantities ; so great, in-
deed, that a fifteen to twenty mmutes' drag
would sometimes furnish as many as five
hundred pounds of the fish. The reason
that this fish has not been known hitherto
is due to the fact that the beam-trawl, the
only apparatus by which it can be taken, is
not used by our American fishermen, as it
is by those of Europe. The mouth of this
large flounder is so small that a hook small
enough to be swallowed would not sustain
the weight of the fish. There is every rea-
son to expect that this fish will soon take its
place in our markets. The Commission have
also brought to light new sjxcies of food-fish-
es i. e., of fishes supposed hitherto as only
living in the colder waters of Greenland and
Scandinavia. These, too, American enter-
prise will yet bring to our markets ; but, to
do so, fishing must be carried on two or it
may be three hundred miles from the coast.

I Improved Method of diving and staying

; under Water. — The apparatus now in use
for supplying air to divers engaged in sub-
marine operations is both cumbrous and
j unsafe, the air-tube limiting the movements
j of the diver, and, by its liability to become
! entangled and crushed, causing a risk that
the supply of air for respiration may be cut
j off altogether. A new method, in which
these drawbacks are escaped by dispensing
entirely with the air-tube and pumps, has
been invented by a Mr. Fleuss in England,
and lately exhibited at the Royal Polytech-
nic Institute in London. Dr. B. W. Rich-
ardson was given an opportunity to closely
watch its operation, and from his description
in " Nature " we glean the following account
of the experiments ; The pecuharity of the
method consists in the diver's taking a full
supply of air-food down with him, which
dispenses with pumping, no help being
needed except a signal-man and cord. Mr.
Fleuss is both inventor and diver. He de-
scends into the water in an orainary diver's
dress. It consists of helmet, breastplate, and
common water-tight armings and leggings.
On his shoulders he carries a weight of
ninety-six pounds, and on his boots twenty
pounds. A light cord is attached to the
helmet for signaling to the person above.
Before the mask is closed and the helmet
adjusted, an " ori-nasal mouthpiece," with

712

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

a breathing-tube of an inch bore proceeding
downward, is firmly tied over the mouth and
nose. Dr. Kichardson carefully observed two
experiments, one of twenty minutes' length,
and another of an hour ; and was assured
by the diver that ' when under water he
breathed as freely and easily as in the air.
This was confirmed by his appearance and
condition at the end of the longest experi-
ment. He moved about on the floor of the
tank, picked up coins, and could lie down
and get up without difiiculty. The exact
mode by which breathing is effected Mr.
Fleuss declares to be extremely simple,
though it still remains a secret, but it is
wholly carried on within the apparatus, not
even the expired air becoming apparent in
the water. The facts demonstrate that, with-
out assistance from above, a man who has
had no previous experience of diving or re-
maining under water can take down with
him sufiicient oxygen to live there easily for
an hour ; and but for the cold the diver as-
serted that he could have remained another
hour and a quarter, and that he could easily
arrange to remain four hours. Depth he
said would make no difference as to breath-
ing within the apparatus. Dr. Richardson
is enthusiastic over the practical possibili-
ties of the discovery. If a man can thus
take his stock of breathing material with
him, and live for hours without external ac-
cess of air, he may extend the field of his
industries and investigations into the deep
sea, or the most rarefied atmospheres, into
mines filled with choke-damp, or amid the
suffocating smoke of conflagrations, without
fear of consequences.

Saicide of the Scorpion.— The following
facts, as stated by Mr. Allen Thomson in
" Nature," throw some light on the mooted
question of the seK-destruction of scorpions.
He states that while residing at Lucca, in
Italy, he was greatly annoyed by the intru-
sion into the house of small black scor-
pions, which secreted themselves in bed-
clothing and articles of dress. Having
been informed by the natives that this ani-
mal would destroy itself if exposed to a sud-
den light, attempts were made to dispose of
the pest in the manner suggested. When
one was caught it was accordingly confined
under an inverted glass until evening, when

the light of a candle was brought near it.
At this, the scorpion showed great excite-
ment, rushing round the glass with reckless
speed. This state lasted for a minute or
two, when the animal suddenly became quiet,
and turning his tail over its back brought
the recurved sting down upon the middle of
its head. Soon it became motionless, and
in fact dead.

Electricity and Vegetation. — Several
months ago M. Grandcau and M. Leclerc
described to the Paris Academy experiments
on the influence of electricity on vegetation.
From these it appeared that flowering and
fructification are retarded whenever plants
are excluded from this agent. Recently M.
Naudin has been examining the subject, re-
peating the experiments of Grandeau and
Leclerc under different circumstances, and
with widely different results. He regards
the question as a complex one, and far
from being yet settled. The influence of
electricity on plants is probably modified
by the species, by climate, season, tempera-
ture, dry or wet weather, degree of light ;
possibly, also, by the geological and miner-
alogical structure of the ground. Until we
are better acquainted with these obscure
conditions of the problem, any conclusion
applied to the whole of the vegetable king-
dom is premature,

Transmissibility of Human Rabies.—

Whether hydrophobia can be transmitted
from man to man, or from man to the low-
er animals, has long been a- disputed ques-
tion, with little scientific evidence on either
side ; some recent observations, however,
by M. Raynaud, in the Lariboisiere Hos-
pital, in Paris, would seem sufficiently con-
clusive to put an end to all uncertainty on
the subject. A man was brought to the
hospital suffering from rabies, having been
bitten by a dog on the lip forty days before.
The wound was cauterized two hours after
it was made, and no serious apprehensions
were felt about the result until a few days
before he entered the hospital, when the
usual symptoms of hydrophobia appeared.
The day before his death, in a quiet inter-
val, he yielded with the best grace to ex-
periments in inoculation which were made
with his blood and his saliva. The result

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

713

of inoculating a rabbit with the blood was
negative (as in the great majority of pre-
vious cases of inoculation with blood of ani-
mals under rabies). But with the saliva it
was different. A rabbit inoculated in the
ear and abdomen on the 11th of October
began to show symptoms of rabies on the
15th, being much excited and damaging the
walls of its cage, while it uttered loud cries
and slavered at the mouth. Then it fell
iuto collapse and died the following night.
The rabbit's body was dissected thirty-six.
hours after death, and further experiment
was made by taking fragments of the right
and left submaxillary glands and introduc-
ing them under the skin of two other rab-
bits respectively. These two rapidly suc-
cumbed, one on the fifth, the other on the
sixth day (becoming visibly ill on the third) ;
neither passed through a fui'ious stage,
however, and the predominant feature was
paralysis. The important practical result
is, that human saliva, such as caused rabies
in the rabbit, is necessarily virulent, and
would probably have corresponding effects
on man; so that it should be dealt with
cautiously, and that not only during the life
of the person furnishing it, but in post-mor-
tem examinations.

The Agency of Plants in Earth-Bnilding.

— The important question of the part taken
by plants in earth-building is discussed by
Professor Ernst Hallier, of Jena, in a popu-
lar essay on " Plants and Man in their In-
terrelations." The contributions made by
the vegetable world to the formation of
the crust of the earth are most obviously
shown in the beds of peat and coal, the
remains of former immense forests and
swamps. These formations, remarkable
and important as they are, Professor Hal-
lier observes, are far exceeded by the less
apparent changes which are effected by the
agency of plants. The deposits of fresh-
water limestones are largely the results of
plant-action. Nearly all the streams in cal-
careous regions bring down carbonate of
lime in solution as a bicarbonate. Their
waters being charged with carbonic acid or
having absorbed it from the air, are by its
aid enabled to act upon the otherwise insol-
uble carbonate of lime, and to take up a
quantity of it proportioned to the amount of

carbonic acid they contain. This dissolved
lime is in its turn converted by the plants
which grow in and under the water into
stone. All the carbon that is needed for
the organic world, arumals as well as plants,
is obtained through the action of plants
in extracting carbonic acid from the air.
Plants and those parts of plants which are
under water do not stand in direct relations
with atmospheric air, but are dependent on
the carbonic acid which is held in the water,
and, when this is exhausted, on the dissolved
bicarbonate of lime. A part of the car-
bonic acid is taken up from this substance
by the chlorophyl-cells, while the other
part remains fixed in the lime in the form
of simple carbonate of lime. Since the lat-
ter is insoluble in water, it is deposited just
where it happens to be, which in this case
is on the surface of the plant, and this be-
comes covered with a coating of limestone.
Fresh supplies of water bring down new
stores of carbonic acid and the dissolved
bicarbonate of lime, and the plants continue
their work of converting the latter into the
insoluble carbonate. Thus the work goes
on unceasingly, and crust on crust of lune-
stone is deposited on millions of small
plants. The plants themselves die, wholly
incased in stone, but new ones succeed
them, and the layers of petrified plants bear
in continuous succession a green coating of
growing plants. Strata are added to strata,
and the limestones grow enormously through
the quiet activity of the charae, mosses,
reeds, grasses, and other plants in the water.
Fresh-water limestones are thus still in pro-
cess of formation in all limestone regions.
The minor valleys of the Thuringian Valley
contain large bodies of soft, fresh-water
limestones, in which the forms of the plants
to whose action they are due may be plain-
ly recognized, partly in incrustations, part-
ly in impressions, mixed with fresh-water
shells and with remains of the trees which
once grew on the shore. The material,
though soft, has been used in the manufac-
ture of a building-stone out of which cities
like Jena and many towns have been built.
Rock-building of this kind has been going
on ever since there was a growth of plants
on the earth, and has during that time
played a considerable part in forming the
crust of the earth. Other far smaller plants

714

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

are occupied in building up rocks, in com-
parison with the work of which, the labor
of the plants we have considered may be
called insignificant. The diatoms, which
live in fresh and salt waters, are the small-
est of all organisms. They were once
thought to be animals, but are now regard-
ed as plants, and are one-celled structures
which have the property of sucking up large
quantities of carbonic acid from the water
and storing it in their cell- walls. They in-
crease by repeated divisions and subdivis-
ions of their cells, and build up rocks by
their simple presence. They multiply with
such prodigious rapidity, and the number
of their genera and species is so great, that
under favorable conditions, as in the shal-
lows and muddy flats of the seashores and
in wet places in the interior, they contribute
the substance of whole strata by leaving
behind them when they die their silicated
cell-walls, which become consolidated with
the earthy materials into a harder or softer
rock-formation. The magnitude of the oper-
ations of this kind that are going on in the
present epoch is illustrated in the Liineberg
heath, where the diatomaceous formation is
more than thirty feet thick. The city of
Berlin is built upon a bed of clay of from six
to one hundred feet thick, two thirds of the
mass of which consist of diatoms. There
is a puzzling feature in the life of these
diatoms. They contain a coloring matter,
dialomin, which is similar to chlorophyl in
its properties and in having the power of
abstracting carbonic acid from the air and
water. It is hard to understand how this
power can be exercised where the light does
not penetrate. Yet a great mass of the di-
atom bed under Berlin is living and active,
and streets and houses have been disturbed
by its growth. The functions which the
diatoms perform in the present history of
the earth were also exei'cised by them dur-
ing the earliest epochs of which we know,
and probably in still earlier times.

Intelligence of a Pet Monkey.— A writer in
" Chambers's Journal " vouches for the truth
of the following story about a pet monkey,
which, even if taken with many grains of
allowance, exhibits a remarkable degree of
intelligence that, in many respects, seems
scarcely less than human : " Peter " be-

longed to an officer in the British Army,
and was a large and powerful specimen of
his class. He was a general favorite, his
unusual sagacity and varied accomplish-
ments forming a source of endless amuse-
ment, and, although somewhat mischievous,
his gentleness of disposition and genuine
love of fun readily secured forgiveness for
occasional annoying pranks. Unfortunate-
ly, however, Peter had an enemy in the per-
son of a diminutive and unpopular subal-
tern, to whom he appears, in some mysteri-
ous way, to have rendered himself particu-
larly obnoxious. During a temporary ab-
sence of his master the monkey was in-
trusted to the care of a brother officer,
who, being anxious that he should suffer
no harm, chained him to a chest of draw-
ers in his own room. This well-meant re-
straint did not coincide with Peter's desire
for freedom, and, left to his own resources,
he sought about for some means of diver-
sion. Having first forced open the locks
of all the drawers, he strewed their contents
upon the floor, and seated himself in the
midst, " monarch of all he surveyed." Next,
discovering an inkstand within reach, he
bedaubed with its contents every article be-
longing to his hospitable entertainer. When
his host returned, Peter appeared totally
unconscious of having been guilty of the
slightest misdemeanor. He was not pun-
ished, but summarily dismissed from his
comfortable quarters and allowed to wander
freely about the barracks. All went well
for a time, but, later in the course of one
of his rambles, Peter unluckily encountered
his enemy, and, springing upon the shoulder
of the irate and alarmed subaltern in the
presence of a large number of officers and
men, he nearly succeeded in drawing the
sword of his victim, who, according to re-
port, was not at all likely to draw it him-
self. The ludicrous position of the latter,
amid the loud laughter of the men, served
only to increase the subaltern's hatred of
the popular monkey. Shortly after this,
Peter was fired at and seriously injured.
Though it was impossible to prove who was
guilty of this cowardly act, it was natural-
ly attributed to the subaltern, who, it was
well known, had never forgiven the indig-
nity inflicted upon him in public. Peter's
friends exerted themselves to save his life ;

POP ULAR MIS CELL ANY.

715

the slugs were extracted, and he was soon
convalescent. At this juncture his master
returned, and the joy of the monkey was
unbounded. " He clung to him and fondly
embraced him over and over again, repeat-
edly kissing or rather licking his face and
hands, with every possible demonstration of
the most devoted attachment." When the
first paroxysm of delight was over, Peter
clasped the arm of his friend to bespeak
special attention, " pointed with his own
forefinger to each of the wounds whence
the slugs had been taken, trying at the
same time, in the nearest approach to speech
that he could accomplish, to tell the piteous
story of his narrow escape from a violent
death. ... It is questionable if the most
intellectual of human beings not gifted
with the power of speech could have acted
more pathetically, or indicated more vividly
what had occurred to them during the ab-
sence of their natural protector and dearest
friend."

Aaaonneement of Astronomical Discov-
eries.— For the purpose of making astro-
nomical discoveries known to the public,
speedily and in a systematic manner, Lord
Lindsay has devised a plan for international
communication of such information, and
sent circulars to the leading observatories,
public and private, everywhere. He prom-
ises to distribute notices of discovery within
twenty-four hours of the receipt of the tele-
gram to those who favor him with their ad-
dresses. The following is the substance of
his circular:

TnE Obseevatobt, Dun Echt, Aberdeek,
November 1, 1ST9.
Sir: I am very anxious to form some system
whereby information of astrouomical interest
may be rapidly and widely disseminated among
English observers, and I would beg to ask for
your assistance in carrying out my plan. In the
event of your discovering a comet, new star, or
other object of immediate interest, I would ask
you to send me a telegram announcing the dis-
covery, and giving such details as are usual. I
have purposely omitted to mention minor planet
discoveries, inasmuch as this branch is already
admirably carried out by the Berlin Observatory.
For convenience, the telegram should be in the
form recommended by the Vienna Academy in
the seventy-fifth volume of the " Astronomlsche
Nachrichten," No. 1785, page 142, as follows :
Comet (new star, etc.), discoverer, date, local
mean time of observation (in hours and minutes),
place of discovery, right ascension in arc (de-

grees and minutes), north polar distance (degrees
and minutes), daily motion in R. A. and N. P. D.
(minutes of arc), plus or minus, description,
diameter of comet, etc. (in minutes of arc).

Thus a telegram would run :

Comet Wiunecke, 5 April, 1445. Strasburg,
3315707508. Motion 0, minus 60.

This would read :

Comet discovered by Winnecke, 5th of April,
14 hours 45 minutes mean time, Strasburg,
R. A., 331' 57', N. P. D., 75° 8'. Daily motion,
stationary, R. A., minus 60' in polar distance.

Naughts should be put iu where there are no
significant figures, so as to make three figures
for degrees and two for minutes (five in all), in
R. A. and in N. P. D. ; similarly, four in the local
time.

Telegrams, etc., should be addressed Observa-
tory. Dun Echt, Aberdeen.

(Signed) Lindsay,

President Royal Astronomical Society.

Arsenic in tlie Bonsehold and School.—

When somebody is accused of having dosed
a fellow mortal to death with arsenic, State
authority and newspaper interest immedi-
ately vie with each other in their efforts for
the protection of human life. Unfortu-
nately, however, both are much less alive
to other and far greater dangers arising
from the reckless employment in the arts
and manufactures, and the ignorant intro-
duction into our households, of this same
deadly poison. Its use in the preparation of
pigments is very common, and the employ-
ment of these for coloring articles of attire
and for the various styles of paperhangings is
scarcely less so. Not only are those engaged
in the manufacture of these coloring matters
exposed to the deleterious influence of the
poison, but far larger numbers ignorantly
purchase and use the articles containing it,
and in a way that makes its action but lit-
tle less virulent than the direct administra-
tion of the pure drug. Instances of this
are constantly recurring in medical practice.
Socks colored with compounds containing
arsenic have produced disease of the feet ;
boots lined with flannel colored with Scheele's
green have caused the death of their wear-
ers ; bright maroon-colored flannel worn next
the skin, paper collars, neckties, hat-linings,
gloves, artificial flowers, and even ladies'
dresses, have all been the cause of disease
from the presence of this poison. Its use
for coloring wall-papers, and especially the
cheaper sorts, is almost universal ; and,
while the greens are probably the worst

7i6

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of the lot, they are by no means the only
ones containing arsenical pigments. A re-
cent number of the " Lancet " gives an ac-
count of an aggravated case of poisoning,
due to a red paper on the walls of a sitting-
room ; and arsenic has also been found in
white, gray, blue, mauve, and brown wall-
papers in abundance. As an instance of
the utter disregard of consequences shown
by manufacturers in the use of these pig-
ments, we may cite the statement published
by Miss Osborne, of the Sydney Hospital,
New South Wales, that large quantities of
poisonous pigments are consumed in that
colony in coloring sweetmeats for children.
We give in another place in this number a
letter from a chemist in Pittsburg, show-
ing an equally flagrant case of carelessness
in the manufacture and use of arsenical
papers for the operations of the kinder-
garten. People who thus disregard the
welfare of their fellows, scattering poison
broadcast in a way that neither age nor con-
dition can escape, are, we submit, entitled
to some small share of attention from the
press, and from the courts.

irtificial Diamonds.— The " todo " about
the artificial production of the diamond has
been set at rest by Professor Maskelyne,
who, in reply to numerous letters of inquiry
on the subject, sends to " Nature " the re-
sults of his examination of the Macteor
specimens which came into his hands for
the purpose. lie tested these so-called dia-
monds— 1. With reference to their hard-
ness ; 2. Their refracting power ; and, 3.
Their combustibility. The samples sent to
him were " too light to possess appreciable
weight, too small even to see, unless by very
good eyesight or with a lens," yet were suf-
ficiently large to serve his purpose. "A
few grains of the dust — for such the sub-
stance must be termed — were placed between
a plate cf topaz — a cleavage-face with its
fine, natural polish — and a polished surface
of sapphire, and the two surfaces were care-
fully * worked ' over each other with a view
to the production of lines of abrasion from
the particles between them. There was no
abrasion. Ultimately the particles became
bruised into a powder, but without scratch-
ing even the topaz. They were not diamond.
Secondly, some particles more crystalline in

appearance than the rest were mounted on
a glass microscope slide and examined in
the microscope with polarized light." They
each and all presented powerfully the prop-
erty of doubly refracting light. Finally, two
of these microscopic particles were exposed
to the intense heat of a table blowpipe on
a bit of platinum-foil. They did not burn.
They were afterward placed in contact witk
two little particles of diamond-dust, exceed,
ing them in size, and the experiment, on be.
ing repeated, " showed that the diamond
particles glowed and disappeared, while the
little particles from Glasgow were as obsti.
nate and as unacted on as before." When
subjected to a stream of oxygen gas the re-
sult was the same. Hence, Professor Mas-
kelyne concludes that the substance sup.
posed to be artificially formed diamond is
not diamond and is not carbon. Further ex-
periments led him to the conclusion that
it consisted of some crystallized silicate, or
possibly of more than one such.

The fate of the Glasgow diamonds has
induced Professor W. Mattieu Williams to
send to " Nature " an account of his experi-
ence in diamond-making, for the benefit of
those who may have an attack of the diamond
mania. He states that for the popular
class-room experiment of burning phospho-
rus in oxygen he used a cup of chalk, deep-
er and with a smaller rim than the brass
cups usually made for this purpose — the
object of this being to check too rapid out-
burst of combustion. He observed that a
cup, several times used for this purpose,
became coated on the inside with a hard,
glassy enamel, which he supposed to be
phosphate of lime. To test this, the cup
was thrown into hydrochloric acid and dis-
solved, but at the bottom there remained
a residue of insoluble crystalline particles.
" Could it be possible that the carbonic
acid, driven off by heating the chalk, had,
in reaching the heated phosphorus, become
dissociated, its oxygen combining with the
phosphorus, and its carbon thrown down
as veritable diamond ? " These crystalline
particles when tested were found to scratch
a glass pestle and mortar in which they
were rubbed, but were too small for further
examination. To obtain a better supply,
phosphorus was dissolved in bisulphide of

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

7^7

carbon, and this solution mixed witli pound-
ed chalk constituted a paste which was put
iuto a porcelain crucible, and the mass fired
by heating it over a Bunsen burner. " It
blazed magnificently, throwing out eruptive
jets of flame. Here, in the absence of sur-
rounding oxygen, the carbonic acid had ev-
ery opportunity of becoming dissociated or
reduced by the heated phosphorus." The
residue, treated with hydrochloric acid, yield-
ed a quantity of crystalline grains. These,
when tested, left scratches on the glass
mortar and pestle, and even seemed to leave
slight marks upon an agate pestle and mor-
tar. Examined, however, under a micro-
scope, they resembled pebbles more~tiearly
than crystals, and this fact led to the the-
ory that they were " miniature chalk-flints
formed by the fusion and aggregation of
the silicious cuticles of fossil diatoms."
This was tested by precipitating pure car-
bonate of lime, soaking it with the phos-
phorus solution, and, after firing it, treating
it with hydrochloric acid, when all trace of
dissociated carbonic acid disappeared, and
neither diamonds nor other crystalline resi-
due remained.

A New Preservatiye Process. — Herr
Wickerscheimer, preparator in the Zootomi-
cal Museum of Berlin, has invented a pro-
cess for preserving plants and the bodies of
animals, which has appeared to be of such
value that the Prussian Government has
procured the patent, and given it to the
public. The inventor describes the pro-
cess in his specifications as follows ; " I
prepare a fluid with which I impregnate the
object to be preserved in different ways,
according to its nature or the purpose I
have in view, or the manner in which I pre-
serve it. The bodies of men and animals
preserved by this process retain perfectly
their form, color, and suppleness, so that
we may take sections from them years af-
terward for the purposes of science or of
criminal justice. Under its operation, cor-
ruption and the insalubrious odors pro-
duced thereby cease. The muscular tissue
presents on cutting it a condition like that
of a fresh body. Finished preparations of
selected parts, as the ligaments, lungs, in-
testines, etc., preserve their softness and
flexibility, and the hollow parts may be

even blown out. The parts of bugs, crus-
taceans, and worms, remain movable with-
out exception. The colors may be made to
remain perfect if it is desired, in animal
as well as in vegetable bodies. The pre-
serving fluid is prepared as follows: In
3,000 grammes (46,500 grains) of boiling
water dissolve 100 grammes (1,550 grains)
of alum, 25 grammes (387 grains) of com-
mon salt, 12 grammes (186 grains of salt-
peter, 60 grammes (930 grains) of potash,
and 10 grammes (155 grains) of arsenious
acid. To ten quarts of the neutral colorless
and odorless fluid add four quarts of glycer-
ine and one quart of metylalcohol. The pro-
cess of preservation, which is applicable to
the dead bodies of men, dead animals, and
vegetables, as well as to single parts of
the same, consists, to speak generally, in
soaking them and impregnating them with
this mixture. If the preparations are to be
preserved dry, they are kept in the fluid
for from six to twelve days, according to
their size, then taken out and dried in the
air. The ligaments of skeletons, the mus-
cles, crustaceans, bugs, etc., will then re-
main soft and pliable, so that all the natu-
ral movements can be produced on them at
any time. Hollow organs, as the lungs, in-
testines, etc., are filled with the fluid before
being put into it. After taking them out
and pouring out the fluid from the inside,
they are dried, and should then be blown
out. If it is desired to preserve smaller ani-
mals, like lizards and frogs, and vegetables,
with their colors unchanged, they should not
be dried, but should be kept in the fluid. If
bodies of men or beasts are to lie for a
considerable time before being used for sci-
entific purposes, it is enough to infect them
with the preservative fluid. For this pur-
pose, I apply, according to the size of the
object, one and a half litre (about three
pints) of the fluid for a child of two years,
five litres (or quarts) for a grown person.
The muscles will appear then, even after
the lapse of years, fresh when cut. If the
infected bodies are kept in the air, they will
lose their fresh appearance, and the epider-
mis will become somewhat brown ; but that
may be avoided if the body is rubbed on the
outside with the fluid, and is then kept shut
up in an air-tight case. The last method is
recommended in the case of corpses which

7ii

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

are to be kept for some time before they are
buried ; instead of having the usual stiff look,
the features and color will seem fresh and
unchanged, and the bodies will not have a
trace of odor. For embalming, I infect the
corpse first, then put it into the fluid, and,
after keeping it there for a few days, rub it
and dry it, wrap it up in a cloth moistened
with the preserving fluid, and keep it in an
air-tight case. The treatment in diilerent
cases is governed by circumstances, but the
composition of the preserving fluid is always
the same."

Applications for Phylloxera.— M. Mouil-
lefert, of the Ecole Nationale d' Agriculture
of Grignon, reported to the Academy of
Sciences, Paris, November 10th, the results
which had been obtained from the treat-
ment of vines affected by the phylloxera
with sulpho - carbonate of potassa. The
efficacy of the salt appeared to be certain
when it was applied with water according to
the rules approved by the commission of
the Academy. Vines that were very much
weakened had been regenerated after such
treatment, became free from spots, and
bore fruit as they had done before they
were attacked. The importance of wa-
ter as the vehicle with which the remedy
should be applied was strongly insisted upon.
The sulpho-carbonate may be applied in all
weathers and in all seasons, even in the cold
months, without any danger to the vines ; up
to a certain dose (eighteen to twenty-five
ounces to the square yard), the remedial ef-
fects are in neai'ly a direct proportion to
the amount of the salt applied. At a sub-
sequent meeting of the same body, Decem-
ber 1st, M. Fremy disputed the value of the
sulphuret of carbon as a remedy for the
phylloxera, and asked several questions of
M. Thenard, who has recommended the ap-
plication of that substance, as follows : 1.
We know that sulphuret of carbon kills
the phylloxera, but it also kills the vines ;
can we find a certain way of securing the
former result while we avoid the latter ? 2.
Can sulphuret of carbon be easily and prac-
tically applied without affecting the health
of the vine-dressers ? 3. It is alleged that,
by sacrificing one third of the vines, we
can save the other two thirds ; is this true ?
4. Has the invasion of the phylloxera

been arrested anywhere by the employment
of sulphuret of carbon? Even if we are
pointed to an apparent instance of the fact,
we shall have to accept it with reserve ; for
cases are known in which vines which have
not been treated still remain healthy in the
midst of contaminated vineyards. M. The-
nard failed to give a precise reply to the
questions, which indicate very clearly the
qualities that are required in a safe and
efficacious remedy for the disease.

Parkes on Tobacco-Smoking.— We give
below a very interesting and instructive let-
ter written by the late Dr. Parkes, a short
time before his death, in reply to a request
for his views on the subject of tobacco-
smoking, and recently published in the
" Lancet " :

My dear Dr. Pratt : I think my state
of mind as regards tobacco is very much
what yours seems to be. I have honestly
tried to collect evidence from moderate
smokers, both medical men and others, and,
when tolerance has been established, I have
never been able to make out any symptoms
which impHcd injury. In the case of many
medical men whom I have asked to study
their own condition, the answer has always
been the same — viz., they could see no
harm or disturbance of any function. Even
in some cases of enormous smokers — i. c.,
men who rarely were without a pipe or cigar
— I could learn of no injury. On the other
hand, I have seen, like all of us, men com-
plaining of dyspepsia, nervousness, palpita-
tion, etc., and who were much better for leav-
ing off smoking ; in fact, in these cases there
could be no doubt of an injurious effect.
In boys of fourteen or fifteen who begin
to smoke, I think I have observed that tol-
erance is slowly attained, that appetite is
less, and I presume digestion and nutrition
less good, and that the complexion becomes
pasty and less florid and clear. There was
a striking case of this kind in the son of a
medical friend, who watched his son natu-
rally very carefully, and who told me that
the effect of the tobacco (a good deal was
smoked) was quite unmistakable. I per-
suaded the son to lessen his tobacco one
half, and his health certainly improved, but
he was then a young man. That some in-
jury, therefore, is sometimes produced, and

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

719

especially on young people, seems to me
quite clear ; but it is curious, in other cases,
how difficult it is to find ill effects, even in
the young, when the quantity is not exces-
sive. As to the eifect on the young even, it is
curious in Burmah to see children smoking
in their mothers' arms ; and yet when I was
serving in Burmah, many years ago, I often
saw a woman walking along smoking her
cigar of tobacco rolled up in a plantain-
leaf, and carrying on her hip her child of
two or three years old, who also had his or
her little cigar, which was smoked with the
greatest gravity. On talking to the Bur-
mese (who smoke constantly), they would
never allow that even young children were
in the least damaged. When I was in Tur-
key I tried to make inquiries of some of the
intelligent Turkish gentlemen; one or two
of them said that they thought the Turks
had learned to smoke from the Europeans^
and had been growing apathetic and dull
ever since. But others laughed at this, and
the rural Turk, who smokes a good deal,
is a fine, active, energetic fellow. I have
talked to many Germans, who all stand out
manfully for tobacco. In conclusion, I con-
fess myself quite uncertain. I can find
nothing like good evidence in books ; too
often a foregone conclusion, without any
evidence to back it, is given. I think we
must decidedly admit injury from excess;
from moderate use I can see no harm, ex-
cept it may be in youth. My opinions are,
you will see, very indefinite, and I would
gladly see some really good evidence col-
lected. If at any time you can send me any
facts, I shall be very grateful.

Believe me, very sincerely yours,

E. A. Paekes.
BiTTEENE, Southampton, January 28, 1876.

latoxicating Properties of the Hemp-
Planti — Mohammedans, Hindoos, and others,
whose religion forbids them the use of al-
cohol, find in this plant a substitute which,
though not so pleasant to the taste, is on the
whole far less injurious in its habitual use.
It is taken in various ways. Mixed with
tobacco, it is smoked in the hookah, and, to
those unaccustomed to it, smells abomina-
bly. It is also taken in decoction, and in a
solid form in sweetmeats. In ordinary
doses it acts as a gentle and pleasant stimu-
lant, exciting none of the brutal coarseness

produced by alcoholic excess. In larger
quantities it appears to banish all sense of
fear, and is often taken by the Indian sepoy
before entering into action ; and Moham-
medan fanatics brave death under its influ-
ence. On account of this property, the
Afghans are reported to have used it freely
in their recent war with the English, many
of the fierce onslaughts made by small par-
ties of natives on the foreign soldiery being
traceable to its effects. When taken in
excessive quantities it produces a form of
madness, characterized by a reckless pas-
sion to destroy every living thing that comes
in the maniac's way. It is related of an
English ofiicer at Delhi that, desiring to try
the effects of hemp on himself, he inadver-
tently took an overdose, and bareheaded, on
a scorching day in May, rushed down the
road, armed with a large knife, and fiercely
attacked a bullock, which was the first
thing he met. He was quickly secured and
disarmed, and, under the care of the doctor,
who shaved his head and applied ice, was
soon brought to his senses again.

Ccmmott Sense in Emergendes. — The

story is told of Brunei, the eminent engi-
neer and builder of the Thames Tunnel, that
one day, while amusing a child with tricks
of sleight-of-hand, he attempted one which
resulted in a serious accident to. himself,
and at the same time illustrated the danger
of playing pranks with the mouth. The
trick consisted in adroitly concealing a half
sovereign in his mouth and pretending to
bring it out at his ear. All at once to his
dismay the coin slipped down into his gul-
let, and there stuck in spite of every effort,
surgical or otherwise, to dislodge it. In this
dilemma common sense came to the rescue.
Brunei himself devised an apparatus to
which he was strapped head downward,
keeping his mouth open, when, to his inex-
pressible relief, the coin dropped from its
dangerous position and rolled out upon the
floor. A sword-swallower, who once lost a
bayonet in his throat during one of his pub-
lic performances, resorted to similar means
for recovering it, and was equally successful.

Passivity of Iron. — It has been observed
that iron which has been treated with con-
centrated nitric acid assumes a passive state
and refuses to be acted upon by the com-

720

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

mon or diluted acid, but the cause of the
property has not hitherto been satisfactorily
explained. M. Louis Varenne reported re-
cently to the French Academy of Sciences
that he had remarked that passivity was
destroyed and the metal could be made to
yield to the solvent action after a shock or
jar was given to it, or a current of carbonic
acid or hydrogen gas was passed over it.
He was led to believe that an envelope of
gas was formed around the metal which pro-
tected it, and, on examining some passive
iron, found that it was actually covered with
a layer of gas. The metal was then placed
in a receiver and a vacuum was produced,
with care not to touch the iron or disturb it
in any way, after which it was plunged into
the diluted acid, when it was readily at-
tacked. The nature of the protecting gas
was ascertained by introducing a little air
into the exhausted receiver, when the orange
color characteristic of the nitrous vapors
was observed. The gaseous sheath is, there-
fore, chiefly composed of the deutoxide of
nitrogen.

NOTES.

The Berlin Geographical Society recent-
ly celebrated the birthday anniversary of
Carl Ritter, the famous German geographer.
He founded the society in 1828, and pre-
sided over it until 1860. The university,
the army, and various German societies,
were largely represented, and handsome
subscriptions were announced for a memo-
rial to the hero of the evening.

The death is announced, on the 19th of
December last, of Francis Boll, Professor
of Comparative Physiology in the Univer-
sity of Rome. Though young. Professor
Boll had contributed effectively to the ad-
vance of medical science by his physiologi-
cal researches.

It has been a mooted question among
physiologists whether saliva is destroyed in
the gastric juice, or whether it continues its
activity upon starch in the stomach. Re-
cent researches by M. Defresne seem to
prove that saliva is rendered entirely inac-
tive in pure gastric juice ; but that in gas-
tric juice combined only with organic acids
the conversion of starch into sugar proceeds
as in the mouth.

It is announced that Leibnitz's calculat-
ing machine has been found. During his
stay in Paris, in 1672, Leibnitz invented

and constructed this machine, which was
the wonder of the time. It can add, sub-
tract, multiply, and divide. It early be-
came the property of the Hanover Public
Library, but long since disappeared from
its treasures. Nothing was known of its
whereabouts, except that it had been sent
to an instrument-maker at Gottingen to be
repaired. Through the efforts of Dr. Bode-
mann it has again come into the possession
of the Public Library at Hanover.

The " Pall Mall Gazette " is authority for
the statement that California whalers return-
ing to San Francisco report the death by star-
vation of large numbers of Esquimaux in the
vicinity of Behring's Strait. This is ascribed
to the scarcity of walrus-meat, caused by the
indiscriminate destruction of these animals
by American whalemen — as many as a hun-
dred thousand a year, it is said, having been
killed by them.

Mr. Billin, in a paper on the preserva-
tion of timber, read lately before the En-
gineers' Club of Philadelphia, stated that
creosoted ties in use for twenty and twenty-
two years in England were still in as good a
state of preservation as when first laid down.
Creosoted piles driven at Portsmouth, Eng-
land, forty-two years ago, were now as good
above as below the water-line, and have out-
lasted sixteen sets cut from the same timber,
and driven in the same work, but which w ere
not creosoted.

M. J. Bernath writes to " Nature " that
our knowledge of the mineral waters of Hun-
gary is altogether fragmentary and imper-
fect in kind. In the" interest of truth he
points out that a work, bearing the title
"Les Eaux Minerales de la Hongrie," pub-
lished under the auspices of the Hungarian
i Commission of the last Paris Exhibition, is
altogether unrehable, and, in support of this
opinion, states that the book enumerates less
than forty per cent, of the localities in Hun-
gary at which mineral springs occur ; and,
of the analyses published in the book, only
those made twenty or thirty years ago find a
place, the more recent and valuable ones be-
ing entirely omitted.

John Meaks, F. R. S., whose botanical re-
searches in South America, begun over fif-
ty years ago, gave him a distinguished place
among the botanists of England, died in
London, October 17, 1879, aged ninety-one
years. In 1825 he published "Travels in
Chili and La Plata," and in later years con-
tributed many interesting and valuable bo-
tanical papers to the '' Transactions of the
Linna;an Society." He bequeathed his her-
barium of South American plants, number-
ing over 20,000 sheets, original drawings
and manuscripts of his published works, and
also some unpublished manuscripts, to the
British Museum.

CHARLES F. CHAJSTDLER.

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE
MOKTHLY.

APRIL, 1880.
PEOGEESS AND POYEETT.

By C. M. LUNGEEN.

THE most obvious fact in the industrial life of to-day is the enor-
mous increase of productive power over that of any previous
period. Steam and electricity have transformed civilization, endowed
us with vaster powers, and altered profoundly the conditions of life.
Things that could not have been done at all, things that could only
have been done slowly and laboriously by unaided human exertion,
have been done with swiftness, exactness, and certainty by the agen-
cies created by human thought and skill. Things that were among
the undreamed possibilities are now among the commonplaces of our
lives. Machinery, dividing labor to an almost infinite degree, has
multiplied its effectiveness manifold. The railroad and the telegraph,
bringing men into closer and more intimate relations, have incalcula-
bly facilitated exchange. As a result of this greatly enhanced power
of production, the accumulation of wealth has gone on at an unexam-
pled rate. Enterprises, however great, need no longer fail for lack of
the requisite capital. Works can now be undertaken that in a former
age would have seemed and would have been vitterly chimerical. "We
no longer feel that it would be useless to invent railroads because of
the immense capital needed to build them.

With this increase of wealth and productive power great ameliora-
tions have been expected. It has been the guiding and dominant faith
of this era of remarkable material progress that these new agencies
would steadily tend to lift all classes to a plane of greater material
comfort. With productive power outrunning consuming power, there
would be enough for all. Wealth would become equalized, so that
each would receive a share of that produced proportional to his contri-
bution to the common stock. The chasm l>etween the very rich and
VOL. XVI. — 46

722 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

the very poor would be bridged. Human powers, no longer the slaves
of material needs, would have room to grow ; human life, relieved of
want and the fear of want, could expand indefinitely in grace and
beauty. With time, however, this faith, if not shattered, has been
weakened. Improvement has followed improvement, but it has not be-
come easier to make a living ; the difficulty rather increases. Wealth
has shown no tendency to become diffused, but rather one to aggre-
gate into comparatively few hands. In spite of all this wonderful ad-
vance, wages tend steadily to a minimum ; arid to the lowest class of
society — the class that is just able to live — there is little promise of
better things.

With the growth of industrial organization in complexity and
variety, the increasing strife between employei'S and employed, the
frequent recurrence of periods of business depression, which exhibit in
an exaggerated form simply the ordinary conditions of industrial life,
the question of the right relation of labor and capital to each other
and to the industrial fabric presses with increasing strength for an
answer. Employer and employed alike feel that there must be some-
thing amiss in an industrial system in which, with want unsatisfied,
labor can find no employment and production no market ; in which,
with increase of productive power, poverty finds no abatement. And
the imjDortance of the question is in proportion to its persistence.
Beside it all other questions sink into comparative insignificance.
For all other progress is inextricably bound up Avith that of material
welfare. It is idle to expect the growth of better conduct or of higher
feelings in the man whom want stares in the face. Purer surround-
ings, better food, greater comforts, some relief from unremitting toil —
these are the essential conditions of an improved life. Why poverty
persists is the fundamental social question of our time, and must be
of all times, until it receives a complete and satisfactory answer.

A thorough consideration has recently been made of this question,
and a remarkable answer returned — an answer that finds the solution
of the problem in a direction where most people would least expect to
find it. In " Progress and Poverty " Mr. Henry George has made a
careful and systematic inquiry into the conditions of the production
and distribution of wealth, the relations of labor and capital, and has
traced out the action of what he considers the cause of the continued
association of poverty with advancing wealth. However unpalatable
its conclusions to certain large classes of the community, this book
must, from its clearness of statement, ingenuity of argument, its large
human sympathy, and the broad and philosophic spirit with which the
question is treated, claim the attention of all who realize the paramount
importance of the subject and the value of a thoughtful contribution
toward its elucidation.

Mr. George holds that the causes which determine the persistence
of poverty are a part of those which produce progress, and not extra-

PROGRES.S AND POVERTY. 723

neous forces which progress tends to overcome. In support of this
be points out certain facts which, though frequently noted, have re-
ceived a different interpretation. "When the conditions," he says,
" to which material progress everywhere tends are most fully realized
— that is to say, where population is densest, wealth greatest, and the
machinery of production and exchange most highly developed — we
find the deepest poverty, the sharpest struggle for existence, and the
most enforced idleness. It is to the newer countries — that is, to the
countries where material progress is yet in its earlier stages — that
laborers emigrate in search of higher wages, and capital flows in
search of higher interest," It is here that, "though you will find an
absence of wealth and all its concomitants, you will find no beggars.
There is no luxury, but there is no destitution. No one makes an easy
living, nor a very good living ; but every one can make a living, and
no one able and willing to work is oppressed by the fear of want."
Such facts, Mr. George thinks, justify the belief that somewhere in
the industrial fabric there must be a fundamental wrong — a social
maladjustment that with increasing force, as progress proceeds, tends
to continue and deepen poverty.

His inquiry, in which he has taken nothing for granted, but has
examined anew all the doctrines of our current political economy, has
led him to the conclusion that the primary cause of the low returns to
labor and capital is to be found in the private ownership of the land
of the earth, which is by right the common heritage of all. He rejects
the common notion that there is an antagonism between labor and
capital, and holds, on the contrary, that they are both robbed of their
full earnings by the landholder. Labor can only produce wealth by
having access to the materials it is to fashion, all of which are drawn
from the earth, and by having such opportunities to occupy the land
as its needs require. Whoever, then, can claim a right to the land
can name the conditions upon which these materials can be obtained
and this occupation allowed. Whoever commands the land commands
the fruits of labor spent upon the land. Before labor can exert itself
it must ask permission, and the price of this permission is the tax that,
acting with accelerating power as civilization goes on, denies to labor
and capital their rightful share in the wealth they have produced.

In claiming that private property in land is a wrong, Mr. George
is not alone. He has with him the best thought of all times. Nearly
every economist and social thinker of eminence who has made an in-
vestigation into the basis of property has found no warrant for the
private ownership of land. They have all seen that a natural agent,
which is necessary to human existence, and which can neither be in-
creased nor decreased by human exertion, can by no process whatever
become the rightful property of one man or any number of men, save
all men. And most have seen that to finally settle on an equitable
basis this question of the ownership of land will be, as Mr. Spencer

724 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

says, " one of the most intricate problems society will one day have to
solve." But though the inequity of private property in land has been
so generally seen, and though it has also been seen that grave practical
injury must result from such a wrong, no one, so far as I know, has
before attempted to follow out the effects of this wrong in all the
ramifications of industrial society. To understand in any way ade-
quately Mr. George's position, the arguments which support his con-
clusions, and the facts which he has brought to bear upon the ques-
tion, a study of his book is necessary ; but some idea may be gained
of the character of his inquiry, though none of his interesting and
graphic treatment, by such an outline as can be here given.

Land and labor are the two factors from whose union springs all
wealth. Land is the storehouse of all materials, and the place on
which all labor must be exerted. Labor is the force which unceasingly
shapes these materials into forms suited to human use. Between
these two factors all the wealth created must be divided. Labor may,
however, be separated into two forms, past and present, or capital and
labor. The division of wealth, then, is between land, capital, and
labor. The respective shares of these factors are rent, interest, and
wages.

Before proceeding it will be necessary to determine the meaning
Mr. George attaches to some economic terms used. In an economic
sense labor is all human exertion in the production of wealth. Wages
is the return made to this exertion. The payment received by the
hired laborer, the clerk, or the professional man, the game of the
hunter or the gold of the gold-digger, are equally wages. The kind
of work done, or whether the work is done for one's self or for some
one else, does not affect the character of the compensation. Whatever
is recompense for exertion is wages. As to the meaning of capital,
economists are not so well agreed. Mr. George defines it as "that
part of wealth used to obtain more wealth " — the part in the hands of
the producer to be devoted to productive uses. The term " wealth "
Mr. George confines to those things whose destruction would decrease
and whose increase would augment the aggregate possessions of a
community. Bonds, mortgages, etc., when they are between the
members of a community, are not, in this sense, wealth. By land is
to be understood all natural capabilities, which are a gift to man. It
includes fertile fields, ore-deposits, water-powers, the air, the sea, etc.
Rent is the compensation received by the owner of any of these natu-
ral capabilities for their use. In ordinary speech the term is used to
express the return for the use of some of the products of labor and
capital, such as houses, improvements made on land, machinery, etc.,
but as used in economics it excludes the return made for any of these
things. Return for the use of such things is properly interest on capi-
tal ; return for the use of those things freely given by Nature to man
is alone rent.

PROGRESS AND POVERTY. 725

" The cause," says Mr. George, " which produces poverty in the
midst of advancing wealth is evidently the cause which exhibits itself
in the tendency, everywhere recognized, of wages to a minimum."
The inquiry can therefore be put in the form, " Why, in spite of in-
crease in productive power, do wages tend to a minimum, which will
give but a bare living ? " The answer given to this question by eco-
nomic science has been the wage-fund theory. This theory holds that
wages are determined by the ratio of the number of laborers to the
capital devoted to their employment. As capital is the result of sav-
ing, industry can proceed no faster than this saving is effected. The
wage-fund remaining the same, any increase in the number of labor-
ers means a decrease in the share of each, and the reverse. The in-
crease in the number of laborers constantly tends to overtake and sur-
pass the increase in capital, and hence wages steadily tend to the
minimum upon which laborers will consent to live and reproduce.
The theory in this form is now pretty generally abandoned, but, as it
is still held that wages are advanced out of capital, Mr. George con-
siders that the abandonment is more nominal than real. On the con-
trary, he holds that wages are never advanced out of capital, but are
drawn from the product of the labor for which they are paid. Labor
creates wealth, and it is not until this wealth is created that labor re-
ceives its wages. The stock of capital on hand is never diminished by
having to be paid for labor, but labor, as it goes along, creates the
stock from which it is paid. Of the facts out of agreement with the
wage-fund theory one of the most obvious is, that wages and interest
do not vary inversely. By the theory, wages should be high where
capital is abundant, and low where capital is scarce. The very reverse,
says Mr. George, is true. Wages and interest rise and fall together.
Labor moves for higher wages where capital flows for higher interest.
Wages are high in new countries where capital is scarce, and low in
old ones where it is abundant. This fact is generally noted by econo-
mists, but it is explained by them as due to the relatively greater pro-
duction "of wealth in new than in old countries. This, Mr. George
holds, is demonstrably untrue.

The wage-fund theory also teaches that labor engaged in produc-
tion is maintained out of present capital — that is, that present labor is
subsisted on the product of past labor. This, Mr. George holds, is
as baseless as the doctrine that wages are paid out of capital. He
maintains that it is not at all necessary that there should have been
a previous production of wealth sufficient to maintain the laborer.
"It is only necessary," he says, "that there should be, somewhere
within the circle of exchange, a contemporaneous production of suf-
ficient subsistence for the laborer, and a willingness to exchange this
subsistence for the thing on which labor is being bestowed." A
government, when undertaking a work of years, does not collect a
stock sufficient to support the laborers until the completion of the

726 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

work, but it appropriates the subsistence necessary from present and
future production, taking it in the form of taxation. No part of the
world really lives on past production — that is, out of the savings of
past labor. The whole world really lives from hand to mouth. Let
the entire production of any great city be stopped for a day, and it
would become evident how entirely men are dependent upon present
production. The worker, therefore, on any prolonged enterprise does
not draw his subsistence from past labor. He simply draws from the
present amount of wealth a certain part in one form after he has
added to present wealth a certain amount in another form. "The
series of exchanges which unite production and consumption may be
likened," says Mr. George, " to a curved pipe filled with water. If a
quantity of water is poured in at one end, a like quantity is released
at the other. It is not identically the same water, but is its equiva-
lent. And so they who do the work of production put in as they take
out — they receive in subsistence and wages but the produce of their
labor."

Capital, then, neither pays the wages of labor nor subsists laborers
in production, yet it has a function in production. This function is,
holds Mr. George, to assist labor by providing it with better tools ; by
enabling labor to avail itself of the reproductive force of nature, as
to get corn by sowing it, etc. ; by allowing the greater division of
labor, and thus vastly increasing its efiiciency ; and by holding and dis-
tributing the results of labor through exchange. To make exchange
perfect there must constantly be great stores of goods in warehouses,
ships, and railroad trains — goods held to supply the market, and goods
on their way to market. To make labor effective, there must be many
and various tools, factories, engines — all sorts of machinery. These
tools and these goods in the hands of the producer are capital. Capi-
tal may limit the form and productiveness of industry by not supply-
ing these tools or not rendering it this service in exchange, but to do
this is a vastly different thing from limiting the exertion of labor,
which is what the current doctrine teaches.

The wage-fund theory of the relations of capital and labor thus
proves upon analysis to be untenable. The theory is and has always
been weak. It has gained its ascendancy and almost universal accept-
ance, not from its own strength, Mr. George thinks, but from other
considerations. Behind this theory stands another theory, that offers
an explanation of continued poverty, and that fits into the other so as
to lend it support in all directions. This theory is the Malthusian
doctrine of population. This doctrine is, that population tends to in-
crease faster than the means of obtaining food. Population presses
with greater and greater force against the limit of subsistence. The
limit is not a fixed but an elastic one, and the pressure exhibits itself
in an increasing difficulty in procuring a living, and in that degree of
want that will always keep population within the bounds of subsist-

PROGRESS AND POVERTY. -jzy

ence. How this and the wage-fund theory mutually support each
other is evident. " According to the current doctrine of wages," says
Mr. George, " wages fall as increase in the number of laborers necessi-
tates a more minute division of capital ; according to the Malthusian
theory, poverty appears as increase in population necessitates the more
minute division of subsistence. It requires but the identification of
capital with subsistence and number of laborers with population to
make the two propositions as identical formally as they are substantial-
ly." Mr. George does not deny that the capacity of the earth to sup-
port life is limited, and that there are, therefore, bounds to the popu-
lation that can exist, but he does deny that there is any tendency of
population to outrun subsistence, or that there has ever been any his-
toric instance of a people unable to continue from such a cause.

In support of this view Mr. George reviews the condition of China^
India, and Ireland, to find that in none of them population has yet
pressed upon the means of subsistence so as to decrease the relative
production of food, or to increase poverty, vice, misery, and crime.
The lower animals, indeed, may press against the limits of subsistence.
They can only take such food as can be found. With man the case is
widely different. By breeding he can take advantage of the greater
rate of reproduction of the lower animals and of the reproductive
rate of plants. His powers of producing food may be indefinitely ex-
panded, while his rate of reproduction is in the course of civilization
not increasing. Historically the doctrine is not found to be true, and
it is not consonant with many of the facts of observation. The es-
sence of the doctrine of Malthus is, that the power of producing
wealth does not keep pace with population — that in a dense population
the power of producing wealth is proportionately less than in a sparse
one. It may be objected that " the power of producing wealth " should
read "the power of producing food." But, so long as the ichole earth
can supply enough food for the whole of its inhabitants, the power
of producing wealth in any community is equivalent to the power of
producing food, because, in consequence of a multitude of exchanges,
wealth commands food. That a dense population produces less wealth
per member than a sparse one is glaringly at variance with the facts.
It is in the very densest population that this power increases enormously
in proportion to the number of people. It is to effect this result that
all the labor-saving machines exist and all the appliances of exchange
have been called into being.

The Malthusian doctrine of population and the wage-fund theory
of the relations of labor and capital being disproved, the ground is
cleared for a consideration of what their true relations are.

As befoi-e stated, all wealth produced must be divided between
three things — land, labor, and capital. The shares of these factors in
production must stand in soroe relation with each other, such that two
of them being given the other is determined, or that, one being givenj

728 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the joint share of the other two is determined. In current economic
doctrine there is no correlation between the laws determining the
shares of these factors, and the nomenclature does not clearly or cor-
rectly express the shares into which wealth is divided. It is common
for economists to speak of the division into rent, wages, and profits.

Rent clearly expresses the return made to landholders for the use
of the land, and wages the return made for exertion of whatever kind ;
but profits does not express the return made for the use of capital.
It includes, as well, that return made for labor in guiding and direct-
ing a business, commonly sj^oken of as the "wages of sujDerinten-
dence," and also the return for risk of capital. Wages of superinten-
dence properly belong under wages, and, considering the entire field of
industry, risk is elfminated. There is then left interest, which expresses
all and no more that is properly the return made for the use of capital.
The division of the produce is, therefore, into rent, wages, and inter-
est. The laws of each of these will be found to correlate, and this
interdependence is presumptive of their truth.

What, then, is the law of wages ? In a primitive state of society,
or in any of those simple occupations where a man works for himself,
without calling in the use of capital, the whole result of his labor con-
stitutes his return — his wages. The man who picks berries, hunts, or
fishes, evidently has the berries picked, the game obtained, and the
fish caught as the reward of his exertion. The wages of any number
of laborers would be the whole amount produced, and the share of
each would be proportional to the amount his labor contributed to the
general stock of produce. But labor can not proceed very far be-
fore tools become necessary. Instead of all the labor being devoted
to the things that are desired for consumption, part of the labor
must be devoted to making tools that will facilitate the production
of the things desired. These tools are capital, and the whole produce
now obtained by the joint action of labor and capital will not go to
labor alone, but will be divided between the two. Mr. George holds
that interest is due simply to the value that the vital or reproductive
forces of nature give to the element of time, the return for capital in
any form being averaged with the return to capital in those forms
in which these forces come into play. The constant tendency is to
an equation between interest and wages, so that the return to capital
and labor will be the same for the same work done. Labor and capi-
tal, therefore, would divide up between them the entire produce re-
sulting from their union, each having a share proportionate to its con-
tribution to the whole. But they are not permitted to make such
division. A third party claims a share — the landholder.

If one man owned all the land that was open to capital and labor,
he would have absolute control over the produce of these agents. He
could take, if his authority were respected, any part of it, or all of it,
as he was inclined. In actual industrial society, however, land is in

PROGRESS AND POVERTY. 729

too many hands to enable the owners to get whatever share of the
produce they please. Competition determines the rate at which dif-
ferent lands will rent. The law, which in a condition of free competi-
tion determines this share of the landholder, is known as the law of
rent. Though not first stated, it was first prominently brought for-
ward by Ricardo. As formulated by him, it has been accepted by
every economist of position since his time, and is one of the few doc-
trines of current economics that in the conflict of opinion have re-
mained unshaken. Mr. George regards it as axiomatic, the terms
having only to be correctly apprehended in order to meet with accept-
ance. This law is that the rent of land is determined by the excess
of produce over that amount which the same application of labor and
capital will obtain from the least productive land in use. The returns
to capital and labor do not depend solely upon the amount and effec-
tiveness of each, but they also depend upon the productiveness of the
land upon which they are applied. When lands of different degrees
of productiveness are open to them, they will apply themselves to the
most productive, and their return will be the entire produce resulting.
As land less and less productive remains open to them, the amount
that they can produce on it decreases. Hence, on account of the com-
petition for the more productive lands, land-owners are able to appro-
priate to themselves all of the produce obtained above that which the
same labor and capital can obtain from the least productive land in
use — the most productive free to them. The law, of course, applies
to all lands used for any purpose whatever, though in the current
statement of it too exclusive attention is generally paid to its relation
to agriculture.

The relations of the shares of the three factors in production may be
shown more clearly in the form of an equation : Produce = rent + wages
+ interest, or produce — rent = wages + interest. How rent affects in-
dustry is now evident. The laws of both interest and wages appear as
corollaries of this law of rent. For this law states that, no matter what
the productive power of labor and capital, these two agents can only
receive in wages and interest that part of the produce that they could
have obtained on land free to them. The reward of labor and capital
does not depend upon what they have produced, but upon what is left
after rent is taken out. " The moment," says Mr. George, " this sim-
ple relation is recognized, a flood of light streams in upon what was
before inexplicable, and seemingly discordant facts range themselves
under an obvious law. The increase of rent which goes on in pro-
gressive countries is at once seen to be the key which explains why
wages and interest fail to increase with increase of productive power.
. . . When production increases, as it is increasing in all progressive
countries, wages and interest will be affected, not by the increase, but
by the manner in which rent is affected. If the value of land increases
proportionally, all the increased production will be swallowed up by

730 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

rent, and wages and interest remain as before. If the value of "land
increases in greater ratio than productive power, rent will swallow up
even more than the increase ; and, while the produce of labor and cap-
ital will be much larger, wages and interest will fall. It is only when
the value of land fails to increase as rapidly as productive power
that wages and interest can increase with the increase in productive
power."

The conclusion reached by Mr. George as to the laws which gov-
ern the distribution of wealth may now be stated in such form as to
show their relation to each other, and to contrast them with the laws
as taught by current economics. According to Mr, George —

" Rent depends on the margin of cultivation, rising as it falls, and
falling as it rises.

" Wages depend on the margin of cultivation, falling as it falls,
and rising as it rises.

" Interest (its ratio with wages being fixed by the net power of in-
crease which attaches to capital) depends on the margin of cultiva-
tion, falling as it falls, and rising as it rises."

As taught by the economists, rent is the same.

" Wages depend upon the ratio between the number of laborers
and the amount of capital devoted to their employment.

" Interest depends upon the equation between the supply of and
demand for capital ; or, as is stated of profits, upon wages (or the cost
of labor) rising as wages fall, and falling as wages rise." The wide
difference between the two sets of laws thus contrasted is evident. In
the laws as generally taught there is no mutual relation by which they
are all bound in a single whole. As stated by Mr. George, on the con-
trary, they all correlate with each other, and form a complete whole.

The conclusions embodied in these laws are : That, where land is
free, labor when unassisted by capital will take the whole produce ;
that where it is assisted by capital it will take the whole, less the
amount necessary to induce the storing up of labor as capital ; where
part of the land is appropriated, labor and capital will receive what is
left of the produce after the deduction of rent, or what they could
have produced on land free to them ; when all land is appropriated,
the return to labor and capital can be forced to the limit on which
these factors will consent to reproduce. This being the relation be-
tween the three factors in production, it remains only to see the man-
ner in which increase in population and improvement of the arts affect
rent, to understand the full effect of the force that presses so con-
tinuously upon industry.

While Mr. George allows the effect that increasing population
would have in increasing rent by lowering the margin of cultivation,
he yet thinks that this is not the main way in which it affects rent.
As population increases in any community, certain land — land at the
center of trade and production — acquires new powers, an increased

PROGRESS AND POVERTY. 731

productiveness. Labor spent on this land can produce results not only
vastly greater than it could on land beyond the boundaries of this
population, but results that it could not produce at all beyond those
boundaries. As the village grows into the city, the nearness of men to
each other, the division of labor that becomes possible, the greater econ-
omies that follow in consequence, the immense facilities of exchange,
increase the effectiveness of- labor exerted in the center of population
enormously. Here is the market to buy and sell ; here the seiwices of
the professional man, the tradesman, of any and everybody, become
of much greater value to them than they could possibly be elsewhere.
Instead of a few men working over a piece of ground, here ai'e multi-
tudes of men to the acre, on floors one above another, producing vastly
more than the same number could over a wider area. All these ad-
vantages adhere to the land — to this particular land in the center of
industry, and these advantages have to be paid for. By the law of
rent, all the produce resulting from this increased effectiveness of la-
bor and ease of exchange — that is, more than what the same labor and
capital could procure on land free to them — goes to the landholder.
Population, then, as it becomes dense, enormously increases rent.

And the increase of improvements in the arts affects rent in the
same way. All labor-saving machines can affect production in one
of two ways. Production may remain the same, and a certain amount
of labor be set free, or the same amount of labor may be used, and
production be increased. In an active civilization like ours, the main
effect will be in the latter way. For, by the conditions of industry,
labor can not take advantage of its increased effectiveness by resting,
but must press for employment, and hence the effect of labor-saving
devices will be to increase the wealth produced. But to the produc-
tion of wealth land is necessary, hence the demand for land must
constantly increase, steadily forcing down the margin of cultivation.
Thus, without any augmentation of the population, rent is advanced.

In the speculative rise in the value of land, there is a further
force acting in the same direction as these others. In every growing
community there is a confidence that land will increase in value, which
leads to the holding of land for such increase. This speculative rise
in the value of land shows itself in higher rents.

In this speculative increase of land-values, Mr. George finds the
primary cause of those periodic depressions of industry which we
term " hard times." The essential feature of such a period is the cir-
cumstance of numbers of men, able and willing to work, seeking em-
ployment vainly ; great masses of capital lying idle ; quantities of
goods in warehouses and stores unsalable. It is not that produc-
tive power has been too active ; it is not that consumption has been
too great. The over-production and over-consumption theories have
never been satisfactory. Economists have seen that, as the very
object of industry is to produce wealth, there can never be too much

732 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

wealth, and men generally have seen that the desire for consump-
tion is not lessened. They have all felt that the difficulty lay rather
with a choking of exchange. There has been a hitch somewhere
by which production and consumption could not meet and satisfy
each other. Looked at closely, an industrial crisis always reveals the
fact that there has somewhere been a check to production. These
producers stopping, their demand for the things they consume ceases,
and the check is thus rapidly propagated throughout the entire in-
dustrial organization, cessation of demand resulting in cessation of
supply, and this in turn manifesting itself in a new cessation of de-
mand. It is not necessary that production be really less, but only less
relatively. In an advancing community, the failure of production to
increase proportionally would have the same effect as decreasing pro-
duction in a stationary one. How, then, is this check in production
brought about ? If we trace it from one point to another, we shall
ultimately find it in some obstacle which checks the expenditure of
labor on land. The speculative advance in rent crowds down wages
and interest to the point at which they will no longer consent to repro-
duce, production ceases, and the effects of this stoppage are propagated
throughout the entu-e framework of industry. Deduction from the
law of rent shows that unchecked rise in rent must show itself in an in-
dustrial crisis, and the facts, he holds, abundantly support the deduc-
tion. Production may be likened to a steam-engine and rent to its gov-
ernor. A lightened load, an increased pressure, and the engine bounds
forward with accelerating speed. But the power that drives the engine
drives also the governor ; the force that has doubled the speed is the
force that must ultimately check it — the governor, overtaking the en-
gine, throttles the power that gives it action. And so in endless repe-
tition.

Here, then, is the explanation of the facts that mystify and per-
plex whoever considers them. Here, then, in the relation of rent to
wages and interest is the primary cause of the failure of invention and
discovery to benefit the workingman. Wages and interest steadily
tend to a minimum, but the incontestable fact in material progress is
the rise in land- values. The great machinery of modern industry does
not benefit labor and capital, because it does benefit the landholder.
So long as men can control the land which all must use, they can com-
mand all the fruits of labor above what is necessary to a bare living.

" Everywhere, in all times, among all peoples," says Mr. George,
" the possession of land is the base of aristocracy, the foundation of
great fortunes, the source of power. As said the Brahmans ages ago—
'To whomsoever the soil at any time belongs, to him belong the
fruits of it. White parasols and elephants made with pride are the
flowers of a grant of land.' "

Mr. George does not think that he can be said to have advanced
any theory, but that he has only pointed out the most obvious rela-

PROGRESS AND POVERTY. 733

tions. Taking the accepted law of rent, he has only insisted that,
where the whole produce is between three factors, the law that de-
termines the share of one 7nust necessarily give the share of the other
two. He has only pointed out that, if rent takes all above a certain
amount, wages and interest can't have more than this amount.

The fact that the laws of wages, interest, and rent must be mutu-
ally dependent, Mr. jGeorge thinks so evident, that he marvels that so
many acute thinkers could have failed to grasp the proper relations.
He is even tempted to believe that some have seen, but, seeing also the
enormous consequences, have turned away, remembering that "a great
truth to an age which has rejected and trampled on it is not a word of
peace, but a sword ! "

In finding the cause of the persistence of poverty in the continuous
advance of rent, the remedy is at the same time found, and Mr. George
does not hesitate to apply it. He would make land common property.
He reviews all the remedies proposed and finds none save this sufficient.
No alleviation would follow from a decrease of the expenses of gov-
ernment, as this would be equivalent to an increased production, of
which the landholder would take all the gain. Education and habits
of industry can increase the laborer's share in production to only a
very limited extent. Such qualities are like speed in a horse — it is
only available in so far as it exceeds that of its competitors. Better
material condition, it is true, is usually associated with the possession
of such qualities, but the condition is the cause of them and not they
of the conditio-n. Little, likewise, can be expected of combinations of
workmen. They can, indeed, increase their wages by such means, and
not at the expense of each other or of capital as is commonly supposed,
but at the expense of rent ; but they can do so in so small a degreS
that the effect is relatively unimportant. In any contest between
employers and employed it is not a struggle between labor and capital,
but between labor and the owners of land, and it must always be an
unequal one. Such a contest is, moreover, a destructive one — a war
which, like any other, lessens wealth. And the organization for such
a war, as for any other, must be tyrannical. Contests of this sort are,
therefore, destructive of the very things sought to be gained by them
— " wealth and freedom."

The hopes of those who see in cooperation the instrument of indus-
trial regeneration seem to Mr. George doomed to perpetual disappoint-
ment so long as land remains appropriated. If cooperation has any
power at all, it is one analogous to an improvecl instrument of produc-
tion, which can increase the amount produced, but can not augment
the laborer's share in this amount. Governmental direction and inter-
ference can only, in the present state of industry, be mischievous and
inefficient.

The remedy most counted on, by those who have seen, in a vague
way, that there is some connection between industrial distress and land

734 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tenure, is the dividing the land up into small holdings. Mr. George
thinks this both impracticable and undesirable, as well as inefficient.
Land can not be so divided, and even if it could, it is against those ten-
dencies that are born of and grow with civilization. Machinery applied
to agriculture makes cultivation on a large scale moi'e economical than
on a small one, and such holdings would interfere with the most ad-
vantageous occupancy of the land. The plan, however, has the cardi-
nal objection that, unless every member of a community was a holder
of land of equal productiveness, it would not abolish rent, and would
therefore have no tendency toward an equitable division of the produce.
There therefore remains only the plan of giving to every one equal
rights to the whole land — the plan of making land common property.

Mr. George dismisses the claim of the landowners to compensation.
If they were paid the market price for the land, industry would not be
relieved, as the tax would remain in the form of interest on the pur-
chase-money. Such an arrangement would, of course, prevent the
further tax upon industry caused by the future increase of rent, but
still the main burden would remain. Injustice, Mr. George thinks, has
and can have no vested rights. If it be a wrong to deprive the land-
owners of their land without compensation, it is a greater wrong to
take from industry to pay them for a value that industry has alone
created. It is a conflict of claims, and the lesser claim must be the
one disregarded. He points out that, tried by the common law, which
through all the ages has been built up and elaborated by the dominant
class, the landholders, they would not only get no recompense for their
land, but none for their improvements ; and, further, that they would
be called to account for the returns received during the time the land
was held. Mr. George is, however, satisfied to waive this, and be con-
tent with the resumption of the land by society.

In carrying out his project of making land common property, Mr.
George would disturb as little as possible existing industrial, social,
and political organization. He does not think that it is either neces-
sary or desirable to effect his purpose directly. It can be done better
and with less shock to accustomed feelings and habits, and with greater
economy of means, indirectly. His plan is very simple. He would
place all taxes upon land. He would leave the titles to land in the
hands of individuals to buy and sell, to let and hold the same as now,
but while leaving the shell he would take the kernel, by confiscating
rent. "We now take some rent in taxation ; he would take it all. This
would pay all government expenses, and would increase rapidly enough
to meet them as they increase, and to perhaps leave a surplus. Such
an arrangement would result in an enormous simplification of govern-
ment. It would take no more labor to collect land-taxes then than
now, while all the cumbrous institutions now in use — custom-houses,
internal revenue service, etc. — with their vast and demoralizing influ-
ence on political life and their prodigal waste, would be abolished.

PROGRESS AND POVERTY. 735

Land can not be hid ; its rent at any time is readily ascertainable, so
that the Government would get a considerably larger percentage of
taxation than now.

Mr. George tests his proposition by the accepted canons of taxa-
tion, and finds that the tax on land is the only tax which can not be
distributed — which those taxed can not throw off on to others. It is,
therefore, the only tax which does not bear upon production. This
also follows from the law of rent, as the relation between the most
productive and least productive land in use is not altered by such a
tax, and therefore the share of labor and capital can not be affected
by it. Under such tenure of land the burden of taxation will be
raised from production, and, while it still pays rent, though a greatly
reduced one, this goes to the state, to be used for the benefit of those
who have created the fund.

Under such an arrangement, land would be improved as fast as
there was a demand for it. No one, as now, could afford to hold laud
unless he proposed to use it. There would be no prospect of parting
with it at a future time for more than now, while the holder would
have to pay an increasing rent without any advantage accruing to
him. This tax, therefore, would have the effect of forcing improve-
ment instead of acting, as present taxation does, as a fine upon im-
px'ovement. Nor need any fears be entertained that such a holding of
land would deter men from improving it because they did not own it.
Ownership is not necessary, as is shown by the many costly buildings
in every city built upon leased land. All that is necessary is that
there be security for the improvement.

Mr. George holds that, though the proposal to place all taxes on
land is, at first sight, to increase the burdens of the farmer, it is not in
reality so. At present he is taxed on all his improvements, houses,
barns, fences, stock, and crops, while, through the action of the tariff,
he pays enormous taxes on everything he consumes. Under the ar-
rangement proposed all these taxes would be removed, and there would
remain only the tax on the bare land. As speculative land-values
would be abolished, and large tracts of land now held thro^vn open to
improvement, the value of his land would decrease, with the result
that, in sparsely settled districts, he would have little or no taxes to
pay. The tendency of this measure would be to distribute population
more equitably — to take from the overcrowded city and add to the
thinly settled country. With the continued application of machinery
to agriculture, farming life would tend to assume the form of the vil-
lage community, whence the great gain to the farmer in the increased
advantage of social intercourse. He would lose little or nothing in a
pecuniary way, and gain much in an improved social life. And so
with the owners of homesteads, and all land-owners whose interests as
such do not greatly predominate over their interests as laborers and
capitalists.

736 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Of the effect of his remedy upon the material, social, and moral
welfare of society Mr. George is very hopef vil. Under its action he
sees production bounding forward with giant strides ; the great agen-
cies, which man has called into being to help him subdue the earth,
no longer of doubtful good. By the power of these " slaves of the
lamp of knowledge " he sees wealth increased on every hand, and dis-
tributed to each according to his labor. He sees these great forces
elevating society from its very foundations. Each would have enough
and to spare. Men would no longer seek vainly for the opportunities
to labor. Competition would no longer be one-sided. " Into the labor
market would have entered the greatest of all competitors for the em-
l^loyment of labor, a competitor whose demand can not be satisfied
until want is satisfied — the demand of labor itself." All raised above
want and the fear of want, human life would expand in new direc-
tions and under the impulse of new ideals. The worship of wealth is
but the expression of the fear of want. All men struggle to place
themselves above want and the possibility of it. What men struggle
for they admire, and to win the admiration and approbation of their
fellows, if not the strongest, is at least one of the strongest, passions
of human nature. With the passing away of this fear of want, how-
ever, will come a declining admiration of wealth, self-seeking diminish,
seeking the good of others increase. And there need be no fear that,
with declining need to devote his powers to getting subsistence, man
will stagnate. " Man is the unsatisfied animal." For him are all the
powers of the heavens and the earth. Beyond material needs there
are spiritual needs.

That love of knowledge which has given us our sciences, of the
beautiful Avhich has given us our art and literature, will in the future
as in the past appeal to and excite our highest powers. Whatever
may have been the need of the stimulus given by the fear of want, it
no longer exists. Humanity now needs but to be assured of the fruits
of its labor to go upon the heights. It needs but this to realize the
dream born of material progress — to make for itself the golden age :

*' Youth no longer stunted and starved ; age no longer harried by
avarice ; the child at play with the tiger ; the man with the muck-rake
drinking in the glory of the stars ! Foul things fled, fierce things
tame, discord turned to harmony ! For how could there be greed
where all had enough ? How could the vice, the crime, the ignorance,
the brutality, that spring from poverty and the fear of poverty, exist
where poverty had vanished ? Who should crouch where all were
freemen ; who oppress where all were peers ? "

Such the promise Mr. George holds out to society if it but con-
sent to " render unto Csesar the things that are Caesar's " — to give to
labor and capital their reward. If it consent not, he raises his voice
to warn it that it must crush the worm that is gnawing at its vitals, if
it be not destroyed. If labor get not its reward, the gulf between the

WffAT IS JUPITER DOING? 737

rich and poor must widen as material i^rogress goes on ; the mass of
ignorance, of brutality, of recklessness, the number of those who are
iu our civilization but not of it, must increase and threaten its ex-
istence. The barbarians who will destroy our civilization come not
from without but from within, " In the shadow of college and library
and museum are gathering the more hideous Huns and fiercer Vandals
of whom Macaulay j^rophesied."

Mr. George closes his book with a theory of progress in which
heredity counts but little, and conditions much ; whose law is associa-
tion in equality. Men advance as they come in closer contact, and as
the conditions of each are more nearly equal ; and fail to do so or de-
cline as these requirements are not met. Civilizations rise and fall,
stoj) or turn back, or are transformed in obedience to this law.

I am not here concerned with criticising Mr. George's work, with
pointing out the extravagance of his expectations; the fact that human
nature is not nearly as easily modified as he assumes ; that poverty is
but one of the factors in the production of vice, misery, and crime ;
that far-reaching biological and psychological laws are not so readily
set aside as he seems to think. These things do not affect the essen-
tial doctrine of his book — that, by the law of rent, rent must have a
determining influence in the distribution of wealth. My purpose is
served if I have succeeded in drawing attention to what seems to me
one of the most important contributions yet made to economic litera-
ture.

WHAT IS JUPITER DOING?

Bt HENEY J. SLACK.

THE question, so often suggested by changes in the aspect of the
planet Jui^iter, " What is he doing ? " is again forcibly put by
the appearance of a remarkable spot of enormous dimensions, and of a
reddish or orange-brown tint, which has occupied the attention of ob-
servers for several months, and which seems to be identified, so far as
relates to position and form, though not in color, with what has been
seen on former occasions.

Probably no celestial bodies reach a pennanent condition : con-
stant change seems a law of nature ; but there maybe gi'eat variations
in the rates at which changes occur. If we assume as probable a modi-
fication of the nebular theory, suns and their attendant planets are
formed by the condensation of matter in an extreme state of tenuity,
and the mass of suns and planets may receive frequent additions in
the shape of any smaller or less heavy bodies they are able to attract.
Our sun is jirobably a great devourer of meteors ; and, as our earth

738 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

crosses the orbits of certain meteoric swarms, we have showers of
shooting stars, fortunately so small that their bombardment is unno-
ticed.

Scarcely anything is known, or plausibly guessed, concerning the
condition and properties of nebulous matter. If, for example, the

Fig. 1.— Spots on Jitpiteb observed and drawn bt Mr. E. L. Trouvelot.— Observation of
September 25, 1878, with the shadow of a satellite.

spectrum of a nebula indicates hydrogen, we may be pretty sure it is
not in the state of the gas as it is known in our laboratories. The
recent discoveries of Crookes concerning the properties of matter a
million times more attenuated than common air lead to the hope that
fresh light may be thrown upon many astronomical questions ; but in
the mean time it is impossible to form more than a vague idea of the
condition of any star or planet that does not in its main features re-
semble our eai-th ; and this can be said only of Mars, on whose globe
we can discover what is probably land and w^hat is water, and see
white masses, which it is reasonable to believe are snow, form and
melt away as the planet's winter and summer affect them in turns.

Our earth has long been in a state of slow, as distinguished from
that of rapid, change. The geologist finds the oldest rocks he can
discover affording indications that they were formed when the circum-
stances of the globe were sufficiently like what they are now for fair
comparison. The earth's surface may have been warmer, its atmos-
phere more moist, and it may have contained more carbonic acid than
we now find ; storms may have been more frequent and more violent,
but the assemblage of differences between what now is and what was

WHAT IS JUPITER DOING f 739

at the time of any formation the geologists can reach would not no-
ticeably approach the enormous difference that separates the condition
of our earth from that of either Jupiter or Saturn. It is possible that
they now represent stages which our earth passed through in remote
times, and they may be undergoing changes that are approximating

Fig. 2.— Spots on Jupiter obsekved anu drawn bt AIh E. L. Trouvelot.— Observation of
December 23, 18~S, with the sliadow ol'the third satellite.

them to our present condition. It is, however, probable that, while
there are analogies and resemblances in the life-histories of all the
heavenly bodies, there are also individual peculiarities and diversities
not less important or less striking.

Jupiter's diameter is about eleven times that of our earth, and his
mean density is about a quarter that of the earth, or about a third
more than water. Now, a bulky body may be composed of heavy
materials, and still, as a whole, be light, like an iron ship or a lump of
pumice-stone, that will float in water. The pumice-lump is light on
account of its vesicular formation, so that the mass consists of heavy
feldspathic material and the air it contains. Extract the air, and the
pumice loses its floating power, though still far from heavy in propor-
tion to its bulk. Most of the earth's crust is formed of solids much
heavier than water. Granites are more than two and a half times
heavier than water, slaty rocks much about the same, and so are ordi-
nary limestones, the variations of all being from about 2*5 to 2-9, The
ironstone group contains denser minerals ; red hematite ha-s a specific
gravity of 4*5 ; magnetic ironstone, 4-5 to 5*2, etc. ; and many other
ores are heavy.

740 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

At some remote period, when only part of the now solid earth had
been condensed from gaseous and vapory matter, our planet might
have had a mean density like that of Jupiter, as its rocky materials
contain between forty and fifty per cent, of oxygen ; and while con-
densations and chemical combinations were going on rapidly our globe
must have been the scene of

"Thunders, lightnings, and prodigious storms."

And it is probable that certain stars which have suddenly blazed forth
with passing splendor have exhibited to us the spectacle of conflagra-
tions extending over millions and billions of square miles. Color-
changes in Jupiter — such as those noticed by Mr. Browning and the
writer in 1869-'70 — may have been caused by soda-flames, though not
fierce enough or extensive enough to add materially to his ordinary
luminosity, which is estimated as always exceeding, though not in a
very high degree, what it would be by mere reflection of light received
from the sun. A drawing after Mr. Browning was published in the
fifth volume of the " Student and Intellectual Observer," showing a
broad, full, yellow equatorial belt ; also broad belts of pui-plish brown
edged with narrower yellow bands above and below it, and curious
white patches in the upper dark belt. The polar belts were purplish
and olive. The appearance and disappearance of these remarkable
belts indicated great physical changes, and it is to be regretted that
spectroscopes could not afford so much information as was hoped fpr.
The planet, though appearing much brighter than any star, gives, ac-
cording to Mr. Browning, a spectrum fainter than that of a star of the
second magnitude. It is the size of the planet and his nearness, as
compared with the distance of any fixed star, that make him such a
brilliant object. The size of a luminous body greatly affects our esti-
mation of the intensity of its light. Mr. Huggins, at the time men-
tioned, discovered some dark lines in the Jovian spectrum not belong-
ing to the solar spectrum, and probably resulting from the absorptive
action of the planet's atmosphere. He also pointed out that the re-
markable yellow color had been seen some years before. Quite recently
Mr. Huggins has been employing his large reflector to take photo-
graphic spectra of the planet, and he informs the writer that " from G
to O in the outer violet there is no sensible modification, either in ad-
dition or absence of lines, of the solar spectrum." This is curious, as
Jupiter has exhibited a good deal of primrose tint, with orange-brown
belts and a big orange-brown spot.

A telescopic view of Jupiter usually exhibits some dark belts,
occupying a zone of considerable breadth, on either side of the plan-
et's equator, with less conspicuous markings nearer the polar regions.
It is also common to find various-shaped patches brighter than the
rest. Sometimes the general pattern formed by these markings lasts
for months with little visible alteration. At other times a few min-

WRAT IS JUPITER DOING? 741

utes are sufficient for changes of enormous magnitude. The first
question that arises is, What do the dark bands or spots mean ? Are
they portions of the solid body of the planet, which have some fixity
of shape, in any degree analogous to that of our mountain-chains or
great continents ? Or are they cloudy matter of less light-reflecting
power than the bright and dense atmosphere by which the planet ap-
pears to be surrounded ? Or are they merely more transparent parts
of that atmosphere, through which no lower objects happen to reflect
light enough to be visible ? If the bright parts of the Jovian disk
ai-e light-reflecting clouds, and the dark belts the body of the jDlanet,
we should suppose it would be common to see a notched appearance
of the edges ; but this is not so. " Ordinarily," as Captain Noble
says, " the belts fade perceptibly as they approach the actual edge of
the disk ; but," he adds, " I have seen the belts right up to it." The
softening of the belts, as the planet's rotation brings them to the
edges of the disk, probably arises from the dark parts being consid-
erably below the boundary of the Jovian atmosphere, and thus seen
through a greater thickness of it when near the edges. When the
dark belts touch the edge without noticeable softening they must be
higher up, and less likely to be any part of the solid body, if Jupiter
has anything that can be so called. The great spot of this season has
never been seen close to the edge. A very moderate magnification is
sufficient to show that as the planet rotates it comes into view de-
cidedly at some distance fi-ora the luminous margin, and disappears at
a similar distance from the opposite margin.

Telescopes, under the most favorable conditions, and of the great-
est power, only reveal very large features of the planet. It is impos-
sible to see anything like details of structure, and this makes the iden-
tification of objects seen at different times more or less uncertain. If
we had glimpses of great mountain-chains in Jupiter, it would be
something like seeing the Andes or the Himalayas all in a lump, from
some skyey perch, so far off as to prevent the separate peaks and val-
leys from being noticed. Jupiter is about five and one fifth times as
far from the sun as we are — our mean distance, according to the last
reckoning, being 92,620,000 miles. With the moon only 240,000 miles
off, and very frequently bearing a much higher magnification than can
be applied without confusion to Jupiter, telescopes bring no object
near. A magnification of 1,000 linear — only usable under very favor-
able circumstances — makes lunar objects as big, but not as distinct, as
a naked-eye vision of them would do if it could approach within 240
miles. With the enormously greater distance of Jupiter it must be
evident how impossible it is for anything but huge masses to be seen.

Jupiter's atmosphere is much larger in proportion to any solid mat-
ter he may contain than that of our earth to its solid matter. It is
also much denser, and from its greater distance only gets about one
twenty-fifth as much solar influence as reaches us. For these and

742 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

other reasons it is not unlikely that some of his cloud formations may-
be more lasting than ours. That his gaseous envelope is, however, at
times subject to violent disturbances arising from a prodigious exer-
tion of internal forces is proved by instances of sudden changes in
the diameter of the disk. The Rev. T. W. Webb, in his " Celestial
Objects," mentions as "inexplicable" an observation of Smyth, con-
firmed by similar observations of Maclear and Pearson, all being at
different places, namely, that on June 26, 1828, Jupiter's second satel-
lite, after fairly entering upon the disk, in the course of its revolution,
was subsequently seen for four minutes outside it, and then suddenly
vanished. JVIore recently Secchi noticed a similar phenomenon ; and
the explanation can only be that Jupiter's atmosphere was suddenly
blown out for some thousands of miles and retreated again. Secchi
states that on April 2, 1874, he watched the first satellite as it was
about to cross the planet's disk, which appeared " finely undulated."
" When the satellite approached within its own diameter of the margin
of the planet the latter sprang toward it, appeared to touch it, and im-
mediately retired. This happened, backward and forward, until the
satellite had plainly entered upon the planet ; that is to say, for four
or five minutes.* . . o The satellite appeared fixed, and all the move-
ment seemed to belong to the disk of the planet."

In October, 1879, Mr. Kidd, of Bramley, Guildford, saw, as is de-
scribed in the " Observatory " for November, the second satellite first
touch the disk, then appear separated from it, and finally pass behind
it, but remain for some time visible through it. The " Observatory "
for November also quotes the " Chicago Tribune," to the effect that
observations at the Dearborn Observatory indicate that changes in the
outline of the planet take place from day to day. Two sets of mea-
sures at the interval of a week are stated to have shown a difference
in the direction of the major axis amounting to 5°.

When extensive belts or bright portions change rapidly, the storm-
effects must be immensely greater than in any of our hurricanes.
Jupiter's motion at the equator is at the rate of about 28,000 miles an
hour ; his daily rotation is completed in a few seconds less than ten
hours ; and objects in Jupiter weigh about two and a half times as
much as on our earth. When our winds move with a hurricane-speed
of 85 miles an hour, they exert a pressure upon whatever they strike
equal to 36 pounds per square foot. What, then, must be the force of
a Jovian storm, moving much heavier matter than our air, at the rate
of 300 miles an hour, as was observed on one occasion by Herschels ?

On another occasion South saw a spot 22,000 miles long, and before
a friend who was present could commence a sketch it had nearly all
changed. There may in such cases be violent chemical action, a ter-
rific clashing together of atoms, and the precipitation of solid oxides
of metals, like the fumes produced by the burning of magnesium wire.
* "Comptes Eendus," 1874, vol. Ixxviii., p. 1468.

WHAT IS JUPITER DOING?

743

In considering the persistence of spots or markings, it seems that
the dark ones are more lasting than the light. A dark spot noticed by
Cassini in 1665 was visible up to 1713, though obscured at intervals —
at one time for eight years.

Some interesting white spots were noticed in 1878 by Niesten, of
the Brussels Observatory, to change from a circular to an elongated
form as they appeared in the center or nearer the sides of the disk.
This would indicate something like a columnar form, looking round
when seen vertically, and elongated when seen aslant.

Lately, as already mentioned, a very fine dark spot has been seen
upon the south equatorial belt. It was found by Niesten to be 13"
long, and 3" wide, the polar diameter of the planet being 48". When
Captain Noble saw this spot, on August 22, 1879, he made a memoran-
dum that " the remarkable spot sketched on November 19, 1858 (nearly
twenty-one years ago), reappears — or one very similar indeed to it
does — to-night."

M. Niesten kindly sent to the writer — who published a translation
of it in the " Astronomical Register " for November — a list of observa-
tions of red spots more or less identical in aspect with this one, and
probably of the same formation. It is not to be expected that in the
revolutionary state of things existing in Jupiter there would be the
same persistence of form that belongs to our islands and continents ;
and it is quite possible that there may be huge islands of vesicular
formation, far bigger than all Australia, floating in viscous seas ; so
that if the figure of a spot remains the same, or spots seen at different
times bear a strong resemblance to each other, they might be identical,
even though there had been some change of place. Mathematicians
tell us that the flattening at the poles noticeable in Jupiter and Saturn,
and caused by their rapid rotation, would be greater than measure-
ment shows, if such light bodies were homogeneous. There must,
therefore, be some portions much denser than others, and these planets
most probably contain matter in all intermediate stages, from the
attenuated gaseous, through the viscid, to the solid. It must often
happen, as Chacornac considered traceable in the sun, that condensa-
tion produces a great down-rush, and substances that have been solidi-
fied falling into hotter regions get melted up or vaporized again.

The great red spot lies like a continent some 24,000 miles long^
surrounded by a rather narrow sea of light, and over it Niesten no-
ticed two brilliant little spots which he appropriately named " pearls."
There is a general concurrence of opinion that the big spot grew rud-
dier than when it first appeared, or rather richer in color; its " redness""
has been chiefly caused by the want of achromatism in the telescopes
employed. Glass mirrors silvered — which represent colors most cor-
rectly— show the tints to be orange-brown. The bi'ight parts, as
seen by the writer with a With-Browning silvered mirror and a fine
prism, closely resembled the color of autumn beech-leaves in full sun-

744 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

light. Some Merz telescopes add, from their defects, a purple tint ;
and an instrument of another maker gives the spot the color known
as Venetian red. Dr. Pigott, who has a With -Browning silvered
mirror instrument, and a fine refractor by Wray, finds the latter so
unusually well corrected that its performance coincides closely with
that of the former. Color-changes, both as regards time and inten-
sity, may be caused by the greater or less translucency and refracting
powers of the atmosphere through which any object is seen ; but they
may also very frequently arise from the greater or less heat and
luminosity of solid or viscid matter below the cloudy strata, and
from important modifications of chemical action. Between September
3d, at from 10.45 to 10.55 p. m., and October 4th, 10.40 p. m., Captain
Noble's drawings, made at Maresfield, show a great change in the
aspect of the planet, affecting the brightness and the tint of enormous
spaces. Parts above the great spot which were brilliant on the former
occasion had become cloudy, and, southeast of the spot, there came a
round white spot, with very dark surroundings. These changes must
have affected many millions of square miles.

On October 16th, at 10.5 p. m., he noticed the color of the red spot
" more marked than ever." There were also extensive changes in the
belts, and the polar regions were more cloudy. He made the follow-
ing entry in his note-book : " It is a most noticeable feature ; the red
spot reposes like an island in the middle of a light space on the plan-
et's disk, and the belts, north and south of it, seem in a great measure
to conform to its curved outline. This would indicate a disturbance
of a stupendous character, from the amount of the area involved."

On the whole, during the season for observation of 1879-80 Jupi-
ter has been more than usually interesting. From pole to pole changes
of great magnitude have been produced with prodigality of violence
rather than with economy of time. Perhaps the mighty planet is still
in the stage of youth, with blazing and explosive energies that a few
hundred thousands of years may be required to tame down to the so-
berness of our comparatively quiescent earth. — Belgravia.

[Note. — The red spot spoken of above was watched by an astrono-
mer in this country, Mr. E. Leopold Trouvelot, of the observatory at
Cambridge, during a part of 1878. He has published an account of his
observations in "The Observatory," and ha& furnished to "La Nature"
two views of the spot as seen at times three months apart, which we
reproduce. In his published description, Mr. Trouvelot says that in
looking at Jupiter on September 25, 1878, at six hours and fifty min-
utes, he noticed a remarkable red spot a little above the southern bor-
der of the equatorial belt, with its center situated a little to the east
of the central meridian. It occupied apparently about one fifth of the
diameter of the planet, and was quite distinct, its intense rose-color
forming a striking contrast with the luminous white ground on which

THE SCIENTIFIC ASPECT OF ''FREE-WILL:' 745

it was projected. It was of the same shade, uniform from one end to
the other, without any obscure border. It app'eared isolated and en-
tirely independent of the equatorial belt, from which it was separated
by a brilliant white band. In shade, its color was quite ditferent from
the pale rose-color of the equatorial belt, and from every other object
which the observer had ever seen on Jiipiter, and might be described
as a blending of vermilion and blue. Fig. 1 is a copy of the original
sketch made immediately after the observation, a a indicating the
red spot. After this observation, the return of the spot was noticed,
and it was drawn fifteen times. It was last seen on December 30,
1878, after which further observations were prevented by the proxim-
ity of the sun. The form of the spot changed somewhat during this
time : at first, it was long and narrow (Fig. 1, a a) ; finally (Fig. 2, b b),
it became shorter, considerably wider, and extended farther toward
the south. — Editor.]

THE SCIENTIFIC ASPECT OF "FREE-WILL."

Br ALBEKT J. L EFFING WELL, M. D.
nrpROM the time when, as Milton tells us, the lost angels

" . . . . Reasoned high
Of providence, foreknowledge, will and fate —
Fixed fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute " —

no problem has excited greater interest in the human mind than the
question. of free-will. Philosophy, whether pagan or Christian, athe-
istic. Catholic, or Protestant, has alike found in its consideration an
irresistible attraction ; and, if the world remains to-day of divided
opinions, it is not for lack of abundant argument. Seneca taught
that "the same necessity binds both gods and men ; divine as well as
human affairs proceed onward in an irresistible stream " ; while Pope
thought he had solved the problem by imagining a Deity

" "Who, binding Nature fast in fate,
Left free the human will " —

a flattering conclusion which the world finds it easy to accept. Theol-
ogy, fearful, on the one hand, of rendering Deity the cause of evil, and,
on the other, of limiting his due share in the government of the uni-
verse, usually teaches that necessity and free-will are alike true,
though not to be reconciled ; a conclusion w^hich would render all
reasoning on the subject inconsequential if not absurd. Some have
thought to retain their favorite theory by so defining it that no differ-
ence of opinion can exist ; as Dr. Haven, for instance, who, in his

746 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

text-book on " Mental Philosophy," postulates that " freedom of will
is power to do as I like^'' and that " the will is free when I can will
to do just what I please'''' — seemingly unconscious that the whole ques-
tion is why "I like" or why " I please." Others make both free-will
and necessity utterly unfathomable mysteries, and then choose between
them. Sir William Hamilton, while admitting that fi'eedom of the
will is "wholly incomprehensible"; that we "can not conceive a free
volition"; that we are "utterly unable speculatively to understand
how moral liberty is possible to man or God " — insists, nevertheless,
that the doctrine of necessity is equally unthinkable, because we can
not conceive an infinite regression of causes to all eternity ; and then
finds in " our consciousness of an uncompromising law of duty " a
decisive proof of free-will. This is certainly to claim for conscious-
ness of duty, as a witness, a superior function to that which it fills as
an agent ; for if it has proved again and again an unreliable guide
to conduct — leading Calvin to burn Servetus, the Inquisition to tor-
ture heretics, and the Puritans to hang witches and Quakers — it is not
easy to see why so imperfect a guide to action should be of such
supreme value as a testimony to freedom of action. Nor is it clear
how a Christian philosopher should have found in our consciousness of
the moral law an evidence for a " wholly incomprehensible " theory,
superior in force to that which the theistic hypothesis supplies to the
doctrine of universal causation.

As it stands to-day, the question is very nearly one between science
and theology. On the one hand, science asserts that to the law of
causation there are no known exceptions ; that mind as well as matter
is subject to law. Theology, on the contrary, clings to the freedom
of volition as the apparent foundation of morality ; and insists that
each man is a new cause — a new, unconditioned, responsible factor in
the conduct of the universe ; and this is the view most generally
accepted by the world. The reason is not far to seek : it lies in the
teaching of theology regarding man's future state. We instinctively
feel that, if upon the nature of our actions depends the awful fate of
unending hapiDiness or misery in another existence, justice to the
creature demands that his liberty be undetermined in any way by the
Creator. Now, theology for the past eighteen centuries has taught,
as it yet teaches, this doctrine of eternal punishment. While at the
present day it is rarely pushed forward into the old-time prominence,
it stands in the creed of every orthodox church ; it is yet an essential
element of Christian faith. Let us look at it for a moment as pre-
sented by a theologian, the greatest that America ever produced, the
Rev. Jonathan Edwards. The extracts quoted are from the edition of
his sermons published in 1879 :

You have often seen a spider wl)en thrown into the midst of a fierce tire;
and have observed how immediately it yields to the force of the flames, and the
fire takes possession of it, and at once it becomes full of fire, and is burned into

THE SCIENTIFIC ASPECT OF '' FREE-WILL^ 747

:i bright coal. Here is a little image of -what you will be in hell, except you
repent and fly to Christ. — Sermon X.

Do but consider what it is to suffer extreme torment for ever and ever ; to
suffer it night and day, from one day to another, from one year to another, from
one age to another ; in pain, in wailing and lamenting, groaning and shrieking
and gnasliing your teeth ; with your bodies and every member full of. racking
torture ; without any possibility of getting ease ; without any possibility of
moving God to pity by your cries {sic). How dismal will it be under these
racking torments to know that you never, never shall be delivered from them ;
to have no hope; when after you have worn out the age of the sun, moon, and
stars, without any rest day or night, or one minute's ease, yet you shall have no
hope of ever being delivered ; you shall know you are not one whit nearer the
end of your torments; but the same groans, the same shrieks, the same doleful
cries are incessantly to be made by you, and the smoke of your torment shall
ascend up for ever and ever ; your bodies, which have been burning and roasting
all the while in glowing furnaces, yet shall not have been consumed, hut will
remain to roast through an eternity yet. — Seumo^t XI.

I shall mention several good and important ends which will be obtained by
the eternal punishment of the wicked ....

III. The saints will be made more sensible how great their salvation is. When
they shall see how great the misery is from which God has saved them, and how
great the difference he hath made between their state and the state of others
who were by nature, and perhaps ly practice, no more sinful and ill-deserving
than they^ it will give them a sense of the wonderfulness of God's grace. . . .
The view of the misery of tlie damned will double the ardor of the love and
gratitude of the saints in heaven.

IV. The sight of hell-torments will excite the happiness of the saints for
ever ; it will make them more sensible of their own happiness ; it will give them
a more lively relish of it! Oh, it wiU make them sensible how happy they are ! —
Sermon XL

When they shall see how miserable others of their fellow creatures are —
when they shall see the smoke of their torment and the raging flames of their
burning, and shall hear tiieif shrieks and cries, and consider that they in the
mean time are in the most blissful state, and shall surely be in it to all eternity,
how they will rejoice! . . . How joyfully they will sing to God and the Lamb
when they behold this! — Sermon XIII.

So long as this remains the orthodox view of the fate reserved for
a majority of the human race, so long as to doubt the reality of
such a Deity is to incur the suspicion of atheism, it will be difficult
for men to yield the intellectual figment of " free-will " for the logic
of necessity. True, the doctrine of predestination, which teaches that
" by the decree of God, and for the manifestation of his glory, some
men and angels are predestined unto everlasting life, and others fore-
ordained to everlasting death," still stands in many a creed ; but most
men do not suspect its existence ; it is rarely if ever preached at the
present day. Otherwise unable to reconcile eternal torture with an
ideal of divine justice, probably the faith of ninety-nine out of every
hundred persons is that each human being possesses a perfect liberty
of choice, and vmdetermined volition.

748 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The view of science upon this question is widely different. Of
eternal fires, which serve at once to torture the skeptic and heighten
the felicity of the saint, it knows nothing ; the belief in them belongs
rather to those cherished mysteries of faith which lie far beyond its
scope. In that functional activity we call mind, it recognizes no power
to originate uncaused volition. The universe is subject to law. No-
thing ever happens or comes to pass without a cause. The cause
determines the event, so that it could not be otherwise. What deter-
mines volition ? Motives, The will is always determined by the
strongest motive.

Given the motives which are present to an individual's mind, and given like-
wise the character and dispositioti of the individual, his actions might unerringly
be inferred. — John Stuart Mill.

The conjunction between motives and voluntary actions is as regular and
uniform as that between the cause and elfect in any part of Nature. — Hume.

The only meaning of the law of causation in the physical world is, that it
generalizes universal experience of the order of that world ; and, if experience
shows a similar order to obtain among states of consciousness, the law of causa-
tion will properly express that order. That such an order exists is acknowledged
by every sane man. — Huxley.

It is claimed, however, that consciousness asserts itself with decisive
force in favor of free-will. Is this true ? "I dispute altogether,"
says Mill, " that we are conscious of being able to act in opposition to
the strongest desire or aversion." But this is a point which we are
all able to investigate for ourselves. Indeed, the peculiar advantage
of metaphysical study is the opportunity universally possessed of test-
ing theory by observation, in watching the operations of our own
minds. I propose, therefore, to go directly upon the ground assumed
as their own by the advocates of free-will, and rest the proof of causa-
tion upon the uniform testimony of consciousness. It seems to me
that the evidence in favor of the scientific view is so cumulative and
convincing that a reasonable being, capable of comprehending the
problem, and unbiased by dogma, could, after its consideration, more
easily assert his intangibility than his liberty of volition.

If we define the will as that " by which the mind chooses any-
thing," and an act of the will as an act of choosing or choice between
two or more courses of conduct, or between action and inaction, it is
evident that by far the greater portion of our acts occur without con-
scious exercise of this faculty. Walking along a muddy street, engaged
in deep thought or earnest conversation with a friend, one picks his
way, but consciously does not determine where at each step his foot is
to be placed. We laugh when amused ; weep from sympathy or
grief ; cry from pain ; become agitated, irritable, excited, or angry, if
sufficiently vexed, without previous choice whether or not we shall
yield to these emotions. We speak of ourselves as acting " from the
impulse of the moment," from habit, or " a§ we always do under such

THE SCIENTIFIC ASPECT OF '' FREE-WILL^ 749

circumstances." Let any one, for instance, review in his mind the
events of yesterday, from the first moment of awakened consciousness
until he sank into slumber at night, and remembei', if he can, before how
many of the ten thousand actions which constituted his daily life he
paused to choose. Awakened in the morning, he arose, doubtless, at
his usual hour — performed ablution, assumed his garments, one by
one, in a certain methodical order, and descended to breakfast. He
read portions of his newspaper ; commented on events or politics ; the
coffee was burned and the steak tough, and he Avas irritable and mo-
rose ; or both were excellent, and he was amiable and talkative. He
walked to his place of business by the route he always takes ; crossing
the streets where he had crossed a thousand times previously ; arriving
at the usual hour, notwithstanding he might have made — had the mo-
tives existed — innumerable variations from his regular course in each
of these proceedings. Now, up to this point, he has probably per-
formed several thousand distinct muscular efforts, each under the con-
trol of his will — from the glance of an eye to the propulsion of his
body along the street. How many of them can he remember, or does
he suppose to have resulted from conscious choice between action as
performed and another imaginable possible alternative ? Probably he
could count on his fingers all the acts of conscious choice performed
during the entire day. The rest have been as instinctive and impul-
sive, as unconsciously determined by circumstances, as the operations
of ordinary animal existence.

Turning now to the consideration of those acts which are preceded
by that conscious weighing of motives which constitutes true volition,
we shall find these no less determined by law. Appealing confidently
to the consciousness of every reader, I submit that tee not only inva-
riably choose, but ice cax oxly choose, that object or course of action
xohich at the instant, the loill is exercised to choose, appears to us, all
things considered, the most desirable.

This can hardly be doubted. For the very act of conscious choice
implies of necessity (except in those imaginary cases of absolute in-
difference wherein morality can not be concerned) a preference, even
if it be only momentary. Mind, I do not say the thing chosen is really
desirable ; perhaps the only courses open are all very undesirable, ter-
rible, full of painful consequences, and the confused mind may pass
from one to another with a hesitating tr<3mulousness of indecision —
obliged, however, ultimately to make a choice. Put yourself to any
fair test, and see if you can possibly choose that which you prefer least
to choose. Pain is exceedingly undesirable, is it not ? Take a needle
and place the point against your bared arm ; now choose whether or
not you shall force it to enter your flesh. " But it will hurt me," you
say, and you throw down the needle, proceeding no further. Do you
so decide without cause ? Or perhaps you push the point beneath the
skin, and inflict upon yourself pain, without apparent adequate motive.

750 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Yet is it not evident that the mere desire to make the experiment
made even the pain momentarily desirable ? But, omitting the petty
experiences of our every -day life, let us test the proposition by refer-
ence to the highest occasions of choice possible to man. Life is sweet,
and yet how poor would be the records of heroism did they not tell
us of men who, for the sake of great and noble ends, preferred death !
You can not imagine them as choosing it if they did not regard it as
the more desirable. We have all seen the picture of the Huguenot
lovers, on the eve of St. Bartholomew, and the choice of death which
one made even in the arms of her he loved. How many martyrs in
silent dungeons have been offered life, liberty, home, and the loving
companionship of wife and children, the possibility of long years of
happiness and usefulness, at the price of apostasy to their convic-
tions ; who chose rather an ignominious death at the stake, prolonged
tortures, confiscation of property, beggary of children, execration of
friends, a dishonored and forgotten name — and whose faces shone with
happiness as the flames kindled around them ! But men have chosen
more than this — not only to die, but to live a life of torture first. His-
tory does not record for us instances of greater self-abnegation, of
more intense eagerness to suffer and to die for others, than those of
the Jesuit missionaries w^ho labored among the Indians of this country
two centuries ago. One of them, writing from the Iroquois country
in 1644, said : " This letter is soiled and ill-written, because the writer
has only one finger of his right hand left entire, and can not prevent
the blood oozing from his wounds, still open, from staining the paper."
He had suffered protracted tortures in every form consistent with the
preservation of life : given to children to torment ; burned with live
coals, forced to walk on hot cinders, hung by the feet, lacerated by
savage dogs ; a finger-nail burned off one day, and the joint burned
off the next — a fiendish economy of torture — and finally ransomed by
the Dutch, only to save him from the stake ; yet, as soon as his health
was partially restored, he chose to embark again for the wilderness
and its awful possibilities. Turn the yellow pages of the missionary
"Relations" and you come upon sentiments like these, expressed in the
antiquated orthography of the time : " Nous mourrons, nous serous
pris, nous serous bruslez, nous serous massacrez — passe. Je ne voy
icy personne baisser la tete ; au contraire — on demande de monter aux
Hurons ; et quelques uns protestent que les feux des Ifiroquois sont
Vun de leur motifs x>out entreprendre nn voyage si dcmgereux f'' Of
others, their biographer says : " They had borne all that the human
frame seems capable of bearing. They had escaped as by miracle
from torture and death. Did their zeal flag or their courage fail ? A
fervor, intense and unquenchable, urged them on to more distant and
more deadly ventures. They burned to do, to suffer, to die ; and now
from out a living martyrdom they turned their heroic gaze toward a
horizon dark with perils yet more appalling, and saw in hope the day

THE SCIENTIFIC ASPECT OF ''FREE-WILL:' 751

when they might bear the cross into the blood-stained dens of the Iro-
quois." In the tortured captives they had baptized even amid the
flames, they saw their own fate, but it caused not a moment's hesita-
tion. These all chose ichat to them semed most desirable ; for, beyond
torture and death, they seemed to see the martyr's crown, the eternal
reward. Not less on these supreme occasions than in the most ordi-
nary affairs of daily life,, choice is determined by the apparent desira-
bleness of things.

But, if this be granted, it immediately becomes evident that one's
views of what is desirable arise from an infinite variety of coincident
circumstances with which the individual concerned had no more to do
than with the shape of his skull or the color of his skin. That no
two persons have exactly the same preferences or tastes, or would
choose alike on every occasion, is a truism. Their ideas of what is
desirable may have resulted from congenital or inherited constitutional
tendencies. A drunkard's children ai-e often endowed with a craving
for stimulants, that sooner or later brings them to drunkards' graves.
One man possesses fierce and strong animal propensities ; another is
never tempted by vicious allurements. The social condition of men
has a great influence in this respect. I do not suppose the Prince
of Wales ever perceived the desirableness of snatching a loaf from
a baker's cart ; but many a starving London tramp has felt it. Hun-
ger and poverty meet a thousand temptations that never assail full
stomachs and well-clothed bodies. Victor Hugo says that English
statistics prove four robberies out of five to have hunger for their im-
mediate cause. Or the state of the health may influence men's views
of the desirableness of things. Of the effect of impaired vitality in
vitiating desires, every physician is aware. Many of us, offered a
glass of wine, could accept it without the remotest danger of thereby
becoming drunkards ; but others, men like Mr. Gough, tell us that for
them such indulgence would be the first step to a long debauch. How
powerful is the influence of habit in this respect ! I enter a tobacco-
nist's with no other desire apparent to myself than to do my errand
and escape as soon as possible ; but a venerable gentleman told me the
other day that, after breaking off the use of tobacco for thirteen years,
the chance inspection of some fresh samples renewed with overwhelm-
ing force the old appetite and refixed the old habit. Or the decision
may be due to occasion and other surrounding circumstances attend-
ing the moment of choice. There is a profound significance in the
petition, " Lead us not into temptation." Many a woman walks our
streets wrecked, from the fortuitous conjunction of opportunity, temp-
tation, and desire, whose virtue would never have yielded to either
alone. What an immense influence is exerted upon men's desires by
their religious belief ! The Jesuit among the Ilurons could choose a
daily martyrdom that, now and then, he might touch a dying pa-
poose with holy water and snatch its little soul from eternal fires ;

752

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

can we imagine a Universalist clergyman so suffering for such results ?
How largely also are our notions of right and wrong determined for
us by early parental training ! A landlady of mine, in Leipsic, a pas-
tor's daughter, of the most rigid type of Protestant orthodoxy, at-
tended church one Sunday morning, and a representation of " Faust "
at the theatre the same evening ; and saw no incongruity in a course
which, by a majority of people in this country, would be regarded as
a fearful sin. Both views of Sunday are merely results of religious
education at a period when the mind is jjeculiarly receptive, and
when no one claims that a child should decide as to the correctness of
the opinions taught. These are only a few out of the infinite num-
ber of circumstances, beyond individual control, which decide what
shall be the views we take of the qualities of things and the desir-
ableness of action. They mold character ; they shape opinions ; they
make the man what he is. Since by these facts of organization, edu-
cation, religious training, social position, etc., indej^endent of our wish
or will, are determined for us the vie us we invariably take of the ap-
parent desirableness of all objects or actions — since upon this apparent
desirableness the choice of conduct of mankind invariably depends —
it follows that the human will is as subject to the law of causation as
the movements of the planets or the flight of an insect in the air.

It is asserted, however, by the advocates of the popular doctrine,
that the scientific negation of free-will obliterates what is called
"moral responsibility," and places man, as respects his actions, on the
plane of other animals. A full consideration of this point would lead
us too far aside from our subject ; yet, were all imagined consequences
sure to arise from general disbelief in accountability for action, I fail
to see how this proves the truth of the doctrine of free-will. It can
never be too often repeated that, regarding each and every theory, dog-
ma, or proposition. Science can ask but one question, Is it true f The
answer must come from other sources than the imagined sequence of
its acceptance or rejection. But let us suppose that mankind should
some day admit the proposition that moral responsibility, in the theo-
logical sense, does not exist ; that the will is determined by the strong-
est motive : what fearful results would ensue ! Would punishment
cease to follow crime ? On the contrary, its use would never be more
logical. If the stronger motive has led an individual to transgress the
rights of society, then society must punish for three reasons : 1, That
the memory of the punishment may act as a strong motive in deterring
from future repetition of the offense ; 2. That the example may deter
others ; and, 3. That society may be protected from a dangerous man.
These reasons are all consistent with the doctrine of necessity ; what
others would the advocates of uncaused volition add ? To assert that
punishment should only be inflicted where " moral responsibility " ex-
ists, is either to confer it upon our domestic animals, or else to deny
the justice of our every-day action regarding them. A child throws

THE SCIENTIFIC ASPECT OF '' FREE- WILL:' 753

stones at strangers passing by ; a dog barks at their heels ; both are
soundly whipped at each offense, and sooner or later both cease its
repetition. In both instances punishment was given from the same
standpoint ; its action on child and dog was alike— equally effectual,
and I see no reason for the interposition of moral responsibility in the
one case, if denied in the other.

I do not believe that the doctrine of necessity, if generally held,
would lessen in any way our abhorrence of evil, or our approval of the
good. To assert, as Professor Bascom does in his recent work on
"Ethics," as a proof of free-will, that the doctrine of necessity " does
not merely strangle virtue — it leaves every thought and action as true
and as just, one as another," and that " all our moral action loses its
character without liberty," seems to me to make statements unsup-
ported by any evidence whatever. Would Professor Bascom allow
that Deity is free to become a fiend ? And if not — if to be God he
must of necessity be good — does he conceive that divine action " loses
its character without liberty " ? Or can he explain why conduct should
be deprived of the distinctions of good and evil because conditioned,
any more than physical qualities admitted to be determined indepen-
dently of the individual's will ? If beauty in the human form is bet-
ter than ugliness, health than disease, symmetry than distortion, intel-
ligence than idiocy, why should not modesty, humanity, justice, and
truth, not only seem, but be better than profligacy, cruelty, iniquity,
and falsehood ? The fact is, goodness is essentially beautiful, and in
the slow progress of mankind upward, from savagery to the ultimate
civilization yet to be, can not fail to command admiration. Evil is
hateful, independently of its relations to ethics, and its awful realm
extends far beyond the area of human action. In the spider springing
upon the entangled fly, the cat playing with its victim before tearing
it to pieces, in the teeth of the shark, the fangs of the rattlesnake, the
poisonous slaver of the rabid dog ; in the deposition of tubercle, the
slow growth of cancer, the ravages of syphilis upon innocent child-
hood, we get glimpses of the great mystery of Evil, separate from hu-
man will, where we pity but never condemn. And if, perchance, some
day the world should learn to discriminate in the sphere of human
action between the deed and doer ; if, acknowledging necessity, it
should come to have a larger and more comprehensive charity for all
mankind, will it have strayed very far from the example and precepts
of the world's great Teacher ? Was there not one who, hating leprosy,
loved the leper ? — about whom Pharisees murmured because he sat
at meat with sinners ? — who condemned not her whom the law would
have stoned ? — who taught that " it must needs be that offenses come,"
and whose last prayer asked forgiveness for his enemies, " for they
know not what they do " ? I do not believe these dying words were
without meaning ; they were the expression of a scientific truth.

Nor, finally, will belief in the conformity of will to law hinder our

VOL. XTI.— 48

754 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

approval and admiration of great and good deeds. The highest and
noblest action results never from conscious choice, but springs uncon-
sciously from the force of noble character — "instinctively," as we
sometimes say. Of Cato, it was said that he was good because he
could not be otherwise. So far from lessening the excellence of con-
duct that noble motives act always with ii-resistible force upon great
men, that is the chief reason for honoring them, because they at least
could not act ignobly. " Here I stand," said Luther, at Worms, " God
help me, Ich kann nicht anders ! " This is the key-note of noble
action everywhere, " I can not otherwise ! " The engineer, at New
Hamburgh, hesitating not a moment when duty called him to a horri-
ble death ; the captain of the sinking steamer who will not leave the
ship until every passenger is safe, and so goes down with her ; Arnold
Winkelried crying, " Make way for liberty ! " and rushing upon the
Austrian spears ; Sir Philip Sidney, mortally wounded, taking from
his parched lips the water brought him, that a poor soldier, who looked
longingly with dying eyes at the cup, might first drink ; the martyrs
who have chosen to suffer ignominy and death that we might have
freedom of thought and speech — these are types of men humanity will
ever honor ; their example and memory we shall reverence even though
we know — rather because we know — that the needle points not more
surely to the pole tlian that for them, there and then, meanness was
impossible — that their great souls were only capable of noble deeds.

EXPERIMENTAL LEGISLATION.

By Peofessob W. STANLEY JEVONS.

" A FOOL, Mr. Edgeworth, is one who has never made an experi-
-LJl. ment." Such are, I believe, the exact words of the remark
which Erasmus Darwin addressed to Richard Lovell Edgeworth.
They deserve to become proverbial. They have the broad foundation
of truth and the trenchant disregard of accuracy in detail which mark
an adage. Of course, the saying at once suggests the question. What
is an experiment ? In a certain way, all people, whether fools or wise
men, are constantly making experiments. The education of the infant
is thoroughly experimental from the very first, only in a hap-hazard
and unconscious way. The child which overbalances itself in learning
to walk is experimenting on the law of gravity. All successful action
is successful experiment, in the broadest sense of the term, and every
mistake or failure is a negative experiment, which deters us from repe-
tition. Our mental framework, too, is marvelously contrived, so as to
go on ceaselessly registering on the tablets of the memory the favor-
able or unfavorable results of every kind of action. Charles Babbage

EXPERIMENTAL LEGISLATION. 755

proposed to make an automaton chess-player which should register
mechanically the number of games lost and gained in consequence of
every sort of move. Thus, the longer the automaton went on playing
games, the more experienced it would become by the accumulation of
experimental results. Such a machine precisely represents the acquire-
ment of experience by our nervous organization.

But Erasmus Darwin doubtless meant by experiment something
more than this unintentional heaping-up of experience. The part of
wisdom is to learn to foresee the results of our actions, by making
slight and harmless trials before we commit ourselves to an irrevo-
cable line of conduct. We ought to feel our way, and try the ice
before we venture on it to a dangerous extent. To make an experi-
ment, in this more proper sense, is to arrange certain known condi-
tions, or, in other words, to put together certain causal agents, in order
to ascertain their aggregate outcome or eflPect. The experiment has
knowledge alone for its immediate purpose. But he is truly happy,
as the Latin poet said, who can discern the causes of things, for, these
being known, we can proceed at once to safe and profitable applica-
tions.

It need hardly be said that it is to frequent and carefully planned
appeals to experiment in the physical sciences that we owe almost all
the progress of the human race in the last three centuries. Even
moral and intellectual triumphs might often be traced back to depen-
dence on physical inventions, and to the incentive which they give to
general activity. Certainly, political and military success is almost
entirely dependent on the experimental sciences. It is difficult to dis-
cover that, as regards courage, our soldiers in Afghanistan and Zooloo-
land are any better than the men whose countries they invade. But
it is the science of the rifle, the shell, and the mountain-gun — science
perfected by constant experimentation — which gives the poor savage
no chance of successful resistance. To whom do we owe all this in its
first beginning, but to the great experimentalist, the friar, Roger
Bacon, of Oxford, our truest and greatest national glory, the smallest
of whose merits is that he first mentions gunpowder ; yet so little
does this nation yet appreciate the sources of its power and greatness
that the writings of Roger Bacon lie, to a great extent, unprinted and
unexplored. It is only among Continental scholars that Roger Bacon
is regarded as the miracle of his age and country.

No doubt it is to Francis Bacon, the Lord High Chancellor of
England, that the world generally attributes the inauguration of the
new inductive era of science. This is hardly the place to endeavor to
decide whether the world has not made a great mistake. Pi'ofessor
Fowler, in his admirable critical edition of the "Novum Organum,"
has said about all that can be said in favor of Lord Bacon's scientific
claims ; yet I hold to the opinion, long since stoutly maintained by the
late Professor De Morgan, not to speak of Baron Liebig and others,

756 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

that Lord Bacon, though a truly clever man, was a mere dabbler in
inductive science, the true methods of which he quite misapprehended.
At best, he put into elegant and striking language an estimate of the
tendency of science toward experimentalism, and a forecast of the
results to be obtained. The regeneration of these last centuries is due
to a long series of philosophers, from Copernicus, Galileo, Descartes,
Newton, Leibnitz, down to Watt, Faraday, and Joule. Such men fol-
lowed a procedure very different from that of Francis Bacon.

Now we come to the point of our inquiry. Is the experimental
method necessarily restricted to the world of physical science ? Do
we sufficiently apply to moral, social, and political matters those
methods which have been proved so invaluable in the hands of physi-
cal philosophers '? Do our legislators, in short, appeal to exi^eriment
in a way which excepts them from the definition of Erasmus Darwin ?
English legislation, no doubt, is usually preceded by a great amount
of public discussion and Parliamentary wrangling. Sometimes there
is plenty of statistical inquiry — plenty, that is, if it were of the right
sort and conducted according to true scientific method. Nevertheless,
I venture to maintain that as a general rule Parliament ignores the
one true way of appealing directly to experience. Our Parliamentary
Committees and Royal Commissions of Inquiry pile up Blue-books
full of information which is generally not to the point. The one bit
of information, the actual trial of a new measure on a small scale, is
not forthcoming, because Parliament, if it enacts a law at all, enacts it
for the whole kingdom. It habitually makes a leap in the dark,
because I suppose it is not consistent with the wisdom and dignity
of Parliament to grope its way, and feel for a safe footing. Now, I
maintain that, in large classes of legislative affairs, there is really no-
thing to prevent our making direct experiments upon the living social
organism. Not only is social experimentation a possible thing, but it
is in every part of the kingdom, excepting the palace of St. Stephen's,
the commonest thing possible, the universal mode of social progress.
It would hardly be too much to say that social progress is social ex-
perimentation, and social experimentation is social progress. Changes
effected by any important act of Parliament are like storms, earth-
quakes, and cataclysms, which disturb the continuous course of social
growth. Sometimes they do much good ; sometimes much harm ; but
in any case it is hardly possible to forecast the result of a considerable
catastrophic change in the social organism. Therefore I hold unhesi-
tatingly that, whenever it is possible, legislation should observe the
order of nature and proceed tentatively.

Social progress, I have said, is social experimentation. Every new
heading that is inserted in the London Trades' Directory is claimed
by those private individuals who have tried a new trade and found it
to answer. The struggle for existence makes us all look out for
chances of profit. We are all pei'haps in some degree inventors, but

EXPERIMENTAL LEGISLATION. 757

some are more bold and successful. Now, every man who establishes
a shop or factory or social institution of a novel kind is trying an
experiment. If he hits an unsupplied need of his fellow men, the ex-
periment succeeds^ that is, it has something succeeding or following
it, namely, repetition by himself and others. The word " success " is
a most happy one etymologically. To have success is to have a future
— a future of imitators.

It is quite apparent that all the great novelties of recent times have
been worked out in this tentative way. How, for instance, has our
vast and marvelous railway system been developed ? Did it spring
forth perfect from the wise forethought of Parliament, as Minerva,
fully armed and equipped, leaped from the head of Jupiter ? On the
contrary, did not our wise land-owners and practical men oppose rail-
ways to the very utmost — until they discovered what a mistake they
were making ? There is no great blame to them. Who, indeed, could
see in the rude tram-line of Benjamin Outram the germ which was to
grow into the maze of lines, and points, and signals which we now
pass through without surprise at Clapham Junction or at London
Bridge ? That most complex organization, a great railway station, is
entirely a product of frequent experiment. Gradatim — step by step
— would be no unapt motto for any great industrial successes. In
such matters experiments are both intentional and unintentional. Of
the former the public hears little, except when they result in some
profitable patent. The preliminary trials are usually performed in
secret, for obvious reasons, and the unsuccessful ones are left unde-
scribed and are quickly forgotten. As to unintentional experiments,
they are too numerous. Every railway accident which happens is an
experiment revealing some fault of design, some insufficiency in the
materials, some contingency unprovided for. The accident is inquired
into, and then the engineers set to work to plan improvements which
shall prevent the like accident from happening in the future. If we
had time to trace the history of the steam-engine, of gas-lighting, of
electric telegraphs, of submarine cables, of electi-ic lighting, or of any
other great improvement, we should see, in like manner, that the wis-
dom of Parliament has had nothing to do with planning it. From
the first to the last the rule of progress has been that of the ancient
nursery rhyme — " Try, try, try : And if at first you don't succeed,
Try, try, again."

To put the matter in the strongest light, let the reader consider
what he would say about a proposal that Parliament should decide
arbitrarily, by its own wisdom, concerning any great impending im-
provement ; take, for instance, that of tramways and steam tram-cars.
It is quite conceivable that steam tram-cars will eventually succeed so
well as to replace horse conveyance to a great extent. All main high-
ways will then, of course, be laid with tram-rails. But what should
we think of the wisdom of Parliament if it undertook to settle the

758 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

question once for all, and, after taking a score of Blue-books full of
evidence, to decide either that there should he no steam tram-cars, or
that steam tramways should be immediately laid down between all the
villages in the kingdom ? The House of Lords did take the former
course two sessions ago, and prohibited the use of steam on tramways,
because it might frighten horses. In the next session they felt the
folly of opposing the irresistible, and expressly allowed the evj^eri-
mental use of steam on tramways.

It may, perhaps, be objected that these are matters of physical
science and practical engineering, in which the supremacy of experi-
ment has long been recognized. That is not wholly so ; for the suc-
cess of a system, like that of the railways or tramways, depends much
upon social considerations. However that may be, there is no diffi-
culty in showing that the same principles apply to the most purely
social institutions. If anything, it is the social side of an enterprise
which is usually most doubtful, and most in need of experiment when
it can be applied. To construct the Thames Tunnel was a novel and
difficult work at the time, but not so difficult as to get the populace to
use it. The Great Eastern steamship was another instance of a great
mechanical success, which was a social and economical failure. Many
like cases might be mentioned, such as the real-ice rinks lately in-
vented.

How is it that any kind of purely social institution is Tisually estab-
lished? Take the case of the Volunteer Force. This was commenced,
not to sjieak of earlier movements, or the ancient Honorable Artillery
Company, by a few isolated experiments, such as that of the Exeter
Rifle Corps in 1852, and the Victoria Rifle Corps in 1853. These suc-
ceeded so well that, when in 1859 fears of invasion were afloat, the
imitative process set in rapidly. Of course wise, practical people
laughed at the mania for playing at soldiers, and most people clearly
foresaw that, when once the volunteers had got tired of their new
uniforms, the whole thing would collapse. But experience has decided
very differently. The force, instead of declining, has gone on steadily
growing and substantially improving, until a good authority lately
spoke of it as the only sound part of our military system. How much
has the wisdom of Parliament had to do with the creation of this
force? I believe that even now the Government and the military
classes do not appreciate what the volunteer force has done for us by
removing all fear of safety at home and enabling the standing army
to be freely sent abroad.

Take, again, the case of poj^ular amusements. Would Parliament
ever think of defining by act of Parliament when and how people
shall meet to amuse themselves, and what they shall do, and when
they shall have had enough of it ? Must not people find out by trial
what pleases and what does not ? The late Mr. Sergeant Cox is said to
have invented penny readings for the people, and they answered so

EXPERIMENTAL LEGISLATION. 759

W'ell under his management that they wei'c imitated in all parts of the
kingdom, and eventually in many other parts of the world. Spelling-
bees were, I believe, an American invention, and had a very lively but
brief career. The recent courses of popular scientific lectures arose
out of the very successful experiment instituted by Professor Roscoe
at Manchester. Many attempts ai'e just now being made to provide
attractive and harmless amusements for the people, and this must, of
course, be done in a tentative manner.

It is curious, indeed, to observe how evanescent many social inven-
tions prove themselves to be ; growth and change have been so rapid
of late that there is constant need of new inventions. The Royal
Institution in Albemarle Street was a notable invention of its time,
chiefly due to Count Rumford, and its brilliant success led to early
imitation in Liverpool, Manchester, Edinburgh, and perhaps elsewhere.
But the provincial institutions have with difliculty maintained their
raison d'etre. After the Royal Institutions came a series of Mechan-
ics' Institutions, which, as regards the mechanics element, were thor-
oughly unsuccessful, but proved themselves useful in the foim of
popular colleges or middle-class schools. Now, the great and genuine
success of Owens College, as a teaching body, is leading to the creation
of numerous local colleges of similar type. This is the age, again, of
free public libraries, the practicability and extreme usefulness of which
were first established in Manchester. When once possessed of local
habitations, such institutions will, it may be hoped, have long careers ;
but bricks and mortar are 'usually requisite to give perpetuity to a
social experiment. When thus perpetuated, each kind of institution
marks its own age with almost geologic certainty. From the times of
the Saxons and the Normans we can trace a series of strata of institu-
tions superposed in ordei' of time — the ancient Colleges of Oxford and
Cambridge, the mediaeval guilds surviving in the city companies, the
grammar-schools of the Elizabethan age, the almshouses of the Stuart
period, the commercial institutions of Queen Anne's reign, and so on
down to the free libraries and recreation palaces of the present day.
Even styles of architecture are evolved by successful innovation, that
is, experiment followed by imitation, and this was never more apparent
than in the imitation which has followed upon Sir Joseph Paxton's
grand expex'iment at the Exhibition of 1851.*

Now, my contention is that legislators ought, in many branches of
legislation, to adopt confessedly this tentative procedure, which is the
very method of social growth. Parliament must give up the preten-
sion that it can enact the creation of certain social institutions to be
carried on as specified in the "hereinafter contained" clauses. No

* I do not remember to have seen the importance of this imitative tendency in social
affairs described by any writer, except the French engineer and economist Dupuit, who
fully describes it in one of his remarkable memoirs, printed in the " Annales des Fonts et
Chaussees."

76o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

doubt, by aid of an elaborate machinery of administration and a pow-
erful body of police, Government can, to a certain extent, guide, or at
any rate restrain, the conduct of its subjects. Even in this respect its
powers are very limited, and a law which does not command the con-
sent of the body of the people must soon be repealed or become inop-
erative. But, as regards the creation of institutions, Parliament is
almost powerless, except by consulting the needs of the time, and
offering facilities for such institutions to grow up as experience shows
to be successful. But an unfortunate confusion of ideas exists, and it
seems to be supposed that, because for reasons of obvious convenience
the civil and criminal laws are as a general rule made uniform for the
whole kingdom, therefore the legislative action of Parliament must
always be uniform and definitive. When an important change is
advocated, for instance, in the licensing laws. Parliament collects
abundant information, w^hich is usually inconclusive, and then pro-
ceeds to effect all over the kingdom some very costly and irrevocable
change — a change which generally disappoints its own advocates.
Take the case of the Sale of Beer Act of 1830, generally known as the
Beershop Act. This is a salient example of bad legislation. Yet it
was passed by the almost unanimous wisdom of Parliament, the divi-
sion in the House of Commons on the second reading showing two
hundred and forty-five ayes and only twenty-nine noes. The act
originated with Brougham, in the sense that he had in 1822 and 1823
brought in somewhat similar bills, which were partially adopted by
the Government of 1830. The idea of the act was to break down the
monopoly of the brewers and publicans ; to throw open the trade in
beer on free-trade principles ; and, by offering abundance of whole-
some, pure, weak beer, to draw away the working classes from the gin-
shops. All seemed as plausible as it was undoubtedly well intended.
Objections were of course made to the bill, and many people predicted
evil consequences; but all such sinister predictions were supposed to
be spread about by the interested publicans and brewers. Neverthe-
less, the new act was soon believed to be a mistake. Sydney Smith,
though he had not many years before pleaded for liberty for the
people to drink rum-and- water, or whatever else they liked (" Edin-
burgh Review," 1819), quickly veered round, and gave a graphic
account of the beastly state of drunkenness of the sovereign people.

It may be safely said that the Beershop Act realized all the evils
expected from it, and few or none of the advantages. It is difficult
to say anything in favor of the bar at the corner public-house, except
that it is better than the dirty low little beershop, hiding itself away
in some obscure recess of the streets. The first is at any rate under
the gaze of the public and the control of the magistrates ; the beer-
shop, until within the last few years, was too likely to become the un-
controlled resort of the worst classes. Even now that the beershops
are brought under the Licensing Magistrates, many years must elapse

EXPERIMENTAL LEGISLATION. 761

before the evil wrought by the act of 1830 cau be thoroughly re-
moved. This, then, is a striking instance of a leap in the dark, which
ought never to have been committed by a prudent Legislature. When
the Sale of Beer Bill was under discussion, the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer seemed to feel that it was a bill which needed experimental
trial ; for, when objection was made that the act would not extend to
Scotland, he urged that it might be better to try the act in one part
of the kingdom in the first instance, and then, if it were found to be
beneficial, and to answer its intended objects, it might be extended to
other parts.*

In more recent years the granting of grocers' licenses for the free
sale of all kinds of spirituous liquors is likely to prove itself to be an
equally disastrous leap in the dark. With the very best intentions,
and on the most plausible theoretical grounds, Mr. Gladstone's Govern-
ment greatly extended the free sale of wine and beer, so that now, in
some popular watering-places, I have noticed that almost every third
shop-window is ornamented with a pyramid of beer-bottles. Yet the
late Government have only succeeded in making the grocers' shop the
avenue to the publican's bar. No one can for a moment believe that
the free sale of liquors for home use has in the least degree weakened
the publican's hold on his customers. If I had on a x)rior'i grounds
to plan out a scheme of liquor-traffic, I should just reverse the existing
law relating to beershops and grocers' licenses. I would prohibit the
" off " sale of liquor on any pi-emises where other articles were sold ;
the purchaser desiring to buy wine, beer, or spirits for home use should
be obliged to go to some one of a comparatively few well-marked shops
dealing in those things alone. On the other hand, where liquor is sold
for consumption on the premises, I should oblige the seller to furnish
food and reasonable sitting accommodation. This would be nothing
more than a return to the old law about licensed victualers, which
yet exists in the letter, though it has been allowed to fall into practi-
cal abeyance. The very reasonable law obliging publicans to afford
general entertainment was sadly broken down by the Beershops Act,
which provided unlimited means for the drinking of beer, pure and
simple, without food of any kind. But my contention is, that we
must not proceed in such matters on a priori grounds at all. We
must try.

Perhaps it may be said that every new law is necessarily an experi-
ment, and affords experience for its own improvement, and, if neces-
sary, its abrogation. But there are two strong reasons why an act
which has been made general, and has come into general operation,
can seldom serve as an experiment. Of course, a great many acts of
Parliament are experimentally found to be mistaken, for they never
come into considerable operation at all, like the acts to promote regis-
tration of titles, not to mention the Agricultural Holdings Act. Such
* "Hansard's Debates," April 8, 1830, New Series, vol. xxiv., p. 26.

762 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

cases prove little or nothing, except the weakness, and possibly the in-
sincerity, of the Legislature, But if an act comes largely into opera-
tion it is practically irrevocable. Parliament can not say simply " as
you were," and proceed to a new and more hopeful experiment. A
social humpty-dumpty can not be set up again just as it was before
even by the Queen's men. The vested interests created are usually
too formidable to be put aside, and too expensive to be bought up. A
good many years, say seven, or ten at the least, are needed to develop
properly any important legislative experiment, so that the same gener-
ation of statesmen would not have more than three or four opportu-
nities of experiment in the same subject during the longest political
career. If we divide up the country, and try one experiment on one
town or county, and another on another, there is a possibility of mak- .
ing an almost unlimited number of valid trials within ten or twenty
years. But, apart from this consideration, a general legislative change
is not a true experiment at all, because it affords no clear means of
distinguishing its effects from the general resultant of social and in-
dustrial progress. Statistical facts are usually numerical or quantita-
tive in character, so that, if many causal agencies are in operation at
the same time, their effects are simply added together algebraically,
and are inextricably merged into a general total. Thus, the total num-
bers receiving poor-law relief, or the numbers apprehended in the king-
dom for drunkenness, are numerical results affected by the oscillations
of trade, by the character of the seasons, the value of gold, etc., etc.,
as well as by the acts of the Legislature. To make a valid experiment
we must have a certain thing subject to certain constant conditions,
and we must introduce a single definite change of condition, which
will then be probably the cause of whatever phenomenon follows. It
is possible, indeed, to experiment upon an object of varying condi-
tions, provided we can find two objects which vary similarly ; we then
operate upon the one, and observe how it subsequently differs from the
other. We need, in fact, what the chemists call a " blind experiment."
Suppose, for instance, that an agricultural chemist or a scientific farmer
wished to ascertain the effect of a new kind of manure ; would it be
rational for him to spread the manure over all his available land?
Would it not then be doubtful whether the increase or decrease of
yield were due to the manure or to the character of the seasons ? In
this case his neighbors' crops might, to some extent, furnish the blind
experiment, showing what had been the ordinary yield. But, of
course, the obvious mode of procedure is to spread the new manure
over a part only of each experimental field, so that the difference of
the crops on the different patches brings out, in the most unquestion-
able way, the effect of the manure. Not only is the smaller experi-
ment, in a logical point of view, far better than the larger one, but it
is possible to try many concurrent small experiments upon a farm of
moderate extent.

EXPERIMENTAL LEGISLATION. 763

I maintain that, if our legislators are to act rationally, they -will as
far as possible imitate the agricultural chemist. The idea, for instance,
of obliging, or even allowing, all the boroughs in the kingdom simulta-
neously to adopt the Gothenburg plan, Avould be ridiculous and irra-
tional. The cost and confusion which would arise from a sudden
general trial must be very great ; many years would elapse before the
result was apparent. And that result would not be so clear as if the
trial were restricted to some half a dozen towns. In the mean time it
would be far better that other boroughs should be trying other experi-
ments, giving us many strings to our bow, while some towns would
actually do best for the country by going on as nearly as possible in
their present course. Specific and differentiated experience is what we
need, before making any further important change in the drink-trade.

Not only is this the rational method of procedure, but it is practi-
cally the method to which we owe all the more successful legislative
and administrative reforms of later years. Consider the Poor Law
question. During the eighteenth century, Parliament made two or
three leaps in the dark, by enacting laws such as Gilbert's Act, and
very nearly ruined the kingdom by them. The great Poor Law Com-
mission commenced its operations in the soundest way by collecting
all available information about the treatment of the poor, whether at
home or abroad. But, what is more to the point, since the new Poor
Law was passed in 1834, the j^artially free action of Boards of Guar-
dians, under the supervision of the Poor Law Commission and the Poor
Law Board, has afforded a long series of experimental results. The
reports of Mr. Edwin Chadwick and the late Sh- George Shaw Lefevre
are probably the best models of the true process of administrative
reform to be anywhere found. In more recent years several very im-
portant experiments have been tried by different Boards of Guardians,
such as the boarding out of pauper children, the suppression of va-
grancy by the provision of separate vagrant cells and the hard-labor
test, and the cutting down of outdoor relief. If the total abolition of
outdoor relief is ever to be tried, it must be tried on the small scale
first ; it would be a far too severe and dangerous measure to force
upon the whole country at a single blow. Much attention has lately
been drawn to the so-called "Poor-Law Experiment at Elberfeld,"
which was carefully described by the Rev. \Y. Walter Edwards, in an
article in the "Contemporary Review" for July, 1878, bearing that
precise title.

Even Avhen an act of Parliament is passed in general terms apply-
ing to the whole kingdom at once, it by no means follows that it will
be equally put into operation everywhere. The discretipn necessarily
allowed to magistrates and other authorities often gives ample scope
for instructive experiments. Some years since the Howard Associa-
tion called attention to what they expressly called " The Luton Experi-
ment," consisting in the extraordinary success with which the magis-

764 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

trates of Luton in Bedfordshire enforced the provisions of the "Pre-
vention of Crime Act." The number of committals to jail from Luton
and its vicinity was reduced from two hundred and fifty-seven in 1869
to sixty-six in 1874. The only fault of the experiment consists in the
possibility that the thieves and roughs migrated, but this difficulty
would be less serious had the experiment been tried in larger towns.

What little insight we can gain into the operation of the licensing
laws is mainly due to the considerable differences with which they
have been administered in different places. Such is the latitude of
discretion given by the law that magistrates can often make very dis-
tinct experiments. A short time ago the magistrates of Glasgow in-
tentionally and avowedly made the experiment of locking up in jail all
the drunkards brought before them. When I last heard about this
experiment it was on the point of failing, because the jails of Glasgow
were all quite full, and still the drunkards were coming to the bar.
Li 1863 the Licensing Magistrates of Liverpool commenced a most
interesting experiment, by declaring their intention to adopt "free
licensing," that is, to grant licenses to any suitable persons who ap-
plied for them. The publicans' licenses were increased from sixteen
hundred and seventy-four in 1862 to nineteen hundred and forty in
1866. The system was abandoned in this last year, owing to a change
in the constitution of the Bench. None of the magistrates who advo-
cated the change, we are told, ever recanted, but some who supported
the change to a restrictive policy have been disappointed with the
results. The teaching of this real experiment has been carefully dis-
cussed by Mr, S. G. Rathbone in a very able letter, published in the
"Times" of the 12th of February, 1877, as also in his evidence before
the Lords' Committee of Liquiry on Intemperance (questions 259-384,
etc.). But, apart from his objections to the intei*pretation put upon
the facts, the experiment was not continued sufficiently long, and the
town in which it was tried is so unique in the annals of intemperance
as to be ill-fitted for the purpose.

Much attention has been drawn recently to the merits of the so-
called Gothenburg scheme, the adoption of M^hich has been so ably
advocated by Mr. J. Chamberlain, ]M. P. Now, what is this advocacy
but argument from a successful experiment ? The municipal authori-
ties of Gothenburg allowed a certain method of conducting the sale
of liquor to be tried there, and the success was apparently so great
that other Swedish towns are rapidly adopting the same plan. This is
just the right procedure of trial and imitation. But, if Mr. Chamber-
lain means that, because the plan succeeds in Gothenburg, therefore the
municipal authorities of English towns ought at once to be obliged to
purchase and administer the public-houses, he goes much too far. All
we ought to do is to try the system in a limited number of towns.
Any one acquainted with the bright little Swedish seaport, and the
orderly, polished lower-class population of Sweden, will be in no hurry

EXPERIMENTAL LEGISLATION. 765

to draw analogies between their condition and that of our great, busy,
turbulent Anglo-Irish towns. At any rate it is obvious that experi-
ments ought to be made upon the most closely proximate cases which
can be found, and, if three or four such towns as Birmingham, Bristol,
Bolton, and Newcastle-upon-Tyne could be induced to try the Gothen-
burg scheme, it would be an ample first experiment. Even between
English towns the differences of magnitude, race, occupation, and lo-
cal government are often so great that it is by no means certain that
the same scheme will succeed equally in all. The differences in the
intemperance rates in the several boroughs of England, to which I shall
perhaps draw attention on a future occasion, are so extraordinary and
profound that the Committee of the House of Lords were thoroughly
bewildered on the subject. Under such circumstances it should not
be assumed that uniform legislation must be the ultimate object of our
efforts.

It is a most important question how far the proposals of the
United Kingdom Alliance for the Suppression of the Liquor Traffic
can be approved from the point of view here taken up. I venture to
maintain that those proposals, so far as embodied in the Permissive
Prohibitory Bill, now dropped, had all the possible evils of a great
legislative leap in the dark, with few of the corresponding possible
advantages. Four years ago, in a paper read to the Manchester Sta-
tistical Society, I gave reasons for believing that the long-continued
and costly proceedings of the Alliance were simply thrown away, ex-
cept so far as they might be a warning against similar unwise attempts
at legislation. I showed that the Alliance were striving against triple
improbabilities : firstly, the improbability (as manifested by the de-
creasing ratio of the ayes to the noes in the House of Commons'
divisions) that Parliament would ever pass the bill ; secondly, the im-
probability that, if passed, the Permissive Act would be largely adopt-
ed by local authorities ; thirdly, the improbability that, if adopted, it
would succeed in lessening intemperance. According to the mathe-
matical principle of the composition of probabilities by multiiDlication,
the probability that any good would ever result from an agitation
costing more than a quarter of a million pounds, and extending
already beyond a quarter of a century in duration, was practically nil.
The only effective answers given to my arguments were those of the Rev.
Mr. Steinthal and one or two others, who held that the probabilities in
question are not altogether independent, because Parliament could
hardly be forced to pass the bill unless there wei-e extensive localities
wishing to adopt it. There is a certain amount of truth in this objec-
tion, but it does not to any great degree strengthen the position of the
Alliance. Their proposals in their original form seem to me to have
the character of a vast experiment — so vast that it was intended to
involve the extinction of the trade of publicans and liquor-dealers
generally in all parts of the country. Now, that is an experiment, be-

-jee THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

cause it is exceedingly doubtful whether the population would tolerate
such an interference with their habits, when the meaning of the act
came home to them. The information which we can draw from Maine
or other places where prohibition of the traffic has existed, is most
conflicting in itself, and remote in analogy. Accordingly, I should
much like to see the prohibition of the public sale of liquor tried in
several large English boroughs and districts, provided that the neces-
sary act for the purpose could be carried without stopping all other
legislation on the subject.

Within the last twelve months Sir Wilfrid Lawson and his follow-
ers have had the excellent good sense to drop the Permissive Bill, and
proceed, by way of Parliamentary resolution, in favor of " local op-
tion." I really do not know exactly what is meant by "local option."
Perhaps the Alliance itself does not know ; the wisest course would be
not to know — that is, to leave a latitude of meaning. In any case they
have changed their policy. For year after year, for nearly the average
length of a generation, it was the eleven clauses and one schedule of the
Permissive Prohibitory Liquor Bill, pure and simple. Now it is " local
option." Even if " local option " mean option of prohibition, a reso-
lution is a more tentative method of procedure than the precise clauses
of the celebrated bill. But if, as I fondly hope, " local option " will
be interpreted to mean option for local authorities to regulate the
liquor-traffic in the way thought to be most suitable to the locality, in-
cluding prohibition when clearly desired by the inhabitants, then the
matter assumes a much more hopeful aspect. Not only will the resist-
ance to such a proposal be far less than to the Permissive Bill, but
there will be considerable probability that when passed some success-
ful experiments will be carried out. In fact, this "local option " would
just bo the mode of giving a wide field for diverse experiments which
I am advocating. The teetotalers would be at liberty to try their
experiments, but they would not in the mean time stop the progress of
many other experiments, some of which might, in the course of ten
or fifteen years, offer a sound solution of this most difficult problem.
Of course, I am aware that this question of the drink-traffic is to a
considerable extent a political one. There is a good deal which I
might say upon this topic, but it would not be suitable to the tenor of
my theme. If the political condition of England be such that the
social reform of the people is not the main purpose of our Government,
then we must hope that there are brighter lands where the political
position is very different.

The best way of dealing with the liquor-trade would be to hand
over the matter to the hands of a strong executive commission framed
somewhat on the lines of the Poor-Law Commission. This body
should have the power of authorizing schemes, proposed by local
authorities, and should supervise the working of such schemes, and
collect minute information as to the results. Thev would work entire-

EXPERIMENTAL LEGISLATION. ySy

ly through local authorities, whether the corporations of cities and
boroughs, or the benches of Licensing Magistrates. Before allowing
any very serious experiments, such as the abolition of the public sale,
the local authority would have to present evidence that the mass of the
inhabitants was in favor of such a measure, and the Commissioners
would then probably assign a suitable district, and authorize police
regulations suitable for the most advantageous trial of the experiment.
This method would carry out to the fullest point the idea of a " local
option." Free licensing might be tried in Liverpool, and such other
boroughs as liked to venture on such a hazardous experiment. The
Gothenburg scheme would be adopted by Birmingham and a few other
towns. Manchester might prefer the slighter measure of a rigid re-
striction and supervision of the public-houses. It is to be hoped that
Sunday closing and a lessening of the week-day hours would be voted
by many local authorities, and the experiment of remodeling the
trade, as suggested above, ought certainly to be tried I should also
much like to see some trial made of the important suggestion put for-
ward by Dr. John Watts, at the last meeting of the Social Science
Association. He suggests that in each town or district a limited
number of licenses should be sold by public auction or tender. His
purpose apparently is to limit the number of licenses, and yet to se-
cure the profits of the monopoly to the community.

After the expiration of ten or fifteen years, Parliament would be in
possession of a great amount of really practical information, but the
probability is that it would not be found necessary to pass any great
act for the subsequent regulation of the traffic. The scheme which
was found to work best would by degrees be imitated in the districts
of corresponding circumstances, just as the Gothenburg scheme is be-
ing imitated in other Swedish towns. I do not think that in a matter
of this sort the final law need be exactly uniform. In the licensing
act of 1872 it was found undesirable to fix a uniform hour of closing
public-houses all over the country. Owing to the difference of habits,
the metropolitan area was allowed one hour later at night, and consid-
erable latitude was left to the Licensing Magistrates to vary the hours
of closing. Surely such matters approximate more in character to
hackney-cab regulations or matters of police, which have long been
left to the borough authorities. It is only the political question loom-
ing behind the social or legislative question, which could warrant Par-
liament in deciding that people shall go to bed one hour earlier in the
country than in London. But Parliamentary experience concerning
the Licensing Act of the late Cabinet, and the now defunct Permissive
Bill, can not encourage any party to press for a further great general
measure of licensing reform. As to the present state of things, it could
not be much worse nor more absurd. What with the great variety of
kinds of licenses, the doubts and fears of the magistrates as to their
powers of withdrawing licenses or restraining extension of premises,

768 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the remissness — to use a mild expression — of the police in prosecuting
the offenses of publicans, and the universal facility of obtaiaing any
amount of drink at the nearest grocer's shop — I say things really can
not be much worse than they are. Under the vigorous exertion of
local option the state of affairs would undoubtedly improve in some
parts of the country ; the pressure of public opinion, of the proposed
Commissioners, or, in the last resort, of Parliament, would eventually
force the negligent localities to follow the example of the most suc-
cessful " local-option schemes."

Let it be understood that I do not for a moment suppose that there
is much, if any, novelty in the proposals made above. In one place or
another almost every suggestion, except perhaps that of a superin-
tending Commission, has been made and discussed. The Lords' Com-
mittee have themselves recommended " that legislative facilities should
be afforded for the local adoption of the Gothenburg and of Mr.
Chamberlain's schemes, or of some modification of them." And the
Lords have themselves recognized the value of social " experiments " in
providing counter-attractions to the public-house. In their final report,
dated the ITth of March last, they remark (p. xliv.) :

These experiments are too recent, and, in spite of their rapid increase, too
partial and limited, to enable the Committee to pronounce with confidence on
their ultimate success, or on the extent of the influence they may exercise in
diminishing intemperance ; but they desire to exjjress their strong opinion that,
if generally prosecuted and conducted with due regard for the wants and com-
forts of a population among whom education is gradually diffusing a taste for
enjoyment far less coarse and gross than in the past, they are destined to have
an important influence for good. It is obvious that the desire for recreation
is felt by all classes alike.

What is this, however, but an express recognition by the House
of Lords of the need of experimentation as regards the entertainment
and recreation of the people ? I fail to see how such experimentation
either can or ought to be confined to philanthropists. If we look
around and notice the vast new restaurants of London, the innumer-
able glittering railway-bars in all parts of the country, the music-halls
of all ranks and kinds, the dancing and drinking saloons of some pro-
vincial towns — such as Nottingham — and the great enterprise with
which such places of recreation as the Pomona and Bellevue Gardens
at Manchester are conducted, we shall see that social experiments are
not confined to the teetotalers. Indeed it would not be difficult to
prove that the nugatory licensing laws, as now administered, present
the least possible obstacle to the publicans in pushing their experi-
ments, while they do prevent social reformers from interfering, or from
establishing counter-experiments on an equal footing. It is hardly
too much to say that the licensing laws are laws to give a license to
the publicans and grocers to do what they like to extend the sale of
spirituous liquors.

EXPERIMENTAL LEGISLATION. 769

Although the liquor-traffic presents the widest and most important
sphere for social experiment, there are many other matters to which it
must be applied. Consideration in detail must show whether, in each
case, the tentative method is or is not the proper method. But it is
easy to name several other reforms which ought, in all probability, to
be approached in the experimental manner. Thus, peasant proprietor-
ship ought certainly to be tried in Ireland, as it was intended to be
tried under the Bright clauses of the Irish Land Act. I am familiar
with most of the economic objections to peasant proprietorship in this
kingdom, and I have read sufficient of the large literature of the sub-
ject to know that evidence in favor of and against such a tenure of
land is exceedingly divergent and perplexing. The proper resource,
then, is to try the thing, not by some vast revolution in the land-own-
ing of Ireland, as proposed by the late Mr. Mill— a measure which, in
the first place, would never pass Parliament, and, if it did, would cost
an enormous sum of money, and probably result in failure — but by a
small and progressive exjDeriment. " Earth-hunger " is a very potent
passion, and I believe it is that from which the Irish people are really
suffering. Bread and bacon are not the only good things an Irish
peasant might aspire to; a place to call his own, a share of the air and
sunlight of his native isle, and a land-bank in which to save up the
strokes of his pick and spade, might work moral wonders. It is not
safe to predict the action of human motive ; but, at any rate, try it,
although the trial cost as much as one or two first-rate ironclads, or
a new triumph over a negro monarch. Surely the state of our Irish
Poland is the worst possible injury to our " prestige."

Much doubt exists, again, as to whether imprisonment is necessary
to enforce the payment of small debts. If needless, it is certainly
oppressive. But if the abolition of the power of imprisonment, on the
part of County Court judges, would really destroy the credit of the
poorer classes with their tradesmen, a general measure to that effect
would be dangerous and difficult to retract. I do not see how the
question can be decided, except by trying the effect in a certain num-
ber of County Court districts, and watching the results.

It would be well worth the trouble to try the effect upon a certain
body of inhabitants of the most perfect sanitary regulation, somewhat
in the manner foreshadowed by Dr. B. W. Richardson in his " City of
Hygeia." This I should like to see tried, as regards the middle classes,
in some newly built watering-place, with full and special powers of
sanitary regulation to be granted to it by Parliament, avowedly as an
experiment. At the same time, a few large blocks of workmen's
dwellings ought to be built and placed under experimental sanitary
laws. I am convinced that legislation must by degrees be carried much
further in this direction than is at present the case, but it ought to pro-
ceed tentatively.

One of the difficult questions of the present day is. How can Lon-
voL. XVI. — 49

770

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

don be sujDplied with water ? There would be few engineering difli-
culties if it were allowable to separate the supply of pure water for
drinking and cooking purposes from the much larger quantity required
for other purj^oses. Will people drink the impure water? Who can
decide such a question satisfactorily, except by experiment on a moder-
ate scale ? What could be more absurd than to spend millions uj^on
procuring a separate supply of pure drinking-water for the population
of London, and then finding that the population would drink the im-
pure water ? Many other like matters must be referred to trial, but it
is not the purpose of this article to present a catalogue of experimental
reforms, or to follow the argument out into all the possible details.

I am well aware that social experiments must often be subject to
various difficulties, such as the migration of inhabitants, or even the
intentional frustration of the experiment by interested parties, I have
heard it said that the prohibition of liquor-traffic could not be tried on
a small scale, because the publicans would be sure to combine to send
liquor into the area. If they did so, the fact could readily be put in
evidence, and, if they can defeat the teetotalers in detail, I am quite
sure that they will defeat them upon any very great and general mea-
sure like the Permissive Bill, As to migration of inhabitants, it must
be provided against either by suitably increasing the areas of experi-
mental legislation, or else by collecting information as to the amount
and probable effects of the migration. But the main point of my theme
is to prove that we can not really plan out social reforms upon theo-
retical grounds. General argument and information of all kinds may
properly be employed in designing and choosing the best experiments,
but specific experience on a limited scale and in closely proximate cir-
cumstances is the only sure guide in the complex questions of social sci-
ence. Our method must be that of the supremely wise text : " Prove
all things; hold fast that which is good." — Contemporary Meview.

CUEIOUS WAYS OF GETTmG FOOD.

By HEKMAN L. FAIRCHILD,

TO eat and to be eaten would seem the necessity and the end of
every living thing. Doubtless every plant may serve as food for
some animal ; and there is no animal which may not be meat for some
other animal. Nature is a vast hunting-ground, where man and beast
and every animated being are legitimate prey. Not alone do the car-
nivorous animals eat the herbivorous. The blood-loving tiger is itself
the prey of parasites. Even proud man is living booty. Animals
within animals ; life within life. There is literal truth in the satirical
passage :

CURIOUS WAYS OF GETTING FOOD. 771

" So, naturalists observe, a flea
Has smaller fleas that on Lira prey ;
And these have smaller still to bite 'em,
And so proceed, ad infinitum.''''

The variety of animal food is, therefore, as broad as animated
nature. Hence, we find great variety of means and methods for pro-
curing subsistence. Particularity in food implies especial or efficient
means of getting that food. The strange appendages of animals, their
form, color, and habits, have to do more with the prehension of food
than with any other function. It will be interesting to briefly survey
the animal kingdom Avitli reference to this marvelous adaptation. Its
origin we will not discuss.

The simplest manner of procuring food is shown by the tapeworm
and some other intestinal animals. These feed on the nutritive fluid
prepared in the alimentary canal of the animals which they inhabit ;
and, being destitute of mouth and stomach, absorb the already digested
food directly through the skin or body-walls. Probably this absorp-
tion does not require will or effort on the part of the parasite, but
takes place simply by the physical action known as osmose. It is thus
equivalent to the last step in the digestive process of higher animals.
Some parasites, as the larva of the tapeworm, which live in the muscles
and tissues, imbibe the animal juices by the walls of the body ; but
here the process as a whole is slightly higher, for this food probably
requires more elaboration or digestion.

Fig. 1.— HAWK-MoTn {Sphinx quinguemaculatus).

Any special modification or organ for procuring food is a great
advance beyond the method already described. Liquid food is more
easily prehended than solid, yet the means are various and remarkable.
Even the simplest organs are wonderful in their structure and action.

Those butterflies and moths which take any food at all have a

772 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

long, slender tube for pumping the nectar of flowers. This "pro-
boscis " is frequently much longer than the insect's body, and when
not in use is beautifully coiled under the head. The humming-bird
has a long, slender beak for the same purpose, which in some species
is curved to fit certain flowers, it is said. Bees and flies lap their
food, the former with a hairy tongue, the latter with a proboscis
knobbed at the end. The sucker of the leech is furnished with three
little saws for cutting the skin of its prey in order to draw its blood.
A barbed tube is used by the louse ; while the irrepressible mosquito
is provided with a whole set of surgical instruments. Its proboscis,
which seems so simple to the unaided eye, is found to be a " flexible
sheath inclosing six distinct pieces, two of which are cutting-blades or
lancets, two notched like a saw with reverted teeth, a tubular canal,
and the central one an excessively acute point, which is also tubular."

Fig. 2— Modth-Parts or Mosquito.

It is interesting to know how the insect uses so many instruments, as
we have all had the pleasure of being the subjects of her surgical skill
(for only the female is admitted to the practice of bloodletting).
" When the attack is made, the gnat (or mosquito) brings the tip of
the organ within its sheath to press upon the skin into which it pres-
ently enters, the sheath remaining without and bending into an angle
as the lancets descend. When the weapon has penetrated to its base
— a distance of one sixth of an inch or more — the lancets move laterally
and thus cut the flesh on either side, promoting the flow of blood from
the superficial vessels ; at the same moment a highly irritative fluid is
poured into the wound, which has the effect of diluting the blood and
thus rendering it more capable of flowing up the slender central tube
into the throat of the insect."

Many aquatic animals, especially the low, fixed forms, depend for
subsistence upon the minute organic particles floating in the water.
But if the animal can not move in search of food it must have some
me^ns of bringing the food to itself. This is frequently accomplished
by vibrating hair-like appendages, called cilia, which produce currents

CURIOUS WAYS OF GETTING FOOD. 773

in the water. In that immense aggregation of minute animals, the
sponge, the canals ramifying through the mass are lined with cilia,
which cause constant currents of water to pass in at the small pores
and issue at the large openings. Thus " the sponge represents a kind
of subaqueous city, where the people are arranged about the streets
a^id roads in such a manner that each can easily appropriate his food
from the water as it jaasses along." Cilia fringe the gills of the bivalve
mollusks, like the oyster and scallop, or the clam, which can burrow in
the sand and send up into the water a long tube or siphon.

The great Greenland whale subsists on the small animals which
swarm in the Arctic seas. But how shall the enormous beast capture
sufficient of those tiny creatures ? Its apj^aratus is as remarkable as it
is unique — a huge sieve, made of the fringed edges of hundreds of
" whalebone " plates, hanging from the roof of the mouth. Filling
its cavern-like mouth with water containing the small animals, these
are strained out as the water is expelled.

Solid food in mass requires some means of grasping — true prehen-
sion ; generally accompanied by the power of dividing or crushing —
mastication. A most curious method, and but one step higher than
shown in the tapeworm, is exhibited by the microscopic amoeba, found
in fresh water. An animal without any permanent appendages what-
ever, a bit of almost structureless protoplasm, it nevertheless moves
without limbs, breathes without gills, seizes food without prehensile
organs, and digests without a stomach. All the animal functions are
performed by the general mass of the body. Its mode of feeling is as
follows : When a nutritious particle comes in contact with the body,
the surface at that point begins to depress or fall in, and so continues
until the surrounding surfaces meet and unite. In other words, the
animal wraps itself around the particle, and the bit of food is enveloped
in the albuminous body-mass. The nutritive matter is absorbed, and
any undigested or waste matter is expelled by a reverse process.
Briefly, the amoeba extemporizes a stomach upon the place and at the
time it is needed, and is not troubled with that uneasy organ when it
is not needed. The ills of dyspepsia are to the amoeba unknown.

The polyp or sea-anemone has numerous grasping arms called ten-
tacles surrounding the mouth, which is at the top of the stump-shaped
body. But the muscular power of the soft, watery animal is not suf-
ficient to hold a lively crab or other struggling prey. To supplement
this weakness, it is provided with a most marvelous and deadly appa-
ratus. The surfaces of the tentacles, and frequently of the stomach
and body-walls, hold countless minute sacs containing beautifully coiled
filaments, which are quickly thrown out like so many poisoned darts
to pierce and paralyze the victim. The structure and action of these
stinging threads is one of the greatest wonders of nature. The weak
jelly-fish uses the same means to overpower its prey, which, enveloped
and paralyzed by the hundreds of thread-like tentacles, is drawn up-

774

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ward into the digestive cavity. The larger jelly-fishes, with tentacles
streaming out to a length of thirty or forty feet, could easily paralyze
large animals. It has been suggested that some of the sudden and
strange disappearances of bathers may have been caused by these fear-
ful creatures.

Hundreds of little air-pumps are employed by the star-fish. These
sucking-disks upon the under side of the flexible rays enable the ani-
mal to adhere with surprising power. And it can also protrude its
stomach to inwi-ap prey which is too large to swallow. It is thus able,
by turning itself inside out, to suck an oyster from its shell ; and,
having an especial fondness for these mollusks, it makes great havoc
among the oyster-beds.

The tongue is the prehensile organ of the univalve mollusks.
Being covered with rows of toothed plates it acts like a rasp, or can
be protruded beyond the head to serve as a drill. The vegetable-
feeding snails have also a bony plate in the roof of the mouth to aid
in cutting. The common garden-snail has not less than 28,000 teeth
on its strap-shaped tongue. These mollusks, and all animals hereafter
mentioned, have the superior power of vision which, enabling them to
discover food or pursue their prey, is of the greatest aid in getting
food. The other senses are also aids to prehension.

Common Poulpe {Octopus vulgaris).

The devil-fish, so called, the highest of mollusks, is possessor of an
apparatus which for terrible efficiency could hardly be surpassed. Its
prey is seized by eight long " arms " which surround the mouth, and
the'grasp is assured by rows of sucking-disks on the inner side of these
arms. Indeed, these diminutive air-pumps hold so firmly that an arm
will sometimes tear from the head. Some species have in addition
two other arms equaling the body in length, which are commonly
folded beneath the head, out of the way. As the creature nears its
intended prey, these two long arms are quickly projected and seize the

CURIOUS WAYS OF GETTING FOOD. 775

victim by means of the suckers, thus serving a purpose similar to a
harpoon or lasso. As the victim is di*a\vn nearer, the shorter arms
wrap around it and effectually prevent its struggles. Now comes in
play another instrument, its powerful, horny jaws, which form a beak
shaped like a parrot's inverted. With this terrible weapon it bites its
victim in the back of the neck, thus cutting the spinal cord and pro-
ducing immediate death.

Fig. 4.— Protruded (Esophagus of a Sea-Wobm.

How different is the method employed by the Laodicea ! This
worm inverts or protrudes its gullet as a sort of proboscis, provided
at the end with little teeth for grasping. Like the star-fish, to seize
its food, it turns itself inside out.

Biting insects and most articulates have horny jaws moving hori-
zontally. Poison fangs are sometimes added, as in the centiped. The
claws of the crab and lobster are transformed legs ; one frequently
used as an anchor, while the other holds the prey.

Every one is familiar with the skillful trap which the spider sets
for his victims. This wily creature sometimes builds a concealed lair
whence it can spring upon its prey. Others, that spin no web, have a
curious fashion of fastening a thread to whatever object they stand
on at the instant they pounce on their prey, in order that the victim,

Fig. 5.— Pit of Ant-Liok.

which is frequently larger than the spider, may not fly away with its
captor. It does fly to the extent of the thread, but the poison soon
takes effect, and the cruel spider deliberately winds up its anchor cable
and recovers its footing.

776 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

A relative of the dragon-flies, the ant-lion, when in the larval state,
digs a conical pitfall, at the bottom of which it lies buried, with only-
its strong jaws projecting. Here it patiently waits for an ant or some
small creature to tumble in. If the struggling animal seems libely to
clamber out, the ant-lion hurls sand at it to bring it within reach of
the fatal jaws, where it is surely lost.

Ants sometimes undertake the dairy business. Being exceedingly
fond of a milky fluid which exudes from two tubes situated on the
hinder part of the bodies of certain plant-lice, called aphides, to pro-
cure it they resort to measures strangely intelligent for even the pro-
verbially wise ant. They have been known to build mud stables in
which the aphides were kept as stalled milch-cows. To cause the flow
of milk, the ants irritate or rub the tubes with their antennae.

Fig. 6.— Ant milking an Aphis.

With few exceptions fishes depend upon their numerous teeth for
seizing food. The sturgeon is toothless, and draws in its food by suc-
tion. A single long tooth is used by the hag-fish to transfix its victim,
while it bores the flesh with a long, spiny tongue. The angler lies half
concealed by sand and weeds, with its enormous mouth agape ready to
seize any small fish which may incautiously venture near. Upon its
nose is a long, flexible spine, with shiny tip, which, waving in the
water, decoys small fry to their death.

King of fishes, by virtue both of size and ferocity, is the rapacious
shark. This terror of the sea has its mouth armed with hundreds of
teeth, triangular in outline and serrated on the edges. There are sev-
eral rows, and, as the outer old teeth drop away, others rise into position
to take their places.

In Japan is found a beautiful fish which has a sort of gun for bring-
ing down insects. It does not have to wait, like other fishes, for the
fly to fall into the water by accident. Seeing one lighted near the
water, the choetodon gently approaches, and, aiming its beak, blows a
drop of water with unerring aim, knocks the unsuspecting fly off its
perch into the stream, and devours it, doubtless with a relish begotten

CURIOUS WAYS OF GETTING FOOD. j^j

of its skill as a si^ortsman. An air-gun with a drop of water for a
bullet ! It is said the Japanese amuse themselves by watching their
captive chretodons shoot the flies presented to them.

Fig. 7. — Tue AugIj^r (^Lophius 2}iscatorius).

Most reptiles use teeth for prehending food, like the fishes. Some,
however, as the toad and chameleon, employ the tongue, which, being
rooted in front and free behind, besides being very extensile, is thrown
out and over with great quickness and precision. A sticky saliva
causes the insect to adhere.

Poison-fangs of serpents are helps to procure food as well as weap-
ons ; and the power of charming is a very strange and effective way
of obtaining food.

The alligator will approach a large animal which may be standing
at the water's edge, and, by a quick blow of its powerful tail, knock
the unsuspecting creature into the water. In deep water it is at the
mercy of the reptile, which kills it by drowning. The nostrils of the
alligator and crocodile are so placed as to be out of water, while the
prey held in the jaws is beneath the surface.

Birds have not great variety of organs or methods of prehension.
Beaks, claws, tongues, and keen senses complete the list of means.
The woodpecker drills a hole into the tree to secure the larva which
by some myterious power it knows is buried there ; and its barbed
tongue is used to draw the worm from its hole. The slender, forked
tongue of humming-birds is used to grasp and draw minute insects
from the depths of flowers. The long beaks of some birds are used
to penetrate the sand or mud in search of worms. Birds of prey grasp

778 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

with their talons. Their sight is wonderful, enabling them to discover
their quarry at a great distance, and to strike it without error, not-
withstanding the velocity of their approach. The sense of smell would
seem remarkably developed in certain carrion-eating birds. The sec-
retary-bird kills the poisonous serpents which are its diet by kicking
them, while our domestic fowls scratch for a living.

Fia. 8.— Tongue op Woodpecker.

In variety of prehensile means mammals far surpass any equal
group of the animal kingdom. Owing to our familiarity, however,
these peculiarities seem less interesting ; but, if we could divest our-
selves of preknowledge, or see them with a new vision, we should be
astonished and delighted by the various contrivances and the curious
adaptations. The tongue is the chief or only prehensile organ of
many animals. Here belong the ox and all the cud-chewers. Of these
the giraffe is the strangest. Intended to browse, it has an extremely
long neck, mounted on equally long legs and shoulder-blades ; yet,
lest it should still fail of reaching its dinner, the tongue is proportion-
ately long and remarkably prehensile ; being able to select the sweet-
est foliage, or extend so slenderly at the tip as to enter a hole the size
of a quill. Its lingual dexterity is sometimes exercised to the discom-
fiture of visitors at the menagerie. The toothless ant-eater breaks down
the hard mounds of the ants or termites with its powerful claws, and
sweeps the insects into its mouth with an immensely long, worm-like
tongue ; or it may thrust the tongue directly into the ant-holes. The
insects adhere by means of a glutinous saliva, as in the case of the
toad.

The hog uses his nose for getting food, and the star-nosed mole
has a similar contrivance. The lips are employed by the horse ; and
we find both nose and upper lip prolonged as a proboscis in the tapir
and shrew. But the elephant is, of course, the great example of im-
mense proboscis. The whole make-up of the animal is queer, and to
a stranger would be absurd. The small boy who described the ele-
phant as " a large beast with a tail at both ends " had the elements of
a naturalist. As the neck of the huge creature does not permit great
motion of the head, the trunk supplies the deficiency. The tusks are
also chiefly food-gatherers ; used as picks and spades for uprooting
trees and digging succulent roots. The tusks of the walrus are cer-
tainly locomotive and defensive organs, but it is suggested that per-
haps they are also used to raise algse from the rocks of the sea-
bottom.

The greater number of mammals depend wholly upon the jaws

CURIOUS WAYS OF GETTING FOOD. 779

and teeth for grasping food. A full descrij^tion of these organs more
properly belongs to the subject of eating food. Gnawing animals, like
the rabbit, have the four front teeth, incisors, acting as chisels. In
the hippopotamus the prehensile teeth form tremendous shears for
cutting plant-stems.

Beasts of prey use jaws or feet, or both ; but, to bring the prey
within reach of either organ, requires keen senses to discover, and

Fig. 9.— The Mammoth, or Hairy Elepuant.

craftiness and speed to catch them. Animals of the dog tribe seize
with the jaws ; those of the cat tribe use all four feet. The supple
paw, with its retractile claws, is highly fitted for grasping and tearing,
as v^.eVi as for silent, stealthy tread. The cat's tongue is armed with
spiny, recurved papillro, to lap blood or scrape flesh from bones.

Monkeys also employ all their feet for grasping ; and, in common
with those mammals that can sit on their hind-limbs, such as the
squirrel, rat, kangaroo, and bear, carry food to the mouth with the
fore-limbs ; and some monkeys use the sensitive tips of their long tails
to draw fruit from crevices or holes. The strainer of the Greenland
whale has been described. A shovel-bill is the appliance of the duck-
mole.

Only reference can here be made to the adaptation of mammals to
the element in which their food exists. The whale, seal, hippopota-
mus, and duck-mole, find sustenance in the water. In the ground bur-
rows the mole ; the squirrel and sloth inhabit the trees, while the bat
searches the air. Thus every element contains representatives of this
highest animal group.

Prehension of food is so various in means and methods that no
universal laws regarding it can be forraiilated. It can not form a
basis of classification, seeming to have little or no discovered relation
to animal rank. However, the subject is of greatest interest ; and,

78o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

together with the adaptations of animals in other directions, has re-
ceived in recent years much merited attention, chiefly in behalf of
development theories. But, whether these remarkable adaptations of
animals to peculiar food and surroundings be the result of variation
and development, or of special creation, they are equally wonderful.

THE PLEASURE OF YISUAL FORM.

By JAMES SULLY.

I.

IT is often said that the j)leasure of form as contrasted with that
of color is an intellectual pleasure arising from the perception of
relations (unity in variety, proportion, etc.). In a sense this is true,
for, as I hope to show in the course of this essay, the appreciation
of form as compared with the enjoyment of color is saturated, so to
speak, with the more refined sort of intellectual activity. But the
fact that certain varieties of the arts of form, more especially outline
drawing, dispense with the pleasure of color, and even with that of
light and shade, suggests that the pleasure of visual form includes a
sensuous element as well 3,8 an intellectual. It will be my special aim
in this paper to bring out this somewhat neglected factor in visual
gratification, and to indicate, so far as it is possible, its importance
among the several factors, which together compose what we call
beauty of form.

In pursuing this inquiry, it will be best to disregard the sensuous
enjoyment of light and shade. For our present purpose, differences
of light and shade are merely means of appreciating form. Again,
it will be advisable to include all varieties of form as determined by
the three dimensions of space. It is true that beauty of form, so far
as it rests on purely visual feelings, is largely that of surface relations
or of space in two dimensions. Yet it will be found to be practically
impossible to treat of this apart from that other kind of beauty of
form which embraces the charm of distance and perspective, and the
characteristic attractiveness of solid shapes. As to the order of treat-
ment, I shall set out with the elements of pleasure which are obvi-
ously direct — that is, arise from the activity of the visual organ — and
trace the process of building up a more complex intellectual gratifica-
tion on these. After that I shall pass to the indirect or associated
elements of enjoyment. The simplest kind of visual appreciation of
form is that of linear relations. For reasons to be spoken of pres-
ently, a straight line is the natural element of visible form, and the
development of the visual perception of form (regarded as indepen-
dent of that of the tactual) proceeds by a kind of synthesis of linear

THE PLEASURE OF VISUAL FORM. 781

elements. We may therefore confine ourselves for the present to this
kind of form-intuition.

There are two ways of perceiving a line : either the eye may move
along it, and appreciate its direction, length, etc., by the aid of move-
ment ; or it may fix the line, and estimate it by means of the impres-
sions it simultaneously makes on different I'etinal elements. I shall
assume here what is held by German writers like Lotze, Helmholtz,
and Wundt, as well as by most English psychologists, that the former
is the earlier method. This, then, is the simple experience into which
we have first to look for the germ of the enjoyment of form.

A. Sensuous Factor. — We must imagine the eye, and first of all
one eye apart from the other, moving as it now does, but having,
instead of an extended retina, a single sensitive point at the center of
the yellow spot, which is successively directed to different points in the
outline of an object, with no other change of feeling than that which is
connected with the movement itself.* It is plain that this experience
will exactly resemble that of following a moving object, as a shooting
star, with the single difference that in the former case the rapidity of
movement will be a matter of choice. In order to understand the kind
of aesthetic experience which the eye would have under these circum-
stances, it is necessary to say a word or two about its mode of action.
I shall suppose that the reader is acquainted with the general features
of the mechanism of ocular movement, and content myself with speci-
fying one or two facts having an important bearing on our subject.

First of all, then, I would remind the reader that, setting out from
the natural or " primary " position in which the axis or center of vision
is directed to a point immediately in front of it, the eye is able to fol-
low any line in the supposedly flat field of vision without a great ex-
penditure of muscular energy, and with a uniform action of one or
more muscles.f In other words, it is the simple and normal mode of
visual action to describe a movement which answers to a straight line
on the flat field. But, though all rectilinear movements from this
primary position are normal ones, some are easier than others. Thus,
while horizontal movements only require the action of one muscle,
vertical movements involve two, and oblique movements three. J Move-
ments far away from the primary position to points near the periphery
of the field clearly involve a greater degree of muscular expenditure,
the muscles in this case being contracted to their extreme limit. Fur-
ther, it is noteworthy that in these outer regions of the field move-
ments are no longer executed with the same simplicity. Thus, if the
eye follows an horizontal line lying high in the plane of vision, more

* This supposition is not really conceivable, since a plurality of retinal elements is
necessary to the eye's foUowinc/ any line.

f In this primary position the tension of the antajjonist muscles is just balanced, and
movement involves the first and easiest stages of contraction and relaxation.

X See Wundt, " Physiologische Psychologic," pp. 536-539.

782 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

than one muscle is involved. To sum up, the eye, owing to the laws
of its mechanism, follows a line much more easily in the central than
in the peripheral parts of the field, and in the central parts it follows
a vertical line more easily than an oblique, and an horizontal more easi-
ly than a vertical.

It would seem to follow, from these conditions of facile movement
in monocular vision, that in the case of binocular vision movements
with parallel axes will be easier than movements with convergent axes.
And this is proved by observation, for, as Wundt points out, infants
instinctively move their eyes in the former way. Combined move-
ments with convergent axes constantly involve an extra element of
muscular tension, namely, that which is required to counteract the
natural tendency to parallelism.* For the rest, it is to be noted that,
with respect to " movements of convergence " (which cause the axes
to approach one another, or vice versa), the symmetrical movements,
which would be executed in following a receding line in the medium
plane of the body, have so far a natural superiority over asymmetrical
ones that, in the former case, the movements of the two eyes are ex-
actly similar, in the latter case not so. The greater sense of ease which
accompanies such symmetrical movements is probably explained, in
l^art at least, by the constant need of executing such movements in
passing the eyes from near to distant points lying in this medium
plane.

Let us now pass to the subjective aspects of ocular movement.
Although there is still a good deal of uncertainty respecting the exact
composition of the feelings of movement, it may be taken as fairly
proved that they include an active element or " feeling of innerva-
tion," which is correlated with the central excitation of motor fibers,
and a passive element or tactual sensation which is connected with a
reflex excitation of sensory fibers, consequent on certain differences in
the tensions and mutual pressure of various parts of the skin which
result from the movement, f The recognition of this twofold element
in the feelings of movement may help us in understanding the plea-
sures of ocular movement.

It will, I think, be admitted as a truth, which is both borne out by
direct experience and deducible from more general principles, that
every movement of an organ is accompanied by at least a slightly plea-
suralDle feeling, provided it has an appreciable duration and rapidity,
and on the other hand is not excessive, whether as violently rapid, or
as unduly prolonged in time, or repeated, or, finally, as unduly pro-

* It is to be added, however, that in the case of movements with convergent axes,
directed to a point immediately in front of the two eyes, the contrast between horizontal
and vertical movements, pointed out in the case of monocular vision, seems to be some-
what modified, though hardly obliterated.

f It is probable that this passive element includes the mental concomitant of an ex-
citation of the sensory fibers which are known to run to the muscles themselves.

THE PLEASURE OF VISUAL FORM. 783

longed in space, or carried beyond the limits of ordinary and easy
muscular contraction. The movements of the eye will be found to
illustrate this law, though, owing to the small caliber of the ocular
muscles, both the enjoyment and the fatigue attending them are apt
to seem insignificant quantities. The pleasures of ocular movement
are thus confined within definite limits, namely, a certain duration of
a certain velocity of movement over the central part of the field of
vision. Further, movements involving a higher degree of muscular
expenditure grow fatiguing sooner than others, as we may see in the
case of following the outline of very near objects with convergent
axes. Finally, certain combinations of muscular action give rise to
fatigue sooner than others, e. g., those necessary to oblique movement
sooner than those involved in vertical or horizontal. The reason of
this may be not so much the larger number of muscular factors as the
relative infrequency of the combination. We have in a general way
much more need to execute vertical and horizontal movements than
oblique ones, height and lateral distance being the two most impor-
tant dimensions ; and this would tend to make the former easier and
less rapidly fatiguing. For a like reason, the superior ease of horizon-
tal movements may be referred in part to the greater need in general
of attending to lateral relations of distance than to vertical ones.

Within these limits of pleasurable ocular movement we may find
a difference in the quality of the enjoyment, according as the move-
ment is energetic (though not excessively so) or comparatively restful.
In the first case the feeling is of a more active and stimulating quality,
and approaches in character the sense of power which we experience
when we employ the larger muscles of the body. In the second case
the feeling is more passive and allied to sensation proper. It may be
thrown out as a conjecture that the former mode of pleasurable feel-
.ing is connected with the excitation of the motor fibers, whereas the
latter consists mainly of the tactual and other sensations already re-
ferred to. We may, perhaps, conceive that, when the motor innerva-
tion reaches a certain degree of intensity, its mental correlative be-
comes the predominant feeling ; but that, when it falls below this
point, the passive sensations come to the surface of consciousness, so
to speak, and give the dominant character to the feeling. On the
whole, the gentler forms of ocular movement yield richer enjoyment
than the more energetic. The muscles of the eye hardly seem to be
of a sufficient caliber to supply the full consciousness of active force,
which is a concomitant of the energetic action of the larger muscles
of the body. Hence it may be said that the quieter forms of motor
enjoyment are preferred by the eye.

This diffei-ence in the quality of the agreeable feelings of ocular
movement is best seen in comparing slow and rapid movements, as in
following the progress of a rocket in its early and later stages. As
Professor Bain remarks, rapid visible movements are stimulating, while

784 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

slow ones are more voluptuous and allied to the richer varieties of
passive sensation. In following straight lines, and in tracing the out-
lines of objects, the eye has, it is obvious, a choice out of an indefinite
number of velocities of movement. It is probable, for the reason just
given, that under these circumstances it usually prefers a slow to an
excitingly rapid species of movement.*

For a similar reason those directions of ocular movement which
answer to easy and habitual muscular action, have more of a pleasur-
able character than those which soon approach the threshold of fatigue.
Thus, an horizontal line is, as a rule, in itself, and apart from any ex-
traneous consideration, more enjoyable, because more restful, than a
vertical. Let the reader compare the feelings he has in looking at
architecture, in which the vertical direction predominates, and at the
approximately horizontal lines of a flat landscape. A somewhat anal-
ogous difference exists between movements of the two eyes with
strongly converging and with parallel axes. The sweet repose of dis-
tance arises in part from this comparatively relaxed form of muscular
activity.

So much as to the pleasure of single ocular movement. Let us now
see how a pleasant succession of movements is to be secured. The
conditions of agreeable sequence of movement seem to be the combina-
tion of the refreshing and stimulating element of change with an ele-
ment of smoothness or ease of transition. Change of movement is, of
course, necessitated by the universal condition of mental life, and vari-
ety is the very essence of all aesthetic experience, all monotonous feel-
ing being wearisome. On the other hand, a chain of varied movements
may be smooth and agreeable, or jerky and harsh, and this difference
is related to the innate mechanical conditions of movement, and to the
effects of habit.

Change of movement may most easily be secured by a variation ■
either of velocity or of direction.! One and the same movement may
vary in velocity, as in watching the ascent or descent of a projectile
thrown up vertically. So different movements may present a differ-
ence of velocity as in the sequences of a ballet. Such conti-asts plain-
ly answer to tbe most favorable mode of expending motor energy.
Again, our movement may be followed by another of different di-
rection ; that is to say, one that involves the action of fresh muscular
elements, or a change in the relative amounts of action of two or
more combining muscles. All complicated movements of objects and
all arrangements of lines in the figures of bodies supply such variation
in abundance.

So much as to change of element. Let us now pass to the other
condition of agreeable sequence, namely, smoothness. The first and

* A certain rapidity is no doubt made natural by the need of visually construing
objects as wholes.

f Change of duration and extent of movement will be best spoken of later on.

THE PLEASURES OF VISUAL FORM. 785

most obvious way of realizing such smoothness is by reducing the
degree of change or contrast to a minimum. In this way we get
a gradation of movement either in respect of velocity or of di-
rection.

Gradation in du-ection or velocity, like gradation in shade of color
or pitch of tone, is attended by a peculiarly agreeable feeling. One
and the same movement may exhibit a gradual rise and fall of velocity,
and it is probable that this is the form of movement naturally pro-
duced by all muscular contraction. Gradation in direction, which is
at the basis of all curvilinear movements, depends on a gradual altera-
tion in the relative degrees of activity of two or more muscles, and
so corresponds to gradation in color or tone, which is supposed to rest
on a continual increase of activity in certain nerve-elements, and de-
crease in others. A mode of gradation somewhat similar to that in
direction is experienced in symmetrical movements of convergence,
and especially in moving the axes from a near to a distant point, and
so gradually relaxing the tension due to convergence.*

This mode of motor enjoyment is realized when standing in the
middle of a building or an avenue of trees, and tracing an imaginary
central receding line, and it is noticeable that we naturally place our-
selves in the position and execute this kind of movement whenever
we wish to appreciate the effect of perspective. It may be added that
a union of gradation of velocity with that of duration, as in tracing
the path of a projectile across the field of vision, affords the eye its
richest form of motor delight.

A graduated series of movements allows of the least exciting de-
gree of the feeling of variety. If a more powerful effect of change
is desired, the element of smoothness must be looked for in another
way. A succession of different movements has a cei'tain degree of
smoothness if they are continuous and free from sudden pauses and
jerkiness. This can only happen if the movement is continuous in
time, and, what is implied in this, in space — that is to say, the second
movement must be one which can be commenced in that jDosition of
the eye in which the first has left it. Where this is not the case,
there must be a "sirring," so to speak, of the eye, to the new starting-
point, which counts as an appreciable element of roughness or un-
evenness.

A higher degree of fluency is attained when the muscles, succes-
sively employed, are organically connected one with another, whether
by some innate arrangement or by the influence of habit. This ap-
plies more especially to the action of the antagonists. A movement
of the eyes to the left of the field produces a tendency in the antago-
nists to pull them back again. Hence the natural disposition to trace

* A rectilinear movement of the eye away from and back to the primary position may •
be said to afPord a faint feeling of gradation, analogous to that experienced in movementa
of convergence.

VOL. XVI. — 50

786 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

a line forward and backward. Assuming the primary position to be
the natural one, we may argue that any movement of the axis of vision
from the center of the field excites a tendency to a corresponding
movement of return to the central point of repose. Any chain of
visible movements, as those of a ballet, and any arrangement of lines
will gratify the eye in proportion to the number of such balancing
actions of the ocular muscles which it includes.

It is only one step more to say that a full degree of fluency of
movement implies a simple rhythmic order in the successive move-
ments. The muscles of the eye being symmetrically formed, it fol-
lows that the action of any one will be compensated by the action of
another of the same duration (the velocity being supposed to be the
same). In this way a certain amount of rhythmic or equal time-order
is rendered agreeable by an innate organic arrangement, and quite
independently of any conscious perception of time-relations.

And here we reach the limit of what can be called the organic
factor of sensuous gratification in ocular movement, and trench on
the properly intellectual enjoyment of perceived relations. The per-
ception of 23roportion would no doubt be possible if the eyes were
what we have so far imagined them to be — incapable of simultaneous
impressions. The moving eye, like the moving limb, can appreciate
relations of duration and of distance or time-rhythm and space-rhythm
within certain limits. Yet such a coordination of successive elements
would be certainly inferior to that of the actual eye, with its capability
of simultaneous impressions. It would probably be inferior to the
ear's perception of measure. Hence we shall do best to treat of the
visual sense of proportion and equality of magnitudes in connection
with that more complex organ with which nature has actually endowed
us. To the consideration of this higher kind of perception let us now
pass.

Ji. I:jfTELLECTUAL Factor. — In endowing our imaginary eye with
an extended retina which allows of simultaneous perception of form
relations, we do not get rid of the elementary experiences of move-
ment first dwelt on : we only transform them somewhat. There is
good reason to think that actual movement enters into our customary
perception even of smaller forms much more than is generally sup-
posed. It may be added that what we call a simultaneous perception
of form is often, as I shall have occasion to show presently, a sequence
of simultaneous perceptions. But more than this, one may now con-
tend, with a fair degree of confidence, that, even in the perception of
form by the resting eye, motor elements are essential ingredients, how-
ever much they may be disguised.

I need not here expound or defend the hypothesis of local signs
put forth by Lotze, and accepted with certain modifications by Helm-
holtz and Wundt. My concern here is to trace some of the resthetic
consequences of this hypothesis. It at once follows from this theory

THE PLEASURES OF VISUAL FORM. 787

that the resting eye's perception of form consists of a mass of motor
feeling ideally represented. In other words, it is made up of a num-
ber of imperfectly distinguished imaginations of movement in different
directions, etc. And these representative feelings are very various in
character, since we are vaguely aware that any fixed line, for example,
offers a choice of movement in two directions, and of an indefinite
number of velocities. Now, if we conceive that the feelings of move-
ment thus represented in a confused aggi-egate are distinctly pleasur-
able ones, it must follow that such a condition, of what I may call the
motor imagination, will be a highly agreeable one. It will involve a
vague consciousness of a wealth of motor experience and a rich area
of selection. It has been said that the possibilities of enjoyment in
valuable possessions, as wealth and friends, often count more than the
amount of actual enjoyment we are ever likely to get out of them.
This remark may apply to that recognition of the possibilities of
pleasurable movement which every beautiful form supplies to the rest-
ing eye.

The capability of simultaneous local recognition by the eye would
seem in this way greatly to enrich its enjoyment of form. Our appre-
ciation of a beautiful line includes a transition from a state of actual
movement with its definite motor feelings to a state of actual repose
with the imagination of movement only, and of relatively indefinite
feelings of movement.

To verify these deductions, it would be necessary to show that all
agreeable forms, up to the most beautiful, do answer to pleasurable
ocular movements. In a general way this will be found to be so. A
beautiful figure is one which selects such elements of form, together
with combinations of these, as supply the eye with the more agreeable
varieties of motor experience already spoken of. The selection of
curved lines, the preference for horizontal lines (which seems to be
exemplified in the feeling for bilateral symmetry), the taste for con-
tinuous forms or contour arrangements, for the grouping of parts about"
a center and for symmetrical balance (which answer no less to the
natural conditions of easy movement than they do to the arrangements
of the retina itself), all this seems to show how closely beauty of form
is conditioned by the laws of agreeable movement.

At the same time, what we call a beautiful form is sometimes
ready to sacrifice this pleasure of movement ; and it does so just be-
cause it can command another kind of gratification — namely, an intel-
lectual pleasure in the recognition of relations. To this new factor we
may now pass. I have already remarked that the moving eye, capable
of successive experiences only, would not attain to any very complex
perceptions of relations of parts. The capability of the eye in the
delicate discrimination of shades of direction and distance, and still
more in the coordination of manifold details under some aspect of
unity, seems to be inseparably bound up with the fact of simul-

788 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

taneous retinal impression. A word or two will perhaps make this
clearer.

The substitution of simultaneous retinal perception of form for
successive perception has the effect of bringing together the terms of
the relations of variety and contrast, unity and similarity, under what
is approximately one act of attention. If we watch the movements
of a painter's hand as he draws the outline of a human figure on a
canvas, our eye may attain a rough perception of the successive direc-
tions and distances ; but how vague will this perception be as com-
pared with that which we instantaneously obtain when the artist moves
away from his canvas, and shows us these as parts of a permanent co-
existent whole ! In the former case we had to bring together by the
aid of memory a number of impressions occupying some appreciable
time : in the latter these were presented to us in one and the same
instant. It must follow, then, that the perception of all relations,
whether of dissimilarity or similarity, will under the circumstances
become more definite and more exact.

Nor is this all the gain. The addition of simultaneous retinal ap-
preciation introduces a new and finer standard in estimating the ele-
ments of form themselves. In the case of two lines, for example,
which are nearly equal, or of two lines which are neai'ly parallel, the
discrimination of magnitude and direction is finer when the lines are
brought together and simultaneously perceived by help of the retinal
impressions than when they are so situated that they (or their dis-
tances from one another) have to be successively estimated by the
moving eye. It may be thought that these more delicate estimates
are of more importance in science than in art ; yet even in the latter
the less obtrusive charms of form, more particularly that of the human
face, involve this finer retinal appreciation. It may be added that,
even when the former is too large to be easily taken in by the eye at
rest, the retinal capability of simultaneous perception greatly assists
m the clearer and more exact appreciation of relations. In estimating,
for example, the symmetry of a tapering column, of a pyramid or of a
human figure, the eye need not pass over the whole of the contour. It
is sufiicient if it describe a path answering to the axis of the figure ;
for in this case the perfect equality of any two opposed parts will be
estimated by retinal perception, and the whole intuition of form will
then consist of a series of simultaneous perceptions.

THE CRAYFISH. 789

THE CRAYFISH*

By Pkofessor E. EAY LANKESTEE.

''/~^OMMO]^ and lowly as most may think the crayfish, it is yet so
vy full of wonders that the greatest naturalist may be puzzled to
give a clear account of it." These words from Von Rosenhof, who in
1755 contributed his share to our knowledge of the animal in question,
are cited by Professor Huxley in the preface to the careful account of
the English crayfish and its immediate congeners, which forms the
latest volume of " The International Scientific Series." The book is
not designed for "general readers," those somewhat luxurious but pre-
sumably intelligent persons for whom so much scientific knowledge is
chopped and spiced at the present day. It is, as we gather from the
author's statement, intended as an introduction to serious zoological
study, for those who will turn over its pages, crayfish in hand, and
carefully verify its statements as to details of structure with scalpel
and microscope. To these and also to those who are already well
versed in crustacean anatomy, the book will ,have great value and in-
terest ; to the latter more esj^ecially, as showing how in the careful
study of one organism we are " brought face to face with all the great
zoological questions which excite so lively an interest at the present
day," and as an exhibition of that " method by which alone we can
hope to attain to satisfactory answers of these questions."

A crayfish is treated in this volume from the point of view of " sci-
ence," and in the first pages we have some excellent observations (re-
calling earlier remarks of the author's in the same sense) directed to
clearing up that mystery which good people will insist on throwing
around that ever-more- widely-heard term^ " Common sense," says
Professor Huxley, " is science exactly in so far as it fulfills the ideal
of common sense ; that is, sees facts as they are, or, at any rate, with-
out the distortion of prejudice, and reasons from them in accordance
with the dictates of sound judgment. And science is simply common
sense at its best, that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless
to fallacy in logic." In the preceding quotation. Professor Huxley is
(in a legitimate and intelligible way) using the word "science" in
place of "that quality of mental activity by w^hich science is pro-
duced." Immediately afterward he speaks of science as the product
of certain mental operations, in a passage which possesses great beauty
while setting forth fundamental bxit neglected truths as to the source
and scope of human knowledge. " In its earliest development knowl-
edge is self-sown. Impressions force themselves upon men's senses

* The Crayfish : an Introduction to the Study of Zoology. By T. H. Huxley, F. R. S.

New York : D. Appleton & Co.

790

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

whether they will or not, and often against their will. The amount
of interest which these impressions awaken is determined by the
coarser pains and pleasures which they carry in their train or by
mere curiosity ; and reason deals with the materials supplied to it as
far as that interest carries it, and no further. Such common knowl-
edge is rather brought than sought ; and such ratiocination is little
more than the working of a blind intellectual instinct. It is only

when the mind passes be-
cp yond this condition that it

begins to evolve science.
When simple curiosity pass-
es into the love of knowledge
as such, and the gratification
of the aesthetic sense of the
beauty of completeness and
accuracy seems more de-
sirable than the easy indo-
lence of ignorance ; when
the finding out of the causes
of things becomes a source
of joy, and he is accounted
happy who is successful in
the search, common knowl-
edge passes into what our
forefathers called natural
history, whence there is but
a step to that which used
to be termed natural philos-
ophy, and now passes by the

Fig. 1. AsTAcrs FLtmATii.is.-Thc third or external max- ^^me of physical Science.
ilUpedeof the leftside(x3). f, lamina, and 6r, bian- « In this final State of

chial filaments of the podobranchia ; cxp, coxopodite ;

cxs, coxopoditic set* ; bp, batipodite ; ex, exopodite ; knowledge the phenomena
ip, ischiopodite ; mp, meropodite ; cp, carpopodite : ^ •

pp, propodite ; dp, dactyiopodite. ot nature are regarded as

one continuous series of
causes and effects ; and the ultimate object of science is to ti'ace out
that series, from the term which is nearest to us, to that which is at
the farthest limit accessible to our means of investigation.

" The course of nature as it is, as it has been, and as it will be, is
the object of scientific inquiry ; whatever lies beyond, above, or below
this, is outside science. But the philosopher need not despair at the
limitation of his field of labor ; in relation to the human mind Nature
is boundless ; and, though nowhere inaccessible, she is everywhere un-
fathomable."

It is, then, with the object of arriving at a satisfactory conclusion
as to the crayfish's place in nature, and to educe from the study of it
such conclusions as may tend to throw light on the place in nature of

THE CRAYFISH.

791

other living things, that the reader is supposed to enter upon the con-
sideration of the facts which Professor Huxley lays before him.

No pains have been spared in the illustration of the text — the
woodcuts (eighty-one in number) reflecting great credit both on the
artist for his skill and on the jDublisher for his enterprise. We have,
after a general disquisition on the natural history of the crayfish (by

Fio. 2.— AsTACus LEPTODACTTi^us (after Rathke. one third natural size).

no means the least interesting in the book),' two devoted to the con-
sideration of the crayfish as a mechanism — in fact, its physiology.
Here a good deal of the anatomy is given and considered from the
point of view involved in the question, " What does it do ? " Then
we have the morphology of the English crayfish — the structure and
development of the individual minutely set forth, even each joint of
each leg, and each tuft on each gill, and each group of hairs, being
described and figured. We are enabled by the courtesy of the pub-

792

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

lishers to reproduce one of these highly finished engravings represent-
ing the most fully developed of the crayfish's limbs (Fig. 1), and some
others which give a fair notion of the excellence of the illustrations of
Professor Huxley's book.

To this follows a chapter in which the English crayfish is compared
in a variety of points with crayfishes of other lands, such as those of
Russia (Fig. 2), of Australia (Fig. 3), and of North America (Fig, 4),
with lobsters and prawns, and it is explained how the amount of like-
ness and difference between these various but closely similar animals

Australian Ceatfish (one third natural size).

may be expressed by the method of classification in groups. Finally,
we have a chapter on the geographical distribution of crayfishes, and
the facts therein narrated, together with those adduced in the previous

THE CRAYFISH,

191

chapter, enable the author to sketch the probable pedigree of cray-
fishes, that is, to refer them to their causes, viz., to the action of such
physical agencies as flowing i-ivers, land and climatic barriers, brought
to bear upon successive generations of the offspring of marine lobster-
like ancestors which had a wide distribution in the earlier Tertiary and
later 3Iesozoic periods, and before taking to fluviatile life had separated
into two distinct races characterized by differences of form, the one
giving rise to the crayfish of the northern hemisphere (the Potamo-
hiidce), and the other to the crayfishes of the southern hemisjihere (the
Parastacidai).

The novel portion of this book (novel at least to those who do not
study the transactions of learned societies) is that in which Professor
Huxley details the very interesting results which he has obtained by a
minute examination of the gills attached to the bases of the legs and
sides of the body in all crayfish and allied forms. Thi-ee series of
these gill-plumes may be distinguished according as they are attached
to the leg, to the Joint-membrane, or to the side of the body (Fig. 5).
An ideally perfect crayfish
would have all three series
complete on each ring of the
body in the branchial region
(including the region occu-
pied by the three pairs of
maxillipedes and the five
pairs of walking and nipping
legs). But no such realiza-
tion of the ideal can be found
in Astacine nature, any more
than in that of the higher
Catarrhines. In some cray-
fish more or less of the leg-
gills are suppressed ; in oth-
ers, the body-gills ; in oth-
ers, the joint-gills ; and, so
ringing the changes on the
combination of these ele-
ments, it is possible to con-
struct clearly distinguished
groups among the crayfishes
of many climes, which at first
sight seem to differ very little
from one another. Further,

Professor Huxlev shows that FiG.4.-CA5n3ARrs Ci.auku, male (hair natural size),
-' . atler Haijen.

crayfishes and lobsters differ

from prawns, shrimps, and crabs, in having villous gills instead of lami-
nated gills, in being " trichobranchiate " in place of " phyllobranchiate."

794

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

It will probably not be welcome news to some of our readers that
the English crayfish is in all probability not entitled to the current
title of Astacus fluviatilis. This name appears to belong to a larger
species, sometimes called A. nobilis, hardly distinguishable from the

j)(lhQ

-pdh\3

^ ,' ((/7j8 arb') jill\2 art 13 p{(»i3

Mh

,X

^6'l3

Fkj. 5.— Astacus flcviatilis. In A, the ^ills, exposed by the removal of the branchiostegite,
are seen in their natural position ; in B, the podobranchise are removed, and the anterior set
of arthrobranchiiE turned downward ( x 2) : 1. e>e-stalk; 2, antenrule; 3, antenna; 4, man-
dible; 6, scaphognathite ; T. first maxillipede, in B the epipodite, to which the line points, is
partly removed ; 8, second maxillipede ; 9, third maxillipede; 10, forceps; 14, fourth ambn-
latory leg; 15, flrst abdominal appendage ; xv„ first, and xvi., second abdominal somite ; a?'b.
8, arb. 9, arb. 13, the posterior arthrobranchiae of the second and third maxillipedes and of the
third ambulatory leg ; arb'. 9. arb'. 13, the anterior arthrobranchice of the third maxillipede and
of the third ambulatory leg; pbd. 8, podobranchise of the second maxillipede ; pbil. 13, that of
the third ambulatory leg ; plb. 12, plb. 13, the two rudimentary pleurobranchise ; plb. 14, the
functional pleurobranchiae ; r, rostrum.

English one, which in France lives side by side with it. The smaller
crayfish, which alone occurs in England, is known as A. torrentium.
This specific title will, it is to be feared, have to be adopted, although
it by implication casts a slur upon the river Isis. A. fluviatilis hsi^
red tips to its legs and a rostrum which differs by a notch or two
from that of A. torrentium. Further, and this is very curious, A.
torrentium never has been found to be infested by that very interest-
ing parasite (more interesting even than the crayfish itself), the crab-

LEARNING TO WRITE. 795

leech, Astacobdella, or Branchiobdella, while it is quite abundant on
' the A. fluviatilis, at any rate in some rivers (e. g., the Saale, in North
Germany).

A. fluviatilis is largely eaten in France, attaining to the very re-
spectable size of five inches or so in length, while our smaller A. tor-
rentium is neglected from this point of view. We can recommend
it, however, when boiled in salt and water, as nearly if not quite equal-
ing the prawn. The poisonous properties of the flesh of crayfish might
perhaps be considered as justly falling within the scope of the first
chapter of Professor Huxley's treatise. As in the case of many mol-
lusca and some true fishes, there appears to be a substance present
which acts as an irritant poison upon the human organism, and to its
action some persons are more liable than are others, while certain con-
ditions of the crayfish seem to favor the development of a large
amount of this poisonous body. A case was recently reported, in a
French medical journal, of the poisoning of six persons who partook
of a dish of crayfishes — in one case with fatal result. — Nature.

LEAENING TO WRITE.

WE wonder sometimes, as we wade through a mass of correspon-
dence, whether it is possible to teach good writing. The doubt
may seem absurd, considering that the majority of civilized mankind
can write, that every qualified teacher among one or two hundred
thousand in Western Europe thinks himself or herself competent to
teach the art, and that there must be some hundreds of men in Eng-
land, or possibly some thousands, who make a living of some sort by
practicing this specialty. Everybody, we shall be told, is taught, and
some few people write well, and consequently to teach people to write
well must be possible. Still, we have this little bit of evidence in
favor of hesitation. Nobody ever saw anybody who wrote a thor-
oughly good hand, and who had been regularly taught to do it.
Good handwritings exist, undoubtedly, and are, we should say, rapidly
on the increase ; but the possessors of the art never admit that they
acquired it through teaching, and, in the majority of cases, never were
taught. When cross-examined, they always afiirm that some man or
woman taught them to write, and that then a certain inclination or
compulsion of circumstance, or desire to do everything Avell, or, in fre-
quent instances, a caste feeling, provoked them to teach themselves- to
write well. They were not taught, except in the most rudimentary
sense of the word, and we do not know how they should be. Tutors
and governesses have all caught up a system from the professional
writing-masters, and the professional writing-masters are all dominated

796 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

by two ideas, whicli are radically false. We always glance over the
books they publish, and have read through a new one this week, which*
we do not intend to advertise in this article, and they are all alike.
They all think that " copperplate writing," the special hand of writ-
ing-masters and bank-clerks, is good writing, which it is not, being
devoid of character, far too regular in form, and from the multiplicity
of fine up-strokes not easy to read ; and they all believe that certain
mechanical motions, if carefully taught, will produce clear writing.
They will not, and they do not. There never were two people yet in
this world of ours who wrote exactly alike, or who have the same con-
trol of their fingers, or who ought, in order to produce good writing,
to have held their pens alike, and the effort to make them do it only
spoils their natural capabilities. No doubt, those capabilities are often
naturally very small. The number of persons who are by nature not
deft with their fingers is very large, and so is the number of those
who can not fix their attention ; w^hile the number of those who can
do nothing well which they must do rapidly probably exceeds both.
The difiiculty of teaching a grown man to write decently is almost in-
conceivable— he seems never to see what is wanted — and something of
that difiiculty attaches to a vast proportion of children. Still, all per-
sons not deformed or crippled in the hand, or deficient in eyesight,
can be taught to write, and the reason why they are not taught prop-
erly must be some inherent defect in the system. We believe it to
be the one we have mentioned, the effort to enforce a certain method,
instead of trying to secure a certain result. The unhappy child, who
is almost always, we admit necessarily, taught too early, is instructed
to hold himself or herself in a particular attitude, which is sure to be
the wrong one for five sights in ten, the proper attitude depending on
the length of the child's vision ; to hold the pen at a particular angle,
which is also wrong, the fitting angle depending on the character of
the pen and holder ; and to grasp the pen at a certain distance from
the nib, which is arbitrarily fixed, whereas the distance must be gov-
erned by the formation and strength of the child's fingers, and would
be infinitely better left to his or her own instinct. Above all, there is
a perpetual worry about the " resting " of the hand, though the easiest
position varies with every child, and though no two men with much
writing to do rest the fingers quite alike. The pupil is then taught to
make lines in a certain direction, and to copy characters so large that
they have no resemblance to writing at all ; and to care particularly
about up-strokes and down-strokes, and all manner of minutite, which,
if they are of any value at all, will soon come of themselves. So
strong, in spite of centuries of experience, is the belief in this method,
that machines for controlling the fingers while writing have repeatedly
been invented ; and the author of a book before us, a professional, is
inclined to tie them up in some fashion with ribbon.

We believe that the whole of this method is a mistake, that there

LEARNING TO WRITE. 797

is no single system of mecanlque for writing, and that a child belong-
■ ing to the educated classes would be taught much better and more
easily if, after being once enabled to make and recognize wi'itten let-
ters, it were let alone, and praised or chidden not for its method, but
for the result. Let the boy hold his pen as he likes, and make his
strokes as he likes, and write at the pace he likes — hurry, of course,
being discouraged — but insist strenuously and persistently that his
copy shall be legible, shall be clean, and shall approach the good copy
set before him, namely, a well-written letter, not a rubbishy text on a
single line, written as nobody but a writing-master ever did or will
write till the world's end. lie will make a muddle at first, but he will
soon make a . passable imitation of his copy, and ultimately develop a
characteristic and strong hand, which may be bad or good, but will
not be either meaningless, undecided, or illegible. This hand will al-
ter, of course, very greatly as he grows older. It may alter at eleven,
because it is at that age that the range of the eyes is fixed, and short-
sight betrays itself ; and it will alter at seventeen, because then the
system of taking notes at lecture, w^hich ruins most hands, will have
cramped and temporarily spoiled the writing ; but the character will
form itself again, and wdll never be deficient in clearness or decision.
The idea that it is to be clear will have stamj^ed itself, and confidence
will not have been destroyed by w^orrying little rules about attitude,
and angle, and slope, which the very irritation of the pupils ought to
convince the teachers are, from some personal j^eculiarity, inapplicable.
The lad will write, as he does anything else that he cares to do, as well
as he can, and w^ith a certain efficiency and speed. Almost every let-
ter he gets will give him some assistance, and the master's remon-
strance on his illegibility will be attended to, like any other caution
given in the curriculum. As it is, he simply thinks that he does not
write well, instead of thinking that not to write well is to fall short in
a very useful accomplishment and to be 2)ro tanto a failure.

We are not quite sure that another process ought not to be gone
through, before writing is taught at all. Suppose our boys and girls
were taught to read manuscript a little? They are taught to read
print, but manuscript is not print, or very like it, and they are left to
pick up the power of reading that the best way they can; they never de-
vote half an hour a day for six months to manuscript-reading. If they
did, it would be easier to them all their lives, and they would learn to
believe in legibility as the greatest, or, at any rate, the most useful, qual-
ity that writing can disj^lay — an immense improvement, if our experi-
ence can be trusted, in the usual youthful ideal on the subject. The
business of life, no doubt, soon teaches children to read manuscript ;
but many of them never read it easily, and retain through life an un-
conquerable aversion to the work, from the fatigue and vexation which
it causes them. We have known men so conscious of this defect that
they always have important letters read aloud to them ; and others

798 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

who would refuse any work, however anxious on other grounds to ac-
cept it, if it involved the frequent perusal of long manuscripts in varied
handwritings. No doubt the tendency to a broad and coarse but beau-
tifully legible handwriting, which has conquered the upper class and
is slowly filtering downward, is diminishing this reluctance, but it
would be more rapidly removed if a little trouble were taken to teach
children to read handwriting. They hardly see any till they begin to
receive correspondence, and are never compelled to read any, and con-
sequently learn to write what they can not read, without intelligence
and without pleasure. — Spectator.

A CONSIDEEATION OF SUICIDE.

By J. H. HOPKINS.

"'^riCHOLAS RIDLEY and Hugh Latimer stood at the stake to be
-i^^ burned for heresy. Fastened to the body of each was a bag of
powder, placed there by friends with the intention of bringing the
sufferings of the victims to a speedy termination. Latimer died first.
The flames, rising rapidly, touched the bag of powder, and the torture
for him was at an end. Ridley was not so fortunate. The wood, pre-
pared for his execution, being green and tightly packed, the fire
smoldered, and he was long in agony, crying out that he could not
bui-n ; until one of the spectators having loosened the fagots and
admitted air, the flame swept up to the powder and brought death.

It is certain that the use of powder was not included in the sen-
tence of death. It was permitted, not authorized. Death being sure,
the persecutors were magnanimous enough, at the last, to allow it to
come quickly. As the Athenian tribunal granted the privilege of
hemlock to Socrates ; as the English executioners failed to carry out,
literally, the horrible sentence of hanging, drawing, and quartering ;
so the Marian ofiicials did not insist on the extreme rigor of the sen-
tence. But was this hastening of death, in a way unauthorized by
law, either murder on the part of the friends of Ridley and Latimer,
or suicide on their own part ?

Under the old, stern common law, literally construed, the martyrs
who used and the friends who furnished the powder were guilty, the
former of siiicide and the latter of murder. " The law of England,"
says Blackstone (vol. ii., p. 189), "wisely and religiously considers
that no man hath a power to destroy life but by commission from
God, the author of it ; and, as the suicide is guilty of a double offense,
one spiritual, in evading the prerogative of the Almighty, and rushing
into his immediate presence uncalled for, the other temporal, against
the King, who hath an interest in the preservation of all his subjects,

A CONSIDERATION- OF SUICIDE. 799

the law has, therefore, ranked this among the highest crimes, making
it a i^eculiar species of felony, a felony' committed on one's self. And
this admits of accessories before the fact, as well as other felonies ;
for if one persuades another to kill himself, and he does so, the adviser
is guilty of murder. A felo-de-se, therefore, is he that deliberately
puts an end to his own existence, or commits any unlawful, malicious
act, the consequence of which is his own death." The English laws
further provided for the forfeiture of the goods and chattels of a
suicide to the King. In the State of New York, a felo-de-se does not
incur the penalty of forfeiture of property ; but " every person de-
liberately assisting another in the commission of self-murder shall be
deemed guilty of manslaughter in the first degree." (2 R. S. 661, § 7.)
If a condemned criminal, on the eve of his execution, takes poison, he
commits suicide. If, while standing on the scaffold, some one hands
him a knife, with which he takes his life, he commits suicide, and the
person who furnishes him with the means of death is guilty of man-
slaughter. If, just before the drop falls, some well-intentioned
friend, deeming a speedy death preferable to a slow one, sends a
bullet through the heart of the condemned, the friend is guilty of
murder.

The relation of suicide to human laws it is not the purpose of this
article to consider. Undoubtedly the tacit contract between the gov-
ernment and the individual, while it demands on one side protection
to the individual, demands on the other side service to the state ;
and it rests with neither party to the contract to terminate it at plea-
sure. Every person, to a certain extent and within proper limitations,
places at the disposal of the government under which he lives, his life,
liberty, and property. The government becomes the trustee, and, as
long as the trust is properly executed, the individual — the cestui que
trust — has no right to interfere. But we are to consider suicide mor-
ally, not legally. The question to be answered is this : Is suicide ever
justifiable ?

What is suicide? The voluntary termination of one's own life.
And this is very different from submission to or acquiescence in invol-
untary death. A man may long for the approach of death ; he may
embrace it eagerly when it comes ; but this is not the voluntary ter-
mination of life. The voluntary termination of life implies some act
or failure to act on the part of an individual, which has for its object,
in whole or in part, the death of the actor. Suicide, then, is the
voluntary termination of one's own life. Is it of any consequence
that the involuntary termination is inevitable ? Unquestionably not.
Death, whether soon or late, is a creditor who never releases his
debt ; and, if in one case the certainty of death is pleaded in extenu-
ation or justification, the same plea may be offered in every case.
Does the proximity of involuntary death furnish any excuse for vol-
untary death ? Certainly not. The hastening of death is the volun-

8oo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tary termination of life ; and the voluntary termination of life is
suicide.

If, then, the fact that death is near and inevitable does not make
the voluntary termination of life anything less than suicide, may not
the applicability of that word depend upon the motive which prompts
such voluntary termination ? Here, again, the answer must be in the
negative. Keeping in mind the definition, let us suppose that two
persons, shipwrecked at sea, find themselves clinging to the same frag-
ment of the wreck, which is not buoyant enough to support both.
Either both must drown, or one must push off the other and live by
his death, or one must of his own will surrender the entire possession
of the floating support to the other and seek death. In the first case
death is accidental to both— they retain their grasp on life as long as
possible ; in the second case death is accidental to the one who is thrust
from the support, and his companion is guilty of murder ; and in the
thu-d case the one who surrenders possession commits suicide. " Greater
love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend ";
but he who displays this great love is literally guilty of suicide. Have
not many, whose memory the world honors, been guilty of this so-
called crime ? What was the act of the legendary Curtius, of the
three hundred at Thermopyte, of Arnold von Winkelried ? What is
the act of the engineer, who rides to death on his engine to save the
lives of the passengers ? What is the act of the cashier who, with the
promise of death as a penalty for refusal to open the safe, jjref ers
death to dishonor ? Are not all these acts suicidal ? It can not alter
the character of the act that the voluntary termination of life is not
brought about by one's own hand. Did not Saul commit suicide,
when, at his request, the young Amalekite slew him? If a man,
placed on a railroad track by enemies, but released a few moments
before the approach of a train, refuses to leave the track and is killed
by the train, will it be claimed that he is innocent of suicide ? It is
evident that, whether a person takes his own life without the interven-
tion of any other agency than the person himself, or places himself
voluntarily in a position where death is inevitable, or, being involun-
tarily placed in a position where death is inevitable, and a way of
escape being provided, refuses to take advantage of it — in each and
all of these cases the termination of life is voluntary and constitutes
suicide.

This interpretation is too stern and hard ; and people recognize the
fact by refusing to call things by their right names. They do not say
that Arnold von Winkelried committed suicide, but that he " sacrificed
himself for his country." They do not suggest that John Maynard
should be buried at cross-roads with a stake through his body, but
assert that he has evinced the most sublime self-abnegation. If John
Brown had been promised the freedom of four million slaves, on con-
dition that he should voluntarily submit to death on the gallows, his

A CONSIDERATION OF SUICIDE. 801

acceptance of the condition would not have insured him condemnation,
but apotheosis.

It becomes clear, then, that suicide is sometimes not only justifiable
but praiseworthy ; and men make that justification or jDraise dependent
upon the motive with which life is surrendered. To determine whether
the voluntary termination of life is reprehensible or laudable, an answer
must first be given to the question whether the act is selfish or unselfish,
whether the motive is egoistic or altruistic. If the object is to save
others from suffering, the act is justifiable. If the object is mei-ely to
save one's self from suffering, the act is unjustifiable.

This distinction between motives seems to be the true one, whether
we look at suicide from the purely moral or from the religious and
Christian standpoint. Take the Christian apothegm, " Greater love
hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend," or,
to put it still more tersely, " The greatest love is shown by altruistic _
suicide," and discover, if you can, where the line is to be drawn. Does
it mean that a man should lay down his life only when, by so doing,
he saves the lives of others ? Then he may not submit to death, though
by so doing he saves millions from slavery — nay, though by so doing
he saves a world from slavery. Then he may not abandon life, though
by that act he rescues others from eternal agony. Then he must not
prefer death to dishonor, but dishonor to death. Then he must hold
his own life as more valuable than the welfare of his race. If a prom-
ise were made, with the certainty of fulfillment, that should any human
being voluntarily submit to death pain would disappear from the world,
do you think that he who should give his life in exchange for the hap-
piness of a world would be branded with the mark of crime ?

But, if we take the next step and assert that there are other motives,
besides the wish to save the lives of others, which will justify a man
in voluntarily terminating his own life, where shall we draw the line ?
If a man may die for the happiness of a world, may he die for the
happiness of a million ? If he may die for the happiness of a million,
may he die for the happiness of a thousand ? If he may die for the
happiness of a thousand, may he die for the happiness of ten ? If he
may die for the hapjDiness of ten, may he die for the happiness of one ?
At what point does the happiness of others accumulate to such an ex-
tent as to exceed in value a human life ?

Let us suppose a case — one of which experience furnishes numerous
examples : A man, thi*ough some misfortune, finds himself wrecked
and shattered in body ; transformed into a living fixture. He can no
longer support himself. He becomes a burden for some one to carry.
If he is sure that the burden is borne willingly, he may consent to live.
But suppose that the shoulders of the bearer ache, and that when death
lifts the burden from him he draws a sigh of relief. May not the
burden itself provide the way of escape and throw itself from the
shoulders of its unwilling bearer to the shoulders of death ? Or, take

8o2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

another illustration. Had Enoch Arden found that the only way in
which his return could be kept secret, and his wife and family saved
from misery, was by the sacrifice of his life, would he deserve condem-
nation if he had sought death ?

It will be observed that the question has been discussed from an
altruistic standpoint. This, of course, excludes Ridley and Latimer.
It excludes all those who, threatened with death by disease, and whose
life can be saved only at the price of some operation excruciatingly
painful, decline to pay the price. It excludes all those who turn to
death as a refuge from their own sufferings.

But, viewed in the light of pure altruism, when does suicide become
justifiable ? Each person must give answer for himself. Every indi-
vidual is sole judge of the circumstances which justify a surrender of
life. It is true that from this opinion orthodoxy dissents. It reasons
thus : " Man has been placed upon the earth by God for some good
purpose : it is fitting that he remain there until granted leave to return.
Let him not enter the presence of his Maker unsummoned." But the
same reasoning will serve the most selfish and cowardly egoism. Let
the three hundred at Thermopylae take to their heels, crying out that
they will wait until God calls them. Let Arnold von AVinkelried
leave the field, protesting that he will not usurp the prerogative of the
Almighty by assiiming control of his own life. Let the men at sea
cling to the floating fragment to the last, comforting themselves with
the assurance that they have no right to determine for themselves
whether their Maker has summoned them. Let the engineer abandon
his train with the conviction that his duty to the Author of his being
requires him to preserve his life. Certainly orthodoxy does not mean
what it says. It cries aloud, " Wait until God calls you " ; but adds,
sotto voce, "Use your own judgment as to what constitutes a call."
If it commands men not to take their own lives, it qualifies the com-
mand by urging them to lay down their lives for others. In fact, the
assertion that men should wait until God summons them is merely
putting the case in different language. For who is to decide what
constitutes a summons? Evidently the individual himself. But to
say that every one must determine for himself what constitutes a sum-
mons from God is to say that each person is sole judge of the circum-
stances which justify a voluntary termination of life.

From the Roman who, devoting himself and the enemy to the in-
fernal gods, rushed to death to bring victory to his companions, to the
suicides at the shrine of Juggernaut ; from these to the man who "lays
down his life for his friend " ; from this to the engineer who sacrifices
himself for the passengers ; from this to the man who dies that thou-
sands may be made happy ; from this to the man who refuses to live
when his life makes others miserable ; from this to the man who turns
to death to avoid becoming a burden to his friends— the descent is
steady and connected. The last case may claim relationship with the

A CONSIDERATION OF SUICIDE. 803

first ; and between all, filling up any imaginable gaps, are numberless
otlier cases which belong to the same family. All these are cases of
altruistic suicide. Who shall point out the place where suicide ceases
to be honorable and becomes dishonorable ? Who shall draw the line
and say, " Thus far and no farther " V The later Stoics attempted it,
and the distinction which they made was not unlike that of orthodoxy.
" If you have no further need for me in prison," says Epictetus, " I
will come out ; if you want me again, I will return." " For how
long ? " " Just so long as reason requires that I should continue in this
body ; when that is over, take it, and fare ye well. Only let us not
act inconsiderately, nor from cowardice, nor on slight grounds, since
that w^ould be contrary to the will of God, for he hath need of such a
world and such beings to live on earth. But if he sounds a retreat, as
he did to Socrates, we are to obey him when he sounds it, as our
General." Here likewise the decision concerning what constitutes a
summons from God rests with the individual. Each person determines
for himself the propriety of terminating life.

Condemnation of even egoistic suicide should be indulged in cau-
tiously. Epictetus, indeed, thought that it might sometimes be allow-
able. " But remember the principal thing," he says, " that the door
is open. Do not be more fearful than children ; but as they, when
the play does not please them, say, ' I will play no longer,' so do you;
in the same case, say, ' I will play no longer,' and go ; but, if you
stay, do not complain." The doctrine was this : A man is directed to
play the game of life. God deals the cards. The man may receive
hands Avith which it is impossible for him to win ; yet he must play
the game to the best of his ability. But suppose he detects his ad-
versaries cheating. He may then throw do^vn the cards and leave the
table. It is not always safe to pronounce suicide unjustifiable, even
where the motive is a wish to avoid self-suffering. I do not find it
easy to regard Ridley and Latimer as criminals instead of martyrs. I
do not consider myself competent to declare that he who receives
harsh treatment at the inn of life is not warranted in curtailing his
visit and returning home.

But, granting that egoistic suicide is blameworthy, who shall pass
judgment upon the character of that suicide which has for its motive
a desire for the welfare of others ? Surely not man. He has no moral
balance so absolutely true that he can safely weigh the motives which
lead to suicidal self-abnegation, and pronounce some suificient and
others insufficient. Let the decision be left where it belongs — with
Omniscience.

8o4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

VEGETABLE PHOSPHORESCENCE.

Bt ELLEN PEESCOTT.

THERE is a curious myth which gives to Castor and Polkix, twin
sons of Zeus, a divine control over the phosphorescence of air and
ocean. Being present by invitation at the marriage of two youths of
Amyclffi with the daughters of Leucippus, they became enamored of
the brides and with the doubtful courtesy of the period attempted to
carry them off. In the ensuing struggle Castor was slain ; but Pollux,
with a boundless and heroic love that bridged the " abyss 'twixt life
and death," besought their father Zeus to restore him, proposing that
to meet the ends of justice they should each live only on alternate
days. This he granted, and, " kindling stars upon their brows, set
them for ever with the immortals."

A religious idea was therefore involved in the superstition of the
ancient mariner that the pale phosphoric light, or " St. Elmo's fire,"
which occasionally appears upon the masts of ships, in an electrical
condition of the air, denoted the. presence of these divinities as they
rode upon the storm-clouds through the heavens. This indicates a
recognition of the phenomena of phosphorescence in a remote antiqui-
ty ; but, in advancing from the philosophy of myths and symbols to
an era of empirical knowledge, there was necessarily a jjeriod of con-
fusion, when old fancies TV^ere replaced by new facts which had not
accommodated themselves to the novelty of the position. Even when,
through the onward roll of centuries, the wisdom of the ancients had
shrunken into grotesque fables, a long period intervened which pro-
duced no marked scientific results.

Throughout the seventeenth century inquiry was directed to the
phenomena of solar light and the light of incandescent bodies ; but,
while phosphorescence was everywhere observed, no explanation on
scientific principles was attempted, until in 1675 Nicolas Lemery, in a
paper on the preparation of solar phosphorus, stated that the light
produced was the result of rapid molecular motion ; thus accepting
the doctrine foreshadowed by Huygens and Euler, in opposition to the
emission or corpuscular theory of Newton. These prophetic utter-
ances, however, of the present undulatory theory of light were not
recognized ; it was reserved for later experiment to demonstrate the
truth of this intuitive perception.

The "persistence of force" and the "indestructibility of matter"
must first be proved, before it could be shown that the phenomena of
phosphorescence are due to the same causes as the light evolved by
electrical discharge, chemical combination, or mechanical movement.
If, as Dr. Young has shown, light be motion or vibration of a luminif-
crous ether which fills space and permeates all bodies, the conditions

VEGETABLE PHOSPHORESCENCE. 805

of inexorable law are as fully met in the pale glimmer of luminous
plants, the flash of the fire-fly, or the radiance of the glow-worm, as in
the light evolved by the heavenly bodies.

The discovery of the luminosity of plants has been attributed to
the daughter of Linnaeus. In the year 1762, during the months of June
and July, she observed radiations of light from a cluster of garden
nasturtiums {Tropcelum mq/us), which occurred in the morning or
evening twilight. The same effect has been observed in other flower-
ing plants, but principally in those bearing orange-colored bloom, as
the corolla of the sunflower, the French marigold, and in the yellow lily.
Some species of African marigolds also have manifested this pi'oper-
ty. Professor Haggern observed the luminous radiations to be most
brilliant in the marigold, next in the nasturtium, and, third, in the yel-
low lily. A careful microscopic examination convinced him that the
light did not depend upon the presence of any animal organisms. The
rapidity of the flash indicated electrical action, and upon analysis he
found that the light proceeded from the petals, the anthers being at
an appreciable distance. He supposed that in the process of fecunda-
tion the elasticity of the anthers scattered the pollen on the petals and
produced electrical disturbance by the imjDingement of these different
substances. In bog or marsh land plants, of the genus I*andanus, the
rupture of the spathe or shield of the flowers is sometimes accompanied
by a loud, cracking noise and a spark of light. In 1857 M. Fries per-
ceived light emitted by a group of poppies {Papaver orietitale) in the
botanical garden at Upsal, to which he called the attention of numer-
ous witnesses.

The phosphorescence discovered by the daughter of Linnaeus bore
the character of an electrical spark which shot out from the corolla
and was discernible at the same hour upon warm evenings when the
air was surcharged with electricity. The radiance noticed by M.
Fries also indicated a periodicity of movement, occurring always when
the air was electrical, between ten and eleven o'clock at night. Not
only the blossoms but the leaves of many of the flowering plants have
been observed to emit a phosphoric light under favorable conditions
of the air — even the milky juice of several vegetables becomes lumin-
ous in the dark ; this was particularly noticed by M. Martins in a spe-
cies of the phosphorescent spurge {Euphorhici).

The giving out of heat in the blossoming of plants was discovered
by Lamarck more than a century ago in the Eui'opean arum, which in
opening " grows hot as if about to burn." It was afterward observed
by De Saussure, and by the later appliance of the thermo-multiplico
the heat generated in any cluster of blossoms is made appreciable.
The development of this force is most remarkable in tropical plants,
where a large number of flowers are crowded together under a cover-
ing hood of spathe. The temperature increases periodically, growing
greater in the afternoon and appearing like a " paroxysm of fever "

8o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

which passes off with the decline of day — the greatest intensity al-
ways occurring during the shedding of the pollen. Any great increase
of temperature is necessarily prevented by the equalizing effect of
evaporation from the expanded surfaces of the leaves, and the water
which pervades all the substances. It is only during a period of un-
usual energy, as in blossoming, that the heat becomes apparent.

The light and heat set free by combustion we recognize as merely
the expression of chemical change and a giving back to original ele-
ments the forces that were stored up by vegetative activity in the
coal-beds of the past or in the woody fibers of later growth. In the
mysterious circle of Nature's means and mechanism, light, heat, and
chemical combination are alternately cause and effect — not, it is true,
in the abstract sense of cause, but, being mutually convertible or co-
relative, maintain necessarily reciprocal action. Now, the fact that
they are thus reactive and interchangeable as modes of motion offers a
very simple explanation of the giving out of light by plants at a mo-
ment when the surplus amount of thqse garnered forces is thrown off
during the vital processes of reproduction.

That increased chemical activity exists at the period of flowering
is shown by the exhalation of an unusual amount of carbonic acid,
and this increased action supplies the additional heat for the elabora-
tion of the reproductive agents, whose preparation seems to be the
highest expression of energy in vegetable organization. Some doubt
exists as to the proximate cause of the manifestation of light by
flowerless or cryptogamic plants, in which are embraced the mosses,
fungi, etc. A study of the conditions under which it is presented
will, I think, enable us to refer it directly to similar chemical action.

These plants were ingeniously named by Linnseus because the con-
cealed organs of reproduction offer great diversity in structural rela-
tions— a diversity so great that they can not even be presented under
one common type ; we must, therefore, look for modifications in the
expression of force directed by these different forms. The root-hairs
which form in the germination of one of the liverworts {HepaticcB)
have been observed to be luminous in the dim light of caverns. It
gathers principally upon schists, and derives its name {Schistostegd
Osmimdacce) from a miniature resemblance to the royal fern Osmiin-
da. This plant, like the true cavern-mosses, is emerald-green, and
develops into root, stem, and leaf. The dainty fern-like leaves or
fronds are of the very simplest organization, and a slender, thread-
like stem rises from the apex, bearing upon its summit a valvular case
or capsule which contains the reproductive cells or sporules. The
root-hairs which give out the light appear like the tangled meshes of a
spider's web ; and, as the same effect has been noticed in these tenu-
ous structures, some naturalists have attributed the appearance to re-
flected light. But analogy in the condition of this and other light-
emitting plants leads to the conclusion that it is self-luminous.

VEGETABLE PHOSPHORESCENCE. 807

The phosphorescence of fungi has been observed in various por-
tions of the world. Rumphius first noticed its appearance in Am-
boyna in a species of corticium to which the name Tdephora coirulmn
was given. Under this specific name are grouped many minute forms
of fungi, only the mycelium of which were known to Linnreus and
Agardh, the discovery of other organs forming the complete plant
being of more recent date.

Among mushrooms four of the genus Agaricus are luminous, and
have been examined with special reference to this effect by Delille,
Fabre, and Tulasne : The red or orange-colored species [Agaricus
olearius), inhabiting the adjacent soil or roots of olive-trees in Cen-
tral Europe ; the fire-mushroom, or Agaricus igneus, which Rumphius
discovered in Amboyna ; the Agaricus noctilucus, found at Manila by
Gandichaud ; and Agaricus Gardineri of the Brazilian provinces,
growing upon the dead leaves of the Pindoba-palm. The red mush-
room of the olive-trees is wonderfully beautiful. The gills cmwe out
from the pedicle and expand under the pileus into a trumpet- or bell-
like form of almost vermilion hue, which changes at night into a pale-
blue light, gleaming, where they are massed together, like blue bells
of fire.

M. de Candolle erroneously supposed that the phosphorescence of
the Agaricus of the olive occurred only at the time of its decomposi-
tion. M. Fries, with equal error, attributed the effect to the presence
of a secondary parasite ; Tulasne, however, denies that the seat of
light is in the mold, and states that he has observed the phosphores-
cence of the- plant itself. He agrees with Delille in regarding the
appearance as limited to the period of growth, and refers to it as a
"manifestation of vegetation." M. Delille supposed the radiance to
be intermittent, while M. Fabre observed that exposure to the sunlight
appeared to have no influence whatever upon the phenomena, and that
the light was exhibited at any time under cover of darkness. Dr.
Phipson, in reviewing M. Fabre, remarks that this seems, however, to
indicate that the light of the sun has in reality an influence upon the
emission of light during the daytime, and that the phenomenon is
probably a case of phosphorescence after insolation. But as we know
the Agaricus belongs to that class of colored pai-asites which are des-
titute of green foliage, and consequently of proper digestive organs of
their own, and draw support from the elaborated products of the fos-
ter-plant, the phosphorescence may be accounted for as the result of
chemical action under conditions where the influence of solar light is
not required to produce a higher combination.

Tulasne recognized that the light was not confined exclusively to
the reproductive surfaces, and proved by dissection that the whole
mass offered scintillations. This is probably due to a sympathetic or
highly vitalized condition of the whole plant during the process of
fecundation, as is indicated by the juice of the phosphorescent euphor-

8o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

bia. The light, however, is usually emitted by the organs of- reproduc-
tion ; this is particularly the case in young fungi, while, in the older
ones, after the luminosity has disappeared from the gills, the surface
of the stipe becomes radiant.

The mycelium of the root-shaped fungi (rhizomorpha) penetrates
through the decaying organic matter of wood and coal deposits, ex-
hibiting a clear pale light. This has been particularly observed in the
mines near Dresden, Hesse, and occasionally in England. These flower-
less, gleaming plants impart a weird beauty to the caverns of granitic
rock in Bohemia, illuminating them with a pale mimicry of moon-
light.

The most remarkable instances of cryptogamic phosphorescence
have been noted by Mr, Gardner in Brazil, by Dr. Cuthbert-Colling-
wood in Borneo, by Mr. Hugh Low and James Drummond in Austra-
lia, and by Mr. Worthington-Smith in the Cardiff coal-mines. Rev. J.
M, Berkeley cites an instance in England, where a dazzling radiance
was observed upon a spruce or larch log, which continued for several
days — a byssoid mycelium, yielding an unusually pungent odor, being
recognized. The common potato also, in decomposing, generates a
peculiarly luminous parasite ; and, at one time, an alarm of fire was
sounded in the streets of Strasburg from the light produced by a de-
caying mass stored in a cellar. An instance has recently come to my
notice, where a brilliant light was thrown off by pieces of cantaloupe,
after a few hours' exposure to the air.

Wherevei', then, we encounter decomposing vegetable matter, we
observe some form of fungi living upon and appropriating the changed
substances of a former condition to the generation of a new life. What,
therefore, seems to us a loss or waste, is merely change — change of form,
change of condition. The absorbing roots of these parasites grow into
the tissues of the host in the most intimate manner, deriving from a
disorganization of the substances the elements necessary to their own
being.

Vergil describes the blighting mildew on the grain as " an unbidden
crew of graceless guests that choke the fields " ; and De Barry writes
that there is a frequent unbidden guest in every household, who lays
under contribution its stores of sweets. The mold or mildew which
gathers on the surface of preserves is a plant of exquisite beauty when
viewed with low magnifying power and by reflected light, for what
appears to the naked eye only a soft, white, woolly crust, becomes a
glittering forest of graceful stems and branches, standing like fine-
spun silver upon the dark background of the supporting surface. This
substratum is in reality a mycelium, or system of fine interlacing,
thread-like roots, which form the vegetative part of the plant, and are
woven into a soft, black or brown velvety substance, through which
run russet, scaly hairs. The branches rise to about the fiftieth of an
inch, and bear the fruit and seed-cells. Higher microscopic power

VEGETABLE PHOSPHORESCENCE. 809

reveals the spores which are the analogues of seed, although they pos-
sess neither their vestments nor organs, but are simple membranous
sacs (full of liquid), which germinate at some indefinite point of their
convex surface into a new plant like that which produced them. ■

A comparison of the condition of flowering plants and of the mosses
and fungi, during a phosphorescent display, will lead us to attribute
the appearance to similar action of vital forces, if we for a moment
review the processes by which these forces are accumulated. In the
growth of plants heat acts as a dynamic agent, which the germ of the
plant directs and uses. The first action of growth consists in the con-
version of the starch of the seed into a soluble form, and in chemically
combining the starch, sugar, oil, and albumen by fermentation into the
protoplasmic matter which supplies the material for the tissues of the
plant. The development of this protoplasm into organized tissue is
due to the inherent power of the germ, and marks the second stage of
progress. The only action of light is employed in producing higher
chemical combination ; heat acts as the constructive power.

The process of growth does not absorb all the elaborated materials
provided, and an additional amount of heat or force is generated by
the decomposition or a "retrograde transformation" of these com^
pounds. A much greater proportion, however, of the organized sub-
stances is stored up within the structure of the plant as a " reservoir
of reserved material," to meet the exhaustive process of flowering and
the maturing of fruit and seed. That these processes are sustained at
the expense of an extra amount of force, and by the decomposition of
their own products, is evident from the unusual jaroduction of carbonic
acid. The combination of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen, in the build-
ing up of plants, is here reversed, and by a retrograde process heat is
set free, which we have seen is necessary for the elaboration of repro-
ductive agents.

This appears to be precisely the same action which takes place in
the reproduction of fungoid plants and mosses. A corresponding con-
dition is shown by the rapid exhalation of carbonic acid ; indeed. Dr.
Carpenter asserts that a decomposition of a portion of the absorbed ma-
terial is the only conceivable source of the large quantity they are con-
stantly giving out, and ascribes the very rapid growth of these plants
to a " retrograde metamorphosis." The substances which enter into
the new growth are already prepared by the foster-plant, and we find
the parasite incapable of forming any new combination through the
agency of light. This necessarily awakens a doubt of any action re-
sulting from insolation or reflection in the cases of the liverworts or
mushrooms which have been referred to.

The expression of light in flowering plants seems to be through the
medium of electricity, while in cryptogams it resembles the steady
glow of slow combustion. Iligli microscoiaic power may, however, re-
veal, as in some cases of animal phosphorescence, the sparkle and flash

8io THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of rapid and minute scintillations. Inquiry in this direction, I think,
has never been made; nor is an analysis necessary for our present pur-
pose. For, if we regard the light either as the result of slow combus-
tion, or catch the vivid flash of the electric spark in this reproduction
(itself the product of decay), we are met by the same inexorable per-
manent law, that there is not a leaf that rots by the roadside, nor a
spear of pale club-moss, that is not in itself a reservoir of recreative
power throwing back its faint, pulsing light or its equivalent of heat
into that quickening flood which the great heart of Nature sends down
through the illimitable and unknown.

CEOLL'S "CLIMATE AND TIME."*

By W. J. McGEE.

THE recent publication in " The Popular Science Monthly " of a
paper on " The Age of Ice," and its apparently favorable recep-
tion and republication elsewhere, prompt the writer to submit the
following incomplete notice of a work in which the field barely en-
tered by the author of that paper is most thoroughly and exhaustively
examined.

In addition to a convenient abstract of the line of argument pur-
sued, and a statement of some fundamental principles of geology, it is
pointed out in an introductory chapter that the earlier theories framed
to account for climatal variations during the geological aeons are utterly
inadequate ; that the earth could not pass through hotter or colder
portions of space without seriously deranging the mechanism of the
solar system ; that a diminution of heat from this or any other cause
could never inaugurate a glacial epoch ; that considerable changes in
the obliquity of the ecliptic have never occurred, and could not have
caused glacial periods if they had ; and, finally, here as well as in a
more recently published paper,f which may be considered as supple-
mentary to this chapter, that material changes in the position of the
terrestrial axis can never have taken place : in short, he shows, by
bringing together the independent results arrived at by eminent ge-
ologists, physicists, and mathematicians, that the vai'ious cataclysmic
theories of geological climate are alike untenable. Telluric causes
being thus shown to be incompetent, no alternative remains but to

* Climate and Time in their Geological Eelations : A Theory of Secular Changes of
the Earth's Climate. By James Croll, LL. D., F. R. S., etc., of Her Majesty's Geological
Survey of Scotland. American edition, 12mo, pp. xvL-S^I, with Plates. New York :
D. Appleton & Co., 1875.

f "Geological Magazine," September, IS'/S.

CROLUS ''CLIMATE AND TIME:' 811

seek for the cause of secular climatal variations in the earth's astronom-
ical relations. In the same chapter, but more fully in the Appendix,
Dr. Croll goes on to show that the variable length of the seasons con-
sequent upon the ellipticity of the terrestrial orbit had begun to at-
tract attention before the close of the last century ; and that, as early
as 1830, Sir Charles Lyell had expressed the idea that the long winters
and short summers of the southern hemisphere might have some in-
fluence in lowering the temperature of that portion of the globe.* Sir
John Herschel and others, however, soon after demonstrated that the
light and heat received by any portion of the earth's surface during
any year is practically invariable, whatever the eccentricity of the
terrestrial orbit ; the greater proportionate length of winter in the
hemisphere whose winters occur in aphelion being exactly counter-
balanced by the greater proximity of the sun in summer. This is,
indeed, a legitimate deduction from Kepler's second law, and was long
ago demonstrated by D'Alembert. The hypothesis, therefore, fell into
disrepute. Over fifteen years ago, however, the author of the work
under consideration began to point out, in a series of papers (chiefly in
the " London and Edinburgh Philosophical Magazine "), the substance
of which is reproduced in " Climate and Time," that while the variable
length of the seasons resulting from this cause could never produce a
glacial epoch directly, yet the same cause might, especially when in-
tensified by a high degree of eccentricity, bring into operation a chain
of physical agencies which could not fail to very materially affect the
climate of the globe.

As a further introduction to that portion of the work devoted to
the elucidation and application of the above-named astronomical and
physical principles, and as an illustration of the efiiciency of one of the
secondary agencies on the operation of which the theory is based, the
heat-conveying power of ocean-currents is discussed at length in the
second and third chapters. The importance of these currents is shown
to be immense. Thus, according to Professor Dove's " Temperature
Tables," the temperature of the British Isles, and of western Europe
generally, is 12° Fahr. above the normal — or, more properly, the
mean — for that latitude, while the temperature of corresponding por-
tions of eastern -North America is nearly as much below the normal.
Dr. Croll attributes this difference to the effect of the Gulf Stream in
warming western Europe, and of the cold counter-current in chilling
our American coasts. The same subject is recurred to frequently
throughout the volume, notably in Chapters XI. and XII., in the latter
of which Mr. Findlay's objections are answered by calculating from
his own data that the heat liberated from the Gulf Stream in the
North Atlantic is equal to more than one half of that received direct-
ly from the sun in the same latitude. An analogous condition of
things exists on the shores of the North Pacific, which are similarly
* "Principles," first edition, 1830, vol. i., p. 110.

8 12 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

affected by the Kuro Siwo ; though there the effect is less distinctly
marked, owing to the more unfavorable conformation of the coast.
So effective are ocean-currents in distributing the heat of tropical and
the cold of i^olar regions, that our author concludes that the globe
would not be habitable for existing orders of beings were their influ--
ence to cease.

The heat-conveying power of aerial currents is also discussed ; but
it seems possible that Dr. Croll has under-estimated their capacity,
many times increased as it is by the aqueous vapor with which they
are laden. Space will not, however, permit the discussion of this in-
teresting point.

The combined effect of aerial and aqueous currents is estimated to
reduce the difference in temperature between equator and poles from
218° to 80°. This astonishing result may be substantially verified by
a simpler and probably more accurate method than that employed by
Dr. Croll. Meech shows * that the relative solar intensity at the
equator, at the poles, and over the whole earth, varies in the ratio of
81*50, 33'83, and 66*73, respectively ; and Dove, many years ago, de-
termined the mean annual temperature of the earth to be approxi-
mately 58°. Now, the solar energy elevates the temperature of the
earth from that of stellar space, or —239° (as determined by Herschel
and Pouillet), to -f 58°. 297° is, therefore, the mean elevation of the
earth's temperature by solar action. Eliminating the distributing
power of aerial and aqueous currents, and assuming the present mean
relation between absorption and radiation to remain constant, it is
quite probable that the temperature of the various parts of the earth's
surface would vary directly as the solar intensity. A simple propor-
tion, then, shows us that while the equator would be raised 363°, or to
+ 124° of absolute temperature, the poles would be elevated only
150°, or to —88° ; making a difference of 212° between equator and
poles. If, as is extremely probable, the temperature of stellar space is
really below —239°, this difference would be still greater. Moreover,
it can be shown that any decrease in temperature tends to increase the
radiating capacity of the earth by rendering the surrounding atmos-
phere diathermous. Hence the poles would sink lower in tempera-
ture, proportionally, than the equator.

Six chapters (VI.-XI.) are devoted to the "gravitation theory "
of oceanic circulation, with the object of completely refuting it. Two
reasons for the very full discussion of this branch of the subject are
given : 1. Because the gravitation theory " lies at the root of a great
deal of the confusion and misconception which have prevailed in re-
gard to the whole subject of ocean-currents " ; and, 2. Because, " if
the theory is correct, it militates strongly against the physical theory
of secular changes of climate advanced in this volume." The advo-

* " Relative Intensity of the Sun's Light and Heat," " Smithsonian Contributions,"
vol. ix.

C ROLL'S ''CLIMATE AND TIMEP 813

cates of this theory are separated into two arbitrary classes : 1. Those
who consider the difference in density between equatorial and polar
waters to be due to difference in saltness ; and, 2, Those who attrib-
ute the difference in density to difference in temperature. Lieutenant
Maury's theory, stated in his " Physical Geography of the Sea," is
rejected because that eminent meteorologist recognized both of the
above-named causes of difference in density, while they are very
nearly equal and quite antagonistic, and because the actual differences
in specific gravity due to these causes are mathematically demonstra-
ble to be incompetent to produce so powerful currents ; being, in fact,
as Dr. Croll pointedly insists, only one seventh of that necessary to
produce the slightest motion. Dr. Carpenter's theory, based chiefly
on differences of density due to differences in temperature, is discussed
at still greater length than Lieutenant Maury's, and is rejected on the
grounds — 1. Of being counteracted by differences in saltness (in which
view Dr. Croll has the support of Sir Wyville Thomson) ; and, 2. Of
resting on assumed causes utterly inadequate either (a) to produce
existing currents, or {h) to convey northward so great an amount of
heat as that shown to be given out by the Gulf Stream ; the apparent-
ly paradoxical conclusion, that the Gulf Stream actually conveys an
absolutely greater quantity of heat to high latitudes than the whole
Atlantic could convey, being explained by the proposition that the
Gulf Stream obtains the greater portion of its heat in the southern
hemisphere, while according to Dr. Carpenter's hypothesis tlie circula-
tion should be independent in each hemisphere.

In Chapter XIII. the "wind theory" of oceanic circulation is
enunciated and elaborated, and in the succeeding chapter its relations
to climatal variations are discussed. It is first pointed out that the
various ocean-currents are not due to the trade-winds alone, as was
until recently supposed by advocates of the wind theory, but to the
general impulse of the prevailing winds of the globe, viewed as a sin-
gle grand system, and acting, not upon several separate and indepen-
dent oceans, but upon a single grand oceanic system, the various parte
of which are most intimately related. The correspondence between
the supposed cause and the observed effect seems to be all that could
be desired. " All the principal currents of the globe are in fact mov-
ing in the exact direction in which they ought to move, assuming the
winds to be the sole impelling cause. In short, so perfect is the agree-
ment between the two systems, that, given the system of winds and
the conformation of sea and land, and . . . the system of oceanic
circulation might be determined a jyriori. Or, given the system of the
ocean-currents, together with the conformation of sea and land ; and
the direction of the prevailing winds could also be determined a
j)7'iori. Or, thirdly, given the system of winds and the system of
currents, and the conformation of sea and land might be roughly
determined." Return currents are formed through the tendency of

8 14 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the ocean to maintain its level, and naturally select the path of least
resistance. Hence they are usually undercurrents.

The general agreement between the systems of winds and of oceanic
circulation is shown on a chart. It may be mentioned that the direc-
tion of the winds, as laid down on this chart, does not precisely corre-
spond with the direction determined by the late Professor Coffin, and
indicated on the charts in his cyclopean work, " The Winds of the
Globe," recently published by the Smithsonian Institution ; and it is
quite probable that more exhaustive observations will show that there
are inaccuracies of as great magnitude in the representation of oceanic
currents. It should be borne in mind, however, that any minor dis-
crepancies between the two systems do not militate against the theory,
unless it can be shown that they are not such as would be produced
by the conformation of the coasts ; for the wind system, as a cause of
oceanic circulation, is modified by this important and frequently an-
tagonistic factor.

In seeking for demonstrative evidence of the correctness of the
wind theory. Dr. Croll seems to fall into an error which he has repeat-
edly had occasion to point out in others. Thus, in discussing one of
Dr. Carpenter's sections, he shows, from Professor Muncke's coeffi-
cients of the density of sea-water, at various temperatures, that the
surface of the Atlantic is, at north latitude 23° 10', two feet six inches,
and at north latitude 37° 54', fully three feet six inches higher than at
the equator, on account of the greater thickness at these points of the
upper layer of warm water. It is urged that " gravitation never could
have caused the ocean to assume this form," and hence that " gravita-
tion can no more cause the surface-water of the Atlantic to flow toward
the Arctic regions than it can compel the waters of the Gulf of Mexico
up the Mississippi into the Missouri." Now, by Dr. Croll's own show-
ing, it is gravity alone that causes the surface of the Atlantic to assume
that form — that is, if that form is actually assumed ; a fact not deter-
mined by measurements. It is merely calculated from the data given
to what height above the level at the equator the waters of the North
Atlantic would have to be raised in order to maintain a condition of
static equilibrium ; it is 'not shown that the waters are so elevated, but
only that they would have to be in order that the influence of gravita-
tion, in producing oceanic currents, should be eliminated. How the
warm water, on which this supposed configuration depends, was con-
veyed thither, is a dynamical and not a statical problem.

Moreover, two important elements in the problem of oceanic circu-
lation are disregarded by Dr. Croll : 1. The water borne from equa-
torial to polar regions by aerial currents, in the form of aqueous vapor,
must exercise a powerful influence not only on the earth's temperature
but also upon marine currents ; for, as shown by Lieutenant Maury, it
is sufficient to permanently render the Arctic seas much less saline than
those of tropical regions. Sir Wy ville Thomson strongly insisted upon

CROLVS ''CLIMATE AND TIMEP 815

the importance of this agency in his presidential address before the
geographical section of the British Association, at its Dublin meeting,
in which he even went so far as to maintain that one part of the gen-
eral oceanic circulation takes place through the atmosphere ; though
in thus considering the aerial circulation to be telluric, or universal over
the whole surface of the earth, instead of hemispheric, or comparatively-
independent on opposite sides of the equator, this distinguished ex-
plorer seems to assume to be true that which is most emphatically con-
tradicted, not only by the almost innumerable observations collated by
Professor Coffin in the great work already referred to, but by those of
all other observers. It is true, though, that, as the transportation of
the vapor is accomiDlished by aerial currents, these currents indirectly
cause those marine currents formed by the precipitation of vapor. 2.
The earth's axial rotation, which is one of the two great causes of aerial
circulation, must exercise considerable effect on the marine currents,
though of course its operation is more seriously interfered with by the
inequalities of the terrestrial surface in the case of the earth's discon-
tinuous liquid enveloj)e, than in the universal gaseous one. Still, if, as
suggested by Guilleman, this force is adequate to influence the course
of rivers flowing to the north or south, it will vitiate any theory which
neglects it. Moreover, the actual effect of the earth's axial rotation
would be very likely to elude observation, as the currents so produced
would necessarily correspond approximately with the principal aerial
currents of the globe ; and hence the combined effect of the two causes
would be likely to be attributed to the most obvious one. The influ-
ence of axial rotation on the oceanic circulation may be determined
mathematically, however, and indeed such an investigation has already
been entered upon by Mr. Ferrel ; but his results are not generally
known.

While both branches of the gravitation theory are summarily dealt
with, analogy with the second prime cause of aerial circulation (i. e.,
difference in density, owing to differences in temperature and humid-
ity) would indicate that any difference in density, whether due to
difference in temperature or in saltness, would be sure to play a minor
part in the phenomenon of oceanic circulation- at least in some cases.
Therefore, of the five distinct agencies which probably cooperate in
disturbing the equilibrium of the ocean. Dr. Croll recognizes but one ;
and, singularly, in view of his usual method, he nowhere endeavors to
prove mathematically, or in any other conclusive manner, that the
impulse of the winds is adequate to produce the effects attributed to
it. The wind theory can not, therefore, be said to be demonstrated.
Nevertheless, the agreement between the winds and the marine cur-
rents is so striking that geographers and navigators are generally dis-
posed to adopt that theory. The late distinguished geographer of
Gotha, Dr. Petermanu, was one of the most prominent advocates of
the theory.

8i6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

With Dr. Croll's connection with this subject a new era may be
said to have been inaugurated. Previously it had been deemed suffi-
cient to point out certain agencies which seemed to be adequate to
produce the observed effect, without making any effort to show mathe-
matically that they ^oere adequate ; but this physicist contended from
the first that cause and effect should be determined in absolute mea-
sure, just as in the other branches of physical science. His failure to
observe this excellent rule in one case is to be attributed to the same
paucity of trustworthy observations which is the occasion of the ob-
scurity enveloping the whole subject.

In Chapter IV. the physical agencies leading to changes of climate
are discussed, and an explanation of the present low temperature of
the southern hemisphere is offered in Chapter V. As has already
been intimated, that hemisphere, which has its winters in aphelion^
has a longer winter and a shorter summer than the mean. Now, it is
perfectly obvious that this variation in the length of the seasons
increases with any increase in the eccentricity of the terrestrial orbit,
and similarly diminishes with any diminution of eccentricity ; for the
eccentricity of the planetary orbits may vary within pretty wide
limits, which have been determined by La Grange, Leverrier, and,
more recently as well as more satisfactorily, by Mr. J. N. Stockwell,
of Cleveland. The present eccentricity (0-0168) is such that there is
a difference of about eight days in the length of summer and winter
in either hemisphere, when the solstices coincide with the apsides ;
and, the winter solstice of the southern hemisphere being now not far
from aphelion, that hemisphere has the long winter and short summer.
It is admitted, however (even too readily, it would seem), that the
present degree of eccentricity is too insignificant to exercise much
influence on the climate of the globe ; but 210,000 years ago, when,
according to Dr. Croll's elaborate computations, the eccentricity was
0'0575, the excess of winter over summer, due to this cause, amounted
to 26*7 days ; and 850,000 years ago, the eccentricity then being
0-0747, it amounted to 34-7 days ; and it is argued that so gi'eat a
difference in the relative length of the seasons would indirectly, through
the intervention of a number of physical agencies, materially affect the
earth's climate. These agencies are shown to be such as would be
brought into operation by an increase in the length of winter, even if
its severity was not increased ; and they are mainly dependent on the
increased proportion of moisture precipitated as snow instead of rain.
Of course, this snow would remain until melted by approaching sum-
mer, just as it does in every region where much snow falls.

" There are three separate ways whereby accumulated masses of
snow and ice tend to lower the summer temperature " : 1. By means
of direct radiation [and by direct contact] ; 2. By direct reflection
back into space* of the solar rays ; and, 3. By chilling the air and con-
densing the vapor into thick fogs which intercept the solar rays. This

CROLUS ''CLIMATE AND TIME.'' 817

third influence had better not be insisted upon, however, as it is coun-
teracted by — 1. The immense amount of latent heat liberated in the
condensation of the vapor ; and, 2. The interception by these fogs of
the heat radiated from the earth. A substitute may be offered for it,
viz., by rendering the atmosphere diathermous, and therefore inca-
pable of absorbing the solar rays or of intercepting the radiation and
reflection from the earth. In consequence of the operation of these
agencies, the air in snow-covered regions seldom rises above the freez-
ing-point, and the solar heat is conveyed away into space and utterly
lost to the earth ; for, if a portion of it is absorbed by the snow and
ice during the hours of sunshine, it is not rendered sensible, owing
to the high latent and specific heat of these for'jas of water, and is
radiated away, unchecked by any "protecting blanket of vapor"
(which Professor Tyndall shows to be so efficacious in protecting
the earth from radiation, but which can not exist above snow-covered
regions), during the succeeding hours of darkness.

This waste of solar energy, in turn, still further curtails the already
short summer, and permits the same causes to operate with increased
efiiciency during the succeeding season. Moreover, the reaction of
each effect upon its cause is such as to strengthen the cause, and the
interaction of all the agencies is such as to increase the efiiciency of
each. Each winter would thus add to the snow which had remained
unmelted during the intervening summer, until the accumulation of
snow was checked by the absence of vapor for condensation and pre-
cipitation ; for, as pointed out by Tyndall, the presence of large quan-
tities of vapor is the first essential for the formation of extensive gla-
ciers.

It has been objected to the theory, that this picture has been over-
drawn— that no such slight cause could so seriously disturb the equi-
librium of the seasons ; it has even been shown mathematically that
the heat of a few days in summer would melt the total accumulation
of the previous winter. The answer to these objections is, that in such
calculation the operation of the agencies just described was disre-
garded, and hence that its results are unreliable ; that, though the
solar intensity is greater over polar regions in summer than in the
tropics, as shown by Meech, it is not sufficient to melt the annual ac-
cumulation of ice, else this ice never could have accumulated to so
vast an extent as to annually send forth thousands of colossal bergs to
be melted in temperate seas ; that not only in the Alps, but even in
the almost tropical Himalayas, where the sun shines with undiminished
intensity throughout the year, the direct effect of the solar energy is so
far below the accumulation of congealed vapor that the ice is only pre-
vented from piling up indefinitely by that property which enables it to
flow down to lower levels where the conditions described do not exist ;
that even in the northern portions of our own country the slight annual
film of snow retards the coming of summer by weeks if not months ;
VOL. XVI. — 52

8i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

that while the reception and dissipation of heat by any portion of the
earth's surface are equal, the physical properties of ice are such that
ice-covered regions lose their heat immediately without being sensi-
bly increased in temperature. The effect on temperature of accumu-
lations of ice and snow must, therefore, be enormous. " Were it not
for the ice," strikingly remarks Dr. Croll, "the summers of Green-
land . . . would be as warm as those of England ; but, instead of
this, the Greenland summers are colder than our winters. Cover India
with an ice-sheet, and its summers would be colder than those of Eng-
land." Even on our own coasts the grounding of a single berg ap-
preciably lowers the temperature and greatly increases the danger of
frosts.

On the hemisphere whose sum,mers occurred in aphelion during
the period of high eccentricity, an exactly opposite tendency would
be manifested : the snow and ice would gradually melt and perhaps
entirely disappear, and vegetation might flourish even under the pole.
That hemisphere would then enjoy an interglacial period. These
periods occupy an important place in the theory under examination.

Dr. Croll then proceeds to show how the accumulation of ice in
polar regions would affect the general oceanic circulation : " Owing to
the difference between the temperature of the equator and the poles
there is a constant flow of air from the poles to the equator. It is to
this that the trade-winds owe their existence. Now, as the strength
of these winds, as a general rule, will depend on the difference of tem-
perature that may exist between the equator and higher latitudes, it
follows -that the trades on the cold hemisphere will be stronger than
those on the warm. . . . Suppose, now, the northern hemisphere to be
the cold one. The northeast trade-winds of this hemisphere will far
exceed in strength the southeast trade-winds of the southern hemi-
sphere. The median-line between the trades will consequently lie to
a very considerable distance to the south of the equator. . . . Let us
now consider how this would affect the Gulf Stream. The South
American Continent is shaped somewhat in the form of a triangle, with
one of its angular corners, called Cape St. Roque, pointing eastward.
The equatorial current of the Atlantic impinges against this corner,
but, as the greater portion of the current lies a little to the north of
the corner, it flows westward into the Gulf of Mexico and forms the
Gulf Stream. . . . Now, it is perfectly obvious that the shifting of the
equatorial current of the Atlantic only a few degrees to the south of
its present position — a thing which would certainly take j^lace under
the conditions we have been detailing — would turn the entire cur-
rent " to the south of Cape St. Roque, and thence along the Brazilian
shores and into the Southern Ocean, and " the Gulf Stream would
consequently be stopped."

Now, it is quite manifest that if the wind theory of oceanic circula-
tion is incorrect — and, as ah-eady shown, its correctness has not been

CROLUS ''CLIMATE AND TIME.'' 819

demonstrated — no such deflection of the Atlantic current wouki be
likely to occur. This possibility is fairly confronted by Dr. Croll
when he admits that the gravitation theory " militates strongly "
against his theory of secular changes of climate. But there is another
self-evident proposition which seems to have escaped his attention.
Assuming that the results detailed above follow in the order laid
down when the eccentricity is at a high value, it is perfectly manifest
that the deflection of the Gulf-Stream feeder is an effect of glaciation,
and, if a cause at all, only a secondary one. Hence, if the purely physi-
cal agencies alone are capable of causing glaciation. Dr. Croll's theory
of secular changes in climate will stand, whether or not the wind theory
of oceanic circulation is correct ; but, if they are not capable of pro-
ducing a glacial period alone, the theory will fall, even if the wind
theory of oceanic circulation be correct. This can not be too strongly
emphasized. Yet, not only in " Climate and Time," but in his other
publications on the subject, Dr. Croll dwells upon the deflection -of
ocean-currents as the principal telluric element in his theory !

The only positive evidence adduced to prove that the Gulf Stream
was deflected during the glacial period is the fact, pointed out by Mr.
Crosskey, that there is more difference between the glacial and recent
shells of Scotland than between the glacial and recent shells of Cana-
da. But this only proves that the present temperature of that part
of Canada is lower than that of Scotland ; for the temperature of the
waters at the edge of the ice-sheet must have been approximately the
same, whatever the latitude to which it extended. This evidence is,
therefore, utterly valueless. Furthermore, we have pretty reliable posi-
tive evidence that the Gulf Stream was not stopped during the glacial
epoch, in the more northerly limits of continental glaciation in those
parts of Europe so greatly affected by the Gulf Stream to-day, any more
than in the United States, where its influence is comparatively unfelt.
Moreover, Professor Dana has shown in his " Journal " that the distri-
bution of ice during the glacial period coincided in a general way with
the present distribution of . rainfall in the same latitudes. Now, the
greater part of the moisture of the United States, especially of the
great Mississippi Basin, is derived from the Gulf o^ Mexico ; and the
stoppage of the South Atlantic feeder of the Gulf Stream M'ould
cool the waters of the Gulf so considerably as to materially diminish
our vapor-supply, and at the same time the distribution would be
altered. Similarly, the stoppage of that current during the glacial
period would have so altered the distribution that its relation to the
present precipitation would not be recognizable, even if it did not so
completely cut off the vapor-supply as to prevent glaciation. The
mass of evidence is therefore against the hypothesis of the shifting of
this important marine current during the glacial period ; and, as this
would, as Dr. Croll points out, be likely to be the first out of all of the
ocean-cun-ents to be deflected, it may reasonably be doubted whether

820 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

any were seriously affected by the cause specified. It must be admit-
ted, however, that the physical agencies which have already been
described seem competent to inaugurate a glacial epoch during any
period of high eccentricity of the terrestrial orbit, without any assist-
ance from the meteorological influences. These periods, recurring at
long and irregular intervals, must have alternately refrigerated and
revivified the circumpolar regions again and again during the immea-
surable ages whose lapse is so dimly recorded in the rocky strata. The
theory is, therefore, in the highest accord with the modern unif ormita-
rian doctrine which rejects all hypothetical explanations of phenomena
which are not in harmony with the jjresent course of nature.

The present low temperature of the southern hemisphere as com-
pared with the northern is explained by the assertion that the warm
waters of the southern hemisphere are borne into the northern, while
the cold waters of the northern hemisphere are conveyed into the
southern. The argument supporting this conclusion is that of a radi-
cal advocate of the wind theory, and is as strongly opposed to the first
principles of the physical theory of climate as the most conservative
critic could wish. Space will not permit the discussion of this chapter.

Chapter XVIII. contains a resume of the evidence of former glacial
eras which had been collected up to the time of the preparation of the
volume. There had already been placed on record more or less decisive
evidence of former glaciers, not only in the Quaternary but in the Mio-
cene, the Eocene, the Cretaceous, the Oolitic, the Permian, the Carbo-
niferous, the Old Red Sandstone, the Silurian, and even the Cambrian.
In some of these cases, notably in the formations of the Permian age,
the evidence is so voluminous, so distinct, and from such widely sepa-
rated localities, that it seems impossible not to conclude that our Pleis-
tocene ice age was but the homologue of long antecedent secular win-
ters. The reasons for the paucity of evidence regarding these early
glacial eras are summarized in the preceding chapter.

A statement of the method of computing the eccentricity of the
terrestrial orbit, elaborate tables (laboriously computed by the author,
with the exception of about a dozen periods) showing the eccentricity
for 3,000,000 years in the past and 1,000,000 years in the future, and
conclusions as to the probable date of the glacial epoch, constitute Chap-
ter XIX. It has since been pointed out, by an undoubted authority in
such matters (Professor Newcomb), that Leverrier's formulae, which
were employed in making the computations embraced in the tables,
are defective, and hence that the figures given are not rigidly correct ;
but for the present these minor inaccuracies may be disregarded. The
dates given may, therefore, be assumed to be correct, though they are
undoubtedly only approximations.

It has already been stated that periods of high eccentricity oc-
curred 210,000 and 850,000 years ago, respectively. Sir Charles Lyell,
the founder of the uniformitarian school of geology, was inclined to

CR OIL'S "CLIMATE AND TIMEy 821

believe that it was the first of these periods that produced the glacial
epoch. Guided by the rate and amount of post-glacial erosion, how-
ever, Dr, Croll conciudes that it was the more recent period which
corresponded with the Quaternary glacial epoch ; but he suggests
that the earlier period may have coincided with the Miocene glacier.
He thinks that the glacial period of the Quaternary lasted from
shortly before the last great maximum until about 80,000 years ago
(when the eccentricity was 0-0398, corresponding to a diiference of
twenty-two days in the length of the seasons), or for about 160,000
years — including, of course, the alternating interglacial periods.

Aside from the strong inherent evidence of the approximate cor-
rectness of this determination of the date of the glacial epoch (any
uncertainty being due to the imperfection of Leverrier's formula?),
there is an abundance of independent testimony leading to substan-
tially the same conclusion. Many eminent geologists have calculated
the duration of post-glacial time from various data — generally the rate
and amount of erosion or deposition in stated localities — with results
usually ranging from 100,000 to 300,000 years. The mean of several
of the most reliable is a trifle less than 200,000 years. Now, while each
of these results, when viewed singly, may properly be regarded, in the
words of Sir John Lubbock, "not as a proof, but as a measure of
antiquity," they may, when viewed collectively, justly be considered
reliable within wide limits, and to prove that no less a period than
40,000 or 50,000 years can have elapsed since the retreat of the ice-
sheet from temperate latitudes ; and the time has now come when he
who endeavors to fix a later date for that event, without showing why
these estimates should be rejected, need not be astonished if his efforts
only bring him into contempt. So great is the weight of this inde-
pendent testimony, indeed, as to warrant the suggestion that the gla-
cial epoch of the Quaternary did not extend down to the period of
high eccentricity 80,000 years ago, as Dr. Croll intimates, but closed
160,000 or 170,000 years ago. This last maximum might, then, be
represented by the Reindeer epoch of Europe, and possibly (if it may
be permitted in this strongly reactionary age to suggest the bare possi-
bility that the pioneers in the field of American archseology, Atwater,
Morton, Squier, and their compeers, did not err most egregiously in
their estimates of the antiquity of the earlier works of our prehistoric
races) by the migration into Mexico and Central America of the
mound-builders of the Mississippi Valley — a migration which might
thus furnish a parallel with that southerly migration of the Pliocene
mammalian fauna at the inception of the glacial period, to which the
Indian geologists attribute the richness and variety of the Siwalik and
related fossil fauna of the Orient. It might further be urged that, if the
duration of the ice age were so great as Dr. Croll suggests, we would
be likely to find more unequivocal evidence of the fact in structural
variations in those species which survived the cataclysm.

822 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Interglacial periods are treated of at considerable length in Chap-
ters XV. and XVI, ; and it is justly held that any theory which does
not explain the occurrence of the plant-beds of the drift, as well as its
bowlder clays, is unworthy of acceptance. The fossiliferous strata of
the marine formations found in Arctic regions, as well as the whole
series of fossiliferous deposits found in the drift, are referred to these
brief periods of unusually mild climate ; but this seems almost too
radical. If the general series of marine deposits in the Arctic regions
were as nearly unfossiliferous as are the sedimentary strata of tropical
India, such an hypothesis would be a little more likely to find accept-
ance among geologists. The fact developed by Meech, that the polar
regions ought to have a warmer summer than the equator, if the solar
intensity is a fair criterion, would indicate that these regions should
have only a temperate climate if the ice were removed and the sum-
mer's heat stored up in the earth ; and so slight an additional quantity
of heat would accomplish this in a few years that, in view of the
known variability of the solar emission and of the terrestrial absorp-
tion, it seems quite unnecessary to attach so much importance to the
interglacial periods in their relations to Arctic formations. That coal
is an interglacial formation, as is suggested in Chapter XXVI., seems
still less probable, chiefly because these periods are too short to admit
of so great an accumulation of vegetable matter as is stored up in each
coal-seam.

It is not improbable, indeed, especially if the marine currents were
not seriously affected by the polar snows, that the greater part of each
of these periods would be required to melt the ice which had accumu-
lated during the preceding glacial period. It seems very doubtful,
too, even if the melting of the ice took place with the greatest con-
ceivable rapidity, whether terrestrial animals or j)lants would spread
over the barren wastes of crude glacial d'ehris so rapidly as to people
so wide a zone in the brief period assigned. Some of the intercalated
fossiliferous beds of the drift, too, are very rich in numbers as well as
species of both animals and plants — the latter sometimes forming ex-
tensive deposits of lignite — which must have required an immense
time for their development. It seems scarcely possible that these ter-
restrial deposits can be interglacial, in the sense in which Dr. Croll
employs the term, though the aqueous deposits, containing fossil shells
of marine and estuarine mollusks, may justly be so considered ; for
such animals would be likely to keep close to the margin of the ice-
cap as it retreated. To explain the two principal divisions of the drift,
which have been recognized over immense areas on both sides of the
Atlantic, it seems equally reasonable to refer the uppermost to the last
period of high eccentricity, and the lower to that which Sir Charles
Lyell supposed to coincide with the glacial epoch ; in fact, in support
of this collocation, we have the striking coincidence that the ice ex-
tended some degrees farthest during the period of greatest eccentricity.

CROLDS " CLIMATE AND TIME:' 823

Besides, such a collocation affords a sufficient period for the develop-
ment of the rich and characteristic fauna and flora of the forest-bed —
a widespread fossiliferous and carbonaceous deposit that must repre-
sent a lapse of time of geological importance. The belief that any
glacier would necessarily remove all the debris formed by an ante-
cedent one — a belief "which has done much to prevent the acceptance
of theories of successive glaciation — is best shown to be fallacious by
the unequivocal evidence that the ice of the last glacial epoch did pass
over older deposits of unconsolidated materials without removing
them. Some such evidence is cited by Dr. Croll in the last-named
chapters.

Among the interesting cognate subjects taken up in the remaining
eleven chapters of the work are — methods of measuring the rate of
subaerial denudation, and of determining the mean thickness of the
rocks of the globe ; the age and origin of the sun (which is an able
effort to reconcile the existing disagreement between the geologist
and the astronomer and physicist as to the age of the earth) ; the
physical cause of continental submergence and emergence during the
glacial period ; the influence of the obliquity of the ecliptic on ter-
restrial climate ; some glacial phenomena of Scotland and England ;
and the physical cause of glacier-motion. Appendices and an index
are added.

It has been the aim in the foregoing pages to convey a general idea
of the nature and scope of the work under review, and at the same
time to indicate those points which do not seem to be sustained ; and,
as is natural in view of this double object, justice has not been done
to the work as a whole. " Climate and Time " represents years of
study and an almost incredible amount of conscientious labor by per-
haps the most competent living man to deal with this obscure subject,
which occupies a position intermediate betAveen geology, physics, and
astronomy, and requires a thorough knowledge o'f all of these branches
of science for its adequate comprehension. As a geologist, Dr. Croll
occupies an important and responsible position ; and, as an astronomer
and physicist, his reputation in scientific circles is even more enviable.
Owing to the confusion in which he found the subject, to the absence
of reliable data, and perhaps to a rather radical disposition, he seems
to have fallen into a few errors ; but, with some reservations, his in-
genious theory has been received with much favor, and has been pretty
widely adopted, especially on the other side of the Atlantic. Here, it
is comparatively unknown, and, in too many cases, lack of acquaintance
Avith the principles on which it is based has led to its being unfavora-
bly regarded ; but even those who reject the theory would do well to
familiarize themselves with its details before they undertake to inves-
tigate the subject anew.

824 '^^^ POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

A LIVING HONEYCOMB.

MUCH as has been written, about the marvels of instinct, there
are still discoveries of great interest to be made in this pro-
lific field. Particularly in the domain of those insect Yankees, the
ants, with their wonderful ingenuity and human-like manners and cus-
toms, there is room for extended observations.

Some lately discovered facts in relation to them are so curious and
interesting that it may be advisable to give them greater publicity
than they have yet obtained. Some of these facts have long been
known to the world of science, but not to the public. Others are new
discoveries. As a whole they form one of the most surprising chap-
ters in the history of animal life and contrivance.

Varied as are the social habits of the ants, it is generally consid-
ered that social bees surpass them in one particular, namely, their
mode of storing supplies of winter food, the storehouses of ant-food
having no contrivance similar in ingenuity to the honeycomb, with its
rich supply of the sweets of life.

But the truth is that certain tribes of ants are well aware of the
value of nature's sweetmeats as articles of food, and have developed a
mode of storing up their winter honey still more curious than that
practiced by the bees. They possess, in fact, what may be called liv-
ing honeycombs ; perambulatory cells filled with distilled sweetness.
We refer to the honey-bearing ants of New Mexico, concerning which
some very interesting facts have been brought to light during the past
summer.

The Rev. Dr. McCook, of Philadelphia, a noted observer of ants
and ant-life, has been interviewing these honey-bearers, and his results
differ so widely from the ordinary facts of insect instinct that they
can not but prove of general interest. These ants had been previously
known only in New Mexico, but he discovered them in Colorado, in-
habiting the locality known as the " Garden of the Gods," their nests
being excavated in the stony crests of low ridges which run through
this mountain-gii't paradise.

The ridges are composed of a friable sandstone, into which our
minute masons mine deeply, digging galleries which sometimes run
for several feet into the rock. The nest, outwardly, is some ten inches
in diameter by from two to three and a half inches in height, composed
of sand and bits of stone carried from within, some of which seem
large enough to defy a regiment of ants to move them.

Inside the nests successive chambers are excavated, connected by
galleries, the floors of the chambers being comparatively smooth, while
the ceilings are left in a rough state. But this roughness is no evi-
dence of carelessness in the builder. It has, on the contrary, an im-

A LIVING HONEYCOMB. 825

portant object : this is to furnish foothold for the clinging feet of
certain extraordinary -looking creatures, which form the living honey-
combs of which we have spoken.

Fancy an animal with the head and thorax of a small ant, but with
all the posterior portion of the body converted into a round sac, of the
size of a large pea, and of a rich translucent amber hue — it being, in
fact, distended into a reservoir of honey. This honey-bag is immense
when compared with the size of the ant, the unchanged parts of which
might pass for a black pin's head attached to the side of a marrowfat
pea. These odd-looking creatures cling to the roof of the chamber
with their feet, the distended honey-bag hanging downward like an
amber globe. On seeing them we instinctively imagine that their leg-
muscles must be developed in a fashion to put to shame those of hu-
man athletes, since it is no light weight which they are thus forced to
continuously support.

In each chamber of the nest about thirty honey-bearers are found,
making some three hundred to the complete nest. Besides these there
are hundreds or thousands of others, workers and soldiers, lords and
queens, to whom the honey -bearers serve as storehouses of winter
food.

Dr. McCook succeeded in bringing some of these home with him
alive, providing them with nest-building materials, and with sugar for
nutriment. He has one very interesting nest in a glass bottle, with
its interior chamber well displayed. The roof of this is covered with
depending globules of honey, so large as almost to conceal the minute
clinging insect of which they really form a part.

But the marvelous feature of the case yet remains to be described.
Not only is the abdomen of the ant converted into a receptacle for
honey, but the whole internal economy of the body is transformed for
this purpose. All the organs of the abdomen have quite disappeared :
viscera, nerves, veins, arteries, have alike vanished ; and there remains
only a thin, transparent skin, which is capable of great distention. It
is thus in reality a honey-cell, and much stranger than that of the bee,
the waxen walls of the latter being replaced in this case by the tissues
of a living animal. The creature can afford to dispense with the ab-
dominal organs, since its life-duties are so metamorphosed that it has
henceforth to act only as an animated sweetmeat.

Dr. McCook's observations enabled him to discover that the work-
ing ants, returning from their out-door foraging, with their bodies
distended with the honey they have somewhere harvested, enter the
chambers of the nest and eject this sweet fluid from their own mouths
into the mouths of the honey-bearers, whose bodies become greatly
distended with the delicious food. In other cases he perceived hun-
gry ants seeking for a meal from the food thus generously stored up.
The honey-bearer seemed to slightly contract the muscles of the ab-
dominal skin, forcing from its mouth minute globules of honey : these

826 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

clung to the hairs of the under lip, and were eagerly lapped up by the
hungry ants waiting to be fed. It is probable, however, that these
supplies are principally intended as winter stores for the workers, for
the feeding of the larvre, and for the dinner-table of the queen, who
is, as usual, too proud or too dignified to do her own foraging.

The working ants take great care of their helpless honey-bearers.
When one, through some convulsion of nature — occasioned perhaps
by the tap of a gigantic human finger — looses its hold and drops to
the floor of its chamber, it is at once picked up by a worker, and car-
ried back to its old foothold on the roof of the apartment. How this
minute creature can drag up a perpendicular wall a mass twenty times
its own size and weight is only less surprising than it would be to see
an adroit climber of the human race ascending the face of a precipice
and pulling after him a ton weight.

With regard to the source of the honey, these ants are not known
to feast on flowers, like bees and some of our home ants, nor could
any evidence be found of the presence of the Aphis, or ant-cow, which
many of our ants milk for its honey.

The honey-gatherer is difiicult to observe. It is a nocturnal ant,
keeping out of sight of the sun during the day, and only venturing
forth at nightfall in search of food. Dr. McCook observed them, in
the summer twilight, marching outward from the nest in long col-
umns, and pursuing night after night the same paths. He watched
them for a considerable time before he succeeded in finding the goal
of these nightly expeditions. At length, discovering some ants on the
twigs of a species of scrub-oak, which grew abundantly at the foot
of the ridge, he observed that they showed a marked preference for
certain small oak-galls which were ranged along the sides of the
twigs.

The next thing to be done was to examine these galls. We are
accustomed to associate galls with the idea of bitterness only, yet they
proved to be the true honey-yielders. On the round, green masses
minute drops of a sweet juice were found : this the ants eagerly licked
up, passing from gall to gall until fully laden, or returning to the
original gall at a later hour when fresh sweetness had exuded from it.

The gall-nut, it is well known, is an excrescence upon the leaves
of a species of oak ; it is produced by the puncture of a small hymen-
opterous insect for the purpose of depositing its eggs. A minute
grub lies in the center of the soft mass which composes the gall.
Whether the sweet juice came from this grub, or from the sap of the
tree, was not readily to be discovered, though it was most likely an
exudation of the sap.

All night the busy gatherers of sweets were occupied in collecting
honey from the galls. Toward morning they were seen in great num-
bers returning to the nest, their bodies swollen with the night's har-
vest of honey, which, as we have said, is given to the living honey-

SIZE OF BRAIN AND SIZE OF BODY. 827

combs within, being forced from the bodies of the "workers and into
the mouths of the honey-bearers, xmtil, by the time the season is over,
they present a remarkable distention.

This is about all that is known at present concerning the habits of
these strange ants. They very likely have other sources of honey at
other seasons ; but the most interesting fact is the surprising mode of
storage of this sweet food.

In New Mexico the inhabitants put these ants to a very peculiar
use, supplementing their dinners with a plateful of honey-auts for des-
sert. The overladen insects wait in enforced patience while the pre-
ceding courses of the dinner are being eaten. The mode of partaking
of this strange dessert is to pick up an ant, nip the honey-bag with the
teeth, forcing its sweet contents into the mouth, while the remainder
is thrown away. We are told that this is not so disagreeable a habit
as it might at first sight seem, the skin surrounding the honey being
reduced to a thin, transparent membrane, with nothing necessarily un-
pleasant in its character. Nevertheless, most of us will prefer to com-
tinue indebted to the bee for our supply of honey, leaving the ants to
enjoy the fruits of their own labors. — Journal of Science.

SIZE OF BRAIN AND SIZE OF BODY.

By IL W. B.

IT may be stated generally that the larger the animal the smaller is
the proportionate size of the brain. As an example of this we
may take the case of two of the largest animals now living, viz., the
whale and the African elephant. The whale possesses one of the
largest brains that is found in any animal, but, if we compare the size
of its brain to that of any of our domestic animals, such as the dog,
we find that it has a very small brain in proportion to the size of its
body. The same is the case with the brain of the elephant, which is
certainly the largest brain of any land animal, but which, compared
to the size of the body, is very small. Another set of animals in which
the brain is comparatively small is the reptiles. This group includes
a number of animals which are not included in the popular sense of
the word, such as the crocodiles, the turtles and lizards, as well as the
snakes. In these the brain is small comparatively to the size of the
body, as it is also in the amphibia. The small size of the brain in these
two classes of vertebrates is peculiar, as it runs through all the various
groups, although most marked in the larger members of each one. The
birds also follow the rule that the largest of them have smaller brains
compared to their bodies than the smaller ones have. A good example
of this may be seen in the case of the ostrich, which has the largest

828 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

body of any member of the group, but a much smaller brain in propor-
tion to its body than many of the smaller birds. As a class, however,
the birds have large brains in proportion to their body, when com-
pared to the other vertebrates, and so present a contrast to the rep-
tiles, in which, as already stated, the brain is small throughout the
whole group. In the next class of vertebrates — the Monotremata —
the brain is large in proportion to their body, but it must be taken into
account that this group contains very few large animals, being composed
almost entirely of small ones. The size of the brain in the echidna,
and the ornithorhynchus, both belonging to this group, is especially
large in proportion to the small bodies which the animals possess.
This is more remarkable when we consider the low position they oc-
cupy in the vertebrate series. In this manner we might go on through
the whole series of vertebrates, showing how the larger animals have
relatively smaller brains, and also the reverse, that the smaller animals
have larger brains for their size.

"We must now consider, however, the relative size of the brain in
animals about the same size, as it is only in that way that we can gain
information on the subject. Owing to the difficulties which attend the
investigation of this subject, comparatively little is accurately known
about it. It may be stated generally that the brain of domestic ani-
mals is larger than that of wild animals of a corresponding size of body.
As an example of this we may take the case of the dog and the wolf.
If the brains of those animals are compared, it will be found (if the
animals compared are of the same size) that the brain of the dog is the
larger. Again, if we compare the brains of a dog, a badger, and a
musk-deer about the same size, we find that the brain of the dog is the
largest, those of the other two animals being about the same size. It
will be observed that, in classifying the size of an animal, we do not
go by the height the animal stands, because many animals whose bodies
are about the same size differ in height only on account of their legs
being longer. In making comparisons, therefore, we compare animals
whose bulk is the same, irrespective of the actual height they may
stand from the ground. Among the wild animals of a similar size,
we also find considerable difference between the comparative size of
the brain and that of the body. As an example of this, we may take
the case of the lion and tiger. The brain of the lion is much larger
than that of the tiger ; however, that might be expected from the lion
being a larger animal than the tiger ; but the brain is much larger in
proportion than the difference of size of the two animals would account
for : therefore the brain of the lion is larger, in proportion to the size
of his body, than that of the tiger is in proportion to his body.

But we must now compare the size of the brains of domestic ani-
mals of the same size. Although the horse stands higher than the ox,
yet both those animals may be classed together for the comparisons of
their brain. We find that the brain of the horse is very much larger

SIZE OF BRAIN AND SIZE OF BODY. 829

than that of the ox. The camel also may be included in this class, as
being about the same size. Although many camels are larger, still the
bulk of the body is not very much greater than that of the horse and
ox. Its brain is very similar in size to that of the ox, but smaller
than the horse's brain. The brain of the sheep is a good deal larger
than that of the goat, although their bodies are similar in size. The
sheep and the pig are also animals which we might classify if we do
not take extreme sizes, but compare animals similar in age or bulk.
We find that the pig's brain is larger than the sheep's, and corresponds
in size very nearly to that of the dog. In the cat the size of the brain,
in proportion to the body, is much larger than that of the domestic
rabbit, although the size of the two animals is very much the same.

In "these examples given we have not taken into consideration the
order to which the animal belongs in the vertebrate series, but only
compared similar sized animals, and in all cases we have compared the
brains of adult animals. This is a very important point, as it is found
that in all animals, including man himself, the size of the brain, in pro-
portion to the size of the body, is much greater in young animals than
it is in the adult. In some animals the head is found to grow enor-
mously in size as the animal reaches adult age, but the brain does not
increase to the same extent. There is generally some reason to be
found for this in those animals where it takes place. For example, in
the ele^jhant the head of the young animal is by no means out of pro-
portion to the size of its brain ; but if we bisect the head of an adult
animal we find that the brain only occupies a small cavity, and the rest
of the skull is composed of plates of bone with air-cells between them.
In the young elephant we find none of those plates and air-cells be-
tween the outer and inner layers of cranium, but simply the two layers
of bone close to one another ; but we will also find that at this stage
the young elephant has no large tusks to carry, and its trunk is light,
so that its head is comparatively light. The case is, however, quite
different in the adult, when there are two large tusks and a large trunk
to carry. In order to support this great weight he requires strong
muscles. The great increase in the size of his head, therefore, is to
afford a requisite extent of surface for the attachment of the muscles.
In order to get this, combined with lightness, the skull is composed of
those plates and air-spaces mentioned.

A very interesting question, but one which it is very diflicult to an-
swer, is whether the intelligence of the animal corresponds to the size
of its brain. It is very diflicult to make comparisons in many animals,
as one animal shows his intelligence in one way, and another in an-
other way. However, going over some of the animals whose brains
we have compared, we may take as an example the horse and the ox.
The horse has the larger brain, and he has undoubtedly the greater
amount of intelligence. We find that horses can be trained to a great
extent, as may be seen daily in a circus, but the ox has never been so

830 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

trained. Again, a dog is the most intelligent animal there is, and he
has a large brain in comparison to the size of his body. On the other
hand, however, if we examine some of the Monotremata, we find, as
already stated, that the brain is very large in proportion to the size of
the body ; but the animals of this group would by no means be taken
as a standard of animal intelligence. It appears very probable, there-
fore, that in young animals and in the lower classes of the vertebrates
the size of the brain has comparatively little to do with the intelligence
the animal possesses, but that in the higher vertebrates there is some
relation between the amount of intelligence and the quantity of brain-
matter. The question may be asked. Why is it that the elephant, since
it has the largest brain of any land animal, is not the most intelligent
animal there is — more intelligent even than man, if the intelligence
of an animal depends on the amount of its brain-matter ? The answer
to this question is easy. This animal being so large requires propor-
tionally larger nerves and larger nerve-centers, to supply the muscles
and sensory organs of his body, in the same manner that a larger mag-
neto-electric machine is required when twenty electric lights have to
be supplied by it than when it has to supply only ten. The elephant
has, in reality, a smaller quantity of brain material available for his
intelligence than the dog, because the dog has a much smaller body,
and requii-es smaller nerves. Moreover, the intelligence, it has been
proved, is situated in the uj^per part of the brain, or cerebrum, as it is
called. Now, the dog's cerebrum is very much larger, in proportion to
the size of his body, than that of the elephant, after allowing for the
general law that larger animals have smaller brains in proportion to
their body than smaller ones have. The number of smooth and tortu-
ous eminences called convolutions, separated by grooves, which cover
the whole surface of the upper brain or cerebrum has also been proved
to have something to do with the amount of intellect of the animal.
The brains of those animals which possess superior intellect are gener-
ally more highly convoluted and more deeply divided by the grooves
than those of lower intellect. This may be very well seen by compar-
ing the brains of the horse and the ox. It will at once be seen on look-
ing at the brains of those two animals that the horse's brain is the
more convoluted and altogether the more complex structure of the two.
The same thing may be seen in the brain of the pig on comparing it
with that of the sheep. As an example of brains where the convolu-
tions are few in number and the grooves between them very shallow,
we may take those of the echidna and ornithorhynchus, already men-
tioned as being very large in proportion to their bodies, while they
themselves are of a low type. The intellect of those animals evident-
ly does not correspond to the size of their brain. The probability is,
therefore, that their brain-matter is of a low type and consequently a
larger quantity of it is required. Besides these examples cited there
are many more that could be brought forward. It may be stated gen-

THE TEXTILE PLANTS OF THE WORLD. 831

erally, then, that the intelligence of an animal depends principally upon
the size of the brain in proportion to the size of its body, the size of
the cerebrum, and also upon the number of convolutions and the com-
plexity of its structure, although there are many exceptions to this rule
which we are still unable to account for.

Another interesting point in connection with this subject is the
great increase in the size of the brain that has taken place within the
last few hundreds of years, without a corresponding increase in the
size of the body in all animals. This very interesting fact we learn
from fossil zoology. The brain of animals at the present day is much
more developed than it was in former times. This may be owing to
the struggle for existence which there is, the animals which are weaker
in body and intellect gradually being extinguished by the stronger, so
that only the latter remain and are allowed to propagate the species.
We know that exercise and training strengthen the brain and increase
its weight in man, so the probability is the same thing takes place
among the lower animals. There is every likelihood, therefore, that
the brain will siill go on developing as time advances. — Land and
Water.

THE TEXTILE PLANTS OF THE WOELD.

DR. HERMANN GROTHE, of Berlin, has published a work on
the textile fibers fiirnished by the world of plants, embodying
the fruits of studies pursued among the yarn and clotk materials of all
nations at the great Industrial Exhibitions that have been held at the
European capitals and in Philadelphia. The subject is one of much
interest, in an economical sense, and in the relation it bears to the de-
velopment of early civilization. Men's first steps in civilization may
be traced almost directly in their efforts to clothe themselves ; and
their first essays in skilled labor are made in the adaptation of the ma-
terials which nature has furnished them to use for dress. On the banks
of the White Nile are tribes who content themselves with simple
aprons of leaves, or less ; and Sir Samuel Baker noticed that a great
advance in general civilization had taken place when, after having
spent several months among peoples of that grade, he came into Unyoro,
where the people wore garments fashioned out of the bark of a fig-
tree, which they had to prepare by soaking and beating w<th a mallet.
Thrift seemed to follow naturally upon the acquisition of the taste for
clothing, for the fig-trees have to be cultivated to secure a sufiicient
supply. Accordingly we are told, when a man takes a wife, he plants a
certain number of the trees in his garden, as a provision for the wants
of the family he has in prospect. A grade above the naked races are
the Papuans of New Guinea, with their loin-girdles of grass or palm-

832 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

leaves ; and above these are the Maoris of New Zealand, with their
cloaks of the leaves of an agave-like plant laid upon each other like
scales. The South-Sea Islanders have in the paper-mulberry a plant
which serves the same purpose to them as the fig-tree to the people of
Unyoro, from the bark of which they prepare the tajm by soaking
and beating. They illustrate another development of industry in the
adornment of their clothes, for which they have invented an endless
number of designs, many of them of considerable merit. This stage
of civilization is also often marked by a corresponding development of
the potter's art, and of skill in ornamenting vessels. From the method
of using the whole stuff of the bark to the art of separating its fibers
and spinning and weaving them into a cloth is a great step. The pro-
cesses of spinning and weaving are as varied as are the people who
carry them on, and are largely determined by the nature of the ma-
terial to which they have to be applied.

Dr. David August Rosenthal, in his "Synopsis Plantarura Dia-
phorecarum" (1862, Erlangen), counts, among twelve hundred useful
plants, three hundred and sixty species which are fit for weaving,
spinning, basket-work, cordage, etc. — species which are distributed
over the whole earth, and of which nearly every country has some
which may be cultivated with profit.

Dr. Grothe divides the textile fibers into seed, bark, stalk, and
leaf fibers. Those of the first class, the seed-fibers, are derived prin-
cipally from the species of cotton, concerning all of which we have as
yet no comprehensive treatise. Several other families of very diver-
sified character afford seed-fibers, for which no method of application
has yet been found which would permit them to be compared with
the cotton. The plants affording valuable bark, or bark-fibers, are far
more numerous. Dr. Grothe enumerates thirty-one families, of which
seventeen are dicotyledonous, twelve monocotyledonous, one is a gymno-
sperm, and one is a fern. Among the dicotyledonous plants are spe-
cies of flax, linden, birch, mallows, sterculiaceae (or silk-cottons), thy-
melaceae (Daphne, leatherwood), asclepiads, apocynaceae (dogbanes),
nettle-plants, leguminous ])lants, mimosae, spurge, willow, myrtle,
bread-fruit, compositfe, and byttneriacejE. The cultivation of the
flax-plant has extended to the antipodes. Near to it in importance
are the plants of the linden famil}', which afford numerous species
suitable for basket-work and for woven fabrics. At their head stands
the corchorus (not the so-called Corchorus japoniciis, or Japan rose
of the gardens, which is a spirsea), of which the species olitorius and
capsularis are the plants of the jute-fiber, and have recently attained
an extraordinary value. The cultivation of these plants, which was
formerly carried on only in India and the Sunda Islands, has spread
to the Southern United States, Brazil, Australia, New Caledonia,
Mauritius, Guiana, and Algeria, and the production of the fiber, ac-
cording to Dr. Grothe, already equals half that of cotton. Other

SKETCH OF DR. CHARLES F. CHANDLER. 833

lindens worthy of notice for their textile value are the aubletia pe-
toumo, of Guiana, and several species of triumphetta. The mallow
family, to which the cotton-plant belongs, affords a great many textile
plants of the genera abutilon, hibiscus, sida, lavatera, malva, althea,
abelmoschus, etc.

Passing by the hemp, the value of which is generally recognized,
we come to the nettle family, to some of the members of which an in-
creasing degree of attention has been directed at all the great exhibi-
tions since 1851. The common stinging-nettle has been used in Europe
for a long time in making the nettle-cloth ; the fibers of other species
have recently been made into a handsome hair for dolls' heads, and
might be put to more practical uses. Some twenty-four species of XJr-
tica, Bohmeria, Puya, and Wood-nettle are enumerated as more or less
valuable, besides the Nerandia melastomcefoUa, which is used in the
Sandwich Islands. Of the whole number, Urtlca nivea stands in the
highest estimation as the plant from which the well-known China-grass
or grass-cloth is made. It is cultivated extensively in the provinces of
China south of the Yang-tse-kiang, the export from which had reached
about thirty-five hundred tons in 1872, and is now estimated at about
eleven thousand tons. The fiber is used in Japan for the finest threads
and cloths, and an active manufacture has been carried on since 1660,
hemp and jute having been used before that time. The Puya and the
Neilgherry nettle ( JJrtica heteropliylla) are also highly valued for their
fibers. Another family, allied to the nettle, the Antidesmea?, is repre-
sented in the Malabar flax {Antides7na alexiterium), which is employed
for spinning and in ropes. Among the monocotyledonous families
that afford useful fibers are the lilies, irises, amaryllises, bromeliaceae
(or pineapple family), palms, pandanus (or screw-pine), rushes, grasses,
reeds, and sedges. Of the plants of these orders most famous for
their fibers are several species of agave and fourcroya, which afford
the strong pito hemp, several species of anana (bromeliaceae), and the
bananas, one of which, the 3fusa textilis of the Philippine Islands, pro-
duces the Manila hemp, one of the handsomest and most valuable of
all the fibers.

SKETCH OF DR. CIIAELES F. CHANDLER.

PROMINENT among the men who have won large distinction by
varied and valuable labors in the field of science in this country,
stands the name of the subject of the present notice. His career has
been one of such eminent public usefulness in several departments of
activity, which he has efiiciently promoted both by his scientific
attainments and his marked executive ability, that no biographical
sketch of him can be given that does not involve some account of the
VOL. XVI. — 53

834 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

various projects, measures, and reforms, with which he has become
identified. Science is devoted to the interests of truth, but that truth
is for the service of humanity ; and the work of research becomes of
the highest vakie only in its large Baconian application to the " relief
of the estate of man." It is through the intelligent and well-directed
efforts of such men as Dr. Chandler that the fruits of science are appli-
cable for the large amelioration and advantage of society. It is, more-
over by the substantial and lasting benefits thus gained that the com-
munity is led to recognize its great debt to science which it discharges
by increasingly liberal provisions for its cultivation and development.

Professor Chandler was born at Lancaster, Massachusetts, in 1836.
His father became a merchant in New Bedford, where he still resides.
On the maternal side he is descended from the rebels of the Revolu-
tion and on his father's side from the Tories. His maternal grand-
father was John Whitney, an old Boston merchant ; his grandmother
was a daughter of John Slack, who fought at Lexington. The Chan-
dlers originated Avith William Chandler and Annis his wife, who arrived
in Roxbury, Massachusetts, from England in 1637. It was at Lancas-
ter, Massachusetts, in the house of his grandfather, Nathaniel Chandler,
who graduated at Harvard in 1792, that Professor Chandler was born.

Hunting chiastolites and other minerals at Lancaster during vaca-
tions, and attending lyceum lectures and listening to the elder Agassiz,
led him to take an early interest in scientific studies, and while still a
boy he turned his workshop in the attic into a laboratory. After
graduating at the high school, he continued his classical studies pri-
vately with a friend of the family for a year, and then pursued his
professional studies at the Lawrence Scientific School, and the Uni-
versities of Gottingen and Berlin.

His teachers in chemistry have been Horsf ord, Wohler, and Heinrich
Rose. Through the influence of Wohler and his friend Professor Joy
he obtained the position of private assistant to Rose during the year
he spent in Berlin, in whose laboratory his only companion, besides
Rose and his lecture assistant Oesten, was the now famous Nils Erich
Nordenskjold, the Arctic explorer. In physics he studied with Weber,
Dove, and Magnus ; in mineralogy he attended the lectures of Pro-
fessor Cooke at Harvard, Von Waltershausen in Gottingen, and Gus-
tav Rose in Berlin. In geology he listened to the lectures of Agassiz.
In 1856 he received his degree of Doctor of Philosophy and Master of
Arts at Gottingen, publishing a dissertation containing the results of
miscellaneous chemical investigations.

Soon after his return to America he accepted the position of as-
sistant at Union College under his friend Professor Joy ; and when,
soon after, this gentleman was called to Columbia College, Chandler
immediately succeeded to his duties, and began lecturing to the Senior
Class, though not yet " of age " — politically. He remained here for
eight years in charge of the laboratory, and lecturing to the col-

SKETCH OF DR. CHARLES F. CHANDLER. 835

lege classes on general and agricultural chemistry, mineralogy, and
geology.

In 1864 Professor Chandler became connected with Columbia Col-
lege, joining Professor Egleston and General Vinton in the experi-
ment of starting a School of Mines. The project originated with
Professor Egleston, who, with his friend Vinton, had recently gradu-
ated at the Ecole des Mines in Paris. It was not considered very
promising, but the three professors were willing to begin without sala-
ries. Mr. George T. Strong, W. E. Dodge, Jr., and several others,
furnished about three thousand dollars to equip the modest laborato-
ries. Hon. Gouverneur Kemble presented a tine cabinet of minerals.
Dr. Barnard, the newly-elected President of Columbia College, Dr.
Torrey, and the other Trustees, encouraged the enterprise in every
possible way, and some vacant rooms in the basement of the college
were assigned for laboratories. The success of the school was mar-
velous. Provision was made for twelve students ; twenty-four came
the first day. During the entire winter the carpenters and gas-fitters
were constantly at work erecting new tables for additional applicants,
and the number of pupils reached forty-eight. The Trustees of the
College responded liberally. During the first vacation they placed a
large four-story building at the disposition of the school, with ample
funds for the equipment of laboratories and cabinets. Accommoda-
tions were arranged for seventy-two pupils. During the second year
the school was thronged ; eighty-nine students were in attendance. The
success of the new school seemed so well assured that the Trustees
arranged to place it on a substantial basis as a coordinate department
of the college. Professor J. S. Newberry was called to the chair of
Geology, relieving Professor Chandler of this subject, and a full facul-
ty of professors and assistants was established. A new building was
erected, and equipped with laboratory accommodations for one hun- •
dred and fifty pupils ; these were outgrown, and a few years ago still
larger ones Avere erected. The school is now in its sixteenth year ; it
has about two hundred and fifty students, pursuing a four years'
course of study. Professor Chandler has been Dean of the Faculty
of the School from the beginning, and has been the executive officer,
besides having charge of the laboratories and giving his regular courses
of lectures. The Assay Department was the especial hobby of Pro-
fessor Chandler, and, with the aid of his successive assistants. Miller,
Day, Blossom, and Ricketts, has been made the most complete of its
kind to be found anywhere. To facilitate the work of assaying gold
and silver oi-es, he devised an improved system of weights, which has
been generally adopted by assayers.

When Professor Chandler first came to New York, he was asked
to lend a hand in the development of the College of Pharmacy. This
institution was then occupying a sini^e room in the old University
building on Washington Square, and numbered about thirty students.

836 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Three evenings a week, all winter, Chandler lectured there year after
year. The active exertions of the faculty and the trustees, and the
interest manifested by the New York druggists, have built up from
this small beginning a most flourishing school of three hundred pupils,
which is able now to own a line building, with laboratory and lecture-
halls.

At the death of Professor St. John, Professor Chandler succeeded
to his chair of Chemistry and Medical Jurisprudence in the College of
Physicians and Surgeons, which he now holds. Here his voice has
always been raised in favor of a much more exacting system of medi-
cal education, and has not been without effect, in the recent radical
improvements which have been adopted in this institution, involv-
ing an extension of the session to seven months, written examina-
tions, etc.

In 1866 Professor Chandler was invited by the Metropolitan Board
of Health to do some gratuitous chemical work. He accepted the in-
vitation, and so impressed the Commission with the importance of his
work that, at the end of the year, they created the oflice of Chemist
for him, which he held till 1873, when he was appointed by Mayor
Havemeyer President' of the Board. In 1877 he was reappointed, for
six years, by Mayor Ely. As Chemist to the Board of Health, food
and water supply were made the subjects of careful investigation.
The absurdity of the annual complaints with regard to the quality of
the Croton was clearly established, as was also the danger of drinking
water from any of the city wells. It was also shown that the popular
belief in the wholesale adulteration of the common articles of food,
such as flour, bread, sugar, etc., was unfounded. The shameful con-
dition of the milk-supply was pointed out, and it was shown that for
every three quarts of milk there was added at least one quart of wa-
ter, to say nothing of the frequent removal of a considerable portion
of the cream. The fact that most of the condensed-milk companies
skimmed the milk before they concentrated it and sold the cream
separately was also published. A fi-aud on the citizens, amounting to
at least ten thousand dollars a day, was traced to the milk-dealers.

After Dr. Chandler was made President of the Board of Health,
he made the milk question his special study, and carried on a success-
ful warfare against the dishonest dealers. He rightly assumed that,
as milk was the chief diet of the one hundred and thirty thousand chil-
dren in New York, under five years of age, it was the most important
article of food for municipal supervision. His reforms were not ac-
complished without very sharp fighting. The milk-dealers organized,
and secured the services of lawyers and chemists, who attacked both
the laws and the chemical methods. After prolonged litigation, the
Court of Appeals affirmed the ordinances of the sanitary code, and the
lactometer as used by Dr. Chjyidler and his inspectoi-s received the
scientific endorsement of the best chemists in the country, including

SKETCH OF DR. CHARLES F. CHANDLER. 837

Barker, Morton, Silliman, Caldwell, Goessmann, and many others, as
well as the more practical endorsemeHt of verdicts from the Judges of
the Courts of Special Sessions and the jury of the General Sessions.
At least fifteen thousand dollars has already been paid by milkmen in
fines for watering and skimming milk. This investigation of the lac-
tometer is important and interesting, for, while the Swiss and German
investigators use it with the greatest confidence, the English analysts
were shaken in their faith by the special pleading with which Wanklyn
recommended his own method of analysis.

At the same time an investigation of the liquors sold in the com-
moner resorts was undertaken. The Metropolitan Excise Commission-
ers decided to withdraw the license of every one of the eight thousand
dealers who should be found selling adulterated liquors. Professor
Chandler was engaged to make the analyses on terms which might
well have turned the head of any chemist. He was to receive twenty
dollars for each analysis ; there were eight thousand dealers, and there
were likely to be three or four samples from each. But when he came
to examine the first installment of forty samples of whisky, gin, rum,
and brandy from Mulberry, Mott, Baxter, and other streets of that
character, he was compelled to report that while the brandy was all
factitious, and the basis of the others was common whisky, there was
no adulteration in the sense of anything added of an injurious char-
acter. Some of them had been carelessly made and contained moi'e
fusel-oil than others, but the poisonous constituent Avas the alcohol.
This ended the projected reform of the liquor-traffic by chemical
analysis.

An effort was made to put a stop to the sale of poisonous cosmetics,
especially the various preparations of lead salts which are employed
either on the skin as a white enamel or upon the hair to restore the
original color. His analyses were widely published.

The most important work of Professor Chandler was, however, the
investigation of kerosene accidents, which were of very frequent oc-
currence, not only in New York, but wherever this cheap illuminator
was used. It was supposed by the world at large that the accidents
were an unavoidable incident to the use of the oil. Kerosene came in
as a substitute for " camphene " or " burning-fluid," which was inher-
ently dangerous and could not be made safe. Kerosene was supposed
to be similar in chemical composition and properties, and the accidents
were generally attributed to carelessness. In 1869 Chandler began his
work on this subject, his first report to the Board of Health bearing
date January 11th of that year. It was a simple statement of the
chemical nature of petroleum and its products, explained the process
for refining the oil, and clearly established the fact that the dangerous
character of the oils in use was due to the fact that the refiners, in
order to realize a profit of two or three cents per gallon, left a certain
quantity of the highly inflammable naphtha in it. He also reported

838 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the fact that he had purchased seventy-eight samples of oil from as
many different dealers in the city, and not a single one of them was
safe. Some were pure naphtha.

So convincing was the statement that it was taken up all over the
country. The report was reprinted everywhere, and the statements
were made the basis of legislative action in most of the States. The
report was followed by a second in July of the same year, a third in
1870, and a very elaborate report of 110 pages in 1871. Ten thousand
copies of the latter were printed and circulated by public-spirited citi-
zens in New York. It was largely reprinted in Switzerland, exten-
sively quoted in France and Germany, and freely used and quoted by
the Select Committee of the House of Lords in their report on the
Petroleum Bill, 1872. In fact. Professor Chandler was invited to go
to England to testify before this committee. He did not content him-
self with writing on the subject, but lectured in the hall of Cooper
Union, the Academy of Music, and in Washington. Not only were
the dangers of poorly refined oil exposed, but also the entire failure
of all the safety-oils, safety-lamps, safety-cans, vapor-stoves, etc., and
patented processes for making naphtha and benzine safe. It was
shown that, with proper oil, accidents would never occur, while there
is no method by which bad oil can be used with safety.

In New York City alone there were, in 1870, a hundred and fifty-
seven fires known to have been caused by kerosene and naphtha, eigh-
teen per cent, of the whole. There were also twenty-one deaths from
the same cause, with thirty-nine deaths from clothes taking fire in
ways not stated. It was estimated that from one to two thousand
persons were killed annually by these accidents, before the labors of
Chandler called attention to the cause and indicated the remedy.

One of his most comprehensive investigations resulted from the
action of the Board in suppressing the gas nuisance. All the gas
companies purified their gas by what was called the dry-lime process.
The foul lime when removed, as it was daily, from the purifiers, dis-
seminated a stench throughout the entire city. This odor was by
most citizens attributed to the sewers. When it was fully realized
that it came from the gas-works, the companies were appealed to, and,
with one exception, they introduced improvements by which the odor
was suppressed. One company, however, maintained that no odor
emanated from their works ; that the odor was not disagreeable ; that
it was wholesome, as children suffering from whooping-cough were
brought to breathe it; that they could not avoid making it; and, finally,
if they did, the gas would be too bad to burn in dwellings. The re-
sult of these claims was a most elaborate trial before a referee. The
gas company produced experts and other witnesses to sustain the
above views, and Professor Chandler combated them with the best
foreign authorities on gas-making. The evidence was subsequently
published in the Report of the Board for 1869, and is one of the most

SKETCH OF DR. CHARLES F. CHANDLER. 839

complete discussions of gas-purification which has ever appeared. The
Board decided against the company, and the gas nuisance ceased.

As President of the Health Department of New York, Professor
Chandler has held a most responsible position for the past six years.
During this time he has had associated with him in his work Dr. S.
O, Vanderpoel, the Health Ofiicer of the Port, and Dr. Stephen Smith
for the first two, and Dr. Edward G. Janeway for the past four years.
These men have always worked in complete harmony.

The present Board of Health was organized under the charter of
1873, which was a modification of that of 1870, which abolished the
Metropolitan Board. This latter was established in 1866, and a very
perfect system of sanitary legislation and supervision was inaugurated
by the health laws of that year. The Sanitary Code of New York
was the first result of that legislation. New enactments have been
made from time to time, and it is believed that New York City now
possesses a more extensive and perfect system of sanitary supervision
than any other city in America or Europe ; and its laws and code, as
well as its work in general, have been made the model for similar
work throughout the country. When the present Board organized, it
adopted a thorough civil-service system, and there has not occurred a
single instance since that time in which it has been departed from.
Dr. Chandler's first labors in 1873 were directed to the purification of
the atmosphere of New York, and his first summer was spent in the
most active warfare on all kinds of stench-producing trades.

The war was not confined to the land, as a naval engagement oc-
curred on more than one occasion. . At last there were no odors left
save those which were wafted across the East River from NewtoAvn
Creek and Hunter's Point, and which the Board of Health was dili-
gently combating when the farce of the indictment of its members
was enacted by the grand jury.

Judge Sutherland promptly quashed the indictment on the ground
that neither a moral nor a legal excuse existed for it. That the
Health Board was not inactive is shown by the fact that suits were
brought against the city for nearly five hundred thousand dollars for
their acts in suppressing nuisances in 1873 and 1874 ; and that the
members acted with judgment is shown by the fact that in every one
of these suits they were victorious.

One of the most creditable acts was the removal of the two-story
structures, which had been erected over the half of the roadway of
the public streets adjacent to Washington Market, and almost entirely
surrounding the block which the market occupies. Every effort had
been previously made by other boards to remove them, but in vain.
After exhausting every other method, the Board of Health in 1873
decided to use force, and one quiet summer evening Dr. Chandler led
an army of one hundred and fifty carpenters and laborer?;, three hun-
dred policemen, and a corps of surgeons to the market, and before

840 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

morning the entire line of buildings was leveled, and one of the most
outrageous abuses that had grown up under political pi'otection was
abolished.

Among the numerous sanitary reforms secured by the present
Board of Health, may be mentioned the system of gratuitous house-
to-house vaccination established in 1874, which has already resulted
in vaccinating over 360,000 persons, and the complete suppression of
small-pox ; the reform in the construction of tenement-houses ; the
employment of a special corps of fifty physicians during the five hot
and damp weeks which occur in the latter part of July and the early
part of August, and which were formerly so fatal to infants, killing
sometimes eight hundred or one thousand in a week. The physicians
make a house-to-house visitation, prescribe for the sick children, sup-
ply medicines, and distribute printed directions among the mothers.
The Health Department in its varied work of recording the marriages,
births, and deaths, preventing and caring for contagious diseases, dis-
infecting, sanitary inspection, and the abatement of nuisances, meat
and milk inspection, employs a corps of one hundred and thirty men,
besides the special summer corps of fifty physicians and the fruit-in-
spectors and extra disinfectors — requiring an annual appropriation of
8250,000. The return for this large expenditure is seen in the remark-
able improvement in the public health. In 1866, fifty-three per cent,
of the total deaths were of children under five years of age. This
percentage has steadily diminished, till it is now less than forty-six,
which proves an actual saving of four thousand children's lives in a
single year, to say nothing of all the sickness prevented in our popu-
lation of over 1,100,000.

The sanitary chemistry of water has been a special subject of in-
vestigation with Dr. Chandler, and he has been relied upon to decide
important questions with regard to the selection of water for supply-
ing Albany, Yonkers, and several other cities. He has also been en-
gaged in several important investigations on the pollution of water by
factories, and the prevention of boiler incrustations.

During the past summer Dr. Chandler was made chairman of a
committee to draw up a scheme for disinfection, to be adopted by the
National Board of Health. The other members of the committee were
Drs. Vanderpoel, Janeway, Henry Draper, Barker, and Remsen.

Professor Chandler's most elaborate chemical work has been the
investigation of American mineral waters. With the aid of his assist-
ants he has analyzed sixteen of the springs and artesian wells at Sara-
toga, besides many more sulphur and other springs at Chittenango,
Florida, N. Y., and elsewhere.

Dr. Chandler, in connection with his brother. Professor W. H.
Chandler, of the Lehigh University, started a monthly journal of
chemistry, called " The American Chemist." It contained the results
of many researches, and was a valuable periodical for those engaged

SKETCH OF DR. CHARLES F. CHANDLER. 841

in chemical pursuits, but was not a success financially, and, after run-
ning six years with very considerable loss, it was discontinued. Pro-
fessor Chandler has devoted much attention to chemical industries,
and has written and lectured upon them frequently. He is often con-
sulted by both manufacturers and the courts in regard to scientific
questions involved in the arts.

Dr. Chandler is an effective popular lecturer, having an excellent
voice, and a clear, direct, and vigorous style of delivery. His sub-
jects chosen are those of technical and special interest, such as petro-
leum and kerosene accidents, water-supply, gas-lighting, prevention of
fires, public health, etc., which are always practically and instructive-
ly treated. These lectures are of very great value, and, having been
given in most of our principal cities, have exerted a wide and excellent
influence. He has also been remarkably active as a writer. The list
of his scientific papers is very comprehensive. It embraces the results
of varied original investigations, covering wide ground, and making a
catalogue too extensive for insertion here. He is tlie author of numer-
ous scientific papers, cyclopaedia articles, and addresses and reports,
which have been published in the journals and proceedings of societies.

Dr. Chandler was President of the Convention that met at Nor-
thumberland in 1874 to celebrate the anniversary of the discovery of
oxygen by Dr. Priestley. He published in full the interesting proceed-
ings and addresses in " The American Chemist." The success of the
Northumberland meeting led to the founding of the American Chemi-
cal Society, of which Chandler was one of the most active projectors,
and of which he has been a Vice-President from the beginning, having
refused the regular nomination for President almost every year since
it was organized.

Besides the degrees of Doctor of Philosophy and Master of Arts,
obtained as a student. Professor Chandler has received the honorary
degree of Doctor of Medicine from the University of New York and
Doctor of Laws from Union College. He is a life-member of the
Berlin, Paris, and American Chemical Societies ; he is also a member
of the National Academy of Sciences, the London Chemical Society,
the Sociedad Humboldt of Mexico, the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, the American Philosophical Society, New
York Academy of Sciences, and several pharmaceutical, sanitary, and
other societies.

842

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

CORRESPONDENCE.

THE ORIGIN OP CRIMINAL LAW.
Messrs. Editors.

IN the very able article under the above
heading, by Mr. W. W. Billson, published
in your February number, I notice the fol-
lowing : " The law of the Allemaus, which,
while undertaking to enforce coropositions
for stale offenses, conceded to injured par-
ties the privilege of righting themselves on
the spot, and in the first transport of pas-
sion, finds a counterpart in the .... dis-
tinction made in the Twelve Tables between
manifest and non-manifest theft. Persons
detected in the act of stealing, or with the
booty in their possession, were liable to
the punishment of death .... while, if de-
tected under other circumstances, they were
only obligated to refund double the value
of the stolen property."

Then, after some comments, the author
quotes from Sir Henry Maine : " It is curi-
ous to observe how completely the men of
primitive times were persuaded that the im-
pulses of the injured person were the proper
measure of the vengeance he was entitled
to exact, and how literally they imitated the
probable rise and fall of his passions in
fixing the scale of punishment" (pp. 442,
443).

It may not be inappropriate to point out
that a survival of the same feeling that
gave rise to the practices quoted above
seems still to be in force. There appears
to be something of this sort in the custom
that will hold a man blameless if he shoot
and kill the midnight robber who is merely
trying to effect an entrance into his house,
but will not hold him guiltless if he take
the same sort of vengeance on the robber
after he has once entered the house, stolen
the goods, and escaped with them. Surely
the " impulses " of the injured person are

allowed to have an influence here ; for he .
may inflict much more severe punishment,
by his own hand, in the first heat of his
anger, upon him who is only attempting a
crime, than he may inflict through the
courts, after his anger has cooled, upon the
successful perpetrator of crime.

Charles J. Btjell.
KosENDALE, New Toek, January 19, 1880.

FEOST PHENOMENA.
Messrs. Editors.

Reading the article in the March num-
ber of " The Popular Science Monthly," on
the effects of frost in southern Russia in the
winter of 1876-77, reminds me of an unu-
sual phenomenon at Vienna during the same
winter. There were eleven days of perfectly
uniform weather, the thermometer standing
just above freezing in the daytime, with a
fog, and a very faint southerly wind. At
night it fell to just below, with bright star-
light.

The result was that everything — ^houses,
trees, lamp-posts, fences, statues — was cov-
ered with a stiff white hoar-frost on the
windward side, and on this side only, the
fine acicular crystals growing to a length of
Jive inches on the trees, and of three or four
on the iron and stone work.

The mass of crystals was always thicker
at the end farthest from its support. A
twig half the diameter of a pencil carj-ied
a fringe an inch thick at the edge. The
crystals were horizontal, and so light that
the twigs did not bend perceptibly beneath
the weight. On the first warm day they
were gone.

Very truly yours,

W. S. BiGELOW.

Boston, February 22, 1880.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

SOME FEA TTFREH OF THE INTEROCE-
ANIC CANAL QUESTION.

THE presence of M, Ferdinand de
Lesseps in this country has pre-
cipitated the important question of a
change in our national policy regarding
an interoceanic canal across the Ameri-
can Isthmus. Let us briefly glance at

the history of the subject, that we may
understand the import of the new de-
parture.

It is customary to rail at trade as a
selfish and sordid occupation ; but, as
the laws of human development are
better understood, it is found that the
exchange and distribution of the prod-

EDITOR'S TABLE.

843

ucts of human industry constitute one
of the most powerful of all agencies of
social amelioration and the improve-
ment of the condition of mankind.
The discovery of America, the greatest
of all discoveries, may be said to have
•doubled the habitable world, and to
have opened a new destiny for man
upon earth ; yet it was but an incident
in the progress of commerce. The
blind passion for wealth was the im-
pulse that drove men to the exploration
of the unknown globe; and, as often
occurs in investigation, the search for
one thing led to another of far more
value and importance. To increase Ori-
ental trade by finding a new and shoi-ter
route to the Indies was the object of
Columbus ; he discovered a new land,
and died in the conviction that it was
Asiatic, and that he had brought " the
fabulous wealth of Ind " within the
immediate grasp of Eui'ope.

Yet, seven years after the death of
Columbus, Balboa crossed the Isthmus
of Darien and discovered the Pacific
Ocean. So it was not India that had
been reached, but a new world that
had been found. The old problem,
therefore, still remained, how to get to
the Indies by a western route ; but the
question was now how to find a pas-
sage through. All navigators were
alert in quest of a strait that should
lead into the Indian Ocean, and the in-
centive that inspired the enterprise of
Columbus animated his successors dur-
ing half a century later. Prescott says
that the discovery of a new and shorter
route to the Indies " is the true key to
the maritime movements of the fif-
teenth and the first half of the six-
teenth centuries."

But, failing to find " the secret of
the strait," men of enterprise began to
think of cutting the knot by opening
an artificial waterway for ships across
the American Isthmus. The Spaniards
led in this project of uniting the oppo-
site harbors by a canal ; and Galvao, in
1528, proposed to Charles V. to open a
ship communication between the oceans

at PanaiTia. Plans and surveys were
afterward made for this purpose. In
1534 Charles V. gave instructions to
Cortez to seek such a route. In 1551
Gomara, author of the " History of the
Indies," proposed three routes, includ-
ing Nicaragua. In 1507 Antonelli was
sent by Philip II. to explore with ref-
erence to a ship-canal. In 1795 Wil-
liam Patterson, founder of the Bank of
England, and a man of comprehensive
views, who had possessed himself of an
extensive and minute knowledge re-
specting the institutions and commerce
of foreign countries, obtained the royal
sanction to a project for colonizing Da-
rien, one of the objects of the enter-
prise being to cut a canal through the
isthmus. The expedition was attempt-
ed, but proved a disastrous failure.
During the next hundred years various
projects were suggested, and explora-
tions made by citizens of difierent
countries with a view of overcoming
this barrier to navigation ; and in 1804
Humboldt gave a new interest and im-
pulse to the subject by publishing a
careful discussion of the relative merits
of several routes for an interoceanic
canal. As the commerce of the world
increased in the early part of this cen-
tury, the problem became still more
urgent, and projects for solving it mul-
tiplied— Spain, France, Holland, Eng-
land— all the leading maritime nations
contributing schemes and projectors
for the undertaking.

TJjus, for three centuries and a half
the question of piercing the American
Isthmus has been universally recognized
as a world's question, as the common
interest of all nations, and as open to
anybody who had the ability and the
perseverance to accomplish it. For two
hundred years before our nation came
into existence tliis was the broad view
taken of the enter[)rise in all countries;
and, when the United States first be-
came interested in the subject, it was
also as a project concerning alike the
whole civilized world.

So far as we learn, the first action

844

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

taken by the American Government
in relation to this question was in re-
sponse to an appeal from the Central
American Republic. Seflor Canaz, its
Minister at Washington, in a note ad-
dressed to the Department of State in
1825, proposed the cooperation of that
republic with the United States in
opening a canal through the province
of Nicaragua. Mr. Clay replied to
it, and instructed Mr. Williams, then
our Minister in Central Am.erica, to in-
vestigate the practicability of the Nic-
aragua route. Through Williams's in-
fluence a contract was made with the
Central American Government for the
construction of a canal through Nica-
ragua " for vessels of the largest bur-
den possible." It was proposed to
raise a capital of only $5,000,000 for
the entire work; but even tliat amount
could not be obtained.

The Central Ameiican Government
then applied to Holland for cooperation,
and a Dutch company was formed in

1830 to construct the canal ; but owing
to European political disturbances it
could not carry out its agreement, and
the Central American Republic renewed
its application to the United States as
the country that should naturally have
the preference.

The project was again brought up
under Jackson's Administration, and in

1831 Mr. Livingston, Secretary of State,
instructed Mr. Jeflfers, American charge
in Central America, as follows: "You
will endeavor to procure for the citi-
zens of the United States, or for the
Government itself, if Congress should
deem the measure constitutional and
proper, the right of subscribing to the
stock ; and you will, in either case,
present and transmit such plans, esti-
mates, and other information relative
to the projected work as may enable
us to judge of its feasibility and impor-
tance."

Four years later, on the 8d of
March, 1835, the Senate of the United
States adopted the following broad and \
liberal resolution : " Resolved, That the I

President of the United States be re-
spectfully requested to consider the ex-
pediency of opening negotiations with
the governments of other nations, and
particularly with the Governments of
Central America and New Granada, for
the purpose of effectually protecting,
by suitable treaty stipulations with
them, such individuals or companies
as may undertake to open a communi-
cation between the Atlantic and Pacific
Oceans by construction of a ship-canal
across the isthmus which connects
North and South America, and of se-
curing for ever, by such stipulations, the
free and equal right of navigating such
canal to all such nations, on the pay-
ment of such reasonable tolls as may
be established to compensate the capi-
talists who may engage in such under-
taking to complete the work."

Again, four years later, in 1839, the
American House of Representatives
adopted a resolution reaffirming the
ground taken by the Senate, and re-
questing the President to consider the
expediency of negotiating with other
nations " for the purpose of ascertain-
ing the practicability of effecting a
communication between the Atlantic
and the Pacific Oceans by the construc-
tion of a ship-canal across the Isthmus,
and of securing for ever, by suitable
treaty stipulations, the free and equal
right of navigating such canal to aU
nations."

The same policy was even more
broadly and emphatically announced
by the United States Government in
1850, in the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty,
That convention contains the following
declarations :

"The Governments of the United
States and Great Britain hereby de-
clare that neither the one nor the other
will obtain nor maintain for itself any
exclusive control over said ship-canal ;
agreeing that neither will ever erect or
maintain any fortifications commanding
the same or in the vicinity tijereof, or
occupy, or fortify, or colonize, or as-
sume or exercise any dominion over

EDITOR'S TABLE.

845

Nicaragua, Costa Rica, the Mosquito
Coast, or any part of Central America ;
nor will make use of any protection
which either affords or may afford, or
any alliance which either has or may
have to or with any state or people
for the purpose of erecting or main-
taining any such fortiiication." More-
over, that " vessels of the United States
or G-reat Britain traversing the said
canal shall, in case of war hetween the
contracting parties, be exempted from
blockade, detention, or capture by either
of the belligerents ; and that this prom-
ise shall extend to such a distance from
the two ends of the said canal as may
hereafter be found expedient to estab-
lish " ; that " they will guarantee the
neutrality thereof, so that the said canal
may for ever be open and free"; and
that they " will invite every state with
which both or either have friendly in-
tercourse to enter into stipulations with
them similar to those they have entered
into with each other."

This is solid American ground.
These deliberate and explicit declara-
tions of both Houses of Congress and
of the treaty-making powers of Govern-
ment must be taken as expressing the
national conviction — 1. That the con-
struction of a canal at the American
Isthmus is an open project to be entered
upon by any " capitalists," " individu-
als," or " companies " that may under-
take it; 2. That it is a great interna-
tional work to be under the joint con-
trol of the nations; and, 3. That the
international protectorate is to be se-
cured by treaty arrangements which it
is proper for the President of the United
States to initiate.

This is the just and honorable his-
toric position of the American Govern-
ment, and, as we may fairly assume, of
the American people, in relation to this
great enterprise. It is a definite and
explicit line of public policy which has
been variously and repeatedly pro-
claimed without protest or dissent. We
have recognized the great desirableness
of the interoceanic canal for this coun-

try, and its importance to the world ;
and we have pledged the faith of the
republic to cooperate with other nations
in atfording international security to
whatever individual or company would
carry out the work.

Ferdinand de Lesseps now comes for-
ward and offers to construct the canal.
He is no dreamer, but a man of action.
He has had experience in thi* work, and
means business. Fortified by the al-
most unanimous approval of a large
convention, which represented the best
engineering skill of the age, he has de-
termined the plan and route of a canal
that he thinks will best meet the de-
mands of the future ; and stakes his repu-
tation upon its practicability. M. de
Lesseps's character gives seriousness to
the proposition, and probably brings
the measure nearer a practical realiza-
tion than it has ever been before. It
is a question that can not much longer
be postponed.

And now come grave intimations
that the American Government is to
reverse its historic policy on the Isth-
mian Canal question. The honorable
and consistent ground it has hitherto
maintained is to be abandoned, faith is
to be broken, pledges repudiated, and
treaties abrogated. The canal is not
to be controlled by international law,
and the cooperation of maritime na-
tions, but it must bo exclusively con-
trolled by the United States. "VThoever
makes it, and whoever pays for it, we
are to seize it and hold it whenever we
please. A select committee of the
House of Representatives on the Inter-
oceanic Canal has unanimously recom-
mended the immediate adoption of the
following joint resolutions:

Be it resolved bv the Senate and House of
Representatives of the United States of Amer-
iea in Congress assembled :

That the establishment of any foi-m of pro-
tectorate of any one of the Powers of Europe
over the independent states of this contment,
or the introduction from any quarter of a
scheme or policy which would carry with it a
rii(ht to any ilurojican Power to interfere with
their concerns, or to control in any other man-

846

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ner their country, or to transfer to any sucli
Power, hy conquest, cession, or acquisition in
any other way, of any of those states, or any
portion thereof, is a measure to which this
Government has, in the declaration of Presi-
dent Monroe, in his message of December 2,
1823, and known as the " Monroe doctrine,"
avowed its opposition ; and which, should the
attempt be made, it will regard and treat as
dangerous to our peace, prosperity, and safe-
ty-

2. BesolvM, That it is the interest and right
of the United States to have the possession,
direction, control, and government of any
canal, railroad or other artificial communi-
cation to be constructed across the isthmus
connecting the American Continents, for the
transfer of vessels and cargoes from the Ca-
ribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean, whether the
same be built or constructed at Panama, Nica-
ragua, or elsewhere ; and, in view of the mag-
nitude of this interest, it is the duty of the
United States to insist that, if built, and by
whomsoever the same may be commenced,
prosecuted, or completed, and whatever the
nationality of its corporators or the source
of their capital, the interest of the United
States and their right to possess and control
the same will be asserted and maintained,
whenever in their opinion it becomes neces-
sary.

3. And be itfurtlier resolved^ That the Pres-
ident be requested to take the steps necessary
and proper for the abrogation of any existing
treaties whose terms are in conflict with this
declaration of principles.

There is, of course, no mistaking
the significance of the position here
taken. Whoever constructs the canal,
and wherever the money comes from,
this nation is to take possession of it
and to maintain it. The newspapers
have prepared us for this by declaring
that the canal must be ours even at the
cost of war, and though it be neces-
sary to raise armies and navies to fight
the whole world. Even so grave a
journal as " The Nation " declares, and
reaffirms in a subsequent issue, " Wher-
ever and whenever it [the canal] is con-
structed it will become the most sensi-
tive and vital part of our interstate and
international commercial system, and we
must be prepared to protect it from the
evil of local revolutions and foreign ag-
gression, to seize it when necessary, and
successfully defend it against the two

greatest naval powers in the world. The
completion of such a canal involves,
therefore, the creation and maintenance
of anaval force in the Atlantic and Pacif-
ic capable of contending with that of any
possible European combination." And
here comes the "New York Tribune,"
formerly the champion of peace, indus-
try, and the ascendancy of civil rule,
but now viewing the Interoceanic Canal
as first of all a question of war. Inter-
national law, the honor of governments,
and mere paper protectorates are dis-
paraged, and our policy is proclaimed
to be " the erection of American forts,
manned by American soldiers, at the
two mouths of the canal."

The pretext for all this is the " Mon-
roe doctrine," reafiirmed in the first
of the above resolutions. Let us see
what this doctrine is, and how it has
been perverted to base ends for which
it was never designed.

When the career of Napoleon end-
ed, and the legitimate kings of Europe
were again restored to their thrones,
there came a reaction in favor of
" strong governments," that is, govern-
ment by despotic coercion in opposition
to free constitutional governments. This
resulted in a propagandism of tyran-
nic rule. A Holy Alliance was formed,
embracing Russia, Austria, Spain, Prus-
sia, and France, which, under pietistio
pretenses, aimed at tJie repression of
free institutions. The spirit of revolt
against Old-World despotism had spread
widely in Central and South America ;
and Venezuela, New Granada, Mexico,
Colombia, Peru, Guatemala, and Brazil
had declared themselves free and inde-
pendent. It was in the programme of
the Holy Alliance to regain control
over the revolted American colonies,
and reestablish the European system.

In this enterprise England did not
join, nor did slie at all approve of it.
Mr. George Canning, the English
Prime Minister, called the attention of
the United States to the Continental
plots, and asked if this Government in-
tended to allow the subjugation of the

EDITOR'S TABLE.

847

American republics by foreign Powers.
In his next message President Monroe
said:

We declare that we should consider any
attempt [of the allied Powers] to extend their
system to any part of this hemisphere as dan-
gerous to our peace and safety. . . . With the
governments who have declared their inde-
pendence and maintained it, and whose in-
dependence we have on great consideration
and on just principles acknowledged, we
could not view any interposition for the pur-
pose of oppressing them or controlling, in any
manner, their destiny by any European Pow-
er, in any other light than as the manifesta-
tion of an unfriendly disposition toward the
United States.

This was a courageous and timely
and most proper declaration, and it had
its effect ; the Continental despotisms
abandoned their projects of interfer-
ence. A revived Napoleon, indeed, re-
vived the experiment in the case of Max-
imilian of propagating the European
system on this continent; but it quick-
ly ended in disaster, carrying Napoleon
himself with it and turning France into
a republic.

The emergency which called forth
the declaration of this doctrine having
passed away, it has since been used as
mere political stock buncombe to cover
unscrupulous projects which could not
be openly and honestly defended. At
first an expression of national dignity
and justice in defense of the rights of
the weak, it has been made the excuse
for subverting the very objects it was
designed to promote. Conceived and
promulgated in the interests of freedom,
it has been villainously pressed into the
interests of slavery. When there was
apprehension that Spain might in some
future contingency give liberty to the
blacks of Cuba, and thus endanger the
American slave system by the contagion
of moral example, the Monroe doctrine
was invoked to forestall the humane
possibility. Buchanan, of Pennsylvania,
and Mason, of Virginia, fulminated the
" Ostend Manifesto " to prevent " for-
eign interference on this continent,"
that slavery might be perpetual ; and

this in the name of the Monroe pol-
icy.

And now it is proposed again to per-
vert the Monroe doctrine to an end nev-
er dreamed of by its promulgators, and
in point-blank subversion of its legiti-
mate objects. We have already shown
that, promptly following the Monroe
declaration, came Congressional instruc-
tions to the President to open negotia-
tions with other nations for the en-
couragement of all canal-constructors.
It was then well enough understood
that the Monroe doctrine was declared,
to stop the extension of political despot-
isms, not to stop the free and beneficent
extension of commerce. It was to pre-
vent aggressive interference with young
and feeble republics on this continent,
that they may take their equal and in-
dependent place among the nations. In
the exercise of its national rights thus
affirmed, the Republic of Colombia has
entered into arrangements to avail itself
of foreign enterprise in constructing a
canal through its territory. And now,
forsooth, the loud proclaimers of the
Monroe doctrine of non-interference
propose to violate the principle by in-
terfering with the riglit of Colombia to
open a canal. The principle of the Mon-
roe doctrine is not capable of any such
application ; it is the very bulwark of
De Lesseps's enterprise. Originally de-
signed to guarantee to Colombia her
sovereign rights over her own soil, it
now becomes a hypocritical pretext for
invading and crushing her nationality.

Slavery and war are the surviving
scourges of barbarism. The ^lonroe
doctrine, having been used to fortify
and prolong the curse of slavery, is
now to be used to multiply the curses
of war, and of war against the progress
of peace-promoting commerce.

The sham reasons for defeating De
Lesseps being out of the way, there is
little difficulty in getting at the real
motives of hostility to his project, as
evinced by a large portion of the press
and embodied in the Congressional res-
olutions. There are powerful rival in-

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

terests opposing him, which do not
scruple in the use of false pretenses to
stir up jealousy and prejudice in the
public mind to defeat his enterprise.
The Pacific Railroad managers of course
oppose further facilities of transconti-
nental communication ; and no one can
question that they are at the bottom
of much of the hostility to the canal
which has found expression in the
newspapers. Their case was lately pre-
sented in a very candid way by the
" New York Evening Mail " as follo^-s :
" The people and the Government of
the United States have made a tremen-
dous investment in transcontinental
railways, that not only bind the Atlan-
tic and Pacific slopes together, but give
to the commerce of Europe new and
swift channels of communication with
the East. In the midst of the terrible
uncertainties and ftxhulous expenditures
of civil war, American enterprise, lav-
ishly aided by the Government, under-
took the gigantic task of railway-build-
ing across the continent. While all
branches of industry are still burdened
by the taxation imposed during this
heroic period, is it quite time for us to
favor opening a water-way across the
isthmus that would, when completed,
become a serious rival for the business
that is now partly and gradually recom-
pensing our Government and people?
And is it wise at present to aid in open-
ing a channel that will be used by for-
eign vessels to drive our traffic from
the Pacific, as it has been driven from
the Atlantic? Are we not entitled to
a considerable period of opportunity
for reaping the advantages of our cost-
ly overland railways, and of the ocean
commerce that has been stimulated into
a great growth by those railways ? "

There is another class of busy opera-
tors who are eager for a canal, but in
their white-hot patriotism can not en-
dure the thouglit of its construction by
a " foreigner." It must be a purely
American aflfair, in the hands of Ameri-
can contractors, American engineers,
and the American Government. So

" big a thing," with " millions in it,"
they think belongs to Americans. And
who doubts that in the hands of our
business experts it would prove such a
bonanza of jobbery, such a placer of
plunder as this continent has never
seen ! Where, indeed, should the series
of railroad jobs, of court-house jobs, of
State " Capitol " jobs, culminate, if not
in a canal costing indefinite hundreds
of millions, with indefinite time to build
it, with the national Treasury to back
it, and so far away as to defy responsi-
bility! And who doubts that those
" interests " have been vigilant and ac-
tive in- manufecturing that opposition
to De Lesseps which has taken embodi-
ment in the late Congressional resolu-
tions ?

In an article contributed by M. de
Lesseps to the "North American Re-
view " he says : " It is because the
French law is more severe in enforcing
the responsibility of directors, thereby
more perfectly protecting the rights of
shareholders, among whom the United
States should be included, that it has
been proposed to organize the company
under the French law." Could there
be a more valid reason for the enter-
prise being an abomination in the eyes
of our "smart American operators,"
than the fact that the rights of the
shareholders would be protected? It
is well understood that the experiences
of our transatlantic friends in certain
of our railroads, our mines, and our
repudiated bonds, have led them to be
very chary of irresponsible American
investments, and that the clamor about
the Monroe doctrine and our filibuster-
ing designs is intended to frighten away
foreign capital from the enterprise of
M. de Lesseps.

The sharpers, adventurers, and plot-
ting speculators of the country are a
unit against the construction of the
Panama Canal by the man who has con-
structed the Suez Canal, and who defies
the world to show that a centime of
the funds contributed to it was misap-
propriated or stolen. Those schemers

EDITOR'S TABLE.

849

are well practiced in the arts of hood-
winking the puhlic and of managing
Legislatures. Will they be able to force
the American Congress to repudiate
the most honorable part of the nation's
historic policy ?

CONVITIONS OP EDUCATIONAL RE-
FORM.

A coEBESPONDENT from Ann Ar-
bor, Michigan, wants something more
explicit and practical from the "Month-
ly " on the subject of scientific educa-
tion. He says: "Can not you throw
a little more light upon the best col-
legiate course of education for a young
person who designs entering one of the
professions of law or medicine? You
constantly refer to the value of science
as a factor in education and as often
vigorously protest against the old or the
present classical courses ; now, can not
you help many who have children to
educate, by pointing out the best
course? This is a practical question,
brought home to thousands of your
readers, and it presses upon them for
solution. Can not we have something
more than glittering generahties, and
which will be a guide to those needing
the information? Is it not time, in
fact, to formulate the best course and
to give in detail and in their logical
order the studies best fitted for the
proper development of the faculties? "

We often have communications like
this from zealous and impatient educa-
tional reformers, who think there has
been talk enough about scientific edu-
cation, and that it is high time some-
thing were done. But they expect too
much, and are looking for impracticable
things. It is a great mistake to sup-
pose that the object here sought is any-
where to be at once and fully attained.
The idea will be slowly and partially
realized wherever there is a suflScient
number of persons in any community
imbued with the proper convictions
and feelings to carry it into eifect.
Such a work must inevitably be gradual,

VOL. XVI.— 54

and there will be concessions and im-
provements just in proportion to the
strength and persistence of the demand
for them. Our schools, at present, fair-
ly represent the average intelligence
and aspiration, and are as good as the
people can appreciate or will sustain.
A portion of the community — and the
numbers are increasing — insist upon
more time for science in the lower
schools, and more science in place of
the classics in the higher schools : both
requirements have already been wide-
ly yielded. There is a larger provision
than formerly in many primary schools
for elementary science ; and the mul-
tiplication of scientific schools in con-
nection with colleges, or independently,
and the modification of the old curricu-
lum with better chances for science in
many other institutions attest a saluta-
ry change in obedience to the growing
wants. As the public demand becomes
more discriminating and urgent, insti-
tutions will improve.

The line of progress, therefore, con-
sists in making existing schools better.
They are not to be displaced, but hber-
alized, and the culture they give made
more useful and valuable. There would
be no diflSculty in forming a rational cur-
riculum, but public ignorance, educated
and otherwise, has to be reckoned with
in carrying it out, because schools have
to be supported. The principles of a
better education than we now have are
sufficiently understood, and the men are
not wanting who could give a receipt »
for making a college much superior to
those now in operation. But, if our
correspondent had furnished him a
perfect ideal plan, and the whole Johns
Hopkins endowment to execute it, he
would break down in getting his teach-
ers and trustees, and his establishment
would fall to the level of what could be
publicly approved. If he merely wants
help to construct a liberalized modern
curriculum, he will find abundant ma-
terials in such works on education as
those of Spencer, BaAn, and Johnnot.

But there is a good deal of prelimi-

850

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

nary work to be done before any such
ideal can be embodied, and this is the
very practical work of enlightening
public opinion so as to bring it to bear
in improving the existing educational
system. There are great impediments
to change. Institutions are conserva-
tive, and tend to assimilate and subju-
gate the men who othcer them. The
noisy reformer is generally quenched
by an appointment. His ideals are
dissipated in the presence of refractory
facts. A great machine system of pub-
lic instruction, established by the State,
and supported by general taxation, is
too strongly intrenched to be easily
altered. It resists improvement by the
inertia of established habits, by official
sluggishness, and a foolish pride that
will not acknowledge defects. That
upon which millions have been spent,
and out of which thousands get a living,
is sure to be strenuously defended and
carefully conserved. Reform must be
forced from without, and nothing but
a better instructed pubhc opinion can
give us better schools.

LITERARY NOTICES.

THE INTERNATIOXAL SCIENTIFIC SE-
RIES, NO. XXVIII.

The Crayfish : An Introduction to the
Study of Zoology, with 82 Illustrations.
By t. H. Huxley, F. R. S. Pp. 371.
New York : D. Appleton & Co. Price,

The purpose of this book will probably
be better brought out by an inversion of
the title so that it shall read, " The Study
of Zoology as exemplified in the Crayfish."
The work is a contribution to scientific edu-
cation in the biological field, and conforms
to the modern and now well-settled method
of passing from the study of concrete de-
tails to the investigation of general princi-
ples. Instead of beginning with proposi-
tions which are the outcome of past inquiry
concerning living things as a whole, the stu-
dent, on the other, hand, commences by
making himself familiar with some one par-

ticular organism, and, having mastered the
elementary facts by direct acquaintance and
actual knowledge, he then uses this knowl-
edge in extending the range of his studies
to other organisms and their relations in
the animal kingdom. Professor Huxley has
taken the crayfish as the creature best suited
for the accomplishment of this object. The
information in relation to it is full and val-
uable, but the book has not been made
merely as a monograph on the natural his-
tory of this crustacean. Its aim is to lead
the student through a large portion of the
field of scientific biology, in such a way that
he will certainly and thoroughly know the
subject ; and the crayfish is chosen to attain
this end because, all things considered, it is
the best-fitted animal to do this. It would
be misleading to represent this book as in
the ordinary sense a popular one. It un-
doubtedly contains a good deal of informa-
tion pertaining to natural history which will
be read with general interest, but it was the
well-defined purpose of the author in its care-
ful preparation to make a book for biological
students that should introduce them aright
to the pursuit of their science, and, as the
author says, they can only gain its intended
advantages by going through the volume,
" crayfish in hand." Immense labor has
been bestowed upon the work in bringing it
into its proper, simphfied, and thoroughly
methodical shape, and no doubt Professor
Huxley could have written a work for the
" International Series " with half the efPort
he has here expended. But he has chosen
to avail himself of this channel of communi-
cation with different countries to give a new
impulse and higher direction to the study
of that comprehensive and most important
science to which he has devoted his life.
Mere book-education and half-knowledge he
would, no doubt, admit to be better than
nothing, but he would maintain that they
are only tolerable as they tend to prepare
for genuine and soUd scientific acquisi-
tions.

Huxley's " Crayfish " will at once become
the text-book of classes which desire to en-
ter the field of natural history by the right
path ; and it may be very strongly recom-,
mended to groups of young people forming
clubs or voluntary classes to pursue the
study by the method of self-instruction. It
is a book, indeed, better suited than any

LITERARY NOTICES.

851

other we know for any young person, with
a teacher or without, who wishes to get a
right start in cultivating this branch of sci-
ence.

The Refutation of Darwinism and the
Converse Theory of Development ;

BASED EXCLfSIVELY UPON DaUWIN's

Facts. By T. Warren O'Xeill, Mem-
ber of the Philadelphia Bar. Philadel-
phia : J. B. Lippincott & Co. Pp. 454.
Price, $2.50.

Opposite in every respect to Huxley's
book is this volume of Mr. O'Neill upon an
aspect of the same subject. Huxley's idea
is that, when a man makes a biological
book, he ought really to know something
about the matter — to know it at first hand
independently and authoritatively. But
this man, who comes forward to put an
end to Darwin, has no scientific credentials,
but, quite the contrary, he reports himself
as a member of the bar. That is, he is an
advocate, a professional hireling, who first
gets a fee and then argues accordingly.
His vocation is not to search for truth by
the methods of science, but to win cases by
the methods of law-practice. Mr. O'Neill
comes into biology as an attorney who pro-
poses to show what dialectics is capable of
by refuting Darwin with his own facts, and
showing how he can work them all back-
ward and establish a converse theory of
development.

We gather, from a very hasty glance at
his book, which is all that it is worth, that
the author's position is this: He assumes
the exploded doctrine of the fixity, or what
he calls the normal immutability, of spe-
cies— the old traditional doctrine that pre-
vailed before the rise of modern biologi-
cal knowledge. As man was created per-
fect and "fell," so species were created
with a primitive "physiological integrity"
from which they have become degraded.
So the Darwinian progress, proved by Dar-
winian facts, is but a kind of atavism or
reversion upward toward the recovery of
lost characters. The book is ingenious
from the lawyer's point of view, and makes
merry throughout at the expense of Mr.
Darwin's gross ignorance of the subjects to
which he has devoted his life, but which
become luminous in the hands of the man
who really knows nothing about them.

Another book is promised by the author,
and meantime we recommend the present
one to all young law-students, that they may
see what they are in danger of coming to.

The Geological and Natural History Sur-
vey OF Minnesota, under the Direction
of Mr. N. H. WiNCHELL. 1879.' Pp. 123.

This survey was conducted during 1878
in the northern part of the State, and was
devoted principally to the examination of
the coast-line of Lake Superior from Duluth
to the Pigeon River, for geological and litho-
j logical data. It was intended to give espe-
j cial attention to mining interests, but very
[ few persons were found to have any concern
I in them, and no actual mining is now done
[ in the State. The zoological and botanical
investigations were kept in abeyance, or car-
ried only so far as possible without much
additional expense. The ornithological sec-
[ tion made, however, satisfactory progress,
and a good account is given in the report of
j the plants of the northern shore of Lake Su-
] perior. A paper is appended by Mr. C. L.
I Herrick on the microscopic Entomostraca of
the State, with twenty-one full-page plates
of illustrations ; the first attempt, the author
believes, that has been made to describe
these little crustaceans as a class.

The Kansas Retieiv. Vol. I., No. 1. No-
vember, 1879. Monthly. 75 cents per
year.

This succeeds the " Kansas Collegiate "
as the periodical of the students of the Uni-
versity of Kansas. Its scope will be more
general than that of its predecessor ; and it
begins by having something to say on scien-
tific and practical subjects. The number
before us has signed papers on " Molecules,"
the comets of the year, and the college
course, and the health of college girls.

The Californian. A Western Monthly
Magazine. Vol. I., No. 1. January,
1880. Pp. 100. Price, $3 a year.
This is a new periodical, of prepossess-
ing appearance, published by the A. Roman
Publishing Company at San Francisco. The
first number offers a varied list of articles,
among which " The Pacific Coast and Geo-
detic Surveys " and " Physical and Moral
Influence of the Vine " are of scientific in-
terest.

852

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Zoology for Students and General Read-
ers. By A. S. Packard, Jr., M. D.,
Ph. D., Professor of Zoology in Brown
University. With numerous Illustra-
tions. New York: Henry Holt & Co.
Pp. 719. Price, $3.

Dr. Packard has produced a superior
text-book for the use of zoological students.
It is considerably fuller than the ordinary
manuals, and provides for pretty thorough
study without taking rank among the volu-
minous and exhaustive treatises. The gen-
eral reader will find much in it to interest
him, but it has been prepared for the advan-
tage of working students ; and the author's
purpose will only be attained as the learner
uses the work to acquire a direct and actual
knowledge of zoological science. The au-
thor thus states the objects he has had in
view in preparing his books : " Should this
manual aid in the work of educatioii, stimu-
late students to test the statements pre-
sented in it by personal observations, and
thus elicit some degree of the independence
and self-reliance characteristic of the origi-
nal investigator, and also lead them to en-
tertain broad views in biology, and to sym-
pathize with the more advanced and more
natural ideas now taught by the leading
biologists of our time, the author will feel
more than repaid."

Problems of Life and Mind. Third Series.
By George Henry Lewes. Boston:
Houghton, Osgood & Co. 1880. Pp.
500. Price, $3.

This volume contains all the remaining
manuscript of the "Problems of Life and
Mind " left by Mr. Lewes at the time of his
death. Together with a small volume, pub-
lished a year ago, it forms his contribution
proper to psychology, though his " Physical
Basis of Mind," in any extended view of the
science, also forms a part. In the former
volume the aim and scope of the science
were considered, and in this the inquiry is
carried a few steps into the science itself.
The work opens with a discussion of the
question of mind as a function of the organ-
ism, in which the distinctive views of Mr.
Lewes, as to the nature of mind and its rela-
tion to the organized body in which its phe-
nomena are manifested, are set forth with
clearness, and some of the opposing views
criticised with eifect. The " sphere of sense

and logic of feeling " occupies the author in
the second problem of the work, and the
like domain of intellect and the logic of
signs is considered in the fragment of the
remaining problem. Like all the works of
this series, the present has the fault of too
great diffuseness and unnecessary repetition,
but it contains much that is valuable, many
suggestive hints, and a good deal of strong
thinking. Any examination of the positions
taken by the work, or of their relation to
the teachings of other psychologists, is im-
possible here, and nothing further need
therefore be said save that students, to
whom the subject is of interest, will find
this, as all his other works, interesting
throughout, and the exposition remarkably
lucid.

The Younger Edda. With an Introduction,
Notes, Vocabulary, and Index. By R. B.
Anderson. Chicago : S. C Griggs & Co.
1880. Pp. 302. Price, $2.

Most people know something of the
mythologies and traditions of Greece and
Rome, of India and China ; but few know
anything of those of our Teutonic ancestors,
the Norsemen. To bring before English
readers the chief features of the theory of
creation of these northern peoples. Professor
Anderson has undertaken the translation of
" The Younger Edda " of Iceland, contained
in this volume. Together with " The Elder
Edda" this forms a complete system of
things. "The Elder Edda presents," says
Professor Anderson, " the Odinic faith in a
series of lays or rhapsodies," while " The
Younger Edda contains the systematized
theogony and cosmogony of our forefathers.
The two constitute, as it were, the Odinic
Bible." The translation is accompanied
with very full notes.

Elementary Lessons on Sound. By Dr.
W. H. Stone. London : Macmillan &
Co. 1879. Pp. 188. Price, 80 cents.

In this little volume are given briefly
the main facts of acoustics, with special
regard to their relation to music, besides
information that is properly intermediate
and supplementary to both acoustics and
music. It is clearly written and contains in
a small compass a large amount of infor-
mation.

LITERARY NOTICES.

853

A Dictionary of German Terms used in
Medicine. By George R. Cutter, M.
D., Surgeon of the New York Eye and
Ear Intirmary, Ophthalmic and Aural
Surgeon to the St. Catherine's and Wil-
liamsburg Hospitals, etc. New York :
G. P. Putnam's Sons.
The student of scientific works written
in foreign languages encounters many diffi-
culties in the technical terms. They are
not given in the ordinary dictionaries, or, if
they are, it is as common words with com-
mon meanings, and not with any view to
scientific correctness. The terms of Ger-
man science are formed by the composition
of native roots, and have no analogous
forms in the scientific terms of other lan-
guages, and thus frequently offer a double
difficulty. The meaning may be thought
out, but it is often with risk to accuracy.
In the absence of any German medical dic-
tionary corresponding to Dunglison's dic-
tionary. Dr. Cutter has been in the habit for
twenty years of writing down the technical
terms he met, and their definitions when
they could be ascertained. He now pub-
lishes the results of these labors in this
volume of three hundred double-columned
pages of words and their definitions. Its
value does not have to be proclaimed.

Theology and Mythology. An Inquiry
into the Claims of Biblical Inspiration
and the Supernatural Element in Reli-
gion. By Alfred H. O'Donoghue. New
York: Charles P. Somerby. Pp. 194.
Price, $1.

Theology and mythology in this work
are ranked together, and the writer main-
tains that they are both to be outgrown
with the progress of knowledge. His point
of view is thoroughly naturalistic ; but the
author protests that his book is written in
no spirit of hostility to the religious senti-
ment of mankind. It seeks to get rid of
manifest error, and is content with what
remains.

Popular Romances of the Middle Ages.
By Sir George W. Cox and E. H. Jones.
First American from second English
edition. New York : Henry Holt & Co.
1880. Pp. 505. Price, $2.25.

This is a book of old mediaeval legends
and stories, the authors of which nobody
knows anything about, and which have been

revamped and thrown into the modern mar-
ket. It is claimed that there is consider-
able new matter about Arthur and his
Knights, and that the whole contents have
undergone revision so as to make them ac-
ceptable to the taste of the readers of these
times. The book contains the story of
Merlin, Sir Tristram, Roland, Bewulf, Guy
of Warwick, the Volsungs, and many others.

The American Entomologist. An Illus-
trated Magazine of Practical and Popu-
lar Entomology. Edited by C. V. Riley
and A. S. Fuller, Washington, D. C.
Published by Max Jaegerhuber, 323
Pearl Street, New York. Vol. I., New
Series, No. 1. January, 1880. Pp. 24.
|2 a year in advance.

Professor Riley begins with this num-
ber a new series of " The American Ento-
mologist." It will be, as it was before,
practical and popular, and devoted not to
entomology alone, but also to other branch-
es of science so far as they are collateral
or related to entomology. Arrangements
will be made for the publication of local
lists and purely descriptive matter as it
maybe furnished, without encroaching upon
the space devoted to matter of general in-
terest.

The American Monthly Microscopical
Journal. Conducted by Romyn Hitch-
cock, F. R. M. S. Vol. I., No. 1. Janu-
ary, 1880. Pp. 20. $1 a year.

This takes the place of the " American
Quarterly Microscopical Journal," and is in-
tended to be an authoritative and trustworthy
periodical for all persons interested in mi-
croscopy. Among the subjects which will
be treated of at an early date is the detec-
tion-of adulterations in food, and a transla-
tion of Eyferth's " Simplest Forms of Life,"
by the editor, is promised.

Economics of Industry. By Alfred and
Mary Paley Marshall. London: Mac-
millan&Co. 1879. Pp.228. Price, $1.

This is an attempt to give in a concise
form the outline of the science of econom-
ics as laid down by Mr. Mill, and as im-
proved by writers since his time. It con-
sists of a consideration of the laws of the
production and distribution of wealth ; such
subjects as banking, foreign trade, and tax-
ation being reserved for a future volume.

854

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Memoire SCR LE Fer Natif du Groenland,

ET SUR LA DOLERITE QUI LE RENFERME.

(Memorandum on the Native Iron of
Greenland and on the Dolerite which
incloses it.) By J. Lawrence Smith, of
Louisville, Ky. From the " Annates de
Chimie et de Physique," Fifth Series,
vol. xvi., 1879. Paris : Gauthier-Villars.
Professor Nordenskj5ld found in Green-
land during his expedition of 1870 consid-
erable masses of native iron inclosed in the
dolerite rocks of Gvifak, in the Island of
Disco. Several authors have regarded the
metal as of meteoric origin, but Messrs.
Johnstrup and Steenstrup, of Copenhagen,
have expressed a different opinion, and M.
Daubree, of Paris, is in doubt. The pres-
ent treatise describes the special studies of
the author upon different specimens of the
iron, and the conclusions he has derived
from them. The iron is found inclosed in
solid blocks in the mass of the dolerite. It
is of different degrees of purity, some of
the specimens being malleable and contain-
ing from 80 to 93 per cent, of metal, and oth-
ers composed of the oxide, or of iron mixed
with dolerite. From careful analyses of the
specimens and an investigation of their con-
stituents and surroundings, Mr. Smith comes
to the conclusion that the iron can not be
of meteoric origin, but is of terrestrial
production, and originated in the secondary

Die Entavicklfng des Menschen-geschlech-
TEs. (The Development of the Human
Race.) By Dr. Adelrich Steinach, of
New York. Basel, Switzerland : Bcuno
Schwabe.

This volume, though it has been the
first to appear, is intended to be the second
part of a work on the Bystem of organic
development. It considers the subject from
the Darwinian but not from the materialis-
tic point of view. It first regards man in
his place in the world, in the mechanical
and teleological aspect, afterward as related
to the animals and as related to the indi-
viduals of his own species. Under the last
head are given discussions of the differences
among men and the manner in which they
are formed, the hereditability of character
and race-features, and the conditions and
relations under which the propagation and
spread of the race are carried on. The
question of the unity of the species is con-

sidered as pertinent to this point. The
place of man in time forms a second divi-
sion of the subject ; under it are discussed
the origin of the race and the light thrown
upon it by the earliest relics that have been
discovered, and the centers from which the
different families have spread. The devel-
opment of intelligence is treated of in a
third division, as related to culture, lan-
guage, and civilization, the last head includ-
ing the three subdivisions of development
in religious and moral views and regula-
tions, the development of social life and
usages, and industrial and scientific efforts.
The plan of the work is systematic, the
method o£ treatment and the style are plain
and straightforward, the thoughts are richly
illustrated with citations of facts, and the
manner is modest.

Das Bier und seine Bereitung einst und
jetzt. Freie Ztmotechnische Studien.
(Beer and its Manufacture formerly and
now. Free Zymotechnic Studies.) By
Hans ton der Planitz. Munich : R.
Oldenbourg.

The author of this monograph is a young
man who received a part of his education
in the United States, and has sin«e been as-
sociated in scientific and practical opera-
tions in connection with brewing works in
Germany. He has intended to give all that
is known respecting beer, and has embodied
in his not very large pamphlet a great
amount of historical, technical, and statisti-
cal information. He traces the history of
beer from ancient Egypt, wliere it appears
to have been first mentioned, to Greece ;
and discusses the theory that it was carried
to western Europe through Armenia, Scythia,
and the Celtic and Teutonic migrations.
The extent and condition of the manufac-
ture and trade in the middle ages and the
usages of the time in respect to them next
come under view, after which we are brought
down to the present, with its carefully stud-
ied processes and the recognition of beer
as a staple article of production and con-
sumption in nearly all countries. In this
department the fruits of scientific studies
are reviewed, the arguments for and against
the use of beer are mentioned, and the
place it occupies in the economy of the in-
dustrial and commercial world is defined.
The statistical information is full and de-

LITERARY NOTICES.

'55

tailed, and is given for every country in
which beer is an important product, and
separately for the different parts of Ger-
many. The pamphlet is full of matter that
is interesting even to those who have no
other concern in the subject than that of
curiosity.

The Berkeley Quarterly. Vol. I., No. 1.
January, 1880. Pp. 80. $2 a year.

This is a new journal of social science,
published by the Fortnightly Club, at Berke-
ley, California. Its purpose is defined to be
to give public expression to the individual
views of members of the Club on topics
pertaining to society, to stimulate other per-
sons to investigate such topics, and to fur-
nish a suitable medium for the publication
of papers upon them. The January number
contains six papers on questions of govern-
ment, the guidance of society, civil service,
and related topics.

The Workshop Companion. New York :
Industrial Publication Company. 1879.
Pp. 158. Price, 35 cents.

This is a collection of such recipes,
rules, processes, and practical hints as will
be found of use in the workshop and the
household. It has been the aim of the
compiler to give only such recipes as he has
tested and found reliable, and such informa-
tion of processes and methods as will meet
the needs of those concerned with them.
The contents are arranged alphabetically,
and as far as possible all information ap-
pertaining to any one subject is given under
one heading.

Blowpipe Analysis. By J. Landauer. Au-
thorized English edition, by James Tay-
lor and William E. Kay, of Owens
College, Manchester. London: Macmil-
laa & Co. 18mo, pp. 161. 1879. Price,
$1.50.

The author having been invited to prepare
a German edition of Elderhorst's " Manual,"
his attention was drawn to the fact that in
all works on the subject the chemical as-
pects were subordinated to the mineralogical.
He determined to prepare a work from the
chemical point of view, following only the
peculiar and practical arrangement of Elder-
horst. The translation has been printed
under the personal supervision of the author.

United States Commission of Fish and
Fisheries. Part V. Report of the
Commissioner for 1877. Washington:
Government Printing-Office. 8vo, pp.
981. With Plates. 1879.

The report embraces, first, the result of
inquiries into the condition of the fisheries
of the seacoast and lakes of the United
States ; and, second, the history of the meth-
ods adopted for the introduction of useful
food-fishes into its waters. The most im-
portant single fact ascertained by the Com*
mission during the year was the existence
on the whole coast of New England of a
large flounder ( Gh/piocephalus cynoglossus)i
known in Europe as the pole or craig, an ex-
cellent food-fish, with the best qualities of the
turbot, occurring in abundance and entirely
unknown to the fishermen. Special attention
has been given so far to the sea-salmon of
the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, the land-
locked salmon, the white-fish, the shad, the
fresh-water herring, and the German carp.
Attention will be given to the cultivation of
the smelt ; and it is hoped, some time, that
specimens of the Oriental gourami, a use-
ful fresh-water fish, will be added to the
list. The most valuable and by far the
largest part of the volume is occupied with
the Appendix, more than half of which is
taken up with a treatise on the menhaden
and its products, amply illustrated, and a
large part of the other half with papers on
the cod, the cod-fisheries of the Loffoden
Islands, and other fisheries of Norway.

GriDES FOR Science-Teaching. — The
Boston Society of Natural History is pub-
lishing a series of guides for science-teach-
ing, consisting of small pamphlet hand-
books, each devoted to a special subject,
with illustrations when they are called for.
The books are designed as aids to teachers
who wish to instruct their classes in natural
history — not to be used as text-books — and
give, besides illustrations and instructions
as to the modes of presentation and study,
hints for collecting, jireserving, and prepar-
ing specimens. "Pebbles," by Professor
Alpheus Hyatt, illustrates the way in which
a common object may be used in teaching.
"Concerning a Few Common Plants," by
Professor Goodale, tells of the organs or
" helpful parts " of plants, and how they
can be cultivated and used in the school-

856

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

room for the mental training of children.
Other books are " A First Lesson in Natural
History," by Mrs. Agassiz ; and " Commer-
cial and other Sponges, and Common Hy-
droids. Corals, and Echinoderms," by Profes-
sor Alpheus Hyatt. Boston : Ginn Brothers.

The Report of the Commissioners of
Fisheries of the State of California for
THE Years IS'JS and 1879 records the prog-
ress of the efforts to stock the rivers and
lakes of the State with valuable fish ; and
gives also a report by Mr. W. L. Locking-
ton upon the food-fishes of San Francisco.
The introduction of salmon into the Sacra-
mento River has been attended with great
success. White-fish have thriven in the
lakes. Seventy-four catfish from the Rari-
tan River, planted in lakes near Sacramento
in 1874, have increased to millions, and fur-
nish an immense supply of food. Sacra-
mento : State Printiug-OflScc.

The Report of the Entomologist op
THE United States, Department of Agri-
culture, is largely occupied with the de-
scription of insects affecting the cotton-
plant, and of the silk-worm and its culture.
It also notices a considerable number of
insects which are locally destructive to veg-
etation. Washington: Government Print-
ing-Office.

A Lecture on Petroleum, its History,
Commercial Importance, Uses, and Dan-
gers, by P. Schneitzer, Ph. D., of the Mis-
souri State University, embodies a great
deal of information on the subject in a small
pamphlet. Printed at Columbia, Missouri.

Vowel Theories, by Alexander Gra-
ham Bell, describes investigations into the
physiology of the formation of the vowels
in the throat and mouth, and experiments
with the phonograph, which were under-
taken by Mr. Bell with reference to their
bearing upon Helmholtz's theory of the
harmonic composition of the vowel-sounds.
New York : WiUiam Wood & Co.

" The Industrial News and Inventor's
Guide." This is a new journal, edited by
Mr. C. B. Norton, and is the organ of the
American Industrial Exhibit Company (lim-

ited) of New York. It is a monthly maga-
zine of twenty pages quarto, illustrated, the
special object of which is stated to be to
bring invention and capital together under
favorable circumstances and at little ex-
pense. The first number is filled with mat-
ter relating to the Australian Exhibitions
and new inventions. $2 per annum.

The Form of Seeds as a Factor in
Natural Selection in Plants, by Robert
E. C. Stearns, is an account of studies on
the succession of predominant plants in the
fields near the University of California, il-
lustrating the advantages which burr-seed-
ed or bearded-seeded plants possess in the
struggle for existence.

On Meteoric Fireballs seen in the
United States during the Year ending
March 31, 1879, by Professor Daniel Kirk-
wood, is an account of all the meteors ob-
served during the time which were brought
to the notice of the author, with the attend-
ant circumstances and phenomena. Many
of the descriptions were given by the ob-
servers personally ; others are gathered.f rom
reports made where the meteors were seen.

Indian Corn, by E. Lewis Sturdetant„
M. D., though brief, is an exhaustive trea-
tise on the subject. It gives the botanical
definition of the plant, its bibliography, its
synonyms in all countries, its history and
mythology in America, its European history,
accounts of its original varieties and its
minor variations, of the Indian cultivation,
and of the products from the grain, and the
classification of varieties, with numerous
references to authorities. Among the spe-
cial questions discussed is whether corn was
not known in Europe before Columbus, hav-
ing been introduced by the Northmen. It
seems to have been known in China as early
as the sixteenth century. Charles Van
Benthuysen & Sons, Albany, N. Y.

PUBLICATIONS EECEIVED.

The Action of the United States Tariff. By
Alfred Tyler, F. G. S. New York : G. P. Put-
nam's Sons. 1880. Pp. 16. 10 cents.

What Christians Believe. By Miles Gaylord
Bullock, Ph. D. Syracuse, New York : Thomas
W. Durston & Co. 1879. Pp. 218. 35 cents.

LITERARY NOTICES.

857

The Cause of Humanity. By Courtlandt Pal-
mer. Published for tlie Society of Humauity,
141 Eightli Street, New York. Pp. 77. 25
cents.

An Epitome of the Positive Philosophy and
Religion explanatory of the Society of Human-
ity, with an Important Letter of Harriet Mar-
tineau regarding her Keli^ioua Convictions.
Published by the Society of Humauity, New
York. Pp.50.

Memorandum in regard to Instruction in the
Mechanic Arts. By Edward Atkinson. 1879.
Pp. 11.

Publications of the Cincinnati Observatory.
No. 5. Micrometrical Measurements of 1,054
Double Stars. Cincinnati. 1879. Pp. 180.

Politics and Schools. By Sidney G. Cooke.
Syracuse, New York : Davis, Bardeen & Co.
1880. Pp. 23.

Formation of Ground Ice in the Rapids of the
Mississippi. By Dr. R. J. Farqubarson. From
" Proceedings Davenport Academy of Sciences,"
1878. Pp.6.

The Elements of Education. By Charles J.
Buel. Syracuse. New York: Davis, Bardeen &
Co. 1880. Pp.25.

First Annual Report of the State Board of
Health of Connecticut, for the Year ending No-
vember 31, 187S. Hartford, Connecticut. 1879.
Pp. 112.

Suggestions on Rural Hygiene. Circular No.
5 of Connecticut State Board of Health. Hart-
ford, Connecticut. Pp. 11. Illustrated.

List of a Collection of Aculeate Hymenoptera
made by S. W. Williston iu Northwestern Kan-
sas, pp. 20 ; The American Beinbecidas, pp. 7 ;
and Generic Arrangement of the Bees allied to
Melissodes and Anthophora, pp. 9. By W. H.
Patton. From the " Bulletin of the United States
Geological Survey." Washington, 1879.

Antiseptics in Obstetrics and Gynaecology.
By T, A. Ashl)y, M. D. Baltimore : Borst & Co.,
Printers. 1880. Pp. 13.

The Effect of Alum on the Human System
when used in Baking-Powders. By Heiiry A.
Mott, Jr., Ph.D. New York. 1880. Pp.60.

On the Coincidence of the Bright Lines of the
Oxygen Spectrum with Bright Lines in the Solar
Spectrum, pp. 16 ; and On Photographing the
Spectra of the Stars and Planets, pp. 7. By
Henry Draper, M. D. Reprints from " Ameri-
can Journal of Science and Arts," October and
December, 1879.

Catalogue of the Pacific Coast Fungi. Pub-
lished unddr the Direction of the California
Academy of Sciences. H. W. Harkness, M. D.,
J. P. Moore, A. M. 1880. Pp. 46.

Principal Characters of American Jurassic
Dinosaurs. By Professor O. C. Marsh. Part
m., with Six Plates. From "American Journal
of Science," March, 1880.

Our Public Schools, in their Relation to the
Health of Pupils. By J. T. Reeve, M. D. Ap-
pleton, Wisconsin. Pp. 27.

Our Schoolhouses. By Professor T. W.
Chittenden. Appleton, Wisconsin. Pp. 28.

Annual Reports of the Inspector, Principal,
and Physician of the Ontario Institution for the
Education of the Blind, Brantford, Ontario, Can-
ada. Printed by C. B. Robinson, Toronto. 1880.
Pp. 23.

Report of Work of the Agricultural Experi-
ment Station, Middletown, Connecticut, 1877-78.
By Professor W. O. Atwater, Hartford. 1879.
Pp. 174.

Economic Monographs. No. VI. Free Ships.
Bv John Codman. New York : G. P. Putnam's
Sons. 1880. 23 cents.

Unify Pulpit. Boston. Sermons of M. L. Sav-
age. Vol. I. No. 12. Morals and Knowledire ;
No. 13. A New Year; No. 14. Rights and Duties

in Matters of Opinion ; No. 15. Moral Sanctions;
No. 16. The Religious Uses of the Imagination ;
No. 18. Religion, PubUc Education, and the
State ; No. 19. The Church and the Theatre ;
No. 20. Religion in Business. Boston: George
H. Ellis. 1880. 6 cents per copy, or $1.50 a
year.

Circulars of Information of the Bureau of
Education. Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Washington:
Government Printing-Offlee. 1879.

The Cotton-Worm. By Charles V. Riley,
Ph.D. Bulletin No. 3, United States Entomo-
logical Commission. Washington : Government
Printing-office. 1880. Pp. 144. Illustrated.

Quarterly Report of the Chief of the Bureau
of Statistics. Treasury Department ol the United
States. For the Three Mouths ending Septem-
ber 30, 1879. Washington : Government Print-
ing-Oflice. 1880. Pp. 127.

Bulletin of the United States Geological and
Geographical Survey of the Territories. Vol. V.,
Nos. 1, 2, and 3. Washington: Qovemmeut
Printing-office. 1879.

Native Flowers and Ferns of the United
States. Parts 17, 18, 21, 22, 23, 24, Vol. II. By
Thomas Mehan. Illustrated by Chromolitho-
graphs. Boston : L. Prang & Co. 50 cents per
part.

Around the World with General Grant. By
John Russell Young. Parts 3 to 18 inclusive.
New Y''ork: Subscription-Book Department of
the American News Company. 50 cents per
part. Pp. 64 each.

Introduction to the Study of Sign-Language
among the North American Indians. By Garnck
Mallery. Washington: Government Prmting-
Offlce. 1880. Pp. 63, with Illustrations.

Annals of the Astronomical Observatory of
Harvard College. Vol. XI., Part 2. Photomet-
ric Observations. By Edward C. Pickering, Di-
rector, aided by Arthur §earle and Winslow
Upton. University Press, John Wilson & Sou,
Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1879. Pp. 124.

Tenth Annual Report of the United States
Geological and Geographical Survey of the Ter-
ritories. By F. V. Hayden, United States Ge-
ologist. Washington: Government Printing-
Offlee. 1878. Pp. 546. With, numerous Maps
and Engravings.

Half a Hundred Songs for the Schoolroom
and Home. By Hattie Sanford Russell. Syra-
cuse, N. Y. : Davis, Bardeen & Co. 1879. Pp.
103.

Four Lectures on Early Child-Culture. By
W. N. Hailraann. Milwaukee, Wis. : Carl Doer-
flinger. 1S80. Pp.74. Paper, 35 cents ; flexible
cloth, 40 cents.

Eyesio^ht, Good and Bad. By Robert Brude-
nell Carter, F. R. C. S. Illustrated. London:
MacmiUan & Co. 1880. Pp. 265. $1.50.

Kev to Ghostism. By Rev. Thomas Mitchell.
New York: S. R.Wells & Co. 18S0. Pp.249.
$1.25.

A Handbook of Hvgiene and Sanitary Sci-
ence. By George Wilson. M. A., M. D. Fourth
edition. Enlarged and revised. Philadelphia:
Lindsay & Blakiston. 1880. Pp. 468. $2.75.

The Perception of Space and Matter. By
Rev. Johnston Estep Walter. Boston : Estes &
Lauriat. 1879. Pp.451.

Sunshine and Storm in the East. By Mrs.
Brassev. With upward of 100 Hlustrations.
New York: H. Holt & Co. 1880. Pp. 448.
$3.50.

A Practical Treatise on Nervous Exhaustion.
By Dr. George M. Beard. New York: William
Wood & Co. 1880. Pp. 198.

A Forbidden Land. Voyages to the Corea.
By Ernest Oppert. With 2 Charts and 21 Illus-
trations. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sous.
1880. Pp.349. $3.

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

The Old Riyer-Beds cf Middle California.

— Old river-beds are found in nearly all
countries which have been affected by drift
agencies. They are also found in Califor-
nia, but, while in other parts of that State
they present general features similar to those
of the Eastern States, those of the aurifer-
ous slate belt of middle California are en-
tirely different in character and in their sit-
uation as respects the present river-beds, and
are in some respects unique. In most other
countries the present river-beds occupy the
same position as the old ; the rivers of mid-
dle California have been displaced by lava-
flows from their former position, and com-
pelled to cut entirely new channels. Instead
of cutting these channels at a higher level
than the older ones, as has been usually ob-
served, the displaced rivers in California
have cut them two or three thousand feet
deep in the solid slate, leaving the old de-
tritus-filled channels far up on the dividing
ridges. In other parts of the United States
the drainage system has remained substan-
tially unchanged since Tertiary times, but
in this California region the new drainage
system is entirely independent of the old,
having the same general direction, but some-
times cutting across it. The detritus in the
old river-beds of California is composed of
large pebbles and bowlders, instead of the
silts generally found, and is capped by lava
or other volcanic material. In these obser-
vations Professor Joseph Le Conte and Pro-
fessor Whitney substantially agree. Pro-
fessor Le Conte has made a further study
of the phenomena, and has given his con-
clusions in a paper in the last number of the
"American Journal of Science." The old
stream-beds, as they are exposed in the
processes of hydraulic mining, are shallow,
lowest in the middle and rising to the sides,
with such forms ground upon the surface
of the bed-rock at their bottom as are al-
ways produced by swift currents carrying
coarse materials, and are in marked contrast
with the deep, sharply V-shaped canons
which characterize the present rivers in the
same region. The filling up of the beds
consists of a lower course, sometimes a few
feet, sometimes many feet in thickness, of a
conglomerate of pebbles and bowlders of

! considerable size, cemented with sand and a
blue clay. Above this are alternate layers
of pebbles, gravel, sand, and clay, with frag-
ments or trunks of trees of the Pliocene
age, and bones of the mammalia of the Pli-
ocene and Quaternary ages, and perhaps
human relics. Above the detritus is a cap-
ping of volcanic matter, a tufaceous con-
glomerate, with or without basalt over it.
Professor Le Conte accounts for the singu-
lar phenomena by a theory, the principal
features of which are that the old drainage
system began to be formed after the birth
of the Sierra Nevada, at the close of the
Cretaceous period, and continued to exist
through the Tertiary ; the Sierra rose during
the Glacial period, accumulated great masses
of snow and ice and glaciers that were to
play a part in filling the beds, and made the
courses of the rivers much steeper than they
had been before. The eruptions which threw
out the volcanic products were preceded by
a period of underground heat which melted
the accumulated ice-masses. The waters
and ice rushing in violent torrents brought
down the coarse gravels and masses of rock,
and dropped them as they became too great
a load for the streams to carry. Afterward
came the eruptions, first of ashes, then of
lava, which flooded the mountain-slopes and
completely obliterated the drainage system,
Coincidcntly there were a considerable eleva-
tion of the Sierra range and an increase of
the mountain-slope. The glaciers and rivers
now began to cut a new system of channels
independent of the old ones. They pre-
ferred the old divides, for the lava was
thinnest or wanting there. As a necessary
consequence of the increased elevation, the
new chaimels were cut down to a level be-
low that of the old ones.

Age of the Green Mcnntains.— Professor

James D. Dana gives, in the " American
Journal of Science " for March, his reasons
for having in the new edition of his " Ge-
ology " referred the epoch of the formation
of the Green Mountains — in the system of
which he includes the whole region between
the Connecticut and the Hudson — to the
close of the Lower Silurian period. They
are, when summarized : 1. That the western
half of the region is proved to consist of
rocks of the Lower Silurian age, and of one

P OP ULAR MIS CELL ANY

859

orological system; 2. The schistose rocks
of the eastern half, in Vermont, are to a
large extent similar to those of the western ;
3. The rocks of the central mountain sec-
tion in Vermont are, in its northern part,
identical schists with those on the east and
west sides of it ; 4. The western border of
the region in the Hudson River Valley has
its folded or upturned Hudson River (Low-
er Silurian) slates overlaid unconformably
by the Niagara and Lower Helderbcrg (Up-
per Silurian) beds ; 5. The eastern border
of the region in the Connecticut Valley at
Bernardston, in Massacliusetts, Vernon, in
Vermont, and the adjoining part of New
Hampshire, has Lower Helderberg beds
overlying, unconformably, folded or up-
turned roofing- slates (similar to those on
the western side), the Lower Silurian age
of which is not improbable ; and at Little-
ton, in New Hampshire, and on Lake Mem-
phremagog, in northern Vermont, occur
unconformable Upper Helderberg (Lower
Devonian) beds with fossils ; 6. A moun-
tain-individual of folded rocks — which is
defined as comprising all the elevations or
results of upturning or flexure that were
produced over a continuous region in one
mountain-making process — is necessarily
one of great magnitude. Professor Dana
does not consider his theory as established,
for a further study of the stratigraphy of
the eastern part of the region is required
for that, but he believes that the facts,
which he reviews in detail, are strongly in
its favor.

Gas and tlie Electric Light.— The ques-
tion of the feasibility of substituting the
electric light for gas is yet far from settle-
ment. The competition will be finally de-
cided by the consideration of the relative
expense, regard being also given to the
quality of the light afforded. Some experi-
ments which have recently been made for
increasing the illuminating power of gas
have been attended with satisfactory re-
sults. The most effectual devices are those
by which a more perfect combustion is
secured. By concentrating a number of
burners so arranged as to play upon each
other, and by improved arrangements for
regulating and directing the draught of air
upon them, the amount of light has been
tripled, and it has been made clearer and

more fixed. Burners constructed with this
object in view have been tried in London,
and found to give a considerable increase of
light at a less increase of expense. Other de-
vices, produced by French inventors, promise
well. The inventors of electric lights seek
either to produce single lights to supplement
the defective illumination given by ordinary
lights, or to divide the light, so as to make it
take the place of gas entirely. The appara-
tus devised by Messrs. Regnier and Werde-
mann and Mr. Edison, for the latter pur-
pose, give an agreeable light; but that is
only a part of the problem. The diificulty
of securing an economical production and
supply of electricity remains, and that equal-
ly whether we seek to distribute it so that
each consumer shall use only what he needs,
or to store it in reservoirs of force. Experi-
ments which have been made upon the
amount of light produced per horse-power
of motive force give greatly varying re-
sults. The light of M. Mersanne, with the
Lontin machine, is rated at 80 carcels ; the
Jablochkoff light, with the Gramme ma-
chine, at 38 carcels ; and Mr. Edison's ma-
chine, with 10 of his carbon lamps, at 15
carcels. A comparative trial of the strength
of the Jablochkoff and Mersanne lights and
gas was made in the latter part of Decem-
ber at one of the railway-stations in Paris.
Six of the Jablochkoff lights, ten compound
intensive gas-burners, and four Mersanne
lights, were used. The brilliancy of the
gas-light was to the Mersanne light as 1 to
5-6V, and to the Jablochkoff light as 1 to
r927. On direct comparison, the brilliancy
of the Jablochkoff was to the Mersanne as
1 to 3. Roughly, 6 Mersanne hghts were
equivalent to 1 8 Jablochkoffs and 34 gas-jets.

Composition and Fses of Cellnloid. — Cel-
luloid, which has come into extensive use
in the arts, is a species of solidified collo-
dion, produced by dissolving gun-cotton in
camphor with the aid of heat and pressure.
From a description of its composition and
mode of manufacture by Dr. "W. H. Wahl,
we gatlier the following : The process of
preparing gun-cotton is well known ; by it
the properties of the vegetable fiber are so
changed that it becomes soluble in alcohol
and ether, as in making collodion, cam-
phor, and other substances. In the pro-
cess invented by the brothers Hyatt, gun-

86o

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

cotton is ground in water to a fine pulp ;
the pulp is then subjected to powerful
pressure in a perforated vessel, to extract
the bulk of the moisture, but still leaving
it slightly moist for the next operation,
which consists in thoroughly incorporating
finely comminuted gum-camphor with the
moist gun-cotton pulp. The proportions
employed are said to be one part by weight
of the camphor to two parts by weight of
the pulp. Any pigments, coloring matter, or
other materials that may be adapted to the
requirements of the articles into which the
product is to be manufactured, may be in-
corporated at this stage. The mass is next
subjected to a powerful pressure, to expel
from it the remaining moisture, and inci-
dentally to effect, also, the more immediate
contact of the camphor with the pulp. The
dried and compressed mass is next placed
in a mold open at the top, into which fits
a solid plunger, when a heavy pressure ap-
plied to the plunger is brought to bear upon
the mixture. While thus under pressure,
the mixture is heated to a temperature of
about 300°, at which temperature the cam-
phor fuses, and, its volatilization being im-
possible, the melted camphor dissolves, or
"converts," the gun-cotton pulp. The pro-
cess of transformation is rapidly effected
when the right temperature is reached, and
the product is celluloid. After the mass
is taken from the press it hardens and be-
comes tough and elastic. A noteworthy
circumstance is, that a large portion of the
camphor appears to be permanently held in
the mixture, so that its property of volatili-
zation, when exposed to the air, is arrested.
Celluloid is so extensively used as a substi-
tute for ivory that it is said to have serious-
ly affected the business of ivory importers
and workers. It has all the strength and
elasticity of this substance, and does not
warp or discolor with age. It is used in
place of tortoise-shell, malachite, amber,
pink coral, and other costly and elegant
materials, which it is made to imitate very
closely. Its latest use is in combination
with linen, cotton, or paper, for shirt bos-
oms, cuffs, atid collars.

Experimental Glaciers".— Mr. J. T. Bot-
tomley describes in " Nature " a successful
experiment which has been arranged by him-

self and Mr. D. Macfarlane for constructing
a model glacier with shoemaker's wax. A
little wooden ravine was prepared, with
steep dechvities and gentle slopes, and a
point where the space was narrowed by pro-
jections inward. At the upper end of the
ravine a flat place was fixed, on which shoe-
maker's wax was piled, as snow collects at
the upper end of the natural ravine. A
supply of shoemaker's wax was put on the
top at the beginning of each winter's ses-
sion, whence a flow of semi-solid material
went on steadily during the session, hardly
perceptible from day to day, but progress-
ing from week to week and from month to
month. Several of the glacial phenomena
were beautifully imitated with the wax ;
among them the more rapid flow of the
middle with the less rapid flow at the edges.
Little crenasses were sometimes formed,
though not often, owing to the great effect
of temperature on the plasticity of the ma-
terial. Sir William Thomson, in order to
test the qualities of shoemaker's wax as a
viscous material, a year ago prepared a
large cake of it, at the bottom of which he
put some corks, and on the top some bullets.
The corks at the end of the year had floated
up through the wax, and were coming out
at the top, while the bullets had sunk down
and come through the bottom ; and, while
this was going on, the wax was all the time
in such a condition as to be excessively brit-
tle to any force suddenly applied.

Source of t!ie Niger. — Information has
reached Marseilles of a successful journey
to the source of the Niger, which has been
made by two men in the employment of the
commercial house of M. Verminck, of Sierra
Leone. The expedition, it appears, origi-
nated with M. Yerminck himself, who sent
forth two of his clerks, MM. Zweifel and
Moustier, with an equipment of surveying
instruments, maps, and goods, for the ex-
press purpose ef reaching the spot on the
northern side of the Kong Mountains, some
two hundred miles from Sierra Leone, where
both Major Laing, in 1822, and Winwood
Reade, in 1869, were informed by the na-
tives lay the sources of the " Joliba." The
two envoys ascended the river Rokelle to
the foot of the mountains, and seem to
have met with none of that opposition, from

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

861

the chief of the important town of Falaba,
which defeated the attempts both of Laing
and Reade to reach the sources. The cross-
ing of the mountains appears, however, to
have been a difficult undertalcing, not accom-
plished without much determination, aided
by good luck. The main source was found
on the frontier of Kirsi and Koranka ; in
short, near the place indicated on Major
Laing's map.

Animal Deat of Fish. — Surgeon J. H.
Kidder, of the United States Navy, made
some observations during last summer in
connection with the United States Fish Com-
mission at Provincetown, Massachusetts, to
test the belief which is still held by many,
even scientific observers, that fish are cold-
blooded— that is, that they take on the
temperature of the water which surrounds
them, with no power to resist it, and that
they develop little or no animal heat them-
selves. Observations made in the usual
way, by inserting the thermometer into the
rectum of the fish, agreed with the gener-
ally received opinion, the fish showing in
that part but little higher temperature than
that of the surrounding water. It was
judged, however, that neither the rectum,
which is closely exposed to the water, nor
the arterial blood, which has passed through
the gills where it is exposed and cooled, could
have the same value as representing the
body-temperature in fishes that correspond-
ing parts possess in mammals and birds, but
that the degree of heat actually developed
in the life-processes should be sought in the
venous circulation and the branchial artery.
The fish were accordingly opened as soon as
possible after they were taken out of the
water, and the bulb of the thermometer was
inserted into the cavity of the heart, or the
branchial artery. Most of the fishes showed
a perceptibly higher temperature than that
of the water, rising, in the case of the dog-
fish, to 12°. A young dogfish, taken from
its mother's oviduct, was 20° warmer than
the water. The number of observations was
not largo enough to warrant a final state-
ment of the degree of animal heat present-
ed by the several fishes, but they are held
to prove that fish develop sufficient heat to
warm again, to the extent of from 3° to
13°, blood that has been cooled in each cir-

cuit to the temperature of the surrounding
water. An apparent exception to the gen-
eral result was offered in the case of blue-
fish, which were cooler than the water ; but
that was supposed to be because they had
come up from a greater depth and a colder
stratum of water than that on the surface.

Sun-Spots and Rainfall.— Mr. E. D. Archi-
bald writes in " Nature " that, instead of
changes in the condition of the sun neces-
sarily affecting every part of the earth in
the same way, we have many meteorologi-
cal analogies which favor the notion that
totally opposite effects may arise in differ-
ent parts of the earth from the action of
the same primary causes. Thus, it is gen-
erally assumed that the same tropical heat
which gives the primary impulse to the
desiccating northeast trade-wind of sub-
tropical latitudes, furnishes the energy
which exhibits itself in the almost constant
precipitation under the equator. Any vari-
ation in the degree of this heat should con-
sequently affect places in the region of the
trades and in the equatorial calm-belt, in a
diametrically opposite manner. The great
rainfalls of last autumn in England and India
were ascribed by some to the sun's emer-
gence from a period of years marked by the
rarity of its spots, and shining with in-
creased radiations on the southern oceans ;
but Mr. Archibald shows that the rainfall
of England, between latitudes 50' and 55°
north, reached a decided maximum in 1877,
a year of extreme spot-minimum, and was
very high all through the recent period of
unusually marked spot-minimum. A table
of the annual mean range of barometric
pressure at Calcutta from 1840 to 1878, of
which Mr. Archibald gives a summary in his
communication, indicates that years of few
sun-spots were characterized by higher tem-
peratures, greater wind-velocity, and greater
range of barometric pressure than those of
many spots.

New Bleaching Preparation. — A method
of applying the ordinary bleaching agents
(hypochlorites ) in a new way has been invent-
ed by Count Dienheim de Brochocki, of Par-
is. Instead of immersing the goods to be
bleached in an ordinary " chloride-of-lime "
vat, and subsequently scouring, the inventor

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

treats bleaching-powder with an acid, and
simultaneously passes air through the mix-
ture, so that chlorine and hydrochlorous acid
vapors are mechanically carried off; the
resulting gases are passed through an alka-
line solution in such proportions as to satu-
rate part or the whole of the alkali, or to
supersaturate it at will. The resulting li-
quid is said to be sufficiently stable to be
kept without change for two or three
months; it can readily be prepared of a
density of 30° Beaume, and acts as a
bleacher without requiring any acidulation,
and for many purposes is said to be supe-
rior to the ordinary bleaching-vat. The new
product, to which the inventor has given
the faciful name of chlorozone, is used to a
considerable extent in Paris, and works for
tts manufacture on a large scale have been
erected at Warrington.

Effects of Excessive Tea-drinking.— W.

J. Morton, M. D., of New York, gives in
the "Journal of Nervous and Mental Dis-
ease" an account of investigations which
he has made on the toxic effects of tea.
They were carried on in the cases of five
tea-tasters suffering from disease who came
under his care, and in observations of his
own symptoms during a week in which he
subjected himself to special treatment with
tea for purposes of experiment. From the
whole series of observations he draws the
conclusions that — 1. With tea, as with any
potent drug, there is a proper and an improp-
er dose ; 2. In moderation, tea is a mental
and bodily stimulant of a most agreeable
nature, followed by no harmful reaction. It
produces contentment of mind, allays hunger
and bodily weariness, and increases the dis-
position and the capacity for work ; 3. Taken
immoderately, it leads to a very serious
group of symptoms, such as headache, ver-
tigo, heat and flushings of body, ringing in
the ears, mental dullness and confusion,
tremulousness, " nervousness," sleepless-
ness, apprehension of evil, exhaustion of
mind and body, with disinclination to men-
tal and physical exertion, increased and ir-
regular action of the heart, increased res-
piration. Each of the above s}Tnptom3 is
produced by tea taken in immoderate quan-
tities, irrespective of dyspepsia, or hypo-
chondria, or hyperemia ; 4. Immoderate

tea-drinking, continued for a considerable
time, with great certainty produces dyspep-
sia; 5. The immediate mental symptoms
produced by tea are not to be attributed to
dyspepsia; 6. Tea retards the waste or
retrograde metamorphosis of tissue, and
thereby reduces the demand for food. It
also diminishes the amount of urine se-
creted; v. Many of the symptoms of im-
moderate tea-drinking are such as may oc-
cur without suspicion of tea being their
cause, and we find many people taking tea
to relieve the discomforts which its abuse is
producing.

Antiquity of the Tobacco-Pipe.— The dis-
covery of large numbers of pipes, apparent-
ly of considerable age, in Great Britain and
parts of the Continent of Eui'ope, has given
rise to new and extravagant conjectures as
to the antiquity of the tobacco-pipe in Eu-
rope. From an article in " The American
Antiquarian," by Mr. Edwin A. Barber, we
learn that these ancient pipes are very small,

j and are found in great numbers in the Brit-
ish Isles, where they are known as fairy-
pipes, Celtic or elfin pipes, Dane's pipes,

j Mab pipes, old man's pipes, and Carl's

' pipes. A number of them have been found
so near to Eoman remains as to induce the
belief that they are Roman relics ; but other

' undoubtedly modern remains have been
found in a similar connection. The pipes
resemble modern ones in shape, and often
bear manufacturers' marks, which make it
practicable to estimate their age. The old-
est of them are supposed to have been
made during the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
Probably the oldest illustration of a tobac-
co-pipe in Great Britain is in a carving on
a chimney in the keep of Cawdor Castle,
where among the devices are a mermaid
playing the harp, a monkey blowing a horn,
a cat playing a fiddle, and a fox smoking a
tobacco-pipe. This stone bears the date of
1610. Mr. Jewitt suggests, in his "Ce-
ramic Art in Great Britain," that herbs and
leaves were smoked medicinally long before
the period at which tobacco is believed to
have been introduced, and that pipes may
have been in use for this purpose before
" the weed " was known. British pipes
may be classified according to age, with
some degree of certainty ; by form, as they

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

863

were developed from exceedingly small pipes
with flat heels to larger barrel-shaped pipes,
and then to pipes with long handles and
pointed spurs. The makers' marks were put
on the heels of the oldest specimens, on the
bowls of more recent ones, and on the stems
of still later ones.

Stammering and its Causes.— :M. Cher-
vin, founder and director of the Institution
for Stammerers, at Paris, has recently made
researches into the prevalence of stammer-
ing in France, as shown by the reports of
the recruiting officers for the army during
the last twenty years, and into the climatic
and other influences that are favorable to
the development of the infirmity. He has
represented the results of his inquiries by a
map which exhibits the relative number of
stammerers in each of the departments at a
glance. The map shows that the country
may be divided into two distinct parts, by a
line running from Bordeaux to Geneva, on
the south of which the number of stammer-
ers is vastly greater than it is on the north
of it. The proportion of stammerers to
the whole number of young men who have
reached the ago when they are liable to
conscription appears to be about five to one
thousand. The districts along the Mediter-
ranean coast seem to be the most liable
to the aflliction ; and it has been found that
stammering is also extraordinarily frequent
in Piedmont, which has a similar climate and
population. M. Chervin attributes the origin
of the habit in this region partly to the ex-
treme animation of the speech of the south-
ern people, partly to the hot winds which are
the cause of nervous disorders with which
stammering may be connected. Stammer-
ing may be produced by a sudden fright
suffered during childhood. Sometimes the
habit comes on gradually, or is developed
by association with stammerers. Men ap-
pear to suffer more from it than women, as
all authors agree, so that out of a hundred
stammerers hardly more than ten or twenty
will be women. This may, however, only
signify that men feel more inconvenience
from the evil and notice it more. The re-
ports of the recruiting officers show that the
proportion of stammerers is three or four
times less in the cities than in the country ;
a fact that is very suggestive by the side
of another which M. Chervin has brought

out, that stammerers arc most rare where
there are the most schools. It is evident
that as youth become more accustomed to
using their language and learning to distin-
guish words, to spell and write them, they
learn to have a clearer conception of them,
to articulate more distinctly, and escape con-
fusion. The great number of stammerers
in savage countries has been observed by
travelers. It is ascribed to the absence of
a knowledge of their language, and to the
frequent repetitions of the same syllables
which appear in their words.

Investigating the Ligiitning-Rod.— Dele-
gates were appointed in the summer of
1878, by a number of British societies, to
consider the possibility of formulating the
existing knowledge on the subject of the
protection of property from damage by elec-
tricity, and the advisability of preparing
and issuing a general code of rules for the
erection of lightning-conductors. These
delegates have held several meetings, and
have already collected a large amount of
information. Several of their number are
also engaged in forming abstracts of the
literature of the subject. In order that
their report may be as trustworthy and
exhaustive as possible, the delegates ask,
through Mr. G. J. Symons, their secretary,
for information to be communicated to them
by correspondence, on the following points :
"Full details of accidents by lightning,
stating especially whether the building
struck had a conductor or not. If there
was a conductor, state its dimensions, con-
struction, mode of attachment to building ;
whether its top was pointed, distance of its
upper terminal from the place struck, na-
ture and extent of the connection between
the conductor and the earth, and whether
the earth was dry or moist; whether the
conductor was itself injured, and whether
the conductor or the point struck was the
most salient object in the vicinity. Infor-
mation is also desired, either verbally or by
sketches, as to the position of metal spout-
ing and lead roofing relatively to the point
struck, and to the conductor. Details of
the thickest piece of metal melted by a
flash of lightning are much needed. Unim-
peachable evidence of the failure of con-
ductors is much desired, as such failures
would be extremely instructive."

864

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

NOTES.

Mr. James W. Milner, Deputy United
States Fish Commissioner, died at Wauke-
gan, Illinois, January 6tli, aged forty years.
He was born at Kingston, Ontario, _ grew
from the age of five to manhood in Chicago,
was, even as a child, exceedingly studious,
and is said to have injured his health in this
way in early life. He had a special fondness
for natural history, and first won attention
as a student of science in early manhood by
publishing accounts of researches made in
Minnesota and adjoining States. In 1871
he received the appointment of Deputy Fish
Commissioner, and was afterward, until his
death, mainly occupied in the study of fish-
culture, on which subject he was considered
the best-informed man in the country. Most
of his work was done in the West, on the
fish of the Great Lakes, his researches on
the breeding, mode of life, and food of the
white-fish being especially valuable.

Dr. Pasqual Beacville, of Havana, in
a report presented to the Havana Commit-
tee of the National Board of Health, de-
scribes a disease of dogs and horses occur-
ring there which he names acclimation or
yellow fever. An ailment with similar
symptoms, and called bilious or yellow
fever, was described some years ago as at-
tacking the horses in Leith, Scotland. Dr.
George W. Sternberg, of the United States
Army, gives an abstract of Dr. Beauville's
report in the "Bulletin of the National
Board of Health," and also the symptoms
of the disease observed in Leith, from which
he concludes that both refer to one and the
same affection, but this was not yellow fe-
ver as it occurs in man. He says, " While
there are doubtless some striking points of
resemblance, the pneumonia and enteritis
described by the doctor are so prominent in
the record of symptoms and pathological
lesions as to give a special character to the
disease quite different from that of yellow
fever in man."

The committee appointed by the French
Minister of Public Instruction has awarded
the Volta Prize of 50,000 francs, or $9,500,
to Mr. Graham Bell.

An extraordinary prize of 3,000 francs
(about $600) has been awarded, by the
French Academy of Sciences, to Professor
Crookes, F. R. S., in recognition of his re-
cent discoveries in molecular physics und
radiant matter.

The Council of the London Entomologi-
cal Society has offered a prize of £50 (or
$250) for 'the best and most complete life-
history of Sclerostoma syngarmis, supposed
to produce the so-called " gapes " in poul-
try, game, and other birds; and another

prize of £50 for the best and most com-
plete life-history of Strongil.us pergracilii,
supposed to cause the grouse-disease. No
life-history will be considered satisfactory
unless the different stages of development
are considered and recorded. The competi-
tion is open to naturalists of all nationali-
ties. Essays in English, French, or German
may be sent in on or before October 15,
1882.

In a paper read before the French Acad-
emy of Sciences on the variations in the force
of the action of the heart, M. Marey has ob-
served that the force increases as the heart
is full. On this principle he accounts for
what takes place when an obstacle to the
current of the blood raises the arterial pres-
sure and creates a greater resistance to the
action of the heart. The heart slackens its
movements ; in consequence of this relaxa-
tion the ventricle has more time to fill up,
and really fills up more; it is then, at the
beginning of its new beat, endowed with
greater force, and is capable of surmount-
ing a resistance which it could not have
overcome if it had been less full.

A SINGULAR occurrence is reported to
have taken place lately at Leek, in the
grand duchy of Nassau. During a severe
storm in the night the electric discharge fell
into a fish-pond stocked with several species.
On th§ next morning the fish were all found
at the top of the water, dead. Their ap-
pearance was like that of boiled fish, and
their meat fell to pieces when it was han-
dled just like the meat of cooked fish. No
hurt, either internal or external, could be
perceived ; the scales were not bruised, and
the swimming-bladder was preserved still
full of air. The water was disturbed and
muddy at the time, as if it had just been
stirred up.

Mr. M. Reynolds, in a paper read before
the London Association of Foreman Engi-
neers on practical engine-driving, referred
to a source of danger on the locomotive
which is, perhaps, more important even
than that arising from color-blindness. This
ia the blinding effect of the glowing white
light of the engine-fire, a brief glance into
which, he said, renders the person who has
looked for a time unable to recognize the
colors of the signal-lamps.

The death is announced of Professor
David Thomson, for thirty-five years Pro-
fessor of Natural Philosophy in the Univer-
sity of Aberdeen. He was the author of
papers on " The Velocity of the Waves of
the Sea " and " On Double-Cylinder Pump-
ing-Engines."

M. Walferdan, the inventor of the min-
imum thermometer, died in Paris near the
end of January, at the age of eighty-five.

I]^ DEX

PAOB

About Snakes 571

Africa, Population of.'. 426

Algeria, Cost of the Proposed Lake in 139

Ancient Methods of Filtration 495

Ancient Uses of Cork 429

Animal Mounds in the Pyrenees 135

Animal Transformations, New Views of. (Illustrated.) 625

Anthropometric Observation 431

Anthropology, Recent 145

Antiquity of Man 572

Arago's Statue, The Inauguration of. 114

Archasopteryx, Carl Vogt on the 136

Arithmetic, Early Methods in 204

Arsenic in Kindergartens 694

Arsenic in the Household and School 715

Artesian WeUs and the Great Sahara 530

Association of Ideas. (Illustrated.) 577

Astronomical Discoveries, Announcement of 715

Athletics in Schools 677

Atlantis, On 266

Authorship, Intellectual Straining in 93

Bain, Alexander, On John Stuart Mill. 25, 311, 501

Bain on the "Data of Ethics" 210

Bennett, A. Hughes 519

Billson, William W., on the Origin of Criminal Law 433

Bird-Reasoning 139

Bolton, Professor H. Carrington 495

Books noticed :

" Ethics of Science and Duty " (Bascom) • 125

" Freedom m Science and Teaching " (Haeckel) 127

" Geological Survey of Ohio," Vol. Ill 129

" Distribution of Heat in the Spectra of Various Sources of Radia-
tion " (Jaynes) 130

" A Defense of Philosophic Doubt " (Balfour) 1-30

" The Science of the Bible " (Woolley) 131

" Nests and Eggs of American Birds " (Ingersoll) 131

" The Evidence of the Senses " (Stevenson) 131

" Haeckel's Genesis of Man " (Ward) 132

" Easy Lessons in Popular Science " (Monteith) 133

TOL. XVI. — 55

866 INDEX.

Books noticed : page

" Hints toward a National Culture " (Boyce) 133

" Scientific Lectures " (Lubbock) 133

" Science Lectures at South Kensington " 133

" Zoology of Invertebrate Animals " (Macalister) 133

" Gray's Botanical Text-Book " (Gray) 277

" Hygiene and Public Health " (Buck) 279

" First Lines of Therapeutics " (Harvey) 281

" Neurility " (Clevenger) 282

" Is Life worth Living? " (Mallock) 417

" Naval Hygiene " (Wilson) 418

'' Silk Goods of America " (Wykoff) 419

" Geology of the Lower Amazonas " (Derby) ! 421

" Primitive Manners and Customs " (Farrer) 421

" Papers read before the Pi Eta Scientific Society of Rensselaer Poly-
technic Institute " 422

" American Ornithology " (Wilson and Bonaparte) 422

" The Eosicrucians " (Jennings) 423

" Antiquities and Platycnemism of the Mound-Builders of Wisconsin "

(De Hart) 423

" The Silkworm " (Pviley) 423

" Geology of the Diamantiferous Regions of the Province of Parana,

Brazil " (Derby) 423

" First Step in Chemical Principles " (Leflfman) 424

" Young Folks' Cyclopaedia of Common Things " (Champlin) 424

" Inorganic Chemistry " (Valentin) 424

" The Value of Life " (Anonymous) 424

" Octavius Perinchief " (Lanman) 561

" Arctic Voyages of Nordenskjold " 563

" Illustrated Dictionary of Scientific Terms " (Rossiter) 564

" The English Language and its Early Literature " (Gilmorej 565

" Darwinism and other Essays " (Fiske) 565

" Shell Mounds of Omari " (Morse) 566

" Fuel, its Combustion and Economy " (Clark) 566

" Units and Physical Constants " (Everett) 566

" Solar Light and Heat " (Allen) 567

" First Book of Qualitative Chemistry " (Prescott) 567

" Electro-Metallurgy " (Watt) 567

" Ceremonial Institutions " (Spencer) 698

" Theory of Political Economy" (Jevons) 699

" The Chemistry of Common Life " (Johnston) 701

*' Astronomy for Schools and Colleges" (Newcomb and Holden) 702

" Progress and Poverty " (George) 702

*' Lectures and Essays " (Clifford) 703

" An Essay on the Bible Narrative of Creation " (Grote) 705

" Triassic Formation of New Jersey " (Russell) 707

*' Erasmus Darwin " (Krause) "707

" Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Annual Reports of the Geological Survey

of Indiana " (Cox) TOS

" Modern Meteorology " "^08

■" The Great Fur Land " (Robinson) T08

INDEX. %6j

Books noticed : page

" The Berea Sandstone of Ohio " (Orton) 709

" The Crayfish " (Euxley) 850

" The Refutation of Darwinism " (O'Neill) 851

" Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota " (Winchell) . . 851

" The Kansas Review " 851

" The Californian " 851

" Zoology for Students and General Readers " (Packard) 852

" Problems of Life and Mind " (Lewes) 852

" The Younger Edda " (Anderson) 852

" Elementary Lessons on Sound " (Stone) 852

" Dictionary of German Terms used in Medicine " (Cotter) 853

" Theology and Mythology " (O'Donoghue) 853

" Popular Romances of the Middle Ages " (Cox and Jones) 853

" The American Entomologist " (Riley and Fuller) 853

" American Monthly Microscopical Journal " (Hitchcock) 853

" Economics of Industry " (Marshall) 853

" On the Native Iron of Greenland " (Smith) 854

" The Development of the Human Race " (Stelnach) 854

" Beer, and its Manufacture formerly and now " (Planitz) 854

" The Berkeley Quarterly " 855

" The Workshop Companion " 855

" Blowpipe Analysis " (Landauer) 855

" United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries " 855

" Guides for Science-Teaching " 855

Literary Notes 850

Bigelow, W. S., Letter from 842

Bleaching Preparation, New 8G1

Brain-Cells, Education of 200

Brain, Size of, and Size of Body 872

Brain-Texture and Mental Make-up 143

Buckland, Frank 318

Buell, Charles J., Letter from 842

Burials, Premature 389

Butter-making, Improvements in 571

Canal Routes, Interoceanic 380

Cannibals, South African 286

Carpenter, Professor William B 614

Casualties, Railroad 413

Cattle, The Wild, of Great Britain 138

Celluloid, Composition and Uses of 859

Century-Plant, A Precocious 575

Chandler, Dr. Charles F., Sketch of. (Portrait.) 883

Chesapeake Laboratory, Work at the 570

Chinese, Morahty among the 270

Chromatics, Rood's— A Misleading Criticism 274

Circulating Libraries and Contagious Disease 133

Colorado, Southern, Prehistoric Ruins in 666

Coloring Matters, New 575

Color-Sense, Education of the 425

868 INDEX.

PAGE

Commerce, Removing the Barriers of 416

Oonant on International Copyright 697

Conant, William C . . . . , 653

Cork, Ancient Uses of 429

Correspondence 266, 408, 554, 693, 842

Crayfish, The. (Illustrated.) 789

Criminal Law, Origin of 433

Criminal Law, The Origin of 842

CroU's " Climate and Time " 810

Crookes, William I3 157

Curious Ways of getting Food. (Illustrated.) , 770

Dalby, W. B I97

Daly, Charles P 478

Data of Ethics, Reception of the 408

Daylight in the Schoolroom 517

Death of Professor B. F. Mudge 569

Detective, A Scientific ". 141

Diamonds, Artificial. . . : 716

Diseases of Wild Animals 11

Diving, Improved Method of. 711

Dolmens in Japan. (Illustrated.) 593

Dove, Heinrich Wilhelm, Sketch of. (Portrait.) 261

Eastern City, A Fabled 427

Eddy, William A, The Evolution of a New Sense 66

Editor's Table .• . 121, 267, 408, 555, 695, 842

Educational Reform, Conditions of 849

Education for Guidance 559

Education of the Color-Sense 425

Education, Higher, of Women, Hygiene in the 519

Electricity and Vegetation 712

Electric Light, Distribution of the 284

Electric Light, Progress of the 570

Electrification, Expansion of Bodies by 574

Emergencies, Common Sense in 719

Enjoyment, The Duty of 640

Epidemics, Two Remarkable , . . . 286

Evolution, Fallacies of, A Reply fo 101

Expansion of Bodies by Electrification 574

Experimental Legislation 754

Experiments in Punishment 431

FairchUd, Herman L 770

Far West, The Geology of the 568

Filtration, Ancient Methods of 495

Fish, A New Food- 711

Fish, Animal Heat of 861

Fishes, Voice in 574

Fitch, Dr. Asa, Sketch of. (Portrait.) 116

INDEX. 869

PAGK

Food, Curious Ways of getting, (niustrateil.) 770

Forces, Wasted 408

Form, the Pleasure of Visual 780

Fourcy, Charles de 380

France, Apprentice-Schools in 285

Free Schools of America, The Early 663

Free-Will, Scientific Aspects of 745

Frost-Phenomena 842

Fuel, Water as 653

Gannett, Henry 666

Gas and the Electric Light 859

Geographical Science, The Beginnings of. (Illustrated.) 236

Geology of the Far West 5G8

George, Henry, On the Study of Political Economy 601

Glaciers, Experimental 860

Granville, J. Mortimer 200

Great Britain, The Wild Cattle of 138

Green Mountains, Age of the 858

Green, Nelson W 71

Grote, A. R., Letter from 266

Gypsies, Origin of the 540

Hanoverian Village Life 467

Harmony, Modern, Imperfections of 508

Hay, Dr. George, Letter from 694

Hemp-Plant, Intoxicating Properties of the 719

Herrings 427

Hoflfmann, Frederick, Sketch of Dove 261

Honeycomb, a Living 824

Honey-making in the United States 142

Hopkins, J. H 798

Horses, Many-toed. (Illustrated.) 258

Household Pet, A Roguish. (Illustrated.) 318

Hygiene in the Higher Education of Women 518

Ice, Age of 554, 693

Ideas, The Association of. (Illustrated.) 577

Imperfections of Modern Harmony 508

Improvements in Butter-making 571

Intellectual Straining in Authorship 93

Intemperance in Study 645

International Copyright, Conant on ^97

Interoceanic Canal Question, Some Features of the 842

Iron-making, Petroleum in 287

Iron, Passivity of 719

International Weather-Service, The. (Illustrated.) 289

Interoceanic Canal Routes. (Illustrated.) 380

Jackson, George A 236

James, William 577

870 INDEX.

PAGE

Japan, Dolmens in. (Illustrated.) 593

Javal, M., On Daylight in the Schoolroom 517

Jevons, Professor W. Stanley 754

Jupiter, What is He doing ? (Illustrated.) 737

Kindergartens, Arsenic in 694

Knowledge, First-hand and Second-hand 197

Langley, S. P., Eecent Progress of Solar Physics 1

Lankester, Professor E. Ray 789

Learning to write 795

Le Conte, John, Mars and his Moons 82

Le Conte, Joseph, The Genesis of Sex 167

Leffingwell, Dr. A. J 745

Legislation, Experimental 754

Leidy, Professor Joseph 612

" Let well enough alone " 695

Libraries, Circulating, and Contagious Disease 138

Lightning-Rod, Investigating the 863

Lindsay, W. Lauder 346

Literary Notices 125, 277, 417, 561, 698, 850

Lubbock, On Science in the Primary Schools • 429

Luminous Power, Distribution of, in the Sun's Rays 137

Lungren, C. M., Progress and Poverty • 721

Lyford, M., Letter from 693

Lyons, Lieutenant T. A 35, 179

Mackay, G. Eric 389

Maclagan, Dr. T. J., On Typhoid Fever 460

Man, On the Antiquity of 140, 572

Many-toed Horses. (Illustrated.) 258

Maps and Map-making before Mercator. (Illustrated.) 478

Mars and his Moons 82

Marsh, O. C 219, 863

Mason, R. O 330

Matamata, The. (Illustrated.) 684

Matter, Radiant. (Illustrated.) 13, 157

Maury, Professor T. B., International Weather-Service. (Illustrated.).. . . 289

McGee, W. J 810

Meteoric Display, An Expected 247

Meteorology, Ocean. (Illustrated.) 35, 179

Mill, John Stuart 25, 311, 501

Minerals, Action of Organic Acids on 710

Monkey, Intelligence of a Pet 714

Moral Sense in the Lower Animals 346

Morals, Goldwin Smith on 267

Morse, Professor E. S 593

Mudge, B. F., Death of 569

Nature, The Force behind ^ 614

Neison, E 337

INDEX. 871

FAGK

Niger, Source of the 860

Nordenskjold, What He has done 137

Nordhoff, Walter 467

Norton, H. B., Letter from 554

Notes 143, 287, 432, 576, 720, 864

Observations, Anthropometric 431

Ocean Meteorology. (Illustrated.) 35, 179

Oregon, Salmon Industries of 573

Origin of Criminal Law 433

Origin of the Gypsies 540

Paleontological Discovery, History and Methods of 219, 263

Pasture, Sheep poisoned at 575

Pearce, S. Austen _ 508

Perrier, Edmond 625

Petroleum in Iron-making 287

Petroleum for Steam-making 136

Phenomenon, Interesting Luminous 554

Philosophy, Mythologic 56

Phosphorescence, Vegetable 804

Phylloxera, Apphcations for 718

Physiology, The Study of. 43

Plants, Agency of, in Earth-building 713

Plants, Assimilative Power of. 142

Plants, The Textile, of the World 831

Platinum, Experiments with 134

Political Economy, Study of 601

Popular Miscellany 134, 283, 425, 568, 710, 858

Population of Africa 426

Powell, J. W., Mythologic Philosophy 56

Precocity, Cases of Remarkable 428

Prehistoric Ruins in Southern Colorado 666

Premature Burials 389

Prescott, Ellen 804

Preservative Process, A New 717

Proctor, Richard A., Expecffed Meteoric Display 247

Progress and Poverty 721

Progress of the Electric Light 570

Publications Received 133, 282, 425, 567, 709, 856

Punishment, Experiments in 431

Punishment, Vengeance in 555

Pye-Smith, P. H., The Study of Physiology 43

Rabies, Transmissibility of Human 712

Radiant Matter 13, 157

Railroad Casualties 413

Rhine, Alice H 663

Records, Prehistoric 545

Respecting Rubbish 97

872 INDEX.

PAGE

Eitter, Carl, Sketch of. (Portrait.) 689

River-Beds, The Old, of Middle Califoruia 858

Romanes, George J 101

Salmon Industries of Oregon 573

Saporta's World of Plants before the Appearance of Man. (Illustrated.).. 446

Sargassura. Does it vegetate in the Open Sea? 573

Sauvage, E 684

Schools, Athletics in 677

Schroeder, Lieutenant Seaton 530

Science in the Primary Schools 429

Scientific Teaching in the Colleges 556

Scorpion, Suicide of the 712

Seamen, Color-Bhndness of. 285

Searle, Arthur \ 673

Seely, G. B., Letter from 554

Sense, A New, The Evolution of 66

Sex, The Genesis of 167

Sheep, poisoned at Pasture 575

Silliman, Benjamin, Sketch of. (Portrait.) 550

Skinner, Joseph J 397

Slack, H. J 737

Snakes, How they shed their Skins 710

Social Distinctions, Traditional Origin of. 430

Solar Appendages 121

Solar Physics, Recent Progress of 1

Sounds, Discrimination and Memory of 428

Spies, Concerning Honors to 122

Spiritualism, Middle- Age 354

Springs and Wells, Overflow of. (Illustrated.) 71, 266, 397

Stammering and its Causes 863

Stars, The Immensity of the 140

Stoves, Ventilating 124

Study, Intemperance in 645

Suicide, A Consideration of "7^98

Sully, James 780

Sun-Spots and Rainfall 861

Tea-drinking, Effects of Excessive 862

Teeth, Effects of Tobacco on the 137

Telescope, Most Powerful in Existence 337

Theologian, A Young, Letter from 693

Thresher-Shark, Habits of the 139

Tobacco-Pipe, Antiquity of the 862

Tobacco-Smoking, Parkes on "^18

Traditional Origin of Social Distinctions 430

Trowbridge, J. T., Letter from 266

Tuke, D. Hack 645

Tylor, E. B., Recent Anthropology 145

Typhoid Fever, how conveyed 460

INDEX. 873

PAGE

Upper Air, Proportion of Oxygen in 575

Vaccination in New York 330

Vaile, E. 0., Early Methods in Arithmetic 204

Vaughan, Professor Daniel, The Works of. 125

Vegetable Phosphorescence 804

Vengeance in Punishment 555

Vessels, Kaising Sunken 287

Vilain, Jean 11

Village Life, Hanoverian 467

Voice in Fishes 574

Wahl, William H 408

Ward's Natural Science Establishment 612

Water as Fuel 653

Waves, Stilling the, with Oil 136

Weather-Service, The International. (Illustrated.) 289

What is Jupiter doing? (Illustrated.) 737

Wild Animals, Diseases of. 11

Windovrs, Stained 141

World of Plants before the Appearance of Man 446

Zoological Work at the Chesapeake Laboratory 570

END OF VOL. XYI.

10^3'^

MBL WHOI LIBRARY

WH IflUU Y

m