n

LEWIS H. MORGAN.

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE

MON^THLY.

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

VOL. XVIII.

NOVEMBER, 1880, TO APRIL, 1881.

NEW YORK :

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,

1, 3, AND 5 BOND STREET.

1881.

COPYRIGHT BY

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.

ISSl.

/Of 57

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY.

NOVEMBER, 1880.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS.*

By HEEBERT SPENCER.
I. PEELIMINARY.

THOUGHT and feeling can not be completely dissociated. Each
emotion has a more or less distinct framework of ideas ; and
each group of ideas is more or less suffused with emotion. There
are, however, great differences between their degrees of combination
under both of these aspects. We have some feelings which are vague
from lack of intellectual definition ; and others to which clear shapes
are given by the associated conceptions. At one time our thoughts
are distorted by the passion running through them ; and at another
time it is difficult to detect in them a trace of liking or . disliking.
Manifestly, too, in each particular case these components of the men-
tal state may be varied in their proportions. The ideas being the
same, the emotion joined with them may be greater or less ; and it
is a familiar truth that the correctness of the judgment formed de-
pends, if not on the absence of emotion, still, on that balance of emo-
tions which negatives excess of any one.

Especially is this so in matters concerning human life. There are
two ways in which men's actions, individual or social, may be re-
garded. AVe may consider them as groups of phenomena to be ana-
lyzed, and the laws of their dependence ascertained ; or, considering
them as causing pleasures or pains, we may associate with them appro-
bation or reprobation. Dealing with its problems intellectually, we

* The references to facts cited in this article and succeeding ones will be given when
the articles reappear in their permanent shape. Allusions here and there occurring in
them, to matters not before the reader, must be understood as consequent on their conti-
nuity with writings already published.

TOL. XVIII. — 1

2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

may regard conduct as always the result of certain forces ; or dealing
with its problems morally, and considering its outcome as in this case
good and in that case bad, we may allow now admiration, and now
indignation, to fill our consciousness. Obviously, it must make a
great difference in our conclusions whether, as in the one case, we re-
gai'd men's doings as those of alien creatures, which it merely concerns
us to understand ; or whether, as in the other case, we regard them as
the doings of creatures like ourselves, with whose lives our own lives
are bound up, and whose behavior arouses in us, directly and sympa-
thetically, feelings of love and hate.

In " The Study of Sociology," I have described in detail the vari-
ous perversions produced in men's judgments by their emotions. Ex-
amjjles are given showing how fears and hopes betray them into false
estimates ; how impatience prompts unjust condemnations ; how in
this case antipathy, and in that case sympathy, distorts belief. The
truth that the bias of education and the bias of patriotism severally
warp men's convictions, is enforced by many illustrations. And it is
pointed out that the more special forms of bias — the class bias, the
political bias, the theological bias — each produces a strong predisposi-
tion toward this or that view of public affairs.

Here let me emphasize the conclusion that in pursuing our socio-
logical inquiries, and especially those on which we are now entering,
we must, as much as possible, exclude whatever emotions the facts
are calculated to excite, and attend solely to the interpretation of the
facts. There are several groups of phenomena, in contemj^lating
which either contempt, or disgust, or indignation, tends to arise, but
must be restrained.

Instead of passing over as of no account, or else regarding as
purely mischievous, the superstitions of the primitive man, we must
inquire what part they play in social evolution ; and must be pre-
pared, if need be, to recognize their usefulness. Already we have
seen that the belief which prompts the savage to- bury valuables with
the corpse and carry food to the grave has a natural genesis ; that
the propitiation of plants and animals and the "worship of stocks
and stones " are not gratuitous absurdities ; and that slaves are sacri-
ficed at funerals in pursuance of an idea which seems rational to unin-
structed intelligence. Presently we shall have to consider in what
way the ghost-theory has operated politically ; and, if we should find
reason to conclude that it has been an indispensable aid to social evo-
lution, we must be ready to accept the conclusion.

Knowledge of the miseries that have for countless ages been
everywhere caused by the antagonisms of societies must not prevent
us from recognizing the all-important part which these antagonisms
have played in civilization. Shudder as we must at the cannibalism
which all over the world in early days was a sequence of war ; shrink

POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS— PRELIMINARY. 3

as we may from the thought of those immolations of prisoners which
have, tens of thousands of times, followed battles between wild
tribes ; read as we do with horror of the pyramids of heads and the
whitening bones of slain peoples left by barbarian invaders ; hate, as
we ought, the militant spirit which is even now among ourselves
prompting base treacheries and brutal aggressions— we must not let
our feelings blind us to the proofs we meet with, that intersocial con-
flicts have furthered the development of social structures.

Moreover, dislikes to governments of certain kinds must not pre-
vent us from seeing their fitnesses to their circumstances. Though
rejecting the common idea of glory, and declining to join soldiers
and schoolboys in applying the epithet " great " to conquering des-
pots, we detest despotism ; though we regard their sacrifices of their
own peoples and of alien peoples in pursuit of universal dominion as
gigantic crimes — we must yet recognize the benefits occasionally aris-
ing from the social consolidations they achieve. Neither the massa-
cres of subjects which Roman emperors directed, nor the assassinations
of relatives habitual among potentates in the East, nor the impover-
ishment of whole nations by the excessive exactions of tyrants, must
so prejudice us as to prevent appreciation of the benefits which have,
under cei'tain conditions, resulted from the unlimited power of the
supreme man. Nor must the remembrances of torturing implements,
and oubliettes, and victims built into walls, shut out from our minds
the evidence that abject submission of the weak to the strong, how-
ever unscrupulously enforced, has in some times and places been ne-
cessary.

So, too, Avith the associated ownership of man by man. Absolute
condemnation of slavery must be withheld, even if we accept the tra-
dition repeated by Herodotus, that to build the Great Pyramid relays
of a hundred thousand slaves toiled for twenty years ; or even if we
find it true that, of the serfs compelled to work at the building of St.
Petersburg, three hundred thousand perished. Though aware that the
unrecorded sufferings of men and women held in bondage are beyond
imagination, we must, nevertheless, preserve a mental state receptive
of such evidence as there may be that benefits have resulted.

In brief, trustworthy interpretations of social arrangements imply
an almost passionless consciousness. Though feeling can not and
ought not to be excluded from the mind when otherwise contemplating
them, yet it ought to be excluded when contemplating them as natural
phenomena to be understood in their causes and effects.

Maintenance of this mental attitude will be furthered by keej^ing
before ourselves the truth that in human actions the absolutely bad
may be relatively good, and the absolutely good may be relatively
bad.

Though it has become a commonplace that the institutions under

4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

which one race prospers will not answer for another, the recognition
of this truth is by no means adequate. Men who have lost faith in
"paper constitutions," nevertheless advocate a policy toward inferior
races, implying the belief that civilized social forms can with advan-
tage be imposed on uncivilized peoples ; that the arrangements which
seem to us vicious are vicious for them ; and that they would benefit
by institutions — domestic, industrial, or political — akin to those which
we find beneficial. But acceptance of the truth that the type of a soci-
ety is determined by the natures of its units, forces on us the corollary
that a regime intrinsically of the lowest may yet be the best possible
under primitive conditions.

Otherwise stating the matter, we must not substitute our developed
code of conduct, which predominantly concerns private relations, for
the undeveloped code of conduct which predominantly concerns pub-
lic relations. Now that life is generally occupied in peaceful inter-
course with fellow-citizens, ethical ideas refer chiefly to actions be-
tween man and man ; but, in early stages, while the occupation of life
was mainly in conflicts with adjacent societies, such ethical ideas as
existed referred almost wholly to intersocial actions : men's deeds
were judged by their direct bearings on tribal welfare. And since
preservation of the society takes precedence of individual preserva-
tion, as being a condition to it, we must, in considering social phe-
nomena, interpret good and bad rather in their earlier senses than in
their later senses ; and so must regard as relatively good that which
furthers survival of the society, great as may be the suffering inflicted
on individuals.

Another of our ordinary conceptions has to be much widened be-
fore we can rightly interpret political evolution. The words "civil-
ized" and "savage" must have given to them meanings differing
greatly from those which are current. That broad contrast usually
drawn wholly to the advantage of the men who form advanced na-
tions, and to the disadvantage of the men who form single groups, a
better knowledge obliges us profoundly to qualify. Characters are to
be found among rude peoples which compare well with those of the
best among cultivated peoples. With little knowledge, and but rudi-
mentary arts, there in some cases go virtues which might shame
those among ourselves whose education and polish are of the highest.

Surviving remnants of some primitive races in India have natures
in which truthfulness seems to be organic. Not only to the surround-
ing Hindoos, higher intellectually and relatively advanced in culture,
are they in this respect far superior, but they are superior to Europe-
ans. Of certain of these Hill peoples it is remarked in India that their
assertions may always be accepted with perfect confidence ; which is
more than can be said of diplomatists who intentionally delude, or
ministers who make false statements concerning cabinet transactions.

POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS— PRELIMINARY, 5

As having this trait may be named the Santals, of whom Hunter says,
" They were the most truthful set of men I ever met " ; and, again, the
Sowrahs, of whom Shortt says : " A pleasing feature in their character is
their complete truthfuhiess. They do not know how to tell a lie." Not-
withstanding their sexual relations of a primitive and low type, even
the Todas are described as considering " falsehood one of the worst of
vices." Though Metz says that they practice dissimulation toward
Europeans, yet he recognizes this as a trait consequent upon their in-
tercourse with Europeans ; and this judgment coincides with one given
to me by an Indian civil servant concerning other Hill tribes, originally
distinguished for their veracity, but who are rendered less veracious
by contact with the whites. So rare is lying among these aboriginal
races when unvitiated by the " civilized," that, of those in Bengal,
Hunter singles out the Tipperahs as " the only Hill tribe in which this
vice is met with."

Similarly in respect of honesty, some of those peoples classed as
inferior read lessons to those classed as superior. Of the Todas just
named, ignorant and degraded as they are in some respects, Harkness
says, " I never saw a people, civilized or uncivilized, who seemed to
have a more religious respect for the rights of meum and tuum.^'' The
Marias (Gonds), " in common with many other wild races, bear a
singular character for truthfulness and honesty." Among the Khonds
"the denial of a debt is a breach of this principle, which is held to
be highly sinful. 'Let a man,' say they, 'give up all he has to his
creditors.' " The Santal, who " never thinks of making money by a
stranger," prefers to have " no dealings with his guests ; but when his
guests introduce the subject he deals with them as honestly as he
would with his own people ... he names the true price at first." The
Lepchas " are wonderfully honest, theft being scarcely known among
them." And the Bodo and Dhimals are "honest and truthful in deed
and word." Colonel Dixon dilates on the "fidelity, truth, and hon-
esty " of the Carnatic aborigines ; and they show " an extreme and
almost touching devotion when put upon their honor." And Hunter
asserts of the Chakmas, that "crime is rai-e among these primitive
people. . . . Theft is almost unknown."

So it is, too, with the general virtues of these and sundry other
uncivilized tribes. The Santal "possesses a happy disposition," is
" sociable to a fault," " courteous," but " at the same time firm and
free from cringing" ; and, while the "sexes are greatly devoted to
each other's society," the women are "exceedingly chaste." The
Bodo and Dhimals are "full of amiable qualities, and almost entirely
free from such as are unamiable." The Lepcha, " cheerful, kind, and
patient," is described by Dr. Hooker as a most "attractive com-
panion " ; and Dr. Campbell gives " an instance of the effect of a very
strong sense of duty on this savage." In like manner, from accounts
of certain of the Malayo-Polynesian societies, and certain of the Pap-

6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

uan societies, may be given instances showing in high degrees sundry
traits which we ordinarily associate only with a human nature that
has been long subject to the discipline of civilized life and the teach-
ings of a superior religion. One of the latest testimonies is that of
Signor D'Albertis, who describes certain New Guinea people he visited
(near Yule Island) as strictly honest, " very kind," "good and peace-
ful," and who, after disputes between villages, "are as friendly as
before, bearing no animosity " ; but of whom the Rev. W. G. Lawes,
commenting on Signor D'Albertis's communication to the Colonial
Institute, says that their good-will to the whites is being destroyed by
the whites' ill-treatment of them : the usual history.

Contrariwise, in various parts of the world, men of several types
yield proofs that societies relatively advanced in organization and
culture may yet be barbarous in their ideas, sentiments, and usages.
The Feejeeans, described by Dr. Pickering as among the most intelli-
gent of unlettered peoples, are among the most ferocious. " Intense
and vengeful malignity strongly marks the Feejeean character." Lying,
treachery, theft, and murder are with them not criminal, but honor-
able ; infanticide is immense in extent ; strangling the sickly habitual ;
and they sometimes cut up while alive the human victims they are
going to eat. Nevertheless they have a " complicated and carefully
conducted political system " ; well-organized military forces ; elaborate
fortifications ; a developed agriculture with succession of crops and
irrigation ; a considerable division of labor ; a separate distributing
agency with incipient currency ; and a skilled industry which builds
canoes that carry three hundred men. Take again an African society,
Dahomey. We find there a finished system of classes, six in number ;
complex governmental ari'angements with oflicials always in pairs ; an
army divided into battalions, having reviews and sham-fights ; prisons,
police, and sumptuaiy laws ; an agriculture which uses manure and
grows a score kinds of plants ; moated towns, bridges, and roads with
turnpikes. Yet along with this comparatively high social develop-
ment there goes what we may call organized criminality. Wars are
made to get skulls with which to decorate the royal palace ; hundreds
of subjects are killed when the king dies ; and five hundred are an-
nually slaughtered to carry messages to the other woi-ld. Described
as cruel and bloodthirsty, liars and cheats, the people are " void either
of sympathy or gratitude, even in their own families," so that "not
even the appearance of affection exists between husband and wife, or
between parents and children." The New World, too, furnished,
when it was discovered, like evidence. Having great cities of one
hundred and eighty thousand houses, the Mexicans had also cannibal
gods, whose idols were fed on warm, reeking, human flesh, thrust into
their mouths — wars being made purposely to supply victims for them ;
and with skill to build stately temples, big enough for ten thousand
men to dance in their courts, there went the immolation of twenty-

POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS— PRELIMINARY. 7

five hundred persons annually, in Mexico and adjacent towns alone,
and of a far greater number throughout the country at large. Simi-
larly, in the populous Central American states, sufficiently civilized
to have a developed system of calculation, a regular calendar, books,
maps, etc., there were like extensive sacrifices of prisoners, slaves, chil-
dren, whose hearts were torn out and offered palpitating on altars, and
who, in other cases, were flayed alive and their skins used as dancing-
dresses by the priests.

Nor need we seek in remote regions or among alien races for
proofs that there does not exist a necessary connection between the
social types classed as civilized and those higher sentiments which
we commonly associate with civilization. The mutilations of prisoners
exhibited on Assyrian sculptures are not surpassed in cruelty by any
we find among the most bloodthirsty of wild races ; and Rameses II,
who delighted in having himself sculptured on temple-walls through-
out Egypt as holding a dozen captives by the hair, and striking off
their heads at a blow, slaughtered during his conquests more human
beings than a thousand chiefs of savage tribes put together. The
tortures inflicted on captured enemies by red Indians are not greater
than were those inflicted of old on felons by crucifixion, or on sus-
pected rebels by sewing them up in the hides of slaughtered animals,
or on heretics by smearing them over with combustibles and setting
fire to them. The Damaras, described as so utterly heartless that
they laugh on seeing one of their number killed by a wild beast,
are not worse than were the Romans, who made such elaborate pro-
visions for gratifying themselves by watching wholesale slaughters in
their arenas. If the numbers destroyed by the hordes of Attila were
not equaled by the numbers which the Roman armies destroyed at the
conquest of Selucia, and by the numbers of the Jews massacred under
Hadrian, it was simply because the occasions did not permit. The
cruelties of Nero, Gallienus, and the rest may compare with those of
Genghis and Timour ; and, when we read of Caracalla that, after he had
murdered twenty thousand friends of his murdered brother, his sol-
diers forced the Senate to place him among the gods, we are shown
that in the Roman people there was a ferocity not less than that which
deifies the most sanguinaiy chiefs among the worst of savages. Nor .
did Christianity greatly change matters. Throughout media3val Eu-
rope political offenses and religious dissent brought on men carefully
devised agonies equaling if not exceeding any inflicted by the most
brutal of barbarians.

Startling as the truth seems, it is yet a truth to be recognized, that
increase of humanity does not go on ^:)«ri 2^ttssu with civilization ; but
that, contrariwise, the earlier stages of civilization necessitate a rela-
tive inhumanity. Among tribes of primitive men, it is the more brutal
rather than the more kindly who succeed in those conquests which
effect the earliest social consolidations ; and, through many subsequent

8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

stages of social evolution, unscrupulous aggression outside of the soci-
ety and cruel coercion within are the habitual concomitants of politi-
cal development. The men of whom the better organized societies
have been formed were at first, and long continued to be, nothing else
but the stronger and more cunning savages ; and even now, when
freed from those influences which supei'ficially modify their behavior,
they prove themselves to be little better. If, on the one hand, we con-
template the utterly uncivilized Wood-Veddahs, who are described as
" proverbially truthful and honest," " gentle and affectionate," " obey-
ing the slightest intimation of a wish, and very grateful for attention
or assistance," and of whom Pridham remarks, " What a lesson in
gratitude and delicacy even a Veddah may teach ! " and then if, on
the other hand, we contemplate our own recent acts of international
brigandage, accompanied by the slaughter of thousands who have
committed no wi'ong against us — accompanied, too, by perfidious
breaches of faith and by the killing of prisoners in cold blood — we
can not but admit that, between the types of men classed as uncivilized
and civilized, the differences are not necessarily of the kind commonly
supposed. Whatever relation exists between moral nature and social
type is not such as to imply that the social man is in all respects emo-
tionally superior to the pre-social man.

" How is this conclusion to be reconciled with the conception of
progress ? " most readers will ask. " How is civilization to be justi-
fied if, as is thus implied, some of the highest of human attributes are
exhibited in greater degrees by wild people who live scattered in pairs
in the woods, than by the members of a vast, well-organized nation,
having marvelously elaborated arts, extensive and profound knowl-
edge, and multitudinous appliances to welfare ? " The answer to this
question will best be conveyed by an analogy.

As carried on throughout the animate world at large, the struggle
for existence has been an indispensable means to evolution. Not sim-
ply do we see that, in the competition among individuals of the same
kind, survival of the fittest has from the beginning furthered produc-
tion of a higher type, but we see that to the unceasing warfare be-
.tween species are mainly due both growth and organization. Without
universal conflict there would have been no development of the active
powers. The organs of perception and of locomotion have .been little
by little evolved during the interaction of pursuers and pursued. Im-
proved limbs and senses have furnished better sui^plies to the viscera,
and improved visceral structures have insured a better supply of
aerated blood to the limbs and senses ; while a higher nervous system
has at each stage been required for duly coordinating the actions of
these more complex structures. Among predatory animals death by
starvation and among animals preyed upon death by destruction have
carried off the least favorably modified individuals and varieties.

POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS— PRELIMINARY. 9

•

Every advance in strength, speed, agility, or sagacity in creatures of
the one class, has necessitated a corresponding advance in creatures of
the other class ; and without never-ending efforts to catch and to
escape, with loss of life as the penalty for failure, the progress of
neither could have been achieved.

Mark now, however, that while this merciless discipline of nature,
" red in tooth and claw," has been essential to the evolution of sentient
life, its persistence through all time with all creatures must not be
inferred. The high organization evolved by and for this universal
conflict is not necessarily for ever employed to like ends : the result-
ing power and intelligence admit of being far otherwise employed.
Not for offense and defense only are the inherited structures useful,
but for various other purposes ; and these various other purposes may
finally become the exclusive purposes. The myriads of years of war-
fare which have developed the powers of all lower types of creatures
have bequeathed to the highest type of creature the powers now used
by him for countless objects besides those of killing and avoiding
being killed. His teeth and nails are but little employed in fight ; and
his mind is not ordinarily occupied in devising ways of destroying
other creatures, or guarding himself from injury by them.

Similarly with social organisms. We must recognize the truth
that the struggle for existence between societies has been instrumental
to their evolution. Neither the consolidation and reconsolidation of
small social groups into large ones, nor the organization of such com-
pound and doubly compound groups, nor the concomitant develop-
ments of all those aids to a wider and higher life which civilization
has brought, would have been possible without intertribal and inter-
national conflicts. Social cooperation is initiated by joint defense and
offense ; and from the cooperation thus initiated all kinds of coopera-
tions have arisen. Inconceivable as have been the horrors caused by
this universal antagonism which, beginning with the chronic hostilities
of small hordes tens of thousands of years ago, has ended in the occa-
sional vast battles of immense nations, we must nevertheless admit that
without them the world would still have been inhabited only by men
of feeble types, sheltering in caves and living on wild food.

But now observe that the intersocial struggle for existence which
has been indispensable in evolving societies will not necessarily play
in the future a part like that which it has played in the past. Recog-
nizing our indebtedness to war for forming great communities and
developing their structures, we may yet infer that the acquired powers,
available for other activities, will lose their original activities. While
conceding that without these perpetual bloody strifes civilized societies
could not have arisen, and that an adapted form of human nature,
fierce as well as intelligent, was a needful concomitant, we may at the
same time hold that, such societies having been produced, the brutality
of nature in their units which was necessitated by the process, ceasing

lo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

to be necessary with the cessation of the process, will disappear.
While the benefits achieved during the predatory period remain a per-
manent inheritance, the evils, social and individual, entailed by it will
decrease and slowly die out.

Thus, then, contemplating social structures and actions from the
evolution point of view, we may j)reserve that calmness which is need-
ful for scientific interpretation of them, without losing our powers of
feeling moral rei^robation or approbation.

To these preliminary remarks respecting the mental attitude to
be preserved by the student of political institutions, a few briefer
ones must be added respecting the subject-matters he has to deal
with.

If societies were all of the same species, and differed only in
their stages of growth and structure, comparisons would disclose
clearly the course of evolution ; but unlikenesses of type among
them, here great and there small, obscure the results of such com-
parisons.

Again, if each society grew and unfolded itself without the intru-
sion of additional factors, interpretation would be relatively easy ; but
the complicated processes of development are frequently recomplicated
by sudden changes in the sets of factors. Now the size of the social
aggregate is all at once increased or decreased by annexation or by
loss of territory ; and now the average character of its units is changed
by the coming in of another race as conquerors or as slaves ; while, as
a further incident of this change, new social relations are superposed
on the old. In many cases, the repeated overrunnings of societies by
one another, the minglings of peoples and institutions, the breakings
up and reaggregations, so destroy the continuity of normal changes
as to make it extremely difficult if not impossible to draw con-
clusions.

Once more, change in the average mode of life j^ursued by a so-
ciety, now increasingly warlike and now increasingly industrial, initi-
ates metamorphoses : changed activities generate changes of structures.
Hence, there have to be distinguished those progressive rearrange-
ments which belong to the further development of one social type,
from those caused by the commencing development of another social
type. The lines of an organization adapted to a mode of activity that
has ceased, or has been long suspended, begin to fade, and are traversed
by the increasingly definite lines of an organization adapted to the
mode of activity which has i-eplaced it ; and error may result from
mistaking traits which belong to the one for those which belong to
the other.

Hence we may infer that, out of the complex and confused evi-
dence, only the larger truths are likely to emerge with clearness.
While anticipating that certain general conclusions are to be positively

THE SUN'S HEAT. ii

established, we may anticipate that more special ones can be alleged
only as probable.

Happily, however, as we shall eventually see, those general con-
clusions admitting of positive establishment are the conclusions of
most value for guidance.

THE SUN'S HEAT.

By Professor C. A. YOUNG,

OF PRINCETON, N. J.

THERE has been a prevailing idea for many years, founded upon
Brewster's fallacious experiments, that thermal, luminous, and
chemical rays are fundamentally different, though coexistent in the
sunbeams. This is erroneous : it is true, indeed, that rays whose vi-
brations are too slow to be seen produce powerful heating effects, and
that those which are invisible because they are too raj^id have a strong
influence in determining certain chemical and physical reactions ; but
it is also true that the visible rays are capable of producing the same
effects to a greater or less degree, and there is some reason for think-
ing that certain animals can see by rays to which the human retma is
insensible. There is absolutely no philosophical basis for distinction
between the visible and invisible radiations of the sun, except in the
one point of vibration-frequency — their ^j>z*^c7i, to use the analogy of
sound. The expressions thermal, luminous, and chemical rays are
apt to be misleading. All the waves of solar radiation are carriers of
energy, and when intercepted do work, producing heat, or vision, or
chemical action, according to circumstances.

If the amount of solar light is enormous as compared with terres-
trial standards, the same thing is still more true of the solar heat,
which admits of somewhat more accurate measurement, since we are
no longer dependent on a so imsatisfactory unit as the "candle-
power," and can substitute thermometers and balances for the human
eye.

It is possible to intercept a beam of sunshine of known dimensions,
and make it give up its radiant energy to a weighed mass of water or
other substance, to measure accurately the rise of temperature pro-
duced in a given time, and from these data to calculate the whole
amount of heat given off by the sun in a minute or a day.

Pouillet and Sir John Herschel seem to have been the first fairly
to grasp the nature of the problem, and to investigate upon the sub-
ject in a rational manner.

Herschel's experiments were made in 1838 at the Cape of Good
Hope, where he was then engaged in his astronomical work. He pro-
ceeded in this way : A small tin vessel, containing about half a pint

12 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of water, carefully weighed, was placed on a light wooden support,
touching it at only three points. This was put inside of a considera-
bly larger cylinder, also of tinned iron ; this outer cylinder having a
double cover with a hole in it — the cover large enough to shade the
sides of the vessel, and the hole a little less than three inches in diam-
eter. A delicate thermometer was immersed in the water, with a sort
of dasher of mica for the purpose of stirring it and keeping the tem-
perature uniform throughout the mass. The ajij^aratus was so placed
and adjusted that the whole of the light and heat passing through
the hole in the cover would fall upon the surface of the water, the
sun at that time (December 31st) being within 12° of the zenith at
noon.

This apparatus was placed in the sunshine and allowed to stand for
ten minutes, shaded by an umbrella, and the slight rise in the tempera-
ture of the water was noted. Then the umbrella was removed and. the
solar rays were allowed to fall upon the water for the same length of
time, and the much larger rise of temperature was noted ; finally, the
apparatus was again shaded and the change for ten minutes again ob-
served. The mean between the effects in the first and last ten-minute
intervals can be taken as the measure of the influence of other causes
besides the sun, and, deducting this from the rise during the ten min-
utes' insolation, we have the effect of the simple sunshine.

Herschel's figures for his first experiment run as follows :

Eise of temperature in first ten minutes 0*25°

" " " " second ten minutes (sun) 3-90

" " " " third ten minutes OlO

The mean of the first and third is 0*17°, and this deducted from the
second gives 3*73° Fahr. as the rise of temperature produced by a sun-
beam three inches in diameter, absorbed by a mass of matter equiva-
lent to 4,638 grains of water. (We do not indicate the minutiae of the
process by which the weight of the tin vessel, thermometer, stirrer,
etc., are allowed for.) Nothing more is now necessary to enable us to
compute just how much heat is received by the earth in a day or a year,
except, indeed, the determination of the very troublesome and some-
what uncertain correction for the absorption of heat by the earth's
atmosphere ; a correction deduced by means of observations made at
varying heights of the sun above the horizon.

Herschel preferred to express his results in terms of melting ice,
and put it in this way :

The amount of heat received on the earth's surface, with the sun
in the zenith, would melt an inch thickness of ice in two hours thirteen
minutes, nearly.

Since there is every reason to believe that the sun's radiation is
equal in all directions, it follows that, if the sun were surrounded by a

THE SUN'S HEAT. 13

great shell of ice, one inch thick and 186,000,000 miles in diameter,
its rays would just melt the whole in the same time.

If, now, we suppose this shell to shrink in diameter, retaining,
however, the same quantity of ice by increasing its thickness, it would
still be melted in the same time. Let the shrinkage continue until
the inner surface touches the photosphere, and it would constitute an
envelope more than a mile in thickness, through which the solar fire
would still thaw out its way in the same two hours and thirteen min-
utes ; at the rate, according to Herschel's determinations, of more than
forty feet a minute. Herschel continues that, if this ice were formed
into a rod 45*3 miles in diameter, and darted toward the sun with the
velocity of light, its advancing point would be melted off as fast as
it approached, if by any means the whole of the solar rays could be
concentrated upon it. Oi", to put it differently, if we could build up
a solid column of ice from the earth to the sun, two miles and a quar-
ter in diameter, spanning the inconceivable abyss of ninety-three mil-
lions of miles, and if then the sun should concentrate his power upon
it, it would dissolve and melt, not in an hour nor a minute, but in a
single second ; one swing of the pendulum, and it would be water ;
seven more, and it would be dissipated in vapor.

In formulating this last statement we have, however, employed,
not Herschel's figures, but those resulting from later observations,
which increase the solar radiation about twenty-five per cent., giving
fifty feet, and not forty feet, as the thickness of the ice-crust which the
sun would melt off of his own surface in a minute. An easy calcula-
tion shows that to produce this amount of heat by combustion would
require the hourly burning of a layer of anthracite coal about sixteen
feet (five metres) thick over the entire surface of the sun — four fifths
of a ton per hour on each square foot of surface — at least eight times
as much as the consumption of the most powerful blast-furnace known
to art. It is equivalent to a continuous evolution of more than seven
thousand horse-power on every square foot of the sun's whole area.
As Sir William Thomson has shown, the sun, if it were composed of
solid coal and produced its heat by combustion, would burn out in less
than six thousand years.

Of this enormous outflow of heat the earth of course intercepts
only a small portion, about ^^-o^o-q. But even this minute fraction
is enough to melt yearly at the equator a layer of ice something over
one hundred and ten feet thick. If we choose to express it in terms
of " power," we find that this is equivalent, for each square foot of sur-
face, to more than sixty tons raised to the height of a mile ; and, taking
the whole surface of the earth, the average energy received from the
sun is over fifty mile-tons yearly ; or one horse-power, continuously
acting, to every thirty square feet of the earth's surface. Most of
this, of course, is expended merely in maintaining the earth's tempera-
ture ; but a small portion, perhaps -j^ of the whole, as estimated by

H

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Ilelmholtz, is stored away by animals and vegetables, and constitutes
an abundant revenue of power for the whole human race.*

If we inquire what becomes of that principal portion of the solar
heat w^hich misses the planet, and passes off into space, no certain
answer can be given. Remembering, however, that space is full of

isolated particles of matter (which we encoun-
ter from time to time as shooting-stars), we
can see that nearer or more remotely in its
course each solar ray is sure to reach a rest-
ing-place. Some have attempted to maintain
that the sun sends heat only toward its plan-
ets ; that the action of radiant heat, like that
of gravitation, is only between masses. But
all scientific investigation so far shows that
this is not the case. The energy radiated
from a heated globe is found to be alike in
all directions, and wholly independent of the
bodies which receive it, nor is there the slight-
est reason to suppose the sun any way differ-
ent in this respect from every other incandes-
cent mass.

Pouillet's experiments were made about
the same time as Herschel's, but with a differ-
ent apparatus, though based on the same prin-
ciples. He named his instrument the pyrhe-
liometer, or measurer of solar fire. Fig, 1
rejDresents it. The little snuffbox-like vessel,
a b, of silver-plated coppei-, blackened on the
upper surface, contains a weighed quantity of water, and a thermome-
ter is immersed in it, the mercury in its stem being visible at cl. The
disk e e makes it easy to point the instrument squarely to the sun
by directing it so that the shadow of a falls concentrically upon this
disk. The button at the lower end is for the purpose of agitating the
water in the vessel a a, by simply turning the whole thing on its
axis in the collar c c. The instrument is much more convenient than
Herschel's apparatus, but hardly as accurate, except under very care-
ful manipulation.

* Several experimenters have contrived machines for the purpose of utilizing the solar
heat as a source of mechanical energy, among whom Ericsson and Moucbot have been
most successful. M. Pifre describes in a recent number of the "Comptes Eendus " some
results from a machine of Mouchot's construction, claiming to have utilized more than
eighty per cent, of the heat which falls on the mirrors of the instrument : something
over twelve calories to a square metre. We do not mean, of course, that this percentage
of the total solar energy appeared as mechanical power in the engine, but only in its
boiler. The machine had a mirror surface of nearly one hundred square feet, and gave
not quite a horse-power. It is very possible that such machines will find useful applica-
tion in the rainless I'cgions like Egypt and Peru.

Fig. 1.

THE SUN'S HEAT. 15

Tyndall has modified it by filling the upper vessel with mercury,
which is a better conductor of heat than water.

For relative measurements, as for instance a comparison of the
amounts of heat received from the sun at different hours of the day,
Crova employs a slightly different instrument, of which Fig. 2, copied
from his paper in the " Annales de Chiraie " for February, 1880, is a
representation.

An exceedingly sensitive alcohol thermometer, shown separately at
T, with a large bulb carefully blackened, is inclosed in a double-walled
sphere B, nickel-plated on the outside. An opening in the walls of
the sphere, carefully aligned with a similar opening in a double screen
E, allows a beam of light to fall upon the thermometer-bulb, the beam
being about two thirds the diameter of the bulb. The themometer is
constructed with a supplementary reservoir, r, at the lower end, by
means of which the end of the indicating column can be made to fall
near the middle of the scale at any temperature, the object being to
measure only changes of temperature, not absolute temperatures. The
bulb and tube are so proportioned that a degree on the scale is nearly
half an inch long, thus permitting great accuracy of reading.

In order, however, to determine just how much heat is required to
raise the thermometer of this instrument 1°, it is necessary to compare
it with one of the standard instruments, by exposing it to the sun at
the same time.

This method of procedure, by which we determine the rate at
which a sunbeam of given dimensions communicates heat to a mea-
sured mass of matter, is known as the dynamic method ; it is some-
what inconvenient in requiring considerable time and a number of
readings.

There is a different process for deducing the same results, which
has been employed by Waterston, Ericsson, Secchi, Violle, and others,
and may be called the statical method. It consists essentially in
observing how much the sun will raise the temperature of a body,
exposed to its rays, above that of the inclosure in which it is placed,
this inclosure being kept at a fixed and known temperature by the
circulation of water, or some such means.

Instruments based on this principle are called actinometers. Of
these probably the most complete in its arrangements is that of Violle,
described in his paper upon the mean temperature of the sun's surface,
published in the "Annales de Chimie " in 1877. We give a diagram of
the instrument (Fig. 3). It consists of two concentric spheres of thin
metal ; the outer, twenty-three centimetres in diameter, the inner, fifteen
centimetres. The outer is polished on the outside, the inner is blackened
on the inside. The space between the two spheres is filled with water,
which is kept at a uniform temperature, either by mixing snow or ice
with it, or else by a current circulated through it by means of the
stopcocks tt. A sensitive thermometer, T, has its blackened bulb

i6

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

placed in the center of the inner sphere, the stem reaching outside
through a tubulure provided for the purpose. Two opposite openings,
shown in the figure, allow a beam of sunlight to pass through the
globes. A perforated screen at D limits its diameter so that none of
it shall touch the walls of the vessel, though the thermometer -bulb is
entirely covered by it. A small screen at M allows the observer to see
the shadow of the thermometer-bulb, and so to perceive whether the
tube through which the light enters is properly directed. If the ap-
paratus is mounted upon what is called an equatorial stand, like a tele-
scope, and provided with clock-work, the whole labor of observation
will consist merely in reading the thermometer. The difference be-
tween its temperature and that of the water in the surrounding shell
gives the necessary data for calculating the intensity of the solar radi-
ation at the time of reading ; since the heat received by the thermome-
ter from the sun and shell together must just equal that radiated back
by the thermometer-bulb to the shell, after allowing for the orifices.

Fig. 2.— Cbova's Ptrheliometer.

Violle found that at noon, on a fair day, the thermometer of this
apparatus generally stood, when exposed to the sun, from 10*5° to
12-5° centigrade (i. e., 18-9° to 22'5° Fahr.) above the temperature of
the shell when the latter was filled with ice-water. If it were filled
with boiling water, as in some of his experiments, the difference be-
came about 1° C. less.

The results obtained with instruments of this class of course agree
very closely with those reached by the dynamic method.

It need hardly be said that the amount of heat received from the
sun in a minute by a given area exposed to its radiation varies widely

THE SUN'S HEAT. 17

according to the altitude of the sun and the condition of the air ; in-
deed, the most difficult part of the experimental problem lies in the
determination of the corrections to be applied on account of the ab-
sorption of the earth's atmosphere. It would take us too far to dis-
cuss the formulae and methods of calculation which have been proposed.
They are necessarily very complicated^those, at any, rate which are
tolerably accurate in their results — because they have to take into ac-
count the meteorological conditions, especially the hygrometric state
of the air. Besides this, the absorption varies greatly for radiations
of different pitch ; so that the violet rays, which are photographically
the most active, suffer more than the green and yellow, which are
most effective in the growth of plants ; and these more than the red ;
and the red, in their turn, much more than the low-pitched, slowly
vibrating waves which, though invisible, are still the chief carriers
of energy, and do more to warm and vivify the earth than all the
others.

Speaking loosely, it may be estimated that at the sea-level, in fair
weather, neither excessively moist nor dry, about thirty per cent, of the
solar radiation is absorbed when the sun is at the zenith, and at least
seventy-five per cent, at the horizon. Of the rays striking the upper
surface of the atmosphere, between forty-five and fifty per cent., there-
fore, are generally intercepted in the air, even when there are no
clouds.

Of course, it does not follow that the heat absorbed in our atmos-
phere is lost to the earth. Far from it : the air itself becomes warmed
and communicates its heat to the earth ; and, since the atmosphere in-
tercepts a large proportion of the heat which the earth would radiate
into space, if not thus blanketed, the temperature of the earth is kept
much higher than it would be if there were no air.

It is now generally customary to express the intensity of the solar
radiation in a somewhat different way from that which has been in-
dicated. Instead of stating how much ice would be melted in a min-
ute by a given sunbeam, we give the number of calories * received
per minute by one square metre exposed perpendicularly to the sun's
rays at the upper surface of the atmosphere. This number is called
the solar constant, and according to different experimenters ranges
from Pouillet's estimate, 17'6, to that of Forbes, who found 28"2. The
most reliable recent determinations by Crova and Violle set it at 23 '2
and 25'4 respectively. Probably 24 is very near the truth, though
there remains a considerable amount of uncertainty, since the results
obtained by the same observer on different days, after all possible
pains is taken with the corrections, are even more discordant than the
numbers given above. A continued series of observations at some
very elevated station would improve the data.

* The calory is that quantity of heat which will raise the temperature of one kilo-
gramme of water from 0° to 1° centigrade.
VOL. XTIII. — 2

i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

Experiments with the thermopile show that the heat radiated by
the solar disk varies, like the light, very considerably from the center
to the edges. The first observations of this kind were made by Pro-
fessor Henry, at Princeton, in 1845, and have since been repeated by
many others, Secchi and Langley especially. According to Langley,
the heat emitted from a point about 20" from the limb is only one half
that from the same extent of surface at the center of the disk ; the
diminution of heat being notably less than that of light, as shown by
Vogel's observations. Langley's table runs as follows, the first column
giving the distance from the center of the disk, and the second the
intensity of radiation shown by the thermopile :

Distance from Center. neat-Kadiation.

0-00 100

0-25 99

0-50 95

0-75 . 86

0-95 62

0-98 50

Besides this regular variation of the radiation from center to edge,
Secchi in 1852 found, or thought he found, a notable difference between
the radiation from the equator of the sun and that from the higher lati-
tude, the difference being at least one sixteenth between the equator
and latitude 30°. The northern hemisphere he also found to be a lit-
tle hotter than the southern. Later investigators (Langley especially)
have failed to find any such difference ; and on the whole it seems
probable that Secchi was mistaken ; though this is not certain, as it
would be quite unsafe to assert that the actual condition of the sun's
surface may not have changed between 1852 and 1876.

In connection with the absorption of the solar atmosphere, Langley
has ventured some interesting speculations. After showing that varia-
tions in the number and magnitude of sun-spots can not directly pro-
duce any sensible effect upon terrestrial temperatures, he calls atten-
tion to the fact that even slight changes in the dej^th and density of
the sun's absorbing layer would make a great difference ; and he raises
the question whether we may not find here the explanation of glacial
and carboniferous periods in the earth's history. It is quite certain
that, were the envelope removed, the solar radiation would be at least
doubled, and perhaps increased in a much higher ratio ; while any con-
siderable increase of its thickness would so diminish our heat-supply
as to give us perpetual winter.

As yet our means of observation have not sufficed to detect with
certainty any variations in the amount of heat emitted by the sun at
different times. That there are such variations is almost certain, since
the nuclei of sun-spots radiate much less heat as well as light than
neighboring regions of the solar sui'face, and the faciiljB more ; this
has been directly determined with the thermopile. The whole amount

THE SUN'S HEAT.

19

of variation in the total heat-supply has, however, proved too small for
measurement with our present instruments, and science waits anxiously
for apparatus and methods of delicacy adequate to deal with the prob-
lem. We are as yet entirely uncertain whether, at the time of a sun-spot
maximum, the solar radiation is more or less powerful than ordinary.

There has been a great deal of pretty vigorous discussion as to the
temperature of the sun, and that the subject is a difficult one is evi-
dent enough from the wide discrepancy between the estimates of the
highest authorities. For instance, Secchi originally contended for a
temperature of about 18,000,000° Fahr. (though he afterward lowered
his estimate to about 250,000) ; Ericsson puts the figure at 4,000,000

Q

a

Fig. 3.— Viollb's Actinometek.

or 5,000,000 ; Zollner, Spoerer, and Lane name temperatures ranging
from 50,000° to 100,000° Fahr. ; while Pouillet, Vicaire, and Deville
have put it as low as between 3,000° and 10,000° Fahr. The intensest
artificial heat may perhaps reach 4,000° Fahr.

The difficulty is twofold. In the first place, the sun can not prop-
erly be said to have a temperature, any more than the earth's atmos-
phere can. The temperature of different portions of the solar enve-
lope must vary enormously, increasing fast as we descend below the
surface ; so that in all probability there may be a difference of thou-
sands of degrees between the temperature at the upper surface of the
photosphere and that at the sun's center, or even at the depth of a
few thousand miles.

20 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

We may, however, partially evade this difficulty by substituting as
the object of inquiry the sun's effective temperature : i. e., instead of
seeking to ascertain the actual temperature of different parts of the
sun's surface, we may inquire what tempei'ature would have to be
given to a uniform surface of standard radiating power (a surface cov-
ered with lampblack is generally taken as this standard) and of the
same size as the sun, in order that it might emit as much heat as the
sun actually does. In this waywe obtain a perfectly definite object
of investigation. But the problem still remains very difficult, and has
obtained as yet no entirely satisfactory solution. The difficulty lies
in our ignorance as to the laws which connect the temperature of a
surface with the amount of heat radiated per second. So long as the
temperature of the radiating body does not much exceed that of sur-
rounding space, the heat emitted is very nearly proportional to the ex-
cess of temperature. The extremely high values of the solar tempera-
ture asserted by Secchi and Ericsson depend upon the assumption of
this law (known as Newton's) of proportionality between the heat ra-
diated and the temperature of the radiating mass ; a law which direct
experiment proves to be untrue as soon as the temperature rises a little.
In reality, the amount of heat radiated increases much faster than the
temperature.

More than forty years' ago the French physicists Dulong and Petit,
by a series of elaborate experiments, deduced an emj^ii-ical formula,
which answered pretty satisfactorily for temperatures up to a dull-red
heat. By applying this formula, Pouillet and Vicaire and others ar-
rived at the low solar temperatures assigned by them. It is, however,
evidently unsafe to apply a purely empirical formula to circumstances
so far outside the range of the observations upon which it was found-
ed, and, in fact, within a few years several experimenters, Rosetti espe-
cially, have shown that it needs modification even in the investigation
of artificial temperatures, like that of the electric arc. Rosetti, from his
observations, has deduced a different law of radiation, and by its aj^pli-
cation finds 10,000° Cent, or 18,000° Fahr. as the effective temperature
of the sun ; a result which, all things considered, seems more reason-
able and better founded than any of the earlier estimates. He consid-
ers that this is also pretty nearly the actual temperature of the upper
layers of the photosphere. The radiating power of the photospheric
clouds, to be sure, can hardly be as great as that of lampblack, but on
the other hand their radiation is supplemented by that of other layers,
both above and below.

Besides the data as to the intensity of the solar temperature obtained
by calculation from the measured emission of heat, we have also direct
evidence of a very impressive sort. When heat is concentrated by a
burning-glass, the temperature at the focus can not rise above that of
the source of heat, the effect of the lens being simply to move the
object at the focus virtually toward the sun ; so that, if we neglect the

THE SUN'S HEAT. 21

loss of heat by transmission through the glass, the temperature at the
focus should be the same as that of a point placed at such a distance
from the sun that the solar disk would seem just as large as the lens
itself viewed from its own focus.

The most powerful lens yet constructed thus virtually transports
an object at its focus to within about 250,000 miles of the sun's sur-
face, and in this focus the most refractory substances — platinum, fire-
clay, the diamond itself — are either instantly melted or dissipated in
vapor. There can be no doubt that, if the sun were to come as near us
as the moon, the solid earth would melt like wax.

In 1878 Professor Langley made a careful comparison between the
radiation of the sun and that of the molten metal in a Bessemer "con-
verter " when at its greatest heat. By a very ingenious arrangement
he brouffht the solar heat and that from the metal to confront each
other upon the faces of a thermopile ; and he found that, even neglect-
ing all corrections for the loss of solar heat by transmission through
the smoky atmosphere of Pittsburgh, and by the reflections which
brought it to his apparatus, the sun's radiation was eighty-seven times
as powerful as that from the converter, surface for surface. Had the
just corrections been ascertained and applied (a matter, however, of
extreme difficulty, and even impossible under the circumstances), the
ratio would be increased from eighty-seven to more than one hundred
certainly, and pei'haps to one hundred and fifty.

As to the temperature of the metal in the converter. Professor
Langley considers that it must have been above that of the fusion of
platinum, because platinum wire held over the mouth of the converter
just before pouring, or in the stream of metal, melts immediately.
There may be some question, however, whether the melting of the
wire really indicates quite so high a temperature, since fluid iron and
its vapor attack platinum in something the same way as mercury and
its vapor attack gold and silver. Similar conclusions as to the inten-
sity of the solar temperature follow from investigations by Soret and
others, as to the penetrating power of the sun's rays ; and from a
comparison with artificial sources of heat in respect to the relative
proportion of the rays of different wave-lengths in the total radia-
tion. A body of low temperature emits an enormous proportion of
slowly vibrating, invisible vibrations, while, as the temperature rises,
the shorter waves become proportionally more and more abundant.
Thus, in the composition of a body's radiation, we get some clew to
its temperature. Hitherto all such tests concur in putting the sun's
temperature high above that of any known terrestrial flame.

And now we come to questions like these : How is such a heat
maintained ? How long has it lasted already — how long will it con-
tinue— are there any signs of either increase or diminution ? — ques-
tions to which, in the present state of science, only somewhat vague
and unsatisfactory replies are possible.

22 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

As to progressive changes in the amount of the solar heat, it can be
said, however, that there is no evidence of anything of the sort since
the beginning of authentic records. There have been no such changes
in the distribution of plants and animals within the last two thousand
years, as must have occurred if there had been within this period any
appreciable alteration in the heat received from the sun. So far as can
be made out, with few and slight exceptions, the vine and olive grow
just where they did in classic days, and the same is true of the cereals
and the forest-trees. In the remoter past there have been undoubt-
edly great changes in the earth's temperature, evidenced by geological
records ; carboniferous epochs, when the temperature was tropical in
almost arctic latitudes ; and glacial periods, when our now temperate
zones were cased in sheets of solid ice, as northern Greenland is at
present. Even as to these changes, however, it is not yet certain
whether they are to be traced to variations in the amount of heat emit-
ted by the sun, or to changes in the earth herself or in her orbit. So
far as observation goes, we can only say that the outpouring of the
solar heat, amazing as it is, appears to have gone on unchanged through
all the centuries of human history.

What, then, maintains the fire ? It is quite certain, in the first place,
that it is not a case of mere combustion. As has been said only a few
Images back, it has been shown that even if the sun were made of solid
coal, burning in pure oxygen, it could only last about six thousand
years — it would have been nearly one third consumed since the begin-
ning of the Christian era. Nor can the source of its heat lie simply in
the cooling of its incandescent mass. Huge as it is, its temperature
must have fallen more than pei'ceptibly within a thousand years if this
were the case.

Two different theories have been proposed, which are probably both
true to some extent. One of them finds the chief source of the solar
heat in the impact of meteoric matter, the other in the slow contrac-
tion of the sun. As to the first, it is quite certain that some of the
solar heat is produced in that way ; but the question is, whether the
supply of meteoric matter can be sufiScient to account for any great
proportion of the whole. As to the second, on the other hand, there
is no question as to the adequacy of the hypothesis to account for the
whole supply of solar heat ; but there is as yet no direct evidence
whatever that the sun is really shrinking.

The basis of the meteoric theory is simply this : If a moving body
be stopped, either suddenly or gradually, a quantity of heat is gener-

mv'' .
ated, which may be expressed, in calories, by the formula •— -, m which

m is the mass of the body in kilogrammes, and v its velocity in metres
per second : a body weighing 850 kilogrammes and moving one metre
per second would, if stopped, develop just one calory of heat — i. e.,
enough to heat one kilogramme of water from freezing-point to 1° centi-

THE SUN'S HEAT. 23

grade ; if it were moving 500 metres per second (about the speed of a
cannon-ball), it would produce 250,000 times as much heat, or enough
to raise the temperature of a mass of water equal to itself nearly 300°
C. If it were moving, not 500 metres per second, but about 700,000
(approximately the velocity with which a body would fall into the
sun from any planetary distance), the heat produced would be 1,400 x
1,400, or nearly 2,000,000 times as great — sufficient to bring a mass
of matter many thousand times greater than itself to most vivid in-
candescence, and immensely more than could be produced by its com-
plete combustion under any conceivable circumstances. With refer-
ence to this theory, Sir William Thomson has calculated the amount
of heat which would be produced by each of the planets in falling into
the sun from its present orbit. The results are as follows, the heat
produced being expressed by giving the number of years and days
through which it would maintain the sun's present expenditure of
energy :

Tears. Days.

Mercury 6 219

Venus.' 83 326

Earth 95 19

Mars 12 259

Jupiter 32,254

Saturn 9,652

Uranus 1,610

Neptune 1,890

Total , 45,604

That is, the collapse of all the planets upon the sun would generate
sufficient heat to maintain its supply for nearly 46,000 years.

A quantity of matter equal to only about one one hundredth of the
mass of the earth, falling annually upon the solar surface, would there-
fore maintain its radiation indefinitely. Of course, this increase of the
sun would cause an acceleration of the motion of all the planets — a
shortening of their periods ; since, however, the mass of the sun is
330,000 times that of the earth, the yearly addition would be only one
thirty-three millionth of the whole, and it would require centuries to
make the effect sensible. The only question, then, is whether any
such quantity of matter can be supposed to reach the sun. While it
is impossible to deny this dogmatically, it on the whole seems improb-
able, for astronomical reasons. If so large a quantity of matter annu-
ally falls upon the solar surface, it is necessary to suppose a vastly
greater quantity circulating around the sun, between it and the planet
Mercury. The process by which the orbit of a meteoric body is so
changed as to make it enter the solar atmosphere is a very slow one ;
so that only a very small proportion of the whole could be caught in
any given year. But, if there were near the sun any considerable
quantity of meteoric matter — anything like the mass of the earth, for

24 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

instance — it ought to produce a very observable effect upon the mo-
tions of the planet Mercury — an effect not yet detected.*

For this reason astronomers generally, while conceding that a por-
tion, and possibly a considerable fraction, of the solar heat may be ac-
counted for by this hypothesis, are disposed to look further for their
explanation of the principal revenue of solar energy. They find it in
the probable slow contraction of the sun's diameter, and the gradual
liquefaction and solidification of the gaseous mass. The same total
amount of heat is produced when a body moves against a resistance
which brings it to rest gradually, as if it had fallen through the same
distance freely and been suddenly stopped. If, then, the sun does con-
tract, heat is necessarily produced by the process ; and that in enor-
mous quantity, since the attracting force at the solar surface is more
than twenty-seven times as great as gravity at the surface of the earth,
and the contracting mass is so immense.

In this process of contraction, each particle at the surface moves
inward by an amount equal to the whole diminution of the solar
radius, while a particle below the surface moves less, and under a
diminished gravitating force ; but every particle in the whole mass
of the sun, excepting only that at the exact center of the globe, con-
tributes something to the evolution of heat. To calculate the precise
amount of heat developed, it would be necessary to know the law of
increase of the sun's density from the surface to the center ; but
Helmholtz, who first suggested the hypothesis, in 1853, has shown
that, under the most unfavorable suppositions, a contraction of about
250 feet a year in the sun's diameter — a mile in twenty-one years —
would account for its whole annual heat-emission. This contraction is
so slow that it would be quite imperceptible to observation. It would
require 9,500 years to reduce the diameter a single second of arc (since
1" equals 450 miles at the sun's distance), and nothing less would be
certainly detectable.

Of course, if the contraction is more rapid than this, the mean
temperature of the sun must be actually rising notwithstanding the
amount of heat it is losing. Observation alone can determine whether
this is so or not.

If the sun were wholly gaseous, we could assert positively that it
must be growing hotter ; for it is a most curious, and at first sight
paradoxical, fact, first pointed out by Lane in 1870, that the tempera-
ture of a gaseous body continually rises as it contracts from loss of
heat. By losing heat it contracts, but the heat generated by the con-
traction is more than sufficient to keep the temperature from falling.

* Leverrier considered that he had detected in the motions of Mercury an irregularity
of the kind indicated, but much smaller. It was such as, according to his calculations,
would be accounted for by the action of one or several planets, whose aggregate mass
should be much less than that of the earth. It was on this basis that he founded his
strong belief in the existence of the intra-mercurial planet, Vulcan.

THE SUN'S HEAT. 25

A gaseous mass, losing heat by radiation, must, therefore, at the same
time, grow both smaller and hotter, until the density becomes so great
that the ordinary laws of gaseous expansion reach their limit, and con-
densation into the liquid form begins. The sun seems to have arrived
at this point, if, indeed, it were ever wholly gaseous, which is ques-
tionable. At any rate, so far as we can now make out, the exterior
portion — i. e., the jihotosphere — appears to be a shell of cloudy matter,
precipitated from the vapors which make up the principal mass, and
the progressive contraction, if it is indeed a fact, must result in a con-
tinual thickening of this shell and the increase of the cloud-like portion
of the solar mass.

This change from the gaseous to the liquid form must also be ac-
companied by the liberation of an enormous quantity of heat, sufficient
to materially diminish the amount of contraction needed to maintain
the solar radiation.

Of course, if this theory of the source of the solar heat is correct,
it follows that in time it must come to an end ; and, looking backward,
we see that there must also have been a beginning : time was when
there was no such solar heat as now, and the time must come when it
will cease.

We do not know enough about the amount of solid and liquid
matter at present in the sun, or of the nature of this matter, to calcu-
late the future duration of the sun with great exactness, though an
approximate estimate can be made. The problem is a little compli-
cated, even on the simplest hypothesis of purely gaseous contraction,
because, as the sun shrinks, the force of gravity increases, and the
amount of contraction necessary to generate a given amount of heat
becomes less and less ; but this difficulty is easily met by a skillful
mathematician. According to Newcomb, if the sun maintains its
present radiation, it will have shrunk to half its present diameter in
about five millions of years, at the longest. As it must, when reduced
to this size, be eight times as dense as now, it can hardly then continue
to be mainly gaseous, and its temperature must have begun to fall.
Newcomb's conclusion, therefore, is, that it is hardly likely that the
sun can continue to give sufficient heat to support life on the earth
(such life as we now are acquainted with, at least) for ten millions of
years from the present time.

It is possible to compute the past of the solar history upon this
hypothesis somewhat more definitely than the future. The present
rate of contraction being known, and the law of variation, it becomes
a purely mathematical problem to compute the dimensions of the sun
at any date in the past, supposing its heat-radiation to have remained
unchanged. Indeed, it is not even necessary to know anything more
than the present amount of radiation and the mass of the sun, to com-
pute how long the solar fire can have been maintained at its present
intensity by the process of condensation. No conclusion of geometry

26 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

is more certain than that the contraction of the sun, from a diameter
even many times larger than that of Neptune's orbit to its present
dimensions, if such a contraction has actually taken place, has furnished
about eighteen million times as much heat as the sun now supplies in
a year ; and, therefore, that the sun can not have been emitting heat
at the present rate for more than that length of time, if its heat has
been generated in this manner. If it could be shown that the sun has
been shining as now for a longer time than that, the theory would be
refuted ; but, if the hypothesis be true, as it probably is in the main,
we are inexorably shut up to the conclusion that the total life of the
solar system, from its birth to its death, is included in some such space
of time as thirty millions of years : no reasonable allowances for the
fall of meteoric matter, based on what we are now able to observe, or
for the development of heat by liquefaction, solidification, and chemi-
cal combination of dissociated vapors, could raise it to sixty millions.

At the same time it is, of course, impossible to assert that there
has been no catastrophe in the past — no collision with some wandering
star, endued, as Croll has supposed, like some of those we know of
now in the heavens, with a velocity far surpassing that to be acquired
by a fall, under the sun's attraction, even from infinity — producing a
shock which might in a few hours, or moments even, restore the wasted
energy of ages. Neither is it wholly safe to assume that there may
not be ways of which we yet have no conception, by which the energy
apparently lost in space may be returned, and burned-out suns and
I'un-down systems restored ; or, if not restored themselves, be made
the germs and material of new ones to replace the old.

But the whole course and tendency of things, so far as science now
makes out, points backward to a beginning and forward to an end.
The present order of things appears to be limited in either direction
by terminal catastrophes, which are veiled in clouds as yet impene-
trable.

■♦ » »

EDUCATION AS A HINDKANCE TO MANUAL OCCU-
PATIONS.*

By Professor SILVANUS P. THOMPSON.

THERE can not be two opinions as to the prejudicial influence ex-
erted upon the industrial interests of Great Britain by the unsat-
isfactory state into which the question of apprenticeship has been
gradually drifting, and out of which it has not yet begun to rise anew.
Out of harmony with the necessities and conditions of the times, a relic
of days long past, ere the steam-engine, or perhaps even the printing-

* Extract from an article in the September " Contemporary Review," entitled " The
Apprenticeship of the Future."

EDUCATION AS A HINDRANCE. 27

press, had rendered great manufacturing industries possible, the sys-
tem of apprenticeship, which has been handed down to us from our
forefathers, is so strangely at variance with the most obvious prin-
ciples of sound educational science, to say nothing of sound economic
theory, that there is little wonder that it has fallen into discredit, and
that the legal provisions under which it grew and flourished have been
suffered to lapse into a dead letter. Time was when, for the most part,
the skilled artisan, who was master of his trade, worked at home in his
own house, assisted, it might be, by a few younger workmen or jour-
neymen. Into his house and family he would receive one or two young
lads to learn, during a seven years' engagement, the art and mystery
of his craft ; the master himself working and teaching them his work,
feeding and clothing them, and receiving from them in return the
value of the services which, as they became more apt in their work,
they were able to render. The advantages of thorough training by the
continuous care of the master were unquestionably proved by the uni-
versal adoption of the system. The ancient trade guilds grew and
acquired their legal status upon this usage as their very foundation,
and a seven years' apprenticeship formed the one necessary qualifica-
tion for the possession of the right to exercise the following of any
occupation or employment, art or craft, recognized among the handi-
crafts of the time. With the extension of trade and the wider use of
machinery the number and power of the adult employed workmen in-
creased, and with their increase of power came a jealousy, on the
one hand, toward the masters ; on the other, toward the apprentices,
who were regarded as cheapening labor when employed in too great
numbers. The conflict which arose between employer and employed
gradually merged into one between capital and labor. By dint of
strikes the workmen at last prevailed, and, in attempting to bring about
a limitation in the amount of apprenticeship labor, brought about a re-
sult of quite another kind, and one far more disastrous than the evil
sought to be remedied — the destruction of all the best and most impor-
tant features of apprenticeship. Other issues aided in the accomplish-
ment of the course thus entered on. Mr. George Howell has so well
delineated the outlines of the change, that the transcription of a few
of his words will sufiice to complete the tale. " But a change was com-
ing o'er the spirit of the dream : another day was dawning fraught with
still greater issues to the journeymen, for, instead of the old system
of master and craftsmen, there grew up quite another kind of master-
ship and of hiring. The master had already begun to be less the crafts-
man and more of the employer. Capital was fast becoming the great
motive power. Streams were first utilized, then steam ; complicated
machinery was being substituted for hand-labor in many of the grow-
ing industries of the time ; the master no longer worked at the trade
himself, he directed and found the capital. The number of persons
employed was also greatly augmented ; instead of the old fealty be-

28 THE POPULAR SCIUNCE MONTHLY,

tween master and men there came estrangement more and more, until
sometimes the workpeople scarcely ever saw their veritable employer.
Under these circumstances the conditions of apprenticeship were com-
pletely changed, not suddenly, but gradually, until the apprentice be-
came merely the boy worker, with less wages but more solemn engage-
ments than a journeyman. The master to whom he was bound no
longer taught him his trade ; he was, so to speak, pitchforked into the
workshop to pick up his trade as best he could, or to learn it from the
many journeymen who were there employed. It was no one's duty to
teach him ; there was no pay and no responsibility,"

The present state of British commerce brings home the conviction
that it is no idle cry that has sounded ever and anon in our ears, warn-
ing us of the deterioration in the quality of our manufactures and
in the average caliber of our skilled artisans. International exhibitions
have from time to time afforded the means of drawing comparisons
between the work of other nations and our own work ; comparisons by
no means always in our favor, often the reverse. Apprenticeship, with
its wholesome rules, having decaj^ed in everything but form, the lads
who enter the shops are never pi-operly instructed, but are made the
drudges of the older workmen. What wonder that they acquire habits
of idleness and carelessness that not only pursue them through the
whole of their work, but, worse than this, corrupt and undermine their
morals ? What wonder that their manij)ulation is but half acquii'ed,
or that the methods and devices they learn to apply are those of half a
century ago ; ancient relics of prejudice and unscientific " rules of
thumb," handed down by the tradition of the shops, a veritable sur-
vival of the unfittest ? Without the shadow of a doubt the truth that
there is — and alas, that there is — much truth in the outcry concerning
the inferiority of training and capacity of the British artisan, may be
very largely imputed to the relaxation and degeneration of the old
system of apprenticeship ; for, with all its faults, it did at least pro-
vide that a skilled master should become personally responsible for the
training of the apprentice in his craft. In that famous codicil to his
will wherein Benjamin Franklin devised so many thoughtful legacies
to promote the well-being of the land and city of his adoption, he
wrote — and we must remember how intimate and many-sided was his
acquaintance with the condition of labor in his day — these ever-mem-
orable words : ^^ I have considered that, among citize7is, good appren-
tices are most likely to make good citizens.'''' If this be true, seeing
how rare a good apprentice is in the j^resent day, the aphorism instilled
into our ears as schoolboys, Boni cives rari (good citizens are scarce),
threatens to receive a weighty comment from the experience of the
nineteenth century ! Be this as it may, a very little consideration will
show how real is the crisis to be faced, and how irrevocably of the
past the apprenticeship of the past is.

What, then, must be done ? " Apprenticeship is absolutely neces-

EDUCATION AS A HINDRANCE. 29

sary for the purpose of acquiring a practical knowledge of a trade ;
without this there can be no guarantee for good and efficient work-
manship." Such is the dictum of one who speaks with authority from
the point of view of labor, and the sentiment is the expression of that
which all admit. Better education of the children — such, in fact, as
is contemplated by the provisions 'of the Elementary Education Act
of 1870 — may, it is hoped, quicken the intelligence ere the a^e is
reached at which apprenticeship begins : but will it do more '? Nay,
have we not indeed some reason rather to look askance at the work of
the school boards, and the scheme of education which they offer to
our juvenile artisan population ? Coiteris paribus, the better educated
our artisans are, the better workmen will they make ; but we must
take care that the education is of the right sort. Now, what will be
the verdict of future generations on learning that the education which
this great and powerful nation offers to the children of its artisans, to
the class that will form the artisans of the next generation, was of a
character purely literary, in no sense technical or even scientific ? It
is an education which, so far as it goes beyond the three elements of
reading, writing, and arithmetic, is framed in all its essential featm-es
upon an exclusively collegiate type of studies ; grammar, history,
geograi^hy, foreign languages, and the like, being introduced, to the
utter exclusion in all the most important of the successive "Stand-
ards " of any teaching of drawing, of mechanics, of the simplest facts
of science or of natural history — of all, in fact, that most nearly con-
cerns the workman throughout his entire career. In all the construc-
tive trades the greater part of a workman's instructions are given to
him in the form of working drawings. Yet we suffer the budding
artisan to pass through the schools ignorant of the first rudiments of a
science that is as essential to his work as are the four rules of arith-
metic. And ought we, then, to be surprised if, in pursuance of the
system we have deliberately marked out for the rising generation, we
keep our future artisans, till they are fifteen or sixteen, employed in
no other work than sitting at a desk to follow, pen in hand, the literary
course of studies of our educational code, we discover that on arriving
at that age they have lost the taste for manual work, and prefer to
starve on a threadbare pittance as clerks or book-keepers rather than
by the less exacting and more remunerative labor of their hands ? At
the present moment, this tendency to despise a life of honorable man-
ual toil in straining after a supposed gentility would be truly pitiable,
if the proportions it has attained did not awaken more serious appre-
hensions. It is an evil not confined to this country alone, but it is
known, too, in the great cities of the States, of Germany, and of France.
In a recent most able work upon primary education and apprenticeship
in France, M. Salicis, a naval officer and cantonal delegate, speaks in
forcible terms of the distaste for work of the children who leave the
elementary schools of Paris : " These little bureaucrats, boys and girls,

30 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

outlaws from real labor by no fault of their own, come naturally to the
end of their school course with one fear before them — that of being
forced to become workmen and workwomen ; but Avith one wish also,
the boys to become clerks, the girls shopwomen. And hence this un-
defined, uncertain, overstocked class of book-kee2:)ers, cashiers, sales-
men, clerks, agents with a thousalid qualifications, scorning the cap
and blouse for the sake of broadcloth and silk hat ; and the correspond-
ing class, still more to be pitied, of young ladies, of no shop, perhaps,
and some with the coveted bonnet, but, alas ! how pi'ocured ? "

Obviously, with such facts as these staring us in the face, we must
admit a flaAv in the training given in our primary schools if its result
is in so large a number of cases to destroy the natural capacity for
manual labor. The fault is not so much in the amount of education
as in the nature of the studies. For many trades the training of the
hand to work may, and in some must, begin at an earlier age than that
at which many children leave the elementary school. In some trades,
indeed, the masters definitely refuse to take apprentices above a cer-
tain age ; if they did take them the union would interfere. The taste
for manual work is imbibed at a very early age, and there is not want-
ing evidence to prove most distinctly that even a veiy sm'^11 amount
of manual labor introduced into the elementary school serves to keep
alive the capacity for active employment, and the manipulative skill of
the fingers.

The first and most obvious step to be taken to bring about the
iirgently needed remedy is to render at least permissive, if not authori-
tative, a reform more or less sweeping in character in the instruction
given in our elementary schools to boys and girls between the ages of
ten and fourteen. For this class of children the provisions of our ex-
isting educational code could not possibly be more imsatisfactory than
they are, when regarded from the point of view that these children
will in a few months have to work for a part at least of their own
living. The crumbling edifice of apprenticeship is made to repose
upon a basis of literary studies which positively unfit the young ap-
prentice to enjoy the few benefits which that obsolete institution can
still offer.

The case is beset, then, with a double difficulty : that while the old
system of apprenticeship is less and less able to afford a training wor-
thy the name to the child of the artisan, the character of the educa-
tion given him not only does not make up for that which apprentice-
ship can not now give him, but even predisposes him against the
career of manual toil to which apprenticeship is the necessary and only
adequate introduction. The reform needed, then, as a first step, is the
substitution of certain technical and scientific studies for some of the
literary studies at present prescribed. Not that these literary studies
are not in themselves good — quite the reverse ; only, they must be de-
ferred till a little later in the educational course. Among the subjects

THE GLACIAL MAN IN AMERICA. 31

that will in lieu claim prominence are drawing * and the elements of
the physical sciences so far as they can be illustrated by the common
things of every-day life. That is the first and easiest step in reform,
but it it does not probe to its depths the malady : at best it is little
more than skin-deep. The distaste for work on the part of the artisan
children on the one hand and the incapacity and ignorance which re-
sult from the chaotic state of apprenticeship on the other hand alike
call for a more trenchant remedy. It is absolutely necessary, in the
first place, that the children should enter earlier upon manual labor,
that they may gain some skill with their fingers ere they pass the
perilous point at which their taste or distaste for work may be ac-
quired ; and, in the second, that their education, the training of their
mental capacities, should continue till a later period, when their minds
are more matured and their faculties sharpened by experience. The
whole question of technical education lies in the simultaneous solution
of these two problems.

♦»»

THE GLACIAL MAN IN AMEKICA.

By B. F. De COSTA.

IN that distant age when Nature was still toiling at the foundations
of the Eastern Continent, portions of America had become dry land,
and mountain-peaks in North Carolina were illuminated by rising and
setting suns. It is, therefore, an anachronism to speak of America as
the New World, especially when we remember the high antiquity of
the fauna of North America. Still it is believed that the Eastern Con-
tinent was the original abode of man.

But when, or under what circumstances, did America receive her
first human inhabitant ? Heretofore those who have discussed the
question have assigned the event to a comparatively modern period,
and have considered the probability of immigrations from Asia by
Behring Strait ; while others have suggested early transatlantic
movements, or the peopling of America from a lost continent of the
Pacific Ocean. The discovery of stone implements, however, in the
glacial deposits of the Delaware Valley gives a fresh tm-n to the dis-

* I am not here advocating drawing as a fine art, much as we may hope the fine arts
might do for the culture of the future generation, but drawing as a science ; by which I
mean the representation of real objects to scale, as workmen have them represented in
the drawings from which they work ; as, in the higher development, engineers and archi-
tects represent them. As is well known, this is frequently, though erroneously, described
as " mechanical " drawing. Erroneously, for the sketches by which directions to work-
men are conveyed may be of the roughest " free-hand " type provided only they are con-
structed upon the scientific methods in use in all the best workshops, and " figured " —
that is to say, having the various dimensions accurately marked upon them.

32 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

cussion, and carries the question back to remote j^eriods. It is true
that the great antiquity of man on this continent had been maintained
previously, but the evidence was quite unlike what is now offered.
Yet, whatever may be concluded ultimately respecting the antiquity of
the Delaware flints, it is quite ajDparent that the red-man found in
Amei'ica at the period of its rediscovery by Cabot, Vespucci, and
Columbus, was not the descendant of any glacial man. No line of
connection can be made out. This continent does not appear to have
any Kent's Hole like that at Torbay, affording a continuous history,
beginning with the cave-bear and ending with " W. Hodges, of Ire-
land, 1G88." The race that rose to wealth and power in Central
America did not succeed any rude spear-maker. More and more is it
becoming evident that the people of Central America sprang from a
superior race inhabiting the borders, of the Mediterranean. This is
indicated by a certain similarity in manners, customs, architecture, and
religion. Investigations, now in progress, promise to yield the approx-
imate date of the period when the first conquerors of Mexico and Yu-
catan crossed the sea. The Spaniards learned that the people whom
they conquered had themselves figured in the role of invaders, entering
from a country called Tulan oi Tulapan, and overrunning the then
dominant race. It may yet be demonstrated that this took place about
the third year of the Christian era. But who were these earlier in-
habitants ? These we believe were not the descendants of an indige-
nous race, any more than were the later tribes. There is nothing to
show that they were ever connected in America with any glacial or
pliocene man. They might, however, be referred to still more remote
migrations from Europe, which may have taken place in connection
with events that gave rise to the story of the lost continent of At-
lantis, as related by Plato. The so-called aboriginal red-man is com-
paratively a modern, although the author of " Leaves of Grass " asks
concerning " the friendly and flowing savage," is he " waiting for
civilization or past it and mastering it?" However this may be, he is
wandering over the graves of peoples who left no record of their ex-
ploits, either in the continent where they sprung into life or where they
died. It is, indeed, a significant fact that the East furnishes no very
plain tradition of any exodus which peopled America. The prehistoric
emigrant must have been possessed of the idiosyncrasies of those who

" . . . . fold tlieir tents like the Arabs
And silently steal away."

The absence of such traditions is nevertheless not at all surprising,
since the people of antiquity, and notably the Phoenicians, guarded
their distant maritime discoveries with care. Indeed, we wholly mis-
apprehend the spirit of that remote age, in supposing that the navi-
gators would hasten to show the way to new-found lands, and proclaim
their discoveries to all the world. This was not even the spirit of the

THE GLACIAL MAN IN AMERICA. 33

sixteenth century, for at that period, in the spirit of the Tyrian and Si-
donian sailor, the Spaniards and the French had their plans for stopping
the advance of other nations — the one by fortifying the straits of Ma-
gellan, and the other by holding the supposed route to the Indies by
way of the St. Lawrence.

It is now gradually becoming apparent that the peopling of Amer-
ica was accomplished by more than one race of emigrants, and that
at least two distinct expeditions went from Europe to Mexico and
Yucatan before the Spaniards. This question, therefore, has its his-
toric and archaeological side, and consists of a number of very distinct
lines, which are to be studied separately by specialists, in the con-
viction that no one theory or set of facts covers the whole ground.
Several distinct contributions were made by the inhabitants of the
Eastern Continent toward the peopling of America, and, by means of
a cai'ef ul division of labor, we may yet reach some satisfactory solution
of a subject that has so long baffled inquiry. Such studies may be
conducted on strictly scientific principles, as well as those prosecuted
with relation to the story of life in general on this continent ; for, if
we may accept as historic the representation of Professor Marsh, who
pictures the American primates making their way over the miocene
bridge at Behring Strait to Europe, and failing, later, when differenti-
ated, to return, because the bridge had broken down, man alone re-
turning to the country of his " earlier ancestry," it is certainly reason-
able to hope that the origin of those races not connected with the
in-comer by Behring Strait may be satisfactorily explained.

At what period the Atlantic was first crossed by man it is impos-
sible now to conjecture. It was nevertheless navigated in very early
times, and was a sea of light, though at the dawn of history it appears
as the " Sea of Darkness," inspiring no little apprehension and dread ;
while Albinovinus sends out Germanicus upon the sea with a ruit ipsa
dies. Under the circumstances, therefore, the old discussions will be
continued, though the subject of the glacial man in America may be
pursued as something wholly independent.

But was there any glacial man in America ? To this question the
answer is distinct, though given with the reserve which the subject
justifies. For the best that is known, we are chiefly indebted to Dr.
C. C. Abbott, who was the first to call attention to the stone imple-
ments found in the glacial deposits of the Delaware Valley. These
implements are chiefly of argellite, though examples of flint occur at
higher levels. They have been found at the bluffs near Trenton, both
in position where deposited and among the debris at the base. Dr.
Abbott says, " Perhaps it is a wise caution that is exercised in but
provisionally admitting the great antiquity of American man, but,
were these rude implements not attributed to an inter-glacial people,
their coequal age with the containing beds would never have been
questioned." On this point the Curator of the Peabody Museum at

VOL. XVIII, — 3

34 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Cambridge observes, in the tenth annual report : "Dr. Abbott has
probably obtained data which show that man existed on our Atlantic
coast during the time of, if not prior to, the formation of the great gravel
deposit which extends toward the coast from the Delaware River, near
Trenton, and believed to have been formed by glacial action. From a
visit to the locality with Dr. Abbott, I see no reason to doubt the gen-
eral conclusion he has reached in regard to the existence of man in
glacial times on the Atlantic coast of North America."

The support given to Dr. Abbott's conclusions by investigators
stamps them as of high interest, while his own arguments are entitled
to the same respectful consideration. Several of his observations are
not easily set aside. For instance, he says, " if the same age is ascribed
to these i^aleolithic implements and the ordinary Indian relics," then,
as already asked, " how could the one series become imbedded, often
to great depths, and not representatives of any class of weaj^ons, do-
mestic utensils and ornaments ?" It would, indeed, be a singular opera-
tion of Nature, that selected one class of relics only for preservation.
The conclusion is, " that in the essentially unmodified debris of the
terminal moraine in central New Jersey, and in others upon the sur-
face (which, however, are in part only of more recent origin), it is
shown that the occupancy of this portion of our continent by man ex-
tends back into the history of our globe, in all probability to even an
earlier date than the great ice age ; and that the maximum severity of
the climate did not destroy hira ; and that subsequently he tenanted
our seacoast and river-valleys, until a stronger and more warlike race
drove him from our shores."

It is not the purpose of the Avriter, however, to attempt to add any-
thing to the argument, especially as he is assured that the question
now seems to concern the probability of man having existed in Amer-
ica prior to the glacial period. We, therefore, take the evidence as it
stands, leaving its strengthening or overturning, as the event may
prove, to the future, aiming in this article to give a fuller illustration
than has heretofore been attempted of the agreement of the theory
with accepted history ; for, possibly, it may eventually appear that the
glacial man is more closely connected with historic man than could
have been expected.

Professor Marsh observes, that " the evidence, as it stands to-day,
although not conclusive, seems to place the first appearance of man in
this country in the Pliocene," adding that " the best proofs of this are
found upon the Pacific coast." The proofs, however, are a little
shadowy, consisting of a stray bone or two, instead of stone axes and
arrow-heads ; though it is clearer that some of the first inhabitants,
whenever they came, entered from Asia by Behring Strait, the de-
struction of the miocene bridge, which once existed there, not imped-
ing their advance. It is unnecessary, however, to suppose that the
glacial man was unable to find his way westward from Central EurojDe.

THE GLACIAL MAN IN AMERICA. 35

The notion that man in that remote age could not navigate great seas
is simply a notion, and likewise it is a notion that more than anything
else prevents the advance of scientific inquiry respecting the early
colonization of America. Two men in a skiff to-day navigate the en-
tire breadth of the Atlantic, but such a feat forms no new thing under
the sun. In the glacial age communication between Europe and Amer-
ica may have been more easy than is now suspected, while a large por-
tion of the journey may have been made over fields of ice. The
passage of the glacial man from Europe possibly presented no greater
difliculties than the migration of the Esquimaux from Labrador to Green-
land. But, however man may have reached America, the theory that
the Indian peoples sprang from any glacial stock seems untenable.
This, then, necessitates the inquiry respecting the subsequent history
of the primitive inhabitant ; otherwise, what became of him ?

That a people corresponding in the main to the supposed glacial
man once dwelt as far south as New Jersey has been agreed by vari-
ous writers, without any reference to the contents of the glacial de-
posits, of whose existence they did not dream. When, for instance,
we turn to the Icelandic Sagas relating to America, it becomes appar-
ent that the Esquimaux once flourished low down upon the Atlantic
coast.

At the present time historians agree, with great unanimity, that the
continent of America was visited during the tenth and eleventh cen-
turies by Icelanders resident in Greenland. That country was colo-
nized by the Icelanders in the year 985, and when Eric the Red entered
Greenland he found no inhabitants. The third Greenland " Narrative,"
however, says : " They found there, both east and west, ruins of houses
and pieces of boats and stone-work begun. From which it is to be
seen what kind of people lived in Vinland, and which the Greenland-
ers call Skrsellings, and who have been there." * Thus at that early
period the remains in Greenland were identified as works peculiar to
the people of Vinland, a region, according to the Sagas, lying south-
ward toward the forty-first parallel.

The account of what the Icelanders saw in Vinland is found in the
narratives of Leif and others. In 986 one Biarne, when sailing for
Greenland, was blown upon the American coast, and upon his return
carried the report of the country to Greenland. In the year 1000,
Leif Erickson resolved to visit the region seen by Biarne, and, sailing
southward from Greenland, reached the place. The narrative says :
" The country appeared to them of so good a kind that it would not
be necessary for them to gather fodder for the cattle in winter. There
was no frost in winter, and the grass was not much withered." The
observation that there was no frost was simply an exaggeration nat-
ural to an Icelander coming into a country with a climate so unlike
that to which he had been accustomed. Morton wrote home to Eng-

* " Pre-Columbian Discovery of America by the Northmen," p. 20.

36 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

land that coughs and colds were unJcnottm in New England. Leif's
narrative says nothing about any inhabitants ; but, in 1002, Thorvald,
his brother, sailed to Vinland and found some people at a place a little
to the northward of Leif's resort. The Saga says that one day, when
opposite a cape, they " saw three specks upon the sand," and that,
upon examination, they found that these were " three skin-boats with
three men under each boat." Cruelly attacking them for the plunder,
the Icelanders killed eight, while one man escaped with his boat.
They also saw " several eminences which they took to be habitations."
Afterward, they rested and fell asleep on board their vessels, only to
be awakened by the natives, who had been notified by the man that
escaped, and who had now come to avenge the death of their com-
rades. When the alarm was sounded, " an innumerable multitude,
from the interior of the bay, came in skin-boats and laid themselves
alongside." The Northmen at once put up their " war-screens " on
the gunwales, and, the Saga says, "the Skrajllings shot at them for
a while, and then fled away as fast as they could." They did not
retreat, however, before dealing Thorvald, the leader of the expedi-
tion, his death-wound, it being given by an arrow which struck under
his arm. Thorvald was buried on the shore, supposed to be the coast
of Massachusetts Bay.* This is the first recorded collision between
Europeans and those whom we propose to call the descendants of the
glacial man. It shows them as strong and not wanting in the courage
that would fit men for the struggle with nature during the great ice
period that prevailed in America.

In 1006 Thorfinn Karlsefne sailed to Vinland with an expedition,
and reached the place formerly visited by Leif and Thorvald, where
they wintered in a very mild climate. But one spring morning, while
on an exploring expedition, apparently near Long Island Sound, when
" they looked around, they saw a great many skin-boats and poles
swung upon them, and it sounded like reeds shaken by the wind, and
they pointed toward the sun. Then said Karlsefne, ' What may this
mean ? ' Snorre Thorbrandson replied, * It may be that this is a sign
of peace, so let us take a white shield and hold it toward them.' They
did so. Thereupon they rowed toward them and came to land. These
people were swarthy and fierce, and had bushy hair on their heads ;
they had very large eyes and broad cheeks." The Northmen, how.
ever, were not attacked, and remained there until spring, the statement
being that " there was no snow, and all their cattle fed themselves on
the grass." But in the opening of 1009 the Skrsellings returned, offer-
ing "skins and real furs " for red cloth, the Northmen refusing to sell
them swords and spears. Finally, a bull which belonged to the Iceland-
ers began to bellow, when the Skraellings became frightened, and ran
to their boats, rowing away south. At the end of three weeks, nevei'-
theless, " a great number of Skrselling boats were seen coming from

* "Pre-Columbian Discovery of America by the Northmen," p. 41.

THE GLACIAL MAN IN AMERICA. 37

the south like a rushing torrent, all the poles turned from the sun, and
they all yelled very loud." Karlsefne saluted them with his red shield,
the sign of war, " and after this they went against each other and
fought. There was a hot shower of missiles, because the Skraellings
had slings." At the outset, Karlsefne was forced to retreat, but a
rally was made, and the Skraellings retreated. It is also said that
" two men fell on Karlsefne's side, but a number of Ski-sellings." The
Saga states that Karlsefne was overmatched, so many natives appear-
ing that it was difficult to believe that they were real men, but rather
optical illusions. In connection with the fight an incident occurred
which seems to show that the Skriellings belonged to a people of the
stone age ; for one of them found an axe and cut a piece of wood with
it, and thought it was a "fine thing." But when he tried to cut a
stone it broke. Then " they thought it was of no use, because it would
not cut stone, and they threw it away." It would appear from this
that stone was their standard.

Afterward, during a shoi't expedition northward, the Northmen
found " five Skrsellings clad in skins, asleep near the shore. They had
with them vessels containing animal marrow mixed with blood." These
were killed. Soon after they fancied that they saw men with one leg
called " Unipeds," and for this piece of imagination the narrative has
been objected to as unreal, the objector forgetting that the Uniped is a
very ancient institution frequently mentioned by sailors. Charlevoix
reports a St. Malo captain, who, when in America, saw men with " one
leg and thigh." A young Labrador gii'l captured in 1717 told of those
her countrymen who had only one leg.

Finally, Karlsefne decided not to expose his little colony, and pre-
pared to sail for Greenland. On the voyage home they landed in
Markland, supposed to be Nova Scotia, and " found there five Skrael-
lings, and one was bearded, two were females and two boys ; they took
the boys, but the others escaped, and the Skraellings sank down into
the ground " ; that is, disappeared among the hillocks or slipped into
their subterranean dens. The Saga says that the boys were taught
Icelandic and were baptized. They called their mother Vathelldi, and
their father Uvaege. They also said that two kings ruled over the
Skraellings, one being named Avalldania and the other Valldida.
These boys also reported that they had no houses in Markland, but that
the people lived in "caves or holes."

The second narrative of Karlsefne treats the subject of the Skrael-
lings in the same way, except that these people were of " small stat-
ure." The third narrative states that, when the bull (one of the small
Icelandic species) began to bellow, the Skraellings " made off with their
bundles, and these were of furs, and sables, and all sorts of skins ; and
they turned and wanted to go into the houses, but Karlsefne defended
the doors." Also, before the fight commenced there was more trading,
and the women brought out " milk and dairy products," which pleased

38 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

the Skrrellings so much, that, as the Saga says, "they carried away
their winnings in their bellies." Snch is the account that we have of
the Skra^llings in the Sagas relating to America. These peoj^le do not
appear to be referred to again in connection with the voyages, though a
geographical fragment mentions "Helluland," which is called "Skrcel-
lings Land," not far from Vinland the Good.*

The delineation of the people found by the Icelanders in the mild
regions of the Atlantic coast is brief, but it is sufficient to fix their
character. Rafn, when editing the original Icelandic records, pointed
out the fact that these people agree with the Esquimau and Green-
lander of to-day. The critic who supposed that the Saga writer should
have described a people with the characteristics of the red-man fan-
cied that he found an error indicating their unhistorical character.
The Indian, however, was a late comer ui^on the extreme eastern
border of North America. Indeed, the oldest distribution of the
American races does not antedate the tenth century, and therefore the
appearance of the Skrcelling in the Sagas, instead of the Indian, is
precisely what the truth required.

It is hardly necessary to restate the points in the description ; for,
instead of the tall red-man found by later voyagers on the coast, so
gentle, kindly disposed, generous, and hospitable — traits wellnigh
obliterated by subsequent contact with the Avhites — we have men of
short stature, bushy hair, rude, fierce, and devoid of every grace.
Also, here in a country covered with fine forest-trees, the principal
article of value to the Icelander, the people made their boats of skin
like the Greenland kyjaclc, instead of the bark or the trunks of trees,
as often practiced by the Indians, and described by Champlain.f The
men described in the Saga evidently did not know the use of metals,
and they despised the axe when it was found that it would not cut
stone. In the fight with Karlsefne's men they slew Thorbrand with a
flat stone {hellusteinn), perhaps a celt, which they " drove into his
head," thus illustrating, possibly, the rude warfare of the glacial
man. Nor should it be forgotten that, while even in the dead of
"winter the New England Indians wore almost no clothing, these men,
encountered by the Icelanders were clad in furs after the spring had
set in.

Another resemblance is found in the fact that both the Skri^ellings
and the Greenlanders used slings, the latter being mentioned by Davis,
the first European who visited Greenland in modern times. But a still
more valuable fact is mentioned by this writer in connection with the
voyage of 1585. It has already been stated that, when in Vinland,
Karlsefne found that the Skrsellings used to indicate peaceful inten-
tions by pointing certain implements toward the sun, while, when
turned from the sun, they indicated war. Thus in Greenland the
natives, to indicate peaceful intentions, pointed to the sun with their
* " Pre-Columbian Discovery," etc., p. 49. f " ffiuvres," tome iii, pp. 59, 60.

THE GLACIAL MAN IN AMERICA. 39

hands, after striking their breasts, refusing to trust themselves with the
English until the latter had done the same, through one of their num-
ber appointed for the purpose, " who strooke his breast and poynted
to the sunne after their order." Davis thus appears as dealing with
descendants of the glacial man.

If we are correct iu supposing that there was a glacial man, and
that the SkroBllings were descendants of such a glacial man, it follows
that we have in the Sagas four of his words, which may be the old-
est known words of human speech: "Vathelldi," "Uvaege," "Avall-
dania," and "Valldida," the names of the parents of the Ski-aelling
boys and of the two kings. At least, in a recent note addressed to the
writer, Professor Max Miiller says that there is nothing in the lan-
guage of the Esquimaux to prevent us from assigning it to an antiq-
uity as high as that of the supposed glacial man.

During the eleventh century the red-man lived upon the North
American Continent, while the eastern border of his territory could
not have been situated far away from the Atlantic coast. In New
England he must have succeeded the people known as Skrsellings.
Prior to that time, his hunting-grounds lay toward the interior of the
continent. In course of time, however, he came into collision with the
ruder people on the Atlantic coast, the descendants of an almost am-
phibious glacial man. Then the coast-dweller, unable to maintain his
position, retreated toward the far north. The northward movement,
however, may have been voluntary in part. During long ages passed
in the companionship of the glacier, the race must have acquired that
taste and fitness for boreal life which clings to the native of the north
to-day, and which makes the Greenlander feel that his country is the
most beautiful in the world.

The advance guard of the Skraellings had reached Greenland be-
fore Eric the Red arrived in 985. He found there, as we have seen,
both houses and boats, but no inhabitants. It was inferred, at the
time the Saga was committed to writing, that the remains belonged to
a people of the same race as those seen in Vinland at the south. These
early Skroelling visitors had either perished or retired from Greenland.
The Icelanders do not appear to have met any Skraellings in Green-
land until a late period — at least none are mentioned. But in the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries the Skraellings crowded into Labrador
and the regions bordering Baffin's Bay, preparatory to the movement
across to Greenland, though many of them may have crossed to North
Devon and entered at the northwest. It is probable that extreme
necessity was all the while urging them on, the red-man crowding
upon their rear with great energy. This is evident from the fact
that, when the French entered Canada, the region north of the St.
Lawrence was occupied by the Indians. The struggle between the
Indians and the Skraellings was long continued, and one evidence of
the contact may be found in the common use of a certain engine of

40 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

war, which the Saga says was employed by the Skrallings in their
fight with Karlsefne.

It is said, " Karlsef ne's men saw that they raised up on a pole a
very large ball, something like a sheep's paunch, and of a blue color ;
this they swung from the pole over Karlsefne's men upon the ground,
and it made a great noise as it fell down. This caused great fear with
Karlsefne and his men." The statement at first appears curious and
almost childish ; yet in Schoolcraft's work on the Indians (vol. i, p.
83) may be found a description of a similar engine employed in the
ancient times, when the red-man used to sew up a round bowlder in
the skin of an animal, and hang it upon a pole borne by several war-
riors, which, being swung against a group of men, did great execution.
The Skrsellings may, therefore, have acquired the idea in their fights
with the more skillful red-man then pushing his way into their terri-
tory. Pursued by a superior force, we may conchide that the Skrsel-
lings retreated into the north. Dr. Abbott himself is of this opinion,
saying, " When, also, we consider that the several conditions of glacial
times were largely those of Greenland and Arctic America, and that
there is unbroken land communication between the desolate regions of
the latter and our OAvn more favored land, and, more important than
all, that there now dwells in this ice-clad country a race which, not
only in the distant past, but until recently if they do not now, used
stone implements of the rudest jDattern — it is natural to infer that the
traces of a people found here, under circumstances that demonstrate a
like condition of the country during their occuj^ancy, are really traces
of the same people."

That the country as far south as New Jersey was formerly adapted
to boreal tribes is evident from the fact that the walrus has been
found at Long Branch, while the great auk formerly flourished around
the borders of Mount Desert in Maine. Dr. Henry Rink, who for so
many years superintended the Danish interests in Greenland, and who
studied the question without any reference to the glacial man, reached
the conclusion that the "Esquimaux appear to have been the last
wave of an aboriginal American race, which has spread over the con-
tinent from more genial regions, following principally the rivers and
watercourses, and continually yielding to the tribes behind them, until
they have at last peopled the seacoast." Originally their distribution
was very wide, and their language prevails to-day from Greenland to
Labrador and the northeastern corner of Siberia. Professor Dawkins
holds that the paleolithic cave-dwellers of Europe were of the same
race as the Esquimaux or Innuit, though no such connection can be
shown between them as exists between the ancient Skrasllings and the
Esquimaux.

The Icelandic records prove that the conflicts begun with the
Skrsellings in the eleventh century in New England were renewed
in the fourteenth in Greenland. Possibly it is to the Skrajllings that

THE GLACIAL MAN IN AMERICA. 41

the final extinction of the Icelandic colony in Greenland may in part
be attributed. Nevertheless, from the year 985 down to the vicinity
of 1335, the Skrgellings, so far as the records go, do not aj^pear to have
given any trouble. But about that period they suddenly appeared in
force. At that time the western coast of Greenland was divided into
two districts, called the East and West Bygds, there never having
been any Europeans permanently inhabiting the eastern coast, though
the Saga of " Thorgill's Nursling " shows that a family or two of
Skraellings may have dwelt there.

That the Skrcellings appeared in considerable force is indicated by
the fact that an expedition was organized to meet them. The " Chron-
icle " of Ivar Bardsen * shows that Bardsen himself was selected by
the colonists as their commander. This " Chronicle " was composed
during the second half of the fourteenth century, but it is impossible
to say in what year. It is certain, however, that upon the 6th of
August, 1340, Haquin, Bishop of Bergen, in Norway, commissioned
Bardsen to act in Greenland, as the latter was born in that country,
and was perfectly acquainted with all its affairs. His commission is
still preserved at Copenhagen, and a copy may be seen in Rafn's
" Amerikas Arctiske landes gamle Geographie," p. 47. Whether the
Greenland colonists appointed him their leader before or after 1340,
it is impossible now to say. Crantz, in his work on Greenland, inti-
mates that the killing of some eighteen persons by the Skraellings led
to the appointment of Bardsen. The natives gave Crantz a tradition
respecting a fight between their Skraelling ancestors and the colonists,
whom they called " Kablunaets." A quarrel sprang up about shooting
arrows, and blood was shed, the natives declaring that the Kablunaets
were exterminated. This may possibly explain what became of the
remnant of Europeans left in Greenland in the fifteenth century, but
it can not refer to the fourteenth, as the communication was kept up
with Greenland during that period. It was in the year 1379 that the
eighteen colonists were slain. "Islenzkir Annalar," page 331, says,
under that year, that hostile Skraellings invaded Greenland, killing
eighteen men, and carrying away two boys captive. It is probable
that from this time the Skraellings proved formidable, though, when
Bardsen went into the western district to meet them, they were no-
where to be found, having either hid themselves or fled into the inac-
cessible fastnesses of the north. He nevertheless secured some of the
cattle belonging to the colonists, and returned southward to Avhat was
called the East Bygd. In Bardsen's time the West Bygd was evi-
dently abandoned, owing to the weakness of the colonists ; and he
says, in his " Chronicle," that " now the Skraellings inhabit all the
west land and Dorps." It must have been from the deserted West
Bygd that they came to attack the colonists in 1379. The Ice-
landic annals of the fourteenth century mention no more fighting in
* Published by Munsell, Albany, as " Sailing Directions of Henry Hudson."

42 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Greenland, and in the fifteenth century Greenland is not mentioned.
In this manner Old Greenland passed from sight, and it was not until
the seventeenth century that the country was reoccupied by Euro-
peans. Some have supposed that the ancient colony was cut off by
the plague, but the little remnant may have been exterminated by the*
Skra^lings, as the modern natives averred.

The foregoing brief statement of historical facts puts the modern
Esquimaux, or Innuit, in connection with a ^^eople who dwelt along the
temperate regions of the Atlantic coast in the eleventh century. It
also indicates that these rude people were driven by a superior race
into the far north, where they succeeded the Europeans. These peo-
ple were also of very great antiquity. What, then, was their origin ?
Who else could they have been than the descendants of a glacial man ?

It is true that none of the bones exhumed on the Atlantic coast
have been identified as those of the Esquimaux, though if they existed as
late as the eleventh century such remains should be found. Hitherto,
however, they have not been looked for, nearly everything exhumed
being attributed to the red-man as a matter of course. Nevertheless,
there have been those who have not felt satisfied with such a disjiosi-
tion of the whole subject. In many localities of Maine, for instance,
the opinion has prevailed of late that many of the shell-heaps were not
of Indian origin, and that they should be referred to a more ancient
people. Certain indications attracted the attention of the writer long
before any glacial man was spoken of. On this point Dr. Abbott
makes a suggestion, and argues that the stone implements found indi-
cate two races, one much more advanced than the other. He writes :
"W^hen we come to examine a full series of ordinary surface-found
arrow-points, as we gather them by the score from our fields, and oc-
casionally find associated with them a rude implement of the type
of those found in the gravel-beds, we are naturally led to draw some
comparisons between the two widely different forms. The arrow-
heads and others, which from their size may be considered as spear- or
lance-heads, are of two quite different types, being those made of jas-
per, chert, quartz, and rarely of argillite, of a dozen different patterns,
and those of argillite of a nearly uniform pattern, and of larger sizes
as a rule ; all greatly weather-worn, and varying notably from the
arrow-points of other minerals in being of much coarser workman-
ship, and in this respect seeming to be a natural outgrowth of the skill
once exercised only in producing the primitive forms of the glacial
drift."

But what have the modern Greenlanders to say respecting their
origin ? They told Crantz that all the people of the earth originated
from one man, who came from the earth, his wife springing from his
thumb. This may be their version of what their ancestors learned
from the Icelandic colonists who were Christians. Such stories throw
no light ujDon their history, though the Esquimaux gave their family

A FLOCK OF MYTHOLOGICAL CROWS. 43

genealogies for ten generations. There is nevertheless something in
other accounts related by them which may possibly suggest traditions
relating to changes that had taken place upon the globe in the past,
and ti-aditions that might have come down from the glacial period,
when Nature conducted her operations upon such a stupendous scale.
It would appear as though their rude intelligence had argued what
would take place in the future from what had transpired in the past.
For instance, it was their belief at the time the missionary came
among them, that all of the present race would become extinct, and
the earth be broken up by some widely operating force, and then puri-
fied by a vast flood of water, after which the dust of the earth would
be blown together and become more beautiful than before, as the
rocks would disappear, being covered with verdure. Now, in this was
their fancy stimulated by traditions that had come down to them
from glacial ancestors, concerning what we call geological epochs, or
was this also taught them by the Northmen ? It is, perhaps, to be
regretted that we have so few of these relations by the early Green-
lander, as they might have proved useful in connection with the at-
tempt to solve the question of his origin. Nevertheless, the case is
by no means hopeless, and testimony may yet be discovered that will
connect him beyond question with the glacial man.

A FLOCK OF MYTHOLOGICAL CEOWS.

Br W. H. GAEDNEK, M. D.

PERHAPS there are but few persons who have read Poe's " Ra-
ven," or Dickens's "Barnaby Rudge," who have not felt some
curiosity to learn why ravens and crows, more than any other birds,
should be invested with characters so ominous and demoniacal. And
not only do these birds bear this ominous reputation in poetry and
fiction, and in the legends and folk-lore of many of the nations of the
earth, but by the unlearned they are still looked upon as too weird
and uncanny for ordinary birds ; and many a person can be found
even in this age of positivism who would consider a crow lighting
upon his house-top as certain a harbinger of evil as Hesiod did, seven
hundred and fifty years before Christ, when he said to his brother
Perses, " Nor when building a house, leave it not unfinished, lest,
mark you, perching upon it, the cawing crow should croak." *

In this age, our plane of thought is so far above that of our rude
and ignorant ancestors that their superstitions and myths seem too
puerile to merit notice ; but when we study them attentively, with

* Hesiod, " Works and Days."

44 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

the light which comparative mythology is able to throw upon them,
we find that what at first seemed only childish fables are really de-
graded fragments of the religion of our forefathers, and as such they
are surely worthy of the attention of their descendants.

In the infancy of mankind almost every system of mythology in-
cluded the worship or veneration of animals. In one land the deity
was a bull, in another it was a serpent, in yet another it was a bird ;
and in lands like India and Egypt almost every known animal was
either an incarnated deity or demon. The same reasons that caused
the animal to be deified and worshiped would, in a short time, sur-
round its worship with numberless myths and legends, that would be
remembered long after the occasion that called them into existence
had been forgotten. As an instance of this, we need only cite the
return of the Israelites in the desert of Sinai to the worship of the
golden calf — the image of the Apis god of the Egyptians — they jarob-
ably being no more aware that under this eidolon was represented the
sun-god in the zodiacal sign Taurus than were the mass of the Egyp-
tians themselves. Still another reason why these myths and legends
would remain long after their real meaning had been foi'gotten, is due
to the metaphoric nature of all early languages ; and this cause would
act still more strongly if the various shades of meaning of each meta-
phorical term were not limited by accurate writing. Brinton says the
Algonquins, who translated " Michabo " into " The Great Hare," lost
by a false etymology a great part of their religion, the true meaning
of the term undoubtedly being, " The Spirit of the Light " or " The
Dawn." *

The great storehouse of myth and fable for all the Indo-European
nations is the sacred books of the Hindoos ; and it is here, among the
religious beliefs of these old Nature-worshipers recorded away back in
the morning of time, that we should first look for myths concerning
the crow. In this curious pantheism all nature was divided into two
opposing principles : the one containing all that was bright and life-
giving and beneficent for mankind — devas ; the other including all
that was dark and malignant and destructive — demons. Among
these malignant powers of nature, we find frequent mention made of
the crow, and usually associated with such ill-omened animals as the
wolf and the owl. De Gubernatis says that in the Vedic hymns the
term " vrikas " may mean both wolf and crow ; f but we find that,
though the wolf and the crow were equivalent in many respects, and
were both enemies to the devas or bright gods, yet the wolf was
ahcays demoniacal, while the crow in some of its aspects was benig-
nant ; and when the sun-god had finished his daily battle with drag-
ons and monsters, and had sunk into the sleep of death, the crow bore
him on his pinions down into the dismal land of darkness and the

* Brinton, "Myths of the New World," pp. 178, 179.

"I- Angelo de Gubernatis, " Zoological Mythology," vol. ii, p. 250.

A FLOCK OF MYTHOLOGICAL CROWS. 45

dead. In the last book of the " Ramayana," we also find that, when
the gods were fleeing before the demons, Yama, the god of the dead,
borrowed the plumage of the crow in order to escape, in payment for
which service he gave the crow the privilege of eating the funereal
food.

In the Grecian mythology, at least as early as the days of Hesiod,
the character of the crow or raven (Kopa^), as a prophet of evil, had
already been established (see ante, page 43) ; yet we find it here also
sacred to the sun-god and usually associated with the same malignant
animals as in the Hindoo mythology.

Our Hellenic myths say that, " once upon a time, Apollo sent his
feathered attendant, the raven, who was then pure white, to bring
water for sacrifice, but the raven, finding a fig-tree with fruit nearly
ripe, waited until it should mature, and he could appease his hunger ;
then, having to account for his delay, he took a water-snake out of the
fountain, placed it in the pitcher, and brought it to the god, and told
him that the snake had daily drunk the fountain dry. But Apollo was
not to be deceived by any such story, and, as a punishment for his
crime, he turned the raven black, and condemned him to be tormented
with thirst during the season that figs are ripening." *

Another says that " Apollo was in love with a beautiful nymph
of Thessaly named Koronis, but she was false to the god, and was
surprised with another lover by the raven, who flew off without heed-
ing her entreaties and told his master ; the god in a transport of jeal-
ousy slew the faithless damsel, and then, angry at the tattling raven
for bringing him the unwelcome tidings, he turned his plumage
black." t

In the Grecian myth of the battle between the gods and the giants,
Apollo is said to have disguised himself in the plumage of the crow,
as we have before seen was done by Yama, in the Hindoo version of
the story.

In the Roman mythology there were wanting many of the idealistic
conceptions of the Greek mind, and even the glorious Apollo was not
given a place in the Roman pantheon until a late day. Cicero says,
" The whole religion of the Romans at first consisted of sacrifices and
divination by birds." J

Besides the sacred geese and chickens which were always on hand
and kept in proper condition to consummate the " tripndlicm sollsti-
miim,^'' whenever the good of the state required it, the Roman college
of augurs divided all other birds, for the purposes of divination, into
two general classes — Alites, those from which the augury was taken
by observing their direction and manner of flight ; and Oscineo,
those in which the augury was taken from the voice or cry. Of the
latter class none were considered more sacred or more certainly omi-
nous than the crow and raven, though Cicero says, " The croak of a

* Eratosthenes. \ Ovid. X Cicero, " De Nat. Deorum."

46 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

raven on the right hand or a crow on the left was reckoned a good
omen." *

Early Roman history records more than one instance when the
hoarse croak of the raven and warning voice of the crow have been
heard and heeded in the councils of the nation, and sometimes even
turned the doubtful issues of a battle. In the war with the Gauls
which occurred in the consulship of Camillus, Livy tells us that
" when the opposing armies were drawn up ready to join in battle, a
Gaul of gigantic size stepped to the front and defied any one of the
Romans to meet him in single combat. His challenge was accepted by
Marcus Valerius, who was assisted in the fight by a crow, that, sud-
denly appearing, lit on the helmet of the Gaul and attacked him with
beak and talons until Valerius slew him, when the crow flew away to
the east. The death of the Gallic champion brought on a general
battle, in which the Gauls were beaten and forced to retreat. After
this remarkable event, Marcus Valerius was surnamed Corvus." f

Pliny tells of a sedition that occurred in Rome in consequence of
the killing of a raven, and, though we can hardly relegate this prob-
ably historic incident to the domain of mythology, yet it will serve
to show the peculiar veneration in which these birds were held by the
ancient Romans. He says :

"A raven, that had been bred upon the top of the temple of Castor,
flew down into the shop of a shoemaker which stood opposite ; the
shoemaker took much delight in its visits, and taught it to speak, after
which it would fly every morning to the rostra overlooking the forum,
whence, addressing each by name, it would salute Tiberius, then the
Caesars, Germanicus and Di'usus, after which it would greet the Ro-
man people as they passed, and then return to the shop. For many
years it was constant in its attendance ; but at length another shoe-
maker, envious of the popularity of his fellow craftsman, killed it ;
upon which the people became so enraged at the cruel and irreligious
wretch that they drove him from the city and eventually put him to
death. The funeral of the bird was celebrated with almost endless
obsequies ; the body was placed upon a litter carried by Ethiopians,
preceded by a piper, and was borne to the pile with garlands of every
size and description." \

Among the Scandinavian gods, the highest throne was assigned to
Odin — the Alfacler. And, though there was but little in his cruel
and relentless character to remind us of the bright and life-giving
Vishnu, or the glorious and benignant Apollo, yet there is no doubt
but what he was another apotheosis of the sun, only with attributes so
changed as to suit the ideal of a stern and warlike race, who had not
only brute and human foes to contend against, but even to wage con-
tinual war against Nature herself. In the Norse mythology, both

* Cicero, " De Divinatione." t ^ivy, lib. vii, chap. xxvi.

X Pliiiy, " Ilist. Nat.," lib. x, chap. Ix.

A FLOCK OF MYTHOLOGICAL CROWS. 47

wolves and ravens were sacred to Odin. In the j)rose or elder Edda,
which was the sacred book of the Odinic mythology, it is said, " Odin
gives the meat that is set before him to two wolves, called Geri and
Foeki, for he himself stands in no need of food." * And, again : " Two
ravens sit on Odin's shoulders, and whisj^er in his ear the tidings and
events they have heard and witnessed. They are called Hugin and
Miinin (mind and memory). He sends them out at dawn of day to
fly over the whole world, and they return at eve toward meal-time.
Hence it is that Odin knows so many things, and is called the ravens'
god.»t

Turning now to the Semitic tribes, we will find that among them,
also, ravens were held in greater veneration than any of their feathered
congeners ; and more than one mention of them is made in the sacred
chronicle as especial messengers of the prophets. In the Biblical nar-
ration of the deluge, we read : " And it came to pass at the end of
forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had
made ; and he sent forth a raven, which went to and fro, until the wa-
ters were dried up from off the earth." \ And, again, after the proph-
et Elijah had foretold to the wicked King Ahab how the land would
be cursed with drought, the word of the Lord came to him, saying :
" Get thee hence and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook
Cherith that is before Jordan. And it shall be that thou shalt drink
of the brook ; and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there.
So he went and did according to the word of the Lord ; for he went
and dwelt by the brook Cherith that is before Jordan. And the ra-
vens brought him bread and flesh in the morning and bread and flesh
in the evening, and he drank of the brook." §

In the Babylonian legend of the deluge, as given in the fragments
of Berosus, we have also the episode of the birds being sent out to see
if the waters had subsided, but neither the raven nor the dove is es-
pecially mentioned by name ; |j while in the legend as given by the
old Arabian chronicler, Abou-djafar Mohammed Tabiri, he not only
mentions the raven especially being sent forth first, but also gives
the reason of his not coming back : " Noah said to the raven, * Go, and
place your foot on the earth and see what is the depth of the water.'
The raven departed ; but, having found a carcass, it remained to de-
vour it, and did not return. Noah was provoked, and he cursed the
raven, saying, ' May God make thee contemptible among men, and let
carrion be thy food ! ' " ^

We have another legend — of the raven as a. grave-digger — which is
given in Baring-Gould's " Legends of Old Testament Characters " as
follows : " After Abel was slain, Adam and Eve sat beside the body
and wept, and knew not what to do. Then said a raven whose friend
was dead, ' I will teach Adam a lesson.' And he dug a hole in the soil,

* Mallet's " Northern Antiquities," p. 430. f Mallet, he. cit. % Genesis, viii, 6, 7.
§ 1 Kings, xvii, 3-6. || Berosus in Cory's " Ancient Fragments." % Tabiri, c. 12.

48 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and laid his friend there and covered him up. And when Adam saw
this he said to Eve, ' We will do the same with Abel.' God rewarded
the raven for this by promising that none should ever injure his young ;
that he should always have meat in abundance, and that his prayer for
rain should be immediately answered."

From the same source Ave select one more legend, in which the ra-
ven appears as the possessor of a valuable secret, which, upon compul-
sion, it teaches the great king : " While Solomon was building the
temple, he captured lachr, one of the most powerful of all the jinns ;
and, having the demon bound and completely in his control, he prom-
ised him his liberty if he would tell him how the hardest metals could
be cut and shaped without noise. ' I myself know of no means,' an-
swered the demon, ' but the raven can tell thee how to do this. Take
the eggs out of the raven's nest and place a crystal cover upon them,
and thou shalt see how the raven will break it.' Solomon followed
the advice of lachr. A raven came and fluttered some time around
the cover, and, seeing that she could not reach hei" eggs, she vanished,
and returned shortly with a stone in her beak, named iamur or
ichamir, and no sooner had she touched the crystal therewith, than it
clave asunder. 'Whence hast thou this stone?' asked Solomon of the
raven, ' It comes from a mountain in the far west,' replied the bird.
Solomon commanded a jinn to follow the raven to the mountain and
bring him more of those stones. Then he released lachr as he had
promised. When the jinn returned with the stone ichamir, Solomon
went back to Jerusalem, and distributed the stones among the jinns
whom he had employed in building the temple."

In the Egyptian mythology we have no single equivalent of the
gloriovis sun-god of the Greeks ; and, though the Rosetta-stone has ex-
plained to us the mystery of the hieroglyphs, and revealed the long-
hidden meaning of many of the sculptured monuments and half -effaced
papyri of the land of the Pharaohs, yet much of her curious mythology
is a sealed book, and the attributes of some of her unique gods are still
enigmas even to the most learned Egyptologists. Osiris, Aroueris,
(the elder Horus), Harpocrates (the younger Horus), Chnum, Ra, Tum,
and Mentu were all deifications of the sun during some part of the day
or year ; but it is no easy matter to limit the peculiar province of each
god, or give his exact equivalent in Greek thought ; and though He-
rodotus and other Greek writers assert that Horus was the same as the
Greek Apollo, even this throws but little light upon the subject, since
there were two Egyptian gods bearing this name, and several (proba-
bly deified) kings, one of whom restored the worship of the sun, after
it had been forbidden by Amenophis lY, and had been neglected for
nearly one hundred years. However, it is at least certain that Horus
was worshiped by the Egyptians as the embodiment of the sun in a
part of his course, and to him were sacred the hawk, the wolf, and the
crow. Pritchard, quoting from ^olian's " History of Animals," says.

A FLOCK OF MYTHOLOGICAL CROWS. 49

"The Egyptians reverence the hawk as sacred to Apollo, whom they
name, in their language, Horus." *

And again, quoting from the same authority : " The crow also was
sacred to Apollo, or Horus. In the neighborhood of Coptos only two
individual birds of this species were to be seen, which belonged to the
temple of Apollo." f

Coming now to the rude and primitive mythology of the red race
of America, we find here also several tribes by which these birds were
held sacred. And curiously enough, in the Algonquin myth of the
deluge, we find both the raven and the wolf as attendants on Messon,
the Great Spirit. Brinton quotes it from Father Le June as follows :
" One day as Messon was hunting, the wolves which he used as dogs
entered a great lake and were detained there. Messon, looking for
them everywhere, a bird said to him, * I see them in the middle of this
lake.' He entered the lake to rescue them, but the lake overflowing its
banks, covered the land and destroyed the world. Messon, very much
astonished at this, sent out the raven to find a piece of earth wherewith
to rebuild the land, but the bird could find none ; then he ordered the
otter to dive for some, but the animal returned empty ; at last he sent
down the muskrat, who came back with ever so small a piece, which,
however, was enough for Messon to form the land on which we are.
The trees having lost their branches, he shot arrows at their naked
trunks, which became their limbs, revenged himself on those who had
detained his wolves, and, having married the muskrat, by it peopled
the world." |

In the Athapascan myth of the creation, the creative power takes
the form of the raven. Brinton, quoting from McKenzie's " History
of the Fur Trade," says : " With singular unanimity, most of the
Northwest branches of this stock trace their descent from a raven,
a mighty bird whose eyes were fire, whose glances were lightning,
and the clapping of whose wings was thunder. On his descent to
the ocean the earth instantly rose and remained on the surface of
the water. This omnipotent bird then called forth all the variety of
animals." §

And again : " A raven, also, in the Athapascan myth, saved their
ancestors from the general flood, and in this instance it is distinctly
identified with the mighty Thunder Bird, who, at the beginning,
ordered the earth from the depths. Prometheus-like, it brought fire
from heaven, and saved them from a second death by cold." ||

A poetical description of this mythical bird has been given by
Mr. Shelling, and is preserved in Griswold's collection of American
poetry. We have room, however, for only a few lines of the
poem :

* Pritchard, " Egyptian Mythology," p. 317. \ Pritchard, op. cit, p. 819.

X Brinton, " Mji,hs of the New "World," p. 225. § Brinton, op. cit., p. 211.

II Brinton, op. cit., p. 220.
TOL. XVIII.— 4

50 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

"About his burning brow a cloud,
Black as the raven's wing, he wore ;
Thick tempests wrapped him like a shroud,
Eed lightnings in his hand he bore ;
Like two bright suns his eyeballs shone,
His voice was like the cannon's tone ;
And, when he breathed, the land became,
Prairie and wood, one sheet of flame.

"Afar on yonder faint-blue mound.
In the horizon's utmost bound,
At the first stride his foot he set ;
The jarring world confessed the shock.
Stranger, the track of thunder yet '

Remains upon the living rock."*

But besides the more ancient myths concerning crows and ravens, a
volume might be filled with those degraded myths which, under the
names of fairy-tales, or folk-lore {3Iahrcheti), are found in all the lan-
guages of Europe; and though we can not follow each one, step by step,
in its downward career, or trace all its varying phases with the same
certainty that we can the metamorphosis of Odin into the wild hunts-
man of the Hartz, or the dethronement of Jupiter and his decretion
into Jack the Giant-Killer, yet there are always preserved sufficient
distinctive features by which their parentage can be traced.

In the Mecklenburg story of " The Three Crows," in the Grimms'
collection, after Conrad had been beaten by his knavish companions
until he was blind, and then robbed and tied to the gallows-tree, the
three crows that perched over his head at night informed him how he
could regain his sight, cure the sick princess, obtain a supply of water
for the famishing town, and by so doing obtain the king's consent to
marry the princess whom he had saved. f

We rarely discover in any one story so many of the mythological
characteristics of the crow as are associated together here ; the ill-
omened gallows, the black night, the more than human wisdom of the
crows, their knowledge of prophecy, and the healing art befitting Apol-
lo's birds, their power of obtaining water, and lastly their malignant
nature ; for when Conrad's wicked companions sat under the gallows-
tree, hoping to hear the crows tell something for their advantage also,
the crows fell upon them with wings, beaks, and talons, and buffeted
them until they were nearly dead.

In the story of "Faithful John," given in the same collection, we
find the crows hei'e also possessed of more than human wisdom in addi-

* A few mileg from Big Stone Lake, on the borders of Minnesota and Dakota, there is
seen an impression in the rock, similar to the imprint of a bird's foot, with the toes nearly
a yard long ; this track the Dakotas say is the footprint of the TJiunder Bird.

f Grimms' "Popular Tales."

A FLOCK OF MYTHOLOGICAL CROWS. 51

tion to the gift of prophecy. Faithful John, who understands the lan-
guage of the crows, is enabled, by overhearing their colloquy, to save
the lives of the prince and his bride ; his motives, however, are mis-
understood by his royal master, who sends him to the scaffold, where-
upon he tells the prophecy of the crows and explains all his conduct ;
telling the secret, however, seals his fate, and while his master is beg-
ging forgiveness the faithful servant is turned into stone.*

This tale in varying forms is one of the most widely spread of all
the stories of the Aryan tribes. Cox says it comes from the same
source as the Deccan story of Rama and Luxman; and we find a some-
what erratic form of it in the touching little story of Prince Llewellyn
and his faithful hound Gellert.

Philosophers at various times have attempted to account for this
peculiar veneration of animals, which by many of the nations of anti-
quity was heightened into worship, and which, among some of the rude
and barbarous tribes of Africa and the South-Sea Islands, still exists
as almost their only recognition of a religion.f But a bare recital of the
numberless theories would serve no good purpose, and draw out this
article to unnecessary length. There are, however, two theories which
not only seem plausible, but which seem to be supported by the facts
of history and the practices of the savage tribes of the present day.

One is, that zoolatry is an outgrowth of a primitive worship of
ancestors (necrolatry). The other is, that zoolatry as well as heliolatry,
sabaeanism, sex-worship, and probably other cults, are all derived from
a primitive worship of the deified powers of nature (pantheism).

Though history affords many noted examples of the apotheosis of
ancestors, and particularly in the patriarchal form of government, when
the ancestor was also the ruler, yet it is only since the scientific study
of ethnology has become general that the means have been afforded
students of becoming acquainted on any extended scale with the crude
and primitive beliefs of the lower races of man.

After the examination of a great mass of facts bearing upon the
subject, Herbert Spencer arrives at the conclusion that the first ideas
of ghosts or other supernatural beings have arisen in the mind of
primitive man through the agency of dreams, somnambulism, trance,
catalepsy, and other analogous conditions ; and that the same condi-
tions are continually reproducing the same ideas in the minds of his
more civilized descendants. This alter ego, which exists in the dreams
and visions of the primitive man, he believes also exists during the
sleep of death ; and that it is then more j^owerful than during life, and
is able to perform not only all the vagaries and metamorphoses which
he believes have actually occurred during sleep, but is also able to
enter into and take possession of the bodies of animals, and even other
human beings. As the vague notions of ghosts and spirits grow into

* Grimms' " Popular Tales."

f Sir John Lubbock, " Origin of Civilization," chap. v.

52 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

definiteness by the corroborating testimony of other members of the
tribe, there would naturally arise a desire to gain the favor or avert
the displeasure of these powerful beings by gifts and offerings similar
to what would have given pleasure during life ; these offerings would
usually be made at the grave, cave, or house where the dead body was
laid, and thus the tomb would become an altar or temple, as we see
the tomb and temple associated even in civilized communities. In
addition to the belief that the ghost of a dead ancestor or relative has
the power to pass into the body of a beast, is the fact that the lan-
guages of the lower races of man are so imperfect that metaphorical
names require to be interpreted literally, and consequently primitive
speech is unable to transmit to posterity the slight shades of difference
between an animal and a person named after that animal ; moreover,
having no knowledge of proper names, naming after animals, from
some fancied resemblance or association of ideas, is most common,
and hence we find such names as Black-Hawk, Little-Crow, Lone-Wolf,
and Sitting-Bull. In the course of a few generations these animals
would be looked upon as the ancestors of respective tribes, and would
be reverenced and sacrificed to as deities. Besides explaining animal-
gods, this hypothesis accounts for sundry anomalous beliefs, the divini-
ties half -brute and half-human, the animals that talk and play active
parts in human affairs, the doctrine of metempsychosis, etc.*

On the other hand, the pantheistic theory assumes that whatever
caused the sentiment of awe, wonder, or fear, in the mind of primi-
tive man, would be deified and worshiped ; that the first objects that
would excite these emotions would be the sun, moon, and stars, clouds,
wind, rain, thunder, lightning, etc. ; that from their ignorance of even
the rudiments of physical science, together with the want of exactness
of early language and its wealth of metaphor and personification, these
cosmic objects and forces would be conceived of as individual entities,
each having absolute personal volition : and since these metaphoric
names would vary with the varying conception of each one of these
fervent old pantheists, there would thus arise that almost endless
polyonomy which has been the fertile source of so many of the myths
that have puzzled and horrified mankind ever since their origin was
forgotten. Moreover, since all metaphors depend upon some real or
fancied resemblance of things less known to things better known, all
of these deified powers of nature would be invested with forms and
attributes similar to the animals and men with which they were already
familiar, though in a magnified degree ; and from this conception, by
a very natural and usual transition of thought, the human or animal
form, which had at first been sacred only as the eidolon of the god,
would in a short time be thought to possess some intrinsic sanctity
independent of that divine association.!

* Herbert Spencer, " Principles of Sociology," vol. i, chaps, xv to xxv.
f Cox, " Aryan Mythology," vol. i, chapters i to v.

A FLOCK OF MYTHOLOGICAL CROWS. 53

There are many arguments in support of both of these theories, the
chief objection being that either one alone is too exclusive to account
for all the facts ; for, while there can be no doubt that ancestor-worship
was the primitive and only religion of many, possibly all, the tribes of
the earth at the dawn of their civilization, yet it is also certain that
when tribes had formed settled communities, and a higher grade of
culture had been attained, ancestor-worship was supplemented or sup-
planted by a worship of nature.

And since to primeval man none of the powers of nature seemed
so beneficent or worthy of adoration as the sun, helioiatry was one of
the most widely spread of all the religions of antiquity, and the daily
conflict between the sun-god and clouds and darkness a never-ending
theme for poet and priest. And as the incidents of these oft-repeated
battles were handed down orally, from generation to generation, decked
in all the glowing metaphors of exuberant fancy, the real nature of the
deity they described and the celestial battles he waged would gradually
be lost and forgotten, while the metaphoric names and metaphoric inci-
dents would " survive the wreck of time " and come down to historic
ages as actual incidents in the lives of real gods.

And it is in this mythological contest between the sun-god and the
powers of darkness that we will find the origin of the demoniacal char-
acter of crows and ravens, these birds always representing in ancient
thought the dark and terrible night, or the black and howling storm-
cloud, the natural and necessary opponents of all that was bright and
divine and good, of which the sun was the source and origin, Nor
were these metaphors far-fetched or inappropriate, the darkness of
night settling silently down over the calm, still earth might not inaptly
be compared to the descent of some black gigantic bird ; and, to de-
scribe the fierce storm-cloud rushing through the sky " on the wings
of the wind," no metaphor could be more exact than to liken it to a
huge, ravening bird of prey. In most of the myths herein cited, the
cloud seems to be the more exact equivalent of the bird, though in the
earlier Hindoo mythology the cloud and the night are often converti-
ble. The crow, as the metaphoric name of the cloud, also explains the
connection of these birds with water, which we find not only in legends
of the deluge but in many others.

The first Greek myth given is a degraded version of one of the nu-
merous Hindoo myths of the god Indra, who slays the black dragon
that has shut up the fertilizing waters : the lohite raven is the fleecy
cloud of summer that contains no moisture ; but, as autumn advances
and figs ripen, the cloud grows blacker and brings rain. It is worth
noting, also, that the monstrous dragon of India shrinks into an in-
significant water-snake when transported to the less rank soil of
Hellas.

In the Greek myth quoted from Ovid, we have another of those
widely-spread myths of the sun and dawn. Koronis {Kopwviq) is the

54 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

beautiful (crown of light) Aurora, surprised by the morning cloud, the
raven, in the embrace of another lover, the night.

In the Norse mythology the ravens that sit on Odin's shoulders are
the clouds that are seen on either side of the rising sun. As the sun
mounts higher and the heat increases, the clouds are dissipated, to re-
turn again in the evening vs^hen the air is cooler and the sun sinks into
the western sea. The wolves have doubtless the same nebulous origin
as the ravens ; the name of one of them, FreJci, most probably being a
reminiscence if not a direct derivative of the Sanskrit vrikas (wolf),
which, as we have before stated, in the Vedic hymns signifies the black
night or the howling storm-cloud.

In the Semitic languages, from the prolific root arah, one of the
meanings of which is to be black, was formed the Hebrew oreb (raven),
ereb (evening, land of the setting sun), etc. From the same root also
come Erebos and Arabia • hence, on linguistic grounds alone, it is im-
possible to decide whether Elijah was fed by the ravens or the Arabians.

The legend of Schamir is found in most of the languages of Europe,
but in variously modified forms. In one place it is a stone, in another
a worm, and in yet another it is a plant. Their agreement, however,
in the power to rend rocks and to discover hidden treasures shows the
origin of the myth to have been the storm-cloud which carries the
thunderbolt, and with it rends the hardest rocks.

In the Egyptian mythology the reason assigned for dedicating the
hawk to Horus is the bold flight which the bird is observed to make
toward the sun without being dazzled by its rays ; * but the reason for
dedicating the crow to the same god is not so apparent, though it is
probable that under the forms both of the wolf and the crow was rep-
resented the black night as an invariable and necessary follower of the
god of day. .^lian says that in the temple of Apollo at Delphi was
the statue of a wolf, and that the reason the wolf was sacred to this
god was because he was born of Latona, or nursed by her, under this
form.f It was doiibtless ^ wolf of the same species that suckled the
warlike twins of Silvia, at a later age, on the banks of the Tiber.

In both the Hindoo and the Greek mythologies we find the owl
intimately associated with the crow — the owl, like the crow, being one
of the demons of the night ; but, as the owl was the representative of
the bright night, or the moon, there was a constant warfare going on
between them. The Pancatantra describes a battle between the owls
and the crows, the casus belli being the opposition of the crows to the
owl being elected king of birds. Aristotle, too, gravely informs us as
a fact of natural history that " the crow and the owl also are ene-
mies, for at mid-day the crow, taking advantage of the dim sight of
the owl, secretly seizes and devours its eggs, and the owl eats those of
the crow during the night." J

* Pritchard, op. cit, p. 318. f ^lian, "Hist. Animal.," lib. x, chap. xs.

X Aristotle, " Hist. Animal.," lib. ix, chap. ii.

A FLOCK OF MYTHOLOGICAL CROWS. 55

Whether an observance of the habits of crows led to their being
selected, in the first place, to represent the dark and evil principle, can
not now be told, but it is very certain that their feeding upon dead
bodies, frequenting battle-fields and plague-infested districts, would add
to and intensify their ominous reputation, even if it did not originate
it ; moreover, being constantly associated with death in its most repul-
sive forms, and from their keenness of scent and vision being able,
apparently, to foretell the death of an animal or human being, their
very presence soon came to be regarded as a foreboding of evil.

This keenness of scent and vision and their straight, vigorous flight
were taken advantage of by the old Norse sea-rovers, who made use of
these birds as pilots to guide them on their murderous forays and voy-
ages of discovery. According to the " Landnama Book," one of the
earliest records of Iceland, about the year 865 a. d., Floki, one of the
most famous Vikings of that day, having performed a great sacrifice
and consecrated three ravens to Odin, started from Norway on a voy-
age of discovery. After touching at the Shetland and Faroe Islands,
Floki steered northwest for the open sea, and when he was fairly out
of sight of land he turned loose one of his ravens, which, after rising
to a great height, flew off toward the land they had left. From this
Floki concluded that he was nearer these islands than any other land.
After proceeding on his course some days longer he "let fly " another
raven, which, after being some hours on the wing, returned to the ves-
sel. Floki continued his course, and after a few days more let loose
his third raven, and followed the direction of its flight until he reached
the eastern coast of Iceland.

In Callimachus's hymn to Apollo, we also have mention of a pilot-
crow being sent by the god to guide the tongue-tied Battus to Libya,
where the Python had declared that he must found a colony. And,
again, Plutarch tells, on the authority of Callisthenes, that when Al-
exander crossed the Libyan desert to consult the oracle of Jupiter
Ammon, he was directed by a flock of crows, that suddenly made its
appearance, and guided him on his way, flying briskly ahead when he
was on the march, lighting when he halted, and, what is stranger still,
when he was going wrong calling him by their croaking until he was
in the right direction again. We might also mention, in this connec-
tion, the story Herodotus tells of the ubiquitous Aristeas, whom the
Metapontines say appeared in their country, and told them to erect an
altar to Apollo, and place near it a statue bearing the name of Aristeas
the Proeonnesian, for Apollo had visited their country only of all the
Italians, and that he who was now Aristeas had accompanied the god
in the shape of a crow.

Another characteristic of crows is their longevity. Hesiod as-
serts that they will live nine times as long as a man, and it is certain
that they have attained an age of more than one hundred years. On
this account the sorceress Medea, with many other ingredients of a

56 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

peculiar nature, placed a crow's head and beak in the magic caldron
when she was compounding the " elixir of life " to rejuvenate the de-
crepit Aeson.

Still another peculiarity of this family of bii-ds is their human-like
voice. All of them are easily domesticated, and nearly every variety
can, without much trouble, be taught to speak. In some species, par-
ticularly the jabbering crow [Corvus Jamaicensus), their voices are
so similar to those of human beings that, at a short distance, it is
almost impossible to distinguish them apart.

But, while the ability to articulate probably first caused the crow
to be regarded as a prophet, its evil habits, funereal associations, and
metaphoric opposition to the sun-god caused it to be looked upon as a
prophet only of evil, and as such it has always been regarded in my-
thology, legend, and popular tradition.

It seems curious that the figments of extinct mythologies should
come from the dim and misty past, down through the ages, and still
exist in the enlightenment of the present day ; and yet we know that
the debris oi these effete religions not only survive in the legends and
folk-lore of all the lands now civilized, but to a certain extent adulterate
their manners and customs, their laws, and even their forms of religion.

A veneration for old manners and customs and the religion of his
forefathers is imbibed by the child almost with his mother's milk ; the
sentiment grows with his growth and strengthens with his strength,
until, when adult age is attained and the mind should be sufficiently
mature to inquire into the truth and propriety of what he has been
taught, the judgment has already become so prejudiced, by years of
unquestioned obedience and unconscious imitation, that to defend and
perpetuate even the errors and superstitions of his forefathers appears
to him a solemn duty nearly akin to religion.

■♦«»

THE ELECTKIC BUEGLAE-ALAEM.

ELABORATE as are the ordinaiy agencies for the protection of
property, they afford but a partial security. Well-lighted
streets, careful watchmen, numerous policemen, and strong and in-
geniously arranged bolts and bars, are certainly obstacles not easily
overcome. But, in his quest of other men's riches, the accomplished
burglar has not found them insurmountable. However extensive and
vigilant a police force, it can not have all points under its surveillance
at once, and this gives the burglar the opportunity which he rarely
fails to improve. Bolts and bars are, doubtless, good things in their
way ; but the experienced cracksman has a cunning beyond them. In
the contest between him and the locksmith, the victory has not always
been with the latter, though he has produced that marvel of skill and

THE ELECTRIC BURGLAR-ALARM. 57

workmanship — the modern safe-lock. The burglar's tools are not such
as are thwarted by nice mechanical combinations. Explosives and
the simple mechanical powers in his hands have a wonderful range
of utility, and are able to frequently set at naught the most elaborate
contrivances. The protection afforded by these combined agencies is,
however, only realizable to its full extent in the business centers of
large cities. In resident districts, and in suburban and country situa-
tions where policemen are often few and far between, reliance has
chiefly to be placed upon fastenings ; and these often prove insufii-
cient. Yet it is especially important to the owner of property that
his protection be good, for recovery is very difficult. The advan-
tages are so largely with the thieves, that they can frequently make
the search a long and costly, and often a fruitless one. The cost is,
in fact, the main bar to recovery. Only when stolen property is of
large value does it pay to regain it. Small amounts, such as are
usually taken from private houses, are practically irrecoverable.

No practicable extension of the ordinary agencies can greatly in-
crease present security. Bars and bolts have now approached very
closely to their limit of strength and ingenuity, and police surveil-
lance is as extensive and perhaps as effective as circumstances will per-
mit. Greater protection must be sought in some further agency — one
that will reproduce as nearly as possible the condition of watchfulness
present in the daytime. This the electric burglar-alarm is designed
to do, and does with a good degree of success. In its earlier forms
there were many defects, but in a development of twenty years these
have been mostly corrected. It has now attained to a simplicity of
construction and certainty of action that make it one of the most use-
ful and trustworthy of man's servitors. Though widely known and ap-
preciated both in this country and abroad, there are probably many not
acquainted with it, to whom a brief description will not be without value-
However the details of construction differ, the essential elements
of every system are, a bell to give the alarm, an annunciator to indicate
the point from which it proceeds, wires from all the openings of a
building, and a battery to furnish the current. These elements are
combined in various ways, depending upon the special circumstances
of the particular case, but the manner of use is practically the same.

The main piece of apparatus, remarkable alike for the simplicity of
its construction and the range of its performance, is the annunciator.
In the earlier forms of the alarm, the indications were made by means
of a simple switch-board provided with buttons bearing the names of
the apartments protected. When an alarm sounded, the depression of
each of these buttons in turn, until the bell ceased ringing, was neces-
sary to determine its locality. This is still quite largely used, as it is
cheaper than the more perfect annunciator, which tells at a glance
where the disturbance in the circuit is. In shape and size this latter
instrument resembles an ordinary mantel-clock. The indications are

58

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Fig. 1.

given by devices on the face, which vary with different makers. In
one form they are made by arrows, which lie horizontal Avhen in nor-
mal position, and point to the names of the apartments j^rinted above
them when indicating. In another form, cards drop down in front of

apertures arranged in rows on the face,
and in still another the name and number
of a room are uncovered by a falling piece
when an alarm is sounded. The needle-
instrument is shown in Fig, 1, Once
made, the indications remain until the
parts are restored by some one, A small
switch at one side completes or opens
the circuit through the instrument, and
one on the other side controls the con-
nection with the bell, A row of studs
at the base of the apparatus allows any
opening to be disconnected that may be
desired. Aside from its giving an alarm
when an attempt is made to enter a build-
ing, the annunciator has an important
use in showing whether a place is proper-
ly closed. If any window or door has
been forgotten, it will infallibly point it
out. In large business houses where there are many oj^enings, this
feature is of the greatest value. By disconnecting the bell, this test
can be made a silent one.

The mechanism ojierating the indicators is of the simplest descrip-
tion. In the needle-instrument, an arm on the j^ivot of the needle is
held in jjosition by the hooked end of a lever, the other end of which
forms the armature of an electro-magnet. The connection between
the lever and the supported arm is very slight, so that a small move-
ment of the former allows the latter to fall. When the circuit is
closed this takes place. The armature in moving toward the magnet
raises the hooked end of the lever, releasing the arm which drops
and turns its needle. In the instrument using the card, the card is
carried on the end of an arm held up in a similar manner by a hook
on the armature of the magnet. The depression of the armature
allows the arm to drop by its weight. The restoring of the arms to
position is done by a sliding frame raised by a handle or button on
the base of the instrument. Delicate as the movements of the appara-
tus are, it is not easily put out of order. The points of contact of
the hook and arm are so made as to reduce the wear to a minimum.
The mechanism is all inclosed, and the exposed parts, such as the
needles, switch-handles, etc, finished in polished metal. The annunci-
ator and bell are usually combined into one piece of apparatus, but
they may be put up separate when desired.

THE ELECTRIC BURGLAR-ALARM.

59

The bell used is that common with different forms of electrical
instruments. It consists of a gong and a clapper vibrated by the com-
bined action of an electro-magnet and a spring. The magnet, when
the current passes, draws 'the clapper to itself and in doing so opens
the circuit ; this destroys its magnetism and allows the spring to carry
the clapper back. This " make " and " break " action, rapidly repeat-
ed as long as the current is passing, produces a continuous ringing
of the bell. Reference to Fig. 2 * will make this movement clear.

Fig. 2.

One end of the wire of the coils of the magnet M M is secured to the
binding-post B, and the other to the post C. The arm of the clapper
k is a rather stiff spring, which in its normal position holds the arma-
ture e carried by it from the poles of the magnet. It then presses
against the spring r, attached to the post D. The posts A and E
holding the wires from the battery are respectively connected with B
and D by metallic sti'ips. The current enters at A, traverses the
coils of the magnet M M, passes through the armature e, and out
by way of spring r and posts D and E. In doing so, the soft-iron
cores of the magnet are magnetized and attract the armature e.
This in moving breaks its contact with the spring r, and interrupts
the cm-rent. The clapper then springs back into position. In the
bell now generally used the ringing continues not only while the
door or window is open, but until the indicating parts of the annun-
ciator are restored to position.

* Figs. 2 and 3 are reproduced, through the kindness of Mr. George B. Prescott, from
his works on " The Electric Light," etc., and " Electricity," etc.

6o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

This secures the proper resetting of the apparatus in readiness for
a new alarm. The result is obtained very simply by making the clap-
per turn a switch, which cuts from the circuit the opened window or
door, and allows the current to pass directly from the battery to the
bell.

The door and window attachments for closing the circuit by the
movements of these parts are of various forms. Those used on doors
are simply little push-pins placed in the casing. The pin slides in an
insulated case provided with metallic strips. When it is pressed in,
the contact between it and the strips is broken and the circuit opened.
When the pressure is released, the pin springs out, closing the circuit.
The slightest movement of a door allows this motion of the pin to take
place. In one form the pin and a metallic casing are so arranged that
the attempt to keep the pin pushed in, when the door is opened, by
inserting a knife-blade, establishes the circuit and gives the alarm.
These push-buttons may be constructed to close the circuit, either by
pushing in or springing out, and in both forms have a great variety of
uses. They may be placed under the carpet, in the hall, on the stairs,
in front of a window, or wherever any one entering would be liable to
step. A sufficient number properly disposed could make intrusion
without giving an alarm simply impossible. The window attachments
are usually simple springs placed in the casing so that the movement
of the sash presses them together. One form consists of a roller on the
the end of a spring arm, which keeps it pressed out from contact with
a metal strip, through which the circuit is completed. Placed in the
casing, the roller stands out and is received in a pocket in the edge of
the sash, so that the motion of the sash brings the roller arm and
metal strip into contact. For the purpose of ventilation, the j^ocket
in the upper sash is usually elongated to give a free movement through
any desired distance. When the lower sash is left open, security can
be gained by covering a push-pin in the window-sill with a flower-pot
or other obstruction, the removal of which is necessary to gain entrance.
Tlie wires forming the circitit are of insulated copper, carefully put
up so as to be completely hidden from view. They are run in grooves
in the wood-work, carried beneath a floor, or on its face, according to
circumstances. Once in place, they remain unchanged for any period,
causing neither trouble nor expense.

The Le Clanche battery, shown in Fig. 3, is the one universally
employed with this apparatus. It is very simple in construction, ex-
hales no noxious gases when in operation, does not waste the material
when no current is passing, and needs but very little attention. The
positive pole is a piece of gas carbon placed in a porous cell filled with
coarse-grained peroxide of manganese and carbon. The cell is sealed
at the top with pitch, and a lead cap on the carbon receives the wire.
The negative pole is formed of a rod of amalgamated zinc. Both
poles are immersed in a solution of sal-ammoniac contained in a glass

THE ELECTRIC BURGLAR-ALABM.

61

jar. Four of these elements put up in a wooden case constitute the
battery usually furnished.

These appliances provided, the most common way of using the
system is to make it complete in each building, the alarm apparatus
being placed in a sleeping-apartment in a private house, and in the

Fig. 3.

watchman's room in a place of business. So arranged, the condition
of the circuit is this : In the daytime, when the doors and windows are
open, the circuit is continuous at all points except at the alarm appara-
tus. At night this is reversed, the circuit being closed at the instru-
ment, and broken at all the points protected, A movement at any of
these points which closes the circuit gives the alarm and turns the
proper needle on the annunciator. The connection with the alarm is
made at night by an attendant, and broken at any desired time in the
morning. In private houses fitted with electric bells, a clock is often
provided that disconnects the alarm in the morning and turns the cur-
rent on to a bell placed in the servants' room. The movement by
which this is done is something similar to that of the ordinary alarm-
clock.

The protection afforded with such an apparatus in good working
order is probably as perfect as it can be made. It is generally impos-
sible to cut the wires from the outside of the building, and unless this
is done intrusion will start the alarm. Even if the wires be cut, but-

62 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tons under the carpet or circuit-closers in interior doors will reveal
the burglar's presence in perhaps every case.

Valuable as is the protection in any i^articular case of attempted
robbery, the general immunity from such attempts that the presence
of the apparatus secures is of still gi-eater moment. Burglars will not
generally take such risks as those imposed by an efficient alarm system,
and will therefore give a house so protected a wide berth. The only
case in which there is room for failure of the system is when the bat-
tery power is not sufficient to operate the alarm. But it is a very
simple matter to provide against this. Tests once every month or
two, and the experience soon gained in using the battery, will enable
one to know at any time the state of the system. None of the other
parts need ever cause any solicitude.

While in the great majority of cases the plan of giving the alarm
to some one in the building broken into affords perfect security, in
some it does not. In business centers, determined and cunning burg-
lars, accustomed to take large chances, might frequently overpower
the watchman and stop the alarm before it excited outside atten-
tion. To meet this difficulty the j^lan is sometimes adopted of mak-
ing the alarm sound in a central office of the company furnishing
the apparatus. One company doing this has adopted a system that
seems to be beyond circumvention. Each building protected is con-
nected on a closed circuit with the central office, at which place deli-
cate galvanometers are used as indicators. The circuit of each build-
ing is independent of all others. Any change in the resistance of
any circuit is instantly shown by the deflection of the proper needle,
and an alarm started. The opening of a protected door or window
breaks the circuit, as does the cutting of the line, and of course
gives an alarm. If the burglar could carry the wire to the ground
and insert just the proper resistance, no signal would be given at
the company's office, but this is impossible, as the resistance is not
only that of the wire but of the apparatus in circuit. The only way
to get around it is to tunnel under the building, but even then cir-
cuit-breakers judiciously disposed would generally lead to detection.
Nothing is gained, so far as the safe is concerned, in this case, as it is
independently protected. It is placed in a light wooden cabinet lined
with a metallic casing, consisting of two sheets of tin-foil insulated
from each other by a thin sheet of non-conducting material. The
wii'es from a battery are connected each with one of the sheets of foil.
So delicate is the insulation that the sticking of a pin in the cabinet
closes the circuit and deflects the needle, and sounds the alarm in the
central office. This system, though not yet in extensive use, is gaining
in favor among merchants having valuable stores of goods. A similar
plan of protecting private houses whose occupants are away is prac-
ticed to some extent. The apparatus used in this case is much less
delicate, and the protection therefore not so good.

THE ELECTRIC BURGLAR-ALARM.

63

The cost of applying the burglar-alarm to any house will vary
in each case. It depends upon the size of the annunciator required
and the number of openings to be protected. The prices charged by
the different American manufacturers differ very little. Annuncia-
tors range in price from thirty dollars with four indications to one
hundred dollars with twenty. The annunciator used should have as
many indications as there are rooms protected. The cost of circuit-
closers, including the placing in position and laying the wire, is three
dollars a window when both sashes are connected. The same devices
for doors vary from one and a half to two and a half dollars. In
ordinary city houses it is only necessary to connect the windows and
doors, front and back, of the first two stories and the opening in
the roof. The entire cost will not generally exceed one hundred
dollars. In the country the cost would of course be somewhat greater,
in the average house probably between a hundred and fifty and two
hundred dollars. The apparatus once in, the only expense is the main-
tenance of the battery. This will generally be very small, probably
not more than a dollar a year. Considering the security gained, the
outlay required is not excessive, and builders find that it is fully
made up to them in increased rents. It is not improbable that the
apparatus will eventually be considered as necessary to the complete
equipment of a house as now are water- and gas-pipes.

Intimately connected with the burglar-alarm system, though having
a different object, is an automatic fire-alarm, somewhat extensively in-
troduced during recent years. The system consists in placing in the
ceiling of a room a number of mercury bulbs, which close an electric
circuit when the temperature rises above a certain point and set off an
alarm. One form of the bulb or thermostat is shown in Fig. 4. The
wire from the lower end is in permanent contact with
the mercury, but that in the upper end comes in
contact with it only when a given temperature is
reached. The bulbs are usually manufactured to
make this contact at a temperature of 120° Fahr.
The thermostat is set in a bell-shaped shield of sheet-
metal, only the rim of which, when in the ceiling,
is exposed. They are placed about twenty feet
apart in large rooms, a couple being sufficient for
those of ordinary size. This alarm, like that for
burglars, may be complete in a building, or may give
its signal at a central office. In some of the larger
cities this latter plan has been carried into practice.
Each building is provided with an annunciator placed
on the front, where it can be readily inspected. The
signal given at the office indicates the building, and
the annunciator on the face of the building gives the room in which
the fire is located.

Fig. 4.— Tnnp.MOSTAT.

64 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Together these alarms form an excellent protection against the
two most common dangers to which buildings and their contents are
exposed. The addition of the call-bell system, now so common in
hotels, business houses, and the better class of residences, comj^letes an
electrical equipment that leaves little to be desired in the way of se-
curity and convenience.

MENTAL IMAGEKY.

By FRANCIS GALTON, F. E. S.

THERE are great differences in the power of forming pictures of
objects in the mind's eye ; in other words, of visualizing them.
In some persons the faculty of perceiving these images is so feeble
that they hardly visualize at all, and they supplement their deficiency
chiefly by memories of muscular strain, of gesture, and of posture, and
partly by memoi'ies of touch ; recalling objects in the same way as
those who were blind from their birth. Other persons perceive past
scenes with a distinctness and an aj)pearance of reality that differ little
from actual vision. Between these wide extremes I have met with
a mass of intermediate cases extending in an unbroken series.

"We must establish clearly what we are talking about by contrast-
ing in general terms the physiological basis of sight itself with that
of sight-memory. Let us put the question to ourselves, " "What
should we expect to be the effect on our nervous system, first, when
a sudden light is flashed on the eye, and, secondly, when we recall
an image of that flash ? " If we had means of watching what took
place, we should no doubt be aware, in the first case, of a sudden irri-
tation in the sj^read-out terminations of the oj^tic nerve behind the
retina. This would raj^idly propagate itself along the nerve itself to
the brain, where it would be distributed in various directions, becom-
ing confused with other waves of irritation proceeding from indepen-
dent centers, lingering here and there longer than elsewhere, and
finally dying away.

In the recollection of a flash a similar sequence of events would
take place, but they would occur in the reverse order. A variously
distributed irritation in the brain, due to one or more of a multitude
of possible causes, into which we need not stop to inquire, would prop-
agate itself outward, becoming fainter the farther it traveled. The
same links of the same nervous chain would be concerned in both
cases, but the tension would be differently distributed among thein.
"When the faculty of sight-memory is strong, the vigorous propagation
of a central impulse toward the optic nerve must be habitual ; when
it is weak, the propagation will not take place except in peculiar states

MENTAL IMAGERY, 65

of the nerves, as in dreams, in delirium, in high excitement, or under
the influence of certain drugs.

These physiological considerations, vague as they are, will never-
theless suflice to establish the existence of a true kinship between men-
tal imagery and ordinary vision. They enable us to define Shakes-
peare's phrase of seeing " with the mind's eye " as a condition in which
the activity of the nervous center bears a higher ratio to that of the
nervous terminations than it does in actual sight. They also justify
us in ascribing the marked differences in the quality, as well as the
vividness, of the mental imagery of different persons, to the various
deo-rees in which the several links of a long nervous chain are apt to
be affected.

The mental images of which I am about to speak are those which
are habitually suggested by well-known associations. Even when the
subject is thus limited, it is almost too large for the compass of a sin-
gle memoir. Therefore, I shall do my best at present not to encroach
upon that other very interesting branch of it, which treats of the vis-
ions and hallucinations that flash into view without any connection
with the subjects of conscious thought. It is my purpose to point out
the conditions under which mental imagery as above defined is most
useful, and the particular forms of it which we ought to aim at de-
veloping; and I shall adduce evidence to show that the visualizing
faculty admits of being educated, although no attempt has ever yet
been made, so far as I know, to bring it systematically and altogether
under control.

I draw my conclusions from no small amount of testimony. In ad-
dition to a large quantity of oral information of which I have made
notes, I have received separate letters and replies by the hundred to a
long list of questions which I circulated, besides obtaining batches of
replies to the same questions from various schools. The answers, on
the whole, have been written in a style that testifies to much careful
self-analysis, and the general accordance of those that were, derived
from independent sources, together with the satisfactory way in which
I have found many of the statements to bear cross-examination, has
convinced me of their substantial truth.

I find the distribution of the visualizing faculty, in respect to its
vividness, by a simple method I have described elsewhere.* I take a
haphazard bundle of returns, mark them as an examiner would mark
the papers of candidates, sort them in the order of their marks, and
clip them into a portfolio. If I open the book in the middle I read the
medium value ; if I open it at one quarter from the beginning I read
the highest quartile value ; if at one quarter from the end, the lowest
quartile. If I open it at one eighth of its thickness I read an octile
value ; and if at one sixteenth, a sub-octile.

* See an article by myself in " Mind" (July, 1880), p. 301, on "Statistics of Mental
Imagery," and the references in the foot-notes to it.

TOL. XTIII. — 5

66 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Between the first and last quartiles extends the broad middle class.
It includes the two middle quarters, or the central half of the popula-
tion, whose characteristics are pretty uniform ; it is at the beginning
and end of the book that the exceptional cases lie in this, as in all other
similar collections of statistics.

The medium quality of mental imagery among Englishmen may
be briefly described as fairly vivid, but incomplete. The part of the
picture that is well defined at any one moment is more contracted
than it would be in a real scene ; but, by moving the mental eye from
point to point, the whole of the image, so far as it is remembered at
all, may be successively brought into view. If this description be
heightened a little, it will suit the high quartile ; if it be lowered a lit-
tle, it will suit the low quartile, so that with small variations it will
apply to the whole of the middle class. When we arrive at the high
and low octiles, the tenor of the returns is considerably changed ; but
we will pass by them and rest at the sub-octiles. At the highest of
these the image is firm and clear, at the lowest there is scarcely any
image at all.

This brief statement gives a scientifically exact idea of the distri-
bution of the faculty among the inner fourteen in every sixteen English-
men. I do not go further here, because I wish to specify the extent
to which the faculty generally admits of being educated, and not to
hold out ideals which are impossible of attainment except by very few.
I shall submit direct evidence of what teaching can accomplish, but it
will I am sure be allowed, in the mean time, that there is a probability
of being able to educate a faculty among the great majority of men
to the degree in which it manifests itself, without any education at
all, in at least one person out of every sixteen. When speaking, as
I shall soon do, of the various qualities of the faculty, I shall keep, as
now, as far as possible to the commoner cases.

The power of visualizing is higher in the female sex than in the
male, and is somewhat, but not much, higher in public-school boys
than in men, I have, however, a few clear cases in which its power
has greatly increased with advancing years. There is reason to be-
lieve that it is very high in some young children, who seem to spend
years of difficulty in distinguishing between the subjective and objec-
tive world. Language and book-learning certainly tend to dull it.

The visualizing faculty is a natural gift, and, like all natural gifts,
has a tendency to be inherited. In this faculty the tendency to inher-
itance is exceptionally strong, as I have abundant evidence to prove,
especially in respect to certain rather rare peculiarities, of which I shall
speak, and which, when they exist at all, are usually found among two,
three, or more brothers and sisters, parents, children, uncles and aunts,
and cousins.

Since families differ so much in respect to this gift, we may sup-
pose that races would also differ, and there can be no doubt that such

MENTAL IMAGERY. 67

is the case. I hardly like to refer to civilized nations, because their
natural faculties are too much modified by education to allow of their
being appraised in an off-hand fashion. I may, however, speak of the
French, who appear to possess the visualizing faculty in a high degree.
The peculiar ability they show in prearranging ceremonials 2Lndi fetes
of all kinds and their undoubted genius for tactics and strategy show-
that they are able to foresee effects with unusual clearness. Their in-
genuity in all technical contrivances is an additional testimony in the
same direction, and so is their singular clearness of expression. Their
phrase " figurez-vous," or " picture to yourself," seems to express their
dominant mode of perception. Our equivalent of " imagine " is am-
biguous.

It is among uncivilized races that natural differences in the visual-
izing faculty are most conspicuous. Many of them make carvings and
rude illustrations, but only a few have the gift of carrying a picture
in their mind's eye, judging by the completeness and firmness of their
designs, which show no trace of having been elaborated in that step-
by-step manner which is characteristic of draughtsmen who are not
natural artists.

Among the races who are thus gifted are the despised, and, as I
confidently maintain from personal knowledge of them, the much-
underrated Bushmen of South Africa. They are no doubt deficient
in the natiiral instincts necessary to civilization, for they detest a reg-
ular life, they are inveterate thieves, and are incapable of withstanding
the temptation of strong drink. On the other hand, they have few
superiors among barbarians in the ingenious methods by which they
supply the wants of a difiicult existence, and in the effectiveness and
nattiness of their accoutreijaents. One of their habits is to draw pic-
tures on the walls of caves, of men and animals, and to color them
with ochre. These drawings were once numerous, but they have been
sadly destroyed by advancing colonization, and few of them, and, in-
deed, few wild Bushmen, now exist. Fortunately, a large and valuable
collection of f ac-similes of Bushman art was made before it became too
late, by Mr. Stow, of the Cape Colony, who has very lately sent some
specimens of them to this country, in the hope that means might be
found for the publication of the entire series. Among the many pic-
tures of animals in each of the large sheets full of them, I was particu-
larly struck with one of an eland, as giving a just idea of the precision
and purity of their best work.

A small but interesting sheet of copies of Bushman drawings was
presented by Colonel Moncrieff, C. B., of gun-carriage celebrity, to the
Christie Collection, which is now incorpoi'ated with the British Mu-
seum. Many notices of them are to be found in Barrow's travels in
South Africa, and elsewhere.

The method by which the Bushmen draw is described in the fol-
lowing extract from a letter written to me by Dr. Mann, the well-

68 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

known authority on South African matters of science. The boy
to whom he refers belonged to a wild tribe living in caves in the
Drakenberg, who plundered outlying farms, and were pursued by the
neighboring colonists. He was wounded and captured, then sent to
hospital, and subsequently taken into service. He was under Dr.
Mann's observation in the year 1860, and has recently died, to the
great regret of his employer, Mr, Proudfoot, to whom he became a
valuable servant.

Dr. Mann writes as follows : " This lad was very skillful in the
proverbial Bushman art of drawing animal figures, and upon several
occasions I induced him to show me how this was managed among his
people. He invariably began by jotting down, upon paper or on a
slate, a number of isolated dots which presented no connection or trace
of outline of any kind to the uninitiated eye, but looked like the stars
scattered promiscuously in the sky. Having with much deliberation
satisfied himself of the sufficiency of these dots, he forthwith began to
run a free bold line from one to the other, and as he did so the form
of an animal — horse, buffalo, elephant, or some kind of antelope —
gradually developed itself. This was invariably done with a free
hand, and with such unerring accuracy of touch that no correction of
a line was at any time attempted. I understood from this lad that
this was the plan which was invariably pursued by his kindred in
making their clever pictures." It is impossible, I think, for a drawing
to be made on this method unless the artist had a clear image in his
mind's eye of what he was about to draw.

Other living races have the gift of drawing, but none more so than
the Esquimau. I will therefore speak of these, and not of the Australian
and Tasmanian pictures, nor of the still ru^er performances of the old
inhabitants of Guiana, nor of those of some North American tribes, as
the Iroquois. The Esquimaux are geographers by instinct, and appear
to see vast tracts of country mapped out in their heads. From the
multitude of illustrations of their map-drawing powers, I will select '
one from those included in the journals of Captain Hall, at p, 224,
which were published last year by the United States Government under
the editorship of Professor J. E. Nourse. It is the f ac-simile of a chart
drawn by an Esquimau who was a thorough barbarian in the accepted
sense of the word. That is to say, he spoke no language besides his
own uncouth tongue, he was wholly uneducated according to our mod-
ern ideas, and he lived in what we should call a savage fashion. This
man drew from memory a chart of the region over which he had at
one time or another gone in his canoe. It extended from Pond's Bay,
in lat. 73°, to Fort Churchill, in lat. 58° 44', over a distance in a straight
line of more than 960 nautical, or 1,100 English, miles, the coast being
so indented by arms of the sea that its length is six times as great.
On comparing this rough Esquimau outline with the Admiralty chart
of 1870, their accordance is remarkable. I have seen many route maps

MENTAL IMAGERY. 69

made by travelers in past years, when tlie scientific exploration of the
world was much less advanced than it is now, and I can confidently
say that I have never known of any traveler, white, brown, or black,
civilized or uncivilized, in Africa, Asia, or Australia, who, being un-
provided with surveying instruments, and trusting to his memory alone,
has pi-oduced a chart comparable in extent and accuracy to that of this
barbarous Esquimau. Their powers of accurate drawing are abun-
dantly testified by the numerous illustrations in Rink's work, all of
which were made by self-taught men, and are thoroughly realistic.

So much for the wild races of the present day ; but even the Esqui-
maux are equaled in their power of drawing by the men of old times.
In ages so far gone by that the interval that separates them from our
own may be measured in perhaps hundreds of thousands of years,
when Europe was mostly ice-bound, a race, which in the opinion of all
anthropologists was closely allied to the modern Esquimaux lived in
caves in the more habitable places. Many broken relics of that race have
been found ; some few of these are of bone, engraved with flints or
carved into figures, and among these are representations of the mam-
moth, elk, and reindeer, which, if made by an English laborer with the
much better implements at his command, would certainly attract local
attention and lead to his being properly educated, and in much likeli-
hood to his becoming a considerable artist.

It is not at all improbable that these prehistoric men had the same
geographical instincts as the modern Esquimaux, whom they closely
resemble in every known respect. If so, it is perfectly possible that
scraps of charts scratched on bone or stone, of prehistoric Europe,
when the distribution of land, sea, and ice was very different from
what it is now, may still exist, buried underground, and may reward
the zeal of some future cave explorer.

I now return to m j principal topic, the mental imagery of the Eng-
lish race, and I will mention some of the chief peculiarities I have
noted in it. When the faculty is strong it is apt to run riot. There
are a few pei'sons, including men and women of no mean capacity, who
can not disentangle even the letters of the alphabet from the oddest
associations with colors, formed in some half -forgotten period of child-
hood/ To some of these persons it may be that an a will always con-
vey the sense of blackness, an e that of greenness, an i will be blue, an
o white, and a u red. The consonants will also for the most part have
their separate tints, so that every word seems parti-colored to their
fancy ; and a description of scenery in a book produces an effect upon
their imagination very different from what the author could have fore-
seen. The same is true in respect to numerals, days of the week, and
months of the year. I have collected perhaps twenty good accounts
of these bizan-e tendencies from independent sources, and find them
to run strongly in families. They are not communicated by teaching
or imitation, because those who have these peculiarities are usually

70 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

disinclined to talk about them, recollecting how they were laughed at
on the few occasions when they did so. The fact of their being com-
mon to scattered members of the same family has often been dis-
covered for the first time through my inquiries. I should say that I
have found no general accordance between particular letters and colors.
The relationship between them appears to be in each case a haphazard
one ; but having been once formed it is durable.

Another and much more common oddity is the tendency to visualize
numerals in a peculiar manner, which characterizes, as I have roughly
reckoned, about one woman in every fifteen, and one man in every
thirty. Those who do so are never able to dissociate any single num-
ber from its own particular place in the field of their mental view, so
that when they think of a series of numbers they always visualize them
in a certain form. Either the numbers are all visible at once, as if they
were printed on cards and hung in space, according to some grotesque
pattern, or the mind travels along a blank but familiar path to the
place where the number that is thought of is known to reside, and
then it starts into view. There are many weird varieties of this singu-
lar tendency to visualize numbers in forms, which I have lately de-
scribed,* and will not here repeat. Suffice it to say, that they date
from an earlier period than that to which recollection extends. They
manifest themselves quite independently of the will ; they are inva-
riably the same in the same person, but are never the same in two
different persons, and the tendency to see them is strongly hereditary.
I have now a collection of hundreds of them, not only from English
men and women, boys and girls, but from American, French, German,
Italian, Austrian, and Russian correspondents. They are found useful
in the simpler kinds of mental arithmetic.

Those who see number-forms have usually some equally persistent
scheme for dates, based more or less upon the diagrams of the school-
room. I am well acquainted with an accomplished student of history
whose mnemonic form for all historical events is a simple nursery dia-
gram, which has blossomed, as it were, into large excrescences whereon
the subsequently acquired facts are able to find standing-room. These
diagrams are really helpful, because their shape is correlated with the
subject they portray. They are not like the jingling nonsense verses
and bad puns upon which many persons base their memory of facts.

The persistency of the forms under which numerals and dates are
visualized testifies to a want of flexibility in mental imagery which is
characteristic of many persons. They find that the first image they
have acquired of any scene is apt to hold its place tenaciously in spite
of subsequent need of correction. They find a difficulty in shifting
their mental view of an object, and examining it at pleasure in differ-

* "Visualized Numerals," a Memoir read before the Anthropological Institute, March
9, 1880, about to be published in the forthcoming part of their journal of this year. See
also a previous Memoir in "Nature," February 15, 1880.

MENTAL IMAGERY. 71

ent positions. If they see an object equally often in many positions,
the memories confuse one another. They are less able to visualize the
features of intimate friends than those of persons of whom they have
caught only a single glance. Many such persons have expressed to me
their grief at finding themselves powerless to recall the looks of dear
relations whom they had lost, while they had no difficulty in recollect-
ing faces that were uninteresting to them.

Others have a complete mastery over their mental images. They
can call up the figure of a friend, and make it sit on a chair or stand
up at will ; they can make it turn round and attitudinize in any way,
as by mounting it on a bicycle or compelling it to perform gymnastic
feats on a trapeze. They are able to build up elaborate geometric
structures bit by bit in their mind's eye, and add, subtract, or alter at
will and at leisure. This free action of a vivid visualizing faculty is
of much importance in connection with the higher processes of thought,
though it is commonly abused, as may be easily explained by an exam-
ple. Suppose a person suddenly to accost another with the following
words : " I want to tell you about a boat." What is the idea that the
word " boat " would be likely to call up ? I tried the experiment with
this result. One person, a young lady, said that she immediately saw
the image of a rather large boat pushing off from the shore, and that
it was full of ladies and gentlemen, the ladies being dressed in white
and blue. It is obvious that a tendency to give so specific an inter-
pretation to a general word is absolutely opposed to philosophic
thought. Another person, who was accustomed to philosophize, said
that the word " boat " had aroused no definite image, because he had
purposely held his mind in suspense. He had exerted himself not to
lapse into any one of the special ideas that he felt the word boat was
ready to call up, such as a skiff, Avherry, barge, launch, punt, or dingy.
Much more did he refuse to think of any one of these with any par-
ticular freight or from any particular point of view. A habit of sup-
pressing mental imagery must, therefore, characterize men who deal
much with abstract ideas ; and, as the power of dealing easily and
firmly with these ideas is the surest criterion of a high order of intel-
lect, we should expect that the visualizing faculty would be starved by
disuse among philosophers, and this is precisely what I have found on
inquiry to be the case.

Here, however, a fresh consideration comes in, which shows that
the tendency to visualize is liable to be over-corrected, especially by
those who are accustomed but not obliged to visualize in hard and per-
sistent forms, and that they lose thereby the only means of obtaining
a correct mental picture of a species or race. I proved two years ago*
that a generalized picture did as a matter of fact admit of being pro-
duced. I threw magic-lantern portraits of different persons on the top

* "Journal Anthropological Institute," "Composite Portraits," vol. viii, ISVS, p. 132.
"Journal Royal Institution," "Generic Images," ix, 1879, p. 161.

72 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of one another, on the same screen, and elicited a resultant face which
resembled no one of the components in particular, but included all.
Whatever was common to all the portraits became intensified by com-
bination ; whatever was peculiar to each portrait was relatively too
faint to atti'act attention, and virtually disappeared. I made a great
variety of experiments ; in some I optically superimposed images by
arrangements of lenses, mirrors, stereoscopes, or doubly refracting
crystals ; in others I combined separate photographic impressions upon
a single sensitized plate. The result was that I invariably found it
possible to make a generalized picture, having a remarkable appearance
of individuality, out of a collection of separate portraits, so long as the
latter bore a moderate resemblance to one another, and were taken
from the same point of view, and were of the same size.

I argue that the mind of a man whose visualizing faculty is free in
its action forms these generalized images of its own accord out of its
past experiences. It readily reduces images to the same scale, through
its constant practice in watching objects as they approach or recede,
and consequently grow or diminish in size. It readily shifts images
to any desired point of the field of view, through its habit of follow-
ing bodies in motion to the right or left, upward or downward. It
selects images that present the same aspect, either by a simple act of
memory or by a feat of imagination that forces them into the desired
position, and it has little or no difficulty in reversing them from right
to left, as if seen in a looking-glass. In illustration of these general-
ized mental images let us recur to the boat, and suppose the speaker to
continue as follows : " The boat was a four-oared racing boat ; it was
passing quickly just in front of me, and the men were bending for-
ward to take a fresh stroke." Now, at this point of the story the lis-
tener ought to have a picture Avell before his eye. It ought to have
the distinctness of a real four-oar going either to the right or the left,
at the moment when many of its details still remained unheeded, such
as the dresses of the men and their individual features. It would be
the generic image of a four-oar formed by the combination into a
single picture of a great many sight-memories of those boats.

In the highest minds a descriptive word is sufficient to evoke crowds
of shadowy associations, each striving to manifest itself. When they
differ so much from one another as to be unfit to combine into a single
idea, there will be a conflict between them, each being prevented by
the rest from obtaining sole possession of the field of consciousness.
There would, therefore, be no definite imagery so long as the aggregate
of all the pictures that the word could reasonably suggest, of objects
presenting similar aspects, reduced to the same size, and accurately
superposed, resulted in a mere blur ; but a picture would gradually
evolve as qualifications were added to the word, and it would attain to
the distinctness and vividness of a generic image long before the word
had been so restricted as to be individualized. If the intellect be slow,

MENTAL IMAGERY.

73

tliough correct in its operations, the associations will be few, and the
generalized image based on insufficient data. If the visualizing power
be faint, the generalized image will be indistinct.*

Some persons have the power of combining in a single perception
more than can be seen at any one moment by the two eyes. It is
needless to insist on the fact that all who have two eyes see stereo-
scopically, and therefore somewhat round a corner. Children, who can
focus their eyes on very near objects, must be able to comprise in a
single mental image much more than a half of any small thing they
are examining. Animals such as hares, whose eyes are set more on
the side of the head than ours, must be able to perceive at one and the
same instant more of a panorama than we can. I find that a few per-
sons can, by what they often describe as a kind of touch-sight, visual-
ize at the same moment all round the image of a solid body. Many
can do so nearly, but not altogether, round that of a terrestrial globe.
An eminent mineralogist assures me that he is able to imagine simul-
taneously all the sides of a crystal with which he is familiar. I may
be allowed to quote my own faculty in this respect. It is exercised
only occasionally and in dreams, but under those circumstances I am
perfectly conscious of embracing an entire sphere in a single per-
ception.

This power of comprehension is practically attained in many cases
by indirect methods. It is a common feat to take in the whole sur-
roundings of an imagined room with such a rapid mental sweep as to
leave some doubt whether it has not been viewed simultaneously. Some
persons have the habit of viewing objects as though they were partly
transparent ; thus they can see the north and south poles of a globe,
but not the equatorial parts, at the same time. They can also see into
all the rooms of an imaginary house by a single mental glance. A
fourth class of persons have the habit of recalling scenes, not from the
point of view whence they were observed, but from a distance, and
they visualize their own selves as actors on the mental stage. By one
or other of these ways, the power of seeing the whole of an object, and
not merely one aspect of it, is attained by many persons, and might
probably be attained by all.

A useful faculty, easily developed by practice, is that of retaining
a mere retinal picture. A scene is flashed upon the eye ; the memory
of it persists, and details which escaped observation during the brief
time when it was actually seen may be analyzed and studied at leisure
in the subsequent vision.

The place where the image appears to lie differs much in different
persons. Most see it in an indefinable sort of way, others see it in
front of the eye, others at a distance corresponding to reality. There
exists a power which is rare naturally, but can, I believe, be easily

* It may possibly interest some persons, in connection with this topic, to refer to my
" Psychometric Facts," in the " Topular Science Monthly" for April, 1879.

74 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tauglit, of projecting a mental picture upon a piece of paper, and of
holding it fast there, so that it can be outlined with a pencil. The
Bush-boy of whom I spoke must have had something of this faculty.

We may now foresee that education is likely to accomplish much,
for most of the more important peculiarities of which I have sjioken
are naturally present in a high degree in at least one person out of six-
teen. It can hardly be doubted that any of these might be developed
by education to a useful amount in, say, twelve out of the remaining
fifteen (thus raising all who ranked above the lowest quartile to at least
the level of the highest sub-octile).

The forms of the visualizing faculty which we ought to aim at pro-
ducing appear to me to be as follows :

The capacity of calling up at will a clear, steady, and complete
mental image of any object that we have recently examined and studied.
We should be able to visualize that object freely from any aspect ; we
should be able to project any of its images on paper and draw its out-
line there ; we should further be able to embrace all sides of the object
simultaneously in a single percej^tion, or at least to sweep all sides of it
successively with so rapid a mental glance as to arrive at practically
the same result. We ought to be able to construct images from de-
scription or otherwise, and to alter them in whatever way we please.
We ought to acquire the power of combining separate, but more or
less similar, images into a single generic one. Lastly, M^e should learn
to carry away pictures at a glance of a more comj)licated scene than
we can succeed at the moment in analyzing.

There is abundant evidence that the visualizing faculty admits of
being largely developed by education. The testimony on which I
would lay especial stress is derived from the published experiences of
M. Lecoq de Boisbaudran, late Director of the Ecole Nationale de
Dessin, in Paris, which are related in his "Education de la Memoii'e
Pittoresque." * He trained his pupils with extraordinary success, begin-
ning with the simplest figures. They were made to study the models
thoroughly before they tried to draw them from memory. One favor-
ite expedient was to associate the sight-memory with the muscular
memory, by making his pupils follow at a distance the outlines of the
figures with a pencil held in their hands. After three or four months'
practice, their visual memory became greatly strengthened. They had
no difficulty in summoning images at will, in holding them steady, and
in drawing them. Their copies were executed with marvelous fidelity,
as attested by a commission of the Institut, appointed in 1852 to in-
quire into the matter, of which the eminent painter, Horace Vernet,
was a member. The present Slade Professor of Fine Arts at Uni-
versity College, M. Legros, was a pupil of M. de Boisbaudran. He
has expressed to me his indebtedness to the system, and he has assured
me of his own success in teaching others in a similar way.

* Republished in an 8vo, entitled " Enseignement Artistique." Morel et Cie. Paris, IS'ZO.

MENTAL IMAGERY.

75

I could mention instances within my own experience in which the
visualizing faculty has become strengthened by practice ; notably one
of an eminent engineer, who had the power of recalling form with un-
usual precision, but not color. A few weeks after he had replied to
my questions, he told me that my inquiries had induced him to practice
his color memory, and that he had done so with such success that he
had become quite an adept at it, and that the newly acquired power
was a source of much pleasure to him.

The memories we should aim at acquiring are chiefly such as are
based on a thorough understanding of the objects observed. In no
case is this more surely effected than in the processes of mechanical
drawing, where the intended structure has to be portrayed so exactly
in plan, elevation, side view, and sections, that the workman has simjjly
to copy the drawing in metal, wood, or stone, as the case may be. It
is undoubtedly the fact that mechanicians, engineers, and architects
possess the faculty of seeing mental images with remarkable clearness
and precision.

A few dots like those of the Bushmen give great assistance in cre-
ating an imaginary picture, as proved by our general habit of working
out new ideas by the help of marks and rude lines. The use of dolls
by children also testifies to the value of an objective support in the
construction of mental images. The doll serves as a kind of skeleton
for the child to clothe with fantastic attributes, and the less individu-
ality the doll has, the more it is appreciated by the child, who can the
better utilize it as a lay figure in many different characters. The art of
strengthening visual as well as every other form of memory lies in
multiplying associations ; the healthiest memory being that in which
all the associations are logical, and toward which all the senses concur
in their due proportions. It is wonderful how much the vividness of
a recollection is increased when two or more lines of association are
simultaneously excited.

It is a mistake to suppose that a powerful exercise of the will can
vivify a faint image. The action of the will is negative, being limited
to the suppression of what is not wanted and would be in the way.
It can not create thought, but it can prevent thoughts from establish-
ing themselves which lead in a false direction ; so it keeps the course
clear for a logical sequence of them. But, if appropriate ideas do not
come of their own accord, the will is powerless to evoke them. Thus,
when we forget a familiar name, it is impossible to recall it by force of
will. The only plan in such cases is to think of other things, till some
chance association suggests the name. The mind may be seriously
dulled by over-concentration, and will only recover its freshness by
such change of scene and occupation as will encourage freedom and
discursiveness in the flow of the ideas.

All that remains to be said refers to the utility of the visualizing
faculty, and may be compressed into a few words. A visual image is

76 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the most perfect form of mental representation wherever the shape,
position, and relations of object in space are concerned. It is of im-
portance in every handicraft and profession where design is required,
because workmen ought to visualize the whole of what they propose to
do before they take a tool in their hands. Thus, the village smith and
the carpenter, Avho are employed on odd jobs, require it no less for
their wojk than the mechanician, the engineer, and the architect. The
lady's-maid who arranges a new dress requires it for the same reason
as the decorator employed on a palace, or the agent who lays out great
estates. Strategists, artists of all denominations, physicists who con-
trive new experiments, and, in short, all who do not follow routine,
have need of it. The pleasure its use can afford is immense. I have
many correspondents who say that the delight of recalling beautiful
scenery and great works of art is the highest that they know. Our
bookish education tends unduly to repress this valuable gift of nature.
A faculty that is of importance in all technical and artistic occu-
pations, that gives accuracy to our perceptions, and justness to our
generalizations, is starved by disuse, instead of being cultivated in the
way that will bring most return. I believe that a serious study of the
best method of developing the faculty of visualizing is one of the
many pressing desideratam the new science of education. — Fortnightly
Meview.

♦♦»

HENRY AND FARADAY.*

Bt Professor ALFRED M. MAYEK.

MOST reluctantly do I here desist from citing further the works
of Henry. It is impossible to crowd into one brief hour the
thoughts which were his occupation during more than half a century.
I have at least endeavored to exhibit before you the more important
of the labors of his life. What shall we think of them ? Surely they
are on as high a plane as those of any of his contemporaries, and show
as much originality as theirs in their conception — as much skill in their
execution. Yet it has been said that Henry was not a man of genius.
As I have not been able to find that the philosophers, who have the
special charge of giving from time to time definitions of genius, have
been able to come to any satisfactory conclusion among themselves, I
will leave their company, and, with your liberty, take my definition
from a book which, if Ave accredit Thackeray, is one of the very best,
if not the best, novel ever writ in English. After listening to this I
will allow you to form your own opinions as to whether Henry did or
did not possess genius : " By genius I would understand that power,

* Extract from " Henry as a Discoverer," a paper read by Professor Mayer at the
recent Boston mectlns; of the American Scientific Association.

HENRY AND FARADAY. -j-j

or rather those powers of the mind which are capable of penetrating
into all things within our reach and knowledge, and of distinguishing
their essential differences. These are no other than invention and
judgment ; and they are both called by the collective name of genius,
as they are of those gifts of nature which we bring with us into the
world. Concerning each of which, many seem to have fallen into very
great errors ; for by invention, I believe, is generally understood a
creative faculty, which would indeed prove most romance writers to
have the highest pretensions to it ; whereas by invention is meant no
more (and so the word signifies) than discovery or finding out ; or, to
explain it at large, a quick and sagacious penetration into the true
essence of all the objects of our contemplation. This, I think, can
rarely exist without the concomitancy of judgment, for how we can "
be said to have discovered the true essence of two things, without dis-
cerning their difference, seems to me hard to conceive. Now, this last
is the undisputed province of judgment ; and yet some few men of wit
have agreed with all the dull fellows in the world in representing
these two to have been seldom or never the property of one and the
same person."

My own judgment, if of any value, would rank the ability of
Henry — I do not say his achievements — a little below that of Faraday.
Indeed, their lives and their manners of working were strangely alike.
Each started in life with moral and benevolent habits, well developed
and healthy bodies, quick and accurate perceptions, calm judgment
and self-reliance, tempered with modesty and good manners — a good
ground, surely, in which to plant the germs of the scientific life. Far-
aday was an apprentice to a bookbinder. Henry served in the same
capacity under a silversmith. Each, endowed with a lively imagina-
tion, was in his younger days fond of romance and the drama ; and,
by a singular similarity of accidents, each had had his attention turned
to science by a book which chance threw in his way. This work, in
the case of Faraday, was Mrs. Marcet's " Conversations on Chemis-
try," and the book which influenced Henry's career was Gregory's
" Lectures on Experimental Philosophy, Astronomy, and Chemistry.'*
Of Mrs. Marcet's book Faraday thus writes :

My DEAR Friend : Tour subject interested me deeply every way^ for Mrs.
Marcet was a good friend to me, as she must have been to many of the human
race. I entered the shop of a bookseller and bookbinder at the age of thirteen,
in the year 1804, remaining there eight years, and during the chief part of the
time bound books. Now, it was in those books, in the hours after work, that I
found the beginning of my philosophy. There were two that especially helped
me, the "Encyclopajdia Britannica," from which I gained my first notions of
electricity, and Mrs. Marcet's " Conversations on Chemistry," which gave me
my foundation in that science.

Do not suppose that I was a very deep thinker, or was marked as a preco-
cious person. I was a lively, imaginative person, and could believe in the " Ara-
bian Nights "as easily as in the "Encyclopaedia." But facts were important

78 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

to me and saved me. I could trust a fact, and always cross-examined an asser-
tion. So, when I questioned Mrs. Marcet's book, by such little experiments as I
could find means to perform, and found it true to the facts as I could understand
them, I felt that I had got hold of an anchor in chemical knowledge, and clung
fast to it. Thence my deep veneration for Mrs. Marcet — first as one who had
conferred great personal good and pleasure on me ; and then as one able to con-
vey the truth and principle of those boundless fields of knowledge which con-
cern natural things to the young, untaught, and inquiring mind.

You may imagine my delight when I came to know Mrs. Marcet personally;
how often I cast my thoughts backward, delighting to connect the past and
present; how often, when sending a paper to her as a thank-olfering, I thought
of my first instructress, and such thoughts will remain with me.

Henry wrote on the inside of tlie cover of Gregory's work the fol-
lowing words :

TIjIs book, although by no means a profound work, has, under Providence,
exerted a remarkable influence on my life. It accidentally fell into my hands
when I was about sixteen years old, and was the first book I ever read with at-
tention. It opened to me a new world of thought and enjoyment ; invested
things before almost unnoticed with the highest interest ; fixed my mind on the
study of nature, and caused me to resolve at the time of reading it that I would
immediately commence to devote my life to the acquisition of knowledge. J. H,

Each of these philosophers worked with simple instruments mostly
constructed by his own hands, and by methods so direct that he ap-
peared to have an almost intuitive perception into the workings of
nature ; and each gave great care to the composition of his writings,
sending his discoveries into the world clothed in simple and elegant
English.

Finally, each loved science more than money, and his Creator more
than either.

There was sympathy between these men, and Henry loved to dwell
on the hours that he and Bache had spent in Faraday's society. I
shall never forget Henry's account of his visit to King's College, Lon-
don, where Faraday, Wheatstone, Daniell and he had met to try and
evolve the electric spark from the thermopile. Each in turn at-
tempted it and failed. Then came Henry's turn. He succeeded ;
calling in the aid of his discovery of the effect of a long inter-polar
wire wrapped around a piece of soft iron. Faraday became as wild as
a boy, and, jumping up, shouted, "Hurrah for the Yankee experi-
ment ! "

And Faraday and "Wheatstone reciprocated the high estimation in
which Henry held them. During a visit to England, not long before
AVheatstorie's death, he told me that Faraday an4 he had, after Hen-
ry's classical investigation of the induced currents of different orders,
written a joint letter to the council of the Royal Society, urging that
the Copley medal, " that laurel-wreath of science," should be bestowed
on Henry: On further consultation with members of the council, it

HENRY AND FARADAY. 79

was decided to defer the honor till it would come with greater eclat^
when Henry had continued further his researches in electricity. Hen-
ry's removal to Washington interrupted these investigations. Wheat-
stone promised to give me this letter, to convey to Henry as an evi-
dence of the high appreciation which Faraday and he had for his
genius ; but Wheatstone's untimely death prevented this. Both Far-
aday and Henry gave much thought to the philosophy of education,
and in the main their ideas agreed. I may, in this connection, be ex-
cused for reading abstracts from a letter from Henry soon after he
had received the news that I had given my son his name. In this let-
ter he gives this information, which may be news to the most of you :

I did not object to Henry as a first name ; although I have been sorry that
my grandfather, in coming from Scotland to this country, substituted it for Hen-
drie, a much less common, and, therefore, distinctive name.

He then proceeds :

I hope that both his body and his mind will be so developed by proper train-
ing and instruction that he may become an efficient, wise, and good man. I say
efficient and wise, because these two characteristics are not always united in the
same person. Indeed, most of the inefficiency of the world is due to their sepa-
ration : wisdom may know what ought to be done, but it requires tlie aid of
efficiency to accomplish the desired object. I hope that in the education of your
son due attention may not only be given to the proper development of both
these faculties, but also that they will be cultivated in the order of nature : that
is, doing before thinking ; art before science. By inverting this order much in-
jury is frequently done to a child, especially in the case of the only son of a wid-
owed mother, in which a precocious boy becomes an insignificant man. On
examination in such a case, it will be generally found that the boy has never
been drilled into expertness in the art of language, of arithmetic, or of spelling,
of attention, perseverance, and order, or, in other words, of the habits of an ac-
tive and efficient life.

Henry was a man of extensive reading, and often surprised his
friends by the extent and accuracy of his information, and by the
original manner in which he brought his knowledge before them. Not
only was he well versed in those subjects in which one might naturally
suppose him proficient, but in departments of knowledge entirely dis-
tinct from that in which he gained his reputation as an original thinker.
Although without a musical ear, he had a nice feeling for the move-
ment of a poem, and was fond of drawing from his retentive memory
poetic quotations apt to the occasion. He was a diligent student of
mental philosophy, and also took a lively interest in the progress of
biological science, especially in following the recent generalizations of
Darwin, while the astonishing development of modern research in
tracking the history of prehistoric man had for him a peculiar fascina-
tion. Yet, w^ith all his learning, reputation, and influence, Henry was
as modest as he was pure.

One day, on opening Henry's copy of Young's " Lectures on Natu-

8o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ral Philosophy " — a book which he had studied more than any other
work of science — I read on the fly-leaf, written by his own hand, these

words :

"In Nature's infinite book of secrecy
A little I can read." — ShaJcesjjeare.

And clid he not read a little " in Nature's infinite book of secrecy " ?
and did he not read that little carefully and well ? May we all read
our little in that book as modestly and as reverently as did Joseph
Henry I

^«»

THE EYOLUTION OF ORGANIC FORM.

By CHAELES MOREIS.

WHAT does the story of life upon the earth teach us concerning
the unfoldment of organic form? Is the human figure a
chance result of an evolutionaiy force which might have pursued some
quite diiferent direction ; or are the laws of development such as to
lead inevitably toward the form of man as their highest organic
product? This is a question admitting of a more definite answer
than may at first thought appear, as we hope to show by a rapid sur-
vey of the various stejss of the process.

And, first, it must be borne in mind that Nature's efforts at animal
and plant formation have been on no contracted scale. The varying
forms produced have been almost multitudinous. They exist at pres-
ent in the greatest variety. But the present is only the apex of a
long succession of life-epochs, each with its special organic group.
We must multiply the existing forms by thousands of such epochs to
obtain any adequate idea of the whole broad field of life. Plainly,
then. Nature has not dealt sparsely with the subject, but has produced
a most generous profusion of differing forms. Hence, narrow as is
the field of the earth, there is reason to believe that the form-evolving
principle has had full opportunity here to act. and that it has selected
out the most favorable line of development from the many directions
attempted.

Life is an incessant battle — a battle for food, and a battle for
safety. The total quantity of food is limited. The powers of or-
ganic increase are unlimited. Thus a fight for food becomes neces-
sary ; a conflict in which no quarter is asked and none given. Victory
inclines to the strongest and best armed. The successful combatant
must have powers of defense against all Nature's attacks, and of as-
sault against all Nature's defenses. In other words, the organism best
adapted to its environment will win.

And this incessant weeding-out process is not confined to mature

THE EVOLUTION OF ORGANIC FORM. 81

forms. It is constantly in action, from the germ up to maturity.
There is as fierce a battle between germs as between grown animals
as to which shall survive. The ill-adapted embryo perishes ; the well-
adapted lives. Of the multitudes of young, only those survive which
are best fitted to obtain food and escape peril. There is thus a suc-
cession of conditions to which the growing form must be successively
adapted, and each mature form is the sole survivor of a myriad of
germs which started together in the race of life. It has been sharply
selected out as the best adapted.

The law of adaptation thus works vigorously throughout all em-
bryonic development. It woi'ks as decisively on matui-e forms. They
must be closely adapted to certain conditions of nature ; but the pos-
sible vai'iation in conditions is almost boundless. Not only in time
have there been constant changes in natural conditions, and not only
do they now widely vary in different localities, but even in the same
locality a great variety of differing conditions simultaneously exist.

As the simple atoms of the chemical elements unite to form com-
plex compounds, so do simple conditions unite into complex. Numer-
ous sets of minor conditions exist together, from whose combination
are formed less numerous major conditions, and from these again a
single highest condition which includes all below its level. Thus each
locality may possess its many sets of simpler forms, and sets of
superior forms narrowing in number as they become adapted to a
wider environment, until a highest or most complex form is reached,
which is in physical harmony with the totality of existing conditions.

And the question of superiority and inferiority between animals is
simply a question of the greater or lesser complexity of the conditions
to which they are fitted, the broader or narrower field of adaptation
which they occupy.

But, in this quick pressing of new forms into every nook and
cranny of nature, there are certain general principles which have a
controlling influence over the resulting changes in form. One con-
sideration must always be taken into account, that of the character
of organic material — of protoplasm — and the forms it naturally tends
to assume. And a second consideration is that of the main end of
animal life — the absorption of aliment. From this latter it follows
that the basic type of animal form is the stomach ; and in viewing
the field of animal development we behold only a series of stomachs,
provided with various food-taking and danger-escaping appendages.

Evolution, then, means the gaining of superior powers of provid-
ing for the needs of this voracious core of all animals, the stomach ;
and of superior powers of escaping the voraciousness of other armed
and perambulatory stomachs.

The aliment on which organisms subsist is of three kinds — mineral,
vegetable, and animal. The pursuit of these yields two distinct classes
of organisms. Mineral food needs to undergo a high degree of chemi-

TOL. XVIII. — 6

82 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

cal integration. The organisms which subsist upon it are functionally-
low, the forces which might have been otherwise employed being used
up in the formation of protoplasm and other high organic compounds.

The conditions of alimentation limit the vegetable world to one
general form. Plants do not need to seek food ; food seeks them.
Thus no motive powers are requisite, and they remain fixed in one
position. But food seeks them in two different localities, the earth
and the air. The earth constituent comes to them dissolved in water,
the atmospheric constituent dissolved in air. They must, therefore,
have powers of extension sufficient to occujDy both these fields. This
power is obtained by growth, root-extension seeking the liquid food,
leaf-extension the gaseous food.

These general conditions confine plants to one generic form, a
connecting link of stem between earth and air, and an extension of
root-mouths into the soil and of leaf -mouths into the atmosphere. A
tree is a society, or family ; the main stem being the patriarch of the
flock, the earth and air branches its descendants, and the leaves and
rootlets its latest unisexual offspring.

As the type of animal form is the stomach, so the type of plant
form is the mouth. It has not yet developed into the formation
of a central stomach, nor has it attained powers of digestion. It
builds up protoplasm by successive steps of chemical integration. It
is a laboratory for the production of chemical synthesis — not of
chemical analysis, as in animals.

Thus the food-taking requisite is provided for in the production of
numerous leaf and root mouths, extending themselves into the two
great reservoirs of food. But defense must be provided for as well.
Plants are attacked by various foes. Fierce storms assail them. These
can only be resisted by an inmate strength or elasticity. Wintry cold
congeals their food-supply. They must therefore be capable of hiber-
nating. Animals seek to devour them. They can only escape by
inclosing themselves in a rigid armor, or by becoming unfitted for
animal food.

This leads us to the most significant adaptation in plants. Their
life duration is limited, and they must have powers of reproduction,
the best adapted in this respect crowding out the less adapted. Obvi-
ously the seed-bearers are best fitted for survival ; and of these, those
bearing the most seeds, and having the best facilities for dispersing
them.

But the fixed plant can not, of itself, spread its seeds beyond its
own locality. It must be aided by other agencies. Many plants
avail themselves of air-currents for this purpose, the seeds being pro-
vided with curious appendages to aid them in flying or rolling before
the winds. In other cases the seed is surrounded by a store of pala-
table food, offering an inducement to the higher animals to devour it,
and thus to disseminate the seeds.

THE EVOLUTION OF ORGANIC FORM. 83

Fertilization of the flowers is provided for in a similar manner.
The flowers can not reach each other, and therefore enlist insects in
their aid, preparing a store of food highly palatable to these air rovers,
and thus having their fertilizing germs carried from flower to flower.

Such are the general agencies at work in plant-life, and producing
its typical form. And thus, while protecting their vital organs by a
rigid armor, plants provide for reproduction by adapting a portion of
their bodies for animal food ; gaining in this manner for their offspring
the powers of motion which they lack themselves.

Yet all plants are not confined to this typical form, as all plants are
not confined to purely inorganic aliment. Some subsist on partly or
fully elaborated organic food, and these deviate from the plant and
approach some of the animal types of form, which we have next to
consider.

In animal life very different requirements from those presented by
plants are exhibited, and the forms are essentially different. Yet their
main functions are the same. All organisms are adapted to the two
general purposes of food-getting and defense, to which all their other
powers are subordinate.

As vegetables subsist on mineral, so animals subsist on organic
food, either vegetable or animal. And this food presents another es-
sential difference from that of plants. It exists only in the solid state,
while that of plants is wholly fluid. It can not be taken by direct
imbibition, like that of vegetables, but must be first rendered liquid
through some digestive process, and afterward imbibed. Thus an
internal stomach is necessary to all but the very lowest animals, and
even these improvise temporary stomachs, which foreshadow the per-
manent stomach.

The animal — not being bathed in an ocean of food, which it has but
to drink in at a multitude of mouths covering its whole periphery, as
in the plant — must have means of drawing food to it, or organs ena-
bling it to go in search of food. In short, it must have motive powers.

And for those creatures which are obliged to go in search of their
food, it is equally requisite that they should be able to discover its
locality. Sensory organs, therefore, become necessary. Consequently,
the animal is superior to the plant through this possession of muscular
and sense organs. It is also superior in being able to employ the
energy derived from its food, not in the building up of chemical com-
pounds, but in the force of motion and sensation.

Nor can the animal be wholly protected by armor. Some portion
of it must be exposed to danger. At least those flexible limbs which
aid it in food-getting are in frequent peril, and need some form of pro-
tection. The loss of them can not well be made useful to the animal,
as the loss of its exposed portions is to the plants.

Evidently the animal is capable of a much wider range of form-
evolution than the plant. In its mobility of variation it has branched

84 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

out in many directions, but the possible height attainable by each gen-
eral direction of growth is limited by certain principles, which we may
be able to discover.

Both herbivorous and carnivorous animals may exist in fixed and
in motile forms — food-attracting and food-seeking adaptations. The
fixed forms are principally or entirely water-animals, comprising the
Sponges, a large section of the Polyps, the lower forms of the Echino-
derms, with some divergent forms, such as the Bryozoa, the Tunicata,
and the Barnacles.

These are saved the necessity of moving, by the fact of their being
tenants of a liquid whose moving currents bring them food, and by
being capable of themselves producing water-currents, on which food
is borne to them. Their necessary movements are reduced to the mo-
tion of tentacles — current-making or food-seizing organs. No sense is
requisite except touch, and therefore no higher degree of sensibility is
developed. These fixed forms thus necessarily remain at the foot of
the ladder of progress, being but a step above the Protozoa, or single-
celled animals. They may be classed, however, as superior to the in-
ternal parasites of animals, which live by imbibing elaborated animal
juices, and need no motile nor sense organs.

But, as soon as an animal obtains powers of free motion, it comes
at once into contact with a much wider range of conditions and needs
to gain extended powers. It is, moreover, placed under seeming dis-
advantages, which are really of high efficacy in its development. It
possesses no stone castle of refuge, from which it has but to extend
its retractile arms. It is, therefore, exposed to much greater dangers,
its whole body being open to the assault of foes.

There are two general methods by which protection from these
perils is gained : the first by armor ; the second by activity and sen-
sory acuteness. The armored animals are necessarily heavier, less ac-
tive, and less flexible, than the unarmored. The latter depend for
safety on activity and variety of motion, on quickness of sense, and on
weapons of defense. They are, consequently, more highly developed
than the armored, whose firm coating forms their main protective
adaptation.

They also come into contact with a much wider range of natural
conditions, their more extensive excursions accustoming them to more
varied forms of food, adapting them to wider surface and temperature
relations, and exposing them to more numerous foes. Thus they must
become fitted to a wider environment, and their powers be more spe-
cialized ; the naked, flexible, active animal being thus necessarily the
highest in point of development.

These general views lead us to their particular application to the
existing animal types. "We think it can be shown that each type has
had full opportunities of unfoldment, and has reached the extreme
limit of its line of growth.

THE EVOLUTION OF ORGANIC FORM. 85

There are certain requirements of the animal organism to which
every adaptation must conform. Underlying the stomachic type is
the more primary fact that the natural form of colloid matter is the
globe. Like all fluid or semi-fluid matter it tends to curve about a
general center of attraction, in distinction to the angular extension of
the crystal. This tendency shows itself in all parts of all animal forms,
and also in these forms as wholes, the globe being departed from only
through functional necessity, or from the superposition of a series of
organs, each with a globular tendency, yielding, through mutual pres-
sure, a more or less ovoid result.

In the Protozoa we have the globular form, diversified by temporary,
improvised limbs, or by permanent organs. In the Metazoa variation
from the globe takes place in axial directions — the fixed animals hav-
ing usually but two axes of departure from the sphere ; the moving
animals having ordinarily three axes — a longitudinal, a vertical, and a
transverse. The general result is the production of the round, flattened
form of the two-axed, and the oval form of the three-axed animals ;
the further departure being in the production of limbs — appendages
devoted to motion, or to assault and defense.

If now we take the Gastrula, the simple stomach-sac, for the primi-
tive form of the many-celled animal, and the earliest phase of deriva-
tion from the Protozoa, it is easy to perceive that this hollow animal
globe may vary in three different modes.

First, it may retain its sac-like form and stomach-opening, devel-
oping tentacles about the mouth, and radiated body divisions ; thus
passing from the single axis of the Gastrula to the double axis of the
polyp.

Secondly, it may flatten, until it resembles a sack with the open top
pressed down upon the bottom, and the sides bulging outward into a
circle. If, now, radiated arms extend outward from this rounded side,
we have the starfish type of organism.

Thirdly — still preserving its affiliation to the globe — it may lengthen
instead of flattening. From this mode of development would come
the longitudinal type of animals, the vermes, or worm-forms.

A still more primitive departure from the original Gastrula form is
found in the sponge, in which the body- wall is pierced by minute aper-
tures, through which food-bearing currents are drawn into the general
internal stomach, and forced out again through the mouth. The low
organization of the sponge results from the fact that it does not even
require the mouth-arms of the polyp as an aid in food-getting. Its
only motive apparatus is the cilia, or vibrating hair, of the Infusoria.

Of the three forms which thus seem to be the first natural varia-
tions of the Gastrula— the globular, the flattened, and the lengthened
— the first two naturally rest on one extremity of the longitudinal or
stomach axis ; the other, or mouth extremity, being directed upward.
Thus only these two extremities are exposed to diverse conditions, the

86 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

one being in contact with the ground, the other with water or air. The
intermediate surface is affected in but one manner. It being every-
where similarly influenced, its whole development is similar, and a ra-
dial or two-axed form results.

In the lengthened forms the longitudinal or intestinal axis naturally
becomes horizontal. The two extremities of this axis develop into
mouth and vent. But the intermediate portions are also differently
conditioned. Vertically a lower face is in contact with the ground, an
upper face with water or air. Thus ventral and dorsal surfaces are
produced. Transversely, the oj^posite sides are similarly affected, and
develop similarly. Gravitation also tends to produce a shortening of
the vertical and a widening of the transverse axis. Thus the three-
axed animal appears, a lengthened form, with mouth-opening at the
anterior-moving extremity, with diverse dorsal and ventral surfaces,
with similar lateral surfaces, and with a tendency to become flattened
vertically.

In this lengthened, or worm type, appears an animal form more
highly conditioned than any possible two-axed form, and capable of
far higher development. It is much the best adapted for rapid move-
ment, its long, narrow shape being well calculated to overcome the
frictional resistance of water or au' ; while it is capable of a flexibility
not possible to the compact types of animal form.

Consequently, from the primitive types of animal form we have so
far considered, we find two general lines of development. The first of
these is a tendency in the compact types to become lengthened in form,
to lose their protective armor, and to assume the free-moving condition
— their most advanced genera being thus constituted. On the other
hand, a retrograding tendency shows itself in certain sections of the
lengthened animal type, compact forms ajipearing. And, significantly,
these envelop themselves in shelly or horny armor for protection, be-
come sluggish in motion, and fail to develop the acute sensitiveness and
other advanced powers of the naked worms.

Such being the primitive and secondary form-evolving tendencies,
the production of organs of motion is in strict accordance therewith.
In the radiated polyps the limbs appear as head-organs. These are
so ill-adapted to the production of free motion, that the solitary Polyps
have not developed into this condition, except in the case of the Me-
dusae or jelly-fish. And these in no instance seek to swim by aid of
their arms, a slow movement being gained by umbrella-like contrac-
tions of their radiate body disk.

In the Echinoderm family — one of the reversions from the longitu-
dinal type — the shortening of the intestinal axis has brought it into
such close relations with the radiate type that the difference is only
clearly distinguishable in its embryo stage of existence. Its intestinal
axis has become vertical, and it has gained radiated limbs — not head,
but side limbs. By the aid of these the free-moving Echinoderms

THE EVOLUTION OF ORGANIC FORM. 87

manage to progress slowly, but they depend more particularly on their
armor for protection.

In the Mollusk family — another form of reversion from the primi-
tive lonsritudinal or three-axed form — the conditions of existence ne-
cessitate other motive organs. This family of animals, instead of
clothing itself in a dermal armor like the Echinoderms, produces a limy
covering, a movable house to which it is not anatomically connected,
and which principally differs from the stone mansion of the polyp in
being movable. Within this house the mollusk preserves his three-
axed form ; having no such strong inducement to yield it as has the
Echinoderm. But his contact with exterior nature is but a head and
foot contact. He therefore develojDS head-limbs — tentacular organs —
while his slow progress is gained by alternate expansions and contrac-
tions of a muscular portion of the ventral surface.

Thus the lower types of animal form are forced, by the necessities
of their environment, to evolve certain general anatomical conditions,
which, as we shall hereafter see, act as a fatal drag on their subsequent
efforts to occupy the higher fields of life.

The worm type has, from the beginning, a marked advantage over
them. The creeping forms of this type would naturally tend to de-
velop moving organs at their points of contact with the ground, yield-
ing ventral limbs, extended along the body. Breathing organs might
appear on the dorsal surface, in contact with the water ; or at the
mouth, where inflowing currents would yield the fullest water contact.

In the swimming w^orms a somewhat different process of limb de-
velopment would naturally arise. Here, for the freest degree of mo-
tion, some form of fin must replace the limb of the creeping worm.
Thei-e is reason to believe that fins first arose as lateral extensions of
the flattened body. This general fin — under the late theory of limb
development — in time lost its continuity, and broke up into four sepa-
rate sections, whence arose the four limbs of the future Vertebrates.

The possession of such longitudinal body-limbs or fins gives much
greater rapidity of motion to the worm type than is possible to the
head-limbed or radiate body-limbed types. As a consequence of their
motive facility they remain naked, rapidity of motion and keenness of
sense giving them powers of attack and escape not needed by the ten-
tacled and armored forms.

In fact, the advantage of the longitudinal extension is so patent that
we find all the lower types making efforts to attain it, and in this man-
ner reaching their highest limit of progression. This constitutes the
next step in the evolution of animal form, and one which presents some
exceedingly curious phases.

The phases here referred to are not displayed by the mollusks or
the Echinoderms. We shall therefore first speak of their simpler mode
of attaining their highest development.

In the mollusk it is attained by a lengthening of the compact body.

88 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

while the shell becomes internal instead of external. It continues to
be useful as a basis of muscular attachment, but no longer as a defen-
sive armor.

The whole development of the mollusks, from the lowest bivalve to
the highest univalve form, has tended to the production of head-limbs,
and a compact, bag-like body. In their naked state their evolution is
limited by this hereditary constitution. Two modes of motion are
possessed, the swimming and the creeping. For use in the first there
is a fin-like expansion of the body, which enables them 16 move with
much rapidity, while backward motion is gained by expulsion of water
from between the arm-membranes. But the body continues rigid, and
is at a disadvantage as compared with the flexible worm type.

Creeping motion is gained by a development of sucking-disks upon
the arms, which serve for a slow dragging of the body, turned head
downward, and also as an efficient agent in the capture of game.

This highest moUusk, the cuttle-fish, is utterly unfitted for a land
residence despite its acute sense-organs. The ink-bag, which ena-
bles it to conceal itself in the water, would be of no use to it on land ;
its tail-fins or its radiated head-arms could not be changed into effi-
cient organs of land-motion ; it would, therefore, be at a great disad-
vantage as compared with the body-limbed, flexible-framed vertebrates^
Thus the highest development of the mollusk type is unsuited by its
defective constitution to a land residence, and can only progress to
the limited extent permitted by the restrictions of a water residence.

In the Echinoderms a similar lengthening of the body is gained.
Of the free forms, we have the flattened starfish, with the arms some-
times developed at the expense of the body, the body sometimes at the
expense of the arms ; the globular sea-urchin, with its ambulacral
arms ; and the lengthened Holothuroid. In this latter is displayed what
seems almost an intelligent effort to imitate the worm type. Unlike
the other Echinoderms, its intestinal axis becomes horizontal instead of
vertical. Thus, like the worms, it attains dorsal and ventral surfaces,
exposed to diverse conditions. As a consequence, of its five rows of
ambulacral suckers, those on the dorsal surface disappear in the most
advanced genera, only the three ventral rows being retained. The
distinguishing radiate structure is displayed only by its circle of mouth-
tentacles, the food-getting organs. It also loses the calcareous outer
armor of the lower Echinoderms, replacing it by a flexible, leathery
skin.

But, with these several advances toward the worm type, the heredi-
tary disadvantages of the Holothuroid act as impassable restrictions to
any great development. The organs of the higher senses are wanting.
It is in no way adapted to swimming, its exterior organs being quite
unfitted to develop into fins. Nor are the ambulacral suckers suited
to any rapid progression. An utter change in character would be
necessary to adapt them to a walking or running movement. Thus

rp

'HE EVOLUTION OF ORGANIC FORM. 89

this line of animal evolution has reached its ultimate at a much lower
level than that attained by the Mollusca.

But, by this review of what we may, in a figurative sense, call Na-
ture's failures in animal evolution, we begin to perceive the requisites
to success. The retrograde forms, after again developing into the
lengthened type, are constitutionally restricted from gaining certain
structural advantages which are primitive possessions of other types.
■ These advantages we may classify as body-limbs, adapted to walk-
ing or swimming ; and an articulated body, capable of a flexibility not
possible to the compact, single-sectioned animals. All the other ani-
mal types, besides those we have considered, have made an effort to
attain this articulated structure, sometimes by a very curious process.
The success attained in this effort is closely dependent upon the primi-
tive structure of the articulated animal, which has placed impassable
restrictions in the path of some types.

In the polyps and in the articulates the end seems to have been
attained by the linking together of a colony of animals, forming a
structure, originally compound, which has become simjjle by a division
of functions between the successive sections.

In the Vertebrata alone has it been attained by the articulation of
an originally single animal. The vei'tebrates thus possess special
structural advantages denied to the other articulated forms, the com-
pound origin of these latter curiously limiting their powers of evolu-
tion.

In this merging of societies into single animals, Nature presents us
instances of every step of the process, from those in which individual-
ity remains intact, to those in which it is subordinated to the require-
ments of the compound animal.

A first step in the process is displayed by the Tunicate mollusks.
The Salpa — one form of these shell-less creatures — is a free-moving
animal, progressing by the aid of water, which is drawn into one end
of its straight intestine and expelled at the other. They exist in two
conditions, the single and the compound. In the latter they unite into
long chains, not organically connected, but apparently adhering by
little suckers.

This primitive combination seems assumed for one advantage only,
that of aiding their motion. The animals in the chain conti-act and
expand simultaneously, the whole chain moving like one lengthened
animal.

The same end is achieved in a still more curious way in the Pyro-
soma, another of the Tunicata. These little creatures so group them-
selves as to form a hollow tube, open at one end and closed at the
other. The minute animals which compose the walls of this tube have
one gill-opening extended outward, the other inward. Thus they draw
water from outside and discharge it into the interior of the tube.
This being closed at one end, the water is necessarily driven from the

90 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

other, giving to the odd, phosphorescent, living tubes a lengthwise
movement through the ocean.

The Ascidians — a family of fixed Tunicates — present societies to
some extent organically connected. They are grouped by a common
connection of their mantles, or rise successively from a common stem,
through which an organic unity is established. Yet their individuality
continues ; for, if one of the Ascidians has its circulation cut off, by
a ligature, from the common stem, it continues to exist independently.

In the fixed polyps the subordination of character resembles that
of the Ascidians. It is carried further, however. Thus, in some in-
stances, not only is the common stem fed by the efforts of a series of
individual mouths, but there seems to be a sensitive connection. If,
for instance, one of the expanded animals of an Alcyonium community
be touched, not only does this animal contract, but gradually the re-
maining animals of the community contract also.

Again, in the Ilydrozoa, individual members of the community are
specialized as reproductive organs, being fed through the common
stem by the feeding individuals. In these cases the merging of indi-
viduality has extended much beyond the simple case of the Salpne, cer-
tain members of a society being specialized as organs of a compound
animal. These rei^roductive buds, however, in many cases regain their
individuality in a very j^eculiar manner. They separate from the com-
mon stem, and continue to exist as free-swimming animals. But their
specialized development has produced material modifications in their
form and internal organization. They are no longer fixed polyps, but
free Medusffi, retaining only a general resemblance to the polyp type,
and swimming by means of contractions of their umbrella-like disk.

By this strange modification of the polyp form, to achieve special
purposes, a new free animal form is produced, which sometimes follows
its new line of development so as to yield an animal markedly distinct
from its unspecialized brothers of the same community. Such is one
of the many strange modes in which Nature has sought to produce new
forms of animal life.

But the greatest subordination of individuality is shown in the
Siphonophorse, a family of Hydrozoa in w^hich a distinct effort seems
to be made to attain the elongated, free-swimming form, through com-
bination. In some of these the evolution of a colony into a single ani-
mal is almost complete. A large number of individuals are connected
by a common stem ; but these individuals are so specialized in function
as to be no longer capable of a separate existence. They have lost
certain powers, and developed others, so that they are reduced to the
condition of special organs of a single animal. Some act as food-catch-
ing organs, some as mouths, some as reproductive and nursing members,
and, by a strange transformation, some have become bell-like organs,
which, by successive contractions, expel the water, and force the whole
community through the seas.

THE EVOLUTION OF ORGANIC FORM. 91

These swimming bells are not unlike the Medusse in this particular,
but have become far more specialized than the Medusse, as they possess
none of the organs requisite to individual life.

In the Physalia, or Portuguese man-of-war, the connecting body
is developed into a floating bladder, moving by force of the winds, and
with its variously modified polyps beneath it.

Such are some of the modes adopted by Nature to produce free mo-
tion in the lower types of animal life. The animals produced by this
social subordination of function are imperfect because the subordina-
tion is indefinite. There is not a single organ adapted to each func-
tion, but a variable number. And the very means by which propulsion
through the water is gained renders this imperfection necessary. • For,
if a single individual constituted each organ, the animal would become
compact, and be moved by a single contracting bell. Its powers of
motion would be reduced to those of the Medusae, and its organization
retrograde toward the original compact stage.

This line of progress, with its necessarily imperfect specialization,
is evidently incapable of attaining the level of the Echinoderm, much
less of the mollusk.

But another line — that of the segmented animals — seems much
better adapted to attain a high grade of evolution. Not but that its
segments possess anatomical characters as stubborn as those of the
Radiates, but that these are less restrictive to a high evolution.

It is, of course, not the usual view to consider the Articulates as
the result of an original social organization. The segments, in the
higher genera, are so specialized that they now exist but as organic
parts of a single animal. And yet, if we consider the lower articulated
worms, evidences of such an origin may be discovered.

In these lowest Articulates scarcely any difference is to be traced
between the segments. The anterior, from its position, acts as a
mouth, but otherwise they are as similar as the individual Salpse. But
the most significant feature is that in many cases each of them possesses
the organization of an individual. Each segment still retains its separate
nervous ganglion, its separate muscles, its separate limbs, frequently
its separate breathing organs, and, in a partial degree, its separate cir-
culation. These are only subordinated to the extent of being joined
by connecting links, while the intestine of each becomes continuous as
a common intestine.

In fact, this organic individuality is carried, in certain cases, to a
yet more significant extent. The organs of sj^ecial sense — the most
highly specialized of animal organs — are, in some instances, retained
by the separate segments. There are not only existing worms with
eyes at each extremity of the body, but others which possess eyes in
each separate segment.

Thus we are led not alone to the conception of an original animal
which became associated into the Articulates, but even to some idea

92 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of the organization of this primitive animal. If we assign to it the
organs still possessed by the segments of the Annelides, we find it to
have had an intestine separate from the circulation, being thus superior
to the polyps. It had also simple nervous and muscular systems, and
immature eyes, a chitinous armor, a water-vascular system, and possi-
bly distinct exterior breathing organs and feet. It may, indeed, have
been the primitive form from which other animal types besides the
Articulates originated — through a diverse process of evolution.

It is not improbable that the Articulate condition was reached, not
by a combination of free individuals, but by a continued adherence of
longitudinal buds. The increase in number of segments by division is
still common in Articulates. The minute fresh-water worm called
the Nais, is separated into two sections by a bud which appears in the
center of the body. One section develops a head and the other a tail,
at the ends adjoining the bud. But the bud itself again and again
divides, each division becoming a young Nais, so that finally a chain
of worms is formed, all organically connected, and fed by the mouth
of the anterior Nais. Eventually they sejDarate, each becoming a
free individual.

The question now arises as to how a developing force would act
on such an articulated society. The highest results of evolution are
reached through concentration of function. Such specialization is op-
posed to a continuous increase in the number of segments, and must
tend to the production of a definite organism, of limited extent. The
activity of this organism is increased by its gaining limbs more useful
than the bristle-like setae of the Annelides. Its range of food expands
when its fore-limbs are changed into food-getting organs. Its powers
of motion increase when the body is compacted, and the number of
joints decreased, by a welding of several segments into one.

But whence come such new limbs ? A consideration of their char-
acter leads us to the idea that they may proceed from a simple con-
tinuance of the budding process, acting, in this case, in a lateral direc-
tion instead of lengthwise. For the limbs are hollow, jointed seg-
ments, covered with chitine like the body-segments. They seem, in-
deed, to be specialized side-segments which have lost their internal
organs through disuse, retaining only their chitinous armor, their
muscles, and their intestinal cavity. And the successive joints of the
limbs appear to be formed by a continuance of the budding process.
One evidence of this is the fact that they may be reproduced by
budding when broken off at the joint ; and also that lateral budding
again takes place at the extremity of the limbs, yielding double tarsi
or pincers in the head-limbs.

Such is the character of the articulated animal ; and it appears as
if this persistent partial individuality of the segments must prevent
that complete localization of function which seems necessary to the
greatest animal development'.

THE EVOLUTION OF ORGANIC FORM. 93

As we ascend to the higher members of the Articulate type, the
specialization of function increases, but not sufficiently to obliterate all
the individuality of the segments. The tendency in the Arthropods is
toward a continuous welding of the segments. Thus, in the Crusta-
ceans we find twenty or twenty-one segments compacted into three
body sections. In the higher families these three are reduced to two ;
and, in the highest crabs, the abdominal section becomes so reduced
that all the body functions are performed by a single section.

At the same time the chitinous armor of the segments becomes a
continuous cortical armor ; and the chain of nerve-ganglia is reduced
to a single large ganglion, which supplies nerve-fibers to all the body.

In this manner the Crustacean reaches its most specialized condi-
tion, but only by a loss of its longitudinal extension, and a return to
the compact, slow-moving, armored type of animal. Thus, its highest
evolution has produced an organization antagonistic to any advanced
degree of development.

Of the air-breathing Arthropods the Arachnidoe seem to be closely
allied to the Crustaceans. They have the same compactness of organi-
zation ; are not, as a rule, adapted to swift motion ; and are inferior
to the high Crustaceans from the fact that their tendency is toward
development of the abdomen, instead of the head section, as in the
crabs.

The insects and Myriapods do not possess the relations to the Crus-
taceans shown by the spiders and their allies. On the contrary, their
larval form seems to indicate a separate line of descent from the
worms. Different as insects and Myriapods are in their mature forms,
they appear to have had a common origin — the embryo of the Myria-
pods passing through a stage that resembles the larval stage of insects.
They seem, indeed, to have developed from their primitive form in
opposite directions, the segments being multiplied in the Myriapods
and reduced in the insects. The embryo of the Myriapod has at first
but three pairs of legs. At a later period posterior legs bud succes-
sively from the new-formed segments. There seems to be no fixed
limit to the number of segments, since they continue to increase
throughout life. And their individuality is strongly declared, each
segment possessing the organs necessary to a separate life, as a nerve-
ganglion and fibers, breathing organs, muscles, an intestine, and a vas-
cular space. These organs, if redeveloped from their partly aborted
condition, might well suffice to sustain life in separate animals.

Even in the highest of the Arthropods — the insects — this heredi-
tary individual organization of the segments continues manifest ; these
organically independent members of the society stubbornly resist the
cession of their primitive functions, only partly yielding to the com-
mon needs, and thus retaining a generalization of function which is
repressive of any high development.

The animal best suited for progression is one which has all its

94 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

functions separately concentrated. Its aeration, its circulation, its
sensation must have single, localized centers, and its limbs be reduced
to the smallest possible number, and separated in duty. These requi-
sites are only fully attained in the human form. They are constitu-
tionally prohibited to the segmented animals.

In the insects the persistent individuality of the segments is shown
partly in their six legs, each pair attached to a segment ; but more par-
ticularly in their generalized nervous and respiratory systems. To a
great extent each segment preserves its nerve-ganglion. So, to a similar
extent, each segment does its own breathing, the whole body becom-
ing one generalized lung. The blood circulation, which is only partly
confined to specialized blood-vessels, is accompanied by a general air
circulation. There is nothing resembling the localized relations of
these circulating systems as seen in the Vertebrates.

Such are the constitutional limitations to development in the
Articulates, probably resulting from their social origin. The effort
to overcome these limitations in the crabs has resulted in organic
conditions opposed to a high development. How is it in the insects ?
In them the segments are so welded as to form three distinct body
sections. In the higher insects the individuality of the segments is so
reduced that the nerve-ganglia of the thoracic segments are concen-
trated into one ganglion, while a single head-ganglion, of large size,
ofiiciates as a brain. Their muscular force is greater in projjortion
than that of Vertebrates, so that they are strong, active, and endur-
ing in bodily vigor. What natural influence is it that has restricted
their development ?

This may not be difficult to discover. "We have seen that the too
great compacting of the articulated body, as in the crabs and spiders,
has proved a hindrance to develoi^ment. The three sections of the in-
sect body, each devoted to a single class of duties, has given them varie-
ty of motion, and more diversified food-getting functions. But it has
otherwise worked injuriously. Rapid variations in movement require
that these sections should be united by flexible joints. But these
joints are articulations of an external skeleton, and can only be pro-
duced by a deep depression of this cortical armor into the regions
dividing the sections. Thus the continuity of the body is almost
broken at these joints. A similar relation exists between the joints of
the limbs.

It seems evident from these considerations that the insect is not con-
stituted to attain a large size. Conditions which are suitable to a small
body might prove utterly unfitted to the requirements of a larger
organism. Let us imagine an insect of the size of an ox ; walking on
its six many-jointed, hollow legs ; its body composed of three almost
separate sections ; breathing through air-holes in its sides, its whole
body but an air-tank, or lung. Even if such a growth were possible,
it would obviously be at a disadvantage as compared with the Verte-

THE EVOLUTION OF ORGANIC FORM. 95

brates. Whatever size it might have attained in the absence of the
Vertebrata, it certainly would be unfitted to compete with these bet-
ter adapted animals for the possession of the higher fields of life.

Insects thus seem restricted to a small form, contracted localities,
and a narrow range of conditions. The ants, their highest form, is
one of the most limited in range. It is highest in having best suc-
ceeded in adapting nature to its needs, and, in so doing, having devel-
oped a superior mentality ; but it can not advance beyond the needs
of its contracted environment.

In the various animal types we have considered, Nature seems to
have exhausted all side-issues in her efforts to produce an animal form
adapted to a high grade of evolution. The persistent individuality of
the segments hinders a colony from merging into an individual capa-
ble of an advanced phase of development.

Another and simpler method remains to be considered ; the direct
elongation of a single individual — not the elongation of a previously
organized animal, but a primary derivative, unshackled by anatomical
difficulties.

For high progress in this individual, certain conditions are neces-
sary. It must not seek safety in a coat of armor. It must save itself
from danger by powers of flight and acuteness of sense. In a water
residence the most effective flight is gained by swimming. Therefore
our worm must become a swimming animal, its sides being flattened
into swimming-flaps.

In such an individual the functions would be specialized, as they
were in the individuals which became welded into the Articulate.
Indeed, the Vertebrate and the Articulate may have had a single ori-
gin in this primitive organic form.

The swimming worm we are considering has no hindrances to spe-
cialization of function. His side-flaps may be reduced to local fins.
His intestinal tube — not acting as a series of sectional stomachs — may
become localized in function, its anterior portion acting as a lung, its
posterior portion as a stomach. There are several advantages in this.
The circulation is no longer exposed to danger by a perilous thinning
of the outer surface into branchiae. The food being drawn in by
water-currents, oxygen is extracted from the water by the anterior
intestine, and aliment by the posterior. Similarly, the nerve and
muscle systems are single and specialized, and the sense organs local.

But another condition is necessary to the full adaptation of this
swimming animal to its situation. Its swift motion necessitates mus-
cular vigor, and requires some firm point of attachment for the mus-
cles. In all the armored types the shell, or outer coating, serves for
this purpose. In the naked worm there is no such exterior point of
attachment, and an interior one must be developed.

Thus we have arrived at the necessity of an interior skeleton, an

96 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

organic condition not disjjlayed in all the vast field of life we have so
far reviewed, except imperfectly, in the Cephalopod mollusks.

This is, at first, attained by the indui'ating of a dorsal layer of
flesh into a cartilaginous cord, which stiffens the body while leaving
it flexible, and furnishes points for muscular attachment.

Only a few instances remain of this earlier condition of the Verte-
brate type. All others have disappeared. In the embryo of a Tuni-
cate animal, the Ascidia, both the cartilaginous cord and the intestinal
branchiae appear. In its mature form it becomes a fixed animal, and
loses this cord. But in the Ai^pendicularia, a related animal, the cord
is retained throughout life. It is also retained, in a more complete
develoiDment, in the Lancelet Amphioxus, a creature having strong
vertebrate affinities in its extended nerve-cord and its general func-
tional system.

But one further step is required to produce the typical Vertebrate
from such an original. This is the formation of joints in the cartilagi-
nous cord, when it has become so firm as to resist the lateral move-
ments of the body, or is hardened by deposition of carbonate of lime.

There is nothing in this like the welding of segments in the Articu-
late. The vertebrate joints display none of the separate vital animal
functions. They yield every indication of being produced in the mode
indicated, by the stress of an undulating body. The joints in the sub-
sequent limbs resemble them in character, and seem to be formed in
the same manner. The Lancelet is not jointed ; it is a single indi-
vidual. But the worm from which the Articulate arises is jointed,
and each joint is possessed of all the vital functions.

Thus it appears that the Vertebrate animal starts in the race of
life with advantages possessed by none of its competitors. It remains
to trace the steps of its develoi^ment.

THE PEOFUSIOK OF LIFE.*

By ARABELLA B. BUCKLEY.

I "WONDER whether it ever occurs to most people to consider how
brimful our world is of life, and what a different place it would
be if no living thing had ever been upon it ? From the time we are
born till we die, there is scarcely a waking moment of our lives in
which our eyes do not rest either upon some living thing or upon
things which have once been alive. Even in our rooms, the wood of
our furniture and our doors could never have been if life did not exist ;
the paper on our walls, the carpet on our floors, the clothes on our
back, the cloth upon the table, are all made of materials which life has

* From the Introduction to " Life and her Children," in press by D. Appleton & Co.

THE PROFUSION OF LIFE. 97

produced for us ; nay, the very marble of our mantel-piece is the work
of once living animals, and is composed of their broken shells. The
air we breathe is full of invisible germs of life ; nor need we leave the
town and go to the country in search of other living beings than man.
There is scarcely a street or alley where, if it be neglected for a time,
some blade of grass or struggling weed does not make its appearance,
pushing its way through chinks in the pavement or the mortar in the
wall ; no spot from which we can not see some insect creeping, or fly-
ing, or spinning its web, so long as the hand of man does not destroy it.

And when we go into the quiet country, leaving man and his works
behind, how actively we find life employed ! Covering every inch of
the ground with tiny plants, rearing tall trees in the forest, filling the
stagnant pools full of eager, restless beings ; anywhere, everywhere,
life is at work. Look at the little water-beetles skimming on the sur-
face of the shady wayside pool, watch the Avater-snails feeding on the
muddy bank, notice the newts putting their heads above water to take
breath, and then remember that besides these and innumerable other
water animals visible to the naked eye, the fairy-shrimp and the water-
flea, and other minute animals, are probably darting through the water,
or floating lazily near its surface, while the very scum which is blown
in ridges toward one corner of the pool is made up of microscopic
animals and plants.

Then, as we pass over plain, and valley, and mountain, we find
things creeping innumerable, both great and small, hidden in the moss
or the thick grass, rolled up in the leaves, boring into the stems and
trunks of trees, eating their way underground or into even the strong-
est rock. The lion, the tiger, and the elephant, roaming over Asia,
Africa, and India, rule a world of their own where man counts for very
little. Even in our own thickly peopled country hares and rabbits
multiply by thousands in their burrows, and come to frolic in the dusk
of evening when all is still. The field-mice, land and water rats, squir-
rels, weasels, and badgers, have their houses above and below ground,
while insects are to be found everywhere, testifying to the abundance
of life. Not content, moreover, with filling the water and covering
the land, this same silent power peoples the atmosphere, where tiny
bats, butterflies, bees, and winged insects of all forms and shapes and
colors, fight their way through the ocean of air, while birds, large and
small, sail among its invisible waves.

And by and by we reach the sea, and there we find masses of
tangled seaweed, the plants of the salt water, while all along the shores
myriads of living creatures are left by the receding tide. In the rocky
pools we find active life busily at work. Thousands of tiny acorn-
shells, scarcely larger than the head of a good-sized pin, cover the
rocks and fling out their thread-like arms in search of food. Small
crabs scramble along, or ST^dm across the pools, sand-skippers dart
through the water, feeding on the delicate green seaweed, which in its

VOL. XVIII. — 7

98 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

turn is covered with minute shells not visible to the naked eye, and
yet each containing a living being.

Anywhere, .everywhere, creatures are to be found, and even if we
sail away over the deep silent ocean and seek what is in its depths,
there again we find abundance of life, from the large fish and other
monsters which glide noiselessly along, lords of the ocean, down to the
jelly-masses floating on the surface, and the banks of rocky coral built
by drops of living slime in the midst of the dashing waves. There is
no spot on the surface of the earth, in the depths of the ocean, or in
the lower currents of the air, which is not filled with life whenever
and wherever there is room. The one great law which all living beings
obey is to " increase, multiply, and replenish the earth " ; there has
been no halting in this work from the day when first into our planet
from the bosom of the great Creator was breathed the breath of life,
the invisible mother ever taking shape in her children.

No matter whether there is room for more living forms or not, still
they are launched into the world. The little seed, which will be stifled
by other plants before it can put forth its leaves, nevertheless thrusts
its tiny root into- the ground and tries to send a feeble shoot upward.
Thousands and millions of insects are born into the world every mo-
ment which can never live, because there is not food enough for all.
If there were only one single plant in the whole world to-day, and it
produced fifty seeds in a year, and could multiply unchecked, its de-
scendants would cover the whole globe in nine years.* But, since
other plants prevent it from spreading, thousands and thousands of its
seeds and young plants must be formed only to perish. In the same
way one pair of birds having four young ones each year, would, if all
their children and descendants lived and multiplied, produce two thou-
sand million in fifteen years,f but, since there is not room for them, all
but a very few must die.

What can be the use of this terrible overcrowding in our little
world ? "Why does this irresistible living breath go on so madly, urging
one little being after another into existence ? Would it not be better
if only enough were born to have plenty of room and to live comfort-
ably ?

Wait a while before you decide, and think what every creature
needs to keep it alive. Plants, it is true, can live on water and air, but
animals can not ; and, if there wei'e not myriads of plants to spare in
the world, there would not be enough for food. Then consider again
how many animals live upon each other. If worms, snails, and insects
were not over-abundant, how would the birds live ? Upon what would
lions and tigers and wolves feed if other animals were not plentiful,
while, on the other hand, if a great number of larger animals did not
die and decay, what would the flesh-feeding snails and maggots and
other insects find to eat ? And so we see that for this reason alone
* Huxley. f Wallace.

THE PROFUSION OF LIFE, 99

there is some excuse for the over-abundance of creatures which life
thrusts into the world.

But there is something deeper than this to consider. If in a large
school every boy had a prize at the end of the half year, whether he
had worked or not, do you think all the boys would work as hard as
they do or learn as well ? If every man had all he required and could
live comfortably, and bring up his children to enjoy life without work-
ing for it, do you think people would take such trouble to learn trades
and professions, and to improve themselves so as to be more able than
others ? Would they work hard day and night to make new inven-
tions, or discover new lands, and found fresh colonies, or be in any way
so useful or learn so much as they do now ?

No, it is the struggle for life and the necessity for work which
make people invent and plan, and improve themselves and things
around them. And so it is also with plants and animals : life has to
educate all her children, and she does it by giving the prize of success,
of health, and strength, and enjoyment to those who can best fight the
battle of existence, and do their work best in the world.

Every plant and every animal which is born upon the earth has to
get its own food and earn its own livelihood, and to protect itself from
the attacks of others. Would the spider toil so industriously to spin
her web if food came to her without any exertion on her part ? Would
the caddis-worm have learned to build a tube of sand and shells to pro-
tect its soft body, or the oyster to take lime from the sea- water to form
a strong shell for its home, if they had no enemies to struggle against
and needed no protection ? Would the bird have learned to build her
nest or the beaver his house if there were no need for their industry ?

But as it is, since the whole world is teeming with life, and count-
less numbers of seeds and eggs and young beginnings of creatures are
only waiting for the chance to fill any vacant nook or corner, every
living thing must learn to do its best and to find the place where it is
most useful, and least likely to be destroyed by others. And so it
comes to pass that the whole planet is used to the best advantage, and
life teaches her children to get all the good out of it that they can.

If the ocean and the rivers be full, then some must learn to live on
the land, and so we have, for example, water-snails and land-snails, and
whereas the one kind can only breathe by gills in the water, the other
breathes by means of lungs in the air, while between these are some,
such as the river-snails of the tropics, which have both gills and lungs,
and can breathe in both water and air. We have large whales sailing
as monarchs of the oceans, and walruses and seals fishing in its depths
for their food, while all other animals of their kind live on the land.

Then, again, while many creatures love the bright light, others take
advantage of the dark corners where room is left for them to live.
You can not lift a stone by the seaside but what you will find some
living thing under it, nor turn up a spadeful of earth without disturb-

loo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ing some little creature which is content to find its home and its food
in the dark ground. Nay, many animals for whom there is no chance
of life on the earth, in the water, or in the air, find a refuge in the
bodies of other animals and feed on them.

But in order that all these creatures may live, each in its different
way, they must have their own particular tools to work with, and
weapons with which to defend themselves. Now, all the tools and
weapons of an animal grow upon its body. It works and fights with
its teeth, its claws, its tail, its sting, or its feelers ; or it constructs
cunning traps by means of material which it sucks out of the water, as
in the case of the oyster, or gives out from its own body, like the
spider. It hides from its enemies by having a shape or color like the
rocks or the leaves, the grass or the water, in which it lives. It pro-
vides for its young ones either by getting food for them, or by putting
them, even before they come out of the Qgg, into places where their
food is ready for them as soon as they are born.

So that the whole life of an animal depends upon the way in which
its body is made ; and it will lead quite a different existence according
to the different ' tools with which life provides it, and the instincts
which a long education has been teaching to its ancestors for ages past.
It will have its own peculiar struggles and difliculties and successes
and enjoyments, according to the kind of bodily powers which it pos-
sesses, and the study of these helps us to understand its manner of
existence.

And now, since we live in the world with all these numerous com-
panions, which lead, many of them, such curious lives, trying, like our-
selves, to make the best of their short time here, is it not worth while
to learn something about them ? May we not gain some useful hints
by watching their contrivances, sympathizing with their difficulties,
and studying their history ? And, above all, shall we not have some-
thing more to love and to care for when we have made acquaintance
with some of life's other children besides ourselves ?

The one great difficulty, however, in our way, is how to make ac-
quaintance with such a vast multitude. Most of us have read anec-
dotes about one animal or another, but this does not give us any clew
to the history of the whole animal world ; and, without some such
clew, the few observations we can make for ourselves are very unsatis-
factory. On the other hand, most people will confess that books on
2;oology, where accounts are given of the structure of different classes
of animals, though very necessary, are rather dull, and do not seem
to help us much toward understanding and loving these our fellow
creatures.

What we most want to learn is something of the lives of the differ-
ent classes of animals, so that when we see some creature running
away from us in the woods, or swimming in a pond, or darting through
the air, or creeping on the ground, we may have an idea what its ob-

CRITICISMS CORRECTED. loi

ject is in life— bow it is enjoying itself, what food it is seeking, or
from what enemy it is flying.

And, fortunately for us, there are an order and arrangement in this
immense multitude, and in the same way as we can read and under-
stand the history of different nations which form the great human
family spread over the earth, and enter into their feelings and their
struggles, though we can not know all the people themselves ; so, with a
little trouble, we may learn to picture to ourselves the general life and
habits of the different branches of the still greater familyof life, so
as to be ready, by and by, to make personal acquaintance with any
particular creature if he comes in our way.

CEITICISMS COREECTED.

By HEEBERT SPENCEE.
II. T. E. CLIFFE LESLIE.

AN objection made to the formula of evolution by a sympathetic
critic, Mr. T. E. Cliffe Leslie, calls for notice. It is urged in a
spirit widely different from that displayed by Mr. Kirkman and his
applauder. Professor Tait ; and it has an apparent justification. Indeed,
many readers, who before accepted the formula of evolution in full,
will, after reading Mr. Cliffe Leslie's comments, agree with him in
thinking that it is to be taken with the qualifications he points out.
We shall find, however, that a clearer apprehension of the meanings
of the words used and a clearer apprehension of the formula in its
totality exclude the criticisms Mr. Leslie makes.

In the first place he dissociates from one another those traits of
evolution which I have associated, and which I have alleged to be true
only when associated. He quotes me as saying that a change from the
homogeneous to the heterogeneous characterizes all evolution ; and he
puts this at the outset of his criticism as though I made this change
the primary characteristic. But if he will refer to " First Principles,"
Part II, Chapter XIV (in the second and subsequent editions), he will
find it shown that under its primary aspect evolution " is a change from
a less coherent form to a more coherent form, consequent on the dissi-
pation of motion and integration of matter." The next chapter con-
tains proofs that the change from homogeneity to heterogeneity is
a secondary change, which, when conditions allow, accompanies the
change from the incoherent to the coherent. At the beginning of
the chapter after that come the sentences — " But now, does this gen-
eralization express the whole truth ? Does it include everything essen-
tially characterizing evolution and exclude everything else ? . . . A

102 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

critical examinatiou of the facts will show that it does neither." And
the chapter then goes on to show that the change is from an indefinite
incoherent homogeneity to a definite coherent heterogeneity. Further
qualifications contained in a succeeding chapter bring the formula to
this final .form : " Evolution is an integration of matter and concomi-
tant dissipation of motion ; during which the matter passes from an
indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogene-
ity ; and during which the retained motion undergoes a parallel trans-
formatioEP."

Now, if these various traits of the process of evolution are kept
simultaneously in view, it will be seen that most of Mr. Cliffe Leslie's
objections fail to apply. He says : " The movement of language, law,
and political and civil union, is for the most part in an opposite direc-
tion. In a savage country like Africa, speech is in a perj^etual flux, .
and new dialects spring up with every swarm from the parent hive.
In the civilized world the unification of language is rapidly proceed-
ing." Here two different ideas are involved — the evolution of a lan-
guage considered singly, and the evolution of languages considered as
an aggregate. Nothing which he says implies that any one language
becomes, during its evolution, less heterogeneous. The disappearance
of dialects is not a progress toward the homogeneity of a language, but
is the final triumph of one variety of a language over the other varie-
ties, and the extinction of them : the conquering variety meanAvhile
becoming within itself more heterogeneous. This, too, is the process
which Mr. Leslie refers to as likely to end in an extinction of the Cel-
tic languages. Advance toward homogeneity would be shown if the
various languages in Europe, having been previously unlike, were,
while still existing, to become gradually more like. But the supplant-
ing of one by another, or of some by others, no more implies any ten-
dency of languages to become alike than does the supplanting of
species, genera, orders, and classes of animals, one by another, during
the evolution of life, imply the tendency of organisms to assimilate in
their natures. Even if the most heterogeneous creature, man, should
overrun the earth and extirpate the greater part of its other inhab-
itants, it would not imply any tendency toward homogeneity in the
proper sense. It would remain true that organisms tend perpetually
toward heterogeneity, individually and as an assemblage. Of course,
if all kinds but one were destroyed, they could no longer display this
tendency. Display of it would be limited to the remaining kind, which
would continue, as now, to show it in the formation of local varie-
ties, becoming gradually more divergent ; and the like is true of lan-
guages.

In the next case Mr. Leslie identifies progressing unification with
advance toward homogeneity. His words are : " Already Europe has
nearly consolidated itself into a heptarchy, the number of states into
which England itself was once divided ; and the result of the American

CRITICISMS CORRECTED. 103

war exemplifies the prevalence of the forces tending to homogeneity
over those tending to heterogeneity." To this the reply is that these
cases exemplify, rather, the prevalence of the forces which change the
incoherent into the coherent — which effect integration ; that is, they
exemplify evolution under its primary aspect. In the " Principles of
Sociology," Pait II, Chapter III, Mr. Leslie will find numerous kindred
cases brought in illustration of this law of evolution. To which add
that such integrations bring after them greater heterogeneity, not
greater homogeneity. The divisions of the heptarchy were societies
substantially like one another in their structures and activities ; but
the parts of the nation which correspond to them have been differ-
entiated into parts carrying on varieties of occupations with entailed
unlikenesses of structures — here purely agricultural, there manufac-
turing ; here predominantly given to coal-mining and iron-smelting,
there to weaving ; here distinguished by scattered villages, there by
clusters of large towns.

Again, it is alleged that an increasing homogeneity is shown in
fashion. " Once every rank, profession, and district had a distinctive
garb ; now all such distinctions, save with the priest and the soldier,
have almost disappeared among men." But while for a reason, to be
presently pointed out, there has occurred a change which has abolished
one order of differences, differences of another order, far more multi-
tudinous, have arisen. Nothing is more striking than the extreme
heterogeneity of dress at the present day. As Mr. Leslie alleges, the
dresses of those forming each class were once all alike ; now no two
dresses are alike. Within the vague limits of the current fashion, the
degree of variety in women's costumes is infinite ; and even men's cos-
tumes, though having average resemblances, diverge from one another
in colors, materials, and detailed forms in innumerable ways.

Other instances given by Mr. Leslie concern the organizations for
carrying on production and distribution. He argues that "in the in-
dustrial world a generation ago a constant movement toward a differ-
entiation of employments and functions appeared ; now some marked
tendencies to their amalgamation have begun to disclose themselves.
Joint-stock companies have almost effaced all real division of labor in
the wide region of trade within their operation." Here, as before, Mr.
Leslie represents amalgamation as equivalent to increase of homoge-
neity ; whereas amalgamation is but another name for integration,
which is the primary process in evolution, and which may, and does,
go along with increasing heterogeneity in the amalgamated things. It
can not be said that a joint-stock banking company, with its proprie-
tory and directors in addition to its officers, contains fewer unlike parts
than does a private banking establishment : the contrary must be said.
A railway company has far more numerous functionaries with different
duties than had the one, or the many coaching establishments it re-
placed. And then, apart from the fact that the larger aggregate of

104 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

cooperators who, as a company, carry on, say, a j^rocess of manufacture,
is more complex as well as more extensive, there is the fact, here
chiefly to be noted, that the entire assemblage of industrial structures
is, by the addition of these new structures, made more heterogeneous
than before. Had all the smaller manufacturing establishments car-
ried on by individuals or firms been destroyed, the contrary might
have been alleged ; but, as it is, we see that in addition to all the old
forms there have come these new forms, making the totality of them
more multiform than before. Mr. Leslie further illustrates his inter-
pretation by saying : •" Many of the things for sale in a village huck-
ster's shop were formerly the subjects of distinct branches of business
in a large town ; now the wares in which scores of different retailers
dealt are all to be had in great establishments in New York, Paris,
and London, which sometimes buy direct from the producers, thus also
eliminating the wholesale dealer." Replies akin to the preceding ones
are readily made. The first is that wholesale dealers have not been at
present eliminated ; and can not be so long as the ordinary shopkeep-
ers survive, as they will certainly do. In the smaller places, forming
the great majority of places, these vast establishments can not exist ;
and in them, shopkeepers carrying on business as at present, will con-
tinue to necessitate wholesale dealers. Even in large jjlaces the same
thing will hold. It is only people of a certain class, able to pay ready
money and willing to go great distances to purchase, who frequent
these large establishments. Those who live from hand to mouth, and
those who prefer to buy at adjacent places, will maintain a certain pro-
portion of shops, and the wholesale distributing organization needed
for them. Again, we have to note that one of these great stores, such
as Whiteley's or Shoolbred's, does not within itself display any advance
toward homogeneity or despecialization ; for it is made up of many
separate departments, with their separate heads, carrying on business
substantially separate — all superintended by one owner. It is nothing
but an aggregate of shops under one roof instead of under the many
roofs covering the side of a street ; and exhibits just as much hetero-
geneity as the shops do when arranged in line instead of massed to-
gether. That which it really illustrates is a new form of integration,
which is the primary evolutionary process. And then, lastly, comes
the fact that the distributing organization of the country, considered
as a whole, is by the addition of these establishments made more hete-
rogeneous than before. All the old types of trading concerns continue
to exist ; and here are new types added, making the entire assemblage
of them more varied.

From these objections made by Mr. Leslie, which I have endeavored
to show result from misapprehensions, I pass to two others which are
to be met by taking account of certain complicating facts liable to be
overlooked, Mr. Leslie remarks that " in the early stages of social
progress, again, a differentiation takes place, as Mr. Spencer has ob-

CRITICISMS CORRECTED. 105

served, between political and industrial functions, which fall to distinct
classes : now a man is a merchant in the morning and a legislator at
night ; in mercantile business one year, and the next, perhaps, head of
the navy, like Mr. Goschen or Mr. W. H. Smith." Nothing contained
in this volume explains the seeming anomaly here exemplified ; but
any one who turns to a chapter in the second part of the " Principles
of Sociology," entitled " Social Types and Metamorphoses," will there
find a clew to the explanation of it, and will see that it is a phenomenon
consequent on the progressing dissolution of one type and evolution of
another. The doctrine of evolution, currently -regarded as referring
only to the development of species, is erroneously supposed to imply
some intrinsic proclivity in every species toward a higher form ; and,
similarly, a majority of readers make the erroneous assumption that
the transformation which constitutes evolution, in its wider sense, im-
plies an intrinsic tendency to go through those changes which the for-
mula of evolution expresses. But all who have fully grasped the argu-
ment of this work will see that the process of evolution is not neces-
sary, but depends on conditions ; and that the prevalence of it in the
universe around is consequent on the prevalence of these conditions :
the frequent occurrence of dissolution showing us that, where the con-
ditions are not maintained, the reverse process is quite as readily gone
through. Bearing in mind this truth, we shall be prepared to find that
the progress of a social organism toward more heterogeneous and more
definite structures of a certain type continues only as long as the actions
which produce these effects continue in play. We shall expect that, if
these actions cease, the progressing transformation will cease. We
shall infer that the particular structures which have been formed by
the activities carried on will not grow more heterogeneous and more
definite ; and that if other orders of activities, implying other sets of
forces, commence, answering structures of another kind will begin to
make their appearance, to grow more heterogeneous and definite, and
to replace the first. And it will be manifest that while the transition
is going on — while the first structures are dissolving and the second
evolving — there must be a mixture of structures causing apparent con-
fusion of traits. Just as during the metamorphoses of an animal which,
having during its earlier existence led one kind of life, has to develop
structures fitting it for another kind of life, there must occur ^ blur-
ring of the old organization while the new organization is becoming
distinct, leading to transitory anomalies of structure, so, during the
metamorphoses undergone by a society in which the militant activities
and structures are dwindling while the industrial are growing, the old
and new arrangements must be mingled in a perplexing way. On read-
ing the chapter in the "Principles of Sociology" which I have named,
Mr. Leslie will see that the above facts referred to by him are interpret-
able as consequent on the transition from that type of regulative organ-
ization proper to militant life to that type of regulative organization

io6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

proper to industrial life ; and that, so long as these two modes of life,
utterly alien in their natures, have to be jointly carried on, there will con-
tinue this jumbling of the regulative systems they respectively require.
The second of the objections above noted, as needing to be other-
wise dealt with than by further explanation of the formula of evolu-
tion, concerns the increase of likeness among developing systems of
civil law ; in proof of which increase of likeness Mr. Leslie quotes
Sir Henry Maine to the effect that " all laws, however dissimilar in
their infancy, tend to resemble each other in their maturity" : the
implication to which Mr. Leslie draws attention being, that in respect
of their laws societies become not more heterogeneous but more homo-
geneous. Now, though in their details systems of law will, I think,
be found to acquire, as they evolve, an increasing number of differ-
ences from one another, yet in their cardinal traits it is probably true
that they usually approximate. How far this militates against the
formula of evolution we shall best see by first considering the analogy
furnished by animal organisms. Low down in the animal kingdom
there are simple mollusks with but rudimentary nervous systems — a
ganglion or two and a few fibers. Diverging from this low type we
have the great sub-kingdom constituted by the higher mollusca and
the still greater sub-kingdom constituted by the vertebrata. As these
two types evolve, their nervous systems develop ; and though in the
highest members of the two they remain otherwise unlike, yet they ajj-
proximate in so far that each acquires great nervous centers : the large
cephalopods have clustered ganglia which simulate brains. Compare,
again, the mollusca and the articulata in respect of their vascular sys-
tems. Fundamentally unlike as these are originally, and remaining
unlike as they do throughout many successive stages of ascent in these
two sub-kingdoms, they nevertheless are made similar in the highest
forms of both by each having a central propelling organ — a heart.
Now, in these and in some cases which the external organs furnish,
such as the remarkable resemblance evolution has produced between
the eyes of the highest mollusca and those of the vertebrata, it may
be said that there is implied a change toward homogeneity. No zo-
ologist, however, would admit that these facts really conflict with the
general law of organic evolution. As already explained, the tendency
to progress from homogeneity to heterogeneity is not intrinsic but ex-
trinsic. Structures become unlike in consequence of unlike exposures
to incident forces. This is so with organisms as wholes, which, as they
multiply and spread, are ever falling into new sets of conditions ; and
it is so with the parts of each organism. These pass from primitive
likeness into unlikeness as fast as the mode of life places them in dif-
ferent relations to actions — primarily external and secondarily inter-
nal ; and with each successive change in mode of life new unlikenesses
are superposed. One of the implications is that, if in organisms other-
wise different there arise like sets of conditions to which certain parts

CRITICISMS CORRECTED. 107

are subject, such parts will tend toward likeness ; and this is what
happens with their nervous and vascular systems. Duly to coordi-
nate the actions of all parts of an active organism, there requu*es a
controlling apparatus ; and the conditions to be fulfilled for perfect
coordination are conditions common to all active organisms. Hence,
in proj)ortion as fulfillment approaches completeness in the highest or-
ganisms, however otherwise unlike their types are, this apparatus ac-
quires in all of them certain common characters — especially extreme
centralization. Similarly with the apparatus for distributing nutri-
ment. The relatively high activity accompanying superior organiza-
tion implies great waste ; great waste implies active circulation of
blood ; active circulation of blood implies eificient propulsion ; so that
a heart becomes a common need for highly evolved creatures, however
otherwise unlike their structures may be. Thus is it, too, with socie-
ties. As they evolve, there arise certain conditions to be fulfilled for
the maintenance of social life ; and, in proportion as the social life be-
comes high, these conditions need to be more effectually fulfilled. A
legal code expresses one set of these conditions. It formulates certain
regulative principles to which the conduct of citizens must conform
that social activities may be harmoniously carried on. And, these reg-
ulative principles being in essentials the same everywhere, it results
that systems of law acquire certain general similarities as the most de-
veloped social life is approached.

These special replies to Mr. Leslie's objections are, however, but
introductory to the general reply ; which would be, I think, adequate
even in their absence. Mr. Leslie's method is that of taking detached
groups of social phenomena, as those of language, of fashion, of trade,
and arguing (though, as I have sought to show, not effectually) that
their later transformations do not harmonize with the alleged general
law of evolution. But the real question is, not whether we find ad-
vance to a more definite coherent heterogeneity in these taken sepa-
rately, but whether we find this advance in the structures and actions
of the entire society. Even were it true that the law does not hold in
certain orders of social processes and products, it would not follow
that it does not hold of social processes and products in their totality.
The law is a law of the transformation of aggregates ; and must be
tested by the entire assemblages of phenomena which the aggregates
present. Omitting societies in states of decay and dissolution, which
exhibit the converse change, and contemplating only societies which are
growing, Mr. Leslie will, I think, scarcely allege of any one of them that
its structures and functions do not, taken altogether, exhibit increasing
heterogeneity. And, if, instead of taking each society as an aggregate,
he takes the entire aggregate of societies which the earth supports,
from primitive hordes up to highly civilized nations, he will scarcely
deny that this entire aggregate has been becoming more various in the
forms of societies it includes, and is still becoming more various.

io8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

HYPNOTISM.*

By G. J. ROMANES.

CONSIDERING the length of time that so-called " animal magnet-
ism," " mesmerism," or " electro-biology," has been before the
world, it is a matter of surprise that so inviting a field of physiological
inquiry should have been so long allowed to lie fallow. A few scientific
men in France and Germany have indeed, from time to time, made a
few observations on what Preyer has called the " Kataplectic state " as
artificially induced in human beings and sundry species of animals ;
but anything resembling a systematic investigation of the remarkable
facts of mesmerism has not hitherto been attempted by any physiolo-
gist in our generation. The scientific world will therefore give a more
than usually hearty welcome to a treatise which has just been published
upon the subject by a man so eminent as Heidenhain. The research of
which this treatise is the outcome is in every way worthy of its dis-
tinguished author ; for it serves not only to present a considerable and
systematic body of carefully observed facts, but also to lead the way
for an indefinite amount of further inquiry along the lines that it has
opened up.

Heidenhain conducted his investigations on medical men and stu-
dents as his subjects, one of them being his brother. He found that,
in the first or least profound stage of hypnotism, the patient, on being
awakened, can remember all that happened during the state of mes-
meric sleep ; on awakening from the second or more profound stage,
the patient can only partially recollect what has happened ; while in
the third, or most profound stage, all power of subsequent recollection
is lost. But, during even the most profound stage, the power of sen-
sory perception remains. The condition of the patient is then the
same, so far as the reception of sensory impressions is concerned, as
that of a man whose attention is absorbed or distracted ; he sees
sights, hears sounds, etc., without knowing that he sees or hears them,
and he can not afterward recollect the impressions that were made.
But the less profound stages of hypnotism are paralleled by those less
profound conditions of reverie in which a passing sight or sound,
although not noticed at the time, may be subsequently recalled by an
effort of the will. Further on in his treatise Heidenhain tells us that,
even when all memory of what has passed during the hypnotic state is
absent on awakening, it may be aroused by giving the patient a clew,
just as in the case of a forgotten dream. This clew may consist only

" * Dor sogenannte thierische Magnetismus." Physiologische Beobachtungen, von Dr.
Rudolf Heidenhain, ord. Professor der Physiologic und Director der physiologischcn In-
stitutes zu Breslau. (Breitkopf und Hartel, Lcipsic, 1880.)

HYPNOTISM. 109

of a single word in a sentence. Thus, for instance, if a line of poetry-
is read to a patient during his sleep, the whole line may sometimes be
recalled to his memory, when awake, by repeating a single word of the
line. Again, we know from daily experience that the most compli-
cated neuro-muscular actions — such as those required for piano-play-
ing— become by frequent repetition " mechanical," or performed with-
out consciousness of the processes by which the result is achieved. So
it is in the case of hypnotism. Actions which have been previously-
rendered mechanical by long habit are, in the gtate of hypnotism, per-
formed automatically in response to their appropriate stimuli. There
being a strong tendency to imitate movements, these appropriate stim-
uli may consist in the operator himself performing the movements.
Thus when Heidenhain held his fist before his hypnotized subject's
face, his subject immediately imitated the movement ; when he opened
his hand his subject did the same, provided that his hand was visible
to his subject at the time. Also, when he clattered his teeth, the
hypnotized patient repeated the movement, even though the patient
could only hear, and not see, the movement ; similarly, the patient
would follow him about the room, providing that in walking he made
sufficient noise to constitute a stimulus to automatic walking on the
part of his patient. In order to constitute stimuli to such automatic
movements, the sounds or gestures must stand in some such customary-
relation to the movements that the occurrence of the former naturally
suggests the latter.

Another characteristic of the hypnotic state is that of an extraor-
dinary exaltation of sensibility, so that stimuli of various kinds, al-
though much too feeble to evoke any response in the ordinary condi-
tion of the nervous system, are effective as stimuli in the hypnotic
condition. It is remarkable that this state of exalted sensibility should
be accompanied by what appears to be a lowered, or even a dormant,
state of consciousness. It is also remarkable that this exaltation of
sensibility does not appear to take place with what may be called a
proportional reference to all kinds of stimuli. Indeed, far from there
being any such proportional reference, the greatly exalted state of sen-
sibility toward slight stimuli is accompanied by a greatly diminished
state of excitability toward strong stimuli. Thus, deeply hypnotized
persons will allow themselves to be cut, or burned, or to have pins
stuck into their flesh, without showing the smallest signs of discom-
fort. Heidenhain is careful to point out the interesting similarity, if
not identity, between this condition and that which sometimes occurs
in certain pathological derangements of the central nervous system, as
well as in a certain stage of anaesthesia, wherein the patient is able to
feel the contact of the surgical instruments, while quite insensible to
any pain produced by the cutting of his flesh. Reflex sensibility, or
sensibility conducing to reflex movements, also undergoes a change,
and it does so in the direction of increase, as might be expected from

no THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

the consideration that with the temporary abolition of consciousness
the inhibitory influence, which we know the higher nerve-centers to
be capable of exerting upon the lower, is presumably suspended. But
quite unanticipated is the remarkable fact that the state of exalted reflex
excitability may persist for several days — perhaps for a week — after a
man has been aroused from a state of profound hypnotism. Thus,
Dr. Krener, after having been hypnotized by Professor Heidenhain,
and while asleep made to bend his arm twice, for several days after-
ward was unable again to straighten it, on account of the flexor mus-
cles continuing in a state of tonic contraction, or cramp. In these
experiments Heidenhain found that a very gentle stimulation of the
skin caused only the muscles lying immediately below the seat of stimu-
lation to contract, and that on progressively increasing the strength of
the stimulus its effect progressively spread to muscles and to muscle-
groups farther and farther removed from the seat of stimulation. It
is interesting that this progressive spread of stimulation follows al-
most exactly Professor Pfluger's law of irradiation. But the rate at
which a reflex excitation is propagated through the central - nerve
organs is very slow, as compared with the rapidity with which such
propagation takes place in ordinary circumstances. Moreover, the
muscles are prone to go into tonic contraction, rather than to respond
to a stimulus in the ordinary way. The whole hypnotic condition thus
so strongly resembles that of catalepsy that Heidenhain regards the
former as nothing other than the latter artificially induced. In the
case of strong persons this tonic contraction of the muscles may make
the body as stiff as a board, so that, if a man is supported in an horizon-
tal position by his head and his feet only, one may stand upon his
stomach without causing the body to yield. The rate of breathing
has been seen by Heidenhain to be increased fourfold, and the pulse
also to be accelerated, though not in so considerable a degree.

In a chapter on the conditions which induce the state of hypnotism,
Heidenhain begins by dismissing all ideas of any special " force " as
required to produce or to explain any of the phenomena which he has
witnessed. He does not doubt that some persons are more susceptible
than others to the influences which induce the hypnotic state, and he
if^hinks that this susceptibility is greatest in persons of high nervous
sensibility. These " influences " may be of various kinds ; such as
looking •continuously at a small bright object, listening continuously to
a monotovious sound, submitting to be gently and continuously stroked
upon the si^in, etc. — the common peculiarity of all the influences which
may induce ^i^g hypnotic state being that they are sensory stimuli of
a gentle, continuous, and monotonous kind. Awakening may be pro-
duced by suOf-iguiy blowing upon the face, slapping the hand, scream-
ing in the ear, etc., and even by the change of stimulus proceeding
from the retma -^hich is caused by a person other than the operator
suddenly taking i^ig pi^ce before the patient. On the whole, the hyp-

HYPNOTISM. Ill

notic condition may be induced in susceptible persons by a feeble,
continued, and regular stimulation of the nerves of touch, sight, or
hearing ; and may be terminated by a strong or sudden change in the
stimulation of these same nerves.

The physiological explanation of the hypnotic state which Heiden-
hain ventures to suggest is, that a stimulus of the kind just mentioned
has the effect of inhibiting the functions of the cerebral hemispheres,
in a manner analogous to that which is known to occur in several other
cases which he quotes of ganglionic action being inhibited by certain
kinds of stimuli operating upon their sensory nerves.

In a more recent paper, embodying the results of a further investi-
gation in which he was joined by P. Grutzner, Heidenhain gives us
the following supplementary information :

The muscles which are earliest affected are those of the eyelids ;
the patient is unable to open his closed eyes by any effort of his will.
Next, the affection extends in a similar manner to the muscles of the
jaw, then to the arms, trunk, and legs. But even when so many of
the muscles of the body have passed beyond the control of the will,
consciousness may remain intact. In other cases, however, the hyp-
notic sleep comes on earlier.

Imitative movements become more and more certain the more they
are practiced, so that at last they may be invariable and wonderfully
precise, extending to the least striking or conspicuous of the changes
of attitude and general movements of the operator. Professor Berger
observed that, when pressure is exerted with the hand at the nape of
the neck upon the spinous process of the seventh cervical vertebra, the
patient will begin to imitate spoken words. It is immaterial whether
or not the words make sense, or whether they belong to a known or
to an unknown language. The tone in which the imitation is made
varies greatly in different individuals, but for the same individual is
always constant. In one case it was a hollow tone, " like a voice from
the grave " ; in another almost a whisper, and so on. In all cases, how-
ever, the tone is continued in one kind, i. e., it is monotonous. Further
experiments showed that pressure on the nape of the neck was not the
only means whereby imitative speaking could be induced, but that the
latter would follow with equal certainty and precision if the experi-
menter spoke against the nape of the neck — especially if he directed
his words upon it by means of a sound-funnel. A similar result fol-
lowed if the words were directed against the pit of the stomach. It
followed with less certainty when the words were directed against the
larynx or into the open mouth, and the patient remained quite dumb
when the words were directed into his ear, or upon any other part of
his head. If a tuning-fork were substituted for the voice, the note of
the fork would be imitated by the patient when the end of the fork
was placed on any of the situations just mentioned as sensitive. By
exploring the pit of the stomach with a tuning-fork, the sensitive area

112 THI] POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

was found to begin about an inch below the breastbone, and from
thence to extend for about two inches downward and about the same
distance right and left from the middle line, while the navel, breast-
bone, ribs, etc., were quite insensitive. Heidenhain seeks — though not,
we think, very successfully — to explain this curious distribution of
areas sensitive to sound, by considerations as to the distribution of the
vagus nerve.

Next we have a chapter on the subjection of the intellectual fac-
ulties to the will of the operator which is manifested by j^ersons when
in a state of hypnotism. For the manifestation of these phenomena
the sleep must be less profound than that which is required for jjro-
ducing imitative movements ; in this stage of hypnotism the experi-
m.enter has not only the motor mechanism on which to operate, but
likewise the imagination. "Artificial hallucinations" may be pro-
duced to any extent by rehearsing to the patient the scenes or events
which it may be desired to make him imagine. A number of interest-
ing details of particular cases are given, but we have only space to re-
peat one of the most curious. A medical student, when hypnotized in
the morning, had a long and consecutive dream, in which he imagined
that he had gone to ' the Zoological Gardens, that a lion had broken
loose, that he was greatly terrified, etc. On the evening of the same
day he was again hypnotized, and again had exactly the same dream.
Lastly, at night, while sleejiing normally, the dream was a third time
repeated.

A number of experiments proved that stimulation of certain parts
of the skin of hypnotized persons is followed by certain reflex move-
ments. For instance, when the skin of the neck between the fourth
and seventh cervical vertebrae is gently stroked with the finger, the
patient emits a peculiar sighing sound. The similarity of these reflex
movements to those which occur in the well-known " croak-experiment "
of Goltz is pointed out.

A number of other experiments proved that unilateral hypnotism
might be induced by gently and repeatedly stroking one side or other
of the head and forehead. The resulting hypnotism manifested itself
on the side opposite to that which was stroked, and affected both the
face and limbs. When the left side of the head was stroked, there
further resulted all the phenomena of aphasia, which was not the case
when the right side of the head was stroked. When both sides of the
head were stroked, all the limbs were rendered cataleptic, but aphasia
did not result. On placing the arms in Mosso's apparatus for measur-
ing the volume of blood, it was found that, when one arm was hypno-
tized by the unilateral method, its volume of blood v»^as much dimin-
ished, while that of the other arm was increased, and that the balance
was restored as soon as the cataleptic condition passed off. In these
experiments consciousness remained unaffected, and there Avere no dis-
agreeable sensations experienced by the patient. In some instances.

I

HYPNOTISM. 113

however, the above results were equivocal, catalepsy occurring on the
same side as the stroking, or sometimes on one side and sometimes on
the other. In all cases of unilateral hypnotism, the side affected as to
motion is also affected as to sensation. Sense of temperature under
these circumstances remains intact long after sense of touch has been
abolished. As regards special sensation, the eye on the hypnotized
side is affected both as to its mechanism of accommodation and its
sense of color. While color-blind to "objective colors," the hypno-
tized eye will see " subjective colors " when it is gently pressed and
the pressure suddenly removed. Moreover, if a dose of atropine be ad-
ministered to it, and if it be then from time to time hypnotized while
the drug is gradually developing its influence, the color-sense will be
found to be undergoing a gradual change. In the first stage yellow
appears gray with a bluish tinge, in the second stage pure blue, in the
third blue with a yellowish tinge, and in the fourth yellow with a light-
bluish tinge. The research concludes with some experiments which
show that in partly hypnotized persons imitative movements take
place involuntarily, and persist until interrupted by a direct effort of
the will. From this fact Heidenhain infers that the imitative move-
ments which occur in the more profound stages of hypnotism are jDurely
automatic, or involuntary.

In concluding this brief sketch of Heidenhain's interesting results,
it is desirable to add that in most of them he has been anticipated by
the experiments of Braid. Braid's book is now out of print, and, as
it is not once alluded to by Heidenhain, we must fairly suppose that
he has not read it. But we should be doing scant justice to this book
if we said merely that it anticipated nearly all the observations above
mentioned. It has done much more than this. In the vast number
of careful experiments which it records — all undertaken and prose-
cuted in a manner strictly scientific — it carried the inquiry into vari-
ous provinces which have not been entered by Heidenhain. Many of
the facts which that inquiry yielded appear, a priori, to be almost in-
credible ; but, as their painstaking investigator has had every one of
his results confirmed by Heidenhain so far as the latter physiologist
has prosecuted his researches, it is but fair to conclude that the hither-
to unconfirmed observations deserve to be repeated. No one can read
Braid's work without being impressed by the care and candor with
which, amid violent opposition from all quarters, his investigations
were pursued ; and now, when, after a lapse of nearly forty years,
his results are beginning to receive the confirmation which they de-
serve, the physiologists who yield it ought not to forget the credit that
is due to the earliest, the most laborious, and the hitherto most exten-
sive investigator of the phenomena of what he called hypnotism. —
Nineteenth Century.

VOL. XVIII. — 8

114 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

SKETCH OF LEWIS II. MOKGAN,

PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOB THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE.

By J. "VV. POWELL.

LEWIS HENRY MORGAN was born near the village of Aurora,
New York, November 21, 1818. The subject of this sketch is
eight generations in lineal descent on his father's side from James
Morgan, who settled in Roxbury, Massachusetts, in 1646 ; and on his
mother's side from John Steele, who settled in Newton, now Cam-
bridge, in 1641 ; beginning with these, seven generations of his ances-
tors have lived and died in New England.

In 1840, at the age of twenty-one, young Morgan graduated at
Union College, and was engaged in the study of law until 1844. Dur-
ing this time he occasionally wrote articles for the " Knickerbocker "
and other periodicals. On his return to Aurora from college he was
induced to join a secret society composed of young men of that place.
This trivial circumstance had a great influence on his future career.
The society was organized for no definite purpose, and failed to inter-
est young Morgan, who at once looked about for some method of ex-
panding the society and extending its influence ; and finally, under his
management, a new society was organized and styled "The Grand
Order of the Iroquois." The plan was to model it somewhat after
the pattern of Indian tribes, and to extend the organization over all the
territory occupied by the Iroquois, and to have a group of branch
societies for each area occupied by an Iroquois tribe, or nation, as they
were then called, and these larger divisions divided into chapters as
Indian nations were divided into gentes — so-called tribes.

In order that this new organization might be i^rojierly formed on
the plan of the ancient Iroquois confederacy, young Morgan went
among the Indians of New York for the purpose of studying their
social organization and government. In this he soon became deeply
interested, as did many of the originators of " The Grand Order
of the Iroquois." A number of the gentlemen who took part in
the organization of the society have since risen to important posi-
tions in American society, as a mention of the following names will
demonstrate: Rev. Isaac N. Hurd ; Henry Haight, afterward Gov-
ernor of California ; the late General Albert J. Myer, Chief of the Sig-
nal Service ; Hon, George Barker, Justice of the Supreme Court of
New York ; the late Judge Charles P. Avery, of Oswego ; the late Hon.
Charles Billinghurst, member of Congress from Wisconsin ; Rev. An-
son J. Upton, President of the Auburn Theological Seminary ; Charles
T. Porter, of Philadelphia ; Hon. Theodore Pomeroy, of Auburn ;
William Allen, of Auburn ; C. White, of Aurora ; the late Frederick
De Lano, of Rochester ; the late Alexander Mann, of Rochester ; Hon.

SKETCH OF LEWIS H. MORGAN. 115

Stephen Goodwin, of Chicago ; Rev. James S. Bush, of Staten Island ;
and George S. Riley, of Rochester.

The society seems to have greatly flourished for a time, and to
have been very pojDular throughout that poi'tion of New York Avest of
the Hudson River. Its ceremonies were picturesque and attractive.
The meetings of the society were called councils, and were held in the
woods. The Grand Council w^as held in a forest near Aurora by night,
and the forest aisles were illuminated by huge camp-fires, and the
sachems and chiefs who there assembled came in Indian panoply, with
chaplets of eagle-feathers, Indian tunics, scarlet leggins, and decorated
moccasins. It was wild sport, in which the young men engaged in
merry mood.

Morgan and his young associates soon became absorbed in active
business, and found that the society they had organized could not be
operated without consuming too great a portion of their time, and it
died by premeditated neglect. But the discoveries made by Morgan
were of such importance and interest that he continued his investiga-
tions from time to time, and, in order to obtain a deeper insight into
the home life and customs of the Indians, and their social and govern-
mental organization, he spent much time among them and was adopted
into a gens of the Senecas.

In 1847 he published in the "American Review" a series of " Let-
ters on the Iroquois," over the signature of " Skenandoah." In the
mean time he was building up a legal practice, and found that he
must neglect it or abandon his studies of Indian life and govern-
ment ; and so he determined to publish the materials on hand, and
then devote himself exclusively to the practice of his profession.
This resiilted in the publication in 1851 of "The League of the Iro-
quois," in which the social organization and government of this won-
derful confederacy were carefully and thoroughly exj^lained. The
volume also contains interesting accounts of the daily life, customs,
and superstitions of these Indians, and was the first scientific account
of an Indian tribe ever given to the world.

The work is not entirely free from the nomenclature of sociology
previously, and to some extent since, used by writers on our North
American Indians, in which tribes are described as nations, and the
institutions of tribal or barbaric life defined in terms used in national
or civilized life. But the series of oro-anic units was discovered
among the Iroquois and was correctly defined, though the confederacy
was called a league, the tribe a nation, and the gens a tribe. In like
manner, kinship as the bond of union was fully recognized.

In 1856 Morgan attended the Albany meeting of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science, and read a paper called
" The Laws of Descent of the Iroquois." The reading of the paper
awakened great interest in the subject, and a number of the leading
members of the Association ursred Mi-. Morsxan to continue his studies

ii6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

in this field. Professors Henry and Agassiz were especially urgent in
the matter, and Morgan decided to return to his old studies, but rather
as an amateur and in such a manner as not to interfere with his pro-
fession.

In 1858 he was at Marquette, where he found an encampment of
Ojibwa Indians, and, going into a tent, sat down with an Indian, and
gradually in conversation drew from him an account of the Ojibwa
system of kinship, the list of gentes, and the gentile organization of
the tribe, and found them essentially the same as the Iroquois.

To him this was a great surprise, for up to this time he had sup-
posed that the Iroquois Confederacy had a system peculiar to itself
and was an anomaly among governments. But here he found society
and government organized upon the same plan, and yet the linguistic
terms were totally different. He had thus discovered the essential
characteristic of tribal government in two distinct stocks of our North
American Indians, and it occurred to him that the system might extend
further, so he determined to pursue his investigations among other
Indians.

On his return to Rochester he took up " Riggs's Dakota Grammar
and Dictionary," then lately published by the Smithsonian Institution,
and found in the kinship terms as therein defined evidences of the same
kinship system. He then more carefully examined the English and
Roman systems, especially as they are set forth by Blackstone and
in the Pandects of Justinian. Finally, he prepared schedules of in-
quiry to be circulated among missionaries, teachers, traders, and other
persons familiar with Indian life.

At this stage Professor Henry became deeply interested in the
investigations and published the schedules for Mr. Morgan, which
were widely distributed in America and throughout the world by the
Smithsonian Institution and by the active cooperation of General Cass,
who was then Secretary of State.

During the earlier years Mr. Morgan was greatly disappointed with
the returns from the circulation of these schedules. The subject was
new and strange, and the persons to whom they were sent were slow
in comprehending the nature and value of the researches suggested ;
and so he determined to pursue his investigations in person, and for
this purpose in 1859 he made an expedition through Kansas and
Nebraska. In 1860 he went over the same ground, revising his former
work, increasing his observations, and extended his journey far up
the Missouri River. In 1861 he made a trip to the Hudson Bay Terri-
tory and Lake Winnipeg, and in 1863 to Fort Benton and the Rocky
Mountains.

In his travels he everywhere sought the Indian tribes, and through
the aid of interpreters — white men and Indians — filled out his own
schedules and extended his studies into the social life and government
of the Indians and other collateral branches of anthropology.

SKETCH OF LEWIS H. MORGAN. 117

Finally, returns from his schedules of inquiry began to pour in from
all quarters of the globe, and gradually a vast correspondence grew up,
until the kinship systems of more than four fifths of the world were
recorded either directly by himself or by others whom he had enlisted
in the work. The materials thus collected were gradually by years of
labor thoroughly systematized, and finally published by the Smith-
sonian Institution as one of its " Contributions to Knowledge," entitled
" Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family." It
is a quarto volume of about six hundred pages, the result of many
years of patient and well-directed labor, and it constitutes a model of
inductive research. The kinship systems of eighty tribes of North
America, together with those of a great number of the principal na-
tions and ti'ibes of the Old World and the islands of the sea, are fully
and elaborately recorded in its tables.

This publication marks a most important epoch in anthropologic
research. Prior to its appearance, the social and governmental insti-
tutions of mankind antecedent to the evolution of civilization were to
a large extent unknown. Travelers and various persons more or less
familiar with tribal life had put on record many curious facts, and the
comj^ilation of these facts by scholars had resulted in the accumulation
of incoherent and inconsistent materials about which more or less crude
and fanciful speculations were made ; but the essential characteristics
of tribal society, as based upon kinship in barbarism and upon com-
munal marriage in savagery, were unknown.

This first volume was essentially a volume of facts, and only a
brief and i-ather unsatisfactory discussion of the facts was undertaken.
Mr. Morgan's final conclusion and philosophic treatment of the subject
were reserved for a subsequent volume.

During the earlier years of Morgan's work upon the " Systems of
Consanguinity and Affinity," he carried on an extensive law business,
and was engaged in a railroad enterprise upon the Michigan Peninsula.
The latter necessitated frequent visits to what was then a forest wilder-
ness on the shores of Lake Superior, and here he became interested in
the study of the beaver, which resulted in the piiblication, in 1868, of
a volume entitled "The American Beaver and his Works." In his
preface to this volume Mr. Morgan thus describes the circumstances
imder which these studies were made :

Having been associated in this enterprise from its commencement, as one of
the directors of the railroad company, and as one of its stockholders, business
called me to Marquette first in 1855, and nearly every summer since to the
present time. After the completion of the railroad to the iron-mines, it was
impossible to withstand the temptation to brook-trout fishing, which the streams
traversing the intermediate and adjacent districts offered in ample measure.
My friend Gilbert D. Johnson, Superintendent of the Lake Superior Mine, had
established boat-stations at convenient points upon the Carp and Esconauba
Rivers, and to him I am specially indebted, first, for a memorable experience in
brook-trout fishing, and, secondly, for an introduction to the works of the beaver

118 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

within tlio areas traversed by these streams. Our course, in passing up and
down, was obstructed by beaver-dams at short intervals, from two to three feet
high, over which we were compelled to draw our boat. Their numbers and
magnitude could not fail to surprise as well as interest any observer. Although
constructed in the solitude of the wilderness, where the forces of Nature were
still actively at work, it was evident that they had existed and been maintained
for centuries by the permanent impression produced upon the rugged features
of the country. The results of the persevering labors of the beaver were sug-
gestive of human industry. The streams were bordered continuously with beaver
meadows, formed by overflows by means of these dams, which had destroyed
the timber upon the adjacent lands. Fallen trees, excavated canals, lodges, and
burrows, filled up the measure of their works. These together seemed to me to
afford a much greater promise of pleasure than could be gained with the fisli-
pole, and very soon, accordingly, the beaver was substituted for the trout. I
took up the subject, as I did fishing, for summer recreation. In the year 1861
I had occasion to visit the Ked Eiver settlement in the Hudson's Bay Territory,
and in 1862 to ascend the Missouri Eiver to the Eocky Mountains, which enabled
me to compare the works of the beaver in these localities with those on Lake
Superior. At the outset I had no expectation of following up the subject year
after year, but was led on by the interest which it awakened, until the materials
collected seemed to be worth arranging for publication. "Whether this last sur-
mise is well or ill founded, I am at least certain that no other animal will be
allowed to entrap the unambitious author so completely as he confesses himself
to have been by the beaver. My unrestrained curiosity has cost me a good deal
of time and labor.

Mors^an's researches amonof the tribes of North America were ex-
tended to many subjects not inchided in the great Yolume published
by the Smithsonian Institution. The results of these collateral inves-
tigations led to the publication of a series of articles in the " North
American Review." The first appeared in 1869, and was entitled
" The Seven Cities of Cibola," in which he comes to the qualified con-
clusion that the ruins on the Chaco in New Mexico represent what re-
mains to us of the so-called cities described by the ancient Spanish trav-
elers. Incidentally, the paper also contains a careful description of
pueblo architecture, and its relation to gentile life, and is compared
with the architecture of old Mexico ; and the statement is made that
the buildings discovered by the Spaniards in Mexico were in fact pue-
blos, or communal dwellings, but were exaggerated by them into pala-
tial residences of emperors, with retinues of serving lords and hosts of
slaves. The lengthy article closes with the following paragraph :

"When the romantic features of the discovery and conquest of Mexico, which
made such a powerful impression upon the writers of the sixteenth and seven-
teenth centuries, and which have not yet lost their influence, shall become soft-
ened down by our increasing knowledge of Indian character, arts, and institu-
tions, it will be possible to reconstruct, from existing materials, a rational history
of this interesting people. If the author of the volume, whoever he may be, will
entitle his work ' A History of the Aztec Confederacy,' and, after explaining the
political relations of the three nations of which it was composed, and the func-
tions of the council by which it was governed, will then introduce Montezuma

SKETCH OF LEWIS H. MORGAN. 119

as the head chief of the Aztecs, one of the three confederated peoples, the reader
will be certain to start with a tolerably clear impression. No harm will be done
to truth, if the great lords, with many vassals and large landed estates, and the
little lords, with few vassals and small landed estates, are introduced as plain In-
dian chiefs, innocent of all knowledge both of estates and vassals. Besides this,
it is not improbable that the palaces and most of the temples will ultimately
resolve themselves iuto plain communal houses, like those now standing in the
picturesque and beautiful valley of the Chaco, roofless and deserted. With
these, and a number of similar changes, the future student of aboriginal history
will not be led to deceptive conclusions by the glitter of inappropriate terms.
Such a history is due to the memory of the Aztecs, and to a right estimate of the
Indian family.

This article inaugurated the reconstruction of the history of Mexi-
can and Central American culture, vi^hich is now rapidly in progress.
All the previous history had a been a vain but brilliant exaggeration
of Indian society, with its languages, arts, religion, and social and
governmental institutions — a picture derived from boastful and men-
dacious travelers.

In the latter part of 1869 a second article appeared in the same
journal on Indian migrations, followed by a third on the same sub-
ject in 1870. The purpose of these articles was to indicate an original
general dispersion of the Indian tribes from the region of the Colum-
bia River.

In 1876 a fourth article appeared, entitled "Montezuma's Dinner,"
which was in part a review of Bancroft's " Native Races of the Pacific
States," but in fact was a general characterization of the culture dis-
covered in Mexico and Central America, with a review of the historic
evidence, and was an exquisite satire on the exaggerated accounts of
Spanish travelers and priests, expanded and glorified by modern writers.

In the same year a fifth article appeared, on the " Houses of the
Mound-Builders."

The great work of Mr. Morgan was yet unpublished. It remained
for him to gather the materials he had collected on tribal society into
one philosophic treatise. This was accomplished in the publication
of his volume entitled "Ancient Society" in 1877. This was divided
into four parts, as follows : Part I. Growth of Intelligence through
Inventions and Discoveries ; Part II. Growth of the Idea of Govern-
ment ; Part III. Growth of the Idea of the Family ; Part IV. Growth
of- the Idea of Property.

In the first part technologic evolution was discussed, and culture
periods, or what Mr. Morgan denotes " ethnical periods," were defined.
These grand periods, through which the most highly developed races
of mankind have passed, and into which the various peoples on the
globe may be distributed, were set forth as the savage, the barbaric,
and the civilized. These were defined in terms relating: to the evolu-
tion of arts. Savagery and barbarism were divided into three periods

120 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

each, giving the lower, middle, and upper status of savagery, and the
lower, middle, and upper status of barbarism ; these subdivisions also
being established on the development of specified arts.

Two grand plans of government are also set forth — tribal and na-
tional ; tribal government being personal, i. e,, taking into account
persons only, and national government being territorial and based on
property.

In the second part he discussed in a thorough manner the different
forms of government in the order of their evolution, beginning with
the organization of society upon the basis of sex, as it is found in
Australia, and fragments of which are found as survivals among other
tribes of the world. He then expounded the organization of society
and tribal governments based upon kinship ; and having by wide
research discovered this system in every quarter of the globe among
people living in barbaric life, and having discovered by abundant evi-
dence that the same form of society and government existed in the
early history of the most civilized peoples, he logically inferred that
gentile society and tribal government as based upon kinship are the
universal characteristic of man in his passage through the period
of barbarism. He also discussed the evolution of gentile society from
connubial society ; defined the organic units of tribal government as
gentes, phratries, tribes, and confederacies, pointing out their origin
and growth as illustrated by abundant examples throughout the globe ;
and, finally, the evolution of gentile society and tribal government
into property society and national government.

In Part III he treats of the evolution of the family — discovers five
successive forms, and sets forth the processes by which the first or
consanguineal family, which is founded upon the intermarriage of
brothers and sisters, own and collateral in a group, was developed into
the last or monogamian, which is founded upon mai-riage by single
pairs with exclusive cohabitation. In the final chapter of this part he
gives the sequence of institutions connected with the family in tabular
form with appended explanations.

In the fourth part Mr. Morgan deals with the origin of civilization.
Discovery and invention finally led to the accumulation of property,
and society was organized on this basis ; and for the protection of
property and the industries by which it is produced civilized govern-
ments have finally been established over territorial areas. The growth
of the idea of property with the development of industries is explained,
together with the evolution of laws of inheritance.

Thus the plan of Mr. Morgan's great work w^as completed. In it
was laid the foundation for the science of government as it is finally
to be erected by the philosophy of evolution.

In the progress of human culture institutions are developed ; new
rights with their correlative duties arise from the new relations into
which men are placed. For the maintenance of these rights and the

SKETCH OF LEWIS H. MORGAN. 121

enforcement of these duties, governments change in all their substan-
tial characteristics, and the great laws of evolution in the processes of
differentiation and integration are followed, as tribes integrate into
nations and the functions of government are differentiated ; commu-
nal industries change to individual and corporate industries ; commu-
nal property to individual and corporate property ; communal marriage
to individual marriage ; communal government to organized national
government, with the differentiation of the three great departments,
the executive, the legislative, and the judicial ; and these again elabo-
rately differentiated with special organic members for special organic
functions — all progressing with advancing intelligence to secure jus-
tice and thereby increase happiness.

This survey of governments in their totality presents one fact of
profound interest to statesmen. Government by the people is the nor-
mal condition of mankind, as a broad review of human history abun-
dantly maintains. Monarchies are temporary phases of government
in the evolution of mankind from barbarism to civilization ; and
these monarchies with their attendant hierarchies, feudalisms, and sla-
very, appear only as pathologic conditions of the body politic — diseases
which must be destroyed or they will destroy — and hence disappearing
by virtue of the survival of the fittest. Hope for the future of society
is the best-beloved daughter of Evolution.

Morgan has here been spoken of as a pioneer in a special field of
research, but many others worked contemporaneously with him in the
same field. Notable among these are Tylor and Maine, whose fields of
investigation were, to some extent, identical with Morgan's ; though
in a larger sense, the areas which they covered were diverse. Where
their studies were in common their methods of research were diverse.
Maine and Tylor ransacked recorded history. Morgan plunged into
the wilderness and studied Indian tribes, but his plan also included the
study of annals ; yet his work is largely made up of a record of facts
previously unknown to science.

Long years of excessive labor, with sorrows that invade the domes-
tic circle through disease and death, have somewhat decreased the vigor
of physical life not long ago so characteristic of the man. On account
of his infirmities he presided with some difiiculty at the last meeting
of the American Association for the Advancement of Science ; but
his mental vigor continues, and he is now engaged in the preparation
of a volume on the " House Life and Architecture of the North Amer-
ican Indians," to be published by the Bureau of Ethnology of the
Smithsonian Institution.

May his years continue and his works multiply ! It is not one of
the least of the results accomplished by Mr. Morgan that he has gath-
ered about him loving disciples who are reaping harvests from fields
planted by himself.

122

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

CORRESPOI^DENCE.

SCIENCE AT PEINCETON COLLEGE.
Messrs. Editors.
ri"^HERE are statements in the " Corre-

.1_ spondence " of the last number of
'' The Popuhir Science Monthly " fitted to
leave an unjust impression as to what is
taught in Princeton College. I do not enter
upon the argument of that article, which is
palpably illogical. It is that we have had low
fever, taking a tvphoid shape, because we do
not teach physiology to our students. Two
scientific adepts have reported as to our
sanitary state, and what they have testified
is likely to be accepted by the public. Nor
do I look on this as the fitting opportunity
to enter on the discussion as to what branch-
es should be taught in colleges which im-
part a high and refining education, and con-
fer the Bachelor's, the Master's, and the Doc-
tor's degrees. My opinions on this subject
have often been given to the world. I be-
lieve that, in our higher educational institu-
tions, there should be a due combination of
literature (including languages), of science,
and philosophy. We have endeavored to
unite these, and give a proper place to each
in our curriculum. It is only thus that we
can fulfill the grand end of education, that
of developing the man and the full man. I
do not regard a youth as fully trained who
knows merely Latin and Greek ; but as lit-
tle do I look upon him as educated if he
knows only his own bodily frame and ma-
larial disease. Nor am I ashamed to add
that religion has an important part to act
in a college, if we would impart the proper
spirit to our young men. The favorites of
" The Popular Science Monthly," Professor
Huxley and Herbert Spencer, have avowed
that there is no adequacy in physical sci-
ence to make youths moral ; and the former
wishes the Bible taught in the public schools
of London, and the latter seems to be trust-
ing to a development which will make peo-
ple moral in a million of years, if in the
mean time the world is not burnt up by
the conflagration which he says must come.
But my special object in this communica-
tion is to correct certain statements and in-
sinuations as to our teaching. The impres-
sion is left by the article that we give ex-
clusive, or, at least, our chief attention, to
classics and certain old branches, and that
we neglect the study of our own bodily frame

and of tlie laws of health. After this dec-
laration, your readers may be surprised to

learn that of our thirty instructors thirteen

are employed in teaching the various sci-
ences, including the very latest. As to the
special branches which we are said not to
teach, the Professor of General Chemistry
reports : " All students of the college have
a full course of instruction in the outlines
of human anatomy and physiology, with so
much of hygiene as there is time for ; and
this has been done in the college for nearly
half a century. We do not profess to be a
medical college, or to train physicians, but
no student leaves us without a fair knowl-
edge of his own bodily system." The Profes-
sor of Analytical Chemistry reports : " The
question of sewage, from a chemical point
of view, is fully investigated by all the stu-
dents of the scientific course and by those
of the academic course who elect applied
chemistry. Its injurious effects on the at-
mosphere and on the water are described
and the laws of the diffusion of all gases
are applied at this present time, and have
always been, to this question." The Profes-
sor of Natural History writes : " The students
in science go through a course of physiol-
ogy, using ' Huxley' s Elements ' as a text-
book, along with ^Youmans's Chapters on
Hijgienc,^ to which special attention is giv-
en. The subjects which are said to be neg-
lected are all taught with some degree of
fullness." I have an idea that some of the
readers of " The Popular Science Monthly "
will be gratified to notice that Professor
Youmans is allowed to teach hygiene to our
young men ; but they will also discover that
this fact undermines his argument, which is
that, where hygiene is taught, there should
be no fever.

James McCosh.
Pkinceton College, August 14, ISSO.

THE SENSE OF DIRECTION IN ANIMALS.

Messrs. Editors.

I WAS very much interested in the ac-
count, published in your July number, of
the experiments with the intelligent Cin-
cinnati dog, and I think the facts there
developed tend strongly to the proof of a
theory that I have long believed to be cor-
rect, viz., that some of the lower animals
are endowed with a sense of location and
direction which at most is only rudimen-
tarily possessed by man. I do not think
that the feats of the carrier-pigeon can be
accounted for on the theory of any finite

CORRESP ONDENCE.

123

development of the sense of sight, smell,
or hearing, and the action of honey-bees pre-
sents the same difficulties to persons familiar
with the habits of these interesting insects.
In searching for wild honey, the bee-hunter
provides himself with a small box w^ith a
sliding door ; inside of this box he puts some
siveet substance as a bait for the bees.
When several bees have collected iu the box,
he closes the lid. As soon as they have
finished eating, he releases a bee, which,
after ascending high enough to clear the
surrounding trees, makes a " bee-line " for
its hive. The hunter marks this direction
and carries his box off at right angles to
the line made by the first bee, and releases
another bee ; he carefully marks the direc-
tion taken by this second bee, and, if they
are both from the same swarm, the hive
will be found at the point where these two
lines meet.

I might cite well-authenticated cases of
cats, pigs, and dogs, finding their way home,
where such a feat would seem impossible to
man under like circumstances ; my object,
however, was not to theorize, but simply to
record what I consider some interesting ob-
servations bearing upon this subject.

Last spring I built a trout-pond in my
garden, on the west side of a running brook
discharging about six hundred cubic feet of
water per minute. The brook is quite rapid
where it passes the pond, and the surface
of the pond is some five feet higher than
the surface of the brook. The pond is sup-
plied with water brought 2,000 feet in un-
derground pipes and discharged in a foun-
tain in the center of the pond. Common
bull-frogs {Rami pipiens) occasionally find
their way into this pond. On the 18tli of
last July I found three frogs in the pond,
and shot all of them with a pistol. I dipped
them up with a seoop-net, and found two of
them shot through the body, and the other,
a little fellow, weighing about two ounces,
was shot across the back, the bullet just
raising the skin and leaving a white streak
across its dark-green surface. I emptied
the three frogs out of the net into the swift-
running water of the brook, and they float-
ed down stream out of sight. On the 19th
of July, the day following, I found the
wounded frog in the pond again, and readily
recognized it by the scar from the bullet.
I found no difficulty in catching it in the
scoop-net, and, fearing that the scar might
disappear from its back, I cut off the cen-
ter toe of its right foot, put the frog into
a paper bag, carried it down the brook
across a bridge, and finally threw it into
the stream some one hundred yards below
the pond.

On the 2ith of July I found the frog
back again, caught it, and, so as to leave no
doubt about its identification, I cut off the
middle toe of the left foot. I then put the

frog in the paper bag, started from the
pond in a northeast course, stopped and
whirled the bag around so as to confuse any
ideas that it might have had of direction,
and then changed my course, and finally re-
leased the frog on the opposite side of the
brook in an oat-field about an eighth of a
mile in an easterly direction from the pond.
To prevent the frog from getting any idea
from watching me, I passed on after re-
leasing it, and did not go back again to the
pond for several hours. Three days after-
ward I saw the frog in the pond again, but
it was so wild that I could not catch it with
my scoop-net, and I afterward tried various
devices to capture it alive, but the moment
it saw me approach the pond it would jump
in and remain hidden in the stones at the
bottom until I left. Finally, despairing of
catching it alive, and having some doubts
about its identity, on the 9th of August I
shot it, and recognized it by the absence of
the cut-p£E toes.

The general direction is up-hill from
the point where the frog was last released
to the pond, and about the same distance
in a down-hill course would have taken the
frog to the Ausable River. It still remains
possible that the frog waited until night,
and then followed my tracks back to the
pond, but that seems improbable, I think,
even more so than to believe that the frog
knew all the time the direction of the pond,
and slowly worked its way back again as in-
clination prompted.

George Chahoox.
AusABLS Forks, New York, August 16, 1S30.

SCIENCE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF
MICHIGAN.
Messrs. Editors.

My eye has just fallen on your editorial
comments under the head of " Sewage in
College Education " ; and I can not resist the
impulse to point out a few of the errors into
which you have been drawn. Not much
space will be required, I think, to show that
the attitude of the University of Michigan
toward scientific and classical studies has
been quite misapprehended.

In the first place, you are in error in
assuming that Bishop Harris spoke as the
representative of the University. Would it
have been fair to assume that Yale College
was represented by President White's fa-
mous address on the " Warfare of Science " ?
Each of these gentlemen was invited to de-
liver a commencement address, each chose
his own subject, each treated his subject in
his own way, and each was alone responsi-
ble for what he said. One sentence in the
Bishop's address may have misled you. I
refer to that in which he expressed his grati-
tude that classical studies still maintain their

124

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

prominence in this university. But it is
certain that the Bishop either meant simply
to express his satisfaction that so large a
numl)er of students still continue to pursue
classical studies, notwithstanding the induce-
ments held out by the scientific courses, or,
Avhat is perhaps quite as likely, he himself
was not fully aware of what the University
is doing for the encouragement of scientific
pursuits. In one instance, at least, the Bish-
op ran squarely athwart all the traditions and
usages of the University. The orator in-
dicated certain studies which he would not
permit the student to pursue. The Univer-
sity, on the contrary, has long held up as
its ideal: "All learning and that of the
best" ; and entire freedom of choice on the
part of students as to what they would pur-
sue.

You remark : " This great institution,
with its fourteen hundred students, seems
just as much enslaved by vicious traditions
as the older schools. Middle-Age studies
are still in the ascendant. The sciences are
taught there, but the classical course is the
one encouraged by the whole weight of the
University influence."

I think a few facts will be enough to
show you that this assertion is totally and
comprehensively incorrect.

1. As many as twent3--eight years ago
the University of MicMyan was the pioneer
in the work of 'raising scientific studies to a
footing of absolute equality with the old
classical curriculum. At that moment there
was not a single college or university in the
country that had a scientific course of four
years. Such a four years' course was then
established here ; it has ever since been main-
tained, and the requisites for admission to
it have been raised as rapidly as the condi-
tion of the preparatory schools would per-
mit.

2. TJie worli, thus early Icgun, has gone
steadily on to the present day. Besides the
various professional degrees in engineering,
the University now confers four degrees as
the reward of four years of successful study,
viz. : Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science,
Bachelor of Philosophy, and Bachelor of
Letters. The ancient languages are required
for the first of these degrees only ; and even
for A. B. the amount of Latin and Greek
required aggregates only aboit one solid
year's work, while the amount of science
rc(iuired aggregates scarcely less, and the
amount of science the student may elect in
addition aggregates the work of two full
years. Thus, even in the classical course,
the student with his one year of classics may,
if he choose, take two and a half years of
science.

3. The number of courses of instruction
in Latin and Greek offered to students the
present semester is twelve (12), while the
number of courses offered in the sciences is

forty-four (44). The number of teachers
employed to give instruction in Latin and
Greek fifteen years ago was four ; last year
the number was four ; fifteen years ago the
number of teachers in the sciences was five,
last year the number was twenty-four.

4. The means of illustration in the clas-
sical courses have remained almost station-
ary ; while the appliances for the pursuit of
scientific studies have spread out in every
direction. The physical laboratory affords
constant occupation to a considerable num-
ber of original investigators. The botani-
cal laboratory is daily occupied by a crowd
of students pursuing advanced microscopi-
cal researches. The physiological labora-
tory is positively overrun with students from
the beginning to the end of the year. The
chemical laboratory last year offered to our
students a hundred and seventy-five tables
for personal experimentation in applied
chemistry, but the number was so inade-
quate to a supply of the demand that the
building at the present moment is in process
of enlargement by nearly as many tables
more. It' you were to wander through these
busy rooms, and see the hundreds of students
clad in their scientific aprons and carrying
on their researches with scalpel and micro-
scope and test-tubes you would not fail to
reform your opinion that the " whole weight
of the University influence " is devoted to
the encouragement of the classical course.
Other universities have reared grander dor-
mitories and memorial halls ; but, if any
other institution in the country has done
more for the direct encouragement of scien-
tific study and research within the past fif-
teen years than the University of Michigan,
I have yet to learn which one it is. If you
will point us to a better record than that
indicated in the above facts, we will then
endeavor to emulate our superior.

As your facts were at fault, of course it
is not necessary to point out the error of
your conclusion. I trust that the facts
given are sufficient to justify you in modi-
fying your intimation that the institution
" deserves to be suppressed as a public nui-
sance."

I ought perhaps to correct one or two
further errors of your article. But I con-
tent myself with saying that the University
has not been " maintained from the first by
public taxes "; that it was not until after it
• had already acquired strength, and renown
even, that the first dollar of taxes was levied
in its behalf ; nay, that the first taxes were
not levied for it until long after a funda-
mental law had been passed prohibiting the
requiring of Latin and Greek as a condition
for admission to the full privileges of the
University.

You conclude your paper by comparing
the University of Michigan with Cornell, and
pointing to the difference, as evinced in the

EDITOR'S TABLE.

125

contrast between Bishop Harris's address
and the thesis of a Cornell student on the
sanitary condition of Ithaca. I conclude
mine by saying that, if you will favor the
University of Michigan with a visit, the Li-
brarian, I doubt not, will take great plea-

sure in showing you a cartload of theses of
the very kind you so justly admire.
Very respectfully yours,

C. K. Adams.

University of Michigan, [_
Ann Akbob, Sejjtember 15, 18S0. )

EDITOR'S TABLE.

POLITICAL SCIENCE.
'TTTE commence this montli the pub-
V V lication of an important series of
articles on " The Development of Politi-
cal Institutions" from the highest living
authority on the subject of tlie science
of society. By the science of society is
meant such a systematic exposition of
the facts and relations of social phe-
nomena as shall bring out the natural
laws of social change and transforma-
tion. The doctrine of evolution com-
pels the study of society from a scientific
point of view. Based upon the dynami-
cal view of nature, the principle of con-
tinuity, and the immutable operation of
cause and effect, it brings out the natu-
ral laws by which the course of society
is governed in all its stages of progress
and decline. The political element in
society is but a part — though an impor-
tant part — of a great complex organism,
but it has had its laws of growth like
all other parts of the organization. But,
if such determinable laws of political
change exist, it is desirable that they
should be traced out and formulated.
The discussion, therefore, now entered
upon, we need hardly say, is of great
theoretical and practical moment, be-
cause a knowledge of the principles by
which political institutions originated
and have grown up and are still ad-
vancing must become in future the basis
of all intelligent political action. Social
science thus elucidated will yet consti-
tute the true foundation of the art of
politics, or the practical carrying on of
governmental operations ; though there
is as yet in the public mind but little
preparation for this mode of regard-
ing social questions. Familiar as we

are with the highly developed results
of long social unfolding, it is not easy
to go back into the dim obscurities of
social embryology. This, however, is
indispensable if we are to gain any ade-
quate understanding of the method of
social development. Mr, Spencer has
elsewhere dealt very fully with the im-
pediments to the study of social evolu-
tion, and in the preliminary paper here-
with printed he calls attention to some of
the difficulties to be met in the political
study of evolution. It is always very
hard work for the loose and careless
thinker to subject himself to the rigor-
ous requirements of thorough scientific
study ; but the task becomes still more
serious when to lax habits of thinking
there are added those prejudices and
gross errors to whicli men so passion-
ately cling in the sphere of political
thought. Yet these obstacles will be
overcome as people are slowly educated
to a better appreciation of the scien-
tific spirit and the scientific method.

It is desirable to explain that the
articles on " The Development of Polit-
ical Institutions " that are to appear in
the " Monthly " when collected will
constitute that portion of Spencer's
" Principles of Sociology " which is to
be devoted to the evolution of political
government. The preceding division
on the development of "■ Ceremonial
Institutions " is already published ; and
the part now appearing on political in-
stitutions will be followed by the cor-
responding treatment of ecclesiastical
and industrial organizations. These to-
gether will form the second volume of
the " Principles of Sociology," the sev-
enth volume of Spencer's philosophical

126

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

system. "We refer to this because there
is much misunderstanding of the bear-
ings of Spencer's various books on the
subject of sociology. Dr. Porter, for
example, has lately taken him up in the
" Princeton Review," and vre think, if
he had been a little more particular in
his reference to Spencer's sociological
•works, he would have given increased
help to readers unacquainted with them.
He says: "Spencer's contributions to
this science are professedly only intro-
ductory to its study. They are to con-
sist of ' The Principles of Sociology,' in
two volumes, ' Social Statics' and 'The
Study of Sociology,' as also several vol-
umes of ' Descriptive Sociology.' " More
precisely " The Princii^les of Sociology '
will comprise three volumes instead of
two. " Social Statics " is an old book,
that forms no part of his sociological
system, and only " The Study of Sociol-
ogy," an incidental contribution to the
subject, should be especially character-
ized as introductory to it. It is hardly
fair to an author to mix up his works in
this careless way, and it is especially
unfair to Spencer, because he has been
long engaged in developing his ideas in
various lines of work, and publishing
them in fragmentary parts, so that read-
ers are easily liable to become confused
in regard to them. President Porter's
critical essay is entitled " Spencer's The-
ory of Sociology," and he says, " The
only practicable method of discovering
the author's theory is to subject the
volume to a minute criticism." We
think the still more " practicable "
method would be an examination of
the works in which the theory is pro-
fessedly expounded rather than in a
volume which disavows all attempt to
formulate the principles of the sci-
ence. He has explained in the pref-
ace to the work that "The Study of
Sociology " was a side discussion, form-
ing no part of the systematic treatment
of social science. It was written with
main reference to those prepossessions
of the public mind which tend to hin-

der a scientific study of social subjects.
Instead of explaining the science of so-
ciety, the book was designed to remove
objections to its possibility and to arouse
interest in its legitimate questions. Yet
Dr. Porter undertakes to judge Spen-
cer's " Theory of Sociology " by an
analysis of this book which does not
contain it. Spencer's works are tempt-
ing game for sensational criticism, be-
cause of their extent, incompleteness,
and comprehensive method, which make
misconception easy and misrepresenta-
tion easier, and for this reason we are
called upon to correct false impressions
more frequently than would be other-
wise necessary.

SCIEXCE IN THE COLLEGES.

We call attention to the correspond-
ence from Princeton and Ann Arbor
correcting alleged errors in our Septem-
ber article on " Sewage in College Edu-
cation." Dr. McCosh thinks it palpably
illogical to argue that they have had
typhoid fever because they do not teach
physiology to the students. Our stric-
tures -were based on an assumed state
of facts which is not contradicted, viz.,
that the fatal fever resulted from causes
that were clearly preventable. We sim-
ply charged that the knowledge that
would have averted the catastrophe,
and which, as tending to self-preserva-
tion, is the most important of all knowl-
edge, is culpably neglected in the col-
lege, is subordinated to more worthless
studies, and not so taught as to yield
the beneficent results which it is capa-
ble of producing. And what are the
facts ? Dr. McCosh says that the chem-
ical professor reports as follows: "All
students of the college have a full course
of instruction in the outlines of human
anatomy and physiology, with so much
of hygiene as there is time for; and
this has been done in the college for
nearly half a century." That is, they
teach as much about the laws of life as
the old crowded classical curriculum

EDITOR'S TABLE.

127

will allow " time " for, and hygiene is
treated just as it has been these fifty
years. We only say, let the knowledge
that conduces to self-preservation be
taught first and thoroughly, and, if the
text-books are inadequate or the teach-
ers incompetent, turn them all out to-
gether and procure those that are hetter.
Professor Adams, we are happy to
say, makes an excellent showing of the
extent of scientific study in Michigan
University. But it seems we were at
fault in trusting the statements of Bish-
op Harris, who misrepresented some
things and was ignorant of others, while
the plaudits which he evolved were in-
tended rather for his rhetoric than his
ideas. Professor Adam.s intimates that
it was unfair to assume that the Bishop
spoke as the representative of the uni-
versity. But when a State Bishop is
brought out hefore a State institution
on an important occasion, and the cus-
tomary exercises are suspended in his
behalf, and he takes up the work of the
institution as his theme, certainly it
would not have been admissible in out-
siders to question his representation of
facts. Professor Adams gives an inter-
esting and most encouraging account of
the progress of scientific study in the
university, and we all owe thanks to
the Bishop for starting a discussion that
has brought out these excellent results,
and in which his inaccuracies have been
overruled for good. But we will try
to be more discriminating in future as
to whose statements are to be trusted.

THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE FAIR.

IxorsTEiAL exhibitions now seem
to have become a recognized part of
the machinery of trade. Those of a
merely local character are held in great
numbers and at many different points,
while those of international range are
of such frequent occurrence as to be
fast losing their novelty. Most of the
considerable cities of this country now
liave permanent organizations devoted

to the giving of periodic fairs, while
States and counties vie with one another
in the same sort of work. The holding
of fairs is a very old practice in all civil-
ized countries ; and it has always been
made tributary to social gratification as
well as to commercial utility. Such ex-
hibitions are primarily a means of giving
publicity to the wares of manufacturers
and traders, but they are not without
a further value to the general public.
There must of necessity be a good deal
of repetition at the successive collec-
tions, but the rapid advances now made
in the arts insure the bringing forward
of a sutficient number of new and inter-
esting objects to give novelty and plea-
sure to the recurring displays. Great
fairs are, moreover, always instructive.
They not only offer favorable opportuni-
ties for observing and comparing many
articles with which people desire to sup-
ply themselves, but, by bringing togeth-
er the best products of useful and artis-
tic workmanship, they familiarize the
public with the highest standards of
excellence, and become the centers of
impulse, and incite to still further im-
provement. International exhibitions
have undoubtedly had great effect in
stimulating whole communities to apply
greater intelligence to the processes of
the arts and to attain a higher perfec-
tion in industrial products ; and this
wholesome education has been also pro-
moted, though in a lesser degree, by the
large local exhibitions.

Among the fairs annually held, those
of the American Institute have long
had a leading place. The position of
the Institute, at the chief distributing
point of the country and the center of
population, has doubtless contributed
largely to give its fairs such a charac-
ter; but the judicious conduct of the
concerns of the society and the discre-
tion with which awards have in the
main been bestowed have been no less
important factors. The American In-
stitute, was the pioneer in the work to
which it is devoted — the promotion and

128

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

encouragement of the industrial arts in
this country. Founded in 1828, it has
for lialf a century had a successful ca-
reer. Its growth has been coincident
with a most remarkable industrial de-
velopment, and its exhibitions during
this period have been among the most
available means of bringing to the early
notice of tlie public the most important
and valuable inventions and improve-
ments of which this country has been,
perhaps, more prolific than any other.

The forty-ninth exhibition is now
being held, and in point of variety and
interest of exhibits compares favora-
bly with those of preceding years. No
remarkable machines or processes are
shown, but in several departments there
are appliances which are decided ad-
vances upon previous constructions. As
a whole, the exhibition is well worth a
visit, and there is much to be seen there
that will repay careful examination.

POWDER AND BALL FOR DEMA-
GOGUES.

PiiEsiDENT Hayes has been discuss-
ing the subject of public education ;
and, in his speech at Canton, Ohio, he
called attention to the extent, and point-
ed out the main sources, of illiteracy
among our heterogeneous populations.
Ten years ago, he says, there were three
quarters of a million of negro voters
Avho could not read their ballots, and in
this respect things have not improved
much since. The Indian tribes which
we must soon absorb are equally igno-
rant. Half the population of New Mex-
ico can not read and write, and, of the
enormous immigration from Europe,
from twenty to twenty-five per cent,
are to the same degree illiterate. Mr.
Hayes maintains that it is the duty of
the national Government to enter upon
the great work of public education with
the view of qualifying all these incom-
petent citizens, present and prospective,
for the proper exercise of the right of
suffrage.

In referring to these various classes
of persons, Mr. Hayes uses the terms
"illiteracy," "ignorance," and "un-
able to read and write " interchange-
ably or as equivalents ; that is, the
" ignorance " of which he speaks seems
to be that grade of incapacity or illit-
erateness which is indicated by inabil-
ity to read and write. We are left to
infer that this is the ignorance which
he considers dangerous to the state, and
which it is therefore the duty of the
national Government to remove. We
assume that this is the sort of ignorance
which Mr. Hayes means when he says,
"In our own country, as everywhere
else, it will be found that in the long
run ignorant voters are powder and
ball for demagogues."

Are we to conclude, then, that in the
belief of President Hayes, if the negroes,
Indians, immigrants, and illiterate peo-
ple generally are taught to read and
write, American demagogues will be de-
prived of their ammunition, and repub-
lican government placed upon an en-
during foundation ? Does Mr. Hayes
think that the real danger to popular
institutions in this country comes from
the presence of those who are unable
to read their ballots? Certainly the
most dangerous class in the communi-
ty is the demagogues themselves, and
these can not only read and write, but
they are commonly educated men. Nor
is this all ; they are the dangerous ene-
mies of republican institutions by virtue
of that education which gives them com-
mand of the means of mischief. And
as it is by education that they are quali-
fied for the skillful practice of their
vicious arts, so it will be found that a
certain amount of education on the part
of their victims is necessary to bring
them within the full range of demagogi-
cal influence. It is not the illiterate
classes by any means that are most mis-
led and cheated by the demagogues. It
is those who can read the newspapers
and campaign documents that are most
openly accessible to the flatteries, de-

LITERARY NOTICES.

129

ceptions, and cunning artifices of wily
political managers. The illiterate classes
are indeed, to no small degree, pro-
tected by their very ignorance from the
most insidious forms of political impos-
ture. They are manipulated by coarse
methods, while the class of citizens who
are called intelligent, morally require
sharper practice to circumvent them.
It is a great mistake to suppose that
our demagogues are mere petty opei--
ators, animated by low cunning, and
who find their chief prey among those
who can not read their ballots. They
are trained and accomplished men, sub-
tle of intellect, inventive in resources,
and well equipped with knowledge.
The great mass of the people have a
smattering of education, and the whole
system of demagogical art assumes it
and is adapted to it. The common
schools teach just enough to turn out
"powder and ball for demagogues."
Our " machine politics " is the bright
consummate flower of American dema-
gogism, but it never could have had so
vigorous a growth if the ignorance of
American voters had not been duly cul-
tivated. The more ignorant and stu-
pid men are, the greater is their fealty
to party, and the more easily they can
be counted on; but, as they begin to
think, the demagogue is thrown upon
his resources, so that the effect of the
schools is to cause him to perfect his
methods. Of course, ignorant voters
are everywhere " powder and ball for
demagogues " ; we only insist that there
shall be no demagogical narrowness in
defining the class of ignorant voters.

LITERARY NOTICES.

Two Worlds are Ours. By Rev. Hugh Mac-
MiLLAN, LL.D., F. R. S. E. New York:
Macmillan&Co. Pp.349. Price, $1. 75.

To say that this book is by the author
of " Bible Teachings in Nature " and " First
Forms of Ve!i;etation," published several
years ago, will be a strong commendation
to many readers. Those books were full of
VOL. xviii. — 9

a peculiar interest derived from their au-
thor's special studies ; and the present work,
similar in character, well sustains the writ-
er's reputation. Dr. Macmillan combines,
in a somewhat marked degree, several traits
which give character to his productions.
He is first of all a devoutly religious man,
of strictly orthodox opinions, and profound-
ly impressed with the reality of the spir-
itual world ; and he writes to illustrate
and enforce the fundamental conceptions of
the Christian system. Then he is an enthu-
siastic student of nature, and well up in the
latest results of science — especially in geol-
ogy, botany, and zoology, the objects of
which are so obtrusive in all the aspects of
nature. He is besides a clear and pleasing
writer, with a dash of poetic feeling which
gives life and vividness to his descriptions,
though sometimes betraying him into un-
due fervor and elaboration of style Though
his book is pervaded by the most literal or-
thodox beliefs stated in Scripture forms, yet
it is in no sense a polemic, nor is there any
attempt to establish his theological views by
the customary logical methods. He rather
aims to enforce their truth by showing in
what striking ways they harmonize with the
methods and operations of nature. His vir-
tual thesis is that the " Two Worlds," spir-
itual and material, are ever in agreement
when we get down to their deeper meanings,
and he gives many ingenious and interesting
exemplifications of this unity. The book is
written in excellent temper, and is free from
all asperity. Science is looked upon, not
as the enemy but as the handmaid of faith ;
and, although advanced views are accepted
as a matter of course, there is never a word
of disparagement of scientific men. The
moral inculcations of the volume are ele-
vated and impressive, and, with their fresh
and attractive illustrations, can not fail to
exert a wholesome and improving infiuence.
Of its twenty-one chapters, those entitled
"Grains of Sand," "Weeds," "Summer
Blossoms," " Mountain Peace," " Leaven,"
" Snow," " Waste," and " The Days of a
Tree," have most interested us.

A True Republic. By Albert Sticknet.

New York : Harper & Brothers, 1879.

Pp. 271. Price, $1.

Mr. Sticknet here grapples with the
problem of the causes and the cure of the

130

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

widespread and increasing demoralization in
American political life, and, where others
who have as keenly felt the evil have content-
ed themselves with vague utterances, he pro-
poses a definite scheme of action. The im-
patience with party methods and party dic-
tation, which is now so evident among think-
ing men, has not generally gone to the
length of questioning the utility or neces-
sity of such organizations. Parties are held,
by even those most energetic in their oppo-
sition to their present tendencies and meth-
ods, to have a legitimate function in a free
state. It is only their abuse that there is
need to war against. Rightly limited, they
are the sole means of giving effective ex-
pression to the popular will, and for carry-
ing out lines of national policy. Emanci-
pated from the control of the self seeking
classes, they are the most efficient agents
of the control of the affairs of govern-
ment by the people, and the problem of
our politics is to get their management into
proper hands. This opinion Mr. Stickney
denies outright. Parties, in the sense of
vast permanent organizations, are to him
wholly an abomination. They do not now
aid, and never have aided, in furthering
calm political discussion, or in carrying
measures of real value to the people. They
are now, and always have been, organiza-
tions for the carrying of elections. The
great questions of the hour have indeed
been used by them as their battle-cries, but
the contest has always been for the places
of honor and profit. They have pushed
these questions to issue only to the extent
demanded by their needs ; the real interests
of the people have always been made sub-
servient to their triumph. Wise legislation
is the outcome of deliberation, of a careful
consideration of the real merits of the ques-
tions involved. It needs honesty of pur-
pose and harmony of spirit. But the very
essence of party is strife. Warring fac-
tions, jealous of any possible advantage
that one side may gain over another, per-
petually prevent all harmony of action be-
tween those holding by different parties.
The action of legislators, elected to conserve
the interests of the whole people, is deter-
mined almost solely by party considera-
tions. The division of votes on most ques-
tions is along strictly party lines. As a

means of affording discussion of the merits
of the men and measures presented for
popular suffrage, they are worse than use-
less. The candidates are all chosen by the
managers, and the people have only the
choice of ratifying at the polls the selec-
tions of the caucus. These are not acci-
dental but inherent features of the party
system. They are bad enough, but they are
but a part of the evils due to it. The fea-
ture that makes improvement hopeless, and
that paralyzes all attempts to reform within
party lines, is the influence that the system
inevitably exerts over our public men. In it
is to be found the cause of the progressive j
corruption of public servants. Not only
does it offer the opportunity for public ser-
vants to do their work ill, but, more than
that, it compels them to do it so. Their
continuance in office is dependent upon their
party carrying the next election. They are
therefore forced to devote their time and en-
ergies to keeping their places. They can not,
therefore, give their attention to the proper
work of their ofiices. More than this, they
must of necessity administer these offices,
not with an eye to the public good, but to
the best advantage of their party. The sys-
tem, therefore, makes it certain that the
public will neither get good service from the
men in office, nor get the best men to do
Government work. These results are not
peculiar to America. They have followed
wherever tenure of office has been made to
depend, not upon the faithful performance
of duties, but upon political success. Men
will always, at all times and places, give
their best work to that upon which their
preferment depends. If in this country
party control has gone to greater lengths
than in other countries, and not only the
elective, but all offices, have come to be the
prey of party faction, it is because the op-
portunities have been greater. Our fre-
quent elections make possible the profes-
sion of the politician. Every few years a
chance of a change in party control of the
Government gives a promise of vacancy in
great numbers of offices. Men, therefore,
temporarily out of office can wait for one of
these recurring opportunities. Mr. Stickney
reviews English and American history in
support of his position. He finds that se-
curity of tenure and ofiicial purity have

J

LITERARY NOTICES.

131

been invariably associated, while corruption
and tenure dependent upon political suc-
cess have always gone along together.

Sweeping as is the indictment of party,
its methods and results, its substantial accu-
racy will be questioned by few conversant
with the facts. The evil is allowed, but the
means of remedying it are not clear. To
many it has seemed that there is no cure.
Mr. Stickney is not of this number. His
showing of the causes upon which the evil
depends has revealed to him the method
of eliminating it. The public does not get
its best men in the public employ, or get
from its servants their best work, because
the best men will not condescend to the
work necessary to enter and remain in the
public service, and because they have not
security in their position during " good be-
havior." In the callings of private life men
have the assurance that, if they do their
work well, they will have employment for
life. They have also the assurance that, if
they do it ill, they will lose their employ-
ment. They are therefore under constant
pressure to do their work well. Mr. Stick-
ney believes that these conditions can be
realized in the public service by the changes
in our political system which he advocates.
These changes consist in abolishing the term
system, in so arranging the control of ap-
pointment and dismissal from office that
there shall be direct responsibility for the
performance of the work of the various
departments, and in reducing the number
of elective offices to the lowest point. To
this end the President is elected as now,
not for any definite term, but to continue in
office so long as he performs his duties
well. He has absolute control over the ap-
pointment and dismissal of the heads of de-
partments. These heads have in turn the
same power over their subordinates, and are
responsible to the Chief Executive alone for
the work of their departments. And so
down through the entire service, each em-
ployee being responsible to his immediate
superior for the faithful performance of his
duties, and being assured of his place only
so long as they are well done. To secure
efficiency, each man must have work of only
one kind. The Chief Executive is given
no voice, as now, in legislation, his veto-
power being taken from him. He is re-

sponsible for the work of the entire Ex-
ecutive branch of the Government to the
National Assembly. Mr. Stickney favors
only one body, of four or five hundred
men, instead of the two we now have ; but,
if there be two, it is sitting as one body
that they form the Assembly to whom the
Executive is responsible. The Executive
may be at any time removed for any cause
by a two-thirds vote of this Assembly. The
Assembly has no voice in the choice of a
new Executive. The senior department offi-
cer is made President pro tern, pending the
election of a new President. The members
of the Legislature are elected, like the Pres-
ident, for no definite term. They can be
turned out of office by a two-thirds vote of
the Assembly of which they are members.
The judges are also made elective, but for
no definite time. These are the only elec-
tive offices, in the national. State, and city
governments. All the others are by ap-
pointment. Under this system the power
of party as now existing would be destroyed,
Mr. Stickney holds, because there would be
few offices to be captured by election work,
and, the tenure being dependent upon good
behavior, it would be impossible to deter-
mine when these few would be vacant. The
office-seeker would then disappear, because
the profession could no longer pay. And
the office-seeker as a distinct class having
disappeared, public servants would become
as efficient and as honest as those in private
life. The whole of Mr. Stickney's scheme
turns upon this point — the breaking up of
party organization by removing the oppor-
tunities of profit which keep it intact.

It seems to us that it is just here that the
scheme fails. The power of party man-
agers is dependent not upon themselves
alone, but upon the following they can com-
mand. And they can command this fol-
lowing in virtue of the intensity of party
feeling. It is because there are multitudes
of men who can be rallied by the party cry
to support it through thick and thin that
the managers are able to prostitute the ser-
vices of the Government to their own ends.
The diminishing of the elective offices not
only would not reduce this partisan feel-
ing, but would have no tendency to do so.
These elective offices are, moreover, but a
part of those of the Government. The

132

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

great mass of those which arc now filled by
appointment — and which, under Mr. Stick-
ney's system, would be increased — are as
much sought after by party workers as those
that are elective ; and there is no greater se-
curity under the proposed system than un-
der the present, that they will be kept out
of their hands. The security is even less,
because the Executive has greater power.
Suppose the chief Executive and the re-
quired majority of the Legislature to be of
the same party, with the same intense par-
tisan feeling existing that now exists, what,
under Mr. Stickney's system, is to prevent
the offices from the top to the bottom be-
ing filled with political workers, and kept
there without any more regard for their
fitness than at present. A majority gained
by the other side would simply have the
effect of putting in a new Executive, who
might make a clean sweep of the depart-
ments in the interest of his party. The
only restraining force upon him then, as
now, would be the pressure of public
opinion, but that would necessarily be
less than at present, because it could not
make itself so effectively felt. The same
party majority that would be able to keep
the Executive in power for party reasons
would also be able to keep members of
the Legislature of their own party in their
seats. Practically a member would be se-
cure in his tenure unless guilty of the gross-
est misconduct. And party standards of
conduct are not of the highest. If this As-
sembly were composed, as Mr. Stickney sup-
poses, of the best and wisest men of the
nation, and the chief Executive were a man
of great administrative ability and honesty
of purpose, doubtless his plan would work
admirably. But a system must be judged
by its ability to meet the worst cases. If
the Assembly were filled with strong parti-
sans, and the Executive were the willing tool
of his party, the result would be anything
but satisfactory, and there would be, under
the law, no means of effecting a change.
While the discussion of Mr. Stickney is in
many ways suggestive, and throughout bears
the evidence of careful thought, his system
can not, to our thinking, be accepted as a
solution of the problem. Without a destruc-
tion of the party spirit, it affords no better
security for efficient and faithful service

than the present one, and, with the destruc-
tion of this spirit, its purpose can be ac-
complished with the system we have.

An Elementary Text-Book of Botany.
Translated from the German by Dr. K.
Prantl, Professor of Botany in the
Royal Academy of Forestry, Aschaffen-
burg, Bavaria. The Translation revised
by S. H. Vines, Fellow and Lecturer of
Christ's College, Cambridge. With 275
Illustrations. Philadelphia : J. B. Lip-
pincott & Co. 1880. Price, $2.25.

In his preface to the English translation
of Professor Prantl's text-book, Professor
Vines tells us that the work appeared in
Germany in response to a demand for an ■
introduction to Professor Sachs's well-known
and voluminous " Lehrbuch der Botanik,"
that should resemble it in its mode of
treating the subject. Professor Prantl's
success in this undertaking is attested by
the rapidity with which his book has passed
to a third edition in his own country, and
by its prompt translation into English. The
large work of Professor Sachs was trans-
lated by Bennet and Dyer, and published at
Oxford in 1875. To readers unacquainted
with this important volume, we may say
that it introduces the student to the pres-
ent state of knowledge concerning botanical
science. It not only describes the phenom-
ena of plant-life that are already accurately
known, but it indicates those theories and
problems in which botanical research is at
present engaged. It is a quarto volume of
860 pages, of which some 200 are given to
the consideration of " General Morpholo-
gy," nearly 400 to " Special Morphology
and Classification," about 200 to " Physiolo-
gy," and the remaining 60 or 70 pages to
chapters on " Plant Movements," " Sexual
Reproduction," and " The Origin of Spe-
cies." Professor Prantl's introduction to
Sachs's " Botany " is an octavo volume of
832 pages. In treating a subject of such
great extent in this brief space, the author
has adopted a somewhat different order
from that of the large work, and omitted
many of the recondite subjects which are
there so ably presented. The introductory
chapter is devoted to external morphology.
The anatomy of plants is treated in two
chapters, the first upon cell-structure, con-
tents, and development ; and the second J

LITERARY NOTICES.

133

upon tissues. " Plant Physiology " is treat-
ed in six chapters, and the remainder of the
volume, over two hundred pages, is devoted
to the " Classification of Plants." Special
morphology is here elucidated, along with
the exposition of the characters which un-
derlie classification. The illustrations are
numerous, attractive, and very helpful to an
understanding of the text.

As a brief exposition of the complete
science of botany, we have seen nothing
equal to this manual, which is every way
worthy of the incomparable work to which
it is the stepping-stone.

Contributions to the ARCHiEOLOGT of Mis-

SOCRI BT THE ArCH^OLOGICAI, SeCTION

OP THE St. Louis Academy of Science.
Part I, Pottery. Salem, Mass. : George
A. Bates. $3.00.

This handsome quarto volume is printed
on heavy tinted paper, and is illustrated by
five folded maps and twenty -four litho-
graphic plates, containing one hundred and
forty-eight figures. It contains a descrip-
tion of the earthworks and brief references
to the archaeological remains of southeast-
ern Missouri, by Professor W. B. Potter,
and a description of the ancient pottery by
Dr. Edward Evers. Their descriptions are
terse and to the point. Dr. Evers has no
theory regarding the race of people who
made this pottery, neither does he permit
himself to see some symbolic conception
in every quaint design he meets with. He
gives precisely what his readers want, a pro-
fusely illustrated volume of one hundred and
forty-eight figures of various vessels, strong-
ly drawn, and well drawn too.

We congratulate the St. Louis Academy
of Science on this evidence of its pros-
perity, and we particularly congratulate its
Archaeological Section that it wastes no time
or money in rummaging through Greece,
Cyprus, or other parts of the Old World, in
quest of antiques, when at home such rich
treasures are to be revealed.

Life on the Seashore; or, Animals of
OUR Coasts and Bays. With many Illus-
trations. By James H. Emerton. Salem,
Mass. : George A. Bates. $1.50.

This little book forms the first volume
of the "Naturalist's Handy Series," and is
alike creditable to author and publisher.

It will be found an exceedingly handy book
for any one interested in the animals of the
coast of New England. Much information
regarding the development and habits of
the lower animals is here given in a clear
and concise form.

As a successful zoological draughtsman,
Mr. Emerton should remember that an ob-
ject expressed in lines is to be acknowledged
as fully as an idea expressed in words. This
remark is necessitated by his neglect in
many cases to give the authorities for the
drawings he uses. The book is handsomely
bound and printed.

Introduction to the Mortuary Customs
AMONG the North American Indians.
By Dr. II. C. Yarrow. Washington :
Government Printing-Office. 1S80. Pp.
107.

The series of works, of which this vol-
ume forms the third installment, has been
undertaken with the object of obtaining a
complete and trustworthy account of the
present and ancient customs and beliefs of
our North American Indians. Though much
has been written on the subject by travelers
and explorers, the amount which is of value
is comparatively small, through carelessness
of observation and the predispositions of
the writers. The volumes only profess to
be introductions, but it is hoped that, by
awakening the interest and directing the
attention of those in a position to obtain
first-hand knowledge, a body of accurate
and, in time, comparatively complete infor-
mation can be obtained. Introductions to
the study of Indian language and Sign-lan-
guage, the first by Major J. W. Powell, and
the latter by Colonel Garrick Mallery, have
already appeared. The present volume will
be followed by similar ones upon the medi-
cine practice, the mythology, and the soci-
ology of these Indians. In the preparation
of the volume on mortuary customs. Dr.
Yarrow has enlisted the services of a great
number of observers, with the result of ob-
taining a large mass of reliable data. The
plan adopted was to send to Indian agents,
physicians resident at agencies, army offi-
cers, and others, a circular clearly setting
forth the kind of information desired, and
the precautions necessary to be taken to get
it reliable. The ground covered by the vol-
ume includes the care of the lifeless body

134

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

previous to burial, and the ceremonies at-
tendant upon it ; the method of burial, the
site, attitude of body, its manner of resting,
the ceremonies and the beliefs of the tribe
where it occurs concerning it ; the gifts of-
fered to the dead, at the time of burial and
later ; the superstitions relative to the influ-
ence of the dead over the living ; and all
those practices which express these beliefs,
as well as the methods and periods of mourn-
ing.. Many of the customs and practices do-
scribed are extremely curious, and all are of
interest, not alone to one whose studies have
been in this field, but to all intelligent peo-
ple. The cooperation of all who have op-
portunities of observation of the Indians is
solicited, to the end of making the final pub-
lication on the subject as complete and val-
uable as possible.

Annals of the Astronomical Observato-
ry OF Harvard Colllge. By Edward
C. Pickering, aided by Arthdr Searle
and WiNSLOW Upton. Vol. II, Part II.
Photometric Observations. Cambridge,
University Press : John Wilson & Son.
1879. Pp. 315.

This is a continuation of the photomet-
ric observations of Professor Pickering up-
on the light of the stars. The observations
include those upon the satellites of Mars, Ju-
piter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Mea-
surements have also been made of the light
of unequal double stars, where the difference
between the two is considerable, and also of
that of a number of the asteroids. Some
observations upon the limit of visibility have
also been made, and are still in progress.
A discussion of the results obtained on this
latter subject is reserved for a future part.

The Hair, its Growth, Care, Diseases,
AND Treatment. By C. Henri Leonard,
M. A., M. D., Professor of Medical and
Surgical Diseases of Women in the
Michigan College of Medicine. Illus-
trated by 116 Engravings. Detroit: C.
Henri Leonard. Pp. 319. Price, $2.

The author has here evidently aimed to
make a popular work, conveying as much
scientific information as he can make con-
sistent with that idea. It seems to bo a
very good digest of general knowledge re-
lating to the structure and diseases of the
hair, and gives many hints respecting its
care and healthful preservation. The vol-

ume is interspersed with a great deal of cu-
rious information respecting extraordinary
hair-growths, and the author is fond of ap-
plying the multiplication-table to the sub-
ject, and bringing out the most astonishing
results from insignificant elements. For
example : " Were it possible to place end
to end the hirsute covering of the heads of
Detroit citizens, we would have a hair-line
long enough to more than reach thirteen
times to the moon, or one that would belt
the earth some one hundred and twenty
times at its equator." The volume is pre-
paratory to a larger work, in which the
author promises to show the possibility of
the classification of animals from the dif-
ferences in the microscopical structure of
their hair-shafts.

Essays on Art and Archaeology. By
Charles Thomas Newton, C. B., Ph. D.,
D. C. L., LL. D. London : Macmillan &
Co. 1880. Pp. 472. Price, $4.

In this volume Mr. Newton has collected
a number of papers contributed by him to
different periodicals, most of them in recent
years, though several date back a consider-
able time. They are written in an agreeable
style, and will be found of interest, not only
to those who have more or less acquaintance
with the subject, but to the wider circle of
the general public.

The opening paper of the volume, read
at the Oxford meeting of the Archaeological
Institute, in 1850, is an exposition of the
scope of the science, bearing the title " On
the Study of Archeology." In it the author
considers the kind of records of the past of
the human race with which archa:ology is
concerned, the difficulties that encompass in-
vestigation, and the need of museums, etc.,
where the collections of materials can be
classified and disposed for intelligent study.
Mr. Newton's experience, as keeper of Greek
and Roman antiquities in the British Muse-
um, qualifies him for the discussion of the
best way of arranging the collections in that
institution, which forms the second paper of
the volume. That placed third is devoted
to an account of the Greek sculptures from
the west coast of Asia Minor, now in the
same museum. A long and interesting es-
say is that on " Greek Inscriptions," in
which Mr, Newton points out the great

LITERARY NOTICES.

135

mass of this material at the disposal of the
archaeologist, and refers in detail to many
of the more important inscriptions. Mr.
Wood's discovery of the site, and his res-
toration of the temple at Ephesus, which, in
the time of St. Paul, was one of the seven
wonders of the world, Mr. Newton presents
in his article on " Discoveries at Ephesus,"
and the discoveries of Dr. Schliemann at
Mycenfe in the one following. " Research-
es in Cyprus," " Discoveries at Olympia,"
*' Greek Art in the Kimmcrian Bosporos,"
and " Greek Numismatics," complete the
papers of the volume. A Greek inscription,
engraved on the four sides of a stele of blue
marble, which was some years since discov-
ered in the Castle of St. Peter, at Budrum,
is reproduced in an appendix.

QaALiTATivE Chemical Analysis. By Silas
H. Douglass, M. A., M. D., and Albert
B. Prescott, M. D., F. C. S. Third edi-
tion, wholly revised. With a Study of
Oxidation and Reduction, by Oris Coe
Johnson. New York : D. Van Nostrand.
18S0. Pp. 305.

The new feature in this edition of this
excellent manual is the text upon oxidation
and reduction, by Mr. Otis C. Johnson, in
which a new interpretation is given to quan-
tivalence. The authors state that the meth-
od of Mr. Johnson has proved veiy success-
ful in teaching, and bespeak for it a careful
examination by chemists. The subject is
technical, and can be fully understood only
by those acquainted with chemical theory
and manipulation. Besides the addition of
this new matter, the book has been care-
fully revised, and such improvements made
as the experience of actual use in teaching
has suggested.

Some Thoughts concerning Education. By
John Locke. With Introduction and
Notes by Rev. R. II. Quick, il. A. Cam-
bridge, Eng. : University Press. 1880.
Pp. 240. Price, 90 cents.

Although put forth so long ago, the
" Thoughts " still possess a value for the
modern student of education. Locke's ideas
of the purpose and scope of education were
greatly in advance of the practice of his
own time and of much of that of ours. He
recognizes that education is properly a de-
veloping of the natural powers, and not a

mere loading down the memory with undi-
gested knowledge. Many of his suggestions
and recommendations are so entirely in
agreement with modem views as to seem
commonplace. His advice in the matter of
physical education is especially noticeable
for its concordance with present medical
practice. Dr. J. F. Payne, who contributes
valuable notes upon the medical portions
of Locke's discourse, finds little to correct in
his recommendations, except those advising
that children's feet be wot, and they be oth-
erwise exposed, to harden them. Besides
the treatise of Locke, the book contains a
biographical sketch of him, and a critical
estimate of his services in education, and his
relation to his predecessor in educational
reform, Montaigne, and his successor Rous-
seau. His plan of working-schools for the
children of the poor and his essay "Of
Study " form an appendix, while the notes
of Dr. Payne, mentioned above, with others
not so good, and an index, complete the vol-
ume.

The New Text-Book of Physics. An Ele-
mentary Course in Natural Philosophy,
designed for Use in High Schools and
Academies. By Le Roy C. Cooley, Ph.
D. New York : Charles Sciibner's Sons.
1880. Pp. 317.

Professor Cooley was among the first
to attempt to introduce into elementary in-
struction in physics the modern doctrine of
molecules and molecular action. In his
text-book of natural philosophy, published
some twelve years ago, he sought to give it
a form suited to the comprehension of the
class of students for whom the book was
designed. In this revision of the former
work he has aimed to do the same thing
for the fundamental conception of the sci-
ence— that of energy. Heat, light, etc., are
accordingly presented as so many different
manifestations of energy, and not as a num-
ber of distinct forces. The work is ar-
ranged to bring out the essential features
of the conception, and then to show its ap-
plications in explanation of the various
groups of phenomena within the scope of
physics. The first three chapters are de-
voted to a gaining of clear ideas of the
properties of matter and laws of motion.
These lead up to the doctrine of energy,
which is explained and illustrated in the

136

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

fourth. In the four succeeding chapters,
the forms of energy constituting heat, light,
sound, and electricity are considered, with
such illustrative examples as exhibit the
essential features of each group. A brief
summary of the principles of machines
forms the closing chapter. A new feature
of the book is a review at the end of each
chapter, consisting of principles and topics,
and a number of problems. Simple restate-
ment of principles in the order of the pre-
vious discussion has been avoided, with the
object of showing the truths enunciated in
new relations and with added force. The
text throughout is fully illustrated.

Eminent Israelites of the Nineteenth
Century. By Henry Samuel Morais.
Philadelphia : Edward Stern & Co.
1880. Pp. 371. Price, $2.

The careers of the hundred Jews, whose
portraits Mr. Morais has presented in this
volume, speak much for the inherent vital-
ity and power of a race so long proscribed.
The sketches are brief, much too brief to do
justice to many of their subjects, but they
are in the main judicious and are full of
interest. The labors of these eminent He-
brews take a wide range. Literature, the-
ology, music, philanthropy, statesmanship,
and commercial pursuits all have their rep-
resentatives, many of whom have achieved
not only distinction, but positions of the
very first rank. They are as diverse in their
nationalities as in the character of their la-
bors, coming as they do from all European
states, as well as from America. The rec-
ord as a whole is one with which Jews have
reason to be gratified, while it is interesting
and instructive to a wider circle.

Manual of Hydraulic ilixiNO, for the Use
OP THE Practical Miner. By T. F. Van
Wagenen, E. M. New York: D. Van
Nostrand. 1880. Pp. 93.

Placer-mining, the author states, is,
when economically conducted, as certain of
good returns as any ordinary avocation.
Auriferous gravel deposits are very exten-
sive on the Pacific coast, and, as the plant
necessary is comparatively inexpensive, the
miner has a wide field for remunerative
work. He must, however, conduct his oper-
ations with a knowledge of the nature of

his materials and the most efficient way
of working them to secure success. Most
miners at present engaged in hydraulic min-
ing, Mr. Van Wagenen says, have but slight
knowledge of physics, and are more or less
rusty in their arithmetic, so that many er-
rors are made in construction and operation,
which prove costly experiments. He has
therefore attempted, in this little manual,
to give, in a clear and concise form, the
information needed to avoid such errors.
Among the subjects briefly treated are the
use of decimals; the methods of finding
areas and volumes ; the pressure of water
when at rest, and its flow through orifices
and flumes ; the proper method of construct-
ing flumes, their grades, size of nozzles, etc.
Tables of square and fifth roots of the num-
bers commonly entering into the miner's
calculations are given at the end of the
book.

Deep-Sea Sounding and Dredging. A De-
scription and Discussion of the Methods
and Appliances used on board the Coast
and Geodetic Survey Steamer Blake. By
Charles D. Sigsbee, Lieutenant-Com-
mander U. S. Navy. Washington : Gov-
ernment Printing-Office. 1880. Pp.208.

Lieutenant-Commander Sigsbee was in
charge of the Blake for the four years
from December, 1874, and during this time
prosecuted extensive researches relative to
the condition of the deep-sea bottom. Dur-
ing the winter of 1874-75 soundings were
made off the mouth of the Mississippi Riv-
er, the total number of miles being 2,505.
Nearly as many miles of soundings were
taken in the Gulf of Mexico in the summer
of 1875, and in the winter of that and the
next year a system of east and west lines
was run across the great bank west of the
Florida Peninsula. Others were run on the
northern portion of the bank, and a number
from the delta of the Mississippi out to sea,
closing with a line from the South Pass to
the Yucatan Bank, and one from Alacran
Reef to Tortugas. The remaining years
were devoted to further soundings in this
portion of the waters of the American coast.
The Blake was very thoroughly fitted out
for her work. Her party was one of the
first to use piano-forte wire for deep-sea
dredging and trawling, and the experience
with it showed it to be much better than

P OP ULAR MIS CELLA NY.

137

rope. The greater part of the apparatus
used was either new or improved forms of
that ordinarily used, and much of it was
due to the ingenuity of Commander Sigs-
bce. The present work does not go into
the results obtained by the various expedi-
tions, but is devoted to a description of the
apparatus employed and statement of its
actual value in use. Detailed drawings sup-
plement the descriptions, and a large num-
ber of heliotype plates clearly show the
arrangement and method of using on board
ship.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Circulars of Information of the Bureau of Ed-
ucation. No. 3. Legal Riiflits of Children. Wash-
ington : Government Printing-Offlce. 1880. Pp.
96.

Address before the American Association for
the Advancement of Science, Section A. By
Asaph Hall. Boston Meeting, August 25, 1880.
Cambridge : John Wilson & Son. Pp. 16.

Progress of Western Education in China and
Siam. ?•?. 13. The Indian School at Carlisle Bar-
racks. Pp. 5. Vacation Colonies for Sickly
School Children. Pp. 3. From the Bureau of
Education. Washington : Government Printing-
Offlce. 1880.

Water Pollution, and a Remedy for the Evils
of the Present Water-Supply Systems proposed.
By Nelson Green. New York: The Hub Pub-
liihing Co. Pp. 29.

Who planned the Tennes^^ee Campaign of
1862 ? or, .^nna Ella Carroll va. Ulysses S. Grant.
By Matilda Joslyn Gage. Pp. 16.

An Examination of the Double-Star Measures
of the Bedford Catalogue. By S. W. Buruhain,
Esq. Pp. 36.

What constitutes a Discovery in Science ?
By Dr. George M. Beard. New York. 1880. Pp.
7.

A Reply to Criticisms on "The Problems of
Insanity." By Dr. George M. Beard. 1880. Pp.
34.

Occurrence of Microscopic Crystals in the
Vertebrae of the Toad. By H. Carrington Bolton.
Pp.4.

Notice of Jurassic Mammals representing
Two New Orders. By Professor O. C. Marsh.
Dlnstrated. Pp. 5.

National Association for the Protection of the
Insane and the Prevention of Insanity. Boston.
1880. Pp. 31.

Bitlletin of the Philosophical Society of Wash-
ington. Vol. T, 1871-74. Pp. 49. Vol. n. 1874-
'78. Pp. 392. Vol. Ill, 1878-80. Pp. 169. Wash-
ington : Published by the Cooperation of the
Smithsonian Institution.

Drna: Attenuation : its Objects, Modes, Means,
and Limits in Homoeopathic Pharmacy and Po-
soloLiy. By the Bureau of Materia Medica, Phar-
macv, and Provings in the American Institute
of Homoeopathy, 1879 and 1880, J. P. Dake, M. D.,
Chairman. Philadelphia: Sherman & Co. 1880.

Action of Light on the Soluble Iodides, with
the Outlines of a New Method in Actinometry.
Pp.22. The Literature of Ozone and Peroxide
of Hydrogen. Pp. 63. Laws governing the De-
composition of Equivalent Solutions of Iodides
under the Influence of Actinism. Pp.7. By Dr.
Albert R. Leeds.

Memoirs of the Science Department of the
University of Tokio, Japan. Vol. Ill, Part I.
Report on the Meteorology of Tokio for the Year
2539 U879). T. C. Mendeuliall. Tokio : Govern-
ment Printing-Offlce. 1880.

On the Algebra of Logic. By C. S. Peirce.
Reprinted from the "American Journal of Mathe-
matics." Pp. 42.

The Textile Record of America. Devoted to
the Manufacture and Distribution of all Woven
Fabrics: Cotton, Wool, Silk, and Flax Culture.
Edited by Lorin Blodget. Philadelphia : Nagle
& Ryckman. Monthly. Pp. 16. $3 a year.

An Elementary Treatise on Analytic Geome-
try, embracing Plane Geometry and an Introduc-
tion to Geometry of Three Dimensions. By Ed-
ward A. Bowser. New York : D. Van Nostraud.
1880. Pp.287.

American Aristocracy. A Sketch of the So-
cial Life and Character of the Army. By Duane
Merritt Greene. Chicago: Central Publishing
Co. 1880. Pp. 222. $1.

The Minor Arts. By Charles G. Leland. Il-
lustrated. London: Macmillau & Co. 1880. Pp.
14S. 90 cents.

Hints for Home Reading. A Series of Chap-
ters on Books and their Use by Ditt'orent Au-
thors. Edited, with an Introduction, by Lyman
Abbott. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.
1880. Pp. 152. 50 cents.

School and Industrial Hygiene. By D. F.
Lincoln, M. D. Philadelphia: Presley Blakiston.
1880. Pp. 152. 75 cents.

German Thouc-ht from the Seven Years' War
to Goethe's Death. By Karl Hillebrand. New
York : Henry Holt & Co. ISSO. Pp. 298. $1.75.

Diseases of the Throat and Nose. By Morell
Mackenzie, M. D., London. Vol. I. Diseases of
the Pharynx, Larynx, and Trachea. Illustrated.
Philadelphia: Presley Blakiston. 1880. Pp.570.

$4.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

Improved Safety Construction of Ele-
vators.— With an appliance in such general
use as the elevator, means of securing safety
in case of the parting of the cable, or failure
of other parts of the moving apparatus, are
of prime importance. A great variety of
devices, many of them quite ingenious, have
been designed to accomplish this object,
but few of them are entirely satisfactory.
They have done much to decrease accidents,
but these still happen frequently enough
with them to show the necessity of a more
perfect apparatus. These mechanical stops
consist of combinations of levers, pawls, and
clutches so arranged that the weight of the
carriage will throw them into action. Both
classes, those which bring the carriage to a
sudden stop, and those which act as a break,
need to begin to act the moment the fall
commences, or the motion becomes so great
as to be beyond control. From various causes
impossible to provide against, these devices

138

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

frequently fail at the critical moment, caus-
ing loss of life or damage to property. Re-
cently a system of protection has been per-
fected and is now being introduced, which,
the promoters claim, secures perfect safety,
and the trials made in this and other cities
seem to amply confirm the claim. It con-
sists in making the descending carriage act
as a plunger to compress the air in the shaft
below it, so as to form a cushion which re-
tards and gradually overcomes its motion.
The change in the ordinary construction of
the elevator to secure this action is very
slight, and can readily be applied to one al-
ready put up. The shaft is made to fit the
elevator carriage closely, through the first
three or four feet of the lower portion, and
then gradually widens to the full size. This
funnel-shaped portion extends from fifteen
to twenty feet above the contracted base,
depending upon the size and height of the
elevator. A stiff rubber flange around the
lower edge of the carriage leaves a space
for the escape of the air in the contracted
portion of not more than one fourth of an
inch wide. The straight part of the shaft
above the funnel is of a size to leave a
space of six to eight inches all around the
carriage. With such a constructed shaft,
the carriage, when it begins to fall, readily
presses the air from beneath it up the sides
of the shaft. As it gains in velocity, greater
resistance is offered by the air, and, as it de-
scends through the funnel portion, this is
rapidly increased by the narrowing of the air
outlet. When the contracted base portion
is reached, the confined air has only a
narrow outlet, and the resistance it offers
is consequently very great. The air ar-
rests the motion of the carriage so gradually
that there is very little shock. In one of the
trials in this city where the fall was seventy-
five feet, eggs and delicate glassware placed
on the floor of the car were unbroken. A
great number of trials have been made, and
many persons have gone down in the falling
cars without injury. With the shaft prop-
erly and strongly built in the lower portion
where the strain comes, this apparatus seems
to offer no chance of failure.

Types of Pottery. — Professor E. S. Morse
read an interesting paper on this subject at
the last meeting of the American Associa-

tion. The earlier types belonging to the
shell-heaps of Japan were described and
illustrated by specimens from each of the
deposits examined by Mr. Morse and his
special students. The pottery of Yezo was
nearly all cord-marked, while the shell-heap
pottery of the middle of Japan had a much
less proportion cord-marked. In the south-
ern portions of Japan, at Higo, cord-marked
pottery was extremely rare. lie remarked
on the extreme diversity in the shape and
ornamentation of the pottery in different
places in Japan — the pottery of Yezo re-
sembling the pottery of the northern Uni-
ted States, and the pottery from the central
portions of Japan resembling that found in
Porto Rico and Jamaica. He also spoke of
the hard, blue pottery supposed to be Corean,
and associated with it a red pottery which
might have been made by the same people.
This was lathe-turned. Other forms were
mentioned and illustrated by examples.

The Fiftieth Meeting of the British As-
sociation.— No remarkable discoveries were
brought forward at the recent meeting of
the British Association for the Advancement
of Science, but the addresses and papers in
the various sections showed a steady ad-
vance in scientific work. Professor A. C.
Ramsay, the new President, chose for the
subject of his inaugural address the doctrine
of uniformity, under the title of " The Re-
currence of Certain Phenomena in Geologi-
cal Time." There has recently been a dis-
position in certain quarters to question the
truth of the doctrine in the extended appli-
cation made by most geologists. The ques-
tioners admit that geologic changes in times
past were produced by the same forces now
in operation, but deny that they were of the
same degree. The uniformity and cataclys-
mic theories seem to them to both contain
truth. Professor Ramsay reafiirms the uni-
formity doctrine in the broadest and most
general manner, and very ably defends his
position. One of the most valuable if not
the most important address of the meeting
was that of Professor W. G. Adams, before
the Section of Mathematics and Physics, re-
viewing recent work in the domain of molec-
ular physics. His statement of the molec-
ular condition of the three forms of matter
— solid, liquid, and gaseous — was the clear-

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

139

est and least technical that has been made.
He reviewed the work done by Lockyer and
others in spectrum analysis, and, without
committing himself to the conclusions drawn
from them by the several workers, point-
ed out that the advance in our knowledge
of molecular action is in the direction of
effacing the distinction between chemistry
and physics. It seemed to him even that
all the sciences were becoming more and
more branches of physics — that they " are
yielding results of vast importance when the
methods and established principles of phys-
ics are applied to them." Professor Adams
closed his address with a consideration of the
influence of the sun in producing magnetic
diurnal variations. A number of reports
were submitted in this section, the most im-
portant of which was that on the present
state of spectrum analysis. It gave an ac-
count of recent progress both in the meth-
ods and results, together with an extended
list of everything that had been published
on the subject in the past few years. Pa-
pers were contributed by Mr. Preece, on the
proper form of lightning-conductors, and
by Mr. Richard Anderson, on the necessity
of inspection of them. Dr. Tempest Ander-
son described an improved heliograph and
an apparatus for estimating astigmatism.
A powerful magnet for magneto-machines
was described by Mr. Ladd, and a new form
of electro-motor by Mr. Weisendanger. In
the Chemical Section Dr. J. H. Gilbert gave
an able summary of the state of agricultural
chemistry, with an account of his own re-
searches during a number of years, and criti-
cism of various methods of applying chemis-
try to agriculture that have found advocates.
The report upon the best means of obtain-
ing light from coal-gas was the one in this
section of the greatest interest to the pub-
lic. It concludes that improved light must
be sought in the use of more perfect burners,
and that the best, fitted with governers, now
made by Sugg, Peebles, and others, answer
all practical purposes. In the Biological sec-
tion, the principal feature was the address of
the Vice-President, F. W. Balfour, before
the Department of Anatomy and Physiology.
He sketched briefly the progress recently
made in embryology by applying the laws
of variation and heredity. He contends
that the evidence now in favor of the devel-

opment theory is overwhelming, and there
are very few naturalists who do not ac-
cept it in its main features. Dr. Sorby's
address before the Geological Section was an
important discussion of the structure of vol-
canic rocks and artificial slags, showing that
a study of the process of formation of the
latter throws much light upon that of the
former. Professor Prestwich here took ex-
ception to the conclusions of Professor Ram-
say's address regarding unvarying uniform-
ity, contending that the superficial deposit
termed " trail," " warp," and " head," in the
southwest of Europe showed that this part
had been submerged in recent geological
times. Other papers of interest and value
were those by G. M. Dawson on the " Geology
of British Columbia," by Dr. Phene ; on the
geology of the Balearic Islands ; and by Mr.
W. T. Blanford on the age and relations of
the Pikermi and Sewalik faunas in India.
Sir J. H. Lef roy, in the Geographical Section,
devoted his address to the advances made
in geographical research in North America,
showing that the great increase of our knowl-
edge of this region is due to railways and
the various State surveys. Among the in-
teresting facts mentioned are the rise in
the level of some American lakes, and the
depths to which the ground is permanently
frozen in the northern part of British North
America. Though, before 1866, the surface
of Salt Lake had been falling, since that
time it has risen eleven feet. Pyramid Lake
has risen nine feet, and Lnke Winnemucca
twenty-two feet. No theory of the cause
was advanced. The ground at Fort Norman,
on the Mackenzie River, is frozen to a depth
of forty-five feet, and at York Factory, on
Hudson Bay, but twenty-three feet, while
at Yakutsk, Siberia, it is frozen to a depth
of three hundred and eighty feet ! Quite a
number of papers were read in this section,
showing a large and rapid increase of geo-
graphical knowledge. The most important
of the public lectures was that by Mr. Fran-
cis Galton, on " Mental Imagery," which
is published in the present number of the
" Monthly." Professor Boyd Dawkins deliv-
ered an address on " Primeval Man," which
was mainly a summary of the matter of his
recent work. An account of " Professor Nor-
densjold's Expedition" was given by Mr. F.
Seebohm to an audience of workingraen.

140

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

The Wcstinghonse Aatomatic Brake. —

The well-known Westinghouse air-brake, in-
vented and so largely used in this country,
seems to be rapidly gaining in favor abroad.
The English journal " Iron," in a recent is-
sue, highly commends it as answering all
the requirements of a perfect brake, as laid
down by the Board of Trade, and gives some
valuable statistics concerning its use. Fi'om
returns received up to the 20th of last July,
it appears that the number of applications
of the automatic brake throughout the world
is — to engmes, 3,277, and to carriages, 13,-
502. This is an increase in less than four-
teen months of 1,594 to engines, and 6,255
to carriages. Besides this, there are 2,472 en-
gines and 8,812 carriages fitted with the non-
automatic brake — that is, the one using ordi-
nary air-pressure. This, then, makes a total
of 5,749 engines and 22,314 carriages fitted
with this apparatus. In the case of 678
engines and 2,720 cars a change has been
made from the non-automatic to the auto-
matic. This equipment is divided between
the different countries as follows : The Uni-
ted States has 2,211 engines and 7,224 cars
using it ; England 456 engines and 2,942 car-
riages ; in France there are but 203 engines
and 1,609 carriages; and in Belgium 197 of
the foi-mer and 1,241 of the latter. The num-
ber in use in Germany, Russia, and Holland
is small, ranging from 55 to 28 engines and
93 to 117 carriage equipments. A few are
also in use in Italy, Sweden, and the British
provinces. Certain very excellent improve-
ments and additions " Iron " points out have
recently been made to this brake system,
which greatly increase its usefulness. There
are amethod of lighting the cars and a means
of communication with the engineer by the
passengers. The light is produced by carbu-
retting air in a manner somewhat similar to
that in common use in the numerous port-
able gas-machines. The air is reduced from
the high pressure necessary to operate the
brakes to a moderate and steady one. It is
then passed into a small iron box containing
sponges saturated with gasolene, and from
these passes to the burners. The light is
said to be of good quality and sufficiently
bright to see to read fine print in any part
of the car. Its cost is much less than gas
or any other material commonly used for
this purpose on railroads. The communi-

cating apparatus consists of an arrangement
of air connections, such that the pulling of
a handle in the car starts a whistle on the
engine and on the car, and puts the brakes
partially on. The attention of the engineer
being attracted, he can complete the appli-
cation of the brakes if he is in a favorable
position for stopping, or, if not, release them.
The handle once pulled, the pass«}ger can
not return it to its place. This can only be
done by one of the trainmen, so that im-
proper use of the apparatus is readily de-
tected. This appliance is especially designed
to meet the requirements of passengers in
the compartment carriages, such as are used
abroad. With the American system of cars,
the bell-rope furnishes a ready means of
communication, while the trainmen are gen-
erally within easy call. The lighting and
communicating apparatus can be added to
carriages after the brake is put in, and but
one connection between the carriages is re-
quired.

The Circulation of Sap in Trees.— Pro-
fessor Joseph B5hm has suggested, as a
theory to account for the circulation of the
sap in plants, that the exhaustion of the
water by evaporation from the top of the
plant causes a difference in pressure in the
adjoining cells, which produces a sucking up
of the fluid from the cells that are relatively
rich to those that are relatively poor in
water. He has also endeavored to make
clear what is the purpose of those vessels
which run the whole length of deciduous
trees, and which can be easily perceived
with the naked eye in sections of many spe-
cies, as the oaks, maples, etc. Generally
these vessels have been regarded as air-
vessels, but Professor Bohm has been con-
vinced that in many plants they not only
receive sap by measured transpiration, but
also in consequence of an active exhalation
take up a relatively great quantity of water,
so that the air fails to penetrate them at the
ordinary pressure and only escapes in con-
siderable quantities after the plant has be-
come drier. It has also been shown that
the branches of many plants, willows for in-
stance, notwithstanding their vessels are
supplied with fluid, are able to take up more
water from without, and in such quantities
that twigs will increase in weight twenty

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

141

per cent, in the course of a few days. Pro-
fessor Bohm's theory corresponds closely
with that advanced by Professor Draper in
his work on the circulation in plants and
animals, and substantially agrees with the
views of Herbert Spencer, as expressed in
his paper on " Circulation and the Forma-
tion of Wood in Plants " (" Transactions of
the Linncean Society," March 1, 1866). It
supposes that the sap-bearing cells in the
whole plants are subject to a moderate
pressure in consequence of the resistance
which the water meets on its way from the
root to the assimilating leaf. If, however,
the branch can take up water through a cut
end with little difSculty, a partial absorption
of the contents of the vessels into the sap-
bearing cells will follow, new water will
pass through the cut end from without into
the vessels, and the limb will become
heavier. In this process, the ducts of the
willow do not serve as air-tubes, but as
water-canals which pour their contents into
the pump-system of the sap-bearing cells.
These canals become obstructed, after the
cuttings have stood for some time in the
water, by the growth of cells across the
tubes. As soon as the flow of water through
the vessels to the Iiigher part of the limb
is thus interrupted, the rapid increase of
weight ceases. That the cutting does not
perish at this stage, but continues to live
for several months without any consider-
able increase of weight, is due to the fact
that after the ducts have been closed the
circulation of water takes place only through
the sap-bearing cells and is greatly retard-
ed. In another series of plants, as the
oaks, acacias, catalpas, amorphas, etc., the
ducts of the new wood have been found
to be penetrable to the air, but neither air
nor water could pass through the old wood,
because the older veins were closed by trans-
verse cells or gummy substances. The ves-
sels of these plants were really air-vessels,
for they held only air of the tension of the
atmosphere and were destitute of sap. Yet
an uninterrupted stream of sap must be kept
up in such plants from the root to the top.
It takes place in the same manner as in
willow-cuttings, the vessels of which have
been closed by transverse cells — that is, the
sap is filtrated from cell to cell, so that the
balance in the pressure of the contents of

the adjoining cells which has been disturbed
by transpiration is restored. It follows
from this that the tension of the air in the
upper sap-bearing cells must be very slight
to make a rising of the sap possible. The
exhaustion of the air finally reaches its ex-
treme degree at an appointed age of the
cells, the air in the cells is cut off from the
neighboring vessels, and the factor which
produces the rise of sap is thereby elimi-
nated. The wood, which was a living sap-
wood, becomes a dead heart-wood. This
process is accomplished with different de-
grees of rapidity in different kinds of plants ;
even in individuals of the same species, cir-
cumstances cause many differences in the
formation of heart-wood. The final result
is, however, always the same, the natural
death of the tree by debilitation. The thin
outside layer of living wood is no longer
sufficient to supply the expanded top with
fluid food, no formation of new wood worthy
of the name takes place, the limbs die out
year by year, and finally only a feeble shoot
here and there, with a few leaves of a strange-
ly light color, indicates that there is still a
little life in the stem, and this is destined
soon to be extinguished. Those trees whose
vessels continue to be filled with water in
their old age, as the willows, birches, lin-
dens, horse-chestnuts, etc., do not die in this
manner, but through a dissolution of their
sap-bearing vessels and wood-cells, opening
the way for the introduction of fungi-, which
settle within them and attack their sub-
stance. The process of decomposition spreads
and the wood is gradually reduced to dirt,
till the tree finally falls or is blown to the
ground.

The French issoeiation. — The French
Association for the Advancement of the
Sciences held its ninth annual meeting at
Rheims. The opening address was deliv-
ered by the President, M. Krantz, who re-
ferred to the growth of the Association
since its organization, just after the close
of the Franco-German war, and to the results
of the Great Exposition of 1878. The prog-
ress of the Association has been continu-
ous and marked from year to year, and it
now numbers thirty-one hundred and fif-
ty-six adherents. It has a capital exceed-
ing three hundred thousand francs, and

142

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

has distributed funds in aid of investiga-
tion to the amount of about seventy thou-
sand francs. The Secretary, M. Mercadier,
stated that five hundred and seventy-two
members had been enrolled since the last
meeting at Montpellier to the 1st of Janu-
ary, 1S80, and that five hundred and sixty
inscriptions had been received since then.
The Association receives a gift of one thou-
sand francs a year from M, Kuhlmann ; the
city of Paris and the city of Montpellier, fol-
lowing its example, have instituted funds
out of the surpluses remaining from the col-
lections for entertaining the sessions, to pro-
vide small subventions ; and M. Brunet has
given twenty-three thousand eight hundred
francs for the foundation of an annual sub-
vention of one thousand francs. More than
three hundred papers had been sent in at
the opening of the sessions.

English and American Birds. — Mr. H.

D. Minot records his impressions of English
birds as compared with American in the
August number of the " American Natural-
ist," and his good opinion of American birds
is not depreciated by the comparison. Birds
are less abundant in England than with us,
but are, on the other hand, more accessible
and companionable — for the hoys in England
do not stone, and the men do not shoot them,
at every opportunity. They seem to be
heavier and slower of flight than in America.
This was observed particularly of the wild
pigeon, the swift, and the grouse. Further-
more, says Mr. Minot : " I believe I may
justly say that as the birds of England are
inferior to those of New England in variety,
so are they, on the whole, in coloring and in
song. Her kingfisher may be as tropical in
brilliancy as our humming-bird ; her thrushes,
swallows, and finches as pretty as any other
of their tribe ; but with the exquisite and
delicate beauty of our wood-warblers, and
with the splendor of our tanagers, orioles,
and starlings, she has almost nothing among
her familiar friends to compare. Then,
among her song-birds, of whom I heard
nearly all, she has none corresponding as
musicians to our hermit-thrush, house-wren,
water-warbler, solitary vireo, song-sparrow,
or rose-crested grosbeak ; yet all these, and
many kindred that I might associate with
them here, arc good singers. To all her song-

birds (that I have heard), on the contrary,
except two or three, we have singers corre-
sponding, and to all absolutely, I may say
without prejudice, equals or superiors, as
well as I can judge." The nightingale did
not quite meet his anticipations, but he re-
cognized that " it had a most wonderful com-
pass, and was the greatest of all bird vocal-
ists, but with a less individual and exquisite
genius than our wood-thrush, yet, to hear
that delicious, soft, liquid, warbled trill
which she alone can give was a lasting
pleasure." The flight of the skylark " is
indeed astonishing, though exaggerated by
report. . . . His song is an unbroken, ec-
static torrent ; but it is shrill, slightly harsh,
and not very musical. It is not so rich as
our bobolink's roundelay, and its sweetest
notes, though they suggest, do not equal, the
canary's song, except for their intensity of
utterance. All his poetry and the secret of
his charm are in his flight." The most indi-
vidual and only new type of bird-song Mr.
Minot heard was that of the wood-lark, " the
repetition of a delicate whistle (c/t'wee), shrill
at first, intensifying as the bird rises, and, as
he drops, falling in tone and pitch so as to
die away upon the ear. It is exquisite."
Other singers are the song-thrush, whose
music is like our brown thrush's, but with
less variety and occasional harsh notes ; the
blackbird, with a richer and more liquid and
at times exceedingly delightful song; the
wren, singing with characteristic sweetness
and power, the black-cap linnet, and chaf-
finch, to whose songs Mr. Minot gives only
faint and qualified praise. Robin-redbreast
is charming on account of its associations.
Mr. Minot earnestly commends the collections
of birds in the local museums, especially
those at Salisbury and Torquay.

Transformation of Sonnd into Light. —

M. Tr^ve, a ship captain, has described to
the French Academy of Sciences an experi-
ment with the apparatus called the singing
condenser, by which he believes that he pro-
duces a transformation of sound into light.
If we bring the current of a Ruhmkorfif coil
to bear upon one of these condensers, the
latter will repeat on a larger scale the vi-
bratory movement of the coil. The noise
which it makes is due to the vibrations of
the air in the condenser under the shock of

NOTES.

Hi

the electric current. If we put a light pres-
sure upon the leaves of the condenser, the
sound will be diminished in proportion as
the pressure is increased, till it ceases. Re-
versing this experiment, M. Tr^ve put a con-
denser into a Geissler tube, and brought the
two poles of the inductive current of the
Kuhmkorff coil to bear upon it through the
electrodes of the tube. The tube was then
connected with an air-pump. The condenser
sounded as usual when the current was di-
rected to it under the ordinary atmospheric
pressure; as the air was withdrawn, the
sound became more feeble, till, when a vac-
uum was produced, it ceased, and instead of
it there shone a clear, bright light, sparkling
like pearls, from the leaves of the condenser.
It was not like the pale and vague light of
the Geissler tubes, but something, he says,
quite different, sharp and distinct — a con-
densed light.

Caves in Japan. — Professor Morse also
described a number of artificially construct-
ed caves which he had examined in various
parts of Japan, giving sketches of them
on the blackboard. These caves varied con-
siderably in their design, but agreed in their
general proportions, and were evidently in-
tended as receptacles for the dead. They
were excavated in soft rock on the sides
of hills — the apertures small, and in some
cases showing grooves for the adjustment of
slabs of rock or other material to close them.
The absence of remains in these caves could
be explained by the fact that in earlier
times outlaws and refugees often used them
as places of shelter and residence, and laws
had finally been passed by the governors of
some of the districts, causing the caves to be
filled up, or their entrances obstructed, to
prevent their being used in this manner.

NOTES.

During an excursion to the White Moun-
tains made in July, 1879, Mr. W. H. Pick-
ering visited a moving mass of snow in
Tuckerman ravine, which he describes as pre-
senting many of the phenomena of an Alpine
glacier, only on a greatly reduced scale. The
surface of the snow was convex, being high-
est at the middle ; where not exposed to
the sun it was very hard, and differed from
ice only in color. Stones previously plated

upon the surface of the patch showed that
the middle had a motion of about eight inch-
es per day, the sides moving more slowly.
In Mr. Pickering's opinion, it corresponds
with the upper portion of a glacier, and
might, perhaps, be called an incipient gla-
cier.

An illustration of the fixedness of the
characters of plants is shown from the analy-
sis of specimens of the oleaginous Chinese
pea {Soya hispida) from Hungary, China,
and France. Only insignificant differences
in composition were discovered notwithstand-
ing the peas had grown in widely separated
countries under very different conditions of
climate and soil.

Professor Benjamin Peirce, F. R. S.,
LL. D., died in Boston October 6, 1880, aged
seventy-one years. He graduated at Har-
vard College in 1829, was made Professor
of Mathematics and Js^atural Philosophy in
that institution in 1833, and Perkins Pro-
fessor of Astronomy and Mathematics in
1842.

The minute organisms or microbes,
which M. Pasteur has shown to be concerned
in epidemics and contagious diseases, are so
very minute that they may sometimes easily
escape detection, especially in pure water.
In such case they mny be killed, without
being deformed, by certain chemical agents,
among which is osmic acid, and will sink to
the bottom in such quantities as to admit of
microscopic examination. The deposit may
be examined after several hours (twenty-
four or even forty-eight) if the water has
been very pure. Coloring reagents mixed
with dilute glycerine may also be used with
advantage in the work.

A CONSIDERABLE number of the workmen
engaged in the boring of the tunnel of St.
Gothard were prostrated by a dangerous
anemia. M. E. Perroncito, who has been
investigating the causes of the disease, has
found that all those who were affected by
it were also troubled by certain species of
parasitic worms, the mere presence of which
was sufficient to account for the develop-
ment of disease. This case is not an iso-
lated one. Dr. Giaccone, a medical atten-
dant of the St. Gothard company, states
that a disease of identical character ap-
peared during the boring of the tunnel of
Frejus.

An ostrich, long on exhibition at Rome,
having been suffocated by thrusting its neck
between the bars, there were found in its
stomach four large stones, eleven smaller
ones, seven nails, a necktie pin, an envel-
ope, thirteen copper coins, fourteen beads,
one French franc, two small keys, a piece
of a handkerchief, a silver medal of the
Pope, and the cross ©f an Italian order.

144

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Thk phenomenon of the perforation of
rocks by sand carried on tlie wind has been
observed in the Valley of the Rhone in
France. A %'ery violent wind often prevails
in the neighborhood of Uzes, and drives
large quantities of sand against a band of
quartzose pebbles contained in a tertiary
soil. The pebbles contain cavities which
might be believed to have been made by
human hands, but which are really produced
by the often renewed friction of the sandy
particles against their surface.

Dr. Charles T. Jackson, distinguished as
a chemist and geologist, and one of the dis-
coverers of the anaesthetic properties and
uses of ether, died at Somerville, Massachu-
setts, on the 29th of August, 1880, aged sev-
enty-live years.

According to the recent census of New
Zealand, the Maories or primitive inhabi-
tants are rapidly decreasing, their num-
bers, which in 1861 were 55,334, having
fallen in seventeen years to 43,595, or
about twenty per cent. The causes given
for this national decay are love of drink,
bad food and clothing, neglect of cleanli-
ness, and unwholesome dwellings. The na-
tives of Hawaii are disappearing still more
rapidly. In 186(5 they numbered 57,125,
and had fallen off in the next twelve years
to 44,088.

The report of the experts employed to
ascertain the causes of the Tay Bridge dis-
aster is in refreshing contrast to the excu-
satory treatment of official recklessness and
incompetency in this country. The bridge,
according to this report, was badly designed,
badly constructed, and badly maintained,
and it tumbled down on account of defects
of structure that became apparent and were
patched up some time before the casualty
happened. The initial blunders are laid at
the door of Sir Thomas Bouch, the designer
and constructor of the bridge, and General
Hutchinson, the Board of Trade Inspector,
has to bear the blame of allowing the bridge
to be used when he knew it was in this dan-
gerous condition.

M. BoL'TiGNY has called attention to the
remarkable powers of resistance against
chemical agents possessed by insects. Hav-
ing put a common fly into the lye of potash,
he found it in the best condition on the next
day. He also found that weevils, imprisoned
for a considerable time in a flask containing
caustic stone and coriander-seed, prospered,
multiplied, and lived as long as the seed
lasted.

Samuel Sherman Haldeman, Professor
of Comparative Philology in the University
of Pennsylvania, died at his home in Chic-
kies, Pennsylvania, September 10, 1880, at
the age of sixty-eight.

M. RiVETT Carnac, who has explored
many of the barrows and burial-mounds of
India, has found in them new evidences of
the resemblance of the mounds and their
contents to similar works in Europe. The
shape of the tumuli is the same in the East
and the West, and they are always placed
on the slope of a hill facing the south.

Professor Forel, of Merges, Switzer-
land, has just published some interesting
observations he has made upon the flicker-
ing of gaslights. At a distance of six miles
these lights appear to the eye as star-like
shining points ; and from a large number of
observations Professor Forel has arrived at
the conclusion that their flickering is strong-
est when the air is still, and becomes weaker
as the force of the wind increases. This
appearance should not, of course, be con-
founded with the flickering which is pro-
duced by the wind. The study of the at-
mospheric conditions under which the flick-
ering takes place might be made the starting-
point for investigating the twinkling of the
stars.

Fritz Muller has found a bivalve crus-
tacean allied to Cythera, a salt-water genus,
living between the leaves of the bromeli-
ads, or plants of the pineapple tribe, which
grow upon the trees in Brazil. It does not
resemble any living entomostracan, but has
its nearest known ally in a fossil species of
the Silurian strata of Bohemia. Miillcr has
named it Elpidium hromelUarimi. He found
it in the tree-frequenting bromeliads every-
where from the seaside to nearly one hun-
dred miles in the interior. As it can not
wander from tree to tree, or even from one
plant of bromelia to another, its distribution
must be efi"ected by beetles or some other
bromelia-infecting forms.

By putting chloride of aluminum, the
vapor of water, and metallic magnesium in
a heated porcelain tube, Stanislas Meunier
has produced a multitude of microscopic
octahedral crystals, of extreme hardness and
wholly proof against the action of fuming
nitric acid, which he says have the same
composition as natural spinelle. He has
also produced, by the reaction of water and
chloride of aluminum, hexagonal laminas of
corundum crystallized as in nature.

In a paper on Japanese Pidmonifera,
read at the Boston meeting of the American
Association, Professor Morse called atten-
tion to the occurrence of a number of spe-
cies of land-snails in Yezo, identical with
forms occurring in New England. He also
alluded to the occurrence of two species of
slugs in Japan which are common in New
England. While he had met with most of
fresh-water genera of Puhnonifera in Japan,
he had never yet found a- example of
Physa.

^.'t's.V?. Si^*- . ~>-

JEAN BAPTISTS ANDRfi DUMAS.

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY.

DECEMBER, 1880.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS.

By HERBERT SPENCER.
II. — POLITICAL OBGANIZATION IN GENERAL.

THE mere gathering of individuals into a group does not constitute
them a society. A society, in the sociological sense, is formed
only when, besides juxtaposition, there is cooperation. So long as
members of the group do not combine their energies to achieve some
common end or ends, there is little to keep them together. They are
prevented from separating only when the wants of each are better
satisfied by uniting his efforts with those of others than they would
be if he acted alone.

Cooperation, then, is at once that which can not exist without a
society, and that for Avhich a society exists. It may be a joining of
many strengths to effect something which the strength of no single
man can effect ; or it may be an apportioning of different activities
to different persons, who severally participate in the benefits of one
another's activities. The motive for acting together, originally the
dominant one, may be defense against enemies ; or it may be the
easier obtainment of food, by the chase or otherwise ; or it may be,
and commonly is, both of these. In any case, however, the units pass
from the state of perfect independence to the state of mutual depen-
dence ; and as fast as they do this they become united into a society
rightly so called.

But cooperation implies organization. If acts are to be effectually
combined, there must be arrangements under which they are adjusted
in their times, amounts, and characters.

This social organization, necessary as a means to concerted action,
is of two kinds. Though these two kinds generally coexist, and are

TOL. XVIII. 10

146 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

more or less interfused, yet they are distinct in their origins and na-
tures. There is a spontaneous cooperation which grows up without
thought during the pursuit of private ends ; and there is a cooperation
which, consciously devised, implies distinct recognition of public ends.
The ways in which the two are respectively established and carried on
present marked contrasts.

Whenever, in a primitive group, there begins that cooperation which
is effected by exchange of services — whenever individuals find their
wants better satisfied by giving certain products which they can make
best in return for other products they are less skilled in making, or not
so well circumstanced for making — there is initiated a kind of organiza-
tion which then, and throughout its higher stages, results from endeav-
ors to meet personal needs. The division of labor, to the last as at
first, grows by experience of mutual facilitations in living. Each new
specialization of industry arises from the effort of one who commences
it to get profit, and establishes itself by conducing in some way to the
profit of others. So that there is a kind of concerted action, with the
elaborate social organization developed by it, which does not originate
in deliberate concert. Though it is true that within the small sub-
divisions of this organization we find everywhere repeated the relation
of employer and employed, of whom the one directs the actions of the
other ; yet this relation, spontaneously formed in the pursuit of private
ends and continued only at will, is not made with conscious reference
to achievement of public ends : ordinarily these are not thought of.
And though, for the regulating of trading activities, there eventually
arise agencies serving to adjust the sujjplies of commodities to the
demands ; yet such agencies do this not by direct stimulations or
restraints, but simply by communicating information which serves to
stimulate or restrain ; and, further, these agencies themselves grow up
not for the intended purpose of thus regulating, but in the pursuit of
gain by individuals. So unintentionally has there arisen the elaborate
division of labor by which production and distribution are now carried
on, that only in modern days has there come a recognition of the fact
that it has all along been arising.

On the other hand, that cooperation which unites the actions of
individuals for a purpose immediately concerning the whole society,
is a conscious cooperation, and is carried on by an organization of
another kind, arising in a different Avay. When the primitive group
has to defend itself against other gi'oups, its members act together
under further stimuli than those constituted by purely personal desires.
Even at the outset, before any control by a chief exists, there is the
control exercised by the group over its members ; each of whom is
obliged, by the consensus oi opinion, to join in the general defense.
Very soon the warrior of recognized superiority begins to exercise
over each, during war, an influence additional to that exercised by the
opinion of the group ; and, when his authority becomes established, it

POLITICAL ORGANIZATION IN GENERAL. 147

greatly farthers combined action. From the beginning, therefore, this
kind of social cooperation is a conscious cooperation, and a cooperation
which is not wholly a matter of choice — is often much at variance with
private wishes. As the organization initiated by it develops, we see
that, in the first place, the fighting division of the society displays in a
more marked degree these same traits ; the grades and divisions con-
stituting an army cooperate more and more under a regulation, con-
sciously established, of agencies which override individual volitions —
or, to speak strictly, control individuals by motives which prevent them
from acting as they would spontaneously act. In the second place, we
see that, throughout the society as a whole, there spreads a kindred
form of organization — kindred in so far that, for the purpose of main-
taining the militant organization and the government which directs it,
there are similarly established over citizens agencies which force them
to labor more or less largely for public ends instead of private ends.
And, simultaneously, there develops a further organization, still akin
in its fundamental principle, which restrains individual activities in
such wise that social safety shall not be endangered by the disorder
consequent on imchecked pursuit of personal ends. So that this kind
of social organization is distinguished from the other, as arising through
conscious pursuit of public ends, in furtherance of which individual
wills are constrained, first of all by the joint wills of the entire group,
and afterward more definitely by the will of a regulative agency which
the group evolves.

Most clearly shall we perceive the contrast between these two kinds
of organization on obseiwing that, while they are both instrumental to
social welfare, they are instrumental in converse ways. That organi-
zation shown us by the division of labor for industrial purposes exhib-
its combined action ; but it is a combined action w^hich directly seeks
and subserves the welfares of individuals, and indirectly subserves the
welfare of society as a whole by pi'eserving individuals. Conversely,
that kind of organization evolved for governmental and defensive pur-
poses exhibits combined action ; but it is a combined action which
directly seeks and subserves the welfare of the society as a whole, and
indirectly subserves the welfares of individuals by preserving the
society. Efforts for self-preservation by the units originate the one
form of oi-ganization ; while efforts for self-preservation by the aggre-
gate originate the other form of organization. In the one case there is
conscious pursuit of private ends only ; and the correlative organization
resulting from this pursuit of private ends, growing up unconsciously,
is without coercive power. In the other case there is conscious pursuit
of public ends ; and the correlative organization, consciously estab-
lished, exercises coercion.

Of these two kinds of cooperation and the structui'es effecting them,
we are here concerned only with one. Political organization is to be
understood as that part of social organization which consciously carries

148 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

on directive and restraining functions for public ends. It is true, as
already hinted, and as we shall see presently, that the two kinds are
mingled in various ways — that each ramifies through the other more
or less according to their respective degrees of predominance. But
the two are essentially different in origin and nature ; and for the
present we must, so far as may be, limit our attention to the last.

That the cooperation into which men have gradually risen secures
to them benefits which could not be secured while, in their primitive
state, they acted singly, and that, as an indispensable means to this
cooperation, political organization has been, and is, advantageous, we
shall see on contrasting the states of men who are not liolitically
organized with the states of men who are politically organized in less
or greater degrees.

There are, indeed, conditions imder which as good an individual
life is possible without political organization as with it. Where, as
in the habitat of the Esquimaux, there are but few persons, and these
very widely scattered ; where there is no war, probably because the
physical impediments to it are great and the motives to it feeble ;
and where circumstances make the occupations so i;niform that there
is little scope for the division of labor — mutual dependence can
have no place, and the arrangements which effect it are not needed.
Recognizing this exceptional case, let us consider the cases which are
not exceptional.

The Digger Indians, " very few degrees removed from the orang-
outang," who, scattered among the mountains of the Sierra Nevada,
sheltering in holes and living on roots and vermin, " drag out a miser-
able existence in a state of nature, amid the most loathsome and dis-
gusting squalor," differ from the other divisions of the Shoshones by
their entire lack of social organization. The river-haunting and plain-
haunting divisions of the race, under some, though but slight, govern-
mental control, lead more satisfactory lives. In South America the
Chaco Indians, low in type as are the Diggers, and like them degraded
and wretched in their lives, are similarly contrasted with the superior and
more comfortable savages aroixnd them in being dissociated. Among
the Bedouin tribes, the Sherarat are unlike the rest in being divided
and subdivided into countless bands which have no common chief ;
and they are described as being the most miserable of the Bedouins.
More decided still is the contrast noted by Baker between certain adja-
cent African peoples. Passing suddenly, he says, from the unclothed,
ungoverned tribes — from the " wildest savagedom to semi-civilization "
— we come in Unyoro to a country governed by " an unflinching des-
pot," inflicting " death or torture " for " the most trivial offenses " ; but
where they have developed administration, sub-governors, taxes, good
clothing, arts, agriculture, architecture. So, too, concerning New
Zealand when first discovered. Cook remarks that there seemed to

POLITICAL ORGANIZATION IN GENERAL. 149

be greater prosperity and populousness in the regions subject to a
king.

These last cases introduce us to a further truth. Not only does
that first step in political organization which places individuals under
the control of a tribal chief bring the advantages gained by better
cooperation, but such advantages are increased when minor political
heads become subject to a major political head. As typifying the
evils which are thereby avoided, I may name the fact that among the
Belooches, whose tribes, unsubordinated to a general ruler, are con-
stantly at war with one another, it is the habit to erect a small mud-
tower in each field, where the possessor and his retainers guard his
produce — a state of things allied to, but worse than, that of the High-
land clans, with their strongholds for sheltering women and cattle
from the inroads of their neighbors, in days when they were not under
the control of a central power. The benefits derived from such wider
control, whether of a simple head or of a compound head, were felt by
the early Greeks when the Amphictyonic Council established the laws
that " no Hellenic tribe is to lay the habitations of another level with
the ground ; and from no Hellenic city is the water to be cut off during
a siege." The good which results from that advance of political struc-
ture which unites smaller communities into larger ones was shown in
our own country when, by the Roman conquest, the incessant fights
between tribes were stopped ; and again, in later days, when feudal
nobles, becoming subject to a monarch, were debarred from private
wars. Under its converse aspect, we see the same truth when, amid
the anarchy which followed the collapse of the Carlovingian empire,
princes and barons, resuming their independence, became active ene-
mies to one another : their state being such that " when they were
not at war they lived by open plunder." And the history of Europe
has repeatedly, in many places and times, furnished kindred illus-
trations.

While political organization, as it extends itself throughout masses
of increasing size, directly furthers welfare by removing that impedi-
ment to cooperation which the antagonism of individuals and of tribes
causes, it indirectly furthers it in another way. Nothing beyond a ru-
dimentary division of labor can arise in a small social group. Before
commodities can be multiplied in their kinds, there must be multiplier!
kinds of producers ; and, before each commodity can be produced in
the most economical way, the different stages in the production of it
must be apportioned out among special hands. Nor is this all. Nei-
ther the required complex combinations of individuals, nor the elabo-
rate mechanical appliances which facilitate manufacture, can arise in
the absence of a large community, generating a great demand.

But though the advantages gained by cooperation presuppose politi-
cal organization, this political organization necessitates disadvantages ;

150 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and it is quite jiossible for these disadvantages to outweigh the advan-
tages. The controlling structures have to be maintained, and the
restraints they impose have to be borne ; and the evils inflicted by-
taxation and by tyranny may become greater than the evils prevented.
Where, as in the East, the rapacity of monarchs has sometimes
gone to the extent of taking from cultivators so much of their produce
as to have afterward to return part for seed, we see exemplified the
truth that the agency which maintains order may cause miseries greater
than the miseries caused by disorder. The state of Egyj^t under the
Romans, who, on the native set of officials, superposed their own set,
and who made drafts on the country's resources not for local adminis-
tration only but also for imperial administration, furnishes an instance.
Beyond the regular taxes there were demands for feeding and clothing
the military, wherever quartered ; extra calls were continually made
on the people for maintaining public works and subaltern agents ; men
in office were themselves so impoverished by exactions that they " as-
sumed dishonorable employments or became the slaves of persons in
power ; gifts made to the government were soon converted into forced
contributions ; and those who purchased immunities from extortions
found them disregarded as soon as the sums asked had been received.
More marked still were the curses following excessive development of
political organization in Gaul during the decline of the Roman Empire :

So numerous were the receivers in comparison with the payers, and so enor-
mous the weight of taxation, that the laborer broke down, the plains became
deserts, and woods grew where the plow had been. ... It were impossible
to number the officials who were rained upon every province and town. , . .
The crack of the lash and the cry of the tortured filled tlie air. The faithful
slave was tortured for evidence against his master, tlie wife to depose against
her husband, the son against his sire. . . . Not satisfied with the returns of the
first enumerators, tliey sent a succession of others, who each swelled the valua-
tion— as a proof of service done; and so the imposts went on increasing. Yet
the number of cattle fell off, and the people died. Nevertheless, the survivors
had to pay the taxes of the dead.

And how literally in this case the benefits were exceeded by the mis-
chiefs is shown by the remark that " they fear the enemy less than
the tax-gatherer : the truth is, that they fly to the first to avoid the last.
Hence, the one unanimous wish of the Roman populace, that it was
their lot to live with the barbarian."

In the same regions during later times the lesson was repeated.
While internal peace and its blessings were achieved in mediaeval
France as fast as feudal nobles became subordinate to the king — while
the central power, as it grew stronger, put an end to that primitive
j^ractice of a blood-revenge which wreaked itself on any relative of an
offender, and made the " truce of God " a needful mitigation of the
universal savagery ; yet from this extension of political organization
there presently grew up evils as great or greater — multiplication of

POLITICAL ORGANIZATION IN GENERAL. 151

taxes, forced loans, groundless confiscations, arbitrary fines, progressive
debasements of coinage, and a universal corruption of justice conse-
quent on the sale of offices : the results being that many people died
by famine, some committed suicide, while others, deserting their homes,
led a wandering life. And then, afterward, when the supreme ruler,
becoming absolute, conti'olled social life in all its details, through an
administrative system vast in extent and ramifications, with the gen-
eral result that in less than two centuries the indirect taxation alone
" crossed the enormous interval between eleven millions and three hun-
dred and eleven millions," there came the national impoverishment
and misery which resulted in the great Revoultion.

Even the present time supplies kindred evidence, in sundry places.
A voyage up the Nile shows every observer that the people are better
off where they are remote from the center of government — where
administrative agencies can not so easily reach them. Nor is it only
under the barbaric Turk that this happens. Notwithstanding the
boasted beneficence of our rule in India, the extra burdens and the
complication of restraints it involves have the effect that the people
find some of the adjacent countries preferable; the' ryots in sundry
places are leaving their homes and settling in the territory of the
Nizam and in Gwalior.

Not only do those who are controlled suffer, from political organi-
zation, evils which greatly deduct from, and sometimes exceed, the
benefits. Numerous and rigid governmental restraints shackle those
who imjjose them as well as those on whom they are imposed. The
successive grades of ruling agents, severally coercing grades below,
are themselves coerced by grades above ; and even the very highest
ruling agent is enslaved by the system created for the preservation of
his supremacy. In ancient Egypt the daily life of the king was mi-
nutely regulated alike as to its hours, its occupations, its ceremonies ;
so that, nominally all-powerful, he was really less free than a subject.
It has been, and is, the same with other despotic monarchs. Till lately,
in Japan, where the form of organization had become fixed, and where,
from the highest to the lowest, the actions of life were prescribed in
detail, the exercise of authority was so burdensome that voluntary
resignation of it was frequent. Adams writes, "The custom of abdi-
cation is common among all classes, from the Emperor down to his
meanest subject." European states have examplified this reacting
tyranny. " In the Byzantine palace," says Gibbon, "the Emperor was
the first slave of the ceremonies he imposed." Concerning the tedious
court life of Louis le Grand, Madame de Maintenon remarks : " Save
those only who fill the highest stations, I know of none more unfor-
tunate than those who envy them. If you could only form an idea of
what it is ! "

So that, while the satisfaction of men's personal wants is furthered
both by the maintenance of order and by the formation of aggregate^

152 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

large enough to permit extensive division of labor, it is hindered both
by deductions, often very gx'eat, from the products of their actions,
and by the restraints imposed on their actions, usually in excess of the
needs. And political control indirectly entails evils on those who
exercise it as well as on those over whom it is exercised.

The stones composing a house can not be otherwise used until the
house has been pulled down. If the stones are united by mortar, there
must be extra trouble in destroying their present combination before
they can be recombined. And if the miortar has had centuries in
which to consolidate, the breaking up of the masses formed is a mat-
ter of such difficulty that building with new materials becomes more
economical than rebuilding with the old.

I name these facts to illustrate the truth that any kind of arrange-
ment stands in the way of rearrangement ; and that this must be true
of organization, which is one kind of arrangement. When, during the
evolution of a living body, its component substance, at first relatively
homogeneous, has been transformed into a combination of heterogene-
ous parts, there rfesults an obstacle, always great and often insuperable,
to any considerable change of structure; the more elaborate and definite
the structure the greater is the resistance it opposes to alteration. And
this, which is conspicuously true of an individual organism, is true, if
less conspicuously, of a social organism. Though a society, composed
of discrete units, and not having had its type fixed by inheritance from
countless like societies, is much more plastic, yet the same principle
holds. As fast as its parts are differentiated — as fast as there arise
classes, bodies of functionaries, established institutions — these, becom-
ing coherent within themselves and with one another, resist such forces
as tend to modify them. The conservatism of every long-settled in-
stitution daily exemplifies this law. Be it in the antagonism of a
Church to legislation interfering with its arrangements ; be it in the
opposition of an army to abolition of the purchase system ; be it in
the disfavor with which the legal profession at large has regarded
law reform — we see that neither in their structures nor in their modes
■ of action are parts that have once been specialized easily changed.

As it is true of a living body that its various acts have as their
common end self-preservation, so is it true of its component organs
that they severally tend to maintain themselves in their integrity.
And, similarly, as it is true of a society that maintenance of its exist-
ence is the aim of its combined actions, so it is true of its separate
classes and systems of officials, or other specialized parts, that the
dominant aim of each is to preserve itself. Not the function to be
performed, but the sustentation of those who perform the function,
becomes the object in view : the result being that when the function
is needless, or even detrimental, the structure still preserves itself as
long as it can. In early days the history of the Knights Templars

POLITICAL ORGANIZATION IN GENERAL. 153

furnished an illustration of this tendency. Down to the present time
we have before us the familiar instance of trade guilds in London,
which, having ceased to perform their original functions, nevertheless
jealously maintain themselves for no purpose but the gratification of
their members. And the accounts given in "The Black-book," of
the sinecures which survived up to recent times, yield multitudinous
illustrations.

The extent to which an organization resists reorganization we shall
not fully appreciate until we observe that its resistance increases in a
compound progi'ession. For, while each new part is an additional
obstacle to change, the formation of it implies a deduction from the
forces causing change. If, other things remaining the same, the po-
litical structures of a society are further developed — if the existing
institutions are extended or fresh ones set up — if, for directing social
activities in greater detail, extra staffs of ofiicials are appointed, the
simultaneous results are an increase in the aggregate of those who
form the regulating part and a corresponding decrease in the aggre-
gate of those who form the part regulated. In various ways all who
compose the controlling and administrative organization become united
with one another and separated from the rest. Whatever be their
particular duties, they are similarly related to the minor and major
governing centers of their departments, and, through them, to the
supreme governing center ; and are habituated to like sentiments and
ideas respecting the set of institutions in which they are incorporated.
Receiving their subsistence through the national revenue, they tend
toward kindred views and feelings respecting the raising of such reve-
nue. Whatever jealousies there may be between their divisions, are
overridden by sympathy when any one division has its existence or
privileges endangered, since the interference with one division may
spread to others. Moreover, they all stand in like relations to the rest
of the community, whose actions are in one way or other superintended
by them ; and hence are led into kindred views respecting the need
for such superintendence and the propriety of submitting to it. No
matter what their previous political opinions may have been, they can
not become public agents of any kind without being biased toward
opinions congruous with their functions. So that, inevitably, each
further growth of the instrumentalities which control, or administer, or
inspect, or in any way direct social forces, increases the impediment
to future modifications, both positively, by strengthening that which
has to be modified, and negatively, by weakening the remainder ; until
at length the rigidity becomes so great that change is impossible and
the type becomes fixed.

Nor does each further development of the regulative organization
increase the obstacles to change only by relatively increasing the
power of those who, as regulators, maintain the established order, and
decreasing the power of those who, as the regulated, have not the same

154 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

direct interests in maintaining it. For the ideas and sentiments of a
community as a whole progressively adapt themselves to the regime
familiar from childhood, in such wise that it comes to be looked upon
as natural, and as the only thing possible. In proportion as public
agencies occupy a larger space in daily experience, leaving but a smaller
space for other agencies, there comes a greater tendency to think of
public control as everywhere needful, and a less ability to conceive of
activities as otherwise controlled. At the same time the sentiments,
adjusted by habit to the regulative machinery, become enlisted on its
behalf, and adverse to the thought of a vacancy to be made by its
absence. In brief, the general law, that the social organism and its
units act and react in such ways as to become congruous, implies that
every further extension of political organization increases the obstacle
to reorganization, not only by increasing the strength of the regula-
tive part and decreasing the strength of the part regulated, but also
by producing in citizens thoughts and feelings in harmony with the
resulting structure, and out of harmony with anything substantially
different. Both France and Germany furnish examples of this truth.
M. Comte, while looking forward to an industrial state, was so swayed
by the ideas and sentiments appropriate to the French form of society,
that his scheme of organization for the industrial state prescribes its
arrangements with a definiteness and detail charactei'istic of the mili-
tant type, and utterly at variance with the industrial type. Indeed,
he had a profound aversion to that individualism which is a product
of industrial life and gives the character to industrial institutions. So,
too, in Germany, we see that the Socialist party, who are regarded and
who regard themselves as wishing to entirely reorganize society, are
so incapable of really thinking away from the social type under which
they have been born and nurtured, that their proposed social system
is in essence nothing else than a new form of the system they would
destroy. It is a system under which life and labor are to be arranged
and superintended by public instrumentalities, omnipresent like those
which already exist and no less coercive, the individual having his
life even more regulated for him than now.

"While, then, on the one hand, in the absence of settled arrange-
ments, there can not be cooperation, yet cooperation of a higher kind
is hindered by the arrangements which facilitate cooperation of a lower
kind. Though, without some established relations among parts, there
can be no combined actions, yet, the more extensive and elaborate
such relations grow, the more difficult does it become to make an
improved combination of actions. There is an increase of the forces
which tend to fix, and a decrease of the forces which tend to unfix ;
until the fully-structured social organism, like fully-structured individ-
ual organism, becomes no longer adaptable.

In a living animal, formed as it is of aggregated units originally

POLITICAL ORGANIZATION IN GENERAL. 155

■ like in kind, the progress of organization implies, not only that the
units composing each differentiated part severally maintain their posi-
tions, but also that their progeny succeed to those positions. Bile-
cells which, while performing their functions, grow and give origin to
new bile-cells, are, when they decay and disappear, replaced by these :
the cells descending from them do not migrate to the kidneys, or the
muscles, or the nervous centers, to join in the performance of their
duties. And, evidently, unless the specialized units each organ is
made of gave origin to units similarly specialized, which remained in
the same place, there could be none of those settled relations among
parts which characterize the organism and fit it for its particular mode
of life.

In a society, also, fixity of structure is favored by the transmission
of positions and functions through successive generations. The main-
tenance of those class-divisions which arise as political organization
advances implies the inheritance of a rank and a place in each class.
Obviously, in proportion as the difficulty of rising from one grade into
another is great, the social grades become settled in their relations.
The like happens with those subdivisions of classes which, in some
societies, constitute castes, and in other societies are partially exem-
plified by guilds. Where custom or law" compels the sons of each
trader to follow his father's occupation, there result, among the struc-
tures carrying on production and distribution, obstacles to change
analogous to those which result in the regulative structures from im-
passable divisions of ranks. India shows this in an extreme degree ;
and in a less degree it was shown by the craft-guilds of early days in
England, Avhich facilitated adoption of a craft by the children of those
engaged in it, and hindered adoption of it by others. Thus we may
call inheritance of position and function the principle of fixity in social
organization.

There is another way in which succession by inheritance, whether
to class-position or to occupation, conduces to stability. It secures su-
premacy of the elder ; and supremacy of the elder tends toward main-
tenance of the established order. A system under which a chief-ruler,
sub-ruler, head of a clan or house, official, or any person having the
power given by rank or property, has his place filled up at death by a
descendant, in conformity with some accepted rule of succession, is a
system under which, by implication, the young, and even the middle-
aged, are excluded from the conduct of affairs. So, too, where an
industrial system is such that the son, habitually brought up to his
father's business, succeeds to his position when he dies, it follows in
like manner that the regulative power of the elder over the processes
of production and distribution is scarcely at all qualified by the power
of the younger. Now, it is a truth daily exemplified that increasing
rigidity of organization, necessitated by the process of evolution, pro-
duces in age an increasing strength of habit and aversion to change.

156 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

Hence it results that succession to place and function by inheritance,
having as its necessary concomitant the monopoly of power by the
eldest, involves a prevailing conservatism ; and this further insures
maintenance of things as they are.

Conversely, social change is facile in proportion as men's positions
and functions are determinable by personal qualities. If, not being pre-
vented by law or custom, members of one rank establish themselves in
another rank, they in so far directly break the division between the
ranks ; and they indirectly weaken the division by preserving their
family relations with the first, and forming new ones with the second ;
while, further, the ideas and sentiments prevailing in the two ranks,
previously more or less different, are made to qualify one another and
to modify the characters of their members. Similarly, if between sub-
divisions of the producing and distributing classes there are no bar-
riers to migration, then, in proportion as migrations are numerous,
influences physical and mental, following interfusion, tend to alter the
natures of their units ; at the same time that they perpetually check
the establishment of differences of nature, caused by differences of
function. Such transpositions of individuals between class and class,
or group and group, must, on the average, however, be determined by
the fitnesses of the individuals for their new places and duties. Intru-
sions will ordinarily succeed only where the intruding citizens have
more than usual aptitudes for the businesses they undertake. Those
who desert their original social positions and occupations are at a dis-
advantage in the competition with those whose positions and occupa-
tions they assume ; and they can overcome this disadvantage only by
force of some superiority in respect of the occupations in which they
compete. This leaving of men to have their careers determined by
their efficiencies we may therefore call the principle of change in social
organization.

As we saw that succession by inheritance conduces in a secondary
way to stability, by keeping the places of authority in the hands of
those who by age are made most averse to new practices, so here, con-
versely, we may see that succession by efficiency conduces in a sec-
ondary way to change. Both positively and negatively the possession
of power by the young facilitates innovation. While the energies are
overflowing, little fear is felt of those obstacles to improvement and
evils it may bring, which, to those of flagging energies, look formi-
dable ; and at the same time the greater imaginativeness that goes
along with higher vitality, joined with a smaller strength of habit,
facilitates acceptance of fresh ideas and adoption of untried methods.
Since, then, where the various social positions come to be respectively
filled by those who are experimentally proved to be the fittest, the rela-
tively young are permitted to exercise authority, it results that suc-
cession by efficiency furthers change in social organization, indirectly
as well as directly.

POLITICAL ORGANIZATION IN GENERAL. 157

Contrasting the two, we thus see that, while the acquirement of
function by inheritance conduces to rigidity of structure, the acquire-
ment of function by efficiency conduces to plasticity of structure.
Succession by descent favors the maintenance of that which exists.
Succession by fitness favors transformation, and makes possible some-
thing better.

As previously pointed out, "complication of structure accompa-
nies increase of mass," in social organisms as in individual organisms.
When small societies are compounded into a larger society, the con-
trolling agencies needed in the several component societies must be
subordinated to a central controlling agency : new structures are re-
quired, Recompounding necessitates a kindred further complexity in
the governmental arrangements ; and at each of such stages of increase
all other arrangements must become more complicated. As Duruy re-
marks : " By becoming a world in place of a town, Rome could not
conserve institutions established for a single city and a small territory.
. . . How was it possible for sixty millions of provincials to enter the
narrow and rigid circle of provincial institutions ? " The like holds
where, instead of extension of territory, there is only increase of popu-
lation. The contrast between the simple administrative system which
sufficed in old English times for a million people and the complex
administrative system at present needed for many millions sufficiently
indicates this general truth.

But now, mark a corollary. If, on the one hand, further growth
implies more complex structure, on the other hand changeableness of
structure is a condition to further growth ; and, conversely, unchange-
ableness of structure is a concomitant of arrested growth. Like the
correlative law just noted, this law is clearly seen in individual organ-
isms. On the one hand, the transition from the small immature form
to the large mature form, in a living creature, implies that not the
whole only, but all the parts have to be changed in their sizes and
connections ; every detail of every organ has to be modified ; and this
implies the retention of plasticity. On the other hand, w^hen, on ap-
proaching maturity, the structures are assuming their final arrange-
ment, their increasing definiteness and firmness constitute an increasing
impediment to growth : the unbuilding and rebuilding required before
there can be the needful readjustment become more and more difficult.
So is it with a society. Augmentation of its mass necessitates change
of the preexisting structures, either by incorporation of the increment
with them, or by their extension through it. Every elaboration and
further settlement of the structures presents an additional obstacle to
this ; and, when rigidity is reached, such modifications of them as
increase of mass would involve are impossible, and increase is pre-
vented.

Hence a significant relation between the structure of a society and

158 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

its growth. While each increment of growth is aided by an appro-
priate organization, yet this organization, being inappropriate to a
greater mass, becomes thereafter an impediment to further growth.
Whence it follows that organization in excess of need prevents the
attainment of that larger size and accompanying higher organization
which might else have arisen.

To aid our interpretations of the special facts presently to be dealt
wath, we must keep in mind the foregoing general facts. They may
be summed up as follows :

Cooperation is made possible by society, and makes society possible.
It presupposes associated men, and men remain associated because of
the benefits association yields them.

But there can not be concerted actions without agencies by which
actions are in some way adjusted in their times, amounts, and kinds ;
and the actions can not be of various kinds without the coOperators
undertaking different duties. That is to say, the cooperators must
fall into some kind of organization, either voluntarily or involun-
tarily.

Tlie organization which cooperation implies is of two kinds, distinct
in origin and nature. The one, arising directly from the pursuit of
individual ends and indirectly conducing to social welfare, develops
unconsciously and is non-coercive. The other, arising directly from
the pursuit of social ends and indirectly conducing to individual wel-
fare, develops consciously and is coercive.

While, by making cooperation possible, political organization
achieves benefits, deductions from the benefits are entailed by such
organization. Maintenance of it is costly ; and the cost may become
a greater evil than the evils escaped. It necessarily imposes restraints ;
and these restraints may become so extreme that anarchy, with all its
miseries, is preferable.

Organization as it becomes established is an obstacle to reorganiza-
tion. Both by the inertia of position, and by the cohesion gradually
established among them, the units of the structures formed oj^pose
change. Self-sustentation is the primary aim of each part as of the
whole ; and hence parts once formed tend to continue, whether they
are or are not useful. Moreover, each addition to the regulative
structures implying, other things equal, a simultaneous deduction
from the remainder of the society which is regulated, it results that,
while the obstacles to change are increased, the forces causing change
are decreased.

Maintenance of a society's organization implies that the imits form-
ing its component structures shall severally be replaced as they die. Sta-
bility is favored if the vacancies they leave are filled without dispute
by descendants ; while change is favored if the vacancies are filled by
those who are experimentally proved to be best fitted for them. Sue-

SCIENCE AND CULTURE. 159

cession by inheritance is thus the principle of social rigidity ; while
succession by efficiency is the principle of social plasticity.

Though to make cooperation possible, and therefore to facilitate
social growth, there must be organization, yet the organization formed
impedes further growth ; since further growth implies reorganization,
which the existing organization resists.

So that while, at each stage, better immediate results may be
achieved by completing organization, they must be at the exj)ense of
better ultimate results. These are to be achieved by carrying organi-
zation at each stage no further than is needful for the orderly carrying
on of social actions.

-♦♦♦-

SCIENCE AND CULTURE.*

By Professor T. H. HUXLEY, F. E. S.

SIX years ago, as some of my present hearers may remember, I had
the privilege of addi'essing a large assemblage of the inhabitants
of this city, who had gathered together to do honor to the memory of
their famous townsman, Joseph Priestley ; and, if any satisfaction
attaches to posthumous glory, we may hope that the manes of the
burned-out philosopher were then finally ajjpeased. No man, however,
who is endowed with a fair share of common sense and not more than
a fair share of vanity, will identify either contemj)orary or posthumous
fame with the highest good ; and Priestley's life leaves no doubt that
he, at any rate, set a much higher value upon the advancement of
knowledge and the promotion of that freedom of thought which is at
once the cause and the consequence of intellectual progress.

Hence I am disposed to think that, if Priestley could be among us
to-day, the occasion of our meeting would afford him even greater
pleasui'e than the proceedings which celebrated the centenary of his
chief discovery. The kindly heart would be moved, the high sense
of social duty would be satisfied, by the spectacle of well-earned
wealth, neither squandered in tawdry luxury and vainglorious show,
nor scattered with the careless charity which blesses neither him that
gives nor him that takes, but expended in the execution of a well-con-
sidered plan for the aid of present and future generations of those who
are willing to help themselves.

We shall all be of one mind thus far. But it is needful to share
Priestley's keen interest in physical science ; to have learned, as he
had learned, the value of scientific training in fields of inquiry appar-
ently far remote from physical science ; to appreciate, as he would

* An address delivered on the occasion of the opening of Sir Josiah Mason's Science
College, at Birmingham, England, on October 1, 1880.

i6o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

have appreciated, the value of the noble gift which Sir Josiah Mason
has bestowed upon the inhabitants of the Midland district. For us
children of the nineteenth century, however, the establishment of a
college under the conditions of Sir Josiah Mason's trust has a signifi-
cance apart from any which it could have possessed a hundred years
ago. It appears to be an indication that we are reaching the crisis of
the battle, or rather of the long series of battles, which have been
fought over education in a campaign which began long before Priest-
ley's time, and will probably not be finished just yet.

In the last century, the combatants were the champions of ancient lit-
erature on the one side, and those of modern literature on the other; but,
some thirty years ago, the contest became complicated by the appear-
ance of a third army, ranged round the banner of Physical Science.
I am not aware that any one has authority to speak in the name of
this new host. For it must be admitted to be somewhat of a guerrilla
force, composed largely of irregulars, each of whom fights pretty much
for his own hand. But the impressions of a full private, who has seen
a good deal of service in the ranks, respecting the present jjosition of
affairs and the conditions of a permanent peace, may not be devoid of
interest ; and I do not know that I could make a better use of the pres-
ent opportunity than by laying them before you.

From the time that the first suggestion to introduce physical sci-
ence into ordinary education was timidly whispered, until now, the
advocates of scientific education have met with opposition of two
kinds. On the one hand they have been pooh-poohed by the men of
business who pride themselves on being the representatives of practi-
cality, while on the other hand they have been excommunicated by
the classical scholars, in their capacity of Levites in charge of the ark
of culture and monopolists of liberal education. The practical men
believed that the idol Avhom they worship — rule of thumb — has been
the source of the past prosperity, and will suflice for the future welfare
of the arts and manufactures. They were of opinion that science is
speculative rubbish ; that theory and practice have nothing to do with
one another ; and that the scientific habit of mind is an impediment
rather than an aid in the conduct of ordinary affairs.

I have used the past tense in speaking of the practical men — for,
although they were very formidable thirty years ago, I am not sure
that the pure species has not been extirpated. In fact, so far as mere
argument goes, they have been subjected to such z.feu cfenfer that it is
a miracle if they have escaped. But I have remarked that your typical
practical man has an unexpected resemblance to one of Milton's angels.
His spiritual wounds, such as are inflicted by logical weapons, may be
as deep as a well and as wide as a church-door, but, beyond shedding a
few drops of ichor, celestial or otherwise, he is no whit the worse. So,
if any of these opponents be left, I will not waste time in vain repeti-
tion of the demonstrative evidence of the practical value of science ;

SCIENCE AND CULTURE. 161

but, knowing that a parable will sometimes penetrate where syllogisms
fail to effect an entrance, I will offer a story for their consideration.

Once upon a time, a boy, with nothing to depend upon but his own
vigorous nature, was thrown into the thick of the struggle for exist-
ence in the midst of a great manufacturing population. He seems to
have had a hard fight, inasmuch as, by the time he was thirty years of
age, his total disposable funds amounted to twenty pounds. Neverthe-
less, middle life found him giving proof of his comprehension of the
practical problems he had been roughly called upon to solve, by a career
of remarkable j^rosperity. Finally, having reached old age with its
well-earned surroundings of " honor, troops of friends," the hero of my
story bethought himself of those who were making a like start in life,
and how he could stretch out a helping hand to them. After long and
anxious reflection this successful practical man of business could devise
nothing better than to provide them Avith the means of obtaining
" sound, extensive, and practical scientific knowledge." And he de-
voted a large part of his wealth, and five years of incessant work, to
this end. I need not point the moral of a tale which, as the solid and
spacious fabric of the Scientific College assures us, is no fable, nor can
anything Avhich I could say intensify the force of this practical answer
to practical objections.

We may take it for granted then, that, in the opinion of those best
qualified to judge, the diffusion of thorough scientific education is an
absolutely essential condition of industrial progress, and that the col-
lege opened to-day will confer an inestimable boon upon those whose
livelihood is to be gained by. the practice of the arts and manufactures
of the district. The only question worth discussion is, whether the
conditions, under which the work of the college is to be carried out,
are such as to give it the best possible chance of achieving permanent
success.

Sir Josiah Mason, without doubt most wisely, has left very large
freedom of action to the trustees, to whom he projDoses ultimately to
commit the administration of the college, so that they may be able to
adjust its arrangements in accordance with the changing conditions of
the future. But, with respect to three points, he has laid most ex-
plicit injunctions upon both administrators and teachers. Party poli-
tics are forbidden to enter into the minds of either, so far as the work
of the college is concerned ; theology is as sternly banished from its
precincts ; and, finally, it is especially declared that the college shall
make no provision for " mere literary instruction and education."

It does not concern me at present to dwell upon the first two in-
junctions any longer than may be needful to express my full convic-
tion of their wisdom. But the third prohibition brings us face to face
with those other opponents of scientific education who are by no
means in the moribund condition of the practical man, but alive, alert,
and formidable. It is not impossible that we shall hear this express
VOL. xvin. — 11

i62 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

exclusion of " literary instruction and education " from a college
which, nevertheless, professes to give a high and efficient education,
sharply criticised. Certainly the time was that the Levites of culture
would have sounded their trumpets against its walls as against an edu-
cational Jericho. How often have we not been told that the study of
physical science is incompetent to confer culture ; that it touches
none of the higher problems of life ; and, what is worse, that the con-
tinual devotion to scientific studies tends to generate a narrow and
bigoted belief in the applicability of scientific methods to the search
after truth of all kinds ! How frequently one has reason to observe
that no reply to a troublesome argument tells so well as calling its
author a " mere scientific specialist " ! And, as I am afraid it is not
permissible to speak of this form of opposition to scientific education
in the past tense, may we not expect to be told that this, not only
omission, but prohibition of " mere literary instruction and education "
is a patent example of scientific narrow-mindedness ?

I am not acquainted with Sir Josiah Mason's reasons for the action
which he has taken ; but, if, as I apprehend is the case, he refers to
the ordinary classical course of our schools and universities by the
name of " mere literary instruction and education," I venture to offer
sundry reasons of my own in support of that action. For I hold very
strongly by two convictions : The first is, that neither the discipline
nor the subject-matter of classical education is of such direct value to
the student of physical science as to justify the expenditure of valu-
able time upon either ; and the second is, that, for the j)urpose of
attaining real culture, an exclusively scientific education is at least as i
effectual as an exclusively literary education. I need hardly point out '
to you that these opinions, especially the latter, are diametrically op-
posed to those of the great majority of educated Englishmen, influ-
enced as they are by school and university traditions. In their belief
culture is obtainable only by a liberal education, and a liberal educa-
tion is synonymous not merely with education and instruction in litera-
ture, but in one particular form of literature, namely, that of Greek
and Roman antiquity. They hold that the man who has learned Latin'
and Greek, however little, is educated ; while he who is versed in :
other branches of knowledge, however deeply, is a more or less re-
spectable specialist, rot admissible into the cultured caste. The stamp
of the educated man, the university degree, is not for him.

I am too well acquainted with the generous catholicity of spirit,
the true sympathy with scientific thought, which pervades the writings
of our chief apostle of culture to identify him with these opinions ;
and yet one may cull fi'om one and another of those epistles to the
Philistines, which so much delight all who do not answer to that
name, sentences which lend them some support. Mr. Arnold tells us
that the meaning of culture is "to know the best that has been
thought and said in the world." It is the criticism of life contained

SCIENCE AND CULTURE. 163

in literature. That criticism regards " Europe as being for intellec-
tual and spiritual purposes one great confederation, bound to a joint
action and working to a common result ; and whose members have
for their common outfit a knowledge of Greek, Roman, and Eastern
antiquity, and of one another. Special local and temporary advan-
tages being put out of account, that modern nation will in the intel-
lectual and spiritual sphere make most progress which most thorough-
ly carries out this programme. And what is that but saying that we,
too, all of us as individuals, the more thoroughly we carry it out shall
make the more progress ! "

We have here to deal with two distinct propositions : The first,
that a ci'iticism of life is the essence of culture ; the second, that litera-
ture contains the materials which suffice for the construction of such a
criticism. I think that we must all assent to the first proposition.
For culture certainly means something quite different from learning
or technical skill. It implies the possession of an ideal, and the habit
of critically estimating the value of things by comparison with a theo-
retic standard. Perfect culture should supply a complete theory of
life, based upon a clear knowledge alike of its possibilities and of its
limitations. But we may agree to all this, and yet strongly dissent
from the assumption that literature alone is competent to supply this
knowledge. After having learned all that Greek, Roman, and East-
ern antiquity have thought and said, and all that modern literatures
have to tell us, it is not self-evident that we have laid a sufficiently
broad and deep foundation for that criticism of life which constitutes
culture. Indeed, to any one acquainted with the scope of physical
science, it is not at all evident. Considering progress only in the
" intellectual and spiritual sphere," I find myself wholly unable to
admit that either nations or individuals will really advance if their
common outfit draws nothing from the stores of physical science. I
should say that an army without weapons of precision, and with no
particular base of operations, might more hopefully enter upon a
campaign on the Rhine than a man, devoid of a knowledge of what
physical science has done in the last century, upon the criticism of
life.

"When a biologist meets with an anomaly, he instinctively turns to
the study of development to clear it up. The rationale of contradic-
tory opinions may with equal confidence be sought in history.

It is, happily, no new thing that Englishmen shotld employ their
wealth in building and endowing institutions for educational purposes.
But, five or six hundred years ago, deeds of foundation expressed or
implied conditions as nearly as possible contrary to those which have
been thought expedient by Sir Josiah Mason. That is to say, physical
science was practically ignored, while a certain literary training was
enjoined as a means to the acquirement of knowledge which was essen-
tially theological. The reason of this singular contradiction between

164 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the actions of men alike animated by a strong and disinterested desire
to promote the welfare of their fellows is easily discovered. At that
time, in fact, if any one desired knowledge beyond such as could be
obtained by his own observation, or by common conversation, his first
necessity was to learn the Latin language, inasmuch as all the higher
knowledsfe of the Western world was contained in works written in
that language. Hence Latin grammar, with logic and rhetoric, studied
through Latin, were the fundamentals of education. With respect to
the substance of the knowledge imparted through this channel, the
Jewish and Christian Scriptures, as interpreted and supplemented by
the Romish Church, were held to contain a complete and infallibly true
body of information.

Theological dicta were, to the thinkers of those days, that which
the axioms and definitions of Euclid are to the geometers of these.
The business of the philosophers of the middle ages was to deduce,
from the data furnished by the theologians, conclusions in accordance
with ecclesiastical decrees. They were allowed the high privilege of
showing, by logical process, how and why that which the Church said
was true must be true. And, if their demonstrations fell short of or
exceeded this limit, the Church was maternally ready to check their
aberrations, if need be, by the help of the secular arm.

Between the two our ancestors were furnished with a compact and
complete criticism of life. They were told how the world began and
how it would end ; they learned that all material existence was but a
base and insignificant blot upon the fair face of the spiritual world,
and that nature was, to all intents and purposes, the playground of the
devil ; they learned that the earth is the center of the visible universe,
and that man is the cynosure of things terrestrial ; and more especially
was it inculcated that the course of nature had no fixed order, but that
it could be and constantly was altered by the agency of innumerable
spiritual beings, good and bad, according as they were moved by the
deeds and prayers of men. The sum and substance of the whole doc-
trine was, to produce the conviction that the only thing really worth
knowing in this world was how to secure that place in a better which,
under certain conditions, the Church promised. Our ancestors had a
living belief in this theory of life, and acted upon it in their dealings
with education, as in all other matters. Culture meant saintliness —
after the fashion of the saints of those days ; the education that led to
it was, of necessity, theological ; and the way to theology lay through
Latin.

That the study of nature — further than was requisite for the satis-
faction of every-day wants — should have any bearing on human life
was far from the thoughts of men thus trained. Indeed, as nature had
been cursed for man's sake, it was an obvious conclusion that those
who meddled with natm-e were likely to come into pretty close contact
with Satan. And if any bom scientific investigator followed his in-

SCIENCE AND CULTURE. 165

stincts he might safely reckon upon earning the reputation, and proba-
bly upon suffering the fate of a sorcerer.

Had the "Western world been left to itself in Chinese isolation,
there is no saying how long this state of things might have endured.
But, happily, it was not left to itself. Even earlier than the thirteenth
century, the development of Moorish civilization in Spain and the great
movement of the Crusades had introduced the leaven which, from that
day to this, has never ceased to work. At first through the interme-
diation of Arabic translations, afterward by the study of the origi-
nals, the western nations of Europe became acquainted with the writ-
ings of the ancient jjhilosophers and poets, and in time with the whole
of the vast literature of antiquity.

Whatever there was of high intellectual aspiration or dominant
capacity in Italy, France, Germany, and England, spent itself for
centuries in taking possession of the rich inheritance left by the dead
civilizations of Greece and Rome. Marvelously aided by the inven-
tion of printing, classical learning spread and flourished. Those who
possessed it prided themselves on having attained the highest culture
then within the reach of mankind.

And justly. For, saving Dante on his solitary pinnacle, there was
no figure in modern literature, at the time of the Renascence, to com-
pare with the men of antiquity ; there was no art to compete with
their sculpture ; there was no physical science but that which Greece
had created. Above all, there was no other example of perfect intel-
lectual freedom — of the unhesitating acceptance of reason as the sole
guide to truth and arbiter of conduct.

The new learning necessarily soon exerted a profound influence
upon education. The language of the monks and schoolmen seemed
little better than gibberish to scholars fresh from Virgil and Cicero,
and the study of Latin was placed upon a new foundation. Moreover,
Latin itself ceased to afford the sole key to knowledge. The student
who sought the highest thought of antiquity found only a second-
hand reflection of it in Roman literature, and turned his face to the
full light of the Greeks. And after a battle, not altogether dissimilar
to that which is at present being fought over the teaching of physical
science, the study of Greek was recognized as an essential element of
all higher education.

Thus the Humanists, as they were called, won the day ; and the
great reform which they effected was of incalculable service to man-
kind. But the Nemesis of all reformers is finality ; and the reformers
of education, like those of religion, fell into the profound but common
error of mistaking the beginning for the end of the work of reforma-
tion. The representatives of the Humanists, in the nineteenth cen-
tury, take their stand upon classical education as the sole avenue to
culture, as firmly as if we were still in the age of Renascence. Yet
surely the present intellectual relations of the modern and the ancient

i66 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

worlds are profoundly diJfferent from those which obtained three cen-
turies ago. Leaving aside the existence of a great and characteris-
tically modern literature, of modern painting, and, especially of modern
music, there is one feature of the present state of the civilized world
which separates it more widely from the Renascence than the Renas-
cence was separated from the middle ages. This distinctive charac-
ter of our own times lies in the vast and constantly increasing part
which is played by Natural Knowledge. Not only is our daily life
shaped by it, not only does the prosperity of millions of men depend
upon it, but our whole theory of life has long been influenced, con-
sciously or unconsciously, by the general concej^tions of the universe
which have been forced upon us by physical science. In fact, the
most elementary acquaintance with the results of scientific investiga-
tion shows us that they offer a broad and striking contradiction to the
oj)inions so implicitly credited and taught in the middle ages.

The notions of the beginning and the end of the world entertained
by our forefathers are no longer credible. It is very certain that the
earth is not the chief body in the material universe, and that the
world is not subordinated to man's use. It is even more certain that
nature is the expression of a definite order with which nothing inter-
feres, and that the chief business of mankind is to learn that order and
govern themselves accordingly. Moreover, this scientific " criticism of
life " presents itself to us with different credentials from any other.
It appeals not to authority, nor to what anybody may have thought or
said, but to nature. It admits that all our interpretations of natural
fact are more or less imperfect and symbolic, and bids the learner seek
for truth not among words but among things. It warns us that the
assertion which outstrips evidence is not only a blunder but a crime.

The purely classical education advocated by the representatives of
the Humanists in our day gives no inkling of all this. A man may be
a better scholar than Erasmus, and know no more of the chief causes
of the present intellectual fermentation than Erasmus did. Scholarly
and pious persons, worthy of all respect, favor us with allocutions
upon the sadness of the antagonism of Science to their mediaeval way
of thinking, which betray an ignorance of the first principles of scien-
tific investigation, an incapacity for understanding what a man of sci-
ence means by veracity, and an unconsciousness of the weight of estab-
lished scientific truths, which is almost comical.

There is no great force in the tu quoque argument, or else the ad-
vocates of scientific education might fairly enough retort upon the
modern Humanists that they may be learned specialists, but that they
possess no such sound foundation for a criticism of life as deserves the
name of culture. And, indeed, if we were disposed to be cruel we
might urge that the Humanists have brought this reproach i;pon them-
selves, not because they are too full of the spirit of the ancient Greek,
but because they lack it.

SCIENCE AND CULTURE. 167

The period of the Renascence is commonly called that of the " Re-
vival of Letters," as if the influences then brought to bear upon the
mind of western Europe had been wholly exhausted in the field of
literature. I think it is very commonly forgotten that the revival of
science, effected by the same agency, although less conspicuous, was
not less momentous. In fact, the few and scattered students of Nature
of that day picked up the clew to her secrets exactly as it fell from the
hands of the Greeks a thousand years before. The foundations of
mathematics were so well laid by them that our children learn their
geometry from a book written for the schools of Alexandria two thou-
sand years ago. Modern astronomy is the natural continuation and
development of the work of Hipj)archus and of Ptolemy ; modern
physics of that of Democritus and Archimedes ; it was long before
modern biological science outgrew the knowledge bequeathed to us by
Aristotle, Theophrastus, and Galen.

We can not know all the best thoughts and sayings of the Greeks
unless we know what they thought about natural phenomena. We
can not fully apprehend their criticism of life unless we understand
the extent to which that criticism was affected by scientific concep-
tions. We falsely pretend to be the inheritors of their culture, unless
we are penetrated, as the best minds among them were, with an un-
hesitating faith that the free employment of reason, in accordance
with scientific method, is the sole guide to truth.

Thus I venture to think that the pretensions of our modern Hu-
manists to the possession of the monopoly of culture and to the ex-
clusive inheritance of the spirit of antiquity must be abated, if not
abandoned. But I should be very sorry that anything I have said
should be taken to imply a desire on my part to depreciate the value
of classical education, as it might be and as it sometimes is. The
native capacities of mankind vary no less than their opportunities ;
and, while culture is one, the road by which one man may best reach
it is widely different from that which is most advantageous to an-
other. Again, while scientific education is yet inchoate and tentative,
classical education is thoroughly well organized upon the pi-actical
experience of generations of teachers. So that, given ample time for
learning and destination for ordinary life, or for a literary career, I do
not think that a young Englishman in search of culture can do better
than follow the course usually marked out for him, supplementing its
deficiencies by his own efforts.

But for those who mean to make science their serious occupation ;
or who intend to follow the profession of medicine ; or who have to
enter early uj^on the business of life — for all these, in my opinion,
classical ediication is a mistake ; and it is for that reason that I am
glad to see " mere literary education and instruction " shut out from
the curriculum of Sir Josiah Mason's College, seeing that its inclusion
would probably lead to the introduction of the ordinary smattering of

i68 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Latin and Greek, Nevertheless, I am the last person to question the
importance of genuine literary education, or to suppose that intellectual
culture can be complete without it. An exclusively scientific training
will bring about a mental twist as surely as an exclusive literary train-
ing. The value of the cargo does not compensate for a ship's being
out of trim ; and I should be very sorry to think that the Scientific
College Avould turn out none but lop-sided men. There is no need,
however that such a catastrophe should happen. Instruction in Eng-
lish, French, and German is provided, and thus the three greatest lit-
eratures of the modern world are made accessible to the student.
French and German, and especially the latter language, are absolutely
indispensable to those who desire full knowledge in any department of
science. But, even supposing that the knowledge of these languages
acquired is not more than sufiicient for purely scientific purposes, every
Englishman has, in his native tongue, an almost perfect instrument of
literary expression ; and, in his own literature, models of every kind
of literary excellence. If an Englishman can not get literary culture
out of his Bible, his Shakespeare, his Milton, neither, in my belief, will
the profoundest study of Homer and Sophocles, Virgil and Horace,
give it to him.

Thus, since the constitution of the college makes sufiicient provi-
sion for literary as well as for scientific education, and since artistic
instruction is also contemplated, it seems to me that a fairly complete
culture is oflrered to all who are willing to take advantage of it.

But I am not sure but that at this point the "practical" man,
scotched but not slain, may ask what all this talk about culture has to
do with an institution whose object is defined to be "to promote the
prosperity of the manufactures and the industry of the country," He
may suggest that what is wanted for this end is not culture, nor even
a purely scientific discipline, but simply a knowledge of applied science.
I often wish that this phrase, " applied science," had never been invent-
ed. For it suggests that there is a sort of scientific knowledge of
direct practical use, which can be studied apart from another sort of
scientific knowledge, which is of no practical utility, and which is
termed " pure science." But there is no more complete fallacy than
this. What people call applied science is nothing but the application
of pure science to particular classes of problems. It consists of de-
ductions from those general principles, established by reasoning and
observation, which constitute pure science. No one can safely make
these deductions until he has a firm grasp of the principles ; and he
can obtain that grasp only by personal experience of the processes of
observation and of reasoning on which they are founded.

Almost all the processes employed in the arts and manufactures
fall within the range either of physics or of chemistry. In order to
improve them, one must thoroughly understand them ; and no one
has a chance of really understanding them who has not obtained that

SCIENCE AND CULTURE. 169

mastery of principles and that habit of dealing with facts which is
given by long-continued and well-directed purely scientific training in
the physical and the chemical laboratory. So that there really is no
question as to the necessity of purely scientific discipline, even if the
work of the college were limited by the narrowest interpretation of its
stated aims. And, as to the desirableness of a wider culture than that
yielded by science alone, it is to be recollected that the improvement
of manufacturing processes is only one of the conditions which con-
tribute to the prosperity of industry. Industry is a means and not an
end ; and mankind work only to get something which they want.
What that something is depends partly on their innate, and partly on
their acquired, desires. If the wealth resulting from prosperous in-
dustry is to be spent upon the gratification of unworthy desires, if
the inci-easing perfection of manufacturing processes is to be accom-
panied by an increasing debasement of those who carry them on, I do
not see the good of industry and prosperity.

Now, it is perfectly true that men's views of what is desirable
depend upon their characters ; and that the innate proclivities to which
we give that name are not touched by any amount of instruction.
But it does not follow that even mere intellectual education may not,
to an indefinite extent, modify the practical manifestation of the char-
acter of men in their actions, by supplying them with motives unknown
to the ignorant. A pleasure-loving character will have pleasure of
some sort ; but, if you give him the choice, he may prefer pleasures
which do not degrade him to those which do. And this choice is
offered to every man, who possesses in literary or artistic culture a
never-failing source of pleasures, which are neither withered by age,
nor staled by custom, nor embittered in the recollection by the pangs
of self-reproach.

If the institution opened to-day fulfills the intention of its founder,
the picked intelligences among all classes of the population of this
district will pass through it. No child born in Birmingham, hence-
forward, if he have the capacity to profit by the opportunities offered
to him first in the primary and other schools, and afterward in the
Scientific College, need fail to obtain, not merely the instruction, but
the culture most appropriate to the conditions of his life.

Within these walls, the future employer and the future artisan may
sojourn together for a while, and carry through all their lives the
stamp of the influences then brought to bear upon them. Hence, it is
not beside the mark to remind you that the prosperity of industry
depends not merely upon the improvement of manufacturing processes,
not merely upon the ennobling of the individual character, but upon
a third condition, namely, a clear understanding of the conditions of
social life on the part of both the capitalist and the operative, and
their agreement upon common principles of social action. They must
learn that social phenomena are as much the expression of natural laws

170 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

as any others ; that no social arrangements can be permanent unless
they harmonize with the requirements of social statics and dynamics ;
and that, in the nature of things, there is an arbiter whose decisions
execute themselves.

But this knowledge is only to be obtained by the application of
the methods of investigation adopted in physical researches to the
investigation of the phenomena of society. Hence, I confess, I should
like to see one addition made to the excellent scheme of education
propounded for the college, in the shape of provision for the teaching
of sociology. For, though we are all agreed that party politics are to
have no place in the instruction of the college, yet in this coimtry,
practically governed as it is now by universal suffrage, every man who
does his duty must exercise political functions. And, if the evils which
are inseparable from the good of political liberty are to be checked, if
the perpetual oscillation of nations between anarchy and despotism is
to be rej)laced by the steady march of self -restraining freedom, it will
be because men will gradually bring themselves to deal with political
as they now deal with scientific questions ; to be as ashamed of undue
haste and partisan prejudice in the one case as in the other ; and to
believe that the machinery of society is at least as delicate as that of a
spinning-jenny, and not more likely to be improved by the meddling
of those who have not taken the trouble to master the principles of its
action.

In conclusion, I am sure that I make myself the mouth-piece of all
present in offering to the venerable founder of the institution, which
now commences its beneficent career, our congratulations on the com-
pletion of his work ; and in expressing the conviction that the re-
motest posterity will point to it as a crucial instance of the wisdom
which natural piety leads all men to ascribe to their ancestors. —
N'ature.

-♦♦♦-

EXPEKIMENTS "WITH THE "JUMPERS" OF MAINE.*

By GEOEGE M. BEAED, M. D.

ABOUT two years ago my attention was directed by my friend Mr.
W. A. Croffut to the fact that, in the northern part of Maine,
especially in the region of Moosehead Lake, there were to be found a
class of people who presented most incredible nervous phenomena.

These people were called in the language of that region " Jump-
ers" or "Jumping Frenchmen." It was claimed that all, or most of
them, were of French descent and of Canadian birth, and that their
occupation was mainly that of lumbering in the Maine woods. Mr.

* Read before the American Neurological Associatiou, June, 1880.

THE ''JUMPERS'' OF MAINE. 171

Croffut introduced me to D. W. Craig, Esq., a gentleman who had
spent much time in that portion of Maine, and who had amused him-
self with watching and playing with these unfortunates.

In accordance with the request of Mr. Croffut and Mr. Craig, I
began at that time an investigation of the subject through all acces-
sible sources, and this year I visited Moosehead Lake in company with
my friend Dr. Edward Steese, and made the investigations herein re-
corded.

I found two of the Jumpers employed about the hotel. With one
of them, a young man twenty-seven years of age, I made the follow-
ing experiments :

1. While sitting in a chair, with a knife in his hand, with which
he was about to cut his tobacco, he was struck sharply on the shoulder,
and told to " throw it." Almost as quick as the explosion of a pistol,
he threw the knife, and it stuck in a beam opposite ; at the same time he
repeated the order " throw it " with a certain cry as of terror or alarm.

2. A moment after, while filling his pipe with tobacco, he was
again slapped on the shoulder and told to " throw it." He threw the
tobacco and the pipe on the grass, at least a rod away, with the same
cry and the same suddenness and explosiveness of movement.

3. When standing near one of the employees of the house, he was
told to " strike," and he struck him violently on the cheek. I took
this person into the quiet of my own room, only my friend being with
me, in order that the experiments might be made without interrui^tion
or disturbance. I sat down by him, explained to him the object of my
visit, conversed with him in regard to his family history and his own
personal experience and observation of his peculiarity, and every now
and then, during the conversation, I struck him without warning on the
shoulder or on the back, or mildly kicked him ; and every time he was
so struck he moved his shoulders upward slightly, sometimes moving
both the shoulders and the arms, with or without the peculiar cry.
He knew that I was studying his case ; he knew that the kicks and
strokes came from me, and yet he could not avoid making a slight
jump or motion, as though startled.

4. While holding a tumbler in his hand, standing near to him, I
told him to " throw it." He dashed the tumbler with great violence
to the floor, and then began deliberately picking up the pieces in a
very quiet and patient way. Whenever I struck him quietly, easily,
and in such a way that he could see I was to strike him, he made only
a slight jump or movement ; but when the strike or kick was unex-
pected, though very mild in character, he could not restrain the jump-
ing or jerking motion ; but the cry did not always appear.

5. A handkerchief was suddenly thrown before his eyes by a per-
son walking stealthily from behind. He jumped, just as though he
had been struck.

Another case in the house, a lad sixteen years of age, was not so

172 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

bad as this other, but still presented all these phenomena : he jumped
when he heard any sound fx'om behind that was sharp and unex-
pected, and struck and threw when ordered to do so. The crowd
around the hotel, partly for my benefit, kept him constantly teased
and annoyed, so that when he approached he had a stealthy, suspicious,
and timid look in his eye, as though he expected each moment to be
jumped.

6. This man, while playing with one of his mates, had thrown him to
the ground ; some one approached near and commanded " Strike him,"
and he struck him very hard and explosively, with both hands at a time.

7. When standing by a window, he was suddenly commanded to
"jump" by a person on the other side of the window. He jumped
straight up, half a foot off the floor, with a loud cry, repeating the
order which had been given to him,

8. When the two Jumpers were close together, they were com-
manded to " strike " : each struck the other simultaneously — not mild
or polite, but severe and painful blows. I took one of these men to
my room and quietly conversed with him, and made the same experi-
ments with him as with the other case. I found him much less irri-
table than the other, and he needed usually stronger excitation to pro-
duce the phenomena.

I experimented with him in the phenomenon of repeating language
that was addressed to him. W hen the command was uttered in a
quick, loud voice, he repeated the order as he heard it, at the same
time that he executed it. When told to strike, he said " Strike " at
the same time that he struck ; when told to throw it, he said " Throw
it " at the same time that he threw whatever was in his hand. It made
no difference what language was used. I tried him with the first part
of the first line of Homer's " Iliad," and with the first part of Virgil's
"^neid," languages, of course, of which he knew nothing, and he
repeated quickly, almost violently, the sound as it was uttered — " Menin
Aida," the first part of the first line of the "Iliad," and "Arma-vi,"
the first part of the first line of Virgil. In order to have it repeated,
it was necessary that the command should be very short, as well as
quickly and strongly uttered. He would not repeat a whole line, or
even half a line, but simply a word or two. In these, as in the mind-
reading experiments, I was able to establish ray conclusions by exclu-
sion— that is, by proving that only the involuntary action of mind
on body could produce the phenomena.

These experiments were repeated again and again, under various
conditions at different times, in such a way as to satisfy myself, abso-
lutely, that the six elements of error that apply to all experiments
with living human beings were all eliminated, and that the facts
obtained were the solid residuum of an exact scientific investigation.*

* The six sources of error in experimenting with living human beings are — 1. Uncon-
scious deception on the part of the subject experimented on ; 2. Intentional deception on

THE ''JUMPERS'' OF MAINE. 173

Many strange things are done by these Jumpers. One of those
with -whom I experimented came very near cutting his throat the day
before I reached the lake. He was shaving, and the door slammed
suddenly behind him ; he jumped, and, had the razor been held in a
different way, he might have inflicted a severe wound. One of these
Jumpers being surprised by an order to " strike," while standing before
a window, struck his fist right through the glass, cutting it severely.
These Jumpers have been known to strike their fists against a red-hot
stove ; they have been known to jump into the fire, as well as into
water ; indeed, no painfulness or peril of position has any effect on
them ; they are as powerless as apoplectics or hysterics, if not more
so ; the absolute victims of the orders that are given them, or of the
surprises that are played upon them ; they must do as they are told,
though it kill them, or though it kill others. I can find no evidence
that the presence of water or of fire will interfere, even in the slightest
degree, with the motions which they are compelled to make. As has
been made apparent by the above description, it is not necessary that
the surprises should come from any human being ; it is not necessary
that they should be ordered to strike or to jump ; any sound, from
any source, that comes upon them with sufticient severity and sudden-
ness, for which they are not forewarned and forearmed, may cause
them to jump and to cry. One of those on whom I experimented
told me that the falling of a tree in the woods, when unexpected,
would have the same effect upon him. He said that one time he
was so alarmed by the sudden crash of a tree that he not only
jumped, but was perfectly entranced, so that he could not move, al-
though the tree did not fall upon him. The explosion of a gun or
pistol is almost sure to excite these Jumpers. The screech of a steam-
whistle is especially obnoxious to them, few of them, so far as I have
been able to learn, having been able to withstand it. On one of the
lake-steamers in which I returned from the hotel, there was a Jumper
who, when the screech was heard, jumped right up, so that he nearly
hit his head on the upper deck. As the steamer neared the landing
and came to a place where he knew the whistle would sound again,
he was warned to prepare himself, and he did so with such success,
that on the first screech he jumped scarcely any ; on the second,
however, despite his care, he raised his shoulders perceptibly, but did
not jump. In many of these cases, it may be observed, a simple rais-
ing of the shoulders, a sudden impulsive movement, is all that is done,
there being no cry and no movement of the hands to throw or to strike.

the part of the subject experimented on ^ 3. Intentional collusion of other parties ; 4.
Unintentional collusion of other parties ; 5. Chances and coincidences ; 6. Phenomena of
the involuntary life. In experimenting with the Jumpers the nature of the phenomena
made it easy to eliminate the main element of error, intentional deception on the part
of the subject — since, unless the subject is deceived or at least surprised, the phenomena
do not appear.

174 TH^ POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Although called "Jumpers," they only jumjy in a minority of the
experiments, the word jumping really including all such jDhenomena as
lifting the shoulders, raising the hands, striking, throwing, crying, and
tumbling. Jumpers have been known to fall head over heels over an
embankment on which they were sitting, on suddenly hearing the
whistle of a locomotive ; they have been known to tumble head over
heels over one another, when a number of them were sitting near each
other.

The order to " drop it " they are compelled to obey, as well as that
to strike or to jump or to throw. On one of the steamers on the Range-
ley Lakes there was a waiter who was a Jumper, and when told to " drop
it " he would drop whatever he had in his hands, even if it were a
plate of baked beans, on the head of one of the guests. The Jumpers
with whom I experimented exhibited the same phenomena.

These phenomena suggest epilepsy, particularly in their explosive
character and in the nature of the cry. The hands strike or throw
with a quick, impulsive movement, which is very hard to imitate arti-
ficially. They go off like a piece of machineiy ; it is more like the
explosion of a gun than the movement of the limbs of even an angry
man ; and the cry suggests that which we hear in hysteria and in
epilepsy. The face does not always exhibit any change, but in some
cases there is a temporary flushing, and in others a temporary pallor.

All the Jumpers agree that it tires them to be very much jumped ;
that they feel worse after it, more or less exhausted and nervous ;
they all dislike to be jumped, and avoid it when it is possible ; the
more they are jumped the worse they are ; and that after a while in
the woods, where they are constantly teased and annoyed after the
day's labor is over, they are made worse ; whereas, after long periods
of rest they become better, are less irritable and jump less, and do not
jumj) so easily on excitement.

Nature of this Disease. — "What, now, is the pathology of this
jumping ? How are we to rank these phenomena among the neuroses ?
What relation do they bear to the great family of di^ases ? Are they
functional or structural ? Are they physical or psychical ? The answer
is clear : jumping is a psychical or mental form of nervous disease,
and is of a functional character. Its best analogue is jisychical or
mental hysteria, the so-called " servant-girl hysteria," as known to us
in modern days, and as very widely known during the epidemics of
the middle ages. Like mental or psychical hysteria, this jumping
occurs not in the weak, or the nervous, or the angemic, but in those,
as a rule, in at least good if not firm and unusual health ; there are no
stronger men in the woods, or anywhere, than some of these Jumjiers.
Although some of them are injured by being excessively jumped for
the time at least, yet to the majority, if not nearly all, this injury can
not be said to be of a serious character. It does not apparently shorten
life, and does not bring on, so far as I can learn, any other form of

THE ''JUMPERS'' OF MAINE. 175

nervous disease. It can not, therefore, be said to be in any sense a
disease of nervous debility. Those who suffer most from it are the
very opposite of neurasthenics or anaemics ; they have none of the symp-
toms detailed in my work on nervous exhaustion ; they are full-blooded
and strong-nerved, capable of working hard and long at the most toil-
some service, and will hold themselves up full and sturdy and enduring,
side by side with the hardiest men in the nation. Like " servant-girl
hysteria," and like certain forms of chorea or "jerks," as they are called,
which appear or have appeared in certain religious revivals, like the
" Holy Rollers " * as they were called in the religious revivals of north-
ern New Hampshire, these Jumpers are contributions to psychology
more than to pathology. Far out of the range of the aided senses, far
beyond the reach of the microscope, or perhaps of the spectroscope,
there may be molecular changes or disturbances which manifest them-
selves in these jumpings and strikings and throwings as a result and cor-
relative. But for the present, possibly for all time, we can only study
this subject psychologically ; we can only approach it satisfactorily
from the psychological side. Only those who clearly recognize the
two distinct types of hysteria, the neurasthenic or anaemic form, which
may be called physical hysteria, and the mental or psychical form,
which may be called psychical hysteria, can understand the nature of
this peculiar malady of the Jumpers ; but those who do comprehend
and recognize these two types of hysteria will have little difficulty in
comprehending the general nature of this jumping and its position
among the neuroses. Some of the cases of hysteria major on which
Charcot has experimented with his metals and magnets belong, as I
am persuaded from personal observation, to psychical or mental rather
than to physical diseases. I can find in the families of those who
suffer from jumping no proof of any form of functional or organic
nervous disease.

Jumping is, therefore, a trancoidal condition, exhibiting a part of
the phenomena of trance, and bearing the same relation to trance that
certain epileptoidiil conditions bear to epilepsy.

Although the phenomena exhibited by the Jumpers are analogous
to those of mesmeric trance, of mental hysteria of the " Jerkers " and
" Holy Rollers " in revivals, they yet differ from all these and all allied
forms of nervous disorder in these two respects :

1. The momentary character of the manifestations.

In but a second or so all the acts of the Jumper — striking, throw-
ing, dropping, crying, jerking, or jumping — are over completely, and
he is about in the same condition as before he was surprised. The ex-
plosion of the Jumper, like the explosion of a revolver, is sudden and
instantaneous ; and like a revolver, also, the Jumper is at once ready
for a new explosion on proper excitation. If we look at a Jumper five

* So called because they rolled over and over on the floor while under religious ex-
citement.

176 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

seconds after he has been jumped, we see no sign or indication of what
he has just done, or of what he can instantly be made to do.

On the other hand, the phenomena of trance, of mental hysteria,
of the " Jerkers " or " Holy Rollers " may last in any given case from
several minutes to several hours or days.*

Recent German investigations have, by an interesting coincidence,
demonstrated that subjects in the mesmeric trance sometimes exhibit
the phenomenon of repeating automatically what is said to them.
Berger produces this effect by laying his warm hand on the neck of
the mesmerized subject,

2. In the persistence and permanence of the liability to be ex-
cited.

After once the habit of jumping is formed, the subject, though
varying in susceptibility at different times, is yet always capable of
displaying the phenomena in a greater or less degree at any moment :
once a Jumper, always a Jumper, expresses the prognosis. Epidemics
of jerking and rolling are, on the contrary, limited in time and in their
sphere, disappearing and dying utterly away with the excitements that
give rise to them, and the habit of hysteria or of being entranced may
also be outgrown.

Psychologically, these Jumpers, so far as I have been able to see or
to learn, are modest, quiet, retiring, deficient in power of self-posses-
sion, conceit, and push, but no more so than many others in various
races. I had been told that they were of a low order of organization —
half-breeds, partly French, partly English ; but in this respect I was mis-
informed : they are at least as intelligent and as capable of fulfilling the
duties belonsxingf to them as the average of their associates who are not
Jumpers ; some of them can read and write, and all whom I saw could
converse in English with a reasonable degree of intelligence ; possibly
as much as we could expect of persons of their age and environment.
But all of them, without exception, were of shrinking temperaments.
In the chorea epidemics of the middle ages, or of the great religious
revivals of this country, this class would be very likely to have been
attacked.

Hereditary. — Before I visited Moosehead Lake, while I knew
only those facts that were obtained at second or third hand, I felt
quite sure that this disease w^ould be likely to be a family inheri-
tance. This deductive reasoning was confirmed by inductive observa-
tion. It is fully as hereditary as insanity, or epilepsy, or hay-fever,
although it has no special relation to any of those forms of disease.
In the family of one of those with whom I experimented there were five
Jumpers, the father, two sons, and two grandchildren of the respective
ages of four and seven years. In the family of another with whom I
experimented there were four, all brothers. In the family of another

* In my work on " Trance " these phenomena are described in more detail than is
here possible.

THE '' JUMPERS'' OF MAINE. \-jj

of whom I obtained information, but did not study, there were three
cases, an uncle, a mother, and a brother. In another family there were
two boys, both Jumpers. Here, then, were fourteen cases in four fam-
ilies. By the study of these cases, it was possible to trace the malady
back at least half a century.

Endemic and contagious. — Jumping seems to be endemic, con-
fined mainly to the north woods of Maine and to those of French
descent, and is psycho-contagious — that is, can be caught by personal
contact, like chorea and hysteria.

Shortly after I began these researches, I found in a copy of the Lon-
don " Medical Record " brief reference to precisely similar phenomena
on the other side of the globe, among the Malays. The notice was very
brief, indeed, but it was sufficient to show that there was no difference
in the phenomena as exhibited in these different races. I have been
told that in northern Michigan these Jumpers are to be found, but
have obtained no evidence on that point that is entirely satisfactory.
It would not be improbable that this assertion should be proved to be
true, since the class among whom Jumpers are found is somewhat mi-
gratory, although not so much so as the English and Americans.

Origin and Philosophy of the Disease. — Jumping is probably
an evolution of tickling. Some, if not all, of the Jumpers, are ticklish
— exceedingly so — and are easily irritated by touching them in sensi-
tive parts of the body. It would appear that in the evenings, in the
woods, after the day's toil, in lieu of most other sources of amusement,
the lumbermen have teased each other, by tickling, and playing, and
startling timid ones, until there has developed this jumping, which, by
mental contagion, and by practice, and by inheritance, has ripened into
the full stage of the malady as it appears at the present hour. This
theory is in harmony with the general facts of physiology, and ex-
plains, better than any suggestion that has occurred to me, the his-
tory of what would otherwise appear to be without explanation, and
almost outside of science. In a certain sense, we are all Jumpers ;
under sudden excitement, as of a blow, or a violent, unexpected sound,
any person, even not very nervous, may jump and cry, somewhat as
these Jumpers do, though not with all the manifestations of the Jump-
ers. Hysterical women, jumping and shrieking on slight excitement,
we have all seen.

Everything about this subject is incredible. I do not expect that
my readers will believe all, if they believe any, of what is here re-
ported ; rather they will find it easier to believe that I have been
deceived ; that the six sources of error that are involved in all experi-
ments with human beings were not fully eliminated ; that the Jump-
ers, in short, experimented with me, and not I with the Jumpers ; and
that, through all of this half century, the guides and physicians, the
proprietors of hotels, and their neighbors, and relatives, and friends,
have been the victims of intentional or unintentional fraud. But to

VOL. XVIII. — 12

178 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

vaj own mind the most incredible fact of all is, not the existence of
the phenomena, but that the phenomena have not been sooner observed
by science, and that they have so long escaped the notice even of
scientific men who live near or in those regions, and who frequently
visit them.

Two of the best known citizens of Greenville — a town at the foot
of Moosehead Lake — who have lived there very many years, if not all
their lives, who have had these Jumpers in their employ, denied or
doubted the existence of any of these phenomena, declaring that these
so-called Jumpers were merely drunk or playing. My guide in the
woods of northern New Hampshire, who had spent his whole life in
those wilds, who was old enough to be a great-grandfather, denied,
without reservation, the whole claim ; but, after investigating the sub-
ject with me, was compelled to admit its genuineness. One of my
fishing companions in the woods, a clear-brained and vigorous man of
business, and a man of the world, who for seventeen years had passed
his summers in these regions, knew nothing of the subject until this
season when I called his attention to it. All around these districts there
are physicians, not in them but near them — for in the summer season the
Jumpers scatter, to a certain degree, over the farms in the vicinity — and
every year physicians and men of science, experts in various realms,
visit for recreation the districts where these Jumpers most abound ;
but if they see them they do not notice them, or if they notice them
they do not understand them, or if they understand them they say
nothing about them, and do not attempt to bring, or at least do not
succeed in bringing, the phenomena into science.

THE AUGUST METEOKS.*

By W. F. denning, F. R. A. S.

THE August shower of meteors forms one of the most attractive
and important of the annual phenomena witnessed by astrono-
mers, and the display is awaited every year with considerable interest,
not only by a large section of habitual observers, but by many persons
who have their attention called to it in a mere casual way by the fre-
quency and brightness of the meteors. For, on the 10th of August, if
the night is clear and the moonlight not very strong, a person can not
be long in the open before his curiosity is excited by numbers of these
" falling stars," which he will notice traveling swiftly athwart the
sky, and leaving lines of phosphorescence along their paths. It is,

* For a description of the November meteor-showers, see " Popular Science Monthly,"
vol. XV, page 445.

THE AUGUST METEORS. 179

however, not the business of the ordinary gazer to regard such occur-
rences with more than a passing interest, and he simply watches their
progress with a feeling almost amounting to utter indifference. But
it serves to while away a leisure hour and to give rise to some curious
speculations as to the origin and end of the transient objects which
now and again come before his view. The case is different with the
scientific observer. He has a practical interest in the phenomenon,
and zealously endeavors to record its more remarkable features as they
become successively presented, and to watch with increasing diligence
its further development in the later hours of the night, remembering
that his notes must hereafter have some value in the genei-al compari-
son of results.

Quetelet's catalogue of observed meteor-showers embraces a large
number which obviously belong to the August period, but the majority
occurred during the present century. This can not be ascribed to an
increasing activity of the meteor-stream. It is at once explained by a
greater assiduity of observation, and by the fact that the subject is

Pig. 1.— Broken Stkkak op a Perseid in Peqasus, August 11th, llh. 10m.

considered of more importance than formerly. Hence in more recent
years the shower has been diligently looked for by many observers ;
and the result is that we find a large number of records of its displays.
In former years it was comparatively neglected. The uncertainty at-
tached to the whole subject rendered it unatti'active, for there seemed
little likelihood that it would ever become an important branch of
astronomy, or yield any valuable results to the patient observer of its
nightly displays. Thus we find, among historical records, only a few
scattered references to this shower, and we are led, at first, to the in-
ference that it was only rarely visible in consequence of the meteors
being slightly dispersed over the orbit in former years. But the irregu-
larities in the dates of its former apparitions may safely be ascribed
to other causes than a physical peculiarity of the shower itself. The
lack of interest in the subject would cause it frequently to be disre-
garded. Many of its exhibitions would pass wholly unobserved. In-
deed, it would only be described when it recurred with such striking
intensity as to force itself upon the attention as a celestial event of
considerable interest. Between 811 and 841 it furnished a succession

i8o THJiJ POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of brilliant displays at the end of July. Then there occurred a break
until eighty-three years later, when it several times reappeared with
fiimilar splendor. A wide interval of more than three hundred years
brings us to the year 1243, when it seems to have been again recog-
nized, after which, until 1709, there is only one other observation of
the shower (in 1451). During the last hundred years it has, however,
been frequently observed, though many of the recent displays can not
be compared with those of ancient times. The intermittent and rare
character of the shower, as it existed between the tenth and eighteenth
centuries, proves that few returns were of a sufficiently imposing na-
ture to be recorded, and that possibly the conditions were opposed to
its appearance. If the meteors of the orbit during that period were
condensed in the region of their derivative comet, then we can under-
stand the singular paucity of observations. The earth, as it passed
the node, would year after year encounter no meteors until the peri-
helion approach of the cluster, when possibly the display may have
occurred in the daytime, and been of such brief duration as entirely
to elude detection.

The entry of this stream into the solar system probably dates back
to a very remote antiquity — for there are several circumstances which
conspire to prove that such must have been the case, and that it pre-
ceded, by many ages, the apparition of the Leonids, Andromedes, and
some of the other periodical meteor-showers. The fact that it consti-
tutes an unbroken ring leads to the inference that it must have existed
from the earliest times in order to bring about so complete a dispersion
of its particles, for on its first introduction, as a comet, to the earth, it
is to be assumed that it formed a condensed mass like the Leonids,
and only appeared as a meteor-shower when the comet returned to
perihelion. A very slight difference in the periodic times of the indi-
vidual meteors following the nucleus must have eventually distributed
them (by its cumulative effects) along the entire orbit. In other
words, the original group must have undergone a process of lengthen-
ing out, until, at the present day, it consists of a parabolic zone of
meteoric pellets, through which the earth passes annually on August
10th. Moreover, the radiant point of the shower often fails to become
sharply defined. Several concentric streams of similar meteors appear
to diverge from the region about r] Persei, and their physical identity
is unquestionable. They are merely the deflections or offshoots from
the original system which must be greatly disturbed and contorted as
the earth annually intersects it. The full effects of these perturba-
tions can hardly be estimated : many of the particles must be diverted
into new orbits, and one of the results upon the main stream may be
a constant widening out, so that the apparent duration of the shower
must go on increasing. It now actively extends over at least eight
nights ; hence the width must exceed 10,000,000 miles. And some
diminution in its intensity must occur at each return, unless there is a

THE AUGUST METEORS.

181

Fig. 2.— Pkbseids near thk Radiant (44° + 57°), August 8th-18th.

i82 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

source of compensation for the expenditure of its materials upon the
earth. But, though many millions of the atoms are annually con-
sumed in our atmosphere, the effect of the thinning out will be very
gradual in making itself appreciable, for, as compared with the vast
assemblage which constitutes the main ring, the proportion which en-
counters the earth is small indeed. As it is enveloped in the stream,
comparatively few of the meteors are actually intercepted. By far
the greater number pass by untouched. If a ball is thrown up in a
thick shower of rain, it will only encounter a few drops. This may be
taken as an illustration. The earth, with its diameter of 8,000 miles,
can only meet with a few meteors in its rapid flight through a zone
exceeding 10,000,000 miles in width.

The period of the August meteors is uncertain. Their distribution
appears to have been so effectual that the element can not be determined.
Some years give plentiful showers, but there have been no decided
traces of regularly recurring maxima, as in the case of the Leonids.
This may possibly be explained by the fact that the period is a long
one, and would not become defined until after centuries of research.
Comet III, 1862, which shows an exact resemblance of orbit to this
system, was computed by Oppolzer to have a period of 121*5 years; and,
as there occurred a fine display of the August meteors in 1863, we can
not anticipate its periodical return until about 1964, if the calculations
are reliable.

The August Perseids have been more frequently observed than any
other system of shooting-stars, from the fact that they are visible
every year with more or less distinctness, and that, as an annual
shower, they can not be surpassed by any other display. The two
celebrated streams of November 13th and 27th, occasionally giving rise
to showers of great splendor, are periodical in character, though it is
extremely probable that a few of their meteors encounter the earth at
the regular return of the dates ; notwithstanding that they may elude
observation in consequence either of moonlight or cloudy weather,
which, indeed, generally offers some impediment to success. But the
August meteors recur annually with considerable intensity, and had
attracted attention at a very remote epoch, though the phenomenon
was not systematically studied until later times. It was reserved for
Heis at Aix-la-Chapelle to more thoroughly investigate the meteors of
August, for the previous observers, though they had ascertained the
fact that the month was notable in this respect, had yet neglected to
obtain any important data with regard to the number or directions of
the meteors seen. Schmidt also, at Bonn, began assiduously to devote
himself to this special line of inquiry. The particular night in August
when the meteors were most plentifully distributed was found to be
the 10th, though the numbers were subject to considerable variations
in different years. Schmidt, from an average of several years of ob-
servations, gave the following as the horary number of falling stars

THE AUGUST METEORS.

183

for one observer. His results are compared with a similar average de-
rived by Major Tup man and the writer from observations in 1869-71
and 1877-80 respectively :

FALLING 8TAES IN ONE HOUR.

DATE.

Schmidt.

Tupman.

Denning.

6 Aucust

6

11

15
29
31
19
7

36
37
46

69
63

27

13

n "

8 "

23
26

9 "

44

(max.") 10 "

71

11 "

38

12 "

24

Schmidt's figures are very small and much below the numbers
found in recent years. But the averages in the table are not thorough-
ly reliable, inasmuch as they are based upon only a few years' observa-
tions. A longer series might give a closer comparison, but it is seldom
that the results of independent observers agree within small limits.
There are differences in vision, modes of observation, and in position,
which must obviously affect the numbers to no small degree ; and the in-
termittent character of the meteor-shower itself must give rise to discrep-
ancies which can not at first sight be accounted for. The horary num-
ber of meteors on August 10th may vary, according to Heis, from 160 (in
1839) to 24 (in 1867). During the last ten years the writer has found
little variation in the intensity of the annual returns when the condi-
tions of weather and moonlight are fully taken into account ; and
there is no question that some of the variations ascribed to the shower
have no real existence, but are to be explained by the differences re-
ferred to above.

A fair comparison can not be instituted between the horary num-
bers found by observers, unless the observations, from which the values
are deduced, are made, in each case, at similar hours of the night ; for
shooting-stars, though often plentiful after midnight, are comparative-
ly scarce in the evening hours. This is readily explained by the fact
that the principal radiant points of the showers are massed together in
the eastern region of the sky where the earth's orbital motion is direct-
ed, and it is obvious that in the evening hours, when the altitude of
many of them is very low, and when others have scarcely appeared above
the horizon, their operation is in a great measure restricted, so that
only a feeble indication of their displays is perceptible at such a time.
The case is entirely different at a later period of the night, when the con-
stellations in which the several radiant points are situated have ascend-
ed high in the sky, and are in fact so placed that they may be seen to
the greatest advantage. The August Perseids are always best observ-
able in the morning hours, for the radiant point is very low on 'the

i84

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

horizon soon after dark, and a person who persistently watches it dur-
ing the night will find, with increasing elevation of the radiant, a
corresponding increase in the hourly number of meteors. In 1877, at
Bristol, the eastern sky was persistently watched between 9h. 30m.
and 14h. 30m., when 354 meteors were seen ; and, though the horary

Pig. 3.— Radiant Pointb east of the Peeseids, August 6th-13th.

B

Major Showers. Minor Showers.

Perseids.

rate before llh. was only 47, it rose to about 80 during the last half
of the watch. Indeed, the number of meteors observed at the end of
the watch was more than double the number recorded at the beginning
of it. Thus it is apparent that the most favorable time for such obser-
vations is in the morning hours, and though it is generally incon-
venient for amateurs to extend their vigils thus far, the importance
of doing so can not be too strongly insisted on.

THE AUGUST METEORS. 185

A typical feature of the Perseids is to be found in the streaks
which frequently mark their course (Fig. 1), and serve an extremely
useful purpose in enabling the directions to be registered with great
accuracy. The theoretical velocity of these meteors is thirty-eight
miles per second, so that they belong to the swiftest class of such
bodies, and, as such, would be individually recorded with much diffi-
culty, were it not for the special feature referred to. Their very rapid
transient flights would baflie the observer as he stood endeavoring to
retain the exact points of beginning and ending ; and in the majority
of instances he must absolutely fail to get nearer than a mere approxi-
mation. Only in cases where the meteors sped from one star to an-
other, or in courses parallel to closely adjoining stars, could the paths
be truthfully reproduced on his map. But, fortunately for such inves-
tigations, we have no such difficulties to encounter. The phosphores-
cent line, almost invariably projected on the sky by the nucleus as it
rushes along, remains to guide the eye in fixing its position. It is the
authentic signature of the meteor gone before, and during the brief
span of its endurance the observer knows how to utilize it. It is sel-
dom these streaks last longer than three or four seconds, though in
exceptional cases of Perseid fire-balls they have lingered several min-
utes. The writer found the average 1"8 second from many observa-
tions in August, 1880 ; and the most frequent duration is about two
seconds. All the brighter meteors of the shower display them. Mr.
Henry Corder, of Writtle, has observed these Perseids with great dili-
gence in recent years, and retained many interesting notes of their
peculiarities. Of 910 meteors belonging to this system, which he saw
in the years 1871-79, .526 were accompanied by streaks. These in-
cluded 158 of the first magnitude, only 15 of which were devoid of
streaks ; and 243 of the second magnitude, of which 72 were streak-
less. Among the smaller members the proportion was larger. He
found the brightest meteors were generally pale-green, others orange,
etc.

The luminous streaks, which are known to be the ordinary charac-
teristic of these shooting-stars, have acquired a special significance
from the fact that by their means the radiant point of the shower is
capable of being ascertained with remarkable precision. This impor-
tant element, to be reliably determined, must rest upon a large number
of accurately recorded tracts, which intersect (on being prolonged
backward) at a well-defined position. Many observers have succeeded
in finding this from results of more or less value. Mr. R. P. Greg
analyzed all the positions estimated prior to 1876, and gave the aver-
age at R. A. 44°, Dec. 56° north ; and Major Tupman, from a discus-
sion of his own elaborate observations in the Mediterranean during
the years 1869-'71, derived the point 45J° + 56°, as the center of 28
sub-radiants. Evidently the two results, being founded on a large
number of trustworthy records, and agreeing so closely as they did.

i86

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Bhowed the true radiant to be situated on the northern limit of Perseus,
close to the star Eta of that constellation ; and more recent determi-
nations of a similar nature have fully corroborated that as the chief
diverging center of the August meteors. Many other contemporary
showers have been detected in the same region of the heavens, but the
shower of Perseids recurs year after year from its accustomed point.

During the last eleven years the writer at Bristol has awaited the
annual returns of this shower, and the aggregate results of observa-
tions during the interval between the 6th and 12th of August show
that 2,345 meteors have been recorded, of which 1,428 belonged to the

Fig. 4.— Suowek from Camelopardus (96°+ 71°), August 6ih-12th.

display of Perseids, and 917 to other minor streams of the same epoch.
In 1889 the radiant was judged to be at rj Persei ; in 1871 at B. Came-
lopardi ; and in 1874 at 44° -f 58^°, The average position found dur-
ing the last five years has been at 44° + 57° ; and in the diagram (Fig.
2) a number of paths near this radiant are shown. Some of the me-
teors appear to be slightly erratic in their directions ; but this may be
explained either by errors of observation or by a double or diffused
radiant point, Avhich must often occasion non-conformity in the ob-
served flights. In 1878 two points of departure were manifest from a
series of precisely fixed courses at 44° -f 59° and 42i° -f 54° ; but in
1879 the weather interrupted observations. The present year, how-
ever, afforded an exceptionally favorable opportunity to observers, and
the major radiant determined by the writer was at 44° -f 56°, with the
decided traces of a sub-radiant at 45° + 60°. In 1878 Major Tupman

THE AUGUST METEORS.

187

found the shower double at 46° + 57*6^ and 38° + 56° ; and in 1880
he strongly corroborated the results obtained at Bristol, though his
observations were mainly confined to the night of August 9th. At
the latter station the radiant apparently advanced among the stars of
Perseus, for, while early in the month it was observed at 38° + 56°, it
had shifted to 49^° + 57^° by the 13th. The same peculiarity was
noted in 1877, when the following determinations were made :

Radiant.

7th 40 + 56

August 10th 43 + 58

August 3d

Badiant.

August 12th 50 +

August

65
16th 60+59

There is a prominent display of meteors from the star-group %
Persei at the end of July and beginning of August, and it is possible
that these showers may belong to the same system of concentric meteor-
streams. It is certain that this fact of a progressive radiant requires
fuller elucidation, and to this end observers should keep the data ob-
tained each night separate. It may also be suggested that the radiant
point should be ascertained during each hour of observation, and then,
when the series are compared, any displacement must immediately
become obvious, and its extent and character well defined by the ob-
servations. The meteors from Perseus are so numerous, and the place
of divergence so readily denoted by their enduring streaks, that there
will be no difiiculty in an investigation of this kind. The last two
years' observations have shown how exactly the radiant may be found
\)j carefully conducted researches, and how closely the positions de-
rived by different observers will agree on being compared together :

OBSERVER.

G. L. Tupman

H. Corder

E. F. Sawyer. .
W. F. Dennin"

1879, August.
Chief Radiant.

45 + 56

45 + 57
44i H- 57

46 + 58

1880, Au^st.
Chief Radiant.

44 + 56

45 + 58
44f + 56i
44 4- 56

From these values a mean of 44'8° + 56-8° is derived, which is
probably very near the truth. There is a secondary shower higher in
declination (at about 44|^° -f 60°), but this is merely a branch of the
same stream, for the meteors exhibit the same specialties of appear-
ance as those common to the major shower. An apparent diffuseness
of the radiant point is often brought about by imperfectly registered
tracks, and by allotting the meteors of bordering showers to the
radiant of the Perseids, when in fact they belong to evidently distinct
families.

A few years ago the writer undertook the investigation of these
co-Perseid showers from the large mass of shooting-stars which had
been registered at this epoch at foreign observatories, and are contained

i88

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

in the published catalogues of Heis, Schiaparelli (1872), Weiss, and
Konkoly, These include many thousands of paths observed during
the period from August 6th to 12th, and such of these as were obvi-
ously directed from radiant points situated eastward of Perseus were
projected on the star-maps prepared by Professor Herschel for the
purposes of the Luminous Meteor Committee of the British Associa-
tion. In all 762 meteors were thus utilized, and they gave distinct
evidence of the positions of a number of active streams in Auriga and
Camelopardus, some of which were previously observed by Heis, and
many of them have been confirmed by the writer during the last five
years. The following list embraces the chief radiants thus deduced :

Meteor- Showers east of Perseus, August QtJi-l'ith.

N«.

1

2
3
4
5
6

n

8
9

Radiant.
a 5
o o

70 + 64

61

96
61
51

4- 39

71
48

+ 74

78 + 56
76 + 45
50 + 47
92 + 57

No. of
Meteors

.. 74

59

. . 87

. . 59

. . 62

59

43

42

42

No

10 ..

11 . ..

12 . . .

13 ...

14 ...

15 .. .

16 ...

17 ...
18

Radiant,
a 8

134 + 7°7
74 -I- 33

104 + 34
99 + 46
45 -(- 33
76 + 74
52 -I- 20
87 + 34
87 + 15

Ifo. of

Metoora.

30
28
13
17
18
20
14
14
8

The relative positions of these showers are depicted in the diagram
(Fig. 3), where the more prominent displays of the group are represent-
ed by deeper circles than the minor. Some of the latter can not yet
be regarded as certainly established, inasmuch as they rest on slender
materials.

Heis devoted much attention to the meteors of the August period
during more than forty years (1833-'75), and in his extensive " results,"
published in 1877, gives the following as the chief radiant points for
August 9th-llth :

Sjmbol.

A..
B4

Ba

Crs

Cre

Cra

Gr,

Radiant.
a 5
o o

45 + 52
330 + 55

292 4- 70
12 + 32

+
+

355
11

81
60

73 + 63

No. of
Meteors.

233
164
135
93
103
192
125

Symbol.

Cr„

Sti2
Stis

St„

Sti8
fetifl

fetao

Radiant.
a 8

273° + 56
40 + 45
56 + 70
27 + 21
25 + 58

295 + 44
51 + 75

No. of
Met«or3.

93
118
105

70
282
110
133

But, in addition to these, there are a large number of radiants scat-
tered over the sky, especially in the eastern quadrant. One of the
most notable of these proceeds from the eastern extremity of Aries
(44° -I- 25°), and supplies some bright meteors in the morning hours ;
but the most conspicuous shower discovered east of Perseus at this
epoch lies in Camelopardus, and in the diagram (Fig. 4) a number of
its meteors, falling among the stars of Ursa Major, are reproduced

THE AUGUST METEORS.

189

from the catalogues of foreign observers. This shower, however,
escaped the detection of Heis and others, who had been engaged in
similar investigations, though it appears to be of more importance than
several radiants in its vicinity which have been independently deter-
mined by several observers. At the end of July, 1878, the writer noted
a few brilliant, slow meteors, from a point at 96° + 72°, and this may
have been an early evidence of the radiant which is placed in a region
bare of large trees between Telescopium and Polaris. It is just north
of the triangle of faint stars {I. p. q. Ganielopardi of Bode), east of a
line drawn from (i Aurigoe to Polaris, and will, no doubt, be frequently
reobserved in future years, though the shower of Perseids usually mo-
nopolizes attention at the epoch of its annual returns.

There is a shower near ?/ Persei (No. 2), well defined, on August
6th-12th, August 21st-23d, and September 6th-15th. At the latter

FiQ. 5.— Shower op Perseids (61° + 36°), max. September 6th, 7th.

epoch it furnishes some fine meteors and constitutes a prominent dis-
play. The diagram (Fig. 5) gives the positions of eighty-six paths
conforming to this radiant, observed at Bristol, and at several foreign
stations in September.

The ordinary designation of Perseids for the special meteor-shower of
August 10th is always understood in its individual application, though
it must not be supposed that this is the only shower of Perseids visible
in that month. The fact is, there are many separate showers directed
from that constellation early and late in August, so that we require

190 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

some distinguishing titles or symbols to conveniently particularize either
of them which it may be necessary to refer to. The method now-
adopted, of naming the chief periodical showers by the constellations
in which their radiant points are situated, is very appropriate ; and
such displays as the Orionids, Leonids, and Geminids, have become so
well known by their titles that it would be unwise and inconsistent to
attempt reform. But with regard to the minor systems, which are
becoming very numerous, and require an equally ready mode of ex-
pression, there is a great difficulty in avoiding complications.

There are certainly five nearly simultaneous showers of Perseids
early in August ; and in every month of the year, except May and
June, meteors continue to fall from that constellation. If the present
mode is adopted of styling them Perseids I, Perseids II, and so on pro-
gressively, a good deal of confusion must eventually arise as new sys-
tems are discovered ; and this classification by Roman numbers, how-
ever appropriate it may be in some of its other applications, will have
to give way to a more distinguishing means of reference. The name
at present only gives indication of the constellation from which the
meteors emanate, without regard to the date or approximate place of
the radiant, and it seems to me that the difficulty may be obviated by
including the nearest fixed star and the epoch with that name. To
render the proposal clear, let us take the different streams proceeding
from the under-mentioned points in Perseus in August: 44° + 56°,
32° + 53°, 61° + 36°, 61° + 48°, 46° + 47°, which may be thus termed ;

7) Perseids (August 10th).
X Perseids (August lst-3d).
€ Perseids (August).
(X Perseids (August).
a Perseids (August).

This is apparently a preferable method to that of Perseids I, II, III,
IV, and V, which must occasion endless trouble in references to find
what special stream is meant. Moreover, the numbers seem only in
fair application when affixed progressively to the successive showers
of the year, for it would be hardly consistent to call a radiant visible
in Perseus early in January by the designation of, say, "Perseids
XXXVIII." Yet this is what we are drifting to, unless a fresh sys-
tem is introduced to accommodate the rapidly increasing number of
meteor-streams. — Popular Science Beview.

EARLY PRACTICE OF MEDICINE BY WOMEN. 191

THE EARLY PRACTICE OF MEDICINE BY WOMEK*

Br Professor H. CAKRINGTON BOLTON, Ph. D.,

OF TRINITY COLLEGE, HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT.

IN attempting to sketch the history of the entrance of women into
the medical profession, we find the earlier periods obscured by a
meageruess of material and a lack of sequence which our superficial
researches have failed to supplement.

Isolated cases of gifted women attaining notable surgical skill and
successfully pursuing the divine art of healing are recorded at various
epochs in the history of the intellectual development of woman, but
they occur at long intervals of time and in widely scattered chronicles.
In the following pages we have not undertaken to present an exhaus-
tive history or catalogue of female practitioners of medicine ; we have
simply collected a few scattered notices, and molded them into an
outline to be hereafter filled up by a more competent hand.

These notices refer to the earlier history only, and by earlier his-
tory we mean the period prior to the establishment of medical schools
for women, and to the present movement for their higher education.
From the earliest times women have successfully grappled with a most
diflicult branch of medical science, gynecology, but long-existing and
deep-seated prejudices prevented an extension of their practice, and
save in exceptional cases they were forbidden both the acquirement of
accurate and systematic knowledge and the exercise of their chosen
vocation. So long as the practice of medicine formed a part of the
priestly functions, as in ancient Egypt, the crafty guardians of super-
stition sedulously concealed their superior knowledge from an ignorant
and credulous people, and especially from women. Yet the story of
the birth of Moses shows that female gynecologists were not unknown
to the Egyptians.

At a later period the Greeks thought to add dignity to the practice
of medicine by forbidding it to slaves and (forsooth !) to women.
During the middle ages, when every branch of science was more or
less dishonored by degrading superstitions, we find women, as well as
men, yielding to their influence and exercising the double calling of
sorceress and healer of the sick ; nor has the intelligence of the com-
mon people even in the nineteenth century reached such a height as
to render the business of medical clairvoyant nugatory and profitless.

The invention of medicine was almost universally attributed by
the ancients to the gods, and it is a curious fact that in both Egyptian
and Grecian mythology we find female deities occupying important

* An address delivered at the commencement exercises of the Woman's Medical
College of the New York Infirmary, May '27, 1880.

192 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

relations to the healing art. To the Egyptian deity Isis, the wife and
sister of Osiris, peculiar medical skill was attributed^ and a multitude
of diseases were regarded as the effects of her anger. According to
tradition she had given unequivocal proof of her power by the restora-
tion of her son Orus to life. She was the reputed discoverer also of
several remedies, and even as late as Galen the materia medica con-
tained several compounds which bore her name : thus, in the symboli-
cal language of the Egyptian priestly physicians, the vervain was called
the " tears of Isis."

According to the annals of Grecian mythology, Hygeia, daughter
of ^sculapius, the god of medicine, was worshiped in the temples of
Argos as the goddess of health. In art, Hygeia is represented as a
virgin wearing an expression of benevolence and kindness, and hold-
ing in one hand a serpent which is feeding from a cup in the other.
She was regarded as the goddess both of physical and mental health,
thereby personifying the aphorism, "Mens sana in corpore sano."
The Greeks also ascribed medical power to Juno, who, under the name
of Lucina, was held to preside over the birth of children, and to Ocy-
ro€?, daughter of the Centaur Cheiron, who was renowned for his skill
in surgery and medicine. The sorceresses Medea and Circe were said
to make use of herbs in their enchantments and for the purpose of
counteracting the effects of poisons. These and similar fables prob-
ably preserve in allegoric form facts connected with the practice of
medicine by women in the remotest antiquity. The writings of Homer
have been examined to ascertain his testimony, but, with the exception
of slight reference to woman's part in nursing wounded warriors, he
contributes nothing to the subject under consideration.

The learned among the Celts, the Druids, were at the same time
judges, legislators, priests, and physicians. By persuading the people
that they maintained intimate relations with the gods, they succeeded
in imposing their authority on the ignorant masses. " Their wives,
who were called Alraunes, exercised the calling of sorceresses, causing
considerable evil by their witchcraft, but caring for warriors wounded
in battle. They gathered those plants to which they attributed magic
virtues and they unraveled dreams " (Dunglison),

The first female practitioner who received a medical education
appears to be Agnodice, a young Athenian woman who lived about
300 B. c. To satisfy her desire for knowledge she disguised herself in
male attire, and, braving the fatal results of detection, dared to attend
the schools of medicine forbidden to her sex. Among her instructors
was numbered Herophilus, the greatest anatomist of antiquity and the
first who dissected human subjects. After completing her studies,
Agnodice preserved her disguise and practiced her chosen calling in
the Grecian capital with great success, giving particular attention to
the diseases of her own sex. The physicians of Athens becoming jeal-
ous of Agnodice's great reputation and lucrative practice, summoned

EARLY PRACTICE OF MEDICINE BY WOMEN. 193

her before the Areopagus, and accused her of abusing her trusts in
dealing with female patients. To establish her innocence, Agnodice
disclosed her sex, and her persecutors then accused her of violating
the law prohibiting women and slaves from studying medicine, but the
wives of the most influential Athenians arose in her defense and even-
tually obtained a revocation of the law.

The laws and customs of the Romans, as well as of the Greeks,
were antagonistic to the entrance of women into the medical profes-
sion, yet Galen, Pliny, and others have preserved the names of a few
distinguished in the art of healing : Phpenarete, the mother of Socrates,
Olympia of Thebes, Salpe, Sotira, Elephantis, Favilla, Aspasia, and
Cleopatra. Of these, details are generally wanting. Scribonius Largus
writes of an " honest matron " who cured several epileptic patients by
an absurd remedy, and mentions having purchased of a woman a
prescription for the cure of colic, the composition of which she had
learned in Africa. Why Aspasia appears iu this connection is not
perfectly clear ; the talented wife of Pericles, renowned as " a model
of female loveliness," was doubtless too involved in affairs of state to
undertake the absorbing cares of the medical profession. Cleopatra,
the accomplished and luxurious Queen of Egypt, of whom so many
marvels are related, is named among those women possessed of medi-
cal skill ; she is rej)orted to have compounded cosmetics and to have
written on the art of preserving beauty, but this statement is probably
no more worthy of credence than that of the infatuated alchemists of
the middle ages, who would persuade us that Cleopatra was the for-
tunate possessor of the philosopher's stone and of the universal sol-
vent. In proof of the former statement, they point to her personal at-
tractions, unchanged by increasing years, and to her immense wealth ;
in proof of the latter, they rely with confidence on the well-known
fable of the solution of the costly pearl at the extravagant banquet to
Marc Antony.

In a Roman lady named Fabiola we find an early pi-edecessor of
Florence Nightingale. She was of the illustrious house of Fabius, and
was celebrated in the fourth century for piety and charity. She is to
be held in grateful remembrance as the founder of hospitals in Italy,
and she is said to have personally nui'sed the sick at Ostia. The
establishment of hospitals is commonly credited to the Emperor Julian,
362 A. D., with whom Fabiola was contemporary ; perhaps she took an
active part in the humane movement, and held a position analogous to
that of lady manager in modern times.*

Half a century later lived a woman justly distinguished for com-
bining in one person a high degree of female loveliness, womanly vir-
tue, and intellectual strength : though not occupied with the art of

* Celsus, who wrote in the reign of Augustus (a. d. 1), mentions large hospitals where
patients were treated with specific medicines. (Milligan's Ed., p. 14.) Seneca also refers
to them as " valetudinaria."
VOI-. XVIII. — 13

19+ THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

healing, we can not pass in silence the accomplished Hypatia. Born
at Alexandria in the latter part of the fourth century, the daughter of
Theon, an eminent mathematician and philosopher, she soon excelled
her father in these branches of learning. After profiting by profound
studies under celebrated masters at Athens and Alexandria, she pub-
licly taught philosophy at both these centers of culture. Gibbon writes
of her, " In the bloom of beauty and in the maturity of wisdom, the
modest maid refused her lovers and instructed her disciples." On
Hypatia's inhuman murder at the instigation of the jealous Cyril and
his fanatical followers, it is not here necessary to dwell.

The practice of medicine by women obtained to some extent during
the middle ages. Under the influence of Mohammedan rule, women
were placed in excessive isolation, and it is not surprising to find under
these circumstances that certain women were skilled in attending to
the requirements of their own sex. Thus Albucasis, of Cordova, one
of the most skillful surgeons of the twelfth century, secured the ser-
vices of properly instructed women for assistance in operations on
females in which considerations of delicacy intervened. Avicenna
also, writing of remedies for diseases of the eyes, mentions a collyrium
compounded by a woman well versed in medical science. On the
whole, however, the number of women instructed in medicine among
the Arabs was very small, owing possibly to the inferiority to which
women were condemned by Eastern usages.

In Christian countries the nuns as well as the pi'iests attended to
the healing of the sick as an act of charity and piety. Abelard, in the
twelfth century, permitted the practice of surgery to those of the con-
vent of the Paraclete, over which Heloise presided. The most cele-
brated of the learned nuns was Hiidegarde (a. d. 1098-1180), abbess of
the convent of Rupertsberg, near Bingen on the Rhine. She compiled
a sort of materia medica, which comprises a variety of superstitious
remedies. Radegonde of France, the founder of a convent at Poitiers
(died 587), the pious ascetic Elizabeth of Hungary (died 1231), Hed-
wigia, wife of Henry the Bearded, and other women who devoted
themselves to the care of the sick, may be properly regarded as praise-
worthy exemplars of Christian benevolence rather than educated prac-
titioners of medicine.

In the famous school of medicine established at Salernura by Bene-
dictine monks in the eleventh century, we find women taking an im-
portant part. Ordericus Vitalis, in his " Ecclesiastical History " (writ-
ten about 1130), relates that an abbot eminent in natural sciences-, and
especially distinguished in medicine, visited Salernum in the year 10.59
for the purpose of discussing medical topics, and found no one erudite
enough to reply to his propositions save a certain woman of great
learning. This woman he does not name, but she is supposed to be
the same as Trotula of Ruggiero, whose reputation at that period was
world-wide. At Salernum, women were engaged in the preparation of

\

EARLY PRACTICE OF MEDICINE BY WOMEN. 195

drugs and cosmetics, and in the practice of medicine among persons of
both sexes : such were Abella, author of two medical poems ; Costanza
Calenda, the talented and beautiful daughter of a skillful physician,
under whose instructions she attained to a doctor's degree ; Mercuriade,
author of several treatises ; Rebecca Guarna, Adelmota Maltraversa,
and Marguerite of Naples, who obtained royal authority for practicing
the medical art. (Beaugrand, in "Diet. Encyc. Sci. Medicales.")

The ancient and honorable universities of Italy were, we believe,
the first to recognize the capacity of women to give instruction of a
high character. The University of Bologna, founded in 1116, was at-
tended in the year 1250 by ten thousand students, engaged m the study
of jurisprudence, of philosophy, and of medicine. " Here was first
taught the anatomy of the human frame, the mysteries of galvanic
electricity, and later the circulation of the blood." Here, too, were
the earliest successful experiments in admitting women to occupy pro-
fessorial chairs, for a long line of female professors taught in many
departments of learning.*

As early as the thirteenth century two women were numbered
among the eminent professors of the University of Bologna, Accorsa
Accorso and Bettisia Gozzadini, the former held the chair of Philoso-
phy, the latter that of Jurisprudence. In the fourteenth century the
lovely and learned Novella d' Andrea, daughter of a distinguished law-
yer, often took her father's place in the professorial chair, and instruct-
ed his students in law. Of Novella it is reported that she was so
beautiful that she lectured behind a curtain, " lest, if her charms were
seen, the students should let their young eyes wander over her exquisite
features and quite forget their jurisprudence." The rival University
of Padua, founded in 1228, had also its female representatives. Of
these the most distinguished was Elena Lucrezia Cornaro. This in-
teresting woman was born at Venice, June 5, 1646, and at a very early
age exhibited an extraordinary capacity for acquiring languages. She
was familiar with French, Spanish, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, besides
her native Italian, and had some acquaintance with Arabic. While
endowed by nature with poetical and musical talents, she possessed at
the same time great perseverance and capacity for serious studies, and
discoursed eloquently on abstruse topics in philosophy, mathematics,
astronomy, and theology. At the age of thirty-two, the University
of Padua conferred upon her the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Cornaro seems never to have held any public position, being naturally
of a retiring disposition, and moreover exceedingly devoted to the
order of St. Benedict. After acquiring a European reputation, she
died at the comparatively early age of thirty-eight (1684).

The beginning of the following century witnessed the birth of one

* According to Madame Villari, whose papers on the " Learned Women of Bologna "
furnish us with many of the succeeding data, there is to the present day no law prevent-
ing women from graduating at Italian universities or taking professorial positions.

196 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of the most gifted women tlie world has ever seen. Laura Caterina
Bassi was born at Bologna, October 31, 1711. She was the daughter
of a distinguished lawyer and litterateur, and at a tender age manifested
extraordinary precocity, being able while still a child to translate flu-
ently most difficult Latin and Greek. Encouraged by her father, she
pursued her studies under the guidance of eminent masters ; she leai'ned
physiology and medicine with the erudite physician Gaetano Tacconi,
mathematics with Manfredi, and natural philosophy with the disciples
of Gassendi, and she astonished these profound philosophers by her
talents. Laura Bassi studied for the pure love of knowledge, and had
no ambition to seek public honors, but, to gratify the pardonable pride
of a father as well as the earnest desires of her instructors, she con-
sented to support a philosophical thesis before a learned audience of
professors. This event took place on the ITth of April, 1732, before
she had reached the age of twenty-one years. The occasion was made
one of festivity by the whole city, who turned out to do her honor ;
the assemblage was presided over by two cardinals, Lambertini, after-
ward Pope Benedict XIV, and Grimaldi.

According to custom her thesis was opposed by seven learned men ;
to these she replied in elegant Latin with great success and amid the
applause of the distinguished audience. A month later the degree of
Doctor was conferred upon her, and she was honored by a position in
the Faculty of Philosophy. The Senate subsequently bestowed upon
her the chair of Physics, and commemorated the event by striking a
medal which bore her own portrait. She held the professorship
twenty-eight years with marked success, paying particular attention to
mathematics and physics, also to helles-lettres. Several academies of
learning elected her to membership. In 1738 she was married to J. J.
Veratti, a physician, and became in the course of time the mother of
twelve children. A learned French litterateur who visited Bologna in
her day thus describes her appearance : " Laura Bassi has a counte-
nance slightly marked with sraall-pox, but of a sweet and modest ex-
pression ; her black eyes are sparkling, yet tranquil, and she is serious
and composed in demeanor without affectation or vanity. Her memory
is tenacious, her judgment sound, and her imagination active." She
died in the year 1778, at the age of sixty-seven.

Laura Bassi does not seem to have pursued medical studies, and cer-
tainly never engaged in practice ; but any account of the gifted women
of Bologna who labored in this direction would be incomplete without
a brief notice of Madame Veratti.

Contemporary with this interesting woman lived another, less gifted
but scarcely less renowned. Anna Morandi was born at Bologna five
years later than Laura Bassi, and died four years earlier. She became
the wife of Giovanni Manzolini, a poor, hard-working maker of ana-
tomical models. Manzolini was an expert painter and modeler in wax,
and was emj^loyed by one Lelli to construct a series of anatomical

EARLY PRACTICE OF MEDICINE BY WOMEN. 197

models for the use of the professors in the Institute of Bologna. Anna
not only aided her husband, but soon surpassed him in skill, and par-
ticularly in that scientific knowledge upon which the success of their
joint labors so largely depended. About this time Giovanni Antonio
Galli, a skillful surgeon and Professor of Gynecology, opened a school
of obstetrics in his house, and, encouraged by him, Anna began to lec-
ture on anatomy to private classes. In these lectures she not only im-
parted with peculiar talent the knowledge derived from her husband,
but she also communicated many discoveries made by herself. So
great was her skill in all dissections requiring delicacy of touch and
minuteness of detail, and so clearly did she demonstrate both theoreti-
cally and practically the wonderful structure of the human body, that
she rapidly acquired a European reputation, and her lecture-room was
frequented by students of all countries.

In 1755 Anna Manzolini became a widow, and was left with very
slender means of support, but her good qualities raised up friends who
secured for her a comfortable subsistence. Though she received tempt-
ing offers from other Italian universities, and even from England and
Russia, she preferred to remain in her native city, Bologna. Not long
after her husband's death she was appointed to the chair of Anatomy in
the Bologna Institute.

Anna Morandi-Manzolini enjoys the distinction of having been the
first " to reproduce in wax such minute portions of the human body
as the capillary vessels and the nerves." Her collection of anatomical
models, still to be seen at the Institute of Science, bears silent testi-
mony to her remarkable skill and accurate knowledge. " Her lectures
w-ere delivered in the fragrant cedar hall which is one of the modern
sights of Bologna and in which Lelli's anatomical wooden figures sup-
porting the canopy over the professorial chair attract general admira-
tion." In the anatomical gallery of the university is to be seen her
portrait in wax, modeled by herself at the request of many admiring
friends. Anna ]\[anzolini closed a laborious and honored life in 1774,
at the age of fifty-eight years.

The city of Bologna, in the middle of the eighteenth century, saw
three gifted women simultaneously occupying seats in the faculty of
its ancient university. Besides Laura Bassi and Anna Morandi-Man-
zolini, of whom we have briefly spoken, Maria Gaetano Agnesi was
equally distinguished.

Maria Agnesi was born at Milan, March 16, 1718. At an early age
she manifested a remarkable facility for acquiring languages, and when
only twenty years old was able to discourse in French, Spanish, Ger-
man, Greek, and Hebrew, besides her mother-tongue. She displayed
marked ability also in philosophy and mathematics, and while still
young sustained one hundred and ninety-one theses which were after-
ward printed under the title " Propositiones Philosophicse." In 1748
Agnesi published a treatise on algebra, including the differential and

198 THE POPULAR SCIJENCE MONTHLY.

integral calculus, in which she displayed wonderful judgment and eru-
dition. This work (" Instituzioni Analitichi ") was afterward translated
by Colson, the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, and
was used by the students of that university. In 1750 her father, who
was Professor of Mathematics at the University of Bologna, fell sick,
and she obtained permission of the good Pope Benedictus XIV to oc-
cupy her father's chair. In person Agnesi is said to have been beau-
tiful, modest, and of pleasing manners. Her severe studies overtaxed
her delicate frame, and shortly after she renounced the world and took
refuge among the Blue Nuns at Bologna. In this nunnery she lived
several years a devotee and an invalid ; she died in 1799.

While Laura Bassi taught physics, Anna Morandi-Manzolini anat-
omy, and Maria Agnesi mathematics, in the Bolognese University,
we might naturally expect the gentler sex to avail themselves of the
opportunity of studying under their sisters' instructions. And such, in
fact, was the case : the names of some of these students are recorded
by the historian, many of whom received the degrees of Doctor of
Philosophy and Doctor of Medicine. In 1799 Doctor Maria delle
Donne appears as Professor of Medicine and Obstetrics ; Clotilda
Tambroni was Professor of the Greek Language and Literature, from
1793 to 1808. To these names should be added those of Novella Cal-
derini, Maddalena Buonsignori, Dorotea Bocchi (who was both doctor
and professor), Christina Roccati, Ph. D., Zaffira Ferretti, M. D., Maria
Sega, M. D., and numei-ous graduates of Padua, Pavia, Ferrara, and
other Italian universities.

Leaving the Italian Peninsula, which was so productive of re-
markable personages, we will briefly examine the position of women
pi'actitioners of medicine in other parts of Europe.

Beaugrand states that the most ancient document extant relative to
the organization of surgery in France forbids the practice of surgeons
and oi female sui'geons who have failed to pass a satisfactory examina-
tion before the proper authorities. This paper bears the date 1311.
References to female surgeons appear again in an edict of King John
in 1352 ; from these documents it appears that women exercised the
function of surgeon under legal authority. At a somewhat later period
we find the calling of physician followed by women in Spain, Germany,
and England.

In Spain, the Universities of Cordova, Salamanca, and Alcala
honored many women with doctors' degrees. We note also the ap-
pearance at Madrid in 1587 of a learned medical work entitled " Nueva
filosofia de la naturaleza del hombre," and published over the name
Olivia del Sabuco. Of this person, however, nothing whatever is cer-
tainly known, and it has been conjectured that the name Olivia was a
pseudonym assumed by some eminent physician.

In Germany many women cultivated medical science : Barbara
Weintrauben was an author of no great merit ; the Duchess Eleanor of

EARLY PRACTICE OF MEDICINE BY WOMEN. 199

Troppau, Catliarina Tissheim, Helena Aldegunde, and Frau Erxleben
are deserving passing notice. The last mentioned was one of the most
successful female practitioners of the last centuiy. Her maiden name
was Dorothea Leporin, but she is best known as Frau Erxleben. Frau-
lein Leporin pursued her medical studies at the University of Halle,
and obtained a diploma in 1734. She settled in the little town of
Quedlinburg, at the foot of the Hartz Mountains, became the wife of the
rector of the Church of St. Nicholas in the same place, industriously-
practiced her profession, and became eminent for her skill and learn-
ing. Her son, J. C. P. Erxleben, inherited from his mother a love of
scientific pursuits and became a distinguished naturalist and professor
in the University of Gottingen.

In England, Anna Wolley and Elizabeth of Kent were occupied
with the preparation of drugs as early as the seventeenth century, and
both published works on medical subjects.

In this hasty and superficial sketch of the history of the early
practice of medicine by women we would not be true to the facts if
we omitted mention of certain ignorant and vulgar women who as-
sumed medical knowledge and medical skill to impose upon a too
credulous public. That avaricious women, fond of notoriety and care-
less of their reputation, should imitate the methods adopted in every
age by unprincipled men, is not surprising^ though it may be mortify-
ing. To this class belonged Louise Bourgeois, nurse to Marie de'
Medici, the Queen of Henry IV of France ; though an ignorant char-
latan, she acquired extraordinary influence over her royal patroness,
and her career abounds in curious, eventful episodes. She was the
author of several medical treatises on the diseases of women, one of
which was published at Paris in 1617.

A century later another female practitioner flourished, of whom
women have no reason to be proud. In the year 1738 Mrs. Joanna
Stephens proclaimed in London that she had discovered a sovereign
remedy for a painful disease. Notwithstanding her gross ignorance
and vulgar demeanor, she secured a large circle of patients from among
the upper and wealthy classes, and, after enriching herself by enor-
mous fees drawn from their credulity, she proposed to make her medi-
cal discovery public in consideration of the modest sum of twenty-five
thousand dollars^ A subscription was started for this pui-pose and
enthusiastically taken up ; the clergy, lords, and ladies, with an inex-
plicable infatuation, hastened to add their names to the list of sub-
scribers. Failing, however, to raise so large a sum of money, Mrs. Ste-
phens's friends obtained a grant of the desired amount from Parlia-
ment. The certificate testifying to the "Utility, Efficacy, and Dis-
solving Power of the Medicines," bears the date March 5, 1739, and is
signed by twenty justices. These dearly purchased remedies were
three in number, " a Powder, a Decoction, and Pills." The powder
consisted of calcined egg-shells and snails ; the decoction was a dis-

200 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

gusting mixture of herbs, soap, and honey, boiled in water ; and the
pills were made of "calcined wild-carrot seeds, burdock-seeds, ashen
keys, hips, and haws — all burned to a blackness — soap and honey."

Contemporary Avith Mrs. Stephens lived another impostor, Mrs.
Mapp, sometimes known as " Crazy Sally of Epsom," and described as
an "enormously fat, ugly creature, accustomed to frequent country
fairs, about which she loved to reel, screaming, abusive, and in a state
of beastly intoxication." This attractive lady was by pi-ofession a
bone-setter, and was patronized by patients of rank and wealth, who
sought her charily bestowed favors with ill-disguised contempt of her
person. The town authorities of Epsom greatly esteemed Mrs. Mapp,
or, perhaps we should say, highly valued the benefit the town derived
from the influx of wealthy patients, and they offered her the sum of
five hundred dollars per annum if she would continue to reside in the
town.

The fii'st half of this century has witnessed the career of a few
women eminent in the art of healing ; in France Madame La Chapelle
had an extensive gynecological practice, and Madame Boivin attained
to such distinction that she was honored with the degree of Doctor of
Medicine by the University of Marburg. In Germany Charlotte Hei-
denreich and Fran Heiland, her step-mother, were similarly honored
with doctors' diplomas.

It is the glory of America that she is distinguished above all coun-
tries not only as the cradle of liberty but also as the foster-mother of
the intellectual advancement of women. Yet this has not always been
the case ; in the early chronicles of the colonists (themselves refugees
from persecution) we find, strangely enough, many laws of an exacting
and repressive character, some of which were aimed directly at the
ambition and zeal of women. In the famous Blue Laws of Connecti-
cut the following curious entry occurs under the date of March, 1638 :
" Jane Hawkins, the wife of Richard Hawkins, had liberty till the
beginning of the third month called May, and the magistrates (if shee
did not depart before) to dispose of her ; and in the mean time shee is
not to meddle in surgery or phisick, drinks, plaisters or oyles, nor to
question matters of religion except with the Elders for satisfaction."
(" True Blue Laws of Connecticut," by J. H. Trumbull, 1876.)

A hundred and forty years later we find marked progress in lib-
erality in the State of Connecticut. As early as 1773, in the town
of Torrington, Litchfield County, two women were greatly honored
and much sought for on account of their remarkable skill as accou-
cheuses. The first of these, Mrs. Jacob Johnson, to quote the historian
of Torrington (Rev. Samuel Orcutt), was as thoroughly known and
trusted in her profession as any physician that was ever in the town.
" She rode on horseback, keeping a horse for the special purpose, and
traveling night and day, far and near," to meet her engagements.
"She kept an account of the number of cases she had, and the success

EARLY PRACTICE OF MEDICINE BY WOMEN. 201

of the patients, and the new-comers, and of these last there is at least
one livins: in the town. In the midst of her usefulness she was re-
moved by death, and it became a great inquiry, ' AVho will take the
place of Granny Johnson ? ' " This question was answered in the person
of Mrs. Huldah Beach, daughter of Aaron Loomis, Jr., more success-
fully than was anticipated. Mrs. Beach became as celebrated in her
calling as Granny Johnson, and continued to attend to her professional
duties until an advanced age. She was a woman of remarkably fine
personal appearance and decided dignity of carriage, yet marked kind-
liness of manner. Her intellectual strength and ability were percepti-
ble to every one, and she in consequence commanded great respect in
all classes of society, and won the confidence of the people so that but
few calls were made on any other physician in her specialty, on the
western side of the town. She also rode as far as Winchester, Goshen,
and Litchfield.

Dr. Orcutt, whose " History of Torrington " has furnished us with
these particulars, remarks in this connection, " Many have imagined
that, in the practice of medicine by women, a new era has arrived, but
in this there is only a ' restoration of the lost arts.' "

Our allotted task is completed, yet we can not close this address
without a brief survey of the pi-esent period, in which the facilities
afforded women in all branches of learning contrast strongly with the
formerly wellnigh insurmountable impediments and obstacles.

Women desirous of acquiring medical knowledge are no longer
obliged to disguise themselves in male attire like Agnodice the Athe-
nian, nor are practitioners liable to suffer the penalties of the law for
their works of benevolence and charity. In 1880 the young woman
with aspirations for intellectual culture finds open to her such excel-
lent training-schools as Holyoke, Wells, and Rutgers, such- noble insti-
tutions as Vassar, Smith, and Wellesley. Does she not shrink from
contact with her brothers, she may gain entrance into many universi-
ties, either expressly founded in a liberal spirit, as Oberlin, Cornell,
and Ann Arboi-, or which have yielded to the steady pressure of pub-
lic opinion, and now open their doors more or less widely to the gen-
tler sex. To enumerate the latter would be tedious and unprofitable ;
suflice it to say that even venerable and aristocratic Harvard has lately
joined the number, and our own Columbia, should her President's
views prevail, will not be slow to follow.

The young woman who seeks intellectual training of a more tech-
nical character, with a view to adopting a professional career, will find
many avenues opening up with constantly increasing privileges and
facilities. The student in art, thanks to the philanthi-opy of our ven-
erable citizen, Peter Cooper, can, without incurring expense, acquire
a knowledge of designing or of wood-engraving which will hardly fail
to secure for her a competence. The student in biology will receive
her share of attention at a summer school of science on our Atlantic

202 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

seaboard, or held in connection with some enterprising institution of
learning. The student in pharmacy and chemistry can conduct her
researches on an equality with men, or, if she prefer, in laboratories
controlled and officered in large part by women themselves.

The student in medicine now gains access to medical colleges in
nearly every State in the Union, and the legitimacy of her pursuit as
well as her ability to grapple with it gains increasing advocates. " She
is no longer regarded as too good and too stupid to study medicine."
The candidate for medical honors also finds in Boston, Philadelphia,
New York, and Chicago, well-appointed schools of medicine especially
adapted to her needs, with corps of trained and sympathizing instruc-
tors ready to lend a helping hand.

Looking across the Atlantic, we find countries so lately intolerant
of the intellectual advancement of woman at last yielding, not always
gracefully, to the inevitable. The little republic of Switzerland and
the mighty empire of Russia have for many years manifested practi-
cal sympathy with the cause ; and now, slowly yet surely, conser-
vative England begins to recognize the fact that the Anglo-Saxon race,
with its boasted love of liberty, has been neglectful of its duty to wo-
mankind.

To trace any more fully the history of the recent period does not
fall within the province of our address ; we look to the pioneers of
this movement who are still with us for an exhaustive and authen-
tic record such as participators and eye-witnesses alone can supply.

METHODS IX INDUSTEIAL EDUCATIOK*

Bt Professor SILVANUS P. THOMPSON.

SHALL we have a school in the workshop, or a workshop in the
school ? Or what other combination can we devise that will per-
mit mental and scientific training to proceed after the age has been at-
tained at which serious manual labor must begin ? Hitherto we have
been contented at most to organize night schools, evening classes, and
so-called Mechanics' Listitutes for our apprentices, leaving it to their
own caprice whether they chose to employ their leisure hours in self-
improvement or squander them in self-indulgence. On the Continent
of Europe somewhat different ideas have prevailed. In Belgium,
Switzerland, Germany, France, and even Russia, there are innumerable
examples of Technical Schools and Polytechnic Schools of all descrip-
tions, which profess to teach with greater or less completeness the

* Continuation of article from the September " Contemporary Review," entitled " The
Apprenticeship of the Future," the first part of which was published in the November
Monthly, under the title of " Education as a Hindrance to Manual Occupations."

METHODS IN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. 203

elements of certain handicraft industries. Overlooking the extreme
diversity of type that exists among such schools, we have been apt
mentally to throw them all together, and to refer to the supposed sys-
tem on which they proceed as " the Continental system," in contradis-
tinction to our British system of training, as we are pleased to term
our obsolescent institution of apprenticeship proper. Nothing could
be more misleading than this classification. It arises from lack of in-
formation as to the nature and work of such schools. It is not sur-
prising, when such ignorance prevails, that the fallacy has in conse-
quence been widely spread that the long undisputed superiority of
British-made goods was due to the superiority of the British system.
On the contrary, that superiority, which arose out of quite other eco-
nomic causes, was the very thing which stirred up the Germans, Swiss,
Belgians, and French to devise schemes for training workmen more
efficiently and intelligently than was done in England, since only by
such means could they hope to compete with her industries. Let the
significant fact, that a very large proportion of the foremen of work-
shops in our skilled industries are Germans or Belgians, attest the result
of a higher technical training. Besides the innumerable Gewerh-schulen
and Beal-schulen of Germany, where a general preparatory scientific
and technical education is given, that empire can now produce a long
array of trade-schools, sometimes organized as polytechnic schools, and
sometimes devoted to particular trades, such as weaving, dyeing, or
carpentry. In Switzerland such schools also abound ; and in the com-
mercial centers of Belgium they exhibit an extensive and healthy de-
velopment. In France there are the technical schools of Douai, Cha-
lons, and Aix, the iScole la Martini^re of Lyons, the Horological School
of Besan9on, the Apprenticeship School of Havre, where workers in
wood and iron are trained, and twenty others, including five or six in
or near Paris. The technical schools of Paris present, indeed, so much
diversity in their several organizations and results that it would be ex-
tremely difficult, even by going over a much wider area, to find so
many difi^erent yet thoroughly characteristic types. To understand
how completely different are the systems of organization by which it
has been sought to solve this great problem, it would be necessary to
pass from the Polytechnicum of Zurich — the Technical University, }'>ar
excellence — to the Horological School of Besan5on, and from the
iLunst-gewerhschulen of Munich and Nuremberg to the unrivaled
Pedagogic School of Moscow, and even then the list of types would
be less complete than that which is afforded by the schools of Paris. In
that great capital, in addition to the Ecole des Arts et Metiers, the
Ecole des Mines, and the £cole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures,
whose portals open only to an older and better educated class of stu-
dents, and the great schools of modern type, such as the Ecole Turgot,
the College Chaptal, and the Ecole Commerciale in the Avenue Tru-
daine, which qualify their pupils for commercial and mercantile careers,

204 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

there are a group of technical schools intended for those whose primary
education is not yet, or only just completed, and in which not only
theoretical technical instruction is given, but where systematic instruc-
tion in some useful handicraft forms a necessary feature. From among
these diverse types we select four, for each one of which its promoters
claim that its practical success solves the knotty problem of the day.
These four schools are the £lcole Gommiinale, in the Rue Tournefort ;
the Institution de Saint Nicolas, in the Rue de Vaugirard ; the ^cole
Professionelle, established by MM. Chaix et Cie. in their printing es-
tablishment in the Rue Bergere ; and the £cole MunicipaU d^ Apprentis,
in the Boulevard de la Villette.

The first two of these may be said to exemplify, though Avith strik-
ing diversity of method, Vatelier dans V'ecole, the workshop in the
school ; the third is an excellent instance of the school in the work-
shop ; while the fourth belongs strictly to neither type.

The £cole Communale, situated in the Rue Tournefort, a crooked
back slum behind the Pantheon, is the most recent of the group which
we have selected. Founded in November, 1873, at the instance of M.
Salicis, and with the coSjoeration of M. Greard, the energetic Director
of Primary Education for the Department of the Seine, it is intended
rather to prepare for than to supplant apprenticeships of a more rigor-
ous type. The pupils of this school ai'e not apprenticed at all in the
ordinary sense ; there is no contract, and they earn nothing. Most of
them are very young — even as young as eight or nine years — nor have
they yet completed their elementary education. If they stay out the
prescribed three years' course, they not only get as good a schooling as
in any of the ordinary elementary schools, but they will also have seen
something of constructive industry. During the first two years they
are sent to work /or a day at a time, in rotation, in one or other of the
occupations of the workshop. An " apprentice " will thus have one
day in the carpentei-'s shop at the bench or the lathe ; the next he will
be learning how to forge a bolt ; the next he will devote to metal-
turning— all his exercises being directed by practical workmen in charge
of the shops. During the third year he will settle down to some one
pursuit. The hours of actual labor are short, for the chief part of the
day is devoted to lessons, only an hour and a half each morning and
afternoon being given to manual labor. All learn drawing and model-
ing. Every pupil works from drawings which he has previously made
to scale : no matter what he does, whether he is making a mortice-
joint, rabbeting a window-frame, or filing down an iron nut, it is always
done according to a careful sketch made beforehand. No articles
whatever are made for sale ; indeed, all commercial elements are scru-
pulously avoided, and the objects given as exercises are hardly such as
would serve a useful purpose : little joints of wood accurately squared ;
little cones or cylinders turned with perfect truth of line. Here and
there a more valuable article, a model of a crane in metal, or a model

METHODS IN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. 205

system of beveled geariug- wheels ; but nothing more marketable. The
genial director, M. Laubier, enters heartily into the work of his pupils.
He has himself designed and executed many of their exercises — the
plaster casts, the geometrical models, and the ingenious scholastic ap-
pliances of the institution. He thinks his school to be the type of the
elementary school of the future. He has need to be an enthusiast, to
train successfully his fifty apprentices and his two hundred non-work-
ing children on a grant not exceeding sixteen hundred dollars a year,
salaries, tools, and materials included. He upholds the rotation system,
believing extreme division of labor to be at this stage prejudicial to
the development of the youthful faculties. He does not want to sell
the produce of his workshops, as the construction of objects which
would be made to sell would not afford so good a training for his boys.
He admits that they do not work so rapidly as apprentices who have
been brought up amid the hourly exigencies of trade ; but he adds that
he prefers cultivating their intelligence to quickening mere manual
dexterity ; that will come later. And what are the results ? " Our
apprentices," says the director, " being at once fit for useful work on
entering the factory, are less often employed to run errands ; they are
better treated, steadier. I could tell you of young lads of fifteen who
are actually earning two francs and a half, and two francs seventy-five
centimes a day, and who in six months more will be jjaid as regular
workmen."

The Institution de Saint JVicolas, in the Rue de Vaugirard, is the
oldest of the schools, having been founded in 1827. It is under the
exclusive management of a religious guild known as the Frh^es des
j^coles Chretiennes, who devote themselves entirely to education. In
this truly remarkable establishment there are eight hundred and ninety
boys, all children of artisans, all boarders. Of this number, about two
hundred are apprentices who come here to learn their trade. None are
admitted who can not already read and write. The greater part of
the day is given up to manual work, only two hours being reserved for
schooling on three days of the week, on the alternate three days the
two hours are devoted to drawing. On entering the premises the vis-
itor is first introduced into a sort of little museum, in which are ex-
hibited articles made by the pupils of the establishment — a truly sur-
prising collection to have been executed by little fellows from eleven
to fifteen or sixteen years of age. Here there are picture-frames,
bronzes, panels carved in oak, wood-engravings that would not dis-
credit either the " Graphic " or the " Illustrated " ; farther on, in an-
other handsome case, are telescopes, leveling instruments, a model
engine, a saxhorn, and a trombone ; and, in yet another, some exqui-
sitely neat engraved maps, some of them executed on commission for
the Government, together with the medals they won in Paris, Vienna,
and Philadelphia. A varied assortment it would seem, and indeed
the system under which such works are produced is without a parallel

2o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

in this country. There are in the extensive premises of the school no
fewer than sixteen ateliers, each let out to an aj^proved master or j^a-
tron, who is usually also the proprietor of a separate business in the
city. To him are apprenticed for a term of three, or in some .cases
four, years some ten or twelve boys, all of whom at the end of that
time will be able to take good positions as intelligent workmen. The
trades thus taught are those of carpenter, wood-carver, turner in wood,
optical turner, compositor, printer, wood-engraver, map-engraver (on
stone), marble-mason, brass-worker, bookbinder, carver and gilder,
clock-maker, portmanteau-maker, philosophical-instrument maker, and
maker of wind instruments. The master of each separate atelier pro-
vides the materials, devises the work of the apprentices, superintends
its execution either personally or by an authorized contre-maitre, and
to him belong the products of the workshop. Nothing is made in the
shops that will not sell ; the apprentices learn the value not only of
materials but of time ; and, though the works that successfully pass
under their hands are graduated to their capacity and experience, they
are precisely of the same character as those which apprentices in any
ordinary workshop would have to undertake. The masters and fore-
men of the various ateliers aj^pear to take great interest in their pupils,
and pride themselves on the success of their instruction. " These
boys," said the foreman of the portmanteau-makers, "when they leave
this room know the whole mystery of their trade from end to end.
They can take the brute materials, and from them evolve a finished
article." The apprentices of this same shop will earn at once from
five to six francs a day, instead of the two, three, or four francs usually
earned by young workmen just out of their time. They work as
quickly as other workmen, for they know from the exigencies of their
particular work that time is money. Several of the^:)a^ro??5 and fore-
men of the little w^orkshops are themselves former pupils of the estab-
lishment. The apprentices earn nothing during their term of service
beyond a little pocket-money when they are satisfactorily advanced.
During the whole period of their apprenticeship their parents must con-
tribute thirty francs a month for their board and lodging in the school.
Great importance is attached by the Frlres to the complete isolation
from exterior influences insured by this internment. The magnitude
of the work will be understood when it is learned that the income and
expenditure of this establishment amounted to about two hundred and
thirty thousand dollars in the past year, the services of the fifty
worthy Frh'es who conduct the school being given at a purely nominal
rate. There is a large gallery in the building for drawing and model-
ing, and excellent systems of instruction in model drawing and geo-
metrical drawing have been here developed. Spacious refectories,
commodious Av^ell-ventilated dormitories, and a large gymnasium form
features of the school. The results of the system are significant. The
aim of making intelligent workmen is really attained, and though the

METHODS IN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. 207

pupils have learned but one metier, and are in general better adapted
for small businesses than for large, their repute for steadiness, skill,
and general intelligence is such that the patrons have little difficulty
in placing their pupils when their term of apprenticeship is over, and
usually in circumstances where their earnings are about the average.
The same testimony is borne everywhere concerning the apprentices
of this establishment ; and the writer was informed by M, Vever,
President of the Syndical Chamber of Jewelers, of Paris, a gentleman
greatly interested in the question of technical education, and possess-
ing every opportunity of forming an accurate opinion, that the boys
of Saint Nicolas are so much more intelligent and steady than the
average of workmen that they are sought for by employers, and at
the age of thirty have usually risen to the position of foreman or
master.

The third type of apprenticeship school is that of the Ecole Pro-
fessionelle attached to the large and flourishing printing establishment
of MM. Chaix et Cie. This school, founded in 1862 by M. Napoleon
Chaix, receives two groups of pupils, the apprenticed compositors and
the apprenticed printers of the house. The schoolroom and the ap-
prentices' composing-room, though contiguous to and overlooking the
great busy atelier of the firm, are distinctly separate from it. The ap-
prentices, of whom there are between thirty and forty, devote most of
their time to the practical work of composing, two hours a day only
being allotted to lessons in the schoolroom. Apprenticeship lasts four
years, during the whole of which time the apprentices receive wages
rising from fifty centimes to two francs fifty centimes for the composi-
tors ; and for the printers, who work at the machines in the great atelier
under the direction of a responsible master, from seventy-five centimes
to four francs fifty centimes a day. The teaching comprises a special
primary course for those whose previous schooling has been insuffi-
cient ; a technical course, including grammar and composition, reading
of proofs and correcting for the press, the study of different kinds of
types, engraving, and the reading and " composing " of English, Ger-
man, Latin, and Greek — in the two latter cases from a purely typo-
graphical point of view, without any attempt to understand or to trans-
late ; lastly, a supplementary course which includes the history of
printing, simple notions of economics, a little mechanics and physics,
and a smattering of chemistry, dealing chiefly with the materials that
they will hereafter employ — acids, oils, fats, carbon, soda, turpentine,
etc. Everything is done with the utmost system. Every line set up by
a pupil is, if possible, so much contributed to the current work of the
firm ; and, as time exercises are frequent, the value of rapidity in work
is learned. At the end of the apprenticeship the pupils elect — almost
without exception — to become emjjloyees of the firm, and enter at once
into the rank of participants in the yearly division of profits. Of
nearly seven hundred persons employed, two hundred apd fifty-eight

2o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

are now participants, of whom about eiglity are past apprentices. A
much larger portion are depositors in the caisse cVepargne, or savings
bank, established by the firm, or are " insured " in its books. Even
the youngest apprentices put by a portion of savings out of their small
earnino-s. The principals of the house fear no strike now, as there are
enough participants in the wealth of the house to carry on its business
throu<i-h a crisis. "La maison pour chacun, tous 2^our la maison^'' is
inscribed in gold on one of the beams that cross the great atelier.
The sum thus divided among the employees in 1878 exceeded ten thou-
sand dollars. The financial results of these arrangements, at once
educational and prudential in their nature, are most encouraging.
M. Berger, the accomplished inspector of this department of the enter-
prise, attributes the substantial growth and prosperity of the business,
now one of the largest and wealthiest in France, as much to one influ-
ence as to the other. He prides himself on the superior intelligence
of his pupils and their technical knowledge, gained while they are in
the very midst of a great business, and thus forced even to realize and
keep au couranty^SXh commercial exigencies. The few who have gone
out to take places elsewhere are also doing well.

The fourth and last of our typical schools is the Ecole Municipale
d'Apprentis, which since 1872 has been at work in the Boulevard de
la Villette. No school has produced more striking results as yet, and
none merits more careful attention. Beginning with seventeen pupils
in 1872, it now numbers a following of two hundred and twenty-one.
The course lasts three, or in some cases four, years. It speaks volumes
for the efiiciency of the school that, out of seventy-two who, up to the
end of 1877, had completed the course and gone out into situations,
sixty-nine are at the present moment pursuing the trade they have
learned in the school, and are earning on the average four francs a day
— some of them even as much as six and a half francs a day. A school
which can receive young lads of thirteen or fourteen, and after a three
years' course can turn out workmen at the age of sixteen or seventeen
able at once to command wages of twenty, or, in some cases, thirty-three
shillings a week, is something so wholly new that its organization mer-
its the most profound study. Founded on the suggestion of M. Greard
by the then Prefect of the Seine, M. Leon Say, at the expense of the
city of Paris, it began its work in premises previously used as a fac-
tory of aneroid barometers, additional schoolroom accommodation being
obtained in the adjacent dwelling-house. The object of the school is
simply to make good workmen. The education it offers is absolutely
gratuitous, and even remunerative to the pupils, for they receive every
week a " gratification " varying from a franc and a half to three francs.
None of the pupils are boarders. None are admitted until their pri-
mary education is completed, and then only after an easy examination.
Five hours a day are given to studies, six hours to the work of the
shops. The teaching of the schoolroom is both general and technical

METHODS IN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 209

in character, mechanics, physics, chemistry, and technology being added
to the usual programme of literary routine, while drawing and model-
ing occupy a prominent place. The system of solid geometry taught
in the schools is excellently conceived and admirably followed. M.
Muller, the director, himself conducts this and some of the scientific
branches of study. All the apprentices learn also to sketch bits of
machinery or even entire machines, figure the sketch from actual mea-
surement, and then with rule and compass draw them carefully to scale.
There are two principal workshops, one devoted to the workers in iron,
the other to workers in wood. The trades actually taught are forging,
metal-turning, fitting, carpentry, wood-turning, and pattern-making.
A small workshop for teaching the manufacture of philosophical instru-
ments has also just been organized. During his first or preparatory
year the api:)rentice, so called — there is, in reality, no formal contract
— is making the I'ound of the various shops, taking a fortnight in each
in rotation. There is therefore no haste to specialize his work, and he
has the opportunity of discovering the pursuit for which he is best fit-
ted, while gaining information and intelligence. His first year over,
he settles down to serious work in one of the six categories of labor :
henceforth all the articles he makes are salable, and indeed of some
value. Still, although the commercial element, eschewed in the Rue
Tournefort, here steps in — to the profit of the municipality, be it said,
rather than of the school — the apprentice does not sacrifice theory for
practice. No single object must be attempted before the working
drawing of it has been made out in plan and elevation ; and the nice-
ties of true surfaces and exact angles are scrupulously insisted on. En-
ter the forging and fitting shop, where over a hundred embryo work-
men are busily, not to say noisily, employed, each on his all-absorbing
task : they hardly look up as the stranger passes along. Here are three
novices being taught to forge a hammer-head, learning to " strike,"
under the direction of a young foreman ; and he does teach them, too,
with a will. Here an older group are working out a piece by them-
selves at another foi'ge. All down the long room are benches with
vises, and in the middle the heavier machines, lathes, slotting-machines,
and planing-raachines — the latter designed and consti'ucted only last
year by the pupils themselves, and containing a valuable improvement
first conceived in the brain of the able foreman of the workshops.
Here, a large pinion is being turned ; there, the parts of a vise, are be-
ing filed into shape, while in the corner an apprentice of one week's
standing is trying to file up into perfect form a simple square bar of
iron fresh from the forge. After that he will pass to a task a little
more difficult, following the course prescribed by experience. Almost
all the tools are made by the apprentices themselves. The steam-
engine which moves the heavy machines is under the charge of two
pupils, of the second and third year respectively, their services being
devoted for a fortnight to officiating as stoker and engineer. Healthy

VOL. XTIII. — 14 '

210 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and actively industrious the lads toil at their work, and three fore-
men suffice for the efficient superintendence of the hundred ! Above
is the carpenter's shop, where an equally numerous clientUe are equally
hard at work. Here, too, we find originality of design and thorough-
ness of execution. Several of the machines — for example, a ribbon-saw

were made in the establishment, and were among exhibits of the

school which attracted so much notice in the central pavilion of the
Exposition Universelle of 1878. The first exercises in carpentry and
in turnino- are literally exercises ; useful to the last degree to their con-
structor, but of no marketable value. Here one realizes one advantage
possessed by this municipal school over those in which the atelier is
simply the workshop of a great business. In the early stages, when
workmanship is very imperfect, it is not always well to strive to pro-
duce a salable article. Better waste wood, says the superintendent of
the shops, than spoil the making of a good apprentice. Better to let
the young workman see something of all the different corners of his
trade, than by too fine a division of labor to keep him all his years
learning only to shape chair-legs. And he is right, if the general look
of intelligence and workmanlike style of his young charges afford any
indication of their capability of well fulfilling the career they have
chosen. From seven in the morning to seven in the evening are the
hours of school, with an hour's intermission for dinner, and two shorter
recesses. Work over, they disperse to their separate homes, for there
is no boarding. M. Miiller points out that the cost of setting up these
shops, with all their tools and appliances, has been at the average rate
of $55.75 for each of the one hundred and seventy-five places nomi-
nally provided in the accommodation of the school ; while each of the
present two hundred and twenty-one pupils, as he passes through the
school, costs the municipality on the average an annual sum which is,
as it happens, almost equal, namely, 155.50, instruction included.
When the extensions of the buildings now in progress are completed, a
very slight increase of total cost will suffice to extend the benefits of
the school to a much greater number of pupils. The school property
and furniture have already cost the city of Paris 750,000 francs
($150,000), including the lands and buildings, and the school is costing
it 60,000 francs ($12,000) a year for working expenses. To set against
this are the sums received for work sold, and the value of the instru-
ments, models, and appliances fabricated in the school, and employed
either in the school itself or handed over to one or other of the muni-
cipal schools, and which must amount to many hundred dollars yearly.
We have dwelt at some length upon this school, inasmuch as, re-
garded from the point of view of practical results, it appears to pre-
sent by far the nearest approach to the ideal of an apprenticeship
school. Not ignoring what is so valuable in consideration of the cir-
cumstance that the training is to be a preparation for after-life — the
commercial value of the time and labor — it differs from the Institution

METHODS IN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. 211

de Saint Nicolas in regarding the aim of producing good workmen as
higher than that of establishing a self-supporting school. The Insti-
tution de Saint Nicolas is, thanks to the self-denying labors of the
Frhres, self-supporting so far as the ateliers are concerned, though the
pupils pay for their board and lodging. The Ecole Professionelle of
MM. Chaix et Cie., which is but one example of a considerable num-
ber of similar establishments, is looked upon as one of the main causes
of the prosperity of the concern. To establish such a school in any
large business establishment requires little additional expense beyond
the salaries of teachers. The £cole Communale is a most valuable ex-
periment, and shows with what slender outlay some useful instruction
in manual labor can be added to the resources of an elementary school.
The Ecole Municipale, with its kindred schools at Lyons and Havre,
enable us to realize what an apprenticeship school may become if taken
in hand by a rich and powerful municipality.

Turninfr once more to the conditions which obtain in our own
country, the thought naturally occurs. Which of these very different
types of school will best suit the requirements at home ? On which
line shall we proceed in our attempt to adjust to the altered social
and industrial conditions of our time the apprenticeship of the past ?
Probably no one of these varied types will meet the thousand possible
cases which may present themselves in the working out of the problem.
Possibly there is room for all these types of apprenticeship school, side
by side, or room even for new and untried types. One may adapt
itself better to one locality or industry, another to another. Our
business is not to copy, but to create and to develop for ourselves that
which meets our own case. Much as will depend upon the character
of each individual industry, all experience shows that there are other
factors in the problem of scarcely less importance, and that much also
depends upon the individual proclivities of the director of the school,
the industrial enterprise of large firms, the far-sightedness of wealthy
corporations. In France many of the schools have been initiated by
the municipal or communal authorities. In Germany it is the town
or the state that has made the venture. Will our town councils or
our school boards ever think the experiment worth a trial, or is cen-
tralization too fierce and too frigid to countenance the attempt ? All
that is most valuable in the results obtained in the majority of the
typical cases afforded by the Parisian schools can also be attained by
private local enterprise, if guided wisely and well. Private local
enterprise may surely hope for a success at least as great at home as
that which it has already won across the Channel. And obviously the
various industrial establishments know best the strength and weakness
of their own resources. If a guiding and organizing central institution
is needed, and it probably will be, it will be forthcoming so soon as
there is work for it to do. But no central organization or institution
can be expected to do the work which, at the outset, the local in-

212 THU POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

dustries must initiate for themselves and develop by their own re-
sources, and direct by the light of the consciousness of their distinctive
needs. Then, and not till then, shall we able to form an exact estimate
of the social and industrial conditions under which the apprenticeship
of the future may become a living reality. Then, and not till then,
will the apprenticeship of the futui'e constitute a powerful instrument,
not merely for the intellectual, moral, and social improvement of the
working-classes, but for the promotion of the wealth and prosperity
of the whole nation.

-♦♦♦-

THE MIGKATIONS OF FISHES.

By De. FKIEDEICH HEINCKE.

THE periodical migrations of birds, grand as is the scale on which
they are performed, and fitted as they are to excite astonishment,
are insignificant compared with those which are made by the fishes of
the sea, A faint illustration of the stupendous character of these
movements is given off the west coast of Norway at the opening of the
fishing-season in the spring, when one, looking out over the sea in
quiet weather, will be witness of a stirring spectacle. The surface of
the water as far as the eye can reach glistens in diversified colors ; the
fiords and bays are alive wdth silvery streaks playing in constant move-
ment. The agitation is caused by the schools of herring, which are so
closely packed that a boat can not pass through them, an oar may be
made to stand up among them, and they may be dipped up in buckets
or caught with the hand by the thousand. The enemies of the her-
ring also come with them — the mackerel, the sharks, and the dolphins
enlivening the scene with their graceful movements, with great flocks
of gulls. The sprat also appear in great multitudes on the coasts of
the North Sea, and the pilchards on the coasts of France and Spain
and the southwestern coasts of Great Britain in such immense schools
that millions of them have been taken w^ith a single draught of a large
net.

The fish of the family of the Gadidm regularly visit the northern
seas in innumerable hosts. The codfish come between January and
March to the shallow bays of the Loffoden Islands and the banks of
^N'ewfoundland, where their fishery gives employment to more than ten
thousand vessels and about one hundred and fifty thousand fishermen.

Codfish and herring belong entirely to the sea. Many other fish
wander from the sea into the rivers. The sturgeon and the white-fish
go from the Caspian Sea to the Volga to spawn in such numbers that,
before the fishery became so destructive to them as it is, the cliildren
on the shore could scoop them up with their hands. Still more remark-

THE MIGRATIONS OF FISHES. 213

able are the schools of fish of the salmon family that resort to the great
rivers of Siberia after the breaking up of the ice.

The resort of the fish to the same place is repeated every year with
a wonderful regularity. The appearance of the herring in Norway
varies at most not more than fourteen days. The energy of the move-
ments, is remarkable. The salmon, traveling from the sea to its spawn-
ing-places, surmounts considerable difficulties, leaping up to the tops
of falls several feet high, and repeating its jumps if it fails at first, till
it succeeds. Eels are able to ascend waterfalls forty or fifty feet high,
and it has been asserted that they have been known to climb the falls
of the Rhine at Schaffhausen ; and since the sluices have been put
down they have been able to pass the six falls of the Trollhatta, which
have together a height of a hundred feet.

Fish travel to very considerable distances in these journeys. Brehm
estimates that the salmon of the Obi and Irtish travel about 7,000 kilo-
metres (4,340 miles) a year up and down the stream ; and salmon and
sturgeon often go from 1,500 to 2,400 kilometres (930 to 1,500 miles)
from the sea to their spawning-places, and salmon to a height of 2,000
feet above the level of the sea. Salmon may occupy six or eight months
in going up the stream and accomplishing their spawning, but will re-
turn to the sea in one or two months, traveling from ten to thirty kilo-
metres {<o\ to 18f miles) a day. •

Fish, like birds, return from the most distant journeys to the places
of their nativity. This has been ascertained by marking individuals
and watching for their return. This faculty of localization bespeaks
a higher degree of intelligence than we have been accustomed to as-
cribe to fish.

The theories that have been proposed to account for these migra-
tions have failed to give a fully satisfactory explanation of them.
The migrations as a whole may be considered under five heads, of
which the first and most important comprises the journeys to the
places of spawning. The most notable instances of such excursions
are those of the salmon tribe, and of the sturgeon, lampreys, eels, and
tunnies. The proper home of all these fish, except the eel, is the sea ;
and, besides the eel, all of them except the tunny make yearly consid-
erable journeys up the rivers to find places suited to the development
of their spawn. Such places are, for the sturgeons, about the middle
of the course of the river, in shallow, sandy spots ; for the salmon
kind, among the hills near the sources, or in the fountain-streams them-
selves, where the water runs in a lively current over a stony or grav-
elly bed. The lampreys ascend about as far as the sturgeons. Their
young, which are very different in appearance from the parents, may
be found in great numbers in nearly all the still brooks and ditches of
the middle parts of the river-courses. The eel is the only European
fish which goes from fresh water to the sea to spawn. Its joui*neys
take place some time before the fish are ready to spawn, an abode in

214 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the sea seeming to be essential to the ripening of the ova — a property
which makes the study of the procreative functions of this tish moi-e
difficult. The tunny lives exclusively in the sea, but goes to the coasts
of the Mediterranean, particularly to Sicily and Sardinia, to spawn.
The sea graylings ascend the rivers of Spain and France in such num-
bers that the water seems covered with them.

The journeys of the fish in returning from their spawning-places
after spawning are seldom performed in masses, but individually and
in small groups. The fish, which went up fat and in fine condition
and flavor, are exhausted, lean, and weak. Not much is known of the
migrations of other fish than the salmon during these journeys, for the
fishermen pay little attention to them and they therefore seldom come
under the observation of science.

Xext in order of the migrations are those of the young brood from
their spawning-places. The young herring do not as a rule remain
longer than four or five months where they are hatched. They then go
down to the sea while the young eels go from the sea up to the rivers
after about the same time. The young herring are observed with diffi-
culty, for it requires a skilled eye to perceive their minute, transparent
bodies in water that is in any degree disturbed ; but in j^erfectly still
water the schools may be seen moving to and fro like fine flecks of
cloud. The salmon remain a full year in the mountain-streams, and
do not go down to the sea till they have become a vigorous, greedy
fish of about a finger's length.

Journeys in search of food ai'e not periodical or regular, like the
previous migrations, or are only incidentally so. The most important
of them and the nearest to being jjeriodical are the visits of the codfish
to Newfoundland and the Loifoden Islands, concerning which it is as
yet not certain whether they may not be partly connected with pur-
poses of reproduction. Schools of other smaller fishes appear along
with the cod, a salmonid, the herring, and a number of squids, which
are all alike used by the fisherman as bait. The migrations of the
predatory fish which follow the other fish in their spawning-journeys
naturally partake of the periodical character of those journeys ; the
fish that pursue the herring follow them into the farthermost corners
of the bays to which they resort.

The autumnal visits of mackerel to the Gulf of Kiel are of particu-
lar interest. They do not take place every year, and are not often
marked by very great numbers, but they have attracted attention since
1624, when they were described by Schonevelde, on account of the
peculiar character of the food that attracts the fish. The Gulf of Kiel
is visited in August and September by great numbers of the Medusa
aitrita, which fill its waters, perform their reproductive duties, and
perish on its shores, leaving hardly a trace of their watery tissues be-
hind. In their maws swarm numerous individuals of a moderately
large parasitic crab, and it is for the sake of these that the mackerel

THE MIGRATIONS OF FISHES. 215

throng in the bay, attack the Med usee, and consume them. Mackerel
feed upon minute crustaceans, chiefly copepods, which swarm on the
surface of the water and often cover it, and follow them hither and
thither as they are carried about by the currents.

The number of fish which lead an irregular vagabond life is not
inconsiderable. Foremost among them are the sharks, which singly
or in small companies will follow a ship for days at a time in order to
snap up whatever may be thrown overboard from it. They are often
accompanied by the pilot-fish, which has a peculiarly strong sense for
food of all kinds, and directs the shark, is protected by him, and gets
a share of the spoil. Other formidable fish, unsocial in their habits,
being scattered over the ocean, are less accessible to science.

When more than the usual number of fish go up to spawn, the
number of fish pursuing them is likely to be also increased. It some-
times happens thus, that species of fish which have not commonly fol-
lowed, the schools are attracted to them by the extraordinary abun-
dance of food, and find their way to places where they were before
unknown. Many fish are found in opposite quarters of the globe.
The TraelmriLS tracJmrus, of the mackerel family, inhabits South Amer-
ican and Australasian as well as British waters. The sprat, common
in the North European seas, has been discovered near the coasts of
Tasmania, and thus lives at diametrically opposite points, while it has
never been observed in the intervening seas. Inasmuch as migrations
may often lead to a permanent enlargement of the domain of certain
species, a knowledge of the laws and circumstances by which they are
influenced has an important bearing on the study of the geographical
distribution of species.

Migrations may also be performed under the influence of circum-
stances not connected with reproduction or the search for food. It is
not certain whether fish are ever' driven from their homes by a cooling
of the water. Removals from such a cause would not take place in
large masses, and might easily escape observation. As a rule, fish are
not sensitive to changes of temperature, and can endure the greatest
diversities provided they have food enough. Certain tropical fishes
have a remarkable faculty of performing journeys by land. The climb-
ing fish and an ophiocephalus of the East Indies and the Doras costa-
tus of South America are able, when the ponds and swamps in which
they live are di'ied up, to travel for several hours over the land to
find places affording more water. The eel has been said to travel
for considerable distances from one pond to another. It is certain
that eels are able to live for a considerable time out of the water,
and, though the fact has not been scientifically established, there is no
reason to doubt that they can travel. The stickleback is often found
in pools wholly unconnected with other waters. It may be that the
eggs of the fish have been carried on the feet of waterfowl, or that
the wanderers have found their way to such places during the rains of

2i6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the spring and fall, ,wben the fields, the ditches, and even the wagon-
tracks are running with water. Fish often remove from their abodes
under the influence of circumstances unfavorable to their existence.
If there is an unusual abundance of their food in one year, the number
of fish will be greatly increased, to die of starvation as soon as the
food is consumed. They are also often driven out in consequence of
the pollution of the rivers, either dying or going to other places where
the waters are more favorable to them. Whole communities in Nor-
way and Sweden have been ruined by the sudden and unaccountable
disappearance from their shores of the herring, on the catch of which
they depended. In such cases the fish have sometimes absented them-
selves from their former haunts for a hundred years or more, while
fishermen and students have endeavored without success to discover
the causes for the change.

The conditions of a scientific explanation of the migrations of fish
are not satisfied when we say that they take place in search of food or
with the purpose of reproduction. We have still to ask what are the con-
ditions connected with these objects which make necessaiy such exten-
sive journeys. The answer is easy in cases where food is the object of
the journey. The fish go where they can find the food that suits them.
But why does the herring go to the shallows of the coast instead of
leaving its eggs in the deep sea ? Why does the salmon leave the
ocean and go away up to the sources of the rivers ? Experience gained
in the artificial propagation of fish has partly helped to answer these
questions. One of the most essential requisites to a good hatch of the
eggs is a plentiful supply and free circulation of air. Hence it is neces-
sary for the eggs to be laid in well-ventilated waters. This is impos-
sible if they are spawned in deep water, where they will sink away
below the reach of atmospheric movements. They must be deposited
in waters that are disturbed to the bottom. Such waters are the shal-
lows near the shore, where the herring lay their eggs, and the living
streams, which are the resorts of the salmon and sturgeon. The fish,
impelled at spawning-time to go in the direction of the most air, keep
on till they find it in the places best suited for breeding. Different
species of fish require different amounts of oxygen, the same as differ-
ent animals do. The salmon and trout need much, and for it seek
those waters which have the liveliest motion — mountain-streams. The
opinion that these waters are more favorable to the development of the
eggs because they are fresh is based on erroneous premises. Many of
the species that commonly go to fresh waters also lay their eggs in
salt waters, and even salmon sometimes lay them in the sea. Salt
water really appears, from the most recent researches, to contain —
other conditions beino- the same — more air than fresh. The same
cause which impels the salmon to ascend to the lively, fully aerated
streams of the mountains attracts other fishes from the deep seas to
the shallows and rivers, and the eel from the bottoms of still-water

DOMESTIC MOTORS. 217

ponds to the wind-disturbed waters of the bays. Those fresh-water
fishes that do not wander away, go to the well-aired spots in their
neighborhood to spawn — to the shore-waters, the wet meadows, or the
junctions of rivers, or to the tributary streams of the lakes in which
they live. Those salt-water fish which live at the bottom likewise go
to the waters near the shores, where the flats and the meadows swarm
during the spring with their young. The eggs of the cod and mackerel
are buoyed upon the surface of the water, where the winds blow con-
stantly over them. The stickleback will swim before its nest and fan
it with its pectoral fins by the hour. Thus every fish illustrates in
some way the laAV that a constant change of air is essential to the de-
velopment of its eggs. Agitated and sun-lighted waters are also most
favorable to the larvae of crustaceans and mollusks, of echini and po-
lyps, and to the microscopic creatures of which the food of the fry
chiefly consists, and thus fulfill another condition of the most vigorous
growth of the young fish. — Translated and abridged from Die JSfatur.

DOMESTIC MOTOKS.

By CHARLES M. LUNGREN.
I. WIND AND WATER POWEK.

THE situations in which a motor of comparatively small power can
be used' with advantage, and in which it is a necessity even, are
already very numerous and are constantly increasing. Not only has
it a proper place in the workshop, in the business house, and on the
farm, but in the household as well it has a wide range of utility. The
need for such a machine in our homes, created by the sewing-machine,
has been strengthened and increased by various other appliances in
use or coming into use, while such devices as fans for cooling rooms
in summer and ventilating them in winter further add to the re-
quirement. In suburban and country residences, and on the farm,
the primary need is for pumping water, and this alone renders a light
and economical power almost indispensable. For the performance
of most of the other mechanical operations upon the latter it is also
of the utmost value. In the field of small industries the uses to which
such a motor can be turned are as numerous as the varied occupations
of the workers. The necessities of numbers of amateurs further in-
crease the range of activity for such a power. The kind of machine
that is suitable to the varied needs of these different classes of users
necessarily differs in each. In most trades the demand for power is
for one of from two to five horse and above, and on the farm a ser-
viceable machine could not generally be much if any less ; but in the

2l8

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

household that desired is rarely above one horse, and generally under
it. A more complicated machine can, moreover, be used with success
in the workshop than in the household, as in the latter it would gen-

FlG. 1.

erally be in the care of attendants but little, if any, skilled in the use
of machinery. Certain general conditions are, however, common to
all. The work for which it is needed is generally of an intermittent

DOMESTIC MOTORS. 219

character, and this necessitates a machine that will always be ready
for work, or that can be made ready with but little trouble at short
notice, and that is no expense, or but very small expense, when not be-
ing used. It needs further to be perfectly safe, economical in use, of
low first cost, and to require but little care, and that of a kind which
can be given by unskilled labor.

The attempts to make a machine that would answer to these varied
requirements have been many, and they have been crowned with great-
er or less success. Though it can not be said that the ideal motor
has been produced, still there are at present made and on the mai*ket
a number of machines of real merit, and some of great excellence, that
are all well adapted to the needs of users of light power, including the
householder. While in large manufacturing only two machines — the
water-wheel and the steam-engine — can be used, for the purpose of
these small powers the range is much greater. Wind and water,
steam, hot air, gas, and electricity, are all suitable and are all to a
greater or less degree available. I propose in these papers simply to
make a brief description of some of the more promising and success-
ful machines now on the market, and give such information regarding
the sizes in which they are made, cost of working, and prices, as will be
of value to the householder and others having use for such a power.

Though the windmill is one of the oldest of the appliances by which
man has sought to turn to his use the powers of nature, it remained
until a comparatively recent period a very crude and cumbersome ma-
chine. In the earliest form, the wheel was fixed so that it could only
turn when the wind was in the right direction ; and later, when it was
made movable, the shifting had still to be done by hand as often as
the wind veered. Successive improvements were, however, slowly
made, the chief ones being the addition of a rudder-vane placed directly
behind the wheel in a vertical plane at right angles with its face, and
a centrifugal governing device by which the canvas sails were furled
and unfurled as the wind varied in strength. The pressure of the
wind upon this vane automatically shifted the wheel into the wind,
and the action of the governor presented to it a greater or less surface
of the sails, securing a uniform velocity with varying wind-pressure.
Even with these great improvements the windmill remained a clumsy
affair until it was developed by American skill and ingenuity into the
present very serviceable machine. As now made it is light and strong,
and entirely automatic in answering to the varying direction and pres-
sure of the wind. The canvas sails have given place to light wooden
slats arranged radially around the wheel at short distances apart, and
the whole mechanism has been simplified and vastly improved both in
construction and design. The tower is an open-work structure of wood
or iron, easily erected and taken down when desired.

Two methods of regulating the extent of wheel-surface exposed to
the wind are now in use, the one acting by centrifugal force as in Eu-

2 20 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ropean mills, and the other by the direct pressure of the wind against
a side-vane. In centrifugal mills the wind-wheel consists of a number
of radial arras firmly secured in a metal hub, with sections between
them pivoted so that they can swing into a position in which the ends
of the slats only are exposed to the wind. They are held in the
plane of the wheel by a counterweight, and thrown out of this posi-
tion by the action of a ball-governor. This governor may be placed
in various jjositions on the wheel, and act upon the movable section
directly or through the medium of connecting rods. In one form of
wheel the balls are placed upon the framing so that when the wheel is
at rest they hang down upon its face, but as it revolves fly out, and in
doing so turn the sectors. The angle at which the wheel-surface is
exposed to the wind is thus altered with every variation in its velocity,
and the motion of the wheel consequently kept nearly uniform, in a
manner similar to that of a steam-engine. When the wind attains a
velocity greater than a certain number of miles an hour, the action of
the governor keeps the slats in the position in which their ends are
alone exposed to the wind. The velocity at which the wheel will com-
pletely close can be regulated by the counterweight, which is movable
on its arm by means of appropriate connecting rods, from the base of
the tower.

This method of regulation has been found to answer very well in
practice, but it has several grave objections. The construction is
necessarily such that there are a large number of joints on which the
wear is very considerable ; and with so many movable parts the lia-
bility to derangement is greatly increased. The failure of any of the
parts during a high wind would endanger the safety of the wheel, and
perhaps cause its destruction. The second form of mill, that using
the vane-governor, is much simpler in construction, has fewer parts,
and is consequently more durable. It is, therefore, to a considerable
extent supplanting the older form. The wheel in it is solid — that is,
without movable sections — and is turned about a vertical axis in such
a way that its angle with the direction of the wind varies with the
pressm-e of the latter. The devices by which this is accomplished vary
somewhat in different mills, but the method is essentially the same in
all. In one, a small vane, placed back of the wheel, is hinged upon
the frame of the large rudder- vane, and when the wheel is at rest hangs
vertically downward. It is connected by means of rods with the wheel
in such a way that, when the pressure on this exceeds a certain amount,
the vane will be raised toward an horizontal position. In so moving it
turns the wheel by suitable mechanism toward the rudder-vane, AYhen
the pressure of the wind is sufliciently great the small vane is raised
to an horizontal position and the wheel swings parallel with the rudder.
The whole apparatus, wheel and rudder, then becomes simply a weather-
vane, is exposed as little as possible to the wind, and is in the best
position to escape injury when this is very high.

DOMESTIC MOTORS.

221

The wheel can be adjusted to close at any desired wind-pressure by-
means of a sliding weight upon the arm of the small vane. It may
be turned by hand edgewise to the wind by a chain passing to the
ground. The working parts of another vane-governor mill of ex-
cellent design are shown in Fig. 1. A portion of the wind- wheel is
represented at L L, the rudder- vane at M, and the small governor-vane
at N. This latter is in a plane parallel with the face of the wheel, at
a slight distance back of it, and extends beyond its edge. The wheel
is supported upon an iron frame, 1, which turns within the tubing 17
and the additional bearing 18. The wheel-shaft passes through the

Fig. 2.

bearing 2 and gives motion to the pump-rod by a crank, 10, as shown.
To one side of the frame 1 a weighted lever is pivoted, which termi-
nates in a toothed segment. This gears with a curved rack on the frame
of the rudder-vane, so that, moving the lever upward, the rudder and
wheel approach each other. The chain 35 passing over the pulley 20

222 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

allows this to be done by hand when desired, through a lever upon the
lower end of the rod 25. This movement is the one which takes place
when the wind-pressure upon the small vane is sufficient, the wheel
swinging round toward the rudder-vane an amount proportional to the
pressure. When this pressure is great the wheel swings parallel with
the rudder and j^resents only its edge to the wind, as in the case of the
other vane-mill. The weight 13 is movable upon the lever 26, and
the wheel is therefore capable of nice adjustment.

Windmills have gone very largely into use in the Western States,
where the wind can be counted on with tolerable certainty. They are
also used to a considerable extent in the East, both in the country and
in the cities. Makers of wheels claim that in most localities they will
work up to their full power seven hours out of the twenty-four, and a
good portion of the remaining time will give some part of their full ca-
pacity. W^hen a steady and continuous power is required, either at a
definite time or whenever you happen to want it, the windmill is not
suitable ; but for all uses in which such conditions do not hold, such as
pumping water, it is admirably adapted. It is for this purpose employed
on railroads, the farm, country seats, and to some extent in cities where
the water-pressure is insufficient to carry the water to the upper stories
of buildings, as many as five hundred being employed in New York
City alone for this purpose. On the farm it would seem that a mill
might be employed for a variety of purposes besides the pumping
of water. Such oj^erations as sawing wood, chopping feed, and per-
haps churning, might readily be done by wind-power, by timing them
to the periods when experience showed it could best be depended upon.
With a well-constructed automatic mill of from two to five horse, such
work could probably be performed with less trouble than in any other
way. The only expense after the first cost is that for rej^airs and lubri-
cation, neither of which is large. The power of any wheel depends,
of course, on the velocity of the wind. They are usually rated with
the wind at twenty miles an hour, and on this basis the powers of those
made range from one eighth to forty horse, the smaller size being eight
and a half feet in diameter and the latter sixty. The first cost of a
good mill is from twenty-five to fifty per cent, higher than a steam-
engine of corresponding power, w^ith boiler.

While the windmill is peculiarly well adapted for pumping and
allied jDurposes, it is not at all suited to most of the uses for which a
small power is required. Water-power, on the other hand, is excel-
lently adapted to such uses. Water-wheels are simple, easily managed,
and the most efficient of known motors. They are especially suitable
for use in the household, and, where sufficient water can be procured
under a proper pressure, are at once the cheapest and most convenient
motor for the shop. Water-wheels of large power, such as are required
in manufacturing operations, can only be used in particular localities ;
but those of comparatively small power can, owing to the very general

DOMESTIC MOTORS. 223

introduction of water under pressure into buildings in cities and towns,
be used in very many places. As, however, the supply that most water-
works are capable of furnishing is not at any time greatly in excess of
the demand, wheels adapted for use upon house-pipes have to be, first
of all, economical of water. They should also be constructed so that
they are not liable to injury by water freezing in them, and be of low
first cost. Several different wheels, designed to meet these require-
ments, are now made, and have been more or less widely introduced.
One of the best of these, and one which has met with considerable
favor in the market, is that shown in Fig. 2, the invention of Mr.
O. J. Backus. It is exceedingly simple in construction, and has
proved very satisfactory in use. It consists of a light but strong
wheel, carrying buckets or vanes upon its rim, against which a jet
of water impinges. The wheel is inclosed in an iron casing in which
it revolves freely, the only points at which there is any friction
being the bearings of the shaft. The manner of using the water
constitutes the special feature of the motor, and is one that pecu-
liarly adapts it to use on service-pipes, as it reduces the consump-
tion to a minimum. In the wheels used in manufacturing, Avhether
of the turbine or other pattern, motion is imparted by the continuous
pressure of a considerable body of water. In this the motion is due
to the successive impacts of a small jet having a high velocity, which
allows of considerable work being performed with comparatively little
water, as the striking force of the jet is utilized. In the smaller sizes
of these motors, those capable of running a sewing-machine, the water-
jet is but one sixteenth of an inch in diameter, while in the largest
machines it does not exceed half an inch. A steady and uniform
motion of the wheel is attained by placing the buckets very close to-
gether, so that the impulses follow each other in rapid succession.
The water enters the wheel-casing at one side and escapes at the bot-
tom, traversing but one quarter of it. As there is nothing to impede
its flow, none can remain in the wheel and freeze in cold weather.
The motors are manufactured in sizes varying from seven to forty-five
inches' diameter of wheel, and from about one eighth to eight horse-
power. The power obtained depends of course upon the pressure of
the water, but they are designed to run at any pressure above fifteen
pounds per square inch. This is easily obtained, as at most places
where there are water-works there is a pressure of from twenty to
forty pounds, and at some a much higher one. The manner of apply-
ing the motor to a sewing-machine is shown in Fig. 3. Perfect control
over the supply of water is given by a valve operated by a treadle,
which enables the operator to stop and start the machine as readily
and quickly as by the ordinary foot-power. This method of regulat-
ing the speed of the machine has the great advantage that only the
amount of power required is at any time used, thus saving the water
to the utmost.

224

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

In a similar manner it can be used to drive any sort of light ma-
chinery, scroll-saws, dental engines, jewelers' lathes, coffee-mills, etc.
One of the uses to which it is peculiarly well adapted is the blowing
of organs. By a very simple mechanism the performer is given com-
plete control over it, so that the bellows may be kept continually full.
Among the heavier uses to which it has been applied are the running

Fig. 3.

of printing-presses and the lifting of merchandise elevators in business
iouses. To all these uses it is in every Avay adajDted, as it is always
ready for use, is no expense except when running, needs no care, and
is without danger. The extreme simplicity of the motor enables the
makers to place it on the market at a very low first cost, varying from
fifteen dollars in the case of the seven-inch to two hundred and sev-
enty-five in that of the forty-five-inch double wheel.

The cost of operating these motors depends upon the locality in
which they are used. In New York and Philadelphia the insufliciency
of the water-supply prevents their use at all, but in most other j^laces
in this country they sCan be used at but nominal rates. The average

DOMESTIC MOTORS. 225

charge made by water-boards is from fifty to seventy-five dollars a
year per horse-power, while for those used on sewing-machines the
charge varies from three to six dollars. The cost for organs is be-
tween twelve and twenty dollars for the same time. When the mo-
tors are used for business purposes, their owners can usually get special
rates depending upon the time they are actually employed. This price
per horse-power is not greater than that of steam-engines of large
size, and is very much less than the cost of any other form of motor
of small power. This price is, however, based upon a condition of
water-service which could not hold were the motors much more largely
used than at present. The greatly increased demand for water that
this would make would necessarily raise the price charged, but it
could be very much increased and still leave these motors the most
economical of small powers.

Another wheel of a somewhat peculiar construction, invented by
Mr. Talley, is capable of being used either as a turbine or an over-
shot. The water is applied in such a manner that it strikes the
wheel in a thin sheet, the sheet being undulating and wave-like in
form, and impinging edgewise upon the wheel. The circumference
of the wheel is provided with buckets set so as to make an angle
of thirty degrees with the radial lines. The flanges forming the-
sides of the buckets are scalloped out to allow the water to freely
escape when the wheel is employed in the former way. The wheel
is set eccentric to its casing, approaching it closely on the inlet side.
The casing in this portion has a number of curved channels ter-
minating in the face opposite the buckets in a sinuous slit from which
the water issues upon the wheel. The inlet-pipe enters this wave-
line chute at the top of the casing, and the water is distributed
throughout it by ducts terminating at different points. A valve at
the top admits the water to one or more of these ducts as desired.
The wave-line slit in the casing is wider near the top and gradually
narrows toward the bottom, so that there is a greater weight of
water on the wheel at the upper part, and the water issues with a
higher velocity lower down. The sheet of water exerts a continuous
pressure upon the wheel instead of moving it by successive impacts
as in the case of the former motor. An outlet in the base allows the
water to pass oft' when the wheel is used as an overshot, and one in the
side of the casing provides an exit when it is used as a turbine. The
wheel is said to be quite economical of water, and to run easily.

For light pieces of machinery, such as the sewing-machine, various
sorts of spring motors have from time to time been devised, though
none of them seem to have been brought into use. They are not prop-
erly motors, and are really quite valueless for the purpose of power,
unless it be very slight, as that required in clocks. They are capable
of giving out but a small amount of the power expended in winding
them up, and, as this labor has to be done by hand, are very uneconom-

TOL. XVIII. — 15

226 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ical. A weight is a much better device, and yields a large per cent, of
the power expended in raising it when it falls. Such an arrangement is,
however, a thoroughly impracticable one, as a simple calculation will
show. It takes about four hundred foot-pounds per minute to drive a
sewing-machine, so that to run one an hour a weight of a fifth of a ton
would have to fall sixty feet. The only practicable way of utilizing
gravity for motive power is by the water-wheel, where the weight can
fall continually, and the cost of raising it again is a minimum.

■♦»»

INDIGESTION AS A CAUSE OF NERVOUS DEPEES-

SION.

By T. LAUDEE BEUNTON, M. D., F. E. S.

TO most men who are engaged in intellectual work, an autumn
holiday has become a matter of necessity, and is not to be re-
garded as a mere luxury. During eleven months of the year many
who are engaged in brain-work systematically overtax themselves,
trusting to the month's holiday to bring them again into proper work-
ing order. Formerly this was not the case. Men seemed to be able
to go on, not only month after month, but year after year, without
any vacation at all. The circumstances under which they lived were
different from those which exist now. The very means which facili-
tate our holidays — the network of railways which puts us into com-
plete and easy communication with any part of the Continent of Eu-
rope, or the quick ocean-steamers which enable us to enjoy half of a
six weeks' holiday on the other side of the Atlantic, as well as the tel-
egraphic communications which will warn us in a moment, even at the
most distant point of our travels, of any urgent necessity for an imme-
diate return — all these are the very means which increase our labor
during the greater part of the year. We live at high pressure ; letters
and telegrams keep us constantly on the qui vive ; express trains
hurry us miles away from home in the morning and back again in the
evening, and the pressure of competition is so great that few men can
afford either to take their work easily or to modify the constant strain
of it by breaks of a day or two at a time. Wearied and exhausted,
the hard-worked man goes off for his autumn holiday, and, if he can,
will spend most of it in the open air, either yachting, walking by the
seashore, strolling in the country, shooting on the moors, or climbing
the Welsh hills or the Swiss mountains. After a month spent in any
of these ways, the brain-worker comes back to town feeling himself
a different man. Instead of his work being a slavery to him, as it was
before he started, he feels it to be a pleasure ; he gets through it with
ease, and feels not only that the amount he can accomplish is greatly

INDIGESTION AND NERVOUS DEPRESSION. 227

increased, but that the quality is also improved. Perhaps for a short
time after his return he is hardly in a condition to do brain-work at
all. He sits down to his desk, but feels cramped in the unaccustomed
posture, and he would rather work off the superabundant energy within
him in a long walk or a stiff climb than restrain it with difficulty to
the simple task of driving a quill. After a week or two he settles
down and works steadily along with comfort and ease for a couple of
months or more, when he again begins to sink below par. His appre-
hension is no longer so acute, his power of concentration is diminished,
he can no longer fix his attention for any length of time upon one sub-
ject without a severe effort. His mental vision becomes less perspicu-
ous, his ideas succeed each other more slowly, and find expression
with greater difficulty, so that he communicates his thoughts with less
fluency and less clearness than before. His temper, too, undergoes a
change. Instead of regarding the daily occurrences of life with equa-
nimity, and making the best of what can not be helped, irritation so
Blight as to be unfelt at other times provokes him to anger or peevish-
ness, and even when he possesses sufficient self-control to restrain his
feelings and prevent them from being manifested outwardly, to the
annoyance of his friends or neighbors, the very effort of restraint
seems to increase the internal irritation, until at last it either explodes
in an ebullition of wrath on some comparatively trivial circumstance,
or tells upon the digestion and nervous functions of the individual
himself, diminishing the appetite or causing intense muscular weari-
ness. In others, again, we find that along with or taking the place of
irritability there is great mental depression. Everything is looked at
from a gloomy point of view — himself, his friends, and his surround-
ings. He does not feel equal to his work ; nothing that he does
pleases him; he is apt to become distrustful of himself and jealous of
others ; apt to think that his friends are slighting him, or to fancy
that he has offended them. Even when all external circumstances
leave nothing to be desired, the unfortunate victim can not enjoy life.
His mind is occupied Avith gloomy forebodings of miseries to come, or
he becomes a prey to melancholy and depression without any apparent
reason. This melancholy weighs most deeply upon him during the
night, and if he happens to wake in the small hours of the morning, as
he not unfrequently does, life seems not worth living, but a burden of
which he would willingly be quit. Melancholy is at times associated
with sleeplessness, and then the two evils react upon and increase each
other. For this causeless sorrow has a similar effect to that of real
sorrow. As Shakespeare says :

" Sorrow's weight doth heavier grow,
Through debt that bankrupt sleep doth sorrow owe."

At other times instead of sleeplessness there is an abnormal ten-
dency to drowsiness, which sometimes comes on almost irresistibly at

228 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the very moment when some imj^ortant work, requiring all the best
powers of the intellect, has to be performed, and rendering its perform-
ance either imperfect or completely impossible. As soon as the person
goes to bed he falls asleep, and sleeps like a log till morning, when
he rises with difficulty, feeling more exhausted than when he went
to bed the night before, with perhaps a little tightness or pain over
the forehead, eyes, or temples. After breakfast he feels somewhat
revived, and will work comfortably for a short time, but about one
and a half or two hours after the meal weariness overtakes him, again
passing off after it has lasted a variable time. During the day this is
repeated, fits of more or less energy alternating with periods of lan-
guor and exhaustion. These languid fits may be noticed two or three
hours after lunch or dinner, and the sufferer is not unfrequently tempt-
ed to have recourse to the decanter of sherry or the brandy-bottle, not
only to obtain relief from the feeling of personal discomfort, but to
supply the energy which he feels to be necessary to enable him to do
the work he has in hand. But this is a ruinous course to adopt, for
not only does it pave the way to habits of confirmed drunkenness, and
leads to tissue-changes which will ultimately abolish the functional
activity of the most important organs of the body, and bring the indi-
vidual to a premature grave ; it enables him to do his work only im-
perfectly at the time. After an application to the decanter or bottle
his powers may seem to himself to be as great as or greater than usual,
but this is to a considerable extent a subjective feeling only, as he will
probably be able to discover by results.

Now, how is it that such a change has come over the man in a few
months, so that he seems to be a different individual from the one who
returned, bright and lively, from his autumn holiday ? How is it that
the even-temj^ered man has become irritable, the clear-headed man
muddled, the active lazy, the sober perhaps a tippler, and the cheerful
and buoyant depressed and melancholy; that the brain performs all its
functions with difficulty, and the mind is so altered that it does not
seem to be that of the same individual ? And yet, after all, the man
is the same, and the brain is the same, at least in its essential structure,
as it was a few months ago, and as it will be in a few months more,
after another holiday has again put it in good working order. What
has happened to it in the mean time to cause such a dreadful alter-
ation ? Not only does the brain seem exhausted, but the whole sys-
tem appears to .be languid and weak ; instead of the man being able
for a twenty or thirty miles' walk, one of a mile or two will produce
fatigue, and sometimes an intense languor is felt without any exertion
at all. And yet all this time he may have been trying to keep up his
strength. He takes butcher's meat three times a day, perhaps also
strong soups, to say nothing of wine, or brandy-and-soda, to pick him
up. His tissues ought to be getting sufficient nourishment to enable
them to do their work, and yet it is evident that they are not in a con-

INDIGESTION AND NERVOUS DEPRESSION. 229

dition to do so. The man, and very likely his friends also, wonders at
his condition, and when he goes to his medical attendant to describe
his case he says, " I take all sorts of strengthening things, and yet I
feel so weak." If, instead of using these words, he were to say " Be-
cause I take all sorts of strengthening things I feel so weak," he would
express a part at least of the truth. He and his friends who wonder
with him forget that all the functions of life are more or less pro-
cesses of combustion, and that they are subject to laws similar to those
which regulate the burning of the coal in our fireplaces. Two things
are necessary for the combustion, fuel and oxygen; sometimes it is the
fuel that fails, but not unfrequently it is the oxygen. Sometimes, no
doubt, our fires go out because the fuel is quite exhausted, but this is
very rarely the case. It is only under very exceptional circumstances
that we find a fire burned away so completely as to leave nothing but
ash. Almost invariably some fuel still remains — often, indeed, enough
to make up a good fire when properly put together. If we sift the
ashes from the grate we generally find a quantity of cinders, sufiicient
to make a fire, and these have ceased to burn because they were un-
provided with oxygen, which was prevented from reaching them by
the ashes with which they were covered.

The reason why our fires burn low, or go out altogether, either is
that we put on too much coal, or that we allow them to be smothered
in ashes. It is the child who pokes the fire from the top to break the
coal and make it burn faster; the wise man pokes it from below so as
to rake out the ashes and allow free access of oxygen. And so it is
with the functions of life, only that, these being less understood, many
a man acts in resrard to them as the child does to the fire. The man
thinks that his brain is not acting because he has not supplied it with
sufficient food. He takes meat three times a day, and beef -tea, to sup-
ply its wants, as he thinks, and he puts in a poker to stir it up in the
shape of a glass of sherry or a nip from the brandy-bottle. And yet,
all the time, what his brain is suffering from is not lack of fuel, but
accumulation of ash; and the more he continues to cram himself with
food, and to supply himself with stimulants, although they may help
him for the moment, the worse does he ultimately become, just as the
child's breaking the coal may cause a temporary blaze, but allows the
fire all the moi*e quickly to become smothered in ashes. It would
seem that vital processes are much more readily arrested by the accu-
mulation of waste products within the organs of the body than by the
want of nutriment to the organs themselves. In all "cases of fasting,
whether voluntary or compulsory, life is prolonged to a much greater
extent if water be freely supplied. Without water the individual
quickly dies, however much other nourishment he may get, but with
abundance of water he may live for a considerable time, even if he
take no solid nutriment at all. Here it is not that the water acts as a
food; it supplies no new energy to the body, for, unlike starch, or

230 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sugar, or fat, or proteids, it has already undergone complete combus-
tion. It can not, like them, unite any further with oxygen and thus
supply energy.

And yet it is more essential to life than any of them, for without
it the products of waste can not be removed from the tissues, and the
vital fires, so to speak, are smothered in their own ash. If we take the
excised muscle of a frog and stimulate it to repeated contraction, the
contractions become feebler and feebler, until at last they cease alto-
gether. But this is not because the fuel which the muscle contains in
itself has been so completely burned up that none of it is left to fur-
nish the requisite energy to the muscle ; it is because the chemical pro-
cesses necessaiy to the contraction of the muscle are arrested by the
accumulation of the products of its own waste. If we wash these out
of the muscle by sending through its vessels a weak solution of -com-
mon salt, which supplies to it no new material, but which removes
these waste products, the contractile power of the muscle will be re-
stored.

This restoration takes place still more quickly and thoroughl}^ if
we employ a fluid which will sixpply oxygen, such as a solution of per-
manganate of potash, instead of a simple solution of salt, which merely
washes out the muscular waste. The muscle is like a fire in the grate,
which goes out long before the coal is entirely consumed, on account
of the ash which smothers it, and just as we can revive the smoldering
embers by supplying them with oxygen by the use of bellows, so the
muscle revives more quickly when its supply of oxygen is increased.
The quicker the fire burns the sooner will it be choked in ash, and the
more rapidly the muscle contracts the sooner will it lose its powers.

The same is the case with the heart. The slowly beating heart of
a crocodile will pulsate for a day or more after it has been cut out of
the body, but the rapidly pulsating heart of a mammal will very soon
cease to beat ; and, the more rapidly it has been beating before the
animal's death, the sooner will it cease to contract afterward. If the
vagi are cut in the living animal so that the cardiac pulsations become
excessively rapid, the heart's movement ceases almost as soon as the
animal dies ; but, if during life the vagi are irritated so as to make the
heart contract very slowly indeed, it comes to resemble more nearly
the heart of the crocodile, and continues to pulsate for a considerable
time after the animal's death. The heart, too, resembles voluntary
muscles, inasmuch as, if we wash out of it the products of its own waste,
it will continue to beat for a much longer time than if we allow them to
accumulate. By simply allowing a saline solution to circialate through
the heart of a frog it may be kept beating for many hours longer than
if it were left to itself. Both voluntary muscles and involuntary ones,
such as the heart, cease to act, almost invariably, not by exhaustion
of their energy -yielding substance, but by accumulation of the waste
products within them ; and muscles, both voluntary and involuntary,

INDIGESTION AND NERVOUS DEPRESSION. 231

are much less sensitive to this process of choking than the delicate
structures of the nerve-centers. The gastrocnemius, or the heart of a
frog, may retain its irritability for very many hours after its sepa-
tion from the body, but the spinal cord of the same animal will rarely
retain its irritability for a single hour after the circulation through it
has been arrested. In warm-blooded animals the spinal cord is much
more sensitive than in the frog, and, if the circulation in the lower part
of the spinal cord be arrested in a rabbit by the pressure of a thumb
upon the aorta for three or four minutes, the hind-legs of the animal
will become completely paralyzed. Still more sensitive than the spinal
cord is the brain, and if the circulation in the latter organ be arrested,
consciousness is almost instantaneously abolished. In the animal body
as in the steam-engine, the governing and directing parts are much
more sensitive and easily acted upon than the working parts. A sin-
gle touch of the hand to the steam-valve will set the engine in action
or stop its movement, although the power of a thousand men applied
to the fly-wheel would avail little or nothing. And in animals the nerve-
centers are most sensitive and respond most readily to those circum-
stances which affect the organism. Not only are they exceedingly
sensitive to the accumulation within them of the products of their own
waste, but they are easily affected by alterations in the blood which
circulates through them, and which conveys to them not only the prod-
ucts of muscular and glandular waste formed in other parts of the
body, but also substances introduced from without, or absorbed from
the intestinal canal. A single whiff of nitrite of amyl is sufficient to
dilate the blood-vessels ; a fraction of a grain of pilocarpine will stim-
ulate the sweat-glands to the most profuse secretion ; and half a drop
of pure hydrocyanic acid is enough almost instantaneously to abolish
consciousness and destroy the functional activity of the entire nervous
system. In the case of the nitrite of amyl, the pilocarpine, or the
hydrocyanic acid, we are able to distinguish the relation of cause and
effect between the administration of the drug and the resulting changes
in the organism. We do this, however, because of our knowledge,
obtained by observation and experiment. Sometimes we can not do
this. I have seen, for example, a person become aware of a peculiar
sensation which, to the patient, was quite unaccountable, but of which
I understood the reason, as I knew it to be due to the fumes from a
bottle of nitrite of amyl, which the patient could not see. We may
notice a similar occurrence in poisoned animals. The poison of the
cobra causes paralysis of the spinal cord and nerves, and induces in-
tense weakness, so that the limbs of the animal fail under it, I have
seen an animal in this condition attempt to walk, and look round at its
legs with a puzzled air, as though it could not understand what was
the matter with it. It could not connect the weakness in its limbs
with the introduction of the poison some time previously, although the
connection between them was to me perfectly clear.

232 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

In the same way as the action of the cobra-poison was a mystery
to the animal, an epidemic of typhoid fever was formerly to us a mys-
terious occurrence for which no reason could be assigned, but we now
trace it to the absorption into the bodies of the sufferers of typhoid
poison introduced from without. We are now completely alive to the
important results produced by the absorption from the intestinal canal
of poisonous matters, such as typhoid-germs, arsenic, or strychnine
introduced into it from without. But perhaps we are not yet suffi-
ciently alive to the important results produced by the absorption from
the intestinal canal of substances generated in it by fermentation or
imperfect digestion. We recognize the danger of breathing gas from
a sewer, but probably we do not sufficiently realize that noxious gases
may be produced in the intestine, and, being absorbed from it into the
circulation, may produce symptoms of poisoning. And yet we know,
from recorded observations, that such is the case, and that one at least
of the chief components of sewer-gas, viz., sulphuretted hydrogen, may
be produced in the intestine. This gas, which is so readily recognized
by its smell resembling rotten eggs, was found by Dumarquay * to be
very quickly absorbed indeed from the intestine when injected into
the rectum, and to be quickly excreted from the lungs, sometimes ap-
pearing to produce, during its elimination, some inflammation of the tra-
chea and bronchi. This was especially the case when small quantities
were injected, and it seems not improbable that the production of this
gas in the intestine may have something to do with the bronchitis
which is not unfrequently observed in connection with digestive dis-
turbance. In cases of indigestion this gas seems to be not unfre-
quently formed, because persons often complain of the taste of rotten
eggs in the mouth or in the eructations. Even in such small quanti-
ties it is not improbable that it may exert a deleterious influence both
upon the nervous system and upon the blood, for it is a powerful
poison, in its action somewhat resembling hydrocyanic acid, though
not so strong. It destroys ferments, and robs the blood-corpuscles and
the seeds and roots of plants of their power to decompose peroxide of
hydrogen ; and, as this faculty seems to be closely associated with the
processes of life, the sulphuretted hydrogen may be regarded as a
powerful protoplasmic poison. Upon plants it has a curious action,
differing very markedly from sulphurous acid. When plants are ex-
posed to sulphurous acid, the leaves shrivel up, wither, and fall off,
but, if the plant be now removed from the noxious influence of the
gas and placed under favorable conditions, it will recover and send
out fresh shoots. But, if it be exposed to the action of sulphuretted
hydrogen, the leaves, instead of shriveling, simply begin to look flac-
cid, and droop. This seems, at first sight, to be a less deadly action
than that of the sulphurous acid, but when the leaves have once begun
to droop in this way the plant is dead, and does not recover when re-

* " Comptes Rendus," ix, p. 724.

INDIGESTION AND NERVOUS DEPRESSION. 233

moved from the action of the gas. This gas is rarely generated in the
intestine in such a quantity as to give rise to symptoms of acute
poisoning, but it has sometimes this effect. A case is recorded by
Senator * in which a strong and previously healthy man became af-
fected with a slight gastro-intestinal catarrh in consequence of some
error in his diet, and on the second day afterward he had frequent
eructations, smelling strongly of sulphuretted hydrogen. At the same
time he suddenly became collapsed, pale, giddy, and with a rapid, small,
compressible pulse. This lasted for one and a half to two minutes,
and then passed off. The urine which he passed shortly afterward
contained sulphuretted hydrogen. On the same day he had a second
attack of a similar sort, and then, the bowels having been opened, he
recovered completely. Nor is sulphuretted hydrogen the only gas
which may be formed in the stom&ch. Marsh-gas is sometimes formed
there too, and, in an exceedingly interesting case recorded by Dr.
Ewald,f the quantity was so great that it first attracted the patient's at-
tention by taking fire as it issued from his mouth while he was lighting
a cigar. In this curious case the formation of gas alternated with the
production of a great quantity of acid fluid in the stomach, which led
to vomiting, or, as the patient himself expressed it, sometimes his gas-
factory and sometimes his vinegar-factory was at work. It is possible
that this gas may be formed in small quantities in many more cases
than has hitherto been suspected, but its absorption does not seem to
have anything like the same deleterious action as that of sulphuretted
hydrogen. Nor was the acetic acid which was found by chemical
analysis to exist in the acid secretion of the stomach in this case likely
to be productive of any injurious effects after its absorption. But
butyric acid, which is sometimes formed in the stomach in other cases
of indigestion, has been shown by O. Weber to be a powerful poison
acting chiefly on the nerve-centers.

It seems probable, however, that the substances, both gaseous and
solid, formed in the stomach and absorbed from it, are upon the whole
less poisonous in cases of indigestion than those Avhich are produced
lower down in the intestinal canal. We often find that patients are
affected with severe gastric disorder without any affection of the nei-ve-
centers beyond the weakness produced by the inability to digest food,
while in many persons the mere omission to evacuate the contents of
the bowels at the usual time will lead to a headache in the course of
the day. No doubt such a headache as this may be due, to some ex-
tent, to the nervous irritation caused by the presence of the faeces in
the intestine, but it seems quite possible that it is also due to the ab-
sorption of some of the faecal matter itself. Nor do we at present
know what effects are produced by the absorption of the various diges-
tive juices themselves. That such absorption takes place there can be

* " Berliner klin. Wochonschr.," 1868, No. 24.

f " Reicherts und Du Bois-Reymond's Archiv.," 18Y4, p. 217.

234 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

little doubt. It has been demonstrated in the case of the bile, which
is absorbed with great rapidity from the intestine and reexcreted by
the liver, so that it does not pass into the general circulation at all.
But what becomes of the other digestive fluids, and the ferments they
contain? The pepsin finds it way in minute quantities through the
liver, and has been discovered in various tissues of the body and in
the urine. This, however, matters but little, for it can not act upon
the tissues themselves, inasmuch as they possess an alkaline reaction.
But the case must be somewhat different with pancreatine, and if pan-
creatic fluid be absorbed from the intestine and pass through the
liver unchanged, we should expect that it would have a very powerful
action upon the tissues throughout the body, because there appears to
be no reason why it should not act upon them just as it does upon the
food in the intestine itself. It seems not at all unlikely, then, that the
liver has got another function besides those usually assigned to it, viz.,
that of preventing the digestive ferments from reaching the general
circulation so as to act upon the tissues. Now, we do find in the liver
itself and in the bile a ferment having the same diastatic power as the
pancreatic juice, but it does not appear in such quantities as one would
expect if the whole of the pancreatic ferment were simply reexcreted
by the liver along with the bile, and, as we have no evidence that the
ferment is destroyed during its action in the intestine, we are naturally
led to think that it may undergo a change in the liver, the converse
of that which it undergoes in the pancreatic gland during the process
of secretion. In the pancreas itself we have no ready formed ferment,
but we have a ferment-forming substance, which has recently become
known tinder the name of zymogen, given to it by Heidenhain, but
the writer heard it described by Kiihne in his lectures on physiological
chemistry delivered at Amsterdam in 1869. I quote verbatim from
the notes which I took at the time of his lecture on the pancreas :
" Glands which have no action on fibrine can be made active by di-
gesting in very dilute acid and then neutralizing or alkalizing ; there
seeming to exist a ferment-forming substance in the pancreas." Dur-
ing digestion this ferment-forming substance or zymogen splits up
and yields free ferment, and it seems not improbable that it is in the
liver that this very ferment, after its digestive work is done, becomes
again converted into the ferment-forming substance which may circu-
late throughout the tissues without doing them any injury.

Whether this be the case or not, however, with regard to the fer-
ments of the gastric, pancreatic, and intestinal juices, all of which
must pass through the liver before they reach the general circulation,
there can be no doubt that the products of intestinal digestion do un-
dergo very marked changes indeed in the liver, as is shown by the
formation from them of very large quantities of a new substance,
glycogen — a substance which is not contained in the products of the
gastric and intestinal digestion which reach the liver, and yet which

INDIGESTION AND NERVOUS DEPRESSION. 235

is of the highest importance for the nutriment of the body. Under
ordinary circumstances, nearly the whole of the sugar formed in the
intestine and absorbed from it is arrested in the liver, so that very
little passes into the general circulation and appears in the urine,
although even in healthy persons traces of sugar are excreted by the
kidneys. Under exceptional circumstances, however, sugar may pass
through in considerable quantities, as, for example, when the individual
takes, on an empty stomach, a large quantity of sirup. However
healthy his organs may be, sugar will then appear in the urine. The
same is the case in regard to albumen. Usually, the whole albumi-
nous constituents of our food are so transformed in the stomach, intes-
tines, and liver, that no albuminous substances of the kind which can
pass through the kidneys get into the general circulation. But, if one
takes such a quantity of eggs as to completely overtask the digestive
powers, the egg-albumen will pass unchanged into the blood, and be
excreted by the kidneys.

Other albuminous substances, the products of intestinal digestion,
and peptones also, occasionally make their appearance in the urine, as
well as egg-albumen. Even when the processes of assimilation are
not so seriously interfered with as in these instances, we observe that
products of nitrogenous waste frequently occur in the form of lithates
in the urine. An excess of these indicates some pathological condi-
tion, even although it may be very trivial. We can not, indeed, say
what the exact condition is, because we find lithates appearing in the
urine after violent muscular exertion accompanied by profuse sweat-
ing, so that they may possibly represent some of the products of mus-
cular waste ; but we also find that they occur in large quantities in
the urine after slight indiscretions in diet, although no muscular exer-
tion has been undergone, and in these cases we can hardly do other-
wise than regard them as products of the imperfect assimilation of
nitrogenous matters which ought to have been eliminated, not in the
form of urates, but of urea. Now, physiological experiments and ob-
servations indicate that the liver is the chief if not the only part of
the body in which urea is formed. This at least appears to be the
case excepting in febrile conditions, in which, possibly, the urea may
also be formed, to a considerable extent, in the muscles. The old
notion, then, which connected the appearance of lithates in the urine
with disordered function of the liver, is probably in a great measure
correct. There is little or no reason to believe that these lithates are
formed in the kidneys. They are, probably, simply separated by them
from the blood, and their presence in the urine would therefore indi-
cate their presence in the blood and tissues. Now, lithates in them-
selves do not appear to have any particularly injurious effects, either
upon the nervous tissues or the muscles, but, as their presence indi-
cates deficient assimilation, they may be accompanied by other sub-
stances which have a much more pernicious action, just as there are

236 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

many bad smells which, /)er se, though very disagreeable, have no
marked poisonous action, while other very poisonous substances have
comparatively little odor.* Yet the disagreeable odors which accom-
pany sewer-gas, although perhaps not always dependent upon its
poisonous constituents, warn us of the presence of gases which may
be intensely poisonous. Nevertheless, just as the poisonous gases
may be present without any disagreeable smell,, so we may have
substances circulating in the blood which have the most injurious
effect upon the nerve-centers, without the presence of urates in the
urine.

The importance of the functions of the liver in reference to assimi-
lation is now generally recognized, although for a long time this, the
largest gland in the body, was considered to have no other office than
simply to secrete bile. Although the bile is useful in digestion it is not
of primary importance in this process ; but its proper secretion is prob-
ably associated very closely with the assimilative functions of the liver,
and if the biliary secretion does not take place properly we can hardly
expect the assimilation to be perfect.

The greatest care appears to have been taken in the construction
of the liver to prevent the bile from coming in contact with the blood,
the ultimate radicals of the bile-ducts or biliary capillaries being placed
as far from the blood capillaries as the structure of the liver will allow.
Notwithstanding this care, the distance between the blood and the bile
capillaries is small, though it is sufficient, under ordinary circumstances,
to prevent the absorption of bile into the blood. But whenever an ob-
struction takes place to the exit of bile, and the presence of bile in the
biliary capillaries increases, an absorption of this secretion occurs. Bile
is secreted under very low pressure, and a very slight increase in this is
sufficient to cause reabsorption. Such an increase as would not materi-
ally affect the secretion of other glands, such as the salivary gland, is
sufficient to prevent the exit of bile through the biliary ducts, and cause
its reabsorption into the blood. The excretion of bile is greatly aided
by the pressure which is exerted upon it by the movements of the dia-
phragm during respiration, and indeed so low is the pressure under
which the bile is secreted that, but for the assistance given by the re-
spiratory movement, it would just barely find its way into the duode-
num. Although we are accustomed to say " as bitter as gall," accord-
ing to my own observations fresh human bile is not bitter. When it is
thrown up in consequence of indigestion it is intensely bitter. On one
occasion, when making experiments with digitalis, I had taken in the
course of two days one grain of the pure alkaloid, and brought on symp-
toms of poisoning, with intense vomiting. During this I brought up
a quantity of bile of a golden-yellow color, and without the least trace
of bitterness. This circumstance struck me as being so peculiar that
in my published results I hesitated to call it bile, although I did not
* Brunton and Power, "St. Bartholomew's Hospital Reports," 19,11, p. 283.

ORIENTAL MUSIC. 237

see what else it could be.* But when it remains long in the gall-blad-
der it undergoes changes, and in some cases of vomiting that I have
seen the vomited matters have been of a bright grass-green color.
When examined, also, after death, the bile in the gall-bladder is not
unfrequently found of a dark color, and the same is probably the case
when it is retained in the gall-bladder for any length of time during
life. How the Greeks arrived at the notion of giving the name "mel-
ancholy," i. e., black bile, to depression of spirits, we do not quite
know, but certain it is that depression of spirits is very often associated
with indigestion, and, moreover, that the form of indigestion with
which we find depression of spirits associated is not so much gastric
as intestinal, or, more probably, hepatic. According to Herbert Spen-
cer, we require rapid evolution of nervous energy in order to have ex-
hilaration of the spirits, and depression of nervous energy is associ-
ated with melancholy. Now, the effect of bile- acids circulating in the
blood, as shown by physiological experiments, is to depress the reflex
function of the spinal cord, the functions of the brain also, producing
drowsiness ending in coma, and also weakening the circulation by par-
alyzing the cardiac ganglia, f Such a combination of actions is just
the one required by Mr. Spencer's hypothesis to produce melancholia,
and here we find ancient notions joining hands with modern science.
— Practitioner.

♦*»

OKIENTAL MUSIC.

By S. AUSTEN PEARCE, Mirs. D., Oxon.

IMNUMERABLE questions arise in the mind whenever that myste-
rious art, called music, occupies our thoughts — questions respecting
its source, its course or development in various epochs, its laws, object,
action, limitations, and influence. These are not easily answered sat-
isfactorily, and appear to have been as great problems to the ancients
as they are to ourselves. For, attempting to penetrate the thick mists
that veiled their past, they failed to discover the origin of any one mu-
sical instrument ; and being completely baffled in their researches con-
cerning the inception of musical systems, and also unable to account
for the remarkable sway that their art-works exercised over hearers,
they contented themselves with conserving these systems and art-
works in their entirety, for the benefit of posterity.

We, who are always ready to invent theories for the explanation of
phenomena, find ourselves extremely perplexed in accounting for vari-
ous musical facts that at first sight seem simple and easily understood.

* Brunton " On Digitalis," p. 67.

f Vide Wickham Legge, "Bile, Jaundice, and Bilious Diseases," pp. 207, 216, 217.

238 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

If, therefore, we are unable to explain our music to ourselves, and the
ancients could not explain their music to themselves, it should not
cause surprise if we fail to comprehend their music. For, although
it is said, " Human nature is the same in all ages," the tonal art,
which appeals to every individual's own inner nature so very directly
and intimately, reveals strongly marked differences among men.

The difficulties to be overcome in forming an adequate conception
of the music of other peoples are, therefore, great. If, after persistent
effort or even a life-long devotion to performance and composition, we
find perplexing mysteries at every turn, we may naturally anticipate
encountering inscrutable enigmas in the endeavor to comprehend the
true nature of the forms of art specially adapted to the necessities of
races so far removed in time and place, thought and feeling, as the
ancient Orientals.

Even the music of the modern occupants of the East is so strange
and foreign to our wants and inclinations, that many persons speak of
it with disrespect ; and travelers and generally well-informed artists,
judging of its merits by the casual performances of poor peripatetic
musicians, are frequently led to the belief that it is unworthy special
regard. It would be more philosophical to assume that an art prac-
ticed throughout the Orient by all classes of persons, in all times, would,
if seriously studied, present many aspects worthy of deep reflection.
However little we may be able to sympathize with Chinese, Hindoos,
Persians, and other peoples in their artistic aspirations, we should not
be tempted to jDrovoke a smile at their expense, but approach the study
of their music with the greatest respect. In this spirit let us proceed.

Music and its instruments were commonly believed in the East to
be gifts from Heaven, and therefore its cultivation and their preserva-
tion became religious duties. The Orientals took no credit to them-
selves for inventing the various extraordinary instruments with which
they performed their wonder-working melodies, and, as will be pres-
ently shown, no modern nation has yet invented a really new one ;
for all those we employ are either enlarged or simplified forms of pro-
totypes that were in use at the earliest times of which we have any
record, and are really prehistoric.

The sacred books of the Chinese give a complete account of their
organ — most exact measurements of the lengths, diameters, thickness,
materials, etc., of each pipe, and so on — not to suggest improvements,
or take credit for the devices mentioned ; but simply that, should the
instrument from any cause become obsolete, it could be revived ; and
thus this great gift, from some remote ancestor, would still be secured
for future generations. Confucius and various emperors are portrayed
performing on the hin (a stringed instrument), and music occupies the
first rank among the sciences.

In India, Brahma himself is believed to have presented music to

ORIENTAL MUSIC. 239

mortals, and the invention of the seven-stringed vina is attributed
to the god Nareda. Saraswati, the Minerva of the Hindoos, is repre-
sented playing on the lute, Krishna on the transverse flute, and harp-
ists are adorned with wings.

In Egypt, the formation of the three-stringed lyre is attributed to
one of the secondary gods. Osiris is regarded as the giver of the flute,
Isis of songs, and Thoth of musical theory. In Egyptian hieroglyph-
ics the nofre, a long-necked stringed instrument played with the
hands, is labeled " good." In a satiric papyrus, now at Turin, Ra-
meses III, as a lion, is playing chess with a favorite, figuring as a ga-
zelle ; and in another papyrus in the same collection these characters
reappear playing respectively a lyre and harp, a crocodile is perform-
ing on a nofre and a slave on the double pipes. Music occupied a
much more important place in the religion and daily life of Eastern
peoples than it does among ourselves, where it is often regarded as an
ordinary amusement or diversion, and unworthy any higher function.
Hence the unwillingness so commonly manifested by very many re-
ligionists, having the best possible intentions — who accept the Bible,
and think they regard all its teachings — to be cross- questioned with
reference to their belief in its many statements respecting this art.
They find the sacred writings of the Hebrews bearing testimony to its
worth and power as well and fully as those of other ancient nations,
and that not only the Jews (who were always extremely fond of and
susceptible to its influence) are addressed, but also succeeding Chris-
tians ; for, according to the New Testament, the blessed ones in heaven
are unceasingly occupied in music.

The Hebrews were taught that Jehovah gave Moses special direc-
tions for the making of silver trumpets and a code of signals. They
were allowed to mend musical instruments in the Temple on the Sab-
bath-day ; believed the art to be efticacious in curing mental aberration,
and the prophets not only employed it, but, as in the case of Elisha,
appear to have found its use essential. Their music-schools, the ar-
rangements for the Temple-worship, the various styles of composi-
tion adapted to different social occasions, prove the time and thought
spent in the practice of music to have been, at least from our point
of view, excessive ; yet in no passages is long-continued indulgence
in its exercise censured or moderation advised. The high estimation
in which this art was held in times long past and our difficulty in
understanding the matter find an illustration in the meeting of Saul
with the company of prophets descending a hill, each playing upon a
musical instrument. It would seem exceedingly strange to us if a
king or president should meet and join a body of learned men in a
similar manner.

The technical study of Oriental systems of music is rendered dif-
ficult from the fact that these are overlaid with a mass of symbol-
ism, that makes accurate, positive definition frequently unattainable.

240 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

In some cases strange and extravagant hyperbole leads to a general
notion being formed of the character of certain forms, but yet to
great uncertainty as to their actual nature. In the case of some Ori-
ental nations, the perfected systems, the theories and their symboli-
cal analogies and illustrations came to be valued more highly than the
music based upon them. The Chinese, for instance, compared at a
very early period the twelve notes of the chromatic scale with the
lunar zodiac, and the expression of each note with the exjDression of
outwai-d nature — the weather of each month.

Their various modes have characteristic significations. That of
Koung (= fa) represents the emj^eror — the sublimity of his docti'ine,
the majesty of his countenance, and the high importance of his actions ;
the mode Cheng {= sol) represents the minister — his intrepidity in
the exercise of his duties, firm administration of justice, and slight
rigorousness ; and so on, throughout the complete series.

The Hindoos were also led to personify all their modes, but their
excited, unbridled imaginations led them to place in their heaven the
presiding deity of each. Their systems are complicated, symbolical,
mystical, and beautiful. They believed in miracle-working melodies,
called Ragas, each having its own special power on rain, harvests, sun,
wild beasts, etc., and the faith in their efficacy still exists. It is rarely
tested because of the alleged difficulty in finding an executive artist
competent to perform the music with the proper expression in the par-
ticular locality selected for the trial.

The Persians, who regarded music as physic for the soul, found in
a tree and its roots and branches a fitting emblem and convenient
illustration for their technical system of modes, and, in the strings of
their lute, correspondences with their seasons.

The Chaldeans and Egyptians required the whole cosmos for an
exemplification of their systems ; and thus, through the Greeks, the
expression " music of the spheres " has come down to us.

Here, at least, we find a link connecting the dead past with the liv-
ing present. Pythagoras and the mathematical musicians of his age
and country made the middle string of the Greek lyre typify the sun,
and the others the planets ; and even their opponents, Aristotle and
the practical musicians, were led to acknowledge that, when this mid-
dle string was out of tune, the whole instrument was out of tune, but
that if any other string were untuned the lyre would still be playable.
Here evidence is found that there then existed a vague, glimmering
notion of the peculiar and inherent importance of some one note, which
we now fully recognize, and commonly speak of as the key-note — from
which all the other notes are measured, and in which all find justifica-
tion.

And, further, the Greek modes, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, etc.,
which were somewhat similar to the ecclesiastical modes that bear the
same names interchanged, have given place in Europe to our modern

ORIENTAL MUSIC. 241

major and minor scales, which are exclusively used by all those peo-
ples who do not employ the Hungarian system. Now, although these
scales have hardly been in general use for two centuries, there is grad-
ually growing up among ourselves a recognized scheme of characteri-
zation or symbolism analogous to the schemes formulated by the Ori-
entals. For we not only speak of major modes as bright and genial,
and minor modes as sorrowful and depressed, irrespective of the music
to be cast in these modes — and also regard our sharp keys as brilliant,
and flat keys as calm and soothing, irrespective also of the music to
be rendered in them, and although we are perfectly certain of the fact
that mathematically they present no variation — but we notice that the
notes in any one key have each their special signification.

Attempts have been made to define these characteristics, which
must be allowed to be successful, for thousands of persons are unani-
mous that their experiences agree.

The most satisfactory proof of this is that large choral bodies have
been trained to sing from printed copies of music, at first sight, most
elaborate compositions, simply by being taught to identify the various
notes by recognizing uniformly their character, and thus to sing them
correctly without the aid of an instrument. The societies acquainted
with this — the tonic sol-fa system, in which particular ideas are asso-
ciated with each note — have for twenty years competed successfully
for prizes, at large festivals in England, with the best organizations
trained in other methods.

We are, therefore, rapidly forming complex psychologic systems,
side by side with our technical systems, which to the ancients would
prove as strange and unaccountable as some of theirs do to us ; or
even still more strange, for the want of sympathy would not be en-
tirely due to difference of musical temperament of scales, or to mere
remoteness of period and nation, but to the use of harmony and simul-
taneous melodies that render our music bewilderingly complex in its
structure to those nations who do not employ polyphony.

An elaborate characterization of even one isolated interval — say of
the sweet-sighing-sadness of the sixth sound of the ^olian harp, the
dominant seventh of nature — could be no more intelligible to one who
had never experienced the combination than the sweetness of honey
be made known to one who had never tasted it.

Here one would willingly address thoughtful musicians, who strive
to understand the present condition of their art, by tracing the history
of its phases, being able to appeal to their technical knowledge of our
own formal systems of scales, etc., in giving details of other and more
complex systems, which can not be made readily comprehensible to
the general public. But we must be content to pass on and speak of
other links, connecting the present with the most remote ages.

No more ready proof of the great musical acquirements of the an-
cients can be found than in the marvelous skill shovra in their instru-

VOL. XTIII. — 16

242 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

inents. Many have become obsolete, but others are still hi constant
use, and are found with various modifications in all countries. They
give evidence of high civilization at a very early period, not only in
the costliness and rarity of the materials used, and the knowledge of
the science of acoustics displayed in their production, but in the men-
tal power required for their first conception.

The hollow-cone-shaped porcelain vases of China, that have five
holes to be stopped so that the air within may be made to vibrate in
certain determinate ways to produce with accuracy the notes required
by the performer, are, as wind-instruments, marvels of inventive gen-
ius. The pipes of a Chinese organ are rendered dumb by a hole
bored near the foot of each one, and which the player stops with
his finger when the pipe is required to sound its note. Acousticians
fail to comprehend this ; and, although enormously large church-
organs are built by ourselves, we do not really know the motion of
the vibrating column of air in any one pipe, the wind with which it
is supplied not entering it. Nor can we tell why one stopped with a
plug at the top, when sounded, vibrates violently on two of its sides,
the other two remaining quiescent. Various other phenomena, that
are said to be fully understood in recent works on sound, are only
partially accounted for.

There is a tendency to refer all instruments to respective epochs,
according to their degrees of development, partly because our piano-
forte has been so rapidly elaborated from the Irish harp, which alone
had a tension-bar, and our harmonium from the Chinese reed, also by
the key-board appliance, and partly because consistent theories are
so easily invented. TVe should, therefore, be on our guard in this
matter, as in others, respecting chronological sequences, and remember
that many instruments have been periodically simplified, as in the ease
of the violin ; or chosen for their simplicity, as in the case of the
Greek lyre over that of the Egyptian harp, notwithstanding its ex-
tremely limited powers ; and particularly the historic fact that most
elaborate instruments were known in mythologic times in China.

Adopting the classification of Jubal — the sixth from Adam — " harp
and organ " (commonly called " string and wind "), and adding the
generally unrecorded pereussive instruments to form the third genus,
it is not difiicult to invent a theory of development. For we may
assume that the warrior's bow-string, giving a well-defined tone when
pulled with the finger, led to two or more strings being systematized
and plucked with the plectrum or struck with mallets, giving rise to
the many forms of Egyptian harps, all of which are in the form of
a bow, and have no " tension-bar " to resist the pull of the strings ;
then that the friction of two bows led to the violin species, by the
addition and augmentation of resonating cavities for one bow and the
modification of the other bow, which has only recently been made, and
the addition of a finger-board.

ORIENTAL MUSIC. 243

Hand-clappiug, not for applause, but rhythmic accentuation as
practiced in the East, may be supposed to have led to the Jew's-harp
and instruments consisting of bars free at one end, then to others free
at both ends, then to plates free all round, as cymbals more or less
concave, and subsequently to bells, sonorous boxes, drums, etc.

A simple reed or pipe may be supposed to have led to many pipes
being systematized, their materials changed, their mouth-pieces varied,
as whistle, beak, single reed, etc. ; then that the powers of each pipe
were increased by the boring of holes in it at certain particular points,
much as a Gray's telephone increases the capacity of a single wire by
enabling it to transmit in both directions several messages simulta-
neously ; then, finally, to the systemization of such pipes.

But here, at the end of our series, -^e find an instrument, the bag-
pipe, that figures in Chinese myths. However little we may relish
the quality of the tone of this instrument, when it is badly played,
and at only a short distance from us, we must give it the highest place
in the scheme, and admire the skill displayed in its formation.

The real worth of Oriental music is not to be learned from routine
practical musicians, who rarely know anything of the underlying prin-
ciples of their art, but must be gained by a patient study of ancient
writings, in which the respective theories are recorded. For the most
part, the theories point to the possession or the possibility of greater
art-works than any with which we have become acquainted ; and the
cultivation of certain departments of the art, which we neglect.

The Chinese are sensitive to changes of pitch (transposition), to the
exact agreement of the words of a song and its music, as well as to the
expression imparted to their ordinary speech by vocal inflections ;
while we are for the most part indifferent as to absolute pitch, set
poetic rhythms to dance-tunes, have different verses to the same music,
and less frequently speak with strongly marked variations of tone.
Their belief that not only the voice of man, but all nature, should
praise its Creator, led them to make an elaborate system of quality of
tone {timbre), selecting eight kinds of materials from the animal, vege-
table, and mineral kingdoms for the construction of musical instru-
ments.

But, although they spent much labor in devising complete schemes,
formulating scales, and calculating them with great nicety (like the
modern Persians), even to the invention of the "equal temperament"
(which European nations subsequently learned to use), in devising a
regular notation, and in fact securing all the appliances necessary for
the production of really great music, we fail to find them in posses-
sion of a single melody that would be generally acceptable to a modem
audience. Their composers appear to be deficient in the power of im-
agination, without which it is impossible to invent a beautiful musical
idea. We regard our melodies as so many happy thoughts, or felici-
tous expressions, developed with consistency and true to some particu-

244- THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

lar mental mood ; or at least presenting some recognizable sequential
psychologic progression. Yet nevertheless, they have compositions
intended to describe scenes, as if music to them conveyed definite
intelligible ideas. Thus, one composition (although to us almost ludi-
crous from its awkwardness, shortness, and want of coherence) appears
to have simulated for them the progress of a battle, being marked at
various points, " The proclamation of the general," " His warriors pre-
paring their fighting-men," " The general gives his orders," etc., end-
ing with " Repose after victory,"

The absence of harmony not only makes all these specimens unat-
tractive, but the fact that they were conceived entirely free from the
influence of harmonic design renders them foreign to our thoughts.
We may whistle or hum a Strauss waltz or little Verdi tune with satis-
faction, because these melodies were produced under the bias or domin-
ion of harmonies, which are generally so simple and natural that we
commonly say that they are implied in the melodic shape. For this
reason an accompaniment may be extemporized or imagined. And the
modern system of chords tending to create a desire for a constant re-
turn to the key-note, whenever a satisfactory termination is required,
the absence of this acknowledged sound in Chinese melodies seems to
make a cadence, in our sense of the word, impossible to them.

The Chinese language being monosyllabic, it lends itself readily to
the Canto-Fermo style of song that is employed in ancestral worship,
and which greatly resembles the style of the old Lutheran chorals,
except that the melody of the former makes more skips upward and
downward.

The lines of the poetry being four syllables in length in every
strophe (as " See hoang sien tsow " of the " Ancestral Hymn "), and the
notes being long and of equal length, a rhythmic uniformity is secured.
But this is merely accidental, for in the secular melodies no evidence
of a symmetrical rhythmic order or plan is observable, which also
makes a definite rhythmic termination on a strong and anticipated
accent as impossible as the definite tonal termination already noticed.
The Chinese do not even appear to understand stress or accent, for in
the orchestral score of the above hymn the instruments of percussion
mark off groups of notes, not by greater stress, but by an increased
number of instruments.

Turning to their neighbors, the Hindoos, on the contrary, we find
extremely elaborate rhythmic designs (musical feet), and also phrases
so symmetrical and compact that they are at once acceptable, and so
coherent and consistent in their succession as to suggest words indica-
tive of well-known moods. In this respect they present no difficulties,
and are more easily supplied with accompaniments than those of the
Chinese.

Our immediate acceptance of Indian music attests our Aryan fel-
lowship.

ORIENTAL MUSIC. 245

The use of silk for strings and the employment of instruments of
extreme softness in the East, sufficiently disprove the statement that
ancient music was barbaric and noisy. Many instruments of percus-
sion are soft as drops of water falling into a fountain. Chaldean music
was soft and sentimental. Egyptian harps were not of powerful tone.
The Hindoos have a flute with vibratory apparatus so extremely deli-
cate that it is sounded by one end being suddenly pressed to the neck of
the performer. The Greeks and Persians loved soft music, and singers
did not strain their voices. The Hebrews alone among ancient people
sang " with all their might " unrestrainedly, and delighted in making
a grand consensus of tone in their choruses of voices and instruments
and the clapping of hands. In other nations solo performances were
more general, and among the Hindoos an executant would risk his repl^
tation if he did not execute variations on a theme at each recurrence.
These and other performances were most frequently extemporaneous.
Conception and realization being thus conjoined, the result of sudden
impulse, it was necessary for the player to warm with his theme until
he became intensely interested in it ; and his excited imagination to
be stimulated by other influences until he succeeded in his artistic
efforts, and in gratifying his audience. No cold reflection supervened,
the composer was his own performer, his enthusiasm was perceived
and his improvisations at every turn were surj^rises that gave delight.

A complete history of music would be a history of the world, so
intimately is it found connected with the language, habits, poetry,
religion, and life of the various nations. Our form of the art is alone
adapted to our wants ; and when we consider its enhanced powers, its
modern counterpoint and harmony, we are at a loss to understand how
Oriental music, with its greater limitations, could exercise so j)owerful
a sway over its hearers.

Oriental music has, for ages, shed a benignant and salutary influ-
ance on the hearts, minds, and senses of millions of persons, and still
is a source of gratification to more than half the population of the
globe. It has given immediate expression to many various conditions
of mind, has raised noble feelings and subdued painful ones ; it has
alleviated suffering and softened down coarseness and hardness of
heart.

The joys and sorrows, aspirations and emotions of an age are sound-
ed forth in its music ; therefore that of the past is chiefly valuable as a
contribution to historic national psychology. Let us so live that our
own music, as a reflex image of ourselves, may attest our progress,
not only in the physical sciences, but in nobleness of soul and all true
worthiness.

246 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

THE SABBATH.*

By Professor JOHN TYNDALL, F. E. S.

I.

IN the opening words of a lecture delivered in this city four years
ao'o, I spoke of the desire and tendency of the present age to con-
nect itself organically with preceding ages. The expression of this
desire is not limited to the connection of the material organisms of to-
day with those of the geologic past. It is equally manifested in the
domain of mind. To this source, for example, may be traced the
philosophical writings of Mr. Herbert Spencer. To it we are indebted
for the series of learned works on " The Sources of Christianity," by
M. Renan. To it we owe the researches of Professor Max Miiller in
comparative philology and mythology, and the endeavor to found on
these researches a " science of religion." In this relation, moreover,
the recent work of Principal Caird f is highly characteristic of the
tendencies of the age. He has no words of vituperation for the older
phases of faith. Throughout the ages he discerns a purpose and a
growth, wherein the earlier and more imperfect religions constitute
the natural and necessary precursors of the later and more perfect
ones. Even in the slough of ancient paganism. Principal Caird de-
tects a power ever tending toward amelioration, ever working toward
the advent of a better state, and finally emerging in the purer life of
Christianity. J

These changes in religious conceptions and practices correspond to
the changes wrought by augmented experience in the texture and con-
tents of the human mind. Acquainted as we now are with this im-
measurable universe, and with the energies operant therein, the guises
under which the sages of old presented the Maker and Builder thereof
seem to us to belong to the utter infancy of things. To point to illus-
trations drawn from the heathen world would be superfluous. We may
mount higher, and still find our assertion true. When, for example,
Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy elders of Israel are
represented as climbing Mount Sinai, and actually seeing there the
God of Israel, we listen to language to which we can attach no signifi-
cance. " There is in all this," says Principal Caird, " much which,
even when religious feeling is absorbing the latent nutriment con-
tained in it, is perceived [by the philosophic Christian of to-day] to
belong to the domain of materialistic and figurative conception." The

* Presidential address to the Glasgow Sunday Society, delivered in St. Andrew's
Hall, October 25, 1880.

f " Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion."

X In Professor Max Miiller's " Introduction to the Science of Religion " some excel-
lent passages occur, embodying the above view of the continuity of religious develop-
ment.

THE SABBATH. 247

children of Israel received without idealization the statements of their
great law-giver. To them the tables of the law were true tablets of
stone, prepared, engraved, broken, and reengraved ; while the graving-
tool which inscribed the law was held undoubtingly to be the finger
of God. To us such conceptions are impossible. We may by habit
use the words, but we attach to them no definite meaning. " As the
religious education of the world advances," says Principal Caird, " it
becomes impossible to attach any literal meaning to those represen-
tations of God and his relations to mankind which ascribe to him
human senses, appetites, passions, and the actions and experiences
proper to man's lower and finite nature."

Principal Caird, nevertheless, ascribes to this imaging of the Unseen
a special value and significance, regarding it as furnishing an objective
counterpart to religious emotion, permanent but plastic — capable of
indefinite change and purification in response to the changing moods
and aspirations of mankind. It is solely on this mutable element that
he fixes his attention in estimating the religious character of Individ-
uals or nations. " Here," he says, " the fundamental inquiry is as to
the objective character of their religious ideas or beliefs. The first
question is, not how they feel, but what they think and believe ; not
whether their religion manifests itself in emotions more or less vehe-
ment or enthusiastic, but what are the conceptions of God and divine
things by which these emotions are called forth ? " These conceptions
" of God and divine things " were, it is admitted, once " materialistic
and figurative," and therefore objectively untrue. Nor is their purer
essence yet distilled ; for the religious education of the world still
" advances," and is, therefore, incomplete. Hence the essentially flux-
ional character of that objective counterpart to religious emotion to
which Principal Caird attaches most importance. He, moreover, as-
sumes that the emotion is called forth by the conception. We have
doubtless action and reaction here ; but it may be questioned whether
the conception, which is a construction of the human understanding,
could be at all put together without materials drawn from the experi-
ence of the human heart.*

The changes of conception here adverted to have not always been
peacefully brought about. The " transmutation " of the old beliefs
was often accompanied by conflict and suffering. It was conspicuously
so during the passage from paganism to Christianity. In his work
entitled "L'Eglise Chretienne," Renan describes the sufferings of a
group of Christians at Smyrna which may be taken as typical. The
victims were cut up by the lash till the inner tissues of their bodies

* While reading the volume of Principal Caird I was reminded more than once of
the following passage in Kenan's " Antechrist " : " Et d'ailleurs, quel est I'homme vrai-
ment religieux qui repudie completement I'enseignement traditionnel eI I'ombre duquel
il sentit d'abord I'ideal, qui ne cherche pas les conciliations, souvent impossibles, entre
sa vieille foi et celle k laquelle il est arrive par le progres de sa pensee ? "

248 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

were laid bare. They were dragged naked over pointed shells. They
were torn by lions ; and finally, while still alive, were committed to
the flames. But all these tortures failed to extort from them a murmur
or a cry. The fortitude of the early Christians gained many converts
to their cause ; still, when the evidential value of fortitude is consid-
ered, it must not be forgotten that almost every faith can point to its
rejoicing martyrs. Even these Smyrna murderers had a faith of their
own, the imperiling of which by Christianity spurred them on to
murder. From faifeh they extracted the diabolical energy which ani-
mated them. The strength of faith is, therefore, no proof of the ob-
jective truth of faith. Indeed, at the very time here referred to we
find two classes of Christians equally strong — Jewish Christians and
Gentile Christians — who, while dying for the same Master, turned
their backs upon each other, mutually declining all fellowship and
communion.

Thus early the forces which had differentiated Christianity from
paganism made themselves manifest in details, producing disunion
among those whose creeds and interests were in great part identical.
Struggles for priority were not uncommon. Jesus himself had to quell
such contentions. His exhortations to humility were frequent. " He
that is least among you shall be greatest of all." There were also
conflicts upon points of doctrine. The difference which concerns us
most had reference to the binding power of the Jewish law. Here
dissensions broke out among the apostles themselves. Nobody who
reads with due attention the epistles of Paul can fail to see that this
mighty propagandist had to carry on a life-long struggle to maintain
his authority as a preacher of Christ. There were not wanting those
who denied him all vocation. James was the head of the Church at
Jerusalem, and Judeo-Christians held that the ordination of James was
alone valid. Paul, therefore, having no mission from James, was
deemed by some a criminal intruder. The real fault of Paul was his
love of freedom, and his uncompromising rejection, on behalf of his
Gentile converts, of the chains of Judaism. He proudly calls himself
" the Apostle of the Gentiles." Pie says to the Corinthians : " I sup-
pose I was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles. Are they
Hebrews ? So am I. Are they Israelites ? So am I. Are they of
the seed of Abraham ? So am I. Ax'e they ministers of Christ ? I am
more ; in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in deaths
oft." He then establishes his right to the position which he claimed,
by recounting in detail the sufferings he had endured. I leave it to
you to compare this Christian hero with some of the " freethinkers " of
our own day, who flaunt in public their cheap and trumpery theories
of the great Apostle and the Master whom he served.

Paul was too outspoken to escape assault. All insincerity and
double-facedness — all humbug, in short — were hateful to him ; and
even among his colleagues he found scope for this feeling. Judged by

THE SABBATH. 249

our standard of manliness, Peter, in moral stature, fell far short of Paul.
In that supreme moment when his Master required of him " the durance
of a granite ledge" Peter proved "unstable as water." He ate with
the Gentiles when no Judeo-Christian was present to observe him ;
but when such appeared he withdrew himself, fearing those which
were of the circumcision. Paul charged him openly with dissimula-
tion. But Paul's quarrel with Peter was more than personal. Paul
contended for a principle, determined to shield his Gentile children in
the Lord from the yoke which their Jewish co-religionists would have
imposed upon them. "If thou," he says to Peter, "being a Jew,
livest after the manner of the Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why
compellest thou the Gentiles to live as the Jews ? " In the spirit of a
true liberal he overthrew the Judaic preferences for days, deferring at
the same time to the claims of conscience. " Let him who desires a
Sabbath," he virtually says, " enjoy it ; but let him not impose it on
his brother who does not." The rift thus revealed in the apostolic
lute widened with time, and Christian love was not the feeling which
long animated the respective followers of Peter and Paul.

"VVe who have been born into a settled state of things can hardly
realize the primitive commotions out of which this tranquillity has
emerged. We have, for example, the canon of Scripture already
arranged for us. But to sift and select these writings from the mass
of spurious documents afloat at the time of compilation was a work
of vast labor, difficulty, and responsibility. The age was rife with
forgeries. Even good men lent themselves to these pious frauds, be-
lieving that true Christian doctrine, which of course was their doc-
trine, would be thereby quickened and promoted. There were gos-
pels and counter-gospels ; epistles and counter-epistles — some frivo-
lous, some dull, some speculative and romantic, and some so rich and
peneti'ating, so saturated with the Master's spirit, that, though not
included in the canon, they enjoyed an authority almost equal to that
of the canonical books. The end being held to sanctify the means,
there was no lack of manufactured testimony. The Christian world
seethed not only with apocryphal writings, but with hostile interpre-
tations of writings not apocryphal. Then arose the sect of the Gnos-
tics— men who Jcnoio — who laid claim to the possession of a perfect
science, and who, if they were to be believed, had discovered the true
formula for what philosophers called "the absolute." But these spec-
ulative Gnostics were rejected by the conservative and orthodox Chris-
tians of their day as fiercely as their successors the Agnostics — men
who clonH know — are rejected by the orthodox in our own. The mar-
tyr Polycarp one day met Marcion, an ultra-Paulite, and a celebrated
member of the Gnostic sect. On being asked by Marcion whether he,
Polycarp, did not know him, Polycarp replied, " Yes, I know you very
well ; you are the first-born of the devil." * This is a sample of the

'• " L'figlise Chretienne," p. 450.

250 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

bitterness then common. It was a time of travail — of throes and whirl-
winds. Men at length began to yearn for peace and unity, and out of
the embroilment was slowly consolidated that great organization, the
Church of Rome. The Church of Rome had its precursor in the
Church at Rome. But Rome was then the capital of the world ; and,
in the end, that gi-eat city gave the Christian Church established in
her midst such a decided preponderance that it eventually laid claim
to the proud title of " Mother and Matrix of all other Churches."

With jolts and oscillations, resulting at times in overthrow, the
religious life of the world has spun down the " the ringing grooves of
change." A smoother route may have been undiscoverable. At all
events, it was undiscovered. Many years ago I found myself in dis-
cussion with a friend who entertained the notion that the general ten-
dency of things in this world is toward an equilibrium of peace and
blessedness to the human race. My notion was, that equilibrium
meant not peace and blessedness, but death. No motive power is to
be got from heat, save during its fall from a higher to a lower tem-
perature, as no power is to be got from water save during its descent
from a higher to a lower level. Thus also life consists, not in equilib-
rium but in the passage toward equilibrium. In man it is the leap
from the potential, through the actual, to repose. The passage often
involves a fight. Every natural growth is more or less of a struggle
with other growths, in which, in the long run, the fittest survives.
Some are, and must be, wiser than the rest ; and the enunciation of a
thought in advance of the moment provokes dissent and thus promotes
action. The thought may be unwise ; but it is only by discussion,
checked by experience, that its value can be determined. Discussion,
therefore, is one of the motive powers of life, and, as such, is not to
be deprecated. Still one can hardly look without despair on the pas-
sions excited and the energies wasted over questions which, after ages
of strife, are shown to be mere foolishness. Thus the theses which
shook the world during the first centuries of the Christian era have,
for the most part, shrunk into nothingness. It may, however, be that
the human mind could not become fitted to pronounce judgment on a
controversy otherwise than by wading through it. We get clear of
the jungle by traversing it. Thus even the errors, conflicts, and suf-
ferings of bygone times may have been necessary factors in the edu-
cation of the world. Let nobody, however, say that it has not been a
hard education. The yoke of religion has not always been easy, nor
its burden light — a result arising, in part, from the ignorance of the
world at large, but more especially from the mistakes of those who
had the charge and guidance of a great spiritual force, and who
guided it blindly. Looking over the literature of the Sabbath ques-
tion, as catalogued and illustrated in the laborious, able, and temper-
ate work of the late Mr. Robert Cox, we can hardly repress a sigh in
thinking of the gifts and labors of intellect which this question has

THE SABBATH. 251

absorbed, and the amount of bad blood it has generated. Further
reflection, however, reconciles us to the fact that waste in intellect
may be as much an incident of growth as waste in nature.

When the various passages of the Pentateuch which relate to the
observance of the Sabbath are brought together, as they are in the
excellent work of Mr. Cox, and when we pass from them to the simi-
larly collected utterances of the New Testament, we are immediately
exhilarated by a freer atmosphere and a vaster sky. Christ found the
religions of the world oppressed almost to suflFocation by the load of
formulas piled upon them by the priesthood. He removed the load,
and rendered respiration free. He cared little for forms and ceremo-
nies, which had ceased to be the raiment of man's spiritual life. To
that life he looked, and it he sought to restore. It was remarked by
Martin Luther that Jesus broke the Sabbath deliberately, and even
ostentatiously, for a purpose. He walked in the fields ; he plucked,
shelled, and ate the corn ; he treated the sick, and his spirit may be
detected in the alleged imposition upon the restored cripple of the
labor of carrying his bed on the Sabbath-day. He crowned his
protest against a sterile formalism by the enunciation of a principle
which applies to us to-day as much as to the world in the time of
Christ : " The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the
Sabbath."

Though the Jews, to their detriment, kept themselves as a nation
intellectually isolated, the minds of individuals were frequently colored
by Greek thought and culture. The learned and celebrated Philo, who
was contemporary with Josephus, was thus influenced. Philo expanded
the uses of the seventh day by including in its proper observance studies
which might be called secular. " Moreover," he says, " the seventh
day is also an example from which you may learn the propriety of
studying philosophy. As on that day it is said God beheld the works
that he had made, so you also may yourself contemplate the works of
Nature." Permission to do this is exactly what the members of the
Sunday Society humbly claim. The Jew, Philo, would grant them
this permission, but our straiter Christians will not. Where shall we
find such samples of those works of Nature which Philo commended to
the Sunday contemplation of his countrymen as in the British Muse-
um ? Within those walls we have, as it were, epochs disentombed —
ages of divine energy illustrated. But the efiicient authorities — among
whom I would include a short-sighted portion of the public — resolutely
close the doors, and exclude from the contemplation of these things
the multitudes who have only Sunday to devote to them. Taking
them on their own ground, we ask, are the authorities logical in doing
so ? Do they who thus stand between them and us really believe those
treasures to be the work of God ? Do they or do they not hold, with
Paul, that " the eternal power and Godhead" may be clearly seen from
" the things that are made " ? If they do — and they dare not affirm

252 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

that they do not — I fear that Paul, in liis customary language, would
pronounce their conduct to be "without excuse." *

Science, which is the logic of nature, demands proportion between
the house and its foundation. Theology sometimes builds weighty
structures on a doubtful base. The tenet of Sabbath observance is an
illustration. With regard to the time when the obligation to keep the
Sabbath was imposed, and the reasons for its imposition, there are grave
differences of opinion between learned and j^ious men. Some affirm
that it was instituted at the Creation in remembrance of the rest of
God. Others allege that it was imposed after the departm-e of the
Israelites from Egypt, and in memory of that departure. The Bible
countenances both interpretations. In Exodus we find the origin of
the Sabbath described with unmistakable clearness, thus : " For in six
days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is,
and rested the seventh day. Wherefore the Lord blessed the seventh
day, and hallowed it." In Deuteronomy this reason is suppressed and
another is assigned. Israel being a servant in Egypt, God, it is stated,
brought them out of it through a mighty hand and by a stretched-out
arm. '•'■ Therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sab-
bath-day." After repeating the ten commandments, and assigning the
foregoing origin to the Sabbath, the writer in Deuteronomy proceeds
thus : " These words the Lord spake unto all your assembly in the
mount, out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and the thick dark-
ness, with a loud voice ; and he added no more," But in Exodus God
not only added more, but something entirely different. This has been
a difficulty with commentators — not formidable, if the Bible be treated
as any other ancient book, but extremely formidable on the theory of
plenary inspiration. I i-emember in the days of my youth being shocked
and perplexed by an admission made by Bishop Watson in his cele-
brated " Apology for the Bible," written in answer to Tom Paine. " You
Lave," says the Bishop, " disclosed a few weeds which good men would
have covered up from view." That there were "weeds" in the Bible
requiring to be kept out of sight was to me, at that time, a new reve-
lation. I take little pleasure in dwelling upon the errors and blem-
ishes of a book rendered venerable to me by intrinsic wisdom and im-
perishable associations. But when that book is wrested to our detri-
ment, when its passages are invoked to justify the imposition of a yoke,
irksome because unnatural, we are driven in self-defense to be critical.
In self-defense, therefore, we plead these two discordant accounts of
the origin of the Sabbath, one of which makes it a purely Jewish in-
stitution, while the other, unless regarded as a mere myth and figure,
is in violent antagonism to the facts of geology.

With regard to the alleged " proofs " that Sunday was introduced

* I refer, of course, to those who object to the opening of the museums on religious
grounds. The administrative difficulty stands on a different footing. But surely it ought
to vanish in presence of the public benefits which in all probability would accrue.

THE SABBATH. 253

as a siibstitute for Saturday, and that its observance is as binding
upon Christians as their Sabbath was upon the Jews, I can only say
that those which I have seen are of the jflimsiest and vaguest character.
" If," says Milton, " on the plea of a divine command, they impose
upon us the observances of a particular day, how do they presume,
without the authority of a divine command, to substitute another day
in its place ? " Outside the bounds of theology no one would think of
applying the term " proofs " to the evidence adduced for the change ;
and yet on this pivot, it has been alleged, turns the eternal fate of
human souls.* Were such a doctrine not actual it would be incredible.
It has been truly said that the man who accepts it sinks, in doing so,
to the lowest depth of atheism. It is perfectly reasonable for a reli-
gious community to set apart one day in seven for rest and devotion.
Most of those who object to the Judaic observance of the Sabbath
recognize not only the wisdom but the necessity of some such institu-
tion, not on the ground of a divine edict, but of common sense. f They
contend, however, that it ought to be as far as possible a day of cheer-
ful renovation both of body and spirit, and not a day of penal gloom.
There is nothing that I should withstand more strenuously than the
conversion of the first day of the week into a common working day.
Quite as strenuously, however, should I oppose its being employed as
a day for the exercise of sacerdotal rigor.

The early reformers emphatically asserted the freedom of Chris-
tians from Sabbatical bonds ; indeed, Puritan writers have reproached
them with dimness of vision regarding the observance of the Lord's
day. " The fourth commandment," says Luther, " literally under-
stood, does not apply to us Christians ; for it is entirely outward, like
other ordinances of the Old Testament, all of which are now left free
by Christ. If a preacher," he continues, " wishes to force you back to
Moses, ask him whether you were brought by Moses out of Egypt ?
If he says no, then say. How, then, does Moses concern me, since he
speaks to the people that have been brought out of Egypt ? In the
New Testament Moses comes to an end, and his laws lose their force.
He must bow in the presence of Christ." " The Scripture," says
Melanchthon, " allows that we are not bound to keep the Sabbath ;
for it teaches that the ceremonies of the law of Moses are not neces-

* In 1Y85 the first mail-coach reached Edinburgh from London, and in 1788 it was
continued to Glasgow. The innovation was denounced by a minister of the Secession
Church of Scotland as " contrary to the laws both of Church and state ; contrary to the
laws of God ; contrary to the most conclusive and constraining reasons assigned by God ;
and calculated not only to promote the hurt and ruin of the nation, but also the eternal
damnation of multitudes." — (Cox, vol. ii, p. 248.) Even in our own day there are clergy-
men foolish enough to indulge in this dealing out of damnation.

\ " That public worship," says Milton, " is commended and inculcated as a voluntary
duty, even under the Gospel, I allow ; but that it is a matter of compulsory enactment,
binding on believers from the authority of this commandment, or of any Sinaitical precept
whatever, I deny."

2 54 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sary after the revelation of the Gospel. And yet," he adds, " because
it was requisite to appoint a certain day that the people might know-
when to assemble together, it appeared that the Church appointed for
this purpose the Lord's day." I am glad to find my grand old name-
sake on the side of freedom in this matter. " As for the Sabbath,"
says the martyr Tyndale, " we are lords over it, and may yet change
it into Monday, or into any other day, as we see need ; or may make
every tenth day holy day, only if we see cause why. Neither need
we any holy day at all if the people might be taught without it."
Calvin repudiated " the frivolities of false prophets who, in later times,
have instilled Jewish ideas into the people. Those," he continues,
" who thus adhere to the Jewish institution go thrice as far as the
Jews themselves in the gross and carnal superstition of Sabbatism."
Even John Knox, who has had so much Puritan strictness unjustly
laid to his charge, knew how to fulfill on the Lord's day the duties of
a generous, hospitable host. His Master feasted on the Sabbath-day,
and he did not fear to do the same on Sunday.

Toward the end of the sixteenth century, demands for a stricter
observance of the Sabbath began to be made — ^probably in the first
instance with some reason, and certainly with good intent. The man-
ners of the time were coarse, and Sunday was often chosen for their
offensive exhibition. But, if there was coarseness on the one side,
there was ignorance both of nature and human nature on the other.
Contemporaneously with the demands for stricter Sabbath rules, God's
judgments on Sabbath-breakers began to be pointed out. Then and
afterward " God's judgments " were much in vogue, and man, their
interpreter, frequently behaved as a fiend in the supposed execution of
them. But of this subsequently. A Suffolk clergyman named Bownd,
who, according to Cox, was the first to set forth at large the views
afterward embodied in the Westminster (Confession, adduces many
such judgments. One was the case of a nobleman " who for hunting
on the holy day was punished by having a child with a head like a
dog's." Though he cites this instance, Bownd, in the matter of Sab-
bath observance, was very lenient toward noblemen. With courtier-
like pliancy, which is not without its counterpart at the present time,
be makes an exception in their favor : " Concerning the feasts of
noblemen and great personages or their ordinary diet upon this day,
because they represent in some measure the majesty of God on the
earth, in carrying the image, as it were, of the magnificence and puis-
sance of the Lord, much is to be granted to them."

Imagination once started in this direction was sure to be prolific.
Instances accordingly grew apace in number and magnitude. Mem-
orable examples of God's judgments upon Sabbath-breakers, and other
like libertines, in their unlawful sports happening within this realm of
England, were collected. Innumerable cases of drowning while bath-
ing on Sunday were adduced, without the slightest attention to the

THE SABBATH. 255

logical requirements of the question. "Week-day drownings were not
dwelt upon, and nobody knew or cared how the question of propor-
tion stood between the two classes of bathers. The civil war was
regarded as a punishment for Sunday desecration. The fire of Lon-
don and a subsequent great fire in Edinburgh were ascribed to this
cause ; while the fishermen of Berwick lost their trade through catch-
ing salmon on Sunday. A Nonconformist minister named John Wells,
whose huge volume is described by Cox as " the most tedious of all
the Puritan productions about the Sabbath," is specially copious in
illustration. A drunken peddler, " fraught with commodities " on Sun-
day, drops into a river : God's retributive justice is seen in the fact.
Wells traveled far in search of instances. One Utrich Schroetorus, a
Swiss, while playing at dice on the Lord's day, lost heavily, and
apparently to gain the devil to his side broke out into this horrid
blasphemy : " If fortune deceive me now I will thrust my dagger into
the body of God." Whereupon he threw the dagger upward. It
disappeared, and five drops of blood, which afterward proved indel-
ible, fell upon the gaming-table. The devil then appeared, and with
a hideous noise carried off the vile blasphemer. His two companions
fared no better. One was struck dead and turned into worms, the
other was executed. A vintner who on the Lord's day tempted the
passers-by with a pot of wine was carried into the air by a whirlwind
and never seen more. " Let us read and tremble," adds Mr. Wells.
At Tidworth a man broke his leg on Sunday while playing at foot-
ball. By a secret judgment of the Lord the wound turned into a
gangrene, and in pain and terror the criminal gave up the ghost.

You may smile at these recitals, but is there not a survival of John
Wells still extant among us ? Are there not people in our midst so
well informed regarding "the secret judgments of the Lord" as to be
able to tell you their exact value and import, from the damaging of
the share-market through the running of Sunday trains to the calam-
itous overthrow of a railway bridge ? Alphonso of Castile boasted
that, if he had been consulted at the beginning of things, he could have
saved the Creator some worlds of trouble. It would not be difficult
to give the God of our more rigid Sabbatarians a lesson in justice and
mercy ; for his alleged judgments savor but little of either. How
are calamities to be classified ? Almost within ear-shot of those who
note these Sunday judgments, the poor miners of Blantyre are blown
to pieces, while engaged in their sinless week-day toil. A little far-
ther off the bodies of two hundred and sixty workers, equally inno-
cent of Sabbath-breaking, are entombed at Abercarne. Dinas holds
its sixty bodies, while the present year has furnished its fearful tale of
similar disasters. Whence comes the vision which differentiates the
Sunday calamity from the week-day calamity, seeing in the one a
judgment of Heaven, and in the other a natural event? We may
wink at the ignorance of John Wells, for he lived in a pre-scientific

25 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

age ; but it is not pleasant to see his features reproduced, on however
small a scale, before an educated nation in the latter half of the nine-
teenth century.

Notwithstanding their strictness about the Sabbath, which pos-
sibly carried with it the usual excess of a reaction, some of the strait-
est of the Puritan sect saw clearly that unremitting attention to
business, Avhether religious or secular, was unhealthy. Considering
recreation to be as necessary to health as daily food, they exhorted
parents and masters, if they would avoid the desecration of the Sab-
bath, to allow to children and servants time for honest recreation on
other days. They might have done well to inquire whether even Sun-
day devotions might not, without " moral culpability " on their part,
keep the minds of children and servants too long upon the stretch.
I fear many of the good men who insist on a Judaic observance of
the Sabbath, and who dwell upon the peace and blessedness to be
derived from a proper use of the Lord's day, generalize beyond their
data, applying the experience of the individual to the case of man-
kind. What is a conscious joy and blessing to themselves they can
not dream of as being a possible misery, or even a curse, to others.
It is right that your most spiritually-minded men — men who, to use a
devotional phrase, enjoy the closest walk with God — should be your
pastors. But they ought also to be practical men, able to look not
only on their personal feelings, but on the capacities of humanity at
large, and willing to make their rules and teachings square with these
capacities. There is in some minds a natural bias toward religion, as
there is in others toward poetry, art, or mathematics ; but the poet,
artist, or mathematician, who would seek to impose upon others not
possessing his tastes the studies which give him delight, would be
deemed an intolerable despot. The philosopher Fichte was wont to
contrast his mode of rising into the atmosphere of faith with the ex-
perience of others. In his case the process, he said, was purely intel-
lectual. Through reason he reached religion ; while in the case of
many whom he knew this process was both unnecessary and unused,
the bias of their minds sufficing to render faith, without logic, clear
and strong. In making rules for the community these natural diff«i!r-
ences must be taken into account. The yoke which is easy to the few
may be intolerable to the many, not only defeating its own immediate
purpose, but frequently introducing recklessness or hypocrisy into
minds which a franker and more liberal treatment would have kept
free from both.* — Nineteenth Century.

* " When our Puritan friends," says Mr. Frederick Robertson, " talk of the blessings
of the. Sabbath, we may ask them to remember some of its curses." Other and more
serious evils than those recounted by llr. Robertson may, I fear, be traced to the system
of Sabbath observance pursued in many of our schools. At the risk of shocking some
worthy persons, I would say that the invention of an invigorating game for fine Sunday
afternoons, and healthy in-door amusement for wet ones, would prove infinitely more
effectual as an aid to moral purity than most of our plans of religious meditation.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF PROFESSOR DUMAS. 257

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF PEOFESSOR DUMAS.

By a. W. HOFMANN.*

THIS able chemist and distinguished man of science, now eighty
years of age, and still fulfilling, with almost youthful freshness,
the duties of Permanent Secretary to the Academy of Sciences, has
been identified with the progress of science in France during half a
century, and has gone through an amount of active, diversified labor
which has hardly a parallel among his contempoi'aries.

Jeajh-Baptiste Andre Dumas was born at Alais, in the department
of Gard, July 14, 1800. His father was clerk of the municipality,
and a cultivated man. He early studied Latin in the college of his
native town, and became interested in the classical traditions of his
neighborhood, Avhich had many imposing remains of Roman antiquity.
But the situation was one calculated to foster an interest also in
the objects of nature and the processes of science and art. There
were coal-mines, glass-works, brick-yards, tile-works, manufactories of
coarse earthenware, lime-kilns, vitriol-factories, and mines of iron,
lead, and antimony, all in the immediate region of Alais. The lessons
of these industries were not lost upon young Dumas, who, at fourteen
years of age, had acquired a rudimentary knowledge of the several
natural sciences. At this time he was apj^renticed to an apothecary.
But there was not much opportunity of scientific study, and this, added
to the political and military distraction of the time, insi^ired him with
a strong desire to quit his native town.

In 1816 Dumas accordingly went to Geneva, Here he found scope
for study and opportunities to begin a career. He attended the lec-
tures on botany by M, de Candolle, on physics by M. Pictet, and on
chemistry by M. Gaspard de la Rive. He had the superintendence of
a large pharmaceutical laboratory, which was found deficient in appa-
ratus. But a supply was rapidly improvised. To obtain gas- jars,
lamp-chimneys were closed with watch-glasses, cemented on with wax.
An old bronze syringe was turned into an air-pump, and barometer-
tubes bent over a flame completed the stock of apparatus. Gradually
the laboratory improved. As the ambition of the young Professor
grew, he began to long for a chemical balance. This wish also was
satisfied ; with the aid of some workmen in a watch-maker's shop an
instrument was constructed which enabled him to begin his analytical
researches. He here commenced earnestly the study of chemistry,
and began at once the work of research. One of his little discoveries
had the following result : When analyzing various sulphates and other
salts of commerce, he had observed that the water they contained was

* Condensed from the excellent "Life of Dumas" in "Xature," February 6, 1880.

VOL. XTIII. — lY

258 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

present in definite equivalents. He had not found this recorded any-
where, and had, therefore, taken great pains to establish the accuracy
of his observations. When the investigation was finished, he went
one morning early to M. de la Rive, and timidly submitted to him the
manuscript embodying the results of his inquiry. While glancing over
it, M. de la Rive could not conceal his surprise. When he had come
to the end he said to the young student, " Is it you, my boy, who have
made these experiments?" " Certainly." " And they have taken you
a good deal of time to perform ? " " Of course they have." " Then I
must tell you that you have had the good fortune to meet Berzelius on
the same field of research. He has preceded you, but he is older than
you, and so you ought not to bear him ill will on this account. " Dumas,
not a little embarrassed, was unable to utter a single word. It was, in
fact, his first interview with M. de la Rive, whose lectures he had at-
tended, but whom he had never personally accosted. But his perplex-
ity was not to last long. With the utmost good nature M. de la Rive
put an end to his gloomy reflections by taking his arm and saying,
" Come along and breakfast with me." Before long the conversation
had become animated and cheerful. The acquaintance was made, and
the kindly feeling of his teacher won by Dumas at this breakfast never
subsequently failed him.

This was when Dumas was eighteen years of age. For the next
four years he worked with great assiduity in experimental chemistry,
and especially, in association with Prevost, upon the problems of or-
ganic chemistry, in which they were pioneers.

In 1822 Dumas might have settled at Geneva, and many circum-
stances led him to think seriously of doing so. An incident, however,
which happened at that time, and which at first sight seemed in no way
likely to influence a well-matured plan of life, induced him within a few
days to change his mind. He made the acquaintance of a man, among
whose varied gifts the fascinating sway he exercised over youthful
minds was not the least. Let me try to give the story in the very words
in which I heard it from Dumas's mouth.

" One day," he said, " when I was in my study completing some
drawings at the microscope, and, it must be added, rather negligently
attired, in order to enable me to move more freely, some one mounted
the stairs, stopped on my landing, and gently knocked at the door.
* Come in,' said I, without looking up from my work. On turning
round I was surprised to find myself face to face with a gentleman, in
a bright blue coat with metal buttons, a white waistcoat, nankeen
breeches, and top-boots. This costume, which might have been the
fashion under the Directory, was then quite out of date. The wearer
of it, his head somewhat bent, his eyes deep-set but keen, advanced
with a pleasant smile, saying, 'Monsieur Dumas?' 'The same, sir;
but excuse me.' ' Don't disturb yourself. I am M. de Humboldt, and
did not wish to pass through Geneva without having had the pleasure

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF PROFESSOR DUMAS. 259

of seeing you.' Throwing on my coat, I hastily reiterated my apolo-
gies. I had only one chair. My visitor was pleased to accept it, while
I resumed my elevated perch on the drawing-stool. Baron Humboldt
had read the papers published by M. Prevosfand myself on blood,
which had just appeared in the " Bibliotheque Universelle," and was
anxious to see the preparations I had by me. His wish was soon
gratified. ' I am going to the Congress at Verona,' said he, ' and I in-
tend to spend some days at Geneva, to see old friends and to make new
ones, and more especially to become acquainted with young people
who are beginnhig their career. Will you act as my cicerone? I
warn you, however, that my rambles begin early and end late. Now,
could you be at my disposal, say, from six in the morning till mid-
night '? ' This proposal, which was of course accepted with alacrity,
proved to me a source of unexpected pleasure. Baron Humboldt was
fond of talking ; he passed from one subject to another without stop-
ping. He obviously liked being listened to, and there was no fear of
his being interrupted by a young man who for the first time heard
Laplace, Berthollet, Gay-Lussac, Arago, Thenard, Cuvier, and many
others of the Parisian celebrities, spoken of with familiarity. I listened
with a strange delight ; a new horizon began to dawn upon me. Save
the time devoted to some visits, I was allowed to remain the whole day
with Humboldt, who darted from point to point over the vast range of
his recollections, while I endeavored to keep pace with the uninter-
rupted flow of his narrative. Sometimes the mountain scenery would
remind him of the Cordilleras, though it must be confessed he did not
think much even of Mont Blanc. Sometimes he turned to science,
and then astronomy and physics, chemistry, and the natural history
branches would, in rapid succession, come in for their share in the
dialogue, or rather monologue, which, spoken in a low, somewhat mo-
notonous tone, would have scarcely appeared impressive had it not
been for some waggish pleasantry which now and then escaped, as it
were, involuntarily. But, at any rate, if his voice failed to be effec-
tive, the glance of his eye was sufficient to rivet his hearers' attention.
" At the end of a few days Baron Humboldt left Geneva. After
his departure the town seemed empty to me. I felt as if spellbound.
The memorable hours I had spent with that irresistible enchanter had
opened a new world to my mind. I had been more especially im-
pressed with what he had told me of Parisian life, of the happy col-
laboration of men of science, and of the unlimited facilities which the
Prench capital offered to young men wishing to devote themselves to
scientific pursuits. I began to think that Paris was the only place
where, under the auspices of the leaders of physical and chemical sci-
ence, with whom I had no doubt I should soon become acquainted, I
might hope to find the advice and assistance which would enable me
to carry out the labors over which I had been pondering for some
time. My mind was soon made up — ' I must go to Paris.' "

26o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The interest with Avhich Dumas recounts this incident, which
brought his stay in Geneva to a somewhat sudden termination, leaves
no doubt as to the deep imj)ression which the short intercourse with
Alexander von Humboldt had made upon his mind. We have here,
indeed, one more illustration of the peculiar predilection of the Ger-
man savant for youthful inquirers, of the sagacity with which he dis-
covered rising talent, and of the irresistible fascination which no one
was able to withstand. It is well known what a powerful patron he
proved to Liebig, who has left us a charming account of his first ac-
quaintance with the famous traveler ; and it is certainly worthy of
note that two inquirers, whose labors subsequently carried them to the
head of chemical science, should each have been befriended on the
very threshold of his career by the same master mind, so that in later
years they never ceased to acknowledge in affectionate terms the debt
of gratitude which they owed to Alexander von Humboldt. Dumas's
removal to Paris took place in 1823.

If a legitimate desire to become acquainted with the leading men
of science of that day was one of the princij^al motives in determining
Dumas to leave Geneva, his wishes were gratified far beyond his most
sanguine expectations. Nothing could have surpassed the kindness with
which the young aspirant was received by the very men to whom he had
hitherto been looking up with mingled feelings of reverence and awe.
As an illustration of the sympathetic interest which the most illustrious
savants of the period accorded to the labors of their youthful fellow -
workers in the field of science, Dumas is fond of describing his own
debict in the Academy of Sciences. Having read a joint paper of his
and Provost's on muscular contraction, he had modestly retired into
the embrasure of a window (as would become his age), when a mem-
ber of the Academy — a veteran with white hair and a most dignified
countenance — rose on the other side of the table and walked up to him.
" Monsieur Dumas, will you do me the honor of dining with me on
Wednesday next ? " he asked the astonished young chemist in a most
formal manner. Nothing could be more natural than to accept so
kind an invitation. After an exchange of a few polite words Dumas's
new friend gravely retired to his place, receiving everywhere unequiv-
ocal marks of the greatest respect. " With whom am I to dine ? "
asked Dumas of one of his neighbors . " Do not you know M. de La-
place ? " Avas the answer. And not only did Dumas dine, with Laplace,
but he learned with lively interest that the illustrious astronomer had
retained a sort of passion for physiological inquiries ever since he had
jointly worked with Lavoisier on animal heat and respiration.

In 1824 Dumas married Mdlle. Hermine Brongniart, daughter of
Alexandre Brongniart, the illustrious geologist, and sister of his friend
Adolphe Brongniart. The union was a most happy one. Dumas's
career in Paris has been one of remarkable productiveness and bril-
liancy. His researches in organic chemistry, so thoroughly begun in

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF PROFESSOR DUMAS. 261

Geneva, were resumed and pursued with great ardor. He was the
rival of Liebig, who so successfully cultivated the same field at the
same time. But the two chemists, although often in sharp collision in
their views, were ever firm, afEectionate friends. Of their relation,
Dumas remarked as follows :

"To find our way through these unexplored territories, we had
neither compass nor guides, neither method nor laws. Each of us had
been led to form ideas and to elaborate views peculiar to himself,
which he defended with warmth and even wath passion, but without
any feeling of envy or jealousy. The discoveries to be made appeared
to us without limit, and each was satisfied with his harvest. What
we both had at heart was to stake the ground and to open roads, nor
have I any doubt that, in reading my papers, Liebig felt the same
pleasure which the perusal of his afforded me. If a new step had
been taken, it was of little moment whether it had been made by the
one or by the other, since it served us both on the road to truth."
This generous feeling was heartily reciprocated by Liebig, who dedi-
cated the German edition of his " Familiar Letters on Chemistry " to
Dumas with the most cordial expressions of high regard.

It is impossible here even to name his scientific conquests. He
early propounded new views of the atomic theory, which time has con-
firmed ; and his experimental inquiries into the compound ethers laid
the foundation of that branch of organic chemistry.

Dumas has been both a prolific and an elegant writer. His works
present considerable variety, both as to the subjects discussed and to
the form of treatment adopted. There are several elaborate treatises
and a great many minor pamphlets. His academical notices, his offi-
cial documents, his municipal reports, his festal speeches, his opening
discourses, his commemoration addresses, his funeral orations, are
countless, and they are all marked by an unusual degree of literary
merit.

When the Republic was established in France, the President, Louis
Napoleon, appointed Dumas Minister of Agriculture and Commerce ;
and when the Empire was established he became a Senator. His tal-
ents were now largely devoted to the public service, and he was the
active spirit in numerous commissions in which his extensive and ac-
curate knowledge was invaluable. With the overthrow of the Em-
pire he returned to private life, and again resumed the scientific labors
which have ever been his chief delight.

262

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

CORRESPONDENCE.

"WHAT THE EYE SEES IN READING."

Mes»rs. Editors.

IN your admirable cautionary note on
" The Eyesight of Readers," in the
September number of your magazine, you
say, " A book of five hundred pages, forty
lines to the page and fifty letters to the line,
contains a million of letters, all of which the
eye has to take in, identify, and combine
each with its neighbor."

I believe you are wrong. I don't believe
we deal with letters in reading at all, ex-
cept when we meet unfamiliar words. I
think persons, who read rapidly recognize
words and phrases without analyzing them
into their elements. I think that every word
has a countenance, a physiognomy, which
we soon learn, and which we afterward rec-
ognize as we do the faces of our friends.

Repeatedly I have amused myself by
approaching an unfamiliar sign, or handbill,
or printed page. What comes first into
view? Not letters, but words; and tliey
stand identified when no single letter can be
distinguished.

It lies within easy observation that the
lateral oscillation of the eyes of a rapid
reader is very limited. Why ? He cares so
little about spelling the words he reads,
that he does not even present to all of them
the more sensitive spots on his retime, but
is content to leave the images of most w ords
upon more peripheral parts where they
could not be spelled.

I would not presume to inform you of
the brilliant success of the experiment of
teaching children to read without spelling —
an experiment which I believe has been
most thoroughly tried in St. Louis. In the
case of children so taught, words only are
scanned, the young I'eaders being wholly
ignorant of the value of letters.

I have a correspondent whose written
characters could not possibly be recognized,
and yet to me his letters are fairly legible.
Why? Because, however far he departs
from the standai'd of the copy-book, he al-
ways writes any given word in the same
way ; and, although I could not spell isolated
words from his written page, I have learned
to recognize them as quickly as if they were
fairly printed.

I think it might be successfully main-
tained that there actually is not time for
each letter to be separately regarded, either
by the eye or the mind, in rapid reading.
I read the first three pages of the " Sketch
of Joseph Leidy " in three minutes, and

Abercrombie could have read it much quick,
er. In each minute I read four hundred
words, containing more than two thousand
letters. I subnnt that, while it is possible
to see six or seven words per second, it is
quite impossible to see thirty or forty letters
per second. Dan Millikin.

Hamilton, Ohio, September 10, 1880.

A CASE OF PEOTECTIVE MIMICRY.
Messrs. Editors.

I VENTURE to send you an account of a
sparrow's performance which I witnessed
some time ago, and which you may consider
worth publishing. It seems to me that the
publication of such observations, when known
to come from a trustworthy source and
bearing the stamp of probable correct inter-
pretation, is sure to add a light and pleasant
page to our journals of popular science, as
well as furnish a store from which illus-
trations may be drawn by those needing
them. You have no reason to know me or
my trustworthiness, but, that I do not depend
upon imaginary data for such narratives as I
send, I think I may refer you to my friend
and teacher. Professor W. K. Brooks, of the
Johns Hopkins University, or to Professor
Martin, of the same institution, although I
do so this time without their know ledge or
permission.

Some time since, while riding slowly
along a dusty macadamized road, I was
startled by the hurried flight close by my
side of a small bird which dropped in the
road a few paces ahead, and after a flutter
in the dust sat perfectly motionless. I drew
up my horse to watch events, when a moment
later a hawk swooped by, but missed its
prey, and went off into an adjoining field.
The sparrow remained still in its place, and,
all covered with dust, looked for all the
world like one of the many loose stones ia
the road — so much so, that no wonder it
should have escaped the sharp sight even of
the hawk.

But one explanation of such a freak
seemed possible ; and when we reflect that
these birds generally take to the bushes or
to the lichen-spotted rail fences, when pur-
sued by hawks, and that dust is not a con-
stant factor of the environment, we stop to
admire so bright a spark of intelligence
kindled under such trying circumstances.
Respectfully,
BoLLiNG W. Barton, M. D.
Baltimore, September 80, 1880.

CORRESP ONDENCE.

263

A SHOWER OF DUST.

Messrs. Editors.

In your July issue, I find a communica-
tion from Mr. Kirkwood, of Bloomington,
Indiana, in regard to a deposit of dust that
was observed there on tlic 28th March, 1880,
and in which the theory is advanced, to ac-
count for its origin, that, since a similar
phenomenon occurred in Europe almost si-
multaneously, both may be of common ori-
gin.*

The following is collated from the
" Weather Review " (the official organ of
the United States Signal Service) for March,
1880, and it undoubtedly leads us to infer
that the Bloomington phenomenon and those
treated in the " Review " were identical :

No. XV. — This area appeared in British
Columbia, the afternoon of the 24th ; Port-
land barometer 0-46, and Fort Benton ba-
rometer 0-45 below the normal. Moving
southeastward, it was in Idaho the morning
of the 25th, and by an easterly path was
central in Nebraska the afternoon of the
2t5th, Omaha barometer O'ZS below the
normal ; at that time the pressure in the en-
tire Missouri and upper Mississippi Valleys
ranged from 0-40 to 0-75 below the normal.
At midnight the area was central in Iowa, at
which time the pressure over the greater
part of the lower Missouri and upper Mis-
sissippi Valleys was 0-60 below the normal.
At that time brisk easterly winds prevailed
in the entire lake-region and Mississippi
Valley generally, accompanied by rain, and
brisk northerly winds from the Missouri
Valley westward. On the morning of the
27th the area was central in eastern Iowa —
Davenport barometer 1'04 below the normal
— in the afternoon in northern Illinois, and
at midnight in northwestern Ohio. During
the day violent wind-storms (see data re-
garding local storms) occurred in the upper
Mississippi and lower Missouri Valleys, and
in the upper lake-region, westward from the
Mississippi Valley to the Rocky Mountain
slope, but little or no rain falling ; remarka-
ble dust-storms prevailed. Las Cruces, New
Mexico, 26th, very violent sand-storm, fill-
ing the air with dust. Leavenworth, Kan-
sis, 27th, blinding dust-storm, almost ob-
scuring the sun at 10 a. m. Fort Davis,
Texas, violent sand-storm. Ringgold, Ohio,
27th, heavy wind and hail storm. Professor
Nipher, of St. Louis, Slissouri, reports this
storm " as the most remarkable phenom-
enon of the month. It covered the entire
State, except the extreme southern part.
The atmosphere was filled, during the whole
day, with a fine grayish dust, which, in the
western part of the State and in eastern
Konsas, was so dense as to obscure the lisht
of the sun, and to render objects invisible

at a distance of from one to three hundred
yards. The wind was very high, coming in
most cases from the west and northwest."

P. F. Lyons.
Leavenworth, Kansas, July 28, 1880.

* In our opinion. Professor Kirkwood's letter
will not bear this construction.— Ed.

MR. HERBERT SPENCER'S PACTS.
Messrs. Editors.

Allow me to say, respectfully, that Mr.
Spencer impairs the public confidence in his
conclusions by inattention to the reliability
of what he states as facts. It is not enough
that an author can cite book and page of
some other writer in exact confirmation of
his words. Responsibility for the truthful-
ness of the statement, which is the main
thing, must rest upon him who repeats as
well as on him who first puts it forth. A
teacher of philosophy, especially, is bound to
acquire a critical knowledge of the facts he
uses, and to employ this knowledge judi-
ciously for the benefit of those he attempts
to instruct. In Mr. Spencer's preliminary
article upon " Political Institutions," in the
October number of "The Popular Science
Monthly," the following statement occurs at
page 6 : " Having great cities of one hun-
dred and eighty thousand houses, the Mexi-
cans had also cannibal gods ; . . . and, with
skill to build stately temples big enough for
ten thousand men to dance in their courts,
there went the immolation of twenty-five
hundred persons annually, in Mexico and
adjacent towns alone, and of a far greater
number throughout the country at large."

A few words concerning the one hun-
dred cuul eighty thousand houses in the pue-
bh, not the city of Mexico. There is some
difference in tlie estimates of the population
of Mexico found in the Spanish histories,
but several of them concurred in the number
of houses, which, strange to say, is placed at
■sixti/ thousand. Zuazo, who visited Mexico
in 1726, wrote " sixty thousand inhabitants,"
not houses ( Prescott, " Conquest of Mcs.-
ico," vol. ii, p. 112, note); the anonymous
conqueror, who accompanied Cortes, says
"sixty thousand inhabitants" — "■ soixiatite
mille habitans " [A.. Tarnaux-Campans, vol.
X, p. 92) ; but Gomara and Martyr wrote
"sixty thousand houses," and this esti-
mate has been adopted by Clavigero
(" History of Mexico," Cullen's translation,
vol. ii, p. 3fi0) ; by Horrera (" History of
America," London edition, 1725, Stevens's
translation, vol. ii, p. 360), and by Prescott
(" Conquest of Mexico, vol. ii, p. 112). Solis
says "sixty thousand families," instead of
houses or inhabitants (" History of the Con-
quest of Mexico," London edhion, 1738,
Townsend's translation, vol. i, p. 393). This
guess would give a population of three hun-
dred thousand, although London at that
same time, after centuries of growth, con-
tained but one hundred and fortv-five thou-

264

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sand inhabitants (Black's " London," p. 5).
Finally, Tonniomada, cited by Clavigero
(ib., vol. ii, p. 3tiO, note), boldly writes " one
hundred and twenty thouisand houses " ; and
now Mr. Spencer not only calls this Indian
puchJo a " great city," but informs us that
it contained " one hundred and eighty thou-
sand houses." Torquemada had doubled
the hrst estimates, and ^U: Spencer not only
accepts the doubling, but adds upon some
special authority an extra " sixty thousand
houses," thus showing a tendency of mind
to adopt the most extravagant views, where
degrees exist. At five inmates to each house,
it would give nine hundred thousand inhabit-
ants. No doubt Mr. Spencer can furnish an
authority of some kind for his " one hundred
and eighty thousand houses," but that would
not mend the matter, as the statement is
simply so preposterous that Mr. Spencer is
without excuse.

Nor is this the end of the difficulty. There
can scarcely be a doubt that the houses in
this puchlo, like those of the Indian tribes
in New Mexico, and in Yucatan and Central
America of the same period, were generally
large joint-tenement houses, large enough
to accommodate from ten to fifty and a hun-
dred families in each. This, if true, raises
the absurdity to the maximum point. Zuazo
and the anonymous conqueror, who stated the
population of Mexico at "sixty thousand
persons," came the nearest to a respectable
estimate, as they did not more than double
the probable numbers.

I will say nothing of the annual number
of human sacrifices stated at " twenty-five
hundred in Mexico and adjacent towns," and,
" far more than twenty-five hundred in
other parts of the country," nor of the ten
thousand dancers, who could dance in the
courts of the great teocaUi, By this care-
lessness concerning his statements, to put it
in the mildest form, Mr. Spencer will inevi-
tably draw and write upon some of his later
works the old charge, fulsics in una fahus
in omnibus, M.

A MINIATURE CYCLONE.

Messrs. Editors.

The cyclone which visited a section of
Montgomery County on the afternoon of the
3d of September, 1879, although insignificant
in its extent and destructive power, when com-
pared with some of those which occasional-
ly ravage other regions of the country, pos-
sessed certain features that render it wor-
thy of study. Its dimension and effects wei'e
such as to bring it within the compass of
close examination, enabling the observer to
view the phenomenon as a whole. It was a
perfect little cyclone in itself, with the con-
flicting currents, the roaring noise, the
numerous distinct whirls and the double
cones in the air, with the upi-ooted trees on

earth, all presenting a combination of fea-
tures whose investigation may lend im-
portant assistance to the student of these
universally interesting catastrophes.

A paper on this subject was read at one
of our meetings, presenting such facts as
had come at that time under the observa-
tion of the writer. Having made further
explorations in conjunction with a friend
who is also much interested in the iihenora-
enon, we are prepared by a visit of inspec-
tion over the whole course of the storm,
from its origin to the place of final disap-
pearance, to make a statement of the prin-
cipal facts just as they were seen.

The tree, which appears to have been
the first object struck by the tempest, stands
in the edge of a field prepared for sowing
wheat, and covered with piles of manure.
This tree was not uprooted, but the limbs
were much blown about, some of them
twisted round the main stem, and the suigu-
lar appearance was presented of strands of
manure blown into slight crevices of the
trunk — sucked in, as it were, up to the height
of fifteen or twenty feet ; the heaps of manure
were of course widely scattered.

Coming out of the field referred to, the
storm fell in its fury on a family graveyard.
Two large tombstones, ten feet apart, se-
cured by iron pins let into an horizontal
stone slab, were thrown flat in opposite di-
rections, the one to the east and the other
to the west of the path of the storm. The
tombstones were three feet high, two feet
wide, and six inches thick, weighing over
three hundred pounds each. The general
width of the current at this place appeared
to have been about forty yards ; but a tree
one hundred yards cast of the graveyard
was much broken. Passing next through a
corn-field, where the stalks in the middle
lay in the direction of the path, and those
at the edge leaned generally toward the
center, on into a potato-patch, where some
of the vines were blown out of the ground,
bringing the tubers with them, tlie tufted
weeds sharing the same fate, the winds,
truly winged, vaulted over the fence without
disturbing a rail, or the trees of a wood in
their course for a space of some sixty yards.
Then the whirling current descended, pros-
trating some trees as it entered a field, where
it leveled the grass as if a roller had passed
along, and made three distinct shallow holes
in the ground, at least a foot in length. A
few stones lying near, out of their previous
place, appear to have been used by the
wind as an agent in digging these holes.

After leaving this field, there was an
interval of perhaps half a mile in which
were but slight traces of the storm. It then
swooped down upon a forest thick with large
trees, a number of which were uprooted,
lying in different directions, and others with
their upper limbs and tops much twisted

EDITOR'S TABLE.

265

and broken. Leaving this, the cyclone
fell into a meadow, then rose, and, after
a course of a few hundred yards, it de-
scended upon an elevated section of for-
est. Here, about the middle of its course,
the destruction was most apparent, in the
way of uprooted and broken timber ; and
so unconformable was the lay of the pros-
trate trees, as to defy all the ordinary theo-
ries of cyclones.

But this spot afforded clear evidence of
the successive ascent and descent of the
whirling current as it swept along ; for the
trees where it entered the forest had only
their tops and upper limbs twisted and muti-
lated, a series of whole trees uprooted fol-
lowing in the path, while again the destruc-
tion was confined to the top at the place
where the storm left the woods.

The next remarkable object was a corn-
field, in which the damage was conspicuous.
The stalks were stripped and some blown
out of the ground. The earth looked as if
scraped by some hard substance. A tenant-
house was nest on or near the route, but
the damage was slight ; a shutter was blown
away, only pieces of which could be found.
A bed in this house was blown against the
window. Farther on, a stable was partly
unroofed, and a corn-house lifted up from
the piers that supported it, transported a
few feet, and so gently deposited that a full
hogshead of wheat uncovered was let down
without spilling more than a few grains.
The alarmed owner found himself unable to
open the door of his house. Thus far the
force of the storm had been directed only
against trees of the forest ; it now struck
the orchai'ds of two adjoining farms, leaving
sixteen fine apple-trees prostrate.

In one of these, the trees were strewed
on the ground almost in the direction of the
spokes of a wheel. For the next half mile
very little damage was done, the path being
marked by a few broken limbs of trees.
But the storm came down once mpre, and
uprooted a number of large trees, quite in
a valley.

Its violence was now exhausted ; we fol-
lowed the path with some dllRculty half a
mile farther, and then no more traces of it
were to be found.

The cyclone, after a course of about five
miles, ascended and dissolved away into the
upper air. No part of the phenomenon was
more clearly indicated than this alternate
descent and rise of the whirling column as
it moved along. This was manifest not only
from observation of the objects on the route,
but was plainly seen by persons who watched
the current from neighboring hills. Filled
with dust and leaves and boughs of trees,
and distinctly colored, the contiguous sepa-
rate whirls formed a spectacle of terrible
grandeur as seen from elevated points at a
distance. There were slight occasional zig-
zags in the route, but for the most part it
was remarkably direct, with a course bearing
about ten degrees east of north, and a width
varying from thirty to seventy yards.

In regard to the velocity of the current,
no precise estimate can be made. The near-
est approach to it would be to say that the
course of five miles appears to have been
accomplished in about five minutes.

Two facts afford some indication as to
the dimension of the whirls that were con-
tinually forming and changing in the prog-
ress of the cyclone. In the case of the
orchard-trees, described as lying somewhat
in the form of spokes of a wheel, the diam-
eter of the whirl must have been about thir-
teen yards, while in the graveyard it could
not have exceeded ten feet.

Some persons heard, during its progress,
what they liken to explosions. Some also
heard a noise resembling the roar of a rail-
road train, before it began its course below.

Immense cumuli clouds were piled up
over the storm-clouds, their brightness con-
trasting strongly with the black and threat-
ning appearance of the latter.

William Henry Farquhar.
IIexrt C. Hallowell.

KocKLAND Sandy Springs, Maryland, |
March 24, 1880. f

EDITOR'S TABLE.

SIB JOSIAH MASON'S SCIENCE COL-
LEGE.

SIR JOSIAH MASON", the founder
of a new Science College, in Bir-
mingham, England, is an old gentleman
of eighty-six who has considerable rep-
utation as a rich philanthropist. He
amassed an immense fortune by the
manufacture of a steel pen of famous

reputation and by the business of elec-
tro-plating. He spent large suras in es-
tablishing hospitals, asylums, and alms-
houses, and endowing them for the
benefit of deserving persons in want;
and, among other public charities, he
built and endowed an orphanage capa-
ble of receiving, educating, feeding, and
clothing five hundred orphan children

266

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Tvbo were to be helped without regard :
to their nationahty or religion. His last
great benefaction is the establishment
and the equipment of a Science College,
" to provide for a thorough systematic
education in science with a distinctly
practical application to the industries
of the Midland district and particularly
to those of Birmingham (in which the
founder has spent the greatest portion
of his life), and of Kidderminster, where
he was born."

Two courses of study are provided
for in the deed of foundation. The
course of regular systematic instruction
is to be of such a kind as shall qualify
students either for passing the exami-
nations necessary to obtain the degrees
of Bachelor of Science, or of Doctor of
Science, of the University of London ;
or for any profession or pursuit in which
scientific knowledge can be usefully ap-
plied. Besides this there is a course of
popular instruction in the practical ap-
plications of science which it is intend-
ed shall be given by means of evening
lectures to artisans and others who can
not attend the classes of regular sys-
tematic instruction. All departments
in the college are open to both sexes on
the same terms. The faculty consists
of able men carefully chosen, and the
institution was opened October 1st,
with an introductory addi-ess by Profes-
sor Huxley on " Science and Culture,"
which is herewith re])rinted.

Professor Huxley's interesting dis-
course was well suited to signahze the
occasion which called it forth ; but on
tlie other hand there was that in the
occasion which gave a telling emphasis
to the discussion. The Mason College
was put upon a new basis. It was to
be broadly devoted to science, and, to
prevent interference with this dist;inc-
tive and comprehensive purpose, its
founder excluded " theology," " party
politics," and " mere literature " from
its scheme of studies.

In thus constituting his college. Sir
Josiah Mason must be regarded as rep-

resenting a pronounced tendency of the
age. But the theory of education em-
bodied in his institution was the result
of extensive practical intercourse with
the common people, and an intimate
knowledge of their real wants. He was
not an enthusiastic scientific student,
run away with by a hobby, but a cool-
headed observer of affairs, and the bold
ground that he took testifies to both
his sagacity and his independence. The
founders of colleges and universities
are usually ambitious to enlarge their
schemes of study, so that "all knowl-
edge " may be obtainable within their
precincts. Sir Josiah Mason had the
good sense to recognize that, in all such
attempts, traditional and fashionable
studies will usurp the places of those
that are really far more valuable ; so
he determined to keep out those sub-
jects which would hinder instead of
promoting scientific proficiency. It was
a plucky thing to do in England, where
the reverence for old classical literature
amounts to a superstition, while ac-
quaintance with it is held as the sole
test of a liberal education.

It w^ould probably not have made
much difference what educational ab-
surdity an old man might have perpe-
trated, as he was himself unlettered, and
his college was to be a mere vulgar, use-
ful knowledge dispensatory for w^orking
people. But when Professor Huxley
came forward and endorsed the wisdom
of the founder, and when, moreover, he
began to talk about a new and higher
type of culture, the offspring of modern
thought, and grounded upon science,
there were at once symptoms of per-
turbation and perplexity in the literary
circles. There was not, as there could
not be, any intelligent controversy with
the Professor over the positions he took ;
but the proprieties had been shocked,
and the real question was, where did
Huxley stand, and what could the man
mean ? His concessions, as the reader
will see, were large, but that availed lit-
tle, if he denied the exclusiveness of the

EDITOR'S TABLE.

267

old university ideals of culture. The
■whole pinch is here, for, whenever sci-
ence is recognized as the foundation of
a valuable and desirable mental culture,
the progress of thought will soon give
it the supreme place as a means of the
higher education.

CURIOUS EDUCATIONAL LOGIC.

The rapid development in this coun-
try of a vast system of state education,
under the control of politicians, gives
interest to the views of those men on
the subject of educational philosophy.
President Hayes in his speech, which
we referred to last month, is reported
to have made the following remarkable
statement : " The unvarying testimony
of history is that the nations which win
the most renowned victories in peace
and war are those which provide ample
means of popular education." That is,
according to the President of the Uni-
ted States, popular education is equal-
ly a preparation for victories in peace
and victories in war — the destructive
practice of savages and the constructive
vocations of civilized life. It has been
the inspiring hope of multitudes through
many ages that the world would yet
outgrow the brutal pursuit of war, and
they have had faith that this great re-
sult would be ultimately achieved by
the progress of general enlightenment
and the development of the arts of
peace which communities would find it
for their highest interest to promote.
It has been believed that the victories
of peace would put an end to the curses
of war, because the state of mind they
would engender in society must be in-
compatible with mihtary barbarism.
Certainly, if there is deadly antagonism
anywhere it is between the interests of
war and the interests of peace ; but
President Hayes seems to think popular
education has the marvelous capacity
of leading both ways, to triumphant
war and victorious peace.

We need not go far for illustrations

of inveterate hostility between the in-
terests of peace and war, and for the
influence of this conflict in shaping the
permanent policy of government. The
antagonism casts its malign shadow over
all the periods of peace. The commerce
and industry of the country are " regu-
lated," not by the intrinsic laws of
commercial and industrial prosperity,
but with reference to the alleged con-
tingencies of future war. Why should
the intercourse of nations be impeded
by shackles upon trade ? Why should
private enterprise be thwarted, and the
intelligence of citizens discredited in
regard to the course of industrial occu-
pation? Because at some future time
we may want to fight the world, and
so must keep ourselves independent of
it. We are cursed with a war-tariif
because we had a domestic war, and
must continue it because we may have
foreign wars ; and thus citizens are
coerced this way and that in all their
most vital private interests by the pre-
dominance of the military spirit.

A more specific illustration is fresh
in the minds of all. The opening of a
canal at the Isthmus of Darien would
be one of the greatest victories of peace
in the interest of the world that has
ever been accomplished. It would bind
the nations in pacific restraints more
powerfully than any other international
measure ever proposed. But it was re-
sisted in this country in the interests
of future war ; and President Hayes
and the politicians of Congress did all
they could to prevent the execution of
the work by a disgraceful demagogical
perversion of the Monroe doctrine. The
popular education of the politicians
did not here lead them both ways, ac-
cording to Hayes's formula ; they sacri-
ficed the victories of peace on the pre-
text of the adverse interests of future
war.

President Hayes invokes " the un-
var}'ing testimony of history" to es-
tablish his proposition, but the problem
of the influence and effects of "popular

268

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

education " is hardly yet historical. Not
many "nations" have gone far into the
experiment; those wliich have done so
are recent, and the results by no means
confirm President Hayes's conclusion.
Prussia leads in popular education, and
that education is tributary, not to the
victories of peace, but to the victories
of war, the first fruit of which is a
grinding military despotism. The pop-
ular education of Germany, moreover,
exemplifies in a marked degree the an-
tagonism we have referred to, and is
wholly subordinated to military ends.
The following remarks of Professor
Dabney, in a late number of the
"Princeton Review," bear decisively
upon this point: "Eecent history is
more instructive, because it offers us
illustrious experiments of popular edu-
cation carried for two generations as far
as it is ever likely to be carried. Our
overweening hopes of good from mere
mental culture are much curtailed by
observing that the condition of Chris-
tendom was never more ominous and
feverish than it now is, after these ef-
forts at education. Military prepara-
tions were never so immense, or so
onerous to the national industry. The
spirit of war was once ascribed to the
ambition of kings, regardless of the
blood of their peace-loving subjects.
But we now see that, since the instruct-
ed peoples have acquired influence in
the governments of Europe, this fell pas-
sion is more rife than ever. It seems,
moreover, that the German nation, the
most educated one of all, is in as unsta-
ble a condition as the rest. The wild-
est political heresies prevail ; and these
rulers, the special and boasted exem-
plars of popular education, rely least on
popular intelligence, and most on the
sword, to save society from destruc-
tion. Intelligent men there dismiss the
idea with ridicule that any actual diffu-
sion of intelligence among the peasant-
ry, by the schools, is the real safeguard
of their universal suffrage. They tell
us that not one in three exercises his

accomplishment of reading when an
adult — a statement which the scanty
circulation of newspapers among them
confirms. They say that the primary
schools are useful chiefly as a drill in
obedience. They teach the child early
to submit to superiors, to move at the
sound of a bell, to endure tasks, to fear
penalties, to study punctuality, at the
command of others. Then comes the
conscription, and seven years' drill in
arms, to confirm the habit of submis-
sion. Thus the German system pro-
duces a peasant who is in the habit of
voting as the upper classes bid him, not
of thinking for himself! It is pre-
sumed that this picture of the virtues
of the system is not very flattering to
our Amei'ican hopes."

BR. EDOUARD SEGVIN.

In the death of Dr. Seguin, which
occurred October 28th, the commu-
nity has lost a man of genius and
also of peculiar and eminent usefulness.
Though a physician, and devoting him-
self to a specialty in his profession, the
results of his studies are of very broad
application, and are sure to be increas-
ingly appreciated in the future.

Dr. Seguin was born at Clamecy, in
France, in 1812, studied medicine and
surgery in Paris, and early devoted him-
self to the investigation of nervous dis-
eases, and particularly to the nature
and treatment of idiocy. When he
took up the subject of the education
and training of the weak-minded, it had
been but very little explored ; there
was profound and widespread igno-
rance of all its principles, and it was
hedged about by inveterate prejudices
and superstitions. In the seventeenth
century St. Vincent de Paul gathered
a few idiots and labored assiduously for
years to instruct them, though with
very little success. In 1799 Jean Gas-
pard Itard, an eminent French surgeon
and a disciple of Condillac, grappled
with the problem in the case of the

EDITOR'S TABLE,

269

*' wild boy of Aveyron." This was an
idiot found in the forests of Aveyron,
and who was taken up by Itard for the
purpose of solving "the metaphysical
problem of determining what might be
the degree of intelligence and the na-
ture of the ideas in a lad who, deprived
from birth of all education, should have
lived entirely separated from the indi-
viduals of his kind." The philosophy
of the time -was consonant with its
theology; for, while theology tauglit
that man is fallen from a primitive
state of paradisaical innocence, phi-
losophy held that he has fallen away
from the perfection of a " state of na-
ture." Hence there was great curiosity
to find out what would be the state of
mind of one who had not been per-
verted by association with civilized peo-
ple. Nothing, of course, came of Itard's
experiment, except thq,t he had got hold
of an idiot of low grade, and satisfied
himself that it might be possible to im-
prove such natures in some small de-
gree.

Dr. Segnin was a pupil of Itard (who
lived till 1838), and, receiving from his
teacher the facts and results that he
had gathered, young Seguin entered
systematically upon this line of study.
The subject was beset with great diffi-
culties, and the young Frenchman en-
tered upon it with enthusiasm as a labor
of love, and devoted several years to a
thorough research into the causes and
philosophy of idiocy and the best meth-
ods of dealing with it. As the investiga-
tion was a practical one, Dr. Seguin or-
ganized schools in connection with pub-
lic institutions and also under private
control ; and it was the successful results
in these establishments which became
the basis of his numerous publications
on his chosen subject. In 1839 he pub-
lished, in connection with the celebrated
alienist Esquirol, his first pamphlet ; and
in 1846 he put forth an elaborate trea-
tise expounding his system of the treat-
ment of the idiotic and weak-minded.
This work became at once the author-

ized text-book of the subject, and placed
its author in the front rank of living
physiological psychologists.

Dr. Seguin came to this country in
1848, and resided for ten years in Ohio.
He then returned to Paris, but came
back in 1862, and has lately resided in
New York. He continued his observa-
tions and inquiries on the subject of
idiocy in this country, and organized
several institutions devoted to their care
and training. He, moreover, had the
satisfaction of seeing the rise of a great
number of schools for the feeble-minded
and lowly organized, which adopted his
methods of cultivation with remarkable
success. To him, in fact, more than to
any other man, belongs the immortal
honor of showing to what a degree the
badly-born — the congenital failures of
nature — can still be redeemed and ele-
vated to comparative usefulness. IIow
much has been thus gained by the com-
bination of scientific knowledge and
skillful, persevering art is thus stated
by Professor Seguin himself: " Not one
in a thousand has been entirely refrac-
tory to treatment ; not one in a hun-
dred who has not been made more hap-
py and healthy ; more than thirty per
cent, have been taught to conform to
social and moral law, and rendered ca-
pable of order, of good feeling, and of
working like the third of a man ; more
than forty per cent, have become capa-
ble of the ordinary transactions of life
under friendly control, of understanding
moral and social abstractions, of working
like two-thirds of a man ; and twenty-
five to thirty per cent, come nearer and
nearer to the standard of manhood, till
some of them will defy the scrutiny of
good judges when compared with or-
dinary young women and men."

Dr. Seguin was the author of many
publications, the last of wliich was the
second edition of his "Eeport on Edu-
cation " as United States Commissioner
at the Vienna Universal Exposition.
We noticed this report upon its first ap-
pearance, but a revised edition appears

2/0

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

this year from the press of Doerflinger,
of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This little
volume is of much interest to educators.
It treats tlie subject by the physiolo-
gical method, Avhich is the point of
view to be taken in the education of
childhood. Part I is devoted to Infant
Education, the Kindergarten, and what
are called Physiological Infant Schools.
Part II considers the Education of
Deaf Mutes ; Part III the Education of
Idiots ; and Part IV applies the results
arrived at to Popular Education as it
is and as it should be. The book is full
of valuable information and pregnant
suggestions, taking their complexion
from the author's professional experi-
ence, scientiiic observations, and pe-
culiar line of studies.

We began by remarking that Dr.
Seguin's special studies liave a breadth
of application that reaches far beyond
the technical schools for the feeble-
minded. He has taught the world the
difficult task of elevating idiots into
rational beings. An intelligent appre-
ciation of his philosophy might at least
prevent us from doing the opposite —
turning rational beings into idiots in
our popular schools. If any are curi-
ous about the rationale of this pro-
cess, we refer them to the article on
" The Artificial Production of Stupidity
in Schools," in the second number of
" The Popular Science Monthly."'

LITERARY NOTICES.

Odontornithes : A Monograph on the Ex-
tinct Toothed Birds of North America.
With Thirty-four Plates and Forty Wood-
cuts. Forming Vol. VII of the Geo-
logical Survey of the Fortieth Parallel.
By Othniel Charles Marsh, Professor
of Paleontology in Yale College, New
Haven, Conn.

Fossil anatomy is generally regarded as
one of the driest of subjects ; but, when the
vestiges of old bones become the keys to the
history of the world and the mysteries of
the universe, their study acquires an intense
interest. No better exemplification of this

can be found than that furnished by the
author of the splendid monograph before us.
Professor Marsh, as is well known, has been
engaged for the last ten years in exploring
the Kooky Mountain regions in search of
fossils, and his enthusiasm, untiring energy,
and whole-souled devotion to the work well
attest the fascination there is to the scien-
tific mind in inquiries which the mass of peo-
ple are apt to regard with indifference.

Two circumstances combined to give es-
pecial and powerful interest to the investiga-
tion. The region was rich in new material
for paleontological science, and the facts dis-
covered were certain to have great signifi-
cance in their bearing upon biological theory
and our whole view of the economy and or-
der of nature.

Geology tells us, in the first place, that
the North American stratified rocks, over
vast areas west of the Mississippi, were
deposited in a continuous, tranquil way, and
were so little disturbed by revolution and
upheaval that the formations are found in
a remarkably unbroken sequence. The geo-
logical systems follow each other regularly,
so that the record is in an unusual degree
complete. But, while the strata under the
vast prairies remain nearly horizontal as
they were left by deposit and subsidence,
the beds have been denuded, and thrust up
here and there so that the outcropping
strata are open to examination. The maxi-
mum thickness of these formations is es-
timated at some seven or eight miles, and
the " stratigraphical succession " is so per-
fect as to be most favorable for the study
of the order and dependence of the extinct
forms of life. Thus the field was not only
fresh, but propitious for new paleontological
exploration. In the second place, this in-
terest was heightened by the crisis of bio-
logical speculation. The theory of the con-
tinuous evolution of living forms by descent
with variation had got a foothold with nat-
uralists, but evidence was sorely wanting to
supply the missing links in the chains of
organic succession. There was a demand
for " intermediate types," and that the con-
necting forms predicted by the evolutionists
should be forthcoming. The research had a
factitious interest from these circumstances.
Professor Marsh was, of course, animated
by the genuine scientific motive of finding

LITERARY NOTICES.

271

out the facts, whatever theories they might
favor ; but he could not be insensible to the
import of his labors.

Some idea of the immense value of Pro-
fessor Marsh's contributions to paleontology,
as well as the immense labor that they have
cost, may be gathered from the fact that
in the last twelve years he has enriched the
museum of Yale College alone with about
one thousand new species of extinct verte-
brates, at least one half of which remain to
be studied out and described. That which
is remarkable about these collections is the
excellence of their preservation, and the
profusion of specimens by which it becomes
possible to restore nearly completed skele-
tons. Paleontologists have hitherto had to
work much from fragmentary specimens ;
but Professor Marsh is now enabled to re-
store the extinct vertebrate forms of the
Western Cretaceous beds with such fullness
of detail as seriously to affect the literary
treatment of the subject. His large memoirs
will be confined to a few restorations, but
the work in each case will be a finished con-
tribution to which little can ever be added.

The present memoir on " Extinct Toothed
Birds " is his first systematic publication on
the Western fossils, and forms Volume VII
of the " Geological Survey of the Fortieth
Parallel," conducted by Mr. Clarence King ;
and it also forms Volume I of " Memoirs of
the Peabody Museum of Yale College." In
regard to its contents, we can not do better
for our readers than to reproduce the fol-
lowing extract from a notice of it in " Na-
ture," by Professor Geikie, the able head of
the Geological Survey for Scotland :

Among the organic wonders of which from
time to time during the past decade announce-
ments have appeared, none have been received
with more interest than the discovery of birds
■with teeth, made by Professor Marsh near the
end of the year 1870, in the middle Cretaceous
rocks, which in Kansas and Colorado spread out
eastward from the base of the Rocky Mountains.
So perfect a matrix do the peculiar buff, chalky,
or marly beds of the Kansas middle Cretaceous
formations furnish for the preservation of or-
ganic remains, that almost every bone of the
skeletons of some of the birds has been recov-
ered. The material for the study of their oste-
ology is thus almost as ample as that for any liv-
ing bird. Full advantage of this abundant store
of material has been taken. The cases and cel-
lars in the Peabody Museum at New Haven con-
tain the remains of about fifty different individu-
als of a single bird. Every bone of its skeleton,

with the exception of one or two terminal toe-
bones and the extreme point of the tail, has
been recovered, and is here carefully drawn of
the natural size. Never before has it been pos-
sible, we believe, to reconstruct so perfectly so
ancient an organism.

The volume is divided into two parts. In
the first of these the detailed structure is given
of the bird on which the author has bestowed
the name of Hisperornis. The skeleton of this
animal if extended to its full length would mea-
sure about six feet from the point of the bill to
the end of the tail. It must have been a typical
aquatic bird, without any power of flight, but
with strongly developed limbs and a long, flexible
neck, whereby it was doubtless endowed with
remarkable powers of diving and swimming,
and of seizing the abundant fishes of the shal-
low seas in which it lived. Compared with our
modern birds, the two features of this ancient
form which most forcibly arrest attention are
the teeth and the legs. The teeth were covered
with smooth enamel, terminating upward in
conical pointed crowns and downward in stout
fangs, closely resembling those of mosasauroid
reptiles. Their mode of growth and replace-
ment have been determined to have taken place
in a manner very similar to that in some rep-
tiles, the young tooth forming on the inner side
of the fang of the tooth in use, and increasing in
size, while a pit for its reception was gradually
made by absorption. The old tooth, being pro-
gressively undermined, was finally expelled by
its successor, the number of teeth thus remain-
ing unchanged. The teeth were implanted in a
common alveolar groove, as in Ichthynsavrus.
In the upper jaw they were confined to the max-
illary and entirely absent from the pre-maxillary
bone ; in the lower jaw they extended from near
the anterior extremity of ther.amns along the
entire upper border of the dentary bone. Mr.
Marsh believes that they were held in position
by cartilage which permitted some fore-and-aft
movement, but on the decay of which after death
the teeth readily became displaced and fell out
of the jaw. This is an important fact in its
bearing upon the nature of the teeth fotind on
the same slab of Solenhofen limestone with
the well-known Archaopteryx. These teeth, it
will be remembered, were referred by Mr.
Evans to the bird itself— a reference fully
confirmed by Mr. Marsh, who says that he at
once identified the teeth as those of birds and
not of fishes, and by the subsequent discovery
of other remains of the bird. In Hespernrnis re-
gnlis there appear to have been fourteen func-
tional teeth in the maxillary bone, and thirty-
three teeth in the corresponding ramus of the
lowerjaw. The wings are rudimentary or abort-
ed, a remnant of the hiimenis alone existing.
They may have gradually diminished from dis-
use until, as the power of flight ceased, the legs
I and feet increased in proportion, and assumed
; the massive dimensions shown in these speci-
I mens, or, as Mr. !Marsh suggests, the bird may
I have been a carnivorous aquatic ostrich, never
i having possessed the power of flight.but descend-
ed from a reptilian ancestry, which is strongly

272

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

recalled by different portions of the skeleton.
Amouj^r recent birds, the peculiar legs and feet
of Unfiterornis find their nearest analogues in
tlic Glebes of the genus Podiceps. They were
admirably adapted for propulsion in water, but
scarcely served for walking on land. Locomo-
tion must have been entirely performed by the
posterior limbs— a peculiarity which distinguish-
es Hesptrornis from all other aquatic birds, re-
cent or fossil. Tlie tail appears to have been
composed of twelve vertebra;, unique in their
peculiar, widely-extended, transverse processes
and depressed horizontal plowshare boue. Broad
and flat, somewhat like that of the beaver, it
must have been a powerful instrument in steer-
ing the bird through the water.

The second part is devoted to a description
of the remains which have been found of birds
belonging to a second order of Odontornithes,
termed Odontotornue. Uulike Hesjjerornis, they
Beem to have been all of comparatively small size
and to have possressed powerful wings, but very
email legs and feet. From that contemporaneous
form, and from all other known birds recent and
fossil, they are distinguished by certain types of
structure which point back to a very lowly an-
cestry, lower even than the reptile. Their bones,
being mostly air-filled, would enable the car-
casses to float on water until, by decay or the ra-
pacity of other animals, they were separated and
dispersed. Hence skeletons of these flying birds
are less entire than those of the massive-boned
Eespeivritis. Nevertheless, the remains of no
fewer than seventy-seven difi'ereut individuals
have been disinterred. These are included in
two well-marked genera, Ichthyornis and Apat-
ornis, and were all small birds, reminding us by
their strong wings and delicate legs and feet of
the Terns, like which they were probably also i
aquatic in habit. Besides the reptilian skull 1
and teeth, the birds of this second order were
marked by thecharacterof their vertebra?, which |
in their biconcave structure recall those of fishes.
This is the more remarkable, as in Uesperornrs
the vertebrsE are like those of modem birds.
Yet these two utterly dissimilar types were con-
temporaries, and their remains have been pre-
served in the same strata. Mr. Marsh points
out that the transition between the two verte-
bral types may be traced even in the ske>eton
of Tchfhyorms itself, where the third cervical
vertebra presents a modification in which the
ordinary avian saddle-shaped form appears as it
were in the act of development from the bicon-
cave ichthyic form.

This memoir and those which will suc-
ceed it have a weighty interest as contribu-
tions to the doctrine of organic evolution.
There is no other possible way of explain-
ing the numerous facts than by this theory.
Professor Marsh's discoveries are new de-
monstrative proofs of the law, which he has
done more to confirm by these fossil revela-
tions than any other living man, or all con-
temporary naturalists put together.

It remains only to add that the volume
in all its elements — paper, printing, draw-
ing, and engraving— is superb. The illus-
trations, all executed in New Haven, and by
the most skillful hands the world aifords,
are the perfection of art. Professor Geikie
pays them the following high but deserving
compliment : " They are strictly and rigidly
scientific diagrams, wherein every bone and
part of a bono is made to stand out so clear-
ly that it would not be difficult to mold a
good model of the skeleton from the plates
alone. And yet, with this faithfulness to
the chief aim of the illustrations, there is
combined an artistic finish which has made
each plate a kind of finished picture."
Should the series of memoirs of the Pea-
body Museum of Yale College, of which this
is the first, be carried out on a scale and
with a thoroughness here attained, it will
form one of the great scientific monuments
of the century.

German Thought. By Karl Hillebrand.
New York : Henry Holt & Co. 1880.
Pp. 298. Price, %\.1b.

In these six lectures before the Royal
Institution of Great Britain, Professor Hil-
lebrand has traced in outline the rise of
modern German thought and its influence
in forming modern German political life.
The period covered by his review is that
from the Seven Years' war to the death of
Goethe, but he glances briefly at the part
taken by the other nations in the work of
modern culture, as an indispensable pre-
liminary to the subject proper. His review
leads him to a consideration of the Italian
Renaissance, in which Italy led the way in
breaking from the thralldom of media;val
tradition and authority ; the reaction against
the sensuous view of life that this introduced,
which in Spain was expressed by the found-
ing of the Society of Jesus, and in Germany
by the Reformation ; and the passing to Eng-
land and Holland, and later to France, of the
leadership in the thought and spirit that have
made modern Europe. Though Germany
held an important place in the initial move-
ment, she took but little part. Professor Hil-
lebrand points out, in the subsequent prog-
ress of it. She had been engaged in one
of the most notable struggles in history, and
came out of it prostrate. The Thirty Years'

LITERARY NOTICES.

273

war not only left her in entire intellectu-
al, moral, and material poverty, but it com-
pletely broke the thread of her history, and
threw her back full two hundred years. It
was not until 1760 that she began " to react
against the too absolute thought of France,
and to begin the work of restoration on a
sounder basis than that which Spain had
tried to lay two centuries before." Her res-
toration was due to two things — the Prus-
sian state and the Protestant religion. The
one has gradually molded out of an heteroge-
neous mass of petty principalities a powerful
state, and the other awakened thought, and
furnished the conditions in which free in-
quiry could thrive. The impulse to a large
intellectual life came from without, but, once
given, a literature grew up which has ex-
panded into a rich and varied product. It
has now become national in its tone and
feeling, but at first it was purely individ-
ual. It is the peculiarity of German liter-
ature that it arose, not, as in other coun-
tries, after a coherent state had been formed,
but before, while yet the nation did not ex-
ist, and Germany was but a collection of
petty states. It had the task not only of
responding to a national spirit, but of form-
ing that spirit. At first, as Germany began
to recover from the prostration of its pro-
tracted war, the literature was but a soulless
copy of foreign models, but with time it
grew to be more and more national, and un-
der the impulse of the Seven Years' war it
took definite form, and prepared the ground
for the generations of great writers which
have finally placed Germany abreast of the
other foremost nations of Europe. The three
generations of writers who did the great lit-
erary work of Germany were those born in
the sixty-five years from 1715 to 1780, and
which followed each other at periods of
twenty years. In the first were Klopstock,
Wieland, Winckelmann, Kant, Mendelssohn,
and Lessing ; the second included Herder,
Voss, Klinger, Burger, Goethe, and Schiller.
The third and final generation gave to Ger-
many the two Schlegels and the two Ilum-
boldts, Rahel, Tieck, Schleiermacher, Nie-
buhr, Savignj', and Schelling. The "two
schools," says Professor Ilillebrand, " which
from 1825 to 1850 influenced the German
mind most powerfully, the school of Hegel
and that of Gervinus, only continued, devel-

VOL. XVIII. — 18

oped, summed up, applied, or contradicted
the main ideas of the three preceding great
generations." The period of the first two
generations was the creative one, when Les-
sing and Kant, Herder and Goethe and
Schiller were leading German thought into
new channels. The later period — that of
the Romanticists — was essentially a reaction-
ary one, a period in which the middle ages
became the ideal. It was, however, a neces-
sary one, and under its influence the past
of Germany was brought into prominence,
and this prepared the later generation for
the constructive work of organizing the Ger-
man state and arousing the feeling of pa-
triotism essential to its success. When this
task has been fully accomplished, Germany
can again take up the work of intellectual
progress and occupy hor place in the gen-
eral movement of European thought. Pro-
fessor Ilillebrand writes in a very agreeable
style, and, though he is confined to a brief
outline, he invests his subject with an in-
terest that is sustained to the end.

The Elementary Principles of Scientific
Agriculture. By N. T. Lupton, LL.
D., Professor of Chemistry in Vander-
bilt University. New York : D. Apple-
ton & Co. Pp. 107. Price, 50 cents.

This little primer of agriculture for the
public schools had the following origin : The
Legislature of Tennessee passed a law au-
thorizing the Superintendent of Public In-
struction and the Commissioner of Agricul-
ture to procure the preparation of a suitable
elementary work on agricultural science, to
be used in the common schools of that
State. The Commissioner selected Dr. N. T.
Lupton, Professor of Chemistry in the Van-
derbilt University, to prepare the book, and
this little volume is the result. As our pub-
lic schools are constituted, it is perhaps as
good an introductory book as could be got
upon the sul)jcct. It is written in a clear
and easy style, with the smallest possible
amount of technical scientific talk that is
consistent with a rudimentary exposition of
agricultural principles. After some appro-
priate opening remarks on the development
of scientific agriculture, the author takes up
the origin, composition, and classification of
soils, the composition of plants, the compo-
sition and properties of the atmosphere, and

274

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the sources of plant-food and how it is ob-
tained. This is the most purely scientific
part, as all the explanations depend upon
chemistry. The author then takes up the
questions of the improvement of soils, the
use of manures, mineral fertilizers, rotation
of crops, and the selection and care of live-
stock. This is the more practical portion
of the book, and is full of well-digested in-
formation which should be got early into
the heads of farmers' boys. There is an
appendix describing a few simple experi-
ments, and then the customary questions to
aid the teacher in the recitations.

Summer-Land Sketches, or Rambles in the
Backwoods of Mexico and Central
America. By Felix L. Oswald. With
numerous Illustrations. Philadelphia:
J. B. Lippincott & Co. Pp. 425. Price,
$3.

This is a book of travel, adventure, and
observation in a wild and picturesque region,
upon which pen and pencil have been hith-
erto but little employed. It is besides a
scholarly study of the scenerj^, the natural
objects, the art-works, and the habits and
characters of the people that were met with,
and it is full of acute reflections and an in-
structive philosophy thoroughly imbued with
the modern scientific spirit. Its style is,
moreover, vivid, racy, crisp, and lively, so
that altoirether the work mav be commend-
ed to the reader as fresh, original, brilliant,
and solid.

Dr. Oswald was stationed at Medellin,
near Vera Cruz, in 1867, as director of a
military lazaretto. Transferred afterward
to the Vera Cruz City Dispensary, he lost
his health, and, having got a notion that the
mountains of Mexico have great sanitary
claims, he resolved to go there and if pos-
sible reestablish his constitution. He ram-
bled about for several years, and this vol-
ume is one of the results of his experience.
Dr. Oswald has very decided views in regard
to some of the evil tendencies of civilization,
and was very happy in the great region that
has not yet been invaded by the destructive
agencies of civilized life.

The following extract from his introduc-
tion, shadowing forth this idea, explains the
production of the book, and illustrates the
characteristics of the author's writing :

In the course of the next eight years I ex-
plored the highlands of Jalisco, Oaxact, Colima,
and Vera Paz for the benefit of my own health or
that of my employers, hut, like the Catalan farm-
er, I found more than I sought. ludepeudence,
in the political sense, and a healthy climate, might
be found in the mountains of Scotland, and even
of Old Spain ; but the new Spanish sierras can
boast of a virgin soil, with primeval forests
which offer a sanitarium to all who seek a refuge
from the malady of our anti-nalural civilization
—from the old marasmus which has spread from
the Syrian desert to the abandoned cotton-fields
of Georgia and Alabama.

We vaunt our proficiency in the art of subju-
gating Nature, but in the New World the same
ambition has led to a very dear-bought victory
which the countries of the East have paid with
the loss of their manhood ; their wild woodlands
have been tamed into deserts, and their wild
freemen into slaves ; the curse of the blighted
land has recoiled upon its devastators. In our
eagerness to wrest the scepter from our Mother
Earth, we have invaded her domain with fire and
sword, and instead of increasing the interest of
our heritage we have devoured the principal ;
the brilliant progress of the vain god of earth la
tracked by a lengthening shadow — the day-star
of our empire is approaching the western hori-
zon.

Where shall it end? Mold, sandy loam, and
sand, is Liebig's degeneration scale of treeless
countries ; the American soil may pass through
the same phases, and what then ? Will the sun-
set in the West be followed by a new Eastern
sunrise ? Shall Asia, the mother of religions,
give birth to an earth-regenerating Messiah,
whose gospel shall teach us to recognize the
physical laws of God ? Or shall the gloaming
fade into the night of the Buddhistic Nirvana,
the final extinction of organic life on this plan-
et ? It is not much of a consolation to think
that in the latter case the nations of the higher
latitudes might count upon a protracted twilight.
The westward spread of the land-blight will
drive the famished millions of the Old World
upon our remaining woodlands, but the resources
of the last oasis will probably be husbanded with
Scotch canniness and Prussian systematism, and
before we share the fate of the Eastern nations
we may see the dawn of the bureaucratic mil-
lennium, when all our fields shall be fenced in
with brick walls, all rivers with irrigaiion-dikes,
and all functions of our domestic life with ofli-
cial laws and by-laws. My trust in the eternal
mercy of Providence lets me expect another
deluge before that time ; but the recuperative
agencies of unaided Nature seem powerless
against the greatest of all earthly evils. National
and territorial marasmus are incurable diseases;
the historical records of the Eastern Continents,
at least, prove nothing to the contrary. The
coast-lands of the Mediterranean were the plea-
sure gardens of the Juventus Mundi, the Elysian
Fields whose inhabitants celebrated life as a fes-
tival ; and now ? Spain, southern Italy, Tur-
key, Greece, and Persia have been wasted to a
shadow of their former self; ghouls and afrits

LITERARY NOTICES,

275

haunt the burial-places of the north African em-
pires ; and no iuvocation can break the dcath-
eluniber of Asia Minor. Acorns perish in the
Boil which once nourished the oaks of Baehan;
outraged Nature refuses to be reconciled. With
the glory of the Orbis Romanus the s^pring-time
of our earth has departed, and what America
mistakes for the prime of a new year is but the
lingering mildness of an Indian summer.

The career whose swiftness is our national
boast has led us upon a road which has never
been far pursued with impunity ; the rapidity of
the destruction of our tree and game production
is far more unparalleled than the growth of our
cities ; the misery of the Old World has not
taught us to avoid its causes, and the history of
its etfects will not fail to repeat itself. On the
frozen shores of Lake Winnipeg and the inacces-
eible heights of the central Kocky Mountains a
few remnants of the old forests will probably
survive ; but the great East-Americansylvaniais
already doomed ; if we persist in our present
course, our last timber-States, Maine, Michigan,
and North Carolina, will be as bald as northern
Italy in fifty years from now, and our last game
will soon retreat to the festering swamps of
southern Florida.

The temperate zone of America will soon be
the treeless zone, with a single exception. In
the sierras of southern Mexico large tracts of
land still combine a generous climate with a
rich arboreal vegetation. Mexico, like our own
republic, has her backwoods States, but their
security from the inroads of the destroyer is
guaranteed by better safeguards than their re-
moteness from the great commercial centers.
The ruggedness of the surrounding sierras, the
supposed or real scarcity of precious metals,
and the independent character of the aboriginal
population, all conspire to make the alturas or
mountain forests as unattractive to the imperi-
ous Spaniards as they are inviting to freedom-
loving visitors from the North.

To my rambles and adventures in these altu-
ras, to their scenic charms, their strange fauna
and vegetable wonders, I have devoted this vol-
ume ; but I have rarely touched upon the min-
eral and agricultural resources of a region which
should remain consecrate to the Hamadryads
and their worshipers. The cities of the inter-
vening "civilized" districts, too, I have only
mentioned as wayside stations for the benefit of
non-pedestrian tourists. New Spain makes no
exception from the general rule that the nations
of Europe have transformed their American de-
pendencies after the image of their mother-
countries, and only he who leaves the cities far
behind can f irget that Mexico was colonized
under the auspices of St. Jago and Ximenes.

This collection of " Suramer-huid Sketches"
is, therefore, neither a record of a pilgrimage to
the shrines and cathedrals of Spanish America,
nor a bid for the patronage of Southwestern
land-agencies, but rather a guide-book to one
of the few remaining regions of earth that may
give us an idea of the tree-land eastward in
Eden which the Creator intended for the abode
of maukiud. lu the terrace-lands of western

Colima and Oaxaca, near the head-waters of the
Rio Lcrma and the mountain-lakes of Jalisco,
and in the lonely highlands of Vera Paz, we may
yet see forests that have never been desecrated
by an axe, and free fellow-creatures which have
not yet learned to flee Irom man as from a fiend.

An Elementary Treatise on Analytical
Geometry, embracing Plane Geometry
AND AN Introduction to Gecmetry of
Three Dimensions. By Edward A.
Bowser. New York : D. Van Nostrand.
1880. Pp. 287.

Professor Bowser has produced a very
excellent text-book, and has successfully
accomplished his object of presenting his
subject in a clear and concise manner, suit-
ed to the ready comprehension of the class
of students for which it is designed. The
demonstrations have been selected with re-
gard to their being of recognized excellence,
from all available sources, and when a line
of proof could be simplified it has been
done.

The Minor Arts. By Charles G. Leland.
London : Macmillan & Co^ 1880. Pp.
148. Price 90 cents.

The regard in which decorative work of
all kinds is at present held has given a
commercial value to many of those minor
arts which have been heretofore viewed only
in the light of accomplishments, and pursued
only as a pastime. A large field of remu-
nerative and agreeable employment is thus
opened up to numbers of persons who could
in no other way use their time and abilities
to such advantage. These arts are mostly
simple, and can be learned sufficiently well to
enable the student to do at least passable
work with a fair amount of diligence and at
an inconsiderable cost. With the object of
presenting such practical instruction in the
use of the materials and the kind of work
that can be made from them as the novice
needs, in a convenient and easily accessible
form, Mr. Leland has prepared the present
little manual. The volume opens with a
consideration of leather-work, of which there
are three kinds, that known as cuir bouilli,
in which the leather is softened and then
molded, stamped, or otherwise shaped ;
sewed leather, and sheet-leather ornaments,
such as leaves, flowers, etc. Mr. Leland de-
votes his attention chiefly to the first kind,
which he shows is capable of producing in

276

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

a very simple way many elegant articles.
la the chapter on porcelain-painting, the
character of the pigments, the mode of draw-
ing on porcelain, and the kinds of glaze pro-
duced are brietiy touched upon. Simple in-
structions are given in the chapter on wood-
carving, as also in the one on molding in
plaster and gelatine. Other chapters treat
of designing and transferring patterns, sten-
ciling, mosaic-work, repousse-work, and sil-
ver-chasing, and some minor manufactures
not in themselves of sufficient importance
to be given a separate place. The volume
closes with a collection of useful receipts of
cements, etc.

The Textile Record of America. By
James W. Nagle & John W. Eyckman.
Published monthly at Philadelphia, $3
per year.

This is a handsomely printed thirty-six-
page monthly journal devoted to the inter-
ests of those engaged in producing textile
materials and in weaving them into fabrics.
The first and second numbei'S, for Septem-
ber and October of this year, have varied
tables of contents, and the journal promises
to be very serviceable to the trade of which
it is the exponent. It is under the editorial
direction of Mr. Lorin Blodget, and is, like
everything else published in Pennsylvaaia,
thoroughly protectionist in creed. A depart-
ment devoted to coloring-improvements, both
in dyes and their use, is conducted by Dr.
Alfred L. Kennedy.

Diseases of the Throat and Nose. By
MoRELL JIackenzie, M. D. London :
Vol. I. Philadelphia: Presley Blakis-
ton. 1880. Pp. 570. Price, $1.

This is an American reprint of the val-
uable work of Dr. Mackenzie, of London,
whose long experience and extensive ac-
quaintance with diseases of this class emi-
nently fit him to treat of them. The work
is addressed to the profession, and is, as it
professes to be, a systematic treatise upon
the subject. The matter of this first vol-
ume is arranged under the three headings of
"The Pharynx," "The Larynx," and "The
Trachea." Under each the anatomy of the
organ is first considered, next the instru-
ments used in operating upon it, and the
diseases to which it is subject, and the meth-
od of treatment. The complete work will

be in two volumes, the second treating of
the diseases of the oesophagus, nasal cavi-
ties, and neck. This volume is now in press,
and will shortly appear.

Memoirs of the Science Department, Uni-
versity OF ToKio, Japan. Vol. Ill, Part
I. Peport on the Meteorology of Tokio
for the Year 1819. By T. C. Menden-
hall. Published by the University. Gov-
ernment Printing-office. 1880. Pp. 42.

This memoir comprises the meteorologi-
cal observations made at the observatory of
the University of Tokio during the year
1879. The results are tabulated, and nu-
merous charts show graphically the varia-
tions in temperature, in barometrical read-
ings, force of wind, etc. Professor Menden-
hall does not consider that any general con-
clusions can be drawn from observations ex-
tending over such a brief period of time ;
but, as they are to be continued, the data
will in time be collected from which such
conclusions can be safely drawn. The ob-
servations of the barometer and thermome-
ter were made three times a day, and those
on the direction of the wind at more fre-
quent intervals. They were made by Japan-
ese under the direction of Professor Mcnden-
hall, and every care has been taken to have
them accurate. The volume is issued in
excellent style, and is entirely of Japanese
manufacture.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

L'Annee Artistique (The Artistic Year). The
Fine Arts in France and Abroad. By Victor
Champier, Secretary of the Museum of Decora-
tive Arts. Second Year: 1879. Paris : A. Quau-
tin. 1880. Pp. 644.

Repertoire Politique et Historiqne (Political
and Historical Repertory): containing a Politi-
cal Review of the Year. Fourth Year : 1879.
Published under the direction of M. Charles Val-
fi-ambert. Doctor in Laws, Advocate of the Court
of Appeals of Paris, Chevalier of the Legion of
Honor. Paris : A. Quautin. 1880. Pp. 592.

L'Annee Archeologique (the Aicheological
Year): Archeological Calendar, Centenaries, Re-
view of the Year in France and Abroad. By
Anthvme Saint- Paul. Year 1879. Paris: A.
Quantin. 1880. Pp.340.

Susar Analysis: a Description of the Meth-
ods used in estimating the Constituents. By M.
Benjamin, Ph. B. Illustrated. New York. 1880.
Pp. 18.

Plan of the Cerebro-Spinal Nervous System.
By S. V. Clevenger, M. D. Illustrated. Chicago.
1880. Pp. 39.

The Trenton Gravel and its Relation to the
Antiquity of Man. By Henry Carvill Lewis.
From the " Proceedings of the Academy of Sci-
ences of Philadelphia." Pp.16.

Notes on the Management of Orthopedic

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

277

Cases. By V. P. Gibney, M. D. Louisville, Ky.
1880. Pp. 9.

Perinephritis : Remarks on Diagnosis and
Prognosis. By V. P. Gibney, M. D. Chicago.
1380. Pp. 30.

Science Education : an Address delivered at
the Couiraoncement of the Agricuhuriil and Me-
chanical College of Alabama. By William Le
Roy Brown, LL. D. Auburn, Ala. 1880. Pp.
1(}.

The Unification of Science. By Alfred Arnold.
St. Augustine, Fla. la^O. Pp. 15.

On Rotting Wood. By Professor William n.
Brewer, of Yiilo College. Read Ijefore the Amer-
ican Public iiealth Association, November 19,

1879. Pp.3.

Culture of Sumac in Sicily, and its Prepara-
tion for Market in Europe and Ihe United States.
By William McMurtrie, Ph. D. Special Report
No. 2(i, Department of Agriculture. Washing-
ton : Government Printing-Offlce. With 8 Plates.

1880. Pp. 18.

Tide Tables of the Pacific Coast of the United
States. Pp. 63. — Tide Tables of the Atlantic
Coast of the United States. Pp. 129. United
States Coast and Geodetic Survey Office. Wash-
ington: Government Printing-Offlce. 25 cents
each.

Quarterly Report of the Chief of the Bureau
of Statistics, Treasury Department. Three
Months ending June 30, 1880. Washington;
CJoverument Printing-Offlce. 1880. Pp. 92.

Medical Hints on the Production and Manage-
ment of the Singing Voice. ByLenn<ix Browne,
F. R. C. S. Edin. New York: M. L. Holbrook &
Co. Pp. 77. 25 cents.

The Devonian Insects of New Branswick. By
Samuel H. Scudder. Anniversary Memoirs of
the Boston Society of Natural History. With I
Plate. Boston. 1880. Pp.41.

A Text-Book of the Physiological Chemistry
of the Animal Body. By Arthur Gamgee, M. D.,
P. R. S. With Illustrations. Vol. I. London :
Macmillan & Co. 1880. Pp. 487. $4.50.

On Slight Ailments : their Nature and Treat-
ment. By Lionel S. Beale, M. B., P. R. S. Phila-
delphia: Presley Blakiston. 1880. Pp.353. $1.50.

A Minnal of Classical Literature. By Charles
Morris. Chicago : S. R. Griggs & Co. 1880. Pp.
41S. $1.75.

The Ocean as a Health Resort. By William
S. Wilson, L. R. C. P. Lorid. Philadelphia : Pres-
ley Blakiston. 1880. Pp. 260. $2.50.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

Lieutenant Se hwatka's Arctic Journey.

— The gap left in our knowledge of the ill-
fated Arctic Expedition of Sir John Frank-
lin, by the successive search-parties sent in
quest of the explorers, has now been filled,
as completely as it seems ever likely to be, by
the remarkable achievement of Lieutenant
Schwatka and his comrades, who have re-
cently returned from their Arctic journey,
after an absence of more than two years,
Though the expedition was the poorest
equipped of any of the similar ones which
preceded it, it has accomplished more than
any other, and that in the face of what

would have seemed to less intrepid explorers
insurmountable difficulties. The expedition
of Sir John Franklin, consisting of the two
ships Erebus and Terror, with a total party
of one hundred and twenty-eight men, was
sent out in the spring of 1845, and was
never more seen. The mystery which en-
shrouded their fate was first unveiled by
Dr. Eae, who, in 1853, found and brought
to England a number o-f relics of the miss-
ing party, which are now in the British Mu-
seum, Dr. Eae's journey was made in the
same general direction as that of Lieutenant
Schwatka, but not over the same ground.
Another expedition was sent out in 1858
under the command of Sir Leopold McClin-
tock, who succeeded in obtaining the only
written record that has been found. This
showed that Franklin died on board ship in
1847, and the task of leading the way over
the trackless Arctic fields, where the whole
party perished miserably from cold and hun-
ger, devolved upon Captain Crozier, the next
in command. Franklin penetrated as far
north OS latitude "77°, going through Baffin
Bay, Barrow Strait, and up Wellington Chan-
nel, but was forced to return southward,
and in latitude 70° was frozen in by the ice
toward the close of 1846. The vessels were
abandoned in the spring of 1848, and the
party, now consisting of one hundred and
five men, betook themselves to the land in
the hope of reaching some outpost of the
Hudson Bay Company. They reached an
island named King William Land, beyond
which they never got. The subsequent ex-
peditions of Dr. Kane and Captain Hall
gleaned some further information, but there
was still much to be learned of the way and
place in which the party perished, and of
what had become of the records which they
must have had with them. It was to clear
up these points that the Schwatka expedi-
tion undertook its perilous and fortunately
successful journey, upon information regard-
ing the existence of records which seemed
reliable. This information was that one
Captain Barry, of a whaler, while wintering
in Repulse Bay, had been given a spoon by
the Esquimaux, which had belonged to the
Franklin party, and that this captain had
subsequently overheard some natives talk-
ing, and learned that this spoon came from
a cairn in King William Land where there

278

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

were others, as well as books and papers.
When the expedition arrived at its destina-
tion at a northern point of Hudson Bay,
this story was found to be without founda-
tion. Lieutenant Schwatlca, however, de-
termined to malie the trip to King William
Land, in the hope of obtaining new infor-
mation of value. The journey was in every
way a formidable undertaking, having to
be made on sledges, many hundred miles
across a totally unknown country, which had
to be depended upon for food. The party
consisted of four white men and thirteen
Esquimaux, provided with but one month's
provisions, but also amjjjy supplied with the
best and most accurate American guns, to
whose perfection, as it proved, they were
indebted for being able to successfully ac-
complish the task. The party left their
camp upon Hudson Bay, which they had
named Camp Daly, on the 1st of April,
IS'ZS, and reached it again in March, after
eleven months' absence, having traveled
more than three thousand miles, and expe-
rienced a degree of cold that seems incred-
ible. The lowest temperature was —71°,
or 103° below the freezing-point, while the
mean temperatuies for the months of No-
vember and December, 1879, and January,
1880, were —49°, —50° and — 53'2°. In
such temperatures as these any object sears
the skin as a red-hot iron, the slightest wind
burns the face, and meat, hot from a boiling
pot, freezes before it can be eaten. The
story of the wanderings of the Franklin ex-
plorers, as learned by this party from the
natives, and as confirmed by their personal
search, is terrible in the extreme. These
men were but a few hundred miles from
waters frequented by whalers, and yet they
all perished, and perished seas to leave hard-
ly any evidence of their journey. So far as
it could be traced, it was by Lieutenant
Schwatka's party, and the bones that were
found at different points along the desolate
shore of King William Land were buried.
Only one skeleton could be identified — that
of Lieutenant Irving, and this was brought
away by them. It was known by means of
a medal found near by, which the natives,
in their desecration of his grave, had for-
gotten to take. It was learned from the
natives that one of the ships was sunk at a
point about five miles west of Grant Point,

near the Adelaide Peninsula. As the Es-
quimaux did not know how to get in by the
deck, they cut a hole in the side on a level
with the ice, through which they carried off
what provisions and other things they could
find, and in the spring, when the ice broke
up, the ship sank. Across this Adelaide
Peninsula, at a point named Starvation Cove,
evidences were found that it was here that
the last remnant of the party perished, and
with them the records, Lieutenant Schwatka
believing that they are irrecoverably lost.
All the relics found here by the natives,
as well as at other points, were destroyed,
having been given to the children to play
with, and in time were broken up and lost.
Besides the knowledge gained of the Frank-
lin party, the searchers obtained geographi-
cal results of value, and found a consider-
able error in the Admiralty chart, in the
mapping of Back's River, which they found
to extend a good deal east of south, in-
stead of west of it.

The DIarsball-Islanders. — A work recent-
ly published by Franz Ilemshein, a resident
German merchant and consul, on the lan-
guage of the Marshall Islands, affords some
interesting facts concerning this little Poly-
nesian group and its people. The islands
are of coral, and are called atolls, having for
their foundation a ring-shaped coral reef on
which a land surface has been formed of
varying length, but only a few hundred
yards in breadth, and rising but a few feet
above the water-line. Channels through these
banks connect the inclosed lagoons, which
are seldom more than thirty or thirty-five
fathoms deep, with the outer water. The
channels are entirely wanting or are too
shallow for ships in some of the islands. The
thin soil supports a scanty vegetation, which
is limited to only a few of the species pe-
culiar to the South-Sea regions; but many
useful plants have been imported from other
islands and do well. The fauna is likewise
insignificant, but has been increased by im-
portations from abroad, along with which the
universal rat has been introduced. The in-
habitants are a small, slightly built people,
who age early ; the women have rounder
faces than the men, with thin, fleshless hands,
and begin to fade before they reach maturity.
Four ranks arc recomized among them. The

POPULAR MISCELLANY

279

lowest are the Armidwon, or Kajur, who own
nothing; above them arc the Leadagedag,
to whom they must bring provision, and whom
they must obey. Men of the latter class are
permitted to own property. The third rank,
called the Budag, is composed of the broth-
ers and sous of the king. Over all is the
Irod, or king, from whom the Leadagedag
receive their commands. The Kajurs are
allowed to have but one wife ; men of the
other classes may have more. The Kajur
has the right to take the single wife from a
man of lower condition than himself, but the
men of the second rank are not permitted to
speak with the wife of the king ; and if the
king goes abroad, leaving his wife at home,
all the Leadagedag and the Budag, except
the sons of the king, must leave the island.
If a woman in the higher ranks is put away
by her husband, as may happen if she is
childless, she can not be taken in marriaire
by any one of a lower condition ; but a man
may marry a woman of a higher rank than
his own and be raised to her rank. The food
of the islanders is scanty. Young cocoa-
nuts take the place of the drinking water,
which is brackish. Cocoa-nuts, pandanus, and
bread-fruit form the regular food. Arrow,
root, brought from the northern islands,
cooked with finely cut cocoa-nut, forms a
favorite dish. A kind of conserve is made
by roasting the pandanus-fruit over a bed
of hot coals and covered with hot sand.
In two days the fruit is taken out, sliced,
dried in the sun, and pressed into rolls, which
can be kept for two years. Another prepa-
ration, piru, is made from the bread-fruit.
The fruit is cut up, steeped in salt water,
and beaten ; it is then put away in a shady
place and covered with leaves ; the soft mass
is kneaded on the second day, laid away for
a week, and kneaded again, when it is ready
for use, and will keep good for five or six
months. The principal disease from which
the people suffer, and the most fatal one, is
a catarrhal cold resembling the glanders in
beasts. Europeans are also liable to take
it, but they have it in a milder form, and
do not die of it. A skin-disease called
the gogo is generally prevalent, but is not
commonly dangerous. This disease is not
due to lack of personal cleanliness, for
the natives are so much in the water as to
make such a condition rare, and it prevails

chiefly with the men, who are most in the
water. The guild of the heathen priests
consisted chiefly of diviners. God was sup-
posed to appear to them and disclose the
future to them. During the interview, which
usually lasted for two or three days, they
took no food. They never ate or drank out
of dishes that had been used, and broke the
cups after they had drunken from them.
They were supposed to know about the wind
and the weather, and the chances of success
in enterprises, and were called into the sick
and expected to foretell whether they would
live or die. Remedies for disease were and
are wholly unknown. Warm water, a few
leaves, and especially rubbing, which is care-
fully attended to by the women with con-
juring words, are the only medicaments. The
friends of the sick man were formerly accus-
tomed to come to him, bringing pandanus
leaves, which they would fold together in
patterns of equal size ; if the last fold came
out of the same length with the others, the
omen was considered a good one for an
impending recovery ; if otherwise, the sick
man was taker away to a distance, depend-
ing on the length of the last fold. These
and many other customs have gone or are
going out of use, and occur only exception-
ally in places where one tenth of the popu-
lation have been converted to Christianity.
Fights are rare ; wars are carried on chiefly
by one party trying to destroy the cocoa
palms or burn the houses of the other. They
never come to a battle, but are conducted by
siege, and generally end by the besieged
party yielding. The worst damage ensues
after the war, when, the trees being cut down
and the land wasted, a famine of five or six
months' duration is nearly certain. The
principal occupation of the inhabitants is
fishing. To catch the flying-fish a large
torch is burned in a dark night upon a fast-
sailing canoe. The fish fly toward the glim-
mer and cither strike the sail and fall down
or arc caught by the skillful fisherman with
a long-handled net. The yellow-tail fish
swims in schools, and is caught with two
canoes which, tied together, draw a cord after
them on the top of the water, and drive the
fish into shallow places, where they are
caught with little trouble. It is a curious
fact that the fish will occasionally leap over
the cord, but will never swim away under it.

28o

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Mats and hats are artfully woven out of the
bark of a shrub called the loa, and colored
in handsome patterns of yellow, red, and
black. The natives formerly made numer-
ous voyages to the islands of the whole Mar-
shall group, and had charts of them, which
were drawn and copied on sticks and stones.

ImproTeuiruts ia Electro-Motors and
Dynanio-Machines. — In a paper recently
read before the British Association, Mr. T.
Weisendanger takes exception to some of
the received theories regarding electro-
motors and dynamo-generators, and points
out an improved mode of construction for
both. In regard to the relations of these
two classes of machines, it has generally
been held that the most efficient generator
is also the most efficient motor. This Mr.
Weisendanger considers erroneous. Dy-
namo-generators are efficient only when
their field-magnets are able to retain at all
times a certain amount of residual magnet-
ism. Their cores are, therefore, usually
made of hard cast iron, or, if of soft iron,
they are attached to masses of cast iron so
that these form part of them. None of the
efforts hitherto made to construct dvnamo-
machines with soft-iron cores have met with
success, and, as electro-motors to give the
best results should have such cores, ma-
chines can not be made that will give the
maximum efficiency in both kinds of work.
The fact that the attempts to make dynamo-
machines with soft-iron cores have resulted
in failure, he considers, proves that the cur-
rent theory of their action, viz., that the
electricity is generated by the inductive
action and reaction between the field-mag-
nets and the armature, is inadequate. Even
wrought iron contains some residual mag-
netism, and in large masses, and after it
has been subjected to strong magnetization,
the amount is considerable. By the theory,
the smallest amount of such magnetism
would be sufficient to start the action of
the machine. Experiment, however, shows
that this is not the case. Mr. "Weisendan-
ger does not offer a new theory, but insists
that the present one needs to be amended
to correctly express the facts. Attention
is also called to the idea underlying the
work of some recent experimenters, that
the power of an electro-motor can be in-

definitely increased by augmenting that of
the field-magnets. This is characterized as
a mischievous theory whose outcome is per-
petual motion. The author, on the con-
trary, holds that there is a definite relation
between the power of the field-magnets and
the armature, which has yet to be experi-
mentally determined. Assuming the rela-
tion of these sets of magnets to be one of
equality, he has constructed a motor, in
which the cores of the field-magnets are
light pieces of soft iron, that gives very
satisfactory results. Further experiments
to determine the exact ratio of the power
of the field and armature, he believes, will
result in a much more perfect machine.
The most novel and perhaps important part
of Sir. Weisendanger's paper is that re-
lating to the proper method of revolving
the armature before the poles of the field-
magnets. The present practice is to make
the cores of the field-magnets and those of
the armature of such shape that the circles
in whose circumference they lie are concen-
tric. The defect of this arrangement is,
that the armatures approach the magnets
through the space in which the intensity of
the field is at a minimum. After the arma-
ture reaches the magnet, the distance be-
tween the two remains constant while they
are passing each other. Mr. AVeisendangcr
holds that in generators the strongest cur-
rents will be induced, and in motors the
greatest amount of power obtained when
the armature not only revolves in the most
highly concentrated field, but when its en-
tire motion is either one of approach to or
withdrawal from the field-magnets. He,
therefore, proposes that the field-magnets
be set at an .angle to the circle described by
the revolving armature. This latter then
approaches the former continuously to the
very instant of its leaving them. The
greater the number of magnets the more
powerful the action, as the armature is
throughout its entire movement cither ap-
proaching or receding from the field-mag-
nets. Mr. Weisendanger is very hopeful
of the future possibilities of electricity.
Our present machines he believes to be but
very imperfect appliances, which further
research may so improve that the electric
current will eventually perform all the ser-
vices now rendered by combustion. He

P OP ULAR MIS CELL ANY.

281

looks not only to electricity to furnish light,
and, through the medium of present un-
utilized natural resources, motive power, but
heat as well. The exhaustion of fuel-sup-
ply will inevitably drive us to seek and find
some other agency to do our work, and
this, he thinks there is good reason to be-
lieve, will be found in electrical energy.

A IVcw Smolting-Fnrnace. — The utiliza-
tion of petroleum for fuel in the various
metallurgical operations, in steam generat-
ing, and generally where coal is industrially
used, has been a favorite project with in-
ventors for a dozen years or more. The
advantages of such a fuel are very great,
and the reward to the successful inventor
of an apparatus that would make its use
practicable would be correspondingly large.
Like gas, a liquid fuel is under perfect con-
trol, and is in a form allowing of perfect
combustion if properly burned. The fuel
is, moreover, very abundant, the production
having been for some time past in consider-
able excess of the demand. In one district
alone something like six thousand barrels
are daily running to waste through lack of
storage capacity, and one of the largest pro-
ducers of oil is now obtaining from the wells
about fifteen thousand barrels per day more
than can be marketed. The oil companies,
as well as inventors who have hoped to
make a fortune by a successful furnace,
have been unceasing in their efforts to turn
this fuel to industrial uses, but so far the
devices— and they have been many — have
uniformly failed. A furnace is, however,
now being developed which seems to prom-
ise, if not a complete solution, at least a
partial solution of the problem. The fur-
nace consists, in reality, in an immense blow-
pipe-flame, which is made to play upon the
ore to be smelted, when used for metallur-
gical purposes, and to pass through boiler-
tubes when used for steam generating. In
the metallurgical apparatus there is first a
fuel-furnace ia which any ordinary fuel may
be used, or oil if preferred. Against the
upper portion of the flame from this furnace
a blast of air is projected, similar to that
from the mouth blowpipe against the flame
of a spirit-lamp. Into this blast, at the
point where it strikes the fuel-furnace flame,
a stream of oil is introduced. The on-goins

blast and the heat of the flame vaporize the
oil, which is then in a condition to be com-
pletely consumed. The result of this ar-
rangement is the production of a column of
flame, some thirty or forty feet long, of high
temperature. This flame is projected hori-
zontally through an iron cylindrical shell,
lined with tire-brick with a facing of graph-
ite, into which the ore to be reduced is fed
from a hopper at the farther end. The
shell is slowly rotated, so that the entering
ore, tumbling about, is brought into intimate
contact with the flame. It is also slightly
inclined, that the material may slowly feed
into the flame, and the melted material run
down into the crucible at the lower end,
where it is tapped and the slag run off in the
usual way. The farther end of the revolv-
ing cylinder is let into a chamber, built of
brick, stone, or clay, which is divided into
compartments by walls or sheets of incom-
bustible material kept constantly wet by
running water. The hot gases, carrying va-
pors of the metals and other ingredients of
the ore, are here gradually cooled dowTi and
condensed, the character of the condensa-
tion depending upon the materials present
in the ore. The burned gases are with-
drawn from the condensing chamber by
means of an exhaust-fan, and discharged
into the atmosphere. The air and oil are
both under perfect control, so that a heat
suitable for smelting or for vaporizing can
be produced at will. Several furnaces are
shortly to be put into operation for the
reduction of ores of the precious metals,
on which experiments have so far chiefly
been made. The inventor, however, ex-
pects to be able to use it successfully in
making iron and steel, as well as in burn-
ing lime. A modified form is also suitable
to the burning of pottery and glass-making.
In using it for generating steam, the boiler-
flue is made large, the flame at no point
coming in contact with the metal, thus avoid-
ing the burning out of the boiler, the chief
difficulty encountered by most of the other
devices using oil-fuel for steam - making.
The experiments with the furnace upon an
industrial scale have been as yet too few
and imperfect to thoroughly test its value,
but they seem to warrant the opinion that
the furnace has capabilities that promise
very well for its future usefulness.

282

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The Markings of Meteoric Stones. — M.
Daubr^c, the eminent French geologist, in
his recently published work on " Synthetic
Studies in Experimental Geology," describes
some experiments that he has made for the
purpose of ascertaining the cause of the pe-
culiar appearance of the surface of meteoric
stones. These bodies are covered with a
blackish coating, which is sometimes dull
and sometimes brilliant, and indicates un-
mistakably that they have suffered modifi-
cations in passing through the atmosphere.
Their fracture presents a globular surface,
similar to the structure of terrestrial rocks,
showing that a strong cohesion has been
produced at the moment of their formation.
The outer surface is also covei'ed with round-
ed depressions forming little capsules. M.
Daubree had remarked that when a cannon
loaded with coarse-grained powder was fired
off, some grains, which were only partly
burned, would fall at the muzzle of the
piece. The hollowed surface of these grains
bore a striking resemblance to the forms
seen on the meteorites. He then performed
an experiment by taking a rectangular plate
of steel, rolling it up in such a way that it
should be fully enveloped by the gases from
the powder, putting it in a closed steel cham-
ber, with a quantity of powder, and firing off
the powder by means of the electric spark.
The duration of the deflagration was less
than half a second. The gases acquired a
tension of from one to two thousand atmos-
pheres, and a temperature estimated at about
3,600°. The action, though of very short
duration, gave surprising results. The sur-
face of the plate was hollowed into irregular
furrows, which danonstrated the force of
the gaseous currents, and a powder of sul-
phurct of iron was found in the bottom of
the vessel. A half a second, then, was all
the time that was required to produce a par-
tial fusion of the steel, a considerable blow-
ing up by the gases, and such a chemical
action as the formation of a sulphuret of
iron. The experiment was repeated with
dynamite and other explosives, with identi-
cal results. From them, M. Daubree has
deduced the following interpretation of the
metecfric phenomena : the meteorites enter
the terrestrial atmosphere with an enormous
swiftness. The great pressure of air to
which they are subjected explains the incan-

descence which takes place, and the superfi-
cial fusion of the mass. The part of a pro-
jectile of this kind which is at the moment
in front rams the air and compresses it ex-
ceedingly, and causes it to be agitated by
energetic gyratory movements. In whirl-
ing thus, under such pressure, the air tends
to screw and hollow out whatever it rubs
against, and this mechanical action is ac-
companied and reenforced by a chemical
action due to the combustible nature of the
meteoric rocks at these high temperatures.
These rocks contain enough particles of iron
in the native state, or as a sulphuret, to
largely favor combustion and disaggrega-
tion. Under these circumstances, the hollows
are produced, which appear on one side or
on all sides of the projectile, accordingly as
it has not or has a motion of rotation. M.
Daubree has given to these hollows the name
of piczoyhjptcs.

Relation of Age and Marriage to Sui-
cide.— It has been a mooted question wheth-
er the old or the young were more prone to
suicide. Statistics published by Dr. Bertil-
lon, in an article on marriage in the French
" Encyclopaedic Dictionary of the Medical
Sciences," prove that the propensity increas-
es with advancing age. They are reenforced
by statistics recently published in Sweden,
which lead to substantially the same conclu-
sion. The proportion of the number of sui-
cides of the more advanced ages to the whole
number of persons of corresponding ages ap-
pears to be less in Sweden than in France,
but aside from this the proportion increases
regularly in both countries from the age of
fifteen or twenty years to that of sixty years.
After about sixty years the tendency in both
countries appears to diminish. The propor-
tion of suicides among women is less at all
ages than among men, but increases with the
advance of years as with the men. The sta-
tistical work of Signor Morrelli, recently pub-
lished at Milan, lends additional support to
these views. Dr. Bertillon has also collect-
ed facts bearing on the effect of marriage
upon the tendency to suicide, from which he
has deduced the principles : 1. That widow-
ers and widows commit suicide more fre-
quently than married persons ; and, 2, that
the presence of children in the family
makes the probability of suicide more re-

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

283

mote. The salutary influence of children is
equally marked with married and widowed
persons, with men and women. The Swed-
ish statistics may be brought in again to en-
large our knowledge on this point by show-
ing the combined influence of marriage and
age. According to these tables, the differ-
ence in the liability of married men and
celibates, while they are still young, is very
slight. The tendency to suicide then in-
creases slowly among married men as they
grow older, and at its maximum (at about
sixty to sixty-five years of age) is two and
one half times (26 in 100,000) what it was
at the adult age (10 to 11 per 100,000).
After the sixty-fifth year it diminishes.
With unmarried persons, on the other hand,
the tendency increases with almost a geo-
metrical progression. At twenty-five years
of age it is more than double (26 per 100,-
000) what it is with married persons of the
same age (11 per 100,000), and at seventy
years is eleven times as great (230 against
21 per 100,000); and after this period it
goes on increasing as fast as ever, while the
proportion for married persons is diminish-
ing. The phenomena with women are analo-
gous, but less marked. It is found, by com-
paring the statistics of the two classes, that
the general increase in the tendency to com-
mit suicide with advancing age can be al-
most wholly accounted for by this progres-
sion of suicides among the unmarried. The
difference in the liability of the two classes
may be partly explained by setting off
the regularity of habit which married life
and particularly the caro for children in-
duce with the irregularities to which the un-
married surrender themselves, of which the
most damaging is drunkenness. Signor Mor-
relli says that drunkenness causes thirty-one
per cent, of the suicides in Denmark, and
that a similar rule prevails everywhere.

Artificial Lights.— The great point of dif-
ference between natural and artificial li"-hts.
says Dr. Javal, the French occulist, is the ex-
cessive feebleness of the latter. A lamp
or a gas-jet makes an insignificant impres-
sion in daylight. The light of a million can-
dles burning in a room would be vastly in-
ferior in intensity to that of the direct rays
of the sun. The pupils of our eyes are con-
siderably larger in the most brilliantly light-

ed room than they are in daylight. We seek
the brightest places of resort at night, and
use the strongest lights we can afford in our
homes, employing every means to make them
stronger. Persons with imperfect sight are
fatigued in working with artificial lights be-
cause the enlargement of their pupils gives
full play to faults which are mitigated un-
der the contraction of the aperture which a
strong light induces. The spectra of all
artificial lights, except the magnesium and
electrical lights, are different from the spec-
trum of sunlight in that they are dark on
the most refracted side, that of the blue,
violet, and chemical rays. It may be that
this quality compensates in part for the
greater dilatation of the pupil which these
lights require by reducing the amount of
chromatic refraction which would otherwise
take place. It does not appear, however,
that any workmen prefer such lights to sun-
light. It has been suggested that the pres-
ence of these rays in the electric light might
cause it to be injurious. If that should
prove to be the case, any evil effect might
be remedied by shading the pencils with yel-
low-tinted globes. No complaint has been
made, however, of bad effects arising from
the proper use of this light. Those who
have studied it most attentively have felt no
inconvenience except when they looked in-
tently at it without guarding their eyes. It
is not intended to be used thus ; and, if we
judged by this criterion, the sun would be
the worst of all lights. When the electric
light was first introduced into the freight
depots in Paris, the workmen complained of
being dazzled by it. After some weeks, it
was taken away, and gas was put in its place,
when a general outcry went up against the
darkness.

A Solar Machine. — The idea of applying
the heat of the sun directly as a motive force
has been entertained as within the limits of
possibility for some time. A Frenchman,
M. Mouchot, devised a machine, about two
years ago, for concentrating the rays of the
sun so that they could be made to perform
some slight offices. M. Abel Pifre, an engi-
neer associated with M. Mouchot, has car-
ried on some experiments in Algeria with an
adaptation of his machine which have had a
promising degree of success. Ilis apparatus

284

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

was small, yet it was sufficient, by the aid of
the sun of last October, to produce steam
enough to keep a sewing-machine in con-
tinuous motion, cook food, and boil water.
M. Mouchot's machine consists of a reflector
in the form of a truncated cone, which con-
centrates the rays of the sun upon a kettle
placed in the axis of the cone, with a bell-
glass to cover the kettle and protect it from
external cooling. Such machines are not
likely to be of much practical use in tem-
perate climates, where the sun is compara-
tively weak and often clouded ; but in hot,
arid regions, like the deserts of Africa, they
may possibly yet be employed advanta-
geously.

Consumption and Climates. — Dr John
C. Thorowgood, of the London Hospital for
Diseases of the Chest, in a paper on "At-
mospheric and Climatic Influence in the
Causation and Cure of Pulmonary Disease,"
distinguishes between two classes of phthisis,
or consumjition of the lungs, in which the
operation of this influence is very difi'erent.
The first kind, the consumption which ori-
ginates in catarrh, cold, or some inflamma-
tory attack, prevails in raw, cold climates,
and is relieved by going to a mild climate.
The second kind, true tubercular consump-
tion, comes on insidiously, often from no
cold caught, from no privation of food, but
simply from some inherent, perhaps heredi-
tary vice in the system, and is a febrile dis-
ease, having much the character of rapid
blood-poisoning. It is not peculiar to cold
climates, and is not relieved by sending the
patient to a mild one. The worst that can
be done in coses of either form of disease is,
to confine the patient closely to one room,
and let him breathe over and over again the
same atmosphere, while the cough is kept
checked by opiates. In this way, says Dr.
Thorowgood, consumption may be cultivated
and developed from the first class into the
more serious form of the second class, so
that it becomes a fearfully destructive mal-
ady. " In the cases of young children who
are kept very close in heated rooms, and
who are said to be always taking cold, we
often see most obstinate cough and catarrh,
due to the throwing off from the air-pas-
sages of a weak, poorly-nourished epithe-
lium, which in time may choke the air-cells,

and so lead to pulmonary consumption. The
cure consists in laying aside paregoric and
squills while we feed the epithelium with
pure air. Appetite soon returns, and the
cough speedily takes its flight." The ten-
dency of confinement in a close atmosphere
to cause blood-spitting and consumption has
been demonstrated by the statistics obtained
by Dr. Gray when engaged in investigating
the effects of certain trades on the health
of those employed. The author of the pa-
per under notice has seen excellent results,
in removing lingering inflammation after an
acute attack on the chest, follow a sojourn at
Torquay, Ventnor, and similar mild, warm
health-resorts ; but when the disorder has
passed from the inflammatory stage to one
that involves the general nutrition, and is
marked by softening and breaking down of
lung-tissue, with night-sweats and copious
purulent expectoration, he has never seen
any good come of a residence in a mild, sed-
ative climate. On the other hand, he tells
of several cases in which persons suffering
from the latter form have been relieved, and
have even recovered after being sent to a
cold, bracing climate, or to a high mountain
elevation. The author's views were confirmed,
in the discussion by the medical society be-
fore which it was read, by several speakers.
The president of the society mentioned three
cases of complete cure of decided pulmona-
ry consumption of non-catarrhal origin by
change of air — in one case to Moscow, in
two others to Canada. Another speaker
mentioned cases of. catarrhal phthisis that
had been cured by sojourn at mild resorts.

Effect of Physical Training on Respi-
ration.— M. Marey has made an investiga-
tion of the modifications which are induced
in the respiratory movements by the fact of
muscular action. It is well known that mus-
cular action provokes, in those who are not
accustomed to it, panting, that is, a respira-
tion stronger and more frequent than the
normal respiration. This is in consequence
of the greater rapidity of the current of
blood which in its abundance demands, in
order to pass through the lungs, more fre-
quent or more ample respirations. The habit
of muscular exercise, running, for example,
has the effect of gradually adapting the
respiratory function to the most rapid cir-

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

285

culation which can pass the lungs. The
respiratory type acquired by the gymnast
consists in an enormous increase in the ex-
pansion of the chest and a notable retarda-
tion of the thoracic movements. M. Marey
and Dr. Hillairet selected five recruits and
registered the rate of respiration of each of
them when at rest, and again after they had
run a course of six hundred metres at the
gymnastic pace. By following the changes
of respiration of these gymnasts from month
to month, a series of curves was obtained,
and the following results were furnished :
At first, respiration was very perceptibly
modified by the running ; but toward the
end of the experiments, that is, after four
or five months of the exercises, it was al-
most impossible to distinguish any change
in the respiration of the men who had run ;
and this, notwithstanding their gait had be-
cdme a little more rapid, and they ran over
the six hundred metres in three minutes and
fifty seconds. The figures show that the
modification of the respiratory movements
is permanent — that is, that it is maintained
when the man is at rest. The number of
respirations is reduced, in the mean, from
twenty to about twelve in a minute, and
their amplitude is more than quadrupled.
We may conclude, then, that these soldiers,
after having experienced the effects of gym-
nastic training, breathe about twice as much
air as before they were subjected to the dis-
cipline.

Expectant Attention in Animals. — A re-
markable instance of sagacity in animals is
described in an article on " Mental Physiol-
ogy " in a late number of the " Edinburgh
Review," in the case of a dog that belonged
to Professor Huggins. This dog, Kepler,
had the faculty of answering correctly with
his barkings arithmetical questions, includ-
ing such problems as giving the square root
of nine or sixteen, or the result of addinsr
seven to eight, dividing the sum by three,
and multiplying the quotient by two. No
power of calculation was implied in this
exercise, or operation of the understanding,
however it may have seemed. The case was
simply one of what is called by physiologists
expectant attention. A clew to the process
is given by the statement in the story that,
until the solution was arrived at, Kepler

never moved his eye from his master's face,
but the instant the last bark was given he
transferred his attention to the cake which
was always held before him as a reward for
a successful performance. Professor Hug-
gins, the writer continues, was perfectly un-
conscious of suggesting the proper answer
to the dog, but it is beyond all question that
he did so. The wonderful fact is, that Kep-
ler had acquired the habit of reading in his
master's eye or countenance some indication
that was not known to Professor Huggins
himself. Professor Huggins was engaged in
working out mentally the various stages of
his arithmetical processes as he propound-
ed the numbers to Kepler, and, being aware,
therefore, of what the answer should be,
expected the dog to cease barking when the
number was reached ; and that expectation
sua-o'csted to his own brain the unconscious
signal which was caught by the quick eye
of the dog. In an analogous manner, a per-
son swinging a button by a thread near the
rim of a glass will unwittingly cause it to
strike the hour, if he knows the hour, through
the unconscious control of his brain over the
movements of his fincrer.

Change as a Mental Restorative.— Dr.

Joseph Mortimer-Granville, discussing in tha
" Lancet " the subject of " Change as a
Mental Restorative," shows that great dis-
crimination is needed in prescribing this
remedy. Some patients there are, such as
those who have become wearied with a pur-
poseless life or one of idle dissipation, who
have become worn out with change, and to
whom a prescription of it for its own sake,
without consideration of the circumstances,
would only impose an additional infliction.
They are most difficult cases to deal with,
and demand especial study. The change
which a person of this kind requires is " one
that will stir a deeper spring of energy than
has yet supplied him with motive-force, by
compelling his recognition of the responsi-
bilities of life. It is idle to hope that he
can be roused to action by the discoveiy of
a new pleasure. . . . The energies of such
a character are more likely to be called out
by pain and necessity than by pleasure and
satisfaction." Some men of pleasure have
been delivered from the extreme of ennui,
which they had reached, by the loss of for-

286

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tune bringing pressing need for exertion;
but this remedy is beyond the reach of a
physician. He might aim, however, to sup-
ply an incentive to action by searching for
" some inherited seed of ambition or enter-
prise which has never yet germinated," and
may sometimes find it by learning the story
of the father's or grandfather's life. A
case which came under Dr. Granville's care,
and which furnished him with the basis for
his remarks on this subject, was cured by
the awakening of a strong passion for the
breeding of stock, which he had inherited
from his grandfather, but which had not
been aroused in his nature till he was thrown
into circumstances which excited him to
emulate the success of a neighbor. A simi-
lar case, where no such awakening of energy
occurred, ended in suicide.

Tlie Mirage on Swiss Lakes.— Profes-
sor Charles Dufour communicated to the
French Association, at its last meeting, a
paper on the mirages of the Swiss lakes,
which are often seen between the month
of August and the spring, especially in
the morning, when the water is warmer
thnn the air. When Monge published his
explanation of the mirage, he supposed
that the strata of air near the ground
■were warmer and rarer than the strata
above, but he could not prove it experi-
mentally. Professor Dufour has proved
it by taking the temperature at different
heights above Lake Leman, while the sun
was still hidden by the mountains. The
mirage frequently produces curious illu-
sions. When a boat is near the point
where the ray of light is a tangent to the
surface of the water, the mirage of the sky
is thrown below the boat, and the latter
seems to sail in the air. Seen from Ville-
neuve, the steamboat plying between Mon-
treux and Yevay seems to be sailing among
the vineyards which cover the hills along
the shore. When the air, on the other
hand, is warmer than the water, as is the
case generally in the spring and summer on
fine afternoons, the concave side of the re-
fracted ray of light is turned toward the
water, and objects are brought into sight
which are really hidden by the roundness of
the earth. Sometimes the temperature of
the different strata of the air varies irregu-

larly. Then the rays of light undergo ab-
normal refractions which are not always the
same for the upper and lower parts of ob-
jects. Consequently, the objects are some-
times diminished, sometimes magnified in
an extraordinary fashion. Small houses
thus distorted are made to look like palaces ;
their white color is changed into gray by
the diffusion of the light, and they are there-
by given an air of greater grandeur. Many
persons fail to take notice of these mirages
because they regard them as reflections from
the water ; but it is really possible for one
with his eye near the water to see the reflec-
tion from it of a distant object on nearly
the same level. When an image of such an
object is seen, it is most probably a mirage.

Variations in tlie Fixed Points of Ther-
mometers.—M, Crafts, in the course of his
investigation of the causes of the variations
of the fixed points of thermometers, has dis-
covered that glass heated for a long time in
the blowpipe-flame shrinks in consequence
of an internal change. It is not shown that
pressure plays any part in the phenomenon.
The particles of the glass which have been
separated by the heating do not return to
the normal position immediately on cooling,
but appear to be in a disturbed condition
for some time afterward. The action of
heat at a given temperature, say of 670°, by
giving a greater mobility to the particles,
favors their return to the normal position ;
but the glass, in cooling from this tempera-
ture, retains a part of the expansion which
it has undergone. By heating it anew to an
inferior temperature, say 570°, we may pro-
duce a new diminution of volume, and thus
successively, by a very slow process of cool-
ing, bring about the greatest approximation
to the normal state, and consequently the
greatest stability. The law discovered by
M. Pernet for temperatures between the
freezing and boiling points of water, ac-
cording to which the depressions of the
freezing-point are proportional to the
squares of the temperatures, is not true at
high temperatures. A thermometer, for ex-
ample, which gives a depression of half a
degree after a long exposure at 212', ought,
by this law, to give at G70° a depression of
6.8°. The depressions actually observed
are much less considerable.

NOTES.

287

The Deep Valley of the Caribbean Sea. —

Commander J. R. Bartlett, of the Coast-
Survey steamer Blake, has ascertained some
interesting facts in regard to the depths of
the western part of the Caribbean Sea. The
data he has obtained malie it probable that
a large portion of the supply for the Gulf
Stream passes through the " Windward Pas-
sage " between Cuba and San Domingo, and
that the current extends in it to the depth
of 800 fathoms. The temperature, of 39 i°,
which was indicated at all depths below
700 fathoms in the Gulf of Mexico and the
western Caribbean, was not obtained here.
Elsewhere, in these seas, the temperature de-
creased from the surface to 39^° at 700 fath-
oms or less, and remained constant at that
temperature for all lower depths. At great-
er depths than 600 or 700 fathoms the bot-
tom was always found to be a calcareous
ooze composed of pteropod shells with small
particles of coral. An immense, deep val-
ley was found to extend from between Cuba
and Jamaica to the westward, south of the
Cayman Islands, well up into the Bay of
Honduras. It has a length of 430 miles,
and a general breadth of 105 miles, with a
depth nowhere of less than 2,000 fathoms,
except at two or three points where the sum-
mits of submarine mountains rise to near the
surface. Within 20 miles of Grand Cayman
it attains an extreme depth of 3,428 fath-
oms ; this island is therefore, to the bottom
of the valley, as a mountain 20,000 feet high,
and Blue Mountain, in Jamaica, rises 29,000
feet above the bottom, or as high as the high-
est of the Himalayas is above the level of
the sea. The deepest part of the valley has
been named the " Bartlett Deep."

NOTES.

Mr. Rogers Field, in a recent lecture on
hou?e-drainage at the Parkes Museum of
Hygiene, condemned all forms of water-traps
as a means of excluding sewer-gas from
dwellings, on the ground that they allow the
gases to pass through them by the water ab-
sorbing it on one side and giving it off on the
other. In his opinion, the only sure way to
keep these gases out of the house is by thor-
ough ventilation and disconnection. Efficient
ventilation moans a continuous current of
fresh air through the drains and pipes, but

even then perfect security can only be ob-
tained by cutting off direct communication
between the sewer and the house-drains.

The last annual report of the New Haven
Board of Health contains a valuable letter
addressed to the Common Council of that
city, by the President of the Board, Profes-
sor William H. Brewer, of the Sheffield Sci-
entific School, setting forth in a forcible way
the financial advantages of a thorough sys-
tem of sanitary administration in towns and
villages. This letter should be in the hands
of all the village trustees in the land, many
of whom may be reached by money consid-
erations when mei-e questions of life and
death would scarcely arrest attention.

In its crusade against the London shop-
keepers for obliging their saleswomen to
stand continually during business hours, the
" Lancet " is disposed to lay a part of the
blame on the patrons of these establishments.
It thinks if there were any real sympathy, on
the part of the public, for the young per-
sons who are made to suffer by the system
of standing, it would long ago have been
brought to a summary close. We some-
times hear of women having a special fac-
ulty for nursing the sick: they should show
in this matter that they have the humanity
to avoid the creation of needless disease.

Mr. Nilson has prepared a quantity of
the oxide of the new metal ytterbium, or yt-
terbine, and finds the atomic weight of the
metal to be 17"301. Ytterbine appears in
the state of an infusible white powder of
a density of 9"175, insoluble in water, but
easily dissolved in acids, even when diluted,
at a boiling heat ; but, when cold, they at-
tack it with difficulty, even if concentrated.
The solutions are colorless, and show no ab-
sorption rays in the spectrum. The earth
and its salts do not communicate any color
to flames ; but the chloride gives a very
bright spectrum with the electric spark.

A NEW remedy for neuralgia has been
introduced into England from the Feejee
islands. It is called tonga, and is brought
in the shape of fragments of woody fiber,
bark, and leaves, broken up into pieces so
small as to make it hard to identify them
botanically, mixed and done up into balls of
about the size of an orange. To prepare it,
the ball is soaked in cold water for about ten
minutes, when the infusion is drawn off and
a claret-glass of it is taken three times a day.
The ball is then dried and hung up, and can
be used over and over again for a year.
The principal constituent of the remedy ap-
pears to be the stem of a species of Rcqjhi-
dophora.

M. LoRTET, who has been studying the
fauna of the Lake of Tiberias, reports that

288

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

its surface is 212 metres (689 feet) below
the level of the Mediterranean, and that
its greatest depth, which is at the northern
extremity opposite the upper mouth of the
Jordan, is 250 metres (812 feet). On both
shores of the lake are terraces covered
with rounded pebbles, rising to a height
which indicates that the level of the lake
was once the same as that of the Mediterra-
nean. He believes that the waters of the
lake were formerly very salt, more so than
sea-water, but not so excessively salt as the
waters of the Dead Sea, and that they have
been freshened since the level of the lake
was lowered by volcanic convulsions, by the
flow of the Jordan, till they have become
drinkable.

Professor Schneltzler, assuming that
the color of flowers is due to the combina-
tion of different chemical elements in their
tissues, has shown by experiment that when
an alcoholic extract of the color is made it
is enough to add to it an acid or alkaline
substance to cause it to exhibit any of the
colors which plants present. Flowers of the
peony, for example, give a violet liquid in
alcohol; if salt of sorrel is added to this
liquid, it will turn a pure red ; soda pro-
duces, according to the quantity that is
added, violet, blue, or green.

Those in pursuit of the marvelous may
learn a grain of caution from the following,
taken from an article on " Living Toads in
Stone " by Mr. Thomas G. Denny, in a recent
number of " Science Gossip " : " Most of us
have heard of ' Flint Jack,' but I do not
think many readers of this journal have met
with any manufacturers of fossil toads ; but
I knew many years ago a working naturalist
living in Leeds who used to prepare for sale
toads, stated to have been found in beds of
coal, by baking them perfectly black and
hard in an oven, and then taking square
pieces of coal and, after splitting them care-
fully, he would cut a hollow in each portion
to receive the ' ancient reptile.' "

5Ir. Frederick Ransome has succeeded
in producing a good hydraulic cement from
the slag of blast-furnaces. His process,
which is applicable to almost any quality of
slag, has the advantage over previous meth-
ods of making cement, that while in them
the materials, lime, silica, and alumina, had
to be brought together and carefully com-
bined, in blast-furnace slag the combination
has already been completely effected before
the slag has left the furnaces, and generally
with the proportions of silica and alumina
that are required. By mixing the slacc with
an additional quantity of lime and calcining
the mass, a strong and reliable cement of an
agreeable color is produced.

It has been affirmed, in proof of the the-
ory that fat is formed from albumen, that
the albumen of the cheese in the cellars of
Roquefort is changed to fat by the action of
a fungus found there. The assertion is dis-
proved by experiments made by Herr Sieber
on the cheese in these cellars, which show that
the most marked change that cheese under-
goes in ripening is the loss of water, and
that the proportion of fat remains unaltered
if only the dry substance be considered. A
decomposition of the albumen also takes
place, the caseine passing into a series of de-
composition-products which are similar to
products of putrefaction in the first stage of
putrefactive fermentation, but the analyses
show no transformation of albumen into
fat.

Efforts to reduce monkeys to discipline
have not very often been successful. A na-
tive of the province of Bengal has, however,
trained several of them to work the cords
by which the punka, or ventilating fan of
India, is moved. They perform their task
to perfection, and, thanks to their activity,
keep the jDM«X:os in continuous motion, main-
taining a constant, agreeable movement of
air all through the room.

Dr. Henry Barnes records a case of an
extremely severe attack of gout brought on
by sleeping in a newly painted room. Three
years before, the patient, an old man, had
suffered a slight attack of the disease (the
first of his life), but soon recovered, and, up
to the time of this exposure, had been quite
free from gouty symptoms. The introduc-
tion of lead into the system is given as
the cause of the attack.

A COMPANY with large capital has been
formed in Paris to woi-k up an invention for
coating thread with silk. The invention em-
braces, according to the " Bulletin des Soies,"
a chemical process for covering linen or
other vegetable threads with amesh of silk-
en matter in a manner siinilar to that in
which metallic objects are plated with gold
or silver. The process is dependent on the
fact, which has long been known, that silk
is soluble in several strong acid prepara-
tions.

The French Chamber of Deputies has
voted a credit of fifty thousand francs to
M. Pasteur to enable him to extend his re-
searches upon the contagious diseases of ani-
mals. The labors of M. Pasteur during the
last four years have already led to the dis-
covery of the causes of carbonaceous affec-
tions, and the knowledge thus gained has
been employed to prevent them in many
cases. His present investigations are in re-
lation to the character of virulent maladies
in general.

-^^

ALBERT J. MYER.

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY.

JANUARY, 1881.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS.

By HEEBEKT SPENCER.
III. — POLITICAL INTEGRATION.

POLITICAL integration is in some cases furthered, and in other
cases hindered, by conditions, external and internal. There are
the characters of the environment, and there are the characters of the
men composing the society. We will glance at them in this order.

How political integration is prevented by an inclemency of climate,
or an infertility of soil, which keeps down population, has been already
shown.* To the instances before named may be added that of the
Seminoles, of whom Schoolcraft says, " Being so thinly scattered over
a barren desert, they seldom assemble to take black drink, or deliber-
ate on public matters " ; and, again, that of certain Snake Indians, of
whom he says, " The paucity of game in this region is, I have little
doubt, the cause of the almost entire absence of social organization."
We saw, too, that great uniformity of surface, of mineral products, of
flora, of fauna, are impediments ; and that on the special characters
of the flora and fauna, as containing species favorable or unfavorable
to human welfare, in part depends the individual prosperity required
for social growth. It was also pointed out that structure of the hab-
itat, as facilitating or impeding communication, and as rendering
escape easy or hard, has much to do with the size of the social aggre-
gate formed. To the illustrations before given, showing that moun-
tain-haunting peoples, and peoples living in deserts and marshes, are
difficult to consolidate, while peoples penned in by barriers are con-
solidated with facility,! I may here add two significant ones not yet
noticed. One occurs in the Polynesian Islands — Tahiti, Hawaii, Ton-

* "Principles of Sociology," §§ 14-21. f Ibid., § 17.

VOL. XVIII. — 19

290 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ga, Samoa, and the rest — where, restrained within limits by surround-
ing seas, the inhabitants have become united more or less closely into
aggregates of considerable sizes. The other is furnished by ancient
Peru, where, before the time of the Incas, semi-civilized communities
had been formed in valleys separated from each other " on the coast,
by hot and almost impassable deserts, and in the interior by lofty
mountains, or cold and trackless ^w/ias." And to the implied inability
of these peoples to escape governmental coercion, thus indicated by
Squier as a factor in their civilization, is ascribed, by the ancient
Spanish writer Cieza, the difference between them and the neighbor-
ing Indians of Popayan, who could retreat, "whenever attacked, to
other fertile regions." How, conversely, within the area occupied, the
massing of men together is furthered by ease of internal communica-
tion, is sufficiently manifest. The importance of it is implied by the
remark of Grant concerning equatorial Africa, that " no jui'isdiction
extends over a district which can not be crossed in three or four days."
And such facts, implying that political integration may increase as the
means of going from place to place become better, remind us how,
from Roman times downward, the formation of roads has made larger
social aggregates possible.

Evidence that a certain type of physique is requisite has been else-
where given. * We saw that the races which have proved capable of
evolving large societies have been races previously subject, for long
periods, to conditions fostering vigor of constitution. I will here add
only that the constitutional energy needed for continuous labor, with-
out which there can not be civilized life and the massing of men that
accompanies it, is an energy not to be quickly acquired under any con-
ditions or through any discipline, but to be acquired only by inher-
ited modifications slowly accumulated. Good evidence that in lower
types of men there is a physical incapacity for continuous labor, is
supplied by the results of the Jesuit government over the Paraguay
Indians. These Indians were reduced to industrial habits, and to an
orderly life which was thought by many writers admirable ; but there
eventually resulted the fatal evil that they became infertile. Not im-
probably, the infertility habitually observed in savage races that have
been led into civilized habits, is consequent on taxing the physique to
a degree greater than it is constituted to bear.

Certain moral traits which favor, and others which hinder, the
union of men into large groups, were pointed out when treating of
"The Primitive Man — Emotional. "f Here I will reillustrate such of
these as concern the fitness or unfitness of the type for subordination,
" The Abors, as they themselves say, are like tigers, two can not dwell
in one den," writes Mr. Dalton ; and " their houses are scattered sin-
gly, or in groups of two and three." Conversely, some of the African
races not only yield when coerced, but admire one who coerces them ;
* " Principles of Sociology," § 16. f Ibid., Part I, chapter vi.

POLITICAL INTEGRATION. 291

instance the Damaras, who, as Galton says, "court slavery" and "fol-
low a master as spaniels would." The like is alleged of other South
Africans. One of them said to a gentleman known to me : "You're
a pretty fellow to be a master ; I've been with you two years and
you've never beaten me once." Obviously the dispositions thus strong-
ly contrasted are dispositions on which the impossibility or possibility
of political integration largely depends. There must be added, as also
influential, the presence or the absence of the nomadic instinct. Vari-
eties of men, in whom wandering habits have been unchecked during
countless generations of hunting life and pastoral life, show us that,
even when forced into agricultural life, their tendency to move about
greatly hinders aggregation. It is thus among the hill-tribes of India.
" The Kookies are naturally a migratory race, never occupying the
same place for more than two or, at the utmost, three years " ; and the
like holds of the Mishmees, who " never name their villages " — the
existence of them being too transitory. In some races this migratory
instinct survives and shows its effects, even after the formation of
populous towns. "Writing of the Bachassins in 1812, Burchell says
that Litakun, containing 15,000 inhabitants, had been twice removed
during a period of ten years. Clearly, people so little attached to the
localities they were born in are not so easily united into large societies
as people who love their early homes.

Concerning the intellectual traits which aid or impede the cohesion
of men into masses, I may supplement what was said when delineating
f The Primitive Man — Intellectual," * by two corollaries of much sig-
nificance. Social life, being cooperative life, presupposes not only an
emotional nature fitted for cooperation, but also such . intelligence as
perceives the benefits of cooperation, and can so regulate actions as to
effect it. The unreflectiveness, the deficient consciousness of causa-
tion, and the utter lack of constructive imagination, shown by the un-
civilized, hinder cooperation to a degree diflicult to believe until proof
is seen. Even the semi-civilized exhibit in quite simple matters an
absence of concert which is astonishing. f Implying, as this inaptitude

* " Principles of Sociology," Part I, chapter vii.

f The behavior of Arab boatmen on the Nile displays this inability to cooperate in
simple matters in a striking way. When jointly hauling at a rope, and beginning, as
they do, to chant, the inference one draws is that they pull in time with their words. On
observing, however, it turns out that their efforts are not combined at given intervals, but
are put forth without any unity of rhythm. Similarly, when using their poles to push
the dahabeiah off a sand-bank, the succession of grunts they severally make is so rapid
that it is manifestly impossible for them to give those effectual combined pushes which
imply appreciable intervals of preparation. Still more striking is the want of concert
shown by the hundred or more Nubians and Arabs employed to drag the vessel up the
rapids. There are shoutings, gesticulations, divided actions, utter confusion ; so that only
by accident does it at length happen that a sufficient number of efforts are put forth at
the same moment. As was said to me by our Arab dragoman, a traveled man, " Ten
Enslishraen or Frenchmen would do the thing at once."

292 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

does, that cooperation can at first be effective only where there is obedi-
ence to peremptory command, it follows that there must be not only
an emotional nature which produces subordination, but also an intel-
lectual nature which i^roduces faith in a commander. That credulity
which leads to awe of the capable man, as a possessor of supernatural
power, and which afterward, causing dread of his ghost, prompts ful-
fillment of his remembered injunctions — that credulity which initiates
the religious control of a deified chief, reenforcing the control of his
divine descendant — is a credulity which can not be dispensed with dur-
ing early stages of integration. Skepticism is fatal while the character,
moral and intellectual, is such as to necessitate compulsory coopera-
tion.

Political integration, then, hindered in many regions by environ-
ing conditions, has, in many races of mankind, been prevented from
advancing far by unfitnesses of nature — physical, moral, and intel-
lectual.

Besides certain fitnesses of nature in the united individuals, social
union requires a considerable likeness of kind in their natures. At
the outset the likeness of kind is insured by greater or less kinship in
blood. Evidence of this meets us everywhere among the uncivilized.
Of the Bushmen, Lichtenstein says : " Families alone form associations
in single small hordes ; sexual feelings, the instinctive love to children,
or the customary attachment among relations, are the only ties that
keep them in any sort of union." Again, " The Rock Veddahs are di-
vided into small clans or families associated for relationship, who agree
in partitioning the forest among themselves for hunting-gi'ounds," etc.
And this rise of the society out of the family, seen in these least or-
ganized groups, reappears in the considerably organized groups of
more advanced savages. Instance the New-Zealanders, of whom we
read that " eighteen historical nations occupy the country, each being
subdivided into many tribes, originally families, as the prefix Ngati,
signifying offspring (equivalent to O or Mac), obviously indicates."
This connection between blood-relationship and social union is well
shown by Humboldt's remarks concerning South American Indians.
" Savages," he says, " know only their own family, and a tribe appears
to them but a more numerous assemblage of relations." When Indians
who inhabit the missions see those of the forest, who are unknown to
them, they say : " They are, no doubt, my relations ; I understand
them when they speak to me." But these very savages detest all who
are not of their family or their tribe ; " they know the duties of family
ties and of relationship, but not those of humanity."

When treating of the domestic relations, reasons were given for
concluding that social stability increases as kinships become more defi-
nite and extended ; since development of kinships, while insuring the
likeness of nature which furthers cooperation, involves the strengthen-

POLITICAL INTEGRATION. 293

ing and multiplication of those family bonds which check disruption.
Where promiscuity is prevalent, or where marriages are temporary,
the known relationships are relatively few and not close ; and there is
little more social cohesion than results from belonging to the same type
of man. Polyandry, especially of the higher kind, produces relation-
ships of some definiteness, which admit of being traced further ; so
serving better to tie the social group together. And a greater advance
in the nearness and the number of family connections results from po-
lygyny. But, as was shoAvn, it is from monogamy that there arise fam-
ily connections which are at once the most definite and the most wide-
spreading in their ramifications ; and out of monogamic families are
developed the largest and most coherent societies. In two allied yet
distinguishable ways does monogamy favor social solidarity.

Unlike the children of the polyandrous family, who are something
less than half brothers and sisters, and unlike the children of the polyg-
amous family, most of whom are only half brothers and sisters, the
children of the monogamous family are, in the great majority of cases,
all of the same blood on both sides. Being thus themselves more
closely related, it follows that their clusters of children are more closely
related ; and where, as happens in early stages, these clusters of chil-
dren when grown up continue to form a community, and labor to-
gether, they are united alike by their kinships arid by their industrial
interests. Though with the growth of a family group into a gens
which spreads, the industrial interests divide, yet these kinships pre-
vent the divisions from becoming as marked as they would otherwise
become. And, similarly, when the gens, in course of time, develops
into the tribe. Nor is this all. If local circumstances bring together
several such tribes, which are still allied in blood, though more re-
motely, it results that when, seated side by side, they are gradually
fused, partly by interspersion and partly by intermarriage, the com-
pound society formed, united by numerous and complicated links of
kinship as well as by political interests, is more strongly bound to-
gether than it would otherwise be. Dominant ancient societies illus-
trate this truth. Says Grote : " All that we hear of the most ancient
Athenian laws is based upon the gentile and phratric divisions, which
are treated throughout as extensions of the family." Similarly, accord-
ins: to Mommsen, on the "Roman household was based the Roman
state, both as respected its constituent elements and its form. The
community of the Roman people arose out of the junction (in whatever
way brought about) of such ancient clanships as the Romilii, Voltinii,
Fabii, etc." And Sir Henry Maine has shown in detail the ways in
which the simple family passes into the house community, and eventu-
ally the village community. Though, in presence of the evidence fur-
nished by races having irregular sexual relations, we can not allege that
sameness of blood is the primary reason for political cofjperation —
though in numerous tribes which have not risen into the pastoral state.

294 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

there is combination for offense and defense among those whose names
are recognized marks of different bloods — yet where there has been
established descent through males, and especially where monogamy
prevails, sameness of blood becomes largely, if not mainly, influential in
determining political cooperation. And this truth, under one of its
aspects, is the truth above enunciated, that combined action, requiring
a certain likeness of nature among those who carry it on, is, in early
stages, most successful among those who, being descendants of the
same ancestors, have the greatest likeness.

An all-important though less direct effect of blood-relation shij), and
especially that more definite blood-relationship which arises from mon-
ogamic marriage, has to be added. I mean community of religion —
a likeness of ideas and sentiments embodied in the worshij* of a com-
man deity. Beginning, as this does, with the propitiation of the de-
ceased founder of the family, and shared in, as it is, by the multiply-
ing groups of descendants, as the family spreads, it becomes a further
means of holding together the compound cluster gradually formed,
and checking the antagonisms that arise between the component clus-
ters : so favoring integration. The influence of the bond supplied by
a common cult everywhere meets us in ancient history. Each of the
cities in primitive Egypt was a center for the worship of a special
divinity ; and no one who, unbiased by foregone conclusions, observes
the extraordinary development of ancestor-worship, under all its forms,
in Egypt, can doubt the origin of this divinity. Of the Greeks we
read that "each family had its own sacred rites and funereal com-
memoration of ancestors, celebrated by the master of the house, to
which none but members of the family were admissible : the extinction
of a family, carrying with it the suspension of these religious rites,
was held by the Greeks to be a misfortune, not merely from the loss of
the citizens composing it, but also because the family gods and the
manes of deceased citizens were thus deprived of their honors and
might visit the country with displeasure. The larger associations,
called Gens, Phratry, Tribe, were formed by an extension of the same
principle — of the family considered as a religious brotherhood, wor-
shiping some common god or hero with an appropriate surname, and
recognizing him as their joint ancestor."

A like bond was generated in a like manner in the Roman commu-
nity. Each curia, which was the homologue of the phratry, had a
head, "whose chief function was to preside over the sacrifices." And,
on a larger scale, the same thing held with the entire society. The
primitive Roman king was a priest of the deities common to all ; " he
held intercourse with the gods of the community, whom he consulted
and whom he appeased." The beginnings of this religious bond, here
exhibited in a developed form, are still traceable in India. Sir Henry
Maine, says, "The joint family of the Hindoos is that assemblage of
persons who would have joined in the sacrifices at the funeral of

POLITICAL INTEGRATION. 295

some common ancestor if he had died in their lifetime." So that po-
litical integration, while furthered by that likeness of nature which
identity of descent involves, is again furthered by that likeness of re-
ligion simultaneously arising from this identity of descent.

Thus is it, too, at a later stage, with that less pronounced likeness
of nature characterizing men of the same race who have multiplied
and spread in such ways as to form adjacent small societies. Coopera-
tion among them continues to be furthered, though less effectually, by
the community of their natures, by the community of their traditions,
ideas, and sentiments, as well as by their community of language.
Among men of diverse types, cooperation is necessarily hindered not
only by that absence of mutual comprehension caused by ignorance of
one another's words, but also by unlikenesses in their ways of thinking
and feeling. It needs but to remember how often, even among those
who speak the same language, quarrels arise from misinterpretations
of things said, to see what fertile sources of confusion and antagonism
must be the partial or complete differences of speech which habitually
accompany differences of race. Similarly, those who are widely unlike
in their emotional natures, or in their intellectual natures, perplex one
another by unexpected conduct — a fact on which travelers habitually
remark. Hence a further obstacle to combined action. Diversities of
custom, too, become causes of dissension. Where a food eaten by one
people is regarded by another with disgust, where an animal held
sacred by the one is by the other treated with contempt, where a
salute which the one expects is never made by the other, there must
be continually generated alienations which hinder joint efforts. Other
things equal, facility of cooperation will be proportionate to the amount
of fellow-feeling ; the fellow-feeling is prevented by whatever pre-
vents men from behaving in the same ways under the same conditions.
The working together of the original and derived factors above enu-
merated is well exhibited in the following passage from Grote : " The
Hellens were all of common blood and parentage — were all descendants
of the common patriarch Hellen. In treating of the historical Greeks,
we have to accept this as a datum : it represents the sentiment under
the influence of which they moved and acted. It is placed by Herod-
otus in the front rank, as the chief of those four ties which bound
together the Hellenic aggregate : 1. Fellowship of blood ; 2. Fellow-
ship of language ; 3. Fixed domiciles of gods, and sacrifices common
to all ; 4. Like manners and dispositions."

Influential as we thus find to be the likeness of nature which is
insured by common descent, the implication is that, in the absence of
considerable likeness, the larger political aggregates formed are unsta-
ble, and can be maintained only by a coercion which, some time or
other, is sure to fail. Though other causes have conspired, yet this
has doubtless been a part cause of the dissolution of great empires in
past ages. At the present time the decay of the Turkish Empire is

296 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

largely if not chiefly ascribable to it. Our own Indian Empire, too,
held together by force in a state of artificial equilibrium, threatens
some day to illustrate, by its fall, the incohesion arising from lack of
congruity in its components.

One of the laws of evolution at large is, that integration results
when like units are subject to the same force or to like forces (" First
Principles," § 169); and, from the first stages of political integration
up to the last, we find this law illustrated. Joint exposure to uni-
form external actions and joint reactions against them have from
the beginning been the leading causes of union among members of
societies.

Already there has been indirectly implied the truth that cohe-
rence is first given to small hordes of primitive men during com-
bined opposition to enemies. Subject to the same danger, and uniting
to meet this danger, they become, in the course of their cooperation
against it, more bound together. In the first stages, this relation of
cause and effect is clearly seen in the fact that such union as arises
during a war disappears when the war is over : there is dispersion and
loss of all such slight political subordination as was beginning to show
itself. But it is by the integration of simple groups into compound
groups, in the course of common resistance to foes and attacks upon
them, that this process is best exemplified. The cases before given
may be reenforced by others. Of the Karens, Mason says : " Each
village, being an independent community, had always an old feud to
settle with nearly every other village among their own people. But
the common danger from more powerful enemies, or having common
injuries to requite, often led to several villages uniting together for
defense or attack." According to Kolben, " smaller nations of Hot-
tentots, which may be near some powerful nation, frequently enter
into an alliance, offensive and defensive, against the stronger nation."
Among the New Caledonians, in Tanna, " six, or eight, or more of
their villages unite, and form what may be called a district, or county,
and all league together for mutual protection. ... In war, two or
more of these districts unite." In Samoa, " villages, in numbers of
eight or ten, unite by common consent, and form a district or state for
mutual protection " ; and, in time of war, these districts themselves
sometimes unite in twos and threes. The like has happened with
historic peoples. It was during the wars of the Israelites, in David's
time, that they passed from the state of separate tribes into the state
of a consolidated ruling nation. The scattered Greek communities,
previously aggregated into minor confederacies by minor wars, were
prompted to the Panhellenic congress and to the subsequent coopera-
tion, when the invasion of Xerxes was impending ; and, of the Spartan
and Athenian confederacies afterward formed, that of Athens acquired
the hegemony, and finally the empire, during continued operations

POLITICAL INTEGRATION. zgj

against the Persians. So, too, was it with the Teutonic races. The
German tribes, originally without federal bond, formed occasional alli-
ances for war. Between the first and fifth centuries these tribes grad-
ually massed into great groups for resistance against or attack upon
Rome. During the subsequent century the prolonged military confed-
erations of peoples " of the same blood " had become states. And
afterward these became aggregated into still larger states. And, to
take a comparatively modern instance, it was during the wars between
France and England that each passed from that condition, in which its
component feudal groups were in considerable degrees independent, to
the condition of a consolidated nation. As further showing how inte-
gration of smaller societies into larger ones is thus initiated, it may be
added that at first the unions exist only for military purposes : each
component society retains for a long time its independent internal
administration, and it is only when joint action in war has become
habitual that the cohesion is made permanent by a common political
organization.

This compounding of smaller communities into larger by military
cooperation is insured by the disappeai-ance of such smaller communi-
ties as do not cooperate. Barth remarks that " the Fulbe [Fulahs] are
continually advancing, as they have not to do with one strong enemy,
but with a number of small tribes without any bond of union." Of
the Damaras, Galton says : " If one werft is plundered, the adjacent
ones rarely rise to defend it, and thus the Namaquas have destroyed
or enslaved piecemeal about one half of the whole Damara popula-
tion." Similarly, according to Ondegardo, with the Inca conquests
in Peru : " There was no general opposition to their advance, for each
province merely defended its land without aid from any other." This
process, so obvious and familiar, I name because it has a meaning
which needs emphasizing. For we here see that, in the struggle for
existence among societies, the survival of the fittest is the survival of
those in which the power of military cooperation is the greatest ; and
military cooperation is that primary kind of cooperation which pre-
pares the way for other kinds of cooperation. So that this formation
of larger societies by the union of smaller ones in war, and this de-
struction or absorption of the smaller ununited societies by the united
larger ones, is an inevitable process through which the varieties of men
most adapted for social life supplant the less adapted varieties.

Respecting the integration thus effected, it remains only to remark
that it necessarily follows this course — necessarily begins with the for-
mation of simple groups and advances by the compounding and the
recompounding of these. Impulsive in conduct and with feeble pow-
ers of cooperation, savages cohere so slightly that only small bodies of
them can maintain their integrity. Not until such small bodies have
severally had their members bound to one another by some slight po-
litical organization does it become possible to unite them into larger

298 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

bodies ; since the coliesion of these implies greater fitness for con-
certed action, and more developed organization for achieving it. And,
similarly, these composite clusters must be to some extent consolidated
before the composition can be carried a stage further. Passing over
the multitudinous illustrations occurring among the uncivilized, it
will suffice if I refer to those given before,* and reenforce them by-
some which historic peoples have supplied. There is the fact that in
primitive Egypt the numerous small societies (which eventually be-
came the " nomes ") first united into the two aggregates. Upper Egypt
and Lower Egypt, which were afterward joined into one ; and the
fact that, in ancient Greece, villages became united to adjacent towns
before the towns became united into states, while this change preceded
the change which united the states with one another ; and the fact
that, in the old English period, small principalities were massed into
the divisions constituting the Heptarchy before these passed into some-
thing like a united whole. It is a principle in physics that, since the
force with which a body resists strains increases only as the squares of
its dimensions, while the strains which its own weight subject it to
increase as the cubes of its dimensions, its power of maintaining its in-
tegrity becomes relatively less as its mass becomes greater. Some-
thing analogous may be said of societies. Small aggregates only can
hold together while the cohesion is feeble, and successively larger ag-
gregates become possible only as the greater strains implied are met
by that greater cohesion which results from an adapted human nature,
and a resulting development of social organization.

As social integration advances, the increasing aggregates exercise
increasing restraints over their units — a truth which is the obverse of
the one just set forth, that the maintenance of its integrity by a larger
aggregate implies greater cohesion. The coercive forces by which
aggregates keep their units together are at first very slight, and, be-
coming extreme at a certain stage of social evolution, afterward relax
— or, rather, change their forms.

At the outset the individual savage gi*avitates to one group or
other, prompted by sundry motives, but mainly by the desire for pro-
tection. Concerning the Patagonians, we read that no one can live
apart : " If any of them attempted to do it, they would undoubtedly
be killed, or carried away as slaves, as soon as they were discovered."
In North America, among the Chinooks, " on the coast a custom pre-
vails which authorizes the seizure and enslavement, unless ransomed
by his friends, of every Indian met with at a distance from his tribe,
although they may not be at war with each other." At first, however,
though it is necessary to join some group, it is not necessary to con-
tinue in the same group. In early stages migrations from group to
group are common. "When much oppressed by their chief, Calmucks

* "Principles of Sociology," § 226.

POLITICAL INTEGRATION. 299

and Mongols desert him and go over to other chiefs. Of the Abipones,
Dobrizhoffer says : " Without leave asked on their part, or displeasure
evinced on his, they remove with their families whithersoever it suits
them, and join some other cacique ; and, when tired of the second, re-
turn with impunity to the horde of the first." Similarly, in South
Africa, "the frequent instances which occur [among the Balonda] of
people changing from one part of the country to another show that
the great chiefs possess only a limited power." And how, through
this process, some tribes grow while others dwindle, we are shown by
McCulloch's remark respecting the Kukis, that "a village, having
around it plenty of land suited for cultivation and a popular chief, is
sure soon, by accessions from less favored ones, to become large."

With the need which the individual has for protection is joined
the desire of the tribe to strengthen itself ; and the practice of adop-
tion, hence resulting, constitutes another mode of integration. Where,
as among tribes of North American Indians, " adoption or the torture
were the alternative chances of a captive " (adoption being the fate of
one admired for his bravery), we see reillustrated the tendency which
each society has to grow at the expense of other societies. That de-
sire for many actual children whereby the family may be strengthened,
which Hebrew traditions show us, readily passes into the desii-e for
factitious children — here made one with the brotherhood by exchange
of blood, and there by mock birth. As was implied in another place,*
it is probable that the practice of adoption into families so prevalent
in Rome arose during those early times when the wandering patri-
archal group constituted the tribe, and when the desire of the tribe to
strengthen itself was dominant. And, indeed, on remembering that,
long after larger societies were formed by the compounding of patri-
archal groups, there continued to be feuds between the component
families and clans, we may see that there had never ceased to operate,
on such families and clans, the primitive motive for strengthening
themselves by increasing their numbers.

It may be added that kindred motives produced kindred results
within more modern societies, during times when their component
parts were so imperfectly integrated that there remained antagonisms
among them. Thus we have the fact that in mediaeval England, while
local rule was incompletely subordinated to general rule, every free
man had to attach himself to a lord, a burgh, or a guild : being other-
wise "a friendless man," and in adanger like that which the savage is
in when not belonging to a tribe. And. then, on the other hand, in
the law that, " if a bondsman continued a year and a day within a
free burgh or municipality, no lord could reclaim him," we may recog-
nize an effect of the desire on the part of industrial groups to strength-
en themselves against the feudal groups around — an effect analogous
to the adoption, here into the savage tribe and there into the family

* "Principles of Sociology," § 319.

300 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

as it existed in the ancient societies. Naturally, as a whole nation be-
comes more completely integi-ated, these local integrations become
weaker, and finally disappear ; though they long leave their traces, as
among ourselves even still in the law of settlement, and as, up to so
late a period as 1824, in the laws affecting the freedom of traveling of
artisans.

These last illustrations introduce us to the truth that, while at first
there are little cohesion and great mobility of the units forming a
group, advance in integration is habitually accompanied not only by a
decreasing ability to go from group to group, but also by a decreasing
ability to go from place to place with the group : the members of the
society become less free to move about within the society as well as
less free to leave it. Of course, the transition from the nomadic to the
settled state partially implies this ; since each person becomes in a
considerable degree tied by his material interests. Slavery, too, effects
in another way this binding of individuals to locally-placed members
of the society, and therefore to particular parts to it ; and, where
serfdom exists, the same thing is shown with a difference. But in so-
cieties that have become highly integrated, not simply those in bond-
age, but others also, ai-e tied to their localities. Of the ancient Mexi-
cans, Zurita says : " The Indians never changed their village nor even
their quarter. This custom was observed as a law." In ancient Peru,
" it was not lawful for any one to remove from one province, or vil-
lage, to another " ; and " any who traveled without just cause were
punished as vagabonds." Elsewhere, along with that development of
the militant type accompanying aggregation, there have been imposed
restraints on movement under other forms. In ancient Egypt there
existed a system of registration, and all citizens had periodically to
report themseves to local officers. " Every Japanese is registered, and,
whenever he removes his residence, the Nanushi, or head-man of the
temple, gives a certificate." And then, in despotically governed Eu-
ropean countries, we have more or less rigorous passport-systems, hin-
dering the movements of citizens from place to place, and in some
cases preventing them from leaving the country.

In these, as in other respects, however, the restraints which the
social aggregate exercises over its units decrease as the industrial type
begins greatly to qualify the militant type ; partly because the soci-
eties characterized by industrialism are amply populous, and have su-
perfluous members to fill the places of those who leave them, and
partly because, in the absence of the oppressions accompanying a mil-
itant regime, a sufficient cohesion results from pecuniary interests,
family bonds, and love of country.

Thus, saying nothing for the present of that political evolu-
tion manifested by increase of structure, and restricting ourselves
to that political evolution manifested by increase of mass, here dis-

POLITICAL INTEGRATION. 301

tinguislied as political integration, we find that this has the following
traits :

While the aggregates are small, the incorporation of materials for
growth is carried on at one another's expense in feeble ways — by tak-
ing one another's game, by robbing one another of women, and, occa-
sionally, by adopting one another's men. As larger aggregates are
formed, incorporations proceed in more wholesale ways : first, by
enslaving the separate members of conquered tribes, and presently by
the bodily annexation of such tribes. And, as compound aggregates
pass into doubly and trebly compound ones, there arise increasing
desires to absorb adjacent smaller societies, and so to form still larger
aggregates.

Conditions of several kinds further or hinder social growth and
consolidation. The habitat may be fitted or unfitted for supporting a
large population ; or it may, by great or small facilities for inter-
course within its area, favor or impede cooperation ; or it may, by
presence or absence of natural barriers, make easy or difiicult the
keeping together of the individuals under that coercion which is at
first needful. And, as the antecedents of the race determine, the
individiials may have in greater or less degrees the physical, the
emotional, and the intellectual natures fitting them for combined
action.

While the extent to which social integration can in each case be
carried depends in part on these conditions, it also depends in part
upon the degree of likeness among the units. At first, while the
nature is so little molded to social life that cohesion is small, aggre-
gation is largely dependent on ties of blood, implying great degrees
of likeness. Groups in which such ties, and the resulting congruity,
are most marked, and which, having family traditions in common, a
common male ancestor, and a joint worship of him, are in these fur-
ther ways made alike in ideas and sentiments, are groups in which the
greatest social cohesion and poAver of cooperation arise. For a long
time the clans and tribes descending from such primitive patriarchal
groups have their political concert facilitated by this bond of relation-
ship and the likeness it involves. Only after adaptation to social life
has made considerable progress does harmonious cooperation among
those who are not of the same stock become practicable ; and even
then their unlikenesses of nature must fall within moderate limits.
Where the unlikenesses of nature are great, the society, held together
only by force, tends to disintegrate when the force fails.

Likeness in the unirts forming a social group being one condition
of their integration, a further condition is their joint reaction against
external action ; cooperation in war is the active cause of social inte-
gration. The temporary unions of savages for oifense and defense
show us the initiatory step. When many tribes unite against a com-
mon enemy, long continuance of their combined action makes them

302 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

coherent under some common control. And so it is subsequently with
still larger aggregates.

Progress in social integration is both a cause and a consequence of
a decreasing separableness among the units. Primitive wandering
hordes exercise no such restraints over their members as prevent them
individually from leaving one horde and joining another at will.
Where tribes are more developed, desertion of one and admission into
another are less easy — the assemblages are not so loose in composition.
And, throughout those long stages during which societies are being
enlarged and consolidated by militancy, the mobility of the units is
more and more restrained. Only with that substitution of voluntary
cooperation for compulsory cooperation which characterizes develop-
ing industrialism do these restraints disappear : enforced union being
in such societies adequately replaced by spontaneous union.

A remaining truth to be named is that political integration, as it
advances, tends to obliterate the original divisions among the united
parts. In the first place, there is the slow disappearance of those non-
topographical divisions arising from relationship, and resulting in sep-
arate gentes and tribes, gentile and tribal divisions, which are for a
long time maintained after larger societies have been formed : gradual
intermingling destroys them. In the second place, the smaller local
societies united into a larger one, which at first retain their separate
organizations, lose them by long co5peration : a common organization
begins to ramify through them, and their individualities become indis-
tinct. And, in the third place, there simultaneously results a more or
less decided obliteration of their topographical bounds, and a replacing
of these by the new administrative bound of the common organiza-
tion. Hence naturally results the converse truth that, in the course of
social dissolution, the great groups separate first, and afterward, if
dissolution continues, these separate into their component smaller
groups. Instance the ancient empires successively formed in the East,
the united kingdoms of which severally resumed their autonomies
when the coercion keeping them together ceased. Instance, again,
the Carlovingian empire, which, first parting into its large divisions,
became in course of time further disintegrated by subdivision of these.
And where, as in this last case, the process of dissolution goes very
far, there is a return to something like the primitive condition, under
which small predatory societies are engaged in continuous warfare
with like small societies around them.

PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 303

PHYSICAL EDUCATION.

By FELIX L. OSWALD, M. D.
DIET.

"Blessed are the pure, for they can follow their inclinations with impunity."

T'T'N'N'ATURAL food is the principal cause of human degeoeratiou.
vJ It is the oldest vice. If we reflect upon the number of ruinous
dietetic abuses, and their immemorial tyranny over the larger part of
the human race, we are tempted to eschew all symbolical interpreta-
tions of the paradise legend, and to ascribe the fall of mankind literally
and exclusively to the eating of forbidden food. From century to cen-
tury the same cause has multiplied the sum of our earthly ills. Sub-
stances which Nature never intended for the food of man have come
to form a principal part of our diet ; caustic spices torture our digestive
organs ; we ransack every clime for noxious weeds and intoxicating
fluids ; from twenty to thirty-five per cent, of our breadstuffs are yearly
wasted on the distillation of a life-consuming fire ; vegetable poisons,
inorganic poisons, and all kinds of indigestible compounds enslave our
appetites, and among the Caucasian nations of the present age an un-
exampled concurrence of causes has made a passive submission to that
slavery the habitual condition.

Dietetic abuses, alone, would amply account for all our " ailments
and pains, in form, variety, and degree beyond description " ; the vital-
ity of the human race would, indeed, have long succumbed to their
combined influence, if their effects were not counteracted by the recon-
structive tendency of Nature. Every birth is an hygienic regeneration.
The constitutional defects which degenerate parents transmit to their
offspring are modified by the inalienable bequest of an elder world —
the redeeming instincts which our All-mother grants to every new child
of earth. Individuals may deprave these instincts till their functions
are entirely usurped by the cravings of a vicious appetency, but this
perversion is never hereditary ; Nature has ordained that all her chil-
dren should begin the pilgrimage of life from beyond the point where
the roads of misery and happiness diverge. As the golden age, the
happy childhood of the human race returns in the morning of every
life, the noi-mal type of our pi-imogenitor asserts itself athwart the
morbid influences of all intermediate generations ; the regenesis of every
new birth brings mankind back from vice to innocence, from mysticism
to realism, from ghost-land to earth. For a time those better instincts
thwart the influence of miseducation as persistently as confirmed vices
afterward thwart the success of reformatory measures ; but, if the work
of correct physical culture were begun in time, our innate propensities

304 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

themselves would conspire to further its purposes and bar the boun-
dary between virtue and vice which conscience often guards in vain.
The temptations that beset the path of the adult convert do not exist
for the wards of Nature. To the palate of a normal child, alcohol is
as unattractive as corrosive sublimate ; the enforced inactivity of our
limbs, which afterward becomes dyspeptic indolence, is as irksome to
a healthy boy as to a wild animal, and a young Indian would prefer
the open air of the stormiest winter night to the hot miasma of our
tenement-houses. Few smokers can forget the effects of the diffident
first attempt — the revolt of the system against the incipience of a viru-
lent habit. The same with other abuses of our domestic and social
life. If we would preserve the purity of our physical conscience, we
might refer all hygienic problems to an unerring oracle of Nature.

The appearance of the eye-teeth (cuspids) and lesser molars marks
the end of the second year as the period when healthy children may be
gradually accustomed to semi-fluid vegetable substances. Till then,
milk should form their only sustenance. As a substitute for the nour-
ishment of their mother's breast, cow's-milk, mixed with a little water
and sugar, is far superior to all patent paps, Liebig's compounds, and
baby-soups, which often induce a malignant attack of the dysenteric
complaint known as " bowel-fever " or " weaning-brash," unless palli-
ated by still more condemnable astringents and soothing-sirujDS. In
France the professional wet-nurses of the Pays de Vaud are generally
engaged as nourrices de deux arts ; but mothers whose employment
does not interfere with their inclination in this respect may safely nurse
their children for a much longer period. The wives of the sturdy Ar-
gyll peasants rarely wean a bairn before its claim is disputed by the
next youngster ; and the stoutest urchin of five years I ever saw was the
son of a poor Servian widow, who still took him to her breast like a
baby. Animals suckle their young till they are able to digest the un-
modified solid food of the species ; and the best method with wean-
lings, therefore, is perhaps that of the Ionian-Islanders, whose toddling
infants, as Dr. Bodenstedt noticed, partake of the simple repast of their
parents — unleavened maize-cakes and dried figs — and are often permit-
ted to exercise their teeth on a fresh-plucked ear of sugar-corn. But,
in countries where the repast of parents is anything but simple, the best
food for young children is a porridge of milk and boiled rice or oat-
meal, with a little sugar, perhaps, or a few spoonfuls of apple-butter in
summer-time. Of such simple dishes a child may be permitted to eat*
its fill, but they should be served at regular intervals and never be taken
hot. Heating our food is one of the many devices for disguising its
natural taste, and sipping hot and cold drinks, turn about, is far more
injurious to the teeth than \h^ penchant for sweetmeats which children
share with savages and monkeys. Beginning with five light meals a
day, the number may be gradually reduced to three, after which a
system of fixed hours should be strictly observed, till the symptoms of

PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 305

appetite manifest a corresponding periodicity, thus saving mothers the
trouble of providing baby-titbits at all possible and impossible hours
of the day. Healthy children of five take readily to an exclusively
vegetable diet, which is often preferable to city milk and always to
flesh-food. Xenophon, in his miscellaneous "Anabasis," mentions a
tribe of Bithynian coast-dwellers whose children were prodigies of
chubbedness, " as thick as they were long," and remarks that said chubs
were fed on — boiled chestnuts. Baked apples, pulse, macaroni, Avhipped
eggs, bread-pudding seasoned with sugar and a drop or two of lemon-
flavor, and such fruits as mellow pears, raspberries, and strawberries,
can be readily assimilated by all but the weakliest nursery cadets.

But toward the end of the seventh year the advent of a second and
sturdier set of teeth suggests the propriety of exercising the jaws on
more solid substances. A child of seven should graduate to a seat at
the family table ; or rather the family table should offer nothing that
a child of seven can not digest. It does, though, as a rule, and parents
who buy their meals ready made, or who have resigned themselves to
evils from which they would save their children, should still regulate
their bill of fare, both in quality and in quantity, by the rules of hygiene
rather than by those of etiquette or convenience, till the age of con-
firmed habits puts them beyond the danger of temptation.

Before entering upon those points, I must premise a few M^ords
on the main question. What is the natural food of man ? As an ab-
stract truth, the maxim* of the physiologist Haller is absolutely unim-
peachable : " Our i^roper nutriment should consist of vegetable and
semi-animal substances which can be eaten with relish before their nat-
ural taste has been disguised by artificial preparation." For even the
most approved modes of grinding, bolting, leavening, cooking, sj^icing,
heating, and freezing our food are, strictly speaking, abuses of our
digestive organs. It is a fallacy to suppose that hot spices aid the
process of digestion : they irritate the stomach and cause it to dis-
charge the ingesta as rapidly as possible, as it would hasten to rid itself
of tartarized antimony or any other poison ; but tliis very precipita-
tion of the gastric functions prevents the formation of healthy chyle.
There is an important difference between rapid and thorough diges-
tion. In a similar way, a high temperature of our food facilitates
deglutition, but, by dispensing with insalivation and the proper use of
our teeth, we make the stomach perform the work of our jaws and sali-
vary glands ; in other words, we make our food less digestible. By
bolting our flour and extracting the nutritive principle of various
liquids, we fall into the opposite error : we try to assist our digestive
organs by performing mechanically a part of their proper and legiti-
mate functions. The health of the human system can not be maintained
on concentrated nutriment ; even the air we inhale contains azotic

* Endorsed (indirectly) in the writinirs of Drs. Alcott, Claude Bernard, Schlemmer,
Hall, and Dio Lewis, and directly by Sclirodt and Jules Virey.

VOL. XVIII. — 20

3o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

gases which must be separated from the life-sustaining principle by
the action of our respiratory organs — not by any inorganic process.
We can not breathe pure oxygen. For analogous reasons bran-flour
makes better bread than bolted flour ; meat and saccharine fruits are
healthier than meat-extracts and pure glucose. In short, artificial ex-
tracts and compounds are, on the whole, less wholesome than the pala-
table products of Nature. In the case of bran-flour and certain fruits
with a large percentage of wholly innutritions matter, chemistry fails
to account for this fact, but biology suggests the mediate cause : the
normal type of our physical constitution dates from a period when the
digestive organs of our (frugivorous) ancestors adapted themselves to
such food — a period compared with whose duration the age of grist-
mills and made dishes is but of yesterday.

We can not doubt that the highest degree of health could only be
attained by strict conformity to Haller's rule, i. e., by subsisting exclu-
sively on the pure and unchanged products of Nature. In the tropics
such a mode of life would not imply anything like asceticism : a meal
of milk and three or four kinds of sweet nuts, fresh dates, bananas, and
grapes would not clash with the still higher rule, that eating, like every
other natural function, should be a pleasure and not a penance. Heat
destroys the delicate flavor of many fruits and makes others less digest-
ible by coagulating their albumen. But in the frigid latitudes, where
we have to dry and garner many vegetable products in order to survive
the unproductive season, the process of cooking our food has advan-
tages which fully outweigh such objections. Few men with post-dilu-
vian teeth would agree wath Dr. Schlemmer that hard grain is preferable
to bread. No Bostoner would renounce his favorite dish for a nose-
bag full of dry beans. Dried prunes, too, are improved by cooking —
in taste, at least, and perhaps in digestibility. Besides, we should not
forget that the natural taste of such substances, befoi'e they became
over-dry, vxis agreeable, or at least not repulsive to our palates. It
appears that on week-days the children of Israel indulged their poor in
the practice of snatching free luncheons from a convenient corn-field
(Matthew xii, 1), and the Imam of Muscat still feeds his soldiers on
crude wheat and dhourra-corn, a sort of millet, which many French
soldiers learned to eat raw, as their Mameluke captors declined to cook
it for them. Even the legumes — peas, beans, and lentils — pass through
a period when they are soft and full of sweet milk-juice, though in
their sun-dried over-ripeness they become as tough as wood. In the
scale of wholesomeness the place next to Haller's man-food par excel-
lence should therefore be assigned to vegetable substances whose pleas-
ant taste has been restored by the process of cooking. With this .
addition, even an invalid, dieting for his health, need not complain of
lack of variety, for the number of nutritious vegetables that can be
successfully cultivated as far north as Hamburg and Boston is almost
infinite if we include the plants of the corresponding Asiatic latitudes

PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 307

and those that could be acclimatized in the course of five or six seasons.
With five kinds of cereals, three legumina, eight species of esculent
roots, ten or twelve nutritive herbs, thirty to forty varieties of tree-
fruits, besides berries and nuts, a vegetarian might emulate the Due
de Polignac, who refused to eat the same dish more than once per
season. Honey is the pure, unchanged, and unalloyed saccharine juice
of flowers and resinous exudations, and therefore strictly a vegetable
substance, though Carl Bock and Bichat describe it as semi-animal
food, because " derived from animals," i. e., hived by bees. They
might as well include flour under the same category because horses
carry grist to the mill. Like sugar, vanilla, and the manna-sirup of
Arabia Felix, we might class it with the non-stimulating condiments,
which, used in moderate quantities, impart an agreeable flavor to many
farinaceous preparations without impairing their digestibility.

Of all semi-animal substances, sweet fresh milk is the most whole-
some, in itself an almost perfect aliment, welcome to all mammals and
nearly all vertebrate animals. Monkeys, cats, deer, squirrels, otters,
and ant-bears, creatures that differ so widely in their special diet, will
rarely refuse a dish of this universal food. I have seen snakes and
iguanas drink it with avidity. On the other hand, I have noticed that
all animals but pigs and starved dogs eschew sour milk ; it is, properly
speaking, fermented milk, to the taste of a normal man probably as
repulsive as tainted meat or sour gruel. This fermentation affects
the fatty particles less than the watery and caseine ; and butter and
cream (though less digestible than fresh milk) are, therefore, far
healthier than sour whey and cheese. Cheese in some of its forms is
quite as unwholesome as rotten flesh ; putrid curd would be the right
name for Limburger and fromage de Brix. Vegetarians of the Lan-
kester school object to milk and butter on account of the spurious stuff
that is often foisted upon the market under those names, but mild-
tasted aliments can hardly be adulterated with very injurious sub-
stances ; a little tallow, oleomargarine, or even lard, mixed with butter,
and as such again mixed with a tenfold quantity of farinaceous food,
can only affect the most delicate constitutions to any appreciable de-
gree, and certainly not more than the small percentage of alum we
often eat wdth our daily bread. Comparatively speaking, such things
are the veriest trifles, and we can not afford to fight gnats while we
are beset by a swarm of vampires. We have dietetic exquisites who
would shudder at the idea of raising their biscuits with brewer's yeast
instead of bicarbonate of soda, but do not hesitate to sandwich that
same bread with strong cheese and pork-sausage ; or pity the wretch
whose poverty consents to North Carolina apple-jack, while they sip a
petite verve of aromatic schiedam. That kind of purism often reminds
me of the fastidiousness of Heinrich Heine's Mandarin convict, who
insists on being thrashed with a perfumed bamboo, " but would have
been shocked at a less fragrant hiding."

3o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

All kinds of fat (" non-nitrogenous " aliments), including butter and
cream, are more digestible in winter than in summer time. Cold air
is a peptic stimulant, and neutralizes the calorific effect of a non-nitro-
genous diet, while fresh tree-fruits and berries counteract an excess of
atmospheric heat, and thus, by an admirable provision of Nature, the
seasons themselves furnish us the food most adapted to the preserva-
tion of the right medium temperature of the system. Preserved fruits
(raisins, dried figs and apples, etc) lose much of their acidity, and
thus become less refreshing, but not less nutritive, at the very time
when the latter property is the more important one. Cow's- milk, on
the other hand, grows richer .in winter-time, and this self -adaptation of
their food to the varying demands of the seasons enables the inhabi-
tants of such countries as Italy and Mexico to subsist all the year round
on an almost uniform diet. But in a climate of such thermal extremes
as ours it would be the best plan to vary our regimen with the weather,
and, above all, to adopt a special summer diet, since the consequences
of our present culinary abuses are far less baneful in January than in
July, Even in mid-winter our compounds of steaming and greasy
viands with hot spices severely strain the tolerance of a youthful
stomach ; but, when the dog-star adds its fervid influence, the demand
for refrigerating food becomes so imperative that no forensic eloquence
would persuade me to convict a city lad for hooking watermelons.
Where fruit is cheap the paterfamilias should keep a storeroom full of
summer apples, and leave the key in the door — it will obviate costive-
ness and midnight excursions. From May to September fresh fruit
ought to form the staple of our diet, and the noonday meal at least
should consist of cold dishes, cold apple-pudding with sweet milk and
whipped eggs, or strawberries with bread, cream, and sugar. The
Romans of the republican age broke their fast with a biscuit and a fig
or two, and took their j^rincipal meal in the cool of the evening. In
their application of the word, a frugal diet meant quite literally a diet
of tree-fruits, and that our primogenitor was a frugivorous creature is
the one point in which the Darwinian genesis agrees with the Mosaic
version.

Dr. Alcott holds that a man might live and thrive on an exclusive
diet of well-selected fruits, and I agree Avith him if he includes olives
and oily nuts, for no assumption in dietetics is more gratuitous than
the idea that a frequent use of flesh-food is indispensable to the preser-
vation of human health. Meat is certainly not our natural food. The
structure of our teeth, our digestive apparatus, and our hands, proves
a priori that the physical organization of man is that of a frugivorous
animal. So do our instincts. Accustom a child to a diet of milk,
bread, and meat ; never let him see a fruit, nor mention the existence
of such a thing ; then take him to an orchard, and see how quick his
instinct will tell him what apples are good for. Turn him loose among
a herd of lambs and kids : he will play with them as a fellow-vege-

PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 309

tarian. In a slaughter-house the sight of gory carcasses and puddles of
blood will excite hira with a horror naturalis. The same sight would
excite the appetite of the omnivorous pig as well as of the carnivorous
puppy. Artificial preparation, spices, etc., may disguise the natural
taste of meat, as of coffee or wine, but they will not alter its effect
upon the animal system. The flesh-food fallacy, like other errors of
the civilized nations, has found plausible defenders, but their principal
argument is clearly based on a misunderstood fact. The delusion
originated in England, where the physique of the beef -fed and rubi-
cund Saxon squire contrasts strongly with that of the potato-fed Celtic
laborer. What this really proves is merely that a mixed diet is superior
to a diet of starch and water, for the North-Irish dairyman, who adds
milk and butter to his starch, outweighs and outlives the rubicund
squire. The matter is this : In a cold climate we can not thrive with-
out a modicum of fat, but that fat need not come from slaughtered
animals. In a colder country than England the East-Russian peasant,
remarkable for his robust health and longevity, subsists on cabbage-
soup, rye bread, and vegetable oils. In a colder country than England
the Gothenbui'g shepherds live chiefly on milk, barley -bread, and escu-
lent roots. The strongest men of the three manliest races of the pres-
ent world are non-carnivorous: the Turanian mountaineers of Daghestan
and Lesghia, the Mandingo tribes of Senegambia, and the Schleswig-
Holstein Bauern, who furnish the heaviest cuirassiers for the Prussian
army and the ablest seamen for the Hamburg navy. Nor is it true
that flesh is an indispensable, or even the best, brain-food. Pythagoras,
Plato, Seneca, Paracelsus, Spinoza, Peter Bayle, and Shelley were vege-
tarians ; so were Franklin and Lord Byron in their best years. New-
ton, while engaged in writing his " Principia " and " Quadrature of
Curves," abstained entirely from animal food, which he had found by
experience to be unpropitious to severe mental application. The ablest
modern physiologists incline to the same opinion. " I use animal food
because I have not the opportunity to choose my diet," says Professor
Welch, of Yale, " but whenever I have abstained from it, I have found
my health mentally, morally, and physically better."

Though a vegetarian on principle, I have eaten various kinds of
flesh as a physiological experiment, and have often observed the in-
fluence of animal food upon children and invalids, and I have found
that a pound of boiled beef or eight ounces of lean pork, after a month's
abstinence from all flesh-food, will infallibly produce some or all of the
following unmistakable effects : a gastric uneasiness, akin to the in-
cipient operation of certain emetics ; distressing dreams, restlessness,
and a peculiar mood which I might describe as a promiscuous pessi-
mism, a feeling of general irritation and resentment. I have also noticed
that flesh-food tends to check intellectual activity, not so much by
making us averse to all mental occupations as by muddling what
phrenologists call the perceptives. By its continued use children

310 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

gradually lose their native brightness as well as their amiable
temper.

But the same observations oblige me to say that its deleterious
physical effects have often been considerably overrated. The gastric un-
easiness, even after a hearty meal of meat (fat pork, perhaps, excepted),
yields readily to exercise in open air. Meat does not interfere with the
digestion of other food, and, above all, it j^roduces no ruinous after-
effects ; its frequent use rarely becomes a morbid necessity. Besides,
flesh undoubtedly contains many nutritive elements, though in a less
desirable form than we might find them in vegetable substances. By
dint of practice the system can be got to accept part of its nutriment
in that form, and if we are reduced to the choice of starving on starch
and watery herbs, or getting fat in an abnormal way, the latter is
clearly the preferable alternative. As a rule, though, children during
their school years had better stick to dairy products, farinaceous prep-
arations, and fruit ; hot-headed boys, especially, can be more effectu-
ally cured with cow's-milk than with a cow-hide.

The objections to flesh-food, however, do not apply to eggs, and
not in the same degree to mollusks and crustaceans. On the banks of
the Essequibo, in eastern Venezuela, I have seen troops of capuchin
monkeys (Cebus pa7iiscus) engaged in catching crabs, though in captiv-
ity those same relatives of ours would rather starve than touch a piece of
beef. The dog-headed baboon visits the seashore in search of mollusks,
and the South American marmoset, like John the Baj^tist, delights in
grasshoppers and wild honey, though otherwise a strict vegetarian.
The mediaeval distinction between flesh and fish is not wholly gratuitous,
either ; carp, trout, and their congeners are, happily, almost as digesti-
ble as potatoes, for it would be a hopeless undertaking to dissuade a
young Walton from boiling and devouring his first string of perch.
On journeys, especially in cold weather, children may be occasionally
indulged in such wayside delicacies as codfish-balls, oiled sai;dines,
and ham-sandwiches.

THE SABBATH,

By Peofessok JOHN TYNDALL, F. E. S,

n.

THE moods of the times — the "climates of opinion," as Glanvil
calls them — have also to be considered in imposing disciplines
which affect the public. For the ages, like the individual, have their
periods of mirth and earnestness, of cheerfulness and gloom. From
this point of view a better case might be made out for the early Sab-
batarians than for their survivals at the present day. Sunday sports

THE SABBATH. 311

had grown barbarous ; bull- and bear-baiting, interludes, and bowling
were reckoned among them, and the more earnest spirits longed not
only to promote edification but to curb excess. Sabbatarianism, there-
fore, though opposed, made rapid progress. Its opponents did what
religious parties, when in power, always do — exercised that power
tyrannically. They invoked the arm of the flesh to suppress or change
conviction. In 1618 James I published a declaration, known after-
ward as " The Book of Sports," because it had reference to Sunday
recreations, Puritan magistrates had interfered with the innocent
amusements of the people, and the King wished to insure their being
permitted after divine service to those who desired them ; but not
enjoined upon those who did not. Coarser sjaorts, and sports tend-
ing to immorality, were prohibited. Charles I renewed the declara-
tion of his father. Not content, however, with expressing his royal
pleasure — not content with restraining the ai'bitrary civil magistrate —
the King decreed that the declaration should be published " through
all the parish churches," the bishops in their respective dioceses being
made the vehicles of the royal comma-nd. Defensible in itself, the
declaration thus became an instrument of oppression. The High
Church party, headed by Archbishop Laud, forced the reading of the
documents on men whose consciences recoiled from the act. " The
jDrecise clergy," as Hallam calls them, refused in general to comply,
and were suspended or deprived in consequence. " But," adds Hal-
lam, " mankind loves sjjort as little as prayer by comf)ulsion ; and the
immediate effect of the King's declaration was to produce a far more
scrupulous abstinence from diversions on Sundays than had been prac-
ticed before."

The Puritans, when they came into jjower, followed the evil ex-
ample of their predecessors. They, the champions of religious free-
dom, showed that they could, in their turn, deprive their antagonists
of their benefices, fine them, burn their books by the common hang-
man, and compel them ta read from the ])ulpit things of which they
disapproved. On this point Bishop Heber makes some excellent re-
marks. " Much," he says, " as each religious party in its turn had suf-
fered from persecution, and loudly and bitterly as each had, in its own
particular instance, complained of the severities exercised against its
members, no party had yet been found to perceive the great wicked-
ness of persecution in the abstract, or the moral unfitness of temporal
punishment as an engine of religious controversy." In a very different
strain writes the Dr. Bownd who has been already referred to as a pre-
cursor of Puritanism. He is so sure of his " doxy " that he will un-
flinchingly make others bow to it. " It behooveth," he says, " all kings,
princes, and rulers that profess the true religion, to enact such laws,
and to see them diligently executed, whereby the honor of God in hal-
lowing these days might be maintained. And, indeed, this is the
chief est end of all government, that men might not profess what re-

312 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ligion they list, and serve God after what manner it pleaseth them
best, but that the parts of God's true worship [Bowndean worship]
might be set up everywhere, and all men compelled to stoop unto it."

There is, it must be admitted, a sad logical consistency in the mode
of action advocated by Dr. Bownd and deprecated by Bishojj Heber.
As long as men hold that there is a hell to be shunned, they seem logi-
cally warranted in treating lightly the claims of religious liberty upon
earth. They dare not tolerate a fi-eedom whose end they believe to be
eternal perdition. Cruel they may be for the moment, but a passing
pang vanishes when compared with an eternity of pain. Unreligious
men might call it hallucination, but if I accept undoubtingly the doc-
trine of eternal punishment, then, whatever society may think of my
act, I am self -justified not only in " letting " but in destroying that
which I hold dearest, if I believe it to be thereby stopped in its prog-
ress to the fires of hell. Hence, granting the assumptions common to
both, the persecution of Puritans by High Churchmen, and of High
Churchmen by Puritans, had a basis in reason. I do not think the
question can be decided on a priori grounds, as Bishop Heber seemed
to suppose. It is not the abstract wickedness of persecution, so much
as our experience of its results, that causes us to set our faces against
it. It has been tried, and found the most ghastly of failures. This
experimental fact overwhelms the plausibilities of logic, and renders
persecution, save in its meaner and stealthier aspects, in our day im-
possible.

The combat over Sunday continued, the Sabbatarians continually
gaining ground. In 1643 the divines who drew up the famous docu-
ment known as the Westminster Confession began their sittings in
Henry VII's Chapel. Milton thought lightly of these divines, who,
he said, were sometimes chosen by the whim of members oh Parlia-
ment ; but the famous Puritan, Baxter, extolled them for their learn-
ing, godliness, and ministerial abilities. A journal of their earlier pro-
ceedings was kept by one of their members. On the 13th of Novem-
ber, 1644, he records the occurrence of " a large debate " on the sanc-
tification of the Lord's day. After fixing the introductory phraseol-
ogy, the assembly proceeded to consider the second proposition, " To
abstain from all unnecessary labors, worldly sports, and recreations."
It was debated whether " worldly thoughts " should not be added.
" This was scrupulous," says the naive journalist, " whether we should
not be a scorn to go about to bind men's thoughts, but at last it was
concluded upon to be added, both for the more piety and for that the
fourth command includes it." The question of Sunday cookery was
then discussed and settled ; and, as regards public worship, it was de-
creed " that all the people meet so timely that the whole congregation
be present at the beginning, and not depart until after the blessing.
That what time is vacant between or after the solemn meetings of the
congregation be spent in reading, meditation, repetition of sermons,"

THE SABBATH. 313

etc. These holy men were full of that strength already referred to as
imparted by faith. They needed no natural joy to brighten their
lives, mirth being displaced by religious exaltation. They erred, how-
ever, in making themselves a measure for the world at large, and in-
sured the overthrow of their cause by drawing too heavily upon aver-
age human nature. " This much," says Hallam, " is certain, that when
the Puritan party employed their authority in proscribing all diver-
sions, and enforcing all the Jewish rigor about the Sabbath, they ren-
dered their own yoke intolerable to the young and gay ; nor did any
other cause, perhaps, so materially contribute to bring about the Res-
toration."

In 1646, the " Confession " being agreed upon, it was presented to
Parliament, which, in 1648, accepted and published its doctrinal por-
tion. There was no lack of definiteness in the Assembly's statements.
They spoke as confidently of the divine enactments as if each member
had been personally privy to the counsels of the Most High. "When
Luther in the Castle of Marburg had had enough of the arguments of
Zuinglius on the " real presence," he is said to have ended the contro-
versy by taking up a bit of chalk and writing firmly and finally upon
the table, '^IIoc est corpus meum.^'' Equally downright and definite
were the divines at Westminster. They were modest in offering their
conclusions to Parliament as " humble advice," but there was no flicker
of doubt either in their theology or their cosmology. " From the be-
ginning of the world," they say, " to the resurrection of Christ the
last day of the week was kept holy as a Sabbath " ; while from the
resurrection it " was changed into the first day of the week, which in
Scripture is called the Lord's day, and is to be continued to the end
of the world as the Christian Sabbath." The notions of the divines
regarding the " beginning and the end " of the world were primitive
but decided. An ancient philosopher was once mobbed for venturing
the extravagant opinion that the sun, which appeared to be a circle
less than a yard in diameter, might really be as large as the whole
country of Greece. Imagine a man with the knowledge of a mod-
ern geologist uttering his blasphemies among these Westminster di-
vines ! " It pleased God," they continue, " at the beginning, to create,
or make of nothing, the world and all things therein, whether visible
or invisible, in the space of six days, and all very good." Judged
from our present scientific standpoint, this, of course, is mere nonsense.
But the calling of it by this name does not exhaust the question. The
real point of interest to me, I confess, is not the cosmological errors
of the Assembly, but the hold which theology has taken of the human
mind, and which enables it to survive the ruin of what was long deemed
essential to its stability. On this question of " essentials " the gravest
mistakes are constantly made. Save as a passing form, no part of ob-
jective religion is essential. Religion lives not by the force and aid
of dogma, but because it is ingrained in the nature of man. To draw

314 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

a metaphor from metallurgy, the molds have been broken and recon-
structed over and over again, but the molten ore abides in the ladle of
humanity. An influence so deep and permanent is not likely soon to
disappear ; but of the future form of religion little can be predicted.
Its main concern may possibly be to purify, elevate, and brighten the
life that now is, instead of treating it as the more or less dismal vesti-
bule of a life that is to come.

The term "nonsense," which has been just applied to the views of
creation enunciated by the Westminster Assembly, was used, as already
stated, in reference to our present knowledge and not to the knowledge
of three or four centuries ago. To most people the earth was at that
time all in all ; the sun and moon and stars being set in heaven merely
to furnish lamj^light to our planet. But though in relation to the
heavenly bodies the earth's position and importance were thus exag-
gerated, very inadequate and erroneous notions were entertained re-
garding the shape and magnitude of the earth itself. Theologians
were horrified when first informed that our planet was a sphere. The
question of antipodes exercised them for a long time, most of them
pouring ridicule on the idea that men could exist with their feet turned
toward us, and with their heads pointing downward. I think it is Sir
George Airy who refers to the case of an over-curious individual ask-
ing what we should see if we went to the edge of the world and looked
over. That the earth was a flat surface on which the sky rested was
the belief entertained by the founders of all our great religious sys-
tems. Even liberal Protestant theologians stigmatized the Copernican
theory as being " built on fallible phenomena and advanced by many
arbitrary assumptions against evident testimonies of Scripture." * New-
ton finally placed his intellectual crowbar beneath these ancient no-
tions, and heaved them into irretrievable ruin.

Then it was that penetrating minds, seeing the nature of the
change wrought by the new astronomy in our conceptions of the uni-
verse, also discerned the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of accepting
literally the Mosaic account of creation. They did not reject it, but
they assigned to it a meaning entirely new. Dr. Samuel Clarke, who
was the personal friend of Newton and a supporter of his theory,
threw out the idea that " possibly the six days of creation might be a
typical representation of some greater periods." Clarke's contemporary,
Dr. Thomas Burnet, wrote with greater decision in the same strain.
The Sabbath being regarded as a shadow or type of that heavenly
repose which the righteous will enjoy when this world has passed
away, " so these six days of creation are so many periods or millen-
niums for which the world and the toils and labors of our present
state are destined to endure." f The Mosaic account was thus reduced

* Such was the view of Dr. John Owen, who is described by Cox as " the most emi-
nent of the Independent divines."
f Cox, vol. ii, p. 211, note.

THE SABBATH. 315

to a poetic myth — a view which afterward fouud expression in the
vast reveries of Hugh Miller. But if this symbolic interpretation,
which is now generally accepted, be the true one, what becomes of
the Sabbath-day? It is absolutely without ecclesiastical meaning;
and the man who was executed for gathering sticks on that day must
be regarded as the victim of a rude legal rendering of a religious epic.
There were many minor offshoots of discussion from the great
central controversy. Bishop Horsley had defined a day " as consisting
of one evening and one morning, or, as the Hebrew words literally
import, of the decay of light and the return of it." But what then,
it was asked, becomes of the Sabbath in the Arctic regions, where
light takes six months to " decay," and as long to " return " ? Differ-
ences of longitude, moreover, render the observance of the Sabbath
at the same hours impossible. To some people such questions might
appear trifling ; to others they were of the gravest import. Whether
the Sabbath should stretch from sunset to sunset, or from midnight
to midnight, was also a subject of discussion. Voices, moreover, were
heard refusing to acknowledge the propriety of the change from
Saturday to Sunday, and the doctrine of Seventh-day observance
was afterward represented by a sect.* The earth's sphericity and
rotation, which had at first been received with such affright, came
eventually to the aid of those afilicted with qualms and difiiculties
regarding the respective claims of Saturday and Sunday. The sun
apparently moves from east to west. Suppose, then, we start on a
voyage round the world in a westerly direction. In doing so we sail
away, as it were, from the sun, which follows and periodically ovei*-
takes us, reaching the meridian of our ship each succeeding day some-
what later than if we stood still. For every 15° of longitude traversed
by the vessel the sun will be exactly an hour late ; and after the ship
has traversed twenty-four times 15°, or 360°, that is to say, the entire
circle of the earth, the sun will be exactly a day behind. Here, then,
is the expedient suggested by Dr. Wallis, F. R. S., Savilian Professor
of Geometry in the University of Oxford, to quiet the minds of those
in doubt regarding Saturday observance. He recommends them to
make a voyage round the world, as Sir Francis Drake did, " going out
of the Atlantic Ocean westward by the Straits of Magellan to the
East Indies, and then from the east, returning by the Cape of Good
Hope homeward, and let them keep their Saturday-Sabbath all the

* Theophilus Braboume, a sturdy Puritan minister of Norfolk, whom Cox regards
as the founder of this sect, thus argued the question in 1628: "And now let me pro-
pound unto your choice these two days : the Sabbath-day on Saturday or the Lord's day
on Sunday ; and keep whether of the twain you shall in conscience find the more safe.
If you keep the Lord's day, but profane the Sabbath-day, you walk in great danger
and peril (to say the least) of transgressing one of God's eternal and inviolable laws —
the fourth commandment. But, on the other side, if you keep the Sabbath-day, though
you profane the Lord's day, you are out of all gunshot and danger, for so you transgress
no law at all, since neither Christ nor his apostles did ever leave any law for it."

3i6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

way. When they come home to England they will find their Satur-
day to fall upon our Sunday, and they may thenceforth continue to
observe their Saturday-Sabbath on the same day with us ! "

Large and liberal minds were drawn into this Sabbatarian con-
flict, but they were not the majority. Between the booming of the
bigger guns we have an incessant clatter of small-arms. We ought
not to judge superior men without reference to the spirit of their age.
This is an influence from which they can not escape, and so far as it
extenuates their errors it ought to be pleaded in their favor. Even
the atrocities of the individual excite less abhorrence when they are
seen to be the outgrowth of his time. But the most fatal error that
could be committed by the leaders of religious thought is the attempt
to force into their own age conceptions which have lived their life,
and come to their natural end, in preceding ages. History is the
record of a vast experimental investigation — of a search by man after
the best conditions of existence. The Puritan attempt was a grand
experiment. It had to be made. Sooner or later the question must
have forced itself upon earnest believers possessed of power, Is it
not possible to rule the world in accordance with the wishes of God
as revealed in the Bible ? Is it not possible to make human life the
copy of a divine pattern ? The question could only have occurred
in the first instance to the more exalted minds. But, instead of work-
ing upon the inner forces and convictions of men, legislation presented
itself as a speedier way to the attainment of the desired end. To
legislation, therefore, the Puritans resorted. Instead of guiding, they
repressed, and thus pitted themselves against the unconquerable im-
pulses of human nature. Believing that nature to be depraved, they
felt themselves logically warranted in putting it in irons. But they
failed ; and their failure ought to be a warning to their successors.

Another error, of a far graver character than that jlist noticed,
may receive a i^assing mention here. At the time when the Sabbath
controversy was hottest, and the arm of the law enforcing the claims
of the Sabbath strongest and most unsijaring, another subject pro-
foundly stirred the religious mind of Scotland. A grave and serious
nation, believing intensely in its Bible, found therein recorded the
edicts of the Almighty against witches, wizards, and familiar spirits,
and were taught by their clergy that such edicts still held good. The
same belief had overspread the rest of Christendom, but in Scotland
it was intensified by the rule of Puritanism and the natural earnest-
ness of the people. I have given you a sample of the devilish cruelties
practiced on the Christians at Smyrna. These tortures were far less
shocking than those inflicted upon witches in Scotland. I say less
shocking, because the victims at Smyrna courted martyrdom. They
counted the sufferings of this present time as not worthy to be com-
pared with the glory to be revealed ; while the sufferers for witchcraft,
in the midst of all their agonies, felt themselves God-forsaken, and

THE SABBATH. 317

saw before them instead of the glories of heaven the infinite tortures

of hell. Not to the fall of Sarmatia, but to the treatment of witches in

the seventeenth century, ought to be applied the words of your poet

Campbell :

" Oh ! bloodiest picture in the book of time ! "

The mind sits in sackcloth and ashes while contemplating the scenes
so powerfully described by Mr. Lecky in his chapter on " Magic and
Witchcraft." But I will dwell no further upon these tragedies than to
point out how terrible are the errors which our clergy may commit
after they have once subscribed to the creed and laws of Judaism, and
constituted themselves the legal exponents and interpreters of those
laws.*

Turning over the leaves of the Pentateuch, where God's alleged
dealinsfs with the Israelites are recorded, it strikes one with amaze-
ment that such writings should be considered binding upon us. The
overmastering strength of habit, the power of early education — pos-
sibly a defiance of the claims of reason involved in the very constitu'
tion of the mental organ — are illustrated by the fact that learned
men are still to be found willing to devote their time and endowments
to these writings, under the assumption that they are not human but
divine. As an ancient book, claiming the same origin as other books,
the Old Testament is without a rival, but its unnatural exaltation pro-
vokes recoil and rejection. Leviticus, for example, when read in the
light of its own age, is full of interest and instruction. We see there
described the efforts of the best men then existing to civilize the rude
society around them. Violence is restrained by violence medicinally
applied. Passion is checked, truth and justice are extolled, and all in
a manner suited to the needs of a barbarian host. But read in the
light of our age, its conceptions of the Deity are seen to be shockingly
mean, and many of its ordinances brutal. Foolishness is far too weak
a word to apply to any attempt to force upon a scientific age the edicts
of a Jewish law-giver. The doom of such an attempt is sure ; and, if
the destruction of things really precious should be involved in its
failure, the blame will justly be ascribed to those who obstinately per-
sisted in the attempt. Let us, then, cherish our Sunday as an inheri-
tance derived from the wisdom of the past ; but let it be understood
that we cherish it because it is in principle reasonable and in practice
salutary. Let us uphold it, because it commends itself to that " light
of nature " which, despite the catastrophe in Eden, the most famous
theologians mention with respect, and not because it is enjoined by
the thunders of Sinai. We have surely heard enough of divine sanc-
tions founded upon myths which, however beautiful and touching
when regarded from the proper point of view, are seen, when cited

* The sufferings of reputed witches in the seventeenth century, as well as those of the
early Christians, might be traced to panics and passions similar in kind to those which
produced the atrocities of the Reign of Terror in France.

3i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

for our guidance as matters of fact, to offer warrant and condonation
for the greatest crimes, or to sink to the level of the most palpable
absurdities.*

In this, as in all other theological discussions, it is interesting to
note how character colors religious feeling and conduct. The recep-
tion into Christ's kingdom has been emphatically described as being
born again. A certain likeness of feature among Christians ought,
one would think, to result from a common spiritual parentage. But
the likeness is not observed. Christian communities embrace some of
the loftiest and many of the lowest of mankind. It may be urged that
the lofty ones only are truly religious. To this it is to be replied that
the others are often as religious as their natures permit them to be.
Character is here the overmastering force. That religion should influ-
ence life in a high way implies the preexistence of natural dignity.
This is the mordant which fixes the religious dye. He who is capable
of feeling the finer glow of religion would possess a substratuni avail-
able for all the relations of life, even if his religion were taken away.
Religion, on the other hand, does not charm away malice, or make
good defects of character. I have already spoken of persecution in
its meaner f oi'ms. On the lower levels of theological warfare sitch are
commonly resorted to. If you reject a dogma on intellectual grounds,
it is because there is a screw loose in your morality ; some personal
sin besets and blinds you ; the intellect is captive to a corrupt heart.
Thus good men have been often calumniated by others who were not
good ; thus frequently have the noble become a target for the wicked
and the mean. With the advance of public intelligence the day of
such assailants is happily drawing to a close.

These reflections, which connect themselves with reminiscences out-
side the Sabbath controversy, have been more immediately prompted
by the aspersions cast by certain Sabbatarians upon those who differ
from them. Mr. Cox notices and reproves gome of these. According
to the Scottish Sabbath Alliance, for example, all who say that the
Sabbath was an exclusively Jewish institution, including, be it noted,
such men as Jeremy Taylor and Milton, " clearly prove either their
dishonesty or ignorance, or inability to comprehend a very plain and
simple subject." This becomes real humor when we compare the sjjeak-
ers with the persons spoken of. A distinguished English dissenter, who
deals in a lustrous but rather cloudy logic, declares that whoever asks
demonstration of the divine appointment of the Christian Sabbath "is

* Melanchthon writes finely thus : " Wherefore our decision is this : that those precepts
which learned men have committed to writing, transcribing them from the common reason
and common feelings of human nature, are to be accounted as no less divine than those
contained in the tables of Moses." — (Dugald Stewart's translation.) Hengstenberg quotes
from the same reformer as follows : " The law of Moses is not binding upon us, though
some things which the law contains are binding, because they coincide with the law of
nature." — (See Cox, vol. i, p. 389.) The Catechism of the Council of Trent expresses a
similar view. There are, then, " data of ethics " over and above the revealed ones.

THE SABBATH. 319

blinded by a moral cause to those exquisite pencilings, to those unob-
truded vestiges, which furnish their clearest testimony to this insti-
tute." A third writer charitably professes his readiness " to admit, in
reference to this and many other duties, that it is quite a possible thing
for a mind that is desirous of evading the evidence regarding it to suc-
ceed in doing so." A fourth luminary, whose knowledge obviously
extends to the mind and methods of the Almighty, exclaims, "Is it
not a principle of God's Word in many cases to give enough and no
more — to satisfy the devout, not to overpower the uncandidf'' It is
of course as easy as it is immoral to argue thus ; but the day is fast
approaching when the most atrabilious presbyter will not venture to
use such language. Let us contrast with it the utterance of a naturally
sweet and wholesome mind. " Since all Jewish festivals, new moons,
and Sabbaths," says the celebrated Dr. Isaac Watts, " are abolished
by St. Paul's authority ; since the religious observation of days in the
fourteenth chapter to the Romans, in general, is represented as a mat-
ter of doubtful disputation ; since the observation of the Lord's day
is not built upon any express or plain institution by Christ or his apos
ties in the New Testament, but rather on examples and probable infer-
ences, and on the reasons and relations of things — I can never pro-
nounce anything hard or severe upon any fellow-Christian who main-
tains real piety in heart and life, though his opinion on this subject
may be very different from mine." Thus through the theologian radi-
ates the gentleman.

Up to the end of the eighteenth century the catalogue of Mr. Cox
embraces three hundred and twenty volumes and publications. It is
a monument of patient labor ; while the remarks of the writer, which
are distributed throughout the catalogue, illustrate both his intellectual
penetration and his reverent cast of mind. He wrought hard and
worthily with a pure and noble aim, I had the pleasure of meeting
Mr. Cox at Dundee in 1867, when the British Association met there,
and I could then discern the earnestness with which he desired to see
his countrymen relieved from the Sabbath incubus, and at the same
time the moderation and care for the feelings of others with which he
advocated his views. He has also given us a rapid "Sketch of the
Chief Controversies about the Sabbath in the Nineteenth Century."
The sketch is more compressed than the catalogue, and the changes of
thought in passing from author to author, being more rapid, are more
bewildering. It is to a great extent what I have already called a clat-
ter of small-arms, mingled with the occasional discharges of mightier
guns. One thing is noticeable and regrettable in these discussions,
namely, the unwise and undiscriminating way in which different Sun-
day occupations are classed together and condemned. Bishop Blom-
field, for example, seriously injures his case when he places drinking
in gin-shops and sailing in steamboats in the same category. I re-
member some years ago standing by the Thames at Putney with my

320 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

lamented friend Dr. Bence Jones, when a steamboat on the river, with
its living freight, passed us. Practically acquainted with the moral
and physical influence of pure oxygen, my friend exclaimed, "What
a blessing for these people to be able thus to escape from London into
the fresh air of the country ! " I hold the physician to have been right,
and, with all respect, the Bishop to have been wrong.

Bishop Blomfield also condemns resorting to tea-gardens on Sun-
day. But we may be sure that it is not the gardens, but the minds
which the people bring to them, which produce disorder. These minds
possess the culture of the city, to which the Bishop seems disposed to
confine them. Wisely and soberly conducted — and it is perfectly pos-
sible to conduct them wisely and soberly — such places might be con-
verted into aids toward a life which the Bishop would commend.
Purification and improvement are often possible where extinction is
neither possible nor desii-able. I have spent many a Sunday afternoon
in the public gardens of the little university town of Marburg, in the
company of intellectual men and cultivated women, without observing
a single occurrence which, as regards morality, might not be permitted
in the Bishop's drawing-room. I will add to this another observation
made at Dresden on a Sunday after the suppression of the insurrection
by the Prussian soldiery in 1849. The victorious troops were encamped
on the banks of the Elbe, and this is how they occupied themselves :
Some were engaged in physical games and exercises which in England
would be considered innocent in the extreme ; some were conversing
sociably ; some singing the songs of XJhland, while others, from ele-
vated platforms, recited to listening groups poems and passages from
Goethe and Schiller. Through this crowd of military men passed and
rej^assed the girls of the city, linked together with their arms round

each other's necks. During hours of observation, I heard no word

. . . '

which was unfit for a modest ear ; while from beginning to end I failed

to notice a single case of intoxication.*

Here we touch the core of the whole matter — the appeal to expe-
rience. Sabbatical rigor has been tried, and the question is, Have its
results been so conducive to good morals and national happiness as to
render criminal every attempt to modify it ? The advances made in
all kinds of knowledge in this our age are known to be enormous ; and
the public desire for instruction, which the intellectual triumphs of the
time naturally and inevitably arouse, is commensurate with the growth
of knowledge. Must this desire, which is the motive power of all real
and healthy progress, be quenched or left unsatisfied, lest Sunday ob-
servances, unknown to the early Christians, repudiated by the heroes
of the Reformation, and insisted upon for the first time during a period
of national gloom and suffering in the seventeenth century, should be

* The late Mr. Joseph Kay, as Traveling Bachelor of the University of Cambridge,
has borne strong and earnest testimony to the " humanizing and civilizing influence " of
the Sunday recreations of the German people.

THE SABBATH. 321

interfered with ? To justify this position the demonstration of the
success of Sabbatarianism must be complete. Is it so ? Are we so
much better than other nations who have neglected to adopt our rules,
that we can point to the working of these rules in the past as a con-
clusive reason for maintaining them immovable in the future ? The
answer must be, No. My Sabbatarian friends, you have no ground to
stand upon. I say friends, for I would far rather have you as friends
than as enemies — far rather see you converted than annihilated. You
possess a strength and earnestness with which the world can not dis-
pense ; but, to be productive of anything permanently good, that
strength and earnestness must build upon the sure foundation of hu-
man nature. This is that law of the universe spoken of so frequently
by your illustrious countryman, Mr. Carlyle, to quarrel with which is
to provoke and precipitate ruin. Join with us, then, in our endeavors
to turn our Sundays to better account. Back with your support the
moderate and considerate demands of the Sunday Society, which scru-
pulously avoids interfering with the hours devoted by common consent
to public worship. Offer the museum, the picture-gallery, and the
public garden as competitors to the public-house. By so doing you
will fall in with the spirit of your time, and row with, instead of
against, the resistless current along which man is borne to his destiny.
Most of you here are Liberals ; perhaps Radicals, perhaps even
Democrats or Republicans. T am a Conservative. The first requisite
of true conservatism is foresight. Humanity grows, and foresight
secures room for future expansion. In your walks in the country you
sometimes see a wall built round a growing tree. So much the worse
for the wall, which is sure to be rent and ruined by the energy which'
it opposes. We have here represented not a true, but a false and
ignorant conservatism. The real conservative looks ahead and pre-
pares for the inevitable. He forestalls revolution by securing, in due-
time, sufficient amplitude for the national vibrations. He is a wrong-
headed statesman who imposes his notions, however right in the ab-
stract, on a nation unprepared for them. He is no statesman at all
who, without seeking to interpret and guide it in advance, merely
waits for the more or less coarse expression of the popular will, and
then constitutes himself its vehicle. Untimeliness is sure to be the
characteristic of the work of such a statesman. In virtue of the posi-
tion which he occupies, his knowledge and insight ought to be in ad-
vance of the public knowledge and insight ; and his action, in like
degree, ought to precede and inform public action. This is what I
want my Sabbatarian friends to bear in mind. If they look abroad
from the vantage-ground which they occupy, they can hardly fail to
discern that the intellect of this country is gradually ranging itself
upon our side. Statesmen, clergymen, philosophers, and moralists are
joining our standard. Whether, therefore, those to whom I appeal
hear, or whether they forbear, we are sure to unlock, for the public

VOL. XVIII. 21

322 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

good, the doors of the museums and galleries which we have purchased,
and for the maintenance of which we pay. But I would have them
not only prepare for the coming change, but to aid and further it by
anticipation. They will thus, in a new fashion, " dish the Whigs,"
prove themselves men of foresight and common sense, and obtain a
fresh lease of the respect of the community.

As the years roll by, the term " materialist " will lose more and
more of its evil connotation ; for it will be more and more seen and
acknowledged that the true spiritual nature of man is bound up with
his material condition. Wholesome food, pure air, cleanliness — hard
work if you will, but also fair rest and recreation — these are necessary
not only to physical but to spiritual well-being. The seed of the spirit
is cast in vain amid stones and thorns, and thus your best utterances
become idle words when addressed to the acclimatized inhabitants of
our slums and alleys. Drunkenness ruins the substratum of resolu-
tion. The physics of the drunkard's brain are incompatible with moral
strength. Here your first care ought to be to cleanse and improve the
organ. Break the sot's associations ; change his environment ; alter
his nutrition ; displace his base imaginations by thoughts drawn from
the purer sources which we seek to render accessible to him. For two
centuries, I am told, the Scottish clergy have proclaimed walking on
Sunday to be an act of " Heaven-daring prof aneness — an impious en-
croachment on .the inalienable prerogative of the Lord God." Such
language is now out of date. If we could establish Sunday tramways
between our dens of filth and iniquity and the nearest green fields, we
should, in so doing, be preaching a true gospel. And not only the deni-
zens of our slums, but the proprietors of our factories and counting-
houses, might perhaps be none the worse for an occasional excursion
in the company of those whom they employ. A most blessed influence
would also be shed upon the clergy if they were enabled from time to
time to change their " sloth urbane " for healthy action on heath or
mountain. Baxter was well aware of the soothing influence of fields,
and countries, and walks, and gardens on a fretted brain. Jeremy
Taylor showed a profound knowledge of human nature when he wrote
thus : " It is certain that all which can innocently make a man cheer-
ful, does also make him charitable. For grief, and age, and sickness,
and weariness, these are peevish and troublesome ; but mirth and
cheerfulness are content, and civil, and compliant, and communicative,
and love to do good, and swell up to felicity only upon the wings of
charity. Upon this account, here is jileasure enough for a Christian at
present ; and if a facete discourse, and an amicable friendly mirth, can
refresh the spirit and take it off from the vile temptation of peevish,
despairing, uncomplying melancholy, it must needs be innocent and
commendable." I do not know whether you ever read Thomas Hood's
" Ode to Rae Wilson," with an extract from which I will close this
address. Hood was a humorist, and to some of our graver theologians

DOMESTIC MOTORS. 323

miglit api)car a mere feather-head. But those who have read his more
serious works will have discerned in him a vein of deep poetic pathos.
I hardly know anything finer than the apostrophe in which he turns

from those

" That bid you balk
A Sunday walk,
And shun God's work as you should shun your own " —

to the description of what Sunday might be, and is, to him who is com-
petent to enjoy it aright :

" Thrice blessed, rather, is the man, with whom
The gracious prodigality of nature,
The balm, the bliss, the beauty, and the bloom.
The bounteous providence in every feature,
Recall the good Creator to his creature,
Making all earth a fane, all heaven its dome !
To his tuned spirit the wild heatlier-bells

Ring Sabbath knells ;
The jubilate of the soaring lark

Is chant of clerk ;
For choir, the thrush and the gregarious linnet ;
The sod's a cushion for his pious want;
And, consecrated by the heaven within it,

The sky-blue pool, a font.
Each cloud-capped mountain is a holy altar;

An organ breathes in every grove ;

And the full heart's a Psalter,
Rich in deep hymns of gratitude and love ! "

— Nineteenth Century.

■♦ « »

DOMESTIC MOTORS.

By CHARLES M. LUNGREN.
II. STEAM AND HOT-AIR ENGINES.

SMALL steam-engines of from two to ten horse-power are made by
a number of engine-builders, and are quite extensively used. They
are of varied excellence, like those of larger size, and are well enough
known to need no description here. Those of powers of one horse and
under suitable for use in the household, for amateurs, etc., are, how-
ever, comparatively rare. The danger of explosion, and the require-
ment of skilled attendants, which in cities the law in consequence im-
poses, have operated to prevent their use ; while, on account of the but
little greater cost of the larger and more serviceable machines, makers
have preferred to construct the latter. Some of these small engines
are, however, made, two of the best designs of which, the invention of
Mr. H. S. Maxim, are shown in Figs. 4 and 5. The one illustrated in

32 +

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the first engraving is constructed for pumping purposes only, and that
in Fig. 5 for power. Both forms use gas in the smaller sizes, and are
entirely automatic in their action. They are compact, highly finished,

Fig. 4.

DOMESTIC MOTORS. 325

and can be used anywhere in a house without annoyance, as they run
with almost no noise. They occupy but small space, the boiler-casing
being in the smallest size but sixteen inches in diameter and three feet
in height. The base of the machine has air-spaces to prevent the heat
from burning the floor. The construction and operation of the pump-
ing-engine will be clear from an inspection of the cut. The heater B
surrounds the boiler C C, which is made with pendent water-tubes G G,
among which the burning gases circulate on their way to the smoke-
stack. The gas burns from a double argand burner II, the supply being
automatically controlled by the steam-pressure in an ingenious man-
ner. At I, a valve is placed in the gas-pipe which is operated by
the lever I, the longer end of which is pressed up by the spring M.
A tube, o, leads from the boiler to a chamber in which works the
diaphragm-piston r, attached to the shorter end of the lever L. If
the pressure in the boiler increases, it is transmitted to the piston
which rises and partially closes the valve I, diminishing the supply of
gas. A lessening of the boiler-pressure produces the reverse effect of
increasing the gas-supply. The amount of fuel consumed is thus ac-
curately proportioned to the amount of steam generated by the engine
itself. This allows the gas to be kept burning while no work is being
done, and consequently no steam used without there being the slight-
est danger of an explosion, a feature of gi'eat value in a power-engine
when it is used intermittently, but needs to be in constant readiness.
In the larger sizes in which coal is used, the fire is regulated by means
of an automatic damper operated in a similar manner to the valve
controlling the gas-supply.

The feeding of water to the boiler is also controlled by a very sim-
ple automatic arrangement. The feed-water chamber is placed at the
top of the heater-shell, where it is exposed to the heat of the issuing
products of combustion. A pipe, h, is open to both the pump and this
chamber. So long as the feed-water heater is but partially filled, wa-
ter continues to be forced into it by the pump ; but, when it becomes
full, no more can enter until a portion of it has passed into the boiler.
The admittance to this latter is controlled by a float mechanism, E, F,
D, operating a valve at the base of the boiler through the medium of
the rod o. The float E is a flat, inverted vessel, which is partially sub-
merged when the boiler is full. A weight, D, at the other extremity
of the lever F, is then able to keep the valve closed ; but, as the level
of the water sinks, the float drops and the valve is opened by the rod
o, the pi-essure produced hy the pump forcing water from the feed-
heater into the boiler. By these two devices, the one controlling the
heat by the steam-pressure so as to keep that pressure constant, and
the other regulating the amount of water in the boiler, this steam-
engine becomes nearly as safe, and gives as little trouble, as any of the
simpler forms of heat-engine using hot air or gas. For still further
security a safety-valve is placed in the pipe leading from the boiler,

326

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

at A ; and in the engines using coal, tbe heat of which can not be so
perfectly controlled as that of gas, a plug of fusible metal is set into
the crown-sheet, which melts when the temperature rises above a cer-
tain point, and allows the water to flow out and extinguish the fire.

Fig. 5.

The design of the boiler of the power-engine is somewhat different
from that of the pumping one, but the means of automatically regulat-
ing both the steam-pressure and the water-supply are substantially the
same. This engine has in addition a very ingenious governor which acts

DOMESTIC MOTORS.

327

directly upon the point of cut-off as in the best machines of large power.
It is placed inside the belt-pulley, and dispenses with the ordinary
belt, thereby avoiding the danger of the engine racing through the
breaking or slipping of the belt. The balls are two heavy weights
revolving with the belt-pulley, and balanced by spiral springs. They
are free to move in the direction of the radius of the wheel to and from
the center, and, as they do so under variations of speed, they operate
the cut-off mechanism in a simple manner. The working of this gov-
ernor has been found very satisfactory in use, and it seems to be well
suited to engines of larger power. This engine is made in sizes of
one half, one, one and a half, two, and two and a half horse-power,
and up to five horse, while the pumping-engine is made of a capacity
of from two hxmdred and fifty to fifteen hundred gallons per hour,
raised one hundi-ed feet high. The former amount is pumped with
an expenditure of twenty-five feet of gas an houi\ These engines
have been on the market some five years, and have been found very
satisfactory in use.

An engine of very much smaller power, and quite novel construc-
tion, the invention of Mr. Charles Tyson, has very recently been brought
out, which seems to be well adapted to driving such light machinery
as sewing and knitting machines, lathes, scroll-saws, fans, coffee-mills,
etc. It is quite safe, requires but little care, does not easily get out
of order, and can be managed by any one capable of using a sewing-
machine. It is ornamental in design and handsomely finished, fitting-
it to be used in any room of a dwelling that is convenient. Those at
present made are of about one quarter of a man-power (one thousand
foot-pounds per minute), but larger sizes, adapted to a greater range of

Fig. 6.

CENERATOir.

work, will probably be built should the present machine prove satisfac-
tory in use. Gas is used as fuel, but they can be made to burn either
coal, wood, or oil. The construction and method of generating steam
are such that an explosion can not occur, and the steam-gauge, water-
gauge, and safety-valve are therefore dispensed with, with the advan-
tage of considerably lessening the cost. The idea carried out in the
construction of this engine is that of converting the water into steam in

328

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

small amounts at a time. In the steam-engine, large or small, the whole
body of water is exposed to the action of the fire, and a considerable
(juantity of steam is constantly generated. In this, small quantities of
water are successively forced from a reservoir through coils of highly
heated tubing, and there flashed into steam. A force-pump driven by
the engine continually supplies water to the reservoir. The relation of
the different parts of the apparatus to each other, and the working of
the system, are clearly shown in Fig. 6. The long tubing, in which the
water is converted into steam, leads from the air-chamber to the steam-
chest of the engine. It is coiled first in a receptacle through which
the exhaust steam passes, and then in the generator, where it is as com-
pletely as possible exposed to the action of the fire. In starting the
engine, the fly-wheel is turned by hand, so as to produce a pressure in

Fig. 7.

the air-chamber. This forces the water into the coil, where it is rap-
idly converted into steam, and delivered in the steam-chest at the pres-

g, It

sure furnished by the pump. When the engine begins runnin
drives the pump and maintains the pressure. If the engine is stopped

DOMESTIC MOTORS.

329

Fig. 8.

and the fire continues to burn, the water in the coil will be forced back
into the air-chamber, and the production of steam will cease.

When the water is exhausted, the engine simply stops until the
supply is renewed. At the right of the pump a relief -valve is placed
to limit the pressure. It is not a safety-valve, as, even if it were ab-
sent, an explosion could not occur, as the mechanism of the pump is
not strong enough to produce a bursting pressure. The construction of
the generator is more fully shown in Fig. 7. It consists of a cylindri-
cal shell in which is coiled about thirty-five feet of seamless copper
tubincr. In the base of this is a gas-burner, L, and around it is a second
shell, leaving an annular space for the entrance of air. The air is also
admitted through openings at the bottom of the shell. The burning
gases pass up through the center of the
coils and down between the two, and
out by the draught-pipe. The exhaust
steam is discharged through the regen-
erator, where it partly heats the water in
the coil, into this draught-pipe. On first
lighting the gas, the cap A' is removed
and the flame allowed to burn up into
the air, but as soon as the formation
of steam begins the cap is replaced, and
the exhaust steam then creates sufficient
draught to carry the burning gases
through the coils into the draught-pipe.
The generator has but one fiftieth the
cubical capacity of that required by
an ordinary boiler to run the same en-
gine. The engine is of the simple os-
cillating type, and the whole apparatus
is attached to a bed-plate forming the
top of a vase-shaped receptacle. Fig.
8 shows the appearance of the com-
plete motor. In another form the vase
is supported by a bracket attached to
the wall instead of by the tripod. The
vase is used to hold the water from
which the pump supplies the reservoir.
Four or five quarts of water once in as
many hours is generally sufficient in the
ordinary use of the machine.

The engine in this size is far from
being economical, requiring twelve cu-
bic feet of gas an hour, while it only

furnishes a thirty-third of a horse-power. Efficiency, however, is not
very important with such a small motor. This amount of fuel, with

330 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

gas at two dollars per thousand, would only cost a little more than
two cents an hour, which would make the expense of running a
sewing-machine as commonly used inconsiderable. The first cost of
the motor is low, while its simplicity of construction should render
it quite durable.

The advantages possessed by engines driven by heated air over
those using steam, in the matter of safety, absence of the need of
skilled attendance, and a possible higher efficiency, early turned the
attention of inventors toward the development of this class of motors.
Promising as the field seemed, the practical realization of the hopes
indulged in has been far short of expectation. The rapid alternate
heating and cooling of the air, and the prevention of excessive wear
due to traveling surfaces becoming highly heated, have been found to
be difficult things to accomplish satisfactorily. On account of the low
pressure obtained from heated air, engines of this kind have to be made
of such large dimensions that there is little if any gain in compact-
ness over the steam-engine and boiler. This greater size of the work-
ing parts also increases friction largely, so much indeed that what-
ever superior efficiency the hot-air engine may possess, from being able
to work between greater extremes of temperature, disappears in the
power required to move simply the machine itself. In large powers
this engine has never yet been able to compete with the steam-engine,
but in small ones it has proved to be quite an economical and service-
able motor. A number of engines of this kind have been invented
at different times, and some have gone more or less largely into use.
The earliest to excite interest, and to come into a limited use, was that of
Rev. Dr. Stirling, in 1816, which was successively improved by him and
his brother up to 1840. Among the engines which have been more or
less successful have been those of Ericsson, Wilcox, Roper, Shaw, and
Rider in this country, and Lauberau and Belou in France. Hot-air
engines are broadlj'^ divided into two classes by the manner in which
they use the air. In one class it is drawn directly from the atmos-
phere, used, and then discharged. In the other the same body of air is
used continuously, being alternately heated and cooled. The latter
class has the advantage of being able to use the air at a greater pres-
sure, but they need a refrigerating apparatus, which is unnecessary
with the first. When the engine is used for pumping purposes this
constitutes no disadvantage, as the water can be passed around the
part of the cylinder desired to be kept cool, and even when it is used
as a motor, a water circulation can very readily be kept up by means
of a supply tank of sufficient capacity. As the efficiency of any heat-
engine depends upon the extremes of temperature between which it is
worked, either the air used in the air-engine should leave the power-
cylinder at the temperature of the atmosphere, or it must be made to
give up a portion of its heat to some apparatus that will yield it again
to the entering air. The first is impracticable, and attention has there-

DOMESTIC MOTORS.

331

fore been given to the construction of such an apparatus, termed a
regenerator. This has taken various forms in different machines — from
a number of simple perforated plates to nests of tubes. Practically it
has been found most economical to attempt to abstract only a part of
the heat, as to do more offers too great an obstruction to the passage
of the air, with the result of losing as much in power as is gained in

heat.

One of the earliest hot-air engines to obtain a recognized place as a
valuable aid to motive power was the well-known engine of Ericsson,
which has long been on the market, and has come into somewhat gen-
eral use. It is of the class using a fresh charge of air with each
stroke, the air being drawn into the cylinder, compressed, heated, and,
after doing its work, discharged. The engine is made both for pump-
ing and power, and is constructed in sizes up to four-horse. It is too
well known to require any description here.

Fig. 9.

Quite recently a new and much simpler engine designed for pump-
ing purposes has been perfected by Mr. Ericsson, and is now being
manufactured. It belongs to the class in which the same air is used
over and over again, being alternately heated and cooled. The cylin-
der is placed upright, and projects below a table, by which it is sup-
ported, into the fire-box placed beneath. This is an iron shell provided
with the ordinary grate and brick-lining at its lower end when the fuel
used is coal, and with three Bunsen burners when it is gas. The lat-
ter fuel is much the most desirable, as it is cleanly, no trouble, and
allows of starting and stopping quickly, and of always having the
heat under perfect control. The working parts of the engine are a pis-

332 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ton fitting the cylinder tightly, a plunger moving in it loosely, and the
system of cranks and connecting-rods by which the motion of these
parts is communicated. The upper portion of the cylinder, through
which the tightly fitting piston alone moves, is water-jacketed, and
consequently remains cool, while the part below this becomes more
or less highly heated. In this heated portion the plunger moves, al-
ternately displacing the air from above the fire. It is a long iron shell
filled with wool or other non-conductor, and provided with studs on
its sides which keep it from the walls of the cylinder. The machine
is started by giving a few turns to the fly-wheel, when it begins run-
ning of itself, the action being as follows :

The plunger being raised, the air below it is heated and expands,
forcing the piston upward. As it does this, the plunger is brought
down with a quick motion, displacing the air, which passes through
the annular space between the plunger and cylinder wall to the upper
part of the cylinder. Here it comes in contact with the cool surface
of the water-jacketed portion and contracts, forming a partial vacuum
below the piston, w^hich then descends by atmospheric pressure. By
the upward movement of the plunger, the air is again brought in con-
tact with the heated bottom and sides of the cylinder, and the same
operation is repeated. The plunger-rod passes up through the piston,
and by means of the simple system of connecting-rods and cranks
shown in the figure the proper motion is given the plunger. The pump
is placed at the side of the cylinder, and its rod connected directly to
the beam of the engine. The water is drawn into the pump and dis-
charged through the water-jacket, the slight heating of the water in
its passage through the jacket being no disadvantage, while the con-
tinual passage of fresh water readily keeps the cylinder cool. The
engines have so far only been made for pumping purposes, but they
can readily be adapted to those of a small power, by using only a part
of the power of the engine in pumping. Four sizes of the motor are
made, three with single cylinders, six, eight, and twelve inches in
diameter, and one with two cylinders of the latter size. The first lifts
two hundred gallons of water fifty feet per hour, with an expenditure
of fifteen feet of gas, the second three hundred and fifty, the third
eight, and the fourth sixteen hundred gallons, the same height, with a
proportional consumption of fuel. The prices vary from two hun-
dred and ten dollars for the smaller to five hundred and fifty dollars
for the largest size. Only the two smaller sizes are at present made
to burn gas. They are perfectly safe, so simple that they can be used
by the most inexperienced persons, and for their special purpose are
probably as cheap and satisfactory machines as can be made.

Another engine, and one of the most serviceable of this- class of
machines to be found in the market, is the Rider compression engine.
Like the other hot-air engines, it is constructed chiefly with a view
to pumping, but when desired for power in addition it may be ob-

DOMESTIC MOTORS. 333

tained fitted with a governor and the necessary pulleys at a slight
increase of cost. The pumping-engines have found their way into
very general use on railroads, country seats, and in city buildings,
and from their economy in the use of fuel and their little trouble they
have in all these situations proved very satisfactory. They are made
only with coal-burning furnaces, and are on this account more trouble-
some than they would be if using gas, but are still but little more so
than an ordinary coal-stove. Replenishing of fires and oiling are the
only duties to be performed, and these can be done by unskilled labor.
The engine occupies about the same floor-space as a moderately large
coal-stove, and is about the same height. Two sizes are made, one of
six, and one of ten-inch cylinder. The former will pump five thou-
sand gallons of water to a height of ten feet in an hour, or a smaller
amount to a proportionally greater height, at an expenditure of four
pounds of coal, and the latter will raise twelve thousand gallons to
the same height, in the same time, with eight pounds of coal. These
amounts of coal are those used when the engine is run consecutively
for ten hours. If run for a shorter time, the coal consumed per hour
will be somewhat greater, owing to the starting of the fire. The en-
gines weigh considerable, the smaller size being some sixteen hundred
pounds, and the larger about double. The prices do not differ mate-
rially from those of steam-engines of from one to three horse-power.

The internal construction of the engine and manner of working;
are shown in the sectional view in Fig. 10. It is also of the type
which repeatedly uses a given body of air, but, unlike the motor of
Ericsson, the alternate heating and cooling are done in separate cylin-
ders. The air is heated in the cylinder B and cooled in the cylinder A.
The plunger C fits the cylinder A in its upper portion, but is con-
tracted in the lower part to allow of an annular space between it and
the wall of the cylinder. The power-piston D also fits its cylinder
B tightly in the upper portion, but loosely in the lower heated part.
A leather packing, K K, in each cylinder secures as in other engines
a perfect fit of these moving parts. Between the two cylinders is
placed a regenerator, H, consisting of a number of perforated plates,
through which the air passes in going from one cylinder to the other.
Around the lower portion of the cylinder B is a water-jacket, E, and
encircling the same part of the heating cylinder B is a metal shell,
F, curved inward at the base. The extension G of the cylinder B
down into this shell forms a narrow annular space, through which the
air entering the heater has to pass in a thin sheet, and thus becomes
thoroughly heated. In action, the plunger C descends and compresses
the air below it to one third its previous bulk ; then by the further
upward movement of the power-piston D and the completion of the
down-stroke of the plunger, this air is transferred to the heater. This
compressed air becoming heated expands and forces the power-piston
to the end of its stroke, and entering the cylinder A carries the plunger

334

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

nearly to its extreme upper position. The air in eontact with the
water-jacket becoming cooled contracts, and the pressure is reduced
below the power-piston, which then descends by the force of the at-
mosphere. As it reaches the end of its downward stroke and begins

Pig. 10.

to ascend, the plunger comes down and the operation is repeated.
When the air passes from the heater to the cool cylinder A, it heats
the plates of the regenerator and this heat is given off to the cool air,
when it is again forced into the heater. The utmost of the heat is thus
utilized that is possible. The start in this as in all hot-air and gas

DOMESTIC MOTORS.

-^ 1 r

engines must be made by hand, but after a few turns of the fly-wheel
the motion acquired is maintained by the engine.

The engine is supplied with either a deep well-pump, or one for
use when the water is not more than twenty or twenty-five feet be-
low it. The former is a simple contrivance, tubular in form, so that
it can readily be inserted in artesian wells. The pump for use with
water at less depths is of special construction, provided with rolling
valves. It is bolted to the cooling cylinder, and worked directly from
the compression piston or plunger. With one or the other of these
pumps the motors can be adapted to every variety of circumstance in
which water is to be drawn from one point and conveyed to another.
Houses in the country can have as complete a water-supply, and have
it in as convenient a shape, as those in the city, and at but little

greater cost.

One of the best of this class of motors made for power purposes
is the Sherrill-Roper engine, shown in section in Fig. 11. The mamier

336 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of using the heated air in moving the piston differs somewhat from
that employed in the engines above described, being more nearly like
that in which steam is used in the steam-engine. The furnace is air-
tight, the air di-awn from the atmosphere being forced through and
over the lire, and the exj^anded air and products of combustion being
admitted to the cylinder through valves worked by the engine in a way
entirely similar to the admission of steam in the steam-engine. The
cylinder is placed over the furnace, from which it is separated by a par-
tition of iron faced with fire-brick upon the furnace-side. This furnace
is lined with fire-brick upon all sides except the bottom, making a very
durable construction, as there is nothing exposed to the direct action of
the fire, to burn out. The air is drawn from the atmosphere by the up-
ward movement of the piston in the small cylinder at the left, through
the valve B, and on the down-stroke of this piston is forced through the
channel G into the furnace. The valves H and E regulate the amount
passed over and through the fire. The heated air and products of
combustion are admitted into and exhausted from the cylinder through
the puppet-valves, shown in the chamber to the right of the engine.
A steady gradually diminishing pressure is exerted against the piston
by these heated gases, and drive it to the upper end of the cylinder.
The exhaust-valve then being opened by the mechanism of the engine,
the piston descends by atmospheric pressure, forcing the gases out into
the air. While the power-piston is making its doAvnward stroke the
supply-piston draws in a fresh charge of air, which is forced into the
furnace during the up-sti'oke. A fly-wheel makes the motion of the en-
gine smooth and uniform. The power-piston consists of two shells,
the upper one turned true to fit the bored portion of the cylinder, and
the lower one fitting it loosely. This latter protects the first portion
from direct contact with the heated gases, and, as the upper part of
the cylinder does not become overheated, a water-jacket is not needed.
As the furnace is a closed compartment, the engine must be stopped in
order to replenish the fire. This is not so much of an inconvenience,
however, as it would at first sight appear, as one firing in the morning
and another at noon, when the motor is running continuously ten hours
a day, are all that are required. The machine is compactly built, and
runs with very little noise. It is made in sizes of from one and a half
to seven horse-power, at prices ranging from something less than five
hundred to one thousand dollars. According to the statement of the
manufacturers, the engine is exceedingly economical of fuel, the one-
and-a-half horse-power using but forty pounds of coal per day of ten
hours, and the three-and-a-half, eighty pounds. This is but a little
over two pounds per horse-power per hour, a result attained in the
steam-engine only in the larger-sized and most perfectly constructed
machines.

THE ADVANTAGES OF IGNORANCE. 337

THE ADVANTAGES OF IGNOKANCE.

By Professor F. W. CLAKKE.

THE occasional blissfulness of ignorance has long been the subject
of one of our most popular proverbs. Coupled with a positive
statement as to the folly of wisdom, it passes from mouth to mouth
with the authority of an oracle. But the support given to the dogma
is usually of a passive kind. The doctrine is stated, but not defended ;
while on the other hand our journals teem with arguments in favor of
education, upon the importance of schools, and about the best methods
of electing school trustees. The fact that the latter represent in their
own persons the advantages of ignorance — that educated men can
rarely attain to such superior positions — is never urged with anything
like proper vigor. Education in one's self imbues one with prejudices
concerning the education of others ; and such prejudices, with their
attendant partialities, ought to be rigidly excluded from the manage-
ment of public institutions. Accordingly, in actual practice, unedu-
cated men are placed as supervisors above thousands of cultivated
teachers ; and thus, in spite of the schools, the superiority of ignorance
is clearly demonstrated.

In every walk of life, in all professions, a similar superiority is daily
manifest. At the polls, the trained and intelligent statesman is de-
feated by the loud-mouthed stump-speaker, who knows nothing of
jurisprudence, less of political economy, and only enough of finance to
be able to draw and spend his salary with commendable regularity.
The broadly educated, highly cultivated theologian is surjDassed in
popular esteem by the swaggering revivalist, who tears up human feel-
ings by the roots as a child pulls up sprouting beans for growing the
wrong way. In medicine, the quack has five times the patronage of
the well-informed physician, and makes a fat living where the latter
would only starve. Sick people are fond of liberal treatment, and like
to be thought worse off than they really are. You have a slight cold,
and a good doctor charges five dollars for curing you. But the bril-
liant empiric calls it congestion of the lungs, diphtheria, or pneumonia,
visits you twice as often, and charges three times as much, and you feel
that you have got a great deal more for your money. Your own
ignorance chimes in with his, and both are better satisfied. Your
stomach-ache is magnified into gastric fever ; your boil becomes an
incipient cancer ; a slight chill indicates approaching typhoid. The
quack flatters your self-love, exalts your own importance in exag-
gerating that of your disease, comforts you with a good, sympathetic
scare, and depletes your veins and your pockets with admirable equa-
nimity.

The old saying that " fools rush in where angels fear to tread "

VOL. XVIII. — 22

338 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

affords another argument in behalf of the fools. To be sure, the nat-
ural history of the angel species has been but imperfectly studied ; yet
here again our very ignorance helps us. Theoretically, we should all
like to be angels ; but, practically, we prefer to stay where we are.
Besides, familiarity with angels might be exceedingly uncomfortable ;
especially if they should take it into the ghosts of their late heads to
visit us in spook-fashion, with the accompaniments of blue-fire and
winding-sheets. But to the point again. Education makes men cau-
tious and calculating; careful of precedents; afraid of mistakes. Many
a time the brilliant audacity of a daring ignoramus has achieved suc-
cesses which would have been unattainable to orderly skill and train-
ing. Lord Timothy Dexter, that most inspired of idiots, sent a cargo
of warming-pans to the West Indies. The natives took the bottoms for
sugar-scoops and the perforated lids for strainers, and Dexter gained a
fortune out of his ridiculous venture. Zachary Taylor, whipped by
a Mexican army, was too bad a soldier to be conscious of his defeat,
and kept on fighting. His adversaries, astonished at his perseverance,
thought he must have hidden reserves, and incontinently ran away.
Thus Taylor won the battle, as contemporaries say, " by sheer jjluck
and awkwardness." "Against stupidity the gods themselves fight
powerless." Stupidity, therefore, by all the rules of logic, must be
superior to sense, and truly deserves, over all competitors, the crown
of laurel.

The advantages of ignorance may be further illustrated by a refer-
ence to the disadvantages of omniscience. Suppose one of us. could
know everything, past, present, and future — how uncomfortable he
would be ! Looking backward into remote antiquity, he would behold
his ancestral ape engaged in the undignified performance of catching
fleas. Turning with disgust from the past, he would find in the pres-
ent many things as humiliating. Misunderstandings, bickerings, ha-
treds, and slanders, unknown to ordinary men, would stand revealed
before him. And from the coming time he would anticipate trouble
and misfortune ; he would see approaching evils far off in the dim dis-
tance ; and not even the knowledge of attendant pleasures could quite
unsadden him. To know everything would be to learn nothing — to
have no hopes and no desires, since both woiild become equally futile.
After the first excitement, one would harden into a mere automaton —
an omniscient machine — with consciousness worthless, and volition a
farce. Had Shakespeare been able to foresee his commentators, his
greatest works would never have been written.

There are two sides to every question. Like the god Janus, all
things are double-faced. Knowledge is not unalloyed good ; neither
is ignorance unadulterated evil. If ignorance were abolished, how
many teachers would starve for want of occupation ! Were all fools
to become sensible, what would the knaves do for a living ? The igno-
ramus, so long as he is ignorant of his ignorance, is comfortable and

^ESTHETIC EVOLUTION IN MAN. 339

self-satisfied. The educated man sees how slender his attainments
really are, and discontentedly strives for deeper knowledge. Let us
be impartial, whether we praise, blame, or satirize. Blessed be stu-
pidity, for it shall not be conscious of its own deficiencies.

ESTHETIC EVOLUTION IN MAN.

By Professor GRAJSTT ALLEN.

ALL the higher processes of evolution are necessarily so complex
in character that we can really deal with only a single aspect
at a time. Hence, in spite of the rather general title which this paper
bears, it proposes to treat of aesthetic evolution in man under one such
aspect only — that of its gradual decentralization, its increase in disin-
terestedness from the simple and narrow feelings of the savage or the
child to the full and expansive aesthetic catholicity of the cultivated
adult. We have to trace the progress of the sense of beauty from its
first starting-point in the primitive sensibilities of the race or the in-
dividual to its highest development in the most refined and advanced
of European artists.

To do so, we must first find this starting-point itself. What is the
center from which the widening circle of aesthetic sensibility takes its
departure ? In other words, what is the primitive source of the appre-
ciation of beauty ? Putting the question into a concrete form, what
objects did man, as a whole, and does each man in particular, first find
beautiful ? If we look at a cultivated European, we see that he de-
rives great aesthetic enjoyment from contemplating the sunset clouds,
the green trees, the lakes, rivers, and waterfalls, the flowers, birds, and
insects around him. But, if we look at a savage or a child, we see
that for the most part they care for none of these things. We might
almost conclude, on a hurried glance, that they had no sense of beauty
whatsoever. Yet, when we examine them a little more closely, we
find that there are many objects to which they do apply some such
word as pretty, the symbol of the simplest aesthetic appreciation. If
we can discover the limitations of these earliest aesthetic objects, we
shall have solved one of the most important fundamental problems in
the theory of beauty.

The settlement of such fundamental problems seems to me an in-
dispensable preliminary to the construction of a scientific doctrine of
aesthetics. When professors of fine art discuss the principles of beauty,
they are too fond of confining themselves to the very highest feelings
of the most cultivated classes in the most civilized nations. The mere
childish love of colors, the mere savage taste for bone necklets and
carved calabashes, seem beneath their exalted notice. Nay, more, we con-
stantly find them accusing one another of having no feeling for beauty,

340 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

or at least very little. Thus we see Mr. Ruskin and Mr. Poynter each
mutually denying the other's powers of appreciation. But the psy-
chological a^stheticiau can not confine his attention to such exceptional
and highest developments of the love for beauty as engage the whole
interest of these artistic critics. He must look rather to those simpler
and more universal feelings which are common to all the race, and
which form the groundwork for every higher mode of aesthetic sensi-
bility. It is enough for him that all village children call a daisy or a
primrose pretty : he need not go far afield to discuss the peculiar spe-
cific merits of a Botticelli or a Pinturiccio. Hundreds of thousands,
who would stare in blank unconcern at a torso from the chisel of Phid-
ias, can love and admire " the meanest flower that blows," with some-
thing not wholly unlike the welling emotions of a Wordsworth. In-
deed, one is often inclined to fancy that the truest lovers of beauty in
nature, or in the works of man, are not always those who can talk
most glibly the technical dialect of art-criticism.

If we wish to hit upon the primitive germ of a?sthetic sensibility
in man, we can not begin better than by looking at its foreshadowing
in the lower animals. There are two modes of aesthetic feeling which
seem to exist among vertebrates and insects at least : the first is the
sense of visual beauty in form, color, or brilliancy ; the second is the
sense of auditory beauty in musical or rhythmical sound. The former
of the two modes I have endeavored in part to illustrate in my little
work " The Color-Sense " : the latter has been admirably treated by
Mr. Sully in his valuable essay on " Animal Music," which appeared
in the " Cornhill Magazine " for November, 1879. Now, if we look at
the manner in which insects, birds, and mammals apparently manifest
these presumed agsthetic feelings, we shall see that they are very re-
stricted and limited in range. Animals never seem to admire scenery,
or foliage, or beautiful creatures of other species. They do not appear
for the most part to care greatly for human music, or for any sounds
other than those uttered by their own kind. They do not even show
any marked aesthetic enjoyment of the lovely flowers and fruits whose
tints, as Mr. Darwin teaches us, are mainly due to their own selective
action. But, if our great biologist is correct in his reasonings,* they

* I should like to add parenthetically that, since the appearance of my work " The
Color-Sense " and the nunaerous criticisms to which it gave rise, I have fully reconsidered the
whole question of sexual selection in the light of all that has been written about it, and
feel only the more convinced of the general truth of Mr. Darwin's views upon the subject.
It may be naturally objected that I am not an impartial witness in this matter : but I
should like further to state that, on examining the various authorities, pro and con, I find
in every case that the persons who are uncommitted to any special theological, quasi-
theological, or metaphysical theory of evolution agree in full with Mr. Darwin, while only
those differ from him who are bound down, f7i parti pj-is, to some more or less supernat-
ural view of evolution, like Mr. Wallace, Professor Mivart, and Mr. J. J. Murphy, and
who are therefore averse to any naturalistic explanation of the sense of beauty. I hope
hereafter and elsewhere to enter more fully into this important question.

ESTHETIC EVOLUTION IN MAN. 341

do very distinctly display their admiration for the beautiful forms,
colors, and songs of their own highly decorated or musical mates.
The facts on which Mr. Darwin bases his theory of sexual selection
thus become of the first importance for the aesthetic philosopher, be-
cause they are really the only solid evidence for the existence of a love
for beauty in the infra-human world. Granting the truth of his views
(on which I for one have no shadow of doubt now remaining), we have
good proof of a taste for symmetry and curved form in the magnificent
tail of the lyre-bird, in the wedding plumage of the whydah-bird, in
the twisted horns of the kudu antelope ; of a taste for color and luster
in the gorgeous train of the peacock, in the metallic necklets of the
humming-bird, in the exquisite wings of tropical butterflies, in the
bronze and gilded armor of the rose-chafers ; lastly, of a taste for mu-
sical sound in the stridulation of the cicada and the house-cricket, in
the deep notes of the bell-bird and the howler monkey, in the out-
poured song of the linnet, the sky-lark, and the nightingale.

This close restriction of the aesthetic feeling to those objects which
most nearly concern the individual, and through him the species, is
only what we should naturally expect among the lower animals. We
could hardly fancy them interesting themselves in anything so remote
from their own personal wants as the rainbow or the sunset, the blue
hills and the belted sea. They and their ancestors before them could
not have gained any advantage by turning aside their attention from
the practical pursuit of food or mates, to the otiose contemplation of
that which profiteth nothing. Our own disinterested love for things
so distant from our substantial needs has arisen gradually through a
long process of ever-widening sympathies and ever-multiplying associ-
ations. But two things the insect, the bird, or the mammal could no-
tice, and gain an advantage for itself or its race by noticing. It could
pick out by its eye the forms and colors of edible foodstuffs among
the unedible and relatively useless mass of foliage upon earth — the red
berry or blossom from the green leaves, the fat white grub from the
brown soil, the lurking caterpillar from the stalk whose lines and hues
it so exactly imitates. It could distinguish by its ear the chirp of the
savory grasshopper from the click of the hard or bitter beetle, the
pretty note of the harmless sparrow from the deep cry of the danger-
ous hawk or the greedy jay. Thus eye and ear alike became educated
among the superior articulates and vertebrates, in anticipation, as it
were, of their higher aesthetic functions.

In the choice of mates, however, the powers so gained were exer-
cised in a way which we can not consider as falling short of the true
aesthetic level. Even the lowest animals (among those in which the
sexes are different) seem instinctively to distinguish their fellows from
all other species. In the higher classes, where the eye and ear have
been so educated as to discriminate minutely between various forms,
colors, shades, and notes, the instinct must almost certainly oj)erate

342 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

through the senses of sight and hearing. Even among those races of
insects, birds, and mammals in which no distinct marks of sexual se-
lection exist, I believe the sight of beautiful members of their own kind
must necessarily excite pleasurable feelings worthy of being ranked in
the aesthetic class. In other words, I believe every croAV must think
its own mate beautiful — not merely inferentially pleasant, but in the
truest sense beautiful. There mx;st be, it seems to me, such an inti-
mate correspondence between the needs and the tastes of each species,
that the sight and voice of a healthy, normal, well-formed mate must
have become intrinsically pleasing for its own sake, as well as indi-
rectly for its associations. The nervous centers of each species must,
I conceive, be so constructed hereditarily as to answer congenitally to
certain typical shapes and sounds often experienced ancestrally, and
always with ultimate benefit to the race. Though the emotions re-
quire experience of the object to arouse them, when the object occurs
the emotions naturally arise. Just as man has special cerebral struc-
tures— existing, though dormant, even in deaf-mutes — for the percep-
tion and production of human language, so, I can not but believe, every
species of higher animal has special cerebral structures, with special
corresponding blank forms of perception, for the intellectual recogni-
tion and appropriate emotional reception of its fellows and its mates.
These feelings are innate in the sense that they occur sj)ontaneously at
sight of the proper objects. When Miranda falls in love at first sight
with Ferdinand, the only young man she has ever seen, it seems to me
that the poet has truly depicted a genuine psychological fact. At any
rate, it is indubitable that, so far as man is concerned, the human voice
has certain points of emotional and technical superiority over every
other kind of musical instrument, and that the beauty of woman and
of the human form is now and must always remain the central stand-
ard of beauty for all humanity.

The heart and core of such a fixed hereditary taste for each species
must consist in the appreciation of the pure and healthy typical spe-
cific form. The ugly for every, kind, in its own eyes, must always be
(in the main) the deformed, the aberrant, the weakly, the unnatural,
the impotent. The beautiful for every kind must similarly be (in the
main) the healthy, the normal, the strong, the perfect, and the paren-
tally sound.* Were it ever otherwise — did any race or kind ever
habitually prefer the morbid to the sound, that race or kind must be
on the high-road to extinction. The more every individual shares the
healthiest tastes of its kind, and puts them in practice in the choice of
a mate, the more is he or she insuring for descendants a healthy and a
successful life whereby it hands on its own sound taste to future gen-

* This doctrine has been admirably illustrated by Mr. Herbert Spencer so far as re-
gards the human species, in his essay on " Personal Beauty," which, though published
long before the appearance of the " Descent of Man," really contains the germ of the
doctrine of sexual selection.

ESTHETIC EVOLUTION IN MAN. 343

erations. But, besides this fundamental typical beauty — the beauty
which consists in full realization of the normal specific form — ^.there is
another source of personal beauty on which sexual selection may act,
and through which it has produced the greater number of its most
striking effects. This source may be found in the exercise of tastes
otherwise acquired upon relatively unimportant details of form, color,
or musical abilities. The taste for bright hues, acquired through the
search for food in blossoms, berries, or brilliant insects, may be trans-
ferred to the search for mates, so that those mates will be most pre-
ferred which happen to vary most from the original typical coloration
in the direction of more brilliant hues. The taste for musical sound,
implied, as I have elsewhere tried to show on the lines laid down by
Helmholtz, in the very structure of the auditory apparatus (at least in
birds and mammals), may be exercised in the preference given among
birds to the sweetest or the loudest singers. Unimportant ornamental
points may thus be constantly developed by continual selection of
small gradations, when they do not interfere with the general effi-
ciency of the organism, till at length we get such highly evolved
aesthetic products as the waving plumage of the bird-of -paradise, the
sculptured antlers of the gazelle, and the varied song of the mocking-
bird. And since, as Mr. Wallace has shown (he himself believes in
opposition to, but I rather fancy in confirmation of, Mr. Darwin's
theory), these ornamental adjuncts or faculties are most likely to co-
exist with the highest sexual efliciency, it must happen that in the
main sexual selection and natural selection will reenforce one another,
the strongest and best being always on an average the most beauti-
ful, and hence the most pleasing to all possible mates.

In this way, I take it, a sense of beauty in the contemplation of
their own mates must have grown up among all the higher animals,
and must have became strongest and most discriminative among those
whose mates have undergone the greatest amount of ornamental dif-
ferentiation. And as the secondary differences between man and wo-
man as to beard, hair, and features, are greater than between the two
sexes of almost any other quadrumanous animal, we may conclude that"
man's aesthetic appreciation of beauty in his own species has always
been very considerable. Of this aesthetic appreciation, the secondary
differences in question are at once the proof, the cause, and the effect.
For, in the constant action and reaction of heredity and adaptation, it
must happen that the greater the original taste, the more will it be
exerted in the choice of mates ; and, the more it is exerted in each
generation, the greater will be its effects, and the more will the taste
be strengthened in all future generations.

This, then, would seem to be the primitive starting-point of which
we are in search. Man in his earliest human condition, as he first
evolved from the undifferentiated anthropoidal stage, must have pos-
sessed certain vague elements of aesthetic feeling : but they can have

344 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

been exerted or risen into conscious prominence only, it would seem,
in the relation of primeval courtship and wedlock. He must have
been already endowed with a sense of beauty in form and symmetry,
a sense which, in spite of its wide expansion and generalization in
subsequent ages, still attaches itself above every other object, even with
Hellenic or modern sculptors, to the human face and figure. He must
also have been sensible to the beauty of color and luster, rendered
faintly conscious in the case of flowers, fruits, and feathers, but prob-
ably attaining its fullest measure only in the eyes, hair, teeth, lips,
and glossy black complexion of his early mates. And he must have
been moved, as Mr. Darwin argues, by musical tones and combina-
tions, though chiefly in the form of human song or rhythm alone. In
short, the primitive human conception of beauty must, I believe, have
been purely anthrojnmstic — must have gathered mainly around the
personality of man or woman ; and all its subsequent history must be
that of an apanthropinization (I aj)ologize for the ugly but convenient
word), a gradual regression or concentric widening of aesthetic feeling
around this fixed point which remains to the very last its natural cen-
ter. By the common consent of poets, painters, sculptors, and the
World at large, the standard of beaiity for mankind is still to be found
in the features and figure of a lovely woman.

Probably primitive man admired his pre-glacial Phyllis or Neaera,
admired himself, and perhaps also admired his fellow-man. So far as
I can learn, there are no savages so low that they do not discriminate
between pretty squaws or gins and plain ones, between handsome men
and ugly ones. Our own children appear to me to make the distinc-
tion among their playmates from a very early age. And, in both
cases, I am satisfied that their judgment in the main agrees with our
own.* But it does not seem likely that primitive man took much no-
tice of scenery, of organic beauty as a whole, or even very largely of
beauty in flowers, berries, butterflies, and shells. Yet there was an ob-
vious link, a simple stepping-stone, by which nascent aesthetic feeling
might easily pass from the one stage to the other. That link is given
us in the love for personal decoration.

Not only does every unsophisticated man wish to find a pretty mate,
but he also wishes to look to advantage in her eyes and those of his
rivals. Similarly, every woman wishes to look pleasing toward all
men. The most naked savages take immense pains with their fantas-
tic coiffures. Even birds display their beauty to the best advantage,
and sing in emulation with one another till their strength fails them.
But birds and mammals generally go no further than this : man can
take one step in advance, and add to his natural beauty, or conceal his

* I noticed ia Jamaica that the negroes §fenerally considered as pretty negresses the
same women as we should ourselves have selected among them ; and many persons who
have traveled among various savage races, and whom I have had an opportunity of ques-
tioning, confirm this general conclusion.

jESTHETIG evolution in man. 345

natural defects, by borrowed plumes. So the earliest evidence of de-
rivative testhetic feeling Avliich we possess is that of the personal orna-
ments worn by palaeolithic men. Perforated shells, apparently used
for necklaces ; teeth of deer and other animals ; pebbles of rose-quartz
and other ornamental stones ; wrought pieces of bone or mammoth-
ivory — all of them obviously intended for personal decoration — are
found in the earliest cave-dwellings and rock-shelters. Feathers and
flowers we can not of course expect to find in such situations ; but we
can hardly doubt, from the analogy of almost all modern savages, that
palaeolithic men must have used them as much as they used those other
decorative objects. Now, the fact that any such shells or plumes are
sought as ornaments proves of course that they were first admired ;
but the vague admiration originally bestowed upon them would natu-
rally be much quickened and increased by their employment for the
decoration of the person. From being vague and indefinite it would
become vivid and purposive. Our own children and modern savages
take comparatively little interest in flowers in the abstract, flowers as
they grow upon the bush or in the field : but they begin to admire
them when they pick them by handfuls, and still more when they are
woven into a wreath, arranged in a bouquet, or stuck into the hair.
Nay, is not this ultimate decorative intent one of the chief raisons
cFetre for many of our European conservatories and florists' shops?
Is not a cafnellia largely admired because it looks so well in a ball-dress,
and a stephanotis because it fits so easily in a button-hole ? And is it
not a fact that many of our ladies and most of our seiwants admire ar-
tificial flowers, with all their stiffness and vulgarity, far moi'e genuinely
than they admire living roses or lilies-of-the-valley ? We have all
known women whose most real jfisthetic feelings were obviously aroused
by a bonnet or a head-dress.

Flowers are very favorite decorations with the South-Sea Islanders,
and those who have read Miss Bird's and Mrs. Brassey's pleasant ac-
counts of their stay among the Polynesians must have noticed the
air of refinement, the vague aesthetic atmosphere thrown over the whole
story by their profuse employment of tropical blossoms upon all occa-
sions. Feathers, symmetrically arranged, were the ordinary head-dress
of the North American Indians ; and they were woven into splendid
cloaks by the Hawaiians. Corals, pebbles, precious stones, gold and
silver jewelry, cowries, wampum beads, furs, silks, and so forth, follow
in due order. Ochre and woad, for dyeing or staining the body, are
emj^wyed from a very early period. Henna, indigo, and other cosmet-
ics come a little latei'. Among many existing lowest races, the only
sign of aesthetic feeling, beyond the sense of personal beauty and the
very rudest songs or dances, is shown in the employment of dyes or
ornaments for the person. Such are many of the Indian Hill tribes,
the Andamanese, the Digger Indians of California, and the Botocudos
of Brazil. The Bushmen, and to a less extent the Australians, gen-

346 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

erally ranked in the lowest order, reach a decidedly higher aesthetic
level.

In most savage communities, the men, not the women, monopolize
the handsomest costumes, which are worn as marks of distinction, not
merely as ornaments. But the former use must be necessarily deriva-
tive and secondary, not original. Mr. Herbert Spencer has gathered
together a large and interesting collection of cases in his " Ceremonial
Institutions " (chapter ix). Nevertheless, the original aesthetic intent of
most of such decorations is obvious from the fact that they are univer-
sal among women, whenever they do not arise from the habit of trophy-
taking, as with the use of flowers with the Polynesians generally. So,
too, tattooing and other mutilative practices, originally subordinative
in their intention, becoming at last merely testhetic, are prized by wo-
men as increasing their natural attractions. Every one must remember
the plea of the New Zealand girls, quoted by Mr. Darwin, who an-
swered the remonstrances of the missionary against tattooing by say-
ing, " We must have just a few lines upon our lips, or else when we
grow old we shall be so very ugly." Similarly, Central African women
admire their own peUl'e, the piece of wood inserted in their mutilated
lips. I notice in many works of travel that, even where the men almost
or entirely monopolize the ornaments, the women are always described
as displaying great admiration for the beads, red cloth, and other finery
taken about by travelers. I may add that I am often struck by the
extraordinary folly of missionaries, who habitually preach down the
love of ornament on the part of savages or of emancipated slaves
(especially the women), when in reality this love is the first step in
aesthetic progress, and the one possible civilizing element in their other-
wise purely animal lives.* It ought rather to be used as a lever, by
first making them take a pride in their dress, and then j^assing on the
feeling so acquired to their children, their huts, their gardens, and their
other belongings.

Such in fact has been, I believe, the actual course of our aesthetic
evolution. The feelings vaguely aroused by beautiful objects in the
non-practical environment become whetted and strengthened by exer-
ercise upon ornaments and pigments, and so extend themselves with
increased vividness into new channels. Art, however rude, has espe-
cially helped on this primitive progress. The appreciation for the
beautiful in man's handicraft leads on to the appreciation of the cor-
responding beauty in natural objects. I have attempted to trace Jliis
reaction, so far as regards the sense of symmetry, in a prefrr^us
number of this journal, f and I shall endeavor still further ia the

* I once asked a West Indian official of great experience and liberal views whether, in
his opinion, Christianity had done any practical good to the negroes ; and I was much
struck by his answering : " Oh, yes ! It makes them dress up in good clothes once a week,
and so gives them an object in life for which to work and save."

f See an article on " The Origin of the Sense of Symmetry," in " Mind," xv.

ESTHETIC EVOLUTION IN MAN. 347

present paper to illustrate its progress in a somewhat different di-
rection.

From delight in the beauty of ornaments to delight in the beauty
of weapons or other utensils is but a step. What a man cai'ries in
his hands is almost as much a matter for personal pride as what
he wears around his neck or his waist. From the very earliest ages,
the material for palseolithic stone hatchets seems to have been inten-
tionally chosen with conscious reference to beauty of color. Among
the minerals so employed were "red or other colored jasper " ; "green-
stone, mottled jade, and green jasper " ; " quartz, agate, flint, ob-
sidian, fibrolite, chloromelanite, aphanite, diorite, saussurite, and stau-
rotide." The bone knife-handles and other utensils from the rock-
shelters of the Dordogne (of palaeolithic date) are admirably carved
into the forms of animals, or decorated with ornamental patterns. In-
deed, both in outline and detail, most works of art of the chipped-flint
period show very distinct jBsthetic care, which is often marvelous when
one considers the extremely rude nature of the tools in use, and the
immense extra labor entailed upon the maker by any attempt at unne-
cessary ornamentation. The weapons of all but the very lowest exist-
insT savages show similar marks of aesthetic care. Their stone hatchets,
besides being exquisitely polished, like those of the European neolithic
age, are fitted in smooth wooden handles, and bound to the shaft by
pretty twisted strings of red and yellow fiber. The Australian boom-
erangs are beautifully worked in hard wood. The staves or clubs of
the Admiralty Island chiefs are wrought with the most exquisite and
laborious tracery, which puts to shame our careless European wood-
carviug. The canoe-paddles of other Polynesian and Melanesian tribes
are models of graceful and effective ornamentation. Among many
savages belonging to the second rg,nk, I find few works of art except
weapons or like personal utensils on which any high degree of pains
has been expended. We may therefore fairly regard this as the second
human stage of aesthetic development.

Hardly superior to this second level is the love for decoration on
vessels and other domestic utensils. Yet these, as being just one
degree less personal than weapons, may be regarded as occupying a
slightly higher stage. Calabashes and cocoanuts are almost always
carved or decorated. Pottery from the very first is more or less
ornamental in form, and even among very undeveloped savages is
often prettily molded with lines or string-courses. Many of Dr.
Schweinfurth's Central African specimens are extremely graceful ;
while sevei-al of the exquisitely simple prehistoric forms unearthed by
Dr. Schliemann at Troy and Mycenae have been adopted as effective
models for the modern artistic Vallauris ware. France itself can pro-
duce nothing more beautiful in its own kind.

Decoration of the home is one degree more disinterested than deco-
ration of the person or personal implements. The palaeolithic savages

348 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

who carved the knife -handles and etched the pictures of reindeer or
mammoths, in southwestern France, still lived in caves and holes of the
rock. But as soon as man began to dwell in a hut, that hut began to
take the impress of his growing testhetic tastes. Swiss lake-dwellings
present regular square or circular ground-plans. Esquimau snow-
houses are finished with as much regularity and neatness as if they
were built in the most durable material. Almost all savage huts are
picturesque in shape, and some are even artistic in their simple style
of architecture. The rudest tribes care for little but the exterior of
their dwellings, since the interior is only used as a shelter for sleeping
or a retreat from wet weather, not as a place of reception. Pride in
personal possessions, we must always remember, has uniformly formed
the stepping-stone on which our nature has slowly risen to a higher
aesthetic level. So, we find houses beginning to be ornamented inter-
nally just in proportion as they are used for purposes of display.
Even our own homes usually have the drawing- and dining-rooms much
more elaborately decorated and furnished than the other parts of the
house. The state-apartments of halls and palaces contain all the best
pictures and the handsomest mosaic tables that their owners possess.

At this stage, the governmental and ecclesiastical impetus begins
to be strongly felt. From the very beginning, indeed, aesthetic prod-
ucts are specially the attributes of royalty and divinity. The clubs
and paddles noted above are those of chiefs alone : the Hawaiian
feather mantles were tahoo to the royal family : the ivory scepter and
the vermilion-painted face " belonged alike to the Roman god and to
the Roman king." But, when we reach a state of culture at which
the royal palace and the temple are widely different from the huts of
the subject, we find a great aesthetic advance. Architecture is indeed
a specially regal and religious art. All early buildings of any preten-
sions are either palaces or shrines : only at a comparatively late stage
of evolution, and under an industrial regime, do handsome mansions of
commoners begin to exist. Even in our own day, if we see an excep-
tionally large and pretentious house, we take it for granted that it
is, if not a palace, at least a public building. In India, all the great
architectural works are either mosques and temples or palaces and
mausoleums of native or foreign rulers. In Egypt, they are either
pyramids of dead kings or fanes of still earlier gods. So, too, in Mexico,
Peru, Central America. The catalogue of the works of art in Solo-
mon's temple and Solomon's house, whether authentic or not (and
good authorities accept it as historical), represents at any rate the
aesthetic status of the Hebrews at the date at which it was committed

to wntmg.

The king, then, from the first surrounds himself with such natural
or artistic products as add to his impressiveness and dignity. Troj^hies
and other decorations of M'arlike origin, badges and costumes, paint
and ointment, have been so fully treated in this connection by Mr.

ESTHETIC EVOLUTION IN MAN. 349

Herbert Spencer in his "Ceremonial Institutions" that I need not
dwell upon them further here. But a few words as to later and more
developed stages may not be out of place. Architecture is the central
royal art, and its first object is to " beautify the house of the king."
Beginning with the regal hut, it goes on to the frail and gilded palaces
of China and Burmah, the house of cedar which King Solomon builded,
the vast piles of brick erected by Assyrians and Babylonians in the al-
luvial valley of the Euphrates, the solid granite colonnades of Thebes
and Memphis, the huge marble domes of Agra and Delhi, the stucco
monstrosities of Mohammedan Lucknow, Sculpture first grows up as
the handmaid of architecture, and begins its modern form with the bas-
reliefs of Egypt and Assyria, or the rock-hewn colossi of Elephanta.
We still see the conjunction between royalty and these two sister arts in
the beautiful Renaissance f a9ade of the Louvre and the tasteless gilding
of the Albert Memorial. Beside the ancient Nile or in the courtyards
of Nineveh, we find the subjects ever the same— the king conquering
his enemies ; the king hunting and slaying a lion ; the king driving a
herd of naked captives to his capital city. Thus the aggrandizement
of royalty becomes at the same time the opportunity for the exercise
and development of plastic skill, w^hile it affords models of the beauti-
ful in art for the admiration and the festhetic education of the subject

thronsr.

Similarly with painting. Beginning with the rude decoration of
the savage cloak and girdle, it advances to the smearing and gilding
of the royal hut. Thence it progresses to the brilliant coloration of
Egyptian columns and frescoes, and to all the Memphian wealth of
blue, green, crimson, and gold with which so many modern restorations
have made us familiar. In India, debarred from imitation by Moslem
restrictions, it produces the exquisite decoration of the Taj and the
Delhi palaces : in western Islam, it gives us the gorgeous Moresque
tracery of the Alhambra. In its regular European development,
becoming mainly ecclesiastical during the early middle ages, it re-
asserts its original governmental connection in the palaces of Florence
and Venice, in the Vatican, in the Louvre and the Luxembourg, in
Whitehall and Hampton Court, in Dresden and Munich, in modern
Berlin and St. Petersburg. S5vres and Gobelins were originally royal
factories : Giotto, Michael Angelo, Raphael, Holbein, Rubens, Van-
dyke, all produced their masterpieces for poiDcs or kings — Leo X,
Henri IV, Charles I. Conversely, American artists have often noted
the chilling effect of the want of a court upon the aesthetic susceptibili-
ties and creativeness of their countrymen generally. Europe has, on
the whole, purchased its art at the hard price of its long apprentice-
ship to despotism. In India, native art has steadily died out with the
gradual extinction of the native courts. In Hellas and Italy it happily
survived royalty because pressed into the double service of religion
and of the sovereign people in its corporate capacity. What the

350 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

house of Pharaoh was to EgyjDt, that was the house of Athene to
Athens.

The gods, indeed, have done almost more for the expansion of the
aesthetic faculty than even the kings. If the savage decorates the
living chief and his house, how much more must he decorate and
beautify the image and the house of that greater dead chief, the o-od
— that ancestral ghost whom even the living chief dreads and vener-
ates exceedingly ! Hence, from the very first, while the ornaments of
the king and the god are the same in kind, those of the god are the
finest in degree. As the ghost gradually expands into the vaguer
grandeur of the deity, his worship is surrounded with increasing mag-
nificence. It is the temples of Heliopolis and Benares which naturally
occur to our minds when we think of Egyptian or Indian architecture.
It is the pyramids and mausoleums that form the initial stage of eccle-
siastical buildings. All the world over, the shrines of the gods are
the most splendid of all erections : only where faith is on the decline
do we find the palace or the mansion outvying the cathedral and the
chapel. In architecture, in sculpture, in painting, in music, the homes
of the gods are the highest expression of national aesthetic feeling.
Passing from the painted pillars of Karnak to the temples of Khorsa-
bad and the mosques of Agra, we find the same care everywhere be-
stowed upon the service of the deities. In Hellas, we have the Par-
thenon and the Theseum ; we have the chryselephantine statues of
Phidias, and the votive tablets of Praxiteles. The marbles of Penteli-
cus or Paros permitted the Hellenic Aphrodite to assume a graceful
and natixral pose, which would have been impossible with the stiff
granite limbs of a Pasht carved out from the quarries of Syene. At
Rome, we have the Cai^itoline Jove, yielding place at last to the palace
of the Divus Caesar and to the basilica of the Christian apostle. All
classical architecture, all classical sculpture, the larger pai't of classical
painting, and no small part of classical poetry, are directly due to the
influence of the old Helleno-Italian religions. And whatever little
information we can gather of the aesthetic status of the Hebrews is to
be derived from the story of the hangings and vessels of the taber-
nacle, and the molten sea, the pillars, the bases, the lavers, and the
cedar ceiling of Solomon's temple. Hebrew poetry is almost without
exception devotional.

In Christian times, the connection between art and religion has
been even more noticeable. Our music is directly atiiliated ujDon the
Gregorian chant, and derives its notation from ecclesiastical usages.
Masses and oratorios still compose its masterpieces. Our painting has
come down to us from Byzantine and early Italian models, and found
its home during the whole mediaeval period in the great cathedrals and
churches of Italy, whence it spread to the palaces of the Florentine
Medici, of the Venetian doges, and of the Genoese merchant princes,
and so ultimately to northwestern Europe. The whole character of

ESTHETIC EVOLUTION IN MAN. 351

pictorial art up to the Renaissance was entirely ecclesiastical and de-
votional. We have fed and nursed our taste upon Madonnas and
Holy Families, upon Crucifixions and Assumptions, upon St. Sebas-
tians, St. Johns, and St. Cecilias. Our architecture is based upon the
Romanesque Christian church, whose rounded forms melt into the
pointed arches of the Gothic cathedral. It finds its noblest expression
in Pisa and Poitiers, Milan and Venice, Cologne and Chartres, Lincoln
and Salisbury. And, when the classical revival comes to restore the
older schools, it produces the masterpiece of its newer style in the vast
dome of St. Peter's, where the four chief arts, architecture and sculp-
ture, painting and music, all alike find their chosen home in the cen-
tral point and focus of Catholic Christendom.

Nor is it only in these more notable forms that royalty and religion
influence aesthetic taste. The purple and fine linen of kings' palaces ;
the inlaid cabinets and parquetry floors ; the jade vases and painted
porcelain ; the Dresden statuettes and bronze candelabra ; the frescoed
ceiling, tapestry wall-covers, and carved wood-work — all these belong
to the royal home. Even in poetry, the Queen still keeps her lau-
reate ; and the drama, originally a sort of royal specialty, is still per-
formed at Drury Lane by " her Majesty's servants." Similarly with
religion : the stained-glass window and the marble or mosaic altar ;
the costly vestments and sweet-perfumed incense ; the fretted roof
and the sculptured reredos — these in their turn belong to the worship
of God. Such royal decorations and sacred ornaments react again
upon the popular taste, both actively and passively. As an active
effect, they give rise to and foster artistic workmanship : as a passive
effect, they educate and strengthen the aesthetic faculties of the mass.
Among the lower races, the aesthetic feelings have been closely linked
with the sense of proprietorship : among the higher races, they gain
more and more with every step in abstractness and remoteness from
the personality of the individual. It was in the vast cathedrals of
mediaeval Europe that modern esthetic feeling received its early edu-
cation.

So far we have treated little of beauty in nature : beauty in art has
occupied almost our whole attention. The latter prepared the human
mind for the appreciation of the former. Of the manner in which the
love for art passes into the love for smaller natural objects, which ex-
hibit minute beauty of workmanship, I have already treated elsewhere :
but the taste for scenery demands a few words here. Children and
early races care little for nature : it is only among the most cultivated
classes of the most advanced types that the aesthetic faculty reaches
this its highest and most disinterested stage. All art is at first frankly
anthropinistic. Early painting, such as that of the Egyptians and As-
syrians, dealt only with human and animal figures : it represented men
and women, kings and queens, gods and goddesses, hunters and lions,
herdsmen and cattle : but it never attempted landscape or scenery.

352 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Mediaeval art in its early stages oxAj changed its characters to saints
and angels, priests and bishops. But, as it progressed from its Byzan-
tine type, it also gradually gave more and more importance to acces-
sories in the background, in which hills, cities, rocks, and trees, began
to play a conspicuous part. At last, after the Renaissance, landscape-
painting became a recognized and separate branch of pictorial art, first
Avith an admixture of figures, wild animals, or still life, but afterward
in a more fully differentiated form, with all its varieties of marine,
architectural, forestine, or river subjects, its waterfalls, its clouds, its
rocks, its valleys, and its heather-clad hills. Even in our own day,
very young people and the uncultivated classes care little for any but
figure-painting : children pass over the landscapes in their picture-
books, and fasten at once upon the man on horseback or the boy with
a top. The first object they try to draw for themselves is a human
face. So, too, with literature. All primeval literary works consist of
a legend, a story historical or mythical, the tale of what some man or
some god has done. To the very end, novels, plays, and biography,
the most human in their interest, are the favorite forms of literature.
Poetry at first is all epic or narrative : lyric and descriptive verse only
come in at a much later point of evolution, and are seldom thoroughly
relished by any but the most cultivated. " Tell me a story," says the
youngest child. " History is the most delightful of studies," says the
Roman philosopher.

We may take the Homeric poems as an excellent illustration of
human aesthetic feeling in this its naively anthropinistic stage. In
them we find human beauty abundantly recognized and admired :
Helen, for Avhose sake Trojans and Achaiaus may well contend through
ten long years ; Paris, on whose eyes and hair Aphrodite pours the
gift of loveliness ; the golden locks of Achilles, the white arms of
Here, the hazel eyes of Athene, the fair cheeks of Briseis. There is
much admiration, too, for works of primitive art — the golden-studded
scepter, the polished silver-tipped bow of horn, the jeweled girdle of
Aphrodite, the wrought figures on Achilles's shield, the embroidered
pattern on the many-colored peplum which Theano offers on the knees
of Athene. The palaces of Priam and of the Phaeacians excite the
warmest praise of the rhapsodist. But of scenery there is little said,
as is also the case in the Hebrew poets. The garden of Alcinous is,
after all, but a well-ordered fruit-orchard. Nature is only alluded to
as a difiiculty to be overcome by man — the barren, harvestless sea ;
the high, impassable mountains ; the forests where roam the savage
wild beasts. In the Periclean age, we have a higher but still not a
very exalted standard as regards natural beauty ; the " Bacchse " of
Euripides being the high-water mark of Athenian love for the pic-
turesque, and standing out in this respect as a solitary example among
its contemporaries. With the greater security of Roman rule, life
became less confined to the immediate neighborhood of cities ; moun-

ESTHETIC EVOLUTION IN MAN. 353

tains and forests and waterfalls became more easy to visit ; and in
the " Georffics " we see the result of the chan<?e. Yet even in the
" Georgics " the view of nature is still very anthropinistic, and the
feeling for scenery decidedly urban. What should Ave say of a poet
nowadays who should apostrophize the beauties of an Italian lake
" Fluctibus et fremitu assurgens, Benace, marino " ? Would he not
seem in our eyes to have missed entirely the whole spirit of the scene ?
The words might do for Huron or Ontario, but fancy applying them
to Como or Garda ! Nevertheless, the Roman mind had decidedly
advanced in the love of nature. The Alps were still to Juvenal mere
masses of snow barring the way from Gaul to Italy ; the ocean was
still to Tacitus a boundless waste of western waters ; but the falls of
Tivoli, the little fountain-head of Bandusia, the sweeping coast-line of
Baiffi, the beetling crags of Terraciha, the deep volcanic basin of the
Alban lake — all these could rouse aesthetic admiration and deliarht in
the eyes of a Horace, a Virgil, or a Claudian. With the recession of
the middle ages, when men were again confined to the narrow limits
of towns, aesthetic feeling went back once more to the 7ia"tve anthropin-
ism of an earlier age ; but, since the Renaissance, the love of scenery
has grown perpetually, and it now probably reaches the farthest de-
velopment that it has ever yet attained.

But we must never forget that the taste for scenery on a large
scale is confined to comparatively few races, and comparatively few
persons among them. Thus, to the Chinese, according to Captain
Gill, in spite of their high artistic skill, " the beauties of nature have
no charm, and in the most lovely scenery the houses are so placed that
no enjoyment can be derived from it." The Hindoos, " though devoted
to art, care but little, if at all, for landscape or natural beauty." The
Russians "run through Europe with their carriage- windows shut."
Even the Americans in many cases seem to care little for wild or
beautiful scenery : they are more attracted by smiling landscape gar-
dening, and, as it seems to us, flat or dull cultivation. I have heai'd
an American just arrived in Europe go into unfeigned ecstasies over
the fields and hedges in the flattest part of the Midlands.

The reason for this slow development may be briefly traced. The
minor component elements of scenery must always have been to a
great extent beautiful on their own account even to children and sav-
ages. Thus, the same bright color which gave attractiveness to flowers
and gems must also have given it, though more vaguely, to the rain-
bow and the sunset clouds, which could not similarly be utilized for
purposes of ornament. Color must also always have formed an ele-
ment of beauty in blue sky and sea, red-sandstone cliffs, white chalk,
green meadows, and golden corn-fields. All these objects, however,
being comparatively remote from personal interest, would be little
regarded by the primitive mind. But, when cultivation began, the
care of the husbandman and the aesthetic interest aroused by his regu-
voL. XVIII. — 23

3 54- ^^^^ POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

lar neatness would naturally set iip a new feeling. Straight rows of
vines or olives, trim meadows, well-kept hedges, level fields of corn,
excite the farmer's admiration. This is about the level ordinarily
reached (though often surpassed) by the " Georgics." In the " Iliad,"
when a place is mentioned with any allusion to scenery, it is generally
because it is "fertile," "horse-feeding," or " rich in corn" ; with Vir-
gil, it is the careful tillage of Italian peasants that provokes attention.
But wild hills and rocks are mere barren, good-for-nothing wastes to
the agricultural eye. A few days before writing this paper I was
wandei'ing among the beautiful wooded heights of the Maurettes near
Hy6res, when I came across a party of peasants taking their lunch on
a little plateau outside their cottage. Wishing to apologize for my
intrusion, I said a few words about the singularly lovely view which
their house commanded across the mountains and the sea. " Ah, yes,"
said one of the peasants in his Provenyal patois, " there isn't much to
see this way except the forest ; but down thei'e," pointing behind him
in the opposite direction, toward the great cabbage-garden which
covers the alluvial plain of Hyeres — " down there one sees a magnifi-
cent country." The one view was like a bit of miniature Switzerland ;
the other, like a huge market-garden, as flat as this page.

Even in our own time and place, among our own race, one may see
a similar aesthetic level with farmers and laborers. " So you're going
to Devonshire," said a Lincolnshire yeoman to his minister (from whom
I have the story) ; "you'll find it a poor sort of country after this.
You'll never see a field of corn like ours down there, I take it." "Your
country, sir," says a distinguished American visitor in England, " is
very beautiful. In many parts you may go for miles together, and
never see a tree except in a hedge. Nothing more beautiful can be
conceived." (I take the words down from tlie report of an "inter-
viewer.") To the farmer, hills like those of Devonshire were mere
obstructions to ploughing : in the eyes of the practical American,
trees were simply objects to be stumped and annihilated in the interest
of good farming.

So long as communications are difficult and roads bad, this agricul-
tural aspect of natural beauty will remain uppermost. It is difficult
to appreciate scenery in the midst of practical discomforts. The Alps
were naturally mere barriers of snow to Hannibal and Csesar. The
Scotch Highlands were less beautiful to Lowlanders when they were
inhabited by hostile clansmen with a taste for cattle-lifting. Even in
the last century, one is struck by the many serious discomforts which
Johnson suffered in going to the Hebrides or traveling through Wales.
Telford's Holyhead road must have done much to quicken the sesthetic
sensibilities of the eighteenth century in England. I have myself
noted in Jamaica how much the appreciation of really beautiful scenery
is spoiled by the discomforts of the climate and the difficulties of trans-
port. In such circumstances, an aesthetic feeling for scenery can hardly

ESTHETIC EVOLUTION IN MAN. 355

develop itself. Still less could it do so during the perpetual state of
siege in the middle ages, or the constant warfare of tlie little Hellenic
republics, when no man could travel a few miles from home save on
urgent business and with due precautions. A lovely pass or a frown-
ing gorge can hardly become beautiful in the eyes of those who see in
it everywhere a lurking brigand.

On the other hand, when traveling becomes easier, a taste for scenery
naturally arises. All the mental elements of the taste are already pres-
ent ; only their combination is wanted to complete the aesthetic growth.
Tastes educated and refined by the arts of the city must find beauty
ready to hand in much of the country. The garden and park, the
Italian terrace and the Versailles avenues, the ornamental grounds and
artificial lakes of the last century, formal as they seem to us now, show
the gradual growth of the taste. A view from the castle or the hall
becomes a desideratum. To look out upon fresh green fields and
trees rather than upon the walls and narrow streets of a city must
always have been pleasant to all but the most restrictedly anthropinis-
tic minds — though even in our own day there are many townsmen
who would find more to interest them in a crowd of people than in the
loveliest scenery on earth. Again, only highly cultivated minds can
thoroughly enjoy the beauty of places which have been always famil-
iar from childhood : and we can hardly expect a taste for scenery to
develop among people who necessarily live (like all but the most civil-
ized) in one narrow place for all their days. Under such circum-
stances, the perception of its beauty can never arise. The habit of
making tours, at first confined to the very wealthy, but gradually
spreading down to the middle classes and the mass, has undoubtedly
had an immense effect in strengthening the love of nature. Those
who only know the stereotyped features of their own suburban fields,
often flat and unlovely, can not acquire any deep interest in scenery.
But when Wales and Scotland, Auvergne and Brittany, Switzerland
and the Tyrol are thrown open for us all, the habit of comparing,
observing, and admiring grows upon us unawares. Those railways
which Mr. Ruskin so cordially despises have probably done a thousand
times more for promoting a love of beauty in nature than the most
eloquent word-painting that was ever penned even by his own cunning
and graceful hand.

If one may trust an individual experience, it is not the first water-
fall that charms the most. Niagara itself, when seen in early youth,
does not produce nearly so strong an impression as the little Swallow-
Fall at Bettws-y-coed in later years. The more one sees, the more one
learns what to expect, what to observe, Avhat to admire. Here it is
the wind-shaken foam-streak of the Staubbach ; there, the little dan-
cing cascades of the Giesbach ; and here again, the vast unbroken
emerald-green sheet of the Horseshoe Fall, pouring in ceaseless n^-
jesty into the seething turmoil of waters at its mist-begirt feet.. Each,

356 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

has its own beauties of grace, prettiness, or sublimity, and each is
largely apprehended and appreciated by means of half-unconscious
recollections of the others. Between the American and Canadian falls
at Niagara, a little belt of water forces its way through the gap which
severs Goat and Luna Islands, and forms a minor cataract of its own,
hardly heeded in the presence of the two great rivers plunging head-
long at its side. If one fixes one's attention for a few moments on
this little sheet of foam, one recognizes after a while that it is really
larger than any cascade in western Europe. And, if you then turn
your eyes to the vast semicircle of deej^-green water on your right,
you feel at once that without that standard of measurement your eye
and brain would have failed adequately to grasp the mighty dimen-
sions of Niagara.

Thus, step by step, in our own individual minds, and in the history
of our race, the aesthetic faculty has slowly widened with every widen-
ing of our interests and affections. Attaching itself at first merely to
the human face and figure, it has gone on to embrace the works of
man's primitive art, and then the higher products of his decorative and
imitative skill. Next, seizing on the likeness between human handi-
craft and the works of nature, envisaged as the productions of an an-
thropomorphic creator, it has proceeded to the admiration for the lace-
work tracery of a fern or a club-moss, the sculptured surface of an
ammonite, the embossed and studded covering of a sea-urchin, the
delicate fluting of a tiny shell. Lastly, it has spread itself over a
wider field, with the vast expansion of human interests in the last two
centuries, and has learned to love all the rocks, and hills, and seas, and
clouds, of earth and heaven, for their own intrinsic loveliness. So it
has progressed in unbroken order from the simi:)le admiration of human
beauty, for the sake of a deeply seated organic instinct, to the admi-
ration of abstract beauty for its own sake alone. — Mind.

A JAPANESE TYPHOON.

By Professor T. C. MENDENHALL.

CONSIDERABLE information has been gathered, and much has
already been published, concerning the damage inflicted upon
this coast and in the vicinity by the typhoon which visited us during
the night of October 3d and 4th.

The unpleasant frequency, in this part of the world, of stonns of
the same character, renders their careful investigation by competent
meteorologists a matter of the utmost importance. What is chiefly
demanded, therefore, is the collection of such meteorological records
and observations as may, perhaps, render it possible to trace completely

A JAPANESE TYPHOON.

357

the rise, progress, and varying intensity of the storm. Of course, con-
siderable time must elapse before such an investigation can be com-
pleted ; and, unfortunately, even at best the number of accessible and
reliable series of observations will be greatly less than could be desired
for the successful study of the phenomenon.

In the mean time we deem the matter of sufficient local interest to
justify a brief presentation of the principal meteorological features of
the storm, based ixpon observations and records made at the observa-
tory of the University of Tokio.

Although it can hardly be said that this storm gave any marked in-
dications of its immediate approach, yet it is important to observe that

Chaet showixg the Height of the Barometer feom 8 a. m. on the 3d to

2 p. M. ON THE 4Tn OF OCTOBER, 1880.

Height of Barometer in
Inches.

there was a steady fall in the barometer from the previous Thursday —
September 30th — up to the time of maximum violence of the wind.
The first of the accompanying charts exhibits the barometric curve

358 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

during the most interesting period ; i. e., from 8 a. m., on the 3d of Oc-
tober, to 2 p. M, of the 4th. Previous to one o'clock on the morning of
the 4th but three observations are recorded : at 7 a. m., at 2 p. m., and
at 10 p. M. These indicate a steady decline in the barometer, and it
is not likely that any extraordinary fluctuations occurred during this
time. After 1 a. m., the observations were made hourly, and during a
considerable portion of the time they were half -hourly. It will be
seen, however, that a very important portion of the curve, from 10
p. M. to 1 A. M., is doubtful, and it is not at all unlikely that, had inter-
mediate observations been recorded, the fall of the barometer would
have appeared much more sudden than it does. The minimum ob-
served height was 28"735 inches at 2 a. m. At three o'clock the height
was only a trifle greater than this, and, from the nature of the curve
before and after the interval from two to three o'clock as well as from
the velocity of the wind, it seems highly probable that between these
hours a lower point than any observed was reached. The curve is con-
structed to show the actual vertical movement of the mercurial column.
From the minimum it rose rapidly until 6 a. m., at which hour the height
was 29'386 inches, and from that hour the rise continued with less
rapidity but with great steadiness, until the night of the following
Wednesday, when the reading was 30'378 inches. Thus the range of
the barometer in three days was 1*643 inches. This is more than two
tenths of an inch greater than the range for the whole of the last
year. At no time during last year did the barometer reach so low
a point as 29 inches, and the mean height for the year was 29"952
inches.

The second chart shows the velocity of the wind at different hours,
extending over the same interval of time. These velocities are com-
puted from a continuous record made by an anemograph consisting
of a Robinson's anemometer with Beckley's registering apparatus at-
tached. From this curve it will be seen that, so far as the wind is
concerned, up to about 11 p. m., there were no indications of the coming
storm. At that time a breeze sprang up, which continued at less than
twenty miles per hour until about 1 A. m. when it suddenly increased
in velocity, and at 2 A. m. the record shows a speed of sixty miles
per hour. Unfortunately, shortly after two o'clock, the clock-work
which keeps the registering portion of the apparatus in motion was
stopped, the motion of the pendulum being undoubtedly arrested by a
sudden blast of great violence. This stoppage was not discovered until
3 A. M., so that between these hours the record is lost. At three o'clock
the instrument was put in motion again, and, for about fifteen or
twenty minutes after that hour, the record shows the extraordinary
velocity of ninety-five miles per hour. From this time the violence
diminished rapidly, a velocity of fifty miles per hour being registered
at 4 A. M., and at 5 a. m. it had fallen to less than twenty miles
per hour. Twice afterward, as will be seen by the chart, the speed

A JAPANESE TYPHOON.

359

rose to about twenty-five miles per hour, after which it rapidly de-
clined.

Owing to the interruption in the continuity of these records, it
is impossible to affirm that the maximum velocity of the wind was
recorded. In fact, there are reasons for believing that the storm
reached its greatest violence somewhat before three o'clock.

It seems quite cei'tain, then, that at times during the storm the ve-

Cfiart showing the Velocity of the Wind from 7 a. m. on the 3d to 2 p. m.

ON THE 4th of October, 1880.

Velocity in Miles per Hour.

8. A. M

10. A. M

liM

2 p. M.
4 I>. M.

6 p. M.

12 m

2 a.m.

4 A. M.

6 A M.

8 A. M.

10 A. M.

12 m.

2 p. M.

0 10 20 .30 40 50 60 70 SO 90 101

S p. M

IOp. m

»

I

Note.— The break between § a. m and 3 a. m. In the curve representing the velocity of the
wind is due to the tact that, between those liours, the registering apparatus connected with the
anemograph was not in motion.

locity of the wind exceeded one hundred miles per hour ; and especially
must this have been the case during some of the most violent blasts,
which Avere generally of too short duration to show with their full ef-
fect upon the register made. The fact that the pendulum of the anem-
ograph was stopped between two and three o'clock by one of these

360 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

blasts, and that after three o'clock its motion was not interfered with,
would indicate that more violent disturbances took place before than
after that houi\ A smaller anemometer of Robinson's model was torn
from its fastenings between two and three o'clock, and so completely
demolished that no record even of the work which it had already
done could be obtained. This is much to be regretted, as otherwise
a means of verifying the extraordinary velocity registered by the
anemograph would have existed. Concerning the latter it should be
said that, regarding the smaller anemometer as a standard, it has been
found upon examination to somewhat ovei'-estimate the velocity of
very high winds, and to under-estimate those of low speed. At the
same time it can not be positively stated which of the two instruments
was in error.

A continuous record of the direction of the wind is kept. Upon
examining this it is found that, during the whole of the period consid-
ered, the direction varied between north and west. Up to 1 a, m., of
the 4th, the wind was steadily from the north-northwest. From that
hour until -5 a. m., its fluctuations were confined between northwest
and west. A decided change in direction seems to have taken place
between the hours of two and three o'clock.

The early part of the storm was accompanied by an unusually heavy
fall of rain. The violence of the wind prevented the reading of the
rain-gauges during the night, but when emptied at 7 a. m. they showed
a total of 4'66 inches, nearly all of whicb must have fallen during — at
most — two or three hours.

It may be interesting to make some comparisons between the vio-
lence of this storm and that which was undoubtedly the immediate
cause of the destruction of the Tay Bridge, on the evening of Decem-
ber 28, 1879. Unfortunately, it does not appear that any very exact
or reliable observations of the velocity of the wind on that occasion
were made ; but an approximate measure of it may be obtained from
the testimony of several of the witnesses, who were men of consider-
able experience in the observation and estimation of high winds. The
following selections from the " Times " report of the Board of Trade
inquiry are of interest in this connection. Captain Scott, R. N., who
was superintendent of a training-ship stationed in the Tay, testifies
that his barometer fell from 29'60 inches at noon to 29 inches at seven
o'clock — that being the lowest point reached. Also, that, in the navy,
storms were described by numbers from 1 to 12, 12 being the maxi-
mum. Upon that scale he would describe this storm in the Tay as
from 10 to 11. He had on rare occasions in China and the West Indies
rated storms as high as 12.

Admiral William Heriot Maitland Dougal, who had resided at the
mouth of the Tay continuously for twenty-nine years, stated that his
barometer fell from 29*40 inches to 28*80 inches. The difference be-
tween these and the previous barometric heights is easily explained by

A JAPANESE TYPHOON. 36;

the fact that his house was at an altitude of two hundred feet above
the level of the sea. He declared that the gale was like a typhoon in
violence, and that in all the time during which he had lived on the
Tay he had never experienced a gale of equal severity. In his opinion
the velocity of the wind was from seventy-five to seventy-eight miles
per hour, and that during the lulls it would fall to something like
thirty.

Charles Clark, w^ho was an amateur observer, gave evidence that
29"00 inches was the minimum point reached ; that he had marked the
storm 4 on a scale of 6 ; and that he had never yet recorded 5 or 6.

Other witnesses testified in about the same way, all agreeing rea-
sonably well as to barometric depression and probable velocity.

On comparing these statements with those already made concern-
ing the recent typhoon here in Japan, it Avill be seen that both in
barometric range and in wind-velocity the recent storm considerably
exceeded that which was the occasion of the Tay Bridge disaster.
The barometric change was not greatei', but more sudden in the
former than in the latter. Concerning the direct measurement of
the pressure of the wind in pounds per square foot, it must be said
that the instruments for doing this are, at present, to a great extent
crude and unreliable. It is generally assumed that the pressiire is pro-
portional to the square of the velocity. Upon a scale adopted by the
Smithsonian Institution and by the United States Signal Service, the
velocity of twenty-five miles per hour corresponds to a pressure of
three pounds per square foot. Assuming the correctness of this, and
also of the law given above, the pressure per square foot in the Tay
storm must have been nearly thirty pounds, and in the recent typhoon
here it must have been nearly fifty pounds. It was shown, in the tests
made upon the material of the Tay Bridge, that it might have been
expected to give way under a wind-pressure considerably less than
forty pounds. The French and many English engineers have adopted
fifty-five pounds per square foot as a standard, and about the same
number is used in America, but it seems doubtful if even that fur-
nishes a sufiicient "factor of safety."

In conclusion, the affirmation may be made, supported as it is by
the constantly accumulating evidence of the damage done to build-
ings, shipping, etc., that this was one of the most violent storms expe-
rienced here for many years. From facts already known concern-
ing other points along the coast of Japan, it would seem that, had an
eflicient system of observations, telegrams, and signals existed, timely
warning might have been given of its approach, and possibly much
property and many lives saved. In view of this fact it appears hardly
necessary to repeat the suggestion, the importance of which has been
frequently urged in these columns, that the Government should, at the
earliest practicable moment, inaugurate an efficient and complete signal
service for the benefit of the whole country.— e/f«^x^?^ Weekly Mail

363 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

ARTIFICIAL HYPNOTISM.

By Dr. R. HEIDENHAIN,

OF THE PHYSIOLOGICAL INSTITUTE OF BRESLAU.

THE people of the city of Breslau were, several months ago, greatly-
excited over the performances of a professor of animal magnet-
ism who seemed to exercise extraordinary power. His subjects were
taken indiscriminately from his audiences, and all, even physicians and
men of science, who allowed themselves to be experimented upon, yield-
ed to his control and contributed to his triumph. Dr. R. Heidenhain,
Professor of Physiology and Director of the Physiological Institute of
Breslau, on the invitation of the friends of science, delivered a lecture
on the subject, in which he undertook to give a physiological explana-
tion of the strange effects obtained by the magnetizer, and showed by
experiment that the same results could be obtained by the sight or
presence of inanimate objects. The following is an abridged transla-
tion of this address. — [Ed,

One of the essential symptoms of the hypnotic sleep is the more or
less complete loss of consciousness. It is only in a complete state of
hypnotism that persons subjected to the experiment preserve a remem-
brance of what has passed during their sleep. In some cases the mem-
ory is only suspended, and on awaking we may be able to revive the
recollection by evoking an association of ideas which will put the sub-
ject in train. Sensorial perceptions take place even in the most com-
plete hypnotism, but the power of transforming them into conscious
representations, and consequently of fixing them in the memory, is ab-
sent. Have we not often had experience in the waking state of exter-
nal perceptions which did not pass the threshold of consciousness be-
cause our attention was absorbed or distracted at the time ? Have we
not heard words pronounced around us to which we attached no mean-
ing, which were nevertheless perceived by us, if we may speak in that
manner, without our knowledge, since we may call them to mind by
an effort of memory, provided they have not yet been effaced by a
more recent impression ?

The immediate affection of the senses and conscious perception are
distinct physiological conditions, the latter of which supposes a holding
of the attention. As the hypnotic's faculty of perceiving a sensation
declines, his power of being conscious of it diminishes in a correspond-
ing degree. Then, sensorial impressions which do not excite conscious-
ness give way to movements which are accomplished almost without
our control. A person walking in the street, absorbed in his thoughts,
receives the visual impression of the passers-by on his retina without
paying attention to them, and unconsciously performs the movements

ARTIFICIAL HYPNOTISM. 363

necessary to avoid hitting them. The hypnotic is in a similar situa-
tion. Sensorial impressions of which he is not conscious provoke ap-
parently voluntary and reasoned acts.

The hypnotic, although his eyes are shut, perceives what is passing
around him. The eyelids are not wholly closed. Movements perceived
unconsciously, by the aid of the sight or hearing, are imitated by him
involuntarily and under a constraint from which he can not withdraw
himself, and with an almost servile exactness. Thus he will regulate
his step according to that of the experimenter who makes him act, will
raise his arm to the same height, will bend his body back .and forth in
accord with his model.

Some acts of imitation, such as yawning, laughing, crying, etc.,
take place even in the normal condition ; generally the idea of a move-
ment determines the action, but in induced sleep the contrary takes
place, and the unconscious perception of a movement leads to its accom-
plishment. This relation explains the facility with which hypnotics
are made to execute movements of which what we may call the sensa-
tion has been communicated to them in advance. If the subject is not
disposed to follow the experimenter when he walks briskly in front of
him to excite him, the operator has only to draw him lightly by the
hand to make him follow with docility. We have thus explained the
secret of the power which the magnetizer exercises over his subject.
The former gives an order which the hypnotic does not apprehend, but
which he executes nevertheless if he has unconsciously experienced a
sensorial impression corresponding with the action which is commanded
of him. In testing whether the hypnotic, after waking, remembers
what has passed, it is important that he be not assisted by being asked
a question the form of which will suggest the answer. If he is asked
if he remembers any particular thing, his answer will always be " Yes " ;
but if he is asked, generally, what has taken place, he will answer that
he does not know. The slightest allusion may cause the remembrance
to revive ; and unconscious traces may be recalled on the intervention
of suggestive external excitations. The hypnotic condition, when di-
vested of charlatanism, discloses a multitude of interesting physiologi-
cal and psychological facts.

In a slight degree of hypnotism, the sensorhan commune is still so
free that the constraint of involuntary imitation does not exist. As
long as consciousness is not obscured, the excitation of the motive ap-
paratus by special sensations does not take place ; but when conscious-
ness disappears, the sensorial excitation becomes predominant. So pro-
found states of unconsciousness may be produced that all traces of
sensorial perceptions, and the possibility of executing automatic acts
of imitation, will disappear. A more advanced symptom of hypnotism
is painlessness. Sensibility returns with the cessation of the sleep.
The exaggeration of the reflex excitation of the striated muscles is also
striking and of surprising duration. A person who has been hypno-

364 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tized i>reservcs the reflex irritability for whole days and weeks after he
has returned to the normal state. When this excitation is light, the
conti'action is limited to the superficial muscles. In this condition it
is easy to induce certain gToups of muscles to contract. By passing
the finger several times over the fleshy part of the thumb we may
cause it to bend toward the palm of the hand ; we may cause the head
to assume the position known as that of a wry neck by exciting the
skin over the sterno-cleido-mastoid muscle with a few light passes.

We may act on more remote muscles by prolonging the excitation.
A light rubbing of the inside of the thumb only brings its adductor
and flexor muscles into play. A stronger excitation of the same sur-
face brings into action the muscles of the forearm and the flexors of
the other fingers, which bend strongly toward the hollow of the hand.
The muscles of the elbow and shoulder will be engaged in their turn,
and in a short time the upper limb will become motionless. Continuing
the passes, we may, in a few seconds, cause the contraction to extend
to the left shoulder ; the cramp will then descend along the arm, the
forearm, and the hand of the left side ; the left thigh and leg will
yield to the same influence ; then the right thigh and leg, the inasse-
ters and cranial muscles. It is time to pause. A slight shock on
the left arm will cause the contraction to disappear. We can also
cause it to cease by quickly opening the fingers of one of the closed
hands.

Great prudence is necessary in these experiments lest they be car-
ried too far, and the respiratory muscles be affected. The rigidity of
the muscles may be made so great in robust persons that it becomes
extremely difticult to change the position of the limbs. Tbey are stiff
as a plank, and it is possible to rest an hypnotic by his head and feet
alone on two chairs, and carry him around without his body bending.

The first objective sign of the approach of the hypnotic condition
is a rigidness of the accommodative apparatus of the eye. The assist-
ants are able to perceive this before the hypnotic can feel it subjec-
tively. The distance to which vision extends diminishes ; writing
which can be read from a distance can be distinguished only at close
sight. Remote points disappear from the field of vision. In a few
moments the pupil dilates, and the ball of the eye appears to project.
The complexity of these phenomena supposes an excitation of the sj'm-
pathetic nerve of the neck, which sets in motion the dilator muscle of
the pupil and the smooth muscles of the lids and the socket. The
initial point of the excitation must then be sought in the spinal mar-
row, where the sympathetic fibers originate. Other parts of the spinal
marrow are not long in being affected, as the respiratory nerves, and
the breathing is quickened. The aspirations increase from four to
twelve in a quarter of a minute, but the frequency of the pulse is not
increased.

Some persons are disposed to hypnotism in consequence of their

ARTIFICIAL HYPNOTISM. 365

nervous impressibility, and of the power which imagination exercises
over their minds. Others seem to be rebellious against it, and it is
necessary to prepare them for it. The contemplation of the glass but-
ton exacted by M. Hansen (the magnetizer at Breslau) is intended
solely to promote this excitability. Dr. Braid, of Manchester, first
demonstrated that the fixed view of inanimate objects provoked a con-
dition akin to the cataleptic sleep. Persons put to this sleep by him
became insensible to pain. Some retained a feeling of what passed ;
others lost it. Fixing the sight upon bright objects is attended by pe-
culiar phenomena. The dazzling effect, the flow of tears, and the fa-
tigue of the retina cause the images on the edges of the field of vision
to disappear. The hand that holds the button becomes indistinct and
the button fades away. Phenomena of contrasts are produced, and
posterior images appear during the involuntary movements of the
eyes. Cex'tain feeble and monotonous sounds act in a similar manner
to produce stupefaction. If we cause a person to sit with his back
against a table on which a watch has been put, and tell him to listen
to its ticking, he will in a few minutog fall into the hypnotic sleep, and
will then imitate unconsciously the motions of the operator. The effect
is especially prompt if the eyes are kept shut. Light and continuous
excitations on the surface of the skin exert a similar effect. This is
the pi'operty on which depend the manipulations of touch and the
passes which the magnetizer makes along the face of the person whom
he wishes to put to sleep. These passes produce peculiar sensations,
partly of contact and partly of heat. The sensations of contact at a
distance are produced by the oscillations of the air, which is disturbed
by the hand of the magnetizer. These currents occasion an almost
imperceptible feeling of prickling, of shuddering. The sensation of
heat is provoked by the difference in the temperature of the hand,
which has been warmed by exercise, and of the motionless face of the
patient.

The reactions to the different excitations vary according to the in-
dividual. Some persons are more sensitive to an excitation of the skin ;
others to that of the hearing or sight. The organs in which stupefac-
tion is first felt are also the first to return to consciousness if they are
subjected to an energetic shock. The touch of a cold hand on the
face, a word spoken aloud at the ear, a light brought suddenly before
the eyes, are enough to break the charm. After the waking, the disposi-
tion to hypnotism persists in a latent form. One who has been put to
sleep many times has only to imagine he is going to fall into that con-
dition, to go to sleep really. He has only to sit down, shut his eyes,
and think, to the exclusion of every other idea, of the torpor which is
about to overtake him, for the phenomenon to have its full effect.
There is needed, in a word, to produce this effect, an exclusion of all
change of thought and images. Having become acquainted with this
disposition, we can produce effects which will be really inexplicable to

366 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

common people. We have only to tell a person who has been recently
hypnotized that he will go to sleep at a certain hour, or in a certain
place, or while doing a certain thing, for the phenomenon to be pro-
duced naturally.

The subject may be made to repeat words spoken before him, by
pressing on the nape of his neck. Pressure between the fourth and
seventh vertebrae of the neck makes him groan ; when applied at the
side of the last vertebra, it induces him to draw his leg back ; and if
made alternately on each side of this vertebra, will cause him to walk
backward. Reflex local movements are provoked by the excitation
of determinate points of the trunk : raising of the arms over the
head, by irritation of the skin of the dorsal region of the pectoral ver-
tebra3 ; turning of the arm backward, by excitation of the skin over the
middle vertebrae. If we a2:)ply a hearing-trumpet to the nape or the
stomach of a hypnotic, he, although he may have been insensible to
words pronounced in his ear, will comprehend articulate sounds and
repeat them, even though they be in a language that is unknown to
him. Hallucinations are produced only if the provoked sleep is light.
The hypnotic symptoms may be dissipated by suddenly changing the
excitation. If the magnetic state has been produced by passes before
the chin, it can be made to disappear by reversing them. The con-
traction of the arm caused by rubbing the inside of the thumb ceases
when the direction of the current is changed. A new sensation dissi-
pates the effect of a previous excitation. It is not, then, a matter of
indifference whether we change the direction of the passes : we should
persevere in the one which was adopted in the beginning. Rigidity, if
it is not intense, ceases on the application of a cold body ; a piece of
money, a bit of glass, is enough to dispel it. If we touch the forehead
or eyes of a hypnotic with a small piece of glass, he will open his eyes
and mouth while sleep continues.

It has been asked if w^e can not obtain semilateral hypnotic phe-
nomena by acting on half the face or head. In fact, by pressing along
one side of the forehead or the crown of the head, we may diminish or
suspend the influence of the will on the extremities of the opposite
side. Light pressures on the left side of the head have produced im-
mobility of the right arm and leg. A shock on the left arm caused
this half-paralysis to disappear. The fixed limbs kept indefinitely the
position which had been given them, and were found to be in a state
of cataleptic suppleness. There appeared at the same time an impos-
sibility to pronounce a word — a condition of ataxic aphasia. Passes
on the right side of the head caused the same symptoms, less the apha-
sia, to appear on the left. Simultaneous passes on both sides of the
head developed the cataleptic condition on both sides, aside from the
disorder of speech and the facial movements. In all these experiments
consciousness was preserved, w^ithout the accompaniment of any pain-
ful subjective impression. Lateral passes on the skin of the thigh pro-

EXAMINATION OF THERMOMETERS. 367

(iuced singular disorders in certain sensorial impressions. The arm
which was made cataleptic did not perceive the difference between a
warm and a cold temperature. The eye on the affected side suffered
a cramp of the accommodative muscle, and lost at the same time its
normal sensitiveness to colors. The hypnotic condition can be ex-
plained only by hypothesis. All that is certain about it is, that it is
due to a raoditication of the nervous centers of the brain and spinal
marrow.

The apparently voluntary motions of persons in this condition are
independent of their will, the sensorial impressions acting directly on
their motive apparatus.

»*»

EXAMINATION OF TIIEEMOMETEES AT THE YALE

OBSERVATORY.

Br Dr. LEONARD WALDO.

ONE of the most useful institutions to science in England is the
Kew Observatory of the Royal Society, whose principal work for
the last quarter of a century has been to furnish accurate comparisons
of thermometers sent there by physicists, meteorologists, physicians,
and instrument-makers. The recognized benefits accruing to the sci-
entific world from this well-known and widely popular service at Kew
have caused the managing board of the Winchester Observatory of
Yale College to organize a service having the same ends in view under
the direction of the observatory. Although this work is but fairly
commenced, yet it has met with most gratifying success, and there
have been so many inquiries as to the methods and scope of this ser-
vice that the writer has ventured upon a description suitable for the
pages of the " Monthly," with the hope that in this form it may the
more readily come to the notice of the meteorologists and physicians
who are the most likely to be benefited by it.

Few are aware of the errors found to exist even in the thermometers
of reputable makers. The well-known change which takes place with
age in every thermometer not infrequently amounts to a degree and a
half Fahrenheit within two years from the time the thermometer is
made. The change depending upon the temperature to Avhich a ther-
mometer is heated, even supposing this to be no greater than the
boiling-point of water, may be three fourths of a degree. If we add
to these two sources of error the original error in the graduation of the
thermometer scale arising from the boiling and freezing points not
being properly fixed, and the error arising from the variations in the
size of the capillary tube, it is quite within the range of possibility
that thermometers, which from their general construction would appear

368 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

likely to give correct indications, may really be in error tAvo or three
degrees Fahrenheit at some part of their scales. Thus the "fever"
thermometers in general use by physicians are almost invariably too
high in their readings. An analysis of the results of sixty-eight
thermometers of this description, verified in June of this year, will
show how great this error may come to be : one fifth had errors less
than 0*1° ; one fifth had errors less than 0"4° but more than 0*2° ; two
fifths had errors less than 0"7° but more than 0*4° ; one fifth had errors
less than 1'0° but more than 0*7° ; and occasionally a thermometer
was found which had errors exceeding 1° and more rarely one exceed-
ing 2°. The thermometers on which the above deductions rest were
chosen to represent seven makers, and may be fairly taken to indicate
the liability to error in using fever-thermometei'S which have not been
compared w^ith authoritative standards. It is not unlikely that members
of the medical profession have been sometimes misled by the readings
of inaccurate thermometers, and they may have made such unfavorable
statements regarding the chances of recovery of patients "whose tem-
peratures were high, that the patient, under the influence of his
imagination, has given up the struggle for existence when a little more
hopeful view of the case might have imbued him with fresh courage
and led to ultimate recovery.

The work at the Yale Observatory divides itself into t^vo parts —
the establishing of the standard thermometers with wdiich thermom-
etors sent to the observatory are to be compared, and the -work of
comparing thermometers. The investigation of the standards them-
selves is by far the most tedious of the two ; and as the methods used
in studying the observatory standards are also the methods used, with
greater or less detail, in investigating the higher grades of thermome-
ters sent to the observatory, the methods will be briefly outlined.

It will be necessary to recall some of the fundamental principles of
thermometry, however, in order to jiroperly comprehend the methods
of procedure in the case of standards :

1. Glass mercurial thermometers slowly increase their freezing-point
readings as their age increases after the heating they undergo in filling
with mercury in their manufacture.

2. The readings of the boiling-points are also increased, but in a
much less degree — perhaps not more than one fifth as much as the
freezing-point.

3. Whenever the thermometer is heated at all, the freezing-point is
lowered, and the amount of this depression is very nearly proportional
to the square of the temperature to which the thermometer is heated.

4. It follows from 3, that if a thermometer is kept at the ordinary
temperatures, the freezing-point of w\ater will be indicated by a lower
scale reading than if the thermometer is kept at a low^ temperature.
Now, if we suppose the thermometer has been kept at the freezing-
point of water for a period of several days, and that the progressive

EXAMINATION OF THERMOMETERS.

369

change which takes place in the first years after manufacture has ceased,
the freezing-point which is then determined is called the permanent
freezing-point, and is the zero of the Centigrade scale, or 32° of the
Fahrenheit scale. If we heat the thermometer to the boiling-point
of water, and then immediately cool it and immerse it in melting ice,
we shall obtain another point on the thermometer scale which we may
call the temporary freezing-point, because it will gradually approach
the permanent freezing-point, and after a few months, if the instrument
is not again heated, it will finally coincide with it. The difference
between the permanent and temporary freezing-points is usually about
three fourths of a degree Fahrenheit, and, so far as now known, remains
constant for the same thermometer.

5. The boiling-point of water at the level of the sea, and with a
barometric pressure of 760 mm. = 29-922 inches in the latitude of 45°,
is the second point in the thermometer scale to be fixed. To do this
the thermometer is exposed to the steam of pure water, and, from the
observed height of the barometer, the known elevation and latitude of
the place of observation, the true boiling-point is computed from the
observed one, and the 100° C. or 212° F. is thus fixed.

6. Having thus located the freezing and boiling points of a stand-
ard thermometer, the intermediate points are to be fixed by dividing
the scale so that at every part the length of 1° shall measure an equal

Fig. 1.

volume of mercury. At least, this has been the usual procedure, and
for ordinary standards perhaps it is the most convenient. For stand-
ards to be used in the highest class of work it would be better to
graduate the distance between 0° and 100° C. into one hundred equal
parts, and then allow the observer to accurately determine the value
of the corrections at each degree. Indeed, it is preferable for many

TOL. XTIII. 24

370 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

researches that the whole scale be simply a millimetre one, and care
only be taken to have the millimetre graduation extremely accurate.

The dividing of the tube so that an equal volume of mercury may
occupy the same number of degrees at the various parts of the tube is
called the calibration of a thermometer, and on the pei-fection of this
work, if it is attempted at all, largely depends the value of the ther-
mometer. As Fernet has remarked, the labor of determininsf the
errors of a thermometer is much increased by having to determine the
errors the maker has introduced in the imperfect calibration of its
scale. In observations not requiring an accuracy beyond 0-1° F., it
it might be quite safely left to the skill of a reputable maker to free
the instrument from errors of this kind. It is accomplished by de-
taching a small portion of the column and measuring its length at dif-
ferent, and usually consecutive, parts of the tube. Obviously fron-i
these results may be computed the value of 1° at successive parts
of the thermometer scale, in terms of the dividing engine used by
the makei'.

The precision attained in the calibration of standards when the
greatest care is exercised is surprising ; thus, in the three Kew stand-
ards of the Yale Observatory, the maximum sum of the errors depend-
ing on imperfect calibration is very nearly 0.01° in each of them.

Supposing that several thermometers, by different and equally skill-
ful makers, have been prepared with the greatest care, it is found in
comparing them that they differ sensibly among themselves, owing to
the difference in the glass used in their construction, their varying
sensitiveness to the slight changes caused by the cii'culation of the
water in which they are immersed, and a variety of less obvious causes.
It becomes necessary, therefore, that some definite construction of the
mercurial standard thermometer should be adopted, and the standard
chosen by the Yale Observatory is defined upon the certificates issued
with standards compared, as follows :

"The theoretical mercurial standard thermometer to which this
instrument has been referred, is graduated by equal volumes upon a
glass stem of the same dimensions and chemical constitution as the
Kew standards 578 and 584. The permanent freezing-point is deter-
mined, by an exposure of not less than forty-eight hours to melting
ice, supposing the temperature of the standard has not been greater
than 25° Cent. = 77° Fahr. during the preceding six months. The
boiling-point is determined from the temperature of the steam of pure
water at a barometric pressure of 760 mm. = 29*922 inches (reduced to
0° Cent.) at the level of the sea and in the latitude of 45°."

This standard has its 0° and 100° C. identical with the standard of
the International Commission of Weights and Measures, and the physi-
cists generally have agreed upon the pressure and latitude given as
the most advisable. It is practically coincident with a pressure of
29 "905 inches in the latitude of London, and at the sea-level — the con-

EXAMINATION OF THERMOMETERS.

371

ditions under which the 212° point of the English standard is deter-
mined under act of Parliament.

A description of the Kew standards referred to is given in the
accompanying table :

Maker.

How Graduated.

Length
of 1°.

0

Length
of Tube.

Shape
of Bulb.

Kew Observatory . .
Kew Observatory . .
Kew Observatory. .

585
578
584

— 34° to + 275° C.

— 9 to + 105 C.
+ 14 to + 220 F.

1-73 mm.
3-46 "
1-87 "

1°

0-5
1

618 mm.
455 "
455 "

Cylindrical.

u
u

The tubes of which the Kew standards are made are about twelve
years old, and belong to the series purchased by the Royal Society and
deposited at Kew to be used as standards.

The essential parts of the water comparator in use at Yale for com-
paring thermometers is shown in outline in Fig. 1, where a a' a" is
a bright-tinned iron cylindrical tank 15 X 20 inches, having an aperture
for the stopcock f, a lid a a" with various apertures for the insertion
of long thermometers, and having a plate-glass window 4x14 inches
set in the side. Within this outer tank a smaller copper tank 11x15
inches is symmetrically placed, and rests upon wooden bars which
are supported by the bottom of the outer tank. A window, placed
in the same relative position as the outer window, allows the ther-
mometers which are attached by springs at their upper ends to the
adjustable brass disk d', to be read. The brass axis c c' turns in a
bearing c', and has attached to it two disks, d, d'. A small cathetometer
with its telescope is placed before the, windows, and the number of the
thermometer under observation is shown by means of the graduated dial
at d. "Water of a given temperature is admitted through the tubes at e,
and after the temperature has been brought to the degree required,
it is thoroughly agitated by moving vertically the ring plunger shown at
ppp' p'. The disk d', which is perforated, will accommodate sixty-four
thermometers. The agitation of the water having subsided, the ther-
mometers to be compared are read as rapidly as possible, first from left
to right and then from right to left. Two standards are read at the
beginning and end of the series. It is obvious that, if they are read at
approximately equal intervals, the mean of the two readings will be
free from the error of radiation caused by the slow cooling or warming
of the water. The greater part of the work of the observatory upon
standards is done with this comparator. For clinical thermometers
a smaller apparatus, constructed on the same general principles, is
used ; but, as in this case a much less degree of precision is desired
than in the investigations of standards, the work may be simplified. It
is not necessary, for instance, to resort to the somewhat tedious read-

372

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ings with the cathetometer, and since the thermometers are self-regis-
tering, they may be lifted from the water to be read.

The space between the outer and inner tanks is filled with cotton-
wool which has been picked with the fingers until it has as little body
as possible. The object of this wool is to prevent currents of air,
which would otherwise cause a much greater conduction of heat to or
from the body of water in the inner tank.

The determination of the freezing-points of standards is accom-
plished by the apparatus shown in Fig. 2, where a a' is a tinned-iron
cylindrical vessel 9x9 inches, inclosing a smaller one 7^X5 inches. A
strainer allows the water from the finely crushed ice or snow to escape
into the open space b', and the space between the outer and inner
vessels is filled with cotton- wool. Close-fitting covers prevent currents
of air from the outside, and when in use each thermometer is fitted to
a cork which is imbedded partly in the ice.

One boiling-point appai'atus is constructed after Regnault's plan,
and consists essentially of a brass stand (Fig. 3) supporting a water-
tank w w', 6 inches in diameter and 3 "5 inches deep, upon which in turn
rests a brass section of double tubing having an inside diameter of 5
and an outside diameter of 6 inches. This section, which extends up-
ward 3"1 inches, has three open tubes each 0*7 inch in diameter [v v')
let into its outer wall. At the place which would be occupied by the
fourth there is a small manometer-tube m, with a stopcock s, by which

the difference of the pressure of the steam inside
and the air outside may be noted. Any one of a
series of four brass double cylinders, ranging in
height from three to twelve inches, may be fitted
to this first section by a telescope-joint at will.
Each of these double cylinders has perforations
at its top for the insertion of thermometers.
Around the top of the inner cylinder there is a
series of ten holes, each three fourths of an inch
in diameter, to allow the steam to pass from the
inner chamber to the outer, and thus through the
vents V v' to make its escape. When in use, the
tank 10 w' is filled with pure water, taking the
precaution to put several feet of brass ribbon in the bottom to equalize
the boiling ; and the heat is communicated by means of the Bunsen
burner b'. The thermometers are suspended as at t t', with their
bulbs at h.

Another boiling-point apparatus, to be used for very long ther-
mometers, and where it is desirable to take the greatest care in the
boiling-point determination, is made entirely of glass. The ther-
mometer is completely immersed in steam, and the readings are made
with the cathetometer by looking through the glass and steam which
surround the thermometer.

Fig. 2.

EXAMINATION OF THERMOMETERS.

Ill

A standard barometer, wrapped in cotton-wool and cloth to prevent
rapid change, in the temperature of its mercury, and made by James
Green, is hung on the same level as the boiling-point apparatus, and
the thermometers are read alternately with the barometer. The
cathetometer is used for reading thermometers in both the boiling
and freezing-point apparatus.

For the calibration of tubes, two microscopes have been mounted
so that the position of the two ends of a short mercury-column may be

Fig. 3.

t t'

read at the same time by means of eye-piece micrometers. The observ-
atory is having built a comparator especially for this work, which
will soon be mounted in its place.

By far the most valuable apparatus in connection with this work is
the collection of foreign standards which have been obtained to repre-
sent the work of foreign observatories. This collection comprises sev-
enteen standards of the highest class, eight working standards, and
forty-five comparison thermometers. The makers comprise noted
artists of Europe, and among them are the Kew Observatory; Baudin,
Fastre, Tonnelot, and Alvergniat, of Paris ; Fuess, and Greiner &
Geisslei', of Berlin ; and Casella, of London.

The comparison of the important standards was undertaken by
the Kew Observatory in England, the Seewarte at Hamburg, and the
Imperial Commission of Weights and Measures, under Dr. Foerster, at
Berlin. There can be little doubt, therefore, that the observatory of
Yale College possesses an accurate copy of the standard thermometers
now in use in the prominent observatories in Europe.

It is the object of the observatory to make this service as widely

374 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

popular as possible ; and it particularly desires to be useful to the phy-
sicians, meteorologists, and the commercial manufacturers who have
occasion to use fairly accurate thermometers. The testing of illumi-
nating oils, the manufacture of spirits and ethers, and the numerous
operations of the chemical laboratory, require thermometers of consid-
erable accuracy, and for the benefit of persons using such the observa-
tory has issued a circular which will be mailed on application.

Thermometers may be sent by mail or express, directed to the Win-
chester Observatory, New Haven, Connecticut. If they are sent by mail
(and nothing larger than a clinical thermometer should be), they ought
to be packed in a wooden box, in tissue-paper. In whatever man-
ner they are sent, a little care taken in packing them in soft paper will
materially lessen the risk of accident. Ordinary thermometers are re-
turned to the senders, with certificates stating their deviation from the
true mercurial standard for every ten degrees, within a few days from
the date of their reception. Standards require from a week to a month
for their investigation, depending upon the degree of precision desired
in the final certificates.

The oflicial circular of the observatory contains detailed informa-
tion relating to the supervision of hospital thermometers and the facili-
ties offered to makers. There is no good reason why any maker should
not furnish, with any thermometer sold, a certificate stating the errors
of that particular instrument. That the service will be a popular one
is shown by the fact that already about five hundred thermometers
have been sent to the observatory for verification, and not the least
benefit will be that the errors of every thermometer issued with a
certificate will be on file at the observatory, and this will be of par-
ticular value in cases where a uniformity of data is desired, as in the
case of the United States Signal Service, or the observations made by
isolated meteorologists in different parts of the country.

■♦«»

mDIGESTION AS A CAUSE OF NEEYOUS DEPKES-

SION.

By T. LAUDER BEUNTON, M. D., F. E. S.
II.

BUT bile is not the only substance which produces a depressing
effect upon the circulation when absorbed into it from the portal
system. I have already mentioned that certain albuminous products
of intestinal digestion and peptones occasionally make their appear-
ance in the urine. Among the former is an albuminous substance,
not precipitated by boiling, but by nitric acid in the cold. . This sub-

INDIGESTION AND NERVOUS DEPRESSION. 375

stance I have observed in the urine of a healthy man after he had
drunk a large quantity of strong beef -tea at a draught upon an empty
stomach. My attention was drawn to the urine by the froth remaining
upon it for a somewhat unusual time. On examination, this substance
was discovered in it. On examining the beef -tea which the person
had taken, a similar albuminous substance was found in it, so that there
can be little doubt that in this case the albumen was simply absorbed
so rapidly from the stomach or intestines that it passed without change
through the portal system into the general circulation, and thus reached
the kidneys, where it was excreted in much the same way as sugar
would have been under similar circumstances. We find only too fre-
quently that both doctors and patients think that the strength is sure
to be kept up if a sufficient quantity of beef -tea can only be got down ;
but this observation, I think, raises the question whether beef -tea may
not very frequently be actually injurious, and whether the products of
muscular waste which constitute the chief portion of beef -tea or beef-
essence may not under certain circumstances be actually poisonous.
For although there can be no doubt that beef -tea is in many cases a
most useful stimulant, one which we find it very hard indeed to do with-
out, and which could hardly be replaced by any other, yet sometimes
the administration of beef-tea, like that of alcoholic stimulants, may be
overdone, and the patient weakened instead of strengthened. In many
cases of nervous depression we find a feeling of weakness and prostra-
tion coming on during digestion, and becoming so very marked about
the second hour after a meal has been taken, and at the very time when
absorption is going on, that we can hardly do otherwise than ascribe it
to actual poisoning by digestive products absorbed into the circulation.
From the observation of a number of cases I came to the conclusion
that the languor and faintness of which many patients complained,
and which occurred about eleven and four o'clock, was due to actual
poisoning by the products of digestion of breakfast and lunch ; but at
the time when I arrived at this conclusion I had no experimental data
to show that the products of digestion were actually poisonous in them-
selves, and only within the last few months have I seen the conclusions
to which I had arrived by clinical observation confirmed by experi-
ments made in the laboratory. Such experiments have been made by
Professor Albertoni, of Genoa, and by Dr. Schmidt-Miihlheim, in Pro-
fessor Ludwig's laboratory at Leipsic.

Professor Albertoni has found that peptones have a most remark-
able action upon the blood, completely destroying its coagulability in
dogs, while they have little power in this respect over the blood of
rabbits or sheep. The number of species upon which he experimented
is limited, so that he can not as yet draw the conclusion with certainty
that peptones prevent the coagulation of the blood in carnivora and
not in herbivora, although, so far as experiments go, this conclusion
seems probable. He and Dr. Schmidt-Miihlheim independently made

376 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the discovery that peptones prevented the coagulation of the blood in
dogs, and the latter, under Ludwig's direction, has also investigated
their action upon the circulation. He finds that, when injected into a
vein, they greatly depress the circulation, so that the blood-pressure
falls very considerably ; and when the quantity injected is large, they
produce a soporose condition, complete arrest of the secretion by the
kidneys, convulsions, and death. From these experiments it is evident
that the normal products of digestion are poisons of no inconsiderable
power, and that if they reach the general circulation in large quantities
they may produce very alarming, if not dangerous, symptoms.

Such experiments as this open up a new and very wide field of in-
quiry, which is likely to prove of very great practical importance. We
have hitherto been accustomed to reckon all peptones as identical, by
whatever digestive ferment they were formed, and to look upon it as
a matter of slight moment whether albuminous foods introduced into
the digestive canal were dissolved by the stomach or by the pancreas,
although it is quite possible that the peptones differ as much from each
other as different kinds of sugars. It is a matter of wonder, also, that
at the present moment, although the digestive processes have been so
carefully investigated, we know very little of the uses of the succus
entericus. Notwithstanding the great extent and evident importance
of the intestine, and the large quantity of fluid which it is able to se-
crete, all that we find regarding the action of this secretion in such a
book as Foster's " Physiology " is that " the statements with reference
to its action are conflicting. Probably it has no direct action on either
fats or proteids, but is amylolitic in some animals, though not in all."
Succus entericus has also been said to change cane- into grape-sugar,
and by a fermentative action to convert cane-sugar into lactic acid,
and this again into butyric acid, with an evolution of carbonic acid
and free hydrogen. The reason why experiments on the action of
intestinal juice have given such an apparently unsatisfactory result
is that they have been chiefly tried on such kinds of food as we are
accustomed to put into our mouths. Now, the intestinal juice is not
intended to act upon such substances : its place is to finish the diges-
tion begun by the other juices ; and when experiments with intestinal
juice are tried upon foods which have previously been subjected to the
action of the other digestive fluids, positive and not negative results
are obtained. Thus, for example, it was stated by Kiihne, in his lec-
tures at Amsterdam in 1868-69, that though intestinal juice would
dissolve raw albumen and fibrine, it would not act at all upon them if
boiled ; but if the boiled albumen or fibrine were first subjected to the
action of pancreatic juice for a short time, the intestinal juice would
afterward dissolve them much more quickly than it would even in a
raw condition. The action of digestive ferments is just beginning to
find a practical application in medicine, and sometimes, undoubtedly,
they are of very great service ; but unless their action is investigated

INDIGESTION AND NERVOUS DEPRESSION. 377

more thoroughly than it has been up to the present, it is just possible
that we may by and by find that the digestive ferments, like all other
powerful agents, may do much harm as well as much good. Hitherto
we have been accustomed to regard the phases of digestion, gastric
digestion, pancreatic digestion, and intestinal digestion, as almost sepa-
rate processes, any of which we might increase indefinitely without
doing any harm to the jsatient. We forget the relation which each
bears to the other ; and yet such a relation undoubtedly exists, for we
find that when pepsin is mixed with bile it is precipitated and ren-
dered inert. Further transformation of foods by the gastric juice is
thus arrested as soon as the chyme leaves the stomach. And well it is
that this should be so, for if the pepsin were not rendered inert it
would destroy that pancreatic ferment (trypsin) which acts on albumin-
ous substances, and thus interfere with digestion by it. How far this
prolonged peptic digestion and impaired pancreatic digestion of albu-
minous substances has to do with the production of poisonous diges-
tive products in cases where the quantity of bile poured into the intes-
tine is deficient it is at present impossible to say, but it is a condition
which ought to be kept in mind in all cases where there is deficiency
of bile in the intestine, and the advisability of nourishing the patient
by farinaceous food is constantly considered in these cases.

And now comes the question, How is it that in healthy conditions
of the intestine peptones do not pass into the general circulation, and
are therefore unable to exert any poisonous action upon the nerve-cen-
ters ? This question is one which we can not at present answer quite
satisfactorily.

Usually the peptones disappear from the portal blood before it
reaches the general circulation. Indeed, Ludwig and Schmidt-Miihl-
heim found that even in the portal blood, before it reaches the liver,
very little if any peptone is to be found. They have not succeeded in
discovering where the peptone undergoes change. Plosz and Gergyai,
and also Drosdorff, have discovered peptone in the blood of the portal
vein, and Plosz and Gergyai have been led, by their experiments, to
regard the liver as the seat of the transformation of peptones. In con-
sideration of the more recent experiments of Ludwig and Schmidt-
Miihlheim, we can not entirely adopt the view of these authors, though
it is nevertheless possible that they are to a certain extent right, and
that the liver, to some extent at least, serves the purpose of preventing
any peptones from getting into the general circulation, which may
have escaped transformation in the portal blood before reaching it.*

And now, having run over in this cursory manner some points con-
nected with digestion and with the functions of the liver, we come
back to the question of why it is that the mental worker becomes de-

*Schmidt-Muhlheim, "Archiv fiir Anatomie und Physiologie ; physiologische Abth.,"
1. & 2. Heft, 1S80, p. 33. Albertoni, " Ceiitralblatt f. d. medicinischen Wissenschaften,"
1880, p. 577.

378 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

pressed, irritable, melancholy, and, it may be, stupid and forgetful,
after a few months' work, although every part of his body may be
organically healthy, and a month's holiday may be sufficient to restore
every organ to perfect functional activity ? One reason, no doubt,
may be that his systematic overwork may produce a diminution in the
energy-yielding substance of his nerve-centers, just as we see that a
certain amount of atrophy occasionally occurs in overworked muscles.
But this does not seem very probable. It seems much more likely that
they cease to act in the normal way because, during each day's activ-
ity, a certain amount of waste product is formed which is not perfectly
removed during the hours of rest.

All throughout the body we have most elaborate arrangements for
removing waste products. In the muscles, for example, we find that
the fascia which surrounds them forms a regular pumping arrange-
ment, the two layers of Avhich it consists being separated from each
other at each muscular relaxation, and pressed together at each con-
traction.* The lymph and the waste products which it contains are
thereby actually pumped out of the muscle at each contraction, and
sent onward into the larger lymph-channels, so that the muscular action
itself removes the waste products. At the same time we find that the
movement of the muscles of the leg, for example, will also pump out
the blood from the veins, sending it upward from the feet, and press-
ing it upward to the body.f

Again, we find that in the abdomen and thorax we have pumping
arrangements, whereby any excess of the serous fluid which bathes the
intestines and lungs is pumped out of the peritoneal pleural cavities by
the action of respiration. The two layers of the central tendon of the
diaphragm and of the pleura here form pumping arrangements similar
to the fascia in the leg.

The brain and spinal cord, being inclosed in rigid cases, have no
pumping arrangements in immediate connection with them, but the
circulation of the cerebro-spinal fluid in them is probably affected also
by the movements of the thorax and abdomen. The cavity of the
arachnoid and of the cerebral ventricles is not only continuous with
similar cavities in the spinal cord, but also with the lymph-space sur-
rounding the choroid, with the interior chamber of the eye, and even
with the lumbar lymphatics ; and Professor Schwalbe has succeeded
in injecting these parts by a single insertion of the nozzle of his inject-
ing syringe into the arachnoid. His observations have been confirmed
and extended by Althann.J The experiments of Quincke have shown
that during life a current exists in the cerebro-spinal fluid, both from
above downward and from below upward. § The cause of this current

* Ludwig and Gencrsich, p. 53, "Ludwig's Arbeiten," 1870.

f Braune, "Ber. der siichs. Gesell. d. Wiss.," 1870, p. 251.

X Althann, vide " Virchow's Jahresbericlit," 1872, p. 156.

§ Several authors, as Abel Key and Retzius (" Nordisk medicinsk Arkiv.," 1870,

INDIGESTION AND NERVOUS DEPRESSION, i-jc,

is, in all probability, the respiratory movements. We have, indeed, in
the brain and spinal cord, a condition not unlike that which exists in
the fascia covering muscles, where the muscular substance during its
contraction presses flexibly the inner against the unyielding outer layer
of the fascia, and thus produces, in the space between them, a pumping
action. The skull and vertebral canal would correspond to the hard
outer layer or fascia ; and the brain and cord, which, as we know, ex-
pand and retract during the movements of respiration, when a part of
their bony case is removed, will have a similar pumping action upon
the cerebral spinal fluid to that of the muscle upon the lymph in the
fascia.

In the case of the brain and the cord there will be, in addition, a
pumping action produced by the very circulation of the blood in them,
the alternate expansion and dilatation corresponding to the heart's
beats, having a similar effect to that produced by the respiratory move-
ments. As stimulation of the brain causes dilatation of its vessels,
and increases the flow of blood through them, mental action of itself
not only attracts more blood to the brain, but provides to some extent
for the removal of waste products. The movements induced by the
cardiac pulsations are not so extensive as those caused by the respira-
tory movements or by muscular exertion, and therefore, when the
brain is overworked, and the respiration and muscular movements are
underworked, the cerebral nutrition will be diminished by the imper-
fect removal of waste from its substance. But if, in addition to this,
the cerebral cells and fibers are actually poisoned by the circulation
within the vessels which supply them, of noxious substances due to
imperfect digestion or assimilation, matters will become very much
worse,

"We have already seen how much the liver has to do with such a
condition. Now, while the brain is being taxed to its utmost, the
worker generally gets but very little exercise. The consequence of
this is, that although the respiratory movements still go on with regu-
larity, and the pressure of the diaphragm upon the liver at each respi-
ration presses the bile more or less out of the liver, yet the pressure
thus exerted is very much less than would be the case if the individual
were making occasional vigorous efforts during which the breath was
held, and the muscles of the abdomen put into action, as, for instance,
in springing from bowlder to bowlder on the moraine of a Swiss glacier.
So long as the brain-worker is exceedingly careful what he eats, so
that no excess of bile is formed, and is fortunate enough to escape
duodenal catarrh, so that no impediment, however slight, prevents the
flow of bile into the intestine, he may get along perfectly well ; but if
he be unfortunate enough to get what is commonly known as cold in

II, 1, 13-18; " Centralblatt fiir Medicinischen Wissenschaften," ISYl, p. 514); Quincke
("Reichert's und Du Bois-Reymond's Archiv," 1872, 153-177; "Centralblatt fiir Med.
Wissen.," 1872, p. 898).

380 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the stomach, or unwary enough to irritate the mucous membrane of
his stomach or duodenum by wines or spirits, the case is at once altered,
for now the swollen mucous membrane of the duodenum tends to close
the orifice of the bile-duct, or the congestion may even extend up the
duct itself. Thus an impediment, however slight it may be, is opposed
to the exit of bile from the liver. The pressui'e under which the bile
is secreted, as I have already said, is very small, and there being no
extra pressure put upon the liver by the diaphragm and abdominal
muscles, instead of the bile being at once forced out of the bile-capil-
laries it will remain in them, causing more or less congestion, and now
follows a whole series of disagreeable results. The bile, which may
be looked upon as a waste product of the liver, not being removed, the
other functions of the liver are disturbed. Assimilation becomes im-
perfect, we find lithates appearing in the urine ; the circulation in the
liver itself may be altered, and thereby the whole circulation in the
stomach and intestines may be impeded, for it must be remembered
that all the blood from the stomach and intestines has to pass through
the liver before it again reaches the general circulation. Thus the
individual becomes troubled with haemorrhoids, secretion and ver-
micular movement in the bowels are impaired, so that constipation
results ; congestion of the stomach, with loss of appetite, impaired
digestion, and flatulent eructations ensue, and the brain and nervous
system begin to suffer from the accumulation in them of their own
waste, or the absorption of abnormal products of assimilation.

Feeling weak, dull, and melancholy, the sufferer now thinks he
ought to take meat three times a day, and perhaps, during the inter-
vals of his meals, to take strong beef -tea, or perhaps a glass of wine or
a nip of brandy. Yet, in spite of all this, he becomes weaker, more
stupid, and more melancholy ; and no wonder. He is simj^ly further
overtaxing his already overworked digestive organs. He is piling up
fuel, instead of removing ash, and choking the vital processes both in
his digestive and nervous systems. What he wants is not more nutri-
ment, but a more rapid removal of waste, and the change upon the
adoption of a proper system of ti-eatment is in many cases most marked
and satisfactory, both to the physician and the patient.

The first thing to be done is to clear out the liver. This may seem
to be an unscientific expression, one adapted rather to popular notions
than in accordance with ascertained facts. But this is not the case.
In a former paper on the action of purgative medicines,* I have ex-
plained the way in which certain pui-gatives may be said to have the
effect of clearing out the liver, and first among those we must reckon
mercurials. In the case which we have just been describing, five
grains of blue-pill may be taken every night, or two or three grains
of calomel either alone or combined with extract of hyoscyamus or
conium, and this should be followed next morning by a saline draught.

* " Practitioner," vol. xii, pp. 342, 403.

INDIGESTION AND NERVOUS DEPRESSION. 381

As a saline we may use sulphate of magnesia, or Fi'iedrichsliall, Pullna,
Hunyadi Janos, or Carlsbad water ; but, whichever saline we may
choose, the use of one or other of them should on no account be
omitted. One of the best salines is half a drachm of crystallized Carls-
bad salts dissolved in a tumbler of hot water and drunk immediately
after rising in the morning, and this may be used not merely in the
morning after the mercurial, but it may also be employed every morn-
ing in cases where the bowels are constipated. The quantity of water
is of considerable importance. Half a teaspoonful dissolved in a
full tumbler is more efficacious than double the quantity of salt in
half the quantity of water. Nor is this to be wondered at, for not
only has the larger quantity of liquid greater power to wash out the
intestine, but the increased amount of the water tends to increase the
quantity of bile secreted, and this increase in bile is especially marked
when the water is taken frequently in small quantities, as it is by per-
sons undergoing the cure at Carlsbad, or who take the solution of
Carlsbad salts at home by sipping it at intervals while dressing, in-
stead of drinking it all off at once.

Zawilski found that when liquids were taken in this way not only
was the bile secreted in greater quantity, but under a greater pressure,
so much so that secretion still occurred when such an obstruction was
opposed to its exit as would usually have caused the bile which had
already been excreted to be reabsorbed.*

When the Carlsbad salts are employed after the mercurial, it is, I
think, best to take them in single large draughts immediately on rising,
but when used by themselves the solution should be sipped at intervals
during dressing. When used alone, the Carlsbad water, warmed by
standing the tumbler in a basin of hot water or in an iBtna, is perhaps
even better than the salts, which represent only a part of the normal
constituents of the water. After the liver has been thoroughly cleared
out in this manner by a mercurial purgative followed by a saline,
vegetable cholagogues, such as iridin and euonymin, may be employed
to assist the action of the Carlsbad salts, when these are found to be
insufficient, even although they ai*e taken with regularity. These
cholagogues, the introduction of which into medicine, in this country
at least, we owe to Professor Rutherford, are sometimes as useful,
perhaps even more so than mercury, but, as a rule, I think the mer-
curial purgative is the best to begin with. Euonymin is the chola-
gogue most usually employed, but iridin is really the most powerful
one, and is specially recommended by Dr. Rutherford.

Instead of tiying to keep up the strength, as it is termed, by load-
ing the stomach with food, the exhausted brain-worker should rather
lean toward abstinence from food, and especially tOAvard abstinence
from alcoholic liquors. The feeling of muscular weakness and lassi-
tude, which I have already had occasion to mention as frequently com-

* " Sitzungsber. der wiener Acad.," 1877 ; mat. nat. Abth., Bd. iv, p. 73.

382 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ing on about two hours after meals, is not uncommonly met with in
persons belonging to the upper classes who are well fed and have little
exercise. It is perhaps seen in its most marked form in young women
or girls who have left school, and who, having no definite occupation
in life, are indisposed to any exercise, either bodily or mental. I am
led to look upon this condition as one of poisoning, both on account
of the time of its occurrence, during the absorption of digestive prod-
ucts, and by reason of the peculiar symptoms — viz., a curious weight
in the legs and arms, the patient describing them as feeling like lumps
of lead. These symptoms so much resemble the effect which would
be produced by a poison like curare, that one could hardly help at-
tributing them to the action of a depressant or paralyzer of motor
nerves or centers. The recent researches of Ludwig and Schmidt-
Muhlheim render it exceedingly probable that peptones are the poison-
ous agents in these cases, and an observation which I have made seems
to confirm this conclusion, for I found that the weakness and languor
were apparently less after meals consisting of farinaceous food only.
My observations, however, are not sufficiently extensive to absolutely
convince me that they are entirely absent after meals of this sort, so
that possibly the poisoning by peptones, although one cause of the
languor, is not to be looked upon as the only cause. A glass of soda-
water, w^ith or without the juice of a lemon squeezed into it, may be
slowly sipped when the feeling of weakness comes on, and a biscuit
may be eaten along with it if desired. This will sometimes relieve
languor, but if it be found insufficient, a small cup of warm but weak
tea or cocoa with a biscuit will act as an efficient stimulant, although
they may be less unobjectionable than the soda-water. Heat is one of
the most powerful of all cardiac stimulants, and any warm fluid in the
stomach will increase its action ; a cup of warm water alone will do
this, but it is unpleasant to take, and so something must be added to
flavor it : a little claret may be used if tea disagrees, or tincture of
ginger and sugar, or even some Liebig's extract. It is the local action
of the warmth that we want, and in order to obtain it we may some-
times have to put up with the inconvenience of giving substances
which will be to some extent injurious after their absorption, such as
beef -extract or even whisky. The advice that I have given here, in
recommending a glass of cold soda-water or a cup of hot tea, may re-
mind one of the countryman in one of ^Esop's Fables who fell into
disgrace because he blew upon the fire to heat it, and blew upon his
porridge to cool it. And yet the countryman was right, for experi-
ence had taught him that the desired result would follow his actions,
even though he might not be able to explain the reason why. So we
find that a draught of cold water will revive a fainting person, and
hot water Avill have a somewhat similar effect. Both of them give
relief by stimulating the circulation, but their modus ojyerandl is
different. In the case of the hot water the circulation is stimulated

INDIGESTION AND NERVOUS DEPRESSION. 383

through the heart, which is excited to increased contraction, and thus
the tension within the vessels is raised. In the case of the cold, the
pressure is also raised, not by stimulation of the heart, but by the con-
traction of the vessels, especially those of the stomach and intestine.
In the case of warmth, more blood is poured into the aorta by the ex-
cited heart, and where we apply cold less blood flows out of the aorta
into the veins through the intestinal vessels, and thus it is that in both
cases the tension is raised and the faintness removed.

At each meal it is well for the patient to begin with the solids be-
fore he proceeds to the fluids, and at breakfast, instead of beginning
the meal with a cup of tea or coffee, he should finish a slice of dry
toast and a piece of fish, e^^, or bacon, before he takes any liquid at
all. The same rule should be observed at lunch and dinner. The
effect of this course is that the patient is less troubled with weight
and flatulence after meals. The explanation of the fact probably is
that the solids, entering the stomach first, stimulate it to secretion
and movement ; whereas, if it already contained a quantity of liquid
at the time they were ingested, they would not have this effect, and
imperfect digestion would be the result. At dinner, wine or beer
may be taken if the patient finds them agree, but in all probability
he will be better without them. There are some brain-workers who
require them and must have them, but it is better for a good many
others to avoid either wine or beer, and to take some effervescing
water instead. Not unfrequently we hear the complaint that effer-
vescing water is too cold, and where this is felt to be the case gin-
ger ale or zoedone may be substituted, the color of these beverages
and their more pungent taste rendering them more grateful both to
the eye and the palate of many persons. In some cases weak claret-
and-water may be used, and if the water be somewhat warm the
mixture will be better for the patients, and will not cause the feel-
ing of coldness in the stomach of which they sometimes complain.

A medicine which has long enjoyed a great reputation in disorder
of the liver is nitro-muriatic acid, and I think this reputation well de-
served. We do not know how it acts, but in some way or another it
does tend to improve the digestion. Ten minims of the dilute nitro-
hydrochloric acid, either before or immediately after meals, combined
with some aromatic and carminative, such as chloroform and car-
damoms or orange, and from five to ten minims of tincture of nux
vomica, where the nervous depression is great, is a most efficient
remedy.

But, even with all this care in food and drink, with all this atten-
tion to what is to be taken and what avoided, with medicine morning,
noon, and night, how are we to keep the liver in order without exer-
cise ? Sometimes the patient may be able to take walking exercise,
but when he does it is generally only for a short time during the day,
and of so gentle a character that the respiratory movements are but

384 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

very slightly increased, and the liver is hardly more stimulated by the
pressure of the diaphragm and abdominal walls during the walk than
it would have been had the patient remained quietly at home. Time
is an important element in many cases. Many a hard-worked man
has his day so fully occupied that he can not give up more than a
quarter or half an hour to exercise, and it is of importance that in
this limited period he should get as much exercise as possible, and
the best way to employ this brief time is by taking horse-exercise.
I believe it is to the late Lord Palmerston that we owe the saying
that "the outside of a horse is the best thing for the inside of a
man," and it is very near the truth. A brisk trot for fifteen minutes
will cause more pressure upon, and stimulation of, the liver than a lazy
lounge of an hour or more. The time for this will depend in a great
measure upon the engagements of the patient. It should not be taken
immediately after a meal, and for most men whose days are fully
occupied almost the only time to take it is before breakfast. A cup
of milk, or a small cup of tea or coffee, with a piece of bread and
butter or a biscuit, may be taken just before starting, and then the
regular breakfast will be taken with greater appetite and better diges-
tion after the exercise is over.

By careful attention to the removal of waste products, and to the
prevention of absorption of poisonous substances from the intestine,
by regulation of the diet, regulation of the bowels, and exercise, in
the ways just mentioned, I believe that the nervous exhaustion and
depression from which brain-workers suffer may be greatly diminished,
even although it may not be entirely prevented. — Practitioner.

-♦♦♦-

OIL-PLANTS OF FRENCH GUIANA.

By Dr. J. HAEMOND.

THE flora of Guiana includes a considerable number of plants of dif-
ferent families whose organs contain fatty matters. The most
important of these plants, both on account of the abundance and quality
of the oil it yields, is the carapa {Carapa Guianensis, D'Aublet; X^lo-
carpus carapa, Spr. ; crabwood of the English), a plant of the family
of the Jfeliacem, the family of which the Pride of India is the best
known representative. It is one of the largest trees of the country,
reaching a height of from sixty-five to a hundred feet, and a diameter
of from a yard to a yard and a half. The wood is of a grayish or red-
dish color, and of excellent quality, is much in demand on account of
the ease with which it is worked, and is used for shingles, cabinet, car-
penter's and carriage work. The leaves are abruptly pinnate, with
smooth, oval leaflets about a foot long and ending in a projecting

OIL-PLANTS OF FRENCH GUIANA.

385

point. The fruits are round, four-valved capsules, about three inches
in diameter, and grow in bunches. They inclose a white, solid kernel
of irregular shape and firm consistency. To get the oil, the natives
boil the kernels in water and let them stand in a heap for a few days.
They then peel them, crush them with stones or pound them in wooden

Fig. 1.— Carapa Guianensis— Fedits and Leaves (reduced).

mortars, and make a paste of them which they spread on a slab of
stone hollowed out, and exposed at a slight inclination to the heat of
the sun. The oil with which the paste is impregnated runs into a cala-
bash which is placed to receive it. The negroes on some of the planta-
tions put the paste into a bag and press the oil out with weights. The
VOL. XVIII. — 25

386

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

carapa-tree appears to have been formerly more, abundant in the in-
habited districts than it now is, but it has been sought after on account
of the qualities of its wood till it has nearly disappeared. It is still
very abundant in the interior, where it grows near the rivers, and on
moist lands. In some places, it is said, the ground is so thickly cov-

FiQ. 3.— Omphalba Diandra (D'Aublet). 1, 2. Frait, splitting into three nuts ; 4. Internal face
of cotyledon ; 5. Nut with a part of the shell taken away, showing a part of the kernel.

ered with the fruits that they come up to the knees of a person walk-
ing among them. The principal crop is gathered between February
and June or July. Another crop ripens in September and October, but
the oil is of an inferior quality. The fruits do not keep well, but are
subject to a mold which reduces them to dust, sprout readily, and are

CRITICISMS CORRECTED. 387

greedily attacked by a grub and by microscopic enemies. The paste,
too, is apt to spoil by heating. Hence it is found to be most economical
to make the oil where the nuts grow. The nuts, when broken up with
their coverings, yield about thirty-six per cent, of oil ; cleared of their
coverings, the kernels give sixty per cent. When cold-pressed, the oil
is clear and amber-colored. When left to stand, it gives a solid de-
posit of a crystalline appearance. It makes a soap of excellent quality,
and having a certain degree of hardness — a property which makes it
valuable to mix with other oils that give too soft soaps. When refined,
it makes an excellent lubricating oil, and gives a light that leaves no-
thing to be desired. The catalogue of the Permanent Exposition of the
French Colonies names some fifteen other species of plants the fruits of
which yield oils. One of the most valuable of them is the Omphalea
cUandra (D'Aublet), a large vine of the Spurge family, which bears seeds
with very hard and black, horny shells. The shells are used for mak-
ing beads. The kernel contains a very limpid, amber-colored oil, which
is excellent for illumination, for making soap, and for lubricating pur-
poses, and of which the yield is 64 '58 per cent.

CRITICISMS COREECTED.

By HEKBEET SPENCER.
III. GUTHEIE AND BIRKS.

CRITICISM would be greatly diminished in bulk if there were ex-
cluded from it all that part devoted to disproving statements
which have not been made ; and were this course pursued, the work
"On Mr. Spencer's Formula of Evolution," by Malcolm Guthrie, would
disappear bodily. It is little else than a misstatement of certain fun-
damental views of mine, and then an elaborate refutation of the views
as misstated.

Let me first show by brief extracts from " First Principles " what
these views are. In a chapter on " Ultimate Scientific Ideas," after
showing how the hypothesis that matter consists of solid atoms com-
mits us to alternative impossibities of thought, I have shown how
the hypothesis of Boscovich, that matter consists of centers of force
without extension, is unthinkable. In the course of the argument I
have pointed out that though Boscovich's hypothesis can not be real-
ized in thought, yet, on the other hand, the hypothesis of extended
atoms itself implies an imaginary separableness of each atom into parts,
and again of these into parts, and so on without limit until unextended
centers of force are reached : the consciousness of force being that
which alone perpetually emerges. And I have ended by saying that

388 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

"matter, then, in its ultimate nature, is as absolutely incomprehensible
as space and time." In the second part of the work, in chapters treat-
ing of " The Indestructibility of Matter," " The Continuity of Motion,"
and " The Persistence of Force," I have at some length elaborated the
view that force is the ultimate component of thought into which our
conceptions of external existences are resolvable. Summing up the
first of these chapters, I have said, " Thus, then, by the indestructibil-
ity of matter, we really mean the indestructibility of the force with
which matter affects us." At the close of the second of these chapters
I have argued that " the continuity of motion, as well as the indestruc-
tibility of matter, is really known to us in terms of force ; . . . that
which defies suppression in thought, is really the force which the mo-
tion indicates." And then in the third chapter, having shown how
the truths that matter is indestructible and motion continuous, can be
known to us only as corollaries from the truth that force is persistent
— that force is that " out of which our conceptions of matter and mo-
tion are built " — I have gone on to say that, " by the persistence of
force, we really mean the persistence of some power which transcends
our knowledge and conception." Throughout all which arguments
the implication is that I hold matter and motion to be conditioned
manifestations of this unknown power. Being aware of the perversity
of critics, I have, in the " Summary and Conclusion," again endeavored
to bar out misinterpretation. Here is one of the sentences it contains :
" Over and over again it has been shown in various ways that the
deepest truths we can reach are simply statements of the widest uni-
formities in our experience of the relations of matter, motion, and force;
and that matter, motion, and force are but symbols of the unknown
reality. A power of which the nature remains for ever inconceivable,
and to which no limits in time or space can be imagined, works in us
certain effects. These effects have certain likenesses of kind, the most
general of which we class together under the names of matter, motion,
and force." In which sentences it is distinctly stated that I have
throughout regarded matter, under the form present to consciousness,
as a symbol — a certain conditioned effect wrought in us by the unknown
power ; and I have gone on to say that " the interpretation of all phe-
nomena in terms of matter, motion, and force is nothing more than
the reduction of our complex symbols of thought to the simplest sym-
bols ; and when the equation has been brought to its lowest terms the
symbols remain symbols still."

It will scarcely be believed, and yet it is true, that notwithstanding
all this Mr. Guthrie ascribes to me the vulgar conceptions of matter
and motion ; argues as though I really think they are in themselves
what they seem to our consciousness ; and proceeds to criticise my
views on this assumption. He ignores the conspicuous fact that mat-
ter and motion are both regarded by me as modes of manifestation of
force, and that force, as we are conscious of it when by our own efforts

CRITICISMS CORRECTED. 389

we produce changes, is the correlative of that universal power which
transcends consciousness. And then he ends the criticisms forming
the second part of his work by saying, " If this is not materialistic I do
not know what is." He does not do this by inadvertence, though there
would be little excuse even then ; but he does it deliberately and with
his eyes open. His next chapter begins :

"It will have been observed that in the preceding part of this
criticism I have employed the term 'matter in motion,' and have
avoided the use of the word 'force,' although it appears so promi-
nently in the pages of Mr. Spencer's work. This has not been acci-
dental, but by design, indicating as it does one of my main criticisms
of Mr. Spencer.

" I can logically take up one of two positions. The first recognizes
matter, whose properties are merely those of extension, which are ca-
pable of being described in terms of geometry and arithmetic. I can
also recognize as the sole active properties of matter its modes and
rates of motion — the motion, that is to say, of ultimate units, atoms,
molecules, or masses, also capable of measurement.

" The second position recognizes matter and its activity or activi-
ties— matter as endowed with force or forces."

Thus it will be observed that having avowedly dealt with matter
and motion as modes of force, I am " by design " criticised as though
I had not so dealt with them. Having distinctly said what I mean by
matter and motion, I am practically told that I shall not mean that,
but shall mean what Mr. Guthrie means ; and shall be dealt with ac-
cordingly. And then, further, it will be observed that of the two posi-
tions which Mr. Guthrie lays down as possible, and proceeds to argue
upon as alternatives, one or other of which I must accept, both speak
of matter and units of matter as though actually existing under the
forms thought by us ; and the last, speaking of " matter as endowed
with force or forces," implies that whether in mass or in units, matter
is a space-occupying something which is in the one case inert and in the
other case made active by force with which it is " endowed " — force
which is added to the inert something. Spite of all the pains I have
taken to show that I regard matter as itself a localized manifestation
of force — spite of all the evidence that our idea of a unit of matter, or
atom, is regarded by me simply as a symbol which the form of our
thought obliges us to use, but which we can not suppose answers to
the reality without committing ourselves to alternative impossibilities
of thought, I am debited with the belief that matter actually consists
"of space-occupying units, having shape and measurement." Though
I have repeatedly made it clear that our ideas of matter, motion, and
force are but the x, y, and z with which we work our equations, and
formulate the various relations among phenomena in such way as to
express their order in terms of cc, y, and z — though I have shown that
the realities for which x, y, and 2 stand can not be conceived by us as

390 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

actually existing thus or thus without committing ourselves to alterna-
tive absurdities ; yet questions are put implying that I must hold one
or other hypothesis concerning these actual existences, and I am sup-
posed to be involved in all the difficulties which arise.

Another work devoted to the refutation of my views is that of
Professor Birks — "Modern Physical Fatalism and the Doctrine of
Evolution, including an Examination of Mr. H. Spencer's First Prin-
ciples." Having dealt with the work of Mr. Guthrie, I can not pass
by that of Professor Birks without raising the suspicion that I find
some difficulty in dealing with it. Indeed, I do find a difficulty — a dif-
ficulty illustrated by that found in disentangling a skein of silk which
has been pulled about by a child for half an hour. And just as the
patience of a bystander would fail were he asked to look on until, by
unraveling the tangled skein, its continuity was proved, so would the
reader's attention be exhausted before I had rectified one tenth part
of the meshes and knots into which Professor Birks has twisted my
statements.

Abundant warrant for this assertion is furnished by the very first
paragraph succeeding the one in which Professor Birks announces that
he is about to take "First Principles" as representative of the "fatal-
istic theory." In this paragraph he represents me as asserting that
ultimate religious ideas are " incapable of being conceived." He fur-
ther says that ultimate scientific ideas are by me " pronounced equally
inconceivable." Now, any clear-headed reader who accepted Professor
Birks's version of my views would be led to debit me with the absurd-
ity of saying that certain things which are j)ut together in conscious-
ness (ideas) can not be put together in consciousness (conceived). To
conceive is to frame in thought ; and as every idea is framed in thought,
it is nonsense to say of any idea that it can not be conceived — non-
sense which I have nowhere uttered. My statement is that " ultimate
scientific ideas, then, are all representative of realities that can not
be comprehended" ; and the like is alleged of ultimate religious ideas.
The things which I say can not be comprehended or conceived, are not
the ideas, but the realities beyond consciousness for which the ideas
in consciousness stand. In Professor Birks's statement, however, in-
conceivableness of the realities is transformed into inconceivableness
of the answering ideas ! Further, at the end of this first paragraph
which deals with me, I am represented as teaching that religion " is
equivalent to nescience or ignorance alone." This statement is as far
removed from the truth as the others. I have argued at considerable
length, and in such various ways that I thought it impossible to mis-
understand me, that though the Power universally manifest to us
through phenomena, alike in the surrounding world and in ourselves —
the Power " in which we live and move and have our being " — is, and
must ever remain, inscrutable ; yet that the existence of this inscru-

CRITICISMS CORRECTED. 391

table Power is the most certain of all truths. I have contended that
while, to the intellectual consciousness, this Power, though unknowable
in nature, must be ever present as existing, it must be, to the emotion-
al consciousness, an object to the sentiment we call religious ; since, in
substance if not in form, it answers to the creating and sustaining
Power toward which the religious sentiment is in other cases di-awn out.
Yet though in the most emphatic way I have represented this unknown
and unknowable Power as the object-matter of religion. Professor Birks
represents me as saying that the unknowableness of it is the object-
matter of religion ! Though I hold that an ultimate being, known
with absolute certainty as existing, but of whose nature we are in ig-
norance, is the sphere for religious feeling, he says I hold that the
ignorance alone is the sphere for religious feeling !

When in the first sixteen lines specifically treating of my views
these three cases occur, it may be imagined what an intricate plexus
of misrepresentations, misunderstandings, and perversions fills the
three hundred and odd pages forming the volume. Especially may
it be anticipated that the metaphysical discussions, occupying five
chapters, are so confused that it is next to impossible to deal with
them. I must limit myself to giving a sample or two from this part
of the work : one of them illustrating Professor Birks's critical fair-
ness, and the other his philosophic capacity.

In his chapter on " The Reality of Matter," he says (page 111),
" The sense of reality in things around us, Mr. Spencer has truly said,
is one which no metaphysical criticisms can shake in the least " ; and
the rest of the ' paragraph is devoted to enlarging upon this proposi-
tion. The next paragraph begins — " ' Permanent possibilities of sen-
sation ' is merely an ingenious phrase, to disguise and conceal a self-
contradiction " : sundry antagonistic criticisms upon this phrase being
appended. And then the opening words of the paragraph which suc-
ceeds are quoted from " First Principles." Now, since the refutation
of my views is the aim of the work ; and since both the preceding
and succeeding passages specifically refer to my work ; and since no
other name is mentioned — every reader, not otherwise better in-
structed, will conclude that as a matter of course the phrase " perma-
nent possibilities of sensation " is mine ; and that the criticisms upon
it tell against me. Even were there evidence that this phrase, " per-
manent possibilities of sensation," expressed, or harmonized with, a
doctrine entertained by me ; yet, as the phrase is not mine, the quoting
it as mine would have been a literary misdemeanor. "What, then, must
be said of it when, instead of standing for any view of mine, it stands
for an opposite view ? Mr. Mill's expression, quoted by Professor Birks
as though it were my expression, belongs to a theory of knowledge
entirely at variance with that set forth and everywhere implied in
"First Principles"; and a theory which, where the occasion was
fit, I have persistently combated (see " Principles of Psychology,"

392 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Part VII, "General Analysis"). And yet Professor Birks tacitly
makes me responsible for the incongruities which result from uniting
this theory with the opposed theory.

From this sample of critical truthfulness let us pass now to a sam-
ple of critical acumen.

In arguing against Hamilton and Mansell in § 26, I have said : " It
is rigorously impossible to conceive that our knowledge is a knowledge
of appearances only, without at the same time conceiving a reality of
which they are appearances ; for appearance without reality is un-
thinkable." On page 121 of his work. Professor Birks, quoting the
last five words of this sentence, continues, " This is true, when once
'the conception of distance has been gained by actual experience."
And he then proceeds to comment upon visual impressions, illusive
and other. Again, on page 135, when criticising my argument con-
cerning the indestructibility of matter. Professor Birks says : " Mat-
ter, as knowable, is declared to be not the unseen reality, but the sen-
sible appearances, or phenomenal matter alone. Phenomenal matter,
it appears from daily and hourly experience, appears and disappears,
perishes and is new-created continually. . . . The cloud vanishes, the
star sets, or a mist blots it out, the droj) evaporates, the ship melts into
the yeast of waves, the candle is burned away and comes to an end.
The substance may last in another form, but the phenomenon or ap-
pearance is gone. . . . Thus, by the theory, of Matter, the Noumenon,
we know nothing, and therefore can not know that it is indestructible.
Of Matter, the Phenomenon, we may know much. And one main
thing we know of it, proved by hourly experience, is that it both may
be and continually is destroyed. For an appearance is destroyed and
perishes, when it ceases to appear." In which sentences, as in all
accompanying sentences covering several pages, the implication is that
Professor Birks identifies appearance in the philosophical sense with
appearance in the popular sense ! Everywhere his expressions and
arguments make manifest the fact that Professor Birks thinks the
meaning of phenomenon in metaphysical discussion is no wider than
that implied by its derivation — something visible ! Sounds, smells,
tastes are in his view not phenomena ; nor are touches, pressures,
tensions. And hence it results that since when a pound of salt is dis-
solved in water it ceases to be visible, its existence, phenomenally
considered, ends : its continued power of affecting our senses by its
weight, to the same extent as before the solution, not being considered
as a phenomenal manifestation of its existence !

In § 46, when commenting on the mental confusion which meta-
physical discussions often produce, I have ascribed this in part to the
misleading connotations of the words "appearance" and "phenom-
enon " ; and after illustrating this have said : " So that the implica-
tion of uncertainty has infected the very word appearance. Hence,
philosophy, by giving it an extended meaning, leads us to think of all

CRITICISMS CORRECTED. 393

our senses as deceiving us in the same way that the eyes do ; and so
makes us feel ourselves floating in a world of phantasms, Hadj^Ae-
nomenon and appearance no such misleading associations, little, if
any, of this mental confusion would result. Or did we in place of
them use the term effect, which is equally applicable to all impressions
produced on consciousness through any of the senses, and which carries
with it in thought the necessary correlative cause, with which it is
equally real, we should be in little danger of falling into the insanities
of idealism." This caution was intended for the general reader. That
it might be needed by one who should undertake to deal with the
work ci'itically never occurred to me. Not only, however, does it seem
that Professor Birks (who quotes the last three words of the para-
graph) needs such a caution, but it further seems that the caution is
thrown away upon him. For just those misinterpretations of the
words above pointed out, are the misinterpretations he makes. After
this I shall, I think, be absolved from examining further his metaphysi-
cal criticisms.

Of his criticisms upon various of the physical doctrines which this
work contains, I will notice two only — the one because I wish to repu-
diate a view which, spite of abundant evidence to the contrary, he
ascribes to me ; and the other, because, based as his statement is on a
fact which he misinterprets, it is desirable to give the right interpreta-
tion of it. On page 188, Professor Birks says : "The essence of the
doctrine held by Mr. Grove, Dr. Tyndall, and Mr. Spencer, and which
the last has made the foundation of his whole theory of physical fatal-
ism, is that there is, every moment, an unchanging total of force,
which never varies in amount, while it incessantly changes its form.
The force, then, which persists, must be a present existence. But
potential energy is nothing of the kind. It is the sum of trillions of
trillions of future possibilities of force, ranging through trillions of
trillions of different future intervals of time." Now, the tacit implica-
tion here is, that I accept the doctrine of potential energy. The men
of science named, with many others who might be added, hold that the
total quantity of force remains constant. Against these it is urged that
energy in becoming potential ceases to exist ; and that, therefore, the
doctrine is untrue. And being represented as holding this doctrine in
common with them, I am said to have based my general fabric of con-
clusions upon a fallacy. In the first place, I have to ask on what
authority Professor Birks assumes that I hold the doctrine of potential
energy in the way in which it is held by those named ? And in the
second place, I have to ask how it happens that Professor Birks, elabo-
rately criticising my views step by step, deliberately ignores the pas-
sages in which I have repudiated this doctrine ? In the chapter on " The
Continuity of Motion " I have, at considerable length, given reasons
for regarding the conception of potential energy as an illegitimate
one, and have distinctly stated that I am at issue with scientific

394 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

friends on the matter. Devoting, as Professor Birks does, his chapter
entitled " The Transformation of Force and Motion," to the incon-
gruities which result when the doctrine of the persistence of force is
joined with the doctrine of potential energy, as commonly received, it
was doubtless convenient to assume, spite of the direct evidence to the
contrary, that I accept this doctrine, and am implicated in all the con-
sequences. But there can be but one opinion resj^ecting the honesty
of making the assumi^tion. Let me add that my rejection of this doc-
trine is not Avithout other warrant than my own. Since the issue of
the last edition of this work, containing the passages I have referred
to, Mr. James Croll, no mean authority as a mathematician and physi-
cist, has published in the " Philosophical Magazine " for October, 1876,
page 241, a paper in which he shows, I think conclusively, that the
commonly accepted view of potential energy can not be sustained, but
that energy invariably remains actual. I learn from him that he had
in 1867 indicated briefly this same view.

The remaining case, above adverted to as calling for comment,
concerns my motive for suppressing a certain passage in the chapter
on " Ultimate Scientific Ideas," and substituting another passage. Be-
fore proceeding to state the reasons for this substitution, and to dis-
prove the inferences which Professor Birks draws from it, I may
remark that it is usual in literary criticism to judge an author by the
latest expression of his views. It is commonly thought nothing but
fair that if he has made an error (I say this hypothetically, for in this
case I have no error to acknowledge), he should be allowed the benefit
of any correction he makes. Professor Birks, however, apparently
thinks that, moved by the high motive of " doing God service," he is
warranted in taking the opposite course — perhaps thinks, indeed, that
he would fail of his duty did any regard for generous dealing prevent
him from making a point against an opponent of his creed.

But now, saying no more about the ethics of criticism, I pass to the
substantial question. In the first place, I have to point out that in
the passage suppressed I have not said that which Professor Birks
alleges. He represents me as asserting that " gravitation is a necessary
result of the laws of space " (p. 227). I have asserted no such thing.
He says, "There can be no a priori necessity that every particle
should act on every other at all at every distance" (p. 222). I have
nowhere said, or even hinted, that there is any such a priori neces-
sity. The notion that " gravitation results by a fatal necessity from
the laws of space," which he ascribes to me (p. 229), is one which I
should repudiate as utterly absurd, and one which is not in the remotest
way implied by anything I have said. What I have said is that
" light, heat, gravitation, and all central forces, vary inversely as the
squares of the distances," and that " this law is not simjjly an empirical
one, but one deducible mathematically from the relations of space."
Now, what is here said to be " deducible mathematically from the rela-

CRITICISMS CORRECTED. 395

tions of space " '? Not a thing, or a force, but a laio. What is the
law here said to be knowable a priori ? The law of variation of any
or every central force. And what is alone included in the assertion of
this a 2yriori law ? Simply this, that given a central force, and such is
the law according to which it will vary. Nothing is alleged respecting
the existence of any central force. Does Professor Birks contend that
if I say that light, proceeding from a center, necessarily varies in-
versely as the square of the distance, I thereby say that the existence
of light itself is known a priori as a result of space relations ? When
I assert that of the heat radiating in all directions from a point, the
quantity falling on a given surface necessai'ily decreases as the square
of the distance increases, do I thereby assert the necessary existence
of the heat which conforms to this law ? Why then do I, in asserting
that the laio of variation of gravity " results by a fatal necessity from
the laws of space" simultaneously assert that ^^gravitation results by
a fatal necessity from the laws of space " ? Professor Birks, however,
because I assert the first says I assert the second. My proposition.
Central forces vary inversely as the squares of the distances, he actually
transforms into the proposition. There is a cosmical force which varies
inversely as the squares of the distances ; and debiting me with the
last as identical with the first, proceeds, after his manner, to debit me
with various resulting absurdities.

Having thus shown that the j^assage in question contains no such
statement as that which Pi'ofessor Birks says it contains, I go on to
show that I have not removed this passage because I have abandoned
the belief it embodies. Clear proof is at hand. If Professor Birks
will turn to the " Replies to Criticisms " contained in the third volume
of my "Essays : Scientific, Political, and Speculative" (pp. 334-337),
he will find that I have there defended the above proposition against
a previous attack ; and assigning, as I have done, justification for
it, I have shown no sign of relinquishing it. Why, then, Professor
Birks will ask, did I make the change in question ? Had his mental
attitude been other than it is, he might readily have divined the rea-
son. Knowing, as he seemingly does, that this doctrine which he
criticises had been already criticised in a similar manner (for other-
wise he would scarcely have discovered the change I have made),
he might have seen clearly enough that the passage was suppressed
simply to deprive opponents of the opportunity of evading the gen-
eral argument of the chapter by opening a side issue on a point not
essential to its argument.

The chapter has for its subject, certain incapacities of the human
mind — a subject, by the way, on which theologians are never tired
of enlarging when it suits their own purpose, but on which an antag-
onist may not enlarge without exciting their anger. Various examples
of these incapacities are given, to justify and enforce the conclusion
drawn. Among these was originally included the example in ques-

396 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tion. Misrepresenting it as Professor Birks misrepresents it, another
writer had before him similarly based on his misrepresentation sundry-
animadversions. Though still regarding the statement I had actually
made (not the one ascribed to me) as valid, I concluded that it would
be best to remove the stumbling-block out of the way of future read-
ers, and therefore decided to replace the illustration by another. The
rest of the chapter remains exactly as it was, and its argument is
not in the remotest degree affected by the substitution. Neverthe-
less, Professor Birks, wrongly describing the nature of the illustra-
tion, and wrongly attributing the removal of the illustration to change
in my belief, also wrongly conveys the impression that the doctrine
which the illustration contained had some vital connection with the
general argument of the chapter and with the doctrine of the work ;
and by conveying this impression calls forth exultation from religious
periodicals.

Were I to deal with Professor Birks's book page by page, a much
larger book than his would be required to expose his misstatements,
perversions, confusions. The above examples must suffice. I will add
only that in one belief of his I cordially agree with him. At the
close of his preface he says, "I think that those who take the pains
to read my strictures, and compare them with the statements of the
work to which they are a reply, will find the effort repaid by a clearer
apprehension of the topics in debate." And I venture to join with
this the expression of my belief that if readers follow Professor
Birks's tacit suggestion, " a clearer apprehension of the topics in
debate " will not result from acceptance of his criticisms.

-♦♦♦-

LUBBOCK ON" INSECT CONSEEYATISM.

SIR JOHN LUBBOCK will certainly earn the praise of accumulat-
ing more facts upon which we may found reasonable inferences
as to the intellectual character of the ant, than all his acute predeces-
sors in the same field put together. And his latest published observa-
tions on the subject, communicated to the Linnsean Society, and printed
in their " Transactions," contain some of his most interesting results.
These results we should describe generally as showing that the ants
display, first, a preternaturally keen sense of consanguinity ; next, a
good deal of that narrow conservatism which is so often the result of
too much belief in the family and too little receptivity for the ideas of
the external world ; in the third place, a thorough distrust of revolu-
tion, so that they are almost equally afraid of establishing a new
dynasty and of destroying an old one ; and, finally, a good deal of the
skepticism which narrow conservatism inevitably engenders toward all

LUBBOCK ON INSECT CONSERVATISM. 397

suggestions not fitting easily into the established grooves. The ant, it
is evident, does not, like Lord Beaconsfield, believe mainly in race, but,
on the contrary, like the English squire, " acred up to his lips, consoled
up to his chin," believes chiefly in family, and, we must add, has shown
much more amazing instincts than any English squire in discriminating
the progeny of one group of families from the progeny of another.
That a strange ant, though of the same species, put into any nest, will
be at once attacked and killed. Sir John Lubbock has proved again and
again. Like the English rustic who, on assuring himself that a man is
a stranger to the district, immediately proposes to " 'eave 'alf a brick
at him," the ants pay no regard to species at all, if they find an ant
who can not trace his descent to their own nest intruding upon it.
They make a principle of hostility to aliens, drawing no distinction
between aliens of their own species and aliens of another species. But
the remarkable thing appears to be their special instinct for identifying
the descendants of their own tribe. Sir John Lubbock separated into
two parts, in February, 1879, a nest of ants which contained two
queens, giving about the same number of ants and one queen to each.
In February the nest contains neither young nor eggs, so that the di-
vision was made before the earliest stage of being for the next genera-
tion began. In April both queens began to lay eggs. In July, Sir
John Lubbock took a lot of pupse from each division, and placed each
lot on a separate glass, with attendants from the same division of the
nest. At the end of August he took four previously marked ants from
the pupse bred in one division and put them into the second division,
and one previously marked ant from the pupae bred in the second divi-
sion and put it into the first ; in both cases the ants, which could never
have been seen in any stage of their life by any of the ants in that
division, were welcomed as friends, cleared of Sir John's paint, and
accepted as members of the family. The same thing happened again
and again. But whenever a stranger was introduced after the same
fashion, it was immediately attacked and destroyed. This confirmed
still moi'e remarkably a series of less crucial erperiments formerly
made by Sir John Lubbock on the same subject. By some inscrutable
sense or other, the ants, it is clear, know the descendants — at least in
the first degree — of those which have once belonged to their own nest,
even though they were neither born nor thought of when their parents
left the nest. So much for the profound instinct of consanguinity in
the ant, as well as for the unconquerable hostility they show to those
ants who are not connected with them, within recognizable degrees at
least, by blood.

But now as to the intense political conservatism which this bigoted
sort of family feeling produces. Sir John Lubbock has discovered, it
appears, that once let an ants' nest get accustomed to living without a
queen — once let it organize democratic institutions — and nothing will
induce it to admit a queen for the future. Queens introduced into

398 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

queenloss nests were ahvays ruthlessly killed, even though -in one ease
Sir John exhibited the queen for three days to the ant-democracy in a
wire cage which protected her from them, in order to accustom them
to the sight of royalty. The moment the protecting wire was re-
moved, the queen was attacked and slain, just as if she had been an
ordinary alien. Sir John, however, was occasionally able, by the help
of a little intrigue — of the Marshal MacMahon kind, but more success-
ful— to obtain a throne for a wandering queen. The way he managed
was this : He took a few ants from their nest, and put them, in that
disorganized state, with a strange queen. The ants were then in a tim-
orous and diffident mood. They had no fixed institutions to fall back
upon. They felt wanderers in the world. And, feeling this, they did
not attack the queen, but rather regarded her as the nucleus of a pos-
sible organization. By thus gradually adding a few ants at a time to
a disorganized mob which had accepted the queen as the starting-point
for a new polity, " I succeeded," says Sir John Lubbock, " in securing
the throne for her." But this success speaks as much for the conserva-
tism of the ants as the former unanimous rejection of the queen by an
organized community. They repudiated a queen when they knew
that their institutions were in working order without her. They ac-
cepted her, when they felt at sea and in peril of anarchy, as the germ
of a new system. It was a timid conservatism which dictated their
policy in each case. In the former, they rejected with horror the
prospect of a change of constitution ; in the latter, they accepted, not,
perhaps, without eagerness, the prospect of a more rapid political de-
velopment than, without any ready-made leader, they could have
counted upon. For the ants, then, the throne was, as M. Thiers said
of a republic, under dissimilar circumstances, the constitution " which
divided them least."

And it is to be inferred, we think, that the languid skepticism
which is one of the commonest causes or effects — it is difficult to say
which — of that intense timidity which is so often connected with con-
servatism, affects these wonderful little creatures also. Sir John shows
us most satisfactorily that the ants understand each other — that when
an ant goes back from a bit of food which she is unable by her own
strength to stir, she can and does communicate in some way to her
fellow-ants the need of help. They clearly understand her message,
and they prepare to assist her ; but they have, it appears, no real con-
fidence in her information. What they see with their own eyes fills
them with the utmost eagerness, but what they learn from others they
do not more than half believe. They usually go with the messenger,
but they go without any real elan, without any of that earnestness
which they display after getting personal experience of the existence
of the store of food. After that they are all urgency. After that
they outrun their fellows, and can not reach the store of provisions too
soon. But on the hearing of the ear they act with the utmost languor.

LUBBOCK ON INSECT CONSERVATISM. 399

They follow, but so slowly that they never keep up with their eager
guide, soon drop behind, and generally give up the expedition, as one
beyond their courage or strength, or at least too much for their half-
faith. Let us hear Sir John's curious delineation of the sort of au-
thority which one ant's information appears to carry to his fellow-ants :
" I selected a specimen of Atta testaceo-pilosa, belonging to a nest
which I had brought back with me from Algeria. She was out hunt-
ing about six feet from home, and I placed before her a large dead
blue-bottle fly, which she at once began to drag to the nest. I then
pinned the fly to a piece of cork, in a small box, so that no ant could
see the fly until she had climbed up the side of the box. The ant
struggled, of course in vain, to move the fly. She pulled first in one
direction and then in another, but, finding her efforts fruitless, she at
length started off back to the nest empty-handed. At this time there
were no ants coming out of the nest. Probably there were some few
others out hunting, but for at least a quarter of an hour no ant had
left the nest. My ant entered the nest, but did not remain there ; in
less than a minute she emerged, accompanied by seven friends. I
never saw so many come out of that nest together before. In her ex-
citement the first ant soon distanced her companions, who took the
matter with much sang-froid, and had all the appearance of having
come out reluctantly, or as if they had been asleep and were only half
awake. The first ant ran on ahead, going straight to the fly. The
others followed slowly and with many meanderings ; so slowly, in-
deed, that for twenty minutes the first ant was alone at the fly, trying
in every way to move it. Finding this still impossible, she again re-
turned to the nest, not chancing to meet any of her friends by the
way. Again she emerged in less than a minute with eight friends,
and hurried on to the fly. They were even less energetic than the first
party ; and, when they found they had lost sight of their guide, they
one and all returned to the nest. In the mean time, several of the first
detachment had found the fly, and one of them succeeded in detach-
ing a leg, with which she returned in triumph to the nest, coming out
again directly with four or five companions. These latter, with one
exception, soon gave up the chase and returned to the nest. I do not
think so much of this last case, because, as the ant carried in a sub-
stantial piece of booty in the shape of the fly's leg, it is not surprising
that her friends should some of them accompany her on her return ;
but surely the other two cases indicate a distinct power of communica-
tion. Lest, however, it should be supposed that the result was acci-
dental, I determined to try it again. Accordingly, on the following
day I put another large dead fly before an ant belonging to the same
nest, pinning it to a piece of cork as before. After trying in vain for
ten minutes to move the fly, my ant started off home. At that time I
could only see two other ants of that species outside the nest. Yet in
a few seconds, considerably less than a minute, she emerged with no

400 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

less than twelve friends. As in the previous case, she rah on ahead,
and they followed very slowly and by no means directly, taking, in
fact, nearly half an hour to reach the fly. The first ant, after vainly
laboring for about a quarter of an hour to move the fly, started off
again to the nest. Meeting one of her friends on the way, she talked
with her a little, then continued toward the nest, but, after going about
a foot, changed her mind, and returned with her friend to the fly.
After some minutes, during which two or three other ants came up,
one of them detached a leg, which she carried off to the nest, coming
out again almost immediately with six friends, one of whom, curiously
enough, seemed to lead the way, tracing it, I presume, by scent. I
then removed the pin, and they carried off the fly in triumph. Again,
on June 15th, another ant belonging to the same nest had found a
dead spider, about the same distance from the nest. I pinned down
the spider as before. The ant did all in her power to move it ; but
after trying for twelve minutes, she went off to the nest. For a quar-
ter of an hour no other ant had come out, but in some seconds she
came out again with ten companions. As in the preceding case, they
followed very leisurely. She ran on ahead, and worked at the spider
for ten minutes ; when, as none of her friends had arrived to her as-
sistance, though they were wandering about evidently in search of
something, she started back home again. In three quarters of a minute
after entering the nest she reappeared, this time with fifteen friends,
who came on somewhat more rapidly than the preceding batch, though
still but slowly. By degrees, however, they all came up, and after
most persevering efforts carried off the spider piecemeal. On July
7th I tried the same experiment with a soldier of Pheidole megace-
phala. She pulled at the fly for no less than fifty minutes, after which
she went to the nest and brought five friends exactly as the Atta had
done."

Can anything be more remarkable than the extraordinary difference
in the demeanor of the ants taught by personal experience, and of the
ants trusting to the report of another ? Obviously, the latter had a
very languid belief in the statements of their friends, just enough to
make them enter on the enterprise, but not enough to make them pros-
ecute it even so far as to hasten their pkce in order to keep up with
their eager friend. Clearly, the ants are not very good judges of
character. Their predisposition to distrust sanguine statements, like
the predisposition of timid conservatives in general, is so deep, that at
the first obstacle they fall away, perhaps questioning the use of task-
ing themselves for news that sounds so improbable as that of a treasure-
trove. Sir John Lubbock even reports one case in which a slave-ant,
of the Polyergus species, twice returned to her nest in search of co-
operation in vain. Nothing she could say would induce her fellow-
slaves to enter on a new bit of work, without better evidence of its
remunerative character than a wandering fellow-servant's report gave

REAL AND APPARENT DEATH. 401

them. Twice she returned alone to the unequal task, reproaching bit-
terly, no doubt, the faithlessness of her associates.

Those who doubt our reports of the extremely timid political cau-
tion of these insect tribes will convince themselves that we are not
exaggerating if they will but refer to Sir John's very interesting ac-
count of these formican Conservatives — Tories they are not, for ob-
viously there is no blatant element in the politics of the ants. Their
democracy, when they are democrats, is the democracy of the Swiss
Republic, not the democracy of the Imperialists, still less the democ-
racy of the French Revolution. — Spectator.

DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN REAL AND APPARENT

DEATH.

By Dk. WILLIAM FEASER.

A SATISFACTORY definition of life should express conditions
involved in every phase of vital development, but never identi-
fied with any mode of inanimate existence. Transmutation represents
one such fundamental distinction between animate and inanimate
objects ; for, although some inorganic combinations possess a degree
of permutability consistent with substantial integrity, this in particu-
lar cases is always uniform in character and limited in extent. Ice,
for example, may become successively changed into the liquid and
gaseous state without chemical decomposition, but there is an intrinsic
limit to such permutation, for under similar circumstances of pressure,
at an unalterably fixed elevation of temperature, it invariably becomes
resolved into simpler constituents.

There are apparently no such inherent restrictions to organic trans-
mutations, which may be perpetuated indefinitely, under appropriate
supplementary conditions, without perceptible intrinsic exhaustion.
Yet organisms are never sufliciently independent to spontaneously
evolve such progressive results, but require the constant accession of
extrinsic energy to develop their included potentialities.

The sun is the physical source of extraneous energy for every spe-
cies of vital change occurring on the earth's surface, as through the
immediate agency of its rays vegetables are enabled to abstract from
the surrounding medium those elements adapted to their special needs ;
and, although animals can not thus directly appropriate solar energy,
yet they are enabled to utilize it by the assimilation of certain of these
vegetable products which it has previously served to elaborate.

As all the progressive transmutations which indispensably consti-
tute individual life are dependent on the constant incretion of material
VOL. xvm. — 26

402 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

energy, integration is also a universal concomitant of vitality, so that
for practical purposes life may be provisionally defined as the continu-
ous individual integration and differentiation of material energy.

While these two correlated processes pertain to every variety of
life, the physiological expedients by which their respective activities
are sustained must vary in conformity with the specific requirements
of different structures. A simple unit of protoplasm effects all its
vital purposes through direct interchange with its environment, with-
out the necessity of any intermediate provision. But, in higher
organisms, life is indissolubly associated with certain accessory pro-
cesses, and, in these cases, though the molecular interactions on which
its essential attributes immediately depend are directly imperceptible,
yet it is possible to prove its existence or non-existence by sensibly de-
monstrating the presence or absence of these its inseparable concomi-
tants.

Man with his powers unimpaired manifests his vitality in unmis-
takable terms, but conditions not incompatible with resuscitation may
occur wherein all his functions are so reduced as to be directly imper-
ceptible. In such cases, to prevent premature burial, it is important to
discover some sign absolutely diagnostic of real or apparent death.

An essential characteristic of living bodies is their power of actively
maintaining a degree of varying integrity of constitution in opposition
to destructive influences. This requires the incorporation of extrane-
ous materials and their conversion into definite specific structures, and
always involves the immediate apposition of ingredients, as well as a
reciprocal state of the parts to be nourished. Although such intimate
reciprocation of living structures and nutrient materials must always
exist, the means whereby it is effected varies exceedingly in different
instances. In the lower order of beings it is accomplished very simply,
the medium which they inhabit offering directly the requisite pabulum,
which their own condition enables them to assimilate without any
preparatory elaboration. In more complex organisms a definite cor-
relation of parts is necessary to elaborate the crude materials of food,
as well as to bring them into immediate relation with the various
tissues.

In some simple forms vital action may be suspended indefinitely by
desiccation, being restorable by moisture, and even in some higher
cold-blooded animals a state of temporary negation may be induced
by congelation, the vital powers returning concurrently with the ab-
sorption of heat. In man it is quite different : the animal functions
may be suspended, and even some of the organic processes mter-
rupted, without extinguishing life, but there are certain of his func-
tions the cessation of which for a limited period must inevitably cause
death.

As to their vital significance, man's functions may be classified into
essential and supplemental — the former including such as can not be

REAL AND APPARENT DEATH. 403

discontinued beyond a brief interval without fatal consequences, the
latter such as may be suspended or even destroyed without involving
general dissolution. Thus, although eight is important to comfort, it
may be lost without affecting vitality ; the hepatic function may be
vicariously performed ; even the renal secretion may be suspended for
a considerable period without death : but the complete cessation of
any of the essential functions of circulation, innervation, or respiration
must be speedily followed by such a result. By the circulatory forces,
a constant flow of blood is directed to and from all the parts ; by the
nervous system, an alternating effect is produced on the tissue-elements,
whereby at one time they assimilate, at another disintegrate ; by the
respiratory apparatus, certain of the resultant products are incessantly
eliminated. These three complemental functions are so interdepen-
dent that the complete interruption of either necessarily leads to
arrestment of all, and consequent death.

Human blood is of a highly complex nature, as through it the
textures receive all the materials adequate to their continued mainte-
nance and repair. Its chemical composition is never definite, varying
in different individuals and in the same individual on different occa-
sions. The relative uniformity, however, of some of its physical char-
acters is indispensable to its vital efficiency. It is semi-solid, contain-
ing innumerable white and red corpuscles, the latter constituting nearly
one half its mass. The absolute number of these corresponds with
the degree of general vitality ; their local aggregation fluctuates with
varying contingencies.

This fluid is the seat of two distinct modes of motion — a sensible
circulation through the heart and vessels, and a subtiler interchange
with tissue-elements. Several causes conspire toward its circulatory
mass-motion, the heart's action being a sine qua non. The molecular
motions being invisible, an explanation of their modus operandi must
be partly hypothetical. There are, however, certain associated phe-
nomena admitting of direct observation under certain circumstances
which serve to throw light on the physico-vital relations of the blood.
Thus, besides its general distribution, it is subject to local variations
in the total quantity of its mass, and in the relative proportion of its
various constituents. As there are means of artificially exciting pre-
ternatural-activity of the circulation to a recognizable extent, in parts
open to observation, during the minimum degree of vitality, such a
possibility affords a reliable method of infallibly deciding in any
particular case as to the existence or non-existence of this vital
process. •

Tissues are divisible into vascular and non-vascular, according to
the mode and extent of their nutritive supply. The latter, being des-
titute of capillaries, receive their nourishment from the neighboring
vessels by endosmosis. The former are pervaded by those minute
vessels, which admit red corpuscles in a lesser or greater number, ac-

404 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

cording to the degree of functional exaltation. The cutis vera being
a superficial vascular tissue, the excessive accumulation of red corpus-
cles in its capillaries is readily perceived by the consequent Acridity of
surface. Such sensible reaction to direct irritation implies the concur-
rence of several determinate acts in the structures directly involved, as
well as the cooperation of more remote parts. Thus the tissue-elements
must possess a responsive power to become exalted in function, and to
solicit a surplus of blood-ingredients they must also retain a continuity
with the presiding nerve-center, whereby the peripheral impression
may be centripetally transmitted along the afferent nerve to this
point, thence reflected along the vaso-motor nerve, causing relaxation
of the arteriolar muscles, enlargement of caliber, and a freer flow of
blood into the part. Cardiac contractions are also necessary to propel
the corpuscles into the capillaries, as the attraction of the tissue-ele-
ments for these minute bodies can act only at insensible distances.

Man's structure conceals the changes which occur within the minute
blood-vessels, but some animals admit the examination of the interior
processes which accompany and conduce to the external manifestations
of capillary congestion. Observing the circulation in the web of the
frog's foot under the microscope, fluctuations in its current are noticed
independent of the heart's action. The corpuscles, perhaps flowing
uniformly at first, may slacken their speed, then oscillate or even retro-
grade. Apply an irritant to the part, the flow soon increases, and a
greater number of red corpuscles pass through in a given time ; they
also show a tendency to cohere as well as to adhere to the walls of the
vessels, which may proceed so far as to choke up their caliber and pre-
vent the transmission of blood. As the effect passes off, the corpuscles
gradually separate, move on, and at length the circulation resumes its
normal state. Such investigation explains the nature of the changes
which occur in the capillaries of the human skin under artificial stimu-
lation.

Heat, which is the most potent and available form of irritant, when
applied to the skin so as to considerably elevate its temperature above
the normal point, causes first an efliorescence of surface, deeper at the
center and shading off gradually toward the circumference. This red-
ness can be temporarily displaced, leaving a white impression, which
disappears on removal of the pressure, the part resuming its floridity
with a rapidity commensurate with the activity of the capillary circu-
lation. By increasing the heat or prolonging its action the color be-
comes more distinct, till at the point of greatest intensity the cuticle
becomes detached from its subjacent cutis by the gradual exudation
and accumulation of a fluid which thus forms a true vesicle. A spu-
rious vesicle may be similarly produced on the dead subject, but such
is a purely physical and local effect, entirely different from the more
comprehensive action and characters of the physiological process.

In post-mortem vesication the contents are generally gaseous from

REAL AND APPARENT DEATH.

405

decomposition, and even if fluid, from infiltration in an (Edematous or
dependent part, this is always serum, unlike the vital fibrino-albuminous
solution coagulable by heat. The pathognomonic distinction, however,
is the difference presented by the underlying cutis on removing the
loosely adherent cuticle. This, after death, has an unalterable yellow-
ish-white, crisp, horny appearance, in obvious contrast to the efilores-
cence of vital active congestion, which can be repeatedly displaced
and renewed by recurrent pressure.

Although circulation is a vital necessity, the chemical products of
its activity would of themselves speedily destroy life except for the
concurrent exercise of the respiratory and other functions.

Tissues, such as the nervo-muscular, which perform some specific
action, may be classed as active in contrast to passive, such as the
osseo-fibrous, which merely subserve some mechanical office. When
the ultimate particles of passive tissues are fully developed, they re-
main in that state for a longer or shorter period, and then gradually
decay. Active tissues, during their development, appropriate a store
of energy which, at maturity, they are capable of instantly expending
in the manifestation of their special powers. Such exertions are inevi-
tably attended by degradative transformations of their material ele-
ments. Cardiac movements and their associated vital coordinations
involve the expenditure of nervo-muscular energy, and consequent
production of simpler compounds, such as carbonic acid, the undue
retention of which in the blood would cause certain death. Such a
fatal contingency is prevented by the circulatory forces propelling the
carbonized blood into the pulmonary capillaries, where an interchange
with the oxygen of the air takes place through the intervening mem-
brane till the vesicles become surcharged with carbonic acid, which is
then expelled by the expiratory forces through the anterior openings
of the air-passages, where its detention is evidence of vitality, while
its utter absence under adequate tests is undeniable proof of the oppo-
site condition. For, though certain cold-blooded animals can exhale a
sufficient quantity of this product through their skin to permit a re-
duced vitality, in man such a cutaneous transpiration is exceedingly
m^inute and altogether inadequate to the maintenance of life, and it
may continue even after death as a merely physical property of tissue.

Innervation is blended with and controls all the vital operations,
being conspicuously implicated with muscular contraction, an act pri-
marily concerned in the various movements of respiration and circula-
tion. The frequently-repeated transmission of intense electric currents
is the most powerful stimulus of contractility, and, when such a measure
fails to excite contraction in muscles essential to life, death must have
occurred.

"When rigidity and putrefaction are actually established, they may
be accepted as infallible ^:)os^mor?CT?i indications. The former state
arises from the muscles and other soft tissues becoming so stiffened as

4o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

to resist flexion of the joints, the muscles of the lower jaw and neck
being generally first involved, those of the lower extremity last. It
might possibly be confounded with stiffening from extreme cold or
spasms; but frozen limbs yield a creaking noise when forcibly flexed,
from breakage of the congealed moisture, and spasmodic contraction
resumes its morbid position on removal of the correcting force. Not
so post-mortem rigidity.

Putrefaction succeeds rigidity as a bluish-green tint of skin, com-
mencing usually on the lower part of the abdomen and spreading over
the body. Similar gangrenous appearances may occur during life, but,
besides their more circumscribed extent, the invariable presence of a
line of displaceable redness at the confines of the living tissues is a con-
stant and characteristic distinction.

The desideratum, however, is some infallible proof of death whereby
this state can at once be decided without waiting for the more tardy
supervention of these -^ositix q\j post-mortem phenomena.

Neither the cadaveric aspect nor coldness and lividity of surface
are constant or unequivocal signs. The cessation of the heart's action
beyond five minutes is undoubted evidence, but it is impossible to
acoustically determine this with absolute certainty, even when aided
by the stethoscope, as the sense of hearing may be fallacious in deli-
cate cases. Neither is the impei'ceptibility of the respiratory move-
ments of the chest perfectly decisive. Conclusions from experiments
on the eyes, by trying to excite the pupillary muscles by physiological
agents, or by examining the fundus with the ophthalmoscope so as
to observe certain changes supposed to be essentially post-mortem, are
invalidated by the comparative unimportance of these organs to gen-
eral vitality. The same uncertainty holds as to the effects produced by
tightly ligaturing a limb, as there might be complete occlusion of its
vessels and consequent arrest of its circulation without necessarily
fatal results. The changes induced in a polished needle inserted deeply
into the living tissues may be closely simulated by non-vital causes.
Circumstances might also obscure the difference between the contents
of vital 2lvA post-mortem vesication.

The possibility of absolutely deciding, in doubtful cases, as to the
presence or absence of vitality depends on the possession of artificial
means wherewith to sensibly demonstrate the minimum activity of each
of the essentially vital processes, the utter negation of the various spe-
cific reactions under their appropriate tests being infallible evidence of
death. The different available measures vary in their degree of simplic-
ity and facility of application, but the results are all equally conclusive.

The validity of the respiratory test results from the fact that even
during the most reduced state of vitality carbonic acid is perpetually
generated in the system, and extricated therefrom through specially
adapted air-passages, where its escape can invariably be detected by
proper appliances.

REAL AND APPARENT DEATH. 407

Allowing a few hours to elapse aftei* apparent death, so that an
equilibrium may be established between the carbonic acid in the air-
chambers and the atmospheric air, if death is real the amount of this
product exhaled from the anterior opening of the air-passages will ex-
actly correspond with that transpiring from an equal area of the skin ;
but, if the slightest vital action continues, the proportion thus expired
in a given time will far exceed the whole cutaneous transpiration. Col-
lecting it at its point of exit, by a suitable contrivance, into a small
transparent vessel containing clear lime-water, its merest presence, in
contrast to any other reagent, will change this fluid at once, on shaking,
into an opaque, milky solution.

The innervation test is rendered practicable through the insepa-
rable connection of this attribute with muscular contraction ; for, even
if contractility is inherent in muscle, its excitation is possible only
through the incorporation of nerve-elements. As this manifestation
of nervo-muscular energy can always be sensibly excited by electrifi-
cation during the persistence of the feeblest vitality, the utter fail-
ure to obtain such a result in parts the activity of which is essen-
tial to life, affords conclusive evidence of vital extinction. The re-
spiratory arrangements of the glottis present a favorable opportunity
for prosecuting this special mode of experiment. At every inspiration
the contractions of the associated muscles stretch and separate the vocal
chords, thus, nearly doubling the area of aperture. In expiration the
muscles relax, allowing the parts by their elasticity to resume their
natural collapsed appearance. These changes can be observed by
placing the body before a bright light, and introducing a laryngoscope
well back into the pharynx, so as to bring the superior laryngeal aper-
ture into view. After death the rima glottidis presents the elongated
narrow form, from the close approximation of its chords. If, under
the repeated transmission of intense electric currents, properly directed,
there is no responsive contraction so as to sensibly widen the aperture,
death is certain.

The circulatory test, or the attempt to excite an actively congested
state of the cutaneous capillaries, is preeminently the best, as it requires
only simple and easily procurable appliances, which always yield de-
cisive results either in the living or dead subject. The application of
heat and the act of cupping are both effective topical means for per-
ceptibly arousing this preternatural activity of the cutaneous circula-
tion, even in the most languid condition of the system compatible with
vitality. The entire absence of such distinctive physiological reactions
and the occurrence of merely physical alterations, under the proper use
of these respective measures, is undeniable proof of death. Over the
heart is the most suitable region whereon to operate, as there the skin
longest retains its vital warmth ; but corroborative experiments may
be performed over other parts of the trunk.

Hold the flame of a candle close to {but not in contact with) the

4o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

skin sufficiently long to render the cuticle easily detachable from its
subjacent connections : if the body is dead, the parts beneath will pre-
sent a crisp, yellowish-white, horny appearance, unaffected by pressure ;
if alive, there will be readily perceptible a vital redness, distinguish-
able from all post-mortem discolorations by its repeated displacement
and reappearance under alternating pressure by tip of the finger or other-
wise. Exposing the part to a bright light, and examining it through
a magnify ing-glass, will render the different phenomena more evident.
Kindle a piece of paper soaked in any alcoholic liquor, put it in an
ordinary drinking-glass or goblet, and invert this over a part of the cu-
taneous surface where all its edge will come into accurate contact with
the skin : if there remains a minimum degree of vitality, a state of
superficial capillary congestion will be induced, with its unmistakably
recurrent characters ; whereas the absolute inability to excite such vital
reaction in any part of the trunk's surface, and the production of solely
physical effects by such potent agencies, are infallible evidence that all
vital correlations are irreparably destroyed.

-♦♦♦-

SKETCH OF GENERAL ALBERT J. MYER.

r^ ENERAL ALBERT J. MYER, extensively known as a meteo-
vIT rologist and the organizer of the United States and International
Storm-Signal Service, was born at Newburgh-upon-Hudson, on the
20th of September, 1828. While still very young, his father removed
to Buffalo. A maiden aunt took charge of the boy's education, and he
early became a telegraph operator. Later, he went to school, and
when sufficiently advanced entered Hobart College, Geneva. He grad-
uated in 1847, and, having decided to study medicine, he went through
the Buffalo Medical College, and obtained his degree of M. D. in 1851.
A predilection for military life impelled him to seek a field of use-
fulness for his surgical talents in the army, wljere he obtained a com-
mission. He was ordered out upon the Plains, and it is said that one
day, seeing some Comanche Indians waving their lances, the idea
struck him that such motions might be utilized for army-signals, simi-
lar to those in use in the navy. ' The subject soon occupied a great
deal of his attention, and, the more he thought about it, the more inter-
esting it became to him, until finally he had invented an ingenious
code of signals. The doctor's transformation into an inventor was
noised abroad upon his return to the East, and the authorities, becom-
ing interested in his idea, appointed a Signal Corps and placed him in
command of it, and from 1858 to 1860 he was engaged in special duty,
perfecting his system and educating his eighty-odd men in its use. In
July, 1860, he was commissioned major, and made chief signal-officer

SKETCH OF GENERAL ALBERT J. MYER. 409

of the army. During the remainder of this year and until May, 1861,
he was ordered to New Mexico and the Rocky Mountains by Secretary
Floyd, for the purpose of giving his corps an opportunity to have actual
practice in the field. On the breaking out of the war. Major Myer
identified himself with the Union army. One of his lieutenants went
over to the other side and succeeded in creating no little confusion,
for with him he took a knowledge of the signal-service system, and it
was not long before each army was able to read the signals of the
other, so that constant changes in the key became necessary. He next
served on General Butler's staff, at Fortress Monroe, and was General
McClellan's chief signal-officer during the entire Peninsular campaign.
In November, 1862, he took charge of the Signal-Office at Washington,
Here he performed service which compelled recognition and remunera-
tion at the hands of the Government, however unwillingly tendered,
and he was brevetted as lieutenant-colonel for services at Hanover
Court-House, colonel for services at Malvern Hill, and brigadier-gen-
eral for " distinguished services in organizing, instructing, and com-
manding the Signal Corps of the army, and for its especial service
October 5, 1864," when, by timely signals, were saved the post and
garrison of Allatoona, Georgia.

It is said that General Myer was a strict disciplinarian, and exact-
ing to the degree of intolerance. He had indomitable firmness, and it
is possible that these traits of character may have been the causes
why the overbearing Secretary of War, Mr. Stanton, took a dislike to
him. But, whatever the causes, the Secretary's hatred took a violent
form. When Myer was with Farragut before Mobile, he received an
order, signed by Stanton, informing him that he was dropped out of
the army on the ground that his appointment to the colonelcy had not
been confirmed. Myer then came on to Washington, took a house,
appealed to the Senators and Congressmen, and fought the matter out
till he was reestablished. At the close of the war Colonel Myer began
to turn his attention in the direction of meteorology, and to connect
that science with the art of army signaling. The Smithsonian Insti-
tution had entered upon a system of taking weather observations in
different parts of the country, and Colonel Myer began to work upon
this basis, and more completely to elaborate a method of forecasting
meteorological probabilities.

"In 1868 General Meyer published a 'Manual of Signals for the
United States Army and Navy,' and about this time it was that his
field of labor began to broaden and tend upward. By virtue of an
act of Congress, approved February 9, 1870, he was charged with the
special duties of observing and giving notice by telegraph and signals
of the approach and force of storms on the Northern lakes and the sea-
coast, at military posts in the interior, and other points in the States
and Territories. He reorganized the meteorological division of the
Signal-Office in June, 1871. By an act approved March 3, 1873, he

410 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

was placed in charge of special duties of telegraphy, etc., being au-
thorized to establish signal-stations at lighthouses and life-saving
stations wherever they might be convenient to his pui-poses. The
training school at Fort Whipple, the signal-service drill, and the strict
discipline of the weather corps, were all due to General Meyer's di-
recting mind.

" From national observations it was quite in the natural order of
things that General Myer's work should expand to international dimen-
sions. The success of the United States Signal-Service Bureau excited
the greatest interest abroad, and similar institutions were inaugurated
in several of the European countries. Long before, General Myer had
conceived the bold idea of a system of simultaneous observations in
all parts of the Northern Hemisphere, and as soon as he could do so he
pushed the matter onward, until in September, 1873, an International
Congress was convened in Vienna, and he was sent there as the dele-
gate from the United States. To this Congress General Myer pro-
posed that ' it is desirable, with a view to their exchange, that at least
one uniform observation, of such character as to be suited for the prep-
aration of synoptic charts, be taken and recorded daily and simul-
taneously at as many stations as practicable throughout the world.'
This proposition was unanimously adopted, and, as the delegates were
virtually empowered to speak for their several countries, this vote as-
sured the existence of the international system. From its very incep-
tion this system has proved a wonderful success, and now the follow-
ing countries are taking simultaneous observations and exchanging
them : Algiers, Australasia, Austria, Belgium, Central America, China,
Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Greenland, Ice-
land, 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.

" On the 1st of July, 1875, General Myer began to issue from the
Army-Office at Washington the daily printed bulletin. July 1, 1878,
the same office began to publish its daily international weather-map,
which added to General Myer's triumphs. He also instituted a system
of observations in ocean meteorology, simultaneous with the inter-
national observations. These have proved of immense value, and at
present nearly a hundred observers are engaged therein. Thus the
work has gone forward, constantly extending, constantly progressing
in accuracy.

"General Myer paid a second visit to Europe last year, ostensibly
for rest. At the request of the Italian Government, he gave valuable
information concerning the system, and instead of a pleasure-trip this
turned out a laborious one, and finally at Venice General Myer was
prostrated by the trouble which eventually has caused his death.

" Like so many other men who have won eminent position through

SKETCH OF GENERAL ALBERT J. MYER. 411

their own efforts, General Myer was a victim of overwork. His field
of labor was an ever-widening one, and his ambitious brain knew no
discretion in the matter of rest, but pushed him onward beyond his
powers of physical endurance. Once before, his ceaseless industry laid
him low — at a time, too, by a curious yet characteristic chance, when
he was supposed to be recuperating his energies in a foreign trip. In
spite of this warning, which was certainly severe enough to be heeded,
he refused to leave Washington this summer, and obtain the relaxation
he so much needed, but kept at his post until he became so ill that he
could not sign his name. Then he was obliged to leave at a time
when, as it afterward proved, he had waited too long. He was brought
to Buffalo, but instead of going to his beautiful summer home at Lake
View, he took apartments in the Palace Hotel, Dr. Rochester, his
family physician, taking charge of his case. His trouble was a pain-
ful complication of heart and kidney troubles, and, his blood becoming
poisoned by the latter disease, he became delirious. In spite of the
careful treatment and perfect nursing which he received he sank slowly
and died, August 24th, at the early age of fifty-two, leaving a wife
and six children.

" Although dying thus in the very height of his usefulness, and when
he could ill be spared from his great work, General Myer lived to see
his idea of an international signal-weather system in successful opera-
tion, and already sanctioned and supported by the leading nations of
the Northern Hemisphere. His great idea has passed its experimental
stage, and his friends have the satisfaction of knowing that competent
and enthusiastic men will carry it forward to its fullest fruition. His
legacy is a grand one, comprising an honest name, an heroic record, a
stainless reputation both as soldier and citizen, the honor of an unpat-
ented invention and application of telegraphy which materially helped
to save the Union, and the glory of having originated one of the grand-
est ideas of the century— an idea the practical application of which has
already saved many lives, and which is destined when more perfectly
developed to work a revolution in the science of meteoroloffv, and to
banish, m part at least, that great cause of terrestrial waste — meteoro-
logical uncertainty.

" In appearance ' Old Probabilities ' was a fine-looking, soldierly
appearing man, with high forehead, firm mouth, and earnest, thought-
ful eyes. He wore a short-cropped, full beard, and an abundant head
of hair. His physiognomy indicated great decision of character and
executive ability, and these signals from Nature's code were fully con-
firmed in his character and life."

We are indebted for the foregoing particulars of General Myer's
career to an admirable sketch in the Buffalo "Daily Courier" of
August 25th.

41Z

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES.

rpiHIS body held its November ses-
JL sion in New York, and its meet-
ings at Columbia College. In the ab-
sence of President William B. Eogers,
Vice-President O. C. Marsh filled his
chair. The proceedings %vere in a high
degree interesting. It is commonly
supposed that the disquisitions of this
body belong to depths of profundity
that are wholly unapproachable by or-
dinarily endowed mortals, but this is a
quite erroneous view. There are often,
to be sure, technical and mathemati-
cal papers intelligible only to those pro-
ficient in these subjects ; but the prin-
cipal topics considered at the recent
meeting were not only of general inter-
est, but they were so treated that well-
instructed people could appreciate and
enjoy them. The Academy, however,
never bids for a crowd, and if there
should be an influx of outsiders it would
be immediately inferred that there is
something wrong in the working of the
association. Of the hundred members,
thirty or forty usually get together at
the meetings and devote themselves to
reporting the results of research, and
to the discussion of views presented.
There are set papers, of course, but ex-
position is largely extemporaneous, and
accompanied with blackboard and other
illustrations.

The newspapers have given to the
public notices of the main results of the
late meeting, all of which will be more
fully published in the " Transactions "
of tlie Academy, or in the scientific peri-
odicals. Among the novel and striking
things brought forward was a new
method of chemical analysis, by Dr.
"Wolcott Gibbs ; Professor Pwood's expe-
riments in perfecting the vacuum ; Pro-
fessor Langley's researches into the dis-

tribution of heat in the spectrum, and
his new method of measuring infinites-
imal amounts of heat ; Professor Hen-
ry Draper's photographs of the Orion
nebula ; and Professor Marsh's account
of a fossil animal with an extra brain
at the other end of the spinal column.
The progress of the electric light was
also critically discussed, and various
other important subjects were duly con-
sidered. In short, if our friends the
Academicians will pardon us, their meet-
ing was a " complete success."

THE STUDY OF GREEK AT CAMBRIDGE.

We drew attention, a year or two
ago, to a movement in England, led
by several head-masters of the public
schools and other eminent gentlemen
interested in education, to secure a re-
laxation in the university requirements
regai'ding the study of Latin and Greek.
The study of Greek was compulsory, and
insisted upon as if it were the sole con-
dition of turning out an educated man.
A petition was sent to the authorities
of Cambridge, asking that it be omitted
if the student desired to take in its place
a modern language. It was remarked
that students entering the university
"may be the peers of Airy and Adams
in pure mathematics, of Tyndall and
Huxley in natural science, of a Whewell
and a Hamilton in moral science, but
they must be able to read a play of Eu-
ripides and the Greek Testament, or
Cambridge will not have them among
its graduates." This state of things was
such as to provoke decided protest on
the part of liberal-minded men, and
hence the public controversy upon the
subject, and the petition that forced the
issue upon the Cambridge authorities.
A late number of the " Lancet " reports

EDITOR'S TABLE.

413

progress on the question in the follow-
ing paragraph: "A discussion took
place in the Arts Schools at Cambridge
on Tuesday, October 26th, on the report
of an influential syndicate, which had
been appointed to consider a memorial
sent bv schoolmasters and teachers, in-
eluding the head-masters of Eaton, Win-
chester, Westminster, St, Paul's, Har-
row, and Rugby — Matthew Arnold, C.
Darwin, Sir J. Hooker, Professor Hux-
ley, Professor Tyndall, Dr. Vaughan,
and the Bishops of Exeter and Win-
chester. The memorial stated that ' the
present regulations, according to which
a knowledge of Greek is required from
all candidates for the Previous Exami-
nation at Cambridge, have the effect of
excluding a large and increasing num-
ber of able and deserving students from
the benefits of university education,'
and it respectfully prayed that the uni-
versity would be pleased to take into
consideration some means whereby can-
didates for an honor degree may be re-
lieved from the obligation of passing
an examination in Greek. After much
deliberation and inquiry, the syndicate
reported — 1. In favor of the relaxa-
tion of the requirements of Greek in
some cases; 2. That the relaxation
should be restricted to candidates for
honors; 3. That a knowledge of French
and German should be accepted as a
substitute for Greek."

But it seems that this reasonable
report of the syndicate was not finally
adopted. We learn from the London
" Spectator" that the senate of the uni-
versity decided against the petitioners
by one hundred and eighty-five votes
against one hundred and forty-five.
The " Spectator " discusses this result
in a way that is suggestive. It re-
grets the Cambridge decision, not from
want of appreciation of Greek, but be-
cause the language is so poorly taught
in the university. It declares that it
heartily concurs in the following esti-
mate of this study : " It is said that a
knowledge of Greek is the only door

of access to a certain plane of culture
which contains more of the seeds of
free life and intellectual energy than all
the rest of the intellectual discipline of
our schools put together. The genius
of the Greek language and literature,
it is said, is the genius of freedom. The
genius of the Latin language is the ge-
nius of authority and law. We believe
there is a great deal of truth in this
view."

But no such ideal is realized in prac-
tice, and the actual results are thus
stated : " The fact, no doubt, is that in
the present embarrassing wealth of dis-
ciplinary studies a great many men,
with a real gift for mathematics and
physical science, and whose education
at the university, so far as it is of any
value at all, is carried through in the
sphere of mathematics or physical sci-
ence, take up Greek for the Previous
Examination in the most perfunctory
way, never attain even a rudimentary
mastery of the language or the litera-
ture, and even lose something in the
thoroughness of their early studies, by
entering on a subject which they intend
to drop as soon as ever it has answered
their temporary purpose. Now, for
such as these, the compulsory cram-
ming of a little Greek — enough to ena-
ble them, perhaps, to construe decently
a little New Testament or a little bit of
the ' Anabasis ' of Xenophon, after they
have been carefully prepared by a tu-
tor— is of no kind of good, and yet
takes the place of an acquisition which
might be of very real use to them in
the career they actually propose to
themselves." Again : " The real reason
for regretting the decision of the Uni-
versity of Cambridge is the tendency
of modern education toward superfi-
ciality. Whatever can be done to pre-
vent subjects being taken up which are
never to be pursued, and which are
never so far followed out that they give
those who have entered upon them a
new sense of power, should be done.
Whatever any university can do to en-

4H

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

courage the lona fide study of Greek,
it ought to do. There is no study so
cultivating ; there are few studies so
humanizing ; there are not very many
studies so ennobling. But just for this
reason we think but little of it as a
mere whetstone for the understanding
of boys ; and think a very great deal,
on the other hand, of the vast impor-
tance of not forcing on any one the
necessity for a fragmentary acquisition
which is to form no part of his future
studies. Whatever else is necessary
nowadays, this is most necessary — to
prevent that dispersion of the mind
over a hundred unconnected morsels of
half-knowledge, to which the enormous
multiplication of intellectual interests
too much tends."

With this demand for thoroughness
of study we entirely agree ; and it fa-
vors the conclusion that of the multi-
tude of subjects undertaken some must
be cut off. We say, let those go that
are demonstrated and acknowledged
failures. The " Spectators " complaint
that Greek is superficially crammed at
Cambridge, is but a fresh example of
the lamentations of thoughtful men
over the same result at the universities
for two hundred years. It is not that
modern science crowds classical studies
so that there is not sufficient time.
John Milton made exactly the same
complaint when the dead languages and
their literatures were almost the exclu-
sive objects of university study, and
there was no such thing as the rivalry
of scientific studies.

When we consider the force of tra-
dition in a conservative country like
England, it is not to be expected that
reforms in these rich old universities
will move very fast ; yet the majority for
retaining the customary Greek was not
large. Common sense makes headway,
but the surprising thing is that the old
extravagant claims for this study should
still be urged. The "Spectator" af-
firms Greek to be the most cultivating
of all studies, and among the very high-

est for its humanizing and ennobling in-
fluences. The authority of the " Spec-
tator " is outweighed by those who
declare that the influence of classical
studies is of a very different character.
Dr. Whewell characterized it as " nar-
row and enfeebling " ; Macaulay says
they have " a tendency to contract the
views and deaden the sensibility"; and
Sydney Smith speaks of the effect of
classical learning as an " elegant imbe-
cility." Certainly that can not be an
eminently "cultivating" study which
leaves whole important tracts of our
mental nature uncultivated ; nor can
that be the most " humanizing " of
studies which puts an ancient fraction
of the human race, to be approached
only through a dead language, in place
of living humanity itself. And are we
to regard that study as especially " en-
nobling " which knows nothing of the
conquests, aspirations, and encourage-
ments of the knowledge and life of the
present time ?

THE STUDY OF SEWERAGE IN LONDON.

The current standards of study and
valuations of knowledge are factitious
and false. Greek is not so ennobling a
study as that of sfewerage. To trace
out the obscure laws of our own and
of surrounding nature, so as to get com-
mand of natural agencies for beneficent
ends, is the noblest object of study.
If life be greater than any of its acci-
dents, what study is so exalted as that
which teaches how to save it, to im-
prove it, and to perfect it? When diph-
theria makes its dread appearance, and
the priceless lives of beloved children
are in mortal peril, then comes, with
startling emphasis, the true answer to
the question, " What knowledge is of
most worth ? " — it is the knowledge
that leads to self-preservation. There
is such a thing as life-saving knowledge,
but it is not of the classical sort, nor
that which is most prized in colleges,
even in these later times. It is scien-

EDITOR'S TABLE.

415

tific knowledge that teaches how hfe is
to be protected and prolonged, disease
prevented, health heightened, and hu-
man existence made more valuable.
"While at Cambridge they have been
assiduous in conserving the more worth-
less kinds of knowledge and preventing
thoroughness in any, in London men
have been voluntarily combining to se-
CHre the more thorough application of
sciientific methods to household sanita-
tion. Great multitudes die from un-
healthy habitations. Their dwellings are
poisoned by noxious emanations that
give rise both to slow undermining mal-
adies and to swift malignant diseases.
Prominent among these destructive con-
taminations is sewer-gas, and science has
at length grappled with the problem of
getting effectually rid of it. It was at
first supposed to be an easy task.
*' Traps " were interposed to prevent
the refluence of sewage exhalations,
and all was supposed to be well. But
disease and death were still rife, and
further investigation showed the inefB-
cacy of the mechpanical arrangements,
and. that " foul gases will pass steadily,
continuously, and certainly through
water in traps." Yet it can not be for
a moment doubted that it is possible to
obtain absolute protection in dwellings
against sewer-air. The difficulty is to
get the ignorant classes (including the
educated) to give that serious attention
to the subject which its gravity de-
mands. The work must be done by
the comparatively few who have mas-
tered the science of the question.

Much has been accomplished by such
men in this country as well as abroad.
But we observe that they are organiz-
ing in London for the most effectual
prosecution of this important work.
A Sanitary Assurance Association has
been formed under the presidency of
an eminent physician, Sir Joseph Fay-
rer, the design of which is to unite the
professions of medicine and architecture
to secure the thorough supervision of
sanitary arrangements and drainage in

the houses of the metropolis. It seems
not to be a movement of evasion by
getting up a cry for more " government
inspection," but a voluntary association
of qualified men who are ready to meet
the responsibilities of the task they
undertake. Assuming that defective
drainage is a " great enemy to public
health," and that " there is a terrible
absence of all supervision of sanitary
arrangements," the Sanitai-y Assur-
ance Association will make a careful
investigation of the health-conditions
of houses, and give certificates to those
that are in perfect sanitary order. This
will be of most important service to
the public, because people generally are
incompetent to determine what houses
are healthy and what are unhealthy.
The names of the men who are fore-
most in this movement are a guarantee
that it will be well directed, and, if it
achieves the success that it promises,
kindred associations will spring up in
many other places. A writer, giving a
notice of this organization in " Natui-e,"
remarks : " It is surely as necessary to
be assured against preventable diseases
as it is to be assured against fire, and
we see from the preliminary prospectus
issued that it is intended to give per-
sons who place their houses on the As-
surance Register certificates that their
houses are in a satisfactory sanitary
condition, and to endorse such certifi-
cates from time to time ; this latter
point is of great importance, as it is
only by regular inspection at stated in-
tervals that it is possible to ascertain
that all continues to work satisfacto-
rily."

A FIELD-NATURALISTS' CLUB.

"We have been much gratified in look-
ing over a modest pamphlet of sixty-
two pages that has been sent to us,
bearing the title of " Transactions Jfo. 1
of the Ottawa Field-Naturalists' Club."
Several young men of that Canadian
city, interested in the subject, discussed

4i6

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

for a year or two the possibility of
starting a society devoted to the inves-
tigation of the natural history of the
vicinity, and, having resolved to try it,
they issued a few circulars, called a meet-
ing, which was attended by some forty
gentlemen, drew up a few rules, and es-
tablished the association. The object
is so praiseworthy, and the plan so well
worth imitating in other places, that
some account of the operations of this
club may prove acceptable to many
readers.

The club was organized by the ap-
pointment of a President, two Vice-
Presidents, a Secretary-Treasurer, and
a committee of five other members, all
of whom are to constitute a Council of
Management. Ladies and gentlemen de-
siring to join the club may become
members by paying a fee of fifty cents
a year. The club secures its objects by
means of excursions in the summer
for making observations and collecting
specimens ; and by holding evening
meetings and soirees in the winter for
reading papers, discussion, and exhi-
bition, and the display and comparison
of natural history objects, the general
direction of these proceedings being
vested in the Council.

The Council reports at the end of
the first year that the work has gone
on satisfactorily so as to alFord every en-
couragement for continuing it. Large
numbers, of course, do not take to such
projects as this ; and of those who do,
or who join with entire good will,
only a small portion have interest
enough in the objects to be attained to
discharge well the duties of member-
ship. This is always to be counted
upon in such undertakings, and should
wisely moderate the expectations of the
more sanguine. We are informed that
the Council met twenty times during
the year for the transaction of business,
at irregular intervals, as occasion re-
quired ; and at these meetings there
was an average attendance of nearly
seven out of nine of the Councilors,

This certainly shows well, but the offi-
cers were of course picked for their in-
terest in the work. The members were
less dutiful. There were five excur-
sions in the course of the summer to
attractive points in the vicinity of Ot-
tawa, but only a small part of the mem-
bers accompanied them. This indiffer-
ence is thus referred to in the annual
report: "The Council feel compelled
to express their regret that, although
these excursions were to the most in-
teresting places in the neighborhood,
and the price of tickets put so low that
three of them did not pay expenses, so
few of the members thought them worth
attending. It does not say much for
the interest the members take in the
club's work, that, with a membership
of over eighty, the average attendance
at the excursions should be only thirty,
fully one third of whom were visitors ;
and they hope that during the coming
season the excursions will be better
supported by the members of the club,"
But if the members did not care
to go on the summer expeditions, they
were less remiss when it came to the
winter meetings. The winter course
of soirees and conversaziones was suc-
cessful in every respect. There was
a well-sustained attendance, and the
papers read were not only of consider-
able range but also of serious scientific
interest. They were on the following
subjects: 1. "Inaugural Address," on the
pleasure of understanding common ob-
jects ; 2. " Graphite of the Ottawa Val-
ley " ; 3. " On the Forms and Structures
of some Spongillaj found in the Ottawa";
4. " The Connection of Botany with
Mythology"; 5. " Cystidian Life";
6, " Museum Education " ; 7. " On the
Contractility of the Spores of Palmella
Hytilina"; 8, "Asbestos"; 9, "A
Practical Demonstration of the Human
Brain"; 10, "Design in Nature"; 11,
"Land and Fresh-water Shells of the
Ottawa Valley " ; 12, " On some In-
sects captured at our Excursions " ; 13,
" On some Plants collected during our

EDITOR'S TABLE.

417

Excursions." Abstracts of these papers
are given in the " Transactions," and
thej are of a very instructive charac-
ter.

If we had space we would print the
whole of the admirable " Inaugural Ad-
dress," by Mr. James Fletcher, who hap-
pily remarks in his opening : " One of
the chief benefits bestowed by an or-
ganization such as ours, is, that it en-
ables one always to know where to
find a sympathetic companion. Of all
recreations, there is none, to my mind,
more enjoyable than a walk in the coun-
try with a congenial friend. No kind
of intercourse brings you into closer
contact with a companion than taking
a walk. You can not take ten steps,
even with a stranger, without feeling a
necessity of saying something, and, if
there is anything in a man, you can
soon bring it out of him in a country
walk. Now, it is very clear that a
judicious choice with regard to your
companion is a most important matter ;
but it is not always easy to find one
who has the same tastes or takes an in-
terest in the same subjects as yourself.
John Burroughs, in ' Winter Sunshine,'
writes as follows : ' Professional walk-
ers are very fastidious in choosing or
admitting a companion, and hence the
truth of a remark of Emerson that " you
wiU generally fare better to take your
dog than to invite your neighbor." Your
cur dog is a true pedestrian; he enters
into the spirit of the enterprise ; he is
not indifferent or preoccupied ; he is
constantly sniffing adventure; laps at
every spring ; looks upon every field or
wood as a new world to be explored ;
is ever on some new trail ; knows some-
thing important will happen a little far-
ther on; whatever the spot, or what-
ever the road, he is always satisfied
with it. In short, he is just that happy
excursive vagabond that touches one at
so many points, and whose human pro-
totype in a companion, when such can
be found, robs miles and leagues of
half their power and fatigue.'
VOL. XVIII. — 27

" The most interesting companion in
anything is undoubtedly the one who
can tell you most about it. Therefore,
the best companion in the country must
be a naturalist, who can point out ob-
jects of interest and explain their beau-
ties and wonders. No one looks upon
the world so kindly as he does ; no one
else gives so much attention to, or
takes so much enjoyment from, the
country as he does, and he holds a more
vital relation to nature, because he is
freer, and his mind is more at leisure.
Moreover, when a naturalist gets a
friend, who is not one, out in the coun-
try, he feels a sort of moral responsi-
bility resting upon him to find some-
thing particularly interesting to point
out, so as to arouse his curiosity, and,
if possible, to convert him to the study
of 'La Belle Science.' I say particu-
larly interesting, because everything in
nature is interesting and beautiful ; and
I defy any one to bring me a single ob-
ject, picked up by a country roadside,
which is not beautiful, and even ex-
quisitely so — a stick, a piece of straw,
a leaf, or a stone, it matters not what,
if properly examined and understood,
they are aU wonderful and lovely."

As before remarked, we refer to
the early experience of this club be-
cause it may aff'ord guiding suggestions
for the formation of similar associations
elsewhere. In smaller towns there
might not be found so many men culti-
vated in natural history to sustain such
a society as in Ottawa, but that is not
essential. In every village of five thou-
sand inhabitants there is cultivated
capacity enough, if it were combined,
to carry on with some method and to
valuable results the work of scientific
self-improvement. It may be done to
some extent anywhere, in many ways
and with few facilities. All over the
country there are individuals working
alone and to great disadvantage; these
would help others and be helped in
turn by such combination and' cooper-
ation as might be almost everywhere

4i8

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

practicable. The high-school of every
town ought to be the headquarters of
a Field-Naturalists' Club that shall have
for its object to study the natural his-
tory of the locality.

PHYSICAL EDUCATION.

It has not been our habit in this
Monthly to make much parade about
what we are going to do, being quite
content with plain statements of what
we are doing. In this spirit we ask
attention to an important series of arti-
cles now begun on the subject of " Phys-
ical Education," and which may be ex-
pected to continue through the year.
Dr. Oswald is widely known to the
American public as a vigorous, thor-
oughly-informed thinker, and one of the
most racy, incisive, and brilliant writ-
ers of the period. He will treat the
subject from an original and especially
modern point of view. It is a sugges-
tive circumstance that in all modern
languages the terms corresponding to
what we call physical culture have ac-
quired a specific meaning, being applied
nearly exclusively to gymnastics and
calisthenics as a branch of practical edu-
cation. Yet the advocates of physical
training in this limited sense were the
■first to take issue with the educational
methods of the mediaeval system — of the
anti-natural school, as it has been justly
termed, since its exponents ignored the
physical interests of man as persistently
as they denied his right to temporal hap-
piness. The founders of the Turn-bund.i
like their Grecian pi'ototypes, held that
our highest physical and our highest
moral well-being can only be conjoint-
ly attained ; that health is the principal
condition of happiness, and the normal
condition of all whose mode of life is
not grossly at variance with the simple
laws which Nature proclaims in the un-
mistakable language of our instincts.

These principles Dr. Oswald has ap-
plied to the science of Physical Educa-
tion in tlie widest sense of the word.

The serial will comprise an exposition
of "Dietetics," the first installment of
which is herewith issued, to be fol-
lowed by chapters on " In-door Life,"
" Out-door Life," " Gymnastics," " He-
reditary Influences," " Clothing," " Re-
medial Education," etc.

Dr. Oswald has studied the social
conditions and sanitary habits of many
communities, having traveled in Mexico,
South America, and Southern Europe,
so that his articles will be enriched with
the results of wide and careful personal
observation; and it will be found that
the author has solved the problem of
making a scientific work as attractive
to the most fastidious amateur of ielles-
lettres as to the scientific reader and the
public in general.

LITERARY NOTICHS.

The Atomic Theory. By Charles Adolph
WuRTZ, Member of the French Insti-
tute. Translated by E. Cleminshaw,
F. C. S. New York : D. Appleton & Co.
Pp. 344. Price, $1.50.

There is a certain sense in which the
modern atomic theory may be regarded as
the realization of a dream or the fulfillment
of a prophecy, or, still better, the verifica-
tion of a shrewd guess inspired by common
reflection and common sense. The notion of
matter being all made up of infinitely small
particles or atoms was a speculation of the
ancient Greek philosophers which has been
revived in modern times, and during the
present century has become established as
a fundamental theory of chemical and phys-
ical science. The atomic theory has now
assumed a definite form, and binds into
unity wide ranges of facts so as to afford a
consistent and intelligible view of the con-
stitution of material things. It has been a
subject of acute, profound, and protracted
controversy, but has grown in clearness and
strength with time, as our experimental
knowledge of matter has been gradually
extended. The most subtle attacks upon
it have generally resulted in confirming it,
and it has been an instrument of progress
even in the hands of those who have doubt-

LITERARY NOTICES.

419

ed it as an expression of a basal truth in
nature. The history of -the growth of this
conception consequently forms one of the
most interesting chapters in the develop-
ment of scientific ideas ; while an exposition
of its principles affords the completest ex-
emplification of the views now entertained
of the structural and constitutive laws of
matter.

All books upon chemistry are now to a
certain extent treatises upon the atomic
theory, which becomes more and more in-
dispensable as this science increases in ex-
tent and complication. The latest phase
of chemical progress — the "New Chemis-
try," as it is called — is entirely pervaded by
atomic and molecular theories, while mo-
lecular physics is now more completely co-
ordinated with chemistry through the inter-
vention of the atomic hypothesis than has
ever been possible before. So important
has this idea become, that special treatises
are required to deal with it. The " New
Chemistry" of Professor Cooke is one of
the ablest of these expositions, and has
done a most valuable service to education
by facilitating the mental transition from an
old to a new order of ideas.

Yet the subject is one of so many as-
pects and such deep and comprehensive
significance that it can not be exhausted in
any single treatise. There was need for a
book like this of Professor Wurtz, which
discusses the atomic theory both in its
historic evolution and in its present form,
with the view of bringing out clearly the in-
fluence it has exercised upon the progress
of science since the beginning of the century.
And perhaps no other man of this age could
have been selected so able to perform the
task in a masterly way as the illustrious
French chemist who contributed the present
volume to the " International Scientific Se-
ries." He gave himself early to chemistry,
and became chief of the chemical department
in the Medical Faculty at Strasburg, at the
age of twenty-two. He was soon after called
to Paris, and became at once connected with
its great scientific institutions. After the
death of the celebrated toxicologist Orfila,
in 1853, and the retirement of Dumas in
1854, their chairs were united in that of
Medical Chemistry and given to Wurtz. In
1867 he became a member of the French

Academy of Sciences, which had previously
awarded him a prize of twenty thousand
francs. He has written much upon chem-
istry, pure and applied, and has paid great
attention to the history of chemical doctrines.
Among Enghsh translations of his works
are, " Chemical Philosophy, according to
Modem Theories" (1867), and "Theory
from the Age of Lavoisier " (1869). "The
Atomic Theory " is his last and crowning
work, and it has a special authority derived
from its author's critical study of chemical
progress in the present century.

It is impossible to convey to the reader,
in a notice like this, any adequate idea of
the scope, lucid instructiveness, and scien-
tific interest of Professor Wurtz's book.
The modern problems of chemistry, which
are commonly so obscure from imperfect
exposition, are here made wonderfully clear
and attractive. The statements are suffi-
ciently full without being overdone, the
writer's object being simply to make the
reader understand the topic that is treated.
Many passages might be quoted ; here is
the account of the " vortex theory," taken
from the final chapter of hypothesis upon
" The Constitution of Matter " :

In these later times a theory has arisen which
seems to grive a mathematical demonstration,
and even an experimental illustration, of the in-
divisibility, or rather of the peculiar and eternal
individuality, of atoms: I refer to the vortex
atoms of Sir William Thomson.

Chemists can form an idea of this vortex
motion by recalling to mind the rings which rise
in still air whenever a bubble of phosphoretted
hydrogen bursts upon the surface of water, and
the rings which certain smokers are able to
make are familiar to all. An apparatus has been
constructed by which they may be produced at
wiU. It is a wooden box, one side of which is
furnished with a circular opening, and the other
formed of a tightly stretched cloth. In the in-
terior of the box fumes of sal-ammoniac are
produced, which are driven out by a sharp blow
on the elastic side. A ring of smoke is then seen
to issue from the opening, and to move freely
through the room. In this ring all is motion,
and, independently of the motion of translation,
the smoke-particles roll over each other and
execute a rotary motion in every section of the
ring. These motions take place from the in-
terior toward the exterior of the ring, in the
direction of the motion of translation, so that
the entire mass of air, or of the smoke which
forms the ring, revolves continually round a cir-
cular axis, which forms, as it were, the nucleus
of the ring. There is this remarkable fact in
this rotary motion, that all the particles which

420

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

are eituated upon one of the cnrvee which ca"n
he drawn in each section of the rinij, are indis-
solubly tied down to their circular paths, and
can never quit them ; so that the whole mass of
the vortex ring will be always formed of the
same particles. This theorem was proved by
Helmholtz in 1858. This eminent physicist has
analyzed the vortex motions which would exist
in a perfect fluid free from all friction. He has
proved that in such a medium vortex rings,
hounded by a system of vortex liues,* are formed
of an invariable quantity of the same liquid mol-
ecules, so that the rings can move, and even
change their form, without the connection of
their constituent parts ever being broken.
They will continue to revolve, and nothing will
be able to separate them, divide them, or de-
stroy them. Those existing in the liquid will
exist there for ever, and new ones can only be
excited in it by a creative act.

The smoke-rings, of which we have spoken
above, would give a perfect representation of
these liquid vortex rings if they were formed
and moved in a perfect fluid. They are not so ;
but such as can be formed can serve for the
demonstration of some properties of matter in
vortex motion. They are eudowed with elasti-
city and can change their form. The circle is
their position of equilibrium, and, when their
form is altered, they oscillate round this posi-
tion, aud finally rcassume the circular form.
But, if we try to cut them, they recede before the
knife, or bend round it, without allowing them-
selves to be injured. They give, therefore, a
representation of something which would be in-
divisible. And when two rings meet each other,
they behave like two solid elastic bodies ; after
the impact they vibrate energetically. It is a
singular fact that when two rings are moving in
the same direction, so that their centers are
Hituated upon the same line, and their planes
perpendicular to this line, the hinder ring con-
tracts continually, while its velocity increases ;
the ring in advance, on the contrary, expands,
and its velocity decreases until the other has
passed it, when the same action recommences,
so that the rings alternately pass through each
other. But, through all these changes of form
and velocity, each preserves its own individu-
ality, and these two circular masses of smoke
move through the air as if they were something
perfectly distinct and independent. These curi-
ous experiments were made in England. t

Helmholtz, therefore, has discovered the fun-
damental properties of matter in vortex motion,
and Sir William Thomson has stated, "This
perfect medium and these vortex rings which
move through it, represent the universe." A
fl'iid fills all space, and what we call matter are
portions of this fluid which are animated with
vortex motion. There are innumerable legions
of very small fractions or portions, but each of
these portions is perfectly limited, distinct from
the entire mass, and distinct from all others,

* " Wirbelfaden nnd Wirbellinien."
t P. G. Tait. " Lectures on some Recent Ad-
vances in Physical Science." London, 1876.

not only in its own Bubstance, but in its mass
and its mode of motion— qualities which it will
preserve for ever. These portions are atoms.
In the perfect medium which contains them all,
none of them can change or disappear, none of
them can be formed spontaneously. Every-
where atoms of the same kind are constituted
after the same fashion, and are endowed with
the same properties. It is well known, in fact,
that the atoms of hydrogen vibrate exactly in
the same periods, whether we heat them in a
Geissler's tube, observe them in the sun, or in
the most distant nebulas.

Such is, in a few words, the conception of
vortex atoms. It accounts, in a satisfactory
manner, for some properties of matter, and of
all the hypotheses upon the nature of atoms it
appears to be the most probable. We see also
that it permits the revival of the ancient hypoth-
esis of the unity of matter, and in a more ac-
ceptable form than that of Prout's hypothesis.
Is the idea absolutely new ? No ; it was origi-
nally conceived by Descartes. So far is it true
that, when the perpetual, and perhaps insolv-
able, problem of the constitution of matter is
discussed, the human mind seems to turn in a
circle, the same ideas lasting for ages, and being
presented under fresh forms to the highest
intellects who have endeavored to solve this
problem But is there no diflerence among these
great intellects in their manner of working?
Most certainly: some, more powerful, perhaps,
but bolder, have proceeded by intuition ; others,
better armed and stricter, by Induction. Here
lies the progress and the superiority of modem
methods, and it would be unjust to pretend that
the important eflforts, of which we have had
striking testimony, have not made an advance
in this difficult problem which was impossible
to Lucretius and even to Descartes.

The Skin in Health and Disease. By L.
Duncan Bclkley, M. D. Philadelphia :
Presley Blakiston. Pp. 148. Price, 50
cents.

We have here an excellent contribution
to the series of " American Health Primers."
It is as good as its predecessors, which is no
slight praise. There are many popular books
on that important subject, " The Skin," and
several of them meritorious, but this is no
reason why Dr. Bulkley should not have
made another — because, in the first place,
this interesting organ of the body is very im-
portant in relation to health, and there are
but few people who are at all aware of it.
They have not only to be taught, but the les-
sons must be hammered into them by cease-
less repetition. Hence the need of fresh
and unremitting inculcations. Dr. Bulkley's
book is to be welcomed on this ground ; but
it has also a special merit which we have

LITERARY NOTICES.

421

not before observed in popular skin trea-
tises, and wliich gives it a special claim
upon intelligent readers. It is not only
a guide for the preservation of the health
of the skin, but it is a kind of medical dic-
tionary on the subject, giving important in-
formation which kindred books omit. This
feature of the work is thus explained in
the author's prefatory note : " He has there-
fore sought to introduce in its pages not
only the medical terms used in reference
to diseases of the skin, but also the popular
names given, both those which are rightly
and those which are wrongly applied. If,
therefore, information be sought in refer-
ence to any particular matter, it will be well
first to consult the index, which has been
made particularly full."

A Text-Book of the Physiological Chemis-
try OF the Animal Body. Including an
Account of the Chemical Changes oc-
curring IN Disease. By Arthur Gamgee,
M. D., F. R. S., Professor of Physiology
in the Owens College. With Illustrations.
Vol.V. Pp.48t. Macmillan & Co. Price,
$4.50.

This elaborate work will prove most ac-
ceptable to the interested students of physio-
logical and medical chemistry. The activi-
ty of research in these departments is very
great ; thoroughly equipped experimental
laboratories are multiplying in different
countries, and trained men are concentrat-
ing their efforts more and more upon special
lines of inquiry. The consequence is, a rap-
id revision of former results, an extension
of observations, and a noteworthy physiolo-
gical progress. Dr. Gamgee's book is writ-
ten from the point of view, not of former
text-books, but of the latest original me-
moirs, which are continually referred to,
and from the point of view of his own va-
ried and laborious experimental investiga-
tions. The volume forms a complete and
independent work, though it is intended to
be followed by another within a year. It is
devoted mainly to the elementary tissues or
substances of the body — blood, lymph, and
chyle being included in the classification —
and it deals with the chemical composition,
changes, and processes of these parts. The
second volume will treat of the chemistry of
the chief animal functions. In the method
of the work physiological chemistry has

been regarded from the point of view of
the biologist and the physician rather than
from that of the chemist. In this respect
the book deviates widely from the typical
plan of works on organic chemistry, where
the dominant and classifying conceptions
are of the chemical order. The volume will
meet a want and be much appreciated as a
high-class text-book, and it may be safely
consulted by all interested in fundamental
chemico-physiological questions.

A Physical Treatise on Electricity and
Magnetism. By J. E. H. Gordon, B. A.,
C. A. M. B., Assistant Secretary of the
British Association. In Two Volumes.
Pp. 618. D. Appleton & Co. Price, %1.

Of all sciences that of electricity is per-
haps the most purely experimental. The
agency has always to be evoked by special
manipulation. While the properties of heat
have always been more or less known to
everybody, nothing was known of electricity
for thousands of years. It was a revelation
that followed the art of experimenting, and
it has advanced at a rate exactly propor-
tioned to the progress of experimental art.

Mr. Gordon in this new work has dealt
with the science entirely from this side,
limiting his use of mathematics, except in a
few foot-notes and' appendices, to simple
j algebraic operations. The work is issued in
two beautifully printed volumes, which are
profusely illustrated with finely executed en-
gravings, representing the present perfec-
tion of electrical apparatus and the refine-
ments of electrical processes, and, besides a
clear and concise statement of the fiiain
facts of the science, contains an exposition
of many of the more recent and important
experimental researches.

The author claims that he has aimed
throughout to interpret the various phenom-
ena in accordance with the theory worked
out mathematically by Maxwell and others,
which regards inductive influence as trans-
mitted by strain or vibrations of some
kind in the intervening medium, instead of
being a direct " action at a distance." In
accordance with this purpose, most of the
later researches to which attention is partic-
ularly given, are those which directly bear
upon problems the solution of which will
throw light upon what may be termed the
mechanism of electrical action. Though not

422

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

a popular work, the matter is presented in a
manner to be of interest to others than pro-
fessed students of the science, and should be
read by those who desire to know something
of the methods and appliances of experi-
mental research in this branch of knowledge.

The subject is considered under tl»e four
general divisions of electro-statics, magnet-
ism, electro-kinetics, and electro-optics. Of
the first division, a large portion is devoted
to the researches of various investigators,
including the author, upon the specific in-
ductive capacity of different insulating sub-
stances. The subject has important practi-
cal as well as theoretical bearings, for upon
the low specific inductive capacity of the
insulating material used in telegraph cables
and wires depends the completeness of the
insulation. It is important theoretically, as
furnishing evidence by which to test the
truth of the theory that induction is trans-
mitted by strain in a continuous medium, as
this requires certain relations between the
specific inductive capacities and the refrac-
tive indices of transparent non-conductors.
The work involved is one of considerable
diflSculty, and though many able experiment-
ers have occupied themselves with the prob-
lem, the results obtained differ widely. Mr.
Gordon's chapter is a very full presentation
of all that has been done, and is one of the
most valuable in the work. Besides this in-
vestigation, this division contains a clear and
complete description of the electrometer of
Sir William Thomson, supplemented with
a number of drawings of the entire instru-
ment and its various parts.

In the portion of the work devoted to
magnetism, descriptions and illustrations of
the best modern instruments for measuring
magnetic elements — the Kew unifilar mag-
netometer and dip-circle, and the dip-circle
of Mr. Fox for use at sea — are given, with the
full instructions for their use. Electro-ki-
nematics includes the various phenomena of
voltaic electricity and electro-magnetism,
and contains accounts of a number of im-
portant and difficult researches. Among
these are the determination of the British
Association unit of electrical resistance in
absolute measure, Blaserne's experiments
upon the extra currents, and the investiga-
tions of Faraday, Verdet, Weber, and Tyn-
dall upon diamagnetism. A very full and

complete description is given of the re-
searches upon the discharge of the electric
spark in different gases and at various pres-
sures, and especially of De la Rue and Miil-
ler and Spottiswood upon the character of
the discharge in high vacua, and the remark-
able investigations of Mr. Crookes upon ra-
diant matter. The experimental inquiries
of Ayrton and Perry on the difference of
potential produced by the contact of dissimi-
lar metals, in elucidation of the question of
the origin of electro-motive force in a bat-
tery, are also very fully considered.

The division of electro-optics is con-
cerned with a class of important phenomena
touching the relation of electricity and light.
A full account is given of the discovery by
Faraday of the rotation of a beam of polar-
ized light in a magnetic field ; and the fur-
ther researches of Verdet, Becquerel, Kiindt,
Rontgen, Dr. Kerr, and the author. Mr. Gor-
don closes his work with a brief sketch of
the electro-magnetic theory of light of the
late Professor Maxwell, which he states to
be that " electro-magnetic induction is prop-
agated through space by strains or vibra-
tions of the same ether which conveys the
light-vibrations, or, in other words, 'light
itself is an electro-magnetic disturbance.' "
The evidence in favor of the theory is found
in the similarity in the mode of propagation
of both influences, the approximate equality
of their velocity of transmission through
space, and in the character of conductors.
Light-vibrations are at right angles to the
line of propagation, and this condition is
shown mathematically to hold in the case of
induction. The theory requires good con-
ductors to be opaque, which as a fact they
are. The most important evidence that both
light and induction ore transmitted by the
same ether is, however, found in the fact
determined experimentally that they both
have sensibly the same velocity in air and a
vacuum. The theory might well bear a fuller
exposition than Mr. Gordon has made, and
many readers will regret that he has not set
it forth at greater length.

School and Industrial Htgiene. By D. F.
Lincoln, M. D. " American Health Pri-
mers." Philadelphia: Presley Blakis-
ton. Pp. 156. Price, 50 cents.

We cordially welcome these cheap, use-

LITERARY NOTICES.

423

ful manuals on topics of vital moment to
the people, but the danger is that they will
be too much cheapened, and become inade-
quate to the ends they propose. In the pres-
ent case we think a mistake has been com-
mitted in dividing this book into two parts,
the first treating of " School Hygiene," and
the second of " Industrial Hygiene." These
topics are too large and too momentous to
be both dispatched in a fifty-cent primer.
The author has done as well as he could
with the subjects in the space assigned, and
the book undoubtedly contains a good deal
of important information well presented.
The first part, comprising 106 pages, is much
the best, but it would have been still better
if he had devoted the other fifty pages to
the same subject ; various points that he has
treated should have been much more ampli-
fied, and " Industrial Hygiene " dealt with in
a separate book.

The Ocean as a Health-Resort : A Hand-
book OF Practical Information as to
Sea-Voyages for the Use of Tourists
AND Invalids. By William S. Wilson,
L. R. C.P. Philadelphia: Presley Blak-
iston. Pp. 260. Price, $2.50.

In this age of restlessness, when " every-
body goes to Europe," and the trip around
the world is becoming commonplace, a spe-
cial book on the requirements and experi-
ences of sea-travel and its hygienic influence
may be useful to a large number of persons.
To the unpracticed traveler a first sea-voyage
is generally a very uncomfortable experience.
Aside from sea-sickness, there are many more
inconveniences and disagreeablenesses than
are compensated for by the novelty of the
situation ; and, if a person is out of health,
these effects are naturally aggravated. The
author of this book assumes that there would
be a great mitigation of sea-troubles if there
was more information about them to guide
the traveler; and so he has attempted to
bring together various hints, explanations,
and practical directions by which sea-life
may be made most comfortable. He gives
instruction as to the outfit, and what is to
be expected in the way of accommodation,
food, and amusement in long voyages. The
diseases to which sea-voyages are supposed
to be favorable are considered, and the va-
rious curative effects of the ocean-climate.
The most suitable routes for particular hy-

gienic objects are pointed out, and the choice
of ships and the best times of the year for
voyaging are also noticed. There are chap-
ters on the " Management of the Health at
Sea," on " Occupations and Amusements at
Sea," on " Objects of Interest at Sea," and
on " The Meteorology of the Ocean." The
book is English, and the author assumes the
voyage to Australia by the Atlantic route to
be, on account of its length and many advan-
tages for invalids, the typical health-voyage ;
but he gives many particulars concerning va-
rious other sea-routes, so that those inclined
to ocean-travel can have a choice of courses,
and make their preparations accordingly.
The volume is well worth consulting before
going to sea, and, as it is not large, it may be
found profitable to take it along.

The Philosopht of Mathematics, with Spe-
cial Reference to the Elements of
Geometry and the Infinitesimal Meth-
od. By Albert Taylor Bledsoe, LL. D.
Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. Pp.
2-18.

This work appeared several years ago,
but its discussion of mathematical questions
is of permanent interest. It is not a general
philosophy of mathematics, such as might be
based upon the historical development of
mathematical conceptions, but it is limited
to the higher mathematics, and is a critical
inquiry into certain controverted questions
which have long exercised the ingenuity of
the learned. One of the main objects of the
book is to combat the idea that the circle is
to be regarded as but a regular polygon of an
infinite number of sides. The book abounds
in mathematical erudition, and has much in-
terest for the devoted cultivators of the sci-
ence.

The Orthoepist : A PRONOtrNciNG Manual.
By Alfred Atres. New York : D. Ap-
pleton & Co. 1880. Pp. 201. Price,

$1.

The author has in this manual given
the pronunciation, as determined by the best
usage, of a large number of English words
that are frequently mispronounced. The
list contains about thirty-five hundred words,
and includes the more commonly used for-
eign ones. The recognized authorities are
cited in support of the pronunciation given,
and when they differ the preponderant opin-

424

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ion is indicated. When the author inelinea
to a pronunciation differing from the re-
ceived one, what he regards as sufficient
reasons are given lor the preference. The
book is in compact form, and will be found
a very desirable one to have at hand.

What to do first in Accidents or Poi-
soning. By Charles W. Dallas, M. D.
Philadelphia: Presley Blakiston. Pp.
68. Price, 50 cents.
This is a brief but well-digested manual
of directions as to what to do in accidental
emergencies that are liable to happen to ev-
erybody. It is extremely brief, but pointed
and practical.

PUBLICATIONS KECEIVED.

The Omori Shell Mounds, reprinted from
"Nature" ; and Some Recent Publications on
Japanese Archaeology, reprinted from "The
American Naturalist." By Edward S. Morse.
Salem, Mass. 1880

The Feeling of Effort. By William James.
M. D. Published by the Boston Society of Nat-
ural History. 1880. Pp. 32.

The Electric Laryngoscope. By A. Welling-
ton Adams, M. D. Reprinted from "Archives of
Laryngology." Pp. 5.

Thirty-seventh Annual Report of the New
York Association for Improving the Condition
of the Poor for the Year 1880. Pp. 47.

Hollow Brick. Solution of Equations and
Interpolation in Series ; Fotmdations ; Arches
in Masonry and Bridges. Washington: Gov-
ernment Printing-Ofllce. 1880. Pp. 33. Illus-
trated.

Higher Education of Medical Men. By F. D.
Lente: M. D. New York: C. L. Bermingham &
Co. 1880. Pp.16.

Current View! and Notes of Forty Days in
France and Ensrland. Bv John Swinton. New-
York : G. W. Carleton & Co. 1880. Pp. 45.
25ct8.

Summary of Suhgtantialisra, or Philcfiophy of
Knowledo-e. By Jean Story. Boston: Rand,
Avery & Co. 1880. Pp. 11.3.

First Annual Report upon Useful and Nox-
ious Plants. By Professor T. J- Burrill. Spring-
field, 111. 1880. Pp. 9.

On the Identity of the Ascending Process of
the Astraaralus in Birds with the Intermedmm.
By Professor Edward S. Morse. Published by
the Boston Society of Natural History. 1880.
Pp. 10. Illustrated.

Annual Report of the Chief of Engineers
U. S. Army. 1880. Pp. 264.

Ontolosy. By Emanuel Swprlenbor£r. Trans-
lated by Philip B. Cabell. A. M. Philadelphia:
J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1880. Pp. 40.

The Geology of Hudson Countv. New Jersey.
Bv Israel C. Russell. From the " Annals of the
New York Academy of Sciences." Pp. 53. Il-
lustrated.

The Relations of Science to Modern Life.
By Henry C. Potter. D. D. New York: G. P.
Putnam's Sons. 1880. Pp. 29.

Telegraphic Measurement of Differences of
Longitude hy Officers of the U. S. Navy. 1878
and 1879. Washington. 1880. Pp. 87. Illus-
trated.

Report on the Geology of the High Plateaus
of Utah, with Atlas. By C. E. Dutton. Wash-
ington: Government Printing-Offlce. 1880. Pp.
307. Illustrated.

The Publishers' Trade List Annual. New
York : F. Leypoldt. 1880. $1.50.

The Scientific Basis of Spiritualism. Bjr
Elpes Sargent. Boston: Colby & Rich. 1881.
Pp.372. il.50.

Medical Heresies. By Gonzalvo C. Smythe,
M. D. Philadelphia: Presley Blakiston. 1880.
Pp. 228. $1.25.

A New School Physiology. By Richard J.
Dunglison.M. D. Philadelphia: Porter & Coates.
1880. Pp. 314. $1.50.

A Practical Treatise on Nervous Exhaustion.
Second and revised edition. By George M.
Beard, M. D. New York : William Wood & Co.
1880. $1.75.

Diphtheria. By Rollin R. Gregg. M. D. Buf-
falo : Printed bv Matthews Brothers & Bryant.
1880. Pp. 133. For sale by Author. $1.50.

Handbook of Chemical Physiology and Pa-
thology. By Victor C. Vanghan. M. D., Ph. D.
Third edition, revised and enlarged. Ann Ar-
bor. 1880. Pp. 351. Illustrated. $3.

Transcendental Physics. By Johann Carl
Friedrich ZOllner. Translated by Charles Carle-
ton Massey. Boston : Colby & Rich. 1881. $1.50.

British Thought and Thinkers. By George
S. Morris, A. M. Chicago : S. C. Griggs & Co.

1880. Pp. 388. $1.75.

The Beautiful and the Sublime. By John
Steinfort Kedney. New York : G. P. Putnam's
Sons. 1880. Pp. 214. $1.25.

Is Consumption Contagious ? By Herbert
C. Clapp, M. D. Boston : Otis Clapp «& Son.

1881. Pp. 178.

Report of the Commissioner of Education
for the Year 1878. Washington : Government
Printing-Offlce. 1880. Pp.730.

The Care and Culture of Children. By Thom-
as S. Sozinskey, M. D., Ph. D. Philadelphia :
H. C. Watts & Co. 1880. Pp. 484. $2 50.

Practical Plane Geometry and Projection.
By Heni-y Angel. Vol. I. Text. Pp. 352. Vol.
IL Plates. $3.50.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

The Maxim Electric Light. — Some new
electric-light apparatus has been in use
in this city during the past month, which
carries the solution of the problem of re-
ducing this light to a form in which it will
be available for the purpose of general
lighting, further than any previous devices.
It consists of a new incandescent lamp,
in which the main feature is the means of
compensating for the waste of the carbon
strip, and an appliance by which the strength
of the current is automatically varied in ac-
cordance with a varying number of lamps
in circuit. The lamp is in appearance much
like that of Mr. Edison's, the carbon strip
being, however, bent into the form of a letter
M, or of a Maltese cross, instead of a simple

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

425

bow. The carbon, which is made from paper
or wood, is not placed in a vacuum, but in
a rarefied atmosphere of gasoline, the idea
involved being that, as the strip wears away
under the action of the current, it will be
continually renewed by the free carbon of
the dissociated hydrocarbon vapor. This
deposited carbon forms a hard, compact
layer which seems to greatly increase the
durability of the strip, and also the amount
of light which it will yield under a given
current. None, it is stated, have broken,
even when forced much beyond the incan-
descence they are intended to bear, and,
owing to the compensating action of the
gasoline, it is anticipated that the lamps
will be permanent. The platinum wires
supporting the carbon strip are not fused
into the glass of the bulb, as has been the
case in previous incandescent lamps, but are
surrounded by a slightly elastic cement,
which it is averred preserves a good joint.
The light given by the lamp is but slightly
yellow, is quite pleasing to the eye, and is
fairly steady. It has, however, a perceptible
vibration, different from the irregular flicker
of gas, but more painful, and which it seems
impossible to eliminate, as it is due to the
necessary variations of the engine-speed.
As to cost, the inventor, Mr. H. S. Maxim,
claims that he is able to produce ten lights
of twenty candles each per horse-power.
Professor Henry Morton, of the Stevens In-
stitute, in a paper read before the American
Academy of Science, at its recent meeting,
stated that, experimenting with one of these
lamps, he found that, when it was giving a
light of forty candles, the expenditure for
power was at the rate of 240 candles per
horse-power. A twelve-candle light was at
the rate of 136 candles, and, at 49 candles,
was at the rate of 426 candles for the same
power ; while, when the lamp was forced to
98 candles, the expenditure was at the rate of
607 candles per horse-power. He also bore
testimony to the value of the gasoline vapor
in building up the carbon strip. It is doubt-
ful, however, if the gasoline will prove in
practice as free from disadvantage as ex-
pected. It will probably deposit in the form
of a film on the glass, that may in time so
obscure the light that a new lamp will be
necessary. Such a deposit seems to have
already taken place in some of the lamps at

present on exhibition. The regulating de-
vice is quite simple in construction and cer-
tain in action. Its general mode of opera-
tion is as follows : The field magnets of the
machine supplying the currents to the lamps
are excited by another machine. The cur-
rent furnished by this latter is varied in
accordance with the number of lamps in
circuit, by shifting its commutator brushes
to and from the position in which they take
off a maximum and minimum current. This
shifting of the brushes is done by means of
simple mechanism, actuated by an electro-
magnet placed in the lamp-circuit, and there-
fore subject to the same conditions as the
lights. Numerous trials have shown that
this regulator is entirely reliable, and the
adjustment of the current is so delicate that
no observable difference has been detected
in the light of a lamp whether one or sixty
were in circuit.

The German Anthropological Society. —

The eleventh meeting of the German An-
thropological Society was held at Berlin,
August 5th to 12th. The greater propor-
tion of the papers read during the ses-
sions related to relics discovered in Germa-
ny and the neighboring countries, most of
which were newly found, or newly reported
upon. Among the subjects of these papers
were prehistoric earthworks and fortifica-
tions in Schleswig-Holstein ; a Frankish
burial-ground near Worms, in which burials
in rows and in several courses of bodies
were notable features, and where dogs and
horses were found buried with the men, to-
gether with vessels of clay and glass of ex-
traordinary size and beauty, and a unique
bronze cup adorned with Christian emblems ;
the Frankish castle of Schlosseck in the Ise-
nach Valley near Diirkheim, hitherto wholly
unknown ; a report by Professor Virchow
upon the results of statistical researches
into the color of the skin, hair, and eyes,
illustrated by maps and tables ; prehistoric
charts of Germany by Professor 0. Fraas ;
the German Runes, by Dr. Henning, of the
University of Berlin. Dr. A. Bastian, who
had returned from a journey of more than
two years, undertaken for the study of facts
relating to anthropology, spoke of the im-
mensity of the task of perfecting the sci-
ence, which he realized more completely than

426

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

ever. The present generation has to lay the
foundation of the study and leave the task
of building it up to posterity. We enjoy
many advantages from intercourse with prim-
itive people which those who will come after
us may not possess ; and we have much to
do in gathering and preserving facts which
are passing away with every year, day, hour
even, lest through carelessness or neglect
they sh^ll disappear utterly. Every gap
thus permitted will be painfully regretted in
the future, when a detailed review shall be
undertaken of the diversity of variations
in which the human race has exhibited it-
self on the earth. The speaker insisted
upon the necessity of ethnologists travel-
ing among these primitive peoples, and
spoke particularly of his observations in
Polynesian mythology. The Polynesian cir-
cle of thought, he said, is, after the Buddh-
ist, the most extensive on the earth. A sur-
prising homogeneity prevails throughout
the length and breadth of the Pacific Ocean,
and still more widely if we consider Oceania
in its full sense, with the inclusion of Poly-
nesia and Melanesia. It may be said that
this unity prevails over about one hundred
and forty degrees of longitude and seventy
degrees of latitude, or over one fourth of
the globe. We can not ignore so interest-
ing a phenomenon. A direct relation exists
between the mythologies of all peoples and
their religious notions, and the same is the
case in Polynesia. Accounts of the mythol-
ogies of the primitive tribes generally afford
senseless caricatures so long as we are not
acquainted with the religious notions around
which they play. The knowledge of these
beliefs is not easily gained, for the priests
hide their doctrines under symbols which
only the initiated can understand. It re-
quires a long residence in the country and a
winning of the confidence of the priests to
such a degree as to induce them to commu-
nicate the traditions that have been handed
down to them in secrecy. In all the Poly-
nesian literature that we possess there is
nothing that goes to the heart of their re-
ligion beyond a few disconnected fragments
which have been taken down by a half dozen
writers ; and the cry is already going up
that it is too late ; that the holders of the
uncontaminated traditions are passing away
and carrying with them to the grave the

knowledge they might impart. Professor
Bastian stated that he had been able by a
combination of favorable circumstances to
gather a few of these documents, out of
which he hoped to be able to effect a partial
reconstruction of the Polynesian religious
system.

Studies of Yonng Apes. — H. Schneider
gives, in " Kosmos," an account of his ob-
servations of the habits and the develop-
ment of the faculties of a young Javanese
ape, which he had bought for purposes of
study. The animal, when taken home, won
at once the affection of Herr Schneider's
wife, to whom he had anticipated it would
be unwelcome. When awakened from its
sleep in the woman's lap, it acted almost
precisely as children do in similar circum-
stances— stretched its limbs, yawned with a
very perceptible sound while its eyes were
closed, rubbed its eyes, and scratched itself ;
then suddenly bounded up and went into its
cage. It was not long before Chega — so it
was named — began to show her dexterity.
While playing in the room one day, she
sprang upon the table, and before her mas-
ter could prevent it, took up a half-filled
cup of coffee from before him, ran to the
sofa, and, standing upon its back, quietly
drank the coffee, having finished which, she
jumped down without having spilled a drop
of the liquid. Her behavior was generally
that of a spoiled child. When pleasantly
spoken to, she was agreeable and playful ;
but if anything was denied her, or taken
away from her, she would cry out, strike
with her hands and feet, and go straight to
the object and get it if she could. She
would sit on her master's arm as he was
playing at cards, and turn over the cards ;
or she would search in his pockets, looking
most often for his watch, which she was very
fond of getting. When she saw an effort
made to catch her, she would mind no call,
but would hide in the farthest corner. If
capture was imminent, she would make a
rueful face, with clinched teeth and parted
lips, and utter a smacking sound. The dan-
ger over, a friendly word would restore her
amiability at once. She would clasp her
master's neck, put on a comical expression,
and throw kisses at him. When spoken of
by her master to a third person, even if she

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

427

seemed to be in a deep sleep, she would look
up with signs of pleasure and utter a whim-
per of acknowledgment. When she had to
be whipped, she would give up at once when
caught, though never to any one but her
master; but if his wife was in the room,
she would run to her for protection, sound-
ing a note of triumph while the master was
looking out that she did not bite him in get-
ting away from him. She was always be-
trayed by her guilty consciousness when she
had done anything wrong, even if no one
had observed her ; and if detected, would
act as a child acts under the shame of guilt.
She was not greedy in eating except when
denied something; then she would seize
it with both hands, and stuff her cheeks
so full that it would take a considerable
time to eat what she had put away. At
her regular meals she ate slowly. If a
cup of milk was placed in the cage so that
the shadow of one of the bars of the cage
was thrown over it, she would look at the
shadow, grasp after it, and then look aston-
ished to find that she had not got hold of it,
and would not drink until she had examined
the cup from every side. In eating, she re-
jected the thinnest shells, the strings of
beans, and the skins of nuts. She was in-
duced to take medicine by pretending that
she must not have it. If her master wished
to give her rhubarb, he would play with a
piece of the drug while Chega looked on
wistfully ; then seem to snatch it away so
that she should not get it, and let it drop, as
if accidentally, out of his hand, when in an
instant it would be seized or swallowed ; or,
if not already swallowed, would be if an ef-
fort was pretended to take it away. Chega
was fond of her master's Spitz dog, and
had many frolics with him. Once they were
chasing each other between the sofa and the
table, when the ape got into a position be-
tween the two where the dog could not fol-
low her, but staid upon the table looking
at her. In an instant she took hold of the
table-cloth with both hands and brought it
down, with the dog in it, upon the floor.
While the astonished dog was trying to re-
lease himself from the folds of the cloth,
Chega ran to the window-sill and clapped
her hands in evident pleasure over the suc-
cess of her trick. Chega slept with her mas-
ter for three years, lying with one of her

arms around his neck, while her other hand
was in his. To prevent her getting away in
the night, her master fixed a cord to her
neck, so that she should wake him when she
moved. She soon learned the secret of the
cord and how to unhitch it, and would un-
hook the neck-band, take out a pin, lay the
whole carefully aside, and spring up to go,
when she would be stopped. Chega seemed
to have dreams, as men and children often
do, of falling from a height, and would draw
up her limbs with the convulsive motion
that all are aware of. Herr Schneider be-
lieves that his pet exhibited in a wonderful
degree the faculties of reflection and com-
parison. Dr. Julius Falkenstein has given,
in his account of the German Loango Expe-
dition, a narrative of the early life-history
of the gorilla Mpungu, which was obtained
and bi'ought home by the expedition, and
was afterward exhibited in the Berlin Aqua-
rium. While in Africa, the young animal
was kept as free as possible from other than
natural influences, so that its habits might
be studied as accurately as was practica-
ble. Mpungu gave a contradiction to the re-
ports of the fierce and untamable character
of the gorilla, for he soon became accus-
tomed to the persons around him, showing a
real dependence upon them and confidence
in them, and was allowed to run about with
no more care than a child. He gave no evi-
dence of evil or malicious propensities, but
had a will of his own, and distinct tones of
voice in which to express his feelings. The
representations of Du Chaillu concerning the
gorilla's beating his breast were confirmed
by this animal. The action indicated an ex-
cess of physical good feeling, and was never
observed while the animal was in Europe,
because he never enjoyed good health there.
Pleasure in bodily vigor was also frequent-
ly exhibited in reelings and tumblings like
those of a drunken man. When anything
was given to the young gorilla in a cup or
glass, he would take it up carefully with
both hands, bring it to his mouth, and, hav-
ing drunk, set it down as carefully ; and
he was ndver known to break a dish. Yet
he was never taught how to use dishes. He
took in eating only as much food at a time
as he could hold between his thumb and
two fingers, and would observe the remov-
al of the mass of food with indifference ;

428

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

but, if not helped, he would glance at the
dishes around him with an impatient murmur,
and try to attract the attention of the wait-
ers with a cough or by touching them. If
he drank out of a vessel which he could not
lift, he would bend down to it without touch-
ing it with his hands or disturbing it. He
was particularly neat, seemed annoyed if any-
thing fell upon him or stuck to him, and
would pick it off carefully, or would hold
up his hands and let some person pick it
off ; he was free from odors, and was very
fond of playing and splashing around in
the water. His most prominent individual
peculiarities were good humor and cun-
ning. If punished, he never resented it, but
would lock his feet together and look up
with an expression that disarmed all ill
feeling. When he wanted anything, he
could make his wish known as expressively
and persuasively as any child. If it was
not granted he would not give it up, bift
would wait for his chance with every evi-
dence that he had a plan in his head. Thus,
if he wanted to go out, and was refused, he
would seem to submit and lie down in as-
sumed indifference not far from the door,
raising his head occasionally to see if his
opportunity had come, and would gradually
draw nearer to the door, keeping careful
watch all the time, and at last would go
out so quickly that no one could stop him.
Whenever he intended to steal sugar or fruit
from the cupboard, he would keep looking
in the opposite direction till he was not ob-
served, and then would go directly to the
cupboard, open the door, and, having shut it
behind him, would take out carefully what-
ever he wanted and eat it as quickly as pos-
sible. If detected, he would run away, and
his whole demeanor would indicate that he
knew he was doing what was forbidden. He
took great pleasure in drumming on hollow
things, and seldom let an opportunity pass
of doing so. Unaccustomed noises were an-
noying to him. Thunder, the pattering of
the rain on the awnings of the ship, the
sound of the trumpet and the pipe, gave
him so much pain that it was an act of
merey to get him out of hearing of them
as quickly as possible. Mpungu declined
after he was taken to Europe, and died in
a little more than two years after he was
caught.

The Stone-Grains in Frnlt.— Henry Po-

lonie considers, in " Kosmos," the nature of
the gritty particles in pears and other fruits
of the apple family. Each of these bodies
consists of several cells which may be called
stone-cells, and which have walls of consid-
erable strength, traversed by canals. The
stone-cells are widely distributed through
the vegetable kingdom, and form an essen-
tial part of the framework of many plants.
In these cases they perform mechanical
functions, as they do also in grapes or stone
fruits, where they form strong walls protect-
ing the seed. The mechanical office does
not, however, appear in the pear, for the
stone-grains are scattered irregularly in the
pulp of the fruit. M. Polonie suggests that
they may be the rudimentary remains of a
stone casing to the seeds of some ancestor
of our present cultivated and wild pears. It
is in favor of this theory that the stony
pear -grains are not evenly distributed
through the whole fruit, but are thickest iR
a zone surrounding the seeds, and where we
should expect to find the shell of the stone
if the pear was a proper stone-fruit. By
bringing together the different varieties of
cultivated and wild or wood pears, we might
arrange a series of fruits in regular grada-
tion, from a luscious pear with hardly any
stony grains down to a tough wood-pear, in
which these grains would be so close as ta
touch each other all around. If the latter
pear is dried, the stony surrounding becomes
so hard that it is difficult to cut through it.
M. Polonie has found this to be the case
with certain wild pears which he has ob-
served. This theory is also supported by
the analogy of certain genera related to the
pear whose fruits inclose stones, as the med-
lar, which has fine stony seeds ; certain spe-
cies of thorn, in which the seeds are merged
into one kernel surrounded by a stony en-
velope, and some exotic genera, as the East
Indian stranaesia, in which all the seeds are
surrounded by a common stony envelope.
The quince has also gritty particles, which
are distributed similarly with those of the
pear ; and a quince from the shores of the
Caspian Sea, which is preserved in the her-
barium at Berlin, has its stone-grains thickly
grouped in a hard mass surrounding the
seeds, like the wood-pears mentioned by M.
Polonie.

POPULAR MISCELLANY

429

Craniology of the Africans. — M. de Qua-
trefages recently explained to the Frencfh
Academy of Sciences the results of the re-
searches of M. Hamy on the craniology of
the African races. Far from all the negroes
of Africa being dolichocephalous (or long-
skulled), there exist on the continent diverse
populations, forming two distinct groups,
which pass in succession from the sub-bra-
chycephalic (moderately short-skulled) to the
raesocephalic (medium-skulled) and to the
sub-dolichocephalic, and finally to the true
dolichocephalic type. In other words, the
relation of the transverse diameter to the
antero-posterior diameter of the skull goes
on progressively diminishing. M. Hamy has
also studied the race of the dwarf negroes,
and finds that their skulls are quite as much
arched as those of the other human races.
Their stature nearly approaches that of the
Mincopies of the Andaman Islands, but it is
superior to that of the Bushmen, whose
height often falls to one metre (three feet
three inches), sometimes to ri4 metre (three
feet eight and a half inches). This race prob-
ably approaches the true beachycephalic
type. M. Hamy joins in a single
race the Noubas, the Fourahs, the
Gallas, the Nyam-Nyams, etc.,
and attaches to the same group,
which is generally Eastern, the
Haoussas who live west of Lake
Tchad, although a population
craniologically distinct is situ-
ated between them.

Rats and Lead Pipes. — One

of the best foreign authorities on
sanitary engineering, Dr.William
Eassie, has an interesting letter
in a late number of the " Sanitary Record "
on the destruction of lead pipes and fiash-
ings by rats, mice, and even timber-worms.
He relates several cases, either seen by him-
self or brought to his attention by others, in
which lead waste-pipes were perforated with
veritable rat-holes, thus admitting not only
sewer-gas but the rats themselves into the
house. Fig. 1 is reproduced from Dr. Eassie's
letter, and represents a piece of two-inch
lead pipe a quarter of an inch thick, which
wag once a part of the waste-pipe of a sink in
a house in London. This pipe terminated in
an old brick drain infested with rats. " The

rats obtained ingress to the house by way
of this pipe, that is certain ; and on taking
up the floor some hundreds of these animals
were destroyed and many missing articles

recovered. The marks of their teeth are
very plainly exhibited, as may be seen by a
glance at the woodcut, which does not exag-
gerate them in any way." Fig. 2 represents
a piece of lead flashing obtained by Dr.
Eassie from the roof of an infirmary in the
north of England. The woodwork below
had been first destroyed by wood-borers,
and the light, shaded marks in the cut show

Fig. 2.

where the acid of the destroyed wood had
partially eaten away the lead. The white
holes are actual perforations to the open
air. Other instances of a like character are
given, and all go to show that lead, where
so exposed, is not a safe plumbing material.

A Mnsieal Valley. — In an essay on " The
Singing Valley of Thronecken," Herr H.
Reulaux has described an enduring sound
like the ringing of bells, which he heard
while engaged in a deer-hunt in an elevated
wooded valley in the Rhine Province. He
had before heard sounds in the valley, re-

430

TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sembling those which might come from a
church in some town hidden in its recesses ;
but there was no such town in the neigh-
borhood. On the occasion which he espe-
cially describes, he took his place as one
of the hunters in a wood of large beech-trees
lying against the slope of the mountain, and
was treated all the time he stood there to a
succession of peals as of bells, coming one
upon another, swelling up and dying away,
and sounding together in many varieties of
modulation, and in all the different stages
of progress. At times the impression of the
music was so strong as to hold him almost
breathless ; then a new wave would sweep
up, beginning like the soft breathing of an
organ-pipe, rising to the swell of a harp,
and closing with the overtone of the octave,
as if it were drawn out by some master of
the violin. V/hen the hunter returned to
the same place toward evening, he heard the
same sounds. One other of the hunters re-
marked them, but the rest were absorbed in
their sport. A forester blew the tone of C
on his horn, and it was repeated in the bell-
peals. The tones evidently originated in the
mouth of the valley and died away in its
uj^per part. They were produced by the
passage of the wind through the valley, and
modified by its configuration, the character
of the rocks, and, probably, by the wood.

Animals or Plants ? — In the course of a
lecture on " Plants that prey upon Animals,
and Animals that fertilize Plants," delivered
at Leeds recently, by the Rev. W. H. Dallin-
ger, the lecturer explained that there were
animals — definitely proved to be such, and
with which every zoologist was familiar —
that were so lowly in their being that they
possessed no definite form. They revealed
to the most refined scrutiny no organization.
They moved, but without muscle ; they crept,
but without limbs; they felt, but without
discoverable nerves ; they devoured without
mouths; they digested without stomachs;
and they had all the properties of life, but
were without trace of organized structure.
It was their habit to associate with even
these lowly creatures, because they were ani-
mals, a measure, at least, of consciousness
and volition. But, on the other hand, there
were plants of the highest and most com-
pact structure in which delicacy of organiza-

tion, refinement of mechanical contrivances,
and adaptation of means to ends, were com-
bined ; and yet, because they were vegeta-
bles, they were accustomed to assume that
they were without consciousness, and devoid
of will. But what were the facts ? Zoology
at the present day was in the highest sense
a science. Its facts had a precision and
value unrivaled, and from these they were
bound to say that the old landmarks were
utterly incompetent. The animal and vege-
table kingdoms could not be separated, and
the two marched on in one organic whole.
To the popular mind he had no doubt this
would appear arrogant. To common ob-
servation the distinction between the plant
and the animal was believed to be sufiiciently
clear. Between an ox and an oak-tree there
was an unmistakable difference. A cabbage
and a swallow were not very easily confound-
ed. This was quite true ; but if the entire of
what was known as the animal world were
laid against the whole of what was known as
the vegetable kingdom, it would be seen that
there were no features belonging to the one
which were ijot in some sense shared by the
other. There were vegetables controlled by
movements which in animals would be called
instincts. They could intoxicate a plant as
they could intoxicate a man or beast ; they
could paralyze it with pain or chloroform,
and could kill it with an electric spark.
There were some plants which depended for
existence on the animals they entrapped, and
to this end they were endowed with a suscep-
tibility more delicate than that of the human
body, while they could distinguish between
food which would nourish them and sub-
stances which would not. It was not too
much to say that the extinction of insects
would lead to the extermination of the most
beautiful plants existing on the globe ; while
the extinction of these beautiful plants
would, in like manner, be the ruin of the
majority of insects. — English Mechanic.

Efficacy of Sanitary Improvement. —

Two reports have recently been published
in Great Britain which illustrate what has
been accomplished in lessening the prev-
alence of disease and prolonging human
life by measures of sanitary improvement.
The improvement trustees of Glasgow have
given out a statement showing that the

NOTES.

431

average death-rate per one thousand persons
has been reduced nearly eleven per cent, in
twelve years, under the operation of the
sanitary measures instituted by them, which
included the demolition of unwholesome
dwellings, and the provision of ample hos-
pital space for small-pox and fever cases,
and for the control and limitation of epi-
demic disease. They also cite from the re-
port of the Registrar-General figures show-
ing that a similar improvement in sanitary
condition has been wrought in other towns :
in Edinburgh of fourteen, in Dundee of
twelve, in Aberdeen (where the death-rate
was already very low) of three and one-half
per cent. The figures given of a number of
English towns show a less striking rate of
improvement. Dividing the twelve years
into two groups of six years each, it is found
that, in twelve leading towns, 61,000 fewer
deaths occurred in the second six years
(ISVS-'VS) than would have occurred under
the higher death-rates of 1867-'72. The
sanitary officer of Manchester has reported
to the bishop of the diocese that, under the
operation of the measures which have been
adopted in that city, " typhus and typhoid
fever, though not absolutely extinguished,
are of comparatively rare occurrence, and
nearly all other infectious diseases have
been largely reduced in amount, while the
general health has been improved."

An Antarctic Expedition, — The Italian
Geographical Society has projected an Ant-
arctic exploring expedition, to be under the
command of Lieutenant Beve, an Italian
officer who was with Nordenskjold during
his last expedition. Very little is definitely
known concerning the Antarctic regions, and
they offer numerous problems to be solved.
They have been touched upon, but can hard-
ly be said to have been explored, by several
navigators since Captain Cook crqssed the
Antarctic Circle in 1 7*74-75, including Lieu-
tenant Wilkes with the American Expedi-
tion, but the results of the observations
made upon them do not agree. Even the
Challenger Expedition, in 1873, added but
little to our knowledge of them. It is still
not fully settled whether the region be only
an immense mass of water or whether it con-
tains another continent. Lieutenant Wilkes
believed that he had established the exist-

ence of a continent, but Sir James Ross a
year later sailed over two of the positions
assigned by him to the continent, while he
found the extensive Victoria Land with
mountains 14,000 feet high and an active
volcano. The great ice-sheet, which certain-
ly covers the land, needs to be studied and
compared with the ice-sheet of Greenland.
Lieutenant Beve and his companions hope
to winter in the Antarctic region, and to be
more successful in studying its character
than their predecessors have been.

NOTES.

A HoLTZ f rictional electric machine, said
to be the largest ever made in this country,
has recently been constructed by a well-
known firm manufacturing physical and
chemical apparatus in this city. The re-
volving glass disk is forty and the condens-
ing stationary disk forty-six inches in diam-
eter. It is provided with the continuous
charging apparatus of Van Brunt, which is
a very considerable improvement over the
ordinary means of charging by rubbing a
disk of vulcanite with a skin by hand. The
machine gives a discharge over twenty inch-
es long, and, on account of the facility of
charging, can be satisfactorily worked in al-
most any weather.

At a late meeting of the California Acad-
emy of Sciences, Mr. W. N. Lockington
read a paper on fishes, in which he states
that of three hundred and eight species,
mostly marine, occurring on the Pacific coast,
all but thirty-seven are found in California.
Of the five hundred and forty fresh-water
species known in the United States, but
thirty-seven are found in that State.

That ants can make themselves heard
as well as felt, is asserted by Mr. S. E. Peal,
who writes to "Nature" that he has ob-
served in several varieties of this insect the
power of producing distinctly audible sounds.
Two kinds of ants, one brown the other
black in color, could be heard a distance of
twenty or thirty feet, the noise being pro-
duced by scraping the horny apex of the
abdomen three times in rapid succession
against the dry leaves of the nest.

Dr. Ephraim Cutter describes in the Oc-
tober number of the "American Monthly
Microscopical Journal" an interesting study
he has lately made of the central surface-
waters of several ponds and lakes in Massa-
chusetts. He found, contrary to the general
opinion, that the waters in the middle of
ponds or lakes contain large numbers of mi-

432

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

croscopic forms of both vegetable and ani-
mal life.

The experiment of irrigating the lands
at Genevilliers with water from the sewers
of Paris appears to be working successfully.
In answer to protests which have been made
against applying a similar irrigation to the
forests of St. Germain, the engineers say
that the apprehensions that have been ex-
pressed on the subject are exaggerated.
Many buildings have been put up at Gene-
villiers since the sewer-waters were taken
there, but the inhabitants have never been
sick. Moreover, since the prevailing winds
are from the west, places lying east of the
irrigated district should be the ones most
troubled with the infection if there were any ;
but no complaint has come from Clichy,
which is thus situated, while the barren
tracts on which it looked have been convert-
ed into a fertile plain.

The French journals tell of some per-
fectly fresh meat that became phosphores-
cent. Some cutlets of raw pork shone so
brightly in the kitchen that it was possible
by the aid of the light to tell the time by
the watch. The butcher from whose shop
they came said that all the meat of which
they were a part of the stock became phos-
phorescent within a short time after having
been put into his cellar. The phosphores-
cent meat did not otherwise differ in aspect
or odor from common meat ; it had not been
exposed to a temperature of more than 50°,
and entire freshness seemed to be a con-
dition of phosphorescence, so that when the
meat began to smell it ceased to be bright.
The phosphorescence generally disappeared
on the sixth or seventh day.

M. L. Cruls has communicated to the
French Academy of Sciences notes of ob-
servations which he has made at the Impe-
rial Observatory, Rio Janeiro, on stars un-
favorably situated for observation from the
Northern Hemisphere. Some of these stars
appear to possess a slow but well-defined
orbital motion, amounting in some instances
to about six degrees retrograde in forty-
three years. They have been observed here-
tofore only by Sir John Herschel at the Cape
of Good Hope, and by Captain Jacob at
Poonah, India, and it is from a comparison
with their observations that he has deduced
the fact of motion.

The Royal Society has this year awarded
the Copley Medal to Professor' J. J. Sylves-
ter, at present occupying the chair of Math-
ematics in Johns Hopkins University.

M. DE Lesseps has a plan for the civiliza-
tion of Africa by telegraph. Stations for
entertainment and for scientific purposes are
to be established at points between the coasts
and the interior. Thus a party has already

arrived in the Oussagura to establish a sta-
tion to be connected with Zanzibar, and an-
other party has been commissioned to es-
tablish a station on the Ogove River to be
connected with the French colony at the
Gaboon. The stations are to be connected
by telegraphic wires, the planting of which
will be preliminary to the building of rail-
ways, so that these wires, says M. de Lesseps,
will become for Africa, as they were across
our Western Plains and are for Australia
and for the Russians in Central Asia, real
conductors of civilization.

Professor Henry Draper writes in the
November number of the " American Jour-
nal of Science " that, " during the night of
September 30, 1880, I succeeded in photo-
graphing the bright part of the nebula in
Orion in the vicinity of the trapezium. The
photographs show the mottled appearance
of this region distinctly. They were taken
by the aid of a triple objective of eleven
inches aperture, made by Alvan Clark &
Sons, and corrected especially for the pho-
tographic rays. The equatorial stand and
driving clock I constructed myself. The ex-
posure was for fifty minutes. I intend at an
early date to publish a detailed description
of the negatives."

M. Abel Pifre has succeeded, by chang-
ing the form of the reflectors and the heat-
ers, in considerably increasing the efficiency
of the solar engines invented by M. Mouchot.
While M. Mouchot has not been able to util-
ize more than fifty per cent, of the heat of
the sun, M. Pifre with his improved appa-
ratus makes eighty per cent, available for
use. With a receiver of 9-25 square metres
and a clear sky he boils fifty litres of water
in less than forty minutes, and obtains an
additional pressure of one atmosphere every
seven or eight minutes.

It is proposed to make use of the hy-
draulic constructions and machinery at Ai-
rolo and Goeschenen for the maintenance of
electric lights in the St. Gothard Tunnel.

A ROCK-DRILL run by electricity has been
devised by Messrs. Siemens and Halske of
England. It consists of a rod of steel-head-
ed soft iron which moves through three coils
of insulated wire ; the middle coil is trav-
ersed by a constant current which magne-
tizes the rod, and the other coils are trav-
ersed by alternating currents which attract
and repel the rod with rapid movements.

"NATrEE" chronicles the death of Dr.
Hofrath von Wagner, Professor of Tech-
nological Chemistry in the University of
Wiirzburg. He was born at Leipsic in 1823,
first taught in Niiremberg, and was the au-
thor of a standard work on chemical tech-
nology, translated into English by Professor
Crookes in 1872.

LOtJIS PBAN9OIS DE POUKTALES.

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY.

FEBRUARY, 1881.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF POLITICAL mSTITUTIONS.

By HEKBEKT SPENCER.
IV. POLITICAL DIFFERENTIATIOIir.

THE general law, that like units exposed to like forces tend to in-
tegrate, was in the last chapter exemplified by the formation of
social groups. The clustering of men who are similar in kind, when
similarly subject to hostile actions from Avithout, and similarly react-
ing against them, we saw to be the first step in social evolution. Here
the correlative general law, that in proportion as the like units of an
aggregate are exposed to unlike forces they tend to form differentiated
parts of the aggregate, has to be observed in its application to such
groups, as the second step in social evolution.

The primary political differentiation originates from the primary
family differentiation. Men and women being, by the unlikenesses of
their functions in life, exposed to tinlike influences, begin from the
first to assume unlike positions in the social group as they do in the
family group : very early they respectively form the two political
classes of rulers and ruled. And, how truly such dissimilarity of social
positions as arises between them is caused by dissimilarity in their
relations to surrounding actions, we shall see, on observing that the one
is small or great according as the other is small or great. When treat-
ing of the status of women, it was pointed out that to a considerable
degree among the Chippewas, and to a still greater degree among
the Clatsops and Chinooks, " who live upon fish and roots, which the
women are equally expert with the men in procuring, the former have
a rank and influence very rarely foixnd among Indians." We saw also
that in Cueba, where the women join the men in war, " fighting by
their side," their position is much higher than usual among rude peo-
voL. XVIII. — 28

434 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

pies ; and, similarly, that in Daliomey, where the women are as much
warriors as the men, they are so regarded that, in the political organi-
zation, '' the woman is officially superior," On contrasting these ex-
ceptional cases with the ordinary cases, in which the men, solely occu-
pied in war and the chase, have unlimited authority, while the women,
occupied in gathering miscellaneous small food and carrying burdens,
are abject slaves, it becomes manifest that diversity of relations to
surrounding actions initiates diversity of social positions. And, as we
before saw, this truth is further illustrated by those few uncivilized
societies which are habitually peaceful, such as the Bodo and Dhimals
of the Indian hills, and the ancient Pueblos of North America — socie-
ties in which the occupations are not, or were not broadly divided
into fighting and working, and severally assigned to the two sexes ;
and in which, along with a comparatively small difference in the ac-
tivities of the sexes, there goes, or went, small difference of social
status.

So is it when we pass from the greater or less political differentia-
tion which accompanies difference of sex to that which is independent
of sex — to that which arises among men. Where the life is perma-
nently peaceful, definite class-divisions do not exist. One of the Indian
Hill-tribes, to which I have frequently referred as exhibiting the hon-
esty, truthfulness, and amiability accompanying a purely industrial
life, may be instanced. Hodgson says, "All Bodo and all Dhimals ai-e
equal — absolutely so in right or law — wonderfully so in fact." The
like is said of another peaceful and amiable Hill-tribe : " The Lepchas
have no caste distinctions." And among a different race, the Papu-
ans, may be named the peaceful Arafuras as displaying a " brotherly
love with one another," and as having no divisions of rank.

As, at first, the domestic relation between the sexes passes into a
political relation, such that men and women become, in militant groups,
the ruling class and the subject class, so does the relation between
master and slave, originally a domestic one, pass into a political one
as fast as, by habitual war, the making of slaves becomes general. It
is with the formation of a slave-class that there begins that political
differentiation between the regulating structures and the sustaining
structures which continues throughout all higher forms of social evo-
lution.

Kane remarks that " slavery in its most cruel form exists among
the Indians of the whole coast from California to Behring's Straits,
the stronger tribes making slaves of all the others they can conquer.
In the interior, where there is but little warfare, slavery does not ex-
ist." And this statement does but exhibit, in a distinct form, the
truth everywhere obvious. Evidence suggests that the practice of
enslavement diverged by small steps from the practice of cannibalism.
Concerning the Nootkas, we read that " slaves are occasionally sacri-

POLITICAL DIFFERENTIATION. 435

ficed and feasted upon" ; and if we contrast this usage with the
usage common elsewhere, of slaying and devouring captives as soon
as they are taken, we may infer that the keeping of captives too nu-
merous to be immediately eaten, with the view of eating them subse-
quently, leading, as it would, to the employment of them in the mean
time, led to the discovery that their services might be of more value
than their flesh, and so initiated the habit of preserving them as slaves.
Be this as it may, however, we find that very generally, among tribes
to which habitual militancy has given some slight degree of the appro-
priate structure, the enslavement of prisoners becomes an established
habit. That women and children taken in war, and such men as have
not been slain, naturally fall into unqualified servitude is manifest.
They belong absolutely to their captors, who might have killed them,
and who retain the right afterward to kill them, if they please. They
become property, of which any use whatever may be made.

The acquirement of slaves, which is at first an incident of war,
becomes presently an object of war. Of the Nootkas we read that
" some of the smaller tribes at the north of the island are practically
regarded as slave -breeding tribes, and are attacked periodically by
stronger tribes " ; and the like happens among the Chinooks. It was
thus in ancient Vera Paz, where periodically they made " an inroad
into the enemy's territory, ... and captured as many as they want-
ed " ; and it was so in Honduras, where, in declaring war, they gave
their enemies notice that " they wanted slaves." Similarly with vari-
ous existing peoples. St. John says that "many of the Dyaks are
more desirous to obtain slaves than heads, and in attacking a village
kill only those who resist or attempt to escape." And that in Africa
slave-making wars are common needs no proof.

The class-division, thus initiated by war, afterward maintains and
strengthens itself in sundry ways. Very soon there begins the custom
of purchase. The Chinooks, besides slaves who have been captured,
have slaves who were bought as children from their neighbors ; and,
as we saw when dealing with the domestic relations, the selling of
their children into slavery is by no means uncommon with savages.
Then the slave-class, thus early enlarged by purchase, comes afterward
to be otherwise enlarged. There is voluntary acceptance of slavery
for the sake of protection ; there is enslavement for debt ; there is
enslavement for crime.

Leaving details, we need here note only that this political differen-
tiation which war begins is effected, not by the bodily incorporation
of other societies, or whole classes belonging to other societies, but
by the incorporation of single members of other societies, and by like
individual accretions. Composed of units who are detached from their
original social relations and from one another, and absolutely attached
to their owners, the slave-class is, at first, but indistinctly separated as
a social stratum. It acquires separateness only as fast as there arise

436 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

some restrictions on the powers of the owners. Ceasing to stand in
the position of domestic cattle, slaves begin to form a division of the
body-politic, when their personal claims begin to be distinguished as
limiting the claims of their masters.

It is commonly supposed that serfdom arises by mitigation of sla-
very ; but examination of the facts shows that it arises in a different
way. While, during the early struggles for existence between them,
primitive tribes, growing at one another's expense by incorporating
separately the individuals they capture, thus form a class of absolute
slaves, the formation of a servile class, considerably higher, and having
a distinct social status, accompanies that later and larger process of
growth under which one society incorporates other societies bodily.
Serfdom originates along with conquest and annexation.

For whereas the one implies that the captured people are detached
from their homes, the other implies that the subjugated people con-
tinue in their homes. Thomson remarks that, "among the New-
Zealanders, whole tribes sometimes became nominally slaves when con-
quered, although permitted to live at their usual places of residence,
on condition of paying tribute, in food, etc." — a statement which shows
the origin of kindred arrangements in allied societies. Of the Sand-
wich Islands government when first known, described as consisting of
a king with turbulent chiefs, who had been subjected in comjiaratively
recent times, Ellis writes, "The common people are generally consid-
ered as attached to the soil, and are transferred with the land from
one chief to another." Before the late changes in Feejee, there were
enslaved districts ; and of their inhabitants we read that they had to
supply the chiefs' houses " with daily food, and build and keep them
in repair." Though conquered peoples, thus placed, differ widely in
the degrees of their subjection — being at the one extreme, as in Feejee,
liable to be eaten when wanted, and at the other extreme called on
only to give specified proportions of produce or labor — yet they remain
alike as being undetached from their original places of residence. That
serfdom in Europe originated in an analogous way there is good rea-
son to believe. In Greece we have the case of Crete, where, under the
conquering Dorians, there existed a vassal population, formed, it would
seem, partly of the aborigines and partly of preceding conquerors, of
which the first were serfs attached to lands of the state and of indi-
viduals, and the others had become tributary land-owners. In Sj^arta
the like relations were established by like causes : there were the
helots, who lived on, and cultivated, the lands of their Spartan masters,
and the perioeci, who had probably been, before the Dorian invasion,
the superior class. So was it also in the Greek colonies afterward
founded, such as Syracuse, where the aborigines became serfs. Simi-
larly in later times and nearer regions. When Gaul was overrun by
the Romans, and again when Romanized Gaul was overrun by the

POLITICAL DIFFERENTIATION. 437

Franks, there was little displacement of the actual cultivators of the
soil, but these simply fell into lower positions : certainly lower politi-
cal positions, and M. Guizot thinks lower industrial positions. Our
own country, too, furnishes good illustrations. In ancient British
times, writes Pearson, " it is probable that, in parts at least, there were
servile villages, occupied by a kindred but conquered race, the first
occupants of the soil." More trustworthy, but to the like effect, is the
evidence which comes to us from old English days and Norman days.
Professor Stubbs says : " The ceorl had his right in the common land
of his township ; his Latin name, villanus, had been a symbol of free-
dom, but his privileges were bound to the land, and when the Norman
lord took the land he took the villein with it. Still the villein retained
his customary rights, his house and land and rights of wood and hay ;
his lord's demesne depended for cultivation on his services, and he had
in his lord's sense of self-interest the sort of protection that was shared
by the horse and the ox." And of kindred import is the following
passage from Innes : " I have said that, of the inhabitants of the
Grange, the lowest in the scale was the ceorl, bond, serf, or villein,
who was transferred like the land on which he labored, and who might
be caught and brought back if he attempted to escape, like a stray ox
or sheep. Their legal name of nativus, or neyf, which I have not
found but in Britain, seems to point to their origin in the native race,
the original possessors of the soil. ... In the register of Dunfermline
are numerous 'genealogies,' or stud-books, for enabling the lord to
trace and reclaim his stock of serfs by descent. It is observable that
most of them are of Celtic names."

Clearly, a subjugated territory, useless without cultivators, was left
in the hands of the original cultivators because nothing was to be
gained by putting others in their places, even could an adequate num-
ber of others be had. Hence, while it became the conqueror's interest
to tie each original cultivator to the soil, it also became his interest to
let him have such an amount of produce as to maintain him and en-
able him to rear offspring, and also to protect him against injuries
which would incapacitate him for work.

To show how fundamental is the distinction between bondage of
the primitive type and the bondage of serfdom, it needs but to add
that, while the one can and does exist among savages and pastoral
tribes, the other becomes possible only after the agricultural stage is
reached ; for only then can there occur the bodily annexation of one
society by another, and only then can there be any tying to the soil.

Associated men, who live by hunting, and to whom the area occu-
pied is of value only as a habitat for game, can not well have anything
more than a common participation in the use of this occupied area :
such ownership of it as they have must be joint ownership. Naturally,
then, at the outset, all the adult males, who are at once hunters and

438 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

warriors, are the common possessors of the undivided land, encroach-
ment on which by other tribes they resist. Though, in the earlier
pastoral state, especially where the barrenness of the region involves
wide dispersion, there is no definite proprietorship of the tract wan-
dered over ; yet, as is shown us in the strife between -the herdsmen
of Abraham and those of Lot respecting feeding-grounds, some claims
to exclusive use tend to arise ; and at a later half -pastoral stage, as
among the ancient Germans, the wanderings of each division fall
Avithin prescribed limits. I refer to these facts by way of showing
the identity established at the outset between the militant class and
the land-owning class. For, whether the group is one which lives by
hunting or one which lives by feeding cattle, any slaves its members
possess are excluded fi*om land-ownership — the freemen, who are all
fighting men, become, as a matter of course, the proprietors of their
territory. This connection, in variously modified forms, long contin-
ues through subsequent stages of social evolution, and could scarcely
do otherwise. Land being, in early settled communities, the almost
exclusive source of wealth, it happens inevitably that, during times in
which the principle that might is right remains imqualitied, personal
power and possession of land go together. Hence the fact that, where,
instead of being held by the whole society, land comes to be parceled
out among component village communities, or among families, or
among individuals, possession of it habitually goes along with the
bearing of arms. In ancient Egypt " every soldier was a land-owner "
— "had an allotment of land of about six acres." In Greece the in-
vading Hellenes, wresting the soil from its original holders, joined
military service with the land-ownership. In Rome, too, " every free-
holder, from the seventeenth to the sixtieth year of his age, was under
obligation of service, . . •. so that even the emancipated slave had to
serve, who, in an exceptional case, bad come into possession of landed
property." The like happened in the early Teutonic community.
Joined with professional warriors, its army included "the mass of
freemen, arranged in families, fighting for their homesteads and
hearths " : such freemen, or markmen, owning land partly in common
and partly as individual proprietors. Similarly with the ancient Eng-
lish : " Their occupation of the land as cognationes resulted from their
enrollment in the field, where each kindred was drawn up under an
officer of its own lineage and appointment " ; and so close was this
dependence that " a thane forfeited his hereditary freehold by miscon-
duct in battle."

Beyond the original connection between militancy and land-own-
ing, which naturally arises from the joint interest which those who
own the land and occupy it, either individually or collectively, have
in resisting aggressors, there arises later a further connection. As,
along with successful militancy, there progresses a social evolution
which gives to a dominant ruler increased power, it becomes his cus-

POLITICAL DIFFERENTIATION. 439

torn to reward his leading soldiers by grants of land. Early Egyp-
tian kings " bestowed on distinguished military officers " portions of
the crown domains. When the barbarians were enrolled as Roman
soldiers, " they were paid also by assignments of land according to a
custom which prevailed in the imperial armies. The possession of
these lands was given to them on condition of the son becoming a sol-
dier like his father." And that kindred usages were general through-
out the feudal period is a familiar truth : feudal tenancy being, in-
deed, thus constituted, and inability to bear arms being a reason for
excluding women from succession. To exemplify the nature of the
relation established, it will suffice to name the facts that " William
the Conqueror . . . distributed this kingdom into about sixty thou-
sand parcels, of nearly equal value, from each of which the service of
a soldier was due," and that one of his laws requires all owners of land
to "swear that they become vassals or tenants," and will "defend
their lord's territories and title as well as his person " by " knight ser-
vice on horseback."

That this original relation between land-owning and militancy
long survived, we are shown by the armorial bearings of county fami-
lies, as well as by their portraits of ancestors who are mostly repre-
sented in military costume.

Setting out with the class of warriors, or men bearing arms, who
in primitive communities are owners of the land, collectively or indi-
vidually, or partly one and partly the other, there arises the question,
How does this class differentiate into nobles and freemen ?

The most general reply is, of course, that since the state of homo-
geneity is by necessity unstable, time inevitably brings about ine-
quality of positions among those whose positions were at first equal.
Before the semi-civilized state is reached the differentiation can not
become decided, because there can be no large accumulations of
wealth, and because the laws of descent do not favor maintenance of
such accumulations as are possible. But in the pastoral and still more
in the agricultural community, especially where descent through males
has been established, several causes of differentiation come into play.
There is first that of unlikeness of kinship to the head-man. Obvi-
ously, in course of generations, the younger descendants of the younger
become more and more remotely related to the eldest descendant of
the eldest, and social inferiority arises : as the obligation to execute
blood -revenge for a murdered member of the family does not extend
beyond a certain degree of relationship (in ancient France not beyond
the seventh), so neither does the accompanying distinction. From the
same cause comes inferiority in point of possessions. Inheritance by
the eldest male from generation to generation brings about the result
that those who are the most distantly connected in blood with the
head of the group are also the poorest. And then there cooperates

440 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

with these factors a consequent factor — namely, the extra power which
the greater, wealth gives. For when there arise disputes within the tribe,
the richer are those who, by their better appliances for defense and
their greater ability to purchase aid, naturally have the advantage over
the poorer. Proof that this is a potent cause is found in a fact named
by Sir Henry Maine : " The founders of a part of our modern Euro-
pean aristocracy, the Danish, are known to have been originally peas-
ants who fortified their houses during deadly village struggles, and
then used their advantage." Such superiorities of power and position
once initiated are increased in another way. Already in the last
chapter we have seen that communities are to a certain extent increased
by the addition of fugitives from other communities — sometimes
criminals, sometimes those who are oppressed. While, in places where
such fugitives belong to races of superior type, they often become
rulers (as among many Indian Hill-tribes, whose rajahs are of Hindoo
extraction), in places where they are of the same race, and can not do
this, they attach themselves to those of chief power in their adopted
tribe. Sometimes they yield up their freedom for the sake of protec-
tion : a man will make himself a slave by breaking a spear in the
presence of his wished-for master, as among the East Africans, or by
inflicting some small bodily injury upon him, as among the Fulahs.
And in ancient Rome the semi-slave class distinguished as clients
originated by this voluntary acceptance of servitude with safety. But,
where his aid promises to be of value as a warrior, the fugitive offers
himself in that capacity in exchange for maintenance and refuge.
Other things equal, he joins himself to some one marked by superiority
of power and property, and thus enables the man already dominant to
become more dominant. Such armed dependents, having as aliens no
claims to the lands of the group, and bound to its head only by fealty,
answer in position to the comites as found in the early German com-
munities, and as exemplified in old English times by the *' Huscarlas "
(house-carls), with whom nobles surrounded themselves. Evidently,
too, followers of this kind, having certain interests in common with
their protector, and no interests in common with the rest of the com-
munity, become, in his hands, the means of usurping communal rights
and elevating himself while depressing the rest.

Step by step the contrast strengthens. Beyond such as have vol-
untarily made themselves slaves to a head-man, others have become
enslaved by capture in the wars meanwhile going on, others by staking
themselves in gaming, others by purchase, others by crime, others by
debt. And of necessity the possession of many slaves, habitually accom-
panying wealth and power, tends still further to increase that wealth
and power, and to mark off still more the higher rank from the lower.

Certain concomitant influences generate differences of nature, phys-
ical and mental, between those members of a community who have at-

POLITICAL DIFFERENTIATION. 441

tained superior positions, and those who have remained inferior. Un-
likenesses of status once initiated lead to unlikenesses of life, which,
by the constitutional changes they work, presently make the unlike-
nesses of status more difficult to alter.

First there comes difference of diet and its effects. In the habit,
common among primitive tribes, of letting the women subsist on the
leavings of the men, and in the accompanying habit of denying to
the younger men certain choice viands which the older men eat, we
see exemplified the inevitable proclivity of the strong to feed them-
selves at the expense of the weak ; and, when there arise class-divisions,
there habitually results better nutrition of the superior than of the
inferior. Forster remarks that in the Society Islands the lower classes
often suffer from a scarcity of food which never extends to the upper
classes. In the Sandwich Islands the flesh of such animals as they
have is eaten principally by the chiefs. Of cannibalism among the
Feejeeans, Seeman says, " The common people throughout the group, as
well as women of all classes, were by custom debarred from it." These
instances sufficiently indicate the contrast that everywhere arises be-
tween the diets of the ruling few and of the subject many. And then
by such differences of diet, and accompanying differences in clothing,
shelter, and strain on the energies, are eventually produced physical
differenqes. Of the Feejeeans we read that " the chiefs are tall, well
made, and muscular ; while the lower orders manifest the meagerness
arising from laborious service and scanty nourishment." The chiefs
among the Sandwich-Islanders " are tall and stout, and their personal
appearance is so much superior to that of the common people that
some have imagined them a distinct race." Ellis, verifying Cook, says
of the Tahitians, that the chiefs are, " almost without exception, as
much superior to the peasantry ... in physical strength as they are
in rank and circumstances" ; and Erskine notes a parallel contrast
among the Tongans. That the like holds among the African races
may be inferred from Reade's remark that " the court lady is tall and
elegant ; her skin smooth and transparent ; her beauty has stamina
and longevity. The girl of the middle classes, so frequently pretty, is
very often short and coarse, and soon becomes a matron ; while, if you
descend to the lower classes, you will find good looks rare, and the
figure angular, stunted, sometimes almost deformed." *

Simultaneously there arise, between the ruling and subject classes,
unlikenesses of bodily activity and skill. Occupied, as those of higher
rank commonly are, in the chase when not occupied in war, they have
a life-long discipline of a kind conducive to various physical superiori-
ties ; while, contrariwise, those occupied in agriculture, in carrying of
burdens, and in other drudgeries, partially lose what agility and ad-

* While writing, I find in the recently issued " Transactions of the Anthropological
Institute " proof that, even now in England, the professional classes are both taller and
heavier than the artisan classes.

442 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

dress they naturally had. Class-predominance is, therefore, thus fur-
ther facilitated.

And then there are the respective mental traits produced by daily
exercise of power, and by daily submission to power. The ideas, and
sentiments, and modes of behavior, perpetually repeated, generate on
one side an inherited fitness for command, and on the other side an
inherited fitness for obedience ; with the result that, in course of time,
there arises on both sides the belief that the established relations of
classes are the natural ones.

By implying habitual war among settled societies, the foregoing
interpretations have implied the formation of compound societies.
The rise of such class-divisions as have been described is, therefore,
complicated by the rise of further class-divisions determined by the
relations from time to time established between those conquerors and
conquered whose respective groups already contain class-divisions.

This increasing differentiation which accompanies increasing inte-
gration is clearly seen in certain semi-civilized societies, such as that
of the Sandwich-Islanders. Ellis enumerates their ranks as — " 1. King,
queens, and royal family, along with the councilor or chief minister of
the king. 2. The governors of the different islands, and the chiefs of
several large divisions. Many of these are descendants of those who
were kings of the respective islands in Cook's time, and until subdued
by Kamehameha. 3. Chiefs of districts or villages, who pay a regu-
lar rent for the land, cultivating it by means of their dependents, or
letting it out to tenants. This rank includes also the ancient priests.
4. The laboring classes — those renting small portions of land, those
working on the land for food and clothing, mechanics, musicians, and
dancers." And, as shown by other passages, the laboring classes here
grouped together are divisible into — artisans, who are paid wages ;
serfs, attached to the soil ; and slaves. Inspection makes it tolerably
clear that the lowest chiefs, once independent, were reduced to the
second rank when adjacent chiefs conquered them and became local
kings ; and that they were reduced to the third rank at the same time
that these local kings became chiefs of the second ran.k, when, by con-
quest, a kingship of the whole group was established. Other societies
in kindred stages show us kindred divisions similarly to be accounted
for. Among the New-Zealanders there are six grades ; there are six
among the Ashantees ; there are five among the Abyssinians ; and
other more or less compounded African states present analogous di-
visions. Perhaps ancient Peru furnishes as clear a case as any of the
superposition of ranks resulting from subjugation. The petty king-
doms which were massed together by the conquering Incas were sev-
erally left with the rulers and their subordinates undisturbed ; but
over the whole empire there was a superior organization of Inca rulers
of various grades. That kindred causes produced kindred effects in

POLITICAL DIFFERENTIATION. 443

early Egyptian times is inferable from traditions and remains which
tell us both of local struggles which ended in consolidation and of
conquests by invading races ; whence would naturally result the nu-
merous divisions and subdivisions which Egyptian society presented :
an inference justified by the fact that under Roman dominion there
was a recomplication caused by superposing of Roman governing
agencies upon native governing agencies. Passing over other ancient
instances, and coming to the familiar case of our own country, we may
note how, from the followers of the conquering Norman, there arose
the two ranks of the greater and lesser barons, holding their land
directly from the king, while the old English thanes were reduced to
the rank of sub-feudatories. Of course, where perpetual Avars produce,
first, small aggregations, and then larger ones, and then dissolutions,
and then reaggregations, and then unions of them, various in their
extents, as happened in mediaeval Europe, there result very numerous
divisions. In the Merovingian kingdoms there were slaves having
seven different origins ; there were serfs of more than one grade ;
there were freedmen — men who, though emancipated, did not rank
with the fully free ; and there were two other classes less than free —
the liteu and the coloni. Of the free there were three classes — inde-
pendent land-owners ; freemen in relations of dependence with other
freemen, of whom there were two kinds ; and freemen in special rela-
tions with the king, of whom there were three kinds.

And here, while observing in these various cases how greater politi-
cal differentiation is made possible by greater political integration, we
may also observe that in early stages, while social cohesion is small,
greater political integration is made possible by greater political differ-
entiation. For the larger the mass to be held together, Avhile incohe-
rent, the more numerous must be the agents standing in successive
degrees of subordination to hold it together.

The political differentiations which militancy originates, and which
for a long time acquire increasing definiteness, so that intermixture of
ranks by marriage is made a crime, are at later stages and under other
conditions interfered with, traversed, and partially or wholly destroyed.

Where, throughout long periods and in ever-varying degrees, war
has been producing aggregations and dissolutions, the continual break-
ing up and reforming of social bonds obscures the original divisions
established in the ways described : instance the state of things in the
Merovingian kingdoms just named. And where, instead of conquests
by kindred adjacent societies, which in large measure leave standing
the social positions and properties of the subjugated, there are con-
quests by alien races carried on more barbarously, the original grades
may be practically obliterated, and in place of them there may arise
grades originating entirely by appointment of the despotic conqueror.
In parts of the East, where such overrunnings of race by race have

444 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

been going on from the earliest recorded times, we see this state of
things substantially realized : there is little or nothing of hereditary-
rank, and the only rank recognized is that of official position. Besides
the different grades of appointed state functionaries, there are no class
distinctions, or none having political meanings.

A tendency to subordination of the original ranks and a substitu-
tion of new ranks is otherwise caused : it accompanies the progress of
political consolidation. The change which has occurred in China well
illustrates this effect. Gutzlaff says : " Mere title was afterward (on
the decay of the feudal system) the reward bestowed by the sovereign,
. . . and the haughty and powerful grandees of other countries are
here the dependent and penurious servants of the Crown, . , . The
revolutionary principle of leveling all classes has been carried in China
to a very great extent. . . . This is introduced for the benefit of the
sovereign, to render his authority supreme."

The causes of such changes are not difficult to see. In the first
place, the subjugated local rulers losing, as integration advances, more
and more of their power, lose, consequently, more and more of their
actual if not of their nominal rank, passing from the condition of trib-
utary rulers to the condition of subjects. Indeed, jealousy on the part
of the monarch sometimes prompts positive exclusion of them from
influential positions ; as in France, where " Louis XIV systematically
excluded the nobility from ministerial functions." Presently their
distinction is further diminished by the rise of competing ranks cre-
ated by state authority. Instead of the titles inherited by the land-
possessing military chiefs, which were descriptive of their attributes
and positions, there come to be titles conferred by the sovereign.
Certain of the classes thus established are still of militant origin ; as
the knights made on the battle-field, sometimes in large numbers before
battle, as at Agincourt, when five hundred were thus created, and
sometimes afterward in reward for valor. Others of them arise from
the exercise of political functions of different grades ; as in France,
where, in the seventeenth century, hereditary nobility was conferred
on officers of the great council and officers of the chamber of accounts
— officers who had habitually been of bourgeois extraction. The ad-
ministration of law, too, presently originates titles of honor. In France,
in 1607, nobility was granted to doctors, regents, and professors of
law; and "the superior courts obtained, in 1644, the privileges of no-
bility of the first degree." " So that," as Warnkoenig remarks, " the
original conception of nobility was in the course of time so much wid-
ened that its primitive relation to the possession of a fief is no longer
recognizable, and the whole institution seems changed." These, Avith
kindred instances, which our own country and other European coun-
tries furnish, show us both how the original class-divisions become
blurred and how the new class-divisions are distinguished by being de-
localized. They are strata which run through the integrated society,

POLITICAL DIFFERENTIATION. 445

having, many of them, no reference to the land, and no more connec-
tion with one place than another. It is true that, of the titles artifi-
cially conferred, the higher are habitually derived from the names of
districts and towns : so simulating, but only simulating, the ancient
feudal titles expressive of actual lordship over territories. The other
modern titles, however, which have arisen with the growth of political,
judicial, and other functions, have not even nominal references to local-
ities. This change naturally accompanies the growing integration of
the parts into a whole, and the rise of an organization of the whole
which disregards the divisions among the parts.

More effective still, in weakening those primitive political divisions
initiated by militancy, is increasing industrialism. This acts in two
ways, firstly, by creating a class having power derived otherwise than
from territorial possessions or ofiicial position ; and, secondly, by gen-
erating ideas and sentiments at variance with the ancient assumptions
of class-superiority. As we have already seen, rank and wealth are at
the outset habitually associated. Existing uncivilized people still show
us this relation. The chief of a kraal among the Koranna Hottentots
is " usually the person of greatest property." In the Bechuana lan-
guage " the word kosi . . . has a double acceptation, denoting either a
chief or a richi man." Such small authority as a Chinook chief has,
" rests on riches, which consists in wives, children, slaves, boats, and
shells." So was it originally in Europe. In ancient Spain the title
ricos homhres, applied to the barons, definitely identified the two
attributes. Indeed, it is manifest that before the development of com-
merce, and while possession of land could alone give largeness of
means, lordship and I'iches were directly connected ; so that, as Sir
Henry Maine remarks, "the opposition commonly set up between
birth and wealth, and particularly wealth other than landed property,
is entirely modern." When, how^ever, with the arrival of industry at
that stage in which wholesale transactions bring large profits, there
arise traders who vie with, and exceed, many of the landed nobility in
wealth, and when, by conferring obligations on kings and nobles, such
traders gain social influence, there comes an occasional removal of the
barrier between them and the titled classes. In France the progress
began as early as 1271, when there were issued letters ennobling Raoul,
the goldsmith — " the first letters conferring nobility in existence." The
precedent, once established, is followed with increasing frequency, and
sometimes, under pressure of financial needs, there grows up the prac-
tice of selling titles, in disguised ways or openly. In France, in 1702,
the king ennobled two hundred persons at three thousand livres a head ;
in 1706, five hundred at six thousand a head. And then, the breaking
down of the ancient political divisions thus caused, is furthered by that
weakening of them consequent on the growing spirit of equality fos-
tered by industrial life. In proportion as men are daily habituated to
maintain their own claims while respecting the claims of others, which

446 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

they do in every act of exchange, whether of goods for money or of
services for pay, there is produced a mental attitude at variance with
that which accompanies subjection ; and, as fast as this happens, such
political distinctions as imply subjection lose more and more of that
respect which gives them strength.

Class-distinctions, then, date back to the beginnings of social life.
Omitting those small wandering assemblages which are so incoherent
that th^ir component parts are ever changing their relations to one
another and to the environment we see that, wherever there is some
coherence and some permanence of relation among the parts, there
begin to arise political divisions. Relative superiority of power, first
causing a differentiation at once domestic and social, between the
activities and positions of the sexes, presently begins to cause a dif-
ferentiation among males, shown in the bondage of cajDtives ; a master-
class and a slave-class are formed.

Where men continue the wandering life in pursuit of wild food for
themselves or their cattle, the groups they form are debarred from
doing more by war than appropriate one another's units individually ;
but, where men have passed into the agricultural or settled state, it be-
comes possible for one community to take possession bodily of another
community, along with the territory it occupies. When this happens,
there arise additional class-divisions. The conquered and tribute-pay-
ing community, besides having its head-men reduced to subjection,
has its people reduced to a state such that, while they continue to live
on their lands, they yield up, through the intermediation of their chiefs,
part of the produce to the conquerors ; so foreshadowing what eventu-
ally becomes a serf -class.

From the beginning the militant class, being by force of arms the
dominant class, becomes the class which owns the source of food — the
land. During the hunting and pastoral stages, the warriors of the
group hold the land collectively. On passing into the settled state,
their tenures become partly collective and partly individual in sundry
ways, and eventually almost wdiolly individual. But, throughout long
stages of social evolution, land-owning and militancy continue to be
associated.

The class-differentiation, of which militancy is the active cause, is
furthered by the establishment of definite descent, and especially male
descent, and the transmission of position and property to the eldest son
of the eldest continually. This conduces to inequalities of position
and wealth between near kindred and remote kindred ; and such in-
equalities of wealth, once initiated, strengthen themselves by giving to
the superior increased means of maintaining their power by accumu-
lating appliances for offense and defense.

Such differentiation is increased, at the same time that a new differ-
entiation is initiated, by the immigration of fugitives who attach

POLITICAL DIFFERENTIATION. 447

themselves to the most powerful member of the group, now as depend-
ents who work, and now as armed followers — armed followers who
form a class bound to the dominant man, and unconnected with the
land. And since, in clusters of such groups, fugitives ordinarily flock
most to the strongest group, and become adherents of its head, they
are instrumental in furthering those subsequent integrations and dif-
ferentiations which conquests bring about.

Inequalities of social position, bringing inequalities in the supplies
and kinds of food, clothing, and shelter, tend to establish physical
differences, to the further advantage of the rulers and disadvantage
of the ruled. And, beyond the physical differences, there are produced,
by the respective habits of life, mental differences, emotional and intel-
lectual, strengthening the general contrast of nature.

When there come the conquests which produce compound societies^
and, again, doubly compound ones, there come superpositions of ranks.
And the general effect is that, while the ranks of the conquering soci-
ety become respectively higher than those which existed before, those
of the conquered become respectively lower.

The class-divisions thus formed during the earlier stages of mili-
tancy are traversed and obscured as fast as the many small societies
are consolidated into one large society. Ranks referring to local
organization are gradually replaced by ranks referring to general or-
ganization. Instead of deputy and sub-deputy governing agents who
are the militant owners of the subdivisions they rule, there come gov-
erning agents who more or less clearly form strata running throughout
the society as a whole — a concomitant of developed political adminis-
tration.

Chiefly, however, we have to note that, while the higher political
evolution of large social aggregates tends to break down the divisions
of rank which grew up in the small component social aggregate, by
substituting other divisions, these original divisions are still more
broken down by growing industrialism. Generating a wealth that is
not connected with rank, this initiates a competing power ; and at the
same time, by establishing the equal positions of citizens before the
law in respect of trading transactions, it weakens those divisions which
at the outset expressed inequalities of position before the law.

As verifying these interpretations, I may add that they harmonize
with the interpretations of ceremonial institutions recently given. As
the primary differences of rank result fi'om victories, and as the pri-
mary forms of propitiation originate in the behavior of the vanquished
to the vanquishers, so the later differences of rank result from differ-
ences of power which, in the last resort, express themselves in physi-
cal coercion, and so the observances between ranks are recognitions
of such differences of power. When the conquered enemy is made a
slave, and mutilated by taking a trophy from his body, we see simul-
taneously originating the deepest political distinction and the cere-

448 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

raony Avliich marks it ; and, with the continued militancy that com-
pounds and recompounds social groups, there goes at once the devel-
opment of political distinctions and the development of ceremonies
marking them. And, as we before saw that growing industrialism
diminishes the rigor of ceremonial rule, so here we see that it tends to
destroy those class-divisions which militancy originates, and to estab-
lish others which indicate differences of position consequent on differ-
ences of aptitude for the various functions which an industrial society
needs.

■♦»♦•

OKIGIN OF THE PLOW AND WHEEL-CARKIAGE.

Br E. B. TYLOR, F. R. S.

THOUGH much has been written on that great engine of civiliza-
tion, the plow, yet the whole line of evidence as to its develop-
ment froni the simplest and earliest agricultural implements seems
never to have been put together, so that I venture to lay before the
Anthropological Institute the present notes.

Not only the beginning of agriculture, but the invention of the
plow itself, is prehistoric. The plow was known to the ancient Egyp-
tians and Babylonians, and the very existence of these nations points
to previous thousands of years of agricultural life, which alone could
have produced such dense, settled, and civilized populations. It was
with a sense of what the plow had done for them that the old Egyp-
tians ascribed its invention to Osiris, and the Vedic bards said the
Ayvins taught its use to Manu, the first man. Many nations have
glorified the plow in legend and religion, perhaps never more poetically
than where the Hindoos celebrate Sitd, the spouse of Rama, rising
brown and beauteous, crowned with corn-ears, from the plowed field ;
she is herself the furrow {sitd) personified. Between man's first rude
husbandry and this advanced state of tillage lies the long interval
which must be filled in by other than historical evidence. What has
first to be looked for is hardly the actual invention of planting, which
might seem obvious even to rude tribes who never practice it. Every
savage is a practical botanist, skilled in the localities and seasons of all
useful plants, so that he can scarcely be ignorant that seeds or roots, if
put into proper places in the ground, will grow. When low tribes are
found not tilling the soil, but living on wild food, as apparently all
mankind once did, the reason of the absence of agriculture would seem
to be not mere ignorance, but insecurity, roving life, unsuitable climate,
want of proper plants, and, in regions where wild fruits are plentiful,
sheer idleness and carelessness. On looking into the condition of any
known savage tribes, Australians, Andamaners, Botocudos, Fuegians,
Esquimaux, there is always one or more of these reasons to account for

ORIGIN OF THE PLOW AND WHEEL-CARRIAGE. 449

want of tillage. The turning-point in the history of agriculture seems
to be not the first thought of planting, but the pi-actical beginning by
a tribe settled in one spot to assist nature by planting a patch of
ground round their huts. Not even a new implement is needed.
Wandering tribes already carry a stick for digging roots and unearth-
ing burrowing animals, such as the katta of the Australians, with its
point hardened in the fire (Fig. 1), or the double-ended stick which

Fig. 1.— Australian "Katta."

Dobrizhoffer (" Abipones," part ii, chap, xiii) mentions as cai-ried by
the Abipone women to dig up eatable roots, knock down fruits or dry
branches for fuel, and even, if need were, break an enemy's head with.
The stick which dug up wild roots passes to the kindred use of plant-
ing, and may be reckoned as the primitive agricultural implement. It
is interesting to notice how the Hottentots in their husbandry break
up the ground with the same stone-weighted stick they use so skill-
fully in root-digging or unearthing animals (J. G. Wood, "Natural
History of Man," vol. i, p. 2.54.) The simple pointed stake is often
mentioned as the implement of barbaric husbandry, as when the Kuru-
bars of south India are described as with a sharp stick digging up
spots of ground in the skirts of the forest, and sowing them with ragy
(Buchanan, "Journey through Mysore, etc.," in Pinkerton, vol. viii,
p. 707) ; or where it is mentioned that the Bodo and Dhimal of north-
east India, while working the ground with iron bills and hoes, use a
four-foot two-pointed wooden staff for a dibble (B. H. Hodgson,
"Aborigines of India," p. 181). The spade, which is hardly to be
reckoned among primitive agi'icultural imj)lements, may be considered
as improved from the digging-stick by giving it a flat, paddle-like end,
or arming it with a broad, pointed metal blade, and afterward provid-
ing a foot-step (see the Roman spade in Smith's " Dictionary of Greek
and Roman Antiquities," s. v. "pala"). In the Hebrides is to be seen
a curious implement called caschrom, a kind of heavy bent spade with
an iron-shod point, which has been set down as a sort of original plow
(Rau, " Geschichte des Pflugs," p. 16 ; Macculloch, " Western Islands,"
Plate 30) ; but its action is that of a spade, and it seems out of the line
of development of the plow. To trace this, we have to pass from the
digging-stick to the hoe.

All implements of the nature of hoes seem derived from the pick
or axe. Thus the New Caledonians are said to use their wooden picks
both as a weapon and for tilling the ground (Klemm, " Culturwissen-
schaft," part ii, p. 78). The timet, or Maori hoe (Fig. 2), from R. Tay-
lor's " New Zealand and its Inhabitants," p. 423, is a remarkable curved
wooden implement in one piece. It is curious that of all this class of
agricultural implements the rudest should make its appearance in
VOL. XVIII. — 29

450

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Fig. 2.— "Tima," ok Maoki Hoe.

Europe. Tradition in south Sweden points to waste pieces of once-
tilled land in the forests and wilds as having been the fields of the old

" hackers," and within a generation
there was still to he seen in use on
forest farms the " hack " itself (Fig,
3), made of a stake of spruce -fir,
with, at the lower end, a stout pro-
jecting branch cut short and point-
ed ( Hylten-Cavallius, " Warend och
Wirdarne," j)art ii, p. 110 ; i, p. 43).
Even among native tribes of Amer-
ica a more artificial hoe than this
was found in use. Thus the hoe used by the North American women
in preparing the soil for planting maize, after the old stalks had been
burned, is described as a bent piece of wood, three fingers wide, fixed
to a long handle (see Charlevoix, " Nouvelle France," Letter 23 ; Lafi-
tau, " Mceurs des Sauvages Ameriquains," vol. ii, p. 76, and Plate 7).
(I do not venture to copy the hoe shown in this plate : a mere fancy
picture.) In other North American tribes the women hoed Avith a
shoulder-blade of an elk or buffalo, or a piece of the shell of a tor-
toise fixed to a straight handle (see Loskiel, " Mission of the United
Brethren in North America," p. 66 ; Catlin, " American Indians," vol.
i, p. 121). From this stage we come up to implements with metal

':::s — ^c^

^^

Fig. 3.— Swedish " Hack."

blades, such as the Caffre axe, which, by turning the blade in the
handle, becomes an implement for hoeing (Lane Fox, " Lectures on
Primitive Warfare," No. 2, p. 10). The heavy-bladed Indian hoe
(Sanskrit, kudddla), called koddly in Malabar (Klemm, " Culturwissen-
schaft," part ii, p. 123), which is shown in Fig. 4, is one example
of the iron-bladed hoe, of clumsy and ancient type. The modern
varieties of the hoe need no detailed description here.

That the primitive plow was a hoe dragged through the ground to
form a continuous furrow, is seen from the very structure of early
plows, and was accepted as obvious by Ginzrot (" Wagen und Fahr-
werke der Griechen und Homer," vol. i, and Klemra, " Culturwissen-
schaft," part ii, p. 78). The evidence of the transitions through which
agricultural implements have passed in Sweden during the last ten
centuries or so, which was unknown to these writers, is strongly con-
firmatory of the same view. It appears that the fir-tree hack (Fig. 3)
was followed by a heavier wooden implement of similar shape, which

ORIGIN OF THE PLOW AND WHEEL-CARRIAGE. 451

was dragged by hand, making small furrows ; this "furrow-crook" is
still used for sowing. Afterward was introduced the " plow-crook,"
made in two pieces, the share with the handle and the pole for draw-
ing. The share was afterward shod with a three-cornered iron bill,

Fig. 4.— Indian Hoe.

but the implement was long drawn by hand, till eventually it came to
be drawn by mares or cows (Hylten-Cavallius, part ii, p. 111). Thus
in comparatively modern times a transformation took place in Sweden
remarkably resembling that of which we have circumstantial evidence
as having happened in ancient Egypt. The Egyptian monuments
show a plow, which was practically a great hoe, being dragged by a
rope by men (see Denon, "Antiquites de I'Egypte," vol. i, PI, 68),
Still more perfect is the plowing scene here copied in Fig, 5 (see
Rosellini, " Monumenti dell' Egitto," PL 32, 33 ; Wilkinson, " Ancient
Egyptians," chap, vi). Here the man who follows the plow to break
up the clods is working with the ordinary Egyptian hoe, remarkable
for its curved wooden blade longer than the handle, and prevented

Fig. 5.

from coming abroad by the cord attaching the blade to the handle
half-way down. This peculiar implement, with its cord to hold it to-
gether, reappears on a larger scale in the plow itself, where the straight
stick is lengthened to form the pole by which the oxen draw it, and a
pair of handles are added by which the plowman keeps down and
guides the plow. The valley of the Nile, where the lightness and
richness of the alluvial soil are favored by the inundations with their
fresh deposit of river-mud, was no doubt one of the regions where the
higher agi'iculture earliest arose, and, looking at this sketch of hoeing
and plowing, we might be tempted to think that here the transition

452

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

from tlie barbaric hoe to the civilized plow is to be seen as it first took
place in the world, Egypt may possibly have been the birthplace of
the plow ; but so many forms of rude plows are to be found repre-
sented on coins and sculptures of the ancient world, that it is safer to
be content with the general idea that they are enlarged and trans-
formed hoes, without attempting to fix the date, place, and nation to
which this inventive transformation belongs. The following figures

Fig. 6.

FiQ. 7.

are selected from those coj)ied by Ginzrot and Rau. The old Syracu-
san form (Fig. 6), as likewise some old Etruscan patterns, is remark-
able as being so close to the original hoe pattern as not to have the tail
or handle. This want is supjDlied in other rude forms of ancient Italy,
of which Fig. 7 shows one. A more angular Roman form is thought
to represent the ceremonial plow, with which the wall-line was traced
in founding a new city, and Fig. 8 is another aTchaic form ; the pro-
jection of the pole behind was for the i:)lowman's foot to press the
share down :

''Depress© incipiat jam turn mihi taurus aratro
Ingemere, et suico attritus splendescere vomer."

(Virgil, " Georgics," I, 45.)

Fig. 9 is Greek, from an early MS. of Hesiod's " Works and Days."
Looking at forms of plow as rude as these to be seen at this day in
Asia and in backward countries of Europe, one wonders to find that
already in classic ages the husbandman had plows of construction far

Fig. 8.

Fig. 9.

more nearly approaching that of our best modern implement-makers.
Pliny (xviii, c. 48), after describing the simpler kinds of plow, men-
tions that in Rhaetia a plow with the addition of two small wheels had

ORIGIN OF THE PLOW AND WHEEL-CARRIAGE. 453

been recently invented, and was used for land already under tillage.
He also mentions the coulter {cultei'). This knife, fixed in front to
make the first cut ready for the share to turn the sod, is a great im-
provement on the primitive plows, where the plowshare has to do the
whole work. In Pliny's time, though only forming part of some
plows, it was evidently well known.

Thus he recognizes the whole con- ^"'- ^'^•

struction of the wheel-plow (Fig.
10) as figured by Caylus from an
ancient gem. The ordinary mod-
ern plow used by the English
farmer improves upon this rather
in details of construction and ma-
terial than in essential principle,
though a new start in invention is

taken by the self-acting plow, which no longer needs the plowman to
follow at the plow-tail, and by the steam-plow, which substitutes
engine-traction.

The plow, drawn by oxen or horses, and provided with wheels, has
taken on itself the accessories of a wheel-carriage. But, when the plow
is traced back to its earliest form of a hoe dragged by men, its nature
has little in common with that of the vehicle. Though the origin of
the wheel-carriage is even more totally lost in prehistoric antiquity
than that of the plow, there seems nothing to object to the ordinary
theoretical explanation (see Reuleaux, "Kinematics of Machinery,"
and others), that the first vehicle was a sledge dragged along the
ground ; that, when heavy masses had to be moved, rollers were put
under the sledge, and that these rollers passed into wheels, forming
part of the carriage itself. The steps of such a transition, with one
notable exception which will be noticed, are to be actually found.
The sledge was known in ancient Egypt (see the well-known painting
from El Bersheh of a colossal statue being dragged by men with ropes
on a sledge along a greased way, Wilkinson, "Ancient Egyptians,"
vol. iii). On mountain-roads, as in Switzerland, as well as on the snow
in winter, the sledge remains an important practical vehicle. The use
of rollers under the sledge was also familiar to the ancients (see the
equally well-known Assyrian sculpture of the moving of the winged
bull, in Layard's " Nineveh and Babylon," p. 110). If, now, the middle
part of the trunk of a tree used as a roller were cut down to a mere
axle, the two ends remaining as solid drums, and stops were fixed
under the sledge to prevent the axle from running away, the result
would be the rudest imaginable cart. I am not aware that this can be
traced anywhere in actual existence, either in ancient or modern times ;
if found, it would be of much interest as vouching for this particular
stage of invention of the wheel-carriage. But the stage which would
be theoretically the next imjorovement is to be traced in practical use ;

454

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

this is to saw two broad drums off a tree-trunk, and connect them by
a stout bar through their centers, pinned fast, so that the whole turns
as a single roller. The solid drum-wheel was used in the farm-carts of
classic times (see the article " Plaustrum," by Yates, in Smith's " Dic-
tionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities "). The ox-wagon here
shown is taken from the Antonine column (Fig. 11) ; it appears to
have solid wheels, and the square end of the axle proves that it and
its drum-wheels turned round together in one. A further improve-
ment was to make the wheel with several pieces nailed together, which
would be less liable to sj^lit. The ancient Roman farm-carts were
mostly made with such w^heels, as are their successors which are used
to this day with wonderfully little change, as in Greece and Portugal.

Fig. 11.

The bullock-cart of the Azores (Fig. 12) (from Bullar, "Winter in
the Azores," vol. i, p. 121) is a striking relic from the classic world; its
wheels are studded with huge iron nails, by way of tire. From old
times it was common to make wooden rings, sockets, or bearings
underneath the cart for the axle to turn in, much as children's toy-carts
are made, as has often been remarked. But a drawing of a modern
bullock-cart, taken near Lisbon, represents only a pair of pieces of
wood acting as stops, so that the body of the cart can be lifted off its
wheels. -In looking at these clumsy vehicles, we certainly seem to
have primitive forms before us. There is, however, the counter-argu-
ment, which ought not to be overlooked, and which in some measure
accounts for the lasting-on of these rude carts, namely, that for heavy
carting across rough ground they are convenient, as well as cheap and
easily repaired. Considering that the railway-carriage builder gives
up the coach- wheel principle, and returns to the primitive construction
of the pair of wheels fixed to the axle turning in bearings, we see that
our ordinary carriage- wheels turning independently on their axles are
best suited to comparatively narrow wheels, and to smooth ground or
made roads. Here they give greater lightness and speed, and especially
have the advantage of easily changing direction and turning, which in

ORIGIN OF THE PLOW AND WHEEL-CARRIAGE. 455

the old block-wheel cart can only be done by gradually slewing round
in a wide circuit.

As early as history goes back, the carriage-builder had already
begun to make spoked wheels with metal tires, whose well-made nave
turned smoothly on the axle. It is needless here to extract from
Wilkinson and Layard particulars of the beautifully made Egyptian
and Assyrian chariots, nor to go into details of classic, mediaeval, and
modern carriage-building. As bearing on the origin of the art, it must
be noticed that the point whei'e the developments of the plow and car-

FiG. 12.

riage join is in the way of attaching the drawing oxen or horses, which
was much alike in both. The pole and yoke was no doubt the original
mode of draught, not only for the plow and the heavy ox-cart, where
it may be often seen still, but also for the chariot and light car (see
Schlieben, " Die Pferde des Alterthums," p. 154). The war-chariot,
with its yoked steeds, has a remarkable similarity w^herever we meet
with it in the ancient world, which seems to point to its invention by
some one particular nation, though which has not yet been made out,
whence it spread to distant countries. How such inventions found
their way is well shown in a point of detail, which incidentally shows
how far the ancient Britons wei*e from the uncivilized state popularly
attributed to them, namely, their use (Mela iii, 6) of scythe-chariots,
such as were used in Oriental armies, like that of Darius (Diod. Sic.
xvii, 53), or of Antiochus Eupator, when he came into Judea with
horsemen and elephants and three hundred scythe-chariots (2 Maccab.
xiii, 2). War-chariots were from the first drawn by the pole. The
Homeric chariots appear to have been without traces, as where, in the
Iliad (vi, 40), Adrastus's scared horses snap the pole amid the tangled
tamarisk, and set off straight for the city, evidently having nothing
but the pole to hold them. In ancient Egypt, one inner trace w^as
used, but the stress was on the pole. Eventually, in looking at the
harness of various nations, we come to the present plan of draught by
collar and traces. The change is interesting, as seeming to prove that
the earliest use of draught-cattle is that still seen in the yoke of oxen.
It has been argued by Pictet (" Origines Indo-Europeennes," part ii, p.

456 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

94) that the yoke, Sanskrit, yuga = that which Joins, was first invented
for the pair of oxen to draw the plow with, it being likely that they
were first put to this heavy work, and afterward used for drawing
carts, rather than that the idea of drawing a cart by oxen should have
occurred before putting them to plow. This, though not absolutely
certain, seems a very reasonable argument ; while the yoke and pole,
being so much better suited to the ox than to the horse, point to oxen
as the earliest draught-beasts. The history of successive changes
seems well shown in the Latin Jumentum, a beast of burden, from
jugumentum = yoke-ment, which word keeps up the memory of the
original yoke, though other modes of transporting burdens had come
in. The Latin jumentum is used for the horse, etc., but not for the
ox ; and ^xq\\q\x jument has still further lost the old idea, now meaning
merely a mare. One further remark is suggested by the harness of
the ancient Egyptian chariot, where the yoke is provided with two
saddles coming down on the withers of the horses. As is well known,
cavalry was by no means general among the armies of the ancient
world. The early Aryans, like the Homeric heroes, were charioteers,
not horsemen, nor are there any ancient Egyptian horsemen to be seen
on the monuments. On the other hand, the wari'iors of Palestine are
there to be seen on horseback, and hoi'se-soldiers appear on the Assyr-
ian sculptures. In old times, however, the horseman is mostly seen
riding a barebacked horse, or with a cloth or pad only. It seems to
have been gradually that saddles i^roj^er began to be used in Assyria,
and among the Greeks and Romans. Looking, now, at the Egyptian
yoke-saddles of the chariots, one may suspect that from them were
derived not only the harness-saddles in modern use, but also our riding-
saddles. — Journal of the Anthropological Institute.

PHYSICAL EDUCATION.

By FELIX L. OSWALD, M. D.
DIET (continued),

BUT, under all circumstances, make a firm stand against the poison-
habit. It is best to call things by their right names, The efi^ect
upon the animal economy of every stimulant is strictly that of a poison,
and every poison may become a stimulant. There is no bane in the
South American swamps, no virulent compound in the North American
drug-stores — chemistry knows no deadliest poison — whose gradual and
persistent obtrusion on the human organism will not create an unnat-
ural craving after a repetition of the lethal dose, a morbid appetency
in every way analogous to the hankering of the toper after his favorite

PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 457

tipple. Swallow a tablespoouful of laudanum or a few grains of ar-
senious acid every night : at first your physical conscience protests by
every means in its power ; nausea, gripes, gastric spasms, and nervous
headaches warn you again and again ; the struggle of the digestive or-
gans against the fell intruder convulses your whole system. But you
continue the dose, and Nature, true to her highest law to preserve life
at any price, finally adapts herself to an abnormal condition— adapts
your system to the poison at whatever cost of health, strength, and
happiness. Your body becomes an opium-machine, an arsenic-mill, a
physiological engine moved by poison, and performing its vital func-
tions only under the spur of the unnatural stimulus. But by and by
the jaded system fails to respond to the spur, your strength gives way,
and, alarmed at the symptoms of rapid deliquium, you resolve to rem-
edy the evil by removing the cause. You try to renounce stimulation,
and rely once more on the unaided strength of the vis vitce. But that
strength is almost exhausted. The oil that should have fed the flame
of life has been wasted on a health-consuming fire. Before you can
regain strength and happiness, your system must readapt itself to the
normal condition, and the difficulty of that rearrangement will be pro-
portioned to the degree of the present disarrangement ; the further you
have strayed from Nature, the longer it will take you to retrace your
steps. Still, it is always the best plan to make your way back some-
how or other, for, if you resign yourself to your fate, it will soon con-
front you with another and greater difficulty. Before long the poison-
fiend will demand a larger fee ; you have to increase the dose. The
" delightful and exhilarating stimulant " has palled, the quantum has
now to be doubled to pay the blue-devils off, and to the majority of
their distracted victims that seems the best, because the shortest, road
to peace. Restimulation really seems to alleviate the effects of the
poison-habit for a time. The anguish always returns, and always with
increased strength, as a fire, smothered for a moment with fudy will
soon break forth again with a fiercer flame.

By these symptoms the disease of the poison-habit may be identi-
fied in all its disguises, for the self-deception of the poor lady who
seeks relief in a cup of the same strong tea that has caused her sick-
headache is absolutely analogous to that of the pothouse sot who hopes
to drown his care in the source of all his misery, or of the frenzied
opium-eater who tries to exorcise a legion of fiends with the aid of Beel-
zebub. There are few accessible poisons which are not somewhere
abused for the purpose of intoxication : the Guatemala Indians fuddle
with hemlock-sap, the Peruvians with coca, the Tartars with fermented
mare's milk, the Algerians with hasheesh ; but, wherever men have deal-
ings with the " fiend that steals away their brains," there are always
Ancient lagos who mistake him for a " good familiar creature," till he
steals their health and wealth as well as their wits. Their woes are
not the penalty of their persistent blindness, but of their first open-

458 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

eyed transgression. There is a Spanish proverb to the effect that it is
easier to keep the devil out than to turn him out, and many dupes of
the Good P^amiliar would actually think it an ingratitude to turn him
off ; but they should have known better than to admit him when he
presented himself with horns and claws. To a normal taste every
poison is abhorrent, and with the rarest exceptions the degree of the
repulsiveness is proportioned to that of the virulence. In the mouth
of a healthy child, rum is a liquid fire ; beer, an emetic ; tea and coffee,
bitter decoctions ; tobacco-fumes revolt the stomach of the non-habitiiL
Only blind deference to the example of his elders will induce a boy to
accustom himself to such abominations ; if he were left to the guid-
ance of his natural instincts, intoxication would be anything but an
insidious vice.

With all its ramifications, the poison-habit is a upas-tree which has
polluted the well-springs and tainted the very atmosphere of our social
life. The woe which the human race owes to alcohol alone is so far
beyond description that I will here only record my belief that its total
interdiction will form the first commandment in the decalogue of the
future. The power of prejudice has its limits. No man, possessed of
a vestige of common sense, can read the scientific literatm-e that has
accumulated upon the subject, and doubt that even the moderate use of
distilled liquors as a beverage amply justifies the belief in the exist-
ence of unqualified evils. The effects of tea and coffee drinking are
also well understood, but I must call attention to an often overlooked
though most important feature of the habit — its progressiveness. The
original moderate quantum soon palls, and it is this craving of the sys-
tem/or the same degree of stimulation which leads us to Johnsonian ex-
cesses or to the adoption of a stronger stimulant. Men genei'ally prefer
the latter alternative. Coffee, tea, and tobacco pave the way to opium
in the East and to alcohol in the West. The same holds true of pun-
gent spices. Pepper and mustard form the vanguard of the poison-
fiend. They inflame the liver, produce a morbid irritability of the
stomach, cause numerous functional derangements by impeding the
process of assimilation, and thus become auxiliary in expediting the
development of the poison-habit. Whatever irritates the digestive
organs or unusually exhausts the vital forces tends to the same effect.
Besides, they blunt the susceptibility of the gustatory nerves, and thus
diminish our enjoyment of the simple viands that should form our daily
food. In trying to heighten that enjoyment, the surfeited gastronome
defeats his own purpose : all sweetmeats pall ; the most appetizing
dishes he values only as a foil to his caustic condiments, like the Aus-
trian peddler who trudges through the flower-leas of the Alpenland in
a cloud of nicotine, and to whom the divine afflatus of the morning
wind is only so much draught for his tobacco-pipe.

With a single and not quite explained exception, man is the only
animal that resorts to stimulation : a few ruminant mammals — cows,

PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 459

sheep, and deer — ^pay an occasional visit to the next salt-lick. The
carnivora digest their meat without salt ; our next relatives, the fru-
givorous four-handers, detest it. Not one of the countless tonics, cor-
dials, stimulants, pickles, and spices, which have become household
necessities of modern civilization, is ever touched by animals in a
state of nature. A famished wolf would shrink from a " deviled
gizzard." To children and frugivorous animals our pickles and pepper-
sauces are, on the whole, more offensive than meat, and therefore,
probably more injurious. To savages, too. In the summer of 1875 I
stood one evening near the quai'termaster's office at Fort Wingate,
New Mexico, when two Kiowa Indians applied for permission to water
their famished horses at the Government cistern, offering to accept
that boon in part payment of a load of brushwood which they pro-
posed to haul from the neighboring chaparral. The fellows looked
thirsty and hungry themselves, and, while the quartermaster ratified
the wood-bargain, one of the officers sent to his company quarters for
a lunch of such comestibles as the cooks might have on hand at that
time of the day. A trayful of "Government grub" was deposited
on the adjacent cord-wood platform, and the Indios pitched in with the
peculiar appetite of carnivorous nomads. A yard of commissary sau-
sage was accepted as a tough variety of jerked beef ; yeasted and
branless bread disappeared in quantities that would have confirmed
Dr. Graham's belief in natural depravity ; they sipped the cold coffee
and eyed it with a gleam of suspicion, but were reconciled by the dis-
covery of the saccharine sediment, and the cook was just going to
replenish their cups when the senior Kiowa helped himself to a vinegar
pickle, which he probably mistook for some sort of an off-color sugar-
plum. He tasted it, rose to his feet, and dashed the plate down with
a muttered execration, and then clutched the prop of the platform to
master his rising fury. Explanations followed, and a pound of brown
sugar was accepted as a peace-offering, but the children of Nature left
the post under the impression that they had been the victims of a
heartless practical joke. " D — n their breechless souls, they don't know
what's good for them ! " was the cook's comment, which I should en-
dorse if his guests had been in need of a blister. A slice of a peppered
and allspiced vinegar pickle will blister your skin as quick as a plaster
of Spanish flies. The lady-friends of Dio Lewis have promised us an
" Art of Cookery for Total Abstainers," and, if the book should cor-
respond to the title, I would suggest a motto : " No spice but hunger ;
no stimulant but exercise."

By avoiding pungent condiments we also obviate the principal
cause of gluttony. It is well known that the admirers of lager-beer do
not drink it for the sake of its nutritive properties, but as a medium
of stimulation, and I hold that nine out of ten gluttons swallow their
peppered ragoHts for the same purpose. Only natural appetites have
natural limits. Two quarts of water Avill satisfy the normal thirst of

460 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

a giant, two pounds of dates his hunger after a two days' fast. But
the beer-drinker swills till he runs over, and the glutton stuflfs himself
till the oppression of his chest threatens him with suffocation. Their
unnatural appetite has no limits but those of their abdominal ca-
pacity. Poison-hunger would be a better word than appetite. What
they really want is alcohol and hot spices, and, being unable to swallow
them " straight," the one takes a bucketful of swill, the other a pot-
ful of grease into the bargain.

But gluttony has one other cause — involuntary cramming. Fond
mothers often surfeit their babies till they sputter and spew, and it is
not less wrong to force a child to eat any particular kind of food
against his grain — in disregard of a natural antipathy. Such aversions
are allied to the feeling of repletion by which Nature warns the eater
to desist, and, if this warning is persistently disregarded, the monitory
instinct finally suspends its function ; overeating becomes a morbid
habit, our system has adapted itself to the abnormal condition, and
every deviation from the new routine produces the same feeling of
distress which shackles the rum-drinker to his unnatural practice.
Avoid pungent spices, do not cram your children against their will,
and never fear that natural aliments will tempt them to excess. But
I should add here that of absolutely innocuous food — ripe food and
simple farinaceous preparations — a larger quantity than is commonly
imagined can be habitually taken with perfect freedom from injurious
consequences. On the Upper Rhine they have Trauben- Curen — sani-
taria where people are fed almost exclusively on ripe grapes in order
to pui'ify their blood. The grapes generally used for this purpose are
of the variety known as Muskateller, with big, honey-sweet berries of
a most enticing flavor. " Doesn't such physic tempt your patients ? "
I asked the manager of a famous Trauben-Cure ; " don't they dose them-
selves to a damaging extent ? " His answer surprised me, " Damag-
ing ? Yes, sir," said he, " they damage my pocket, some of them do,
though I charge them three florins a day, lodgers five. They can not
damage themselves by eating Muskateller."

Never stint the supply of fresh drinking-water. The danger of
water-drinking in warm weather has been grossly exaggerated. Cold
water and cold air are the two scapegoats that have to bear the burden
of our besetting sins. There is, indeed, something preposterous in
the idea that Nature would punish us for indulging a natural appetite
to its full extent. Sheep that have been fed on dry corn-husks all
winter sometimes break into a clover-field and eat till they burst ; but
who ever heard of a dyspeptic bear, or of an elk prostrated by a fit of
gastric spasms ? And yet we need not doubt that wild animals eat
while their appetite lasts. If we lock them up and deprive them of
their wonted exercise, their appetite, too, diminishes. In short, as
long as we confine ourselves to our proper diet, our stomachs never call
for more than we can digest. There are things that have to be eaten

PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 461

in homoeopathic doses to prevent surfeit, but respecting such stuff
(Liraburger, caviare, etc., I would say, as of spices and alcohol), ab-
stinence is better than temperance. In convivial neighborhoods spo-
radic cases of surfeit are almost as unavoidable as Christmas dinners
and school picnics ; but their effects are as transient as their causes.
For children, a nearly infallible peptic corrective is a fast day passed
in cheerful out-door exercise. By a curious law of periodicity, the
mind will stray to the dining-room when the wonted meal-time comes
around, even if genuine ajDpetite does not return with that hour, but
fishing, hunting, and ball-playing divert our thoughts from such
channels, and, returning late in the evening from a good day's sport,
the periodicity of bedroom-thoughts, aided by fatigue, overcomes the
latent craving for food without the least effort. Try the experiment.

Want of appetite is not always a morbid symptom, nor even a
sign of imperfect digestion. Nature may have found it necessary to
muster all the energies of our system for some special purpose, mo-
mentarily of paramount importance. Organic changes and repairs,
teething, pleuritic ej^urations, and the external elimination of bad
humors (boils, etc.), are often attended with a temporary suspension
of the alimentary process. The instinct of domestic animals thus
generally counteracts the influence of abnormal circumstances. As a
rule, it is always the safest plan to give Nature her own way, and was
thus proved even in the extreme cases of more than one honci fide
fasting girl, whose system, for recondite reasons of its own, preferred
to subsist on air for weeks and months together.

In regard to the quality of food, too, there are intuitive dislikes
which should not be disregarded, because they can not always be ac-
counted for. I do not say lilxes and dislikes ; a child's whimsical de-
sire to treat innutritions or injurious substances as comestibles should
certainly not be encouraged as long as its hunger can be appeased with
less suspicious aliments. For it is a curious fact that all unnatural
practices — the eating of indigestible matter as well as of poisons — are
apt to excite a morbid appetency akin to the stimulant habit. The
human stomach can be accustomed to the most j^reposterous things.
The Otomacs, of South America, whose forefathers in times of scarcity
may have filled their bellies with loam, are now afflicted with a na-
tional penchant for swallowing inorganic substances. In New Cale-
donia, habitues often eat as much as two pounds of ferruginous clay
a day, and a similar stuff is sold in the markets of Bolivia, and finds
eager purchasers, even when better comestibles are cheaper. Profes-
sor Ehrenberg procured a sample of this clay which was supposed to
contain organic admixtures or some kind of fat ; but his analysis
proved that it consists of talc, mica, and a little oxide of iron. Accord-
ing to Malte-Brun, the Lisbon lazzaroni chew all day long the insipid,
leathery kernels of the carob-bean {3Ii)nosa silica), and the most pojj-
ular " chewing-gum " is said to be composed chiefly (not entirely, I

462 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

hope) of resin, paraffine, and triturated caoutchouc ! Still, Ehrenberg's
analysis makes stranger things credible. I do not doubt that a man
might contract a habit of swallowing a couple of slate-pencils or a
dime's worth of shoe-strings every morning.

But an innate repugnance to a special dish, or even to a special
class of aliments, may be indulged very cheaply, and certainly very
safely, as long as there are other available substances of the same
nutritive value. Abnormal antipathies may indicate constitutional
abnormities, and among the curious cases on record there are some
which clearly preclude the idea of imaginative influences. I knew a
Belgian soldier on whom common salt, in any combination, and in
any dose exceeding ten pennyweights, acted as a drastic poison, and
thousands of Hindoos can not taste animal food without vomiting.
Similar effects have obliged individuals to abstain from onions, sage,
parsnips, and even from Irish potatoes. Dr. Pereira mentions the case
of an English boy who had an incurable aversion to mutton : " He
could not eat mutton in any form. The peculiarity Avas supposed to
be owing to caprice, but the mutton was repeatedly disguised and
given to him unknown ; but iniiformly with the same result of pro-
ducing violent vomiting and diarrhoea. And from the severity of the
effects, which were in fact those of a virulent poison, there can be
little doubt that, if the use of mutton had been persisted in, it would
soon have destroyed the life of the individual." *

It may be considered as a suggestive circumstance that the great
plui'ality of such instinctive aversions relate either to stimulants or to
some kind of animal food. To one person whose stomach can not
bear bread or apples, we shall find a thousand with an invincible re-
pugnance to pork, coffee, and pungent condiments. It is also certain
that, by voluntary abstinence from all such things, the vigor of the
alimentary organs can be considerably increased. The Danish sailors
whom the Dey of Algiers had fed on barley and dates for a couple of
months, found that after that they " could digest almost anything." f

By adopting an absolutely non-stimulating, chiefly vegetable diet,
combined with active exercise in open air, the most dysj^eptic glutton
can cure himself in the course of a single season, and by the same
means every boarding-school might become a dietetic sanitarium.
The folloAving list of hygenic tnenus is arranged in the order of their
digestibility and wholesomeness :

Milk, bread, and fruit. — Eggs (raw or whipped), bread and honey.
— Boiled eggs, bread, and apples (ancient Rome). — Bread and butter,
rice-pudding, with sugar and fresh milk. — Corn-bread or roasted chest-
nuts, butter, honey, and grapes (the usual diet of the long-lived Cor-
sican mountaineers). — Fish, butter, oatmeal-porridge, and fresh milk
(Danish Islands). — Pancakes, honey or new molasses, poached eggs,

* Pereira, " Treatise on Food and Diet," p. 242.
f Wodderstadt, " On Yellow Fever," p. 72.

PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 463

boiled milk, and bread-pudding. — Vegetable soups, baked beans, pota-
toes (baked or mashed), butter, biscuits, and apple-dumplings.

General Rules. — Avoid stimulants ; alcoholic and narcotic drinks,
tobacco, and all pungent spices ; be sparing in the use of animal food,
especially in summer-time ; in midsummer eat fruit with every meal ;
let unprepared food (fresh milk, fruits, etc.) form a part of your daily
fare ; of unprepared aliments as well as of all unspiced viands, the
most palatable are the most wholesome ; eat slowly and masticate
your food ; never eat if you have no appetite ; and finish your last
meal three hours before bedtime.

As a dessert I will add a few of my favorite dietetic aphorisms :
An hour of exercise to every pound of food. — We are not nourished
by what we eat, but by what we digest. — Every hour you steal from
digestion will be reclaimed by indigestion. — Beware of the wrath of a
patient stomach ! — He who controls his appetite in regard to the qual-
ity of his food may safely indulge it in regard to quantity. — The
oftener you eat, the oftener you will repent it. — Dyspepsia is a poor
pedestrian ; walk at the rate of four miles an hour, and you will soon
leave her behind. — The road to the rum-cellar leads through the cof-
fee-house.— Abstinence from all stimulants, only, is easier than tem-
perance.— There are worthier objects of charity than famine-sti'icken
nations that send their breadstuffs to the distillery. — An e^g, is worth
a pound of meat ; a milch-cow, seven stall-fed oxen, — Sleep is sweeter
after a fast-day than after a feast-day. — For every meal you lose you
gain a better.

How often should we eat is still a mooted question. For men in
a state of nature the answer would be simple enough ; but, consider-
ing our present artificial modes of life, I must say that the choice of
fixed hours is less important than the observation of the following
rule : Never eat till you have leisure to digest. For digestion requires
leisure ; we can not assimilate our food while the functional energy of
our system is engrossed by other occupations. After a hearty feed,
animals retire to a quiet hiding-place ; and the " after-dinner laziness,"
the plea of our system for rest, should admonish us to imitate their
example. The idea that exercise after dinner promotes digestion is a
mischievous fallacy ; Jules Virey settled that question by a cruel but
conclusive experiment. He selected two curs of the same size, age
and general physique, made them keep a fast-day and treated them
the next morning to a square meal of potato-chips and cubes of fat
mutton, but, as soon as one of them had eaten his fill, he made the
other stop too, to make sure that they had both consumed the same
quantity. Dog No. 1 was then confined in a comfortable kennel,
while No. 2 had to run after the doctor's coach, not at a breathless rate
of speed, but at a fair, brisk trot, for two hours and a half. As soon
as they got home, the coach-dog and his comrade were slain and dis-
sected : the kennel-dog had completely digested his meal, while the

464 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

chips and cubes in the coach-dog's stomach had not changed their
form at all ; the process of assimilation had not even begun ! Rail-
road laborers, who bolt their dinner during a short interval of hard
work, might as well pass their recess in a hammock ; instead of
strengthening them, their dinner will only oppress them, till it is
digested, together with their supper, in the cool of the evening. In
a manner essentially similar, mental activity tends to hinder the di-
gestive process for a considerable time ; and I believe, more espe-
cially, the digestion of the very substances that are often selected as
brain-food 2^<^^ excellence. Even after a fashionable dinner of six or
seven courses {curses, Dr. Abernethy used to call them), two hours
of absolute rest will set our wits a-work again ; but, if that time be
passed behind a double-entry ledger, a feeling of lassitude, often
combined with an almost resistless somnolence, will advise the brain-
worker that his vital energy is needed for other purposes. " I could
eat with more comfort if it wasn't for the consciousness of having to
hurry back to my drudgery," I heard a poor class-teacher say, and the
same consciousness embitters the noonday-meal of millions of school-
children and overworked clerks.

Andrew Combe, M. D., informs us that a century ago the trades-
men of Edinburgh used to indulge in a " nooning," a general suspen-
sion of business for two hours, in the middle of the day. But an hour
or so was thus probably spent in going home and back, dressing,
etc., and half an hour at the meal itself ; so that, after all, only
thirty minutes remained for digestion ; and, considering the anachro-
nism of that nooning practice, the best plan, on the whole, would
seem to be a general return to the method of the ancient Romans,
who postponed their principal meal till their day's work was done.
It would be an insvdt to common sense and humanity to doubt that
the eight-hour system will ultimately prevail, and, where it has been
already adopted, I can see no reason why mechanics could not ar-
range to finish their day's job at 4 p. m. Schools should always close
at four. Bankers and govei'nment clerks often get home before
that time, and competitive shopkeepers might carry on their business
by relays. At half- past four, or, say, five o'clock, the coena domestica
might begin, conclude before six ; then dolce far niente, pleasant con-
versation, and four blessed hours for digestion.

But that principal meal should be the last. It is an important rule
that we should digest our food thoroughly before we replenish the
stomach. To counteract the effects of overeating, the gluttons of an-
cient Rome used emetics, the Parisian gastronomes stimulants. Dr.
Alcott wants us to "leave off hungry" ; the exponents of the move-
ment-cure prescribe a cei-tain system of gymnastic evolutions before
and after dinner. But there is a better plan : Lengthen the interval
between meals. Two meals a day are enough, perhaps more than
enough, though we can accustom ourselves to swallow (not digest) five

PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 465

or six. It all depends on training, and in no other respect is the human
system so plastic to the influence of habit. The Rev. Mr. Moffat tells
us that the Gonaque Hottentots are noways incommoded by a five
days' fast, and get old on an average of four meals a week. The
Greeks and Romans during the prime of their republics contented them-
selves with one meal a day ; Claude Bernard recommends two, but his
countrymen generally eat three ; their German neighbors four ; the
East-Germans even five : breakfast, second breakfast {zweites Fruh-
stilck), dinner, Vesperbrot, and supper, to which supper the Vienna
burghers actually superadd a JVacht-bissel — a " night-lunch," of cold
potato-salad with bread and Wiirst, and often with a mug of beer —
" for the stomach's sake " ! I get along comfortably with a meal and
a half ; so does my grand-uncle, an octogenarian, who still masticates
his bread with a full set of unbought teeth. Two, or one and two
halves, should be enough for any man. The lightest breakfast is the
best — buckwheat-cakes with a little honey or apple-butter, and a glass
of milk, or a cup of chocolate, if you must take " something warm."
Chocolate possesses nutritive properties, which tea and coffee per se
are totally devoid of. I never use it, but I believe it is non-stimulating.
Or chew a crust of stale bread, the best dentifrice and a useful absorb-
ent, good for acidity of the stomach. At noon take a glass of milk
and a couple of biscuits, or in summer a couple of ripe pears or peaches ;
they will keep you cool during the post-meridian heat and do you
more good than a cocktail lunch, Never keep a pocket-flask. Don't
stay with flagons ; better comfort with apples, if you can not wait till
five. School-children should pass their recess on the playgroimd. A
biscuit and a pocketful of apples will satisfy the temporary demands
of the stomach ; and, if they have munched up their comestibles in the
course of the morning, as boys are apt to do, they will find it far easier
to forego their noonday lunch altogether than to resist the insidious
somnolence which would dull their wits after a regular dinner, and
often makes the afternoon lesson a protracted struggle between nature
and duty.

But at the principal meal they should eat their fill. Let them
pitch in, without fear of dangerous consequences — unless your landlord
charges by the plateful. Children, like monkeys, have a way of dal-
lying with their food if they are full — picking a crumb here and there,
or mumbling their apples without using their teeth. Make them get
up if you notice such symptoms, or, better, entice them away by im-
provising some out-door or up-stairs amusement. But I repeat, never
press them to eat — for principle's sake — not even your young visitors ;
they are not likely to go to bed hungry if your me77u comprises such
items as baked apples or bread-pudding and sweet milk.

Jean Jacques Rousseau holds that intemperate habits are mostly
acquired in early boyhood, when blind deference to social precedents
is apt to overcome our natural antipathies, and that those who have

VOL. XVIII. — 30

466 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

passed that period in safety have generally escaped the danger of
temptation. The same holds good of other dietetic abuses. If a
child's natural aversion to vice has never been willfully perverted, the
time will come when his welfare may be intrusted to the safe-keeping
of his protective instincts. You need not fear that he will swerve from
the path of health when his simple habits, sanctioned by Nature and
inclination, have acquired the additional strength of long practice.
When the age of blind deference is passed, vice is generally too unat-
tractive to be very dangerous. " Why make yourself the slave of such
a degrading habit ? " says Count Zinzendorf, in his " Hirtenbrief " ; " it
is so easy never to begin ! " I go further. I say it is difficult to begin.
Nature is not neutral on a point of such importance. Between virtue
and vice she has erected a bulwark which she intended to last from
birth to death. We need not strengthen that bulwark. We need not
guard it with anxious care ; it will stand the ordinary wear and tear
of life. All we have to do is to save ourselves the extraordinary
trouble of breaking it down.

Pure joys never pall ; uniformity is uniform happiness if the even
tenor of our way is the way of Nature. And Nature herself will guide
our steps if the exigence of abnormal circumstances should require a
deviation from the beaten path. Remedial instincts are not confined
to the lower animals ; man has his full share of them ; the self-regu-
lating power of the human system is as wonderful in the variety as in
the simplicity of its resources. Have you ever observed the weather-
wisdom of the black bindweed ? — how its flowers open to the morning
sun and close at the approach of the noontide glare ; how its tendrils
expand their spirals in a calm, but contract and cling, as with hands, to
their support when the storm-wind sweeps the woods ? With the same
certainty our dietetic instincts respond to the varying demands of our
daily life. Without the aid of art, without the assistance of our own
experience, they even adapt themselves to the exigencies of our ab-
normal social conditions, and our interference alone often prevents
them from counteracting the tendency of dire abuses.

Summer brings no repose to the slaves of Mammon, but dull head-
aches and the stomach's imperative demand for rest convince even the
unwilling that intricate arithmetical problems and 90° Fahr. are incom-
patible with digestion ; and I ascribe it to the logic of those gastric
arguments that' bankers and brokers now close their shops at 3 p. m. ;
and that business men generally avoid repletion in the middle of the
day. " Cheese is gold in the morning, silver at noon, and lead at
night," says a mediaeval proverb ; but the effects of those horrid cheese
and porter breakfasts of Queen Anne's time satisfied our grandams that
rotten curd and fermented (i. e., putrid) barley-broth are always lead,
except to those who employ the hygienic philosopher's stone — active
and long-continued out-door exercise. After recovery from an exhaust-
ing sickness — especially if you decide to promote that recovery by

PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 467

throwing physic to the dogs — the demands of your stomach will often
become exorbitant, but only apparently so ; your system wants to re-
pair the waste of the disease. Never fear that " the digestive organs
are too feeble yet," etc. ; those organs will keep their promise, unless you
break yours by resuming medication. Have you eaten more than the
wants of your system require ? Your appetite will not respond to your
invitation at the next meal. Take the hint — wait. Do not increase
the troubles of your stomach by mordant spices and alcohol. In the
sultry dog-days your system craves a surcease of greasy ragoiits and
yearns for something refreshing — sherbet or cool fruit. Get a water-
melon. " But isn't the yellow fever in town ? Quack, Quinine, and
other leading physicians, agree that one must take a course of antisep-
tics, and avoid vegetables at such seasons." Don't believe them ;
Nature knows better. Fruit is a better antiseptic than fusel poison
and wormwood. The frugivorous Mexican survives where the beef-
eating stranger dies in spite of his bitters. If sailors have been sur-
feited with salt meat, their craving after lemon-juice or fresh fruit
becomes more urgent from day to day ; the surcharge of their organism
with saline matter requires a neutralizing acid. A single meal of salt
herring excites merely thirst ; common water is yet sufficient to dilute
the ingesta and eliminate the salt. Vegetable substances that consist
chiefly of starch and water supply the wants of our organism less com-
pletely than those that contain an admixture of gluten, albumen, and
fat ; and, if we restrict our diet to the first-named class of aliments, our
system announces the deficit by means of our senses ; without such
complements as milk, sugar, or fat, rice-bread is more insipid than
bread from unbolted wheat-flour.

All dietetic needs of our body thus announce themselves in a vei'sa-
tile language of their own, and he who has learned to interpi'et that
language, nor willfully disregards its just appeals, may avoid all di-
gestive disorders — not by fasting if he is hungry or forcing food upon
his protesting stomach, not by convulsing his bowels with nauseous
drugs, but by quietly following the guidance of his instincts.

Nature's health laws are simple. The road to health and happiness
is not the labyrinthine maze described by our medical mystagogues.
In perusing their dietetic codes one is fairly bewildered by a mass of
incongruous precepts and prescriptions, laborious compromises between
old and new theories, arbitrary rules, and illogical exceptions, anti-
natural restrictions and anti-natural remedies. Their views of the
constitution of man suggest the King of Aragon's remark about the
cycles and epicycles of the Ptolemaic system : " It strikes me the
Creator might have arranged this business in a simpler way."

All normal things are good, all evil is abnormal, is an axiom which
has been almost reversed in the principle of our orthodox health theo-
ries, for many of our physical educators still hold to the cardinal error
of their spiritual colleagues, who consider depravity and wretchedness

468 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

as the normal condition of man, and happiness as the reward of a self-
abhorring suppression of all natural desires and of a blind confidence
in the efficacy of an abnormal and mysterious remedy — nay, who de-
spise Earth herself as a " vale of tears," and life as a dis'ease whose
only cure is death, whose only anodyne a dream of a supernatural
elysium. It is time to awake from that dream. It is time to oj^en
our eyes to the well-springs of life and happiness which the bounty of
our Mother Earth sends forth in such abundance, and which man might
enjoy Avith all his fellow-creatures if his perversity had not turned
them into sources of misery and death. Instead of insulting our
Maker by the doctrine of innate depravity, we should learn to distin-
guish the voice of our natui'al instincts from the cravings of a morbid
appetency. We should try to restore life to its original purity and
healthfulness instead of despising it and looking for happiness beyond
the grave.

But the deluge of mediaeval superstitions is fast assuaging, and
many a submerged truth has reappeared like a bequest of a former and
better world, and now stands as a way-mark on the road to a true
Science of Life. We have rediscovered the truth that the weal and
woe of earth are not distributed by the caprices of a mysterious Fate,
but that they follow as sure effects upon ascertainable causes. Our
best thinkers have ceased to doubt that man can work out his own
destiny, that the Creator has made us the keepers of our own happiness
on conditions which he never violates ; that he has attached pleasure
to every right act, and pain to every wrong, that he fulfills the prom-
ises of our yearnings, and never permits us to sin unwarned. We have
at last begun to realize the fact that the physical laws of God find an
echo in the voice of our innate monitor, and only an hereditary mistrust
in our instincts makes us still hesitate to commit ourselves to its guid-
ance. But experience will overcome that prejudice by and by ; duty
and inclination will go hand in hand, and the result will justify our
trust in the wisdom and benevolence of Nature.

■♦«»

HOESES AND THEIR FEET.

By Sir GEOEGE W. COX.

IF we say that of all brute animals none is more valuable to man
than the horse, and that the neglect of any means which may pro-
mote and insure his welfare and efliciency is a blunder not easily dis-
tinguishable from crime, we may fairly be charged with uttering
truisms. If we urge that this value is not recognized as it should be,
and that this neglect is miserably common, Ave may still be accused of
wasting breath on statements which no one Avould think of calling into

HORSES AND THEIR FEET. 469

question. Every one, we may be told, is well aware that the manage-
ment of horses is very faulty, that their lives are shortened by the
ignorance of those who have charge of them rather than by any wan-
ton cruelty, and that they are rendered practically useless long before
their existence is brought to an end. To the plea that the same, or
much the same, things may be said of men as of horses, we may answer
that the blame must be apportioned to the degree of carelessness with
which evils affecting either men or horses are allowed to go on un-
checked, or are foolishly dealt with ; nor can failures to improve the
condition of mankind furnish a reason for refusing to do what may
improve the condition of horses. Our duty ought to be discharged at
all costs and under all circumstances ; but a man must have risen far
above the average of his fellows if he feels no relief when his duty
coincides with his interest. Something is gained by the mere pointing
out of this agreement, wherever it exists ; and we must remember that,
if a vast amount of human wretchedness is the direct result of willful
and wanton perversity, we can meet with no such resistance on the
part of brute beasts. With regard to these we have only to see what
the evils are ; and the blame is ours, and ours alone, if we fail to apply
the remedy, when the remedy, if applied, must be successful. In the
case of the horse, unhappily, we do not realize the extent of the mis-
chief, and seldom, perhaps never, fix our minds on its cause or causes.
Yet the facts, even when reduced within limits which none will ven-
ture to dispute, are sufficiently startling.

The number of horses in the United Kingdom has been estimated
at rather more than two millions and a quarter, and their average value
can scarcely be set down at less than thirty pounds. Their collective
value, therefore, falls little short of £68,000,000. That the nation in-
curs a loss if this sum is spent quicker than it needs to be is a self-evi-
dent proposition ; that it is so spent is certain, if horses on an average
become useless at a time when they ought still to be in full vigor. On
this point few will be disposed to challenge the verdict of Mr. W.
Douglas, late veterinary surgeon in the Tenth Hussars, who tells us
that a horse should live from thirty-five to forty years, and live actively
and usefully during three fourths of this period. " All authorities,'
he says, " now admit that animals should live five times as long as it
takes them to reach maturity. A dog, which is at its full growth
when between two and three years old, is very aged at twelve years.
Horses do not, unless their growth is forced, reach their full prime
until they are seven or eight years old, which by the same law leaves
them to live some thirty years longer. When these facts are kept in
mind, together with these other facts that three fourths of our horses
die or are destroyed under twelve years old, that horses are termed
aged at six [he should have said eight], old at ten, very old when
double that number of years, and that few of them but are laid up
from work a dozen times a year, . . . the viciousness of a system

470 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

which entails such misery and destruction of life can not be too strongly
commented upon." If we take the age of three years as that at which
horses begin to work, and twelve as that at which they are worn out,
it follows that the period of their efficiency is shorter by at least four-,
teen years than it should be. In other words, the nation has to buy
three horses when it ought to buy only one, and thus upward of
£200,000,000 are spent every twenty-one years in the purchase of
horses when £68,000,000 ought to suffice. The loss, therefore, to the
nation is at least £135,000,000 in twenty-one years.

If this were all, the question would surely be most serious ; but it
is not all. Unless the facts thus far stated can be set aside, our horses
work on the average seven or eight years ; but how do they work ?
The collective experience of the country will answer that the work is
done at the cost of frequent interruptions, and with an amount of dis-
comfort and pain which often becomes agony. It is easy to say that
much of the evil must be laid to the charge of grooms and stable-men;
and perhaps the censures dealt out to these men are not undeserved.
They are, at least, outspoken. In the last century Lord Pembroke
spoke of grooms as being " generally the worst informed of all persons
living." "No other servant," says Mr. Mayhew, "possesses such
power, and no domestic more abuses his position. It is impossible to
amend the regulation of any modern stable without removing some of
this calling, or overthrowing some of the abuses with a perpetuation
of which the stable servant is directly involved." In this state of
things the most humane of masters becomes, he adds, an unconscious
tyrant to the brute which serves him so well. It is a miserable fact
that grooms on their own responsibility are in the habit of administer-
ing secretly to horses medicines the cost of which they pay themselves.
It may fairly be said that in every case the remedy is ill-judged, and
creates worse mischief than that which it is designed to remove.
Among these medicines, arsenic, antimony, and niter seem to be the
favorites ; but the list of remedies is not ended Avith these. The ex-
perience of ages, if it has failed to do more, has impressed on them the
fact that the chief source of the sufferings of horses is to be found in
the foot. The suspicion that the foot is not treated rightly by the
traditionary method never enters their minds ; and they deal with the
limb not from a knowledge of its anatomy, structure, and purpose, but
in accordance with the popular notions, which are, in plain speech, out-
rageously absurd. In profound ignorance that the hoof is porous, they
apply hoof-ointments, which answer to cement plastered on a wall. If
these were in constant use, Mr. Douglas asserts emphatically that not
a morsel of sound horn would remain at the end of six months on the
horses, and shoeing would become an impossibility. If the groom be
told that he is thus preventing the internal moisture from reaching the
outer surface and the air from circulating iuAvard, his only answer is
an incredulous laugh. His conviction is that the hoof should not come

HORSES AND THEIR FEET. 471

into contact with hard material, and that the horse can be best fitted
for his work by having his feet smeared with tar, beeswax, or tallow,
and by resting always on a heap of litter in the stable. It would be of
little use to cite Lord Pembroke as declaring that " the constant use
of litter makes the feet tender and causes swelled legs ; moreover, it
renders the animals delicate. Swelled legs may be frequently reduced
to their proper natural size by taking away the litter only, which, in
some stables, where ignorant grooms and farriers govern, would be a
great saving of bleeding and physic, besides straw. ... I have seen,"
he adds, " by repeated experiments, legs swell and unswell by leaving
litter or taking it away, like mercury in a weather-glass " ; and his
experience is confirmed by the general condition of troopers' horses, in
contrast with those of their officers, which are bedded down all day.

But, if there are evils for which grooms are in large measure di-
rectly responsible and the abolition of which they would beyond doubt
stoutly resist, there are others in which masters are not less blamewor-
thy than their men, and from which the public generally as well as the
animals are constant sufferers. The work of the horse is that of drag-
ging and carrying ; and the aim of the owner should be the accom-
plishment of this work with the utmost possible sureness and with the
fewest accidents. Serious and fatal injuries may be the result of
stumblings and slippings not less than of actual falls ; and the prema-
ture wearing out of horses by excessive straining of their sinews and
muscles is a direct pecuniary loss to the owners, although few of them
seem to realize the true significance of the fact. These evils are to be
seen everywhere, and they affect horses kept for the ^^urpose of plea-
sure and ostentation almost as much as those which spend their days
in a round of monotonous drudgery. A horse should not be obliged
to work in going down a hill ; but, in fact, they are subject to the
severest strain just when they ought to have none, if they are harnessed
to springless carts or wagons without breaks. Farm-horses suffer with
terrible severity from this cause"; but the horses used in carrying
trades and by railway companies undergo a more cruel ordeal. Im-
provements in the break-power of wagojis used on roads, which might
greatly lessen the mischief, are not made, and hence the horses are
seldom free from diseases more or less serious, which may be traced
directly to constant slipping and shaking over slippery pavements.
Among ignorant owners, blind to their own interests, there is an im-
pression that " the work which kills one horse will bring in money
enough to buy another " ; but experience has sufficiently shown the
fallacy of this theory, whether the overtaxed slave be a horse or a
human being. In towns and cities the roads are, and must be, paved,
and the pavings at present are variously of stone, wood, or asphalt,
where the road is not macadamized. These pavements have, it would
seem, each its own peculiar dangers for the horses which use them ;
and each has thus become a fruitful source of controversy. If any

472 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

one method be likely to supersede the rest, the victory will probably
be for the asphalt ; but horses are found to slip seriously upon it, and
the falls so caused are, we are told, of a graver kind than those on
pavements of other sorts. All the proprietors of cabs, omnibuses, and
rail way- vans have, it is said, protested in a body against its use, but
scarcely, it would seem, to good purjiose. Fresh contracts have been
signed for pavements of asphalt, and others will probably follow. In
the mean while horses have to pass, perhaps in a single morning, from
macadamized roads to roads paved with asphalt, wood, or stone — in
other words, over roads made of widely differing materials, which call
in each case for a different action of the foot. On the other hand, the
hoof is supposed to be protected by shoes, the varieties of which are
legion ; and thus the controversy has been brought to a singular issue.
On one side it is urged that there should be a uniform system of pav-
ing enforced on all towns, so that horses should no longer pass from a
less slippery road to one that is more slippery ; on the other the con-
tention is that the true remedy lies not in uniformity of paving, but
in the discovery of a shoe which shall effectually prevent the horse
from slipping anywhere. The former alternative is visionary ; the
latter has been, and perhaps it may be said still is, the object aimed at
by some who have a thorough acquaintance with the structure of the
horse, and the most disinterested wash to promote his welfare. We
may therefore safely pay no heed to the lamentations of those who
believe that " the difficulty in riding or driving through the London
streets arises from the variety of the pavements in use," and that, " if
we had a uniform kind of pavement, a shoe for universal use would
be quickly invented." We may please ourselves Avith fancying that
" the ingenuity of man would devise horseshoes to travel over glass,
were glass the only pavement in use." The main question is, whether
mankind after all has not been forestalled in this invention ; and it is
absolutely certain that those who have labored most conscientiously to
improve the shoeing of horses have striven especially to secure for
them the power of moving safely over materials of many kinds. These
men have been convinced that the traditional methods overload the
foot of the horse wnth iron, and that the modes of fastening on this
iron interfere with, if not altogether obstruct, the processes of nature.
The efforts of all have been directed toward diminishing the w^eight of
iron, and this has led them to the conclusion that the less the natural
foot is interfered with the better. M. la Fosse thus inferred that one
half of the ordinary shoe was unnecessary, and that nothing more was
needed than a tip on the front half of the foot. Unfortunately, he
directed that the heel should be pared, thus making it weaker, and he
fastened on his tip, which had about six inches of iron in its entire
length, with eight nails. He was thus "inserting w^edges, amounting
in the aggregate to from one to one and a half inch in thickness, in six
inches of horn, thus squeezing it into the space of five or even four

HORSES AND THEIR FEET. 473

inches, and killing it from the clinches downward and outward." It
is strange that veterinary surgeons who have clearly comprehended
the mischief thus caused have failed to draw the logical inference from
their premises. Mr. Douglas was aware that the crust of the horse's
foot resembles in its natural state a number of small tubes, bound to-
gether by a hardened, glue-like substance, and he compares it to a
mitrailleuse gun with its many barrels soldered together. By his way
of nailing, M. la Fosse was reducing the size of each tube by one sixth,
or rather was entirely closing those nearest the nails and compressing
those that lie half-way between each pair of nails. He was in this
respect aggravating the mischief of the ordinary shoe, which commonly
has seven nails ; and this insured dryness and brittleness of hoof.
But the circulation of fluid through the pores of the hoof is not the
only natural process which modern shoeing interferes with. In his
work on the horse's foot, Mr. Miles illustrates the expansion and con-
traction which always take place in its natural state when it is set
down on and lifted from the ground. The subject was a horse nine
years old, which had the shoe removed for the purpose of the experi-
ment. " The unshod foot was lifted up, and its contour traced with
the greatest precision on a piece of board covered with paper. A
similar board was then laid on the ground ; the same foot was then
placed upon it, and the opposite foot held up while it was again traced.
The result was that it had expanded one eighth part of an inch at the
heel and quarters." Over two inches on each side of the center of the
toe no expansion had taken place, the tracings showing that the expan-
sion was only lateral. It would follow that a shoe intended to give
full play to this process must be confined to the part where no expan-
sion takes place ; but Mr. Miles adhered to the form of the ordinary
shoe, although he reduced to three the number of nails by which it
was fastened. The object of this process of expansion and contraction
is to give the animal a firmer hold on the soil, and to enable him, where
this is thick, slimy, or sticky, to withdraw the foot easily on contrac-
tion. This purpose is necessarily defeated when the whole foot is
armed with iron.

No one has condemned the mischievous working of the existing
system more strongly than Mr. Mayhew, who refuses to allow that the
body of the horse was made stronger than his legs and feet, and holds
that these, if left to themselves, must be adequate to the tasks imposed
on them. In his belief, " it is among the foremost physiological truths,
that Nature is a strict economist," and that " man has for ages la-
bored to disarrange parts thus admirably adjusted. . . . No injury, no
wrong, no cruelty, can be conceived, which barbarity has not inflicted
on the most generous of man's many willing slaves." But, although
he has thus seen "the folly of contending against those organizations
which govern the universe," he still thought that the employment of
some sort of shoe might not lie open to this charge. Shoes of some

474 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sort may give to the horse the freedom which is essential for the
health of the foot, although he insists that all the shoes thus far used
are lamentable failures, "There are," he says, "many more pieces of
iron curved, hollowed, raised, and indented than I have cared to enu-
merate. All, however, have failed to restore health to the hoof. Some
by enforcing a change of position may for a time appear to mitigate
the evil ; but none can in the long run cure the disorder under w^hich
the hoof evidently suffers." Such language, it might be thought,
could come only from one who had discarded the use of shoes alto-
gether. All, however, that Mr. Mayhew has done, is to point the way
to the road which he was not prepared to take. But the experience of
JMiles and Mayhew, La Fosse, Charlier, and Douglas, seems to lead by
necessary logical inference to one conclusion only. If the working of
the traditionary system leaves the horse a wreck almost before he has
reached his prime, if the lessening of the weight of iron and of the
number of nails used in fixing the iron has been followed by direct
and important benefits in every instance, if even those who hold that
a horse must be shod have discovered that that which they look on as
a protection to the fore-feet is merely harmful to the hind-feet, is it
possible to stifle the suspicion that this insignificant remnant of a sys-
tem so fruitful in mischief may have no magic power, and, in short,
that the horse may do just as well without them ?

This conclusion has been courageously avowed and most ably en-
forced by a writer calling himself " Free Lance," in his recently pub-
lished work on " Horses and Roads " ; and, to say the least, it is time
that the whole question should be fully and impartially considered.
It affects the wealth of the nation, and on it depend both the useful-
ness and the comfort of a race of noble animals which are indispen-
sable to our prosperity. The force of prejudice may be great, and a
widespread traditional system may not be soon or easily overthrown ;
but it can not for a moment be supposed that Englishmen generally
will assume with reference to it an attitude of unreasoning and obsti-
nate antagonism. Fear probably will be found to supply a restraining
motive more powerful than open ill will. Many who think that the
new theory may look well enough on paper will doubt its value in
practice, and will regard their own horses as exceptions to which it
can not apply. With a strange ignorance of fact, they will insist that
unshod horses may move safely over smooth and soft ground, but
must fail when it is rugged, and hard, and stony, or will be oppressed
by a vague dread that a horse which has gone well enough without
shoes for six months may break down in the seventh. But even those
who refuse to give up the practice of shoeing will yet acknowledge its
faultiness, and wish that they could give it up without risk. To all
such we need only say that if they have any regard for impartiality
they are bound to consider the arguments and the facts on Avhich the
conclusions of "Free Lance " rest ; and most assuredly they will find in

HORSES AND THEIR FEET. 475

his pages nothing which they may charge with extravagance, rashness,
and intolerance. They will not be told that unless they abandon the
system of shoeing altogether they can effect no improvement in the
present state of things, or even that they must hasten to change the
old system for the new. On the contrary, they will find that they are
again and again warned against imprudent haste, and are told that a
vast amount of good may be achieved even if they never venture on
leavinof their horses' feet in a state of nature.

Of these arguments and facts it might be difficult to determme
which are the most important and significant. Certain it is that our
horses generally are afflicted with a multitude of diseases which seize
on their legs and feet, and that lameness is everywhere a cause of con-
. stant complaint and of loss of time and money. The author is not
speaking from theory or from book, but takes his stand on an experi-
ence obtained during a sojourn of many years in foreign countries, es-
pecially in America, where in the construction of railways and other
public works he had to employ hundreds of horses and mules on tasks
which taxed theii capabilities to the utmost. In Mexico, Peru, Brazil,
and elsewhere, he found that unshod horses were daily worked over
roads of all kinds, carrying heavy packs from the interior down to the
coast, the journey thither and back being often extended to several
hundreds of miles, and that they accomplish these journeys without
ever wearing out their hoofs ; and the roads in these countries, where
they exist at all, are neither softer nor smoother than those of England
or of Ireland. If horses fell lame, it was from causes incidental to the
climate, and for these the system of shoeing would supjaly no remedy.
From other diseases, which from strong and often incontestable rea-
sons may be traced to the use of shoes, they were wholly free. The
necessary conclusion was that the system of shoeing could answer no
good purpose, while it might be productive of much haim ; and in
this conclusion he was confirmed by the admissions and protests of the
most able and competent veterinary surgeons in this country. These
have uniformly raised their voices against the heavy weighting of the
horse's foot maintained by the traditional practice. It has been found
here that the hoofs of some horses are so weak that they can not be
fully shod ; and a writer in the " Field," styling himself " Impecunio-
sus," cited some ten years ago a remark by Mayhew that " some horses
will go sound in tips that can not endure any further protection," add-
ing the significant comment that the moral of this is that "it is the
shoe, not the road, that hurts the horse " ; for, if a weak and tender
foot can go sound when all but unshod, " why should not the strong,
sound one do the same ? " The conclusion, as he insists, should rather
be that a horse must have a strong, sound foot to stand, not our work,
but our shoe. The same writer, speaking of the cruelties unwittingly
perpetrated by grooms and blacksmiths on the horse's foot, says that,
" though lameness usually attends their efforts, they ascribe it to every

476 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

cause but the right one, and, indeed, resign themselves complacently
to the presence of many diseases confessedly caused by their treat-
ment." " Free Lance " has seen, and others also have doubtless seen,
light horses, of high breed and value, shod or burdened with a full set
of shoes in which eight nails, nearly three sixteenths of an inch in
thickness, were driven four in each quarter, and in a space of three
inches for each four nails. He may well call attention to the immense
amount of laceration and compression which the delicate hollow fibers
of the crust must have suffered when thus wedged up within a fourth
of their natural dimensions. Besides this, he adds, the hoof was, in
one instance, carved out on the crust to receive three clips, one on the
toe and one on each quarter. " A calk, three quarters of an inch high,
was put on one heel of each hind-shoe, and, on the other heel, a screw
cog of equal height. On each front-shoe a cog, also three quarters of
an inch high, was put upon each heel. This wretched victim to fash-
ion was then regarded with the utmost satisfaction by the farriers and
his groom ; and all this heathenism was perpetrated in the forge of a
veterinary surgeon. But, perhaps, he was shoeing to order."

Among the reformers of these great abuses M. Charlier occupies
a prominent place. His shoe in its first shape was not successful.
Starting rightly on the assumption that Nature intended the horse to
walk barefoot, and that the bottom of his foot was in every way fitted
to stand all wear and tear, he excepted from these self-sufficing parts
the outer rim, that is, the wall or crust. "He, therefore," "Free
Lance " tells us, " made a shoe of very narrow iron, less than the width
of the wall, which he let in, or imbedded, to the crust, without touch-
ing the sole even on the edge ; so that, in fact, the horse stood no
higher after he was shod than he stood when barefooted. He urged
that such a narrow piece of iron would not interfere with the natural
expansion and contraction of the foot ; and in this he at once went
wrong, for malleable iron has no spring in it. Then, in spite of his
theory, as he expressed it, he carried his shoe right round the foot
into the bars, beyond where the crust ceases to be independent of
them. He then got a very narrow, weak shoe, about a foot in circum-
ference (if circumference can be applied to that which is not a com-
plete circle); and, as he ought to have foreseen, the shoe then twisted
or broke on violent exertion." Still, as freeing the horse from a large
amount of the weight usually attached to his foot, the change was an
important benefit ; and the lesson thus taught was not thrown away.
The shoe was reduced by a man at Melton from the full to the three-
quarter size, and in this form it weighs five ounces. Seeley's patent
horseshoe, adopted by the North Metropolitan Tramways Company,
weighs one pound and a quarter, this being a reduction of one half on
the weight of the ordinary shoe ; and we have to remember that each
additional ounce on the horse's foot makes a most sensible difference in
the amount of work performed by him during the day. Shoeing their

HORSES AND THEIR FEET. 477

horses on the principle of the modified Charlier shoe, Messrs. Smither
& Son, of Upper East Smithfield, have found the result marvelously
to their advantage, in the measure of comfort and safety with which
their animals do their work, whether in the London streets, on pave-
ment, or on country roads. So far as their experience has gone,
there are no horses which it does not suit, and it is of special service
for young horses running on the London stones, and for horses with
tender feet, or corns, and to prevent slipping. In othpr words, the
absence of metal confers benefits which can not be bestowed by its
presence. Facts in America teach the same lesson. At a meeting of
the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture in 1878, Mr. Bowditch, a
practical farmer, declared that "nine hundred and ninety-nine thou-
sandths of all the trouble in horses' feet come from shoeing," that he
was in the habit of driving very hard down hill, that he had galloped
on ice on a horse whose feet had merely a small bit of iron four inches
long curled round the toe, and that this piece of iron is all that is
needed even in the case of an animal whose feet have been abused for
a series of years. When nothing is left but this fragment of the tra-
ditional shoe, and when even this fragment has, as in Massachusetts
and elsewhere, been retained for the fore-feet only, it is incredible
that men should fail to ask what the use of this relic of the old system
may be. Donkeys in L'cland are unshod, and they work on roads at
least as rough, hard, slimy, and slippery as those of England. " Can
one really believe," asks " Free Lance," " that the animal which is en-
dowed with the greater speed and power should have worse feet than
his inferior in both respects ? " To such a question one answer only
can be given ; and the lesson may be learned by any one who will take
the trouble to go to the wilds of Exmoor or Dartmoor. There, as in
the Orkneys and on the Welsh hills and in many parts of the Conti-
nent of Europe, horses run unshod over rocks, through ravines, and up
or down precipitous ridges. "Yet all this," Mr. Douglas remarks,
" is done without difficulty, and to the evident advantage of their
hoofs, for these animals never suffer from contracted feet, or from
coi-ns, sand-cracks, etc., until they become civilized and have been
shod." Mr. Douglas, it is true, holds that civilization involves the
need of a shoe of some sort for horses as for men; Mr. Mayhew advo-
cates the use of the tip, and, as we have said, it is not in human nature
to stop short at such a point as this. It is obvious that, if the complete
abandonment of iron is followed by increased efficiency and power of
endurance on the part of the horse, as well as by deliverance from a
number of painful and highly injurious diseases, the owner is directly
and largely benefited in more ways than one. His horses live in
greater comfort and for a longer time ; his veterinary surgeon's bill
and the outlay for medicine are greatly lessened, and the costs of far-
riery disappear altogether.

Farriers Avill, of course, complain that their occupation is gone.

478 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and that they are ruined men ; but little heed was paid to like pleas
when they wei'e urged for the drivers and attendants of coaches and
coach-horses when the first railways were constructed. Matters will
adjust themselves in this case as they did in the other. But, that the
change can not be effected in a day or a week, no one will venture to
deny. The feet of horses are ordinarily treated, not wantonly but
through ignorance, with a cruelty which is simply shocking. With
vast numbers.of animals which are not kept for purposes of drudgery,
and in whose appearance their owners feel a pride, the hoof is a mere
wreck, and the sight of the mangled and split hoof may well excite
not merely pity but wonder that any can passively allow such evils to
go on. A few, however, will always be found with resolution enough
to shake off the fetters of traditionalism ; and some of these have al-
ready expressed their opinion with sufficient emphasis. One of these,
writing in November, 1878, says : "The argument against horseshoes
seemed to me so strong, and the convenience of doing without them
so great, that I resolved to try the exi^eriment. Accordingly, when
my pony's shoes were worn out, I had them removed, and gave him
a month's rest at grass, with an occasional drive of a mile or two on
the high-road while his hoofs were hardening. The result at first
seemed doubtful. The hoof was a thin shell, and kept chipping away,
until it had worn down below the holes of the nails by which the shoes
had been fastened. After this the hoof grew thick and hard, quite
unlike what it had been before. I now put the pony to full work,
and he stands it Avell. He is more sure-footed, his tread is almost
noiseless, and his hoofs know no danger from the rough hands of
the farrier, and the change altogether has been a clear gain, with-
out anything to set off against it. The pony was between four
and five years old, and had been regularly shod up to the present
year. He now goes better without shoes than he ever did with
them."

A well-known Cumberland farmer, writing about the same time,
speaks of a farm-horse in his possession, which, having been lamed by
a nail driven into its foot, had been for many months in the hands of
the farrier. Tired out with this annoyance, the owner had his shoes
taken off and turned him out to pasture. While still rather lame, the
horse was set to work on the land ; and he is now, we are told,
" doing all sorts of farm-work, and dragging his load as well as any
shod horse, even over hard pavement." If judgment based on knowl-
edge is to carry weight, the question would soon be settled. We
have already seen the opinions expressed by the most able writers on
the horse, and especially on the structure and treatment of his feet,
as well as by the best veterinary surgeons. The verdict of the "Lan-
cet " is almost more emphatic. " As a matter of physiological fitness,"
it says, " nothing more indefensible than the us6 of shoes can be im-
agined. Not only is the mode of attaching them by nails injurious to

HORSES AND THEIR FEET. 479

the hoof, it is the probable, if not evident, cause of many affections of
the foot and leg, which impair the usefulness and must affect the com-
fort of the animal." If we add that the hunter is benefited almost
more than other horses by being allowed to use his feet as Nature
made them, the admission is made in the interests of the horse and
not as an expression of opinion on the controversy respecting the
right or the wrong of fox-hunting. It is enough to say that for horses
which have to move rapidly, and to come down with a sudden shock
on sticky and slippery ground, the natural course of the process of
expansion and contraction is of the first importance. For those who
may care nothing for the gratification of hunting-men, it may be amus-
ing or provoking to learn that, in times of hard frost, hunters have
been enabled to chase the prey by the aid of gutta-percha soles fast-
ened to the feet ; but all who are anxious only for the welfare of the
horse will see in this fact strong evidence of the uselessness of the iron
shoe. The plain truth is, that differences in the quality of soil, be it
hard or soft, stony or sandy, smooth and slippery, are of comparatively
little importance to the horse whose feet are as Nature made them. In
the words of " Free Lance," " the unshod horse can successfully deal
with all roads " ; and assuredly no one will dream of asserting that
shod horses can do this, for on the setting in of frost, for instance, they
can not be worked until certain ceremonies have been gone through at
the blacksmith's forge. The unshod horse can tread firmly on the
slime of wood pavement when shod horses are slipping and struggling
in agony around them ; he can gallop on ice, and trot for miles to-
gether on the hardest and I'oughest flint roads, with far more ease and
comfort than horses whose feet are shod with iron, or even with gutta-
percha. " Free Lance " rightly remarks that " if they could not there
would be an end of the thing, for evidently the horse should be able
to go anywhere and everywhere, and at a moment's notice." It seems
hard to produce the conviction that the natural sole of the horse's foot
is almost impenetrable, that it is so hard and strong as to protect the
sensible sole from all harm, and that all feet exposed to hard objects
are made harder by the contact, provided only that the sole is never
pared. This adequacy of the horse's foot to all demands that may be
made upon it is forcibly illustrated by Mr. Bracy Clark, who, like Mr.
Douglas and Mr. Mayhew, contented himself with striving to produce
a perfect shoe, although he acknowledged that, if we wish to appreciate
the full beauty of its structure, " we must dismiss from our views the
miserable, coerced, shod foot entirely, and consider the animal in a
pure state of nature using his foot without any defense. Probably
Mr. Clark thought that, though we may consider it in its natural
state, few can ever so behold it, as all horses in civilized countries are
in greater or less degree brought under artificial conditions. The plea
is fallacious. The horse is clearly intended by nature to serve as a
domesticated animal ; and, so long as we do not interfere with the

48 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

proper functions of any part of its body (and the abomination of bear-
ing-reins and other such practices interfere with them grievously and
even fatally), we bring it under no conditions which it was not design-
edly calculated to encounter. Private owners and companies whose
horses must be numbered by troops are naturally irritated by the
accidents constantly occurring on smooth and slimy pavements or on
rough and hard stone or flint roads, and in their disgust they now
offer rewards for the invention of a shoe which shall render the horse
indifferent to the materials over which he has to pass, and clamor for
a uniform system of pavements in all towns. It seems strange indeed
that no misgiving seems to cross their minds that they are taking
thought of the wrong surface, and that they are scared by false terrors
when they dread the contact of the unshod hoof with sand, granite,
flint, w^ood, or asphalt.

It can not, indeed, be too often repeated or too strongly insisted on,
that the foot of the horse in no way needs to rest on soft and yielding
surfaces. The very opposite of this is the truth, and this truth was
perceived as clearly by Xenophon as by the ablest physiologists of
our own day. Speaking, as he says, not from theory, but from wide
and varied experience, Xenophon insists that, in order to insure the
healthiness of horses, stable-floors must not be smooth or damp, that
they should be lined with stones of irregular shapes, of much the same
size as the animal's hoof, and that the ground outside the stable, on
which it is groomed, should be covered in parts with loose stones laid
down in large quantities, but surrounded by an iron rim to prevent
their being scattered. Standing on these, the horse, Xenophon ad'ds,
will be in much the same condition as if he were traveling on a stony
road, and, as he must move his hoof when he is being rubbed down as
much as when he is walking, the stones thus spread about will strengthen
the frogs of his feet. It is not easy to repress a certain feeling of shame
at the disinwenuousness of modern writers who have tried to shirk the
difficulty by saying that Xenophon had no knowledge of our hard
roads. It is enough to reply that he speaks distinctly of roads
covered with stones, and of the benefit which the horse derives from
traversing them. There is not a word to justify a suspicion that he
would have shrunk from the hardest roadway of modern times. Xeno-
phon is thus in complete agreement with Lord Pembroke's remark,
that the constant use of litter in a stable makes the feet tender and
causes swelled legs. In his judgment the bare stone pavement will
cool, harden, and improve a horse's feet merely by his standing on it.
Acting on the same principle, Vegetius, as " Free Lance " remarks,
holds that the floor of the stable should be made, not of soft wood,
but of solid hard oak, which will make the foot of the horse as hard
as a rock. It should surely be unnecessary to say that these writers
make not the remotest reference or allusion to the shoeing of horses.
It was impossible that they could notice a practice which was unknown

HORSES AND THEIR FEET. 481

to the ancient world, and whicli is in truth simply a modern, as it is also
a most uncalled-for, barbarism. No iron helped to produce the heavy
sound of solid horn which Virgil ascribes to the fiery steed of Pollux.
Of late years we have heard much of the unjustifiable waste of time
spent on classical literature which has no practical bearing on the in-
terests of modern life. It is unfortunate that Xenophon's treatise on
the management of horses has not formed one of the subjects for the
upper forms of our public schools ; and it would be well if they were
made to read with care a book written by one who wrote unfettered
by the restraints of any traditional system, and who successfully brought
the cavalry, as well as the infantry, of the Cyreian army of Greeks
from the plains of Babylon to the shores of the Euxine. There they
would see how thoi'oughly the rules laid down by the leader of the Ten
Thousand for the selection and management of horses are in accord-
ance with the highest scientific knowledge of the present day, and how
happy an ignorance he displays of the long and dismal catalogue of dis-
eases and miseries which a wrong-headed and ridiculous system has
called into existence. No horses could be subjected to a more severe
strain in every limb of their body than were those which Xenophon led
from Cunaxa over the Armenian highlands to the walls of Trebizond ;
yet we hear nothing of any special difiiculties arising from diseases of the
foot or leg. It may probably be said with truth that the strain endured
by those horses could be borne only by unshod animals. Paul Louis Cou-
rier, the French translator of Xenophon's treatise, was so struck by the
apparent soundness of his method, that he put it to the test by riding
unshod horses in the Calabrian campaign of 1807, and he did so with
complete success. But that which with him was a voluntary experi-
ment has been for others an involuntary necessity. This was the case
with many of our cavalry-horses during the Indian Mutiny, and their
riders have declared that they were never better mounted in their
lives. In the retreat of the French from Moscow, the horses, " Free
Lance " remarks, lost all their shoes before they reached the Vistula ;
yet they found their way to France over hard, rough, and frozen
ground. In his invasion of America, Cortes could not carry about
with him the anvils, forges, and iron needed for shoeing even the small
number of horses which he had with him. But these horses did their
work and survived it, and from them comes the fierce mustang of Mex-
ico, which still goes unshod. There is great force in the remark of
" Free Lance," that horses are not indigenous to America, this being
their first introduction, and that the climate and locality, therefore,
hav^e not that influence over the hoof which they are commonly sup-
posed to have. The small horses of the irregular cavalry at the Cape,
which took part in the battle of Ulundi, had no shoes on their hind-
feet, and few were shod even in front, but they held out longer and
went miles farther than the shod animals ; and no complaints were
made of any of them falling lame, although, as " Free Lance " adds,

TOL. XVIII. — 31

482 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

" sheets of wet, slippery rock, and rolling stones in river-beds, would
be calculated to try the hoofs to the utmost."

But it is scarcely necessary to cite more instances of the vast bene-
fits which those who have had the courage to leave the feet of their
horses as Nature made them have received under the most varied con-
ditions of work, of soil, and of climate. Humanity and self-interest
here point in the same direction, and only folly of the most perverse
kind will have the hardihood to fight for the maintenance of the ex-
isting system. The cruelties practiced (whether unwittingly or wan-
tonly) on the horse's foot have been extended over a series of genera-
tions, but the only penalty which remains to be paid for the ill doing
of years is the surrender of a few days or a few weeks of the labor of
the animal which has been thus misused. On the other side, there is
a certainty that we shall be entering on a course which will triple the
length of time over which the efficiency of the horse will be extended,
and which, therefore, will, within twenty years, have saved the nation
a hundred and thirty-five million sterling. It will further insure the
immediate saving of all the money now spent on farriery, and this
saving, which must be at the least forty shillings a year on every
horse, will amount to two million and a quarter • and there will be the
further saving in straw as well as on medicines, nostrums, and reme-
dies no longer needed for animals rescued from a system which was a
fruitful source of discomfort, disease, and death. The angry contro-
versies which the subject is now constantly calling forth and exas-
perating will at the same time disappear. There will no longer be an
outcry for uniformity in the system of paving towns, for horses will
go as well on one kind of pavement as on another. There will no
longer be querulous demands on inventors for the devising of a perfect
shoe, because it will be clearly seen that this perfect shoe has been fur-
nished already by nature, and that it is only human ignorance and
conceit which has marred the work of God. We may now look back
with some feeling of envious regret on the wiser, because more natu-
ral, methods of the ancient world ; and future generations will look
back with feelings of simple wonderment at the infatuation which
could submit without a struggle to a system which doomed the horse
to unnecessary disease and agony and to a premature death, while it
deprived his owner of wealth often sorely needed for his own welfare
and that of all depending on him. Of the ultimate issue there can be
no doubt ; but it is still the duty of " Free Lance," as of all whose
eyes are opened to the mischiefs of the existing system, to fight the
battle to the end. — leaser's Magazine.

DOMESTIC MOTORS. 483

DOMESTIC MOTOES.

By CHARLES M. LUNGREN.
III. GAS AND ELECTRIC ENGINES.

THE gas-engine differs from both the steam and hot-air engine in
the character of the expansion of the elastic fluid employed and
in the mode of applying the heat. In the one the fire is used to con-
vert water placed in a vessel exterior to the engine into steam, which,
let into the cylinder, moves the piston by its expansive force ; and in
the other it is used to expand a volume of air contained in the cylinder
or adjacent chamber.

In both, the heat is applied outside of the working cylinder, but
the peculiarity of the gas-engine is that the heat is developed within
the cylinder itself. A mixture of gas and air is by the operation of
the engine drawn into the cylinder, and then exploded, the heat gen-
erated expanding the products of combustion, which, exerting a pres-
sure against the piston, give it motion. Simple as is this mode of
converting heat into work, the practical realization of it has been
found to be exceedingly difficult, and it is only within a very few
years that thoroughly serviceable machines have been constructed.
The most economical result is obtained from expanding gases when
the pressure they exert is a continuous and gradually diminishing
one, such as that of steam in the steam-engine. With an explosive
mixture, like that in the gas-engine, the expansion takes place with
great rapidity, producing a sudden and unsustained pressure, from
which it is difficult to get either an economical result or a steady
operation of the mechanism. This rapidity of expansion can be de-
creased, and the pressure obtained approximated to that of the steam-
engine, by altering the proportions of air and gas so as to produce a
quick combustion instead of an explosion, and by introducing the
gaseous mixture into the cylinder gradually, instead of all at once ;
and it is in this direction that the improvements have taken place
which make the latest forms of gas-engine so superior to their prede-
cessors.

Among the first engines to obtain a moderate degree of success
were those of Hugon (1858) and Lenoir (1860). Neither of these
was, however, very economical in the use of gas, and, previous to the
engine of Otto and Langen in 1867, none were produced that were at
all satisfactory in this respect. This was, however, objectionable, owing
to the intolerable din it made when in operation.

While this engine was at best but a very qualified success, it has
led the way to a machine which is very far from being so. In the
Otto silent gas-engine, introduced a few years since, and now made

484

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

in this country and Europe, and in both rapidly going into use, we
have a machine that is a very satisfactory solution of the problems
involved in the construction of this class of motors. In the matter of
fuel it is nearly, if not quite, as economical as a steam-engine of cor-
responding power, and is, therefore, in actual use much more so, both

because no engineer is required to run it and the expense of keeping
up steam, whether running or not, is avoided. The combustible charge
introduced into the cylinder is composed of gas and air in such pro-
portions that rapid combustion instead of an explosion takes place,
and, to obtain sufficient pressure from its expansion, it is compressed
to one third its original volume before being ignited.

DOMESTIC MOTORS.

485

In this country the engine is made for the trade in three sizes, from
two to seven horse-power, but those of larger power are built when
desired. The English makers furnish it from one up to forty horse,
and as wide a range is given it on the Continent. The engine, as shown
in the engraving (Fig. 12), is of the form constructed by the American
makers. The cylinder is placed horizontal and overhangs the substan-
tial bed-block of the machine. It is open to the atmosphere at the end
toward the fly-wheel, and is closed at the other by a head-piece in
which are the appliances for introducing and igniting the gaseous mix-
ture, the construction of which is shown in the sectional cut Fig. 13.
The head-plate A closes the cylinder entirely except at I, where there
is a passage for the admission of the combustible charge. Between this
plate and an outer one, C, is a slide-valve, B. The outer plate is
pressed against the valve by the spiral springs shown in Fig. 12. The

Fio. 13.

pipe supplying the gas opens in its inner face at c, and at m there is a
small jet constantly lit while the engine is in operation. The slide-valve
B has two channels, i and n, the former placing the air and gas in
communication with the cylinder, and the latter serving to ignite the
mixture. The piston being at the beginning of its stroke, the valve B
is in such a position that the air-inlet a and the gas-inlet c are in com-
munication with the passage I through the port i. The piston then moves
outward, drawing in a charge of air and gas which it compresses on
its return, the valve B having moved so as to close the opening I. By
this movement the channel n becomes filled with gas from the small
supply-pipe 0, which is ignited at the jet m. Just as the piston has
completed the compression of the gaseous mixture, n arrives opposite I
and ignites it, the valve continuing its motion so as to close the open-
ing. The piston is driven outward by the expansion of the gases, and
on its return they are expelled through the valve q in the side of the
cylinder operated by the mechanism of the engine. The slide valve is
reciprocated by a crank on the end of the lay-shaft, shown running
lengthwise of the cylinder, which revolves but half as fast as the main
shaft. The combustible mixture can therefore be drawn in only once

486 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

in two complete strokes, but whether a fresh supply is taken or not is
determined by the governor, which acts to maintain a constant speed
under varying loads. It is of the ordinary ball form, and is placed in
the cup-shaped receptacle pendent from the cylinder. It actuates by
its movement a lever controlling the gas-valve, so that this is opened
and closed in accordance with changes in the speed. The regulation is
delicate, and the speed nearly if not quite as uniform as in a steam-en-
gine. The speed can be changed at will by increasing or diminishing
the amounts of air and gas which may be drawn in each time. An
automatic device is provided, which closes the gas-valve, should the
engine by any accident stop in a position in which this would be left
open. The oiling is committed almost entirely to the engine itself, the
only work i-equired in this connection being the filling of the oil-cups.
They are placed upon the top of the cylinder, and by means of the
small shaft and pulley driven from the lay-shaft deliver a given num-
ber of drops of oil to the slide-valve, cylinder, and piston at each revo-
lution. The exhaust is rendered noiseless by being passed into a cham-
ber, from which it escapes into the atmosphere under slight pressure.
The cylinder is water-jacketed to keep it cool, the circulation of the
water being maintained by the heat received, the warmer water rising
to the supply-tank and the cool taking its place.

As before stated, the engine is very economical of gas. The amount
used per hour per indicated horse-power is stated by the makers to be
twenty-one and a half cubic feet, which, with gas at two dollars a
thousand, is a trifle above four cents. In first cost the engine is some-
what more expensive than a good steam-engine, including boiler, of
the same power, the price ranging from five hundred dollars for the
two horse to eight hundred and fifty for that of seven horse-power.
The former occupies a floor-space of about three feet by seven, and
weighs fourteen hundred pounds, and the latter covers somewhat more
space, and is of double the weight.

The heat generated by the combustion of the gas has been very fully
utilized in this engine, but not to the greatest extent practicable. A
certain portion of it is carried off by the water in the jacket, and is
therefore wasted. If, instead of being allowed to escape without doing
any useful work, it was employed to convert a small quantity of water
injected into the cylinder into steam, overheating of the cylinder would
be prevented, and at the same time this heat would be utilized. Be-
sides the power gained, the use of steam is of value in giving a more
sustained pressure on the piston and in lubricating the cylinder. Nu-
merous attempts have been made to realize its advantages, both in
hot-air and gas engines, but in most cases with no considerable gain
in economy. The engine of Hugon, mentioned above, employed it,
but apparently with little advantage.

Quite recently a gas-engine has been brought out in which the diflS-
culties seem to have been mostly overcome, and which appears to ap-

DOMESTIC MOTORS. 487

proach the limit of economy as closely as it is possible to do. It is the
invention of M. Simon, and was first brought to extended public no-
tice at the Paris Exposition of 1878, where it was exhibited in sizes of
from one to four horse. A diluted mixture of air and gas is used, as
in the Otto, but the compression is done not in the power but in a sepa-
rate cylinder. It is admitted to the cylinder by a slide-valve of simi-
lar construction to that of the Otto, but the manner of using it differs
materially from that employed in the latter machine. In the Otto
the entire combustible charge is introduced into the cylinder before
ignition takes place, and, though the proportion of air is such that the
combustion is not an explosive one, still it is completed within a time
that covers but a small fraction of the stroke. In the Simon, on the
other hand, the combustible mixture is introduced in small quantities
that are successively inflamed, producing a gradual expansion of the
gases that, along with the steam also admitted, exert a pressure upon
the piston more nearly like that in the steam-engine than is attained
in any other machine. The ignition is accomplished by a jet always
lit, placed just inside of several thicknesses of wire gauze, to prevent
the flame retreating into the combustible mixture without the cylinder.
The water that is afterward admitted to the cylinder is first used to
jacket it, and thus becomes slightly warm. From the jacket it is passed
into a steam generator, where a portion of it is vaporized by the heat
of the exhaust-gases. This steam is then admitted into the cylinder
along with the combustible charge, and further heated and expanded
by the ignition of the latter. The water in the steam generator circu-
lates through the jackets of both the compression and power cylinders,
first taking heat from the compression cylinder, then from the power
cylinder, and reaching the generator quite warm. The heat is there-
fore utilized to the utmost, and as a consequence the economical result
is superior to any before attained. According to M. Simon, the con-
sumption of gas is a little less than eighteen feet an hour per horse-
power. The motor occupies a little larger floor-space than the Otto,
though it is of less weight, and is somewhat higher in price.

Either of these engines could doubtless be made in sizes small
enough to drive simply a sewing-machine or a scroll-saw, though prob-
ably not at prices that would allow of their extended use. Only one
gas-engine appears to have been so far made of such small power —
that invented by M. de Bisschof, and shown in Fig. 14. It is much
simpler than the above engines, but is also a much less perfect ma-
chine, though sufficiently economical for the use for which it is de-
signed. The ordinary machine is about one man-power, and is fur-
nished at something over a hundred dollars ; a larger one of four
times the power costing a hundred and ninety. It is compact, orna-
mental in design, and runs smoothly. No oiling is required, and, once
started, it may therefore be left to itself for a considerable time. One
of them, indeed, is reported to have run for forty-seven days without

488

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

stopping, no attention whatever being given to it in that time. It is
said to have gone quite largely into use in France, but it has not yet
made its appearance in the American market.

In the engine as shown in the .engraving, the cylinder is placed up-
right, and it and the base-plate are cast in one piece. A number of

ribs upon the former increase the radiating surface to such an extent
that a watei'-jacket is unnecessary. The motor can therefore be read-
ily moved from one place to another, an advantage of considerable
value in the uses for which it is intended. The mixture of gas and
air is admitted and discharged at the lower end of the cylinder through
an opening, alternately placed in communication with the gas-supply
and exhaust by a sliding valve. The firing of the gaseous charge is
done by means of two gas-jets, shown on the right side of the engine.
The lower one remains permanently lit, and serves to relight the upper
one, which is extinguished at each ignition in the cylinder. This latter
is placed directly opposite a small opening in the cylinder at about

DOMESTIC MOTORS. 489

one third of the piston-stroke from its base. The piston in its upward
movement draws in a charge of the mixed gases during this lower
third of its stroke, and they are then ignited by the jet, the remaining
two thirds of the stroke being completed by the impulse due to their
expansion. The atmospheric pressure and the fly-wheel carry the
piston through its return-stroke, when the above motions are repeated.
The supply of gas, both to the cylinder and the ignition-jets, is regu-
lated by the pinch-cocks on the base of the machine, to the left.
Before using, the machine is heated somewhat by a small burner placed
below the cylinder. In the man-power machine the consumption of
gas is eleven and a half feet an hour, which is a better result than is
obtained Avith any other heat-engine of such low power. The motor
seems to be in every way adapted to use in the household, and is
probably as simple and perhaps as economical a heat-engine as can
be made for the purpose.

The burning of a combustible mixture gradually, as is done in the
Simon engine, was first successfully accomplished in the machine in-
vented by Mr. George B. Brayton, and known in the market as the
Ready Motor or Hydrocarbon engine. When first introduced, a dilute
mixture of gas and air was employed, but in those now made the
vapor of petroleum is substituted for the gas, with the advantage of a
more satisfactory operation and a reduced cost of running. The work-
ing cylinder is surrounded by a water-jacket, and is placed upright in
a substantial frame. It is open to the atmosphere below, the oil and air
being supplied at the top. The oil is contained in a tank of from five
to ten gallons' capacity, and is delivered to the engine by a small pump.
Air is compressed by an air-pump in reservoirs, at the base of the
machine, from which it is supplied to the cylinder. Only one of these
reservoirs is used at a time, the other being kept charged so as to fur-
nish an air-pressure with which to start the machine. The burner, by
means of which the oil is introduced in the proper form into the cylin-
der and ignited, constitutes the main feature of the machine, and is
at once simple and ingenious. It consists of a small chamber in the
head of the cylinder, lined with a strip of felt against which the oil
and a jet of air are delivered. The felt becomes saturated with oil,
which the air-blast, passing through, carries in the form of a spray
against the sheets of perforated metal and wire gauze which separate
this chamber from the cylinder. Another and larger blast of air, in
passing through the gauze, becomes carburetted by the petroleum va-
por, and, entering the cylinder, is ignited by a jet placed immediately
below the sheets of gauze. The jet remains constantly lit, and is pre-
vented from retreating into the chamber above by the wire gauze. By
simple mechanism the supply of air is cut off, when a part of the
stroke has been made, and the combustion of the vapor ceases, the ex-
panding products of combustion carrying the piston the remainder of
the stroke. As the cut-off can be made at any point of the stroke, and

490 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the expanding gases allowed to do the work of the remainder, the
piston is subjected to a pressure entirely similar to and as readily con-
trolled as that exerted by steam in the steam-engine. The piston
is lubricated by its lower edge dipping into a shallow pan, F, at the
bottom of the cylinder, containing oil, and the other parts in the or-
dinary mannei-. The motor is easily and quickly stopped and started,
and Avhen running requires but little attention. It is made in any size
desired under ten horse, but those constructed for the trade are of
three and five, the former being sold at four hundred and fifty dollars
and the latter at six hundred. They are of about the same weight as
the Otto, of corresponding power, and occupy a somewhat less space.

The engine is economical in the consumption of fuel, and with the
present abundant supply of oil is the cheapest heat-engine of small
power yet made. Five gallons of crude jaetroleum are used, it is stated,
in the three, and seven and a half in the five-horse engine for ten hours'
running. This is at the rate of one sixth of a gallon or one and a quar-
ter pound an hour per horse-power in the smaller machine, and some-
what less in the larger. As the calorific effect of petroleum is almost
double that of coal, the engine is nearly as efiicient as a steam-engine
of large size, and much more so than one of the same power, while,
on account of the cheapness of petroleum, the expense for fuel is no
greater. The oil used can be obtained in comparatively small quanti-
ties at from six to seven cents a gallon, and at the latter price the cost
of a horse-power per hour would be a little less than one and a quar-
ter; cent, an expense considerably below the best results obtained in
any of the engines using gas. This comparison is with the present
cost of operating the latter motor, which is not one by which its pos-
sible economy is to be judged. The gas now used is the ordinary illu-
minating kind, and is high-priced. With a cheap fuel-gas, such as will
assuredly come largely into use at no distant day, the cost would
probably not be more than half that at present, and possibly less. This
would bring it quite near that of the Brayton — near enough, at least, to
make the advantage of the greater cleanliness and convenience of gas
outweigh the gain in cheapness possessed by oil. An important objec-
tion to this engine is the one arising from the danger that accompanies
the use of coal-oil. The motor itself is indeed quite safe, as much so
as the gas-engine, and, if no more oil were stored than that in the tank
from which the supply is drawn while working, the danger would be
small. But when a considerable quantity is kept on hand in places
where there is much valuable property, as in city buildings, the danger
is sufficient to warrant increased insurance rates, and in some cases the
prohibition of the machine. In situations where gas can not be pro-
cured, and where the use of oil would not be attended with the danger
incident to crowded localities, it would probably be found one of the
most satisfactory motors that can be had. Made in sufficiently small
sizes of compact form, and with the oil receptacle and engine on one

DOMESTIC MOTORS. 491

base, it might easily become a serviceable motor for domestic use. As
the quantity of oil used in such a machine would be small, it need not
be in any way more dangerous than an ordinary lamp or oil-stove, and
if properly finished would probably require but little more care. The
oil used would of course have to be of a high grade, such as is used or
should be used in lamps, and would cost considerably more than that
suitable to the larger machines, but the expense of running would still
be quite small.

Such are some of the best of the machines which the demand for
comparatively small motors has, up to the present, called forth, and in
the list those desiring such a power can scarcely fail to find something
tolerably well suited to their wants. The various forms of heat-en-
gines have been brought very close to the limit of possible simplicity,
and show with some clearness what may be expected from further
development along the same lines. They have been mainly designed
to meet the requirements of industrial users, because the largest and
most constant demand is from these ; but they are all capable of a
reduction to the scale suitable in the household. For this purpose the
gas-engine appears, on all accounts, to be the best adapted. Efficient
and serviceable heat-engines are, of necessity, somewhat complicated,
and require in their main parts an excellence and accuracy of work-
manship that make it difficult to construct them cheaply. The gas-
engine seems to be susceptible of greater simplicity of construction
than any other of these, and can therefore be made at less cost. Pres-
ent prices are undoubtedly high, but, with a sufficient demand and the
competition that would result, they would decrease considerably, and
it is not improbable that an efficient and economical machine of about
one man-power could, under such conditions, be furnished at a price
not exceeding fifty dollars.

But it is doubtful if such a machine would, after all, be the most sat-
isfactory solution of the problem of a domestic motor. The final solu-
tion, there is reason to believe, is to be found, not in a heat-engine of any
kind, but in a machine that will simply apply, in a convenient form and
economical way, a power already furnished. Of such a nature is the
water-wheel, which, for simplicity of construction, ease of handling, high
efficiency, and small first cost, is unapproached by anything at present,
and will probably never be surpassed by any future device. If water
under sufficient pressure were everywhere obtainable, there would be
no need of looking beyond this very simple and perfect contrivance.
Water-power is, however, limited, and is generally least available
where small motors are most wanted — in populous cities. Doubtless
in many locations, where the windmill is employed to supply water to
a house, a combination of wind and water power might readily be
made which would prove quite satisfactory. A windmill of consider-
able power could be used to pump water into a properly elevated res-
ervoir, or into a force-tank, from which it could be distributed to

492 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

small motors attached to the various pieces of apparatus to be driven.
But generally, in cities where power could be distributed, people would
prefer to have it furnished without thought or care on their part about
its production.

For such a , power, one that can at any time be increased to meet
the utmost demands, we must, therefore, look to some other agency
than water. Compressed air is, without question, an available one,
and the motors in which it could be used are comparatively simple,
but, as it could only be employed for this one purpose (unless, indeed,
sanitary advantages were realized), the present or prospective demand
would hardly warrant its adoption. The agent that appears to be the
most suitable, and that gives promise of utility in other directions as
well, is electricity. Distributed from a central source of supply, all
the advantages of a safe and convenient power would be obtained,
without any of the disadvantages attendant upon the use of other
forms of energy. Of the feasibility of economically distributing the
electric current there is a growing confidence among electricians, and
the advantages of so transmitting power have been frequently iirged
of late, not only for moving light machinery, but for doing all the
work now done in our factories by the steam-engine.

Distribution accomplished, the machines by which the current is
utilized are very simple, and need not be expensive. As remarked by
Dr. Paget Higgs, they are so much cast-iron and insulated copper
wire, and their construction requires none of the skilled work neces-
sary in the various forms of heat-engine. The construction is pi*acti-
cally the same in the essential parts, whether they be used as current-
generators or as motors. Briefly, such a machine consists of one or
more electro-magnets placed so as to revolve before and very close to
the poles of another electro- or permanent magnet, the former system
of masrnets being: termed the armature, and the latter the field.

When permanent magnets are used for the field, the machines are
known as magneto-electric, and, when these are replaced by electro-
magnets, as dynamo-electric. The operation of both kinds depends, as
is well known, lapon the inductive action between the armature and
the field magnets, a current being induced in each of the coils of the
former as they approach, and an equal and opposite one being set up as
they recede from the poles of the latter. In dynamo-machines the
magnetization of the field is due to the currents generated by the ma-
chine itself. The soft-iron cores, after they have once been magnetized,
always retain some residual magnetism which serves to induce a feeble
current in the armature. A portion of this is sent through their coils, in-
creasing their magnetization, which in turn augments the strength of the
induced currents, and thus, by this successive action and reaction be-
tween the field and the armature, a very powerful magnetization of
both is shortly produced. The currents are usually collected- in such a
manner that they both have the same direction in the circuit, by a sim-

DOMESTIC MOTORS.

493

pie device termed a commutator. This has various forms in different
machines, but the principle involved is the same in all. The ends of
the wire of the revolving coil are connected with the halves of a cylin-
der separated by an insulating substance. A metallic brush composed
of bundles of wire, or thin strips, presses against each of these sections,
and, so long as the cylinder remains stationary, the current taken off
by the brushes will be an alternating one ; but, when the cylinder re-
volves with the coil, the brushes will change from one half to the other
at the moment of the reversal of the current, and its direction in the
circuit will, therefore, always be the same. In most machines the
armature has many coils, and the commutator cylinder a correspond-
ing number of insulated sections.

The interest in the electric light during the past few years has
resulted in greatly improving such machines, and in the devising of
many new forms of varied excellence. A descrij)tion of one of these,
that has attracted wide attention and proved one of the most efficient,
will suffice to indicate the general construction and mode of action of
such devices. When a magnet is inserted in a closed coil of insulated
wire, a momentary current is induced in the coil, and, when it is with-
drawn, one of opposite direction occurs. If, instead of withdrawing
the magnet, it is passed through the coil, currents will be induced in
each of its spirals as the magnet passes them, which will be in one
direction during the passage of the first half of the magnet, and in a
reverse one during that of the latter half. If two magnets be placed
end to end with their like poles in contact, and be bent into the form
of a ring, currents can be continuously produced by revolving the ring
within an inclosing coil. Mechanical difficulties prevent such an ar-
rangement ; but, if, instead of permanent magnets, a ring of soft iron
be wound with insulated wire, and
revolved between the poles of a
magnet, the same results will be
obtained and the difficulties avoid-
ed. The iron ring becomes a mag-
net by induction, and as it revolves
its poles shift in the reverse direc-
tion, so as to always remain oppo-
site those of the inducing magnet.
The effect is the same as if the ring
remained stationary and the coil
revolved. This is the arrangement
of the armature adopted in the
Gramme machine, and the differ-
ence between it and others lies in this mode of inducing the current,
instead of by insertion and withdrawal of a magnet from a coil. The
manner in which the armature is actually constructed is shown in
Fig, 15. The ring is composed of a bundle of soft-iron wires, about

Fig. 15.

494

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

which are wound a number of insulated coils. Radial pieces connected
with the end of the wire of one coil and the beginning of the next con-
duct the currents to the commutator cylinder, when they are taken off
by brushes. The armature is mounted upon a shaft and revolves be-
tween the poles of an electro-magnet, the arrangement being that
shown in Fig. 16. When the machine is used on an electro-motor, the
current enters the armature by the brushes and is alternately changed
in direction by the commutator, so that there is attraction as the arma-
ture approaches and repulsion as it leaves the poles of the field magnet.

Fig. 16.

Besides machines constructed primarily to generate currents, but
which may be used as electro-motors as well, there are various others
designed especially for the latter purpose. The commonest form of
these is a set of electro-magnets arranged radially around the arma-
ture, which is rotated under the influence of the changing polarity, or
the magnetization and demagnetization of the field-magnets.

One of the best of the machines constructed for motor purposes,
and one that has received high praise from competent electricians,
is that of M. Marcel Deprez. It consists of a compound permanent
horseshoe magnet with a Siemens armature between its poles. This
latter is simply a soft-iron cylinder with two longitudinal grooves in
which insulated copper wire is wound, the poles being the faces of
the cylinder between the coils. It is placed with its axis parallel to
the arms of the magnet instead of across them as is ordinarily done, and
to this arrangement is due its greater power, as the whole strength of

DOMESTIC MOTORS. 495

the magnet is utilized. The current enters through the commutator,
which reverses it at each half -revolution just as the poles of the arma-
ture are passing those of the field-magnet. The armature, therefore,
rotates under these alternate attractions and repulsions. The rate of
speed can be regulated with nicety by turning the brushes around the
commutator cylinder to and from the neutral points. The speed is
rendered uniform under a varying load by a very simple centrifugal
governor, consisting of a small spring, one extremity of which is at-
tached to an end of the armature coil, and the other rests against the
commutator. When the speed increases beyond the normal rate, the
free end of the spring is thrown out from contact with the commuta-
tor, and the current interrupted until this rate is regained. This gov-
ernor has proved very sensitive in use, controlling the speed within va-
riations of yi-„ of its mean rate.

Excellent as this motor is, it has the defect common to all machines
in which the armature is approaching or receding from the poles of
the field-magnet during but a small part of each revolution. Currents
are induced only during these periods, and hence much of the effec-
tive power of the field-magnet is lost. M. Trouve has recently con-
structed a machine in which this defect is removed in a very simple
manner. Instead of making the grooves in the Siemens armature
parallel with its axis, they are cut in a spiral form, so that portions
of the armatui'e cores are approaching and receding from the poles of
the field-magnet during the entire revolution. The impulse received
by the armature is, therefore, a continuous one, and dead points are
avoided.

The various electro-motors may of course be worked by currents
furnished by ordinary batteries, and for running a sewing-machine a
few hours a day, at a comparatively small cost. But, as a means of
furnishing currents for power for any considerable time, such batteries
are out of the question. As pointed out by Professor Ayrton, even if
an electro-motor were a perfect machine — that is, if its efficiency were
unity — it would be thirty-three times as expensive as a steam-engine, if
operated by currents from such a source. The costliness of present
batteries is, however, no necessary index of future possibilities. The
most feasible way of obtaining power by electricity to-day seems to
be through distribution of the current from a central point of supply ;
but it is not impossible that a battery may yet be produced which, fur-
nishing electricity as cheaply as a machine, will remove the need of
distribution, and at the same time greatly enlarge its field of useful-
ness.

496 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

THE VALUE OF ACCOMPLISHMENTS.

By WILLIAM A. EDDY.

SEVERAL years ago, Dr. Bellows delivered an able address at an
annual meeting of the Mercantile Library Association of New-
York, in which he claimed that literary culture had increased the busi-
ness capacity of the clerks who used the library. This will be readily
admitted. But the question of improvement has moral significance
aside from the advantage of a certain quickness or readiness of thought
due to mental discipline. It is a law of the mind as well as of the
physical structure that repetition of original or skillful action results
in increased strength and efficiency, or in a stronger tendency to fol-
low higher forms of thought and amusement. It is true that the pro-
portion of moral action — that which is sane and proper to the mind —
can not be represented arithmetically. Nevertheless, the higher kinds
of thought may occujjy in a general way an increasingly large propor-
tion of the available time. But, as we can not set a definite limit, it is
evident that at the present stage of development we are not justified
in concluding that any system for displacing immorality can result in
anything like perfection ; all we can claim is that — taking a vast gen-
eral average — ^higher tastes lessen the action of lower. The question
of proportion is not so important, however, as the suj^remacy of a
tendency, which in nature sometimes results in immense accumulations
of power.

Men are at present in a state of imperfect self-control, and it is
necessary that recreation should involve improvement, not only by
keeping them out of mischief, but by establishing higher tastes. It is
a gratifying fact that there is pleasure in any exercise of skill in art,
in its subdivisions of sculpture, music, literature, or in the wonderful
manifestations of natural phenomena inadequately grasped by the sci-
ences. The enthusiasm with which art and science are usually fol-
lowed is like that seen in children who carry out an original idea dur-
ing play. The higher forms of action are thus spontaneous, and
involve originality and force. This applies to small accomplishments
as well as great — from the construction of ingenious devices for exhi-
bition at a country fair to the work of Shakesjieare, Beethoven, and
Michael Angelo.

The great names of the world must not induce us to lose sight of
the seemingly trifling manifestations of this force seen in original
work followed according to liking, and known as accomplishments.
It is to be regretted that this spontaneous action so rarely finds that
full expression observed in men of genius in whom it overflows all
bounds or obstacles. Some conditions can not be modified, so that

THE VALUE OF ACCOMPLISHMENTS. 497

this originality must appear as recreation after the necessary mechani-
cal work of the day is done. The obstacles tending to check inde-
pendent action are innumerable, and sometimes absolutely insurmount-
able. A person may be deficient mentally owing to qualities inherited
from a long line of stupid ancestors who manifested what Dickens
calls " faint gleams of intelligence." In fact, objective events or ob-
jects that sweep into personal relation with us from out of vast extents
of time and space are more modifiable by us than the almost unalter-
able conditions arising from hereditary qualities. The lack of power
in a given direction may be practically beyond remedy, because very
often there is not time in the life of one person for a form of force to
reach anything more than primary stages of development. In special
classes such limitation can recede greatly only in the course of gen-
erations in descendants who finally realize the ideal of Jean Paul
Richter — the happy condition of liberty when sport is of service to
the race.

Accomplishments are usually considered sources of amusement, al-
though they must be paid for with a varying proportion of exertion
not particularly pleasurable. In those forms of recreation in which
we are mere passive spectators — often necessary as a relief from toil
— there is an inevitable payment of either money, time, or labor.
But, where the labor and sport are one, there is obviously a double
reward.

It may be noticed, as a further extension of this truth, that the
active or positive amusements are superior to the passive, for the rea-
son that the passive do not stimulate the mind to conscious activity.
There may be a high form of amusement as well as valuable mental
discipline in the production of ingenious designs — such as articles for
decoration, various products of carpentry-work, mechanical devices,
chemical experiments, and so on. It is important to remember that
some who have thus followed a liking for scientific or other knowledge
have been stimulated to undertake tremendous feats of perseverance,
whereby their names have lived for centuries.

The language learned and the skill acquired in painting or music
seem trivial, but they establish an original habit of thought which
incites others by force of example. Accomplishments indicate energy
of character, for their pleasurable effect is largely due to a sense of
power from having triumphed over obstacles.

In a world in which we are environed by dangers and mischances,
every form of perseverance is honorable because it is either directly
or indirectly helpful. The advances in enlightenment have come, not
from those who are mechanical and passive, but from those of original
force, who had ingenuity and other allied qualities by which practical
effects are produced.
VOL. XVIII. — 32

498 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

DAKWIN ON THE MOYEMENTS OF PLANTS.

By ELIZA A. YOUMANS.

SINCE the time of Linnaeus, men have wondered and speculated
about what are known as the spontaneous movements of plants, and
in recent years the causes of these movements have been carefully in-
vestigated by botanists. The subject in its various bearings now forms
a large part of the science of vegetable physiology. The periodical
and irritable motions of plants, and those due to light and gravity,
have been closely studied in connection with the mechanical laws of
growth, and many of these phenomena have been more or less satisfac-
torily explained.

But it has been reserved for Mr. Charles Darwin to go deeper into
the facts and philosophy of the subject than any of his contempora-
ries. In 1875 he published a book upon " The Movements and Habits
of Climbing Plants " ; and he has since extended his inquiries so as to
include the movements manifested by the entire vegetable series, ex-
cept the lowest flowerless plants, and upon these he is now engaged.
He has just published an account of these researches in a volume of
six hundred pages, uniform with his other works.

One of the movements of plants long ago observed was described
by the term nutation, which simply means nodding. The motion of
a flower in following the api3arent movement of the sun from the east
in the morning to the west in the evening is an example of nutation,
and this kind of motion has been found to be much more extensive in
plants than was formerly supposed.

When we observe the growing stem of the hop, after the first two
or three joints ai-e formed, we see it bend to one side and travel slowly
round toward all points of the compass, and continue these revolu-
tions day and night. This spontaneous gyi-ating motion of stems and
tendrils was first remarked by Palm and Mohl, and Professor Sachs
gave it the name of revolving nutation.

Mr. Darwin has found that this kind of motion is ever present in
the growing parts of plants, so that it must be regarded as a univer-
sal property of growing vegetation, and he suggests for it the better
term circumnutation. He has proved that even the buried stems and
rootlets of germinating seeds make this movement so far as the sur-
rounding pressure will permit.

By the most ingenious and delicate contrivances, and his own con-
stant cooperation, Mr. Darwin has made it possible for the circumnu-
tating organs themselves to indicate approximately the direction and
extent of their movements. His arrangements for enabling organs to
record their motions varied somewhat ; but we give his own account
of the general process :

DARWIN ON THE MOVEMENTS OF PLANTS. 499

" Plants growing in pots were protected wholly from the light, or
had light admitted from above, or on one side, as the case might re-
quire, and were covered above by a large horizontal sheet of glass, and
with another vertical sheet on one side. A glass filament, not thicker
than a horse-hair, and from a quarter to three quarters of an inch in
length, was affixed to the j)art to be observed by means of shellac dis-
solved in alcohol, which was so thick as to set hard in two or three
seconds ; and it never injured the most delicate tissues. To the end
of the glass filament an excessively minute bead of black sealing-wax
was cemented, below or behind which a bit of card with a dot was
fixed to a stick driven into the ground. The weight of the filament
was so slight that even small leaves were not perceptibly pressed down.
The bead and the dot on the card were viewed through the glass plate,
and when one exactly covered the other a dot was made on the glass
plate with a sharply pointed stick dipped in Indian ink. Other dots
were made at short intervals, and they were afterward joined by
straight lines. The figures are therefore angular. If the dots had
been made every one or two minutes, the lines would have been more
curved, as when radicles traced their own courses on smoked-glass
plates. "When the dot on the card was half an inch from the bead of
sealing-wax, and the glass plate (supposing it to have been curved)
stood seven inches in front, the tracing represented the movement of
the bead magnified fifteen times."

Another, and in some respects better, method was used when it was
required to magnify the movement. The dots on the glass plate were
copied upon tracing-paper, and joined by ruled lines with arrows to
show direction, the first dot being made larger to catch the eye. Night
movements are shown by broken lines.

Chapter I is devoted to the circumnu-
tating movements of germinating plants
or seedlings. The first experiment relates
to the movements of the young rootlet or
radicle of a seedling cabbage. In this
case fuller details of the process are given,
along with the diagram, than in any other,
for which reason we reproduce it here.

" A seed, with the radicle projecting
•05 inch, was fastened with shellac to a lit-
tle plate of zinc, so that the radicle stood
up vertically; and a fine glass filament was
then fixed near its base, close to the seed-
coats. The seed was surrounded by bits
of wet sponge, and the movement of the
bead at the end of the filament was traced
(Fig. 1) during sixty hours. In this time the radicle increased in length
from '05 to 'll inch. Had the filament been attached at first close to

Fig

1.— Brasstca Oleracea: circnm-
nutation of radicle, traced on hori-
zontal glass, from 9 A. m., January
3l8t. to 9 p. M., February 2d. Move-
ment of bead at end of filament mag-
nified about forty times.

500 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the apex of the radicle, and if it could have remained there all the
time, the movement exhibited would have been much greater, for at
the close of our observations the tip, instead of standing upward, had
become bowed downward, through geotropism [gravitation], so as
almost to touch the zinc plate. As far as we could roughly ascertain
by measurements made with compasses on other seeds, the tip alone,
for a length of only -^-^ to y|^ of an inch, is acted on by geotropism.
But the tracing shows that the basal part of the radicle continued to
circumnutate irregularly during the whole time. The actual extreme
amount of movement of the bead at the end of the filament was nearly
•05 inch, but to what extent the movement of the radicle was mag-
nified by the filament, which was nearly three fourths of an inch in
length, it was impossible to estimate. . . .

" Another seed was treated and observed in the same manner, but
the radicle in this case protruded •! inch, and was not fastened so as
to project quite vertically upward. The filament was fixed close to
its base. The tracing (Fig. 2, reduced one half ) shows the movement

'-"-t^'

Fig. 2.— Brassica Oleracea : circumnntating and geotropic movement of radicle, traced on hori-
zontal glass during forty-six hours.

from 9 A. M., January 31st, to 7 a. m,, February 2d ; but it continued
to move during the whole of the day in the same general direction and
in a similar zigzag manner." The chapter contains fifty-four dia-
grams, giving the movements of all the parts of the seedlings of all
sorts of plants.

Mr. Darwin thinks that these movements of the radicle are useful
at least in enabling it to take the line of least resistance, if they do not
directly aid it in forming a passage for itself ; and he adds : " If, how-
ever, a radicle in its downward growth breaks obliquely into any crev-
ice, or a hole left by a decayed root, or one made by the larva of an
insect, and more especially by worms, the circumnutating movement
of the tip will materially aid its descent ; and we have observed that
roots commonly run down the old burrows of worms." He says, fur-
ther, that the force due to longitudinal and transverse growth materi-
ally assists the radicle in penetrating the ground. He experimented
upon these points, and we give two of these experiments which relate
to the force exerted transversely by the radicles of beans. We may
say that these radicles have a sharp apex protected by a root-cap, and
their growing part is more rigid than the part just above.

. DARWIN ON THE MOVEMENTS OF PLANTS. 501

A stick cut in the shape of Fig. 3 was purposely split at the short
end, the split reaching heyond the hole. As the "wood was highly

Fig. 3.— Outline op Piece op Stick (reduced to one half natural size), with a hole through which
the radicle of a bean grew. Thickness of stick at uarro w end, -08 inch ; at broad end, -10. Depth
of hole, '1 inch.

elastic, the split closed as soon as it was made. The stick and bean
were buried in damp sand, the bean being placed so that the radicle in
growing would enter this hole. After six days they were dug up, and
the radicle was found much enlarged above and beneath the hole. The
fissure was open to a width of four millimetres, but as soon as the radi-
cle was removed it closed to two m.m. The stick was then suspended
horizontally by a fine wire passing through the hole, and a little saucer
was suspended beneath it to receive the weights, and it required eight
pounds eight ounces to open the fissure to the width of four m.m.

Again, " holes were bored near the narrow end of two wooden clips
or pincers (Fig. 4), kept closed by brass spiral springs. Two radicles
in damp sand were allowed to grow through
these holes. The pincers rested on glass plates,
to lessen the friction from the sand. The holes
were a little larger and considerably deeper
than in the trials with the sticks, so that a
greater length of a rather thicker radicle exert-
ed a transverse strain. After thirteen days
they were taken up. The distance of two dots
(see Fig. 4) on the longer ends of the pincers
was now carefully measured ; the radicles were
then extracted from the holes, and the pincers
of course closed. They were then suspended
in the same way as the stick, and a weight of
three pounds four ounces was necessary with
one of the pincers to open them as much as the
radicle had done by transverse growth." This
radicle had escaped beyond the hole, and flat-
tened a little, as soon as it had slightly opened
the pincers, which had somewhat lessened
the strain. As a result of all his observa- Fig.4.—Wooden pincers, kept

,. ■, I -, rni ft,,- ' CLOSED BY A BRASS SPIRAL

tions, lie concludes : 1 he radicle " increases in spring, with a hole (m inch

1 xu 'iU £ 1 i ii f . ^^ diameter and -6 inch in

length witn a lorce equal to the pressure oi at depth) bored through the

1 , „ , c T T 1 . narrow closed part, through

least a quarter ot a pound, and much greater which a radicle of a bean was
when prevented from bending" ; and "it in- tu°eTIo"^V-Fahr. '^'°'P"^'
creases in thickness, pushing away the damp

earth on all sides with a force of above eight pounds in one case and
three pounds in another."

502 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

To determine whether the growing parts of mature plants circum-
nutate, Mr. Darwin experimented with the representatives of about
twenty genera, belonging to widely different families and various coun-
tries. Several woody plants were chosen, as being less likely to cir-
cumnutate. Plants in pots were kept at a proper temperature, either
in darkness or feebly illuminated from above. Diagrams showing the
circumnutation in about fifty instances of runners or stolens, flower-
stems, leaves young and old, leaflets, fronds, etc., are given, and the
volume contains about a hundred and fifty such diagrams, accom-
panied by explanations and comments bearing upon the argument of
the book. The published instances are selected, for one reason and
another, from an accumulation of similar material, the result of years
of observation. The figures made by stems, which were always grow-
ing, are of course somewhat spiral, forming a succession of more or
less irregular narrow ellipses, with their longer axes directed to differ-
ent points of the compass at different times. They show that the
course pursued is often interrupted by zigzags, loops, and small tri-
angles. The rate of movement was different at different times and
with different plants. Some made but one ellipse a day, and others
four or five.

In studying leaves, he experimented with from thirty to forty
widely distributed genera of dicotyledons, monocotyledons, and cryp-
togams. The seat of movement, he found, was generally in the petiole,
but sometimes also in the blade. The extent of movement differed
greatly. It is chiefly in a vertical plane ; but, as the ascending and
descending lines never agreed, there was always some lateral motion
describing irregular ellipses. These observations were made upon
healthy plants growing in pots, illuminated from above, many of them
through ground glass, and they were also plants that do not sleep at
night. The stem was always secured to a stick close to the base of the
leaf under experiment. Besides his general conclusion that all grow-
ing parts circumnutate, many other important inferences are di'awn by
the author from these experiments and observations.

This movement, which in the case of climbing plants was believed
to be due to increased growth of the side that for the time became
convex, has more recently been proved to result from the circum-
stance that every part of a plant while it is growing, and in some
cases after growth has ceased, has its cells rendered more turgescent
and its cell-walls more extensile first on one side and then on another.
Why this should be the case is not known, but Darwin suggests that
the changes in the cells may require periods of rest, which accords
with our knowledge of the rhythmical nature of motion.*

Under the microscope, this movement of circumnutation was seen
in a few cases to be made up of sudden small jerks forward for '002

* For an interesting and extended discussion of this subject, the reader is referred to
the chapter on the mechanical laws of growth in Sachs's " Text-Book of Botany."

DARWIN ON THE MOVEMENTS OF PLANTS. 503

or -001 of an inch, and then a slow retreat for part of the distance.
No such movement could be detected with a two-inch object-glass,
in the case of Drosera, and how far it is general is not known. Mr.
Darwin says : " The whole hypocotyl (stem of a cotyledon) of a cab-
bao-e or the whole leaf of a Dionoea * could not ierk forward unless a
very large number of cells on one side were simultaneously affected.
Are we to suppose that these cells steadily become more and more
turgescent on one side, until the part suddenly yields and bends,
inducing what may be called a microscopically minute earthquake in
the plant ; or do the cells on one side suddenly become turgescent in
an intermittent manner — each forward movement thus caused being
opposed by the elasticity of the tissues ? "

Mr. Darwin has shown the importance of this ever-present move-
ment in successive chapters upon modified circumnutation. By this
phrase he means that pressure and other irritants, light and gravita-
tion, do not directly cause movement ; they only modify the sponta-
neous changes in the turgescence of the cells, which are always in
progress, and of which circumnutation is a universal consequence. He
thinks that, in the case of seedlings, ordinary or unmodified circumnu-
tation is clearly of service, directly or indirectly ; but, in the later
stages of growth, it is from various modifications of this constant
motion that the plant derives benefit.

More than half the volume is given to the modifications of cir-
cumnutation by epinasty and hyponasty ; f by nyctitropic or sleep-
movements ; and by the influence of light and of gravitation : but we
can only glance at one of these, which is popularly styled the sleep of
leaves, although there is probably no real analogy between the sleep
of animals and that of plants.

Le

III.

Fig. 5.— Trtfolium strictum : Diurnal and Noctttrnal Positions of the Two Cottxedons
AND OF THE FiRST Leaf : I. Seedling viewed obliquely from above, during the day: Re, right
cotyledon ; Lc, left cotyledon ; F, first true leaf. II. A rather younger seedling, viewed at
night : Re, right cotyledon raised, but its position not otherwise changed ; Z,c, left cotyledon
raised and laterally twisted ; F, first leaf raised and twisted so as to face the left twisted coty-
ledon. III. Same seedling viewed at night from the opposite side. The back of the first leaf,
F, is here shown instead of the front, as in II.

Nyctitropic {night-turniyig) is the word used by Darwin to de-
scribe the sleep of leaves and occasionally of flowers, but^ as flowers
are affected chiefly by changes of temperature instead of light, their

* In these instances the jerking motions were very remarkable.

\ The alternately more rapid growth of the upper and under surfaces of organs.

504 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sleep does not so much concern the inquiry. The night-movements of
leaves result from circumnutation modified by changes of light and
darkness, and also by heredity ; and, as Darwin has proved, they are
chiefly of use to the plant in diminishing the loss of heat by radiation.
Therefore, he says, no movement deserves to be called nyctitropic
unless it has been acquired for this purpose. As some leaves and coty-
ledons bend upward only a little at night, the question arises. At what
angle does the diminished radiation warrant the use of this term ? He
takes an arbitrary limit of 60°, above or below the horizon, as any less
angular rise and fall would be of slight significance. Nyctitropic
movements are easily affected by surrounding conditions of moisture
and temperature, and in many genera it is indispensable that the
leaves should be well illuminated during the day. From the very
wide list of genera experimented upon, it follows that the habit of
sleeping " is common to some few plants throughout the whole vas-
cular series."

Darwin first considers the sleep of cotyledons, having observed the
positions during the day and night of the representatives of one hun-
dred and fifty-three genera. Some ten pages are given up to remarks
upon this subject. We give his account of the behavior of the coty-
ledons of Tinfoliwrn strictum as it is illustrated by a picture of the
diurnal and nocturnal positions they assume.

" On the first day after germination, the cotyledons stood at noon
horizontally, and at night rose to only about 45° above the horizon.
Four days afterward the seedlings were again observed at night, and
now the blades stood vertically and were in contact, excepting the
tips, which were much deflexed, so that they faced the zenith. At
this age the petioles are curved upward, and at night, when the
bases of the blades are in contact, the two petioles form a vertical
ring around the plumule. The cotyledons continued to act in nearly

A. B.

Fig. 6.— Oxalis acetosella : A, leaf seen from vertically above ; B, diagram of leaf asleep, also

seen from vertically above.

the same manner for eight or ten days from the time of germination,
but the petioles had become straight and were much lengthened.
After tweWe or fourteen days the first true leaf was formed, and
during the next fortnight a remarkable movement was repeatedly
observed. At I, Fig. 5, we have a sketch made in the middle of the
day, of a seedling a fortnight old. The two cotyledons, of which

DARWIN ON THE MOVEMENTS OF PLANTS. 505

Re is the right, and Lc the left one, stand directly opposite one
another, and the first true leaf (7^") projects at right angles to them.
At night (see II and III) the right cotyledon {Re) is greatly raised,
but is not otherwise .changed in position. The left cotyledon {Lc)
is likewise raised, but it is also twisted so that its blade, instead of
exactly facing the opposite one, now stands at nearly right angles to
it. This nocturnal twisting movement is effected by the twisting of
the whole length of the petiole. At the same time the true leaf {F)
rises up vertically, or even inclines inward. It also twists a little,
so that the upper surface of its blade fronts the upper surface of the
twisted left cotyledon. The whole case is remarkable, as with the
cotyledons of no other plant have we seen any nocturnal movement
except vertically upward or downward."

The various ways in which the leaves of plants are protected from
loss of heat by radiation at night are shown by diagrams and pictures
from which we select some of the most striking. A good deal of space
is given to an account of the circumnutation and nyctitropic move-
ments of the Oxalidce. In most of the species of oxalis the three leaf-
lets sink vertically down at night. But, as their sub-petioles are short,
the blades could not assume this position from want of space, unless
they were in some manner rendered narrower, and this is effected by
their becoming more or less folded (Fig. 6), so that their lower sur-
faces are brought near together (see B), as if the object were their
protection rather than that of the upper surface. This would form a
marked exception to the rule, that the object of sleep is protection of
the upper surfaces from radiation, if it had not been found that, in
species where the sub-petioles are longer, the leaflets sink without
folding together. By thus crowding together at night, a much smaller
surface is exposed than during the day.

i!

A. B.

Fig. 7.— Medicago marina : A, leaves during the day ; B, leaves asleep at night.

" The drawing of Medicago marina, awake and asleep (Fig. 7),
answers almost as well for Gytisus fragrayis, which rose at night on
one occasion 23° and on another 33°. The three leaflets also bend up-
ward, and at the same time approach each other so that the base of
the central leaflet overlaps the bases of the two lateral leaflets. They

5o6

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

bend up so much tliat they press against the stem ; and, on looking
down on one of these young plants from vertically above, the lower
surfaces of the leaflets are visible : and thus their upper surfaces, in
accordance with the general rule, are best protected from radiation.
While the leaves on this young plant were thus behaving, those on an
old bush in full flower did not sleep at night."

Again, "the species of Melilotus sleep in a remarkable manner.
The three leaflets of each leaf twist through an angle of 90°, so that
their blades stand vertically at night, with one lateral edge presented
to the zenith " (Fig. 8). We have no room for the description of the

c.

Fig. 8.— Melilotus officinalis: A, leaf dHrin? the daytime; B, another leaf asleep ; C,a leaf
asleep as viewed from vertically above, but in this case the terminal leaflet did not happen to
be in such close contact with the lateral one as is usual.

complicated movements performed by these plants. Their petioles and
sub-petioles are continually circumnutating during the whole twenty-
four hours. Their cotyledons do not sleep.

The nyctitropic movements of eleven species of Trifolium were
observed and were found to be closely similar. If we select a leaf of
Trifolium repens having an upright petiole and with the three leaflets
expanded horizontally, the two lateral leaflets will be seen in the even-
ing to twist and approach each other until their upper surfaces come
into contact. At the same time they bend downward in a plane at
right angles to their former position, until their midribs form an angle
of about 45° with the upper part of the petiole. The terminal leaflet
merely rises up without any twisting, and bends over until it rests on
and forms a roof over the edsjes of the now vertical and united lateral

DARWIN ON THE MOVEMENTS OF PLANTS. 507

leaflets, as seen in Fig. 9, with its lower surface fully exposed to tlie
zenith.

The nyetitropic movements of ten species of the lotus tribe were
observed and found to be alike. The main petiole rises a little at
night, and the three leaflets rise till they become vertical, and at the

A. B.

Fig. 9.— TRiFOLnm eepens : A, leaf daring the day ; B, leaf asleep at night.

same time approach each other. In most of the si^ecies the leaflets
rise so much as to press against the stem, and not rarely they become
inclined a little inward, with their lower surfaces exposed obliquely to
the zenith. The young leaves on the summits of the stems close up at
night so much as often to resemble large buds. The stipule-like leaflets,

A. B.

Fig. 10.— Lotus CRETictrs : A, stem with leaves awake during the day ; B, with leaves asleep at

night ; ss, stipule-like leaflets.

which are often of large size, rise up like the other leaflets, and press
against the stem (see Fig. 10). The circumnutation of a terminal leaf-
let (with the stem secured) was traced during two days, but the move-

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ment was so simple that it is not worth while to give the diagram.
The leaflet fell slowly from the early morning till about 1 p. m. It
then rose gradually at first, but rapidly late in the evening. It occa-
sionally stood still for some twenty minutes during the day, and some-
times zigzagged a little.

Fig. 11,— Coronilla rosea: Leaf aeleep.

The leaves of Coronilla rosea bear nine or ten pairs of opposite
leaflets, which during the day stand horizontally, with their midribs
at right angles with the petiole. At night they rise up, so that the
opposite leaflets come nearly into contact, and those on the younger

A. B.

Fig. 12.— Desmodium gtrans : A, etem during the day ; B, etem with leaves asleep. Copied from

a photograph ; fibres reduced.

leaves into close contact. At the same time they bend back toward
the base of the petiole until their midribs form with it angles of from
40° to 50° in a vertical plane (as in Fig. 11),

The appearance presented by a sleeping branch of Desmodium
gyrans and by one in the daytime, copied from two photographs, is

DARWIN ON THE MOVEMENTS OF PLANTS. 509

shown at A and B (Fig. 12), where the leaves ai'e seen at night crowded
together, as if for mutual protection. Not less striking is the con-
trast between the night and day aspect of Cassia coi'ymbosa, as seen in
Fig. 13. Here the horizontally extended leaflets sink down vertically
at night, and at the same time rotate so that the lower surface faces
outward.

A. B.

Fig. 13.— CA38IA cortmbosa : A, plant during day ; B, same plant at night.

from photographs.

Both figures copied

As a conclusion from all his experiments, observations, and reflec-
tions upon this subject, Mr. Darwin states •.

" The great sweeps made by the stems of twining plants, and by
the tendrils of other climbers, result from a mere increase in the am-
plitude of the ordinary movement of circumnutation. The position
which young leaves ultimately assume is acquired by the circumnutat-
ing movement being increased in some one direction. The leaf -blades
of various plants assume a vertical position through modified circum-
nutation, in order to protect their upper surfaces from being chilled

510

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

through radiation. The movements of various organs to the light,
which ai*e so general throughout the vegetable kingdom, and occa-
sionally from the light, or transversely with respect to it, are all modi-
fied forms of circumnutation, as again are the equally prevalent
movements of stems, etc., toward the zenith, and of roots toward the
center of the earth. In accordance with these conclusions, a consider-
able difficulty in the way of evolution is in part removed, for it might
be asked. How did all their diversified movements for the most differ-
ent purposes first arise ? As the case stands, we know that there is
always movement in progress, and its amplitude or direction, or both,
have only to be modified for the good of the plant, in relation with
internal or external stimuli."

The discovery of the sensitiveness of the apex of the radicle was
made by Darwin when he was looking for something else. Wishing
to know how the radicles of seedlings passed over obstacles in the
ground, he placed germinating beans in such a way that the tips of

A.

B.

C.

Fig. 14.— Vicia paba : A, radicle beginning to bend from the attached little square of card ; B,
bent at a rectangle ; C, bent into a circle or loop, with the tip beginning to bend downward
ihrough the action of geotropism.

the radicles came into contact with opposing surfaces at a high angle.
"When the root-cap touched such an obstacle it was at first a little flat-
tened, but this flattening soon disappeared, and the apex took a direc-
tion at right angles to its former course. Straight lines had been
painted along the growing terminal part of some of these radicles before
they met the opposing objects, and the lines became sensibly curved
in two hours after the apex had come into contact with them. The
explanation of this curvature of the growing part could not be me-

DARWIN ON THE MOVEMENTS OF PLANTS. 511

chanical resistance, because it occurred when there was not pressure
enough to produce it ; and, besides, Sachs has shown that the growing
part is more rigid than the part just above it, which should have
yielded first to resistance. Moreover, objects that yield with the
greatest ease will deflect a radicle. After various attempts to explain
the phenomenon, Darwin was led to suspect that the tip was sensitive
to contact, and that it transmitted an effect to the upper part of the
radicle, so exciting it to bend away. Such a thing had never been sus-
pected, although Sachs discovered that the radicle is sensitive a little
above the apex, and bends, like a tendril, toward the touching object.
Full details are given of the experiments by which this suspicion
was verified. We can only say, briefly, that " germinating beans were
pinned hilum downward inside the well-moistened cork lids of glass
vessels which were half filled with water, and the light excluded.
When the protruding radicles were the tenth of an inch or more long,
bits of card about one twentieth of an inch square, or bits of sand-
paper, were afiixed to the sloping sides of their tips by means of
thick gum-water, which by itself had no effect. To avoid confusion
from the bending known as Sachs's curvature, the bits were never put
in front." That the reader may have a clear idea of the kind of
movement excited by the bits of card, we give, Fig. 14, sketches of
three beans thus treated, which show the gradations in the degree
of curvature. Out of fifty-five beans experimented upon, fifty-two
were considerably bent away from the object attached, and the re-
maining three seemed to become sickly. As the radicle of the pea

A. B.

Fig. 15.— Pisttm SATrvrrM: Deflection produced within twenty-four hours in the erowth of verti-
cally dependent radicles, by little squares of card aflSsed with shellac to one side of the apex:
A, bent at right angles ; B, hooked.

was found to be rather more sensitive at a point above the apex than
that of the bean, he experimented with twenty-eight peas which had
been soaked for twenty-four hours, and then left to germinate in damp
sand. He tried them first with bits of card above the apex for Sachs's
curvature, and thirteen of them bent toward the card, the greatest
curvature being 62°. Bits of card were then fastened to one side of

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the tips of eleven radicles within the same jars, and five of them became
plainly curved away from this side. In the former case the bend was
abrupt, as shown in Fig. 15; in the latter a greater length of radicle

Fia. 16.— PiBUM BATivtTM.— A radicle extended horizontally in damp air with a little equare of card
affixed to the lower side of its tip, causing it to bend upward in opposition to geotropism.
The deflection of the radicle after twenty-one hours is shown at A, and of the same radicle after
forty-five hours at B, now forming a loop.

seemed to be affected and the curve was symmetrical, as seen in Fig.
16. He says, " It was a striking spectacle, showing the difference in
the sensitiveness of the radicle in different parts, to behold in the same

A. B.

Pig. 17.-

.C D.

-Zka mats : Radicles excited to bend away from the little squares of card attached to

one side of their tips.

jar one set of radicles curved away from the squares on their tips, and
another set curved toward the squares attached a little higher ujj."

His experiments upon the radicles of dicotyledons were numerous
and varied in every way ; but the seeds of Indian corn were the only

ATMOSPHERIC ELECTRICITY. 513

monocotyledonous ones which he observed. Omitting particulars, the
cuts (Fig. 17) will show the effects produced in four instances.

In the case of A, the apex of the radicle is so much bent away
from the square as to form a hook. At B, the irritation of the card,
aided, perhaps, by geotropism, has formed a circle. At C, the tip in
forming a loop has rubbed off the attached bit, and the circle has con-
tracted, while at D, the apex, in making a second turn, passed through
the first loop and so rubbed off the card, and, growing downward, tied
itself into a knot.

Mr. Darwin believes that the tips of all radicles are similarly sen-
sitive, and transmit an influence causing the upper part to bend.
Moreover, the tip distinguishes between harder and softer objects, and
between moisture and dryness. It is also sensitive to light and gravi-
tation, and the course of the radicle in the ground is determined by
the tip. The volume concludes with the following sentence : " It is
hardly an exaggeration to say that the tip of the radicle thus en-
dowed, and having the power of directing the movements of the ad-
joining parts, acts like the brain of one of the lower animals ; the
brain, being seated within the anterior end of the body, receiving im-
pressions from the sense-organs and directing the several movements."

■♦«»

ATMOSPHEKIC ELECTRICITY.

By Peofessoe H. S. CAEHAET.

FROM the earliest periods the flash of lightning and the peal of
thunder have excited curiosity, stimulated awe, and inspired fear
in man ; and according to his mythological, religious, or poetic habit
of mind has he regarded the latter as the bolt of Jove, the voice of
God, or the conscious utterance of the heavens. The explanation of
these appearances in the sky is most curious and fantastic, even after
the introduction of the modern inductive method. In ^ " Compendi-
ous System of Natural Philosophy," by J. Rowning, M. A., London,
1744, we find the following : " As vapors exhaled from the surface of
water are carried up into the atmosphere, in like manner the effluvia
of solid bodies are continually ascending thither. Now, we find by ex-
periment that there are several inflammable bodies which, being mixed
together in due proportion, will kindle into flame by fermentation
alone, without the help of any fiery particles. When, therefore, there
happens to be a mixture of the eftiuvia of such bodies floating in the
air, they ferment, kindle, and, flashing like gunpowder, occasion those
explosions and streams of fire which we call thunder and lightning."

Ever since Franklin identified lightning with the electricity of the
frictional machine, an inquiry has been prosecuted into the origin of
VOL. xvin. — 33

514 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

atmospheric electricity. It has been ascribed to chemical action in
vegetation, without any basis of proof ; also with more reason to evap-
oration and to friction of solid and liquid particles against bodies on
the surface of the earth. But friction fails to account for the fact that
electrical displays, other than auroral ones, occur only during heavy
precipitation of hail or rain, except in mountainous districts.

Deferring for the present what appears to be a probable account of
the generation of atmospheric electricity, we may profitably review
certain facts established by observation and experiment.

It is a matter of common observation that a small ascending jet of
water is resolved into drops, which describe widely divergent trajec-
tories. By reason of the different velocities and directions of motion
of the individual drops, they come into frequent collision with one an-
other and then rebound. The influence of electricity on the recoil of
the drops after collision is most marked and interesting. About two
years ago. Lord Rayleigh read a paper before the Royal Society on
this subject, setting forth the results of his experiments.

When the ascending jet is strongly electrified, the drops do not col-
lide, because of their mutual repulsion, arising from their charge of
electricity of like sign. But with a very feeble charge the drops co-
alesce upon impact, and the breaking up of the stream is thereby much
lessened. The rubbing of a glass rod across the sleeve in the vicinity
of the jet suffices to prevent the rebound after collision ; as also does
the current from a single Grove element.

Further experiments, in which one of two contiguous jets was elec-
trified, proved that the coalescence was due to a slightly different de-
gree of electric tension in the impinging particles of water. In such
case their attraction and coalescence are determined by static induc-
tion, the resulting force of which is always attractive ; and with slight
electrification the inductive effect always prevails over the repulsion
due to like charges, when the charged bodies are brought near to-
gether. Hence strongly electrified particles do not actually collide,
but are kept apart by electrical repulsion ; while those feebly charged
approach within the charmed circle where the attraction of static in-
duction determines their collision and coalescence.

The bearing of these facts upon precipitation of aqueous vapor is
obvious. Innumerable globules of water, feebly charged to different
potentials, inevitably collide and coalesce into drops, which descend by
gravity. A slight amount of electricity in the atmosphere is therefore
favorable to aqueous precipitation, while a higher degree of electrical
excitation is unfavorable to rapid condensation.

It is important in this connection to point out another conclusion
bearing upon condensation of vapor — a conclusion reached by apply-
ing mathematics to the theory of electrified spheres or drops of water.
An explanation of terms is essential to an understanding of the rea-
soning.

ATMOSPHERIC ELECTRICITY.

515

We have already employed the term " potential," a word of fre-
quent occurrence in modern electrical works. An insulated, charged
conductor exerts influence in every direction about it. The term " elec-
trical potential " expresses the value of that influence at any specified
point where there is electrical force. When any force acts, energy is
expended in doing work ; and the numerical value of the scientific ex-
pression " work " is the measure of the energy expended or the resist-
ance overcome. " Work " means the product of the force into the dis-
tance over which it acts. The lifting of five pounds through a dis-
tance of ten feet requires the expenditure of fifty foot-pounds of work.
Hence " electrical potential " may be defined in terms of work as fol-
lows : The electrical potential at any point is the toork required to
carry a unit of electricity from that point to infinity. It is of course
understood that the " unit of electricity " is carried against the attrac-
tion due to an electrified body.

Potential is accordingly a mathematical and exact expression for
all the work possible to be done against the attraction of a given amount
of electricity resident at some specified place. In exactly the same way
gravitational potential at any point may be defined as the work re-
quired to carry a unit mass of matter from that point to infinity against
the attraction of gravitation.

Electrometers have been constructed by Sir William Thomson, with
marvelous skill and inventive genius, designed to measure the potential
at any point or of any body. It is susceptible of easy proof that the
potential of a sphere, charged with electricity, Q, is everywhere equal
to Q divided by its radius R. Further, the capacity of a body for elec-
tricity is the quantity required to charge it to emit potential ; and, as
potential varies with the charge, we readily find that the capacity of
a sphere is numerically equal to its radius.

To apply this to condensation, suppose that drops of water of unit
radius, unit capacity, and unit potential, coalesce to form drops of
radius two : what will be the capacity and potential of such larger
drops ? Since the volume of spheres varies as the cube of their radii,
eight of the small drops will be required to make one large one. The
large drop will, therefore, contain eight times as much electricity as
each of the small ones. As compared with the small, drops, its capaci-
ty, being equal to its radius, will be only doubled, while its charge
will be increased eightfold ; and its potential will, therefore, be four
times as great as that of the small drops, since potential of a sphere
equals quantity of electricity divided by capacity of sphere. If its po-
tential is quadrupled, its inductive influence on other bodies and its
tendency to discharge are increased in the same ratio.

When, therefore, condensation occurs, aggregating minute globules
of water into larger ones, the electric tension of the mass of descend-
ing vapor is immensely increased, without any corresponding increase
in the total quantity of electricity present.

5i6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

These two conclusions, applicable to condensation, may be applied
to the frequently observed fact that a vivid flash of lightning is often
quickly followed by a sudden and heavy down-pouring of rain. It is
clearly impossible to tell which is antecedent to the other, the discharge
or the sudden condensation ; for, while the flash reaches the observer
first, it is clear that light travels from the place of action with a vastly
greater velocity than that of the falling rain, and the discharge may
therefore have been subsequent to the sudden condensation. If the
discharge occurs first, then the lowering of the electric potential per-
mits approach of aqueous spherules and consequent coalescence after
collision, in accordance with Lord Rayleigh's experiments. On the
other hand, if the condensation is antecedent, it follows from the result
reached above that it must be accompanied by a sudden rise of poten-
tial in the enlarged drops, leading to an electric discharge.

It will be observed that neither of these principles accounts for the
original electrification of aqueous vapor in the air. It has been the
custom to regard thunder-clouds as primarily charged by some unex-
plained process ; and these, acting inductively, as producing a corre-
sponding charge of opposite sign in the earth underneath. This view
appears to have no conclusive evidence in its favor, but corresponds
rather to appearances merely — a very unreliable guide.

In the theory here proposed, the earth is the charged body, acting
inductively on the air, aqueous vapor, and clouds about it. Whenever
moisture condenses to cloud, a better conductor is thereby formed, and
increased inductive action takes place, causing an accumulation of elec-
tricity both in the cloud above and the earth beneath. If, then, the
lower part of the cloud, under this inductive influence, condenses to
rain and falls away from the upper part, a separation of the two
electricities is effected, and an increase in potential results from the
enlargement of the drops, as explained above. Consequently, a dis-
charge may then take place either between the upper and lower cloudy
strata, or between the lower portion and the earth, according as one
path or the other offers the least resistance.

Further, when evaporation takes place from an electrified locality,
the rising vapor must carry away a charge of electricity by convec-
tion, as air and dust carry away electricity from a charged conductor.
The condensation of this vapor increases its potential, and, if sufii-
ciently rapid, gives rise to electrical displays. It is a fact of recent
establishment that " northern lights " occur in various high latitudes
only with southerly winds, which come laden with moisture and jDrob-
ably with electricity.

The following considerations in favor of this view of the origin of
atmospheric electricity may be briefly enumerated :

1. Continuous observations of the electrical state of the atmos-
phere at Kew Observatory and elsewhere for several years show that
the air is always moi-e or less electrified. The average potential of

ATMOSPHERIC ELECTRICITY. 517

fair weather being + 4, it was found rarely to fall as low as + 1 ;
often during sudden showers it equals ± 20 or ± 30 ; during snow-
storms with high wind it sometimes reaches + 100 ; and during thun-
der-showers, ±100 and even — 200. A predominance of negative
electricity is characteristic of thunderstorms. Hence some origin of
atmospheric electricity, always operative, but in different degrees of
intensity, must be sought. Clearly, any form of energy connected
with mere cloud-formation will not answer the requirements.

2. The observations show also that the potential of the air is ex-
ceedingly fluctuating, no natural phenomenon being comparable with
it in changeableness except wind-pressure. A change in the electrical
state of the air indicates a corresponding change in the earth's surface.
It is more reasonable to suppose that the earth, the great reservoir of
electricity, should control the air and clouds electrically than that the
clouds should control the earth.

3. The surface of the earth is perhaps never in electrical equi-
librium ; in other words, it is not an equipotential surface. Some
time about 1865 Matteucci made prolonged experiments on earth-cur-
rents, and reached several interesting results. He found, for instance,
that a tolerably steady current of electricity flowed through a line
established along a meridian, uniformly from south to north ; that
fluctuating currents of low electromotive force flowed through an east
and west line, sometimes in one direction, sometimes in the other ;
that when one terminal of a long line was in a valley and the other
at a considerably higher elevation, a current flowed uniformly up the
wire toward the more elevated end. A flash of lightning, in this case,
was always accompanied by a sudden increase in the deflection of the
galvanometer needle. (" Smithsonian Reports," 1867.)

4. Irregular and spontaneous earth-currents are the usual accom-
paniment of great terrestrial disturbances. James Graves showed in
1871 that spontaneous currents in the Atlantic cables frequently occur
during earthquake-shocks. ("Journal Soc. Tel. Eng.," ii, pp. 80-120.)
That spontaneous currents flow through land lines during auroral dis-
plays is a well-known fact. It is also asserted that any great meteor-
ological change, as the motion of a heavy storm with considerable
barometric fluctuation, is announced at a distance by irregular galvanic
shocks through submarine cables.

5. Marked electrical disturbances in the atmosphere not infrequent-
ly accompany earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. A vivid flash of
lightning was seen during an earthquake-shock in West Cumberland,
England, on October 25, 1879. So frequently are these two phe-
nomena conjoined that some writers have attributed South American
earthquakes to electrical action. Lightning is often seen playing
about the boundary between the condensing vapor from a volcano
and the adjacent cool air.

6. Measurements of the potential of the air show that, as we pro-

5i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ceed farther from the surface of the earth, the potential of points in
the air differs more and more from that of the earth, the difference
being approximately simply proportional to the distance. Also the
electrical density is greater on projecting parts of the earth's surface
than on those which are plane or concave. These facts are precisely
what we should find to be the case in the vicinity of an irregular,
charged conductor ; and they are sufficiently explained if Ave regard
the earth itself as charged with electricity varying in density. In
fact, observations of the potential of so-called atmospheric electricity
are simply " determinations of the quantity of electricity residing on
the earth's surface at the place of observation." (Professor Everett,
in Deschanel's "Natural Philosophy.")

In the Rocky Mountains electrical storms are of frequent occur-
rence. They consist of electrical displays without precipitation of
rain, hail, or snow. Usually, though not always, the sky is overcast.
In February, 1880, a remarkable electrical excitation was manifest at
Boulder, Colorado. The miners were unable to kindle fire in the
stove till eleven o'clock in the morning, every attempt to touch the
metal about the stove resulting in a severe electrical shock. With
every strong gust of wind the manifestations were more marked.
Similar reliable evidence comes to the writer from other parts of Colo-
rado. Long's Peak, an isolated mountain, 14,271 feet high, is noted
for these peculiar electrical manifestations. The density of electricity
on the peaks, projecting so far above the general level of the earth's
surface, is greater than elsewhere ; hence they possess a power to dis-
charge like points on an electrified conductor. The air and aqueous
vapor become surcharged with electricity ; and only a slight condensa-
tion, sufficient merely to form clouds without rain, serves to produce
discharges of lightning. With heavy gusts of wind the charged air
is removed, and a fresh supply is provided into which the peak again
pours its electricity.

In view of these facts, the theory is submitted as worthy of con-
sideration that the earth itself is the seat of those disturbances that
manifest themselves in atmospheric electricity. Fluctuating currents
ebb and flow through the confining walls of this immense reservoir of
cosmic energy. These follow naturally from the great changes in
temperature to which the earth's crust is subjected ; from those seis-
mic disturbances occasioned by vast internal convulsions ; from im-
measurable local strain and compression, the result of upheaval and
contraction. The earth, unlike the moon, contains still a vast store of
unexpended energy ; and in the ebb and flux of its mighty internal,
contending forces, and the bending and swaying of its magnetic lines
of force, in obedience to the magic wand of the sun, there is ample
room for the generation of those comparatively feeble forms of energy
that manifest themselves in the electrical disturbances of the air.

OPTICAL ILLUSIONS OF MOTION. 519

OPTICAL ILLUSIONS OF MOTION.

By SILVANUS P. THOMPSON, B.A., D. SC.

THERE are frequent occasions of conflict between the receptive
faculties of the senses and the reflective faculties of the intellect,
occasions on which the mind, prejudging of the sensation received,
assigns it to a non-existent cause. Of all the senses none is more fre-
quently the seat of such deceptive judgments than that of sight ; and
in the science of physiological optics a very considerable share of
attention is claimed by optical illusions. For the purposes of conven-
ience, we may draw a distinction between these illusions, which are
the direct result of certain properties or imperfections of the eye as an
optical instrument, and those which arise from obliquities of judgment
in interpreting the sensations optically impressed upon the retina of
the eye. In practice, however, it is almost impossible to draw a hard-
and-fast line between the two classes of illusions, almost all partaking
of both characters. Thus, for example, it has lately been shown that
we habitually draw geometrical forms too large in the horizontal
dimension as compared with their vertical dimension ; we draw oblate
ellipses where we intend to draw circles ; the explanation of this being
that with our two eyes we really see spheres as oblate ellipses. Here
is, in fact, an illusion of pure association — yet based upon the facts of
physical and physiological optics. So, again, certain inequalities in
the curvature of the lenses of the eye, producing the optical defect of
astigmatism, cause objects that are horizontal in position to form im-
ages at shorter (or longer as the case may be) distances from the eye
than the images of vertical objects ; the result being that, unless the
defect is corrected by suitable lenses, vertical and horizontal objects
(such as the bars of a window) do not appear to be at the same dis-
tance from the observer, though really equally remote. This would,
at first sight, appear to be a purely physical illusion, and not psycho-
logical. Nevertheless, a little consideration will show that since our
perception of distance is a psychological factor in the case, and that
this perception is based in part upon the muscular sensations of adjust-
ment of the lenses of the eye to exact focus, the illusion is one which
has a psychological as well as a physical raisoti d'etre. Again, take
some illusions ordinarily supposed to be one purely of mental associa-
tion : the common illusion of every day, that the sun or moon when a
few degrees from the horizon looks larger than when high in the sky,
appears at first sight to be due simply to the fact that when the orb is
near the horizon the distant objects upon that horizon whose size we
know, or can judge of, appear relatively small, and the sun's disk rela-
tively large — in fact, that the illusion is one purely of association of
ideas. Nevertheless, when we look a little closer into the matter, we

520 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

find that our simplest conceptions of angular or apparent magnitude
are very closely bound up with, if not directly due to, the sensations
of muscular fatigue in moving the eyeball or head so as to bring the
successive parts of the object into the center of vision.

Hence, although optical illusions are of many diverse kinds — illu-
sions of color, illusions of form, illusions of size, illusions of distance,
illusions of solidity, and illusions of motion — they have all to be con-
sidered from the twofold standpoint, the purely optical and the psy-
chological.

For some months the writer of this article was engaged upon a study
of one set of optical illusions, namely, the illusions of motion, and a
number of observations, collected at intervals over several years, have
been added by him to the stock of knowledge previously gleaned by
Brewster, Wheatstone, Faraday, Plateau, and others. Brewster made
a number of observations, in the early days of railways, on the various
illusions which can be found by watching objects from a moving train ;
Wheatstone investigated a curious case of apparent fluttering motion
at the border of two brightly illuminated colored surfaces — due prob-
ably to the attempt of the unachromatic eye to obtain fruitlessly a
distinct focus of the border-line between the unequally refrangible
colors — known as the illusion of the " Fluttering Hearts " ; Faraday
investigated the illusions produced by intermittent views of moving
objects, since developed in the phenakistiscope and zoetrope, and
kindred toys, and due to persistence of visual impressions. Brewster,
moreover, drew attention to the existence of another class of illusions —
illusions of subjective complementaiy motion — the typical case of which
occurs also in railway-traveling. After looking out of the window
at the pebbles and other objects lying beside the line, as they pass be-
fore the eyes, let the eyes be closed suddenly, when there will at once
be perceived an apparent motion in the opposite sense, undistinguish-
able forms and patches of light seeming to rush past the blank field.
This was recorded by Sir David in 1848, and the phenomenon was
referred by him to a subjective complementary motion going on simul-
taneously, and so causing a compensation of the impressions moving
over the retina. A kindred phenomenon had been even earlier noted
by R. Addams, who, in 1834, narrated how, after looking for some
time at a waterfall and then at the water- worn rocks immediately con-
tiguous, he saw the rocky surface as if in motion upward with an
apparent velocity equal to that of the descending water. This he
ascribed to an unconscious slipping of the inferior and superior recti
muscles of the eyeballs, which he thought occurred while watching
the falling water, and which he supposed to continue unconsciously
after the gaze had been transferred to stationary objects. This expla-
nation differs from the one offered by Brewster, namely, that there
was a subjective opposite movement going on simultaneously, so caus-
ing a compensation of the impressions moving over the retina. Brew-

OPTICAL ILLUSIONS OF MOTION.

521

ster's hypothesis is, indeed, extremely vague, and is neither physical
nor psychological in any exact sense. If understood physically, it
means that there is actually motion in the retina itself, which is hardly
conceivable, since the structure of the rods and cones almost precludes
even any idea of vibration, or of propagation of waves of motion by
vibration, much less any movements of them as a whole. And, if the
explanation is intended as a psychological one, something further is
needful before the principle of compensation here laid down could be-
come intelligible.

The first exj)eriments made by the writer of this article upon illu-
sions of motion arose from a casual observation in 1876. He had been
preparing, for the purpose of testing astigmatism, a set of concentric
circles in black and white, such as those shown in Fig. 1. Happening

Fig. 1.

to shake the sheet on which the circles were drawn, he noticed an ap-
parent motion of rotation to be set up. The illusion is easily produced
by imparting to the pattern a slight motion of the same character as
that adopted in rinsing out a pail, but with a very minute radius of
motion. All the circles will appear to rotate with the same angular
velocity as that imparted. Now, undoubtedly the persistence of visual
impressions has a good deal to do with the production of this illusion,
which, by the way, succeeds best when the circles make from two to
four turns in a second, and when the radius of the imparted motion is
equal to the thickness of one ring, so that each black or white band is
displaced through a distance equal to its own width in all directions
successively. Nevertheless, the persistence of visual impressions will

522

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

not explain all the facts of this curious illusion : for, in the first place,
it is found that for increasing distances from the eye the concentric
rings must be made wider if the illusion is to succeed ; there being
apparently one particular magnitude of their images on the retinae
which favors the production of the illusion. Again, if two such " stro-
bic circles " (as I have called them) are printed side by side on one
card, that set of circles seems to turn most effectively at which the eye
is not looking. On stopping the " rinsing motion " suddenly, there
appears to be, for an instant, a reverse motion. Finally, if a set of
circles is " rotated " while another set lies motionless within the field
of view, the second set will appear to rotate when the first are " ro-
tated " in the manner described above. It is possible, also, to have a
number of such apparent motions going on at once independently in
one field of view. Fig. 2 shows a compound pattern, containing an

Fig. 2.

interior set of concentric circles and six internally-toothed wheels.
When a very minute " rinsing " motion is imparted to this figure, the
circles appear to whirl round while the toothed-wheels work slowly
backward, moving through one tooth while the circles whirl round
once. Here, again, persistence of vision is concerned — but not exclu-
sively.

Dr. Emile Javal, the able director of the Ophthalmological Labo-
ratory of the Sorbonne, has recently advanced an explanation of these
illusions different from that adopted by the writer, and in substance
identical with that advanced by R. Addams in the case of the water-
fall illusion. He avers that the eye, in order to observe a movement,
follows the moving body for an instant and then suddenly slips back ;
that this oscillation, frequently repeated, is associated with a sensation
of motion in the particular direction in question ; and that when the

OPTICAL ILLUSIONS OF MOTION.

523

eye is subsequently directed to a stationary object it continues the
habit of thus oscillating, causing the observer to attribute to the object
a velocity of opposite sign to that just observed. M. Javal alleges in
support of this view the appearance presented in the ophthalmoscope
of the retina of a person affected with nystagmus. This affection con-
sists in continual rapid involuntary movements to and fro of the
eye. The retina, under these circumstances, appears to be animated
with a vibratory motion which M. Javal declares to be identical in
character with the apparent movements of the circles. In another
place, M. Javal has endeavored to prove that the interior and exterior
recti muscles of the eyeball are more prone to this slipping than are
the superior and inferior recti, and that these illusions of complement-
ary motion succeed better for motions in an horizontal sense than for
vertical and oblique motions. My own experience, and that of other
observers, admits of no such conclusion being drawn.

An experiment of Brewster's, which the writer tried without know-
ing at the time that Brewster had employed it,* has an important
bearing on the muscular-slipping theory. A disk marked out into
black and white sectors, as in Fig. 3, was caused to rotate at about one
revolution per second, so that the separate sensations of black and
white were not confused. The eye was steadily directed for twenty
or thirty seconds at the central point, and then the gaze was suddenly
turned upon some fixed objects, or at a distant landscape. For two

Fig. 3.

Fig. 4.

or three seconds a hazy rotation is noticed at the center of the field of
vision. Now, if the muscular-slipping theory holds good, the comple-
mentary movement of rotation must be due to a slipping of the whole
of the muscles of the eyeball, and would affect objects all over the
field of vision with an equal angular velocity. This is not the case,
the apparent complementary rotation being confined to the central field,

* The same experiment was also tried by my friend J. Aitken, Esq., of Darroch, Fal-
kirk, who independently observed the phenomenon described by Addams, and who has
also communicated to the Royal Society of Edinburgh a number of experiments on kindred
illusions.

524- THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and with apparent angular velocities increasing toward the center of
vision. Furthermore, I have arranged two such disks so that they
could be simultaneously in the field of view while rotating in opposite
directions. When the gaze was directed first at a point between them
and then at fixed objects, there appeared to be two portions of the field
of view rotating, and animated with rotations in opposed senses.
Clearly, the eye can not slip round in opposite directions at the same
time. In all these illusions, moreover, it is found that this illusory
complementary motion only occurs over limited parts of the field of
view — namely, those which correspond to the portions of the retina
which previously received the moving images. Thus, if a waterfall be
looked at — as in Addams's observation — the u.pward illusory after-
motion is confined to a vertical streak across the field of vision. This
fact alone is sufiicient to negative the theory of muscular slip.

The final test to which I have appealed is, if possible, even more
conclusive. It is probably a familiar observation that the end of the
last carriage of a retreating railway-train appears to shrink down small-
er and smaller as it subtends a decreasing angular magnitude in the
field of view. After looking at this motion for a sufiicient number of
seconds to fatigue the eye, stationary objects appear to be expanding.
To produce this illusion more effectually, I take a disk like that shown
in Fig. 4 (the figure is quarter actual size), marked out in spirals of
white and black. If this is slowly rotated — say at about one revolu-
tion in two seconds — the whole pattern apjDcars either to be running
into, or running out of, the center of the disk : thei'e is a motion of
convergence or divergence, according to the sense of the rotation.
Let the disk be turned so as to cause an apparent convergence from all
sides to the center, and let the eye steadily watch the center for about
a minute, or until the fatigue becomes almost unendurable. Then look
at any fixed object — the pattern of the wall-paper, or the dial of a
clock — the object so regarded will for some two, or three, or more
seconds, appear to be expanding from the center outward. The effect
is still more startling if the object thus viewed be the face of a famil-
iar friend. It is quite evident that the eyeball can not slip in all direc-
tions at once.

I have, therefore, somewhat reluctantly been led to propound an
explanation for these illusions, embodying the theory of them in an
empirical law based upon the physical fact of retinal fatigue, and on
the psychological fact of association of contrasts. It is as follows : The
retina ceases to perceive as a motion a steady successio?i of images
that pass over a particular regioyx for a sufficient time to induce fa-
tigue ; and, on a portion of the retina so affected, the image of a body
not in motion ap>pears by contrast to be moving in a complementary
direction. This law is precisely similar to that of the complementary
subjective colors seen after fatiguing the retina by the image of a col-
ored body. Similar laws of physico-psychological after-effects are

OPTICAL ILLUSIONS OF MOTION. 525

abundant. A steady sound of one constant pitch ceases to be heard
until we become aware of it by its cessation. A steady light of one
color, such as the yellow light of gas-flaraes, ceases to be noticed as a
yellow light until some other color-sensation break the illusion. The
same is true of smells, of tastes, of the sensations of temjjerature, of
the sensation of rotation after a waltz, and of many others. All these
are probably only different instances of the operation of some much
more general physico-psychological law. It is quite consonant with
these kindred phenomena that, when any region of the retina is affected
by an image of objects moving steadily across the corresponding por-
tion of the field of view in any given direction, that portion of the
retina gradually loses consciousness of the motion, and perceives it
only as a steady sensation, or as one of approximate rest. When, how-
ever, an object really at rest is looked at, the associative faculty seizes
upon the contrast in the sensations affecting that region, and interprets
the new sensation by imputing a motion in the opposite sense to the
objects occupying the corresponding portion of the field of vision. I
have proposed to give to the empirical law expressing these matters
the name of the laio of subjective co^nplementary motion.

It is impossible to quit the subject without pointing out two lines
of thought suggested by that which has been advanced.

Firstly, it is conceivable that the explanation here propounded may
at some future time be superseded by a better hypothesis of a more
purely physical character. Suppose, for example, that it could be
shown — what I have reason to suspect, but have been foiled in all
attempts to prove in any experimental fashion — that the eye has the
power of altering at will the actual size of the retinal images by a
double muscular adjustment between the magnifying power of the
lenses of the eye and the distance of their equivalent optical center
from the surface of the retina, such a fact, once established, would
entirely cut away the significance of my crucial test with the rotating
spirals ; and the apparent expansions and contractions of objects would
be merely due to the continuous attempts of the eye to retain the reti-
nal images of one constant size. If this were so (though I have failed
in every kind of attempt to devise some satisfactory test), it might
also explain one little matter that is still very mysterious and unex-
plainable, namely, that in these illusions of expansion and contraction
the changes of apparent magnitude often appear to take place by dis-
continuous jumps rather than by steady motions.

Secondly, it is found that these different illusions affect different
individuals with very different degrees of success, some persons being
much more sensitive than others to the after-workings of the subjective
motion ; and, indeed, there are individuals in whose case it is almost
impossible to produce the illusions. Doubtless some of these differ-
ences may be accounted for by defects of vision, astigmatism, achro-
matopsy, myopy, and the like. But there is also a time-element in

526 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the case which varies very greatly with individuals, and even varies
with the nervous states of the same individual. And this suggests the
further thought that a careful comparison of individuals relatively to
their illusion-capacity might elicit some interesting and perhaps valu-
able facts concerning the relation between the states of brain-organiza-
tion and the sensations of the more highly specialized organs of sense.
— Brain.

4t»

EYOLUTIO^" OF THE CHEMICAL ELEMENTS.*

By LESTEE F. WAED, A. M.

MUCH may be said in favor of the hypothesis of the progressive
development of all the stable forms of matter by a true pro-
cess of evolution from antecedent states. Indeed, in the higher forms
of matter, in those which we know to be of composite constitution,
this process is more or less thoroughly understood. Most of the ob-
jects which surround us, whether organic or inorganic, are known to
consist of a great number of elementary parts of the same size and
form which are aggregated in definite ways to form the general
mass which each such object presents. These particles, which are
alike for all parts of the same object or species of object, are un-
like for different objects. Each object is an aggregate of elements of
the same species, and these elements are the units of aggregation.
All aggregates which have been thus far resolved into these units
have confirmed this law. What is known, however, of the higher
aggregates of matter is sufficient to establish another law, viz., that
such aggregates are the result of the successive recompounding of
units of aggregation of descending orders. The units of aggregation
of aggregates of the higher orders are compounds of lower units.
This is physically proved to be true of all aggregates of known com-
position.

In biology we have the individuals of various orders, both animal
and vegetable, in which the lower forms are taken up bodily and made
to enter as integral units into the higher forms. Not only are all ani-
mals and plants compounded of innumerable cells as ultimate biologi-
cal units, but the earlier forms, which are aggregations of cells, are
repeated as units in the higher forms. The tape- worm is an animal of
the third order, the cell being taken as the first, but its segments are
so feebly integrated that they possess all the essential characteristics
of perfect animals. In the higher Annulosa, the integration is more
complete, but the composite character is still evident. In the Yerte-
hrata, the process of coordination has proceeded so far that only the

* Read before the Philosophical Society of Washington.

EVOLUTION OF THE CHEMICAL ELEMENTS. 527

closest embryological study can reveal their composite nature. On the
other hand, corals as well as many protists, such as the Labyrinthulece,
coexist with so small a degree of integration that the parts are con-
sidered as distinct individuals, although clearly dependent on one
another.

The vegetable kingdom illustrates still more clearly the manner in
which the aggregates are compounded. We have plants, like Cau-
lerpa, which, while the form would lead us to expect a considerable
degree of organization, consist in reality of a simple aggregation of
homoo-eneous cells. In higher plants, the leaf forms a new order of
organization, and constitutes the morphological individual or unit. In
trees, the process of compounding has gone so far that, considered as
individuals, they may reach the hundredth degree.

If we contemplate the mineral kingdom, we are again shown the
same truth. The various recognized minerals are not generally found
to be composed directly of the simple chemical compounds into which
they may be resolved, but consist of compounds of different orders
into which the simpler compounds enter as units of composition.
Thus feldspar contains silica, alumina, peroxide of iron, lime, soda,
potash, magnesia, water, etc., as units of composition, none of which
is supposed to exist in the mineral in any simpler state, and all of
which are already more or less complex chemical compounds. More-
over, two or more of these minerals thus formed often again combine
as new units to form others of still higher organization.

When we consider the facts which chemistry furnishes, we see the
same law still operating in great simplicity. In many of the binary,
ternary, and higher compounds, theory requires us to assume that the
substances entering into them do so in their integral state, and are not
first decomposed into their primary elements and then reorganized
into the new compound. The hydrated oxide of potassium, for exam-
ple, is not written KH^O^, but \^0,\lfi, in which both the immediate
constituents are regarded as maintaining their composite state and
entering bodily into the new compound. The entire series of " com-
pound radicles " requires the same supposition and illustrates the same
general principle. Cyanogen (CN), ammonium (NHJ, methyl (CHJ,
ethyl (CjHJ, and the rest are now held to constitute integral units in
the formation of the hydrides, alcohols, and acids.

So far, then, as induction can be depended upon, we find that it is
a universal law of the aggregation of matter that each new aggregate
may become a unit for the formation of aggregates of higher orders.
Does this law cease with the so-called chemical elements, or are these
themselves the products of molecular aggregation ?

Without discussing the old and apparently in solvable problem of
the divisibility of matter, it may be remarked that while the known
facts of science are entirely satisfied with the hypothesis of an ulti-
mate, finite unit of matter, of which all perceptible objects are but

528 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

aggi'egations, at the same time they do not conflict with such a modi-
fication of that hypothesis as assumes the actual magnitude of these
units so far reduced as to be practically infinitesimal. They only
declare — but this they do in the most emphatic manner — that this
reduction must not be so far continued as to make the ultimate atom
equal to zero, in the sense of absolute nullity.

On this view, which is by no means a new one, of the ultimate
constitution of matter, the units of the so-called chemical elements,
even of those having the smallest atomic weights, may themselves be
of a relatively high order of aggregation or organization, below which
many degrees may exist in which the molecules are too minute to
form bodies which the senses can in any manner detect. The inter-
stellar ether may be explained as constituting one of the highest of
these degrees, yet not high enough to form matter such as to be visibly
subject to the law of gravitation. The nebulae present the evidence
of the lowest form of such so-called " ponderable matter," and these
may be supposed to be the result of a gradual development resulting
from the successive recompounding of the molecular aggregates,
until they finally acquire a certain influence over one another and tend
to molar aggregation, forming the nebular masses. At the outset
these aggregates may be supposed to be entirely homogeneous, con-
sisting wholly of molecules of the same degree of aggregation, but
they soon differentiate into several distinct kinds of matter. These
are the gases which the spectroscope reveals in some of the nebulae.
They have molecules of low atomic weights and remain gaseous at all
temperatures artificially producible. This process of evolution, which
is the same which we have seen to go on in all the well-known forms
of matter, would seem also to continue throughout the history of the
nebulaB and the organization of resultant planetary systems, developing
many additional forms of matter, likewise characterized by the in-
creasing mass of their molecules.

What the properties of those molecular aggregates may be whose
activities can not be revealed to sense, is of course unknown. Con-
jecture even as to the probable number of degrees of aggregation
from the ultimate atom to the supposed atom of hydrogen would of
course be idle. But that such forms exist far down upon this inac-
cessible plane, having definite shapes, sizes, and activities, we are
strongly led to assume, both by the facts already stated and by others
presently to be set forth.

Passing over these lower stages, therefore, whose study belongs to
the future of human science, or to possible beings endowed with finer
faculties, and which may be said to belong to the domain of transcen-
dental chemistry, we finally arrive at a class of aggregates of great,
stability, but which, though still so minute that they can only be
perceived when accumulated into masses, have nevertheless been
studied in their free state by means of the various phenomena to

EVOLUTION OF THE CHEMICAL ELEMENTS. 529

which they give rise, either in their natural condition, or, as is usually
the case, under certain artificial conditions to which the ingenuity of
man has learned to subject them. As these aggregates are the lowest
which can be perceived, they have been denominated elements, and
are by some supposed to constitute the ultimate units of matter. But,
independently of certain direct evidence against this view, it is far
more consistent with what is now known of matter, and with the laws
of thought, to regard them as the first or lowest stages of aggregation
whose activities are capable of appealing, either directly or indirectly,
to our senses. It is really no more probable that the so-called elements
are tlie lowest subdivisions of matter than that the remotest stars
visible are actually at the confines of the universe.

That these elements are capable of manifesting themselves to sense
is the sole reason of our recognizing their existence ; and the history of
their discovery, by which their number has been so greatly increased,
shows that their modes of manifestation are often so subtile as to
escape all but the most thorough methods of detection. Many of
these elements now universally recognized remained for a long time
wholly unsuspected, and these then belonged to the great class of un-
known aggregates. This interesting chapter in the history of science
should suffice to teach us that below the known of to-day there lies a
wide belt of the knowable unknown, and that other and still lower
orders of aggregates will doubtless yet be induced to reveal their
existence.

A reason for regarding these elementary substances as ultimate
units has been supposed to be found in their great stability, which
causes them to behave as if such were the case.

While there is one possible exception to this in the case of oxygen
and the peculiar phenomena of ozone and antozone, it is indeed true,
so far as known, of all the remaining elements, that they have thus far
resisted all attempts to decompose them. This, however, aside from
the possibility of doing so still, is really no evidence of their absolutely
elementary character, but only indicates what the whole theory of
evolution would admit, if not require, that all aggregates which could
possess the properties requisite for the comjDosition of such masses as
are capable of affecting the senses, or of so affecting other masses as
to make themselves known to the human intellect, must possess a
degree of inherent stability sufficient to resist all human efforts to
disintegrate them. While, therefore, it is very probable that, just as
the alkalies and alkaline earths, which, at the beginning of the present
century, were regarded as elementary, have yielded to the galvanic
battery and proved to be composite, so a few more of those now
classed as elements will at no distant day be similarly decomposed by
the higher appliances yet to be devised ; it is nevertheless entirely
consonant with the view of the constitution of matter here maintained^
that there shall remain ujjon the plane of human investigation a

VOL. XTIII. — 34

530 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

greater or less number of wholly undeconiposable aggregates, serving
as the primary basis of all tangible substances.

It must be expected, however, that these elements will possess all
degrees of capacity for manifesting their presence, and that while some
will stand out boldly, cohere in vast masses, like iron, for example,
and in various ways render themselves obvious and obtrusive, others
will be ever hugging the confines of the imperceptible, and, like ozone,
will perpetually evade the full scrutiny of science. To this latter
class also belongs the substance which emits the green ray of the solar
spectrum, which has already led eminent chemists to conjecture that
it may be of simpler constitution than any recognized element, if not
the primary form of matter.

Setting out with the elements, regarded as aggregates of a com-
paratively high order and stable organization, but differing from one
another in form, size, and molecular activities, as widely as the masses
they form differ in properties, the problem of the formation of the
higher orders of aggregates becomes comparatively simple. We find
ourselves already in the domain of experimental science where the
more or less completely demonstrated laws of chemistry and molecu-
lar physics lead us up to the formation of the various inorganic and
organic forms of matter. The constitution of the various substances
found upon the earth is readily determined by decomposing them and
weighing their constituents. The precise conditions, however, which
have resulted in their formation as we find them and brought about
the existing state of things in the universe, are not so easily determined,
and for this purpose a further extension of the general law of material
aggregation is required.

The study of the earth's crust clearly indicates that very different
conditions have existed upon it in the remote past from those which we
now find. The facts as a whole prove beyond a doubt that our globe
has once been in a state both of greater or less liquidity and also of
great heat, and that, as its surface has cooled down, the solid parts,
to which alone we have access, have been formed, though to what
depth these extend we are still ignorant. But, notwithstanding certain
doubts which have from time to time been cast upon it, the theory
which was very early advanced as most in harmony with the probable
history of the planet, and according to which the cooling process has
not yet reached the great interior, which is therefore still in a heated
and molten, condition, still furnishes, perhaps, the most rational expla-
nation yet made of the phenomena which the earth presents, and also
best satisfies the a priori requirements.

It is now generally believed that the present condition of our earth,
and also that of the entire solar system, has been the result of a cos-
mical process of development by which its matter, unchanged in quan-
tity, has been slowly condensed from a diffused nebulous state, occu-
pying enormously increased space — a condition analogous to, if not

EVOLUTION OF THE CHEMICAL ELEMENTS. 531

identical with, that which is now presented by a large number of
irresolvable nebulae whose spectra show them to be composed of
gaseous matter in an incandescent state. This gaseous or nebulous
condition, though exceedingly rare relatively to the solid forms of
matter familiar to us, is nevertheless a state of a high degree of aggre-
gation as compared with the forms of matter by which it is surrounded
and with its wholly unaggregated state. Before the operations which
may be designated as molar can commence, a degree of aggregation
must be reached far exceeding that which exists in tiiose molecules
which are the vehicles of luminiferous i-adiations. The particles con-
stituting the ethereal matter of interstellar space must be supposed to
be so minute and relatively far separated as not to exert any ap23reci-
able influence upon one another tending to produce molar motion or
organization ; a condition which is explained on the same grounds as
the fact that one system in space exerts no appreciable influence upon
another system.

If the so-called chemical elements are simply so many stable mo-
lecular aggregates, whose differences are due to different modes and
degrees of aggregation, then the gases of our earth are simply the
most diffused state in which masses of these aggregates can be ob-
tained. A gas is a diffused mass of homogeneous molecules, and this
definition is as true of the compound gases, steam, carbonic acid, or
vapor of alcohol, as it is of the simple ones, such as hydrogen, nitro-
gen, or vapor of mercury. It might, then, be naturally supposed that
the nebulae would contain a number of such gases, and as it is scarcely
to be presumed that all the modes of forming stable aggregates are
represented on our planet, so, in addition to some of those found here,
it is reasonable to expect that nebulae will contain some not known to
us. In so far as the spectroscope — to which, indeed, we owe all our
positive evidence of the existence of true nebulae — is able to inform
us, this view is confirmed. Two of our commonest gases, hydrogen
and nitrogen, have been identified in nebulae, while' a third has been
discovered which has not yet been identified with any known element.

Every modification of the nebular hypothesis yet put forth has
been compelled to assume that the original nebulous mass must be in
an incandescent state. Certain it is that all visible nebulae are self-
luminous. But this is a condition of their visibility. It can not be
known how many may exist which have not yet reached this state,
and are, therefore, invisible. It does not seem necessary to suppose
that the contraction of a nebulous mass is either due to, or requires, a
high temperature. No reason exists why cold particles may not be-
come collected into a diffused mass. The inherent motions of these
particles are not increased or diminished. But, these motions remain-
ing the same, their circuits of motion are reduced, the frequency of
contact is increased, and heat and light are evolved from the friction.
The tendency of all matter under the law of gravitation, considered

532 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

as an unexplained fact, is toward concentration. The evolution of
heat is rather the check put upon this tendency, and, in so far as it
exerts any influence, it exerts it in a direction the reverse of gravita-
tion. There is a perpetual and rhythmic antagonism between the
forces of integration and disintegration. When for any reason the
former acquires an impetus which carries it to great lengths, it is
resisted with increasing violence by the antithetical force evolving
great heat, and eventually restoring the normal equilibrium. It seems
altogether probable, therefore, that in the process of contraction of a
nebulous mass, and its resolution into a system of worlds, the amount
of heat radiated is in the end equal to the amount produced by con-
densation, which disposes entirely of the supposition that there must
exist an incandescent nebula at the outset. The so-called "cooling
off " is only apparent, and, while at times the amount of heat may be
diminished, at other tinies it will be correspondingly increased. If the
radiation of heat from the surface of a body into space tends to cool
it off, so does the constant diminution of its volume without loss of
mass tend to heat it, and throughout its career these two influences
must antagonize each other. It is only after the limit to possible con-
traction, due to the nature of matter itself, begins to be reached that
the amount of radiation of heat comes greatly to exceed the amount
of its generation, and that the body actually begins to cool off.

During the greater part of the history of an evolving system, the
central mass must possess an enormously high temperature. This is
required by chemistry as well as by physics. Throughout nearly the
whole of this period, all the matter of the system must exist in the
form of gas. But there exist in our globe many substances w^hose
existence in the gaseous state presupposes great heat. The degree of
heat required to volatilize the metals is immense, and there are certain
other substances, such as silicon, for which still greater temperatures
are demanded. It would, however, be a violent assumption to suppose
that the parent nebulse, out of which the solar system was formed,
contained from the outset in this diffused state all the substances
which are found on the earth. It is much more reasonable, and our
hypothesis permits us, to assume that these substances, requiring so
great heat to liquefy and volatilize them, have been created, i. e.,
developed, during the progress of the formation of the system out of
materials already existing in other forms and states of aggregation.
On the supposition that during the earlier part, and perhaps during all
but the very latest period, of this j^rocess the temperature of the
nascent system was increasing, it is reasonable to assume that the
intense heat would cause the breaking up of some of the molecular
aggregates which were capable of maintaining the gaseous form at
low temperatures, and would at the same time cause the formation of
new aggregates only capable of maintaining that form under the high
temperatures to which they were subjected at the time of their for-

EVOLUTION OF THE CHEMICAL ELEMENTS. 533

mation, many of which, nevertheless, would prove sufficiently stable
to preserve the new form of aggregation after the temperature should
go down, and, instead of reverting to their former condition on the
cooling of the system, would assume successively the liquid and the
solid states, and become constituent parts of and distinct substances
in the cooled-off planets.

This theory of the origin of all those elementary terrestrial sub-
stances which require great heat to convert them into gas is supported
by some facts. In the first place, none of the gases of these sub-
stances have been discovered in any of the nebulae. The only two
terrestrial substances, thus far determined with any certainty, are
hydrogen and nitrogen. The latter of these exists in a free state in
the earth's atmosphere, forming about four fifths of its volume and
three fourths of its weight. The former does not exist in a free state
in the atmosphere, in consequence of its strong affinity for oxygen,
which is present there in excess, and whose union with it forms the
waters of the globe. Both of these substances are gases at all tem-
peratures producible by artificial means, and have only very recently
been made to assume the liquid and solid states by the use of ex-
traordinary devices. The other definite line which the spectrum of
certain nebula3 presents is near to that of barium, but is conceded
not to be the barium-line. It is, therefore, an unknown substance,
and nothing can be said of its properties. Its proximity to the barium-
line in the spectrum can not certainly be taken to indicate any special
resemblance to that metal ; and it is probably a gas at low tempera-
tures, like hydrogen and nitrogen.

In the second place, as to these two last-named substances, one of
them, hydrogen,, is present in nearly or quite all the self-luminous
bodies whose spectra have been observed, where it seems to occupy a
position far out in the upper atmosphere. As to nitrogen, its presence
in such bodies is doubtful, so far as the spectroscope is able to inform
us ; but, as it exists in such quantities in the earth's atmosphere, the
belief is strong, especially among those who accept the nebular hy-
pothesis, that the failure to discover it there is due to our imperfect
methods, or to our ignorance of the manner in which the phenomena
of the spectroscope are to be interpreted. The recent triumph of
science, in the discovery of oxygen in the sun, serves to show how
easy it is to overlook phenomena all the while perceptible, and
gives great hope that not only nitrogen, but many other substances,
will yet be found there, which have hitherto escaped observation.
The fact that an element exists in the earth may not be proof that it
must exist in the sun, even on the assumption that the sun is the
parent of all the jDlanets, but it is certainly strong presumptive
evidence that it is also there. It is, however, much stronger proof
that it existed in the general mass, as late at least as when the earth
was formed out of it, and therefore in the original nebulae. Those

534 "THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

evolutionists alone who are ready to accept the view here advanced of
the derivation of the heavier elements from the lighter ones, in the
course of the development of the system, can escape this conclusion
by supposing that the substance in question was created in the planet
after its separation from the central mass. But this assumption would
not be required in the case of nitrogen, which remains a gas at high
temperatures, and which actually exists in the nebulfe. The fact that
it can be detected in the nebulae, and not in the sun, although it doubt-
less abounds in both, may be accounted for by remembering that the
spectrum of a nebula belongs to a different class from that of the sun,
the former consisting of bright lines on a dark ground, indicating a lu-
minous gas ; while the latter consists of dark lines on a bright ground,
indicating a body having an incandescent solid or liquid interior, the
rays of which pass through a cooler gaseous atmosphere. Now, this
antithesis in the constitution of the two bodies may explain why cer-
tain elements existing in both may be capable of spectroscopic deter-
mination only in one, owing to peculiar conditions supplied by the
special nature of the substances themselves ; for it is by no means
probable that the spectroscope gives us an account of 'all the sub-
stances existing in the bodies examined by it.

While, therefore, there is nothing in the facts thus far discovered
which is opposed to the theory that the terrestrial substances having
high melting and volatilizing points have been developed out of sub-
stances which are gaseous at lower temperatures in the course of the
evolution of planetary systems, these facts, so far as they bear at all
upon the problem, are decidedly favorable to such an hypothesis. We
certainly find such substances in our earth and in the intensely heated
bodies of space, as well as in such meteoric aggregates as from time
to time reach our planet, and we have not yet found any such in
existing nebulse. If the latter be conceived as gaseous, and the solar
system as only a developed state of one of them, either some such
hypothesis must be brought forward to explain the existence of such
substances in the earth, or the original mass must be supposed to pos-
sess a sufficient degree of heat to maintain them in a gaseous form,
which would be enormous, and, independently of the present theory of
the origin of the nebulae, altogether improbable. Of course, upon the
view here taken, it would be wholly inadmissible. Prior to the stage
in the history of a nebula at which the degree of molar aggregation
is sufficient to occasion a great amount of friction among the particles,
the temperature of the primary molecular aggregates must be nearly
that of space, and it can rise only as increase of density and molar
motion increases that friction and converts material motion into ethe-
real vibration. Nebulae must therefore possess a long history, of which
neither the telescope nor the spectroscope can furnish any record — the
pre-luminous period — in which, of course, no gases can exist except
those, like hydrogen and nitrogen, which maintain their gaseous form

EVOLUTION OF THE CHEMICAL ELEMENTS. 535

under extremely low temperature. And it may be supposed that dur-
ing this period other gases may exist associated with these, which,
however, unlike them, are unable to sustain the successively higher
and higher temperatures which the nebula acquires in its process of
condensation and organization into a system, and at certain stages of
this process are dissociated and resolved into aggregates of a different
constitution, suited to these temperatures. Some of these latter new
aggregates would naturally assume the liquid and solid forms at tem-
peratures still high as compared with those to which we are accus-
tomed, and constitute in the cooled-oflf crust of the planets the various
metals and metalloids. In this manner we should have no difficulty
in accounting for the existence of all the elements found on the earth,
even if it were positively known that only the lighter gases were
present in the parent nebulae.

The recognized elementary substances, presenting so many dijffer-
ent qualities, vary greatly in their so-called " atomic weights." This
means simply that their molecules vary greatly in mass. The hydro-
gen molecule is the least known, and is therefore taken as the stand-
ard. Compared with this as unity, we find that the molecule of oxy-
gen contains 16 times as much matter, that of carbon contains 12, that
of nitrogen 14, and that of chlorine 35| times as much. But these,
instead of representing large equivalents, are, when compared with
most of the metals, very small. One molecule of mercury contains
two hundred times as much matter as one of hydrogen. The atomic
weight of gold is 197, of platinum 197*4, of lead 207, and of bismuth
208 ; while the thorium equivalent, which was quadrupled in the new
system, is now put at 231-4, being the largest of all the elementary
units. Whether hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, or any of the
other abundant elements having small molecules have entered into the
composition of these heavy substances, is a legitimate question. The
fact that these molecules are stable, whether combined or uncombined,
is favorable to this view, although there may exist, as component units
of the molecules of the metals, many equally stable aggregates which
no human power can dissociate from their present combinations. But,
if known elements were employed as components of other known ele-
ments having larger molecules, the very fact that they are elements,
i. e., that we are unable to decompose them, would render it impos-
sible to know that such was the case. Think how many hydrogen,
nitrogen, or oxygen molecules might enter into the system that consti-
tutes the unit of bismuth or of gold !

Now, it is a remarkable fact that those elements which have very
high condensing points, i. e., which assume the liquid (or solid) form
at very high temperatures, generally have large combining numbers,
that is, large molecules; while those having low condensing points and
which are gaseous at ordinary temperatures, as a rule have small com-
bining numbers, or small molecules. To this, carbon on the one hand,

536 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and mercury on the other, form, it is true, notable exceptions ; never-
theless, the bulk of the facts sustain this law, and indicate that the
genesis of those elements which we know only as solids or liquids, and
which we have supposed to have taken place during the fiery ordeal
through which the solar system has had to pass, is rather a process of
integration than of subdivision, since they have much larger mole-
cules than the gases that exist in the nebulfe, and out of which we
have supposed them to be formed.

We have seen that matter, in its cosmical history, as enacted in the
development of a planetary system, assumes a great variety of forms,
and resolves itself into numerous specifically distinct molecular aggre-
gates. The different substances which we know on our planet are the
result of the cohesion into homogeneous masses of these different ag-
gregates, all the constituent units of any one of these masses consist-
ing of the same species of molecular aggregate. "We saw reason to
suppose that, at an early period in the development of the solar system
(and we may infer the same for all systems), the number of distinct
substances was small, and that these substances were gaseous at very
low temperatures. The two abundant gases, nitrogen and hydrogen,
exist in the irresolvable gaseous nebulae, and these, doubtless, went far
to constitute the original substance of our infant system. These
gases, though differing greatly from each other in their atomic weights,
nevertheless have small molecules compared with those of most sub-
stances now found in the earth, and which are, for the most part, either
solid or liquid at life-supporting temperature^ There has, therefore,
been upon the w^hole increase of mass among the molecules of sub-
stances later developed.

When we rise to the point of view which removes all distinction
between elements and compounds, except the subjective one that in
the former we do not know and cannot prove their composition, while
in the latter we can do this in so far as to resolve them into the former,
we can make the further generalization that along with this increase
of mass there has gone decrease of stability in such molecules. We
are of course unable to predicate this, except inferentially, of the ele-
ments which we can not decompose, although these, doubtless, vary
greatly in their relative stability, and, as before remarked, some sub-
stances which had been supposed to be elementary have already been
reduced to simpler forms, and others may still be so reduced. More-
over, those which have thus yielded possess large molecules (counting
that of the compound), and this should serve as an index to future
attempts of a like nature. There is, for example, little hope of re-
solving hydrogen or carbon into simpler elements, but the reverse of
the alchemist's dream may yet be realized, and gold reduced, if not to
baser, at least to simpler materials.

All the known chemical compounds must be supposed to have been

EVOLUTION OF THE CHEMICAL ELEMENTS. 537

developed within relatively quite recent periods. The great heat that
has prevailed throughout the greater part of the history of the solar
system, and which, indeed, still prevails in its nucleus, the sun, which is
still 99f| (99-866) per cent, of the entire mass of the system, or prac-
tically the whole of it, has prevented the formation of any of the
substances which we know to be composite. It is only in the com-
paratively minute masses which have been accidentally separated from
the rest, and which, in consequence of their diminutive size, have
earlier reached the point at which the radiation exceeds the generation
of heat, that conditions have been produced under which these com-
paratively unstable substances, such as water, carbonic dioxide, and
the other oxides comprising the earth's crust, could exist. In propor-
tion as the degree of heat diminished, the capacity for more and more
unstable substances increased. The earliest compounds were those in
which silicon, potassium, sodium, magnesium, etc., combine with oxy-
gen j several of which were, from their great stability, long regarded
as elementary. Then came a variety of acids, alkalies, and salts, to-
gether with compounds of the metals. Later, as the temperature still
further lowered, the oxygen was enabled to seize the hydrogen and
form the gaseous protoxide, steam, which at a still later period, when
the temperature of the earth's surface fell below 100° Centigrade, con-
densed into water. Long prior to this, carbonic acid had been formed,
and, doubtless, constituted at that time fully one half of the earth's at-
mosphere. The vast amount of free carbon now existing in the earth,
and, still more, that which is fixed in the chalk and limestone forma-
tions, all of which must have formerly existed in the atmosphere in
the form of carbonic-acid gas, indicates that the above estimate is
probably far too low.

All the compounds thus far referred to, and all others having a
certain degree of stability, must have been first formed at a period of
considerable heat, the dissociation point of all compounds having been
estimated at 6,000"" Centigrade ; although this, doubtless, varies for
different compounds as greatly as do the condensing points of different
gases. But there are, besides, many compounds which are continually
forming at such temperatures as now prevail on the surface of the
earth, and most of these are very much more unstable than those last
mentioned. The elements which chiefly enter into such compounds
are oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, and carbon, all but the last named of
which are gaseous at ordinary temperatures. The substances of this
nature with which we are familiar are known as organic compounds,
and such as we see are, in fact, the products of organized beings from
the different parts of which they are obtained. But this process
should not be regarded as any less cosmical than that by which the
rocks or the metals have been evolved out of primordial matter.

Time forbids the further following out of this series of steps in the
development of existing forms of matter, but it will be readily per-

538 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ceived how, if this train of reasoning be sound, the inorganic is directly
linked to the organic world, just as the imperceptible forms of matter
were shown to be linked to its perceptible forms, and the elementary
states to the composite states, in one continuous and unbroken chain.
It remains to point out to what extent the hypothesis here advanced, of
the probable genesis of the chemical elements, is found to be in har-
mony with the recent discoveries which Mr. J. Norman Lockyer has
made by means of the spectroscope in the domain of chemistry. In
endeavoring to do this in the briefest manner possible, let us reproduce
the following diagram drawn up by him :

Hottest stars, ) ^ H + Ca -|- Mg

Sun, V Lines of ■] H + Ca + Mg + Na f Fe

Cooler stars, ) ( — — Mg + Na + Fe + Bi + Hg.

Coolest, Fluted bands of — — — — — — , etc.

Modified in the arrangement only to suit the present discussion, the
first part of this diagram may be presented as follows :

Cooler stars.

Sun.

/'

Hottest stars.

1 24 40 23 56 200 208
H 4- Mg + Ca + Na + Fe + Hg + Bi
1 13 20 23 28 100 208

The figures placed over the symbols are the respective atomic
weights of the elements according to the new system, those placed be-
neath being the same according to the old system. Transposing cal-
cium and magnesium merely for the sake of symmetry, their position
being indifferent, since both appear in the hottest stars, we find that
with a single exception, that of sodium, if we take the new system, and
without exception, if we take the old system, the atomic weights in-
crease as the temperature of the body diminishes. To what extent
this result may be accidental it is of course impossible to say, but, so
far as it may have any scientific significance, it constitutes an interest-
ing confirmation of the theory that the heavier elements with large
molecules have been developed out of the lighter ones with small
molecules during the progress of the condensation and refrigeration of
the heavenly bodies, and according to which, as above pointed out,
those possessing the largest equivalents would be last formed and
gradually pass into the known compounds by a corresponding gradual
decrease of stability, these latter to be succeeded in turn by the evolu-
tion of organic aggregates which ushered in the era of life.

Generalizing from all that has been said, we may divide the known

ONLY A VINE- SLIP. 539

forms of matter into the three following classes, with the accompany-
ing definitions :

1. Chemical Elements. — Substances whose molecules are com-
posed either of those of other chemical elements of less atomic weight,
or of such as are too low to be capable of molar aggregation, and
therefore imperceptible to sense : formed during the progress of de-
velopment of star-systems at temperatures higher than can be ar-
tificially produced, and hence too stable to be artificially disso-
ciated.

2. Inorganic Compounds. — Substances whose molecules are com-
posed of those of chemical elements or of other inorganic compounds
of lower degrees of aggregation : formed in the later stages of the
development of planets at high but artificially producible temperatures,
and therefore capable of artificial decomposition ; and constituting the
greater part of the solid crust of cooled-off bodies, their liquid and a
portion of their gaseous envelope.

3. Organic Compounds. — Substances whose highly complex and
very unstable molecules are composed of those of chemical elements,
inorganic compounds, or organic compounds of lower organization :
formed on the cooled surfaces of fully developed planets at life-sup-
porting temperatures.

ONLY A VINE-SLIP.

By T. G. APPLETON.

THE world's life is one long day, in which events strike the hours.
The hours strike, time moves on, till another stroke marks an ad-
vance which could only be that of the present moment, and to which
all the minutes of the past have contributed. I seemed to hear that
clock of the ages strike, the other day at my table, when a charming
young Frenchman was explaining why he had come to America. It is
humiliating to man, haughty in his mastery of this world, to find a
successful antagonist, the least of creatures, microscopically small, and
nameless often, till the bafiied husbandman is obliged to write it in
Greek or Latin characters upon the banner of his conquering foe. The
Phylloxera is mightier than a German army ; for the latter, once sati-
ated, goes home, but the former apparently stays for ever. The Egyp-
tians are again upon us ; the plagues of Egypt, and perhaps, what is
worse, the plagues of America, move across the world, devastating as
they go. The contagion of evil seems to outrun that of beneficence in
an unfair proportion. Creatures unconscious of what they do, which
the microscope barely discovers, terrify whole nations, and give the lie
to the arrogance of man. Somewhat as the old thought is now super-

540 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

seded, the old faith of the mind sapped, by the maggot in the brain
Avhich breeds doubt and, denial, so in these latter days, the old beldam
Earth breeds o'idhmi which blights, the phylloxera which destroys. It
was the phylloxera which interested my young Frenchman. He had
just come from California, after sending home countless houtures (vine-
slips) to his father, a vigneron of Burgundy. It is found that these
bits of vine, planted in France and then grafted with the vine of the
district, will resist in most cases the phylloxera, and so save the vine-
yard. It was when hearing this from my young vigneron that I
seemed to hear that earth-clock strike. The sound I thought was
braided of two murmurs where joy and sorrow blended. " Yes," I
said to myself, " youth is a good thing, and how beautiful it is to see it
sustaining the decrepitude of age ! " How proud, thought I, should
America be to see her democratic blood mingled with to sustain the
princely lives which Bacchus honors ! American girls wear the straw-
berry-leaf and sit not far from the throne itself. And how like this is
the marriage between the parvienus of California and those princely
ones whose etiquette gleams at royal boards ! But how are the mighty
fallen ! The imperial house of Clos Vougeot is in the dust, and many
another lordly house besides. A friend of mine, an expert in the sci-
ence of wine, crowned his wealth by the purchase of this imperial Clos
(field) of Vougeot. This little field, the most precious for its extent
in France, a true Field of the Cloth of Gold, whose grape is the high-
est expression of God's beneficence through the vine he gave us, has a
flavor, perfumed, modest, tasting of the violet, which separates it from
the crude and harsher vintages as a gentleman is distinguished among
roughs. This favorite of the earth, this consummate flower of France,
Providence shall not long allow to lie perishing in the dust. And it is
the democrat who shall fly to the rescue of this scion of an imperial
house. For the world of epicures will not be deprived of its dainties ;
and it is no more than justice that America should heal the wound
she makes, for it is confidently asserted that vines from America, im-
ported into the south of France, brought the phylloxera with them.
But this is only guess-work ; there is a mystery in the modern sudden
distribution over the world of insects and weeds which is not under-
stood. It can not be watched, because it is not suspected, and secretes
itself as part of a freight fetched for quite another purpose. Mrs. S. C.
Hall has told us how, for ten years before, the weed Anacharis alsanas-
trum spread with frightful rapidity over the inland waters of England,
choking ponds and rivers, as may be seen in the Serpentine of London,
the germs of which plant were supposed to have been secreted in im-
ported timber, I have recently, however, read that this plant was
dying out, apparently finding its environment unsatisfactory. It is
interesting also to hear of a process, the reverse somewhat of Califor-
nia's grape-cure, namely, how the robust weeds of England devour, as
Britons do the natives, the weaker weeds of Australia. So have we

ONLY A VINE-SLIP. 541

devoured and displaced the Indians ; and some think the plucky English
sparrow, after whipping all birds of its weight, is destined in the fu-
ture to take their place. The law which permits such strange invasions
of foreign seeds and insects is evidently not a demand for them in a
place where they strike. It is no part of a scheme of use or benefi-
cence ; they are a law unto themselves, and attach where they can find
a foothold. They ravage as a fire does where the air or the earth is
ready to flame like tinder, and they challenge man, as yet victoriously,
to match his newly acquired knowledge, his microscope, and his chem-
istry, with the vivacity of their attack. The renowned M. Pasteur
vainly fights for his silk-worm, nor is the battle yet decided ; soon all
the resources of science, all the skill of the naturalist, will be needed
to beat back the invading armies. Man has made, in so much, Nature
his slave. He bridges the ocean, he pierces the Appian barrier, he
trains the lightning to fetch and carry for him, he pierces stellar space,
he analyzes the sun, and, when he feels an obstacle, he forces his way ;
neither the sands of Suez nor the marshes of Panama delay him ; but
he stands baffled before his invisible enemy. A breath of air can poi-
son his cities, or devastate his harvests. Nature thus comes back with
an unexpected boomerang. Entre nous, deux mainteyiant. And,
though proud man clearly anticipates his final triumph, cholera and
yellow fever come and go at their own sweet will. The Colorado
beetle journeys comfortably to visit foreign parts. A new plague
of locusts, the grasshopper of the West, leaves famine behind him
as he moves, and even the Gascon wine, into which the nose of
Thackeray once dij)ped, feels an unholy presence, the blight of a new
disease.

But there are other things which fly on the wings of the wind
besides the seed-capsule which nourishes, the flower-germ which orna-
ments : thought also goes with them as they fly. Never was it so vol-
atile, not as once hoarded in some vast brain, packed into folios by the
weary hand, buried in the silence of cloisters through long ages, and
at last fructifying suddenly in a thousand lives. Thought now is ever
active, omnipresent ; an idea now germinates in San Francisco, and a
week later is stale in India. The solidest creeds get their edges frit-
tered away by these clouds of passing thought. Custom secures a
little the stability of things, but much of it is automatic — the heart is
gone out of it. The monarchist is often a better democrat than his
American brother, the priest who intones his service is tampering with
agnostic infidelities, the Arab sheik presents you with his photograph,
and the King of Siam adds a lift to his palace. There is hardly such a
thing as discussion ; assertion usurps the hour, and there is no reply.
Everybody could be on either side of the questions which once dis-
tracted the world ; and as we see the Prince of Wales over a cigar,
trifling with democratic notions, the old noble humbled before the
feudality he represents, the priest meshed in a network of hypocrisies

542 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

from which he would gladly escape — when we see these things, are
we not reminded of the phylloxera which can taint the goblet in the
hand of a king, of the secret foe which silently saps the health of cit-
ies, and that confusion of life and death, which, flying upon the wings
of the wind, affronts the stablest security and makes a jest of human
conservatism ?

THE METEOES OF NOYEMBER 13th-15th.

By Professor DANIEL KIEKWOOD.

WHEN" the coincidence between the orbits of the November me-
teors and the comet of 1866 was first clearly established a few
years since, it was supposed by astronomers that the so-called Leonids
formed a single clustei', diffused through an arc of such length as to
require three or four years to make its perihelion passage. The mete-
oric period was shown by Professor Newton, of Yale College, and J,
C, Adams, of Cambridge University, to be thirty-three and one fourth
years. Consequently, no further displays were expected from this
stream till about the close of the century. But in " Nature " for June
3, 1875, numerous facts were given, all indicating the existence of a
second group, less dense in its structure, and preceding the principal
swarm by twelve or thirteen years. Again, the large number of me-
teors seen in 1879, taken in connection with the fact that, according to
Humboldt, meteors were seen in unusual abundance just thirty-three
years before, viz., in 1846, suggested the probable existence of a third
and perhaps still smaller cluster, passing its perihelion about 1879-'80.
It was felt to be important, therefore, that in case any considerable
number of meteors should be visible this year at the November epoch,
the shower should be observed and the facts recorded. Accordingly, I
requested Professor D. E . Hunter, Principal of the Washington (Indiana)
High School, to keep watch on the mornings of November 13th, 14th,
and loth. Professor Hunter has made a comprehensive report, which
I have somewhat abridged in the following statement. The morning
of the 13th was cloudy, and on the 15th the moon shone brightly till
daybreak. The watch was consequently restricted to the morning of
the 14th. Four observers were occupied from 3'' 45" to 5^ 45" — pre-
cisely two hours. The position was on a hill south of Washington,
where the view was unobstructed, except on the south. One hundred
and sixteen meteors were counted, ninety-one of which were conform-
able to the radiant in Leo. During the first hour the atmosphere was
hazy and the moon interfered with the observations. The second hour
was clear and moonless. The following table includes only Leonids,
giving the number counted in every five minutes :

THE METEORS OF NOVEMBER i^m-i^Tif.

543

3h. 45m. to 3h. 50in., 1 mdeor.

3

50

((

3

55

1

3

55

(1

4

0

0

4

0

((

4

5

0

4

5

u

4

10

0

4

10

((

4

15

0

4

15

u

4

20

0

4

20

((

4

25

5

4

25

a

4

30

0

4

30

i(

4

35

4

4

35

((

4

40

0

4

40

(t

4

45

4

4h. 45m. to 4h. 50m., 3 meteors.

4

50

11

4

55

6

4

55

11

5

0

6

5

0

<(

5

5

7

5

5

(1

5

10

1

5

10

11

5

16

2

5

15

11

5

20

1

5

20

11

5

25

7

5

25

11

5

30

12

5

30

11

5

35

11

5

35

11

5

40

5

5

40

11

5

45

9

Table showing the same Meteors as above by the Quarter- Hour, Half-

Sour, and Sour.

3h. 45m. to 4h. Om., 2

0-

" 4

15

0

15

" 4

30

5

30

" 4

45

8

l\

13

15

Moon

during

first

hour.

4h.45m. to 5h. Om., 15 )
15 10 )
30 26 I
45 25 \

0
15
30

" 5
" 5
" 5

51

.76

No

moon

second

hour.

Remarks. — 1. The maximum was at b^ 30°, when five Leonids
were seen in one minute.

2. The shortest path — two degrees — was that of a meteor nearly
stationary, seen in Leo at S"* 18'". The longest — forty degrees — crossed
Ursa Major at S*" 20-".

3. The average length of path during the first hour was six de-
grees ; in the second, about seven ; the increase being probably due to
the absence of moonlight.

4. At least three distinct meteoric swarms move in the track of
Tempel's comet (1866 L). One has just passed or is passing perihe-
lion ; the second will pass about 188T-'88 ; and the maximum group
about the close of the century.

5. The meteors on the morning of the 14th inst. were more numer-
ous than those of the August shower ; a fact quite remarkable when
it is remembered that it is fourteen years since the great display of
the principal cluster.

6. The estimated periods of the comet and the meteor groups of
the Leonid ring are as follows :

Tempel's comet , 33'176 years.

Group A 33-2.50 "

Group B 33-333 "

Group C 33-500 "

The last is derived from the showers of 1813, 1846, 1847, 1879, and
1880.

7. Oppolzer's period of Tempel's comet, as given above, is perhaps
too short. If this body was a return of the comet of 1866, its mean
period is 33*283 years — very nearly the same as the meteoric periods.

544 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

8. It is sufficiently obvious that we have yet much to learn in regard
to the constitution of the Leonid ring, and that future observations
from the 13th to the 15th of November may i^robably result in im-
portant discoveries.

Bloomington, Indiana, November 25, 1880.

■♦»♦•

PEEHISTOEIC SCIENCE EN FJ&TE.

TO the uninitiated an " International Congress of Prehistoric An-
thropology and Archaeology" may seem a formidable affair,
where no more cheerful entertainment than a feast of dry bones could
be allowed, and where a member indulging in a joke would be instant-
ly called to order. Those who attended the late meeting of this Con-
gress at Lisbon know better. They know that under cover of their
imposing title this scientific Congress can give itself up to sociability,
and even levity, without imperiling its dignity. They know that this
assembly of men, representing the scientific world in nearly every
country in Europe, has as human an idea of enjoyment as the most
ordinary mortals who have never even heard of the Neanderthal skull,
and to whom the term palaeolithic or quatei*nary man calls up no vision
of cave-bears ,or hairy mammoths, living hob-and-nob, so to speak, with
our flint-using ancestors.

Let us follow the fortunes of the Congress, the idea that the typi-
cal Dryasdust flourishes among its members being dispelled. The first
unofticial seance may be said to have taken place at Almorchon, a junc-
tion half-way from Madrid, where all the scientific pilgrims, more or
less tired and dusty, made a rush at the buffet to get what food was to
be had. Those who had been traveling from Madrid since the previ-
ous evening and those who had taken a preliminary tour through An-
dalusia here met, and Instantly there was a Babel of tongues — German,
Italian, French, and English. Only Spanish was not to be heard, so
that, but for the tropical heat of the sun and the Sahara-like aspect of
the surrounding country, one would hardly have realized that one was
in the Peninsula. Friends were inquiring how each other's work had
sped since the meeting four years ago at Buda-Pesth, or that of Stock-
holm two years earlier. Scientific men who had never met before, and
who only knew each other by books or letters, were being " enchanted
to make each other's acquaintance '' in the best French they could
muster. Some were deploring in hushed tones the great loss just sus-
tained by anthropology in the death of M. Paul Broca, who was to
have been present at Lisbon. Here was the universal favorite, M. de
Quatrefages, of the French Institute, in a gray suit and wideawake,
looking more like a genial English geologist than a French savant,

PREHISTORIC SCIENCE EN F:^TE. 545

shaking hands with all. Professor Virchow, talking slowly to a learned
confrh'e on the one hand, and M. Henri Martin, deep in an Iberian
controversy, on the other. Here was a spruce and speckless French-
man, as fresh and bright as in his native Paris ; there, a crumpled
German, bearing evident traces of a night in the train. After all,
there was ample time to exchange greetings and compliments, as well
as for the more important business of eating, as the proverb, " Hurry
no man's cattle," is also applied to trains in Spain. A Spaniard in a
hui-ry was the one curiosity no member of the Congress was fortunate
enough to light on, although every facility to see all the rarities of the
country was politely accorded them.

At last the excruciating sound of the whistle summoned all to en-
sconce themselves in their snug corners of the carriages again, and
only at daybreak next morning — on Sunday, September 19th, to be
exact — did this first detachment of science, coated with a yet thicker
layer of dust, arrive at Lisbon, after thirty-three long hours from
Madrid.

Until last year a direct train accomplished this journey in ten
hours less time ; but Spain, tenacious of old traditions, suppressed
that train as savoring too much of progress, and consequent Nihilism
and dynamite.

All that Sunday the newly-arrived foreigners talked of nothing but
the lovely position of Lisbon, with its many hills and broad Tagus.
They much admired the great reservoir of the famous aqueduct with
its tail sixteen miles long, and also the cats with no tails at all. Lis-
bon literally swarms with cats, and not a few have their ears and tails
cropped ; this is a scientific note made by a savant on the spot. There
were also many speculations among this festive company as to whether
they should get as much dancing as at Pesth, where — let not this con-
fidential disclosure damage their scientific reputation — in the course of
one short week did they not fit in three dances, one of which was ex-
temporized in the waiting-room of a railway-station, in returning from
a ghoul-like expedition, undertaken for the purpose of rifling some
dozen Bronze-age graves ? Such was their heartless levity ! After
this disclosure it will be no shock to hear that, on the eve of their seri-
ous work at Lisbon, most of this frivolous body patronized the bull-
fight. In extenuation, it must be admitted that a Portuguese bull-fight
is not, like the Spanish, a public shambles and knacker's yard, but a
bloodless trial of dexterity, from which the gorgeous cavaliers, on their
splendid Andalusian horses, come out unharmed ; and the bull, whose
horns are encased in leather-and-iron gloves, is driven out very happily
among a herd of tame oxen, whose business — and well the sagacious
animals understand it — is to decoy him out of the arena.

The following day there was the impressive inauguration of the
Congress by the King himself. The hall provided for the seances is
the library of a suppressed monastery, where all the old calf and vel-
voi,. XVIII. — 35

54-6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

lum bound books lining the walls seemed quite in harmony with the
dryness of some of the discussions, though the way our authorized an-
cestor Adam was unanimously ignored might have made the worthy
old monks' hair stand on end. At one end of this hall a gx-eat throne
was erected, with ermine and the Braganza arms all complete. Oppo-
site a band was stationed ; in the gallery around admiring natives were
congregated. All the male representatives of science were in evening
dress, gibus in hand, and resplendent with orders. M, Capellini, of
Bologna, a great man though small of stature, was noticeable for the
number of his decorations. With four full-blown crosses and ribbons,
besides a dozen lesser stars glittering on his shirt-front, he was a gor-
geous sight. The only English member yet arrived was conspicuous
for the unrelieved black and white of his attire.

With royal punctuality, precisely at one o'clock, the band struck
up the national hymn, and their Majesties entered : Dom Fernando,
the tall Dowager King Consort (if that is his official title), and Dom
Luis, the dumpy reigning King, his son. Every one, it is to be hoped,
knows Thackeray's " Rose and the Ring," and if they do not they
should know it, so it is needless to describe their royal highnesses
further than by saying that the courteous Dom Fernando is the image
of the old king in that charming tale, and the accomplished Dom Luis
its hero Prince Bulbo in person. There was no mistaking the fact,
the immortal Bulbo stood before us — on tiptoe mostly, to add height
to his august jDresence — and we were duly impressed accordingly.
With royal patience he and his father sat under their ermine awning,
listening to inaudible speeches, with homme miochie as their refrain —
what a long course of boring it must take to teach any one to bear it
so patiently ! who would choose to wear a crown ? — and then with
royal courtesy they descended from their eminence to be introduced
to the leading members present. That over, they had to begin again
Avith the Literary Congress, whose session here also opened that day ;
while the archaeologists and anthropologists escaped to examine the
bony and stony treasures of a museum illustrating these sciences, es-
tablished in the same building. In this arid region many warm dis-
cussions as to the antiquity of man took place, and as to how far some
undetermined flakes of flint, with dubious bulbs of percussion, found
in a questionable stratum, went to prove his existence in Tertiary
times. This was the main question of the Lisbon session.

Two days afterward an excursion was made to Otta, the above-
mentioned haunt of this doubtful Tertiary being, to test the value of
the evidence. By 6 a. m. all on science or amusement bent were
steaming out of Lisbon. An hour later all had left the special train,
and were distributed among twenty-two carriages and omnibuses,
draAvn, as a rule, by four fine mules, the manners and customs of which
were cui-ious and unexpected. The leaders would suddenly bolt round
and stare at their scientific load with superhuman curiosity. It re-

PREHISTORIC SCIENCE EN F^ITE. 547

quired many of these wayward beasts to drag the carriages through
the four or five inches of dust underfoot. After three hours of such
wading, a little sheltered from the blazing sun by the clouds of dust
the mules raised, Otta was reached. Otta, or rather a sandy wild with
a thin growth of foot-high dwarf-oaks, some miles farther on, is the
spot our Tertiary phantom is supposed to have selected for his dwell-
ing. There was a lake there in those days. No one would be predis-
posed to acknowledge as an ancestor either man or ape capable of
displaying such bad taste in his choice of a home ; for in Portugal
beautiful and wooded retreats abound, so there was no excuse for set-
tling in a bare desert — except perhaps the fishing. However, all duti-
fully hunted for this creature's remains ; but only one flake, near the
surface, was found by an Italian, Signor Belucci from Rome, and that
caused hardly less excitement than the discovery of a new gold-mine.

But the dryness of the day and subject was exhausting, even to
those most affected by the fihvre tertiaire, and all readily abandoned
the dust of ages and flocked into a tent, a lodge in that vast wilder-
ness, which seemed to have come there by enchantment. Due justice
was done to the sumptuous breakfast prepared, for science does not
impair the appetite, and then followed endless toasts. The health of
the foreign members having been proposed, a representative of each
nation, French, German, English, Italian, Spanish, Danish, Swedish,
and Slav, returned thanks in widely varying accents for their hospi-
table reception in Portugal. M. de Quatrefages was by far the best
orator, and the President, Senhor Joao d'Andrade Corvo, spoke well.
After much time, wine, and breath had been expended, a practical
Englishman, who meant work, and was not broken in to foreign dila-
toi'iness, proposed as a final toast Au silence et au travail. The hint
was taken, and hammers and sunshades again put in requisition, but
again with no decisive result. Two of the ladies of the party, escorted
by two gallant Frenchmen, made the difficult ascent of a neighboring
steep hill, to look down disdainfully on the worthy archseologists grub-
bing below like ants, and following as useless a quest as those minute
busybodies seem to indulge in as a rule. When it is mentioned that
the thermometer stood at 96°, it would be superfluous to indicate the
nationality of the fair climbers.

But for an opportune vineyard passed on the return journey, all
Europe might have been bereaved of her science, as the great expe-
dition nearly died of thirst. Anthropology would have been nipped
in the bud, and archaeology would have returned to the dust, had not
a supply of grapes averted the awful calamity.

Next morning, Wednesday, primeval cannibalism was the subject
of debate, but " long pig " was not discussed for dinner, as might have
been expected, thanks to good Portuguese cookery.

The day following the gay assembly were abroad again, going to
Santarem, where they were received with flags and rockets, welcomed

548 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

by the mayor, and escorted to the kjokkenraoddings, their goal, by
hundreds of pictui-esque mounted peasants. Here a grand display of
skeletons, and of the refuse of the meals by which these frames were
nourished, rejoiced their eyes ; and later the speechifying, etc., were
gone through with as much enjoyment as before.

On Saturday the two kings honored the seance with their presence
to hear the great Tertiary debate, which M. Mortillet, of the Musee
St. Germain, opened with needlessly elementary instruction as to the
formation of flakes, and asserted his belief in the disputed ancestor's
existence in a speech lasting an hour and a half.

" He argued high, he argued low,
He also argued round about him."

An Englishman, known, from his habitual demand for evidence, in
the foreign scientific world as le petit St. TJiomas, answered him with
geological and other objections. He said that no flakes indubitably
found in these Tertiary beds were of unmistakable human manufacture,
but were such as might be due to natural forces ; and insisted on the
necessity of strong proof before accepting, as an established fact, man's
existence at a time so widely remote from ours — a time when the hip-
parion was the nearest living representative of the horse, and since
which the whole fauna had almost completely changed. Then St.
Thomas wound up by declaring that, though for twenty years he had
upheld the antiquity of our race, as proved by the discoveries at St.
Acheul and in other old river-valleys, and it therefore ill became him
to dispute it now, he could not be satisfied to rest his j^edigree on a
single bulb of percussion.

M. de Quatrefages, who does not believe in evolution as applied to
the human race, declared for Miocene man. So did M. Capellini, who
had already brought some pet whalebones, found in the marine beds of
Italy, before the Congress at Pesth ; which bones he believes to have
been scored in Miocene days by wrought flints. Others venture to
think the marks may be due to the teeth of fishes rather than to hu-
man agency. Virchow was dubious. Most suspended their verdict
until there should be more conclusive evidence, so the resolution of
this great question was adjourned to the next session.

Of course, one excursion was to lovely Cintra, and to Dom Fernan-
do's picturesque Penha palace perched on a peak there, with its castel-
lated walls and little gilt domes. It was grand to see savants gravely
riding the tiny donkeys down perilously deep descents. However,
thanks more to the sure-footedness of the beasts than to the skill of the
riders, no one came to grief. The views at Cintra over the rocky
peaks, great pine-woods, and long-stretching plain, with the misty At-
lantic as an horizon, are beautiful, and the Moorish remains there are
most curious. That evening the real King gave a ball at Cascaes to
the Congress, but, in spite of the courtesy of the hosts, the dancing

SKETCH OF COUNT POURTALES. 549

was less gay than at Pesth, not being impromptu. The supper was
the great feature of the entertainment. Footmen in gorgeous liveries
brought in trays of tempting delicacies, fish, flesh, fowl, and good red
wine, to which all were prepared to do justice after a hard day's work.
Only there were no plates, knives, forks, or other appliances of civiliza-
tion. Nothing but large wooden toothpicks.

All hang back, eying longingly the dainties good manners forbade
them to seize, and watching what course royalty would pursue.

But the court, nay, royalty itself, unhesitatingly took a toothpick,
dug it into the chosen morsel, poised it a moment in the air, and it was
gone. Thus emboldened, all possessed themselves of these handy in-
struments, and dug in their turn, roving and sipping like bees, though
all with inward misgivings as to whether they had been spirited away
suddenly to China or some other Eastern haunt of the primitive chop-
sticks. On after-inquiry it was learned that in all large court as-
semblies these toothpicks were put in requisition, as it was feared
that silver forks might be pocketed by the guests. It was neither as
an insult to scientific honesty, nor a compliment paid to the archaelogi-
cal tastes of the Congress, that such primeval weapons were used.

The day after this last and most foreign experience nearly all these
learned birds of passage had flown — some to the wintry north, others
to the sunny south, all bearing a grateful remembrance of a charming
week, and of the warmth of Portuguese hospitality ; all speculating as
to when and where would be their next merry meeting. — M'aser^s
Magazine.

SKETCH OF COUNT POUKTALES.

BY the death of this able naturalist, in the full maturity of his
powers, American science has sustained a great and irreparable
loss. We give a likeness of him from the only photograph we could
find, and, as no biography of him, that we are aware of, has been
written, we are indebted for the materials of this statement to such
fragmentary notices as have been furnished to the press since his death.
Louis FRAisrgois de Pourtales was of the Swiss nationality, and
was born in 1823. He belonged to an old family, which had branches
also in France, Prussia, and Bohemia. He was educated as an engi-
neer, but showed from boyhood a predilection for natural history. He
became a student of Professor Agassiz, and was one of his favorites,
accompanying him to America in 1847, and joining in his early labors,
first at East Boston, and subsequently at Cambridge. In 1848 he
entered the Government service in the department of the Coast Sur-
vey, and continued in it many years. Professor Theodore Lyman,
writing of Pourtales in the " Boston Advertiser," says :

550 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

" His talents and industry made him a man of mark, to whom was
intrusted much work that required original thought. Especially did
he show interest in the problems of deep-sea soundings and the struc-
ture of the ocean-bottom, an interest that led to profound observations
on the physical geography of the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf Stream.
His papers on this subject were of the first order, and established his
reputation in Europe as well as in America.

" By the death of his father, he succeeded to the title, and received
a fortune which enabled him to devote himself wholly to his favorite
studies, and to do much in continuing the great work of Louis Agassiz.
Appointed keeper of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, he gave
himself, with untiring devotion, to carrying out the arrangement so
laboriously planned by his friend and master. Dividing the task with
the curator, Alexander Agassiz, he pushed forward his part of the
work with the easy power of a strong and highly-trained intellect.
Every day and all day at his post — now pursuing special investiga-
tions, and now directing the details of the museum — he was the model
of an administrative officer.

" He had not an enemy, and could not have had one ; for, although
firm and persevering in temper, he possessed the gentleness of a child
and a woman's kindness. His modesty amounted almost to a fault ;
and people wondered why a man who was master of three languages
should talk so little. But with intimate friends he would speak
freely, and never without giving information and amusement. His
range of learning was very wide, and his command of it perfect ; nor
was it confined to mathematics, physics, and zoology. He did not
scorn novels and light poetry, and w^as knowing in family anecdotes
and local history. Indeed, it was a saying in the Museum that, if
Count Pourtales did not know a thing, it was useless to ask any one
else."

Professor Alexander Agassiz writes to " Nature " as follows : " M.
Pourtales was the pioneer of deep-sea dredging in America, and he
lived long enough to see that these expeditions had paved the way
not only for similar English, French, and Scandinavian researches, but
had led in this country to the Hassler, and finally to the Blake Expe-
ditions, under the auspices of the Hon. Carlile P. Patterson, the pres-
ent Superintendent of our Coast Survey. On the Hassler Expedition
from Massachusetts through the Sti-aits of Magellan to California, he
had entire charge of the dredging operations ; owing to circumstances
beyond his control, the deep-sea explorations of that expedition were
not so successful as he anticipated,

" The materials of the different deep-sea dredging expeditions above
mentioned had been chiefly deposited at the Museum in Cambridge,
and were thence distributed to specialists in this country and in Europe.
A large part of the special reports upon them have already appeared.
M, Pourtales reserved to himself the Corals, Halcyonarians, Holothu-

SKETCH OF COUNT POURTALES. 551

rians, and Crinoids. A number of his j^apers on the deep-sea corals of
Florida, of the Caribbean Sea, and of the Gulf of Mexico, have ap-
peared in the Museum publications. He had begun to work at the
magnificent collection of Halcyonarians made by the Blake in the Ca-
ribbean Sea, and had already made good progress with his final report
on the Holothurians. The Crinoid memoirs published by him relate to
a few new species of Comatula and to the interesting genera Rhizocri-
nus and Holopus.

" The titles of his memoirs indicate the range of his learning and
his untii'ing industry. His devotion to science was boundless. A
model worker, so quiet that his enthusiasm was known only to those
who watched his steadfast labor, he toiled on year after year without
a thought of self, wholly engrossed in his search after truth. He never
entered into a single scientific controversy, nor ever asserted or defended
his claims to discoveries of his own which had escaped attention. But,
while modest to a fault and absolutely careless of his own position, he
could rebuke in a peculiarly effective, though always courteous, man-
ner ignorant pretensions or an assumption of infallibility.

" Appointed keeper of the Museum of Comparative Zoology after
the death of Professor Agassiz, he devoted a large part of his time to
the administration of the Museum affairs. Always at his post, he
passed from his original investigations to practical details, carrying out
plans which he had himself helped to initiate for the growth of the in-
stitution. As he had been the devoted friend of Professor Agassiz's
father, he became to his son a wise and affectionate counselor, with-
out whose help in the last ten years the Museum could not have
taken the place it now occupies. If he did not live to see the realiza-
tion of his scientific hopes, he lived at least long enough to feel that
their fulfillment is only a matter of time. He has followed Wyman
and Agassiz, and like them has left his fairest monument in the
work he has accomplished and the example he leaves to his suc-
cessors."

H. N. Mosely communicates to the same journal the following ob-
servations on Pourtales's scientific work : " Almost from the com-
mencement of his connection with the United States Coast Survey he
deeply interested himself in deep-sea questions, and some of the ear-
liest observations on the nature of the deep-sea bottom and of Globi-
gerina mud were made by him. He wrote on the structure of Globi-
gerina and Orbulina, and described the occurrence of the small Globi-
gerina-like shells bearing spines in the interior of certain Orbulinse,
which he concluded were the swollen terminal chambers of Globige-
rinse containing young in progress of development. The first step in
deep-sea investigation in the United States was taken by the late Pro-
fessor Bache on his assuming the duties of the United States Coast
Survey in 1844, when he ordered the preservation of specimens brought
up by the lead. Every specimen was carefully preserved and labeled,

552 * THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and deposited in the Coast-Survey Office in Washington, The micro-
scopical examination of the specimens was commenced by the late
Professor J. W. Bailey, and after his death this work passed into the
hands of Pourtales, who devoted his time to it in the intervals of
other duties. That most important deposit, Globigerina mud, was first
discovered by Lieutenants Craven and Maffit, U. S. N,, during Gulf-
Stream explorations in 1853. In 1867 systematic dredging in deep
and shallow water was commenced on the assumption of the superin-
tendence of the Survey by Professor B, Peirce, who ordered the dredg-
ing. At the suggestion of Louis Agassiz, dredgings were made down
to a depth of one thousand fathoms. In Professor Agassiz's report,
one of the richest grounds for deep-sea corals, lying off Cape Florida,
was named Pourtales Plateau. In 1871 Pourtales published what is
probably his best-known work, namely, his " Deep-Sea Corals " (" Il-
lustrated Catalogue, Museum of Comparative Zoology," Harvard, No.
iv), a most excellent memoir containing valuable disquisitions on the
affinities of various genera, and excellent notes on the geographical
distribution of the sj^ecies and the nature of the bottom on which the
dredgings were made.

" Count Pourtales's name is indissolubly connected with deep-sea
zoology by means of the genus Poiirtalesia, named after him, Pour-
talesia, a sea-urchin, one of the Spatangidas allied to Ananchytes, was
found by the Challenger Expedition to be one of the most ubiquitous
and characteristic deep-sea animals. Numerous species of the genus
new to science were obtained by the expedition in deep water, some
of them being of most extraordinary shapes. In conclusion, it need
only be added that Count Pourtales's kindness and good-nature were
as much appreciated by English naturalists as elsewhere. He was
most generous, always ready to give advice to naturalists working in
the same most difficult field as himself, to supply them with specimens
for investigation, and to discuss in the freest manner, with perfect
impartiality, any question of systematic arrangement. He will be
regretted by many friends in England, to which he paid frequent vis-
its on his way to his native country, his last visit having been made in
the spring of the present year."

Count Pourtales was a man of a strong frame, a vigorous constitu-
tion, and a temperate mode of life, which gave hope of a long period
of usefulness. But he was attacked by a fatal internal disease, and,
after several weeks of great suffering, heroically endured, he died at
Beverly Farm, in Massachusetts, on July 17, 1880, aged fifty-seven
years.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

553

EDITOR'S TABLE.

THE FORCES OF HUMAN PROGRESS.

THE interesting volume of Mr. Henry
George, on " Progress and Pover-
ty," was discussed in the "Monthly"
upon its first appearance, though rather
for the purpose of making it known
than of criticising it. But, as it has now
become a success, and passed to a fourth
and cheaper edition, it becomes desir-
able to look more closely into some of
its positions. It is not, however, the
author's doctrine of the great and grow-
ing evils of land monopoly, nor the rem-
edy which he proposes for these evils,
nor the economic views he has put forth,
that now concern us. The first nine
books of his treatise are devoted to these
topics, but in the tenth and concluding
book he takes up another and a larger
subject. He here discusses " the law of
human progress," and opens the weighty
question of the philosophy of all social
and political reform ; and with the views
here advocated we can not at all agree.
The argument of Book X, though not
strictly a part of the main thesis of the
volume, grows naturally out of it. Hav-
ing traced certain great social evils to
their root, and shown, as he believes,
how they may be escaped, he was of
course urgent that his measure should
be forthwith adopted, and the good it
promises secured. Impelled to write his
book by realizing the squalid misery of
a great city, which appalled and tor-
mented him, he was driven by the whole
force of his sympathies to find some
plan of removing it, and when found he
was naturally eager that it should be
applied. But he was here confronted
by the school of thinkers which now
teaches that genuine and permanent
social ameliorations must be far more
gradual in their operation than has for-
merly been supposed ; that the progress

of human society is but part of a larger
and very deliberate progress in the
course of nature, and which takes place
through the agency of natural laws to
a great extent independent of the voli-
tions or intentions of men. They teach
that man himself is a product of prog-
ress, and has been so developed and
transformed by nature that he at last
begins to be capable of understanding
nature's method, and of consciously
taking part in the progressive work.

Mr. George takes issue with this
whole theory, and coolly rules nature
out of the entire business. He denies
" that human progress is by a slow race
development." He says, " We have
seen that human progress is not by
altering the nature of men," and again,
" Human progress is not the improve-
ment of human nature."

He further denies " that progress is
by hereditary transmission," and affirms
" that human will is the great factor."
The view to which he holds is thus
briefly intimated: "Mental power is,
therefore, the motor of progress, and
men tend to advance in proportion to
the mental power expended in progres-
sion— the mental power which is de-
voted to the extension of knowledge,
the improvement of methods, and the
betterment of social conditions. Now,
mental power is a fixed quantity — that
is to say, there is a limit to the work a
man can do with his mind, as there is
to the work he can do with his body ;
therefore, the mental power which can
be devoted to progress is only what is
left after what is required for non-pro-
gressive purposes. . . .

" These non-progressive purposes in
which mental power is consumed may
be classified as maintenance and con-
flict. By maintenance, I mean not only

554

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the support of existence, but the keep-
ing up of the social condition and the
holding of advances already gained. By
conflict, I mean not merely warfare and
preparation for warfare, but all expen-
diture of mental power in seeking the
gratification of desire at the expense of
others and in resistance to such aggres-
sion. . . .

" Association in equality is the law
of progress. Association frees mental
power, for expenditure in improvement
and equality (or justice or freedom, for
the terms here signify the same thing,
the recognition of the moral law) pre-
vents the dissipation of this power in
fruitless struggles. Here is the law of
progress which will explain all diversi-
ties, all advances, all halts, and retro-
gressions."

Nothing can be more unsatisfactory
than this. It sounds like last-century
talk, before science had entered upon
the investigation, and ignores a whole
continent of facts that have been up-
heaved during the last two or three
generations, and which are fundamental
to any theory of human advancement.
These scientific revelations force upon
us the question of the improvement of
man in his earlier stages, as an indis-
pensable key to the imderstanding of
his later advancement. Mr. George
says, " Whether man was or was not
gradually developed from an animal, it
is not necessary to inquire." That de-
pends entirely upon the thoroughness
of the inquiry it is proposed to make.
Is it so obvious that the progress of man
has nothing to do with the development
of man? Surely knowledge is prefer-
able to ignorance in regard to man's
early history, as well as most other
things. It is not aU the same, for the
purposes of truth, what theory we adopt
of man's mode of origin. If the uni-
verse was jerked into existence out of
nothing and altogether, some six thou-
sand years ago, and if the first man
came along with it perfected in intelli-
gence, and endowed with a language

suitable for the purposes of a compre-
hensive zoological nomenclature, then,
indeed, all inquiry respecting the emer-
gence of man is unnecessary. But this
childish theory of his first appearance
was long since exploded, and the growth
of modern knowledge compels the adop-
tion of another. Mr. George says, " We
know that there have been geological
conditions under which human life was
impossible on this earth " ; and he here
tacitly gives away his whole case, for
the implication is of a great historic
order in nature, of the antiquity of the
earth, and of the course of life as a
time-problem of vast import. The in-
dubitable records of life go back mill-
ions of years, perhaps millions of ages,
in terrestrial history. And this life not
only had its progress, but its incontesta-
ble mental progress. There was a slow
and gradual passage from the lower to
the higher, with successive epochs of
advancing intelligence, the creatures
nearest to man in organization coming
last before man himself appeared.

We have here the conception of prog-
ress deep in the constitution of Nature.
We have her method, which is that of
progress by the operation of natural law.
There was a time when the human race
did not exist upon the earth, although
it had been for countless ages a theatre
of developing life. Will Mr. George
maintain that man did not come in con-
formity with the preexisting order?
Does he deny that man is a part of
Nature, the sequel of an organic series,
and to be studied and interpreted in the
light of the great unfolding law of this
series? All the facts show not only
that man has had a much greater anti-
quity upon this earth than was former-
ly supposed, but tliat he had a very low
beginning. There was a prehistoric
and primitive man, who dwelt in caves,
made and used implements of stone,
lived by hunting, and was the lowest
kind of a savage. So much is estab-
Hshed, whatever be the worth of specu-
lations regarding his derivation from an

EDITOR'S TABLE.

555

inferior animal. The civilized man of
to-day is the descendant of this ancient
and semi-brutal-savage ; and the prob-
lem of human progress involves an elu-
cidation of the laws by which human
nature has been developed and trans-
formed, so that the creature that could
not count his fingers may yet count a
Newton among his descendants.

It is obvious that Mr. George's the-
ory of progress can not in the least
explain the earlier stages of social de-
velopment. The cave-men did not say
"Go to, let us progress," but they
blindly struggled with their circum-
stances, and out of these struggles came
improvement. Their experience was of
conflict with wild beasts, which they
had to kill in self-defense and to get the
means of subsistence. For this purpose,
the brutal and aggressive passions re-
quired to be strong. The life was pred-
atory, and the aboriginal savage was
cruel, revengeful, and delighted in the
infliction of pain. How could such a
creature, with his unsympathetic and
unsocial nature, be brought into even
the rudest forms of society? Only by
a coercion so stern that it could subju-
gate his refractory passions, and force
him into some kind of cooperation.

Mr. George is unable to see how war
and slavery could ever have aided im-
provement, progress, and freedom. He
quotes as absurd the reasons given for
this view, namely, Comte's idea that
" the institution of slavery destroyed
cannibalism," and that " slavery began
civilization by giving slave-owners lei-
sure for improvement." But these are
by no means the reasons on which this
view rests. The question is, how brutal
men were first subjugated and learned
the lessons of subordination, which are
the first steps of social progress. A
coarse and inexorable discipline was
required, such as befitted the natures to
be subdued. War and slavery were just
those relentless agencies that could force
savages to work together, and habituate
them to that respect for power which

was an indispensable condition of the
lowest forms of social order. The
strongest man became the chief and
the despot. Tyranny was indispensa-
ble. Where the moral condition of
men was evinced by the habitual prac-
tice of cruelty, the wanton destruction
of life, the torture of prisoners, canni-
balism, and human sacrifices, the re-
straining power had to be inexorable
and ferocious. It was by the arbitrary
discipline of war that men first learned
obedience; and, as the chief became
king and government a military despot-
ism, there gradually grew a stability in
social relations and a progress of social
institutions. War was an education in
obedience, but not the sole education.
Slavery was the result of war. Prison-
ers not killed were reduced to bondage.
Despotic coercion was tlms systema-
tized, and the benefits of war were thus
gained in time of peace. With his un-
subdued nature, the habit of submis-
sion and of continuous application could
only be acquired by the aboriginal man
through a long apprenticeship of painful
enslavement.

Recoil as we may at these contem-
plations, there is no evading the fact
that this is Nature's method of human
progress, and accordingly as we value
the result must we appreciate the means
that brought it about. That war may
now hinder the beneficent work which
it formerly promoted, is undeniable ;
but we ai*e not to forget the part it has
played when we undertake to explain
the conditions and causes of human
progress. What is all history but a
bloody record of War's and Slavery's
violence and injustice ? Men are great-
ly changed and greatly improved, but
civilization is stiU barbarian. Hostility
looking to war is the international
norm. We have plenty of survivals
from our savage ancestors. Animals
that they hunted from necessity, we
hunt for sport ; the gratification of
killing continues. War is a regnant
profession, the pastime of Christendom ;

556

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and slavery disappeared from among us
but yesterday. And how did it go ?
As a behest of the humanity of the na-
tion? As a victory of phihxnthropy,
education, Christianity, and the higher
forces of progress ? No ! it was not re-
moved by the national volition, but it
went out in a convulsion of domestic
carnage.

Obviously there is a great deal to be
done yet before man will be prepared
to take the work of human progress out
of the hands of Nature, and carry it on
in his own wiser way. He can do
much ; but the first thing he has to
learn is that he can not do everything,
and to find out what is practicable of
accomplishment. He can not realize
his dreams, and can only embody a
small part of his aspirations. By his
pre-scientific and unscientific education,
he is not imbued witli the method of
Nature, and is too unconscious of the
difficulties and impediments in the way
of attaining his sanguine hopes. Dwell-
ing, in virtue of his predominant cul-
ture, in an ideal world that he con-
etnicts to suit himself ; taught by
novelists, dramatists, and poets, whose
function it is to create imaginary
worlds ; familiar with religious doc-
trines which teach the facile converti-
bility of human nature; studying his-
tory which is ever occupied with human
doings, and ever exaggerates the offices
of great men; and surrounded by a
world filled with suffering and injus-
tice— men come to think that all this
evil might be quickly done away with
if there were only the disposition and
the will. As Mr. Bagehot somewhere
says, only a short time ago it was the
common belief that, if everybody would
set to work in good earnest, human so-
ciety might be renovated and perfected
and brought to a millennial condition in
about ten years. Science, as it confers
a deeper knowledge of the order of the
world, sobers our judgment and dissi-
pates these pleasing illusions. Let it
not be said that science thus becomes

obstructive, and paralyzes exertion ; on
the contrary, it is promotive of real
progress by checking futile elfort, and
disclosing the conditions and the way
by which exertion may be made most
effectual and substantial conquests
achieved. And, in these times that are
so prolific of social Utopias, no teach-
ing is more valuable or more whole-
some.

MONDAY-LECTURESHIP PHILOSOPHY.

In the absence of Rev. Joseph Cook,
the work of the Boston Monday lec-
tureship has gone on by the aid of other
clerical talent. The course was opened
December 6th by Bishop Clark, of
Rhode Island, who gave an address on
" The Seen and the Unseen," of which
an authentic version was published in
the " Boston Traveler."

The Bishop succeeded well in adapt-
ing himself to the new circumstances.
He entered easily into the general line of
speculation for which this lectureship
has become renowned, and filled the
shoes of its Rev. Founder to a nicety.
Whether it was the effect of association,
or blue-Monday, or what, the speaker
glided into tlie peculiar habits of the
place, and indulged in logical licenses
which could have been no novelties to
his auditors. The Bishop discussed the
problems of matter and spirit, the con-
nection between the body and the soul,
and the problem of personal immortal-
ity ; and he here opened the question of
the relation of religion and science in
so explicit a way that readers on our
side can not fail to be interested.

After an elaborate preliminary argu-
ment, he says : " The bearing of all this
upon the question of our own personal
immortality gives to the subject a most
profound and solemn interest. It is
hardly conceivable that man should have
been endowed with immortality, and yet
so constituted as to be unable to arrive
at any satisfactory proof of the fact. To
those who receive the records of the

EDITOR'S TABLE.

557

New Testament as authentic and true,
no further demonstration is needed."
And yet a little further on this impor-
tant position is very materially quali-
fied. The Bishop points out that the
Scriptural presentation of the doctrine
of immortality is neither made promi-
nent nor emphatic, and, notwithstand-
ing " its profound and solemn interest,"
he gives reasons why it was best to
leave it meager and obscure. He uses
the following language : " The light that
is thrown upon the next stage of exist-
ence in the Scriptures is designedly
somewhat general and limited. All the
direct information on the subject which
they give could be condensed into a
very small space. The eschatology of
the Old Testament could all be written
on a single page, and very much in the
New Testament which has been sup-
posed to relate to the subject is now
referred to the setting up of the king-
dom of truth and righteousness here
on earth. ' The kingdom to come ' in
many cases means simply the kingdom
of Christ among men. Revelation was
not intended to gratify our curiosity,
and it would not be well to make the
veil which hangs between us and the
future too translucent. Our work is
here, and, if that work is properly
done, we can afford to wait until an
actual entrance into the next world re-
veals its mysteries. The time is not
most properly employed which is spent
in speculating about these mysteries."

This is rational and encouraging,
and a wide departure from the tradi-
tions; for theology has always main-
tained that the universe is insufficient
for man, even during the short time that
he occupies it ; and that the knowledge
of his immortal future is a thousand-
fold more momentous to man than all
he can learn about the present world.
In liberal contrast to this, the Bishop
now assures us that the teachings of
revelation upon this subject are general
and limited ; that it was not intended
merely to gratify our curiosity ; that it

would not be well to remove the veil
that hides the distant future ; that our
work is here; that wo can afford to
wait ; and that speculation about those
mysteries is not the most profitable.

But, having indulged in this little
episode of common sense, the Bishop
seems to have remembered where he
was, and quickly tacked back into the
middle current of the Monday lecture-
ship. There is no more talk of unprof-
itable speculations, and veils not to be
rent. The secret of this transcendental
mystery of spiritual existence must be
plucked out, and it must agree with the
calculations about it, or life is a cheat
and all nature an empty mockery!
This view is enforced with rhetorical
emphasis in the following spirited pas-
sage :

" A division as old as Aristotle separates
speculators into two great classes— those who
study the How of the universe, and those
who study the Why. All men of science are
embraced in the former of these, all men of
religion in the latter." I would like to under
stand both, if this is possible ; but, if I must
choose between the two, I would rather
know the reason for which I exist than the
mode by which I exist. The one is an end,
the other only a means. If it is impossible
to discover the end, or if that end, when it is
supposed to be discovered, does not seem to
be such as justifies the elaborate process by
which it is reached; if all the magnificent
discoveries of science land us in the conclu-
sion that the imiverse is only a great clock
put together and weighted and wound up to
run for a certain period, and then when it
has struck the last hour to fall to pieces and
become resolved into the materials of which
it was originally made— the clock having
marked the process of time faithfully and
truly as long as the flow of events continued,
but the time itself leaving behind no perma-
nent results which abide after the clock has
ceased to strike — if the end of existence is ex-
hausted in the process by which that existence
is registered, and terminates with the pro-
cess ; or, asrain, if the universe is only a huge
electric wheel throwing out sparks of life
which glisten for an instant in the darkness
and vanish for ever ; or, again, if man is only
the effervescence of a physical compound that
buds and blossoms and then dies as soon as
the soil furnishes no further sustenance —

558

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

why, then the universe is a sham and man an
impertinence. All comes to nothing in the
end, consciousness ceases when the phosplio-
rus in the brain ceases to burn, and with the
end of consciousness the material world
might as well shrivel and die and come to
nothing also.

This is a significant enunciation, and
will bear pondering. We have seen
no clearer statement of the respective
attitudes of the theological mind and of
the scientific mind toward the things of
this world. What is the value of the
great scheme we call nature taken at
what we know of it ? Margaret Fuller,
neither theologian nor scientist, but
fond of the mystical, offered, on the
whole, to " accept " this universe.
Bishop Clark, not to be taken in by
shams, will accept it conditionally, that
is, if he has assurance that its end is
such as to justify the process by which
it is reached. The universe has no
worth in itself, and can only acquire it
as it is found to conform to the theo-
logical standard — a standard, moreover,
which was set up in ages of ignorance
before anything had been found out
concerning the nature, character, meth-
od, or magnitude of the object valued.
Here the universe is, a mighty, bound-
less, unfathomed fact; if it squares
with the theological ideal of what
ought to be its design — an ideal framed
without any knowledge of its constitu-
tion— it may be approved; otherwise,
it is a humbug, and, the sooner it
shrivels into nothingness, the better.

It is to be here noted that on either
theological alternative science is suffo-
cated. Theologians claim to have long
known the grand why and wherefore
of this universe, but that never inspired
them to inquire into its how — never led
to science. For, having the greater ex-
planation already, why should they con-
cern themselves about lesser explana-
tions? The greater explanation not
only superseded the lesser, but con-
demned them. Familiar with the futuri-
ties, and having in hand the lever that

controls the beatitudes and the torments
of an immortal destiny, it would have
been recreancy for the theologians to
favor trivial inquiries into what was
doomed soon to " pass away as a
scroll." They were logically bound to
resist all tendencies to such trifling in
this probationary world. So, the men
who knew the why proscribed, impris-
oned, strangled, and roasted the men of
vain curiosity who strove to understand
the frivolous how. There was, there-
fore, plenty of consistency in the ortho-
dox antagonism to the spread of the
spirit of science.

But if, on the other hand, the why
can not be known as the theologians
claim to know it, independent of all
knowledge of the how, then on the au-
thority of Bishop Clark the universe is
a sham, and who is going to get up
much interest in the study of shams?
A man will not seriously inquire into
that for which he has no respect ; and,
just to the degree in which people are
imbued with this spirit of contemptu-
ous indifference for the present woild,
will be their carelessness in relation to
that scientific truth which raises the
value of life in proportion as it is known
and applied.

And which is the most reverent and
the most truly religious attitude — not to
raise any question of humility — that
which assumes to pronounce on the
aims and purposes of the universe,
while contentedly ignorant of all truth
regarding its order, or that which
searches out its wonderful constitution,
that it may rise to its plans and pur-
poses, as gathered from its beautiful
structures, its exquisite harmonies, its
beneficent adaptations, and the solemn
grandeur of its mighty movements?
We protest against the doctrines which
the Bishop offers us in the name of
religion, as well as much else that ema-
nates from the platform where he
spoke. And we would respectfully sug-
gest to the devotees of the Monday
lectureship, if it would not have been

LITERARY NOTICES.

559

better to avail themselves of the ab-
sence of St. Joseph to get a few lessons
in religious liberality by holding " dea-
con meetin's " and listening to the read-
ing of " Scotch Sermons."

LITERARY NOTICES.

Scotch Sermons, 1880. New York : D.
Appleton&Co. Pp.346. Price, $1.25.

This book is a surprise, and as gratifying
as it is unexpected. Its title is anything but
inviting. Of all branches of literature ser-
mons are generally and justly pronounced the
dullest, and of the class of sermons, everybody
would expect to find the Scotch the driest.
This is what sharpened surprise and pro-
duced actual astonishment when we looked
into this unpromising volume. We have
been accustomed to regard Scotch Presby-
terianism as the narrowest and most intol-
erant and intractable form of Calvinistic
orthodoxy, which would be the very last to
yield to the liberalizing tendencies of the
time, but we have been much mistaken.
The mechanical law that action and reaction
are equal and opposite seems to hold rigor-
ously in the theological sphere, so that the
counter-impulse now displayed in the Scottish
Church is, perhaps, more vigorous^ compre-
hensive, and fruitful than is to be found in
any other religious body.

This volume, dedicated to Dean Stanley,
consists of twenty-three sermons, preached
by various men, located in various places,
and all clergymen of the Church of Scot-
land. Its editorship is anonymous, but its
editor declares that it " has originated in
the wish to gather together a few specimens
of a style of teaching which increasingly
prevails among the clergy of the Scottish
Church. It docs not claim to represent
either the full extent of that teaching or
the range of subjects on which, in their
public ministrations, its authors are in the
habit of discoursing. It may, however,
serve to indicate a growing tendency and to
show the direction in which thought is mov-
ing. It is the work of those whose hope
for the future lies not in alterations of ec-
clesiastical organization, but in a profounder
apprehension of the essential ideas of Chris-

tianity ; and especially in the growth within
the Church of such a method of presenting
them as shall show that they are equally
adapted to the needs of humanity and in
harmony with the results of critical and
scientific research."

There is, of course, considerable ine-
quality in these productions, coming as they
do from such diverse sources, but they are
all of a superior character, and there are a
unity and a harmony in the views advanced
which show that the liberalizing movement
in the Scottish Church is broad, consistent,
well defined, and well matured. The writers
treat their respective topics independently,
but with a remarkable concurrence of opin-
ion, which shows that the more expanded
views are the result less of any effort at
agreement than of an unconscious growth
of rational conviction.

But these sermons are not less remark-
able for their free and catholic spirit and
advanced principles than for the intellectual
power which various of them evince in deal-
ing with the present phases of religious
thought. They are not the mere impatient
protests of men chafing under the infiuence
of an outworn system, but they are philo-
sophical in temper, constructive and con-
servative in tehdency, and evince a masterly
grasp of the questions that are now tasking
the best minds of the age. There is no
timidity, no panic about imperiled faiths,
and the old errors are repudiated with de-
cision, but without harshness or bitterness.
It is ably shown how religion is the gainer
by being freed from the false beliefs that
have been so long associated with it, and so
widely mistaken for it.

These sermons are, moreover, remarka-
bly free from that' jealous antagonism to
Science which in these days characterizes so
much of our mediocre literature of theology.
Science is neither fiercely denounced as
leading to materialism, nor coldly compli-
mented and left to go her ways. Her re-
sults are cordially accepted as a great reve-
lation of truth, and of truth which is also
of the highest religious importance. In-
stead of shrinking with horror at the scien-
tific doctrine of development as something
which threatens to sweep away all religion,
these clear-sighted men recognize that this
doctrine is at the basis of religion itself.

560

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

They understand that all stereotyped faiths
and fixed creeds are doomed to be left be-
hind, while the spirit that animated them
must assume new forms under a widened
and advancing religious experience. It is
certainly a most remarkable result that out
of the Scottish Church, in 1880, should come
this weighty proclamation to the religious
world, that the great law of continuity and
evolution, as unfolded and established by
modern science, is to become a foundation
and bulwark of religious faith in the fu-
ture. " He that hath ears to hear, let him
hear."

We should be glad to reprint half these
sermons in the " Monthly," but, as this is
impossible, we give a few passages illustra-
tive of the standpoint of the book. The
Very Rev. John Caird, Principal of the Uni-
versity of Glasgow, has the first discourse,
on " Corporate Immortality," which is an
able plea for interest in " The things of
this life " as opposed to the overshadowing
claims of another world. He says :

It needs little reflection to perceive that the
whole order of things in which we live is con-
stracted not on the principle that we are sent
into this world merely to prepare for another,
or that the paramount aim and etfort of every
man should be to make ready for death and an
unknown existence beyond the grave. On the
contrary, in our own nature and iu the system
of things to which we belong, everything seems
to be devised on the principle that our interest
in the world and human affairs is not to termi-
nate at death. It is not, as false moralists would
have us believe, a mere illusion, a proof only of
the folly and vanity of man that we do not and
can not feel and act as if we were to have no
concern with this world the moment we quit it.
It is not a mere irrational impulse that moves us,
when, in the acquisition of knowledge, In the
labors of the statesman and legislator, in the
bouses we build, the trees we plant, the books
we write, the works of art we create, the schemes
of social amelioration m'c devise, the educational
institutions we organize and improve, we act
otherwise than we should do if our interest in
all earthly affairs were in a few brief years to
come to an end. It is not due to a universal
mistake that we work for a thousand endi*, the
accomplishment of which we shall not live to
see ; that the passions we feel are more intense,
the efforts we put forth immeasurably greater,
than if we were soon and for ever to have done
withit all. Even the desire of posthumous fame,
which has been the theme of a thousand sar-
casms and satirical moralizing?, the passion
that impels us to do deeds and create works
which men will be thinking of and honoring
when we are gone, does not rest on a mere trick

of false association, which your clever psychclo-
gist can explain so deftly, but is the silent, in-
eradicable testimony of our nature to the share
we have in the undying life of humanity.

Does any one press on me the thought that,
say what you will of the future, death to each of
us is near, and no ulterior hope can quell the
nearer anxiety as to what is to become of us,
and how we are to prepare for that fast-ap-
proaching, inevitable hour ? Then, I answer
finally that, to whatever world death introduce
you, the best conceivable preparation for it is to
labor for the highest good of the world in which
you live. Be the change which death brings
what it may, he who has spent his life in trying
to make this world better can never be unpre-
pared for another. If heaven is for the pure and
holy,if that which makes men good isthatwhich
best qualifies for heaven, what better discipline
in goodness can we conceive for a human spirit,
what more calculated to elicit and develop its
highest affections and energies, than to live and
labor for our brother's welfare? To find our
deepest joy, not in the delights of sense, nor in
the gratification of personal ambition, nor even
in the serene pursuits of culture and science,
nay, not even in seeking the safety of our own
souls, but in striving for the highest good of
those who are dear to our Father in heaven, and
the moral and spiritual redemption of that world
for which the Sou of God lived and died— say,
can a nobler school of goodness be discovered
than this ? Where shall love and sympathy and
beneficence find ampler training, or patience,
i courage, dauntless devotion, nobler opportuni-
I ties of exercise than in the war with evil ?

I The Rev. Dr. Ferguson, of Strathblane,
has a powerful discourse on " Law and Mir-
acle," in which he says :

Christianity, then, is no rigid system of dog-
ma, or of ecclesiastical forms elaborated long
ago and incapable of growth or change. It is
rather a living organism, drawing nourishment
to itself from every side, and affected by the life-
pulsations of every age. Look, for instance,
what a vast difference between Christianity in
the first and in the nineteenth century ! Then
it was struggling for existence between Judaism
on the one hand and paganism on the other;
now it has conquered its position, and extorts
recognititm at least from its bitterest opponents.
It has revolutionized the whole structure of so-
ciety, and formed manners and customs and
habits of thought.

Of the effects produced by this habit of sift-
ing and winnowing which goes on in history,
we have a good example in the doctiine of mir-
acle. In our own day that doctrine does not oc-
cupy the prominent position it formerly had. It
has fallen into the background, and lost its apol-
ogetic value ; but, at the same time, its actual
relations to the circle of Christian truth have
been made clear. In the course of last century,
on the contrai-y, the sharpest attacks which
Christianity had to sustain were directed against

LITERARY NOTICES.

561

this side. The contest raged round the credibil-
ity or incredibility of miracle, as if the whole of
revelation depended upon the issue. In reality,
however, no vital point of revelation was endan-
gered. It was an affair of outposts altogether,
and the work so energetically assaulted and de-
feuded had little importance for the citadel in
the rear. Neither the philosopher who argued
against nor the divine who contended for miracle
was dealing with the essence of Christianity,
and the complete triumph of either would have
made little change. At the worst, a dogma of
the Church would have been overthrown ; but
the dogmas of the Church and the religion of
Christ are not synonymous terms.

In enumerating the various causes which
have produced a new " climate of opinion "
iu relation to miracles, Dr. Ferguson says :

First of all, there is the scientific conception
of the universality of law. This may truly be
said to be the revelation of our own age, not in
the sense that it was unknown to our predeces-
sors, but that in the present day the conception
has been eo extended and generalized as to
dwarf its former proportions. It has passed out
of the laboratory of science into the common
possession of men, and is now one of the great
truths 80 firmly established that they become
truisms. We never stop to re.ason about them,
and, were any one rash enough to call them iu
question, we should not give him even a patient
hearing. Moreover, the idea of law is not to be
confined to the material world, with its inde-
structible treasury of force. It must be carried
over into the world of minrl, and be seen at
work there also, not indeed with the rigidity of
physical law, but within the large limits which
freedom of thought and action demands. It is
to he traced in the advance of civilization, in the
development of history, in the growth of reli-
gion, in relations such as those between morals
and art, between society and government, be-
tween national life and literature. Now, it is
not difflcult to see how such a conception must
indispose men under its influence to look favor-
ably upon miracle. In the idea of order every-
where supreme, calm, eternal, there is a sub-
limity which fills their imagination and stimu-
lates their intellect. Any interruption of its
uniform course, any breach of continuity, would
be a blemish in the picture, and not an addition-
al charm— would be, indeed, a positive pain to
thought, and, instead of disposing the mind to
reverence, would fill it with confusion and doubt.

The Rev. Professor Knight, of St. An-
drews, has a sermon of great interest and
moment on " The Continuity and Develop-
ment of Religion," in which he says :

It does not, therefore, follow that, if we can
explain the origin of a particular belief by trac-
ing its parentage, and finding that it has sprung
from inferior elements, the validity of the belief
itself is in the slightest degree imperiled. Nay,
it is indisputable that, if the human mind has
VOL. XTIII. — 36

grown at all, its religious convictions— like
everything else belonging to it— must have
changed. Our remote ancestors could not pos-
sibly have had the same religion as ourselves,
any more than they could have had the same
physiognomy, the same social customs, or the
same language. Thus, the intuitions of subse-
quent ages must necessarily have become keen-
er and clearer, at once more rational and more
spiritual, than the instincts of primeval days ;
the clearness, the intelligence, and the spiritual-
ity being due to a vast number of conspiring
causes. And, if the opinions and the practices
of the race thus change, the change is due to no
accident or caprice, but to the ordinary pro-
cesses of natural law. It can not be otherwise ;
because, since no human belief springs up mi-
raculously, none can be maintained in the form
in which it arises for any length of lime. Thus,
the "increasing purpose" of the ages must in-
evitably bring to the front fresh modifications of
belief. If our theologies have all grown out of
something very different, why should we fear
their continued growth? Why should any ra-
tional theist dread the future expansion of the-
istic belief? If it has grown, it must continue
to grow, and many of its existing phases must
disappear. The controversies of our time are
tlie phases of its evolution. But is it now so
very perfect that we would wish it to remain
stationary at its present point 01 development ?
That its present phases should be permanent ?
May we not rather rejoice that " these all shall
■wax old as a garment," and that, " as a vesture,
they shall be changed" ; while the Object— of
which they are the interpretation, or which they
try to represent— endures, and of its immortality
there shall be no end ? It may even be affirmed
that one of the best features in every human be-
lief is its elasticity ; that one si^n of its vitality
is its amenability to change. Were it irrevoca-
bly fixed, it would have some secret affinity with
death and the grave. Paradoxical, therefore, as
it may seem, if religion he among the things
that can not be shaken, it must change. Its
forms must die that its spirit may live ; and the
condition of the permanence of the latter is the
perpetual vicissitude of the former. Curious it
is that some of its most ardent advocates can
not recognize it under a new dress, that even its
disciples misconstrue it when it changes its
raiment. They think it a foe if it is differently
appareled. But how often in all human contro-
versy the combatants are merely speaking dif-
ferent dialects while they mean the same thing 1
But, granting that the opinion of the world is an
organic whole, that all human conviction— with
its present variety and complexity— has grown
out of very lowly roots, and that our most sacred
beliefs have emerged from others that are differ-
ent, a further and a far more important ques-
tion lies behind this admission. It is this: How
are we to interpret the whole series from begin-
ning to end ? It is not enough to say that there
has been progress ; what meaning are we to at-
tach to the term procress ? Are we to think of
it as simple succession and accumulation, the
mere addition of new links to a chain of devel-

562

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

opment? We know that men "rise on step-
ping-stones of their dead selves to higiier
ihinijs," and that the "iudlvidual withers, while
the race is more and more" ; but do the individ-
uals and their beliefs only resemble beads wliich
have been strung,' on a thread of endles^sly devel-
oping succession? What has the race been do-
ing during all this onward process of develop-
ment? And has it at every stage been the
victim of continuous illusion ? Or has it all the
while been in the closest contact with Reality,
a reality which it partially understands, and in-
terprets to good purpose? In other words, is
the history of religious ideas merely the record
of attempts made by men to project their own
image outward, to throw their thought around
an impalpable object which it has never yet been
able to grasp? Or is it the story of successive
efforts, more and more successful, to explain a
reality which transcends it, but to which it
stands in a definite and ascertainable relation ?
Do the gropings of experience in the matters
of religion record a long and weary search, with
no discovery rewarding it ? Or are they the ef-
forts of humau apprehension to realize the di-
vine, to get at the " lastclearelements of things,"
with disclosure at every stage, and a steady ap-
proach to the goal which is continually sought
and approximately reached ? I think it is past
controversy that if the religions education of
the human race has been a purely subjective
process, if it has been merely an upward ten-
dency of aspiration, it is now no nearer its goal
than ever it was. If we can only approach the
Infinite by the journeyings of finite thought or
throuiih sii;h8 and cries of aspiration, the jour-
ney that way is endless, and the end is nowhere
visible. But may we not find the object every-
where? May not the discovery have been ns
continuou? as the search, and the two be simul-
taneous now ? I think that we may affirm that
the human race has lived in the light of a never-
ceasina: apocalypse, growing clearer through the
ages, but never absent from the world since the
first age began.

Modern Thinkers : Principally upon Social
Science. What they Think, and why.
By Van Buren Denslow, LL. D. With
an Introduction by Robert tt. Ingersoll.
With Eicht Portraits. Chicago: Bel-
ford, Clark & Co. Pp. 384.

This volume consists of a series of brief
personal sketches of several of the leading
thinkers of modern times, together with
critical disquisitions on their labors, influ-
ence, and character. The thinkers selected
for study are all of the aggressive or revo-
lutionary type, and they were chosen further-
more because of the more or less intimate
bearing of their advanced ideas on the sub-
ject of social science. Three Englishmen,
Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham, and Her-

bert Spencer; two Frenchmen, August
Comte and Charles Fourier; a Swede,
Emanuel Swedeiiborg; a German, Ernst
Haeckel ; and an American, Thomas Paine
— are the characters selected for examina-
tion.

The author has a brief preface explain-
ing the origin of his book, and offering
some preliminary suggestions regarding its
method and purpose. The essays were
written for the "Chicago Times," and at
the suggestion of its editor they were first
published in that newspaper. The intelli-
gent interest elicited by them has induced
the author to bring them out in this more
permanent form. It was an excellent idea,
and does credit to the editorial sagacity and
liberality of Mr. Storey. People are un-
doubtedly more and more confining them-
selves to the reading furnished by news-
papers, and we see no reason why, under the
pretext that their business is the promulga-
tion of news, the daily press should confine
itself exclusively to the scattering of in-
formation on ephemeral and frivolous sub-
jects.

Colonel Robert J. Ingersoll contributes
a spicy introduction to the volume, briefly
presenting his views of the various charac-
ters it deals with, and pointedly reillustrat-
ing his well-known anti-theological position.
In this, however, he is in entire harmony
with the spirit of the volume, which is char-
acterized throughout by hostility to every-
thing theological, and abounds in unsparing
invectives against the Church, the priest-
hood, and the Christian gospel. The work
is written in a free, vivacious, and some-
what dashing style, and is eminently read-
able. The mode of treating the subjects is
independent, sensational, and bold. Much
of its exposition is instructive, evincing
good preparation; and much of it will be
unsatisfactory to those who prize deliber-
ate and unprejudiced work. As a piece of
manufacture, the volume itself is no credit
to Chicago.

The essay that has most interested us is
on the American subject, Thomas Paine,
whom the author regards as the " represent-
ative critic, destroyer, and revolutionist of

his period He was gifted, as no man ever

was before or since, with the fatal and un-
happy faculty of suppressing the good and

LITERARY NOTICES.

563

exaggerating the ill in the men upon whose
conduct he was called to comment, and
in the institutions he aimed to overturn."
Dr. Denslow makes out a specious case for
Paine as the author of the " Letters of Ju-
nius " ; but Mr. Ingersoll interposes to pro-
tect the great freethinker against this scan-
dalous imputation, and protests that Paine
" was neither a coward, a calumniator, nor
a sneak," and he gives a few reasons that
are weighty against the hypothesis that
Paine was the author of these celebra'ted
letters.

Dr. Denslow maintains, with more show
of reason, that he wrote the " Declaration
of Independence," and Mr. Ingersoll is in-
clined to think that this claim is well found-
ed. Decisive reasons are given why Jef-
ferson could not have been its author, and
there is much forcible evidence that Paine
was the only man who could have done it.
The following passages will afford a good
illustration of our author's manner of deal-
ing with his topics, and also sum up his es-
timate of Mr. Paine :

But, enough i The Declaratiou of ludepen-
dence must hereafter be construed as a fabric
whose warp and woof were Thomas Paine's. It
was admirably adapted, as a revolutionary pro-
nunciamiento, to Are the colonial heart to a war
for separation which, though placed on utterly
inadequate and untenable grounds by that Dec-
laration, yet had good grounds which are not
mentioned in it. Those were, simply, that not
having any of the materials for an aristocracy
in this country, we could not coalesce into one
government with Great Britain, whose govern-
ment was aristocratic. If we had been permit-
ted to elect members to her House of Commons,
what should we have sent to her House of Lords ?
The alleged grievance of taxation to reimburse
the British Treasury for expenses incurred in
our defense was in no sense a money grievance.
The money having been expended for our bene-
fit, it was our duty to pay it. There could sure-
ly be no duty resting on Londoners or York-
shiremen to pay the expenses of Montgomery's
march to Quebec or Braddock's to Pittsburgh.
The real difficulty was, that we needed a sov-
ereign government, and could not be admitted
into the British one, because that was aristo-
cratic and we had no aristocracy. This was not
a grievance, but it was a good cause for na-
tional separation. The Declaration, like many
popular documents, substituted sentiment for
sense, passion for wisdom, fiction and rhetoric
for history and fact, concealed the double mer-
its of the case and helped on the war, in the
same way that the stupidity of George III did. |

We may now fairly estimate Thomas Paine ]
in his two most marked characters, as a master 1

of rhetorical invective and as a revolutionist ;
for, after attributing to him the authorship both
of "Junius " and of the Declaration of Indepen-
dence, as well as "Common Sense," "The Cri-
sis," and '• The Rights of Man," he still subsides
into the category of brilliant sensational agita-
tors endowed with a considerable force of pro-
phetic insight, who fell far short of the qualifica-
tions essential to a statesman, or even of the ap-
preciation of what statesmanship is. There can
be no statesmanship without cool-headed can-
dor, judicial calmness, capacity for guarded,
just, and moderate statement, which will bear
the test of time, perfect fairness toward adver-
saries, gratitude toward supporters, and a capa-
city for harmonizing adverse or conflicting ele-
ments by practicing, in non-essentials, unity,
and in essentials, charity. Webster, Clay, Cal-
houn, Hamilton, Madison, Washington, and
Franklin possessed these qualities, but Paine,
the scathing and withering accuser, lacked
them all. If it be a galling and unbearable tyr-
anny for a conscientious man, with a tongue
that has an infinite capacity for accusation, and
none for pardon, to go about, like a section of
the day of judgment, applying to every one who
stands in his way such exacting and ideal testa
and standards of virtue that human nature,
which seems very tolerable to those who are
looking at it without the blasting motive, is
foredoomed by it to certain damnation and in-
famy, then Paine was a species of moral tyrant,
always demanding the impossible of others.
Notwithstanding his profession and belief that
he was an apostle of freedom, Paine's funda-
mental belief in politics was that the govern-
ment was always wrong, that it was inherently
an evil ; that the less there was of it the better,
but that, however reduced in dimensions, what-
ever should be left of it would still be bad by
reason of its being government. It was as wrong
when vested in Washington as in George III, and
he had good reason to know that it was as wrong
when wielded by Robespierre as when presided
over by Louis XVI. On the contrary, Paine imag-
ined that the aggregated ignorance and incapaci-
ty of all the vast unskilled millions who had been
pushed out of the work of government by the
superior force and cunning of those in power
were the actual repository of political wisdom
and purity. The iceberg needed only turning
over. He began with the creed, which he re-
tained to his death, that government was not
an affViir of skill, but merely of honesty ; not a
problem of difficulty, but merely of good inten-
tions. Holding these views, it followed that if
it could in some way be got out of the hands of
the skilled and interested few who were edu-
cated to it, and had made a profit out of it, into
the hands of the unskilled and disinterested
masses, who were not educated to it. and who,
he assumed, would not seek to make a profit out
of it, then good government would be perfectly
secured. The inverted iceberg would bloom
into an enchanted island, melodious with the
songs of biids and mellifluous with the scent
of floners. It did not occur to him that the
hereditary principle in government might sup-

564

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ply permanency, nationality, and non-partisan-
ehip to the executive, while an elected execu-
tive would always be the mere chief of a party
and never the head of a nation ; or that the
bungliui? charlatanism of the unskilled democ-
racy^might result iu misgovernment, waste, des-
potism, and passionate folly. So little did he
comprehend both sides of the question, that, in
• The Eights of Man," he predicted that within
ten years the monarchical and aristocratic prin-
ciples would have disappeared from all enlight-
ened governments of Europe. The instant his
supposed government of the people had got un-
der way in America, Paine immediately saw iu
it an oligarchy in power, new in personality,
but not materially different in meanness and
avarice.

The Scientific Basis of Spiritualism. By
Epes Sargent. Boston : Colby & Rich.
Pp. 372. Price, $1.50.
This work, copyrighted in 1880, has but
just appeared, but siace its publication its
versatile author has passed away. Mr.
Sargent was bom in 1812, studied in Har-
vard College, and early became an editor in
Boston. He pursued this vocation awhile
in New York, and then again resumed it in
Boston. He edited various popular " Speak-
ers " " Readers," and rhetorical books for
the schools, and wrote many plays both comi-
cal and tragical. He also wrote "Life of
Henry Clay," a volume of poems, an aboli-
tion book,"and " Arctic Adventures." That
he should have dipped into spiritualism was
but natural with his love of diversified lit-
erary occupation ; and so, a dozen years ago,
he printed " Planchette, or the Despair of
Science," and closed his career with the pro-
duction of the volume now before us.

As was to be expected, the work is one
of considerable literary merit, well digested,
attractively written, and made lively by a
pervading spirit of criticism. If we may be
allowed the paradoxical suggestion, Mr. Sar-
gent goes the " whole hog " in spiritualism.
He believes it all, sticks at nothing, and slash-
es right and left at everybody who objects
to it. He claims to be on the winning side,
and says that in the last forty years spirit-
ualism has gained twenty million adherents.
One would think that with this he might
"rest and be thankful," but it does not
satisfy him. It seems that, among these
twenty million believers, the scientific men
generally are not to be found, and it is
this fact which caused Mr. Sargent to write
his book. He thinks the twenty million

people of all sorts, who need not be further
characterized, are right, and that the scien-
tific men — the sole class whose business it
is to search out the truths of nature — are
wrong; and it is his object to show that
spiritualism has just as much a valid scien-
tific foundation as any of the recognized and
established branches of science. We shall
not undertake to answer his arguments, if
such they may be called, but will only ob-
serve, as we have repeatedly done before in
this connection, that the most fundamental
of all distinctions is confused throughout
the work. The supernatural, or that w^hich
by its very term is above and beyond nature,
is mixed up and confounded with nature
itself, and spiritualism is declared to be " a
purely natural fact." Yet, if this doctrine
had twenty times twenty million adherents,
science could not accept it, because it takes
for its object of investigation the natural as
opposed to the supernatural. In so far as
alleged " spiritualism " involves human phe-
nomena, it is of course within the purview
of science, and scientific men will be cer-
tain to take these phenomena up in their
own way and in their own time. But they
must be allowed to mark out their own work,
and the problem as presented by the twenty
million does not come in a shape suitable to
be dealt with by rigorous scientific methods.
The men of science begin by doubting, and
cultivating this state of mind as a virtue ;
they continue to doubt until evidence extorts
acquiescence, while assent even then goes
no further than to things regarded as actual-
ly proved ; the " twenty million," on the
contrary, begin by believing, hold this state
of mind to be a virtue, and go on believing
without much perplexing themselves over
questions of evidence. To them the phrase
" the scientific basis of the super-scientific "
would involve no contradiction.

Progress and Poverty; an Inquiry into
the Cause of Industrial Depressions and
of Increase of Want with Increase of
Wealth: The Remedy. By Henry
George. New York: D. Appleton &
Co. Pp. 512. Cheap edition, with a
new preface, in paper cover. Price,
75 cents.

We are glad to announce the appearance
of a cheap popular edition of this suggestive
book, by which it will be made accessible

LITERARY NOTICES.

565

to many who could not have secured it in
its previous form. We are happy to note,
further, that it has proved a very cousid-
erable success. Four editions have been
called for in this country ; the Germans are
printing a translation in parts ; it is dis-
cussed in French and Italian periodicals ;
and an English edition is in preparation.
The work is everywhere looked upon as an
important contribution to political economy,
and as an eloquent and vigorous discussion
of imminent social problems. It is a whole-
some sign of the growing liberality of the
times that a work should be so cordially re-
ceived and highly appreciated, while at the
same time there is general and decisive dis-
sent from its main conclusions. It is read
and enjoyed for its humane spirit and the
novelty and independence of its views ; but
we do not observe that Mr. George makes
disciples who endorse his leading and dis-
tinctive doctrines. It is, however, admitted
that he has contributed to the elucidation of
political economy by his adverse criticism
of prevailing opinions on that subject ; and
it is certainly no small merit to have done
something for the advancement of this in-
quiry, and the clearing up of important
economical questions.

Medical Heresies historically consid-
ered. A Series of Critical Essays on the
Origin and Evolution of Sectarian iledi-
' cine, embracing a Special Sketch and Re-
view of Homoeopathy, Past and Present.
By GoxsALvo C. Smythe, A. M., M. D.,
Professor of the Practice of Medicine,
Central College of Physicians and Sur-
geons, Indianapolis. Philadelphia : Pres-
ley Blakiston. Pp. 228. Price, |1.25.

It was not the author's object in this
volume to write a history of medicine, but
simply to sketch the rise and fall of the
different schools, sects, or systems of medi-
cine, from the earliest historical period down
to some of the more prominent heresies of
the present day. The author writes with
brevity, and does not enter into the consid-
eration of the contemporaneous systems of
philosophy or theology with which medicine
in former times has been strangely and in-
consistently commingled. All topics are also
avoided which are merely of interest to the
medical antiquarian. The author says in his
preface : " My second object is to furnish the
regular profession with some much-needed

information in regard to homoeopathy. Few
busy practitioners have the time or inclina-
tion to investigate the claims of this school,
and, although they are brought iu contact
with it daily, know little or nothing of its real
principles. I have presented the principles
of this school fairly, quoting the exact words
of its founders at the expense of some repe-
tition, in order that I might not be accused
of misrepresentation. The discussion of
these principles has been conducted from a
scientific standpoint, and without ridicule,
thus showing of what homoeopathy consisted
originally ; and by quotations from the cur-
rent literature of the school, with discussions
thereon, showing what it is now. It is con-
fidently believed that the condensed infor-
mation contained in this little book will not
be altogether without interest to the pro-
fession."

Passages from the Prose Writings op
Matthew Arnold. New York : Mac-
millan & Co. Pp. 333. Price, $1.50.

Not only will the admirers of Matthew
Arnold be gratified by this varied collection
of his best utterances, but many, who are
not familiar with or do not possess his
works, will be glad of a representative vol-
ume like this, in which they can get some
acquaintance with the thought of the emi-
nent modern apostle of the gospel of
" sweetness and light." The selections are
systematic, being arranged under the heads
of — I. Literature ; II. Politics and Society ;
and III. Philosophy and Religion ; and they
have been collected with good judgment,
and will prove very suggestive and gratify-
ing to all cultivated readers.

The Jocrnal of Physiology. Edited by
Michael Foster, M. D., F. R. S., of Trin-
ity College, Cambridge. Assisted in
England by Drs. Gamgee, Rutherford,
and Burdon-Sanderson ; and in the Uni-
ted States by Drs. Bowditch, Martin, and
Wood. New York : Macmillan & Co.
No. 1, Vol. III.

We call renewed attention to this ad-
mirable periodical, the only one in English
thoroughly devoted to original physiologi-
cal research. The progress in the arts of
physiological experimentation and the un-
tiring assiduity of the laborers in this field
are fruitful of important results which are

566

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

both of general interest as extensions of
scientific knowledge and of special moment
to all the well-qualified members of the
medical profession. The publication de-
serves to be liberally sustained.

Thk Beautiful and the Sublime. An Anal-
ysis of these Emotions, and a Determi-
nation of the Objectivity of Beauty. By
John Steinfort Kedney. New York :
G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 214. Price,
$1.25.

This is not a text -book on aesthetics,
but an attempt to deal with the underlying
philosophy of the subject. Physical sci-
ence, metaphysics, and theology profess to
be no more dealt with than is necessary for
the author's logical purpose. His chief
claims are on the psychologic and the ethic
side, and there he thinks he has made ad-
ditions to the treatment of the subject. He
does not attempt to deal formally with art
or art criticism, but holds that his views
may be carried out in application to the
several departments of architecture, sculp-
ture, painting, music, literature, oratory,
poetry, and histrionics. The author mod-
estly says in his preface : " While my
treatise is intended, primarily, as a contri-
bution to the philosophy of the science, I
have endeavored to cast it in such form and
style as to interest all intelligent readers,
who, if they are patient over some parts of
the work, may find it, elsewhere, and on
the whole, compensatory."

A New School Physiology. By Richard
J. Dunglison, A.m., M. D. 119 En-
gravings. Philadelphia : Porter k Coates.
Pp. 314. Price, 81.50.

This school-book has several things to
commend it : it is neatly printed, it is ele-
gantly illustrated, it carries an eminent
name on its title-page as author, and is,
consequently, we have no doubt, trust-
worthy in its statements ; if, therefore, the
publishers can not make a good thing out of
it, it will be their fault. The drawback of
the book is, that its author seems to know
only physiology, while some knowledge of
the growing mind is necessary to make a
good book of science for educational pur-
poses. It is a question-and-answer book
" of the old type," to be learned by memory
by young people. As this class embraces

pupils of all grades, the book is suited to no
special grade, and will be equally used to
begin with, to continue with, and to finish
with. This will be again favorable to its
sale, but unfits it for intelligent educational
use.

Diphtheria : Its Cause, Nature, and Treat-
. ment. By RoLLiN R. Gregg, M. D.
Pp. 137. Price, $1.50.

On the title-page of this book is printed
the following, which are probably funda-
mental propositions maintained in the vol-
ume : " Spherical Bacteria, or Micrococci of
Diphtheria, shown to be only Molecular
Granules of Fibrin. Rod -like Bacteria,
Bacterian termo, shown to be Molecular
Granules of Fibrin, united into Fibrils, or
fine thread-like prolongations."

The book is one that it belongs to the
medical profession to judge of.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Cases treated by the Lister Method. Report-
ed to the Portland Clinical Society by Frederick
H. Gerrish, M.D. Portland, 1880. Pp. 15.

The Anarchist. Socialistic-Revolutionary Re-
view. Edited and publishd by Dr. Nathan Ganz.
Boston, January, 1881. Monthly. Pp. %i. 60
cents a year.

Vennor's Almanac and Weather Record for
1880-81. New York: American News Compa-
ny. Pp. 84. 25 cents.

Annals of the New York Academy of Sci-
ences. Vol. I. Nos. 11, 12, March, and No. 13,
April. 1880. New York : Published for the Acad-
emy.

The Constitution of the Tartrates of Anti-
mony. By Professor F. W. Clarke and Helena
Stallo. Reprint from "American ChemicalJour-
nal." Pp. 13.

Reports of the Iowa Weather Service for
the Twelve Months of 1S78. and January, Feb-
ruary, March, and April, 1879. By Dr. Gustavus
Hinrichs. Des Moines, 1880.

Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Edited
by Georsje Grove, D. C. L. Part XII, Palestrina
to Plain" Song. London and New York : Mac-
millau & Co. 1880. Issued in quarterly parts,
at $1.

Report on the Culture of the Sugar-Beet and
the Manufacture of Sugar therefrom in France
and the United States. By William McMurtrie,
Ph D. Washington: Government Priuting-Of-
flce. 1880. With Maps. Pp. 294.

A Treatise on the Injurious and Beneficial
Insects found on the Orange-Trees of Florida.
By William H. Ashmead. Jacksonville, Fla.
1S80. Illustrated. Pp. 78.

The Food of Fishes. By S. A. Forbes. Re-
print from Bulletin No. 3. Illustrated. State
Laboratory of Natural History. Pp. 60.

On the Present Condition of Musical Pitch
in Boston and Vicinity. By Charles R. Cross
and William T. Miller. Reprint from the " Amer-
ican Journal of Otology," October, 1880. Pp. 16.

The Coming Revelation : Its Principles. St.
Louis, 1878. Pp. 40.

POPULAR MISCELLANY

567

The Abdominal Method of Sinpring and
Breathing as a Cause of Female Weakness.
By Clifton E. Wins, M.D. Boston. Pp.8.

Abridgment of the Nautical Almanac for 1881.
By Riggs & Brother, Philadelphia. Pp. 150.
25 cents.

The Geological and Natural History Survey
of Minnesota. Eighth Annual Report, for 1879.
By N. H. Wiuchell. Illustrated. St. Paul, 1880.
Pp. 183.

Drainage for Health, or Easy Lessons in San-
itary Science. By Joseph Wilson, M. D. Phila-
delphia: Presley Blaliiston. 1881. Pp.68. $1.

Report of the United States Fish Commis-
sioner for 1878. Washington : Government
Printing-office. 1880. Pp. 988.

Introduction to the Study of Indian Lan-
gua,"-e8. With Words. Phrases, and Sentences
to be collected. By J. W. P.)well. Washing-
ton : Government Printing-Offlce. With Maps.
1880. Pp. 328.

James Smithson and his Bequest. By Wil-
liam J. Rhees. Washington: Published by the
Smithsonian Institution. Illustrated. 1880. Pp.
159.

Sketches and Reminiscences of the Radical
Club of Chestnut Street, Boston. Edited by
Mrs. John T. Sargent. Boston : J. R. Osgood &
Co. 1880. Pp. 418. $2.

The Logic of Christian Evidences. By G.
Frederick Wright. Andover : Warren F. Dra-
per. 1880. Pp.312. $1.50.

Extracts from Chordal's Letter. American
Machinists' Publishing Company. New York,
1880. Pp.320. $1.50.

Elementary Projection Drawing. By S. Ed-
ward Warren, C. E. New York : John Wiley
& Sons. Twenty-four Plates. 1880. Pp. 162.
$1.50.

A Text-Book of Elementary Mechanics. By
Edward S. Dana. New York : John Wiley &
Sons. 18bl. Pp.291. $1.50.

The Young Folks' Cyclopsedia of Persons and
Places. Illustrated. By John D, Champlin, Jr.
New York: Henry Holt & Co. 1881. Pp. 936.
$3.50.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

The Age of tbe Trenton Gravels,— The

age of the gravel in which flint implements
have been found at Trenton, New Jersey, is
carefully discussed by Mr. Henry- Carvill
Lewis, in a paper read by him before the
Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadel-
phia. Mr. Lewis divides the surface for-
mations of southeastern Pennsylvania into
five clays and four gravels, of which nine
deposits the Trenton gravel, as he calls the
implement-bearing formation, is, except the
recent alluvium, the most recent. At Phil-
adelphia it is called the river-gravel and
sand, and contains pebbles which are made
exclusively from the rocks forming the up-
per valley of the Delaware River, and which
have the flat shape characteristic of all true
river-gravels. It is confined to the imme-
diate vicinity of the river, and has been

traced as far up as the Water-Gap. Through-
out its whole course it lies within a channel
previously excavated through the bowlder-
bearing Philadelphia brick-clay and its red
gravel, which have been shown to belong to
the Champlain epoch. It is therefore later
than those formations. The deposit is spread
out to its greatest extent at Trenton, where
the long, narrow valley of the Delaware,
with its precipitous banks and continuous
downward slope, opens out into the wide,
alluvial plain at a lower level. The fluvia-
tile character of this gravel is shown by
evidence of various characters, as by the
exposures of the " flow-and-plunge struc-
ture," in which the layers are seen to dip
up-stream, as would be expected to result
from the action of downward-flowing wa-
ter, while the tertiary gravels show in their
layers, dipping southeast, evidence of their
deposition by incoming oceanic tides. It
frequently, also, instead of lying in a flat
plain, forms banks with a higher ground
close to the present river-chainnel, and slop-
ing down toward the ancient bank, as often
takes place according to the laws of river
deposits. The formation can not, however,
have been made under the operation of any
such flood as has been known within the
historical epoch, for no such flood has sup-
plied the amount of water which would be
required. It also bears marks of ice-action.
It may then be ascribed to a glacier ; not to
the great glacier of the glacial period, for
that glacier at its melting deposited the
much older brick-clay and red gravel, but
to another more recent glacier whose flood
flowed through a channel excavated in the
deposits of the first glacial period. This
second glacier was much smaller than the
first, had its southern extremity confined to
the valley, and probably corresponded with
the age which European geologists style
the Reindeer period. From the fact that
the palaeoliths found here are similar to the
stone implements found among the Esqui-
maux, Mr. Lewis thinks that they may be
the relics of an Esquimau race who once
lived in the valley, and he suggests the Es-
quimau period as a suitable name for their
age. Finally, he sums up his conclusions as
follows: "1. That the Trenton gravel, the
only gravel in which implements occur, is a
true river deposit of post-glacial ago, and

568

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the most recent of all the gravels of the Del-
aware Valley. 2. That the palajoHths found
in it really belong to and are a part of the
gravel, and that they indicate the existence
of man in a rude state at a time when the
flooded rivci" flowed on top of this gravel.
3. That the data do not necessarily prove,
geologically considered, an extreme antiquity
of man in Eastern America."

Prehistoric Mining in North Carolina.

— Mining for mica has become a profitable
pursuit in North Carolina. It is a curious
fact that the best mines are located upon
sites which afford evidence of having been
worked in prehistoric times, and are called
there "old diggings." Most of the old
works probably belonged to the mound-
builders, but a tradition coming down from
the Indians ascribes some of them to white
men. The tradition has recently been con-
firmed by the discovery of old implements
of iron in a prehistoric shaft in Macon
County, which are fully described and fig-
ured by Mr. F. W. Simonds, in the " Ameri-
can Naturalist." The implements were
found in the rubbish which had accumu-
lated within the shaft, between thirty-five
and fifty feet below the surface, and consist
of an axe of a pattern now rarely met with,
light in weight, and having on the blade a
brand which has been nearly effaced by
erosion ; two articles which were evidently
gudgeons of a windlass, with heads pronged
for the insertion of levers, pointed at the
ends, so that they could be driven into a
wooden roller, and having the lower part of
the shank squared to prevent their turning
in the wood, and the upper part round so as
to serve as an axle for the roller; and a
wedge with battered head. All were of
wrought iron, and had probably been worn
out and thrown away. Mr. Simonds sug-
gests that they are the relics of a party of
Spaniards who left one of the ancient colo-
nies or expeditions on a " prospecting tour "
and tried the mines. Less palpable evi-
dences of more skillful mining than that of
any aborigines have been found in other
shafts.

The Great Glacier of the Yellowstone.

— Professor Archibald Geikie, Director of
the Geological Survey of Scotland, gives in I

the " American Naturalist " an interesting
notice, based on his personal observations,
of the ancient glaciers of the Kocky Moun-
tains. He refers to the absence of signs of
glacial action in the region between the
Missouri Valley and the Sierra Nevada,
which has been mentioned by American
geologists, and regards it as the result
chiefly of meteorological conditions. Then,
having spoken well of the accounts given
of the glaciers of the mountains by our
geologists, he records his own observations
of them. Entering the Yellowstone Valley
from Fort Ellis, a little above the first
canon, he observed a prominent rock like a
cottage, and weighing more than a hundred
and fifty tons, lying, like other smaller errat-
ics around it, on crescent-shaped mounds —
moraine-heaps — in the midst of the alluvial
plain. The broad valley was full of moraine-
stuff. Here, he observes, was a great gla-
cier moving northward, "while in British
Columbia, on a parallel only about two
hundred and fifty miles farther north, there
was a massive ice-sheet moving southward.
It will be a point of no little interest to
trace these two converging ice-streams to-
ward each other." In ascending the Yel-
lowstone Valley toward the National Park,
scattered moraine - mounds and abundant
transported blocks continue to denote the
course and size of the former glacier. The
intense glaciation of the second cafion was
a surprise. The rocky knobs at the lower
entrance of the great ravine were as per-
fectly smooth, polished, and striated as the
rocks at the margin of any Swiss or Nor-
wegian glacier, and the steep sides of the
canon had been ground and striated in the
same way, to the height of certainly not less
than eight hundred feet. Above the second
canon the moraine - heaps become more
abundant and tumultuous, here and there
inclosing small lakes ; and they were found
also, with erratics, in the tributary valley's.
The trail from the Mammoth Springs by
Blacktail Deer Creek, over to the Yellow-
stone, leads across mounds of glacial dihris
among which huge bowlders of granite and
granitoid gneiss are conspicuous. Some
parts of the route present long, smooth
slopes, dotted with bowlders precisely like
some Scottish bowlder-clay moors. These
signs of glaciation can be traced up to and

P OP ULAR MIS CELL ANY.

569

across the water-shed leading over to the
Yellowstone Valley, and " they prove beyond
question that not only was that valley filled
up with ice, but that the glacier plowed
over the ridge one thousand feet above the
valley-bottom and passed into the country
lying to the westward." Professor Geikie
made an estimate of the thickness of the
ice, from the indications afforded by the
position of the highest erratics which he
observed on the slopes of Mount Washburn,
from which he concludes that it could not
have been less than sixteen hundred and
fifty, and was probably at least nineteen
hundred feet. It is clear to him, from all
the evidence, that the ice of the Yellowstone
Valley was more than that of a more local
or valley glacier. It was massive enough
to fill up the main valley and override the
surrounding hills, crossing minor water-
sheds and spreading into adjacent drainage
basins ; and he believes it may be eventu-
ally shown that the snow-fields of the Wind
River and Teton ranges were so extensive
that their ice-rivers streamed northward
across the buried water-shed, and poured
into the Yellowstone. An exploration of
the country lying in the Yellowstone Valley,
northward into the area of northern glacia-
tion within the British line, is desirable to
show whether there was any connection
between the glaciers of the Rocky Moun-
tains and the great northern ice-sheet, and
whether the latter, as it moved dawn the
valley of the Missouri, was swelled by the
accession of ice-streams from the moun-
tains.

Structural Peculiarities of the Ed. —

Frank Buckland gives an interesting descrip-
tion of the curious yet simple apparatus by
means of which the eel is able to keep his
gills moist without taking in fresh water,
and thereby to live a long time out of water
and travel on land for a considerable dis-
tance. Close to the pectoral fin of the eel
is a slit which acts as a valve, connecting
with a large cavity inside of which are the
gills. This cavity the eel has the power of
filling with water, and of keeping within it a
supply which prevents the gill-fibers from
adhering together so as to stop respiration.
It is surrounded by a loose membrane, and
is filled and emptied by means of a curious

bit of mechanism which is thus described :
" A framework of very delicate bones, each
bone connected with its neighbor by an clas-
tic membrane of the consistency of gold-
beater's-skin, forms a fan-shaped covering
over the gills ; its action is very like, if not
the same as, the action of an umbrella.
When the eel wishes to take in his water-
supply, he, as it were, opens his umbrella-
shaped framework and fills his reservoir;
when he wishes to expel the water, he, as it
were, closes his umbrella." When an eel is
taken out of the water he will soon expand
his reservoir, and swellings will appear on
either side of his head. He will shortly wish
to refill his reservoir, and, if given water, will
immediately take in a considerable quantity.
With this he is ready to take an overland
journey if he wishes to change his abode.
The eye of the eel is protected against the
mud, stones, etc., among which he lives by
what Mr. Buckland calls a wonderful specta-
cle or eye-glass, formed by the conversion
of the skin of the head where it passes over
the eye into a thin but strong transparent
membrane, which forms an admirable guard
against injury.

Spilt Stones in the Desert.— Those parts
of the desert of Sahara called the Hamadas
— which are also among the most desolate
tracts of the region — are strewed with sili-
cious pebbles which are all broken up, pre-
senting sharp edges, as if they had just
been split with a hammer. Sometimes frag-
ments of these pebbles could be found lying
together with their fractured sides facing
each other and fitting perfectly when brought
close together. The phenomenon has baffled
explanation for a long time. M. J. Brun
has recently communicated to the Scientific
Society of Geneva his conclusion that it is
the result of a curious combination of chem-
ical and mechanical actions. He found by
analysis that the sand of the desert was com-
posed of quartz, gypsum, and marl, with
traces of salt. The quartz-grains act under
the influence of the solar rays as burning-
lenses upon the gypsum, and render it an-
hydrous. The sand and fine anhydrous gyp-
sum-dust are driven about by the winds and
cover all the stones ; the dust penetrates the
little cracks in the stones, when it is wet by
the dews, and swells. With continuous ac-

570

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

cessions of gypsum and repeated heavy dews
the accumulatiou of plaster goes on increas-
ing, the cracks are enlarged, and in time the
stone is split.

Variations in the Forms of Water-PIants.

— Dr. W. Bchrens, of Brunswick, has pub-
lished a preliminary report of researches
which he has been making into the influence
of the movement, and other physical rela-
tions, of water upon the plants growing in
it. He observes that water-plants, both
those that grow submerged and those which
appear on the surface, are subject to a va-
riety of modifications in the forms of their
stems, leaves, and other organs, according
as the water in which they grow is in more
or less lively motion. Plants which grow in
a stream, and are rooted in the ground,
seem to receive a kind of pull from the
moving force of the water, which is propor-
tioned to the speed of the current. If plants
which grow indifferently in standing, mod-
erately moving, and swift waters, exhibit
variations which are constant for the same
kind of waters, the conclusion is allowable
that the variations are produced by the ki-
netic influence of the waters. Plants which
are met in only one kind of waters do not
exhibit equivalent variations. The common
frogbit, of Europe, which floats on the sur-
face of still waters, has its leaves always
of the same broad kidney-form. The pond-
weed, which grows both in still and rnnning
waters, exhibits, on the other hand, mani-
fold variations. The most common form
has floating, oval leaves, the diameters of
which are to each other as 1 to Vo. The
leaves of those varieties that grow in run-
ning water are longer and narrower in pro-
portion to the swiftness of the stream ; and
one form is mentioned in which the diame-
ters of the leaves are as 1 to 3. The wa-
ter-ranunculuses (Batrachium) afford excel-
lent examples of the influence of running
water on the forms of plants. Several spe-
cies are found in all kinds of waters, the
most of them having leaves of two forms,
peltate floating leaves, and much divided
submerged leaves. They grow in still and
running, fresh and brackish waters, and
even on the land after the water has dried
away. Of the species common in Europe,
Batrachium aquatile is the most interesting

object of study in respect to its variations.
Its forms are numerous, but they may be ar-
ranged under two general heads. The first
includes those varieties which have plain
floating leaves and also divided, submerged
leaves, and the second those which have
only divided leaves under water. The forms
of the former class occur principally in
waters having little motion; the floating
leaves are round and peltate, with fine slight
scallops on the borders. In swifter waters
the leaves are cut up into pointed lobes,
the distinctness of which increases with the
speed of the current. Dr. Behrens has dis-
tinguished about thirty varieties in different
waters, most of which he has described and
named in his paper. In the swiftest cur-
rents, the floating leaves disappear, and only
the varieties of the second form — those hav-
ing exclusively divided, submerged leaves —
are found. Still another change comes over
the Batrachium when the water is taken
away from it. It grows up with a short
stem, and is thickly covered with gceen
leaves divided into numerous short, firm,
succulent lobes. Dr. Behrens is preparing
a work in which variations of this sort will
be fully discussed, with illustrations.

Progress in Photograpliv.— " Some Re-
cent Advances in Photography " is the sub-
ject of a paper recently read before the
Society of Arts by Captain Abney, R. E.,
F. R. S., in which reference was made to
the more important improvements in the
art that have been put in practice since
1875. A new negative process, called the
gelatino-bromide process, offers decided ad-
vantages. It consists in the use of a
gelatine emulsion of silver bromide for the
sensitive surface. With a plate thus pre-
pared, a photograph may now be taken in
one second of time which it formerly took
thirty seconds to secure ; and a plate can be
prepared which needs an exposure of only
one sixtieth of a second, when a view is
fairly lighted to secure a soft and harmoni-
ous negative. It makes instantaneous views
possible under cii'cumstances which were im-
possible, in illustration of which the speaker
exhibited a view in which the shadow and
reflection of a swallow passing in the air
over a pond were perfectly represented.
The plates and the development of pictures

POPULAR MISCELLANY

571

taken by this process are perfectly clean.
The plates, moreover, have the quality of
preserving the impressed image for a long
time after they have been exposed and be-
fore it has been developed. The chief dis-
advantage of the process is that the photog-
rapher using it has very little power to give
local intensity to his picture. Till lately, a
red light had to be employed in the devel-
oping-room, and this was painful to the op-
erator. The difficulty has been obviated by
adding iodide of silver to the emulsion in
the proportion of one part of iodide to
eight of the bromide, when an orange light
can be used with impunity, and the shadows
are given a wonderful clearness. When a
collodion emulsion is adapted to a flexible
support and used for the negatives, the op-
erator is able to do away with glass and its
weight, and may store rolls of sensitive ma-
terial in the camera itself. Then, by turn-
ing a screw, he may place fresh portions of
the band in a condition for exposure. After
exposure, paper prepared with this emulsion
may be moistened with turpentine, and the
film bearing the image, almost free from
weight and bulk, may be stripped off. To
print from these flimsy negatives, it is only
necessary to place them on glass. When a
flexible support shall have been introduced
for the gelatine emulsion, the negative pro-
cesses of photography will be almost per-
fect. With the collodion emulsion, we are
able to get a physical condition of the bro-
mide, in which it will answer to the vibra-
tion of the rays of the lowest refrangibility.
Photographs of the solar spectrum taken on
this salt were shown, corresponding to wave-
lengths which lie more than three times as
far below the red as the distance of the visi-
ble spectrum. This process is being applied
to the examination of different colorless
bodies, with a view of obtaining spectro-
scopic analyses of them. It has been dis-
covered that the photographic image is ren-
dered undevelopable by the action of oxid-
izing agents, and this alike whether it be
produced on a collodion or a gelatine film
or on paper. The oxidation of the image
goes on also in ordinary atmospheric condi-
tions, more especially under the influence of
light, and in it we have a simple explanation
of what is known as solarization. A plati-
num process, in which an image is produced

in platinum-black, is about four times as
sensitive as the ordinary silver process, and
marks the greatest advance in printing that
has been made for many years. Another
printing process is based on the reduction,
by ferrous oxalate, of bromide of silver
which has been exposed to light, and was
discovered almost simultaneously by Mr.
Willis, of England, and Mr. Carey Lea, of
Philadelphia. The prints obtained by this
process have great permanence, since no or-
ganic compound of silver, the great agent of
deterioration, is present in them. Mr. Lea
has discovered within the last year that the
power of development which is shared by
most of the organic salts of ferrous oxide is
not limited to them, but is possessed also
by many of its inorganic compounds. He
gives a brief account of his researches in
this direction, and of the properties of the
different salts of the oxide, in the " Ameri-
can Journal of Science " for June.

The Regnlation of Visnal Tests. — The

Boston "Herald" published last summer a
review of what had been done in the United
States during the previous twelve months
to secure protection against the dangers
arising from color-blindness and visual de-
fects in seamen, railroad-men, and other
persons occupying positions of trust in
which the quality of eyesight is important.
Three departments of the national Gov-
ernment have adopted regulations on the
subject. The War Department has or-
dered the examination of recruits by test-
cards, to test their power of distinguishing
objects at a distance, and with worsteds for
their perception of colors. The Treasury
Department has made the examination of
all pilots, as to their ability to distinguish
colors, compulsory, with the provision that
" a second visual examination will not be re-
quired in any case." The Navy Department
has ordered a similar examination for all
persons in the navy, or who may hereafter
enter it. The House Committee on Naval
Affairs has reported favorably on a petition
of Dr. B. Joy Jeffries and others for the en-
actment of a general law of control for the
naval -and merchant service, and for a rep-
resentation of the United States in an Jn-
ternational Congress to agree upon definite
standards of color-tests, and has reported a

572

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

bill authorizing such representation, which
will come up at the next session of Congress.
One steamboat company and one railroad
company have instituted a compulsory ex-
amination of all their men. -The State of
Connecticut has adopted a law for the ex-
amination of railroad-men, with the follow-
ing requirements for a certificate in thg first
class (engineers, firemen, and brakemen):
1. Healthy eyes and eyelids without ha-
bitual congestion or inflammation; 2. Un-
obstructed visual field ; 3. Normal visual
acuteness ; 4. Freedom from color-blindness ;
5. Entire absence of cataract or other pro-
gressive disease of the eye. For second-
class certificates (conductors, station-agents,
switchmen, etc.) the first two conditions are
the same, but in the third condition is re-
quired only " visual acuteness at least equal
to three fifths without glasses and normal
with glasses in one eye and at least one half
in the other eye, with glasses," and in the
fourth " freedom from color-blindness in one
eye, and color-perception at least equal to
three quarters in the other eye."

Form of the Ligbtnin^-Rod. — The sub-
ject of the proper form of lightning-conduct-
ors, long a disputed one among scientific
men, has recently been experimentally in-
vestigated by Mr. W. H. Preece, with the
i'csult of confirming the position of Faraday,
that the section of a rod is the essential ele-
ment. The advocates of rods of large sur-
face, such as ribbons, tubes, etc., among
whom was the late Professor Henry, con-
clude, from the fact that static electricity
resides upon the surface, that electricity of
high tension, such as a lightning-discharge,
is better conducted away by a large extent
of surface. Mr. Preece stated that no direct
experiments had, so far as he was aware,
ever been made to settle the question, which
was an important one, as the acceptance
of the surface theory had led to the employ-
ment of unsightly and costly conductors,
when a simple rod would answer all pur-
poses. The experiments were made in the
laboratory of Dr. Warren de la Rue, and
had the advantage of his advice and assist-
ance. In the first experiment copper con-
ductors thirty feet in length, in the form of
a solid rod, a thin tube, and ribbon, each of
precisely the same mass, were used. The

electricity was obtained from 3,240 ehloride-
of-silver cells, and accumulated in a con-
denser of a capacity of 42'8 micro-farads.
The sudden discharge of this quantity of
electricity produced results similar in char-
acter to lightning. It was capable of com-
pletely deflagrating 2^ inches of platinum
wire of .0125 inch diameter, and of raising
to diiferent degrees of incandescence greater
lengths. Such wire, afiixed to a white card so
as to record the effect, was used to measure
the discharge after it had passed through the
conductor. Each form of conductor gave ex-
actly the same result in the deflagration and
heating of the platinum, showing that differ-
ent extents of surface had no effect. As it
might be thought that, in copper conductors
of such length as those used, differences in
conductivity could not be readily detected,
the experiments were repeated with lead
conductors, the resistances of which were
twelve times that of copper, with the same
results. An experiment, to determine how
closely variations in the discharge could be
estimated, showed that a change of resist-
ance of five per cent, could have been easily
detected. 5Ir. Preece, therefore, concludes
that no more effective lightning-conductor
than a simple rod or wire rope can be de-
vised.

The Phenomena of Thnnderstormsi —

In a recent lecture at Glasgow, Professor
Tait reviewed the present state of our
knowledge of thunderstorms, and pointed
out the chief conditions upon which the phe-
nomena seemed to depend. The different
degrees of conductivity of the air to which
the zigzag form of the flash is due he
thought might be produced by local electri-
fication, which would have the same effect
as heat in rarefying the air and making it a
better conductor. Sheet-lightning is proba-
bly the reflection of a flash of forked light-
ning, itself invisible to the observer. Sum-
mer lightning is, in some cases, of a similar
character, but in others, when the sky is
clear, it seems to be due to discharges taking
place in an upper strata of the atmosphere,
the thunder being inaudible both on account
of the distance and its originating in an at-
mosphere of but small density. The dis-
charge in the form of a luminous ball is of
rare occurrence, and but little is known of

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

573

it. It is probably a natural form of Leyden
jar very highly charged. The light of a
tiash, Professor Tait states, is of very much
greater intensity than is commonly sup-
posed, the apparent brightness being, on
account of the exceeding small duration,
less than one hundred thousandth part
of what it would be if the lightning were
permanent. This duration is not more
than the millionth part of a second, and
hence it is a mistake to suppose that you
can sec the direction in which the discharge
is passing, whether from the clouds to the
earth or from the earth to the clouds. Pro-
fessor Tait insists upon the necessity of
properly pointing and grounding lightning-
rods to secure safety, and mentions several
instances of the ignorance in this matter
which seems to prevail among even well-
educated people. In one case the point of
the rod was actually covered with a glass
insulator. The best ground connection is
with the water-mains, but large masses of
metal or other conductor in a moist soil an-
swer when these are not at hand. Connec-
tion with a body of water inclosed in a ma-
sonry basin, such as a reservoir, is not a
proper way of grounding the rod. A light-
ning-rod acts as a constant drain upon the
charge in the clouds in its neighborhood,
and when the rods are numerous over any
area, as in a well-protected town, storm-
clouds will pass over without any lightning-
flashes taking place, though such form of
discharge will occur before reaching the
protected district and after passing it. The
lecturer insisted that people should regard
the use of rods as both a public and private
duty. In regard to the sources of electrici-
ty in the atmosphere. Professor Tait has
been led by experimental researches to in-
fer that a separation of the opposite elec-
tricities occurs simply by the contact of
particles of air and aqueous vapor, which,
on the kinetic theory of gases, are in con-
stant collision. In the same way zinc and
copper become oppositely electrified when
brought into contact. The precipitation of
vapor-particles into cloud-particles and the
agglomeration of these into rain-drops enor-
mously increase the electrification, as the
potential of a free charged sphere is pro-
portional directly to the quantity of elec-
tricity on it and inversely to its radius. The

separation of these highly charged particles
of air and water is effected by gravity and
the diffusion of gases which would cause
the air-particles to escape from among the
mass of precipitated vapor to the less highly
electrified air above. Sir William Thomson
has offered an explanation of the phenom-
ena, based upon the fact that the lower air
is usually negatively charged. Ascending
currents carrying this air upward, the elec-
tricity, which was formerly spread out over
a large area, may by convection become so
much less diffused that it will be raised
to a high enough potential to give a spark.
However the electrification of the precipi-
tated vapor occurs, there is no question
about the fact that, clouds once formed, the
particles are electrified. The solution of
the problem of just how this is brought about
must in all probability come through exper-
iments made on a larger scale than any so
far conducted in the laboratory.

Science in the Schools of France. — The

modifications in the course of studies in the
French public schools, recently decreed by
the Superior Council, give to scientific teach-
ing a more prominent place than has hither-
to been allowed it, especially in the element-
ary classes. In the seventh class, the ele-
ments of the natural history of animals and
plants are added to the history of soils and
stones, and take the preference over it, as
offering more interest to children and being
of greater practical utility. In the sixth
class, an hour is deducted from the ten de-
voted to Latin and added to those given to
the sciences, which are allowed four hours
a week. In the fifth class, where scientific
instruction has been obviously deficient, the
hours for Latin are reduced to five, and
the sciences are given four hours. In the
fourth class an hour is taken from Greek,
and the hours for scientific instruction are
increased to four. Scientific instruction will
be continued in the third, second, and rhe-
torical classes without encroaching upon the
other courses, an hour being taken from the
study-hours for new subjects of natural his-
tory in the third class, for physics in the
second class, and for subjects of physics
which have not been previously entered
upon by the pupils, in the rhetorical class.
I The Superior Council advises that the teach-

574

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

ing of mathematics and the natural sciences
in the grammar-classes be committed to spe-
cial professors whenever the funds of the
school will permit it and suitable teachers
can be obtained ; otherwise, professors of
science in the higher classes may perform
the duty for an additional compensation ; or,
if there is no other way, the ordinary pro-
fessor may provisionally give the special in-
struction.

M. Fayc's Theory of the Crnst of the
Earth. — M. Faye has propounded a new
theory of the internal structure of the earth,
an important feature of which Is that its
solid crust is much thicker under the seas
than under the continental masses. The
oscillations cf the pendulum and the di-
rection of the plumb-line are known to be
subject to variations in consequence of the
neighborhood of a mountain, or even of a
hill, calculations based upon which en-
abled Maskelyne to determine the density
of the globe. When, however, experiments
with the plumb-line and pendulum were
applied to table-lands and to the grander
mountain-ranges, the deviations correspond-
ing to the magnitude of the masses which
were expected were not shown. The pen-
dulum which is sensitive to the presence of
the Great Pyramid of Egypt gives no sign
of the neighborhood of the Himalayas.
Further than this, a real deficiency of at-
traction has been observed upon continents,
as if there were a great hollow under them ;
and the failure of mountain-masses to de-
flect the pendulum has been actually at-
tributed to the existence of cavities in them.
On the other hand, when the investigation is
transferred to the sea, the weight is found
to be too great, and is in excess of what is
demanded by theory, as evidently it falls
short of it on the continents. Hence, if we
suppose that there is a lack of matter under
the continents, we must also suppose that
there is under the seas an accumulation of
it above the average for the whole earth.
M. Faye suggests, to account for these con-
tradictions, that the cooling of the earth is
going on faster and has taken place to a
greater depth under the oceans than under
the continents. The temperature at 12,000
feet of depth below the sea is a little higher
than the freezing-point ; at the same depth

under the continental masses it is com-
puted to be about 300°. The matter is kept
at this temperature by the superior strata
of earth almost impermeable to heat, and
through which the heat that actually escapes
is hardly perceptible. The crust of the
earth in such a situation can increase in
thickness only at the slowest. Under the
sea, on the other hand, matter at the same
depth is in almost immediate communication
with a cold of the freezing-point, and, instead
of having some non-conducting strata above
it to prevent its escape, the heat is imme-
diately absorbed in a cold of polar intensity.
A similar difference exists deep in the beds
of the submarine rocks, for the water is im-
bibed in their pores to a greater depth than
in the sub-continental rocks, and the heat is
conveyed away from them by the vertical
convection of the warmed water rising in
them. The more ancient the existing beds
of the sea, the greater is the thickness of
the crust that supports them as compared
with that of the continents.

Trichinosis on a British School-ship. —

A remarkable outbreak of trichinosis on the
British reformatory school-ship Cornwall
has recently been brought to the notice of
the Government health boards. Up to the
23d of September last, the health of the
boys had for a long time been good, but,
between that day and October 23d, forty-
three boys were taken sick, falling ill in
batches — seven on the 23d, two on the 24th
of September, sixteen between the 29th of
September and the 1st of October, nine
between the 3d and 6th, and the rest at
intervals. The outbreak was regarded as
one of enteric fever, and the general char-
acter and progress of the disease seemed to
justify the view. No cause, however, likely
to produce such an outbreak could be dis-
covered. The hygienic condition of the ship
was perfect. The inspector turned his at-
tention to the food, and found that none of
the officers, who were supplied with distinct
food from the boys, were attacked. The
boys from a particular mess suffered more
than the others, and the tendency of the
groups of fresh cases to occur on certain
days of the week suggested a connection
between the attacks and the salt pork that
was served out on Mondays. The body of

NOTES.

575

one of the boys who had died was examined,
and the microscope showed living trichinae
in his muscles, but none of the appearances
of enteric fever were discovered. A new
cask of salt pork had been opened just be-
fore the disease appeared, the meat from
which is supposed to have communicated
the trichina? to the boys. This view is con-
firmed by the fact that the disease ceased
soon after the use of the pork was stopped.
The method of cooking the meat ou the
vessel seems to have been defective and not
sufficiently thorough to insure the beating
of the whole mass to the temperature at
which the trichinas are destroyed.

Sensitive Organs of Deep-Sea Animals.

— M. 0. Grimm has sought to explain how
it is that we find in the great depths of seas
and lakes animals without eyes, and besides
them others in which those organs are high-
ly developed. According to his view, the
light received by animals living in these
depths is extremely feeble, but is never
totally wanting. An adaptation to these
special conditions has taken place. With
certain crustaceans, the eyes have gained a
considerable volume ; with others, the eyes
tend to disappear and to be replaced by
other sensitive organs. In the Niphargus
and Onesimus, for instance, the existence
has been detected of extremely developed
sensitive organs which may be supposed to
serve as organs of touch, taste, and smell.
Niphargus Caspius has very small eyes,
which can hardly be considered as anything
but the remains of normal organs, and can
hardly be of any use to an animal living at
a depth of from thirty-five to ninety fathoms,
but it has highly developed organs of smell
and touch on its antennaj. The Onesimus,
whose eyes are also very rudimentary, have
neither on the antennae nor other parts of
the body sensitive organs like those of the
Niphargus, or at least such as they have are
very little developed ; but a close examina-
tion will discover, on the external blade of
their foot-jaws (maxillipedes), well-consti-
tuted organs of sense, although they are
hidden and of a very different structure
from those of Niphargus. In explanation
of this difference in the nature of the sen-
sory organs of genera so nearly related to
each other, M. Grimm remarks that the

species he has found with organs of sense
on their antennae always live in the water
and never go into the mud. The Onesimus,
on the other hand, keep constantly in the
mud of the bottom and seek their food by
digging, as the moles do. Under such con-
ditions, delicate organs of sense on the an-
tennae would be of no use, and have become
nearly obliterated, while the situation has
favored the development of organs in a
protected position.

NOTES.

The next meeting of the French Associ-
ation for the Advancement of the Sciences
is to be held in the city of Algiers, on the 14th
of April. The people and authorities of the
city are busily makmg preparations to give
the Association a worthy reception and wel-
come. Liberal appropriations have been
made by the council for the material organi-
zation of the meeting, and a large committee
of citizens, under the presidency of M. Po-
mell. Senator and Director of the Superior
School of Sciences, is preparing a programme
of excursions, which will be well filled out.
51. Chauveau, Director of the Veterinary
School at Lyons, will be president, M. Jans-
sen, the astronomer, vice-president, and M.
Jlaunoir, of the Geographical Society, secre-
tary, of the meeting.

We have news of the recent death of
Michel Chasles, the eminent French mathe-
matician. JI. Chasles was the author of an
historical memoir on the origin and devel-
opment of methods in geometry, and of nu-
merous works in pure mathematics, and in
1865 received, in recognition of his discov-
eries, the Copley medal of the Royal Society.

The name of the author of the useful
little work noticed in our last number, under
the title ■' What to do first in Accidents or
Poisoning," is Charles W. Dulles, not Dal-
las, as it was there erroneously printed.

The death is announced of Dr. John
Stcnhouse, F. R. S., a distinguished Scotch
chemist, at the age of seventy-one. lie was
a pupil of Graham, Thomson, and Liebig,
held the chemical lectureship at the Medical
School of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, Lon-
don, for six years, and was subsequently ap-
pointed non-resident Assayer of the Royal
Mint. He wrote a large number of papers
on chemical subjects, and was the recipient
of a medal from the Royal Society, of which
he was long a member.

AccoRDixG to the researches of Gustav
Ilausen, the antennae of insects are organs

5/6

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of smell. He found that, on their removal
or when coated with jjaraffine, the insects be-
came quite indifferent to the most odorous
substances — flies, for example, when thus
treated, taking no further notice of tainted
meat.

Professor Ernst Hampe, the distin-
guished German bryologist, died at Helm-
stedt, November 23d, at the age of eighty-
five.

The " Revue Scientifique" acknowledges
that the meetings of the French Association
and the British Association will have to
yield place, for 1880, to that of the Ameri-
can Association for the Advancement of
Science, which excelled on account of the
importance of the subjects discussed, and
was also marked by a numerous attendance
and the manifestation of a great interest in
its proceedings.

An International Congress of Electri-
cians has been called by the French Govern-
ment, to meet in Paris on the 15th of Sep-
tember, 1881 ; and an International Expo-
sition of Electricity is to be opened on the
1st of August and to be closed on the 15th
of November. The Government leaves the
expenses of the Exposition to be paid by
those who participate in it, but it is believed
that the whole financial responsibility of the
affair will be assumed by a French capitalist.
The preparations for the Congress and the
Exposition will he under the direction of
M. Georges Berger.

The notion that the blood-capillaries re-
ceive material support from the tissues in
which they are imbedded is contradicted by
the researches of Ray and Brown, an ac-
count of which is published in a late num-
ber of the "Journal of Physiology." Accord-
ing to their experiments, the extra-vascular
pressure is but slightly, if any, greater than
that of the atmosphere ; that is, if the sur-
rounding tissues were all removed, the capil-
lary walls would be no more likely to give
way from internal blood-pressure than they
are under normal conditions.

Professor J. C. Watson, Director of the
Observatory at the University of Wisconsin,
died on the 23d of November of last year.
He had acquired a high reputation as an as-
tronomer, both here and at the University
of Michigan, where he was formerly engaged,
and was best known, perhaps, by his discov-
eries of twenty-one of the asteroids, by his
work in the observation of the transit of
Venus, and the solar eclipse of 1878, and by
the interest he took in the search for the
supposed planet Vulcan.

The equipment of the observatory now
in course of construction at Nice will com-
prise two equatorials, one meridian, and
several accessory instruments. One of the

equatorials will probably be the largest as-
tronomical apparatus in the world. Its
focal distance will be about sixty feet,
and its aperture thirty inches. The cupola
will have a diameter of seventy-two feet.
The object-glass is to be constructed by
MM. Paul and Prosper Henry, of the Paris
Observatory. The instrument alone will cost
250,000 francs, and the entire observatory
at least 2,000,000 francs.

Professor Alphonso Wood, author of
several works on botany, died at West
Farms, New York, January 4th, aged sev-
enty-one years. He was a graduate of
Dartmouth College and Andover Theological
Seminary, and spent much of his life as a
teacher, having had the charge of schools at
Meriden, Connecticut ; College Hill, Ohio ;
Terre Haute, Indiana ; and Brooklyn, New
York. For the last two years he was Pro-
fessor of Botany in the College of Pharmacy
in this city. He began the publication of
his botanical writings in I860., His best-
known works were : " The Class - Book of
Botany," " Object-Lessons in Botany," " The
Botanist and Florist " " The Plant Record,"
and "Flora Atlantica."

A new process of tanning, in which
bark is wholly dispensed with, and inorgan-
ic compounds are used in its place, is com-
ing into use in Germany. The special feat-
ure of the process is the action of chromic
acid, for the generation of which a number
of substances, all soluble in water, are
brought together in the mixture so as to
effect the decomposition of bichromate of
potash. The new process requires only from
four to six weeks for its completion, against
the several months needed in the bark-
process. It has been tried at an experi-
mental tannery in Glasgow, Scotland, with
favorable results.

Benjamin Collins Brodie the younger,
F. R. S., died on the 24th of November last.
After taking his master's degree at Oxford
in 1S42, he went to Giessen to pursue origi-
nal chemical work under Liebig and first
distinguished himself by the publication of
his analyses of wax. He became an indus-
trious investigator of the changes undergone
by the molecules of different substances, and
of the modes of combination, and had an
important part in the development of the
present theories of chemistry.

Pere Antoine Horner, the founder of
the French Roman Catholic mission and ag-
ricultural establishment at Bagamoyo on the
Zanzibar coast, has recently died at Cannes.
He made long journeys of exploration in
the interior of Eastern Africa, in recognition
of the scientific results of which he was
elected an honorary corresponding member
of the Royal and several other geographical
societies.

BENJAMIN PEIRCE.

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY.

MA.RCH, 1881.
PHYSICAL EDUCATION

Br FELIX L. OSWALD, M. D.
IN-DOOR LIFE.

"What is to the mind a healthy body,
To the body is a healthy house."

— Fabio Colonna,

I

Next to our dietetic sins, the abuses connected with our habits of
domestic life have contributed the largest share to the great sum of
human misery. Yet few evils might be more easily avoided. There
are diseases which may be considered as visitations of national iniqui-
ties whose consequences are almost beyond the control of individuals ;
but for the sufferings caused by scrofula and pulmonary disorders we
are indebted chiefly to our own prejudices. Prejudice and ignorance
have filled more consumptives' graves than poverty. Even in large
manufacturing towns air is free. If our artisans could realize the con-
sequences of breathing miasma, they would prefer the life-air of the
wildest wilderness to the lung-poison of their slums ; like a caged
bird, the tenement prisoner would refuse to pair rather than people the
earth with cachectic wretches. The exodus of their workmen would
soon induce manufacturers to imitate the founder of Saltaire ; build-
ing speculators would find it to their advantage to adopt the Philadel-
phia plan, adding suburb to suburb rather than loft to loft ; cities
would grow outward instead of upward. A reform of that sort would
imply various modifications of our present labor system ; but before
the enlightenment of public opinion such difficulties vanish like mist
before the rising sun. There was a time when it was actually proposed
to abolish the summer vacations of the French to^m schools " in order
to enlarge their curriculum in proportion to the advance of modern

VOL. XVIII. — 37

578 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

science " ; but, since we have ascertained that out-door exercise is
more important than all the graphics and ologies of the Academic
Fran9aise, it has been found that, with a well-arranged plan of instruc-
tion ten months a year, five days a week and six hours a day are quite
enough for any school. If the eight-hour system were generally adopt-
ed, operatives would not be compelled to live within ear-shot of the
factory-whistle, and in very large cities the daily influx and reflux of
a subui'ban multitude would enable railroad companies to carry indi-
viduals at rates which the poorest would call moderate. Far enough
from the city center to evade the region of dear building-lots, and yet
within easy reach of all kinds of door and sash factories and planing-
mills, there would be no need of crowding three generations into a
single room, and suffocating them with mingled kitchen-fumes and
sick-bed odors. Three rooms and an out-house should be the minimum
for a family with children.

In a tolerable location, the air of a three-room cottage can be kept
pure enough without force ventilators or any other expensive contriv-
ance. Open your windows ; in very cold weather, air the bedrooms in
daytime and the others at night. In lai'ger houses, the kitchen, parlor,
and dining-room should be thoroughly ventilated every night, also in
daytime at convenient intervals, during the temporary absence of the
occupants. To save foul air for the sake of its warmth is poor econ-
omy ; experiments would show that the difference in fuel amounts only
to a trifle, anyhow. Ten or twelve pounds of coal a day ought not to
weigh against the direct gain in comfort and the prospective, unspeak-
able gain in health. Breathing the same air over and over again means
to feed the organism on the excretions of our own lungs, on air sur-
charged with noxious gases and almost depleted of the life-sustaining
principle. Azotized air affects the lungs as the substitution of excre-
ments for nourishing food would affect our digestive organs : corrup-
tion sets in ; pulmonary phthisis is, in fact, a process of putrefaction.

No ventilatory contrivance can compare with the simple plan of
opening a window ; in wet nights a " rain-shutter " (a blind with large,
overlapping bars) will keep a room both airy and dry. In every bed-
room, one of the upper windows should be kept open night and day,
except in storms, accompanied with rain or with a degree of cold ex-
ceeding 10° Fahr. In warm summer nights open every windoAv in the
house and every door connecting the bedroom with the adjoining
apartments. Create a thorough draught. Before we can hope to fight
consumption with any chance of success, we have to get rid of the
night-air superstition. Like the dread of cold water, raw fruit, etc., it
is founded on that mistrust of our instincts which we owe to our anti-
natural religion. It is probably the most prolific single cause of impaired
health, even among the civilized nations of our enlightened age, though
its absurdity rivals the grossest delusions of the witchcraft era. The
subjection of holy reason to hearsays could hardly go further.

PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 579

" Beware of the night- wind ; be sure and close your windows after
dark " ! In other words, beware of God's free air ; be sure and infect
your lungs with the stagnant, azotized, and offensive atmosphere of your
bedroom. In other words, beware of the rock spring ; stick to sewer-
age. Is night-air injurious ? Is there a single tenable pretext for such
an idea ? Since the day of creation that air has been breathed with
impunity by millions of different animals — tender, delicate creatures,
some of them — fawns, lambs, and young birds. The moist night-air
of the tropical forests is breathed with impunity by our next relatives,
the anthropoid apes — the same apes that soon perish with consumption
in the close though generally well-warmed atmosphere of our northern
menageries. Thousands of soldiers, hunters, and lumbermen sleep
every night in tents and open sheds without the least injurious conse-
quences ; men in the last stage of consumption have recovered by
adopting a semi-savage mode of life, and camping out-doors in all but
the stormiest nights. Is it the draught you fear, or the contrast of
temperature? Blacksmiths and railroad-conductors seem to thrive
l^nde^ such influences. Draught ? Have you never seen boys skating
in the teeth of a snow-storm at the rate of fifteen miles an hour ? " They
counteract the effect of the cold air by vigorous exercise." Is there no
other way of keeping warm ? Does the north wind damage the fine
lady sitting motionless in her sleigh, or the pilot and helmsman of a
storm-tossed vessel ? It can not be the inclemency of the open air,
for, even in sweltering summer nights, the sweet south wind, blessed
by all creatures that draw the breath of life, brings no relief to the
victim of aerophobia. There is no doubt that families who have freed
themselves from the curse of that superstition can live out and out
healthier in the heart of a great city than its slaves on the airiest high-
land of the southern Apennines.

In such countries as Italy and Mexico, where the plurality of the
population pass the daylight hours in open air, unventilated bedrooms
are almost the only cause of tubercular diseases ; but in the north, where
children have to be nursed like exotic birds, the chief defects of our
domestic arrangements may be classed under three heads : impure air,
want of sunshine, and want of room for exercise. The heau-ideal of
a healthy house would be a well-plastered stone building on some emi-
nence, remote from swamps and stagnant creeks, but surrounded by
sunny slopes available for play-grounds ; spring or well water ; out-
door cellar, kitchen in an out-house, or at least not directly below the
sitting and sleeping rooms ; high ceilings, wainscots, or wall-paper of
innocuous colors ; deep windows, with projecting mullions to admit
the air and exclude the rain ; an airy veranda, and no shade-trees on
the east and west side, as sunlight is most needed in the mornings and
evenings. Children can not thrive in dark back rooms, and in the first
eight years of their lives should have all the exercise they want. The
countrymen of Dr. Frobel are ahead in this respect, and the best-ar-

58o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ranged nursery I ever saw was the Findel-zimmer (" foundling- ward ")
in the convent of the Ursuline nuns near Wiirzburg, Germany. The
landed estate of the convent having been sequestrated, their depart-
ment of charitable institutions had been reorganized on a more eco-
nomical basis, and the poor nuns thought it necessary to apologize for
the ingenious simplicity of their Zimmer, whose plan had been suggest-
ed chiefly by the necessity of dispensing with hired help. The room
was about forty feet square, facing south and west, with three large
windows on each side. These windows and the fireplace were barred
with net screens, soft to the touch, but securely fastened, and strong
enough to stop anything from a football to a forty-pound baby. The
floor was carpeted with rugs, covered with a sort of coarse sheeting to
prevent dust. From the floor to the height of the window-sills the
walls were padded all round with old blankets, secured with muffled
nails, and stuffed with something that felt like moss or cow's hair.
The only piece of furniture was a cushioned divan in the corner next
to the fireplace ; but the floor was covered with playthings and mov-
able nondescripts, balls of all sizes, and a big Walze, a sort of wooden
cylinder, muffled up with quilts and cotton. From the center of the
ceiling depended a hand-swing, two rings just low enough to be within
reach of a youngster standing on tiptoe, the original sitting swing
having been removed as liable to be used as a catapult in a general
row. Above the windows, out of reach of the boldest climber, were
shelves with flower-pots, reseda, gillyflowers, and wintergreen. In this
in-door Kindergarten, fourteen playmates — twelve babies, namely, and
two puppies — had been turned loose, and seemed to celebrate existence
as a perpetual circus-game. They could run races, pelt each other
with cotton balls, swing in a circle, roll on the floor, and ride the
Walze ; but the attempt to hurt themselves would have baffled their
combined ingenuity. There were no nurslings, of course, but all mis-
chief-ages from three to eleven, wrestling and quarreling now and
then, but, as the nuns solemnly averred, never crying except for causes
that would make the puppies cry — a squeeze or an inadvertent kick —
all disputes being referred to the umpire, a flaxen-haired girl of eight,
who often took charge of the Zimmer from morning till night.

The squalling of new-born children can not be helped ; puppies
will whine, and young monkeys whimper for the first three or four
days — it is the novelty of existence that bewilders them — but, if babies
of two or three years scream violently for hours together, it generally
means that there is something wrong about the management. Indian
babies never cry ; they are neither swaddled nor cradled, but crawl
around freely, and sleep in the dry grass or on the fur-covered floor of
the wigwam. Continual rocking would make the toughest sailor sea-
sick. Tight swaddling is downright torture ; it would try the patience
of a Stoic to keep all his limbs in a constrained position for such a
length of time ; a young ape subjected to the same treatment would

PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 581

scream from morning till night. Forty per cent, of all children born
in certain manufacturing districts of Belgium and Great Britain die
before the end of the second year. They ai'e swaddled, of course ;
they must not crawl around, and bother people ; and " paregoric "
does the rest : the child cries for liberty, and receives death. Opiates
are sold under right pleasant names nowadays, and at popular prices
in the larger cities ; but a spoonful of arsenic would be a shorter and a
kinder remedy.

Not every family has room and the means to construct a model
nursery, but the poorest could spare a few square feet of space in some
sunny corner, and, with old quilts and rugs, make it baby-proof enough
for all probable emergencies. Then furnish a few playthings and trust
the rest to nature. Man wants but little here below, and between
meals a pickaninny will content itself with liberty, light and air, and
a couple of rag-babies. As soon as a child begins to toddle, it should
also have an opportunity to exercise its arms — a grapple-swing, or
(if your ceiling be inviolate) a rope stretched from wall to wall. It
is surprising how fast the clumsiest youngster begins to profit by such
a chance. To the young son of man climbing comes natural enough
to shock a witness of anti-Darwinian proclivities. The development
of the shoulder-muscles also tends to invigorate the chest, and a fifty-
cent hand-swing may save many dollars' worth of cough-medicine.

The progressive development of the motory organs prompts their
frequent exercise, and there is no doubt that the gratification of this
instinct constitutes the chief element of that physical beatitude which
makes the age of childhood the spring-time of every life ; and it is
equally certain that compulsive physical inactivity inflicts on a healthy
child an amount of wretchedness which no prospective advantages can
possibly repay. It is hard enough that so large a portion of the human
race have to rear their young in a latitude which half the year confines
them to the freedom of their four walls ; but it is harder that even
this limited freedom should be curtailed by so many unnecessary re-
straints. I wish every houseful of children had a rough-and-tumble
room, some out-of-the-way place where the cadets could romp, roll,
and jump to their hearts' content. It need not be a heated room nor
even an in-door place, as long as it has anything like a roof to it ;
children are naturally hardy, as they are naturally truthful : effemi-
nacy and hypocrisy are twin daughters of our pious civilization. A
wood-shed will do, or a lumber-room with old mattresses and hiding-
places. Well-to-do parents might add some gymnastic apparatus, and
for big boys a carpenter's table with an assortment of tools ; mechani-
cal dexterity may prove useful in many ways, and every normal boy
has something of that instinct which phrenologists call constructive-
ness, and which makes the use of such implements a pleasure rather
than a task. But, for the youngsters, the rough-and-tumble play is
the main thing ; it will strengthen their limbs, lungs, and livers, and

582 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

prevent more ailments than all the pills in Herrick's list of patent med-
icines. Moreover, it "vvill keep them quiet where other children are
sure to be fidgety — in the parlor and at school. Every school-teacher
knows that young ruralists are more sedate than city boys ; out-door
work has given them all the exercise they need ; they can take it easy
while their comrades are fretting under an irksome restraint. After
an hour or two of German gymnastics, combined wtth wood-chopping
and water-carrying, if you like, the wildest boy will prefer a chair to
a flying trapeze ; for, if the tonic development of the organism is not
grossly neglected, sedentary employments per se are by no means con-
trary to nature ; in the intervals of their play, the young of frolicsome
animals will sit motionless for hours ; even kittens and young mon-
keys ; not to mention colts which have off-days, when they won't stir
a foot if they can help it.

It would be a great improvement on our present system of school-
education, if children could learn the rudiments at home and pass their
infancy, the first eight or ten years, at least, under the immediate su-
pervision of their parents ; a transition-period of three or four years
of home studies would help them to steer clear of many moral and
physiological cliffs. It is always the best preparatory school ; only a
private teacher has time and patience to interest a pupil in the dry
principia of every science ; but a still greater advantage is his inde-
pendence of fixed methods and fixed hours. As a general rule, the
forenoon is the best time for studies, and the airiest room in the house
the best locality. Pure air has a wonderful effect on the clearness of
our cerebral functions ; the half -suffocating atmosphere of the average
schoolroom is as stupefying as the influence of a half-intoxicating
drink. Heat aggravates the offensiveness of foul air ; but in a well-
ventilated room the degree of temperature is comparatively unimpor-
tant. As it would be inconvenient to load ourselves with blankets in
daytime, less than 50° Fahr. would make sedentary occupations rather
uncomfortable, and more than 80° would become oppressive in a close
apartment ; but between these extremes we may safely suit our con-
venience. Perfectly pure or perfumed air may be very warm and
still very pleasant, as all know who have entered a conservatory or a
tidy baker's shop on a cold winter day.

In large town schools, where hundreds of children have to breathe
the same ^ir, I would advise a change of rooms from hour to hour, and
a thorough renovation of the vitiated atmosphere by opening every
window and every door, and keeping up a rousing fire. The air-cur-
rents could be reenforced by mechanical means — canvas-floppers or
revolving fans — ^xi^ fumigation would greatly aid the good work. The
South European druggists sell various kinds of frankincense that can
be burned on a pan or a common stove, and will fill a large church
with odors more or less Sabsean, according to price — ten cents' worth a
day would be enough to beatify a whole town school ; Mohammed, the

PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 583

man of God, included perfume among the three greatest blessings of
human life. Young children ought to have a recess after every lesson,
and should not be required to sit rigidly quiet. The best writing-
stand for children is Schreber's " telescope-desk," a box-like contriv-
ance, with a movable top that can be lowered or raised to suit the
convenience of sitting or standing writers. In a latitude where the
weather so often precludes the possibility of out-door recreations, every
schoolhouse should have a recess-room, and every town school an in-
door gymnasium.

Fireside comforts are almost inseparable from the idea of an open
fireplace, and from an hygienic standpoint, too, the old-fashioned chim-
ney, or an open grate, is far superior to a closed stove. But it should
not be forgotten that the operation of the chimney-draught alone is
insufficient to correct the vitiated air of a small room, it merely creates
an outward current. An open window completes the renovating pi-o-
cess ; in cold weather a few minutes are sufficient to revitalize the in-
door atmosphere for a couple of hours. Only the blindest prejudice
can deny the pleasant effect of such an influx of life-air ; it revives
the azotized lungs as a draught of cool water refreshes the parched
palate. Colds are never taken in that way. The very name is a mis-
leading misnomer — infection or influenza would be the right word.
Long exposure to a freezing storm, in certain cases, induces a true
pleuritic fever, a very rare affection, and entirely different from the
only too familiar catarrh. What we call a cold {refroidissement, Er-
haltung) is caused by the. influence of impure air, or dust, on the sensi-
tive tissue of our respiratory organs ; subsequent exposure to the
open air merely initiates the crisis of the disorder, the discharge of the
accumulated mucus through the nose or throat. Fresh air is here only
the proximate cause, as in toothache, or in those paroxysms of retching
following upon the first respiration of a half -drowned person. If we
postpone the crisis by persistently avoiding the open air, the unrespir-
able matter, instead of being discharged, will be deposited in the tissue
of the lungs in the form of tubercles.

In the chapter on Diet I have stated the physiological objections to
a late supper, and I will here mention an additional reason why the
afternoon meal should be the last : It would give an overworked mother
a chance to close the kitchen-door at six o'clock, and devote the rest of
the evening to her family. Domestic habits depend greatly upon the
employment of the long winter evenings that have to be passed in-
doors somewhere ; whether at home or — elsewhere, depends upon home-
comforts rather than upon home-missions ; a treatise on the art of
making the chimney-corner attractive would be the most effective tem-
perance lecture. Fredrika Bremer recommends fairy stories ; in a
North American city Scheherezade would probably avail herself of the
circulating library, and a fascinating story-book is, indeed, an excel-
lent substitute for the old-fashioned remedies against gadding. Good

584 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

books, flowers, and music, combined with pleasant conversation and a
cheerful fire, would neutralize the attractions of the average " saloon."
Playthings and social games, too, would help to compensate the young-
sters for the want of out-of-door sports, and where they have a room to
themselves I would suggest the introduction of some entertaining pet, a
raccoon or a tame squirrel-monkey. Let the boys have some fun — pro-
vide pastimes ; it is ennui rather than natural perversity that leads
our young men to the rum-shop.

The end of the day is the best time for a sponge-bath ; a sponge
and a coarse towel have often cured insomnia where diacodium failed.
A bucketful of tepid water will do for ordinary purposes ; daily cold
shower-baths in winter-time are as preposterous as hot drinks in the
dog-days. Russian baths and ice-water cures owe their repute to the
same popular delusion that ascribes miraculous virtues to nauseating
drugs — the mistrust of our natural instincts, culminating in the idea
that all natural things must be injurious to man, and that the efficacy
of a remedy depends on the degree of its repulsiveness. Ninety-nine
boys in a hundred M^ould rather take the bitterest medicine than a cold
bath in mid-winter. If we leave children and animals to the guidance
of their instincts they will become amphibious in the dog-days, and
quench their thirst at the coldest spring without fear of injurious con-
sequences ; but in winter-time even wild beasts avoid immersion with an
instinctive dread. A Canadian bear will make a wide circuit, or pick
his way over the floes rather than swim a lake in cold weather. Bap-
tist missionaries do not report many revivals before June. Warm
springs, on the other hand, attract all the birds and beasts that stay
with us in winter-time ; the hot spas of Rockport, Arkansas, are vis-
ited nightly by raccoons and foxes in spite of all torchlight hunts ; and
Haxthausen tells us that in hard winters the thermae of Paetigorsk, in
the eastern Caucasus, attract deer and wild-hogs from the distant
Terek Valley. I know the claims of the hydropathic school, and the
arguments ^:)ro and con, but the main points of the controversy still
hinge upon the issue between Nature's testimony and Dr. Priess-
nitz's.

Our beds are our night-clothes, and ought to be kept as clean as our
shirts and coats. Woolen blankets are healthier than quilts ; put a
heavy United States army blanket over a kettle full of hot water and
see how fast the steam makes its way through the weft ; a quilt would
stop it like an iron lid, and thus tends to check the exhalation of the
human body. In order to disinfect a quilt you have first to loosen the
pressed cotton ; a woolen blanket can be steamed and dried in a couple
of hours. For similar reasons a straw tick is better than a horsehair
mattress, though a woven-wire mattress is perhaps preferable to both.
Feather-beds are a recognized nuisance. Children over ten years
should sleep alone, or at least under separate blankets, if the bedsteads
do not reach around.

THE PROBLEM OF MUNICIPAL NUISANCES. 585

If you would preserve your children from wasting diseases, do not
stint them in their sleep ; chlorotic girls, especially, and weakly babies
need all the rest they can get. If they are drowsy in the morning,
let them sleep ; it will do them more good than stimulants and tonic
sirups. For school-children in their teens, eight hours of quiet sleep
is generally enough, but do not restrict them to fixed hours ; in mid-
summer there should be a siesta-covx\eT in every house, a lounge or an
old mattress in the coolest nook of the hall, or a hammock in the shade
of the porch, where the little ones can pass the sleep-inviting after-
noons. Nor is it necessary to send them to bed at the very time when
all nature awakens from the torpid influence of the day-star ; sleep in
the atmosphere of a stifling bedroom would bring no rest and no
pleasant dreams. But an hour after sunset there will be a change ;
the night-wind rises and the fainting land revives ; cool air is a febri-
fuge and Nature's remedy for the dyspeptic influences of a sultry day.
Open every window, and let your children share the luxury of the last
evening hour ; after breathing the fresh night-air for a while, they will
sleep in peace.

THE PEOBLEM OF MUNICIPAL NUISANCES.

By EOGEE S. TRACY, M. D.

THE general democratic tendency of the past three hundred years
has had some curious results. Free thought and free speech have
brought about a universal freedom in criticism, so that, at the present
time, singularly enough, it has come to be looked upon as a sign of
high civilization and progress for every man to have an opinion about
everything, whether he knows anything about it or not. One of the
most complicated political problems that men have ever had to treat,
viz., the Eastern question, is discussed in this city, by individuals and
newspapers, with more readiness and assurance than in the council-
chambers of Berlin or London, and every man above the condition of
a rag-picker will give you his opinion on the philosophy of evolution.
This exaggerated sense of self-importance brings with it not only the
tendency to criticise everything not in accordance with each person's
notion of what is right or expedient, but, inasmuch as conflicting cur-
rents of thought and action are unavoidable, a profound feeling of
dissatisfaction Avith one's own environment. This feeling of dissatis-
faction shows itself in curious ways. In place of the intense patriotism
and personal loyalty of past ages, we find a widespread belief in almost
all highly civilized nations that things are better managed elsewhere
than at home, and the newspapers, here and abroad, are crowded with
this not-always-well-based self-criticism. New York newspapers are

586 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

great sinners in this respect. While they are continually extolling
the natural advantages of the city, her magnificent river-front and har-
bor, her advantageous situation, her brilliant sky, they are also con-
stantly bewailing her bad government, her lukewarm public spirit, and
the universally asinine quality of her public officers. One would think
that her present position as a metropolis is entirely due to natural ad-
vantages, and has been gained in spite of the most earnest opposition
from her leading citizens. The elevation of an honest, sober, intelli-
gent citizen to a public oflice makes him straightway an ass in the
estimation of his fellows. A public officer, who declines to do what
certain citizens want him to do, is believed by them to be prima facie
corrupt. If he agrees to do what they wish, some other citizens are
equally certain that he has been bought. It seems impossible for a
man to remain in public office in New York City for six months with-
out having charges or intimations of bribery come to his ears, in one
form or another. And not only are our public officers all supposed to
be open to corrupt influences, but, when they are put in office, they are
believed ipso facto to become suddenly ignorant of all that they knew
before. And not only are they taunted with ignorance, incapacity,
and an itching palm, but they are continually reminded that things
are much better managed elsewhere, and that the sooner they learn
how a city ought to be governed, by observing how other cities are gov-
erned, the sooner they will become of some use in their places.

One of the things New-Yorkers complain most about is the dirty
streets, including the garbage-box nuisance. It is a popular belief,
fostered by the leading newspapers, that New York is the only large
city in the civilized w^orld where such a filthy nuisance as the garbage-
box would be tolerated, and those officers who have charge of the pub-
lic health are continually reminded of Paris and London, where no such
frightful eyesores exist, and where the public service in this regard is
immaculate, as every person who has taken a flying summer trip through
those cities is ready to testify.

Another frequent cause of complaint is the offensive odors from
manufacturing establishments, which also are believed to be kept under
such strict watch in Paris and London that they are never nuisances ;
and the American visitor, being sure that such things are banished from
those cities, wants to have them driven out of this one.

The purpose of this paper is not to show that the complaints of our
citizens are unfounded, for they are, unfortunately, too well founded,
but to do something toward stemming the prevailing current of opinion
— 1. That the dirty streets and offensive odors of New York are en-
tirely due to the negligence, stupidity, or corruption of public officers ;
and, 2. That Paris and London are free from the same kind of nuisances.
I shall, in other words, try to show that Paris and London, in similar
circumstances, are troubled with dirty streets and offensive odors, de-
pending upon the same causes as in New York, and that the public

THE PROBLEM OF MUNICIPAL NUISANCES. 587

officers of those cities find precisely the same difficulties in abating
such nuisances that are met with here ; and I submit that the public
officers of the city of New York ought not to be called or considered
stupid, ignorant, or corrupt, because they meet with the same difficulties
as the intelligent, honest, and trained public officers of Paris and Lon-
don, and, like them, do not always succeed in surmounting them to the
satisfaction of the public.

This is not the place for a complete discussion of the subject of
street-cleaning, but it may be well, as a preliminary to what follows,
to call attention to some points on which there is decided popular mis-
apprehension. It is believed by most citizens of New York that ample
funds are given to the Bureau of Street-Cleaning, and that, if this
money were honestly expended, our streets ought to be as clean as
those of Paris. Now, the facts of the case are these :

Our Bureau of Street-Cleaning employs 387 street-sweepers. Paris
has a permanent corps of 3,180, besides 190 machines, each doing the
work of ten men. Our bureau has to clean, more or less perfectly,
1,415 acres of paved street surface ; Paris, 2,667 acres. The great dif-
ference in force, in proportion to the work to be done, is apparent at a
glance. Our sweepers are paid 11.60 per day for eight hours' work.
The Paris sweepers receive sixty cents per day for ten hours' work.
For the sake of ease in calculation, we will suppose that as much work
is done here in eight hours as in Paris in ten hours. Then each
sweeper in New York costs a dollar a day more than each one in Paris.
From the figures already given, the following results may be deduced :

If New York sweepers received Paris wages, we should, with our
present force, save yearly $141,255.

If New York sweepers received Paris wages, we could, without
increasing the expense of street-cleaning, increase the force by 645 men,
i. e., nearly treble it.

If there were as many sweepers in New York as in Paris, in pro-
portion to the area required to be cleaned, the expense of street-clean-
ing in New York would be increased by $474,500.

If Paris sweepers received New York wages, the expense of street-
cleaning in Paris would be increased by $1,160,700.

As a matter of fact, the expense of street-cleaning in New York
for 1879 was $690,000, including $40,000 for removing ice and snow ;
and in Paris for 1878, $817,000, including $181,000 for the removal of
ice and snow.

An important part of the duties of a street-cleaning bureau is the
removal of ashes and garbage. It is also exceedingly difficult, in a
large city, to do this effectively and economically. I say, in a large
city, for in a small village the garbage nuisance is at its minimum,
and it increases with the number and crowding of inhabitants. It is
unfair to compare the New York method of removing ashes and gar-
bage with that of smaller and less compact towns, like Boston and

588 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Philadelphia. The difficulties to be surmounted in this city are even
greater than in Paris or London, because of the peculiar shape of the
city, and because we are surrounded by water. But this is a digression.

It is a common belief, reiterated in the daily journals, that the
household and street refuse of Paris is sold for enormous amounts,
and that so much money is received on this account that the street-
cleaning service of that city is a source of revenue instead of expense.
This is not so. The chief revenue in this regard is derived from the
rag-pickers. In New York these people ransack the boxes and barrels
on the street, without paying for the privilege, and all that they collect
brings them a clear profit. In Paris, on the other hand, the privilege
of rummaging the dust-heaps is farmed out to wealthy contractors,
who employ about 7,000 chiffoniers, and have a monopoly of rag-pick-
ing. So far as I can ascertain, this is the only source of actual revenue
to the city of Paris from its street refuse, and what the amount of this
revenue is I can not learn. It is very hard to find out anything about
the municipal expenditures of that city, as it has no official journal like
our " City Record."

Now, let us see what are the practical results of the methods of
street-cleaning and removal of household refuse adopted in Paris :

" Street-cleaning in cities has for its aim the removal of dust, mud,
snow, filth, and household refuse. As regards the latter, which ought
to be thrown directly into the carts, municipal regulations in Paris
continually conflict with a corporation very jealous of its privileges ; I
refer to that of the rag-jjickers, who conduct a business represented
by nearly 7,000 persons, collecting with their hooks material worth
4,000,000 francs (1800,000) a year, and feeding the manufactories of
paper, pasteboard, lampblack, etc. We are obliged, therefore, to yield
to the demands of these Diogenes of the street, and to allow, to the
great prejudice of sight, smell, and health, the throwing upon the public
street, toward evening, of all kinds of refuse, to be picked over by the
hook of the rag-picker. They insist upon this, and they wield a great
power." — (Fonssagrives, " Hygiene et Assainisseraent des Villes," Paris,
1874, p. 174.)

" In Freycinet's opinion ('Assainissement des Villes,' p. 343), as far
as promptness and completeness of street-cleaning in the narrower
sense are concerned, Paris is in advance of all other great cities ; but
it is not so with the household refuse, which, in the absence of special
means of remoA^al, must naturally take its way over the street. Al-
though this refuse, intended for removal and thrown on the street for
this purpose, ought to he taken away at an early hour of the morning,
it often remains upou the street till evening, is scattered about, etc.,
and all, according to Freycinet, because they do not wish to interfere
with the unhealthy occupation of the rag-pickers, who rummage the
mess for rags and bones." — (Gotel, " Oeffentl. Gesundheitspfl. in den
Ausserdeutschen Staaten," Leipsic, 1878, p. 205. The italics are mine.)

THE PROBLEM OF MUNICIPAL NUISANCES. 589

Gotel states that things are much better managed in Lyons and
Bordeaux in this resjsect — very much smaller cities, be it noted.

So it appears that the problem of the expeditious and inoffensive
removal of household refuse has not yet been solved in Paris, the
opinion of amateur sanitarians in this country to the contrary notwith-
standing.

Last December there were two heavy snow-falls in Paris, only four
days apart. The first storm crippled the street-cleaning department,
and after the second the authorities were almost in despair, being
hampered, as ours are, by the lack of funds, and, while their hands
were tied, being harassed, howled at, and snapped at by the journal-
istic jackals. Almost a complete history of this episode can be gath-
ered from the following comments of the press : _

" As regards locomotion, the streets are gradually becoming more
practicable for both riding and walking, thanks to the army of sweep-
ers that the municipal authorities have at length set to work. It is
remarked, however, that on the occasion of the last heavy fall of snow
in Paris, some five or six years ago, the public thoroughfares were
cleared much more rapidly than this time, owing to the military hav-
ing been engaged in the task, and some surprise is expressed that they
were not made use of this year. Certain it is that the public have had
to suffer much loss and inconvenience, which they might have been
spared by more prompt and energetic measures on the part of the author-
ities,"— (London "Standard" Paris correspondent, Decembers, 1879.)

''In some of the public gardens the snow is untouched, and they
have ceased to be thoroughfares ; but in the streets it is slowly being
carted away, the traffic being carried on under great difficulties. Most
of the tramways have stopped working." — (London "Times" Paris
correspondent, December 10, 1879.)

The depth of snow that fell in these storms was estimated to be
fifty centimetres (twenty inches). The chief of the Department of
Public Works, M. Alphand, being called upon to explain why he did
not immediately remove it all, stated that there had fallen altogether
about 7,000,000 cubic metres of snow, and that it cost three francs a
cubic metre to remove it, or 21,000,000 francs for the whole (about
84,000,000). The Municipal Council did not feel authorized to expend
this vast sum, but they did generously vote 500,000 francs ($100,000),
in addition to the regular appropriation for street-cleaning, and M. Al-
phand was thus enabled to put an immense force at work upon the
streets.

It is worthy of notice how differently this public officer was treated
from our own. In the spring of 1879 our Police Commissioners were
summoned before the Mayor, and two of them removed from office
because they had not kept the streets clean during the winter. No
extra appropriation for them — nothing but disgrace ! A comparison
of the condition of the streets in both cities may be instructive. In

590 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Paris twenty inches of snow fell in December, eight inches at one
time and twelve at another. And this was a remarkable event in that
city, although such storms are not uncommon here. For instance : on
February 3, 1876, we had eleven inches of snow ; on January 13, 1877,
thirteen inches ; and March 16th following, three and a half inches.
In the winter which proved so unfortunate for our public officers, we
had, on January 1, 1879, five inches of snow, and on the 16th thirteen
inches more, or eighteen inches in all, and nearly as much as fell in
Paris last winter. Between these storms we had freezing weather,
the thermometer marking above the freezing-point only six times, and
never rising above 38° in the hottest part of the day. So the cases
are not altogether dissimilar. Let us see how much better the efficient
street-cleaning department of Paris did its work than ours.

The following extracts are from the " Figaro " of December 10,
1879:

*' ' La Presse ' says, ' A little less politics, and a little more sweep-
ing.'

'"Le Mot d'Ordre' : *A little more sweeping ! "La Presse" is
right ; let them sweep out. the head of the bureau.'

" ' La Presse ' : ' We have lived in countries where snow is not an
exception, as it is in Paris. In those places snow has never been an
obstacle in getting about the streets. As soon as the snow begins to
fall, they sweep it up and carry it away.' "

And " Figaro " adds : " All this is perfectly true ; in London, they
melt the snow instantly with jets of steam ; in Berlin, where it snows
almost constantly in winter, the street-cars do not cease running for
an instant, owing to analogoias measures, which keep the rails abso-
lutely free. But we are in France, we are in Paris ; and a practical
spirit is, unfortunately, the only thing we lack."

How much all this sounds like the talk of our own newspapers !

The attacks of the press were so persistent, and the displeasure of
the public so marked in various ways, that M. Alphand was summoned
before the Municipal Council. In his speech, reported at length in
" Le Figaro " of December 12, 1879, he referred in the following words
to some of the statements made in the newspapers :

" Foreign countries have been mentioned ; it has been stated that
in them the snow is removed immediately. Brussels has been given
as an example ; now I myself was in that city three years ago, at the
very time when they had a fall of snow ; I declare to you that I did
not see a single cart carrying away snow, and when it thawed people
splashed along in a black mud twenty-five centimetres thick" (ten
inches).

M. Alphand stated that there were at that time employed in re-
moving snow 13,940 men, 3,900 horses, and 2,400 carts.

Imagine our Board of Apportionment supporting the hands of its
public officers, in trying times, in this fashion !

THE PROBLEM OF MUNICIPAL NUISANCES. 591

This immense body of laborers was put at work before the middle
of December. And how much did they accomplish '?

On Januaiy 5th a correspondent writes : " Beneath our feet such
mire as has not been seen since the first week succeeding the origi-
nal deluge. . . . Fromthejirst fall of snow, upon the Jfth of December,
the regular scavenger service was suspended, and noio, that the snow
has melted aioay, great heaps of offal and filth of all sorts lie rotting
in the open air.'''' (The italics are mine.)

In a letter to the "New York Evening Post," dated at Paris, Jan-
uary 6th, Edward King writes: " Coming into the city after a brief jour-
ney to Spain a day or two since, I almost fancied myself in New York,
so familiar seemed the long banks of snow, garnished with dirt and
the refuse from kitchens. The municipal authorities have been unable
to maintain their reputation for promptness in street-cleaning, in pres-
ence of the unaccustomed snowy visitation."

As late as February 18, 1880, more than two months after the snow-
fall, and with mild weather intervening, notwithstanding the efforts of
14,000 men and the expenditure of 1100,000, " Le Figaro " has the fol-
lowing paragraphs :

" There still remain, in many of the side streets, disagreeable re-
minders of the snow of last December. Thus, to mention only one
instance, but one that counts, we call attention to the streets and pas-
sages of the districts bordering on the Eighteenth Ward (arrondisse-
ment). The streets and narrow alleys lying between the Rue Ordener
and the fortifications, and between the long Rue des Poissonniers and
the Avenue de Saint Ouen, are in a wretched state. Heaps of filth,
composed of earth-mixed snow, vegetable scraps, and refuse of all kinds,
stagnate in the puddles formed by the holes in the pavement.

"The complete repair of this pavement is absolutely necessary.
The old women of the quarter quarrel every day about who shall clean
in front of the houses, and the streets remain filthy.

" Between the passages Traeger and des Poissonniers there is an
open space of about one thousand square feet" (one hundred square
metres). " This space is now a mere slough of filth, where the inhabi-
tants, careless of sanitary laws, deposit the most unseemly products of
their meals." (Something left to the imagination here.)

" Let there be a hot sun, and an epidemic will sweep away the ten-
ants of these hovels by the hundred.

" Note to the Commission of Hygiene and Public Health, and to
the ashmen. The tenants of this quarter have lost the habit of seeing
these men."

The extraordinary parallelism between such passages and the com-
ments of our own newspapers in the spring of 1879 will be noticed by
every one.

Query ? If 14,000 men and $100,000 are unable to clean 2,667
acres of street in Pai-is in two months after a snow-fall of twenty inches,

592 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

what ought in justice to be expected from a force of 400 men, with
no extra appropriation, working on 1,415 acres of street in New York,
after a snow-fall of eighteen inches ?

In London, such snow-storms never occur ; but, that the authorities
find it difficult there also to keep the streets in that condition of peren-
nial neatness demanded by the press and the public, the following ex-
tracts will show :

" There is a natural dowdiness about the streets of London, espe-
cially in autumn, which is perhaps incurable. . . . The pavements
begin to be deeply smeared with that peculiarly nasty London slime,
which can only here be produced in its glutinous and slippery perfec-
tion."—(" Saturday Review," November 1, 1879, p. 531.)

" The streets of London are being much improved by wood pave-
ment " (they will find this a mistake), "but they are still allowed to
remain in a condition of dirt which can not be otherwise than very in-
jurious to the public health. London smells are as objectionable as
London noises, and in removing the latter some attempts might with
advantage be made at least to diminish the former. This end would
in great measure be attained by a proper system of street-cleaning.
Under existing arrangements there is no provision for a thorough and
periodical cleaning of the roads. They are not even swept, the result
being that in dry weather they are littered with refuse and abomina-
tions of various sorts, which pollute the atmosphere and fully account
for the unpleasant odors tchich have during the present summer pre-
vailed in the m,etropolis and been the cause of general complaint.
Water-carts are of very little service in washing the streets ; they may
lay the dust for the time, but they merely transform it into mud without
removing it. Heavy thunder-showers exercise a more beneficial effect,
but their visitations are uncertain, and the manure they wash into the
drains often stagnates in the sewer, and might be turned to profitable
account if collected and disposed of. The attention of the vestries
has lately been called to the whole question of street-cleaning by the
National Health Society, and the sooner some steps are taken to purify
out-door as well as in-door London the better." — (" St. James's Gazette,"
quoted in " New York Sun," September 5, 1880. The italics are
mine).

The bad odors above mentioned are also referred to in the follow-
ing extract from the " Lancet " of May 29, 1880 : " Attention has at
length been drawn in the daily press to the disgusting smells pervad-
ing many of the principal London streets at the present moment. A
correspondent likens the smell in Victoria Street, Westminster, to that
of a charnel-house ; and the smell in the Quadrant, Regent Street, on
Friday and Saturday last, was so like that of carrion, that we heard
the question debated whether it did not come from some open windows
in the houses near the spot where it was felt " (sic !), " and might not
arise from some, perhaps unknown, can-ion there. But this is not the

THE PROBLEM OF MUNICIPAL NUISANCES. 593

only part of Regent Street which has recently been distinguished by a
foul smell. The stench (arising from foul sewage according to some,
from foulness of the roadway according to others) has been specially
obvious to the passer-by about the center of the street, and between
Oxford Circus and Margaret Street. In the latter place it was par-
ticularly disgusting on Saturday evening. Other streets in the West
of London have, and are, suffering from persisting stink " {sic ! punc-
tuation and all). " It has been suggested that this offensive state of
things has arisen from the long spell of dry weather, and consequent
insufficient flushing of the sewers or streets, or both. But are the
sanitary authorities of the metropolis so wanting in ingenuity, energy,
and means that the effects of absence of rain upon the sewers and
streets at this time of the year can not be counteracted ? "

From the above it appears that New York is not the only city
where rain is expected to help in cleaning the streets, or where the
public authoi'ities are expected to make up for the meteorological de-
fects of an exceptional season.

In the removal of ashes and garbage, London does not seem to be
much in advance of New York, as witness the following extracts :
" What can be more unreasonable than the practice of accumulating
kitchen stuff and household dirt of every description in heaps under
our windows during the heat of summer ? . . . The scavenging of our
cities and towns is done by contract, and the men employed in the
work are so underpaid that, as a matter of experience, they decline to
discharge their duty except when bribed by householders. Complaints
reach us of the extent to which the practice of levying black-mail is
carried by the London dustman, and doubtless the evil is rife else-
where. Servants are powerless to compel the inert and insolent men
who parade the streets with carts to empty the dust-bins. . . . Alto-
gether, the system of clearance is a fiasco.''^ — (London " Lancet,"
August 17, 1878, p. 233.)

Substitute garbage-box for dust -bin in the following letter,* and it
might do for the complaint-book of the " Herald " :

Meadowside, I^tnet, September 20, 1880.

Sir : At an inquest held a few days ago on the body of a child who died at
Lisson Street, Marylebone, the coroner, Dr. Hardwicke, commented strongly on
the serious injury to health occasioned by the present system of allowing dust-
bins to remain in London and its environs for lengthened periods without being
cleaned out. Perhaps you would bring your influence to bear in this matter,
which certainly appears to me to require looking into.

An uncleaned dust-bin, with its festering mass of decaying animal and vege-
table refuse, particularly in hot weather and in crowded districts, is a grave evil,
as any one who has given the slightest attention to the matter of hygiene will
allow, and the present system of having them emptied once in a fortnight is
simply absurd. Of course, those who are addicted to cleanly habits can have their

* London " Lancet," October 2, 1880, p. 563.
VOL. XVIII. — 38

594 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

dust-receptacles attended to oftener ly entering into a private contract with the
diistmen; but those whose means are straitened, or wlio can not afford this hix-
ury, must be content to endure their pestilence-breeding bins, with all the foul
odors and health-depressing influences attached to them, until such times as it
may please the dustmen to give them a dirty clean-out^ the visits of these
gentlemen being, like those of the angels, "few and far between," in the poor
and crowded districts of this great city.

I have frequently been told by members of the working classes that it is no
unusual thing for the dust-bins in their neighhorhood to remain unattended to for
months at a time ; and, when they appeal to the dustmen in charge of any pass-
ing cart, they are eithel- laughed at or met by a volley of abuse for their pains.

Surely such a state of things, which is easy of remedy, should not any longer
be permitted. Yours truly,

G. Stanley Mueeay, M. D.

The italics in this letter are mine. The writer shows his imperfect
acquaintance with the necessities and difficulties of the public service,
in the last paragraph, when he writes, "which is easy of remedy."
To be sure, the remedy seems plain enough to any one who has never
tried to make his own plan work practically. All that is needed is a
few carts, horses, and men, with system, energy, intelligence, and in-
dustry— men with the latter qualities, as is well known, being exceed-
ingly plentiful in the world, and their services dirt-cheap. A writer
in the " Contemporary Review " for October, 1879, page 294, Henry
J. Miller by name, representing himself as a poor man appealing to the
upper classes for aid in bettering the condition of the poor, makes the
following suggestion in his article " Lazarus to Dives," which, as an
off-hand solution of a great problem, equals anything in our own daily
journals : " Furnish " every householder " with two boxes, varying in
size according to the dimensions of his domicile : one to form a recep-
tacle for dust, cinders, old rags, broken bottles, and what is generically
known as ' dry dirt ' ; and the other for decayed vegetables, the en-
trails of fish, and that kind of refuse that we rather uneuphoniously
call * muck.' Such boxes to be taken away once a week, and empty
ones left in their stead. As a corollary to this, forbid him, under pen-
alties, to continue his present practice of pitching derelicts into the
street, as the readiest means of being quit of them ; and make him
responsible for the cleanliness of his door-steps and the j)avement in
front of his dwelling."

I have but one more subject to touch upon. In the spring of 1878
a determined effort was made by a public-spirited citizen to have the
Health Commissioners of this city punished because they did not drive
all offensive businesses out of the city. The attack upon them failed,
and it failed for the same reason that similar attacks have failed, and
will fail elsewhere, and that is, because the trades classed as offensive
constitute an important part of the industries of a great city, and their
banishment would strike a ten-ible blow at her commercial prosperity.

THE PROBLEM OF MUNICIPAL NUISANCES.

595

The meat business alone in New York runs up toward a hundred
millions annually, and the city can not afford to lose it, with the hun-
dreds of smaller allied businesses that must inevitably follow it wher-
ever it goes. I have brought up tliis subject because, singularly
enough, the same trouble and similar complaints have arisen in Paris
this summer, and the parallelism between the course of the journals
there and here is as marked in this case as in the others mentioned
above.

The Paris correspondent of the London " Lancet," in the issue of
July 31, 1880, writes : " For some time the atmosphere of Paris has
been anything but agreeable. Toward the evening, an unpleasant
smell — or rather a more unpleasant smell than usual — has been notice-
able, so much so, indeed, that it has at last become offensive even to
the republican nostrils of the Municipal Council. This odor has been
supposed by some to emanate from the sewers, while others have at-
tributed it to putrefaction in the numerous Mosques which adorn (or
disfigure ?) the boulevards. It would appear, however, that the efl3^u-
vium originates outside the fortifications, in the twenty-seven depo-
toirs, or night-soil depots, which at some distance surround the capital,
and perhaps also in the sewage-boats which are anchored in the Seine,
near the Pont des Invalides. It depends in a great measure upon the
absence of the disinfectants which should be used by the contractors
who empty the cesspools, but who appear, from the statement of one
of the Municipal Councilors, to have been abetted by the police in
their neglect."

A month later, August 28th, the same correspondent writes : " The
pestilential smells which have infected Paris for some time are awaken-
ing a feeling of indignation against the responsible authorities, which
is expressed freely in the daily papers, and that quite independent of
party spirit. A few days since the well-known critic, Francisque Sar-
cey, devoted an article to this matter in the ' Dix-Neuvi^me Siecle,' and
invited the inhabitants of his district to sign the petition in prepara-
tion against the nuisance ; and the ' Figaro ' of to-day prefaces some
satirical remarks by the statement that ' Paris est en ce moment inf ecte
par les odeurs les plus epouvantables. Tous les egouts sont a decou-
vert.' The odors, which in reality emanate, as was stated in a previous
letter, from the night-soil depotoirs which surround the city, and also
from the carts and boats which convey the sewage outside the walls,
are due to the neglect of the contractors in the use of disinfecting
measures, and there seems to he no doubt about the connivance of the
police at this abuse. . . . The 'Petite Republique Fran9aise' thinks
that the only remedy lies in the suppression of the bureaux which are
fcdlaciously called ' sanitary ' or ' hygienic,^ and which cover the re-
sponsibility of the prefect by a semblance of official sanction, which,
as a matter of fact, they can not withhold." (The italics are
mine.)

596 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The usual hasty charges of corruption and incompetence, it will be
observed, and the usual expression of a belief that matters could be
mended by turning the incumbent officers out of their places and put-
ting green men in their stead !

Meanwhile the Council of Hygiene was busily at work tracing the
source of these odors, and endeavoring to find means of suppressing
them. The " Journal Officiel " of October 7, 1880, contains the report of
a commission appointed for this duty, in which they take strong ground
with regard to the harmlessness of the odors, so far as the public
health is concerned. It has always been maintained by the Board of
Health of this city that the odors complained of by our citizens were
not detrimental to health, but only destructive of comfort, and its
officers have been much ridiculed for this opinion. It is not unpleas-
ant, therefore, to find that the corresponding board in Paris takes the
same view. The following extract will show this :

" The commission deems it necessary, in the first place, to reassure
the public with regard to the influence exercised by sewer emanations
upon mortality and upon the diffusion of contagious or epidemic dis-
eases. In a communication to the Academy of Medicine, March 6,
1877, M. Bouley has stated that the proof of this contagious action,
far from being demonstrated, was contradicted by certain observa-
tions. This doctrine has been maintained in the Council of Hygiene,
by MM. Bouchardat and Hillairet, whose authority in such matters is
well known. The emanations from the mouths of sewers, as well as
those from the great chimneys of our factories, do not contribute, in
any degree whatever, to the development or propagation of ej^idemic
affections."

In this report, the bad odors complained of in Paris, especially
during August and September, penetrating to the center of the city,
are attributed to the ventilating shafts of "fosses d'aisance," the
depots des vidanges at Billancourt, Aubervilliers, and Les Hautes-
Bornes, Arcueil. As remedies they recommend the prompt prosecution
of persons who discharge night-soil into the sewers (which is not al-
lowed in Paris, and accounts for the cleanliness of her sewers), the
thorough flushing of the sewers, a vast increase in the water-supply
for cesspools and water-closets, the ventilation of the sewers, and the
strict supervision of fat-rendering establishments. And they add that,
"in seeking these means of prevention, we do not lose sight of the
just recommendation of the Minister of Agriculture and Commerce,
dated January 7, 1878, that tJiey ought to be practicable and suscep-
tible of being put in operation without entailing the suppression of the
manufactures themselves.'''' (Italics in original.)

The report lays great stress upon the facts that the odors from
poudrette-works, fat-rendering establishments, fertilizer-works, etc.,
are not injurious to health, and that a suppression of these works, such
as the public demands, would result in great inconvenience and even

THE PROBLEM OF MUNICIPAL NUISANCES. 597
danger to the city : " II f aut le reconnaitre, ce sont des ^tablissements

necessaires."

M. Alphand, chief of the DejDartment of Public Works, who was
held partly responsible by the public for the state of affairs, made a
speech before the Council of Hygiene, October 1st, which is reported
in the " Journal Officiel " of October 7, 1880. He speaks more at length
than the commission above-mentioned with regard to establishments
of the kind that have caused so many complaints in New York. He
says :

" The abattoirs of La Villette give rise, as our colleague Dr. Voisin
has remarked, to disagreeable odors. These odors do not come, as has
been supposed, from the barge which receives the manure and entrails
of the slaughtered animals ; those matters are, in fact, thoroughly dis-
infected and removed daily. The bad smells which escape in the vi-
cinity of these abattoirs of La Villette are produced by the fat-render-
ing, which is done immediately after the killing. This is a nuisance
inevitably connected with all establishments of this kind. . . .

" There is, at the gates of Paris, between the Chemin de Per du
Kord and the canal, all along the street La Haie-Coq to Aubervilliers,
a collection of factories that treat animal matters and spread abroad
nauseous smells. ... It can not be too strongly insisted upon that
these emanations, so objectionable to the sense of smell, have no
miasmatic character, and are not dangerous in a medical point of
view. . . .

" An evident proof of the harmlessness of these odors, as far as the
public health is concerned, is found in the following figures : The com-
plaints of bad odors began in August and increased in intensity up to
the month of September. Now, the mortality lists, for the first week
of August, show 1,114 deaths ; the list for the week from September
9th to 16th shows only 881, a number smaller than the average when
Paris is in the best sanitary condition."

The following words of M. Alphand are worthy of consideration
here in New York :

"Besides, the public must not demand the impossible, and the pro-
duction of emanations more or less disagreeable, more or less offensive,
can never be completely avoided in the midst of this collection of two
million human beings, and many hundreds of thousands of animals —
dogs, cats, horses, cattle, poultry, etc."

The speech of M. Alphand was not dealt with tenderly by the
newspaper men, who naturally knew much more about the subject
than he did. M. Francisque Sarcey, in the " XlXi^me Siecle," scari-
fies him in the following terms, which lose much of their vigor and
sarcastic force in the translation :

" M. Alphand deduces from this very unanimity an argument
against the press ; it is the newspapers, he says, that have thrown
bitterness into the question. It is they who have made all the trouble !

598 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

By crying out against the bad smells, they have finally persuaded the
Parisians, and even foreigners, that these bad smells really exist. Be-
fore this concerted outcry, Parisians never noticed that it stunk in
their city. Now, behold ! they are all up in arms against this pretended
infection. Who is to blame ? Those incorrigible gabblers — the news-
paper men. For a trifle, M. Alphand would be willing to say that it
is we who are malicious enough to stink, for the pleasure of giving
trouble to the authorities. For the past week it stunk every evening
in my quarter, and it stunk strongly. One evening, in particular, it
stunk so that I found myself compelled to shut my windows, and then
it only stunk the more. On my honor ! yesterday morning I had an
article to write ; I am in the habit of entertaining our readers with all
the subjects that interest me, and just at the time when they interest
me, and, as it stunk in my quarter, I immediately said, with my usual
bonhomie, ' Oh, my children, how it stinks in my quarter ! ' No,
you can not imagine how it stinks in my quarter. This phrase is my
witness that I did not ask myself, before uttering this cry of suffering,
whether M. Andrieux had made an arrest the night before, nor even
whether M, Andrieux was the prefect of police. I said, it stinks, be-
cause it stunk, with the ingenuousness of a man who holds his nose,
exclaiming, ' My God ! how it stinks ! " *

The war of words between the public and the officials is still going
on, and is becoming more virulent. At the session of the Conseil Ge-
neral of October 26th, M. Raspail is reported to have made " a furious
attack on the prefect of police, in reference to the factory at Les Hautes-
Bornes, the worst of all the factories surrounding Paris, which had
been already closed by M. Leon Renault. In spite of M. Voisin, this
factory was reopened, thanks to the influence of M. Leon Say, a friend
of M. Pauville, the new owner. The papers drawn against this estab-
lishment are flawless. Workmen refuse to labor in summer in its
vicinity, and those who do work there are seized Avith vomiting. In
place of closing this " pestilential center, it is allowed to grow larger.
And this is the history of the other depots and ammonia-factories in
the suburbs.

" These bastilles of infection," says M. Raspail, " must disappear,
and they will disappear, I assure you, in spite of all possible protec-
tion." t

This paper is already too long. I have had in its preparation but
one object, viz. : to demonstrate that some of the nuisances existing
in New York continue to exist, not on account of the ignorance, in-
competence, or negligence of officials whose duty it is to abate them,
but because there arise in connection with their suppression certain vast
problems which are not yet solved anywhere in cities of equal size
with this. And these problems do not lie on the surface, but only con-

* "Lancet," October 16, 1880, p. 639. f "Figaro," October 27, 1880, p. 5.

CEREBRAL LOCALIZATION. 599

front the theorist when he applies himself to practical work with per-
sonal responsibility, and he begins to find that the means at his disposal
are inadequate to the results exj)ected from him.

CEEEBKAL LOCALIZATION ; OR, THE NEW PHRE-
NOLOGY.*

By HENKY DE VAEIGNY.

" TTTHEN the one who listens does not comj^rehend, and the one
VV who speaks understands as little, you have metaphysics,"
says Voltaire. Taking this as a true definition, we may say that there
has been, and yet remains, much metaphysics in the treatment of the
functions of the brain. But the difficulties in cerebral physiology are
great. There is divergence of hypotheses, the facts themselves are
not settle.d, and contradictions abound. The foundations of the sci-
ence are yet deficient. But it does not follow that experiments are
useless. For half a century important researches have been carried
on ; and more recently facts have been discovered to which we would
here draw attention.

From an anatomical point of view the brain is composed of two
symmetrical halves, right and left, united by a voluminous commis-
sure, which probably puts into communication the homologous parts
of the two hemispheres. Each hemisphere consists of a central mass,
Avith its envelope of convolutions. The central mass, partially sepa-
rated from its outer covering by the lateral ventricles, is composed of
two round bodies, formed of gray nerve-cells — the active part of the
nervous system. The office of these rounded ganglia seems to be to
strengthen the impressions that come from without, or from stimu-
lated parts of the brain itself, and they may take part in automatic
actions. They are in relation, on the one hand, with the spinal cord,
and perhaps, more or less directly, with most of the motor and sensi-
tive fibers of the body ; on the other hand, they are connected by
fibers with the gray matter which is sj^read out in layers over the con-
volutions of the brain. In other words, the nerve-cells forming the
periphery of the convolutions give out white fibers, which penetrate
the central ganglia, probably connecting themselves with their cells.
From these cells other fibers proceed toward the cord and extremities
of the body. The central masses are on the line of the cerebral fibers
between their origin in the gray cells of the convolutions and their
termination in the cord and body generally.

■* Translated and abridged from the " Revue des Deux Mondes " by Miss E. A. You-
mans.

6oo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

This anatomical arrangement seems to indicate that the peripheral
substance, and not the central mass, is the point of motor stimulation
and the seat of sensitive impressions. It is everywhere admitted that
the brain is the organ of thought and will ; but for a long time it was
believed that the central mass was the important portion, and the con-
volutions were disregarded. Hippocrates thought they were only a
gland. Malpighi and Vieussens thought the same. Ruysch, from
their vascularity, considered them as a simple sanguineus network, and
Boerhaave and Haller adopted this conclusion. Vic d'Azyr was the
first to examine their structure ; then came Baillarger, Ehrenberg, Pur-
kinje, Meynert, Luys, Betz, and Charcot, who revealed their precise
anatomy. As to their physiology. Gall taught that intelligence is a
function of the convolutions ; Desmoulins added that the degree of
intelligence is in proportion to their number and depth ; and Broca,
taking the ideas and facts of Dax and Bouillaud, announced the first
discovered localization — that of articulate language in the third left
frontal convolution.

In 1870 two German scientists, Fritsch and Hitzig, passed a cur-
rent of electricity across the head and behind the ears of a living
subject, which caused movements of the eyes. They referred these
movements to stimulation of the gray matter of the convolutions, and
set about the verification of their hypothesis. From their experiments
they drew the three following fundamental propositions : 1. There
are in the head convolutions that may be excited by electricity, and
this excitation is followed by the production of determinate move-
ments depending upon the point excited ; other parts being excited
"without producing movements. 2. The points, which under stimula-
tion induce action in such and such muscular groups, occupy a very
limited portion of the cerebral surface. 3. The extirpation of such a
point of the surface, known to be a center of distinct movements,
paralyzes these movements.

The theory of cerebral localization assumes as proved that there is
in the brain a peripheral portion devoted to the production of move-
ments— a motor region ; and another where stimulation is not followed
by movements — a non-motor region. It further assumes that the
motor region may be subdivided into a certain number of small tracts,
definitely circumscribed, each of which presides over the movements
of a certain muscular group and this group alone. Ferrier, stalling
with these conclusions, proceeded with the research, and seems to have
established — that the convolutions, in man as well as in the lower ani-
mals, may be separated into three regions : the anterior, devoted to
intellectual functions ; the middle portion, charged with the motor
innervation of the body ; and a sensitive region where are received the
impressions made upon the sense-organs by the external world. To
show how Ferrier reaches and justifies these conclusions is the object
of this article.

CEREBRAL LOCALIZATION. 601

Two methods of investigation are open to the physiologist — the
experimental and the clinical. In the order of time, the first and the
most practicable is the experimental method, which consists in ob-
serving the brain through openings in the skull and exciting the con-
volutions or removing them according to the end proposed. This
method is applicable only to animals ; and the monkey, from the like-
ness of his brain to that of man, is best suited to these investigations.
But experiments upon other animals are very useful. They show the
homologous i-egions in different cerebral types ; and the inequality in
relative importance of the central masses, the region of automatic
functions, and the convolutions, the region of the will. The great
advantage of this method is that the operator can repeat the experi-
ments indefinitely upon all sorts of animals, varying the conditions,
and choosing his own time and place. Lesions can also be better cir-
cumscribed, and the autopsy can be made at will. On the other hand,
animals can not tell their sensations, and we have to judge as best we
can as to affections of the intellectual and sensational regions. And
the preliminary operations may cause general symptoms that mask the
phenomena to be studied. Still, this method is in merited favor, and
it will yet yield answers to many questions if we know how to put
them.

All the processes of experimenters may be reduced to two catego-
ries, according to their effects upon the functional activity of the con-
volutions. These are irritating lesions and paralyzing lesions. Irri-
tating lesions provoke spasms when applied to the motor region,
subjective sensations when applied to the sensitive region, and delir-
ium when they affect the intellectual region. Paralyzing lesions in
the motor region paralyze the normal action, and in the sensitive and
intellectual regions bring on ansesthesia and mental depression. But
this division applies only to immediate results, for it is not rare to
see a lesion, whether experimental or in clinic, provoke symptoms of
irritation in the beginning, followed by paralytic symptoms, and re-
ciprocally.

Experiments that produce prompt paralyzing effects are more nu-
merous than those which excite the functions of the convolutions.
But the most preferable one, and that adopted by Ferrier, is the
method of limited ablation. By it lesions can be more circumscribed,
it affords a sure means of control, and hence it has come largely
into use. Electricity is the only process for exciting the functions to
greater activity ; and since it has been much opposed, and is the sole
support of the theory of cerebral localization, we must defend its
legitimacy.

It may be remarked that the convolutions of the brain are in the
form of long, round, gray swellings, separated by furrows. Each of
these swellings has a direction, relations, and a situation peculiar to
itself, and identical for all animals of the same species ; and the princi-

6o2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

pal ones have their homologues in all animals. They have also their
special names. When the excitant is moved about over the different
convolutions, the existence of the motor zone is made manifest by the
successive movements of the animal ; the sensitive zone is known by
signs of sensation, while the indications of an intellectual zone are not
thus positive. Observe what passes when we irritate the so-called
motor region. We excite a certain point of the convolutions, and a
movement is produced. Groping about with our electrodes, we find
the effect limited to a small tract where at all the points the same
movement is provoked, and that alone. Next to this zone, we can in the
same way find the limits of others presiding over other movements.
The influence appears greatest at the center of the zone : exciting the
periphery sometimes produces a light supplementary movement belong-
ing to a neighboring zone. The special centers or zones being very
near together, our means of electrizing them are not perfect enough
to prevent a slight diffusion of the current into neighboring centers
and faintly exciting them. To get precise separate effects we must
excite the center of the special zone.

As the same movement invariably follows the stimulation of a
special center (the name of a special zone), we conclude that the center
in question has charge of this movement, and, as a great number of
these centers, placed side by side, preside over most of the movements
of the body, we infer the existence of a motor region of the brain, the
seat of voluntary control of the body. But, since, as the galvanometer
shows, the electricity is diffused over neighboring centers, what right
have we, it may be asked, to assert that the movement observed, when
a certain center is excited, is due to that excitation, when neighboring
centers are also excited ? We reply that to these facts we can oppose
other facts. On removing the electrical conductors scarcely a centi-
metre, we excite perfectly definite unlike movements, although the
current is diffused as before. Why are not the movements last pro-
duced the same as those observed at the first position? Why such
distinct localization in spite of diffusion '? Although the occurrence of
diffusion is proved by means of sensitive apparatus, it is physiologically
insuflicient. Besides, it can be prevented by proper precautions.

Again, it is asked if there may not be such a thing as diffusion
beneath the surface ? This is a grave question, for, under the motor
region, there is a large ganglion containing motor fibers going to the
muscles. If the current diffuses downward as far as this ganglion, we
can not assume that the convolution alone is excited. There are three
answers to this objection : 1. The excitation of the convolutions
nearest to this ganglion gives the least results ; sometimes no move-
ment at all. Unless we admit that the effects are directly as the re-
sistance, which is absurd, downward conduction can not be affirmed.
2. Braun has demonstrated that a section of the white fibers below
.the excited points, interrupting the physiological continuity, does not

CEREBRAL LOCALIZATION. 603

arrest electrical conduction sufficiently to prevent movements. 3.
Ferrier has shown that the direct excitation of this ganglion pro-
duces a general muscular contraction of the other side of the body,
and not special isolated movements. So that we again conclude that,
though electrical diffusion toward the corpus striatum (the name of
the ganglion in question) may exist, it is physiologically insufficient.

But, it may still be asked if electrical diffusion does not excite
the white fibers interposed between these convolutions and the gan-
glion beneath. This objection borrows a character of probability from
the slight thickness of the layer of gray matter of the convolutions,
and also from the alleged unexcitability of the gray substance, which
has been proved in the case of the spinal cord, but conclusive proof in
regard to the brain is yet wanting. Many physiologists claim that
these cells are only excitable by the will. For the theory of motor-
centers they substitute that of psycho-motors. Reserving this discus-
sion for another time and place, we may say that, whether we excite
the cells or the fibers that arise from them, the result is the same.

All stimulation, whatever its nature or origin, acts upon a nerve
according to its functions. Excite a motor nerve at any point of its
coui'se, and you produce movement ; excite a sensory nerve, and the
subject will feel a sensation which will vary with the nature of the
nerve. Compress the eyeball, you excite the optic nerve and get the
sensation of light ; auditive nerves give sensations of sound, and so
for all the nerves of special or general sensibility. If, then, in the
brain we excite the motor region, the origin of the motor nerves is
irritated, and we get movements ; excite the sensitive region, and in
place of movement we have sensation owing to the connection of these
nerves with sensitive cells. So that the electrization of the gray mat-
ter of the convolutions acts in the same way as the electrization of a
nerve on any point of its track ; the only difference is that in one
case we excite them at a point near their origin. From the anatomi-
cal relations that exist between the white fibers and gray cells, we
infer that the cells play the role of center to the nerves.

We come now to the details of Fen-ier's experiments. Ferrier op-
erated chiefly on monkeys, because in them the will is in the ascendant,
while in lower animals automatism preponderates. As the result
of his experiments, he affirms the existence of three zones — the intel-
lectual, motor, and sensitive — into which the surface of the brain can
be divided. The one best known, and to which least objection has
been made, is the motor zone. In passing the electrodes over its
surface, we soon find the little, well-defined centers that preside over
particular groups of muscles. Under the microscope there is seen at
these points a limited mass of large cells, called nests by Betz. The
functions of these centers are best shown when they are electrized at
the central point, the current being then less likely to spread, and so
produce more complicated movements that mask the true function of

6o4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the center imder experiment. Here electricity provokes movements of
the leg on the opposite side, owing to the cross-action of the hemi-
spheres. It moves as if to go forward ; or the movement may be
limited to the foot, or even the great-toe. Sometimes the motions are
still more complex, and involve many muscles, as if the animal would
scratch its breast or press against it some object which it had taken
from the ground. Again, it is the arm, forearm, or hand that moves
in various ways, and to different ends ; sometimes there is a com-
bination of movements, like those required for swimming or prehen-
sion ; the fingers may lock together with force, as if to retain an ob-
ject, or extend themselves with a lively movement, as if to scatter
something. It is probable that, if our instruments were more per-
fect, we should find in each center a number of subordinate centers
for the execution of single movements, or the moving of a single
muscle.

The general idea of the relations of the brain and spinal cord is
that the brain commands and the cord obeys. The brain requires such
or such a movement, and the cord, working unconsciously, coordinates
the elementary and individual movements required to produce the de-
sired effect. Electrizing the centers is the same as issuing an order
to the cord, not of directly exciting movement.

Monkeys being difficult to obtain in our climate, to satisfy the con-
stant needs of experiment, Ferrier operated upon dogs, jackals, Indian
pigs, rats, pigeons, frogs, fishes, anything that was going. These ex-
periments fully confirmed the results otherwise obtained, and showed,
besides, that the action of the hemispheres is of less importance as we
descend in the animal scale, while automatism rises.

Ablation of a limited portion of gray matter of the brain leads
to the same conclusions as electrization. It produces paralysis, and
monkeys rarely or imperfectly recover from these lesions, while infe-
rior animals, as the rabbit and Indian pig, recover ; thus showing that
the voluntary centers are more important in monkeys than in lower
animals.

Such are the facts on which we base the existence of a motor region
in the brain. Putting aside all questions of interpretation, it is unde-
niable that there is a region in the brain w^here stimulation produces
movements varying with the zone or center excited.

'Behind this region we find the sensitive centers which receive im-
pressions made upon the sensory nerves, and form perceptions from
them. As the terrhinations of the nerves of sensation are specialized,
in exciting the centers we produce , subjective sensations, like those
caused by cerebral maladies, in which the intellect refers to the out-
ward world the origin of sensations, of w^hich the cause is in the brain ;
and, whether voluntarily or by reflex action, the animal operated on
by electricity shows by evident signs the nature of the sensations he
experiences. By means of counter-verification we determine the exist-

CEREBRAL LOCALIZATION. 605

ence and topography of a certain number of centers which Ferrier has
studied with great care.

Take, for example, the visual center : its stimulation caused disor-
dered reflex actions, indicating unpleasant visual perceptions. This
alone is insufficient proof ; but we can control the region in question
by ablation, which brings on unilateral or bilateral blindness, accord-
ing as we operate on one or both of the visual centers. Stimulation of
the auditive centers, in the same part of the brain, provokes move-
ments of the ears, eyes, and head, showing astonishment or terror, just
like those caused by a violent and unexpected noise. Ablation causes
deafness ; the animal remains indifferent to all sounds. Excite the
centers of touch, and the signs indicate disagreeable or painful tactile
impressions. Ablation brings on complete anaesthesia of the same
parts ; you may prick, cut, and bruise the animal, and he remains
insensible.

Some experiments seemed to indicate the existence of centers of
taste and odor, but it is difficult to trace their limits. They are inter-
mingled like the gustative and olfactive sensations. Electricity causes
movements indicating unpleasant tastes and odors, and extirpation of
the parts ends these sensations. The animal will respire odors, or taste
savors that in the normal state would make him fly about the labora-
tory, and it all passes unperceived. Still more hypothetical are the
centers of the organic needs of hunger and thirst, and more yet
those of sex, but Ferrier's arguments are strong in favor of their
existence.

The presence of a third, or intellectual region, is proved, as far as
it can be, by experiments on the lower animals. It is difficult to un-
derstand the mental action of a dog, Indian pig, or even of a monkey.
Ferrier observed numerous facts tending to establish the intellectual
function of the anterior region of the brain. Electricity could hardly
be employed in these researches ; but ablations, when performed with
caution, brought on notable changes in the habits of animals. The
monkeys chosen by Ferrier were remarkable for their vivacity and
intelligence, prying about right and left, and observing everything.
After the operation they became stupid and apathetic. But these in-
dications are not convincing. The clinic alone can decide whether
physiology sustains the doctrine of cerebral localization.

We know in what the clinical method consists. Applied most
often to man, it amounts to this : to observe the symptoms of cerebral
disease, and at the autopsy to connect the lesions, discovered by the
naked eye or the microscope, with the symptoms, as cause and effect.
It is true that in cerebral pathology there is great difficulty in separat-
ing the essential from the accidental, and distinguishing cause and
effect among a plurality of causes. Besides, it frequently happens in
cases of cerebral disease that at the autopsy no appreciable lesions can
be found. The question is still further complicated by the solidarity

6o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY..

•

that binds together the different jiarts of the cerebro-spinal system and
which makes it probable that a simple local trouble will produce gen-
eral functional perturbation. The brain is like a complex machine, in
which, if a screw loosens, or a nut gives way, or a rod bends or breaks,
at once all goes wrong. It is not that the screw, nut, or rod in question
is the immediate cause of the movements of the machine, but that
the failure of these accessories may, for the moment, produce accidents
as grave as would be caused by disturbance in much more important
parts. Again, cerebral lesions tend to spread and become general.
And yet, we have to accept the lesions caused by disease, for we can
not produce them at will.

With these reservations, the clinical method is still of the first im-
portance. By means of it we verify in man the hypotheses of experi-
ment, and assure ourselves of the existence of the intellectual and
sensitive regions of the brain. Neither medicine nor physiology op-
poses the use of the clinical method in cerebral localization. But only
circumscribed lesions that have little or no tendency to become gen-
eral, or to act at a distance by compressing the brain, or otherwise, can
come to the aid of our theory. When there is a lesion of the cortical
region of the brain which fulfills these conditions, the resulting symp-
toms may be of two orders — either stimulative or paralytic of the true
function. These are the two opposed symptoms that we produce ex-
perimentally by electrization and ablation of the substance of the con-
volutions. It goes wdthout saying that the symptoms vary with the
locality of the lesion : the intellectual region gives delirium ; the motor
region, spasms ; the sensitive region, subjective sensations. The symp-
toms of functional paralysis are also diversely represented by mental
feebleness, motor paralysis, and anaesthesia limited to one sense. A
lesion frequently presents both orders of symptoms, which succeed
each other, or alternate, according to its nature. This fact is as im-
portant as the division of the symptoms into two great classes. We
will now consider the facts in the same order as before.

The middle region of the superior face of the brain appears to
be the motor region. In fact, limited lesions of this region bring
on marked troubles in the motor innervation of the body, such as
monoplegia, or limited paralysis, or equally limited spasms. Putting
aside those cases where the lesions cause general trouble, and regard-
ing those where the symptoms are limited, we come at a constant
relation between certain lesions and certain troubles. In ocular
monoplegia, the eye can not be controlled by the will. Brachial and
crural monoplegia are more frequent ; sometimes a single member,
arm or leg, sometimes both ; but successively, because of the extension
of the lesion to both centers, which are near together. In this case the
lesion advances slowly and invasively ; at the autopsy we can often
appreciate the differences of age of the extreme points of the diseased
spot. Not far from the brachial and crural centers is the center that

CEREBRAL LOCALIZATION'. 607

presides over the muscles of the face. As before, this center may be
affected alone or simultaneously with the other. It depends upon the
nature of the lesion whether the invasion is sudden, or slow and pro-
gressive, ending in feebleness rather than in paralysis. The proximity
of the brachial and facial centers explains their apparent solidarity in
the normal state, as shown by the grimaces that often accompany vigor-
ous use of the arms. It seems as if the second center were stimulated
by the activity of the first. We close our enumeration of the centers
which the clinic has proved to exist by reference to the center of artic-
ulate language, discovered long ago by Broca, which attends to the
coordination of phonetic movements.

We have seen that lesions of the motor region of the brain may be
manifested by spasms as well as by paralysis. These monospasms have
been long known, but it was Hughlings Jackson who first attributed
them to lesions of the motor region of the brain. Prior to this they
had been described by Bravais, but he did not seek for their origin or
signification. They are localized convulsions, or partial epilepsy, and
Hughlings Jackson thinks they are due to nervous tension. Any new
excitement added to those already stored up will produce discharge or
spasm. Like monoplegia, they may be limited to an arm or leg, or
even the face ; but these phenomena ai'e seldom noticed, and we have
few observations upon them. When the spasm involves several parts
of the body, it always begins at the same point and follows the same
order. Dr. Maragliano has made a very interesting study of partial
epilepsy, and explained its causes and signification. Both monospasms
and monoplegia indicate the same localization of power.

The sensitive region is found, by experiment, behind the motor
centers. While limited lesions of this region often manifest them-
selves externally as circumscribed anfesthesia, it sometimes happens
that they remain latent when they are seated on only one hemisphere.
There is no sign of pathological perturbation, and in this case we seem
forced to admit functional substitution, or the possibility of the regu-
lar action of two sensitive, homologous regions, notwithstanding the
absence of one of the two corresponding cerebral hemispheres. What
does this signify ? Must we abandon the doctrine of localization as
reo-ards the sensitive centers ? A single center suffice for the two
parts of the body ? This anomaly is probably due to insufficient ob-
servation. Disease of the cerebral centers may give no further symp-
tom than enfeebled sensibility, which might pass unperceived. Lesions
of the motor region often result not in total paralysis but in slight
paralysis — a feebleness and not an abolition of the functions. But
there are cases where lesions of the sensitive region are accompanied
by less equivocal symptoms, and it is from these that we affirm local-
ization.

Symptoms may be of two orders, according to the nature and the
phase of the disease : symptoms of excitation, which produce subjec-

6o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tive sensations responding to nothing external, and symptoms of anaes-
thesia manifested by an abolition of the perceptions belonging to the
affected part. These two classes of symptoms may also alternate in
the same disease, as in the motor and intellectual regions.

A characteristic case, confirming this theory, is that of a child who
fell on his head and buried a portion of the parietal in the surface of
the brain. He became blind in the eye of the opposite side. He
was trepanned, and the blindness ceased immediately. Soon inflam-
mation arose at the wounded part ; blindness returned and lasted till
the inflammation disappeared. Compression of the visual center, first
by the bone and then by the products of inflammation, was the evident
cause of this intermittent blindness. Other cases establish the possi-
bility of abnormal stimulation of the visual center.

The centers of hearing, taste, odor, and touch are localized in the
same way, and, if the observations are not very numerous, they make
a strong presumption in favor of the localization actually adopted. It
sometimes happens that several centers are affected at the same time.
In these cases, if the lesion is an irritating one, there occurs from time
to time a simultaneous discharge producing a singular mixture of sen-
sations. One such patient, observed by Ferrier, said that he had the
sensation of a horrible odor and green thunder. We admit that the
clinical arguments in favor of the localization of the sensitive centers
are not so numerous or conclusive as could be wished. But only lately
have they been sought, and each day brings its contribution, which,
considering the rarity of limited lesions of the brain, can not be very
considerable.

The localization of intelligence in the frontal region of the brain
was thought of long before our day. Gratiolet used the expression
frontal races for intelligent races ; and those of least intelligence have
been called occipital races. The frontal region is greatest in man
along with the predominance of reason and logic, while in women, who
are dominated by their sensibilities, the occipital region prevails. We
may cite to the same point the researches of Bordier on the skulls of
assassins, of Luys on the brains of fools and idiots, of Benedikt on the
brains of criminals, of Lombroso on the characters of habitual crimi-
nals. Their conclusions are analogous, and favor more than they oppose
the popular idea.

But these arguments are not precise and positive. Happily there
are others more scientific and more conclusive. Take the celebrated
crowbar case, where a young man, who was blasting, had a pointed bar
of iron about three quarters of an inch in diameter and weighing three
pounds, driven, by a sudden explosion, upward through his head. It
entered at the angle of the under jaw, passed behind the nose and eyes,
penetrated the skull, and cutting the cerebral substance of the frontal
region passed out at the top of the head, above the forehead and to
the right of the median line. The wound was frightful. All one part

CEREBRAL LOCALIZATION. 609

of the brain was disorganized, without counting the multiple fractures
of the skull and face. He was alone, but, in less than an hour after
the accident, without help, he walked to the surgeon's, went up the
steps, and related the circumstance clearly and intelligibly. He recov-
ered, but died of epilepsy some twelve years later. His physicians and
friends observed that his character and intelligence changed notably
after the accident. From being intelligent and active he became
capricious and unsteady, and had to retire from his post of overseer.
Analogous cases to the same purpose might be cited, but we have no
space. We need new facts, but those we possess strongly favor the
theory of Fritsch, Hitzig, and Ferrier.

We have passed in review the experimental and clinical arguments
in support of this theory ; and there are others of not less importance
drawn from pathological j^henomena. But we have no space for their
consideration.

M. Brown-Sequard has shown the greatest hostility to this theory.
His chief argument is that lesions and symptoms are not coextensive.
An insignificant lesion causes general trouble ; a considerable lesion
remains latent in the matter of symptoms. This is true, but it is the
exception ; whereas he ought to show that it most frequently hai^pens.
The real question is, Does the seat of a lesion signify nothing, and may
we have identical symptoms with two very different lesions ? And we
have demonstrated that this can not occur. The facts cited in oppo-
sition to the theory of Ferrier may be embarrassing, and at present
inexplicable ; but such facts would be far more abundant if we admit-
ted the theory of M. Brown-Sequard.

Again, there is the theory of Vulpian, who thinks that the stimu-
lation of the gray cells by electricity is not possible. For motor
centers he substitutes psycho-motor centers. In his view, stimulation
of the convolution acts, not on the cells, but on the white fibers which
proceed from them. But his mode of interpretation does not alter
results, nor set aside the centers.

Goltz made a curious experiment, showing clearly the office of the
centers. He took two dogs of the same sj^ecies, one having the edu-
cation common to all dogs, and the other some supplementary accom-
plishments, and among them that of giving the paw. In both dogs
he removed the center which presides over the movements of the fore-
paw of one side — the one given by the knowing dog. They soon re-
covered, and could run about. Running is a reflex act, that does not
require the intervention of the centers. But, while the learned dog
could use his legs, and go and come, he could not give his paw. This
was a superior, voluntary act, which could not be performed in the
absence of the corresponding center. It is in this differentiation of the
organs of voluntary activity from those of automatic activity that we
find the explanation of so many singular facts which at first sight seem
to contradict the theory of localization.

TOL. XVIII, — 39

6io THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

It is undeniable that there is yet much to be done in this domain.
But the results obtained by Ferrier are so encouraging that we hope
this new way of studying cerebral physiology will be followed and
explored with more care than ever.

-♦♦♦-

A PIECE OF COAL.

By E. S. CALVIN.

A LUMP of coal — black and grimy, and repulsive to sight and
touch as it is — is, perhaps, not the most promising subject that
could be selected for Sabbath-evening reflections. But, if there are
sermons in stones, why not in coal ? The black thing, that we would
rather not handle when we have any proper regard for cleanliness,
becomes an object of interest when we find it exerting energy in the
engine-furnace or shedding warmth and radiance around our household
hearth. It becomes an object of yet greater interest when we come
to learn its wonderful history ; for every common bit of coal that
we are accustomed to see has a history with which is wrapped up the
story of one of the most interesting and critical periods in all geo-
logical time. It is the lessons and promises of this far-off history of
the coal that constitute the theme for to-night.

Fifty years ago an attempt to tell the history of the coal would, no
doubt, have seemed, to all but a very few, not only hopeless, but
absurd. Since then the methods of questioning Nature and making
her tell her own history have been so much improved, and have been,
withal, so energetically applied, that very much, which our grand-
fathers would have set down as past finding out, has become the men-
tal property of every well-instructed schoolboy.

There are many different kinds of coal, and coal belongs to many
different epochs in the world's history, but that which we find in the
coal-fields of Iowa and Illinois may be taken as the type of what is
usually understood, the world over, when coal is mentioned. Let us
fix our attention on a piece of such coal. To extort from that expres-
sionless thing any facts bearing on its history would seem discouraging
enough. We may look at it just as long as we please ; we may break
it to pieces with the hammer and examine it bit by bit, and it is altogeth-
er likely that we will be left just as wise and just as hopeless as when
we began. Pass it over to the chemist, and he will tell us that it is
made up of combustible matter of which so much is fixed and so much
volatile, with a certain percentage of earthy substances and traces,
perhaps, of ever so many elements that we never heard of before. The
information is interesting — in many respects it is of the highest im-
portance— but for the purposes of the present discussion it amounts.

A PIECE OF COAL.

611

after all, to telling what men have more or less clearly perceived for
the last thousand years or more, that coal loill hum. By proper ma-
nipulation we may obtain thin slices of coal suitable for microscopic
examination, and in this way may demonstrate that a large propor-
tion of it is composed of what seems to be crushed and flattened vege-
table cells. You are all aware that plants of every kind are made up
of little microscopic units called cells, and that these cells differ so
much in markings and other characteristics in the different groups of
plants that one group may often be distinguished from another by the
study of the smallest microscopic fragments. Now, in the coal itself,
and often in the ashes that remain after combustion, it is ^^ossible to

Fig. 1.— Lspidodendron modulatom.

Fig. 2.— Lepidodendbon diplotigioides.

recognize the peculiar cells that characterize certain great divisions of
the vegetable kingdom ; and, as this method of study is extended, we
are gradually led to the conclusion that coal has somehow been de-
rived from plants. Let me say, however, that to reach a conclusion
and to entertain an opinion on a question of this or any other kind,
where matters of fact are involved, is too serious a thing to bo accom-
plished lightly. The color, hardness, and other physical properties of
coal, together with the fact that coal-beds are often buried under hun-
dreds of feet of rock and soil, may well make us hesitate before accept-
ing any such conclusion. Let us attempt the solution of the question
in another way : All around the globe, in the middle and higher lati-
tudes, are beds of peat. Now, peat, especially when well pressed and
dried, presents many very suggestive resemblances to coal. But there
is not the slightest difficulty in determining how peat is formed, for we
may see the process going on before our eyes. We can study every
stage in the process, from the living and dead plants growing and ac-
cumulating in the marsh at one end of the series, to the completed peat-

6l2

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

bed awaiting only the i)roper manipulation to be converted into useful
fuel at the other. That peat is formed of plants, and largely of plants
that accumulate just where they grow, can be no longer questioned.

In the swamps and bayous of the moist regions of the South, pure
vegetable matter, having the appearance and properties of peat, may
often be found in the very act of accumulation. It frequently occurs
in immense beds, and it requires no trained observation to see that, in
addition to the remains of the ordinary low marsh-jjlants, it is made
up of the ruins and refuse of swamp-loving forest-trees. Now, all about
the flanks and spurs of the Rocky Mountains, with greater or less inter-
vals, from New Mexico to far beyond the northern limits of the United
States, there are found beds of coal of peculiar quality. This coal is
covered up with hardened mud containing shells and bones of aquatic
animals, and everything about it suggests that the coal-making material

was somehow sunk beneath the waters of an
old lake, and was buried under the gradually
increasing bed of mud with which the old
lake-basin was finally filled. But the point of
interest is this : that in many places the Rocky
Mountain coal has reached a stage of decom-
position not so very much in advance of the
humus and peat of our modern swamps and
bayous. We might, indeed, hesitate about
calling some portions of it coal at all — for
the original structure is almost perfectly pre-
served— yet it must be admitted that for the
most part the decomposition has advanced far
enough to produce an article that deservedly
ranks as coal. In the light of what may be
observed going on in every favorably situated
swamp to-day, the source of the material and
the method of accumulation of the Rocky
Mountain coal can hardly be doubtful. I
need not weary you by leading you step by
step through all the known coal-fields that illustrate the different
stages in the process of coal-formation. It will be sufficient to say
that a perfect gradation may be traced from the lignite, as it is called,
of the Rocky Mountains to the purer and more perfect coal of the
Mississippi Valley ; and so, even setting aside the internal evidence of
our Iowa coal, we are compelled to believe that it is simply one of the
terms of the same series to which the lignite and the peat belong, and
that the initial term of that series is to be looked for in the living
vegetation of modern marsh and forest.

The conclusion is interesting, though to an intelligent audience it
could hardly be called unexpected. The method of reaching it is
worthy of notice, and points some important lessons. Though the

Fig. 3. — Restoration of a Lepi-
dodendkon.

A PIECE OF COAL.

613

coal of Iowa was accumuTated in what is called the Carboniferous age
— an age of the world that is immensely distant from the present, in-
finitely so, indeed, as we count time — yet the processes of Nature were
the same then as now. That old world was, in every essential par-
ticular, the same world that we know, and was governed by precisely
the same laws that control it to-day. What is true of coal is also true
of every pai't of the geological record to this extent : that all the
strangely fascinating history recorded in the rocks must be read in the
light of what may be seen actually taking place now. It has become
a maxim of geology that, if we would know how anything was done
in the past, we must study the method in which Nature is doing that
very same thing in the present. Following these suggestions a little
further, we are led from the study of this particular side of the history
of coal, through similar studies, to the grander and more significant

Fig. 4.— Sigillakia reticulata.

Fig. 5.— Sigiixaeia Gr^seri.

generalization that the laws that govern the world have been the same
for all time ; that the laws of matter were imposed upon it as long ago
as that old, old nebula of which you have heard, and that there has
been no occasion to repeal the old or enact any new laws since.

But we must get back to our coal, and pursue the series to which
it belongs a little further. The product of our Iowa mines is one of
the terms, as we have seen, in that interesting series, but it is not the
final term. We may start with bituminous coals, like those of Iowa,
at Pittsburg, for example, and working our way across the State of
Pennsylvania toward the foot-hills of the Alleghanies, we will cross
one of the grandest coal-fields in the world, and at every stage of
progress will pass from more to less bituminous coal, until by almost
imperceptible gradations we will find ourselves in the region of an-
thracite. Anthracite, then, is only another term in the coal series ; it

6i4

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

represents only a more advanced state of carbonization than bitumi-
nous coal ; the difference seems, in some way, to have been brought
about by the play of the gigantic forces that gave rise to the moun-
tains, for in all the region disturbed by those forces — in all the region
in which the rocks have been folded and crumpled and changed — the
coal is anthracite, and anthracite rarely occurs in other situations.

' mm

Fig. 6.— Restoration of Sigillaria.

Passing over the Alleghanies, we find the disturbing forces have
acted with even greater energy on their eastern side, and accordingly
in many places the only thing that bears any resemblance to coal is a
black substance more perfectly carbonized than anthracite. It is to
this substance that we are indebted for the universal use of the lead-
pencil, for it is nothing less than black-lead or graphite. And here in
a measure we lose track of our series ; we find no gradations by whicii
to trace it further, and yet it is as certain as anything can be that
graphite is not the ultimate term, for in it we have not yet reached the
perfection of cai'bonization. That perfection is finally reached, how-
ever, in the gem of gems, the diamond, the only examjile of absolutely
pure, crystallized carbon. Though the steps between graphite and
diamond are not known, we feel sure that those steps, or something
corresponding to them, have been taken some time, and that diamond,
graphite, coal, peat, and growing forest, all belong to the same series,
and represent different conditions of the same thing. And so oar
piece of coal acquires interest and dignity, and becomes, altogether, a
thing not to be lightly despised, for, in addition to its own real worth,
it enjoys the advantage of being able to claim kindred with the aristo-
cratic Koh-i-noors of Golconda.

A PIECE OF COAL. 615

But how are the great ledges of rock above the coal to be ex-
plained ? Let us see. The rocks in question are very often sandstone,
and if we examine them carefully we find that they are spread out iu
layers, that they contain the remains of many marine animals, and that
the surface of a very large number of the layers shows signs of having
been washed by waves. With the exception that they are somewhat
harder and the organic remains belong to more old-fashioned types,
these rocks are exact duplicates of the widely spread layers of sand
that the ocean is piling along all our shores to-day, and contain the
clearest evidence that they have been swept into place by the waves
of some old sea. But how came the coal beneath the sea ? That is
an important question, and the full answer to it would show that no
truth is more plainly taught by all the records of the past and present
than that the earth's surface is a very uncertain and unstable affair.
You will find your answer to the question on the shores of Greenland,
where the coast, for hundreds of miles, is
slowly sinking into the sea ; the result in his-
torical times being sufficient to convert old
marshes into shallow bays over which sands
are swept by each returning tide. You will
find your answer along the coast of New Jer-
sey, in the buried forests with their prostrate
trees and upright stumps, all carried down
in very recent times by the subsiding land
just within reach of the sea. You will find
your answer in the buried forests of the delta
of the Mississippi. You will find the same

, - - , , -r Fig. 7.— Stigmaria ficoides.

answer m a hundred other places. Large

areas of land in different parts of the world are gradually subsiding,
and large areas in the Carboniferous age sank down in the same way.
Each coal-seam is the record of peat-bog and forest ; the overlying
rocks record a period of submergence.

But the movements in the earth's surface at present are not all
downward ; there are, perhaps, as many cases in which the land is ris-
ing. During the Carboniferous age, the same thing was true, and it
often happened that the area that was carried beneath the sea was, in
time, reelevated, and became the platform on which other forests and
peat-bogs renewed the work of coal-making. Thus it is that in many
coal-fields we find a number of seams, one above the other, and thus it
is that we have registered in the coal-beds of Nova Scotia not less than
seventy-six distinct upward and downward movements of the surface.
The sinking of the old marsh beneath the sea might seem to involve
the loss of all the materials that had 'been accumulating during periods,
perhaps, for which years would furnish no adequate unit of measure,
and yet this very movement was essential to the preservation of the
great magazines of energy on which human progress so much depends.

6i6

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

I have already referred to it as a matter of considerable interest,
that a large proportion of some coal is made up of crushed vegetable
cells ; but that is not all — a still more wonderful fact remains to be
noticed : The microscope, prying into all the little corners and secret
places.of Nature, declares that the pitchy parts of most bituminous coal
are composed almost entirely of little spherical bodies, microscopic in
size — so minute, indeed, that hundreds of them together might well be
disregarded as " the small dust of the balance " — and yet so numerous
that great coal-seams often appear to be made up of little else. Large
numbers of them are often found huddled together in small round sacs

Fig. 8.— Lepidodendeon compared with Clue-Moss : a. club-moss ; 6, a scale enlarged ; c. mi-
crospores ; d, macrospores ; x, lepidostrobus ; y and z, the ecales containing spores ; m, micro-
spores ; n. macrospores.

of peculiar appearance. We are indebted to the patient labor of a
numb'er of observers for the fact that the smaller granules are the
spores or seeds of some plant of inferior organization, and the larger
sacs are fruit-cases in which the spores were developed. The whole
history of this fruit, the manner in which it was produced, its relation
to the stem and leaves of the plant to which it belongs, even its fertili-
zation and development, have all been carefully worked out w4th an

A PIECE OF COAL.

617

amount of labor that can hardly be appreciated, but with results as
certain as if the actual development had been watched in the living
plant.

The plants, themselves, on which this old coal-producing fruit
was borne, and whose carbonized stems and leaves lie heaped up and
mingled with the spores, have some lessons of interest for the student
of world-history. One of the best known of these plants has been
called Lepidodendron, or scale-tree, on account of the beautiful scale-
like markings impressed upon the bark (Figs. 1 and 2). These mark-
ings^— diamond-shaped and arranged in close-set spiral lines around
the stem — are scars left by the falling leaves. Elaborately sculptured
stems are found in all our coal-measures, often with dimensions indi-
cating trees three to five feet in diameter, and seventy to a hundred feet
in height. Such trees, judging from their abundance and world-wide
distribution, must have been conspicuous objects in all the forest-cov-
ered swamps of the coal age. Conceive, if you can, of tall, rigid
trunks, ornamented with delightful patterns of inimitable sculpture-
work, rising to a height of thirty or forty feet and these dividing into
two equal clumsy branches ; then let each of these divide again and
redivide until a number — though not a very great number — of smaller
branches are produced ; then clothe each of the branches with a bris-
tling array of thick-set, lance-like leaves ; let each branch terminate in
a club-shaj^ed cone or fruit from which multitudes of resinous- spores,
at the proper seasons, came showering down, filling the air with clouds
of dust for days and weeks together, and sifting in among the roots of
all the dense undergrowth with which the coal-marsh is covered — and,
having drawn this mental picture fairly, you will have some idea, per-
haps, of a Lepidodendron (Fig. 3).

But, if we would award credit where credit is due, we must in all
fairness acknowledge the preeminent importance of another group of

Fig. 9.— Ideal Section of a Sigillaria-Stem : a. pith; b, woody cylinder; c, inner bark; d,
riud ; e, bases of leaves ; /, vascular thread running to the leaves ; g, medullary rays.

plants to which we are indebted for by far the largest share of the coal.
These plants outnumbered the Lepidodendrons in all the swamps ; like
Lepidodendrons, they rose to the dignity of great trees ; the trunks
were composed of firmer and more densely packed woody tissue ; the
bark was thick and rich in bituminous matter, and in some of them it

6i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

seems probable that large nut-like fruits were produced in place of
spores. They are known as Sigillarias, and differ from Lepidoden-
drons, in addition to the characters already enumerated, in having
stems loss frequently branched ; the stems are also longitudinally
fluted like some great columns of architectural beauty and finish, and
between each pair of vertical ribs are now found the leaf-scars in
variable but always orderly arrangement (Figs. 4, 5, 6). Instead of
at the ends of the branches, the fruit was borne in cones, resembling
pine-cones, springing from the sides of the stem. The leaf -scars often
resemble impressions made upon wax by the old-fashioned seal, and
hence the name Sigillaria, or seal-tree. Great, somber, stiff, post-like
things they must have been, as, crowding each other in all the swamps,
they lifted to the sky their great, bald trunks, with scarcely any branches,
and nothing worthy of the name of foliage. Perhaps we should say that
the most important part of Sigillaria was really underground, for all the
old coal-swamps seem to have been traversed in every direction with
a perfect network of creeping subterranean or subaqueous stems, and
from these arose the aerial fruiting stems that we have called Sigilla-
ria. Such underground stems, creeping and interlacing through the
peat-like humus, must have formed a much-needed foundation on
which to support the tangled forest of vegetation that grew and accu-
mulated in all the quaking, boggy marshes. These creeping stems are
called Stigmaria, and were known for a long time as one of the most
abundant fossils of the coal, before their relation to Sigillaria was so
much as suspected. They have markings arranged something as in
Lepidodendron, but when wq find them undisturbed — still imbedded
by the old soil in which they grew — there arise from the center of the
several scars long, thread-like filaments now knoAvn as rootlets (Fig. 7).

Almost every seam of coal has been shown to rest on a bed of
clay, called among miners the under-clay or dirt-bed. This clay
is penetrated in every direction by fossil roots with upright stumps
sometimes attached, and it requires no argument to show that it is an
old fossil forest bed — the original soil in which some, at least, of the
coal-plants rooted and grew. This old soil has always been known to
be particularly rich in Stigmariae with the thread-like rootlets still in
place, but it was not until Mr. Binney and others discovered Sigil-
larian stumps arising from wide-spreading Stigmarian roots that the
real relations of the two forms of vegetation were perceived and ac-
knowledged. It is always easy to do a thing after we have been
shown how, and so nothing is more common now in all the coal-
measures, both of Europe and America, than to find the upright
stumps and the subterranean stems still maintaining their original
relative positions.

Such, in some particulars, were the Lepidodendrons and Sigillarias
of the coal age. The two groups of plants differ widely in some re-
spects, but they are connected by a complete series of intergrading

A PIECE OF COAL.

619

forms, and in all essential points of structure a close relationship is
indicated between them. It is, however, in their relationshijD Avith
modern plants that they are principally interesting. In the moist
woods of New England, and farther south along the summits of the
Alleghany Mountains, there lingers a group of little plants, called
Lycopods, ground-pines or club-mosses, that must be regarded as the
nearest living relatives of Lepidodendron. The habit of growth is
very much the same; the mode of fruiting is almost identical; the
little spores are produced with the same extravagant copiousness, and,
being resinous, are highly inflammable. Both plant and spores — but
particularly the latter — will bear long-continued maceration in water
without undergoing complete decay; and so it is, in a great many re-
spects, that our little club-mosses — rarely attaining the dignity of a

Fig- 10.— Restoration of a
Calamite.

Fig. 11.— Coal-Fern: Calli-
pteris sullivanti.

Fig. 12.— Coal-Fern : Aletho-

PTEEIS MaSSILONIS.

foot in height — are very exact miniatures of the ancient Lepidoden-
drons (Fig. 8). You may then, if you please, call the Lepidoden-
drons and their allies gigantic club-mosses ; and yet, if you do no more
than that, you will fall a long way short of doing them full justice.
For though in the mode of fruiting they are indeed club-mosses, and

620

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

nothing else, yet, as regards other essential structural characters, they
deserve a much higher rank. Taking a section of the stem of Sigil-
laria, for examj^le, and studying the arrangement of the tissues — the
pith, wood, bark, and vascular bundles — we find a plan of structure
that characterizes only the very highest of modern plants (Fig. 9).
Api^ly the microscope to thin slices, and the most intimate connection
with the pines is suggested; indeed, if there were only time, it might
be shown that the range of relationship of these old plants extends
over a wide section of the vegetable kingdom, and is of such a nature
as to set them very much above their dwarfed repi'esentatives of the
present woods, the club-mosses. In addition to Lepidodendrons and
Sigillarias, the forests of the coal age supported many a tall pine,
particularly on the uplands, while groves of reed-like calamites (Fig.
10) fringed the swamps; and the whole surface, both of swamp and
upland grove, was covered with a dense undergrowth of magnificent
ferns (Figs. 11, 12, 13). But the pines were not the pines of our
woods, for some of them, through their broad, frond-like leaves and
other characters, were allied to ferns, while all of them showed more

or less decided taints of characters inherited from
club-mosses, or rather the characters were inher-
ited with club-mosses from a common ancestor.
The calamites, too, were a curiously mixed-up
group, and even the ferns showed a most repre-
hensible lack of allegiance to the fern type, since
most of them united characters that do not be-
long to ferns at all, but are found now only sep-
arated in the palms on the one hand, and the
highest flowering plants on the other. It is ex-
tremely difiicult to present in few words any
clear picture of the old Carboniferous forests.
The stately club-mosses towering above all com-
petitors— real monarchs of the wood — ornament-
ed from root to crown with beautiful carvings
in regular and delicate designs ; the magnificent
ferns whose exquisite outlines are still preserved in the roof shales of
every coal-seam ; the dense, dark jungles, tangled and impenetrable ;
the heavy, steaming, miasmatic atmosphere ; the astonishing luxuri-
ance of all the vegetation — these all are themes that claim the attention
of every v>^riter or speaker on this subject. But to my mind the prime
interest centers in the composite nature of the vegetation, with all its
wonderfully puzzling and intricate relationships. He must be dull, in-
deed, who can not see that in this significant mingling and blending
of characters, the old coal forests epitomize and foreshadow all subse-
quent vegetation. All the structural elements were there ; almost
every fundamental type had a place in some of the curiously con-
structed plans of plant-life, and all progress in higher vegetable

'/■'<"

:;-^rv_

Fm. 13.— Coal-Febn : Hy

SIENOPHTLLITIS ALATUS.

A PIECE OF COAL. 621

organization since then has come about through the unfokling and
development of the possibiUties, the carrying out of the promises,
and the f ulfiUment of the prophecies that were woven into every tissue
of the old ferns and ckib-mosses. The types that lay latent in the
oldest vegetation have simply been separated and perfected ; progres-
sive development has been gradually led along a series of intricate
but constantly diverging lines that lead out and up, and finally ter-
minate in the endless graded ranks and profuse varieties which con-
stitute the grand flora — the grandest the world kas ever seen — tkat
annually buds and blooms, and bears its wealtk of leaf and fruit
for you and me, provided xjnly we appreciate it all. Indeed, tkc
whole world, past and present, is ours, but only so far as mind and
soul can lay bold of and possess its wondrous beauty, and still more
wondrous meaning ; beyond tkat it belongs to tke dull ox as muck
as to us.

But life kas never been tke exclusive property of plants, at least
not since tke geological record accessible to us began. Neitker kave
plants monopolized tke significant facts from wkick we may draw in-
teresting conclusions regarding tke laws of Nature and of being. In
our study of the coal, we catch glimpses of animals that are worthy
of notice. Their remains are left, along with the remains of plants,
imbedded in the coal itself, or in the strata that limit the coal-seam
above and below. Time will permit us to notice only a few examples.
We must omit all description of the large, clear-winged insects that
flitted in and out among the calamites and ferns, as well as of the
curious spiders that laid snares for them in all available places ; and we
can only mention the scorpions and cockroaches that hid in the chinks
and crevices of the fallen pines and club-mosses. All these would be
interesting enough if time allowed, and interesting too would be the
centipeds and land-snails that Dawson found in hollow Sigillarian
stumps of the coal-measures of Nova Scotia. All would tend to en-
force the lesson that the world in the Carboniferous age was controlled
and operated very much as at present. Trees germinated and grew to
perfection and died, and the hollow stumps became the refuge of myr-
iads of creeping things, that found safety from hungry enemies only
in complete concealment.

It is to the animals of higher rank that we must give attention.
Let us remember that the Carboniferous age comes just after that
which witnessed the introduction of fishes — the earliest as well as the
lowest of animals having brains, and heads, and spinal columns. It
lies, therefore, very near the focus toward which all the genealogical
lines of our present vertebrates converge, and hence every structural
feature in the higher Carboniferous animals becomes invested with a
peculiar interest. Of true fishes there were none — they are a much later
product — but, of creatures that combined in the most unthought-of
ways the characters of both fish and reptile, the seas seem to have

622

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

been full. Fishes of the gar-jiike pattern (and yet not like that either,
for they Avere of no one pattern in particular), with lungs far enough
developed to enable them to carrj^ on respiration in the air as well as
in the water, were on the whole most abundant. In some particulars
these creatures stood very low in the scale of fish-life, and yet in
others they outranked any fishes with which we are familiar. The
curious mixing of class characters produced results always interesting,
though sometimes ludicrous. The incongruity of these combinations
seems to culminate in that absurd creature, neither one thing nor the
other, from the coal-fields of Bavaria, which had the head, gills, back-
bone, and body generally, of a fish mounted on the limbs of a reptile
(Fig. 14). Then there were real reptiles in the forests and coal-
marshes ; at least there were animals that by way of courtesy we may
call reptiles, for they breathed air only, they were provided with true
reptilian limbs, and the body was incased in a complete outfit of the

Fig. H.— Aechegosaurus.

most approved reptilian armor. But in some respects they were not rep-
tiles : the skeleton was imperfectly developed ; the spinal column was
such as belongs, of right, only to fishes ; while the head and its articula-
tion with the body, considered alone, would place them with the frog and
salamander among the naked amphibians. These reptile-like creatures
seem to have divided very early in their history, so as to follow two dis-
tinct lines of development : one group of small symmetrical forms, light
of foot and swift of motion, frequented the higher portions of the land,
and sought its food among the tribes of insects ; the other, with strong
limbs and jaws, with heavy body and aquatic habit, played the part
of crocodiles. Now, these crocodiles were the lords of creation. All
the Avhile our coal was forming they stood at the head of created
things. Had any human intelligence, with skill to read the geological
record of all preceding time, been permitted to look in ujion the Car-
boniferous world, he might well have believed that the end had come.
He would have seen evidences of decay in many of the living tribes,
and Avould have noticed that in all the past there were signs and
promises and apparent preparations that seemed to point to these very
tribes, and particularly to the crocodiles, as the complete realization
and fulfillment of all creative designs. His human blindness to the

A PIECE OF COAL. 623

future would have prevented his seeing any promise beyond. But
prophetic indications always betome plainer after their fulfillment, and
so we, by the aid of all subsequent life-history, are able to read in the
structure of the Carboniferous reptiles the promise of better things.
As the age draws on to its close, certain characters become more and
more pronounced in some of the old, half-formed crocodiles, while a
totally different set of peculiarities come to the front in others. Tak-
ing the whole group together, we find a very wide range of affinities
indicated. One of these points by unmistakable signs to the dino-
saurs— great, biped, bird-like reptiles that became conspicuous in the
age following the coal. From these the passage is direct to the rep-
tilian birds of the same age, so like dinosaurs in many particulars
that they can hardly be distinguished. Then follows, after delay and
successive changes of form reaching over geologic periods, the real
bird type of our woods and fields, marvelous in its perfect adapta-
tions and marvelous in its perfect symmetry and beauty.

But some of those old reptiles are fraught with suggestions of still
higher meaning. In some of the groups recently brought to light
from strata that mark the closing epochs of the Carboniferous age, the
coming mammal is very plainly indicated. And so, if we only read
aright, we may find in our piece of coal the suggestion and the jsrom-
ise of even the highest forms of life.

So it is that we have a very direct interest in that old coal age, an
interest altogether independent of the coal itself, even though we
know that modern industry and commerce and civilization, and the
great centers of human population — the manuf actui'ing and commer-
cial cities, with all their wealth and magnificence — are directly de-
pendent upon its marvelous stores of energy. The physicist will tell
us how that energy, which drives our engines, warms and lights our
rooms and makes it possible for us to sit here in comfort and never
miss the light of the sun to-night, is simply so much force derived
from the sunbeams of the Carboniferous age, invested for our benefit
in the old ferns and club-mosses ; and yet our interest in the coal rises
above all this. The roots of the present strike very deeply into the
past, and nothing is risked in saying that, had the Carboniferous age,
in its strangely constituted life-forms or in any other regard, been
different in ever so small a degree, the present would not be just what
it is. It is away back in the coal that we find, not only the promise
of the grandly diversified system of vegetable life that lends so much
of beauty and interest to the age in which we live ; but it was then,
also, that manifest preparations were made for bringing upon the scene
the various specialized groups of animals that are to-day a matter of
personal concern to every one of us. It was in the coal, too, that we
found the first real evident but rude shapings of the organic frame
which we ourselves wear. Hugh Miller — an authority that may be
safely introduced on this occasion — was accustomed to quote approv-

624 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ingly from Drydon a stanza that to-day has more of meaning, per-
haps, than either he or the poet ever perceived :

" From harmony, from heavenly harmony,
This universal frame began ;
From harmony to harmony,

Through all the compass of the notes it ran.
The diapason closing full in man."

All investigation only adds grander significance to the grand ut-
terance of Agassiz, that " man is the end toward which all the animal
creation has tended since the first appearance of the first palaeozoic
fishes."

Is it not true that " an increasing purpose " does run through the
ages by the processes of which, not only " the thoughts of men are
widened," but enlarged encouragement is given to all their hopes and
expectations of the future?

THE DEVELOPMEXT OF POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS.

By HEEBEET SPENCEE.
V. — POLITICAL FORMS AND FORCES.

THE conceptions of biologists have been greatly advanced by the
discovery that organisms which, when adult, appear to have
scarcely anything in common, were, in their first stages, very similar ;
and that, indeed, all organisms start with a common structure. Rec-
ognition of this truth has revolutionized not only their ideas respect-
ing the relations of oi'ganisms to one another, but also respecting the
relations of the parts of each organism to one another.

If societies have evolved, and if that mutual dei^endence of their
parts which social cooperation implies, and w^hich constitutes them or-
ganized bodies, has been gradually reached, then the implication is
that, however unlike theu" developed structures become, there is a ru-
dimentary structure with which they all set out. And, if there can
be recognized any such primitive unity, recognition of it will help us
to interpret the ultimate diversity. We shall understand better how
in each society the several components of the political agency have
come to be what we now see them, and how those of one society are
related to those of another.

Setting out with an unorganized horde, including both sexes and
all ages, let us ask what must happen when some question, as that of
migration or defense against enemies, has to be decided. The assem-
bled individuals will fall, more or less clearly, into two divisions.
The elder, the stronger, and those whose sagacity and courage have

POLITICAL FORMS AND FORCES. 625

been proved by experience, will form the smaller part, who carry on
the discussion, while the larger part, formed of the young, the weak,
and the undistinguished, will be listeners, who usually go no further
than to express from time to time assent or dissent. A further infer-
ence may safely be drawn. In the cluster of leading men there is
sure to be some one whose weight is greater than that of any other —
some aged hunter, some distinguished warrior, some cunning medicine-
man, who will have more than his individual share in forming the
resolution finally acted upon. That is to say, the entire assemblage
will resolve itself into three parts. To use a biological metaphor,
there will, out of the general mass, be differentiated a nucleus and a
nucleolus.

These first traces of political structure, which we infer a priori
must spontaneously arise, we find have arisen among the rudest peo-
ples ; repetition having so strengthened them as to produce a settled
order. When, among the aborigines of Victoria, a tribe plans revenge
on another tribe supposed to have killed one of its members, " a coun-
cil is called of all the old men of the tribe, . . . The women form an
outer circle round the men, . . . The chief [simply * a native of in-
fluence'] opens the council," And what we here see happening in an
assemblage having no greater differences than those based on strength,
age, and capacity, happens when, later, these natural distinctions have
gained definiteness. In illustration may be named the account which
Schoolcraft gives of a conference at which the Chippewas, Ottawas,
and Pottawattamies, met certain United States commissioners, School-
craft being himself present. After the address of the head commis-
sioner had been delivered, the speaking on behalf of the Indians was
carried on by the principal chiefs ; the lead being taken by " a man
venerable for his age and standing." Though Schoolcraft does not
describe the assemblage of undistinguished people, yet that they were
present is shown by a passage in one of the native speeches : " Be-
hold ! see my brethren, both young and old — the warriors and chiefs
— the women and children of my nation." And that the political
order observed on this occasion was the usual order, is implied by its
recurrence even in parts of America where chiefs have become marked
off by ascribed nobility ; as instance the account quoted by Bancroft
of one of the Central American tribes, who "have frequent reunions
in their council-house at night. The hall is then lighted up by a large
fire, and the people sit with uncovered heads, listening respectfully to
the observations and decisions of the ahiiales — men over forty years
of age, who have occupied public positions, or distinguished them-
selves in some way." Among peoples unlike in type and remote in
locality, we find, modified in detail but similar in general character,
this primitive governmental form. Of the Hill tribes of India may
be instanced the Khonds, of whom we read that " assemblies of the
whole tribe, or of any of its subdivisions, are convened, to determine
VOL. xriii. — 40

626 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

questions of general importance. The members of every society, how-
ever, have a right to be present at all its councils, and to give their
voices on the questions mooted, although the patriarchs alone take a
part in their public discussion. . . . The federal patriarchs, in like
manner, consult with the heads of tribes, and assemble when neces-
sary the entire population of the federal group."

In New Zealand the government was conducted in accordance
with public opinion expressed in general assemblies ; and the chiefs
" could not declare peace or war, or do anything affecting the whole
people, without the sanction of the majority of the clan." Of the
Tahitians, Ellis tells us that the king had a few chiefs as advisers,
but that no affair of national importance could be undertaken without
consulting the land-holders or second rank, and also that public assem-
blies were held. Similarly of the Malagasy : " The greatest national
council in Madagascar is an assembly of the people of the capital, and
the heads of the provinces, towns, villages, etc." The king usually
presides in person.

Though in these last cases we see considerable changes in the
relative powers of the three components, so that the inner few have
gained in authority at the expense of the outer many, yet all three
are still present ; and they continue to be present when we pass to
sundry historic peoples. Even of the Phoenicians, Movers notes that
" in the time of Alexander a war was decided upon by the Tyrians
without the consent of the absent king, the senate acting together
with the popular assembly." Then there is the familiar case of the
Homeric Greeks, whose Agora, presided over by the king, was " an
assembly for talk, communication and discussion to a certain extent
by the chiefs, in presence of the people as listeners and sympathizers,"
who were seated around ; and. that the people were not always passive
is shown by the story of Thersites, who, ill-used though he was by
Odysseus and derided by the crowd for interfering, had first made
his harangue. Again, the king, the senate, and the freemen, in primi-
tive Rome, stood in relations which had manifestly grown out of
those existing in the original assembly ; for, though the three did not
simultaneously cooperate, yet on important occasions the king com-
municated his proposals to the assembled burgesses, who expressed
their approval or disapproval, and the clan-chiefs, forming the senate,
though they did not debate in public, had yet such joint power that
they could, on occasion, negative the decision of king and burgesses.
Concerning the primitive Germans, Tacitus, as translated by Mr.
Freeman, writes : " On smaller matters the chiefs debate, on greater
matters all men ; but so that those things whose final decision rests
with the whole people are first handled by the chiefs. . . . The multi-
tude sits armed in such order as it thinks good ; silence is proclaimed
by the priests, who have also the right of enforcing it. Presently the
king or chief, according to the age of each, according to his birth,

POLITICAL FORMS AND FORCES. 627

according to his glory in war or his eloquence, is listened to, speaking
rather by the influence of persuasion than by the power of command-
ing. If their opinions give offense, they are thrust aside with a
shout ; if they are approved, the hearers clash their spears."

Similarly among the Scandinavians, as shown us in Iceland, where,
besides the general Al-thing annually held, which it was " disreputable
for a freeman not to attend," and at which " people of all classes in
fact pitched their tents," there were local assemblies called Var-things
" attended by all the freemen of the district, with a crowd of retain-
ers .. . both for the discussion of public affairs and the administra-
tion of justice. . . . Within the circle [formed for administering
justice] sat the judges, the people standing on the outside." In the
account given by Mr. Freeman of the yearly meetings in the Swiss
cantons of Uri and Appenzell, we may trace this primitive political
form as still existing ; for though the presence of the people at large
is the fact principally pointed out, yet there is named, in the case of
Uri, the body of magistrates or chosen chiefs who form the second
element, as well as the head magistrate who is the first element. And
that in ancient England there was a kindred constitution of the Wit-
tenagemot, is indirectly proved ; as witness the following passage
from Freeman's "Growth of the English Constitution" : "No ancient
record gives us any clear or formal account of the constitution of that
body. It is commonly spoken of in a vague way as a gathering of
the wise, the noble, the great men. But, alongside of passages like
these, we find other passages which speak of it in a way which implies
a far more popular constitution. King Eadward is said to be chosen
king by ' all folk.' Earl Godwine ' makes his speech before the king
and aU the people of the land.' " And the implication, as Mr. Free-
man points out, is that the share taken by the people in the proceed-
ings was that of expressing by shouts their approval or disapproval.

This form of ruling agency is thus shown to be the fundamental
form, by its presence at the outset of social life and by its continuance
under various conditions. Not among peoples of superior types only,
such as Aryans and some Semites, do we find it, but also among sun-
dry Malayo-Polynesians, among the red men of North America, the
Dravidian tribes of the Indian hills, the aboi'igines of Australia. In
fact, as already implied, governmental organization could not possibly
begin in any other way. On the one hand, no controlling force at
first exists save that of the aggregate will as manifested in the assem-
bled horde. On the other hand, leading parts in determining this
aggregate will are inevitably taken by the few whose superiority is
recognized. And of these predominant men some one is sure to be
most predominant. That which we have to note as specially signifi-
cant, is not that a free form of government is the primitive form ;
though this is an implication which may be dwelt upon. Nor are
we chiefly concerned with the fact that at the very beginning there

628 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

shows itself tliat separation of the superior few from the inferior
many, which becomes marked in later stages ; though this, too, is a
fact which may be singled out and emphasized. Nor is attention to
be mainly directed to the early appearance of a controlling head, hav-
ing power greater than that of any other ; though the evidence given
may be cited to prove this. But here we have to note, particularly,
the truth that at the very outset may be discerned the vague outlines
of a triune political structure.

Of course, the ratios among the powers of these three components
are in no two cases quite the same ; and, as implied in sundry of the
above examples, they everywhere undergo more or less change —
change determined here by the emotional natures of the men compos-
ing the group, there by the physical circumstances as favoring or
hindering independence, now by the activities as warlike or peaceful,
and now by the exceptional characters of jDarticular individuals.

Unusual sagacity, skill, or strength, habitually regarded by primi-
tive men as supernatural, may give to some member of the tribe an
influence which, transmitted to a successor supposed to inherit his super-
natural character, may generate a chiefly authority subordinating both
that of the other leading men and that of the mass. Or a division of
labor, such that while some of the tribe remain exclusively warriors
the rest are in a measure otherwise occupied, may give to the two
superior components of the political agency an ability to override the
third. Or the members of the third, keeping up habits which make
coercion of them difficult or impossible, may maintain a general pre-
dominance over the other two. And then the relations of these three
governing elements to the entire community may, and ordinarily do,
undergo change by the formation of a passive class, excluded from
their deliberations — a class at first composed of the women and after-
ward containing also the slaves or other dependents.

War, successfully carried on, not only establishes the passive or
non-political class, but also, implying as it does subordination, changes
more or less decidedly the relative powers of these three parts of the
political agency. As, other things equal, groups in which there is
little or no subordination are subjugated by groups in which subordi-
nation is greater, there is a tendency to the survival and spread of
groups in which the controlling power of the dominant few becomes
relatively great. In like manner, since success in war largely depends
on that promptitude and consistency of action which singleness of will
gives, there must, where warfare is chronic, be a tendency for mem-
bers of the ruling group to become more and more obedient to its '
head : disappearance in the struggle for existence, among tribes other-
wise equal, being ordinarily a consequence of inadequate obedience.
And then it is also to be noted that the overrunnings of societies one
by another, repeated and re-repeated as they often are, have the effect

POLITICAL FORMS AND FORCES. 629

of obscuring and even obliterating the traces of the original political
form.

While, however, recognizing the fact that during political evolu-
tion these three primitive components alter their proportions in various
ways and degrees, to the extent that some of them become mere rudi-
ments or wholly disappear, it will greatly alter our conception of politi-
cal forms if we remember that they are all derived from this primitive
form — that a despotism, an oligarchy, or a democracy, is to be re-
garded as a type of government in which one of the original compo-
nents has greatly developed at the expense of the other two, and that
the various mixed types are to be arranged according to the degrees
in which one or other of the original components has the greater influ-
ence.

Is there any fundamental unity of political forces accompanying
this fundamental unity of political forms ? While losing sight of the
common origin of political structures, have we not also become inade-
quately conscious of the common source of their powers ? How prone
we are to forget the ultimate, while thinking of the proximate, it may
be worth while pausing a moment to observe.

One, who in a storm watches the breaking-up of a wreck or the
tearing down of a sea-wall, is impressed by the immense energy of the
waves. Of course, when it is pointed out that in the absence of wind
no such results can be produced, he recognizes the truth that the sea
is in itself powerless, and that the power enabling it to destroy vessels
and piers is given by the currents of air which roughen its surface. If
he stops short here, however, he fails to identify the force which
works these striking changes. Intrinsically, the air is just as passive
as the water is. There would be no winds were it not for the varying
effects of the sun's heat on different parts of the earth's surface.
Even when he has traced back thus far the energy which undermines
cliffs and makes shingle, he has not reached its source ; for in the ab-
sence of that continuous concentration of the solar mass, caused by
the mutual gravitation of its parts, there would be no solar radiations.

The tendency here illustrated, which all have in some degree and
most in a great degree, to associate power with the visible agency exer-
cising it, rather than with its inconspicuous source, has, as above im-
plied, a vitiating influence on conceptions at large, and among others
on political ones. Though the habit, general in past times, of regard-
ing the powers of governments as inherent, has been, by the growth of
popular institutions, a good deal qualified ; yet, even now, there is no
clear apprehension of the fact that governments are not themselves
powerful, but are the instrumentalities of a power. This power ex-
isted before governments arose ; governments were themselves pro-
duced by it ; and it ever continues to be that which, disguised more or
less completely, works through them. Let us go batk to the beginning.

630 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The Greenlanders are entirely without political control ; having
nothing which represents it more nearly than the deference paid to the
opinion of some old man, skilled in seal-catching and the signs of the
weather. But a Greenlander who is aggrieved by another has his
remedy in what is called a singing combat. He composes a satirical
poem, and challenges his antagonist to a satirical duel in face of the
tribe : " He who has the last word wins the trial." And then Crantz
adds : " Nothing so effectually restrains a Greenlander from vice as
the dread of public disgrace." Here we see operating, in its original
unqualified way, that governing influence of public sentiment which
precedes more special governing influences. The dread of social rep-
robation is in some cases enforced by the dread of banishment.
Among the otherwise unsubordinated Australians, they " punish each
other for such offenses as theft, sometimes by expulsion from the
camp." Of one of the Columbian tribes we read that " the Salish can
hardly be said to have any regular form of government " ; and then,
further, we read that " criminals are sometimes punished by banish-
ment from their tribe." Certain aborigines of the Indian hills, widely
unlike these Columbians in type and in their modes of life, show us a
similar relation between undeveloped political restraint and the re-
straint of aggregate feeling. Among the Bodo and Dhimals, whose
village heads are simply respected elders with no coercive power, those
who offend against customs "are admonished, fined, or excommuni-
cated, according to the degree of the offense." But the controlling
influence of public sentiment, in groups which have little or no politi-
cal organization, is best shown in the force with which it acts on those
who are bound to avenge murders. Concerning the Australian abori-
gines, Sir George Grey writes : " The holiest duty a native is called on
to perform is that of avenging the death of his nearest relation, for it
is his peculiar duty to do so ; until he has fulfilled this task, he is con-
stantly taunted by the old women ; his wives, if he is married, would
soon quit him ; if he is unmarried, not a single young woman would
speak to him ; his mother would constantly cry, and lament that she
should ever have given birth to so degenerate a son ; his father would
treat him with contempt, and reproaches would constantly be sounded
in his ear."

We have next to note that, for a long time after political control
has made its appearance, it remains conspicuously subordinate to this
control of general feeling ; both because, while there is no developed
political organization, the head-man has little ability to enforce his
will, and because such ability as he has, if unduly exercised, causes
desertion. From all parts of the world may be cited illustrations.
In America, among the Snake Indians, " each individual is his own
master, and the only control to which his conduct is subjected is the
advice of a chief supported by his influence over the opinions of the
rest of the tribe." Of a Chinook chief we are told that "his ability

POLITICAL FORMS AND FORCES. 631

to render service to his neighbors, and the popularity which follows
it, is at once the foundation and the measure of his authority." If
a Dakota " wishes to do mischief, the only way a chief can influence
him is to give him something, or pay him to desist from his evil in-
tentions. The chief has no authority to act for the tribe, and dare
not do it." And among the Creeks, more advanced in political organi-
zation though they are, the authority of the elected chiefs " continues
during good behavior. The disapproval of the body of the people
is an effective bar to the exercise of their powers and functions."
Turning to Asia, we read that the bais or chiefs of the Kirghiz " have
little power over them for good or evil. In consideration of their age
and blood, some deference to their opinions is shown, but nothing
more." The Ostiaks " pay respect, in the fullest sense of the word,
to their chief, if wise and valiant, but this homage is voluntary, and
founded on personal regard." And of the Naga chiefs Butler says,
" Their orders are obeyed so far only as they accord with the wishes
and convenience of the community." So too is it in parts of Africa ;
as instance the Koranna Hottentots : " A chief or captain presides
over each clan or kraal, being usually the person of greatest property ;
but his authority is extremely limited, and only obeyed so far as it
meets the general approbation." And even among the more politi-
cally organized Caffres, there is a kindred restraint. The king " makes
laws and executes them according to his sole will. Yet there is a
power to balance his in the peojile : he governs only so long as they
choose to obey." They leave him if he governs ill.

In its primitive form, then, political power is the feeling of the
community, acting through an agency which it has either informally
or formally established. Doubtless, from the beginning, the power
of the chief is in part personal : his greater strength, courage, or cun-
ning, enables him in some degree to enforce his individual will. But,
as the evidence shows, his individual will is but a small factor ; and
the authority he wields is proportionate to the degree in which he ex-
presses the wills of the rest.

While this public feeling, which first acts by itself and then partly
through an agent, is to some extent the feeling spontaneously formed
by those concerned, it is to a much larger extent the opinion imposed
on them or prescribed for them. In the first place, the emotional na-
ture prompting the general mode of conduct is derived from ancestors,
being a product of all past activities ; and, in the second place, the
special motives which, directly or indirectly, determine the courses
pursued, are induced during early life by seniors, and enlisted on be-
half of beliefs and usages which the tribe inherits. The governing
sentiment is, in short, mainly the accumulated and organized senti-
ment of the past.

It needs but to remember the mutilation to which, at a prescribed

632 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

age, each member of a tribe is subject — the knocking out of teeth,
the gashing of the flesh, the tattooing, the submission to torture — it
needs but to remember that from these imperative customs there is
no escape, to see that the directive force which exists before political
agency arises, and which afterward makes the political agency its
organ, is the gradually formed opinion of countless preceding genera-
tions ; or rather, not the opinion, which, strictly speaking, is an intel-
lectual product wholly impotent, but the emotion associated with the
opinion. This we everywhere find to be at the outset the chief con-
trolling jDOwer.

The notion of the Tupis, that, " if they depai'ted from the customs
of their forefathers, they should be destroyed," may be named as a
definite manifestation of the force with which this transmitted opinion
acts. In one of the rudest tribes of the Indian hills, the Juangs, less
clothed even than Adam and Eve are said to have been, the women
long adhered to their bunches of leaves in the belief that change was
wrong. Of the Koranna Hottentots we read that, "when ancient
usages are not in the way, every man seems to act as is right in his
own eyes," Though the Damara chiefs " have the power of governing
arbitrarily, yet they venerate the traditions and customs of their an-
cestors." Smith says, " Laws the Araucanians can scarcely be said to
have, though there are many ancient usages which they hold sacred
and strictly observe." According to Brooke, among the Dyaks cus-
tom simply seems to have become the law, and breaking of the cus-
tom leads to a fine. In the minds of some clans of the Malagasy,
"innovation and injury are . . . inseparable, and the idea of improve-
ment altogether inadmissible."

This control by inherited usages is not simply as strong in groups
of men who are politically unorganized, or but little organized, as it
is in advanced tribes and nations, but it is stronger. As Sir John Lub-
bock remarks : " No savage is free. All over the world his daily life
is regulated by a complicated and apparently most inconvenient set of
customs (as forcible as laws), of quaint prohibitions and privileges."
Though one of these rude societies appears to be structureless, yet its
ideas and usages form a kind of invisible framework for it, serving
rigorously to restrain certain classes of its actions. And this invisible
framework has been slowly and unconsciously shaped, during daily
activities impelled by prevailing feelings and guided by prevailing
thoughts, through generations stretching back into the far past.

In brief, then, before any definite agency for social control is de-
veloped, there exists a control arising partly from the public opinion
of the living and more largely from the public opinion of the dead.

But now let us note definitely a truth implied in some of the illus-
trations above given — the truth that, when a political agency has been
evolved, its power, largely dependent on present public opinion, is

POLITICAL FORMS AND FORCES. 633

otherwise almost wholly dependent on past public opinion. The ruler,
in part the organ of the wills of those around, is in a still greater de-
gree the organ of the wills of those who have passed away ; and his own
will, much restrained by the first, is still r&ore restrained by the last.

For his function as regulator is mainly that of enforcing the in-
herited rules of conduct which embody ancestral sentiments and ideas.
Everywhere we are shown this. Among the Arafuras, such decisions
as are given by their elders are " according to the customs of their fore-
fathers, which are held in the highest regard." So is it with the Kir-
ghiz : " The judgments of the bais, or esteemed elders, are based on the
known and universally recognized customs." And in Sumatra "they
are governed in their various disputes by a set of long-established cus-
toms (adat), handed down to them from their ancestors. . . . The
chiefs, in pronouncing their decisions, are not heard to say, ' So the law
directs,' but ' Such is the custom.' "

As fast as orally-preserved custom passes into written law, the
political head becomes still more clearly an agent through whom the
feelings of the dead control the actions of the living. That the power
he exercises is mainly a power which acts through him, we see clearly
on noting how little ability he has to resist it if he wishes to do so.
His individual will is practically inoperative save where the overt or
tacit injunctions of departed generations leave him free. Thus, in
Madagascar, " in cases where there is no law, custom, or precedent,
the word of the sovereign is sufficient." Among the East Africans,
" the only limit to the despot's power is the ada, or precedent." Of
the Javans, Raffles writes, " The only restraint upon the will of the head
of the government is the custom of the country, and the regard which
he has for his character among his subjects," In Sumatra the people
" do not acknowledge a right in the chiefs to constitute what laws
they think proper, or to repeal or alter their ancient usages, of which
they are extremely tenacious and jealous," And how imperative is
this conformity to the beliefs and sentiments of progenitors is shown
by the fatal results apt to occur from disregarding them. " ' The
King of Ashantee, although represented as a despotic monarch, . . ,
is not in all respects beyond control.' He is under ' an obligation to
observe the national customs, which have been handed down to the
people from remote antiquity ; and a practical disregard of this obli-
gation, in the attempt to change some of the customs of their fore-
fathers, cost Osai Quamina his throne.' " Which instance reminds us
how commonly, as now among the Hottentots, as in the past among
the ancient Mexicans, and as throughout the histories of civilized peo-
ples, rulers have engaged, on succeeding to power, not to change the
established order.

Doubtless the proposition that the political head, simple or com-
pound, is in the main but an agency through which works the force

63+ THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of public feeling, present and past, seems at variance with the many
facts showing how great may be the power of a ruling man himself.
Saying nothing of a tyrant's ability to take lives for nominal reasons
or none at all, to make groundless confiscations, to transfer subjects
bodily from one place to another, to exact contributions of money
and labor Avithout stint, we are apparently shown by his ability to
begin and carry on wars which sacrifice his subjects wholesale, that
his single will may override the will of the nation. In what way,
then, must the original statement be qualified ?

While holding that, in unorganized groujis of men, the feeling mani-
fested as public opinion controls political conduct, just as it controls
the conduct distinguished as ceremonial and religious ; and, while hold-
ing that governing agencies, during their early stages, are at once the
products of aggregate feeling, dei'ive their powers from it, and are
restrained by it, we must admit that these primitive relations become
complicated when, by war, small groups are compounded and recom-
pounded into great ones. AVhere the society is largely composed of
subjugated people held down by superior force, the normal relation
above described no longer exists. We must not expect to find, in a
rule coercively established by an invader, the same traits as in a rule
that has grown up from within. Societies formed by conquest may
be, and frequently are, composed of two societies, which are in large
measure, if not entirely, alien ; whence it results that there is no longer
anything like such united feeling as can embody itself in a political
force derived from the whole community. Under such conditions the
political head either derives his power exclusively from the feeling of
the dominant part of the community, or else, setting the diverse masses
of feeling originated in the upper and lower societies one against the
other, is enabled so to make his individual will the chief factor.

After making which qualifications, however, it may still be con-
tended that, ordinarily, nearly all the force exercised by the governing
agency originates from the feelings, if not of the whole community,
yet of the part which is able to manifest its feelings. Though the
opinion of the subjugated and unarmed lower society becomes of little
account as a political factor, yet the opinion of the dominant and armed
part continues to be the main cause of political action. What we are
told of the Congo people, that " the king who reigns as a despot over
the people is often disturbed in the exercise of his power, by the
princes his vassals " — what we are told of the despotically-governed
Dahomans, that " the ministers, war-captains, and f eticheers may be,
and often are, individually punished by the king : collectively they
are too strong for him, and without their cordial cooperation he would
soon cease to reign " — is what we recognize as having been true, and
as being still true, in various better-known societies, where the power
of the supreme head is nominally absolute. From the time when the
Roman emperors were chosen by the soldiers and slain when they did

POLITICAL FORMS AND FORCES. 635

not please them, to the present time, when, as we are told of Russia,
the desire of the army often determines the will of the Czar, there
have been many illustrations of the truth that an autocrat is politically
strong or weak according as many or few of the influential classes give
him their support ; and that even the sentiments of those who are po-
litically prostrate greatly affect the political action : instance the influ-
ence of Turkish fanaticism over the decisions of the Sultan.

A number of facts must be remembered if we are rightly to esti-
mate the power of the aggregate will in comparison with the power of
the autocrat's will. There is the fact that the autocrat is obliged to
respect and maintain the great mass of institutions and laws produced
by past sentiments and ideas, which have acquired a religious sanction ;
so that, as in ancient Egypt, dynasties of despots live and die and leave
the social order essentially iinchanged. There is the fact that a serious
change of the social order, at variance with general feeling, is likely
afterward to be reversed, as when, in Egypt, Amenhotep IV, spite of
a rebellion, succeeded in establishing a new religion, which was abol-
ished in a succeeding reign ; and there is the allied fact that laws
much at variance with the general will prove abortive, as, for instance,
the sumj)tuary laws made by mediaeval kings, which, continually reen-
acted, continually failed. There is the fact that, supreme as he may
be, and divine as the nature ascribed to him, the all-powerful king is
yet shackled by usages which often make his daily life a slavery ; the
opinions of the living oblige him to fulfill the dictates of the dead.
There is the fact that if he does not conform, or if he otherwise pro-
duces by his acts much adverse feeling, his servants, civil and military,
refuse to act, or turn against him ; and in extreme cases there comes
an example of "despotism tempered by assassination." And there is
the further fact that habitually, in societies where an offending autocrat
is from time to time removed, another autocrat is set up ; the impli-
cation being that the average sentiment is of a kind which not only
tolerates but desires autocracy. That, which is by some called loyalty
and by others servility, both creates the absolute ruler and gives him
the power he exercises.

But the cardinal truth, difficult adequately to appreciate, is that,
while the forms and laws of each society are the consolidated products
of the emotions and ideas of those who have lived throughout the past,
they are made operative by the subordination of existing emotions and
ideas to them. We are familiar with the thought of " the dead hand "
as controlling the doings of the living in the uses made of property ;
but the effect of " the dead hand," in ordering life at large through the
established political system, is immeasurably greater. That which,
from hour to hour, in every country, governed despotically or other-
wise, produces the obedience making political action possible, is the
accumulated and organized sentiment felt toward inherited institutions,
made sacred by tradition. Hence it is undeniable that, taken in its

636 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

widest acceptation, the feeling of the community is the sole source of
political power ; in those communities, at least, which are not under
foreign domination. It was so at the outset of social life, and it still
continues substantially so.

It has come to be a maxim of science that in the causes still at
work are to be identified the causes which, similarly at work during
past times, have produced the state of things now existing. Accept-
ance of this maxim and pursuit of the inquiries suggested by it lead
to verifications of the foregoing conclusions.

For day after day, every public meeting illustrates afresh this
same differentiation characterizing the primitive political agency, and
illustrates afresh the actions of its respective parts. There is habit-
ually the great body of the less distinguished, forming the audience,
whose share in the proceedings consists in expressing approval or dis-
approval, and saying ay or no to the resolutions proposed. There is
the smaller part, occupying the platform — the men whose wealth, posi-
tion, or capacity gives them influence — the local chiefs by whom the
discussions are earned on. And there is the chosen head, commonly
the man of greatest mark to be obtained, who exercises a recognized
power over speakers and audience — the temporary king. Even an in-
formally summoned assemblage soon resolves itself into these divisions
more or less distinctly ; and when the assemblage becomes a permanent
body, as of the men composing a commercial company, or a philanthrop-
ic society, or a club, definiteness is quickly given to the three divisions
— president or chairman, board or committee, proprietors or members.
To which add that, though at first, like the meeting of the primitive
horde or the modern public meeting, one of these permanent associa-
tions, voluntai'ily formed, exhibits a distribution of powers such that
the select few and their head are subordinate to the mass ; yet, as cir-
cumstances determine, the proportions of the respective powers usually
change more or less decidedly. Where the members of the mass are
not only much interested in the transactions, but are so placed that
they can easily cooperate, they hold in check the select few and their
head ; but, where wide distribution, as of railway shareholders, hinders
joint action, the select few become, in large measure, an oligarchy, and
out of the oligarchy there not unfrequently grows an autocrat : the
constitution becomes a despotism tempered by revolution.

In saying that from hour to hour proofs occur that the force pos-
sessed by a political agency is derived from aggregate feeling, partly
embodied in the consolidated system which has come down from the
past, and partly excited by immediate circumstances, I do not refer
only to the proofs that among ourselves governmental actions are
habitually thus determined, and that the actions of all minor bodies,
temporarily or permanently incorporated, are thus determined. I re-
fer, rather, to the illustrations of the irresistible control exercised by

POLITICAL FORMS AND FORCES. 637

average sentiment and opinion over conduct at large. Such facts as
that, while public opinion is in favor of dueling, law fails to prevent
it, and that sacred injunctions, backed by threats of damnation, are
powerless to check the most iniquitous aggressions when the prevail-
ing interests and passions prompt them, alone suffice to show that
legal codes and religious creeds, with the agencies enforcing them, are
impotent in face of an adverse sentiment. On remembering the eager-
ness for public applause and the dread of public disgrace which stim-
ulate and restrain men, we can not question that the diffused manifes-
tations of feeling habitually dictate their careers when their immediate
necessities have been satisfied. It requires only to contemplate the
social code which regulates life down even to the color of an evening
necktie, and to note how those who dare not break this code have no
hesitation in smuggling, to see that an unwritten law enforced by
opinion is more peremptory than a written law not so enforced. And
still more on observing that men disregard the just claims of credi-
tors, who for goods given can not get the money, while they are anx-
ious to discharge so-called debts of honor to those who have rendered
neither goods nor services, we are shown that the control of prevail-
ing sentiment, unenforced by law and religion, may be more potent
than law and religion together when they are backed by sentiment
less strongly manifested. Looking at the total activities of men, we
are obliged to admit that they are still, as they were at the outset of
social life, guided by the aggregate feeling, past and present ; and
that the political agency, itself a gradually-developed product of such
feeling, continues still to be in the main the vehicle for a specialized
portion of it, regulating actions of certain kinds.

Partly, of course, I am obliged here to set forth this general truth
as an essential element of political theory. My excuse for insisting
at some length on what appears to be a trite conclusion must be, that,
however far nominally recognized, it is actually recognized to a very
small extent. Even in our own country, where non-political agencies
spontaneously produced and worked are many and large, and still
more in most other countries less characterized by them, there is no
due consciousness of the truth that the combined impulses which work
through political agencies can, in the absence of such agencies, produce
others through which to work. Politicians reason as though state-
instrumentalities have intrinsic power, which they have not, and as
though the feeling which creates them has not intrinsic power, which
it has. Evidently their actions must be greatly affected by reversal
of these ideas.

638 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

LINGEKING BAEBARISM.

TKANSLAltD FROM THE GERMAIi OF CaRL VoGT BY A. K. MaCDONODGH.

THE striking feature of the present age is that outcropping of bar-
barism which has found in the persecution of the Jews an object
for the full exercise of its passionate violence. It is our inheritance
of centuries, hard to conquer, enduring as adamantine substance in
those races that worked themselves out later than the rest into an ex-
istence worthy of man. Spite of all contradiction, I hold fast to this
view, because it is true in its inmost core.

Just as an organism evolves, out of two mutually hostile tendencies,
inheritance of character derived from ancestry, and acquirement of
new advantages in the struggle for life through adjustment to its en-
vironment, so the special nature of a people builds itself up out of the
inheritance bequeathed by its forefathers and the conquests it has won
for itself in its contest for being. In a people's life, as in the individ-
ual's life, there are times when the one or the other of these striving
forces steps into the foreground and thrusts the other back. Develop-
ment does not advance with even flow, but by fits and starts — oftenest
it is like that style of march in which two leaj^s are made backward
after taking three forward.

We do leap — but it is backward, away into the middle ages, which
we fancied we had got rid of.

The sign and token of our time contrasted with the middle ages is
knowledge in contrast to belief ; the exact method of research opposed
to the sway of usurped authority ; the free movement of forces all over
the globe, as against limitation within narrow bounds and spaces; the
peaceful, harmonious working of the nations toward high humane
ends, as against their hostile rivalry to the end of subjection and rav-
age ; the recognition of common human rights, as against the special
claims of isolated castes and ranks. Whatever domain of political life
we regard, we note everywhere the same tendency toward that reac-
tionary groping after our inheritance from the middle ages.

Nor is this strange. One who clears his eyes from that whirlwind
dust of glory flung abroad by warlike violence, and pictures pure fact
to himself, sees that all its substantial results are due only to the sys-
tematic development and perfecting of material strength and power.
He must logically come to the conclusion that the plant which has
been so carefully nurtured and trained to the most vigorous produc-
tiveness can not wither down to its very root after this energetic
effort. Victory always brings intoxication, and in its paroxysm those
spirits are unchained which a sober and quiet life had fettered in the
bonds of discretion. We insist on enjoying to the full the inheritance
till now only partly spent.

LINGERING BARBARISM. 639

Is it a matter for surprise, then, that Jewish persecution has found a
foothold in the universities, among boys at their studies; that this Ger-
man youth hurrahs for Treitschke, that Slavonic sprout, with his ex-
clusive German utterances ; or that their trainers in classics .need to
be reminded of good morals by paying them in the same coin they use
to enlighten the babes and sucklings committed to their care ?

Why should these boy-pupils, these buff-jerkined and jack-booted
swaggerers, ingrained and inwi"Ought in their very baby natures with
the notion of distinction in ranks, not fall upon the " old-clo' peddler
fellows," and all the more savagely because these dare to aim at be-
coming their rivals ? How can one expect them to be just to descend-
ants of an alien race, when it has been preached and crammed into
them, from their breech-clout days, that the world's weal depends on
their race alone ; that their seed alone is called to lordship; and that all
other nations in their rottenness are intended for nothing else but for
service as their subjects and self-sacrifice to their mastery ?

The root of the matter lies very much deeper. The world of an-
tiquity, on which the education of our youth has been nourished since
the middle ages, and is fed now, was founded on the institution of
slavery ; its whole existence would be as inconceivable apart from
slavery as would be the aboriginal German w^orld without woman's
servile labor for her lazy lord and husband. The ancient German
Tacitus drew was a hunter and fighter, stretched at odd times on his
bear-skin, guzzling and gambling, while his Thusneldas and serfs did
all the work for him, tilling the ground and sweating for his food.
That was the German civilization which our students chant in their
songs ; and its traces are the tattoo-scars across their faces, of which
they are so proud, though these are mere proofs of clumsiness, not
signs of dangers met.

All the cultivation of the middle ages rested on so-called classical
studies, which are bound up in the closest relations with barbarous and
violent use of power. The Spanish mock stateliness of mediaeval scho-
lasticism is indivisible from the savagery of mediaeval university life,
and we have accepted it in these modern days along with the rest of
our inheritance, and find it cherished and protected in our universities
by the powers that be.

Our age strives and struggles for the recognition of the exact
sciences which have thoroughly penetrated our life, as opposed to
those systems of so called humanist education handed down to us from
the middle ages. Uni-esting, unfaltering, exact science presses for-
ward with its methods and results. It feeds and clothes vis, multiplies
our means of intercourse, controls our w^hole political and domestic
economy, masters our thought and our feeling, and daily wins us new
fruits of good in the struggle for existence. It knows no distinctions
of peoples, castes, and nations ; no qualification of territory or geo-
graphical restriction. There is no such thing as German steam-power,

640 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.-

or Semitic electricity, or Roman magnetism ; it bids any and every
people welcome that will promote science and lend it help.

When we remember that the natural sciences began only about a
century ago to strive for a place in the state ; that before that date
they had been nothing more than the private affair of exceptional
minds ; that for the first half of our century even they played ab-
solutely no part in public education, but only ran a tolerated sub-
course with it in the universities, and were utterly unnoticed both in
the lower schools and in special seminaries ; that in my younger days
a man might be regarded as cultivated without having the faintest
notion of any natural science whatever ; and that it was made a re-
proach to men like Goethe that they took any interest in the sciences,
and showed an active concern about them — when we think of all this,
and compare with it the circumstances of our day, and the tendencies
of our times, we understand at once why those authorities who would
step backward into bygone ages prefer so-called classical education
and favor all the influences that have clung to it since medijeval days
— why they would restore to the word that authority which is claimed
to-day by the fact, and why those who are still paddling about in that
cultivation, handed down to us from the middle ages, seize on every
straw they fancy able to keep them above water. An instinct tells
these half -taught noodles that the ground is slipping away from them ;
that a day is rapidly drawing near when those branches of knowledge,
which they assert as of universal need for every man who claims to be
cultivated, shall be worthless except as specialities ; when only one here
and there will trouble himself about whether some crowned cowherd
marched with his mates on a plundering slave-hunt, as in Homer's
times ; and when the knowledge of Nature and her laws must come to
the front as always indispensable to a liberal education. Just as that
man, a century or so ago, was looked on as wholly neglected and un-
educated who had not toiled at his school-desk over the scanning of
Latin verses, so will people no long time hence be surprised at the
careless lack of training: in that man who has not mastered the
mechanism of the telegraph or the laws of heat long before he takes
his way to the university.

" My good man," wrote a Hessian landgrave at the beginning of
the last century to his postmaster, who had cudgeled a royal mes-
senger— " my good man, we have heard with the highest displeasure
the steps you have presumed on in your inborn coarseness and clown-
ishness." I don't know whether the Landgrave laid great stress on
the word " inborn," but he certainly used it with the feeling that the
case was one of inherited peculiarity. Now, in that day classical edu-
cation held sole and undisputed rule ; could it have pushed back
heredity and stifled it by nobler growths ?

Most surely not ; and what classical training could not avail to do
in centuries when it held sole sway, it is still more powerless to effect

LINGERING BARBARISM. 641

now that a rival has grown up beside it which it never through all
time can prevail against.

While writing this, a pamphlet is sent me by a friend, entitled
"Secession — Berlin, Julius Springer, 1881," in which the anonymous
but certainly very intelligent author questions our political and finan-
cial conditions from his point of view. While this pamphlet is highly
remarkable, as well for its contents as for its way of expressing them,
it is perhaps yet more remarkable for that which it either hints or
leaves unsaid — I mean, to speak plainly, for its indulgence toward
that easy-going confidence with which some of the eminent minds of
the past ten years have allowed themselves to believe that the whole
nature of mankind is radically changed, because it has walked for a
while with a varnished cane instead of a knotty club. I find in it an
agreement with my doctrine partly gratifying and partly saddening,
since I can hardly understand how an author of so much insight should
not long ago have felt the scales drop from his eyes. " Wherever our
glance falls," he says, "nothing strikes us but ideas, laws, institutions,
that existed a century ago, and yet have been set aside for ten years
past or more, by the course of culture and increasing insight. Reac-
tion toward restrictions on our trade with foreigners followed by re-
strictions on domestic trade ; next, fetters on personal liberty and
freedom of action ; then, backward steps to the stern penal codes of
past ages, and to the proscriptive and coercive laws of a patriarchal
world. The whole contrivance, piece by piece, is borrowed and
brought out from the rusty arsenal of the good old times. What-
ever is now devised is dug up from the deep and ever-deeper dust of
centuries."

It is even so. Yet it may, perhaps, be said that, with a little less
classical and philosophical training, and a little more education in nat-
ural science, it would probably earlier have become evident that, even
without wishing or intending it, we were taking an active part in this
disinterment from the dust of centuries. At all events, it is well that
this conviction is now forcing its way : it is only to be hoped that it
may gain clearer reality and wider range in those who have won it.

These things, however, press with light weight in the scales of the
future, how lamentable soever they may be in the present. Whether
a reactionary law the more or the less be made, whether the secessionists
thrive or perish, it is of course a pitiable sign of the times that the
student body here roar with apj)lause at their hero gabbler Treitschke,
there pledge themselves to the Jewish persecution, and raise dueling
squabbles about it — a sign hardly compensated for by the indignation
with which the cities kick Chaplain Stocker's nauseous double-faced
hypocrisy out of doors. But this does not touch the root of the
matter, which lies in the training of our youth in increasing waste-
paper scribblings and reactionary barbarism. Not much improvement
can be hoped for in the present generation ; we may check and repress,
VOL. xvni. — 41

642 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

if we choose, the manifestations of their indwelling brutality, but can
not hinder its secret permanence, amazing as such impulses seem to
close observers. But all who are seriously devoted to progress may
keep this truth fixed in view, that all elevation of classical studies at
the expense of other branches of knowledge is a step backward into
barbarism, and all furtherance of the exact sciences in the teaching of
youth is a step forward toward civilization.

And, in this connection, I find great satisfaction in drawing atten-
tion to the address delivered at the opening of the Mason Science Col-
lege, at Birmingham, by Huxley, the distinguished English scientist,
and published in the number of " Nature " for October 7, 1880.

It seems that there arose in the mind of Sir Josiah Mason, an Eng-
lishman, apparently a money-getter of the purest type, the idea, cer-
tainly a most extraordinary one, of spending in his lifetime thousands
of pounds, not in buying Krupp guns, but in establishing at Birming-
ham an amply endowed college, in which young persons might acquire
"sound, extensive, and practical scientific knowledge." The founder
of this institute leaves its managers all possible freedom as to the means
for attaining this object, only binding teachers and pupils alike for all
coming time in three particulars : Party politics of whatever nature
are excluded ; theology is sho^Ti the door once for all ; and, in con-
clusion, it is expressly prescribed that the college shall make no pro-
vision for mere literary instruction and education.

There was something that did not occur to the mind of this Eng-
lishman, enriched by trade and industry, who felt that every step in
his path of life was almost a stumble, by reason of his defective knowl-
edge of the exact sciences. " It is not impossible," says Huxley, "that
we shall hear this express exclusion of * literary instruction and educa-
tion ' from a college which nevertheless professes to give a high and
efficient education sharply criticised. Certainly the time was that the
Levites of culture would have sounded their trumpets against its walls
as against an educational Jericho."

The time has come, indeed, and the storm of indignation that arose,
among the Levites of classical old England, is still echoing in the
newspapers — a storm bursting not over the college alone, but specially
over Huxley, so eminent in science, who dared in the course of his
address to vindicate this idea.

" For those," he says, " who mean to make science their serious
occupation, or who intend to follow the profession of medicine, or
who have to enter early upon the business of life — for all these, in my
opinion, classical education is a mistake ; and it is for that reason that
I am glad to see 'mere literary instruction and education' shut out
from the curriculum of Sir Josiah Mason's college, seeing that its in-
clusion would probably lead to the introduction of the ordinary smat-
tering of Latin and Greek. Nevertheless, I am the last person to
question the importance of genuine literary education, or to suppose

THE LEGAL POSITION OF MARRIED WOMEN. 643

that intellectual culture can be complete without it. An exclusively-
scientific training will bring about a mental twist as surely as an exclu-
sive literary training. The value of the cargo does not compensate for
the ship's being out of trim ; and I should be very sorry to think that
this scientific college would turn out none but lop-sided men. There is
no need, however, that such a catastrophe should happen. Instruction
in English, French, and German is provided, and thus the three great-
est literatures of the world are made accessible to the student."

Such is the way of it under the government of the classical Homer-
student, Gladstone ! An Englishman, who is master of only three liv-
ing languages and the exact sciences, is held to be as highly cultivated
as a barrister who understands only English and some Latin and Greek,
but has steered his way cleverly through Oxford or Cambridge !

But fancy for a moment that it should occur to the mind of some
opulent Jew (such an idea surely would never strike a Christian Ger-
man) to found such a " Mason's College " in Germany, on the plan of
" no religious teaching, no politics, no Latin, and Greek." Shocking !
How happy we are to have a Stocker, a Treitschke, and a Putkammer,
who would not suffer a poison-plant like that to spring on German soil !

THE LEGAL POSITION OF MAKRIED WOMEN.*

By Mrs. ANNA GAELIN SPENCER.

IT is my intention to indicate the historical scope and present bear-
ings of my topic by a brief analysis of the following four condi-
tions of social order involved in its consideration, viz. :

1. The law of social development underlying the various legal posi-
tions of married women, historically traced.

2. Classification of the principal types of marriage.

3. Summary of existing laws of married women in the United
States.

4. Practical suggestions prompted by the study of these past and
present facts.

Our first point (the social law controlling the varying position of
married women) brings us at once to the fact that physical unions
of men and women must have preceded all legal definitions of their
relation to each other, or to their offspring. We begin to call these
unions marriage, when the first headland of rude ceremonial selection
appears above the sea of promiscuous passions. For a long while yet,
no legal enactments fix the status of the wife ; but from the time of

* A paper read before the Association for the Advancement of Women, at Boston,
October 14, 1880.

64.4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the most rudimentary marriage, on to the highest types of sexual
nuion, those social laws which are the seed of governmental codes, and
without knowledge of which we can not understand those codes, deal
with woman in her wedded state. We find the position of the married
woman, as defined by these social laws, written and unwritten — and, if
unwritten, quite as likely to be stringently enforced — to furnish exam-
ples of every grade of condition, from the captured or purchased slave
to the comparatively equal partner. Moreover, we find the woman
sometimes in possession of the most personal freedom in the lowest
general social development. What law governs these widely diverg-
ing conditions ?

The student of sociology must be convinced that the evolution of
the family determines, in its different stages, the differing position of
the married woma?i.

For proof of this statement we have only to consider the following
facts : Progress from barbarism to civilization is marked by ever-in-
creasing political control, as opposed to accidental, shifting despotisms
of powerful individuals on the one side, and to purposeless anarchy
of the masses on the other. "Political control rests primarily on
distinct relationships of blood." For the structural cohesion of the
family, established by this definite blood-relationship, alone makes pos-
sible the structural cohesion of many families in the organism we call
society. The unity of the family, therefore, being the fundamental
condition of the unity of society, it is secured beyond peradventure by
successive changes which tend more and more to establish certainty
of descent, of preservation, and of care of offspring. Probably eveiy
form of relation between man and woman, from promiscuity to pure
monogamy, has been in existence at every stage of human develop-
ment. But the prevailing type of sexual union has differed at each of
these differing stages. How do we know which are the higher and
which are the lower of these types ? By the application of the simple
test-question, which the more perfectly secures that organization of
the family which is the primary necessity of the organization of the
state ?

In the building up of the state, the primitive need is sufiicient power
and permanency of control to make law supreme over the individual
will. And where the personal wishes or rights, even of men, come in
conflict with this initial step toward social order, those personal wishes
and rights are ruthlessly sacrificed ; not because individual liberty is
ignored in the process of development, but rather because individual
liberty can only be permanently secured by making it second to social
order in sequence of evolution. On exactly the same principle, the
building up of the family, which precedes the establishment of politi-
cal order, must begin in the strong foundation-wall of family unity,
even although to that unity must be sacrificed the individual rights of
every member of the family except its acknowledged head. Hence we

THE LEGAL POSITION OF MARRIED WOMEN. 645

discover the law which underlies the varieties and changes in the con-
dition of married women to be a law which concerns itself first, not
with the rights of any individual inside the family, but with the de-
velopment and defense of the family itself. For this development
and defense of the family the following conditions must necessarily
be secured :

a. Certainty of parentage of offspring on both male and female
side, that inheritance may be secured.

h. Protection of the family from external encroachments of war,
conquest, etc.

c. Nourishment of offspring, and such protection of the mother as
will secure that end.

d. Repression of sexual passion to certain recognized limits.

e. Preservation of the family against the disruptive tendencies of
internal strife.

Bearing these general principles in mind, we turn to the next di-
vision of our subject, viz. :

The Classification of the PRijirciPAL Types of Marriage. —
If our previous positions are correct, we must rank marriage types,
from lowest to highest, by their growing ability to fulfill these con-
ditions, tabulated above, of the development and defense of the family
order :

We find the first primitive marriage to be a simple announce-
ment of intention to live together by a man and woman, ratified by
some such rude ceremony as that of the " Navajos, who sit down on
opposite sides of a basket made to hold water and filled with some
kind of food, and partake of it. . . . This proceeding makes them
husband and wife." This type of union offers perfect freedom of
choice to both parties to the contract, and, being broken at pleasure, is
repeated as many times and dissolved as often as caprice indicates.
Hence it offers but slight protection to the offspring, and the society in
which it is found the prevailing type of sexual union is among the
lowest in grade of development.

The next step up in marriage conditions is that called polyan-
dry, or the union of several husbands to one wife. It is not to be
inferred from this definition that polyandry at first, or generally, re-
strains the sexual indulgence of men to the fractional marital rights
indicated. Far from it. Polyandry simply lays the corner-stone of
the family foundation-wall by making a local home — i. e., a place
where children can be generally known to belong. Let us see how
this is done. Nature makes certain the parentage of the child on the
mother's side, as she does not on the father's. Hence the primitive
necessity in building the family is to put the mother in a definite
place, and cluster her children round her, whether you can know the
paternity of those children or not. Descent of name and inheritance

646 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

are possible, then, on one side the line. Fatherhood may pass through
many stages, from a light flitting from one polyandric household to
another, on to that form in which the several husbands of the female
head of such households must be distinctly related to each other, but,
through all the varieties of polyandry, the fixed stake of classification
and localization of offspring defines the family outline. This type of
marriage affords sometimes to women, " as in Thibetan polyandry, free-
dom and equality of companionship with men." It everywhere gives
her such measure of power as her physical strength can command ; and
by interesting many men, although ever so slightly, in the welfare of
some one household, it offers the beginning of protection to oft'spring,
in supplies of food and defense in war.

The next step up in marriage types is to what we call polygyny,
or the union of several wives with one husband. This establishes the
descent of the 'child on both male and female sides of the marriage
union ; but it destroys every vestige of freedom and equality in the
condition of the wife. With polygyny begins the legal, recognized
slavery of woman to man in the domestic relation. Remember, how-
ever, that nature is securing first the family order, and only after that
is attained can look out for personal rights ; and let us note, without
prejudice, the advance of this type of marriage, in family structure,
above polyandry. Descent, reckoned on the father's side, not only
secures double ancestry, but, on account of the greater brute strength
of men, is more likely to keep the inhei'itance intact. Again, although
women enjoy a nominal freedom before this point, it is only that gained
by personal qualities — it has no bulwark of law. Hence the average
woman, physically weaker than man, is his prey. Polygyny places
her person in the custody of her husband, and thus enlists for its
defense, against lawless raids of masculine lust, the selfish instinct of
preservation of one's own property. And this protection of woman is
absolutely indispensable, under barbarous conditions, not only for the
growth of chastity on her part, but for the nourishment of offspring.
We have this great gain in the family order in this type, that the
father is brought into the household, and placed beside the mother and
children. But, in order to get him there, we have to bring in with him
facilities for the indulgence of his passions icithin the home, equal, or
nearly so, to those he has before enjoyed outside the home. Repres-
sion of sexual passion to certain recognized limits was one of the con-
ditions of family order we noted above. Polygyny marks the point
at which the chastity of the mother was made the limit on one side,
and the indulgence of the father, only inside the household, the limit
on the other. This was a great gain in the line of repression, even
although it gave man absolute power over as many wives as he could
secure.

The next step up in marriage development we may call rudimen-
tary monogamy. The last essential of family unity we noted was

THE LEGAL POSITION OF MARRIED WOMEN. 647

the preservation of the family against the disruptive tendencies of
internal strife. Polygyny partially and externally secures this by
placing the control of the family in the hands of a recognized head,
and that head the member of the household indisputably the best able
to hold his position against the other members. But the elements of
discord and strife were left in the family, in the jealousies of the sev-
eral wives, and in the conflicting claims of their children. When
death removed the household despot, if not before, these elements of
disintegration worked against the family structure. Rudimentary
monogamy was the attempt to settle by law the relative positions of
a man's several wives, placing one on a secure height above the others,
to insure a certain descent of title, property, and power to her chil-
dren. Roman law gives us the most perfect legal form of this transi-
tion stage toward pure monogamy. The Roman patrician was entitled
by law to three wives, but he could only have one of the highest kind.
This superior order of wife, whom the law protected against equal
rivals, must be of the same high birth as the husband, could alone
legitimatize his children to the extent of transmission of title and
estate (save as he exercised his legal power of adoption) ; and the mar-
riage ceremony, made binding by solemn religious rites, was annulled
only by death. The second grade of wife could be of inferior birth,
and was united to her noble husband mei-ely by a civil service, which
gave him full power over her, but which secured her legal protection
and support, and could be annulled by divorce. The third grade of
wifehood was one which gave perfect legal independence to the wo-
man, and also removed from her all legal protection. Simple announce-
ment of intention to assume such a relation was the only preliminary
needed for this union ; it could be dissolved by mutual consent. Ru-
dimentary monogamy, you observe, raised the standard of a life-long
union of one man with one woman, to beget, bear, and rear one set of
offspring. And the Roman law, though recognizing other unions as
legal, pushed them away as far as possible from this germinal seed of
perfect family unity. Thus the seed grew, and we come rapidly on the
to the last type of marriage, viz. :

Pure monogamy. This form of sexual union recognizes no other
as legally admissible. Indulgence of passion there may be outside
this narrow bond of one man to one woman, but it is unlawful, and
its fruits have no legal place in the social order of the family. This
is the type dominant in our civilization, and we have seen how slowly
it has been built up, and for what high ends of government.

The Legal Position of Married Women To-day in the
United States. — Our laws are all founded on and modifications of
the " common law " of England, which was in turn, for the most part,
a gift from old Roman jurists to our civilization. This common law
exemplifies in every word the emphasis formerly placed on the au-
thority of recognized rulers, in general government and in domestic

648 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

order. The common law " merged the married woman's whole legal
being in that of her husband." She might be heir to untold wealth ;
marriage made her husband legal owner of it all, with unchecked power
over it, as well as over her expenses. She might be a Minerva of wisdom,
but her every action must be obedient to her husband, though he were
little above tlie idiot. She might be mother of a score of children, but
her husband could will them all away from her control, even the unborn
babe he should never behold. In short, she might be or do anything ;
her husband still had full power over her body, her actions, her prop-
erty, her earnings, and her children. But, on the other hand, he was
responsible for her crimes, her debts, her support, her protection from
violence, and the support and protection of her children. If he could
legally " correct her with a stick no bigger than his thumb," and that
not with " cruelty," he must also answer by his own payment, or im-
prisonment, for her misdeeds, as for a minor child's. Thus was the
monogamic unity of the family secured by the strong domestic control
of a father-head, just as the organic unity of society was secured by
the strong political control of an unlimited monarchy. And no doubt
both forms of despotism have been necessary in the appropriate stages
of human development. But, at the time our republic was born, it
had become apparent to the dullest, as it had long been to prophetic
minds, that the hour had arrived when political control must concern
itself not only with its first great task, viz., the development of social
order, but must set itself at work also on its second great effort, viz.,
the definition and defense of personal rights inside of this social order.
Not only this, but it became apparent that the domestic order also
contained within itself necessities for like definition and defense of
personal rights. The tendency thus inaugurated naturally took shape
first, in its relation to married women, in an increase of secured inde-
pendence of personal action, and of parental control, to women cruelly
abused or divorced or deserted by their husbands. It began to be seen
that the wives of had or incompetent men should not be the domestic
slaves of those men. It began to be seen that the children of bad or
incompetent fathers should have the pi'otection and support he failed
to give them provided by the other parent, who to that end should be
endowed with certain powers of ownership of property and person.
And, as legislators had their attention drawn to these truths by con-
crete illustrations of abuses, by husbands and fathers, of the law which
gave them absolute power over wife and children, they tried to alter
the law in one and another particular. Hence we find the old " com-
mon law," in the different States of our Union, with its darker spots
torn out and patched over with new readings to such a degree that, in
many cases, the, original fabric is hardly distinguishable. A brief
summary of these tearings out and patchings over will enable us to
see the drift of legal changes respecting the matter in hand.

The common law recognized no legal right as inhering in the mar-

THE LEGAL POSITION OF MARRIED WOMEN. 649

ried woman, except the one supreme right of holding her husband true
to the monogamic type of marriage. The legal position of married
women to-day represents as many different views of woman's legal
rights in marriage as there are States in our Union. But all those
States recognize that she has some rights of independent action, not
only when her husband is bad or imbecile, but when he is good or
competent. The confusing varieties of legislation on this point make
summarizing extremely difficult. No generally received principle re-
specting the just legal relation between husband and wife has con-
trolled the sweeping changes which the legislation of the last thirty
years records. These changes have been simply irregular, fitful, and
detached attempts to make the domestic yoke of women easier, in
places where it Avas found specially to hurt. We find, however, that
there is some approach to uniformity in the changes of the statute
laws of old States, and that the legal codes of the new States take
counsel generally of the old constitutions which have departed most
widely from the original common-law slavery of women in the domestic
relation.

Let us see what rights of independent action are now insured, or
partially so, to married women.

We have thirty-eigh^ States in our Union. In twenty-eight of
these a married woman has legal ownership and sepai'ate control of all
property owned by her before, or descending to her after, marriage.
In ten States her property owned before marriage is secured against
any attempt of her husband to alienate it without her consent, but he
has full control of incomes resulting from it ; and in two of these
States the husband receives property which, were she single, would
descend to her. In twenty-one States a married woman's earnings are
her separate property ; in eight States her right to such earnings is
legally restricted in various ways, as in Georgia, where a married
woman can own absolutely as separate j^roperty her own and her chil-
dren's earnings deposited in a savings-bank " if the same do not exceed
two thousand dollars " ; and in nine States a woman can hold abso-
lutely in her own control all propei'ty coming to her from any source
save by gift of her husband — as in Massachusetts, where a recent de-
cision of the Court under this law was that a woman could not own her
own wardrobe if her husband gave her the money to buy it ! This
decision, we may add, a legislative enactment has very recently at-
tempted to overrule by ordaining that a woman may oicn her personal
apparel in Massachusetts.

In twenty-one States a married woman is solely liable for her
antenuptial debts ; in five States her husband is liable for them to the
extent of the property she brought to the common stock at marriage.

In sixteen States a married woman can make a will .devising her
separate property according to her wish ; in twelve States she can so
will her estate, provided she gives her husband as much as the law of

650 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

that State would give him if she died intestate ; and in one State she
can make a will only by her husband's written consent.

In nine States special enactments qualify a married woman to be
executrix or administratrix ; in others the right is secured under other
forms of law.

In twenty-four States a married woman may sue and be sued sepa-
rately from her husband ; in other States provision is made for their
union in various specified suits.

In fourteen States married women can cause their husbands' lives
to be insured for their benefit, and retain the policy against all outside
claims, within certain limits of amount. In twenty-two States there
are homestead acts which secure a certain amount of property, the
home and its belongings, to the widow or wife, against all creditors of
the husband. In fifteen States a married woman may carry on and
control a separate business without limitations ; in ten States she can
do so with some restrictions, which vary from a simple requirement
that she shall file her intention to do so in court to the necessity of
proving that her husband does not support her properly.

In three States special enactments provide for trusteeships to guard
the wife's interests against the husband's claims ; in other States simi-
lar results may be attained by marriage contracts, and special pro-
visions of various sorts. In seven States a woman is solely responsible
for her personal debts. In three States a married woman is respon-
sible for her husband's debts, and in two others is so responsible unless
taking certain legal pi'ecautions at marriage. In six States her sepa-
rate property is liable for family debts, although in most instances she
is so liable only in the second degree, all the husband's property being
jeopardized first.

In seven States the division of property on the death of either hus-
band or wife, whether there be any issue or not, is very nearly or quite
equal ; in most of the other States the widower has nearly all the
rights in the wife's estate he had under the common law, and she has a
life interest in his real, and absolutely only a fraction of his personal,
property.

In ten States, husbands and wives can make contracts with each
other.

In regard to the rights of guardianship, the father is generally
held first natural guardian of the children, and the mother second.

In Iowa, which, on the whole, seems to lead all the other States in
giving equal marital and parental rights to husband and wife, the two
parents are equal guardians of the children, neither having the power
to remove them from the home without the consent of the other, and
on the death of either parent the other is sole guardian. Moreover, in
this State the wife can not be compelled by the husband to leave the
home, against her wishes, to follow him in any wanderings. In Iowa,
also, the family expenses are chargeable equally to both parents, and

THE LEGAL POSITION OF MARRIED WOMEN. 651

on divorce the support of the children is still a mutual burden, and
custody of the children is decreed to either parent — on discretion of
the Court.

We come now to our last division, viz., practical considerations
arising from the study of these facts of history, and of present con-
dition.

I have tried to give the more important laws as they stand upon
the statute-books. They mark an enormous increase of personal
power in the married woman's condition during the last thirty years.
But probably her actual legal position is more restricted still than
these statutes would indicate. The average man wishes to do justice,
as fast as he can see it. So the legislator responds to petitions to
change laws deemed offensive. But the lawyer, accustomed to be
guided by precedent, and fearful that decisions under the law of his
State may be overruled by an appeal to a higher court, is shy of
taking full advantage of a new statute. Thus it comes about that a
woman must not place full reliance upon the " acts and resolves " of
the General Assembly of her State. She must find out what is the
actual practice among lawyers and judges. For instance, in Massa-
chusetts, the law declares that woman owns her own property, and may
manage it free from all interference ; yet so many troublesome con-
ditions are to be complied with, and in important cases there are so
many possible risks from technical barriers, that many women still
find it to their advantage to empower some man-friend with a trus-
tee's external rights, that she may really control her own, through
him in his capacity of agent. For instance, again, in California,
where the " common property " of husband and wife is wholly under
his control, and although her estate is called " separate," and she is
declared to be legally protected in its control, the profits of both
her and his separate estate are called " common property," and he
has full disposal of them, unless by special arrangement otherwise.
These, and many other instances, prove that the legal powers
conferred on married women are often so executed and interpreted as
to fall far short of their apparent scope. The first thing, therefore,
for every married woman to do is to find out the statutes of her
own State respecting her position, and then learn the actual prac-
tical bearing of the laws in any point that touches her. It may be
that some movement for national legislation on the legal position of
married women will be fovmd necessary. Certainly, it ought not to
be possible for men and women to assume the solemn obligation of
marriage in one State, under one set of legal conditions, and one or
the other party to the contract throw off those obligations in another
State, under another set of legal conditions. There should be some
uniformity of law, as to marriage contract and its dissolution by
divorce, in the different States. Another practical consideration is
this : women must be prepared to assume personal responsibilities as

652 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

they attain personal rights. No State Legislature has said " Go to,
let us make the married woman the legal equal of her husband," but
legislation has pointed in that direction more and more during these
last years, so pregnant of changes in her position. If the married
woman is to be the legal equal of her husband, she will find she must
accept the penalties as well as gains of independence. The laws
already indicate this. For instance, as soon as women were allowed
to hold as separate property what they owned before marriage, they
were made solely liable for their own antenuptial debts. As soon as
women were allowed to hold as separate property what they gained in
any way after marriage, they were made liable for their own sej^arate
debts incurred after marriage. And as soon as they were allowed to
carry on separate trades and business, they were made partially or
equally liable with the husband for the support of the family. Not that
legislation in these two directions has been simultaneous or universally
united; but these two tendencies are to be noted. And the one is the
legitimate corollary of the other. As fast as the wife is removed from
wardship to her husband, she should be required to assume her personal
obligations and release him from them. The practical question now
before us is. How far are these twin tendencies to proceed ? Judging
from facts of existing law, and analogies of other social movements,
we may arrive at the conclusion that, just as in political control the
overmastering impulse of growth is in the direction of the greatest
possible freedo^n of the individual, consistent with social cohesion, so
in domestic control the irresistible movement is in the direction of the
most perfect legal equality of the married partners, consiste?it with
family unity.

These exact limits we can not yet master in superficial detail, either
in political government or family life. But past experience shows us
that the measure of personal independence which woman can gain in-
side the family structure will alone be hers permanently. All attempts
to abrogate the legal marriage tie, or to make her sole owner of the
children, in order to secure her independent sovereignty, have been
abortive movements, leading to a reversion to less developed forms of
sexual union, or even to that promiscuity which (like political anarchy
of revolt) demands the despotic rule of the strongest to lay again the
foundations of progress. The States of our Union which have car-
ried their legislative changes farthest in the direction of legal inde-
pendence of married women have not yet settled fully the questions
involved. For instance, in States accepting the principle of equal
ownership of personal estate and equal responsibility for personal
debts, the question as to which parent should be solely or chiefly respon-
sible for the support of the family is only half met. In Connecticut
(by its recent sweeping revision, which places it among the most ad-
vanced in respect to our topic) the father is made responsible, alone,
for family expenses. But, if a woman owns personal property, should

TEE LEGAL POSITION OF MARRIED WOMEN. 653

she be allowed to shirk all family obligations, while presumably having
a very considerable influence in determining the scale of living ? Still
more, should she be allowed to assist her husband in cheating his cred-
itors, by contracting family debts in his name, which he can repudiate
by passing his property into her hands, or by merely swearing he is
bankrujjt ?

And, on the other hand, where, as in Iowa, the two heads of the
married firm are made equally responsible by law for family expenses,
should there not be an accompanying provision making the married
partners equal owners of all current incomes f

And, again, where the principle of equality of rank of husband
and wife, father and mother, in the home is fully conceded, how can
it be applied in the detail of the unity of name and residence demand-
ed ? Man, as the senior partner, now gives the name and determines
the legal residence. Some women claim the right to retain their own
single names, and demand a legal recognition of that right. Should
that be yielded in any case, which parent would then claim supe-
riority of child-ownership in giving a name to the children ? These
and other delicate questions of adjustment must be determined, not by
a priori reasoning, but by an appeal to past and present experience,
with these two principles in view, viz., the primary need of family
unity as a condition of social order, and the secondary need of in-
creasing measure of personal independence for women within that
unity. And since our legislative changes have been, for the most part,
attempts to limit the power of abuse of the domestic control vested in
the man, rather than efforts to secure the freedom of women from that
control by the husband, the result is an inconsistent medley of laws,
which at one time recognize the married woman as an independent
unit, and at another time as the mere ward of her husband. The great
practical need for the parties most interested — thoughtful, intelligent
women — is a clear ideal of the just legal relations of men and women.
With that ideal in mind, the laws, and esjpecially the actual practice
xinder those laics, should be examined, and, where they come short,
they may in time be amended by slow, pacific, but persistent methods
of educational appeal.

A great help to this end is the work which contributed so much
toward the changes in Connecticut laws, the work recently so ably
done for Massachusetts by Messrs. Almy and Fuller, viz., the compila-
tion by reliable lawyers of the present laws, with an indication of all
inequalities, and the injustice resulting from them.

Meanwhile, as the band of ancient law, which made woman the
domestic slave of man, protected her from a worse fate, and made pos-
sible the primitive home, so the inconsistencies of our present laws
make that band flexible in adjustment, even by ignorant or uncon-
scious workers, to the present and future needs of woman and the
home. Protected by these ever-changing codes, the higher uses of

654 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the family life will develop — the more internal unity of the married
twain and the more perfect moral nourishment of their offspring will
bring on a civilization which must write itself out in " sweeter man-
ners, purer laws."

♦♦♦

KOCK-WEATHERmG, AS ILLUSTRATED IN CHURCH-
YARDS.*

By Professor AECHIBALD GEIKIE, F. R. S.

COMPARATIVELY little has yet been done in the way of precise
measurement of the rate at which the exposed surfaces of differ-
ent kinds of rock are removed in the processes of weathering. A
few years ago some experiments were instituted by Professor Pfaff,
of Erlangen, to obtain more definite information on this subject. He
exposed to ordinary atmospheric influences carefully measured and
weighed pieces of Solenhofen limestone, syenite, granite (both rough
and polished), and bone. At the end of three years he found that the
loss from the limestone was equivalent to the removal of a uniform
layer 0'04 millimetre in thickness from its general surface. The stone
had become quite dull and earthy, while on parts of its surface fine
cracks and incipient exfoliation had appeared.f The time during
which the observations were continued is, however, too brief to allow
any general deductions to be drawn from them as to the real average
rate of disintegration. Professor Pfaff relates that during the period
a severe hailstorm broke one of the plates of stone. An exceptionally
powerful cause of this nature might make the loss during a short
interval considerably greater than the true average of a longer period.

It occurred to me recently that data of at least a provisional value
might be obtained from an examination of tombstones freely exposed
to the air in graveyards in cases where their dates remained still
legible or might be otherwise ascertained. I have accordingly paid
attention to the older burial-grounds in Edinburgh, and have gathered
together some facts which have, perhaps, sufficient interest and nov-
elty to be communicated to the Society.

At the outset it is of course obvious that, in seeking for data bear-
ing on the general question of rock-weathering, we must admit the
kind and amount of such weathering, visible in a town, to be in some
measure different from what is normal in nature. So far as the dis-
integration of rock-surfaces is effected by mineral acids, for exam-
ple, there must be a good deal more of such chemical change where
sulphuric acid is copiously evolved into the atmosphere from thou-
sands of chimneys, than in the pure air of country districts. In these

* A paper read to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, on April 19, 1880.
f " Allgemeine Geologic als exacte Wissenschaft," p. 317.

ROCK-WEATHERING IN CHURCHYARDS. 655

respects we may regard the disintegration in towns as an exaggeration
of the normal rate. Still, the difference between town and country
may be less than might be supposed. Surfaces of stone are apt to get
begrimed with dust and smoke, and the crust of organic and inorganic
matter deposited upon them may in no small measure protect them
from the greater chemical activity of the more acid town rain. In
regard to the effect of daily or seasonal changes of temperature, on
the other hand, any difference between town and country may not
impossibly be on the side of the town. Owing, probably, to the influ-
ence of smoke in retarding radiation, thermometers placed in open
spaces in town commonly mark an extreme nocturnal temperature not
quite so low as those similarly placed in the suburbs, while they show
a maximum day temperature not quite so high.

The illustrations of rock-weathering presented by fcity graveyards
are necessarily limited to the few kinds of rock employed for monu-
mental purposes. In this district the materials used are of three
kinds : 1. Calcareous, including marbles and limestones ; 2. Sand-
stones and flagstones ; 3. Granites.

I. Calcakeous. — With extremely rare exceptions, the calcareous
tombstones in our graveyards are constructed of ordinary white sac-
charoid Italian marble. I have also observed a pink Italian shell-
marble and a finely fossiliferous limestone containing fragments of
shells, foraminifera, etc.

In a few cases the white marble has been employed by itself as
a monolith in the shape of an obelisk, urn, or other device ; but most
commonly it occurs in slabs which have been tightly fixed in a frame-
work of sandstone. These slabs, from less than one to fully two
inches thick, are generally placed vertically ; in one or two exam-
ples they have been inserted in large horizontal sandstone slabs or
" through-stanes." The form into which it has been cut and the
position in which it has been erected have had considerable influence
on the weathering of the stone.

A specimen of the common white marble employed for monu-
mental purposes w'as obtained from one of the marble works of the
city, and examined microscopically. It presented the well-known
granular character of true saccharoid marble, consisting of rounded
granules of clear, transparent calcite, averaging about y^ inch in
diameter. Each granule has it own system of twin lamellations, and
not unfrequently gives interference colors. The fundamental rhom-
bohedral cleavage is everywhere well developed. Not a trace exists
of any amorphous granular matrix or base holding the crystalline
grains together. These seem molded into each other, but have evi-
dently no extraordinary cohesion. A small fragment placed in dilute
acid was entirely dissolved. There can be no doubt that this marble
must be very nearly pure carbonate of lime.

The process of weathering in the case of this white marble pre-

656 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sents three phases, sometimes to be observed on the same slab, viz.,
superficial solution, internal disintegration, and curvature with frac-
ture.

1. Superficial solutioti is effected by the carbonic acid and partly
by the sulphuric acid of town rain. When the marble is first erected
it possesses a well-polished surface capable of affording a distinct
reflection of objects placed in front of it. Exposure for not more
than a year or two to our prevalent westerly rains sufiices to remove
this polish, and to give the surface a rougl\, granular character. The
granules Avhich have been cut across or bruised in the cutting and
polishing process are first attacked, and removed in solution or drop
out of the stone. An obelisk in Greyfriars Churchyard, erected in
memory of a lady who died in 1864, has so rough and granular a
surface that it might readily be taken for a sandstone. So loosely are
the grains held together that a slight motion of the finger will rub
them off. In the course of solution and removal, the internal struc-
ture of the marble begins to reveal itself. Its harder nests and vein-
ings of calcite and other minerals project above the surrounding
surface, and may be traced as prominent ribs and excrescences run-
ning across the faint or illegible inscriptions. On the other hand,
some portions of the marble are more rapidly removed than others.
Irregular channels, dependent partly on the direction given to trick-
ling rain by the form of the monumental carving, but chiefly on
original differences in the internal structure of the stone, are gradu-
ally hollowed out. In this way the former artificial surface of the
marble disappears, and is changed into one that rather recalls the
bare, bleached rocks of some mountain-side.

The rate at which this transformation takes place seems to depend
primarily on the extent to which the marble is exposed to rain. Slabs
which have been placed facing to the northeast, and with a sufficiently
projecting architrave to keep off much of the rainfall, retain their
inscriptions legible for a century or longer. But even in these cases
the progress of internal disintegration is distinctly visible. Where the
marble has been less screened from rain, the rapidity of waste has been
sometimes very marked. A good illustration is supplied by the tablet

of G G , on the south side of Greyfriars Churchyard, who died

in 1785.* This monument had become so far decayed as to require
restoration in 1803. It is now, and has been for some years, for the
most part uttei'ly illegible. The marble has been dissolved away over
the center of the slab to a depth of about a quarter of an inch. Yet
this monument is by no means in an exposed situation. It faces east-
ward in a rather sheltered corner, where, however, the wind eddies in
such a way as to throw the rain against the part of the stone which has
been most corroded.

* For obvious reasons I withhold the names carved on the tombstones referred to in
this communication.

ROCK-WEATHERING IN CHURCHYARDS. 657

In the majority of cases superficial solution has been retarded by
the formation of a peculiar gray or begrimed crust, to be immediately
described. The marble employed here for monumental slabs appears
to be peculiarly liable to the development of this crust. Another kind
of white marble, sometimes employed for sculptured ornaments on
tombstones, dissolves without crust. It is snowy white, and more trans-
lucent than the ordinary marble. So far as the few weathered speci-
mens I have seen enable me to judge, it appears to be either Carrara
marble or one of the strongly saccharoid, somewhat translucent varie-
ties employed instead of it. This stone, however, though it forms no
crust, suffers marked superficial solution. But it escapes the internal
disintegration which, so far as I have observed, is always an 'accom-
paniment of the crust. But the few examples of it I have met with
hardly suftice for any comparison between the varieties.

2. Internal Disintegration. — Many of the marble monuments in
our older churchyards are covered with a dirty crust, beneath which
the stone is found on examination to be merely a loose, crumbling sand.
This crust seems to form chiefly where superficial solution is feeble.
It may be observed to crack into a polygonal network, the individual
polygons occasionally curling up so as to reveal the yellowish-white
crumbling material underneath. It also rises in blisters, which, when
they break, expose the interior to rapid disintegration.

So long as this begrimed film lasts unbroken the smooth face of the
marble slab remains with apparently little modification. The inscrip-
tion may be perfectly legible ; the moment the crust is broken up,
however, the decay of the stone is rapid. For we then see that the
cohesion of the individual crystalline granules of the marble has already
been destroyed, and that the merest touch causes them to crumble into
a loose sand.

It appears, therefore, that two changes take place in upright marble
slabs freely exposed to rain in our burial-grounds — a superficial, more
or less firm crust is formed, and the cohesion of the particles beneath
is destroyed.

The crust varies in color from a dirty gray to a deep brown-black,
and in thickness from that of writing-paper up to sometimes at least a
millimetre. One of the most characteristic examples of it was obtained
from an utterly decayed tomb (erected in the year 1792), on the east
side of Canongate Churchyard. No one would suppose that the pieces
of flat dark stone lying there on the sandstone plinth were once por-
tions of white marble. Yet a mere touch suffices to break the black
crust, and the stone at once crumbles to powder. Nevertheless, the two
opposite faces of the original polished slab have been preserved, and I
even found the sharply-chiseled socket-hole of one of the retaining
nails. The specimen was carefully removed and soaked in a solution
of gum, so as to preserve it from disintegration. On submitting the
crust of the marble to microscopic investigation, I found it to consist

TOL. XVIII. — 42

658 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of particles of coal, grains of quartz-sand, angular pieces of broken
glass, fragments of red brick or tile, and organic fibers. This miscel-
laneous collection of town dust was held together by some amorphous
cement which was not dissolved by hydrochloric acid. At my request
my friend Mr. B. N. Peach tested it with soda on charcoal, and at
once obtained a strong sulphur reaction. There can be little doubt'
that it is mainly sulphate of lime. The crust which forms upon our
marble tombstones is thus a product of the reaction of the sulphuric
acid of the town rain upon the carbonate of lime. A pellicle of amor-
phous gypsum is deposited upon the marble and incloses the particles
of dust which give the characteristic sooty aspect to the stone. This
pellicle, of course, when once formed, is comparatively little affected
by the chemical activity of rain-water. Hence the conservation of the
even surface of the marble. It is liable, however, to be cracked by an
internal expansion of the stone to which I shall immediately refer, and
also to rise in small blisters, and, as I have said, its rupture leads at
once to the rapid disintegration of the monument.

The cause of this disintegration is the next point for consideration.
Chemical examination revealed the presence of a slight amount of sul-
phate in the heart of the crumbling marble ; but the quantity appeared
to me to be too small seriously to affect the cohesion of the stone. I
submitted to microscopic examination a portion of a crumbling urn of
white marble in Canongate Churchyard. The tomb bears a perfectly
fresh date of " 1792 " cut in sandstone over the top ; but the marble
portions are crumbling into sand, though the structure faces the east?
and is protected from vertical rain by arching mason-work. A small
portion of the marble retaining its crust was boiled in Canada balsam,
and was then sliced at right angles to its original polished surface. By
this means a section of the crumbled marble was obtained which could
be compared with one of the perfectly fresh stone. From the dark
outer amorphous crust with the carbonaceous and other miscellane-
ous particles, fine rifts could be seen passing down between the sepa-
rated calcite granules, which in many cases were quite isolated. The
black crust descends into these rifts, and likewise passes along the
cleavage-planes of the granules. Toward the outer surface of the
stone, immediately beneath the crust, the fissures are chiefly filled
with a yellowish, structureless substance, which gave a feeble glim-
mering reaction with polarized light, and inclosed minute amorphous
aggregates like portions of the crust. It probably consists chiefly of
sulphate of lime. But the most remarkable feature in the slide was
the way in which the calcite granules had been corroded. Seen with
reflected light, they resembled those surfaces of spar which have been
placed in weak hydrochloric acid to lay bare inclosed crystals and
zeolites. The solution had taken place partly along the outer surfaces,
so as to produce the fine passages or rifts, and partly along the cleav-
age. Deep cavities, defined by intersecting cleavage-planes, appeared

ROCK-WEATHERING IN CHURCHYARDS. 659

to descend into the heart of some of the granules. In no case did I
observe any white pellicle such as might indicate a redeposit of lime
from the dissolved carbonate. Except for the veining of probable sul-
phate just referred to, the lime when once dissolved had apparently
been wholly removed in solution. There was further to be observed a
certain dirtiness, so to speak, which at the first glance distinguished
the section of crumbled marble from the fresh stone. This was due
partly to corrosion, but chiefly to the introduction of particles of soot
and dust, which could be traced among the interstices and cleavage
lamellse of the crystalline granules, for some distance back from the
crust.

It may be inferred, therefore, that the disintegration of the marble
is mainly due to the action of carbonic acid in the permeating rain-
water, whereby the component crystalline granules of the stone are
partially dissolved and their mutual adhesion is destroyed. This pro-
cess goes on in all exposures, and with every variety in the thickness
of the outer crust. It is distinctly traceable in tombstones that have
not been erected for more than twenty years. In those which have
been standing for a century it is, save in exceptionally sheltered posi-
tions, so far advanced that a very slight pressure suffices to crumble
the stone into powder. But with this internal disintegration we have
to take into consideration the third phase of weathering to which I
have alluded. In the upright marble slabs it is the union of the two
kinds of decay which leads to so rapid an effacement of the monu-
ments.

3. Curvature and Fracture. — This most remarkable phase of rock-
weathering is only to be observed in the slabs of marble which have
been firmly inserted into a solid framework of sandstone and placed in
an erect or horizontal position. It consists in the bulging out of the
marble, accompanied with a series of fractures. The change can not
be explained as mere sagging by gravitation, for it usually appears
as a swelling up of the center of the slab, which continues until the
large, blister-like expansion is disrupted. Nor is it by any means
exceptional ; it occurs as a rule on all the older upright marble tab-
lets, and is only found to be wanting in those cases where the marble
has evidently not been fitted tightly into its sandstone frame. Wher-
ever there has been little or no room for expansion, protuberance of
the marble may be observed. Successive stages may be seen, from
the first gentle uprise to an unsightly swelling of the whole stone.
This change is accompanied by fracture of the marble. The rents in
some cases proceed from the margin inward, more particularly from
the upper and under edges of the stone, pointing unmistakably to an
increase in volume as the cause of fracture. In other cases the rents
appear in the central part of the swelling, where the tension from
curvature has been greatest.

Some exceedingly interesting examples of this singular process of

66o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

weathering are to be seen in Greyfriars Churchyard. On the south
wall, in the inelosure of a well-known county family, there is an
oblong upright marble slab measuring 30:^ inches in height by 22f
inches in breadth, and three fourths of an inch in thickness, facing
west. The last inscription on it bears the date 1838, at which time
it was no doubt still smooth and upright. Since then, however, it has
escaped from its fastenings on either side, though still held firmly at
the top and bottom. It consequently projects from the wall like a
well-filled sail. The axis of curvature is of course parallel to the u])-
per and lower margins, and the amount of curvature from the original
vertical line is fully two and a half inches, so that the hand and ann can
be inserted between the curved marble and the perfectly vertical and
undisturbed wall to which it was fixed. At the lower end of this slab
a minor curvature, to the extent of one eighth of an inch, is obsei*v-
able coincident with the longer axes of the stone. In both cases the
direction of the bending has been determined by the position of the
inclosing solid frame of sandstone which resisted the internal expan-
sion of the marble. Freed from its fastenings at either side, the stone
has assumed a simple wave-like curve. But the tension has become
so great that a series of rents has appeared along the crest of the fold.
One of these has a breadth of one tenth of an inch at its oj^ening.*
Not only has the slab been ruptured, but its crust has likewise yielded
to the strain, and has broken up into a network of cracks, and some of
the isolated portions are beginning to curl up at the edges, exposing
the crumbling, decayed marble below. I should add that such has
been the expansive force of the marble that the part of the sandstone
block in the upper part of the frame exposed to the direct pressure
has begun to exfoliate, though elsewhere the stone is quite sound.

More advanced stages of curvature and fracture may be noticed
on many other tombstones in the same burying-place. One of the
most conspicuous of these has a peculiar interest from the fact that it
occurs on the tablet erected to the memory of one of the most illustri-
ous dead whose dust lies within the precincts of the Greyfriars — the
great Joseph Black. He died in 1799. In the center of the sumptu-
ous tomb raised over his grave is inserted a large upright slab of white
marble, which, facing south, is protected from the weather partly by
heavy overhanging masonry, and partly by a high stone wall immedi-
ately to the west. On this slab a Latin inscription records with pious
reverence the genius and achievements of the discoverer of carbonic
acid and latent heat, and adds that his friends wished to mark his rest-
ing-place by the marble while it should last. Less than eighty years,
however, have suflSced to render the inscrijition already partly illegi-
ble. The stone, still firmly held all round its margin, has bulged out

* It is a further curious fact that the slab measures half an inch more in breadth
across the center, where it has had room to expand, than at the top, where it has been
tightly jammed between the sandstone slabs.

ROCK-WEATHERING IN CHURCHYARDS. 661

considerably in the center, and on the blister-like expansion has been
rent by numerous cracks which run on the whole in the direction of
the length of the stone.

A further stage of decay is exhibited by a remarkable tomb on the
west wall of the Greyfriars Churchyard. The marble slab, bearing a
now almost wholly effaced inscription, on which the date 1779 can be
seen, is still held tightly within its inclosing frame of sandstone slabs,
which are firmly built into the wall. But it has swollen out into a
ghastly protuberance in the center, and is, moreover, seamed with rents
Avhich strike inward from the margins. In this and in some other ex-
amples the marble seems to have undergone most change on the top
of the swelling, partly from the system of fine fissures by which it is
broken up, and partly from more direct and effective access of rain.
Eventually the cohesion of the stone at that part is destroyed, and the
crumbling marble falls out, leaving a hole in the middle of the slab.
When this takes place disintegration proceeds rapidly. Three years
ago I sketched a tomb in this stage on the east wall of Canongate
Churchyard. In a recent visit to the place I found "that the whole of
the marble had since fallen out.

. The first cause that naturally suggests itself, in explanation of this
remarkable change in the structure of a substance usually regarded as
so inelastic, is the action of frost. White statuary marble is naturally
porous. It is rendered still more so by that internal solution which
I have described. The marble tombstones in our graveyards are,
therefore, capable of imbibing a relatively large amount of moisture.
When this interstitial water is frozen, its expansive force as it passes
into the solid state must increase the isolation of the granules and
ausfment the dimensions of a marble block. I am inclined to believe
that this must be the principal cause of the change. Whatever may
be the nature of the process, it is evidently one Avhich acts from within
the marble itself. Microscopic examination fails to discover any
chemical transformation which would account for the expansion. Dr.
Angus Smith has pointed out that in towns the mortar of walls may be
observed to swell up and lose cohesion from a conversion of its lime
into the condition of sulphate. I have already mentioned that sul-
phate does exist within the substance of the marble, but that its quan-
tity so far as I have observed is too small to be taken into account in
this question. The expansive power is exerted in such a way as not
sensibly to affect the internal structure and composition of the stone,
and this, I imagine, is most probably the work of frost.

The results of my observations among our burial-grounds show that,
save in exceptionally sheltered situations, slabs of marble exposed to
the weather in such a climate and atmosphere as those of Edinburgh are
entirely destroyed in less than a century. When this destruction takes
place by simple comparatively rapid superficial solution and removal of
the stone, the rate of lowering of the surface amounts sometimes to

662 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

about a third of an inch (or roughly nine millimetres) in a century,
AVhere it is effected by internal displacement, a curvature of two and a
half inches with abundant rents, a partial effacement of the inscription
and a reduction of the marble to a pulverulent condition may be pro-
duced in about forty years, and a total disruption and effacement of
the stone within one hundred. It is evident that white marble is here
utterly unsuited for out-of-door use, and that its employment for really
fine works of art which are meant to stand in the open air in such a
climate ought to be strenuously resisted. Of course, I am now re-
ferring not to the durability of marble generally, but to its behavior
in a large town with a moist climate and plenty of coal-smoke.

11. Sandstones and Flagstones. — These, being the common build-
ing materials of the country, are of most frequent occurrence as monu-
mental stones. When properly selected, they are remarkably durable.
By far the best varieties are those which consist of a nearly pure fine
silicious sand, with little or no iron or lime, and without trace of bed-
ding structure. Some of our sandstones contain 98 per cent, of silica.
A good illustration of their power of resisting the weather is supplied
by Alexander Henderson's tomb in Grey friars Churchyard. He died
in 1646, and a few years afterward the present tombstone, in the forpi
of a solid square block of freestone, was erected at his grave. It was
ordered to be defaced in 1662 by command of the Scottish Parliament,
but after 1688 it was repaired. Certain bullet-marks upon the stone
are pointed out as those of the soldiery sent to execute the order. Be
this as it may, the original chisel-marks on the polished surface of the
stone are still perfectly distinct, and the incised lettering remains quite
' sharp. Two hundred years have effected hardly any change upon the
stone, save that on the west and south sides, which are those most ex-
jjosed to wind and rain, the surface is somewhat roughened, and an
internal fine parallel jointing begins to show itself.

Three obvious causes of decay in arenaceous rocks may be traced
among our monuments. In the first place, the presence of a soluble or
easily removable matrix in which the sand-grains are imbedded. The
most common kinds of matrix are clay, carbonates of lime and iron,
and the anhydrous and hydrous peroxides of iron. The presence of
the iron reveals itself by its yellow, brown, or red color. So rapid is
disintegration from this cause, that the sharply-incised date of a monu-
ment erected in Greyfriars Church to an oflicer who died only in 1863
is no longer legible. At least one eighth of an inch of surface has here
been removed from a poi'tion of the slab in sixteen years, or at the rate
of about three fourths of an inch in a century.

In the second place, where a sandstone is marked by distinct laminae
of stratification, it is nearly certain to split up along these lines under
the action of the weather if the surface of the bedding planes is directly
exposed. This is well known to builders, who are quite aware of the
importance of " laying a stone on its bed." ExamjDles may be observed

ROCK-WEATHERING IN CHURCHYARDS. 66^

in our churchyards, where sandstones of this character have been used
for pilasters and ornamental Avork, and where the stone set on its edge
has peeled off in successive layers. In flagstones, which are merely
thinly-bedded sandstones, this minuter lamination is fatal to durability.
These stones, from the large size in which slabs of them can be ob-
tained and from the ease with which they can be worked, form a tempt-
ing material for monumental inscriptions. The melancholy result of
trusting to their permanence is strikingly shown by a tombstone at the
end of the South Burying Ground in Greyfriars Churchyard. The
date inscribed on it is 1841, and the lettering that remains is as sharp as
if cut only recently. The stone weathers very little by surface disin-
tegration. It is a laminated flagstone set on edge, and large portions
have scaled off, leaving a rough, raw surface where the inscription once
ran. In this instance a thickness of about one third of an inch has
been removed in forty years.

In the third place, where a sandstone contains concretionary masses
of different composition or texture from the main portion of the stone,
these are apt to weather at a different rate. Sometimes they resist de-
struction better than the surrounding sandstone, so as to be left as
prominent excrescences. More commonly they present less resistance,
and are therefore hollowed out into irregular and often exceedingly
fantastic shapes. Examples of this kind of weathering abound in our
neighborhood. Perhaps the most curious to which a date can be as-
signed are to be found in the two sandstone pillars which until recently
flanked the tomb of Principal Carstares in Greyfriars Churchyard.
They were erected some time after the year 1715. Each of them is
formed of a single block of stone about eight feet long. Exposure to
the air for about one hundred and fifty years has allowed the original
differences of texture or composition to make their influence apparent.
Each is hollowed out for almost its entire length on the exposed side
into a trough four to six inches deep and six to eight inches broad.
As they lean against the wall beneath the new pillars which have sup-
planted them, they suggest some rude form of canoe rather than por-
tions of a sepulchral monument.

Where concretions are of a pyritous kind, their decomposition gives
rise to sulphuric acid, some of which combines with the iron and gives
rise to dark stains upon the corroded surface of the stone. Some of the
sandstones of this district, full of such impurities, ought never to be
employed for architectural purposes. Every block of stone in which
they occur should be unhesitatingly condemned. Want of attention
to this obvious rule has led to the unsightly disfigurement of public
buildings.

III. Granites, — In Professor Pfaff's experiments, to which I have
already referred, he employed plates of syenite and granite, both rough-
and polished. He found that they had all lost slightly in weight at the
end of a year. The annual rate of loss was estimated by him as equal

664 ^^^ POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

to 0-0076 millimetre from the unpolished and 0*0085 from the polished
granite. That a polished surface of granite should weather more rapid-
ly than a rough one is perhaps hardly what might have been expected.
The same observer remarks that, though the polished surface of syenite
was still bright at the end of not more than three years, it was less
so than at first, and in particular that some figures indicating the
date, which he had written on it with a diamond, had become entirely
effaced. Granite has been employed for too short a time as a monu-
mental stone in our cemeteries to afford any ready means of measur-
ing even approximately its I'ate of weathering. Traces of decay in some
of its feldspar-crystals may be detected, yet in no case that I have
seen is the decay of a polished granite surface sensibly apparent after
exposure for fifteen or twenty years. That the polish will disappear,
and the surface will gradually roughen as the individual component
crystals are more or less easily attacked by the weather, is of course
sufficiently evident. Even the most durable granite will probably be
far surpassed in permanence by the best of our silicious sandstones.
But as yet the data do not exist for making any satisfactory compari-
son between them, — Nature.

-♦♦♦-

THE STATE AS AN EDUCATOE.*

By H. H. WILSON.

OF all the institutions which we are proud to call American, none
makes so great an expenditure as our system of public education,
and none receives so little critical attention from those by whom it is
supported. It is seldom referred to except for purposes of flattery.
Of all the offspring of American liberty this is the pet, and, as usual,
it is the spoiled child. And this will probably remain so as long as
indiscriminate praise is more welcome than just criticism.

I purpose, in the few minutes allotted to me, to discover, if possible,
the true sphere of the state in reference to the education of the young.
I shall use the word state in its broadest sense— a community of per-
sons living within a limited territory and bound together by political
ties. If such a community has a right to exist, then it has a right to
do anything that is necessary to maintain that existence — to appropri-
ate private property and even to take life itself. But, while the power
of the state is thus broad, its duty is proportionally narrow, namely,
to protect the person and property of the subject from the violence and
fraud of his fellows. While for this purpose no sacrifice is too great,
yet to exact from the subject more than is necessary for this purpose
is legalized spoliation ; for, when you take of a man's property more

* Kead before the State Teachers' Association at Seward, Nebraska, April 1, 1880.

THE STATE AS AJV EDUCATOR. 665

than is necessary to protect his person and the remainder of his prop-
erty, you violate those very rights for the protection of which alone
governments are instituted among men. Then, before the state can he
justified in undertaking any enterprise, it must be shown, first, that the
thing to be done is necessary either for the maintenance of its own
existence or for the protection of the persons and property of its sub-
jects ; and, second, it must also be shown that it can be done better by
the state than by individual effort.

There is at present in America a strong tendency to enlarge this
sphere of government. Indeed, it may be said that it is our national
weakness to look to the Government for everything. Thousands seek
to throw upon the state the responsibility for miseries brought on by
their own injudicious actions. The fact is that, beyond the safety of
person and property, government forms one of the least factors in that
complex product called happiness. Our greatest danger is the danger
of being governed too much. As a result of this tendency to increase
the domain of government, we have technical and professional colleges
established and maintained by the state. When tried by our first cri-
terion, I apprehend that it would be difficult to show that it is necessary
to educate physicians and lawyers at public expense in order to protect
persons and property ; and it may well be doubted whether the rapid
increase in the membership of these professions, due in no small degree
to these institutions, is a national blessing. " But," it is asked, " are
not the physician, the advocate, the engineer, necessary to the conven-
ience and happiness of the community ? " Certainly, so are food, cloth-
ing and shelter ; yet not even Bentham thought of providing these at
public expense. Then what special claims can these institutions have
upon the public ? The same arguments that w^ould justify the state
in educating the law^yer and doctor would also justify it in endowing
the grocer and clothier, for they, too, are necessary to the convenience
and happiness of society.

Moreover, the state, by supporting these institutions of special edu-
cation, inflicts a positive injury upon society in crowding these favored
professions, by thus interfering with those laws of social equilibrium
which alone should govern the choice of vocation. Whenever the
state by special legislation renders one vocation more accessible than
another, it injures society by turning into one channel the intellectual
energy that rightfully belongs in another. If, then, our premise be cor-
rect, these expensive institutions of technical learning are beyond the
true province of the state.

But if the state is not denied all right to teach, what instruction
shall she give ? I answer, those things that will enable the rising gener-
ation to perform intelligently their functions as citizens. Yet how many
leave our state institutions learned In the literature of Greece and Rome,
but ignorant of our own history ; conversant with the ideal republic
of Plato, but unacquainted with the writings of our own Hamilton ;

666 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

charmed with the beauties of Homer and Virgil, but deficient in the
elements of political economy ; able to compute the distance of the
sun, but incapable of explaining our system of national cui-rency ! Take,
if you will, the curricula of the high schools, colleges, and universities
of the land, and compute the percentage of studies found there that are
calculated to make competent members of the commonwealth ! And
yet this is the boasted system of education upon which we are told the
perpetuity of our government depends !

It noAV becomes necessary to apj^ly to education our second test,
namely : Can it be done more efficiently by the state than by individ-
ual effort?' Many, no doubt, Avho are ready to accept the conclusions
already reached on the subject of special education, will still be in-
clined to think that general instruction should be at the expense and
under the control of the state. But, before we attempt to decide by
what agency we can best attain a certain object, it is necessary that
we should have a well-defined idea of that object. What, then, is the
true object of education ? It is, if I mistake not, to aid Nature in per-
fecting the individual. Its aim should be to promote, not to destroy,
individuality. Its object is human development, but, in the language
of Von Humboldt, it is human development in its richest diversity.

The great poet Goethe saw and the naturalist Von Baer formulated
the truth that in all organic life development consists of a change from
a state of homogeneity to a state of heterogeneity ; that, as we ascend
the scale of animal life, there is a gradual transition from the like to
the unlike, from unity to diversity. The social organism is no excep-
tion to this general law, and so we find among savages a marked simi-
larity in costume, food, habits of life and in opinions. But as we
ascend the scale of civilization we find fewer universal habits and still
fewer universal opinions. Indeed, it has been shown that those opin-
ions which are universal usually date back to the childhood of the race,
and hence are usually false. Then social as well as physical develop-
ment is a change from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous. But
all history shows that nations as well as individuals have not only a
period of youth and of manhood, but also a period of decay and of
death. What is the cause of this fatal event which nations like indi-
viduals have sought, but sought in vain, to evade ? Where does this
retrograde movement begin ? Nations decline because the conditions
of their development are reversed ; and decay begins just at that point
at which the tendency to heterogeneity is exchanged for the tendency
to homogeneity — at that point at which the people cease to become
more diversified and begin to become more and more alike. There is
in the development of nations a unanimity of savagery, a diversity of
progress, and again a unanimity of stagnation. In view of these facts
it becomes the duty of the educator to give full scope to the individuaf,
and to encourage rather than restrain the peculiarities of the young.

If these propositions be true, it is, then, by no means clear that the

THE STATE AS AN EDUCATOR. 667

*■
state is the most efficient educator of youth. The vastness of the en-
terprise demands the most rigorous system. But the more rigorous
the system the less room will there be for the development of individ-
ual differences. The tendency of such a system is to make the mind
a mere receptacle which receives its daily portion of mental pabulum.
Even if trained to think at all, they must of necessity be trained to
think very much alike, which is but little better than no thought. In
other words, as the system grows stronger the individual grows propor-
tionally weaker.

China, whose philosophers first recognized the supremacy of force,
and whose moralists gave us a code which, after twenty-five centuries
have elapsed, is yet too exalted for practical life, was reduced to her
present condition, not for want of talent, of which she had much, but
by a most rigorous system of state education, which consisted, not of
investigating new phenomena, but of conning by rote what their an-
cestors had taught them. But we need not go to the Orient to wit-
ness the effects of state education. Germany has a most unyielding
system, whose fruits are already beginning to ripen. This gigantic
system, the pride of the Old World and the wonder of the New, is fast
reducing the German mind to a mere repository of facts and figures.
It will be remembered that no one can enter a German university until
he has spent nine years in the gymnasium, chiefly upon Latin and
Greek. To show the influence of such a course of study, I can do no
better than to quote the words of Lord Macaulay, who says : " Unfor-
tunately, those grammatical and philological studies, without which it
was impossible to understand the great works of Athenian and Roman
genius, have a tendency to contract the views and deaden the sensibili-
ties of those who follow them with extreme assiduity. A powerful
mind which has been long employed in such studies may be compared
to the gigantic spirit in the Arabian tale, who was persuaded to con-
tract himself to small dimensions in order to enter within the enchanted
vessel, and, when his prison had been closed upon him, found himself
unable to escape from the narrow boundaries to the measure of which
he had reduced himself."

France until recently had a most perfect system of state instruc-
tion. No private schools could be established without a license from
the Minister of Education, and these might be closed at any moment
by a simple order from that officer. Under this system France made
rapid strides toward that condition in which China has so long re-
mained. M. de Tocqueville, that clear-headed Frenchman to whom
America owes so much, remarked that his countrymen of his day were
much more alike than their ancestors even of the next previous gen-
eration.

There are reasons why the effects of state education will not so
readily discover themselves in America. In the first place, our system
is yet very imperfect. But the chief reason is our extensive foreign

668 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

immigration, whose heterogeneity tends to counteract the unifying in-
fluence of our education. This, however, can not always last, and we
shall hope in vain if we hope to escape the effects of those influences
which are shaping the destinies of other nations. True, we permit par-
ents to educate their own children, but at the same time we tax them
to support the education of all; and we shall find but few who are able
and still fewer who are willing to pay others to educate their children
and then do it themselves. So our system is virtually a prohibition
upon all private schools.

Nor has America entirely escaped the dwarfing influence of such a
system. A recent writer says that while the percentage of college gradu-
ates is rapidly increasing, strange as it may seem, the percentage of col-
lege-bred men in public positions is decreasing. This, however, does
not show that we as Americans are slow to recognize ability, for in no
other country is true merit so sure to be rewarded ; but I believe it
does show that our education has a tendency to unfit men for the prac-
tical affairs of life. The demand is not for cultured minds filled with
facts tumbling over each other in the dark, but for minds trained to
independent thought. The question is repeated more and more em-
phatically, not what do you know, but what can you do ? Every vo-
cation of life is crying itself hoarse for men — men with the intellectual
audacity to think and the moral courage to do.

It is the tendency of state education to make all intellectually alike,
by urging the slow and restraining the fast, by giving a surface polish
to the dull and bedimming the brilliant. Its tendency is to crush
genius and enthrone mediocrity. It is the great leveling influence of
modern times. This procrustean system binds its tender victims upon
its inexorable bedstead of iron, and if found too short it cruelly at-
tempts to stretch them out, until not unfrequently the brittle thread of
life itself is broken in the effort ; and if, when placed upon it, they
perchance extend beyond its limits, they are as remorselessly trimmed
down to the required standard.

Fortunately for mankind, some of the great minds of the age es-
caped the influence of popular education. When at the age of four-
teen Henry Thomas Buckle won his first prize, his parents asked him
to name anything he chose as an additional reward, and, with his won-
derful precocity, he asked to be removed from public school. His re-
quest was granted, and who that has read his " History of Civiliza-
tion " can doubt the wisdom of his choice ? Herbert Spencer, any one
of whose numerous volumes would place him in the first rank, not only
as a student of human nature but also as a philosopher and man of let-
ters, was never at public school. John Stuart Mill, than whom Eng-
land has never produced a greater, who united in one mind the wisdom
of the ancients and the learning of the moderns, who was at once an
Aristotle and a Bacon, who was not only a profound philosopher but
also a practical man of affairs, was singularly exempt from the influ-

MORALS OF LUXURY. 669

ence of public instruction. Should the glaciers once more descend
from the north and sweep before them all that makes us a great
people, leaving no vestige of civilization behind, would America be
known to future generations and handed down in history as the land
of the most expensive school system on the globe, or would it be
known as the birthplace of our Franklins, our Greeleys, our Lincolns,
whose school-days might be counted on the fingers ?

I would not, however, be misunderstood. I do not wish to see the
whole system of state instruction destroyed at one fell swoop. Revo-
lutions, in educational as well as in political and religious systems,
should be gradual, lest the destruction of an institution so interwoven
■with the various interests of men should prove too great a shock for
the ever-frail structure of society. Even at best we shall be compelled
to educate a portion of the community at public expense, so must we
also feed and clothe them. This, however, is no reason why all the
children of the land should be reduced to the same mental diet.

I believe that the only way in which we. can hope to carry forward
our civilization, or even keep it from retrograding, is jealously to
guard the integrity of the individual, and to make the temple of the
mind so sacred that neither law nor custom shall be able to enter and
enslave. It is therefore high time to cry a halt in this rapid encroach-
ment of the state upon the domain of the individual. It now becomes
the imperative duty of every friend of America to strive to limit the
state to its true function, and thus avert, if possible, those evils which
have buried historic nations beneath their classic ruins. For the con-
clusion, however unpalatable it may be, is forced upon us, that the per-
fection of our system of state education implies the destruction of
individuality, and that the destruction of individuality means social,
political, intellectual stagnation, the last symptom of that fatal disease
to which China long ago fell a victim, which is even now gnawing at
the vitals of France and Germany, and of whose insidious approach
America may well beware.

♦»»

MOEALS OF LUXURY.*

By EMILE DE LAVELEYE.

THE real question to be considered in discussing the ethics of luxury
is, Is it useful ? This question has a bearing on living issues, for
it touches the foundation of the contentions which threaten civilized
societies. It is well considered in the " History of Luxury "f of M.
Baudrillart, who has brought to his work the result of twenty years of

* Translated and adapted from the " Revue des Deux Mondes " by W. H. Larrabee.
f " Histoire du Luxe, prive et public." Par M. H. Baudrillart, de I'lnstitut. 4 vol Paris,
1878, 1880.

670 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

study in philosophy and political economy. He presents the subject
in a moral and philosophical view, in the light of the history of lux-
ury, and with the aid of the side-lights of the judgments which have
been expressed upon it at different epochs, from which citations are
made.

It is first necessary to understand the sense in which the word lux-
ury is used. I designate as an object of luxury everything that does
not answer to some primary need, and which, costing much money and
consequently much labor, is within the reach of only a small number
of persons. An extravagant consumption is one that destroys the
product of many days of labor without bringing any rational satisfac-
tion to the one who makes it, as when a ballroom queen spoils in the
whirls of the dance a lace robe worth ten thousand francs, destroying
in a moment the equivalent of fifty thousand- hours of eye-taxing
labor. What advantage does any one derive from the waste ? It fol-
lows from our definition that an object may be a luxury at one time
and cease to be so at another, when it can be procured without great
expense. As Roscher says,* the motive here is wholly relative. Each
people and each age considers that which it is in the habit of doing
without as superfluous. The chronicle of Holinshed complains of the
refinements of the English of his time (1577), who introduced chim-
neys instead of letting the smoke escape through the holes in the roof,
and used dishes of earthenware or tin instead of the wooden vessels
with which they had got along before. Another author of the same
time, Slaney, " On Rural Expenditure," was indignant at the employ-
ment of oak instead of willow in building, saying : " Formerly the
houses were of willow, and the men of oak ; now it is the contrary."
When calicoes and muslins were first brought from the Indies, only
the rich could wear them ; now working-people think lightly of them.
The progress of art is thus constantly bringing more objects within
the reach of the greatest number ; but the definition remains that that
is extravagant which is at the same time superfluous and dear.

From his analysis of the feelings which give rise to luxury, M.
Baudrillart educes three which he considers natural and universal :
vanity, sensuality, and the instinct for adornment. Vanity makes one
desire to be distinguished and to surpass others in appearance ; to pass
before the crowd, that admires riches and power, as powerful and rich.
When a woman pays ten thousand dollars for a necklace of fine pearls,
she does not do it simply to possess something handsome and adorn
herself, for false pearls would be more shapely and quite as lustrous,
but because the costly necklace will be the emblem and sign of her
opulence. People when they see it will say she is rich, and her lesser
rivals will be jealous, adding a seasoning to her vanity. In the grati-
fication of this feeling we seek satisfaction in a factitious existence in
the opinions of other persons. It is a general sentiment, and has a
* " Die Grundlagen der Nationalokonomie," iv, 2.

MORALS OF LUXURY. 671

remarkable power. "When public opinion inclines toward virtue, it
may become a stimulant for good, but will lead to luxury and corrup-
tion among a public adoring riches.

Vanity, and the love of dress that it engenders, which are very
marked with the savage who tattooes before he clothes himself, become
refined among civilized men and in the fashionable world, and are tem-
pered and turned in a better direction as culture is developed and the
rule of good sense becomes more influential. Formerly men, like wo-
men, wore bright goods, galoons, lace, jewels ; but, since the beginning
of this century, civilized nations have adopted the black coat of Eng-
land ; it has come to be regarded as in bad taste for a man to display
jewels, and simplicity, carefulness, and extreme propriety are regarded
as constituting the whole of masculine elegance. Women, however,
continue to bore their ears to put rings in them, and seek to adorn
themselves with trinkets of glass and metal. How may we cure this
infirmity, inherited from primitive barbarism ? John Stuart Mill has
pointed out the way by suggesting that when woman is trained to
occupy herself with affairs of the mind, she will, like modern man,
cease to take pleasure in gewgaws. Christianity has already worked
miracles in this direction among the Quakers and in convents : why
may it not, in alliance with the culture of the reason and the sentiment
of justice, do more ?

The kind of luxury that has its roots in sensual seeking is harder
to contend against than that which arises from vanity, because it com-
pels us to deal with enjoyments which are real though wholly super-
ficial. On this point M. Baudrillart remarks that as matter is finite
by its nature, sensuality is limited in its capacities. Man, however,
deludes himself into believing that this is not the case. It seems to
him that no enjoyment procures for him the gratification it ought to
give ; so, when he has exhausted one, he craves another pleasure. The
refinements become nicer, and new ones are demanded. Dearness
heightens the enjoyment by adding to the charm of an object agree-
able in itself the piquant relish of a difficulty overcome. We may give
all real satisfaction to the senses without excessive expenditure. The
extravagant cost is occasioned by the desire to shine, ostentatiousness,
to which there are no limits. It was not in mere sensuality that Cleo-
patra swallowed a pearl, and Heliogabalus ate a dish of nightingales'
tongues. Progress in the arts of production may bring us abundance
of all that is useful ; but, if the object is to distinguish ourselves from
others, it is necessary to consume, at any price, what is dear and rare.

The third source of luxury is the instinct for adornment, which, as
M. Baudrillart well says, must not be confounded with ostentatious-
ness, even when that finds its only expression in it, or with sensuality,
even when it ministers to it. It is primitive with man, for the prehis-
torical cave-dwellers carved on pieces of bone the figures of the rein-
deer and beavers that lived in the land in their times. Cultivated and

672 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

refined, it has become the aesthetic sentiment, the love of the beau-
tiful, which has created all the arts. Instead of condemning it, it is
proper to encourage it and exalt it, for in public monuments it becomes
an agent of civilization and a source of pure, disinterested enjoyments
accessible to the whole people. Applied in private life to the decora-
tion of houses, furniture, and articles of use, and in everything to the
choice of beautiful forms, as was done in anticjuity, it purifies the taste
and becomes an instrument of progress. The love of the beautiful
and the instinct for adornment are good in themselves, and do not ne-
cessarily urge to luxury, for it is not in the dearness of the material but
in the harmony of the colors and the purity of the lines that they
should be manifested. The difference between luxury and art is thus
indicated by M. Baudrillart : "Art pursues the realization of the beau-
tiful, or the reproduction of certain forms. Luxury has only one aim
— to seem. The object of art is essentially disinterested ; that of luxury
is egotistical. In the eye of luxury, the beautiful itself, the object of
the passionate pursuit of the true artist charmed with perfection, is
only something that glitters. Luxury pays for art as it pays for mat-
ter, and buys great works just as it spends money for jewels and fine
goods." These incentives to luxury are reenforced by the love of
change, which is revealed principally in the caprices of fashion.
E'ashion is one of the j^lagues of the times, and produces evils of
various kinds. First, according to the M. Baudrillart, it makes the
mind frivolous by diverting it from the things that ought to occupy
it. "Those who make a point of elegance are obliged to employ
themselves considerably with their clothes, and to devote to them a
degree of study which certainly can not elevate their minds or make
them capable of great things." This is the moral evil. The economi-
cal evil is well described by M. J. B. Say : " Fashion has the privilege
of throwing things away before they have lost their usefulness, fre-
quently even before they have lost their freshness ; it multiplies con-
sumption and condemns what is still good, neat, and becoming to be
good for nothing. Thus the rapid succession of fashions impoverishes
a state both as to what it consumes and what it does not consume."
To make a goods of silk, wool, or cotton, of a new pattern, the ex-
pense of designs, models, printing-rollers, etc., must be incurred.
What is not sold during the year becomes a remnant which is dis-
posed of at a discount. Certain styles are not to the taste of the pub-
lic, and are left to be sold at half price. All of the advances and
losses must be covered by the total of sales, or the ruined manufac-
turer will have to cease proditcing. The changes of fashion thus con-
siderably augment the price of all the objects to which they apply.
If the costume were not so changing, the current manufacture of the
goods which it requires would be carried on at better advantage than
that of the thousands of different styles that arise in the different
seasons of every year.

MORALS OF LUXURY. 673

M. Baudrillart takes a position between the rigorous school, which
advocates the retrenchment of wants, and the lax school, which re-
gards luxury as something agreeable to the person and necessary to
the state, and as indispensable to the progress of civilization ; and he
distinguishes between a luxury that is virtuous, permissible, and even
laudable, and one which is improper and immoral. I can not admit
the distinction ; and I believe that the rigorous school is right. The
condemnations which have been pronounced against luxury by the
sages and philosophers of antiquity, the fathers of the Church, and the
orators of the pulpit, are justified by the conclusions of modern thought.
These men were ignorant of political economy, but they were inspired
by right instincts and sentiments.

We have said that luxury consists in the consummation, to satisfy a
factitious want, of something that has cost much labor. While labor
is necessary to secure the satisfaction of bare needs, and while so many
men are living in almost absolute destitution, can it be legitimate to
employ a great part of the forces of capital and workmen which are
at our disposition in producing superfluities which we would often be
better without ? A thing may cost enormous sums and still be useless
and even injurious. Thousands of workmen are employed in the
preparation of diamonds ; but if the only use of the diamonds is to
stimulate the vanity of those who possess them and to excite envy in
those who have none, it would be better if they were sent to the bot-
tom of the ocean. If the same workmen were employed in making
articles of comfort for those who are in need of them, would it not be
a subject for congratulation ? I do not advocate sumptuary laws, but
I look with pleasure on countries like Norway and the Alpine cantons
of Switzerland, where, although no one buys diamonds, all have the
means to procure necessaries. The real point to be considered is, that
every object of luxury costs a great deal of labor ; could not this la-
bor be made useful in a more rational manner ? The truth will appear
more clearly by regarding an isolated individual. Would any man
devote three years to making for himself a jewel that will be of no
service to him ? The absurdity of the actual transaction is hidden by
the appearance of an exchange and the fact that the wearer of the
jewel commands it of another. If we regard humanity in the light of
a man obliged to satisfy his wants by his labor, it will appear to be
folly to employ a part of the time in cutting diamonds, and in return
to be obliged to go barefooted another part of the time. The inhabi-
tants of a state have the disposal of a certain number of hours in a
day ; if they employ half of them in making futilities, it is evident
that half the population will want for necessaries.

While M. Baudrillart condemns what he considers improper luxury
with sufficient energy, he assumes that the procuring of necessaries
does not afford a sufficient incentive to effort, and that a certain de-
gree of luxury, of a moderate and moral kind, is indispensable as a

VOL. XVIII. — 13

674 '^^E POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

stimulant to labor. I admit, with John Stuart Mill, that it may be
well to give new wants to still savage people, so that their energy and
ingenuity may be stimulated and they be lifted out of a condition of
indolence by the exertion necessary to satisfy those wants ; but the
taste for consuming is not the one that needs to be stimulated among
European peoi)les. The greater number of men, even in a country as
rich as France, have not such homes, or furniture, or clothing, or food
as hygiene requires, nor such as they all certainly would desire to
have. Is not this want of necessaries sufficient to urge them to labor ?
It is the only incentive of those who labor with their hands ; and it
is only those who are at ease that seek for the superfluous. "But
what," says M. Baudrillart, "will you do with those thousands of
artists, those hundreds of thousands of workmen, who are working in
metals, in cloths, ivory, woods, gems, with infinite taste?" The emi-
nent economist himself answers the question a few pages further
on, in replying to those who say that France " produces too much."
" What does this fortunate France produce too much of ? It is not of
the things useful or agreeable in life when there are so many poor.
Let some one point out what it is that is produced in superabundance.
Is it wool, when so many are cold ? Is it grain, when so many are in
want of bread?" Let the men who are working at ivory and gems
produce the wool and the grain which you say are lacking, and the
question will be answered.

M. Baudrillart regards a small number of wants as a sign of inferi-
ority, and supposes that the development of material wants corre-
sponds with that of the moral faculties. This is true in the earlier
stages of civilization, but ceases to be so in the later stages, when the
development of wants is so little a sign of progress that they have
been most multiplied and refined in times of laxity, corruption, and
decadence. This is exemplified and proved in the case of the Roman
Empire, where the impossible was pursued, and extravagance sought
the height of enjoyment in the indulgence of perverted fancies.

Economists are accustomed to measure the degree of civilization
of a country by its productive power. In a certain country the rich
lay the world under contribution for the adornment of their mansions
and the supply of their tables, while a million poor people may be
living on public charity, a third of the population may be illiterate,
another third may be without necessaries, and the prisons may have
to be enlarged and martial law proclaimed. No matter ; that coun-
try is called the most civilized in the world. In another country, we
find brawny rustics, owning their houses and lands, procuring by their
labor all that is indispensable to them. No one among them falls
short of a certain degree of ease and education, but no luxury can be
seen anywhere. That country is considered very backward. Such
are the habitual judgments of the day. I believe them to be super-
ficial and false.

MORALS OF LUXURY. 675

Bastiat suggests, in his " Harmonies Economiques," that we can
not find a solution to the questions raised by the introduction of ma-
chinery and external competition while we consider want as an invari-
able quantity ; we must admit that our needs are indefinitely expan-
sible, and invoke luxury to afford an opportunity to put surplus labor
to use. Machines, the economists of this school reason in effect,
abridge labor ; the more they are multiplied and perfected, the fewer
hours of labor are required to obtain the same products. Thus the
demand for hands is diminished, and an increasing number of work-
men are put out of employment. In order to keep these men at work,
new wants must be invented as fast as actual wants ai'e satisfied by a
smaller amount of effort, so that the hours that have been placed^ at
our disposition may be utilized.

I claim that we ought to ask that the time that has been gained by
the increased productiveness of machinery should be devoted, not to
the creation of superfluities to satisfy factitious demands, but to the
cultivation of the mind and the enjoyment of society and of the beau-
ties of art and nature. At present the effect of machinery seems to
have been not to shorten but to lengthen the hours of toil, and to ex-
tend them through the night, and to make life more intense and cause
a greater expenditure of nervous force.

To satisfy our rational wants we requii'e food, clothing, and habi-
tation suitable to the climate and season ; to these we may add the
cheap accessories which the progress of industrial art has put within
the reach of all. The line between a consumption that is reasonable
and one that is not so may be found in every case by answering the
question whether the satisfaction which the desired object will pro-
cure is worth the time and effort necessary to produce it. If it is,
I am right in procuring it ; but, if to get it I have to divert human
labor from a more useful destination, I am wrong. I saci'ifice what is
necessary to what is superfluous. M. Baudrillart regards everything
superfluous as a luxury. I agree rather with M. J. B. Say, who thinks
it must be also dear. Thus, a Japanese fan costing a cent or two and
a cheap looking-glass are superfluous ; but, as it costs but little effort
to get them, the satisfaction they afford is quite worth the expendi-
ture. When the countryman drinks his wine which he would sell, per-
haps, at four sous a quai-t, it is not extravagance. When a Croesus
drinks Johannisberger at eight dollars a bottle, the expense is rela-
tively little for him ; but he has, nevertheless, consumed the equivalent
of twenty days of labor, which have been taken from the whole of the
time available to humanity for the satisfaction of its essential wants,
and for what advantage ? Only to secure the fugitive taste of a
flavor that is hardly appreciable to the finest palates. No one will
hesitate to say that the time has been put to a bad use. The fact
escapes the world under the complications of exchange ; neverthe-
less, people have an intuition of it, for they often blame certain

e-jd THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

foolish expenditures even when they are incurred by those who can
afford them.

We may consider hixury from three points of view : First, from
the moral point, as concerning the individual ; within what limits is
the perfect satisfaction of wants useful in the normal development of
the human faculties ? Second, from the economical point ; to what
extent is luxury a help or a hindrance to the increase of wealth ?
Third, from the point of right and justice ; is luxury compatible with
the equitable division of products, and with the general principle that
the remuneration of each person ought to be proportional to the
amount of useful labor that he has performed ? The third aspect of
the problem has hardly been appreciated, because it has never been
clearly seen that juridical principles should be applied to the economi-
cal repartition of products. We should not forget, however; that
Christianity, having made charity a duty, has always condemned lux-
ury because it devotes to superfluous and therefore immoral expendi-
ture that which ought, according to its principles, to be given to the
poor.

Putting aside the consideration of what man owes to his fellows,
and what charity and justice expect of him, let us see whether luxury
is good or injurious to the individual. The end to be pursued by man
in his life is the normal development of all his faculties and the happi-
ness that should result from it. It includes the perfection of his phys-
ical and intellectual forces, of his sentiments, of his affections in the
family and toward his race, and the enjoyment of the beautiful in
nature and art. Modern luxury, with the multitude of efforts required
to satisfy its demands, opposes a double inconvenience against the at-
tainment of these objects. Time has to be consumed in gaining the
money that its futilities require, and the leisure that is left after the
money is got is employed in expending it upon them. The whole
man is thus entangled in a wheel-work of material pursuits, and can
afford nothing for the life of the mind and the heart. Consider the
life of that financier who counts his millions by the hundred : his
transactions, his calculations, his business associates, take up his whole
day ; and even in the evening, among pleasures which he seeks and
does not enjoy, he is still thinking about operations that may increase
that fortune the revenue of which already surpasses by many times
the cost of all the wants that he can dream of. He may be said to be
loaded down under the mass of his property. He may be without
doubt a useful wheel in the general work of production, but is he on
the road that leads to perfection and happiness ? The man without
wants is without cares, and may be gay as the lark all the day. By
help of the gifts of science and art we are able to produce so much
wealth that we are confounded at the sight of the figures by which it
is measured in the statistical tables ; and still our age is preoccupied,
tense, and melancholy.

MORALS OF LUXURY. 6jj

Bossuet treats this point in his " Traite cle la Concupiscence " in
language of great force : " The body," he says, " humbles the sub-
limity of our thoughts, and attaches us, who ought to breathe of
heaven, to the earth. . . . Why," he continues, " do you turn your
necessities into vanity ? You need a house as a defense against in-
jury from the weather — it is a weakness. You need food so that you
can repair your forces, which are wasting away at every moment —
another weakness. You need a bed where you can rest in your weari-
ness and give yourself up to a sleep that chains and overwhelms your
reason — another deplorable weakness. You make of all these witnesses
and monuments of your weakness a spectacle for your vanity, and it
seems as if you wished to triumph with the display of the infirmities
that environ you on every side." Bossuet, it may be, carries the doc-
trine of renunciation to asceticism, but is he not right in the main ?
Is not every one of our needs a weakness, a subjection, a temptation
to sacrifice the good and the just to sensuality ? Dignity of bearing,
pride in conduct, fidelity to opinion, often depend on simplicity in
life. The fewer wants one has, the freer will he be to do whatever
duty commands, and the less will he have in important crises to listen
to the suggestions of cupidity.

The opinion that luxurious expenditure promotes the prosperity of
the people is an error of the most pernicious character. Those who
indulge in superfluities imagine that they are doing a service to the
working people, and governing bodies, sharing in the delusion, some-
times grant special appropriations to induce certain functionaries to
set the example of costly outlays. The most elementary notions of
political economy should show this idea to be false. The progress of
industry depends on- the increase of capital, and capital grows with
saving. Luxury does not promote the increase of wages, but opposes
it. Wages can only rise when capital increases faster than the num-
ber of workmen, or, as Cobden says, when two masters are running
after one workman. Now, in order that this may take place, each of
the competing employers must have accumulated a capital by saving.
It is thus saving, not superfluous expenditure, that permits the creation
of new fabrics and the employment of more workmen. In very rich
countries, indeed, luxury does not prevent the increase of capital,
because the incomes are sufiicient there to answer for both purposes.
Those who save are found in those countries along with those who
spend, and the possessor of a large income may easily indulge some of
his fancies and still save considerable sums. The immense surplus
revenues of England are employed in the creation of new enterprises
at home and abroad ; but, if thrift were more general in that land, its
productive capital would be still more largely increased and more
widely distributed.

It is claimed, as a thing that is admitted by every one, that luxury
stimulates trade. J. B. Say shows up this doctrine with the story of

678 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

a rich uncle of his, who, after dining, broke his wineglasses, saying
that the world must live. Say wondered why it would not be as well
to break the rest of the furniture, to help more of the world's work-
men to live. According to this view, Nero was inspired by true eco-
nomical principles when he sung over the burning of Rome. M. de
Saint-Chamant once remarked that, if Paris should be destroyed by
fire, he would deplore the event as a citizen, but rejoice over it as an
economist, for it would give an extraordinary bound to labor. If the
doctrine be true, political economy should be the science, not of the
production, but of the destruction, of wealth. The error arises from
regarding labor rather than its results as the chief object.

To clear up this error, it is necessary, as Bastiat says, to distinguish
between what we see and what we do not see. We see the workman
who is engaged in replacing what has been destroyed, but we do not
see the other workman who might have been employed to make some-
thing else with the money which we now have to apply to the payment
of the former workman. Say's uncle certainly furnished work to the
glass-factory, but if he had saved his glasses he might have spent the
same amount of money in buying other things, and himself had more
objects, while the wealth of the state would have been increased.
Many hands were emjDloyed in rebuilding the monuments that were
destroyed in Paris in 1871 ; but with the money that was thus spent
other monuments, schoolhouses, or railways, for example, might have
been built, and at the closing up of the account Paris would still have
had its palaces, and the state would have gained new halls of instruc-
tion and new means of transportation.

It may be urged that, if our theories are carried out, hosts of trades-
men and artisans will be condemned to starvation. The value of this
objection may be illustrated by an hypothetical example in life. A
wealthy banker sj^ends immense sums in feasts, and induces his friends
to spend three or four times as much as he does. The dealers to whom
patronage is given accumulate great sums. The public is charmed,
trade flourishes. Now comes a preacher thundering against luxury,
and instigating a revival of frugality. Balls and feasts are given up.
What will be the result of the change ? The banker and his friends
are not going to throw their money away or let it be idle, but will do
something Avith it to make it return a profit. One will improve a long-
neglected piece of land, will plant and drain it, and repair the build-
ings ; another will enlarge his factory, and a third will i;ndertake
railway contracts. All will make work, and that of a useful and pro-
ductive character, so that they may receive interest for their outlays.
The same amount of money is spent, and it supports the same amount
of work and gives a living to the same number of workmen, only they
are employed in the fields, where they are not seen, instead of being
engaged in the fashionable shops, where they are always before the
eye of the public. Now look at the difference in the effect on the

MORALS OF LUXURY. 679

wealth of the country. When the ballroom lights were put out, what
was left ? Nothing but rumpled vanities, deranged stomachs, and
overtaxed nerves. The capital of society has been twice diminished :
in the expenditure of money and the waste of human force. On the
other hand, when the useful enterprises which have given as much
work are finished, there remain a field better drained and manured
and bearing more grain, a better planted forest furnishing more wood,
a new factory turning out more goods, and a new railway line. The
country is enriched and produces more. In the next year the workmen
are better provided for, their expenses are lessened, more hands are
needed to keep the increased capital employed, and wages are raised.
A profit has accrued on both sides. The application of means to the
production of necessary and useful objects has the additional advan-
tage that the demand for such objects is more stable, that they are
not so readily dispensed with in times of retrenchment, and are not
so subject to the changes and caprices of fashion.

It is further pleaded that luxury makes money circulate. This,
also, is unsound. Circulation of itself brings no profit. Money no-
where circulates faster than on the green cloth of the roulette-table.
Some lose, others gain, millions ; but what is the profit to the country ?
Money is all the time in circulation, unless it is buried in a pot. The
important matter is, whether in passing from hand to hand it com-
mands permanent ameliorations and satisfies the real wants of men, or
whether it is wasted upon the futilities that minister to pride and os-
tentation.

The crowd approve the letting off of expensive fireworks, and be-
lieve that the money they cost is still in the country, and that nothing
is lost. But there were in the country two capitals : one of money,
the other represented by powder, which might have been employed in
extracting coal and minerals from the earth, or in works for railways.
The second capital has vanished in smoke, and only the money is left.
Consumption is always destruction ; it is important to see that for this
destruction is returned as compensation some satisfaction of real wants,
or the creation of some new means of production. Consumption is in
reality a barter. We give up an existing value ; if we receive in re-
turn something to strengthen the body and exalt the soul, we have
done well ; if something to stimulate pride and vanity, it is worse than
nothing, and we have done ill.

We may regard luxury, in the third place, from the juridical side,
and ask if it is compatible with right and justice. All Christian tra-
dition answers the question in the negative. The Scriptures abound
in passages condemning the egotistical and unregulated employment
of riches. The fathers of the Church insisted upon a kind of equality
of right, and urged that those who have a superfluity can not legiti-
mately dispose of it for themselves, but ought to share it with those
who are in want of necessaries. The Church has indicated alms as the

68o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

single remedy for inequality of wealth and its resultant luxury. What
is to be done, however, now that political economy has demonstrated,
from the evidence of facts, that alms engenders idleness, mendicity,
indolence, and debasement of character, and that it is fundamentally
wrong, because it levies an impost on those who work for the profit of
those who do not work ?

The true solution of the question is to be found in encouraging the
greatest possible number of citizens to become holders of property.
Let it be in the power of each one to secure a parcel of land, a bond,
or an industrial obligation, a little capital in some form, so that prop-
erty may become democratized, and extreme inequality will be caused
to disappear ; then, if the progress of mechanical arts induces the mul-
tiplication and refinement of products, they will be within the reach of
all. Such conditions still prevail in countries where the agrarian cus-
toms and the proprietary forms of primitive times have not been de-
stroyed by the civil laws and feudal and royal usurpations.

Voltaire says on this subject, in his " Dictionnaire Philosophique " :
" If we understand by luxury all that is over and above the necessary,
it is a natural consequence of the progress of the human species, and
by a consequent reasoning every enemy of luxury should believe, with
Rousseau, that man's real state of happiness and virtue is not that of
the savage, but of the orang-outang. We feel, however, that it would
be absurd to regard as evils such conveniences as all men enjoy ; so
we generally give the name of luxury only to the sui^erfluities which
are within the reach of but a small number of persons. In this sense,
luxury is a necessary concomitant of property, without which no
society can exist, and of a great inequality in fortunes, which is the
result, not of the right of property, but of bad laws. It is, therefore,
bad laws that generate luxury, and it is good laws that must destroy
it. Hence, moralists shoiald address their remonstrances to legislators,
not to individuals ; for it is in the order of possible events that a vir-
tuous and enlightened man should have the power of making reason-
able laws, but it is not in human nature that all the rich men of a
country should virtuously give up the enjoyment of buying pleasure
and vanity at the price of a small sum of money."

One kind of luxury only, in my opinion, is justifiable : that, namely,
which admits the public to its enjoyments ; which invites the masses
to the pleasures of public gardens and fountains, which places the
beautiful within the reach of those who can not own statuary or pic-
tures, by establishing museums of art, and which founds libraries and
public expositions. Such collective luxury, if well directed, is profit-
able to all. It raises the level and fecundates the genius of industry.
The duty of the easy classes in every country is to favor those move-
ments which will tend to enable all of the people to become possessors
of property, and themselves to set the example of application to labor,
rural tastes, simplicity of life, and high moral and intellectual cul-

MIND AS A MEASURE OF NATURE. 681

ture. Those who have the disposal of the superfluous produce of the
country should employ their wealth not in refining material enjoy-
ments, or in stimulating the unhealthy gratifications of vanity and
pride, but in works of general utility, as many an American citizen
and more than one European sovereign have done.

MIND AS A MEASURE OF NATURE.

By CHAELES T. HAVILAND.

IT has been said that every man is born a Platonist or an Aristote-
lian. This is an epigrammatic way of stating the fact that the gen-
eral tendency in the pursuit of knowledge is to approach it from one or
the other of two different standpoints, variously called the subjective
and the objective ; the mental and the material ; the theological, or
metaphysical, and the scientific. While this tendency is pretty clearly
marked, yet the saying has the fault common to most apothegms, of
sacrificing correctness to brevity — of overlooking the delicate grada-
tions in Nature's continuity in its attempt to express her more salient
diversities in a pithy utterance. This is the imperfection of all classi-
fications. They necessarily separate what is continuous. It is only as
they refer to genetic relationships that they most nearly correspond
with nature, and this they can do in only a few of the natural sciences.
For the most part, the act of classifying is the application of a mental
scale to incommensurable quantities. The very impossibility of group-
ing phenomena into natural kinds renders an artificial classification
necessary. Before science can advance a single step, the innumerable
phenomena of nature must be reduced into classes. If not susceptible
of natural arrangement, they must be arranged artificially ; and, as
long as the artificial chai'acter of the classification is comprehended, no
harm is done ; but when men, with but little knowledge of the objects
dealt with, proceed to construct a procrustean bed to which they ex-
jDCct Nature to conform, and then, from this tortured witness, attempt
to extort unwilling testimony, they may expect Science to enter a de-
murrer. As this method, however, has the merit of simplicity, as
might be expected, it has long been the favorite with a certain class of
philosophers.

Turning back to the early progress of human speculation, especially
so far as it has reference to material objects, we see that all the first
attempts at physical knowledge consisted, principally, of deductions
from mental notions, with but little, if any, reference to phenomena.
Beginning with the theories of the universe propounded by the Greek
philosophers, we see that whatsoever progress was made in scientific
acquisition was only in proportion to the occasional reactions from the

682 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

excessive subjectivity that mostly prevailed. This reaction found ex-
pression in men like Archimedes and Ilipparchus, and under their influ-
ence science had apparently attained a foothold when the intolerance
of a religious supremacy, which held sway over Europe during the
dark ages, banished it from Christendom, and thus became debited to
humanity for a thousand years of stagnation.

Not until the time of Copernicus was there any new impetus to re-
search. The appeal to objective facts was, then, although in a small
degree, made the avowed basis of scientific speculation. Then began
the progress of knowledge which, with constantly accelerating speed,
has continued to our times, and which, we trust, may not again be
slackened.

The experience of our predecessors teaches us a lesson that we
ought not soon to forget. In the practical affairs of life, experience
is considered the best guide. The man who learns nothing from its
teachings does not succeed. It is no less important in the life of the
race. If we learn nothing from others' failures, we can expect to learn
nothing from their successes.

The attempts to construct the universe a priori are analogous to
the attempts to construct a perpetual motion. As long as there was
no direct reference to exjjerience, it appeared by no means imjDrobable
that a machine might be so constructed that, when once set in motion,
it would never stop. Any one, who has had any experience with a
class in mechanics, knows how crude are the notions they possess with
reference to the very elements of physics. It is safe to assert that to-
day not one person in ten possesses a thorough certainty of belief in
the validity of the third law of motion, namely, that action and reac-
tion are always equal ; or, to put it in more familiar language, that,
when a horse pulls a wagon, the wagon pulls the horse equally hard.
It is not until correct mechanical notions become wrought into the very
warp and woof of one's mental fabric that his deductions from them
may fairly be presumed to be correct. Witness the absurd notions
current only a very few years ago as to the possibility of constructing
a " motor " that should, in some mysterious way, evolve force enough
from a pint of water to propel a train of cars from Philadelphia to
New York ! Mechanics went on inventing " perpetual motions," but,
however plausible they looked, somehow or other they wouldn't work.
Do away with friction to the greatest possible extent ; overcome one
obstacle here and another there ; increase the time the machine would
run indefinitely — still, to a state of equilibrium would it come at last.
From these empirical observations mechanics learned, what philoso-
phers might have learned years ago, that experience affords the only
sure test of the validity of our notions.

After numberless failures had taught the empirical lesson that at-
tempts to construct a perpetual motion were fruitless, the gradual de-
velopment of the law of the conservation of energy showed the reason

MIND AS A MEASURE OF NATURE. 683

for it. In like manner, we have sufficient reason, judging merely from
the observation of previous speculation, to warrant us in abstaining
from attempts to deduce a knowledge of material nature from mental
concepts. Add to this fact that other, that all knowledge has its
basis in experience, and we supplement our empirical conclusion by a
deduction from a fundamental law of nature, and show their entire
congruence.

Early physical speculation, with hardly an exception, proceeds on
the assumption that knowledge is derived primarily from the mind —
thus completely inverting the true order. Would some of those per-
sons who in our day attribute so much power to the unaided mind
carefully peruse a history of science in the early centuries of our era
and the centuries immediately preceding it, we think they would be-
come convinced that purely mental speculation can never lead to any
exact knowledge, but must, on the contrary, invariably be a source of
obscurity and error.

With but two or three exceptions, the most eminent men of the
early and middle ages, except as in a few instances they recorded in-
teresting facts, contributed absolutely nothing to scientific progress.
The principal cause of the difference in the civilization of our times
and those of the ancients is the progress of exact knowledge. What
would the most mystical of metaphysicians of to-day say to Socrates's
assertion that those things are called like which partake of the quality
of likeness ? or to Aristotle's argument against a void in nature, that
a void is a negation, and in a negation there could be no differences,
and where there were no differences there could be no up or down,
consequently bodies could not move up or down in a void, but it is
the nature of bodies to move up and down, therefore there is no void ?
or to his argument in support of circular motion, that it is the best,
therefore the most natural ? The mental ability of the " Father of
Logic " is unquestioned. He follows logical methods closely enough.
What, then, is there unscientific in his reasoning ? Simply that he
allows abstract terms and mental notions to pass current for facts —
thus using an irredeemable currency as though it possessed intrinsic
value.

The modern astronomer can not but wonder at the daring specula-
tions of the Pythagoreans, that, as ten was a perfect number, there
must be ten heavenly bodies, notwithstanding nine only were then
known. Before such vaticinations the predictions of a Leverrier sink
into insignificance.

We find the whole history of science, up to the time of Copernicus,
a history of the conflict of facts with preestablished notions. The
problem of astronomers was to reconcile the apparent motions of the
heavenly bodies with their assumed circular motions. Thus, when it
was found that the motions of the planets were not uniformly circu-
lar, it was naively suggested that an uncertain motion could not be

684 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY!

tolerated even in a man, much less in a planet, hence the theory of
epicycles, or wheels revolving on the rims of other wheels, was
introduced. Notwithstanding its questionable parentage, and the
fundamental error on which it is based, this theory, as established by
Hipparchus and extended by Ptolemy, is about the only example of
a scientific working hypothesis previous to the fourteenth century.

Physics, equally with astronomy, suffered from the anti-scientific
method. The study of nature was not only neglected, but discounte-
nanced by the Church. A priori arguments were urged against the
existence of antipodes, and, but a short time before they were visited
by Columbus, a belief in their existence was denounced as heretical.
The direction of knowledge during the middle ages was retrogressive
rather than progressive. Scholastic physics was based upon the as-
sumption that analysis of mental concepts would give all requisite
knowledge. Why wonder at the result ? Weight being the cause of
bodies falling, it was assumed that heavy bodies would fall faster than
light ones. Personal qualities being attributed to inanimate objects,
there were supposed to be different degrees of perfection in the metals,
and thus arose alchemy, whose aim it was to extract gold — the most
perfect metal — from the baser metals.

The contagion of scholasticism became epidemic, even infecting
able men, and establishing its parasitic growth upon sound theories.
Astronomy gave birth to astrology, to whose weird influence even a
Bacon could succumb. One of the arguments brought forward in sup-
port of the Copei'nican theory was that it placed the noble element,
fire, in the center of the universe, thus satisfying the tendency toward
mythical explanations. So prevalent was this method of considering
nature, that Kepler himself entered into complex speculations concern-
ing the relations of music to the motions and distances of the planets ;
and even Galileo was led into an erroneous theory of motion in conse-
quence of assuming that it must be the simplest possible. In support
of true hypotheses, as well as false, metaphysical reasons were given.
The fact that from them anything wished for can be proved, consti-
tutes the great danger in their use. From the immutable laws of God
Descartes deduced the first law of motion, while, from the same source,
the Church had previously demonstrated the immovability of the earth.
Borelli conjectured that the motions of the planets were controlled by
two forces — one the centrifugal force, and the other the appetite a
planet must have for the body about which it revolves. Suction was
explained by the famous principle that Nature abhors a vacuum, and,
had it not been discovered that the abhorrence ceased at certain fixed
limits, this explanation would probably have done service even to our
day, for that class of philosophers for whom the kindred pi-inciple of
vitality is a sufiicient explanation of the various phenomena of life.

The few examples that have been cited give a fair sample of the
science of the middle ages. During that long period the men imbued

MIND AS A MEASURE OF NATURE. 685

with a spirit of scientific research could be counted on one's fingers.
It is a striking fact in the history of man that, out of the many centu-
ries he has inhabited the earth, so few have been productive of any
useful knowledge. Throw away everything that had been done pre-
vious to the fifteenth century, and the loss would have been by no
means irreparable. Add to the productive period twenty centuries,
and we embrace the whole. Think of the average life of fourscore
men spanning the totality of human knowledge ! Truly, science is in
its infancy. What were the speculations of the men who existed a few
centuries prior to our era, we have no record. After the dim poetical
aspirations which compose the earliest known philosophy, there emerges
a pseudo-scientific natural philosophy, which, disdaining the shackles
that a constant reference to the phenomena of nature would impose
upon its flights, attempts at once to solve the problem of the universe.
Like the famous German, who, instead of going to see the camel he
was to describe, pursued the easier and more fascinating method of
evolving him from his own inner consciousness, the Greek philosopher
evolved the universe from his.

A modern writer, who certainly can not be accused of want of
sympathy with a deductive philosophy, in comparing the relative
merits of the a j^rlori and a jjosterioi'i methods, observes that, although
the latter may in general come somewhat nearer the facts of nature,
yet, as it can never embrace all the phenomena in its inductions, it can
never arrive at the whole truth ; while the a priori method, if it
chance to hit upon the right formula, has the whole universe, so to
speak, at its fingers' ends. While we may readily admit the sublimity
of the attempt to reach out and grasp the hidden springs of nature,
stubborn facts constrain us to assert its impracticability. The diffuse
light of mental theory must be concentrated to a small focus in order
to produce any visible effect.

Knowledge is the concomitant of the progressive limitation of our
powers. As long as man assumes that he contains within himself the
premises of knowledge, so long will it elude his grasp. Not until ex-
perience has compelled him to doubt the validity of his mental con-
cepts when applied to nature, and has forced him to have recourse to
facts only, has man taken the first steps in the paths of science.

That one learns the boiindlessness of knowledge only in proportion
to his own acquirements is a saying famous only for its triteness.
What are certainties to the ignorant are uncertainties to the intelli-
gent. What are dogmas to the blind followers of a fanatical priest-
hood are for ever insoluble problems to the man of science. The igno-
rant savage — who can not count beyond five; who has no abstract names
in his vocabulary; who knows nothing of the use of pronouns; who uses
words denoting the commonest things and most usual actions only —
possesses knowledge differing so widely in degree from ours as almost
to constitute a difference of kind. For him nature has no problems.

686 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The universe, of which he knows so little, is but in a slight degree a
mystery. Wonder — the first sense of philosophy, as it has been so
aptly termed by Aristotle — exists in his mind only as superstition.
We are too apt to think that primitive or savage man must be ap-
palled by the presence of nature, forgetting that his universe is limited
to his own unaided senses. We forget that, in our own life, philo-
sophic problems present themselves only as we approach maturity,
and, generally, then only if our studies have led us in their direction.
To see how little the " natural man " comprehends these problems, ob-
serve the answers he gives to those questions in which it is customary
to assume that the wayfaring man, though a fool, does not err.

Man is naturally a "realist." Things are to him what they seem.
Mind is his sole measure of nature. He looks nowhere else for an
interpreter, and knows no other source of knowledge. He interprets
natural phenomena by mental qualities, and this prepossession colors
all his theories. The history of science is the history of the gradual
demolition of this tendency. The mental distance from a savage that
pei'sonifies the tree, the forest, and the stream, to a Kepler that con-
ceives it necessary to place a guiding spirit in the planets to keep them
in their courses, is, of course, immense, and each is indicative of the
thought of his time ; but we now know that each was in error in pos-
iting some uttei'ly unknowable substance to explain the unknown ele-
ments.

The person who to-day expects to make the phenomena of life
more clear by attributing them to the effects of " vitality " is making
a dangerous mental concept do duty in place of exact knowledge, how-
ever limited. The frequency with which this attempt occurs, even
among men eminent in science, shows that continued protests are
needed. However little real knowledge we may possess upon a given
subject, our only way to get more is to approach it humbly and labo-
riously as a question that can be solved only by constant reference to
the facts that appertain to it. All experience teaches that an analysis
of mental notions has never yet yielded a particle of natural knowl-
edge, but, on the contrary, has often proved a barrier to the accept-
ance of true theories. We can not expect to be more fortunate our-
selves. The principal objection to the development theory has been
on the ground of its opposition to preconceived notions as to the reality
of the mental conception " species," and to certain beliefs in vogue
concerning the genesis of man, rather than to its assumed opposition
to the facts of nature. Every theory has to run the gantlet of this
extra-scientific criticism, and only when it is shown to have no pos-
sible bearing upon preconceived notions is it allowed to be settled
simply upon its merits and by scientific methods.

Instead of reverting to the experience of our ancestors and showing
the futility of all previous attempts to extract light from mental sun-
beams, we might have deduced the same conclusion from the known

MIND AS A MEASURE OF NATURE. 687

laws of thought. No psychological theory has greater probability
than that which bases the units of knowledge in experience. Since
the time of Locke and Hume, the drift of speculation has been steadily
in the direction of a more or less modified empiricism. The more far-
sighted of the intuitionists cast aside everything they thought could
embarrass their theory, and were content to allow that the matter of
thought was based upon experience, while reserving as the province of
intuition the mental forms by which knowledge was possible. The
theory of evolution explains this intuitional residue by extending the
experience of the individual to the experience of the race, and showing
that what may be intuitive (in every sense, except the supernatural, in
which that word was formerly used) to the individual is so in conse-
quence of inherited tendencies corresponding to the aggregate experi-
ence of his ancestors.

But we do not need to urge mental theories, however probable, to
show that our knowledge of the universe is dependent upon our sur-
roundings. A little difference in the physical condition of the earth
would have sufficed to have utterly changed our conception of nature.
Make the not very inconceivable supposition that our earth bore the
same relation to the sun that the moon does to the earth — rotating
once on its own axis to each revolution about the sun, and remaining
nearly perpendicular to the ecliptic, thus always presenting the same
side to the sun's rays — how would it have aifected our knowledge of
nature ? To what modest proportions would not only science have
shrunk, but also our mental or intuitive conceptions of nature !

Astronomy has been well called the mother of the sciences. The
apparent motions of the sun, moon, and stars through the heavens, and
the motions of the planets among the stars, contributed to produce a
wonder in the minds of the beholders that might well cause astronomy
to be the first studied of the sciences. In our hypothetical world, the
sun would appear stationary in the heavens, more or less removed from
the zenith according to the position of the observer. On the center of
the earth's surface would be a torrid zone upon w^hich the vertical rays
of the sun would pour down with unremitting severity, with no alter-
nation of day and night to temper its influence. Outside of this would
be a temperate zone well adapted, it might be, to the existence of
human beings, but having no change of seasons, only one monotonous
summer day, varying in temperature according to location. The tem-
perate zone would gradually give place to a frigid zone, and, as the
day darkened into an eternal night, this would be succeeded by an
impenetrable region in which the degree of cold would vastly exceed
anything we have on earth at present. Thus man, confined to some-
what less than half the globe, would see nothing of the moon or stars,
and the earth, with the sun shining on it, would be the only bodies
visible. There would be no natural divisions of time into days, weeks,
months, or years. Mathematicians might calculate the hemispherical

688 THE POPULAR SCIEXCE MONTHLY.

form of the earth, but the elephant and the tortoise would be more
than ever necessary to suj^port it. There would be no science of as-
tronomy, no knowledge of the law of gravitation, none of physics, so
far as it was dependent upon astronomy. The sciences so act and re-
act on one another that it is difficult to say just how far the absence
of one would affect the others, but we know it would greatly. Such
suppositions as we have made may be more or less fully realized in
other worlds, and we can thus see that their science may differ very
widely from ours and still be no less correct. Science is everywhere
relative to the facts with which it has to deal. The difficulty of con-
ceiving physical and spatial relations different from those we are famil-
iar with does not prove them non-existent ; nor does the ease of such
conceptions prove their existence.

Helmholtz has very ably shown that our geometrical axioms have
a truth relative only to the space they are applied to. He supposes
beings, of the same mental capacity as ourselves, but of two dimen-
sions only, to inhabit a plane surface. They would possess a plane
geometry like ours, but would have no solid geometry whatsoever.
Thickness would be as inconceivable to them as a fourth dimension in
space is to us. Transplant these beings to the surface of a sphere, and
their planimetry would change to a spherical geometry. Defining a
straight line as the shortest distance between two points, all their
straight lines would be arcs of great circles, and every straight line, when
sufficiently extended, would return to itself. Between two points,
half the circumference of a great circle apart, an infinite number of
straight lines, of equal length, could be drawn ; and, as two points
would always cut the great circle on which they were situated into
two arcs of unequal length, there would always be, besides the shortest
straight line connecting the points, a longer straight line (i. e., a line
made up of shorter lines, each of which is the shortest distance between
its extremities) also connecting them. There could be no parallel
straight lines and no similar triangles. The sum of the angles of a
triangle would always be more than two right angles, and the amount
of the excess would depend upon the length of the sides.

Helmholtz again supposes these beings of two dimensions to be
placed upon (what has been called by Beltrami) a pseudo-spherical sur-
face— a surface shaped somewhat like the sides of an hour-glass. Here
our axiom of parallels does not hold good. Through a given point,
a whole pencil of straight lines may be drawn, none of which shall
cut a given line, though infinitely produced, and limited, at the two
extremes, by lines that cut the given line at infinite distances in the
opposite directions. Helmholtz makes other suppositions which it is
unnecessary to follow, as we have already gone far enough to show
that even the fundamental axioms of geometry are quite as dependent
upon the conditions under which they are used as upon any intuitive
necessity we may think belongs to them.

MIND AS A MEASURE OF NATURE. 689

It is well known that but a portion of the phenomena of nature
are cognizable by us — how small a portion it is not known. A person
born blind has no conception of color ; one born deaf, none of sound.
The disease of color-blindness affords a good illustration of the limita-
tion of knowledge in consequence of the limitation of sensibility in
certain directions. One affected with this disease, while able to see
outlines with perfect distinctness, as well as some of the colors, is
insensible to others ; and this insensibility does not affect alone the
ability to discriminate between colors nearly alike, but also those that
are apparently widely divergent. It is related of Dalton, from whom
color-blindness takes its name of daltonism, that some wag exchanged
the robe of sober drab which this demure Quaker was in the habit
of wearing, for one of scarlet, and that, unconscious of the differ-
ence, he went forth, much to the amusement of the bystanders. Un-
doubtedly many accidents are due to the inability to discriminate
between different colored signals. This subject is just beginning to
receive the attention its importance demands, and it is found much
more prevalent than was even suspected. Like short-sightedness and,
probably, all maladies due to the absence or the imperfection of any
of the senses, the subject of it is unconscious of its existence until
something particular calls it to his attention. To a greater or less ex-
tent we may all be said to be color-blind. Only a part of the rays
that are known to proceed from the sun are visible to any of us.
Vision is produced only by waves of a certain definite length. The
rays of longer wave-length than the red are known to us by their heat-
producing effects only ; those of shorter wave-length than the violet,
by their chemical effects. It is not improbable that, at some future
time, a race may exist capable of seeing rays invisible to us — just as
we perceive many invisible to some of the lower animals. In the de-
velopment of sight there must, at first, have been simply a power to
distinguish light from darkness ; then, the ability to distinguish out-
lines ; and, finally, the sensibility to color. Until this sensibility was
developed, objects would present merely an alternation of light and
shade, similar to the view we get in a stereoscopic picture.

Sounds inaudible to us are heard by insects, and odors that we
can not distinguish are smelled by animals. So we might go through
the whole category of sensations and resulting ideas, and show their
variation imder different conditions ; and yet, whatever may be the
theory of knowledge we espouse, it is from these sensations and ideas
that we form our conception of nature. How different our mental
conceptions would be if our senses were indefinitely magnified, we
can but guess. A drop of water, it has been estimated by Sir William
Thomson, if magnified to the size of the earth, would be seen to con-
sist of molecules of the size of cricket-balls ; and these molecules are
themselves of great complexity. The internal motions of a drop of
blood are more complex than the motions of the solar system. Place

YOL. XTIII. 44

690 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

it under a microscope of high power, and the corpuscles are seen hur-
rying hither and thither as if (to use a quite appropriate simile) their
life depended upon it. Repeat the process, and new complexities are
seen. Increasing the power of our senses artificially by the use of in-
struments has given us a vastly enlarged conception of nature ; but
every increase in knowledge shows us more clearly the limitation of
the knowledge we possess. Truly, there are more things in heaven
and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy.

Science is continually teaching us the lesson that the universe is
larger and more complex than formerly supposed. Old geographers,
guided by an egoistic impulse, placed their own country in the center
of the known earth ; early astronomers placed the earth in the center
of the universe. Later, that position of honor was given to the sun.
The influence of mental concepts and the desire for system, even
where none is discernible, induce some astronomers to locate the cen-
ter of the sidereal system somewhere in the region of the Pleiades ;
but, even should this attempt prove successful, we should be no nearer
the discovery of the center of the universe. Place a grain of sand
thirty feet from an orange, and you have, approximately, the relative
distances and dimensions of the earth and sun. Nearly one thousand
feet beyond would be the planet Neptune — the outermost planet of
our system — while more than twelve hundred miles would have to be
traversed before arriving at the nearest fixed star. Even on this min-
iature scale, our fractions of inches grow to miles, and man finds him-
self immeasurably dwarfed, even in the presence of the known. He
sees whole systems drifting through space. In a much broader sense
than Emerson meant, we are like ships upon an unknown ocean, know-
ing neither whence we came nor whither we are bound.

It is fascinating, no doubt, to construct theories of universe-reach-
ing proportions. It has been truly said that —

"... Our nimble souls
Can spin an insubstantial universe
Suiting our mood, and call it possible,
Sooner than see one grain with eye exact,
And give strict record of it."

Perhaps such emjjloyments are elevating. Such, at least, is the
claim of those who affect to despise what they superciliously term the
bread-and-butter sciences. Admit all they claim ; still, their concep-
tions of nature are worthless until verified.

In this brief sketch of past thought, we have seen that it was only
as man has been content to acquire knowledge patiently, slowly, and
arduously, by what are now known as scientific methods, that his
knowledge has been of any practical value. Theorize as widely as he
may, constant verification is the only criterion of a theory's validity.
Fact must be the point of departure and the point of return of all

SKETCH OF PROFESSOR BENJAMIN PEIRCE. 691

theories. Mental notions can aid ns only as they are reflections of na-
ture. Even scientific hypotheses have but a relative validity. In time,
as in space, the extent of knowledge follows a law analogous to the
law of spherical diffusion. It has been held that the record of any
historic event is wholly invalidated by the lapse of sufficient time ;
much more is this true of future prediction. The base-line of our
knowledge is sufficient but for a limited survey. The very distant
future has no mental parallax.

We have seen every far-reaching theory become obsolete ; and
there is no reason to suppose that, at the present time, we shall be more
successful. There is but one course that it is safe to pursue, namely,
to be content to let insoluble problems remain as such — not attempt-
ing any mental theory concerning them — and confine ourselves to those
problems that may offer some probability of solution, with the assur-
ance that, however far the boundaries of knowledge may be extended,
each successful solution will enlarge the horizon of the unknown be-
yond.

SKETCH OF PROFESSOK BENJAMIK PEIRCE.

THIS illustrious American mathematician and astronomer died in
Boston, October 6, 1880, in the seventy-second year of his age. He
was born in Salem, Massachusetts, April 4, 1809. He was graduated
at Harvard College at the age of twenty. His father was a graduate
of the same institution, and died its librarian. He was appointed tutor
in 1831, University Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy
in 1833, and Perkins Professor of Astronomy and Mathematics in
1842, and was directly connected with the faculty of the college for
forty-nine years. He was a member of all the learned societies in this
country and in Europe, was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of
England in 1857, and in 1867 received the degree of LL. D. from Har-
vard University.

We take the liberty of quoting from that excellent periodical,
" The Harvard Register," for May, 1880 (to the courtesy of whose
editor we are also indebted for the excellent likeness herewith pre-
sented), the following account of Professor Peirce's character and
work, written, it will be observed, before his death, by Dr. Thomas
Hill, ex-President of Harvard University :

" From 1836 to 1846 he issued a series of text-books on geometry,
trigonometry, algebra, and 'curves, functions, and forces.' They were
so full of novelties that they never became widely popular, except,
perhaps, the trigonometry ; but they have had a permanent influence
upon mathematical teaching in this country ; most of their novelties
have now become commonplaces in all text-books. The introduction

692 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of infinitesimals or of limits into elementary books ; the recognition of
direction as a fundamental idea ; the use of Hassler's definition of a
sine as an arithmetical quotient, free from entangling alliance with the
size of the triangle ; the similar deliverance of the expression of deriv-
ative functions and differential coefficients from the superfluous intro-
duction of infinitesimals ; the fearless and avowed introduction of new
axioms, when confinement to Euclid's made a demonstration long and
tedious — in one or two of these points European writers moved simul-
taneously with Peirce, but in all he was an independent inventor, and
nearly all are now generally adopted.

" All his writings are characterized by singular directness and con-
ciseness, and particularly by a happy choice of notation — a point of
great importance to the mathematician, lessening not only his mechani-
cal labor in writing, but also his intellectual labor in grasping and
handling the difficult conceptions of his science.

" His text-books were also complained of for their condensation, as
being therefore obscure ; but, under competent teachers, their brevity
was the cause of their superior lucidity. In the Waltham High School
his books were used for many years, and the graduates attained there-
by a clearer and more useful applicable knowledge of mathematics
than was given at any other high school in this country ; nor did they
find any difficulty in mastering even the demonstration of Arbogast's
Polynomial Theorem, as presented by Peirce. The latter half of the
volume on the Integral Calculus, full of marks of a great analytical
genius, is the only part of all his text-books really too difficult for stu-
dents of average ability.

" Gill's ' Mathematical Miscellany ' contained many contributions
which showed in a singular light the Harvard professor's power. For
example, in the issues for May and November, 1839, he solved, by a
system of coordinates of his own devising, several problems concern-
ing the involutes and evolutes of ciirves, which would probably have
proved impregnable by any other mode of approach.

" During the year 1842, Professors Peirce and Lovering published
a ' Cambridge Miscellany of Mathematics and Physics,' in which Peirce
gave an analytical solution of the motion of a top, a criticism of Espy's
theory of storms, etc. About the same time he adapted the epicycles
of Hipparchus to the analytical forms of modern science ; and the
method was used by Lovering in meteorological discussions communi-
cated to the American Academy.

" The comet of 1843 gave Professor Peirce the opportunity, by a
few strikinor lectures in Boston, to arouse an interest which led to the
foundation of the observatory at Cambridge ; and, by his discussions
of the orbit with Sears C. Walker, he and that remarkable computer
were brought to mutual acquaintance, and prepared for the still more
important services to astronomy which they rendered after the discov-
ery of Neptune. This planet was discovered in September, 1846, in

SKETCH OF PROFESSOR BENJAMIN PEIRCE. 693

consequence of the request of Leverrier to Galle that he should search
the zodiac, in the neighborhood of longitude 325,° for a theoretical
cause of certain perturbations of Uranus. But Peirce showed that the
discovery was a happy accident ; not that Leverrier's calculations had
not been exact, and wonderfully laborious, and deserving of the high-
est honor ; but because there were, in fact, two very different solutions
of the perturbations of Uranus possible : Leverrier had correctly cal-
culated one, but the actual planet in the sky solved the other ; and the
actual planet and Leverrier's ideal one lay in the same direction from
the earth only in 1846. Peirce's labors upon this problem, while show-
ing him to be the peer of any astronomer, were in no way directed
against Leverrier's fame as a mathematician ; on the contrary, he
testified in the strongest manner that he had examined and verified
Leverrier's labors sufficiently to establish their marvelous accuracy
and minuteness, as well as their herculean amount. /i

" A few years later, 1851 to 1855, Peirce published the remarkable
results of his labors upon Saturn's rings. Professor G. P, Bond had
seen the ring divide itself and reunite, and had thereby been led to
show by computation from Laplace's formulae that the ring could not
be solid. Upon this Peirce investigated the problem anew, and showed
that the ring, if fluid, could not be sustained by the planet ; that sat-
ellites could not sustain a solid ring, but that sufficiently large and
numerous satellites could sustain a fluid ring, and that the actual sat-
ellites of Saturn are sufficient.

"In 1849 he was appointed consulting astronomer to the 'American
Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac,' and rendered efficient service in
bringing that publication to its condition of honorable authority, par- .
ticularly in the lunar tables which he furnished, in his treatment of
Neptune, and various methods of computation. He also assisted Pro-
fessor Bache in the Coast Survey, and was, for many years, of great
service in that important national work before he was himself appoint-
ed superintendent in 1867. His calculations of the occultations of the
Pleiades were very laborious and exact, and furnished an accurate
means of studying the form, both of the earth and her satellite. His
criterion for rejecting doubtful observations is an ingenious and valu-
able extension of the law of probabilities to its own correction. His
detection of the mental error of lurking personal preferences for indi-
vidual digits is a curious specimen of that acuteness of observation
which characterizes his own mind.

" He held the office of Superintendent of the Coast Survey from
1867 to 1874. Coming after such able men as Hassler and Bache, to
an office which required not only familiarity with mathematics and
physics, but also great knowledge of men and executive ability, he was
not found wanting, but showed that the theory of the Stoics will some-
times hold good to-day — the really great man shows himself great by
any and every standard. The Coast Survey has, since the year 1845,

694 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

steadily advanced in public favor, and its work commands the highest
respect among all men competent to judge throughout the world, as
being not only of direct service to the nation, but as making constant
valuable additions to science.

" Many monographs, bearing the marks of Peirce's individuality
and peculiar power, have been read by him before various academies,
societies, and institutions ; but only the results of most of them have
ever been furnished for publication. Among these may be mentioned
an investigation of the forms of stable equilibi'ium for a fluid in an
extensible sack floating in another fluid, being an a joriori embryology.
Also, the motions of a billiard-ball, an instance in nature of discon-
tinuity, when the ball leaves its curve, and goes on a tangent ; another,
the motion of a sling, curious from the immense variety of forms com-
prised under exceedingly simple uniform conditions.

" In 1857 he published a volume, summing up the most valuable and
most brilliant results of analytical mechanics, interspersing them with
original results of his own labor. A year or two later an American
student in Germany asked one of the most eminent professors there,
what books he would recommend on analytical mechanics : the answer
was instantaneous, ' There is nothing fresher and nothing more valu-
able than your own Peirce's recent quarto.' In this volume occurs a
singular instance of a characteristic which I have already mentioned.
Peirce assumes as self-evident that a line which is wholly contained
upon a limited surface, but which has neither beginning nor end on
that surface, must be a curve reentering upon itself. By means of this
hyper-Euclidean axiom he reduces a demonstration, which would other-
wise occupy half a dozen pages, to a dozen lines.

"In 1870, through the 'labors of love' of persons engaged on the
Coast Survey, an edition of a hundred lithographed copies was pub-
lished, of certain communications to the National Academy upon
' Linear Associative Algebra.' In 1852 Hamilton, of Dublin, had pub-
lished his wonderful volume on quaternions ; and this had been fol-
lowed by various other attempts to create an algebra more useful in
geometrical and physical research than the coordinates of Descartes.
Ordinary algebra deals only with quantitative relations, and the object
of the arithmetic of lines and of Cartesian coordinates had been to
reduce distances and directions to a comparison of quantity. But
Hamilton introduced quality also ; and his algebra employed the di-
mensions of space, unchanged and essentially diverse, in computation.
His imitators and followers had not succeeded in improving or in
really adding to his methods. But Peirce, in these communications
to the Academy, attacks the problem, according to his wont, Avith
astonishing breadth of view and boldness of plan. He begins with a
definition of mathematics, shows the variety of processes included in
his definition, passes then to its symbols, shows the nature of qualita-
tive and of quantitative algebras, and of those which combine the two,

SKETCH OF PROFESSOR BENJAMIN PEIRCE. 695

and says he will investigate the general subject of algebra. First, he
limits himself in this volume to algebras handling less than seven dis-
tinct qualities — that is, not exceeding six. The notation is then dis-
cussed, and the necessary enlargements and modifications of the alge-
braic signs and symbols are clearly defined. The distributive and
associative principles in multiplication are adopted} but not the com-
mutative ; and he confines himself to linear algebras — that is, to
those in which every expression is reducible to an algebraic sum of
terras each expressive of a single quality. After a full discussion of
the general results which must be found in all algebras under these
conditions, he begins with single algebras, then double, then triple, and
so on up to sextuple, making nearly a hundred algebras which he shows
to be possible, and of which he gives the great features. There are
almost no comments upon them ; and it is only by a patient examina-
tion for himself that the reader discovers that, of all these numerous
algebras, only three have ever been heard of before. First, of the two
single algebras we have one, which is the common algebra, including
its simpler form of arithmetic. Secondly, of the three double alge-
bras, we have one, viz., the calculus of Leibnitz and Newton. Thirdly,
of over twenty quadruple algebras, only one has been used, the qua-
ternions of Hamilton. Such is a brief abstract of this book of mar-
velous prophecy. The most noteworthy things which he has done
since its publication are a course of Lowell lectures, given about a
year ago, on ' Ideality in Science,' and a series of communications to
the American Academy, which, it is understood, is still to be contin-
ued. In the Lowell lectures he embodies many of his views on phi-
losophy and religion which are peculiarly dear to him, and are always
listened to with profound interest, even by those of less religious na-
ture. In the communications to the Academy lie is discussing, with
all his wonted power, questions of cosraical physics, and particularly
theories concerning the source and supply of the sun's heat.

" While Professor Peirce has the tenacity of grasp and power of
endurance which enable him to make the most intricate and tedious
numerical computations, he is still more distinguished by intensity
and fervor of action in every part of his nature, an enthusiasm for
whatever is noble and beautiful in the woi'ld or in art, in fiction or
real life ; an exalted moral strength and purity ; a glowing imagination
which soars into the seventh heavens ; an insight and a keenness of
external observation which make the atom as grand to him as a plan-
et ; a depth of reverence which exalts him while he abases himself."

696

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

CORRESPONDENCE.

ABOUT ANTS.
Messrs. Editors.

ABOUT four years ago a large, whole-
sale-grocery firm, doing business on
Strand Street, in this city, received a con-
signment of several barrels of onions. These
onions were raised by a German farmer liv-
ing in one of the counties lying west of the
Colorado River, and near the line of the
railroad running between Galveston and San
Antonio. The onions were grown in a black,
sticky soil, as shown by the large quantity
adhering to them. In some of the barrels
there were a great number of small black
ants, which were evidently brought here
with the onions from the same place. This
particular species of ant was unknown here
before. The Island of Galveston is mostly
sandy, and the ants heretofore observed
here were of light color. .These imported
colonies have increased enormously, un-
til there is not a counting-room on Strand
Street that is not literally wfested with them.
I am no entomologist, but it seems to me
they exhibit some peculiarities that would
greatly interest Sir John Lubbock. They
do not appear to be very troublesome to the
grocerymen — not attacking sugar, cheese,
etc., which other small ants delight in — but,
like a great many people, they show the
most decided fondness for printerh ink on a
newly-printed newspaper. If the morning
paper is laid down in the counting room on
a chair, table, or desk, in a few moments it
will be covered by countless thousands of
these lively little pests. They seem to ex-
tract something from the ink on the paper
of which they are excessively fond. The
paper itself they do not injure, and it is only
a freshly-printed paper that attracts them.
They are very active in their pursuit of fresh
newspapers, the moment one is thrown down
being the signal for hosts of them to rush
from the floors and walls to cover it. They
do not seem inclined to be quarrelsome with
themselves or their " two-footed rivals," un-
less disturbed in their favorite pastime, by
having the morning paper taken away from
them, when, in attempting to shake them
off, they frequently inflict some punishment
on the hands, thus showing that they are not
without the means of defensive and offen-
sive warfare. The book-keepers and clerks
have discovered that a broad chalk -line
drawn around the desk-legs, and repeated
daily, will offer an effectual barrier to their
ascent of the desk. This is the only pre-
ventive yet discovered.

One remarkable fact I desire to call
attention to is this: While they have no
fondness for the common black writing-ink
that does not copy, they are exceedingly
fond of a variety of copying writing-ink —
such as I am using in this letter — made in
Paris, and called "Encre violette noire com-
municative." When the legs of my desk have
not been properly chalked., and I am writing
letters to correspondents, these little pests
will cover my paper, run over the fresh
writing, and frequently drag the ink on their
legs, " making some marks " of their own.
(You can see the peculiar chirography of
one of my little friends on the first page of
this letter.) Sometimes one or more will
run up the pen-point as it is moving over
the paper, and then occurs a very singular
phenomenon indeed : The movement of the
pen seems to enrage it, and it immediately
plunges its forceps into the thick ink, when
at once the ink, which was a dark-violet
color, changes to a bright litmus color, and
seems to have acquired the property of
" striking through " the paper, no matter if
of extra thickness. This change of color I
attribute to the formic acid the insect dis-
charges into the ink in its rage. In about
five minutes the writing changes to a dark-
violet again, due, I suppose, either to the
absorption of oxygen, the evaporation of
the formic acid, or some other chemical
change. I may send you some more items
of interest about these little pests, but in
the mean time I would be glad to know how
to be rid of them entirely.

Very respectfully yours,

L. C. Fisher.
Galveston, Texas, October 11, 18S0.

A BRILLIANT METEOR.

Messrs. Editors.

On the evening of Wednesday, the 9 th
instant, I observed a very brilliant meteor,
which made its appearance in the south-
west, at an elevation of about forty degrees
above the horizon. Its rate of motion was
very slow, and it was visible fully three
quarters of a minute. A long bright line
was left in its path, and this remained visi-
ble from 5.27 o'clock, when I first observed
the meteor, until 5.45 o'clock. This streak
seemed to be composed of luminous vapor.
About five minutes after its appearance,
the line took a zigzag form and resembled
a " streak " of lightning. Its form was

EDITOR'S TABLE.

697

constantly changing until it disappeared in
the approaching darkness. I have never
before observed a meteor whose " tail " re-
mained visible so long. The appearance of
this meteor created great consternation
among the negroes, and many of them im-

agined that the "last day" had arrived.
Nothing has ever been seen to equal it by
any one in this neighborhood.

Yours respectfully,

John Hawkins.
Prosperity, S. C, December 10, 1S80.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

EVOLUTION' AND ORIGINALITY IN ART.

\ I THEN" we compare pictures of the
V V sixteenth and of the nineteenth
centuries at the Metropolitan Museum
of Art, New York, we are conscious
that the charm of modern work is in
the truthful delineation of scenery and
character, in a certain reflection of our
experiences, and in fitness as related to
the drift of our imagination. We see a
reality and daylight effect which we
miss in allegorical and other subjects
by artists of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries. The coloring in pictures by
Eubens and Murillo may be impressive,
but not even this can obscure the truth
that the result is not suited to the mod-
ern eye and taste. Most of us prefer
nature mirrored by some of our modern
masters. In fact, the disposition to ap-
preciate work that seems practical does
not favor the introduction of ancient
methods. The pursuit of a highly de-
veloped sense of humor must impress
artists with the importance of close at-
tention to propriety and probability in
every design. The fact that ancient
art is not suited to present standards
of taste was hinted at by Thackeray
in "The Newcomes," in the artist who
painted immense figures, and whose
ideas of art were expressed in a pic-
ture fourteen feet high. The novelist
intimates that this was high art in a
literal sense ; but the principal force of
his satire is shown in the following re-
marks from the artist: " The models of
the hancient Britons in that pictur'
alone cost me thirty pound. . . . You
recognize Boadishia, colonel, with the
Roman 'elraet, cuirass, and javeling of

the period — all studied from the han-
tique, sir, the glorious hantique."

We also find a ludicrous contrast
when ancient art is subjected to the
practical test of modern scientific criti-
cism, as seen in the disregard of the
laws of equilibrium when angels are
represented with arms as well as wings.*

The phrase " school of art " seems
objectionable when it means more than
a preparatory course by which the rudi-
ments are mastered. An artist ought
to be independent of all schools, or
have a touch of all in his work, be-
cause otherwise his liberty will be re-
stricted.

The advantage of originality appears
in strong relief when we examine the
negative work of imitators. While it is
seen that artists having genius can pro-
duce striking effects, using apparently
commonplace subjects, it is yet clear
that imitators can not produce the same
effects, because they fail to see them in
nature. The picture painted by a great
artist and the original in nature always
produce two distinct and very different
impressions upon the observer. Owing
to some subtile change, which it is im-
possible for an imitator to follow, the
picture has an indefinable effect of which
we are not conscious in tlie natural oc-
currence or object. For this reason the
imitators of original work must always
fail. They see the effect after it has
been rendered, but they can not per-
ceive similar effects in the outer world
of nature, as distinguished from the

* See "Popular Science Monthly," April,
1879: "The Monstrous in Art," by Samuel
Kneeland, M.D.

698

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

inner world of constructive thoiight.
The striking peculiarity of the work
causes them to overlook the delicate
and truthful touches by which the gen-
eral harmony and fitness are maintained.
The unprecedented qualities in a work
of genius are always sustained by a cer-
tain truth to nature.

Originality generally causes severe
criticism from contemporary artists,
because its tendency is to displace or
weaken the established standards. In
fact, the opposition usually becomes so
intense that the merit of the old meth-
od is overlooked on one side, and the
great value of a new insight is over-
looked on the other. Conservative
critics have very often tried to check
venturesome innovators by misusing
the word mannerism, which does not
properly apply to peculiar work. The
word means tasteless uniformity. This
can be fairly maintained in opposition
to critics who think that any incessant-
ly-recurring effect, even though origi-
nal and striking, is mannerism. Such
critical objections ougbt not to influ-
ence an artist to abandon a forcible sys-
tem of treatment, because the danger
of anything really powerful dwindling
into a series of tedious repetitions is
very slight.

Where there is merit there is con-
tinuous growth, whereby the strong
current of individuality or sameness of
treatment is accompanied by constant
transformations, absorbing new materi-
al, and finding new methods of expres-
sion.

It seems obvious that, after suitable
instruction, during which any school
may have sway, the artist must look for
natural effects in the world directly
around him. and not in Rome or in
Paris. Nor should he use the special
colors or tones advocated by conform-
ists. Objects appear to him of a cer-
tain hue, or a certain action of the hu-
man figure appears worth rendering.
Let him delineate these as he sees them,
and be not discouraged by many failures

and defects. His strong point may be
discerned by close attention to his nat-
ural tendencies. In this way the true
representation of his impressions will
make others conscious of something
which before lacked emphasis. Such
development of originality in art, ac-
companied by hard and conscientious
labor, may result in works of great
fame, and in the evolution of art to
a higher grade of adaptation to nature.
In the future, the artist may better ex-
press ideal conceptions, because a wider
mastery of facts and subjects involves
increased power and skill.

LITERARY NOTICES.

INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC SERIES,
NO. XXX.

Animal Life as affected by the Natural
Conditions of Existence. By Carl Sem-
per, Professor of the University of
■\Viirtzburg. With Two Maps and One
Hundred and Six Woodcuts. New York :
D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 472

We have here a volume that will raise
still further the already high character of
the series to which it belongs. It is a fresh
and original contribution to a most interest-
ing branch of zoology, which will be indis-
pensable to every naturalist, and will be
prized by all readers who care for the prog-
ress of knowledge concerning the general
phenomena of life. Professor Semper is a
leading German biologist, and, being a mas-
ter of English, he was invited to come to
Boston and give a course of twelve lectures
before the Lowell Institute. He availed
himself of the occasion to bring forward, in
a form as popular as the nature of the ma-
terials allows, the results of his studies in a
special province, zoological science.

The author is, of course, an evolutionist,
and recognizes that Darwin's views have
revolutionized biological method. But he
thinks one of the results has been to give
too great an impulse to speculation. He
says that enough has been done by Darwin-
ists in the way of philosophizing, and that
the task now before us is to apply the test
of exact investigation to the hypotheses

LITERARY NOTICES.

699

laid down. It is infinitely easy to form
a fanciful idea as to how this or that fact
may be hypothetically explained, and very
little trouble is needed to imagine some
process by which hypothetical fundamental
causes, equally fanciful, may have led to
the result which has been actually observed.
But, when we try to prove by experiment
that this imaginary process of development
is indeed the true and inevitable one, much
time and laborious research are indispen-
sable. We have here the clew to Semper's
position as a biologist. He thinks that the
school of speculative system-makers, repre-
sented by Haeckel, are given to an over-in-
dulgence in hypotheses, and might better
concentrate their efforts upon the work of
observation and experiment, and the more
rigorous investigation of facts.

Of the problems brought into promi-
nence by the doctrine of evolution, none is
more fundamental than that of variability
in animal organisms. It has, of course,
long been known that animals possess this
property, but the critical and unsettled ques-
tion is, To what extent and under what con-
ditions is it manifested ? Variability is prob-
ably that trait of animate beings which may
be first and most easily traced by exact in-
vestigation, both to its limits and to its effi-
cient causes. There is, however, at present
much strife of opinion upon the subject,
and this can be only harmonized by closer
research. The present volume is devoted
to this inquiry. It is a study in organic va-
riation, and the author aims to present the
general facts and hypotheses, which are
either of universal significance or offer
favorable subjects for experimental treat-
ment.

But it is desirable to still further illus-
trate the specialty of Dr. Semper's work.
The general science of zoology has two great
branches, morphology and physiology, which,
although closely connected, are yet so wide-
ly different, both as to their details and to
the paths they have struck out for solving
their respective problems, that it becomes
necessary to keep them separate as two in-
dependent divisions of science. Morphology,
or the science of form and structure, aims
to discover those affinities of relationship in
animals which actually exist, and to found
on them a natural system of the animal

kingdom. It is a statical inquiry — that is,
it delineates the conditions and relation-
ships of organic structures, their differences
and similarities, simply as existing facts,
with no necessary reference to the manner
in which they have been produced. Were
all life suddenly destroyed upon the earth,
and nothing left but dead organisms capable
of dissection, there would still remain the
material for morphological study.

Physiology, on the other hand, deals
with the dynamics of life. It investigates
the functions or activities of living parts,
and elucidates the forces, causes, and con-
ditions that have produced existing forms.
Physiology explains what morphology de-
scribes ; and, in this large sense, it is the
task of physiology to give account of the
facts which morphology embraces in its nat-
ural system.

But, from this point of view, physiology
itself has two broad divisions. Simple phys-
iology, as it is usually known, treats of the
activities or the functions of the organs,
such as the brain, stomach, heart, muscles,
spinal cord, lungs, kidneys, etc., which may
be considered as carrying on independent
processes, or in their vitally coordinated,
intimate, mutual relations. But, in contra-
distinction to this conception of the physi-
ology of organs, there is also a more com-
prehensive physiology of animal organisms,
which may be properly termed universal
physiology. It treats of the general causes,
conditions, and laws of the development of
organisms, and of the transmutation of one
form into others. Here we meet the ques-
tion of the relation of organisms to their
environing conditions, and of animals as
acted upon and modified by the external
forces of nature. The problem of the geo-
graphical distribution of animals, of their
extension into new habitats, of their ex-
termination, the acquirement of divergent
traits and new qualities, and of the origin
of species, is here presented. We have
a new order of dependences, analogous to
the mutual dependence of organs in common
physiology, but it is now a dependence upon
the conditions of external nature. Professor
Semper says: "If the American prairies
were to cease to produce grass, the first re-
sult would be the rapid .and utter extinction
of the now numerous herds of buffaloes, and

700

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

on their existence depends that of the sur-
viving remnant of the ancient Indian popu-
lation of America. If the various insectiv-
orous birds of North America were exter-
minated, within a very few years, beyond a
doubt, all the produce of the rich agricul-
tural districts of that continent would be
destroyed. If we change the mode of life
of any single animal, the change will instant-
ly have an influence on all the other animals
whose healthy existence was in any way de-
pendent on its normal functions before it
was altered. Although it is certainly true
that the various animals inhabiting a country
are not so intimately interdependent as the
organs of the individual, the relations in the
two cases may be very directly compared.
The normal numerical proportion, mode of
life, and distribution of animals would be
altered or destroyed by the extermination
of one single animal, just as the whole body
suffers, with all its organs, if only one of
them is destroyed or injured. And, in both
cases. Nature has analogous remedies at her
command. In the one case, the function of
the incapacitated organ can be assumed, at
any rate to a certain extent, by some other
uninjured organ, exactly as, in the other case,
the function of the exterminated animal may
be fulfilled, with regard to the whole fauna
of the country, by some other animal. But
a perfect compensation for the loss sus-
tained is impossible in either case."

In further illustration of this idea, Pro-
fessor Semper says : " The fauna of a dis-
trict thus takes the aspect of a vast organ-
ism whose separate members — the different
species of animals — are living parts of the
body, and which has had too its embryol-
ogy— i. e., its development in time. These
species as regards the laws of their local
distribution may be regarded morphologi-
cally as the limbs of a gigantic organism
which throws one or other of them up into
the air on the top of some mountain-peak,
while others are flung into ocean-depths,
subterranean caves, lakes, or rivers. But
they may also be studied physiologically, and
compared to organs which by their func-
tions and importance influence the life of
the whole mass, and are interdependent by
the most various physiological relations like
the organs of a healthy living body." The
nature of the task undertaken bv the au-

thor is still further exemplified ia the fol-
lowing passages :

Before going on to the particular inquiry, it
seema desirable that the expression " external
conditions of existence" Bhould be as accurate-
ly defined as may be. I have already said that I
wish to see as wide an application given to it as
possible, 8o as lo include every influence, how-
ever insignificant and difficult to detect, that
can affect the "fitness for survival" of a species,
and to investigate its mode of action. This ex-
planation might suffice, but I prefer to illustrate
my meaning by a few further considerations.

Everything which tends to hinder or to favor
the continuance of the life of the Individual and
the propagation of the species, as such, must be
regarded as a condition of existence for that
species. In this sense every organism existing
on the face of the globe, as well as every in-
organic constituent of the earth's surface and of
the atmosphere, is a condition of existence for
all animals. Their relations to those organic
and inorganic elements difier only in degree, in
being more or less remote. Heat or cold, light
as well as nourishment, the density of the at-
mosphere, the water or the soil in or on which
animals pass their lives, electricity, and the
chemical constituents of the media surrounding
them, whether air or water, the plants or other
animals with which they live, either in the
closest connection or in mere association —
everything, in short — may and must exercise a
certain influence on animals, and may be harm-
ful or prejudicial to them; and there is nothing
on the face of the earth that may not be regarded
as an essential condition of existence to some
species of animal. It is self-evident that the in-
fluences of these manifold conditions must be
in the highest degree various. One animal re-
quires a high temperature in order to live, an-
other a low one ; one form prefers a very damp
atmosphere, another a dry one ; many are des-
tined to live always under water or in the soil,
while quite as many disport themselves in the
freer medium of the air. If we could suddenly
reverse all the conditions of existence which are
indicated by these modes of life, we should an-
nihilate all the animal life on the earth ; for no
fish can swim in the air, no bird can live per-
manently under water, a mole can not climb, a
salamander can not exist in a desert, nor a
desert-snail in the virgin forests of the tropics.
If, on the contrary, we reverse the conditions
slowly, but still at a perceptible rate, it is prob-
able that most animals would perish while a
few would survive. But, if we suppose that such
changes— in the atmosphere, for instance, in the
constituents of water or of the soil, etc.— were
eflfected so slowly as to be perfectly inappre-
ciable by man, it is highly probable that the
number of surviving forms would be very con-
siderable. The influence of the conditions of
existence thus changed is sometimes very dififer-
cnt on nearly allied forms ; for instance, one
species of Neritina can live equally well in
fresh, brackish, and sea water, while others

LITERARY NOTICES.

701

occur only in one or the other, and can not
survive any diminution or increase of the salt-
ness of the water they live in. The simple
reason of this phenomenon is the fact that the
life of an animal depends not merely on the in-
fluence of the external conditions, but on the
reaction of its own organizaiion. If we transfer
a stickleback directly from fresh to salt water,
and leave it there for days or weeks, it will not
perish if it be supplied with sufficient food. But,
if at the same time we place one of the common
fresh-water mussels in sea-water, it will soon
die, sometimes in a few hours. The remarkable
diflference in the behavior of these two creatures
is easily explained by the following hypothesis :
In both animals the salt water is transmitted
through the skin to the tissues of the body ;
but this takes place to a much greater extent in
the mussel than in the flsh, and thus injures it,
while the flsh can bear the same quantity of salt
it has absorbed. If our migratory fishes, as the
salmon, had as great an affinity for the salt of
the sea-water as the mussels have, they would
soon cease to exist, or would have to become
adapted to live wholly in fresh water. Thus
every change in the conditions of existence in-
fluences diff'erent animals in different ways. The
problem, then, is to investigate more accurately
these different effects of changed conditions.

Professor Semper's twelve lectures be-
fore the Lowell Institute form the twelve
chapters of his book. The considerations
here presented are put forward in the first
or introductory chapter, in which he defines
his point of view, and the plan of the dis-
cussion. The work is divided into two parts,
the first being devoted to " The Influence of
Inanimate Surroundings," and the second
to " The Influence of Living Surroundings."
Chapter II takes up " The Influence of
Food " ; III, " The Influence of Light " ; IV,
" The Influence of Temperature " ; V, " The
Influence of Stagnant Water " ; VI, " The
Influence of Still Atmosphere " ; VII and

VIII, " The Influence of Water in Motion " ;

IX, " Currents as a means of extending or
hindering the Distribution of Species " ;

X, "A Few Remarks on the Influence of
Other Conditions of Existence " ; XI, " The
Transforming Influence of Living Organ-
isms on Animals " ; XII, " The Selective In-
fluence of Living Organisms on Animals."
Appended to the volume are sixty pages of
valuable notes, followed by a copious alpha-
betical index.

Annual Report of the Chief of Engineers,
United States Army. Pp. 264.

The report describes what was done dur-
ing the year ending June 30, 1880, and what

was needed to be done for the seacoast and
lake frontier defenses of the country, and
for the improvement of the rivers and har-
bors of the whole country ; and records the
progress of the special work and of the sur-
veys assigned to the corps of engineers.
Several maps of Pacific States and of the
survey of the Mississippi River, and lake
charts, have been published, and an outline
map of the territory west of the Mississippi
River, on a scale of ^Tju^triju, ia in prepara-
tion.

Life and her Children ; Glimpses of Ani-
mal Life from the Am(Eba to the In-
sects. By Arabella 13. Buckley, New
York : D.'Appleton & Co. ISSO. Price,
$1.50.

After light came life, and with that life
there came its two great functions — growth
and development. With the simplest as
with the most complex forms there is the
same eager race to be run, to increase in
size, to multiply, and, thus replenishing this
earth, to die. '' Life and her Children " is
a praiseworthy and admirable attempt to
tell us something of the Children that Life
sends forth, and of their history. Its main
object is to acquaint young people with the
structure and habits of the lower forms of
life ; but in our deliberate judgment it will
do a great deal more. None will read its in-
troductory chapter without advantage, and
few will read the volume through without
enjoyment. Within its narrow limits of
three hundred small pages no candid reader
would expect to find all the details that
might be wished for, or all the illustrations
that might be desired. What constitutes
the book's chief charm is the marvelously
simple yet quite scientific style which runs
through it, the food for thought and future
study which it affords, and the truly philo-
sophic glow which lights up its every page.
The volume gives a general account of Life's
Simplest Children, the Protozoa. The word
" slime " does not seem to us quite a happy
term by which to designate the living pro-
toplasm of these creatures ; this word con-
veys the idea of a something adhesive or
glutinous, or of a something thrown off a
living organism — a something without a
structure (sordies, eluvies) — and there seems
somewhat of a "contempt for nature," a
thought certainly never present in the au-

702

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

thor's mind, in the use of such a word.
Jelly would seem a more appropriate word,
as convejing the idea of the consistency re-
quisite for life, and would have the sanction
of use. Thus the Noctilucaj, called in this vol-
ume " tiny bags of slime," were described,
if we mistake not, by their discoverer as
" tiny spherical gelatinous bodies," and Pro-
fessor Huxley says, " Noctiluca may be de-
scribed as ' a gelatinous transparent body
about the one sixtieth of an inch in diam-
eter.' "

The chapter on " How Starfish walk
and Sea-Urchins grow" is excellent. The
story of how the five curious little oval jelly
bodies, swimming about by their jelly lashes
in the depths of the smooth water in some
English bay ended in becoming respective-
ly a lily-star, a brittle-star, a starfish, a sea-
urchin, and a sea-cucumber, is well told, and
woodcuts, though they make one see as in a
glass darkly, help in their own way to make
the meaning plain. In the " Outtasts of
Animal Life " a difficult problem is treated
of. It need not surprise one that it is not
solved. The last four chapters tell of " the
Snare-Weavers and their Hunting Rela-
tions (spiders)"; the insects which change
their coats but not their bodies, and those
which remodel their bodies within cover of
their coats ; " the Intelligent Insects with
Helpless Children, as illustrated by the
Ants." This volume thus tells of the greater
part of the living invertebrate animals as
they are spread over the earth to fight the
battle of life. " Though in many places the
battle is fierce and each one must fight re-
morselessly for himself and his little ones,
yet the struggle consists chiefly in all the
members of the various brigades doing their
work in life to the best of their power, so
that all while they live may lead a healthy,
active existence. The little bird is fighting
his battle when he builds his nest and seeks
food for his mate and his little ones ; and
though in doing this he must kill the worm,
and may perhaps by and by fall a victim
himself to the hungry hawk, yet the worm
heeds nothing of its danger till its life comes
to an end ; and the bird trills his merry
song after his breakfast, and enjoys his life
without thinking of perils to come. So Life
sends her Children forth ; and it remains
for U3 to learn something of their history.

If we could but know it all, and the thou-
sands of different ways in which the beings
around us struggle and live, we should be
overwhelmed with wonder. Even as it is,
we may perhaps hope to gain such a glimpse
of the labors of this great multitude as may
lead us to wish to fight our own battle brave-
ly and to work and strive and bear patiently,
if only that we may be worthy to stand at
the head of the vast family of Life's Chil-
dren."

The work forms a charming introduction
to the study of zoology — the science of liv-
ing things — which we trust will find its way
into many hands. — Nature.

Transcendental Physics : An Account of
Experimental Investigations from the
Scientific Treatises of Johann Carl
Friedrich Zollner, Professor of Phys-
ical Astronomy at the University of
Leipsie. Translated from the German,
with a Preface and Appendices, by
Charles Carleton Massey. With Il-
lustrations. Boston : Colby & Rich.
Pp. 217. Price, $1.50.

There was considerable excitement a
year or two since over the spiritualistic
demonstrations at Leipsie, Germany, in
which the professors took up the claims of
Henry Slade, the eminent American "me-
dium." Zollner was prominent in the in-
quiry, and published his results, which ar-
rested attention chiefly from the novelty of
some of the doctrines which he connected
with the experiments. lie published a book
of views and results under the title of
" Transcendental Physics," which was the
third volume of a course of scientific criti-
cism. The substance of that work is re-
produced in the present translation, together
with numerous well-executed illustrations
of the appliances used and the operations
performed.

The book is a contribution to spiritual-
ism, and treats of a portion of the experi-
ences of Mr. Slade in his great mission over
the world to establish, by slate-manipula-
tions, etc., the immortality of the human
soul. Poor old senile Dr. Hare, when cap-
tured by the Philadelphia spiritualist sev-
eral years ago, undertook to prove that the
soul is immortal by inventing a wooden
spiritoscope for public exhibitions. Believ-
ing that this great question has been left in

LITERARY NOTICES,

703

doubt quite long enough, our enterprising
spiritualistic friends have decided that it
must be solved. And as speculation seems
to have failed to settle it satisfactorily, they
are bound to do it in the clearest and coai-
pletest possible manner by experiment, so
that the conclusion shall have the same
validity that is conceded to strict scientific
investigations. It would seem that Profes-
sor ZoUner had got tired of being shut into
the common field of natural law as a thea-
tre of research, and was determined to break
out and get into a larger and more promis-
ing field. Hence he properly terms his new
results " Transcendental Physics," that is,
physics beyond the sphere of the senses.
We doubt if the time has quite come for
so ambitious an adventure. Old-fashioned
physics is still in its infancy, though its
growth is vigorous, its accomplishments
already vast, and its legitimate promises
boundless. After thousands of years of
groping to find the true method' of arriv-
ing at the truth of nature, that method has
at last been found and abundantly verified
as opening the right path of future inquiry.
Yet the method has been really but just
mastered, and we think it would be wise if
our physicists could content themselves to
pursue it humbly and faithfully for — say
the next thousand years. Nor does Profes-
sor Zollner's experience encourage us in the
least to qualify this recommendation ; for
it looks as if he had not yet served half his
apprenticeship to the existing and well-at-
tested method. The proneness to indulge
in wayward fancies, in groundless conjec-
tures, in imaginary explanations and insane
speculations, has always been the great ob-
stacle to sober and cautious science, and
we think it is the great oflSce of science
to discipline and subdue this tendency. But
Professor Zollner has hardly yet learned the
rudiments of his scientific lesson. Nature,
as disclosed to the common intellect of man,
is not sufficient for him. He scorns its limi-
tations, and is bound to know what is out-
side. So at the very opening of his book
he imakes a grand transcendental somer-
sault, and comes down — Heaven save us ! —
in the fourth dimension of space. Zollner
is free, but we poor worms of the dust can
not follow him. We have all we can pos-
sibly do in three dimensions of space, and

it will be a considerable period before this
is exhausted. Let those who are inclined
buy the " Transcendental Physics," and fol-
low its author if they can. Yankee enter-
prise is proverbial, and there will no doubt
be many who hold to the inspiring motto of
the daring Sam Patch, that " some things
can be done as well as others."

Consumption, and how to Prevent it. By
Thomas J. Mays, M. D. New York :
G. P. Putnam's Sons. 18Y9. Pp. 89.
Price, $1.

This little monograph is aimed at the
prevention of the most destructive of all
diseases. It offers an explanation of the
nature of consumption, and then takes up
the various hygienic agencies which are po-
tent to protect the system from its invasion.
The author epitomizes his book as follows :
" In summing up the considerations in the
preceding pages, I think it appears conclu-
sive that consumption, or the tendency to
it which exists in many individuals, is essen-
tially a premature dissipation of the force
and matter of the body, and that improper
food, bad air, deprivation of sunlight, poor
clothing, want of physical exercise, disease,
imperfect digestion, all accelerate this pro-
cess of waste. Therefore, in all our efforts
at prevention, the path of duty lies straight
before us, and consists in conserving these
two elements of the body by laying a good
foundation in infancy, by preserving the or-
gans of digestion, by eating an abundance
of rich and nutritious food, such as fat, but-
ter, meat, milk, eggs, etc., by breathing pure
air, by living on dry soil, by wearing warm
and comfortable clothing, by taking plenty
of physical exercise, and by avoiding disease
and injurious occupation."

British Thought and Thinkers : Introduc-
TOKY Studies, Critical, Biographical,
and Philosophical. By George S.
Morris, A. M., Lecturer on Philosophy
in the Johns Hopkins University. Chi-
cago: S. C. Griggs & Co. Pp. 388.
Price, Sl.Yo.

This volume is founded on some lec-
tures lately delivered before a mixed audi-
ence of ladies and gentlemen at the Johns
Hopkins University, Baltimore. It professes
to be introductory rather than exhaustive —
an invitation to reflective and systematic

704

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

study rather than a substitute for it. There
is a considerable biographical clement in
the treatment, and the author's aim seems
to be to elaborate " correct views concern-
ing the essential nature and value of the
most conspicuous current of abstract thought
in the English language." The author is a
metaphysician and an ontologist, and, in so
far as his work is doctrinal, it is a dry ag-
nosticism. He does not believe that knowl-
edge is bounded by phenomenal relations,
and spurns the idea that any amount of
generalized truth derived from the sciences
can form a system of philosophy properly
so called ; but, independent of its specula-
tion, there is much instruction to be gained
from his work.

Elementary Projection-Drawing. By D.
Edward Warren, C. E. New York :
John Wiley & Sons. 1880. Pp. 162.
Price, $1.50.

Practical Plane Geometry and Projec-
tion. 2 vols. By Henry Angel. New
York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1880.
Price, $3.50.

The first of these text-books is the well-
known manual of Professor Warren, which
has now reached a fifth edition. It has un-
dergone a thorough revision, and some parts
of it have been rewritten, while it has been
made more complete by the addition of a
division devoted to a consideration of the
elements of machines.

The work of Professor Angel is one in
the " Advanced Science Series " of the pub-^
lisher, and forms a continuation of the more
elementary one of the author in the same
series. The chapters upon projection are
prefaced by several upon plane geometry,
while the main subject is fully presented
and illustrated by numerous examples and
problems. A volume of finely executed
plates accompanies the text.

The subject of projection-drawing, be-
sides being of large educational value, is
also of great practical importance. It is
concerned with representing upon a plane
surface solid objects in such a way as to
show their real dimensions, and is, there-
fore, a necessary preparation for the arti-
san who has to construct work from draw-
ings of this kind. It is also of value to all
those who desire to know how to represent
their ideas of any construction, so that they

will be understood by mechanics. Any one
desiring to pursue the study will find in
either of these works all that he needs to
a thorough comprehension of it.

The Publishers' Trade-List Annual, 1880.
Eighth Year. New York : F. Leypoldt.
Price, $1.50.

This massive volume embraces the latest
catalogues of their books supplied by the
publishers, preceded by an order list includ-
ing all books issued from January to Au-
gust, inclusive, by the publishers represented
in the annual ; a classified summary and al-
phabetical reference list of books recorded
in the "Publishers' Weekly" from July 1,
1879, to June 30, 1880, with additional titles,
corrections, changes of price and publisher,
etc. (foiming a provisional supplement to
the American Catalogue) ; and the American
Educational Catalogue for 1880. The work,
the materials of which are received directly
from the publishers themselves, gives the
complete literary history of the year in the
United States, and is indispensable to the
book-buyer.

The Geology of Hudson County, New Jer-
sey. By Israel C. Russell. (From
the Annals of the New York Academy
of Sciences.) Pp. 80, with Two Plates.

The geology of this county, which is im-
mediately opposite the lower part of New
York City, presents many interesting fea-
tures, the most prominent of which is the
great ridge of trap-rock, forming the south-
ern end of the Palisades, which traverses it
from north to south. It is nearly perpen-
dicular on the eastern edge, but slopes back
gently toward the west. Beds of triassic
sandstone, slate, and shale lie on either side
of it. Archaean rocks — gneiss in a part of
Jersey City, serpentine at Castle Point, Ho-
bqken — are found within its borders. Thje
top of the trap ridge bears marks of the ac-
tion of the great glacier, whose moraine is
found on Long and Staten Islands and in the
" Short Hills " of Plainfield. On the surface
are sand-dunes along the Newark meadows
and Newark Bay, and on Bergen Neck, and
the swamp deposits of the salt meadows,
still in process of accumulation. The de-
tails of these features, their relations to each
other, and their economical and sanitary as-
pects, are clearly described in the essay.

LITERARY NOTICES.

705

An Elementary Course of Geometrical
Drawing : Containing Problems on the
Right Line and Circle, Conic Sections
and other Curves ; the Projection Sec-
tion and Intersection of Solids ; the De-
velopment of Surfaces and Isometric Per-
spective. By George L. Vose, A. M.,
Professor of Civil Engineering in Bow-
doin College. Illustrated by Thirty-eight
Plates. Boston : Lee & Shepard.

This seems to be an excellent introduc-
tion to the practice of geometrical drawing.
Its method has been used for several years
in classes with the most favorable results.
It was prepared for the use of the lower
classes in engineering schools, but parts of
it may no doubt be made excellent use of in
the high schools. The author claims that it
is well adapted for those who desire to pur-
sue this branch of study by themselves and
without a teacher. But he strongly recom-
mends pupils to commence with a master
wherever practicable, as they will thus save
time, and avoid the formation of bad habits,
so easy to get and so hard to lose.

Among Machines. A Description of Various
Mechanical Appliances used in the Man-
ufacture of Wood, Jletal, and Other Sub- '
stances. A Book for Boys. Copiously \
illustrated by the author of " The Young j
Mechanic." New York : G. P. Putnam's 1
Sons. Pp. 335. Price, $1.75.

On the extensive subject of machinery,
which would fill cyclopaedias, this volume
takes up only such parts as are assumed to
have a general interest, and concerning
which it is well that all active-minded boys
should be instructed. It treats of those
fundamental laws which underlie the sys-
tem of machinery, and upon which are
founded the various mechanical combina-
tions which have contributed so much to the
development of manufactures. The need of
understanding these principles would be ap-
parent, and we remember that hand process-
es ai'e rapidly disappearing by the substi-
tution of machinery, so that the mechanic
who has been trained to a special manipula-
tion hardly knows at what moment an un-
expected invention may undermine and de-
stroy his vocation. Each new victory and
invention is, moreover, but a step toward
others, and we are eveij day surprised to
observe how triumphant ingenuity haa
overcome difficulties hitherto supposed to
VOL. XVIII. — 45

be insurmountable, and which makes an in-
road upon the traditional handicraft labor,
and cheapens a product of general utility.
The author of this book, therefore, thinks
it a fit time to instruct the younger portion
of the community in the details of the
more ordinary machines with which they
may perhaps some day become closely and
personally interested. Twenty chapters are
devoted to the most important machines,
pi'ocesses, and mechanical arrangements in
the wide field of manufacturing industry.

Telegraphic Determination of Longitudes
ON the East Coast ob' South America.
By Lieutenant - Commanders F. M.
Green, C. H. Davis, and Lieutenant J.
A. NoRRis, U. S. N., in 1878 and 1879.
Published bv order of Commodore Wil-
liam D. Whiting, U. S. N., Chief of the
Bureau of Navigation, Navy Department.
Washington: Government Printing-Of-
ficc. Pp. 87.

The longitude of points on the east coast
of South America has been very uncertain
until recently, for the results obtained by
apparently trustworthy methods have dif-
fered by almost incredibly large quantities.
The extension of telegraphic cables gave the
opportunity to make more accurate deter-
minations from some well-determined point
in Europe by way of Madeira and the Cape
Verd Islands with the eastern South Ameri-
can coast. The connection was made from
Land's End by Carcavellos, at the mouth of
the Tagus, and the Brazilian submarine tel-
egraph. The determinations made by the
commission, combined with the determina-
tions of meridian distances made by Pro-
fessor Gould at Cordova, furnish a valu-
able system of longitudes embracing about
twenty stations in the interior. A curious
fact connected with this work is, that it has
given the first correct determination of the
longitude of Lisbon.

The Relations of Science to Modern Life.
A Lecture delivered before the New
York Academy of Sciences. By Henry
C. Potter, D. D. Published by the
Academy. New York : G. P. Putnam's
Sons. Pp. 29.

The author presents, in the easy, flowing
style of a popular lectui-e, a view of the ob-
ligations we are under to science in the com-
moner features of our domestic and social
life.

7o6

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Leaknixg to Draw; or, tiik Story of a
Young Designer. By Viollet-le-Duc.
Translated from the French by Virginia
Champion. Illustrated by the Author.
New York : G. V. Putnam's Sons. Pp.
324.

This work was the last written by the
illustrious French author who has done so
much to rationalize art education. His
method of instruction was logical, beginning
always with the simplest elements and pro-
ceeding slowly to more complex considera-
tions, while the progress at every step is
made pleasant and attractive. Le-Duc was
always suggestive, and, instead of grinding
students through a hard didactic course, he
ever aims, by showing the connection be-
tween one study and another, to make the
work intellectually attractive. All special
results must have the broadest possible
foundation. And in every way the student
is inspired with a love of excellence and an i
ambition to attain the highest standard and
accomplish the most thorough work. Of I
the value of the author's method the trans- !
lator thus speaks : " Teachers of art, both !
general and technical, and, for that matter,
teachers of any subject, will find this volume
of Viollet-le-Duc of no little service in sug-
gesting methods of instruction. It shows
bow students, young or old, are to be inter-
ested ; how all the surroundings of daily
life contain suggestions for the most inter-
esting and important lines of investigation ;
how students are to be taught to think out
processes for themselves, and to develop
their powers of comparison and reasoning ;
how the study of art of necessity leads us
back to the study of nature, which under-
lies all art; and how, as before said, the
basis of all education must be perception,
so that learning to draw well and learning
to do anything properly depend upon first
learning to see correctly."

A Text-Book of Elementary Mechanics.
By Edward S. Dana. New York : John
Wiley & Sons. 1881. Pp. 291. Price,

$1.50.

Professor Dana has aimed in this work
to present the subject of mechanics clearly
and concisely, and develop its fundamental
principles in their logical order. The book
is restricted to the mechanics of solids,
which is considered under the general heads

of kinematics, dynamics, and statics. Nu-
merous problems, involving the principles
elucidated in the various sections, are fur-
nished for the pupil to work upon, answers
to which are given at the close of the book.
We can discover no reason why this latter
feature should have been added, and think
the space might have been much better de-
voted to additional problems.

Summary of Substantialism ; or. Philoso-
phy OF Knowledge. By Jean Story.
With Additional Illustrations. Boston :
Franklin Press; Rand, Avery & Co.
Pp. 113. Price, 35 cents.

The author starts with the assumption
that all authority, "so called," not found-
ed on what nature teaches through facts
actually demonstrable or knowable through
analogy, should be rejected. Nevertheless,
he believes that the theory that what is non-
I objective to the senses is immaterial antl
unknowable is erroneous and deleterious, as
is also the theory that knowledge is, either
directly or indirectly, miraculously revealed.
In harmony with these doctrines, he en-
deavors to build up a new philosophy of
the human organism. The present essay ap-
pears to be introductory to a larger work on
the same subject.

The Feeling of EJ^fort. By William
James, M. D., Assistant Professor of
Physiology in Harvard University. (An-
niversary Memoirs of the Boston Society
of Natural History.) Boston : Published
by the Society. Pp. 32,

The author's purpose is to offer a scheme
of the physiology and psychology of voli-
tion, to inquire of what nervous processes
the feelings of active energy are concomi-
tants. He first considers muscular exertion
as an afferent feeling, then examines into
the power of the will over exertion, ana-
lyzing the cases of acts in which no effort
of either is required, in which the stress of
effort is laid on the exertion while the will
is lightly taxed, on the will when the mus-
cular exertion required is insignificant, and
cases in which the will etfort operates in all
its vigor while the muscular function is not
regarded. Lastly, he considers the question
of a dynamic connection between the inner
and outer worlds, answering it in the nega-
tive.

P OP ULAR MIS CELL ANY.

707

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Address in MedicalJurisprudence. Psycholo-
27, State Medicine, etc. By James F. Hibbenl,
11. D. Philadelptiia. 1880. Pp. 17.

On the Action of Carbolic Acid upon Ciliated
Cells and Wliite-Blood Cells. By T. Mitchell
Prudden, M. D. January, 1881. Pp. 17.

How to Live in Winter. By Amelia Lewis.
New York : Food and Health Publishing Ollice.
1881. Pp. 84. 25 cents.

" The Chrysanthemum : A Monthly Magazine
for Japan and the Far East." Yokohama : Kel-
ley & Co. Vol. I, No. 1. January, 1881. Pp. 36.
25 cents each, or $2 a year.

" Quaker City Gazette : A Weekly Periodical
devoted to Science, Literature, and Art." E.Ells-
worth Wensley, Editor. Philadelphia: (iuakcr
City Publishini; Co. Vol. L No. 1. Jauuary,
1881. Pp. 16. $2 a year.

" The Illustrated Cosmos." Issued Monthly.
Everett W. Pish, General EJitor. Chicago. Vol.
I, No. 1. January, 1881. Pp. 16. 15 cents a
copy, $1.50 a year.

Principal Characters of American Jurassic
Dinosaurs. By Professor O. C. Marsh. Part IV.
Spinal Cord, Pelvis, and Limbs of Stegosaurus,
with Three Plates. February, 1881.

On the Microscopic Crystals contained in
Plants By W. K. Higby. Pp. 18.

Annual Report of the California State Miner-
alogist, from June to December, 1880. Sacra-
mento. 1880. Pp.43.

"The Floral World: A Monthly Journal de-
voted to Floriculture, Horticulture, etc.'' D. R.
Woods, Editor. New Brighton, Pennsylvania.
Vol.1, No. 1. January, 1831. Pp. 21. $1 a
year.

"The Religious Evolutionist: A Monthly
Magazine devoted to a Scientific and Practical
Religion." S. W. Davis, 3ditor. Topeka, Kan-
sas. Vol. I, No. 1. January, 188L Pp. 28. $1.00
a year.

Circulars of Information of the Bureau of Ed-
ucation. No. 4, Rural School Architecture. Il-
lustrated. No. 5, English Rural Schools. Wash-
ington : Government PrintiDg-Offlce. 1880.

The Geology of Central and Western Minne-
sota: A Preliminary Report. By Warren Upham.
St. Paul : The i'ioneer Press Co. 1880. Pp. 58.

Historical Sketch of the Erie Natural History
Society. Erie, Pennr-ylvania. 1S80. Pp. 28.

The Succession of Glacial Deposits in New
England. Bv Warren Upham. Salem, Massa-
chusetts. 1830. Pp. 14.

Illinois State Laboratory of Natural History
at Normal. Bulletin No. 3. Peoria. November,
1880. Pp. 160.

Thirty-fifth Annual Report of the Director
of the Astronomical Observatory of Harvard
College. By Edward C. Pickering. Cambridge:
University Press. 1881. Pp.17.

Adam Smith. 1723-1790. By J. A. Farrar.
New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1881. Pp.
201. $1.25.

The Artor and his Art. By C. Coqnelin.
Translated from the French bv Abbey Lingdon
Alger. Boston : Roberts Brothers. 1881. Pp.
63.

Sanskrit and its Kindred Literatures : Stndies
in Comparative Mythology. By Laura Elizabeth
Poor. Boston: Koberts Brothers. 1880. Pp.
463. $2.

Guide to the Study of Political Economy.. By
Dr. LuiL'i Cossa. Translated from the Italian,
with a Preface, bv W. Stanley Jevons, F. R. S.
London: Macmillan & Co. 1880. Pp.237. $1.25.

The Cause of Color among Races, and the
Evolution of Physical Beauty. By William
Sharpe, M. D. Revised and enlarged edition.

New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1881. Pp.
36. 75 cents.

Natural Theology. By John Bascom. New
York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1880. Pp. 306.
$1.50.

American Sanitary Engineering. By Edward
S. Philbrick. New York: "The Sanitary En-
gineer." 1881. Pp. 129.

The Bacteria. By Dr. Antoine Magin. Trans-
lated by George M. Sternberg, M. D. Boston:
Little, Brown & Co. 1880. Pp. 227. $2.50.

On Certain Conditions of Nervous Derange-
ment. By William A. Hammond, M. D. New
Y'ork: G. P. Putnam's Sous. 1881. Pp. 286.
$1.75.

Fever : A Study in Morbid and Normal Phys-
iology. By H. C. Wood, M. D. Philadelphia :
J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1880. Pp. 258.

Electric Lighting by Incandescence. By Wil-
liam E. Sawyer. New York: D. Van Nosirand
& Co. 1881. Pp. 189.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

Bone-Caves in Pennsylvania. — Profess-
or Leidy in company with Dr. T. C Porter,
of Easton, Pennsylvania, visited, in August
last, Hartman's Cave, near Stroudsburg,
Pennsylvania, on the invitation of Mr. T. D.
Paret, of that place, and examined a num-
ber of interesting animal and other re-
mains which were found there. The cave is
partly filled with a bed of clay ten feet
deep, on which rests a thin layer of stalag-
mite, and on this about a foot of black,
friable earth mingled with animal and vege-
table remL-ns. The cave appears to have
been too small to be inhabited by the larger
carnivora, and no large entire bones of them
were found, but about a half-bushel of frag-
ments and splinters of limb-bones of small-
er and large animals have been collected,
many of which exhibit marks of having been
gnawed, whether by rodents or small car-
nivora Professor Leidy does not assume to
decide. Some of the splinters are derived
from such large and strong bones that it is
questionable whether even the largest car-
nivora could have produced them, and are
presumed to be remnants of human feasts, in
which the bones were crushed to obtain the
marrow. A few of the bones are somewhat
charred, among them a small fragment of a
bison's jaw with a molar tooth. Most of
the bones are of species still living, but
some of them, as jaws of the reindeer, bi-
son, and wood-rat, are of animals no longer
belonging to the fauna of the State ; and a
few, as the teeth of the Casteroides Ohioensis,

7o8

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and the jaws of a young peccary {Dicotylcs
nasutus), are of extinct animals. None of
the remains have been identified as posi-
tively pertaining to our domestic animals,
unless two of the teeth may be those of a
foetal or new-bom horse. The vegetal re-
mains include a few small fragments of
charcoal and seeds of dogwood, pig-nut,
and walnut. Remains of human work were
found — a large stone celt of hard brown
slate, from the bone-earth some distance
within the cave ; five bone awls, some of
them gnawed ; the prong of an antler worked
so as to be barbed on one side ; a needle of
bone resembling a crochet-needle ; a fish-
hook of bone ; and a cone-shell, of a species'
found on the western coast of Central Amer-
ica, bored through the axis as a head. Pro-
fessor Leidy has, since exploring this cave,
examined a collection of bones in the Mu-
seum of the Philadelphia Academy of Natu-
ral Sciences, which were found more than
thirty years ago in the Durham Cave, Bucks
County, Pennsylvania. The bones are of
the same character as those of Hartman's
Cave.

Temperatnre of the Breath. — We have
before noticed the fact that the effect of
breathing upon the bulb of a thermometer
through several folds of flannel is to raise
the temperature of the thermometer several
degrees above that of the mouth and body,
and the theory suggested by Dr. Dudgeon
to account for the phenomenon, that the
breath is the vehicle by which superfluous
heat is removed from the body. Dr. Wil-
liam Eoberts pronounces this theory unten-
able, and indicates, as an experiment that
will show it to be fallacious, that a naked
thermometer placed in the mouth, and
breathed upon by expiration, will hardly
rise to the normal temperature of that
part of the body. He suggests another
explanation, which has been accepted by
Dr. Dudgeon. It is, that the temperature of
the thermometer is raised by the action of
the specific heat which is liberated by the
condensation of the moisture of the breath.
If the experiment of breathing is repeated
with the same thermometer and flannel at
short intervals, the degi-ee to which the
temperature rises decreases with each repe-
tition till at last only a slight effect is pro-

duced. This is because the flannel, already
charged with moisture, has a diminished ca-
pacity for condensing more moisture with
every new trial of the experiment. If, on
the other hand, the flannel is thoroughly
dried before beginning the experiment, an
increase of temperature to 115°, or several
degrees higher than the highest noted by
Dr. Dudgeon, is indicated immediately on
breathing upon it. The capacity of the cloth
for absorbing moisture has been largely in-
creased by the drying.

Perforation of Lead Pipes by Rats. —

We give herewith another well - authenti-
cated case of the perforation of a lead
water - pipe by rats, kindly furnished by
Mr. Henry C. Hallowell, of Sandy Spring,
Maryland. Mr. Hallowell writes : " As the
confirmation of a statement is sometimes
of value, I send a hasty sketch of a piece
of lead pipe in my collection that has been
gnawed by rats, as described by Dr. Wil-
liam Eassie, in " The Popular Science
Monthly" for January. The pipe is one

Lead Pipe gnawed by Eats.

and one eighth inch in diameter, and the
lead three sixteenths of an inch thick. The
hole is three inches long, and appears to
have been made to get to water."

The Mannfaetnre of Indigo in Bengal. —

Indigo is almost entirely obtained from legu-
minous plants of the genus Indigofera, of
which two principal species are grown in
India and America. The factories in Ben-
gal are provided with filters, presses, a
boiler, drying-grounds, reservoirs, and vats
for fermentation. The plant is cut in the
morning, and taken to the factory. In the
evening it is loaded in the vats, tightly
pressed down, and then submerged in water
and exposed to a process of fermentation
for from nine to fourteen hours. The prog-
ress of the fermentation is tested by draw-

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

709

ing off a little of the liquid, when, if it is of
a pale straw-color, the quantity of indigo
will not be so great, but the quality will be
better than when it is of a deep-yellow
tinge. The liquid, when it is drawn off af-
ter fermentation, is always of a more or less
deep-yellow color. It is allowed to remain
for some little time, and is then, while still
warm, beaten with long bamboos for two or
three hours. It gradually becomes of a pale-
green color, and the indigo forms into small
flakes. The mass is allowed to remain for
half an hour, and the water is then turned
off gradually by withdrawing one by one
corks which have been placed at different
levels in the vat. The water is returned to
the river, and the deposit, which resembles
a thin scum, is carried through a trough
into a deep trench. It is then brought up
and boiled for a short time to prevent a
second fermentation, which would turn it
black and spoil it. After about twenty
hours, it is again boiled for three or four
hours ; then poured off, and strained through
a filter. A thick, deep-blue paste, almost
black, remains on the cloth of the filter af-
ter the liquid has been strained through.
This paste is exposed to a pressure, which
removes every particle of moisture, after
which the indigo is found in a large, thick
block, the cutting of which demands ex-
treme care. The blocks are put in the dry-
ing-ground, a large brick building from
which the light of the sun is carefully ex-
cluded, and, after from three to four days,
are ready to be sent to the market.

Parificatioa of River- Water by Organic
Agents. — Mr. R. Warrington, in " The Chem-
ical News," notices that, in the discussions
on the qualities of river-water, the destruc-
tion of sewage which takes place in such
water is in every case referred to the oxi-
dizing influence of the air, and the action
of organic agents is overlooked. Yet it is
evident, and generally admitted, that these
agents play an important part in the change
of organic into inorganic matter. The pro-
cess is in effect the joint work of a num-
ber of independent organisms having differ-
ent functions, the action of one class fol-
lowing that of another, and each carrying
the process through a particular stage.
First are the fungi, whose main function

is apparently the rapid oxidation of carbon ;
then come the bacteria, embracing many
families of similar physical structure, but
endowed with very different chemical pow-
ers. One class attacks nitrogenous organic
matter and liberates nitrogen in the form
of ammonia ; another determines the con-
version of carbonaceous organic matter into
inorganic carbonic and nitric acids. Lastly
come the chlorophyl-bearing plants to con-
sume these products of the lower organisms ;
they also have the property of assimilating
urea and inorganic ash constituents. These
organisms must follow in their order, or
they will fail to do their work. Sewage
will finally be destroyed in a river of
adequate temperature, unless the natural
agents of oxidation are excluded by the
addition to the water of chemical refuse
fatal to organic life, or unless vegetation is
prevented by artificial means. Tempera-
ture and light, or rather darkness, are im-
portant factors in the process. The experi-
ments show that the oxidation in rivers in-
creases as the temperature rises. The
amount of dissolved matter in rivers is
found to be greatest in February, when or-
ganic action is suspended, and least in Sep-
tember and August, when the action is most
energetic.

Mind in AVork. — It is set forth on the
highest authority that whatever we do should
be done with our might. This precept being
interpreted means that there should be mind
in work. The difference between a work of
art and the product of machinery lies in the
presence of a mark of mind directing the
handiwork in the one case, while the other
is simply a predetermined result produced
by a duly formulated process wherein or
whereby physical forces are directed and
controlled by other physical forces on a sot
plan, to perform a defined series of actions,
which must, in the nature of things, end in
the production of the effect foreseen. Mind
sets the one process, or scries of processes,
in operation, and they work out their phys-
ical destinies. In the other, mind is the
active controlling power throughout. Start-
ing from these premises, we are now con-
cerned to point out that little or no success
can be expected in any calling which does
not suit the temper and bias of the mind

710

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

pursuing it. There can noi be " might " or
earnestness — of the best sort — in an uncon-
genial enterprise. It is not necessary that
an occupation should be ardently loved, but
it is indispensable that there should be some
special fitness for a calling if the powers of
mind are to be resolutely and effectually
engaged. Medical men see a great deal of
life, and nothing strikes the observant family
practitioner more than the number of feeble,
sauntering, and loitering minds with which
he is brought into contact. No inconsider-
able proportion of the common and some of
the special ailments by which the multitude
are affected may be traced to the want of
vigor in their way of living. The human
organism is a piece of physico-mental ma-
chinery which can only be successfully
worked at a fairly high pressure. It will
almost inevitably get out of gear if the
propelling force is allowed to fall below a
moderately high standard of pressure or
tension, and that degree of tension can not
be maintained without so much interest as
will secure that the mind of the worker
shall be in his work. It is curious to ob-
serve the way in which particular tempera-
ments and types of mental constitution are,
so to say, gifted with special affinities, or
predilections for particular classes of work.
The men who work in hard material are
men of iron will, which is equivalent to say-
ing that the men of what is called hard-
headed earnestness find a natural vent for
their energy in work that requires and con-
sumes active power. On the other hand,
the worker in soft materials is commonly
either theoretical or dreamy. There is a
special type of mental constitution con-
nected with almost every distinct branch of
industry, at least with those branches which
have existed long enough to exercise a suffi-
cient amount of influence on successive gen-
erations of workers. We are all familiar
with what are called the racial types of
character. It would be well if some atten-
tion could be bestowed on the industrial
types, both in relation to educational policy
and the study of mental and physical habits
in health and disease. — Lancet.

Changes on the Moon. — A European
astronomer, M. Jules Klein, affirmed, in
March, 1878, that he had discovered evi-

dence contradicting the generally received
opinion that all action had ceased upon the
moon. lie claimed that he had observed a
large depression, in the shape of a crater,
newly formed to the east of the crater Hy-
ginus, and that a large valley had been made
south of the mountain called by Miidler the
Colima9on. His views were disputed, and
it was said that he had seen, not something
that was really new, but something that had
been overlooked in previous observations.
He defends the accuracy of his affirmation
in a recent number of the " Astronomische
Nachrichten" by producing evidence that
the objects he describes had never been
noticed, until he pointed them out, by astron-
omers who had made a constant study of
the moon, and whom they could not have
escaped if they had not been new. The
original journals of Gruithuisen, which have
just been published, bear directly upon the
question. They are accompanied by the as-
tronomer's original designs, which are of an
astonishing fineness and accuracy. Among
the designs is one including the crater Hy-
ginus, with its great cleft, and Mount Coli-
ma9on. The most minute details are given ;
but the depression in Ilvginus is wholly ab-
sent, as is also the valley south of Colima-
9on, although every other furrow on that
side of the mountain, of which Gruithuisen
made a special study, is scrupulously given.
M. Klein describes his object as a large fun-
nel-shaped crater, from which a shallow ladle-
shaped valley extends toward the south, ter-
minating in a small crater. The valley may
be recognized, when it is not in shadow, as
a gray spot. M. Klein believes, but does
not undertake to prove, that nebulous
clouds are produced on the moon which
have no analogies on the earth ; and that
whoever examines the observations which
have been made on the lunar formations
from the time of Gruithuisen to the present
will be convinced that changes for which we
can not account are taking place on its sur-
face.

The Ocean-Cnrrents of Greenland and
Iceland. — Captain N. Hoffmeyer, Director
of the Royal Danish Meteorological Insti-
tute at Copenhagen, has published a sum-
mary of the facts ascertained in the recent
deep-sea explorations of the Danish schooner

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

711

Fylla, Captain Jacobson, which help to ex-
plain, why Iceland, lying nearly on the edge
of the Arctic Circle, is not frozen like its
neighbor Greenland. The first Norwegian
Deep-Sea Expedition, under Professor Mohn,
brought out the surprising fact that the bank
on which the British Islands lie is connected
by a submarine ridge, of at most three hun-
dred fathoms below the surface of the wa-
ter, with the Faroe Islands, and that these
islands are similarly connected with the
southeast coast of Iceland ; further, it was
discovered that over this bottom ridge sep-
arating the Atlantic water in its great deeps
from the water of the Arctic Sea — at least in
summer — a relatively warm mass of water
was moving toward the northeast which
fully prevented the cold bottom water of the
Arctic Ocean from flowing into the North
Atlantic basin. Since, however, the depths
of the Atlantic are occupied with a bed of
water only a few degrees above the freez-
ing-point, the cooling of which can not be
ascribed to circumstances of place and posi-
tion, but must be caused by an inflow of
polar waters, the fact ascertained by the Nor-
wegian expedition that no such inflow takes
place between Iceland and Europe, in the
broadest passage between the two seas, has
become of the greatest scientific importance.
Attention was accordingly directed to the
other passages between the two seas — the
Denmark Straits between Greenland and Ice-
land, and Davis's Straits — concerning the
features of which not enough was accurately
known. The most that had been learned
concerning them was the work of a few
observers, chiefly Admiral Irminger, who,
by comparing the annual reports of voy-
ages between Greenland and Iceland, had
found that the Atlantic water along the fifty-
ninth parallel, between the Orkney Islands
and 30° west, over an extent of about nine
hundred nautical miles, had tolerably uni-
form and relatively high temperature on the
surface with a superficial current to the
north ; that, further, in consequence of this
current, the warm surface-water, at least in
summer, reached the south coast of Iceland
essentially unchanged in temperature, and
was directed thence toward the northwest
and north into the Denmark Straits and along
the west coast of Iceland ; that, on the other
hand, a cold stream filled with thick drift-

ice flowed from the Polar Sea along the east
coast of Greenland through the Denmark
Straits to Cape Farewell, and was strong
enough to reach over to the northwest coast
of Iceland and fill its fiords with ice. As an
offset to this, the ice does not, even in win-
ter, enter the great bays of the west coast
of Iceland, and the fisheries are prosecuted
in those waters through the whole year.
North of Iceland the stream sets decidedly
toward the east, and often brings with it
Greenland ice, which blockades the whole
coast for a longer or shorter time. Admiral
Irminger believes that this stream is a branch
of the great East Greenland ice-stream which
has rebounded from the northwest coast of
Iceland and been deflected to the east. Oth-
er investigators have reached conclusions
asreeins with these. In order to determine
the matters which were in question, the
Danish Government, in 1877, provided the
Fylla with the necessary apparatus and or-
dered Captain Jacobson to take soundings
and measurements of temperature. He per-
formed his work with much energy, against
many difficulties, and discovered that the
warm stream which had been mentioned as
washing the west coast of Iceland has con-
siderable depth, and that it is strong enough
at the North Cape to pass around it in its
continued progress along the north coast of
the island. The meteorological observations
in the Island of Grirasey have also shown
that this warm stream affects the island in
the same way in the winter and considerably
moderates its climate. Nevertheless, in se-
vere winters, the Greenland ice pushes far
down and causes the warm current to be
covered with its cold meltings ; the season
is protracted, and Iceland suffers a bad year
with hardly any summer.

Stammering. — Stammering, according to
M. A. Chervin, generally originates in a sud-
den nervous shock which the victim of the
affection has received in childhood ; some-
times it is a habit which has been acquired
by the practice of imitating other persons
who stammer, or by constant association
with stammering members of the family. It
takes place whenever the rhythm of respi-
ration is interrupted by the effort to speak
being made at the wrong stage of breath-
ing. Speaking, to be easy and regular,

712

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

should be an act of expiration. Some per-
sons begin to speak wliile they arc drawing
their breath, but arc compelled to halt as
soon as they have uttered the first syllables.
They spit out their syllables ; then, suffering
an oppression of the chest, are compelled to
relieve themselves from it, and the rest of
the phrase goes out in a gasp. Others speak
during the period of expiration, but do not
begin until the lungs have been nearly emp-
tied and have not air enough to keep up the
action of their vocal organs. Others speak
through their nose and fail in the utterance
of the stronger consonants. Stammerers
are not always equally liable to suffer from
their affliction, but the intermittence is not
regulated by any law. Sometimes they may
be helped over the difficulty by pronouncing
the embarrassing word for them ; sometimes
by a little diversion of attention. Children
who stammer much are often able to speak
with perfect freedom under circumstances in
which they are free from embarrassment, as
the stuttering boy playing with his dog, or
the girl with her doll ; but, if another inter-
rupt them with the most simple question, they
will begin to halt in their speech. The fault
may often be alleviated or made to disap-
pear by reading or speaking aloud when
alone. Some persons are accustomed to use,
before the syllables which give them diffi-
culty, certain words which seem to them to
smooth the way of the rebellious consonant.
One stammerer is mentioned by M. Chervin
who had the habit of saying et, mats, oui
(and, but, yes), before every difficult word,
whatever it might be, which often gave a
ludicrous turn of expression to his remark.
The same expedients do not, however, always
have the same operation with different per-
sons, and sometimes result oppositely with
the same person. Singing is nearly uniform
in its action. In chanted or rhythmic speech,
as in the recitative of operas, stammering is
very rare. Singing, reduced to its most sim-
ple element, cadence, enters largely into the
application of the means employed by M.
Chervin for the cure of the affliction. The
poetic cadence in the declamation of verse
and the variety of intonations which give to
poetic diction a character very different from
that of familiar conversation, are generally
effective in preventing halting in the speech.
More than this, it is often enough to speak

or read in the same measure with a stam-
merer to make it more easy for him to speak
or read. The accompaniment serves as a
kind of support or guide, which affords in-
contestable assistance in a majority of cases.
Generally, reading and recitation are easier
than conversation, especially if they are
carried on in a low voice. It is proper to
remark, in connection with this point, that
with all stammerers whose difficulty is ac-
companied with glottic spasms, articulation
in a low tone, diminishing the play of the
vocal chords, operates as a restraint upon
one of the provocations to stuttering. There
is no resemblance between stammering and
what is called writer's cramp, which results
from the excessive use of an organ ; no con-
nection between it and paralysis. When it
occurs with paralysis, it is only as one of the
symptoms. In the majority of cases it ap-
pears as a single infirmity in subjects other-
wise healthy, is generally wholly curable,
and may be ameliorated in the most rebel-
lious cases.

Turquoises. — All the turquoises in Eu-
rope come from one mine, which is situated
in Persia, on the road from Teheran to He-
rat, not far from Meschid, the capital of
Khorassan. Two kinds of turquois are
distinguished in mineralog}': the real stone
turquois, or calaitc (in Persian, sengui), and
the osseous turquois or odontolite. The
latter is considered a false turquois, and is
supposed to be composed of a piece of bone
colored with phosphate of iron. The Persians
again divide the real turquoises into two
kinds — the sengui, or stony, and the khaki,
or earthy, turquois — accordingly as they are
incrusted with the rock, or are obtained by
washing the earth, and are clear of foreign
matters. The mines are at the village of
Maden, in the region of the salt-mines of
Doulct Aly. The salt district is like an im-
mense block of salt just covered with a thin
soil of red clay. The miners get out the
salt by making a hole, putting a ball of clay
into it, and striking upon the clay till a
block is detached. The hills in which the
turquoises are found have the same reddish-
gray aspect as is remarked in the salt-rocks ;
they are formed of rocks and an earth full
of pebbles, and are bored in their whole ex-
tent with galleries, tunnels, abandoned pits,

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

713

and land-slides, which give the place a curi-
ous aspect. The mines belong to the Gov-
ernment, as do also the salt-mines, and are
farmed out for a small sum. They are
not very actively worked, and the product
is small. The process for extracting the
gems is much like that pursued in mining
for the sale, except that, instead of using a
ball of clay, the miners burn a bunch of dry
grass in the hole, taking precaution, as soon
as the cracks appear, not to damage the tur-
quoises which may be incased in the block.
The stones are generally found in groups,
often numbering twenty-five or thirty, in-
crusted with a thin calcareous envelope
which is white next to the mineral, brown
on the side next to the rock. The khaki,
or earthy turquoises, are found in the valley
adjoining the hills, in a soil composed of
gravel and rounded stones resting on a clay
subsoil. After the earth has passed through
two or three washings, a considerable num-
ber of turquoises are left, of moderate
size, but pale and of little value, if the dig-
gings are fresh. The turquoises in the older
pits have a better color, because, the miners
say, the stones acquire their color with age.
Among the largest turquoises which have
been mentioned are one of which a drink-
ing-cup was made for the Shah of Persia,
and one in which the treasure of Venice was
kept, and which weighed several pounds.
Generally the large turquoises are pale or
discolored, and of little value, and are used
principally for the decoration of furniture,
and of the saddles and bridles of rich Per-
sians.

Heat in Tnunel - Excavations. — Dr. F.

M. Stapff, engineering geologist of the St.
Gothard Tunnel, has published, in the " Re-
vue Universelle des Mines," the results of
the studies he made during the progress of
the operations in the tunnel as to the high-
est temperature at which men can work un-
derground, and the depth below the surface
at which that temperature is likely to be met
in tunneling. The limit of temperature at
which men can work depends upon the
length of their exposure, the amount of ex-
ertion they put forth, their condition, and
the nature of the atmosphere, particularly
as to its degree of moisture. It is certain
that men can not become used to stand, for

any length of time, a higher degree of tem-
perature than from 140° to 165° Fahr., even
when they keep perfectly still, and are in
quite pure air. Men have worked at 104°
on railways in the United States and Mexico,
at 72° to 94° in Belgian collieries, at 125°,
under exceptionally favorable conditions, in
the Fahlun copper-mine in Sweden, and are
said to work occasionally in the stoke-holes
of tropical steamers at 156°. The highest
temperature observed in the Mont Cenis
Tunnel was 86°. In the St. Gothard Tunnel
work was carried on at 87° on the Airolo
side, in an atmosphere saturated with moist-
ure, and at 84° on the Goschenen side, in an
atmosphere less highly impregnated. Pro-
fessor Du Bois-Reymond estimates that men
can stand a temperature of 122° when the
air is as dry as possible, but that even 104°
is likely to be fatal in an atmosphere satu-
rated with moisture ; and he recommends
quick lime, notwithstanding the heat it gives
off, as preferable for counteracting the heat,
because it absorbs the moisture, to ice, which
adds to it. Salt and ice are, however, good.
The highest limit of air-temperature theoret-
ically possible in tunnel-work would be that
which would induce fever-heat, or 107° in
tiie body ; the highest practicable, but still
a dangerous, temperature should not raise
the heat of the body over 104°. On this ba-
sis an extreme temperature of 114° would be
admissible at the Goschenen end, and of 100°
at the Airolo end, of the St. Gothard Tunnel.
The temperature within the borings of the St.
Gothard Tunnel was found to increase with
the depth of the excavation, at a general av-
erage rate of 1° Fahr. per 88"1 feet of verti-
cal depth below the surface of the mountain.
The rate is subject to local variations, giv-
ing sometimes as much as 9° of error, aris-
ing from irregularities in the surface of the
mountain. Thus the actual temperature is
higher than the calculated temperature un-
der depressions of the surface, and lower
under peaks ; but for considerable lengths
of tunnel the calculated and actual temper-
atures substantially agree. Dr. Stapff esti-
mated, when the excavations at St. Gothard
had been driven to within about one thou-
sand yards of the middle of the tunnel, that
the temperature at the middle, before pierc-
ing the wall between the two excavations,
would be 89° for the rock, and the same for

7H

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the air about one hundred and fifty yards
behmd cither fore-breast. The actual tem-
peratures in March, 1880, after the two ex-
cavations had been connected, were 8V°.
The temperature of the air immediately at
the two fore-breasts was brought down to
82° Fahr., while boring, and to 8C° Fahr.
while clearing away the debris, or to about
6° below the calculated point, by the opera-
tion of an extra supply of compressed air.
The question of cooling the air in the tun-
nel-galleries presents great difficulties, for
the heat of the I'ocks is inexhaustible, and
the air, no matter in what condition it may
be delivered, becomes heated up again nearly
as soon as it is distributed. The use of
jets of water is objectionable on account of
the increase of dampness that attends it)
and the mists to which it gives i-ise. Dr.
Stapff is not able to recommend any better
cooling apparatus than a combination of the
cooling mixture of ice and salt and quick-
lime.

Belation of Elevation and Exposure to
Rainfall. — M. Th. Moureaux has drawn up
a set of maps based upon the reports of the
Central Meteorological Bureau of France,
which show what was the distribution of
rain over the country for each month of the
year, and for the whole year, 1878. Except
in February and September, which were dry,
the year was a moist one ; the rains were
excessive, except in the Mediterranean lit-
toral and some parts of the valley of the
Saone. The amount of rain increased with
the height of the locality. The map shows
at the first glance that the low regions, the
plains, correspond with the smallest falls.
The minima were constant during the whole
year; in constructing the monthly maps, the
absolute minimum in each month was found
to be on the littoral of the Mediterranean,
and the relative minima were found to cor-
respond to the large valleys, whatever might
be their direction. The valley of the Loire
below Orleans, and those of its affluents on
the left bank, the basin of Paris, the valleys
of the Garonne, of the Saone, of the Lower
Rhone, were regions in which relatively lit-
tle water fell. In mountainous regions, at
the same height, the rains were much more
abundant on the slope exposed to the direct
action of moist winds than on the opposite

slope. When a mass of air rose along the
side of a mountain, it became steadily cooled,
its load of moisture was relatively increased,
and the clouds soon precipitated their bur-
den ; the condensation was more active as
the difference of temperature increased, and
as the air of the plain approached the point
of saturation. The inverse phenomenon
was produced on the opposite slope. De-
scending the side opposed to the direction
of the wind, the air became warmer, and its
temperature further and further from its
dew-point ; the rain was light and often there
was none. The minima were thus constant
during the several seasons. The same was
not the case with the maxima. They could
be divided into three groups: 1. Those
maxima wholly due to altitude ; 2. Those
which were attributed to the combined in-
fluence of altitude and of the situation as
related to moist winds ; 3. Those which
were connected with the action of neighbor-
hood to the sea. In the first group, the rule
was absolute ; the highest points constantly
received more rain than the surrounding
places of a loss altitude. But this was not
the case with the maxima which were due
to the neighborhood of the sea or to expos-
ure to rain-bearing winds. The maxima of
the hills of Normandy, Brittany, and Poi-
tou were due to the fact that those prov-
inces lay near and to the east of a great
mass of water. This influence was made
effective by the frequency of winds from
the west, which drove toward those regions
the moist air of the ocean ; accordingly, it
was most clearly manifested during the cold
season ; but the maxima were considei-a-
bly lessened, or disappeared when the rains
came from the southeast. So the maximum
of the gulf of Gascony resulted from the
predominance of winds from the west or
northwest ; and, when the south winds were
pouring torrential rains into the basin of
the Rhone, but little water fell in the basin
of the Adour. Heavy rains did not fall si-
multaneously over the whole of the central
plateau. They were limited to the slopes
exposed to the direct action of rain-bearing
winds. When brought by winds from the
south or southwest, as was most frequently
the case, they fell upon the side toward the
ocean ; while, when they came from the south
and southeast, they were deposited on the

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

715

Mediterranean slope. The laws of the dis-
tribution of rains, which M. Bclgrand an-
nounced in 1865 for the valley of the Seine,
are verified by the maps, and their general
application appears to be made more clear
every year.

The Asteroids and Jupiter. — Dr. J. IIo-
letschek has published, in the "Deutsche
Rundschau," a summary of our present
knowledge of the asteroids, or the group of
bodies which revolve in orbits between those
of Mars and Jupiter. Of the two hundred
planets of this group which had been discov
ered in July, 1879, sixty-three were discov
ered in the United States, sixty in France,
twenty-eight in Germany, seventeen in Aus
tria, fifteen in Great Britain, eleven in Italy,
five in Asia, and one in Denmark. Profess
or Peters, of the Clinton Observatory, has dis-
covered more (thirty-six) than any other sin-
gle observer. The orbits of one hundred and
seventeen were calculated in Germany, those
of forty-eight in the United States, and
those of the others in Austria, France, Eng-
land, Russia, and Sweden. The theory at
first adopted that these bodies are the frag-
ments resulting from the explosion of a
larger planet, was contradicted by the cal-
culations of Professor Newcomb, in 1860.
D'Arrest sought to establish the fact of a
connection among them by finding relations
in the eccentricities of their orbits, but the
elements of the planets discovered since
have set this theory at rest. The idea of a
collision of two bodies has also been given
up. The little planets mock all attempts to
combine their relations, and each asserts its
individuality as an independent member of
the solar system. They exhibit common fea-
tures only in the limitation of their orbits, so
far as the discovery of them has extended,
to a particular zone, and in a corresponding
limitation of their periods of revolution
around the sun. Taking the earth's mean
distance from the sun as unity, the halves of
the major axes of their orbits may all be
represented by numbers between two and
four. Their periods of revolution around
the sun are between four and eight times
that of the earth. Great variations occur
within these limits. Very perceptible and
peculiar intervals exist in several cases in
the mean distances of particular asteroids

from the sun, which might once have been
accounted for by supposing that there were
planets not yet discovered which would oc-
cupy them. But as the numerous discov-
eries of new planets have failed to furnish
the bodies sought for, and have rather ren-
dered the gaps more obvious, it has been
suggested that the vacancies are not casual,
but are owing to a real natural cause. A
theory has been suggested that they are oc-
casioned by the attraction of Jupiter, and
is supported by the fact that a vacancy
exists at every distance from the sun at
which the time of a planetary revolution
would bear a definite relation to the year of
Jupiter. A planet could not continue in
such a position, for it would be subjected to
disturbances at every conjunction with Ju-
piter, the effect of which would be to draw
it out of its course and out of its relation
with the larger planet till it found a new
period of revolution not commensurable
with that of Jupiter. A large gap exists
between the asteroids Gerda and Sibylla,
in the place which a planet making two
revolutions to one of Jupiter would occupy.
Gerda, having an orbit interior to this
place, completes its revolutions in fifty-four
days less ; Sibylla, with an exterior orbit,
requires a period one hundred and two days
longer than that of half the year of Ju-
piter. Similar gaps exist at distances where
planets, if there were any there, would have
periods of revolution corresponding to two
thirds, two fifths, three fifths, two sevenths,
and three sevenths of that of Jupiter, al-
though planets are found on either side of
these spaces whose periods of revolution
bear no fractional relation, or an extremely
remote one, to that of Jupiter. Saturn also
produces modifications in the position of
the asteroids which are less noticeable on
account of its greater distance and lighter
mass.

The Diffnsion and Softeuing of the Elec-
tric Light. — M. L. Clemandot, a French en-
gineer, has invented a new arrangement for
the diffusion of the electric light, which,
he claims, presents considerable advantages
over the opaque globes hitherto employed
for that purpose. The globes operate by
absorbing the light until they become lumi-
nous— a process in which a considerable pro-

7i6

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

portion of the light is wasted. M. Cleman-
dot aims by his process to make all the light
available for illuiuination. It is based on
the principle which governs the diffusion of
the light of the sun. This is effected by va-
pors floating between us and the sun, which
distribute the light equally without stopping
more than a very small proportion of it.
To imitate these vapors he uses a solid sub-
stance, but in a condition so attenuated as
to be, for practical purposes, almost the same
as vaporous. It is glass, spun into threads
one hundred and seventy-five times finer than
a hair, or forty-five times finer than the finest
silk fiber, with which he surrounds the light
with a double envelope. His glass-fleeces
are put into a lantern constructed especially
for the purpose, so as to exclude dust, the
glasses of which may be given any desired
degree of opacity, and any color, including
those colors which will neutralize the injuri-
ous properties of the electric light. The ap-
paratus can be adapted to any of the sys-
tems of electrical lighting.

William Lassell. — William Lassell, LL.
D., F. R. S., the famous astronomer and
maker of telescopes, died October 5th, in
the eighty-second year of his age. His
name is closely associated with the history
of the reflecting telescope. About 1820,
not having sufficient means to enable him to
buy expensive instruments, he began to con-
struct reflecting telescopes for himself, be-
ginning with a Newtonian and a Gregorian
telescope of seven-inch aperture, with which
be succeeded so well that he was encouraged
to make a Newtonian instrument of nine-
inch aperture. In 1844 he began an in-
strument of two feet aperture and twenty
feet focal length, in the making of which
he introduced many improvements over the
similar instrument of the Earl of Rosse.
With this instrument he discovered the sat-
ellite of Neptune in 1846, the eighth satel-
lite of Saturn, simultaneously with Profess-
or Bond, in the United States, in 1848, and
two satellites in addition to the two already
known, of Uranus, in 1851. He afterward
made an instrument of four-feet aperture
and thirty-seven feet focus, which he set up
at Malta, and with which he made numerous
observations of nebulae and planets, be-
sides preparing a catalogue of six hundred

new nebula3 discovered at Malta. His latest
recorded work was the construction of an
improved form of machine for polishing
large telescopic mirrors, which is described
in the " Transactions of the Royal Society "
for 1874.

Climatology of Enrope. — The climate
of Western Europe is ameliorated by the
warmth of the Gulf Stream in winter, and
by ihc neighborhood of the ocean in summer,
and approaches what is called an insular
climate. In Eastern Europe these modify-
ing influences cease to be felt, and the cli-
mate gradually assumes a continental char-
acter, with greater differences of tempera-
ture, colder winters and warmer summers.
The differences in the summer temperatures
of the eastern and western regions are less
marked than those in the winter tempera-
tures, and amount at most to about 27°.
For the greater part of the continent the
difference in the temperature of July is not
more than about 18°. The mildest summers
are felt in Ireland and Norway, and the hot-
test in Southeastern Europe. The differ-
ence is perceptible between places in cor-
responding latitudes in the southeast and
southwest. Thus, Syracuse is 7° and Sebas-
topol is 5 j° warmer in July than Lisbon and
Oporto. A similar difference, but less in
extent, appears in going eastward along the
northern parallels. The differences in the
winter temperatures of the several parts of
the continent are much more marked than
are those of the summer temperatures. The
mildest winters are felt along the Mediter-
ranean coast and in the Iberian Peninsula,
where the mean temperature in January is
from 16° to 19°. The next mildest are
those of the western coast of France and the
southern coast of England and Ireland. The
winters of western Scotland and the Orkney
and Faroe Islands are milder than those of
Berlin and Milan ; those of the Arctic coasts
of Scandinavia than those of the Gulf of
Bothnia, as is shown by the fact that the
Arctic fiords of Norway, even as far as
North Cape, are not frozen, while the Gulf
of Bothnia is regularly frozen in winter. In
Russia the January temperature diminishes
as we go east, so that, while it is about 24°
at Warsaw, it is reduced to 4° at Uralsk.
The highest annual mean temperature, the

P OP ULAR MIS CELL ANY.

717

mildest wmters and the warmest summers,
must be looked for where the land approach-
es the thirty-fifth parallel, at the southern
points of Spain, Sicily, and Crete. The
highest known mean in Europe is at Cata-
nia, 65', the temperature of January being
there 51°, and that of August 81°. Gibral-
tar enjoys a warmer temperature in January,
54°, nearly corresponding with the tempera-
ture of Cairo. The January of Catania is
like that of the end of April, the January
of Gibraltar like that of the first half of
May, in Berlin. These extreme southern
points suffer, however, occasionally from
frost and snow. Snow fell on the African
coast in 1845 and 1850, and in the latter
year a temperature below the freezing-point
was observed as far south as the Sahara ;
and the Nile is said to have been frozen in
the year 859. So it is safe to assume that
no place in Europe is secure from snow and
frost.

A New Theory of Chemical Affinity. —

M. Berthelot has endeavored, in his recently
published " Essai de Mecanique Chimique
fondee sur la Thermochimie," to connect the
laws of chemistry and the theory of the
unity of physical forces. He believes that
he has discovered a direct relation between
chemical affinity and the capacity of differ-
ent bodies in combining to throw off heat.
Thus hydrogen burns in oxygen, liberating
enormous quantities of heat ; the affinity of
the two bodies is known to be strong. The
same is the case with phosphorus and oxy-
gen. But nitrogen and hydrogen, instead
of liberating heat when they combine, ab-
sorb it. Their affinity for each other is fee-
ble. Again, when two bodies combine in
different proportions, forming different com-
pounds, it is always the combination in which
the most heat is liberated that tends to form.
More heat is liberated in the formation of
water than of the binoxide of hydrogen, and
it is water that is naturally formed when the
bodies burn together. This law of chemical
compositions and decompositions has been
termed by M. Berthelot the princijyJc of max-
imum work, and is enunciated by him thus :
Every chemical change accomplished with-
out intervention of a foreign energy (heat,
electricity, light) tends to the production of
the body or system of bodies which liberates

heat. This principle throws light on a mul-
titude of facts hitherto unexplained. M.
Berthelot indicates many applications of his
principle. Acetic acid, combining with soda,
produces a certain amount of heat, and forms
acetate of soda ; hydrochloric acid, combin-
ing with soda, liberates more heat, and forms
chloride of sodium. If, now, we apply hy-
drochloric acid to the acetate of soda, chlo-
ride of sodium will be formed, with the pro-
duction of an amount of heat just equal to
the difference between the heat of formation
of acetate of soda and that of chloride of
sodium ; but the converse will not take place
when acetic acid is mixed with chloride of
sodium. Combinations which are formed
with much liberation of heat are very sta-
ble ; those in which heat is not liberated
are unstable. Chloride of sodium will resist
a white heat without decomposing, while
chloride of nitrogen, in the formation of
which heat is absorbed, will decompose and
explode spontaneously. This fact leads to
another remark: that, in accordance with
the law of maximum work, all explosive
bodies are bodies that produce heat in being
decomposed.

Diseases of Miners. — Dr. Paul Fabre, of
Commentry, France, has made a particular
study of the diseases of miners. He has
found that diseases, the character of which
is largely governed by certain accessory cir-
cumstances, are prevalent among workmen
who labor in damp or wet galleries. No
morbid symptom is developed among those
who work in a gallery which is simply damp
and of a temperature of not more than 58°.
But if cold water falls upon them, or if they
have to put their legs in water, they become
subject to lumbago, sciatica, to indefinite
pains in their limbs, and often to a real
rheumatism. The rheumatism is generally
subacute, sometimes chronic, and most often
localized in a single joint — generally that of
the left knee, on which the pick-men and
heavers rest in working. In galleries which
are saturated with moisture and where the
temperature exceeds 77° to 86°, the work-
men are soon overcome with an extreme
lassitude; they get hot, they gasp for
breath, the sweat rolls down their bodies,
and they are obliged to stop working and
rest for a while in a cooler spot, A rapid

7i8

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

enervation which compels frequent changes
of the men in the gallery, sudoral or miliary
eruptions, sometimes boils, rarely eczema,
are among the phenomena which Dr. f abre
has most frequently observed in these con-
ditions. If, while the gallery is constantly
damp, the air is vitiated by poisonous or
irrespirable gases, and if the water contains
sulphates or sulphuric acid in solution, the
men, in addition to pains in their limbs
and difficulties in breathing, experience live-
ly itchings and painful smarts wherever the
surface of the skin has been abraded. Those
who have labored for a long time in the
damp galleries contract a chronic inflamma-
tion of the gums, together with muscular
pains in the limbs, and have often intestinal
troubles and spots of purpura. These phe-
nomena indicate the coming on of a mild
form of scurvy. The remedies are to be
found in whatever will improve the sani-
tary conditions of the mines and the homes
of the miners, and in the usual applications
for scurvy whenever the symptoms of that
disease appear.

Variability of the Level of the Ocean. —

M. II. Trautschald, of Moscow, lately sent
in a paper to the Geological Society of
France, maintaining that the level of the
ocean was not invariable, in which he ex-
pressed the following conclusions : 1. The
level of the sea has fallen, as parts of the
earth's crust have risen from the bottom
above its surface ; 2. The surface of nearly
all the continents has once been at the bot-
tom of the sea, and has risen from the wa-
ters, partly in consequence of upheavals,
partly in consequence of the retreat of the
ocean ; 3. When the continents have been
formed, a part of the waters of the seas is
carried away from them, and held on the
land as lakes, rivers, eternal snows, and as
a constituent of organic matter — thus the
quantity of water in the ocean has been con-
stantly diitinished, and its level has fallen;
4. As the earth cools, ice accumulates near
the poles and on the mountains, water is
soaked down more deeply into the crust of
the earth, and mineral hydrates are formed
everywhere. It follows that the level of
the sea has been gradually falling ever
since water has existed as a liquid upon
the earth.

Spiders and Tnning-Forks. — According
to observations recorded by Mr. C. V. Boys,
in " Nature," spiders are very sensibly af-
fected by the vibrations of a tuning-fork,
and act toward it as they would toward a
fly that comes to their web. When a fork,
lightly touching a leaf, or other support to
the web, was sounded, the spider, if at
the center of the web, would lace the fork
and feel with its fore-feet to find along
which radial thread the vibration was trav-
eling. Having become satisfied on this
point, it would run along the proper thread
till it reached the fork, or, if it came to
the junction of two threads, would first
stop and determine which was the right
one. If the spider was not at the center
of the web, and was not on a thread in
contact with the fork, it had, when it per-
ceived a vibration, to go to the center to
see which radial thread was vibrating. It
would then run out to the fork. If the
fork was not removed when the spider had
reached it, it would seize it, embrace it, and
run along on the legs of the fork as often
as it was made to sound, " never seeming
to learn by experience that other things
may buzz besides its natural food." If, when
a spider had been enticed to the edge of
the web, the fork was withdrawn, and then
gradually brought near, the spider seemed
aware of its presence and direction, and
would reach out after it ; but, if a sound-
ing-fork was gradually brought near a spi-
der that had not been disturbed, the spider
would instantly drop ; then, as soon as the
fork was made to touch any part of the
web, it would climb back and reach the
fork with marvelous rapidity. By means of
a tuning-fork a spider could be made to eat
what it would otherwise avoid— even a fly
dipped in paraffine — if its attention was
kept fixed by the constant vibration of the
fork.

Deterioration of Binding; in Libraries.

— Mr. H. A. Homes, in the " Library Jour-
nal," notices some causes additional to
those arising from the use of gaslights,
which may conduce to the deterioration of
bindings in libraries. The modern methods
of tanning do not give as durable a leather
as the old processes, which it took months
or years to complete. This may be the

NOTES.

719

reason that the goat-skins of Turkey, in
the tanning of which there is nothing mod-
ern or " improved," are still recognized as
furnishing the best leather for bindings.
The sulphide of sodium that is sometimes
used in tanning may supply a part of the
sulphur that is complained of in modern
libraries. A second cause is the practice
of using split skins, which gives a binding
only half as strong and lasting as the old
whole skins ; and a third cause may be
found in the gases escaping from the hot-
air furnaces with which libraries are warmed,
which are hardly less destructive than the
products of illumination, and are more con-
stantly in action.

Mixed Education. — Professor Alexan-
der Hogg, in a note reprinted from the
"Proceedings of the National Educational
Association," refers to the perplexities aris-
ing from mixing military with industrial
education in the Agricultural and Mechani-
cal College of Texas. A cadet failed to
receive promotion at the hands of the
faculty, and the board of directors con-
firmed their decision, and then turned out
the whole faculty. Professor Hogg says
that serious troubles have befallen these
institutions in several States, and remarks :
" With regard to the cause, I venture to
suggest that it will be found that it has all
grown out of the complications of attempt-
in"' to run in the same institution these
three leading features, viz., agricultural,
mechanical, and military education. The
military, so far as I have been able to learn
(and this is corroborated by my personal ex-
perience), is the source of all the troubles.
And this, I think, grows out of the further
fact that the military, to be of any use
whatever, must be thoroughly equipped in
all its departments and requirements, while
the act of Congress, granting lands for the
support of these colleges, intended it should
be secondary, and cultivated entirely as a
means of discipline and good order — not at
all intended to make proficients in arms,
but simply as a gymnastic exercise."

Rate of Growth of Coral. — Light is
thrown on the question of the rapidity
with which corals grow, by the case of
specimens of living coral which were re-
cently found on the hull of the French

man-of-war Dayot, after a cruise of a few
months in the South Pacific Ocean. When
the vessel reached Tahiti, several corals
were discovered growing on the copper
sheathing, the longest of which was a.fun-
ffia of discoidal shape nine inches in di-
ameter, and weighing when half dry two
pounds and four ounces. The Dayot had
entered tropical waters several months be-
fore, but had not made a long stay in any
harbor until she reached the Gambier Isl-
ands, where she remained for two months
in the still waters of a coral basin. Thence
she sailed direct for Tahiti. A young /un(/ia
probably became attached to the sheathing
of the ship in passing the reef, where the
vessel rubbed, and grew to the size and
weight it had attained when observed, in
nine weeks.

NOTES.

Fleuss's diving apparatus, which we de-
scribed several months ago, has been used
with success at the Severn Tunnel by a pro-
fessional diver, who with it reached the bot-
tom of the shaft under thirty-five feet of
water, and walked more than a thousand
feet up a heading to close some sluices and
shut an iron door. He was cut off from all
communication for an hour and a half. The
ordinary diving gear had been tried for this
work without success, for the great length
of tubing required in connection with it ren-
dered its use impracticable.

The suffocation of infants by overlying
in the night has recently been investigated
by a London coroner, who found that the
abuse of alcohol was the principal cause
of this form of mortality. Most of the
cases occur on Saturday nights following
the weekly debauch of the poorer classes
among which they happen. The mother
goes to bed in a state of semi-intoxication,
nurses the baby with alcohol-poisoned milk,
and both sink into a sort of drunken stupor,
of which the infant becomes the victim.

The death is announced of Francis Tre-
velyan Buckland, best known as Frank
Buckland, a popular writer on subjects of
natural history, and a constant contributor
to -'Land and Water." He was a son of
Dean Buckland, author of the work on ge-
ology in the " Bridgewater Treatises," whch
he edited in 1858, was himself a writer
"who could seize with alacrity the popular
side of a scientific question, but seldom went
deeper," and was an authority on subjects
relating to fish and fish-culture.

720

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Thomas Rymeu Jones, Professor of Com-
parative Anatomy at King's College, Lon-
don, has recently died. He was author of
a " General Outline of the Animal King-
dom," which was forty years ago considered
the best book of its kind in England.

The apparatus invented by Mouchat for
utilizing the direct rays of the sun as a
source of power has been so improved by
M. Pifre, a French engineer, that he claims
to be able to make available eighty per
cent, of the received heat of the sun.

The organization of an entomological
club has recently been completed in this
city by the election of Professor A. R. Grote
as President, M. Berthold Xeumoegen as
Treasurer, and Mr. Harry Edwards as Sec-
retary. Its object is the promotion of ento-
mological science, and the formation of a
metropolitan collection of entomological ob-
jects. The constitution provides for the
publication of a journal devoted to the dif-
ferent branches of entomology, the first num-
ber of which is issued for January of this
year.

Professor Huxley, in a recent paper be-
fore the London Zoological Society, said he
was not aware of any zoologist who now
maintains the independent creation hypothe-
sis.

SiGNOR Serrano Fatigati has made re-
searches into the influence of diflferent col-
ors on the development and respiration of
the infusoriifi, which lead to the following
conclusions : L Violet light promotes, green
light retards, the development of these low-
er existences ; 2. If a number of these or-
ganisms are put in distilled water, they will
die quicker in a violet light than in a light
of any other color; 3. The production of
carbonic acid is greater in violet, less in
green light, than in any other color ; 4. All
of these circumstances indicate that the res-
piration of the infusoria? is faster in violet,
and slower in green light, than in any other
color.

Dr. Henry Draper having reported to
the French Academy of Sciences that he had
succeeded in taking distinct photographs of
the nebula in Orion, which would be useful
in the future to show if any change should
take place in that object, M. Janssen has pro-
posed that systematic stellar photography be
undertaken at as great a number of obser-
vatories as possible. He is preparing to be-
gin such a work at the observatory at Meu-
don, with which he is connected.

The experimental electric railway pro-
posed about a year ago by Siemens has been
built between the Anhalter Station, in Ber-
lin, and a suburb called Lichtenfeld. It was
to be opened to the public about the first of
February.

The Boston Free Library contains three
hundred and sixty thousand books, and last
year there were taken out eleven hundred
and sixty thousand volumes.

The phylloxera has appeared in the Cri-
mea, imported, it is supposed, with vines
from France. It has extended very slowly
hitherto ; but fears are expressed that it
may invade the wild vineyards of the coun-
try, when it might destroy all the vines in
the valleys of the Rion and Kura Rivers.

The sinking of the base of the French
entrance to the Mont Cenis Tunnel has
obliged the railway company to bore a new
entrance, which has been begun a little over
half a mile to one side of the present open-
ing, and will join the old tunnel at a point
about two thousand feet from its mouth.

In Siberia, a country so rich in gigantic
fossils, the body of a colossal rhinoceros has
been discovered in the Wcrchojanski dis-
trict. It was found on the bank of a small
tributary to the Jana River, and was laid
bare by the action of the water. Similar to
the mammoth washed ashore by the Lena
River in 1799, it is remarkably well pre-
served, the skin being unbroken and covered
with long hair. Unfortunately, only the
skull of this rare fossil has reached St. Pe-
tersburg, and a foot is said to be at Irkutsk,
while the remainder was allowed to be washed
away by the river soon after it had been dis-
covered. The investigation of the skull gave
the interesting result that this rhinoceros
{R. Mcrckii) is a connecting form between .
the species now existing and the so-called
Rhinoceros iichorrhinvs, remains of which
are not unfrequently found in the gravel
strata of eastern Prussia. It is supposed
that R. Merckil is the now extinct inhabit-
ant of the eastern part of Siberia. — Nature.

Dr. B. a. Gould, Director of the Obser-
vatory at Cordoba, in the Argentine Repub-
lic, has been elected correspondent of the
French Academy of Science, in the place of
the late Professor C. A. F. Peters.

Died in Liverpool, January 3, 1881, Mr.
John T. Towson, aged seventy-seven years.
Mr. Towson was well known for valuable
investigations relative to the subject of
navigation, especially the determination of
quickest routes to trans-oceanic ports, and
the deviation of the compasses on board of
iron ships. In 1863 he prepared a manual
entitled " Practical Information on the De-
viation of the Compass, for the Use of
Masters and Mates of Iron Ships," which
was subsequently published by the English
Board of Trade.

Professor Huxley has been appointed
to the inspectorship of fisheries, a position
made vacant by the death of Mr. Frank
Buckland.

MICHEL CHASLES.

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY.

APRIL, 1881.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF POLITICAL mSTITUTIONS.

By HEEBEKT SPENCER.
VI. POLITICAL HEADS CHIEFS, KINGS, ETC.

OF the three components of the triune political structure traceable
at the outset, we have now to follow the development of the
first. Already in the last two chapters something has been said, and
more has been implied, respecting that most important differentiation
which results in the establishment of a headship. What was there in-
dicated under its general aspects has here to be elaborated under its
special aspects.

"When Rink asked the Nicobarians who among them was the
chief, they replied, laughing, how could he believe that one could
have power against so many ? " I quote this as a reminder that there
is at first resistance to the assumption of supremacy by one member
of a group — a resistance which, though in some ty]3es of men small,
is in most considerable, and in a few very great. To instances already
given of tribes practically chief-less, may be added, from America, the
Haidahs, among whom " the people seemed all equal " ; the Calif or-
nian tribes, among whom "each individual does as he likes"; the
Navajos, among whom " each is sovereign in his own right as a war-
rior " ; and from Asia the Angamies, who " have no recognized head
or chief, although they elect a spokesman, who, to all intents and pur-
poses, is powerless and irresponsible."

Such small subordination as rude groups show occurs only when
the need for joint action is imperative, and control is required to make
it efficient. Instead of recalling before-named examples of temporary
chieftainship, I may here give a few others. Of the Lower Califor-
nians we read, " In hunting and war they have one or more chiefs to
lead them, who are selected only for the occasion." Of the Flatheads'
VOL. XVIII. — 46

722 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

chiefs it is said that " with the war their power ceases." Among the
Sound Indians the chief " has no authority, and only directs the move-
ments of his band in warlike incursions."

As observed under another head, this primitive insubordination
has greater or less play according as the environment and the habits
of life hinder or favor coercion. The Lower Californians, above in-
stanced as chief -less, Baegert says resemble "herds of wild swine,
which run about according to their own liking, being together to-day
and scattered to-morrow, till they meet again by accident at some
future time." "The chief among the Chipewyans are now totally
without power," says Franklin ; and these people exist as small migra-
tory bands. Of the Abipones, who are " impatient of agriculture and
a fixed home," and "are continually moving from place to place,"
Dobrizhoffer writes, "they neither revere their cacique as a master,
nor pay him tribute or attendance as is usual with other nations." The
like holds under like conditions with other races remote in t3'pe. Of
the Bedouins Burckhardt remarks, " The sheik has no fixed authority";
and, according to another writer, " A chief who has drawn the bond of
allegiance too tight is deposed or abandoned, and becomes a mere
member of a tribe, or remains without one."

And now, having noted the original absence of political control,
the resistance it meets with, and the circumstances which facilitate
evasion of it, we may ask, What causes aid its growth ? There are
several ; and chieftainship becomes settled in proportion as they co-
operate.

Among the members of the primitive group, slightly unlike in vari-
ous ways and degrees, there is sure to be some one who has a recog-
nized superiority. This superiority may be of several kinds, which we
will briefly glance at.

Though in a sense abnormal, the cases must be noted in which
the superiority is that of an alien immigi'ant. The head-men of the
Khonds "are usually descended from some daring adventurer" of
Hindoo blood. Forsyth remarks the like of "most of the chiefs" in
the highlands of Central Asia. And the traditions of Bochica among
the Chibchas, Amalivaca among the Tamanacs, and Quetzalcoatl
among the Mexicans, imply kindred origins of chieftainships. Here,
however, we are mainly concerned with superiorities arising within
the tribe.

The first to be named is that which goes with seniority. Though
age, when it brings incapacity, is often among rude peoples treated
with such disregard that the old are killed or left to die, yet, so long
as capacity remains, the greater experience accompanying age gen-
erally insures influence. The chief-less Esquimaux show " deference
to seniors and strong men." Burchell says that, over the Bushmen,
old men seem to exercise the authority of chiefs to some extent ; and

POLITICAL HEADS— CHIEFS, KINGS, ETC. 723

the like is true with the natives of Australia. By the Fuegians "the
word of an old man is accepted as law by the young people." Each
party of Rock Veddahs " has a head-man, the most energetic senior of
the tribe," who divides the honey, etc. Even with sundry peoples
more advanced the like holds. The Dyaks in north Borneo " have no
established chiefs, but follow the counsels of the old man to whom
they are related " ; and Edwards says of the ungoverned Caribs, that
"to their old men, indeed, they allowed some kind of authority."

Naturally, in rude societies, the strong hand gives predominance.
Apart from the influence of age, " bodily strength alone procures dis-
tinction among " the Bushmen. The leaders of the Tasmanians were
tall and powerful men : " Instead of an elective or hereditary chief-
taincy, the place of command was yielded up to the bully of the tribe."
A remark of Sturt's implies a like origin of supremacy among the
Australians. Similarly in South America. Of people on the Tapajos,
Bates tells us that " the foot-marks of the chief could be distinguished
from the rest by their great size and the length of the stride." And
in Bedouin tribes " the fiercest, the strongest, and the craftiest obtains
complete mastery over his fellows." During higher stages physical
vigor long continues to be an all-important qualification ; as in Homer-
ic Greece, where even age did not compensate for decline of strength :
"an old chief, such as Peleus and Laertes, can not retain his position."
And throughout mediaeval Europe maintenance of headship largely
depended on bodily prowess.

Mental superiority, alone or joined with other attributes, is a com-
mon cause of predominance. With the Snake Indians, the chief is no
more than " the most confidential person among the warriors." School-
craft says of the chief acknowledged by the Creeks, that " he is emi-
nent with the people only for his superior talents and political abili-
ties " ; and that over the Comanches " the position of a chief is not
hereditary, but the result of his own superior cunning, knowledge, or
success in w^ar." A chief of the Coroados is one " who, by his strength,
cunning, and courage, had obtained some command over them." And
the Ostiaks "pay respect, in the fullest sense of the word, to their
chief, if wise and valiant ; but this homage is voluntary, and not a
prerogative of his position."

Yet another soui'ce of governmental power in primitive tribes is
largeness of possessions ; wealth being at once an indirect mark of
superiority and a direct cause of influence. With the Tacullies " any
person may become a miiity, or chief, who will occasionally provide a
village feast." " Among the Tolewas, in Del Norte County, money
makes the chief." And, of the chief -less Navajos we read that "every
rich man has many dependents, and these dependents are obedient to
his will, in peace and in war."

But, naturally, in societies not yet politically developed, acknowL
edged superiority is ever liable to be competed with or replaced by

724 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

superiority arising afresh. " If an Arab, accompanied by his OM'n rela-
tions only, has been successful on many predatory excursions against
the enemy, he is joined by other friends ; and, if his success still con-
tinues, he obtains the reputation of being ' lucky ' ; and he thus estab-
lishes a kind of second, or inferior, agydship in the tribe." So in
Sumatra : " A commanding aspect, an insinuating manner, a ready
fluency in discourse, and a penetration and sagacity in unraveling the
little intricacies of their disputes, are qualities which seldom fail to
procure to their possessor resj^ect and influence, sometimes, perhaps,
superior to that of an acknowledged chief." And supplantings of
kindred kinds occur among the Tongans and the Dyaks.

At the outset, then, what we before distinguished as the principle
of efiiciency is the sole principle of organization. Such political head-
ship as exists is acquired by one whose fitness asserts itself in the
form of greater age, superior prowess, stronger will, wider knowledge,
quicker insight, or larger wealth. But, evidently, supremacy which
thus depends exclusively on personal attributes is but transitory. It
is ever liable to be superseded by the supremacy of some more able
man from time to time arising ; and, if not superseded, is inevitably
ended by death. We have, then, to inquire how permanent chieftain-
ship becomes established. Before doing this, however, we must con-
sider more fully the two kinds of superiority which especially conduce
to chieftainship, and their modes of operation.

As bodily vigor is a cause of predominance within the tribe on
occasions daily occurring, still more on occasions of war is it, when
joined with courage, a cause of predominance. War, therefore, ever
tends to make more pronounced any authority of this kind which is
incipient. Whatever reluctance other members of the tribe have to
recognize the leadership of any one member is likely to be over-
ridden by their desire for safety when recognition of his leadership
furthers that safety.

This rise of the strongest and most courageous warrior to power is
at first spontaneous, and afterward by agreement more or less definite ;
sometimes joined with a process of testing. Where, as in Australia,
each " is esteemed by the rest only according to his dexterity in throw-
ing or evading a spear," it is inferable that such superior capacity for
war as is displayed generates of itself such temporary chieftainship as
exists. Where, as among the Comanches, any one who distinguishes
himself by taking many " horses or scalps may aspire to the honors of
chieftaincy, and is gradually inducted by a tacit popular consent," this
natural genesis is clearly shown us. Very commonly, however, there
is deliberate choice ; as by the Flatheads, among whom, " except by
the war-chiefs, no real authority is exercised." By some of the Dyaks,
both strength and courage are tested. " The ability to climb lap a
large pole, well greased, is a necessary qualification of a fighting chief

POLITICAL HEADS— CHIEFS, KINGS, ETC. 725

among the Sea Dyaks " ; and St. John says that, in some cases, it was
a custom, in oi'der to settle who should be chief, for the rivals to go
out in search of a head, the first in finding one being victor.

Moreover, the need for an efficient leader tends ever to reestablish
chieftainship where it is only nominal or feeble. Edwards says of the
Caribs that, " in war, experience had taught them that subordination
was as requisite as courage ; they therefore elected their captains in
their general assemblies with great solemnity," and "put their pre-
tensions to the pi-oof with circumstances of outrageous barbarity."
Similarly, "although the Abipones neither fear their cacique as a
judge, nor honor him as a master, yet his fellow-soldiers follow him as
a leader and governor of the war, whenever the enemy is to be attacked
or repelled."

These and like facts, of which there are abundance, have three
kindred implications. One is that continuity of war conduces to per-
manence of chieftainship. A second is that, with increase of his influ-
ence as successful military head, the chief gains influence as political
head. A third is that there is thus initiated a union, maintained
through subsequent phases of social evolution, between military su-
premacy and political supremacy. Not only among the uncivilized
Hottentots, Malagasy, and others is the chief or king head of the
army — not only among such semi-civilized peoples as the ancient
Peruvians and Mexicans do we find the monarch one with the com-
mander-in-chief, but the histories of extinct and surviving nations all
over the Avorld exemplify the connection. In Egypt, " in the early
ages, the offices of king and general were inseparable." Assyrian rec-
ords represent the political head as also the conquering soldier ; as do
the records of the Hebrews. Civil and military supremacy were united
among the Homeric Greeks ; and in primitive Rome " the general was
ordinarily the king himself." That throughout European history it
has been so, and partially continues so even now in the more militant
societies, needs no showing.

How command of a wider kind follows military command we can
not readily see in societies which have no records ; we can but infer
that, along with increased power of coercion which the successful head
warrior gains, naturally goes the exercise of a stronger rule in civil
affairs. That this has been so among peoples who have histories there
is proof. Of the primitive Germans Sohm remarks that the Roman
invasions had one result : " The kingship became united with the lead-
ership (become permanent) of the army, and, as a consequence, raised
itself to a poxcer [institution] in the state. The military subordination
under the king-leader furthered political subordination under the king.
. . . Kingship after the invasions is a kingship clothed with supreme
rights — a kingship in our sense." In like manner it is observed by
Ranke that, during the wars with the English in the fifteenth century,
" the French monarchy, while struggling for its very existence, ac-

726 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

quired at the same time, and as the result of the struggle, a firmer
organization. The expedients adopted to carry on the contest grew,
as in other important cases, to national institutions." And modern
instances of the relation between successful militancy and the strength-
ening of political control are furnished by the career of Napoleon and
the recent history of the German Empire.

Political headship, then, commonly beginning with the influence
gained by the strongest, most courageous, and most astute warrior,
becomes established where activity in war gives opportunity for his
superiority to show itself and to generate subordination ; and there-
after the growth of political power continues primarily related to the
exercise of militant functions.

Very erroneous, however, would be the idea formed if no further
origin for political headship were named. There is a kind of influence,
in some cases operating alone and in other cases cooperating with that
above specified, which is all-important. I mean the influence possessed
by the medicine-man.

That this arises as early as the other can scarcely be said ; since,
until the ghost-theory takes shape, there is no origin for it. But, when
belief in the spirits of the dead becomes current, the medicine-man,
l^rofessing ability to control them and inspiring faith in his pretensions,
is regarded with a fear which promj^ts obedience. When we read of
the Thlinkeets that " the supreme feat of a conjurer's power is to throw
one of his liege spirits into the body of one Avho refuses to believe in
his power, upon which the possessed is taken with swooning and fits,"
we may imagine the dread he excites and the sway he consequently
gains. From some of the lowest races upward we find illustrations.
Fitzroy says of the " doctor-wizard among the Fuegians " that he
is the most cunning and most deceitful of his tribe, and that he has
great influence over his companions. " Though the Tasmanians were
free from the despotism of rulers, they were swayed by the counsels,
governed by the arts, or terrified by the fears of certain wise men or
doctors. These could not only mitigate suffering but inflict it." A
chief of the Haidahs " seems to be the principal sorcerer, and indeed
to possess little authority save from his connection with the preterhu-
man powers." The Dakota medicine-men "are the greatest rascals in
the tribe, and possess immense influence over the minds of the young,
who are brought up in the belief of their supernatural powers. . . .
The war-chief who leads the party to war is always one of these medi-
cine-men, and is believed to have the power to guide the j^arty to
success, or save it from defeat." Among more advanced peoples in
Africa, supposed powers of working supernatural effects similarly give
influence, strengthening authority otherwise gained. It is so with the
Amazulu : a chief " practices magic on another chief before fighting
with him " ; and his followers have great confidence in him if he has

POLITICAL HEADS— CHIEFS, KINGS, ETC 727

much repute as a magician. Hence the power possessed by Langaliba-
lele, who, as Bishop Colenso says, " knows well the composition of that
intelezi [used for controlling the weather] ; and he knows well, too, the
war-medicine, i. e., its component parts, being himself a doctor." Still
better is seen the governmental influence thus acquired in the case of
the kino- of Obbo, who in time of drought calls his subjects together and
explains to them " how much he regrets that their conduct has com-
pelled him to afflict them with unfavorable weather, but that it is their
own fault. ... He must have goats and corn. ' No goats, no rain ;
that's our contract, my friends,' says Katchiba. . . . Should his peo-
ple complain of too much rain, he threatens to pour storms and light-
ning upon them for ever, unless they bring him so many hundred bas-
kets of corn, etc. . . . His subjects have the most thorough confidence
in his power," And the king is similarly supposed to have power over
the weather among the people of Loango.

A like connection is traceable in the records of various extinct
peoples in both hemispheres. Of Huitzilopochtli, the founder of the
Mexican power, we read that "a great wizard he had been, and a
sorcerer " ; and every Mexican king on ascending the throne had to
swear " to make the sun go his course, to make the clouds pour down
rain, to make the rivers run, and all fruits to ripen." Reproaching
his subjects for want of obedience, a Chibcha ruler told them they
knew that " it was in his power to afflict them with pestilence, small-
pox, rheumatism, and fever, and to make to grow as much grass, vege-
tables, and plants as they wanted." Ancient Egyptian records yield
indications of a similar early belief. Thothmes III, after being deified,
" was considered as the luck-bringing god of the country, and a pre-
server against the evil influence of wicked spirits and magicians."
And it was thus with the Jews : " Rabbinical writers are never weary
of enlarging upon the magical power and knowledge of Solomon. He
was represented as not only king of the whole earth, but also as reign-
ing over devils and evil spirits, and having the power of expelling
them from the bodies of men and animals, and also of delivering peo-
ple to them." The traditions of European peoples furnish kindred
evidence. As before shown, stories in the " Heims-kringla Saga"
imply that the Scandinavian ruler, Odin, was a medicine-man ; as
were also Niot and Frey, his successors. And after recalling the
supernatural weapons and supernatural achievements of early he-
roic kings, we can scarcely doubt that with them were in some cases
associated the supposed magical powers whence have descended the
supposed powers of kings to cure diseases by touching or other-
wise. We shall the less doubt this on finding that like powers were
ascribed to subordinate rulers of early origin. There were certain
ancient Breton nobles whose spittle and touch had curative proper-
ties.

One important factor, then, in the genesis of political headship,

728 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

originates with the ghost-theory, and the concomitant rise of a belief
that some men, having acquired power over ghosts, can obtain their
aid. Generally the chief and the medicine-man are separate persons ;
and thei-e then exists between them some conflict : they have compet-
ing authorities. But, where the ruler unites with his power, naturally
gained, this ascribed supernatural power, his authority is necessarily
much increased. Recalcitrant members of his tribe, who might dare
to resist him if bodily prowess alone could decide the struggle, do not
dare to do this if they believe he can send one of his j^osse comitatus
of ghosts to torment them. That rulers desire to unite the two char-
acters we have, in one case, distinct proof. Canon Callaway tells us
that, among the Amazulu, a chief will endeavor to discover a medicine-
man's secrets and afterward kill him.

Still there recurs the question. How does permanent political head-
ship arise ? Such political headship as results from bodily power, or
courage, or sagacity, even when strengthened by supposed supernat-
ural aid, ends with the life of any savage who gains it. The principle
of efficiency, physical or mental, while it tends to produce a temporary
differentiation into ruler and ruled, does not suffice to produce a per-
manent differentiation. There has to cooperate another principle, to
which we now pass.

Already we have seen that even in the rudest groups age gives
some predominance. Among both Fuegians and Australians, not only
old men, but old women, exercise authority. And that this respect
for age, apart from other distinction, is an important factor in estab-
lishing political subordination, is implied by the curious fact that, in
sundry advanced societies characterized by extreme governmental
coercion, the respect due to age takes precedence of all other re-
spect. Sharpe remarks of ancient Egypt that " here as in Persia and
Judea the king's mother often held rank above his wife." In China,
notwithstanding the inferior position of women socially and domes-
tically, there exists this supremacy of the female parent, second only
to that of the male parent ; and the same thing occurs in Japan. As
supporting the inference that subjection to parents prepares the way
for subjection to rulers, I may add a converse fact. Of the Coroa-
dos, whose groups are so incoherent, we read that " the ^:)r{/e, however,
has as little influence over the will of the multitude as any other, for
they live without any bond of social union, neither under a repub-
lican nor a patriarchal form of government. Even family ties are
very loose among them . . . there is no regular precedency between
the old and the young, for age appears to enjoy no respect among
them." And, as reenforcing this converse fact, I may add that, as
I have shown elsewhere, the Mantras, the Caribs, the Mapuches, the
Brazilian Indians, the Gallinomeros, the Shoshones, the Navajos, the
Californians, the Comanches, who submit very little or not at all to

POLITICAL HEADS— CHIEFS, KINGS, ETC. 729

chiefly rule, display a filial submission which is mostly small and
ceases early.

But now under what circumstances does respect for age take that
pronounced form seen in societies distinguished by great political sub-
ordination? It was pointed out that when men, passing from the
hunting stage into the j^astoral stage, began to wander in search of
food for their domesticated animals, they fell into conditions favoring
the formation of that patriarchal group, at once family and miniature
society, constituting the unit of composition of societies which reach
the highest stages of evolution. We saw that, in the primitive pastoral
horde, the man, dissociated from those earlier tribal influences which
interfere with paternal power, and which prevent settled relations of
the sexes, was so placed as to acquire headship of a coherent group :
the father became, " by right of the strong hand, leader, owner, master,
of wife, children, and all he carried with him." There were enumer-
ated the influences which tended to make the eldest male a patriarch ;
and it was shown that not only the Semites, Aryans, and Turanians
have exemplified this relation between pastoral habits and the patri-
archal organization, but that it recurs in South African races.

Be the causes what they may, however, we find abundant proof
that this family supremacy of the eldest male, common among pastoral
peoples and peoples who have passed through the j)astoral stage into
the agricultural stage, naturally develops into political suj^remacy.
Of the Santals Hunter says : '" The village government is purely patri-
archal. Each hamlet has an original founder (the manjhi-hanan),
who is regarded as the father of the community. He receives divine
honors in the sacred grove and transmits his authority to his descend-
ants." Of the compound family among the Khonds we read in Mac-
pherson that "there it [paternal authority] reigns nearly absolute.
It is a Khond's maxim that a man's father is his god, disobedience to
whom is the greatest crime ; and all the members of a family live
iTnited in strict subordination to its head until his death." And the
growth of groups thus arising, into compound and doubly compound
groups, acknowledging the authority of one who unites family head-
ship with political headship, has been made familiar by Sir Henry
Maine and others as common to early Greeks, Romans, Teutons, and
as still affecting social organization among Hindoos and Slavs.

Here, then, we have making its appearance a factor which conduces
to permanence of political headship. As was pointed out in a forego-
ing chapter, while succession by efficiency gives plasticity to social
organization, succession by inheritance gives it stability. Ko settled
arrangement can arise in a primitive community so long as the func-
tion of each unit is determined exclusively by his fitness ; since, at
his death, the arrangement, in so far he was a part of it, must be
recommenced. Only when his place is forthwith filled by one- whose
claim is admitted, does there begin a differentiation which survives

730 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tliroiigli successive generations. And evidently in the earlier stages
of social evolution, while the coherence is small and the want of struc-
ture great, it is requisite that the principle of inheritance should, espe-
cially in respect of the political headship, predominate over the prin-
ciple of efficiency. Contemplation of the facts will make this clear.

Two primary foi-ms of hereditary succession have to be considered.
The system of kinship through females, common among rude peoples,
results in descent of property and power to brothers or to the children
of sisters ; while the system of kinship through males, general among
advanced peojjles, results in descent of property and power to sons or
daughters. We have first to note that succession through females
results in less stable political headships than does succession through
males.

From the fact named, when treating of the domestic relations, that
the system of kinship through females arises where unions of the sexes
are temporary or unsettled, it is to be inferred that this system charac-
terizes societies which are unadvanced in all ways, political included.
"We saw that irregular connections involve paucity and feebleness of
known relationships, and a tyjje of family the successive links of which
are not strengthened by so many collateral links. A common conse-
quence is, that along with descent through females there goes either
no chieftainship, or chieftainship is established by merit, or, if heredi-
tary it is usually unstable. The Australians and Tasmanians may be
named as typical instances. Among the Haidahs and other savage
peoples of Columbia." rank is nominally hereditary, for the most part
by the female line"; and actual chieftainship "depends to a great
extent on wealth and ability in war." Of other North American tribes,
the Chippewas, Comanches, and Snakes, show us the system of kin-
ship through females joined with either absence of hereditary chief-
tainship or very feeble development of it. Passing to South America,
the Arawaks and the Waraus may be instanced as having female
descent and almost nominal though hereditary chiefs ; and much the
same may be said of the Caribs.

A group of facts having much significance may now be noted. In
many societies where descent of property and rank in the female line
is the rule, an exception is made in the case of the political head ; and
the societies exemplifying this exception are societies in which politi-
cal headship has become relatively stable. Though in Feejee there is
kinship through females, yet, according to Seemann, the ruler, chosen
from the members of the royal family, is " generally the son " of the
late ruler. In Tahiti, where the two highest ranks follow the primi-
tive system of descent, male succession to rulership is so pronounced
that, on the birth of an eldest son, the father becomes simply a regent
on his behalf. And among the Malagasy, along with a prevailing kin-
ship through females, the sovereign either nominates his successor, or,

POLITICAL HEADS— CHIEFS, KINGS, ETC. 731

failing this, the nobles appoint, and, " unless positive disqualification
exists, the eldest son is usually chosen." Africa furnishes evidence of
varied kinds. Though the Congo people, the coast negroes, and the
inland negroes, have formed societies of some size and complexity,
notwithstanding that kinship through females obtains in the succession
to the throne, yet we read of the first that allegiance is " vague and
uncertain " ; of the second, that, save where free in form, the govern-
ment is "an insecure and shortlived monarchic despotism"; and of
the third, that, where the government is not of mixed type, it is " a
rigid but insecure despotism." Meanwhile, in the two most advanced
and powerful states, stability of political headship goes along with de-
parture, partial or complete, from succession through females. In
Ashantee the order of succession is " the brother, the sister's son, the
son " ; and in Dahomey there is male primogeniture. Further in-
stances of this transition are yielded by extinct American civilizations.
Though the Aztec conquerors of Mexico brought with them the system
of kinship through females, and consequent law of succession, yet this
law of succession was partially, or completely, changed to succession
through males. In Tezcuco and Tlacopan (divisions of Mexico) the
eldest son inherited the kingship ; and in Mexico the choice of a king
was limited to the sons and brothers of the preceding king. Then, of
ancient Peru, Gomara says, "Nephews inherit, and not sons, except in
the case of the Incas " : this exception in the case of the Incas having the
strange peculiarity that " the first-born of this brother and sister [i. e.,
the Inca and his principal wife] was the legitimate heir to the king-
dom " — an arrangement which made the line of descent unusually
narrow and definite. And here we are brought back to Africa by the
parallelism between the case of Peru and that of Egypt. " In Egypt
it was maternal descent that gave the right to property and to the
throne. The same prevailed in Ethiopia. If the monarch married
out of the royal family, the children did not enjoy a legitimate right to
the crown." When we add the statement that the monarch was " sup-
posed to be descended from the gods, in the male and female line,"
and when w^e join with this the further statement that there were
royal marriages between brother and sister, we see that like causes
worked like effects in Egypt and in Peru. For in Peru the Inca was
of supposed divine descent ; inherited his divinity on both sides ; and
married his sister to keep the divine blood unmixed. And in Peru as
in Egypt there resulted royal succession in the male line, where, other-
wise, succession through females prevailed.

With this process of transition from the one law of descent to the
other, implied by these last facts, may be joined some processes which
preceding facts imply. In New Caledonia a " chief nominates his suc-
cessor, if possible, in a son or brother " : the one choice implying de-
scent in the male line and the other beins: consistent with descent in
either male or female line. And in Madagascar, where the system of

732 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

female kinship prevailed, "the sovereign nominated his successor —
naturally choosing a son." Further, it is to be noted that, where, as
in these cases, when no nomination has been made, the nobles choose
among members of the royal family, and are determined in theii choice
by eligibility, there may be, and naturally is, a departure from descent
in the female line ; and this once broken through is likely, for several
reasons, to be abolished. We are also introduced to another transi-
tional process. For some of these cases are among the many in which
succession to rulership is fixed in respect of the family, but not fixed
in respect of the member of the family — a stage implying a partial
but incomplete stability of the political headship. Several instances
occur in Africa. " The crown of Abyssinia is hereditary in one family,
but elective in the person," says Bruce. "Among the Timmanees and
Bulloms, the crown remains in the same family, but the chief or head-
men of the country, upon whom the election of a king depends, are at
liberty to nominate a very distant branch of that family." And a
Caffre " law requires the successor to the king should be chosen from
among some of the youngest princes." In Java and Samoa, too, while
succession to rulership is limited to the family, it is but partially
settled with respect to the individual.

That stability of political headship is secured by establishment of
descent in the male line is, of course, not alleged. The assertion sim-
ply is, that succession after this mode conduces better than any other
to its stability. Of probable reasons for this, one is that in the patri-
archal group, as developed among those pastoral races from whicb
the leading civilized peoples have descended, the sentiment of subor-
dination to the eldest male, fostered by circumstances in the family
and in the gens, becomes instrumental to a wider subordination in the
larger groups eventually formed. Another probable reason is, that
wuth descent in the male line there is more frequently a union of effi-
ciency with supremacy. The son of a great warrior, or man other-
wise capable as a ruler, is more likely to possess kindred traits than is
the son of his sister ; and, if so, it will happen that in those earliest
stages, when personal superiority is requisite as well as legitimacy of
claim, succession in the male line will conduce to maintenance of power
by making usurpation more difficult.

There is, however, a more potent influence which aids in giving
permanence to political headship, and which operates more in con-
junction with descent through males than in conjunction with descent
through females — an influence probably of greater importance than
any other.

When showing how respect for age generates patriarchal authority
w^here descent through males bas arisen, I gave cases which inciden-
tally showed a further result ; namely, that the dead patriarch, wor-
shiped by his descendants, becomes a family deity. In sundry chap-

POLITICAL HEADS— CHIEFS, KINGS, ETC. 733

ters of Vol. I were set forth at length the proofs, past and present,
furnished by many places and peoples, of this genesis of gods from
propitiated ghosts. Here there remains to be pointed out the strength-
ening of political headship inevitably thus effected.

Descent from a ruler who when alive was distinguished by supe-
riority, and whose ghost, specially feared, comes to be propitiated in
so unusual a degree as to distinguish it from ancestral ghosts at large,
exalts and supports the living ruler in two ways. In the first place,
he is assumed to inherit from his great progenitor more or less of the
character, apt to be considered supei-natural, which gave him his
power ; and, in the second place, making sacrifices to this great pro-
genitor, he is supposed to maintain such relations with him as insure
divine aid. Passages in Canon Callaway's account of the Amazulu
show the influence of this belief. It is said, " The itongo [ancestral
ghost] dwells with the great man, and speaks with him " ; and then it
is also said, referring to a medicine-man : " The chiefs of the house of
Uzulu used not to allow a mere inferior to be even said to have power
over the heaven ; for it was said that the heaven belonged only to the
chief of that place." These facts yield us a definite interpretation of
others, like the following, which show that the authority of the ter-
restrial ruler is increased by his supposed relation to the celestial
ruler ; be the celestial the ghost of the remotest known ancestor who
founded the society, or of a conquering invader, or of a superior
stranger.

Of the chiefs among the Kukis, who are descendants of Hindoo
adventurers, we read : "All these rajahs are supposed to have sprung
from the same stock, which it is believed originally had connection
with the gods themselves ; their persons ai"e therefore looked upon
with the greatest respect and almost superstitious veneration, and
their commands are in every case law." Of the Tahitians Ellis says :
"The god and the king were generally supposed to share the authority
over the mass of mankind between them. The latter sometimes im-
personated the former. . . . The kings, in some of the islands, were
supposed to have descended from the gods. Their persons were always
sacred." According to JVlariner, " Toritonga and Veaehi (hereditary
divine chiefs in Tonga) are both acknowledged descendants of chief
gods who formerly visited the islands of Tonga." And, in ancient
Peru, " the Inca gave them (his vassals) to understand that all he did
with regard to them was by an order and revelation of his father, the
Sun."

This reenforcement of natural power by supernatural power be-
comes extreme where the ruler is at once a descendant of the gods
and himself a god ; a union of attributes which is familiar among
peoples who do not distinguish between the divine and the human as
we do. It was thus in the case just instanced — that of the Peruvians.
It was thus with the ancient Egyptians. The monarch " was the rep-

734- THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

resentative of the Divinity on earth, and of the same substance " ;
and not only did he in many cases become a god after death, but he
was worshiped as a god during life ; as witness the following prayer
to Rameses II :

When they had come before the kiug . . . they fell down to the ground, and
with their hands they prayed to the king. They praised this divine benefactor,
. . . speaking thus : " We are come before thee, the lord of heaven, lord of the
earth, sun, life of the whole woi-ld, lord of time, . . . lord of prosperity, creator
of the harvest, fashioner and former of mortals, dispenser of breath to all men ;
animater of the whole company of the gods, . . . thou former of the great,
creator of the small, . . . thou our lord, our sun, by whose words out of his
mouth Tum lives, . , . grant us life out of thy hands . . . and breath for our
nostrils."

This prayer introduces us to a remarkable parallel. Rameses,
whose powers, demonstrated by his conquests, were regarded as so
transcendent, is here described as ruling not only the lower world but
also the upper world ; and a like royal power is alleged in two existing
societies where absolutism is similarly unmitigated — China and Japan,
As shown when treating of " Ceremonial Institutions," both the Em-
peror of China and the Japanese Mikado have such supremacy in
heaven that they promote its inhabitants from rank to rank at will.

That this strengthening of political headship, if not by ascribed
godhood then by ascribed descent from a god (either the apotheosized
ancestor of the tribe or one of the elder deities), was exemplified
among the early Greeks, needs not be shown. It was exemplified, too,
among the Northern Aryans. " According to the old heathen faith,
the pedigree of the Saxon, Anglian, Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish
kings — probably also those of the German and Scandinavian kings
generally' — was traced to Odin, or to some of his immediate companions
or heroic sons."

It is further to be noticed that a god-descended ruler who is also
chief priest of the gods (as he habitually is) obtains a more effectual
supernatural aid than does the ruler to whom magical powers alone are
ascribed. For in the first place the invisible agents invoked by the
madcian are not conceived to be those of highest rank ; whereas the
divinely-descended ruler is supposed to get the help of a supreme in-
visible agent. And, in the second place, the one form of influence over
these dreaded superhuman beings tends much less than the other to
become a permanent attribute of the ruler. Though among the Chib-
chas we find a case in which magical power was transferred to a suc-
cessor—though " the cacique of Sogamoso made known that he [Bochi-
ca] had left him heir of all his sanctity, and that he had the same
power of making rain when he liked," and giving health or sickness
(an assertion believed by the people)— yet this is an exceptional case.
Speaking generally, the chief whose relations with the supernatural
world are those of a sorcerer does not transmit his relations ; and he

POLITICAL HEADS— CHIEFS, KINGS, ETC. 735

does not, therefore, establish a supernatural dynasty, as does the chief
of divine descent.

And now, having considered the several factors which cooperate
to establish political headship, let us consider the process of coopera-
tion through its ascending stages. The truth to be noted is, that the
successive phenomena which occur in the simplest groups habitually
recur in the same order in compound groups, and again in doubly com-
pound groups.

As, in the simple group, there is at first a state in which there is no
headship, so, when simple groups which have political heads possess-
ing slight authorities are associated, there is at first no headshi]) of the
cluster. The Chinooks furnish an example. Describing them, Lewis
and Clarke say : "As these families gradually expand into bands, or
tribes, or nations, the paternal authority is represented by the chief of
each association. This chieftain, however, is not hereditary." And
then comes the further fact, which here specially concerns us, that
" the chiefs of the separate villages are independent of each other " :
there is no general chieftainship.

As headship in the simple group, at first temporary, ceases when
the war which initiates it ends, so, in the cluster of groups which
severally have recognized heads, a common headship at first results
from a war, and lasts no longer than the war. Falkner says, "In a
general war, when many nations enter into an alliance against a com-
mon enemy," the Patagonians " chose an ajw, or commander-in-chief,
from among the oldest or most celebrated of the caciques." The
Indians of the upper Orinoco live " in hordes of forty or fifty under a
family government, and they recognize a common chief only in times
of war." So is it in Borneo. "During war the chiefs of the Sarebas
Dyaks give an uncertain allegiance to a head chief, or commander-in-
chief." It has been the same in Europe. Seeley remarks that the
Sabines " seem to have had a central government only in war-time."
Again : " Germany had anciently as many republics as it had tribes.
Except in time of war, there was no chief common to all, or even to
any given confederation."

This recalls the fact indicated when treating of political integra-
tion, that the cohesion within compound groups is less than that with-
in simple groups, and again that the cohesion within the doubly com-
pound less than that within the compound. What was there said of
cohesion may here be said of subordination ; for we find that, when by
continuous war a permanent headship of a compound group has been
generated, it is less stable than the headships of the simple groups.
Often it lasts only for the life of the man who achieves it ; as among
the Karens and the Maganga, and as among the Dyaks, of whom
Boyle says : " It is an exceptional case if a Dyak chief is raised to an
acknowledged supremacy over the other chiefs. If he is so raised he

736 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

can lay no claim to his power except that of personal merit and the
consent of his former equals ; and his death is instantly followed by
the disruption of his dominions." Even when there has arisen a head-
ship of the compound group which lasts beyond the life of its founder,
it remains for a long time not equal in stability to the headships of the
component groups. Pallas, while describing the Mongol and Calmuck
chiefs as having unlimited power over their dependents, says that the
khan had in general only an uncertain and weak authority over the
subordinate chiefs. Of the Caffres we read : " They are all vassals of
the king, chiefs, as well as those under them ; but the subjects are
generally so blindly attached to their chiefs that they will follow them
against the king." Europe has furnished kindred examples. Of the
. Homeric Greeks Mr. Gladstone writes : " It is probable that the subor-
dination of the sub-chief to his local sovereign was a closer tie than
that of the local sovereign to the head of Greece." And, during the
early feudal period in Europe, allegiance to the local ruler was stronger
than that to the general ruler.

In the compound group, as in the simple group, the progress toward
stable headship is furthered by the transition from succession by choice
to succession by inheritance. During early stages of the simple tribe,
chieftainship, whennot acquired by individual superiority tacitly yielded
to, is acquired by election. In North America it is so with the Aleuts,
the Comanches, and many more ; in Polynesia it is so with the Land
Dyaks ; and, before the Mohammedan conquest, it Avas so in Java.
Among the hill-races of India it is so with the Nagas and others. In
some regions the transition to hereditary succession is shown by differ-
ent tribes of the same race. Of the Karens we read that "in many
districts the chieftainship is considered hereditary, but in more it is
elective." Some Chinook villages have chiefs who inherit their powers,
though mostly they are chosen.

Similarly, the compound group is at first ruled by an elected head.
Sundry examples come to us from Africa. Bastian says that " in
many parts of the Congo region the king is chosen by the petty
princes." The crown of Yariba is not hereditary — " the chiefs invari-
ably electing, from the wisest and most sagacious of their own body."
And the King of Ibu, says Allen, seems to be " elected by a council of
sixty elders, or chiefs of large villages." In Asia it is thus with the
Kukis : " One, among all the rajahs of each class, is chosen to be the
Prudham or chief rajah of that clan. The dignity is not hereditary,
as is the case with the minor rajahships, but is enjoyed by each
rajah of the clan in rotation." So has it been in Europe. Though
by the early Greeks hereditary right was in a considerable measure
recognized, yet the case of Telemachus implies " that a practice, either
approaching to election, or in some way involving a voluntary action
on the part of the subjects, or of a portion of them, had to be gone
throuizh." The like is true of ancient Rome. That the monarchy was

POLITICAL HEADS— CHIEFS, KINGS, ETC 737

elective " is i^roved by tlie existence in later times of an office of in-
terrex, which implies that the kingly power did not devolve naturally
upon an hereditary successor." Later on it was thus with Western
peoples. Up to the beginning of the tenth century " the formality of
election subsisted ... in every European kingdom ; and the imper-
fect right of birth required a ratification by public assent." And it
was once thus with ourselves. Among the early English the bret-
waldship, or supreme headship over the minor kingdoms, was at first
elective ; and the form of election continued long traceable in our his-
tory.

The stability of the compound headship, made greater by efficient
leadership in war and by establishment of hereditary succession, is
further increased when there cooperates the additional factor — super-
natural origin or supernatural sanction. Everywhere, up from a New
Zealand king who is strictly tapu, or sacred, we may trace this influ-
ence ; and occasionally, where divine descent or magical powers are
not claimed, there is a claim to origin that is more than human. Asia
yields an example in the Fodli dynasty, which reigned a hundred and
fifty years in south Arabia — a six-fingered dynasty, regarded with
awe by the people because of its continuously-inherited malformation.
Europe of the Merovingian period yields an example. In pagan times
the king's race had an alleged divine origin ; but in Christian times,
says Waitz, as they could no longer mount back to the gods, the
myth still clung to the supernatural : " A sea-monster ravished the
wife of Chlogio as she sat by the seashore, and from this embrace
Merovech sprang." Later days show us the gradual acquisition of a
sacred or semi-supernatural character where it did not originally exist.
Divine assent to their supremacy was alleged by the Carlovingian kings.
During the later feudal age, rare exceptions apart, kings " were not
far removed from believing themselves near relatives of the masters
of heaven. Kings and gods were colleagues." In the seventeenth
century this belief Avas justified by divines. " Kings," says Bossuet,
"are gods, and share in a manner the divine independence."

So that the headship of a compound group, first arising temporarily
during war, becoming with frequent cooperation of the groups settled
for life, by election, passing presently into the hereditary form, and
becoming more stable as fast as the law of succession becomes well
defined and undisputed, acquires its greatest stability only when the
king becomes a deputy-god, or when, if his supposed godlike nature
is not, as in primitive societies, derived from alleged divine descent,
it is replaced by a divine commission guaranteed by ecclesiastical
authority.

Where the political head has acquired this absoluteness which re-
sults from supposed divine nature, or divine descent, or divine com-
mission, there is naturally no limit to his sway. In theory, and often

TOL. XTIII. — 47

738 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

to a large extent in practice, he is owner of his subjects and of the
territory they occupy.

Where militancy is pronounced and the claims of a conqueror un-
qualified, it is indeed to a considerable degree thus Avith those unciv-
ilized peoples who do not ascribe supernatural characters to their
rulers. Among the Zooloo Caff res the chief " exercises supi-eme power
over the lives of his people" ; "the Bheel chiefs have a power over
the lives and property of their own subjects " ; and in Feejee the subject
is property. But it is still more thus where the ruler is considered
more than human. Astley tells us that in Loango the king is " called
samba and ponffo, that is, god" ; and, according to Proyart, the Lo-
ango people " say their lives and goods belong to the king," In Wa-
soro, East Africa, " the king has unlimited power of life and death . . .
in some tribes ... he is almost worshiped." In Msambara the people
say, " We are all slaves of the Zumbe (king), who is our Mulungu "
(god). "By the state law of Dahomey, as at Benin, all men are slaves
to the king, and most women are his wives " ; and in Dahomey the
king is called " the spirit." The Malagasy speak of the king as " our
god " ; and he is lord of the soil, owner of all property, and master of
his subjects. Their time and services are at his command." In the
Sandwich Islands the king, personating the god, utters oracular re-
sponses ; and his power " extends over the property, liberty, and lives
of his people." Various Asiatic rulers, whose titles ascribe to them
divine descent and nature, stand in like relations to their peo^^les. In
Siam " the king is master not only of the persons but really of the
property of his subjects ; he disposes of their labor and directs their
movements at will." Of the Burmese we read, " Their goods likewise,
and even their persons, are reputed his [the king's] property, and on
this ground it is that he selects for his concubine any female that may
chance to please his eye." In China " there is only one who possesses
authority — the Emperor. ... A wang, or king, has no hereditary
possessions, and lives upon the salary vouchsafed by the Emperor. . . .
He is the only possessor of the landed property."

Of course, where unlimited power is possessed by the political head
— where, as victorious invader, his subjects lie at his mercy, or where,
as divinely descended, his will may not be questioned without impiety,
or where he unites the characters of conqueror and god — he naturally
absorbs every kind of authority ; he is at once military head, legislative
head, judicial head, ecclesiastical head. The fully developed king is
the supreme center of every social structure and the director of every
social function.

In a small tribe it is practicable for the chief personally to discharge
all the duties of his office. Besides leading the other warriors in battle,
he has time enough to settle disputes, he can sacrifice to the ancestral
ghost, he can keep the village in order, he can inflict punishment, he

POLITICAL HEADS— CHIEFS, KINGS, ETC. 739

can regulate trading transactions ; for those governed by him are but
few, and they lie within a narrow space. When he becomes the head
of many united tribes, both the increased amount of business and the
wider area covered by his subjects put difficulties in the way of ex-
clusively personal administration. It becomes necessary for him to
employ others for the purposes of gaining information, conveying com-
mands, and seeing them executed ; and, in course of time, the assistants
thus employed become established heads of departments with deputed
authorities.

While this development of governmental structures in one way
increases the ruler's power, by enabling him to deal with more numer-
ous affairs, it in another way decreases his power, for his actions are
more and more modified by the instrumentalities through which they
are effected. Those who watch the working of administrations, no matter
of what kind, have forced upon them the truth that a head regulative
agency is at once helped and hampered by its subordinate agencies.
In a philanthropic association, a scientific society, or a club, those who
govern find that the organized officialism which they have created
often impedes, and not unfrequently defeats, their aims. Still more is
it so with the immensely larger administrations of the state. Through
deputies the ruler receives his information ; by them his orders are'
executed ; and, as fast as his connection with affairs becomes indirect,
his control over affairs diminishes ; until, in extreme cases, he either
lapses into a puppet in the hands of his chief deputy or has his place
usurped by him.

Strange as it seems, the two causes which conspire to give perma-
nence to political headship, also, at a later stage, conspire to reduce the
political head to an automaton, executing the wills of the agents he
has created. In the first place, hereditary succession, when finally
settled in some line of descent rigorously prescribed, involves that the
possession of supreme power becomes independent of capacity for
exercising it. The heir to a vacant throne may be, and often is, too
young for discharging its duties ; or he may be, and often is, too
feeble in intellect, too deficient in energy, or too much occupied with
the pleasures which his position offers in unlimited amounts ; with the
result that in the one case the regent, and in the other the chief minis-
ter, becomes the actual ruler. In the second place, that sacred character
which he acquires from supposed divine ancestry makes him inacces-
sible to the ruled. All intercourse with him must be through the
agents with whom he surrounds himself. Hence it becomes difficult
or impossible for him to learn more than they choose him to know ;
and there follows inability to adapt his commands to the requirements,
and inability to discover whether his commands have been fulfilled.
His authority is consequently used to give effect to the purposes of his
agents.

Even in so relatively simple a society as that of Tonga, we find an

740 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

example. There is an hereditary sacred chief who " was originally
the sole chief, possessing temporal as well as spiritual power, and
regarded as of divine origin," but who is now politically powerless.
Abyssinia shows us something analogous. Holding no direct com-
munication with his subjects, and having a sacredness such that even
in council he sits unseen, the monarch is a mere dummy. In Gondar,
one of the divisions of Abyssinia, the king must belong to the royal
house of Solomon, but any one of the turbulent chiefs who has ob-
tained ascendancy by force of arms becomes a Ras — a prime minister
or real monarch ; but he requires " a titular emperor to pei'f orm the
indispensable ceremony of nominating a Ras," since the name, at
least, of emperor " is deemed essential to render valid the title of
Ras." The case of Thibet may be named as one in which the sacred-
ness of the original political head is dissociated from the claim based
on hereditary descent ; for the Grand Lama, considered as *' God the
Father," incarnate afresh in each new occupant of the throne, does
not receive his divine nature by natural descent, but, receiving it
supernaturally, is discovered among the people at large by certain
indications of his godhood ; and with his divinity, involving discon-
nection with tempoi'al matters, there goes absence of political power,
A like state of things exists in Bootan. " The Dhurma Raja is looked
upon by the Bootanese in the same light as the Grand Lama of Thibet
is viewed by his subjects — namely, as a perpetual incarnation of the
Deity, or Buddha himself in a corporeal form. During the interval
between his death and reappearance, or, more properly speaking, until
he has reached an age sufficiently mature to ascend his spiritual
throne, the office of Dhurma Raja is filled by proxy from among the
priesthood." And then along with this sacred ruler there coexists a
secular one. Bootan " has two nominal heads, known to us and to the
neighboring hill-tribes under the Hindoostanee names of the Dhurma
and the Deb Rajas. . . . The former is the spiritual head, the latter
the temporal one." Though in this case it is said that the temporal
head has not great influence (probably because the priest-regent,
whose celibacy prevents him from founding a line, stands in the way
of unchecked assumption of power by the temporal head), still the
existence of a temporal head implies a partial lapsing of political func-
tions out of the hands of the original political head. But the most
remarkable and at the same time most familiar example is that fur-
nished by Japan. Here the supplanting of inherited authority by
deputed authority is exemplified, not in the central government alone,
but in the local governments. " Next to the prince and his family
came the hiros or ' elders.' Their office became hereditary, and, like
the princes, they in many instances became effete. The business of
what we may call the clan would thus fall into the hands of any
clever man or set of men of the lower ranks, who, joining ability to
daring and unscrupulousness, kept the princes and the 7t«ros out of

POLITICAL HEADS— CHIEFS, KINGS, ETC. 741

sight, but, surrounded with empty dignity and commanding the
opinion of the bulk of the samarai or military class, wielded the real
power themselves. They took care, however, to perform every act in
the name of the faineants, their lords, and thus we hear of . . .
daimios, just as in the case of the Emperors, accomplishing deeds and
carrying out policies of which they were perhaps wholly ignorant."
This lapsing of political power into the hands of ministers was, in the
case of the central government, doubly illustrated. Successors as they
were of a god-descended conqueror whose rule was real, the Japanese
Emjaerors gradually became only nominal rulers ; partly because of
the sacredness which separated them from the nation, and partly be-
cause of the early age at which the law of succession frequently en-
throned them. Their deputies consequently gained predominance.
The regency in the ninth century " became hereditary in the Fujiwara
[sprung from the imperial house], and these regents ultimately be-
came all-powerful. They obtained the privilege of opening all peti-
tions addressed to the sovereign, and of presenting or rejecting them
at their pleasure." And then, in course of time, this usurping agency
had its own authority usurped in like manner. Again succession by
fixed rule was rigorously adhered to ; and again seclusion entailed loss
of hold on affairs. " High descent was the only qualification for
oflice, and unfitness for functions was not regarded in the choice of
ofiicials." Besides the Shogun's four confidential officers, " no one else
could approach him. Whatever might be the crimes committed at
Kama Koura, it was impossible, through the intrigues of these favor-
ites, to complain of them to the Shogun." The result was that " sub-
sequently this family . . . gave way to military commanders, who,"
however, often became instruments in the hands of other chiefs.

Though less definitely, this process was exemplified during early
times in Europe. The Merovingian kings, to whom there clung a
tradition of supernatural origin, and whose order of succession was so
far settled that minors reigned, fell under the control of those who
had become chief ministers. Long before Childeric the Merovingian
family had ceased really to govern. " The treasures and the power of
the kingdom had passed into the hands of the prefects of the palace,
who were called ' mayors of the palace,' and to whom the supreme power
really belonged. The prince was obliged to content himself with bear-
ing the name of king, having flowing locks and a long beard, sitting on
the chair of state, and representing the image of the monarch."

From the evolution standpoint we are thus enabled to discern the
relative beneficence of institutions which, considered absolutely, are
not beneficent, and are taught to approve as temporary that which, as
permanent, we abhor. The evidence obliges us to admit that subjec-
tion to despotic rulers has been largely instrumental in advancing civ-
ilization. Induction and deduction alike prove this.

If, on the one hand, we group together those wandering, headless

742 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

hordes, belonging to different varieties of man, which ai'e found here
and there over the earth, they show us that, in the absence of political
organization, little progress has taken place ; and, if we contemplate
those settled simple groups which have but nominal heads, we see
that, though there is some development of the industrial arts and some
cooperation, the degree of advance is but small. If, on the other
hand, we glance at those ancient societies in which considerable
heights of civilization were first reached, we see them under auto-
cratic rule. In America purely personal government, restricted only
by settled customs, characterized the Mexican, Central American, and
Chibcha states ; and in Peru the absolutism of the divine king was
unqualified. In Africa, ancient Egypt exhibited in the most conspic-
uous manner this connection between despotic control and social evo-
lution. Throughout the distant past it was repeatedly displayed in
Asia, from the Accadian civilization downward, and the still extant
civilizations of Siam, Burmah, China, and Japan reillustrate it. Early
European societies, too, where not characterized by centralized des-
potism, were still characterized by diffused patriarchal despotism.
Only among modern peoples, whose ancestors passed through the dis-
cipline given under this social form, and who have inherited its effects,
is there arising an habitual dissociation of civilization from subjection
to individual will.

The necessity there has been for absolutism is best seen on observ-
ing that, in the struggles for existence among societies, those have
conquered which, other things equal, were the more subordinate to
their chiefs and kings. And, since in early stages military subordina-
tion and social subordination go together, it results that, for a long
time, the conquering societies continue to be the despotically governed
societies. Such exceptions as histories appear to show us really prove
the rule. In the conflict between Persia and Greece, the Greeks, but
for a mere accident, would have been ruined by that division of coun-
cils which results from absence of subjection to a single head. And
the habit of appointing a dictator, when in great danger from enemies,
implies that the Romans had discovered that efiiciency in war requires
absoluteness of control.

So that, leaving open the question whether, in the absence of war,
primitive groups could ever have developed ilito civilized nations, we
conclude that, under such conditions as there have been, those strug-
gles for existence, among societies which have gone on consolidating
smaller into larger until great nations have been produced, necessitated
the development of a social type characterized by personal rule of a
stringent kind.

To make clear the genesis of this leading political institution, let
us set down in brief the several influences which have conspired to
effect it, and the several stages passed through.

POLITICAL HEADS— CHIEFS, KINGS, ETC. 743

In the rudest groups, resistance to the assumption of supremacy
by any individual habitually prevents the establishment of settled head-
ship, though some influence is commonly acquired by superiority of
strength, or courage, or sagacity, or possessions, or the experience
which accompanies age.

In such groups, and in tribes somewhat more advanced, two kinds
of superiority conduce more than all others to predominance — that of
the warrior and that of the medicine-man. Often separate, but some-
times united in the same person, and then greatly strengthening his
hands, both these superiorities, tending to initiate political headship,
continue thereafter to be important factors in the develoj^ment of it.

At first, however, the supremacy acquired by a great natural power,
or supposed supernatural power, or both, is transitory — ceases with
the life of one who has acquired it. So long as the principle of effi-
ciency alone operates, political headship does not become settled. It
becomes settled only when there cooperates the principle of inheri-
tance.

The custom of reckoning descent through females, which charac-
terizes many rude societies and survives in others that have made con-
siderable advances, is less favorable to establishment of permanent
political headship than is the custom of reckoning descent through
males ; and, in sundry semi-civilized societies distinguished by perma-
nent political headships, inheritance through males has been established
in the ruling house, while inheritance through females survives in the
society at large.

Beyond the fact that reckoning descent through males conduces to
a more coherent family, to a greater culture of subordination, and to
a more probable union of inherited position with inherited capacity,
there is the more important fact that it fosters ancestor-worship and
the consequent reenforcing of natural authority by supernatural au-
thority. Development of the ghost-theory, leading as it does to spe-
cial fear of the ghosts of powerful men, until, where many tribes have
been welded together by a conqueror, his ghost acquires in tradition
the preeminence of a god, produces two effects. In the first place, his
descendant, ruling after him, is supposed to partake of his divine na-
ture ; and, in the second place, by propitiatory sacrifices to him, is sup-
posed to obtain his aid. Rebellion hence comes to be regarded as
alike wicked and hopeless.

The processes by which political headships are established repeat
themselves at successively higher stages. In simple groups chieftain-
ship is at first temporary— ceases with the war which initiated it.
When simple groups that have acquired permanent political heads
unite for military purposes, the general chieftainship is but temporary.
As in simple groups chieftainship is at the outset habitually elective,
and becomes hereditary at a latere stage, so chieftainship of the com-
pound group is at the outset habitually elective, and only later passes

744 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

into the hereditary. Similarly in some cases where a doubly com-
pound society is formed. Further, this later-established power of a
supreme ruler, at first given by election and presently growing heredi-
tary, is commonly less than that of the local rulers in their own locali-
ties ; and where it becomes greater it is usually by the help of ascribed
divine descent or ascribed divine commission.

Where, in virtue of supposed supernatural origin or authority, the
king has become absolute, and, owning both subjects and territory,
exercises all powers, he is obliged by the multiplicity of his affairs to
depute his powers. There follows a reactive restraint due to the po-
litical machinery he creates ; and this machinery ever tends to become
too strong for him. Especially where rigorous adhesion to the rule of
inheritance brings incapables to the throne, or where ascribed divine
nature causes inaccessibility save through agents, or where both causes
conspire, power passes into the hands of deputies. The legitimate
ruler becomes an automaton and his chief agent the real ruler, who,
in some cases passing through parallel stages, himself becomes an
automaton and his subordinates the rulers.

■♦«♦■

THE BLACK KACES OF OCEANICA.*

By Dr. E. VEENEAU.

""^TEGRO forms are figured among the earliest representations of
-»-^ men on ancient monuments. As early as the eighteenth dynasty
(seventeen hundred years before the Christian era), the artists of Egypt
represented at least five races of negroes. Nigritic types were also
figured by the Greeks, Romans, Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians,
although none of those people had as extended knowledge of Africa as
the Egyptians had. The examination of all the monuments which
have come down from antiquity makes it evident that the negro races
of Africa and Asia were well known. Scientific investigations of negro
characteristics began to be made in the sixteenth century. The first
to record one was Albert Diirer, who, in 1525, drew a profile of a
negro inclosed in a system of lines, of which an oblique and an horizon-
tal line formed at their junction a real facial angle. MM. de Quatre-
fages and Hamy, in their " Crania Ethnica," begin the study of the
negro races with the negroes of Oceanica, and select as their point of
departure the Negritos, the most brachycephalic race. The Negrito
race proper, which was first observed in the Philippine Islands, has
been found in the interior of the Peninsula of Malacca, the Sunda Isl-
ands, and the Andaman Islands. M. Hamy has been able to trace it
even to the interior of India.

* Translated from the French by W. H. Larrabee.

THE BLACK RACES OF OCEANIC A.

745

The pure Negrito skull (Fig. 3) is sub-brachycephalic, having a mean
index (cephalic, or horizontal) of 81 '79 ; its capacity is from 1,310 to
1,535 cubic centimetres. The occipito-frontal curve is quite regular,
and presents a depression over the forehead, another toward the third
posterior of the sagittal suture, and an iindulation at the level of the
sinciput ; passing the occipital protuberance, it turns sharply down-

FiG. 1.— Skull of a Negrito of Borneo, carved by the Dtaks. (Prom the Museum of Lyons.)

ward. The frontal, narrow before, is well developed in the antero-
posterior direction ; the short length of the cranium corresponds with
the shortness of the parietal and occipital bones.

In the face, the prominences of the brows are not very distinct, the
space between the orbits is relatively considerable, the orbits are wide,
almost square, the canine cavity is little marked, the prognathism is
distinct in the middle alveolar region of the superior maxillary. The
whole of the face is moderately elongated, showing a mean facial
index of 67'17. The Mincopies, who live in the Andaman Islands,
had already been studied by M. de Quatrefages, and his opinion that
they almost exactly resemble the Aetas of the Philippine Islands is
confirmed by the description of them in the " Crania Ethnica." The
only difference is in a slightly higher elevation of the cranium, as is
shown in the sketch.

Negritos whose history is fully described in this work are still liv-

746

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

ing in the mountains of India and Indo-China, and in the Malay Pen-
insula. The race is nearly extinct in the Sunda Islands, but it seems
to appear again in Timor ; and a head from that island, in the collec-
tion of the museum, rej)roduces, apart from some details of the facial
bony structure, all the characteristics of the Mincopie heads. An ele-
gantly carved skull from Boi-neo, belonging to the Museum of Lyons,
also presents the same traits (Fig. 1).

The detailed examination of twelve skulls from the interior of New

'<:^

Fig. 8. — Skuli, of a Negrito op the
Philippine Islands.

Fig. 3. — Skctll of a Mincopie of the
ANDA3L4N Islands.

Guinea, Rawak, Boni, the Island of Toud, and Amberbaki, has allowed
the authors to recognize in those different points the existence of an
intermediate race between the Negritos and the Papuans, which they
have, therefore, designated as the Negrito-Papuan race. The skulls
of this intermediate type (Fig. 4) are slightly elongated, with their
mean index descending to 80-1.5, while the facial index rises to 67"17,
and the maxillary prognathism is much more sharply defined than
among the Negritos. Some of these heads have been artificially de-
formed.

The Negrito-Papuan race forms, in some respects, a transition be-
tween the Negritos proper and the Tasmanians. The description given
of the last race, which is now extinct, is based on the study of numerous
skulls in the collections of the Museums of Paris, London, Shelton, etc.,
and other authentic sources of information. The Tasmanians were
differentiated from other oceanic negroes by a number of characteris-
tics, and the study of their skulls enables us to make of them a special
race, remarkably homogeneous, notwithstanding the differences which
prevailed in the languages of the several tribes.

The index of the Tasmanian skull varied from 77-10 among the
southern tribes to 76-34 among the northern tribes. Its mean capacity,
1,420 centimetres in men's skulls, was notably superior to that of negro
skulls in general. It presented a sj^ecial form, a kind of keel-shape,

THE BLACK RACES OF OCEANIC A.

747

■vrhich seemed to exist in all the adult Tasraanians, and which resulted
from the disposition of the parietal bosses, they being very prominent,
almost conical, and situated at an equal distance from the coronal and
lambdoidal sutures. Between these prominences existed, on each side
of the sagittal suture, itself placed in a hollow, an antero-posterior
groove which contributed to give the skull its peculiar characteristic

Fig. 4.— Skull of a Papuan Negrito of Rawak.

Fig. 5.— Skttll of a Tasmanian.

form. It results from this considerable development of the parietal
bosses that, below them, the figure of the skull was descending without
swelling out, the maximum transverse diameter being nearly on a level
with them. The antero-posterior curve was developed regularly to the
occipital bone, which was very much swelled out, so that at this level
the curve was slightly inflected upward ; at the summit of the occipital
crest it was often abruptly inflected downward. The forehead was
quite narrow. The face was not much raised, and exhibited brutal
forms. The arches of the brows were prominent, and appeared more
projecting than they were, on account of the sunken position of the
root of the nose. The nasal bones, convex and pinched above, were
deeply hollowed in their lower part, and were then lifted up to flatness
in front. The very wide nasal orifice almost formed an equilateral
triangle. The superior maxillary was notably prognathous, but the
teeth, much less oblique than the bone, descended sometimes even
vertically, and were of considerable size. The horizontal branch of
the inferior maxillary was robust and thick, while the ascending branch
was thin and narrow. The mandible was very short, so that the teeth
had to be projected considerably forward to meet those of the superior
maxillary. The chin was retreating.

The Malays gave the name of Papuans to the Oceanian negroes in
general. The term, which mgm^es frizzled, is properly applied to the
group who are distinguished by their bushy hair, and is now reserved
for the race whose representatives are more or less numerously found

748

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

in nearly all of Melanesia and in part of Australia. The Papuan skull is
plainly dolicbocephalous ; the index descends to 71 '03, and even to 70'32
in the skulls of the men. The vertical diameter is at the same time
considerable, and exceeds the maximum transverse diameter, so that
the head is hypsistenocephalous, or higher than it is broad. The head
which MM. de Quatrefages and Hamy have selected as typical of the
race — a Mafor head from Port Dorei — (Fig. 6) has an horizontal index
of 71*55, and a vertical index of 105-51, with a cranial capacity of
about 1,350 cubic centimetres. It is long, narrow, and high. The
lateral walls of the skull rise perpendicularly, in almost parallel lines,
to the parietal bosses. At this point the transverse curve is directed
obliquely toward the top of the head, where it becomes rounded, and
forms, in connection with a kind of median crest which crosses the

Fig. 6.— Skull op a Papuan Mapob.

Fig. 7.— Skuil from Arfak.

skull from front to rear, along the whole length of the sagittal suture,
a large, blunt point. The forehead is narrow, causing the cheek-bones
to appear very prominent, although their lateral development is not,
really, at all exaggerated. As a whole, the face is high and narrow.
The bones of the nose are quite long and slightly concave, the cavities
and prominences of the lower part of the superior maxillary are not
clearly defined. The jDrognathism of this race is so sharp that in the
norma verticalis the alveolar border and a part of the bones above
project in front of the skull. The facial angle of Camper varies be-
tween 73° and 76°. The Papuan woman is generally less dolicboce-
phalous and hypsistenocephalous than the man.

Pure or more or less mixed Papuans are found in Ternate, Ceram,
and Timor, in Malaysia. The pure type occurs in New Britain, and
at Yanikoro in the New Hebrides, but in other parts of Melanesia it is
mixed with the Negrito-Papuan or the Polynesian type. Traces of
the former mixture may be detected in the Island of Toud, although

THE BLACK RACES OF OCEANIC A.

7\9

the greater part of the inhabitants of that island are real Papuans, and
even in New Guinea.

The Polynesian type may be perceived in the Loiiisiade Archipel-
ago and in all eastern Melanesia, beginning at the Solomon Islands.
In some of the islands it is almost pure. The Papuan-Polynesians,
concerning which we have the most information, are those of the
Loyalty and Feejee Islands and New Caledonia. The Papuan type is
occasionally found pure in those groups, but is most frequently mixed
"with the Polynesian, and in these cases the mixture is accentuated by
marked phenomena. The heads of the half-breeds are less dolicho-

FiG. 8.— Bust of a Native of New Guinea.

cephalous and less hypsistenocephalous than Papuan heads, without
reaching the Polynesian proportions. The modifications in the face
are more complicated. Papuans are found at the extremities of Poly-
nesia, as far north as the Sandwich Islands, as far south as New Zealand,
and as far east as Easter Island, where they have been carried by vol-
untary or accidental migrations, or in slavery. They also occur erratic-
ally in some islands of Micronesia, particularly the Caroline Islands
and in Rawak.

The Australian skulls in the European museums appear to arrange
themselves into two homogeneous series, which do not, however, indi-
cate a distinction of race, as M. Topinard believes, but seem to be
determined by differences of sex. The man differs more from the
woman in this than in any other race. There are, however, other races
than the Australian in New Holland, as sporadic Melanesians and In-
donesians ; but, laying aside these casual cases and a few exceptional

75°

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

cases in Queensland and southern Australia, it may be said that Aus-
tralian skulls of the same sex are alike, and that those of the interior
pojiulations differ from those of natives of the coast only in a little
greater development, corresponding with their larger stature. This
superiority is the result of better conditions of existence. It is enough,
therefore, to describe two types : the Australian type proper, to which

Fig. 9. — ^Bust of an Islandeb or Toud (Toeees Steaits).

most of the known tribes belong ; and the Neanderthaloid type, found
only among a few southern tribes, the most of which are in process of
extinction.

The head which has been selected as a type of the former race is
that of an individual from Port Essington. It has a cranial capacity
of only 1,250 cubic centimetres, while the average of Australian skulls
is 1,285 cubic centimetres, and is very dolichocephalous and hypsiste-
nocephalous — that is, is elongated from front to rear, and is higher than
broad. The indices are horizontal 67*21, vertical 105'G9, The promi-
nences of the brows are voluminous, as is also the glabella, which ap-
pears to be prolonged over the forehead. The medial prominence of
the forehead is quite marked, the lateral ones are nearly effaced. The
parietals present an analogpus disposition : their inner borders rise along
the sagittal suture so as to form a kind of roof, while the bosses are
hardly indicated. The curved lines on the occipital form thick and
prominent puffs ; the bone is flattened over the cerebellum, and pre-
sents well-defined muscular impressions. The antero-posterior curve
is regular to near the lambdoidal suture, whence it rises to the occipi-

THE BLACK RACES OF OCEANIC A.

751

tal. The most marked characters in the face are the thickness of
the external orbital processes, the forward projection of the cheek-
bones, the depression of the root of the nose, the shortness and breadth
of the nose, and the mode of termination of the bridge of the nose,
which, instead of forming an angle, is prolonged into a kind of a gutter.
The jaws are narrow and the branches of the dental arch tend to be
parallel. The palatal vault is deep ; and the prognathism is very

Fig. 10.— Bust of a Tasmanian.

great, the mean alveolar facial angle being 64°, but the massive teeth
are less oblique than the alveolar part.

In the women the prominences of the brows nearly disappear, while
the parietal bosses are more accentuated. The forehead and the lower
occipital bone are more swollen ; the antero-posterior curve is rela-
tively depressed, although the skull continues to show the form of a
roof. The prognathism of the face is more marked, and the teeth are
more inclined than in the men.

The second Australian type, the dolichoplatycephalic or Neander-
thaloid type, although it is less widely diffused than the other, is nev-
ertheless of very great interest to anthropologists. In it there exist,
as Huxley has already remarked, individuals and even a whole race,
although it is disappearing, that present the cranial forms of which
the Neanderthal man affords the most pronounced example. We are

752

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

not, then, authorized to believe that the Neanderthal skull was one of
an idiot, or of any exceptional being not possessing the ethnic charac-
ters of the race which lived at the same epoch with him. If there still
exists a race offering the same characteristics, there is no reason why
that race may not have existed in a geological age anterior to our own.
The Australian skull of the Neanderthaloid type, which is found, ac-

FiG. 2.— Bust of a Tasmanian.

cording to Huxley, in Queensland, is also met as an erratic in New South
Wales. But a tribe, seeming to belong entirely to the race under
consideration, lived only in the environs of Adelaide ; and the seven
pieces from which the studies of the type were made are from that
locality.

MM. de Quatrefages and Hamy conclude their study of the Aus-
tralian race with an enumeration of the cranial characteristics which
distinguish the Papuans from the Australians, and a comparison of
those races with the Dravidian races of the interior of India. Com-
mon characteristics appear in both groups, and resemblances may be
traced between the Australian and Dravidian languages. The evi-
dence, however, is still too slight to permit us to assign a common
origin to the races of New Holland and the black races of India. —
La Nature.

PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 753

PHYSICAL EDUCATION.

By FELIX L, OSWALD, M. D.
OUT-DOOR LIFE.

" Disease is a hot-house plant.'' — IIaller.

EVERY disease is a protest of Nature against an active or passive
violation of her laws. But that protest follows rarely upon a
first transgression, never upon trifles ; and life-long sufferings — the
effects of an incurable injury excepted — generally imply that the suf-
ferer's mode of life is habitually unnatural in more than one respect.
For there is such a thing as vicarious atonement in pathology : a strict
observance of any one of the three or four jsrincipal health-laws rarely
fails to reward itself by a long immunity from the consequences of
otherwise evil habits. Frugality thus counteracts the morbific ten-
dency of indolence ; perfect continence may steel even a feeble con-
stitution against the effects of hunger and overwork ; and, by avoiding
the great vice of intemperance, the Epicureans atoned for a multitude
of minor sins.

But the surest of all natural prophylactics is active exercise in the
open air. Air is a part of our daily food and by far the most impor-
tant part. A man can live on seven meals a week, and survive the
warmest summer day with seven draughts of fresh water, but his sup-
ply of gaseous nourishment has to be renewed at least fourteen thou-
sand times in the twenty-four hours. Every breath we draw is a
draught of fresh oxygen, every emission of breath is an evacuation of
gaseous recrements. The purity of our blood depends chiefly on the
purity of the air we breathe, for in the laboratory of the lungs the
atmospheric air is brought into contact at each respiration with the
fluids of the venous and arterial systems, which absorb it and circulate
it through the whole body ; in other words, if a man breathes the
vitiated atmosphere of a factory all day and of a close bedroom all
night, his life-blood is tainted fourteen thousand times in the course of
the twenty-four hours with foul vapors, dust, and noxious exhalations.
We need not wonder, then, that ill-ventilated dwellings aggravate the
evils of so many diseases, nor that pure air should be almost a panacea.

Out-door life is both a remedy and a preventive of all known dis-
orders of the respiratory organs ; consumption, in all but the last stage
of the dellqiciicm, can be conquered by transferring the battle-ground
from the sick-room to the wilderness of the next mountain-range.
Asthma, catarrh, and tubercular phthisis, are unknown among the
nomads of the intertropical deserts, as well as among the homeless
hunters of our Northwestern Territories. Hunters and herders, who
breathe the pure air of the South American pampas, subsist for years
VOL. xvni.-

754 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

on a diet that would endanger the life of a city dweller in a single
month. It has been repeatedly obsei'ved that individuals who attained
to an extreme old age were generally poor peasants whose avocations
required daily labor in the open air, though their habits differed in
almost every other respect ; also that the average duration of life in.
various countries of the Old World depends not so much on climatic
peculiarities or their respective degree of culture as on the chief occu-
pation of the inhabitants ; the starved Hindoo outlives the well-fed
Parsee merchant, the unkempt Bulgarian enjoys an average longevity
of forty-two years to the west Austrian citizen's thirty-five.

In the cities of the higher latitudes, sedentary occupations in a
vitiated atmosphere become often a sort of " second nature " : artisans
and shopkeepers, after following their business for a number of years,
frequently come to dislike fresh air, as the convent slave, by an anal-
ogous suppression of his better instincts, becomes averse to free in-
quiry. But this abnormal indolence seldom becomes hereditary — per-
haps never, if we except the children of inebriate idiots. The mediae-
val prejudice against all natural propensities — founded on the dogma
of innate depravity — is, indeed, strikingly refuted by a young child's
love of out-door exercise. Without the mediation of supernatural
revelators or preternatural bugbears, a healthy boy prefers even the
hardships of our northern winter sports to the atmosphere of a com-
fortable stove-room, and in summer-time the paradise of childhood is
still a tree-garden. No domestic events of our later years can efface
the impression of the woodland rambles, buttei'fly hunts, and huckle-
berry expeditions of our boyhood : the recollections of our first out-
door adventures endure like the mountains and rivers of a promised
land whose cities have vanished for ever.

I have often been asked at what age infants can first be safely
exposed to the influence of the open air. My answer is. On the first
warm, dry day. There is no reason why a new-born child should not
sleep as soundly under the canopy of a garden-tree on a pillow of sun-
warmed hay as in the atmosphere of an ill-ventilated nursery. Thou-
sands of sickly nurslings, jjining away in the slums of our manu-
facturing towns, might be saved by an occasional sun-bath. Aside
from its warmth and its chemical influence on vegetal oxygen, sunlight
exercises upon certain organisms a vitalizing influence which science
has not yet quite explained, but whose effect is illustrated by the con-
trast between the weeds of a shady grove and those of the sunlit
fields, between the rank grass of a deep valley and the aromatic herb-
age of a mountain meadow, as well as by the peculiar wholesome
appearance of a " sunburned " person or a sun-ripened fruit. Sunlight
is too cheap to become a fashionable remedy, but its hygienic influence
can hardly be overrated. Even in the glorious climate of the Latian
hills, the Roman Epicureans constructed special solaria — glass-cov-
ered turrets — where they could bask in the full rays of the winter

PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 755

sun, the balm of old age, as Columella calls it ; and, on the summerless
Isle of Rtigen, Nature has taught the poor fishermen to carry their
bairns to the downs of Stubbenkammer, whenever the Baltic fogs
alternate with a few sunny days. Dry sand is, indeed, an excellent
medium of solar caloric. Children like it instinctively ; most babies
are fond of rummaging in some tangible, yielding element. In -de-
fault of a sunny beach, get a car-load of river-sand, spread it and
expose it to the sun for a couple of hours, then rake it together, mix
it ad captmidwn with a bushel of pebbles (good-sized ones, lest they
might be mistaken for sugar-plums), divest your bambino of all super-
fluous clothing, and let him wallow — all afternoon, if he chooses ; if
the surface of the pile gets too warm, instinct will teach him to dig
down to the cooler substrata. Or take him to a meadow where fresh
hay has been piled up in little stacks ; climbing and tumbling will do
him more good than lying motionless in a narrow baby-carriage. The
inventor of the Kindergarten recommends a grassy hollow with scat-
tered playthings, piles of dry leaves, etc. (near a shade-tree in mid-
summer), where young squealers can take care of themselves for an
hour or two, and warrants that they will not cry, unless their botanic
researches should happen to acquaint them with the properties of the
German horse-nettle. On mild winter days, too, self-motive babies
ought to pass a few hours out of doors, even if the ground be a little
wet ; a sunny nook on the lee-side of a garden-wall is a healthier play-
ground than the dusty floor of a stove-room.

From the fourth to the end of the fourteenth year children should
spend the larger part of every summer in out-door exercises, Next to
a total reform of our dietetic habits, a general observance of this rule
would be the surest way to regain the hardiness and longevity of our
forefathers. The years of growth lay the foundation of our bodily
constitution, and, under favorable circumstances, the human system,
during that period, seems to accumulate a surplus of physical vigor,
which in after-life will become available as an annuity-fund of health
and happiness. Education, like charity, ought to begin at home ; in
boarding-colleges, protectories, orphan asylums, etc., the rudiments
should be taught in icinter schools. At the price of life-long infirmities
precocious erudition is too dear-bought ; besides, it should not be for-
gotten that in the years when students can take a personal interest
in their lessons they will make more progress in a single month than
during years of involuntary confinement in boy-pens, as Dr. Salz-
mann calls our municipal baby-schools. The employment of young
children in cotton-factories is a crime against society, and ought to be
legally prohibited, like the trade in Italian organ-boys and Chinese
slave-girls. Swiss artisans, who have passed their boyhood in the
mountains, are comparatively proof against the influence of in-door oc-
cupations. And, in the mean time, out-door life need not be a life of
idleness. That children are fond of play means simply that they pre-

7s6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

fer entertaining employments to tedious ones. Youngsters under five
years gambol instinctively like young puppies, in order to acquire the
art of locomotion, but soon afterward they begin to play with a con-
scious purpose, and do not object to playing at something profitable ;
young savages and peasant-boys join in the labors of their parents
with an eagerness that vindicates human nature against the charge of
innate frivolity. Make your boy a Jack-of -all-out-door-trades before
you make him a classic polyglot, and, if you destine him for any trade
in special, let him play with the tools of that special trade. " The
best plan of education," says Goethe, " is that of the Hydriotes, the
Greek trading-sailors, who take their infant boys out to sea and let
them sport around amid oakum and belaying-pins before they learn to
handle them with a business purpose. Such a school has graduated
the heroes who with their own hands could grapple the fire-boat to
the flag-ship of the enemy."

Even for their children's sake, married men should never quarter
their families in the heart of a great city. Not everybody can own a
farm, but, wherever the suburban cottages adjoin waste building-lots
and dry ravines, there will be no lack of opportunities for out-door pas-
times. Let the girls make weed-brooms, and the boys construct for-
tifications, a la Uncle Toby, if they can do no better, and miss no
chance to send them out in the country for a day or two. Our town
l^arks are too exclusive ; sauntering between inviolate grass-plots and
prohibitory placards is dull work for urchins that long to commit
horse-play ; but there are few cities, even on the Atlantic seaboard,
where the " open country " — woods, fallow fields, and hillsides — could
not be reached by a two hours' walk. There let your children spend
every sunny afternoon ; make arrangements with your neighbors, and
engage a guide if you can not afford to go yourself ; teach the young-
sters to collect beetles and butterflies, encourage the fern mania if
your girl has outgrown the buttercup period, connive at a bird's nest or
two, do anything to keep them out of the tenement dungeons. If you
are blessed with a farm (or a tolerant country cousin), haymaking,
apple-gathering, turkey-herding, repairing of ditches and garden-walls,
will make earth an Elysium to every normal child ; never mind the
weather ; a summer shower, a chilly morning, or a hot afternoon will
not hurt a healthy boy, and the girls will take care of themselves — or
rather of their dress — if the grass is wet. If you send them to school
before their teens, give them at least the full benefit of their vacations
and of every free Saturday. In fall and winter a day of athletic field-
sports will keep a boy in tolerable health for the rest of the week, and
a vacation tour of six or eight weeks may atone for many months of
sedentary life.

In the preceding chapter I have pointed out the main cause of
catarrhal affections. "With the exception of deep-seated breast-coughs,
" colds " may be nipped in the bud by a few hours of hard, sudorific

PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 757

work in the open air. It may be an heroic cure, requiring a good deal
of will-force in cold weather, but it is an infallible and the only radi-
cal remedy. In half a day the nasal ducts and the perspiratory ex-
halants will throw off irritating matters which would defy the drug-
doctor for a couple of weeks, or yield only to exercise their influence
in another direction, for poison-remedies merely change the form of a
disease. But the beneficial effect of out-door exercise is not limited
to the respiratory organs : their quickened function reacts on the di-
gestive apparatus, on the nervous system, and through the nerves on
the mind ; true mental and physical vigor in any form can be main-
tained only on a liberal allowance of life-air ; those who feed their
lungs on miasma become strangers to that exuberant health which
makes bare existence a luxury. After years of in-door life the victims
of melancholy, dyspepsia, and dull headaches come to accept their
discomforts as the normal condition of mankind, but upon the first
appearance of such disorders our instinct suggests the cause and the
cure with an urgency which makes confinement in the atmosphere of
our northern dwelling-houses the greatest affliction of childhood. If
we reflect on the fact that our earth is surrounded by a respirable at-
mosphere of at least eight hundred million cubic miles, it seems a sad
comment on the enlightenment of modern civilization that the unsat-
isfied thirst after life-air should inflict more misery upon millions of
our fellow-men than hunger and all the hardships of poverty combined.
" On the day of judgment," says Jean Paul, "God will perhaps par-
don you for starving your children when bread was so dear ; but, if he
should charge you with stinting them in his free air, what answer
shall you make ? "

Perfect health depends upon a daily supply of fresh air as much
as on our daily bread ; but within certain limits the human organism
is capable of adapting itself to abnormal circumstances. A man may
accustom himself to devour his weekly allowance of solid food at a
single meal, and in a similar way the vitalizing elements of air and
sunshine can be hoarded up — allotropically, for all we know — for days,
weeks, and months in advance. The Zooloo hunter who, after a six
days' fast, gets a chance to satisfy the cravings of his stomach; can
not be expected to content himself with half -pint rations d la Luigi
Cornaro, and in midsummer, after six months of sedentary life, a boy
should get his fill of out-door exercises ; let him drink sunlight at
every pore, do not stint his allowance of oxygen, compensate him for
long arrears of woodland air and mountain-rambles.

With a little experience vacation trips can be managed very cheap-
ly. Professor Jordan, of the Ilefeld Pedagogium, takes his summer
boarders to the Hartz, or even to the Austrian Alps, at an aggregate
daily expense of fifteen marks (three and a half dollars) for twenty
or twenty-five big boys with North-German appetites. They carry
their own beds in the form of a plaid and a pair of foot-sacks (boot-

758 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

like felt socks), and sleep wherever they find a shade-tree or an open
barn. Their portable commissariat consists of biscuits and brown
sugar ; with fresh milk and such entremets as the mountain inns may-
afford, they make out two good meals a day, besides occasional lunch-
eons of nuts and huckleberries. Twenty-two of the twenty-four
hours are thus spent in the open air, but the long summer days are
almost too short for all the entertainments on the liberal professor's
programme. Zoology, botany, and geology are only collateral pur-
suits, the main thing is the uproarious fun in the mountains ; climbing
cliffs, tumbling bowlders from projecting rocks, and chasing squirrels
from tree to tree do not endanger the toilet of the excursionists, for
every one of them wears tmmer-clrell, a sort of coarse linen, as tough,
though not quite as soft, as corduroy.

Observant managers of such expeditions soon get rid of the dis-
mal prejudices against cold spring-water, " wet feet," and " untimely
baths." The craving of a thirsty wanderer after cold water is not an
abnormal appetency, but a natural instinct, and can be indulged with
perfect impunity ; a bath in sxm-warmed river- water is healthy as long
as it is enjoyable ; South-Sea Islanders and the children of the Geno-
ese fishermen spend whole afternoons in the surf, and — barring sharks
and medusas — without fear of dangerous consequences. There is no
harm in wet stockings as long as the feet are in motion ; at home it is
perhaps better to change them at once, though the Canadian lumber-
men dry them on their legs before the camp-fire, or even in bed — i. e.,
under a pair of "Mackinaw blankets," which blankets have often
served as overcoats during the day, but in the course of the night are
dried by the animal warmth like a pack of wet sheets. Sunstrokes
can be obviated by a simple and very inexpensive precaution — tem-
porary abstinence from animal food. A refrigerating diet (vegetables,
fruit, etc.) counteracts the effect of a high atmospheric temperature,
but the calorific influence of meat and fat, combined with solar heat
and bodily exertion, overcomes the organic power of resistance, the
pyretic blood-changes produce congestion of the brain and sometimes
instant death. I venture the assertion that in nineteen out of twenty
cases of comatose sunstroke it will be found that the victims were
persons who had gone to work in the hot sun after a meal of greasy
viands. One to two p. m. is the sunstroke-hour.

Among the permanent benefits which young persons may derive
from a pedestrian tour, it is not the least that they will mostly get rid
of the night-air superstition. Sweet rest and pleasant dreams he
knows not who has never slept under a Mexican live-oak tree on a
bundle of fresh-plucked Spanish moss, or in the loft of a Tennessee
cotton-gin while the winds of the summer night play in draughts and
counter-draughts through four open louvres. The advantages of a
hardy education in all such things are quite incalculable ; the word
hardiness sums up the chief characteristics that distinguished the

PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 759

moral and physical life of the ante-Christian ages from the scrofulous
effeminacy of our stove-room civilization.

The teachers of the Pedagogium and similar institutions assured
me that their scholars were never more aufgeweckt (wide-awake) than
during the first six or eight weeks after the long .vacations ; even the
drawing-masters had no reason to complain about " club-fists." It is
a very common but quite erroneous notion that the burly strength of
the human hand impairs its capacity for delicate manipulations : the
iron-fisted Gemsen-jiiger of the Tyrolese Alps are the nicest marks-
men ; and Leonardo da Vinci, who could draw a perfect circle without
a compass, could not the less break a silver piaster between his two
thumbs and two forefingers.

The Ilefelders were also the first to make Saturday an hygienic sab-
bath. In spring and fall, all such Saturdays should be consecrate to
the wood-gods ; leaf -forests, under the influence of sunlight, exhale the
antidote of our atmospheric poisons. Start the youngsters at sunrise
with a basketful of cold meats, and orders for an equal quantity of
strawberries, or, if the woods are safe, let them go on Friday night,
and camp in the open air ; they will long for the advent of that night
as Tom-a-lin for the festival of the fairies. Let them rise with the sun
and spend the whole day in active exercise, the mei'rier the better ; in a
mountain country arrange a new programme for every week, explore
the local Ararats, and let the boys scale them in succession, as the
members of the Alpine Club tackle their bergs and horns. If the weather
should disappoint you, do not hesitate to improve the next sunny day,
though it should happen to be a Sunday. The God of Nature can be
worshiped in his own temi^le : the wonder of his living world is his most
authentic revelation. Where Sunday is the only free day in the week,
no puritanical tyranny or Jesuitical ingenuity will ever prevent the
poor from making it a day of recreation ; the only question is, whether
that recreation shall be sought in the secret rumshops and back-alleys
of the city, whose gates the Sabbatarians would shut upon us, or in
the free woods and mountains, Avhere the w^orshiper of the All-Father
can find inspiration as well as joy and health. The wood-thrush, it is
true, does not modulate her anthems in a whining drawl ; the pine-tree
lifts his head without fear of provoking his Creator by a want of
crawling humility ; no dread of a joy-hating priest-god disturbs the
gambols of the squirrel and the aerial dances of the brook-midge ; the
butterfly and the humming-bird do not think it necessary to "mortify
the eye with dreary drab," but their happiness imparts a lesson not
less divine for being at variance with the doctrines of an atrabilious
fanatic.

According to the Grecian allegory, the wood-craft goddess Diana
was the antagonist of the Cyprian Venus ; and a penchant for out-door
sports is indeed the best safeguard against certain vices of youth.
The precocious Don Juans of our great cities could be more easily re-

76o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

formed by a hunting expedition to the next Sierra Nevada than by all
the homilies of Fray Gerundio. Like depraved humors, prurient pro-
pensities yield to active exercise more readily than to physic and
prayer. Hunting tribes are generally continent, stalwart, and comely ;
wood air is a cosmetic ; the finest types of the human form are not
found within the precincts of the Palais Royal, but in the Caucasus
and the Kentucky forest counties.

Enjoyable winter excursions are a privilege of the rich ; still, a pair
of good skates make a convenient pond or a small river a great bless-
ing. From a sanitary point of view, the neighborhood of larger
streams is not so much of an advantage ; besides being the terror of
parents during the skating season, a big river is apt to render the con-
tiguous lowlands more or less malarious, especially after every inunda-
tion. In snow-bound villages children have to depend mainly on in-
door exercises ; cold air, however, is a powerful tonic, and a two hours'
snowball-fight will generally suffice to vitalize a juvenile constitution
for a couple of days. Mountain air, too, is a peptic stimulant, and
pedestrian excursions are doubly invigorating if they include a good
deal of up-hill work.

For those who wish to select their dwelling-place with regard to
the hygienic interest of their children, the best location is, therefore,
on the whole, the bank of a small river in the neighborhood of a large
mountain-range.

-♦♦♦-

HISTORY OF CHRONOLOGY.

By Professor E. S. BUKNS.

CHRONOLOGY is the science of the measurement of time, of
ascertaining and fixing dates, which constitute the landmarks by
which the mind is guided in its backward course through the long
vista of years, and enabled to locate and fix the events of history, the
knowledge of which would otherwise be a confused and wellnigh
useless attainment. The advanced state of astronomical science and
the experience of those who have gone before us have enabled us to
reduce all that pertains to this subject to so complete a system that
we lose sight of its magnitude and importance ; we forget the slow
progress and toilsome research which the great minds of past centu-
ries had to undergo to reach the present state of correctness. To
appreciate even faintly this magnitude, we must transport ourselves
backward a few thousand years, and forget, if we can, the improve-
ments of modern astronomy, the developments of mathematics, and,
above all, the universality and ubiquity of modern almanacs.

The first and most obvious division of time is the day — the time
required for a revolution of the earth upon its axis — which could not

HISTORY OF CHRONOLOGY, 761

have been a very difficult matter to ascertain with sufficient correct-
ness. But to mark and fix the time of the sun's apparent revolution
through the heavens among the stars was a matter of so great diffi-
culty that it was not exactly ascertained even at the time of the refor-
mation of the calendar in 1582 ; yet so uniform is the motion of the
earth in its orbit that the results of modern experiments render it
next to absolutely certain that the time of orbital revolution has never
varied even the fraction of a second. In the infancy of astronomy,
many ingenious expedients were adopted to ascertain this and other
matters connected with the times and motions of the planets and other
heavenly bodies, one of which may be mentioned even at the risk of
tediousness. To ascertain the exact time of the revolution of the con-
cave of the heavens, two vessels were placed over each other, the upper
filled with water, the lower empty. At the moment of the appearing
of a certain star above the horizon, the water was permitted to flow
from the upper into the lower vessel, and the flow was continued until
the same star appeared the next night, when the flow was stopped. The
whole concave of the heavens had then made one revolution. The
water which had flowed out during this time was then divided into
twelve equal parts, and smaller vessels were made each to hold just one
of those parts, and on the following evening they repeated the operation,
filling successively six of those vessels, and noting carefully what stars
rose above the horizon during the time required to fill each of them.
Each group of stars which rose during the time of filling one small ves-
sel was called a statioti or house of the sun. They then postponed oper-
ations upon the other half of the heavens for six months, when they
repeated it, and thus divided the path of the sun through the whole
heavens into twelve divisions, to most of which they gave the names of
certain animals : hence the term zodiac, the propriety of which could
have been seen only by the fertile fancies of the childhood of the race.
The whole ancient method of dividing and naming the constellations
is to us utterly absurd, and is really a hindrance to a knowledge of the
stars. Fanciful forms of snakes and dogs and lions and bulls and
w^agons and scorpions convey to us no idea but one of confusion and
perplexity, and they are tolerated for the same reasons that we tolerate
our bungling orthography : we are loath to break away from the
associations of antiquity ; we are loath to sever the giabt strides of
Science, in its strength and manhood, from the feeble totterings of its
infancy.

The time required by the sun to pass through one of these groups
or signs is nearly equal to a lunar month ; the time required to pass
through three of them was called a season, as we have it now. All
this was done by the Chaldeans or Egyptians, centuries before Greece
or Rome had inhabitants or a name.

The Greeks divided the year into twelve lunar months, but, as this
lunar year differed from the true year by about eleven days, they cor-

762 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

rected the error, after many other devices, by intercalating three
months every eight years, making every eighth year consist of fifteen
months — a method used by them for many years, perhaps centuries.
It is said, however, that the length of the year was known, as early as
the time of Solon, to be three hundred and sixty-five and one quarter
days. Prior to the time of Numa, the Roman year consisted of ten
months. He divided it into twelve lunar months, and to correct the
error of eleven days a month was intercalated every second year. The
management of this matter was intrusted to the priests, who added
days whenever they deemed them necessary. But, owing to their
ignorance of astronomy, this method proved irregular and erroneous,
and the winter months were gradually carried back into autumn, the
autumn months into summer, etc.

These errors had become so troublesome in the time of Julius Csesar
that he undertook, with the aid of an eminent astronomer (Sosigenes),
to correct the calendar, which was done as follows : The Roman civil
year had lost about ninety days. These were added to the year of
three hundred and fifty-five days, making that year consist of four
hundred and forty-five days, which is known in history as the " year
of confusion." The year henceforward was made to consist of three
hundred and sixty-five days, by adding ten days distributively to as
many months. The odd quarter of a day was not noted until every
fourth year, when the sum of these fourths made one day, and that
year consisted of three hundred and sixty-six days. This odd day
M^as inserted after the sixth day before the kalends of March, i. e., after
the 24th of February, and was not counted as an addition to the year,
but as a sort of appendix. Hence the sixth of the kalends of March
was called bissextus, or double sixth, which root is still retained in our
word bissextile, though the day is now added at the end of February.
This arrangement would have been entirely correct had the year con-
sisted of exactly three hundred and sixty-five and one quarter days.
It was, however, in course of time, discovered to be erroneous, and an-
other correction was made, which we will consider by and by. This
new system went into effect on January 1, 46 b. c.

The subdivisions of the Roman month were apparently arbitrary.
The days were not numbered as we have them, but the first day of
every month was called the calends, the fifth the nones, and the thir-
teenth the ides, except in the months of March, May, July, and Octo-
ber, when the nones fell on the seventh and the ides on the fifteenth.
From these points the days were counted backward — i. e., the last of
February was called Prid., Kal., Mar., etc.

Names of Months. — The division of days into weeks was invented
at a very early day by the Chaldeans, and was afterward adopted by
almost all civilized nations, and by the Romans about the third century
A. c. The principle upon which the days were named is odd enough
to deserve especial notice. The order of the planets, according to the

HISTORY OF CHRONOLOGY. 763

Ptolemaic system, was : 1. Saturn ; 2. Jupiter ; 3. Mars ; 4. Sun ;
5. Venus ; 6, Mercury ; 7. Moon. The Clialdeans called the twenty-
four hours of the day by the names of these planets in their order, and
named each day from the first hour of the day. Thus, first hour of
first day was Saturn ; last hour (or twenty-fourth) was Mars ; first
hour of next day was Sun, hence called Sunday ; first hour of next day
Moon, hence called Monday, etc. Our Saxon ancestors named the days
from their corresponding gods. Thus, what the Romans called Mars-
day, the Saxons called Tuisco-day (whence Tuesday), Tuisco being
their god of war as Mars was among the Romans, and so of the rest.

The early Romans began the year with March, but in the time of
Caesar it began with January. The early Christian Church began it on
March 25th, and this was the beginning of the civil and ecclesiastical
year in England and her American colonies until 1752, when it was
changed by act of Parliament to January 1st.

Cycles. — To facilitate computation of time, to fix the recurrence of
moons and days, and to establish epochs as standpoints of chronology,
recourse was had to cycles, which we will now examine. The word
cycle is derived from a Greek word which signifies a circle — here it
signifies a circle of time. The first and most important among them
was the Cycle of the Moon, the object of which was to accommodate
t^e computation of time by the moon to that of the sun. It was in-
•i^ented about 430 b. c, by an Athenian named Meton, whence it was
called also the Metonic Cycle, and was used to fix the times of the
Grecian festivals, but fell into disuse with these festivals and was
afterward restored by the Council of Nice, a. d. 325, being best adapted
of all to fixing the time of Easter.

This cycle, at the time of its invention, was deemed entirely correct,
and was so much superior to any other that had been attempted that
each year was written in letters of gold in the public marts of Greece,
from which cause it has ever since been known as the " golden number."
It was constructed as follows : It had been discovered that the lunar
year was eleven days shorter than the solar year ; so that, if a new
moon occurred upon any given day of any solar year, on the same day
of the next solar year the moon would be eleven days old, on the same
day of the second year twenty-two days old, etc. Examination showed
that the new moon would again occur upon the same day of the solar
year in the course of nineteen years. Hence the lunar cycle consists
of nineteen years. The other ancient cycles are unimportant for our
present purpose ; the other cycles that we shall consider are the in-
ventions of modern chronolosrers.

Solar Cycle. — Chronologers have affixed to the seven days of the
week the first seven letters of the alphabet, as follows : To January 1,
A ; January 2, B, etc., and whichever letter the first Sunday of the
year happens to fall upon is called the dominical or Sunday letter for
that year. The object of this cycle is to find (without reference to the

764 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

almanac) what day of the week corresponds to any day of any month
of any year, and it is constructed in this manner.

As every common year consists of fifty-two weeks and one day,
supposing the 1st of January of any year to fall upon Sunday, A will
be the Sunday letter for that year. The last day of that year will
also be Sunday, and Monday will be the 1st of January of next year ;
and, as A is always affixed to the first day of the year, G will become
the Sunday letter for that year. The next year will begin with Tues-
day, which will make its Sunday letter F, etc. ; hence, if there were no
leap-year, the Sunday letter of each succeeding year would be removed
one letter further backward, and in seven years the cycle would be
complete, and the Sunday letter of the eighth year would again be A.
But, as every leap-year has fifty-two weeks and two days, the letter C,
which always belongs to the 28th of February, is also affixed to the
29th, which puts the Sunday letter for the remainder of the year one
letter further back. Leap-year has therefore two Sunday letters instead
of one, as in common years. This change takes place every four years ;
the other, as we have seen, would take place in seven years. Hence a
complete cycle of the Sunday letter consists of the miiltiple of seven
and four = twenty-eight years ; i. e., in any given century, the Sunday
letters will again follow each other in exactly the same order every
twenty-eight years.

Indiction Cycle. — This is a cycle of fifteen years established by
the Emperor Constantine, at the termination of which a tax was lev-
ied to pay the soldiers whose term of enlistment was fifteen years. It
was afterward ordered by the Council of Nice that this cycle, beginning
A. D. 312, should be substituted as the epoch from which all dates
should be reckoned instead of that of the Olympiads, which, until
that time, seems still to have been used in the Eastern Emj)ire of the
Romans.

The epoch from which we now compute years — i. e., the birth of
Christ — was not used until about the year 500. The universal adop-
tion of this by all Christendom has obviated the necessity of many of
the cycles and epochs used prior to that time, and it is impossible for
ns now to estimate the difficulties the earlier chronologists had to
encounter in their attempts to locate events and to regulate them by
some fixed standard (illustrated by different modern weights and meas-
ures). The Greeks reckoned by Olympiads — cycles of four years
beginning 776 b. c. The Romans' great epoch was the founding of
their city, 752 b. c. They also used the lustrum, a cycle of four years ;
and events are very frequently recorded to have occurred in the con-
sulship of such or such a one. The later Jews used the era of the
Seleucidse, 312 b. c, which era the Nestorians, it is said, still use.
Prior to the adoption of our own era, the Christians used the era of
Diocletian, 284 a. d.

To harmonize the conflicting and troublesome eras, one Scaliger,

HISTORY OF CHRONOLOGY. 765

an historian of the early ages of the Church, invented a new cycle to
which chronologers might refer all dates. It consisted of the mul-
tiple of the years of the three cycles of the sun, moon, and indiction,
28x19x15 = 7,890, and taking these cycles, as settled by the early
Church councils, and tracing them backward, he found they would
begin together in the year 710 before the creation of the world, ac-
cording to our received account. This cycle would have been of great
value and importance, had it not been superseded by the adoption of
the Christian epoch, which, as already said, has made the use of all
former epochs and eras unnecessary. The cycle just described is
known by the name of the " Julian period."

Several of the ancient cycles were, however, used by the early Church
in fixing what are called the ^^ movable feasts " ; these being regulated
not by the solar year, as Christmas or the 4th of July is, but by the
lunar year. But, as most of these feasts depend upon or are regulated
by Easter, we need consider this one only. In the early days the
churches of Asia kept their Easter upon the day on which the Jews
celebrated their passover, i. e., on the fourteenth day of their fii-st
month, which began with the new moon next after the vernal equinox.
The Western churches celebrated on the Sunday following the Jewish
festival, both to celebrate the day and to distinguish between Jews
and Christians. This difference having finally caused great dissensions
in the Church, Constantine had a canon passed at the Council of Nice,
that Easter should everywhere be observed upon the same day ; and,
to prevent disputes thereafter, four j)aschal canons were also passed,
to the effect that " Easter shall always be observed on the first Sunday
after the full moon which happens on or next after the 21st of March,
which was then the time of the vernal equinox ; and, if this full moon
happen on Sunday, the Sunday following shall be Easter Sunday."

Then was called into requisition the lunar cycle, and tables were
made showing the day of every month in every year, of the cycle on
which a new moon would occur, and this table would have been cor-
rect for ever had the Julian year been correct and had the moon's
cycle been nineteen years to the hour. The former, we have already
seen, was not quite correct ; and the new moon, although it occurs on
the same day of the year every nineteenth year, does not occur at the
same hour, but about one and a half hour earlier, which difference in
a long course of years makes the tables all wrong and useless. In
1582, when the calendar was corrected, the computed equinoxes had
been brought forward ten days, so that the full moon, on or after the
21st of March, was not always the first moon after the true vernal
equinox — i. e., was not the moon which the Church canon prescribed.
The reformation of the calendar, by dropping ten days, brought back
the equinox to March 21st, as it was at the time of the Nicene
Council.

Immediately after this council the Bishop of Alexandria, in Egypt,

766 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

was appointed to give notice to the Pope, and other dignitaries in va-
rious parts of the Christian world, of the time when Easter should be
celebrated each year, until a perfectly correct cycle should be estab-
lished. The most prominent cycle framed for this purpose was one by
a mathematician named Victorinus. It consisted of the product of the
lunar and solar cycle — i. e., 19 X 28 = 532. If this calculation had
been without defect, any given day would have been the same day of
the year, month, moon, and week, that it was five hundred and thirty-
two years before or would be five hundred and thirty-two years after.

The Council of Orleans, a. d. 541, decreed that the feast of Easter
should be celebrated every year, according to the table of Victorinus.
But the tables derived from these data answer only for a limited time
on account of the above-mentioned errors in the year and in the lunar
cycle. Accordingly, the books which contain tables for finding Easter
are good only until the y6ar 1900, when new ones must be made for
another period.

As the cycles were fixed by the Latin Chnrch, the era of Christ
began in the tenth year of the solar cycle and in the second year of
the lunar cycle. Therefore, to find what year of the solar cycle any
given year of our Lord is, we add 9 to the number of the year and di-
vide by 28 ; the remainder, if any, will indicate the number of the year
of the cycle. The year of the lunar cycle, i. e., the golden number, is
found in a similar manner, by adding 1 to the given year and dividing
by 19 ; the remainder will indicate the year of the lunar cycle.

After the Julian calendar had been used several centuries, the im-
proved state of astronomy disclosed the fact that computed time did
not keep pace with actual time, because the year did not consist of
three hundred and sixty-five days ^nd six hours but was about eleven
minutes ten seconds less. Hence, by inserting an extra day for leap-
year, we gain upon true time forty-four minutes, forty seconds, which
makes an error of a day in about one hundred and thirty-one years ;
and hence, in 1582, when the correction of the calendar was undertaken
by Pope Gregory, the error had amounted to ten days ; i. e., instead of
counting just 1,582 years it ought to have been 1,582 years and ten
days. A correction was accordingly made by taking a leap of ten days
and calling October 5th of that year October 15th. This change, as
elsewhere stated, brought the vernal equinox to the 21st of March, where
it was at the time of the Nicene Council. To prevent the recurrence of
the same error in future, it was ordered that every fourth year should
be a leap-year as before, but centurial years, though multiples of 4,
should not be leap-years unless they were multiples of 400. The loss
of \\\ minutes yearly in time, as computed by the Julian method,
amounts in 100 years to 18*6 hours. Calling this one hundredth year
a common year gives a gain of one day, or 24 hours, which puts com-
puted time ahead of actual time, 24 — 18-6 = 5-4 hours, which, in 400
years, equals 21-6 hours, gain. Calling the four hundredth a leap-

HISTORY OF CHRONOLOGY. 767

year brings back computed time 24 — 2r6 = 2'4 hours behind real
time. To lose a whole day at this rate will require 10X400 = 4,000
years.

This arrangement seems simple enough to us now, but it required
a convention of astronomers, summoned to Rome for this purpose, ten
years to effect the adjustment. This is called the change from Old to
New Style. It also changed the dominical letter, which occurred in
this wise :

The dominical letter of 1582 was G, and, A being always the let-
ter for the 1st of October, that day must have been Monday, and in
regular order the 17th would have been Tuesday, whose letter was C.
The change was made by calling the 5th day, which was Friday, the
15th, whence Saturday became the 16th and Sunday the 17th, whose
letter we have just seen was C, whence C instead of G became the
dominical letter for that year, N. S., and by this all subsequent Sun-
day letters were regulated. C is the fourth letter in backward order
from G, hence the dominical letter of any year, N. S., was four letters
backward from the letter belonging to that year O. S., and remained
so until 1700, after which IST, S. is but the third letter from O. S. because,
according to N. S., 1700 is not a leap-year and has but one dominical
letter. In O. S. it would be leap-year, and would have two letters.
For the same reason, after 1800 N. S. it is only the second letter back-
ward from O. S., after 1900 only the first backward, and so continues
until 2100 — the year 2000 making no difference, as it is a leap-year in
both styles. After 2100, Sunday letter N. S. is the same as that of O. S.,
and gains one letter each succeeding century, except those which are
multiples of four hundred, so that, in every nine hundred years after
2100, the N. S. and O. S. Sunday letter correspond. This furnishes a
perpetual almanac.

This ai-rangement of the calendar, whose complete cycle is four
hundred years, is called the Gregorian, from the name of Pope Greg-
ory, through whose instrumentality it was made. It was adoj^ted
shortly afterward by all the Catholic countries of Europe ; but Protes-
tant countries refused to adopt it, notwithstanding its obvious superi-
ority and correctness, because it was originated by Catholics. En-
lightened public sentiment compelled its adoption in course of time,
and an act was accordingly passed by the British Parliament in 1752,
almost two centuries later, ordering that the 3d of September should
be called the 14th, the error having by that time amounted to eleven
days. The change was, however, not popular among the masses, be-
cause it changed the time of long-established festivals, and members
of Parliament were insulted in the streets by the rabble calling after
them : " What have you done with the days ? " " Give us back the
days you stole ! "

We have already seen that tables were constructed showing on
what days each new moon would fall in the whole lunar cycle, but,

768

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

though they would in nineteen years fall upon the same day of the
month, they fell about an hour and a half earlier in the day, and this
in sixteen cycles, or about three hundred and twelve years, would make
a difference of one day. As these tables were published by ecclesiasti-
cal and secular authority, and could not be changed without such au-
thority, another method was resorted to to find the times of the moon
without the use of these tables. This method was called the epact,
which we will now proceed to consider.

The lunar year, as we have already seen, differs from the solar year
by about eleven days, i. e., if a new moon occur January 1st of any
year, on January 1st of the next year the moon will be eleven days old,
on the same day of the next year twenty-two days old, the next thirty-
three days old, which equals a whole lunation plus three days. This
cycle corresponds with the lunar cycle, and is constructed as follows :

Lunar Cycle.

Epact.

1
2

3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

0
11
22

3
14
25

6
17
28

9

Paschal Limits.

April

13

(1

2

March 22

April

March 30 j

April

18

(1

7 !

March

27 !

April 15 j

«(

4 1

Lunar Cycle.

11

12

13

14

15

le

17

18

19

Epact. Paschal Limits.

20

1

12

23

4

15

2G

7

18

March 24

April 1 2

April 1

March 21

April 9

March 29

April 17

" 6

March 26

From this table the astronomical moons not only for Easter but for
the whole year can be found without variation of more than a day for
about three hundred and twelve years, at the end of which time the new
moon will fall one day earlier, when a new set of epacts must be made,
the first of which will be 1 instead of 0, and the succeeding ones will
be changed correspondingly. To find the age of the moon for any day
of the year, we add to the epact the date of the month, and one for every
month from March inclusive, the epact for a year being eleven days,
or a day a month nearly. This sum, casting out thirty if required,
will give the age of the moon at the given day : e. g., suppose it be
required to find the moon's age on Chi'istmas-day of the year 1868.
We find, by the method already explained, that 1868 was the seventh
year of the lunar cycle, whose epact in the table we found to be 6, to
which adding 25 and 10 gives 41 ; from this deduct one lunation (29
days) = 12 days for the moon's age on that day. The epacts are
calculated to show the moon's age on March 1st in any year of the
cycle.

The rule for finding the Sunday letter of any year, as given in the
"Book of Common Prayer," is constructed upon this principle : The
dominical letter of the year of Christ, according to N. S., would have

SOME NOTES ON A DOCTORS LIABILITY. 769

been B A. Then for any year from 1800 to 1899 the number of letters
used equals the number of years + \ the number of years (that number
being leap-years) — 14 for centurial years which are not leap-years. This
number divided by 7 gives the number of times all the letters have been
used, and if the remainder is 0 the dominical letter is the same as that
of the year 0, i, e., A (from March). Any remainders, 1, 2, 3, etc.,
will give corresponding letters, G, F, E, etc., as in the years 1, 2, 3,
etc., A. c. Upon the same principle the dominical letter for the years
of any other century can be found. But, as the number to be deducted
for centurial years, not leap-years (equal 14), is an exact multiple of 7,
the remainder will be the same whether it is deducted or not, and hence
no account need be made of it, for it is by the remainder and not by
the quotient that the Sunday letter is fixed. The above-mentioned rule
will, therefore, not answer for any century but this one until the twen-
ty-eighth century, when it can again be used, because the centurial
number to be deducted will then be 21, which, being also a multiple of
7, may be disregarded.

In addition to these tables, another was constructed showing at a
glance what letter corresponds to any day of the year ; but, as this
table is cumbersome and unwieldy, a device has been substituted which
is very simple and answers all the purposes of a table. The letter for
the first day of every month is always the same. These letters being
known, together with the Sunday letter for any year, we can readily
find what the first day of any month is, and consequently what day of
the week any other day of the month is. The letters for the first of
each are as follows, beginning with January : A, D, D, G, B, E, G, C,
F, A, D, F, and, to assist the memory in retaining them, they have
been woven into the following couplet :

12 3 4 5 6

At Dover Dwells George Brown Esquire,

T 8 9 10 11 12.

Good Carlos Finch, And David Friar.

-♦*♦-

SOME NOTES OX A DOCTOE'S LIABILITY.

Br OLIVER E. LYMAN.

IT is related, as a legend of the medical fraternity, that the Emperor
Augustus was once so highly pleased at a cure effected in himself
by his doctor, Antonius Musa, that he raised that gentleman to the
rank of knight, and relieved the whole profession from the burdens of
taxation.

Probably at no time before or since that event has the lot of the
physician been such a happy one. In the earlier days of Rome the

VOL. XVIII. — 49

770 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

practice of medicine was despised and confined to the humbler ranks
of society and to slaves. Not until the influence of Grecian civiliza-
tion made itself felt in the Roman capital did physicians gain honor
or standing.

In the middle ages the calling suffered a relapse, to speak medically.
Surgery was in ill repute, and Sprengel tells us that in Germany no
artisan would employ a young man as an apprentice without a certifi-
cate that he was born in marriage of honest parents, and came of a
family in which were found neither barbers, bathers nor " skinners," as
surgeons were called.

Even at the present day, although the meritorious claims of the
medical and surgical practitioner have been recognized, and an honor-
able social status awarded him, his mind is not at rest. The advance-
ment and refinement of ideas have begotten deeper anxieties, and a
feeling of responsibility. So jealously does the law guard the lives
and persons of the people, that every time the physician writes a pre-
scription, or the surgeon makes an incision, he takes his purse, his
liberty, or, perhaps, his life in his hand. The risk is not all on the
part of the patient, despite a popular impression that the only pocket-
book likely to be depleted or the only life liable to be sacrificed is that
of the sick man.

In undertaking the care of a patient the physician enters into legal
relations with him and becomes a party to a contract, which, although
not expressly set forth in writing, is yet, in the eye of the law, fixed
and certain, and one which subjects him, in case of a breach on his
part, to legal liabilities. He engages that he possesses that reasonable
degree of learning, skill, and experience which is ordinarily possessed
by the professors of the same art or science, and which is ordinarily
regarded by the community or by those conversant with that employ-
ment as necessary and sufficient to qualify him to engage in such
business. He contracts also to employ reasonable and ordinary care
and diligence in the exertion of his skill and application of his knowl-
edge to the matter in which he is employed.*

It is not necessary, in order to sustain an action against him for
malpractice, that there should be proof of gross culpability on his
part. He is on the same footing, and subject to the same degree
of liability, as any other person who is engaged in the performance
of services requiring skill and care. Both are equally responsible
for a failure to exercise proper care, and for negligence in the dis-
charge of the duty imposed upon thera.f But extraordinary care is no
more contracted for than the possession of extraordinary skill. If the
physician has employed ordinary skill and care in the management
of his case, he is not responsible if success does not crown his efforts.
But, on the other hand, if he does not bring to the treatment of a
disease the ordinary amount of skill possessed by those in the same
* T. Foster, New Hampshire, 460. f ^5 New York, 15.

SOME NOTES ON A DOCTOR'S LIABILITY. 771

profession, it is immaterial how high his standing may be.* He is
liable for the want of it. If, moreover, possessing skill, he undertakes
to heal a wound or cure a disease, and through his neglect the party
is not cured, or is impaired in health by the treatment, he is also re-
sponsible. Behold the two horns of the dilemma which threaten the
physician ! If he has skill, and neglects to employ it, he is liable
in damages ; if he has not skill, he is equally liable. The injured
party may bring his action to recover for damages resulting from
both, and recover, on proving damages resulting from either.

Once having incurred the liability, it sticks like a leech. Retiring
from the case is of no avail to shield him against the results of his
prior negligence or malpractice. Nor will neglect to send in a bill.
Such failure might reasonably be interpreted as an admission of neg-
lect, and as an evidence of consciousness on the part of the physician
that he was not entitled to pay, and that his services were worthless. f
It has been held also that it is no defense that the services were ren-
dered gratuitously.

This liability is, for the most part, a civil one, and redress can be
measured by a monetary standard. If, however, the patient die, and his
death is presumptively owing to the treatment received and caused by
it, criminal proceedings may be instituted against the doctor, and in
such cases the charge of criminal malpractice is not infrequently pre-
ferred. Now, the practitioner may never actually have had that mali-
cious or criminal intent which is an essential element of a crime ; but, if
he has been guilty, for instance, of gross rashness, gross ignorance,
gross negligence, or the most criminal inattention, J the law very prop-
erly infers such criminal intent, and the physician finds himself held
for manslaughter. In England the law is, " If one, whether a medical
man or not, profess to deal with the life or health of another, he is
bound to use competent skill and sufficient attention ; and, if he cause
the death of the other through a gross want of either of these, he will
be guilty of manslaughter." There is nothing unsound in that doctrine.

The physician does not, however, contract for freedom under all
circumstances from errors of judgment. The man who possesses or-
dinary skill is presumed to have ordinary good judgment, and, if it be
fairly and conscientiously exercised, and the case is one of reasonable
doubt and uncertainty, any errors and mistakes are upon employers
alone.

Such is the law in New York. In Maine, however, not so very
long ago, a verdict of heavy damages against a physician for alleged
malpractice in a case of amputation was sustained on appeal. The
Court, nevertheless, expressly admitted that the verdict was found
against the defendant on the ground of his error of judgment in not

* 60 Barb. New York, 508. This is a leading case on the subject of malpractice, and
the writer has made frequent annotations therefrom.

t 47 New York, 186, % Bishop.

772 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

removing more than lie did of the amputated limb. Such a verdict is
tantamount to saying that the physician ought to have known better
what course to pursue, and was therefore guilty of ignorance, on which
ground it would, perhaps, have been better to base the verdict than
on an error of judgment.

Fortunately for the profession, there are some limitations upon its
liability. Ordinarily the physician is supposed to possess a famil-
iarity with the characteristics of the dominant disease. As it has been
summed up : " His diligence and care will be exercised in watching
for and guarding against the numerous accidental influences which, if
overlooked, may delay or even prevent the restoration of the patient,
such as latent predisposition to certain diseases ; a lack of vital or re-
cuperative power in the patient ; the effects of melancholy and of
other passions of the mind ; the effect of the want of pure air and
good food ; of careful attendance and nursing ; the neglect of the
patient to follow the physician's advice, or to take the medicines which
he prescribes."

A surgeon once, in a case of dislocation of the elbow-joint, replaced
the bones and put the arm on a pillow ; with the part below the joint at
a right angle with that above it, and directed the application of cold
water, but omitted to give warning that the arm must remain in
that position. Assuming for the moment that such treatment was
enough, the Court declared such omission to be culpable negligence
on his part. Had he, however, performed his task skillfully, omit-
ting nothing, and then the patient had neglected to comply with his
directions, the surgeon's liability would have been limited. For in
the case of the sane it is the patient's duty to cooperate with the phy-
sician or surgeon, and conform to necessary prescriptions. If he will
not, or under pain can not, his negligence is his wrong or misfortune,
for which his physician is not responsible.*

If the patient's neglect to obey the reasonable instructions of his
medical attendant, contributes to the injury complained of in an ac-
tion for malpractice, he can not recover. f Contributory negligence is
a good defense, and in this respect the patient is " on all-fours " with
the man who is run over while walking on a railroad-track without au-
thority. Neither can recover. While there may have been negligence
on the part of the engineer or the doctor, yet, the pedestrian and the
patient being equally at fault, no recovery can be had. But, if the
patient has neglected to use necessary precautions, because lulled into
a sense of security by the doctor, the doctor will be liable. A refusal,
however, on the part of the patient, to prevent an attempt to remedy
the injury already caused by malpractice, does not necessarily preclude
a recovery, if the refusal was made without reasonable assurance that
the attempt would be successful.^ And it would seem that refusal,

* 22 Pennsylvania Statutes, 2G1, 1 Phil., 138.

t 25 Ohio Statutes, 86. % 68 Pennsylvania Statutes, 168.

SOME NOTES ON A DOCTOR'S LIABILITY. 773

even after assurances of success, would be just and proper. What
weight have assurances from a negligent physician ? Is there any
reason to suppose that, after having broken his implied contract for
care and skill, he is in any better condition to observe his express one ?
But, if the physician guarantees a successful issue out of the trouble,
he will be held responsible in case of failure to effect a cure, although,
ordinarily, he would not be liable if he had employed such care and
skill as were above spoken of.

The discussion of this question of responsibility opens up the an-
cillary and possibly more interesting one, how far can the physician
or surgeon deviate from the established rules of practice without be-
ing charged with negligence in case of an injury to the patient arising
from such deviation ?

An English judge says, " Any deviation renders him liable." * This
is rather severe, and, if practically applied, would effectually bar prog-
ress in the practice of physic and surgery. Every practitioner would
be as antiquated as a Galen or Hippocrates, and the sick and diseased
would lose all the benefits and improvements which the experience of
years and the researches of science furnish. The rule works a hardship.
In striving for protection, it causes deprivation. American authori-
ties introduce a modification. If it is shown that physicians or sur-
geons have applied a different system of treatment and found it to
succeed as well as or better than the one prescribed, it is not negligence,
so says a New York judge, to resort to the system thus practically test-
ed. In other words, one can not become an experimentalist, except
at his peril. If a writer on treatment, or, in the absence of such au-
thority, practical surgeons prescribe certain grooves, in those grooves
he must run. But, if others have previously taken the risk and been
successful in a new line of treatment, it may be followed with impu-
nity, and will shield the practitioner from the charge of malpractice,
provided that the cases in which it Avas tested were substantially the
same as those treated of by the writer or by the practical surgeons,
and provided the treatment thus resorted to has been successful to
such an extent as to leave no doubt as to the propriety and safety of
adopting it. If the case is a new one, the patient must trust to the
skill and experience of the j^hysician he calls in. So also must he,
when the injury or disease is attended with injury to other parts, or
other diseases have developed themselves, for which there is no estab-
lished mode of treatment. There can not but be some cases when
latitude must be allowed the physician in the application of remedies.
But, when the diagnosis reveals a disease for which there is a well-
established method of treatment, the practitioner departs from it at
his risk.

This rule is for the best welfare of the community. It protects
against reckless experimenting, while it permits the adoption of such

* 2 Espinasse, N. P., 601.

774 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

changes as have been thoroughly tested and their benefits demon-
strated. It is also quite in harmony with the spirit of the profession,
which may, perhaps, in the phraseology of the day, be said to be " con-
servative— not too conservative, but just conservative enough."

Men who profess to deal with human life and health adopt radical
changes with cautiousness. Yet the members of no other profession,
probably, are more ready for discussion. Theories are constantly ad-
vanced and — upset. Others are maintained and imperceptibly shaded
off into practice. Galen was an authority for thirteen centuries, when
a revolution of medical ideas took place, and his works were burned
by Paracelsus and his followers. The homoeoj^athic offshoot of what
is known as the regular school of medicine obtained a foothold only
after years of debate and discussion. It is only a few years ago, in
1855, that a judicial decision was necessary to establish the right of a
homoeopath to the title of doctor,* and it is not so very long ago that
an allopath thought he could call a homoeopath a quack with impu-
nity. In a slander suit in which he was a party defendant, the Court,
however, convinced him of his mistake.f

This incident illustrates the disposition of the older school toward
innovations and the vindication by one new branch of practitioners of
its claim to recognition. But, surprising as it may seem, such were
the statutes in force in New York State from 1844 to 1874, that all
other classes of practitioners were equally countenanced by the law.
Allopath, homoeopath, hydropath, or whatever devious path he fol-
lowed, the man who made the practice of physic or surgery a business
was entitled to the name of doctor, and to the protection afforded by
the courts. J

A resume of the statutes which have been passed in the Empire
State regulating the practice of physic and surgery reveals a most curi-
ous struggle against quackery, in which it will be seen that quackery
was for the most part triumphant. About the beginning of this cen-
tury our law-makers undertook a reform in the matter of practice of
physic and surgery, and made it a penal offense to do either without
being duly licensed for the purpose. There being no enactment in
special terms against the recovery of compensation for such unlawful
services, the Legislature, in 1806, passed another statute expressly de-
claring that any person who should commence practice without a
license, after the first day of September next ensuing, should " for ever
thereafter be disqualified from collecting any debt or debts incurred
by such practice." This was a severe blow to " quacks." It was penal
for them to practice, and they had no friend in the Court. Truly, the
way of the transgressor seemed hard. The bonds were carefully ex-
amined and readjusted in 1813. The revision of 1830 contained simi-
lar provisions. The unauthorized practice of physic and surgery was
declared " a misdemeanor punishable by fine or imprisonment, or both."
* 4 E. D. Smith, New York, 1. f 42 New York, 161. % 4 Denio, New York, 60.

SOME NOTES ON A DOCTORS LIABILITY. 775

This provision was short-lived. The work of the lobbyists of the irreg-
ular party began to tell. In April of the same year an act was passed
which made the offense penal instead of criminal, and which also de-
clared that such penal provisions should " not be deemed and taken to
extend to or debar any person from using or applying for the benefit of
any sick person any roots, barks, or herbs, the growth or produce of
the United States." Mark the charming protective air in that statute !
Under a free construction it reads, " However dangerous they may
be, if you only use American roots and products, we don't care what
you do." Quackery was again the upper dog. But the struggle was
not over. Although on top, the other dog had a vicious grip upon
him. The empiric was still unable to recover compensation from de-
linquent patients. He was equal to the emergency, and took his pay
in advance. It took the licensed practitioners four years to make the
next move, which was a feeble one. In 1834 the exemption from the
penalty was confined to such as used the herbs, etc., without fee or
reward. The next year the enactment was blotted out, and the two
parties stood as in 1830. For fourteen years the condition of affairs
remained unchanged, when, in 1841, all criminal and penal laws against
the unlicensed practice of physic and surgery were repealed, as well
as every enactment which prohibited any person from recovering com-
pensation for services as physician or surgeon, whether licensed or not.
One doctor was as good as another in the eye of the law. Quackery
had achieved a complete victory, and was liable only in cases of mal-
practice, or gross ignorance, or immoral conduct in such practice. The
standard of admission to the profession was lower even than it was in
the time of the Christian emperors. At that early day physicians were
required to undergo an examination to prove their competency to per-
form pi-ofessional duties before they were permitted to practice. If
any practiced without a license they were heavily fined.

For thirty years the situation remained unchanged. From 1844 to
1874 no step was taken to purify the system. But, in the latter year,
our legislators awoke. Among other regulations it was declared " a
misdemeanor for any person to practice medicine or surgery in the
State unless authorized so to do by a license or diploma from some
chartered school. State board of medical examiners, or medical soci-
ety," or who should practice it " under cover of a medical diploma
illegally obtained." The punishment was to be a fine of not less than
fifty dollars nor more than two hundred dollars for the first offense,
and for a subsequent offense a fine of not less than one hundred dollars
nor more than five hundred dollars, or imprisonment of not less than
thirty days or both. This was an excellent move, and, supplemented
by the one in 1880, has been fairly effectual in driving out unlicensed
practitioners. The enactment of 1880 provided that no person shall
"" practice physic or surgery within the State unless he is twenty-one
years of age, and either has been heretofore authorized so to do pursu-

'j']6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ant to the laws in force at the time of his authorization, or is hereaf-
ter authorized so to do," either by a license from the regents of the
University of the State of New York, a diploma of an incorporated
medical college within the State, or a diploma of a similar institution
without the State, provided it be endorsed as approved by some proper
medical faculty of the State. But every physician and surgeon, with
the exception of practitioners of ten years' standing and a few others,
must register in the office of the clerk of the county where he is prac-
ticing, or, if hereafter authorized, intends to practice, his name, resi-
dence, and place of birth, together with his authority to practice, to
all of which he must subscribe. He must also make affidavit as to the
manner of his license or authority, the date of the same and by whom
granted, which, if willfully false, shall subject the affiant to conviction
and punishment for perjury. Any one who violates either of these
provisions or the one in regard to practicing, or who shall practice
under cover of a diploma illegally obtained, shall be deemed to be guilty
of a misdemeanor, and on conviction shall be punished in a similar man-
ner to that provided in 1874.

Such is the law at present in New York State. Much has been
accomi^lished, but something yet remains to be done. There are weak
points in the laws, noticeably the exemption from the operations of
the act of 1880 of ten-year practitioners. While this may have been
inserted to save reputable men from unnecessary trouble, does it not
also leave a foothold for a disreputable class of an equally long stand-
ing ? It is true, the law of 1874 is in force, declaring unlicensed prac-
tice to be a misdemeanor ; but its inefficiency in meeting the evil neces-
sitated the move of 1880.

The profession, however, is in a fair way to be purged of most that
is foul in it. Perfection is not a mortal attainment. Let the commu-
nity, then, be thankful for its present measure of protection. Against
" quacks " our Legislatui*es are working. For malpractice the courts
furnish redress.

ORIGIN AND STRUCTURE OF YOLCANIC CONES.

By II. J. JOHNSTON-LA VIS, F. G. S.

OUR general ideas of its appearance, if we have never seen a
volcano, differ considerably from what we find when actually
brought in contact with one.

We always have the tendency to associate a mountain as the site
of volcanic outbursts. Such is the case in general rule, though with
many exceptions. In fact, the variations are so great that in many
cases we should be inclined to attribute the extreme forms to totally

ORIGIN AND STRUCTURE OF VOLCANIC CONES, jjj

different origins, were there not existing intermediate ones which de-
monstrate that they are all varied modifications of one almost uniform
series of physical effects.

Thus to one looking first at the vast volcanic cone of Cotopaxi,
almost perfect in form, and comparing it with the ring-like cavity of
Astroni in the Phlegrean field, it would be almost incomprehensible
to believe that these two extremes are the result of identical forces
acting much in the same manner and producing such widely different
effects. But in the latter district we have not to travel far to find
other vents that act as interpreters in explaining these variations of
forms. In the present pa2:)er it will be my endeavor to explain the
building up of what we Avill call a normal volcanic cone, and then
afterward to point out the extreme variations to which such a mass
is liable.

Given a large volume of heated vapors and liquid rock that has
burst its way upward through the subjacent strata, in what way will
it manifest its presence, and what traces will it leave behind ? This
vapor does not seem to exist separately from the molten rock or lava
at any great depth, but as it approaches the surface the enormous
pressure is reduced, the water and other gaseous matter expand,
separate themselves into little bubbles scattered through the highly
heated liquid magma. These will collect, to a certain extent, and
from their lightness will float to the surface of the lava and there
burst. The vapor may have commenced to form at great depths, and
in its upward journey have become exceedingly bulky, so when it
reaches the surface it would escape with a loud explosion. If we
watch lava in the crater of a volcano in a quiescent state, such as
Vesuvius, we see these great bubbles, so to speak, continually form-
ing and bursting. As they burst, the surface of the vesicle is blown
up as soft, pasty fragments, to the height of many feet. These masses
appear black by day, but red-hot by night ; they may cool or not,
before falling ; if the latter, when they strike the ground, they adapt
themselves to the irregularities of the surface, and form, as it were, a
cast thereof. This condition is much exaggerated at the first outbreak
of an eruption ; the vast column of fragments often reaches an altitude
of two and three thousand feet. There the pieces ascending meet
those descending, and so there is a continual grinding going on be-
tween them ; the fine dust is taken by the wind and transported often
many miles, forming the so-called clouds of volcanic ash. The larger
fragments (or Icqnlli, as they are named) may again fall back into the
opening or around its edge, thus building up an annular bank. This
is really the foundation of the cone.

If we speculate for a moment on the formation of such a heap, we
shall see that the first strata deposited will be horizontal, but some-
what thicker toward the axis of explosions. (See D, diagram.) This,
however, as the action continues, will begin to arrange itself in a

11'^

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

direction slanting away from the axis, until the beds reach the maxi-
mum angle of repose of the rock-fragments in question as the beds
(D D) on diagram. Thus we have constructed a conical mass in the
center of which is the volcanic chimney (B), and, dipping away on all
sides at angles, varying generally between 20° and 45°, we find the
strata composing the cone (D, E). This arrangement is often called

S " a>
t. S OS

c g^a
^So

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>. S <o

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&.

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,KI

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periclinal. The funnel, or chimney, which has been mentioned as
occupying the center, has the form of an inverted cone, the inclination
of its sides and its diameter necessarily being proportional to the vol-
ume and force of the escape of vapor, and also to the nature, form,
and size of the surrounding fragments, forming the growing cone,
which have already been ejected. The upper, or basin part, is techni-
cally called the crater. The vapor only may have made its appear-

ORIGIN AND STRUCTURE OF VOLCANIC CONES. 779

ance at the surface, and in fact may have parted company with the
lava at very considerable dei3ths.

Or the latter may have been forced up almost simultaneously with
the vapor, and poured out over the edge of the primitive cone. This,
however, is not the general rule, for an escape of much gaseous ma-
terial nearly always precedes for a variable period the appearance of
the lava. In fact, when a volcanic outburst has forced a convenient
passage for the vapor, the exit of liquid rock seems of secondary im-
portance, for generally the terrific explosions, earthquakes, and sub-
terranean thunder that accompany the first stage of eruption are more
or less absent, or at least much diminished during the welling up of
the fluid rock. If, as in the latter case, a cone of some considerable
size has been formed, the lava will rise and occupy the whole of the
crater-cavity. Two things may happen : If the cone which now
forms, as it were, an embankment around the lava is of suflicient
strength to withstand the pressure of the fluid mass contained within
it and the continual explosive vibrations, the liquid rock pours out
over the edge of the crater down the side of the cone, and may con-
tinue its course for variable distances from its starting-point ; or if,
on the other hand, the cone is too weak to support the strain, it may
break away and give free passage to the lava through the breach.
This condition is well illustrated in many of the Puys of central
France. There is another series of events, that is to say, the forma-
tion of dikes, about which we shall have more to say anon.

The lava may form a series of little streams over the cone sides,
changing their situation according to the point at which the crater is
lowest. Here it will cool, forming a buttress of rock on the slopes of
the cone. These masses will be covered again by lajnlli, other but-
tresses formed in the same manner, and thus the cone built up higher
and made stronger. If we see it in section, as in the diagram, it will
present a stratification of alternate beds of rock and cinders. This,
however, is misleading. The lava-streams do not form a continuous
sheet surrounding the cone — see diagram, where they are seen cut
through in transverse section. When a mountain of some height has
been formed, it then becomes liable to fractui'ing, and the formation
of so-called volcanic dikes. Mr. Mallet, in a communication to the
Geological Society,* thoroughly explained this condition of things.
As we have seen, the cone may form an embankment around the
column of lava occupying the chimney and crater, consequently there
is an enormous pressure put upon the supporting wall of loose mate-
rial. Let us begin by taking the pressure of a column of water
thirty-two feet high, then let us say another four thousand feet,
roughly the altitude of Vesuvius, and compare that with a column of
molten lava, whose specific gravity is two or three times that of water.
This would be an interesting calculation: given the sj^ecific gravity of

*■ " Proc. Geol. Soc," London, vol. xxxii, part iv, p. 4*78.

78o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Etnean lava, the height of the crater, what is the unit of pressure at
the sea-level?

The outward pressure of the lava will increase in proportion to the
depth. Also the cone wall necessarily increases in thickness from
above downward. This, therefore, tends to counteract the augmenta-
tion of pressure from within. Nevertheless, Avhen this is so great
inside that the inner layer of the chimney must necessarily be com-
pressed outward, and therefore the circumference made larger, the
consequence is that at one point it begins to yield, forming the com-
mencement of a perpendicular fissure, radiating from the central axis,
and, by the same course of circumstances, this will gradually spread
outward. Mr. Mallet,* in his paper describing these mechanical
effects, aptly compares them to the bursting of a gun where the
greatest strain is on the inner lining, and consequently the fissure
commences in this and radiates outward. In a volcano, as the fissure
is formed, it is immediately occupied by the fluid lava. If the frac-
ture extends far enough it may reach the surface, where it may form
one or more parasitic cones. By the explosion of vapor from the lava,
these cones are generally formed in a row, radiating from the moun-
tain axis, and in a step-like arrangement. This is attributed to the
fact that, as the lava and vapor escape, the former reaches a lower
level, and here forms the second, third, fourth, and so on in succession.
This was well illustrated in 1861 at Vesuvius, where seven such hol-
low mounds were formed, the first being the largest, and gradually
diminishing downward, as the igneous forces became exhausted. The
pressure of the contained fluids may be so great that the entire side
of the mountain may be rent asunder with the rapid escape of the
contained lava, thus forming a breached cone. In the above-men-
tioned paper,! in fact, it is supposed by the author that all such have
originated in this manner. A third condition of things may be
brought about : this fissure may only extend a certain distance from
the chimney, never showing itself superficially, and the lava occupy-
ing the fissure will gradually become cooled and consolidated, forming
a perpendicular sheet of rock or dike, as it is called, radiating from
the mountain axis. These are well illustrated in the Val de Bove
of Etna and the escarpment of Monte Somma. In the former,J Sir
Charles Lyell adopted the plan of endeavoring to find -the orientation
or point of convergence of these dikes, to localize the site of the old
crater supposed to have produced this curious cavity. This was fol-
lowed by the untiring work of Mr. Mallet in the latter locality, to
determine where the axis of Somma should be placed. In the latter
case twenty-seven of the largest were chosen, but, when their direc-
tions were taken by a careful survey, they were found not to converge
at one point, but in some there were discrepancies of upward of two

* " Proc. Geol. Soc," London, vol. xxxii, p. 478. f Ibid., vol. xxxiii. p. 740.

X Sir C. Lyell, " Lavas of Mount Etna," " Phil. Trans.," 1858.

ORIGIN AND STRUCTURE OF VOLCANIC CONES. 781

kilometres between the points of melting. This -we can well under-
stand when we know how irregulai'ly the cone is constructed, and how
buried coulees of lava may derange the direction of the fracture, such
as we exaggerately see illustrated in some old denuded trap dikes,
threading their way along planes of least resistance. There is another
source of error — that is, that so little of the j^rojecting edge of the
dike is exposed to accurately take its strike, thus rendering us unable
to determine by this means the locality of an old volcanic axis.

If we look at the figure, at the surface C C" of the subjacent
rock, we observe it forms a wave-like line in section. It is again to
Mr. Mallet * that credit is due for the explanation of this somewhat
anomalous appearance. It is known that the ground under high tow-
ers and other heavy structures is gradually compressed by the immense
superincumbent weight. At the same time a corresponding elevation
takes place around the base of the structure. This is just what occurs
in a volcanic mountain. The immense pressure of superposed mate-
rial compresses, to a variable degree, the subjacent rock, according to
its yielding power. This will be greatest where the column of materi-
als is highest, that is to say, exactly under the crater edge as at C\ in
the diagram. This causes a corresponding rim-like elevation around
the base, or at the toe of the cone as at C", in the diagram.

The materials which go to form the cone are the subjects of our
next consideration.

Taking as our standpoint the old but useful division of lavas into
basaltic or basic, and trachytic or acidic, let us look at the characters
presented by these two great classes of rocks. Basalt and its con-
geners are generally heavy, compact, dark-colored, more or less crys-
talline. Very rarely vitreous in structure, and only in email patches.
Excessively fluid in the molten state, losing heat and fluidity slowly,
and then passing rapidly from the liquid to the solid state, the liquid
fragments of which, when ejected from the crater, generally fall still
plastic, and, when cold, form an excessively ragged, hard, angular mass.
The surface or scoria of the lava-stream also is hard, and not easily
broken, the main mass itself being very apt to form the well-known
columnar structure. On the other hand, the trachytic or acidic lavas,
when molten, are very viscid, which condition increases rapidly as it
loses its heat, so that it flows very short distances, often stopping mid-
way down the steep side of the cone, as in the island of Vulcano, or
forming a large, boss-shaped mass around the vent.f When cooled
slowly it crystallizes, but it is much more liable to form a vitreous mass
or obsidian than the basaltic rocks, resulting probably from its high
percentage of silica. In fact, it behaves very much like glass or slag
in its physical transformations. As on the surface of the glass pot is

* R. Mallet, F. R. S. : " Hitherto Unnoticeci Circumstances affecting the Piling up of
Volcanic Cones " (" Proc. Geol. Soc," London, p. 740).
t P. Scrope, F. R. S., "Volcanoes," 1862.

782 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

formed a frothy-like mass which cools as a light, spongy, vesicular ma-
terial, so by the explosions from a trachytic volcano, similar masses
are formed and thrown out, well known as the useful pumice-stone.
This variety of lava produces often a very ragged surface, much less
durable to mechanical agents than that of the other class. Again,
it is very light, often more so than water. These differences, of
course, merge into one another, lavas often occurring that are not
easy to classify ; but for our purposes the extremes are more suitable
of illustration. Also, the same volcano may at different periods
have yielded successively each of the varieties of igneous matter.
Vesuvius, for instance, has ejected materials of each of the classes,
and many distinct varieties of the basic. Obviously the discordance of
these physical characters must necessarily produce considerable dis-
tinction in the physical conformation of a volcanic region in general,
and of the cone in particular. It may be our want of a thorough ex-
amination, but it is apparently the rule that dikes are much less com-
mon among the trachytic volcanoes than the basaltic, whereas, appar-
ently the largest number of breached cones belong to the former, thus
contradicting to some small extent Mr. Mallet's * dike theory already
referred to. Thus we see that all the solids so far derived from a vol-
cano, lava, scoria, lapilli, ash, etc., are all mechanical modifications of
the one molten rock. There is, however, another important factor of
which we have not spoken, the so-called ejected blocks. These are
nothing more than fragments of the solid rock walls of the volcanic
chimney or vent. They, therefore, vary according to the rock through
which the igneous outburst has occurred. Thus we find among the
constituents of the Yesuvian slopes a great variety of such blocks,
among which the beautiful minerals yielded by Somma are found.
These may be roughly divided into three classes :

1. Limestone variously metamorphosed, derived from that like Cas-
tellamare, which dips under and forms the Vesuvian platform. These
fragments are sometimes so altered, by the intense heat, pressure, and
chemical action to which they have been subjected, that it is only by
studying the intermediate varieties that their origin can be detected.
It is these blocks that are richest in the Vesuvian minerals.

2. Calcareous mudstones containing late pleistocene fossils, these
being in a very perfect condition, containing generally a great number
of well-preserved leaves. This rock is curious, as being of apparently
(though not real) volcanic origin, and containing marine fossils with-
out submergence.

3. Trachytic and corresponding tufa, also basaltic tufa. These are
also masses of highly micaceous feldspathic rocks, that probably are
nothing more than the excessive metamorphosed condition of the first
class. — Science Gossip.

* " Proc. Geol. Soc," London, vol. xxxii, p. 478.

MAN AND THE VERTEBRATE SERIES. 783

MAN AND THE YEETEBRATE SERIES.

By CHAELES MOEKIS.

MAN stands as a connecting link between two worlds — the world
of matter and that of mind. He forms the apex of the devel-
opment of matter, the loftiest effort of evolution in substance. Mind,
it is true, has its foundation in the regions of life below him, but all its
superstructure — the towering arches and lofty pinnacles of the ideal —
rests upon the human intellect. Man thus forms the gateway which
Nature has placed between her two vast kingdoms of substance and
thought, and in the human brain these two realms meet and merge,
energy flowering into intellect, substance into soul.

But is the human form the true culmination of the development of
matter ? Has Nature really reached in man her acme in this direction ?
A deductive philosopher would perhaps answer this question in the
affirmative, on the theory that Nature would not stop short of the most
completely developed physical form, as the starting-point of mental
evolution. He might claim that a perfect soul could only arise in a
perfect body, and that, as Nature is striving toward perfection, she
must lay all her foundations at the highest possible point.

But inductive science starts with no theories. It builds its theories

out of facts, not its facts out of theories, and follows Nature upward

from her roots, not downward from her branches. What, then, do

the facts of Nature say as to the question of animal evolution? Is

' man truly the paragon of animals ?

Unfortunately, this question opens before us a field of investigation
too broad for consideration in a single article. We have already seen
that Nature has exposed organic forms to an almost unlimited variety
of conditions, during the long geologic ages, and has probably tried
every line of development of which organic life is susceptible. By a
close review of the various animal types, their advantages and defi-
ciencies have been traced, and we think it has been shown that the
vertebrate type is the one suited to the highest evolution, and the
one toward which all the lower forms tend in their highest representa-
tives.*

For a complete review of organic form development the plant
types should also be considered, but we must confine ourselves in this
article to a consideration of the vertebrate type of animals alone.

And first, What are the causes, what the modes, what the laws, of
evolution ? What features in one animal constitute superiority to
another animal ? These questions we shall but briefly answer. There
are certain requirements absolutely necessary to the continuance of

* " Evolution of Organic Form." " Popular Science Monthly," November, 1880.

784 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

animal life. One of these is a sufficient supply of food ; a second, a
sufficiency of oxygen ; a third, proper nutritive and excretory organs ;
a fourth, projier reproductive powers.

The first and fourth are of most importance in this connection, for
they are in constant conflict with each other. The quantity of availa-
ble food is far more limited than are the possibilities of animal increase.
Necessarily, then, the latter is restricted by the former. A crowding-
out process ensues, and only those best adapted to obtain food survive.

But an equally necessary result is an adaptation to new sources of
food, one of whose earliest consequences is the production of carnivo-
rous animals. Thus the crowding-out process becomes, in part, an
eating-out process. The animals thus exposed to destruction would
necessarily be at a marked disadvantage in the race for life, were not
some protection provided them. For safety they need weapons of
defense or means of escape. It all comes to this, then, that the strong.
est, swiftest, best-armed, and most alert animals will survive, these
qualities enabling herbivora to escape their foes, carnivora to over-
come their prey.

But there are two ways in which this survival may be attained :
one by adaptation to a few simple conditions ; the other by adaptation
to many and complex conditions. The wider the scope of adaptation
in an animal, the greater is its functional complexity, and the higher
its organic position, as compared with the more simplified tribes.

Still another requisite of the utmost importance is the principle of
division of labor. No organ can do two distinct things equally well.
If forced to perform two or more labors, there must be a degree of
imperfection in its work, or its ability in each direction must be greatly
limited. Therefore evolution is in the direction of separation of labor,
each organ tending to become confined to one kind of work, to which
alone it becomes adapted, but in which it j)roduces better and wider
results.

Seeking, then, for the features likely to distinguish the most highly
developed animal, we may safely say that they will appear in that ani-
mal exposed to the most complex conditions, adapted to the greatest
variety of food, possessed of the most fully specialized organs, capa-
ble of using its innate forces to the best advantage, and commencing
its individual existence with the best start in life.

With this preliminary we may proceed to a closer investigation.
Vertebrate animals occupy every kingdom of nature — the sea, the land,
and the air — but not under equally advantageous conditions. The in-
habitants of the sea, for instance, are exposed to decided disadvan-
tages, and lack certain iinportant incentives to development. Their
vital activity is necessarily much below that of land-animals, from the
limited quantity of oxygen obtainable by w^ater-breathers as com-
pared with air-breathers. Their sensory acuteness, also, is less devel-
oped. Light comes to them dimmed, sound comes to them dulled, the

MAN AND THE VERTEBRATE SERIES. 785

water which surrounds their food must blunt the senses of taste and
smell, and there is little besides water contact to develop touch.

Also the conditions surrounding attack and escape are here
greatly simplified. The water presents no lurking-places, no am-
bush, except to the inactive dwellers upon the sea-bottom. And, by
relieving its inhabitants from the effects of gravitation, it renders
rapid motion easy, with slight muscular exertion. Thus the easiest,
most natural, and most effective means of assault and defense is by
swift powers of swimming.

The same principle holds good in the case of the dwellers of the
air. There is here no lying in wait for prey nor hiding from assault.
Flight is the most effective and most ready means of attack and es-
cape, and the only one available in the fields of open air. Thus purely
water and purely air animals fail to develop a variety of resources in
this particular.

Moreover, as fish are at a disadvantage from their imperfect oxida-
tion, so are birds at a disadvantage from the effects of gravitation.
The weight of fishes is almost or entirely supported ; that of land-
animals partly supported ; that of birds almost unsupported. Gravita-
tion in them, then, must be mainly overcome by muscular exertion.
Thus a large proportion of their life-force is exhausted by the effort
to sustain themselves against the constant downward pull of gravity.
This places them at a disadvantage with animals capable of using their
forces for more varied pui'poses.

Indeed, we find, both in fishes and in birds, a tendency to avail
themselves to some extent of the advantages which the land-surface
gives. And those that most display this tendency comprise the spe-
cies of most varied resources, and with the greatest degree of func-
tional adaptation. Many species of birds, in fact, have found safety
so much more assured on the land, that they have lost, first their in-
stinct, and then, in some cases, their power of flight, and have become,
virtually, sm-face-animals.

We may descend to the invertebrate world for one marked in-
stance of this. The ants are acknowledged to be the highest of all
insects in functional development. Their eyes, for instance, are more
simplified than those of other insects ; and, if we class mental attri-
butes as nerve-functions, their claim is indisputable. Yet they have
forsaken the air and taken to the earth in preference, the females cast-
ing off their wings as if in scorn, after a temporary use of them.

Of all the fields of life for the varied display and functional sepa-
ration of the animal forces, we are thus brought to the land-surface as
obviously the best. Here an abundant supply of oxygen assures vital
activity ; the firm ground largely supports the weight, and releases
the muscular powers for employment in other directions ; the abun-
dance and variety of vegetable food sustains vast numbers of animals ;
the great diversity of conditions causes wide sj)ecific variation ; while
TOL. xvnr. — 50

786 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the simplification of modes of assault and defense in water and
air is replaced here by the most varied motions, such as creeping,
running, leaping, climbing, etc., by a diversity of ambushes and hid-
ing-places, and by the necessary adaptation of carnivora to numerous
modes of attack, and of herbivora to as numerous modes of escape.

In fact, the specific variations in birds spring from their relations
to the surface. Hei'e, as a rule, they seek their food. Here their
mental powers arise. Here they develop other functions than flight,
other organs than wing-muscles. And it may be that the variations
in the fish type spring principally, in like manner, from their relations
to the sea-bottom, and the adaptations of carnivorous fish to the
powers of escape of forms thus varied.

Thus in the process of animal evolution we reach the dwellers upon
the land as the most developed, and the best situated for further
development. Those land-animals that retreat to the other fields of
life retrograde in consequence. The whales have gone back in their
functional development until, in many points, they are affiliated with
the fish. The bats have sunk toward the bird-level. So the lowest in
function of land-animals are those which retain close affinities with
the air and water life of their ancestors, or have but lately migrated
to the land. The wingless birds are low in mind and in animal func-
tion. The amphibia rest at the lowest level of land-animals. The rep-
tiles are but a step above them.

In the latter class, it is true, there are many which have long
broken loose from all connection with a water habitation. Most
notable among these are the serpents. But the latter, from their
habit of seeking safety in concealment alone, have retrograded func-
tionally, their limbs disappearing, and their bodies being extended
prone upon the earth. This location, w^hile an undoubted advantage
as affording concealment, is a disadvantage in development. The
prone condition of the serpent has caused its limbs to disappear, as
useless. Its ribs have taken the place of limbs, and the body has
extended in length sufficiently to increase the number of these imper-
fect limbs, and thus render them more available for motion. Its sen-
sory organs have necessarily become less acute from the disadvantages
of position. Gravitation is largely overcome, by the full support of
the body upon the earth. But it is replaced by a friction which is
equally disadvantageous.

Thus, if we would seek the type of land-animal most likely to
develop functionally and mentally, we must look in an opposite direc-
tion to that taken by the serpent. The protection that is gained by
concealment is a retrograde form. The animals that advance most
rapidly are those that are least protected, either by powers of conceal-
ment, of flight, or of muscular vigor.

For what does development mean, in its true sense, but extended
experience of nature ? The greater and more varied the experiences

MAN AND THE VERTEBRATE SERIES. y^j

attained by any animal, the best suited it is to cope with nature. And
if this variety of experiences extend through the life of a species, it
becomes adapted to escape from more varied descriptions of peril and
to obtain food in greater variety and quantity.

Thus, in seeking the form of animal most fairly planted in the
path of true development, we must look for one capable of attaining
to wide experience of nature, and adapted to evade perilous or to take
advantao-e of beneficial conditions of the most diverse character.

These considerations lead us to a conception of the description of
animal most likely to appear as a development from the low amphibian
and reptilian forms. It must have sensory organs acutely adapted to
all of Nature's most active forces, as light, heat, sound, and contact
in its several kinds. It must be elevated above the surface sufficiently
to give it the widest range of vision and hearing, these most impor-
tant of the perceptive powers being specially active at the highest ele-
vation of the body. It must rest upon the earth in such a way as to re-
duce friction to a minimum, so far as is consistent with proper support ;
and its powers of flight, of concealment, and of physical strength,
must be sufficiently reduced to force it to seek other sources of safety,
to adapt its organs to more varied functions, and to develop new fea-
tures of mental activity.

What will be the form and the conditions of exposure to and
defense from danger, of this most highly developed animal, adapted
to gain the widest experiences, and to the greatest organic division of
labor? It must, of necessity, display in its evolution every interme-
diate gradation of form upward, from that of the lowest vertebrate.
Its form must be founded upon that natural to the fish.

Now, the fish naturally and inevitably assumes the horizontal pos-
ture from the requirements of its mode of life. It has developed
fins as organs of movements. The fin is, in fact, as closely adapted to
the fish-form as the oar is to the boat-form. The vertebral fins are
reduced in number to four. There is a decided advantage in this
reduction, in the saving of muscular exertion needed to move the fin,
and also of the weight of extra muscles and fins. But a smaller
number than four would be a disadvantage in the varied movements
requisite to safety.

The fish-body is necessarily narrow and long, so as best to avoid
friction. For its most effective movement it must be properly bal-
anced, its two sides being alike in form and equal in weight. This
produces bilateral symmetry of form, and perhaps also of organs,
equal weight being most easily and completely attained by a repro-
duction of organs on the opposite sides of the body, but flexibility and
full control of such a long, narrow body could not be gained except by
a separate power of motion at each extremity and at each side. There-
fore adaptation tends to produce in it four fins, and four only — an an-
terior and a posterior one on each side.

788 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The fish-form governs that of the amjihibian and of the reptile.
The fins become limbs, which are variously modified. In some am-
phibians, as in the frog, the limbs become different in functions, the
hind-limbs being adapted to a leaping motion, the fore-limbs to sup-
j^ort, A differentiation of another kind takes place, eventually, in
the reptile stock, the fore-limbs becoming organs of aerial support.
They become wings, and we obtain the bird type, with fore-limbs
adapted to aerial, hind-limbs to solid support.

These, however, are but aberrations from the general path of de-
velopment, which is toward a continuance of the horizontal position of
the fish-body : the fins become four similar supporting limbs.

Adaptation from this point takes one general direction, that of the
reduction of weight to the lowest point consistent with the proper ex-
ercise of the nutritive functions, and the requisite strength of bone and
vigor of muscle. The general shape attained by the body is governed
by several mutually assisting or opjDosing functions. The require-
ment of speed needs that it shall be narrow and long, so as best to
avoid the resistance of the aii\ But too great elongation would be a
disadvantage, since the mid regions of the body would remain with-
out support by the limbs, and could only sustain themselves by muscles
acting to ojipose gravity. These muscles would add to the weight,
and would form additional consumers of force. The best form of the
body, then, is one sufficiently narrowed to partly avoid aerial resistance,
but not so elongated as to diminish its proper support upon the limbs.
The chief aberrations from these requirements are those of the prone
serpents, and, among mammals, of the weasel family, whose mode of
life requires a very narrow body, so that digestive space can only be
gained by its elongation. We may return here to the serpents to say
that their elongation is probably due in great part to the same cause.
Their mode of concealment and of motion requires great narrowness
of body, so that space for the nutritive functions can only be gained
by elongation. The requirement of narrowness is, in fact, so great
that there is not sufficient room for the larger organs to be bilater-
ally reproduced, therefore respiration is confined to a single lung, the
other being atrophied.

But, with a comparatively few exceptions, caused by highly special-
ized life-habits, the land vertebrates possess the general form requisite
for the fullest adaptation to these three conditions — that of reduced
resistance to motion, proper support, and the necessary room for the
exercise of the nutritive functions.

The weight of the body is reduced to the lowest possible limit con-
sistent with its general size and the exercise of its functions. The
limbs, for instance, take no part in the nutritive function, and are
reduced in size to the weight of bone requisite for support and of
muscle necessary to move the body. The head is just large enough
to hold the brain, the organs of special sense, and the mouth with its

MAN AND THE VERTEBRATE SERIES. 789

organs. The neck is narrowed to a mere covering to the oesophagus,
the vertebrae, and the muscles of head-support. Its necessary flexibility
is one reason for this, but the cutting off of extra weight wherever it
can be spared is another.

Thus, as a general result of these evolutionary principles, we obtain
a body of horizontal shape, supported upon four limbs, and reduced
in weight and in elongation so as to give it the best possible control
of its motions, and the greatest agility consistent with its necessary
gravity.

The necessity of quick knowledge of danger and of ready escape
from it have had other equally important results. The organs of sight
and hearing has been placed at an elevated point, so as best to per-
ceive distant danger, while the limbs of the herbivora have also elon-
gated so as to lift the body to a wider outlook. This elongation of
the limbs is also an important adjunct to rapid flight, so that there are
two forces at work upon its development.

In the carnivora, on the contrary, the crouching, springing habits
have tended to shorten the limbs, and to adapt them to vigorous leaps
instead of to rapid running movements ; to a life in ambush instead
of to a life in action.

But the particular features of the body of the land vertebrate are
as closely a result of natural requisites as are its general features. It
forms, in a large sense, a digesting and assimilating machine, the force
derived from assimilated food being largely applied to the muscular
and nervous functions needful to obtain new food, or to avoid danger.
Another portion of this force is applied to excretory and reproductive
functions. That is all. There is none of the human employment of
force in abstract mental conception. All mentality in undoraesticated
animals is employed in the art of self-preservation.

The organs arise as direct consequences of these necessities. We
may view them as partly governed in position and character by their
descent from the fish type ; yet such a controlling agency hardly
appears, so exactly are the various organs adapted to the life-needs
of land-animals.

The digestive function is alike in all animals, and its evolution has
ever been in one line, namely, a division of labor so as to secure more
perfected results. In the mammalia this separation seems complete.
From the masticating teeth to the salivary solvents, the stomach and in-
testinal digestions, and the intestinal absorption, every distinct portion
of the process has gained its separate organ, adapted only to that one
duty. The ensuing circulation is similarly specialized, being divided
into the blood and the lymphatic circulations, the latter taking up
normally the products of digestion and the nutritive products of the
waste of the tissues ; the former applying these to the nutrition of the
tissues.

A third organic requisite is that of oxidation. This has been vari-

790 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ously performed in animals. In primitive life it acts through the outer
skin. In higher forms a portion of this skin becomes adapted to that
purpose, as exterior branchise. In the Ascidise it is performed by the
anterior portion of the intestine. In all vertebrates it is an intestinal
function, the forward portion of the intestinal tube becoming the gill
of the fish. A sac-like ingrowth from the intestine — the swimming-
bladder of the fish — becomes the lung of the air-breather. It eventu-
ally separates into two portions, and adapts itself more perfectly to
a function which it may have partly performed in the fish.

Thus the respiratory function has gradually moved inward to a
position of safety, which is only fully attained in the air-breathers.
Its position in the anterior, instead of in the mid or the posterior por-
tion of the intestine, has another reason besides that of inheritance.
This is its connection with the pulmonary circulation.

In considering the division of labor in the circulation we did not
speak of its separation into two distinct portions, the ni;tritive and
the pulmonary portion. This division of function is partly attained in
fishes and reptiles, fully only in birds and mammals. And the heart,
which serves as a force-pump to drive the blood through the body,
becomes here a double pump, one half driving the blood through the
arteries, the other half driving it to the lungs, there to become
aerated.

The former circulation needs to penetrate the whole body. The
latter can be fully performed with little extension of its blood-vessels.
And in the labor-saving principle of organs, which hinders any excess
of material or of effort, the tendency is to a curtailing of the length of
this pulmonary circulation. Natural selection, therefore, acts to bring
the heart and the lungs into close contiguity.

But there is another reason for the position of the heart in the
anterior portion of the body. Its action as a force-pump renders it an
advantage that it should be placed neai'est the point where it has most
work to perform. Now, the brain receives a much larger percentage
of the blood than any similar portion of the body. More force, then,
must be exerted by the heart in the direction of the head. If it be so
placed that its labor in every direction may be equalized, it should
occupy an anterior position.

In quadrupeds this need becomes still stronger, for the blood going
to the head has to overcome gravity, that going to the body and limbs
is largely aided by gravity. This need is, of course, strongest in man,
in whom the requirements of the brain are the greatest, and in whom
the upward flow is directly against gravity, the downward floAV directly
favored by gravity.* But in all the higher animals the heart, and
therefore the lungs, necessarily occupy an anterior position.

* Very probably, however, the aid which the arterial downflow of the body circula-
tion I'eceives from gravity is balanced by the resistance of gravity to the venous upflow.
And, likewise, in the head circulation the gravitative resistance to the arterial current

MAN AND THE VERTEBRATE SERIES. 791

Protection of the body is, to a certain extent, secured by its being
inclosed in a bony case, the ribs. It may be thought strange that the
advantajje to be derived from this defensive armor is not extended
to the whole body. It very probably would be, were there not some
active influence opposing it. This influence may be, the necessity of
expansion of the ventral surface. Expansion and contraction in the
chest are regular and rhythmical, and are secured by the jointed con-
nection of the ribs with the breastbone. Expansion in the abdomen is
irresrular and at times excessive. Incasement in an inflexible rib-case
would, therefore, prove highly disadvantageous.

Yet no flexible condition can well arise in response to expansions
appearing irregularly and often at long intervals. As the ribs, there-
fore, could not gain, by selective adajDtation, the proper motive rela-
tiojis to these occasional expansions, and as inflexible ribs would be a
disadvantage, abdominal ribs have failed to appear.

The general characteristics of the body being thus necessarily as
we find them, and the position, length, joints, and action of the limbs
being inevitable results of their purpose, as the organs of animal mo-
tion, it remains to trace the origin of the head with its organs.

The head is simply the carrier of the organs of the special senses.
The brain, so far as its secondary action is concerned, might very well
be situated in any other portion of the body, but we think it can be
shown that the location of the eyes governs that of the brain, and that
the head with all its organs is an adjunct of the eyes.

These important organs necessarily occupy the most elevated part
of the body. The outlook is better from this location, and the safety
of the animal is thus more assured. An anterior location is also highly
desirable, as otherwise the forward-moving animal would be in con-
stant peril from obstacles in its path, and would be unable to per-
ceive the prey it was pursuing. Also, as the delicate character and
exposure of the eyes tend to limit their number, the portion of the
body bearing them must be sufliciently flexible to permit vision in all
directions.

All these requirements tend to the production of an anterior, ele-
vated organ mounted on a neck of flexible movement, and as long as
is consistent with easy support of the weight of the head. The ears,
also, are best situated upon this head organ, and in such a position as
to adapt them to catch sound from all dii'ections.

And this position of the eyes and ears necessarily requires the brain,
for its fullest effectiveness, to be likewise situated in the head. For
the greatest safety follows the quickest warning of danger. But, as
is well known, the nerves are slow in their conveyance of sensations.
The animal, therefore, whose eyes and ears are nearest the brain be-

and aid to the venous current are equal. But the fact holds good in all vertebrate ani-
mals, that the quantity of blood to be driven to the brain exceeds that to be driven to
the lower body.

792 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

comes most quickly conscious of peril, and will outlive, as a rule, the
one whose sensations have a longer distance to travel.

It can be easily shown that the mouth and the organs of taste and
smell are as necessarily confined to the head, and that their special
location is closely governed by that of the eyes.

For animals have safety of two kinds to provide for, safety from
foes and safety from food ; external and internal perils. Poisonous or
unwholesome food is quite as necessary to be avoided as dangerous
foes. The animal that is best protected against this peril has the best
chance to survive. So important, indeed, is this necessity, that not
alone the sight and the sense of touch and of temperature are on guard
against injury from such a source, but two organs of sense, smell and
taste, seem specially provided for this purpose alone.

The needful action of the eyes, as food-inspectors for the body,
fixes the position of the mouth at such a distance from them that they
will unavoidably perceive the food. Animals are not likely to volun-
tarily examine their food before eating it. They must be forced to
do so involuntarily. Therefore, the eyes naturally command the en-
trance to the mouth, at the best distance for the most acute vision.

The relative positions of eyes and mouth being thus fixed, those of
the smell and taste organs follow. Odorous emanations arise from
the food significant of its character. The animal becoming most con-
scious of them has the best chance to escape danger. These odors nat-
urally rise upward. The nose, as the organ of smell, is therefore best
situated just above the mouth, and overhanging it, the performance of
its function, as the organ of respiration, causing the respired air to
sweep the lips and draw in the odors arising from the food.

The organ of taste, on the contrary, is best situated on the rear
portion of the tongue, since the food must be masticated by the
teeth, and partly dissolved by the saliva, ere it is in condition to
excite the sense of taste. It must not be placed so far back, how-
ever, as to hinder the rejection of food warned against by the nerves
of taste.

The head of the animal, then, seems necessarily to be just as we
find it, the seat of the special senses and of the brain ; while the rela-
tive location of these sense-organs and of the mouth, the position and
elevation of the head, and the narrowness and flexibility of the neck,
appear to be all necessary adaptations for the most complete protection
of the whole organism.

The mammalian body, then, so far as we have yet seen, appears the
best adapted of animal forms to gain extended and varied experiences
of nature, to become exposed to diversified perils, and to evolve the
most complete division of function. This body, once attained, is closely
adhered to. "While displaying thousands of minor variations, adapt-
ing it to special circumstances, it retains unvaryingly all the general
characteristics mentioned. This close adherence seems to show that

MAN AND THE VERTEBRATE SERIES. 793

its form and organic functions are the best of all adaj^tations attained
by the animal world up to that height.

The mammalia have another advantage which we will but glance
at here. The young of the mammal has a better start in life than that
of any other type of animal. In this direction, also, there has been a
constant development in the process of evolution, the young of lower
animals being born in an embryo state, and needing to consume force
in passing through various degrees of metamorphosis. The young of
the mammal is fed by the mother through all the embryological stages,
this being most fully performed in the highest mammals, so that their
young commence an independent life at a stage to reach which the
young of lower animals consume a considerable portion of their vital
energy.

Yet, with all these advantages, the mammalian quadruped has not
attained the highest position in animal development. It will be very
easy to point out several defects in its organization, which detract
from its powers as a living body. In the first place it only im^^erfectly
overcomes gravity. Shortened as the body is, a considerable part of
its weight is not supported by the limbs, and needs muscular supj^ort.
This increases weight and uses up force. The head also is not directly
supported by the limbs and needs powerful muscular support in the
neck. The need of using the teeth as food-grasping instruments re-
quires a forward extension of the head, instead of a vertical position
over the fore-limbs.

In division of labor it is likewise defective. Thus its limbs have a
double duty to perform — they are used both as organs of motion and
as weapons. The herbivora use their hind-limbs for defense, the car-
nivora use all the limbs as offensive organs. The same may be said
of the teeth. The carnivora use them both as weapons of attack and
as organs of mastication. The herbivora are frequently supplied with
heavy horns as defensive weapons, thus adding to the weight of the
head.

Obviously, then, there are a variety of requirements to be supplied
ere the most completely developed animal form can be attained. In
what direction shall this further development proceed ? How shall
the above-named disadvantages be obviated ? The first steps toward it
are made when mammalian animals begin to differentiate the functions
of their fore and hind limbs. We have noticed some forms of this
differentiation. A more significant form displays itself in those ani-
mals which live in trees. Many of these, it is true, use all the limbs
alike in climbing, and remain true quadrupeds upon the land- surface ;
others, as the monkeys, use the fore-limbs as grasping, the hind-limbs
as supporting organs, and thus begin to separate them in function.

This separation proceeds with extreme slowness. It is only imper-
fectly attained in all existing monkeys and apes. For its complete
attainment the differentiation must proceed to that degree that the

794 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

fore-limbs shall become useful only as grasping, the hind-limbs only
as supporting organs. Necessarily, then, the pelvic joint must gradu-
ally change its direction from a right, angle to a straight line. The
complete result, in fact, is only attained when the hind-limbs and the
body form a vertical line, the function of support being performed
entirely by these limbs, while the fore-limbs are freed for other func-
tions, and so changed as to be specially adapted for grasping.

This desidei'atum is attained in man, and in man only of all the
animal kingdom.

In the human form, then, we find all the advantages possessed by
the mammalia as a class, together with certain important features of
development not possessed by any other mammalian animal. Perhaps
the most important of these is the fact that in man gravitation is over-
come with a less expenditure of muscular force than in any other land-
animal. The whole weight of the body stands vertically above the
organs of support. The muscles which in other animals act as ropes
and levers of support are only called upon in man to preserve his ver-
tical position. Evidently much less force is needed to jjreserve verti-
cal equilibrium than to support horizontal weights.

The head, also, which needs muscular support in quadrupeds, in
man presses directly downward upon the common center of gravity.
And significantly the comj^lete development of the brain tends to per-
fect this vertical position, as it yields a rounded and vertically poised
Lead. The head in man has but one set of duties to perform, sensory
and masticating labors. The hands bring food to it, instead of its hav-
ing to seek food ; therefore it has no need of the horizontal position
and movements found in quadrupeds. Finally, that there shall be no
weight needing muscular support, the fore-limbs hang vertically down-
ward, being sustained by bones and tendons instead of muscles.

Support on the hind-limbs releases the fore-limbs to act as the defen-
sive and offensive organs. For their most complete adaptation to this
function the position of the shoulder-joint (like that of the pelvic joint)
is changed, and the arms become lateral instead of ventral limbs. Fi-
nally, the teeth are released from duty as weapons, and are confined to
their proper duty as masticating organs.

Thus only in man does the organic division of labor become com-
plete, every function having a separate organ adapted to it alone. And
the stores of force are husbanded to a degree not found in any other
land-animal, the weight of the body being supported by bones instead
of muscles, by adjusting instead of lifting energies.

And in regard to reproduction man surpasses all other animals, ex-
cept the highest apes, in division of labor and localization of function.
The young of the human race thus commence life with the best possi-
ble preparation, their vital activity being husbanded so that they enter
upon their individual life-work at perhaps a higher starting-point than
any other animal.

MAN AND THE VERTEBRATE SERIES. 795

In organic differentiation, then, man seems to have readied the
highest possible point. Also, in avoidance of the constant forces of
gravitation and friction, he bas almost achieved perfection.* And he
starts life with the least expenditure of force in embryological devel-
opment. In all these respects he seems to have attained the utmost
height of organic development.

In respect to his adaptation to the other forces of nature — his pow-
ers of sensory pei'ception — he is also in advance of all other animals.
Not only is the division of labor of the animal organs within him — the
nervous, muscular, and osseous systems — complete, but his exterior
sensibility to the impress of force is the most delicate of that of all
animals. This is perhaps not the case in the organs of special sense,
though the position of the human nose, with its nostrils directly over-
hanging the mouth, seems a superior adaptation to its duty in the per-
cejation of odors. But in regard to the sense of touch, not only has
he a superior provision in the tactile organs of the fingers, but the
naked and soft condition of the skin renders it susceptible to contact
in a degree not possessed by any other animals.

Other animals, in fact, are either covered with a dense coat of hair
or feathers for protection from cold, or with a thick leathery or bony
skin as armor against danger. In the development of man alone has
Nature pursued her most elevated path, increasing his susceptibility
to exterior influence, his i^ower of gaining sensible experience of nature,
to the utmost possible degree. This is probably the true explanation
of the naked condition of the human skin. His mode of life has ren-
dered the fullest perception of nature desirable, and adaptation has
consequently taken this direction, removing from his exterior surface
everything opposing the utmost sensibility, and, for the same reason,
hindering any undue thickening or induration of the outer skin.

Such is man — the extreme upward limit of physical progress in
organic nature — the one last step forward which living beings have
taken after their long permanence in the quadrupedal stage. And be-
yond his form no physical progress seems possible, for he fulfills what
we conceive to be Nature's design, viz., to husband force by the fullest
avoidance of gravity and friction, to decrease weight to the lowest
available point consistent with the size and strength necessary to best
adapt him to surrounding conditions, and to produce the utmost sus-
ceptibility to impression of natural force— to attain a form, in fact,
having the greatest excess of available energy, and best adapted to
gain experiences of the conditions of nature.

But these very advantages in the human form produce certain un-

* In the prone vertebrate, the serpent, the escape from gravitation is accompanied by
a marked increase of friction. In man both gravity and friction are simultaneously de-
creased to the greatest possible extent. Thus the serpent and man occupy the two
poles in the development of motive powers, while all other vertebrates occupy intermedi-
ate positions.

796 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

avoidable disadvantages. Man's adaptations to the conditions of nature
are necessarily limited. Thus it might be suj^posed that a perfect ani-
mal would be adapted to traverse the water and the air, as well as the
land. But such an adaptation would require extra organs, extra weight,
and extra consumption of force in their support. Man, on the contrary,
has become adapted to the highest field of life, and escaped an adapta-
tion to inferior fields which would prove a disadvantage in the struggle
for existence with land-animals.

His extreme sensitiveness to exterior influences gained by his naked
skin is, of course, a sensitiveness to temperature as well as to touch.
He is thus limited organically to tropical regions, and to some extent
to a life in the shade — to a forest residence. In fact, he seems more
limited in locality and in powers of resistance than most other ani-
mals. His unclad skin renders him acutely sensitive to extremes of
heat and cold. He has no cortical defense against the attack of his
animal foes. His limbs have become adapted to grasping and to sup-
port, but have lost their character as offensive weapons. Finally, his
adaptation to an arboreal residence has become imperfect. He can
not climb like a monkey, run like a deer, swim like an otter, mine like
a mole, or crouch like a cat.

Physically, then, man is one of the most poorly protected of ani-
raaih, seemingly a form not likely to survive in competition with his
swift-ruining, flying, and climbing neighbors, and with his carnivorous
foes, armed yith tearing claws and rending teeth.

Yet in other 'Respects he has decided advantages. One of these is
a feature in which \iyy few animals rival him, a differentiation in his
adaptations to nutriment, enabling him to masticate, digest, and assimi-
late both vegetable and ail^mal food. This is a decided advantage.
Man is at once herbivorous ddA carnivorous, his field of possible food
thus being doubled, and his consequent variety of adaptation to nature
being likewise doubled. There is no other animal adapted to this
double diet to the same degree a? man. By a rather unpleasant re-
semblance, the hog most nearly approaches him in this respect. Yet
the hog is principally a vegetable feeder, and only occasionally varies
his diet to animal flesh.

A second advantage is the econon^y of muscular force gained by
the vertical attitude. The force thuS saved might have been em-
ployed in the production of an extren^e agility, enabling man to
escape danger by speed and alertness. It h^s fortunately been applied
in another direction, that of the production of liiental acuteness. From
the time that man first employed the grasping pOwer of his hands to
seize stick or stone for defense against his foes, a'p^^cess was begun
w^hich is yet far from completion. It was, in its fui^ results, the pro-
cess of mental evolution. But, for our present purpos^> ^^'^ must give
it a more narrow significance.

In all probability man, physically, is not now what he-J^'^^ origi-

\

THE RELATIVE HARDINESS OF PLANTS. 797

nally. The use of the stick or stone in defense set in motion a new
process of adaptation which has tended toward a physical weakness,
at least in regard to conflict with wild animals.

It was, in fact, the first step in the enhancement of animal force by
the employment of the vast stores of inorganic force existing through-
out nature. It was the earliest inventive action, the bringing of outer
nature to human aid, which has since produced such wonderful results.
Muscular vigor and acuteness of sense have probably decreased as they
have been thus partly replaced. For man has gained new muscles, in
his use of the forms and forces of the inorganic world, and has com-
menced a new process of adaptation, which has already enabled him
to extend his kingdom from the tropic to the frigid zone, and which
promises to make him to some extent master of the fields of water
and air. And his mental exjierience of wider and wider conditions of
nature has produced a new form of physical adaptation — that signi-
fied in clothing and habitation.

But this opens a new subject, too wide to be considered here. We
can only end as we began, with the assertion that the human form oc-
cupies the apex of possible organic development, and forms the true
foundation for that higher mental evolution which is still growing,
branching, and flowering upward.

-♦-•-♦-

THE EELATIYE HAEDINESS OF PLANTS.

Br SAMUEL PAESONS, Jr.

THE isothermal line, curving up and down the map, is no inapt
illustration of the course another line would take on the chart
which sought to explain the relative hardiness of plants, only the curves
of the latter would be more complex than those of the former. Who,
indeed, could direct aright such a line for even individual species ?
and for varieties it would be wellnigh impossible. Scarcely could re-
liable data be furnished for the broader division of genera. And yet
the investigation that does not take into account varieties misses a large
number of plants possessed of the most noteworthy and valuable in-
dividual traits. The question may be easily asked, Wherein lies the
difference between a variety and a species ? but the answer evidently
is not so easy, when we consider that every individual plant varies in
a degree from all other plants ; and, to render it still more diflicult, we
find botanists very properly ignoring the existence of varieties that
may have individual characteristics invaluable to the planter.

Latitude, moreover, we find is only one factor, and a very vague
one, in the problem of determining the relative hardiness of plants.
Climate is the real governing. element — climate, that vai'ies with the

798' THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

special conditions of every valley and hill-top. Yet the knowledge
and insight that determine the relative hardiness of plants seem easy
of acquisition in the eyes of the inexperienced. Still, no one, really an
expert in such matters, will venture to express a decided opinion on
such data as are usually obtainable. A canny Scot of our acquaintance,
whose knowledge of plants in a practical way is encyclopedic — if such
a term in such a connection be admissible — is a notable example of this
wise cautiousness. Never was he known to positively commit himself,
at least on the subject of the peculiarities of plants. " They might
be hardy," he would say, " and again they might not. Circumstances
alter cases." There was always a profound consideration shown for
the incalculable effects of any particular environment.

That we may better realize the strangely complex character of the
relative hardiness of plants, let us consider briefly the special behavior
of various kinds under apparently similar conditions, and then note
with cai'e their behavior under evidently different conditions. Take
Japanese plants, for instance. They illustrate how, sometimes, on two
sides of the globe, in the same latitude, almost identical species and
varieties appear. Whether it is the similarity of the course of the
oceanic currents along their shores and the trend of the mountain-
ranges inland that modify the two climates into a peculiar likeness, or
still more recondite causes, the fact remains that whole genera of Jap-
anese plants resemble in the strangest way indigenous American kinds.
Retinosporas, the most popular evergreens of Japan, seem, in some
cases, though confessedly distinct botanically, nearly identical in ap-
pearance with Thujas or American arbor- vitaes, and they also behave
alike. In grafting, for instance, members of one genus require mem-
bers of the same genus as stocks. Yet the Retinosporas, which graft
well, of course, on their own stock, graft also with entire success on the
American arbor-vitte, which the botanist tells us is an entii'ely distinct
genus. They are, likewise, equally hardy, but the variation in form
and color, in both Japan and America, is much greater among Retino-
sporas than among American arboi'-vitoes. This capacity for endurance
of like conditions which appears among Japanese and Eastern Ameri-
can evergreens runs also through deciduous trees. There are maples
on the Amoor River and in Japan which have little to distinguish them
from at least one variety of maples in America, and there is a similar
kinship in reference to hardiness.

These instances of resemblances in hardiness and in other features,
between plants botanically widely different, might be greatly multi-
plied, but those mentioned will suffice to show the widespread likeness,
in these respects, of many different plants throughout the globe. In
face of these extraordinary instances of similarity in hardiness of plants
the native haunts of which are widely removed, we have to recog-
nize the existence of many kinds in the same region, closely related
botanically, and yet entirely different in their several degrees of hardi-

THE RELATIVE HARDINESS OF PLANTS. 799

ness. One of the salient instances of diversity in hardiness of nearly
related plants is the behavior of Japanese persimmons in this country.
It was confidently expected that they would prove hardy in America,
because native persimmons were hardy, and because the general hardi-
ness of Japanese plants in America had been often demonstrated.

But fifteen years' trial of a few detached plants, and five years'
trial of thousands together of these Japanese persimmons, prove their
hardiness more uncertain than that of the American persimmon.
What shall we say of the other Japanese plants that fail to prove hardy
in America north of Tennessee, or even Florida — of the Osmanthuses,
best described as resembling the hollies in appearance, of the privets,
live-oaks, Ancubas, etc. ? They are common enough plants in our green-
houses, but only in very sheltered positions, and during mild winters,
will any of them live uninjured in this climate. Such facts must be
very perplexing to any theorist who attempts to explain why and where
this or that plant is hardy.

Or let us change somewhat our problem, and consider why plants
belonging to countries much nearer home than Japan, but in similar
latitude, fail to prove as hardy here as many Japanese plants. Note
the fact, moreover, that these trees I shall next refer to come from
even colder regions than Japan, and yet Japanese plants of the same
genera are usually more hardy. The ways of plants, verily, become
still more puzzling when we find such evergreens as Tliuiopsis horecdls
and Thuja gigantea, natives of northern Oregon, fail even under the
best treatment sometimes, during winters of New York and Philadel-
phia. Some explanation may of course be attempted by adducing the
peculiar climate of the Pacific coast in its rainy seasons, but then con-
sider that many of these plants are found eight and ten thousand feet
up in the mountains, and also that, when we pass a few hundred miles
farther east in the same parallel of latitude, we find the same varieties
and even species such as the Douglas fir becoming hardier. Few, com-
paratively, of the California native deciduous trees are hardy in the
East, and even for many Oregon trees of the same class, such as Acer
macrophyllum, there is much suffering in store during hard winters on
the Atlantic coast. Passing over to Northern Europe, the behavior of
trees is still more perplexing. To be sure, as a rule, the Gulf Stream
insures milder climate in the same degree of latitude, but away up in
northern Scotland, and even in Norway, we find many evergreens more
hardy than in the more temperate latitude of New England. Rhodo-
dendrons, hollies, -and all evei'green shrubs, if not all evergreen trees,
do better there, which is doubtless to be attributed in part to a moister
climate and more equable temperature, but it can hardly be that alto-
gether. On the other hand, what can we say to the evergreen Thxd-
opsis Standlshii doing better here than in England, and Thuiopsls dolo-
hrata better in England than in America ? Japanese maples, that seem
to grow more thriftily and vigorously here than in Japan, give evidence

8oo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

also of being less adapted to England than to the United States.
Besides, why is it that evergreens thrive better, and are more hardv,
in a cultivated state in Europe, and deciduous trees in this country ?
We know answers can be given by experienced observers to all these
questions, that are more or less comprehensive, but we believe also that,
when such answers come to be closely scanned, it will be found that
they do not entirely meet the case. How is it, otherwise, that the same
peculiarities in a minor degree are evident in the behavior of trees
growing within a few miles of each other ? One might understand
why the same plants act differently farther inland, but here in the
neighborhood of the coast it naturally strikes us as curious that on the
Hudson River some plants are hardier than on Long Island.

There are more inexplicable facts than these. Mr. Hunnewell can
grow plants on his lawn that will hardly live through some winters,
even under the most favorable conditions, on any other spot about
Boston.

Nor is this the strangest feature to be noticed in the behavior of
plants under apparently like influences of soil and climate. Plants a few
feet from each other, of the same species, will suffer in very different
degrees during many winters. Rhododendrons are a notable instance
of this. It is not simply that Rhododendron ponticum and its hybrids
are not as hardy as Rhododendron CatawMense, nor that the more of
the Catawbiense strain there is in a Ponticum hybrid, the hardier it is,
but it is that sometimes a Ponticum hybrid, usually entirely unreliable,
will pass the winter unscathed, when nearly the hardiest pure Cataw-
biense of the plantation will be killed. But our expert says, " One did
not ripen its wood as well as the other." Yes, but is it not also strange
that sometimes the one which finally died was the one that had ripened
its wood most thoroughly ?

A few striking examples like these should be suflicient to illus-
trate the great difficulty that must always attend the determina-
tion of the relative hardiness of plants. Many more instances of the
same character might be readily selected, but it is not necessary. We
have simply endeavored to give sufficient data to warrant the general
statement that the varying and complex conditions of the environ-
ment of any given plant are difficult to understand or explain on the
basis of experience of another environment which, to a superficial ob-
server, may seem to be identical with the first. Our intention is not
to insist on any explanation of the facts adduced in regard to the
relative hardiness of plants, but only to show distinctly the difficulties
that must attend such explanations, and to point out that experience is
now being purchased too dearly, and that it is, moreover, not of a
sufficiently varied character. Hundreds and thousands of plants are
killed every year under very similar circumstances, and it seems evi-
dent that human intelligence should be sufficient to compass some
method of reducing this loss to a minimum.

WHAT IS A COLD? 801

The Cambridge Botanic Garden and the Arnold Arboretum, adjoin-
ing the Bussy Institute, being well organized and both managed under
the auspices of Harvard College, would be perhaps the best repository
of reports on the relative hardiness of plants.

The proper sources of these reports would be botanic gardens such
as those of Washington and Cambridge, and parks such as those of
New York and Philadelphia, the superintendents and gardeners of
which might be directed to make careful investigations and fill up
printed forms month by month on the behavior of plants in different
localities. Above all, private individuals — and they need not be
trained observers — all over the country should be encouraged to inves-
tigate in the same systematic way and report to the central repository.
Consider how valuable such records of actual hardiness would be,
coming from interested observers everywhere, if the resultant tables
were published in a compact form ! The perplexing question of the
behavior of rhododendrons, for instance, would probably be explained,
whereas twenty-five years of unsystematic observation has been very
barren of results.

It may not be out of place in conclusion to say a word concerning
the so-called acclimatization of plants. The name seems to imply the
use of some peculiar treatment whereby a half-hardy plant is made
hardy. There are many people who really fancy that tender plants
may be rendered hardy by first protecting them carefully and then
exposing them more and more by degrees until they are taught to en-
dure a manifestly greater amount of cold than they did at first. Nat-
ural selection carried on for hundreds and thousands of years may
accomplish a change of nature of this sort, but, under ordinary limita-
tions of time, the attempt to acclimatize, in this sense, is practically
futile.

-♦♦♦-

WHAT IS A COLD?

bt a medical man.

To enjoy life, one must be in good health ; and to remain free from
disease is the desire of all. Yet there are some ailments which
do not interfere very much with the pleasures of life, and therefore
are not dreaded in consequence — nay, more, they are frequently treated
with neglect, although in many instances they are the precursors of
more serious disorders, which may in not a few cases have a fatal ter-
mination ! How often, to the usual greetings which one friend ex-
changes with another, is the reply given, " Very well, thank you,
except a little cold." A little cold, and yet how significant this may
be ! In how many cases do we find a " little cold " resemble a little
seed, which may sooner or later develop into a mighty tree ! A little

VOL. XVIII. — 51

8o2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

cold neglected may, and frequently does, prove itself to be a thing not
to be trifled with. Let me, then, pray my readers to remember that
small beginnings in not a few instances have big endings, and this
especially where disease exists. Let us, then, consider what is a com-
mon cold.

In the first place, we must be paradoxical, and affirm that it is not
a cold at all. It is rather a heat, if I may so express myself, that is,
it is a form of fever, but, of course, of a very mild type when it is
uncomplicated by other diseases. It is certainly in the majority of
instances due to the effects of cold playing upon some portion of
the body, and reacting upon the mucous membrane through the
intervention of the nervous apparatus. What is called a cold, then,
is in reality a fever ; and, though in the majority of instances it is
of such a trivial nature as to necessitate few precautions being taken
during its attack, yet in some cases it runs a most acute course, and
may be followed by great prostration. Even when the premonitory
symptoms of a cold are developing themselves, when, for example,
what a medical man calls a rigor, or, as it is popularly designated, a
shivering is felt, when we would naturally suppose that the animal
temperature is below par, it is at that very moment higher than the
normal, thus showing the onset of fever.

Before going at once into the symptoms and nature of the disease
under discussion, it will be advisable to dip a little into that most in-
teresting department of medical science, physiology, and, indeed, with-
out doing so, it would be quite impossible for the majority of my
readers to understand the manner in which cold acts in producing the
inflammatory condition of the mucous membrane of the nose, or, as it
is called, the Schneiderian membrane, which inflamed condition con-
stitutes a cold in the head. It will be necessary to understand what a
mucous membrane is, what its duties are, and how these duties are per-
formed, before entering upon a description of a disease attacking it.
To take the mucous membrane of the nose as an example. We find
that it is a membrane spread out over a very large area, lining as it
does a great many undulations caused by the arrangement of the bones
composing the walls of the nostrils, so that a very much greater sur-
face is required to be traversed by the air entering the lungs through
the nose — the natural passage — than is required by the actual length
of the canal. The object of this is obvious, when we take into account
the fact that the temperature of the air is usually either below or
above that of the human body, and that it is almost invariably loaded
with particles of matter which would irritate the lungs did they find
access to them.

The tortuous passage of the nose thus tends in the first place to
equalize in some measure the temperature of the atmosphere inhaled
with that of the lungs ; and, in the second place, the mucus which is
secreted by the Schneiderian membrane, being of a tenacious nature.

WHAT IS A COLD P 803

tends to attract and ensnare the impurities which the air may contain.
We thus see that the nostrils act as a filter to the air taken in by
inhalation. If we observe any mucous surface, we can not help re-
marking its deep-red color, this being due to the close network of
blood-vessels ramifying on its surface. In consequence of this accu-
mulation of minute arteries and veins through which warm blood is
constantly flowing, a pretty high temperature is constantly maintained
in any cavity lined by mucous membrane. There is, therefore, little
difficulty in understanding, how important a part the nostrils play in
preparing the air for its entrance into the sensitive structure of the
lungs. But the nostrils do not only temper the air — they also yield to
it an amount of moisture which renders it still more bland and less
irritating. "We see, then, that the functions of the nostrils as regards
the atmosphere inhaled are threefold : 1. In equalizing its temperature ;
2. In moistening ; and, 3. In filtering it. The latter function is mate-
rially aided by quite a forest of minute hairs which guard the entrance
to the passages.

Having noticed how distended the blood-vessels of the mucous
membrane naturally are, it will not be difficult to understand how
slight a disturbance of the balance of blood-supply will be necessary
to produce congestion or inflammation of the structure, and such is
really the case ; and it is because of this that people who have what is
called an irritable mucous membrane are so susceptible of cold. They
have, in fact, a chronically congested mucous membrane, which, how-
ever, is usually associated with and dependent upon a disordered diges-
tion. Yet, notwithstanding these facts, a cold is not produced by cold
air acting upon the surface which suffers. It is quite true that there
are individuals with peculiar idiosyncrasies who take catarrh when they
smell certain substances. For instance, many can not go into a room
where powdered ipecac is exposed without immediately catching ca-
tarrh in the nasal passages ; and there is reported the case of a man
who could not smell a rose without being affected in a similar way.

We must now go a step further before we can understand the
modus operandi by which a cold in the head, or any other region, is
produced. It has been shown that one of the functions of a mucous
membrane is to secrete mucus. But what is it that makes the secretion
vary in quantity ? Well, an irritant applied directly to the surface
may produce an excessive flow, and this superabundance of mucus is
thrown out by an effort of nature in its endeavor to shield the delicate
membrane and remove the irritant ; this may happen also when there
is an excessive amount of blood in the vessels, which is the case when
congestion exists, the distention of the blood-vessels acting as an irri-
tant, and supplying in greater amount the fluid from which the mucus
is extracted, thus tending to excite the secreting power to greater
effort. Thus we have an explanation of the excessive discharge in
catarrh of the nose. But, when the direct irritant is removed, the

8o4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

unnaturally abundant discharge ceases. Not so, however, when the
superabundance is due to the effects of cold ; for, in the latter case, a
diseased condition is set up, which will only disappear when the effects
of the exposure upon the nervous system have passed away.

Having demonstrated that cold is not produced by the action of
cold air playing upon the part affected, but that, on the contrary, it is
an effect of cold acting upon a distant part of the body, it will be
necessary to explain how this is brought about. If a person sits in a
draught of cold air, and this draught is directed upon the back of his
head, the chances are that a catarrh of the nasal passages will result,
and this is produced by what is called reflex action of the nerves.
Here it. will be necessary to diverge a little, and explain what reflex
action is. It must be understood, then, that there are numerous ner-
vous centers connected with the spinal cord. These nervous centers
send filaments of their nerves to various portions of the body. For
example, a nerve-center may be placed alongside the spine in the neck,
and from this point nerves may be distributed to the back of the head
and the mucous membrane of the nose. One important function of
these little bodies is to control the supply of blood to different surfaces
and tissues and organs. This is done by a system of minute nerves
which are distributed on the arteries, by which the vessels are kept in
a state of contraction. Now, if these nerves are severed from the
main trunk, the blood-vessels immediately expand to the full extent of
their caliber, and congestion is the result ; or, if these nerves are para-
lyzed, the same effect is produced. Sometimes a very slight shock
produces a temporary paralysis of these minute nerves when a rush of
blood takes place into the arteries, of which blushing is a good exam-
ple ; but the nerves soon recover their control over the blood-supply,
and the blush passes away. Then, again, the shock may produce quite
the opposite effect : this may be so severe as to cause such extreme
contraction of the blood-vessels that a deadly pallor pervades the face,
as, for instance, in severe shock from fear. This, however, is caused
more by the effect of shock acting upon the nerve-centers which sup-
ply the heart with motor power.

But let us suppose that one extremity of a nerve arising from a
particular nerve-center is irritated ; this is communicated to that cen-
ter, Avhich is affected thereby, it may be slightly or more severely.
The irritation may be so great as to prostrate for the time being the
nerve-center, and, in consequence, all the nerves arising from it are
thrown into a state of inaction. This is called the reflex action of that
nerve-center, because the effects of the irritant applied to one part of
the body are thereby reflected to other parts. Instances of reflex
action may be seen frequently in every-day life. Take, for example,
the action of the eyelid when an object threatens to enter the eye.
The retina perceives the object advancing ; this is telegraj^hed to the
nervous center supplying the muscles which open and shut the eyelids,

WHAT IS A COLD f 805

and immediately a message is sent back to the eyelids to shut, and ex-
clude the particle of matter that threatens to enter the eye. All this
is done so quickly that it is hardly possible to realize that there is time
for reflex nervous action being brought into play.

Another instance of reflex action, but this time influencing the
secretions, may be cited. Who is not familiar with the effect of a
savory smell, or the sight of some luxiu-y, upon the salivary secretion,
so that, to use a common expression, " the mouth waters " ? In the
first, the olfactory nerve is the means by which the impression is con-
veyed to the nerve-center ; in the other it is the optic nerve which is
the transmitting agent ; but in each case the impression is reflected to
that nerve controlling the salivary secretion, with the effect of produc-
ing an increased flow of saliva. We thus see that the secretions can
be influenced by one nerve conveying its impression to another whose
filaments take origin in a common center.

Now, to come to the subject more directly under consideration in
this paper, we must comprehend how cold acting on one part of the
body produces catarrh of the nasal mucous membrane. Exposure to
the most intense cold for a lengthened period will not produce this
effect. Indeed, we find it invariably the case that severe frost in win-
ter is, so far as catarrh is concerned, the healthiest weather we can
have. During the prevalence of frost, as a rule, colds are at a mini-
mum. The system here shows its power of accommodating itself to
the circumstances surrounding it, and actually benefits by the prevail-
ing low temperature. Let us, however, suppose a person to be sit-
ting in a room the temperature of which is, say, 70° Fahrenheit,
and that a current of cold air is rushing in at an open door or win-
dow, and playing upon the back of his head, or it may be on his
legs or feet, and the probability is that he will "catch cold," and in
nine cases out of ten this cold will be a catarrh in the head, and, what
may appear more remarkable still, only one nostril will at first be
affected. Now, if the catarrh was due to the inhalation of cold air,
both nostrils would suffer ; but it is not so ; for, as each side of the
body is supplied by its distinct set of nerves, so only that side is af-
fected through which the reflex disturbance has been transmitted. The
modus operayidi is the following : The draught of cold air, acting, we
will suppose, on the back of the head, conveys through the sympathetic
nerve, which ramifies on the scalp, a shock to the nervous center from
which these nerve-fibers proceed ; but we must understand that this
nerve-center sends its filaments to other jjortions of the body, and so
the shock which this center receives by one set of nerves is reflected
by another set to some surface quite remote from that primarily acted
upon, and in this way a temporary paralysis of the nerves supplying
the blood-vessels of the mucous membrane of the nose is brought about.
In consequence, these vessels become dilated and engorged, and the
shock which has brought about this congestion continuing, disturbs the

8o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

equilibrium of the blood-supply, and so an inflammatory condition is
set up. When this exists the blood-vessels are enormously distended ;
consequently, an excess of blood passes through the part, the little
cells which secrete the mucus being thus excited and working much
more rapidly than when in health. In this way the enonnous discharge
of mucus, which accompanies a cold^in the head, is accounted for.

Another effect of this irritation of the mucous membrane is sneez-
ing, which is an effort of Nature to restore the equilibrium of the ner-
vous center by another kind of reflex action. Sneezing in catarrh is a
method Nature adopts to stimulate the prostrate nervous center, and
thus enable it to reassert its proper control over the blood-supply to
the part ; indeed, it will be found that the effects of being exposed to
a draught of cold air are often comj^letely destroyed by a succession
of sneezes. Of course. Nature does not always immediately succeed in
these efforts ; but, when she does not, the shock from which the ner-
vous center suffers gradually passes away, and the blood-vessels again
come under the control of the little nerves which regulate their caliber,
and so the catarrh disappears in a few hours, or at most in a few days.
It sometimes happens that the shock from the cold air acting upon the
nervous center is of such severity that the consequent inflammation
is intense enough to check the secretion of mucus altogether, and in
consequence the mucous membrane is dry as well as inflamed, and the
suffering very much intensified.

So far, we have only glanced at a cold in the head which j^asses
away in a few hours, but this is not always the happy termination.
There is a peculiar tendency which inflammation possesses of not leav-
ing off where it commenced, but of invading the tissues in its imme-
diate neighborhood, and more especially when the tissue is continuous
with that primarily attacked, as is the case with the mucous mem-
brane of the air-passages. A cold may commence in the head, and
rapidly spread by what is technically termed continuity of tissue into
the chest ; and so what at the first promised to be only cold in the
head may terminate in an attack of bronchitis, or even inflammation
of the lungs. — Chambers's Journal.

THE PUPJFICATION OF SEWER -WATERS.*

Bt M. E. AUBREY-VITET.

THE sewers of Paris discharge 262,646 cubic metres of liquid mat-
ter every twenty-four hours. It is estimated that the quantity
discharged will be increased before many years to 300,000 cubic
metres daily. Each cubic metre of liquid contains two and a half
* Translated and abridged from the " Revue des Deux Mondes."

THE PURIFICATION OF SEWER-WATERS. 807

kilogrammes of solid matter, of which one kilogramme and a half is
merely in suspension. This stuff, flowing into the Seine, causes an
accumulation of 110,000 cubic metres of mud in a year at the mouths
of the conduits, and makes necessary for its removal an annual expendi-
ture of nearly 200,000 francs. Even this sum is not adequate for the
purpose. Far from securing the removal of the obstruction, it is not
even sufficient to prevent a continued accumulation, and the muddy
deposits are constantly extending farther down the river, and at the
same time becoming thicker. Since 1875 they have become about a
yard thick, and occupy nearly a quarter of the bed of the river from
Asnieres to beyond Chatou. The Seine has, moreover, been made foul,
and its waters have become unfit for domestic use, poisonous to fishes,
and a source of fetid emanations.

The authorities of Paris have been for many years considering
measures to remove these sources of impurity from the river. As they
are rich in fertilizing matters, the thought was suggested that they
might be turned to good account for purposes of agriculture. It was
therefore resolved to apply them to works of irrigation in the peninsula
of Gennevilliers, where, passing through the thin soil of red earth un-
derlaid with gravel, they might leave their rich manures on the arid
land, and be returned to the Seine purified. Five hectares (twelve and
a half acres) of land were chosen to be irrigated by the sewer-water,
which was conducted in trenches around garden-beds. These lands
in return produced abundant crops of the coarser vegetables. Three
years afterward, in 18G9, independent gardeners began to take in the
sewer-water, and the demand for it increased, so that, in 187G, 115
hectares were irrigated, and in 1880 more than 300 hectares. Had the
use of the sewage-water as a fertilizing material been the only condi-
tion to be fulfilled, the success might have been pronounced complete.
The principal object, however, was the purification of the Seine, and
in this only the most insignificant result was obtained ; for the gardens
were capable of taking only a minute fraction of the sewage that had
to be disposed of. Complaints of bad effects upon health were in-
creased rather than diminished, so that, in 1875, the Minister of Pub-
lic Works appointed a commission to devise some means of remedying
the unpleasant situation.

A plan was submitted by eminent engineers, under which it was
believed the Seine could be definitely relieved of the noxious sub-
stances which were defiling it. This plan contemplated the convec-
tion, by means of new machinery and conduits which were to be con-
structed for the purpose, of the foul waters to the peninsula of St. Ger-
main, where it was thought 6,300 hectares of land might be applied to
the reception and disposition of them. Of this tract, 1,500 hectares ©f
denuded and sterile land in the forest of St. Germain misfht be em-
ployed as a place of deposit, where the sewage that was not used in
irrigation could be turned on and absorbed into the ground, for it was

8o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

foreseen that the use of the water would not be uniform, and that in cer-
tain weathers and seasons the cultivators would be as anxious to keep
it off from their lands as they would be at other times to draw it on.
This proposition brought out a general protest. The region which it
was proposed to irrigate was largely occupied with country-seats whose
proprietors did not at all relish the introduction of the objectionable
matter so near their homes. Additional force was given to their ob-
jections by reports that Gennevilliers had become subject to infiltra-
tion of the waters, and afflicted with fevers generated by them. The
project was withdrawn for a time, but was eventually renewed, with
the feature of irrigation omitted. In its modified form, it contem-
plated only the employment of the 1,500 hectares of the forest of St.
Germain as a reservoir, on which the sewage-matter should be turned
to be absorbed in the ground. This proposition aroused a more deter-
mined resistance than the others. Those who lived along the line of
the proposed conduit apprehended that the foul waters might at some
time be turned upon their own land ; the residents of the neighbor-
hood of the forest regarded with dismay the establishment at their
doors of a vast cesspool in the shape of a tract of land which should be
covered daily with nearly 200 cubic metres of water, with 60,000 or
70,000 cubic metres of nastiness in a year. The plan is, moreover,
defective, for it is not capable of satisfying either of the conditions
which are had in view.

The conditions which are essential to a complete solution of the prob-
lem must provide for the purification of the sewage and the preserva-
tion of the river from contamination with it, and for the utilization of
the rich manures which ai'e contained in the waters. The former con-
dition, in fact, is imposed as an absolute necessity ; while the aban-
donment of the second would only constitute a certain economical loss.
Ii-rigation is really contemplated only as one of the means to the end ;
but it is a very inadequate means, for its successful adaptation to the
chief purpose would require the employment of a larger quantity of
land than it is practicable to obtain for the disposal of the sewage of a
large city. A city of ten or twenty thousand inhabitants might with
comparatively little trouble find the three hundi'ed or five hundred
acres in its vicinity which would be requisite for this purpose ; but,
with a city twice as large, the problem is more complicated, while, in
a metropolis, it becomes impossible of solution.

Sewage-water, when used for irrigation, is undoubtedly rendered
innocuous. It might seem at first sight feasible to combine the two
operations, so as to accomplish both objects at once. There is, how-
ever, an essential difference in the conditions required for the two solu-
tions which makes the combination impracticable. Ten or twenty
times as much land would be required to utilize the waters by irriga-
tion as would be needed simply to absorb the foul matter and cause it
to be destroyed by slow oxidation. Thus, the 1,500 hectares of the

THE PURIFICATION OF SEWER-WATERS. 809

forest of St. Germain would be as efficacious, if their action merely
as an absorbing medium is contemplated, as 40,000 or 60,000 hectares
would be in a scheme for irrigation. The demand for the water un-
der the operations of irrigation would necessarily be very fluctuating.
None would be wanted in the winter or in hot weather. While green
crops might require much during the whole season of their growth,
grain-crops must be carefully protected against it as the season of their
ripening approaches. What is to be done with the constantly accu-
mulating supplies of waste water during these seasons when it can not
be used ?

The whole difficulty arises from the fact that the fertilizing matter
which we wish to make useful is drowned in an excess of water. It is
this excess which renders sewage unfit for the fertilization of cereals,
crops which are too often injured by the superabundance of rain-water.
And it is the same excess which makes it impossible to find sufficient
surfaces on which it can all be employed in the cultivation of kitchen-
garden vegetables, with whose demands its organic constituents well
agree. Were this matter extracted in a dry state, it would furnish a
precious element of fertilization to a large agricultural interest ; and we
might preserve it without difficulty and without loss, and transport it
at will to apply it to crops of all kinds. At the same time, the water
in which it is held could be returned clear and wholesome to the riv-
ers, whose salubrity it is now destroying. Clearly, there can be no
discrepancy in the conditions required for the accomplishment of this
double object ; whatever favors one side must be equally favorable to
the other. The two results are absolutely concordant, and may be
produced at the same time by one and the same operation, an opera-
tion which we may call decantation. The practicability of this process
is established by the fact that it has been adopted and is employed
with complete success in a large factory in the neighborhood of Paris.

The paper-mill of Essonnes has to deal with 10,000 cubic metres
of foul water a day. For two years it has returned to the river
Essonnes these 10,000 cubic metres of water clarified, while it has at
the same time extracted the mud which they held, and delivered it
in a solid state as manure to the agriculturists of the neighborhood.

The apparatus emjjloyed at this establishment is composed of two
parts, corresponding with two very distinct phases of the operations :

First, is a series of water-tight basins, or tanks, which are used in
the decantation, properly so called, of the foul waters.

Second, is arranged a series of tanks having permeable bottoms,
constructed parallel with the former tanks, but on a lower level ; these
are destined for the drainage of the mud which is deposited in the de-
canting-vats.

The process is as follows : The foul waters from the factory are
drawn into a single conduit from about twenty inches to two feet
wide, along and over which is disposed a series of circular bucking-

8 10 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tubs, containing lime-Avater, a substance which is known to be very
efficient in securing the precipitation of organic matters. The tubs are
jDrovided with dashers, which keep the lime-water constantly in sus-
pension, and with gauged faucets, which permit it to be introduced
regularly in the proportion of two hundred to two hundred and fifty
grammes of lime to the cubic metre of water into the current of foul
water which is flowing at the foot of the tubs. A few eddies produced
by means of artificial obstacles placed in the conduit secure immedi-
ately a complete mixture of the lime with the foul water. As soon as
the lime-water is introduced, the waste waters almost wholly lose their
oifensive odor, and cease to oflFer the slightest danger from noxious
exhalations.

The water having been thus prepared in its passage through the
conduit, is distributed into ten basins of decantation, each about sixty-
five feet long, twenty feet wide, and five and a half feet deep, which
are arranged side by side. Each of the basins has a capacity for the
decantation of a thousand cubic metres of liquid a day. The water is
constantly entering at one end in each, and flowing out over the top
at the other end. The rate of flow is almost imperceptible, being
hardly a millimetre a second, and precipitation takes place as com-
pletely as if the water were quite still ; consequently, the water goes
out fully clarified. Thus a course of about sixty-five feet in length,
which, at the rate of 'OOl of a metre a second, represents a delay of
nearly six hours in the basin, suffices to clear the water of all matters
in suspension. A talus of mud is gradually formed in the bottom of
the tank, which at the end of a week becomes flush with the surface
of the water at the entrance-end, and just covers the bottom at the end
of the outlet. The basin has now produced all the effect of which it
is capable. If any more water is allowed to go through it, it will con-
tain mud in suspension, for it is still in the act of precipitating it when
it goes out. The operation must be stopped here. We close the feed-
ing-gate of the tank, draw off the clear water that is left in it by
means of a decanting-tube, and lay bare the talus of mud.

The bottom of the basin is slightly inclined in a contrary direction
to the course of the water, and is provided with a large valve at the
lower end. On opening this valve, the mud, which is still in a very
liquid condition, is passed into a lower basin — the drainage-basin — of
the same capacity as the former one, and so disposed that its upper
surface is a little below the bottom of the same. The first tank may
be put in operation again immediately after the mud has been drawn
from it.

The side-Avalls of the drainage-basin are of tight masonry, but the
bottom is made as permeable as possible. For this purpose a floor of
scoria is prepared and provided with a series of pipes which lead the
water out into a collector. The arrangement is admirably adapted
to the purpose for which it is designed, and quite obviates the diffi-

THE PURIFICATION OF SEWER-WATERS 811

culty of drying the mud fast enough to enable it to be taken away at
a profit, which has prevented the success of all previous efforts at puri-
fication by deposition. The mud which is spread on the permeable
bottom does not soil the scoria, but leaves it perfectly clean, while the
Avater flovvs clear from the end of the drains. After two or three
days, according to the weather, the mud will appear cracked at some
points, and finally over the whole surface. After a week it will have
acquired consistency enough to be cut with a shovel. A cart is then
brought into the basin, and after a few hours it is emptied and is
ready to receive a new charge of mud. The scoria not having been
soiled, requires no cleaning, and will be as ready for use even after
the end of ten operations as at the beginning.

The drained mud is carried in the shape of large lumps to an open
yard, where it is dried in the air without giving forth any odor. It
contains about seventy-five, per cent, in weight of water at the time it
leaves the basin, but the amount of Avater is reduced after two or three
months of exposure to not more than fifteen or twenty per cent.

These operations are of the simplest character, and involve nothing
cumbrous. The Avhole system, with its decanting and drainage tanks,
its open yard and the necessary roads, occupies a surface of not more
than two hectares, or five acres, for the effective purification of 10,000
cubic metres of Avater every tAventy-four hours. Paris has to get rid
of thirty times as much foul water as the Essonnes paper-mill, or
300,000 instead of 10,000 cubic metres a day. The system practiced
at Essonnes would, therefore, have to be applied on a scale thirty times
as large to be adapted to the needs of Paris. Can it be made to suc-
ceed on such a scale ? What is there to prevent it ?

No difficulty is offered by the composition of the sewer-waters.
We have procured a quantity of water from the great collector of As-
nieres, and' have subjected it to the same treatment that is given the
Avaste water at Essonnes. On adding to it lime-water in the propor-
tion of 250 grammes of lime — yes, even in the smaller proportions of
200 and 175 grammes — to a cubic metre of Avater, a complete pre-
cipitation was promptly produced. At the end of four or five hours
the water became clear and limpid.

The extent of land required to conduct the operations of decanta-
tion, drainage, and drying, on the scale demanded by the city of Paris,
seems formidable at the first sight, but it is not really so. . As we have
seen, the whole system at Essonnes occupies only two hectares, or five
acres, of land. For the city of Paris thirty times as much land, sixty
hectares, only 150 acres, would be needed to give room for all the
apparatus and all the manipulations ; that would be a small tract
compared Avith the 1,500 hectares, or 3,750 acres, on which it is pro-
posed to establish a nuisance in the forest of St. Germain.

The scheme Avill compare favorably with any other that has been
proposed, in the cost of constructing and operating the works. The

8i2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tanks, occupying six hectares, or fifteen acres, would Lave to be built
up with walls of solid masonry, at an expense of about 1,200,000 francs.
A similar sum may be added for the installation of the roads, ways,
carts, and other accessories, making a total of about 2,500,000 francs,
or $500,000 — a mere drop in the budget of the city of Paris, The ex-
pense of labor at Essonnes is twenty francs a day ; at thirty times as
much, it would be 600 francs, or $120, a day at Paris. Add to this
the expense of carrying away the manure, in case no return is derived
from sales, and the price of the daily supply of lime, estimated at the
highest probable figures, and the whole daily expense of operation at
Paris rises to 3,000 francs, or 1600. The year's aggregate of these
daily expenses, with the interest on the cost of original establishment
(which we now place, to cover all possible additions, at double the
amount of the estimate we have just made), gives the total cost of the
application of the Essonnes system to the purification of the sewer
waters of Paris at 1,345,000 francs, or about 1260,000, a year. The
cost of managing the proposed works for the absorption of the sewage
in the forest of St. Germain is estimated at 2,120,000 francs, or about
$403,000, a year, showing a difference of more than $140,000 a year in
favor of the plan of desiccation as pursued at Essonnes.

The difference in favor of this plan is much greater than appears
from these figures, for no account has been taken of the probable
economic value of the desiccated mud as manure. By actual analysis
this mud has been found to contain from eleven to fifteen grammes of
nitrogenous substances, and from twenty to twenty -five grammes of
phosphate of lime, per cubic metre. The whole deposit from a year's
sewage of Paris would contain nitrogenous matters enough to suffice
for the fertilization of 75,000 acres of land. It is certain that a sale
would be gradually found for this valuable matter, the proceeds of
which, estimated eventually to amount possibly to 1,500,000 francs a
year, would in the end more than defray the entire cost of maintaining
the system of extraction.

■»»»

MR. FRA:Nnv BTJCKLAND.

By spencer WALPOLE.

EVENTS, in the present time, follow one another with such rapid-
ity, and the favorites of society pass in such constant succession
over the stage, that the most startling occurrences are only regarded
as nine days' wonders ; and men who have even filled a prominent
place are almost forgotten before a monument is erected to their mem-
ory. Under such circumstances it may prove an almost hopeless task
to recall attention to the character of a man who held only a com-

MR. FRANK BUCKLAXD. 813

paratively subordinate official position, and who has left no first-rate
work behind him to illustrate the achievements of a singularly ready
pen. Yet Mr. Frank Buckland occupied so exceptional a position, and
held it so long, that common justice requires that his memory should
be preserved ; and a short article on his doings, on his character, and
even on the eccentricities which formed part of his character, may be
welcome to hundreds of persons who knew and loved the man, and to
thousands of other persons who did not know the man but loved his
writings.

Francis Trevelyan Buckland was the eldest son of the Very
Reverend "William Buckland, the founder of the modern school of ge-
ology, the author of one of the best known of the Bridgewater Trea-
tises, and Dean of Westminster. His mother — Miss Morland before her
marriage — threw herself into the geological researches which made
her husband famous, and frequently proved a ready assistant to the
Dean. His father was probably one of the most popular lecturers ever
known at Oxford. With the zeal of an enthusiast, he never confined
his teachings to the lecture-room, but frequently organized parties to
scour the neighborhood of the university, and explained the geology
of the district standing on the very stones on which he was comment-
ing. He had the rare art of throwing interest into the most abstruse
subjects ; and stories are still told of him, to illustrate his ready wit,
which would enliven any article. In 1826, when his eldest son was
born, he had already acquired a considerable reputation ; and he chose
as sponsors for his boy two men who both filled some position in the
world — Sir Francis Chantrey, the sculptor, and Sir Walter Trevelyan,
the apostle of temperance. The boy owed his two names, Francis
Trevelyan, to his two godfathers. But these names are probably un-
familiar to the majority of the peoj^le who were afterward acquainted
with him ; the future naturalist almost always signed himself, and
friends and strangers always spoke of him as, Frank Buckland.

Dr. Buckland is said to have expected his son's birth with as much
impatience as Mr. Shandy awaited the arrival of Tristram. When
the nurse told him that the child was a boy, he declared that he
should go at once and plant a birch, for he was determined that his
son should be well brought up. The declaration proved a prophecy.
Young Buckland was educated by his uncle, Dr. Buckland, of Lale-
ham, the friend and kinsman of Dr. Arnold, but a most severe and
even brutal pedagogue. He was subsequently sent to Winchester,
and in due course passed on to Christchurch. At school he certainly
received his share of chastisement, and within a year or two of his
death he showed some of his friends scars on his hand which he said
were his uncle's doing. He was probably a trying pupil to an impa-
tient schoolmaster ; yet he contrived to acquire a large share of classi-
cal knowledge. He had whole passages of Virgil at his fingers' ends.
He used to say, when he could not understand an act of Parliament,

8 14 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

that he always turned it into Latin ; and within a fortnight of his
death he was discussing a passage of a Greek play with one of the
accomplished medical men who attended him, interesting himself about
the different pronunciation of ancient and modern Greek and the
merits of Greek accentuation. Mathematics were not supposed to
form a necessary part of a boy's education forty years ago, and it may
be doubted whether even his dread of his uncle's ferule or the disci-
pline at Winchester could have induced him to make any progress in
the study. To the end of his life he always regarded it as a providen-
tial circumstance that nature had given him eight fingers and two
thumbs, as the arrangement had enabled him* to count as far as ten.
When he was engaged on long inspections, which involved the expen-
diture of a good deal of money, he always carried it in small paper
parcels, each containing ten sovereigns ; and, though he was fond of
quoting the figures which his secretary prepared for him in his reports,
those who knew him best doubted whether they expressed any clear
meaning to him. He liked, for instance, to state the number of eggs
which various kinds of fish produced, but he never rounded off the
calculations which his secretary made to enable him to do so. The
unit at the end of the sum was, in his eyes, of equal importance to
the figure, which represented millions, at the beginning of it.

Of Mr. Buckland's Christchurch days many good stories are told.
Almost every one has heard of the bear which he kept at his rooms,
of its misdemeanors, and of its rustication. Less familiar, perhaps, is
the story of his fii'st journey by the Great Western. The dons,
alarmed at the possible consequences of a railway to London, would
not allow Brunei to bring the line nearer than Didcot. Dean Buck-
land in vain protested against the folly of this decision, and the line
was kept out of harm's way at Didcot. But, the very day on which
it was opened, Mr. Frank Buckland, with one or two other under-
graduates, drove over to Didcot, traveled up to London, and returned
in time to fulfill all the regulations of the university. The Dean, who
was probably not altogether displeased at the joke, told the story to
his friends who had prided themselves on keeping the line from Ox-
ford. "Here," he said, "you have deprived us of the advantages of a
railway, and my son has been up to London."

It was probably no easy task to select a profession for a young man
who had already distinguished himself by an eccentric love for ani-
mals, which had induced him to keep a bear at Oxford and a vulture
at the deanery at Westminster. At his father's wish, Mr. Buckland
decided on entering the medical profession. To qualify himself for
his duties, he studied in Germany, at Paris, and at St. George's Hos-
pital. While he was at Paris the cholera was raging, and the patients
who died of it in hospital were allotted to the Anatomical School.
Mr. Buckland, howevdr, had the stoutest of nerves and the strongest
of constitutions, and never contracted any illness during the year of

MR. FRANK BUCKLAND. 815

sickness. He returned to London, and soon afterward became house-
surgeon at St. George's. He used to say that the cases which were
brought into the accident ward grouped themselves into classes accord-
ing to the hours of the day. The suicides came at an early hour of
the morning ; the scaffold accidents next, since a scaffold, if it gave^
way at all, gave way early in the day ; the street accidents afterward,
and so on. At St. George's he collected a fund of good stories, with
which he used to amuse his friends to the last days of his life. One
of the best of them told, as he never minded his stories telling, against
himself. An old woman came to the hospital with a cough, which
she declared nothing would alleviate except some sweet, luscious mix-
ture which another out-patient, a friend of hers, had received. The
old woman was given a bottlef ul of the mixture, and returned again
and again for more, though her cough got little better. At last Mr.
Buckland's suspicions were aroused, and he desired that his patient
should be watched. She was watched, and was found outside Chelsea
Hospital selling the mixture in halfpenny tarts.

In 1854, while he was still engaged at St. George's, he was offered
and accepted the post of assistant-surgeon in the Second Life Guards.
Perhaps no army surgeon ever enjoyed so much popularity among his
brother-officers. The friends whom he made during his nine years
with the regiment remained his friends to the day of his death ; and,
whenever any of them happened to meet him, Mr. Buckland had an
endless store of anecdotes of his old Life Guards days. The nine years
during which he served with the regiment were probably the happiest
of his life. He left it on the surgeoncy falling vacant, and on finding
that the rules of the service necessitated his own supercession by the
transfer from another regiment of another surgeon. But during the
nine years through which he had served his name had become famous.
His contributions to the " Field " newspaper and his " Curiosities of
Natural History " had made natural history popular in thousands of
households ; and the exertions which he had already commenced in
the cause of fish-culture had marked him as a man with an idea. Thus
he left the army a known man, and during the next few years relied
on his pen. Unfortunately, he was unable to continue contributing to
the paper which he had been instrumental in originating. Differences
arose between himself and the conductors of the "Field," and Mr.
Buckland, separating himself from his fellow-laborers, founded " Land
and Water." It is not too much to say that the latter periodical was
indebted to his pen for its existence and reputation.

A neAV sphere was, in the mean while, preparing for Mr. Buckland's
energies. In 1861 Parliament had sanctioned the appointment of two
Inspectors of Fisheries for England and Wales. One of these gentle-
men, ISIr. Eden, retired in broken health in 1867, and Mr. Buckland
was chosen as his successor. He had hardly been appointed when his
colleague, Mr. Ffennell, died, and another gentleman had to be chosen

8i6 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

for the second inspectorship. The old traditions of the office were
thus snapped at the period of Mr. Buckland's appointment, and the
new inspectors, without the assistance of an experienced colleague,
had to map out their own policy. This is not the place to describe
the policy which they pursued, or the results which ensued from it.
It is sufficient to say that no public officer ever threw himself so heart-
ily into his work as Mr. Buckland. His zeal frequently led him into
imprudences which would have told severely on a less robust consti-
tution, and which, perhaps, had the effect of shortening his own life.
He has been known to wade up to his neck in water, and change his
clothes driving away from the river on the box of a fly. This was an
exceptional case ; but it was a common thing for him to sit for hours
in wet boots. He rarely wore a great-coat ; he never owned a rail-
way-rug ; he took a delight in cold, and frequently compared himself
to a polar bear, which languished in the heat and revived in the frost.
The pleasure which Mr. Buckland derived from cold accounted for
many of his eccentricities. Even in winter he wore the smallest
amount of clothing ; in summer he discarded almost all clothing.
The illustrated papers, which have published j)ortraits of him at home,
have given their readers a very inaccurate idea of his appearance at
his house in Albany Street. Those were very rare occasions on which
he wore a coat at home. His usual dress was a pair of trousers and a
flannel shirt ; he deferred putting on socks and boots till he was start-
ing for his office. Even on inspections he generally appeared at break-
fast in the same attire, and on one occasion he left a large country-house,
in which he was staying, with no other garments on. "While he was
driving in a dog-cart to the station he put on his boots, and as the train
was drawing up to the station, at which a deputation of country gen-
tlemen was awaiting him, he said with a sigh that he must begin to
dress. Boots were in fact his special aversion. He lost no opportu-
nity of kicking them off his feet. On one occasion, traveling alone
in a railway-carriage, he fell asleep with his feet resting on the win-
dow-sill. As usual, he kicked off his boots, and they fell outside the
carriage on the line. When he reached his destination the boots could
not, of course, be found, and he had to go without them to his hotel.
The next morning a plate-layei', examining the permanent way, came
upon the boots, and reported to the traffic-manager that he had found
a pair of gentleman's boots, but that he could not find the gentleman.
Some one connected with the railway recollected that Mr. Buckland
had been seen in the neighborhood, and, knowing his eccentricities,
inferred that the boots must belong to him. They were accordingly
sent to the Home Office, and were at once claimed.

We have said that he rarely wore a great-coat, and when he did so
it was apparently more for the value of the additional pockets it con-
tained than for its warmth. One of his good stories turned on this.
He had been in France, and was returning, via Southampton, with an

ME. FRANK BUCK LAND. 817

overcoat stuffed with natural-history specimens of all sorts, dead and
alive. Among them was a monkey, which was domiciled in a large
inside breast-pocket. As Buckland was taking his ticket, Jocko thrust
up his head and attracted the attention of the booking-clerk, who im-
mediately (and very properly) said, " You must take a ticket for that
dog, if it's going with you." " Dog ? " said Buckland ; " it's no dog ;
it's a monkey." " It is a dog," replied the clerk. " It's a monkey,"
retorted Buckland, and proceeded to show the whole animal, but with-
out convincing the clerk, who insisted on five shillings for the dog-
ticket to London. Nettled at this, Buckland plunged his hand into
another pocket and produced a tortoise, and, laying it on the sill of
the ticket-window, said, " Perhaps you'll call that a dog, too." The
clerk inspected the tortoise. " No," said he, " we make no charge for
them — they're insects."

If a close observer were asked to mention the chief quality which
Mr. Buckland developed as Inspector of Fisheries, he would probably
reply, a capacity for managing men. He had the happiest way of con-
ciliating opposition, and of carrying an even hostile audience with
him. It frequently occurred that the fishermen, at the many inquiries
which his colleague and he held, looked in the first instance with sus-
picion on the inspectors. They never looked with suspicion on them
when they went away. The ice of reserve was thawed by the warmth
of Mr. Buckland's genial manner ; and the men who, for the first half-
hour, shrank from imparting information, in the next three hours vied
with one another in contributing it. Mr. Buckland was equally at
ease with more educated audiences, though in their case he was per-
haps less uniformly successful. If he had been a politician, he would
have been a greater mob orator than Parliamentary debater. But the
higher classes, like the lower classes, could not resist the warmth of
his manner or the ring of his laughter. He could not, in the most
serious conversation, refrain from his joke ; and some persons will
recollect how on one occasion he was descanting, at a formal meeting,
on the advantages which would ensue from the formation of a fishery
district : " You will be appointed a conservator, and then you will
impose license duties, and the money — probably three hundred pounds
— will be paid to you." " And what shall I do then ? " " Why, then,"
replied Mr. Buckland, " you had better bolt with it."

His love of a joke distinguished him as a lecturer. He remembered
his father's lectures, and always thought it his first duty to make his
audience laugh ; and he had a dozen stories ready to provoke laughter.
The excuse of a milk-boy, on a fish being found in the milk — "Please,
sir, mother f ox'got to strain the water " — was one of those which did
frequent duty. The same love of a joke followed him on his official
inquiries. He left on one occasion a parcel of stinking fish, which he
had carried about with him, and forgotten, neatly done up in paper, in
a fashionable thoroughfare in Scotland, and stood at the hotel- window
VOL. XVIII. — 52

8i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

to watch the face of the first person who examined it. He amused
himself, one Sunday evening, on another occasion, in making herring-
roe out of tapioca-pudding and whisky, to puzzle the witnesses whom
he was to examine on the Monday ; and he raised a laugh on a third
occasion hy telling a witness, who said he was a shoemaker, that, to
judge from the appearance of the children's feet, he should think he
had a very poor trade. Throughout his journeys, specimens of every
kind, living, dying, and dead, were thrown into his bag, possibly to
keep company with his boots or his clothes. The odor of the bag
usually increased with the length of the inspection, and on one occa-
sion, when it was exceptionally offensive, he said to the boots of a
very smart hotel, " I think you had better put this bag into the cellar,
as I should not be at all surprised if it smelt by to-moiTow morn-
xwg.

The love of fun and laughter, which was perceptible while he was
transacting the dullest business, distinguished him equally as a writer.
It was his object, so he himself thought, to make natural history prac-
tical ; but it was his real mission to make natural history and fish-
culture popular. He popularized everything that he touched ; he hated
the scientific terms which other naturalists employed, and invariably
used the sim2:)lest language for describing his meaning. His "writings
were unequal : some of them are not marked by any exceptional quali-
ties. But others of them, such as the best parts of the " Curiosities of
Natural History," and " The Royal Academy without a Catalogue,"
are admirable examples of good English, keen critical observation, and
rich humor. His best things, he used to say himself, were written on
the box of an omnibus or in a railway-carriage. " The Royal Academy
without a Catalogue " was written between London and Crewe, and
posted at the latter station. He had originally acquired the art of
writing in a railway-train from the late Bishop of Oxford. He prac-
ticed it with as much zeal as the Bishop did, and with as good effect.
The more labored compositions which Mr. Buckland undertook did
not always contain equal traits of happy humor. He was at his
best when he took the least pains, and a collection of his very best
pieces would deserve a permanent place in any collection of English
essays.

Desultory work of this character made Mr. Buckland's name a
household word throughout the country. His articles were copied
and recopied into various newspapers, and obtained, in this way, hun-
dreds of thousands of readers. But, at the same time, this desultory
work necessarily prevented him from accomplishing any literary task
of first-rate excellence. Some of his personal popularity was thus pur-
chased at the cost of his future reputation ; and a mass of knowledge
has died with him which might otherwise have been preserved. It is
no exaggeration to say that he had collected during his busy life a
vast store of information. He had trained himself to observe, and his

MR. FRANK BUCK LAND. 819

eye rarely missed anything. He thought that he had facts at his dis-
posal which would have enabled him to answer the great doctrines
which Mr. Darwin has unfolded. Evolution was eminently distasteful
to him ; only two days before his death, in revising the preface of his
latest work, he deliberately expressed his disbelief in it, and he used
to dispose of any controversy on the subject by saying : " My father
was Dean of Westminster. I was brought up in the principles
of Church and state ; and I will never admit it — I will never ad-
mit it."

Though, however, on such occasions as these Mr. Buckland used
the language of advanced Tories, he habitually shrank from political
discussion. He declared that he did not understand jsolitics, and that
he reserved himself for his own immediate pursuits. Into these pur-
suits he threw himself with his whole energy ; and his energy was
extraordinary. The greatest example of it was in the search which he
made for John Hunter's coffin in the vaults of St. Martin's church.
He literally turned over every coffin in the church before he found the
one of which he was in search, spending a whole fortnight among the
dead. He was ultimately rewarded by obtaining a grave for his hero's
remains in "Westminster Abbey. John Hunter was his typical hero.
He had pursued the studies to which Mr. Buckland also devoted him-
self. He had founded a great museum. He had almost originated a
science. Like John Hunter, one of Mr. Buckland's main objects was
to form a collection which would illustrate the whole science of fish-
culture. The museum at South Kensington, which he has left to the
nation, exists as a proof of his success. Inferior, of course, to the
similar collections in the Smithsonian Museum of the United States, it
forms an unequaled example of what one man may accomplish by
energy and industry. Thousands of persons have interested them-
selves in fish-culture from seeing the museum ; and the collection has
long formed one of the most popular departments of the galleries at
South Kensington.

Energy was only one of Mr. Buckland's characteristics. His kind-
liness was another. Perhaps no man ever lived with a kinder heart.
It may be doubted whether he ever willingly said a hard word or did
a hard action. He used to say of one gentleman, by whom he thought
he had been aggrieved, that he had forgiven him seventy times seven
already ; so that he was not required to forgive him any more. He
could not resist a cry of distress, particularly if it came from a wo-
man. Women, he used to say, are such doe-like, timid things, that he
could not bear to see them unhappy. One night, walking from his
office, he found a poor servant-girl crying in the street. She had been
turned out of her place that morning as unequal to her duties ; she
had no money, and no friends nearer than Taunton, where her parents
lived. Mr. Buckland took her to an eating-house, gave her a dinner,
drove her to Paddington, paid for her ticket, and left her in charge of

820 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the guard of the train. His nature was so simple and generous that
he did not even then seem to realize that he had done an exceptionally
kind action.

A volume might perhaps be filled with an account of Mr. Buck-
land's eccentricities. When he was studying oysters, he would never
allow any one to speak ; the oysters, he said, overheard the conversa-
tion, and shut up their shells. More inanimate objects than oysters
were endowed by him wdth sense. He had almost persuaded himself
that inanimate things could be spiteful ; and he used to say that he
would write a book on their spitefulness. If a railway-lamp did not
burn properly, he would declare it was sulky, and throw it out of
window to see if it could find a better master. He punished his port-
manteau on one occasion by knocking it dow^n, and the portmanteau
naturally revenged itself by breaking all the bottles of specimens
w hich it contained, and emptying their contents on its master's shirts.
To provide himself against possible disasters, he used to carry with
him an armory of implements. On the herring inquiry he went to
Scotland with six boxes of cigars, four dozen pencils, five knives, and
three thermometers. On his return, three weeks afterward, he pro-
duced one solitary pencil, the remnant of all this property. The
knives were lost, the cigars were smoked ; one thermometer had lost
its temper, and been thrown out of window ; another had been drowned
in the Pentland Frith, and a third had beaten out its own brains
against the bottom of a gunboat. No human being could have told
the fate of the pencils.

Such w^ere some of the eccentricities of a man who will, it may be
hoped, be recollected by the public for the work which he did, and by
his friends for his kindliness, his humor, and his worth. As he lived,
so he died. Throughout a long and painful illness his spirits never
failed, and his love of fun never ceased. " I wish to be present at this
operation," was his quaint reply to the proposal of his surgeon that he
should take chloroform, and his wonderful vitality enabled him to sur-
vive for months under sufferings which would have crushed other
men. He is gone : his work is of the past ; and posterity will coldly
examine its merits. But his friends will not patiently wait the verdict
of posterity. When they recollect his rare powers of observation, his
capacity of expressing his ideas, his quaint humor, his kindly heart,
and open hand, they will say with the writer, we shall not soon look
on his like again. — Macmillan^s Magazine.

THE FELICITY OF NATURALISTS. 821

THE FELICITY OF NATUKALISTS.

THERE is something very charming, especially to sedentary per-
sons, in a sketch such as that of Mr. Frank Buckland, which has
just appeared in " Macmillan," from the pen of Mr. Spencer Walpole.
It is not that the sketch is at all particularly good as literature ; it is as
good as it needed to be, but we read a hundred papers as good every
year. Nor is it that Mr, Buckland's career was in any way suggestive of
any tranquil or attractive sort of idyl. He was a man of business and a
man of bustle, knew how to hurry, and from a curious kind of careless-
ness was very often in the state known as flurry. He could not keep
anything he wanted, unless it were alive, and when over-bothered by
human stupidity, such as that of the railway ofticials, who taxed a
monkey as a dog and exempted a tortoise as a " hinsect," he could
get very hot indeed. He lived a more or less commonplace though
very active and useful life, working very hard as Fishery Commis-
sioner, and chief contributor to " Land and Water," and correspondent-
general to the practical naturalists of the United Kingdom, making the
money he wanted, spending it as he liked, with a good deal of waste of
silver, and generally demeaning himself as a valuable and bustling
member of the community. He was not of the lotos-eaters, but of the
breezy-bodies. The charm lies in the sense which the narrative evokes,
that a very happy career, a life in which depression, and low spirits,
and trouble generally are unknown, is quite possible to men. We have
noticed that specialty in the lives of naturalists very often before,
and begin to believe that it is to a quite separate degree peculiar to
them. It is not unlikely that it should be so, for many of the great
conditions of happiness are present in their lives. It is essential to
true happiness to have some pursuit which strongly interests you ; and
the naturalist has his pursuit, which never tires him, never fails him,
and can never come to an end. The author requires subjects and lei-
sure, the painter models, the student books and reasons for study ; but
the naturalist is always ready, always engaged, always getting his
result, even if it be a negative one, and never has the smallest prospect
of getting to the end of his occupation. No matter how small may be
the subdivision of the natural kingdom to which he attends, it is more
extensive than his life will be. Not only does no man know all there
is to be known about ants, or spiders, or minnows, but no man hopes
to know, except by study of the knowledge of other men also, accu-
mulated through ages. Most men get satiated or "weary," as they
put it, of their businesses ; but who ever heard of a true naturalist
retiring ? The longest life, the hardest voyages, the most endless col-
lections, will not satiate the curiosity of a conchologist about the colors,
let alone the convolutions and the texture of his brilliant favorites.

822 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

No forester knows or will know all the trees of the forest, or, if he
does, will know enough of their growth, structure, and climatic con-
ditions of reproduction to be satisfied with himself. No ornithologist
ever boasts even to himself that his knowledge of his kingdom, with
its wonderfully separate subjects, so unlike all other living things in
the grand condition of their lives, is more than fragmentary, or insus-
ceptible of increase. He has never examined all the eagles' eyes, or
the angles at which the humming-bird's feathers lie, and therefore flash
so unaccountably. Who knows all about lions, or can prove whether
or no the wild beasts' rage is an evolution from hereditary hunger
continued through ages ? Mr. Buckland attended to fish principally,
fish from sharks to minnows, and collected, it is said, five thousand
specimens, and was always hurrying about inspecting, or receiving, or
writing about, new fishes ; but, if he had lived a thousand years, he
would not have exhausted his pursuit. There would have been still
much to know about varieties of gills, and fins, and scales, and more
about the fish which could or could not be cultivated ; and when that
had been done there would remain the inexhaustible and bewilderinor
subject of the comparative intellectual capacity of different fishes.
Do carp know their friends or not? A pursuit always so fresh,
always so inexhaustible, and always so full of results, is one high
condition of happiness ; and it has occasionally, and might have
oftener this addition — that the naturalist may live by it. Happy the
man who in earning his living is in his groove of work, who feels that
his faculties are not twisted or repressed by his daily labor, and has in
his hardest toil pleasure ; but what is his happiness to the naturalist's
who earns his income in his play ? Imagine the street-boy to whom
hopscotch brings a reputable and sufiicient subsistence, and yet who can
never be tired of hopscotch ! Mr. Buckland, curious in fish, and fond of
open air, and of traveling about, and of fidgeting in briny places, was
set to inspect fisheries, and instruct fishermen, and write about fish in
" Land and Water," and tell mankind generally anything it might
want to know about fishes, and all the while was adding to his own
store and the world's store of knowledge of a subject which he justly
thought great, and got by doing all that an excellent income. What
wonder that he was happy and cheerful, and given to jocularities,
sometimes very clever, sometimes only whimsical, occasionally a little
foolish ; and had in him a most attractive element of childlikeness,
which even secluded fishermen, jealous of the " Government chaps,"
and half dreading either interference or fines, found it impossible to
resist ? They " cottoned " to him always, like dogs to a fearless child.
Mr. Buckland could have induced Irish fishermen to fish without boun-
ties, a feat supposed impossible ; and the magnet in him was the natural-
ist's magnet, Audubon's, or White's, or Waterton's magnet, the charm
of a nature full of the content which springs from harmony between
interest and occupation. The man is fortunate who lives in the open

THE FELICITY OF NATURALISTS. 823

air and amid natural beauties, but the naturalist is never out of tliem ;
he is hcky who adds aught to the knowledge of his fellow-man, but
the naturalist can not stir without making an addition to it ; he is
most favored whose occupation forces him to think of greater things
than itself, who, like the astronomer, must, in order to learn, for ever
look upward — and where is the naturalist without ever-present j)iety
of some kind? It is very comic to hear that Mr. Buckland rejected
evolution, because " my father was Dean of Westminster ; I was bred
in the principles of Church and state, and I will never admit it " ; but
the thought which prompted that half -humorous, half-serious expres-
sion of his faith was not comic at all. He could not, as naturalist,
stand a theory which struck him (quite erroneously) as dispensing
with, or even affronting, a sentient First Cause. The child in him
— which in Mr. Buckland, as in every man who loves Nature with a
single heart, was very strong — revolted, and grew pettish.

There is something, however, in the naturalist's pursuit besides hap-
piness which gives him his tribal qualities, those always found with his
pursuit, and it is a little difficult to decide quite satisfactorily what it is.
It is not the pursuit of knowledge in itself. Scholars and metaphy-
sicians, and men of the sciences which relate to other things than out-
door nature, physicians, for instance, and electricians, are not like the
naturalists at all. Indeed, we do not quite know why the pursuit of
knowledge of itself should tend to good any more than any other
indulgence of curiosity. Nor is it all the open air, for the men who
next to the naturalists live most in that, agricultural peasants, belong
to a far removed type of men. Nor is it a certain innocence and per-
manent absence of sinister temptation which attaches to the pursuit, for
many pursuits — antiquarianism, for instance — are quite as innocent yet
evolve a totally different order of mind, a mind often very much more
reflective and less simple. Naturalists, too, are of necessity incessantly
killing, and constant though innocent killing seems, as in butchers,
rather to brutalize than to refine the general character. Butchers'
boys are not breezy people at all, nor, for that matter, are fishmongers
or poulterers. The goodness of naturalists, like the serenity of Arctic
voyagers, is of a kind j»e;- se, a quality which we scarcely discover in
any other class, a benevolence quite unfailing and almost Christlike in
persons otherwise very human indeed.

May it not be that the instinct of mankind is true — that Nature,
an undeteriorated work of God, has in it something better than man,
and in close contact with the mind gives that something out ? It may
be said that we do not find this result in the savasre, even if he be
Hawaian or Guacho — that is, even if he lives always amid scenes of
unfailing beauty ; but that is because the savage's mind is closed to
the necessary contact. But we do find it in the sportsman, who, even
if in other ways objectionable, or even brutalized by the constant and
objectless slaughter of things more beautiful than himself, has often in

824 I^HE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

him something of that which we find in a higher degree in naturalists,
and which comes to all who can receive it from contact with Nature
face to face. Very dreamy, all that ! Very true ; but, if we never
dream, there are large regions of thought of which we shall understand
nothing, for in them only hypothesis and sympathy can possibly be
our guides. — Spectator.

PLANTATION FOLK-LORE.-

Br Professor T. F. CEANE.

IN a passage in his recent essay on Hawthorne, which was received
with some disfavor by his countrymen, Mr. James enumerated the
" items of high civilization which are absent from the texture of Amer-
ican life." To these might be added an item of low civilization, but
what, for the purpose of the imaginative writer, is of greater utility
than the court or Epsom — folk-lore. With the exception of a few
legends of the Hudson due to the Dutch, and an occasional Indian
legend (generally manufactured by the white man), there are no local
legends from one end of the land to the other. In minor matters, such
as superstitions, the case is no better ; aside from the aversion to Fri-
day, and sitting thirteen at table, Ave know of no general superstition.
There are, however, two classes of native Americans which must be
exempted from the application of the above rule — the Indians and the
Southern negroes. The superstitions of the latter, chiefly religious,
have been darkly hinted at from time to time, and have occasionally
afforded slight contributions to fiction ; a few, the reader will remem-
ber, are to be found in Mark Twain's amusing book, " Tom Sawyer."

It was not suspected that the negroes possessed a large fund of one
of the most entertaining classes of popular tales — animal stories — until
a number were published in the " Riverside Magazine " (November,
1868 ; March, 1869), " taken down from the lips of an old negro in the
vicinity of Charleston," variants of which appeared in the New York
" Independent " (September 2, 1875), and from time to time in other
papers. The first attempt at anything like a full or complete collection
of these tales is in the book before us, which is not only a most enter-
taining and novel work but a valuable contribution to comparative folk-
lore. The volume is divided into " Legends of the Old Plantation " and
" Uncle Remus's Songs and Sayings." In addition to these there are
some proverbs and " A Story of the War." The true value of the book,
however, is in the thirty-four inimitable "Legends of the Old Planta-
tion," which are related night after night by An old negro to the little

* Uncle Remus. His Songs and his Sayings. The Folk-Lore of the Old Plantation.
By Joel Chandler Harris. New York : D. Appleton & Co., 1881.

PLANTATION FOLK-LORE. 825

grandson of his former owner. Too much praise can not be bestowed
upon Mr. Harris for the manner in which he has executed his task : not
only is the representation of the dialect better than anything that has
heretofore been given, but he has shown himself a master in the difficult
art of collecting popular tales. A glance at the variants of these sto-
ries published elsewhere will show the vast superiority of Mr. Harris's.
It is not, however, in their literary character, interesting as it is, that
we intend to examine briefly these fables, but simply in their relations
to the similar tales of other countries.

Mr. Harris does not state the precise locality where he collected his
fables. To cite the words of a competent critic ("The Nation," De-
cember 2, 1880) : " Presumably his stories are all of Georgian origin,
though he cites a variant from Florida ; and he gives us proof that
' they have become a part of the domestic history of every Southern
family.' However widely they may have been spread through our
domestic slave-trade, we regard it as highly probable that the Sea-Isl-
and neighborhood from South Carolina to Florida was, as in the case
of the slave-songs, the focus of the animal fables — an hypothesis which
finds its support in the reference of both to an African and heathen
origin." We have at present but scanty information as to the extent
of the diffusion of these stories — variants have been found in South
Carolina and Florida ; no locality is mentioned for those given in the
interesting article on " Folk-Lore of the Southern Negroes," by Wil-
liam Owens, in " Lippincott's Magazine," December, 1877, pp. 748-
755.*

These stories narrate the contests of wit between the rabbit, the
terrapin, the bear, the wolf, and the fox. The first two, who are the
embodiments of weakness and harmlessness, are always victorious ; as
Mr. Harris says, " It is not virtue that triumphs, but helplessness ; it is
not malice, but mischievousness." The animals are all dignified with
the title Brer, or Buh, as represented by Mr. Owens, who says, " It is
generally supposed to be an abbreviation of the word ' brother ' " (the
br being sounded without the whir of the r), " but it probably is a title
of respect equivalent to our Mr." The manners and customs of human
beings are, after the usual fashion of fables, transferred to the animals
in a way that excites the wonder of Uncle Remus's youthful auditor,
and a mysterious Miss Meadows and " de gals " are introduced, with
whom the animals are on terms of intimacy, and at whose house some
of the most amusing incidents take place. A glance at the contents
of these fables will at once reveal many familiar episodes, a few of
which we shall note for a specific purpose.

In No. XYI, " Old Mr. Rabbit he's a Good Fisherman," Brer Rab-

* There are four stories in this article which have no parallels in " Uncle Remus " :
"Buh Rabbit, Buh Wolf, and the Pears"; "Buh Rabbit frightens Buh Wolf " ; "The
Rooster and the Cornbread ; " and " Buh Elephant and Buh Lion," which last has a dis-
tant resemblance to a story in Koelle's "African Native Literature," London, 1854, p. ITV.

826 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

bit, while the Fox, Coon, and Bear are clearing up " a new groun' fer
ter plant a roas'n' year patch," slips away and hunts for a cool place to
rest in. He finally came across a well with a bucket hanging in it and
looking so cool that Brer Rabbit climbed in, and of course the bucket
began to descend ; " but Brer Rabbit he keep mighty still, kaze he
dunner w'at minfiit gwineter be de nex'. He des lay dar en shuck en
shiver." The Fox saw the Rabbit slip away and followed him, and his
amazement can be imagined when he saw the Rabbit disappear down
the well. The Rabbit on being asked, " Who you wizzitin' down
dar ? " answered that he was fishing, and invited the Fox to get into
the other bucket and come down and help him. This the Fox did, and
as he went down up went Brer Rabbit. The Fox is afterward pulled
up by the owner of the well and escapes. This fable will be recognized
at once from the familiar version in La Fontaine (XI, 6, " Le Loup
et le Renard"), which he took from the "Roman de Renart." A-
much older version is found in the " Disciplina Clericalis," a collection
of Oriental stories made in the first years of the twelfth century.

No. XVII, " Mr. Rabbit nibbles up the Butter," relates how Brer
Rabbit, Brer Fox, and Brer Possum laid up their provisions together
in the same shanty, and put the butter that Brer Fox brought into the
spring-house to keep it cool. Brer Rabbit, however, under the pre-
tense of going to see his family, leaves his companions at their work
and takes a nibble at the butter. This goes on until the butter dis-
appears, and, while the others are sleeping, Brer Rabbit smears Brer
Possum's mouth with the butter on his paws. Brer Possum on wak-
ing up was naturally indignant, and demanded an ordeal by fire to
prove his innocence, but, as ordeals among men even must sometimes
have failed, the innocent Possum is burned up, greatly to the indigna-
tion of Uncle Remus's listener. With this story may be compared
Grimm, No. 2, " The Cat and the Mouse in Partnership." A closer
parallel is found in W. H. I. Bleek's " Reynard the Fox in South
Africa ; or Hottentot Fables and Tales " (London, Trubner, 1864, p.
18), " Which was the Thief ? "

"A Jackal and a Hyena went and hired themselves to a man to be
his servants. In the middle of the night the Jackal rose and smeared
the Hyena's tail with some fat, and then ate all the rest of it which
was in the house. In the morning the man missed his fat, and he im-
mediately accused the Jackal of having eaten it. ' Look at the Hyena's
tail,' said the rogue, ' and you will see who is the thief.' The man
did so, and then thrashed the Hyena till she was nearly dead."

In No. XXV, " How Mr. Rabbit lost his Fine Bushy Tail," the
Rabbit is victimized by the Fox, who persuades him to fish, one cold
night, by dropping his long, bushy tail (rabbits formerly had such)
into the water. It freezes fast, of course, and the poor Rabbit to get
away is obliged to leave his tail in the ice. This is one of the familiar
episodes in the "Roman de Renart."

PLANTATION FOLK-LORE. 827

Some of the stories contain incidents which are common to Euro-
pean popular tales, as in No. XX, " How Mr. Rabbit saved his Meat."
Brer Wolf suspected Brer Rabbit of stealing some of his fish, and
killed Brer Rabbit's best cow. The latter frightened the Wolf away
by telling him that the " patter-rollers " (patrol, policemen) were
coming, and proceeded to skin the cow and salt down the hide and
stow away the carcass in the smoke-house. The end of the cow's tail
he stuck in the ground, and called Brer Wolf. " Run yer. Brer Wolf,
run yer ! Yo' cow gwine in de groun' ! " When Brer Wolf arrived,
he found Brer Rabbit holding the tail with all his might to keep the
cow from going into the ground. Brer Wolf caught hold, and off
came the tail. The Wolf was not going to give the matter up so, and
got a spade, a pick-axe, and a shovel, and began to dig for his cow,
while Brer Rabbit sat on his front-porch smoking his cigar and watch-
ing him. This episode is found in a Basque story (Webster's "Basque
Legends," p. 10) and in an Italian tale (" Jahrbuch f iir roman. und
eng. Lit.," VIII, 252), and in many others that we have not space to
mention.

No. XIII, " The Awful Fate of Mr. Wolf," relates how the Wolf
persecuted Brer Rabbit, and carried off some of his family. To pro-
tect those left, " Brer Rabbit b'ilt 'im a straw house, en hit wuz tored
down ; den he made a house outen pine-tops, en dat went de same
way ; den he made 'im a bark house, en dat wuz i-aided on ; en eve'y
time he los' a house, he los' wunner his chilluns." Finally, he built a
plank house with rock foundations, and then could live in peace. One
day the Wolf, pursued by dogs, took refuge in Brer Rabbit's house,
and begged him to hide him from the dogs. The Rabbit told him to
get into a chest, and, the Wolf once secure, the Rabbit bored holes in
the top of the chest, and poured boiling water in and scalded the Wolf
to death. A similar story, except that seven Pigs and a Fox take the
place of the Rabbits and Wolf, is told by Mr. Owens (" Lippincott,"
December, 1877, page 753), who cites as a parallel the Anglo-Saxon
story of " The Three Blue Pigs." Another parallel may be found in
a Venetian story (Bernoni, " Tradizioni Popolari Veneziane," p. G9,
"ElGalo").

. One of the incidents in No. XX, "A Story about the Little Rab-
bits," is also familiar, and seems like a curious metamorphosis of a
well-known trait of fairy tales. The Fox goes to Brer Rabbit's house,
and the sight of the fat little Rabbits makes his mouth water, and he
endeavors to invent some excuse for killing them. He finally sets
them difficult tasks to do, intending to devour them if they fail ; but
a little Bird on top of the house sings the solution of all the difficul-
ties, which are : to break off a piece of sugar-cane ; to bring water in
a sieve ; and to put a big log on the fire. The second task is the one
found in European folk-lore, an example occurring in another Vene-
tian story (Bastanielo, Bernoni, " Fiabe," No. 6).

828 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

One of the most amusing stories in " Uncle Remus " is No. II,
" The Wonderful Tar-Baby Story " (versions also in " Riverside Maga-
zine," 1868, p. 505, and " Lippincott," December, 1877, p. 750), in
which the Fox made " a contrapshun wat he call a Tar-Baby," out of
tar and turpentine, and put it in the way of the Rabbit, who got stuck
to it, and thus fell into the Fox's clutches. In the " South-African
Folk-Lore Journal," I, p. 69, there is a curious parallel to the above
story. A number of animals build a dam to hold water, and the jackal
comes and muddies the water. A baboon is set to guard the dam, but
the jackal easily outwits him. Then the tortoise offers to capture the
jackal and proposes " that a thick coating of ' bijenwerk ' (a kind of
sticky, black substance found on beehives) should be spread all over
him, and that he should go and stand at the entrance of the dam, on
the water-level, so that the jackal might tread on him, and stick fast."
The jackal is caught, but, with his customary craft, escapes.

In the last of Uncle Remus's stories. No. XXXIV, *' The Sad Fate
of Mr. Fox," the Fox and the Rabbit jump down the mouth of a cow
and help themselves to meat, the Fox warning the Rabbit not " to cut
' roun ' de haslett." The Rabbit disobeys the injunction, and the cow
falls dead. The owner cuts her open to see what was the matter, and
the Rabbit betrays the Fox, who was hiding in the " maul," and who
is thereupon killed. In Bleek, p. 27, the Elephant and the Tortoise
have a dispute, and the former determined to kill the latter, and asked
hiin, " Little Tortoise, shall I chew you or swallow you down ? " The
little Tortoise said, " Swallow me, if you please ! " and the Elephant
swallowed it whole. After the Elephant had swallowed the little Tor-
toise, and it had entered his body, it tore off his liver, heart, and kid-
neys. The Elephant said, " Little Tortoise, you kill me." So the
Elephant died ; but the little Tortoise came out of his dead body and
went wherever it liked.*

More remarkable, however, than the above casual points of resem-
blance is the substantial identity of these stories with those of a tribe
of South American Indians. In 1870 Professor C. F. Hartt heard, at
Santarem on the Amazons, from his guide in the lingua geral, a story,
" The Tortoise that outran the Deer," a version of which he afterward
published in the " Cornell Era " (January 20, 1871), and which at-
tracted the attention of a writer in " The Nation " (February 23, 1871),
who gave a variant of the same myth, as found among the negroes of
South Carolina (the same story occurring in " Uncle Remus," p. 80).

* Mr. Harris includes among the animal fables a story which properly does not belong
there, and which is nothing but a well-known European tale which Uncle Remus must
have heard from the whites, although Mr. Harris, p. 136, note, says, " This story is popu-
lar on the coast and among the rice-plantations, and, since the publication of some of the
animal-myths in the newspapers, I have received a version of it from a planter in south-
west Georgia." The story in question is No. XXXII, " Jacky-my-Lantern," and is nothing
but a version of the French story of " Bonhomme Mis^rc," which is of Italian origin. (See
Pitre, "Fiabe," Nos. 124, 125; De Giibernatis, " Nov el line di Sto. Stefano," No. 32, etc.)

PLANTATION FOLK-LORE. 829

This singular resemblance does not seem to have been noticed again
until Mr. Herbert Smith, in his " Brazil, the Amazons, and the Coast "
(New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1879), in a chapter devoted to
" The Myths of the Amazonian Indians," gave a number of animal
fables, but, owing to his insufficient acquaintance with comparative
folk-lore, he was unable to throw any light on the subject, merely
noticing the resemblances which had already attracted the attention of
Professor Hartt and others. The proof-sheets of this chapter were
sent to Mr. Harris, who at once saw that the similarity extended to
almost every story quoted by Mr. Smith, and some are so nearly iden-
tical as to point unmistakably to a common origin ; but when and
where ? Mr. Harris asks, " When did the negro or the North Ameri-
can Indian come into contact with the tribes of South America ? "

Before examining this question, it may be well to compare hastily
the stories in Hartt's " Amazonian Tortoise Myths " (Rio de Janeiro,
1875) and Smith's " Brazil " with their parallels in " Uncle Remus " and
elsewhere. First, let us examine the stories common to Hartt, Smith,
and Uncle Remus :

I. " How the Tortoise outran the Deer " (Hartt, p. 7 ; Smith, p. 543,
gives the version in Hartt, saying : " I quote Professor Hartt's words
for this story, as being better than the version, substantially the same,
that I find in my note-book. The story is very common all over the
Amazons." — " Riverside Magazine," November, 1868, p. 507 ; " Cornell
Era," January 20, 1871 ; " Nation," February 23, 1871, p. 127 ; and
" Lippincott's Magazine," December, 1877, p. 751). The Tortoise de-
clares that it can outrun the Deer, and the latter challenges it to a
race. The Tortoise secretly posts members of its family along the
course, who answer for him when the Deer asks if he is ahead. The
race begins, and the Deer is so bewildered at hearing the Tortoise's
voice always ahead of him, that he runs against a tree and falls down
dead. In " Uncle Remus " the Rabbit takes the place of the Deer, and
the story ends with the Terrapin's victory without the death of his
rival. In " Lippincott " the actors are Buh Rabbit and Buh Frog ;
but the writer remarks that another version makes the competitors
Buh Deer and Buh Cooter (the Negro name for terrapin, or land-tor-
toise). A German version of this story is given in the "Riverside
Magazine," September, 1868, and a version from Siam may be found
in the " Orient und Occident," III, 497. A more important and sig-
nificant parallel, however, is to be found in Bleek, No. 16, p. 32,
" The Tortoises hunting the Ostriches " : " One day, it is said, the
Tortoises held a council how they might hunt Ostriches, and they said :
* Let us, on both sides, stand in rows near each other, and let one go to
hunt the Ostriches, so that they must flee along through the midst of
us.' They did so, and, as they were many, the Ostriches were obliged
to run along through the midst of them. During this they did not
move, but, remaining always in the same places, called each to the

830 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

other, ' Are you there ?' and each one answered, ' I am here.' The Os-
triches, hearing this, ran so tremendously that they quite exhausted
their strength, and fell down. Then the Tortoises assembled at the
place where the Ostriches had fallen, and devoured them."

II. " How the Tortoise provoked a Contest of Strength between the
Tapir and the Whale " (Ilartt, p. 20 ; Smith, p. 545 ; " Uncle Remus,"
p. 1 1 1). In Hartt, a Tortoise went down to the sea to drink, and a Whale
made sport of him, but the former said he was stronger than the latter,
and could pull him on shore. The Whale laughed, but the Tortoise
went into the forest to get a long root, and, while, looking for it, met
a Tapir, who asked him what he was doing. The Tortoise replied that
he was looking for a root to pull the Tapir into the sea with. The
Tortoise found his root, and tied one end to the Tapir and the other
end to the AVhale (of course, both remaining in ignorance of the per-
formance) ; the two then tugged against each other, and finally gave
up the struggle from sheer exhaustion. In another version (p. 23) the
coh^a grande, or mythical great serpent, and the jaguar are made to
pull against each other in the same way. Smith mentions a version he
himself heard, and then gives Professor Hartt's. In " Uncle Remus "
Brer Terrapin brags that he can out-pull Brer Bear, and, borrowing
Miss Meadows's bed-cord, he gives one end to the Bear, and, diving
down into the water, fastens his own end to a big root, and the Bear
soon gives up pulling against Brer Terrapin.

III. In a version of another story, " How a Tortoise killed a
Jaguar " (Ilartt, p. 29 ; Smith, p. 542 ; " Uncle Remus," p. 60), the
Jaguar is represented as reaching down into the burrow and catch-
ing hold of the Tortoise, who, resisting, calls out, " Oh, you foolish
fellow ! you think you have caught me, when it is only the root of
a tree you have secured." In " Uncle Remus," the Fox, in revenge for
what will be told in the following story, determines to kill Brer Ter-
rapin, The latter begs piteously not to be drowned, and the Fox,
taken in by this, souses him into the water, still holding on to him,
when the Terrapin " begin fer ter holler, ' Tu'n loose dat stump,
en ketch holt er me.' Brer Fox he holler back, ' I ain't got holt er
no stump, en I is got holt er you.' " But at last he was deceived by
the Terrapin's cry that he was drowning, and let go of him. .

IV. In the last-mentioned story, " How a Tortoise killed a Jaguar "
(Hartt, p. 26 ; Smith, p. 541 ; for one incident only, " Uncle Remus," p.
52), a Monkey carried a Tortoise up into a palm-tree to eat the fruit.
When his hunger was satisfied, the Tortoise wished to descend, but
the Monkey had gone, so the Tortoise had to remain there until a
Jaguar came along and asked him why he didn't come down. The
Tortoise said he was afraid, but the Jaguar said : "Don't be afraid !
Jump ! I will catch you ! " Then the Tortoise jumped down and
struck the Jaguar on the head and killed him. In Mr. Smith's ver-
sion, collected at the same place (Santarem), the Tortoise, after throw-

PLANTATION FOLK-LORE. 831

ing the Jaguar down some fruit, slips off the tree, and, falling on the
Jaguar's head, kills him. In " Uncle Remus," while the Rabbit and
Terrapin are calling at Miss Meadows's, the Fox comes in on them
unawares, and the Terrapin, who has been put up on a shelf, rolls off in
his agitation, falls on the head of the Fox, and stuns him a moment,
so that Brer Rabbit escapes.

These are all the stories in Hartt which have full or partial paral-
lels in " Uncle Remus " ; there are, however, several additional ones
in Smith that belong here.

V. *' Story of the Jaguar who wanted to marry the Deer's Daugh-
ter, but was cut out by the Cotia " (Smith, p. 547 ; " Riverside Maga-
zine," 1868, p. 505 ; " Lippincott's," 1877, p. 753 ; and " Uncle Remus,"
p. 34). The Cotia brags that he can ride the Jaguar, and the Deer
promises to give him his daughter if he does. The Cotia pretends to
be ill, and the Jaguar charitably takes him on his back, and even ties
him on with a root, and gives him a switch. When the Cotia finds
himself master of the situation, he whips the Jaguar unmercifully,
and rides him by the Deer's house. In " Lippincott " the Rabbit and
Wolf, in the other versions the Rabbit and Fox, are the parties con-
cerned.

VI. In the conclusion of Smith's version, p. 549, the Cotia slipped
off the Jaguar's back, and hid in a hole before the latter could catch him.
The Jaguar set an Owl to watch the hole, but the Cotia peeped out
and threw a handful of sand in the Owl's face and ran away. A some-
what similar incident is found in "Uncle Remus," p. 39 ("Riverside
Magazine," 1868, p. 508, III, at end), but, instead of throwing sand in
the Buzzard's eyes, the Rabbit makes him believe that there is a squir-
rel in the tree in which the Rabbit is imprisoned, and, when the Buz-
zard rushes around to catch it, the Rabbit escapes.

VII. " Story of the Cotia who played Tricks on the Jaguar and out-
witted him" (Smith, p. 549, at end). The Jaguar, enraged at the tricks
played upon him by the Cotia, caught the latter and tied him to a tree,
intending to drown him in the morning. The Cotia expressed his joy
at this determination, and remarked that he would be very sad if he
was going to be thrown into a brier-bush. The Jaguar, of course,
changed his mind and threw his enemy into a brier-bush ; whereat the
Cotia ran away laughing. The same incident precisely occurs in " Uncle
Remus," p. 29 ("Riverside Magazine," 1868, p. 505, I), with the Fox
and the Rabbit, who begs, " fer de Lord's sake, don't fling me in dat
brier-patch ! " The Fox is again deceived, and the Rabbit, as he es-
capes unhurt, cries out, " Bred en bawn in a brier-patch, Brer Fox ! "

VIII. A variant of the last story( Smith, pp. 552, 554) relates
that, to be avenged on the Cotia, the Lion and Jaguar guarded a
spring, so that the Cotia could get nothing to drink. After a time
the Cotia became very thirsty, and, seeing a man ^^ass with a jar on
his head, said to himself, " I will see if I can get some water from

832 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

that jar." So he ran ahead of the man and lay down in the path.
The man thought it was a dead Cotia, and shoved it aside with his
foot and went on. This the Cotia repeated four times, and at last the
man said : " Here's another dead Cotia ! Now, I will go back and get
the others, and carry all four home." lie put down the jar and went
to look for the other Cotias. Then the Cotia jumped up and thrust
his head into the jar, which contained molasses instead of water. In
" Uncle Remus," p. 70, the Rabbit, by a similar stratagem, steals Brer
Fox's game. Mr. Smith, p. 558, note, mentions a parallel to this
story from Egypt (Khunzinger, " Upper Egypt, its People and its
Products," p. 401). I do not recall any parallel in which animals are
the actors ; but a similar trick is found in many versions of the story
of " The Master Thief," for instance, in Asbjornsen and Moe's " Norske
Folke-Eventyr," No. 34, " Mestertyven."

We are prepared now to consider briefly the origin of these stories,
which are substantiallv the same in Brazil and in the Southern States.
That the negroes of the United States obtained these stories from the
South American Indians is an hypothesis no one would think of main-
taining ; but that the Indians heard these stories from the African
slaves in Brazil, and that the latter, as well as those who were formerly
slaves in the United States, brought tliese stories with them from
Africa is, we think, beyond a doubt, the explanation of the resem-
blances we have noted. Owing to a scarcity of materials, we have not
been able to show very clearly the African origin of these stoi'ies, but
what we have cited makes it at least probable. Whether the African
stories of "Reynard the Fox " are original with the Hottentots, or have
been communicated to them by the Dutch, is a point we can not de-
cide, in the absence of more ample material for comparison.

The most interesting point in the present investigation, and one
that connects it with the recent discussions on the subject of folk-lore,
is that, if our explanation be true, it shows that popular tales are more
readily diffused than has heretofore been supposed. Professor Hartt
("Amazonian Tortoise Myths," p. 5) says : "The question has arisen,
whether many of the stories I have given, that bear so close a resem-
blance to Old World fables, may not have been introduced by the
negroes ? But I see no reason for entertaining this suspicion, for they
are too widely spread, their form is too thoroughly Brazilian, they are
most numerous in just those regions where negroes are not and have
not been abundant, and, moreover, they occur, not in Portuguese
but in the lingua geraV The first objection would simply show the
extent of the diffusion, the second what would naturally take place on
the introduction of stories from a country with a different fauna, and
the final objections were overthrown, we believe, by Professor Hartt's
hearing these same stories from the negroes in Rio. He gave up the
hypothesis of an Indian origin, and did not continue his collection.
Mr. Smith (p. 548) makes about the same objections, which are invali-

AN ANCIENT SCIENTIST. 833

dated by the writer's own admissions : " They are repeated in remote
provinces, among half-wild tribes who hardly (the italics are ours)
ever see the negroes. . . . Many of the tortoise myths are told by the
Mundurucfi Indians, the majority of whom can not speak Portuguese."
Mr. Smith also confirms, what has been said above, that these stories
are told in Rio by the negroes, and a very suspicious circumstance is
the introduction of a lion into one of the stories (p. 551), which, as Mr.
Smith remarks, " shows that the narrator had heard of lions, probably
from the slaves."

In taking leave of this interesting subject we must reiterate our
praise of Mr. Harris's charming volume, and we trust that its scientific
side may not be overlooked, but awaken an interest in negro folk-lore
which will result in other works as entertaining and valuable as " Uncle
Remus."

■♦•»

AN ancie:n^t scientist.

EEADERS of Mrs. Browning will remember in the "Vision of
Poets " the description of Lucretius, as one

" "Who dropped his plummet down the broad,
Deep universe, and said, 'No God,'

"Finding no bottom. He denied
Divinely the Divine, and died
Chief poet by the Tiber side."

In spite of this high encomium, approved by men of taste in all ages,
the subject of this sketch is far less known to fame than many others
of much smaller ability either as poets or as philosophers. He is un-
known to many, to whom Virgil, Horace, Juvenal, and even Ovid, are
household words. And yet, of these foui-, Virgil alone can contest the
palm of supremacy with him. When Tyndall, in his famous Belfast
Address, introduced his typical Lucretian as an opponent to Bishop
Butler, many well-informed people were driven to their classical dic-
tionaries to discover whom the orator meant.

It is not easy to say what are the causes of this neglect, Lucre-
tius is not only one of the few first-class poets in Latin literature, but
he is also one of the most subtile and original thinkers that Rome ever
produced. His system shows how far scientific speculation had gone
in his day, and what views the most enlightened took in regard to the
structure of the universe and the problems of matter and life. His
theories are plausible, and sometimes have anticipated modern hypothe-
ses and discoveries. Yet few really know who he was and what his
doctrines are. It is to supply this wanting knowledge — to show what
VOL. XVIII, — 53

834 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

relation Lucretius actually bears to science — that this summary of his
principles was written.

Titus Lucretius Carus was born 96 b. c, and was thus the con-
temporary of Cicero, Cresar, and Sallust. As with many other great
men, little of his personal life is known. It appears that in his youth
he studied philosophy at Athens in company with Cicero and other Ro-
mans afterward distinguished in politics and literature. Beyond this
we know nothing certain of his life. He died b. c. 52, while Horace
was still a schoolboy at Rome and Virgil had just reached the age
of manhood. There is a story that his wife, fearing a decrease in his
affection toward her, had given him a love-philter, which made havoc
with his brain, and filled his mind with base thoughts, so that sooner
than endure them he killed himself. This version of his death is well
known through Tennyson's poem " Lucretius " ; it, however, is a mat-
ter of tradition, and not of history.

From his life we now turn to his great work, " The Nature of
Things." In this he lays down the whole system of the Epicurean
philosophy, a system which has been more vilified and misrepresented
than any other put forth by man. Its physical basis was the atomic
theory, which was first promulgated by Leucippus. The real founder
of the school was Democritus of Abdera, to whom Bacon awards a
high place among great thinkers. The great exponent of these doc-
trines was Epicurus, from whom the system takes its name. He lived
mostly at Athens in the third and fourth centuries before Christ, and
was noted for his frugal and virtuous life. His moral principles did
not consist in reckless indulgence of the senses, but in moderation in
all things, and in avoidance of pain, whether moral, mental, or physi-
cal. This principle is continually set forth and illustrated by Horace,
especially in his " Satires." In him the tenets of the Epicurean phi-
losophy become the maxims of a prudent, intelligent man of the
world.

But it is with the scientific aspect of this system, as set forth by
Lucretius, that we have chiefly to do. Its principles are contained in
six books of twelve or thirteen hundred lines apiece. It is best to
take up the books in their order, as the argument is closely connected
throughout.

The first book contains the broad principles of the atomic theory.
After a beautiful passage describing the benumbing power of super-
stition, he asserts that the only means of overcoming this is found in
the study of nature, and declares that the difficulty of the task shall
not prevent hira from attempting it. The first principle which he lays
down is, that all matter is uncreated ; or, as he expresses it, nothing
can spring from nothing. For, if anything can spring from nothing,
what need is there of these long processes of birth and growth and
these aids to development ? Why should all this labor be spent in vain,
if anything could become what it is without labor ? This is simply

AN ANCIENT SCIENTIST. 835

the ordinary scientific argument from experience, and, although not
strictly logical, is an expression of the conviction, common to every
student of Nature, of the continuity and permanence of physical law.
This conviction is not supported by arguments, but is built up slowly
and surely by the daily observation of Nature's working and of the
never-failing fulfillment of her laws. Our author's reasoning, there-
fore, is calculated rather to convince the man of science than the mere
logician.

Having established this principle, he goes on to state the converse,
that matter is never annihilated. For, he argues, since nothing can
be created, a continual unreplaced loss would have been going on,
which in the infinite course of past time would have left nothing of
the universe at all. Here, again, he shows that he has the scientific
conviction of the uniforriiity of nature. An objector might have
said, " Though there has been no loss, no annihilation in time past,
how do you know that there will be none in time future ? " This
argument, though unanswerable, is incapable of producing conviction
in a scientific mind. Such an argument, as Tyndall remarks in his
" Fragments of Science," is employed by the spiritualists in regai"d to
the sun's failing to rise on the morrow. " Before such a state of
mind," says he, " the scientific intellect is absolutely powerless." The
convictions that rise from uniform experience in the pursuit of physi-
cal studies are unassailable by any reasoning short of a mathematical
demonstration.

Lucretius adds that, in many cases of apparent annihilation, mat-
ter is but lost to grow again in another form. He instances the rain
whose drops fall upon the ground and are scattered, but appear again
in the blooming tree which shelters beneath its branches flocks and
herds and the race of men. Here, as often with this poet, a beautiful
episode crops out in the midst of his philosophical argument. Indeed,
it is one of his characteristics, and forms his claim to be considered a
great poet, that, combined with his appreciation of the order and con-
tinuity of nature, he has a fervent love for all its aspects of beauty
and life. Often he turns aside to tell of frisking lambs and babbling
brooks, and trees that spread their branches far and wide. He seems
to have loved nature in all its forms, and to have devoted to it all the
w^ealth of his intellect and imagination. He closes this argument
with the celebrated saying, " Nature builds up one thing by means
of another, and suffers nothing to be born except another die."

These two propositions, that nothing is created and nothing de-
stroyed, are the primary postulates upon which as a foxmdation he
builds the whole theory of atoms. His first step is to show that there
are bodies, which, though invisible, are yet appreciable through the
senses. The air, he argues, must consist of solid particles in as true
a sense as water, for water itself can not produce greater effects than
violent winds. There are, too, other particles of matter which affect

836 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the other senses, but not that of sight. This is proved by the sensa-
tions of sound, heat, and smell, which must be produced by matter,
for to give rise to the feeling of touch is the essential property of
matter and of matter alone. This property is what he calls an offi-
ciwn corporis — that is, a " function of substance " ; another which he
mentions afterward is weight, or the tendency to proceed downward.
He also demonstrates the presence of aqueous vapor in the air by the
phenomena of absorption and evaporation. A quotation of his lan-
guage at this point will give a fair idea of his logic and his style :
" In short, garments hung on the surf -beaten shore grow moist, but if
spread out in the sun they become dry again. Yet we have not seen
how the moisture of the water made its way in, nor how it vanished
beneath the heat. The water, then, is scattered into minute parts,
which the eyes can in no way behold." He employs arguments that
are in use nowadays in physics to prove the smallness to which matter
can be subdivided. The most solid bodies, such as rings upon the
fingers and the very stones beneath our feet, are worn away by con-
stant rubbing. " But," as he goes on to say, " the nature of sight
has enviously shut off the view of those portions of the substance
which disappear at any one time."

The arguments which he uses in this connection form an additional
proof of the scientific tendency of Lucretius's mind. In his time the
inductive and experimental methods were imperfectly understood and
little practiced. He himself does not appear to have attained to them,
he was bound by the false philosophical notions of the Greeks ; yet
often, as here, he traces the cause from various effects with consider-
able sagacity. He has in several cases, though generally on insufiicient
evidence, anticipated some of the results of modern research. It is
easy to see how his opinions would have been strengthened, and what
added breadth and vigor of reasoning he would have gained, if he had
stood on our vantacre-ffround and had known all that we now know.
As it is, we feel surprised at finding that he accomplished so much
with such imperfect material for his work.

We do not intend to follow the entire development of his theory,
but merely to trace his relations to science and the scientific spirit.
The rest of the first book and the whole of the second are taken up
with a descrijjtion of the action and properties of the primitive atoms,
of which he supposes all things to be composed. Amid some argu-
ments that appear reasonable, he brings forward a striking fallacy.
"If," says he, "matter is infinitely divisible, the greatest and the
least, consisting equally of an infinite number of parts, must be equal."
In other words, a mile and an inch are equal, for they each consist of
an infinite number of equally small parts. The mathematical imagi-
nation among the ancients must have been very little developed, if
such an argument passed muster with minds trained to the investiga-
tion of abstract truth.

AN ANCIENT SCIENTIST. 837

On the other hand, Newton, perhaps the most exact thinker known
to scientific history, has expressed opinions on the constitution of mat-
ter closely resembling those of Lucretius. The latter asserts that all
substance consists of atoms, which are perfectly solid, and therefore
incapable of being crushed or torn apart ; for that which has no void
within itself can not be separated into parts : moreover, they are ex-
ceedingly hard, for otherwise they could not form hard bodies like
iron ; yet, when combined with " much void," they can give rise to
soft substances, as water and air. Compare this statement with Sir
Isaac Newton's belief, as expressed in the following terms : " It seems
probable that God, in the beginning, formed matter in solid, massy,
hard, impenetrable, movable particles of such size, figures, and with
such other properties, and in such proportion to space, as most con-
duced to the end for which he formed them ; and that these primi-
tive particles, being solid, are incomparably harder than any porous
body compounded of them — even so very hard as never to wear, or
to break in pieces." If we except the belief in the creative power
of God, this quotation gives us Lucretius's atomic theory in a nut-
shell.

Our author is again in harmony with the latest deductions of phys-
ics, when he asserts that the atoms have in themselves no sensible
properties, such as color, heat, etc. But the arguments which he uses
to establish this proposition are by no means convincing. His treat-
ment of the atomic motions, however, is the most vulnerable point in
his system. He supposed all constituted things to be produced by the
impact of atoms, which through all eternity were descending, urged
on by their own weight. Now, Lucretius had very clear ideas on the
subject of gravitation. He knew that, except when in a resisting
medium, all bodies fall with equal velocities. Hence, in this everlast-
ing, downward rain, it would be impossible for one atom to apjDroach
another and combine with it. To obviate this difiiculty, he conceived
a slight lateral motion, by which the particles are brought together.
He offers no reason for this extraordinary hypothesis, except that no
other supposition can explain the formation of things so as to accord
icith his theory. It is the old story of system first and facts after-
ward, and shows well the injurious tendency of the a priori method
in one who was otherwise well fitted for the pursuit of knowledge.

Passing on to his other teachings, we find him devoting a whole
book to the bodily sensations. These, he attempts to show, are pro-
duced by corporeal images given off from bodies, and coming into con-
tact with our organs of sense. Thus, he thought that all things were
giving off thin pellicles of substance, which, by impinging upon the
eye, cause the sensation of sight. This is not unlike Newton's emis-
sion hypothesis. His theory of sound also is more purely mechanical
than that at present accepted. He supposes this sensation to be caused
by the direct passage of particles from the source of sound to the

838 THi: POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ear, and seems to have had no idea of motion communicated continu-
ously so as to produce waves. His remarks under this general head
are often quite correct, and show that he had some capacity for obser-
vation.

When treating of the heavenly bodies, he is ordinarily far out of
the way. With him the earth is fixed, and the sun and stars revolve
about it. With strange perversity, he denies that the orbs of these
bodies can be much larger than they appear, no matter at what distance
they are jjlaced. On the other hand, in treating this subject he some-
times displays that suspension of judgment which, as opposed to hasty
theorizing, is one of the first characteristics of the careful thinker. He
himself says : " I assign a number of reasons, one of which must be
true ; but which among them is true is not for a cautious man to de-
cide."

He next traces the develoi^ment of man from savagism to civiliza-
tion ; but, though the account is interesting, it has little to do with his
views of physical science, and we therefore pass on to the considera-
tion of the remainder of his work, which treats of various natural phe-
nomena, and exjilains their causes.

He supposes thunder to be produced by the clashing together of
clouds, or by the sudden expansion of a volume of air contained in a
cloud. This latter action he compares to the bursting of a bladder.
Other causes he enumerates, connected with the effects of winds and
lightning, whose action on the clouds may produce sound. Lightning,
in his view, is struck out like sparks from flint by the friction of the
clouds, or it may be caused by the heat generated by the rapid rotation
of a hollow cloud.

His views on the cause of water-spouts are similar to those held by
many at the present day, namely, that they originate in the vortex of
a whirlwind.

His ideas of the nature of clouds are confused, though in one place,
at least, he asserts that they are formed by the combination of vapor
which is exhaled from the ocean and the earth's surface. The act of
raining he ascribes to the compelling force of the winds and the weight
of the clouds themselves.

The opinions which he entertains in regard to earthquakes are spe-
cially noteworthy, as having been revived of late years by several sci-
entists to explain some, if not all, of the phenomena attendant upon
such convulsions of nature. He supposes these to be caused by sub-
terranean downfalls of large masses of rock.

This view has not only been accepted by a number of modern ge-
ologists, but also, as ^filisee Reclus * remarks, has been corroborated by
many observations. To this author we commend the reader who de-
sires to know the various reasons for accepting the theory.

* " The Earth," chapter Ixxiv.

AN ANCIENT SCIENTIST. 839

The eruption of volcanoes is referred by Lucretius to the expansion
of air heated in the cavities of the earth. Modern theorists would
rather explain their occurrence by the expansion of steam under great
pressure in some underground passage.

Our author goes on with the explanation of many other phenomena.
But he is continually led into error by his desire to accommodate the
explanation of the effects to suit his theory. As a specimen, we may
quote his view of magnetic attraction. According to the Epicurean
belief, all substances gave off pellicles or effluvia, which, as before re-
marked, were supposed to affect the senses. When, then, a magnet
and a piece of iron are brought near each other, the effluvia from the
former drive away the air between the two bodies, and particles of
iron rush to fill the vacuum so caused. Since these particles are very
coherent, they draw the rest of the iron after them. The magnet does
not attract gold, because that substance is too weighty ; wood, on the
other hand, is so porous that the atoms of the effluvia pass through it
without difficulty. Amid all these absurdities he seems to have had a
really philosophic idea of atmospheric pressure. He says : " The sur-
rounding air is continually dashing upon [bodies] ; and it drives the iron
forward, under such circumstances [as those mentioned before], because
the space on one side is empty, and receives [the iron] into itself."
He seems also to have had a crude idea of the modern germ theory of
disease, and this idea he dwells upon in the closing portion of his work.
He describes the means by which disease is spread, and instances the
plague at Athens,* with ,a magnificent description of which he con-
cludes his poem.

We have traced such of the principles of the author as seem to
bear on the relations of ancient to modern science. We see what
effect a false method produced in a man of undoubted genius, endowed
with a genuine appreciation of nature and a scientific tendency of
mind. Anxious for a rational explanation of every part of the won-
derful universe that surrounded him, he was not contented with the
slow processes of observation and experiment, but hastened to assign
the most probable a priori causes to everything. And thus, whenever
he states a physical truth, he appears to have stumbled upon it quite
accidentally. It is no reproach to modern men of science that they
have been anticipated in their discoveries by a Roman who lived nine-
teen centuries ago. Rather, it is their glory that, for the vague intui-
tions of the poet-philosopher, they have substituted the certainty of
demonstration ; and, by toilsome study in fields which the ancients
either neglected or despised, have gained generalizations far surpassing
any of his in grandeur. It is not, therefore, for any discoveries that he
made, still less for his method of acquiring knowledge, that we give
Lucretius a place in the scientific ranks ; it is rather for the high qual-

* Broke out b. c. 430. An accurate account of it is given by Thucydides, from whom
Lucretius is thought to have taken his description.

840 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ities of intellect, scientific cast of imagination, and a will that never
faltered in the earnest pursuit of truth for its own sake. In every age
these are the true characteristics of a man of science.

^♦»

SKETCH OF MICHEL CHASLES.

" TN the death of Michel Chasles," said M. J. Bertrand, in his fu-
-L neral eulogy of the deceased mathematician, " France has lost
one of its glories, and the members of the Academy of Sciences have
lost an excellent friend, who, devoted without reserve to the beautiful
studies which made his fame, showed an equal and active kindness to
all who traveled in different directions along the highways of science."
" As far back as the present generation can remember," says Mi\ R.
Tucker, in " Nature," " Chasles has been a prince of geometers, and it
has come upon many of us as a surprise to hear that he was still
walking and working in our midst. ... To many," says the same
writer, " the man who had surpassed in age Leibnitz by seventeen,
Euler by eleven, Lagrange by ten, Laplace and Gauss by nine, and
Newton by two years, was a ' venerabile nomen,'' but yet a ' nomen '
only."

M. Chasles was born at Epernon, France, November 15, 1793, and
died December 18, 1880. His mathematical tastes were exhibited at
a very early age ; while a pupil in elementary mathematics in the Im-
perial Lyceum, he was accustomed to communicate to the students in
the rival colleges the problems and exercises of each week, asking
them, in return, to furnish him the questions proposed by their masters.
He entered the ficole Polytechnique in 1812, and passed out from it
with a diploma in engineering in 1814, after having taken his place in
the defense of Paris. He was about to go to Chartres to bid farewell
to his mother before proceeding to duty at Metz, when he was waited
upon by the father of one of his comrades, who asked him to resign in
favor of his son, who had failed to obtain a position, pleading that he
had made great sacrifices, which he could not afford to repeat, to prepare
the youth for a career suited to his taste. Young Chasles made no
reply, but went on to Chartres and told his mother he would stay with
her. He returned to the ficole Polytechnique in 1815, but voluntarily
renounced public employment, and went to Chartres to spend ten
years working quietly at mathematical occupations. " Always," says
M. Bertrand, " passionately fond of geometry, he worked out elabo-
rate problems, discovered elegant theorems every day, invented gen-
eral and fruitful methods, without attracting the attention of the mas-
ters of science, or pretending to do so. . . . Without grieving or com-

SKETCH OF MICHEL CHASLES. 841

plaining of his obscurity, or being discouraged by it, he pursued his
studies for the love of them, and found glory without having done
anything to secure it except to produce great works."

M. Chasles was elected a corresponding member of the Academy
in 1839, was appointed Professor of Mechanics and Geodesy in the
Ecole Polytechnique in 1841, and was elected the first occupant of
the newly ci-eated chair of Modern Geometry in 1846. He resigned his
position in the £cole Polytechnique in 1851, in consequence of the
introduction into the school of changes of which he did not approve.
He was chosen a foreign member of the Royal Society in 1854, was
awarded the Copley medal in 1865, and was elected, in 1867, the first
foreign member of the London Mathematical Society.

M. Chasles's life was one of active, uninterrupted work in his favor-
ite field, from the time he left the Lyceum till he was eighty-seven
years old — a period of sixty-eight years. His contributions of papers
to scientific societies and journals are estimated to number nearly two
hundred and forty, on subjects which range " over curves and surfaces
of the second and any degree, geometry, mechanics (and attractions),
history, and astronomy."

Of his greater works — " masterpieces that commanded attention " —
the earliest was the " Aper5u Historique," or " Historical View of the
Origin and Development of Methods in Geometry," which, says M.
Bertrand, " under a title that is more than modest, remains the most
learned, the most profound, the most original work that the history of
science has ever inspired." It was published in 1830, being an elabo-
ration of a paper contributed several years before to the Royal Acad-
emy of Brussels, and was reprinted in 1875, with a preface, giving a
short historical account of the book. It is, says Mr. Tucker, a j^erfect
mine of geometrical facts, and is to the present day a high authority
on the subject of which it treats.

The courses of lectures delivered by M. Chasles as Professor of
Modern Geometry were embodied in 1852 in the " Ti-aite de Geome-
tric superieure," or " Treatise on the Higher Geometry," a work which,
of late years scarce and high, has recently appeared in a second edi-
tion. This was followed by a sequel, a treatise on conic sections
(" Traite des Sections Coniques, faisant suite au Traite de Geometrie
supei'ieure," the first volume of which appeared in 1865. The second
volume has not been published, but the materials for it have been
given from t^me to time in the " Comptes Rendus."

In 1863 M. Chasles published his " Three Books on the Porisms
of Euclid," which was the origin of a short controversy with M. P.
Breton. The question of attraction was presented to M. Chasles
under several points of view, and gave occasion to a number of me-
moirs extending even to the consideration of the general problem of
the attraction of a body of any form. Poinsot said of one of these
papers that it offered a remarkable example of the elegance and light

842 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

that geometry could shed on the most obscure and difficult questions ;
and M. Bertrand has said of them that they gave demonstrations
and results admirable as models of elegance and generality,

M, Chaslcs gained notoriety a few years ago by his connection
with a number of manuscripts and autographs purporting to be by
distinguished men of the j^ast, among them Galileo, Pascal, Sir Isaac
Newton, and even Julius Caesar and other Roman emperors and the
apostles, which he bought of one Irene Lucas and which proved to
be nearly all forgeries by that adventurer. Among them were some
which claimed for Pascal the merit of Newton's most celebrated dis-
coveries. M. Chasles earnestly defended the authenticity of the docu-
ments, of which he was fully and honestly convinced, and was sus-
tained by some eminent members of the Academy, until Lucas was
unmistakably shown to have fabricated them. Out of twenty-seven
thousand papers which he bought, only about a hundred were
genuine.

M. Bertrand, summing up the mathematical work of M. Chasles,
says that more than once, without abandoning the geometric method,
he " has shown with a rare felicity how all mathematical truths are
connected by a close and mysterious bond. We owe to him, in one of
the highest and most difficult theories of the integral calculus, elegant
theorems admired by analysts ; he has added to mechanics a chapter
which has become classic on the displacement of solid bodies ; he has
found in the theory of attraction beautiful and general theorems which
have revived the theory of static electricity. . . . All geometricians,
without distinction of nationality or school, have bowed before this
venerable old man ; all have admired his inventive power, his fertility,
which age seemed to rejuvenate ; his ardor and his zeal continued into
his latest days."

LITERARY NOTICES.

843

LITERARY NOTICES.

Food for the Invalid, the Convalescent,
THE Dyspeptic, and the Gouty. By J.
MiLNER FoTHERGiLL, M. D., and Horatio
C. Wood, M. D. New York : Macmillan
& Co. 1830. Pp. 150. Price, §1.
The introduction to this volume is a very
important and interesting essay on food in
its sanitary relations by Dr. Fothergill, while
Dr. Wood compiled the recipes, some three
hundred in number. In speaking of our
present eating arrangements and culinary
combinations, Dr. Fothergill says that they
have come about under the guidance of the
palate first, and the digestion afterward.
They were established before the daybreak
of physiological knowledge, and the light of
chemistry and physiology can not fail to dis-
turb them. Our food combinations should
now be modified by our advancing knowledge
of the wants of the organism. By a suitable
dietary many maladies may be avoided, and
many troubles, as indigestion, biliousness,
gout, and diabetes, alleviated or even cured.
To the increasing wealth and mental worry
of our times. Dr. Fothergill ascribes much of
the prevalent biliousness, gout, and visceral
disturbance ; and also the growing incapaci-
ty to digest fat, which has led to the use of
artificial digestive agents. Hence the neces-
sity for a cook-book devoted to the food of
those out of health, or with feeble powers of
digestion.

Dr. Fothergill traces the biliousness and
gout so common nowadays to the excessive
use of albuminoids in our food. They are
requisite for tissue growth and repair, and,
when swallowed, are digested mainly in the
stomach, passing into the blood, whence
they reach the tissues. But the nitrogen,
their essential feature, when in combination
with hydrogen and carbon, does not readily
oxidize, and it is the imperfect oxidation in
the liver of this nitrogen of the surplus al-
buminoids that causes biliousness and the
gouty condition. " In biliousness the blood
is surcharged with bile-salts of albuminoid
descent and nitrogenized lineage; just as
much as the lithic acid now known as ' gout-
poison,' . . . and it is obvious that in the

treatment of biliousness and gout alike it is
essential to cut down the albuminoid ele-
ments of the food to the minimum of tissue-
wants."

To the question why we systematically
eat more albuminoid food than we require,
Dr. Fothergill replies that there are two
very potent reasons : one, because it is pleas-
ant to eat it, and another, because it pro-
duces an agreeable mental condition. " The
albuminoid waste in the blood gives us the
sensation of energy, of being equal to work,
which is pleasant to all. But this sensation
is bought with a price ; and its Nemesis is
found in biliousness and gout." After prov-
ing the albuminoid descent of both bile and
gout-poison, Dr. Fothergill remarks that the
amount of albuminoids required for the re-
pair of the tissues of the body is very small,
and it is with the intent of avoiding exces-
sive albuminoid waste that the dietaries
arranged in the volume consist so little of
" brown meats." The flesh of fish, however,
is provided for in abundance. More than
ninety of the recipes are devoted to the
preparation of fish of various kinds in soups,
pies, patties, and puddings, or boiled, stewed,
fried, broiled, in paste, and on toast. Not
that " fish " differs materially from " flesh "
in chemical composition, but it contains more
water, and is more easily digestible. "A
meal of fish," it is said, " gives less albu-
minoid waste than a meal of brown meats."

Great prominence is given to fat in the
dishes here recommended. It is regai'ded as
a most important element of food, and much
pains are taken to make it unobjectionable
to the palate, inoffensive to the stomach,
and easily assimilable by the system. Starch,
also, so long decried and sneered at as hav-
ing no food-value, is given a prominent
place. " With fat and starch," Dr. Fother-
gill declares, " the bilious are comparatively
well ; for neither can produce bile-acids."
They may, however, lead indirectly to the
production of bile-acids when eaten in ex-
cess.

The first forty-three recipes of the book

844

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

are for drinks of various kinds — milk with
seltzer-water, with lime, with magnesia, etc.,
teas, broths, gruels, egg preparations, lemon-
ade, and a long list ol variously flavored " wa-
ters." When we come to the solid foods, the
reader is furnished with a guide to their use
by means of initials attached to the recipes.
I. stands for invalid, C. for convalescent,
D. for dyspeptic, G. for gouty, and E. for
economical. When a dish is suitable for
all these classes, all these initials are ap
pended to it. Thus, mock pdte defoie gras
is marked (I. C. D. G. E.), cauliflower (C. G.),
scrambled eggs (I. C. D.), while half a dozen
recipes for various salads have only the sin-
gle initial (G.)

Cream is also a favorite element in many
of the recipes of this book. Eggs, oysters,
fruit, and vegetables abound in them ; and,
although the title only promises sick-room
cookery, we are offered an abundance, and
variety that commend the book to everybody,
sick or well. Warmed-over meat is con-
demned, unless the digestion is perfect. One
method of preparing it is given as follows :
" Mince the meat fine with some pepper and
salt ; place a wall of well-mashed potato in
a pie-dish or soup-plate ; put in the minced-
mcat, and place over it a crust of mashed
potato; put in the oven till the moat is
warmed through, and not one moment long-
er." Sandwiches are much approved. Nur-
sery-food is carefully provided for, and ex-
cellent general directions are given concern-
ing the serving of food to the sick. The
book can not fail to be helpful to families
which are seldom quite exempt from sick-
ness or feebleness ; and physicians may
make it serviceable in providing a full diet-
ary for their patients.

Introduction to the Study of Indian Lan-
guages, WITH Words, Phrases, and
Sentences to be collected. By J. W.
Powell. Second edition, with Charts.
Washington: Government Printing-Of-
fice. Pp. 228, with blanks for taking
Notes.

This work, published under the direction
of the Bureau of Ethnography of the Smith-
sonian Institution, is designed to aid in the
collection of data for the examination and
comparison of the languages and dialects of
the Indian tribes, and to direct the efforts
of students among whatever tribe, so that

they shall be conducted methodically, and
adapted to fit a system embracing the whole
subject. The first edition was published in
1877 ; the present edition embodies the
modifications of the plan that have been
suggested by the progress that has been
made in the study. An alphabet has been
prepared which seems to admit of the repre-
sentation of all the sounds and modifications
of sounds that are likely to occur without
demanding the use of odd signs or going
outside of the cases of a well-stocked Eng-
lish printing-ofiice. A chapter is devoted
to the explanation of the manners, cus-
toms, articles of dress, ornament, and use,
etc., the study of which may throw light
upon the main subject, and should be
connected with it. This chapter contains
also a synopsis of Mr. Lewis H. Morgan's
work on kinship and affinity, illustrated by
charts showing the relations of kinship for
nine generations, and gives the substance
of a paper by Mr. J. Hammond Trumbull
on the best methods of studying the Indian
languages. It is followed by a series of
schedules embracing the various subjects of
Indian thought which are to be filled up by
individual students with details for vocabu-
laries, phrases, the representation of inflec-
tions, and all other matter that may be of
value in the study.

Report on the Geology of the High Pla-
teaus OF Utah. With Atlas. By C.
E. DuTTON, Captain of Ordnance, U. S. A.
Washington: Government Printing-Of-
fice. Pp. 307.

The surveys, of which this report gives
an account, were conducted, in 1875, 1876,
and 1877, in connection with the surveys of
Major J. W. Powell, and under his direction.
The Colorado plateaus, of which the district
covered by the survey is a part, extend from
southern Wyoming through western Colo-
rado and eastern Utah far into New Mexico
and Arizona, and have a general elevation
of about seven thousand feet above the
sea, but which varies from five thousand to
twelve thousand feet. The high plateaus
constitute one of the most important of the
several groups into which the region is di-
vided, and occupy a belt of country extend-
ing from a point about fifteen miles east of
Mount Nebo in the Wahsatch Mountains for
about one hundred and seventy-five miles to

LITERARY NOTICES.

845

the south-southwest, and having a breadth of
from twenty-five to eighty miles, and a total
area approaching nine thousand square
miles. They arc distinct, structurally and
topographically, from the Wahsatch range,
belong to another age, and are wholly dif-
ferent in their forms and geological rela-
tions. They are composed of early Tertiary
and late Cretaceous formations, nearly or
quite horizontal, and usually capped with
lava formations of exceedingly complex ar-
rangement. The region is for the most part
destitute of vegetation and soil, and dis-
sected by deep canons. Consequently, its
geology, as a whole, is plainly revealed, so
that every fault, every flexure, the relations
of successive unconformities, and all facts
of structure are seen at once ; but two
sources of obscurity exist, in that some of
the highest plateaus are covered with for-
ests and vegetation, and that the extrava-
sated rocks are aggregated in a more con-
fused manner than the sedimentary beds,
so that uncertainties and doubts still remain
after the utmost labor and care in tracing
them. The surface of the plateaus appears
to have formed the bottom of a lake in
Eocene times, and to have gradually risen
to its present height by a movement which
may still be going on. The drainage is by
the tributaries of the Colorado, whose chan-
nels were formed in the lake-bottom before
it was wholly dry, and have kept their course
and level where they are, " in spite of faults,
flexures, and swells, in spite of mountains
and plateaus," the streams turning neither to
the right nor to the left as these irregularities
were encountered, but persistently cutting
their way through the same old places, till the
present magnificent canons have been carved
out. Another salient feature of the region
is given by the extraordinai'ily extensive
faults, the results of displacements which
took place in relatively i-ecent times. Some
five or six of these great displacements are
from twenty to a hundred miles long, and
are of heights rising to a maximum of five
thousand feet. One of them, the Eastern
Kaibab fault, is the longest line of displace-
ment of which the author has any knowl-
edge ; it has a length which can not fall
much short of three hundred miles, and may
be found to exceed that after its termini have
been discovered, and a maximum height of
seven thousand feet. The displacements do

not belong wholly to any one period, but arc
of distinct though not widely separated ages.
The erosions of the plateau do not' appear
to have been affected by the presence of ice
during the glacial epoch, but the evidence is
strongly in favor of the conclusion that the
climate in this district was not glacial.
" The ravines and valleys are conspicuous-
ly water-carved, and conspicuously not ice-
carved." Yet evidences of the former exist-
ence of small local glaciers are found on
the summits of the cliffs, not less than eight
thousand five hundred to nine thousand feet
high ; and this is believed to emphasize the
evidence of the absence of ice-action in the
valleys and plateau flanks.

The region is one of extinct volcanism,
the action of which, though small compared
with that we know of some other regions,
has been great compared with what is seen
in most of the volcanic districts of Europe.
The phenomena are of the most varied kinds,
and relate to eruptions of which the oldest
go back to the middle Eocene, while the
latest " can not be as old as the Christian
era," and "it is hard to believe that they
are as old as the conquest of Mexico by Cor-
tes." They are subjected to a careful study,
especially with reference to the order of suc-
cession of the eruptions, and a comparison
of the same with the arrangement proposed
by Baron Richtofen. This study is followed
by a discussion of the origin of volcanic
eruptions, as illustrated by these phenomena.
The photographic work not having been
completed, has not been embodied in the
present volume. The text is more especially
devoted to the general geology, while many
of the details are made more clear by helio-
typic illustrations than they can be by mere
textual descriptions. The atlas contains to-
pographical, geological, and relief maps, and
a sheet showing the arrangement of the
faults and flexures.

The Power of Movement in Plants. By
Charles Darwin, LL. D., F. R. S., as-
sisted by Francis Darwin. With Illus-
trations. New York : D. Applcton &
Co. 1881. Pp. 592. Price, $2.00.

Mr. Darwin's latest study of plant-life
shows no abatement of his power of work
or his habits of fresh and original observa-
tion. We have learned to expect from him
I at intervals, never much prolonged, the re-

846

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

suits of special research in some by-path or
other subordinated to the main course of the
biological system associated with his name ;
and it has been an unfailing source of in-
terest to see the central ideas of the evolu-
tion and the continuity of life developed in
detail through a series of special treatises,
each wellnigh exhaustive of the materials
available for its subject. It is in the de-
partment of plant-life that he has of late
years devoted himself to working out the
laws which govern the whole realm of vital
phenomena. That these laws in their origin
and ultimate operation are common to plant
and animal alike has long formed a charac-
teristic principle or axiom of his philosophy.
In the experimental study needed for the
elaboration of the vital processes and the
making good the resulting generalizations,
the kingdom of plant-life offers decided
advantages beyond that of animals, if it
were only that observations of this class are
free from all possible taint of inhumanity.
Mr. Darwin has in the quietude of his hot-
house, and with a boundless variety of forms
for selection, experimented upon the vital
organism of plants, seconded by the untir-
ing energy and patience of his son. Night
and day seem to have come alike to the aid
of this enthusiastic pair of naturalists. The
electric light has served them on the failure
of the sun's beams, and has in truth opened
up of itself a wholly new field for observa-
tion as regards the agency of light upon the
phenomena of life. To the vista of knowl-
edge revealed by these experiments upon
the elementary processes of life in move-
ment, growth, nutrition, respiration, sensa-
tion, etc., imagination can set no bounds.
It is impossible, Mr. Darwin remarks at the
close of his record of these interesting ex-
periments, not to be struck with the resem-
blance between the foregoing movements of
plants and many of the actions performed
unconsciously by the lower animals. This
analogy has been made the subject of much
interesting investigation by Sachs, Frank,
and other leading biologists on the Conti-
nent, and we may expect that the highly
original and elaborate experiments record-
ed in the volume before us will give fresh
stimulus to this most important course of
investigation, laying as they do a new and
more solid basis for the comparative study
of plant and animal life. Plants, of course.

possess neither nerves nor a central nervous
system, and there is consequently lacking in
them that which gives its most distinctive
character to animal life as a whole. Yet
that sensitive impressions are present in
plants, with the power of movement in obe-
dience to the stimulus thereby imparted to
the organism, may be held to be conclusively
shown by facts such as those produced by
Mr. Darwin. Most striking of all, he urges,
as a point of resemblance, is the localiza-
tion of their sensitiveness, and the trans-
mission of an influence from the excited
part to another, which consequently moves.
May it not be inferred that in animals the
nervous structures serve merely for the more
perfect transmission of impressions and for
the more complete intercommunication of
parts ? From the earliest sign of germina-
tion in plants — namely, the protrusion of
the radicle from the seed-coats under the
soil — there is manifest a sensitiveness to
external influences, with a movement in re-
sponse to the conditions of light or press-
ure, etc., which is not sharply to be dis-
tinguished from the rudimentary intelligence
in animals. In the sensitive point or tip
of the radicle, which we might compare
with the antennae in insects, there is to be
seen an organic power equivalent, in a lesser
degree, to the action of the brain in the
lower animals :

We believe that there is no etructure in
plants more wonderful, as far as its functions
are concerned, than the tip of the radicle. If
the tip be lightly pressed or burned or cut, it
transmits an influence to the upper adjoininp;
part, causing it to bend away from the affected
side ; and, what is more surprising, the tip can
distinguish between a slightly harder and softer
object, by which it is simultaneously pressed on
opposite sides. If, however, the radicle is
pressed by a similar object a little above the
tip, the pressed part does not transmit any in-
fluence to the more distant parts, but bends
abruptly toward the object. If the tip perceives
the air to be moister on one side than on the
other, it likewise transmits an influence to the
upper adjoining part, which bends toward the
source of moisture. When the tip is excited by
light (though in the case of radicles this was as-
certained in only a single instance) the adjoin-
ing part bends from the light; but when excited
by gravitation the same part bends toward the
center of gravity. In almost every case wo can
clearly perceive the final purpose or advantage
of the several movements. Two, or perhaps
more, of the exciting causes often act simultane-
ously on the tip, and one conquers the other, no
doubt in accordance with its importance for the

LITERARY NOTICES.

847

life of the plant. The course pursued by the
radicle in penetrating the ground must be de-
termined by the tip ; hence it has acquired such
diverse kinds of sensitiveness. It is hardly an
exaggeration to say that the tip of the radicle
thus endowed, and having the power of direct-
ing the movements of the adjoining parts, acts
like the brain of one of the lower animals ; the
brain being seated within the anterior end of the
body, receiving impressions from the sense-
organs, and directing the several movements.

In this suggestive passage, with which
our authors bring their present course of
investigations to a close, we see opened up
a far-reaching prospect for the biological
progress of the future. For the present it
must suffice to have made good so much as
our authors have been able to report from
their patient study of the simpler and more
easily observable vital phenomena.

A great part of Mr. Darwin's work is
taken up with the details of experiments
for measuring the quantity and direction of
motion in plants, both under natural and
artificial conditions. Direct observations
have been made in numerous cases under
the microscope, and in others use has been
made of delicate apparatus of various kinds.
Minute bits of card or tissue paper have
been attached to the radicles, filaments, or
terminals of stems, and tiny particles of
metal or beads of shellac have been em-
ployed as weights to test the power of rigid-
ity or of sensitiveness in the fibers of plants.
Pins stuck in the soil around the stem have
served to mark the conduct of the plant
when impeded in its growth or its spon-
taneous habits of movement. The move-
ments of the tenderest filaments or leaflets
have been made to trace themselves in lines
upon smoked glass. A series of diagrams
has in this way been worked out, and set
before the eye in numerous woodcuts, gen-
erally magnified two or three fold, showing
the general law of circumnutation indefi-
nitely modified by special conditions. The
differences of movement in seedling and
mature plants, in monocotyledons and dico-
tyledons, with the indications of certain
movements having been acquired for a spe-
cial purpose, arc pursued through widely
contrasted classes of plants. The circum-
nutating powers of young leaves are de-
scribed in thirty-three genera belonging
to twenty-five families, widely distributed
among ordinary and gymnospermous dico-

tyledons, and among monocotyledons, to-
gether with many cryptogams. Here the
seat of movement is generally seen to lie in
the petiole, but sometimes both in the petiole
and the blade, or in the blade alone. The
movement is chiefly in a vertical plane ;
yet, as the ascending and descending lines
never coincide, there is always some lateral
movement, resulting in irregular eUipses, so
that the motion becomes really one of cir-
cumnutation. It is interesting to mark the
periodicity. of leaf-movement, a gentle rise
being observed in the evening and the early
part of the night, with a sinking toward
morning. In Dioncea and certain graminice,
a strange jerking and oscillatory movement
is to be seen under the microscope, curiously
contrasted with the immobility of the tenta-
cles of Drosera rotundifolia, which are yet
sensitive enough to curl inward in twenty-
three seconds so as to absorb a bit of raw
meat. The distinction of epinastic and
hyponastic growth — according as the growth
takes place more rapidly in the upper or
lower surface of an organ, causing it to
bend downward or upward respectively —
introduced by De Vries, has been illustrated
in the case of a number of plants. To Frank
is due the introduction of the useful terms
of " heliotropism," for the tendency to turn
to the light, with its correlative " aphelio-
ti'opism," the opposite tendency, occasionally
to be observed, " geotropism," for the bend-
ing toward the earth, and " apogeotropism,"
expressing motion in opposition to gravity
or from the center of the earth. For the
measurement of movements, sometimes ex-
cessively minute, various expedients were
adopted. Dots w-ere made from time to
time upon sheets of glass placed vertically
and horizontally near the plant, these dots
being then copied on tracing-paper and
joined by ruled lines, arrows being added
to show the direction of the movement.
The plants were exposed to varied condi-
tions of light, sometimes being wholly pro-
tected, the light at other times being ad-
mitted from above or from either side. In
addition to the sun's rays, the electric light
was made the subject of experiment, with
results comparable with those of Dr. Sie-
mens. A valuable chapter is given to the
sensitiveness of plants to light, with its
transmitted efi'ects. That growth in gen-
eral is checked by light, which acts upon

848

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

plants much in the same manner as it does
upon the nervous system in animals, is a
statement which needs to be reconciled with
the undoubted fact that the power of bend-
ing to the light is beneficial to plants, and
may in all probability have been specially
acquired under the action of natural selec-
tion. Experiments have abundantly shown
that growth is exceptionally promoted by
light continuously kept up, as in the polar
summer, or when the absence of sunlight
is compensated by the electric ray. Here-
in is, of course, involved the intricate prob-
lem of the sleep of plants, which is carried
on through two chapters of the highest in-
terest.— Saturday Review.

Guide to the Study of Political Econ-
omy. By Dr. Luigi Cossa. Translated
from the second Italian edition. With
a Preface by W. Stanley Jevons, F. E.
S. London: Macmillan & Co. 1880.
Pp. 237. Price, $1.25.

This is a work which no English student
of economics can fail to find of the greatest
value, in helping him to a knowledge of the
extent and worth of the economic writings
of foreign authors. Dr. Cossa is peculiarly
fitted, by his wide acquaintance with eco-
nomic literature and by his breadth of view,
to make a competent and trustworthy guide,
and the translation of his work into the chief
European languages sufficiently attests its
merit. The work comprehends a brief ex-
position of the scope, character, and method
of the. science, with an historical review of
its position and doctrines in ancient and
modern times, and a long list of the writ-
ings of economists of all countries, with in-
dications of their worth. In the first chapter
the science is defined and its demarkation
from allied branches of knowledge pointed
out. The division of the science and its re-
lation to other sciences occupy the author
in the next two chapters, the views of a
number of leading economists being given.
The chapter upon method contains a brief
but excellent discussion of the questions in-
volved in the controversy between what are
known as the historical and philosophic
schools, Dr. Cossa pointing out the error of
main position of the former school, while
admitting the value of much of the work
accomplished by its members. A consider-
ation of the importance of the science and

an examination of some of the objections to
it complete the more general part of the
work, the remainder being devoted to the
historical review. This includes a notice of
the political economy of the ancients, of the
middle ages, and of modern times, treating
briefly in the latter period of that of the
physiocrats, of Adam Smith and his suc-
cessors, of the economists of the present
century, and closing with a consideration
of contemporary Italian economists. An
index of the authors quoted in the text is
placed at the close of the volume, the list
containing over seven hundred names.

The Young Folks' Cyclopedia of Persoks
AND Places. By John D. Champlin, Jr.,
late Associate Editor of the " American
Cyclopaedia. " With numerous Illustra-
tions. New York : Henry Holt & Co.
1881. Pp. 936. Price, $3.50.

This work, including both real and fabu-
lous persons and places, is intended, in con-
nection with the " Young Folks' Cyclopaedia
of Common Things " by the same author, to
cover the usual range of cyclopedic knowl-
edge. The language is simple ; technical
terms where admitted are explained ; the
illustrations are selected to exclude those
common in school-books, and preference is
given to those showing restorations of clas-
sic scenes and famous buildings. The pro-
nunciations are indicated approximately by
plain English letters ; and the size of coun-
tries and cities is made more plain by com-
paring them with States and towns at home.
Most of the facts are brought down to 1880.

James Smithson and his Bequest, by
William J. Khees ; and The Scientific
Writings of James Smithson, edited by
William J. Rhees. Washington : Pub-
lished by the Smithsonian Institution.
1879. Pp. 227.

The preparation of a biography of the
founder of the Smithsonian Institution has
been delayed on account of the scantiness
of the materials. Unusual exertions were
made last year to collect the facts and
incidents of the life of Mr. Smithson, but
nothing new was elicited. The few facts
which are known have been collected by
Mr. Rhees as all the information likely to
be obtained, and are presented for the first
time as an authentic account of the man

LITERARY NOTICES.

849

who crowned a well-earned reputation for
scientific attainments with his remarkable
bequest for the increase and diffusion of
knowledge among men. Three portraits of
Mr. Smithson and a view of his tomb at
Genoa lend attractions to the work.

The volume contains, of Smithson's sci-
entific writings, twenty-seven papers, mostly
on chemical subjects, which were published
in the " Transactions of the Royal Society
of London," and Thomson's "Annals of
Philosophy," between 1791 and 1825, with
reviews of the scientific character of the
papers by Professor Walter R. Johnson
and J. R. McD. Irby. Mr. Smithson left, in
addition to these papers, several hundred
manuscripts, scraps, and notes on many sub-
jects, which were destroyed in the fire at
the Smithsonian Building in 1865.

Eeport on the Culture of the Sugar-Beet
AND the Manufacture of Sugar there-
from IN France and the United States.
By William McMurtrie, E. M., Ph. D.,
Superintendent of Agriculture in the
United States Section, and Agent and
Representative of the United States De-
partment of Agriculture, at the Paris Ex-
position of 1878. Washington: Govern-
ment Printing-office. 1880. Pp. 294.

Mr. McMurtrie took advantage of his
visit to the Paris Exposition to secure full
information concerning the methods of cul-
ture of the beet and manufacture of sugar
followed in France, and the same is given
here, with additional information from other
countries in Europe. The conditions most
favorable to the success of the beet-sugar
enterprise appear to be a mean temperature
of not more than 70° and a minimum av-
erage rainfall of above two inches during
the summer months. Tables, with illustra-
tive charts, are given, showing in what parts
of the United States these conditions exist.
Full detailed reports are added of the prog-
ress and present condition of the sugar-beet
culture in the New England States, particu-
larly in Maine. The machinery used in
making the sugar is illustrated by descrip-
tive cuts.

Sanskrit and its Kindred Literatures.
Studies in Comparative Mythology. By
Laura Elizabeth Poor. Boston : Rob-
erts Brothers. 1880. Pp. 468. Price, $2.
The object of the author has been to

interest people in the study of all literature
VOL. xviii. — 54

on the new basis which has been laid by
the sciences of comparative philology and
comparative mythology ; to show that liter-
ature is one and continuous ; that the same
leading ideas have arisen at epochs appar-
ently far separated from each other; and
that each nation, however isolated it may
seem, is, in reality, a link in the great chain
of development of the human mind. The
most prominence is given to Sanskrit as
the oldest and nearest to the foundation of
the Aryan literatures, which is viewed in its
Vedic and Buddhist aspects, and in the light
of the greatest works in either branch. A
notice of the ancient Persian literature and
the Zendavesta follows, after which are
chapters on Greek mythology, poetry, drama,
philosophy, and history, Latin and Keltic,
Scandinavian, Anglo-Saxon, and German lit-
eratures, mediaeval hymns and ballads, the
mythology of Slavonic literature, and the
modern poetry of Europe.

High Schools. By B. G. Northrop, Secre-
tary of the Connecticut Board of Educa-
tion. Syracuse, N. Y. : Davis, Bardeen
& Co. Paper. Pp. 26. Price, 25 cents.

Mr. Northrop in this pamphlet es-
says to answer the objections that have
been urged during a few years past against
the continuance of the public high schools.
To the objection that they are an excres-
cence on our school system, aside from
the design of its founders, he i-eplies that
they have been maintained in Massachu-
setts for a longer time and on a broad-
er scale than in any other state of the
world, the first law establishing them hav-
ing been passed in 1647. He urges that
the high school lifts up all the schools of
lower grades by giving increased efficiency
to them through its standard of admission,
which presents a strong stimulus to studi-
ousness and fidelity. It is true that only a
small proportion of college students have
received their preliminary training in the
hish schools, but it is claimed on the other
side that the interest of a large proportion
of the students in higher education was first
excited in the high schools, and that they
have gone out from them to the academies
where they have received their special prep-
aration. That the high schools have not
a communistic tendency, as some assert, is
proved by the fact that communism prevails

SCO

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

least where thev are the most flourishing .
they are not in the nature of a charity, as
some seem to beUeve, but are an assertion
of the right of the State to demand that its
people should have the education necessary
to its preservation and prosperity. Much
of the opposition to high schools has arisen
from mistakes that have been made in their
management. They should not undertake
to teach Latin and Greek, or other branches
that the pupil may not have occasion or
opportunity to apply or continue in after-
life, but should aim rather to teach him
how to study, and to inspire him with love
of learning.

The Geological and Natural History of
Minnesota. The Eighth Annual Report,
for the Year 1879. St. Paul : the Pio-
neer-Press Company. 18S0. Pp. 183.

The year's work of surveys was carried
on chiefly in the northern part of the State,
and resulted in the extension of the surveyed
area in northeastern Minnesota, except as to
some points oi^ the Cascade River, as far
west as the Poplar River, and over a consid-
erable district west of that stream. Studies
have also been made of the drift-covered
counties in the central and western part of
the State, with especial reference to their
topography, glacial geology, and economic
resources. Collections have been made of
animals and plants on the shores of Lake
Superior, and a partial catalogue of species
of birds is given.

Ninth Report of the State Entomologist
ON the Noxious and Beneficial Insects
OF THE State of Illinois. Fourth An-
nual Report by Cyrus Thomas, Ph. D.
Springfield, Illinois : Weber & Co., State
Printers. Pp. 142.

The increasing demand for the State
Entomological Reports is regarded as indi-
cating that farmers and horticulturists are
paying more attention to entomology than
formerly, and attests the usefulness of the
office of State Entomologist. The present
report gives especial attention to the history
of the European cabbage-worm ; and, though
the author considers it a diversion from his
legitimate field, in answer to repeated re-
quests furnishes information in reference to
parasites infesting domestic animals.

Abridgment of the Nautical Almanac for
1881. Philadelphia: Riggs & Brother.
Pp. 150. Price, 25 cents.

Besides the hydrograpbic notices, the
rules of the road at sea, and the catalogue of
lighthouses, this abridgment contains an im-
portant paper on maritime meteorology, by
Professor Thompson B. Maury. The paper
embraces a synopsis of the nature and direc-
tion of the prevailing winds of the Atlan-
tic coast and ocean, and of the laws that
appear to govern the course of hurricanes ;
to which are added hints for handling ships
in or near cyclones, by the observance of
which shipmasters may be enabled to decide
upon and pursue the course most likely to
insure the safety of their vessels.

Mr. Henry George has in the press of
D. Appleton & Co., and will shortly publish,
a new book, entitled " The Irish Land Ques-
tion : AVhat it involves, and how alone it
can be settled."

PUBLICATIONS RECEmiD.

The Causes which produce the Great Prevail-
ing Winds and Ocean-Currents, and their Effeete
on Climate. By C. A. M. Taber. Boston : Da-
vid Clapp & Son, printers. 1881. Pp. 54.

Report on the Marine Isopoda of New Eng-
land iind Adjacent Waters. By Oscar Harger.
Pp. 166. with Thirte n Plates. From the Report
of the United Slates Commissioner of Fish and
Fisheries. Part VI for 1878.

The Development of Osseous Callus in Frac-
tures of the Bones of Man and Animals. By
Henry O. Marcy, M. D. Philadelpi.ia: Coilins's
printing-house. 1880. Pp. 20.

Report of the Analvsis of the Ohio River Wa-
ter. By C. R. Stuntz, M.D. Cincinnati ; Rob-
ert Clarke & Co. 1881. Pp. 29.

Dr. Edward Jenner's Discovery of Vacci-
nation. By E. L. B. Godfrey, M. D. Philadel-
phia: Hoeflich & Senseman, printers. Pp.16.

Higher Education of Medical Men. By F. D.
Lente, M. D. New York ; C. L. Birmingham &
Co. 1881. Pp. 16.

A Syllabus of Anglo Saxon Litnrature. By
J. M. Hart, University of Cincinnati. Cincin-
tiati : Robert Clarke & Co. 1881. Pp. 69.

The Strong Galvanic Current in the Treat-
ment of Sciatica. By V. P. Gibney, M. D. Pidl-
adelphia: Collins, printer. 1880. Pp.11.

Second Biennial Renort of the Superintend-
ent of Public Instruction of the State of Colo-
rado. Denver, Colorado: Tribune Publishing
Co. 1881. Pp. 133.

Nasal Catarrh and Ozaena. By George Py-
hurn, M. D. Sacramento, California: Day &
Joy, printers. 1881. Pp. 16.

Clinical Anatomy of the Lower Extremity.
By W. W. Keen, M. D., of Philadelphia. Illus-
trated. Brooklyn, New York. 1881. Pp. 20.

The Structure and Affinities of Euphoberia :
a Genus of Carboniferous Myriapoda. By Sam-
uel H. Scudder. Reprint Irom the "American
Journal of Science." Pp. 5.

P OP ULAR MIS CELL ANY.

851

Tidal Theory of tlie Forms of Comets. By
George W. Coakley. Salem, Massachusetts.
l&iO. Pp. 18.

" Papillo." Organ of the New York Ento-
mological Club. Vol. I, No. 1. New York. Jhd-
uary, 1881. Pp. 1^. «ubscription, $2 per annum
(,ten numbers).

Third Annual Announcement of the Normal
and Scientific School, Morris, Illinois. Morris.
1880. Pp. 2a.

On the Constitution of the Naphthalines and
their Derivatives. By M. M. P. Keverdin and E.
Ngtting. Tra islated from the Gerraun by M.
Benjamin, Ph. B., and T. Tonnele, Pli. B. Pp. 8.

Indications of Character in the Head and
Face. Bv U. S. Drayton, A. M. Illuati'ated.
New Yoi-k : Fowler & Wells. 1851. Pp. 48.
Price, 1.5 cents.

Pueblo Pottery. By F. W. Putnam. From the
"American Art Review" for February, 1S81.
Illustrated. Pp 4.

The Spirit of Education. By M. I'Abbe Ama-
b!e Beesau. Translated by Mrs. E. M. McCarthy.
Syracuse. New York: C. \V. Bardeen. 1881. Pp.
.32.-). $1.25.

Reminiscences of Dr. Spurzheim and George
ComDe. By Nahum Capen. LL. D. New York :
Fowler & Wells. 1881. Pp.262. $1.50.

Drugs that enslave. The Opium, Morphine,
Chloral, and Hashisch Haoits. By U. H. Kane,
M. D. Philadelphia: Prerfey Blakistou. 1881.
Pp. 204. $1.50.

First German Book. After the Natural or
Pestalozzian Method. By James H. Worman,
A. M. New York and Chicago : A. S. Barnes &
Co. Pp. 63. 35 cants, post-paid.

The Baldwin Locomotive Works. Illustrated.
Philadelphia : J. B. Lippiucott & Co. 1881. Pp.
153. $5.

The Human Body : An Account of its Struc-
ture and Activities, and the Conditions of its
Healthy Working. By H. Newell Marten. D.
Sc, etc. Illustrated. New York : Henrv Holt
&Co. 1881. Pp.655. $1.75.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

Au Epidemic of Hystero-Dfmonoiua-
nia. — An Italian physician, Dr. Franzolini,
has published an account of an hystero-de-
moniac epidemic which prevailed in the ru-
ral district of Verzcguis, province of Friuli,
Italy, in 1878, and which he and Dr. Chiap
were commissioned by the Prefect of Udine
to examine. The commune contains about
eighteen hundred inhabitants, of whom, at
the time the inquest was made, sixty-two
women and eleven men in two of its four
subdivisions were sick, the majority of them
with nervous affections of different degrees
of intensity, and generally of the hysteric
form without convulsions or delirium. The
people of the commune were of infei^or in-
tellectual capacity and development, enjoyed
little communication with the world, had
been in the habit of intermarrying with each
other and often with relatives of the third

and fourth degrees, and were uneducated, and
greatly under the influence of the priests.
In November, 1877, previous to the appear-
ance of the disease, the Jesuits had con-
ducted a mission in the commune, with ex-
ercises and services occupying nearly all
the time for several days. A general, in-
tense religious excitement was thus pro-
duced. Two months afterward, Margherita
Vidusson, a delicate girl twenty-six years
old, who had already had hysteric symp-
toms, supposed to arise from simple ner-
vous disease, for eight years, was attacked
v/ith convulsive fits, accompanied with lam-
entations and cries, which were repeated
with varying frequency, intensity, and dura-
tion. Sometimes she would have ten or
twelve short and quite distinct attacks in a
day ; at other times the attacks would con-
tinue through the day and night, with alter-
native remissions and exacerbations. The
most intense attacks corresponded with the
catamenial period. Physical remedies were
employed at first against the disease, but
the girl was at last believed to be super-
naturally possessed, and the priests were
called in to practice their exorcisms upon
her. The affection then seemed to become
more violent and its manifestations to as-
sume a more dramatic form after each priest-
ly visitation. A second person was attacked
in a similar manner in July, 1878, then
a third and a fourth. A commission of
priests was sent to examine into the cases,
a solemn mass was held, and other exercises
were instituted, after which the malady took
a new start and became epidemic. Drs.
Franzolini and Chiap were appointed at
this time to investigate the character of
the disease, and suggest measures for ar-
resting it. They found eighteen persons
suffering from violent attacks, all of whom
were of marriageable ages, from seventeen
to twenty-six years old ; one was forty-five,
another fifty-five, and a third sixty-three.
The symptoms of hysteria in its most sim-
ple form, without convulsions or mental ab-
erration, had been observed in all of them
for from one or two to five or ten years be-
fore the development of the morbid form.
In some of them the symptoms of the for-
mer form ceased on the appearance of those
of the latter. At a given moment in the
course of the simple form, new symptoms

852

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

would appear which might have passed at
first for a graver form of the preexisting
symptoms. From a stage marked by con-
vulsive cries, the patients would fall into
a kind of swoon in which consciousness
failed and speech became more or less dif-
ficult and finally impossible ; or the attack
would be continued with a kind of mental
exaltation in which, without being con-
scious of it, the patients would indulge in
conversations having all the characteristics
of the delirium of mania, in some cases of
that of demonomania. They would speak
ill the third person and as if they were
men, clearly giving it to be understood
that it was not they that spoke, but some
other spiritual person — a demon, who used
their organs to express what they seemed
to say and to execute what they seemed to
do. When asked who they were, they would
not give their own name, but some strange
man's name, which was an epithet rather
than a name, and belonged to the demon
that possessed them, adding that he had
lived in their bodies for months or years,
and before that had lived in the body of a
person in some other country. Some, in
their fits, declared themselves to be witches
or diviners, and pretended to answer all
sorts of questions and to predict events ;
the more they were excited by the curiosity
or credulity of those who inquired of them,
the more ardent they seemed to be to pre-
dict and lie with impudence. Blasphemies
and imprecations characterized all the at-
tacks, but DO appearance of amorousness
was shown. Sometimes the patients spoke
in Italian instead of in their native Friulian
dialect, and witnesses who can hardly be
depended upon asserted that some of them
spoke in French and Latin. After the at-
tacks some remained sleepy and exhausted,
others recovered their natural physical en-
ergy and resumed their ordinary occupa-
tions, as if they were in good health. At
the same time, a certain mental exaltation
remained, with the latter class especially,
and was revealed by a loquacity, an imper-
tinence, and a boldness in strong contrast
with the ordinary excessive timidity of moun-
tain-girls in the presence of strangers. They
would laugh without cause and without re-
straint when questioned respecting their af-
fliction, and protested that they recollected

nothing of what they had done in their fits,
seeming to believe that they were not sick,
but possessed. The attacks were provoked
in the majority of cases by the sound of
the church-bells : some pretended that the
sound operated as a natural exorcism upon
the evil spirits of the air ; others asserted
that the consecration of the host, which was
announced by ringing the bells, was the
real determining cause of their attacks.
The malady was generally aggravated after
religious ceremonies, such as masses and
pilgrimages ; nevertheless, with some, the
contact of a sacred relic applied by a priest
to the neck or breast was enough immedi-
ately to arrest the attack. The means em-
ployed to put a stop to the epidemic em-
braced the instruction of the population
against their superstitious beliefs, the dis-
couragement of the exciting religious exer-
cises, exorcisms, and pilgrimages, the isola-
tion of the sick and their dispersion into
neighboring districts, so as to prevent them
from making a spectacle of themselves, and
the institulion of a regular medical visita-
tion. The epidemic character of the dis-
ease was arrested, and the attacks suffered
by the patients becume less frequent and
violent ; but some of the number who were
sent home from the hospital at Udine be-
came worse again after their return. A
more rigorous application of remedial meas-
ures was urged, the operation of which Dr.
Franzolini promises to describe in another
report.

The Strawberry-Leaf Beetle.— A new
destructive insect has been described by
Professor A. J. Cook, of Illinois, as prey-
ing on the leaves of the strawberry-plant.
It is described as the Paria aterrima, or
strawberrjMeaf beetle, and belongs to the
family Chyysomelicke, the same to which
the Colorado potato-beetle and the grape-
vine and cabbage flea-beetles belong. It is
about an eighth of an inch long, with yel-
lowish head, antennae, legs, and wing-cases,
brown thorax, clouded with black at the
center, and body black on the under side.
The yellowish wing-cases have also two
black spots, of which the hinder one is the
larger. The species is at least two-brooded,
appearing first in March, April, and May,
and again in July, and may possibly be
still more prolific. The larva is white, with

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

853

a yellowish head and brown jaws, eleven
segments back of the head, the breathing
mouths showing plainly along the side of
the body, and is "22 of an inch long. The
insects are voracious feeders, and numerous
enough to strip the strawberry-plants com-
pletely of leaves in the spring and after
harvest. The larvaj cat the young roots.
Both the larvae and the pupae harbor in the
earth about the roots of the plants.

Singular Powers in Birds. — Mr. A. D.

Bartlett, of the London Zoological Society's
gardens, has called attention to the singular
fact, heretofore unnoticed, that certain birds
have the power of ejecting the inner linings
as well as the contents of their stomachs.
He first noticed this peculiarity when a
wrinkled hornbill {Buceros corrugatus) in
the gardens was observed to have thrown
up a closed bag resembling a fig, which
seemed to be the inner lining of the giz-
zard, being "somewhat tough, elastic, and
gelatinous," and contained plums or grapes
well packed together. He submitted the
ejection to Dr. Murie, who regarded it as
a result of disease, and expressed surprise
that the bird should have lived and been
able to feed after having made it. An-
other perfect specimen of the same kind
was obtained a few days afterward and pre-
served. Others were noticed, all from the
same bird, but they were destroyed by other
birds in the same cage before they could be
saved. Mr. Bartlett rejects the view that
the ejection is a sign of disease, and is
satisfied that it is a natural secretion pro-
vided for the bird during the breeding-sea-
son, and is the means by which the male
hornbill supplies the female bird during the
time he keeps her imprisoned, while she is
sitting on her eggs. His opinion is sup-
ported by the observations of travelers on
the habits of hornbills. The Rev. J. Mason
says that, in Burmah, the male bird shuts
the female in her nest in a hollow of a tree
by plastering up the opening with mud,
leaving only a place through which she can
put her head, and guards her there ; while,
to compensate her for the loss of her free-
dom, he " is ever on the alert to gratify his
dainty mistress, who compels him to bring
all her viands unbroken, for if a fig or any
fruit is injui'ed she will not touch it." Mr.

Wallace also has observed that the entrance
to the nest of this bird is stopped up with
mud and gummy substances. Dr. Living-
stone states that when in Kolobeng, South
Africa, his attention was directed to the
nest of a hornbill, and he, looking, " saw a
slit only, about half an inch wide, and three
or four inches long, in a slight hollow of
the tree." The natives gave an account of
the imprisonment of the female bird similar
to that related by Mr. Mason, and added
that the male continued to feed her and her
young family till the young were fully
fledged, or for a period of two or three
months. "The prisoner," Dr. Livingstone
adds, " generally becomes quite fat, and is
esteemed a very dainty morsel by the na-
tives, while the poor slave of a husband
gets so lean that on the sudden lowering of
the temperature, which sometimes happens
after a fall of rain, he is benumbed, falls
down, and dies." Such exhaustion would
result naturally from the draft of repeated
ejections upon the vital forces. It is well
known that parrots, pigeons, and other
birds, reproduce their partially digested
food during the pairing and breeding sea-
son. The male hornbill has the same habit,
and a concave hornbill in the gardens " will
frequently throw up grapes, and, holding
them in the point of the bill, will throw
them into the mouth of the keeper if he is
not on the alert to prevent or avoid this
distinguished mark of its kindness." The
edible swallow's nest is made of a secretion
from the glands of a kind of swift; and
many other birds are known to cast up se-
cretions having individual peculiarities. Mr.
Bartlett, continuing his observations, has
found two other birds — the darter {Plottis
anldnga) and the Brazilian cormorant {Pha-
lacrocorax Brazdiamis) — which throw up the
inner linings of their stomachs, as do the
hornbills.

Mode of Termination of Nerves in Mas-
tie, — M. Foettinger has recently published
a memoir on the mode in which nerves ter-
minate in muscles. The muscles of insects
were selected for observation in preference
to those of other animals, because the de-
tails of their structure are more easily
recognizable under the microscope than
those of other groups of the animal king-

854

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

dom. The insects were placed in strong
alcohol for some days, and the isolated fibers
of the legs or trunk were examined with va-
rious powers. Each fiber or primitive fas-
ciculus presents several nerve-endings, which
are attached to the muscular fiber apparently
without any definite rule as to their position
or distribution. The muscular elements to
which they are fixed are usually conical in
form, a nerve running to the summit of
each cone. The cone itself is composed of
granular matter, with nuclei interspersed
through it ; and the granular matter is ap-
parently sometimes obscurely segmented into
portions surrounding each nucleus. The
nerve-endings, or terminal plaques, as M.
Toettinger calls them, are situated on the sur-
face of the fiber, and their free surface is cov-
ered with a thin, structureless, transparent
membrane, continuous with the sarcolernma
of the muscular fiber on the one hand and
the sheath of Schwann investing the nerve-
fiber on the other. In insects contraction
always begins in the muscular fiber at the
plane' of the cones, and at those points ex-
clusively.

An Improved Smokeless Grate. — Dr. C.

.W. Siemens has recently proposed to rem-
edy the smoke-nuisance, where it is due to
the burning of bituminous coal in private
houses, in a very simple way. Instead of
burning such fuel in its crude state, in
which the volatile and solid constituents
are combined, he makes use of them after
they have been industrially separated into
the forms of coal-gas and coke. In these
forms perfect combustion of both constitu-
ents is possible, and a smokeless and clean-
ly fire is produced at but little greater cost
than with coal, and considerably less than
gas alone. In order to burn the gas and
coke together. Dr. Siemens has devised a
simple and inexpensive modification of the
ordinary grate, that can readily be made in
any existing one. The construction consists
in covering the bottom bars of a grate with
a metal plate, which is bent to extend up
the back, and in placing a gas-pip« along
the lower front edge. This pipe is perfo-
rated on its upper side, the holes being a
little inside of the middle line, so that the
gas-flames incline slightly inward. The grate
is filled with coke, which becomes incandes-

cent upon its surface from the flame passing
over it, and, as the interior of the mass is
not heated, the maximum radiation from a
given amount of fuel consumed is obtained.
The coke has, of course, to be from time to
time replenished, and the ashes removed,
but in neither of these operations is there
the trouble, or the dust and dirt, incident to
the ordinary method of burning coal. Air
is allowed to enter only in front, so that
the mass of coke is protected from cooling
drafts by the layer of hot gases. The heat
of the bottom bars of the grate may be
made to warm the air supplied to the gas, by
a bent plate placed below, so as to form a
chamber thi'ough which this air has to pass.
Compared with the various forms of gas-
grate. Dr. Siemens estimates that the cost
for. fuel is largely in favor of this. A thou-
sand cubic feet of ordinary illuminating gas
develops by its combustion 748,000 heat-
units, and costs in London eighty-seven cents,
while, to produce the same amount of heat
by coke, fifty-six pounds are requisite, the
cost of which is but eleven cents. Experi-
ment has shown that, to heat a large room,
eight feet of gas burned in this grate arc
sufficient, while fifty to seventy feet. Dr.
Siemens states, are needed in a grate using
gas only. Such grates could go into use
very largely without any change in the pres-
ent gas plant, as gas companies produce
both the gas and the coke in about the pro-
portions used, and this Dr. Siemens regards
as an additional point in their favor.

Elevator Pnennionia. — The pulmonary
diseases to which men employed in elevators
are subject are described in an article by
Dr. Thomas F. Rochester, published in the
" Buffalo Medical and Surgical Journal."
These men, who are generally Irish, of a na-
tionality subject to affections of the lungs,
work in gangs, shoveling in a close atmos-
pljere which is teeming with dirt and dust
and bearded particles of grain, often for
thirty-six hours — sometimes, they assert
(although the employers deny it), for six or
seven days and nights at a time. They are
liable to contract a disease which is known
in the hospitals as elevator pneumonia. A
new man, soon after he begins to work in
the elevator, experiences catarrhal, nasal,
and throat irritation ; and, while he may

POPULAR MIS CELL ANY

855

labor through a whole season with nothing
more than this, he is liable to develop a sub-
acute bronchitis, and occasionally a more
dangerous affection. The morbific effects
increase in the second and third years, and
the shoveler will at last probably have to
go to the hospital with a peculiar pulmo-
nary disease, which may be of every grade
and usually affects both lungs. The attack
fixes him in the ward for at least three
months, after which he may wholly recover
if he goes into a new business, but, if he
returns to his shoveling, he will soon fall
a victim to lung-disease. A very few men
continue to work in the elevators till they
become old ; and it appears that those who
begin it at thirty-five or forty years of age
bear it better than those who begin at
twenty. Dr. Rochester considers a regula-
tion and limitation of the hours of continu-
ous labor, the sanitary regulation of lodging
and boarding houses, and restriction in the
use of ardent spirits, essential parts of any
measures for checking this disease.

Th« Green Color of Oysters.— The fact
that the green color of some oysters is
caused by a variety of navicula, which is
called Navicula ostrearia, is illustrated and
established by experiments which have been
recently made by M. Puysegur, at Sissable.
A quantity of the green slime scraped from
the edges of the ."clears" was put, after
the mud had been allowed to settle, into
soup-plates. Perfectly white oysters, which
had never been in the "clears," and the
shells of which had previously been washed
and brushed clean, were then put into the
fluid. Other precisely similar oysters were
put into plates of ordinary sea-water. In
twenty-six hours after the beginning of the
experiment, the oysters charged with dia-
toms had all acquired a marked greenish
hue, while the other oysters remained un-
altered. The experiment was repeated sev-
eral times, with identical results ; and the
green color in the oysters was found to be
more decided in proportion as the water was
more highly charged with diatoms. The
greenness disappeared on leaving the oyster
for a few days in ordinary sea-water, to ap-
pear again when it was put in fresh water
containing the navicula. It appears that
the diatoms are drawn into the stomach of

the oyster with the currents wliich it in-
duces, and there part with their nutritive
constituents. The chlorophyl is digested,
and imparts its color to the blood, whence it
happens that the most vesicular parts of the
structure, as the bronchiic, are most highly
colored. The fact of the absorption of the
diatoms was proved by the examination of
the digestive tubes of the oysters experi-
mented upon. Their stomachs, intestines,
and exuviae were strewed with carapaces of
naviculae.

Dcep-Sea Explorations off the Coast of
France. — A commission appointed by the
Minister of Public Instruction in France
has just accomplished an exploration of the
depths of the Gulf of Gascony, and of a
great submarine valley which lies parallel
to the coast of Spain. The commission was
composed of MM. Milne -Edwards, father
and son, and several other naturalists, and
Mr. Gwyn-Jeffreys and the Rev. Mr. Nor-
man, of England. The expedition was com-
pletely successful, having collected at least
five hundred species, nearly all of which are
new to the fauna of the Gulf of Gascony,
and some of which are new to science. Pre-
vious to this expedition, Messrs. Gwyn-Jef-
freys and Xorman had explored the fosse,
or ditch, of Cape Breton, a curious sub-
marine cavity in the sea-bottom of the de-
partment of the Landes, in which a connec-
tion was traced between the fauna of the
Mediterranean Sea and of that part of the
Gulf of Gascony.

M. Delannay's Theory of Earthqnakes.

— M. J. Dclaunay has proposed a theory
that earthquakes, as well as many meteoro-
logical phenomena, are produced by the
passage of the planets through the masses
of meteors. The more severe seismic tem-
pests, he believes, are caused by the passage
of the larger planets through the cosmic
groups, particularly through those in longi-
tudes 135' and 265°, which appear to give
rise to the August and November meteors.
The passages of Venus, the Earth, and Mars
through the groups seem to occasion only
earthquakes of a secondary order ; but each
6f these planets produces on its passage an
increase of shocks in the months of August
and November. The most violent and long-

856

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

est-continucd convulsions, M. Delaunay sug-
gests, take place when two large planets
pass by the cosmic groups at the same time.
Of this character were the earthquakes of
1755, 1Y83, 1829, and 1841. Accepting
these principles as the laws regulating the
occurrence of earthquakes, and admitting
that certain of the cosmic groups may have
a slow oscillatory motion around a mean
position, it is not difficult to predict when
earthquakes may be looked for. M. Delau-
nay ventures to predict the dates at which
the earthquakes to occur between this time
and 1920 will, according to his theory, be
due. The most important earthquake peri-
ods will probably occur in the years and
groups of years 1886, 1890-'91, 1898, 1900-
'01, 1912-'13, 1914, 1919-'20, The next
seismic tempest may be expected to follow
the passage of Jupiter through the zone of
the August meteors in 1883.

Do Stenclies cause Disease ? — The peo-
ple of Paris were frequently annoyed dur-
ing the last summer by the presence of mc-
phitic odors in the atmosphere. A commis-
sion, appointed to discover the origin of the
smells, traced them to certain establish-
ments in the neighborhood where refuse
matter is manufactured into fertilizers. M.
Bouchardat, of the medical faculty of Paris,
has examined the question of the effect of
these emanations upon health, and has con-
cluded that they are innocent. He does
not believe that they convey with them the
germs of disease, and finds that the gases
of which they are composed do not load the
air enough to produce a perceptible poison-
ing. Moreover, no injury to health has
been traced to them. Assuming that con-
tagious diseases should manifest themselves
within eight or ten days after the germs
have been planted, the weekly health bul-
letins of the year have been examined to
learn if any increase of mortality followed
the prevalence of the unpleasant odors. No
such increase has been detected, but the
mortality seems rather to have fallen off.

Mr. Thomson's Journey in Eastern
Africa. — Mr. Keith Johnston was dispatched
by the London Geographical Society, in
18*78, with an exploring expedition to East
Africa, charged with examining the coun-

try in the neighborhood of Lakes Tangan-
yika and Nyassa. Mr. Johnston died at Bc-
hobeho, just at the borders of the objec-
tive region of the expedition, on the 23d of
June, 1879, and the whole responsibility of
the undertaking fell upon Mr. Joseph Thom-
son, his geologist and general assistant, a
young man twenty-two years of age, to
whom this was almost the first serious ex-
perience in life. Mr. Thomson gave a most
interesting account of the expedition, which
was attended by unexampled success, at a
meeting of the Society on the 8th of Novem-
ber last. His story is enlivened with ac-
counts of different tribes of the most diver-
sified characters and degrees of civilization,
living by the side of one another. Leaving
Behobeho on the 2d of July, the expedition
went toward the west, into the country of
the Wakhutu, passing through the valley
of the Mgeta, where perennial showers pre-
cipitated from the high mountain-range on
the right, which forms the ridge of the great
central plateau of the continent, stimulate
a tropical vegetation to grow and rot in
marshy tracts. Under the influence of such
an enervating and malarious climate, the
1 Wakhutu are one of the most miserable
and apathetic races to be found in Africa,
and presented a disgusting sight to the
traveler as they gathered around him in
crowds, " sitting with their miserable, witJi-
ered bodies doubled up, and idiotic, lack-lus-
ter gaze." Their neighbors, the Mahenge,
a hitherto unheard-of tribe, living between
the Ruaha and Uranga Rivers, were brought
several years ago in contact with a migra-
tion of Zooloos, and have adopted the arms,
dress, and manners of those people, although
in other respects having no affinity with
them. To the "Wakhutu the Mahenge are
a warlike and dreaded tribe ; to the English
traveler, "they were a set, of most arrant
cowards, a mean, sneaking, lying race, un-
worthy of the name of men." Ten days
were occupied in crossing the mountain-
ranges that bound the central plateau — a
charming journey, with diversified scenery
and luxuriant vegetation — after which the
party entered upon a bleak, moorland coun-
try four or five thousand feet high, unre-
lieved by hill or dale or forest-tree. The
scanty population of this barren district of
Uhehe are settled in villages at very wide

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

857

intervals ; " the people are a fine-looking
race of gentlemen savages, who dress in-
differently in nothing, or roll themselves
into a winding-sheet of twelve yards of cot-
ton." They treated their visitors courte-
ously, " and always took indirect means of
telling us anything unpleasant." Another
plateau, from six to nine thousand feet
high, extends around the north and east
sides of Lake Xyassa, half-way to Lake
Tanganyika and around Lake Ilikwa, or
Leopold, and is inhabited by three tribes
in the lowest physical and mental condition,
with whom it was almost impossible to com-
municate, as they seemed to be devoid of
abstract ideas, and shut out from all knowl-
edge and communication with the outside
world. A short distance beyond the north-
west corner of the beautiful Lake Nyassa,
the expedition came to Makula's country,
where the life and manners appeared of
charming Arcadian simplicity. " The clean
and ornamental villages would have adorned
the neighborhood of any nobleman's park,
and the richness of the soil was quite un-
rivaled " ; and Mr. Thomson left, as he
left no other place, with regret, a country
which he had entered with apprehension.
Thence the expedition passed through the
country of the bold, rude, exceedingly in-
hospitable Wanyika ; through Itawa, where
Mr. Thomson was taken prisoner, and es-
caped by laughing at the excited warriors
and being thought uncanny ; and through
other not very remarkable districts, to the
" noble river Lukuga " and Lake Tangan-
yika. The Lukuga winds through a charm-
ing valley, with beautiful wooded hills ris-
ing on each side from its borders, adorned
with forest clumps and open glades, where
antelopes and buffaloes grazed in abun-
dance. The river moved along in an exceed-
ingly rapid current, full of cataracts, along
which it roared and surged, making any at-
tempt at navigation a matter of impossibil-
ity. Mr. Thomson would have followed it,
but his men refused to go farther, and he
turned back. He passed three weeks with
the Warua, a very fine-looking race of men,
living in the plain between the Lukuga and
the Lualaba. They " are possessed of well-
made figures, which the women adorn most
artistically with tattooing. They wear a
kilt made of the fibers of the Mwale palm,

and dress their hair in the most elaborate
fashion, the operation requiring two days'
hard work. They are exceedingly ingenious
in their carvings, and in every respect they
are neat in their appearance and cleanly
in their habits, but there all praise ends."
They are arrant scoundrels and thieves,
and one is not sure of his life among them
for a moment. The feature of the return
journey to Zanzibar most woi'thy of remark
was the sight — the first to Europeans — from
the highlands of Fipa, of the curious Lake
Rukwa, Likwa, or Ilikwa, to which Mr.
Thomson took the liberty of giving a fourth
name, Leopold. It is situated about four
thousand feet above the sea, is surround-
ed by precipitous mountains about as much
higher, and has no visible outlet. The peo-
ple of the country are agriculturists, who
do not join either in war or the chase ;
their chief is a king with absolute power,
who lives on native beer, and is prevented
by custom from wearing anything but a
simple loin-cloth. Mr. Thomson reached
Zanzibar in the spring of 1880. During
his journey of a year in this most difficult
country, he lost only one of the one hun-
dred and fifty men with whom he started ;
and though often placed in critical posi-
tions, he never once had to fire a gun for
either offensive or defensive purposes.

Artifirial Prodnction of Minerals.— M.

Friedel gave an extended account, m a re-
cent lecture at the Faculty of Medicine,
Paris, of what has been accomplished in
the artificial formation of minerals. The
condition necessary to be fulfilled in this
manufacture is that of obtaining crystalline
products as nearly as possible identical in
composition and appearance with the min-
erals to be reproduced. Generally experi-
menters have had to be satisfied with micro-
scopic crystals ; accepting these as suflScient,
numbers of them have succeeded. Some
hare tried to imitate the processes of na-
ture ; oth'ers have reached their end by in-
dependent processes. M. de Senarmont,
considering that the minerals in veins had
been deposited from water charged with
their constituents and flowing through the
fissures of the rocks, with carbonic acid,
sulphuretted hydrogen, and the alkaline
sulphurets as solvents, and under suitable

858

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

conditions of temperature and pressure, ob-
tained the sulphurets, oxides, and metallic
salts he sought, with the bed-rock that held
them. 11. Uaubrec has reproduced cassi-
terite, and several of the minerals that are
found with it, by subjecting water and the
right oxides to the action of chloric and
fluoric vapors. MM. Fouque and Michel
Levy, also following the indications of geo-
logical observation, have obtained the min-
erals of volcanic rocks in crystals, not only
as isolated minerals, but also with the asso-
ciations under which they form real rocks,
resembling the natural rocks so closely as
to deceive. Other processes have been em-
ployed, varying in their nature and opera-
tion according to the minerals which it was
desired to produce, or the substances from
which their production was sought. The
number of minerals obtained by the differ-
ent processes is so great that the mere enu-
meration of them all would be tedious. The
most obvious and simple process is that of
fusion. Some substances, among them the
silicates, tend, when they cool from a liquid
condition, to form amorphous glasses. Many
of these, it has been found, will crystallize
when heated again nearly up to the melting-
point. By this process of sub-fusion several
of the feldspars, oxide of iron, spinel, gar-
net, and other minerals have been obtained.
When the substance does not melt readily,
or is liable to decompose before melting,
the process is aided by heating it with some
suitable solvent. Thus have been obtained
apatite, wolfram, tungstate of lead, pyrites,
boracite, and other minerals. A consider-
able number of minerals may be crystallized
from solutions in water of different tem-
peratures. A curious feature of this pro-
cess is that it operates sometimes to render
a hydrate anhydrous. At other times the
water may serve as a base to remove a por-
tion of acid. It has been noticed also in
this process that the crystals may be made
larger by exposing them to repeated varia-
tions of temperature. Some minerals have
been obtained from volatile solvents by
vaporizing the solvents, when the minerals
would be precipitated. Another process is
by the action of two substances upon each
other with or without the addition of elec-
trical excitement, as when the oxide of cop-
per is produced by the action of the solu-

tion of sulphate of copper and galena ;
another is by the reaction of vapors and
gases on other bodies of similar nature or
on solids — a process in which chlorine and
the members of its group may play an im-
portant part.

M. Faye's Theory of the Solar System.

— M. Faye, having pointed out in a former
paper certain particulars in which the nebu-
lar hypothesis of Laplace fails to account
for the movements of the planets, has pub-
lished a second paper propounding a theory
by which the retrograde movements of a
part of the planets may be reconciled with
the direct motions of the other planets, as
results of the same laws. The theory of
Laplace presupposes the existence of an
immense degree of heat expanding the mass
of the sun and its atmosphere to the ex-
treme limits of the solar system, and a con-
traction by cooling, in the course of which
planetary rings were thrown off by an ex-
cess of centrifugal force. M. Faye objects
to the hypothesis of great heat as one of
which there is no evidence ; moreover, if
the heat had existed and contraction had
taken place by cooling, the outer atmos-
phere of the sun would have participated in
the cooling and contraction so fully that it
would have adhered to the mass, and no
rings would have been thrown off. The
new theory which he proposes in the stead
of that of Laplace is based on the observa-
tion of the nebulae, bodies which astronomers
have often regarded as the points of de-
parture for evolutions very different from
those pictured by Laplace for evolutions
tending to formations of the most varied
character, as simple, double, triple, and
quadruple suns, and globular aggregations
of minute suns numbered by thousands.
Would it not be natural, he asks, to accept
the suggestion of these facts, the more so
since our system belongs to the most com-
mon type — that of a nebula at first vague,
then undergoing a central condensation, ab-
sorbing itself gradually and regularly into a
nebulous star and finally into a solitary sun?
t'nder this view, heat would no longer have
to be invoked arbitrarily as an external
agent ; we would, on the other hand, see it
gradually developed in certain points of the
nebula, as the proper result of the energy

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

859

of every great dissemination of matter
where the different members of the mass
exercise a mutual attraction upon each oth-
er at a distance. M. Faye admits that in
the transformation of the nebula rotatory
movements would take place, and that trains
of matter analogous to the rings of Saturn
might be formed, and might break and give
rise to planets. These formations, he be-
lieves, could be divided, according to their
relations to the gravitation of the mass, be-
tween two zones, in the outer one of which
the revolutions would, by the regular opera-
tion of the laws of gravity, be retrograde,
while in the inner zone they would, under
the same laws, be direct. This is shown to
be possible by the following considerations :
The density in the original nebula increases
regularly from the periphery to the center,
as appears actually in several nebulfe with
which we are acquainted. It has been
shown by calculation that the force of weight
in a mass thus constituted increases, as we
depart from the surface, in the inverse ratio
of a power of the distance from the center.
This progression, however, soon reaches a
maximum, after which the weight is propor-
tional simply to the distance itself, till at
the center it is nothing. If we suppose
planetary rings to be separated from a neb-
ula of this nature, we may see that those
separating from the external region will be
of such a character that the motion of their
outer circumference will be more rapid than
that of their inner circumference, so that,
when it is reduced to a globe turning upon
itself, the globe will move in a retrograde
direction. In the rings found in the second
or inner region, on the other hand, the rela-
tive rapidity of the motion of the greater
and lesser diameters will be reversed, and
the rotation of the resultant globe will ne-
cessarily be direct.

Infertility ia France. — The population
of France has increased very slowly for sev-
eral years. Among nineteen principal states
of Europe, France stands the lowest in the
rate of growth, having shown an annual in-
crease of only 3 16 per thousand inhabi-
tants from 1861 to 1869, while such coun-
tries as England, Xorway, Scotland, and
Russia, show an increase of from 1294 to
13 "85 per thousand. The rate of increase

has fallen from six per thousand in 1770-
'85, and has never since risen to that figure.
The smallness of the excess of births over
deaths, which is measured by the rate of
increase, is due solely to the paucity of
births; for the mortality has at no time
been excessive, and has diminished steadily
in the face of wars and epidemics, except
during the German war, since the beginning
of the century. It is not accompanied by a
diminution in the number of marriages, for
the proportion of marriages has not under-
gone any material variation during the cen-
tury, and was higher in the sixth decade
than in the first. Moreover, France out-
ranks in the proportion of marriages to the
whole population, and of marriages to the
marriageable population, some of the states
which greatly exceed it in the rate of in-
crease of population. M. A. Legoyt has in-
vestigated the subject, and assigns the in-
fertility thus shown to various moral, po-
litical, economical, and physiological causes.
The decay of religious beliefs is a cause, the
influence of which is shown in the tolerance
given to the voluntary limitation of fertility,
which is opposed by every religious system,
and the increase of illegitimate unions, abor-
tions, still-born, and infanticides. The un-
usually large proportion of persons who arc
just well enough off to be carefully provi-
dent is economically unfavorable to fertil-
ity. The popular opinion that poverty and
children go together seems to be confirmed
in France, where the poorer departments
are the more fruitful ones. Other econom-
ical influences are the tendency of pop-
ulation to cities, the increasing expenses
of living, and the system of dividing the
paternal estate among all the children,
which offers a standing temptation to the
parent to have only a few children, so that
each shall have as large a share as pos-
sible. The destruction caused by war op-
erates powerfully to cut down the popu-
lation. It is worse than pestilence, for it
takes away the best and most vigorous.
France has suffered much by wars during
the last century, and has lost heavily at
several periods, most notably during the
two years of the German war, when the
deaths considerably exceeded the births.
The statistics of the recruiting officers show,
however, that the vigor of the race has not

86o

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

diminished, and that the mean length of life
has been prolonged since 1815. 3Ien and
women marry at a later age than formerly,
diminishing by sevei'al years the time dur-
ing which they can have children, and, con-
sequently, the number of children they can
have. The host of women who are em-
ployed as nurses must suspend child-bear-
ing while they are so employed. Young
men are withdrawn from the possibility of
marriage during their most vigorous age by
the long period of military service ; marriage
itself is discouraged by the complicated and
expensive processes the parties have to go
through; and increasing alcohoHsm con-
tracts the reproductive powers of both
sexes.

Statistics of Suicide. — Professor Mor-
selli, of Milan, in his " Etude de Statistique
Morale " (" Study of Moral Statistics "), gives
an analysis of the statistics of suicides in
the countries of Europe, compiled from offi-
cial reports, which reveals the important
facts that the number of suicides is increas-
ing, with only a few exceptions, in all Euro-
pean countries, and that it increases more
rapidly than the population. The facts are
set forth in a table showing the number of
suicides in the several countries, in each of
the seven periods of five years, from 1841-
'45 to 1875. Except in the three Scandina-
vian states and the kingdom of Saxony, where
there seems to have been a slight temporary
decline, the table shows a progressive in-
crease, and in all cases, except the four men-
tioned, the number of suicides is greatest for
the last period, 1871-75. Such statistics as
Professor Morselli has been able to collect
since 1875 show continued " enormous ag-
gravations," particularly in Denmark, Fin-
land, England, Belgium, France, Bavaria,
the kingdom of Saxony, Prussia, Germany,
Austria, Galicia, and Bukowina, the cantons
of Neufchatel and Geneva, and Italy. A
comparison of the number of suicides in the
latest period with the number at earlier
periods shows an increase of 183 per cent.
in Sweden since 1816 ; of 57"7 per cent, in
England since 1836; of 322 per cent, in
Prussia since 1816; of 308-8 per cent, in
Austria since 1821 ; of 651-9 per cent, in
Galicia and Bukowina since 1821 ; and a
greater or less percentage of increase in

other countries. A part of the increase is
doubtless only apparent, and due to the
greater perfection of the later statistical
reports, but a great real increase remains
to be accounted for. Professor Morselli ar-
ranges the influences which may predispose
to suicides under the heads of cosmic and
natural, ethnic, social, and individual. In
the first class, climate, technical conditions,
the phases of the moon, days, and hours,
exert no perceptible influence, but an in-
crease of suicides seems to accompany the
monthly rise of temperature. The influ-
ence of race is not well defined, except,
perhaps, feebly in the Germanic race. As
for social influences, the inclination to sui-
cide does not appear to be determiued by
the degree of civilization or of general in-
struction, by moral conditions (as to the
prevalence of crime and natural births),
nor by political and economical conditions.
As for religion, Protestants seem as yet to
kill themselves oftcner than Eoman Catho-
lics, and still more frequently than Jews,
in the countries where the three religions
are represented in proportions of any im-
portance. Density of population is without
appreciable effect ; but suicide is more fre-
quent in cities than in the country. So far as
individual influences are concerned, women
kill themselves three or four times less fre-
quently than do men ; suicide increases with
age to the extreme limit of life ; marriage
exerts a very marked preventive effect, while
celibacy and widowhood favor suicide. In-
quiries into the motives for suicide have not
brought satisfactory answers, for it is hard
to get the truth told about them, and offi-
cial reports must be accepted with reserve.
In France, higher, more generous motives
are attributed to women than to men.

Mr. John Gould. — Mr. John Gould, F.
R. S., an eminent British ornithologist,
who died early in February, was born in
September, 1804. The appointment of
his father, as a foreman in the Royal
Gardens at Windsor, gave him an oppor-
tunity of beginning the preparation for
the work of his life by studying British
birds in a state of nature. In 1827 he was
appoint Curator to the Museum of the Zo-
ological Society in London. Here he pub-
lished, under the title of "A Century of

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

861

Birds from the Himalaya Mountains," tlie
figures of a small collection of birds which
were then rare and little known in Great
Britain. He then undertook the " Birds of
Europe," on a similar plan, which was fin-
ished, in five large folio volumes, in 1837.
In 1838 he made extensive journeys in
Australia and the neighboring islands, and
collected specimens for the " Birds of Aus-
tralia," a work which he gave to the public
in seven folio volumes, in 1848, and which
contained much that was new on the range
and habits of sea-birds. The "Birds of
Asia," " Mammals of Australia," and " Birds
of Great Britain," which followed, were on
the same comprehensive plan, and revealed
the same thoroughness of preparation and
accuracy in the representation of typical
specimens as the previous works. Besides
these great undertakings, Mr. Gould was
the author of monographs on the toucans,
the trogons, the humming-birds, the ant-
thrushes of the Old World, the partridges
of America, and the birds collected during
the voyage of the Beagle by Mr. Darwin,
for all of which, as well as for the larger
works, he prepared the original designs,
from which the splendid colored plates —
constituting "the most beautiful series of
pictures of animal life which have yet been
produced " — were executed.

The New Mineral, Peckhamite.— Pro-
fessor J. Lawrence Smith has found a new
meteoric mineral in the analysis of the great
meteorite which fell in Emmett County,Iowa,
in May, 1879, and has named it Peckhamite.
He describes it as decidedly different from
any mineral he has seen associated with me-
teorites. It is a silicate of iron and mag-
nesia, opalescent, of a light greenish-yellow
color, of greasy aspect, and cleaves readily.
In two or three specimens the mineral pro-
jected from the oiiter surface of the stone,
with a dingy-yellow color and a fused ex-
terior. It differs widely in structure from
olivine, which was abundant in the stone.
Professor Smith states, as an additional fact
concerning the meteorite, that its fall was
attended by a shower of fragments like
hailstones, of which several thousand, vary-
ing from the size of a pea to five hundred
grammes in weight, have been picked up.
All the smaller pieces are lumps of nick-

eliferous iron, and even the larger ones
have but little stony, material attached.
They lay on the wet prairie for nearly a
year, and are yet not at all rusted ; many
parts are still bright, and some look like
nuggets of platinum.

Qnarantine and Systematic Medical In-
spection. — The " Lancet " denies that there
is any value in the ordinary practice of quar-
antine. The reasoning on which the sys-
tem is founded is plausible and seductive,
but it is impossible to make it practically
efficient. Contraband — the secret escape
of infected persons and goods through the
lines — is one of its commonest accompani-
ments, and most often defeats its purpose.
" Moreover, in all great extensions of disease,
the initial extension has generally occurred
before the danger was anticipated, and the
imposition of quarantine has taken place
after the mischief which it was designed to
avert had been accomplished." Quarantine
is generally credited with having prevent-
ed the extension of the recent plague from
the Volga to Europe, but wrongly ; though
enforced, it did not prevent the convey-
ance of the pest from Persia to Russia ;
and it had no effect upon the transmission
of the disease from the Volga, for the
plague had practically ceased to prevail be-
fore any measure of quarantine was adopted.
It has been, in fact, an evil, both on account
of its futility and because it has diverted
attention from a true means of preventing
infectious disease. "In so far as it may
have contributed to a clearer knowledge of
the conditions under which the isolation of
persons and things is desirable and may be
advantageous, and of the hygiene of ships
and of masses of persons, such as pilgrims
and emigrants, journeying both by sea and
by land, quarantine may indirectly have
yielded certain advantages, but advantages
wholly disproportionate to the cost at which
they have been gained, and which were at-
tainable in a much simpler and more effec-
tive fashion." England and Denmark have
ceased to rely upon quarantine as a protec-
tion against infection, though they still keep
up the forms in order to obviate disabilities
that would be imposed on their shipping
by other governments which adhere to the
practice. The system of medical inspection

862

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

and the general sanitary administration
take its place in England. The sanitary
administration is so devised that every dis-
trict, whether inland or on the coast, is
enabled to deal with infectious disease, com-
ing from whatever source, in the most effi-
cacious manner. The sanitary authorities
of the ports are, moreover, given power to
inspect medically persons arriving in ships
from infected places, remove and isolate
the sick, and use whatever processes of
disinfection may l)e deemed necessary. Ex-
perience has shown that this system " does
all that the most efficient quarantine can be
hoped to do, and that more effectually,
without involving those grave hardships to
individuals and interruptions and disturb-
ances to commerce which have arisen and
must arise from quarantine."

Retreat of Glaelcrs. — M. Charles Dufour
read a paper on the retreat of glaciers, at
the recent meeting of the French Associa-
tion for the Advancement of Science. His
observations of the phenomena were begun
in 18Y0, while he was sojourning by the
glacier of the Rhone for the purpose of
measuring the amount of the condensation
of vapor on the ice. In connection with
Professor Forel, he made a chart of the
front of the glacier, as it was defined by
reference to marks fixed in the moraine.
The comparisons for the revision of the
chart from year to year established the fact
that the glacier was constantly receding.
According to the statements of the inhabi-
tants of the country, the retreat began in
1855 or 1856, and it now exceeds all that
has been otherwise certainly determined
within historical times. This phenomenon
is not peculiar to the glacier of the Rhone.
All of the glaciers of the Alps have begun
to recede at some time more or less distant,
and some of them have even disappeared.
The same is the case with the glaciers of
the Pyrenees and the Caucasus. Informa-
tion is still wanting with reference to the
glaciers of the Scandinavian Alps. A gen-
eral retreat of so much importance as ap-
pears to be shown can hardly be explained by
a theory of casual modifications of climate.

American Storms in Europe. — M. IIc-
bert communicated to the French Associa-
tion for the Advancement of Science the

results of an investigation which he had
made, day by day, during six months of
winter, of the meteorological phenomena of
North America from Greenland to Colom-
bia and Venezuela. Ue traced the forma-
tion, along the grand mountainous crest of
the continent and on its eastern slope, of
powerful phenomena of sirocco, which dried
the continent and limited its vegetation.
lie followed the rotatory storms which are
produced on these crests step by step across
the continent and the adjacent seas and to
the western coasts of Europe. These storms,
which are much more powerful than those
which he has investigated in Europe, have
otherwise, but with much more intensity,
the same characters with them, and are the
source of the depressions and tempests
which are experienced in Europe. The
storms which reach the European coast
originate for the most part in Mexico, Cen-
I tral America, and the northern parts of
South America ; but they do not generally
strike the Atlantic till after they have trav-
ersed a more or less extended part of the
length of the North American Continent.
The storms which originate in the United
States reach Greenland, or pass the neigh-
borhood of Iceland or the Faroe Islands, too
far away to affect Europe.

Carbonic icid in the Sea. — In com-
municating his studies on the proportion
of carbonic acid in the air, M. Schloesing
remarks that some of the causes which reg-
ulate the production and consumption of
this substance are subject to considerable
and relatively rapid variations ; such are
vegetation and the slow combustion of or-
ganic residua, the activity of which depends
on the temperature. But, besides the fact
that these variations take place in an inverse
degree in the different regions of the globe,
and therefore partly balance one another,
there exists a powerful regulator of them,
which combines its action with that of the cir-
culation and the commingling operation of
tlae atmosphere : it is the sea. Acting upon
this idea, M. Schloesing has calculated the
quantity of carbonic acid concealed in the
seas, and has arrived at the conclusion that
the sea holds in reserve a quantity of acid
available for exchange with the atmosphere
ten times greater than the whole quantity

NOTES.

863

contained in the atmosphere, and, a fortiori,
much greater than the variations in that
quantity. Although the figures can not be
absolutely correct, we may certainly con-
clude that the sea is much richer in dispos-
able carbonic acid than the atmosphere, and
is in good condition to play the part of a
regulator of the supply.

NOTES.

A TWO months' course of instruction
in plumbing and sanitary engineering was
opened on the 16th of February, in con-
nection with the Technical Schools of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in this city.
The lectures on the chemical side of the
course are delivered by Professor C. F. ^
Chandler, those on plumbling by Mr, C. F.
Wingate. The enrollment at the earlier
meetings of the class was unexpectedly large, •
and indicated the existence of a lively and
wholesome interest in the subject. I

Several papers of much interest were
read at the second annual meeting of the
Natural History Society of Illinois, held Feb-
ruary 8th. Professor S. A. Forbes discussed
the " Illustrations and Applications of Evo-
lution," with especial reference to the re-
stocking of our waters with their native
species of fish. He showed that the idea
that fishes could be artificially multiplied in 1
such numbers that it would make no differ-
ence how, or where, or in what numbers
they were caught, involved a contradiction
of the doctrine of natural selection. The
food-supply of fishes was diminished by the
drainage of swamps, the restriction of over-
flows by levees, and by other operations at-
tendant upon the settlement of a country ;
and it was not to be expected that the fishes
in a body of water could l)e permanently
kept up to as high a number as flourished
before the natural conditions were changed.

Steps have been taken in this eity to pro-
vide the necessary organizations to furnish 1
facilities for cremation. A draft of a char-
ter has been approved by the persons con- |
cerned in the movement, for the formation
of " the United States Cremation Company
(limited)," with a capital of fifty thousand 1
dollars, whose peculiar object shall be " to
cremate the human dead in the quickest,
best, and most economical manner." A plan
has also been adopted for the formation of I
the " New York Cremation Society," as an
association distinct from the purely business
enterprise, having for its object " to dissemi- j
nate sound and enlightened views respect- |
ing incineration as preferable to burial, and !
to advance the public good by offering fa- !
cilities for cremation." 1

Professor Dr. Emanuel Boricky, a Bo-
hemian mineralogist, who died January 2'7th,
aged forty years, was best known by his
microscopical researches in petrograpliy. He
had been connected with the Bohemian Mu-
seum and the University and colleges of
Prague since 1865, and since 1871 had lec-
tured in the Bohemian language on petro-
graphy at the University of Prague. He
has left a monograph on the porphyries
ready for the press.

Mr. William P. Blake describes, in the
March number of the " American Journal of
Science," the beds of realgar and orpi-
ment in the sedimentary formations under-
lying the lava in Iron County, Utah. These
arsenical sulphides are found in lenticu-
lar and nodular masses, in a layer about
two inches thick, in a compact, sandy clay.
Above and below the layer and close to it
are thin parallel seams of fibrous gypsum,
while the strata above, for thirty feet or
more, are arenaceous clays charged with
soluble salts which exude and efiloresce,
forming hard crusts. The whole appear-
ance and association of the minerals indicate
that they have been formed by aqueous in-
filtration since the deposition of the beds.
Beds of stibnite, or antimony sulphide, in
the same formation, had probably a similar
origin.

Ch.vrles F. Kdhlmann, a distinguished
Alsatian chemist and economist, whose
death has recently been announced, had
been for the last forty years a prominent
figure in the industrial and scientific circles
of France, and was known as the founder at
Lille of one of the most important chemical
manufactories of the world. His name is
also associated with investigations which
have had valuable results on the baryta
compounds, the crystallization of insoluble
bodies, on the manufacture of sugar, on the
chemistry of mortars and manures, bleach-
ing, dyeing, and printing, and on many sub-
jects of a more purely scientific character.
His collected researches were published in
1879 in a single large volume.

Mercadier has described a new and
economical method of producing inrtcrmit-
tent luminous signals by burning petroleum
with oxygen. He has a lamp with a round
wick, within which is a tube rising not quite
up to the level of the top of the wick. This
tube reaches a reservoir of oxygen : when the
lamp is lighted and a properly adjusted jet
of oxygen is permitted to reach it, it gives
out a white flame, the intensity of which
approaches that of the oxyhydrogen light.
When the lamp is burned without oxygen,
it gives a smoky flame of little brilliancy,
which will, however, rapidly increase in in-
tensity, and soon reach a maximum when
the oxygen is turned on.

864

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

M. Pastei'R has reported concerning ex-
periments on the endurance of vitality in
the germs of disease. Seven sheep were led
daily, for a few hours, to a piece of ground
where some animals that had died of anthra-
coid disease, or charbon, had been buried
twelve years previously. Two of the sheep
caught the disease and died. As there was
no grass on the spot for the animals to eat,
M. Pasteur believes that they must have re-
ceived the germs of the malady from smell-
ing about the ground, as sheep are in the
habit of doing.

Mr. William White, author of several
works on subjects of chemistry and mining,
died in London, January 29th, at the age of
seventy-one. He had held at different peri-
ods lectureships on metallurgy and chemis-
try at various educational establishments,
and had been a constant contributor to scien-
tific literature for more than half a century.

The council of the Society of Arts has
offered for its third Congress on Domestic
Economy, which is to be held during the
present year, prizes for papers not exceed-
ing one thousand words each, written by
teachers, and giving accounts of the best
methods practiced by them, of their experi-
ence, and of the results of their teaching on
the subjects of clothing and washing ; the
dwelling — warming, cleaning, and ventila-
tion ; rules for health, including the man-
agement of the sick-room, cottage income,
expenditure, and savings ; food, its compo-
sition and nutritive value, its functions, its
preparation and culinary treatment. The
papers are to be sent in to the secretary of
the Society, London, by the first of May
next.

A COURSE of twenty-five lectures, for
practical instruction in invertebrate pale-
ontology, was opened in Philadelphia, March
8th, by Professor Angelo Heilprin, under
the auspices of the Academy of Natural
Sciences of that city. The plan of instruc-
tion embraces the examination of the life-
histories of the various geological forma-
tions, the discussion of the biological rela-
tions of past organic forms, and the practical
determination of those forms for the pur-
poses of paleontological inquiry. A course
of ten lectures for practical instruction in
determinative mineralogy was begun by Pro-
fessor H. Carvill Lewis, March 15th.

Whales were formerly counted as im-
portant aids to the fisheries of the North
Sea coasts, by driving immense numbers of
small fishes toward the land. Now, accord-
ing to M. Bogdanoff, of the recent Russian
North Sea expedition, since the whales have
been pursued with steamers and bullets in-
stead of sailing-vessels and the old harpoon,
their destruction has greatly increased, and
the number of small fish coming to the coast

has correspondingly diminished. The cod-
fishing has been nearly extinguished in parts
of the Varanger Fiord region in consequence
of the presence of sharks, which, attracted
by the fat thrown into the sea at Varanger,
destroy the fish. Both of these instances
illustrate the interdependence which exists
among the different kinds of animals in-
habiting the same region.

Professor Dd Bois-Reymond, in con-
junction with Professor G. Fritsch. is about
to publish, under the auspices of the Royal
Academy of Sciences at Berlin, the observa-
tions and experiments made by the late Dr.
Karl Sachs on the electrical eel {Gymnoius
clcdriciis), in South America, during 1876
and 1877.

M. Grehaut has been endeavoring to
determine by experiment what proportion
of carbonic oxide in the atmosphere is nec-
essary as a minimum to produce the death
of animals. With a dog the proportion
varied from ^{-ij, to ^Jii; ; a hare was not as-
phyxiated till it had been exposed to an at-
mosphere containing /,? of carbonic oxide ;
a sparrow was killed by confinement in an
atmosphere charged with only ji,jj of the
gas. A very wide range of difference is
thus shown to exist in the susceptibility of
different species to this poison.

Professor Adolphe Broxgxiart was en-
gaged at the time of his death in the study
of the silicified seeds of the carboniferous
beds of St. Etienne and Autun, France. His
investigations have been published by some
of his family. Among the results was the
discovery in fossil seeds of a pollen-bearing
chamber hitherto unknown in any living
plant, in which the pollen was held in re-
serve till the time of fecundation. M. Bron-
gniart, remarking that the palaeozoic plants
exhibiting this disposition were related to
the cycades, believed that the modern eycas
might also possess it, and found his belief
confirmed by an examination of plants of
that genus. This is said to be the first
time that paleontological studies have led to
an anatomical discovery in living beings.

Dr. John Jeremiah Bigsbt, F. R. S., a
well-known writer on palaeozoic fossils, died
in London, February 10th, at the advanced
age of eighty-eight years. The greater part
of his life was spent in Canada and the
United States. He contributed a paper on
a subject of American geology to " Silli-
man's Journal," as far back as 1820. His
best-known works are two " Thesauri," re-
lating to the flora and fauna of the Silurian
and the Devonian and Carboniferous forma-
tions,which were published in 1868 and 1878.
He was the founder of the Bigsby medal,
which is awarded at the annual meetings
of the Geological Society of London.

INDEX.

PAGE

Accomplishments, The Vahie of 496

Adams, 0. K 123

Esthetic Evohition in Man -339

Africa, Eastern, Mr. Thomson's Journey in 856

Africans, Craniology of the 429

Allen, Professor Grant 339

American Institute Fair, The ; 127

Animals or Plants? 430

Animals, The Sense of Direction in 122

Antarctic Expedition, An 431

Anthropological Society, The German 425

Ants, About 696

Apes, Young, Studies of. 426

Appleton, Thomas G 539

Arctic Journey, Lieutenant Schwatka's 27Y

Art, Evolution and Originality in . 697

Association, The French 141

Asteroids, The, and Jupiter. .... 715

Attention, Expectant, in Animals 285

Aubrey- Vitet, M. E 806

Automatic Brake, The Westinghouse 140

Barbarism, Lingering 638

Barton, Boiling W., M. D 262

Beard, George M., M. D 170

Binding, Deterioration of, in Libraries 718

Birds, English and American , 142

Birds, Singular Powers in 853

Bolton, Professor H. Carrington, Ph. D 191

Bone-Caves in Pennsylvania 707

Books noticed :

" Two Worlds are Ours " (Macmillan) 129

" A True Kepublic " (Stickney) 129

" An Elementary Text-Book of Botany " (Prantl and Vines) 132

" Contributions to the Archaeology of Missouri " 133

" Life on the Seashore " (Emerton) ,. 133

"Introduction to the Mortuary Customs among tlie North American

Indians " (Yarrow) 133

" Annals of the Astronomical Observatory of Harvard College " (Pick-
ering, Searle, and Fpton) 134

" The Hair, its Growth, Care, Diseases, and Treatment " (Leonard). . . 134

" Essays on Art and Archjeology " (Newton) 134

vor,. xviir. — 55

866 INDEX.

Books noticed : p^^g

" Qualitative Chemical Analysis " (Douglass and Preocott) 135

" Some Thouglits concerning Education " (Locke) 135

" The New Text-Buok of Physics " (Cooleyj 135

" Eminent Israelites of the Nineteenth Century " (Morals) 136

" Manual of Hydraulic Mining " (Van Wagenen) 136

" Deep-Sea Sounding and Dredging " (Sigsbee) 136

" Odontornithes " (Marsh) 270

" German Thought " (Hillebrand) 272

" The Elementary Principles of Scientific Agriculture " (Lupton) 273

" Summer-Land Sketches " (Oswald) 274

"An Elementary Treatise on Analytical Geometry " (Bowser) 275

" The Minor Arts " (Leland) 275

" The Textile Record of America " (Nagle and Ryckman) 276

" Diseases of the Throat and Nose " (Mackenzie) 276

" Memoirs of the Science Department, University of Tokio, Japan "

(Mendenhall) 276

" The Atomic Theory " (Wurtz) 418

" The Skin in Health and Disease " (Bulkley) 420

" A Text-Book of the Physiological Chemistry of the Animal Body "

(Gamgee) 421

" A Physical Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism " (Gordon) 421

" School and Industrial Hygiene " (Lincoln) 422

" The Ocean as a Health-Resort " (Wilson) 423

" The Piiilosophy of Mathematics " (Bledsoe) 423

" The Orthoepist " (Ayres) 423

" What to do first in Accidents or Poisoning" (Dallas) 424

» Scotch Sermons " 559

" Modern Thinkers " (Denslow and Ingersoll) 562

" The Scientific Basis of Spiritualism " (Sargent) 564

" Progress and Poverty " (George) 564

" Medical Heresies historically considered " (Smythe) 665

" Passages from the Prose Writings of Matthew Arnold " 565

" The Journal of Physiology " (Foster) 565

" The Beautiful and the Sublime " (Kedney) 566

" A New School Physiology " (Dunglison) 566

"Diphtheria: Its Cause, Nature, and Treatment" (Gregg) 566

"Animal Life as affected by the Natural Conditions of Existence"

(Semper) 698

" Annual Pveport of the Chief of Engineers, United States Army " 701

" Life and her Children " (Buckley) 701

" Transcendental Physics " (Zollner and Massey) 702

" Consumption, and how to prevent it " (Mays) 703

" British Thought and Thinkers " (Morris) 703

" Elementary Projection-Drawing " (Warren) 704

" Practical Plane Geometry and Projection " (Angel) ) . . 704

" The Publishers' Trade-List Annual, 1880 " 704

" The Geology of Hudson County, New Jersey " (Russell) 704

" An Elementary Course of Geometrical Drawing " (Vose) 705

" Among Machines " 705

" Telegraphic Determination of Longitudes on the East Coast of South

America " (Green, Davis, and Norris) 705

INDEX. 867

Books noticed : page

" The Relations of Science to Modern Life " (Potter) 705

" Learning to Draw " (Viollet-le-Duc) 706

" A Text-Book of Elementary Mechanics " (Dana) 700

" Summary of Substantialism " (Story) 706

" The Feeling of Effort " (James) 700

"Food for Invalids " (Fothergill & Wood) 843

" Study of Indian Languages " (Powell) 844

" Geology of the High Plateaus of Utah " (Dutton) 844

" The Power of Movement in Plants " (Darwin) 845

" The Study of Political Economy " (Cossa) 848

" Young Folks' Cyclopedia of Persons and Places " (Champlin) 848

" James Smithson and his Bequest " (Rhees) 848

" Culture of the Sugar-Beet " (McMurtrie) 849

" Sanskrit and its Kindred Literatures " (Poor) 849

" High Schools " (Northrop) 849

" Geological and Natural History of Minnesota " 850

" Noxious and Beneficial Insects of Illinois " (Thomas) 850

" Abridgment of the Nautical Almanac for 1881 " 850

Breath, Temperature of tlie 708

British Association, The Fiftieth Meeting of the 138

Brunton, T. Lauder, M. D., F. R. S 226, 374

Buckland, Mr. Frank 812

Buckley, Arabella B 90

Burglar- Alarm, The Electric 56

Burns, Professor E. S 760

Calvin, S 610

Carhart, Professor H. A 513

Caribbean Sea, The Deep Valley of the 287

Caves in Japan 143

Cerebral Localization 599

Chahoon, George 122

Change as a Mental Restorative 285

Chasles, Michel, Sketch of 840

Chemical Affinity, A New Theory of. ... 717

Chemical Elements, Evolution of the 526

Chronology, History of. 760

Clarke, Professor F. W 337

Climatology of Europe 716

Coal, A Piece of 610

Consumption and Climates 284

Coral, Rate of Growth of 719

Correspondence 122, 262, 696

Cox, Sir George W 408

Crane, Professor T. F 824

Criticisms Corrected. (Herbert Spencer) 101, 387

Crust of the Earth, M. Faye's Theory of the 574

Cyclone, A Miniature 264

Death, Distinctions between Real and Apparent 401

De Costa, B. F 31

868 INDEX.

PACK

Deep-Sea Animals, Sensitive Organs of , 575

Demagogues, Powder and Ball for 128

Denuing, W. F jij-g

Disease, Do Stenches cause ? 856

Dumas, Sketch of Professor , 257

Dust, A Shower of : . . . . 263

Earthquakes, M. Delaunay 's Theory of 855

Eddy, William A. 49g

Editor's Table 125, 265, 412, 553, 697

Educational Logic, Curious 267

Education as a Hindrance to Manual Occupations 26

Education, Mixed 719

Education, Physical 303, 456, 577, 753

Eel, Structural Peculiarities of the 569

Electricity, Atmospheric 513

Electric Light, The Diffusion and Softening of the 715

Electric Light, the Maxim 424

Electro-Motors and Dynamo-Machines, Improvements in 280

Elevators, Improved Safety Construction of 137

Europe, American Storms in 862

Facts, Mr. Herbert Spencer's 263

Faraday, Henry and 76

Farquhar, W. H 264

Field-Naturalists' Club, A 415

Fisher, L. C 696

Fishes, The Migrations of 212

Folk -Lore, Plantation 824

France, Infertility in 859

Eraser, Dr. William 401

Fruit, The Stone-Grains in 428

Galton, Francis, F. R. S 64

Gardner, W. H., M. D 43

Geikie, Professor Archibald, F. Pv. S 654

Glacial Man, The, in America 31

Glaciers, Retreat of .' , 862

Gould, Mr. John 860

Grate, An Improved Smokeless 854

Gravels, Trenton, The Age of the 567

Greek, The Study of, at Cambridge 412

Hallowell, H, C '. 264

Harmond, Dr. J 384

Haviland, Charles T 681

Hawkins, John 696

Heat in Tunnel -Excavations 713

Heat, The Sun's 11

Heidenhain, Dr. R 362

INDEX. 869

PAGE

Heincke, Dr. Friedrich 212

Henry and Faraday 76

Hofmann, A. W 257

Horses and their Feet 468

Huxley, Professor T. H., F. K. S 159

Hypnotism 108

Hypnotism, Artificial 362

Hystero-Deraonomania, An Epidemic of 851

Ignorance, The Advantages of. 337

Imagery, Mental 64

Indigestion as a Cause of Nervous Depression 226, 374

Indigo, The Manufacture of, in Bengal 708

Industrial Education, Methods in 202

Insect Conservatism, Lubbock on 396

Johnston-Lavis, H. J., F. G. S 776

"Jumpers " of Maine, Experiments with the 170

Kirkwood, Professor Daniel 542

Lassell, William (obit.) 716

Laveleye, Emile de 669

Lead Pipes, Perforation of, by Rats 708

Lead Pipes, Rats and 429

Liability, Some Notes on a Doctor's 769

Life, The Profusion of 96

Lightning-Rod, Form of the ' 572

Lights, Artificial 283

Literary Notices 129, 270, 418, 559, 698, 843

Lubbock on Insect Conservatism 396

Lungren, Charles M 217, 323, 483

Luxury, The Morals of 669

Lyman, Oliver E 769

Lyons, P. F 263

Man and the Vertebrate Series 783

Man, Esthetic Evolution in 339

Married Women, The Legal Position of 643

Marshall-Islanders, The 278

Mayer, Professor Alfred M 76

McCosh, James 122

Mendenhall, Professor T. C 356

Meteor, A Brilliant 696

Meteoric Stones, The Markings of 282

Meteors, The August 178

Meteors, The November 542

Millikin, Dan 262

Mimicry, Protective, A Case of 262

Mind as a Measure of Nature 681

Mind in Work ' 709

870 INDEX,

PAGB

Minerals, Artificial Production of. 857

Miners, Diseases of 717

Mining, Preliistoric, in North Carolina 5G8

Mirage, The, on Swiss Lakes 286

Monday-Lectureship Philosophy 556

Moon, Changes on the 710

Morgan, Lewis H., Sketch of 114

Morris, Charles 80, 783

Motion, Optical Illusions of , 519

Motors, Domestic (0. M. Lungren) 217, 323, 483

Muscle, Mode of Termination of Nerves in 853

Musical Valley, A 429

Music, Oriental 237

Myer, Albert J., Sketch of 408

Mythological Crows, A Flock of 4

o

Naturalists, The Felicity of 821

Notes 143, 287, 431, 575, 719, 863

Nuisances, Municipal, The Problem of 585

Ocean-Currents, The, of Greenland and Iceland 710

Oceanica, The Black Races of. 744

Ocean, Variability of the Level of the 718

Oil-Plants of French Guiana 384

Organic Form, The Evolution of 80

Oswald, Felix L., M. D 303, 456, 577, 753

Oysters, The Green Color of. 855

Parsons, Samuel, Jr 797

Pearce, S. Austen, Mus. Doc, Oxon 237

Peckhamite, The New Mineral 861

Peirce, Professor Benjamin, Sketch pf 691

Photography, Progress in 570

Physical Education (Oswald) 303, 456, 577, 753

Physical Education (Editor) 418

Plants, Darwin on the Movements of 498

Plants, the Relative Hardiness of 797

Plow and Wheel-Carriage, Origin of the (Tylor) 448

Pneumonia, Elevator 854

Political Institutions, The Development of (H. Spencer). 1, 145, 289, 433, 624, 721

Political Science 125

Popular Miscellany 137, 277, 424, 567, 707, 851

Pottery, Types of 138

Pourtales, Count, Sketch of 549

Powell, J. W 114

Progress, Human, The Forces of »^53

Publications Received 137, 276, 424, 566, 707, 850

Quarantine, and Systematic Medical Inspection 861

Rainfall, Relation of Elevation and Exposure to 714

Reading, What the Eye sees in 262

INDEX. 871

PAGK

Respirtition, Effect of Physical Training on 284

River-Water, Purification of, by Organic xVgents 709

Rock- Weathering, as Illustrated in Churchyards 654

Romanes, George J » • • 1*^8

Sabbath, The (J. Tyndall) 246, 310

Sanitary Improvement, Ethcacy of 430

Science and Culture 1'59

Science at Princeton College 122

Science at the University of Michigan 123

Science in the Colleges 126

Science College, Sir Josiah Mason's 265

Science in the Schools of France 573

Science, Prehistoric, en Fete 544

Sciences, The National Academy of 412

Scientist, An Ancient 883

Sea, Carbonic Acid in the 862

Sea, The Deep Explorations of, off the Coast of France 855

Seguin, Dr. Edouard 268

Sewerage, The Study of, in London 414

Sewer-Waters, The Purification of. 806

Smelting-Furnace, A New 281

Spencer, Herbert 1, 101, 145, 289, 387, 433, 624, 721

Spencer, Mrs. A. G 643

Solar Machine, A .• 283

Solar System, M. Faye's Theory of the 858

Spiders and Tuning-Forks 718

Split Stones in the Desert 569

Stammering 711

State, The, as an Educator 664

Strawberry- Leaf Beetle, The 852

Suicide, Relation of Age and Marriage to 282

Suicide, Statistics of 860

Thermometers, Examination of, at the Yale Observatory 367

Thermometers, Variations in the Fixed Points of 286

Thompson, Professor Silvanus P. 26, 202, 519

Thunderstorms, The Phenomena of 572

Tracy, R. S., M. D 585

Transformation of Sound into Light 142

Trees, The Circulation of Sap in 140

Trichinosis on a British School-ship 574

Turquoises 712

Tylor, E. B 448

Tyndall, Professor John, F. R. S 246, 310

Typhoon, A Japanese 356

Varigny, Henry de 599

Verneau, Dr. R 744

Vine-Slip, Only a 539

Visual Tests, The Regulation of 571

872 INDEX.

PAOB

Vogt, Carl 638

Volcanic Cones, Origin and Structure of 776

Waldo, Dr. Leonard 367

Walpole, Spencer 812

Ward, Lester F 526

Water-Plants, Variations in the Forms of 570

Wilson, H. H 664

Women, The Early Practice of Medicine by 191

Yellowstone, The Great Glacier of the 568

Youmans, Eliza A 498

Young, Professor C. A 11

END OF VOL. XVIII.

iillii

UH 16V3 b