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THE

POPULAE SCIENCE

MOI^THLY.

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

VOL. XXVIII.

NOVEMBER, 1S85, TO APRIL, 1886.

Is^EW YOEK :
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

1, 3, A.VD 5 BOND STREET.
1886.

CoPTEicnx, 1SS6,
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.

/O^^^

SIR LYON PLAYPAIR.

THE

POPULAK SCIENCE
MONTHLY.

NOVEMBER, 1885.

FLYING-MACHINES.

Bv T. W. MATHER.

THE subject of my paper — flying-machines — in a general way, is
of interest to everybody. But, to those who have given it more
particular attention, it is not only interesting but fascinating, and a
little dangerous. The pathway has been strewed with wrecks ; and I
fear there is a feeling prevalent that, after all, it leads nowhere in par-
ticular, unless it be to the almshouse or lunatic asylum.

Still, there are times when we heartily envy the birds their wonder-
ful power. I remember in reading, I think, Mr. Wallace's book on the
Amazons, that he was once standing on the shore of the mighty river,
confronted by an impenetrable wall of green, concealing within itself
doubtless no end of new plants and beetles ; and when a gayly painted
macaw came sailing lazily along and disappeared behind the tree-tops
without any sort of trouble, he gave vent emphatically to the general
wish to fly, and to a feeling of surprise that apparently so simple a
problem should have remained so long unsolved.

I propose here to give an account of some of the attempts to fly
that have been made in the past, and are now being made ; and to try
to explain the principles involved, and why success has not been
achieved.

The old Greeks and Romans very sensibly appear to have been
content to give the gods and birds and butterflies a monopoly of the
air ; for, excepting the story of Dgedalus and Icarus, little mention
has been made by classical writers of attempts to fly, or of flying-
machines.

Doedalus, it seems, had killed a man in Athens, and with his un-
fortunate son fled to Crete, where King Minos very properly detained

VOL. XXVIII. — 1

2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

him ; but, determined to escape, he made wings of feathers cemented
with wax, and, instructing Icarus to fly neither too high nor too low,
but to closely follow him, launched himself into the air, and took a
bee-line for Greece. The young man, however, was ambitious, and, fly-
ing too near the sun, the wax melted, and he perished in the sea — a
warning to future generations.

After Daedalus, we next hear of Archytas of Tarentum in Sicily,
a famous geometrician who lived about 400 years b. c. He is credited
with a dove made of wood, so contrived, we are told, " as by certain
mechanical art and power to fly ; so nicely was it balanced by weights
and put in motion by hidden and inclosed air." One is surprised at
the amount of talk and speculation that these few words have caused.
If the dove were put in motion by inclosed air, then probably it was
constructed on the principle of a balloon. If so, then of course the
air must have been heated ; or, better, since wood will crack and warp
from heat, not unlikely a light gas was used ; and since hydrogen is
light, possibly hydrogen ; and if so, how did Archytas prepare it ?
Others seriously try to throw ridicule on the whole affair, saying that a
wooden dove could not possibly get support in such away — that neces-
sarily it would be too large and heavy, and that the material would
not stand the strain, and so on.

For my own part, however, I think that old Lauretus Laurus had
the true theory and explanation. He says that "the shells of hen's
eggs, if properly filled, and well secured against the penetration of the
air, and exposed to the solar rays, will ascend to the sky, and some-
times suffer a natural change ; and if the eggs of the larger description
of swans, or leather balls, stitched with fine thongs, be filled with
niter, the purest sulphur, quicksilver, or kindred materials, which
rarefy by their caloric energy ; and if they externally resemble doves
they will easily be mistaken for flying animals.

"If we should desire to give aerial motion to a wooden and pon-
derous machine, we must apply fire. Should there be any apprehen-
sion of the dove being burned, it can be covered over with some in-
combustible coating, and tubes of tin introduced, so that the fire may
be kept alight in its bosom without injury to it. . . . To prevent the
crackling of flames, and the emission of sparks, the powder may be
deprived of force by the mixture of ochre and butter. . . . An artificial
throat may be formed to change the crackling of the flames into an
imitation of the cooing of a dove. Tubes could have been easily " (and
probably were) "constructed to ascend one after the other at conven-
ient intervals, so that the bird would apparently be endued with life."

After Archytas, we hear little or nothing of flying-machines until
the middle ages. Then the astrologers and alchemists and witches, in
league with the evil-one on the one hand, and the friars and monks
helped by good s])irits on the other, did many wonderful things. The
competition was strong. To simply fly was a mere bagatelle, a ready

FL YING-MA CHINES. . 3

means to the sinful or good end in view. The broomstick took a
pre-eminent position as a flying-machine. What a pity it is that our
ancestors should have so persistently fought against and finally suc-
ceeded in surpressing the broomstick ! What could be more simple
and effective ? Perhaps by proper treatment the witches might have
been persuaded to instruct the rest of the world in its use. In those
days, dragons and magicians and good and evil spirits made out-of-
doors at night rather dangerous, and good people remained at home,
with holy water on hand for an emergency. Here is an example from
Remigius. Says he : " There is no doubt the following will be consid-
ered incredible by all and ridiculous by many ; yet I can aver that two
hundred persons testified to its truth. On regular and stated days
these people assembled in a crowd on the banks of some lake or river,
secluded from the observation of passers-by ; and there they were in
the habit of lashing the water with wands received from demons, until
such time as vapors and mists were produced in large quantities, and
with these they were wont to soar on high. The exhalations thus pro-
voked condensed themselves into thick and darkling clouds, agitated
and swept the heavens, assisted in their atmospheric war by the evil
spirits whom they wrapped in their folds, and at length in a hail-storm
smote the earth in their fury. . . . Salome and Dominica Zabella, how-
ever, add that, before they thus agitated the water, they were in the
practice of throwing into it an earthen pot, in which a little previous
a demon had been inclosed, together with some stones of such size as
they wished the hail to be. . . . Decker Maygeth states that he and his
confederates in crime used to receive candles from a demon of an azure
color, and sail with them some distance from the margin of the lake,
hold the light downward and let it drop freely into the water ; that
after that they scattered and spread some medicinal powder over the
surface ; that they then, with black rods, bestowed on them by de-
mons, most vehemently lashed the waters, accompanying the action
with a repetition of incantations to produce the desired results. Then
the sky became overcast with clouds, and discharged torrents of rain
and hail on those localities which they had pointed out." This incan-
tation, Remigius says, " is not an invention of modern ages. It is not
the invention of old hags whose mental powers were depraved by de-
mons, or perverted by visions or dreams. It was practiced by men of
keen intellects and acute investigation, who minutely observed, criti-
cally examined, and deliberately adopted their convictions."

Here is a description, according to Kircher, of a flying-machine in-
vented by one of the fathers of the Church : Some of the fathers in
India had been " cast into prison, and while they continued ignorant
of any means of effecting their liberation, some one, more cunning than
the rest, invented an extraordinary machine, and then threatened the
barbarians, unless they liberated his companions, that they would be-
hold in a short time some wonderful portents and experience the visible

4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

anger of the gods. The barbarians laughed at the threat. He then
constructed a dragon of the most volatile paper, and in this inclosed a
mixture of sulphur, pitch, and wax, and so artistically arranged all his
materials that when ignited it would illumine the machine and exhibit
this legend — ' The wrath of GocV The body being formed and the in-
gredients prepared, he affixed a long tail, and committed the machine
to the heavens. Favored by the wind, it soared aloft toward the
clouds. The spectacle was terrific. The barbarians beholding it were
smitten with the greatest astonishment and fear. . . . Thereupon with-
out delay," says Kircher, " they threw open the gates and suffered the
prisoners to go forth in peace."

In the middle ages, anybody at all distinguished by knowledge of
science was credited with the art of flying, and indeed in many cases
did not scruple to claim it. Albertus Magnus was one of these, but
refused to give particulars to the world at large. He tells us, however,
how to make thunder. Says he : " Take one pound of sulphur, two
pounds of willow carbon, and six pounds of rock-salt, ground very fine
in a marble mortar ; place where you please in a covering made of fly-
ing-papyrus to produce thunder. The covering, in order to ascend and
float away, should be long, graceful, and well filled with this powder ;
but to produce thunder the covering should be short and thick, and
half full."

Roger Bacon, an eminent philosopher of the thirteenth century, also
claimed to have knowledge of the art of flying, but believed also in the
wisdom of silence concerning the details. But in his writings we find
flashes of real light. He speaks of the possibility of constructing en-
gines of great power to traverse land and sea ; and seems to have been
the first to have tolerably clear ideas of the principles involved in the
construction of balloons. He describes a large hollow globe of copper
or other suitable metal wrought extremely thin. It must then, he says,
" be filled with ethereal air or liquid fire, and then be launched from
some elevated point into the atmosphere, where it will float like a ves-
sel on the water."

In his day the air was supposed to have a well-defined upper limit,
like the water.

Friar Bacon too has been credited with the invention of gunpow-
der. He was of course accused of holding communion with the devil.
Good Pope Nicholas placed his writings under a ban, and his wings
were effectually clipped.

Shortly after his time, the project of training up children from
infancy to fly received a good deal of attention, and, if we can trust
the accounts, considerable progress was made, for it is said that, by
combined running and flying, individuals could skim over the ground
with great rapidity.

Regiomontanus, a famous mathematician, is said like Archytas to
have formed an artificial dove, which flew out to meet the Emperor

FL YING-MA CHINES.

5

Charles V at his public entry into Nuremberg. But, if this is true, the
dove must have survived its inventor for at least twenty years. Then
we are told of a monk who attempted a flight with wings from the top
of a tower in Spain. He broke his legs, and was afterward burned as
a sorcerer. Another similar trial was made from St. Mark's steeple in
Venice ; another in Nuremberg ; and so on — legs or arms were usu-

Fig. 1.— The Fltixg-Man (Retif de la Bretonne's idea). (From an old number of "Scribner'H

Magazine. '■>

ally broken, occasionally a neck. In the sixteenth century we read of a
certain Italian who went to the court of James IV of Scotland, and
attempted to fly from the walls of Stirling Castle to France. His
thigh was broken ; but, as a reason for the failure, he asserted that
some of the feathers used in constructing his wings were from barn-
yard fowls, with a natural aflinity for the dung-hill ; whereas, if com-

6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

posed solely of eagle-feathers, they would have been attracted to the air.
However, he does not appear to have carried the experiment further.

Many other trials have there been of the same character. The re-
sults were generally discouraging, but men can always be found ready
to risk life and limb in striving to attain something much less im-
portant than the art of flying ; without a knowledge of the princijiles
involved, ignorant of the nature of the atmosphere, without machinery
or power, fettered by a superstition that looked upon all learning out-
side of the Church as coming from the prince of darkness, it was a
struggle in the dark — brave but hopeless.

Still, those old fellows were quite as reasonable in their attempts as
many of our inventors are now. In looking through Patent-Office
reports, we shall find devices only slightly different in detail from
those tried five hundred years ago.

One of our illustrations shows the plan proposed by Retif de la
Bretonne away back in the dark ages ; and another an apparatus pat-
ented in this country in 1872. It is only one of numbers of the same
sort. Rctif had an advantage, in that he carried a lunch-basket and
umbrella, and did not need so many ropes and spars ; but otherwise
the later arrangement seems equally good.

In 1783 the Montgolfiers invented the balloon. Friar Bacon, as we
have seen, had speculated upon the possibility of such a construction.
In 1G70 Francis Lana, a Jesuit, had described an apparatus which, al-
though impracticable in so far that it could not be built, nevertheless
was correct in principle. The same idea had occurred to others ; and
there are even shadowy accounts of actual ascents. But to the Montgol-
fiers certainly belongs the honor of first actually building and bringing
the balloon before the public as an accomplished fact. They used hot
air only, but the substitution of hydrogen gas by Professor Charles
speedily followed, and in a few years the balloon was made as perfect,
excepting in a few details, as it is now.

It would be difficult to describe the excitement which followed this
invention. The most extravagant hopes and anticipations were enter-
tained. The problem had been solved. The birds and insects would
no longer have a monopoly. Every gentleman would have a balloon
hitched to his gate-post, or, wafted along by summer breezes, would
look dowTi in luxurious pity upon the poor plodders. Sails and rud-
ders were to be used as on ships to direct the course. Regular lines
of aerial passenger and mail coaches were to be established. There
seemed no limit to the possible speed. Rome, or St. Petersburg, or
even America, might be reached in a few hours, and for the comfort
of travelers the arrangements proposed went far ahead of our palace-
cars. Floating hospitals were to be built ; methods of warfare would
need to be entirely reorganized ; and England's boasted supremacy on
the sea would be of no avail, unless she also maintained supremacy in
the air.

FL YING-MA CHINES.

Of course an invention of such importance could not escape con-
demnation. Balloons were manifestly contrary to the will of Divine
Providence, for, if it had been intended that man should fly, wings
would have been given to him. Moreover, the barriers of virtue and

8

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

morality -would be broken down by permitting aeronauts to descend
into gardens and balconies ; and, above all, the boundaries of empires
■would be jjractifally annulled, and nations in consequence engage in
continual war.

Well is it, then, for humanity that balloons have not proved a very
great success. Many extensive voyages and many interesting observa-
tions have been made ; but as a flying-machine the balloon has no place.
It is the servant of the air, not the master. It must obey a will, piti-
less, tickle, sometimes kind, but never trustworthy. The expectation
that headway could be made against the wind by means of sails and
rudders had no basis in sound theory or sense. A sailing-ship is im-
mersed in two fluids of widely differing densities, and its sail is only
effective because the water, while supporting, at the same time allows
the vessel to move more readily in one direction than another.

Fio. 3.— Sut.livan'3 Fltino-Machine. (Taken from United States Pateut-GCQcc Keports.)

A balloon, on the other hand, is totally immersed in an ocean of air,
and being of the same weight bulk for bulk, and subject to no exter-
nal forces, must necessarily follow the slightest current. One might
as well attempt to steer a boat, swept along by a great stream, without
wind or oar. It forms an integral part of the current itself. It is a
thistle-down blown by an autumn gale.

FL YING-MA CHINES.

Of course we may provide our balloon with wings or propeller, and
fly as the birds fly. This has been and continues to be a favorite com-
bination with our inventors. One patented in this country in 1880 has
been chosen as an illustration. The balloon, oblong in shape and
divided for safety into compartments, supports a car containing the
propelling machinery, and also a gas-generator to make up such loss
of hydrogen as may occur. Two immense rudders steer tbe machine.
It is propelled by four paddle-wheels, which would act, one would
think, very much as the wheels of our river-steamers would act, if
totally immersed in the water, and would be about as likely to drive
the balloon backward as forward.

Generally, however, in machines of this class the propeller is one
gigantic screw, or a number of screws, and the balloons have a variety
in shape and grouping which is quite remarkable.

It is strange that people have not realized that a thing necessarily
so big and light as a balloon can not be made strong and durable
enough to stand the pressure of the wind at comparatively low ve-
locities. Floating with the current, the velocity would have no de-
structive effect ; but brought into opposition to this current, or forced
at any great speed through the air, the resistance would be much
greater than a silk bag could safely stand.

It may be well here to refer to a table giving the relation of press-
ure to velocity of air, experimentally determined and verified time
and again — results very important in the study of flying and flying-
machines :

VELOCITY

OF THE WIND.

Pressure on one square
foot.

Character of the wind.

Miles per hour.

Feet per second.

Pounds.

1
5

1-47
7-33

0-005
0-123

Hardly perceptible.
Gentle wind.

10
15

14-67
22-00

0-492 I
1-107 S

Pleasant brisk wind.

20
25

29-34
36-67

1-968 /
3-075 i"

Very brisk.

30
35

44 01
51-34

4-429 )
6-027 i

High winds.

40

58-68

7-873 /
9-963 \

Very high.

45

66-01

50
60

73-35
88-02

12-300
17-715

Tempest.
Great storm.

80

117-36

31-490

Hurricane.

100

146-70

49-200

Cvclone.

150

Sometimes reached.

Now let us suppose that a balloon only forty feet in diameter should
resist the pressure of wind blowing at the rate of twenty miles an hour,
or, what is the same thing, that the balloon should be traveling through
still air at this speed. The surface presented to the wind would be
about twelve hundred square feet, and the pressure on each square
foot, from our table, would be 1*9 pound, and the total pressure over
a ton. A calculation is hardly necessary to show that such a pressure.

lo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

acting constantly upon our silk, would be likely to rupture it; and
when we consider that sudden gusts might readily increase the press-
ure five-fold, it will be admitted that terra Jirma would be decidedly
safer, if less exciting.

More than all this, balloons as hitherto constructed are at best but
temporary affairs, quickly losing their gas and buoyancy, expensive
and unwieldy, and, however valuable for certain kinds of work, must
be considered as simply floating, not flying machines. If we expect
to gain the respect of the birds or butterflies, we must go to work in a
much less clumsy way.

In the excitement following Montgolfier's invention, simple flying-
machines dropped out of sight almost entirely, and it was only after a
long series of disappointing trials that the old ideas came to the sur-
face again. The balloon craze, however, brought about a more care-
ful study of aeronautics generally ; but at the same time there has
been and is a strong current of misguided thought and invention, par-
ticularly to be noticed in our Patent-Oflice reports.

Inventors of flying-machines, as a rule, belong rather in a lower
class. Just as we still find old-new arrangements for producing per-
petual motion, so in the attempts to fly the old story is repeated. The
perpetual-motion man is likely also to know just how to make a suc-
cessful flying-machine. He only lacks the means. Still, particularly
in England and on the Continent, many able men have been working
intelligently, perscveringly, quietly. Before building a flying-machine
they have thought best to study the examples Nature has provided,
thinking that, while we need not necessarily imitate the mechanism, we
may in this way get a better idea of the principles and action involved.

The broad principle governing either natural or artificial flight is
quite simple, but the difticulty of applying it very great. Our flying-
machine, one that is much heavier than the air, and depending entirely
upon its own power, in the first place, must be able by acting on the
air to lift itself, and, while maintaining a position at any desired height,
to propel itself forward. It must be prepared to encounter and take
advantage of, and overcome currents of air sometimes hardly per-
ceptible, sometimes perhaps a roaring gale — currents, too, not un-
likely to suddenly change both in direction and velocity. It should be
able to fly continuously for a long while, and should be tolerably safe.

On the water, if the machinery gives out, we can float or swim ;
but in the air any little difticulty of the sort would be likely to end
unpleasantly. And even if, like a parachute, the machine could be
made to drop slowly, in a brisk wind the final landing-place would for
a while be a matter of uneasy conjecture.

It may easily be understood, then, that the problem is not a simple
one, and yet, to a person watching, for example, the flight of a flock of
gulls following in the wake of a steamer, the exquisite ease and grace
and apparent simplicity of the movement are very striking. Sweeping

FL YING-MA CHINES. 1 1

around in circles, occasionally elevating themselves by a few flaps of
the wings, they glide down and up the aerial inclines without appar-
ently any effort whatever. But a close observation will show that at
every turn the angle of inclination of the Aviugs is changed to meet
the new conditions. There is continual movement with power — by the
bird it is done instinctively, by our machine only through mechanism
obeying a mind not nearly so well instructed.

The study of the flight of birds and insects has of late years re-
ceived a great deal of attention, and, in a general way, the motions of
the wings are fairly well understood. We could probably very closely
imitate these motions, but the question at once arises, in doing so,
would we be applying our power in the most effective way ? While
somewhat similar, the movement and construction of the wings of
flying creatures vary considerably. What is best for a heavy body
with short wings is by no means best for a light body with long
wings ; nor does a sea-bii'd, constantly on the wing, but perhaps
not a rapid flier, fly in the same way as a pigeon or humming-bird ;
and, in any particular case, it does not necessarily follow that Na-
ture has provided the most efficient apparatus ; or, in other words,
that the power the bird possesses could not be utilized more effect-
ively. Nature can not always be trusted. We can study and under-
stand her laws, but she does not pretend to apply them on economical
principles. Fish and marine animals swim in a great variety of ways,
they have all sorts of propelling arrangements, but there can be no
doubt that a screw-propeller is vastly more efficient than any of them ;
and why should we try to copy the motions of a bird's wing any more
than those of a fish's tail ? The motions are very complicated in any
case, and our machine, imitating them, would be complex and liable
to get out of order. And one can not help thinking that we are about
as likely to make a steam road-wagon by imitating the action of a
horse, as we are to make a practicable flying-machine by copying the
motions of a bird. The desired results can probably be obtained in a
much more simple and effective way.

Still, the study of flying creatures has brought out many interest-
ing and suggestive facts, and has given us, too, some encouragement.

In the first place, we notice that all birds are heavy, and that the
expanse of wing generally diminishes in proportion to the increase of
weight. The following is a table prepared by M. Lucy, showing this
very clearly :

Table giving the Expanse of Wing- Surface for each Pound of Weight.

Square feet.

Gnat 48-9

Dragon-fly 21-65

Cockchafer 5'1

Sparrow 27

Pigeon 1-2

Vulture 0-82

Australian crane 041

12 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

We see that the gnat, one of the lightest of insects, has an expanse
of wing uf no less than 48-9 square feet for each pound of weight,
while the heavy cockchafer has only 5*1 square feet for each pound.
With birds, the sparrow has 2*7 square feet of wing-surface for each
pound of weight, while the great Australian crane has only 0"41 of a
square foot, and yet this bird undertakes remote journeys, and, the
eagle excepted, flies higher, and keeps on the wing longest, of all the
travelers.

It would appear, then, that our flying-machine, while heavy, need
not necessarily have a very broad expanse of flying surface. Indeed,
l)aradoxical as it may seem, weight is really an essential feature. Set
in motion by muscular effort, the weight of a bird acts somewhat like
the fly-wheel of an engine : the power is stored up during the down-
ward stroke of the wing, to be given out again on its upward stroke,
and ])robably it is weight also that enables the bird to successfully
combat and take advantage of the force of the wind. It is noteworthy
that all sailing-birds, like the hawk or vulture, have comparatively
heavy bodies. Tlie magnificent albatross, in rising from the water, is
said to beat the air with great energy, but, when fairly launched, in a
brisk gale, will sweep around in broad circles for hours together, hardly
ever deigning to flap a wing. Darwin, in his " Voyage of the Beagle,"
speaks of watching the condor sailing in a similar way at a great height,
without, so far as he could notice, any flapping action whatever.

At the same time, it is hard to understand how such a condition of
affairs could exist. The condor's wings, inclined to the wind, have
been compared to a kite, and if there were a string stretching from
the bird to some fixed point, the whole thing would be clear ; but every
boy knows to his cost that, if the string slips or breaks, the kite
quickly seeks some other point of support — probably a telegraph-wire.
But Professor Pettigrew has suggested that the string is the invisible
one representing the attraction of gravitation, and that ''the string
and the hand are to the kite what the weight of the flying creature is
to the inclined planes formed by its wings." This, however, does not
make the matter much clearer, for the force of gravity acts in vertical
lines, and a vertical kite-string, with the kite flying directly overhead,
is a thing, it is safe to say, no boy ever saw. Why should not our
bird drift with the wind unless he uses some muscular effort to over-
come its force or to keep himself from falling ?

Once elevated, he can utilize his weight in a number of ways.
A body will naturally fall along a line of least resistance, and if the
front edge of the wings be tipped slightly downward the bird will
glide forward while falling, gaining velocity and momentum ; and
then, by reversing the inclination of the wings, he can again glide up
an aerial incline until this stored-up energy has been expended. But
the resistance of the air must be overcome, and there must be con-
tinual loss from the imperfect sustaining power of the wings.

FLYING-MACHINES. " 13

We shall see presently that the force of the wind can be utilized
to a certain extent to make up these losses, but still some muscular
effort should be required. If our vulture or albatross would only
occasionally deign to flap a wing, all would be well. His obstinacy
is very perplexing.

Leaving the birds to their own peculiar devices, let us now con-
sider what principles should guide us in constructing a flying -
machine.

In the first place, by acting on the air, the machine should be able
to lift itself from the ground ; and, leaving out of account small mod-
els, this is a preliminary no one appears so far to have succeeded in.
Many pictures may be seen of flying-machines booming along through
the air with all sails set, passengers evidently happy, some serenely
smoking, others promenading the deck in the usual way, with perhaps
a couple behind the wheel-house ; but a representation of a machine
just on the point of starting out is not to be met with.

In order to produce an upward pressure or reaction, the wings or
propeller acting on the air evidently should drive it downward. Sup-
pose now that our machine weighs 600 pounds, and that it has the
same propelling surface in proportion to its weight as the Australian
crane, we should then need about 246 square feet, and a pressure of
2*4 pounds acting upward on each square foot would lift it from the
ground.

Referring again to the table giving the relation between wind ve-
locity and pressure, we notice that a pressure of 2*4 pounds would
be occasioned by a velocity of about twenty-two miles an hour.

If, then, we should cause our propeller — be it a screw or wings,
or any other form — to drive downward a current of air at this rate, the
cross-section or area of the current being 246 square feet, the total
upward reaction would be great enough to raise the machine.

Of course, for any other proportion of wing-surface to weight, our
table would give other results ; or if the air is already in motion, it
will tell us what increase of velocity should be given to produce the
desired pressure.

The results given in the table can also be readily found in a purely
theoretical way, and they seem so important that it is a wonder
investigators have given them little or no attention.

A machine possessing weight can fly only by doing something to
the air. It must put the air in motion, and it can be shown that the
amount of this motion will be a measure of the work done and reac-
tion obtained.

If air is already in motion, we can not utilize its force, not wishing
to drift along, except by changing in some way its velocity.

Granting all this, our table or formula will tell us, not only what
volume of air must be used to gain the desired reaction or motion,
but also the least power necessary. Knowing the weight of and ve-

H

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

locity impressed upon the air, downward or in any other direction, it
becomes an easy matter to determine the power.

For example, in the practical case just considered, to lift the ma-
chine from the ground would require an expenditure of at least eight-
een horse-power. This is the least power that would do the work
— the actual power would depend entirely upon the efficiency of the
propeller.

Having at last succeeded in getting away from the ground, we
wish to fly in any direction — to set the birds an example of how the
thing ought really to be done.

Here, again, we must apply the principles just announced. To go
forward, the air must be driven aft. Knowing the speed proposed,
our table will give us at once the resistance for each square foot ; and
knowing the size or bulk of our machine, we can readily estimate
the power required.

The management of the wind unquestionably will be a very im-
portant factor in the construction of a flying-machine ; indeed, it
may be considered the most troublesome part of all. Properly handled,
the wind might be made a useful servant, otherwise a dangerous
master.

The only plan that suggests itself is through the use of an inclined
plane. Here, at any rate, we must imitate the birds.

My attention was not long ago called to an article on Aeronautics,
in the Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute for 1878, and in it
was a table from experiments by Mr. Skye, giving the lifting power
of the wind, bloAving at the rate of twenty-three miles an hour upon
a plane surface, one square foot in area, inclined at various angles.
These figures lead to some very surprising and interesting results :

Anprle piano makes
with wind.

Lifting force, in pounds.

Drifting force, in pounds.

Katlo between tlie two.

5°

1-13

0-23

4-91

10°

1-43

0-67

2-14

20»

1-65

0-92

1-8

80°

1-83

1-35

1-36

40°

2-00

1-73

1-15

60°

1-80

2-07

0-87

It will be seen from the second column that while the greatest lift-
ing effect occui's at about an angle of 40°, even at so small an angle as
5° it is still considerable. The third column gives values for the
corresponding horizontal pressures ; that is, the force which tends to
move the plane in the direction of the wind. The fourth column gives
the ratio between the two.

It will be seen that the drifting force diminishes at a much faster
rate than the lifting force, as the angle of inclination of the plane be-
comes less.

Consider again the flying-machine weighing 600 pounds, and sup-

FL YING-MA CHINES.

15

pose that, in addition to the propeller, we furnish it with an inclined
plane having the same area, or, perhaps after the manner of birds,
make the propeller act also as an inclined plane ; and let it be inclined
five degrees, with the wind blowing at the rate of twenty-three miles
an hour. Then the table shows us that the total lifting force due to
the wind would be 278 pounds, leaving 322 pounds to be supported
in some other way. The horizontal or drifting force would be 0'23
pounds on each square foot, or only 56 pounds altogether. To counter-
act this, let us make our propeller act as a kite-string by sending
backward the air at an increased velocity. Our other table tells us
how great this velocity should be, and makes the necessary power
amount to only about half a horse-power. To support the balance of
the weight, we should need also to send downward a current of air,
involving an additional expenditure of about seven horse-power.

Combining the two, we get this extraordinary result, that while
nearly nineteen horse-power was necessary to lift our machine from
the ground, it could hold its own in a breeze of twenty-three miles
an hour with an expenditure of only seven and a half horse-power.

No account has been taken of the wind blowing against dead sur-
faces, such as the body of the bird or machine. This, of course,
would depend upon the shape. A bird's body is long and narrow,
cleaving the air without great resistance, and a flying-machine should
be fashioned similarly.

Other losses have not been considered, but still the broad result
holds that it is possible in this way to utilize part of the energy stored
up in the wind. The accuracy of the results will depend upon that
of Mr. Skye's table ; but if future experiment should verify it, we can
understand why it is that the albatross, and wild-duck, and heavy
birds generally, while rising with great difiiculty, when once up keep
on the wing with so much apparent ease.

However, there is still the necessity for a kite-string of some sort.
There is a force tending to carry the bird along with the wind which
must be overcome somehow, and I still fail to understand how the
albatross can sail in the air indefinitely without some muscular effort.

From Mr. Skye's table, in connection with the other, we get this
important practical result — that in a flying-machine, properly con-
structed, the greatest power required will be that necessary to lift it
from the ground ; and that once off, up to a certain limit, the stiffer
the breeze the better.

The efiiciency of a propeller of any sort will depend not only upon
its area, but also upon its ability to send the air away in parallel
streams. If we wish to go forward, the air must be driven aft, and a
forced current in any other direction will at best give us back but a
fraction of its energy. Ordinary screw-propellers have not proved
very effective, for the reason, probably, that revolving at great speed,
they send off a large amount of air tangentially.

1 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

What, now, should be the mechanical construction of a successful
flying-machine ? How should it be built ? In what way should the
I)o\ver be applied ? I have tried to make clear what seem to me the
principles involved, but the best method in which to apply them can
only be found by patient and intelligent study and experiment. Many
men have been and are now working at the problem, and that it will
be eventually solved seems certain. A bird's muscles, while strong, are
not as strong as steel, and while his power in proportion to his weight
is great, we can exceed it ; and let us not admit that we can not equal
his intelligence in applying it.

One of our illustrations shows the flying-machine invented by Mr.
ileuson in England in 1842, and deserves mention as being the first

Fig. 4.— Henson's Aerostat.

of importance designed to fly without the aid of muscular power.
The chief feature was the very great expanse of its sustaining planes,
which were larger in proportion to the weight than in many birds.
The machine advanced with its front edge a little raised, and the air
acting upon the lower surface, when the proper speed had been at-
tained, was expected to lift and sustain it. This speed at the start-off
was to be got by running down an inclined plane or hill, and the ob-
ject of the screw-propeller was simply to keep up the motion. It is un-
necessary to say that this machine did not work, and yet Ilenson
evidently had a glimmering of what is required. He introduces the
inclined plane and propeller, but does not apply them in a practical
way. Such a machine, of course, would be completely at the mercy
of the winds ; and while he might find a convenient hill to roll down
in order to get the required velocity, in coming to earth again there
might be trouble.

Lnndell's flying-machine, invented in 18G3, was also provided with
an extensive aero-plane, but differs in having screws acting vertically
to sustain the machine in addition to those for driving it forward.
Capping all are two parachutes, intended to open and prevent a sudden
fall in case of accident. There are four sets of blades on each ver-
tical screw-shaft, on the principle, one would think, that if one set
would be a good thing, four sets would be four times as good. They

FL YING-MA CHINES. 1 7

-would be likely to act somewhat like four screw-propellers, one behind
the other, on an ocean-steamer. The mechanism was to be driven by
a steam-engine. The dark object suspended below may be ballast to
counteract any superfluous energy of the steam.

Fig. 5.— Landell's Flying-Machine.

In 1868 Mr. Stringfellow built and exhibited a model of a flying-
machine at the Crystal Palace, in London, where it took a prize.
There are three aero-planes, one above the other, with a broad tail
behind. As in Henson's machine, no provision was made for lifting it

Fig. 6.— Stringfeixow's Flyxng-Machute.

from the ground, the power being applied simply to produce or keep
up horizontal velocity, the reaction of the air against the inclined
planes serving to sustain the weight.

At the exhibition the model ran down an inclined wire, but re-
fused to rise into the air. It weighed only twelve pounds, including
VOL. xxriii. — 2

i8

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

an engine exerting one third of a horse-power, boiler, water, and every-
thing. Of course, even if the model had been a success, no large
machine constructed in such a way could be of practical value.

The machine designed by Mr. Moy in 1874 was somewhat similar
to Ilenson's and Stringfellow's, There are two inclined planes, one
behind the other, and two horizontal screws. The necessary speed to
lift the machine was to be obtained by a preliminary run along the

Fig. 7.— Mot's Aeriai. Steamer.

ground on the wheels underneath. In coming to earth again we
should only need to look out for some favorable locality, strike tan-
gentially, and the resistance of the wheels over stones, fences, and the
like would speedily bring us to rest.

These are the more important inventions of this class — that is, self-
raising and self-propelling machines — and it must be confessed the
results are far from encouraging. M. Penaud and others have con-
structed flying models, but on too small a scale to be of much practi-
cal importance.

But still there are the birds ; they completely refute the argu-
ments of those who say, " It is impossible to build a successful flying-
machine."

MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT.*

By S. LAING, M. P.

On yet we tmst that somehow good

Will be the final goal of ill,

To pangs of Nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;

That nothing walks with aimless feet ;

That not one life shall be destroyed,

Or cast as rubbish to the void,
"When God bath made the pile complete;

* From Chapter VII of a work, under this title, published by Chapman & Ilall, Lon-
don, 1886.

MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 19

That not a worm is cloven in vain ;

That not a moth with vain desire

Is shriveled in a fruitless fire,
Or but subserves another's gain.

Behold, we know not anything,

I can but trust that good shall fall

At last — far ofF^at last, to all.
And every winter change to spring.

So runs my dream : but what am I?

An infant crying in the night;

An infant crying for the light ;
And with no language but a cry.

The wish, that of the living whole
No life may fail beyond the grave,
Derives it not ft-om what we have

The likest God within the soul ?

Are God and Nature then at strife,
That Nature lends such evil dreams ?
So careful of the type she seems.

So careless of the single life ;

That I, considering everywhere
Her secret meaning in her deeds.
And finding that of fifty seeds

She often brings but one to bear,

I falter where I firmly trod.

And falling with my weight of cares
Upon the great world's altar-stairs

That slope through darkness up to God,

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,
And gather dust and chaff, and call
To what I feel is Lord of all,

And faintly trust the larger hope.

" So careful of the type? " but no.
From scarped cliff and quarried stone
She cries, " A thousand types are gone ;

I care for nothing, all shall go.

"Thou makest thine appeal to me:
I bring to life, I bring to death ;
The spirit does but mean the breath :

I know no more." And he, shall he,

20 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Man, her last work, who seemed so fair,

Such splendid purpose in his eyes,

"Who rolled the psalm to wintry skies,
Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer,

"Who trusted God was love indeed,

And love Creation's final law —

Though Nature, red in tooth and claw
"With ravine, shrieked against his creed —

Who loved, who suffered countless ills,

Who battled for the True, the Just,

Be blown about the desert dust,
Or sealed within the iron hills?

No more? A monster then, a dream,

A discord. Dragons of the prime,

That tare each other in their slime,
Were mellow music matched with him.

O life as futile, then, as frail !

O for thy voice to soothe and bless !
What hope of answer, or redress?
Behind the veil, behind the veil.

Tennyson, In Memoriam.
{By kind permission of Lord Tennvson.)

These noble and solemn lines of a great poet sum up in a few
words what may be called " the Gospel of Modern Thought." They
describe what is the real attitude of most of the thinking and earnest
minds of the present generation. On the one hand, the discoveries
of science have so far established the universality of law, as to make
it impossible for sincere men to retain the faith of their ancestors in
dogmas and miracles. On the other, larger views of man and of his-
tory have shown that religious sentiment is an essential element of
human nature, and that many of our best feelings, such as love, hope,
conscience, and reverence, will always seek to find reflections of them-
selves in the unseen world. Hence faith has diminished and charity
increased. Fewer believe old creeds, and those who do, believe more
faintly ; while fewer denounce them, and are insensible to the good
they have done in the past and the truth and beauty of the essential
ideas that underlie them.

On the Continent, and especially in Catholic countries, where relig-
ion interferes more with politics and social life, there is still a large
amount of active hostility to it, as shown by the massacre of priests
by the French Communists ; but, in this country, the old Voltairean
infidelity has died out, and no one of ordinary culture thinks of de-
nouncing Christianity as an invention of priestcraft. On the contrary,
many of our leading minds are at the same time skeptical and religious,
and exemplify the truth of another profound saying of Tennyson :

MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 21

" There is more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds."

The change which has come over modern thought can not be
better exemplified than by taking the instance of three great writers
whose works have produced a powerful influence — Carlyle, Renan, and
George Eliot. They were all three born and brought up in the very
heart of different phases of the old beliefs — Carlyle, in a family which
might be taken as a type of the best qualities of Scottish Presbyte-
rianism, bred in a west country farmhouse, under the eye of a father
and mother whom he loved and revered, who might have been the
originals of Burns's " Cotter's Saturday Night," or the descendants of
the martyrs of Claverhouse. His own temperament strongly inclined
to a stern Puritanical piety ; his favorite heroes were Cromwell and
John Knox ; his whole nature was antipathetic to science. As his
biographer, Fronde, reports of him, " He liked ill men like Humboldt,
Laplace, and the author of the 'Vestiges.' He refused Darwin's
transmutation of species as unproved ; he fought against it, though I
could see he dreaded that it might turn out true." And yet the de-
liberate conclusion at which he arrived was that " he did not think it
possible that educated honest men could even profess much longer to
believe in historical Christianity."

The case of Renan was equally remarkable. He was born in the
cottage of Breton peasants of the purest type of simple, pious. Cath-
olic faith. Their one idea of rising above the life of a peasant was to
become a priest, and their great ambition for their boy was that he
might be so far honored as one day to become a country cure. Young
Renan, accordingly, from the first day he showed cleverness, and got
to the top of his class in the village school, was destined for the priest-
hood. He was taken in hand by priests, and found in them his kind-
est friends ; they sent him to college, and in due time to the Central
Seminary where young men were trained for orders. All his tradi-
tions, all his affections, all his interests, led in that direction, and yet
he gave up everything rather than subscribe to what he no longer
believed to be true. His conversion was brought about in this way :
Having been appointed assistant to a professor of Hebrew, he became
a profound scholar in Oriental languages ; this led to his studying the
Scriptures carefully in the original, and the conclusion forced itself
upon him that the miraculous part of the narrative had no historical
foundation. Like Carlyle, the turn of his mind was not scientific, and
while denying miracles he remained keenly appreciative of all that
was beautiful and poetical in the life and teaching of Jesus, which he
has brought more vividly before the world in his writings than had
ever been done by orthodox commentators.

George Eliot, again, was brought up in yet' another phase of ortho-
dox Christianity — that of middle-class nonconformist Evangelicalism.
She embraced this creed fervently, and, as we see in her " Dinah,"

22 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

retained a keen appreciation of all its best elements. But as her intel-
lect expanded and her knowledge widened, sLe too found it impossible
to rest in the old belief, and, with a painful wrench from a revered
father and loving friends, she also passed over from the ranks of ortho-
doxy. She also, after a life of profound and earnest thought, came
to the conclusion recorded of her by an intimate friend and admirer,
Mr. INIyers :

" I remember how at Cambridge, I walked with her once in the
Fellows' Garden of Trinity, on an evening of rainy May ; and she,
stirred somewhat beyond her wont, and taking as her text the three
words which have been used so often as the inspiring trumpet-calls of
men — the words God, Immortality, Duty — pronounced, with terrible
earnestness, how inconceivable was the first, how unbelievable the
second, and yet how peremptory and absolute the third. Never, per-
haps, had sterner accents affirmed the sovereignty of impersonal and
unrecompensing law. I listened, and night fell ; her grave, majestic
countenance turned toward me like a Sibyl's in the gloom ; it was
as though she withdrew from my grasp, one by one, the two scrolls
of promise, and left me the third scroll only, awful with inevitable
fates."

Such instances as these can not be the result of mere accident. As
long as skepticism was confined to a limited number of scientific men,
it might be possible to think that it was merely the exaggeration of a
particular train of thought pursued too exclusively. But when science
has become the prevailing mode of thought, and has been brought
home to the minds of all educated persons, it is no longer possible to
represent it as an exceptional aberration. And where the bell-wethers
of thought lead the way, the flock will follow. What the greatest
thinkers think to-day, the mass of thinkers will think to-morrow, and
the great army of non-thinkers will assume to be self-evident the day
after. This is very nearly the case at the present day ; the great
thinkers have gone before, the mass of thinkers have followed, and
the still greater mass of non-thinkers are wavering and about to fol-
low. It is no longer, with those who think at all, a question of abso-
lute faith against absolute disbelief, but of the more or less shade of
"faintness" with which they cling to the "larger hope."

This is nowhere more apparent than in the writings of those who
attempt to stem the tide which sets so strongly against orthodoxy.
They resolve themselves mainly into one long wail of "oh the pity of
it, the pity of it ! " if the simple faith of olden times should disappear
fi'om the world. They show eloquently and conclusively that science
and philosophy can not satisfy the aspirations or afford the consola-
tions of religion. They expose the hollowness of the substitutes
which have been proposed, such as the worship of the unknowable, or
the cult of humanity. They win an easy triumph over the exaggera-
tions of those who resolve all the historical records of Christianity into

MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 23

myths or fabulous fulfillment of prophecies, and they wage fierce bat-
ties over minor points, as whether the first quotations from the Gos-
pels are met with in the first or second half of the second century.
But they nowhere attempt to grapple with the real difiicullies, and
show that the facts and arguments which converted men like Carlyle
and Renan are mistaken facts and unsound arguments. Attempts to
harmonize the Gospels, and to prove the inspiration of writings which
contain manifest errors and contradictions, have gone the way of
Buckland's proof of a universal deluge, and of Hugh Miller's attempt
to reconcile Noah's ark and the Genesis account of creation with the
facts of geology and astronomy. Not an inch of ground that has
been conquered by science has ever been reconquered in fair fight by
theology.

This great scientific movement is of comparatively recent date.
Darwin's " Origin of Species " was only published in 1859, and his
views as to evolution, development, natural selection, and the preva-
lence of universal law, have already annexed nearly the whole world
of modern thought, and become the foundation of all jihilosophical
epeculation and scientific inquiry.

Not only has faith been shaken in the supernatural as a direct and
immediate agent in the phenomena of the w^orlds of matter and of
life, but the demonstration of the " struggle for life " and " survival
of the fittest" has raised anew, and with vastly augmented force,
those questions as to the moral constitution of the universe and the
origin of evil, which have so long exercised the highest minds. Is it
true that " love " is *' Creation's final law," when we find this enormous
and apparently prodigal waste of life going on; these cruel. inter-
necine battles between individuals and species in the struggle for ex-
istence ; this cynical indifference of Nature to suffering ? There are,
approximately, 3,600,000,000 of deaths of human beings in every cent-
ury, of whom at least twenty per cent, or 720,000,000, die before
they have attained to clear self-consciousness and conscience. What
becomes of them ? Why were they born ? Are they Nature's fail-
ures, and " cast as rubbish to the heap " ?

To such questions there is no answer. We are obliged to admit
that as the material universe is not, as we once fancied, measured by
our standards and regulated at every turn by an intelligence resem-
bling ours ; so neither is the moral universe to be explained by simply
magnifying our own moral ideas, and explaining everything by the
action of a Being who does what we should have done in his place.
If we insist on this anthropomorphic conception, we are driven to this
dilemma. Carlyle bases his belief in a God, " the infinite Good One,"
on this argument : " All that is good, generous, wise, right — whatever
I deliberately and forever love in others and myself, who or what
could by any possibility have given it to me, but One who first had
it to give? This is not logic ; this is axiom."

24 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

But how of the evil ? No sincere man looking into the depths of
his own soul, or at the facts of the world around, can doubt that along^
with much that is good, generous, wise, and right, there is much that
is bad, base, foolish, and wrong. If logic compels us to receive as an
axiom a good author for the former, does not the same logic equally
compel us to accept the axiom that the author of the latter must have
been one who " first had it in himself to give " ? That is, we must
accept the theory of a God who is half good, half evil ; or adopt the
Zoroastrian conception of a universe contested by an Ormuzd and
Ahriman, a good and evil principle, whose power is, for the present
at any rate, equally balanced.

From this dilemma there is no escape, unless we give up altogether
the idea of an anthroi^omorphic deity, and adopt frankly the scientific
idea of a First Cause, inscrutable and past finding out ; and of a uni-
verse whose laws we can trace, but of whose real essence we know
nothing, and can only suspect or faintly discern a fundamental law
which may make the polarity of good and evil a necessary condition
of existence. This is a more sublime as well as more rational belief
than the old orthodox conception ; but there is no doubt that it re-
quires more strength of mind to embrace it, and that it appears cold
and cheerless to those who have been accustomed to see special provi-
dences in every ordinary occurrence, and to fancy themselves the spe-
cial objects of supernatural supervision in all the details of daily life.
Hopes and fancies, however, are powerless against facts ; and the
world is as surely passing from the phase of orthodox into that of
scientific belief as youth is passing into manhood, and the planet
which we inhabit from the fluid and fiery state into that of temperate
heat, progressive cooling, and final extinction as the abode of life. In
the mean time, what can we do but possess our souls in patience, follow
truth wherever it leads us, and trust, as Tennyson advises, that in the
long run everything will be for the best, and " every winter turn to»
spring " ?

TWENTY YEAES OF NEGKO EDUCATION.

By J. M. KEATING.

T'

UIE negro is no longer a problem. He is part of the body politic
and the body social of the republic. He is firmly rooted and
can not be moved. He is here to stay ; and any attempt to disturb
him, or to excite his fears as to his right to life, liberty, and the pur-
suit of happiness, is nothing less than a crime.

A question touching the negro, like any other, must be considered
from this common-sense stand-point, and every suggestion for its solu-
tion must be subjected to the probing and searching "What good?'*

TWENTY YEARS OF NEGRO EDUCATION. 25

Prejudice must not be allowed a voice in its solution, and passion must
be excluded from counsel. The negro will not consent to his own
deportation. The Southern planters, too, would not, if they could,
consent to it, nor to any agitation of it, because it unsettles and un-
hinges the labor that is more profitable free than it ever was or could
be in the days of slavery. The negro is more intelligent now than
then, and therefore more valuable because a better, a closer, and more
skillful worker. Deportation is not, for these reasons, to be con-
sidered. We must, therefore, deal with the negro and treat of him
with the full understanding that we can not get rid of him. His com-
mercial value, supplementing his rights under the Federal and State
Constitutions, says we can not.

What, then, is to be done with the negro ? Nothing but increase
the number of schools and schoolmasters, make education compulsory,
and make technical education easily available to him in all parts of the
South. The negro must be taught the virtue of self-reliance, and the
value of the courts as his safeguard and defense under the Constitu-
tion and laws of the nation and of the States. Agitation exalts the
negro to a degree of imaginary importance that people at the North
can not understand. He is a sensible man within his limits of mind
and comprehension, so long as he feels that he is not the center of a
pet anxiety. Agitation has retarded and interfered with his growth
in the past ; it has proved exceedingly mischievous, and is not to be
thought of in the future. It breeds dissatisfaction, raises hopes that
can never be fulfilled, and tends to widen the breach between the
races. For these reasons Mr. Cable's suggestion of opening the schools
of the South in common to blacks and whites is not to be entertained.*
The race-feeling and race-prejudice that everywhere, wherever the
Anglo-Saxons come in contact with the negro, keep them apart, will
not brook it, nor will it permit the acceptance of the opening of
concert halls, theatres, or lecture halls indiscriminately to both races.
The same may be said of hotels and steamboats. It will not do to
arouse prejudices — we must allay them. But even if the race-instinct
theory be wrong, and it is found that there is nothing more serious
than a prejudice that may disappear before the sun of truth, of jus-
tice, and of right, it is not policy to arouse it by fixed or a purposed
antagonism. It will disappear in time ; it will be swept away by the
uplifting of the negro to a plane whence he can prove his title to as
high consideration in all respects as his white brother. The education
of the negro has uplifted and will uplift him, and will prove the solid
and enduring cause for the effect desired, if anything can. A soft an-

* The evil effect of an attempt at mixed schools was felt in Louisiana ; the superin-
tendent of which State, in 1871, complained that the act forbidding the establishment of
public schools from which colored children should be rejected excited determined opposi-
tion on the part of many who would otherwise co-operate in the opening of schools, and
in the raising of funds for their support.

26 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

swer turneth away wrath. What is most needed, then, is not an aggres-
sive agitation for social recognition in public places and conveyances,
and in schools and churches, but education. Educate the negro, that he
may be really free. The whole power of public opinion should bo
brought to the enlargement of the means of educating the negro, giv-
ing him a practical training that will lit him for daily practical life,
and enable him to compete successfully with his white brother in use-
ful vocations. Elevation of character comes with education, pride
with elevation of character, and uprightness, integrity, thrift, and de-
cency are the sure products of pride. The homes of the educated and
skilled labor of our country tell the whole story of the difference be-
tween that and unskilled and ignorant labor. Let us look at what
has been accomplished by education. Let us review the past, year
by year, as we find the figures and facts in Commissioner Eaton's
reports, and see what has been done — see if we are justified in thus
insisting that education is the sure hope of the negro ; and while we
look, let us keep constantly in view all the difficulties through which
80 much has been accomplished — the civil w^ar ; the period of po-
litical reconstruction, during which all passions and prejudices were
allowed the freest play ; the utter dejection and poverty of the white
people ; the extraordinary social upheaval, unequaled in any period
of the world's history save during the French Revolution ; the mas-
tery of the negro in the political misrule of the Southern States, and
the fears of utter ruin beyond recovery by the white people as a
result of that mastery in misrule. Let us keep all this steadily in
view, and the work of breaking so great a block of black ignorance
will seem like a miracle indeed.

In 1860 there were 244,492 adult free colored people in the whole
Union, and of that number 95,265 were illiterate, a fact to be accounted
for by the laws in force in the Southern States against the education of
the negro. In the same year there were out of 4,000,000 of slaves 1,-
734,000 adults, all of them of course illiterates. The average increase
of this 4,000,000 is given by the census of 1860 as 80,000 per year, so
that in 1867, when colored school reports became accessible, the total
colored population would be, for the eight years including 1860, 4,640,-
000. Of this number in 1867, according to the Freedman's Bureau
statistics, 111,442 were enrolled in the day and night schools through-
out the South, and in 1869 this number had increased to 114,522. Very
slow progress, in part due to the indifference and opposition of the
whites, who about that time were the victims of the reconstruction
system, and in greater part to the reckless indiflference of a major-
ity of the negroes, who had been plunged in the excesses of political
Saturnalias, and were helping the carpet-baggers to rob the States and
burden posterity with bonded debts. Chaos and confusion, disap-
pointment and despair prevailed in all the Southern States, and all
classes were unsettled. It v.as no wonder, then, that with this at-

TWENTY YEARS OF NEGRO EDUCATION. 27

tendance of 114,522 and an additional number of from 30,000 to
35,000 not regularly reported, together with 100,000 more attending
Sunday-schools, the gain on the whole body of colored illiteracy was
but a fraction of the annual gain of the negro population, not more
than 20,000 successfully accomplishing the task of learning to read.
But in eleven years all this had changed. The white people of the
Southern States had resumed the control of their governments, had
brought order out of chaos, diminished the burden of illegally made
debt, and reduced taxation, and had thus . given relief to all classes,
and had established a public-school system for black as well as white
children, which has ever since been steadily growing in public favor
and increasing in efficiency and power. The result of this may be
seen at a glance by the contrast of the statistics of 1869 with those of
1883. In the former year there was a total of 249,522 colored j^upils
enrolled at the South of all ages and grades, in day and night and Sun-
day schools ; in the latter year there were 16,086 colored schools, col-
leges, and universities, etc., with an enrollment of 821,380 pupils, the
average percentage of illiteracy being about seventy, except in Mis-
souri, Maryland, Delaware, and West Virginia, where it was about
fifty-six, a fact largely if not altogether due to the geographical situa-
tion of those States, and to their advantages as border States during
the war, and to their freedom from the turmoil, dissensions, and diffi-
culties of reconstruction. Nothing can be more instructive as to the
position the negro is taking as a citizen and to his appreciation of his
responsibilities. In twenty years of freedom he had blotted out thirty
per cent of the illiteracy that was the heirloom of the slave, and he
had done that under conditions for some years of a menacingly ad-
verse and repressive character. The white people opposed his educa-
tion because the expense of maintaining public schools would fall upon
them, and most of them had a conviction that ever so little education
would unsettle the brain of the freedman and elevate him " above his
business " as field-hand, house-servant, or mechanic. They were just-
ly incensed, too, at the hostile attitude of the negro and the readiness
and eagerness in some instances with which he allied himself with the
carpet-baggers and helped that class to postpone the restoration of
peace, order, and law.

In 1870 Memphis, Nashville, and New Orleans furnished free
schools for the education of negroes, but elsewhere throughout the
South there was manifest indisposition and indifference to supporting
them. In that year, signalized above all others by the establishment
of the Bureau of Education at Washington, and the first of those in-
structive and exhaustive reports by Commissioner Eaton, which have
been continued every year since, and from which all the data of this
article are taken, the scholastic colored population between the ages of
five and eighteen was, in the whole country, 814,576 boys and 806,402
girls, and the attendance was 88,594 boys and 91,778 girls, but little

28 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

less than eleven per cent of the whole number, and only 70,000 more
than was reported by the Freedman's Bureau in 1867, and 66,000 more
than the number it reported the previous year, 1869. Prejudice was
very stubborn, and the ignorance of 250 years of imbruting servitude
was still an impervious crust. The brave men and women who op-
posed to this dreadful array the light of their love of humanity, the
strength of a keen and alert intelligence, and their hope, looked about
them, many of them with breaking hearts. No missionaries to China
or Africa ever suffered as did these pioneers in the cause now fostered,
encouraged, and supported by the States that at first rejected them.
They were looked upon as part of the machinery by which negro rule
was to be perpetuated, and they were shunned as intelligent aiders
and abettors of mischief and ruin. Besides this, the Freedman's Bureau
was regarded as obnoxious in its workings and its tendencies. Under
these circumstances it was to be expected that very discouraging re-
ports would be made, and we are not surprised, therefore, to learn that
Delaware had in 1870 made no provision for the education of negro
children ; that in Maryland the negro children w^ere utterly ignored,
save in Baltimore ; Kentiicky practically ignored the colored children ;
West Virginia seemed to be contemplating the destruction of its com-
mon-school system ; Virginia was struggling through ignorance of
what free schools should be to the establishment of a system ; North
Carolina was still in a hopeless condition ; and Tennessee, save in
Memphis and Nashville, and the counties of Davidson, Greene, and
Montgomery, had no schools for whites or blacks. This is a very black
picture, but it was not without its relief. Missouri had a free-school
system firmly established ; Arkansas, encountering the obstacles com-
mon to the regions where slavery had been abolished, had secured a
greater success than a majority of the Southern States ; South Carolina,
with the largest percentage of illiteracy, was confident of final success ;
Florida, in spite of some drawbacks, presented more reasons for antici-
pating the general prevalence of free schools ; but Alabama, after
giving the most flattering promises, was debating the question of
advancing or retreating ; Mississippi, although commencing late, was
progressing steadily and efficiently in the establishment of a system of
free schools, notwithstanding the great and bitter opposition, appoint-
ing county superintendents, collecting the school-tax, and building
school-houses ; Louisiana's report was most unsatisfactory ; Georgia
had just passed a school law, but must wait a year for funds before
commencing operations ; in Texas things looked hopeless, there was
no school legislation, and the entire population was left to grow up in
ignorance, save as private enterprise threw a ray of light upon the
general darkness. The District of Columbia alone made an exhibit
that was encouraging, and that was relatively as good as that made by
the white children. In public and private schools there were 4,613
colored children out of a total school population of 10,494. This was

TWENTY YEARS OF NEGRO EDUCATION. 29

the one ray of positive liglit in all that darkness. Elsewhere and farther
South there were only glimmers to encourage the mere " handful of
men and women " who were laboring for the advancement of the negro.
Governor " Joe " Brown, of Georgia, furnished one of these. As a
result of the examination of the pupils of Atlanta University, he re-
ported that " many of the pupils exhibited a degree of mental culture
which, considering the length of time their minds have been in train-
ing, would do credit to members of any race." This was valuable
and timely testimony from a high and reliable quarter. In the same
year Dr. J. L. M. Curry, now of the Peabody Fund, in a speech in
Brooklyn, admitting the defects in the public-school system at the
South, declared that the people were awakening to the necessity of
education, and " the colored people as citizens and wards of the nation
need to be qualified for their exalted responsibilities. Especially do
they need trained and educated teachers of their own race. If prac-
ticable, a degraded race should be elevated and delivered by their own
class, as the patronage of the superior has a tendency to degrade
character." This was as the voice of the awakened South, rising out
of the ashes of despair and once more asserting her place in the Union
and her responsibilities in helping to advance the work of American
civilization. It found an echo here and there. A planter, witnessing
the school examination at Athens, Alabama, in that year, said he had
" no prejudices against the education of the colored race," and hoped
" the children would improve their time." These were the breaks in
the dense mass of oi^position to the education of the negro. Few
as they were, these echoes were encouraging to the noble and ever-
to-be-revered band of men and women engaged in the work, the
servants of Northern institutions or churches whose voluntary con-
tributions to sustain the work had by the beginning of 1871 reached,
with the expenditures of the Freedman's Bureau, the grand total of
$7,317,311. Of this sum, expended in from six to eight years, the
American Missionary Association paid out 11,663,756 ; the Freedman's
Bureau, $3,711,235 ; and in other things than cash, $1,551,276, mak-
ing a total of $5,262,511 ; the Presbyterian Church (North), $220,704 ;
the Freedman's Aid Society, $134,340 ; and the Baptists of the Dis-
trict of Columbia, $36,000. A noble return, surely, for the scorn,
contumely, hate, and malevolent opposition with which the teachers
of negro schools were met by communities stung to the quick by the
outrages put upon them by disfranchisement and political subordina-
tion to an ignorant race, the ready tools of designing knaves.

In 1871 but little improvement had been made. The general public
was still indifferent, and there was much opposition to colored schools.
A convention of Southern Baptists at Marion, Alabama, denounced the
common-school system as fostering infidelity, and declared that the
" only hope was in Christian education in our own schools." In Louisi-
ana persons were deteiTcd from accepting the position of school direct-

30 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ors, dreading social ostracism and persecution. In the third district the
teachers submitted to social and personal discomfort, ostracism, and op-
probrium, and were compelled to wait for months for their pay. Yet
progress was made. At one of the institutes a division superintendent
stated that last year (1870) he could report but seventy-one schools, 97
teachers, and 3,600 pupils in fourteen parishes, whereas now he reported
one hundred and thirty-three schools, 150 teachers, and 7,500 pupils,
and the number constantly increasing. The difficulties as stated by the
State Superintendent were '* indifference and incompetency of the teach-
ers ; extreme poverty of the 2)eople, and the embarrassed condition of the
State's finances ; yet, notwithstanding this, they were laying the foun-
dation of a thorough, practical, and liberal system of common schools."
In Georgia there was great activity in wise ways to promote the free
education of the whites, but the " colored people have hardly been per-
mitted to do what they would for themselves freely." They had but
ninety-seven public schools and only 5,208 pujails. Florida had little
or no progress to note, but there were negro schools in nearly every
county. Kentucky apparently refused to recognize " the desirableness
or necessity of the education of the colored children." In Tennessee
there was much agitation, but it was not attended with success, and
the colored people were emphatic in the statement of the difficulties
encountered by them in their efforts to educate their children. In
Alabama the opposition to the free schools was discouraging, and while
the colored people had the advantage of the Swayne School at Mont-
gomery and the Emerson Institute at Mobile, they complained in many
of the counties of great difficulty, or of the impossibility of "securing
any school privileges." In Mississippi the enforcement of the free
school law, especially as to negro schools, was opposed, even to " the
whipping of teachers and burning of school-houses." Yet there were
not less than three thousand schools in operation, and the system was
gaining friends. Texas was the darkest field educationally in the
United States, though the Governor, supported by a strong array of
friends, was supporting and doing all he could for public instruction.
Arkansas, though in some respects leading all the other ex-slave States,
was yet far from the line of approximate perfection. The public
schools were open to negroes, but only one fourth of the number of
scholars were enrolled. In Missouri the public schools had passed
beyond a period of peril, and only one county was especially opposed
to negro education. In Delaware no provision had yet been made
for the education of the negro. Of Maryland the same report was
made. Virginia and West Virginia had both made progress. North
Carolina had lost ground educationally, and the severe proscrip-
tion of colored people had greatly discouraged their efforts for them-
selves. Of the schools in South Carolina very little favorable could
be said. The friends of education struggled against overwhelming
odds. In the District of Columbia there were sixty-nine colored

TWENTY YEARS OF NEGRO EDUCATION. 31

schools ; 4,986 children enrolled ont of 9,323 ; average attendance,
2,990. More than sixty per cent failed to attend, a proof of the in-
difference of the negro to education at that time, a greater barrier to
progress than the opposition of the whites.

In 1872 the reaction had fairly set in. There was much in the
reports to encourage the friends of negro education. Delaware and
Kentucky were the only States that had not made provision for the
instruction of colored children.

In 1873 the improvement was most marked. Kentucky reported
an educational revival, and steps had been taken toward a general edu-
cation of the colored children. Delaware had not yet made any pro-
vision for the education of this class, and thsit work was still carried
on by an association supported by the voluntary subscriptions of
philanthropic people. Missouri had one school for training colored
teachers.

In 1874 improvement could be observed in almost all the Southern
States. Maryland increased her schools by 60, her teachers by 134,
and her expenditures by $108,824.70. Virginia increased her expend-
itures by $.58,651.21, her schools by 205, school-buildings by 263, and
the number of pupils by 13,016. Two schools for training colored
teachers had 300 pupils. In North Carolina, 50,000 colored pupils
attended the public schools. South Carolina reported an increase of
162 teachers, 196 schools, 192 new school-houses, and 56,249 colored
pupils enrolled. Georgia reported 669 schools for colored children,
with an enrollment of 37,267. Florida reported an increase in the
number of schools 46, and of pupils 1,586. Louisiana reported a gain
in the receipts for schools of $110,595.43, in attendance of 16,866
pupils, in the number of schools 175, and of teachers 18. Delaware,
Texas, Arkansas, and Alabama were at a stand-still. In Mississippi
the free schools were receiving very general support, and one third of
the whole number of children of school age were in attendance upon
the public schools, on which $900,000 had been expended, the value of
school property being $505,790.56. Tennessee reported more than half
her school population enrolled, and more than one third in attendance.
Missouri showed some elements of progress, such as an increase of
2,537 in school population, $72,198.41 in receipts, and $714,548.83 in
permanent school funds. The normal schools — State, collegiate, city,
and independent — had 1,887 pupils. In Kentucky public sentiment
was more in favor of public schools, and one hundred and forty-one
new school-houses were built. West Virginia reported an increase of
school-buildings 218, and of attendance 27,256. Besides the general
improvement in public schools, all the private schools were flourish-
ing, and the same was to be said of the colleges and universities, the
normal schools for both sexes and both colors reporting a greatly
increased attendance, the result of a rapidly increasing demand for
teachers. The American Missionary Association was rivaling the

32 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

public efforts in furnishing educational facilities for the colored peo-
ple, especially in preparing pupils for the field that was now widen-
ing every day as a result of its early missionary efforts. The Pea-
body fund was also being distributed in a discriminating and effect-
ive way, and the friends of education were greatly encouraged. The
tide had turned. Public sentiment had at last come up almost unto
the strength of unanimity for public education, and it was being gen-
erally conceded that the most pressing duty was the breaking up of
the great mass of illiteracy, and that the negro must be educated to
be fitted for the duties of citizenship.

The outlook in 1875 was still more encouraging, Delaware had
organized a thorough school system under a new law, the colored chil-
dren being provided for by a special tax levied on the colored popula-
tion. West Virginia reported five normal schools, having 557 students
and 85 graduates ; Korth Carolina, 600 teachers in training in teachers'
institutes and normal schools " for a demand that could not be sup-
plied " ; South Carolina, 39 pupils in the State Normal School ; Ala-
bama, three State Normal Schools and live similiar institutions sup-
ported by societies, all having 659 students, of whom 533 were
believed to be colored ; Mississippi, two State Normal Schools for
colored pupils, with 351 students. Arkansas had taken a fresh start
under the provisions of its newly adopted constitution. In the State
Industrial University 58 white students were being trained as teachers,
and in another institution sustained by a society, 156 were in training
for colored schools. In Tennessee, a normal school had been estab-
lished. Kentucky for the first time included the colored children in
the enrollment of school-children. There was no State Normal School
as yet, but 140 normal pupils were reported in two institutions, and 29
graduates from the Louisville Normal School. Missouri returned three
State Normal Schools, with 644 pupils.

The year 1876 was a presidential year, and was not favorable,
on the whole, to the interests of education. Nevertheless, Commis-
sioner Eaton, in summing up the results of all the reports from the
South, was able to say that " after a careful review of these facts, and
an attentive consideration of them in their several relations, and with
full recognition of the same backward tendency in certain other locali-
ties, I am increasingly convinced that their local public sentiment will
not tolerate any further retrogression in these States ; and that the
friends of education may, on the whole, anticipate for their efforts
increasing public favor."

In 1877 the reports from the South were gratifying and encour-
aging. The reconstruction period was ended, and we found ourselves
getting on rising ground. The total number of negro children of
school age in the late slave States was 1,513,065, and those enrolled,
571,506. There were for these 10,792 schools ; besides which there
were twenty-seven normal schools, with 3,785 pupils ; twenty-three

TWENTY YEARS OF NEGRO EDUCATION. 33

institutions for secondary instruction, with 2,807 pupils ; thirteen
universities and colleges, with 1,270 pupils ; seventeen schools of
theology, with 462 pupils ; two schools of law, with 14 pupils ; three
schools of medicine, with 74 pupils ; and two schools for the deaf and
dumb and the blind, with 99 pupils ; making a grand total of 10,879
schools, colleges, etc., and 580,017 pupils enrolled.

The reports for 1878, notwithstanding the yellow -fever epi-
demic that prevailed throughout the whole of the lower valley of
the Mississippi, were extremely encouraging. All the States did
well.

The years 1879, 1880, and 18S1 were years of general progress.
The former year witnessed the fair inauguration of normal instruction
in Texas for both white and colored. In Kentucky nine private nor-
mal schools and institutes held in fourteen counties, and a summer
normal school, were doing good work for teachers. The report for
1880 was, taking in the whole field, more encouraging than any of the
preceding ones. The Agricultural and Mechanical College of Mis-
sissipi was opened with two hundred students. In 1881, Dela-
ware for the first time recognized its obligations to the colored chil-
dren and appropriated $2,400 from the State Treasury for these
schools. "West Virginia made provision for the free education of
eighteen colored pupils at Storer College. In 1882-'83 the white-
school population of the sixteen once slave States and the District
of Columbia was 4,046,956, and the enrollment in public schools
2,249,263. The colored-school population was 1,944,572 ; enrollment,
802,982. Compared with the figures of 1877 there was clear evidence
of the remarkable work that had been accomplished in the Southern
States. The white-school population showed an increase of 13 per
cent ; enrollment, 23 per cent ; the colored-school population showed
an increase of 28 per cent ; enrollment increase, 40 per cent. The ex-
penditures during that time had steadily increased as follows : In 1878
they were Sll,760,251 ; in 1879, $12,181,602 ; in 1880, 812,475,044 ; in
1881, $13,359,784 ; and in 1882, 614,820,972. And this, notwithstand-
ing there had been a decrease in the value of the taxable wealth
of ten of the Southern States amounting to 8411,475,000. Notwith-
standing which, these States now appropriated 20*1 per cent of their
total levy of taxes for school purposes, Kew England at the same time
paying 20-2 ; the Middle States, 19*5 ; the Western States, 26-2 ; and
the Territories, 22*4 ; the average of the whole country being 22-6 per
cent. This increase in funds corresponded with a radical change in
public sentiment. Louisiana was the only State in which the prospect
was in the main discouraging. Both races shared alike in the school
fund in all the States except in Delaware, Maryland, and the District
of Columbia, in which special provision was mad^ for the colored race,
and in South Carolina, where the basis of apportionment was the same
for each race, but the amounts realized depended upon the extent to

VOL. XXTIII. — 3

34 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

which the people availed themselves of the provision by attendance
upon the schools.

The total number of colored children of school age in the late
slave States was in 1882, 1,944,572, an increase of 15,385 ; and of those
enrolled, 802,982, an increase of 610. There were for these 15,972
schools a decrease of 1,081. Besides which there were fifty-six normal
schools, an increase of nine, with 8,509 pupils, an increase of 888 ;
forty-three institutions for secondary instruction, an increase of nine,
with 6,632 pupils, an increase of 1,348 ; eighteen universities and col-
leges, an increase of one, with 2,298 pupils, an increase of 95 ; twenty-
four schools of theology, an increase of two, with 605 pupils, an in-
crease of 61 ; four schools of law, an increase of one, with 53 pupils,
an increase of 8 ; three schools of medicine, an increase of one, with
125 pupils, an increase of 9 ; six schools for the deaf and dumb and
the blind, an increase of four, with 116 pupils, a decrease of 4 ; mak-
ing a grand total of 16,086 schools, colleges, etc., a decrease of 1,289,
with 821,380 pupils, an increase of 3,015 over those reported in 1881.

Nothing in the progress of the South since the close of the civil
war is so gratifying as these exhibits of growth in educational facili-
ties and this steady increase in the number of scholars of both races.
The people of the Northern States will never be able to understand or
comprehend all that it is to us of the South. All the expenses and
money losses of these States during the war were represented in bonds
and other forms of Government indebtedness, which were so much
of addition to the property values of that section. But the Southern
States lost everything — their slaves, their crops, and all the profits of
their industrial efforts for five years, their public (Confederate) debt,
nearly all of their railroad and steamboat property, fifty per cent of
their homesteads, their farm-fences, mills, and gins, the whole repre-
senting a total value variously estimated at from $9,000,000,000 to
$11,000,000,000. It was a clean sweep — so clean that both Generals
Grant and Sherman found it necessary to permit the officers and pri-
vates of the Confederate armies to retain their horses and mules to
make crops ; and Governor Brownlow's Legislature in Tennessee passed
an act making the stealing of a mule or a horse punishable by death,
on the expressed ground that the mule and the horse were essential
to the life of the people — without them bread could not be made.
Following upon the heels of this utter destitution and the consequent
prostration and despondency, came the period of reconstruction, which
increased the confusion that prevailed, re-excited the passions of the
war, and added to it all a race-feeling that for a time was at a white
heat — a feeling that was a new experience to the people of the South.
Out of this extreme of general poverty, out of this race-feeling and
political passion and prejudice, order was slowly evoked, and with
it came the steady growth of a healthy public sentiment favorable
first to public education and then to the education of the negro.

TWENTY YEARS OF NEGRO EDUCATION. 35

As fast as they have been able, the Southern States have increased
their taxes for school purposes and their facilities for the education
of teachers until they have reached a point as high as that of New
England — that is, they apjiropriate twenty per cent of the whole
amount of taxes levied and collected for school purposes, just as
Massachusetts does. Beyond this they can not go any faster than
their growth in taxable wealth will permit, and unless they have an
even greater amount of help than has been given by the American
Missionary Association, the Sears and the Peabody Funds, educational
progress must be very slow — too slow to meet the demands of the
people. It would take three times the amount now annually appro-
priated by the Southern States (815,000,000) to satisfy the demands
of the six million black and white children for education. With any-
thing like an adequate sum, and compulsory laws to overcome the leth-
argy and indiflFerence of the negroes, an inroad so broad might be
made in a few years in the illiteracy that is now a positive menace and
danger to these States as to encourage the friends of education in the
belief of a possible millennium, when every human being would be able
to stand an examination in at least the three R's. And this, however
chimerical it may seem, contrasted with existing facts, is what must
be kept steadily in view. The State owes it to every child to make it
intellectually strong enough to understand the necessity for law, to
submit to the restraints of law, and obey law. This can only be done
by education.

Looking back through the years the educational work of which
has thus been traced in the foregoing pages, we find that several good
results have been accomplished : 1. The prejudices of the Southern
people against the education of the negro have been utterly and en-
tirely dispelled ; 2. The people of the South have become willing,
in most cases enthusiastic supporters and helpers in the education of
the negro ; 3. Thirty per cent of the illiteracy of the negro has been
wiped out ; and, 4. The negro has steadily, though gradually, been
brought to realize that in education he is to find perfect freedom, the
soul and heart freedom of which no man may rob him ; that by edu-
cation he is to be elevated, lifted up above the chaos and confusion of
ignorance, and prepared for whatever of destiny lies before him in the
United States. With these results before us, to raise any side or out-
side issues that would tend to re-excite the prejudices of the whites
against the blacks, to raise the social question, even in the least degree,
is to be at enmity with the peace and prosperity of the negro, to hurt
and injure the cause of his education, to retard his growth mentally
and morally, and postpone the time when he might claim equality
in both senses.

In the face of such progress, to advocate the deportation of such
a race, or any scheme of separate colonization, is nothing less than a
crime. It has the effect to disturb and check the flow of this steady

36 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tendency toward the average of civilization reached by the white race ;
it has the tendency to excite fear and to paralyze the race that still
looks to the white man to continue to guarantee to it its political rights,
and for the recognition of the full equality before the law that assures
him the peaceful pursuit of hapj^iness and the possession of property.
By education a great gap has been made in the mountain of illiteracy
that was first assailed in 18G2 with many forebodings and much doubt.
The philanthropic men and women who first undertook the task have
many of them passed to their reward ; but their works do follow them.
The better outlook that enabled them to see away beyond the stormy
years to come and predict this better day has been fully justified, and
none more eagerly bear testimony, and willing testimony, to the benefi-
cence and blessings of that work than the white men and women who
were born again to their better natures out of and away beyond the
prejudices of centuries, and to-day rejoice in the living light that
shines from books on the negro's intellect and heart, enabling him to
grasp hitherto hidden meanings and comprehend some of the treas-
ures of our literature and make himself strong for the battle of life.
The man who survives by his owti strength and will excites admira-
tion ; the man who has to be helped becomes a burden, and a weari-
some burden, to all about him. Educate, educate the negro. Make
the ways of light broader ; make the avenues to better life and living
plainer. Illuminate him with the intelligence of the ages and the
light of reason, and the negro will see his own way and walk without
help. He will become a stronger, a more self-reliant man, and by that
strength and self-reliance will beat down all the barriers and shake off
all the make-weights that impede his progress and stand in his way.
He will be a citizen, indeed, and not a halting, wailing child. He will
be a man full of man's ways and purposes, with a comprehensive grasp
of his duties and a sound, sensibly guided determination to be in every
case a citizen equal to the maintenance of his own rights under the
law, a strength and not a weakness to the republic. Education, and
not agitation, is what the negro needs. He needs repose and rest,
time to think of himself and for himself, to realize what he has accom-
plished in a few years, how closely he stands to his white neighbors,
and how intimately his destiny is linked with theirs. Hitherto he has
been constantly in a very sea of turmoil, tossed about, anxious, and
confused. Under these circumstances, his own natural disinclination,
the poverty of the Southern States, and the political bcdevilments that
made at the South confusion worse confounded until 1876, the ad-
vance he has made in education and in the acquisition of property is
like the work of magic. In peace, in freedom from political agitation,
with increased facilities for education, sustained by the good-will and
the voluntary taxation of the white people, what may he not be ex-
pected to accomplish in the future ? "When seventy per cent of his
illiteracy has been swept away, what a self-respecting man he will

RELATIONS OF SCIENCE TO THE PUBLIC WEAL, n

have become ! But when ninety per cent has gone, he will be able to
hold his head as high as the best ; and the accomplishment of this
percentage is not half so difficult now as the task encountered by the
pioneers who first blazed a path in the wilderness of ignorance and
superstition in which they found him in 1862, Educate the negro, and
he becomes free indeed in " mind, body, and estate."

EELATIOKS OF SCIENCE TO THE PUBLIC WEAL.*

Bt SIK LYON PLAYFAIR, K. C. B., M. P., F. K. S.
TART FIRST.

I VISIT TO CANADA.— Ladies axd Gentlemen: Our last
• meeting at Montreal was a notable event in the life of the Brit-
ish Association, and even marked a distinct epoch in the history of
civilization. It was by no mere accident that the constitution of the
Association enabled it to embrace all parts of the British Empire.
Science is truly catholic, and is bounded only by the universe. In re-
lation to our vast empire, science as well as literature and art are the
common possession of all its varying people. The United Kingdom
is limited to 120,800 square miles, inhabited by thirty-five million peo-
ple ; but the empire as a whole has eight and one half million square
miles, with a population of three hundred and five millions. To fed-
erate such vast possessions and so teeming a population into a political
unit is a work only to be accomplished by the labors and persistent
efforts of perhaps several generations of statesmen. The federation
of its science is a subject of less dimensions well within the range of
experiment. No part of the British Empire was more suited than
Canada to try whether her science could be federated with our sci-
ence. Canada has lately federated distinct provinces, with conflicting
interests arising from difference of races, nationalities, and religions.
Political federation is not new in the history of the world, though it
generally arises as a consequence of war. It was war that taught the
Netherlands to federate in 1619. It was war which united the States
in America ; federated Switzerland, Germany, and Austria, and unified
Italy. But Canada formed a great national life out of petty provin-
cial existences in a time of profound peace. This evolution gave an
immense impulse to her national resources. The Dominion still re-
quires consolidation in its vast extent, and applied science is rapidly
effecting it. Canada, with its great expanse of territory, nearly as
large as the L^nited States, is being knit together by the iron bands of

* Inaugural address of the President of the British Association for the Advancement
of Science, at the Aberdeen meeting, September 9, 1S85.

38 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

railways from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Pacific Ocean, so that
the fertile lauds of Ontario, Manitoba, Columbia, and the Korthwest-
eru Territories will soon be available to the world. Still, practical
science has much to accomplish. England and France, with only one
fifth the fertile area of Canada, support eighty million peoi)le, while
Canada has a population not exceeding five million.

A less far-seeing people than the Canadians might have invited the
applied science which they so much require. But they knew that
without science there are no applications. They no doubt felt with

Emerson —

" And what if Trade sow cities
Like shells along the shore,
And thatch with towns the prairie broad
With railways ironed o'er;
They are but sailing foam-bells
Along Thought's causing stream,
And take their shape and sun-color
From him that sends the dream."

So it was with a far-reaching foresight that the Canadian Government
invited the British Association for the Advancement of Science to
meet in Montreal. The inhabitants of Canada received us with open
arms, and the science of the Dominion and that of the United King-
dom w'cre welded. We found in Canada, as we had every reason to
expect, men of manly and self-reliant character, who loved not less
than we did the old home from which they had come. Among them
is the same healthiness of political and moral life, with the same love
of truth which distinguishes the English people. Our great men are
their great men ; our Shakespeare, Milton, and Burns belong to them
as much as to ourselves ; our Newton, Dalton, Faraday, and Darwin
are their men of science as much as they are ours. Thus a common
possession and mutual sympathy made the meeting in Canada a suc-
cessful effort to stimulate the progress of science, while it established,
at the same time, the principle that all people of British origin — and
I would fain include our cousins in the United States — possess a com-
mon interest in the intellectual glories of their race, and ought, in
science at least, to constitute part and parcel of a common empire,
whose heart may beat in the small islands of the Korthcrn seas, but
whose blood circulates in all her limbs, carrying warmth to them, and
bringing back vigor to us. Nothing can be more cheering to our as-
sociation than to know that many of the young communities of Eng-
lish-speaking people all over the globe — in India, China, Japan, the
Straits, Ceylon, Australia, New Zealand, the Cape — have founded sci-
entific societies in order to promote the growth of scientific research.
No doubt science, which is only a form of truth, is one in all lands,
but still its unity of purpose and fulfillment received an important
practical expression by our visit to Canada. This community of sci-

RELATIONS OF SCIENCE TO THE PUBLIC _ WEAL. 39

ence will be continued by the fact that we have invited Sir William
Dawson, of Montreal, to be our next president at Birmingham.

II. Science and the State. — I can not address you in Aberdeen
without recollecting that when we last met in this city our president was
a great prince. The just verdict of time is that, high as was his royal
rank, he has a far nobler claim to our regard as a lover of humanity in
its widest sense, and especially as a lover of those arts and sciences
which do so much to adorn it. On September 14, 1859, I sat on this
platform and listened to the eloquent address and wise counsel of the
Prince Consort. At one time a member of his household, it was my
privilege to co-operate with this illustrious prince in many questions
relating to the advancement of science. I naturally, therefore, turn to
his presidential address to see whether I might not now continue those
counsels which he then gave with all the breadth and comprehensive-
ness of his masterly speeches. I found, as I expected, a text for my
own discourse in some pregnant remarks which he made upon the re-
lation of science to the state. They are as follows : " We may be
justified in hoping . . . that the Legislature and the state will more
and more recognize the claims of science to their attention ; so that it
may no longer require the begging-box, but speak to the state like a
favored child to its parent, sure of his paternal solicitude for its wel-
fare ; that the state will recognize in science one of its elements of
strength and prosperity, to foster which the clearest dictates of self-
interest demand."

This opinion, in its broadest sense, means that the relations of sci-
ence to the state should be made more intimate because the advance
of science is needful to the public weal.

The importance of promoting science as a duty of statecraft was
well enough known to the ancients, especially to the Greeks and
Arabs, but it ceased to be recognized in the dark ages, and was lost to
sight during the revival of letters in the fifteenth and sixteenth cent-
uries. Germany and France, which are now in such active competi-
tion in promoting science, have only publicly acknowledged its na-
tional importance in recent times. Even in the last century, though
France had its Lavoisier and Germany its Leibnitz, their Governments
did not know the value of science. When the former was condemned
to death in the Reign of Terror, a petition was presented to the rulers
that his life might be spared for a few weeks, in order that he might
complete some important experiments, bat the reply was, "The re-
public has no need of savants^ Earlier in the century the much-
praised Frederick William of Prussia shouted with a loud voice, dur-
ing a graduation ceremony in the University of Frankfort, "An ounce
of mother-wit is worth a ton of university wisdom ! " Both France
and Germany are now ashamed of these utterances of their rulers,
and make energetic efforts to advance science with the aid of their
national resources. More remarkable is it to see a young nation like

40 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the United States reserving 150,000,000 acres of national lands for the
promotion of scientific education. In some respects this young coun-
try is in advance of all European nations in joining science to its ad-
ministrative offices. Its scientific publications, like the great paleon-
tological work embodying the researches of Professor Marsh and his
associates in the Geological Survey, are an example to other Govern-
ments. The Minister of Agriculture is surrounded with a staff of
botanists and chemists. The Home Secretary is aided by a special
Scientific Commission to investigate the habits, migrations, and food
of fishes, and the latter has at its disposal two specially constructed
steamers of large tonnage. The United States and Great Britain pro-
mote fisheries on distinct systems. In this country we are perpetually
issuing expensive commissions to visit the coasts, in order to ascertain
the experiences of fishermen. I have acted as chairman of one of
these Royal Commissions, and found that the fishermen, having only
a knowledge of a small area, gave the most contradictory and unsat-
isfactory evidence. In America the questions are put to Nature, and
not to fishermen. Exact and searching investigations are made into
the life-history of the fishes, into the temperature of the sea in which
they live and spawn, into the nature of their food, and into the habits
of their natural enemies. For this purpose the Government gave the
co-operation of the navy, and provided the Commission with a special
corps of skilled naturalists, some of whom go out with the steamships,
and others work in the biological laboratories at Wood's IIoll, Massa-
chusetts, or at Washington. The different universities send their best
naturalists to aid in these investigations, which are under the direction
of Mr. Baird, of the Smithsonian Institution. The annual cost of the
Federal Commission is about forty thousand pounds, while the sepa-
rate States spend about twenty thousand pounds in local efforts. The
practical results flowing from these scientific investigations have been
important. The inland waters and rivers have been stocked with fish
of the best and most suitable kinds. Even the great ocean which
washes the coasts of the United States is beginning to be affected by
the knowledge thus acquired, and a sensible result is already produced
upon the most important of its fisheries. The United Kingdom largely
depends upon its fisheries, but as yet our Government have scarcely
realized the value of such scientific investigations as those pursued
with success by the United States. Less systematically, but with
great benefit to science, our own Government has used the surveying
expeditions, and sometimes has equipped special expeditions to pro-
mote natural history and solar physics. Some of the latter, like the
voyage of the Challenger, have added largely to the store of knowl-
edge ; wliile the former, though not primarily intended for scientific
research, have had an indirect result of infinite value by becoming
training-schools for such investigators as Edward Forbes, Darwin,
Hooker, Huxley, Wyville Thomson, and others.

RELATIONS OF SCIENCE TO THE PUBLIC WEAL. 41

In the United Kingdom we are just beginning to understand the
wisdom of Washington's farewell address to his countrymen, when he
said: "Promote as an object of primary importance institutions for
the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of
a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public
opinion should be enlightened." It was only in 1870 that our Parlia-
ment established a system of national primary education. Secondary
education is chaotic, and remains unconnected with the state, while
the higher education of the universities is only brought at distant in-
tervals under the view of the state. All great countries except Eng-
land have Ministers of Education, but this country has only ministers
who are the managers of primary schools. We are inferior even to
smaller countries in the absence of organized state supervision of edu-
cation. Greece, Portugal, Egypt, and Japan have distinct Ministers
of Education, and so also among our colonies have Victoria and New
Zealand. Gradually England is gathering materials for the establish-
ment of an eiBcient education minister. The Department of Science
and Art is doing excellent work in diffusing a taste for elementary
science among the working-classes. There are now about seventy-
eight thousand persons who annually come under the influence of its
science classes, while a small number of about two hundred, many of
them teachers, receive thorough instruction in science at the excellent
school in South Kensington, of which Professor Huxley is the dean.
I do not dwell on the work of this Government department, because
my object is chiefly to point out how it is that science lags in its prog-
ress in the United Kingdom owing to the deficient interest taken in it
by the middle and upper classes. The working-classes are being roused
from their indifference. They show this by their selection of scien-
tific men as candidates at the next election. Among these are Pro-
fessors Stuart, Roscoe, Maskelyne, and Rticker. It has its signifi-
cance that such a humble representative of science as myself received
invitations from working-class constituencies in more than a dozen of
the leading manufacturing towns. In the next Parliament I do not
doubt that a Minister of Education will be created as a nucleus round
which the various educational materials may crystallize in a definite
form.

III. SciExcE AND Secondary Education. — Various Royal Cora-
missions have made inquiries and issued recommendations in regard
to our public and endowed schools. The commissions of 1861, 1864,
1868, and 1873 have expressed the strongest disapproval of the condi-
tion of our schools, and, so far as science is concerned, their state is
much the same as when the Duke of Devonshire's commission in 1873
reported in the following words : " Considering the increasing impor-
tance of science to the material interests of the country, we can not but
regard its almost total exclusion from the training of the upper and
middle classes as little less than a national misfortune." No doubt

42 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

there are exceptional cases and some brilliant examples of improve-
ment since these words were written, but generally throughout the
country teaching in science is a name rather than a reality. The
Technical Commission which reported last year can only point to
three schools in Great Britain in which science is fully and adequately
taught. AVhile the commission gives us the consolation that England
is still in advance as an industrial nation, it warns us that foreign
nations, which were not long ago far behind, are now making more
rapid progress than this country, and will soon pass it in the race of
competition unless we give increased attention to science in public
education. A few of the large towns, notably Manchester, Bradford,
Iluddersfield, and Birmingham, are doing so. The working-classes
are now receiving better instruction in science than the middle classes.
The competition of actual life asserts its own conditions, for the chil-
dren of the latter find increasing difficulty in obtaining employment.
The cause of this lies in the fact that the schools for the middle classes
have not yet adapted themselves to the needs of modern life. It is
true that many of the endowed schools have been put under new
schemes, but, as there is no public supervision or inspection of them,
we have no knowledge as to whether they have prospered or slipped
back. Many corporate schools have arisen, some of them, like Clifton,
Cheltenham, and Marlborough Colleges, doing excellent educational
work, though as regards all of them the public have no rights, and
can not enforce guarantees for efficiency. A return just issued, on the
motion of Sir John Lubbock, shows a lamentable deficiency in science-
teaching in a great proportion of the endowed schools. While twelve
to sixteen hours per week are devoted to classics, two to three hours
are considered arajjle for science in a large proportion of the schools.
In Scotland there are only six schools in the return which give more
than two hours to science weekly, while in many schools its teaching
is wholly omitted. Every other part of the kingdom stands in a bet-
ter position than Scotland in relation to the science of its endowed
schools. The old traditions of education stick as firmly to schools as
a limpet does to a rock ; though I do the limpet injustice, for it does
make excursions to seek pastures new. Are we to give up in despair
because an exclusive system of classical education has resisted the as-
saults of such cultivated authors as Milton, Montaigne, Cowley, and
Locke? There was once an enlightened Emperor of China, Chi
Ilwangti, who knew that his country was kept back by its exclusive
devotion to the classics of Confucius and Mencius. He invited five
hundred of the teachers to bring their copies of these authors to Pe-
king, and, after giving a great banquet in their honor, he buried alive
the professors along with their manuscrij)ts in a deep pit. But Con-
fucius and Mencius still reign supreme. I advocate milder measures,
and depend for their adoption on the force of public opinion. The
needs of modern life will force schools to adapt themselves to a scien-

RELATIONS OF SCIENCE TO THE PUBLIC WEAL. 43

tific age. Graminar-scliools believe themselves to be immortal. Those
curious immortals — the Struldbrugs — described by Swift, ultimately
regretted their immortality, because they found themselves out of
touch, sympathy, and fitness with the centuries in which they lived.

As there is no use clamoring for an instrument of more compass
and power until we have made up our mind as to the tune. Professor
Huxley, in his evidence before a Parliamentary Committee in 1884,
has given a time-table for grammar-schools. lie demands that out
of their forty hours for public and private study ten should be given
to modern languages and history, eight to arithmetic and mathemat-
ics, six to science, and two to geography, thus leaving fourteen hours
to the dead languages. No time-table would, however, be suitable
to all schools. The great public schools of England will continue to
be the gymnasia for the upper classes, and should devote much of
their time to classical and literary culture. Even now they introduce
into their curriculum subjects unknown to them when the Royal Com-
mission of 1868 reported, though they still accept science with timid-
ity. Unfortunately, the other grammar-schools which educate the
middle classes look to the higher public schools as a type to which
they should conform, although their functions are so different. It is
in the interest of the higher public schools that this difference should
be recognized, so that, while they give an all-round education and ex-
pand their curriculum by a freer recognition of the value of science
as an educational power in developing the faculties of the upper
classes, the schools for the middle classes should adapt themselves to
the needs of their existence, and not keep up a slavish imitation of
schools with a different function. The old classical grammar-schools
may view these remarks as a direct attack upon them, and so it is in
one sense, but it is like the stroke of Ithuriel's spear, which heals
while it wounds.

The stock argument against the introduction of modern subjects
into grammar-schools is that it is better to teach Latin and Greek
thoroughly rather than various subjects less completely. But is it
true that thoroughness in teaching dead languages is the result of an
exclusive system ? In 1868 the Royal Commission stated that even in
the few great public schools thoroughness was only given to thirty
per cent of the scholars, at the sacrifice of seventy per cent who got
little benefit from the system. Since then the curriculum has been
widened and the teaching has improved. I question the soundness of
the principle that it is better to limit the attention of the pupils
mainly to Latin and Greek, highly as I value their educational power
to a certain order of minds. As in biology the bodily development of
animals is from the general to the special, so is it in the mental devel-
opment of man. In the school a boy should be aided to discover the
class of knowledge that is best suited for his mental capacities, so
that, in the upper forms of the school and in the university, knowledge

44 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

may be specialized in order to cultivate the powers of the man to their
fullest extent, Shakespeare's educational formula may not be alto-
gether true, but it contains a broad basis of truth :

*' No profit goes, where is no pleasure ta'en ;
In brief, sir, study what you most affect.'"

The comparative failure of the modern side of school education
arises from constituting it out of the boys who are looked upon as
classical asses. Milton pointed out that in all schools there are boys
to whom the dead languages are " like thorns and thistles," which form
a poor nourishment even for asses. If teachers looked upon these
classical asses as beings who might receive mental nurture according
to their nature, much higher results would follow the bifurcation of
our schools. Saul went out to look for asses, and he found a kingdom.
Surely this fact is more encouraging than the example of Gideon, who
" took thorns of the wilderness and briers, and with these he taught
the men of Succoth." * The adaptation of public schools to a scientific
age does not involve a contest as to whether science or classics shall
prevail, for both are indispensable to true education. The real ques-
tion is whether schools will undertake the duty of molding the minds
of boys according to their mental varieties. Classics, from their
structural perfection and power of awakening dormant faculties, have
claims to precedence in education, but they have none to a practical
monopoly. It is by claiming the latter that teachers sacrifice mental
receptivity to a Procrustean uniformity.

The universities are changing their traditions more rapidly than
the schools. The via o.ntiqua which leads to them is still broad,
though a via moderna, with branching avenues, is also open to their
honors and emoluments. Physical science, which was once neglected,
is now encouraged at the universities. As to the seventy per cent of
boys who leave schools for life-work without going through the uni-
versities, are there no growing signs of discontent which must force
a change ? The civil service, the learned professions, as well as the
army and navy, are now barred by examinations. Do the boys of our
public schools easily leap over the bars, although some of them have
lately been lowered so as to suit the schools ? So difficult are these bars
to scholars that crammers take them in hand before they attempt the
leap ; and this occurs in spite of the large value attached to the dead
languages and the small value placed on modern subjects. Thus, in
the Indian Civil-Service examinations, 800 marks as a maximum are
assigned to Latin, GOO to Greek, 500 to chemistry, and 300 to each of
the other physical sciences. But, if we take the average working of
the system for the last four years, we find that, while sixty-eight per
cent of the maximum were given to candidates in Greek and Latin,
only forty-five per cent were accorded to candidates in chemistry,

* Judges Tiii, 16.

RELATIONS OF SCIENCE TO THE PUBLIC WEAL. 45

and but thirty per cent to the other physical sciences. Schools send-
ing up boys for competition naturally shun subjects which are dealt
with so hardly and so heavily handicapped by the state.

Passing from learned or public professions to commerce, how is it
that in our great commercial centers, foreigners — German, Swiss,
Dutch, and even Greeks — push aside our English youth and take the
places of profit which belong to them by national inheritance ? How
is it that in our colonies, like those in South Africa, German enter-
prise is pushing aside English incapacity ? How is it that we find
whole branches of manufactures, when they depend on scientific
knowledge, passing away from this country, in which they originated,
in order to ingraft themselves abroad, although their decaying roots
remain at home ? * The answer to these questions is that our systems
of education are still too narrow for the increasing struggle of life.

Faraday, who had no narrow views in regard to education, de-
plored the future of our youth in the competition of the world, be-
cause, as he said with sadness, " our school-boys, when they come out
of school, are ignorant of their ignorance at the end of all that edu-
cation."

The opponents of science education allege that it is not adapted for
mental development, because scientific facts are often disjointed and
exercise only the memory. Those who argue thus do not know what
science is. No doubt an ignorant or half-informed teacher may pre-
sent science as an accumulation of unconnected facts. At all times
and in all subjects there are teachers without iesthetical or philosophi-
cal capacity — men who can only see carbonate of lime in a statue by
Phidias or Praxiteles ; who can not survey zoology on account of its
millions of species, or botany because of its 130,000 distinct plants ;
men who can look at trees without getting a conception of a forest,
and can not distinguish a stately edifice from its bricks. To teach in
that fashion is like going to the tree of science with its glorious fruit
in order to pick up a handful of the dry fallen leaves from the ground.
It is, however, true that, as science-teaching has had less lengthened
experience than that of literature, its methods of instruction are not
so matured. Scientific and literary teaching have different methods ;
for, while the teacher of literature rests on authority and on books for
his guidance, the teacher of science discards authority and depends
on facts at first hand, and on the book of Nature for their interpre-
tation. Natural science more and more resolves itself into the teach-
ing of the laboratory. In this way it can be used as a powerful means
of quickening observation, and of creating a faculty of induction after
the manner of Zadig, the Babylonian described by Voltaire. Thus
facts become surrounded by scientific conceptions, and are subordi-
nated to order and law.

* See Dr. Perkins's Address to the Society of Chemical Industry. — " Nature," August
6, 1855, p. 333.

46 THE POPULAR SCIEXCE MONTHLY.

It is not those Avbo desire to unite literature with science who de-
grade education ; the degradation is the consequence of the refusal.
A violent reaction — too violent to be wise — has lately taken place
against classical education in France, where their own vernacular occu-
pies the position of dead languages, while Latin and science are given
the same time in the curriculum. In England manufacturers cry out
for technical education, in which classical culture shall be excluded.
In the schools of the middle classes science rather than technics is
needed, because, when the seeds of science are sown, technics as its
fruit will appear at the appointed time. Epictetus was wise when he
told us to observe that, though sheep eat grass, it is not grass but
wool that grows on their backs. Should, however, our grammar-
schools persist in their refusal to adapt themselves to the needs of a
scientific age, England must follow the example of other European
nations and found new modern schools in competition with them. For,
as Iluxlcy has put it, we can not continue in this age " of full modern
artillery to turn out our boys to do battle in it, equipped only with
the sword and shield of an ancient gladiator." In a scientific and
keenly competitive age, an exclusive education in the dead languages
is a perplexing anomaly. The flowers of literature should be culti-
vated and gathered, though it is not wise to send men into our fields
of industry to gather the harvest when they have been taught only
to cull the poppies and to push aside the wheat.

IV. Science and the Universities. — The state has always felt
bound to alter and improve universities, even when their endowments
are so large as to render it unnecessary to support them by public
funds. When universities are poor, Parliament gives aid to them
from imperial taxation. In this country that aid has been given with
a very sparing hand. Thus the universities and colleges of Ireland
have received about £30,000 annually, and the same sum has been
granted to the four universities of Scotland. Compared with imperial
aid to foreign universities such sums are small. A single German
university like Strasburg or Leipsic receives above £40,000 annually,
or £10,000 more than the whole colleges of Ireland or of Scotland.
Strasburg, for instance, has had her university and its library rebuilt
at a cost of £711,000, and receives an annual subscription of £43,000.
In rebuilding the University of Strasburg eight laboratories have been
provided, so as to equip it fully with the modern requirements for
teaching and research.* Prussia, the most economical nation in the
world, spends £391,000 yearly out of taxation on her universities.

The recent action of France is still more remarkable. After the
Franco-German War the Institute of France discussed the important

* The cost of these laboratories has been as follows : Chemical Institute, £35,000 ;
rhysical Institute, £28,000 ; Botanical Institute, £26,000 ; Observatory, £26,000 ; Anat-
omy, £42,000; Clinical Surgery, £26,000; Physiological Chemistry, £16,000; Physiologi-
cal Institute, £13,900.

RELATIONS OF SCIEXCE TO THE PUBLIC WEAL. 47

question, " Pourquoi la France n'apas trouve (rbommes superieurs au
moment du peril ? " The general answer was because France had al-
lowed university education to sink to a low ebb. Before the great
Revolution France had twenty-three autonomous universities in the
provinces. Napoleon desired to found one great university at Paris,
and he crushed out the others with the hand of a despot, and remodelled
the last with the instincts of a drill-sergeant. The central university
sank so low that in 1868 it is said that only £8,000 were spent for true
academic purposes. Startled by the intellectual sterility shown in the
war, France has made gigantic efforts to retrieve her position, and has
rebuilt the provincial colleges at a cost of £3,280,000, while her an-
nual budget for their support now reaches half a million pounds. In
order to open these provincial colleges to the best talent of France,
more than five hundred scholarships have been founded, of an annual
cost of £30,000. France now recognizes that it is not by the number
of men under arms that she can compete with her great neighbor Ger-
many, so she has determined to equal her in intellect. You will un-
derstand why it is that Germany was obliged, even if she had not been
willing, to spend such large sums in order to equip the university of
her conquered province, Alsace-Lorraine. France and Germany are
fully aware that science is the source of wealth and power, and that
the only way of advancing it is to encourage universities to make
researches and to spread existing knowledge through the community.
Other European nations are advancing on the same lines. Switzer-
land is a remarkable illustration of how a country can compensate
itself for its natural disadvantages by a scientific education of its peo-
ple. Switzerland contains neither coal nor the ordinary raw mate-
rials of industry, and is separated from other countries which might
supply them by mountain-barriers. Yet, by a singularly good system
of graded schools, and by the great technical college of Zurich, she
has become a prosperous manufacturing country. In Great Britain
we have nothing comparable to this technical college, either in magni-
tude or efiiciency. Belgium is reorganizing its universities, and the
state has freed the localities from the charge of buildings, and will in
future equip the universities with efiicient teaching resources out of
public taxation. Holland, with a population of four million, and a small
revenue of £9,000,000, spends £136,000 on her four universities. Con-
trast this liberality of foreign countries in the promotion of higher
instruction with the action of our own country. Scotland, like Hol-
land, has four universities, and is not very different from it in popu-
lation, but it only receives £30,000 from the state. By a special
clause in the Scotch Universities Bill the Government asked Parlia-
ment to declare that under no circumstances should the parliament-
ary grant be ever increased above £40,000, According to the views
of the British Treasury, there is a finality in science and in expanding
knowledge.

48 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The wealthy Universities of Oxford and Cambridge are gradually
constructing laboratories for science. The merchant princes of Man-
chester have equipped their new Victoria University with similar labo-
ratories. Edinburgh and Glasgow Universities have also done so,
partly at the cost of Government and largely by private subscriptions.
The poorer Universities of Aberdeen and St. Andrews are still ineffi-
ciently provided with the modern appliances for teaching science.

London has one small Government college and two chartered col-
leges, but is wholly destitute of a teaching university. It would excite
great astonishment at the Treasury if we were to make the modest
request that the great metropolis, with a population of four million,
should be put into as efficient academical position as the town of
Strasburg, with 104,000 inhabitants, by receiving, as that town does,
£43,000 annually for academic instruction and £700,000 for university
buildings. Still, the amazing anomaly that London has no teaching
university must ere long cease.

It is a comforting fact that, in spite of the indifference of Parlia-
ment, the large towns of the kingdom are showing their sense of the
need of higher education. Manchester has already its university.
Nottingham, Birmingham, Leeds, and Bristol have colleges more or less
complete. Liverpool converts a disused lunatic asylum into a college
for sane people. Cardiff rents an infirmary for a collegiate building.
Dundee, by private benefaction, rears a Baxter College with larger
ambitions. All these are healthy signs that the public are determined
to have advanced science-teaching, but the resources of the institutions
are altogether inadequate to the end in view. Even in the few cases
where the laboratories are efficient for teaching purposes, they are in-
efficient as laboratories for research. Under these circumstances the
Royal Commission on Science advocates special Government labora-
tories for research. Such laboratories, supported by public money,
are as legitimate subjects for expenditure as galleries for pictures or
sculpture ; but I think that they would not be successful, and would
injure science if they failed. It would be safer in the mean time if
the state assisted universities or well-established colleges to found
laboratories of research under their own care. Even such a proposal
shocks our Chancellor of the Exchequer, who tells us that this country
is burdened with public debt, and has ironclads to build and arsenals
to provide. Nevertheless our wealth is proportionally much greater
than that of foreign states which are competing with so much vigor
in the promotion of higher education. They deem such expenditure
to be true economy, and do not allow their huge standing armies to be
an apology for keeping their people backward in the march of knowl-
edge. France, which in the last ten years has been spending a million
annually on university education, had a war indemnity to pay, and com-
petes successfully with this country in ironclads. Either all foreign
states are strangely deceived in their belief that the competition of

RELATIONS OF SCIENCE TO THE PUBLIC WEAL. 49

the world has become a competition of intellect, or we are raarvelously
unobservant of the change which is passing over Europe in the higher
education of the people. Preparations for war will not insure to us
the blessings and security of an enlightened peace. Protective expen-
diture may be wise, though productive expenditure is wiser.

" Were half the powers which fill the world with terror,
Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts,
Given to redeem the human mind from error —
There were no need of arsenals and forts."

Universities are not mere storehouses of knowledge ; they are also
conservatories for its cultivation. In Mexico there is a species of ant
which sets apart some of its individuals to act as honey-jars by mon-
strously extending their abdomens to store the precious fluid till it is
wanted by the community. Professors in a university have a higher
function, because they ought to make new honey as well as to store it.
The widening of the bounds of knowledge, literary or scientific, is the
crowning glory of university life. Germany unites the functions of
teaching and research in the universities, while France keeps them in
separate institutions. The former system is best adapted to our hab-
its, but its condition for success is that our science-chairs should be
greatly increased, so that teachers should not be wholly absorbed in
the duties of instruction. Germany subdivides the sciences into va-
rious chairs, and gives to the professors special laboratories. It also
makes it a condition for the higher honors of a university that the can-
didates shall give proofs of their ability to make original researches.
Under such a system, teaching and investigation are not incompatible.
In the evidence before the Science Commission many opinions were
given that scientific men engaged in research should not be burdened
with the duties of education, and there is much to be said in support
of this view when a single professor for the whole range of physical
science is its only representative in a university. But I hope that such
a system will not long continue, for if it do we must occupy a very
inferior position as a nation in the intellectual competition of Europe.
Research and education in limited branches of higher knowledge are
not incompatible. It is true that Galileo complained of the burden
imposed upon him by his numerous astronomical pupils, though few
other philosophers have echoed this complaint. Newton, who pro-
duced order in worlds, and Dalton, who brought atoms under the
reign of order and number, rejoiced in their pupils. Lalande spread
astronomers as Liebig spread chemists, and Johannes Milller biologists,
all over the world. Laplace, La Grange, Dulong, Gay-Lussac, Ber-
thoUet, and Dumas, were professors as well as discoverers in France. In
England our discoverers have generally been teachers. In fact, I recol-
lect only three notable examples of men who were not — Boyle, Cav-
endish, and Joule. It was so in ancient as well as in modern times,

VOL. XXVIII. — 4

5© THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

for Plato and Aristotle taught and philosophized. If you do not make
the investigator a schoolmaster, as Dalton was, and as practically
our professors are at the present time, with the duty of teaching all
branches of their sciences, the mere elementary truths as well as the
highest generalizations being compressed into a course, it is well that
they should be brought into contact with the world in which they live,
so as to know its wants and aspirations. They could then quicken the
pregnant minds around them, and extend to others their own power
and love of research. Goethe had a tine perception of this when he

wrote :

" Wer in der Weltgeschichte lebt,
Wer in die Zeiten schaut, und strebt,
Nur der ist wertb, zu sprecben und zu dicbten."

Our universities are still far from the attainment of a proper com-
bination of their resources between teaching and research. Even Ox-
ford and Cambridge, which have done so much in recent years in the
equipment of laboratories and in adding to their scientific staff, are
still far behind a second-class German university. The professional
faculties of the English universities are growing, and will diffuse a
greater taste for science among their students, though they may absorb
the time of the limited professoriate so as to prevent it advancing the
boundaries of knowledge. Professional faculties are absolutely essen-
tial to the existence of universities in poor countries like Scotland and
Ireland. This has been the case from the early days of the Bologna
University up to the present time. Originally universities arose not
by mere bulls of popes, but as a response to the strong desire of the
professional classes to dignify their crafts by real knowledge. If their
education had been limited to mere technical schools, like the Medical
School of Salerno, which flourished in the eleventh century, length
but not breadth would have been given to education. So the univer-
sities wisely joined culture to the professional sciences. Poor countries
like Scotland and Ireland must have their academic systems based on
the professional faculties, although wealthy universities like Oxford
and Cambridge may continue to have them as mere supplements to a
more general education. A greater liberality of support on the part
of the state in the establishment of chairs of science, for the sake of
science and not merely for the teaching of the professions, would enable
the poorer universities to take their part in the advancement of knowl-
edge.

I have already alluded to the foundation of new colleges in differ-
ent parts of the kingdom. Owens College has worthily developed into
the Victoria University. Formerly she depended for degrees on the
University of London. Ko longer will she be like a moon reflecting
cold and sickly rays from a distant luminary, for in future she will be
a sun, a center of intelligence, warming and illuminating the regions
around her. The other colleges which have formed themselves in

TWO WONDERFUL INSTRUMENTS. 51

large manufacturing districts are remarkable expressions from them
that science must be promoted. Including the colleges of a high class,
such as University College and King's College in London, and the
three Queen's Colleges in Ireland, the aggregate attendance of stu-
dents in colleges without university rank is between nine and ten thou-
sand, while that of the universities is fifteen thousand. No doubt some
of the provincial colleges require considerable improvement in their
teaching methods ; sometimes they imwisely aim at a full university
curriculum when it would be better for them to act as faculties. Still
they are all growing in the spirit of self-help, and some of them are
destined, like Owens College, to develop into universities. This is
not a subject of alarm to lovers of education, while it is one of hope
and encouragement to the great centers of industry. There are too few
autonomous universities in England in proportion to its population.
While Scotland, with a population of 3,750,000, has four universities
with 6,500 students, England, with twenty-six million people, has only
the same number of teaching universities with six thousand students.
Unless English colleges have such ambition, they may be turned into
mere mills to grind out material for examinations and competitions.
Higher colleges should always hold before their students that knowl-
edge, for its own sake, is the only object worthy of reverence. Beyond
college-life there is a land of research flowing with milk and honey for
those who know how to cultivate it. Colleges should at least show a
Pisgah view of this land of promise, which stretches far beyond the
Jordan of examinations and competitions.

TWO WONDERFUL INSTRUMENTS.

Br ALBERT LEFFINGWELL, M. D.

THE eye is the most wonderful organ existing in the higher forms
of animal life. It is the window of the brain ; through it, the
creature obtains knowledge of that which lies beyond the reach of its
other senses.

But there is really nothing very mysterious about the structure of
the eye when considered as an optical instrument. It is simply a tiny
chamber, with one little window through which light passes, making
a reversed picture upon the wall beyond. The same effect may be
obtained by a lens so fixed in the window of a darkened room that the
only light from without must pass through it. As in the illustration
we i3resent herewith, the picture of the scene without, the peasant-girl
afoot, the rustic laborer, the thatched cottage — all appear on the screen
in the dark chamber, but reversed in position.

The same effect is produced by the eye. The eyeball is a little

52

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

globular room. The window is so contrived tbat it can be made small
or large, as the light is strong or feeble. From the wall in the rear
upon which the picture is made, a nerve carries the impression back-

FlG. 1.

ward to the brain, and by means of that impression we perceive. This
is the mystery, how the brain gets its impression ; not how the eye
gets its image.

In the present article I shall not describe the structure and func-
tions of the eye, except to show how human ingenuity has contrived
an instrument almost exactly resembling it, and capable in some re-
spects of doing far more wonderful work. Man has invented in reality
an artificial eye which sees farther, with infinitely greater distinctness,
and in a very much shorter space of time, nearly everything which lies
before it. Almost every particular in the structure of the human eye
must be imitated by this instrument. When in its most perfect con-
dition its work is quite as wonderful as the eye of an animal.

In the first place, we must have a perfectly dark box, say about a
foot high, a foot wide, and about eighteen inches long. This is the
dark chamber, and corresponds to the eyeball. In one end is an open-
ing in which is inserted a peculiar arrangement of optical glasses.
These will correspond to that part of the human eye which is called
the crystalline lens.

What is this ? Just in front of the main body of the eyeball, behind
the curtain which we see, is a transparent, circular and flattened body,
thicker in the middle and thinner at its edges, the exact shape of a

TWO WOXBURFUL INSTRUMENTS.

53

burning-glass. It is held in its position by a very delicate membrane
which suspends it in its place in front and behind. If it were not for
this crystalline lens of the eye, we should be able only to have an in-
distinct impression of light. This lens enables us to see the forms of
things ; defining them in the same manner as the lens of spectacles,
or the lenses of the telescope or opera-glass. Now, in the artificial eye
which we are considering, we must place, in the front part, glass lenses
through which the picture or view can pass into its interior.

Fi3. 2.— A Verticai, Section op the Eye.— ^, the cornea ; E, the crystalline lens ; I. the choroid ;
K, the retina; M, the optic nerve leading to the brain.

In the human eye the entire inner surface of the eyeball is covered
with a brownish-black membrane called the choroid coat. Its use is
to absorb light which reaches it and to prevent reflections. Xow, in
our artificial imitation, we must cover the entire interior of the box
with black paint, so as to absorb every ray of light, except that for
which we have a use.

In the back part of the human eye is the termination of the optic
nerve called the retina. It is that part of the eye which is especially
sensitive to light ; it receives the rays entering through the front
window, forms a picture of the scene, and communicates the impres-
sion through the fibers of the optic nerve to the brain behind it. How
it does this we do not know. It is certain, however, that an exact
picture of anything we see is created upon this membrane in the back
part of the eyeball.

Doubtless the reader has already guessed the name of the artificial
invention I have been describing — the photographic camera. But
what shall take the place of the nerve or retina of the eye ? What
shall stand in place of the mysterious cells of gray matter in the brain,
which receive and retain the visual impressions ? After all, this is the
only really wonderful part of either instrument.

54 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

In modern photography that which answers to the retina of the
eye is called a " sensitive plate." It is a small plate of glass, coated
with a chemical solution, so sensitive to light that it darkens the mo-
ment it is exposed to the faintest ray of sunlight. Let us take one of
these plates and, with due precautions, carefully put it in the camera
exactly where in the human eye the retina is situated. The camera,
or dark chamber, is covered in front exactly as though the eye were
closed ; not a ray of light under any circumstances is yet permitted to
enter it.

Now comes the mysterious part of its execution. Let us suppose
that a man blindfolded, and this artificial eye, a photographic camera,
are set down in the open air in the bright sunshine before the scene of
some great ceremony — a procession of a thousand persons, the moving
panorama of a city street, or a wide extent of landscape. Suppose
that, the bandage being removed, the man were instructed instantane-
ously to open and shut his eyes as quickly as possible, and then to
describe what he had seen in that twinkling of an eye. What would
be the result ?

Try the experiment yourself. Go to the window, with your eyes
closed. Open and shut them just as quickly as possible, and then try
to describe what you have seen in that time. It will be very little,
besides that which you remember from previous familiarity with the
scene. For the most part there will be nothing bej'ond a confused
idea of light and shade. The time of this momentary vision will be
too short to enable the human retina to perceive or the human brain
to register any definite impression of anything.

How is it with the photographic camera and lens, our artificial
eye ? We will suppose that everything is in readiness, that its retina
or sensitive plate is in perfect condition, and that not a ray of light
has yet entered within the darkened chamber. Instead of being " the
twinkling of an eye," we shall arrange so that the time elapsing be-
tween the opening and closing of the artificial eyelid shall be less than
one tenth of a second, or far less than the time necessary for our eyes
to open and shut. It shall be as nearly " instantaneous " as possible.
Everything is ready. Click! It has opened and shut. What has it
seen in that little instant of time ?

If anything is in motion, it has been perceived in that fragment of
a second as if motionless. Men walking along the street are pictured
with uplifted feet. A trotting-horse may be caught with all of its four
legs in the air, viewed just at the moment when he was clear of the
ground. A man leaping with a high pole may be pictured in mid-air,
precisely in the position in which he appears at the highest altitude.
Motion seems rest.

But this is not the most wonderful of its powers. Far beyond the
keenest of human vision is its range of sight. If the light is good,
this sensitive plate of glass will have recorded and discerned a thou-

TWO WO^^'DERFUL INSTRUMENTS.

55

sand uplifted faces as perfectly aa the human eye perceives the feat-
ures of a single countenance. Every expression of joy or sorrow,
every peculiarity of dress or attitude, the leaves of a forest or the
grass by the wayside, Avill have been seen and delineated and retained
perfectly in far less than the briefest possible twinkling of a human eye.

Before me as I write is an instantaneous photograph upon glass of
one of the principal boulevards of Paris, taken about noon-time. I
seem to be looking down a broad avenue of lofty houses, each six
stories high. I can see seven street crossings or blocks. The avenue
is lined with shade-trees on either side. The street is filled with a
moving panorama. So exquisitely fine are all the details that, to bring
them out, I must use a small hand-microscope. Kearly fifty vehicles
of every kind are in sight, all in position of arrested motion. A block
distant an omnibus is approaching ; the very foot-board slats upon
which a passenger rests his feet I can count with my microscope. The
sidewalks are crowded with every variety of Parisian costumes. Kear
me is a soldier touching his hat to his superior officer as he passes him,
and three blocks away I can see a man sweeping the street. School-
boys and clerks, shop-girls and mechanics, soldiers and street-sweepers,
gentlemen of leisure and rambling travelers, representing every type
of Parisian life, are all here. It is a picture of a Moment of Exist-
ence. Ten minutes later, and it may be not a single person here rep-
resented will be walking or riding along this street, yet the scene it-
self will be unchanged. The crowd continues ; the atoms change.

Here is another Paris view, of a spot infinitely interesting to the
historian, the Place de la Concorde. Almost in exact range we see
the two fountains on either side of the Obelisk of Luxor ; a quarter
of a mile beyond is the Church of the Madeleine. The same ever-
moving crowd of human activities is here again unconsciously arrested
on this plate of glass ! There rises the Egyptian Obelisk, every hiero-
glyph as clear as when first raised in Egypt two thousand years ago.
Ah ! if human invention could have caused this eye to preserve for
us but one glance of the awful tragedies which have been enacted on
this spot ! In place of those romping school-boys or laughing sight-
seers, once gathered on this place an eager, hungry, and bloodthirsty
crowd of men and women ; where that obelisk points to heaven once
stood a platform, and thereon the guillotine. And one day this arrest-
ing eye might have seen Louis XVI, bending his head to the axe ;
and another day caught Marie Antoinette's look, as she glanced back-
ward toward the Tuileries ; or Madame Roland apostrophizing the
Statue of Liberty ; or Charlotte Corday murmuring, "The crime, and
not the scaffold, makes the shame ! " And imagine the upturned faces
of tJiat crowd !

But not only is the range of vision vastly inore comprehensive by
the photographic camera ; it is far keener. The sensitive plate of the
photographer is to-day of special use in the observatory of the astrono-

56 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

mer. Far out in infinite space are stars which the human eye, looking
through the most powerful telescope, fails to see ; they are beyond its
range. Yet this simple plate of glass can see them. It has a power
beyond that of any human retina ! Dark spaces, once considered
blank, are to-day known to be full of suns, each perhaps with its reti-
nue of planets, tilled it may be with beings like ourselves.

The future possibilities of this wonderful invention are beyond con-
ception. It may be that for centuries hence, before war ends, and
civilization triumphs in peace, the instantaneous photographic appara-
tus will be a part of every army equipment. There is no reason why
a great battle could not be taken — aside, perhaps, from smoke-obscu-
rity— as well as any great concourse of people. To-day the photo-
graphic artist is content to catch the movements of a race-horse or an
athlete, or the panorama of a city crowd ; then, perhaps, our distant
posterity will be only satisfied with the instantaneous record of more
important events. To-day, history is made up of confused and dis-
puted statements ; then, it may be read in the living pictures of the
deeds themselves.

A FKEE COLONY OF LUNATICS.

Bv HENRY DE VAEIGNY,

THE celebrated Belgian colony of the insane at Gheel has nothing
in its external appearance suggestive of the ordinary lunatic asy-
lum ; its inhabitants give no superficial indications that a large propor-
tion of them are madmen.

If one would conceive what Gheel is, he must imagine a town of
five or six thousand souls, in no way different from other tow^ns of like
importance, surrounded by a number of hamlets containing altogether,
perhaps, about as many more inhabitants. These j^eople have been,
from a very remote period, in the habit of taking insane persons to
board in their houses. The lunatics live in constant contact with the
family of their host. They share in their labors and their pleasures
if so inclined and their means permit it. They come and go, in the
enjoyment of an almost absolute liberty. It has, however, been found
necessary for the good of the patients and of the settled population
to organize administrative and medical services, in order to prevent
dangerous and improper persons from being sent to the colony, and
for the care of the mental and physical affections of the patients, and
for securing to them proper accommodation and treatment ; and an
infirmary has been established for those who need medical care. But
the administration makes very little show. The Avhole of the Gheel
district is an asylum ; and the streets and the surrounding country are
the promenade of the lunatics.

A FREE COLONY OF LUNATICS. 57

The origin of this unique institution is derived, according to the
legend, from the daughter of an Irish king, named Dymphne, who,
about the end of the sixth or the beginning of the seventh century,
took refuge at Gheel, with her confessor, to escape the incestuous
solicitations of her father. The king pursued his daughter and found
her, by keeping track of the coins the fugitives had paid out. The
confessor was assassinated by the soldiers, and Dymphne was decapi-
tated by her father himself. Dymphne in time became a saint, but
how her chastity made her the patron of lunatics is not explained.
Her memory has been preserved at Gheel through all the centuries
that have elapsed. The well is shown where she went to draw water,
and the house whose mistress gave the king the clews by which he
found his daughter ; a chapel was erected in honor of this virgin,
and as a memorial of the circumstances under which she perished ;
and a large church consecrated to St. Dymphne was built some cent-
uries ago. These circumstances have made Gheel a center of pil-
grimages, and the resort of the insane from a period very far back.
The unfortunates were lodged on their arrival in a building appertain-
ing to the church, called the invalid-chamber, which still exists. They
stayed there nine days, attending the religious services and prayers
for their cure through the intercession of the murdered virgin. Some-
times they stayed another nine days. It was hard to send them away
uncured ; but other unfortunates would be there waiting for their
turn, and there was not room for all. Rather than dismiss them sum-
marily, they were put in the care of some family who would undertake
to bring them to the special services every day. At first the patients
were kept in the immediate neighborhood of the church, or within its
parish jurisdiction ; but they became in time too many for that, and
were scattered over the neighboring villages. A service of public
administration was gradually organized, the history of which, and of
the modifications it has undergone, would be interesting if we had
room to give it.

The earliest recorded regulation is of 1676, and directs that the
proper officers shall order all persons having charge of the insane to bind
them hand and foot, so that they can not harm any one, and that they
shall prevent their going into the parish church of St. Armand, under
penalty of a fine of six florins. In 1747 ordinances were passed that
no insane person in fetters should go into the church of St. Armand
or St. Dymphne unless accompanied by his nourricier ; that no lunatic
should be bound without the previous knowledge and permission of
the reverend collegiate dean or of the bailiff ; and that Catholic nour-
riciers should invite the clergy to examine into the mental condition
of their patients, to ascertain whether they were fit to receive the
sacraments. In 1754 a new ordinance, declaring that the lunatics had
too much libei'ty and could not be distinguished from rational persons,
directed the nourriciers to keep them secure, by fetters, or by shutting

58 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

them up, or in some other way ; that they should pay for all damage
caused by their patients ; and that lunatics should not go out before a
fixed hour in the morning, and should return by a fixed hour in the
evening. They were also prohibited from using fire, even to light
their pipes, outside the house of their nourrlcier. An ordinance of
1790 directed the police to take precautions against damages by luna-
tics and by mischievous and dangerous animals. The medical service
was instituted in 1838. The control and administration of the colony
passed from the communal organization to the state under the law
of June, 1850 ; and in the next year they were placed under the
special direction of a commission whose composition and functions
were strictly defined. In 1874 the communal authority was deprived
of what little part in the nomination of members of the commission
had been left it under the law of 1851.

The present system dates from 1882. It confides the inspection
and surveillance of the patients to a superior commission, consisting
of the governor of the province or his delegate, and a number of re-
sponsible local oflicers. To this commission — all of whom except one,
a physician appointed by the Government, are ex-officio members — is
added a " secretary receiver," appointed by the Minister of Justice,
who is the real executive officer or director. The superior commission
is charged with the general care of all that concerns the patients. It
reports yearly on the reforms which seem to it to be needed ; watches
that all the regulations are enforced ; and keeps the list of persons
authorized to receive patients. It is supplemented by a permanent
committee, at the head of which is the burgomaster, whose business
it is to care for the interests of the lunatics, to look after the expense
of boarding and taking care of them, to inspect their boarding-places,
and to attend generally to the execution of the regulations. There is
also a lodging committee, whose business it is to secure places for pa-
tients whose families, or the local boards by whom they are sent, have
not already provided homes for them. Furthermore, the administra-
tion includes the very modest but very important guards of sections,
appointed by the Minister of Justice, who are brought into more im-
mediate contact with the patients than any other of the officers. They
bear the administrative and medical orders wherever they are to go :
they constantly go over the section to which they are attached, visit-
ing the patient's lodgings at any time, and insisting on his room being
shown to them at a moment's notice, and on seeing the patient himself
if he is at home. They see that the patient is properly clothed, that
he docs not work too much, that his room is well kept, that he has
suitable food ; they report cases of sickness, help take the sick to the
infirmary, and see that the medical prescriptions are respected. They
also see that tlie patients are at home at the appointed hours, and have
to put down any disorder of which a patient may be the occasion or
the object.

A FREE COLONY OF LUNATICS. 59

Since 18S2 Gheel has been divided into two distinct and entirely-
independent sections of medical administration. At the head of each
is a doctor-in-chief, assisted by an adjunct physician. The medical
service comprises treatment of the patients for their mental affections
and the incidental maladies attending them, correspondence with ad-
ministrations or families, concei*ning their moral and physical condition,
the direction and observation of the guards of section in all that con-
cerns the medical service, surveillance of the nourriciers in points
regarding the hygiene, food, and lodging of the patients intrusted to
their care, and as to their own conduct and devotion to the welfare of
their wards. The curable lunatic must be visited at least once a week
by the doctor-in-chief or adjunct doctor of his section. The incurables
are visited once a month. The doctors meet monthly and consider
what reforms and improvements may be introduced into the service.

The infirmary was built in 1862. It is divided into two sections
for the separation of the sexes. It is directed by an adjunct physician
under the control of the doctors-in-chief, who have severally the con-
trol of half of each section. To it are admitted patients, the precise
diagnosis of whose cases has not yet been made, who remain a few
days for observation before being put under the care of a nourricier ;
patients already placed who show some disquieting symptom, and
those who are suffering from some incidental affection. The sick are
visited here twice a day. Besides the adjunct physician, two guards
of section, a sister, and the necessary subordinates, are attached to the
infirmary.

Gheel is situated twenty-six miles east of Antwerp, and is reached
from it by railroad. It is the chief town of the Campine country,
and, with the territory administratively dependent upon it and also
receiving insane, gives about 11,000 inhabitants, occupying some 25,000
acres. It is easy to distribute 1,600 insane over such an extent of ter-
ritory without their coming into frequent contact with one another.
According to the act of 1882, insane persons may be received at Gheel
of all classes except those upon whom means of restraint and coercion
have to be employed continuously ; those inclined to suicide, homicide,
and incendiarism, and those who have made frequent escapes, or whose
affections are of a character to endanger the public tranquillity or to
offend public decency. After his arrival, the patient usually passes
some time at the infirmary, where he is examined and studied by the
physician. If his diagnosis has already been made, it is confirmed or
modified ; if not, he is kept till an exact idea is gained of the nature
of his affection, and it is decided whether he belongs to the class of
those who can be allowed to remain there. His words and movements
are carefully noted, and his case soon becomes understood. If he is
found to be inoffensive, the next business is .to place him in some
family.

The register, on which are inscribed the names of all the hotes

6o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and noiirrlciers of the commune, is then consulted. The Jwtes (hosts)
are those who take lunatics as boarders ; the nourriciers (fosterers)
those who take indigent insane. As a rule, each hote or nourricier is
expected to take only one patient ; but many exceptions are allowed,
and a liberal construction is indulged in. The food is usually about
the same as that of the family with which the patient lives ; conse-
quently, the comfort of the latter is to a large extent dependent on
the pecuniary condition of his host, though the price he pays for main-
tenance may be the same. In this point the close asylums, where the
table-provision is uniform, or is varied according to a system, may
have some advantage over Gheel ; but this advantage is probably
more than offset by the freedom of the open air and exercise, and the
country life which the sojourner at Gheel enjoys.

The air cajjacity, the furnishing, the cleanliness, and hygienic con-
dition of the patient's lodgings are carefully provided for in the regu-
lations and secured by the inspections-at-will of the sectional guards.
Patients able to pay a larger than the usual price can secure quarters
to suit them ; then the administration, being informed of the stipula-
tions of the bargain that has been made for them, see that they are
carried out. The board, whether of the self -paying or of the indigent
patients, is paid through the permanent committee. The price of
board is fixed anew at the beginning of each year. It is not absolutely
uniform for any class of patients, but is subject to variation, according
to the particular circumstances that may exist.

A considerable responsibility is incurred by those among whom a
lunatic is put to board, and in many instances the position of his
guardians is no sinecure. They are at once furnished by the adminis-
tration with a register, in which are recorded his name, age, sex, civil
state, and profession ; and in this register the physician, inspector, and
guard of the section have to enter their names every time they visit
the patient, with such notes as will constitute a kind of history of the
case and a financial account-current.

The nourricier has to answer for all the waste and damage his
patient may commit, and, together with the guard of the section, is
held responsible if he escapes ; and he is liable to punishment in case
he allows himself to commit any act of violence or hardship against
his ward. Only in case of extreme danger from a raving lunatic is
he permitted, in self-defense, to exercise restraint upon him. The
physician has the sole right to prescribe coercive measures. Like all
other institutions of the kind, Gheel has passed through a period when
measures and instruments of coercion were freely employed ; but they
are disused now, here as elsewhere.

Instances occasionally occur where the attendants use force toward
the insane, but they are made cases for discipline. It is to be ob-
served, with reference to this question, that each patient at Gheel has
not one or two only, but several thousand persons observing him. In

A FREE COLONY OF LUNATICS. 61

a close asylum, a very small number of guards are sufficient, witli the
aid of the high walls and gratings, to watch a relatively large number
of insane ; but there the patient is not watched by any except the
guards. While cases of maltreatment are rare, they nevertheless occur,
and have to be brought into the courts. But this is hardly possible
at Gheel ; here is a whole population directly or remotely interested
in seeing that the patients are well treated. The nourricier always
has rivals who would be eager to take advantage of any case of vio-
lence or brutality to denounce the culprit and have his license with-
drawn. Every inhabitant of Gheel is or can become acquainted with
all the members of the colony ; he knows where they live, and under-
stands the phases of their various affections, and has a sympathy for
them. Where else could be found so many guards and so Avell trained ?
But the number of guards of section is not in proj^ortion to the im-
portance and multiplicity of their duties, and it should be increased.
Four men are not enough to attend to all the details that fall under
their supervision ; and cases may occur, as has sometimes happened,
when they are all at once occupied, or absent, on special duty.

Once placed with his nourricier^ the patient enjoys considerable
liberty. If he is wealthy, or in easy circumstances, he does what he
pleases ; he may read, write, smoke, and work, according to his inclina-
tion ; the poorer patient, also, if he does not care to work, may pass
his time in his own way. But, except when an indigent patient is too
old to labor, or when physical infirmities forbid his exercising any
manual profession, the large majority of the patients at Gheel are em-
ployed in some way or another. Work, especially field-work, agrees
well with the insane. It gives them a salutary diversion. In a purely
physical view, it has always the advantage of strengthening their
muscles and promoting an energetic circulation of the blood ; but the
benefit in this case is perhaps more moral than physical. The propor-
tion of patients employed at Gheel varies according to the categories
of their affections, but may be averaged at about seventy-two per cent,
and is nearly equally made up of men and women. According to an
estimate furnished by Dr. Peeters, in a group of 390 maniacs are 178
men, only 30 of whom are idle ; the rest are at work as follow : 25 at
housekeeping, 110 in agriculture, and the rest as masons, fishermen,
brick-makers, draughtsmen, carriers, shoe-makers, joiners, or tailors.
Among the idiots, we find 182 employed, 84 unemployed ; among 62
melancholies, 44 engaged in some kind of work, and 18 not so engaged.
A considerable number of professions are represented among the insane
men, and those who desire to work at their regular business can do so.
With the women, while the number of professions is smaller, the num-
ber who are occupied in one way or another is more considerable than
among the men ; the majority of them assist in the housekeeping or
in taking care of the children ; many work in the fields ; a few carry
on a trade, lace-making, for instance.

62 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The capacity to do profitable work varies among the different
classes of patients. Idiots, according to Dr. Peeters, make efficient
laborers, unless their disease is too far advanced. To prevent abuse,
it is stipulated that the noxirricier shall not decide on his own resj^onsi-
bility whether his patient shall work or not ; that is determined by
medical permission or prescription. The patients are apt to work too
much. They become interested in the occupations of the family and
follow them to the fields, unless they are prohibited by the physician,
and are in this way often tempted to do the full day's work of a strong
man — sometimes, possibly, to their harm. The compensation they re-
ceive depends, of course, upon the Avork they do. Sometimes they
receive a small sum at the end of the week ; sometimes they are paid
in tobacco, eggs, beer, or articles of clothing. But the administration
takes care that they get something, either in the form of a present
or as regular pay.

The regulations of internal discipline imposed on the patients are
very simple. They can go out between eight o'clock in the morning
and four o'clock in the afternoon in the winter, and between six and
six in the summer, and at other hours by special permission. Only
quiet patients can resort to the inns, and it is forbidden to give spiritu-
ous liquors to any of them. If the patient does not desire to work,
he can indulge his taste for reading or art ; in pleasant weather he can
go to Gheel or walk in the country, alone or with a friend ; but he is
not allowed to travel on the railroad or to go away.

The question is in order of the effect of this liberty upon the per-
sonal security and the health and morality of the population of Gheel.

Suicides are very rare ; there has been only one since 1879 ; there
were three between 1875 and 1879, and others in 1850 and 1851. No
act of violence has been recorded since 1878. But such things have
occurred, as when, in 1844, the burgomaster, who was also a druggist,
was assassinated by an insane herbalist, who imagined him his rival
in trade. Dr. Peeters can recall only three cases of crime in a very
long time. The personal security of the lunatics is sometimes com-
promised by the dealers selling them liquors. The fact is always a
grave one, for it implies a deficiency in the surveillance. We have
already said that four guards of section are not enough. More are
needed, to watch those who have their senses, as Avell as those who
have lost them. In this way only can some of the objectionable feat-
ures inherent in the mode of life carried out at Gheel be eliminated.
Escapes are by no means rare. Sixty-six cases occurred in the six
years, 1876-1881, or an average of about nine a year. Whenever a
patient betrays an inclination to run away, instead of being subjected
to measures of coercion, he is usually sent to a close asylum. It is a
fact worthy of remark that, in nine cases out of ten, attempts at escape
take plaf'c on Sunday. This is usually because the ■nourriciers go off
and amuse themselves on that day, and leave their patient to take care

A FREE COLONY OF LUNATICS. 63

of himself ; when, with nothing to do, or with which to occupy his
mind, and in his timidity and strangeness, the idea of escape is apt to
take possession of him. The remedy for this is simple : the patient
has shared the occupations of the family during the week, now let him
share their diversions. Although Gheel is not a place of dissipation,
there is no lack of diversions there ; and there is no reason why the
lunatic, being invited to participate in them along with the others,
should not be made to feel at home in the colony, and become attached
to it,

A doctor of laws, who had had several attacks of insanity, and had
passed sixteen months in a close asylum, came to Gheel in 1871. His
host took pains to procure diversions for him, and frequently engaged
him to assist in the concerts of the musical circle of the town. He
took great pleasure in this recreation, so that, in 1872, when he was
cured and at liberty to go away, he chose to stay in Gheel with his
musical circle ; and nothing but an official appointment in another city
could induce him to leave the place where he had had so much enjoy-
ment. The Harmonic Society was founded near the beginning of this
century by a lunatic named Colbert, a musical artist, with another in-
sane musician and a friendly amateur, and has Colbert's portrait in its
hall.

A few unpleasant features, from the moral point of view, are pro-
duced through the constant intermingling of the insane with the
normal-minded population. There have been half a dozen cases of
pregnancy among the insane within fifty years ; two of them since
1880. Some of the patients also will occasionally manifest their pas-
sions in an obscene manner ; but, whenever they do so, they are sent
to a close establishment as soon as possible, and are in the mean time
confined in the infirmary. Generally, however, so careful discrimina-
tion is exercised in sending patients to Gheel, that it is rare to find
among them any who are dangerous to public morality. It has long
been usual for persons to come to Gheel for a temporary sojourn ; and
these are mostly deranged. They are not under the control of the
administration, which has no right to interfere with them, except in
case of scandal or danger ; and they come and go without surveillance.
Many of them, according to Dr. Peeters, may be regarded as danger-
ous, and likely to abuse their liberty ; and the doctor cites some par-
ticular instances to prove his position. These are the persons who
commit most of the immoral acts, and it would be wrong to hold the
colony responsible for their misdeeds. The value of the system pur-
sued at Gheel can not be justly estimated by the proportion of cures
obtained. The colony makes no pretense to be a substitute for the
close asylums. The administration, agreeing with alienist experts,
recognizes that there are some forms of insanity for which the close
asylum is the only possible resort. Therefore, only certain classes can
be sent to Gheel, and among these the number regarded as curable

64 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

is very limited. In fact, the Belgian asylums send their incurables
here so far as they can ; and of the wliole number of patients cared
for, seventy-eight per cent are classed as incurable. The system works
unfavorably for the colony relatively in a double way — by diminish-
ing the number of failures to cure in the close asylums, and by corre-
spondingly increasing the number at Gheel. Undoubtedly, the regime
at Gheel is favorable even to incurables, but it is more so to curable
cases, and it is to be regretted that the colony is not put in a position
to make a more obvious proof of it. The proportion of deaths is
raised in appearance by the same cause. From 18G0 to 1875, the pro-
portion of deaths varied from five to ten per cent, rising to the latter
figure only twice. Such proportions are not, however, exaggerated,
and, if we consider the hopeless character of the disease of the majority
of the patients, we shall find that Gheel, if it can not heal incurables,
keeps them in life and health for many years.

The insane population has recently increased very fast. In 1840
there were 717 patients ; in 1855, 778 ; in 1866, 1,035 ; in 1872, 1,118 ;
in 1879, 1,383 ; in 1883, 1,663. The increase is partly owing to the
growing willingness of the people to receive patients, and partly to
the improved administrative and medical service, which makes it more
obvious that, with their liberty, persons sent there will not be uncared
for. As to nationality, most of the patients are Belgians ; after whom
come Dutch, a few French, and fewer Germans and English. Among
the cases are some who have passed most of their lives at Gheel. One
is recorded as having died after a residence of fifty years ; another
stayed there fifty-two years ; and residences of from forty to fifty
years are not rare.

In what does this family treatment consist ? The lunatic is taken
from his habitual environment, from the society of those among whom
he fell ill. They exist for him only in memory ; they are not there
to remind him continually of a melancholy subject, and to keep up the
current of ideas in which he is involved. A new life is opened before
him, Avith new faces, in a new country ; everything is a subject of
distraction to him ; and, on the other hand, he has not the continual
feeling that he is in a close asylum, with a door he can not pass through,
and a wall over which he can not look. He is not in perpetual con-
tact with lunatics, and is not subjected to a depressing influence. He
enjoys the privilege of physical activity, and of life in the open air
with sound-minded people, who are all the time diverting him from
his preoccupations. He has even little children asking him to amuse
them, and winning his attention, in spite of himself, perhaps, from
himself. He is part of the family ; they become attached to him, and
he becomes attached to them. No one laughs at him, no one mocks
him, he is never the object of any kind of demonstration, but all take
him for what he is, an innocent. That is the family treatment at
Gheel — isolation without solitude.

A FREE COLONY OF LUNATICS. 65

We add a few notes of our own visit to Gheel, which we made on
two days in the spring of 1883. "NVe arrived there, by railway, in the
same train with a mother who was bringing her idiot son — a lusty
youth, twenty years old — to leave him there. We found a town with
wide streets, not entirely regular, and poorly paved, with few people
out. The houses, two or three stories high, appeared well kept, with
glistening window-panes and brightly polished door-knobs. Passing
the grand square, near the church, we met a man about sixty years
old, walking slowly along, with a baby in his arms which he was try-
ing to entertain with a most discordant song. He was a patient, taking
care for an hour or two of his host's child. He performed his duty
faithfully and diligently, bidding good-morning to such persons as he
knew, and exchanging a few words with them.

A few steps more brought us to the wide, tree-bordered avenue on
which the infirmary is situated. The building is a handsome structure
of brick and stone. We sought out Dr. Peeters, and after a few mo-
ments of conversation were authorized to visit the institution, and then,
in company with a guard of section, to inspect the city and some of the
houses where insane are entertained. The infirmary was throughout a
model of Flemish neatness, with well-scoured floors and flagging,
bright kitchens, and abundance of air and light. The sick-wards are
in front. We paid a rapid visit to the women's quarter. Some were
in the dormitory, some walking in the halls. Among the former, some
of the more seriously affected ones were plaintively muttering words
that we could not catch, others were grieving over the persecutions of
which they imagined themselves the objects ; another, of pleasant
appearance, and fluent in conversation, answered all of our questions
with suavity. She was delighted to receive our visit ; the only thing
about it that troubled her was to see our head some sixty feet above
our body, and she could not but be surprised at it. She was well
treated, and desired nothing better than her present condition. Thence
we went into the garden, where we found two sisters, both hysteric,
waiting their transfer to a close asylum. One had a dangerous pro-
pensity to homicide, and the other was subject to a depravity of man-
ners that made it improper for her to be at large.

Our first visit, in company with a guard, to the boarding-houses,
was at the comfortable dwelling of a well-bred lady, who was enter-
taining an Englishman and a Pole. We found the Englishman in his
room, a bright and spacious apartment, sitting on a sofa, with his head
between his hands. Our efforts to engage him in conversation, even
in his own language, were vain. He answered sulkily, and ended by
muttering that he was tired of us. Just as we were going out, the
other patient came in, returning from a visit to a friend. He was a
Polish prince, bearing a great historical name, but suffering from weak-
ness of mind and occasional delirious fancies that he was an object of
persecution. He was a man of excellent education, with the experi-

VOL. XXTIII. — 5

66 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ence and manners of a man of the world, of fine build and well dressed.
He paid the honors of the house to us with the greatest politeness, and
declared that he was well satisfied to be at Gheel, saying, " I am a
little deranged, and the quiet of the place does me a great deal of
good," He had not the least desire in the world to go away. His
wife had been there a short time before to take him to the sea-shore
for a little while, but he would not go. It was not still enough there,
and the life of the world would worry him.

On the road we met another lunatic, whose monomania was to go
every day to the railway-station for a case of wine that he was expect-
ing. It had never come, but the porter would always answer his ques-
tions hopefully, and he would go away satisfied, to repeat his errand
the next day. Walking is one of the man's principal diversions.

We next visited the home of a peasant who had the care of two
indigent insane women. One of them was sitting near the stove,
much depressed, and silently weeping. The children of her hostess
were playing at her feet, while the mother was attending to her house-
hold duties. The other woman was assisting the mistress of the house.
Going out, we met a portly, dignified gentleman, who imagined him-
self to be a general. He entered into conversation with us. " Don't
you know, Gheel is a very pleasant place ? There is plenty of society
here, and very enjoyable. Yes, it is good to be here. The air is pure
and the life is quiet. I love it ! " This man was sent here, several
years ago, alone and unattended. The story goes that on reaching
some city on the way, the police asked to see his papers. The " gen-
eral " showed the certificate of insanity, which the physician who sent
him to Gheel had given him, and the order for his admission to the
colony. The gend^arme was not satisfied with these papers, which
did not correspond with his routine, and asked for others. The "gen-
eral" answered, with dignity: "I am mad; you see that from my
papers. They have sent me to Gheel ; let me alone, and I will go on ! "
He was at last allowed to proceed. He looks upon Gheel as a town
where numbers of people come to take board to calm their nerves, and
declares that the idea is an excellent one. Farther on we met two
French lunatics. One, from Saint-Brieuc, had found things so com-
fortable at Gheel, that, having been restored to his family after get-
ting better, he became discontented, and came back all alone, to join
the colony again. The other one was a musical amateur who regu-
larly attended all the concerts. The next case was a little woman
about forty years old, a fluent and proper conversationist, who lived
in constant expectation of her lover, who was to marry her as soon as
he came, but that would not be till a railroad was built direct from
his village to Gheel. She seemed to bear herself very cheerfully in
her waiting. She had been discarded by her lover.

We next saw an English architect and water-color painter, who
bad been ruined by American whisky. He complained of being

A FREE COLONY OF LUNATICS. 67

watched, domineered over, persecuted, and shut up, and asked me for
a consultation respecting a host of imaginary ills with which he be-
lieved he was afflicted, and which the medical inspector could not cure.
When we asked him how he passed his time, he showed us a portfolio
of exceedingly well-executed water-color views of landscapes of the
region, of wonderful perspective and remarkably good shading, and
which he held at a very high price. He would often go many leagues
to find a new view or to draw one, in odd contradiction to the com-
plaints he made about restrictions to w^hich he was subjected. He
was also writing a great book, " a work of real genius " he called it,
against monarchical government and in favor of the republic. A lady
from Antwerp, deranged in consequence of some domestic troubles,
who was domiciled in a commodious, cheerful, and well-kept house,
talked on the afflictions of women, the thousand ways men had of
tormenting them, the troubles of life, and the blessing of death, and
repeated continually, " We must be resigned, we must live in hope."
She nevertheless had a cheerful air and a pleasant and smiling face.
Most of our second day at the colony was spent at Oosterloo, one of
the most distant of the villages at which patients are taken. Our first
call was upon a former " utility-man " of some theatre. We found
him alone, in one of the back rooms, churning. He stopped when he
saw us, greeted us, and performed the honors of the house. He had a
plainly accentuated fancy that he was an object of persecution, and
was under restraint. Yet nothing was easier than for him to go out
and try to escape. There was nobody else in the house, and no one
in the country would be surprised to see him walking around Gheel.
His talk turned on the wonderful successes he had enjoyed in the
theatre, and the malicious rivalries of his comrades who had put him
down. At other houses we found a young man whose disease took
the form of frequent explosions of laughter ; one who was expecting
to rejoin his sweetheart who had jilted him ; old men in the kitchen
sorting potatoes ; and an old man who had a stock of wonderful
stories, and boasted much of the marvelous cures he had performed
of various diseases.

Our last call was at Gheel again, on a captain of artillery, who in
answer to our greeting replied : "I am not here — only my body is on
the earth ; my soul has been in heaven, in the company of the blessed,
for twenty-nine months and three days." Then, turning to ray wife,
" You appear, madam, in the likeness of the corpse of an aunt whom
I lost a long time ago, but whose soul I meet in heaven ; her earthly
body was like yours." We remained for some time with this man,
who spoke on other subjects with a fluency that reminded us of a well-
oiled steam-engine going under high pressure. He had curious theo-
ries about death, prayer, and many analogous subjects. He declared
that the Protestants and the Jews were sure of eternal flames, and con-
demned to the same punishment numerous other persons, beginning

68 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

with his hostess, whom he accused of the most abominable outrages,
among them of pouring melted lead into his head ; while the woman
listened to his vagaries with a smiling and motherly calmness. The
poor man had become deranged after losing his wife, about ten years
before.

The houses in which these patients were domiciled were all, even
the most humble ones, of comfortable capacity, light, airy, cheerful,
and well kept. Our general impression was that in some cases larger
or better-ventilated rooms might be desired for the indigent patients,
but that there was a general tendency toward improvement ; and that
this will come in time, by the force of circumstances, without its be-
ing necessary to make special new regulations. The clothing of the
patients appeared suflScient and suitable ; and their food was evidently
nothing else than the food of the family. It would be exaggeration
to say that perfection has been reached at Gheel, or that the medical
organization and surveillance are all that they should be. Criticism
is not out of place there, and there is room for reform. That very
great improvements have been made during the last thirty years may
be attested by reviewing the debates that have taken place in the
Belgian Chambers, since 1850, concerning the condition of the colony.
In one of the later discussions, M. Vleminckx said — and his remarks
apply to the present condition : " Can any one mention an establish-
ment that combines all the advantages to be found at Gheel ? There
is none such, and there can not be, for it is not enough to say, we
will go somewhere and get so many acres and establish a new colony.
No, no, more is needed than that. To make a colony like that of
Gheel, we must have inhabitants like those of that place, who will not
object to living a family life with lunatics, and who have accus-
tomed themselves to such a life from generation to generation for
hundreds of years."

Dr. Peeters, who is thoroughly acquainted with the colony and its
needs, decslare that no fundamental modifications are required. The
system has worked for several centuries without trouble ; and only
minute improvements are wanted here and there in the machine as a
whole. The most important matter is to increase the number of
guards, who would now be wholly insufficient in case of any emer-
gency. The medical service also should be assured a sufficient com-
pensation to justify the doctors in giving up everything else, to devote
themselves wholly to their duties here.

The principle that rules at Gheel is certainly more humane than
any that prevails in close asylums, but it is applicable only to particu-
lar forms of mental alienation. Provided the patients to be sent there
are judiciously selected, the possible inconveniences and abuses of the
family regime are a small matter compared with the advantages
which the lunatics may derive from it. Possibly some of the existing
little abuses will never wholly disappear ; but do not and will not such

THE ART OF INVESTING. 69

abuses exist everywhere ? What great wrongs can exist there, in a
colony exposed to all eyes, where ten thousand inhabitants are directly
or indirectly interested in its good reputation ? The colony has been
dcTeloping for centuries. Let the modifications in detail suggested
by science, by experience, by the desire to increase the safety and
comfort of the patients, be applied to it. Nothing can be better or
more humane than that ; but such improvements need not touch the
principle of family treatment. — Translated for the Popular Science
Monthly from the Bevue des Deux Mondes.

THE AET OF IXVESTIXG.

Br JOHN r. HUME.

" ~1 TOW can I invest my money to make it pay a fair interest, and
-d at the same time insure its safety ? " is a question daily asked
by thousands. With the multiplication, consequent upon the growth
of wealth among us, of that class of persons who Avant to live by their
means, without care or labor, the number of anxious inquirers on that
point is constantly increasing. It would seem, when reference is had
to the many securities, both bonds and shares, that are offered, often
at temptingly low prices, to be a question very easily answered. The
truth is, there is none more difficult. The ordinary investor who goes
about the work of converting his cash into paper combining the two
elements of value spoken of, finding himself hopelessly embarrassed
by the seeming richness of the market, soon gives up in despair, and
turns the job over to some banker or broker who works for a com-
mission. Experience shows that even then he is too often the victim
of defective judgment or misplaced confidence.

A history of investment securities would furnish a most interesting
study. In no other department of business have there been greater
changes. The time has been, within the memory of many now living,
when the man who had money to put at usury, generally loaned on
personal indorsement, the borrower relying on his neighbor or other
good friend to "back" his paper for him. The mortgage on real
estate, of course, was known ; but, owing to the short intervals for
which loans were usually made, was not often resorted to. The shares
of banking, turnpike, canal, railway and other incorporated companies
after a while began to absorb the money of people who wanted to
realize more than current rates of interest, and were willing to take
corresponding risks.

The war of the rebellion popularized the coupon bond, in conse-
quence of its adoption by the Government, and made it the favorite
form of investment paper. Railroad and other corporations lost no

JO THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

time in availing themselves of the confidence which that species of de-
benture inspired, and States, cities, counties, etc., were soon flooding the
country with obligations carrying long coupon attachments. Except
for government and municipal uses, there never was a more disastrous
invention. It has been the means of numberless deceptions, and has
inflicted heavier losses upon the investing public than all other devices
combined. Being supplemental to stock certificates, it has duplicated
representatives of the same values and led to excessive issues of paper ;
it has separated capitalists from the management of properties into
which their moneys have gone ; and, being based upon mortgages
promising absolute security, it has too often accomplished the grossest
deception. Many a man has purchased and paid a good price for a
mortgage coupon bond, giving him no control over his security, who
would have rejected a share-certificate standing for an equal interest
in the property pledged, and giving him the right to participate in its
management, with the possibility of a greater return for his money.

Under the careless legislation of many of the States, which has
permitted corporations to decide for themselves the amounts of obli-
gations they might put out, it is no wonder that the privilege has been
abused, and the making of shares and bonds, the latter represented to
be amply secured by mortgage liens, has been carried to criminal ex-
cess. One illustration will suffice. The Arkansas Central Railroad
Company (the name indicates the locality) built only forty-eight miles
of its projected line. The road was of narrow gauge, with very
light iron, and in every way cheaply constructed. It cost less than
ten thousand dollars per mile, including equipment. As with most
companies building railways in new countries, help in its behalf was
asked from the communities to be benefited, and bonds amounting
to nearly half a million dollars were given it by counties, cities, etc.
Under a statute providing for aid to railroads when their beds could
be utilized for levee purposes, the company got $160,000 of State
bonds. Under another statute, it got, as a loan from the State, its
bonds to the amount of 81,350,000, which were to be a first lien upon
the property. After such abundant assistance, it would have seemed
hardly necessary for the company to put out obligations of its own.
However, it proceeded to issue and market its own bonds to the
amount of $2,500,000, of which $1,200,000 purported to be secured
by first mortgage, which was not the case. In addition, a considerable
amount of stock certificates was issued. Altogether, nearly $5,000,000
of paper were put out and negotiated on the basis of forty-eight miles
of narrow-gauge road. But this proved to be insufficient. The road,
for non-payment of interest, soon passed into the hands of a receiver,
who found it in such an unfinished state that, with the court's permis-
sion, he issued a considerable amount of his own certificates to provide
for necessary repairs and betterments. Then the road — the product of
so much outlay — was sold at public auction, and brought the mag-

THE ART OF INVESTING. 71

nificent sum of 840,000, which was paid, not in cash, but in receiver's
certificates that had been purchased at a large discount !

That the foregoing case was not a solitary one, nor so exceptionally
bad, might be inferred from the fact that the president of the railroad
company, who managed its business, and was understood to be its
principal beneficiary, was afterward elevated to the United States Sen-
ate, and is said to have been offered a seat in the Cabinet of one of
our Presidents.

The business referred to has not been confined to railroads. "We
now have stocks and bonds upon the market representing nearly all
conceivable kinds of property — telegraphs, telephones, mines, cattle-
ranches, grain and grass farms, water-works, electric lights, factories
and mills of every description, steamboat lines, and apartment-houses.
There seems to be no limit to their production. There never was a
time when it was so easy to invest money — and to lose it. Of the
securities that are offered with first-class recommendations, it is prob-
able that about one third are actually good, one third have some
value, and one third are practically worthless.

For the condition of things described, the laws of our States, in
giving corporations almost limitless power to issue negotiable paper,
are, undoubtedly, very largely to blame. Our banks are closely
watched and restrained from taking people's money on false pretenses ;
but how much better is it for railway and other corporations to take
it by means of legalized fictitious evidences of value ? Banks are by
no means the only corporate institutions that need watching. One
of the reforms that would seem to be very much demanded is legis-
lation that will prevent companies existing by authority of law from
putting out debentures or scrip not represented by money actually
paid into their treasuries, or by proprietory interests whose value is to
be determined by disinterested parties. Pennsylvania has incorjDorated
substantially such a provision into her Constitution. Her example
should be followed by all other States.

For the losses they have sustained, investors, as a rule, have them-
selves chiefly to blame. The mistake made, in nine cases out of ten,
has been the purchase of cheap securities. The hope of realizing a
little more than ordinary interest, by buying paper at a discount, has
proved to be the rock on which unnumbered capitalists have split. In
addition to their money's worth, they have endeavored to get some-
thing for nothing, with the result, most generally, of getting nothing
for something. It is remarkable how blind are people, ordinarily saga-
cious enough to make money, to the fact that property can not pay a
revenue beyond its producing capacity. For instance, how can a rail-
road company, whose line is wholly or mainly built from the proceeds
of mortgage bonds, sell them at a heavy discount, besides allowing
large commissions for selling them, and then pay a high rate of interest
on their face ?

72 THE POPULAR SCIEXCE MONTHLY.

But for tlie losses referred to is there not too often somebody else to
blame ? The seller of investment securities is usually not the maker of
them, but a professional middle-man known as a broker. The extent
of his responsibility is a very interesting question. Is he justified in
assuming that caveat emptor is the rule that is to govern ; or is it in-
cumbent upon him to inform himself as to the true character of the
paper he offers, and give his customer the benefit of the knowledge he
acquires ? In other words, does he not, by virtue of the relation he
bears to the purchaser, which is ordinarily one of confidence, become,
morally at least, a sponsor for what he sells ? In view of the millions
of trash that have been unloaded upon the public as solid investments,
of the true character of which it would not have been difiicult for any
one making a business of handling paper to inform himself, it is hard
to reach any other conclusion than that there has been very great
laxity on the part of many who, under the plausible titles of banker
and broker, have made the selling of securities an occupation. It will
hardly suffice for them to say in defense that they sold the paper at
market prices. They should have known that the value of what they
sold bore a reasonable approximation to the price that was paid. If
they did not know it, and could not ascertain the fact, they had no
business to dispose of the property. Manifestly, a higher standard in
such matters should prevail, and the way to secure it is to hold those
who professionally market investment securities to a far more rigid
accountability than has heretofore been insisted on.

By what rule or rules is the investor now to govern himself ? No
formula can guarantee him absolute safety. One thing, however, he
can properly count upon, viz., that he must expect to pay a fair price
for a good security — one that will return him no more than a mod-
erate interest on his money. If he wants to speculate, and is willing
to take risks, that is another thing. He can then look for bargains.
But there is such a thing as going too far in the matter of prudence.
The investor may pay too dearly for safety. There are securities which,
compared with others that are to be had, sell at prices much above
their real value. The reason is that they are universally known to be
good both as to principal and interest ; but there are plenty of others,
that may be had at lower figures, which arc just as good. There is
no reason in the world why the investor should not get at par all the
paper he wants, that will yield him six per cent interest, and be as safe
as any property can be under human supervision. In making the
selection no more judgment is demanded than in purchasing lands
and cattle. Two very common and often fatal mistakes should
be avoided. One is in relying solely upon the advice of a broker.
By far the greatest number of losses to investors has been in securi-
ties purchased exclusively on the recommendations of interested com-
mission-men. While it is well to get the opinion of a reputable broker,
the purchaser should investigate and decide for himself. The other

CONCERNING CLOVER. 73

is in giving a preference to " listed " securities. Many persons seem
to think stocks and bonds must have a value if they are quoted at
some stock exchange. On the contrary, such a position is likely to
expose them to manipulation for purely speculative purposes. Stock-
exchange quotations, as a rule, are unsafe guides to buyers. Every
security must stand on its own merits, and purchasers have merely to
follow business principles as taught by the canons of common sense.

COITCERNING CLOYER.

Bt grant ALLEN.

EVERY group of organisms, every genus and every species of
plant or animal, has certain strong points which enable it to hold
its own in the struggle for existence against its competitors of every
kind. Most groups have also their weak points, which lay them open
to attack or extinction at the hands of their various enemies. And
these weak points are exactly the ones which give rise most of all to
further modifications. A species may be regarded in its normal state
as an equilibrium between structure and environing conditions. But the
equilibrium is never quite complete ; and the points of incompleteness
are just those where natural selection has a fair chance of establishing
still higher equilibrations. These are somewhat abstract statements
in their naked form : let us see how far definiteness and concreteness
can be given to them by applying them in detail to the case of a famil-
iar group of agricultural plants — the clovers.

To most people clover is the name of a single thing, or, at most, of
two things, purple clover and Dutch clover ; but to the botanist it is
the name of a vast group of little flowering plants, all closely resem-
bling one another in their main essentials, yet all differing infinitely
from one another in two or three strongly marked peculiarities of
minor importance, which nevertheless give them great distinctness of
habit and appearance. In England alone we have no less than twenty-
one recognized species of clover, of which at least seventeen are really
distinguished among themselves by true and unmistakable differences,
though the other four appear to me to be mere botanist's species, of
no genuine structural value. If we were to take in the whole world,
instead of England alone, the number of clovers must be increased to
several hundreds. The question for our present consideration, then, is
twofold : first, what gives the clovers, as a class, their great success in
the struggle for existence, as evidenced by their numerous species and
individuals ; and, secondly, what has caused them to break up into so
large a number of closely allied but divergent groups, each possessing

74 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

some special peculiarity of its own, which has insured for it an advan-
tage in certain situations over all its nearest congeners ?

Clover is, of course, by family, a pea-llower, one of the great group
of the Pcqnlionaceie, a tribe of the vast leguminous race. Now, every-
body knows the general appearance of the pea-blossom, a form of
flower which reappears throughout the whole group, in such different
plants as gorse, laburnum, peas, beans, vetches, wistaria, lupine, and
acacia ; and it is clearly this form of flower which gave the original
ancestor of the papilionaceous plants its main advantage in the strug-
gle for existence over almost all its compeers. In other respects, the
various members of the pea-flower tribe differ widely from one an-
other. Some of them are tall, woody trees, like the laburnum ; some
are bushy shrubs, like the broom ; some are low, creeping herbs, like
the clover ; and some are lithe, trailing climbers, like the pea and the
scarlet-runner. So again with their foliage : some have hard, spiky
leaves, like furze ; some have regular trefoils, like medic ; some have
long sprays of many leaflets, like the sainfoin ; and some have clinging
tendrils, like the peas and vetches. Once more, in the pod and seed
there are infinite varieties of shape, size, and arrangement, as one may
see by comparing peas with horse-beans, or the short, hairy pod of
gorse with the long, smooth capsule of the vetch, the inflated globe of
the bladder senna, and the twisted, snail-like spiral of the medic. In
fact, there is hardly a single particular in w^hich the papilionaceous
plants do not differ from one another immensely, except only their pe-
culiar flower. Clearly, then, it is the flower almost alone which has
given them their fair start in the struggle for life. I say almost — not
quite — alone, because, as we shall see hereafter, they owe much also to
their relatively large and richly stored seeds. In this one point they
early reached a state of equilibrium ; in other points, they went on
varying and adapting themselves to an infinite variety of external cir-
cumstances.

Though it is not my intention to deal at any length here with any
of the papilionaceous tribe except the clovers, a few words must first
be premised about this peculiar and successful type of flower. It con-
sists, like most other blossoms of the dicotyledonous race, of flve petals,
inclosing ten stamens, and with a single ovary, or embryo pod, in its
very center. But anybody who has ever looked at a pea-blossom
knows very well that it is not regular and radially symmetrical like a
dog-rose ; it has its parts bilaterally arranged, so that an insect light-
ing upon the flower in search of honey necessarily brushes his breast
against the stamens and pistil, and therefore cross-fertilizes the em-
bryo y)ods by carrying pollen from one blossom to the sensitive sur-
face of the next. The five petals have undergone special modification
so as to suit this special mode of impregnation. The upper petal,
known as the standard, is usually broad and expanded, serving as an
advertisement to attract insects ; and in many advanced species it is

CONCERNING CLOVER. 75

variegated with convergent lines of different colors, which guide the
bee toward the exact spot where the nectaries are engaged in elabo-
rating honey for his benefit. The two next in order, called the wings,
are generally shorter and smaller, and in most advanced types they
possess two little indentations, one on each side, specially adapted to
afford a foothold for the legs of the visiting bee, in the exact position
that will enable him at once to reach the honey and to brush off the
pollen against the sensitive surface. The two lowest petals of all are
usually united by their under edge, so as to form a single organ,
known as the keel, and closely inclosing the stamens and pistil. As a
rule, too, all ten stamens are united into a single tube or sheath ; or
else the nine lower ones are so united, while the upper one is free. In
spite of the general uniformity of floral type, however, many special
modes of insect fertilization prevail among the various pea-flowers.
Sometimes the blossom bursts open elastically when the bee lights
upon it, dusting him all over with the ripe pollen ; sometimes a small
quantity is pumped out from the sharpened point of the keel by the
weight of the insect's body ; sometimes the pollen is dejDOsited from
his breast on the spirally curled summit of the pistil ; sometimes it is
swept off by a little brush of hairs, situated close beside the sensitive
surface of the embryo pod. All that it is here necessary to bear in
mind, however, is the general fact that the papilionaceous tyj^e of
flower has gained its present high position as a dominant floral pattern
by its beautiful and varied adaptation to insect fertilization.

Such being the general nature of the pea-flowers as a M'hole, we
have next to inquire what are the special peculiarities which have en-
abled the clovers in particular to fill their peculiar niche in the exist-
ing economy of Nature. Clearly, the positions which clovers are
adapted to adorn are not the high places in the hierarchy of vegetal
life. They are not tall forest-trees or bushy shrubs ; they are not long,
creeping trailers or climbers ; they are herbs of low and procumbent
character, best fitted for filling up the interspaces of taller vegetation,
and for vying with the grasses as elements of the close, tender, deli-
cate greensward. The points which have enabled them to survive,
therefore, are just those which allow a plant to thrive under such spe-
cial conditions ; and we must ask briefly what those points may be be-
fore we proceed to consider the specific characteristics of the various
individual clovers.

In foliage the clovers are distinguished by their graceful trefoil
leaves which are an adaptation of the typical papilionaceous pattern
to the special necessities of their humble situation. For the common
form of pea-leaf consists of a long leaf -stalk, with one terminal leaflet,
and with several pairs of lateral leaflets, arranged opposite each other
along a central line. In the clovers, however, and in most other small
field forms of papilionaceous plants, only one pair of lateral leaflets is
developed ; and this arrangement allows the leaf -stalk to be elevated

76 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

among the surrounding grasses in sucli a way as to get freely at the
sun and air, which are necessary for the nutrition of the plant. But
the chief peculiarity of the clovers is the arrangement of their flowers
in dense heads. Instead of the blossoms growing separately or in
pairs, as with most peas and vetches, or in long, loose bunches, as with
laburnum and sainfoin, the flowers of the clovers, much reduced in
size, are crowded into compact little bundles, for the most part at
the end of a long stalk. What we ordinarily call the flower of a pur-
ple clover is, in fact, such a head of clustered flowers. This dense
clustering of the flowers makes them, though individually small, very
conspicuous in the mass to bees and other insects, and so largely in-
creases their chance of cross-fertilization. For the same purpose they
usually secrete abundant honey, and they possess in many cases the
familiar fragrant clover perfume. Moreover, in most though not in
all species the bases of the five petals have grown together into a
narrow tube, inclosing the honey ; and in the common purple clover
this tube is so deep that no British insect except the humble-bee has
a proboscis long enough to reach the nectaries. Such peculiarities
are quite sufticient to give the clovers an immense advantage in the
struggle for existence ; and it is not surprising that they should have
become exceptionally numerous in species and individuals, even among
the richly endowed and dominant papilionaceous family.

Every race, however, has its weak as well as its strong points ;
and the weak point of the highly successful clovers lies in the unpro-
tected position of their seeds and pods. Hence, in accordance with
the general principles above laid down, it is in these particulars that
we might expect to find the various species differ most from one
another, since this is just the part on which natural selection of favor-
able varieties is most likely to be exerted. As in the papilionaceous
family as a whole, the flower is the organ which remains almost identi-
cal throughout, because it is the organ which gives the family its true
importance ; so in the restricted clover group the trefoil leaflets and
the clustered heads of flowers remain almost identical throughout, and
for the like reason. But in any classification of the various species of
clover, it will be seen by anybody who looks into the matter that all
the distinctive characters are drawn from differences in the pod and
calyx after flowering, because this is the weak point of the genus, and
the one in which alone diversities of habit have been likely to arise
and to be perpetuated by survival of the fittest. The other organs
have long since reached their equilibrium ; these organs alone remain
in need of further equilibration.

And why is the pod a weak point ? For this reason. The seeds
of clover, though small, are very richly stored with starches and other
food-stuffs for the growth of the young plant. Such richness is, of
course, in itself an advantage to the race, because it allows the seed-
lings to start well equipped on the path of life, with some accumulated

COXCERNING CLOVER. yj

capital handed on to them by the mother-plant. But what will feed a
seedling will feed an animal as well ; and it is just these rich little
beans in the clover-pod which give it all its dangerous value as a fodder
for cattle. Hence, in the wild state those clovers which have their
seeds least protected are most likely to be eaten off and killed down
by birds or animals, while those which have them most protected are
most likely to survive and become the parents of future generations.
Here, then, we have the basis upon which natural selection can act in
differentiating the primitive ancestral clover into various divergent
species. Whatever accidental variation happens to give any particu-
lar clover protection for its seeds in any special habitat will certainly
be preserved and increased, while all opposite variations will be cut off
and demolished at once. So far as their foliage and their flowers are
concerned, the clovers as a body are practically in a state of stable
eqiiilibrium ; so far as their fruit and seeds are concerned, they are
still undergoing modification by natural selection.

Clearly to illustrate this fundamental point, let us first look at some
neighboring and closely allied plants, which are not exactly clovers,
but which resemble them in almost all important particulars. These
also show the same devices for specially protecting their seeds and
pods from birds or animals. Take, for example, the genus of the
medics. These are mostly small greensward plants, with trefoil leaf-
lets like the clovers, but with the flowers in rather tall, one-sided spikes
or loose bunches. Their pods are usually long and many-seeded, but
they have this curious peculiarity, that instead of growing straight
like that of a pea or bean, they coil up spirally like a snail-shell. When
ripe they fall off the plant entire, and thus defeat the hopes of birds
and other creatures which wait patiently for the opening of the pods.
The simpler medics, such as the agricultural lucern, have smooth,
spiral pods alone, and therefore they can be employed successfully as
fodder for cattle. But this, which proves an advantage from the point
of view of the farmer, is naturally a disadvantage from the point of
view of the plant in a wild state, because it insures the seeds being
eaten ; and hence the more developed and weedy medics have ac-
quired stout protective prickles, fringing their globular spirals, and
making them very distasteful morsels to cows or horses. We have
two such prickly medics in England, one closely coiled and rolled
round like a ball, and thickly set with curved hooks ; the other loose
like a corkscrew, with two rows of sharp bristles at the adjacent edges ;
and both these, as I learn from farmers, are extremely objectionable
weeds in meadows, rendering the hay almost uneatable. Indeed, I am
assured that cattle will never touch even fresh meadow-grass contain-
ing them except when absolutely driven by hunger. It is noteworthy
that our two doubtfully native smooth medics (hicern and nonesuch)
both grow naturally in rough, dry places, and are only largely found
as " artificial grasses " — that is to say, were introduced and maintained

78 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

by human agency ; while our two more truly wild species are meadow
and pasture weeds, and are therefore amply protected by prickles
against herbivorous animals. Again, bird's-foot trefoil, whose pretty
yellow flowers form such ornaments to our sunny banks in summer,
has a long, hard, dry pod, too stringy to be edible, and filled with pith
between the beans ; while lady's-fingers, a somewhat similar type, has
an inflated hairy calyx completely inclosing the short pod in its pro-
tective and inedible capsule. Strangest of all, however, is the small,
matted bird's-foot, whose pod never opens to shed the seeds, but di-
vides between them into little joints or " articles," each inclosing a
single bean, and so cheating the expectant birds of their promised
food. These examples, which might be multiplied ihdefinitely, will
sufiiciently serve to show the importance of protection for the seeds as
a basis of differentiation among the papilionaceous flowers.

With the restricted tribe of clovers the need for such protection
has almost alone produced all the species into which the genus has
long since split up. Originally, of course, we must suppose that there
existed one united type of ancestral clover, differing from the other
papilionaceous plants in the points which now distinguish the whole
clover genus, but possessing none of the special distinctive marks
which specifically divide one kind of clover from another. This
hypothetical ancestor had probably rather large, purplish flowers,
collected in compact heads on a common foot-stalk, with the five
petals separate, and with a small three or four-seeded pod completely
inclosed within the faded brown petals. From some such form the
existing clovers have sprung by differentiations almost entirely
affecting the pods and seeds, though they have also varied a little in
color, according to the individual tastes of their particular insect
visitors, as well as in the degree of union effected between their
petals. Without going beyond the limits of our own native clovers,
we will look first at those types in which the arrangement of the pod
is simplest, and then pass on gradually to those in which it is more
and more complex, till we arrive at last at that most marvelous Eng-
lish species which actually buries its own pods entire in the ground
by a wonderful scries of apparently purposive movements and gyra-
tions.

Our common English purple clover (for convenience' sake I
adopt throughout Mr. Bentham's vernacular names) may be taken as
a good specimen of the simpler and less-protected kinds. The mere
fact that it is grown extensively for fodder shows that it has no deter-
rent prickles or bristles to ward off the attacks of herbivorous ani-
mals ; and indeed, throughout the clover group, it may be noted that
birds and insects, rather than large mammals, seem to be the enemies
especially guarded against by the majority of plants. Purple clover
is a perennial, with long, hairy stems, the hairs serving to prevent ants
from creeping up to the blossoms and uselessly rifling the honey

CONCERNING CLOVER. 79

intended to attract the fertilizing bees. The young flower-heads are
also inclosed in two papery wings or stipules, which effectually pro-
tect them from injury before they open. The petals are united into
a very long tube, accessible only (as before noted) to the humble-bee ;
and in New Zealand, where our European humble-bee is unknown, it
has been found necessary to import several nestfuls, in order to make
the acclimatized clover set its seed for agricultural purposes. But
the devices for the protection of the pod are here comparatively slight.
Each pod contains, as a rule, only a single seed, and it is externally
guarded simply by the wire-like calyx-teeth, which are long, thin, and
awl-shaped, and fringed on either side by a row of thick-set hairs.
The two lowest are longer than the others, apparently as a protection
against crawling insects. After flowering, the petals remain upon the
heads, turn brown, and inclose the ripening pod. These brown heads
of overblown flowers have such a dead, withered appearance that they
seem sufiiciently to deceive all intending depredators. As a whole,
the species seems to survive mainly because of its protected young
flower-heads, its special attractions for fertilization, and its habit of
inclosing the pods in the dry petal-tube. It should be noticed, how-
ever, that, though artificially propagated in meadows and pastures, it
would not probably be a very successful plant if left entirely to its
own devices. Man has intervened to give it his powerful aid by sow-
ing its seed, and by fencing it off from cattle, so that it has now be-
come, in spite of itself, one of our most abundant and ubiquitous
clovers.

Next in order we may take a series of small, wild, purplish clovers,
closely allied to this cultivated type, but more specially adapted for
protection against animal foes. Of these the little knotted clover,
which grows in our dry pastures and banks, is an excellent simple
example. It is a small, tufted annual, often growing in very closely
cropped, sheep-eaten crofts, and therefore with an acquired habit of
creeping close to the ground, and spreading its foliage flat against the
earth. Its calyx-teeth are short and almost prickly, and its little knot-
ted heads grow so close in the angles of the leaves that even a sheep
has hard work to bite them off with his nipping front teeth. The
rough clover is another of these dwarf creepers, much like knotted
clover in general appearance, but even more prostrate, and with its
flower-heads still more closely wrapped up in the angles of the leaves,
whose wings or stipules almost completely inclose them. The great-
est difference, however, resides in the calyx, whose teeth here, after
flowering, become broader and stiffer, curve backward, and give the
whole plant a stringy, dry, innutritions look. This species or variety
also grows mostly on sheep-bitten banks, and manages wonderfully to
set its seed in spite of the manifold dangers to which it is exposed.
Boccone's clover, confined in Britain to the Lizard Promontory in
Cornwall, is a larger southern form of the same central type, closely

8o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

allied to the knotted clover. It grows much taller, but has an
equally forbidding type of pods ; and I notice in Southern France,
where it is very abundant, that the dry stalks and oblong heads of
fruit are always left uncropped on bare banks and road-sides where
goats and sheep have been browsing — a fact which clearly shows that
even those omnivorous grazers consider it an unpalatable morsel.

To the same group, I think, but in a more developed degree, be-
long three or four other British species, whose protections are some-
what less easy to understand. Of these, clustered clover appears like
a still higher type of rough clover. It is a slender, creeping annual,
with very small, globular flower-heads, almost buried in the angles of
the stem and leaves ; and it has short, broad calyx-teeth, rigidly curved
backward after flowering, and with hard, sharp points. This, I take
it, is a protection against browsing animals. The sea clover, on the
other hand, seems rather to guard against birds or insects. In the
flowering state, it looks almost exactly like a small purple clover ;
but as the seeds ripen it assumes a very different aspect. First of all,
the calyx-teeth grow out into rather broad green leaves, so that the
whole head looks more like a mass of foliage than a bunch of ripening
fruit. The lower tooth, especially, becomes very long and leaf-like ;
and it may be remarked that, as a rule, the two lower teeth in clovers
differ more or less conspicuously from the upper ones, pointing appar-
ently to some special danger of attack from below. As the pod slowly
ripens, two lips grow out on either side of the calyx, and finally meet
on the top of the pod, so as to hermetically seal it, leaving only a
tightly closed aperture in the very middle. Thus the calyx has, as it
were, a false bottom, appearing to be empty when it is not really so,
and by this means deceiving would-be intruders. It must be noticed,
however, that such a deceptive device would be useless against a her-
bivorous animal, which could crop off the entire head ; it would only
serve against birds or insects, which might pick out the seeds one by
one. That it does effectually protect the tiny beans is certain, for in
no case will you find a calyx without a pod inside it. At the same
time, so thoroughly has the calyx with its outgrowth of lips usurped
the place of the primitive pod-covering that the real pod is reduced to
a mere papery envelope, and can only be detected as inclosing the seed
by a somewhat careful dissection. In this sea clover, too, the entire
head, when ripe and dry, has a very forbidding aspect, the mass look-
ing decidedly prickly and stringy, like a teazle ; and I observe that it
generally remains uncropped until the calyx and seeds fall of them-
selves, especially in Southern Europe, where it grows very tall. Why
it should be confined to the neighborhood of the sea and of a few tidal
rivers, more especially to salt-marshes, it would be hard to say ; prob-
ably the special danger against which it defends itself is one found
only under these circumstances, in which case it would there alone
have any advantage over its competitors. Indeed, it must not be sup-

CONCERNING CLOVER. 8i

posed that all these questions are yet by any means finally solved.
The sole object of the present paper is to point out the common prin-
ciple running through the variations of the clover pattern, and to
suggest such partial explanations of their causes as have yet occurred
to a single observer.

Suffocated clover is another of the tiny creeping types, apparently
protected for the most part against browsing quadrupeds. It is a wee
tufted form, with minute flowers stuck close in small dense beads, as
if gummed to the short stems, and very crowded along their course.
We may regard it as the last effort of a very degraded race to keep
up its existence in the most closely gnawed pastures, on sand or
gravel, where only very dwarfed and scrubby plants can escape de-
struction. The reader will notice that under such circumstances two
types of clover succeed, each in its own way. If the heads become
very small, close, and inconspicuous, or tightly pressed against the
wiry trailing stems, they escape the observation of browsing animals.
If, on the other hand, though tall and noticeable, they develop prickly
or stiffened teeth, they are rejected as unfit for food by the creatures
which devour the surrounding herbage.

Reversed clover takes its name from a peculiarity which seems to
, be connected with its mode of fertilization, for it has its standard petal
turned outward, instead of inward as in all other clovers. The mean-
ing and object of this change I do not know ; but its most marked
feature is still one bearing upon preservation of the seed, for, after
flowering, the upper part of the calyx becomes much inflated, and is
traversed by large membranous veins. At the same time it arches
over the lower half, leaving three small teeth below, and two swollen
ones at the top, so as to form a sort of bladder-like capsule over the
concealed pod. In this case, again, the protection is obviously de-
signed against birds or insects. In the curious strawberry clover,
common among dry meadows and road-sides in Southern Britain, the
same device has been carried a step further. Each flower in the head
is here surrounded by a long involucre of lobed bracts, and, after flow-
ering, the calyx swells I'mmensely, so as to transform the entire head
into a compact globular ball of little bladders, each inclosing a single
pod. This arrangement has been popularly compared to a strawberry,
but it is much more like a raspberry, being a delicate pink in hue, and
composed of twenty or thirty small round capsules. The upper half
of the bladder is likewise thickly covered with fine down, doubtless
very objectionable to the skin of the tongue, and the whole is netted
and veined in the most delicate and beautiful fashion. Hardly any
other clover possesses so advanced a plan for protecting its little pod.

Another type is presented to us by the large crimson clover, not
truly indigenous in Britain, but commonly cultivated for fodder in
the south of England. It is a soft, hairy plant, and, like other fodder-
clovers, it does not possess any very advanced protective device. Still,

VOL. XXTIII. — 6

82 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

even here, the calyx has extremely long, narrow teeth, thickly covered
with smooth hairs, which serve to keep its beans safe. The analogy
of a prickly pear or a rose-hip will show how very unpleasant such
hairs feel in the mouth. The beautiful, small barefoot clover derives
its expressive name from a further development of the same principle.
The long teeth of the calyx project beyond the flowers, and are envel-
oped in soft, downy hair, which gives the whole head a very dainty,
feathery appearance. As soon as the flowers are faded, the head looks
like a mere mass of soft fluff, unenticing to herbivorous animals, and
effectually concealing the seeds from birds or insects. The starry
clover of Southern Europe, naturalized in England at Shoreham and a
few other spots, starts from much the same point, but has specialized
itself both against large and small depredators. On the one hand, its
smooth, woolly calyx, much like that of crimson clover during the flow-
ering stage, spreads out after blossoming into a star-shaped pattern,
and forms with its neighbors a dry, bristly, interlacing head, thickly
studded with sharp hairs ; and this suffices to protect it from cattle
and goats. On the other hand, the mouth of the calyx, being thus
exposed by the spreading of the teeth, is closed by a perfect cheval-
de-frise of convergent tufted hairs, all meeting in the center of the
throat ; and this barrier answers the same purpose as that of the ser
clover, though in a different manner, by forming a false bottom to ex
elude insects. I notice on the dry Mediterranean hills that these bristlj
heads are rejected by the goats and sheep, like those of Boccone's clo-
ver, and even donkeys refuse to eat them.

Turning to a somewhat different class, there are some clovers which
protect their seeds in a quite distinct manner, by merely turning them
out of sight. Common Dutch clover does this in a simple yet very
noticeable fashion. It bears its pretty white flowers in tall globular
heads on a lengthened footstalk, which renders them extremely con-
spicuous objects to the fertilizing bees. But each flower is stalked
within the head, and, as soon as it has been fertilized, it turns down-
ward, and fades brown against the common footstalk. Every head of
Dutch clover thus habitually consists of two parts — an upper part,
containing erect open flowers or flower-buds, not yet fertilized ; and a
lower part, containing overblown flowers, already fertilized, and now
engaged in setting their seed. This plan combines two distinct ad-
vantages at once. In the first place, the bees lose no time in discrimi-
nating between the mature honey-bearing blossoms and those already
rifled, which insures more frequent visits and a larger general average
of seed-setting. In the second place, the fruiting pedicels and pods,
being turned down and concealed, are less likely to be visited by small
animal foes, such as flying insects, which might lay their eggs within,
and let the grub feed (as often happens) on the growing seed. Dutch
clover is a fodder-plant, and therefore, probably, in its native state
does not grow much in places exposed to the ravages of large herbi-

CONCERNING CLOVER. 83

vores. At the same time, the pod is many-seeded, and the plant
spreads largely as well by creeping and rooting at the joints.

That the object of the turning down after flowering is distinctly to
protect the pod, as well as to save time for the bees, may be seen, I
think, from the analogous instance of the pretty little yellow hop
clover. This common and graceful English plant has primrose-colored
flowers, and (as usual with yellow blossoms) depends mainly for fer-
tilization upon a smaller class of insects than Dutch or purple clover.
But after the blossoms are fertilized, they turn down in the same man-
ner as in Dutch clover, only far more markedly, giving the head a con-
siderable resemblance to the hop-cones from which the species takes
its name. After being thus reflexed, the faded but persistent petals
close over the pod, and the standard becomes furrowed with deep
marks, which seem to me intended to give a crumpled, withered ap-
pearance to the head. Simple as is this device, it nevertheless effectu-
ally conceals the pod within a closely imbricated set of scales or shields,
each one folding over the next like tiles on a house, and entirely pre-
venting the access of birds or insects to the seeds. The lesser clover
and slender clover seem to me to be successively dwarfed and degraded
states of the same plant, due apparently in part to bad soil, and in part
to diminished need for special protection.

Last of all we come to the most advanced and developed type of
any, the subterranean clover. In general appearance this plant closely
resembles Dutch clover, from which, in all probability, it is a remote
descendant. But, growing, as a rule, on dry, sandy, or gravelly past-
ures closely nipped by sheep or other herbivores, it has acquired a
very remarkable and ingenious mode of escaping their depredations.
Like the other species similarly circumstanced, it grows close to the
ground, in small tufts ; and it bears a few rather large white flowers,
two or three together in a starved-looking head. Looked at closely in
this stage, a number of small central knobs may be distinguished at
the end of the common flower-stalk. These knobs are really the cal-
yxes of undeveloped blossoms, completing the head. After flowering,
the stalks lengthen and bend down to the ground, carrying the fertil-
ized pods with them. Then the minor pod-stalks bend back, and the
undeveloped central flowers grow out into short, thick awls or gimlets,
with five finger-like lobes at their extremity, representing the five
spreading teeth of the original calyx. These awls next begin digging
their way into the earth by a slow, gyrating motion, and at last wear
out a hole in which they bury the pod and bean entire. Thus the
plant actually sows and manures its own seed, and so escapes all danger
from the grazing animals. This extraordinary action may be consid-
ered as the high-water mark of ingenuity and foresight in the uncon-
scious outcomes of natural selection among the clover kind.

In conclusion, it may be added that many of these clovers are very
difficult to discriminate from one another in the flowering stage ; it is

84 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

only when the fruit begins to ripen and the calyx to assume its charac-
teristic shape, that they can be readily identified by safe specific marks.
Throughout, in short, all the clover traits remain almost the same, ex-
cept iu the matter of the fruiting pods. This is the one weak point of
the genus, and this is therefore the place where natural selection has
been able to produce fresh differentiating effects. Such a brief con-
sideration of one small group of plants may serve to bring the general
principle with which we started into the definite relief of concrete ap-
plication ; and it may also serve to show the vast variety of detail
with which Nature effects the self -same object, even within the narrow
limits of a single family or genus. — Gentleman's Magazine.

THE PROBLEM OF HIGHER EDUCATION.

By C. a. EGGERT,
pkofessok of modeen languages in the university of iowa.

FEW subjects have of late engaged the attention of the most
thoughtful people of this country in a higher degree than the
question prominently brought before the public by the recent attempt
of the Harvard faculty to open the doors of that famous institution to
applicants who might come prepared in all the branches hitherto re-
quired for admission, except Greek, for which study they would have
had to offer an equivalent in scientific and mathematical work. It has
been generally admitted that this work would have been more severe
than that required for the Greek, but the opponents of the measure
have, nevertheless, assured the public that to omit the Greek would be
detrimental to American scholarship, and equivalent to building the
educational structure on an unstable foundation. Some of these oppo-
nents have gone so far as to assert that the customary college degree,
Bachelor of Arts, stands as definitely for Latin and Greek as the degree
M. D. stands for the study of medicine. Now, inasmuch as the col-
lege is the school in which, according to the best authorities, our young
people are expected to gain a higher degree of education tlian the lower
schools, academies, and high -schools can give them, the question,
What constitutes the basis of higher education ? is answered by the
opponents of the Harvard measure in favor of the traditional Latin
and Greek course, and that only. But the very fact that men of such
high standing in the domain of education as President Eliot and his
associates hold a different view should be sufiicient to entitle this view
to respectful attention. It is, of course, easier to fall back on well-
known authorities, and the usage of the past, than to examine care-
fully into a subject that evidently has at least two very characteristic
sides ; but if the subject is one that so greatly affects the rising gen-

I

THE PROBLEM OF HIGHER EDUCATION. 85

eration, it may be expected to prove of interest at least to those who,
as parents, desire for their children such an education as will make
them efficient and happy members of the nation into which they were
born. The highest possible intellectual efficiency and individual hap-
piness, based on a harmonious development of the various faculties of
mind and body, are the two principal aims of all education. There is
a strong and intelligent party who sincerely believe that these aims
are best attained by the college training such as it has been, and who,
therefore, wish that this training shall continue for all time. There
is another party, not a whit less intelligent, and probably far more
numerous, who maintain that the highest and best education is not
necessarily of one type ; that it may differ as individuals differ ; that
the college itself has changed in the past, is changing now, and is
quite certain to change in the future in accordance with a well-
known law of human life, and that, therefore, it is neither logical
nor fair to require every young person of the present time to follow
the example of older persons, in the kind and manner of education
which passed as the best when these older persons were young. This
party further insist on its being unfair to shut the doors of the only
schools in which, according to the view of their opponents themselves,
the best education should be given, against those who honestly enter-
tain different views of education, and they ask : Why should you who
control these schools deny to us and our children a right which we, on
our part, are willing to grant to you ? Who is to be the judge be-
tween us ? Is the college to be forever the school only of one set of
believers ?

Questions like these, coming as they do from people who are neither
superficial nor ultra-radical, can not be turned off by generalities and
commonplaces. To argue as though Greek and thoroughness are con-
vertible terms is begging the question. No one denies that Greek
studies may be thorough, and that those who are engaged in them
may, if they choose, regard them as superior to any other. It is only
when they wish to force their own conviction on those who differ with
them that their claims will meet with opposition. There is a super-
stitious belief in the efficacy and superiority of Greek that makes one
think of the fabled tanner, who, when asked what material he con-
sidered best for fortifying a city, unhesitatingly answered : " Leather !
there is nothing like leather ! " Arguments of this kind are difficult
to answer, mainly for the reason that one can not and will not deny
that leather is a superior article. There is much that can be said in
favor of the study of Greek, and if it could be shown that it is neces-
sarily the business of the college to teach Latin and Greek as spe-
cialties, in the same sense that medical schools teach medicine, noth-
ing would be more absurd than a course of college education with one
of these languages entirely omitted.

It can not be denied that for a long time the idea of college educa-

86 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tion necessarily presupposed a knowledge of Latin, Greek, and even
Hebrew, because these languages were the keys to the knowledge the
student desired to obtain. But this had not always been so. At first
Latin alone was used. The introduction of Greek often met with in-
tense opposition, for instance, at Oxford. Greek stood then for new
ideas, it was the treasure-house of the most valuable knowledge, and the
professors of the old school thought then, as some of their colleagues
seem to think even now, that the old education had been good enough
for them, and therefore must be the best for every one else. But the
rising tide of the Reformation soon settled the question of Greek. The
demands of the times were of a religious nature, and the New Testa-
ment was written in Greek. And, besides, whatever there was to be
found out about science, political, mental, and even physical, had to
be searched for in Greek books. To be ignorant of Greek was then
as serious a drawback for a scholar as to be ignorant of German and
French is to-day. Latin was the native language, so to speak, of
every scholar. It was the common medium of social and learned in-
tercourse ; the speech in which the professor lectured and the student
answered when examined ; the language used in public disputations,
on the rostrum, in the courts, and even in the theatre.

There were, of course, also the specialties of Latin and Greek
grammar and literature, as there are the specialties of English gram-
mar and literature in our colleges, but the general purpose and aim of
the college was to impart knowledge of facts, or what was taken for
facts, in matters historical, physical, philosophical, theological, and,
naturally enough, also philological and literary.

In the discussion of this subject frequent reference has been made
to the higher schools of Germany. Now, it is a fact that the German
universities have continued the idea of the old university more faith-
fully than any others. The most successful old university, that of
Paris, had contained the four faculties of theology, law, medicine, and
the *' arts." The terms of admission, as far as scholarship is con-
cerned, are the same for all. They are still the same for all in the
modem German university, with one notable exception, of which we
will speak further on. The American college ought to correspond to
the faculty " of arts " ; it may at least be compared to it, though, as
a matter of fact, the preparation for the German school is more severe
and extensive than the preparation for the American college. As the
latter gives to its successful graduates the degree of bachelor " of
arts," the former used to confer on all who passed the proper exami-
nation the degree of master " of arts." What were these " arts "
originally ? They are enumerated in the following line : " Lingua,
tropus, ratio, numcrus, tenor, angulus, astra" — i. e., grammar, rhetoric,
dialectics, arithmetic, music, geometry, astronomy.*

That is, the degree " of arts " meant proficiency in these branches,
* Raumer, " Geschicbte der deutschcn Universitaten."

THU PROBLEM OF HIGHER EDUCATION. 87

and it was merely an historical accident that these branches were
taught in Latin, and, to a large extent, learned from Greek text-booka.
The same was true of the other faculties. It would be just as logical
to demand that our candidates for the degree "M. D." shall be exam-
ined in Latin on the contents of Greek texts on medicine as it is to
say that the degree of Bachelor or Master " of Arts " stands for the
languages in which the studies were taught and studied, instead of
standing for the subjects themselves.

At the German universities the teaching was done in Latin as late
as the beginning of the eighteenth century, and, in one or two
branches, through the entire century, and, in one or two instances,
even into part of the nineteenth. It was then a necessity for the
higher school to require of its students familiarity with this language,
and it was the special business of the preparatory schools to give
them this familiarity. This is the original and true reason why Latin
even now occupies such a large place in German secondary instruction.
It is the force of tradition, to which has since been added the convic-
tion that the study is the best possible for all on account of its intrin-
sic value. This, however, was an after-thought of those whose busi-
ness it was to teach it, and the same is true of Greek. The example
of Latin naturally suggested the same reasoning for the study of
Greek, and the preparatory school did what it could to send to the uni-
versity students who should be able to use both these languages in
actual study, and for the purpose of gaining information from books
printed in them. But gradually and steadily the subjects taught at
the university took a wider range. What had been the very best
preparation for the few subjects originally taught at the university
became soon of special value only for a few subjects. The prepara-
tory schools were called on to meet the increasing demand. They had
to add many other branches, French among them, to their course, and
thus it happened that the German student who wished to prepare for
the university had to spend from eight to ten years in studies that
required his presence at the school for thirty-two hours per week,
about one half of which was devoted to the two specialties, Latin
and Greek. We say " specialties," for such they were, and still are,
although the strange claim is made that this preparatory school, the
" gymnasium," does not intend to teach specialties, but tries to guard
against the danger of the one-sidedness of special pursuits by the
introduction of the two ancient languages. Those who make this
claim fail to see that, were it not for the sixteen or seventeen hours of
other instruction that the school now imparts, the German student
would still be the same unpracticable pedant, distinguished only for his
absolutely dead learning, and all but total ignorance of everything else,
that he was a hundred years ago. It is only in a comparatively small
part that the occupation with Latin and Greek liberalized his intellect
and opened to him visions of intellectual growth. To a far greater

88 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

extent this was due to the attention he began to give to his mother-
tongue and to the great authors of his own and of neighboring lands.
Plato and Aristotle, Cicero and Horace, did something for him ; but
what was that compared to the intellectual wealth of the new world
of science and the vivid inspiration that came to him from the pages
of modern thought ? To deny this is to refuse to see the light of
the noonday sun. Poets like Dante, Shakespeare, Moliere, Schiller,
Goethe, took a powerful hold of his imagination, refined his moral
nature as no ancient poet could, and filled his soul with ideals of the
modern world. Voltaire and Hume, Rousseau and Diderot, Carlyle
and Kant, Herder and Lessing, taught him how to reason, and to deal
with the problems of modern life. And to-day can it be truly said
that the inspiration the German student draws from Plato and Aris-
totle can be compared to the powerful impulse and the incomparable
intellectual help he receives from contemporary writers like Hum-
boldt, Ritter, Peschel, Schleiden, Haeckel, and a host of others in
various fields of science and philosophy in his own land, and, among
neighboring nations, from the pages of a Charles Darwin, a Huxley,
Tyndall, Claude Bernard, and entu-e galaxies of others ?

"We may repeat, therefore, that the German gymnasium teaches
Latin and Greek as specialties, and that if this special training has
not shown in its students the bad effects that are usually attributed
to such training, the merit of having prevented these effects lies with
those other studies which, as we have seen, occupy the student for
the other half of his time. If, now, we compare the courses of the
corresponding American schools with those of the Prussian (or Ger-
man) gymnasium, we find that, while the American school has the
same studies, it does not succeed in doing the same work. Hence, in
order to make up for the deficiency of time, the preparatory training
is continued in the college proper. But if the object were to give
the American student as thorough a training in the Greek and Latin,
without neglecting the other studies taught in the German gymnasi-
um, the entire time of the college would be taken up by these so-called
preparatory studies, so that the college would have no time, or but
very little, left for other work. This is a very serious objection to
the adoption of the German system, and the only alternative would
be to establish our preparatory schools exactly on the same basis as
the German gymnasium. But would this be desirable, even if it were
feasible ?

Unquestionably the habit of constant application for so many
years, during which his study-hours are twice as numerous as those
of his American colleague, while his vacations are briefer and his days
of recreation fewer, makes the German student unusually capable to
profit by further instruction after having passed through the gymna-
sium. He is very accurate in some knowledge, and perhaps the very
fact that he has specially emphasized a few branches so that now he

THE PROBLEM OF HIGHER EDUCATION, 89

knows at least something very well, gives him an advantage over
other students who know something of many things without being
perfectly at home in any. At the same time he will be found to have
suffered in health. Very likely his eye-sight has been injured. As a
rule, he is deficient in vitality. Fortunately for him, the university
system is extremely lax. At the university he can do pretty much as
he likes. He makes up for the time lost, sometimes in such a manner
as to procure him from the authorities the consilium abeundi, the in-
vitation to pursue his studies at some other institution. Then comes
his year of military service, during which he passes the greater part
of the day in admirable out-door exercise. It has been frequently
remarked by educated Germans, and especially Prussians, that this
year of military duty is the salvation of the manhood of the nation,
at least for that portion of the young men that spent the best years
of their youth in the close confinement of the learned schools.

Let those who insist so strongly on the necessity of imitating the
German usage carefully reflect on this side of the question. But
there is still another side. We have all along spoken of the Latin
and Greek preparation as though it were absolutely true that the stu-
dents who arrived at the university from the gymnasium have actu-
ally mastered these languages to which they have sacrificed so much
of their time. They are expected to read Greek books understand-
ingly. The medical faculty of Berlin expressly stated it as one reason
why those who wish to enter the university should know Greek, that
they must be able to read Galen in the original. If such a proficiency
in Greek is expected of them in the department of medicine, it is, of
course, also considered necessary in the department " of arts," and so
in the other two departments of the university.

The facts tell a different story. Numerous proofs could be fur-
nished to show how little even the gymnasium succeeds in making its
students get such a hold of two ancient languages as will make it all
but impossible for them to lose the knowledge so gained before they
are through their university course. We wall confine ourselves to the
testimony of one of the most competent scholars of Germany, the late
Eduard Lasker, who recently died in this country while on a visit,
and who is considered by Julius Rodenburg, the distinguished author,
and editor of the " Deutsche Rundschau," as no less pre-eminent a
philologist in the domain of Latin and Greek studies in Germany
than Gladstone is reputed to be in Great Britain.

According to Mr. Lasker's most positive experience, it is impos-
sible for the gymnasium to keep up the teaching of the two ancient
languages, because, in attempting to teach both, they succeed in giv-
ing the student a good knowledge of neither. He recommended that
the attention now divided between the two be concentrated on the
Latin alone, as there was, of course, no use trying to curtail the other
branches. This view of so distinguished a scholar and thinker is of

90 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

very great importance. It proves at least this, that there are in Ger-
many men of acknowledged ability, undoubted honesty, and sincere
love of education, and able to judge of the system from personal ex-
perience, who desire such a change in the preparatory schooling as
would permit a student to go to the university without having studied
Greek at all. Is it a sign of a shallow mind to discountenance in
America, under circumstances that make the experiment far less likely
to succeed, what is thus proved to be partially a failure even in Ger-
many ? Is it true that those who hold such views are justly charge-
able with a wanton desire to destroy a well-tried system of " thor-
ough " education, in order to introduce new-fangled notions of their
own?

But the gymnasium is not the only school that prepares for the
university. At present another school in which less Latin and no
Greek are taught, called " Realschule," has also the right to give its
graduates a certificate of " maturity " which entitles them to member-
ship in the university, at least in some of the courses of the "Arts"
department. This fact should, therefore, be borne in mind : that the
German universities do admit students who, instead of Greek, offer
other studies, very much as Harvard would have done if the proposi-
tion of its faculty had not been overruled by the sujierior board. The
professors of the German universities mostly favor the " gymnasium,"
from which almost every one of them was graduated, but they are not
so unreasonable as to set up their own individual preferences against
the intelligent views of a considerable number of highly educated peo-
ple who are not professors. Hence, whatever the example of German
universities may teach us, the lesson of intolerance is not taught by
it ; at least not of intolerance in the sense that the views of an intelli-
gent minority must be absolutely disregarded by the majority.

The German " Realschule " teaches science and mathematics, Lat-
in, French, English in connection with the other branches, German
language and literature, etc., common also to the gymnasium. It
is claimed that this course is not so beneficial to the student as that
of the gymnasium, and a ten years' trial of the Berlin philosophical
faculty seems to have proved this. We will not here enter upon a
discussion as to the probable causes of this failure of the Realschule
beyond stating the well-known fact that hitherto the Realschule has
not been generally patronized by those who aspired to the higher
education of the university. The prejudice in favor of the old, well-
tried, and splendidly equipped gymnasium was so great that this
school naturally attracted tlie majority of those who wished to go to
the university later. The course of the Realschule (i. e., that of
the first order or class, there being also a lower order or class) is just
as long as that of the gymnasium, but the graduates of the Realschule
are few in number, and it is the exception, and not the rule, when one
of them finally attends the university. Hence it is manifestly unfair

THE PROBLEM OF HIGHER EDUCATION. 91

to base a definite opinion of the possibilities of this school on the work
hitherto done under circumstances so very discouraging. Even now
the gymnasium is favored with privileges which are as yet denied to
the Realschule, as no graduate of the latter is admitted to the depart-
ments of law and medicine, at least not in Prussia. That the com-
paratively few graduates of the Realschule have, nevertheless, made a
fine and honorable record for themselves is an undeniable fact. It is
unnecessary, however, to enter into a defense of that school, as it has
not been in existence long enough, at least as a school that aimed to
prepare for the university, to show what it will be able to do when
once the prejudices now raised against it shall have disappeared.

The German university requires of its candidates for the degree
of M. D. such a familiarity with Greek as will enable the students to
read Galen in the original ; but do the medical students really consult
Galen in the original, either at the university or in after-life ? I have
been at the pains to gain some proofs of this laudable practice, but
thus far in vain. The all but unanimous testimony is that the medi-
cal student's greatest desire, next to knowing the practical details of
his profession, is to be able to read the works of the best English and
French authorities, and especially the periodicals that bear on medical
and kindred subjects. But English is not, as a rule, taught in the
university, nor is it one of the required studies of the gymnasium, and
the immense amount of labor the student has to perform makes it im-
possible for him to do enough for the study by private effort. And,
then, the prejudice against so " easy " a language ! This prejudice, the
result of the peculiar training of the college, is one that college-men
entertain like a dogma, and which they never tire of impressing on
the student.* The acutest critic of France, Sainte-Beuve, incident-
ally alluded to this prejudice in his defense of Racine's masterpiece,
" Athalie," He said : *' Great lovers and judges of antiquity, hut icho
are not, perhaps, as great judges of the French beauties of ' Athalie,''
maintain that Sophocles (in his ' Antigone ') is superior. ... I listen,
and let them talk (J''ecoicte, et je laisse dire). J envy those who are
possibly capable of judging xcith equal correctness {au m^me degre)
of the two kinds of beauties,''^ etc. The modesty of the remark, com-
ing from one who was himself no mean judge of antiquity, ought to
inspire other critics with a reasonable difiidence when about to pass
judgment on the difficulties of other languages. One may learn a
dozen languages moderately well in less time than it takes to learn a
single one well.

On the Continent of Europe one may meet with many illustrations

* If the difficulties of a language are its chief recommendations as a study for " disci-
pline," the introduction of improved methods of teaching, by enabling the student to
master these difficulties by an " easy grade," would in so far destroy their value. For a
curious illustration of this prejudice:, see a recent article on " Ancient Languages " in the
" Bibliotheca Sacra."

92 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of this fact. The " Cologne Gazette," for instance, used to publish
the periodical advertisement of a German who undoubtedly prided
himself on his English. Desiring to obtain some English boarders, he
wound up with this remark, " The diet is notorious and unlimited."
What he really meant was that he set a good table, and there was
plenty to eat. It is this kind of modern language which some writers
evidently mean when they speak of the facility with which transla-
tions from modern languages can be made. Let us suppose there
were no prejudice against the modern languages, and none in favor of
Greek, what would happen ? The medical faculties would, no doubt,
advise their students to avail themselves of every opportunity to ob-
tain a good knowledge of the three languages in which the chief re-
sults of modern civilization are recorded. But to do this with a rea-
sonable chance of success, such students must be allowed the necessary
time. They can not find this time for the modern languages as long as
the college compels them to devote it to the ancient. To measure fairly
the disciplinary value of such a language as English is not an easy
matter. Take, for instance, the choice of synonyms. Soup and
broth seem to mean the same thing, at least in poetry, and yet the
poet may want to use the one in a place where he could not use the
other. An English gentleman spent an evening in Venice at the the-
atre. The piece repi-esented was an Italian version of " JVIacbeth."
In the course of the play our Englishman heard the expression, "Po-
lenta infernale," which he mentally translated into "infernal soup,"
without being able to recall the original passage. Having returned
to the hotel, his first care was to examine the English work, when he
was delighted to find that the immortal bard, far from using the
shocking " infernal soup," mentioned only the comparatively harmless
" hell-broth."

Whoever has consulted a dictionary of synonyms in the English,
German, or French language, will receive with some doubt the asser-
tion that the ancient languages are richer in this respect than the
modern. The celebrated historian, Guizot, devoted many years to a dic-
tionary of French synonyms, which contains over eight hundred pages.
The astonishing wealth of the German vocabulary is well known, and
the philosophical spirit of the nation has introduced such a great
number of the nicest shades of expression that a translation from the
German, in order to be good, requires an extraordinary effort.

" Traduttore traditore,^'' say the Italians. " A translator, a trai-
tor." Not necessarily. There are translations and translations, but,
after all, to translate fluently from one language into another is not
the real object of language-study. Unless a student reads a foreign
language as he docs his own, he has not mastered it, but to gain this
ability is a far more serious undertaking than is commonly believed.

Be this as it may, it is at least certain that a doctor of medicine,
or a candidate for the degree, should have an ordinary knowledge of

THE PROBLEM OF HIGHER EDUCATION. 93

botany, at least of so much of it as will enable him to recognize cam-
omile when he sees it, and to tell the difference between hemlock and
parsley. Now, this remarkable charge is laid against many of the
candidates for this degree in Gennany, that they have not obtained
this knowledge.* They may be able to read a quotation of Galen in
Greek (although they would understand it infinitely better in the
elegant German version they have in their library), but as for camo-
mile and hemlock I — pshaw ! That is the apothecary's business.

Without wishing to sit in judgment over such facts and views,
this, at least, we may do : we may affirm that there are many per-
sons, who are neither shallow nor uneducated, who yet prefer in their
physician a thorough knowledge of botany to any degree of skill in
reading Galen in Greek.

The American college crowns the educational structure of the state.
To increase its power for good, it ought to be accessible to any student
who has passed through the preliminary training of the common,
grammar, and high schools. It is not at all true that those who oppose
the present college preparation desire to make education less efficient ;
rather ought it to be said that many intelligent friends of education
wish to make a more efficient collegiate education available for a larger
number. The college should not be a school for one specialty, but
rather a school in which many specialties are taught by the very best
specialists. In such a school ancient languages and literatures would
hold a place alongside of modern languages and literatures ; the sci-
ences of astronomy and physics would stand on the same level as the
sciences of botany and geology ; moral and mental, political and social
science would be equally well represented. There is no reason to fear
that ancient learning would suffer, but some to hope that it would be
carried on by those who are drawn to it by natural taste and ability,
and not simply because it is the fashion. What can be more unpracti-
cal to the common mind than the study of the stars ? What imme-
diate profit does " star-gazing " hold out ? And yet Nature produces
the requisite number of born astronomers, who, at one time or another,
recognize their vocation, and reach it with the directness of the ball
shot from a well-aimed rifle. The essential thing is, that the young
student must not be allowed too soon to make his choice of studies.
For this reason a preparatory course, which may extend through the
first two years of college, seems to be a necessity. There is nothing
to prevent an American college from allowing this preparatory course
to be of such a nature as will enable the student to elect between two
studies of similar value. This limited election would still be of the
nature of a prescribed course. It would be very nearly what the Har-
vard faculty have tried to introduce. It will remain an open question
for a long time to come, what study should be offset against the Greek,

* Report of the Prussian Minister of Education, July 11, 1868. " Paedagogisches Ar-
chiv " (Langbein), 1872, pp. 22, 23,

94 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

if once the principle should be recognized. But this would be a mat-
ter of detail, which the different faculties would eventually settle, and
there is no reason to fear that any faculty would long continue an
elective system which experience should prove to disqualify students
from choosing their subsequent studies intelligently.

What is needed, first of all, is the frank acknowledgment on the
part of those who now control our colleges that these institutions are
intended to furnish the means of higher education for all who are by
nature fitted for it, and that, as long as there are divergent views held
by men equally eminent, as to the proper preparation for the higher col-
lege studies, it behooves no one, who happens to be in power, to use his
authority for the purpose of monopolizing the college for the applica-
tion of his own theories. It is not from a wish to lessen Latin and
Greek learning that the plea is made to treat other studies with equal
liberality. There is no onslaught made on Latin and Greek, but, on
the contrary, those who favor the monopoly of Latin and Greek are
often guilty of making an unwarrantable onslaught on modern studies.
The tendency of our colleges, in spite of the conservative element in
them, is toward the breaking down of this monopoly. The increase of
elective courses in all the prominent colleges is a most significant sign.

OKIGIN OF COLOK IK ANIMALS.

By M. PAUL MAEOIIAL.

OF all the characteristics of organized bodies, color is one of the
most fugitive. Trifling variations in the individual constitu-
tion, apparently slight changes in the biological conditions to which
it is subject, are often suflficient to induce considerable modifications
in the exterior coloration. Color in animals may, therefore, be re-
garded as having a variety of origins. Sometimes it is due to the fact
that the tissues are formed from colored material ; more frequently
to their having imbibed a colored fluid. This is generally the case
with the formations of the epidermis, the hairs of animals, the feath-
ers of birds, and the scales of reptiles. The translucid nature of the
teguments may also be the cause of external coloration, as in men of
the white race, whose delicate skin exhibits the vessels of the under-
lying tissues. Many invertebrates are so transparent that their in-
ternal organs may be seen. In the majority of cases, animals owe
their external hues to colored granulations or pigments, which, diffused
through the tissues, give tints varying with their abundance or dis-
tribution. This substance may be black, or brown, or yellow in the
vertebrates, Avhile red, yellow, blue, and green predominate among the
invertebrates. The phenomena of interference presented by their lami-

ORIGIN OF COLOR IN ANIMALS. 95

nae, dependent upon the reciprocal action of parallel waves of light of
different velocities, and capable in their different combinations of pro-
ducing all the colors of the rainbow, or the absence of color, furnish
that dazzling chromatic gamut which Nature employs to paint the
humming-bird and the butterfly, those two jewels of the organic
world. Another class of phenomena has been called cerulescence by
M. G. Pouchet. It is a property which he regards as analogous to fluo-
rescence, and as due, in the majority of cases, to stick-shaped bodies
inclosed in special cells called iridocytes. The blue reflections pre-
sented by the scales of most fishes, the blue color of the caruncles of
many birds, and the naked parts of some monkeys, the azure tint of
the veins of individuals of the white race, the blue of the iris of some
persons' eyes, are examples of cerulescence. These phenomena, how-
ever, differ but little from those which give to water having drops of
milk suspended in it a bluish color by reflection, or from those which
make smoke appear blue when seen upon a black ground. It seems
to me that it may be going too far to compare such phenomena with
fluorescence.

These causes of coloration may be superposed and combined in a
thousand ways. When birds are under the influence of physiological
excitations like those of rage or love, the flow of blood contributes to
enliven the color of the bare parts to the point of greatly modifying it.
The bright, metallic tints of the peacock and the humming-bird are
due to phenomena of interference and to the presence of a dark pig-
ment combined ; the green tint of the lizard to the association of a
yellow pigment and blue-reflecting iridocytes. The Annelids and the
Nemertes, of the invertebrates, exhibit the combined effects of three
causes of coloration : iridization, produced by the thin cuticle ; the
rich pigmentation of the dermis, and frequently, also, in case the in-
teguments are transparent, the variable coloration of the sanguineous
fluid and of the internal organs.

The intensity of coloration is generally proportioned to the vital
activity. As life begins to decline, the pigment retires from the for-
mations of the epidermis ; and the hairs on regions which have passed
maturity often exhibit a lighter coloring than on the neighboring
regions. According to Pruner-Bey, the intensity of the color of the
negro is an indication of his health ; old negroes grow pale as they
age. It is well known that pain and depressing moral trials, which
are negative facts in life, provoke the retraction of the pigment. On
the contrary, everything that tends to accentuate life occasions an
enlivening of the intensity of colors, a fact of which Darwin gives
many examples in his " Variation of Animals and Plants." Coloration
is strongest in adult animals. Breeders prefer animals rich in pig-
ment-matter, because they will best resist disease, and most easily
accommodate themselves to special systems of feeding. The ancients
regarded animals having white hair on a black skin as the most vigor-

96 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ous. White parts of animals are often attacked with disease, while
the other parts remain healthy ; and light-skinned animals are most
troubled by flics and parasites. Albinoisra, which is simply a total
inaptitude for the jjroduction of pigment, is a sure sign of degeneracy.

Vigor of the genital organs is one of the most manifest signs of
vital activity. The relation between the reproductive function and
pigmentation is so striking that Heusinger has expressed it as a law.
Troubles brought upon the sexual functions under the influence of any
particular causes, as of domestication, often coincide with the most
singular modifications of color.

The coloring-matter is also intimately connected with the nervous
system. Thus, it is at the extremity of a nerve, the optic nerve, that
is localized, in all species of animals, the maximum of aptitude for the
production of pigment. In the lowest types of the series, when the
eye begins to become differentiated, and while it can hardly yet be
considered an organ of vision, a pigment-spot may be observed to
make its appearance. At the same time other parts of the optical
apparatus that have a much greater functional importance, the refract-
ing media, for example, may not yet be existing even in a rudiment-
ary state. These considerations lead me to believe that the optical
pigment-spot owes its existence not solely to the advantages which
the individual may derive from it, but chiefly to the proximity of a
nerve, the elements of which are disturbed by a continuous vibrating
movement, or by light. This kind of election of pigment exists, more-
over, not only in reference to the organ of sight, but frequently also
in other special sensitive terminations — at the ends of the auditory
nerves with some invertebrates, at the end of the proboscis in the
Nemertes. In the chameleon, the turbot, the cuttle-fish, and some other
animals, the connection of the pigmentary system with the nerves is
so close that a simple nervous excitation is enough to modify the dis-
tribution of the colored granulations in the integuments.

On the other hand, certain constitutional defects induce a diminu-
tion or absence of coloring-matter, of which I can give no better illus-
tration than to cite Darwin's curious observation that white cats gen-
erally have blue eyes and are deaf.

What we have said tends to prove that the positive facts of life,
or the complete development of the organs of the individual — health,
strength, fullness of functions, display of activity and accentuation of
animal vigor in the nervous system and the organs of relation — cor-
respond closely with an abundant production of coloring-matter ; while
the negative facts of life — age, constitutional weakness, disease, apa-
thy, and degeneration generally — lead to a more or less complete dis-
appearance of the same substance. Nevertheless, we notice in some
cases the contrary fact, or a deposition of coloring-matter, or an in-
crease of its production in connection with some pathological condition
of the organism. But these cases, which seem opposed to our theory,

ORIGIN OF COLOR IN ANIMALS. 97

are generally susceptible of special explanations, and their contradic-
tion of the other facts is only apparent.

In consideration of the influence of external agencies on coloration,
we distinguish between two classes : those forces which can be re-
solved into a rapid vibration — light, heat, and electricity — the action
of which is very marked ; and other more complex agencies, among
which we include food, captivity, moisture, and the colorizing and de-
colorizing action of some secretions. Light is the principal excitant
capable of provoking the development of coloring-matter. Very sig-
nificant on this point is M. Paul Bert's account of his experiments
with the larvae of the axolotl : " Pale on issuing from the egg, they
become colored by the deposition of pigment under the influence of
light. In the dark, or in red light, the pigment is not developed."
From this we learn that the less refrangible rays have no influence on
the production of pigment ; it is therefore by the rapidity, and not by
the amplitude of its vibrations, that light acts upon the formation of
coloring-matter. An analogous example is furnished by the Proteus,
which, having been drawn out from its dark hole, becomes gradually
colored by light. We may compare with these observations that the
negro baby is, when first born, of only slightly different color from
the white ; and the fact that certain parts of his body may already
show the negro tinge does not contradict our theory of the dependence
of the color on the action of light, but is only the mark of a hereditary
tendency to become black. I do not intend to assert that light is the
sole cause of pigment-coloration, for that would be contrary to the
facts ; but it is generally the exciting and sometimes the necessary
means for the development of the coloring-matter. It plays a part
like that of the spark in combustion, which has no effect upon an
incombustible body, in the same way that light produces no colorizing
effect upon an albino. There is, then, an aptitude to become colored,
which varies according to races, and may not always exist. The ques-
tion, however, of the ultimate cause of coloration is not solved, but
only pushed back ; for we are ignorant of the cause of this aptitude,
and are obliged, to explain it, to have recourse to the laws of heredity
and natural selection.

The rich coloration of deep-sea animals apparently contradicts the
facts we have cited, but does not really do so. For it is principally the
red, or less refrangible, neutral rays, the passage of which is inter-
rupted by the water, while the blue, violet, and ultra-violet rays, which
are the active ones in coloration, pass through it to a considerable
depth. Furthermore, we know that the molecules composing the
tissues of these animals are subject to vibratory movements analogous
to those of light, which are represented to us by phosphorescence ;
and we may conceive those vibrations to be intense enough to produce
a coloration like that which is the effect of sunlight.

As a rule, the parts of animals most exposed to rays of light are,

VOL. XXYIII. — Y

98 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

other things being equal, richest in coloring-matter. The backs of
wild animals are usually and with few exceptions (as among noc-
turnal and burrowing animals) more strongly colored than their bel-
lies. Another class of exceptions may be seen among fishes of certain
families which lie on their sides instead of on their bellies, and expose,
not their backs, but one of their sides to the light. In these fishes the
upper side is colored, while the under side, next to the ground and the
darkness, is not. Articulates also have their upper sides most strongly
colored, although what in them answers most nearly to the dorsal
column is next to the ground. The parts of the shells of mollusks
which are in contact with the ground are uncolored, while the parts
exposed to the light shine with varied tints ; and this, whatever may
be the peculiar positions assumed by particular shells.

For individuals of the same race, the abundance of the coloring-
matter is generally proportioned to the intensity of the light to which
they are exposed. This fact is generally understood, though exact
observations bearing upon it are not as numerous as it is desirable
they should be. It is well known that the skin is tanned by light,
that people from the north are browned by living in the south, and
that ruddiness and freckles appear under the action of the sunlight.
Some peoples of the white race, like the Hindoos and the Moors, that
live in southern climates, are frequently darker-skinned than the ne-
groes themselves. Still, we can not afiirm that light is the only cause
of these changes.

Mr. Gould has observed that birds are more strongly colored when
they live in countries having a clear sky than on islands or the sea-
shore. Berchstein says that the colors of the plumage of cage-birds
are affected by the shade in which they are kept. Mr. Allen has shown
that the color of several species in the United States changes as we go
from north to south.

On accoimt of their close relations with one another, it is hard to
distinguish the effects of heat on color from those of light. External
temperature can not have much effect upon the skin of warm-blooded
animals whose bodies are kept by the internal heat at a uniform de-
gree ; but with the fur it is different, and it is possible that cold may
induce an abstraction of coloring-matter from the hairs, and that the
white color of animals of the polar zone may be partly owing to this
fact. According to Pallas, the horse and the cow in Siberia become
paler during the winter. The ermine seldom becomes as white during
winter in England as in Norway. Its summer color persists till late
in the season, when the extreme cold comes on, and then changes in a
few days. The isatis fox, which in the polar regions becomes white
in winter from brownish-gray, changes but little when taken to Eu-
rope. The Alpine hare does not put on its white dress at a fixed
period, but at a time that depends on the greater or less earliness of
the beginning of winter.

ORIGIN OF COLOR IN ANIMALS. 99

Mr. Kicholas Wagner, using an exceedingly sensitive galvanometer,
has discovered fixed currents in the wings of butterflies ; and, with
the aid of electric currents, has succeeded in producing changes in the
color and disposition of their pigments. What part electricity may
play in this matter is still, however, unsettled.

In regard to the effects of feeding, Darwin cites cases of complete
changes in the color of birds brought about by modifications of their
alimentation. Bullfinches, fed with hemp-seed, turned black. The
common green paroquet, fed with the fat of certain fishes, became
striped with red and yellow.

Volumes have been written on the influence of natural selection
upon color, and have elucidated the subject so fully that we need not
dwell on it at length. The principal aspect in which the influence
asserts itself is that in which the prevailing color among animals gives
them a kind of resemblance to the ground on which or the medium in
which they live, or to the objects by which they are surrounded, so
that they are more readily hidden from their enemies. In other cases
they are made conspicuous in color or to resemble disagreeable objects,
so that their enemies, mistaking them for something else, shall avoid
them. Such cases belong to the classes of phenomena which Mr.
Wallace has grouped under the designation of protective mimicry.
In other cases, certain colors may be associated with peculiarities that
render the animal more capable of resisting peculiar conditions to
which it may be exposed ; when natural selection, aided by selection
by the breeder, may contribute to preserve this color to the exclusion
of others. Thus, according to Darwin, in Virginia, black hogs alone
can endure a course of feeding consisting largely of the roots of
Lachnantes tinctoria / so a race of black hogs became established in
that country.

Much more might be said on this subject. We might consider the
phenomena of sexual selection to which male birds largely owe their
bright plumage ; the heredity of colors, correlative variations, and the
complex and obscure action of domestication ; the action of moisture
and of some secreted principles ; and the distribution of colors as
related to geographical regions. What I have said has been really
only introductory to the subject, and for the purpose of reminding
investigators what a full field of work they might find in exhaustively
following it up. — Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from
the Revue Scientifique.

loo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

THE MOTOR CENTERS AND THE WILL *

By VICTOR nORSLEY, F. E. C. S.

MY subject being the mechanism of the will, it might be asked,
"What has a surgeon to do with psychology?" To which I
would answer, " Everything," For, without sheltering myself behind
Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson's trite saying that "a surgeon should be a
physician who knows how to use his hands," I would remind you that
pure science has proved so good a foster-mother to surgery, that dis-
eases of the brain which were formerly considered to be hopeless, are
now brought within a measurable distance of the knife, and therefore
a step nearer toward cure. Again, I would remind you that surgeons
rather than physicians see the experiments which so-called Nature is
always providing for us — experiments which, though horribly clumsy,
do on rare occasions, as I shall presently show you to-night, lend us
powerful aid in attempting to solve the most obscure problems ever
presented to the scientist.

The title I have chosen may possibly be objected to as too com-
prehensive ; but until we are ready to admit a new terminology, we
must employ the old in order to convey our meaning intelligibly, al-
though there may be coupled therewith the risk of expressing more
than we desire. Thus, when I sjjeak of the mechanism of the will and
the motor centers of the brain, I do not intend (as indeed must be ob-
vious) to discuss the existence of the so-called freedom of the will, or
the source of our consciousness of voluntary power.

I shall rather describe to you first the general plan of the mechan-
ism which conveys information to our brain, the thinking organ ; next
the arrangement of those parts in it which are concerned with volun-
tary phenomena ; and, finally, I shall seek to show by means of experi-
ment that the consciousness of our existing as single beings, the con-
sciousness of our possessing but one will, as people say, while at the
same time we know that we possess a double nervous system, is due
to the fact that pure volition is dependent entirely on the exercise of
the attention which connotes the idea of singleness ; consequently,
that it is impossible to carry out two totally distinct ideas at one and
the same moment of time, when the attention must, of course, be fully
engaged upon each.

I fear that, in making my argument consecutive, I shall have to
pass over very well-beaten paths, and so I must ask your patience for
a few moments while I make good my premises. The nervous sys-
tem, which in man is composed of brain, spinal cord, nerves, and nerve-
endings, is arranged upon the simplest plan, although the details of

* Lecture delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain.

I

THE MOTOR CENTERS AND THE WILL. loi

the same become highly complex when we arrive at the top of the
brain.

At the same time, while we have this simple plan of structure, we
find that there is also a fundamental mode of action of the same — a
mode which is a simple exposition of the principle, no effect without a
cause — a mode of action which is known as the phenomenon of simple
reflex action.

The general plan of the whole nervous system is illustrated by this
model. Imbedded in the tissues all over the body, or highly special-
ized and grouped together in separate organs, such as the eye or ear,
we find large numbers of nerve-endings — that is, small lumps of proto-
plasm from which a nerve-fiber leads away to the spinal cord and so
up to the brain. These nerve-endings are designed for the reception
of the different kinds of vibration by which energy presents itself to
us. As the largest example of these nerve-endings, let me here show
you one of the so-called Pacinian bodies, or, more correctly, Marshall's
corpuscles, for Mr. John Marshall discovered these bodies in England
before Pacini published his observations in Italy. Here you see one
of these small oval bodies arranged on the ends of one of the nerves
of the fingers, and here you see the nerve-fiber ending in the little
protoplasmic bulb which is protected by a number of concentric
sheaths. Pressure or any form of irritation of this body at the end
of the nerve-fiber causes a stream of nerve-energy to travel through
the spinal cord to the brain, and so we become conscious that some-
thing is happening to the finger.

Here in this section of the sensitive membrane of the back of the
eye, the retina, you see a similar arrangement, only more complicated
— namely, nerve-fibers leading away from small protoplasmic masses
which possess the property of absorbing light and transforming it into
nerve-energy. It is this transformation of nerve-energy into heat,
light, pressure, etc., which it seems to me should alone be called a sen-
sation, irrespective of consciousness. And, in fact, we habitually say
we feel a sensation. The terms " feeling " and " sensation," however,
are frequently used as interchangeable expressions, although, as I shall
show you directly, " feeling " is the conscious disturbance of a sensory
center in the surface of the brain, and in fact feeling is the conscious
perception of sensations. This distinction between feeling and sensa-
tion, if dogmatic, will save us from dispute as to the meaning of the
word " sensation " ; and, further, the distinction is one, as I have just
shown, which is justified by custom.

Now, the nerve-fiber which conveys the energy of the sensation is
a round thread of protoplasm which in all probability connects the
nerve-ending with a sensory corpuscle in the spinal cord. These nerve-
fibers running in nerves are white, whereas, as you know, protoplasm
is gray. They are white because each is insulated from its fellow by
a white sheath of fatty substance, just as we protect telegraph-wires

I02 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

with coatings. It is not stretching analogy too far to say that nerve-
force may probably escape unless properly insulated.

In consequence of the fibers being covered with these white sheaths,
they form what is called the white matter of the brain ; while the
nerve-centers are grayish, and therefore form what is called the gray
matter of the brain, so that the gray matter receives and records the
messages conveyed to it by the white insulated fibers.

From the sensory corpuscle, which is a small mass of protoplasm
provided with branches connecting it to neighboring corpuscles, the
nerve-energy, if adequate, passes along a junction thread of protoplasm
to a much larger corpuscle, which is called a motor corpuscle, and the
energy of which, when liberated by the nerve impulse from the sen-
sory corpuscle, is capable of exciting muscles into active contraction.
These two corpuscles form what is called a nerve-center.

Not only are the motor corpuscles fewer as well as much larger
than the sensory ones, but also the nerve-fibers which go out from
them are larger too. In fact, it would seem as if we had another close
analogy to electrical phenomena ; for here, where we want a sudden
discharge of a considerable intensity of nerve-force, we find to hand a
large accumulator mechanism and a large conductor, the resistance of
which may justly be supposed to be low. Finally, the motor nerve-
fiber terminates in a protoplasmic mass which is firmly united to a
muscle-fiber, and which enables the muscle-fiber to contract and so
cause movement of one or more muscles. Now, with this idea of the
general plan on which the whole nervous system is constructed, you
will understand that muscular action — i. e., movement — will occur in
proportion to (1) the intensity of the stimulation of the sensory cor-
puscle ; and (2) the resistance in the different channels. When a sim-
ple flow through the whole apparatus occurs, it is called a simple
reflex action, and this was discovered in England by Dr. Marshall
Hall.

To recapitulate : A nerve-center, theoretically speaking, we find to
consist of a sensory corpuscle on the one hand and a motor corpuscle
on the other, both these being united by junction threads or commis-
sures. To such a center come sensations or impressions from the
nerve-endings, and from such a center go out impulses which set the
muscles in action.

I have dwelt thus at length on this most elementary point, because
it appears to me that, in consequence of the rapidity with which func-
tion is being demonstrated to be definitely localized in various portions
of the cerebral hemispheres, we are in danger of losing sight of Dr.
Ilughlings-Jackson's grand generalizations on nerve-function, and that
we are gradually inclining to the belief that the function of each part
is very distinct, and therefore can most readily act without disturbing
another part. In fact, we are perhaps drifting toward the quicksands
of spontaneity, and disregarding entirely the facts of every-day life

THE MOTOR CENTERS AND TEE WILL. 103

which show that every cycle of nerve-action includes a disturbance of
the sensory side as well as the active motor agency. Did we, in fact,
admit the possibility of the motor corpuscle acting inr se, and in the
absence of any sensory stimulation, we should again be placed in the
position of believing that an effect could be produced in the absence
of a cause.

For these reasons such a center has been termed kinsesthetic or
sensori motor, and such centers exist in large numbers in the spi-
nal cord, and they perform for us the lower functions of our lives
without arousing our consciousness or only the substrata of the same.

But now, turning to the brain, although I am extremely anxious to
maintain the idea just enunciated that, when discussing the abstract
side of its functions we should remember the sensori-motor arrange-
ment of the ideal center, I shall have to show you directly that the two
sides — namely, the sensory and motor — in the brain are separated by
a wide interval, and that in consequence we have fallen into the habit
of referring to the groups of sensory and motor corpuscles in the brain
as distinct centers. I trust you will not confuse these expressions,
this unfortunately feeble terminology, and that you will understand,
although parts may be anatomically separated and only connected by
commissural threads, that functionally they are closely correlated. In
consequence of the bilateral symmetry of our bodies we possess a
double brain — a practically symmetrical arrangement of two intimate-
ly connected halves or hemispheres which, as you know, are concerned
with opposite sides of the body, for the right hemisphere moves the
left limbs, and vice versa.

For my purpose it will be sufficient if we regard the brain as com-
posed of two great collections of gray matter or nerve-corpuscles
which are connected with sensory nerve-endings, with muscles, and
intimately with one another.

In this transverse section of a monkey's brain, which is stained
dark-blue to show up its component parts, you will see all over the
surface a quantity of dark -gray matter, which is simply the richly
convoluted surface of the brain cut across. Observe, it is about a
quarter of an inch deep, and from it lead downward numerous white
fibers toward the spinal cord. The surface of the brain, the highest
and most complicated part of the thinking organ, is called the cortex,
bark, or rind, and in it are arranged the motor centers I am about
to describe. These white fibers coming away from it to the cord,
not only are channels conveying messages down to the muscles, but
also carrying messages from the innumerable sense-corpuscles all over
the body.

So much for one gray mass of centers. Now, down here at the
base of the brain you see two lumps or masses of the same nature, and
these are called, therefore, the basal ganglia or gray masses. Since
they are placed at the side of the paths from the cortex, and undoubt-

104 T^^ POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

edly do not interfere with the passage of impulses along those paths,
we may put them aside, remembering that they probably are con-
cerned with low actions of the nervous system, such as eating, etc.,
which are popularly termed automatic functions.

In this photograph of a model made by Professor Aeby, of Berne,
you see represented from the front the two cerebral hemispheres with
the centers in the cortex as little masses on the surface, and the basal
ganglia as darker ones at the bottom, while leading from them down
into the spinal cord are wires to indicate the channels of communica-
tion.

Note, in passing, that both hemispheres are connected by a thick
band of fibers called the " corpus callosum." It is, I believe, the close
tinion thus produced between the two halves that leads in a great
measure (though not wholly) to consonance of ideas.

The arrangement of the fibers will be rendered still clearer by this
scheme, in which the cortex is represented by this concave mass, and
the fibers issuing from the same by these threads. The basal ganglia
would occupy this position, and they have their own system of fibers.

I will now leave these generalizations, and explain at once the great
advance in our knowledge of the brain that has been made during the
last decade. The remarkable discovery that the cortex or surface of
the brain contained centers which governed definite groups of muscles,
was first made by the German observers Hitzig and Fritsch ; their
results were, however, very incomplete, and it was reserved for Pro-
fessor Ferrier to produce a masterly demonstration of the existence
and exact position of these centers, and to found an entirely new
scheme of cerebral physiology.

The cortex of the brain, although it is convoluted in this exceed-
ingly complex manner, fortunately shows great constancy in the ar-
rangement of its convolutions, and we may therefore readily grasp the
main features of the same without much trouble. From this photo-
graph of the left side of an adult human brain you will see that its
outer surface or cortex is deeply fissured by a groove running back-
ward just below its middle, which groove is called the "fissure of Syl-
vius," after a distinguished mediaeval anatomist. This fissure, if car-
ried upward, would almost divide the brain into a motor half in front
and a sensory half behind.

Of equal practical importance is another deep fissure which runs at
an open angle to the last, and which is called the " fissure of Rolando,"
Rolando being another pioneer of cerebral topography. Now, it is
around this fissure of Rolando that the motor side of the centers for
voluntary movement is situated ; and when this portion of the cortex
is irritated by gentle electric currents, a constant movement follows
according to the part stimulated.

Because of their upward direction, the convolutions bounding the
fissure of Rolando are called respectively the " ascending frontal " and

THE MOTOR CENTERS AND THE WILL. 105

" ascending parietal " convolutions. Now here, at the lowest end of
the fissure of Rolando, we find motor areas for the movement of both
sides of the face : that is to say that, as regards this particular piece
of the cortex, it has the power of moving not only its regular side of
the face, the right, but also the left — that, in fact, both sides of the
face move by impulse from it.

Higher up we find an area for movement of the opposite side of
the face only. I reserve for a moment the description of this portion
of the brain, and pass on to say that above these centers for the face
we find the next is for the upper limb, and most especially the com-
mon movement of the upper limb — viz., grasping, indeed the only for-
ward movement which the elbow is capable of, namely, flexion. The
grasping and bringing of an object near to us is the commonest move-
ment by far, and we find here that this center is mainly concerned in
it. Behind the fissure of Rolando, Dr. Ferrier placed the centers
for the fingers. Next above the arm area is a portion of the cortex
which moves the lower limb only, and in front of this again is an area
for consonant action of the opposite arm and leg. Let me here remind
you that this being the left hemisphere, these are the centers for move-
ment of the opposite, that is, the right limbs, and that in the other
hemisphere there are corresj^onding areas for the left limbs.

Thus here we have mapped out those portions of the cortex which
regulate the voluntary movement of the limbs. So far I have omitted
mention of the muscles of the trunk, namely, those which move the
shoulders, the hips, and bend and straighten the back. Dr. Ferrier
had shown that there existed on the outer surface of the cortex, here,
a small area for the movement of the head from side to side.

Professor Schafer and myself have found that the large trunk-
muscles have special areas for their movement, ranged along the margin
of the hemisphere, and dipping over into the longitudinal fissure. Thus
all the muscles of the body are now accounted for, and I will first draw
special attention to the fact that they are arranged in the order, from
below upward, of face, arm, leg, and trunk.

The consideration of this very definite arrangement led Dr. Lauder
Brunton to make the ingenious suggestion that it followed as a neces-
sary result of the progressive evolution of our faculties. For, premis-
ing, in the first place, from well-ascertained broad generalizations, that
the highest center, physically speaking, is also the highest functionally
and most recent in acquirement, we find that the lowest is the face,
and then we remember that the lowest animals simply grasp their food
with their mouth. I imagine it is scarcely necessary for me to repeat
the notorious confession that our faculties are arranged for the pur-
pose of obtaining food as the primary object of what is called bare
existence.

Proceeding upward in the scale of evolution, we next find animals
which can grasp their prey and convey it to the mouth, and so we find

io6 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

next to the face area evolved that for the arm. And so on, the next
step would be the development of the legs to run after the prey, and
here is the leg-center ; while, finally, the trunk-muscles are dragged
in to help the limbs more effectually. To my mind this idea receives
overwhelming support from the consideration of the fact that, the
higher our centers are, the more they require education ; the infant,
for instance, in a few days shapes its face quite correctly to produce the
food-inspiring yell, yet takes months or years to educate its upper
limbs to aid it in the same laudable enterprise. Finally, what terrible
probation some people pass through at the hands of dancing-masters
before their trunk-muscles will bend into the bow of politeness !

Now to return to the lower end of the fissure of Rolando, to the
areas for movements of the face : it was long ago pointed out by the
two Daxes and Professor Broca that when this portion of the brain
immediately in front of the face area was destroyed, the person lost
the power of articulate speech, or was only capable of uttering injec-
tions and customary "strange oaths." In fact, this small portion of
the left side of our brains (about one and a half square inch) is the
only apparatus for expressing our thoughts by articulating sounds,
and note particularly that it is on the left side. The corresponding
piece on the right side can not talk, as it were. This remarkable state
of things is reversed in left-handed people. In these the right hemi-
sphere predominates ; and so we find that, when this portion was dis-
eased, there followed aphasia, as it is called. While, however, the
right side customarily says nothing, it can be taught to do so in young
people, though not in the aged.

Before leaving these motor areas, let me repeat, by way of recapit-
ulation, that the only truly bilaterally acting areas are those for the
lower facial and throat muscles. This is a most important fact, for
the idea has recently been propounded that both sides of the body are
represented in each motor region of each hemisphere. That is to say,
each motor area has to do with the movements of both upper limbs,
for example. In support of my contention that this is not in accord-
ance with clinical facts, let me here show you photographs of the
brain of a man who was unfortunate enough to suffer destruction of
the fibers leading from one motor area. Here you see a puncture in
the brain which has caused hasmorrhage beneath the fissure of Ro-
lando and the motor convolutions in front and behind it.

In this transverse section of the same spot you see that the haemor-
rhage has plowed up the interior of the brain. Here is the cortical
gray matter, but its fibers leading down to the muscles are all de-
stroyed. Now, in examining this patient I asked him to move his left
arm or leg ; he was perfectly conscious, and, understanding the ques-
tion, made the effort, as we say, but no movement occurred. Now, if
both sides of the body are represented in each hemisphere, it seems to
me that such a case would be impossible, or at least that a little prac-

THE MOTOR CENTERS AND THE WILL. 107

tice would enable the other hemisphere to do the work ; but all clini-
cal facts say that, once destroyed, the loss is never recovered.

If we examine this motor region of the cortex with the microscope,
we of course find these large corpuscles, which we have learned are
those which alone give energy to the muscles. But you must not
imagine that the motor region consists solely of these corpuscles. On
the contrary, as you see in this diagram, we have several layers of cor-
puscles. I shall return to this arrangement of the corpuscles directly.

Looking back at the surface of the brain, you notice that I have
only accounted for but a small portion of the cortex. Dr. Ferrier was
the first to show that the portion of cortex which perceived (and I use
the word in its strictest sense) the sensation of light was this part, and
it is therefore called the " visual center or area." From recent re-
searches it would appear that we must give it the limits drawn on this
diagram ; below it we find the center for hearing. Thus we know
where two sense perceptive centers are situated.

Microscopical investigation shows that this sensorial portion of the
cortex is very deficient in large corpuscles, and is correspondingly rich
in small cells. Here in this diagram you see these two kinds of struct-
ure in the cortex cerebri. Note the greater number and complication
of the small corpuscles in the sensory part of the cortex, and the com-
paratively fewer though much larger corpuscles in the motor region.

It seems to me that several beliefs are justified by these facts : In
the first place, the movements produced by the action of these motor
centers are always the same for the same center ; consequently, it has
only one thing to do, one idea, as it were. Thus, for instance, bend-
ing of the arm : this action can only vary in degree, for the elbow
will not permit of other movements. Hence we may look upon it as
one idea. Now, observe that where one idea is involved we have but
few corpuscles. Next, consider the multitude of ideas that crowd into
our mind when we receive a sensation. One idea, then, rapidly calls
up another, and so we find anatomically that there are a corresponding
much greater number and complication of nerve-corpuscles. To sum
up, I believe we are justified in asserting that where in the nervous
system a considerable intensity of nerve-energy is required — e. g., for
the contraction of muscles — you find a few large corpuscles and fibers
provided ; and that where numerous ideas have to be functionalized,
there numerous small corpuscles are arranged for the purpose.

But, now, the special interest attaching to the sensory perceptive
areas is that they, unlike the motor areas, tend to be related to both
sides of the body. With our habit of constantly focusing the two
eyes on one object, it will strike you at once that habitually we can
only be attentively conscious of one object at a time, since both eyes
are engaged in looking at it, and, as you know, we can not as a mat-
ter of fact look at two things at once.

Hence, I take it, both sensory perceptive centers are always fully

io8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

occupied with the same object at the same moment, and that therefore
we have complete bilateral representation of both sides of the body in
each hemisphere. As a further consequence, each sensory perceptive
area will register the idea that engaged it ; in other words, both cen-
ters will remember the same thing. Thus it happens that each sensory
area can perform the duty of the other, and therefore it is a matter of
comparative indifference whether one is destroyed or not, and as a mat-
ter of fact when this happens we find that the person or animal recog-
nizes objects as they actually are, and in fact has no doubt as to their
nature. Here you see anatomically the reason of this peculiarity is
found to be that the optic or seeing nerves cross one another incom-
pletely in going to each hemisphere, and thus each sensory center rep-
resents half of each eyeball.

I must pass rapidly to the description of the rest of the surface of
the brain — the hinder and front ends. At the outset I must admit
that all our knowledge concerning them is very hypothetical in the
absence of positive experimental results.

This much we can say, that they are probably the seats of intel-
lectual thought, for many reasons which I have not time to detail.
Further, we know that these intellectual areas are dependent for their
activity entirely on the sensory perceptive centers, for the dictum that
there is no consciousness in the absence of sensory stimulation is very
well established, as I shall now show you, however astounding it may
appear. In the first place, you will remember that when we wish to
encourage that natural loss of consciousness which we call sleep, we
do all we can to deprive our sense-organs and areas of stimulation.
Thus we keep ourselves at a constant temperature, ■vse shut off the
light, and abolish all noises if we can. But a most valuable observa-
tion was made a few years ago by Dr. Strurapell, of Leipsic, who had
under his care a youth, the subject of a disease of the brain, etc.,
which, while destroying the function of one eye and ear, besides the
sensibility to touch over the whole body, still left him when awake
quite conscious and able to understand, etc., using his remaining eye
and ear for social intercourse. Now, when these were carefully closed
he became unconscious immediately, in fact slept, and slept until he
was aroused again, or awoke naturally, as we say, after some hours.
Hence the higher functions of the brain exercised when that organ is
energizing the reasoning of the mind are absolutely dependent upon
the reception of energy from the sense perceptive areas.

But my only point with reference to this part of the brain is to
attempt to determine how far they are connected with the motor cen-
ters in the performance of a voluntary act. With the mechanism of
choice and deliberate action I have nothing to do ; but there can be
no doubt that the part of the brain concerned in that process of the
mind is directly connected with the motor region, as indicated on this
diagram, to which I would now return. From what I have here writ-

THE MOTOR CENTERS AND THE WILL. 109

ten you read, arranged schematically, the psychical processes, which,
for the sake of argument, we may assume are carried on by the mind
in these portions of the cortex,

I wish to point out that we have structurally and physiologically
demonstrated with great probability the paths and centers of these
psychical actions. There is no break : the mere sight of an object
causes a stream of energy to travel through our sense areas, expand-
ing as it goes by following the widening sensory paths here repre-
sented, and at the same time we feel our intellect learns that new ideas
are rising up and finally expand into the process of deliberate thought,
concerning which all we know is from that treacherous support, name-
ly, introspection.

Then come impulses to action, and these follow a converse path to
the receptive one just described ; the nerve-energy is concentrated
more and more until it culminates in the discharge of the motor cor-
puscles. We might represent the whole process of the voluntary act
by two fans side by side, and the illimitable space above their arcs
would serve very well to signify the darkness in which we sit con-
cerning the process of intellectual thought.

What I have hastily sketched is the outline of the process of an
attentive or voluntary act. I say attentive advisedly, for I wish now
to put forward the view that the proper criterion of the voluntary
nature of an act is not the mere effort that is required to perform it,
but is the degree to ichich the attention is involved. The popular view
of the volitional character of an act being decided by the effort to keep
the action sustained is surely incomplete, for in the first place we are
not seeking to explain our consciousness of an effort ; we endeavor to
discover the causation of the effort. Our sense of effort only comes
when the will has acted, and that same sense is no doubt largely due
to the information which the struggling muscle sends to the brain, and
possibly is a conscious appreciation of how much energy this motor
corpuscle is giving out.

Now, to give you an example. I see this tambour, and decide to
squeeze it, and do so. Now, this was a distinctly voluntary act ; but
the volitionary part of it was not the effort made, it was the deliber-
ate decision to cause the movement. I may now point out that in
this whole process we say, and say rightly, that our attention is in-
volved so long as we are deliberating over the object ; that as soon as
another object is brought to us our attention is distracted, that is to
say, turned aside.

All writers are agreed that the attention can not be divided, that
we really only attend to one thing at once. It seems to me that this
is so obvious as not to require experimental demonstration ; but I
have led up to this point because I now wish to refer to the third part
of my subject, namely, the question as to whether we have a really
double nervous system or not. But, by way of preface, let me re-

no THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

peat that, although we may have a sub-consciousness of objects and
acts, that sub-conscious state is true automatism, and that such auto-
matic acts are in no sense voluntary until the attention has been con-
centrated upon them. For example, again I press this tambour, be-
cause I desire to raise the flag, and I keep that raised while I attend
to what I am saying to you. My action of keeping the flag raised is
only present to my consciousness in a slight or subordinate degree,
and does not require my attention, deliberate thought, or choice, and
therefore, I repeat, is not a voluntary action ; in fact, it could be carried
on perfectly well by this lower sensori-motor center, which only now
and then sends up a message to say it is doing its duty, in the same
way as a sentry calls out " All is well " at intervals.

But to return. In consequence of the obvious fact that we have
two nerve-organs, each more or less complete, some writers have im-
agined that we have two minds ; and to the Rev. Mr. Barlow, a
former secretary of this Institution, is due the credit of recognizing
the circumstances which seem to favor that view. It was keenly
taken up, and the furore culminated in a German writer (whose
name, I am ashamed to say, has escaped me) postulating that we pos-
sess two souls.

Now, the evidence upon which this notion rests, that the two halves
of the brain might occasionally work independently of one another at
the same moment, was of two kinds. In the first place it was asserted
that we could do two different things at once, and in the second place
evidence was produced of people acting and thinking as if they had
two minds.

Kow, while of course admitting that habitually one motor center
usually acts at one moment by itself, I am prepared to deny in toto
that two voluntary acts can be performed at the same time, and I have
already shown what is necessary for the fulfillment of all the condi-
tions of volition, and that these conditions are summed up in the word
attention.

Further, I have already shown that, when an idea comes into the
mind owing to some object catching the eye, both sensory areas are
engaged in considering it. It seems to me I might stop here, and
say that here was an a jyriori reason why two simultaneous voluntary
acts are impossible ; but as my statements have met with some oppo-
sition, I prefer to demonstrate the fact by some experiments.

The problem, stated in physiological terms, is as follows : Can this
right motor region act in the process of volition, while at the same
time this other motor area is also engaged in a different act of voli-
tion ? Some say this is possible ; but in all cases quoted I have found
that sub-conscious or automatic actions are confused with truly volun-
tary acts. I mean that such automatic acts as playing bass and treble
are not instances of pure volition, as the attention is not engaged on
both notes at once.

THE MOTOR CENTERS AND THE WILL. in

Consider for a moment the passage of the nerve impulses through
the brain that would have to occur. At the outset we find that the
sensory perceptive centers would have to be engaged with two differ-
ent ideas at once ; but Lewes showed long ago that introspection tells
us this is impossible, that " consciousness is a seriated change of feel-
ings " : he might equally well have said ideas. And, again, we know
that when two streams of energy of like character meet, they mutually
arrest each other's progress by reason of interfering with the vibration-
waves.

I will show directly that this is actually the case in the action of
the cortex when the above-mentioned dilemma is presented to it. The
experiment I have devised for this purpose is extremely simple. A
person who is more or less ambidextrous, and who has been accus-
tomed for a long time to draw with both hands, attempts to describe
on a flat surface a triangle and circle at the same moment. I chose
these figures, after numerous trials, as being the most opposite, seeing
that in a triangle there are only three changes of movement, while in
a circle the movement is changing direction every moment. To insure
the attempt to draw these figures simultaneously succeeding, it is ab-
solutely necessary that the experimenter should be started by a signal.

When the effort is made, there is a very definite sensation in the
mind of the conflict that is going on in the cortex of the brain. The
idea of the circle alternates with that of the triangle, and the result
of this confusion in the intellectual and sensorial portions of the brain
is that both motor areas, though remembering, as it were, the determi-
nation of the experimenter to draw distinct figures, produce a like
confused effect, namely, a circular triangle and a triangular circle. If
the drawing is commenced immediately at the sound of the signal, it
will be found that the triangle predominates ; thus, if I determine to
draw a triangle with my left hand and a circle with my right, the tri-
angle (though with all its angles rounded off) will be fairly drawn,
while the circle will be relatively more altered, of course made trian-
gular. On the other hand, if the two figures are not commenced
simultaneously, it will be found that usually the one begun last will
appear most distinct in the fused result, in fact, will very markedly
predominate.

Now, the course of events in such an experiment appears to be
clear. The idea of a triangle and circle having been presented to the
intellect by the sensory centers, the voluntary effort to reproduce these
is determined upon. Now, if we had a dual mind, and if each hemi-
sphere was capable of acting /j^r se, then we should have each intel-
lectual area sending a message to its own motor area, with the result
that the two figures would be distinct and correct, not fused.

The other evidence that I referred to above, which is adduced in
favor of the synchronously independent action of the two hemispheres
is from the account of such cases as the following : Professor Ball, of

112 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Paris, records the instance of a young man who one morning heard
himself addressed by name, and yet he could not see his interlocutor.
He replied, however, and a conversation followed, in the course of
which his ghostly visitant informed him that his name was M. Gab-
bage.

After this occurrence he frequently heard M. Gabbage speaking to
him. Unfortunately, M. Gabbage was always recommending him to
perform very outrageous acts, such as to give an overdose of chloro-
dyne to a friend's child, and to jump out of a second-floor window.
This led to the patient being kept under observation, and it was found
that he was suffering from a one-sided hallucination. Similar cases
have been recorded in which disease of one sensory perceptive area has
produced unilateral hallucination.

I can not see that these cases in any way support the notion of the
duality of the mind. On the contrary, they go to show that while as
a rule the sensory perceptive areas are simultaneously engaged upon
one object, it is still possible for one only to be stimulated, and for the
mind to conclude that the information it receives in this unusual way
must be supernatural, and at any rate proceeding from one side of the
body.

To conclude, I have endeavored to show that as a rule both cere-
bral hemispheres are engaged at once in the receiving and considering
one idea ; that under no circumstances can two ideas either be con-
sidered or acted upon attentively at the same moment ; that there-
fore the brain is a single instrument.

It now appears to me that one is justified in suggesting that our
idea of our being single individuals is due entirely to this single action
of the brain.

Laycock showed that the Ego was the sum of our experience, and
every writer since confirms him. But our experience means (1) our
perception of ideas transmitted and elaborated by the sensory paths of
the brain ; and (2) our consciousness of the acts we perform. If, now,
these things are always single, the idea of the Ego surely must also be
sinijle. — Nature.

nOME-LIFE OF THE THIBETANS.*

By CHAELES H. LEPPER.

THIBET ! how little does the name of that unexplored and jeal-
ously exclusive country convey to the average European ! To
the scientific it is known as the most extensive and highest table-land
in the world, the water-parting from whence the majority of the
largest and longest rivers in the world derive their sources. It is also

* From an article on Thibet in the " Nineteenth Century."

HOME-LIFE OF THE THIBETANS. 113

the Rome of the Buddhist religion of the present day, and upon the
miscalled " Lama " priesthood is bestowed the undeserved reputation
of much learning and the possession of the secrets of ancient mystical
and occult science. While tempted to consider the Thibetans from a
European stand-point as, if not effete, at all events a semi-barbarous
people, it only requires a moment's consideration of the striking fact
that, notwithstanding its thousands of miles of frontier, no European
can now evade their frontier-guards at any point along those thousands
of miles, for it to become apparent that a country with a government
which can organize and maintain such a marvelous and efficient system
can hardly in reason be called effete. Effete it certainly is not ; and
yet, strange to say, notwithstanding this apparent evidence of its
power, there is probably no country in the world of equal size which
contains within itself such real weakness from a political point of view,
and which could be so easily made a prey of by a designing neighbor.
To arrive at that conclusion it is necessary to thoroughly understand
the internal economy of that strange country, and so little is known
concerning its people that no apology is necessary for entering into
such minute details as space will admit of in this glance at its people
and their habits, customs, government, and religious system.

To begin, and in order to familiarize the reader with the surround-
ings and conditions of life of the people under description, let us pict-
ure a typical Thibetan house.

The outside walls are generally of stone, set in a very inferior kind
of mortar, but oftener in a bedding of puddled mud. When clay is
available the builders much prefer to have only the foundations of
stone and the walls above-ground of well-prepared clay, which latter
they build up between plank molds. These are removed as each layer
is finished, and then raised to act as molds for the next layer.

The houses have two stories, and frequently there is a shed along
one side of the roof, in which the inhabitants work when the sun is
oppressive. A great part of their work is done on the flat roof, such
as thrashing grain, etc. The ground-floor is devoted to the cattle —
horses and pigs, etc. The fowls usually roost with the family on the
first floor. The construction of the floor of the upper story is suffi-
ciently curious. Its main supports are cross-beams ; on these smaller
beams are placed at right angles, on which are laid slabs of wood ; on
these again are laid small twigs like broom, and then a coating of mud
plaster is spread, on which the planks are finally placed. A hole is
left in this floor for their primitive ladder (a piece of wood with
notches cut in it), up through which hole ascend all the effluvia from
the animals below !

There is only one door for the whole house. In front of this door
there is generally a court-yard surrounded by walls. All the manure
and refuse is allowed to remain in situ under the house, and in the
court, all the year through, till shortly before the season for manuring

VOL. XXTIII. — 8

114 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the fields, when it is all collected into a big heap and left to ferment
there from a fortnight to three weeks, after which it is spread over
the land.

The larger houses have one or more wings and a veranda. The
floor forming the roof is made in the same way as the other, only there
is an addition of cow-dung to the mud instead of planks, and the plas-
ter thus made is beaten for days with sticks to make it amalgamate, as
in India. All cracks, as the plaster dries, are carefully filled up with
fresh plaster till the whole is a good solid roof and floor combined, and
very well adapted for thrashing.

The common-room is the kitchen on the first floor in which they
all sleep, with their heads toward the fireplace, never with their feet
toward the fire, as that is considered an insult or affront in their eti-
quette. In summer they sleep on the roof.

The Thibetans who live in the valleys are not as a rule fine men
physically, but the highlanders, or hill-men, such as the shepherds,
etc., up in the high Thibetan mountains, are massive beaux hommes,
having somewhat the appearance of having been hewed out of solid
blocks.

The people of the valleys are more or less idle gossips, disliking
work intensely. The men do no work in the fields except plowing,
and few who can afford to pay another to do it for them will do even
that much. When not in repose — i. e., when not absolutely doing
nothing — the men occupy themselves by sewing, spinning, looking
after the mules, horses, and cattle, but above all in attending to the
petty business of the family. The women sow, irrigate, weed, cut the
harvest, thrash, winnow, carry the grain to the granary, and do all the
housework as well. If there are loads to be carried, the women carry
them. If a man be asked to carry a big case or heavy load, he is cer-
tain, on seeing it, to say at once, " That ! that's a woman's load," and
of the baggage he will select the smallest parcel he can find as his
burden. In the pasturages, the women milk, make the butter, and look
after the flocks when these are grazing near the tents or encampment.
The men herd the flocks when grazing at a distance. The women ride
as well as the men, and in the same fashion. From constantly throw-
ing stones at the cattle the women are adepts at this, and can and do
make it very unpleasant for any person who may have irritated them
into putting their science into practice. Dirt is the ruling feature
everywhere in Thibetan households. It pervades their houses and
their persons, prevails in their customs, and gives a tone to and bears
fruit in their speech.

A European, an English oflicial in India, once desiring to see the
real color of the Thibetan skin, paid the parents of a child to have it
washed in hot water, several waters, and with an unlimited supply of
soap. Every effort was made in vain, the skin could not be reached
through such an armor-plating of dirt. It is said with every show of

HOME-LIFE OF THE THIBETANS. 115

truth that it would be quite impossible to wash an adult Thibetan
down to the skin. The beauty of a woman in Thibet consists in her
being stout, broad, thick-set, and heavily membered, and the accom-
plishments to be desired are that she should be above all things auda-
cious, a good hand at a bargain and at repartee ; in fact, a typical Bil-
lingsgate virago, if massive enough, would pass as a Venus in Thibet.

The ordinary food of the country is barley that, having been
parched, is afterward ground and called Tsam pa, or Tsang pa. This
meal they moisten with tea made in the Thibetan manner — i. e., of
boiled *' brick-tea " buttered and salted — or else, if too poor to use tea,
moistened with soup, by mixing it in a cup and working the paste
round with the fingers against the side of the cup. They eat this paste
soft and moist. Tea made of the filthy " brick-tea," boiled with but-
ter, salt being added to taste, and the mixture well churned, is the
ordinary drink of the country, soup taking its place among the poorer
classes. There are, of course, other kinds of food, but the above is
the staple. They have a kind of chupatti, or scone, a common food.
They eat flesh, chiefly of pigs, and fowls, but all depends upon their
locality and means. They have no established rules, customs, or fixed
hours for eating, the nearest approach to a rule being to take what they
can get on the spot when hungry. Tea, as stated above, is the chief
drink, so much so that it has become the custom to ask people to come
and " drink tea," when to come and eat dinner is really intended, and
this even in cases where the family is too poor to provide tea, and no
tea in such cases is expected. After tea, as favorite beverage, comes
a kind of barley-beer called Khiong in the east, Tchong in the west,
and then a kind of distilled barley- whisky called A ra. In the past-
urages buttermilk is the ordinary drink, and curds and whey, called
Ta ra, are in favor. On the days on which they boil their meat they
prepare no tea, but use the broth as a drink instead, on economical
grounds ; and on broth-days they mix the Tsam pa with broth instead
of tea.

Coming to the Thibetan costume. The men wear the Tchru hay a
long and thick woolen robe, sheepskin in winter, descending down till
it would drag considerably on the ground if let loose. It is doubled
well across the chest and front till the ends or edges almost meet the
shoulders, where one edge is fastened under the right arm with a tape
or string bow. In dressing, the man, having on his Tchru ha hanging
loose about him, holds his sash or belt about on a level with the knees,
or a little above them, and this he draws in to make a gather, and then
the belt, with all of the robe above it, is drawn up and the belt fastened
round the waist. This leaves a large pouch of course, falling over the
belt all round, and leaves the foot of the robe about half-way between
the knee and the calf. Into the pouch so formed they put anything
they have to carry, such as their Tsam pa cup, and even little dogs,
and sometimes little pigs.

ii6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

At night, before lying down to rest, they take off their boots and
belt, and with these make a pillow. They then judge their distance
from the " pillow," and kick that part of their robe (now trailing on
the ground after removing the belt) which they intend to lie on toward
the "pillow" ; thus by a kick converting one side of their Tchru ha
into a mattress, and by this arrangement leaving themselves still the
other side of the robe to act as a complete bed-covering on lying down ;
and all without undressing. Only the rich indulge in a carpet to sleep
on, and rich people sometimes use a Chinese carpet. The above sys-
tim of bed-making is almost universally practiced throughout Thibet,
or at all events throughout Eastern Thibet.

Women often wear the above costume, but it is not their proper
dress, which is as follows : a kilted petticoat of woolen stuff, some-
times considerably decorated in colors with flowers, is so worn as to
fall to about the ankles. In putting it on they commence on the left
hip, pass it round the body once, and again across the front, thus hav-
ing a double thickness in front ; they fasten it on the right hip. This
petticoat is made up of many narrow strips each a few inches wide,
these being sewed together and kilted in such a manner as to have the
pleats only down the sides, being quite plain both front and back.
For a waist-band it has a strong strip of long-cloth sewed to its inner
side. Attached to this waist-band is a sleeveless bodice, generally of
cotton cloth, which is supported by bands over the shoulders, and this
garment carries the weight of the petticoat. The bodice is doubled
across the chest and tied on the right side at the neck, under the right
arm and again lower down. They also wear a sash or cummerhand
some six inches in width and about ten feet long, with the ends falling
loose from under the belt on the right side. This is the ordinary fe-
male attire, but, when they wish to dress better, they wear a sleeved
chemise under the bodice ; this, however, is very rarely worn at home
in their houses or at work. On state occasions they wear a jacket
with longer sleeves and longer body than the Chinese ma quoi, or quen
shen tze, but something like it. This jacket is of silk or cotton or
woolen cloth, etc., and falls to about half-way down the thighs. The
sleeves descend some seven inches lower than the tips of the fingers,
and are very full, though not so much so as the ma quoi. From the
wrist to the ends of the sleeves the color is always different and of a
more vivid and striking nature (sometimes red, green, etc.) than the
stuff or material of the main portion. The collar is nearly always of
red broadcloth, and is fastened by a large silver and coral brooch on
the chest. The jacket is closed down the right side with galloons or
braids of mixed and pronounced colors. They wear boots like those
of the men, the tops being of woolen or colored cotton material, and
the soles of leather. They very seldom wear any kind of hat. The
coiffure varies much. Their ornaments are generally of silver (very
rarely of gold) and precious stones, but chiefly of coral. The stones

SKETCH OF SIR LYON PLAY FAIR. 117

used are turquoise, lapis-lazuli, agate, aqua-marina, and amber, if the
latter may be classed with the stones. They also wear ornaments
made of a colored porcelain, etc. The very great people, such as gov-
ernors, have large ornaments in gold. Most of their precious stones
come from the neutral ground, or Singpho country, north of Upper
Burmah, between the British province of Assam and China, also from
India via Cashmere. When a woman prepares for sleep she simply
wraps a man's Tchru ha round her head, and lets the skirts fall about
her, rolling herself up in these, and, with her boots and belt for a pil-
low, she requires to seek no couch.

On the subject of trade very little can be said. Not that the trade
is insignificant by any means, but the system can be summed up in the
one word " peddling." Every family trades ; the Lamasseries trade ;
the officials trade ; but it is in every case conducted on the peddler
system. Members of a family attend to the trade of the family, and
travel immense distances with their laden mule and yaks, exchanging
their goods at different places as they go along. Shops are almost un-
known on any scale.

SKETCH OF Sm LYON PLAYFAIK.

IN Sir Lyon Playfair the British Association has for its president
this year a gentleman who, to a thorough scientific training and
a wide fame as a scientific man, unites a versatile adaptability to public
affairs, and who has done many unquestionable services to the state
in the lines of administration and of the advancement of great public
questions. " He is eminent," says the writer of a sketch of him in
an English paper, "as a scientific and practical chemist, a sanitary
reformer, an educational reformer, a man of public business, an ex-
minister, and late chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means in
the House of Commons."

Dr. Playfair is a son of Mr. George Playfair, Chief Inspector-
General of Hospitals of Bengal, and was born at Meerut, Bengal,
May 21, 1819. He was taught at St. Andrews and afterward at Glas-
gow, where he studied chemistry under Sir Thomas Graham, till 1837,
when he went to India for his health. Upon his return to England,
with restored vigor, he rejoined Professor Graham, who was then in
the London University, but soon after went to Giessen, where he con-
tinued his chemical studies, in the " organic " branch of the science,
under Liebig, and translated some of that author's works into Eng-
lish. Upon his return to Scotland he became manager of the Messrs.
Thompson's Calico-Printing Works at Clitheroe. In 1843 he was ap-
pointed Professor of Chemistry, succeeding Dalton, in the Royal In-
stitution at Manchester. In the next year he was appointed, upon the

u8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

recommendation of Sir Robert Peel, on the commission to examine
into the sanitary condition of large towns and populous districts, on
which subject he made reports which are described as characterized
by great ability. This work done, he was appointed chemical pro-
fessor in the Museum of Practical Geology in London. He was given
an important part in the preparations for the Great Exhibition of 1851
in visiting the manufacturing districts, in the performance of which
duty he drew up a classification of the objects of industry, and en-
tered into personal communication with the manufacturers, whereby
he exercised an important and beneficial influence, and contributed
much to the completeness of the Exhibition. He was appointed, in
connection with this undertaking. Special Commissioner in charge of
the Department of the Juries, and at its close was made a Companion
of the Bath and appointed to a position in the household of the Prince
Consort. He was again given the Department of Juries in connection
with the Exhibition of 1862, and had the appointment of the six hun-
dred jurors ; and in 1878 he was appointed chairman of the Finance
Committee of the English Commission in the French Exhibition, un-
der the presidency of the commission of the Prince of Wales. When
the Department of Science and Art was established in 1853, he was
appointed joint secretary with Mr. Henry Cole. Mr. Cole became
secretary in 1856, and Dr. Play fair was made Inspector-General of
Government Museums and Schools of Science. In 1857 he was elect-
ed President of the Chemical Society of London, and in 1858 was
appointed Professor of Chemistry in the University of Edinburgh,
where the Prince of Wales and Prince Alfred (now Duke of Edin-
burgh) enjoyed the privilege of his instructions.

He has served his country under ofiicial commissions, both in mat-
ters of scientific inquiry and in matters directly connected with politi-
cal administration and legislation. Of the former classes of service
may be mentioned his work in examining, in conjunction with Sir
Henry de la Beche, into the suitableness of the coals of the United
Kingdom for the purposes of the navy, his investigations into the
causes of accidents in mines, and his services in the Royal Commis-
sions on the Cattle Plague and on the Fisheries of the Scottish Coasts.
The final outcome of the work of the last-named commission was the
withdrawal of legislative restrictions on sea-fisheries. More intimately
connected with politics, but still" positions in which science has a part
to perform, are or have been his positions as a member of Parliament,
to which he was elected as a Liberal, in 1868, to represent the Univer-
sities of Edinburgh and St. Andrews ; as Postmaster-General, to
which ho was appointed by Mr.- Gladstone in 1873, and into which
department " Nature " at the time expressed the hope that he would
" endeavor to introduce something like scientific method " ; as Privy-
Coimcilor ; and as chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means
and Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons. Of a character partly

SKETCH OF SIR LYON PLAYFAIR. 119

allied to scientific or, at least, educational work and partly with poli-
tics, and pre-eminently tributary to the public good and to scientific
methods of administration was his work as President of the Civil-
Service Inquiry Commission of 1874, which resulted in the production
of the elaborate scheme for the reorganization of the civil service,
under the operation of which the British departmental administration
has attained its present condition of high integrity and efficiency.

Pertinently to Sir Lyon Playfair's work in these lines. Lord Ray-
leigh, ex-president, said, in presenting him as its presiding oificer to
the Association at Aberdeen : " As a general rule, I should think that
the desertion of active scientific work for politics was a step in the
wrong direction ; but, when one considers the valuable work done by
Sir Lyon Playfair, the lucid manner in which he teaches our rather
uninstructive legislators, the great influence he commands, and the
valuable services he has rendered on many occasions, I feel that there
are exceptions to the rule."

Professor Playfair's efforts have been unceasingly directed to pro-
moting the improvement of the standards of education, and the adop-
tion of more thorough and practical methods and objects in the teach-
ing of the elementary and higher schools. Presiding at a meeting of
a school-teachers' association in 1875, he referred to the subject of
compulsory education, which was gradually becoming universal in the
country, but which, he said, would be pure tyranny unless the educa-
tion in the schools was increased and its quality raised. Quantity was
all very good, but, unless quality accompanied it, there was not much
gained. " If it was to be said that children of thirteen or fourteen
years of age were merely to receive the same education as children
of eight years of age, compulsory education would be but tyranny.
Therefore, compulsory education involved higher education."

Of the direction toward which that increased and higher educa-
tion should be pointed he made a clear and forcible statement in his
address before the Educational Section of the Social Science Congress
at Newcastle in 1870, when, having remarked that, " under our present
system of elementary teaching, no knowledge whatever bearing on the
life-work of the people reaches them by our system of state educa-
tion," and that " the mere tools of education are put into the hands
of children during their school-time without any effort being made to
teach them to use the tools for any profitable purpose whatever, so
they get rusty or are thrown away altogether," he unfolded his own
views of the methods that should be pursued. "Books," he said,
"ought only to be accessories, not principals. The pupil must be
brought in face of the facts through experiment and demonstration.
He should pull the plant to pieces and see how it is constructed. He
must vex the electric cylinder till it yields him its sparks. He must
apply with his own hand the magnet to the needle. He must see
water broken up into its constituent parts, and witness the violence

120 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

with which its elements unite. Unless he is brought into actual con-
tact with the facts, and taught to observe and bring them into relation
with the science evolved from them, it were better that instruction in
science should be left alone, for one of the first lessons he must learn
from science is not to trust in authority, but to demand proof for each
asseveration. . . . Such education," he added, " cannot be begun too
early. The whole yearnings of a child are for the natural phenomena
around, until they are smothered by the ignorance of the parent,
lie is a young Linnajus, roaming over the fields in search of flowers.
He is a young conchologist or mineralogist, gathering shells or pebbles
on the sea-shore. He is an ornithologist, and goes bird-nesting ; an
ichthyologist, and catches fish. Glorious education in nature all this,
if the teacher knew how to direct and utilize it. . . . Do not suppose
that I wish the primary school to be a lecture-theatre for all or any of
the 'ologies.' All the science which would be necessary to give a
boy a taste of the principles involved in his calling, and an incitement
to pursue them in his future life, might be given in illustration of
other subjects. ... I deny that the utilitarian view of primary edu-
cation is ignoble. The present system is truly ignoble, for it sends
the working-man into the world in gross ignorance of everything he
is to do in it. The utilitarian system is noble, in so far as it treats
him as an intelligent being, who ought to understand the nature of his
occupation and the principles involved in it. The great advantage of
directing education toward the pursuits and occupations of the people,
instead of wasting it on dismal verbalism, is that, while it elevates
the individual, it at the same time gives security for the future pros-
perity of the nation."

In another address, delivered a few days afterward, he spoke of the
" Inosculation of the Arts and Sciences," or how they mutually grow
out of and build w.'^ one another, and of the intimate union between
science and labor. " It is not science," he said, " which creates labor
or the industries flowing from it. On the contrary, science is the
progeny of the industrial arts on the one side, and on the other of
the experiences and perceptions which gradually attach themselves to
these arts, so that the evolution of science from the arts is the first
circumstance of human progress, which, however, quickly receives de-
velopment and impulse from the science thus evolved. Industrial
Labor, then, is one of the parents, and Science the child ; but, as often
happens in the world, the son becomes richer than the father, and
raises his position. . . . Science does not depend upon facts alone, but
upon the increase of mental conceptions which can be brought to bear
upon them ; these conceptions increase as slowly as the common knowl-
edge derived from experience — they both descend by inheritance from
one generation to another, until science in its progress becomes a pre-
vision of new knowledge by light reflected from the accumulated com-
mon knowledge of the past. In the progress of time common knowl-

i

SKETCH OF SIR LYON PLATFAIR. 121

edge passes into scientific knowledge." An indication of one of the
ways in which he would have this system put into operation is given
in a letter he wrote to the ofiicers of a London school suggesting the
devotion of a certain property to the formation of chemical and sci-
entific museums in relation to commerce. No boy enjoying the advan-
tages of such a museum " need leave the upper classes of the school
without being able to examine the various kinds of merchandise which
he will meet with in his occupations, so far, at least, as would enable
him to test chemically their relative excellences, or detect their adulter-
ations. No boy need then leave the school without having had his
physical and political geography copiously illustrated by objects of
natural history, in their relation to the imports and exports, upon
which the prosperity of the country so largely depends."

Professor Playfair is a member of numerous scientific and other
societies, British and foreign, and of several foreign orders. Of his
literary work. Lord Rayleigh remarked in introducing him to the
British Association : " The other day, engaged in some work of my
own, I happened to look up the catalogue of science papers issued by
the Royal Society, and I came across the list of Sir Lyon Playfair's
early contributions to science, most of them made before I was born
or thought of. One was on the new fatty acid in the butter of nut-
meg. Another was ' Lectures on the Application of Physiology to
the Rearing and Feeding of Cattle.' A third was on nitro-prussids,
a new class of salts ; and a fourth on ' The Study of Abstract Science
essential to the Progress of Industry.' " He edited, conjointly with W.
Gregory, Baron Liebig's " Chemistry in its Applications to Agriculture
and Physiology." Besides numerous scientific memoirs, he has pub-
lished, on general subjects, " Science in its Relations to Labor," a speech
delivered on the anniversary of the People's College at Sheffield, in
1853 ; " The Food of Man in Relation to his Useful Work," a lecture,
1865 ; " On Primary and Technical Education," two lectures, 1870 ;
" On Teaching Universities and Examining Boards," an address to the
Philosophical Institution of Edinburgh, 1872; "Universities in their
Relation to Professional Education," an address to the St. Andrews
Graduates' Association, 1873 ; and " The Progress of Sanitary Re-
form," an address delivered at the annual meeting of the Social Sci-
ence Association at Glasgow, 1874.

122

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

MENTAL PROGRESS AND CULTVRE.
"TTTE have frequently maintained in

VV these columns that a new type
of culture is arising in modern times,
which is not only strongly contrasted
with the old ideal, but is, in essential
respects, superior to it. This superi-
ority is an inevitable result of the gen-
eral laws of mental development by
which successive ages become familiar
with new orders of ideas. The prog-
ress of science is undoubtedly too much
looked upon as having to do with the
physical world only, as affecting useful
arts, inventions, industrial processes,
and the accumulation of wealth, but as
leaving all the higher and nobler inter-
ests of mankind untouched. This is a
narrow and erroneous view — the view
of those who really do not know what
science is accomplishing, nor how far-
reaching and all-pervasive its results
are destined to be. For it is one of
the transcendent victories of science to
have shown that the universe is bound
together in all its parts by the most
vital connections and a supreme unity,
which make it impossible that there
should be any great revelation respect-
ing its fundamental order that does not
throw light through all its departments.
It may seem to certain minds a matter
of no great moment that the physical
and material sciences have come into
existence, as they are assumed by such
minds to belong to a lower sphere or
grade of being, "the mere material,"
and to leave unaffected the loftier
sphere of human nature, represented
by the spiritual life. But this partial
and partisan view must disappear when
it is thoroughly realized that science
itself belongs to this higher sphere, and
that man is exalted by it through the
acquisition of new truth and of grander
ideas than he had before science ap-

peared. The progress of science is a
progress of thought, and the new and
greater ideas thus acquired are certain
to become the new instruments of a
new culture.

This view was pointedly presented
by Professor Cooke, of Harvard Col-
lege, in his recent book on "Scien-
tific Culture," in the following words :
" What is it that ennobles literary
culture but the great minds which,
through this culture, have honored the
nations to which they belong ? The
culture we have chosen is capable ot
even greater things ; not because sci-
ence is nobler than art, for both are
equally noble — it is the thought, the
conception, which ennobles, and I care
not whether it be attained through one
kind of exercise or another — but we are
capable of grander and nobler thoughts
than Plato, Cicero, Shakespeare, or
Newton, because we live in a later
period of the world's history, when
through science the world has become
richer in great ideas. It is, I repeat,
the great thought which ennobles, and
it ennobles because it raises to a higher
plane that which is immortal in our
manhood."

It is no longer possible to deny that
science as the latest is also the highest
and most perfect product of the mind
of man. We can no more ignore or dis-
credit the mental growth of the race
than the mental growth of the individ-
ual, and in neither case can childhood
or youth yield the results of maturity.
The literary ideal of culture, which em-
bodies itself chiefly in the various arts
of expression, was realized early and
in the immaturity of human thought.
Rude science, of course, also began
early, but it did not become a meth-
od of cultivating the mind until thou-
sands of years had passed. The work

EDITOR'S TABLE.

123

of science, as we now know it, is far
too difficult and too grand to have
been accomplished in the early or mid-
dle stages of human development. It
now represents profounder study, more
intense intellectual exertion, and a high-
er discipline of the mental faculties
than was possible until mankind had
had a long and painful experience in
the difficult task of explaining the mys-
teries of Nature. By the necessities
of the law of unfolding, therefore, the
higher exploits of modern thought are
not to be limited and measured by an-
cient standards. The ideal of literary
culture belongs to an older and, con-
sequently, to a lower stage of progress,
and it can not continue to hold in this
age the unrivaled ascendency which has
been accorded to it in the past. Science
represents an independent movement of
the human mind, and creates standards
of its own. It can not be judged, and
is not to be ranked, by those who have
been cultivated in a totally different
order of ideas. To the linguists, as
such, and to the cultivators of liter-
ature, as such, the understanding of the
course of Nature is nothing. They could
go on forever with their elegant arts
in utter ignorance of it, and without
missing it. The study of Nature, in a
methodical way, was a new mental dis-
pensation. The quest of truth by the
methods that yield the truth, and be-
cause of the value of truth, was a new
ideal, and the preparation for it a new
education. Under the old ideal of cult-
ure truth was, in fact, disavowed as a
supreme intellectual aim. The philoso-
phers loved to seek it, but proclaimed
that they did not care to find it ; and
there are still an emptiness, a hollow-
ness, and a conventionality in the ideal
of literary and scholastic culture, which
betray its mediaeval origin. "With the
coming of science as a method of
thought, there came a profounder se-
riousness in the purposes of study,
which could never have been origi-
nated in the purely literary sphere.

With the coming of science, the think-
er was forced to take a new relation to
the world in which he lived. lie be-
came a devotee of truth in a sense
not before known, and subjected him-
self to a moral as well as to an intel-
lectual discipline, of which little could
be understood in the earlier stages of
mental cultivation.

The literary ideal of culture is still
practically supreme. It is historic, it
is fortified by institutions, it reigns in
education, it is a social passport, it is
suited for display, and makes a mini-
mum requisition of intellectual effort.
For these reasons it is popular, and we
need not wonder at the arrogance and
exclusiveness of its pretensions. But it
belongs to the past, is losing its hold
upon the present ; and, while it may
never be superseded, it is yet bound to
be subordinated in future to that ideal
of mental culture which is the highest
intellectual attainment of the latest time,
and which is to be perfected through the
light of that scientific knowledge into
which the human mind has emerged in
this wonderful period. The triumphs
of intellect in the conquest of Nature
and the acquisition of great ideas in the
understanding of the universe are not
to be without powerful influence in de-
termining the cultivation of the edu-
cated classes. The emancipation from
narrow and groveling traditions may
take place slowly, but the change is
going on, and must go on, by the law
of progress, until the newer and nobler
knowledges become the highest instru-
ments of mental cultivation.

A CATHOLIC ON CATHOLIC BLUNDERS.

Mb. St. Geoege Miyart, the emi-
nent naturalist, who is well known as
an earnest member of the Eoman Catho-
lic Church, discusses in a recent number
of the " Nineteenth Century " the ques-
tion as to the degree of liberty which
modern Catholics may claim in the
treatment of scientific subjects. His

124

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

conclusion is that their liberty in the
matter is practically unbounded. The
reason ho gives will seem to some a
little singular, and may possibly cause
more or less wincing in certain quar-
ters ; but Mr. Mivart urges it with
great confidence and apparently with
great sincerity. Briefly stated, it is
this : that the highest authorities of
the Church were so egregiously, so os-
tentatiously, and so gratuitously wrong
in the matter of Galileo and the earth's
motion round the sun, that no abso-
lute authority can ever attach to simi-
lar denunciations of scientific doctrines
in future. Mr. Mivart brushes aside
the reasonings by which it has been
attempted to show that Galileo's con-
demnation was not formal. He in-
sists that it was as formal and em-
phatic as it was in the power of the
spiritual authorities of that day to make
it ; and yet, for all that, the persecuted
man of science was in the right and his
ecclesiastical judges were in the wrong.
He says that it was a most fortunate
blunder that they committed, seeing
that it sets Catholics free for evermore
to think for themselves upon all scien-
tific matters, without exception or re-
serve of any kind. As we remarked
above, some may not quite like the
manner in which Mr. Mivart sets about
proving his thesis ; but his argument
would be a difficult one to controvert.
Authorities who have once blundered
about as badly as it has ever been given
to human beings to blunder, can hardly
come forward again as supreme arbiters
in a question of science; and, should
they so come forward, even loyal sons
of the Church might decline to submit
to their decisions.

Mr. Mivart refers to an article con-
tributed by an eminent Catholic theo-
logian, Dr. Barry, about a year ago,
to the " Dublin Review." On turn-
ing to it, we find the reverend doctor,
to our great satisfaction, recognizing in
the amplest manner the pre-eminent
position occupied by science in the

modem world, and claiming the largest
degree of liberty for the scientific inves-
tigator. "Facts," he observes, "are as
unassailable in their way as first prin-
ciples ; nor can the exigencies of re-
ality be set aside, unless we would give
the men of physical science leave to
disown the necessities of thought? " He
quotes "a metaphysician of high au-
thority at Rome, Father Palmieri," as
remarking that "one of the greatest
calamities of the last three centuries
has been the neglect of the study of
physical science by orthodox Chris-
tians." It is needless to say that we
find ourselves heartily in accord with
the reverend father in this declaration.
Had there been more study of physical
science among orthodox Christians
during the last three centuries, the
cholera would not have carried off
eighty thousand persons in Spain this
year, nor would the comparatively small
city of Montreal in Canada have had to
bury small-pox victims this summer at
the rate of two hundred a week. The
reverend father holds that the Church
is now reaping the reward of its dis-
dain of science, in its loss of influence
over large classes that once were era-
braced in its obedience. All this, Dr.
Barry says, must be remedied. "Sci-
ence is the common ground " on which
the Church can meet its adversaries, and
there it must meet them. " It is our
duty to proclaim that we are not afraid
of any argument or any assemblage of
facts; but that we insist on giving its
weight to every part of the evidence."
Of course, the learned doctor, like the
valiant fighter that he seems to be,
hopes to overcome his adversaries.
With that wo are not concerned: what
we note with pleasure is, that such
strong ground should be taken up by
eminent theologians of the most con-
servative communion in Christendom,
in favor of a bold and thorough explo-
ration of the scientific field. In bo far
as they approach modern scientific
theories in a critical spirit, they will

LITERARY NOTICES.

125

do only good, and may, if they come
with the requisite preparation, do a
great deal of good. Neither Science
nor Philosophy has yet spoken its last
word ; and all true men of science will
be thankful for any help they may get
toward throwing aside their errors and
rising to fuller and clearer perceptions
of the truth.

DR. PLATFAIB ON STATE SCIENCE.

We print the first portion of Sir
Lyon Playfair's recent inaugural address
as President of the British Association.
It is unconscionably long, so that we
must postpone to next month his con-
cluding sections on " Science and In-
dustry," and " Abstract Science the
Condition of Progress." Sir Lyon fol-
lows the precedents of his predeces-
sors in discussing what he knows most
about, for he is probably the most promi-
nent and experienced scientific oflace-
holder and engineer of state science gen-
erally that is to be found in the British
Empire. He was early taken into the
royal family, and has ever since been
on intimate relations with those upper
classes which constitute the governing
power of England, and this fact is not
without its bearing on his discussion of
" Science and Secondary Education."

Of coarse, he is driven upon the
question of science and the classics, and
must recognize, as does all the world,
that science is scandalously neglected in
leading British schools, whUe excessive
attention is given to classical studies.
This educational issue in England is in-
tricately involved with the English social
system. Classics and science is a ques-
tion of classes : science is for the lower
classes, classics for the higher classes.
A succession of parliamentary commis-
sions has deplored the neglect of sci-
ence in the great endowed schools, but
with very little eff'ect. The Duke of
Devonshire was compelled to report,
in 1873, " considering the increasing
importance of science to the mate-
rial interests of the country, we can

not but regard its almost total exclusion
from the training of the upper and mid-
dle classes as little less than a national
misfortune." But why should the mid-
dle-class schools be here ranked with
the upper-class schools? Because they
imitate them. Dr. Playfair says, " Un-
fortunately, the other grammar-schools
which educate the middle classes look
to the higher public schools as a type
to which they should conform." But
the upper-class schools are places where
science is despised and the classics wor-
shiped. Sir Lyon Playfair, although
professedly representing science, is not
the man to condemn a settled upper-
class English policy. He virtually gives
up the contest in saying, "The great
public schools of England will continue
to be the gymnasia for the upper class-
es, and should devote much of their
time to classical and literary culture."
What is this but yielding everything,
and reducing the whole movement for
a higher scientific education to a farce?
If classics are the superior mental pabu-
lum of aristocrats and gentlemen, and
science only suited for plebeians, then
is the English resistance to scientific
education right, as it would be a degra-
dation and a step backward toward bar-
barism. The aflBliations of classics and
aristocracy are old and intimate, and
still profoundly cherished in countries
like England and Germany; but when
eminent scientists like Hoffman and
Playfair avail themselves of great occa-
sions to indorse them to the damage of
science, we say, deliver us from our
nominal friends.

LITERARY NOTICES.

Modern Science and Modern Thought. By
S. Laing, Esq., M. P. London: Chap-
man & Hall ; Philadelphia : Lippincott.
Pp. 320. Price, $4.

Both the plan of this book and the man-
ner of its execution will give it a strong
claim upon many readers. The first six
chapters, comprising more than half the vol-
ume, are devoted to summing up the large

126

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

results of modem science, in bo far as they
have given rise to new views of nature and
the universe. The first chapter, under the
title of " Space," states the striking facts
that have been disclosed in later times con-
cerning the magnitude and order of celestial
phenomena. It tells of the revolution of hu-
man ideas, on a great scale, which has been
wrought by astronomy. Chapter II takes
up the conception of " Time," as disclosed
in the revelations of modern geology, and
the grand course of changes that have been
brought about in vast periods, with a sum-
mary of its vital bearings on man's concep-
tion of the world. In the next chapter, un-
der the title " Matter," an account is given
of the constitution of nature in its physical
and chemical elements, as shown by the
spectroscope and illustrated by the universal
law of the conservation of energy and the
views that have been arrived at concerning
the birth and death of worlds. Mr. Laing
then gives a chapter to the subject of
"Life," which is descriptive of the views
now entertained of its course of develop-
ment upon earth, and the biological laws
which have been estabUshed in recent times.
He next takes up the subject of the " An-
tiquity of Man," and gives a very clear state-
ment of the evidence, from which it is in-
ferred that the human race is far older
than was formerly supposed. This^ subject
is pursued still further in Chapter VII, on
" Man's Place in Nature." The doctrine of
evolution is broadly assumed, and man and
civilization are treated as its products. In
this first portion of his work Mr. Laing un-
dertakes no more than to give a popular
statement of the great facts and theories
on these several subjects, which we owe to
science, with no attempt to propound views
of his own. His work is excellently done.
The presentation is kept in due proportion,
is trustworthy, and is very clearly and in-
structively written. We know of no other
so valuable a summary of what science has
accomplished in subverting old opinions,
and substituting a new and higher order of
knowledge.

Part II is devoted to " Modem Thought,"
and here the author takes independent
ground, and, ceasing to follow authority, be-
comes responsible for his own opinions. His
object now is to trace the consequences of

those great revolutions of ideas which we
owe to science, as they affect philosophical
and religious opinion and current concep-
tions of common and practical life. He main-
tains that the great body of traditional
thought has been variously but profoundly
disturbed by modern scientific enlighten-
ment. Especially are old creeds and philoso-
phies undermined and shattered by scientific
progress, and " the endeavor to show how
much of religion can be saved from the ship-
wreck of theology has been the main object
of the second part " of this work. Supemat-
uralism is rejected without reservation, and
it is elaborately argued that Christian mira-
cles have no better support than the alleged
miracles of other religious systems. It is
the view of the author that, only as the
deeply implanted errors of superstition are
eradicated, will it be possible to gain the
great advantages to mankind which must
ultimately come from the immense modem
extensions of scientific truth. Mr. Laing
handles these topics with entire freedom,
but with great sincerity, and closes his pref-
ace by remarking, " I can only say that I
have endeavored to treat these subjects in a
reverential spirit, and that the conclusions
arrived at are the result of a conscientious
and dispassionate endeavor to arrive at ' the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth.' "

Prehistoric Fishing in Europe and North
America. By Charles Rau. Washing-
ton : The Smithsonian Institution. Pp.
342.

In the debris left by the cave-men of
Europe are found small bone implements,
pointed at both ends, whose use can not be
definitely stated. The Indians of Washing-
ton Territory use similar implements for
catching fish and birds by tying a line round
the middle and baiting them, and this fact
suggests that the European implements may
have been used as bait-holders in like man-
ner. Other relics of the paleolithic fisher-
men described by Dr. Rau are barbed har-
poon-heads of reindeer-horn and pieces of
horn and bone, bearing scratches which,
with more or less effort, can be accepted as
designed to represent fish and fishing scenes.
To the neolithic period belong the relics of
the Swiss lake-villages. Among them are

1

LITERARY NOTICES.

127

fish-hooks and harpoon-heads of bone and
horn, fragments of nets, and certain per-
forated stone disks, which may have served
as line or net sinkers. Similar implements
have been found at other places in Europe.
Fish-hooks of bronze also have been found
on the sites of the lake-villages. Dr. Rau
gives figures of about thirty bronze hooks.
They vary much in form and size ; a part
only are barbed, but nearly all are bent
over at the top to form an eye for the at-
tachment of the line.

The second part of the memoir treats of
American aboriginal fishing, and is based
on the materials contained in the archaeo-
logical division of the National Museum, of
which division Dr. Rau has charge. Some
of the hooks of aboriginal manufacture are
similar in general form to ordinary modern
fish-hooks, but only one regularly barbed
specimen is known to the author. It was
found in Madison County, New York, and
is thought to have been made since 1600,
and in imitation of the hooks brought to
this country by Europeans. The hooks of
bone and shell found in California are pe-
culiar. The curved point approaches so
closely to the shank that some persons have
doubted their ever being used as fishing im-
plements. It would probably be impossible
to hook fish with hooks of this shape, but
just such hooks have been brought from
Pacific islands by travelers, who report that
the natives are very successful with them
in taking fish that bolt the hook instead of
nibbling at it. No bait is used, as the hook
itself looks somewhat like a worm. Twenty-
eight dart-heads of bone and horn are here
figured, most of which the author believes
were armatures for fishing implements.
Twenty of them have barbs on one side
only, while the others are barbed on both
sides. Several dart-heads of copper, each
of which has a single barb, are in the col-
lection of the State Historical Society of
Wisconsin. A large number of grooved,
notched, or perforated stones have been
found, which must have been used as sink-
ers for fish-lines and nets. Similar stones
are used as sinkers by both Indian and
white fishermen to-day. Two specimens of
copper sinkers have come within the knowl-
edge of the author. Stone carvings and
pottery representing fishes have also been

found in this country. The evidence that
the American aborigines used moUusks as
food is abundant; great heaps of oyster,
clam, mussel, and other shells are found
along our sea-coasts and river-banks. In-
termingled with these shells are bones of
various animals, implements, fragments of
pottery, and vestiges of fireplaces. Dr. Rau
appends to this memoir fifty-eight pages
of extracts from various writings of the
last four centuries, in which reference is
made to aboriginal fishing in North Ameri-
ca, and some notices of fishing implements
and fish representations discovered south of
Mexico. The text is illustrated by four hun-
dred and five figures.

Town Geology : The Lesson of the Phila-
delphia Rocks. Studies of Nature
along the Highways and among the
Byways of a Metropolitan Town. By
Angelo Heilprin, Professor of Inver-
tebrate Paleontology at, and Curator-in-
charge of, the Academy of Natural Sci-
ences of Philadelphia. Philadelphia:
Published by the Author. Academy of
Natural Sciences, 1885. Pp. 152, with
Seven Plates.

Not only from the simple to the com-
plex, and from the concrete to the abstract,
but from the immediate to the remote, lie
the true directions of mental movement in
the growth of knowledge and in rational
study. To begin where there is much fa-
miliarity, some knowledge, and more or less
curiosity and interest, and pass on to that
which is remoter and deeper, is the true meth-
od. But, strange to say, the reverse method
is that usually pursued. Instead of start-
ing with the known and building upon it,
the custom is to begin with the distant and
unknown, and often, indeed, stay there so
long that the knowledge acquired in many
cases never becomes a reality at all. Geol-
ogy, particularly, is liable to be pursued in
this way, general ideas being accumulated
from the books, with little application to
facts within the limit of common experience.
The present volume is an admirable ex-
emplification of the true method of geolog-
ical study. The author takes up the facts
with which all Philadelphians are familiar,
and in which they may be therefore assumed
to have a certain degree of interest, and
connects them in a very simple and instruc-
tive way with the great body of geological

128

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

truths in which these facts find their ex-
planation. The rock systems in the Phila-
delphia neighborhood are described, together
with the changes which have led to the pres-
ent condition of things, and the accompany-
ing succession of life as disclosed by fossil
relics. " White-Marble Steps and Window-
facings," "Brown-stone Fronts and Jersey
Mud," "Philadelphia Brick and Cobble-
stone," are the familiar texts used by the
author to interpret the wonderful workings
of Nature in the immeasurable past, and
which, through long chains of causes and
effects, have given rise to the present order
of things. The work is admirably done,
and the studious citizens of the Quaker
metropolis owe their best thanks to the
young geologist who has performed the
task. It would be a good thing if we could
have something of the kind in New York.

Proceedings and Transactions of the
RoTAL Society op Canada, 1884. Mont-
real : Dawson Brothers.

This second volume, issued by the Roy-
al Society of Canada, comes to us with its
united departments of literature and science,
in French or English, as the language of the
contributor may be. Of the scientific mem-
oirs only need we here speak ; they are va-
ried and excellent. Dr. George Lawson,
Professor of Botany at Dalhousie College,
Ilalifax, Nova Scotia, gives a revision of
the Canadian Ranunculacca;, in confirmation
and extension of a monograph published in
1870. During fifteen years he has given
direction to the observation of this import-
ant order by botanists afield throughout the
wide provinces and territories of the Domin-
ion. Direction of this kind gives value to
much of what might otherwise be but dis-
connected observation. Dr. Lawson's mem-
oir, though extensive, is incomplete in cer-
tain groups to which he directs the attention
of Canadian botanists.

Dr. T. Sterry Hunt, of Montreal, presi-
dent of the society, presents a review of the
much controverted Taconic question in geol-
ogy, and shows ground for believing that
the newest member of the great series of
pre-Cambrian, crystalline, stratified rocks
is what is called Lower Taconic, or Tacon-
ian, and is widely distributed over North
and South America, Europe, and Asia. Dr.

Hunt has arrived at his conclusions from
protracted study in America and Europe.

From the same eminent geologist we
have a paper on the " Origin of Crystalline
Rocks." He approaches the great problem
of the origin of such rocks as granite and
gneiss, and after a discussion of the Neptu-
nian, igneous, and the metamorphic schools,
rejects them all as untenable, in favor of
what he calls the crenitic hypothesis, and
claims it as a legitimate development of the
Neptunism of Werner. This hypothesis
supposes the existence of a primary Plutonic
stratum, the outer layer of the original aque-
ous globe, which, more or less modified by
the subsequent penetration of water, has
been the direct source of eruptive rocks like
basalt and dolerite, and at the same time
has furnished indirectly and by aqueous
solution the elements of all granitic and
gneissic rocks. This radical and far-reach-
fng hypothesis will doubtless command the
attention of chemists and geologists the
world over.

Other papers of interest, on topics chem-
ical, zoological, and physical, evidence the
activity of original research among men of
science in Canada.

The Copper-bearing Rocks of Lake Supe-
RioR. By Roland Duer Irving. Wash-
ington : Government Printing - Office.
Pp. 464, with Twenty-nine Plates.

This is a paper prepared in connection
with the United States Geological Survey
under Mr. Clarence King. It aims at a gen-
eral exposition of the nature, structure, and
extent of the series of rocks in which occurs
the native copper of Lake Superior ; a work
which has never been attempted before, nor,
it is asserted, could it have been accom-
plished sooner. Much had been written on
different parts of the Lake Superior basin,
but gaps still existed in the surveys, and
much remained to be learned concerning
the nature of the crystalline rocks. These
obstacles have been removed by the later
surveys, and the gaps that still remained
have been filled by the personal observa-
tions of Mr. Irving and his aids. All the
information at command has been examined
and drawn upon and is used, and the views
of different authors, often conflicting, are
discussed in the present work.

LITERARY NOTICES.

129

Contributions to the Knowledge of the
Older Mesozoic Flora of Virginia. By
William Morris Fontaine. Washing-
ton : Government Printing-OfiBcc. Pp.
144, with Fifty-seveu P.ates.

The Mesozoic beds of Virginia are all
situated cast of the Blue Ridge, and most
of them are found within the terrain of the
crystalline Azoic rocks. The beds are di-
vided into two classes, which appear to have
but little in common with one another. The
older Mesozoic beds, which furnished the
plants described in this book, are of fresh-
water or brackish-water deposit, and often
contain coals. The younger formations also
contain plants, but of a totally different
character from that of the plants of the
older Mesozoic. The most important of all
the beds passes about ten miles west of
Richmond, and is about thirty miles long
and six broad. It contains nearly all the
coal and yields nearly all the plants found
in the formation. Besides the plants found
in these beds, and for the sake of compari-
son with them, plates and descriptions are
given from Emmons's work of plants from
the older Mesozoic strata of North Caro-
lina, most of which, however, coming from
strata above the coal, are supposed to be
of a somewhat later age than the Virginia
plants.

The Q. p. Index for 1884. Fourth annual
issue. Bangor: Q. P. Index. Pp. 67.
Price, $1.

In this issue, which forms No. IT of the
Q. P. series, the numbers for 1884 of fifty
periodical?, and of the United States con-
sular reports and education circulars, are
indexed. The list includes all the impor-
tant American literary magazines and re-
views, most of the British literary maga-
zines which have a circulation in this coun-
try, and about a dozen German periodicals.
The " Revue de Belgitiue " is included, but
not the " Revue des Deux Mondes." Since
the British reviews were indexed in No. 16,
they do not appear in this issue. When
one realizes that about seventy-five thou-
sand pages are indexed in these fifty-seven
pages, it becomes evident that Mr. Griswold
has brought the art of abbreviating to a
wonderful state of efficiency. He is also
a spelling reformer who has the courage
of his convictions, for he writes " forein,"

VOL. XXVIII. — 9

"welth," "tarif," "primitiv," "fotografy,"
"iland," etc.

Commercial Organic Analysis. By Al-
fred H. Allen, F. 1. C, F. C. S. Sec-
ond edition, revised and enlarged. Vol.
I. Philadelphia: P. Blakiston, Son &
Co. Pp. 476. Price, $4.50.

The edition of this work now publish-
ing is to appear in three volumes instead of
two, as in the first edition. A new arrange-
ment of the subject-matter has been adopt-
ed, EO that each volume may treat more
especially of kindred products. The vol-
ume now presented is devoted chiefly to the

j consideration of bodies of the fatty series
and of vegetable origin, and includes chap-

I ters on the alcohols, ethers, and other neu-

j tral derivatives of the alcohols, sugars,

' starch and its isomers, and vegetable acids.
In revising this volume, the author has
made considerable changes and additions
in order to bring the information contained
up to the latest possible date, so that very
few pages remain as they stood in the first
edition. He promises as thorough treat-

\ ment of the rest of the work.

1

I

1 Insomnia ; and other Disorders of Sleep.
By Henry M. Lyman, M. D. Chicaco :
W. T. Keener. Pp. 239. Price, $L50.

This book discusses in a clear and read-
able style one of the severest afflictions to
which man is liable. In the discussion the
author covers an even wider ground than is
indicated in his title, and considers all the
phenomena of sleep, both normal and trou-
bled. He begins with a full chapter on
" The Nature and Cause of Sleep," which is
followed by the consideration of the imme-
diate subject of the treatise — insomnia, or
wakefulness, the remedies for it and the
treatment of it in particular diseases ; and
after this are given chapters on " Dreams,"
" Somnambulism," and "Artificial Somnam-
bulism, or Hypnotism."

List of Tests (Reagents). By Hans M.
Wilder. New York : P. W. Bedford.
Pp. 88. Price, $1.

The nine hundred and fifty-three tests
are described briefly under the names of
the originators, which are arranged alpha-
betically, and a subject-index is added. The
very common tests are not included.

130

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

DKSCRimvE America. A Geographical and
Industrial ilouthly Magazine ; L. P.
Brockett, Editor. Pp. 32. Price, $5 a
year ; oO cents a number.

Each number of this publication is de-
voted to a particular State. Tlie number
before U9, which is marlted Vol. I, No. 6,
is given to Georgia. It includes a fine map
of the State, a list of cities, towns, villages,
and stations, an editorial article on interna-
tional exhibitions, and chapters describing
the State in general and relating to cotton
and rice culture, lauds, population, immi-
gration, education, the representative men,
the religious condition, government, finances,
debt, and taxation and history of the State,
with a statistical table of counties. Several
of these articles are furnished by men disl
tinguished or representative in the specia-
fields to which the papers respectively relate.

Van Nostrand's Science Series. New
York : D. Van Nostrand. Price, 50
cents each.

No. 73. Symbolic Algebra ; or, The Al-
gebra of Algebraic Numbers. By Professor
William Cain. Pp. 131. The object of
this essay is the discussion of negative
quantities of algebra, with the purpose of
finding a logically developed system that
shall include such quantities as special
cases. The volume also includes some criti-
cal notes on the methods of reasoning em-
ployed in geometry.

No. 74. Testing-Machines : Their His-
tory, Construction, and Use. By Arthur V.
Abbott. Pp. 190. Mr. Abbott has been
engaged for several years in developing and
applying methods of testing the strength of
materials, and in this book explains such of
his most successful methods as seem likely
to be generally useful and interesting.

No. 75. Recent Progress in Dynamo-
Electric Machines. By Professor Silva-
Kus P. Thompson. Pp. 113. This is are-
print of lectures delivered before the Eng-
lish Society of Arts on the subject indicated
in the title, which were supplementary to a
previous series of lectures on the theory of
the dynamo and its functions as a mechani-
cal motor.

No. 77. SrAniA-ScRTEYiNa. By Arthur
Wi.NSLOw. Pp. 148. This hand-book con-
tains a complete exposition of the theory
of stadia measurements, with directions for

its application in the field. Tables for the
reduction of observations are added which
the author has used in the Geological Sur-
vey of Pennsylvania, and with them tho
trigonometrical four-place tables.

No. 78. The Steam-Engixe Indicator.
By William Barxet Le Van. Pp. 169.
In this book the indicator and its object are
described ; its construction and action are
explained ; and the method of calculating
the horse-power of engines is illustrated.
An endeavor has also been made to explain
the most important parts of the theory and
action of steam, and to show the modes of
working engines that have been found to
be most advantageous.

No. 79. The Figcre of the Earth. By
Frank C. Roberts, C. E. Pp. 95. In this
book the historical data in connection with
the figure of the earth are presented, and
the important mathematical principles for
the deduction of it upon the spheroidal hy-
pothesis arc arranged in a compact form.

No. 80. Healthy Foundations for
Houses. By Glenn Brown. Pp. 143. This
is a reprint of a serial paper published in
the " Sanitary Engineer " during 1884, with
fifty one illustrations from drawings made
for the articles by the author.

Maps of the Dominion of Canada. Tele-
graph and Signal Service. Sir Hector
L. Langevin, Minister of Public Works.
In sheets.

These maps arc intended to be full, and
are very handsomely executed. The group
now under notice contains two sheets of the
Eastern section, two of the West-Central
section, two of the Western or Pacific coast
section, with a Mcrcator chart of telegraphic
lines and electric-cable connections through-
out the world ; and a map on a spherical
projection showing the world's submarine
cables and principal telegraph lines.

Notes from the Physiological Laboratory
OF THE University of Pennsylvania.
Edited by N. A. Randolph and Samukl
G. Dixon. Philadelphia. Pp. 88.

A collection of '■ brief records of facta
of interest brought to light in the course of
physiological study." The constant aim of
the writers has been to present these facta
with the greatest conciseness compatible
with scientific accuracy.

LITERARY NOTICES.

»3i

N. W. Ayer & Son's AirenicAX Xewspaper
Anndal, 1885. Philadelphia: N. W.
Ayer & i^on. Pp. 760. Price, $o.

The publishers have taken great pains
to make this work complete and correct up
to the day of going to press. It contains
a fully descriptive list of newspapers and
periodicals in the United States and Canada,
arranged by States in geographical sections,
and by towns in alphabetical order ; another
list, descriptive as to distinctive features
and circulation, of newspapers inserting ad-
vertisements, arranged in States by coim-
ties ; a third list, of class and professional
publications, and publications in foreign
languages. Fi'om these lists may also be
obtained other information about news-
papers ; and in connection with them there
is given a description, with statistical infor-
mation, accounts of manufacturing enter-
prises, and political notes, respecting each
county. Finally, the book contains an al-
phabetical list of cities, towns, and villages
in the United States having a population of
five thousand and upward.

How TO DRAIN A HocsE : Practical Informa-
tion for Householders. By George E.
Waring, Jr., M. Inst. C. E. New York :
Henry Holt & Co. Pp. 222, with Twenty
Illustrations. Price, $1.25.

Colonel Waring has given long and at-
tentive study to the matter of house-drain-
age, and as a result he has views of his
own upon the subject which will be found
stated in the present volume. Not by any
means that the book has been written merely
to promulgate his own notions ; it has been
prepared because, in the author's opinion,
it will prove the best and safest guide in a
field of practice of vital importance, and still
far from settled in its methods. The au-
thor holds that there has been unquestiona-
bly a steady improvement in recent years in
dealing with the difficult problems of the
disposal of household waste ; each step, how-
ever imperfect in itself, being better than the
condition of things which preceded it. Such,
indeed, have been the progress made and
the success achieved as greatly to strengthen
the expectation that an ideally perfect sys-
tem of house-drainage may soon become an
accomplished and accepted fact. Meantime
improvement is along various lines of trial,
with a certain inevitable rivalship of views

and devices. Colonel Waring does not, how-
ever, in the present volume attempt to give
an account of the various ideas and contriv-
ances, however excellent they may be, that
have now come into use ; but having stud-
ied them all, and had large experience of
the subject, he has fixed upon his own meth-
ods, and devotes his work to an exposition
of them.

We have read the book carefully through,
and have found it unusuully interesting and
instructive. The preliminary remarks on
house-drainage and health are impressive
and decisive, and the explanation of prin-
ciples and the description of plans and con-
struction are full, clear, and perfectly intel-
ligible. The book abounds in common-sense
suggestions, and is certain to prove valuable
to all house-constructors and housekeepers
who are seeking correct information upon
the subject.

Ballooning : A Concise Sketch of its His-
tory AND Principles. By G. May. New
York : D. Van Nostrand. Pp. 96, with
One Plate.

The author believes that, though practi-
cal aerial navigation has so far been found
unattainable, the pursuit of it has resulted
in something, though it be little, to facili-
tate art and scientific progress. In this
work, besides reviewing the history of bal-
looning, he seeks to ascertain and define the
obstacles which interfere with its active
progress, the mechanical means necessary
to surmount them, and the natural power
by which those means are to be put in op-
eration ; and to point out certain regulations
and restrictions by which they must be gov-
erned in their application.

The Lock- Jaw of Infants {Trismus Na.i-
centium). Its History, Cause, Preven-
tion, and Cure. By J. F. Hartigan,
M. D. New York : Bcrminc;ham & Co.
Pp. 123.

The disease in question is often fatnl
during the first month of infantile growth,
but doctors have not been able to ascertain
or agree upon its cause. The author main-
tains a theory which was advanced by Dr.
J. Marion Sims some thirty years ago, but
never received attention — that it is occa-
sioned by mechanical pressure of the occip-
ital or parietal bones on the brain.

1 32

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Malthus and his Work. By James Bonar.

London : Macmillan & Co. Pp. 432.

Price, $4.

No author is more talked about, when
questions of political economy or social sci-
ence are under consideration, than Malthus ;
no dogma than what is called the Malthu-
sian theory. But, according to the view of
the author of this book, very few of those
who have so much to say about the man
and his doctrines know what they really
are. " Malthus," he says, " was the best
abused man of the age " ; and the temper
and abundance of the abuse that has been
launched against him " amount to a demon-
stration " that his opponents are in the
wrong, or that his logic is too sound for
them. The points at issue were fully
enough discussed in his own time between
Malthus and his adversaries, "and no one who
fairly considers the extent of the discussion,
and the ability of the disputants, can fail to
believe that we have, in the records of this
controversy, ample materials for forming our
own judgment on the whole question. . . .
Such a privilege is seldom used. The world
has no time to consult authorities, though
it likes them to be within reach of consulta-
tion. When an author becomes an authori-
ty, he too often ceases to be read, and his
doctrines, like current coin, are worn by use
till they lose the clear image and superscrip.
tion of the issuer. In this way an author's
name may come to suggest, not his own
book, but the current version of his doc-
trines," and this is seldom a wholly fair
one. Such, Mr. Bonar seems to think, has
been the case with Malthus ; .ind the pur-
pose of the present volume is to give an ex-
act account of his life, his teachings, and
the object and character of his book.

Annual Repoht of thk Board of Bkgents
OF THE Smithsonian Institction for
188.3. Washington: Government Print-
ing-Office. Pp. 959.
This report contains much valuable in-
formation concerning scientific work and
progress in various departments in this and
other countries. One of its excellent feat-
ures is its running summaries of the prog-
ress of investigations carried on by the
members of Government surveys and expe-
dition'", and by private persons in corre-
spondence with the Institution, which cover

a wide ground. A full account is given of
the inauguration of the statue of Professor
Henry, with the memorial address of Chief-
Justice Waite, the oration of President
Noah Porter, and a representation of the
statue. Among the special papers are the
accounts of progress during the year in the
several departments of science, and a num-
ber of accounts of explorations of mounds
and other anthropological work.

Ciioi-ERA : ITS Origin, ITistort, Causation,
Symptoms, Lksion.s, Prevlntion, and
Treatment. By Ai.frkd Stille, M. D.
Philadelphia : Lea Brothers & Co. Pp.
164.

The author has enjoyed the advantage
of studying cholera in two epidemics, and
has prepared this volume in view of the
general newly awakened interest on the sub-
ject and the agitation of Dr. Koch's germ
theory. While declining to accept the doc-
trine of Dr. Koch and his supporters as
demonstrated, he seeks " to exhibit the spe-
cific nature of cholera by evidence drami
from its origin and mode of propagation ;
to disabuse the medical profession of the
erroneous notion that the disease ever origi-
nates de novo ; to maintain the necessity of
quarantine, not in the literal but in the offi-
cial sense of that word ; to point out the
channels through which cholera may be dif-
fused ; and to describe the measures which
experience has sanctioned to prevent its
dissemination and cure those who are at-
tacked by it."

Silver-Lead Deposits of Eureka, Nevada.
By Joseph Story Curtis. Washington :
Government Printing-Office. Pp. 200.

From the year 1869 to 1883, Eureka
district produced about $60,000,000 of gold
and about 225,^00 tons of lead. Owing to
the fact that the deposits of this district
have been more completely developed than
any other of a similar character on the Pa-
cific slope, they offer very full opportunities
for the scientific investigation of formations
of this class. The information on which
this report is based was collected during
field-work by the author in 1881 and 1882,
and from the reports of Mr. George F. Beck-
er's preliminary examination of the more
important mines, and of Mr. Arnold Hague's
survey of the geology of the district in 1880.

LITERARY NOTICES,

»3J

In the present report, Mr. Curtis gives a
clear and systematically ordered description
of the district, its geolog)-, and the several
mining locations, with their characteristic
features. Among the tojjics particularly
considered are the surface geology, the struct-
ure, and the ores of Prospect Mountain and
Ituby mil, the ore deposits, the source and
manner of deposition of the ores, the occur-
rence of water in the mines, the methods of
mining and timbering, and of working the
ores, an accouut of Adams Hill, and " the
future of the Eureka district." We are
pleased to observe that Mr. Curtis's work in
this field has elicited warm commendation
and high testimonials to its value from for-
eign experts : Ilerr V. Groddeck, Director of
the Clausthal School of Mines, Austria, hav-
ing studied the report " with the greatest
interest," has expressed his appreciation of
" the instruction and suggestions contained
in it," and adds : " It is always wonderfully
pleasing to me to see with what intensity
and with what rich results your country
pursues the study of ore deposits." Ilerr
F. Posepny, Inspector of Mines for Austria,
who has visited Eureka, and has drawn
some interesting comparisons between its
features and those of some of the Hunga-
rian mines, characterizes this work as one
which "is destined to play an important
part in the technical literature of ore de-
posits. When I glance over what I know
from actual inspection, and what I know
through the literature of the ore deposits of
your country, I am more and more convinced
that North America will be the coming
school for the study of ore deposits." Herr
Posepny adds that he is much interested in
the results of Mr. Curtis's examination of
counti-y rock for minute quantities of met-
als, as the subject has been taken up in his
own country from a practical stand-point.

Memoirs of the National Academy of Sci-
ences. Vol. II., 1883. Washington :
Government Printing-OfBce. Pp. 262.

The present volume contains four mem-
oirs, of which the most voluminous is the
full account of the eclipse of the sun, of
May, 1883, and of the United States Expe-
dition to Caroline Island, in the South Pa-
cific Ocean, to view it. Included in this
memoir are several special papers of con-

siderable general interest, among which are
the narrative of the voyage to Caroline
Island and return, the history and general
description of the island, various scientific
and technical memoranda respecting it, ita
botany, zoology, and butterflies ; and par-
ticular reports of eclipse observations by
eleven associates of the expedition. The
whole is attractively illustrated with maps
and views of the island and its peculiar
scenery, and representations of various
features of the eclipse. The second mem-
oir is Professor S. P. Langley's paper on
the " Experimental Determination of Wave-
lengths in the Invisible Prismatic Spec-
trum " ; the third is by Professor William
II. Brewer, " On the Subsidence of Particles
in Liquids " ; and the fourth is the paper
of Alexander Graham Bell " Upon the For-
mation of a Deaf Variety of the Human
Race," of which we have already given a
brief abstract.

Dinocerata. (United States Geological Sur-
vey, Vol. X.) By Otdniel C. Marsh, in
charge of the Divisioa of Paleontology.
Washington.

This monograph contains the full record
of an extinct order of mammals, of which the
author has made special studies. The only
locality where remains of the Dinocerata
have been found is an Eocene lake-basin in
Wyoming, and there his first discoveries
were made by Professor Marsh in 1870.
The specimens collected in this and suc-
cessive expeditions are now in the museum
at Yale College, and represent more than
two hundred individuals of the Dinocerata,
besides the remains of many other verte-
brata hitherto unknown. Seventy-five of
these have portions of the skull preserved,
and in more than twenty it is in good con-
dition. Three genera have been established
in this order : .Dinocei'as, Marsh ; Tinoceras,
Marsh ; and Uiiitatherium , Leidy. The skull
of Dinoceras mirahile is long and narrow ;
it supports on the top three pairs of bony
elevations or horn-cores, which form its
most conspicuous feature, and suggested
the name of the genus (SejfJj, terrible, and
Kipas, a horn). There are no upper incisors ;
the canines in the male are enormously de-
veloped, forming sharp, trenchant, decurved
tusks. The brain of the Dinocerata is se-

134

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

pecially remarkable for its diminutive size.
From an extended comparison of the brain-
cavities of Tertiary mammals, Professor
Marsh has found that there vas a gradual
increase in the higher portion of the brain
during this period, and that the brain of a
mammal fitted for a long survival was pro-
portionately larger than the average. The
remains of Tbwccras are found in the same
lake-basin, but at a higher level, and the
evidence is clear that it was a later and
more specialized form. Tinoccras ingcns,
as he stood in the flesh, was about six and
a half feet in height to the top of the back,
and about twelve feet long. His weight
was probably at least six thousand pounds.
Dinoceras mirahiie was about one fifth
smaller. In an appendix Professor Marsh
gives a synopsis of Dinoccrata, in which all
the known species of the order, about thirty,
are recognized, and a bibliography follows
the sjTiopsis. With the aim of making the
illustrations tell the main story to anato-
mists, the author has incorporated in the
volume fifty -six fine, large lithographic
plates, and nearly two hundred original
woodcuts, representing all the more im-
portant specimens of the Dinoccrata now
known, and including at least one figure of
every species.

Paleontology of the Eureka District.
By Charles Doolittle Walcott. Wash-
ington : Government Printing-Olficc. Pp.
298, with Twenty-four Plates.

In this report are presented the results
of a careful survey of a district with a rich
fauna, through thirty thousand feet of Palai-
ozoic strata, representing the Cambrian, Si-
lurian, Devonian, and Carboniferous rocks.
It is regarded by Mr. Aniold Hague, geolo-
gist in charge of the district survey, as " the
most important contribution yet made to the
invertebrate paleontology of the basin ranges,
and of great value in its bearings upon the
geology of the Cordilleras."

The Manual of PHONOORAPnY. By Benn
Pitman and Jerome B. Howard. Cin-
cinnati : Phonographic Institute. Pp
144.

This is a revised edition of the " Man-
ual " by Benn Pitman, the first edition of
which appeared in 1855. While a number
of new features appear in its pages which

were not in its predecessor, the plan of pre-
senting the system is essentially the same.
Such changes and additions to the system,
and such only, as are of real importance
have been adopted.

Chemical Problems. By Dr. Karl Stam-
mer. Translated by W. S. Hoskinson.
Philadelphia : P. Blakiston, Son & Co.
Pp. 111. Price, 75 cents.

A LIST of questions on the properties
of the elements, chemical phenomena, and
manipulation, to be answered by the stu-
dent through experiment or by calculation
from what he knows. The answers are
given in the latter part of the book.

The Student.?' ^Ianual of Exercises for
translating into German. By A. Lode-
man. New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons.
Pp. 87. Price, 50 cents.

The exercises in this volume have been
prepared with the twofold purpose of fur-
nishing to the student material for trans-
lating into German, and of assisting him in
the analysis and translation of the more
difficult illustrations in Brandt's " German
Grammar," to which he is constantly re-
ferred. A full vocabulary, notes, refer-
ences, and general suggestions are provided.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Ilyrti-of^en Peroxide. By 'SVilliain B. Clarke,
M. D. Indianapolis, Iiid. Pp. 12.

The Evolution of Revelation. By .lames Morris
Whiton, Ph. D. New Tork : G. P. Putnam's Sons.
Pp. 34. 25 cents.

Recitations and Headings. New Tork : J. 8.
Ogilvie & Co. Pp. 126. 10 cents.

Voice in Singers. By Carl II. von Klein, M. D.,
Dayton, Ohio. Pp. 8.

City Government. By Charles Reemelin. Cin-
cinnati, Ohio. Pp. 15.

Canals and Railroads; Ship-Canals and Ship-
Railways. Pp. K'l. The Interoccanic Problem, and
its Scientific Solution Pp. 40, with Six Plates. By
Elmer L. Corthcll.

The Kxtcrnal Therapentics of Pulmonary Con-
sumption. By Thomas J. Mays, M. D. Philadel-
phia. Pp. 10.

Development of Crystallization ; and Geolopy in
the Washoe District. By Arnold Hague and Jo-
seph n. P. Iddings. Washington : Government
Printing-OfiBce. Pp. 44.

A Great Trap-Dike across Southeastern Penn-
sylvania. By H. Carvill Lewis. Pp. 20, with Map.

Quarterly Report, Bureau of Statistics, Treasury
Department, Secoml Quarter, 1 8S.5. _ Washington:
Goverrmout Printing-Offlce. Pp. 175.

Massachusetts State Agricultural Experiment
Station, Amherst. August Bulletin, 18T5. Pp. 12.

The Pkaisin? and Management of Poultry. Re-
port of Discussions of Bneders and Experts. Bos-
ton: Cupplcs, Upliam & Co. Pp.125. 50 cents.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

135

Urethral Stricture treated by Electrolysis. One
Hundred Cases. By Eobert ]Sewman, M. D. Pp.
15.

Woman's Medical Collesre of the New York In-
firmary. Seventeenth .Vunual Catalo;.'ue and \n-
nouncement. New Vork : G. V. Putnam's Sous.
Pp. 25.

North American Species of Eamularia. Pp. 10.
Cercosporae of North America. V\t. 50. By J. B.
Ellis and Benjamin M. Everhart, Manhattan, Kan-
sas.

Parasitic Fun;n of Illinois. By J. T. Burrill.
Peoria, III. : J. W. Frank & Sons. Pp. 114.

Evolution in the Vegetable Kingdom. By Les-
ter F. Ward. Pp. 16.

Coloration of Naked Skin-Tr.icts of Geococcyx
Californicus. By Dr. R. W. Shufeldt. Pp. 2, with
Plate.

The Metric System. By John Le Conte, Berke-
ley, Cal. Pp. 12.

Diseases of Farm Animals. Agricultural Col-
lege of Michigan. Pp. 4.

"Journal of the American AkademS." Alex-
ander Wilder, Editor. Monthly. Newark, N. J.
Pp. 24. $2 a year.

New Yorli Cancer Hospital. First Annual Re-
port. Pp. 2i).

Notes on the Stratigraphy of California. By
George F. Becker. Washington : Government Print-
ing-Offlce. Pp. 23.

University of Pennsylvania: Department of Bi-
ology, Catalogue and Announcement. Pp. 9.

Bulletin of the Sedalia (Mo.) Natural History
Society. F. A. Sampson, Corresponding Secretary.
Pp. 30.

The Shells of Pettis County, Missouri. By F.
A. Sampson, Sedali.a, Mo. Pp. IG.

Consanguineous Mamages : their Effect on Ofif-
spring. By Charles F. Withington, M. D. Kox-
bui-y, .Mass. Pp. 32.

American Constitutions. By Horace Davis.
Baltimore : N. Murray. Pp. 70. 50 cents.

On the Sensitiveness of the Eye to Colors of a
Low Degree of Saturation. By Edward L. Nichols,
Ph. D. Pp. 5.

The Teacher's Commercial Value. Pp. 20.

Teaching as a Business for Men. By C. W. Bar-
deen. Syracuse, N. Y. : C. W. Bardeen. Pp. 20.

The Relation of .\nnual Rings of Exogens to Age.
By D. P. Penhallow. Pp. 16.

Impact Friction and Faulting. Pp.29. The Re-
lations of the Mineral Beits of the i'acific Slope to
the Great Upheavals. Pp. 4. By George F. Becker.
Washington, D C.

Bulletin of the Minnesota Acidemy of Natural
Sciences, lSS0-lss2. C. W. Hall, Secretary. Min-
neapolis. Pp. SO.

The Bentley-Knight Electric Railway Company,
115 Broadway, New York. With Plates.

Measurement of the Force of Gravity and Mag-
netic Constants at Og.asawarajiraa. By .V. Tanaka-
date. Tokio, Japan : Tokio Daigaku. Pp. 32.

Geolot^ical Sketches of the Precious Metal De-
posits of the Western United States, etc. By S. F.
Emmons and G. F. Becker. Washington : Gov-
ernment Printing-office. Pp. 295.

Report on the Production, Technology, and Uses
of Petroleum and its Products. By 8. F. I'eok-
ham. Washington : Government Printing-Offlce-
Pp. 319.

Saxe Holm's Stories. New York : Charies
Scribner's Sons. Two Series. Pp. 350 and 384. 50
cents each.

Diccionario Tecnologico (Technolocrical Diction-
ary), English-Spanish. Bv Nestor Ponce de Leon.
Part 14. Socket to Tjippe't. Pp. 64. 50 cents.

Introduction h une Esth^tique Sciontifique (In-
troduction to a Scientific .Esthetics). By M. Charles
Henry, Paris. Pp 31.

Meteoreisen (Meteoric Iron.) Pp.6. Die Naraen
der Nutzmetalle (the names of the useful metals).
1 p. 6. By Professor E. Keyer, ot the University of
Vienna. Vienna: Published by the author.

Sur la Variabilite des Anneaux de Satumo (On
the Variability of Saturn's Kings). I'p. 24, with
Plate. Changements observes sur les Anneaux de
Saturne (Changes observed on Saturn's Rings). Pp.
4. The Veiled Solar Spots. Pp. 4. By E. L. Trou-
velot, Observatory of Meudon, France.

A Text-Book of Medical Chemistry. By Ellas
H. Bartley, M. D. Philadelphia : P. Blakiston, Sou
&Co. Pp.376. $2.50.

Rational Communism. The Present and the Fu
ture Republic of North America. By a. Capitalist.
New York : The Social Science Publishing Com-
pany. Pp. 493. $1.50.

Fownes's Manual of Chemistrj'. From the
twelfth English edition, embodying Watts's •' Phys-
ical and Inorganic Chemistry." Philadelphia : Lea
Brothers & Co. Pp. 1U56.

A Tre.atise on Epidemic Cholera and Allied Dis-
eases. By A. B. Palmer, M. D. Ann Arbor, Mich. :
"Register" Publishing House. Pp.224. $1.

A Text-Book of Nursing. Compiled by Clara S
Weeks. New York : D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 396.

Analysis of Atmospheric Humidities in the
United States. By Charies Denison, .M. D. Chi-
cago : Rand, McNally & Co. Pp. 30, with Plates.
$1.

Practical and Analytic Chemistry. By Henry
Trimble. Philadelphia: P. Blakiston, Son & Co.
Pp. 94. $1.50.

Two Years in the Jungle. By William T. Hor-
naday. New York : Charies Scribner's Sous. Pp.
513, with Maps. $4.

A Wheel of Fire. By Arlo Bates. New York :
Charles Scribner's Sons. Pp. 383. $1.

Color Studies. By Thomas A. Janvier. Now
York : Charles Scribner's Sons. Pp. 227. |1.

Modern Moulding .ind Pattern-Making. By Jo-
seph P. Mullin, M. E. New York : D. Van Nos-
trand. Pp. 257.

The Heart, and how to take Care of it. By Ed-
win M. Hale. M. D. Chicago. New York : "A. L.
Chatterton Publishing Company Pp. 94.

Water-Meters. By Ross E. Browne. New York :
D. Van Nostrand. Pp. 89. 50 cents.

The Preservation of Timber by the Use of Anti-
septii-s. By Samuel Bagster Bouiton. New York :
D. Van Nostrand. Pp. 223. 50 cents.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

The New Star. — Astronomers have been
surprised by the fact, which was first an-
nounced by Dr. Hart wig on the 29th of
August, that a star of about the eighth
magnitude had suddenly appeared in the
middle of the great nebula of Andromeda.
This nebula, the most conspicuous of all
the phenomena of the kind, has long been
regarded as a stellar nebula, since Mr. Hug-
gins showed that its spectrum possessed
the characteristics of stellar spectra, but it
has never been resolved. The appearance
of the new star within it, if it belong to it,
which is not yet ascertained, may mark
some important movement going on within
it. The star was seen, within a few days of

136

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Dr. Hartwig's observation, by several other
observers, and has now become an object
of interest and attention to every one who
possesses a tele:?cope. The first observation
of it appears to have been by Jlr. Isaac W.
Ward, of Dunecht, on August I'Jth. It was
not visible at Brussels at the beginning of
August ; and the Rev. S. II. Saxby, care-
fully observing the nebula on the 6th, 9th,
and 10th of the month at Davos Platz, saw
no sign of a stellar nucleus. The telescope
at Dunecht on the 5th of September showed
it as a star of the 7J magnitude, with a
continuous spectrum. At the Greenwich
Observatory, on the 4th of September, its
spectrum was shown to be of precisely the
same character as that of the nebula, or per-
fectly continuous, with no lines, either bright
or dark, visible, and the red end wanting.
It therefore presents no evidence of an out-
burst of heated gas, such as was the case with
the " temporary " stars T. Corona in 1866
and "Nova" Cygni in 1876. The appear-
ance of new or temporary stars, though an
event that must always excite remark, is not
really unusual. One appeared in May, 1859,
in the nebula or cluster 80 Mersier, and
shone with a magnitude diminishing from
the 7th till the 10th of June, when it van-
ished, and has never been seen since. A
similar star was discovered in a nebula in
the Unicom in 1861, and is now ranked as
a variable star, R. Monocerotis. The star
Eta Argus, in the "key-hole nebula" in
Argo, is also a variable star, whose appear-
ance at its brighter stages might suggest
to superficial observation the idea of a new
or temporary star. It remains to be ascer-
tained whether the present star really be-
longs to the nebula or is an outsider pass-
ing over the line of vision between us and
it. Spectroscopic and photometric observa-
tions, so far as they have gone, indicate a
constitution identical with that of the neb-
ula, but they are not complete. If it does
belong to the nebula, a fact mentioned by
Mr. R. A. Proctor becomes very important.
Mr. Spencer has pointed out that no nebu-
la which could be resolved into stars could
possibly lie outside the limits of the galaxy
or of the great system of which our solar
system is a member ; for the outer edges of
that system are so far irresolvable. It was
generally agreed that, if any nebula lay out-

side of the system, it was this one in Andro-
meda. Now, if a star is distinguished in
this body, it is clear also that it too must
lie within our system.

Shall we raise Silk at a Loss ?— In

the discussion of a paper by Dr. Riley, in the
American Association, advocating tariff " en-
couragement " of silk-culture in the United
States, Mr. Edward Atkinson remarked that
the project is not desirable. There is no
lack of employment for labor in the United
States, as the high rate of wages shows ;
and the fact that the making of reeled silk
has been unprofitable shows that capital
can be better employed. Silk-culture is a
handicraft simply, and has been carried on
by the poorest and most inefficient peoples,
who, as they rise in the scale, abandon it,
as is now coming to be the case in Southern
France. The argument that we shall save
the $20,000,000 which we now pay for
imported silk is fallacious. When we ex-
change articles produced b)' labor costing
one dollar per day, for the silk of China or
Japan raised by labor costing five or ten
cents a day we gain and not lose. We can
not afford to do for ourselves what pauper
laborers will do for us cheaper.

Chemistry at the American Association.

— The Chemical Section of the Association
was opened witii an address by Professor W.
R. Nichols, of the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, on " Chemistry in the Serv-
ice of Public Health." The author showed
that chemistry has an educational oflice to
fill in the service of sanitary science, in
teaching the public what its capabilities
and limitations are, and correcting the er-
roneous ideas that are entertained as to the
nature of certain processes in preparing
food-substances, and the effect in them of
the application of particular reagents. Re-
specting two subjects now much talked of
in sanitary circles. Professor Nichols said :
" Microbes may well be left to the biolo-
gists, and possibly sewer-gas as well, since
chemists have failed to discover any sub-
stances in the gas which could produce the
well-known ill effects. . . . It is asserted by
some that the day of chemical examinations
is passing away, and that the wholesomcness
of water will be determined by the biologist,

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

137

not by the chemist. Without detracting
from the present value of biological meth-
ods, we can not believe that they can re-
place chemical examination for a long time
yet ; it must first become certain that all the
evil effects of impure water are due to the
organisms now so eagerly studied. When
the biological examination of water has
been placed on a firm basis, it will then be
necessary to carry out the work begun by
Professor Mallet, of discovering the chemi-
cal characteristics which belong to waters
which a biological examination condemns,
and of making the characteristics the basis
of future chgmical analysis. In the matter
of the pollution of streams by sewage, there
is much chemical work to be done." Chem-
istry may be made of service to public
health by investigating the actual state of
existing evils ; in suggesting practical reme-
dies for them ; and in the examination of
foods and drinks. The education of those
who propose to follow these lines of work
requires a thorough knowledge of general
and analytical chemistry, and of physics.
" There is room in the community for a
class of persons knowing a little engineer-
ing, a little chemistry, a little biology, and
a little of other things, an occupation legiti-
mate and honorable, but one which does not
justify our calling a person so posted a sani-
tary engineer or chemist."

Professor Prescott gave the results of
experiments in fixing the limits of recovery
of certain poisons when mixed with organic
matter.

Professor F. P. Dunnington described a
method of fixing crayon-drawings, by sat-
urating them with a preparation composed
of one part of Damar varnish and twenty-
five parts of turpentine. The drawings are
made on unsized manila paper. When dried
after treatment, they are ready for use.

Professor Mabery, and the Messrs.
Cowles, of Cleveland, Ohio, presented a
paper on a new electric furnace and the
reduction of aluminum and other metals
rare in the metallic state, and the formation
of a number of new useful alloys by its
aid. Experiments were made in the inquiry
for the best means of obtaining a contin-
uous high temperature on an extensive
scale. It was found that by introducing
coarsely pulverized carbon, mixed with the

oxide to be reduced, and applying the elec-
tric current, reduction was effected and the
temperature was raised to such an extent
that the whole interior of the retort fused
completely. In other experiments lumps of
lime, sand, and corundum were fused, with
indications of a reduction of the correspond-
ing metal ; on cooling, the lime formed
large, well-defined crystals, and the corun-
dum beautiful red, green, and blue octahe-
dral crystals. Following up these experi-
ments. Professor Mabery found that the in-
tense heat thus produced could be utilized
for the reduction of oxides in large quan-
tities ; and it has already been found that
aluminum, silicon, boron, magnesium, man-
ganese, sodium, and potassium, can be ob-
tained from their oxides with ease. Good
commercial results have been derived from
the application of the process, in the man-
ufacture of aluminum-bronze of various
grades, and possessing superior qualities of
one kind or another according to the grade ;
of silicon-bronze, which promises to afford
the best material for electric wires ; and of
boron-bronze, in which boron appears to
have almost the same effect when added to
copper as carbon when added to iron in
the manufacture of steel.

The question, " What is the best initi-
atory work for students entering upon labo-
ratory practice ? " was discussed. Professor
II. W. Wiley insisted on the importance of
training the novitiates in habits of accuracy
— that they should understand at once that
chemical science is no guess-work, but a sci-
ence of definite proportions. Professor R.
B. Warder thought it was better to begin
with metals than with gases, and Professor
F. P. Dunnington suggested a course of
metallurgy and assaying. Mr. Thomas An-
tisell remarked that much depended on the
object of instruction — whether it was given
only as a part of a liberal education, or with
the view of making chemistry a profession.
Professor Prescott thought that students
should, in analytical work, practice first on
known bodies before beginning on un-
known ; and that too much reliance should
not be placed on laboratory work alone,
which should be associated with rigid class-
work in the lecture and recitation rooms.
Professor Mabery would have young people
begin with common phenomena, master the

138

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

principles of .stoichiometry, and work, as far
as possible, quantitatively.

Physics at the American Association. —

In the Section of Physics, Professor S. P.
Langley read a paper on the sources of in-
visible radiations and on the recognition of
hitherto unmeasured wave - lengths. The
object of the researches he described was
to ascertain whether there are other wave-
lengths than those found in the sun's heat,
so that we may perhaps explain how it is
that the surface heat of our planet is main-
tained in spite of the ready radiation of ex-
treme solar heat through the atmosphere.
We have in the infra-red portion of the so-
lar spectrum the greater part of the heat
which sustains organic life on this planet,
and the questions arise, Docs the planet ra-
diate heat of the wave-lengths that it re-
ceives from the sun ? and how is its tem-
perature maintained, probably several hun-
dred degrees above the temperature of space,
when our observations show that the direct
radiations of heat from the sun can only
raise it about fifty degrees above the sur-
rounding temperature ? Experiments at Al-
legheny show that the dark solar heat is
transmitted by our atmosphere with less
difficulty than the light ; and, if the radia-
tions of the soil are of this wave-length, our
planet should actually be cooler on account
of its atmosphere than if it had none. Pro-
fessor Langley has for two years past made
measurements of the radiations from bodies
of the temperature of the earth, using for
his experiments prisms and lenses of rock-
salt. From the results of these researches,
he says that we have every reason to believe
that heat radiated by the soil lias a wave-
length twenty times that of the lowest visi-
ble line of the solar spectrum. His experi-
ments thus tend to show that this heat is of
a totally different quality from that received
from the sun. Among the other papers read
in this section were those of Professor II.
S. Carhart on surface transmission of elec-
trical discharges, in revision of work by Pro-
fessor Henry ; of Professor E. L. Nichols,
on the chen^ical behavior of magnetic iron ;
of Major 11. E. Alvord, on the results of tele-
metric observation at Houghton Farm ; and
of Commander Theodore F. Jewell, on the
apparent resistance of a body of air to a

change of shape. In the experiments on
this subject, a disk of gun-cotton was ex-
ploded on a metal plate. Each of the disks
had the letters " U. S. N " and the year of
manufacture stamped upon it. After ex-
plosion upon the iron, similar indentations
were found upon the plate, as if the air in
the indented letters had been driven into it.
Professor E. L. Nichols stated that from
comparisons he had made of the spectrum
of the unclouded sky with that of the sun-
light reflected by magnesium carbonate, he
had deduced the conclusion that the spec-
trum of the sky is of the same character as
that of white light. The blue color of the
sky and of other opalescent media is, ac-
cording to these and other correlative ex-
periments, not due to an excess of the more
refrangible rays in the light reflected by them,
but is of a subjective character. These re-
sults disagree with those obtained by Pro-
fessor Langley in his experiments. Mr. II,
Helm Clayton, of Ann Arbor, presented evi-
dence favoring the supposition that there
are at times slow progressive movements of
barometric change, and of temperature from
west to east, and attempted to show that
the weather of the United States during the
last year had been marked by certain peri-
odicity of character.

Plants growing at Strange Heights. —

Many anomalies have been observed in the
distribution of plants by altitude, which M.
F. Krasan has endeavored to account for, in
Engler's " Annuaire botanique," by suppos-
ing changes to have taken place during the
recent period in the height of the mount-
ains on which the vegetation is found.
Thus, in several valleys of the Alps, oaks
are growing at unusual altitudes, and live
under climatic conditions that seem to ex-
clude them elsewhere. They do not, how-
ever, appear to be reproducing themselves,
and are probably destined to be crowded
out by the beeches. On the Humberg, in
Southern Styria, at a height of between 750
and 1,360 feet, are found growing in the
midst of vines and associated with south-
ern plants masses of purely Alpestrine spe-
cies ; and in the mountain-region north of
Cilli, the highest altitude of which is less
than 3,000 feet, are not less than fift)'-one
species that occur normally in the region of

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

»39

pines. The Humberg is more than twenty
miles from the nearest Alpine summit, yet
the plants appropriate to such a situation
are represented, not by individuals, but by
a large mass of plants that appear to be
perfectly acclimated. The mystery is height-
ened by the fact that in a neighboring
mountain district of considerable higher
altitude, which borders on a really Alpine
region, only a small number of Alpine plants
are found. Similar anomalies have been
remarked in the Pyrenees. Many Alpine
plants can and doubtless do live and thrive
in lower situations than their habitual ones,
and their general absence from such places
is probably rather due to their being crowd-
ed out, and the ground possessed by the
species more peculiarly fitted to the locality
than to any positive unfitness of their own.
But if a mountain is suddenly raised up
or depressed, the entire vegetation growing
upon it is transported to a new region. It
will then offer a long and sturdy resistence
to the rival species that may come in to dis-
pute with it for occupancy ; and this resist-
ance may in the end last long enough for
the species to become acclimated to the new
conditions, when they will reproduce them-
selves, and the phenomena under consider-
ation will be manifested.

Metal-working Art in Cashmere. — Herr
Carl von Ujfalvy, who has been exploring
in the western Himalayas, asserts that the
Cashmereans must be regarded as the no-
blest of the Indian races. " At least," he
says, " it must be admitted that a people
that prepares its food in handsome kettles
of beaten and carved copper, adorned with
tasteful engravings, drinks its tea and coffee
from elegantly shaped pots, and uses showily
decorated pitchers and cups, and beaten and
enameled dishes, vases, pipes, candlesticks,
lamps, tea-vessels, and plates, and engraved
spittoons, must have a peculiar artistic gift.
What is more remarkable is that objects of
such character are in daily use, not only in
the mansions of the rich, but also in the
peasants' huts ; and any one who takes this
fact into consideration must say that we
have to do with a particularly endowed race
of Aryans, who, too small in numbers and
too weak to contend with the barbarians,
have found satisfaction in devoting them-

selves to art. When we reflect," adds Herr
von Ujfalvy, "that all the household uten-
sils in High Asia, Persia, and India, and the
innumerable idols in the latter country are
made of beaten or cast metal, we may be
able to form an approximate idea of the
importance and extension of this industry
in all those countries." Copper is the basis
of these industries, either pure, in ham-
mered, beaten, and carved forms, or alloyed
or set off with gold, silver, steel, tin, lead,
or zinc. In Turkistan a yellow, in Kashgar
a red, in Cashmere an ornamented red metal
is worked. Yellow metal is here of very an-
cient origin. The metal industry is most ex-
tensively developed and most flourishing in
Cashmere ; and there no difference is recog-
nized between art - work and mechanical
work, and it is therefore not strange that
we should so frequently meet with real mas-
terpieces of art.

Blind Men's Dream*. — IIow do the blind
dream ? is discussed by Mr, B. G. Jones, in
the (English) " National Review." In near-
ly all ordinary dreams we imagine we see
something — persons or things, or both.
This can not happen with the blind, who
have no conception of things that are seen ;
or, if they were not born blind, of things
that they had not seen before they lost
their sight. The blind man may recall a
person or a place, but his recollection can
only be commensurate with what he has ob-
tained by the senses of touch, hearing, or
smell. A blind boy dreamed of his brother
who was dead. He knew him by his voice,
and he also knew he was in the fields with
him, for he felt himself treading upon the
grass and smelling the fresh air. His idea
of a field could not possibly reach much be-
yond this. Another person dreamed he was
in his workshop; he knew this by sitting
on a box, and by the tools which were in it.
A blind tramp said when he dreamed it was
just the same as when he was awake — he
dreamed of hearing and touching. A blind
man is mentioned who dreamed of a ghost,
and this is the way he told his story : " I
heard a voice at the door, and I said, ' Bless
me, if that ain't John ! ' and I took him by
the sleeve ; it was his shirt-sleeve I felt ;
and I was half-afeared of him, and sur-
prised he was out weeks before his time.

140

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Then (in my dream) I dreamt that he tried
to frighten me, and make believe he was a
ghost, by pushing me down sideways, etc.
After that I walied and heard no more."
We fancy ghosts as impalpable beings,
clothed in white. Blind men can hardly
have as distinct an imagination of their ap-
pearance.

A Workmen's Srientiflc Class. — How
knowledge may be disseminated by means
of local lectures to working-men is illus-
trated in a story told by Mr. Roberts, of
Cambridge. Two miners, at Buckworth,
England, walked four or five miles and back
in the evening, after work, to attend the
course at Cramlington. Finding others in
their village wanting to know something of
chemistry, but not able to attend the course,
they took to repeating to a class of seven
on the next evening the lectures they had
heard, and, having supplied themselves with
chemicals, repeated the experiments. Mr.
Roberts attended one of the meetings of
this class at the end of the term, examined
the members, and found that they had ac-
quired a sound enough knowledge of the
subject to pass the regular university ex-
amination. The class were this summer to
carry on in the same manner a course in
physiology, in aid of which they were en-
deavoring to procure a microscope.

Mccbanical Science at the American
Association. — The vice-presidential address
of Professor J. Buikitt Webb, in the Sec-
tion of Mechanical Science, was on " The
Second Law of Thermo-dynamics," but was
too technical for abstract in these pages.
Mr. L. S. Randolph gave an account of his
experiments in seeking for an explanation
of the peculiar manner in which the stay-
bolts between the fire-box and the boiler-
shell of steam-boilers had been found to
break. He indicated a drawing and bending
of the bolts occasioned by the shifting of the
plates under chaugcs of temperature as the
cause, aided by the corrosive action of the
water that might reach the bolts. Mr. Ste-
phen S. Ilaight presented a paper on the
use and value of accurate standards for sur-
veyors' chains, lie exhibited a specimen
chain of flattened steel wire, with thermom-
eter attached to record temperature, a spring-

balance tojweigh the tension, and a spirit-lev-
el. Professor Davis exhibited a tape which
he had found accurate enough for general
■ use in a large range of work in Michigan.
j Professor J. B. Webb read a paper on the
I lathe as an instrument of precision, in which
I he called attention to the desirability of
I greater accuracy in instruments of this class,
and described some simple methods for mak-
ing tests of the degree of error in any par-
I ticular instrument. Professor Cooley ex-
i plamed a new smoke-burning device. A
I committee report was presented and a dis-
! cussion had on the best methods of teach-
! ing mechanical engineering. The object of
t the instruction being admitted to be thor-
ough preparation in theory and principle,
I Professor Thurston said that the training
j should be adapted to the work to be done,
j and that he therefore favored classification
into manual training-schools, schools of me-
chanic arts, and schools of engineering. It
was asserted by other speakers in the course
of the discussion that there are no manual
training-schools where a boy can learn a
trade before entering the higher schools ;
and that the St. Louis and Chicago manual
training-schools will not make workmen, and
probably not five per cent of their students
will ever become workmen.

Science in Common Schools. — The com-
mittee of the American Association on meth-
ods of science-teaching in the schools stated
that much had been accomplished in the
investigation, in which many associations,
schools, and persons had interested them-
selves. The committee of conference with
foreign associations in reference to an in-
ternational convention of science associations
had conducted an extensive correspondence,
and the subject was to be brought before
the British Association at Aberdeen. An
endowment fund of twenty-five thousand
dollars had been given to the scheme by
Mrs. Elizabeth Thompson, of Stamford, Con-
necticut. The committee was continued as
the " Committee on International Scientific
Congress." The committee on the encour-
agement of researches upon the health and
diseases of plants reported that at its sug-
gestion the Commissioner of Agi'iculture
had appointed 5Ir. F. L. Scribner, of Girard
College, Philadelphia, to take charge of a

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

141

section in iiis department, devoted to work
of that character.

The British Association,— The British
Association met at Aberdeen, Scotland, Sep-
tember 9th, and was opened by the presi-
dent for the year, Sir Lyon Playfair, with
an address which we publish in the present
number of the Monthly. Among the more
noteworthy papers presented were the vice-
presidential addresses of Professor H. E.
Armstrong, on more efficient methods of
teaching chemistry ; of Professor Judd, in
the Geological Section, on some unsolved
problems of Highland geology; of Mr. B.
Baker, of the Mechanical Section, calling
attention to deficiencies in bridge construc-
tion ; of Mr. Galton, in the Anthropological
Section, on " Types and their Inheritance" ;
and of Professor Sidgwick, of the Section
of Economical Science and .Statistics. In
the last section Professor Leone Levi read
an elaborate paper on "The Alleged De-
pression of Trade; its Causes and Reme-
dies."

New Problems in Chemistry. — In his

address as Vice-President of the Chemical
Section of the British Association, Pro-
fessor II. B. Armstrong criticised the way
in which the science is taught in the schools,
and insisted upon the importance of giving
more prominence to research by the stu-
dents, and of cultivating in them the spirit
of original investigation. They must not
mCTely be taught the principles and main
facta of the science, but must be shown
how the knowledge of those facts and prin-
ciples has been gained, and must be so
drilled as to have complete command of
their knowledge. Chemistry was no longer
a purely descriptive science. The study of
carbon compounds and Mendelejeff's gener-
alization had produced a complete revolu-
tion. The faults in the present system of
teaching were precisely those which had
characterized the teaching of geography
and history, and which were now becoming
80 generally recognized and condemned.
Both in teaching and examining two im-
portant changes ought to be made. The
students ought at the very beginning of
their career to become familiar with the
use of the balance; and the imaginary dis-

tinction between so-called inorganic and or-
ganic compounds should be altogether aban-
doned. Touching on the progress that had
been made in chemical theory. Professor
Armstrong mentioned the change which
had taken place in views concerning chemi-
cal action. Hitherto it appeared to have
been commonly assumed and almost univer-
sally thought by chemists that action took
place directly between A and B, producing
AB, or between AB and CD, producing
A C and B D. In studying the chemistry of
carbon compounds, they became acquainted
with a large number of instances in which a
more or less minute quantity of a substance
was capable of inducing change or changes
in the body or bodies with which it was as-
sociated without apparently itself being al-
tered ; but so little had been done to ascer-
tain the influence of the contact-substance,
or catalyst, as he would term it, that its im-
portance was not duly appreciated. Recent
discoveries, however, must have given a
rude shock, from which it could never re-
cover, to the belief in the assumed simpUci-
ty of chemical change. Then, after consid-
ering briefly some questions of the relations
of chemical and electrical action. Professor
Armstrong went on : Complaints are not
unfrequently made that a large proportion
of published work is of little value, and
that chemists are devoting themselves too
exclusively to the study of carbon com-
pounds, and especially of synthetic chemis-
try; that investigation is running too much
in a few grooves, and that we are gross
worshipers of formulae. But the attention
paid to the study of carbon compounds may
be more than justified, both by reference
to the results obtained and to the nature of
the work before us. " The inorganic king-
dom refuses any longer to yield up her se-
crets— new elements — except after severe
compulsion. The organic kingdom, both
animal and vegetable, stands ever ready be-
fore us. Little wonder, then, if problems
directly bearing upon life prove the more
attractive to the living. The physiologist
complains that probably ninety-five per cent
of the solid matters of living structures are
pure unknowns to us, and that the funda-
mental chemical changes which occur dur-
ing life are entirely enshrouded in mystery.
It is in order that this mav no longer be the

142

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

case that the study of carbon compounds
is being so vigorously prosecuted. ... As
to the value of the work, I believe that ev-
ery fact honestly recorded is of value." No
unprejudiced reader can but be struck with
the improvement in quality which is mani-
fest in the majority of the investigations
now published. The great outcome of the
labors of carbon chemists has been the es-
tablishment of the doctrine of the structure.
That doctrine has received the most power-
ful support from the investigation of physi-
cal properties, and it may almost, without
exaggeration, be said to have been rendered
visible in Abney and Festing's infra-red
spectrum photographs.

Limits of Stress on Iron Bridges.— Ad-
dressing the Mechanical Science Section of
the British Association, Mr. B. Baker spoke
of the want of understanding among engi-
neers regarding the admissible intensity of
stress on iron and steel bridges, concerning
which " at the present time absolute chaos
prevails. The variance in the strength of
existing bridges is such as to be apparent to
the educated eye without any calculation.
... It is an open secret that nearly all the
large railway companies arc strengthening
their bridges, and necessarily so, for I could
cite eases where the working stress on the
iron has exceeded by two hundred and fifty
per cent that considered admissible by lead-
\n" American and German builders in simi-
lar cases. ... In the present day engineers
of all countries are in accord as to the prin-
ciples of estimating the magnitude of the
stresses on the different members of a.
structure, but not so in proportioning the
members to resist those stresses. The prac-
tical result is, that a bridge which would be
passed by the English Board of Trade would
require to be strengthened five per cent in
some parts and fifty per cent in others be-
fore it would be accepted by the German
(iovernmcnt, or by any of the leading rail-
way companies in America." This unde-
sirable state of affairs arises from the fact
that " many engineers still persistently ig-
nore the fact that a bar of iron may be
broken in two ways — namely, by the single
application of a heavy stress, or by the re-
peated application of a comparatively light
Btress. An athlete's muscles have often

been likened to a bar of iron, but, if ' fa-
tigue' be in question, the simile is very
wide of the truth. Intermittent action — the
alternative pull and thrust of the rower, or
of the laborer turning a winch — is what the
muscle likes and the bar of iron abhors.
From tests made several years ago by royal
commissioners, the deduction was made that
" iron bars scarcely bear the reiterated ap-
plication of one third the breaking weight
without injury, hence the prudence of al-
ways making beams capable of bearing six
times the greatest weight that could be laid
upon them." Hundreds of existing railway-
bridges which carry twenty trains a day with
perfect safety would break down quickly
under twenty trains an hour. Although
many more experiments are required before
universally acceptable rules can be laid
down, " I have thoroughly convinced myself
that, when stresses of varying intensity oc-
cur, tension and compression members should
be treated on an entirely different basis."

Some Aspeets of Heredity. — Mr. Francis
Galton spoke, in the Anthropological Section
of the British Association, from his re-
searches in family histories and records, on
types and their inheritance. He discussed
the conditions of the stability and insta-
bility of types, and urged the existence of a
simple and far-reaching law governing the
hereditary transmission. From experiments
he had made several years before on the
produce of seeds of different size but the
same species, it appeared that the offspring
did not tend to resemble their parent-seed
in size, but to be always more mediocre
than they — to be smaller than the parents
if the parents were large, to be larger than
the parents if the parents were very small.
The special subject of this paper was hered-
itary stature, where a similar law seemed to
prevail. His data consisted of the heights
of nine hundred and thirty adult children
and their parentages, two hundred and five
in number. The cliild inherits partly from
his parents, partly from his ancestry. Speak-
ing generally, the further his genealogy goes
back, the more numerous and varied will his
ancestry become, until they cease to differ
from any equally numerous sample taken at
hap-hazard from the race at large. Their
mean stature will then be the same as that of

NOTES.

143

the race, or mediocre. The average regres-
sion of the offspring to a constant fraction
of their mid-parental deviations, which was
first observed on the diameters of seeds,
and then confirmed by observations on hu-
man stature, is now shown to be a perfectly
reasonable law, which might have been de-
ductively foreseen. This law tells heavily
against the full hereditary transmission of
any rare and valuable gift, as only a few of
many children would resemble their mid-
parentage. The more exceptional the gift,
the more exceptional will be the good for-
tune of the parent who has a son who
equals, and still more if he has a son who
overpasses him. This law is even-handed ;
it levies the same heavy possession-tax on
the transmission of badness as well as of
goodness. If it discourages the extrava-
gant expectations of gifted parents that
their children will inherit all their powers,
it no less discountenances extravagant fears
that they will inherit all their weaknesses
and diseases. The number of individuals
in a population who differ little from me-
diocrity is so preponderant that it is more
frequently the case that an exceptional man
is the somewhat exceptional son of rather
mediocre parents than the average son of
very exceptional parents.

Vision of the Honey-Bee. — According to
the Rev. J. L. Zabriskie's observations, the
honey-bee sees as through the woods. The
ocelli are situated on the top of the head,
arranged as in an equilateral triangle, so
that one is directed to the front, one to the
right, and one to the left. " Long, branch-
ing hairs on the crown of the head stand
thick, like a miniature forest, so that an
ocellus is scarcely discernible except from
a particular point of view " ; and then the
observer remarks an opening through the
hairs — a cleared pathway, as it were, in
such a forest — and notes that the ocellus,
looking like a glittering globe half im-
mersed in the substance of the head, lies at
the inner end of the path. The opening
connected with the front ocellus expands
forward from it like a funnel with an angle
of about fifteen degrees. The side ocelli
have paths more narrow, but opening more
vertically ; so that the two together com-
mand a field which, though hedged in an-

teriorly and posteriorly, embraces, in a
plane transverse, of course, to the axis of
the insect s body, an arc of nearly one hun-
dred and eighty degrees.

NOTES.

Dr. C. Keller, of Ziirich, claims that spi-
ders perform an important part in the pres-
ervation of forests by defending the trees
against the depredations of aphides and in-
sects. He has examined a great many spi-
ders, both in their viscera and by feeding
them in captivity, and has found them to be
voracious destroyers of these pests ; and he
believes that the spiders in a particular for-
est do more effective work of this kind than
all the insect-eating birds that inhabit it.
lie has verified his views by observations
on coniferous trees, a few broad-leaved trees,
and apple-trees. An important feature of
the spiders' operations is that they prefer
dark spots, and therefore work most in the
places which vermin most infest, but which
are likely to be passed by other destroying
agents.

The New England Meteorolog-cal Soci-
ety has been making a special study of
thunderstorms. A series of circulars was
prepared and sent out, explaining the details
of the work. Several classes of observa-
tions were contemplated. On the 9th of
June more than two hundred and fifty ob-
servers had offered their services.

A Women's Anthropological Society v a"
organized in Washington, June 8th, v.ith
5Irs. Colonel James Stevenson as President,
Mrs. Romeyn Hitchcock Recording Secretary,
and Miss S. A. Scull Corresponding Secre-
tary. Miss Cleveland was requested to name
the society, and did so.

The " Bulletin " of the French Geo-
graphical Society gives some curious details
about the system of numeration of the In-
dians of Guiana. It is based upon the five
fingers of the hand. The Indians have
names for only four numbers, correspond-
ing with the four fingers ; then, when they
come to five, they sav, not five fingers, but
"a hand." Six is "a hand and first fin-
ger" ; seven, " a hand and second finger " ;
ten, " two hands " ; fifteen, " three hands " ;
twenty, not " four hands," but a man. From
this they proceed by the system of twenties.
Forty is "two men"; forty-six, " two men,
a hand, and second finger."

The humming of telegraph and tele-
phone wires, so often heard, is generally
considered to be caused by the wind. Mr.
R. W. McBrido, of Waterloo, Indiana, who
specially studied the matter for several
years on his private wire, which had a

144

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Btrong ijift of Immming, is satisfied that
the wind is not the aj;eiu, for ho found the
Bound luoic likely to be heard on a dry,
clear, cool, and calm evening than at any
other time, lie is also convinced that the
sound is not produced by electricity ; for he
could detect no signs of that agent when
the humming was going on, while at times
when the wire was evidently charged there
wa:* no sound. The humming was accom-
panied by a rapid vibration of the wire.
Mr. McIJride considers the question a sub-
ject of investigation which may lead to im-
portant discoveries.

Dr. Carl II. ton Klein, of Dayton,
Ohio, claims to have discovered a i)rocess
for converting garbage and sewage matter
into an odorless and clean fuel. He treats
refuse, to disinfect and deodorize it, with
salt, slacked lime, and a little nitric acid to
start the fumes ; then, after eight days, with
sal-soJa. The composition will solidify in
a few days, when it is pressed into bricks
and dried till it is in fit condition to be used.
It produces a better flame, the inventor says,
and retains more heat, than Alleghany coal,
and costs but little more than half as much
as the cheapest other fuel in the market.

Lieutenant-Colonel Platfair observed,
in the Geographical Section of the IJritish
Association, that his experience in Tunis had
proved in the most forcible manner the im-
[lortance of preserving forests. In Roman
times the province of Africa and the terri-
tory of Carthage were the granary of Eu-
rope. In what was now practically a desert,
the remains of magnificent Roman farms
were everywhere found. The small hill-sides
were now nothing but sands. This was en-
tirely due to the destruction of the forests
with which they used to be covered ; for the
vegetable soil had been washed away into
the valleys, and there it was now to be found
buried beneath some feet of sand and water-
worn pebbles.

A SCHEME is on foot to establish a botan-
ic garden in Montreal. A tract of seventy-
five acres of land near the base of the
mountain is promised by the city, and sub-
scriptions are solicited for means to fit it
up and supply collections.

The French Association at Grenoble was
well attended, and excited much interest
among the people of the city. The subject
of the inaugural address of President Ver-
ncuil was surgery in 1885, and the address
is said to have been much more interesting
than the subject promised.

OBITUARY NOTES.

Professor J. J. A. Worsaae, thp emi-
nent Danish archaeologist, died suddenly Au-
gust ISth. He was born in 1821. He was

made inspector over antiqtiarian monuments
in Denmark when twenty-eight years old.
Having labored for many years with Pro-
fessor Thomsen, who first established the
division of the stone, iron, and bronze ages,
in arranging the Museum of Northern An-
tiiiuities, he continued the work after his
death in 1865, and brought the museum to
its present state of perfection and richness
in treasure. He was Minister of Worship
and Public Instruction in 187'l-'75. He
was the author of several works on the an-
tiquities and early history of Denmark, and
on the conquests achieved by the North-
men.

Mr. William John Thoms, formerly
editor of "Notes and Queries," died August
15th, in his eighty-second year. His work
was partly literary, but mainly in the line of
antiquarian research. As editor of "Notes
and Queries " he had often to deal with sci-
entific matters ; and he was a vigorous con-
testant of the claims of all persons wlio
assumed to be centenarians, insisting that
no one had ever lived to be more than a
hundred years old.

Commandant Leon BnArLT, of the
French marine, who died at Argenteuil on
the 2'7th of August, was a meteorologist, and
author of a scries of meteorological charts,
for which he received gold medals at the
Exposition of 1878 and from the Geographi-
cal Congress of Rome. He contributed val-
uable papers on his favorite science to the
first ten years' volumes of the journal " La
Nature " and to the " Revue Scientifique,"
and was author of a number of monograplis
on subjects of meteorology.

Philip Leopold Martin, taxidermist
and muncoloffue, died in Stuttgart, March
7th, aged seventy years. He was the author
of an illustrated "Natural History of Ani-
mals," which was published in Leipsic in
1882-'84 ; and of a work on the praxis of
natural history, relating to taxidermy, der-
moplastics, and muscology, in three vol-
umes.

Dr. Johannes Augiist Christian Roper,
Professor of Botany at Rostock, died
March 17th, aged eighty-four years. He
was author of papers and works on the
spurges of Germany and Pannonia, the or-
gans of plants, the fiowers and allinities of
the Balsimanc(P, the grasses, and the flora
of Mecklenburg, and the Darwinian theory,
and translated De Candolle's " Plant-Physi-
ology."

Dr. Karl Jacob Zoppritz, Professor of
Geography in the University of Konigs-
bcrg, died a few months ago. He was born
in 1838. His principal work in geography
was the reduction of the barometric alti-
tude-measurements of travelers.

ALPHEUS HYATT.

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE
MON"THLY.

DECEMBEE, 1885.

THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF EELIGIONS.

By the Count GOBLET D'ALVIELLA,

PEOFESSOE OF THE HISTOEY OF EELIGI0N3 IN THE UNIVEESITY OF BEUSSEL9.

THE general history of religions is taught, if I am not mistaken,
only in Leyden, Paris, Tubingen, and Geneva. In giving a place
to this new branch, the University of Brussels has again shown its
fidelity to the liberal spirit that actuated its founders. Imperfectly
qualified as I am to give direction to studies on this subject, I am en-
couraged to undertake it by the thought that to teach the history of
religions, it is not necessary to be acquainted with all the languages of
all the peoples who have professed them. I am far from depreciating
such knowledge, and readily recognize that the founders of the science
of religions have nearly all been trained in special studies of this very
kind. But all the branches of the ancient literatures, through the dis-
coveries of those who have so laboriously delved in them, now offer
general results sufliciently certain and well developed to enable us,
without doing over the work of the specialists, to attempt the synthe-
sis of their conclusions, and relate the history of religions as we do the
history of arts, sciences, languages, or peoples.

Henceforth the science of religions will be chiefly a question of
method and assimilation. As Professor Tiele stated in 1877, for the
Assyrio-Babylonian religion : " The historian, the ethnologist, and the
scholar, who devote themselves to the science of comparative religions,
have each their several tasks. The domain they occupy can no more
be disputed as against them than they can encroach upon that of the
epigraphist and the philologist."

It might be asked why, if it is so easy to get positive information
on the nature of the different religions, it is not more widely diffused.

VOL. SXTIII. — 10

146 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

It is principally because, aside from a few fugitive notions, often quite
obsolete, on the mythology of Greek and Latin antiquity, the history
of religious is wholly unprovided for in our courses of instruction ;
and, secondly, because there prevails a mass of prejudices tending to
restrict the application of scientific methods to this study.

Among these prejudices there are some which are always found,
although in a less degree, in all the subdivisions of historical science,
while others are peculiar to this particular branch. Some of them
tend to hinder even the existence of hierography, while others simply
falsify its applications or vitiate its conclusions. My object is to point
out the most formidable of these prepossessions by exhibiting, through
a few examples, the mistakes into which they may cause even the best-
intentioned persons to fall.

We will begin with examining some prejudices that are connected
with the very object of our study — the religious and the anti-religious
prejudice. It should be understood that when I use the word preju-
dice in this connection, I employ it in its etymological sense of a judg-
ment fixed in advance, and not in the ordinary sense of something
offensive. Our purpose is to study religions, not to insult them.

Max Miiller has written that there have existed two systems broad
enough to tolerate a history of religions — primitive Buddhism and
Christianity. He doubtless meant Christianity as he professes it, and
as he saw it professed around him — the Christianity of Stanley and Co-
lenso, of Maurice and Martineau, of Kuenen and Tiele, of Reville and
Lenorraant. He does not hesitate to recognize with what facility one
may be led away from the historical method by belief in the posses-
sion of a supernatural revelation, when this revelation is formulated by
the agency of a man of reputed infallibility, of a church assembled in
council, or of a book finished and closed forever : when it pretends to
trace around its affirmations a circle impenetrable to free examination,
it is wanting in the most essential conditions for passing serious criti-
cism. When the believer's right to interpret the sacred books is ac-
knowledged, a place is left open for exegesis, but that exegesis still
remains the slave of particular texts or dogmas that limit and con-
sequently trammel it.

Let us take a single story from the Bible — that of Jonah, and ex-
amine the different acceptations it has received. We could hardly find
a richer stock of interpretations vitiated by what I call the religious
prejudice. According to the rationalist mode of interpretation that
flourished in Germany at the beginning of this century, Jonah was an
envoy from Israel to Nineveh, who was picked up after having been
shipwrecked, three days from the shore, by a ship carrying the image
of a whale as its figure-head. Another interpretation is that of Grimm,
that the whole history passed off in a dream. This is to save the letter,
but at the expense of the spirit. The important matter in the critical
study of a text is to find what its authors intended to put in it, and

THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF RELIGIONS. 147

not what it ought to contain in order to conform to our ideas of truth
or of justice. " There have been and still are," said Dean Stanley,
relative to these points, in his funeral address on Sir Charles Lyell
at AYestminster Abbey, " two methods of interpretation which have
wholly and justly failed : the one that attempts to distort the real
sense of the words of the Bible, to make them speak the language of
science ; and the one which tries to falsify science, in order to satisfy
the supposed exigencies of the Bible." *

We pass next to the symbolic interpretation. There is nothing to
prevent our seeing in Jonah the symbol of the soul, and in the whale
that of death or the tomb, so that we might reduce it all to an alle-
gorical representation of man's immortality, such as we see among the
monuments of the Catacombs. Or, we might imagine, with Professor
Herman von der Hardt, that the vessel in the storm is a figure of the
Jewish state, its captain of the high-priest Zadok, and Jonah of King
Manasseh, taken prisoner by the Babylonians, f I am far from despis-
ing the value of this method of reconciling faith with reason, and I
have not the courage to blame those who seek thus to save the integ-
rity of their beliefs. But if symbolism permits the accommodation of
religious tradition with the progress that has been made in most of the
sciences, one branch of knowledge must be excepted from the rule,
and that is history, whose mission is to ascertain, not if the old bottles
will hold new wine, but what was put into them in the first place.

There is, however, one means of reconciling independence in criti-
cism with belief in the divinely inspired character of a story. It con-
sists in limiting the inspiration to the philosophical and moral truths
included in the text, and letting the rest go. Thus, what in the book
of Jonah may be of divine origin are the exalted lessons to be drawn
from it respecting the prophetic mission of Israel, on the efiicacy of re-
pentance for the forgiveness of sins, and on the equality of Jews and
Gentiles before God. And there is nothing to prevent our seeing in
the incident of the whale and the other fabulous details of a narrative
which M. Edouard Reuss calls a moral story, a simple invention to
give more force and color to the religious and moral lessons, or per-
haps a reminiscence of the mythical adventure attributed by the cunei-
form texts to Bel Merodach,J and which is found besides in the solar
mythologies of the Greeks, the Polynesians, the Algonquins, and the
Caffres, and in the oldest version of " Little Red Riding Hood." In-
stead of losing by this, the book of Jonah becomes, as M. Kuenen

* The defenders of the Bible have not been the only ones to venture in this way.
Thus, M. Jules Soury, in his desire to make the cylinders square with the doctrine
of evolution, once asserted the entire conformity of the Chaldean creation myths with
Darwin's theories of the origin and transformation of species. (" Lc Temps," 13th and
23d November, 1879.)

f See the "Book of the Twelve Minor Prophets," by E. Ecndcrson, London, 1845,
p. 200.

X Professor Sayce, " Chaldean Genesis," vol. iii.

14S THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

remarks, the book of the Old Testament farthest removed from Jew-
ish particularism, and most nearly approaching to Christian Catho-
licity ; and this should be ample compensation for the sacrifice of its
miraculous and sui^ernatural part. M. Francis Lenormant has applied
the same method in his studies on the " Origins of History according
to the Bible and the Traditions of the Oriental Peoples." " I do not
recognize," he writes, " a Christian science and a freethinking science ;
I admit only one science, the one that has no need of any other epithet,
which lays aside theological questions as foreign to its domain, and of
which all seekers in good faith are the servitors, whatever may be their
relisrious convictions. That is the science to which I have consecrated
my life ; and I believe it would be a violation of a holy duty of con-
science if, influenced by a preoccupation of another kind, however
worthy of respect, I should hesitate to speak sincerely and without
ambiguity the truth as I discern it."

It is nevertheless true that hitherto orthodoxies have hardly shown
themselves disposed to understand the rights of science in this way.

If religious prejudice opposes itself to the scientific study of one's
own religion, can it also interpose an obstacle to the knowledge of
strange religions ? At first thought we might be tempted to answer
in the negative. How can any opinions, even those which we hold as
absolute truth, prevent us from observing, classifying, and describing
the beliefs, or, if you prefer, the errors of another?

It is a fact that, if we arrange all religious opinions in two cate-
gories— that of our own, which we believe came down ready-made
from heaven, and that of the religions of others, which we declare
indiscriminately to be the results of perversions — we become incapable
of grasping the real nature of the religious sentiment, and conse-
quently of its different manifestations. With the Iranians, who per-
sonify their supreme being in the great Ahura, the devas represent
the agents of the bad principles. To the Brahmans, who adored the
devas, the cisuras were the adversaries of gods and men. To the
historian of religions, asuras and devas are analogous conceptions,
which a priori he connects with the normal development of the
human mind, and a 2'>osteriori shows to have been derived from
the same religious center, anterior to the separation of the Persians
and the Indians, and to the organization of dualism in the Aryan
theologies.

How shall we preserve the even mind and the freedom of appre-
ciation essential to all impartial analysis of foreign ideas and customs,
if we imagine, like some of the fathers, that they are the work of the
evil-one ? The Christians of the first centuries had no doubt of the
real existence of the pagan divinities, but they regarded them as evil
spirits who had turned the worship of men from the only God by a
caricature of the true religion. Such is likewise the recent explana-
tion given by Father Hue of the curious resemblances which he dis-

THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF RELIGIONS.

149

covered between the rites of Buddhist worship and some of the prac-
tices of Roman Catholicism.

It would be unjust to award to Christendom the monopoly of
intolerance. The Emir Hakem had collected at Cordova a great num-
ber of books which had been found in the East among the ruins of
paganism. The usurper Al-Mansour had them torn up and burned.
Those which escaped this reaction of Mussulman fanaticism perished,
three centuries later, with eighty thousand manuscripts that Roman
Catholic fanaticism caused to be thrown into the flames of Granada,
after the expulsion of the Moors.* Even the Protestants are not free
from reproach in this matter. Sir George Mackenzie relates, in his
" Travels in Iceland," that the Lutheran clergy used all its power to
prevent the first publication of the " Eddas," the ancient epics of
Scandinavian mythology.

Greeks and Trojans were not more bitter in their disputes over the
body of Patroclus than Protestants and Catholics in wresting honestly
the texts of the fathers and the monuments of the Catacombs to
deduce from them the justification of their respective views on the
questions in controversy between them. What should we exjDect,
then, when the question is one of giving to a rival cult the place
which legitimately belongs to it in the development of man ? Bishop
Huet would find but few imitators in this age of his efforts to dis-
cover Moses in the persons of Zoroaster, Orpheus, Apollo, Vulcan,
Faunus, Thoth, Adonis, and Tammuz.f But even the best-informed
and most sincere apologists allow themselves to exaggerate the an-
tiquity of the Hebrew traditions while looking for the source or the
afiiliations of the biblical stories.

Thus, we had long known, from fragments of ancient authors, that
the Babylonians had a cycle of legends presenting some analogies with
the traditions of Genesis. They were generally believed to be an
infiltration or a vague echo of the Mosaic account. But in 1872 Mr.
George Smith deciphered from a Ninevite tablet an account of the
deluge, which was singularly like the Hebrew version in the details of
the composition, the course of the narration, and the style. The pri-
ority of this document to the first book of the Bible seems established
in evidence. Lenormant declares that it must have been composed
several centuries before Moses. The Babylonian version illustrates
the original signification of the tradition, by showing it to be a myth
of a great storm or of the rainy season ; while, in the Mosaic version,
the naturalistic character almost disappears under the more elevated
interpretation, conceived from the moral and monotheistic point of
view. We, therefore, seem authorized to conclude that, if the story in
Genesis is not derived directly from the Chaldean tradition, the latter

* Emest Renan, " Averroes et I'Avcrroism," pp. 4, 60.

f But we have recently seen — probably by way of reprisal — M. Jacolliot finding in
Moses, as well as in Menes and Minos, the Manu of India.

150 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

nevertheless represents a version much nearer to the common source.
Yet the contrary oi)inion prevails among the majority of orthodox
students, because they take as their point of departure the necessary
infallibility and priority of Genesis.

Sometimes the prejudice is frankly avowed. In January, 1880,
the Abbe de Broglie began at the Catholic Institute of Paris a course
on the history of non-Christian religions, and the " Polybiblion " of
the next month gave the following summary of his opening lecture :
" He proposes to show from the history of the most widely spread
false cults that they are not to be compared with Christianity, and,
coming down from generalities to a more special study, he will make
a brilliant demonstration of the superiority of our religion." This
is not history, but apologetics.*

We very frequently meet with an inverse kind of apologetics
among the adversaries of religious ideas. In fact, the anti-religious
prejudice, which rests, like the religious prejudice, on an exclusive view
of things, is a direct result of dogmatic intolerance. If one is in the
habit of regarding the ideas of others as a heap of superstitions and
impostures, it is easy to conceive that, when he loses faith in the su-
pernatural origin of beliefs, he will confound all the religions of the
earth and the religious sentiment itself in a contempt that will hence-
forth recognize no exception.

Some think that to occupy themselves with religions is to waste
time ; as if religious questions did not figure among the vital questions
of our epoch. " When I published the translation of the * Life of
Jesus,' by Strauss," writes Littre,f " the objection was made, from the
point of view of the freethinker and revolutionist, that I was under-
taking a wholly useless work, and one that was out of date, and that
the eighteenth century had performed, better than all the Strausses in
the world, all the work of demolition that was needed. Yes, the neg-
ative work, but not the positive Avork. And this is no subtile dis-
tinction that stops short of going to the bottom of things. Let us
consider the aberrations that haunted the mind of the eighteenth
century on the subject of religions. It was impossible for it to com-
prehend anything of their origin, of the part they played, or of their
life. They were, according to some, inventions of crafty men who
Avorked upon popular credulity and thereby gained power and wealth.
According to others, nothing could be seen in them but periods of
ignorance and superstition which it was impossible sufficiently to de-

* Tlie abbe seems to have recop;Tiizcfl this hhiisclf, for at the beginning of his third
rear (1881-'82) on the " History of the Religions of India," he changed the title of his
lectures to " Course of Christian Apologetics." What, now, becomes of the compliment
addressed by the " Polybiblion " to the Catholic Institute of Paris for having inaugurated
a course on " Comparative Religion " before the state, with the resources of the budget at
its disposal, organized one at the Coll(:'»ge dc France ?

f Sec the review " La Philosophic Positive," vol. xxil, p. 368.

THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF RELIGIOXS. 151

spise or lament. According to others, again, some favor might be
granted to Jupiter and Olympus, for whom magnificent temples and
beautiful statues had been erected ; but the flood of historical indigna-
tion must be turned upon the shame of shames, of Christianity and
the middle ages. Such aberrations, with all their variations, form a
vast network of prejudices which is not yet broken up and which still
holds bound in its toils the whole radical party of France."

Some minds, struck by the ills which religions have engendered,
are willing to admit the utility and even the necessity of hierography ;
but they do not pretend to look for anything in the science but argu-
ments, or weapons, with which to contest the various forms of belief
around them.

Is there any need of explaining that such can not be the purpose of
this course ? In saying that I will try to treat religions by the pro-
cesses of science, I am by implication engaged to make neither an anti-
religious polemic nor a religious propaganda. Parties and sects are
at liberty to draw all the conclusions they please from science ; but
science should never stoop to be their instrument or sign.

"When, in 1879, the French Senate discussed the scheme for intro-
ducing the history of religions into the College de France, Edouard
de Laboulaye became the spokesman of a prejudice that disputes even
the possibility of using historical methods in the study of any relig-
ion, saying : " When you believe it is true, everything will seem natural
to you. When you believe it is false, everything will seem absurd.
How are you going to find a way of teaching impartially ? "

Henry Martin replied : " I do not say that the comparative history
of religions will be to the profit of intolerant religious ideas that pro-
scribe one another as they proscribe irreligious ideas ; bxit it will surely
be to the profit of the idea of that universal religion which lies at the
bottom of all religions, and is their essence."

I will go further, and say that the historian of religions need not
be at the trouble of asking whether the object of the religious senti-
ment is real or not, or, in other words, whether the belief in the exist-
ence of the Deity is well-founded or illusory.

I would also add that, to write the history of religions, it wouM be
necessary to put one's self at the positivist point of view, provided this
phrase is not taken to signify a formal adhesion to the philosophical sys-
tem of Auguste Comte, who also has come to hierography with a pre-
conceived theory. Here, again, I enter upon a new order of prejudice, the
philosophical prejudice, or that which involves finding in the facts the
confirmation of a doctrine determined upon in advance. Orthodox posi-
tivism omits from its scientific classification, experimental psychology,
the study of which is indispensable, as Herbert Spencer declares, for
obtaining the key to the religious sentiment and its evolutions. When
the positivists afiirm that man must pass, in his individual and so-
cial development, through the theological, metaphysical, and positive

152 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

stages, they mistake for successive stages three different aspects of the
human mind. And, when they declare that all religions must have
traversed successively the three phases of fetichism, polytheism, and
monotheism, they again sacrifice the facts to the spirit of system. By
fetichism, Comte understands the worship of material objects, trees,
stones, shells, rivers, mountains, celestial bodies, etc., which the imagi-
nation of the primitive man arbitrarily invested with supernatural
powers, without, however, seeing in them the work or residence of a
spirit. But the numerous observations made in our days on non-civ-
ilized peoples tend to establish, as Max Miiller, Herbert Spencer, Albert
Reville, and many others have superabundantly demonstrated, that
fetichism as thus understood is nowhere a primitive religion ; that it
always accompanies and presupposes belief in sjjirits lodged in things
or wandering in space ; that it is unknown among people who are
placed at the bottom of the religious scale, and reaches its maximum
among nations that are relatively advanced.

If by fetichism we understand, with M. Girard de la Rialle, " the
tendency to regard all phenomena, all beings, and all the bodies of na-
ture as endowed with wills and feelings like those of man, with only a
few differences in intensity and activity " * — which constitutes the re-
ligious state defined as Naturism by M. Albert Reville — I am ready to
admit that something of the kind may have been the first form of re-
ligious practice. But the definition goes no further than that of the
orthodox positivists, for it implies a previous distinction of body and
mind, and worship is in reality exclusively addressed to the latter. Mr.
Frederic Harrison maintains that the official religion of China had
preserved the type of primitive fetichism, because in it the sky, the
earth, and the heavenly bodies were adored, considered objectively,
and not as the residences of immaterial beings. Now, all those who
have closely studied the ancient religion of the Chinese Empire tell us
that veneration is addressed, not to the material appearances of the
phenomena of nature, but to the invisible spirits of which the sky, the
earth, and the constellations appear respectively as the inseparable en-
velope, the sensible manifestation, the vestment, or the body. As to
adoration of material objects frankly regarded as such, fetichism is
a secondary derivative, and not the first form of the religious senti-
ment.

Another philosophical prejudice, of a contrary bearing, is the one
that represents the historical religions as the feeble echo of a primitive
monotheism, qualified by natural religion. It seemed to receive a
striking confirmation in the first half of this century, when the most
ancient monuments of Eastern thought put off their veils before our
dazzled eyes. All that we had known till then of the religions pro-
fessed among the Hindoos, Persians, and Egyptians, with their mon-
strous idols, their barbarous practices, and their incoherent and coarse
* " Mythologie Compar^e," Paris, 1878, p. 2.

THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF RELIGION'S. 153

myths, seemed either an ignorant distortion, or a willful disguise of the
pure and profound doctrines taught in the earliest ages of the world.

From Germany, where the symbolical school of Creuzer had pre-
tended to find in the ancient fables allegories veiling the treasures
of primitive religion, this illusion passed to France and to England,
where it still has many adepts.

A more complete and more minute study of the documents in which
it was believed the echoes of primitive humanity could be found, has
discovered that they contain much chaff mixed with the good grain ;
that they depict, not a monotheism in its decline, but a monotheism in
course of formation ; and that they are the product of a long sacerdotal
elaboration, not the primary expression of the religious feeling in its
contact with Nature.*

Nowhere has the contradiction between the theory of original per-
fection in religion, and the accumulated conclusions of archaeology,
ethnography, experimental psychology, general history, and religious
science appeared to me more marked than in the recent work of M. de
Pressense on the " Origins," precisely because the writer in it impar-
tially expounded all the facts acquired or legitimately presumed by
contemporary science. He shows that the religious sentiment has been
exalting and purifying itself since prehistoric times. Does not the
losrical conclusion from this seem to be that that sentiment began with
most imperfect and gross manifestations ? But M. de Pressense, gen-
eralizing from the fact that a confused belief in a supreme divinity is
met among some savages addicted to the practices of fetichism, con-
cludes that monotheism was the primitive faith of man. *' Because
man in his extreme degradation," he says, " tried to find the divine
idea and attach himself to it, he must necessarily have possessed it
primitively in its grandeur." f M, de Pressense approaches the prob-
lem of our moral and religious origins with the preconceived notion of
a fall, of a degradation suffered by mankind for having violated the
moral law, during a first trial of liberty. He does not see that this
explanation explains nothing, and that it leaves intact the question,
how mankind could at first have realized the divine idea in its pleni-
tude— except by causing to intervene at the beginning, as M. de
Pressense seems inclined to do, a supernatural revelation, or by hold-
ing with the poet —

"L'homme est un diea tomb6 qai se souvient des cieux "
(Man is a fallen god, who has memories of the sky).

* Mr. Max Muller has done me the honor to quote a passage from my lectures on
India, in which I brought out the contrast of the ancient Biahmanic philosophy with the
idolatry, almost fetichism, with which the stranger's eyes are struck on his arrival in
Hindostan. But by this, I in no way intended to maintain that the vulgar practices of
Hindooism were a degradation of the Vedic theology, still less that that represented the
original and complete condition of the Hindoo conceptions.

f E. de Pressense, " Les Origines," Paris, 18S3, p. 491.

154 THE POPULAR SCIE^''CE MONTHLY.

The mind i^roceeds from the known to the unknown. This is the
highway that leads to science, but on condition that the traveler does
not wander from it to launch himself into hasty conclusions. The
philosophers of the last century, seeking to explain how primitive
man fell under the yoke of positive religions, maintained that they
were invented by the priests ; some added, and by kings. It is true
that priests and governments have used religions too much for per-
sonal or political interests. But that is no reason for believing that
they invented them.

Good sense teaches that the existence of the priest is posterior to
the birth of the religious sentiment. Besides this, nothing is more
contrary to the tendencies of contemporary science than to regard man
as a lump of dough indefinitely plastic in the hands of legislators
and mystagogues. Not only is it henceforth averred that all known
peoples have religious faiths, in the sense that they admit the exist-
ence of superhuman powers intervening in the destiny of the indi-
vidual, but I shall also have occasion to show that they all possess — at
least in a rudimentary state — the essential elements of worship, prayer,
saci'ifice, and symbols ; and that these elements are clad with analo-
gous forms among the most diverse races, and that, wherever we can
trace the course of religious evolution, we see faiths passing through
phases, if not identical, coming under general laws. Religions make
themselves, and are not invented.

From the fact that some kings and heroes have been deified, a few
philosophers have concluded that all the gods were deified men. In
this way, according to Evem^re, among the ancients, the first chiefs
or the first sages, having obtained domination by means of their physi-
cal or intellectual superiority, have had a supernatural power attributed
to them, and have consequently received divine honors. If we had
asked this philosopher whence the first believer derived the idea of the
supernatural and divine to apply it to kings and priests, he would have
been greatly embarrassed to answer us. Evemere's school, resting
upon a tradition that Zeus once reigned in Crete, and on the fact that
his tomb is shown there, maintained that the master of Olympus was
an ancient Cretan sovereign, deified by his subjects. We know now
that Zcvs iraTTjp is found among the Romans, the Hindoos, and the
Germans, under the names respectively of Jupiter, Dyaus-Pitar, Zio,
or Tyr, and with the general character of Heaven-father, the first form
of " father who is in heaven." *

Another school obtained a better conception of the real character
of the gods, when it associated them with Nature deified in its phe-
nomena. As early as the sixth century before our era, Theogenes of
Rhegium declared that Apollo, Helios, and Ilephaestos were fire
under different aspects — Hera the air, Poseidon water, Artemis the

*■ M. J. Darmcstctcr identifies him also with the Ahura Mazda of the Persialis and the
Svarogu of the Slavs,

THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF RELIGIONS. 155

moon, and the rest likewise. This was a current opinion among the
Stoics. Cicero makes some philosophers, in his treatise "De Natura
Deorum," say that the gods recruited either from among the phe-
nomena that strike the imagination, or from among the natural ob-
jects that render services to man.*

These views have been confirmed in our days, not only for the
Greek and Roman Pantheon, but also for the gods of all known
peoples. Only here again we must take account of other theogonic
factors. Among the gods there are some who are certainly men or
animals deified. Others are derived exclusively from moral abstrac-
tions, such as Virtue, Good Faith, Prudence, Fortune, etc., or from
metaphysical speculations, like the supreme Brahm of the Hindoos. It
should also be remembered that the gods of Nature tend, among some
peoples, to become transformed into gods superior to Nature, so that
their primitive significance is at last obscured and lost, as Assur among
the Assyrians, Ahura Mazda among the Persians, and Jahveh among
the Israelites. It was through the failure to grasp these shades that
Dupuis, at the end of the last century, wasted his time and learning
in maintaining the astronomical significance of all ancient and modern
gods and cults. f

We can easily explain how the personification of the celestial bodies
and of natural phenomena has led to the representation of their move-
ments and relations as adventures of heroes or of gods. Antiquity
had already penetrated the sense of its most transj^arent myths. But
the interpretation of mythology has found its methods only in our
own days.

Otfried Miiller regarded myths as local legends that translated into
a form of personality some particular features of geography or circum-
stances of history.

Others witb Mr. Max Miiller have insisted on the solar significa-
tion of myths ; they have seen in them a reflection of the impression
produced on the imagination of infantile people by the periodical suc-
cession of light and darkness, of day and night, of summer and winter.
Thus, the labors of Hercules are simply the works of the sun during
the twelve months of the year. (Edipus personifies the day-star ; son
of the Dawn, he kills his father every morning ; son of the Night, he
marries his mother every evening.

Others still, among them Adalbert Kuhn, have set forth that the
mind of primitive men was most manifestly affected by the irregular
phenomena of Nature and sudden changes of the atmosphere ; by this
theory the principal myths dramatized the apparent struggles of the
sky and the storm, of the sun and the cloud, of the fire and the dark.
Developing this view, M, Darmesteter has shown how among the Hin-

* Cicero, " De Natura Deorum," I, 42 ; II, 23.

+ " Origine de tous les cultes, ou religion univcrselle," by Dupuis, " Citoyen Fran9ais,
Paris, the Year III."

156 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

doos, Persians, Greeks, Latins, and Germans, the story of the creation
corresponds with the picture afforded by the apparent new birth of
the workl after each storm.*

There are those who have seen in myths simple metaphors con-
ceived by poets and taken seriously by their hearers. Thus, when
Pindar represents Excuse as the daughter of Reflection, when Prodicus
speaks of Hercules as the butt of two women who personify Pleasure
and Virtue, they give those images the sense that we ourselves would
attach to them ; but the figures are taken in earnest by the masses, and
so myth arises from metaphor and parable. With still more proba-
bility has some confusion of this kind resulted from changes of lan-
guage, when the appellations of objects personified in this way have
lost their primitive signification, and no longer suggest anything but
proper names.

Some postulate besides this auricular mythology an ocular one,
holding that the origin of myths should be sought in uncomprehended
or badly interpreted drawings. Coins, cups, and primitive objects of
art in which emblems, personages, and real or fancied scenes are rep-
resented, have set the imagination at work of strangers who acquired
them, and they have tried to explain the figures by extemporized
legends. According to M. Clermont-Ganneau, the Chimaera and its
legend originated in a composition quite common on the Lycian monu-
ments, in which a lion appeared to be devouring a deer. The two
animals, if we should suppose them combined by an inexact or igno-
rant copyist, might in fact give the idea of a monster formed by an
amalgamation of the lion and the deer or goat. So the triple Geryon,
slain by Hercules, is found among the Egyptian monuments under the
form of three men kneeling before a victorious hero.f

According to Mr. Herbert Spencer, the adventures attributed to
the celestial bodies and personified phenomena, to the sun, moon, sky,
twilight, etc., originally related to human beings bearing the names of
those bodies or phenomena as their heroes. Thus, a person who left a
living memory among following generations was called Aurora, be-
cause he was born at dawn, or for some other reason. Gradually he
became confounded with the dawn, and his adventures were inter-
preted in the way that the phenomena of the nascent day made most
plausible. Then, as the same name may have belonged to several per-
sons of different tribes and times, such a juxtaposition of contradictory
stories as we find in most mythologies would inevitably have been
brought about. I

My conclusion is that there is truth in each of these theories, and
that they do not all exhaust the matter. The law of intellectual de-
velopment is one, but its combinations are infinite, and to seek to

* J. Darmestcter, "Les Cosmogonies Aryenncs, Essais oricntaux," Paris, 1883.
f Ch. Clermont-Ganneau, " Mythologie Iconographiciuo," Paris, 18*78, pp. 9-12.
X Herbert Spencer, " Sociology," vol. ii, chap. xxiv.

THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF RELIGIONS. 157

bring all the myths under a single process of formation is to pretend
to open all doors with the same key. There is no pass-key in my-
thology.

We have still stronger reasons for being on our guard against see-
ing myths in everything. Our century has witnessed numerous at-
tempts to reduce, not only the great religious initiators, Moses, Jesus,
and Buddha, to myths, but all the persons who have played a consid-
erable part in the traditions of history, from Lycurgus to Charle-
magne. A sportive essay has even been made to show that Napoleon
I was a solar hero, and sustained by arguments the force of which is
hardly exceeded by their wit.*

Even the knowledge that some students have of a particular relig-
ion may become a cause of errors. Every one has not the sure glance
and the fullness of information that have permitted Max Miiller to
study the origin of religions "in the light of the religions of India."
Read the captivating work on " The Science of Religions," by a writer
to whom the Sanskrit antiquities were a kind of family heritage, M.
ifimile Burnouf. The author sets out to show that *' the center from
which have radiated all the great religions of the earth, is the theory of
Agni, of which Jesus Chi'ist is the most complete incarnation." f This
theory, as it is laid down in the Vedas, is nothing else than the scien-
tific doctrine of the identity of the principle of fire and motion, of life
and thought. How does the author fill the gap between the Yedic
ages and that of the composition of the gospel of St. John ? He sup-
poses that this theory, formulated previously to the dispersion of the
Indo-Iranians, was transmitted by the Persians to the Jews in cap-
tivity at Babylon, and that Jesus, having received it from the latest
prophets, communicated it to his disciples, to be divulged only after
the formation of the Church. Is it necessary to stop to show that this
is simply a hierographic romance ?

To still another category of preconceived ideas, calculated to falsify
the results of religious criticism, belong the preferences arising from
the isolated study of a single science. Such preferences give rise to a
natural predilection for the field of investigations we have chosen, and
to a tendency to refer to it all the problems we are called upon to re-
solve. Kow, when a student applies the processes of one science to
another, he runs a strong risk of erring on the one side by approach-
ing facts with an insufiicient method, and on the other by perceiving
only the phase corresponding to his order of habitual preoccupations.
I will draw my example from the two sciences which have perhaps
rendered the most service to the history of religions — linguistics and
anthropology.

* This joke has been renewed by some students of Oxford, who have demonstrated, at
length and sagaciously, that Max Miiller never existed. (See the magazine " Melusine,"
July 5, 1884.)

f "La Science des Religions," Paris, 1S76, p. 259.

158 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Both assume to make liierography a simple province of their re-
spective empires. Sometimes linguists wish to interdict anthropolo-
gists from illustrating by comparison myths that do not belong to the
same group of languages ; sometimes ethnographists and students of
folk-lore accuse linguistics of having reduced mythology to a mirage,
and, under the pretext that philologists do not agree in their etymolo-
gies, deny that they have contributed to the knowledge of myths, even
within the circle of the Indo-European languages.* Let us examine
the force of these conflicting pretensions :

The comparative grammar of the Indo-European languages is in-
contestably not sufficient to interpret the myths of peoples belonging
to other ethnic groups, or to explain all the mythology of the Aryan
peoples. AYhere myths occur under a form nearly identical among dif-
ferent races, beginning with the uncivilized people of our own epoch,
we have a general fact, the source of which should be sought else-
where than in the language or the isolated history of a particular race.
Every one has heard of were-wolves. An explanation of the origin of
lycanthropy has been sought in a supposed Greek pun, resting upon
the assonance of Avkos, wolf, and XevKo?, white. Tradition may have
spoken of personages dressed in white ; whence a popular legend that
they were transformed into wolves. But anthropology disposes of
this theory by telling us that among uncivilized peoples very distant
one from another, in Asia, Africa, and America, the power is attrib-
uted to some men of transforming themselves into wild or dangerous
animals, and explains that such a belief flows naturally from the idea
that the savage forms of the mutual relations of man and the animal
world, f

It is nevertheless true that philology alone can disengage the origi-
nal sense of some names and some myths from the confusion of grad-
ual changes and parasitical surcharges. How could we have been able
to penetrate the myth of Prometheus, or write the real history of
Jupiter, without the study of Sanskrit? J Sir John Lubbock attempts
to exjilain the origin and attributes of Mercury, or Hermes, by the
usage, widely extended among non-civilized peoples, of paying worship
to erect stones. These stones, we observe, mark the respective limits
of the tribes, are set up in pastures, point out roads, designate the
location of markets and intertribal meeting-places, bear inscriptions,
and cover tombs. Hence, Mercury came to be regarded as the patron
of shepherds, travelers, merchants, and, sarcastically, of thieves, the

* See, in particular, in the " Athcnreum " of August 30, 1884.

t " To those who live m countries where wicked people and witches are supposed
constantly to assume the form of wild beasts,'' says Sir A. C. Lyal, writing of India,
'"the explanation of lycanthropy by a confusion between \vkos and Aeu/cbj appears utter-
ly idle."

X Even Mr. Andrew Lang, who holds to the possibility of accounting for myths with-
out the aid of philology, had to have recourse to it when he came to the Indo-European
myths. (Sec, in the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," vol. xvii, p. 153.)

THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF RELIGIONS. 159

god of games and letters, and the conductor of souls. " He was the
messenger of the gods," Sir John Lubbock adds, " because embassa-
dors met at the frontiers ; and of eloquence, for the same reason." *

Unfortunately for this explanation, Kuhn has traced the connection
between Hermes or Hermias and the two sons of Sarama, the messen-
ger of Indra, who brought back cows stolen by the demon of the
storm. They, the Saramayau, represented the mythical dogs that
guarded the road to the other world and led souls to Yama, the sub-
terranean sun, and king of the infernal regions. Going with the
Greeks to the West, one of these personages, named ^arvara, became
Cerberus ; the other was j^romoted to be Hermes — personifying the
wind or the twilight ; and we find in Max Miiller that that identifica-
tion " is one of the guiding threads that have pointed out to science
the right road in the labyi'inth of the ancient Aryan mythology."

Thus we see how, by this exchange of good ofiSces between lin-
guistics and anthropology, the sciences check and correct, and con-
sequently complement one another, each bringing its contingent to
the constantly increasing treasure of our historical knowledge. The
sesame of this treasure is, " No exclusiveness, no prejudice."

I have now passed in review the principal forms that have served
as the vehicle of the aspirations of the human mind toward the in-
visible and beyond — from vague adoration of luminous and nourishing
force to the highest conception of a God at once spirit, love, and truth
— from the worship concerned with ghosts and fetiches to the identifi-
cation of religion with faith in the moral order of the world. What
picture could be presented more varied, more instructive, more capable
of attracting those who are occupied at the same time with the modern
discoveries of science and the great problems of humanity ?

If any are animated with the desire of contending against super-
stitions (using the word in its etymological sense), they can find no
stronger tool than this study with which to sap the foot of clay of all
idols.

To those who hold to the religious traditions of their childhood, I
believe I have said enough, however much our views may diverge, to
reassure their conscience, provided it does not resist the impartial
search for truth. At all events, they should meditate on that phrase
of Chateaubriand's : " We must not say that Christianity is good be-
cause it comes from God, but that it comes from God because it is
good." This thesis implies full liberty of examination, comparison,
and criticism.

I insist on the importance, were it only from motives of patriotism,
of propagating the more exact knowledge of religious facts. The con-
clusions of history are not alone lessons of truth ; they are also lessons
of tolerance. The historical study of religions, I repeat, is not being

* " On the Origin of Civilization and Primitive Condition of Man." Xew York : D.
Appleton & Co. 1871. P. 205.

i6o TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

anxious to learn whether this or that cult is true or false, or even
whether the religious sentiment rests upon a real or an illusory basis.
There, however, is a point of view that wonderfully facilitates the
knowledge of religions, while it also seems to comprise the supreme
conclusion of their comparative history. It is the thought that, among
the " innumerable manifestations of the religious feeling of man, no
one possesses the absolute truth, but each one includes a relative truth ;
that all rejjresent, as the later sages of pagan antiquity had already
discerned, imperfect efforts to realize a perfect ideal." Here is a
ground on which the enlightened partisans of different religions can
shake hands, not only with one another, but also with the pupils of
science and the friends of progress.

POSTAL SAYINGS-BANKS.

By Peofessok D. B, KING.

IT is generally agreed that a system of savings institutions that
would be easily accessible to the people throughout the country,
give them absolute security for their small savings, and repay deposits
at short notice, would, even if the rate of interest were very low, be a
great convenience to many people in every community, and a great
encouragement to economy and thrift among working-men and people
of small incomes. There are many who think that postal savings-
banks similar to those which have been in successful oiDcration in Eu-
rope and in the British colonies for a number of years would furnish
just the sort of facilities for saving that are needed in this country.
Many Americans know something of the working of the postal sav-
ings-banks in England, where they have been in operation since
1861.

There are now upward of 7,800 of the post-offices in the United
Kingdom open, commonly from nine in the morning until six, and on
Saturday until nine, in the evening, for the receipt and repayment of
deposits. One shilling is the smallest sum that can be deposited. The
Government has, however, recently issued blank forms with spaces
for twelve penny postage-stamj^s, and will receive one of these forms
with twelve stamps affixed as a deposit. This plan was suggested by
the desire to encourage habits of saving among children, and by the
success of penny banks in connection with schools and mechanics' in-
stitutes. No one can deposit more than £30 in one year, or have to
his credit more than £150, exclusive of interest. When principal and
interest together amount to £200, interest ceases until the amount has
been reduced below £200. Interest at two and a half per cent is paid,
beginning the first of the month following the deposit and stopping

POSTAL SAVINGS-BANKS. 161

the last of the month preceding the withdrawal, but no interest is paid
on any sum that is less than a pound or not a multiple of a pound.
The interest is added to the principal on the 31st of December of each
year.

The methods used for the receipt and repayment of deposits are
simple and take but little of the depositor's time. One is not limited,
in making deposits or withdrawals, to the office in the town in which
he lives. If at any time he desires to do so, he may make deposits in
other offices, provided he does not go beyond the total sum allowed a
single depositor ; his accounts will all be kept together in London, and
he can withdraw his money on short notice at any office. These pro-
visions for deposit and withdrawal are sometimes a great convenience
to travelers and laborers who make frequent removals. The absolute
secrecy which is " enforced upon all officers connected with the banks "
leads many working-men to deposit their savings with the Government,
who could not be induced to deposit their money with private or ordi-
nary savings-banks where their employers might find out that they
were laying by money.

Good results almost always follow the opening of one of these sav-
ings-bank offices. Numbers of men and women, boys and gii'ls, are
gradually induced to become depositors ; money that would otherwise
be spent in needless indulgence is left at interest with the Government,
and habits of thrift and economy are formed. From December 31,
1874, to December 31, 1884, the number of depositors increased from
1 ,668,733 to 3,333,675, and the deposits from £23,157,469 to £44,773,773.
Trust funds and the funds of charitable and friendly societies, for
which special provision is made, are deposited in considerable amounts,
so that a large number of persons are interested in the banks in this
way.

Since the era of the great frauds which led to the establishment of
the postal savings-banks, the ordinary trustee savings-banks have been
more carefully managed and guarded. While their number has de-
creased from 653 in 1861 to 411 a year ago, their depositors have not
decreased, numbering more than a million and a half, nor have the
deposits fallen off. The slightly higher rate of interest which they
pay and the prominent and influential persons who are sometimes
connected with their management have made them quite popular in
some communities. The funds are invested in Government securities
and the chances for fraud are slight. The limit to the amount which
one person may deposit in the postal savings-banks has prevented their
interfering seriously with private banking enterprises. The proposi-
tion to extend this limit has been strongly and, thus far, successfully
opposed, the opposition coming chiefly from private bankers. It is
generally conceded that, without interfering with established institu-
tions to any considerable extent, the postal savings-banks in Great
Britain and Ireland have furnished the working classes with excel-

VOL. XXTIII. — 11

i62 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

lent facilities for saving, and have exerted a most beneficial influence
in promoting habits of economy and thrift.

The English colonies, seeing the good results of the system that
has been described, have established postal savings-banks of a similar
character. A higher rate of interest is paid — commonly four per cent
— and larger sums are taken from single depositors. The Canadian
system, which went into operation in 1868, did not make rapid progress
for a time, on account of the good institutions already in existence and
the small number of offices of deposit. Greater progress has been
made recently. The deposits in

June, 1880, amounted to $3,940,000 ;

" 1881, " " 6,208,000;

" 1882, " " 9,474,000;

" 1883, " " 11,976,000;

" 1884, " " 13,245,000.

In July, 1884, there were 343 savings-bank offices and 66,682 de-
positors. Of the depositors, 1,400, having 84,722,000 on deposit, were
supposed to be farmers ; 7,850, having $1,422,000, mechanics ; 4,270,
having 8724,000, laborers ; 12,000, with 82,350,000 deposits, married
women ; and 10,500, with deposits amounting to $1,275,000, single
women. The accounts are all kept at the head office in Ottawa, to
which each postmaster makes daily reports, and from which receipts
are sent to every depositor for every deposit that he makes. Although
the amounts received have in the aggregate been large, the losses
through frauds have been very small.

Influenced by the success of the English system of postal savings-
banks, the governments on the Continent of Europe have now nearly
all made similar provisions for the investment of the surplus earnings
of the people. The Italian system of postal savings-banks went into
operation February 29, 1876. A year ago all the post-offices, except
ten, were open as savings-banks. The interest paid is three and half
per cent. In 1883 there were 1,305,743 deposits made, amounting to
105,582,729.55 lire. These savings-bank funds are loaned to prov-
inces, communities, parishes, and their divisions, or are invested in
fundable bonds or other securities. In France the proposal to estab-
lish postal savings-banks was frequently discussed, but not adopted
until March, 1881, although the ordinary savings-banks had for several
years been allowed to use the post-offices as places for the receipt and
repayment of deposits. On December 31, 1883, there were 77,430,000
francs on deposit in the French ])0stal savings-banks to the credit of
374,970 depositors. The well known success of school savings-banks,
which arc now or will shortly be established in all the schools of
France, and the economical and thrifty habits of the French peasantry,
would seem to indicate a demand for good and generally accessible
facilities for the secure keeping of savings. The Austrian postal sav-
ings-banks were first opened January 12, 1883. Up to December 81,

POSTAL SAVIXGS-BANKS. 163

1884, they had received in all 3,311,333 deposits, amounting to 64,-
763,350 florins. They are well conducted, and likely to prove very
successful. The Belgian system has been in successful operation for
more than fifteen years ; that of the Netherlands was established some
three years ago ; while Sweden has just followed her neighbors, Den-
mark and Norway, in establishing similar institutions.

In 1871 Postmaster-General Creswell recommended the establish-
ment of postal savings depositories in connection with the United
States post-offices, and two years later he discussed the subject very
fully in his annual report. Several of his successors have renewed his
recommendation with great earnestness. Hon. Thomas L. James, after
referring to and highly approving of these recommendations, said :
" It is my earnest conviction that a system of this description, if
adopted, would inure, more than almost any other measure of public
importance, to the benefit of the working people of the United States."
In 1873 Hon. Horace Maynard brought before Congress a bill to estab-
lish a national savings depository, but no action was taken. Since then
a number of efforts have been made to induce Congress to enact the
necessary legislation. The latest of these efforts was made in 1882,
under the leadership of Mr. Lacey, whose report from the Committee
on Post-Offices and Post-Roads contains valuable information and sug-
gestions on the subject. The bill which Mr. Lacey introduced, and
which has recently been strongly indorsed by the State Charities Aid
Association of New York, and other advocates of postal savings-
banks, provided that none but money-order offices should receive de-
posits ; that no single deposit should be less than ten cents or more than
one hundred dollars ; that no one person should deposit more than one
hundred dollars within thirty days, or have at any time more than five
hundred dollars to his credit ; and that interest at two per cent should
be paid on all sums over three dollars and multiples of one dollar, be-
ginning the first of the month following the deposit, and stopping the
last of the month preceding the withdrawal.

Would such postal savings-banks be more convenient and accessible
to the masses of the people than existing institutions and organiza-
tions which undertake to safely keep the surplus earnings of the
people ? Would they furnish better security for deposits and greater
encouragement to thrift ? Could the Government, without interfering
with existing institutions and without loss to itself, carry on this sav-
ings-bank business? Would the benefits resulting from properly
conducted postal savings-banks be sufficient to justify the necessary
extension of the functions of our Government and the increase in the
number of our civil servants? These are the chief questions to be
considered in deciding whether or not it would be wise for the Gov-
ernment to undertake to keep securely the small savings of the people.

There are in this country a number of institutions and organiza-
tions which undertake to persuade poor people to form habits of thrift,

164 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and to so invest jjortions of their earnings as to make some provision
for the future. Mutual benefit societies are among the oldest of these
organizations, and are very numerous. Some of them confine their
operations mainly to giving temporary relief in time of sickness or
misfortune, or on the death of their members ; others have become
practically co-operative life-insurance companies. The sums annually
paid into these organizations are in the aggregate astonishingly large.
None of these societies, however, enable their members to accumulate
capital, and many of them are very unstable and unreliable. The
better class of them is not accessible to the masses of the people.

Co-operative societies for production and distribution are not nu-
merous in this country. Many co-operative enterprises have been
started, but most of them have failed. The interest in such enter-
prises seems to be increasing, but at present they furnish but few of
our working-men with opportunities for the investment of their surplus
earnings.

Building and loan associations have done excellent service in some
parts of the country by encouraging persons of small incomes to save
money and to invest it in houses for their families. In some parts of
Pennsylvania these associations have been particularly beneficial.
Large sections of Philadelphia, and of some of the smaller cities of the
State, have been built up by them, and thousands of working-men have
been led to save portions of their wages, and enabled to own their
homes through their agency. In some parts of the country, however,
they have not been so well managed, and poor people have sometimes
suffered loss and hardship in consequence. These hardships and losses
have created great distrust of these associations in some communities.
Excellent as is the service which they do, they do not furnish facilities
for saving which are available for all classes of the people, nor, with
their liability to careless or dishonest management, do they furnish
anything like an absolute security for money. The necessity of mak-
ing regular payments to them and to the mutual benefit and co-opera-
tive insurance societies is sometimes an additional incentive to econ-
omy, but in other instances it is productive of inconvenience and
hardship.

The ordinary savings-banks have furnished all classes of the people
in some parts of the country with good facilities for saving small sums,
and have especially encouraged habits of thrift among the poorer
classes. In 1882 there were in the entire country 667 savings-banks,
the average deposits of Avhich amounted to $1,003,737,087. At that
time the New England States and New York together had about
eighty-one per cent of the savings-banks, and eighty-three per cent of
the savings-bank deposits of the entire country.

The New England States are, on the whole, fairly well supplied
with savings-banks, having, on the average, one for every ten thou-
sand of the population. In some of these States the banks are so dis-

POSTAL SAVINGS-BAN-KS. 165

tributed as to be easily accessible to most of the people ; in others
there are many communities which are inconveniently remote from
any savings institution. Outside of New England, none of the States
are well supplied. Even New York, with its one hundred and twenty-
seven banks, contains large sections of populous country in which
there is not a single savings-bank. The other States are still worse
off. In 1882 there were in the Southern States only nine, and in the
"Western States, outside of Ohio, Indiana, and California, only twenty-
one savings-banks. Pennsylvania, with its great manufacturing and
mining industries, employing regularly several hundred thousand
laborers, is very badly supplied. A few years ago there were a num-
ber of savings-banks doing a large business in various parts of the
State. Many of these were loosely or dishonestly managed, and their
affairs were wound up, sometimes with loss to depositors or stockhold-
ers, or both. There still exist a few old and perfectly sound savings
institutions, and there are, besides, many private banking concerns
which receive large sums of working-men's earnings, but, on the whole,
the lack of facilities for the secure investment of small savings is de-
plorable.

Where the population is dense and conveniently grouped about a
number of centers, as is the case in some parts of New England, the
ordinary savings-banks may be made to furnish adequate facilities for
the small savings of the people. Most sections of this country are,
however, rather sparsely populated, and it would not be possible to
maintain a good savings-bank in every small town. Some of the sav-
ings-banks have been so well managed and are so strong that it would
be hard to find better security than that which they offer. In general,
the savings-banks of New England have been well managed. Occa-
sionally there has been bad management, and general financial depres-
sion has brought disaster upon some of them. Three out of every
eight of the savings-banks of Maine suspended between 1872 and 1879.
While the losses to depositors were probably less, as a rule, than those
sustained by men who had invested their money in land or other secu-
rities, the value of which shrank greatly during those years, still these
suspensions greatly impaired the confidence of the people in the
stability of savings-banks. New York has some very solid savings
institutions. The losses, however, to depositors from the failures
of twenty-two savings-banks in that State between 1872 and 1879
amounted to $4,475,061. These losses have led many people to dis-
trust perfectly sound institutions. In some parts of New York, New
Jersey, and Pennsylvania great hardship and suffering have been
caused by savings-bank failures, and great distrust and discourage-
ment have followed.

None of these organizations or institutions, excellent as they may
be, furnish the masses of the people throughout the country with con-
venient facilities for depositing their savings, nor do they, as a rule,

i66 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

give anything like an absolute security for the funds intrusted to
them. There are, moreover, some large sections of the country in
which there are no facilities whatever for the safe-keeping of sxu-plus
earnings.

Postal savings-banks could easily be made accessible to all the peo-
ple. There is in every town a post-office, generally conveniently situ-
ated, open all day, and visited by many of the people. All classes are
accustomed to intrust their letters, and perhaps their money or prop-
erty, to it. A depository for savings in this office would certainly be
accessible to the whole community. A Government guarantee for the
money deposited would furnish the absolute security that is needed to
encourage the people to intrust their surplus earnings to such savings
depositories.

Whether the Government could conduct such institutions without
loss to itself, or injury to private enterprise, or the unsafe enlarge-
ment of its functions, is a question in regard to which there is some
difference of opinion. Perhaps the greatest difficulty would be that
of finding some safe, permanent, and profitable use for the money de-
posited. Many hold that, if the Government should only guarantee
the repayment of deposits without interest, large numbers of the peo-
])le would gladly place their surplus earnings with it for safe keeping.
However this may be, a low rate of interest would add much to the
popularity and attractiveness of the arrangement. Two per cent has
been suggested as a rate that would be attractive to depositors with-
out interfering much with private banking enterprises, provided the
sums taken from individual depositors were not too large. It is esti-
mated that the cost of management might, for the first few years,
reach three fourths of one per cent. It would be much more likely to
fall considerably below than go above this limit. The problem before
the Government, then, would be to safely invest the deposits at two
and three fourths per cent.

The European nations which have postal savings-banks, with two
or three exceptions, have large national debts, which are not likely to
be paid off for centuries to come. The investment of small sums by
large numbers of the people in Government securities greatly increases
the loyalty of the masses and their interest in governmental affairs.
The Government thus borrows at a low rate, and an incidental result
of its so doing is to render its citizens more thrifty, independent, self-
respecting, and loyal. It is certainly an open question whether the
policy of rapidly paying off our national debt, w^hen it could be re-
funded at so low a rate, is wise. Apart from the necessities of the
national banking system, there is a great deal to be said in favor of
allowing the principal to remain for an indefinite period when the
masses of our laboring-men and poorer classes would gladly take the
greater part of the loan at two and three fourths per cent, or perhaps
even at a lower rate, and be greatly benefited by so doing. The adoption

POSTAL SAVINGS-BANKS. 167

of such a policy would not necessarily involve the abandonment of the
policy of protection. The removal of a portion of the internal revenue
taxation would accomplish the necessary reduction of the income of the
Government. Of the 8348,519,869.92 receipts of the Government for
last year, $195,067,489.76 were from customs, $121,586,000 from in-
ternal revenue, and the remainder from other sources. Prominent
men of both parties are now vigorously advocating a reduction of the
burdens of taxation, and, notwithstanding the battle between the free-
traders and the protectionists, the general demand for relief will no
doubt lead to the adoption of some measure that will cut off the un-
necessary revenue. It is evident that the adoption of such a measure
can not be delayed many years.

Besides national securities, State, county, and municipal bonds would
be available for investment by the Government. Many doubt the wis-
dom of investing in these, because such securities have in so many in-
stances proved unsafe. The bonds, however, of a number of the States
and cities are now considered, by those who are accustomed to invest
large sums of trust funds, very nearly as good as Government bonds.
If the Government should offer to loan the deposits at two and three
fourths per cent, numbers of States, counties, and cities which now pay
a much higher rate would be glad to refund portions of their debts,
and, in consideration of the very low rate of interest, would doubtless
be willing to so draw the bonds that in case of default the Govern-
ment would have no difficulty in enforcing payment. It would of
course be necessary that the investments be made with the greatest
care, and that those who have the making of them should possess the
confidence of the people in a high degree. The good results that came
from the Freedman's Bank when it was wisely administered, and the
deplorable effects of the loose management of its affairs in the later
years of its existence, would serve as valuable lessons for the conduct
of Government savings-banks.

For many years our post-office management has been rapidly grow-
ing more and more efficient. Perhaps at the present time no great busi-
ness is managed more efficiently and economically. There is every reason
to believe that still further improvements will be made. Every one is so
directly interested in cheap postage, and in the sure and quick delivery
of the mail, that inefficiency or dishonesty in the Post-Office attracts at-
tention more quickly than in any other department of the Government.
Our rates of postage are now as low as those of Great Britain, although
we are compelled to maintain several times as many offices and miles of
mail-routes in proportion to the quantity of mail-matter as the latter
country. It is scarcely conceivable that, with so strong a public senti-
ment in favor of honest and efficient civil service, any Administration
for partisan reasons would dare to substitute to any considerable ex-
tent dishonest and inefficient men for those whose ability and integrity
have been tried and proved. It would be suicidal in any party to pur-

i68 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sue such a course in a department of the Government which reaches
and interests so much all classes of the people. The popular inter-
est in its being well managed would be greatly increased if large
numbers of the people were in the habit of intrusting their small sav-
ings to it for safe-keeping. The new duties and responsibilities would
make the demand for the appointment of honest and capable officials
even greater than it is at present, and would, therefore, promote the
cause of civil-service reform. The additions to our civil-service list
required by reason of such an addition to the functions of the Govern-
ment would be comparatively few. The Post-Office Department, by
means of money-orders and postal-notes, now transmits large amounts
of money from office to office. Postmasters and clerks are, therefore,
in the habit of receiving and paying out many small sums of money,
of keeping detailed accounts, and of making frequent reports. No
very great modification of the machinery now in use would be needed
for conducting a system of savings depositories in connection with the
money-order offices. Occasionally a little more office-room, and another
clerk or two, would be needed, but the additions would be compara-
tively insignificant. The new business would require the same sort of
talent and skill as that needed for the issue and payment of money-
orders and postal-notes. We might afford to run the risk of whatever
danger may come from such an enlargement of the functions and pa-
tronage of the Government if postal savings-banks would really prove
a great boon to the masses of our people.

Post-office savings-banks would probably not seriously interfere
with private banking institutions unless a very high rate of interest
were paid and large sums were taken from single depositors. While
occasionally deposits would be withdrawn from the ordinary banks and
left with the Government, it would probably happen more frequently
that poor people who now have no bank accounts would be induced
to save some of their earnings, and would in time become capitalists
and patrons of national or private banks. In 1873 Mr. Creswell
strongly urged that a system of postal savings depositories would not
only strengthen our national finances, by bringing large sums into
circulation, but would indirectly afford our monetary and banking in-
stitutions "the very relief" of "which they stood in need."

It goes without saying that many American working-men are frugal
and save considerable portions of their earnings. Evidences of their
economy and thrift are seen in the large numbers of capitalists who
began life as laborers, and in the thousands of comfortable working-
men's homes which the owners have built or bought with their savings.
It is evident, however, that great numbers who might live comfortably,
and at the same time save enough to make them independent in sick-
ness or old age, and to give their children a fair start in life, spend all
their earnings, and are never far from want. The average American
laborer is apt to be too generous and open-handed, spending his hard-

THE REFRACTING TELESCOPE, 169

earned wages recklessly for the gratification of his momentary desires
or fancies. Such a man is liable to be largely at the mercy of his em-
ployers. Although wages may be at starvation-point, he can not take
his labor to a better market elsewhere. When times are hard, he and
his family are likely to suffer. If the great majority of our working-
men could be persuaded to save something, however small the sum,
each week, the habits of economy and thrift thus acquired would be a
great gain to the nation : pauperism and crime would decrease ; the
comfort, self-respect, and independence of the people would increase ;
and there would be fewer interruptions to the business and industries
of the country growing out of troubles between laborers and employ-
ers, for the laborers would become more steady, trustworthy, and in-
dependent, less liable to rush recklessly into strikes, and would be less
at the mercy of an unfair employer.

Were a system of postal savings-banks established and well con-
ducted, there is no doubt that large numbers of our laboring classes
would soon become depositors of small sums. Many working-men now
have great difficulty in keeping securely money which they wish to
save ; others often spend all their earnings for drink or the gratification
of their whims or fancies, when they would not do so if they had
some perfectly safe and convenient place to deposit the money where
it would bring them a little interest, and the fact of their having it be
kept a secret. The masses of the people have the greatest confidence
in the Government, and would gladly intrust their small savings to its
keeping, provided such a system of savings depositories were devised,
with such men in charge of it as would command their confidence.
It is a question whether at the present time our Congressmen could do
80 much for the working-man in any other way as by providing him
"with this means of helping himself.

THE EEFKACTmG TELESCOPE.

By CHAKLES P. HOWARD.

THOSE who have looked through a large telescope under favor-
able atmospheric conditions, at one of those immense cyclones
which occasionally break out on the surface of the sun, have derived
from what they saw a very good idea of the origin of sunlight. They
have seen that the brightest portion of the surface of the sun consists
of columns of intensely hot metallic vapors, averaging about three
hundred miles in diameter, rising from its interior and glowing with
extreme brilliancy, from the presence of clouds formed, probably, of
shining particles of carbon precipitated from its vapor as the tops of
the columns reach the surface and lose heat by expansion and radia-

170 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tion. (A good idea of such a precipitation is had by observing the
particles of water condensed from transparent vapor, in unusually high
thunder-heads, where the action is in some respects similar.) Between
these ascending columns are seen descending masses of cooler vapors,
rendered dark and smoky by relatively cool and opaque particles of
carbon, all or most of the other elements being still maintained by
the excessively high temperature in the condition of transparent va-
por. In the immediate region, however, where the cyclone is raging,
these bright ascending columns are drawn out horizontally by the in-
rushing metallic winds (which often reach a velocity of a thousand
miles per hour) into long filaments, pointing in general toward the
center of the disturbance, which is always occupied by a huge black
cloud of smoke (frequently twenty thousand miles in diameter) rap-
idly settling back into the interior of the sun. Over and across this
great central black cloud are often driven long arms of the shining
carbon-clouds, which, when the cyclonic action is very strong, bend
round into slowly changing spiral forms, very suggestive of intense
action. A striking illusion, invariably connected with this sight, is
that the observer seems to be viewing it from a position quite near
the scene of the disturbance, whose minute and complicated details
are seen with exquisite distinctness.

After witnessing such a spectacle, the observer must have felt
great admiration for the men who have devised and successfully con-
structed an instrument capable of showing in action such enormously
energetic forces, the very existence of which would otherwise hardly
have been conceived.

But, although the refracting telescope has now been brought to
such exquisite perfection, the first ones were exceedingly crude, and
it is interesting to trace the gradual development of the telescope
from a simple pair of spectacle-glasses, suitably placed one behind the
other, into the great refractors of Washington, Vienna, and Pulkowa,
which are monuments of optical and mechanical ingenuity.

Spectacles were invented about the year 1300, but it was not until
1608 that a Dutch spectacle-maker, as a pretty experiment, combined
two such lenses in a way that made distant objects look nearer. A
rumor of this invention reached Galileo, at Venice, in 1609, and inter-
ested him so much that, before he had even seen one of them, he rea-
soned the problem out for himself, and in a few days produced a tele-
scope which made distant objects appear to be only one third as far
away as they actually were, by cementing a suitable spectacle-glass in
each end of a lead organ-pipe. With this instrument the astonished
senators of Venice derived great amusement in spying out ships at sea
from the top of the great bell-tower.

So industriously did Galileo follow up his first achievement, that
soon he had constructed more than one hundred telescopes of various
sizes, one of which made objects look eight times nearer j and, finally,

TEE REFRACTING TELESCOPE. 171

with great exertion and expense, completed one magnifying thirty di-
ameters, which we now know to be the greatest power possible with
the form of lenses that he used, viz., a double-convex lens for the ob-
ject-glass and a double-concave lens for the eye-piece.

With such crude instruments as these, Galileo made his well-
known discoveries, which, coming just when they did, proved of great
importance in giving an additional impulse to the then rapidly awak-
ening intellect of Europe.

Soon after the death of Galileo the telescope was further perfected
by Huygens, who, in the first place, invented the form of eye-piece
which still bears his name, and gives a large, flat field with very sharp
definition. Many variations of form, but no improvement in the see-
ing quality of telescopic eye-pieces, have since been made, so that from
this time all improvements in the telescope have been necessarily con-
fined to the object-glass.

Huygens next enlarged the single-lens object-glass to its greatest
possible power. His largest telescope had an object-glass five inches
in diameter, and a focal length of one hundred and twenty feet ; this
enormous focal length being absolutely necessary to reduce the blur-
ring effect of the prismatically colored fringes, as well as spherical
aberration, to such moderate limits that a magnifying power of up-
ward of two hundred diameters could be employed.

To have watched Huygens at work with this telescope must have
been an amusing sight. Its great length precluded the use of a tube,
and therefore an assistant was obliged to slide the object-glass up and
down a vertical pole, one hundred feet high, by a cord, while Huygens
pointed the eye-piece at the object-glass by sighting along a string
connecting the two, meanwhile steadying himself by resting his
elbows on a two-legged wooden horse. A more difficult and unsatis-
factory contrivance to use can hardly be imagined, yet, with this
telescope, in 1655, he discovered the rings of Saturn, and one of its
satellites.

Newton, about this time, hastily concluded, from experiments of
his own, that refraction without prismatic color was out of the ques-
tion, and that the refracting telescope was incapable of further im-
provement ; he therefore abandoned the study of the refracting tele-
scope, and turned his attention to the construction of reflectors, and
thus narrowly escaped making that most important discovery — the
achromatic object-glass — which, only two years after his death, act-
ually was made by Dollond, who, in 1757, constructed one two and a
half inches in diameter, corrected both for prismatic color and spherical
aberration.

From that day the power of the refracting telescope rapidly in-
creased, and up to the present moment has only been limited by the
ability of the glass-makers to furnish large pieces of optically perfect
glass.

172 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The completely equipped telescope, with its object-glass and mount-
ing, aside from being a triumph of the highest optical and mechanical
skill, is certainly the noblest instrument that man has yet constructed,
and it is difficult to decide which is the most sublime and elevating
to contemplate — the universe, which the telescope enables us to see,
measure, weigh, and, combined with the spectroscope, to analyze ; or
the exquisite mechanism, by means of which light is first originated,
then propagated, and finally refracted to an image on the retina of the
eye.

"We shall, in what follows, briefly consider the latter subject, which
will enable us to understand the natural laws that render possible the
remarkable degree of perfection and power to which the refracting
telescope has been carried, and which also fix a limit to its indefinite
improvement.

Light is the sensation produced on the retina of the eye by some
force, usually emanating from a luminous body, but not always, for
the same sensation may also be produced by a current of electricity,
or by a quick blow on the ball of the eye.

At the first glance this force, which has such a remarkable effect
upon the retina of the eye, seems to be a rather difficult thing to in-
terrogate in a way to make it divulge something of its true nature ;
and so it really proved, for even Sir Isaac Newton, with all the facts
known in his day, and with the splendid work of Huygens on the un-
dulatory theory of light before him, failed to satisfy himself on that
point ; and, in fact, it required the combined work of Young, Fresnel,
and many others, extending over a period of two hundred years, to
demonstrate beyond question that the one and only explanation ad-
missible is the undulatory theory first propounded by Huygens.

At the present time, however, it is possible to state with certainty
a great deal regarding the true character of this force called light.

A revolving mirror, properly combined with one that is stationary,
shows that light travels between them through a vacuum with the
almost inconceivable velocity of 186,000 miles per second ; while other
experiments prove that this is also the velocity of light through space
from star to star.

The diverse and curious phenomena called diffraction, interference,
and dispersion, show that light consists of vibrations or waves in some
transmitting medium, and therefore that this medium must fill the
whole visible universe.

The phenomenon called polarization of light shows that the motion
of each particle of the medium as it vibrates is at right angles to the
direction in which the waves are propagated, and, strange to say, that
the medium transmitting them has the properties of a solid substance,
and not those of a fluid, such as a liquid or a gas. A good idea of
this kind of a wave is had by observing the wave propagated along a
tightly stretched telegraph-wire when it is struck a smart blow with a

THE REFRACTING TELESCOPE. 173

stick. Although many of the properties of the light-waves are also
common to all forms of wave-motion, yet others are distinctively due
to the waves being of this particular kind. This form of wave, there-
fore, is to be carefully distinguished from that propagated in a fluid,
where there is always a forward and backward motion to the par-
ticles. For example, in the familiar case of waves on the surface of
water, the particles of water move in circular paths as the waves pass
\yj — that is, each particle moves forward and back exactly as far as
it moves up and down. Also in the case of sound-waves, which are
waves propagated through a gas, the particles of the air move only
forward and back along the line in which the sound-waves are ad-
vancing.

The diffraction grating shows that the waves which produce the
sensation of light are very minute, and are of every possible length,
between the limits of 32,000 to the inch to 64,000 to the inch, meas-
ured from crest to crest. This is only one fifth of the total range of
wave-lengths that have been measured radiating from the sun, but
only those longer than yj^^ir of an inch, or shorter than -g-r^oTr of an
inch, ordinarily reach the retina to produce the sensation of light.
The diffraction grating also shows that the color of light is due di-
rectly to the length of the waves, the longest producing the sensation
of red light, the shortest of violet, while ranged in between come the
various shades of orange, yellow, green, and blue.

Diagram 1 will perhaps give a better idea of the true size and
number of the light- waves than is possible from a mere statement of
their length and velocity in figures. It represents in section, magnified
five hundred diameters, a series of crests of the longest waves that
affect the eye as light, passing through a hole in writing-paper, pricked
by an ordinary No. 12 sewing-needle, measuring one seventy-fifth of
an inch in diameter. It will be noticed that, although the magnified
diameter of the hole appears nearly seven inches across, yet the equally
magnified crests of the light-waves are still only just far enough apart
to be distinctly separated by the eye. On this scale the pupil of the eye
would appear nine feet across, and a very good idea of the number of
these particular waves, which enter the eye in a continuous stream
whenever it receives the light of a distant object, can be had by con-
sidering that, if every one of these light-waves passing through the
needle-hole in a single second had been represented on the diagram,
one behind the other, they would have formed a band extending in
the direction of the arrow to a distance of nearly 100,000,000 miles,
and to have shown them all on the diagram would have necessitated
the paper being long enough to reach from the earth to beyond the
sun !

Having once established the fact that the sensation of light is
caused by waves originated in the sun and stars, falling upon and irri-
tating the retina of the eye, it of course follows that space must be

174

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

Diagram 1.

THE REFRACTING TELESCOPE. 175

filled with some substance having, as we have already seen, the prop-
erties of a solid. Now, although it is easier to conceive that all space
is filled with some kind of substance than to conceive it to be empty,
in order to account for universal gravitation, it is at least unexpected
that this substance should turn out to be a solid, yet the polarization
of lio-ht shows that a solid substance it must be, notwithstanding the
fact that the planets rush through it without the smallest apparent
resistance.

But even this anomaly is not utterly inconceivable, for many fa-
miliar substances have at one and the same time the properties both of
a solid and a liquid — for example, pitch, rosin, and tar. We would all
probably consider pitch as quite a brittle solid, yet it is at the same time
a perfect liquid, as an incident that happened to Alvan Clark will illus-
trate. He once opened a new barrel of pitch, using a hatchet to crack
off some for use in polishing lenses ; after breaking off enough for
his purpose, he laid the hatchet down on the pitch which nearly filled
the barrel, and thought no more about it until some few weeks after-
ward, when the hatchet could not be found, although he distinctly
remembered having left it lying on the opened barrel. He thought it
stolen until about two years afterward, when the missing hatchet was
discovered at the bottom of the pitch, having sunk into it, clear to the
bottom, leaving no hole behind, just as a stone would sink in water,
only of course much more slowly.

All who have worked with pitch know that it has the property of
being a slowly moving liquid ; and it is evident that this particular
kind of substance at least is a solid to one kind of motion, such as the
quick blow of a hatchet, but is a liquid to another kind of motion,
such as the steady pressure of a hatchet slowly descending through it.
That is, give it plenty of time to flow, and pitch is a perfect liquid ;
but hurry it, and it is a very brittle solid.

Now, this strange substance which fills all space seems to possess
this peculiar double property in a vastly greater degree than does
common pitch, for we find that to such a quick motion as a vibrating
molecule it acts as a most rigid solid, but to the comparatively slow
and steady motion of a planet it acts as an inconceivably thin liquid,
allowing the planet to pass through with no apparent resistance.

This remarkable substance, which fills both intermolecular and in-
terstellar space, is called the universal ether. Its properties are only
beginning to be learned, and will not probably be well understood
until such phenomena as gravitation, electricity, magnetism, and the
peculiarities seen in the tails of comets, are satisfactorily explained. A
statement, however, of a few of its observed properties is a necessary
prelude to a complete understanding of the telescope.

The molecules of ponderable matter are supposed to be inclosed in
the ether, just as a wooden ball could be incased in the center of a
large block of jelly. The waves of light are supposed to be originated

176 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

by the vibration of the molecules, in somewhat the same way as the
jelly might be agitated : by vibrating the wooden ball in its center,
each molecule as it swings sends an impulse or vibration through the
ether, which, traveling with equal velocity in all directions, forms as a
whole an expanding spherical wave-front, in shape like a quickly
blown soap-bubble, having the vibrating molecule at its center.

The molecules of a hot body are in a state of intense vibration, and,
each being suspended in the substance of the ether, originate in it a
steady succession of these spherical wave-fronts, which, by one of the
fundamental principles of wave-motion in an elastic medium, do not
interfere with each other in the least, but each set of waves goes
straight on, as if every one of the other sets were not in existence.

When light passes through a transparent substance, such as glass
or water, it is i)ropagated, not by the vibration of the molecules of the
substance, but by the vibration of the ether in which the molecules
are as it were submerged. This is proved by the enormous velocity
with which the vibrations are propagated within the substance, which
is immeasurably greater than the elasticity of the substance can ac-
count for. There are also other phenomena which lead to the same
conclusion, but which it is not necessary to allude to here.

It has been found by direct measurement that the velocity of the
light-waves is less through transparent bodies than through space.
For some reason, the ether acts as if it were heavier within the body
than outside of it, being apparently condensed by the presence of the
molecules ; and the velocity of the waves is lessened by their passage
between the molecules of the transparent body, so as to produce an
effect similar to that produced on the velocity of waves on the surface
of water by the nearness of the bottom, where their velocity dimin-
ishes rapidly as the water grows shallower.

Upon this simple fact, that the light-waves progress with less
velocity through transparent solid bodies than through space or air,
depends the complete explanation of the telescope.

But, before considering the effect of this retardation of the light-
waves by their passage through transparent bodies, it is well to get a
definite idea of a wave-motion by observing one that is visible to the
eye. This can be beautifully done by the elliptical tank of mercury
roughly shown in Diagram 2 — the velocity of waves on the surface of
mercury being slow enough to be easily followed by the eye.

The rim of the dish is elliptical ; the little ball to originate the
waves is constrained to vibrate at one focus of the ellipse, and it will
be observed that each time the ball makes a vibration a circular wave-
front, convex toward the direction of its motion, spreads out on the sur-
face of the mercury from the ball as a center, until, meeting the ellipti-
cal wall of the dish, it is changed by reflection to a circular concave
wave-front, which converges to its center, where the agitation of the
surface is much greater than anywhere else ; and, indeed, if the mer-

THE REFRACTING TELESCOPE.

177

cury were perfectly elastic, as is the ether, the agitation at the center
of the completely circular concave wave-fronts would be as great as
at the origin of the disturbance.

We also see, from this experiment, that circular wave-fronts travel
in a direction at right angles to the direction of their fronts, so that, if

Diagram 2.

from any cause a wave-front becomes circular and concave toward the
direction in which it is moving, it will run to a perfect center or
focus, and at that particular place create a comparatively great dis-
turbance. By locating the vibrating ball at random on the surface of
the mercury, it will also be seen that, unless the concave wave-fronts
are truly circular, they will not run to a single point of great agita-
tion, but only a confusion of cross-waves will result.

The same phenomena of wave-motion made apparent to the eye on
the surface of the mercury are also true of light-waves : if from any
cause the wave-fronts become spherical, and at the same time concave,
toward the direction in which they are moving, they will also run to a
center, and cause intense agitation at that particular point, but no-
where else.

Diagram 3 represents the effect produced upon the light-waves
diverging with uniform velocity and spherical fronts, from a vibrating
molecule, by passing through a transparent body, whose faces are sur-
faces of revolution elliptical in section, called a lens. As already stated,
the light-waves are retarded during their passage through the body, and

VOL. XXTIII. 12

178 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

it is plain that the central portion of each wave-front will be retarded
more than the marginal part, having a greater thickness to pass through,
so that the central part will lag back ; and, when the wave-front emerges,
its form will have become concave, instead of convex ; and as, with the

Diagram 3.

particular form of lens that we have assumed used, its form will be
spherical, each wave will run to a center or focus, and create there a
great agitation.

Now, the same thing exactly will happen if the vibrating molecule
is removed to an indefinitely great distance, as for instance to one of
the stars : in this case the wave-fronts will be sensibly plane, on account
of the distance of the center of curvature, just as the surface of water
standing in a pail is sensibly plane, although the center of its curvature
is only four thousand miles distant.

It is found experimentally, or it can be demonstrated mathemati-
cally, that the vibrating molecule, the center of the lens, and the focus
of the emerging concave wave-fronts, lie in a straight line ; with this
fact distinctly in mind, it is clear that a second vibrating molecule, say,
situated in another star, in nearly the same direction from the earth as
the first, will also form a second center of agitation or focus, exactly be-
hind the center of the lens, as viewed from that star ; and so on frora
any number of vibrating molecules, each and every one producing a
different center of agitation, exactly behind the center of the lens as
viewed from them, of course within reasonable limits on each side of
the direction of the axis of the lens.

We are now in a position to understand clearly the reason why we
are able to see distinctly the forms of distant objects.

Diagram 4 represents the lens of the eye, with plane wave-fronts
of light, from two different vibrating molecules, situated in different
stars, entering it, and running to a focus or center of intense vibra-
tion behind it. The short lines at the back of the eye represent the
so-called rods of the retina ; when one only of these rods receives

THE REFRACTING TELESCOPE.

179

Diagram 4.

a shock, the sensation of a point of light is produced. As shown in
the diagram, just one rod is agitated by each set of waves, so that the
eye sees in this case two distinct points of light, the brilliancy of
each depending upon the intensity of the agitation. A third vibrating
molecule in another star would be seen by the eye in the same way,
and so on indefinitely.

As the color of light depends merely on the wave-length, we can
now understand how the eye sees the constellations in their true con-
figurations and colors ; and, as reflected light has the same effect on
the eye as that coming directly from self-luminous points, it is plain
that the eye must see the form and color of all luminous objects, each
individual point of each object forming its own focus on one of these
sensitive rods of the retina.

Can any mechanism be more simple and beautiful than that of vis-
ion ? The more it is studied the more admirable it seems, and we are in a
still better position to appreciate the elegance of the mechanism which
enables the lens of the eye to form a pei'fect image of distant objects
upon the sensitive retina, when we take into consideration the fact
that, were the waves of light not so excessively minute, distinct vision
would be utterly impossible.

It is only because the light-waves are so much smaller than the
aperture of any lens, such as the lens of the eye, that they run to a
focal point, instead of spreading out in all directions, as do the waves
of sound which enable us to hear round a corner. The effect of de-
creasing the aperture of the lens of the eye to a size comparable with
that of the light-waves (which would in effect be the same as increas-
ing the length of the light-waves to a size comparable with that of the
eye) can easily be shov/n thus :

i8o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The first diagram exhibits the comparative size of a hole one sev-
enty-fifth of an inch in diameter, and the longest light-waves. If we
limit the aperture of the eye to this size, by holding a sheet of writing-
paper before it, with such a needle-hole pricked in it, and look through
the hole at a luminous point, such as a distant electric light, instead of
seeing it as a point of light too small to have a visible surface, as we
should expect, we will see instead quite a large disk of light sur-
rounded by one or two bright rings as illustrated in Diagram 5.

ElAGKAM 5.

This peculiar appearance is caused by the spreading of the light-
waves, after passing through the needle-hole, so that, although the
wave-fronts are spherical as they emerge from the lens of the eye, yet
at the distance of the retina they have spread out sidewise so much
that, instead of running to a point, they cover a surface large enough
to be distinctly perceived as a luminous disk. It can be proved mathe-
matically by the theory of undulations, that the diameter of this lumi-
nous disk, measured in seconds of arc as viewed from the center of any
lens, for light-waves, having a length of about -girortr of an inch (the
brightest and central part of the normal spectrum), will equal four and
a half divided by the number of inches in the clear aperture of the
lens, its size, however, increasing or diminishing a very little, accord-
ing as the light-waves are longer or shorter.

Objects viewed through such a small hole appear very indistinct,
from the image of each point overlapping those of its neighbors. The
same defective vision would have resulted had the light-waves been
created less minute than they are, or of a size comparable to the diame-
ter of the pupil of the eye.

It is also on account of the extreme minuteness of these waves
that light appears to travel in rays, and that opaque bodies throw
sharply defined shadows.

Returning to a simple lens of considerable diameter, as shown in
Diagram 6, and still assuming it to have spheroidal surfaces so that the
emerging wave-fronts shall be spherical, and considering the light-
waves to be originated by a single vibrating molecule situated at an
infinite distance, we come to a peculiar phenomenon, also a result of
the excessive minuteness of the light-waves, and the consequent tend-

THE REFRACTING TELESCOPE.

i8l

ency of light to move in straight rays. After the emerging waves
have run to a focus, they diverge again from this focus as a new cen-
ter, with spherical fronts, and in exactly the opposite direction to
that from which they arrived, just as if the light emerging from all
parts of the lens was propagated through and heyond the focus in
straight lines ; hence the marginal portion of the converging and
diverging wave-fronts on each side of the focus will form two cones,
turned in diametrically opposite directions, their common apex being
the common center of the spherical wave-fronts, viz., the focus of the
lens.

It is now evidently a simple matter to place a second lens at such
a distance behind the focus of the first lens that it will transform the
spherical wave-fronts diverging from this focus into plane wave-fronts,
parallel to those entering the first lens ; and, because these waves
emerging from the second lens have plane fronts, they must, if they
are allowed to enter the eye, come to a focus on the retina, and cause
the eye to see a point of light, for precisely the same reason that it
would see that point if the two lenses were removed, and the direct
light from the vibrating molecule were allowed to enter it.

This is the principle of the refracting telescope ; the first lens rep-
resents the object-glass, and the second lens the eye-piece.

The Diagram 6 represents the object-glass, the eye-piece, and the
eye, in their proper relative positions ; also the light-waves from an in-

Diagram 6.

finitely distant vibrating molecule entering the object-glass, emerging
from it with spherical wave-fronts, which converge to a point of
great agitation or focus, whence they diverge with spherical fronts,
until, by passing through the eye-piece, they are converted into plane
wave-fronts ; thence, entering the eye, they come to a focus on the
retina.

The diameter of the pupil of the eye being one fifth of an inch, the
eye-piece must be of such a focal length that it can be placed so near
the focus of the object-glass that the diameter of the emerging cylin-
der of plane wave-fronts shall not exceed one fifth of an inch, else the
cylinder of light entering the object-glass will not be reduced in

1«2

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

diameter by its passage through the object-glass and eye-piece to a
cylinder of light small enough entirely to enter the eye.

When, however, this condition is fulfilled, it is clear that, when the
eye receives the light from a luminous point through such a telescope,
that point must appear as much brighter than it would if viewed
directly, with the telescope out of the way, as the area of the object-
glass exceeds the area of the pupil of the eye.

Bearing in mind the properties of similar triangles, it is also plain
from Diagram 0 that the diameter of the cylinder of light-waves
emerging from the eye-piece is as much less than the diameter of the
cylinder of light-waves entering the object-glass as the focal length
of the eye-piece is less than the focal length of the object-glass. As
the focal lengths of object-glasses never vary much from thirteen
times their diameter, the focal length of the eye-piece must be thir-
teen times the diameter of the emerging cylinder of light-waves,
which, as just stated, should never exceed in diameter that of the
pupil of the eye. Hence the focal length of the eye piece should
never exceed thirteen times one fifth of an inch, or about two and a
half inches. This is the greatest focal length which an eye-piece can
have to utilize the whole aperture of such an object-glass ; to use an
eye-piece of greater focal length admits to the eye light only from the
central part of the object-glass, and stars appear fainter through it
than they do through an eye-piece whose focal length is equal to, or
less than, two and a half inches.

As already stated, the vibrating molecule, the center of the lens,
and the focus of the converging spherical wave-fronts emerging from
it, lie in a straight line.

Diagram 7 represents, with center lines only, to avoid confusion,

Diagram 7.

the light from an infinitely distant vibrating molecule, situated at an
angular distance a from the direction of the axis of the telescope,
passing through the object-glass and eye-piece. On emerging from
the eye-piece the light will be traveling in a direction Avhose inclina-
tion to the axis of the telescope is equal to the angle j3.

The actual angular distance of the luminous point from the axis of

THE REFRACTING TELESCOPE.

183

the telescope is a, but it will appear to an eye looking into the eye-
piece to lie at an angular distance y8 from the axis. The magnifying
power of the telescope is therefore equal to the angle /3 divided by the
angle a.

The distance A of the focus of the converging waves from the
axis is very small, and will equal zero when the luminous point is on
the axis, when F will equal the focal length of the object-glass and f
of the eye-piece. Extremely small angles being proportional to their
tangents, the diagram shows the following expression to be true :

A

Magnitying power 01 telescope = ^ = '- = !^ = — -, proving

F

that the magnifying power of a telescope equals the focal length of
its object-glass divided by the focal length of its eye-piece.

We have just seen, by similar triangles in Diagram 6, that the
focal lengths of the object-glass and eye-piece are proportional to the
diameters of the cylinders of plane wave-fronts entering the object-
glass and emerging from the eye-piece ; it follows, therefore, that the
magnifying power of a telescope equals the diameter of the entering
cylinder of light divided by the diameter of the emerging cylinder of
light.

The easiest way to measure the magnifying power of a telescope is
to divide the diameter of the clear aperture of the object-glass by the
diameter of the little circle of light seen in the center of the eye-piece
when the telescope is pointed at the bright sky, it being assumed that
it is in focus for an infinitely distant object. This small circle of light
seen in the center of the eye-piece is i-eally an image of the object-
glass formed by the eye-piece ; but, when the light-waves emerge with
plane fronts, the size of this image is exactly equal to the size of the
emerging cylinder of plane wave-fronts, so that this method of find-
ing the magnifying power is strictly accurate.

We have seen that, with an eye-piece not exceeding two and a half
inches in focal length, luminous points appear through the telescope as
many times brighter than they do to the naked eye as the area of the
object-glass exceeds the area of the pupil of the eye ; and it also fol-
lows directly from what has been already stated that, with this eye-
piece, the apparent angular distance between two luminous points is
proportional to the focal length of the object-glass used. A curious
thing following from this is, that surfaces having sensible areas appear
no brighter through large telescopes than they do to the naked eye ;
and it can be stated generally that, using a two-and-a-half-inch eye-
piece, which gives the brightest image of an object with any sized ob-
ject-glass, the surface will appear equally bright, whether seen by the
naked eye or through a telescope of any size. The apparent dimen-
sions of the surface, however, will increase directly with the dimen-

1 84 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sions of the object-glass. This explains why large and faintly lumi-
nous surfaces, like comets' tails and the aurora borealis, can be seen no
better, if as well, through a telescope than by the naked eye.

We have seen why with any object-glass a lower power than that
due to a two-and-a-half -inch eye-piece can not be used without loss of
light, and a corresponding decrease in the apparent brightness of lumi-
nous points seen through it. We will next consider the reasons which
prevent, with a given object-glass, an indefinite increase of magnifying
power, and, in fact, confine it to within quite moderate limits. We
have all seen beautiful engravings showing as well as it is possible the
best views ever obtained of objects like Saturn, Mars, the surface of
the Moon, and solar cyclones as they appear through some of the great
telescopes, and it must naturally occur to many to ask why a still high-
er magnifying power than those used can not be employed to make
such objects appear still larger and more distinct, for it is certainly
easy enough to make eye-pieces of shorter focal length than those used
in making the engravings just referred to, which, with a given object-
glass, is the only thing upon which the magnifying power depends.

When the focal length of the eye-piece becomes reduced to one
sixth of an inch, the diameter of the cylinder of light-waves entering
the eye can only be about one thirteenth of this, or less than one sev-
enty-fifth of an inch, as is obvious from Diagram 6, and the eye now
becomes sensible of the same blurring effect that was found to occur
in looking through the needle-hole ; and, if a brilliant object too small
to have visible dimensions is observed through the telescope with such
an eye-piece, it will appear as a disk of considerable size surrounded
by one or two bright rings.

These are the diffraction disk and rings, always seen in viewing a
star through a good telescope with a high magnifying power. The
disk is brightest at the center, diminishing somewhat in intensity to-
ward the edges, for which reason the diffraction disks of faint stars
appear slightly smaller than do those of bright stars.

Their appearance is not simply due to the smallness of the cylinder
of light entering the eye through the eye-piece, but it must be remem-
bered that it is the diffraction disk and rings at the focus of the object-
glass which are viewed through the eye-piece, and not an absolute point
of light. The effect of this, however, can not ordinarily be distin-
guished in the appearance of a star, so that in practice it is found that
the apparent diameter of the diffraction disk of a star, expressed in
seconds of arc, equals about four and a half divided by the number of
inches in the diameter of the clear aperture of the object-glass.

The diffraction disk becomes very important in observing close
double stars. It is obvious that, unless the two diffraction disks of
the component stars can be clearly separated, the star can not be seen
to be double ; to accomplish which the distance between the centers-
of the stars must at least equal the diameter of the diffraction disks.

THE REFRACTING TELESCOPE. 185

In other words, the closest double star which a telescope will separate,
expressed in seconds of arc, equals four and a half divided by the
diameter of the aperture of the object-glass in inches.

A 4^-inch object-glass will separate the components of a double
star when they are within one second of each other ; a 9-inch object-
glass when within half a second of each other, and a 30-inch object-
glass when within about one seventh of a second of each other.

Diagram 8 shows the advantage of increasing the aperture of the

Diagram 8.

object-glass ; it represents the triple star y Andromedae as seen through
a 4|-inch, 9-inch, and 30-inch object-glass, in all cases with a one-sixth-
of-an-inch eye-piece, which makes the diffraction disks plainly visible,
and in every case of the same apparent size but of a brilliancy propor-
tionate to the area of the corresponding object-glass. Through the
4|-inch the upper star can not be separated into two, through the 9-
inch, however, both components are distinctly visible, while through
the 30-inch they appear widely separated.

If the one-sixth-of-an-inch eye-piece were replaced by another whose
focal length was only one twelfth of an inch, the apparent distance
between the centers of the stars would of course be twice as great, but
the diameter of the diffraction disks would also be twice as large, and
therefore have but one fourth their former brightness, and the close
double star, instead of being seen to better advantage, would merely
appear as two larger and much fainter disks than before, and could
not be divided so well.

A very good way to see the effect of using a power high enough

186 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

to make the diffraction disks obtrusively large is to point the telescope
at a rough stone building in very strong sunlight. The small crystal-
line surfaces in the stone reflect the sun in little shining points of light,
which, observed through the telescope, make the building appear as if
stuck all over with silver dollars, while an unnatural glassy blurring
of the whole image is very apparent. If the illumination will bear it,
this appearance can be greatly exaggerated by covering the object-
glass with a pasteboard diaphragm in such a manner as to considerably
reduce its clear aperture.

For exactly the same reason, a similar blurred appearance is dis-
agreeably noticeable when objects like the Moon or Jupiter are ob-
served with an extremely high power.

From what has just been said, it is obvious that a power higher
than that due to a one-sixth-of-an-inch eye-piece is of very little use
in connection with an object-glass whose focal length is about thirteen
times its clear aperture ; but, had the waves of light been created more
minute than they are, it would have been possible to employ with
advantage a still higher power.

It is thus seen that the focal lengths of telescopic eye-pieces, no
matter what the size of the object-glass may be, should all lie between
the very narrow limits of two and a half inches for the lowest power
and one sixth of an inch for the highest power ; six or seven of them
give a suflicient range of magnifying power to fully utilize the object-
glass of any telescope.

A convenient way of expressing the limiting magnifying powers
of a telescope in terms of the size of its object-glass, independently of
its ratio of aperture to focal length, is easily deduced from the above
by a simple proportion, and is as follows : a telescope will not bear
with advantage a lower magnifying power than five nor a higher
magnifying power than seventy-five for every inch of clear aperture
of its object-glass.

In all that has gone before, we have confined ourselves to the con-
sideration of the single set of light-waves originated by a single vi-
brating molecule, and to single-convex lenses, having surfaces of the
proper curvature, to convert the convex spherical or plane wave-fronts
into concave spherical wave-fronts ; but how is it in reality ?

We have seen that the light of the sun originates in clouds of pre-
cipitated carbon from the great upward currents of metallic vapors
rising from its interior. It can be demonstrated that the molecules of
water are so small that, were one drop enlarged to the size of the
earth, the individual molecule would only come up to the size of horse-
chestnuts. I'liere is no reason to think that carbon-molecules differ
greatly from this in size. Therefore we receive from the sun the enor-
mous number of light-waves originated by each vibrating molecule,
suspended through a depth of many miles in the transparent vapors at
the surface of a globe 885,000 miles in diameter. These light-waves

THE REFRACTING TELESCOPE.

187

reach us of every possible length between the limits already referred
to, and vibrating in every possible plane, so that, even if our lens
would make the wave-fronts emerge spherical, it would be found that
the long red waves would come to a focus considerably farther out
than would the short violet waves, and confusion of the image and
colored fringes would result. It is also found impossible to construct
lenses with surfaces of any other shape than spherical ; consequently
the optician has quite a complicated problem to solve before he can
construct an object-glass which will not only make the wave-fronts
emerge strictly spherical, but which will also make the red, green, and
violet waves unite at the same focus, and thus cause all the waves
from each luminous point like a star, which is a sun, like ours, too dis-
tant to have visible dimensions, to agitate but a single rod of the
retina.

In practice, this is almost perfectly accomplished by combining a
convex lens of crown-glass (the optical name for plate-glass) with a
concave lens of flint-glass (the kind used for the finest cut-glass for
table-ware), placed close together ; but, to arrive at this result when
the lenses are of large aperture, requires an amount of skill and pa-
tience attained by few.

Diagram 9 shows the two most approved forms of object-glasses.

Diagram 9.

The first is that used by Alvan Clark, in the largest and most perfect
telescopes ever constructed. It consists of a double-convex lens of
crown-glass, combined with a plano-concave lens of flint-glass, the
crown-glass lens being placed in front. Both surfaces of the crown-
glass lens and the first surface of the flint-glass lens have the same
curvature. The focal length of this object-glass is nearly equal to

i88 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

four times the common radius of curvature of the three surfaces just
mentioned.

The second is that derived by Dr. Charles S. Hastings from an
elaborate mathematical investigation of every possible form of tele-
scopic object-glass. In this form, on the contrary, the concave flint-
glass lens is placed in front of the convex crown-glass lens, and close
to it. The two inner surfaces have nearly the same curvature ; the
two outer surfaces, though not quite alike, have a curvature whose
radius differs but little from three and a half times that of the inner
surfaces. The focal length of this object-glass is about four times the
radius of curvature of the inner surfaces. This form of object-glass
gives the sharpest definition attainable with the use of only two kinds
of glass whose surfaces are of reasonably small curvature.

THOMASYILLE AS A WINTER EESORT.

By E. L. YOUMANS.

AS the winter season approaches in the Northern States and in
Canada, wdth its dangers to many and its discomforts to all,
the question will be often asked, " Where shall we go to secure the
best advantages of a milder climate ? " The obvious, and with many
the sufficient, answer will be, " Go South, where it is warmer." This
may be satisfactory for the numerous and increasing class of well-to-
do, leisurely, and healthy people who seek a change of climate purely
as a matter of personal enjoyment. They are simply in quest of
pleasurable sensation, and their instincts may be trusted to find the
nicest places with luxurious accommodations, ample amusements,
social gayety, and whatever can make the time pass pleasantly ; and
when they get tired of one place they can find another with fresh
novelties and attractions. But, wherever they go, these people are
extremely useful. They constitute the great mass of the patrons of
Southern winter resorts. Their numbers each year are rapidly aug-
menting, and the money they spend contributes materially to promote
those increasing facilities of travel, hotel-accommodations, and town-
improvements of which all share the advantage.

But there are a good many others to whom the question, where to
go to escape the inclemencies of a Northern winter, is less simple and
more serious. These are invalids laboring chiefly under various forms
of pulmonary trouble. When such are advised by the physician to
seek a more congenial climate, the question where to go becomes
urgent and often perplexing. Happy the patient advised to change
his climate when the physician knows enough to give him intelligent
instructions as to whither he shall proceed. Does he need a mild or a

THOMASVILLE AS A WINTER RESORT. 189

high temperature? a damp and relaxing, or a dry and bracing air?
an inland location, or the sea-side ? a valley or a mountain ? Should
he try Bermuda, or Aiken, or Nassau, or St. Augustine, or Asheville,
or any of the score of resorts recommended for pulmonary invalids ?
If the doctor settles the point, it is well ; if not, the patient must take
his chances and do the best he can to settle it for himself.

I found myself last year among those who are embarrassed by this
question. With lungs badly out of order, everybody said I must escape
the severities of a New York winter by going somewhere. I advised
with several eminent pulmonary experts, who agreed that it might be
a good thing to get away, but did not seem to think it made much
difference where I went. I therefore consulted the books on American
winter sanitary resorts, in order, in connection with what I had heard,
to decide what course to take. The climate of Southern California
has its undoubted claims which are well appreciated, but it is far
away. Colorado has its advantages, but is liable to sudden and
extreme changes. San Antonio, in Southwestern Texas, is unques-
tionably an excellent place, with its pure, invigorating air, its mild
temperature, and absence of extreme cold, although fierce and frigid
" northers " are liable to swoop down upon it with but little warning,
and it is also a long way off — two thousand miles by rail. Florida is
popular and has many attractions, but it is chiefly low, and is generally
damp and malarial. No place is without its drawbacks ; but, in look-
ing over their various claims with reference to my own condition, I
concluded at last that Thomasville, Georgia, promised to be as eligible
as any, and thither I went.

I found the place eminently satisfactory, and, although without
experience of other and rival localities, I am sure that Thomasville
has advantages as a Southern residence in winter and spring which
must give it increasing and decided prominence as it becomes better
known. Of course, the transition from " North " to " South " in
February — from bleak, stormy, ice-bound winter to the soft and sunny
atmosphere and vernal aspects of flowery spring — is full of delightful
sensation wherever experienced ; while the change of environment in
passing from a Northern to a Southern community for the first time,
intensifies the pleasurable effect. But, besides this, I was much grati-
fied by the special attractiveness of the place, and the promise it
offered as a healthy residence.

Thomasville, the capital of Thomas County, Georgia, is located
two hundred miles from the Atlantic coast, fifty-five miles from the
Gulf, within twelve miles of the Florida border, and on the Savan-
nah, Florida, and Western Railroad. It stands upon a ridge or pla-
teau covered by extensive pine forests, and at a height of about three
hundred and fifty feet above tide-water. It is an old town, with
upward of four thousand inhabitants, pleasantly laid out with wide
streets, and containing many noble and stately trees — one superb oak

190 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

being worth going every day to see. The air is pure, dry, and balmy,
from the all-encompassing pine woods, through which radiate many
walks and diversified drives in all directions. There are half a dozen
different kinds of churches, and several considerable hotels. The
" Piney Woods Hotel " and the " Mitchell House " are large, new, and
first-class. The former has a frontage of over four hundred feet, is
three stories high, and with broad piazzas front and rear. It will ac-
commodate three hundred guests, has all the modern accommodations
and improvements, except an elevator, and is so thoroughly well kept
as to lead to the remark, which I heard frequently made, that the
"Piney Woods is the best hotel South." There are lesser hotels and
numerous boarding-houses, of the merits of which I know nothing,
but heard them very well spoken of. The weather in Thomasville I
found mild and agreeable. It rains there often, and sometimes hard,
but the sandy ground quickly dries. The average winter temperature
is given at 54*55° Fahr., but it is not to be inferred that they have no
cold weather there. They bave at times heavy frosts and ice, and
report a fall of snow once in the last fifteen years. But the " cold
spells " are short, and the prevailing warm and sunny weather invites
to out-of-door life, which is the main thing, for, as Dr. Felix Oswald
says, consumption is a " house disease."

I do not suppose there are any magical healing powers for pul-
monary invalids in the Thomasville atmosphere, but I should hesitate
to say that it may not be very favorable to them. An old physician
of the place. Dr. T. S. Hopkins, after twenty years' medical experience
in the pine forests of Southern Georgia, speaks as follows upon this
point in the "Atlantic Medical Register" : " Having for many years,
in my travels through this section of country, noticed the almost en-
tire absence of consumption among the people, I addressed letters to a
large number of physicians practicing in the district, asking them to
report to me the number of cases of consumption coming to their
knowledge during the previous years. I received replies from twenty
engaged in active practice, and representing a population of fifty
thousand eight hundred and eighty-seven. The total number of eases
reported was three. I have no reason to doubt the honesty of this
report. A climate in which the disease so rarely occurs is certainly
worthy of a trial by those who have it." As for myself, I can by no
means report " cured " at Thomasville ; but my case was undoubtedly
improved there. And, as I might have died in New York, just
according to the danger of this contingency, Thomasville must be
entitled to the credit of saving my life. At any rate, the trial
was a good thing, and I esteemed myself fortunate in the place
selected.

In the matter of recreations, which is of considerable hygienic
importance in a sanitary resort, Thomasville is quite undeveloped.
There are several well-equipped livery establishments, and there is a

THOMASVILLE AS A WINTER RESORT. 191

good deal of horseback-riding and carriage-driving on the excellent
thoroughfares of the town and the pleasant roads through the woods
and the farming country. But, though the prices are reasonable, this
amusement is only for those who can pay for it. There was no
bowling-alley last year, though one was promised for the ensuing
season. But what is most needed of all in such a place is a gymna-
sium, where active and regular exercise may be taken to counteract
the besetting evils of idleness, and as an indispensable means of im-
proving the health. Our constitutions are made for activity, and only
those who cultivate their bodily powers by systematic exercises really
know what enjoyment there is in well-earned appetite and invigorated
life. The facilities for simple but adequate gymnastic exercises do
not cost much, and, while the large majority of visitors would probably
not patronize them, they would yet be invaluable to many. In the ab-
sence of a regular gymnasium, however, I fell back on Wood's five-dollar
" Parlor Gymnastics," which can be carried in a satchel and used any-
where, and which really answers a most excellent purpose. They have
a Library Association at Thoraasville, and a very pleasant reading-
room, but a larger stock of books is much needed.

There was, however, one never-failing source alike of interest,
amusement, and instruction, which, though not confined to Thomas-
ville, very much alleviated the monotony of my stay ; I mean the
" colored brother." As an abstraction from much reading I had long
known him ; but it was different to come upon the negroes in concrete
mass, in their habitat, so as to observe the attributes of the actual
object in a composite state of society. This was all new to me, and,
with my old abolition education of strong convictions and little real
knowledge, I found extreme interest in studying the negro direct, as a
social object-lesson. He is playing his new part as citizen, voter, poli-
tician, laborer, learner, litigant, and Christian, with curious and in-
structive results ; and in observing his treatment in the courts, in
getting the views of individuals, in looking into the colored schools,
but, most of all, in attending the so-called religious services in the
colored churches, a good deal of time was pleasantly and usefully
occupied, and I came to the conclusion that the more Northera people
go South and see for themselves the more they will know of those
facts which it is very important they should better understand.

192 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

THE SPIRIT AND METHOD OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY.*

Br Professor J. P. LESLEY.

MY FRIENDS : I Lave the honor to address you this evening as
an association of representatives of American science in all its
branches — as students of the sky and all its elemental forces, of the
earth and all its mineral constituents, of the animal and vegetable
kingdoms in their past and present ages, of the history and constitu-
tion of the human race — and I may be easily pardoned for some trep-
idation in view of the drafts you may have drawn in advance on
my slender exchequer. I have lain awake o' nights, like my predeces-
sors, reflecting how I should meet my liabilities. And like them, no
doubt, I find myself poorer than when, a year ago, I contracted them.
You would scorn to receive in payment my promissory notes or mort-
gages on my castles in Spain. You will accept nothing but gold and
silver, in bullion or in coin ; and that is what troubles me.

There M'cre once halcyon days for orators : the world of knowledge
limited, and canopied with rosy clouds of curious speculation ; the
birds of fancy singing in every bush ; the dew of novelty glittering
on the fields. Science was then an early morning stroll with sympa-
thetic friends, uncritical and inexpert, to whom suggestions were as
good as gospel truths. Then, such a reunion as this to-night was a
sort of picnic-party, at some picturesque place on the shore of the
unknown, hilarious and convivial.

All that has passed away. The sun of science now rides high in
heaven, and floods the earth with hot and dusty light. What was
once play has turned to serious toil. Shadows are short. Objects
present themselves in well-defined and separated shapes for critical
examination. The few and early risers have become a multitude.
The tumult of occupations distracts the studious observer. No one
lends ear to chit-chat. All are hurried. Critics abound. *' Say what
you want, and go ; or tell us something absolutely true and useful," is
the introduction to every conversation. Morning, noon, and night,
men demand, not the agreeable, but the necessary. The age of ro-
mance in science is part of the forgotten past. The new world has
grown gray-haired in fifty years, intolerant of the irresponsibility, the
sportiveness, the poetry, the music, the superstitions, the affections, of
its youth ; dealing only in hard facts, and in their causes and conse-
quences ; weighing and measuring all things ; analyzing all things ; col-
lating, comparing, and classifying ; insisting upon investigation at all
points ; formulating rigid laws ; scofling at the unseen and unknowa-

* Address to the American Association for the Advancement of Science at Ann
Arbor, August 26, 1885, by the retiring President of the Association. Reprinted from
"Science."

THE SPIRIT AND METHOD OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY, ig^

ble ; and transmuting the fear of God and the hopes of heaven into
a zeal for the exact determination of the units of force, and a confident
expectation that railroads will soon traverse all the unoccupied regions
of the earth, and malleable steel replace wood in the mechanic arts.

You represent this new world, grown so suddenly old, learned, utili-
tarian, and critical. Your orators have a hard time of it.

Am I to be the mouth -piece of the outside world, setting forth in
order what it has expected of you — its praise, its blame ? Nay, what
care you for praise from uninspired lips ? Or what care you for blame
from the vulgar herd who comprehend neither your purposes nor your
methods ?

Am I to be your mouth-piece to inform this outside world of M^hat
the community of science which you partly represent has been about
the last twelve months, giving it such a catalogue of facts discovered,
and theories established or improved, that it shall stand amazed, and
bless its stars and worship ? Then this address would simply be a
grandiloquent stage-aside in the drama of this meeting, and no address
to you.

Must I, then, speak to you as a fellow-worker in science, contribut-
ing some fresh gifts to our common stock of truths ? But that would
be better done, if done at all, by reading a paper on the subject in the
section to which I properly belong.

I did, indeed, hesitate a while before I rejected a temptation to
discuss before you this evening one or two subjects on which I have
reflected for many years — for instance, the important role which the
chemical solution of the limestone formations has played in the grand
drama of the topography of the globe ; the absolute inconstancy of the
ocean-level ; the function of variable deposition in closed basins in ele-
vating the plane at which coal-vegetation repeated itself ; the influ-
ence which anticlinals and synclinals en echelon have exercised in origi-
nally directing, and afterward perpetually shifting, the systems of
river-drainage, as the general surface became lower and lower through
erosion ; the extraordinary differences in the amount and rate of ero-
sion in different parts of the same region, due to the various heights
and shapes of the plications — but a deep sense of insufficiency for
properly handling such great subjects deterred me from the at-
tempt. They demand the largest treatment, the fullest illustration,
and the long co-operation of many minds. All the great transcend-
ental questions of science remain open to research ; not one of them
has as yet been answered satisfactorily ; all answers have been prema-
ture, and most of what has been published for such seems to me puer-
ile ; yet the disposition to deal in transcendental science seems to grow
daily stronger. There are no laws, however, against initiation into
Alpine clubs. If men choose to run fatal risks for notoriety, let them
do so, in the name of all that is chilly and unprofitable ; but let them
not pretend that, when they reach the summit of some Jnngfrau or

VOL. XXTIII. — 13

194

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Matterhorn, their demon of adventure shows them all the kingdoms
of the world of science, and the glory of it ; for in fact, the inaccessi-
ble sky surrounds them still, and clouds obstruct their vision in every
direction. I have no fancy for such mountain-climbing, and think
lightly of exploits so barren of results.

I seize the occasion, rather, to awake to your remembrance some
thoughts of common interest, which the multiplying avalanches of
facts and theories threaten to bury out of sight, as the pure ice of the
glacier gets covered over with a sordid sheet of debris, perpetually
tumbling from the cliffs between which it flows.

Consider, then, first, that the final cause of a glacier is not to carry
moraines, lateral or medial ; that these are mere accidents of its exist-
ence ; and that, were it endowed with intelligence, it would feel little
interest and less pride in the heterogeneous, variable, and for the most
part useless, burden, which it can not escape, and throws away at the
close of its career. Such are the loads of science which we are com-
pelled to carry forward through life, in the forms of fact and theory ;
misshapen, accidental droppings upon us from our local surroundings ;
fragmentary specimens of knowledge, of which we construct our con-
fused and shapeless heaps of learning, most of which is of little use,
either to ourselves or to the world. The life of the glacier is an elab-
oration of the universal moisture into snow, neve, and pure ice, by a
slow process of internal constitution ; an-d such is the happy destiny
of the true man of science, worked out in wisdom of character, apart
from all accidental accumulations of learning, and mainly irrespec-tive
of them.

Let us avoid the sacrifice of character to science. As the saying
of Jesus of Nazareth, that the sabbath was made for man, not man for
the sabbath, has rung through the centuries, a tocsin of alarm to rouse
mankind to resist ecclesiasticism, so let the warning cry fill the air of
our association, from meeting to meeting, that science is our means,
and not our end. Self-culture is the only real and noble aim of life.
And as the magnificence, beauty, and utility of a glacier, as a perpet-
ual reservoir of solid moisture, are not gauged by the size, arrangement,
or constitutional features of its moraines, neither are the greatness and
usefulness of the philosopher measured by his amount of the knowl-
edge of the physical faet-and-theory science of the times.

Of all kinds of intellectual greatness, the greatest is achieved by
the philosopher who stands before the thinking world as a model of
scientific virtue ; deaf to flattery ; insensible to paltry, hostile criti-
cism ; patient of opposition ; dead to the temptations of self-interest ;
calmly superior to the misjudgments of the short-sighted ; whom noth-
ing diverts from the endeavor to live nobly, and to whom noble means
are as indispensable as noble ends ; in whom the most brilliant suc-
cesses foster neither vanity nor arrogance ; to whom fame is unimpor-
tant, and poverty a trivial circumstance ; whose joys, like fragrant

THE SPIRIT AND METHOD OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY. 195

breezes from an encircling landscape, come from the surrounding
friendship of the general world, to whose best interests the noble heart
is forever loyal.

Another subject for serious reflection is the over-accumulation of
scientific information. To broach it before such an assembly may
seem to require some apology. Certainly the feeling prevails that the
world can not have too much science. But the science of learning and
the science of knowledge are not quite identical ; and learning has too
often, in the case of individuals, overwhelmed and smothered to death
knowledge. The average human mind, when overstocked with infor-
mation, acts like a general put in command of an army too large for
him to handle. Many a vaulting scientific ambition has been thus dis-
graced. Nor is this the only danger that we run ; for the accumula-
tion of facts in the treasury of the human brain has a natural tendency
to breed an intellectual avarice, a passion for the piling-up of masses
of facts, old and new, regardless of their uses. In the great game of
our spiritual existence, facts are mere counters with which to play the
game. A million of them are worth nothing, unless the player knows
how to play well the game ; and, when the game is over, the worthless
counters are swept back into the drawer. And the danger pursues us
to higher and higher planes of science. Not only the avarice of facts,
but of their explanations also, may end in a wealthy poverty of intel-
lect, for which there is no cure. Even the sacred fires of research may
be allowed to burn too long, until, in fact, they turn the investigator
into a mere miser of ideas. As for those who are not themselves origi-
nal investigators, but busy themselves incessantly in appropriating the
secretions of research at second hand, how often it happens that the
richest additions of reliable theories to the stock of their ideas, even to
a point where they suppose themselves, and are supposed by others, to
know all the conclusions arrived at by past and present inquirers, leave
them as thinkers just what they Wei-e at first — incompetents ; mere ill-
hung picture-galleries ; disarranged museums ; complicated inventions
which will not work ; costly expeditions for discovery, frozen fast and
abandoned in the polar ice !

A certain temperance in science is obligatory from another point
of view. As mere wealth of possessions can not guarantee happiness,
neither caJi a superfluity of learning insure wisdom. When the body
from overfeeding grows plethoric, its vital energies subside and its
life is endangered. The intellect may be mischievously crammed with
science. How much we know is not the best question, but how we
got what we know, and what we can do with it ; and, above all, what
it has made of us. The tendency of training now is to subordinate
the soul to that which should be merely its endowment and adorn-
ment ; to turn the thinker into a mere walking encyclopsedia, text-
book, or circle of the mechanic arts ; not to produce the highest type
of man. What ridiculous and pitiable creations are these ! — an author-

196 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ity in physics who can not speak the truth ? a leader in natural history
who is given over to the torments of envy ? a god in chemical research
sick of some false quotation ? a youthful prodigy of mathematical sci-
ence tottering with unelastic steps and outstretched arms to grasp his
future fame ? Yet no one will deny that the intemperate pursuit of
any branch of science has a tendency to produce such characters, by
elevating to undue importance the individual accumulation of scien-
tific facts and scientific theories, to the neglect and depreciation of
that spirit of truth which alone can inspire and justify an earnest study
of the material universe. I beg you to reflect that it is as true of sci-
ence as of religion, that the mere letter of its code threatens its devo-
tee with intellectual death, and that only by breathing its purest spirit
can the man of science keep his better character alive — that indefin-
able spirit which, in its intimate and essential nature, has little to do
with the number of facts discovered or theories accepted ; a spirit
which merely exercises itself in research, and accepts discoveries as
delightful accidents ; a spirit which walks the paths of science, not as
if they were turnpikes converging upon some smoky and squalid focus
of toil-wearied population, but as if they had been graveled and flower-
bordered for it through some princely park ; a spirit of natural and
cultivated nobleness, sweetened by boundless friendship for the world
and all that lives therein ; just and true to all men worthy or un-
worthy, proud without vanity, industrious without haste, stating its
own griefs as lightly as an angel might, and generously bringing help
to the discouraged and forlorn. In every one of us there is this genius,
if we did but know it ; and, as Emerson well says, the moral is the
measure of its health.

I have been saying, then, that we should pursue science, like any
other business of this life, with a distinct and unwavering intention to
ennoble our own characters. It were a trite addition to propose that
the pursuit be made ancillary to the public good. " The love of sci-
ence " is a phrase which has been gi'eatly glorified in popular discourse ;
and if the phrase be confined to its true meaning — a zealous admira-
tion for all that is beautifully true and useful in Nature — ^it can not
harm us in the practice of our profession. But when the imagination
has exhausted itself in transcendental ecstasies over an ethereal senti-
ment so named, but undescribed except in poetry, what wiser or better
thing can we say of any branch of physical or natural science, cultivated
by our association, than that its votaries are knowingly or unknowingly
bettering the condition and character of mankind ? Every advance-
ment in science is, of its own nature, an improvement of the common-
wealth. Every successful study of the laws of the world we inhabit
inevitably brings about a more intelligent and victorious conflict with
the material evils of life, encouraging thoughtfulness, discouraging
superstition, exposing the folly of vice, and putting the multitudes of
human society on a fairer and friendlier footing with one another.

THE SPIRIT AND METHOD OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY. 197

The arts of philanthropy are, therefore, as direct an outcome of science
as the lighting of the public streets or the warming of our homes. Cru-
elty and shame are products of the night. The daylight is a friend to
friendliness. The progress of civilization and the progress of science
are alike typified by the progressively brilliant and general illumina-
tion of cities. So, in old times, human sacrifices and piracy ceased
wherever the worship of the Tyrian Melcarth yielded place to the
philosophy, helles-lettres, and fine arts of the genial and beautiful Del-
phic Apollo, the civilizer, the far-shiner, the sun of Grecian righteous-
ness, whose initiated became the educators of the modem world.

And yet these two magic words, " initiation," " education," have
meanings directly the reverse of one another — the one a going in to
learn the secrets of esoteric doctrine, unsafe for publication because
immature ; the other a being led out from ignorance to knowledge,
from helplessness to the active performances of life. The idea of uni-
versal education is wholly modern — in fact, a product of the century in
which we live. It is democracy in the world of intellect ; it is the
doctrine of equal human rights applied to the possessions of the human
brain ; it is the apotheosis of common sense ; it demands the distribu-
tion of knowledge in adequate quantity and quality to all who live and
all who are to live upon the earth. How this is to be accomplished is
the greatest of the questions of the day, and it especially concerns us
as members of an association for the advancement of science.

I do not intend to discuss the subject, to define the quantity and
quality of knowledge adequate for the various classes of human soci-
ety, or to propose any plans for its distribution. All I wish to say
about it is, that it seems to me Nature limits both the responsibilities
of teachers and the rights of learners more narrowly than is commonly
supposed. The parable of the sower is a good reference for explana-
tion. Most of the surface of the globe is good for little else than cat-
tle-ranches or sheep-farms, and the large majority of mankind must in
all ages be satisfied with the mere rudiments of learning. What they
want is unscholastic wisdom with which to fight the fight of life, and
they must win it for themselves. Only a limited number of persons
in any community can acquire wealth of knowledge, and the only
thought on which I wish to insist is this : these few must also get it
for themselves, and, moreover, must work hard for it.

It is a hackneyed aphorism that there is no royal road to knowl-
edge, although an incredible amount of pains has heen taken to make
one. Nature in this affair, as usual, has been a good, wise mother to
us all ; for it is not desirable to make the acquisition of knowledge
easy, for the main point in scientific education is to secure the highest
activity of the human mind in the pursuit of truth — an activity tried
and disciplined by hardship and nourished on hardy fare. The quan-
tity of food is of less importance ; everything depends on establish-
ing a good constitutional digestion. The harder the dinner is to

198 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

chew, the stronger grows the eater. Canned science as a steady diet
is as unwholesome for the growing mind as canned fruits and vegeta-
bles for the growing body. The wise teacher imitates the method of
Nature, who has but one answer for all questions : " Find it out for
yourself, and you will then know it better than if I were to tell you
beforehand."

But who can be a wise teacher who has not been wisely taught ?
The spirit of this scientific age favors a universal manufacture of con-
densed milk to ease and cheapen the toil of bringing up its infants. It
finds the bottle of literature more convenient than the breast of Nature.
It prefers a large family of puny children to a few young heroes. The
stalwart ancients exposed their unfit oflFspring to the wolves ; we mod-
erns exhaust the resources of art to preserve their worthless and pain-
ful lives.

This is the spirit which invents a thousand futile plans for com-
pacting the universe to a size so small, and a shape so simple, that it
can be grasped without much effort by the tiniest and feeblest hands.
Will it be an unpardonable crime for me to say that I recognize the
same spirit in the present popular rage for an over-classification, unifi-
cation, and simj^lification of science ; for ultra-symmetrical formulae
and excessive uniformity in nomenclature ; with an avowed reference
to ease of learning and convenience of teaching, the saving of time in
the acquisition of facts, and the diminution of brain-waste in collating
them for use ; in one word, to the making of science easy, despite
the inexorable decree of Nature, that it always shall be and always
ought to be diflicult ? For the genius of the creation is visibly hostile
to that uniformity, symmetry, and orderly simplicity which the text-
book endeavors to establish. No logical consistency for her ! No
stiffening of the fact-producing energies into fact formularies Avill she
endure. Hardly has a manual issued from the press, but it is mutilated
by her Puckish fingers. No sooner has some school of theorists erected
a stately structure in simple grandeur, than it is shattered by the light-
ning of a new revelation. There is no rest, no peace, in our believing.
Our libraries contain little else than such spoiled palimpsests. The
broad fields of science are covered with such ruins ; and those who
have grown old in traveling far and wide across them would find little
cause for singing paeans to the exploits of science were it not for the
fact that the function of science is not to organize Nature, but by the
laborious study of Nature to organize the human mind and inform it
with the very genius of Nature, original, unsymmetrical, indefinable,
unclassifiable, changing its attitudes and operations every instant, and
escaping easily from all the toils of scholastic unification which we
spread for it. The work of the student can not be simplified, can not
be made easy, if it is not to fail in its great purpose, the production of
a genuine man of science. The foolish nurse thinks it her duty to
carry the child always in her arms ; but the test of a good education

THE SPIRIT AND METHOD OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY, igg

is the ability of the child to carry its nurse, and this it can only attain
to through the discipline of toil — toil which at first conceals itself un-
der the gracious guise of sports, gymnastics, and adventures, and after-
ward takes the shape of experimental failures and useless constructions,
but all as free, untutored, and original as the laughing, wasteful, and
ungovernable pranks of Nature. But I have followed long enough,
perhaps you will think too long} this train of thought. Let me sug-
gest another.

It is a familiar fact that great discoveries come at long intervals,
brought by specially commissioned and highly endowed messengers,
while a per^Detual procession of humbler servants of Nature amve with
gifts of lesser moment, but equally genuine, curious, and interesting
novelties. The excitement of the pageant incapacitates us for reason-
ing rightly on its meaning. From what unknown land does all this
wealth of information come ? Who are these bearers of it ? and who
intrusted each with his particular burden, which he carries aloft as if
it deserved exclusive admiration ? Why do those who bring the best
things walk so seriously and modestly along, as if they were in the
performance of a sacred duty for which they scarcely esteem them-
selves worthy ; while those who have little to show, or things of infe-
rior or doubtful value, strut and grimace magnificently, as if they felt
themselves the especial favorites of Nature, push to the front, speak
loudly to the multitude, and evidently deem themselves entitled to
uncommon honors ?

In this procession of science, in this interminable show of discov-
ery, two facts arrest attention : first, the eager gaze of expectation
which the crowd of lookers-on direct toward the quarter from which
the procession comes, and their unaccountable indifference to what has
already passed ; and, secondly, the wonderful disappearance, the more
or less sudden vanishing out of the very hands of the carriers, of a
large majority of the facts and theories of which they make so pomp-
ous an exposure ; few of them, however, seeming to be aware that
thereby they have lost their right to participate in the pageant, and
should retire from it into the throng of spectators, at least until good
fortune should take pity on them, and drop some new trifle at their
feet to soothe their wounded vanity.

You will not suspect me of depreciating the value of any real dis-
covery, be it merely the finding of a Californian bird on the shore of
Massachusetts Bay, or detecting with the naked eye the blazing of a
variable star before any telescope had noticed it, or finding some
Hadrosaurus bones in a New Jersey marl-pit, or a Paradoxides at the
Quincy quarries ? Such accidents have all the importance of trumpet-
notes sounding to boots and saddle. But, after all, the trumpeter is
only a trumpeter, although he may imagine himself the colonel of the
regiment or a general in the army ; and, indeed, it has happened that
to such accidents Science has owed some of her best physicists and

200 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

naturalists. But it was not these, their first and therefore most enjoy-
able discoveries, that made them what they afterward became, nor had
they at the outset even the right to an opinion on the value of their
finds. Years of strenuous and unrenowned exertion had to follow, in
which they jjublished little or nothing new, but gathered up the old,
and rediscovered, by experiment and observation, what the records of
the past preserved.

What I deprecate is the claim to special attention made by inex-
perienced stumblers on forgotten or unnoticed facts, remarkable or
otherwise, on the sole ground of the discovery. I deprecate the folly
of the youth who, because he has found a spear, leaps into the empty
chariot of Achilles, and, calling on the Grecian host to follow him,
lashes the horses for an immediate attack on Troy ; nor finds it out
until he is half-way aci'oss the plain, that he rides alone, and to de-
struction. I feel no admiration, no respect, for the audacity with
which our young recruits of science rush unpanoplied into the thick
of a discussion involving the greatest thinking of the age. They act
like animals at a conflagration. I hear on all sides a noisy tumult of
untrained intellects. Shall such themes as the nebular hypothesis,
the probable solidity or fluidity of our planet, the metamorphosis of
rocks, the origin of serpentine or petroleum, the cause of foliation,
the stable or unstable geographical relationships of continent to ocean,
the probable rate of geological time, the conditions of climate in the
ages of maximum ice, the probable centers of life-dispersion, the unity
or multiplicity of the human race, the evolution of species, be babbled
over by men, the amount of whose efiicient work in any branch of
science is measurable with a foot-rule ; while those whose entire lives
have been but one exhausting struggle with the shapes which people
the darkness of science speak with bated breath and downcast eyes
of these great mysteries ?

There is a shibboleth by which tyros in science can always be de-
tected— their habitual employment of the words " doubtless," " cer-
tainly," and " demonstrated." To their inexperience of the univer-
sality of error, every new statement in print over a name noted in
science reads like a revelation of the absolute ; and every conclusion
at which they themselves arrive, after a more or less superficial study
of the limited number of facts which accident has given them the
opportunity to observe, seems a conclusion too real to be impugned.
I love the remembrance of my youth, but I regret its dogmatic im-
pertinences. Young votaries of science draw their inspiration from
the maxim which best suits them — " Try the value of old truths by
new discoveries." The veterans of science reverse the rule, and test
all new discoveries by a world of half-forgotten facts and well-estab-
lished principles. The advancement of science is accomplished by the
push and pull of these two ruling motives. No science were possi-
ble if the aged could suppress the youthful, or the youthful could ex-

THE SPIRIT AND METHOD OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY. 201

tirpate the aged. But as surely as the agnosticism of age is a witness
to the weariness of fruitless speculation, so surely the confidence of
youth that every movement must of necessity be forward is a proof
of insufficiency.

Let the military art instruct us. The raw recruit is satisfied if
old Bliicher waves his sword, shouting, " Vorwarts ! " But the sobered
veteran is prepared to see in flank-movements, in retreats, in halts
and intrenchments, steps of the campaign as necessary as any charge
at double-quick on hostile lines, or a steady march in column into the
enemy's country. Let us suppose that in the last twelvemonth not
one surprising discovery in any region of the globe has been made ;
that a hundred previously reported facts have been examined and pro-
nounced untrue ; a hundred printed memoirs, widely read and criti-
cised, been proved mistaken or absurd ; a hundred long-accepted ge-
neric or specific names, fossil or recent, have been expunged from the
lists ; and that others, like Holy sites catenxdata or Spirifer disjuncta,
have lost their characteristic values ; suppose any amount of doubt
to have been thrown upon any number of popularly accepted theories,
by failures in applying them to practice, like the theory of the anti-
clinal location of gas-wells ; in a word, suppose any amount of smash-
ing in any department of the great crockery-shop of transcendental
or applied science — what does it imply but the tendency of all inquiry,
observation, investigation, and experiment toward the betterment,
which is the only true advancement, of science ? As, in the animal
kingdom, the peaceful kinds are offset and held in check by analogous
carnivores, for fear of over-population, so, in the world of thought,
the constructive theorists are perpetually preyed upon by a corre-
sponding class of natural enemies, the destructive critics, which keeps
the field open and the air sweet. The destruction of effete knowl-
edge is the perennial birth of that science which can not be destroyed.
But, in recognizing the fact, we should remember that there is a sci-
ence of items and a science of fundamentals, which bear a relation to
each other, like that which subsists between the individuals of a spe-
cies and species ^^er se / and that an indefinite multiplication of indi-
viduals may go on without any visible modification of their specific
character. The population of Europe has grown in the last century
from a hundred and fifty to three hundred and twenty millions of
souls ; but they are the same Teutons, Celts, and Slavs as ever. On
the other hand, the curve of population for France is almost a hori-
zontal straight line ; but their national advancement has been phe-
nomenal. What I wish to illustrate is this evident truth, that not by
the mere increment of number of facts learned, not by the mere mul-
tiplication of discoverers, teachers, and students of those facts, but by
the elevation of our aims, by the enlargement of our views, by the
refinement of our methods, by the ennoblement of our personalities,
and by these alone, can we rightly discover whether or not our asso-

202 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

elation is fulfilling its destiny by advancing science in America. If,
unhappily, our meetings should rather tend to cultivate a love for bric-
a-brac in science, if the stimulation and gratification of a quasi-Vin\m2\
curiosity for scientific novelties be fostered, if our discussions should
become hot-beds of a more vigorous vegetation of personal vanity,
intellectual pugnacity, lust for notoriety, literary jealousies, conceited
reclamations, petty ambitions, or pecuniary schemes, how are our day
and generation to be benefited or improved? If our attention become
restricted to the details of the creation, and to the smaller manoeuvres
of the forces of Nature ; or if, on the other hand, we become habitu-
ated in the indulgence of vague generalizations, suggestions of pos-
sible theories, and half-completed or merely sketched and outlined
hypotheses — how are we ourselves, as workers of science, to escai)e
deterioration ?

I can not shake off a suspicion that we talk and write too much ;
that the whole world talks too much ; and that the golden time for
silence is precisely then when we come together to talk. Were each
of us to utter only what he absolutely knows, what he is quite sure of,
what he has unimpeachable facts in sufficient number to confirm —
what a sudden illumination would overspread our meetings, glorifying
our science, and reinspiring us all ! But I turn from the Utopian
fancy, and invite your attention to a very different theme.

There is a topic which I think should be frequently considered by
all who engage in scientific pursuits ; and by none so earnestly as by
those who are ambitious to reach the higher points of view, from
which to survey and describe those systematic combinations of phe-
nomena which are more or less panoramic : I allude of course to gen-
eralizers or discoverers of natural laws, and the professional teachers
of such laws ; while those who deal in itemized science, the mere ob-
servers of isolated facts, discriminating specimens and naming genera
and species in the animal, vegetable, or mineral worlds, and especially
such as occupy themselves with geographical and geological studies
in detail, stand in less need of having it pressed upon their attention,
because in their case it insists upon its own necessity.

I allude to what is technically known among experts as " dead-
work."

Tills topic has to be treated in the most prosaic style. To describe
dead-work is to narrate all those portions of our work which consume
the most time, give the most trouble, require the greatest patience and
endurance, and seem to produce the most insignificant results. It
comprises the collection, collation, comparison, and adjustment, the
elimination, correction, and re-selection, the calculation and representa-
tion— in a word, the entire first, second, and third handling of our
data in any branch of human learning — wholly perfunctory, prepara-
tory, and mechanical, wholly tentative, experimental, and defensive —
without which it is dangerous to proceed a single stage into reasoning

THE SPIRIT AND METHOD OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY. 203

on the unknown, and futile to imagine that we can advance in science
ourselves, or assist in its advancement in the world. It is that tedious,
costly, and fatiguing process of laying a good foundation which no
eye is ever to see, for a house to be built thereon for safety and en-
joyment, for public uses or for monumental beauty. It is the labor of
a week to be paid for on Saturday night. It is the slow recruiting,
arming, drilling, victualing, and transporting of an entire army to
secure victory in one short battle. It is the burden of dead-weight
which every great discoverer has had to carry for years and years,
unknown to the world at large, before the world was electrified by his
appearance as its genius. Let us examine it more closely : it will re-
pay our scrutiny. Those of you who have been more or less success-
fully at work all your lives may get some satisfaction from the retro-
spect, and those who have commenced careers should hear what dead-
work means, what its uses are, how indispensable it is, how honorable
it is, and what stores of health and strength and happiness it reserves
for them.

My propositions, then, are these : 1. That, without a large amount
of this dead-work, there can be no discovery of what is rightly called
a scientific truth. 2. That, without a large amount of dead-work on
the part of a teacher of science, he will fail in his efforts to impart true
science to his scholars. 3. That, without a large amount of dead-
work, no professional expert can properly serve, much less inform and
command, his clients or employers. 4. That nothing but an habitual
performance of dead- work can keep the scientific judgment in a safe
and sound condition to meet emergencies, or prevent it from falling
more or less rapidly into decrepitude ; and, 5. That in the case of
highly organized thinkers, disposed or obliged to exercise habitually
the creative powers of the imagination, or to exhaust the will-power in
frequently recurring decisions of difficult and doubtful questions, dead-
work and plenty of it is their only salvation ; nay, the most delicious
and refreshing recreation ; a panacea for disgust, discouragement, and
care ; an elixir vitge ; a fountain of perpetual youth.

In expanding these propositions, I would illustrate them in some
such homely ways as should make them seem near and familiar prin-
ciples of conduct ; and of course I can only do this out of the expe-
rience of my own life, and from observation of what has happened in
the limited sphere of one department of scientific inquiry ; but that
should suffice, seeing that work is work, and science science, however
various may be minds and their pursuits.

First, then, is it so that scientific truths can not be discovered with-
out a large amount of preliminary dead-work ? Surely no one in this
assembly doubts it who has established even one original theory for
himself, or won for it the suffrages of judges capable of weighing
evidence. Now, the immense disproportion in numbers between theo-
ries broached and theories accepted is the best proof we eould have,

204 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

not only of the value and necessity of dead-work, but of the scarcity
of those who depend upon it as a preparatory stage of theorizing.
And, moreover, not theories only, but simple statements of fact be-
lieved and disbelieved, that is, finally accepted or finally rejected, ex-
hibit the like numerical disproportion, and betray a general careless-
ness or laziness of observers ; at all events, their manifest lack of ap-
preciation of the value and necessity of the dead-work part of obser-
vation, which imperatively must precede any clear mental perception
of the simplest phenomenon, before the attempt is made to establish
its natural relationships, and present it for acceptance as a part of
science.

A geologist travels far to collect fossils at a particularly good
locality, stops there a day or two, fills his valise, and returns to pub-
lish a paper on it. What is his paper worth ? Were he first to spend
a week in making himself acquainted with the whole vicinity, a second
week in making measured sections of all the cognate outcrops in the
neighborhood, a third week in carefully differentiating the specific
horizons, and a fourth week in verifying their reliability, and in cor-
recting his first mistakes, then, surely, whatever labor he should after-
ward expend upon his collection of life-forms would have its full value,
and any paper he might write would be an important contribution to
his branch of science.

I have known men settle to their own satisfaction some of the
greatest problems in geology by a flying reconnaissance ; triumphantly
overturning a mass of accumulated science slowly brought to demon-
stration by many years of conscientious dead-work, which they did not
seem to think it worth their while to verify. I have known men re-
classify the elements of a geological system by a few sections, not a
single one of which was properly measured by them, or could be prop-
erly put on paper in a graphic form for precise comparison. I have
known men make what they called a geological map, without having
run a single instrumental line themselves ; with every outcrop inaccu-
rately placed ; with only here and there an accidental note of strike
and dip, and even this not oriented with a close ajiproximation to pre-
cision ; covering a region requiring the study of many months with a
few weeks of what they fondly called field-work, and basing on such a
map generalizations of the first rank, for which they expected the world
of science to give them credit — which in the long run it certainly will,
but not the kind of credit they anticipate.

Now, the experience of a long and active life of science has trained
me to regard all such work as careless work, lazy work. Not that
such workers are lazy men in the common meaning of the word ; on
the contrary, they are busy, bustling, active, energetic, indefatigable
men ; in fact, too much so. In science there is a laziness of quite an-
other definition — namely, a chronic dislike, a deep-seated disability,
for the dead-work which first disciplines to accuracy, then makes

THE SPIRIT AND METHOD OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY. 205

patient and cautious, and finally bestows the clearest intelligence and
largest comprehension of phenomena. And this fatal laziness is fos-
tered by a strange misunderstanding, a fancy, sometimes a downright
conviction, that the dead-work of science can be done for us by some
one else, so as to save our time and strength for speculation, for
thought, for fine writing — can be done by menials, employes, assist-
ants, colleagues, special experts, by any one rather than by ourselves.
Can we not, in fact, often find it already done for us, and even better
done than we could do it ? Then, why not let inferior minds occupy
themselves with this laborious and time-consuming address of special
skill ? Can we not, for instance, hire transit-men to lay out and meas-
ure our sections, and artists to draw them ? Why should a paleontolo-
gist take the pencil between his own fingers in studying species, when
he has trained photographers and lithographers at his command ? Why
waste precious weeks and months in tramping and climbing, in meas-
uring and plotting, while glory calls us and the scientific world is im-
patiently waiting for our conclusions ? Thus possessed by the demon
of scientific haste, we continually spoil our own performances and dis-
appoint the expectant but not at all impatient world. Could our van-
ity permit us to know the fact, the impatience is entirely our own, and,
if indulged, is sure to be roundly punished.

Ko, dead-work can not be delegated. The man who can not him-
self survey and map his field, measure and draw his sections properly,
and perfectly represent with his own pencil the characteristic varia-
tions of his fossil forms, has no just right to call himself an expert
geologist. These are the badges of initiation, and the only guarantees
which one can offer to the world of science that one is a competent
observer and a trustworthy generalizer. Nor has one become a true
man of science until he has already done a vast amount of this dead-
work ; nor does one continue in his prime, as a man of science, after
he has ceased to bring to this test of his own ability to see, to judge,
and to theorize the working and thinking of other men. But enough
of this.

My second proposition was, that no teacher of science can be suc-
cessful who does not himself encounter some of the dead-work of the
explorer and discoverer ; who does not discipline his own faculties of
perception, reflection, and generalization by field-work and oflice-work,
independently of all text-book assistance ; who does not himself make
at least some of the diagrams, tables, and pictures for his class-room, in
as original a spirit, and with as much precision of detail, as if none
such had ever been made before, and these were to remain sole monu-
ments of the genius of investigation. What the true teacher has to
do first and foremost is to wake up in youthful minds this spirit of in-
vestigation ab initio. The crusade against scholastic cramming prom-
ises to be successful ; but the crusade against pedagogic cramming has
hardly yet been organized. How is the scholar to be made an artist

2o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

if the teacher can not draw ? The instinct of imitation in man is irre-
sistible. Slovenly drawing on the blackboard — sufficient evidence of
the teacher's imperfect information and inaccurate conception of facts,
the nature of which he only thinks he understands — can do little more
than raise a cold fog of suspicion in the class-room, by which the ten-
der sprouts of learning must be either dwarfed or killed. But even
slovenly diagrams are preferable to purchased ones, for whatever
diminishes the dead-work of a teacher enervates his investigating and
thereby his demonstrating powers, and lowers him toward the level of
his scholars.

Were I a dictator, I should drive all teachers of science out into
the great field of dead- work, force them to go through all the gymnas-
tics of original research and its description, and not permit them to
return to their libraries until their note-books were full of their own
measurements and calculations, sketch-maps and form-drawings, se-
verely accurate and logically classified, to be then compared with those
recorded in the books. What teachers fail to keep in mind is this :
that learning is not knowledge ; but, as Lessing says : " Learning is
only our knowledge of the experience of others ; knowledge is our
own." No man really comprehends what he himself has not created.
Therefore we know nothing of the universe until we take it to pieces
for inspection and rebuild it for our understanding. Nor can one man
do this for another — each must do it for himself — and all that one can
do to help another is to show him how he himself has morsellated and
recomposed his small particular share of concrete nature, and inspire
him with those vague but hopeful suggestions of ideas which we call
learning, but which are not science.

My third proposition was, that an expert in practical science can
command the respect and confidence of his professional fellows, and,
through their free suffrages, build up his own reputation in the learned
and business worlds, only in exact proportion to the amount of good
dead-work to whiich he voluntarily subjects himself. For, although
the most of it is necessarily done in secrecy and silence, enough of it
leaks out to testify to his honest and diligent self-cultivation, and
enough of it must show in the shape of scientific wisdom to make self-
evident the fact that he is neither a tyro nor a charlatan. More than
once I have heard the merry jest of the Australasian judge quoted
with sinister application to experts in science. When a young col-
league, just arrived from England, asked him for advice, he answered,
" Pronounce your decisions, but beware of stating your reasons for
them." Many an ephemeral reputation for science has been begot by
this shrewd policy ; but the best policy to wear well is honesty, and
honesty in trade means selling what is genuine, well made, and dura-
ble, and honesty in science means, first, facts well proved, and then,
conclusions slowly and painfully deduc(^d from facts well proved, in
sufficient number and order of arrangement to exhaust alike the s<ub-

THE SPIRIT AND METHOD OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY. 207

ject and the observer. Reap your field so thoroughly that gleaners
must despair. Fortify your position, that your most experienced rival
can find no point of attack. Lay your plans with such a superfluity of
patient carefulness that Fate itself can invent no serious emergency.
Demonstrate your theory so utterly and evidently that it shall require
no defender but itself. Die for youi' work, that your work may live
forever. Forget yourself, and your work will make you famous. En-
slave yourself to it, and it will plant your feet upon the necks of kings,
and your mere Yes or No will become a law to multitudes. This is
what the dead-work of science, when well done, does for the expert in
science.

My fourth proposition — that only the habitual performance of dead-
work can preserve the scientific intellect in pristine vigor, and prevent
it from becoming stiffened with prejudices, inapt to receive fresh truth,
and forgetful of knowledge already won — hardly needs discussion.
Human muscles become atrophied by disuse. Men's fortunes shrink
and evaporate by mere investment. I pray you to imagine what I
wish to say, for it all amounts to this — that the grass will surely grow
over a deserted foot-path. Let me hurry to the close of this address,
which I have found too serious a duty for my liking, and perhaps you
also have found it too personal a preachment for yours. One more
suggestion, then, and I have done.

My fifth proposition was, that the wearied and exhausted intellect
will wisely seek refreshment in dead-work.

The physiology of the brain is now sufiiciently well understood to
permit physicians to prescribe with some assurance for its many ills,
and to regulate its restoration to a normal state of health. Its tissues
reproduce themselves throughout life if no extraordinary overbalance
of decay takes place, if there be no excessive and too long-continued
waste. For the majority of mankind, Nature provides for the adjust-
ment between consumption and reproduction of brain-matter by the
alternations of day and night, noise and silence, society and solitude,
and also by the substitution of the play of fancy in dreams for the
work of the judgment and the will in waking hours. We follow the
lead of Nature when we seek amusement as a remedy for care. We
bring into activity a rested portion of the brain, to jDermit the wearied
parts of it to restore themselves unhindered.

This is the rationale of the pathological treatment of the brain.
Tell an overworked president of a railway company, who falls asleep
at the directors' meeting, that he must rest, or die of softening of the
brain, and he will smile a sad reply that he can not rest. He is right,
thus far : he can not rest his whole brain, but he can rest the cerebel-
lum— the seat of the will-power — by bringing into higher activity and
more frequent exercise the upper and frontal lobes. Let him stop
thinking of leasing rival lines, and read novels and play billiards. Let
him ride some youthful hobby, revive his practice on the violin, culti-

2o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

vate flowers, keep a stud and kennel, bury himself in Greek and Latin
literature, collect pictures, minerals, do anything which will really in-
terest him and keep him out of the way of railroad men and railroad-
ing, and do it with his might, with enthusiasm, even to fatigue, and
do it for at least four years, and by that time his cerebellum will be
all right again.

Kow, what the unintermitting responsibilities of the railroad offi-
cial do for the destruction of the constitution of his cerebellum, just
that the overstrained exercise of the creative imagination does for the
demoralization of the brain of the man of science, especially if it be
as it commonly is, accompanied by business anxiety. And his only
way of escape from a predestined break-down is through the monoto-
nous but interesting occupation of his perceptive faculties in the field
and at his office-table. In both he will enjoy that solitude which re-
sembles sleep in being a medicine for the weary brain. But it is a
solitude peopled with unexceptionable friends — in which Care sleeps
and Pleasure wakes — a solitude in which the soul multiplies itself by
alliance with all the possibilities of number and all the actualities of
form ; a solitude from which a man returns to the society of his fel-
low-men sainted by the blessing of Nature and equal to the duty of
existence.

In conclusion, I must express the wish that this meeting of our as-
sociation may be as delightful and as useful as any that it has ever
held. Those who remember how hard we used to work at them, what
a harvest of mutual confidences we used to gather at them, and what
a glow of fresh enthusiasm we carried away with us from them, will
know what such a wish implies. Those who come fresh to this meet-
ing will find themselves made at home in half a dozen worlds of sci-
ence at once. That is the particular character and special charm of
this association, wherein it differs from all local societies, and from all
conventions of workers in special branches of science and art. And,
as each meeting furnishes a panoramic view of the present state of
human knowledge as a whole, so, at each meeting, the old and the
young in science are mingled in such friendly and confidential inter-
course that the prospect extends both backward to the beginnings of
inquiry and forward to its possible achievements. All good tradition
is precious ; and so is well-trained current inquiry, and so is sound
prophetic calculation. At such a meeting as this, we enjoy the rare
privilege of assisting at all three ; and, when we scatter to our homes,
we can hardly fail to take with us something effectual for lightening
and sweetening another year of work.

I

THE SOCIAL LIFE OF ARCTIC BIRDS. 209

THE SOCIAL LIFE OF AECTIC BIRDS.

By Db. ALFEED E. BEEHM.

" TTTHEN the great architect of the universe had finished his fa-

VV vorite star, the earth, Satan aspired to destroy it. From the
seventh heaven he slung down a great stone toward the blooming
earth ; but an archangel, witnessing the wicked act, flew down faster
than the falling rock, and turned it aside. The stone fell away up in
the Northern Sea, and was broken up. The fragments scattered on
every side and formed cli£Fs, some of which sunk in the deeps, while
others rose black out of the waters. God in his infinite mercy pitied
the bare devil's rock and made it fruitful." Thus runs an ancient
Lap legend. The rock is Scandinavia ; the fragments are the innu-
merable islands that surround it ; and the fiords are the clefts between
the larger stone and the fragments. One should have seen the coun-
try, rowed through the fiords, and gone down the icy mountains to the
lakes and bays, to appreciate the appropriateness of the Saga.

Scandinavia is an Alpine country, and has, like Switzerland and
the Tyrol, majestic glaciers, musical, dancing mountain-brooks, and
strong rivers rushing over the blue slopes which are reflected in the
transparent dark lakes. High up among these lie the prettily poised
dwellings of the men, like eagles' nests stuck to the rocks. To make
the similarity with the Swiss Alps complete, the green meadows are
also not wanting in Scandinavia ; and, while the northern mountains
do not resound with the exultant jodel, joyous, fresh, melodious songs
may be heard in the valleys and on the heights. The difference be-
tween Switzerland and Scandinavia is nevertheless great, even if we
only consider how the deep sea cuts into the land and forms large
bays which receive, from the shadows thrown upon them by the dark
surrounding rocks, a mysterious yet not fearful aspect.

The fiords of Norway are remarkable, but they are not the most
peculiar feature of the country ; this is found in the innumerable
islands which rise more than a thousand metres above the sea, or,
planting their roots in the boundless deep, are visible only at low
water. These islands are charming in the highest degree, and their
peculiar beauty approves itself when the sun is resting below the hori-
zon at midnight, and only a breath of twilight sweeps over the masses
overflowed by the water. One might then well believe himself in a
scene of enchantment.

The farther the traveler advances beyond the polar circle toward
the north, the larger and more comfortable are the houses, while in
the south, where the poj^ulation is denser, they are of slighter con-
struction. Yet no furrow is turned, no scythe is swung there ; the
sea is the field from which man derives his living. At the parting of

VOL. XXTIII. — 14

210, THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

day and night, when the sun goes away for months, the men sail reck-
lessly in their boats and canoes to their anchoring-places far up in the
north, and their spacious houses are quickly filled with guests. Obey-
ing the resistless drift, come hosts of fishes out of the deepest deeps
of the sea, so that the net cast for them mocks the strength of the
Herculean men, or is torn under the burden. The throng of the fool-
ish fish is so dense that an oar pushed perpendicularly through it re-
mains upright. Millions are caught, and millions go on, so that there
is no sign of a decrease in the number. This migration of the fishes
reaches its extreme point at about Christmas-time. No pencil could
reproduce the picture which the polar sea exhibits at this season. Hun-
dreds of craft, manned with stalwart fishers, are being incessantly filled
with speckled prey ; as far as the eye can reach, nothing but fish,
which crowd and press upon one another to get to the breeding-place ;
the massive glaciers and rock-built shores in the background, and, as
illuminants to the scene, the ghostly moon and the crackling northern
lights. All this time there is also twilight on the southern horizon,
and toward February a narrow strip of the sun shows itself again,
gradually to rise higher. With the first appearance of day the fishes
begin to sink slowly in the fathomless depths. As the sky becomes
brighter, the sea and its bays become more quiet. The boats cease
to glide over the surface of the waters, the fishermen go home with
their spoil, and the northern world lies silent, basking in the beams
of the returning sun. But this quiet only lasts for a few weeks,
when new noisy, swarming hosts come to the islands. They are the
birds, which come up from the sea to the land. It is a deeply poetic
trait in the lives of these creatures that only two causes determine
them to seek terra Jirma — the power of love and the approach of
death. The sea-bird, weather-proof, lives on the sea. He hunts his
food by diving, swinging over the billows, and sleeps and dreams with
his head hidden under his wings. But there comes a time when the
earlier sunbeams kiss the northern islands ; then he is mightily moved
in his soul, and hastens to the coast to celebrate there his annual wed-
ding. And, when he feels that death is near, he swims with his feeble
limbs back to the place of his birth, there to close his life. It is the
same feeling that inspires in aged men that ardent desire to return to
their old home to die and be buried there. To the naturalist who goes
to the north to study the ways of the birds this trait in their character
is of peculiar interest. Of one of the tribes of these colonists of the
northern bird-mountain I must make particular mention. It is the eider-
duck, the producer of down. It belongs to the family of the ducks,
and forms, so far as bodily stature is concerned, one of the largest
species of the group. The plumage of the male is handsome and brill-
iant. In it black, red, ashen-gray, ice-green, white, brown, and yellow
are mingled with splendid effect. His head and back are snow-white,
his neck is rose-red, and the lower part of his body is deep black. The

THE SOCIAL LIFE OF ARCTIC BIRDS. 211

female is less richly colored, in a modest garment adorned with gray
and black spots and stripes. The eider-duck is a real sea-bird, and is
excelled by none of its fellows in diving, while no other bird is more
awkward in flying and helpless in walking. On the ground it moves
with a toilsome waddle, stumbles and falls flat ; and it greatly prefers
the fluid element to the solid land. The birds generally live during
the winter in large flocks on the open sea, and feed themselves with
shell-fish which they bring up from the bottom. But, as soon as the
spring sun begins to shine over the waves, the drake feels newly awak-
ened the old love in his heart for his mate, and he renews his wooing.
One pair after another leave the host and swim steadily toward the
land. This wedding-journey toward the breeding-place offers a pretty
picture of conjugal life. From the moment when the pair have found
one another again there rules only one will, that of the duck, to which
the male yields fully and without any wavering. Quite noticeable are
his courteous attention and tenderness toward his spouse, which Madame
Duck takes, as matters of course, in calm dignity. She steadily makes
toward the shore, and finally lands, hardly heeding the cautions of her
mate, whose instinct, sharpened by the experiences of former journeys
he may have made, prompts him to beware of the devices of men.
Loyally he waddles into the country, and follows her in her intermina-
ble tours while she is looking for a suitable nesting-place. Madame
shows an exceedingly dainty taste during her explorations, carefully ex-
amining every bush, shrub, stone, and protected spot, venturing with-
out fear into the dwelling-houses, even into the kitchens and chambers,
where, if she finds a spot to her taste, she does not hesitate to take pos-
session of it. Occasionally she will fix her nest in the oven, leaving it
to the worthy matron of the establishment to find another place to
bake her bread. The thrift of the woman generally gets the better
of her vexation, and she lets the fowl alone so as not to lose its down.
The nest is quickly built. The foundation is laid with dry grass and
straw, after which the duck strips herself of down and forms with it a
thickly soft-cushioned bowl. The drake follows every ste]) of his
mistress during these excursions and preparations, and looks out for
her safety, without, however, " lending a hand " in any of her labors.
As soon as the eggs are laid he deserts nest and mate and flies oflf to
the sea to join the other males again. Great throngs of these grass-
widowers may then be seen sailing among the islands, wholly uncon-
cerned about what is going on on the mainland. But we shall see how
soon they are driven from this careless life.

The duck lays from four to eight, sometimes indeed ten grayish-
green eggs, and then begins to sit upon them. The Northmen have
been only waiting for this time to gather their spoil. Thirty ducks'
nests furnish a pound of down, which can be sold on the spot for
thirty marks German or $7.50 American money. The eggs are also
worth money, and are generally sent to England. A duck-colony of

212 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

this kind is a capital, the income from which is all clear gain, for the
bird feeds itself and costs nothing. As soon as the eggs are laid the
Northman appears with a great basket, into which he puts nest and
eggs. The duck is deeply distressed over this unrighteous seizure of
her property, and in her inexpressible agony flies out to sea to seek
comfort with her mate. Whether he receives her with tender ex-
pressions of sympathy or with scoldings for her neglect of his warn-
ings is still an unsolved problem ; but it is certain that he becomes
tender again toward her, and after a few weeks waddles back behind
her to the same bay where she had been so badly treated. She
again gathers straw and grass for the new nest ; but how about its
warm lining ? The new down has not grown upon her in so short a
time ; what shall she do ? There is no mother, not even a duck,
that can not find her way out of a difficulty when the question con-
cerns her offspring. Her breast is indeed bare, but her mate still
has his full coating of down, and is now obliged to sacrifice it on the
altar of affection. He cheerfully adapts himself to the unavoidable,
and begins to strip himself. The process does not go on fast enough
for the impatient duck, and she heljDS in the work, and both persevere
in it till the drake stands out entirely bald. Then he flies away, and
troubles himself no more about wife and nest, an indifference for which
we need not blame him in view of his own forlorn condition. The duck
herself also thinks of only one thing — her brood. She leaves the nest
only once a day for a little while in the morning, to take her bath in
the sea, plume herself, and get some food ; but while attending to
these details she does not forget to cover the eggs carefully with
down, so as to keep them warm. Danger no longer threatens the
brood from man, who generally takes good care of this hatching to
preserve the species ; but it is likely to come from birds of prey. Under
these circumstances the practical value of the duck's simple duskily
speckled coat is fully demonstrated. The color of its plumage agrees
so well with that of the ground that it is very hard to distinguish the
bird from its surroundings. It has happened to me more than twenty
times to be standing directly over a nest and not remark it till I felt a
gentle pecking at the feet, which the bird gave me by way of warning
that I was approaching too near ; for the duck hardly ever thinks of
flying from man during the time of its brooding. I have frequently
bent down over a nest, stroked the bird, and felt the eggs without
its rising. The most it would do was to snap, as if in play, at my
fingers.

A characteristic trait of the eider-duck is to have as many eggs as
possible, whether they be its own or strange ones ; it is a trait that is
not found to exist to so great an extent in any other being. The sit-
ting birds steal one from another whenever they have an opportunity.
It is no uncommon occurrence, when one of them is away from her nest
for a little while, for her neighbor to purloin three or four eggs, carry

I

THE SOCIAL LIFE OF ARCTIC BIRDS. 213

them to her nest, and hatch them out with her own. The robbed duck
discovers the theft immediately on her return, but gives no sign of con-
cern about it, seeming to say, " We will wait till you go away, and
then I shall take ray revenge." Her time comes at last ; and thus no
duck knows whether it is sitting on its own eggs or another's.

The young come out from the eggs at the end of thirty-six days,
but do not stay in the nest any longer than till they have become com-
pletely dry, when the mother takes them to the sea, which she does
not leave till the young have become tired in this their first swimming-
lesson, and can no longer ride on the backs of the strong waves. It is
usually a considerable distance from the nest to the shore, and the
chicks are exposed to many enemies in the shape of hawks, ravens, and
gulls, which keep an eager lookout for them. Now the Northman
steps in with his protecting hand and comes along with a pair of large
baskets, into one of which he puts the young birds and into the other
the precious down, while he goes from nest to nest, examining them to
see in what ones the brood is ready to be removed. Hence he takes
the young ones to the sea, while the mother waddles along behind, well
knowing where he is leading her. At the shore he turns the basket
over and goes away, leaving it to the old birds to find their own. They
plunge into the flock, and each speedily gets as many of the chicks as
she can. After a few hours the family bonds are closely sealed again,
and each mother has gathered her little ones around her, which she
treats with the most tender care, while they in return show the most
grateful affection for her. They go with the old ones into the water,
crawl around on their backs, and receive instruction in swimming and
diving for mussels, the mother in the last exercise going down with a
chick under each wing. In the course of eight weeks the young be-
come fully instructed, and are ready to begin the struggle for exist-
ence on their own account. Now appears the Herr Papa again upon
the scene, when there is nothing more to be done, and proudly con-
ducts the whole company over the open sea to their winter home.
Such is the history of the best-known and most interesting of the
birds that people the mountains of the North. I have thought it
proper to give in brief a clear picture of its habits, because it forms in
some respects the central point of the motley, busy company. We
will now sketch in broad outline a general picture of one of these bird-
mountains.

The storm-gulls are inseparable from the eider-duck. If there are
ten thousand pairs of ducks on a mountain, then the number of gulls
nesting there will be at least fifty thousand. They come rushing up
in graceful, rapid flight, presenting a pleasant aspect with their snow-
white and dark-colored feathers. They are the real but innocent be-
trayers of the eider-colonies, for where gulls circle in great numbers
around the island one is sure to find nests of down. The host is fur-
ther increased by large flocks of a kind of snipe which are distin-

214 ^^^ POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

guished by their clear voices. They are the police of the mountain,
the guardians of the safety of the bird-republic ; for as soon as they
perceive anything that betokens danger, say an approaching boat, they
cry out in chorus and give an alarm that instantly sets the whole
population in motion. The gulls immediately send forth scouts which
go toward the boat, soaring, screeching around it, swooping down
upon it with the speed of an arroAv, and often touching the boatman
with the tips of their pinions. The mass of the army follows the
scouts. They come by thousands and thousands, in so thick masses as
to obscure the sun. The explorer is forced to come to the shore veiled
in this living, fluttering, screeching, rushing cloud. The ducks, if they
are not actually sitting, fly, the snipes hastily seek the sea, and the
wagtails follow in noisy flight, but the host of gulls stands firm, screams
and bustles and whirls and plunges, as if it could prevent the advance
by noise and sham fighting. One may walk the shore and see noth-
ing but birds and nests, and hear nothing but the discordant din of
voices, accompanied by the thunderous rushing of thousands of wings
lashing the air.

A more quiet picture is afforded by the hill where the auks brood.
They resemble the eider-duck in shape, except that their bills are sharp
and not flat, like those of the latter. There are three species of them,
M'hich are distinguished from one another by the length of the bill and
its curvature. AH three species live and brood in the same places. I
was told of a mountain where a million of them had built their nests.
I am siire of one thing — that no man has ever seen a million birds, even
though he has traveled over half the earth. Doubting the accounts,
I visited the described mountain. On a bright summer day ray com-
panion and myself took a boat and rowed toward it, over the smooth,
transparent water, between beautiful islands, followed by the screech-
ing of the startled gulls. High above us on a towering ridge we
saw the watchful ospreys ; by our side, on right and left, along the
shore-cliffs, the sitting eider-ducks. Finally we came to the populous
part of the mountain, which is from three hundred and twenty to three
hundred and thirty feet high, and saw really immense numbers of birds
sitting on the ridges. The higher parts of the cone were covered with
a brown spoonwort, and as we approached the shore the birds drew
back thither, and suddenly disappeared from view as if by concerted
ac^reement. "When we had reached the shore and landed, and were
wondering what had become of the hosts of birds, we found the ground
burrowed all over with holes that looked like common rabbit-holes.
"NVe soon learned that they were the entrances to the nest-chambers of
the auks. The holes are large enough to permit the birds to pass
through, and then widen on the inside so as to give room for the nest
and the two birds. As we climbed toward the height, the tenants first
carefully and anxiously peered at us, then slipped out and threw them-
selves screaming into the sea, which was soon covered, as far as the

THE SOCIAL LIFE OF ARCTIC BIRDS. 215

eye could reach, with birds whose cry resembled the noise of a gigantic
surf or of a raging storm. At last we reached the top of the mount-
ain, where two falcons that had been soaring over our heads swooped
down like arrows into the swimming mass ; each seized an auk in its
claws, and then rose slowly toward the clouds. But the sea extended
its wide, dark blue, bare surface before the eye, for the white swarm
of birds had disappeared, having dived down beneath the protecting
waves. After one or two minutes one arose, then a second, and a
third, and so on in quick succession, and, as they thus gradually ap-
peared on the surface, they looked like flecks of white foam. With
marvelous rapidity the little dots increased, till soon it was only here
and there that a strip of water could be seen. The screeching began
anew, and the birds arose again from the water and moved toward the
heights. We had sat down ; the rustling, like that of the surf, and
the monotonous cry of the birds, had lulled us gradually into a deep
sleep. When we awoke and opened our eyes we could have believed
that we were transported into a fairy land. In numbers like the sand
on the sea-shore, the auks were squatting at our feet and down to the
edge of the water, and curiously looking at us. We were the giants
of the fairy story ; they were the dwarfs, who dwelt in the secret
caves of the mountain. The millions were there, if one could judge
by the eye alone, but it is probable that, on an exact count, they would
be many thousands short.

The auk lives a life of strict monogamy. It is to his beloved old wife,
the flame of his youth, that he gives his attentions on every returning
spring. The old auk is a constant, loving spouse, a pattern of a hus-
band, and it is really a pity that the numerical relation of the sexes is
such that not every young male can mate himself, and many are com-
pelled to wander through life in compulsory bachelorhood. Particu-
larly painful is the condition of the solitary one when the pairs go to
the mountain in the spring. What shall he do? Shall he alone or
with other morose companions wear out his life on the high sea? No,
that would be suicide. He follows the bridal trains to the mainland
and has at least a happy company around him, and may always hope
that one of the males may perish, and he then in some possible way
find favor in the eyes of the widow. The auks return every year to
their old nests, which they readily distinguish, and the young, newly
mated pairs build themselves new nests, or take possession of old ones
whose owners have gone the way of all flesh. The male keeps watch
at the entrance, while the female sets the house in order and lays her
single Qgg, which is sat upon for about three weeks and a half. The
female sits twenty-one hours a day, and the male ought to sit three
hours, but he never does it, at least not in the beginning. As soon as
the female goes away he rushes after her in a spasm of jealousy, for the
young fellows are lurking around in all the corners and at all points.
But this neglect of duty by the house-tyrant brings no harm to the

21 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

egg. The nearest young fellow nimbly slips into the nest, and keeps
the egg suitably warm till the mother returns. Shall he not also have
a little satisfaction when others are sipping the joys of life in full
draughts ? There are no orphans among the auks. If a pair happen
to die, the young fellows will hatch the ^^g out, or, if the chick is
already hatched, they will take care of it. The early instruction of
the chick is a matter of patience, time, and trouble. As soon as it is
dry, the parents take it to a cliff by the sea-shore and spring down,
while the young one remains standing above and not knowing what
to do in his helpless condition. The old ones call, but he does not
follow, for he is afraid of the leap and of the strange element. Father
and mother repeat the leap again and again, and encourage the timid
one. The young bird follows at last, not venturing upon the leap,
but in a kind of desperate mood letting himself fall. As soon as he
has touched the swinging wave he feels at home, and begins to swim
bravely, the parents keeping by him, so as to give him rest on their
backs when he is tired.

A quite different spectacle is presented by those mountains which
are principally inhabited by a particular species of gull. To observe
one of them I made a special excursion into Lapland. I had at the
time a design of writing a book on the life of birds, and had read in
some work about three-toed gulls that nested in the bird-mountains in
such multitudes " that they darkened the sun when they rose, com-
pletely covered the mountain when they sat down upon it, deafened
the ears when they screeched, and turned the verdure-clad rocks white
where they were sitting." There are only three such mountains known
— one in Lapland, one in Iceland, and one in Greenland. The one in
Lapland, which is much the most remarkable, lies out of the course of
the steamer, and we were therefore obliged to charter a special boat to
reach it. A storm compelled us to go into a harbor of refuge. When
the tempest had abated, about midnight, we continued our voyage.
The waves were still high, and single gulls shot before and around us
like dazzling white flashes. All at once, at Cape Svaerholm, not far
from the North Strait, there rose before us a great black cliff. It
looked like a large marble table covered with millions of little white
points that shone like stars. We fired a shot at them, when, as soon
as the report had ceased, these became living birds, pure white gulls,
and sunk in a few minutes hastily down to the sea in so compact a
throng that I might have thought a snow-storm had broken loose and
was pouring its immense flakes down from the sky. For a few minutes
it snowed birds as far as one could see. The surge rolled wild, but it
was the euphonious accompaniment of the rustling of the wings and of
the shrieks of the frightened sea-birds. As far as the eye could reach
the waves were covered with the foam-born children of the sea, and the
cliff and the mountain were as white-dotted as before. Yet these were
only the males, which had rushed away on the approach of danger.

NEUTER INSECTS. 217

ot:uter insects.

By CHAELES MOEEIS.

IN the later editions of Darwin's " Origin of Species " he has an-
swered with remarkable ability nearly all of the several weighty
arguments brought against his theory. Some seemingly insuperable
objections have been met with an array of facts before which they
quite break down. Thus, several instances of extraordinary organs in
certain species or types of animals, which it was claimed could not
possibly have originated through natural selection, he has shown to be
connected by intermediate variations with ordinary organs, which va-
riations are useful at every point of their development, so that the
strange appendages might easily have arisen through minute grada-
tions of change.

There is one objection, however, which he can scarcely be said to
have answered so happily. This is that in reference to neuter insects
— the specially developed working-ants, for instance. As he himself
acknowledges, the phenomenon of neuter insects appeared to him at
first insuperable, and actually fatal to the whole theory, since these
neuters often differ widely in instinct and structure from the males
and females, yet, being sterile, they are incapable of hereditarily rej^ro-
ducing their characteristics. In working-ants the difference from the
sexual forms is often very great, as in the shape of the thorax, the
lack of wings and sometimes of eyes, and in instinct. The difference
in instinct is still greater in the hive-bee. Nor is this the whole of
the difficulty. In some species of ants there are two and even three
distinct castes, well defined, and each with specialities of structure.

Yet, as it is quite impossible that these sterile females could trans-
mit their peculiarities to descendants, and as no such peculiarities exist
in the structure of the males and developed females, hereditary influ-
ence would seem to vigorously oppose their reproduction, and it seems
quite extraordinary that the sexual forms should produce offspring so
markedly unlike them. The case is as remarkable as if the offspring
of a lion and lioness should be a cat or a leopard, or if a sheep should
produce an antelope.

Darwin seeks to explain this difficulty by considering that selection
may apply to the family as well as to the individual, and that chance
peculiarities of structure, which proved useful to the community, may
have been preserved by selection, the tribes in which such useful aber-
rant forms appeared surviving, while tribes more normal in reproduc-
tive power perished. Illustrative facts tending in the same direction
are given, and there is certainly a degree of force in this argument,
though it can scarcely be accepted as wholly satisfactory.

It is probable that Darwin did not give to this question as full a

2i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

consideration as to many others, or his remarkable power of analysis
could not have failed to perceive other important bearings of the sub-
ject. A full review of the phenomena of larval development certainly
seems to remove the mystery of the neuter ant and bee from the posi-
tion of an anomaly to that of an ordinary method of structural unfold-
ment. If the appearance of sexual organs and powers is the final step
to maturity, then all neuters are larval forms, although in every other
respect their development may be complete ; and they are subject to
the same modifying influences as are all larvae. It is one of the most
common conditions of invertebrate life-development for the imfolding
offspring to stop at certain stages of growth, and devote itself for a
while to nutrition, ere resuming its course of structural development.
Such " resting-stages " are those in which there exist specially favor-
able conditions of nutrition, or of adaptation of the larval form to the
conditions of the food-supply. The most notable instances are those
seen in the extraordinary larval forms of some of the Echinodermata,
and the little less remarkable larval structure of some of the insects
and crustaceans. In certain cases several successive larval forms, each
deviating considerably from the normal type of the animal, appear.

Yet these peculiarities of structure have never yet been advanced
as stumbling-blocks in the way of natural selection. The caterpillar,
for instance, while resembling the moth or butterfly in its more deep-
lying peculiarities, displays remarkable external deviations, and as-
sumes organs and instincts still more anomalous than those shown by
neuter ants. The larval star-fish presents an instance of still stranger
anomaly. Only the stomachal region and its immediate surroundings
pertain to the type, and all the rest of the structure is accessory.
When the development of the star-fish is resumed the new form grows
out of this internal region of the body of the bipinnaria, or larval
form, whose external parts are discarded as useless, or absorbed as
food by the new creature. This is the most aberrant instance of such
temporary development known. No trace of the star-fish type can be
perceived in its larva. It doubtless exists, but is quite masked by sec-
ondary formations. Or it may be that this larva represents an ances-
tral form of the star-fish, as divergent in character as is the crustacean
larva of the barnacle from the mature form.

Yet this explanation of atavism, or temi:)orary check to develop-
ment at an ancestral form stage, only partly meets the difficulties of
the case. There is an unquestionable new adaptation to new circum-
stances to be explained. Natural selection acts upon all forms which
give it sufiicient opportunity, without regard to whether they are larval
or mature. Let us take for an instance the case of the butterfly. Here
the development does not proceed continuously, from the germ to the
mature form, as in some insects, but is checked for a considerable pe-
riod at the caterpillar stage. The active nutrition at this stage seems
to act as a check upon development, so that the caterpillar is a form

NEUTER INSECTS. 219

upon which natural selection has full opportunity to produce its effects.
Originally it may have simply rested for a time in the direct line of de-
velopment, on account of finding abundant food. But, as food condi-
tions changed, new enemies attacked it, or old foes adopted new modes
of assault, one of two things was necessary for its survival. It must
either lose this resting-stage and develop continuously, or it must be-
come adapted to the new conditions. This rendered necessary changes
in instinct and in structure. Where the resting-stage, as in the cater-
pillar, occupied a very large percentage of the total life-duration, and
where the process of adaptation had millions of years for its comple-
tion, it is not surprising that structural features often very divergent
from the typical form were assumed.

There is little or no reason to doubt that all the peculiarities of lar-
val form are due to the two causes here specified : 1. A temporary
check to development at some ancestral stage of the animal's unfold-
ment. 2. An adaptive modification of structure and habit to meet
varying conditions in the environment of this stage of development.

Yet in every such case we meet with a difiiculty of the same char-
acter as that existing in the case of neuter ants. These secondary
adaptations are out of the direct line of the animal's development, and
it is a question how they can be hereditarily transmitted. The law of
phylogenetic development enables us to understand the appearance
of certain embryonal peculiarities of structure which do not exist in the
mature form. If development is forced to follow its original line, such
ancestral features must necessarily a2)pear, though if the development
is very rapid only hints of them are perceptible ; or they may become
utterly obliterated, so far as our powers of obsei'vation can decide.
Yet such a principle can not apply to secondary structural features,
produced in larval adaptation. The latter are in no sense in the direct
ancestral line of development, and it is somewhat remarkable that they
are so faithfully reproduced, only to be thrown aside again as the
animal resumes its temporarily checked development.

It is very evident, from the facts here cited, that the phylogenetic
line is subject to disturbing influences. There is no special reason, in
the nature of things, why a developing animal should repeat every
stage of its ancestral growth. If never disturbed in its development
it would naturally do so, since its original evolution from primeval
matter lay in that line, and there has been no force since brought to
bear upon it to make it deviate. But where any subsequent force
causes deviation, that deviation must become persistent. There can
be no possible return to the exact ancestral course. Many such devia-
tions have occurred. Some of them are only apparently such, arising
from rapidity of development, and the slurring over of intermediate
steps in the line of growth. But many of thom are results of subse-
quent adaptation. Such is the case with many of the peculiarities seen
in the unfoldment of the mammalian embryo. It has deviated from

220 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the ancestral line to meet certain special requirements of the situation.
It can never return to that line. The mere fact that an ancestor once
existed, with certain characteristics, has in itself no controlling force
upon the development of the embryo.

The secondary adaptations of larval forms have the same bearing
upon development as have peculiar ancestral conditions. They be-
come characteristic steps in the line of development to maturity. The
sexually mature animal has passed through them all in its growth
from the germ, and conditions of the same character are implanted in
its own germs, and must unfold in their development. There is no
longer an exact phylogcnctic line. Many of the ancestral stages have
become greatly modified. To the new developing animals those modi-
fied stages of growth are ancestral stages so far as it individually is
concerned. Development follows this new line, although it may have
become a strangely warped and irregular one, and though at certain
stages of growth it may yield peculiar organs or tissues which are dis-
carded as useless, or consumed as nutriment, at later stages. The true
line of growth in such cases is restricted to the more deep-lying and
important parts of the organism, and though, at certain stages of
growth, forces appear which produce a special growth of secondary
tissue, this is reabsorbed or discarded when the development is re-
sumed. Marked instances of such discarded tissue are seen in the
pupal development of certain insects, and in the case of the star-fish
development above referred to.

We have paid some little attention to the characteristics of larval
growth for two reasons. Their true bearing on the mystery of evolu-
tion has been little attended to, and the above-given hypothesis of
explanation has not heretofore been offered, so far as the writer is
aware. The second reason is that they bear a much closer relation to
the phenomenon of neuter insects than might at first sight appear.
The neuter insect has not as yet been looked upon as a resting-stage
in the line of full development, and as analogous to the lower stages
of larval growth. It has, indeed, a peculiarity of its own, that it fails
to attain full development. And as its secondary characteristics are
not participated in by the sexually mature form, but have arisen by
adaptation which is still operative, the fact of their transmission be-
comes difiicult to understand. Yet we think it may be shown to be
but an extension of the principle above considered.

It is a significant fact that a neuter worker class is found only in
those animal tribes in which the social principle has reached its high-
est development, such as the bees, ants, and termites among insects,
and the hydroid polyps in the other sub-kingdoms of life. In each of
these communal types of life there has been a division of duties, the
work of reproduction being confined to one or a few members of the
community, at least so far as maternity is concerned, while the other
members have gained special adaptations to other duties. In bee com-

NEUTER INSECTS. 221

munities only one queen is permitted to develop, while the remain-
ing females continue sterile, and become adapted to working duties.
Among the ants numerous queens develop, but each surviving queen
usually becomes the mother of a separate community, in which the ster-
ile females are adapted to two or more distinct duties. The problem
of the males is a singular one. Among bees and ants they are never
checked at the worker stage, but develop to become a possible burden
on the community. Here among the bees a second remarkable in-
stance of intelligent selection is displayed. The males are suffered to
live as long as food is abundant, but are mercilessly stung to death as
soon as there is danger of lack of food. In ant communities natural
selection disposes of the surj^lus males. Their life-power is reduced
to that required for the nuptial flight, and they die as soon as their
one necessary duty is performed.

Among the termites, or white ants, we find an interesting ex-
tension of this principle. Here restriction applies to both sexes, the
workers and soldiers being immature males and females. Some writ-
ers, indeed, hold that they are of no sex, but have been checked in
development at the larval stage, before sexual differentiation began.
And a male as well as a female survives to start the new community,
each nest having its so-called king and queen. In polyp colonies we
find the same thing in a less developed stage. Each sexual individual
is hermaphrodite, and the king and queen powers exist in a single
form. In the Sipho7iophora, or floating hydrozoan colonies, the partly
developed forms are adapted to four distinct duties. Some of them
become contracting bells, and serve for locomotion ; others become
stomachal tubes, and digest the food of the colony ; others are ten-
tacles, or food-catchers ; and others are simply covering or protective
pieces ; yet in all of them the Medusa type can occasionally be recog-
nized.

It may be well to point out here that a similar division of duties
exists in all the higher members of the vegetable kingdom. Each tree
is a colony, the product of buds arising in a common stem, and is thus
closely analogous to a polyp colony. The analogy goes further — there
is a division of duties among the members of the tree colony. Some
of these members attain full development and become hermaphrodite
sexual individuals. The others are restricted in development, and be-
come adapted to several distinct duties. Thus, two distinct nutritive
forms appear, the leaf-bearing individual and the root individual.
But greatly restricted protective forms occasionally appear, such as
the thorn, whose development is on a level with that of the covering-
piece in a polyp colony. Other illustrations of this principle of restric-
tion of development and division of duties might be given, but we must
go on to consider its significance.

If we consider any of the lower animal forms, it will quickly appear
that structural development is checked more or less completely during

222 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

active life and abundant nutrition. Insect larvae, for instance, simply
grow during their active feeding-stage. New development only be-
gins during the inactive pupal stage, in which the tissue formed dur-
ing the larval stage is modified and transformed. After the insect
becomes again active, as the imago, no further development of special
importance takes place ; and it would appear that, if the larval stage
is not allowed its full period or its complete course of nutrition, the
pupal development is checked at an imperfect stage, and the imago
remains immature.

Such is evidently the case in bee communities. The division of
the community into males, queen, and workers seems less an operation
of natural selection than of intelligent selection. It is a matter of
choice among the workers whether any female larva shall develop into
a worker or a queen. By giving more room for growth, and more and
better food, they can produce a queen from any female larva chosen at
will. By contracting the growth-space and diminishing the food, the
power of development is checked, and the insect, in its pu])al stage,
becomes incapable of developing sexual organs and powers.

Thus in every female larva it seems evident that innate powers to
become either queen or worker exist. The queen is the higher phase
of development, but in attaining this stage the worker stage must
be passed through. Why does it not become apparent ? This is not
difficult to understand, since a similar phenomenon is of very common
occurrence. It is simply slurred over in a rapid course of development.
The sexual organs begin to unfold, and in so doing exhaust the nutri-
ment and the life-energy which would be needed for the full unfold-
ment of the worker organs. Thus the superior force checks the infe-
rior, and the innate tendency to develop into a worker is overcome by
the activity of a more energetic innate tendency. Where the latter
remains aborted the worker tissues fully develop, and with them the
worker instincts, since every stage of structural development seems
accompanied by its peculiar instincts, as if tissue dominated instinct.

In the case of the ant we have closely similar phenomena. Here
there is no satisfactory evidence of intelligent selection, though many
observers believe that it exists. So far as we know, however, chance
decides whether the larva shall have food enough to carry it to one or
other of the worker stages, or to the queen stage. Thus numerous
individuals of each stage appear. But the two or more worker castes
are not completely separated, since intermediate forms exist, sufficient
to make a line of insensible gradation from one form to the other or
others. Here, then, we have a complete line of development, reach-
ing from the germ to the queen, but checked at various stages, in
which nutrition becomes active and secondary adaptations appear.
These secondary adaptive features have undoubtedly become part of
the direct line of structural unfoldment. But, as soon as a higher
phase of structure begins to unfold, these lower conditions of tissue

NEUTER INSECTS. 223

are broken down or reabsorbed, just as in the human embryo the gill-
arches disappear, or are transformed into organs required in the next
higher stage.

If, in the insect pupal stage, the development of the higher struct-
ural stage begins simultaneously with, or immediately after, that of a
lower stage, the latter is interfered with by a superior energy. It can
not obtain full unfoldment, and may gain but a rudimentary forma-
tion, which may be immediately reabsorbed, to answer the demands of
the superior modifying energy. Two unlike energies seem fighting
for the nutriment, and the stronger wins. Instances of this principle
of development are common in embryo growth, and act to check or to
completely abolish the unfoldment of ancestral features. In the case
of the ant we may look upon it as the cause of the lack of appearance
of the worker characteristics in the development of the queen, and of
their full development where the conditions are such as to prevent the
innate powers of sexual unfoldment from coming into play, and to
restrict development at a lower level. It need scarcely be added that
in the case of these insects the check to development is final. On
leaving the pupa-case, they enter upon a life of active nutrition, in
which the powers of development already in operation may produce
their full results, but in which the latent higher powers are definitely
restrained. In all cases of insect development, and doubtless to a cer-
tain extent in all animals, a state of passivity is requisite to active
transformation of tissue, while simple growth is the prevailing tend-
ency in states of activity and abundant nutrition. In these latter
states organic development may proceed, but it is simply the com-
pletion of lines of development which began in the passive state. New
lines of development do not begin during nutritive activity. Of this
principle many illustrations might be given, had we the space here to
adduce them.

In the case already cited, of the hydroid polyps, this principle of
development yields some remarkable results. In many instances the
sexual individuals unfold into the full medusoid type, and leave the
colony to enjoy a free life. In others they remain attached to the
colony, and are more or less checked in their full development. This
check to development is so great, in certain instances, that a mere bud
appears, to bear the generative products. Thus the sexual, instead of
being the typical form, remains as a formless protrusion of the polyp
stem, or the germs may originate in this stem with no form develop-
ment.

Yet this seeming anomaly is not without its explanation under the
above principle. Where free Medusae are produced, the sexual organs
and products do not appear until after full development and freedom
from the colony are attained. In the other cases mentioned the gen-
erative products appear earlier, and it is probably their appearance
that checks further form development. The innate tendency to de-

224 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

velop the medusa form is hindered by the early unf oldment of the supe-
rior tendency to sexual develojiment, which exhausts the vital energies
and absorbs or prevents the formation of other tissue adapted to the
lower life-purposes. The needs of this highest life-power tyrannize
over all lower powers, and as soon as it appears all other development
ceases. In most animals it is the final step, after all lower stages
are completed. Here it is occasionally the initial step, and exhausts
the developmental powers before any of the lower stages have ap-
peared.

In plants the same principle holds good. Active nutrition checks
development, and unfoklment ceases at the leaf or the root stage. For
full development, nutrition must be checked ; when a partial resting-
stage succeeds, higher transformation sets in, and the sexual bud or
the flower individual appears. In many cases hints of the leaf stage
of development are displayed. In others this stage is completely
aborted. Thus the leaf-bearing individual, in its lack of power to
reproduce itself, and in its structural and functional differences from
the flower individual, is closely analogous to the case of neuter insects
as compared Math the sexual forms. In plants, also, we have instances
of the aborted development of the sexual forms, closely analogous to
those seen in the Ilydrozoa. Thus, in these remarkable phenomena
of development there seems to be a close relation between the tenants
of the two great kingdoms of life.

MASSON'S INTEErEETATION OF CARLYLE.*

THERE is nothing sadder or more painful in the history of litera-
ture than that eclipse of the reputation of Thomas Carlyle which
resulted from the publication after his death of various books, bio-
graphic and autobiographic, which came as a new revelation of the
inner life and pcreonality of the great author. Professor Masson, of
the University of Edinburgh, was one of his old and intimate friends,
and one of his most ardent admirers. It was but natural, therefore,
that when the great reaction came, so injurious to Carlyle's reputation,
his friend should find himself called upon to say something in vindica-
tion of that apparently much-damaged reputation. Professor Masson's
two lectures, delivered before the Philosophical Institution of Edin-
burgh in February of the present year, give an extremely interesting
view of Carlyle's character, opinions, and labors, and certainly go far
to vindicate him from much of the reproach that fell upon his name
through the publications that quickly followed his death. "We have

* " Carlyle Personally and in bis Writings." Two Edinburgh lectures by David Masson.
Macmillan & Co.

MASSOA^'S INTERPRETATION OF CARLYLE. 225

no room here to state the case as fully as it is presented in these lect-
ures. Mr. Froude was the official custodian of all the Carlylian docu-
ments, and held the great man's reputation in the hollow of his hand.
Professor Masson is justly severe upon him (as have also been many
others) for his lack of sympathetic discrimination in dealing with the
private expressions of his deceased friend, and giving to the publio
much to which it had no right, which was undoubtedly never intended
for publication, and which was an inexcusable outrage upon innocent
persons. Mr. Froude was incompetent for his editorial task : though
an intimate and life-long friend of Carlyle, he was constitutionally in-
competent to understand and do justice to his character. This is well
illustrated by the following passage from Professor Masson's first
lecture :

" Another cause which has contributed not a little to the unhappy
general effect of the nine volumes is the prevailing somberness and
lugubriousness of those portions of them which come from Mr.
Froude's own pen. In the ' Reminiscences' and the 'Letters and Me-
morials of Jane Welsh Carlyle ' these consist, of course, but of casual
editorial notes and explanations ; but, in the four volumes of the 'Bi-
ography,' they form the text of narrative and comment in which the
fragments of documentary material for all the eighty-five years of
Carlyle's life are imbedded. Now, wherever Mr. Froude himself thus
becomes the narrator or commentator, his mood is too uniformly like
that of a man driving a hearse.

" The contrast in this respect between what is from his own pen
and much of the documentary material he digests and edits is very re-
markable. There is gloom enough, seriousness enough, in the matter
of the documents ; but they are not all gloomy or serious. They
abound with the picturesque, the comic, the startlingly grotesque, or
the quaintly pleasant ; some of them actually swim in humor, or
sparkle with wit. These Mr. Froude faithfully prints, and perhaps
relishes ; but they do not seem to have any influence on his own gait
or countenance in his office of biographer. This is unfortunate. No
mind not profoundly in earnest itself could understand Carlyle, or rep-
resent him properly to others ; but, if ever there was a life that re-
quired also some considerable amount of humor in the bystander for
correct apprehension and interpretation of its singularities it was Car-
lyle's. Those about him that knew him best, always felt that the most
proper relation to much that he said and did was to take it humorous-
ly or suffuse it with humor ; and that he himself had the same feeling
and authorized it in others appeared in the frequency, almost the
habitual constancy, with which he would check his conscious exag-
gerations at the last point with some ludicrous touch of self-irony, and
would dissolve his fiercest objurgations and tumults of wrath in some
sudden phantasy of the sheerly absurd and a burst of uproarious laugh-
ter. Without a recollection of this, many a saying of his, many a

VOL. XXVIII. — 15

226 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

little incident of bis daily life, is liable even now to misconstruction,
or to interpretation out of its just proportions.

" Take for example Mr. Froude's story of Carlyle's bebavior in tbe
first days of bis wife's severe illness in 1864, from the effects of a cab
accident in the streets of London. * The nerves and muscles,' says Mr.
Froude, * were completely disabled on the side on which she bad fallen,
and one effect was that the undcr-jaw had dropped and that she could
not close it. Carlyle always disliked an open mouth ; he thought it a
sign of foolishness. One morning, when tbe pain was at its worst, he
came into her room, and stood looking at her, leaning on tbe mantel-
piece. ' Jane,' he said presently, * ye had better shut your mouth.' She
tried to tell him that she could not. * Jane,' he began again, ' ye'll find
yourself in a more compact and pious frame of mind if ye shut your
mouth.' This story Mr. Froude received, he tells us, from Mrs. Car-
lyle herself ; and there is no doubt as to its authenticity. "What I am
sure of is that Mr. Froude treats it too gravely, or might lead his
readers to treat it too gravely, by missing that sense of the pure fun
of tbe thing which was present in Mrs. Carlyle's mind when she re-
membered it afterward, however provoking it may have been at the
moment.

" Insufficient appreciation of the amount of consciously humorous,
and mutually admiring, give-and-take of this kind in the married life
of the extraordinary pair, both of them so sensitively organized, has
had much to do, it seems to me, with that elaborately studied contrast
of them and too painful picture of their relations which Mr. Froude
has succeeded in impressing upon the public. There were, it is true,
passages of discord between them, of temporary jealousy and a sense
of injury on one side at least, from causes too deep to be reached by
this explanation ; but it rubs away many a superficial roughness ; and,
if Mr. Froude had been more susceptible of humorous suggestions
from his subject, he w^ould not, I believe, have found this married life
of Carlyle and Jane Welsh so exceptionally a tragedy throughout in
comparison with other married lives, and would not have kept up such
a uniform strain of dolefulness in his own performance of the part of
the chorus. The immense seriousness of Carlyle's own mind and views
of things, the apparent prevalence of the dark and dismal in his own
action and monologue through the drama, even required, I should say,
an unusual power of lightsomcness in the chorus, and this not as
mere trick for literary relief, but actually for insight, correction, and
compensation."

The lecture from which this passage is taken is full of acute insight
into the personality of Carlyle, and is extremely interesting as a study
in the interpretation of character ; but the second lecture on "Carlyle's
Literary Life and bis Creed " will have such a special interest for the
readers of the " Monthly " that we propose to make copious quotations
from it.

MASSOJV'S INTERPRETATION OF CARLYLE. 227

Professor Masson begins by looking into the causes of the " belat-
edness " of Carlyle's literary life, or why it was so late before he
achieved the success of world-wide recognition. He reminds us that
Keats, Shelley, and Byron, who were contemporaries of Carlyle, had
blazed into celebrity, finished their careers, and died, while Carlyle
was yet an unknown man. Macaulay, who was by five years a younger
man, had a brilliant national fame before Carlyle was recognized.
" Not till 1837, when Carlyle was in his forty-second year, and had
been three years resident in London — or, rather, not till between 1837
aud 1840, when he was advancing from his forty-second year to his
forty-fifth — did he burst fully upon the public. His 'History of the
French Revolution,' published in 1837, began his popularity, not only
evoking applauses for itself, but lifting up the unfortunate 'Sartor
Resartus ' into more friendly recognition." The "Miscellanies" and
"Chartism" followed, and in 1840 appeared "Heroes and Hero-Wor-
ship," at which time we may assume that Carlyle had reached his full
British celebrity.

Professor Masson speculates very suggestively over this phenome-
non, calling attention to a profound change that gradually came over
Carlyle's work, in which he passes from the superficial phase of litera-
ture about literature to the graver and deeper problems of human soci-
ety and human action, and in which the mere litterateur is merged in
the more serious philosopher.

" The causes of this ' belatedness ' of Carlyle's literary life, to use
an expression of Milton's, were various. There had, certainly, been
no original defect or sluggishness of genius. The young Carlyle who
had just completed his classes in Edinburgh University, the young
Carlyle drudging at schoolmastering in Kirkcaldy, the young Carlyle of
the next few years again walking in the streets of Edinburgh and liv-
ing by private tutorship and hack-writing, was essentially the same
Carlyle that became famous afterward — the same in moodiness, the
same in moral magnanimity and integrity, the same in intellectual
strength of grasp. One is astonished now by the uniformity of the
testimonies of his intimates of those early days to his literary and
other powers, the boundlessness of the terms in which they predicted
his future distinction. His own early letters are also in the evidence.
They are wonderful letters to have been written in the late teens and
early twenties of a Scottish student's life, and paint him as even then
a tremendous kind of person. As respects Carlyle's * belatedness,' then,
may not the fact that his element was to be prose and not verse count
for something ? It would seem as if that peculiar kind of poetic genius
which tends to verse as its proper form of expression can always attain
to mastery in that form with less of delay and discipline than is re-
quired for mastery in prose ; and, at all events, the traditions of liter-
ature are such that the appearance of a new genius in verse is always
more quickly hailed by the public than anything corresponding in

228 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

prose. Now, much as Carlyle struggled after the faculty of metrical
expression, ease in that faculty had evidently been denied him by
Nature, and it was in prose or nothing that he was to manifest his
Buperiority. Nay, in his earliest prose-writings for the press one ob-
serves something of the same stifPness, hard effort, and want of fluency
that characterize almost all his verse-attempts. This, however, must
have been in great part accidental ; for we have only to go to some of
his private letters, dashed off in his twentieth year or thereabout, to
see that he had already acquired his marvelous power of picturesque
and eloquent expression, and was master of a swift, firm, and musical
style. But, for such a literary career as his was to be, mere gift of
expression, however fluent and eloquent, was not enough. It was not
enough that he should be able to write fluently and eloquently in a
general way, by the exercise of mere natural talent, on any subject
that turned up. He had to provide himself amply with matter, with
systematized knowledge of all sorts, and especially with systematized
historical knowledge. Hence the depth and extent of his readings,
the range and perseverance of his studies in French, German, Italian,
and Spanish, in addition to Latin and English. For writings so full-
bodied as those he was to give to the world, it was necessary that he
should step into literature as already himself a x>olyhistor or accom-
plished universal scholar ; and, when he did step conspicuously into
literature, it was in fact as already such a polyhisior. — In connection
with which it is worth while to note how completely by that time Car-
lyle had emancipated himself from the common idea of so many of his
literary contemporaries that literature ought to consist in writing about
literature. To this day what are the chief subjects of the essays and
books continually set forth by our professed authors ? Why, the lives
and writings of previous authors, the pei'sonages and phenomena of the
past literary history of the world. We have Homer, Dante, Shake-
speare, Milton, Goethe, and the other literary dii majorum gentium,
over and over again, with descents to as many of the literary dii mino-
rimx gentium as may be necessary for variety ; and the public is thus
deluged with an eternal, ever-flowing literature merely about liter-
ature. Now, though Carlyle began in this way too — as witness his
essays on Jean Paul Richter, on Goethe and Faust, on Burns, on Ger-
man Playwrights, etc. — there were premonitions even then, both in his
mode of handling these subjects and in the fact that such essays were
interspersed with others of a more general and philosophic kind, that
ho would not dwell long in the clement of mere literary history and
a)sthetic criticism, or be satisfied with adding his own contributions,
however excellent, to the perpetual conversation about ' Shakespeare
and the musical glasses.' Accordingly, before he had fully established
himself, he had taken final leave of the mere literature about literature,
and had moved on into a literature appertaining to human society and
human action generally, to war and statesmanship, to poverty and

MASSOW'S INTERPRETATION OF CARLYLE. 229

crime, to the quicqidd ajunt Jiommes in all lands and ages, literature
as but one of the interests. As the capacity for this had to be included
in his polyhistoric preparation, we have here also perhaps one of the
causes of his comparative ' belatedness.' But there was another, and
the chief of all. It lies in that fundamental characteristic of Carlyle's
literary genius which Goethe had detected as early as 1827. ' It is ad-
mirable in Carlyle,' said Goethe to Eckermann in the July of that year,
' that in his judgments of our German authors he has especially in view
the mental and moral core as that which is really influential. Carlyle
is a moral force of great importance ; there is in him much for the
future, and we can not foresee what he will produce and effect.'
Goethe here struck the key-note. It was the depth and strength of
the ynoral element in Carlyle's constitution that was to impart to his
literary career its extraordinary importance and its special character
of originality. Precisely on this account, however — precisely because
he was to be no ordinary man of letters, turning out book after book
as an artist turns out picture after picture, but a new moral force in
the British community and the whole English-speaking community of
the world — he had to bide his time. He had to ascertain and reason
out his principles ; he had to form his creed. When he did burst
fully upon the public it was to be not only as the polyhistor, not only
as the humorist, not only as the splendid prose-artist, but also — to use
a cant phrase which I do not like, though Carlyle himself rather fa-
vored it — as the Chelsea Prophet."

" But if Carlyle was slow in his own individual development, so that
the success was long postponed, he must be regarded as slower, and
still more ' belated,' with regard to the great progress of thought in
this century. He belonged to a former age, and lived over into an age
for which he was not prepared, and which he could not understand. He
was an earnest man — a man, indeed, of great religious seriousness, and
preached loyalty to truth as the supreme duty — but he was behind the
age in knowing what truth is or how it is to be found. Of science he
knew nothing, and could neither enter into its spirit nor employ its
methods, nor even accept its great results. He had positive and sys-
tematic views which, although vague, he held with such great tenacity
that he was disqualified from entering into those larger conceptions of
Nature and the universe which pervade modern thought," On the
creed and philosophy of Carlyle Professor Masson expatiates as fol-
lows :

" No need at this time of day to dilate on the literary merits of
Carlyle's works. There they stand on our shelves, as extraordinary
an array of volumes for combined solidity and splendor, all the prod-
uct of one pen, as can be pointed to in the literature of English prose.
It is with the creed running through the volumes that we are now con-
cerned, that system of ideas by virtue of which Carlyle became, as
Goethe predicted he would become, a powerful moral force in his gen-

230 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

eration, and on account of which his contemporaries styled him latterly
the Chelsea Prophet.

" The first name affixed to Carlyle to signify a perception of the
difference of his ways of thinking from those of other people was
Mystic. This was the name given to him long ago in that Edinburgh
circle round Jeffrey which he first stirred by his personal peculiarities
when he was a resident in Comely Bank, and by his articles on Ger-
man subjects. He seemed to be the apostle of an unknown something
called ' German Mysticism,' and to be trying to found a school of
'English Mystics.' lie dallied with the term himself for a while,
and even took it with him to London. Intrinsically, however, there
could have been no more absurd designation. By the whole cast of
his intellect Carlyle was even the reverse of a mystic, constrained as
he was always to dcfiniteness of intellectual conception and to optical
clearness of representation ; and, though he had a kindly eye toward
the Mystics, he could make nothing of them except by unmysticizing
them — his essay on Novalis, for example, being an unsatisfactory at-
tempt to extract gleams out of the opaque. It was the novelty of
Carlyle's principles to those among whom they were first propounded,
the strangeness of the objects he tried to bring within their ken, that
occasioned the resort to such a misfitting epithet. A far fitter desig-
nation would have been Transcendentalist. Pardon me if I detain
you a little with this word from the scholastic nomenclature and its
applicability to Carlyle. It is easy enough to understand, and we
have really no other name so suitable for the thing.

" A Transcendentalist in philosophy is the very opposite of what we
call a Secularist. lie is the opponent of that system of philosophy
which " apprehends no further than this world and squares one's life
according," that system of philosophy which regards the visible uni-
verse of time, space, and human experience as the sum total of all
reality, and existing humanity in the midst of this universe as the
topmost thing now in being. Beyond, and around, and even in this
visible universe, the Transcendentalist holds — this world of sun, moon,
and stars, and of the earth and human history in the midst — there is
a supernatural world, a world of eternal and infinite mystery, invisi-
ble and inconceivable, yet most real, and so interconnected with the
ongoings of the visible universe that constant reference to it is the
supreme necessity of the human spirit, the highest duty of man, and
the indispensable condition of all that is best in the human genius.
In this sense Carlyle was a transcendentalist from the very first. He
believed in a world of eternal and infinite realities transcending our
finite world of time, space, sense, experience, and conceivability.

" In the scholastic nomenclature, however, there may be recog-
nized two distinct varieties of Transcendentalism. There is, first,
what may be called Idealistic Transcendentalism or Transcendental
Idealism. By this idealistic theory all the apparent universe of known

MASSOJV'S INTERPRETATION OF CARLYLE. 231

external realities — sun, moon, stars, rocks, clouds, earth, and human
history and tradition — is resolved or reduced into mere present think-
ings of your mind or my mind, a mere complex phantasmagory of the
present human spirit ; and therefore it is through this present human
spirit that one has to seek the all-explaining bond of connection be-
tween the real world of finite nature and the real and infinite super-
natural world. Now, though Carlyle was acquainted with this ideal-
istic theory, had evident likings for it, and now and then favored it
with a passing glance of exposition, I can not find that he had ever
worked out the theory in all its bearings — an enormously difficult busi-
ness— or adopted it intimately for his own behoof. He remained to
the end what may be called a Realistic Transcendentalist or Tran-
scendental Mealist. By this is meant that he was satisfied to think of
the world of space and time, and of all physical and historical reali-
ties, as having substantially existed, in its essential fabric at least, very
much as we imagine it by an independent tenure from the Infinite,
distinct from that of all past or present conceiving minds inserted into
it and in traffic with it.

"Here, however, we may note an interesting peculiarity of his
special form of Realistic Transcendentalism, which latterly gave him
some trouble. Though he talks of ' rude nations,' ' rude times,' etc.,
and recognized perhaps a certain progress in human conditions and
even in the human organism, he seems essentially to have always
thought of humanity as a self-contained entity, fully fashioned within
itself from the first, and cut off from all its material surroundings and
from any priority of material beginnings. Hence his oppugnancy in
his latter days to the modern scientific doctrine of evolution as brought
into vogue more especially by the reasonings of Darwin. For a trans-
cendentalist of the idealistic sort the doctrine of evolution can have
no terrors. If the world of space, time, and history is but a fabrica-
tion of our present thinkings, a phantasmagory of the present human
spirit, what does it matter how much our present thinkings may change,
or how many seons of so-called time and imagined processes and marches
of events we may find it necessary to throw into our phantasmagory ?
For the transcendental realist the difficulty is greater. Though he has
the ultimate relief of believing that the entire procession or evolution
of things physical as modern science would represent it— from the
Universal Nebula on to the dispersed starry immensity, and so to the
solar system, our earth as a planet in that system, and the history of
that separate earth through the ages of its existence since it became
separate — is but one vast forth-putting or manifestation of the incon-
ceivable Absolute, he docs not like to think of himself, the paragon of
animals, or of the human mind and soul, as in any way really derived
from this antecedent physical evolution, and more especially from
those nearer portions of it which concern our separate earth and lead
from protoplasmic slime, through differentiated bestialism, to a spe-

232 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

cial ancestry in the ape. Some transcendental realists do get over the
difficulty ; but Carlyle never could. In June, 18G8, he wrote in his
journal as follows :

" ' Surely the speed with which matters are going on in this su-
preme province of our affairs is something notable and sadly undeni-
able in late years. . . . "All descended from gorillas, seemingly."
" Sun made by collision of huge masses of planets, asteroids, etc., in
the infinite of space." Very possibly, say I. " Then where is the
place for a Creator ? " The fool hath said in his heart there is no
God. From the beginning it has been so, is now, and to the end will
be so. The fool hath said it — he and nobody else ; and with dismal
results in our days — as in all days ; which often makes me sad to
think of, coming nearer myself and the end of my life than I ever ex-
pected they would do. That of the sun, and his possibly being made
in that manner, seemed to me a real triumph of science, indefinitely
widening the horizon of our theological ideas withal, and awakened a
good many thoughts in me when I first heard of it, and gradually per-
ceived that there was actual scientific basis for it — I suppose the finest
stroke that " Science," poor creature, has or may have succeeded in
making during my time : welcome to me if it be a truth, honorably
welcome ! But what has it to do with the existence of the Eternal
Unnaraable ? '

"The speculation as to the genesis of the sun and the probable du-
ration of his heat here adverted to by Carlyle with such recognition of
its real importance came before him first, I believe, in the form of a
paper by Sir William Thomson, of Glasgow, which I had myself the
honor of inserting in ' Macmillan's Magazine.' He was much struck
with the paper at the time, and often mentioned it to me afterward.
It is characteristic that he should have had less objection to this specu-
lation, assigning a definite beginning to the whole solar system, and
pointing perhaps to its ultimate collapse and the cessation of all ter-
restrial life, humanity included, with the extinction of the sun's heat,
than to the nearer scientific speculation as to the evolution of species
on the earth itself and man's descent from the gorilla. It is as if he
found the imagination of a wholesale crash, whether of formation or
of annihilation, in the far-back vast of physical immensity, or the far-
future vast of the same, more cleanly, and therefore more endurable,
than any imagination of a materialistic derivation of the human organ-
ism, through the ape and what not, from earthly protoplasmic slime.
On the whole, one may say that he lived too late to be able to accept the
modern scientific doctrine of evolution and work it into his philosophy,,
and remained therefore at the last a transcendental realist of the old
school. Or perhaps, with the foregoing passage to enlighten us, it
might be fairer to say that, whatever conceptions of a cosmic evo-
lution science might bring in, he found them irrelevant to the main
matter, and did not care a rush about them in comparison with the

MAS SON'S INTERPRETATION OF CARLYLE. 233

main matter — which was that men should continue to believe that all
things had originated in a supreme and infinite eternal, the reality of
all realities, and should walk in that belief as their religion.

" One may be a Transcendentalist in philosophy, however, whether
of the Idealistic or of the Realistic sort, and yet go through the world
calmly and composedly. Not so with Carlyle. Jeffrey's laughing
complaint about him in the first days of their acquaintance was that
he was always ' so dreadfully in earnest ' ; and no one can study the
records of his early life without seeing what Jeffrey meant. Carlyle's
vitality from his youth upward was something enormous. There was
nothing sluggish or sleepy or cool in his constitution, and no capacity
for being sluggish or sleepy or cool. lie was always restlessly awake ;
to whatever subject he addressed himself, he grasped it, or coiled him-
self round it, as with muscles all on strain and nerves all a-tingling ;
and, when he had formed his conclusions, he was vehement in an-
nouncing them and aggressive in their propagation. Necessarily this
was the case most of all with his conclusions on subjects the greatest
and most fundamental. ' Woe to them that are at ease in Zion ' was
a text quite after his own heart, and which he was fond of applying
to those •sf.h.o seemed to him to be sufficiently right in the main in their
private ways of thinking on the deepest problems, but not to be suffi-
ciently earnest in fighting for their conclusions and rousing and agi-
tating society to get them accepted. Plato himself, the supreme tran-
scendentalist of anticjuity, and to this day unapproacbed among man-
kind for the magnificent sweep of clear intellect and the beauty and
gorgeousness of poetic expression with which he expounded Tran-
scendentalism once for all to the philosophic world, was in this cate-
gory with Carlyle. ' He was a gentleman very much at ease in Zion '
was Carlyle's definition of him. In fact, with the exception of Shake-
speare in Elizabethan England and of Goethe in more recent times, the
calm and composed type of character, in matters of sublime concern,
was not that which won Carlyle's highest regard.

*' Dropping now all terms of scholastic nomenclature, we may say,
more simply, that Carlyle went through the world as a fervid Theist.
God, the Almighty, the Maker of all— through all the eighty-five
years of Carlyle's life, all the seventy of his speech and writing, this
was his constant phrase to his fellow-mortals. ' There is a God, there
is a God, there is a God ' — not even did the Koran of Mohammed
fulminate this message more incessantly in the ears, or burn it more
glowingly into the hearts, of the previously atheistic Arabs whom
the inspired camel-driver sought to rouse, than did the series of Car-
lyle's writings fulminate it and try to make it blaze in a region and
generation where, as he imagined, despite all the contrary appear-
ances of organized churches and myriads of clergy and of pulpits, the
canker of atheism was again all but universal. When he avoided the
simple name *God' or 'the Almighty,' and had recourse to those

234 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

phrases — *the Immensities,' 'the Eternities,' * the Silences,' 'the Infi-
nite Unnamable' — which we now think of, perhaps smilingly, as
peculiar forms of the Carlylian rhetoric, it was, as be himself tells us,
because 'the old Numen' had become as if obsolete to 'the huge idly
impious million of writing, preaching, and talking people,' and he
would employ any synonyms or verbal shifts by which he could hope
to bring back the essential notion. In his latter days, and always in
his own pious self- communings, he seems to have preferred the simple
old name he had learned from his father and mother, with its heart-
thrilling and hearc-softening associations."

Professor Masson then enters upon the question of Carlyle's rela-
tion to Christianity, which is too fully treated for insertion here. The
curious reader is referred to the discussion itself, which is remarkably
interesting. Professor Masson distinguishes between the Ethic, or the
moral code of Christianity, and its Metaphysic, or body of supernatu-
rally derived beliefs. Carlyle accepted the former, but rejected the
latter, which, Professor Masson argues, is after all the essential and
distinguishing attribute of Christianity. On this point he thus rea-
sons :

" The ethic without this metaphysic may call itself Christianity, but
is not, I hold, Christianity in any sense worth so special a name. To
tell men, however earnestly, not to tell lies, not to commit fraud, to be
temperate, honest, truthful, merciful, even to be humble, pious, and
God-fearing, is very good gospel ; but it did not require the events
of Judea, as Christian theology interprets them, to bring that gospel
into the world. The modern preacher who sermonizes always on the
ethic and omits the accompanying metaphysic may sophisticate him-
self into a belief that he is preaching Christianity, but is preaching no
such thing. Wherever Christianity has been of real effect in the
world, and has made real way for its own ethic, it has been by its
metaphysic — that set of doctrines respecting things supernatural which
was to the Jews a stumbling-block and to the Greeks foolishness.
Now, as Carlyle had wholly given up the metaphysic of Christianity,
he can not be classed among the Christians, and thought it honest to
avow that he could not be so classed. Indeed, more and more, his atti-
tude toward Christian theology in any of its known and orthodox
forms settled into positive antipathy, till at last he declared it to be
inconceivable to him that any man of real intellect could be found
in that camp without something of conscious insincerity, and looked
askance, therefore, on even such ecclesiastical friends of his own as Bish-
op Thirlwall and Bishop Wilberforce. This feeling found vent in such
violent phrases as shovel-hattedncss, the Jcxc- God, etc. ; and he had even
been so daring as to project a book or pamphlet to be called 'Exo-
dus from Iloundsditch,' the purport of which was to be that people
ought universally, as fast as they could, to come out of the land and
atmosphere of all Jewish forms and traditions, older or later, only tak-

MASSOJV'S INTERPRETATION OF CARLYLE. 235

ing care to pack up what was really their own and bring that along
with them."

The scientific deficiency of Carlyle's mind was nowhere displayed
more strikingly than in his scornful rejection of what science has
accomplished in the very fields which he himself cultivated — i. e., the
phenomena of human and social afllairs. Political economy, as is well
known, was his abomination. He is forever talking of " facts," but
forever deriding those who studied them methodically. On this point,
Professor Masson observes :

" What was even worse, Carlyle not only refused the trouble of con-
siderations of the merely mechanical kind himself, but regarded too
generally with contempt the labors and speculations of others in that
region. His impatience of reasoned political science in any form, and
especially in the form of that modern political economy which he de-
rided as ' the dismal science,' really shut him out, more than he was
himself aware, from that intimacy with the * fact of things ' which he
defined so energetically as the all-essential necessity for men of all
sorts and the sole attainable wisdom. It is by science only, by rea-
soned investigation only, that we can know, in any department, what
is the real 'fact of things' ; and till we know, from the teachings of
strict political science, whether in its present form of so-called politi-
cal economy, or in some larger and better form, all that we can know
of the real ' fact of things ' in that department, our practical efforts
in politics and philanthropy will continue to be, as they have too much
been heretofore, mere knocking of our heads against stone walls, mere
pourings of water into sieves. Not less in all matters and contempla-
tions, physical and cosmological, must we receive our instructions as to
the real ' fact of things ' from the sciences thereto appertaining. If
science tells us surely and conclusively that such and such was and has
been the course of actual physical nature, then we are bound, whether
we like it or not, to imagine the past physical course of things pre-
cisely in that manner ; and, if we persist in imagining it one whit
otherwise, we incur the guilt of opposing the light, and are untrue to
the 'fact of things.' Carlyle, as we have seen, acknowledged this ;
but it was but a passing acknowledgment. He was too old, his invet-
eracy in the constitutional faiths of his own spirit was too confirmed,
to permit him to adjust these faiths to the new cosmological concep-
tions which science was making imperative in his later days, or even
to perceive that it was of any great consequence that this should be
done."

236 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

RELATIONS OF SCIENCE TO THE PUBLIC WEAL.*

By Sir LYON PLAYFAIE, K. C. B., M. P., F. E. S.
TART SECOXD.

Y SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. — In the popular mind the
• value of science is measured by its applications to the use-
ful purposes of life. It is no doubt true that science wears a
beautiful aspect when she confers practical benefits upon man. But
truer relations of science to industry are implied in Greek mytholo-
gy. Vulcan, the god of industry, wooed science, in the form of
Minerva, with a passionate love, but the chaste goddess never mar-
ried, although she conferred upon mankind nearly as many arts as
Prometheus, who, like other inventors, saw civilization progressing
by their use while he lay groaning in want on Mount Caucasus.
The rapid development of industry in modern days depends on the
applications of scientific knowledge, while its slower growth in for-
mer times was due to experiments being made by trial and error
in order to gratify the needs of man. Then an experiment was
less a questioning of Nature than an exercise on the mind of the
experimentalist. For a true questioning of Nature only arises when
intellectual conceptions of the causes of phenomena attach them-
selves to ascertained facts as well as to their natural environments.
Much real science had at one time accumulated in Egypt, Greece,
Rome, and Arabia, though it became obscured by the intellectual
darkness which spread over Europe like a pall for many centu-
ries. The mental results of Greek science, filtered through the Ro-
mans and Arabians, gradually fertilized the soil of Europe. Even in
ages which are deemed to be dark and unprolific, substantial though
slow progress was made. By the end of the fifteenth century the
mathematics of the Alexandrian school had become the possession of
Western Europe ; Arabic numerals, algebra, trigonometry, decimal
reckoning, and an improved calendar, having been added to its stock
of knowledge. The old discoveries of Democritus and Archimedes in
physics, and of Ilipparchus and Ptolemy in astronomy, were produc-
ing their natural developments, though with great slowness. Many
manufactures, growing chiefly by experience, and occasionally light-
ened up by glimmerings of science throughout the prevailing darkness,
had arisen before the sixteenth century. A knowledge of the proper-
ties of bodies, though scarcely of their relations to each other, came
through the labors of the alchemists, who had a mighty impulse to
work, for by the philosopher's stone, often not larger than half a rape-

* InaucT'iral address of the President of the P.rilish Association for the Advancement
of Science, at tlic Aberdeen meeting, September 9, 1885.

RELATIONS OF SCIENCE TO THE PUBLIC WEAL. 237

seed, they hoped to attain the three sensuous conditions of human en-
joyment, gold, health, and immortality. By the end of the fifteenth
century many important manufactures were founded by empirical ex-
periment, with only the uncertain guidance of science. Among these
were the compass, printing, paper, gunpowder, guns, watches, forks,
knitting-needles, horseshoes, bells, wood-cutting and copper-engraving,
wire-drawing, steel, table-glass, spectacles, microscopes, glass mirrors
backed by amalgams of tin and lead, windmills, crushing and saw
mills. These important manufactures arose from an increased knowl-
edge of facts, around which scientific conceptions were slowly concret-
ing. Aristotle defines this as science when he says, " Art begins when,
from a great number of experiences, one general conception is formed
which will embrace all similar cases." Such conceptions are formed
only when culture develops the human mind and compels it to give a
rational account of the world in which man lives, and of the objects in
and around it, as well as of the phenomena which govern their action
and evolution. Though the accumulation of facts is indispensable to
the growth of science, a thousand facts are of less value to human
progress than is a single one when it is scientifically comprehended,
for it then becomes generalized in all similar cases. Isolated facts
may be viewed as the dust of science. The dust which floats in the
atmosphere is to the common observer mere incoherent matter in a
wrong place, while to the man of science it is all-important when the
rays of heat and light act upon its floating particles. It is by them
that clouds and rains are influenced ; it is by their selective influence
on the solar waves that the blue of the heavens and the beauteous col-
ors of the sky glorify all Nature. So, also, ascertained though isolated
facts, forming the dust of science, become the reflecting media of the
light of knowledge, and cause all Nature to assume a new aspect. It
is with the light of knowledge that we are enabled to question Nature
through direct experiment. The hypothesis or theory which induces
us to put the experimental question maybe right or wrong ; still, /)r««-
dens questio dimicUiim scientice est — it is half-way to knowledge when
you know what you have to inquire. Davy described hypothesis as
the mere scaffolding of science, useful to build up true knowledge, but
capable of being put up or taken down at pleasure. Undoubtedly a
theory is only temporary, and the reason is, as Bacon has said, that
the man of science "loveth truth more than his theory." The chang-
ing theories which the world despises are the leaves of the tree of sci-
ence drawing nutriment to the parent stems, and enabling it to put
forth new branches and to produce fruit ; and, though the leaves fall
and decay, the very products of decay nourish the roots of the tree
and reappear in the new leaves or theories which succeed.

When the questioning of Nature by intelligent experiment has
raised a system of science, then those men who desire to apply it to
industrial inventions proceed by the same methods to make rapid

238 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

progress in the arts. They also must have means to compel Kature
to reveal her secrets, -^neas succeeded in his great enterprise by
plucking a golden branch from the tree of science. Armed with this
even dread Charon dared not refuse a passage across the Styx ; and
the gate of the Elysian fields was unbarred when he hung the branch
on its portal. Then new aspects of Nature were revealed :

*' Auother sun and stars they know
That shine like ours, but shine below."

It is by carrying such a golden branch from the tree of science that
inventors are able to advance the arts. In illustration of how slowly
at first and how rapidly afterward science and its applications arise,
I will take only two out of thousands of examj)les which lie ready to
my hand. One of the most familiar instances is air, for that surely
should have been soon understood if man's unaided senses are sufficient
for knowledge. Air has been under the notice of mankind ever since
the first man drew his first breath. It meets him at every turn ; it
fans him with gentle breezes, and it buffets him with storms. And
yet it is certain that this familiar object — air — is very imperfectly
understood up to the present time. We now know by recent researches
that air can be liquefied by pressure and cold ; but as a child still looks
upon air as nothing, so did man in his early state. A vessel filled
with air was deemed to be empty. But man, as soon as he began to
speculate, felt the importance of air, and deemed it to be a soul of the
world upon which the respiration of man and the godlike quality of
fire depended. Yet a really intelligent conception of these two essen-
tial conditions to man's existence, respiration and combustion, was not
formed till about a century ago (1775). No doubt long before that
time there had been abundant speculations regarding air. Anaximenes,
five hundred and forty-eight years before Christ, and Diogenes of
Apollonia, a century later, studied the properties of air so far as their
senses would allow them ; so, in fact, did Aristotle. Actual scientific
experiments were made on air about the year 1100 by a remarkable
Saracen, Alhazen, who ascertained important truths which enabled
Galileo, Torricelli, Otto de Guericke, and others at a later period, to
discover laws leading to important practical applications. Still there
was no intelligent conception as to the composition of air until Priest-
ley in 1774 repeated, with the light of science, an empirical observation
which Eck de Sulbach had made three hundred years before upon the
union of mercury with an ingredient of air, and the decomposition of
this compound by heat. This experiment now pi'oved that the active
element in air is oxygen. From that date our knowledge, derived
from an intelligent questioning of air by direct experiments, has gone
on by leaps and bounds. The air, which mainly consists of nitrogen
and oxygen, is now known to contain carbonic acid, ammonia, nitric
acid, ozone, besides hosts of living organisms which have a vast influ-

RELATIONS OF SCIENCE TO THE PUBLIC WEAL. 239

ence for good or evil in the economy of the world. These micro-or-
ganisms, the latest contribution to our knowledge of air, perform great
analytical functions in organic nature, and are the means of converting
much of its potential energy into actual energy. Through their action
on dead matter the mutual dependence of plants and animals is secured,
so that the air becomes at once the grave of organic death and the
cradle of organic life. No doubt the ancients suspected this without
being able to prove the dependence. Euripides seems to have seen it
deductively when he describes the results of decay :

" Then that which springs from earth, to earth returns,
And that which draws its being from the sky
Rises again up to the skyey height."

The consequences of the progressive discoveries have added largely
to our knowledge of life, and have given a marvelous development to
the industrial arts. Combustion and respiration govern a wide range
of processes. The economical use of fuel, the growth of plants, the
food of animals, the processes of husbandry, the maintenance of pub-
lic health, the origin and cure of disease, the production of alcoholic
drinks, the processes of making vinegar and saltpeter — all these and
many other kinds of knowledge have been brought under the domin-
ion of law. No doubt animals respired, fuel burned, plants grew,
sugar fermented, before we knew how they depended upon air. But,
as the knowledge was empirical, it could not be intelligently directed.
Now all these processes are ranged in order under a wise economy of
Nature, and can be directed to the utilities of life : for it is true, as
Swedenborg says, that human "ends always ascend as Nature de-
scends." There is scarcely a large industry in the world which has
not received a mighty impulse by the better knowledge of air acquired
within a hundred years. If I had time I could show still more strik-
ingly the industrial advantages which have followed from Cavendish's
discovery of the composition of water. I wish that I could have done
this, because it was Addison who foolishly said, and Paley who as un-
wisely approved the remark, that "mankind required to know no more
about water than the temperature at which it froze and boiled, and
the mode of making steam."

When we examine the order of progress in the arts, even before
they are illumined by science, their improvements seem to be the re-
sultants of three conditions :

1. The substitution of natural forces for brute animal power, as
when Hercules used the waters of the Alpheus to cleanse the Augean
stables ; or when a Kamchadal of Eastern Asia, who has been three
years hollowing out a canoe, finds that he can do it in a few hours by
fire.

2. The economy of time, as when a calendering machine produces
the same gloss to miles of calico that an African savage gives to a

240 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

few inches by rubbing it with the shell of a snail ; or the economy of
production, as when steel pens, sold when first introduced at one shilling
apiece, are now sold at a penny per dozen ; or when steel rails, lately
costing forty-five pounds per ton, can now be sold at five pounds.

3. Methods of utilizing waste products, or of endowing them with
properties which render them of increased value to industry, as when
waste scrap-iron and the galls on the oak are converted into ink ; or
the badly-smelling waste of gas-works is transformed into fragrant
essences, brilliant dyes, and fertilizing manure ; or when the effete
matter of animals or old bones is changed into lucifer-matches.

AH three results are often combined when a single end is obtained ;
at all events, economy of time and production invariably follows w^hen
natural forces substitute brute animal force. In industrial progress
the sweat of the brow is lessened by the conceptions of the brain.
How exultant is the old Greek poet, Antipater,* when women are re-
lieved of the drudgery of turning the grindstones for the daily supply
of corn ! " Woman ! you who have hitherto had to grind corn, let
your arms rest for the future. It is no longer for you that the birds
announce by their songs the dawn of the morning. Ceres has ordered
the water-nymphs to move the heavy millstones and perform your
labor." Penelo2:»e had twelve slaves to grind corn for her small house-
hold. During the most prosperous time of Athens it was estimated that
there were twenty slaves to each free citizen. Slaves are mere machines,
and machines neither invent nor discover. The bondmen of the Jews,
the helots of Sparta, the captive slaves of Rome, the serfs of Europe,
and uneducated laborers of the present day who are the slaves of igno-
rance, have added nothing to human progress. But, as natural forces
substitute and become cheaper than slave-labor, liberty follows ad-
vancing civilization. Machines require educated superintendence. One
shoe-factory in Boston by its machines does the work of thirty thou-
sand shoemakers in Paris, who have still to go through the weary
drudgery of mechanical labor. The steam-power of the world during
the last twenty years has risen from eleven and a half million to
twenty-nine million horse-power, or one hundred and fifty-two per
cent.

Let me take a single example of how even a petty manufacture
improved by the teachings of science affects the comforts and enlarges
the resources of mankind. "When I was a boy the only way of ob-
taining a light was by the tinder-box with its quadmiple materials,
flint and steel, burned rags or tinder, and a sulphur-match. If every-
thing went well, if the box could be found and the air was dry, a light
could be obtained in two minutes ; but very often the time occupied
was much longer, and the process became a great trial to the serenity
of temper. The consequence of this was, that a fire or a burning lamp
was kept alight through the day. Old Gerard, in his " Herbal," tells

* " Analecta Veterum Gracoruni," Epig. 39, vol. ii, p. 119.

RELATIONS OF SCIENCE TO THE PUBLIC WEAL. 241

us how certain fungi were used to carry fire from one part of the coun-
try to the other. The tinder-box long held its position as a great dis-
covery in the arts. The jyyxidicula igniaria of the Romans appears
to have been much the same implement, though a little ruder than the
flint and steel which Philip the Good put into the collar of the Golden
Fleece in 1429 as a representation of high knowledge in the progress
of the arts. It continued to prevail till 18o3, when phosphorus-
matches were introduced, though I have been amused to find that
there are a few venerable ancients in London who still stick to the
tinder-box, and for whom a few shops keep a small supply. Phos-
phorus was no new discovery, for it had been obtained by an Arabian
called Bechel in the eighth century. However, it was forgotten, and
was rediscovered by Brandt, who made it out of very stinking mate-
rials in 1669. Other discoveries had, however, to be made before it
could be used for lucifer-matches. The science of combustion was
only developed on the discovery of oxygen a century later. Time had
to elapse before chemical analysis showed the kind of bodies which could
be added to phosphorus so as to make it ignite readily. So it was not
till 1833 that matches became a partial success. Intolerably bad they
then were, dangerously inflammable, horribly poisonous to the makers,
and injurious to the lungs of the consumers. It required another dis-
covery by Schrotter, in 1845, to change poisonous waxy into innocu-
ous red -brick phosphorus in order that these defects might be remedied
and to give us the safety-match of the present day. Kow, what have
these successive discoveries in science done for the nation, in this sin-
gle manufacture, by an economy of time ? If before 1833 we had
made the same demands for light that we now do, when we daily con-
sume eight matches per head of the population, the tinder-box could
have supplied the demand under the most favorable conditions by an
expenditure of one quarter of an hour. The lucifer-match supplies a
light in fifteen seconds on each occasion, or in two minutes for the
whole day. Putting these differences into a year, the venerable ancient
who still sticks to his tinder-box would require to spend ninety hours
yearly in the production of light, while the user of lucifer-matches
spends twelve hours, so that the latter has an economy of seventy-
eight hours yearly, or about ten working days. Measured by cost of
production at one shilling and sixpence daily, the economy of time
represented in money to our population is twenty-six millions of
pounds annually. This is a curious instance of the manner in which
science leads to economy of time and wealth even in a small manufact-
ure. In larger industries the economy of time and labor produced
by the application of scientific discoveries is beyond all measurement.
Thus the discovery of latent heat by Black led to the inventions of
"Watt, while that of the mechanical equivalent of heat by Joule has
been the basis of the progressive improvements in the steam-engine
which enables power to be obtained by a consumption of fuel less

VOL. XXVIII. — 16

242 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

than one fourth the amount used twenty years ago. It may be that
the engines of Watt and Stephenson will yield in their turn to more
economical motors ; still, they have already expanded the wealth, re-
sources, and even the territories of England, more than all the battles
fought by her soldiers or all the treaties negotiated by her diplomatists.

The coal which has hitherto been the chief source of power jjroba-
bly represents the product of five or six million years during which
the sun shone upon the plants of the carboniferous period, and stored
up its energy in this convenient form. But we are using this con-
served force wastefully and prodigally, for, although horse-j^ower in
steam-engines has so largely increased since 1864, two men only now
produce what three men did at that date. It is only three hundred
years since we became a manufacturing country. According to Pro-
fessor Dewar, in less than two hundred years more the coal of this
country will be wholly exhausted, and in half that time will be diflS-
cult to procure. Our not very distant descendants will have to face
the problem. What will be the condition of England without coal ?
The answer to that question depends upon the intellectual develop-
ment of the nation at that time. The value of the intellectual factor
of production is continually increasing, while the values of raw mate-
rial and fuel are lessening factors. It may be that, when the dreaded
time of exhausted fuel has arrived, its importation from other coal-
fields, such as those of New South Wales, will be so easy and cheap
that the increased technical education of our operatives may largely
overbalance the disadvantages of increased cost in fuel ; but this sup-
poses that future governments in England will have more enlightened
views as to the value of science than past governments have possessed.

Industrial applications are but the overflowings of science welling
over from the fullness of its measure. Few would ask now, as was
constantly done a few years ago, " What is the use of an abstract dis-
covery in science ? " Faraday once answered this question by another,
" What is the use of a baby ? " Yet round that baby center all the
hopes and sentiments of its parents, and even the interests of the state,
which interferes in its upbringing so as to insure it being a capable
citizen. The processes of mind which produce a discovery or an
invention are rarely associated in the same person, for, while the dis-
coverer seeks to explain causes and the relations of phenomena, the
inventor aims at producing new effects, or at least of obtaining them
in a novel and efficient way. In this the inventor may sometimes suc-
ceed without much knowledge of science, though his labors are infi-
nitely more productive when he understands the causes of the effects
which he desires to produce.

A nation in its industrial progress, when the competition of the
world is keen, can not stand still. Three conditions only are possible
for it. It may go forward, retrograde, or perish. Its extinction as a
great nation follows its neglect of higher education, for, as described

RELATIONS OF SCIENCE TO THE PUBLIC WEAL. 243

in the proverb of Solomon, " They that hate instruction love death."
In sociology, as in biology, there are three states. The first of bal-
ance, when things grow neither better nor worse ; the second that of
elaboration or evolution, as we see it when animals adapt themselves
to their environments ; and third, that of degeneration, when they
rapidly lose the ground they have made. For a nation, a state of bal-
ance is only possible in the early stage of its existence, but it is impos-
sible when its environments are constantly changing.

The possession of the raw materials of industry and the existence
of a surplus population are important factors for the growth of manu-
factures in the early history of a nation, but afterward they are bound
up with another factor — the application of intellect to their develop-
ment. England could not be called a manufacturing nation till the
Elizabethan age. No doubt coal, iron, and wood were in abundance,
though, in the reign' of the Plantagenets, they produced little prosper-
ity. Wool was sent to Flanders to be manufactured, for England
then stood to Holland as Australia now does to Yorkshire. The politi-
cal crimes of Sjjain, from the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella to that
of Philip HI, destroyed it as a great manufacturing nation, and indi-
rectly led to England taking its position. Spain, through the activity
and science of the Arabian intellect, had acquired many important
industries. The IVIoors and the Moriscoes, who had been in Spain for
a period as long as from the Norman conquest of this country to the
present date, were banished, and Avith them departed the intellect of
Spain. Then the invasion of the Low Countries by Philip II drove
the Flemish manufacturers to England, while the French persecution
of the Huguenots added new manufacturing experience, and with them
came the industries of cotton, wool, and silk. Cotton mixed with
linen and wool became freely used, but it was only from 1738 to the
end of the century that the inventions of Wyatt, Arkwright, Har-
greaves, Compton, and Cartwright started the wonderful modern
development. The raw cotton was imported from India or America,
but that fact as regards cost was a small factor in comparison with
the intellect required to convert it into a utility. Science has in the
last hundred years altered altogether the old conditions of industrial
competition. She has taught the rigid metals to convey and re-
cord our thoughts even to the most distant lands, and, within less
limits, to reproduce our speech. This marvelous application of elec-
tricity has diminished the cares and responsibilities of governments,
while it has at the same time altered the whole practice of com-
merce. To England steam and electricity have been of incalculable
advantage. The ocean, which once made the country insular and iso-
lated, is now the very life-blood of England and of the greater Eng-
land beyond the seas. As in the human body the blood bathes all its
parts, and through its traveling corpuscles carries force to all its mem-
bers, so in the body politic of England and its pelasgic extensions

244 ^^^ POPULAR SCIUNCE MONTHLY.

steam has become the circulatory and electricity the nervous system.
The colonies, being young countries, value their raw materials as their
chief sources of wealth. When they become older they will discover
it is not on these, but on the culture of scientific intellect, that their
future prosperity depends. Older nations recognize this as the law of
progress more than we do ; or, as Jules Simon tersely puts it, " That
nation which most educates her people will become the greatest nation,
if not to-day, certainly to-morrow." Higher education is the condi-
tion of higher prosperity, and the nation which neglects to develop
the intellectual factor of production must degenerate, for it can not
stand still. If we felt compelled to adopt the test of science given by
Comte, that its value must be measured by fecundity, it might be pru-
dent to claim industrial inventions as the immediate fruit of the tree
of science, though only fruit which the prolific tree has shed. But
the test is untrue in the sense indicated, or rather the fruit, according
to the simile of Bacon, is like the golden apples which Aphrodite gave
to the suitor of Atalanta, who lagged in his course by stooping to pick
them up, and so lost the race. The true cultivators of the tree of sci-
ence must seek their own reward by seeing it flourish, and let others
devote their attention to the possible practical advantages which may
result from their labors.

There is, however, one intimate connection between science and
industry which I hope will be more intimate as scientific education
becomes more prevalent in our schools and universities. Abstract
science depends upon the support of men of leisure, either themselves
possessing or having provided for them the means of living without
entering into the pursuits of active industry. The pursuit of science
requires a superfluity of wealth in a community beyond the needs of
ordinary life. Such superfluity is also necessary for art, though a pict-
ure or a statue is a salable commodity, while an abstract discovery in
science has no immediate or, as regards the discoverer, proximate
commercial value. In Greece, when philosophical and scientific specu-
lation was at its highest point, and when education was conducted in
its own vernacular and not through dead languages, science, industry,
and commerce were actively prosperous. Corinth carried on the manu-
factures of Birmingham and Sheffield, while Athens combined those
of Leeds, Staffordshire, and London, for it had woolen manufactures,
potteries, gold and silver work, as well as ship-building. Their phi-
losophers were the sons of burghers, and sometimes carried on the
trades of their fathers. Thales was a traveling oil-merchant, who
brought back science as well as oil from Egypt. Solon and his great
descendant, Plato, as well as Zeno, were men of commerce, Socrates
was a stone-mason ; Thucydides a gold-miner ; Aristotle kept a drug-
gist's shop until Alexander endowed him with the wealth of Asia. All
but Socrates had a superfluity of wealth, and he was supported by
that of others. Now, if our universities and schools created that love

RELATIONS OF SCIENCE TO THE PUBLIC WEAL. 245

of science which a broad education would surely inspire, our men of
riches and leisure who advance the boundaries of scientific knowledge
could not be counted on the fingers as they now are, when we think
of Boyle, Cavendish, Napier, Lyell, Murchison, and Darwin, but
would be as numerous as our statesmen and orators. Statesmen,
without a following of the people who share their views and back
their work, would be feeble indeed. But, while England has never
lacked leaders in science, they have too few followers to risk a rapid
march. We might create an army to support our generals in science,
as Germany has done, and as France is now doing, if education in
this country would only mold itself to the needs of a scientific age.
It is with this feeling that Horace Mann wrote : " The action of the
mind is like the action of fire : one billet of wood will hardly burn
alone, though as dry as the sun and northwest wind can make it, and
though placed in a current of air ; ten such billets will burn well to-
gether, but a hundred will create a heat fifty times as intense as ten
— will make a current of air to fan their own flame, and consume
even greenness itself."

VI. Abstract Science the Condition for Progress. — The
subject of my address has been the relations of science to the public
weal. That is a very old subject to select for the year 1885. I began
it by quoting the words of an illustrious prince, the consort of our
Queen, who addressed us on the same subject from this platform twenty-
six years ago. But he was not the first prince who saw how closely
science is bound up with the welfare of states. Ali, the son-in-law of
Mohammed, the fourth successor to the caliphate, urged upon his fol-
lowers that men of science and their disciples give security to human
progress. Ali loved to say, "• Eminence in science is the highest of
honors," and " He dies not who gives life to learning." In addressing
you upon texts such as these, my purpose was to show how unwise it
is for England to lag in the onward march of science when most other
European powers are using the resources of their states to promote
higher education and to advance the boundaries of knowledge, Eng-
lish Governments alone fail to grasp the fact that the competition of
the world has become a competition in intellect. Much of this indif-
ference is due to our systems of education. I have ill fulfilled my pur-
pose if, in claiming for science a larger share in public education, I
have in any way depreciated literature, art, or philosophy, for every
subject which adds to culture aids in human development. I only con-
tend that in public education there should be a free play to the scien-
tific faculty, so that the youths who possess it should learn the rich-
ness of their possession during the educative process. The same
faculties which make a man great in any walk of life — strong love of
truth, high imagination tempered by judgment, a vivid memory which
can co-ordinate other facts with those under immediate consideration
— all these are qualities which the poet, the philosopher, the man of

246 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

literature, and the man of science equally require, and should cultivate
through all parts of their education as well as in their future careers.
My contention is that science should not be practically shut out from
the view of a youth while his education is in progress, for the public
Vveal requires that a large number of scientific men should belong to
the community. This is necessary because science has imjjressed its
character upon the age in which we live, and, as science is not station-
aiy but progressive, men are required to advance its boundaries, acting
as pioneers in the onward march of states. Human progress is so
identified with scientific thought, both in its conception and realization,
that it seems as if they were alternative terms in the history of civili-
zation. In literature, and even in art, a standard of excellence has
been attained which we are content to imitate because we have been
unable to surpass. But there is no such standard in science. Formerly,
when the dark cloud was being dissipated which had obscured the
learning of Greece and Rome, the diffusion of literature or the discov-
ery of lost authors had a marked influence on advancing civilization.
Now, a Chrysoloras might teach Greek in the Italian universities with-
out hastening sensibly the onward march of Italy ; a Poggio might
discover copies of Lucretius and Quintilian without exercising a tithe
of the influence on modern life that an invention by Stephenson or
Wheatstone would produce. Nevertheless, the divorce of culture and
science, which the present state of education in this country tends to
produce, is deeply to be deplored, because a cultured intelligence adds
greatly to the development of the scientific faculty. My argument is
that no amount of learning without science suffices in the present state
of the world to put us in a position which will enable England to keep
ahead of, or even on a level with foreign nations as regards knoM'ledge
and its applications to the utilities of life. Take the example of any
man of learning, and see how soon the direct consequences resulting
from it disappear in the life of a nation, while the discoveries of a man
of science remain productive amid all the shocks of empire. As I am
in Aberdeen, I remember that the learned Dutchman Erasmus was in-
troduced to England by the encouragement which he received from
Hector Boece, the Principal of King's College in this university. Yet
even in the case of Erasmus — who taught Greek at Cambridge, and
did so much for the revival of classical literature as well as in the pro-
motion of spiritual freedom — how little has civilization to ascribe to
him in comparison with the discoveries of two other Cambridge men,
Newton and Cavendish ! The discoveries of Newton will influence the
destinies of mankind to the end of the world. When ho established
the laws by which the motions of the great masses of matter in the
universe are governed, he conferred an incalculable benefit upon the
intellectual development of the human race. No great discovery
flashes upon the world at once, and therefore Pope's lines on Newton
are only a poetic fancy :

RELATIONS OF SCIENCE TO THE PUBLIC WEAL. 247

" Nature and If ature's laws lay hid in night ;
God said, 'Let Newton be,' and all was light."

No doubt the road upon which be traveled bad been long in prepara-
tion by other men. The exact observations of Tycho Brahe, coupled
with the discoveries of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo, had already
broken down the authority of Aristotle and weakened that of the
Church. But, though the conceptions of the universe were thus broad-
ened, mankind had not yet rid themselves of the idea that the powers
of the universe were still regulated by spii'its or special providences.
Even Kepler moved the planets by spirits, and it took some time to
knock these celestial steersmen on the head. Descartes, who really did
so much by bis writings to force the conclusion that the planetary
movements should be dealt with as an ordinary problem in mechanics,
looked upon the universe as a machine, the wheels of which were kept
in motion by the unceasing exercise of a divine power. Yet such
theories were only an attempt to regulate the universe by celestial
intelligences like our own, and by standards within our reach. It re-
quired the discovery of an all-pervading law, universal throughout all
space, to enlarge the thoughts of men, and one which, while it widened
the conceptions of the universe, reduced the earth and solar system to
true dimensions. It is by the investigation of the finite on all sides
that we obtain a higher conception of the infinite :

" Willst du ins Unendliche schreiten,
Geh nur im Endlichen nach alien Seiten."

Ecclesiastical authority had been already undermined by earnest in-
quirers such as Wycliffe and Huss before Luther shook the pillars of
the Vatican. They were removers of abuses, but were confined with-
in the circles of their own beliefs. Newton's discovery cast men's
minds into an entirely new mold, and leveled many barriers to human
progress. This intellectual result was vastly more important than the
practical advantages of the discovery. It is true that navigation and
commerce mightily benefited by our better knowledge of the motions
of the heavenly bodies. Still, these benefits to humanity are incom-
parably less in the history of progress than the expansion of the human
intellect which followed the withdrawal of the cramps that confined it.
Truth was now able to discard authority, and marched forward with-
out hindrance. Before this point was reached, Bruno had been burned,
Galileo had abjured, and both Copernicus and Descartes had kept back
their writings for fear of offending the Church.

The recent acceptance of evolution in biology has had a like effect
in producing a far profounder intellectual change in human thought
than any mere impulse of industrial development. Already its appli-
cation to sociology and education is recognized, but that is of less im-
port to human progress than the broadening of our views of Nature.

Abstract discovery in science is then the true foundation upon

248 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

which the superstructure of modern civilization is built ; and the man
who would take part in it should study science, and, if he can, ad-
vance it for its own sake and not for its applications. Ignorance may
walk in the path lighted by advancing knowledge, but she is unable
to follow when science passes her, for, like the foolish virgin, she has
no oil in her lamp.

An established truth in science is like the constitution of an atom
in matter — something so fixed in the order of things that it has be-
come independent of further dangers in the struggle for existence.
The sum of such truths forms the intellectual treasure which descends
to each generation in hereditary succession. Though the discoverer
of a new truth is a benefactor to humanity, he can give little to fu-
turity in comparison with the wealth of knowledge which he inherited
from the past. We, in our generation, should appreciate and use our
great possessions :

" For me your tributary stores combine,
Creation's heir; the world, the world is mine."

[Concluded.^

THE UNIFOEMITY OF NATUEE.

By the bishop OF CARLISLE.

THE chief interest felt by readers of the reminiscence of a meeting
of the Metaphysical Society, contained in the August number of
this review, will probably be found in the striking and really remark-
able record of the discussion of a difficult subject by such men as we
there find, and under such conditions as are there described. What-
ever the subject of discussion, such a symposium so felicitously saved
from oblivion could not fail to secure attention and much gratitude
to the able chiel who took notes and printed it. But in truth the
subject discussed is as interesting as the company who discussed it ;
and to the writer of the present paper has so proved itself, not only
on general grounds, but also because the view which seems to him to
be chiefly worthy of consideration, as being the most true and the
most luminous, does not appear to have presented itself to the mind
of any one of the speakers, or at all events not to have been expressed
clearly.

The discussion, as reported, labors under the great defect that
there was no preliminary attempt to define the meaning of the phrase
which formed the subject of the argument. Yet the " unformity of
Nature " is an expression which does not carry upon its front one clear
meaning, and one clear meaning only, and therefore needs definition if
the truth of any proposition supposed to be implied by it is either to

THE UNIFORMITY OF NATURE. 249

be affirmed or to be denied. In some senses Nature is obviously not
uniform. Take the case of the weather : what can have less of the
character of uniformity ? Take the seasons : and observe the appar-
ently absolute absence of all rule as to the sequence of fruitful and
unfruitful years. Take almost any instance of natural phenomena
that you please : and the variety, the eccentricity, the lawlessness,
will probalDly be quite as striking as any characteristic which can be
described by the word uniformity. Anyhow, in commencing a dis-
cussion, we ought to know precisely what the phrase to be discussed
means, or at least what it is held to mean by the disputants engaged
in the argument.

I observe that one of the interlocutors of the Metaphysical Soci-
ety, Mr. Walter Bagehot, affirms that experience can not prove the
uniformity of Nature, because it is impossible to say what the uni-
formity of Nature means. If this be so, and I am not just now con-
tradicting the assertion, all serious discussion must be at an end. It
is very well to say that, although experience can never prove the ab-
solute uniformity of Nature, it ought to " train us to bring our expec-
tations into something like consistency with the uniformity of Na-
ture." But why should we expect Nature to be uniform, unless we can
give some good reason for believing in this uniformity ? And why
should we trouble ourselves with a principle of uniformity, the mean-
ing of which, by hypothesis, we are unable to assign ?

On the other hand, Mr. Ruskin could scarcely hope to carry many
of the company with him when he avowed his disbelief in uniformity
altogether, and affirmed that if told that the sun had stood still he
would reply : " A miracle that the sun stands still ? Not at all — I al-
ways expected it would." This view of the matter would seem to
imply that there is no principle in Nature which can in any way be
described as law or uniformity — a conclusion which is opposed to all
our knowledge.

In default of a clear definition of the thesis proposed to the Meta-
physical Society, the prevailing thought in the minds of the dispu-
tants seems to me to have been, how far the belief in abnormal phe-
nomena, commonly spoken of as miraculous, is consistent with such a
belief concerning the laws of Nature as scientific men find themselves
compelled to hold. The discussion had clearly an underlying theologi-
cal character : to more than half the disputants (so at least it seems
to me) the theological consequences of an alleged uniformity of Na-
ture were the uppermost thought, and the feature of most pressing
interest in the argument. It would be well, perhaps, if this theologi-
cal bearing of the question could be avoided in discussion. We
should be more likely to arrive at a conclusion as to what the uniform-
ity of Nature means, and to what extent the principle is true, if we
could regard it entirely as a natural question, and one to be answered
upon the ordinary grounds of observation and induction : and I ob-

250 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

serve that Professor Huxley seems to recognize this view, or rather
he regards the principle as one the truth of which is not proved, but
which is valuable as a working hypothesis, and all the more valuable
because it has never yet failed hira. The separation of the principle
from theological considerations is, however, practically impossible ; we
must make up our minds to many a fight upon the frontiers of the
natural and the supernatural. Not a few persons believe that the pos-
sibility of religious faith, at this epoch of history, depends much upon
the conclusions to which they come concerning the laws and operations
of Nature ; and I will not venture to deny that they who so believe
have some reason to give for their belief.

It is in accordance with the statement just now advanced with
regard to the close practical connection betAveen the principle of the
uniformity of Nature and theology that we find the said principle
brought at once to the front in the Bishop of London's recent " Bamp-
ton Lectures," entitled " The Relations between Religion and Science."
With the general argument and results of these undoubtedly able
lectures I shall not here be concerned, but it will be much to my pur-
pose to make a few observations upon what is said in the first of the
series concerning the uniformity of Nature.

The earliest occasion upon which the phrase appears is to be found
in the following sentence : " It Avill be admitted that the Supreme
Postulate, without which scientific knowledge is impossible, is the
Uniformity of Nature." *

Now, a postulate is a proposition which is granted as the basis of
an argument, because its truth is conceived to be self-evident ; or at all
events it is the simplest proposition to which a chain of reasoning
can be reduced, and, if it be not granted, all further argument is im-
possible. Thus, Euclid's first postulate is, that from one point a
straight line can be drawn to any other point. But surely it can scarce-
ly be said of the uniformity of Nature that it has anything of this
simple and self-evidencing character. The question, moreover, is not
whether scientific knowledge be possible or impossible without it ; if
impossible, so much the worse for scientific knowledge. The ques-
tion still recurs, Is the principle true ? Moreover, can it be averred
that scientific knowledge is impossible without this postulate ? If so,
why is it that the principle is not asserted in Newton's " Principia," or
Laplace's "JVIecanique Celeste," or the various treatises on light, heat,
electricity, botany, and what not? Certainly it seems to me ex-
tremely doubtful Avhether the " Supreme Postulate " either is admit-
ted, or ought to be admitted, as the basis of scientific knowledge.

I suspect, however, that the bishop does not intend the word Pos-
tulate to be taken in its strict scientific sense ; for he illustrates his
position by reference to the discovery of the planet Neptune, which
resulted from the assumption that the law of gravitation holds uni-

* Paf'e 6.

THE UNIFORMITY OF NATURE. 251

versally, and that therefore the unexplained errors of Uranus were
due to the action of an exterior planet. But this assumption was as
different as possible from a postulate : it was only applying in a new
way a law which had already been verified in so many and such diverse
cases that there was scarcely the shadow of a doubt in the mind of
any astronomer that it was, as its ordinary name professes it to be,
universal throughout the material cosmos.

I am confirmed in this belief by finding the subsequent statement
that " the uniformity of Nature is a working hypothesis, and it never
can be more " ; * which agrees very much with the view propounded
by Professor Huxley at the meeting of the Metaphysical Society. But
I am not quite sure that this is consistent with a previous passage in
the lecture, which runs thus :

This, then, is the answer to the question. Why do we believe in the uniform-
ity of Nature ? We believe in it because we find it so. Millions and millions of
observations concur in exhibiting this uniformity. And, the longer our observa-
tion of Nature goes on, tlie greater do we find the extent of it. Things which
once seemed irregular are now known to be regular. Things that seemed inex-
plicable on this hypothesis are now explained. Every day seems to add not
merely to the instances, but to the wide-ranging classes of phenomena that come
under the rule.t

The truth of which I am not concerned to dispute ; but the para-
graph gives a very different complexion to the principle of the uni-
formity of Nature from that which belongs to it, when regarded as a
postulate upon which all scientific knowledge depends.

The truth which I think is postulated in the case of Nature is that
which is involved in the idea of cause and effect. The Bishop of Lon-
don refers to Hume's famous discussion of this question, and his con-
clusion that there is nothing more in cause and effect than the notion
of invariable sequence. This conclusion has often been controverted,
and the Bishop of London refers to the arguments of Kant and of J.
S. Mill : it seems to admit of a very simple and irresistible contradic-
tion from the following consideration : It is easy to give instances in
which an invariable sequence takes place, and yet the two events which
follow each other are obviously not connected as cause and effect.
Take the case of lightning and thunder : the thunder follows the light-
ning with invariable sequence, whether we chance to hear it or not,
but the two are separate effects of the same cause acting under differ-
ent conditions ; and no rightly instructed person could imagine that
one was the effect of the other. Or suppose that you shout, and pro-
duce two echoes from two rocks at different distances ; these echoes
will satisfy the condition of invariable sequence, and yet will mani-
festly not be related as cause and effect. Or, to put the case more
generally, it is quite possible that a cause may produce more than one

* Page 29. f Page 27.

252 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

effect ; and these effects being invariably connected will, by ignorant
people, be regarded as cause and effect, which they will not be. In
fact, the reference of one phenomenon to another as its cause, in con-
sequence of invariable sequence, may have the same essential error in-
volved in it as had the classical example of Tenterden Steeple and the
Goodwin Sands.

"What is necessary in order that one thing shall be regarded as the
effect of another, which may be called the cause, is not only that there
shall be an invariable sequence, but also that it shall be i^ossible to as-
sert that the one could not take place without the other, or something
equivalent. This invisible, impalpable chain between the one thing
and the other must be postulated by the human mind : it constitutes
the idea of cause ; every child knows perfectly well what it is, and
the profoundest philosopher does not go far, if at all, beyond the
knowledge of the child.

Let me support what I have been saying by a quotation from
Whewell's '* Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences " :

We see in the world around us a constant succession of causes and effects
connected with each otlier. The laws of this connection we learn in a great
measure from experience, by observation of the occurrences which present them-
selves to our notice, succeeding one another. But in doing this, and in attending
to this succession of appearances, of which we are aware by means of our senses,
we supply from our mind the idea of cause. This idea, as we have already
shown with respect to other ideas, is not derived from experience, but has its
origin in the mind itself ; is introduced into our experience by the active not by
the passive part of our nature.*

And again Dr. Whewell writes :

That this idea of cause is not derived from experience, we prove (as in former
cases) by tliis consideration : that we can make assertions, involving this idea,
which are rigorously necessary and universal ; whereas knowledge derived from
experience can only be true as far as experience goes, and can never contain in
itself any evidence whatever of its necessity. "We assert that " every event must
have a cause " ; and this proposition we know to be true, not only probably
and generally, and as far as we can see ; but we can not suppose it to be false
in any single instance. We are as certain of it as of the truths of arithmetic or
geometry.t

Here is a true postulate ; and if to the postulate that every event
must have a cause we add these postulates, (1) that causes in Nature
are always of the same kind and always act in the same way, and (2)
that no new causes come into existence, we should go a long way
toward making the uniformity of Nature, if not axiomatic, at all events
capable of tolerably simple and satisfactory demonstration.

But these latter postulates will perhaps scarcely be universally
granted. I understand those disputants, who in the Metaphysical
Society's discussion laid so much stress upon the duty of examining
* Vol. i, p. 158, f Page 159.

THE UNIFORMITY OF NATURE. 253

into the truth of alleged phenomena lying apparently outside the circle
of ordinary experience, to have argued that there might be causes of
which ordinary physical science takes no account, and that you can
not logically deny the occurrence of what may be called conveniently
the " supernatural," unless you assert that the causes which are included
in what we call Nature exhaust all possible forms of causation. Such
an assertion would probably be rash, even if we took into account only
the results which may be produced by the action of the human will.
But so far as the physical investigator, the scientific discoverer, the
man of science in the ordinary sense of the phrase, is concerned, he
may consistently say that all causation of a spiritual or supernatural
kind is outside his domain. He may say, " I neither affirm nor deny
the possibility of events and phenomena which are not according to
the ordinary course of Nature. I am content to take what is called the
uniformity of Nature as prescribing the limit of my inquiries " ; and
he may be able to add, with Professor Huxley, that he has never yet
found it to fail him. If it should fail him, the result might possibly
be similar to that which mathematicians call the failure of Taylor's
theorem, and might indicate, not that the theorem was faulty, but that
in certain critical cases the ordinary law of the theorem would not
apply.*

The discussion which precedes has been longer than I expected,
but I could not well shorten it. Hitherto I have been chiefly engaged
in what has been offered by others on the subject of the uniformity of
Nature ; I now proceed to suggest a view which, if it fails to give the
reader's mind as much satisfaction as it affords my own, will at least,
I trust, be deemed worthy of some consideration.

Strict views concerning the uniformity of Nature appear to me
to date from the pei'iod when Newton first showed that the motions
of the heavenly bodies could be made the subject of mathematical
calculations, or rather of dynamical, for I am not speaking of those
which are merely empirical. Newton, in fact, founded what we now
call physical astronomy. If we look a little back from this period,
we find the opinions of men of the most educated class very loose on
the subject of Nature and Nature's laws. It is sufficient to refer to
Sir Thomas Bi'owne's belief, that intercourse was possible between
human creatures and evil spirits,f and Sir Matthew Hale's often-quoted
opinions and consequent judicial action in the case of witchcraft.
There was much in popular superstition, much even in orthodox re-
ligious belief, and perhaps much in the tendencies of the human intel-
lect, to suggest views of Nature which would now present insuper-
able obstacles to minds even of ordinary powers and proficiency, but
which presented no such obstacles in what may be called the pre-sci-

* There are some passages in pp. 217-219 of the Bishop of London's lectures to which
I would have referred had space permitted,
f " Keligio Medici ; " chap. xxx.

254 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

entific era of the world's history. Newton, or rather Newton as de-
veloped by Laplace and the French school of mathematicians, entirely
changed the whole aspect of things. Laplace, with proprietj^, de-
scribed his great work by the title of ' Celestial Mechanics ' : the pur-
pose of the work, which it effected with singular skill, was the reduction
of the whole system of the heavens to the condition of an ordinary
mechanical problem — a problem, too, having the advantage that the
bodies concerned are all moving in vacuo, and that therefore there
are none of the difficulties of friction, resistance of the air, and the
like, which interfere with the easy solution of terrestrial dynamical
problems. To the mathematician the solar system is a set of small
bodies, which for some purposes may be even regarded as particles,
revolving in connection with one much larger and central body, under
the action of mutual gravitation according to a certain simple law ;
while the earth, regarded by itself and with reference to the phenom-
ena of its own revolution, is a rigid, slightly oblate spheroid, the motion
of which in given circumstances constitutes one of the prettiest prob-
lems of rigid dynamics. It is difficult perhaps for any one, who has
not gone through the study pesonally and practically, to conceive how
completely to the mind of a mathematician the solar system resolves
itself into a problem of bodies in motion in vacuo. But, as soon as
the mind apprehends the solar system thus, it has found an instance
of the uniformity of Nature upon a very large scale. The mathema-
tician who is capable of solving the problem of the planetary motions,
as Laplace and Lagrange solved it, or who knows anything of the
motion of a rigid body revolving as the earth revolves, finds himself
simply incapable of conceiving of anything but motion, according to
fixed law, being found in the solar system ; the uniformity of Nature
in this department presses itself upon him with a power which he can
not resist.

A mathematician, for example, would find himself entirely pre-
cluded from sympathizing, in the most distant manner, with the view
expressed by Mr. Ruskin at the meeting of the Metaphysical Society.
The standing still of the sun, of which Mr. Ruskin speaks so pleas-
antly, means the stopping of the revolution of the earth, for the mo-
tion of the sun is only the earth's revolution ; consequently, what is
called the standing still of the sun involves tremendous dynamical
consequences, an utter disruption of everything upon the earth's sur-
face, a return of chaos, or I know not what. I am not criticising the
expression as to the sun standing still, used in the book of Joshua
without any attempt at scientific language. What the actual fact was
to which the language used refers, and what was the actual phenom-
enon, I can not undertake to say ; but if we adopt the phrase into
the language of the nineteenth century, and in that language speak
of the news of the sun standing still as a thing w^hich need not sur-
prise us, but which we have rather expected than otherwise, then I

THE UNIFORMITY OF NATURE. 255

say that to the mathematician the language involves a necessary-
catastrophe, and that if the sun did stand still, even for a moment, no
one would be left to tell the tale.

It is true that all men are not mathematicians, and that it is im-
possible for a mind which has not studied physical science mathemati-
cally fully to estimate the impression of contradiction and impossibili-
ty produced upon the mind which has so studied by an allegation of
any irregularity in the clock of Nature. Be it observed that the be-
lief in the uniformity of such a phenomenon as the rising of the sun,
or of the effect of the moon on the tides, or of such observed facts
as precession and nutation, and many others, is to the mathematical
physicist something different in kind from that which arises from
mere experience. If you say that the sun has risen millions of times
already, and therefore will probably, or almost certainly, rise to-mor-
row, you offer a good presumptive argument ; but it is not the argu-
ment which chiefly weighs with the man who knows what the rising
of the sun means, and what would be the mechanical result of his fail-
ing to do so. My belief, however, is, that the feeling of certainty as
to natural phenomena, which such men as Laplace felt for the first
time in human history, has percolated (so to speak) through the strata
of human intelligence until it has become the common property of
almost all. The whole aspect of jSTature has been changed ; and many
a man feels a persuasion of the existence of something which may be
described as uniformity, and in virtue of which he questions or doubts
or denies many things which would have been accepted as possible or
probable in the seventeenth century, without knowing or being able
to explain upon what his convictions rest.

Hence, according to my view, the uniformity of Nature, instead of
being capable of being defended as a postulate, is, so far as it is true,
the result of very hard scientific fighting. In the region of celestial
mechanics it may be said to have gained absolute sway, because the
motions of the heavens resolve themselves into the ordinary laws of
mechanics, supplemented by the law of universal gravitation ; and
from this region there is a very intelligible tendency to extend the
assertion of the principle to other departments of scientific investi-
gation. Such extension, however, must be made with caution ; even
in the solar system itself, the moment we go beyond mechanics, all
uniformity appears to vanish. With regard to size, arrangement,
density, in fact every element of planetary existence, variety, which
defies all kind of classification, not uniformity, is the undoubted order
of Nature.

There is a striking paragraph on this subject from the pen of no
less a man than Alexander von Humboldt, which it may be well to
quote in this connection. After speaking of the absence of all known
law connecting the various planetary elements, their magnitudes,
densities, etc., he proceeds thus :

256 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

"We find Mars, though more distant from the Sun than cither the Earth or
Venus, inferior to them in magnitude ; being, indeed, tliat one of the long-known
greater planets which most nearly resembles in size Mercury, the nearest planet
to the solar orb. Saturn is less tlian Jupiter, and yet much larger than Uranus.
The zone of the telescopic planets, which are so inconsiderable in point of vol-
ume, viewed in the series of distances commencing from the Sun, comes next
before Jupiter, the greatest in size of all the planetary bodies; and yet the disks
of these small planets (whose apparent diameters scarcely admit of measurement)
are less than twice the size of France, Madagascar, or Borneo. Kemarkable as
is the small density of all the colossal planets which are farthest from the Sun, yet
neither in this respect can we recognize any regular succession. Uranus appears
to be denser than Saturn ; and we find both Venus and Mars less dense than the
Earth, which is situated between them. The time of rotation decreases on the
whole with increasing solar distance, but yet it is greater in Mars than in the
Earth, and in Saturn than in Jupiter. Among all the planets, the elliptic paths
of Juno, Pallas, and Mercury have the greatest eccentricity, and Venus and the
Earth, which immediately follow each other, have the least, while Mercury and
Venus (which are likewise neighbors) present in this respect the same contrast
as do the four smaller planets,* whose paths are so closely interwoven. The
eccentricities of Juno and Pallas are nearly equal, but are each three times as
great as those of Ceres and Vesta.t

I will not prolong the quotation, but will add the following sen-
tences, which contain the result which I wish to enforce :

The planetary system in its relations of absolute magnitude, relative position
of the axes, density, time of rotation, and difterent degrees of eccentricity of the
orbits, has to our apprehension nothing more of natural necessity than the rela-
tive distribution of land and water on the surface of our globe, the configuration
of continents, or the elevation of mountain-chains. No general law in these
respects is discoverable, either in the regions of space or in the irregularities of
the crust of the earth. They are facts of Nature which have arisen out of the
conflict of various forces acting under unknown conditions.!

In other words, from the point of view now under consideration
there is no such thing as the uniformity of Nature.

Nevertheless, the instinct of seeking uniformity in other depart-
ments, when it has been discovered in one, and that an important
department, is not only intelligible but is of the highest value as a
help in the pursuit of knowledge. Professor Huxley, as we have
seen, describes the principle as a working hypothesis, which has never
failed him ; and, so regarded, it can lead to no error, and it may lead
to the discovery of new truth. If uniformity be wrongly assumed, the
results obtained may be erroneous, or they may not ; examination and
experiment will show which they are ; a working hypothesis may al-
ways be freely granted to an investigator, but it must not be con-
founded with a postulate upon which the whole body of science rests.

Let me illustrate the character of a working hypothesis by a second

* This was written when only four asteroids were known. While this article is
passin^r through the press the discovery is announced of the 249th asteroid !
f " Cosmos," vol. 1. (Sabine's translation). % Ibid.

^

THE UNIFORMITY OF NATURE. Z57

reference to the discovery of the planet Neptune. Two working
hypotheses were necessary in this case. First, there was the great
hypothesis of gravitation according to the Newtonian law. But,
secondly, it was necessary for the purpose of the calculation to make
some assumption concerning the supposed planet. It was, accord-
ingly, assumed that Bode's empirical law of planetary distances was
true, and that, if the planet existed, its distance would be given by
this law. The position of the planet was determined by the remark-
able calculations of Adams and Leverrier ; and what was the result ?
That the first hypothesis was confirmed, if it needed confirmation,
and that the second was exploded, when the distance of Neptune
came to be determined by actual observation. Thus a working hy-
pothesis was proved to be false ; but no harm was done. Neptune was
discovered, though his distance had been wrongly assumed ; the working
hypothesis had fortunately been near enough to the truth for the pur-
pose in hand, and, having served that purpose, it could be flung away.

But in speaking of a working hypothesis it should be carefully
borne in mind that the very epithet icorJcing indicates limits within
which the work must take place. The hypothesis of the uniformity
of Nature, being founded upon or suggested by the discovery of uni-
formity in a certain department, must be carefully confined to similar
departments, or, at all events, must be regarded with suspicion if it
goes beyond them. "We have already seen that if an astronomer, from
the uniformity of mechanical action in the solar system, should con-
clude that there was some kind of uniformity in the configuration
and the relations of the elements of the system, he would find him-
self deceived. Speculations concerning such uniformity are neverthe-
less very tempting. Kepler, as will be remembered, could not resist
them, and got into some quagmires in consequence. But the temptation
must be resisted ; an assumed uniformity may lead to serious errors, if
it goes beyond the strictly physical region to which it belongs.

And this view of the matter leads, as it seems to me, to sound con-
clusions, with regard to the relation in which the truth of the uniformity
of Nature stands to truths, or supposed truths, of a different kind.

Take, for example, the case of alleged apparitions. I imagine that
the tendency in the minds of not a few among us is to ignore appa-
ritions utterly and completely. They are supernatural, and that is
enough ; they do not conform themselves to the recognized laws of
mechanics, optics, acoustics, motion. This is a rebound from the old
facility in accepting tales of demonology and witchcraft in pre-scien-
tific times, and it has much to say for itself. Nevertheless, it is scarcely
philosophical, and is in no wise demanded by the requirements of sci-
ence and the conditions of scientific progress. A man may be per-
fectly orthodox in his physical creed, and yet may admit the weight
of evidence in favor of certain alleged phenomena which will not square
themselves with physics. Such alleged phenomena are not necessarily
VOL. XX vm. — 17

2^8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

in contradiction to physical truth, they lie rather in another plane ;
they are like two lines or curves in space, which do not meet, and there-
fore can not cut each other. There are matters of the highest moment
which manifestly do lie outside the domain of physical science : the
possibility of the continuance of human existence in a spiritual form
after the termination of physical life is, beyond contradiction, one of
the grandest and most momentous of possibilities, but in the nature of
things it lies outside physics. Yet there is nothing absolutely absurd,
nothing which contradicts any human instinct, in the supposition of
such possibility ; consequently, the student of physical science, even
if he can not find time or inclination to look into such matters himself,
may well have patience with those who can. And he may easily afford
to be generous ; the field of physical science is grand enough for any
ambition, and there is room enough in the wide world both for physical
and for psychical research.

In truth, a wide-spread rebellion among some of the most thought-
ful of mankind must be the result of any attempt to press the supposed
principle of uniformity to the extent of denying all facts and phe-
nomena which do not submit themselves. Religious faith is necessarily
conversant with such facts and phenomena ; and though even here a
familiarity with the conclusions of science may be useful in steadying
the mind and fortifying it against superstition, still there are super-
natural truths bound up with the Christian creed, toward which it
behooves all to bow with respect, and which can not be refuted by any
appeal to the uniformity of Nature.

For Nature can only be uniform when the same causes are at work ;
and to declare an alleged fact to be incredible, on the ground that it
does not conform to the natural order of things, can only be reasonable
upon the hypothesis that no new influence has been introduced in ad-
dition to those which the natural order of things recognizes. But
such an influence may be found in the action of will, or of some spirit-
ual energy which does not exist in the ordinary natural order.

For example, it would be unwise absolutely to deny on a priori
grounds the history of the stigmata of St. Francis of Assisi. There
are not wanting examples to show that physical results of a remark-
able kind can be produced by abnormal and excessive action of the
affections, and feelings, and imagination. Recently recorded cases
seem to invest even with a somewhat high probability the alleged ex-
perience of St. Francis.

I am not of course committing myself to any opinion as to the
spiritual corollaries which may follow from an admission of the reality
of the stigmata ; one person may say that they have great religious
significance, another that they are a curious instance of the physical
effect of the imagination. I only argue that they must not be at once
brushed away in deference to some supposed law of uniformity.

Still less is it wise to deny the possibility of events, recorded in

THE UNIFORMITY OF NATURE. 259

the life of one greater than St. Francis, on the like ground. I am not
going into the argument concerning the miracles and resurrection of
the'Lord ; but I wish to suggest that if the potency of a divine will
be admitted, we have in the case of these events to take account of a
power which does not present itself in the discussion of natural phe-
nomena. We may well as philosophers admit, in consideration of the
special circumstances of the case, the possibility of these supernatural
facts, while prizing the principle of uniformity as a working hyjDothe-
sis, or as more than this. For in truth even the action of the ordinary
human will introduces strange breaches of uniformity into Nature.
Conceive some observer endowed with human scientific faculties con-
templating this earth of ours in the j)re-human period. He sees the
continents covered with forests, beasts of all kinds disporting them-
selves in the same, a great vigor of vegetable and animal life both in
the sea and on the dry land. But all is absolutely wild, not a single
glimpse anywhere of human purpose and contrivance. Suppose our
observer to speculate upon the future of this scene of life and activity
by the help of the working hypothesis of the uniformity of Nature,
of which we will liberally allow him the use out of the scientific reper-
tory of oar own times. Would it be possible that this working hy-
pothesis could present to his view, as a possible future of the globe,
anything essentially different from what he could then see? The
limits of land and water might have been observed to vary, and further
variation might be anticipated ; volcanic action would have been seen
to be very active, and it might be expected that volcanoes would still
be a potent agent ; nay, I will even suppose that an observer is keen
enough from his observations to deduce the theory of evolution, and
so to expect that the flora and fauna which he witnesses are in process
of transformation into something higher ; but could he possibly, in his
happiest moment, and when his genius was highest, ever have con
ceived or guessed the change which would come upon the globe when
man appeared as the head and crown of the creation ? It is not that
man would be a stronger, or more active, or more crafty beast, than
had ever appeared before, but that he would be a new creature alto-
gether ; a creature with plans and purposes of his own, capable of say-
ing, " I intend to do this or that, and I will do it " ; a creature, in fact,
with a will which, joined to an intelligence infinitely higher than any-
thing exhibited before, would enable him to treat the earth as his own,
to subdue the powers of Nature, and fashion the earth's surface after
his own pleasure ; which also would make him a moral agent, and so
a creature different in kind from all those which had preceded him.
This, however, is not the point upon which I intend to dwell now ;
what I wish to point out is, that the appearance of man upon the earth
would break to fragments any theory which an observer might have
formed with the aid of the working hypothesis of the uniformity of
Nature. The forests disappear, except so far as man finds them con-

26o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

venient ; the land is tilled ; the rivers are tamed ; houses are built ;
ships float upon the sea ; everything is regarded with reference to
human comfort, and the will of man has utterly transformed the whole
surface of the globe. The uniformity of Nature, as Nature had been
known or manifested hitherto, is altogether set aside by the action of
the will of man.

These examples may be sufficient, or at all events may help, to
show the manner which the hypothesis of the uniformity of Nature
must be regarded in order that it may express the truth. For my
own part, I have no desire to speak lightly of it, or to despise it as a
scientific guide. I have no sympathy with that opinion of Cardinal
Newman, quoted by Dr. Ward at the meeting of the Metaphysical
Society, to the effect that England would be in a far more hopeful
condition if it were more superstitious and more bigoted. When he
adds " more disposed to quail beneath the stings of conscience, and to
do penance for its sins than it is," I allow that the words may admit
of a wholesome meaning ; but superstition, if I understand what is
meant by the word, is an immeasurably and unutterably evil thing : it
is the substitution for truth of that which is not truth ; it is something
which, from its possible poetical accompaniments, may be tolerable to
man, and nevertheless must, as I conceive, be infinitely intolerable to
God. But there is no occasion to sigh for a little more superstition, in
order to counteract the evils which may arise from a one-sided view of
Nature ; nor are superstition and bigotry the best guides to true pen-
ance : the thing really to be desired is a symmetrical and equal-handed
dealing with human and divine knowledge. In the one department,
the uniformity of Nature may be accepted as a valuable working hy-
pothesis ; in the other, we contemjDlate God without any hypothesis
at all, as the Author and original Cause of Nature, of whose will uni-
formity and variety are equally and co-ordinately the expression and
the means of manifestation to human intelligence.

To sum up the views which I have endeavored to express in this
paper : I trace the belief in the pi'inciple, described by the phrase " the
uniformity of Nature," to the direct and indirect influences of the
successful application of mathematics to the physical theory of the
solar system. The principle so established may be used as a working
hypothesis in physical investigations, so far as it predisposes us to seek
for law and order in all parts of creation. But it must not be dealt
with as an absolutely true principle, if for no other reason at least for
this, that it has not been found practicable to define its meaning with
precision. And especially we must take care not to assume it even as
an hypothesis, except in cases in which it is quite clear that nothing
but physical causes are concerned. Which last consideration should
be regarded as a warning that the introduction of the principle into
theological questions may very possibly lead to most erroneous con-
clusions.— Nineteenth Century.

SKETCH OF PROFESSOR ALPHETJS HYATT, 261
SKETCH OF PROFESSOK ALPHEUS HYATT.

By KALPH S. take.

PROFESSOR HYATT was born April 5, 1838, in Washington,
D. C. He attended various schools, among them the Maryland
Military Academy, then under the direction of Captain Allen, an ex-
officer of the regular army, an old-fashioned teacher, and somewhat
of a naturalist. He entered the class of 1860 in Yale College, but
after the Freshman year he left the institution to travel for a year
in Europe. Returning, he entered the Lawrence Scientific School
at Cambridge in 1858, where he took the highest degree, under
Agassiz, in 1862.

His parents intended that he should become a merchant ; but this
was not congenial to the youth's natural tastes, and it was considered
the next best course for him to study law. After pursuing for nearly
two years studies which were distasteful to him, he finally broke away
from college and went to Europe. Upon his return he determined
to learn engineering. Thinking that a course in geology would be an
excellent introduction to this branch, and attracted by the great name
of Agassiz, he began to study that science at the Lawrence Scientific
School. Wliile at Cambridge, being attracted by a fine collection
of Ammonites, he asked permission to study them, and, after gradua-
tion, published a monograph upon them. After a period of service
as captain in the army he renewed his studies under Agassiz, in a
class which included such students, since become eminent naturalists,
as A. E. Verrill, A. S. Packard, N. S. Shaler, S. H. Scudder, F. W.
Putnam, E. S. Morse, A. Agassiz, Theodore Lyman, J. A. Allen, and
A. S. Bickmore. He afterward went to Salem, where Putnam was
curator in the Essex Institute, and in 1867 became one of the curators.
Morse and Packard afterward came in, and the four founded and
for some years edited the " American Naturalist," which is now pub-
lished in Philadelphia. These same young naturalists were also in-
strumental, together with officers of the Essex Institute, in founding
the Peabody Academy of Sciences at Salem. They formed the first
scientific staff, and together planned the museum, in which Professor
Hyatt was appointed a curator in 1869. In the year 1871 Professor
Hyatt was elected Custodian of the Boston Society of Natural History,
and in 1872 he went to Europe, with his family, to finish the studies
on Ammonites which he had begun in the Museum of Comparative
Zoology in 1861. In 1881 he was elected Curator of the Boston So-
ciety. In addition to this he is unofficially in charge of the fossil
cephalopods of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Cambridge,
and is Professor of Zoology and Paleontology in the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. He also has a class from Boston University,

262 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and in connection with the Boston Society is manager of the Teachers'
School of Science, which was founded in 1870-'71, for the purpose of
giving lectures to teachers in Boston and vicinity.

The Society of Naturalists of Eastern United States, founded in
1883, really arose from an idea of Professor Hyatt's that there should
be a society representing the practical side of natural history. He
communicated his ideas to Professor Clark, of Williams College, who
realized the value of the plan ; and it was mainly through the execu-
tive ability and energy of Professor Clark that the first meeting was
called at Springfield. Professor Hyatt was elected first president of
the society for a term of two years. In 1869 he was elected Fellow
of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 1875 he be-
came Fellow of the National Academy.

In his scientific researches Professor Hyatt has been exceedingly
active. He first published an article upon *' Beatrecia," a large and
curious fossil first described as a tree, and then successively placed by
different authors in all the several classes of Invertebrata, till at last,
by another paper of Professor Hyatt's, it has been again shifted to
the Protozoa. In 1866 appeared his " Observations on Polyzoa," an
article of importance at that time, upon the structure of this curious
and beautiful group of fresh-water animals. This was followed, in
1867, by an article upon "Parallelism between Different Stages of
Life in Tetrabranchiata," and in 1872 by an important paper upon
the " Fossil Cephalopods of the Museum of Comparative Zoology."
In these and other subsequent pamphlets upon the fossil cephaloi^ods
he has steadily endeavored to elaborate a practical demonstration of
the theory of evolution, and to illustrate the laws by which this has
taken place among the cephalopods. One of his best works is " Re-
vision of North American Poriferae," the only work on North Ameri-
can commercial sponges, and one which is recognized throughout the
world as one of the finest monographs of Porifera ever published.
The field was entirely unexplored, and the group one of the hardest
in the animal kingdom — so hard, in fact, that few naturalists have ever
touched it. In his " Effects of Gravity uj^on Forms of the Shells of
Planorbis," Professor Hyatt shows how important the action of
gravity has been in modifying the shape of the shells of Ammonites
and other animals, pointing out many cases where it has undoubtedly
fundamentally affected the forms of shells and the growth of the parts
and organs of the animals, and produced specific and generic modifica-
tions. Some of Professor Hyatt's most important theories have been
set forth in an extensive paper, entitled " Genesis of Tertiary Species
of Planorbis at Steinheim." It covers one hundi-ed pages, quarto, and
has nine plates. Professor Hyatt went to Steinheim with the intention
of making additional observations and proving Ililgendorf's theory of
the evolution of Planorbis, which was then recognized by paleontologists
in Europe as the only positive demonstration of the theory of evolution.

SKETCH OF PROFESSOR ALPHEUS HYATT. 263

He obtained a much larger series of Planorbis than Hilgendorf had, and
was obliged to prove that, although there was a general gradation from
the flattened species to the spiral, through many intermediate forms, it
was not true that the series of species succeeded each other in time, as
claimed by Hilgendorf. All the species, in all their curious modifica-
tions, were found together in the lower stratum. Theoretically a
graded series was traceable ; and no doubt the flattened spiral forms
were the ancestors of the more conical spiral forms. He also pointed
out the marked resemblance between diseased and wounded indi-
viduals of a species, and the degraded form and the correlations of
these with the transformations taking place in the old age of other and
healthier species of the same group. He attributes his result to the
use of mechanical methods. The shells were gathered in bags, care-
fully labeled, from each stratum, taken home, sifted through graded
sieves constructed for the purpose, and every specimen, to the number
of several hundreds in each bag, was thus necessarily passed through
his hands. Professor Richard Owen, the eminent anatomist. Director
of the British Museum, has said of this memoir, " It is a model of the
mode in which such researches should be conducted." Besides these,
Professor Hyatt is the author of many smaller papers upon nearly all
subjects relating to natural history, and he has described many new
genera of cephalopods.

Professor Hyatt has discovered that evolutionary changes in gen-
eral were much more rapid in earlier ages than now, and could be com-
pared closely with the isolated cases of very rapid evolution of forms
in such limited localities occurring in later times, as at Steinheim. For
instance, in the Silurian period there was a continual struggle for
better adaptation to the environment. In other Paleozoic ages, also,
evolution must have been rapid to have accounted for the observed
changes. It must have been particularly rapid immediately after the
groups or individuals originated, and thus should be represented as
expanding suddenly from their point of origin, like the spokes of an
expanded fan. He further believes that evolution of Cephalopoda has
taken place both by progression and retrogression, in four branches.
From the straight orthoceratic forms all fossil and modern Cephalopoda
have descended. To use his own words : " The efforts of the Ortho-
ceratite to adapt itself fully to the requirements of a mixed habitat
gave the world the Nautiloidea ; the efforts of the same type to become
completely a littoral crawler developed the Ammonoidea. The suc-
cessive forms of the Belemnoidea arose in the same way ; but here the
ground-swimming habitat and complete fitness, for that was the ob-
ject, whereas the Sepoidea represent the highest aims, as well as the
highest attainments, of the Orthoceratites, in their surface-swimming
and rapacious forms." No better group for the study of evolution is
found in fossil if erous beds, for in the shells every step of growth can
be traced, and it can be seen that the coiled forms all go through the

264 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

orthoceratitic or straight stage, or an approximate form, at an early
embryological period. In these shells, too, all varieties, by disease or
accident, are clearly shown, and this has led to the well-supported
theory brought forth by Professor Hyatt, that much of the evolution
of Cephalopods has been directly caused by pathological conditions —
accidents or diseases transmitted to successive individuals, until they
become firmly established inherited variations, and lead, in the Cre-
taceous period, to the death of one of the four orders of cephalopods,
the Ammonoidea.

Among the subjects upon which Professor Hyatt is at present at
work is his " Theory of Cellular Tissues " just published. This con-
tains his theory of the origin of sex, which is one of the most impor-
tant that he has ever j^ublished. It is that the nuclei of cells are
both male and female ; that gradually in some cells one element, per-
haps the male, might predominate, while in others the female would be
strongest. Thus we would have the metazoa stage, where the male
and female cells are distinct from each other, but still mixed in the
same layer. This specialization goes on until in the ccelenterates we
find special layers of cells especially adapted to perform the function of
male or female elements, and later, in the vertebrates, separate animals
represent the separate elements. This theory he supports by many
interesting facts. In the same paper he endeavors to show that
sponges are intermediate between metazoa and protozoa. It is very
well established that the body-cavity which immediately surrounds
the stomach of all vertebrates is homologous to the sacs w^hich spring
out from the body-cavity of ccelenterates, and Professor Hyatt's the-
ory is that these sacs are homologous to the branching cavities and
sacs which spring from the central cavity in sponges, and further that
these fundamental structural modifications originated independently
in sponges, in ccelenterates, and probably in vertebrates, from ancestors
which never possessed any such characteristic.

The most useful work which Professor Hyatt has done, and that
for which be deserves much credit, is in connection with popular sci-
ence-teaching. His way of teaching is original, and intended to in-
spire the student with a love for natural history, by teaching him to
look about for himself and observe what there is to see. His first
interview and study with Louis Agassiz had much to do with shaping
his course, and formed the basis of his system of teaching. Since this
study has had such an important bearing upon his life, we reproduce
the account of it in Professor Hyatt's own words. Professor Hyatt
says: "He gave me a Pentacrinite, or stone-lily, a rather complex
fossil, and told me to study it. This I thought to be easy work, so I
took a stroll in the afternoon and thought little of it. Next morning
he came up to my table and asked me what I had found. I had never
studied from Nature before, and began giving a very general descrip-
tion, saying that it was a fossil petrifaction, etc., and had wliat appeared

I

SKETCH OF PROFESSOR ALPHEUS HYATT. 265

to be the beginning of a stem. When I got to this point, he said, in an
impatient tone : ' Stop ! stop ! you don't know anything about it. It
is just what I expected. You haven't told me anything that you
know. Look at it again and tell me something that you see for your-
self ! ' I had faint book remembrances, and had been relying upon
these. Taken all aback at this, I began to work. I thought about it
all day and dreamed about it at night. Next morning I began to tell
him what I had found out, and before I was one quarter through he
stopped me, saying, 'That is good; but,' he added, *you have not
yet told me what I want.' "With this he pointed to the side of the
room where star-fishes, ophiurians, and sea-urchins were kept, and told
me to see what more he wanted. In this blind way, with no further
hint, I worked unsuccessfully for a long time ; then I found that I had
omitted the most conspicuous point, the star-like appearance. Not
knowing whether this was of importance or not, I timidly reported at
the next interview this resemblance to the star-fishes, and Professor
Agassiz was satisfied. This burned into my mind the most important
lesson of my life : how to get real knowledge by observation, and how
to use it by comparison and inference." His acquaintance with Dar-
win, though confined to a few letters and a short personal visit while
in England, had also a marked influence on his life, for he saw here
the greatest of naturalists living in a simple, unostentatious manner,
paying respectful attention to the studies of even comparatively un-
known young naturalists, not anxious, above all things, to claim even
that which was due him, but to render justice to the researches and
ideas of others. This was so contrary to the usual practice of claim-
ing all possible credit for intellectual results that it produced a pro-
found impression upon Professor Hyatt, and it has influenced his life
as it has that of many of the existing generation.

In teaching, Professor Hyatt uses books as little as possible ; his
lectures, and those which he superintends before the teachers in the
Teachers School of Science, are delivered in a novel manner. Noted
investigators are chosen to deliver the courses, which cover all branches
of the objective sciences, as Professor Plyatt calls them, except as-
tronomy. The idea of the lectures is to fit teachers for teaching ele-
mentary sciences in the public schools. In all cases except physical
geography it has been found possible to give each member of the
audience specimens of the thing described, so that they may follow the
lecturer with the objects in hand, and take them away afterward.

In connection with this branch of instruction, the Natural History
Society has issued a series of " Guides for Science-Teaching," of which
nine have already appeared. They are all prepared under the guidance
of Professor Hyatt, and he himself is the author of five, namely,
" About Pebbles," " Commercial and other Sponges," " Common Hy-
droids," "Corals and Echinoderms," "The Oyster, Clam, and other
Common Mollusks," and "Worms and Crustaceans." They are all

266 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

models of simplicity, and contain a general review of the subject treated.
They are intended to give just such accounts as are calculated to in-
spire the teacher with the truths of nature, and at the same time to
teach her the simplest and best way of impressing the facts upon the
minds of young pupils. In the introduction to the work on pebbles,
the author says : " When properly considered, the essay is a series of
suggestions, not an exact, cut and dried process. The memorizing of
a single part will spoil the effect of the design. If the older scholar,
when the lessons are finished, can not go through with the whole pro-
cess and show what he has been taught with the specimens, it may be
considered as proof that it has been done too quickly for him to fully
comprehend each of the various steps by which a pebble is formed."
The same plan as the one so successful in the Teachers' School has
been suggested for the public schools — that each pupil be supplied with
a specimen of the object, and that they be asked in turn to point out
its features.

During the first few years after the United States Fish Commis-
sion was founded, Professor Hyatt spent his summers at the summer
station, being allowed by the kindness of the commissioner to collect
specimens to illustrate his lectures. Since then, with but one or two
exceptions, his summers have been spent at Annisquam, near Glouces-
ter, Massachusetts, where he can study in quiet seclusion. Previ-
ous to 1879 he had been in the habit of allowing a few students
from the Institute of Technology to study with him in his private
laboratory at Annisquam. Soon, however, the number of applications
became too numerous, and he could no longer accommodate all, so that
in 1879 steps were taken toward founding a general laboratory of nat-
ural history to be situated at Annisquam. Each summer the laboratory
has been open under the directorship of Professor Hyatt, assisted by
Professor Van Vleck, who has immediate charge of all the work. The
laboratory was founded and is supported by the Woman's Educational
Society of Boston, and is open to both sexes, investigators and
teachers being given the preference. Each year the tables are full,
sometimes there being as many as fifteen in the laboratory at a time,
including some original investigators. The student is given a speci-
men, and is told to study it carefully and see as much as he can ; then
to verify his results by referring to Mr. Van Vleck at first, and then
to books chosen by him. Professor Hyatt endears himself to all who
study with him by his kindness and the interest which he takes in
the individual work of the pupil.

A museum as large as that of the Boston Society of Natural His-
tory, under the charge of a man so full of original ideas and having
the interest of science-teaching at heart, and, at the same time, having
such an experience -at home and abroad, must of necessity undergo
important changes and become unique in its plan. To show the ideas
which Professor Hyatt entertains, we quote from his annual report as

SKETCH OF PROFESSOR ALPHEUS HYATT. 267

follows : " It is quite possible to so arrange aud subsequently conduct
a museum that it will be as much more effectual in this way (educa-
tional) than any art-gallery or library, as Nature herself is greater and
more instructive than any imperfect imitations of her ever set in frames
or between the covers of books." In his report for 1882 he says that
there have been many requests for reference series for consultation,
and he suggests that money be raised for the purpose of placing series
of specimens illustrating different natural groups so that they may be
handled by those having sufficient intei*est in the subject. This is an
important suggestion, and, if it can be carried out, will greatly raise
the educational standard of the Natural History Museum. He also
suggests that descriptive catalogues of the museum be issued and dis-
tributed at frequent intervals.

In order to render the museum a true guide to the study of natural
history, to make it, in fact, a natural system in itself, and to illustrate
all the forms in a definite and natural manner, Professor Hyatt has
adopted a superior plan of arrangement. Let us take, for example,
the mineral and geological collection, which is now nearly completely
arranged. First of all, the elements are shown, then the elements
which enter into rock formations in an elementary form. Then there
is a series of what might be called rock-elements — that is, rocks which
are composed of one mineral, such as mica or limestone. We are then
prepared for the final stage of rock-mixtures — such as conglomerates,
granites, etc. Next are taken up the rocks as they are formed, either
sedimentary or igneous, and so on through the whole rock-world, go-
ing step by step in a most natural way from the simplest to the most
complex, from the elements to their compounds. This is the natural
system, and is being adopted in other departments of the museum.

Such is Professor Hyatt's work. He is a scientist in every sense
of the word, and holds a high rank among naturalists. Still, he is able
to find time to render science popular — a great work, which scientists
are not apt to appreciate and which few try to do. It is an important
work, and the only way firmly to establish science upon the world ;
and that small body of men who are so unselfishly devoting their time
to this grand work are deserving of far more credit than those who
selfishly shut themselves from the rest of the world, and laboriously
work away at abstruse problems, which, after they are discovered, are
put in such terms as to be unintelligible to the average person. TVe
repeat it, that those who are doing their best to render science popular
are doing far more for true science than those who purposely shun
such work, and confine themselves to uninteresting and often unim-
portant problems.

268

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

CORRESPONDENCE.

A SIGNIFICANT ANALOGY.
Me9»r». Editors :

WHEN President White wrote his "New
Chapters in the Warfare of tScience "
he could have had no idea that the same
issue of your magazine which contained the
first chapter on " The Doctrine of Comets "
would also contain a striking illustration by
another writer of a similar phase of the
same conflict which he has so graphically
portrayed.

According to Mr. White, the foolish no-
tions and absurd superstitions which pre-
vailed for so many centuries in regard to
comets were due to the irregularity of their
movements and the indeterniinateness of
their orbit. As soon as astronomers had
calculated the orbit of a comet and foretold
the exact time in which it would appear,
"a true doctrine of comets" became pos-
sible and was accepted, at least, by the mass
of intelligent persons.

Perhaps very few of your readers con-
nected this article on comets with the one
on " The Metaphysical Society " in your
October number. Yet the passages that I
am about to cite will, I think, bear me out
in holding that, even among the most intel-
ligent men of the present time, the same
kind of ignorance of the phenomena under
consideration leads to similar erroneous con-
clusions.

The very interesting discussion on the
" Uniformity of Nature," by such represent-
ative men as Dr. Ward, Father Dalgairns,
Mr. Ruskin, and the Archbishop of West-
minster on the one side, and Professor Hux-
ley, Mr. Bagehot, and Sir James Stephen
on the other, at last reaches "no less
weighty a thinker " than Dr. Martineau. Af-
ter stating forcibly the philosophical rea-
sons which make a belief in the uniformity
of nature absolutely necessary, " so far as
nature is purely dynamic and so far as force
is measured by reason" (p. 817), he yet de-
clines to accept this when man's mental na-
ture is concerned.

"Doubtless," he says, "it will be replied
that, as in the mind of man there is a free
spring of force which is as yet undetermined,
which is potential and not actual force, so
there is behind nature a free spring of force
which is as yet undetermined, which is po-
tential and not actual nature — in short, a
power above nature and capable of modi-
fying it; in other words, supernatural, and
that doctrine I should heartily accept. The
uniformity of nature is the tmiformity of
force, just as the uniformity of reasoning is

the uniformity of thought. But just as the
indeterminateness of creative will stands be-
hind the determinateness of the orbit of
force, so the indeterminateness of creative
purpose stands behind the determinateness
of the orbit of thought or inference. I hold
that man is not wholly immersed in dynamic
laws, that, though our physical constitution is
subject to them, our mental constitution rises
above them into a world where free self-
determination is possible" (p. 817). Have
we not here, I ask, another case where " ir-
regularity of movement " and " indetermi-
nateness of the orbit " have produced confu-
sion of thought and caused thinkers to re-
gard as " free " that which, so far as we have
any positive knowledge at all, we know to
be determined. It would not be difficult to
show either that the superstition in regard
to " Free Will " has done even more harm
than the belief that the appearance of com-
ets betokened evil.

President White's article furnishes such
an excellent answer to a pithy question put
by Dr. Ward near the close of the debate,
that I can not forbear to call attention to it.
" Is it not better," he asks, " to have a vul-
gar belief in God than to have a fine sus-
ceptibility to scientific methods ?" (p. 819).

During the long ages of ignorance and
superstition to which Mr. White has called
attention there existed what Dr. Ward
wants — " a vulgar belief in God," and there
was but a very slight " susceptibility to sci-
entific methods." While it can not be said
that even now the tendency toward the lat-
ter is very strong, or that a vulgar belief in
the Deity has disappeared, yet I think it
will be generally admitted that there has
been some advance toward a recognition of
the merits of the scientific method and some
alteration in the beliefs about God ; and I
leave it to any competent and candid person
to say which of these times has been the
" better " for humanity.

Yours truly, R. M.

October 2, 18S5.

COEPOEATIONS AND THEIE EMPLOYES.
Messrs. Editors :

Dr. Barnard's well-timed paper calling
attention to the lack of direction of the
sympathy of corporation managers with
their employes deserves a more general
consideration than it will be likely to re-
ceive from them. As one directly interested
in the labor problem, I wish to thank him
for calling popular attention to the near-
est way to mitigate some of the asperities

EDITOR'S TABLE.

269

of the situation, and for his efforts as Sec-
retary of the Baltimore and Ohio Employes
liehef Association.

Spealdng from a close association with
the class of labor he seeks to benefit, it is
my belief that both it and the spirit of
our people resent a " paternal care and so-
licitude " while welcoming a " friendly inter-
est," and perhaps even a " guardian's care."

Some of the members of his Association
have characterized it as " too paternal," and
though it has done and is doing great good,
not only for the Baltimore and Ohio em-

ployes but among employes generally, as an
example of what can be accomplished, it is
well to remember that "compulsory pro-
vision for their future welfare " excites op-
position, and does not educate his " wards "
as would a more friendly help.

This is indicated by the Pullman experi-
ment, of which the popular judgment is :
that it is not approved by the employes, and
is not so successful as to deserve imitation
by employers. G. C. Hewett.

WlMIFEEDE, TVeST VrKGIKTA, I

September 16, 1S35. )

EDITOR'S TABLE.

PRESIDENT LESLETS ADDRESS.

TUOSE of our readers wlio carelessly
pass by the recent discourse of Pro-
fessor Lesley before the American Asso-
ciation for the Advancement of Science
without reading it vrill make a bad mis-
take. There is not much danger of this,
for the address is sufficiently attractive
and brilliant to engage general attention.
Professor Lesley enforces many whole-
some truths upon the students and devo-
tees of science, and maintains a high
ideal of the great purpose that should
govern scientific pursuits. On these
points we can have nothing to add.
But there is a bearing of the whole dis-
course on common education which
should not be overlooked. His address,
in one of its chief aspects, is a coun-
terblast against "cram" in science —
against the mere accumulation of scien-
tific facts — and it is a ringing demand
for more persistent and concentrated
labor in small and unobtrusive fields of
investigation. His plea for what is
called " dead-work " in science, as con-
trasted with more showy performances,
is especially effective. But his obser-
vations on "the over-accumulation of
scientific information " have an appli-
cation outside the limits of strict re-
search. " The science of learning and
the science of knowledge," he says,
" are not quite identical ; and learning
has too often in the case of individuals
overwhelmed and smothered to death

knowledge. The average human mind,
when overstocked with information,
acts like a general put in command of
an army too large for him to handle.
Many a vaulting scientific ambition has
been thus disgraced. Nor is this the
only danger that we run ; for the accu-
mulation of facts in the treasury of the
human brain has a natural tendency to
breed an intellectual avarice, a passion
for the piling up of masses of facts, old
and new, regardless of their uses."
" Xot only the avarice of facts, but of
their explanations also, may end in a
wealthy poverty of intellect for which
there is no cure." "How much we know
is not the best question, but how we
got what we know." Professor Lesley
touches upon the subject of general
education from this point of view as
follows :

I do not intend to discuss the subject,
to define the quantity and quality of knowl-
edge adequate for the various classes of hu-
man society, or to propose any plans for its
distribution. All I wish to say about it is,
that it seems to me Nature limits both the
responsibilities of teachers and the rights of
learners more narrowly than is commonly
supposed. The parable of the sower is a good
reference for explanation. Most of the sur-
face of the globe is good for little else than
cattle-ranches or sheep-farms, and the large
majority of mankind must in all ages be sat-
isfied with the mere rudiments of learning.
What they want is unscholastic wisdom with
which to fight the fight of life, and they must
win it for themselvesv Only a limited num-

27©

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ber of persons in any community can acquire
wealth of knowledge, and the only thought
on which I wish to insist is this : these few
must also get it for themselves, and, more-
over, must work hard for it.

It is a hackneyed aphorism that there is
no royal road to knowledge, although an in-
credible amount of pains has been taken to
make one. Nature in this affair, as usual,
has been a good, wise mother to us all ; for
it is not desirable to make the acquisition of
knowledge easy, for the main point in scien-
tific education is to secure the liighest activity
of the human mind in the pursuit of truth —
an activity tried and disciplined by hardship
and nourished on hardy fare. The quantity
of food is of less importance ; everything de-
pends on establishing a good constitutional
digestion. The harder the dinner is to chew,
the stronger grows the eater. Canned science
as a steady diet is as unwholesome for the
growing mind as canned fruits and vegetables
for the growing body. The wise teacher imi-
tates the method of Nature, who has but one
answer for all questions : " Find it out for
yourself, and you will then know it better
than if I were to tell you beforehand."

The great vice of current education
is here squarely hit. As Huxley says,
it is " spoon - victuals " ; acquisition
made easy by elaborate simplification
and explanation which leaves wholly
out of view the fundamental truth that
mental power can only be acquired
through the effort of active exercise.
This is the supreme requirement, but it
is this which is everywhere, and by all
pretexts and devices, evaded. We are
still in the lesson-learning, print-wor-
shiping stage of education, almost as
much as they were when children were
taught from the catechism —
" My book and heart
Shall never part."

But the true purpose of education,
as can never be enough enforced, is not
to learn lessons and get explanations
from teachers, and to accumulate infor-
mation, but to develop power in the
minds of the young to observe carefully,
to reason correctly, and to think inde-
pendently about the things that are im-
portant and vital in the experience of
life. The minds of the young require
to be cultivated and trained in this kind

of activity ; but all the mighty apparatus
of books, teachers, superintendents, and
boards of education, backed by millions
of money, instead of leading to this re-
sult, stand in the way of it. The two
methods are incompatible. Listening
to explanations and cramming the con-
tents of books are radically antagonistic
to thinking things out, and to that self-
instruction the sole condition of which
is mental effort, and that should be kept
in view as the essential thing to be se-
cured in all education of children and
youth.

THE EPIDE:^IC at MONTREAL.

The terrible pestilence, which, for
several months, has been raging in the
beautiful city of Montreal, carrying
away thousands of its inhabitants,
teaches a painful lesson of the malign
consequences to a community of ig-
norance and superstition when strong
enough to set at defiance the resources
that intelligent experience has furnished
to arrest its progress. It is not as if the
people had been struck by some new
and mysterious disease before which
they were powerless. It is not as with
the plagues of former ages, when nothing
was known that could be done to arrest
them. The saddest aspect of the Mont-
real calamity is not that multitudes have
been swept into unripe graves, but that
this vast mortality could have been avoid-
ed. That sraaU-pox is practically a pre-
ventable disease is established ; but to
what purpose, when all the apparatus of
self-defense in a civilized community is
completely paralyzed? A comparative-
ly small element of the population, ig-
norant, prejudiced, and pious, makes a
blind and desperate resistance to the
only measures that can bring relief; and
they resort to penance, invocation of
saints, prayers to Heaven, and solemn
processions, to arrest the course of con-
tagion, over which these have no more
influence than they would have to ar-
rest the course of the St. Lawrence!
The chief ravages of the disease have

EDITOR'S TABLE.

271

been confined to that portion of the
French Canadians who were unvacci-
nated ; but such has been the passion of
religious fanaticism, and the intensity
of race-hatred, that this small minority
made a fight stubborn enough to defeat
all effectual public action. There have
been defiance of authority and constant
danger of mob violence which have in-
timidated the controlling oflScials and
so diminished their effectiveness. The
authorities in charge of the leading
hospital of St. Roche are said to have
favored neither vaccination nor sani-
tation, and such was the ineflScient and
horrible condition of that old estab-
lishment that many advocated burning
it down. The efforts to isolate cases
of small-pox have been also desperately
resisted, and, worst of all, the oflicials
have misled the people as to the prog-
ress of the malady, and by inducing a
false security have prevented that en-
ergetic private action which must be
the main reliance in the last resort. A
writer in a Montreal newspaper puts
this feature of the case very forcibly.
He says: "In the prevailing murmur-
ing and complaint by people with their
faces turned toward the City Hall, let
us say that, had every man and woman
in this city done his or her plain duty
about small-pox, there would be no
small-pox. It is one of the vices of our
age, which Montreal manifests in a
marked degree, that 'authorities' are
expected to do for individuals what in-
dividuals should do for themselves. So
far as laws or by-laws lead people to
imagine that they can properly or safely
divest themselves of any part of their
personal responsibility, just so far are
laws or by-laws only evU. There is a
disastrous superstition abroad which
leads people to believe in enactments
and legislation. These things can not
execute themselves, they can only be
put into effect by deputies, often listless
or ignorant, and nearly always much
less interested in the execution of their
work than the men who have thought-

lessly handed to them tasks which
should never have been deputed. Who-
ever may be chargeable with the dire
calamity upon us, grumbling will do no
good now, and, if the reader wishes to
aid the officials and other citizens who
are busy fighting the plague, let him
add himself to the Citizens' Committee.
Work will be given him, and in its diffi-
culty and importance he wiU have little
leisure for complaint."

PARTY GOVERyMEXT.

A ^^:wsPAPER brings us the fragment
of a speech by Senator Hawley, in which
he ventures for a moment upon the
tickhsh ground of defending partisan-
ship, or the necessity of two parties.
He had been previously glorifying one
party — his own — with, of course, the
due condemnation of the opposite party.
One would suppose that he could spare
the utterly wrong political party, and
rejoice in its annihilation, so that the
right party could have its perfect way ;
but he says we must have both, and iu
enforcing this idea he gives expression
to the following curious bit of political
philosophy : " It would be a lamentable
day indeed for this country, or any other
enjoying a free government, when it
could be said that there were no parties
— that lovely time that some long for,
when there should not be enough of
moral or intellectual life among the
people to get up a single difference of
opinion upon political affairs."

Senator Hawley seems here to think
that the evidence and the measure of
"moral or intellectual life" are seen in
the power of "getting up differences";
while we have always supposed they
were shown rather in the power of
reaching agreement. Differences of
views and opinions are certainly indica-
tive of want of intelligence on the mat-
ters of disagreement ; while " moral
and intellectual life" is displayed in
that activity of inquiry which leads to
the attainment and acceptance of truth,

272

TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and to consequent agreement. We are
here, however, speaking from the sci-
entific point of view, in which agree-
ment in truth is the supreme end; while
Senator Ilawley is speaking from the
pohtical point of view, in which the
errors of difference for partisan pur-
poses are the supreme end. Nor would
he have the higher step taken which
leads to agreement, for that would end
partisanship, and, according to his logic,
if parties should come to an under-
standing on political principles, it would
be fatal to free government. "Free
government," then, depends upon ig-
norance, and must be destroyed by the
progress of knowledge. Senator Haw-
ley is a politician, and with him partisan
politics is the end, with its fruits of office
and power. Elections and campaigns
are his means, and his sole condition of
success is to be able to arouse voters to
hot political strife. So he wants differ-
ences, because men will fight over differ-
ences but never over agreements. Dif-
ferences in politics there certainly are,
and must long continue to be: what
we object to in Senator Hawley's poht-
ical philosophy is, he demands that this
low partisanship which he so enjoys
shall be eternal, and that it would be a
"lamentable day" when it comes to an
end.

LITERARY NOTICES.

A Text-Book of Nursing. For the Use of
Training-Schools, Families, and Private
Students. By Clara S. Wekks, Gradu-
ate of the New York Hospital Traiii-
ing-School ; Superintendent of Traininp;-
School for Nurses, Paterson, New Jersey.
New York : D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 39G.
Price, $1.

Miss Wekks's "Text-Book" will be recog-
nized as a marked advance in the liter.ature
of the subject which it considers. Nursing
as a practical art grounded in scientific prin-
ciples, and an important adjunct of the medi-
cal profession with its own schools, belongs
among tlic useful hygienic improvements of
the last few years. In its early stages, as
was most natural, its class-books were crude

and imperfect. There has been a very valu-
able literature pertaining to nursing, but it
has chiefly consisted of " Notes," " Essays,"
" Fragments," and imperfectly compiled
rules and suggestions which, however use-
ful and indispensable, have fallen much
short of the requirements of systematic
study. There was room here, and urgent
need for something better, which the author
of this book, moved by her own unsatis-
factory experiences as a student, has now
effectively supplied. She has given us a
volume conformed to the established habits
of school-study, complete in its treatment
of the several subjects with which the in-
telligent nurse should be familiar, well illus-
trated, with copious questions for class-
exercise and review, and a full glossary of
technical terms. Her contribution is cer-
tain to prove helpful in the work of educa-
tion, and she may be congratulated on hav-
ing done an excellent service in helping on
the progress of her profession.

But the usefulness of the " Text-Book "
will not be confined to the limits of the
Traiuing-Schools for Nurses. It is of far
wider application, and should find place in
every family. It is full of information, to
which every woman who cares for the vital
interests of her household should have ac-
cess. Clearly, popularly, and attractively
written, it can be understood by everybody,
and women who never expect to go into the
nursing business professionally will be much
better prepared to meet the emergencies and
responsibilities of domestic life — to deal
with the sickness that is at some time inevi-
table— by reading and familiarizing them-
selves with much of the instructive contents
of this work. A good deal in it is, of course,
only for the regular nurse; but there is
enough of general application, and even of
almost every-day utility in household expe-
rience, to justify us in commending it cordial-
ly to all thoughtful mothers as one of the
books that they should have always at hand.

The Stpdy of Political Economy : Hints to
Students and Teachers. By J. Lau-
rence Laughlin, Ph. D., Professor of
Political Economy in Harvard Univer-
sity. New York : D. Appleton & Co. Pp.
153. Price, $1.

Professor Laughlin in this useful little
book aims to present the claims of the sub-

LITERARY NOTICES.

^7Z

ject upon those engaged in education, to
show its disciplinary value, and to give im-
portant hints and suggestions as to how it
may be most successfully pursued. Notwith-
standing all the discussion there has been as
to whether political economy is a true sci-
ence or not, or as to the validity or relative
superiority of its different methods, the sub-
ject is one which engages wide attention
and is of foremost interest and importance.
It deals with what is going on and must con-
tinue to go on in society under good or bad
guidance, and where knowledge is certainly
better than ignorance. The author iias
therefore done an excellent and necessary
thing in showing students how they can best
proceed in informing themselves on politi-
cal economy, whether they wish merely to
get an acquaintance with its rudiments or
to master the subject. He gives the list of
a teacher's library selected from English,
French, and German authors, which can not
fail to prove useful.

Philosophic Series. By James 5IcCosh,
D. D., LL. D. Nos. I to VIII, 50 to 70
page pamphlets. New York : Charles
Scribner's Sons. Price, 50 cents each.

It was a very happy conception of the
able President of Princeton College and dis-
tinguished metaphysician, Dr. McCosh, to
take up the most urgent and interesting
philosophical questions of the time, and
treat them in the popular way here adopted.
There can be no doubt that philosophical
speculation has a good deal about it that
is progressive. As long as thinkers shut
themselves up to such pure metaphysical
elaborations as they can carry on in the
restricted sphere of consciousness, the re-
sulting movement will be round and round
rather than an advance or ascent ; but,
when they seize the conception of philoso-
phy in its broader aspects, and connect it
with those large questions of Nature and
life which have come into such prominence
in recent times, a distinctively forward
movement is the result. When such great
new principles as the conservation of en-
ergy or the law of development are pro-
jected into the philosophical field, and their
import is recognized by the speculative
mind, onward movements which can be re-
garded as nothing less than a new departure
are the inevitable consequence. Dr. McCosh
VOL. XXVIII. — 18

is not the narrow type of man to blink or
to belittle the significance of these mighty
ideas which have been forced upon philoso-
phy by modern science ; he not only meets
them, but he welcomes them as priceless
contributions to knowledge, to be perhaps
yet further interpreted and qualified, but,
neither to be feared nor resisted. Aside
from his mastery of general philosophical
subjects, and his familiarity as a scholar
with the history of speculation, his knowl-
edge of science and his sympathy with it,
and his thorough acquaintance with the
critical issues which have become prominent
in the thought of this generation, especially
qualify Dr. McCosh to give instructiveness
to such a series of essays as he has here
undertaken.

No fonnal review of the work is here
practicable ; we can only indicate his suc-
cessive topics. No. I considers " Criteria
of Diverse Kinds of Truth, as opposed to
Agnosticism." No. II, " Energy : EfBcient
and Final Cause." No. Ill, "Development:
What it can do, and what it can not do."
No. IV, " Certitude, Providence, and Prayer,"
No. V, " Locke's Theory of Knowledge, with
a Notice of Berkeley." No. VI, " Agnos-
ticism of Hume and Huxley, with a Notice
of the Scotch School." No. VII, " A Criti-
cism of the Critical Philosophy." No.
VIII, " Herbert Spencer's Philosophy as
culminated in his Ethics."

President McCosh is a Doctor of Di-
vinity, and the course of topics in this dis-
cussion shows that it has been prepared
with reference to its theological bearings.
But the controversial element is moderate
in tone, and is subordinate to the expository
element. We commend the pamphlets for
the clearness and instructiveness of their
teachings on philosophical questions, with-
out being at all committed to the author's
conclusions respecting theology or morality.
On these points he seems often to betray
the weakness of the thorough-going parti-
san of a dogmatic system.

Special Report of the State Inspector
(Minnesota) of Oils on the Illuminat-
ing QuALiTT of Oils. By Henry A.
Castle. St. Paul. Pp. 24.
The inspector relates that frequent and
numerous complaints came to him during
1884 of the inferior illuminating powers and

2 74

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

other poor qualities of the kerosene - oils
used in the State. He sought explanations
from the wholesale dealers and agents of
the oil companies, but could not get satis-
factoi-y ones ; and it was not till he had be-
gun to take measures for enforcing the laws
against selling adulterated or inferior goods,
that proper notice was taken of his remon-
strances. Then the agent of the Standard
Oil Company made a confession presenting
almost the identical statement made by Pro-
fessor Peckham, in the June number of the
" Monthly," of the deteriorated character of
the burning -oils in common use and its
causes ; and we refer our readers to Pro-
fessor Peckhani's article for more specific
information on the subject.

The Azoic System and its Proposed Sub-
divisions. By J. D. Whitney and M. E.
Wadsworth. Cambridge, Mass. : Har-
vard Museum of Comparative Zoology.
Pp. 250.

The authors review the whole literature
of their subject, beginning with the reports
of the Canadian and other British - Ameri-
can surveys, and following with those of the
New England and Atlantic seaboard States,
Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Michigan, and
Wisconsin, and the Government surveys in
the West, for the purpose of ascertaining
the condition of the theory of the Azoic sys-
tem. The reports examined concern the
results of forty years of work. In a second
part they give a " rmcme and general dis-
cussion " of their review, the result of which
is to lead them to the conclusion that " the
geology of a large portion of this country,
and especially that of Canada and New Eng-
land, is in an almost hopeless state of con-
fusion " ; and " that our chances of having
at some future time a clear understanding
of the geological structure of Northeast-
ern North America would be decidedly im-
proved if all that has been written about it
were struck out of existence." This con-
dition of things is largely ascribed to the
erroneous observations and theories of the
Canada survey, " which to a large extent
have been adopted and blindly followed on
this side of the Dominion boundary." Fi-
nally, " the present director of the Canada
survey appears to be sincerely endeavoring
to base his work on better methods than
those current under Lofran's administration.

All who are interested in the solution of the
ditficult problems of Appalachian geology
will sympathize with him in these efforts ;
for . . . that which is done in Canada will,
if well done, be of great assistance to those
working on the south side of the Dominion
line."

TijE Grimke Sisters : Sarah and Angelina
Grimke. The First American Women
Advocates of Abolition and Women's
Rights. By Catharine H. Birney. Bos-
ton: Lee & Shepard. Pp. 319. Price,
$1.25.

The interesting characters to which this
volume is devoted are now historic. The
Grimke sisters have passed away, and the
record of their remarkable careers will have
a double interest : first, for those who knew,
admired, and loved them ; and, second, for
all others who take interest in those great
public events leading to the overthrow of
slavery in this country, with which these
ladies were early and long and intimately as-
sociated. Angelina and Sarah Grimk6 were
gifted women of superior intellectual stamp
and high moral aspirations, who gave their
lives to the active promotion of various re-
forms with fearlessness, independence, and
devoted purpose, to make the world better
as far as lay in their power. They were
both of a deeply religious cast of mind, and
entered early into church relations in their
native city of Chai-leston, South Carolina.
But the perfunctory round of ordinary re-
ligious exercises could not satisfy them.
Religion was in their blood, and the type
of it was that of tragic earnestness. They
were descended on the father's side from the
Huguenots, and on that of the mother from
the old Puritans, with whom religion was a
stern reality. Possessing hearts sj'mpathet-
ic with the sufferings of their fellow-creat-
ures, and heads endowed to discriminate
the means of relief, they could not remain
impassive in their Charleston environment.
The subject of slavery, with which they had
been, of course, long and painfully familiar,
took hold of them as a matter of religious
duty. They left the Episcopal Church be-
cause it seemed given over to worldliness,
and was unmindful of its Christian obliga-
tions to the slave. Angelina joined the
Presbyterians, in the hope of finding them
more alive to their practical religious duties.

LITERARY NOTICES.

275

and Sarah for the same reason, though still
earlier, joined the Society of Friends. Both
left Charleston and went to Philadelphia,
where Angelina also became a Quaker. But
after years of trial they withdrew also from
the Friends' organization, for the same rea-
son that it did not enter heartily into the
rising movement for emancipation. Break-
ing away from all these restraints, they came
out openly as Abolitionists, and devoted
themselves with great zeal and efficiency to
the propagation of antislavery views. They
wrote much and forcibly, and at length took
the field as speakers in Massachusetts with
remarkable effect. They were both eminently
qualified for this sphere of labor, but An-
gelina, the younger, had extraordinary accom-
plishments as an orator, and her lectures
were attended by crowds of admiring listen-
ers, although the appearance of women in
the public lecture-field was at that time a
novelty, and strenuously resisted by all con-
servative people.

Slavery is now gone, and a new genera-
tion has come upon the stage which knows
little of the intensity of the struggle which
led to its extinction, and the furious and
maddened resistance encountered by its as-
sailants ; but in the records of that expe-
rience the names of the Grimke sisters will
ever have an honorable and permanent
place. Of their various efforts in other di-
rections of social reform, their personalities,
and their interesting private lives, we can
not here speak, but must refer the reader
to the memorial volume, which has been
executed with fidelity and discriminating
fairness by a loving friend. It will be sin-
cerely welcomed by all who knew them, and
will be found full of instructive interest by
all who have an appreciation of strong, ele-
vated, and heroic character.

State Agricultural Experimext Station,

Amherst, Mass. Second Annual Report.

1884. C. A. GoESSMANN, Director. Pp.

166.

The varied contents of this report, and
the fullness with which the experiments are
described, testify to a year of busy work.
Among the subjects of the experiments
were commercial fertilizers, the specific
action of different forms of potassa, the
effect of fertilizers on fruit-trees, various
leguminous forage-plants, injurious insects,

the vitality of seeds, ensilage, foods, anal-
yses of milk, testing of drinking-waters,
feeding - experiments with milch-cows and
pigs, etc.

Placer Mixes and Mixing - Ditches. By
Albert Williams, Jr. Pp. 64.

This monograph was prepared to form
a part of the census report on the statistics
and technology of the precious metals.
Placer mines, according to the author's
statement, have the advantages of being
usually more accessible and nearer to thick-
ly settled and agricultural districts than the
quartz mining districts, and of not requir-
ing so large an amount of material for their
working as quartz mines. The secondary
nature of the gravel deposits in which they
occur implies an average lower altitude than
that of the quartz veins, from which they
are derived by erosion. It is a fact that
they occur at all altitudes up to 10,000 feet,
the elevation of the placer in Alma town-
ship. Park County, Colorado. The average
height of those mentioned in this report is
more than 3,400 feet above the sea-level,
while the average height of those in Cali-
fornia, beach-sands excepted, is 2,600 feet.
The total nominal capital of thirty-six pla-
cer mines is $35,115,000, or an average of
$975,417 each, while the average par value
of their shares is about $14.68. The placer
mines being largely worked by the hydraulic
method, the question of water-supply is an
important one with them, and extensive
ditching-works have been executed to secure
water. Mr. Williams has reports of 10,783
miles of ditch-lines, which have a maximum
capacity of 7,560,000 gallons per twenty-
four hours, which cost for plant, exclud-
ing cost of water-rights, $27,056,942, and
are maintained at an annual expense of
$837,280.

The Influence of the Proprietors in

FOUNDING THE StaTE OF NeW JeRSET.

By Austin Scott. Baltimore : N. Mur-
ray. Pp. 26.

This is a study in the Johns Hopkins
University Historical Series, by the Professor
of History in Rutgers College, of the course
of the development of the fundamental in-
stitutions of New Jersey from the regime
laid down by the original proprietors.

276

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

Natural Co-ordination as evinced in Or-
ganic Evolution. A Paper read by
William Fkaser, M. D., before the Brit-
ish Association for the Advancement of
Science at its Montreal Meeting, Septem-
ber 1, 1884. New Glasgow, Nova Sco-
tia : George W. Chisholm.

If it would be too much to say that Dr.
Fraser, in this philosophical essay, has
solved the supreme question of the nature
of that governing power by which an evolv-
ing universe works out its highest results, it
is not too much to say that he has made
a reasonable and a valuable contribution
toward such a solution. We can not here
give his closely knit argument, but must be
content with indicating the ground taken,
lie begins by remarking that " matter and
force constitute the present scientific basis
of the natural universe ; but as unco-ordi-
nated entities they might remain forever
inoperative." This idea is so illustrated and
enforced as to bring out the necessity of af-
firming a presiding directive and co-ordi-
nating principle as a part of the order and
constitution of Nature, and without which
development is a wholly inexplicable pro-
cess. Dr. Eraser's statement of the case of
evolution as against special creation, and
in the variety of its proofs, is thus admira-
bly summarized:

The persistency with which Bncceeding links in
the same org.inic chain approximate to a common
mean type, along with certain prevailing senti-
ments and supposed teleological implications, has
Influenced many naturalists to accept the doctrine
of special creation as a satisfactory explanation of
the origin of species; to believe that each distinct
kind was immediately introduced with its present
congeries of characters complete and immutable,
adapting it to a prepared station, and having the
principle of heredity so strongly implanted as to
prevent its member* from ever deviating beyond
the limits of acknowledged specific divergence.

From studying the question under other aspects,
8ome observers have been induced to adopt an op-
posite \iow, and to conclude that all actual diversi-
ties were potentially inherent in matter and energy
at their original creation and disposition, and have
been spontaneously evolved through natural causes,
without any supernatural interference.

Having learned tho apparent potency of natural
means and methods in producing all past physical
changes, they feel constrained to recognize these as
fully adequate to sustain tho whole sum of terres-
trial activity, including tho processes and products
of organization ; deeming it more credible that tho
total system of development, in common with all
other material objects and events, should form an
essential and interdependent part of tho more com-
prehensive scheme of Nature, than that each distinct

species should have its source in a miraculous act of
creatioa

Observing, under varying artificial conditions,
the occasional production of several acknowledged
TAEiETtES from a common stock, and the perpetua-
tion of such only as can provisionally conform with
the conventional requirements of their situations,
they infer that spkcies originated and have been
transmitted in a similar way, but carried further
and established more flrmlj', either in consequence
of more powerful impulses or of greater time and
opportunities afforded.

They also find that all the species of the same
genus, inhabiting adjacent and intercommunicable
areas, have closer structural relationships than those
of more remote and mutually isolated regions, and
that any diflferences which exist in the former case
are superficial, as if the later divergences had rare-
ly and but sUghtly affected their fundamental char-
acters.

Fossils also are generally found more nearly al-
lied to the fauna and flora of their own particular
territory than to those of distant provinces ; and in
the later deposits more so than in those of earlier
strata.

Paleontological arrangements likewise indicate
a gradual advance from generalized to specialized
forms, from the simple earliest structures up to the
relatively complex types of the present age.

Embryological development also shows a gen-
eral progress from the indefinite to the definite; all
organic germs at their origin being scarcely distin-
guishable from one another; the earlier foetal stages
of many different classes of animals being almost
parallel ; and in the higher orders, their later phases
being attended by a gradually decreasing number
of companions, till man, the highest vertebrate, at
length alone acquires distinctively human features.
Besides, underneath certain diversUies of surface,
which constitute specific morphological distinctions,
there is often a fundamental unity : the arms of a
man. the flippers of a whale, the fore-legs of a horse,
and the wings of a bird being constructed on essen-
tially the same general pattern, though differing
greatly iu special details, as if a common ancestral
organ had become differently modified in each par-
ticular case, in subordination to, and in conformity
v\ith, correlated conditions.

Rudimentary structures often show the potency
of heredity in preserving parts long after they have
ceased to be service.-ible; and occasionally they rep-
resent tho transition to some more complete and
permanent advantageous iicquirement.

In general, the more invariable and radical or-
ganic structures are diffused among much larger
aggregates than are less permanent and less impor-
tant ones.

Tho spinal column, which pertains to the whole
Tortebrato sub-kingdom, holds tolerably constant
specific characteristics within the same class, where-
a.s the dermal appendages not only manifest much
diversity in different species, but often display con-
siderable difference even in members of the same
variety.

All these complex and diversified relations are
considered indicative of community of origin, with
subsequent adaptive modifications.

Certainly geographical distribution, geological

LITERARY NOTICES.

277

succession, morphologr, embryologry, classification,
and many other peculiarities of organization, such
as its fundamental unity of composition, but more
especially the fact, so far as has yet been proved,
of the derivation of all observed individuals from
more or less similar parent stocks, constitute a re-
markable collection of accumulating and converging
lines of evidence in favor of the doctrine of spe-
cific organic descent.

These proofs, however, are merely circumstan-
tial ; the relation of this problem to human experi-
ence being such as to render it incapable of demon-
stration ; still, the gravest objection to the theory
of organic transmutation is the difficulty of under-
standing how matters could have been so consti-
tuted and arranged that from simple and indefinite
beginnings such wonderfully complex and determi-
nate results could have been obtained. Natural
SELECTION does not account for the origin of specific
characters, but merely explains how, out of numer-
ous so-called spontaneous variations, such only can
be preserved as are in sufficient harmony with their
environments.

And, while changing incidence of conditions is
undoubtedly instrumental in determining organic
sequences, it is important to ascertain what is the
nature of the factors engaged, and how they co-
operate in the evolution and establishment of dis-
tinct specific characters.

The main conception of Dr. Fraser's the-
sis may be gathered from the following pas-
sages :

The mere association of developmental impulses
and envelopmental facilities and restraints could
never of itself issue in any definite progressive re-
sult, unless subjected to the determination of some
controlling principle of order. Hence the regularity,
definiteness, and consistency observable In organic
reactions and relations testify to the additional ex-
istence and jurisdiction of a supplementary princi-
ple of co-ordinative supervision.

As man, by factitiously arranging the means at
his disposal in accordance with his needs and tastes,
institutes systems of artificial co-ordination, so the
spontaneous adjustment of organic activities, in
subjection to, and in conformity with, prevailing
correlated tendencies and requirements, constitutes
a principle of natubal co-okdination. In the
elaboration and establishment of specific organic
results, this principle fulfills the two distinct
though complemental offices of a directive and a
selective function; the former determining each
temporary step in the process, the latter deciding
which out of many courses will be permanently or
successively adopted.

In a dependent evolving system, with abundant
accommodation, provisions, and protection, it might
remain a matter of indifference what number and
kind of forms were produced, as all would alike be
preserved, each phase being simply a resultant of
the interaction between inward eflbrts and outward
restraints, without the intervention of any subse-
quent eliminating process. Here the principle of
co-ordination could only have directive scope ; but,
in a circumscribed area with limited supplies and
liability to Invasion, as soon as the rate of produc-

tion exceeds the means of support, co-ordination
will assume a selective rdle, submitting the various
competitors for the different accessible situations to
prescribed tests, accepting only such as conform
with the required standards, and rigorously reject-
ing all relatively unsuitable or incompetent ones.

Organization seems to have been planned and
conducted according to some such method and de-
sign; its potentialities, when properly supple-
mented, constituting an incalculable fund of
tranemutable and genetic energies, affording
the principle of co-ordination enormous re-
sources whereon to operate, so as to render pos-
sible the realization of results practically inconceiv-
able.

POPCLATION BY AgKS, UnITED StaTES, NeW

York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore.
By W. S. Landsberg. Baltimore, Md.
Pp. 30. Price, 10 cents.

The author believes that the distribution
of a population according to the ages of the
individuals is not fortuitous, but is the re-
sult of the influences which all the circum-
stances of a people's life exert upon its ex-
istence, naturally conditioned by births and
deaths. In the light of this view he dis-
cusses the lessons to be drawn from the vi-
tal statistics of the United States and the
three cities named.

The Minting of Gold and Silver. By Al-
bert Williams, Jr. Pp. 24.

This paper was prepared to form a part
of the census report. Without attempting
an exhaustive treatise on modem practice
in minting, Mr. Williams reports upon the
processes employed in the mints at Carson,
Nevada, and San Francisco, California.

The Modification of Plants by Climate.

By A. A. Crozier. Ann Arbor, Mich.

Pp. 35. Price, 25 cents.

In this pamphlet the author discusses a
subject concerning which our present knowl-
edge is " scattered and unsatisfactory," and
on which he desires to elicit more informa-
tion. From the facts he has been able to
adduce he concludes that enough has been
observed to make it evident that variation
is not accidental or at random, but is, at
least in part, in definite directions and due
to definite causes. " It seems to be estab-
lished that as plants move from the locality of
their largest development toward their north-
ern limit of growth they become dwarfed in
habit, are rendered more fruitful, and all
parts become more highly colored. Their

278

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

comparative leaf -surface is often increased,
their form modified, and their composilion
changed. Their period of growth is also
shortened, and they are enabled to develop
at a lower temperature. These variations,
if useful, may be accumulated by selection
and inheritance."

Second Annual Report of thk Bureau of
Statistics of Labor of the State of
New York, for the Year 1884. Charles
F. Peck, Commissioner. Albany : Weed,
Parsons & Co. Pp. 521.

The attention of the Bureau during the
year included in the report was directed
chiefly to the investigation of the prevalence
of child-labor in the manufactories of the
State, in which, in spite of adverse circum-
stances growing out of the defects of the
law under which the inquiries were con-
ducted, and of the difficulty of getting em-
ployers to give information, a great many
valuable statistics and much important tes-
timony have been collected. The facts re-
late to the employment of children ; its in-
fluence upon their physical development ;
the opportunity afforded in connection there-
with for moral and educational training ;
and its relation to the social, commercial,
and industrial prosperity of the State. A
considerable portion of the report is devoted
to the subject of compulsory education, the
importance of securing the enforcement of
the law prescribing it, and the means of ac-
complishing it. An article on " Hygiene of
Occupation," by Dr. Roger S. Tracy, of New
York, is also included in the report. In the
appendix are given a report on Pullman,
Illinois ; the memoranda of a committee
visit to the houses of cotton-mill operatives
in Fall River, Massachusetts ; the labor laws
of New York ; and extracts from the labor
legislation of other States and of England.

ABC Book. By Francis A. March.

Boston : Ginn & Co. 20 cents.
Phonetic First Reader. By T. R. Tick-

ROY. Cincinnati : Van Antwerp, Bragg

& Co. 25 cents.
Anglo - American Primer. By Eliza B.

BcRNZ. New York: Burnz & Co. 15

cents.
Pronouncing Orthography. By Edwin

Leigh.
American Phonetic Primer. By Elias

LoNGLEY. New York : E. N. Miner. 25

cents.

First Book in Phonetic Reading. Second
Book. Third Book. Fourth Book.
Fifth, or Transition Book. By Isaac
Pitman. New York. Fowler & Wells
Co. The set, 26 cents.

An article in the September number of
the " Monthly " having caused some inquiry
for phonetic primers, a number of these
books are here noticed. They have the
common object of making easy the first part
of the process of learning to read by re-
moving the difficulties of silent letters, and
letters with several powers, to a later stage.
The authors make the claim, and support it
by abundant evidence, that children learn
to read books in phonetic spelling, and then
master the ordinary print, in less time than
is commonly spent on the ordinary print
alone. It is claimed, further, that in learn-
ing to read by the phonetic method the
child's reasoning powers are stimulated,
while if taught in the old way it forms at
the outset a habit of dependence on the
teacher which impedes all future progress.
Some of these books recognize thirty-six,
the others forty or forty-one, simple sounds
in the English language, besides four or five
diphthongs; and, as the common alphabet
contains only twenty-three effective letters,
it is variously extended by new letters and
digraphs. Longley uses seventeen new let-
ters ; Pitman thirteen, with digraphs for the
diphthongs ; Vickroy eleven, with eight di-
graphs ; while Mrs. Bumz uses but three,
depending largely on familiar digraphs. Dr.
Vickroy's reader has on the title-page a note,
signed by Professor March as president of
the Spelling Reform Association, in which
he cordially recommends the book. As Mr.
Pitman's books are published in England,
the pronunciation which they represent dif-
fers slightly from American usage. Thus
the vowel sound in lair is not distinguished
from that in layer ; been is represented as
rhyming with seen, etc. Pitman and Long-
ley use the continental vowel-scale, Mrs.
Bumz the English, while March and Vick-
roy skillfully avoid conflict with either. Mrs.
Burnz retains duplicate ways of represent-
ing several sounds, and a few other irregu-
larities of the old spelling, claiming as com-
pensation that her spelling departs less from
the common mode than any other, and hence
that a person whose education went no fur-
ther than the phonetic stage could spell a

LITERARY NOTICES.

279

letter so that it would not fail to be under-
stood by any one who went through the
spelling-book in the old-fashioned way. Dr.
Leigh's " Pronouncing Orthography" retains
the common form of every word, but silent
letters are printed in hair-line type, and the
significant letters are so modified that it is
always plain what sound they stand for.
Ten or a dozen primers and readers by va-
rious authors have been published in Leigh's
pronouncing editions. Professor March uses
Dr. Leigh's types for nine single letters
and five digraphs in his "A B C Book."
"Words containing silent letters are post-
poned to a later stage. A part of his gen-
eral method is to have the pupils begin to
write with the first lesson, but this may be
omitted if the teacher prefers. The transi-
tion from any of the primers mentioned
above to common print is said to be easy,
but, if it seems desirable to keep the pupils
longer on the phonetic print, second readers
or other supplementary matter can be had
in most of the systems for this purpose.

ZoiiLOGic Whist and Zoonomia. By Hy-
LAND C. Kirk. New York : McLoughhn
Brothers. In4 Cards. Price, $1.
An attempt is made in these cards to
combine amusement, as it is sought in play-
ing whist, with instruction in the principles
of a science. The cards, on which the clas.
sification of animals is graphically repre-
sented, are arranged in two packs of fifty-
two cards each, one including the verte-
brates, the other the invertebrates. Each
pack is divided into four suits, representing
the classes and thirteen orders. The rank
of the orders being fixed according to num-
bers printed on the cards, the game is played
as whist is played. The game of zoonomia
is played with all the cards, or a smaller
number, and is in effect an exercise on the
qualities of the orders of animals represented
upon them.

The Tehuaxtepec Ship- Railway. By E.

L. CoRTHELL, Civil Engineer. Pp. 32,

with Plates.

This is the substance of an address that
was delivered before the Franklin Institute
in December last, in which the plan of the
railway as projected by Captain Eads is ex-
plained, and its feasibility and the prospec-
tive advantages to be derived from carrying
it out are considered.

Papers of the Asierican Historical Asso-
ciation. Volume I, No. 1 : Keport of
Organization and Proceedings. Pp. 44.
No. 2 : Studies in General History and
the History of Civilization. Bv Andrew
D.White. Pp.28. >;ew Yo'rk : G. P.
Putnam's Sons. Price, 50 cents each.

The American Historical Association was
organized at Saratoga in September, 1884,
with Andrew D. White as president, and
Herbert B. Adams, of Cornell University, as
secretary, for the promotion of historical
studies, and has registered already, for a
society so new, a large list of members. It
will pubUsh original contributions to history
in the form of serial monographs, each com-
plete in itself, bearing its own title, pagina-
tion, and price ; but the monographs will be
also numbered in the order of their publica-
tion, and paged continuously with the se-
ries, for the annual volume. They are sent
to members of the Association who pay their
annual fee of three dollars, and to other
persons for four dollars a volume. The ad-
dress of President White is a forcible pre-
sentation of the value of historical studies,
and suggests ways in which they may be
made most efficient.

Efficiency and Duration of Incandescent
Electric Lamps. Report of Committee,
Franklin Institute of Pennsylvania. Pp.
127.

A special committee was appointed by
the Board of Managers of the Franklin In-
stitute in November, 1884, to conduct ex-
aminations and make tests of the efficiency
and life-duration of incandescent lamps. It
having prepared a code of conditions to
which all competitors were expected to con-
form, Weston, Edison, Woodhouse and Raw-
son, Stanley - Thompson, and White lamps
were entered, for competition or for compar-
ative examination. The history of the test-
ing, its incidents, and its results, are record-
ed in detail in the report.

Transactions of the Sixteenth and Sev-
enteenth Annual Meetings of the Kan-
sas Academy of Science (1883, 1884).
E. A. Popenoe, Manhattan, Secretary.
Pp. 145.

The Kansas Academy is evidently a
working body. This volume of the " Trans-
actions " contains notices or abstracts of
forty-nine papers and reports read at the
two meetings, all of them of much local and

28o

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

some of considerable general interest. We
specially notice the two presidential ad-
dresses. The first, by retiring President
Dr. A. H. Thompson, is concerning the
" Origin and History of the Academy," and
gives a rapid review of the growth of sci-
entific work in Kansas, and of the transac-
tions of the fifteen previous annual meet-
ings of the society. The other address, by
Dr. R. J. Brown, is a discussion of the ques-
tion, " Is a Geological Survey of the State
a Necessity ? " and presents summaries of
the benefits that have accrued from their
surveys in other States in which such works
have been prosecuted.

Thk Hoosier Naturalist. Vol. I, No. 1,
August, 1885. A. C. Jones and R. B.
Trouslot, Editors and Publishers, Val-
paraiso, Ind. (Monthly.) Pp. 8. Price,
50 cents a year.

The editors claim to have in Valparaiso
a rare combination of facilities to encourage
the publication of a scientific journal, in-
cluding a large normal school, with classes
in zoology, geology, and botany ; the Mu-
seum of the American Institute, of which
one of them is custodian ; and surroundings
of excellent collecting-grounds. Such enter-
prises as this are evidence of a living love
for science, and help to stimulate and ex-
tend it.

Aims and Methods of the Teaching of
Physics. By Professor Charles K.
Wead. Washington : Government Print-
ing-Office. Pp.158.
The author of this paper was commis-
sioned by the Commissioner of Education
to draw up a set of inquiries respecting the
teaching of physics, send them to teachers,
and collate and discuss the answers which
should be received. The questions related
to various points respecting the expediency
of the teaching, the prominence and extent
that should be given to it, and the method
in which it should be done. Answers were
received from seventy-two teachers in nor-
mal and secondary schools and colleges and
universities, and other persons experienced
in educational work, and are here given and
reviewed. To these is added information
from other countries. This is followed by an
attempt to discover that consistent scheme
of physics study which is favored by the
majority of the contributors.

PUBLICATIONS EECEIVED.

■Wintering Bees. By A. J. Cook. Agricoltarsl
College of Michigan. I'p. G.

Impounding the Nile Floods. London: The
Bedford PrebS. Pp. G, with Map.

Pittsburg and Wevtern Pcuns}'lvania. Issued
bv the I'ittbburg Chamber of Commerce. Pp. 128.
With Map.

Something about Natural Gas. By George H.
Thurston. Pittsburg. Pp. 82.

Franklin Institute, Philadelphia. Lecture Pro-
gramme. ISSo-'SG.

Insanity of the Past, pp. S; Report on Cerebro-
spinal Pathology, pp. is; Forty Years of Cerebro-
spinal Patliology, jip. IG. All by Dr. Daniel Clark.
Toronto, Ont.

American Economic Association. Constitution,
etc. Piohard T. Ely, Secretary. Baltimore, Md.
Pp. 16.

The Climatic Treatment of Phthisis. By Harold
Williams, M. D. Pp. 19.

Diana. New York : Burnz & Co. Pp. 56.

Sensory Aphasia. By Morton Prince, M. D.
Boston. Pp. 14.

Studies from the Biological Laboratory of Johns
Hopkins University, lialtimore : N.Murray. Pj).
24. Price, iiO cents a nuuiber. $8 a volume.

Moral and Material Progress contrasted. By
Lester F. Ward. Washington: Judd ifc Detweiler.
Pp. IC.

Syllabus of the Instruction in Biology. By De-
los Fall. Albion, Mich. Pp. 24.

United States Government Publications. Month-
ly Catalogues, Nos. T and S. Washington : J. II.
Ilickox. Pp. 20 each.

Juarez and Cesar Cantu. Refutation of Charges
preferred by the Italian Historian. Official edition.
Mexico : Government Printing-Office. 1 p. 55.

Eemsrkables protuberances solaires (Remarkable
Solar Protuberances), pp. 3 ; La planete Saturne en
18S5 (The Planet Saturn in 1885), pp. 4; Observa-
tion d'une essaira de corpnscules noirs passant de-
vant le soleil (Observation of a Swarin of Black Cor-
puscles passing in Front of the Sun), pp. 8; Murs
enigmatiques observes a la surface de la lune (Enig-
m.itical Walls observed on the Surface of the Moon),
pp. 4; Sur la structure intime de I'enveloppe bo-
laire(On the Intimate Structure of the Solar Enve-
lope), pp. 29. With Plates. All by E. L. Trouvelot.
Paris.

Distribution of the Reserve Material of Plants
in Relation to Disease. By D. P. Penhallow. Pp.
10.

The Preparatory Schools and the Modern Lan-
guage Equivalent for the Greek. By Charles E. Fay,
Tufts College. Pp. 16.

Addresses at the Complimentary Dinner to Ben-
jamin Apthorp Gould. Lynn, Mass. : Thomas P.
is'ichols. Pp. 40.

The Lick Observalorv, Mount Hamilton, Cali-
fornia. By David P. Todd. Pp 24.

Extensions of Certain Theorems of Chfford and
of Cayley in the Geometry of i^^ Dimensions. By
E. H.'Moore, Jr. Pp.8.

Main Drainage and Water Supply of Chicago.
Report of Committee of Citizens' Association. J. C.
Ambler, Secretary. Pp. 82.

The Relations between the Thcromorphous Rep-
tiles and the Monotreme Mammali.i, pp. 12 ; and
Various Geolopiciil and Paleoutological Notes. By
E. D. Cope. Philadelphia.

Aim and Method of the Romaji Kai, or Roman
Alphabet Association of Japan. Tokio : Imperial
Printing-Ollice. Pp. 2S.

Pounding and Polishing Rice in England and
Gerniatiy, pp. 10 ; Tho Licorice- Plant, pp. 20.
(United States Consuliir Reports.) Washington :
Government Printing-Offico.

Report on Sanitary Improvement Bonds oi:

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

Jacksonville, Fla. R. N. Ellis, Superintendent.
Pp. 45.

A Years Scientific ProjrrefS in Nervous and
Mental Di.seases. By L. A. Merriatn, M. D. Oma-
ha, Neb. Pp. 7.

Value and Management of Government Timber-
Lands, etc. I'p. 4T. Agricultural Ccllejjes and E.x-
pL-riment Stations; Couveiitiou I'roceeding-s. Pp.
]'.)6. (Special Reports, Department of Agriculture.)
Washington : Government Printing-office.

Notes on Fruits, Vegetables, and Ornamental
Trees and Shrubs. By L. II Bailey, Jr., Agricult-
ural College of Michigan. Pp. 1 1

Study out of School- Hours. By L. M. Parish,
Independence, lovs'a. Pp. 6.

Lighting and Seating School-Houses. By L. i\
Andrews, Des Moines, Iowa. Pp. 45.

Sanitary Science and Public Hygiene, pp. 9.
Over-pressvire in Schools, pp. 11. By W. S. Rob-
ertson, M. D., Muscatine, Iowa.

Kvolution and Religion. Eight Sermons. By
Henry Ward Beecher. New York : Fords, How-
ard & Hulbert. Pp. 145.

On the Temperature of the Surface of the Moon.
By S. P. Langley, F. W. Very, and J. E. Keeler.
Pp. 32, with Plate.

Architectural Studies. Store-Fronts and Inte-
rior Details. Edited by F. A. Wright, ^ew
York: William T. Comstock. Twelve Plates. $1.

Milk Analysis and Infant Feeding. By Arthur
V. Meigs, M. D. Philadelphia: P. Blakiston, Son
&Co. Pp.102. $1.

A Guide to Sanitary House - Inspection. By
William Paul Gerhard, C. E. New Vork : John
Wiley & Sons. Pp. 145. $1.25.

Protectionism. By William Graham Sumner.
New York : Henry Holt & Co. Pp. 172.

Elizabeth, or the Exiles of Siberia. From the
French of Mme. Sophie Cottin. New York : Will-
iam S. Gottsberger. Pp. 149.

Twenty Years \vith the Insane. By Daniel Put-
nam. Detroit: John MacFarlane. Pp. 175. 75
cents.

Lectures on the Principles of House Drainage.
Bv J. Pickering Putnam. Boston : Ticknor & Co.
Pp. 125.

Louis Agassiz: his Life and Correspondence.
Edited bv Elizabeth Carv Agassiz. Bo.ston : Hough-
ton, Mifflin & Co. 2 vols., pp. 7U2. $4.

The Last Meeting. By Brander Matthews. New
York : Charles Scribner's Sons. Pp. 208. $1.

Mind-Culture on a Material Basis. By Sarah
Elizabeth Titcomb. Boston : Cupples, Upham &
Co. Pp. 2S8.

Rudder Granare. By Frank R. Stockton. New
York : Charles Scribner's Sons. Pp. 322.

The German Verb -Drill. By Adolphe Drey-
ppring. New York : D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 276.

§1.011.

Marvels of Animal Life. By Charles Frederick
Holder. New York : Charles Scribner's Sons. Pp.
24J. $2.

The Commonwealth of Georgia. Part T. The
Country. By J. F. Henderson, Commissioner of
Agriculture, "Atlanta. Pp. 379. $1.

Miscellanies. By C. C. Merriam. Rochester,
N. Y. : Judson J. Withall. Pp. 342, with Photo-
graphic Plates.

The Blood Covenant : A Primitive Rite and its
Bearings on Scripture. By H. Clay Trumbull,
D. D. New York : Charles Scribner's Sons. Pp.
3oS. |2.

Methods of Research in Microscopical Anatomy
and Embryology. By Charles Otis Whitman. Bos-
ton : S. E. Cassino & Co. Pp. 255 $3.

Report on Forestry. Prepared by Nathaniel H.
Egleston. Vol. IV. 1SS4. Washington : Govern-
ment Printing-Offlce. Pp. 421.

The Boys' and Girls' Pliny. By John S. White.

New York and London : G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp.
3^6. $3.

Fourth Annual Report of the United States
Geological Survey. lS52, lS-3. By J. W. Powell,
Director. Washington: Government Printing-of-
fice. Pp. 473.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

The American Forestry Congress. — The

American Forestry Congress held an in-
teresting session in Boston in September.
About a hundred members were present,
who, by their own enthusiasm and by the
reports they were able to make of the
growth of interest in the subject, testified
to the healthy progress which the cause of
the protection and renewal of the woods is
making in this country. Arbor-day is now
observed as a festival in fifteen States, in a
manner which well shows that the public
are gradually coming into an appreciation
of the sentiment which it typifies. Forest
commissioners or commissions have been
appointed by a number of States. Pro-
fessor B. 0. Northrup described the experi-
ment of Mr. H. G. Russell, of East Green-
wich, Rhode Island, in cultivating coniferous
and deciduous trees upon a tract of two
hundred acres along the shores of Narra-
gansett Bay, sixty acres of which was a
barren "sand-blow," where every one said
no trees could be made to grow. His meth-
od was to protect the trees and fix the sand
by brush until the trees (which were set
out) could take care of themselves. A resi-
dent stated that land on Cape Cod, which
was a drug at twenty -five or fifty cents an
acre twenty-five years ago, was now, in con-
sequence of the growth of trees upon it,
worth twenty dollars an acre, and desirable
for residences. Mr. Fernow, corresponding
secretary, read a paper on "Lumber-Waste
as a Ferfihzer." It proposed a plan for
the utilization of the brush, etc., left by the
loggers, which is now nothing but material
for starting forest-fires, by rending it up
into fine shreds or shavings, and then using
it as bedding for horses and cattle, after
which it will become manure. Mr. Fernow
presented facts which tend to show that
such applications may be made with profit
all around. The subject of forest -fires
came under discussion, and statements were
made respecting their preventability and
showing that they do not cause so great a

282

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

proportion of the damage suffered by the
forests as the lumbermen pretend that they
do. Mr. Coleman, Commissioner of Agri-
culture, proposed the appointment of a
committee to draft suitable forestry bills
to be made laws by the General and State
governments, and to labor with legislative
committees to secure attention to them.

Among the otiier special topics con-
sidered in the papers were "Facts in re-
gard to the Present State of American
Forestry: State of Forest Legislation in the
United States," N. II. Egleston ; "What
have the Different States done in regard to
their Forests?" J. S. Hicks; "What are
the Requisites of an Effective Forest-Fire
Legislation ? " S. W. Powell ; " Lumbering
Interests — their Dependence on Systematic
Forestry," J. E. Ilobbs ; " Trees as Edu-
cators," Professor Edward North ; "Profits
of Forest-Culture," B. P. Poore ; " Need of
a National Forest Policy," Hon. Warner
Miller; "Profits of Forest-Culture: State
of Forest Legislation in the State of New
York," Hon. U. R. Low.

The History of a Game.— Mr. J. W.

Crombie read a paper before the British
Association on what he styled "A Game
with a History " — hop-seoteh. As chil-
dren in their play generally imitated some-
thing they had observed to be done by
their elders, and a game once introduced
was handed down from generation to gen-
eration, many innocent-looking children's
games concealed strange records of ancient
ages and pagan times. The game of hop-
scotch was one of considerable antiquity,
having been known in England for more
than two centuries, and it was played all
over Europe under different names. Signor
Pitre's solar explanation of its origin ap-
peared improbable, for not only was the
evidence in its favor extremely weak, but it
would require the original number of di-
visions in the figure to have been twelve in-
stead of seven, the number indicated by a
considerable body of evidence. It would
seem more probable that the game at one
time represented the progress of the soul
from earth to heaven through various inter-
mediate states, the name given to the last
court being most freciuently paradise or an
equivalent, such as crown or glory, while

the names of the other courts corresponded
with the eschatological ideas prevalent in
the early days of Christianity. Some such
game existed before Christianity, and the
author considered it had been derived from
several ancient games. Possibly the strange
myths of the Labyrinths might have had
something to do with hop-scotch, and a va-
riety of the game played in England, under
the name of " round hop-scotch," was almost
identical with a game described by Pliny as
being played by the boys of his day. The
author believed that the early Chiistians
adopted the general idea of the ancient
game, but they not only converted it into
an allegory of heaven, with Christian be-
liefs and Christian names, they Christian-
ized the figure also. They abandoned the
heathen labyrinth and replaced it by the
form of the basilica, the early Christian
church, dividing it into seven parts, as
they believed heaven to be divided, and
placing paradise, the inner sanctum of
heaven, in the position of the altar, the in-
ner sanctum of the early church.

The Indians of Monnt Roraima. — Mr.

E. F. Im Thurm read some notes, in the
Anthropological Section of the British Asso-
ciation, on the red-men about Mount Rorai-
ma, in British Guiana. He had found them
still in the stone age, but not in the ex-
tremely primitive condition he had antici-
pated. There was no other place in British
Guiana where the stone age still subsisted.
These Indians live in small conical huts
clustered into villages, and including a
church, where they imitated, without under-
standing, the religious services they had
seen at some far-off mission. They were
generally ugly, some even repulsive, but
hospitable and kind, and the reception the
speaker's party had met with could not be
surpassed in courtesy in the most civilized
community. They made stone implements
of a remarkable kind, such as adzes and
axes, but stones were more usually fash-
ioned, by a process of rubbing, into imita-
tions of fish and articles of ornament.
Their games were very interesting, some of
them being imitations of animals, and oth-
ers a kind of rhythmic swinging to a slow
chant. The isolation of tribes, and even
that of families, was remarkable. It had

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

283

been caused by the fact that most of the
tribes seemed to have arrived from the
West Indian Islands and the Orinoco, and
to have followed one another to the interior,
where each tribe took charge of a river,
while almost impenetrable forests inter-
vened between their settlements. In an-
swer to a question, Mr. Im Thurm stated
that, though stone implements were made,
they were not used for any practical pur-
pose, and that there was no trace of their
having been used in any religious service.
They were made as curiosities, lie found
no trace among the red-men of any acknowl-
edgment of a higher power.

Origin of tlie Whale. — Professor Flower
remarked, pertinently to a description by
Dr. Struthers in the Biological Section of
the British Association, of the Tay whale,
that the whale carried its pedigree on its
own body and in every part of its structure.
It had been thought that mammals might
have passed through an aquatic and marine
stage before they came to the land. But
observations of the anatomy of the whale
showed that this could not have been the
case. There could be no question whatever
that the whale had been derived from a
four-footed animal. It was a characteristic
of a mammal to have a hairy covering.
Whales were at one time thought to be an
exception, but it was shown, in almost ev-
ery one that had been examined, that at
some period of its life it must have had a
rudimentary covering, which was generally
found in the neighborhood of the upper
lip ; that covering was functionless and
often lost before birth. j\nothcr remark-
able feature was the teeth. All these
whales were furnished with a set of teeth,
rudimentary but complete, and not charac- '
teristic of the fish, but of a more complete- '
ly developed land mammal. These teeth j
entirely vanished at an early period, some-
times before birth ; and they were entirely
functionless.

Insect Habits. — Sir John Lubbock con-
tributed to the recent meeting of the Brit-
ish Association a paper on some recent ob-
servations on the habits of ants, bees, and
wasps. One of the most interesting points
connected with the economy of ants was

the manner in which they recognized their
friends. Not only would the ants in any
nest, however large, distinguish between
their own companions and other ants be-
longing to the same species, but this had
been shown to happen even after a separa-
tion of more than a year. Mr. McCook had
thought the faculty was due to scent, but Sir
John deduced reasons for believing it to be
otherwise. As regarded the longevity of
ants, he had two which he had kept ever
since 1874. They were then full grown,
and must therefore be twelve years old.
They were both queens and continued to lay
eggs, showing no signs of age, excepting,
perhaps, that they were a little stiff in the
joints. His experiments did not confirm
the idea that these insects had any sense of
direction, except perhaps in the same sense
in which we might be said to have one. In
continuation of previous experiments, Sir
John had taken forty ants, fed them with
honey, and put them down on a gravel path
fifty yards from their nest. They wandered
about in all directions, and it was obvious
that they had no idea which was the right
way home.

Prolongation of Local Anesthesia. —

The discovery has been made by Dr. J.
Leonard Corning, of New York, that local
anesthesia produced by the subcutaneous
injection of the hydrochlorate of cocaine
may be prolonged by annulling the local
circulation. The results of three experi-
ments, described by Dr. Corning in the " New
York Medical Journal," were to show, first,
that simple arrest of the circulation in the
part, shortly after injection of the anaes-
thetic, is sufficient to intensify and prolong
the anaesthesia ; second, that if the injection
is made after exsanguination and compres-
sion, there is little diffusion of the anaes-
thetic, and consequently a commensurate
diminution in the number of nerve-filaments
exposed to the influence of the solution;
and, third, that, if the injection is made a
few moments before exsanguination and the
application of the tourniquet, a sufficient
amount of Saturation of tissue is obtained
to expose a large number of nerve-filaments
to the influence of the anaesthetic ; and yet,
if the delay is not too long, there is no
danger of diluting or dissipating the solu-

I

284

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tion by the access of too much blood to such
a degree as to weaken or nullify the anaes-
thetic influence. Since by this method the
anaesthesia can be practically prolonged to
an indefinite degree, repeated injections are
no longer necessary for that purpose, and
the object is attained by the use of com-
paratively small quantities of cocaine. Hence
the danger of constitutional disturbances
from overdosing is avoided. Dr. M. J. Rob-
erts has applied the method suggested by
Dr. Corning in operations occurring in his
practice, with complete success, in cases of
excavation of the condyles of the humerus ;
of an operation on the bones of the leg ;
and of excision of the hip-joint. In the
last case the success was less perfect, on
account of the operator having been obliged
to use a solution of inferior strength, but
was fairly satisfactory. Professor J. Willis-
ton and other surgeons of eminence have
also used the method with complete suc-
cess.

LiTing Encrinites. — The encrinites are
among the most interesting of the animals
that inhabit the great sea-depths. They
formerly played very important parts among
the marine fauna, and their remains are
found in great masses in the rocks of all the
earlier formations. Their shapes, always
graceful, now resembling lilies, now palm-
trees, were wonderfully varied during the
primary and secondary periods. They were
nearly always fixed to the ground, while,
in modern seas, the echinoderms most like
them, the Comatxdw, are free, and have
forms resembling star-fish, but lighter and
more elegant. Encrinites were regarded as
extinct till in the middle of the ei^'hteenth
century a naval officer brought to Europe a
specimen which had been fished up alive.
A few years afterward, Guettard described
to the French Academy of Sciences another
specimen which, dried, is still preserved in
the collection of the Museum of Natural
History ; and, at a later date, some encri-
nites from the Antilles were distributed
among different museums and collections in
Europe. But these animals were rare till
the time of the American dredging expe-
ditions under Louis Agassiz. It is now
known that encrinites, while they are not so
abundant as they were in the epoch when

limestone-beds were formed out of them, are
by no means rare in the deep seas; and
zoologists are in a position to tell geologists
what manner of life they lived, and what
was the structure of those organisms whose
remains are found everywhere, and whose
real character once appeared so hard to
determine. The discoveries of Sars, in the
northern seas, of Pourtales and Alexander
Agassiz in the Antilles, and of the various
English expeditions, have raised the number
of known species of crinoids to thirty-two,
whicli are divided among four families and
six genera.

Geology at the imerican Issoeiation.

— Professor Orton delivered an opening
address in the Geological Section of the
American Association, on " Problems in
the Study of Coal ; with a Sketch of Re-
cent Progress in Geology." The recent
discoveries of the pteraspidian type of
fishes in the Onondaga group of Central
Pennsylvania, and of scales and spines of
fishes {Onchus Clintoni) in the iron sand-
stone of the Middle Clinton group of the
same region, give to American formations
the earliest examples of vertebrate life yet
known. A living shark has been identified
that proves to be so nearly allied to the Cla-
dodus of carboniferous time that it would
be doing but little violence to refer it to
that genus. Three separate discoveries of
Upper Silurian scorpions and a Middle Silu-
rian cockroach carry the life of the earliest
land animals a few steps further back than
the records of the strata had before dis-
closed. Two species of pulmoniferous mol-
lusks from the lower part of the carbonif-
erous rocks of Nevada constitute the sole
known representatives of that group in pa-
laeozoic time. Stratigraphical geology ap-
pears to be attaining a somewhat juster rec-
ognition than has hitherto prevailed ; and
the growing use of the microscope in geol-
ogy is to be noted as one of the directions
in which progress is apparent and marked.
In the later stages and higher forms of ver-
tebrate life, " American geology holds an
easy and undisputed pre-eminence. Along
the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains
there are being disentombed the remnants
of great faunas of cretaceous and tertiary
time that are quite without parallel in the

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

285

history of geology. While these faunas are
remarkable for the great number and vari-
ety of the species and individuals, and also
for the enormous size of some of their
forms, it is in other directions that their
highest interest lies. Tiy their anomalous
and altogether unexpected characters, by
their strange combination and dissociation
of peculiarities of structure, they throw a
flood of light on the question of evolution,
and give us a key to the development of the
existing creation that, before their discovery,
it was too much to expect we should ever
possess." The most important service, Pro-
fessor Orton further remarked, that has
been rendered in the American field, is the
recent mapping of the great moraine from
the Atlantic border to Dakota. On "the
unfinished problems relating to the geology
and chemistry of coal," Professor Orton enu-
merated the four principal theories of the
formation of coal-beds, inclining to favor
the peat -bog theory of Lesquereux and
Brongniart. In accounting for coal-fields —
a succession of coal-beds separated by ma-
rine formations and inorganic sediments of
sandstone and iron-ore — we have to seek an
explanation of the regularity of the inter-
vals, and are referred to CroU's theory of
an astronomical cause. Various unsettled
questions also appear on the chemical side ;
and, while much has been done, much re-
mains to be done in the field of the micro-
scopical structure of coal. These problems
will probably all be solved, but when that
is done, " out of these old carboniferous
swamps, new questions, larger, deeper than
any we now see, will perpetually arise to
stimulate by their discovery and to reward
by their solution that love of knowledge for
its own sake which makes us men." Cap-
tain E. L. Corthell presented a paper, which
was read at a general meeting, on the con-
tractions of the earth's crust and surplusage
in mountain-structure. New discoveries of
fossils in the older strata of various regions
were announced. Professor Henry S. Will-
iams presented a paper on the comparative
stratigraphy of the southern counties of New
York and the adjoining counties of Penn-
sylvania, and Northern Ohio as far as Cleve-
land. Professor E. W. Claypole discussed
the problem of the origin of the paleozoic
sediments of Pennsylvania. Professor Lewis

E. Hicks described the structure and rela-
tion of the Dakota group in Nebraska. Mr.
G. K. Gilbert described an old shore-line of
Lake Ontario, which he had traced half-way
about its basin. Professor A. R. Crandall
described some small volcanic dikes which
have recently been discovered in Elliot Coun-
ty, Kentucky. Professor Orton described the
gas and oil wells of Northwestern Ohio, in
the region of which Findlay is the center,
and whose sources of supply are in forma-
tions lower than any from which gas has
been known before to issue. The flow of
gas ranges in the various wells from 100,000
to 1,200,000 cubic feet per day. The pe-
troleum is not very abundant, and is black,
sulphurous, and of a gravity of about 35°.
The formation whence the gas and oil issue
is a porous magnesian limestone identified
as Trenton. Professor A. C. Worthen de-
scribed the quaternary deposits of Central
and Southern Hlinois as observed in cutting
coal-mine shafts through them. The bed-
rock surface is diversified by valleys much as
the drift surface above, but with a different
drainage system. At the bottom is a strati-
fied clay, in part gravelly, which appears to
be derived from the waste of the bed-rock.
Above this is a forest-bed, which, though
not a universal feature, is so widely spread
as to make much of the well-water unfit for
use. Over this lies a blue and yellow grav-
elly clay, with glaciated bowlders sometimes
as large as two feet in diameter ; and, finally,
a few feet of loess, covered with a thin bed
of fine clay.

Educational Masenms. — Dr. Burt G.
Wilder, addressing the Biological Section
of the American Association on "Educa-
tional Museums of Vertebrates," maintained
that every institution, of whatever grade,
should have one. In selection quality is
more important than quantity, and ar-
rangement is usually more needed than
acquisition. As a rule, each specimen
should teach but one thing, and that thor-
oughly. The same form may, therefore,
properly recur in several parts of the mu-
seum, to illustrate different parts or ideas.
True economy consists in paying liberally
for what is wanted, rathfr than in taking
what is not wanted as a gift. " In addition
to, or in place of, the three great series —

286

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

physiological, taxonomic, and geographical —
which are commonly attempted in museums,
but which it is rarely possible to complete,
specimens representing an equal amount of
time or money would have a higher educa-
tional value if divided among a considerable
number of special series, each illustrating
some morphological or teleological princi-
ple. . . . Instead of vainly attcmptmg to
obtain and exhibit all the species of all the
groups, most educational museums would
attain more satisfactory results by selecting
the more interesting or instructive forms
from all classes, and limiting their efforts to
complete groups for a few, upon which, as
well as upon a larger number, may be illus-
trated the principles of classification and
of individual and geographical variation.
Among special series other than systematic,
are analogous forms and structures which
are sometimes mistaken for one another,
but are more readily discriminated when
brought together. . . . Physiological series
would contain the hibernating animals, those
which are blind or nearly so, and such as
are provided with scent-glands or tusks,
and all poisonous vertebrates. A local col-
lection should embrace all the animals of
the vicinity, and will benefit the student,
both as an example for him to follow or im-
prove upon, aud as exemplifying the laws
of geographical distribution and the influ-
ence of environment. The local collection
need not contain anatomical preparations,
but should exhibit both sexes and all stages
of growth — its mode of life, friends, and
foes — so as to interest also the children,
f;xrmers, fishermen, hunters, and other resi-
dents of the neighborhood."

In a paper on the hybridization and
cross-fertilization of plants, Professor E. L.
Sturtevant, of the New York Agricultural
Experiment Station, showed that in our com-
mon vegetables cross-fertilization tends to-
ward atavism, or reversion to an ancestral
form, rather than to a blending of the indi-
vidual properties of the present plants.

In describing some of the habits of the
musk-rat, Mr. A. W. Butler mentioned well-
authenticated cases of the change of habits
as a means of adapting itself to the changed
conditions of life brought about by the
presence of civilized man.

Mr. J. C. Arthur reported, as the result

of his investigations of pear-blight, that sap
from an infected tree v/hen inoculated into
a healthy tree, invariably produced the dis-
ease ; that when culture's to the sixth gen-
eration of organisms were made with all
precaution to prevent error, and healthy
trees were inoculated with the pure culture
of this sixth generation, the tree was stricken
with blight, which started from the point
of inoculation and gradually extended over
the whole plant ; and that, wherever there
was a blight not produced by freezing, bac-
teria of this species were invariably present.
Professor Bessey read a paper on the inflo-
rescence of the dodder.

The Section of Histology and Microscopy
was discontinued, at the reiiuest of its mem-
bers.

The NatiYe Tribes of Alaska. — Mr. W.

II. Ball's address to the Anthropological
Section of the American Association was
on " The Native Tribes of Alaska." Pass-
ing by the details in it which are chief-
ly of interest to specialists, we are in-
formed that the tribal limits of the west-
ern Innuit, geographically considered, are
very mutable, and constantly changing in
small details. This arises from the fact
that the geographical group which we have
called a tribe among the Innuit is not a po-
litical organization headed by a chief or
chiefs, but simply a geographical aggrega-
tion of people who have by possession ob-
tained certain de facto rights of hunting,
fishing, etc., over a certain area. The jeal-
ousy of adjacent groups keeps the imaginary
boundary-line pretty well defined, through
fear of reprisals should it be violated, but
under the influence of the whites, with their
trading-posts, the boundaries are becoming
violablc with impunity, and are falling into
oblivion. Hence the geographical names
distmguishing the groups are ceasing to
have any serious significance. The degree
of civilization which the Aleuts have at-
tained is very promising. The people are
not scattered over the archipelago except in
their hunting-parties. Notwithstanding the
nominal division into groups, they are prac-
tically as much one people as those of two
adjacent English counties. The Rev. Mr.
Dorscy gave an account of the peculiarities
of the language spoken at the Siletz Indian

NOTES,

287

agency, in Oregon, the population of which
is made up of a consolidation of more than
twenty tribes. The Indians are all more or
less civilized, some of them taking newspa-
pers, are very polite to strangers, and in
many respects resemble the Ainos. In their
language, the verb varies with the position
of the object. They can not say " that
man," but must say " that man walking," or
sitting, or standing, etc. There are three
sets of cardinal numbers, human, inhuman,
and inanimate. All their villages have local
names, as " the people of the ash-trces,"
" the people by the hill," " the people of the
canon," etc. A man must marry a woman
from another village, and his children be-
long to the village of their father. They
will not mention the names of the wild-cat,
field-mouse, and some other animals, before
their children, lest they bring sickness and
death upon them. Five is the mystic num-
ber among thern.

Miss A. C. Fletcher described the sacred
war-tent of the Omahas, in which the sacred
and ritual objects are stored. These objects
are held in great reverence, and are under a
special keeper. Among them is the sacred
shell, a large Unio, which is contained in
several leathern pouches, one within the
other, and in which are placed strips of the
inner bark of the cedar, and a scalp. In
the tent are also the sacred wolf-skin, and
two bundles covered with tanned skins. One
of the bundles contains bird-skins; the other
contains various deadly poisons. There are
besides a staff of cedar and one of iron-wood,
a small pipe-stem, two war-pipes, tobacco,
and a scalp. The sacred shell must never
touch the ground, for, if it should, a devour-
ing fire would come from it. If any one
but the keeper touches any of the objects,
he will be afflicted with grievous sores, but
the evil may be averted by going through
certain ritual ablutions. All of these ob-
jects have been given, with the consent of
the chiefs, to the Peabody Museum of Ar-
chaeology.

The <' Flight" of Flying-Fish.— The

debate goes on as to whether flying-fish
actually fly or only appear to fly, under an
impulse which they have received while still
in the water. One of the most authoritative
opinions that has been expressed on the

subject is probably that of Professor Mobius,
of Kiel, who declares that " flying-fish are
incapable of flying, for the simple reason
that the muscles of their pectoral fins are
not large enough to bear the weight of their
body aloft in the air." The average weight
of the muscles doing this work in birds is
one sixth that of the whole body, and that
of bats one thirteenth, while that of flying-
fishes is only one thirty-second. The im-
pulse to the propulsion of the flying-fish is
delivered while they are still in the water,
by the powerful masses of muscles on both
sides of their body, which are of much
greater breadth than in the case of the her-
ring or any other fish of their own size.
The visible flickering of the fins is only a
vibration akin to the flapping of a sail.

NOTES.

An extensive copper region is known to
exist in Texas, running westward of Red
River, from the line of the Indian Territory
through several counties. The Grand Belt
mines, fifty miles from Harrold, in Wil-
berger County, are operated by a company
which owns claims for sixty-five miles along
the ore-belt, and along which about sixty
openings have been made, of an average
depth of seven or eight feet. The ore is
found principally in shallow pockets, and
at the main point of taking out is said to
average about fifty-four or fifty-five per cent
of metallic copper.

In section A of the American Associa-
tion, Professor Newton read a paper on
" The Effect of Small Bodies passing near a
Planet upon the Planet's Velocity" ; Profess-
or Ilarkness, of the U. S. Naval Observatory,
on the flexure of transit instruments ; Pro-
fessor Hough, of the Dearborn Observatory,
Chicago, presented a description of some im-
provements recently introduced in the print-
ing chronograph devised by him. Professor
J. Burkitt Webb described a new method of
using polar co-ordinates ; Mr. C. H. Rockwell,
of Tarrytown, New York, presented some
results of his observations for time and lati-
tude, with a new instrument called the almu-
cantar, which promises to be a very valuable
addition to scientific apparatus.

M. GciLLEMiN has formed a number of al-
loys of cobalt and copper. They are all red,
have a fine fracture, and are much more te-
nacious than copper — even as high as from
fifty to one hundred per cent more so, ac-
cording to the proportion of cobalt. Five
per cent of cobalt is enough to give an alloy
of great resistance.

I

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

In the Geological Section of the British
Association, Mr. H. Johnston Lavis pre-
sented the report of the committee for the
investigation of the volcanic phenomena of
Vesuvius. Its work had been interfered
with by various circumstances growing out
of the prevalence of cholera in Naples, but
a careful record had been kept of daily ob-
servations of the variations in the activity
of the volcano, and photographs hud been
taken of all important changes of the cra-
ter-plane and in the cone of eruption.

Aftkr a very interesting vice-presiden-
tial address on the phosphorescence of ma-
rine animals, Dr. W. B. Carpenter remarked,
in the Biological Section of the British As-
sociation, that disciples of evolution were
straining points to make it appear that the
luminosity was of particular use and was
propagated and increased by natural selec-
tion. He thought it was a great pity to strain
that argument too far. it would be much
better to abstain from more than mere specu-
lation in regard to the use of this remarkable
endowment.

Pkofessor J. G. JIcKendrick described
at Aberdeen some ex[)eriments he had made
in the exposure of microphytes contained in
meat to extremely low temperatures. The
results showed that wc might take organic
fluids and expose them to the temperature
of 120' below zero Fahrenheit for at least a
hundred hours, and that then, after they
had been placed in a higher temperature,
fermentation and putrefaction would go on
in the ordinary way. These facts destroyed
any hope of a practical result being ob-
tained from sterilization by cold.

Dr. B. Crocmbie Brown reported in the
Geographical Section of the British Associa-
tion concerning his visit to the Forest School
of Spain, one of the objects of which school
was to insure that not a drop of water found
its way to the sea without doing its best for
the country. Spain was now convinced of
the importance of scientific forestry, and of
the function of forests in affecting the dis-
tribution and quantity of the rainfall, and
was doing its best to conserve and replenish
them.

The Emperor of Russia has conferred
the golden honorary medal of the Empire
upon llessrs. Alvan Clark & Sons, of Cam-
bridge, Massachusetts, in acknowledgment
of the excellent performances of the great
object-glass furnished by them for the ob-
servatory at Pulkowa. This is the second
award of the medal that has been made by
the present emperor.

OBITUARY NOTES.

The death is announced of M. Breton
des Champs, a French mathematician and
scicntilic writer, who was best known from

the part he took, a few years ago, in ex-
posing the forgery of the letter alleged to
be by Sir Isaac Newton which was sold to
M. Chaslcs.

The death is announced of M. Edmond
Boissier, an eminent French botanist. His
career in science began in 1837, when he
traveled in Spain, in preparation for his
work on the botany of that country, which
was published from 1839 to 1845. He aft-
erward botanically explored various parts
of Southeastern Europe and Asia Minor.
His great work was the " Flora Orientalis,"
which was published from 1867 to 1881.
He was engaged upon the supplements to
this book at the time of his death. He was
also author of a number of smaller works
and monographs, among which was a series
on the Euphorbue.

Walter Weldon, a distinguished Eng-
lish chemist, died September 21st, in the
fifty-third year of his age. He was the in-
ventor of the " Weldon process " for the re-
generation of the manganese peroxide used
in the generation of chlorine, by the aid of
which the production of bleaching-powders
has been vastly facilitated, with a great
saving of expense in manufacturing pro-
cesses. For this he received the grand
medal of the French Soci6t6 d'Encourage-
ment, in presenting which Professor Dumas
congratulated him on "having cheapened
every sheet cf paper and every yard of calico
made in the world." He was engaged at
the time of his illness in studying processes
for producing hydrochloric acid from cal-
cium chloride.

Mr. John Muirheai), the inventor of the
Muirhead galvanic battery, which has served
as a model for most of the existing batteries,
has recently died, at the age of seventy-eight
years.

Dr. H. W. Reicrardt, Professor of Bota-
ny in the University of Vienna, died by sui-
cide in August last, in the fiftieth year of
his age. He contributed many articles on
botany to the scientific journals of his coun-
try, chiefly to the " Journal of the Vienna
Academy of Sciences." His last undertak-
ing, a catalogue of the Imperial Botanical
Cabinet, of which he was keeper, remains
unfinished.

Dr. Albert Fitz, who has piiblished
some noteworthy researches in fermenta-
tion, died at Strasburg on the 11th of May.

Dr. Karl JrLius Andrae, Professor of
Mineralogy and Paleontology in the Univer-
sity of Bonn, died May 8th, in his sixty-
ninth year.

UiiDwiG Freiherr von HonENnihiL, or
ITeufler von Rosen, an Aush-ian botanist,
whose specialty was the cryptogams, died
on the 9th of June, sixty-sveen years old.

\

I

FRANCIS TREVELYAN AUCKLAND.

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY.

JAirUAEY, 1886.

nrOCULATIOX AGAINST HYDKOPHOBIA *

By M. LOUIS PASTEUR.

THE prevention of rabies, as I have described it, in my own name
and the names of my collaborators, in previous notes, certainly
constitutes a real progress in the study of that malady, a progress which
was, however, more scientific than practical. Its application was preca-
rious. Of twenty dogs that I had then treated, I could not assert that
I had made more than fifteen or sixteen proof against rabies.

It was expedient, on the other hand, to finish the treatment by a
final exceedingly virulent inoculation, with virus of control, in order
to confirm and strengthen the refractory state. Finally, prudence made
it necessary to keep the dogs under obsei'vation for a longer time than
the period of incubation of the disease produced by the direct inocu-
lation of the last virus ; and it thus required an interval not less, per-
haps, than three or four months to be assured of a fully refractory
condition. These necessities considerably limited the application of
the method. The method, also, did not accommodate itself readily to
contingencies, which were always immediate, growing out of the acci-
dental and sudden character of the bites of rabid animals. It was
therefore necessary to obtain, if possible, a more rapid method, and
one more capable of giving a security which might be considered per-
fect over dogs. Besides, how, before reaching that stage of progress,
could we venture to make an experiment on man ?

After almost innumerable experiments I obtained a preventive
method, practical and prompt, of which sufiiciently numerous and
assured successes have been gained upon dogs to give me confidence in
its general applicability to all animals, and to man himself.

* A paper read in the French Academy of Sciences, October 26, 1885.

VOL. XXTIII. — 19

290

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MOXTIILY.

This metliod is based essentially upon the following facts :

Inoculation of a rabbit, by trepanning, under the dura mater, with
the poisonous marrow of a mad dog, always gives rabies to the animal
after a mean period of incubation of about fifteen days. If the virus
is passed from this first rabbit to a second, from this one to a third,
and so on, by the same method of inoculation, there is shortly mani-
fested a more and more marked tendency toward a shortening of the
period of incubation in the rabbits successively inoculated. After
from twenty to twenty-five passages from rabbit to rabbit, we arrive
at a period of incubation of eight days, which is maintained during a
new series of from twenty to twenty-five passages. Then we have a
period of incubation of seven days, which occurs with striking regu-
larity during a new series of passages rising to the ninetieth. At
least that is the number I have now reached without having hardly
yet observed a tendency to a slight further shortening of the period.

The experiments of this character, which I began in November,
1882, have already been continued for three years without the series
having been interrupted, or without my having used any other virus
than that from rabbits Avhich successively died rabid. Nothing, there-
fore, is more easy than to have at one's disjiosition, during considerable
intervals of time, a virus of perfect purity, always identical, or nearly
so. This is the practical point of the method.

The marrows of these rabbits are infected with rabies of constant
virulence in their whole extent. If we detach from them pieces a few
centimetres long, taking the greatest possible precautions to insure
their purity, and susjsend them in dry air, the virulence of the rabies
in them will slowly pass away, till it is quite extinguished. The dura-
tion of the process varies somewhat with the thickness of the marrow,
but depends chiefly on the exterior temperature : the lower the tem-
perature the longer the virulence lasts. These results constitute the
scientific point of the method.*

These facts being substantiated, we have the following method of
making a dog, within a reasonably short time, proof against rabies.

In a series of flasks, the air of which is kept dry by pieces of potash
in the bottom, we suspend each day a piece of freshly infected marrow
from a rabbit that has died of rabies, developed after seven days of
incubation. Every day, at the same time, we inoculate under the skin
of a dog a Pravaz syringeful of sterilized broth, in which has been
soaked a small piece of one of the marrows we arc keeping in desicca-
tion, beginning with one of those which we have prepared several days
before our operation is performed, so as to be sure that it is not of full
strength. On that subject we have informed ourselves by previous
experiments. We operate in the same manner on the following days

* If the infected marrow is protected from the air, and is kept moist in carbonic acid,
the virulence will last, for several months at least, without change in intensity, provided
it be guarded ajrainst the attack of microbes from without.

INOCULATION AGAINST HYDROPHOBIA. 291

with more recent maiTows, separated from one another by, say, two
days of age, till we come at last to a very recent one, which has been
in the flask for only one or two days. The dog is then found to be
made proof against rabies. We can inoculate him under the skin, or
even, by trepanning, under the surface of the brain, without the disease
showing itself.

By the application of this method I had succeeded in getting fifty
dogs, of various ages and races, proof against rabies without having
had a single failure, when, on the 6th of July last, three persons from
Alsace unexpectedly presented themselves at my laboratory : Theodore
Vone, a grocer of Meissengott, near Schelstadt, who had been bitten
in the arm on the 4th of July by his own dog, become mad ; Joseph
Meister, nine years of age, who had been bitten by the same dog at
eight o'clock in the morning of the same day, and who, thrown to the
ground by the dog, bore the marks of numerous bites on his hand, legs,
and thighs, some of them so deep as to make walking hard for him.
The more serious wounds had been cauterized only twelve hours after
the accident, or at eight o'clock in the evening of the same day, with
phenic acid, by Dr. Weber, of Ville ; the third person, who had not
been bitten, was the mother of Joseph Meister.

At the autopsy of the dog, which had been killed by its master, we
found its stomach filled with hay, straw, and pieces of wood. It was
certainly mad. Joseph Meister had been picked up from under it
covered with froth and blood. M. Yone had marked bruises on his
arms, but he assured me that the dog's teeth had not gone through his
shirt. As he had nothing to fear, I told him he might go back to Al-
sace the same day, and he did so ; but I kept little Meister and his
mother.

The weekly meeting of the Academy of Sciences took place on the
6th of July. I saw our associate, Dr. Vulpian, there, and told him
what had passed. He and Dr. Grancher, professor in the £cole de
Medecine, had the kindness to come and see little Joseph Meister at
once, and ascertain his condition and the number of his wounds, of
which there were no less than fourteen. The opinion of these two
physicians was that, in consequence of the severity and number of the
bites upon him, Joseph Meister was almost certain to have hydrophobia.
I then informed them of the new results which I had obtained in the
study of rabies since the address I had delivered at Copenhagen a year
previously. The death of this child seeming inevitable, I decided, not
without considerable and deep anxiety, as you may imagine, to try
upon him the method with which I had had constant success on dogs.

It is true that my fifty dogs had not been bitten before I found
them to have been made proof against rabies. But I felt that I
might dismiss all anxiety on this point, because I had already ob-
tained a similar condition on a large number of dogs after they had
been bitten.

292 THE POPULAR SCIEXCE MONTHLY.

Thus, on the 6th of July, at eight o'clock in the evening, sixty hours
after he had been bitten on the 4th, in the presence of Drs. Vulpian
and Grancber, we inoculated under a crease made in the skin of the
hypochondrium of little Meister a half-syringe Pravaz of marrow of a
rabbit that had died of rabies on the 21st of June, which had been
kept since that time, or for fifteen days, in a flask of dry air.

New inoculations were made, always in the hypochrondres, under
conditions of which a table is here given :

July

A. IIALF-SYKINGE

PRAVAZ.

-r,

0

A.

M.,

marrow

of June 23,

14

day

s old.

T,

0

P.

M.,

((

25,

12

<(

8,

9

A.

M.,

11

27,

11

a

8,

6

r.

M.,

a

29,

9

11

%

A.

M.,

July

1,

8

11

10,

A.

M.,

11

^,

7

11

11,

A.

M.,

u

^h

6

ii

12,

A.

M.,

li

'^,

5

li

13,

A.

M.,

a

9,

4

li

14,

A.

M.,

u

11,

11

15,

A.

M.,

li

13,

2

11

16,

A.

M.,

a

15,

1

day

old.

I thus made the number of inoculations thirteen, and the number
of days of treatment ten. I would say, furthermore, that a smaller
number of inoculations would have been sufficient. But it is easily
conceivable that in tbis first trial I should have acted with particular
caution.

We also inoculated, by trepanning, two new rabbits with each of
the several marrows employed, in order to test their states of virulence.
The observations on these rabbits permit me to assert that the marrows
used on the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th of July were not virulent, for
they did not make the rabbits mad. Those of the 11th, 12th, 14th,
15th, and IGth of July Avere all virulent, in proportion as the marrow
was fresher. Rabies declared itself after seven days of incubation in
the rabbits of the 15th and 16th of July ; after eight days in those
of the 12th and 14th ; and after fifteen days in those of the lltli
of July.

I had thus in the last days inoculated Joseph Meister with the most
virulent virus, that of the dog strengthened by several passages from
rabbits to rabbits ; it Avas a virus that gave rabies after seven days
of incubation to these animals, after eight or ten days to dogs. I was
justified in venturing on this experiment by what had taken place
with the fifty dogs of which I have spoken. When the state of im-
munity is reached, we can, without inconvenience, inoculate with t])e
most virulent virus, and in any quantity ; and it has seemed to me
that this had no other effect than further to confirm the condition of
refractoriness against rabies.

INOCULATION AGAINST HYDROPHOBIA. 293

Joseph Meister, then, has escaped, not only the rabies which his
bites would have developed, but also that with which I inoculated him
in order to confirm the immunity secured by the treatment — a more
virulent rabies than that of the mad dog. The final extremely viru-
lent inoculation had also the advantage of putting a term to the dura-
tion of the apprehensions we might entertain as to the consequences
of the bites. If rabies was to break out, it would declare itself more
speedily with a more virulent virus than that of the bites. From the
middle of August I regarded the future of the health of Joseph Meis-
ter with confidence ; and now, after three months and three weeks
have passed since the accident, his health leaves nothing to be
desired.

What interpretation shall we give to the new method which I
have just described for preventing rabies after being bitten ? I do
not intend to consider this question in full to-day ; but will limit
myself to a few preliminary details, such as may help to compre-
hend the significance of the experiments which I prosecuted for the
purpose of directing attention to the best of the possible interpre-
tations.

Recurring to the methods of progressive attenuation of mortal
viruses, and the prophylaxy that may be deduced from it, and the in-
fluence of the air in the attenuation being given on the other side, the
first thought that occurs in trying to account for the effects is that the
continued presence of rabies-infected marrows in contact with dry air
progressively diminishes the intensity of their virulence till it is ren-
dered nil. We are, therefore, led to believe that the prophylactic
method under consideration rests upon the employment at first of virus
without appreciable activity ; then of weak viruses, and then of those
of greater and greater virulence. I shall show, further on, that the
facts are in disaccord with this view. I shall prove that the increase
in the length of the periods of incubation of the rabies, communicated
day after day to rabbits, as I have just said, to test the condition of
virulence of our marrows, dried in contact with the air, is an effect of
impoverishment in the quantity of the virus contained in the marrows,
and not an effect of its impoverishment in virulence.

We may suppose that inoculation with a virus of virulence con-
stantly identical in itself may lead to a condition proof against rabies
by the process of employing very small but daily increasing quanti-
ties. This interpretation of the facts of the new method I have stud-
ied experimentally. . . .

I need not remark, in conclusion, that the most serious of the ques-
tions to be resolved now is perhaps that of the interval that should be
observed between the time when the patient is bitten and that s.t
which the treatment should be begun. In the case of Joseph Meister,
the interval was two days and a half. But there is reason to suppose
that it may sometimes be much longer.

294 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

On Tuesday last, the 20th of October, with the obliging assistance
of Drs. Vulpian and Grancher, I began to treat a young man fifteen
years old, who had been bitten six days before, in both hands, and
whose condition was exceptionally grave.

The Academy will perhaps not be uninterested to hear the story of
this young man's courage and presence of mind. He is a shepherd,
named Jean-Baptiste Jupille, of Villers Farlay in the Jura, who, see-
ing a large dog of suspicious appearance rush at a group of six of his
comi'ades, all younger than himself, sprang, whip in hand, in front of
the animal. The dog seized Jupille by the left hand. Jupille then
knocked the dog down, held it under himself, opened its jaw with his
right hand to relieve his left, not without receiving several new bites,
and then, with the thong of his whip tied up its muzzle, and, taking
off one of his wooden shoes, dispatched the dog with it.

I shall promptly make known to the Academy the outcome of this
new experiment.

[After the reading of ]M Pasteur's papei", M. Vulpian remarked
that the Academy should not be surprised to see one of the members
of the Section of Medicine and Surgery take the floor to express the
feelings of admiration which the communication had inspired in him.
These feelings, he continued, " will be shared, I am convinced, by the
whole medical profession. A remedy has at last been found for rabies,
that terrible malady, against which all therapeutic measures had mis-
carried till now. M. Pasteur, who has had no precursor in this road,
has been led, by a series of researches pursued uninterruptedly for
years, to create a method of treatment that enables him surely to
prevent the development of hydrophobia in a man who has been bit-
ten by a mad dog : I say surely, because, after what I have seen in M.
Pasteur's laboratory, I do not doubt the constant success of this treat-
ment whenever it is piit in practice in its completeness within a few
days after the rabid bite has been inflicted. It becomes henceforth
necessary to take into consideration the organization of a service for
the treatment of hydrophobia by M. Pasteur's method. Every person
bitten by a mad dog must be made able to enjoy the benefit of this
great discovery, which aflixes the seal to the glor}^ of our illustrious
associate, and which will shed an incomparable luster upon our dear
country." On motion of Baron Larrey, a prize was proposed for
young Jupille, in recognition of his bravery and devotion.

The President of the Academy, M. Bouley, expressed his full sym-
pathy with the feelings which the Academy had just manifested by its
applause. The date of the 2Gth of October, 1885, he said, would be
marked as a great day among the festivals of French biology and medi-
cine, and among the festivals of the medicine of the whole world. He
would ask M. Pasteur whether, if, during the course of the preventive
inoculations, an inoculated dog should bite a person or other animals
in play, it would communicate rabies to them.

INOCULATION AGAINST HYDROPHOBIA. 295

M. Pasteur replied that no experiments bearing on that point had
yet been made.

On the 30th of October four other persons came from Arcachon to
place themselves under M. Pasteur's care ; so that, if success is gained
in these cases also, six demonstrations will have been obtained from
human subjects of the efficacy of the inoculation treatment. In an
interview with a correspondent of the London " Times," M. Pasteur
explained the philosophy of his treatment by stating that the virus
acted very slowly, and, while he was making the body refractory to it
by repeated inoculations, the virus deposited by the bite localized it-
self in the region of the wound. Whatever this region, that virus
becomes digested during the year and a half which he has found by
experiment the inoculation lasts, and will no longer exist in the body.
As the propagation of the virus, which has always an ascending tend-
ency and directs itself to the brain, takes place so slowly that the
minimum of the total inoculation with it is thirty days, the whole
question consists in inoculating the patient soon enough to prevent the
propagation of the virus through the wound from spreading. In the
case of Jupille, after the lapse of six days, the virus through the
wounds had not yet left the hands. Consequently, it had not yet pene-
trated into any of the regions where its presence causes an outbreak
of rabies. It will remain cooped up, till after some months it will
have been digested and expelled.

There would be no need to dwell on the value of M. Pasteur's dis-
covery, the " Times " suggestively remarks, " were it not for the
strange perversity of those who will only see in the whole story a fresh
ground for attacking physiological experiment. Such people, as we
know from long experience, will lose all sight of the thousands and tens
of thousands of animals whom M. Pasteur liberates from the curse, and
of the multitudes of human beings freed from torture and death, when
they think of the twenty or fifty rabbits in his laboratory. They for-
get, in the contemplation of a few cases of immediate suffering, the
innumerable animals, friends of man, whom the discovery will set free.
With these excellent people it is impossible to argue ; but men whose
sympathies are wider and whose sight is truer than theirs will unite in
paying homage to the man who, if what he tells us is confinned, has
worked so patiently and so wisely to so noble and beneficent an end."
— Editor of " The Popular Science Monthly."]

296 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

THE ORIGIN OF PRIMITIVE MONEY.

By HOEATIO HALE.

THE European colonists who first became acquainted with the In-
dian tribes of the region now composing the United States and
Canada were surprised and not a little interested when they found
that these barbarous clans had, in one respect, a marked advantage
over the great semi-civilized communities of Central and South Amer-
ica. The Mexicans and Peruvians were much addicted to traffic ; but,
like the Egyptians and Assyrians of early ages, they carried on their
commerce without the use of money. The wampum of the Northern
tribes was a real money, and as such it was destined to play an im-
portant part, for more than two centuries, in the intercourse between
them and their white neighbors. Lawson, the historian of Carolina,
writing nearly two hundred years ago, described in quaint but ex-
pressive terms, and with a satiric touch aimed at his own people, the
place which this remarkable invention held in the social policy of the
red-men. " This," he says, " is the money with which you may buy
skins, furs, slaves, or anything the Indians have ; it being the Mam-
mon (as our money is to us) that entices and persuades them to do
anything, and part with everything they jjossess, except," he adds
significantly, "their children for slaves. . . . With this they buy off
murders ; and whatsoever a man may do that is ill, their wampum
will quit him of, and make him, in their opinion, good and virtuous,
though never so black before."

So common and wide-spread was the use of this money among the
Indians, that the white colonists were fain to adopt it from them, and
their laws for a time gave it an established value and circulation
throughout New England and New York. In Massachusetts, as Dr.
Ashbel Woodward tells us in his valuable monograph on " Wampum,'*
it was made by statute, as early as 1637, a legal tender for any sum
under twelvepence, at the rate of six beads for a penny ; and in
Connecticut it actually became a legal tender for any amount, being
receivable for taxes at four beads for a penny. In Massachusetts the
same valuation was adopted in 1640, four white beads or two blue
beads being rated at a penny. In New York, for nearly half a cent-
ury, owing to the scarcity of silver money, w^ampum was almost the
only currency in use ; and, though its circulation in ordinary traffic
gradually ceased, it was still employed in the Indian trade down near-
ly to the middle of the present century.

The material of this aboriginal currency may be described briefly
as "shell-beads." It must not, however, be confounded with the
cowries, or small shells, which are in use for a similar purpose in some

THE ORIGIN OF PRIMITIVE MONEY. 297

parts of India and of Africa. It differed from them, in fact, as coined
money differs from bullion. Wampum was a manufactured article.
The great labor required to produce it was, indeed, the main element
in its value. It was used in two forms. The least common, but ap-
parently the earliest form, was that of disks, varying in size from that
of an English sixpence, or rather, perhaps, from that of an American
half-dime, to that of an English shilling, but somewhat thicker than
these coins. One writer compares them, for size and thickness, to a
peppermint-lozenge. These disks were perforated through the center,
and commonly threaded upon a string. The other and more usual
kind was of cylindrical shape, resembling the segment of a clay pipe-
stem. These smaller beads had a diameter of about the eighth of an
inch, and a length about twice or three times as great. Like the oth-
ers, they were perforated, and usually strung upon a deer's sinew or a
string of some description.

These disks, or cylinders, were of two colors, white and dark-pur-
ple, the latter generally styled black. They were made from sea-
shells of several descriptions. The white beads were usually derived
from various species of periwinkles or conchs. The purple sort were
made chiefly from the large round clam, common on the Atlantic
coast, and known by the Indian name of quahaiig, and in science as
Venus mercenaria. This moUusk has near the anterior end of the
otherwise white inside of each valve a deep purple or brownish-black
scar, indicating the point of muscular attachment, and known to fish-
ermen as the " eye." This dark spot was broken out by the Indians
to form their "black wampum," which, from its greater rarity, was
always rated at a higher value than the white beads. Such, in brief,
is the account given by Mr. Ernest Ingersoll, in his excellent article on
"Wampum and its History," in the " American Naturalist" for May,
1883. The Indians who lived along the sea-coast were the principal
manufacturers, and drove a brisk trade in this article with the tribes
of the interior. Long Island, in particular, was a noted seat of this
industry. It was the Potosi or California of the Northern Indians,
and bore among them the name of Seawanhake, or " Land of Wam-
pum." In traffic the money was computed sometimes by the number
of beads, and sometimes by the length of the string.

The word icampwn is of Algonkin origin. Its application to this
money originated in a misconception of the early colonists. Properly
it means simply " white." Peage or peake, we are told, was the name
of the shell-beads, at least when strung. When loose, the term seican
(or, as pronounced by the Dutch colonists, zeewand) was applied to
them. This term is said to mean simply " scattered," or " loose."
A string of white beads, the most common currency, was called by the
Indians loampum-peah., or " white strung-beads." The first portion of
the compound word was caught by the settlers, and hence all money-
beads became known among them as " wampum."

298 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

To break from the shell the fragment suitable for a bead, to rasp it
on a stone to the proper circular or cylindrical shape, to polish it to an
ivory smoothness, and then to pierce it with a drill-point of flint, was
a tedious labor. It was this labor which, in great part, gave the wam-
pum its value. This alone, however, would not have been suflicient,
if the article had not held, in the social system of the Indians, a posi-
tion which kept it always in demand. By their custom, handed down
from time immemorial, it was essential that all great acts of state policy
should be accompanied by the exhibition of wampum in some form.
The messenger who summoned the chiefs of a tribe to a public meet-
ing bore a string of wamjium to authenticate his errand. The embas-
sador, in proposing a treaty, laid down a string or belt of wampum at
the close of every clause of his address. When the treaty was con-
cluded, several belts were usually exchanged, by way of ratification.
A belt of black wampum, formally delivered, was a declaration of war.
A string of black wampum, borne by a runner, announced to all the
villages of an Indian nation the death of a high chief ; and, at his burial,
belts and strings of wampum were deposited in his grave. At the great
religious festival of the Iroquois, the " Sacrifice of the White Dog,"
the dead animal was enveloped in strings of wampum, which were
burned with him. The belts and strings which accompanied the mak-
ing of treaties and the framing of laws were kept as tribal records, and
were brought forth on great occasions to be exhibited and explained
to the people. The belts which commemorated the conclusion of the
famous League of the Iroquois, framed by Hiawatha, Atotarho, and
their associate chiefs, four hundred years ago, are still preserved on
the Onondaga Reservation in the State of New York.

The belts, it should be added, were composed of short strings of
wampum, containing from six to twenty-four beads each, laid side by
side, and closely knotted together. The length of the string made the
width of the belt, which varied from two to nine or ten inches, while
its length varied from two to eight feet. The wider and longer the
belt, the greater, of course, was its value, and the higher its signifi-
cance as a pledge or memorial. Each belt usually had its special de-
vice, whose meaning was well understood. This device was wrought
sometimes in white beads on a dark ground, sometimes in purple beads
on a white ground. These symbols were genuine hieroglyphics, re-
sembling the ancient pictorial figures in which the modern Chinese
characters had their origin. In the Chinese script a parallelogram sig-
nifies an inclosure ; it is the fence of a field. On an Iroquois belt a
parallelogram denotes a town ; for with them, in ancient times, the
town was inclosed in a rectangular palisade. A lozenge-shaped figure
represents a council ; it is the Indian hearth, around which the coun-
cilors assembled. Oblique marks across a belt are the stamp and token
of the Iroquois confederacy. They represent the rafters of the "long-
house," to which the confederacy was likened. Others of these sym-

THE ORIGIN OF PRIMITIVE MONEY. 299

bols are remembered, but a far greater number have been forgotten.
Of the many hundreds, and indeed thousands, of belts which are known
to have been fashioned during the last three centuries, each bearing its
own device, less than fifty whose meaning can be explained are now
known to exist.

Wampum Belt, commemorating the formation of the League of the " Five Nations ' (Iroquois).
The lozenge-shaped figure represents a native hearth, and indicates the Onondagas, the cen-
tral nation who liept the council-fire of the confederacy. The square inclosures represent the
other nations, the Mohawks and Oneidas on the right (or east), and the Cayugas and Senecas
on the left. The connecting lines denote the '• peace-path " opened between the nations by the
League. The belt is about two feet long and ten inches wide.

Shell-beads exactly resembling the wampum are found in great
abundance in the graves of the mound-builders, and sometimes, along
with them, the large conch-shells from which such beads were made.
Messrs. Squier and Davis, in their well-known work on the " Ancient
Monuments of the Mississippi Valley," remark that " the number of
beads found in the mounds is truly surprising ; they may be counted
in some instances by hundreds and thousands." They are described
as resembling " sections cut from the ends of rods, or small cylinders,
and subsequently more or less rounded upon the edge. Some are quite
flat, and resemble the bone buttons of commerce ; others are perfectly
round. Their diameter varies from one fourth to three fourths of an
inch. The size of the perforation is also variable, usually, however,
about one tenth of an inch." No one doubts that these beads were
used for the same purposes among this vanished people as among their
successors. Dr. Daniel Wilson, in his admirable woi'k on " Prehistoric
Man," after referring to the fact that in the great Grave Creek Mound,
evidently reared over the tomb of some notable personage, the shell-
beads, such as constitute the warapura of the forest tribes, amounted
to between three and four thousand, finds it " singularly consistent
with the partial civilization of the ancient mound-builders that in such
deposits we have the relics of sepulchral records, which constituted
the scroll of fame of the illustrious dead, or copies of the national
archives deposited with the great sachem, to whose wisdom or prowess
the safety of his people had been due."

Indeed, when we consider that the tribes among whom the wam-
pum currency and records were afterward used, in the particular form
thus far described, were those which at first surrounded and after-

300 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ward either conquered or absorbed this semi-civilized people, we might
be tempted to conclude that the knowledge of this peculiar invention
was a bequest to these modern tribes from their more advanced prede-
cessors— just as some of the arts of Roman civilization were in-
herited by the barbarous conquerors of the empire. It is not impossi-
ble, nor indeed very improbable, that such may have been actually the
case in this instance. But further inquiry shows that this system had
a wider extent and probably a far remoter origin than this suggestion
would explain.*

Crossing the Rocky Mountains, we find the shell-money in actual
use among the tribes of the Pacific coast, down almost to our own
day. Three kinds were known. In Northern California, in Oregon,
and still farther north, a rare species of cylindrical univalve, the
Dentalium, or tusk-shell, known in the Chinook " jargon " as the
hiqua, or ioqua, was strung upon a string, and used as money. Its
extreme rarity and its attractiveness as an ornament made, as with
the pearl, its only claim to value. But farther south the genuine
wampum, or disk-money, owing its value to the labor bestowed upon
it, and to its importance in the social policy of the people, was in uni-
versal use. Full and interesting details on this subject are given by
Mr. Stephen Powers in his instructive work on the " Tribes of Califor-
nia." Among the Nishinams and, as he believes, among all the tribes
of Central and Southern California, the materials chiefly used are two
species of sea-shell, found upon the coast. The most common is a
thick white shell, the Pachydesma crassatelloides, from which is
formed the money known as hdicoJc. This consists, he writes, "of
circular disks or buttons, ranging from a quarter-inch to an inch in
diameter, and varying in thickness with the shell. These are pierced
in the center, and strung on strings made of the inner bark of the
wild cotton, or milkweed (Asclepias), and either all the pieces on a
string, or all in one section of it, are of the same size." The value of
this money varies with the size of the disks. The larger pieces are
rated at about twenty-five cents ; the half-inch pieces at about half
that value ; and the smallest pieces at three or four cents, being usu-
ally rated by the string. "This," continues Mr, Powers, "may be
called their silver, and is the great medium of all transactions ; while
the money answering to gold is made from varieties of the ear-shell
(Haliotis) and is called ullo. They cut these shells with flints into
oblong strips, from an inch to two inches in length, according to the
curvature of the shell, and about a third as broad as they are long.
Two holes are drilled near the narrow end of each piece, and they are
thereby fastened to a string of the material above-named, hanging
edge to edge. Ten pieces generally constitute a string, and the larger

* Tho-e who desire to pursue this inquiry will find ample material in the valuable
essay on " Art in Shell of the Ancient Americans," by Mr. W. H. Holmes, in the Second
Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology.

THE ORIGIN OF PRIMITIVE MONEY. 301

pieces rate at one dollar apiece — ten dollars a string ; tlie smaller in
proportion, or less, if they are not pretty. Being susceptible of a liigh
polish, this money forms a beautiful ornament, and is worn for neck-
laces on gala-days. But as money it is rather too large and cumbei--
some, and the Indians generally seek to exchange it for the less brill-
iant and more useful hCiiook. The ullo may be considered rather as
jevrelry. The peculiar shape given to this ullo, ov "gold-money," is
deserving of notice, as will be seen hereafter.

Of the shell-money in general Mr. Powers remarks that " immense
quantities of it were formerly in circulation among the Califoi-nian In-
dians, and the manufacture of it was large and constant, to I'eplace the
continual wastage which was caused by the sacrifice of so much upon
the death of wealthy men, and by the propitiatory sacrifices performed
by many tribes, especially those of the Coast Range." This use of
shell-money in saci'ifices and in funeral ceremonies is precisely the
same that is made of the Eastern wampum. Like the shape of the
oblong ullo money, this is a fact which will be found significant as we
proceed. Mr. Powers continues : " From my own observations, which
have not been limited, and from the statements of pioneers and the
Indians themselves, I hesitate little to express the belief that every
Indian in the State, in early days, possessed an average of at least one
hundred dollars' worth of shell-money. This," adds the author, with
a commercial precision which is both commendable and amusing,
" would represent the value of about two women (though the Nishi-
nams never actually bought their wives), or two grizzly-bear skins, or
twenty-five cinnamon-bear skins, or about three average ponies. This
may be considered a fair statement of the diffusion of wealth among
them in their primitive condition,"

Thus it will be seen that shell-money of this peculiar chai*acter was
in use over a wide space of North America, stretching from the Atlan-
tic coast to the Pacific. The line along which it is found in the great-
est abundance extends from New York and the Ohio Valley to South-
ern California in a direction somewhat south of west. If we continue
this line in the same direction a little more than half-way across the
Pacific, we arrive at the widely extended range of small islands, or
congeries of island-groups, known in modern geography by the name
of Micronesia. It fills a great part of the western half of the ocean
north of the equator, and comprises the Radack and Ralick chains, the
Kingsmill and Marshall groups, the Marian (or Ladrone) and Caroline
Islands, the Pelews, Panape, Eap, and many smaller clusters and sin-
gle islets. The well-known Loo-Choo islands form the stepping-stones,
as it were, which lead from this vast archipelago to China and Japan.
The natives of Micronesia are in about the same social stage as that
which had been attained by the North American Indians when they
were first known to the whites. In charactei*, usages, and language
they resemble to a certain extent the natives of the southern and east-

302 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ern Pacific groups, whicli are included in tlie designation of Polynesia^
but with some striking differences, which careful observers have as-
cribed, with great iDrobability, to influences from Northeastern Asia.
They are noted for their skill in navigation. They have well-rigged
vessels exceeding sixty feet in length. They sail by the stars, and are
accustomed to undertake long voyages.

The southernmost group of Micronesia, commonly known as the
Kingsmill Islands, was visited and j^artly surveyed by the vessels of
the Wilkes Exploring Expedition. During a very brief intercourse
with the natives of the principal island, Taputeuea, large quantities
of what was at first supposed to be an ornament were obtained from
the natives, in exchange for other wares which they valued. This
peculiar article was thus described, before its real chai'acter was under-
stood : " It consists of a string of alternate wooden and shell beads, if
this term may be applied to them. The ' beads ' are in the shape of a
sixpence with a hole through its center, or more nearly like the ' but-
ton-molds ' of our dress-makers. They are made of fragments of cocoa-^
nut-shell and sea-shells, which are broken or cut nearly to the required
shape, and then filed down together till they are smooth, even, and
exactly of equal size. Those of sea-shell are white, and those of cocoa-
nut black. They are strung alternately upon a small cord, and appear-
like a round flexible stick, half an inch in diameter, marked with
alternate white and black rings." The beads, it appears, by the speci-
mens preserved in the National Museum at Washington, were not all
of one size. Besides the larger sort, resembling an English sixpence,
there was a smaller description, of about half that size, and bearing
when strung a sur])rising resemblance to a string of small wampum-
beads, the only difference being that the Kingsmill Island disks are
thinner than the proper wampum cylinders ; but both in size and in
thickness they resemble closely the smaller shell-money of California.

Further researches disclosed the true nature of this article, which,
as it appeared, had been already studied and described by earlier voy-
agers at other islands of the Micronesian range. Adalbert von Cha-
misso, the naturalist who accompanied Admiral Kotzebue in his voyage
around the world, was the first to make known its character and use.
In speaking of the natives of the Ladrone Islands, now an extinct peo-
ple, he remarks : " We have discovered among their antiquities some-
thing which seems to show a great advance made in civilization be-
yond any of the other islanders of the great ocean. We speak of the
invention of money. . . . Disks of tortoise-shell, of the shape of but-
ton-molds, but thin as paper, and made extremely smooth by rubbings
are strung close together on a thick cord of twisted cocoanut-husk. The-
whole forms a flexible cylinder of the thickness of a finger, and several
feet in length. These disks were in circulation as a medium of ex-
change, and only a few of the chiefs had the right to make and issue
them." Some other facts are mentioned, which seem to indicate that

THE ORIGIN OF PRIMITIVE MONEY. 305

Chinese Copper Cash (ancient coins).

Kingsmill lilaud Shell-Money (white and black).

California Shall-Money (various sizes).

Shell-Disks from Illinois Mounds (ancient).

Ancient Wampum from Mounds.

Shell-Disks from Huron Graves.

Larjre Wampnm-Pead from
'Onondaga (recent).

Small Wampum-Ceads, white and purple (recent).

304 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

this tortoise-shell money had an important place in the social usages of
the people.

This ancient currency of the Ladrones was evidently the same with
the supposed bead-ornaraents of the Kingsmill-Islanders, except that the
latter use other shells instead of that of the tortoise. But, when the
nature of the commodity became apparent, some noteworthy inferences
were drawn from it. As has been already observed, some of the cus-
toms and much of the mythology of the Micronesian Islanders seem
to have sprung from communication with Northeastern Asia. This
peculiar currency takes us in the same direction. The most common
Chinese coins, their copper cash, have a hole through the center, are
strung upon strings, and disposed of by lengths. This money is in
use in the Loo-Choo Islands, midway between Mici'onesia and China.
In Beechey's voyage to the Pacific, speaking of the assertion hastily
made by Captain Basil Hall, that the peojjle of Loo-Choo have no
money, he says, " Our meeting with this peasant, however, disclosed
the truth, as lie had a string of cash (small Chinese money) suspended
to his girdle, in the manner adopted by the Chinese." In a foot-note
he adds, " These coins, being of small value, are strung together in
hundreds, and have a knot at each end, so that it is not necessary to
count them."

But evidence still more remarkable is afforded by the very valuable
*' Monograph on the History of Money in China," which we owe to
Mr. Alexander Del Mar, late of the United States Monetary Commis-
sion, and author of "A History of the Precious Metals," and other
works. He mentions a curious fact recorded in the great Chinese en-
cyclopaedia of the Emperor Kang-he, who reigned in the early part of
the last century. In this work it is stated that " in ancient times the
money of China was of tortoise-shell." How far back we must go for
these " ancient times " is sufficiently shown, as Mr. Del Mar remarks,
by the fact that Kang-he himself possessed a cabinet of metallic coins
dating from the reign of Yaou, b. c. 2347 ; and the Chinese annalists
assert that metal coins were known in the time of Fuh-he, six hundred
years before the date just recorded. From this it might seem that nearly
five thousand years have elapsed since this tortoise-shell money was in
common use in China. But, from what we know of the conservatiA'C
temperament of the Chinese, it seems highly probable that many cent-
uries must have passed before the clumsy and burdensome copper
coins completely superseded the lighter and more convenient tortoise-
shell disks and slips. Cowries are used to this day, along with metallic
coins, in some parts of the East Indies. It is not unlikely that the total
disappearance of the shell-money from the currency of China dates
from the period when paper-money first came into use in that empire,
which is said to have been in the reign of Woo-te, about one hundred
and forty years before the Christian era.

Some very ancient Chinese coins are still preserved in the cabinets

THE ORIGIN OF PRIMITIVE MONEY.

305

of antiquarians. Mr, Del Mar gives us pictures of several of these, the
earliest being a coin of the Emperor Sung, dating 2257 years before
Christ. These early coins are of various shapes, some being round
with a square or round hole in the center, and some oblong with a
hole at one end, evidently for stringing them. These oblong coins are
spoken of as knife-shaped or bell-shaped, though the resemblances thus
indicated are not very apparent. Dr. Tylor, whose careful research no
evidence of this nature escapes, observes, in his standard work on " An-
thropology," that " perhaps the earliest money may have been the Chi-
nese little marked cubes of gold, and the pieces of copper in the shape
of shirts and knives, as though intended to represent real shirts and
knives." This is certainly an acute and striking suggestion ; but we
have to consider that the circular pieces, the most common of all, could
hardly have been intended to represent any implement or other object
of traffic. And when we refer to California, where, as has been seen,
oblong pieces of shell, perforated at one end, were used as a variety of
their currency, we are led to suppose that the early copper coins of
the Chinese, both oblong and round, derived their shapes from imita-
tion of the still earlier disks and strips of tortoise-shell which they
superseded.

Ancient Chinese Coins.

Ullo.— Oblong Shell-Money of California.

A singular usage still prevailing in China seems to point back to a
time when the ordinary money was made of some combustible mate-
rial. " Mock-money," as it is called, is composed of tin-foil and paper,
and this is burned in large quantities at funerals and in sacrifices to the
gods. In California, as has been seen, the Indians were accustomed
to burn their shell-money in a similar manner. The Eastern Indians
buried wampum with their dead, and burned it in their sacrifices.

Thus shell-money of this peculiar description, composed of small
circular disks, perforated and strung together, and used both as cur-
rency and also (so far as our information extends) in important public
and religious ceremonies, has been traced from the eastern coast of
North America westward across the continent to California, and thence
through the Micronesian Archipelago to China. In no other parts of
the world, except those situated along or near this line (as in some
parts of Melanesia), has the use of this singular currency been known.
It is possible, of course, that the custom may have originated inde-
TOL, xxFni. — 20

3o6

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

pencTently in each of the four principal regions in which it existed —
that is, in China, Micronesia, California, and Eastern North America.
Few persons, however, will be inclined to doubt that the Micronesians
received this invention from Eastern Asia ; and, at the other end of
the line, the transmission of the usage from one side of the Rocky-
Mountains to the other will seem equally probable. The only question
will be as to its passage across the Pacific. The fact recorded by Dr.
Wilson, in his work already quoted, that in 1833 a Japanese junk was
wrecked on the coast of Oregon, and that some of her crew wei'e sub-

1 3 3 4 6 6

1, Chinese Cash ; 2 and 3, Kingsmill Island Shell-Money Oarge and pmall) ; 4, California Shell-Mcney
(email); 5, Wampum (large), all white; 6, M^ampum (email), white and purple.

sequently rescued from captivity among the Indians of that region,
will show how easily this transmission might have been made. Nor is
this the only instance known. Mr. Charles Wolcott Brooks, in his
report on Japanese vessels wrecked in the North Pacific Ocean, read
before the California Academy of Sciences in March, 1876, states that
" one of these junks was wrecked on the Queen Charlotte Islands in
1881, and numerous others have been wrecked on other parts of the
Northwest coast."

In certain respects the history of money bears a notable resem-
blance to the history of the alphabet, or rather of written speech.
Nations have attained a high degree of civilization without a knowl-
edge of either of these inventions ; and each invention, when once
known, has spread widely and rapidly through populations in very dif-

PROGRESS IJY TORNADO-PREDICTION. 307

ferent stages of social progress. The alphabet, from a rude and vague
beginning in Egypt, passed thence through Phoenicia to Greece, where
it was perfected, and whence, in a few centuries, it was diffused to
India on the one side and to Scandinavia and Britain on the other. In
like manner coined money, vaguely beginning, as some suppose, with
the scaraboei of Egypt, was brought to perfection in Greece, and thence
spread thi-ough many civilized nations of Asia and among the semi-
barbarous communities of Western Europe.

Both the art of writing and the use of money seem to have had an
indigenous origin in China. The Chinese written character has spread
through a large part of Eastern Asia. The Chinese currency, in its
ancient form of shell-money, appears to have had a stiU wider diffu-
sion. It has spread, apparently, through the islands of the North
Pacific, and, either thence or directly from China or Japan, has been
carried across the ocean to California, and so found its way eastward
to the Ohio Valley and the Atlantic coast.

The fact, if it be a fact, that the Indians of the west coast of
America received their monetary system from Eastern Asia or from
the Pacific Islaiids, could not in itself be regarded as affording evi-
dence that America was first peopled from that direction, just as the
fact that the coinage of Bactria was derived from Greece would not
indicate that the Bactrian population was of Grecian origin. All that
we could infer would be some early intercourse, such as recent experi-
ence warrants us in supposing. A Chinese junk, or a large Microne-
sian prao, drifting to the Californian coast some three or four thou-
sand years ago, would sufficiently explain the introduction of an art
so easily learned as that of making and using perforated shell-disks
for money.

PEOGRESS IN TORNADO-PREDICTION.

By WILLIAM A. EDDY.

DURING the first part of 1884 the United States Signal Service
began to pay special attention to the question of tornado-pre-
diction. The development of the science was rapid under the active
supervision of Lieutenant John P. Finley, having charge of that de-
partment of the service. It was found that the public interest in the
question was wide-spread, and that, with the aid of voluntary reporters
of tornado-phenomena, the possibility of saving life and property had
begun to crystallize into a practical scheme. The power to verify
predictions could only be obtained from two sources — from the press,
and from tornado-reporters, who would voluntarily report the phenom-
ena with some approach to scientific accuracy. The distinctions be-
tween a cyclone, five hundred or a thousand miles across the storm-

3o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

center, a hurricane of more limited extent, and a tornado witli a path
only one thousand feet in width — all these must be properly classified
before any system for the prediction of tornadoes could reach even
approximately verified results. The number of tornadoes occurring in
the region east of the Rocky Mountains was one hundred and seventy-
two in 1884. The average is more than a hundred yearly. Whenever
a tornado occurred, blanks specifying the questions to be asked and
the method of investigation to be followed were at once sent to the
postmaster or to the principal city or town officers in the vicinity of
the scene of destruction, asking for facts, and requesting that the ob-
server would kindly volunteer to continue a series of easy meteoro-
logical observations for the Signal Service, involving no more outlay of
time than the reporter could conveniently spare. The result of this
clever device was that the Signal-Office now has upon its books the
addresses of more than fifteen hundred reporters in all parts of the
country east of the Rocky Mountains, and especially in those States
most frequently stricken with destructive tornadoes. Having thus
organized a system whereby something like verification of tornado-
predictions could be attained. Lieutenant Finley then divided the ter-
ritory east of the Rocky Mountains into eighteen districts. He at
once began making predictions in these districts, thus reaching a series
of recoi'ded averages whereby the results became more definite and
local until the close of 1884 and the summer of 1885. The predictions
in the latter year have become so effective that during the summer of
1886 it is hoped that, by means of signals, hundreds of lives and much
valuable property will be saved.

The most striking examples of the knowledge attained regarding
tornadoes are found by reference to the following statistics : During
1884, 3,228 predictions unfavorable to tornadoes were made, and of
these, 3,201 were verified by reports sent in by tornado-reporters, who
are instructed to carefully scan the newspapers as well as note the
meteorological phenomena in a given neighborhood. When the con-
ditions are unfavorable for the development of tornadoes, there are no
unusual contrasts of temperature, the areas of warm and cold air are
neither great nor well defined northward and southward, the winds are
variable and not very strong, and the distribution of pressure is about
normal.

When we consider that more than a hundred tornadoes occur an-
nually, it follows that the successful prediction of safety for eighteen
districts is a very satisfactory indication of the advance made by this
science. The result is certainly practical and valuable, as with proper
signals shown at telegraph-stations the inhabitants of Kansas, Missouri,
and other States, can go to their work free from anxiety and not sub-
ject to false alarms on the appearance of every harmless thunder-storm.
The predictions of safety are therefore particularly valuable in States
in which tornadoes are frequent. When, however, wc examine the

PROGRESS IN TORNADO-PREDICTION. 309

statistics regarding the actual occurrence of tornadoes, we find the
certainty lessened by the fact that the present limited resources of the
Signal Service result in defective reports or in none at all from sparsely
settled regions. Lieutenant Finley found that of thirty-eight pre-
dictions that tornadoes would occur, made in April and June, 1884,
eighteen were verified, and that of nineteen predictions made in June
and July, 1885, fifteen were generally verified. In all cases there were
violent storms, either tornadoes, hurricanes, or hail. Owing to the
extremely local nature of tornadoes, their tracks at times being only a
mile or two in length and a few hundred feet in width, it is obvious
that many predictions must apparently fail, owing to the fact that the
effects are not seen until long afterward, or not at all where there are
vast stretches of treeless prairie. It is doubtless true that this failure,
due to the vagueness and unsatisfactory nature of the reports, induced
Professor T. B. Maury to maintain, as late as 1882, that the prediction
of a tornado was a triumph not yet attained by the science of meteor-
ology, though doubtless he believed that success would be achieved at
no very distant day. In order that the reader may see some of the
reasons for expected progress in this science, let us examine, first, the
methods in use by Lieutenant Finley for tracing the movement of air-
masses, and second, the movement of the air-currents in the tornado-
cloud, as seen by hundreds of observers.

It is well known that, owing to frequent telegraphic reports, the
pressure, temj)erature, cloud-formation, extent, and movement of im-
mense masses of air are permanently recorded. The conditions favor-
able to tornadoes are positive and noticeable. The areas of warm
southerly and cold northerly winds are well defined, uniform, of large
extent, and reach well to the north and south. High contrasts of
humidity, abnormal variations in dew-point, the location of areas of
barometric minima and maxima, with their lines of actual and proba-
ble progressive movement, and especially the velocity and direction of
the wind, must be considered and mapped out on special charts. The
temperatures are thrown out of their usual equilibrium and normal dis-
tribution over an extent at times of two thousand miles of territory.
The cold air encroaches far into the Southern States, and the warm
air of the South at such times may stream northward during a week
or ten days. The movement in readjusting the equilibrium is like two
pendulums thrown far apart which swing toward their common center
with a force proportioned to the extent of their displacement. But
this simple simile only fits the case roughly, because the questions of
wind-direction, the location of the moving center of low pressure, and
especially the inequality of the displacement of the air-masses north
and south, make the problem very complex. Lieutenant Finley says
that " the departure from normal conditions oi temperature in case of
tornado development is from 15° to 50°, but with this abnormal con-
dition of temperature there must be abnormal conditions of humidity.

310 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

abnormal conditions of pressure, of wind- direction, of cloud-formation
and movement."

The most remarkable and interesting feature of the development
of tornadoes is the fact that they nearly always form southeast of a
moving center of low pressure, and their tracks, scattered here and
there, conform closely to the progressive direction of the main storm.
For example, on February 19, 1884, forty-four tornadoes occurred in
• Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina, but principally in Georgia and
Alabama. They developed at a distance of from five hundred to two
thousand miles from a storm-center that moved across the northern
part of the United States, beginning at the northern extremity of the
Rocky Mountains in Montana, thence southeasterly through Dakota,
Minnesota, and Wisconsin to Northern Illinois and Indiana, northward
through Michigan across Lake Huron, disappearing north of Quebec.
This sudden sharp turn of the storm-center southAvard into Illinois and
Indiana seems to have relation to the uni^recedentedly large number of
tornadoes that developed not far from the South Atlantic coast, ex-
tending inland as far as Southern Illinois and Indiana. This south-
ward lunge of a mass of cold, moist air seems to have caused the ab-
normal conditions of temperature and dew-point, and the high winds
necessary to cause the most tremendous exhibition of destructive tor-
nado-power ever recorded by the Signal Service. This invariable
location southeast of the storm-center is one of the main peculiarities
of tornado development upon which the predictions depend.

One of the best illustrations of the advance made in definiteness in
prediction during 1885 occurred on August 3d, in the instance of the
tornado at Camden, New Jersey, and at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
In October, 1885, the writer had sent a short communication to the
press of the country, advocating that tornado-signals of either safety
or danger be shown during certain seasons of the year at all telegraph
stations in States in which tornadoes are frequent. The gentlemen of
the press had generally favored the scheme, and one of the editors
wanted to knoAV if the tornado at Camden had been predicted. It
occuiTed at 3.20 p. m. (seventy-fifth meridian time), and was very de-
structive, involving a loss of about half a million dollars' worth of
property. The chart used by Lieutenant Finley shows that tornadoes
were predicted and their location marked upon the map for the States
of Delaware, Southeastern Pennsylvania, and for New Jersey. The
tornadoes actually occurred in these States about eight hours from the
time of the prediction, which was made on the basis of the 7 a. m.
(seventy-fifth meridian time) telegraphic reports. On that day heavy
wind-storms were predicted for Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachu-
setts, New York, Northern New Jersey, and Eastern Pennsylvania.
Nature carried out these predictions with as fair a degree of accuracy
and with as definite a conformity to location as could be expected at
the present primary stage of this science.

PROGRESS IN TORNADO-PREDICTION. 311

The accumulations of great quantities of evidence concerning tor-
nadoes have revealed some interesting facts. It is supposed that cer-
tain localities in the Eastern States are entirely free from tornadoes,
but an examination of Lieutenant Finley's record from 1794 to 1881
shows that they at times approach dangerously near the most unex-
pected localities. One occurred in New York city, July 13, 1859, and
this fact has been further emphasized by the appearance of another at
Westwood, Xew Jersey, October 4, 1885, only twenty-one miles above
the city, and not far from the Hudson River. Of the six hundred
tornadoes recorded from 1794 to 1881, sixty-two occurred in Kansas,
fifty-three in Illinois, forty-three in Missouri, thirty-five in New York,
thirty-three in Georgia, thirty-two in Iowa, twenty-eight in Ohio,
twenty-five in Indiana, twenty-two in Minnesota, eighteen in North
Carolina, eighteen in Pennsylvania, eighteen in Texas, eighteen in
Tennessee, fourteen in South Carolina, fifteen in Michigan, fourteen
in Alabama, fourteen in Nebraska, fourteen in Mississippi, ten in
Louisiana, ten in Wisconsin, nine in IMassachusetts, nine in Dakota,
nine in Virginia, eight in Arkansas, eight in Maryland, five in Connect-
icut, six in Kentucky, five in Florida, five in New Hampshire, six in
New Jersey, three in Maine, two in Arizona, two in Vermont, and one
each in Colorado, California, Indian Territory, Nevada, New Mexico,
Montana, Rhode Island, West Virginia, and Wyoming Territory.
.The above figures are defective, owing to the absence of records in
the past, but it may be accepted as an undoubted fact, soon to be
demonstrated by the more careful system of investigation to be carried
on by an army of tornado-reporters, that the proportion of tornadoes
in Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, and Wisconsin is much greater than shown.
The real prevalence in these States, as compared with others, is better
represented by the record of unusually destructive tornadoes. Of this
class Kansas leads with twenty-five, Illinois follows with fifteen, then
come Iowa and Missouri with twelve each. The Eastern States dis-
appear from the list with the exception of Pennsylvania three and
Connecticut one — the well-known destruction of life and property at
Wallingford. Of the six hundred tornadoes, three hundred and four
moved from southwest to northeast, and the remainder, with marvel-
ously few exceptions, kept very close to that direction. So compara-
tively certain is this movement that the tornado-track can be escaped
by running southeast, depending, of course, upon the direction from
which the storm is seen. Northwest is not so safe a direction to
take, because so many move northward, veering very slightly east-
ward. The length of the track varies from one to one hundred and
fifty miles, and the average is thirty miles. The average width of
the storm-path is one thousand and eighty-five feet, and the velocity
of progression is about thirty miles an hour. The form of the cloud
is almost invariably funnel-shaped, varied at times with that of the
hour-glass, cone, and inverted funnel, modifications caused by di£Fer-

312 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ent altitudes and velocities of air-currents. It ia estimated that in the
center of the funnel the air sometimes attains the enormous speed of
two thousand miles an hour. The whirling movement is almost inva-
riably in an opposite direction from that taken by the hands of a
clock.

The weather-predictions of the Signal Service are distinct from the
tornado-predictions, which involve local treatment that severely tests the
science of meteorology. It is true the tornado region follows the usual
storm-center along parallel lines, but at a distance of several hundred
miles. The tornadoes develop far from the storm-center, and generally
under conditions of partial sunshine and cloudiness and high humidity
or excess of moisture. The relation of tornado-prediction to the usual
■weather-service is only in regard to details of temperature, wind-direc-
tion, dew-point, etc., as furnished by the general weather reports. The
prediction of the movement of the usual storm-center is by no means so
difficult as the attempt to even approximately locate the general region
where a series of tornadoes will occur, because of the narrow track in
which the destructive power is manifested. The officers of the Signal
Service are careful to make no rash promises. While knowledge of the
phenomena is not entirely complete, yet the advancement of the science
is so marked and positive that tornadoes can be predicted for certain
parts of States with a degree of average certainty that will, if carried
out by the establishment of a system of signals in 1886, prove of very
great value to the people. Already insurance companies have been
enabled to take millions of dollars of tornado risks, and the more com-
plete knowledge of the average danger for given localities will set the
questions of p7-emiums and rates of insurance upon a basis that will
be profitable for the people as well as for the companies. The danger
in localities will be established by averages, and the amount of pre-
caution necessary will be known, and may be expressed in trustworthy
percentages. This will economize expenditure both for insurance and
tornado-retreats underground. The protection to life will be a very
marked feature of the results attained. The approach of the tornado
along its almost inevitable path, of from southwest to northeast, can
be seen for fully an hour above the surface of a flat prairie, thus
enabling people to get far beyond the reach of its narrow but fear-
fully destructive path. With this we close the question of the predic-
tion of tornadoes for certain parts of States.

Let us now examine the closer prediction made by the trained
observer or tornado-reporter, as he sees the tornado-cloud in process
of formation. The question as to whether the furious movement of
the clouds is forming the funnel-shape so much dreaded can only be
decided by careful study of the sights and sounds described by hun-
dreds of observers. A very important characteristic of tornado air-
currents is that the disturbance begins in the upper air. In the
"North American Review" for September, 1882, Professor T. B.

PROGRESS IN TORNADO-PREDICTION. 313

Maury, in an article entitled " Tornadoes and their Causes," attributes
the peculiar movement of our tornadoes to an upper air-current, which
at times has been seen to be " moving from the southwest at the rate
of one hundred miles an hour." In addition to this, Lieutenant Fin-
ley's descriptions of the thirteen tornadoes that occurred in Kansas,
May 29 and 30, 1879, give abundant evidence that the southwest air-
current forces the contest. Innumerable descriptions show that the
cloud in the northwest is heavy, black, and comparatively slow in its
movement, until struck by a light, rather smoky, and more rapidly
moving cloud from the southwest. Then the clouds rush to a com-
mon center, and there is a violent conflict of cuiTcnts, driving clouds
in every direction, up and down, round and round. Clouds like great
sheets of white smoke dash about in a frightful manner, with such
unnatural velocity that the observer is often panic-stricken, and flees
to the nearest cellar for safety. Finally a black, threatening mass
descends slowly toward the earth, whirling violently, but still mani-
festing confusion in form. This soon gives place to the peculiar
funnel-like shape, with definite outline so well known. It appears in-
tensely black, like coal-smoke issuing from a locomotive, and its trunk-
like form sometimes has a wrenching, spiral motion, like a snake hung
up by the head and writhing in agony. As white clouds approach
and are drawn into the vortex, the funnel-shaped trunk sways like an
elastic column. It sometimes rises, falls, and careens from side to
side like a balloon. Branches and trunks of trees, rails, tree-tops,
roofs, pieces of houses, straw, furniture, stoves, iron-work, lumber,
and other debris are seen flying about in the central part of the cloud,
but are gradually drawn upward and thrown out near the top, usually
not until the storm has progressed a mile or two farther on from a
given point. Dark masses of cloud are seen to shoot downward on
either side of the funnel, to enter it just above the ground, and to
apparently rush upward through the center and out at the top in a
terrific manner. Sometimes the funnel pauses and whirls with appar-
ently increased velocity, reducing everything to splinters, and leav-
ing scarcely a vestige of a house or clump of trees, all being ground
comparatively fine and carried away as chaff. At "Westwood, New
Jersey, October 4, 1885, fully three quarters of a school-house was
carried away from the foundation. Its fragments were scattered
along the storm's track for about half a mile, and the rest was seen
no more. The people at Westwood describe the roar of the tornado
as having a peculiar hollow, humming sound. It somewhat resembled
the rumbling of cars, or the booming of the sea. The sound is in-
describable and unlike any other in Nature. It is so loud that the
falling of heavy trees against the side of a house and the crash of
falling buildings are lost in the general roar. These facts attest the
tremendous rapidity of the air-currents.

In addition to a downward movement of air, there is also a violent

314 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

reactionary upward movement through the center of the funnel. This
center is almost a vacuum surrounded by a cylindrical mass of air of
great density and revolving force. Professor William jNL Davis, of
Harvard College, whose work, entitled " Whirlwinds, Cyclones, and
Tornadoes," is well known for its merit and originality, maintains that
the destructive power of a tornado is due to the rush of air along the
earth's surface toAvard the vacuum center of the funnel. Some build-
ings have a stricken, pinched appearance at the top, as if the air had
rushed under the edge of a huge cylinder, and swept upward with tre-
mendous power. While it is true that the downward movement pre-
dominates, yet the upward movement in the center is equally marked.
The iron grip of the tornado-funnel is relieved only by the escape of
cui-rents to the upper air through its center, and this again is doubt-
less due to the decrease of the contrasts of temperature between the
opposing currents, thus gradually lessening the air-movement. In the
Westwood tornado, when the funnel had gone about a mile northeast
of the village, it became thinner, and the distance to the top of the
revolving column did not seem more than one hundred feet. As its
force still further weakened, it became only a shallow, whirling cloud
of debris, six or seven feet above the ground, and about fifty feet in
width. These facts present a problem of the relation of air-pressures
in which we may look for destructive action m proportion to the
height of the column of revolving air.

Lieutenant Finley's interesting studies will soon be of great service
to the people. The advancement of the science of meteorology, as
well as of other sciences, has always been made through those whose
energy in the examination of these subjects has been manifested as an
intrinsic liking, regardless of personal gain, a characteristic pointed
out long ago by Jean Paul Richter, and reaffirmed by Emerson as the
true aim of the scholar. It has been thought that the time will come
when greater numbers of men of leisure and means will become steady
workers along paths of unprofitable public usefulness. The people
look for science to come to their rescue regarding certain evils in poli-
tics or in commerce, in over-legislation, in physical and mental life,
and in the destruction of life and property by the elements. It does
not follow that the service will be rewarded, yet the control or antici-
pation of any form of destructive action in Nature is a benefit that
will live in the annals of the race for many a century.

THE VARIETIES OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 315
THE YAEIETIES OF THE HUMAIT SPECIES.*

By Pbofessob WILLIAM. H, FLO WEE, F. E. S.

THE most ordinary observation is sufficient to demonstrate the fact
that certain groups of men are strongly marked from others by
definite characters common to all members of the group, and transmit-
ted regularly to their descendants by the laws of inheritance. The
Chinaman and the negro, the native of Patagonia and the Andaman-
Islander, are as distinct from each other structurally as are many of
the so-called species of any natural group of animals. Indeed, it may
be said with truth that their differences are greater than those which
mark the groups called genera by many naturalists of the present day.
Nevertheless, the difficulty of parceling out all the individuals com-
posing the human species into certain definite groups, and of saying
of each man that he belongs to one of other of such groups, is insu-
perable. No such classification has ever, or indeed, can ever, be
obtained. There is not one of the most characteristic, most extreme
forms, like those I have just named, from which transitions can not be
traced by almost imperceptible gradations to any of the other equally
characteristic, equally extreme, forms. Indeed, a large proportion of
mankind is made up, not of extreme or typical, but of more or less
generalized or intermediate, forms, the relative numbers of which are
continually increasing as the long-existing isolation of nations and races
breaks down under the ever-extending intercommunication character-
istic of the period in which we dwell.

The difficulties of framing a natural classification of man, or one
which really represents the relationship of the various minor groups to
each other, are well exemplified by a study of the numerous attempts
which have been made from the time of Linnseus and Blumenbach
onward. Even in the first step of establishing certain primary groups
of equivalent rank there has been no accord. The number of such
groups has been most variously estimated by different writers from
two up to sixty, or more, although it is important to note that thei'e has
always been a tendency to revert to the four primitive types sketched
out by Linnseus — the European, Asiatic, African, and American — ex-
panded into five by Blumenbach by the addition of the Malay, and
reduced by Cuvier to three by the suppression of the last two. After
a perfectly independent study of the subject, extending over many
years, I can not resist the conclusion, so often arrived at by various
anthropologists, and so often abandoned for some more complex sys-
tem, that the primitive man, whatever he may have been, has in the
course of ages divaricated into three extreme types, represented by the

* From the President's Anniversary Address to the Anthropological Institute of Great
Britain and Ireland, January 27, 1835.

3i6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Caucasian of Europe, the Mongolian of Asia, and the Ethiopian of
Africa, and that all existing individuals of the species can be ranged
around these types, or somewhere or other between them. Large num-
bers are doubtless the descendants of direct crosses in varying propor-
tions between well-established extreme forms ; for, notwithstanding
opposite views formerly held by some authors on this subject, there is
now abundant evidence of the wholesale production of new races in
this way. Others may be the descendants of the primitive stock,
before the strongly marked existing distinctions had taken place, and
therefore i^resent, though from a different cause from the last, equally
generalized characters. In these cases it can only be by most carefully
examining and balancing all characters however minute, and finding
out in what direction the preponderance lies, that a place can be as-
sigrned to them. It can not be too often insisted on that the various
groups of mankind, owing to their probable unity of origin, the great
variability of individuals, and the possibility of all degrees of intermixt-
ure of races at remote or recent periods of the history of the species,
have so much in common that it is extremely difficult to find distinct-
ive characters capable of strict definition by which they may be differ-
entiated. It is more by the preponderance of certain characters in a
large number of members of a group, than by the exclusive or even con-
stant possession of these characters in each of its members, that the
group as a whole must be characterized.

Bearing these principles in mind, we may endeavor to formulate, as
far as they have as yet been worked out, the distinctive features of
the typical members of each of the three great divisions, and then show
into what subordinate groups each of them seems to be divided.

To begin with the Ethiopian, Negroid, or Melanian, or "black"
type. It is characterized by a dark, often nearly black, complexion ;
black hair, of the kind called " frizzly," or, incorrectly, " woolly," i. e.,
each hair being closely rolled up upon itself, a condition always asso-
ciated with a more or less flattened or elliptical transverse section ; a
moderate or scanty development of beard ; an almost invariably doli-
chocephalic skull ; small and moderately retreating malar bones (me-
sopic face *) ; a very broad and flat nose, platyrhine in the skeleton ;
moderate or low orbits ; prominent eyes ; thick, everted lips ; prog-
nathous jaws ; large teeth (macrodont) ; a narrow pelvis (index in the
male 90 to 100) ; a long fore-arm (humero-radial index 80), and cer-
tain other proportions of the body and limbs which are being gradu-
ally worked out and reduced to numerical expression as material for
so doing accumulates.

The most characteristic examples of the second great type, the
Mongolian or Xanthous or " yellow," have a yellow or brownish com-
plexion ; coarse, straight hair, without any tendency to curl, and nearly

* Oldfield Thomas, in a paper read before the Anthropological Institute, January 13,
1885.

THE VARIETIES OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 317

round in section, on all other parts of the surface except the scalp,
scanty and late in appearing ; a skull of variable form, mostly meso-
cephalic (though extremes both of dolichocephaly and brachycephaly
are found in certain groups of this type) ; a broad and flat face, with
prominent anteriorly projecting malar bones (platyopic face) ; nose
small, mesorhine or leptarhine ; orbits high and round, with very little
development of glabella or supraciliary ridges ; eyes sunken, and with
the aperture between the lids narrow ; in the most typical members of
the group with a vertical fold of skin over the inner canthus, and with
the outer angle slightly elevated ; jaws mesognathous ; teeth of mod-
erate size (mesodont) ; the proportions of the limbs and form of the
pelvis have yet to be worked out, the results at present obtained show-
ing great diversity among different individuals of what appear to be
well-marked races of the group, but this is perhaps due to the insuffi-
cient number of individuals as yet examined with accuracy.

The last type, which, for want of a better name, I still call by that
which has the priority, Caucasian, or " white," has usually a light-com-
plexioned skin (although in some, in so far aberrant cases, it is as dark
as in the negroes) ; hair fair or black, soft, straight, or wavy, in sec-
tion intermediate between the flattened and cylindrical form ; beard
fully developed ; form of cranium various, mostly mesocephalic ; ma-
lar bones retreating ; face narrow and projecting in the middle line
(pro-opic) ; orbits moderate ; nose narrow and prominent (leptorhine);
jaws orthognathous ; teeth small (microdont) ; pelvis broad (pelvic
index of male 80) ; fore-arm short, relatively to humerus (humero-
radial index 74).

In endeavoring further to divide up into minor groups the numer-
ous and variously modified individuals which cluster around one or
other of these great types, a process quite necessary for many practical
or descriptive purposes, the distinctions afforded by the study of physi-
cal characters are often so slight that it becomes necessary to take
other considerations into account, among which geographical distribu-
tion and language hold an important place.

I. The Ethiopian or Negroid races may be primarily divided as
follows :

A. African or typical negroes — inhabitants of all the central por-
tion of the African Continent, from the Atlantic on the west to the
Indian Ocean on the east, greatly mixed all along their northern front-
ier with Hamitic and Semitic Melanochroi, a mixture which, taking
place in various j)roportions, and under varied conditions, has given
rise to many of the numerous races and tribes inhabiting the Soudan.

A branch of the African negroes are the Bantu — distinguished
chiefly, if not entirely, by the structure of their language. Physically
indistinguishable from the other negroes where they come in contact
in the equatorial regions of Africa, the Southern Bantu, or Caffres, as
they are generally called, show a marked modification of type, being

3i8 THE POPULAR SCIEXCE MONTHLY.

lighter in color, having a larger cranial capacity, less marked progna-
thism, and smaller teeth. Some of these changes may possibly be due
to crossing into the next race.

B. The Hottentots and Bushmen form a very distinct modification
of the negro race. They formerly inhabited a much larger district
than at present ; but, encroached upon by the Bantu from the north,
and the Dutch and English from the south, they are now greatly di-
minished, and indeed threatened Avith extinction. The Hottentots
especially are much mixed with other races, and, under the influence
of a civilization which has done little to improve their moral condi-
tion, they have lost most of their distinctive peculiarities. When pure-
bred they are of moderate stature, have a yellowish-brown complexion,
with very frizzly hair, which, being less abundant than that of the
ordinary negro, has the appearance of growing in separate tufts. The
forehead and chin are narrow, and the cheek-bones wide, giving a
lozenge-shape to the whole face. The nose is very flat, and the lips
prominent. In their anatomical peculiarities, and almost everything
except size, the Bushmen agree with the Hottentots ; they have,
however, some special characters, for while they are the most pla-
tyrhine of races, the prognathism so characteristic of the negro
type is nearly absent. This, however, may be the retention of an
infantile character so often found in races of diminutive stature, as it
is in all the smaller species of a natural grouj^ of animals. The crani-
um of a Bushman, taken altogether, is one of the best marked of any
race, and could not be mistaken for that of any other race. Their
relation to the Hottentots, however, appears to be that of a stunted
and outcast branch, living the lives of the most degraded of savages
among the rocky caves and mountains of the land of which the com-
paratively civilized and pastoral Hottentots inhabited the plains.

Perhaps the Negrillos of Hamy, certain diminutive, round-headed
people of Central and Western Equatorial Africa, may represent a
distinct branch of the negro race, but their numbers are few, and they
are very much mixed with the true negroes in the districts in which
they are found. They form the only exceptions to the general doli-
chocephaly of the African branch of the negro race.

C Oceanic Kegroes or 31elanesians. — These include the Papuans
of New Guinea and the majority of the inhabitants of the islands of
the Western Pacific, and fortn also a substratum of the population,
greatly mixed with other races, of regions extending far beyond the
present center of their area of distribution.

They are represented, in what may be called a hypertypical form,
by the extremely dolichocephalic Kai Colos, or mountaineers of the
interior of the Feejee Islands, although the coast population of the same
group have lost their distinctive characters by crossing. In many
parts of New Guinea and the great chain of islands extending east-
ward and southward ending with New Caledonia, they are found in

THE VARIETIES OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 319

a more or less pure condition, especially in the interior and more inac-
cessible portions of the islands, almost each of which shows special
modifications of the type recognizable in details of structure. Taken
altogether their chief physical distinction from the African neo-roes
lies in the fact that the glabella and supra-orbital ridges are generally
well developed in the males, whereas in Africans this region is usually
smooth and flat. The nose, also, especially in the northern part of
their geographical range, New Guinea, and the neighboring islands,
is narrower (often mosorhine) and prominent. The cranium is gener-
ally higher and narrower. It is, however, possible to find African
and Melanesian skulls quite alike in essential characters.

The now extinct inhabitants of Tasmania are probably pure but
aberrant members of the Melanesian group, which have undergone a
modification from the original type, not by mixture with other races,
but in consequence of long isolation, during which special characters
have gradually develojjed. Lying completely out of the track of all
civilization and commerce, even of the most primitive kind, they were
little liable to be subject to the influence of any other race, and there
is in fact nothing among their characters which could be accounted for
in this way, as they are intensely, even exaggeratedly, Negroid in the
form of nose, projection of mouth, and size of teeth, typically so in
character of hair, and aberrant chiefly in width of skull in the parietal
region. A cross with any of the Polynesian or Malay races sufficiently
strong to produce this would, in all probability, have also left some
traces on other parts of their organization.

On the other hand, in many parts of the Melanesian region there
are distinct evidences of large admixture with Negrito, Malay, and
Polynesian elements in varying proportions, producing numerous phys-
ical modifications. In many of the inhabitants of the great Island of
New Guinea itself and of those lying around it this mixture can be
traced. In the people of Micronesia in the north, and New Zealand in
the south, though the Melanesian element is present, it is completely
overlaid by the Polynesian, but there are probably few, if any, of the
islands of the Pacific in which it does not form some factor in the
composite character of the natives.

The inhabitants of the continent of Australia have long been a
puzzle to ethnologists. Of Negroid complexion, features, and skeletal
characters, yet without the characteristic frizzly hair, their position
has been one of great difficulty to determine. They have, in fact,
been a stumbling-block in the way of every system proposed. The
solution, supported by many considerations too lengthy to enter into
here, appears to lie in the supposition that they are not a distinct race
at all, that is, not a homogeneous group formed by the gradual modi-
fication of one of the primitive stocks, but rather a cross between two
already formed branches of these stocks. According to this view,
Australia was originally peopled with frizzly-haired Melanesians, such

320

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

as those "wliiob still do, or did till the recent European invasion, dwell
in the smaller islands which surround the north, east, and southern
portions of the continent, but that a strong infusion of some other
race, probably a low form of Caucasian Melanochroi, such as that
which still inhabits the interior of the southern parts of India, has
spread throughout the land from the northwest, and produced a modi-
fication of the physical characters, especially of the hair. This influ-
ence did not extend across Bass's Strait into Tasmania, where, as just
said, the Melanesian element remained in its purity. It is more strongly
marked in the northern and central parts of Australia than on many
portions of the southern and western coasts, where the lowness of type
and more curly hair, sometimes closely approaching to- frizzly, show a
stronger retention of the Melanesian element. If the evidence should
prove sufficiently strong to establish this view of the origin of the
Australian natives, it will no longer be correct to speak of a primitive
Australian, or even Australoid, race or type, or look for traces of the
former existence of such a race anywhere out of their own land. Proof
of the origin of such a race is, however, very difficult if not impos-
sible to obtain, and I know nothing to exclude the possibility of the
Australians being mainly the direct descendants of a very primitive
human type, from which the frizzly-haired negroes may be an offset.
This character of hair must be a specialization, for it seems very un-
likely that it was the attribute of the common ancestors of the human
race.

D. The fourth branch of the Xegroid race consists of the diminu-
tive, round-headed people called Negritos, still found in a pure or
unmixed state in the Andaman Islands, and forming a substratum of
the population, though now greatly mixed with invading races, espe-
cially Malays, in the Philippines, and many of the islands of the Indo-
Malayan Archipelago, and perhaps of some parts of the southern por-
tion of the mainland of Asia. They also probably contribute to the
varied population of the great Island of Papua or Xew Guinea, where
they appear to merge into the taller, longer-headed, and longer-nosed
Melanesians proper. They show, in a very marked manner, some of
the most striking anatomical peculiarities of the negro race, the frizzly
hair, the proportions of the limbs, especially the humero-radial index,
and the form of the pelvis ; but they differ in many cranial and facial
characters, both from the African negroes on the one hand, and the
typical Oceanic negroes, or Melanesians, on the other, and form a very
distinct and well-characterized group.

II. The principal groups that can be arranged around the Mon-
golian type are —

A. The Eskimo, who appear to be a branch of the typical North
Asiatic Mongols, w^ho in their wanderings northward and eastward
across the American Continent, isolated almost as perfectly as an
island population would be, hemmed in on one side by the eternal

THE VARIETIES OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 321

polar ice, and on the other by hostile tribes of American Indians, with
which they rarely if ever mingled, have gradually developed charac-
ters most of which are strongly expressed modifications of those seen
in their allies who still remain on the western side of Behring Strait.
Every special characteristic which distinguishes a Japanese from the
average of mankind is seen in the Eskimo in an exaggerated degree,
so that there can be no doubt about their being derived from the same
stock. It has also been shown that these special characteristics gradu-
ally increase from west to east, and are seen in their greatest perfec-
tion in the inhabitants of Greenland ; at all events, in those where no
crossing with the Danes has taken place. Such scanty remains as have
yet been discovered of the early inhabitants of Europe present no
structural affinities to the Eskimo, although it is not unlikely that
similar external conditions may have led them to adopt similar modes
of life. In fact, the Eskimo are such an intensely specialized race,
perhaps the most specialized of any in existence, that it is probable
that they are of comparatively late origin, and were not as a race con-
temporaries with the men whose rude flint tools found in our drifts
excite so much interest and speculation as to the makers, who have
been sometimes, though with little evidence to justify such an assump-
tion, reputed to be the ancestors of the present inhabitants of the
northernmost parts of America.

B. The typical Mongolian races constitute the present population
of Northern and Central Asia. They are not very distinctly, but still
conveniently for descriptive purposes, divided into two groups, the
Northern and the Southern.

a. The former, or Mongolo-Altaic group, are united by the affini-
ties of their language. These people, from the cradle of their race in
the great central plateau of Asia, have at various times poured out
their hordes upon the lands lying to the west, and have penetrated
almost to the heart of Europe. The Finns, the Magyars, and the
Turks, are each the descendants of one of these waves of incursion,
but they have for so many generations intermingled with the peoples
through whom they have passed in their migrations, or have found in
the countries in which they have ultimately settled, that their original
physical characters have been completely modified. Even the Lapps,
that diminutive tribe of nomads inhabiting the most northern parts of
Europe, supposed to be of Mongolian descent, show so little of the
special attributes of that branch, that it is difficult to assign them a
place in it in a classification based upon physical characters. The
Japanese are said by their language to be allied rather to the North-
ern than to the following branch of the Mongolian stock.

h. The Southern Mongolian group, divided from the former chiefly
by language and habits of life, includes the greater part of the popu-
lation of China, Thibet, Burmah, and Siam.

C. The next great division of Mongoloid people is the Malay, sub-

TOL. XXTIII. — 21

322 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

typical, it is true, but to which an easy transition can be traced from
the most characteristic members of the type.

D. The brown Polynesians, Malayo-Polynesians, Maforis, Sawaio-
ris, or Kanakas, as they have been variously called, seen in their great-
est purity in the Samoan, Tongan, and Eastern Polynesian Islands,
are still more modified, and possess less of the characteristic Mongolian
features ; but still it is difficult to place them anywhere else in the
system. The large infusion of the Melanesian element throughout the
Pacific must never be forgotten in accounting for the characters of
the people now inhabiting the islands, an element in many respects so
diametrically opposite to the Mongolian, that it would materially alter
the characters, especially of the hair and beard, which has been with
many authors a stumbling-block to the afiiliation of the Polynesian
with the Mongol stock. The mixture is physically a fine one, and in
some proportions produces a combination, as seen, for instance, in the
Maories of New Zealand, which in all definable characters approaches
quite as near, or nearer, to the Caucasian type, than to either of the
stocks from which it may be presumably derived. This resemblance has
led some writers to infer a real extension of the Caucasian element at
some very early period with the Pacific Islands, and to look upon their
inhabitants as the product of a mingling of all three great types of
men. Though this is a very plausible theory, it rests on little actual
proof, as the combination of Mongolo-Malayan and Melanesian char-
acters in different degrees to the local variations certain to arise in
communities so isolated from each other and exposed to such varied
conditions as the inhabitants of the Pacific Islands would probably
account for all the modifications observed among them.

E. The native population (before the changes wrought by the
European conquest) of the great Continent of America, excluding the
Eskimo, present, considering the vast extent of the country they in-
habit and the great differences of climate and other surrounding con-
ditions, a remarkable similarity of essential characters, with much
diversity of detail.

The construction of the numerous American languages, of which
as many as twelve hundred have been distinguished, is said to point to
unity of origin, as, though widely different in many respects, they are
all, or nearly all, constructed on the same general grammatical prin-
ciple— that caWed jyob/si/n thesis — which differs from that of the lan-
guages of any of the Old "World nations. The mental characteristics
of all the American tribes have much that is in common ; and the very
different stages of culture to which they had attained at the time of
the conquest, as that of the Incas and Aztecs, and the hunting or fish-
ing tribes of the North and South, which have been quoted as evidence
of diversities of race, Avere not greater than those between different
nations of Europe, as Gauls and Germans on the one hand, and Greeks
and Romans on the other, in the time of Julius Caesar. Yet all these

THE VARIETIES OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 323

were Aryans, and in treating the Americans as one race it is not
intended that they are more closely allied than the different Aryan
people of Europe and Asia. The best argument that can be used for
the unity of the American race — using the word in a broad sense — is
the great difficulty of forming any natural divisions founded upon
physical characters. The important character of the hair does not
differ throughout the whole continent. It is always straight and lank,
long and abundant on the scalp, but sparse elsewhere. The color of
the skin is practically uniform, notwithstanding the enormous differ-
ences of climate under which many members of the group exist. In
the features and cranium certain special modifications prevail in differ-
ent districts, but the same forms appear at widely separated parts of
the continent. I have examined skulls from Vancouver's Island, from
Peru, and from Patagonia, which were almost undistinguishable from
one another.

Naturalists who have admitted but four primary types of the hu-
man species have always found a difficulty with the Americans, hesi-
tating between placing them with the Mongolian or so-called " yellow "
races, or elevating them to the rank of a primary group. Cuvier does
not seem to have been able to settle this point to his own satisfaction,
and leaves it an open question. Although the large majority of Ameri-
cans have in the special form of the nasal bones, leading to the charac-
teristic high bridge of the nose of the living face, in the well-developed
superciliary ridge and retreating forehead, characters which distinguish
them from the typical Asiatic Mongol, in so many other respects they
resemble them so much that, although admitting the difficulties of the
case, I am inclined to include them as aberrant members of the Mon-
golian type. It is, however, quite open to any one adopting the Negro,
Mongolian, and Caucasian as primary divisions, also placing the Ameri-
cans apart as a fourth.

Now that the high antiquity of man in America, perhaps as high
as that he has in Europe, has been discovered, the puzzling problem,
from which part of the Old World the people of America have sprung,
has lost its significance. It is quite as likely that the people of Asia
may have been derived from America as the reverse. However this
may be, the population of America had been, before the time of Co-
lumbus, practically isolated from the rest of the world, except at the
extreme north. Such visits as those of the early Norsemen to the
coasts of Greenland, Labrador, and Nova Scotia, or the possible acci-
dental stranding of a canoe containing survivors of a voyage across
the Pacific or the Atlantic, can have had no appreciable effect upon
the characteristics of the people. It is difficult, therefore, to look upon
the anomalous and special characters of the American people as the
effects of crossing, as was suggested in the case of the Australians, a
consideration which gives more weight to the view of treating them
as a distinct primary division.

324 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

III. The Caucasian, or white division, according to my view, in-
cludes the two groups called by Professor Huxley Xanthochroi and
Melanochroi, which, though differing in color of eyes and hair, agree
so closely in all other anatomical characters, as far, at all events, as
has at present been demonstrated, that it seems preferable to consider
them as modifications of one great type than as primary divisions of
the species.

Whatever their origin, they are now intimately blended, though
in different proportions, throughout the whole of the region of the
earth they inhabit ; and it is to the rapid extension of both branches
of this race that the great changes now taking place in the ethnology
of the world are mainly due.

A. The Xanthochroi, or blonde type, with fair hair, eyes, and com-
plexion, chiefly inhabit Northern Europe — Scandinavia, Scotland, and
North Germany — but, much mixed with the next group, they extend
as far as Northern Africa and Afghanistan. Their mixture with Mon-
goloid people in North Europe has given rise to the Lapps and Finns.

B. Melanochroi, with black hair and eyes, and skin of almost all
shades from white to black. They comprise the great majority of the
inhabitants of Southern Europe, Northern Africa, and Southwest Asia,
and consist mainly of the Aryan, Semitic, and Hamitic families. The
Dravidians of India, and probably the Ainos of Japan, the Maoutze
of China, also belong to this race, which may have contributed some-
thing to the mixed character of some tribes of Indo-China and the
Polynesian Islands, and, as before said, given at least the characters of
the hair to the otherwise Negroid inhabitants of Australia. In South-
ern India they are probably mixed with a Negrito element, and in
Africa, where their habitat becomes conterminous with that of the
negroes, numerous cross-races have sprung up between them all along
the frontier line. The ancient Egyptians were nearly pure Melano-
chroi, though often showing in their features traces of their frequent
intermarriage with their Ethiopian neighbors to the south. The Copts
and fellahs of modern Egypt are their little-changed descendants.

In offering this scheme of classification of the human species, I
have not thought it necessary to compare it in detail with the numer-
ous systems suggested by previous anthropologists. These will all be
found in the general treatises on the subject. As I have remarked
before, in its broad outlines it scarcely differs from that proposed by
Cuvier nearly sixty years ago, and that the result of the enormous in-
crease of our knowledge during that time having caused such little
change is the best testimony to its being a truthful representation of
the facts. Still, however, it can only be looked upon as an approxima-
tion. Whatever care be bestowed upon the arrangement of already
acquired details, whatever judgment be shown in their due subordina-
tion one to another, the acquisition of new knowledge may at any time
call for a complete or partial rearrangement of our system.

COMMUNAL SOCIETIES. 325

COMMUNAL SOCIETIES.

By CHAKLES MORRIS.

IN the paper on " Neuter Insects," recently published in " The Popu-
lar Science Monthly," * the argument on certain phases of animal
evolution there presented was not offered as a complete one. For a
full exposition of the development of ant and bee intelligence, this sub-
ject needs to be considered from another point of view, and the pres-
ent paper is intended as, in a partial sense, a sequel to the one above
named.

It is usual to divide animals, in respect to their habits of associa-
tion, into two classes, the solitary and the social. The solitary animals
comprise all those which form sexual combinations only, and the class
embraces all those species of the smaller mammals and birds which flock
together solely from the fact that they are very numerous, and seek
food in the same localities, not from any association for mutual aid.

The social animals form true communities. They are banded to-
gether by certain common interests, and possess a principle of associa-
tion beyond that of the sexual. They present the germinal condition
of a political society. These comprise most of the large herbivora,
which aggregate for purposes of common defense, in some cases sta-
tioning sentries for protection while feeding, and in others following
certain acknowledged leaders. Instances of any such association are
rare among carnivora, the wolves being the most marked example.

Yet in the social animals, as a rule, the common interests are few,
and the links of association weak. Individuality largely persists, there
is no idea of common property, and nearly or quite the only intei'est
in common is that of attack or defense. Separated from these by a
broad interval are some three or four animal tribes whose socialism
is of so advanced a type that it fairly deserves to be indicated by a
special name. These tribes comprise the ants, bees, and termites,
among insects, and the beavers among mammals. Their conditions
of association are so different from those prevailing in most other
cases, that it seems i3roper to consider them as a separate class. I
propose for them the title of communal animals, as most distinctive
of their life-habits.

Instead of possessing a few links of combination, these animals have
most or all of the relations of life in common. In ant and bee com-
munities, for instance, individualism has vanished. All property is
held in common, all labor is performed for the community, there are a
common home, common stores, common duties, community alike in
assault and defense, and it is difficult or impossible to detect any ant

* December, 1885.

326 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

or bee doing anything for itself alone, or performing any act which is
not intended for the good of the community as a whole. Selfishness,
so far as the home community is concerned, seems to have vanished,
and labor and life are freely given for the good of this great whole,
with no evident display of any thought of individual comfort or
aggrandizement.

The communities of termites are communal in an equally com-
plete sense, and seem to have utterly lost the selfish sentiment which
is the ruling agency with solitary animals. With the beavers com-
munalism has stopped somewhat short of this complete stage. They
possess their dams and canals in common, and labor together in all
the needs of out-door life. But they have not advanced to the stage
of a common home, their habits rendering this impossible, or nearly
so ; and, though they seek food in common, each lodge lays up its
own private stores. Yet their interests are so largely in common that
they stand distinctly separate in this respect from the ordinary social
vertebrates, and fairly belong to the communal class, in company with
their insect analogues.

There is one further interesting and suggestive feature in these
communal groups of animals, whose significance will be apparent when
we come to consider the conditions of human communities. This is
that they are family aggregates. The indefinite association of the
social animals has become a strictly family association in the communal
animals. This is not very clearly displayed in the beavers. Yet with
them the inmates of each lodge probably belong to a single family,
and form a group within the larger group. And the community as a
whole may be descended from a single ancestor, like the members of
the patriarchal family among men.

With the ants, bees, and termites this family association has gone
much further, and each community constitutes a single family. Di-
vision of labor has proceeded to such an extent that the egg-bearing
function is confined to one or a few members of the community, while
all the sexual individuals beyond these perish. This princijile has
gone farthest with the bees, who permit but one female to develop for
the use of each swarm, and who mercilessly destroy all the males, as
soon as they become a burden on the community.

Thus it is evident that the conditions of communal life among
animals can not fairly be claimed as merely advanced instances of
socialism. They differ not only in regard to degree of community of
interests, but also in displaying a new and distinct principle of asso-
ciation. The social group is a vague one, the communal a strictly
defined one, which has gradually grown up in the midst of the older
group and finally replaced it. Alike in ants, bees, and rodents, species
exist in various stages of association, between the solitary and the
communal, and could we trace all the steps of development we should
undoubtedly perceive solitary animals gradually adopting social rela-

I

COMMUNAL SOCIETIES. 327

tions, and then family groups developing in the midst of the larger
social groups, and acquiring special interests which render them finally
hostile to other family groups. There can be but little question that
the ants, termites, bees, and wasps, have passed through these various
stages of association, and that the old social groups gradually broke
up into minor family groups, which in turn have developed into ex-
tensive groups, combined on the principle of blood relationship.

This gradual evolution of the principle of association, beginning in
the completely solitary or hermaphrodite tribes, and reaching its ulti-
mate stage in the colonial or compound animals, of which we have a
notable instance in the Siphonophora, or family compound of swim-
ming polyps, in which the loss of individuality is complete, is a highly
interesting phase of animal development, which we can not undertake
to consider here as a whole. "We may simply say that animals might
be classified, from this point o f view, as the truly solitary, the sexual,
the social, the communal, and the colonial or compound.

The views above expressed lead directly to the consideration of
primitive human societies, since these present a striking resemblance
to those of the lower animals. The indications are, indeed, that the
development of society everywhere follows one fixed course, and
obeys one general law, and that human society has in no sense escaped
this law, despite all the seemmg irregularity of its development.

Man may properly be ranked with the ants, bees, and termites, as
another instance of the communal animal, the beaver being his only
vertebrate counterpart in this respect. Communalism probably did
not exist with primitive man. He seems to have been originally a
social animal, like the quadrumana, from whom it is assumed that he
descended. Yet it is interesting to perceive that, at the opening of
the historical period, the ancestors of all the present civilized races
were in the communal stage of association, and under conditions which
present a striking parallel to those of the lower tribes of communal
animals.

Alike with the American Indians, the Mongolians and Semites of
Asia, and the primitive Aryans, history opens with strongly declared
instances of the communal type of association. The original social
groups, with few interests in common, had been replaced by well-de-
fined family groups, with nearly all interests in common. The ancient
association vanished as this new association developed, and the family
became the basis of all social organization. We might, had we space,
consider at some length the evolution of this new condition of human
society. It doubtless had its basis in that slowly growing energy of
the marriage sentiment, whose development has been traced by several
recent writers. The primitive weak sense of union between husband,
wife, and children gradually grew into a strong bond of association,
whose strength was added to by the possession of a separate family
property, which increased in value with the development of society.

328 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Thus in the heart of the old vague social group there grew up inti-
mately associated family groups of increasing size and importance.
The double link of property and blood-relationship rendered this asso-
ciation a strong one, and we seem to see the old social group gradu-
ally breaking up into its elements, with diversity of interests and a
degree of hostility between the separate family groups. Each of
these, in its turn, grew larger and larger, until it became a community
in itself, held together by a strongly-felt sense of blood-relationship,
and quite able to hold its own against other similar groups.

The most archaic of these communal groups is the patriarchal, that
still found throughout nomadic Asia. It is distinctly based on family
relations, recognizes a common ancestor, is governed by the living
representative of this ancestor, and strongly holds to the fiction of
blood relationship, even in adopted members of the tribe. Again, all
property is held and all labor performed in common, and for the good
of the community, while the sentiment of individualism is very greatly
reduced. Phis is not now so strictly the case as it probably was of
old, yet the principle of communalism is still strongly maintained.

Yet, as in the beavers, so in the patriarchal horde, there are minor
groups within the group, tent-families like the lodge-family of the
beavers, with more immediate family links than those of the larger
group. Among the primitive Aiyans this minor division had made
great progress. The separation of the patriarchal community into
minor family groups, with special interests and common property, had
become strongly marked, and a reverse process of development, from
communalism toward individualism, had fairly set in. The Aryan
village community had still many interests in common, and held the
fiction of a common ancestor. Yet it had taken a step in advance of
the stage reached by the communal animals, toward the higher and
special development of modern human society.

Between the patriarchal and the Aryan systems of association
stands that of the Indian clan, which possessed features of both. The
general family group was broken up into smaller family groups, as
well defined as the Aryan, yet the division of property had not ad-
vanced so far. And not only property was held to a considerable ex-
tent in common, but common habitation existed among many tribes,
of which we have the most marked and striking instance in the great
common habitations of the Pueblo Indians of to-day.

In the later stages of human development there has been a strongly
declared progress toward individualism, at least in property and politi-
cal relations. The family association has vanished, and has been re-
placed by the territorial^ which is the link of connection in all modern
civilized societies, and the latest outgrowth of the principle of ani-
mal association. Yet industrially the communal principle holds good,
though it has assumed a new and wider phase than that of old.
Though the idea of community in property has lost its force, the scnti-

COMMUNAL SOCIETIES.

329

ment that the labor of each is for the good of all is stronger than ever.
It is not expressly formulated, but it exists everywhere in practice.
Men work less and less for their individual interests, and more and
more for the good of the community. The woodsman who fells a tree
in a Western forest has no thought of using its wood for himself. He
neither knows nor cares what may become of it. But he knows that
in one region a farmer is raising grain, and in another an artisan is
weaving cloth, and that some of these will come to him in exchange
for his labor. And between woodsman, farmer, and artisan, are fifty
or live hundred other individuals, each of whom takes some part in
this exchange of products. Neither of these parties works directly
for himself, yet each works for the good of all in a far higher and
more developed sense than in the analogous case of the communal
insects.

It is necessary now to return to another phase of the subject here
considered, that relating to the intellectual develojDment of animals.
It has often been a source of wonder that the ants and bees have ad-
vanced so far in intellectual achievement beyond all other members
of the insect class, and that many of their habits and institutions so
closely simulate those of human society. This latter, indeed, is but
another evidence of the law above considered, that all evolution,
whether physical or mental, is controlled by one general principle,
and must follow one naturally determined course. But the superior
intellectuality of these low forms of life is in itself a phenomenon that
calls for some special attention.

A glance at the situation at once reveals that this superiority of
intellectual progress must in some way be connected with the com-
munal stage of association, since it is manifested only by the com-
munal animals, the ants, bees, termites, and beavers, and is not shown
in any of the solitary species of these zoological groups. Evidence
pointing in the same direction may be found in the habits of the social
animals, which seem to have reasoned out the expedient of stationing
sentries to guard them against danger while feeding. And it is inter-
esting in this connection to perceive that the elephants, the most ad-
vanced of the herbivora in social combination, likewise display the
greatest intellectual advancement.

We might deduce from these facts either the conclusion that intel-
lectual development is favored by close association and communalism,
or the reverse conclusion that an original superior intellectuality was
the inciting cause of communal association. A consideration of all the
facts of the case seems to prove that the former conclusion is the cor-
rect one. For observation indicates that individually the communal
insects are not superior in intellect to the solitary species. Take the
ant beyond the range of his hereditary instincts, and he seems a duller
creature than the spider. The same conclusion applies to the beaver,
which is said to be much duller, so far as individual powers of intellect

330 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

arc concerned, than many other vertebrates. In fact, in Romanes's work
on " Animal Intelligence," the highest powers of intellect are ascribed
to the carnivora, which as a general rule are solitary animals. And
this is a natural result of the fact that they are obliged to depend
ni^on their own powers in all the exigencies of life, and can not trust
to others to relieve them from some of the duties of existence.

Much has been said about the highly remarkable powers of the
minute mass of nerve-substance in an ant's head. Yet the brain of
every animal has undoubtedly a double duty to perform. It is partly
devoted to the control of the muscular organization, partly to psychical
activity. And to this we must ascribe the increase in size of brain that
generally attends increase in size of body among animals. Though
the brain of a large animal may be much larger than that of a small
one, this may be mainly due to the increase of its motor duties, and
there may be no increase in its psychical portion. In fact, in certain
large extinct animals, with greatly developed posterior structure, a
sort of second brain seems to have existed at the rear extremity of the
spinal column, as if the motor portion of the brain had moved back-
ward to the region where it was most needed. Yet it is very probable
that in any of the higher vertebrates the portion of the brain devoted
to psychical functions is considerably greater in volume than the whole
brain of the ant. And, if the degree of intelligence be in any sense
proportional to the size of its organ, these higher vertebrates should
be superior in intellect to the ant.

Such is actually the case. The excursions of the ant-raind bej^ond
the limit of its instincts seem to be exceedingly slight. Those of the
mammalian mind are sometimes extensive. If we compare the instances
of individual intellect displayed by a cat and an ant, for instance, we
can not avoid the conclusion that the cat is very greatly superior in
powers of reasoning. Yet no cat tribes keep cows, marshal armies,
store provisions, enslave captives, or perform any of the wonderful
series of intellectual acts which are common in ant communities, and
■which form part of the powers of every ant-brain. How shall we ac-
count for this difference in results ? It seems evident that it is in some
way due to difference in modes of association. The powers of the ant
are instinctive — that is, they have been passed down by hereditary
transmission through numerous generations. They are the outcome of
not one brain, but of innumerable brains. Though the brain of one
ant be minute, yet the brains of a million ants would form a consider-
able mass, and every act of ant intellect is probably the product of
several millions of ant-brains, each of which may have added some mi-
nute increment to the final result.

There are, in fact, two distinct methods by which the intellectual
powers of ancestors may be transmitted to descendants. One of these
is the hereditary, the other the experimental. Among solitary animals
the special intellectual achievements of each animal are in great meas-

COMMUNAL SOCIETIES. 331

lire lost. They are uuseen by others, and the experience of each dies
with it. For, as we well know, it is only the general, not the special
powers of the mind that are transmitted by heredity. No child is
born with the special knowledge of its parents, though it may possess
all the intellectual tendencies and powers of its parents. Only when
some action is repeated generation after generation does it produce so
strong an impress upon the intellect as to be hereditarily transmitted.
In this case we have the inhei'itance of an instinct, or strong special
mental tendency.

It is evident that among social animals acts of special shrewdness
performed by any individual are likely to be seen and may be imi-
tated by others. In such cases an educational is added to the heredi-
tary method of intellectual transmission. Any such acts, if of special
value to the community, may be very frequently repeated, and if the
community be long kept together it may make important steps of
progress in this method alone. When, again, communities pass from
the social to the communal phase of association the influence above
mentioned must act with much greater vigor. For the members of
communal are much more closely associated than those of social groups.
They work more together, and are brought into more intimate associa-
tion in all the details of life. It is claimed by some writers that the
young actually go to school to the old, and are specially taught the
duties of the hive and the ant-hill.* In addition to this there is much
reason to believe that the communities of communal animals are often
continuous for a very long period of time. The ant city does not die
out with one generation, but may continue in existence through an
indefinite number of generations. The bee family sends out its annual
swarms, but the young before this migration are old enough to have
been taught all the duties of bee-life. Thus the special habits of a
single original hive may be transmitted, in the educational method, to
an indefinite number of much later hives. Parallel conditions are
known to exist among the beavers. The condition is similar to that
of an overcrowded human community, whose younger members migrate
in search of a new home, but not until they have learned all the arts
of the parental community.

Communalism, therefore, has its special value as an aid to the trans-
mission of knowledge and useful habits through teaching and observa-

* Romanes says that the "house-bees" are the younger bees left at home, for domes-
tic duties, with only a small proportion of older ones, left probably to direct the young.
The young ant " is led about the nest, and trained to a knowledge of domestic duties,
especially in the case of larvae. Later on the young ants are taught to distinguish between
friends and foes. When an ant-nest is attacked by foreign ants the young ants never join
in the fight, but confine themselves to removing the pupte." In a nest made by Forel of
young ants and pupae of different species, no hostility arose. They dwelt together as a
happy family. They had not been educated into hostility to foreigners. Lubbock says,
" It is remarkable how much individual ants appear to differ from one another in char-
acter." There is thus a natural basis for the development of new habits.

332 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tion. It also induces the incessant reiteration of acts that have proved
beneficial to the community, until the tendency to perform these acts
becomes so strong that it is hereditarily transmitted. In other words,
it tends to produce instincts. In fact, in the case of animals of low
intellectual vigor, like the ants and bees, it seems probable that new
habits, of special value to a community, grow up only by minute incre-
ments, and through long periods of time. Each when gained becomes
repeated through innumerable generations, and finally becomes an
instinct, capable of hereditary transmission. In this way animals of
very slight intellectual vigor, by the educational transmission of all
beneficial individual acts, may have gradually gained the diversified
mental conditions of these two remarkable types.

In ant and bee communities, as at present constituted, the heredi-
tary transmission of new arts seems at first sight impossible. Intel-
lectual acts performed by the workers must remain unknown to the
solitary female, who can only transmit the ancient instincts. It would
seem as if the development of communalism had reached a point at
which intellectual progress must stop. The general habits of ants and
bees were probably gained during their slow evolution of communalism
from socialism, and ere the sexual relations had attained their present
extreme restriction. With but one female, who takes no part in the
duties of home or field, and remains ignorant of any shrewd act that
may be performed by a worker, it seems impossible that the existing
instincts should receive any addition.

Yet this is not quite impossible, even in the present conditions of
ant and bee life. Experiential development and transmission of new
habits may continue indefinitely, since single communities may con-
tinue in existence, or may yield direct colonies, for indefinite periods
of years. And the occasional birth of males from workers affords a
possible means by which these habits may be hereditarily transmitted,
since it is quite conceivable that these male children of Morkers may be-
come the parents of new communities. In bee communities the occa-
sional transformation of a worker into a queen affords a direct means
for the transmission of worker characteristics. The case is closely
parallel to that of the transmission of knowledge in human communi-
ties,'though in the latter hereditary transmission is of limited scope,
and education is the great agent in the communication of knowledge.

Special attention has here been given to this question, as it is one
that has excited much comment and debate, and the thoughts here
advanced may not be without their interest and value. I would but
repeat what is above said, that the remarkable institutions of ant and
bee communities do not indicate any intellectual superiority to solitary
animals in the members of these communities, but simply a much supe-
rior method for the transmission of intellectual results. And to this
may be added the final conclusion that while ant and bee communalism
has now reached a stage that must tend in great measure to check the

COMMUNAL SOCIETIES. 333

hereditary transmission of new habits, yet it is possible that a slow im-
provement in the habits of these communities may still continue, both
by education or observation and by heredity.

The mental relations of animal communities, as thus reviewed, ap-
ply closely to the question of the intellectual development of man.
Among the quadrumana socialism is often greatly developed, educa-
tional transmission is common, and much intellectual shrewdness is
manifested. But, between the intellectuality of these communities
and those of the ants and bees, there is a marked difference. We
speak of the monkey as marked by incessant curiosity. That is to
say, he makes constant mental excursions beyond the range of his
hereditary habits. He constantly " wants to know." Hid intellectual
acumen is far superior to that of the low animal tribes, which have
advanced so far beyond him in habits. In man the same " want to
know " has ever been active, and to it are due his rapid gaining of new
experiences and increase in knowledge. Yet, so far as social organiza-
tion is concerned, he was very long in reaching the level attained by
the communal animals. He probably continued for ages in the social
state, though it is impossible to sa}^ how early the patriarchal state
may have been reached. Three or four thousand years ago we find the
ancestors of the present civilized nations everywhere organized under
conditions closely analogous to those of ant and bee communities,
though in their mental acumen and variety of habits and knowledge
they were almost infinitely superior.

With one further consideration we may close. It is of interest to
perceive that in human communities the transmission of intellectual
habits is mainly and almost entirely a consequence of education,
either direct or indirect. Instinct is almost non-existent, so far as the
industrial and intellectual habits of life are concerned. We might
destroy an ant city, with the exce^Dtion of a single male and female,
yet these would give rise to a new city, with no perceptible difference
in powers from the old. Yet were we to destroy a civilized human
community, with the exception of a few infants, these, could they give
rise to descendants, in isolated localities, would yield a community
nearly destitute of knowledge and of the power of dealing with Nature.
They would have to begin anew, where their ancestors began ages
before. Yet they would possess mental powers and tendencies that
would enable them to rapidly gain new experience and habits, and
would undoubtedly develop into a new civilization with exceedingly
greater rapidity than was shown in the development of primeval man.

It is the rapidity of progress in human habits and knowledge that
prevents any of these habits becoming instinctive. Old conditions are
rapidly thrown aside and new ones gained, and no method of action is
pursued long enough for it to grow into the force of an instinct. The
tendency of human progress is to check instinct, and to more and more
constantly employ reason, while with the lower animals the tendency

334 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

is to the development of instincts. And we may close by naming the
ants and bees as instances of the extreme unfoldment of the instinctive
powers, man as an instance of the greatest checking of instinct and
development of the reasoning faculties.

FISH OUT OF WATER.

By GKANT ALLEN.

STROLLING one day in what is euphemistically termed, in equa-
torial latitudes, "the cool of the evening," along a tangled tropi-
cal American field-path, through a low region of lagoons and water-
courses, my attention happened to be momentarily attracted from the
monotonous pursuit of the nimble mosquito by a small animal scuttling
along irregularly before me, as if in a great hurry to get out of my
way before I could turn him into an excellent specimen. At first
sight I took the little hopper, in the gray dusk, for one of the com-
mon, small green lizards, and wasn't much disposed to pay it any dis-
tinguished share either of personal or scientific attention. But, as I
walked on a little farther through the dense underbrush, more and
more of these shuffling and scurrying little creatures kept crossing the
path, hastily, all in one direction, and all, as it were, in a formed body
or marching phalanx. Looking closer, to my great sui'prise I found
they were actually fish out of water, going on a walking-tour, for
change of air, to a new residence — genuine fish, a couple of inches
long each, not eel-shaped or serpentine in outline, but closely resem-
bling a red mullet in miniature, though much more beautifully and
delicately colored, and with fins and tails of the most orthodox spiny
and prickly description. They were traveling across-country in a bee-
line, thousands of them together, not at all like the helpless fish out of
water of popular imagination, but as unconcernedly and naturally as
if they had been accustomed to the overland route for their whole life-
times, and were walking now on the king's highway without let or
hindrance.

I took one up in my hand and examined it more carefully ; though
the catching it wasn't by any means so easy as it sounds on paper, for
these perambulatory fish are thoroughly inured to the dangers and
difliculties of dry land, and can get out of your way when you try to
capture them with a rapidity and dexterity which are truly surprising.
The little creatures are very pretty, well-formed cat-fish, with bright,
intelligent eyes, and a body armed all over, like the armadillo's, with
a continuous coat of hard and horny mail. This coat is not formed of
scales, as in most fish, but of toughened skin, as in crocodiles and alli-
gators, arranged in two overlapping rows of imbricated shields, ex-

FISH OUT OF WATER. 335

actly like the round tiles so common on the roofs of Italian cottages.
The fish walks, or rather shambles along ungracefully, by the shuftiing
movement of a pair of stiff spines placed close behind his head, aided
by the steering action of his tail, and a constant snake-like wriggling
motion of his entire body. Leg-spines of somewhat the same sort are
found in the common English gurnard, and, in this age of aquariums
and fisheries exhibitions, most adult persons above the age of twenty-
one years must have observed the gurnards themselves crawling along
suspiciously by their aid at the bottom of a tank at the Crystal Palace
or the polyonymous South Kensington building. But, while the Euro-
pean gurnard only uses his substitutes for legs on the bed of the ocean,
my itinerant tropical acquaintance (his name, I regret to say, is Cal-
lichthys) uses them boldly for terrestrial locomotion across the dry
lowlands of his native country. And, while the gurnard has no less
than six of these pro-legs, the American land-fish has only a single
pair with which to accomplish his arduous journeys. If this be con-
sidered as a point of inferiority in the armor-plated American species,
we must remember that while beetles and grasshoppers have as many
as six legs apiece, man, the head and crown of things, is content to
scramble through life ungracefully with no more than two.

There are a great many tropical American pond-fish which share
these adventurous gypsy habits of the pretty little Callichthys. Though
they belong to two distinct groups, otherwise unconnected, the circum-
stances of the country they inhabit have induced in both families this
queer fashion of waddling out courageously on dry land, and going
on voyages of exploration in search of fresh ponds and shallows new,
somewhere in the neighborhood of their late residence. One kind in
particular, the Brazilian Doras, takes land-journeys of such surprising
length that he often spends several nights on the way, and the Indians
who meet the wandering bands during their migrations fill several
baskets full of the prey thus dropped upon them, as it were, from the
kindly clouds.

Both Doras and Callichthys, too, are well provided with means of
defense against the enemies they may chance to meet during their
terrestrial excursions ; for in both kinds there are the same bony
shields along the sides, securing the little travelers, as far as possible,
from attack on the part of hungry piscivorous animals. Doras further
utilizes its powers of living out of water by going ashore to fetch dry
leaves, with which it builds itself a regular nest, like a bird's, at the
beginning of the rainy season. In this nest the affectionate parents
carefully cover up their eggs, the hope of the race, and watch over
them with the utmost attention. Many other fish build nests in the
water, of materials naturally found at the bottom ; but Doras, I be-
lieve, is the only one that builds them on the beach, of materials
sought for on the dry land.

Such amphibious habits on the part of certain tropical fish are easy

336 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

enough to explain by the fashionable clew of " adaptation to environ-
ment." Ponds are always very likely to dry up, and so the animals
that frequeut ponds are usually capable of bearing a very long dep-
rivation of water. Indeed, our evolutionists generally hold that land-
animals have in every case sprung from pond-animals which have
gradually adapted themselves to do without water altogether. Life,
according to this theory, began in the ocean, spread up the estuaries
into the greater rivers, thence extended to the brooks and lakes, and
finally migrated to the ponds, puddles, swamps, and marshes, whence
it took at last, by tentative degrees, to the solid shore, the plains, and
the mountains. Certainly the tenacity of life shown by pond-animals
is very remarkable. Our own English carp bury themselves deeply in
the mud in winter, and there remain in a dormant condition many
months entirely without food. During this long hibernating period,
they can be preserved alive for a considerable time oTit of water,
especially if their gills are, from time to time, slightly moistened.
They may then be sent to any address by parcels-post, packed in wet
moss, without serious damage to their constitution ; though, according
to Dr. Gilnther, these dissipated products of civilization prefer to have
a piece of bread steeped in brandy put into their mouths to sustain
them beforehand. In Holland, where the carp are not so sophisticated,
they are often kept the whole winter through, hung up in a net to
keep them from freezing. At first they require to be slightly wetted
from time to time, just to acclimatize them gradually to so dry an
existence ; but after a while they adapt themselves cheerfully to their
altered circumstances, and feed on an occasional frugal meal of bread
and milk with Christian resignation.

Of all land-frequenting fish, however, by far the most famous is
the so-called climbing-perch of India, which not only walks bodily
out of the water, but even climbs trees by means of special spines,
near the head and tail, so arranged as to stick into the bark and enable
it to wriggle its way up awkwardly, something after the same fashion
as the " looping " of caterpillars. The tree-climber is a small, scaly
fish, seldom more than seven inches long ; but it has developed a
special breathing apparatus to enable it to keep up the stock of oxygen
on its terrestrial excursions, which may be regarded as to some extent
the exact converse of the means employed by divers to supply them-
selves with air under water. Just above the gills, which form of
course its natural hereditary breathing apparatus, the climbing-perch
has invented a new and wholly original water-chamber, containing
within it a frilled bony organ, which enables it to extract oxygen from
the stored-up water during the course of its aerial peregrinations.
While on shore it picks up small insects, worms, and grubs ; but it
also has vegetarian tastes of its own, and does not despise fruits and
berries. The Indian jugglers tame the climbing-perches and carry
them about with them as part of their stock in trade ; their ability to

FISH OUT OF WATER. 337

live for a long time out of water makes them useful confederates in many
small tricks which seem very wonderful to people accustomed to be-
lieve that fish die almost at once when taken out of their native element.

The Indian snakehead is a closely allied species, common in the
shallow ponds and fresh-water tanks of India, where holy Crahmans
bathe and drink and die and are buried, and most of which dry up
entirely during the dry season. The snakehead, therefore, has simi-
larly accommodated himself to this annual peculiarity in his local
habitation by acquiring a special chamber for retaining water to
moisten his gills throughout his long deprivation of that prime ne-
cessary. He lives composedly in serai-fluid mud, or lies torpid in the
hard-baked clay at the bottom of the dry tank from which all the
water has utterly evaporated in the drought of summer. As long as
the mud remains soft enough to allow the fish to rise slowly through
it, they come to the surface every now and then to take in a good hearty
gulp of air, exactly as gold-fish do in England when confined with
thoughtless or ignorant cruelty in a glass globe too small to provide
sufiicient oxygen for their respiration. But when the mud hardens
entirely they hibernate, or rather sestivate, in a dormant condition
until the bursting of the monsoon fills the ponds once more with the
welcome water. Even in the perfectly dry state, however, they prob-
ably manage to get a little air every now and again through the
numerous chinks and fissures in the sun-baked mud. Our Aryan
brother then goes a-fishing playfully with a spade and bucket, and
digs the snakehead in this mean fashion out of his comfortable lair
with an ultimate view to the manufacture of pillau. In Burmah, in-
deed, while the mud is still soft the ingenious Burmese catch the help-
less creatures by a still meaner and more unsportsmanlike device.
They spread a large cloth over the slimy ooze where the snakeheads
lie buried, and so cut off entirely for the moment their supply of
oxygen. The poor fish, half-asphyxiated by this unkind treatment,
come up gasping to the surface under the cloth in search of fresh air,
and are then easily caught with the hand and tossed into baskets by
the degenerate Buddhists.

Old Anglo-Indians even say that some of these mud-haunting Ori-
ental fish will survive for many years in a state of suspended anima-
tion, and that, when ponds or jhils which are known to have been dry
for several successive seasons are suddenly filled by heavy rains, they
are found to be swarming at once with full-grown snakeheads, released
in a moment from what I may venture to call their living tomb in the
hardened bottom. "Whether such statements are absolutely true or
not the present deponent would be loath to decide dogmatically ; but,
if we were implicitly to swallow everything that the old Anglo-Indian
in his simplicity assures us he has seen — well, the clergy would have
no further cause any longer to deplore the growing skepticism and un-
belief of these latter unfaithful ages.
VOL. xxvrii. — 22

338 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

This habit of lying in the mud and there becoming torpid may be
looked upon as a natural alternative to the habit of migrating across-
country, Avhen your pond dries up, in search of larger and more perma-
nent sheets of water. Some fish solve the problem how to get through
the dry season in one of these two alternative fashions, and some in
the other. In flat countries where small ponds and tanks alone exist,
the burying plan is almost universal ; in plains traversed by large
rivers or containing considerable scattered lakes, the migratory system
finds greater favor with the piscine population.

One tropical species which adopts the tactics of hiding itself in the
hard clay, the African mud-fish, is specially interesting to us human
beings on two accoimts : first, because, unlike almost all other kinds
of fish, it possesses lungs as well as gills ; and, secondly, because it
forms an intermediate link between the true fish and the fro<rs or
amphibians, and therefore stands in all probability in the direct line
of human descent, being the living representative of one among our
own remote and early ancestors. Scientific interest and filial piety
ought alike to secure our attention for the African mud-fish. It lives
its amphibious life among the rice-fields on the Nile, the Zambesi, and
the Gambia, and is so greatly given to a terrestrial existence that its
swim-bladder has become porous and cellular, so as to be modified into
a pair of true and serviceable lungs. In fact, the lungs themselves in
all the higher animals are merely the swim-bladders of fish, slightly
altered so as to perform a new but closely allied office. The mud-fish
is common enough in all the larger English aquariums, owing to a
convenient habit in which it indulges, and wjiich permits it to be
readily conveyed to all parts of the globe on the same principle as the
vans for furniture. When the dry season comes on and the rice-fields
are reduced to banks of baking mud, the mud-fish retire to the bottom
of their pools, where they form for themselves a sort of cocoon of
hardened clay, lined with mucus, and with a hole at each end to admit
the air ; and in this snug retreat they remain torpid till the return of
wet weather. As the fish usually reach a length of three or four feet,
the cocoons are of course by no means easy to transport entire. Never-
theless, the natives manage to dig them iip whole, fish and all ; and, if
the capsules are not broken, the unconscious inmates can be sent across
by steamer to Europe with perfect safety. Their astonishment when
they finally wake up after their long slumber, and find themselves in-
specting the British public, as introduced to them by Mr. Farini,
through a sheet of plate-glass, must be profound and interesting.

In England itself, on the other hand, we have at least one kind of
fish which exemplifies the opposite or migratory solution of the dry-
pond problem, and that is our familiar friend the common eel. The
ways of eels are indeed mysterious, for nobody has ever yet succeeded
in discovering where, when, or how they manage to spawn ; nobody
has ever yet seen an eel's Qgg, or caught a female eel in the spawning

i

FISE OUT OF WATER. 339

condition, or even observed a really adult male or female specimen of
perfect development. All the eels ever found in fresh water are imma-
ture and undeveloped creatures. But eels do certainly spawn some-
where or other in the deep sea, and every year, in the course of the
summer, flocks of young ones, known as elvers, ascend the rivers in
enormous quantities, like a vast army under numberless leaders. At
each tributary or affluent, be it river, brook, stream, or ditch, a propor-
tionate detachment of the main body is given off to explore the vari-
ous branches, while the central force wriggles its way up the chief
channel, regardless of obstacles, with undiminished vigor. When the
young elvers come to a weir, a wall, a flood-gate, or a lasher, they
simply squirm their way up the perpendicular barrier with indescrib-
able wrigglings, as if they were wholly unacquainted, physically as
well as mentally, with Newton's magnificent discovery of gravitation.
Nothing stops them ; they go wherever water is to be found ; and,
though millions perish hopelessly in the attempt, millions more survive
in the end to attain their goal in the upper reaches. They even seem
to scent ponds or lakes mysteriously, at a distance, and will strike
boldly straight across-country, to sheets of water wholly cut off from
communication with the river which forms their chief highway.

The full-grown eels are also given to journeying across-country in
a more sober, sedate, and dignified manner, as becomes fish which have
fully arrived at years, or rather months, of discretion. "When the
ponds in which they live dry up in summer, they make in a bee-line
for the nearest sheet of fresh water, whose direction and distance they
appear to know intuitively, through some strange instinctive geo-
graphical faculty. On their way across-country they do not despise
the succulent rat, whom they swallow whole, when caught, with great
gusto. To keep their gills wet during these excursions, eels have the
power of distending the skin on each side of the neck, just below the
head, so as to form a big pouch or swelling. This pouch they fill with
water, to carry a good supply along with them until they reach the
ponds for which they are making. It is the pouch alone that enables
eels to live so long out of water under all circumstances, and so inci-
dentally exposes them to the disagreeable experience of getting skinned
alive, which, it is to be feared, still forms the fate of most of those
that fall into the clutches of the human species.

A far more singular walking fish than any of these is the odd
creature that rejoices (unfortunately) in the very classical surname of
Periophthalmus, which is, being interpreted. Stare-about. (If he had
a recognized English name of his own, I would gladly give it ; but, as
he hasn't, and as it is clearly necessary to call him something, I fear
we must stick to the somewhat alarming scientific nomenclature.)
Periophthalmus, then, is an odd fish of the tropical Pacific shores, with
a pair of very distinct fore-legs (theoretically described as modified
pectoral fins), and with two goggle-eyes, which he can protrude at

34© THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

pleasure right outside the sockets, so as to look in whatever direction
be chooses, without even taking the trouble to turn his head to left or
right, backward or forward. At ebb-tide this singular peripatetic
goby literally walks straight out of the water, and promenades the
bare beach erect on two legs in search of small crabs and other stray
marine animals left behind by the receding waters. If you try to
catch him, he hops away briskly much like a frog, and stares back at
you grimly over his left shoulder with his squinting optics. So com-
pletely adapted is he for this amphibious 'longshore existence that his
big eyes, unlike those of most other lisb, are formed for seeing in the
air as well as in the water. Nothing can be more ludicrous than to
watch him suddenly thrusting these very movable orbs right out of
their sockets like a j^air of telescopes, and twisting them round in all
directions so as to see in front, behind, on top, and below, in one
delightful circular sweep.

There is also a certain curious tropical American carp, which,
though it hardly deserves to be considered in the strictest sense as
a fish out of water, yet manages to fall nearly half-way under that
peculiar category, for it always swims with its head partly above
the surface and partly below. But the funniest thing in this queer
arrangement is the fact that one half of each eye is out in the air and
the other half is beneath in the water. Accordingly, the eye is di-
vided horizontally by a dark strip into two distinct and unlike portions,
the upper one of which has a pupil adapted to vision in the air alone,
while the lower is adapted to seeing in the water only. The fish, in
fact, always swims with its eye half out of the water, and it can see
as well on dry land as in its native ocean. Its name is Anableps, but,
in all probability, it does not wish the fact to be generally known.

The llying-fish are fish out of water in a somewhat different and
more transitory sense. Their aerial excursions are brief and rapid ;
they can only fly a very little way, and have soon to take once more
for safety to their own more natural and permanent element. More
than forty kinds of the family are known, in appearance very much
like English herrings, but with the front fins expanded and modified
into veritable wings. It is fashionable nowadays among naturalists
to assert that the fljing-fish don't fly; that they merely jump hori-
zontally out of the water with a powerful impulse, and fall again as
soon as the force of the first impetus is entirely spent. When men
endeavor to persuade you to such folly, believe them not. For my
own part, I have seen the flying-fish fly — deliberately fly, and flutter,
and rife again, and change the direction of their flight in mid-air, ex-
actly after the fashion of a big dragon-fly. If the other people who
have watched them haven't succeeded in seeing them fly, that is their
own fault, or, at least, their own misfortune ; perhaps their eyes
weren't quick enough to catch the rapid, though to me perfectly recog-
nizable, hovering and fluttering of the gauze-like wings ; but I have

FISH OUT OF WATER. 341

seen them myself, and I maintain that on such a question one piece of
positive evidence is a great deal better than a hundred negative. The
testimony of all the witnesses who didn't see the murder committed is
as nothing compared with the single testimony of the one man who
really did see it. And in this case I have met with many other quick
observers who fully agreed with me against the weight of scientific
opinion, that they have seen the flying-fish really fly with their own
eyes, and no mistake about it. The German professorp, indeed, all
think otherwise ; but then the German professors all wear green
spectacles, which are the outward and visible sign of " blinded eye-
sight poring over miserable books." The unsophisticated vision of the
noble British seaman is unanimously with me on the matter of the
reality of the fishes' flight.

Another group of very interesting fish out of water are the flying
gurnards, common enough in the Mediterranean and the tropical At-
lantic, They are much heavier and bigger creatures than the true
flying-fish of the herring type, being often a foot and a half long, and
their wings are much larger in proportion, though not, I think, really
so powerful as those of their pretty little silvery rivals. All flying-
fish fly only of necessity, not from choice. They leave the water
when pursued by their enemies, or when frightened by the rapid
approach of a big steamer. So swiftly do they fly, however, that they
can far outstrip a ship going at the rate of ten knots an hour ; and I
have often watched one keep ahead of a great Pacific liner under full
steam for many minutes together in quick, successive flights of three
or four hundred feet each. Oddly enough, they can fly farther against
the wind than before it — a fact acknowledged even by the spectacled
Germans themselves, and very hard indeed to reconcile with the ortho-
dox belief that they are not flying at all, but only jumping. I don't
know whether the flying gurnards are good eating or not ; but the
silvery flying-fish are caught for market (sad desecration of the poetry
of Nature !) in the Windward Islands, and, when nicely fried in Qgg
and bread-crumb, are really quite as good, for practical purposes, as
smelts or whiting, or any other prosaic European substitute.

On the whole, it will be clear, I think, to the impartial reader,
from this rapid survey, that the helplessness and awkwardness of a
fish out of water have been much exaggerated by the thoughtless gen-
eralization of unscientific humanity. Granting, for argument's sake,
that most fish prefer the water, as a matter of abstract predilection,
to the dry land, it must be admitted jier contra that many fish cut a
much better figure on terra Jirma than most of their critics them-
selves would cut in mid-ocean. There are fish that wriggle across-
country intrepidly with the dexterity and agility of the most accom-
plished snakes ; there are fish that walk about on open sand-banks,
semi-erect on two legs, as easily as lizards ; there are fish that hop and
skip on tail and fins in a manner that the celebrated jumping-frog

342

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

himself might have observed with envy ; and there are fish that fly-
through the air of heaven with a grace and swiftness that would put
to shame innumerable si)ecies among their feathered competitors.
Nay, there are even fish, like some kinds of eels and the African
mud-fish, that scarcely live in the water at all, but merely frequent
wet and marshy places, where they lie snugly in the soft ooze and
damp earth that line the bottom. If I have only succeeded, there-
fore, in relieving the mind of one sensitive and retiring fish from the
absurd obloquy cast upon its appearance when it ventures away for
a while from its proper element, then, in the pathetic and prophetic
words borrowed from a thousand uncut prefaces, this work will not, I
trust, have been written in vain. — Cornhill Magazine.

THE FLOWER OR THE LEAF.

By De. MAEY PUTNAM-JACOBI.

"Quod she agen, 'But to whom do ye owe
Your service? and which wolle ye honour,

Tel me I pray, this yere, the Leaf or the Flower?' "

Chaxjoer, " The Flower and the Leaf."

THE comments made by Miss Youmans,* upon a single remark in
my article on " Primary Education," show how much can be un-
folded out of an apparently limited subject, when all its bearings are
thoroughly discussed. Already this discussion trenches upon several
philosophical ^jrinciples which involve much more than the apparently
trivial question whether children should begin the study of botany by
the flower or the leaf. An inquiry into these principles may therefore
be not uninteresting.

Miss Youmans lays down certain propositions, with some of which
I do in reality agree, while with others I am in decided disagreement,
for reasons I will take the liberty of here setting forth. Thus :

1. Children should study the external characters of plants before
attempting to study their life-processes or physiology.

2. Children can not be suitably impressed with such "tremendous
ideas as evolution," and therefore it is useless to signalize these to them.

3. Children should not be detained to draw the leaves or other
natural objects they study, because of "the delay" thus entailed, and
because "they could not draw one in a hundred of the specimens with
which it is necessary that they become familiar."

4. The modern systems of botanical classification are based on the
sum total of the characters of the plant, and not on the corolla. It is
therefore unphilosophical to study the flower containing the corolla

* "Popular ScicDce Monthly," October, 1885.

THE FLOWER OR THE LEAF. 343

first, merely because it is more showy. The sensuous pleasure derived
from its contemplation is superficial as compared with the deeper in-
tellectual pleasure of tracing the scientific relations of the leaf.

5. Finally, it is an axiom that can not be disputed, that mental
effort should advance from the simple subject to the more complex.
The leaf is much simpler than the flower, and is therefore much better
suited for beginning the study of botany.

To consider these propositions in order : 1 and 2. In regard to the
first I am substantially in entire agreement with Miss Youmans, as in-
deed is shown by the examples given in the " Experiment," No attempt
was made to really study the physiology of plants ; while the external
and obvious characters of the most conspicuous portions, the parts,
namely, of the flower, were studied, or rather submitted to a prolonged
contemplation. Only, upon first crossing the threshold of this new
world, the most characteristic facts which distinguished it were pointed
out in a manner designed to make as profound an impression as possible
upon the imagination. These are the facts of life and growth and death,
the germination of the seed, the influence of surrounding media, the
circumstance that the plant offers a constant succession of changing
phenomena, and thus was an entirely different object from a stone, or
a mathematical figui-e, or a rainbow. Now, while it is i)erfectly true
that the term " evolution " and the vast series of ideas and masses of
facts suggested by it can not be rendered comprehensible to a child,
and that it would be the grossest pedantry to even mention it to him,
yet the great fact of growth and incessant change in living organisms
is perfectly appreciable through impressions made on his senses, and is
well fitted to arouse in him a lively interest and curiosity. The fact
of life — the essential nature of life as a series of incessant changes — is
perhaps the most fundamental fact with which the mind will ever be-
come acquainted. It is also among the most primitive and earliest
encountered ; the mode of impression it makes upon the mind per-
manently stamps all the thoughts and systems of thought the mind
ever entertains. For, whence spring all religions, and cosmogonies,
and even ethical systems, but from the primitive thoughts held upon
life and death ? How many immoralities depend upon false estimates
of life, of its nature, its values ! How many erroneous theories of
life might be corrected by the early habit of direct, unbiased observa-
tion of living things ! In the building of a brain, the earliest ideas
always remain the most powerful, because upon them the entire men-
tal structure is destined to repose ; or, since the mind is a living organ-
ism, it were better to compare its primitive ideas, not to the founda-
tion-stones of a house, but to the central medullary rings of a tree.
What is on the surface while the plant is young soon becomes central
by the successive superposition of new impressions, the new circles
being constantly intersected by rays prolonged from the central pith.
The selection of the earliest ideas and impressions is therefore of the

344 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

highest importance ; they should be not only negatively good, that is,
innocent, but, when possible, really powerful, that is, brought from the
depths of things, and able to sustain all the future life of the mind
possessing them. And, since direct perception of facts must precede
reasoning upon the inferences which may be di'awn from them, it is
not only legitimate but important to impress the imagination with
typical and fundamental facts, long before these can be reasoned
upon, or their laws really understood. This is my lengthy reason for
the simple experiment of studying the growth of beans on a saucer
of cotton-wool — experiment designed not to teach physiology, but to
make an early revelation of life.

In this connection, however, is worth noting a special reason for
preferring the flower to the leaf for early study. It is agreed that the
functions of living organisms are too difficult for such study ; never-
theless, it is desirable to indicate functions when possible, because the
fact of function is one eminently characteristic of living things. Now,
the function of the leaf is respiration, which can not possibly be made
intelligible to the child. It involves chemical relations, which are the
latest appreciable, and can not be exhibited except by means of ex-
periments, for which the young child is quite unprepared. The ab-
sence of the visible phenomena of animal respiration, moreover, that
is of the exhalation of the breath and movements of the thorax, render
an attempt to identify the function in plants and animals confusing
and apparently contradictory.

On the other hand, the function of the flower — reproduction — can
be rendered perfectly intelligible to the child, when he is told that the
pollen feeds the ovules, which then visibly grow into seeds, while the
ovary ripens to fruit. This statement seems to the child in accord-
ance with his own most urgent personal necessities, and in the com-
mon facts of feeding and growth he finds himself linked with other
organisms in Nature. It is quite congenial to the normal fetichism of
a young child's mind to regard plants as animals ; and legends of
dryads are as natural to him as to the infancy of the human race.

But the assimilation of animals to plants through the molecular
processes of nutrition common to both (though perhaps unconscious-
ly foreshadowed in the story of Narcissus) was not for mankind dis-
tinctly formulated until the time of Bichat ; and, for the individual
intelligence, its comprehension must be deferred until nearly to adoles-
cence.

3. I must plead guilty to an inaccuracy when, quoting from
memory, I said that Miss Youmans recommended her pupils to draio
the leaves that they studied. But I fell into the error all the more
readily, because such a direction entirely commended itself to my own
judgment. Nor can I agree at all with the reasons which Miss You-
mans now advances in opposition to this method. If the aim at the
time be not to learn botany, but " to cultivate the observing powers

THE FLOWER OR THE LEAF.

345

of cliildren," what danger is there in a " delay " which permits the
object to become more deeply graven on the child's mind ? Why is
it so "necessary to become familiar with hundreds of specimens" in a
given time ? Why not rather with a few, a very few striking and
typical forms, around which subsequent knowledge can group itself?
The comparison of a multitude of objects in order to abstract their
common characters, and thus obtain the generic or class conception,
is suited to the scientific but not to the pre-scientitic stage of progress.
It does not, therefore, belong to the fruitful moment of first attraction
to an object, which, for the adult mind, precedes scientific discovery,
and contains the hidden forces which lead to this. Still less does it
belong to the first mental efforts of childhood. Early childhood is a
period for the differentiation of the details of a universe, which, to the
earliest perceptions, appears to consist entirely of homogeneous masses
of light and shade. In the first efforts of the mind these masses are
broken up and separated from one another, and portions reintegrated
into actual individuals. Thus the moon is separated from the window-
pane, the child's limbs are integrated into a body, which at last is
positively known to be different from other moving forms, etc. It is
in accordance with this spontaneous and, indeed, inevitable mode of
development of perception that the first educated efforts of perception
should be directed toward the more intense individualization of ob-
jects, and not to their classification ; toward the thorough appreciation
of specific differences rather than to that of generic resemblances.
Hence, a second reason for beginning the study of botany — say, rather,
the observation of life — with the flower, although more complex, and
not with the simpler leaf. It is because the individual differences of
the flower are so much more striking, and — as the poets show us — the
flower is so much more readily individualized and personified.*

The period of development with which my " experiment " was
concerned may be called the pre-scientific stage of mental existence.
It is that during which the mind may be busily occupied in collecting
the data for science, but can not itself wield scientific methods. Its
efforts should be directed in accordance with scientific principles of
psychology, and the knowledge acquired arranged in such orderly se-
quence that, when the mind is ripe for them, scientific relations will
be readily perceived and understood. But discussion of such relations
seems to me entirely premature for the age here considered, and, in-
deed, for a much later period.

Scientific observation is observation of the relations between things.
But, before any attempt be made to study these relations, the things
themselves should be firmly and clearly apprehended. The different
degree of grasp possessed by different minds depends largely upon

* Trees, however, seem to have occasionally shared the poetic individualization.
There is Emerson's *' Pinc-Tree," and " The Pine and the Talm " of Heine, not to speak
of " The Fir-Tree " of Hans Andersen ; and who could forget " The Talking Oak " ?

346 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

differences in the degree of vividness and fervor with which they are
impressed by individual objects, which leave so many persons in the
most limp indifference, while exciting in others an absorbing and even
passionate interest. "When the individual impressions are so clear, dis-
tinct, characteristic, and interesting as to be quite unforgettable, they
soon force upon the mind, after prolonged contemplation of them,
suggestions of their multiple relations, and the knowledge which was
at first simply picturesque becomes, sooner or later, scientific. The
mental power which arrives at this is largely innate, and beyond the
capacity of any education to bestow. But if any educational method
can increase and develop it, it is that which most nearly imitates the
spontaneous habits of fertile and original minds, apart from all sys-
tematic intention.

Three characters are conspicuous in the observation exercised by
this class of minds : it is single, it is imaginative, and it is indefinitely
prolonged. It is single — that is to say, the mind which is powerfully
attracted to any object — and none ever discovers anything in any ob-
ject to which it is not powerfully attracted, is m no haste to de-
tach itself and pass on to anything new ; on the contrary, it lingers
and hates to go, and delays, and returns again and again to catch still
another glimpse of what has been so delightful. To say that an ob-
ject is suggestive is to say that it constantly opens uj) new trains of
thought, and, so long as this is the case, the mind can not bear to
abandon it. It is on this account that the contemplation is indefinitely
prolonged, and irregularly so, according to no fixed rule or extrinsic
necessity, not even that of mastering a certain quotum of information,
but varies in accordance with the infinitely varied accidents of the
mental intercourse. Finally, to be fruitful, this intercourse must be
imaginative. First, in the lowest and most literal sense of the term,
since the mind can not directly handle the sense-perception of the ob-
ject, but only the mental image of the object, revived and remem-
bered. But, in addition, to detect all its hidden meanings, properties,
and possible aspects, many functions of the imagination must be
brought into play, and none are useless. Fertility of fancy, rich asso-
ciation of ideas, are as important in collecting the premises for scien-
tific argument as is the argument itself in the discovery of truth.*

During the pre-scientific period, therefore, either in the history of
the race, the development of the individual, or the evolution of any
single idea in an inquiring mind, the cardinal necessity is that of fill-
ing the mind with an abundance of distinct concepts and visual images
of real concrete existences. Any prolonged attempt to compare, gen-
eralize, or reason about these should be deferred, under penalty of
substituting a mere verbal imitation of reasoning for a real effort of the
mind. A certain amount of reasoning and comparison will, of course,

* In these respects the mental history of the celebrated Faraday offers a mine of in-
teresting facts and illustrations.

THE FLOWER OR THE LEAF. 347

arise incidentally, but it must be kept subordinate to the main purpose.
The soil must be enriched before it is plowed. Ideas must be clustex'ed
into dense and rich groups, individualities magnified and intensified, as,
to keep to our subject, the flowers which are classified by the botanist
may be individually magnified into almost conscious beings by the poet.*

* " A nun demure of lowly port,

Or sprightly maiden, of Love's court,
In thy simplicity the sport

Of all temptations ;
A queen in crown of rubies drest,
A starveling in a scanty vest.
Are all, as seems to suit thee best.

Thy appellations." — Wordswokth, " To a Daisy."

" While the patient primrose sits
Like a beggar in the cold." — WoRDS-n-ORTH.

" Here are sweet-peas, on tiptoe for a flight
With wings of gentle flush o'er delicate white.
And taper fingers catching at all things
To bind them all about with tiny rings." — Keats.

" Bloomy grapes, laughing from green attire.'' — Ibid.

" And the rose like a nymph to the bath addrest —
And the hyacinth's purple and white and blue.
Which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew
Of music, so delicate, soft, and intense,
It was felt like an odor within the sense." — Shelley.

"... daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty ; violets dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes
Or Cytherea's breath."—" Winter's Tale."

" Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle in the milky way ; . . .
Ten thousand saw I at a glance
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance."

— Wordsworth, " The Daffodils."

" Daisies, those pearled arcturi of the earth,
The constellated flower that never sets." — Shelley.

" The gold-eyed king-cups fine.
The frail blue-bell peereth over
Bare broidery of the purple clover." — Tennyson.

" Open afresh your round of starry folds.
Ye ardent marigolds ! " — Keats.

" Death in the wood —
In the death-pale lips apart.
Death, in a whiteness that curdles the blood.
Now black to the very heart.

To show that life by the spirit comes,
She gave us a soulless flower."

— Elaine Good ale, " The Indian Pipe."

348 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Hence the suitableness of flowers for making large, forcible, indeli-
ble impressions on the imagination and the memory, and for storing
the mind at the outset with the most vivid and beautiful conceptions
of Nature.

The leaf offers, indeed, a variety of beautiful forms and outlines,
which are not, however, either so numerous or so conspicuous as those
displayed by the various organs of the flower. Leaves contrast less
conspicuously with one another ; their sensible differences are much
less striking, and the eye of the child is not sufficiently trained to ade-
quately appreciate the subtile differences of color which really exist.
To him leaves can scarcely fail to present the vast monotony of green
which the primitive vegetation of the earth is said to have exhibited
before variegated corollas appeared. It is certainly desirable to repeat
for the individual mind the experience of the race ; but is it neces-
sary for that to go back to the ages which antedated even the prehis-
toric man ?

In a word, the differences of flowers I'csembles the " legend writ in
large letters " which Plato advised should be first studied ; the differ-
ences of leaves make the same legend repeated in the " small letters,"
and therefore more difficult to decipher.*

4. Wiss Youmans's reason derived from botanical systems of clas-
sification I scarcely understand. It is very true that classification
by the corolla is abandoned, and indeed never could have been carried
very far. But the natural system, which sums up the total characters
of the plant, certainly derives a much larger number of its data from
the flower than from any other part of the plant. The great function
of the plant is reproduction, and around the organs of reproduction
contained in the flower center all its peculiarities. The mutual rela-
tions of stamens and pistils have been found inadequate for classifica-
tion ; but the extension of the class lines has still been chiefly in the
direction of other parts of the flower, c?i">ecially the fruit, ovule, and
embryo.

Toward the flower converge all the forces of the plant ; it is the
culmination, the perfection of the entire vegetable organism. It
should therefore be contemjdated first, because, as it seems to me, it is
eminently desirable that the child should, whenever possible, see the
principal thing first ; since whatever comes first is always liable to re-
main for him the most important. The habit of ranking things in the
order of their real relative importance is certainly a most valuable
habit to cultivate, both morally and intellectually. As has already
been pointed out, the mind in its growth closely resembles that of a
tree ; for it, primary facts constantly tend to become central facts,
and due organic yjroportions are only maintained between ideas
when the principal, by being placed first, is enabled to become
really central, a vitalized center of fitl}' organized knowledge. For
* " Republic," book ii, 3G8 (Jowctt's translation).

THE FLOWER OR THE LEAF. 349

all life develops from centers ; and in Nature there are no single
lines.

5. Miss Youmans's final proposition, that progress must always be
made from the simple to the complex, is the one with which I do most
decidedly disagree. The expression itself is ambiguous : for it may
mean the transition from the easy to the difficult ; or it may mean the
study of elements as a preliminary to the study of the compounds into
which they enter. In the latter meaning, the proposition can not
surely be applied to the leaf and the flower. Morphologically speak-
ing, it is true that all the parts of the flower result from transforma-
tions of the leaf, but this fact is altogether too recondite for a child's
appreciation. In no other sense can the leaf be said to enter into the
flower as an element — to be a " simpler " part of it. Xo knowledge
to be gained of the flower, other than these facts of embryology, pre-
supposes or requires knowledge of the leaf. Study of the one can
only be said to prepare for the other by the degree of mental disci-
pline it affords. And the very question at issue is. What is the best
for mental discipline, the contemplation of objects with the fewer and
less obvious characters, or of objects at once more conspicuous, and
more abounding in interesting details ? I have already stated the
reasons which seem to me to justify the selection of the second
method.

The first seems indorsed, and perhaps is intended to be so, by the
Comtist classification of the sciences, and by the rather arbitrary at-
tempt of its author to identify this with the actual order of their his-
toric evolution. As regards their subject-matter, it would certainly
be untrue to assert that this attracted the attention of mankind in the
order of its (philosophically considered) simplicity.* At what appear
to us to be the opening periods of Greek thought we find already co-
existing the germs of all the six fundamental sciences, if we may
assume that even chemistry was foreshadowed in the doctrines of the
Four Elements, Such coexistence was inevitable, for the moment that
the human mind was aroused enough to observe and theorize about
anything, its attention could not fail to be attracted in several differ-
ent directions simultaneously. It noticed the form and number of
objects, and founded the sciences of geometry and arithmetic. But it
was quite unaware that these sciences deal with simpler elements than
make up human organisms, and believed that physiology and medicine

* " While he [Comtc] asserts that the rational order of the sciences, hke the order of
their historic development, 'is determined by the degree of simplicity, or, what comes to
the same thins, of creneiality of their phenomena,' it micrht, contrariwise, be asserted
that, commencing with the complex and the special, mankind have progressed step by step
to a knowledge of greater simplicity and wider generality." — Spencer, " The Genesis of
Science."

Sir. Spencer goes on to quote a remark of Whewell's that "the reader has already
repeatedly seen in the course of this history complex and derivative principles [read
'objects'] presenting themselves to men's minds before simple and elementary ones."

350 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

are far simpler subjects, and far less involved in sublime mysteries,
than are mathematics. All subjects were studied, or at least specu-
lated upon, in no other order than that of their apparent nearness to
human interests and that of the obviousness of their phenomena.*

Exactly the same is true for every individual mind, whose percep-
tions are not regularly successive, but simultaneous, and are as liable
to be attracted toward infinitely complex objects as toward the sim-
plest details. It is true, as has been pointed out in the " Experiment,"
that a child's first perceptions are necessarily of form and color, and
the ideas of form belong to mathematics. But color is a physical
property of bodies, and therefore the subject of a science which is,
according to the Comtist measure of simi^licity, two degrees removed
from mathematics. Ou the other hand, the property of number,
although like forms, mathematical, is not grasped till much after color
and many other physical properties have been appreciated.

Other properties of bodies become known in direct proportion to
their obviousness, and to their accidental impact on the senses, or to
their association with the personal experience of the child. These may
be mathematical, physical, biological, or even social. The mind of
the child, like that of the race, looks over the surface of all things at
once ; its progress is not from the simple toward the complex, but
from the superficial and obvious toward the profound and hidden.
The mutual aid rendered by sciences, w^hen, to use Herbert Spencer's
expression, they become arts to one another, is only required after the
observation and registration of accessible facts are completed, and
when analysis is required to bring to light new facts or to explain
others. But the child's mind does not reach this stage, and it is either
illusory or fatal to attempt to force it prematurely.

It is very interesting to notice, by study of the actual evolution of
knowledge, what a large amount of knowledge was obtained simul-
taneously in each department by independent observation, and before
the necessity for mutual help, other than that derived from element-
ary mathematics, had been perceived. During this period the advance
was made in each science, not by deductions from some simpler science,
but by observations and methods peculiar to itself. Thus, as already
stated, the germs of mathematics, physics, biology, and sociology,
are all found coexisting at what seem to us the opening periods of
Greek thought ; nor was their degree of development at all propor-
tioned to their degree of simplicity. If some truths of geometry and
arithmetic were really established, so, in spite of the obscurity sur-
rounding biological laws, were many phenomena of living beings also
observed. The pulse Avas known, if the circulation was not, and nu-
merous are the clinical observations of Hippocrates which still hold

* " Tlie broad distinction between the two orders of knowledge [the ordinary and the
scientific] is not in their nature, but in their remoteness from perception."— Spencke,
ioc. cit.

THE FLOWER OR THE LEAF. 351

good even in the scientific sphere of prognosis ; and who could deny the
permanent value of many of the ethical, political, and historical specu-
lations of the ages of Plato, Thucydides, and Aristotle, even though,
according to the Comtist doctrine, sociological speculations should
have been valueless at this time, because entirely premature ? *

The epoch of acquisition of facts, which must precede the discov-
ery of their laws, often stretches over long periods of time — periods
which interest us, because corresponding to the moment of education
with which this discussion is concerned. The labors of the alchemists
accumulated immense material on the composition of bodies and on
their more recondite properties long before the scientific relations of
chemistry could be established through the law of definite proportions.
Physiology, the most complex of the physical sciences, has been most
heterogeneous in the methods by which it has established its funda-
mental facts. The nature of respiration was, indeed, established by a
chemist, from chemical data and from chemical experiments. But the
nature of the circulation was partly inferred from anatomical facts —
the presence of valves in veins — partly demonstrated by vivisection, a
method of investigation which could not possibly be suggested by any
other science than physiology. Knowledge of physics has materially
assisted the interpretation of blood-j)ressure, of the expansion of the
lungs, and many other phenomena, first known by direct observation of
them. But the demonstration of the functions of the nervous system
has been made exclusively by means of physiological experiment and
clinical observation. " Science," observes Renan, " in order to formu-
late her laws, is obliged to make abstractions and to create simple
circumstances, such as Nature never presents."! This is done usually
with the aid of a simpler science, or one of wider generality, whose
mastery thus becomes indispensable to further progress. But, until the
moment for analysis and experiment has arrived, observation of the
comjDlex object is not more, but rather less difiicult than that of the
simple one, because in it so many varieties of details offer themselves
spontaneously to the attention that the mind is at once fully occupied
so soon as it begins to carefully observe ; whereas pure observation
soon exhausts the details of a simple object or phenomenon, and no fur-
ther progress can be made until after a profound analysis has plunged
below the surface. Let any one compare the rate of progress in the
discovery of new knowledge in mathematics, astronomy, and even

* " What has often led linguists to regard the elementary monosyllabism of the Chi-
nese as the primitive condition of all languages is the tendency which leads us to con-
sider simpUcity as indicating a state of infancy, or, at least, as the sign of a high anti-
quity. But this is an error. The Chinese language, though monosyllabic, has served a
highly developed civilization ; on the other hand, the languages of the savages of Ameri-
ca, of Central and Southern Africa, offer a surprising richness of grammatical forms."
— Kenan, " De I'Origine du Langage," p. 13 of preface.

f Loc. cit.y p. 59.

352 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

physics, -witli that of its incessant registration in chemistry and in all
the biological sciences ; registi'ation often effected, moreover, by a
relatively mediocre order of minds.

The child, like the race, begins at once with two sets of mental ac-
tivities— sense-impressions, and speculations suggested by them and by
emotional experience. Since complex objects are capable of making
impressions on its senses, and of suggesting speculation, it is often
both possible and profitable to study the external and perceptible
characters of these objects, as well as those of simpler ones. The
child, like the infant humanity, is incapable of profound anlysis, and
a premature habit of analysis is morally destructive.* It is this very
incapacity which makes the complexity of objects a matter of indif-
ference, since it is only by analysis that the difference between simple
and complex objects can be recognized or felt. Whatever makes a
large impression upon the senses is, other things being equal, easy of
apprehension, even when not of co»;prehension. Whatever does not
do so, whatever demands the intervention of abstract reasoning and
inference, is ditlieult — often so difficult as to be really impossible —
even though the child pretend and appear to understand.

And thus, to return to our starting-point, it is for all of these rea-
sons that I have preferred to introduce the world of plants by the
flower, Avith its marvelous variety in form and color, in port and ex-
pression and inflorescence, in contrivance of petal and stamen and
pistil, and in manifold destiny of fruit. I would, undoubtedly, and
in accordance with the principle already laid down of indicating many
things on the mental horizon before the time should arrive for paying
systematic attention to them, bring forward a few salient leaves as
types : the needles of the pine, the rounded floating leaves of the
•water-lily, the truncated leaves of the tulip-tree, the five-fingered
leaves of the maple, the pinnated leaves of the sumach, the asymmet-
rical leaves of the begonia, the woolly leaves of the mullein. But I
should reserve the systematic study of " hundreds of specimens " to a
much later period, and then enter upon it with all possible enthusiasm,
and prepared to especially consider the numerous mathematical rela-
tions presented by these exquisite organic forms. Not only through
study of their geometric outline, but in their multiple arithmetic com-
binations of insertion and section, may the pupil be led to the fruit-
ful modern methods which involve the application of mathematics to
the non-mathematical sciences. f

* The effect of this is shown in the autobiography of John Stuart Mill, as the author
himself points out in a striking; chapter.

f See "Etudes comparees dcs Feuillcs," par M. Fermond, ISGi.

THE STUDY OF THE RELATIONS OF THINGS. 353
THE STUDY OF THE EELATIONS OF TlimOS.

Br ELIZA A. YOUMANS.

EVERY reader of the preceding article will recognize that it is
one which I can not let pass as a final statement of the subject.
Mrs. Jacobi's very first sentence is so misleading as to put me in a
wrong relation to this discussion. She says, " The comments made by
Miss Youman's upon a single remark in my article on primary educa-
tion," etc. ; the implication of which is that I had a very slender basis
for getting up a controversy. But her "single remark " was in point
of fact a complete paragraph of nearly a page in length containing a
series of affirmations, condemning the principles adopted as fundament-
al in my First Book of Botany. Her criticisms, besides, acquired spe-
cial force from the circumstances in which they were made. Mrs.
Jacobi is a trained scientific scholar, an independent inquirer untram-
meled by traditions, and she had taken up the critical study of pri-
mary education in connection with the practical management of her
own child, and published two articles on her method and its results.
All this gave such strength to the case, that her incidental comment
upon my method, if allowed to pass without notice, would have been
more injurious than would have been a separate and formal attack.
That I did not mistake the import of her first critical passage is now
sufficiently apparent, as her present elaborate article is but an amplifi-
cation and a justification of positions taken at the outset.

As will have been seen by the reader, Mrs. Jacobi sums up my
views in five propositions upon which she comments in their order.
With the first proposition she agrees, and with the second she is in
partial agreement. But, while admitting that ideas of evolution are
unsuitable to childhood, she insists that the idea of life and its changes
is proper for their very early contemplation. I have only to say, as I
said in my former article, that I have gone as far as she has done in
this direction of objective study, having provided a series of experi-
ments in the sprouting and growth of various seeds in my " First
Book." But while I should be content to furnish the child with
materials for simple observation, and leave him very much to himself
to find out what his experiments disclose, Mrs. Jacobi would use
the occasion to make "as profound an impression as possible upon the
imagination " of the child in regard to " the facts of life and growth
and death." With all she says of the importance of these conceptions,
and the immense part they have played in the history of mankind,
I entirely agree ; but I should be very cautious about undertaking to
introduce them into the mind of a child, while, with its lack of experi-
ence, it is still so dominated by imagination as not to know the dif-
ference between the true and the false among ideas, Mrs. Jacobi
says, " The great fact of growth and incessant change in living organ-

TOL. XXTIII. — 23

354 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

isms is perfectly appreciable through impressions made on his senses,
and is well fitted to arouse in him lively interest and curiosity," If
this be really so, then no more is needed than to furnish the child
with his sprouting seeds as we both do. But surely mankind has
been familiar enough with the sensible facts of germination, and yet
the grossest errors concerning life-changes have prevailed through all
past times. Indeed, Mrs. Jacobi quickly abandons this ground, that
the child will perfectly appreciate the case, by saying it is " important
to impress the imagination with typical and fundamental facts long
before they can be reasoned upon or their laws really understood," I
should prefer to let the child grow by slow preparation in concrete
observations, till its mind gains knowledge and strength to understand
typical and fundamental facts upon recondite subjects.

I gave my reasons for objecting to drawing as a means of acquiring
descriptive botany. In her third proposition Mrs. Jacobi puts my
view in this form : " That children should not be detained to draw the
leaves, or other natural objects they study, because of the delay thus
entailed." And, in commenting upon this, she further remarks : " If
the aim at the time be not to learn botany, but to cultivate the ob-
serving powers of children, what danger is there in a delay which
permits the object to be more deeply graven on the child's mind?
Why is it so necessary to become familiar with hundreds of specimens
in a given time? '''' As our object is here presumably to get at the
truth, I have a right to insist upon greater correctness in the repre-
sentation of my views. Mrs. Jacobi pleads to inaccuracy in her former
statement of them in regard to drawing ; but there are three further
inaccuracies here, which I have indicated by italics, and, trivial as
they may seem, they give an erroneous impression of my method.
Without warrant, she introduces the phrase " other natural objects,"
so that a quite special objection to drawing in the endless field of
observation which the study of plants presents, is generalized into
opposition, on my part, to the use of natural objects as drawing-
lessons. Nothing I have said can be construed into opposition to
drawing, which of course has its uses ; but it may also be misplaced
and misused. Whenever the object is to form a habit through repeti-
tions of a great number of simple exercises, the intrusion of such a
mechanical operation as drawing must seriously hinder the work in
hand. In arithmetic, for example, it is necessary to go through a
great number of numerical exercises to form the habit of rapid and
accurate calculation. But many of the problems involve concrete
imagery which is capable of pictorial illustration. If, however, with
a view of deepening his impressions, the pupil were required to make
drawings of these, he would, to say the least, be very much obstructed
in his mathematical progress,

Mrs. Jacobi puts it as if I had said my aim in preparing the " First
Book" was not to teach botany, which is incorrect. Although the

THE STUDY OF THE RELATIONS OF THINGS. 355

"First Book" attempts to make a beginning only, yet it claims to
be"-in rigbt, and to teach botany as it should be taught, by making the
mind thoroughly familiar with the actual characters of plants. Train-
ing in observation, for its mental advantages, was an accompanying
purpose, because the conditions of the two perfectly coincide.

Again, in her question, " Why is it so necessary to become familiar
with hundreds of specimens «Vi a given time?'''' Mrs. Jacobi would
commit me to the worst folly of current education — the time-limit in
acquisition, or what may be called " fourteen-weeks" science. From
the outset, and constantly, I have resisted this tendency, and have
claimed that the fullest time should be taken as the first condition of
real and permanent acquisition. As to the fourth proposition, I am
quite content to leave it as it was presented in my article in the
October Monthly.

Fifthly, and finally, Mrs. Jacobi ascribes to me as " an axiom that
can not be disputed, that mental efi^ort should advance from the simple
subject to the more complex " ; and she adds, that this proposition " is
the one with which I most decidedly disagree." In arguing the point,
Mrs. Jacobi maintains that the historic advance of knowledge has not
always conformed to this principle. Very likely ; but I have never
said the law is everywhere observed. There are plenty of teachers
who have not the slightest idea of it, and plenty of school-books which
violate it, by putting the complex first, instead of leading up to it by
simple steps. But where ideas are perfectly clear, as with the relations
of number, experience enforces the principle ; every arithmetic pro-
ceeds from the simple to the complex. All this, however, is aside
from the question ; my contention has been simply that the principle
should not be violated in the mental cultivation of children. By the
title of her first articles, " An Experiment in Primary Education,"
and the comments which followed, the difference between us related
only to the mental conditions of childhood ; but she here commits me
to a statement concerning mental effort in general. Had she intro-
duced the term juvenile to qualify " mental effort," she would have
properly described the case, and made superfluous much that she says
on the order of the evolution of knowledge. Assuming that there are
stages in the progress of the individual mind, the question is as to the
nature and educational significance of these successive stages, and
what kind of study is appropriate at one stage and inappropriate at
another. I see no way of getting light upon this matter and the prac-
tical points in issue, but by referring to the nature and constitution of
the mind and the laws of mental growth. Mrs, Jacobi maintains that
young children can profitably occupy their mind with things, facts,
data, but are mentally unfit for the study of relations in which science
consists ; an examination of the part played by relations in mental
structure and growth will therefore have an essential bearing upon
this discussion.

356 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The external world is made up of objects in relations with each
other. Nothing exists by itself, or out of relation with other things.
The very attributes which constitute a thing are its relations. The
perceiving mind, on the other hand, is constituted to recognize rela-
tions. By these it identifies each thing. All objects are classed by
their relations of likeness and unlikeness, and all knowledge is organ-
ized on this basis. To investigate a thing is but to determine its rela-
tions. Knowledge, in short, is relative, and our thinking is all carried
on in terms of relation. The infinitely extended and the infinitely
minute contexture of relations which constitutes the order of nature
has for its counterpart a marvelous nervous mechanism constructed to
reproduce these relations. The outer world, by its forces, acts upon
the senses, producing myriads of sensations, diverse in quality and in-
tensity, which are conveyed to the great central organ of mind, the
brain. This consists of the simplest elements, cells and fibers, but there
are hundreds of millions of these, closely knit and bound together by
commissures, so as to produce a compactly unified organism, capable of
duplicating in thought the multitudinous relations of the surrounding
universe. Added to this, we have to view the brain as a creation of Na-
ture through processes which have been going forward incessantly and
continuously during vast periods of time. It has been slowly evolved by
long intercourse with the environing world. It used to be thought
that the mind begins with the new-born creature, and it was likened to
a sheet of white paper, upon which anything can be scribbled. But it is
now held that the central nervous organism at birth embodies a mass of
nascent activities, latent capacities, and instinctive impulses which have
been inherited from ancestral generations through the experience of the
race, and in which the correspondence between the relations of external
phenomena and the internal relations of the mind has been progress-
ively increasing in extent and complexity. If, now, we glance at the
early processes of the unfolding mind, we shall see that this matter of
relations and their classing is very deep in the mental constitution.
Mind is made up of three distinct elements, the power to feel, the
power to act, and the power to know, or emotion, will, and intellect.
Of these, feeling is primordial, and leads to action and to knowing.
At first there is only feeling ; but changes of feeling arise as soon
as external forces begin to act upon the susceptible infant organism.
These changes of feeling are the raw material which is to be wrought
into distinct consciousness. A change of feeling supplies two terms
and a relation, and the discrimination of these is the earliest act of
knowing. The baby cries when in pain, and sleeps sweetly when all
goes well with it. Thus at the very dawn of psychical life there are
established relations of likeness and unlikeness among feelings by
which they are organically classed as feelings of comfort and discom-
fort, pleasures and pains. Discrimination of relations is thus the very
germ of intelligence. Through its apparatus of sensibility, known as

THE STUDY OF THE RELATIONS OF THINGS, y^-j

the special senses, external impulses are conveyed to the brain, light
through the optical channel, sounds through the auditory nerve. But
at first visible things are not seen nor sounds heard. It is only by
numberless repetitions of like sensations that an impression is at length
produced. Like sensations are gradually integrated until perceptions
arise. As we trace onward the process by which sensations become
perceptions and perceptions grow to conceptions, we find that all or-
ders of ideas are built up out of the states of consciousness produced
in us by things and their relations. As I wrote, fifteen years ago :
We know things because, when we see, hear, touch, or taste them, the
present impression spontaneously blends with like impressions before
experienced. We know or recognize an external object, not by the
single impression it produces, but because that impression revives a
whole train or group of previous discriminations that are like or re-
lated to it. If something is seen, heard, felt, or tasted, which links
itself to no kindred idea, we say, " We do not know it " ; if it partially
agrees with an idea, or revives a few discriminations, we know some-
thing about it, and the completer the agreement the more perfect the
knowledge. As to know a thing is to perceive its differences from
other things and its likeness to other things, it is strictly an act of
classing. This is involved in every act of thought, for to recognize
a thing is to class its impression or idea with previous states of feel-
ing. Classification in all its aspects and applications is but the putting
together of things that are alike — the grouping of objects by their
resemblances ; and as to know a thing is to know that it is like tJiis
or that, to know what it is like and what it is unlike we begin to
classify as soon as we begin to think.

In early infancy, when the mind is first making the acquaintance of
outward things, mental growth consists essentially in the production of
new ideas by means of repetitions of sense-impressions, and in this pro-
cess the pre-established relations among the cells and fibers of the
brain are of the greatest possible moment. The organized and semi-
organized groups of relations among the cerebral elements can give
no knowledge until the special groups of relations to which they cor-
respond have been presented to the consciousness by means of the
child's daily and hourly experience of objects and activities. The at-
tributes of size, color, weight, transparency, roughness, hardness, fluid-
ity, warmth, taste, and various other properties of solid and liquid
substances, and the aspects of people and domestic animals, are noted.
Ideas of all the common objects of the house, the grounds, the walks,
the drives, are soon formed and associated with words that denote them.
Through its spontaneous activity it has hit upon those special co-ordi-
nations of movement required in creeping, walking, holding things, and
the like, which have greatly aided in enlarging its knowledge, so that,
at the end of a few months, it has a store of complex conceptions, and
has acquired numerous aptitudes and dexterities. Hence its early

358 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ideas never arise singly, but are linked together in their origin ; groups
of ideas are integrated into trains of thought, and words into correspond-
ing trains of sentences to express them. When a stock of ideas has been
formed in this manner, the mental growth is mainly carried forward
by the establishment of new combinations among them. The simpler
ideas pertaining to the objects and actions of the child's environment
being once acquired, the development of intelligence consists largely
in associating them in new relations and groups of relations. The per-
ception of likeness and difference is the essential work that is going
on all the time, but the comparisons and discriminations are constantly
becoming more extensive, more complex, more minute, and more accu-
rate. Thus elementary ideas become fused into one complex idea ; by
a still further recognition of likeness and difference, this is associated
with a new group, and this again with still larger clusters of associated
ideas.

" That which occurs at this earliest stage of mental growth is ex-
actly what takes place in the whole course of unfolding intelligence.
Simple as these operations may seem, and begun by the infant as soon
as it is born, in their growing complexities they constitute the whole
fabric of the intellect. What we call the "mental faculties" are only
different modes of the mental activity ; and as one law of growth
evolves all the various organs and tissues of the bodily structure, so
one law of growth evolves all the diversified " faculties " of the mental
structure. Under psychological analysis, the operations of reason,
judgment, imagination, calculation, and the acquisitions of the most
advanced minds yield at last the same simple elements — the percep-
tions of likenesses and differences among things thought about ; while
memory is simply the power of reviving these distinctions in con-
sciousness. Whatever the object of thought, to know in what re-
spects it differs from all other things, and in what respects it resem-
bles them, is to know all about it — is to exhaust the action of
the intellect upon it. The way the child gets its early knowledge
is the way all real knowledge is obtained. When it discovers the
likeness between sugar, cake, and certain fruits, that is, when it groups
them in thought as siceet, it is making just such an induction
as Newton made in discovering the law of gravitation, which was but
to discover the likeness among celestial and terrestrial motions. And
as with physical objects, so also with human actions. The child may
run around the house and play with its toys, but it onust not break
things or play with fire. Here, again, are relations of likeness and un-
likeness, forming a basis of moral classification. The judge on the
bench is constantly doing the same thing ; that is, tracing out the like-
nesses of given actions, and classing them as right and wrong." *

We hence see that by necessity and by the very nature of intelli-
gence the movements of mental growth are from the relatively simple
* Essay on " The Cultivation of the Observing Powers of Children." (1870.)

THE STUDY OF THE RELATION'S OF THINGS. 359

to the relatively complex. The whole process is one of building
simpler elements into moi'e complicated relations, and it goes on just
the same in the minds of children as of adults. The increase of
knowledge, the increase of faculty, the increase of mental power, all
resolve themselves into a finer discrimination, a greater clearness of
perception, and a wider grasp of the relations among objects of
thought. The mind can not be worked backward because its pro-
cesses are organically determined ; and every step of increasing intel-
ligence is a step of increasing complication. These considerations are
decisive as to the main issue of the present controversy.

Mrs. Jacobi repeatedly affirms a " pre-scientific stage " of mental
development ; and her whole case depends upon the validity of this
position, and what she means by it. She indicates her idea of what
it is by saying : " Scientific observation is observation of the relations
between things ; but before any attempt be made to study these rela-
tions the things themselves should be firmly and clearly apprehended."
But it has been shovm that this is not possible. Neither children nor
anybody else can apprehend things apart from their relations ; they
know them either vaguely or clearly, partially or fully, only by per-
ceiving their relations. Mrs. Jacobi's distinguishing mark of the " pre-
scientific stage " thus disappears, and all the reasoning by which she
would put off the study of plants in their relations, or with a view to
classification to a late period of study, falls to the ground. She says,
" The comparison of a multitude of objects in order to abstract their
common character, and thus obtain the generic or class conception, is
suited to the scientific but not to the pre-scientific stage of progress."
The only meaning that can be given to this statement is that there are
stages of classification too complex for children at the outset of study ;
but it is a grave error to suppose that the properly guided pupil is to
come suddenly upon the formidable work of classification as a new
task. The child has been classing things from its birth, and in its ear-
liest observations upon the simplest parts of plants it enters upon an
easy stage of classification, and it is through these exercises that the
higher work is gradually reached. The process is continuous. The
child from the first has been comparing objects and abstracting their
common characters. It matters nothing that at first this action is au-
tomatic ; it leads to conscious classing and is of the same nature with it.
Progress in the formation of such general ideas as chair, cat, dog, may
be clearly seen by the intelligent observer to consist in the comparison
of the members of all such groups of objects and an abstraction of their
common characters. Of course, this work is imperfect at first. The
failures of children in forming correct general notions of some com-
plexity was well illustrated by a little boy under three years of age,
when his sympathies were appealed to in behalf of the cat he was
teasing by the statement that he too was an animal. This he indig-
nantly repelled, and, springing to his feet, he caught the skirt of his

360 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

dress and extending it toward me exclaimed, " See there, I'm not an
animal ! " Absence of clothing was thus a common character which
he had generalized into the conception of an animal.

But if the essential mental processes are exactly the same in nature
from first to last, in what then does science consist, and where is it to
begin ? There is a current notion that science is something different
from common knowledge — something especially difficult to be injected
late in courses of study ; and Mrs. Jacobi seems to countenance this
view. But we have seen that the process of thought is the same in
common knowledge as in science. The difference between them is
simply this, that the perceptions of relations in ordinary knowledge are
loose, vague, and inaccurate, while it is the office of science to make
them more careful, clear, and exact. It is simply a question of degree,
and we must assume that science begins at the point where the teach-
er intervenes to guide the mental processes of the child, and make them
more accurate and truthful. This work should be commenced sooner
than has been generally supposed ; and the view that the rudiments of
all science are contained in the common knowledge possessed by the
child necessitates a much earlier cultivation of the observing powers
of children than is currently practiced. To prevent the break which
commonly occurs when children enter upon the study of books and
begin to substitute words for things, and to continue the processes
which Nature has initiated, I sought for the simplest objects by which
connected observations can be pursued, and the work of comparing,
tracing out relations, and classifying can be continued, and for this
purpose the simpler parts of plants are well adapted. Little children
have already a large stock of ideas of the relations of concrete things.
They know leaves, and stems, and flowers, though in a loose and in-
definite way. The first effect of careful observation is to make these
ideas more definite and precise. For instance, in place of the vague
notion of leaves formed from casual acquaintance with them, the ex-
amination of a variety of leaf-forms reveals distinctly different kinds
of leaves accordingly as they are made up of blade, stem, and stipule ;
of blade and stem ; or of blade only. And each of these three definite
classes receives a name with an equally definite meaning. On further
observation, the blade turns out to be made up of different parts,
which are to be further studied ; the process of discovery and of pre-
cise naming goes on till leaves of all sorts fall into a few distinct
groups, based upon definite characters and the simple recognition of
these groups suffices for the beginning of classification. In the same
way, from observation of stems, these fall into groups as round, square,
erect, trailing, creeping, etc. Closer observation reveals still minuter
characters, and the numerous individuals to be examined and described
insure the repetition needful to depth and retention of impressions.
In the objective study of plants the intellectual operations range from
the simplest recognition of obvious likeness and difference among

THE STUDY OF THE RELATIONS OF THINGS. 361

leaves, stems, flowers, etc., to the perception of contrasts and resem-
blances among multitudes of plants, by which they are separated into
genera, tribes, orders, classes, series, and various intermediate groups.
But here, as everywhere, the simple leads to the complex. The limits
of these groups are determined by the presence or absence of features
that have been made familiar in the course of earlier study.

By the title of her article Mrs. Jacobi gives prominence to the
question of precedence between the leaf and the flower with reference
to the plan of my little text-book. Obviously a school-book can only
imperfectly conform to the various grades of capacity it addresses.
If its aim is to reach the lowest grade that can begin the work of sys-
tematic and accurate observation ; and if, as the result of experience
in the present case, it has been found that there is a stage of child-life
when the attention may be successfully given to the study of leaf-
characters, and can not be so held to the study of the flower, it would
seem reasonable that the leaf should come first in the order of study.
But one might not need to follow the same order with a child ten
years old as with a child of six, because the former has greater capac-
ity, and can do what the latter can not. An average child of ten
years might perhaps begin observation anywhere, so far as his ability
is concerned, while with an average child of five or six this could not
be done. As stated in my previous article, it was necessary to begin
somewhere, and the book is therefore apparently rigid in method ; but
I have repeatedly recommended in it that teachers exercise judgment,
and skip about and choose what is most timely and appropriate to the
circumstances and varying capacity of their pupils. Of course, for
those teachers who think it a duty in all cases to begin at the begin-
ning and go straight to the end, there is no help.

If, as in the present case, the dominant idea be that of self -educa-
tion, if the pupil is to do his own thinking and discovering with the least
possible guidance, it will be abundantly found that a young child will
do this pleasurably and profitably with leaves before he can do it with
flowers ; for, in the case of the leaf, the mind passes more gradually
from the looseness of common observation and language to the care-
fulness and accuracy required in the initiation of scientific study.
The parts to be at first noted are more differentiated and fewer, and the
number of new precise terms to mark them is smaller, and these may
hence be firmly associated with the objects before fresh ones are
brought forward. And, even if the method of study be purely in-
structional, if we point out the characters of the object to the child,
and explain all about it, while he passively looks on and remembers
what he may, we shall still find that the similarity and number of the
different parts of the flower, and the cluster of new terms that at once
crowd upon the attention, confuse and hinder, if they do not positively
repel, these youngest beginners.

362 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

AGATIZED AND JASPEKIZED WOOD OF ARIZONA.

By GEOEGE F. KUNZ.

T TNDOUBTEDLY one of the greatest of American wonders is the
^ silicified forest in Arizona, known as Chalcedony Park— a park
only in name, however, for the giant trees which once grew there
have long since fallen and silicified into agate and jasper. It is situ-
ated eight miles south of Corriza, a station on the Atlantic and Pa-
cific Railroad, in Apache County, Arizona, twenty-four miles south-
east of Holbrook. This marvelous deposit of probably a million tons
of silicified trees covers a thousand acres. The wood is generally
found projecting from the volcanic ash and lava, which is covered
with sandstone to the depth of from twenty to thirty feet, and lies ex-
posed in the gulches and basins where the water has worn away the
sandstone.

The silicification probably took place in the following manner :
The trees were overthrown and covered with volcanic ashes and tufa,
the heated silicified waters, either gushing from springs or forced up
by the violent volcanic action which felled the trees, percolated
through the ashes, cooled on reaching the tree-level, and thus produced
conditions favorable to silicification.

The moisture in the tufa may have effected a partial alteration, as
also any waters that may have filtrated through it from rains or
springs either hot or cold. Under these circumstances decomposition
would be assisted and much silica be set free. The waters would be-
come charged with this, the silica being held partly in solution similar
to that in liquid glass, the silicate of soda of commerce. The silicious
water then slowly penetrated the wood buried in the tufa and was
slowly deposited in the cells of the wood. In this manner the fibers
of the wood were replaced by the silica. The process was evidently
a slow one, and the trees, from all appearances, were partly decayed
and water-logged when the silicification took place. The jasper
and agate generally replaced the cell-walls and fibers, and the trans-
parent quartz filled the cells and interstices, especially where the
structure was broken down by decay. These cell-centers and cavi-
ties produced the conditions favorable not only for the deposition of
the silica as quartz, but also for the formation of the drusy, crystalline
cavities of quartz and amethyst that enhance the beauty of the ma-
terial so much. It is evident, from the rich variety of colors, that the
waters held oxides of iron and perhaps manganese, as well as silica,
the red color being caused by hematite, the yellows and browns by
liraonite, and the black by oxides of manganese.

It is possible also that the ash was deposited partly in water and
thus heated it. There is every indication that the deposit is of con-

AGATIZED AND JASPERIZED WOOD OF ARIZONA. 363

364 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

siderable depth. Over the entire area the trees lie scattered in all
conceivable positions and in fragments of all sizes, sometimes resem-
bling a pile of cart-wheels. A tree one hundred and fifty feet in
length is often found broken up into as many sections of almost uni-
form length, presenting the appearance of having been savred asunder
for shingle-blocks by some prehistoric forester.

Again, we find a giant tree broken into countless fragments, rang-
ing in size from a small pebble to a fair-sized bowlder. Perfect-shaped
cubes, ready to be polished and used for paper-weights, are also found.
These multiplied fractures are the result of alternate heat and cold
acting on the water collected in the fissures of the tree.

The highest point in the park is some two hundred feet above the
surrounding level, and it is here that the buried trees can be seen to
the best advantage. Some of them are one hundred and fifty feet
long and ten feet in diameter, and lie exposed in all conceivable posi-
tions. One section of a tree, which has been broken up, measures
eight feet in diameter, ten feet in length, and weighs several tons.
The tree was originally about two hundred feet long. Some pieces of
the trunks of these trees, which were brought to New York, ranged
from eight inches to three feet in diameter, and from twenty-five to
one thousand pounds in weight. The perfect preservation of these
trunks is remarkable. The rings are so distinctly visible as to con-
vince even the most incredulous of their organic origin.

The most interesting points in the park have been suggestively
named. The Agate or Natural Bridge, Agate Gulch, Amethyst Point,
Fort Jasper, etc.

The most remarkable feature of the park, and a phenomenon per-
haps unparalleled, is the Natural Bridge, of agatized wood, formed
by a tree, spanning a caSon forty-five feet in depth and fifty-five in
width. In addition to the span, fully fifty feet of the tree rests on one
side, making the tree visible for a length of over one hundred feet.
Both ends of the tree are imbedded in the sandstone. It averages
three and a half feet in diameter, four feet at the thickest part, and
three at the smallest. Where the bark does not adhere, the character-
istic colors of jasper and agate are to be seen.

Although silicified wood is found in many localities throughout the
world, nowhere is it so beautifully colored as at this place. Here we
have every imaginable shade of red, yellow, brown, and green. Some-
times the colors appear in distinct spots, forming a mottled appear-
ance ; then, again, all blend so imperceptibly as to make a much more
pleasing and harmonious effect than the decided banding of the agate,
where the lines of demarkation between the colors are so distinct as to
become obtrusive. The colors above mentioned are often relieved by
white, black, and gray, and by transparent spaces of brilliant quartz-
crystals, or — as sometimes occurs — of amethyst.

Broken section's of the hollow trunks are often lined with amethyst.

AG ATI ZED AND JASPERIZED WOOD OF ARIZONA. 365

quartz, aud calcite, which add their brilliancy to the endless variety of
color.

Beautiful as the wood is to the naked eye, a microscope is needed
to reveal its true beauty. Not only does the glass enhance the colors,
but it also renders visible the structure, which has been perfectly pre-
served even to the forms of the minute cells, and is more beautiful
now than before the transformation.

Dr. P. H. Dudley, of New York, microscopically examined some
sections of this wood, and finds that part of it at least belongs to the
genus Araucaria. He says that the Araucaria excelsa, the Norfolk
Island pine of the South Pacific Ocean, grows to a height of from one
hundred and fifty to two hundred feet. In radical longitudinal section,
the lenticular markings on the wood-cells near each end are in double
rows and contiguous, the markings of one row alternating with those
of the other, giving the appearance of the beautiful hexagonal mark-
ings of this genus. In central portions of the cells sometimes only one
row of markings is seen, and some cells show only one row. Medul-
lary rays were indistinct.

Other portions resembled our red cedar {Juniperus Virginianus)
when grown in the extreme South. The cell-structure of some indi-
cates a growth in a mild and uniform climate, the annular rings being
marked only by one, two, three, or more, slightly smaller hexagonal
or rounded cells, not tabular, as is usually the case. The cell-walls
were nearly uniform in thickness. All the specimens examined showed
that the wood originally was undergoing decay before being filled
with the various media which afterward solidified. On some of the
specimens traces of fungi {mycelium), causing decay, were discovered.
The beauty of the wood is largely due to the destructive influence
of fungi.

Agate-cutting has been carried on as an industry for over three
hundred years, in the Oberstein district, in Germany, but little atten-
tion has been paid heretofore to the cutting of large masses, because
few agates are found over a foot in diameter, and the banding is not
such as to offer much inducement. But in the future this material
will doubtless be in great demand for interior house-decoration,
where it can be advantageously used as inlays in wood or stone ; for
paneling and wainscoting walls ; for tiling ; and, if desired, for en-
tire floors. Whole table-tops could be made of the largest size from a
single section of one of these giant trees, and the design would be
Nature's own incomparable handiwork. For mosaic-work it would
also find a ready use, since the infinite diversity of color would afford
an ample field for the imagination of the skillful artisans employed at
this industry.

The rich, warm, blending colors, and the remarkable polish that
this material is susceptible of, are the main features that will always
give it a high place among minerals of its class. In fact, it is a ques-

366

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

m\ \ai

m. M

1 ,iV % , if

«" ; 1 i 1 1 -'"'.'I

NONCONFORMITY. 367

tion whether any of the ornamental stones, such as jade, jasper, agate,
or even the marbles, have the two desired qualities to such a degree.

As before stated, the deposit has been estimated at a million tons,
but probably not more than a thousand tons would be suitable for the
purposes of art, while for finer work only a small part of this would
be available. One instance should be noted to show the high estima-
tion in which this wood is held by foreigners. A Russian dealer re-
cently paid five hundred dollars for a piece twenty-eight inches in
diameter and thirty inches in length, to be cut into table-tops. A
large lot was recently sent abroad for cutting, and we shall soon have a
new decorative stone which will possess what very few now in use do
— the proper hardness.

A piece of this material was selected by Mr. Joseph Pulitzer, to
form the base for the beautiful silver center-piece, which is being made
by Messrs Tiffany & C, to be given as a testimonial to the eminent
sculptor, F. A. Bartholdi. This base is a low truncated pyramid,
eleven inches square at the base, nine inches at the top, and seven and
half inches high, and is made of a single section of a tree. It was
chosen on account of its superior hardness and the warmth and pleas-
ing combination of its colors. Besides, as the designer remarked, it is
eminently fitting that the testimonial should rest " on a solid American
base."

This is the largest piece of such hard material that has ever been
cut into a definite shape in the United States.

One of the recent freaks of fashion has been the revival of the old
Scotch jewelry. The leading objection to this is the stifi^ness of the
designs. These have in many instances, however, been Americanized
and improved upon ; the tame, uninteresting bloodstones and agates
giving place to our own richer and brighter stones and silicified
woods.

NONCONFORMITY.*

By HERBEET SPENCER.

"VTOTHING like that which we now call Nonconformity can be
-L^ traced in societies of simple types. Devoid of the knowledge and
the mental tendencies which lead to criticism and scepticism, the savage
passively accepts whatever bis seniors assert. Custom in the form of
established belief, as well as in the form of established usage, is sacred
with him : dissent from it is unheard of. And throughout long early
stages of social evolution there continues, among results of this trait,
the adhesion to inherited religions. It is true that during these stages
numerous cults co-exist side by side ; but, products as these are of the
prevailing ancestor-worship, the resulting polytheism does not show
* From "Ecclesiastical Institutions," in the press of D. Appleton & Co.

368 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

us what we now understand as Nonconformity ; since the devotees at
the various shrines neither deny one another's gods, nor call in ques-
tion in pronounced ways the current ideas concerning them. Only in
cases like that of Socrates, who enunciated a conception of supernatu-
ral agents diverging widely from the popular conception of them, do
we see in early societies Nonconformity properly so-called.

What we have here to deal Avith under this name occurs chiefly in
societies which are substantially, if not literally, monotheistic ; and in
which there exists nominally, if not really, a tolerably uniform creed
administered by a consolidated hierarchy.

Even as thus restricted. Nonconformity comprehends phenomena
widely unlike in their natures ; and that we may understand it, we must
exclude much that is allied with it only by outward form and circum-
stance. Though in most cases a separating sect espouses some unau-
thorized version of the accepted creed ; and though the nature of the
espoused version is occasionally not without its significance ; yet the
thing specially to be noted is the attitude assumed toward ecclesiastical
government. Though there is always some exercise of individual
judgment ; yet in early stages this is shown merely in the choice of
one authority as superior to another. Only in late stages does there
come an exercise of individual judgment which goes to the extent of
denying ecclesiastical authority in general.

The growi;h of this later attitude we shall see on comparing some
of the successive stages.

Ancient forms of dissent habitually stand for the authority of the
past over the present ; and since tradition usually brings from more
barbarous ages accounts of more barbarous modes of propitiation,
ancient forms of dissent are habitually revivals of practices more as-
cetic than those of the current religion. It was shown in § 620, that
the primitive monachism originated in this way ; and as Christianity,
with the higher moral precepts on which it insisted, joined renuncia-
tion of ordinary life and its aims (said to be derived from the Essenes),
there tended to be thereafter a continual re-genesis of dissenting sects
characterized in common by austerities.

Kinds of dissent differing from these and differing from modem
kinds of dissent, arose during those times in which the early church
was spreading and becoming organized. For before ecclesiastical gov-
ernment had established itself and acquired sacredness, resistance to
each new encroachment made by it, naturally led to divisions. Be-
tween the time when the authority dwelt in the Christian congrega-
tions themselves, and the time when the authority was centred in the
pope, there necessarily went successive usurpations of authority, each
of which gave occasion for protest. Hence, such sects, arising in the
third century and onward to the seventh century, as the Noetians,
Novatians, Meletians, Aerians, Donatists, Joannites, liaesitantes, Ti-
motheans, and Athingani.

NONCONFORMITY. 369

Passing over that period during which ecclesiastical power through-
out Europe was rising to its climax, we come, in the twelfth century,
to dissenters of more advanced types ; who, with or without differences
of doctrine, rebelled against the then-existing church government.
Such sects as the Arnoldists in Italy, the Petrobrusians, Caputiati and
Waldenses in France, and afterwai'd the Stedingers in Germany and
the Apostolicals in Italy, are examples ; severally characterized by
assertion of individual freedom, alike in judgment and action. Ordina-
rily holding doctrines called heretical, the promulgation of which was
itself a tacit denial of ecclesiastical authority (though a denial habitu-
ally based on submission to an alleged higher authority), sects of this
kind went on increasing in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
There were the Lollards in England ; the Fraticelli in Italy ; the Tabor-
ites, Bohemian Brethren, Moravians and Hussites, in Bohemia : all
setting themselves against church-discipline. And then the rebellious
movement of the reformation, as carried forward by the Lutherans in
Germany, the Zwinglians and Calvinists in Switzerland, the Hugue-
nots in France, the Anabaptists and Presbyterians in England, exhib-
ited, along with repudiation of various established doctrines, ceremo-
nies, and usages, a more pronounced anti-sacerdotalism. Characterized
in common by opposition to Episcopacy, protestant or catholic, we see
first of all in the government by presbyters, adopted by sundry of
these dissenting bodies, a step toward freedom of judgment and prac-
tice in religious matters, accompanied by denial of priestly inspiration.
And then in the subsequent rise of the Independents, taking for their
distinctive principle the right of each congregation to govei'n itself,
we see a further advance in that anti-sacerdotal movement which
reached its extreme in the next century with the Quakers ; who, going
directly to the fountain head of the creed, and carrying out more con-
sistently than usual the professed right of private judgment, repudi-
ated the entire paraphernalia of ecclesiasticism.

It is true that the histories of these various non-conforming bodies,
not excluding even the Society of Friends, show us the re-growth of
a coercive rule, allied to that against which there had been rebellion.
Of religious revolutions, as of political revolutions, it is true that in
the absence of differences of character and culture greater than can be
expected in the same society at the same time, they are followed by
gradually established forms of rule only in some degree better than
those diverged from. In his assumption of infallibility, and his meas-
ures for enforcing conformity, Calvin was a pope comparable with any
who issued bulls from the Vatican. The discipline of the Scottish
Presbyterians was as despotic, as rigorous, and as relentless as any
which Catholicism had enforced. The Puritans of New England were
as positive in their dogmas, and as severe in their persecutions, as were
the ecclesiastics of the church they left behind. Some of these dis-
senting bodies, indeed, as the Wesleyans, have developed organizations
VOL. sxvui. — 24

370 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

scarcely less priestly, and, in some respects, more coercive, than the
organization of the church from which they diverged. Even among
the Quakers, notwithstanding the pronounced individuality implied
by their theory, there has grown up a definite creed and a body exer-
cising control.

Modern Nonconformity in England has much more decidedly ex-
hibited the essential trait of anti-sacerdotalism. It has done this in
various minor ways as well as in a major way.

There is the multiplication of sects, with which by foreign observ-
ers England is reproached, but which, philosophically considered, is
one of her superior traits. For the rise of every new sect, implying
a re-assertion of the right of private judgment, is a collateral result
of the nature which makes free institutions possible.

Still more significant do we see this multiplication of sects to be
if we consider the assigned causes of division. Take, for instance, the
case of the AVesleyans. In 1797 the Methodist New Connexion or-
ganized itself on the principle of lay participation in church govern-
ment. In 1810 the Primitive Methodists left the original body : the
cause being a desire to have "lay representatives to the Conference."
Again, in 1834, prompted by opposition to priestly power, the Wes-
leyan Methodist Association was formed : its members claiming more
influence for the laity, and resisting central interference with local
government. And then in 1849, there was yet another secession from
the Methodist body, similarly characterized by resistance to ministerial
authority.

Of course, in sects less coercively governed, there have been fewer
occasions for rebellions against priestly control ; but there are not
wanting illustrations, some of them supplied even by the small and
free bodies of the Unitarians, of this tendency to divide in pursuance
of the right of private judgment. Moreover, in the absence of a dis-
sidence sufficiently great to ])roduce secession, there is everywhere a
largS amount of express disagreement on minor points among those
holding what is supposed to be the same body of beliefs. Perhaps
the most curious instance of this is furnished by the established Church.
I do not refer simply to its divisions into high, and low, and broad ;
all implying more or less of the nonconforming spirit within it. I
refer more especially to the strange anomaly that the ritualists are
men who, while asserting priestly authority, are themselves rebels
against priestly authority — defy their ecclesiastical superiors in their
detennination to assert ecclesiastical supremacy.

But the universally admitted claim to religious freedom shown in
these various waj^s, is shown still more by the growing movement for
disestablishment of the Church. This movement, which, besides tac-
itly denying all sacerdotal authority, denies the power of a govern-
ment, even though elected by a majority of votes, to prescribe relig-
ious belief or practice, is the logical outcome of the Protestant theory.

A iV^^ir FIELD OF AMERICAN HISTORY. 371

Liberty of thought, long asserted and more and more displayed, is
about to be carried to the extent that no man shall be constrained to
support another man's creed.

Evidently the arrival at this state completes that social differentia-
tion which began when the primitive chief first deputed his priestly
function.

As implied in the last sentence, the changes above sketched out are
concomitants of the changes sketched out in the last chapter. The
prolonged conflict between Church and State accompanying their dif-
ferentiation, and ending in the subordination of the Church, has been
accompanied by these collateral minor conflicts between the Churcb
and recalcitrant portions of its members, ending in separation of them.

There is a further implication. In common with the subjection of
the Church to the State, the spread of Nonconformity is an indirect
result of growing industrialism. The moral nature proper to a social
organization based on contract instead of status — the moral nature fos-
tered by a social life carried on under voluntary co-operation instead
of compulsory co-operation, is one which works out religious independ-
ence as it works out political freedom. And this conclusion, manifest
a priori, is verified a posteriori in sundry ways. We see that Non-
conformity, increasing as industrialism has developed, now character-
izes in the greatest degree those nations which are most characterized
by development of the industrial type — America and England. And
we also see that in England itself, the contrast between urban and
rural populations, as well as the contrast between populations in dif-
ferent parts of the kingdom, show that where the industrial type of
life and organization predominates, Nonconformity is the most pro-
nounced.

A NEW FIELD OF AMEKICAN HISTORY.

WE have hitherto been accustomed to treat the history of the
United States as consisting primarily of the history of the
Atlantic portion. When it has become necessary in the progress of the
review to advert to the history of other parts of the continent, the
subject has been considered as related to the histoiy of the Eastern
States, and subordinated to it. This may have been proper so long as
the historical nation lay east of the Mississippi River, but when Lou-
isiana was bought we took in a region with an independent history
of its own ; when the question of the title to Oregon was agitated, an
historical inquiry in a new direction became of great importance to
us ; and when California was acquired we came into possession of
still another history, antedating that of our original States by a hun-
dred years, and unexcelled in its fullness of romance and adventure.

372 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Still, the making of our text-books and new histories has been going
on with the Atlantic States marking the beginnings and the Pacific
domain introduced as a product of the present century, with a mere
reference to its three hundred years of romantic past. For any notices
of that we must go to books about Mexico, to find very little of it
there. Some of the earliest and most interesting developments of the
history of the country as we now know it were worked out on the Pa-
cific coast ; but their story was hidden in masses of documents and
loose records that were inaccessible to ordinary historians till Mr.
Hubert H. Bancroft unearthed them for presentation in solid form in
his " History of the Pacific States of North America."

This history, when completed, will fill thirty-nine volumes, of
which eighteen have now been published. It consists of two series,
of which the first series, published ten years ago in five volumes, gives
all that was known at that time of the native races. As there has
been some discussion, and it is growing more lively, about the theories
of these races, and the author's position in the matter has been brought
into question, it is proper to say here that he disavows having anything
to do with theories or the solution of disputed questions. His purpose
has simply been to collect all the material that is worthy of notice,
and put it where it will be accessible, making only such critical ob-
servations as suggest themselves in course, leaving closer special in-
vestigations to future students. The richness of the material he has
provided and put here, in the hands of such investigators, can not fail
to be of great help to them. Without it they might have to work for
years to secure a position of knowledge available for comparative
research, where they now find themselves at the start.

The first two of the volumes on the native races are devoted to the
ethnographical description of the tribes ; the third to their myths and
language ; the fourth to their antiquities ; and the fifth to their primi-
tive history. The tribes are classified, for convenience of treatment
rather than to conform to a scientifically accurate standard, into geo-
graphical groups, as Hyperboreans, those natives whose territory lies
north of the fifty-fifth parallel ; Columbians, between the fifty-fifth
and forty-second parallels, and mainly in the valley of the Columbia
and its tributaries ; Californians and the inhabitants of the Great
Basin, New Mexicans, Wild Tribes of Mexico, Wild Tribes of Central
America, and Civilized Natives of Mexico and Central America, the
last having a volume to themselves. In these descriptions the author
aims to portray such customs and characteristics as were peculiar to
each people at the time of its first intercourse with European strangers,
leaving scientific inquirers to make their own deductions. Much of
the ground covered by the accounts has been gone over in later years
by the new school of American ethnologists, whose observations have
been fully published by the Government bureaus and various archf3o-
logical societies, and have added considerably to what Mr. Bancroft

A NEW FIELD OF AMERICAN HISTORY. 373

was able to tell when he wrote, or have modified its bearing. In cases
where they seem to contradict his authorities, the question is in place
whether it is a rule that observations on Indians, after they have been
for two or three hundred years in contact with white men, are more
accurate as to what they were primarily than the accounts of those
who saw them uncontaminated, even though their methods may not
have been so closely trimmed to the scientific rule. In reading the
rapid sketches of the characteristics of these people, we are struck by
many suggestive points. Some force the thought that there is in the
lowest of them something that tends to lift them above their usual
level ; some remind us how much alike are men, even in the most
diverse conditions and places and ages ; and some that the doctrine of
evolution is not wholly a conception of civilized philosophy or the
product of the thought of ages. How different from their usual life
is that feeling that prompts the Central Californian Indians, who ap-
pear to be the old " diggers," and who live in bestial laziness, to such
a regard for the woodpecker that they will not touch its property of
stored acorns till they are driven to it by the extreme of hunger !

A remarkable contrast is afforded by two tribes living close to one
another in New Mexico : the Apaches, who have a regular system of
numeration, with a name for every number up to ten thousand ; and
the Comanches, who can not count further than their fingers or some
other visible objects will carry them, and can not calculate at all.

The Indians of Zacatecas have a ceremony corresponding with that
of the " blood-covenant," which is characteristic of the south Slavic
nations in Europe, and is found among many Eastern and African
peoples.

In the legend of the Indians of Mount Shasta, which describes the
descent of man from a family of grizzly bears, who were somewhat
different then from what they are at present, walking on their hind-
legs like man, talking, and carrying clubs in their fore-limbs ; in the
Aht myth, which traces man's descent from the essences or embryos
residing in them which the animals left behind when they fled from
the sight of two beings in the shape of men ; and in other stories of
origins, we have glimpses of a kind of primitive doctrine of evolution.
There are also stories teaching an inverse evolution, or the doctrine
of degeneracy, in the descent of beasts, fishes, and even edible roots
from human originals. Most curious is the Mexican doctrine of the
future state and the wanderings of the spirit, which, except that the
journey is briefer and the perils are correspondingly less numerous,
might have been extracted from the Egyptian " Book of the Dead."

On this subject, and respecting the languages of these people, after
having presented and compared them, the author says : "He who
carefully examines the myths and languages of the aboriginal nations
of the Pacific States can not fail to be impressed with the similarity
between them and the beliefs and tongrues of mankind elsewhere. Here

374 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

is the same insatiate thirst to know the unknowable, here are the same
audacious attempts to tear asunder the veil, the same fashioning and
peopling of worlds, laying out and circumscribing of celestial regions,
and manufacturing, and setting up, spiritually and materially, of
creators, man, and animal-makers and rulers, everywhere manifest.
Here is apparent what would seem to be the same inherent necessity
for worship, for propitiation, for purification, or a cleansing from sin,
for atonement and sacrifice, with all the symbols and paraphernalia of
natural and artificial religion. In their speech the same grammatical
constructions are seen with the usual variations in form and scope, in
poverty and richness, which are found in nations, rude or cultivated,
everywhere. Little as we know of the beginning and end of things,
we can but feel, as fresh facts are brought to light and new compari-
sons made between the races and ages of the earth, that humanity, of
whatsoever origin it may be or howsoever circumstanced, is formed
on one model, and unfolds under the influence of an inspiration."

The second series, beginning with Volume VI, counting the whole
work, will comprise the history of the several States under white
dominion. Three volumes, when completed, will be devoted to Cen-
tral America ; six to Mexico ; two to the North Mexican States
and Texas ; one to Arizona and New Mexico ; seven to California ;
one to Nevada, Wyoming, and Colorado ; one to Utah ; two each
to the Northwest Coast and Oregon ; one to "Washington, Idaho,
and Montana ; one each to British Columbia and Alaska ; one
to " California Pastoral," or its life and society before the dis-
covery of gold ; and one to " California Interpocula," or during the
gold-mining epoch; two to "Popular Tribunals," or lynch-law and
vigilance committees ; and two will be of a miscellaneous character.
The latest published volume, the twentieth in the order of numbering,
which follows the geographical arrangement, or the eighteenth in the
order of publication, which is according to the chronology, is the
third of the history of California, and relates the story of that region
as a "Territory under the Mexican Republic," from 1825 to 1840.
The facts, mostly political, military, and financial in their bearing, are
presented in a clear and satisfactory manner, so as to give those who
are interested in those lines of develojiment a connected view of their
course, both in the territory as a whole, and iu its several districts.
The secularization of the church missions, which was largely accom-
plished during this period, and its immediate results, present interesting
phases of social development worthy of the attention of the student of
that subject. The incursions of foreigners, which have eventually revo-
lutionized the aspect and the fate of the whole region, are traced back
to their beginnings in individual visits from abroad which were often
accidental, generally transient, and nearly always precarious ; for the
powers that ruled in those days were disposed to regard strangers much
as they would wild beasts. For forty years, California had been vis-

A NBW FIELD OF AMERICAN' HISTORY. 375

ited with increasing frequency by foreigners, or persons whose blood
was neither Indian nor Spanish. England, the United States, Russia, and
France were the nations chiefly represented. " All had come from the
South, or West, or North, by the broad highway of the Pacific Ocean,
bounding the territory on the west, and leading to within a few miles
of the most inland Spanish settlements." The inland boundary— an arc
for the most part of sierras nevadas so far as could be seen, with a zone
of desert beyond still unknown — had never yet been crossed by man
of foreign race, nor trod, if we except the southern segment cut by a
line from San Gabriel to Mojave, by other than aboriginal feet. The
" grand advance movement " of fur-hunting pioneers began in 1826,
" when the inland barrier of mountain and desert was first passed, and
from that date the influx of foreigners by overland routes becomes a
topic of ever-growing importance." But no record of even tolerable
completeness exists or could be expected to exist concerning it. The
movement was generally directed farther north, but some of the trap-
pers found their way into California. Those foreigners who came to
stay seemed to enjoy an appreciation of their worth, and to have been
liked by the people, with less prejudice against them, perhaps, than
was felt against Mexicans. Citizenship, wives, and lands w^ere easily
obtained by those whose conduct was regular. " New-comers had to
comply with certain formalities, and they were occassionally reminded
that they were under surveillance, but no cases of oppression were re-
corded." The first recorded trip overland was made in 1826, by
Jedediah S. Smith, who went from the Great Salt Lake by the Virgin
and Colorado Rivers. Returning, he was the first to cross the Sierra
Nevada, in May and June, 1827. Science is interested in two of the
transient visitors of whom record is made in this period. The first
was David Douglas, the famous Scotch botanist, who, after having
spent five or six years in botanical researches in the North, came down
from the Columbia to investigate the flora of California, arriving at
Monterey in December, 1830. He had letters and influence, by the
aid of which he obtained permission to prosecute his researches for
six months, and, in fact, remained for twenty months. To return to
British Columbia, he had to take a roundabout voyage by way of
Honolulu. There was a current rumor in later years that he had
found on the roots of his California plants gold enough to make a
watch-seal ! He perished in 1834 by falling into a pit, where he was
trampled to death by a w ild bull that had fallen in before him. The
botanical results of his trip were published by Sir William Hooker in
1841. The other scientific visitor was Dr. Thomas Coulter, who in
1832 communicated to the London Geographical Society the results of
a trip fi-om Monterey via San Gabriel to the Rio Colorado and back,
made in 1832. He published a map, which included the country as
far north as the Bay of San Francisco and as far east as the Tule
Lakes.

376 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

We have reason to anticipate a fullness of information, wholly new
to the Gentile world, when the volume devoted to Utah is reached.
For not only has Mr. Bancroft all the documents and all the material
for the history of the Mormons which is accessible to any one else, but
he is the exclusive possessor of that which is more valuable than all
this, and which has never seen the light. The ruling men of the Mor-
mon Church have given him the privilege of examining their archives,
containing documents going back to the beginning of their movement.
We have the Gentile story in superfluity and in unpleasant satiety ;
Mr. Bancroft purposes to give us the Mormon side in addition un-
colored, and told as a part of the res gesta, and that is what the world
wants to know.

The task which Mr. Bancroft undertook in the preparation of so
comprehensive a work as this was one of unusual magnitude, and
might well have discouraged a less eai-nest man. It certainly required
unusual powers of application and painstaking labor to give unity and
harmony to so large a plan ; to reduce such a chaos of material as the
history has to be built up out of to manageable shape, and to organize
the work so that all should be done intelligently, consistently, and dis-
criminatingly. But the plan is substantially executed, and one half of
the work it demanded is done and in the possession of the public,
while the rest of it is, we are told, in so advanced a stage of forward-
ness that its completion no longer depends on the prolongation of the
life of the author.

The scheme contemplated the presentation in a systematized, read-
able, and plainly intelligible form, both in general view and in all its
details and with all its changes of scene, of the history, so far as it is
known or has been reported, of the tribes and states of the Pacific slope
of the North American Continent from the Isthmus of Darien to Behr-
ing Strait. When we consider what these states are ; what elements
have entered into their composition ; what vicissitudes and revolutions
they have gone through during the four hundred years they have been
known to white men ; and how all the material is colored in all dis-
cordant hues by ignorance, partisan prejudice, or political malice pre-
pense— it would seem almost a hopeless task to obtain comprehension
even of a small part of the confused whole. Add to this, that hun-
dreds of native tribes, having a vast geographical range and living in
the most various conditions of pursuit, wealth, and civilization, had to
be dealt with, and that what was to be learned about them had to be
gathered and sifted from a great accumulation of printed and manu-
script accounts, true and false, guessed, imaginary, and real, and from
myths and traditions going back to an unknown antiquity, here ob-
scure, and there inextricably entangled in and modifying one another —
and we conceive a task calling for no slight powers of mental organi-
zation. Forty-two thousand is the number of books and manuscripts
Mr. Bancroft has levied upon for his great undertaking ! It took six

NATURAL HEIRSHIP : OR, ALL THE WORLD AKIN. 377

men ten years suitably to catalogue and index thirty-five thousand of
them so that they could be available for use, while the others have
been gradually added. Mr. Bancroft has spent twenty-five of his best
years in his work, and is spending and expects to spend other years
upon it ; while the pecuniary cost to him is underestimated at a million
dollars.

The author has not produced, nor has he aimed to produce, a critical
history nor a philosophical history, but simply to collect and preserve
what existed, but was in danger of being lost. For doing that he de-
serves the thanks of his countrymen.

NATURAL HEIRSHIP: OR, ALL THE WORLD AKIN.

"5

Bt Eev. henry KENDALL.

THE number of a man's ancestors doubles in every generation as
his descent is traced upward. In the first generation he reckons
only two ancestors, his father and mother. In the second generation
the two are converted into four, since he had two grandfathers and
two grandmothers. But each of these four had two parents, and thus
in the third generation there are found to be eight ancestors — that is,
eight great-grandparents. In the fourth generation the number of
ancestors is sixteen ; in the fifth, thirty-two ; in the sixth, sixty-four ;
in the seventh, 128. In the tenth it has risen to 1,024 ; in the twen-
tieth it becomes 1,048,576 ; in the thirtieth no fewer than 1,073,741,-
834. To ascend no higher than the twenty-fourth generation we
reach the sum of 10,777,216, which is a great deal more than all the
inhabitants of Great Britain when that generation was in existence.
For, if we reckon a generation at thirty-three years, twenty-four of
such will carry us back 792 years, or to a. d. 1093, when William the
Conqueror had been sleeping in his grave at Caen only six years, and
his son William II, surnamed Rufus, was reigning over the land. At
that time the total number of the inhabitants of England could have
been little more than two millions, the amount at which it is estimated
during the reign of the Conqueror. It was only one eighth of a nine-
teenth-century man's ancestors if the normal ratio of progression, as
just shown by a simple process of arithmetic, had received no check,
and if it had not been bounded by the limits of the population of
the country. Since the result of the law of progression, had there
been room for its expansion, would have been eight times the actual
population, by so much the more is it certain that the lines of every
Englishman's ancestry run up to every man and every woman in the
reign of William I from the king and queen downward, who left de-
scendants in the island, and whose progeny has not died out there.

378 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

It is a delusion to suppose that one man living seven or eight hun-
dred years ago was one's ancestor to the exclusion of all the rest of
the people living at that time in the country, and still having descend-
ants in it. We have sprung from the whole mass ; they were all our
direct ancestors ; we are vitally related to them all, directly descended
from them all. Heraldry follows only one line of succession, the line
of the eldest surviving son, the line that carries name and title and
landed property. It is commonly imagined that one standing in this
line of succession is more truly a descendant than other descendants.
It is supposed that the eldest sons all the way are more truly descend-
ants than the progeny of younger sons, or the posterity of daughters
■who have lost the very name. But each line of descent, whether by
younger sons or by daughters, is just as real and as close as the one
termed lineal agnatic. Every ancestor living TOO years ago has con-
tributed as truly to the vitality of a present representative as the one
whose name he bears, and whose peculiarly direct descendant he is
considered to be.

It is morally certain, then, that all Englishmen of this generation
are descendants of William the Conqueror and of Alfred the Great,
and all the nobles of their times whose posterity have not died out.
When we read in history of a brave deed done by an Englishman
seven centuries since or more, we may say with confidence it was done
by one of our fore-elders. And, when we read of one at that distant
period who was a dishonor to his country, we may say with certainty
he also was one of our ancestors. All the lords, princes, and sover-
eigns, all the wise and good, the moral and intellectual aristocracy,
were our forefathers, and M'C are their children by direct descent.
Equally all the toiling myriads, without distinction of any kind, all the
beggars and vagabonds, all the villains and scoundrels, were our fore-
fathers, whoever we may boast ourselves to be, if, indeed, they have
left descendants in the land. We are of them, and their blood circu-
lates in our veins.

If the fact of our equal descent from so many ancestors be doubted,
let the matter be tested arithmetically within the circle of two or three
generations. The grandmother on the mother's side was equally my
ancestor with the grandfather on the fathei-'s side. She was one of
four ancestors that I had in the second generation, and owns a full
quarter of me. The great-grandmother on the mother's side is equally
an ancestor with the great-grandfather on the father's side. She was
one of eight ancestors that I had in the third generation, and claims a
full eighth of me. Similarly all standing on the successive steps of
genealogical descent, and whose number is seen to be doubled at every
step as we rise from the lowest upward, stand on the same level, and
have equal claim to ownership in those coming after them.

Some deduction has doubtless to be made from the above rule on
account of the recurrence, to a certain extent, of the same lines of de-

NATURAL HEIRSHIP : OR, ALL THE WORLD AKIN. 379

scent. Thus, if the father and mother are cousins, their children have
only six great-grandparents instead of eight. If the grandfather on
the father's side, and the grandfather on the mother's side, were broth-
ers, their lines run up into one house, and not two separate houses
according to the common rule. Many lines must thus blend in the
course of ages, and the multiplication of distinct ancestors be thus
somewhat retarded. But, notwithstanding this deduction, it would
require a miracle to prevent the interfusion of the blood of a whole
nation within a brief period.

When we have gone back far enough for all the inhabitants of our
country to have become related to us as fore-elders, they will be found,
as we still travel backward, to go on for the most part intermarrying
within the lines of consanguinity as drawn backward from us. The
great majoi'ity of the marriages will be, of course, between men and
women of the same country and the same race, who, by the operation
of the law now expounded, have all been ascertained to be our ances-
tors. The boundaries of a country, especially in an island like ours,
resemble the shores of a lake from which there is no outlet, and where
the currents must circulate round and round the same basin.

Yet, as the self-contained lake does somehow manage to communi-
cate with the great world of waters outside, as, for instance, by rain
and by evaporation, so the multiplication of distinct ancestors, while
retarded by nationality, is not arrested. Genealogy has curious means
of planting new centers in other lands, and commencing there over
again the same rapid ratio of multiplication, till successive nationalities
are brought into intimate relationship. Let an ancestor be brought
into the English succession from another country, and, since he can be
shown to be in the course of a few generations related to all the people
of that country, forthwith by his marriage here the whole nation to
which he belongs is brought into our succession. One Frenchman
embodies in himself, in miniature, all the French people of past times ;
one negro represents all the race from which he has sprung. Ancestral
germs have thus been conveyed across the sea by emigration from
France, from Germany, from India, and from the remotest regions to
these shores, and by these means all the people of the earth will be
found at no very distant period to have been brought into close kinship
with us. The Norman conquest brought in all at once a large foreign
element, expediting immensely our union with the people of whom
they were part. The Danish invasions did the same at an earlier age ;
the expatriation of the Huguenots the same much later. All the world
are found akin, not by going so far back as Adam, or even Xoah, but
within historical times.

It. is often said, respecting a distant relative, " he is a thirty-second
cousin." The truth is, perhaps, that he is a second or third cousin.
As to thirty-second cousinship, it is startling to* find that the whole
human race comes within this line of consanguinity. By the ordinary

38o THE POPULAR SCIE^iCU MONTHLY.

unimpeded ratio at which ancestors multiply, they would amount in
the thirty-second generation to 4,294,767,296 ; and, reckoning for all
the checks to this ratio through the blending of lines of ancestry, they
must be reasonably estimated at the entire population of the globe —
as high, in fact, as they can possibly go. The CaflFre and the Hotten-
tot, the Japanese and the Chinese, are doubtless all of them the reader's
thirty-second cousins, or nearer.

There is a tendency from many causes for ancestry to diverge and
spread itself over an ever-widening area ; there is a struggle of the
lines to part until universality has been reached, and every human
being has come into the succession. Even where a tribal or religious
custom mostly confines the marriages of the men in a community to
the women of the same community, there are sure to be many excep-
tions. Jews sometimes marry Gentiles, and set the barrier that
interposed between them at defiance. Boaz married Ruth, and she
brought into Judah blood mingled of all Moab. When the Quakers
made it a rigorous rule that members of the society should marry
only with members, gates were hung in the hedge, and the fence
itself was often broken through. Proselytes were brought in from
the outside ; members married non-members at the cost of excom-
munication. The law itself had eventually to be abrogated.

The tendency to avoid kinship in marriage has helped to increase
the divergence of ancestral lines. While a large proportion of the
marriages consummated are between persons living in the same
district, the population of the district itself is continually undergoing
modification — one stream flowing in, another flowing out. No use
has been made in this argument of the existence of illegitimacy, and
the boundless license of many periods of our national history. Yet
doubtless moral transgression has greatly widened the area of rela-
tionship, and mingled in an indistinguishable mass the offspring of the
rich and poor.

Hitherto we have been looking backward at the historical multi-
plication of the ancestors of persons now living. If we reverse the
process, and apply the law of multiplication to the future, the result
is equally startling. The average number of children may be reck-
oned on a moderate computation at two for every household. Ac-
cording to this average, a man who leaves permanent posterity be-
hind him has the number of his descendants doubled every generation.
The two children are followed by four grandchildren ; the four grand-
children by eight great-grandchildren. At the twenty-sixth genera-
tion the number has swelled to 67,006,624. A few more generations
would render them equal to the total number of the inhabitants of
the globe. So that, if one could rise from the grave at a period no
further removed from us in the future than the Conquest in the past,
every person he met in the land, man, woman, or child, if not a mere
visitor or recent immigrant, would be one of his descendants. Every

NATURAL HEIRSHIP : OR, ALL THE WORLD AKIN. 381

one of them would inherit something of his nature. All would be his
posterity, one as direct as another. The honorahle and the base,
the rich and the poor, the talented and the imbecile, would alike
belong to his family, now swelled to gigantic proportions through
the multiplying power of time. Broadly speaking, all the inhabit-
ants of this country about eight hundred years ago were our fathers
and mothers ; all the inhabitants of this country about eight hundred
years hence will be our children.

The low rate of multiplication just given is often seen to be
greatly exceeded. The number of grandchildren and of great grand-
children which some individuals leave behind them at death makes
it easy to believe that in a few centuries an entire nation will be
their veritable sons and daughters. While I have been writing this
paper an old woman has died very near to my residence at the age of
ninety-nine, who had thirteen children and one hundred and two grand-
children and great-grandchildren, the latter, so far as known, all liv-
ing. During the same time that the paper has been in progress, a
Spanish gentleman who went out many years ago to America has re-
turned to his own country, bringing back with him no fewer than one
hundred and ninety-seven actual descendants.

A single plant, if unresisted by rival plants and unchecked by
such things as climate and situation, would speedily cover the whole
earth. Man has really no rival, he is lord of all ; he can live too in
every clime, and obtain a livelihood amid tropical forests and amid
eternal snows. The rapidity with which the multiplication of de-
scendants must go forward, even according to the ordinary rate of
progression, will in the course of not many generations make the
whole world our children, much more if it be expedited. Successive
countries will be captured by various avenues and held in perpetual
possession by our posterity. The whole caldron of humanity, seething
evermore with new creations, will acknowledge the presence of every
individual progenitor of this period.

The race is incalculably more than the individual. The pecul-
iarities of the individual are soon melted away in the general stream
of humanity. As if his brief sway in the little circle he has filled
were viewed with envy or dissatisfaction, the hand of Time begins
immediately to pare down what remains of him in the earth to ever
smaller dimensions until it is infinitesimal. He can insure only half
of himself in any individual of the next generation, only a quarter in
the generation after that, and so on. His part m the building up of
any human fabric rapidly becomes insignificant. Something seems
bent on working him out. As it does with his name and memorials,
filling up the lettering on his tombstone with moss, destroying the
writing he has left behind, wiping out all traces of him from the
earth, so it does with himself and all that vitally represents his
personality in the persons of his descendants. The individual is ever

382 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

losing ; the race is ever gaining. A man's great-great-great-grand-
cliild, living scarcely two hundred years after him, will be only one
thirty-second part of himself, and the other thirty-one parts will be
due to others, that is, to the race viewed as something opposed to his
individuality.

The gain in the way of extension compensates for the loss of inten-
sion. While a man's part in the individuals descending from him rap-
idly becomes infinitesimal, the number of individuals in whom he has
part rapidly increases until it includes, as we have seen, all the nation
and then all the world. This widening out of his personality corre-
sponds to the broadening of intelligence from mere interest in local
news to that which is taken in scientific generalizations, and to the tend-
ency of moral development which is to expand the love of family into
patriotism, and then to convert patriotism into philanthropy, into a
regard for man as man, irrespective of language or nationality. Thus
the brook seeks the river, the river the sea, the sea the vast ocean.

Each man's personality, it has to be remembered, is borrowed from
those behind him. The further back in time a man's place may be, the
fewer ancestors he has behind him ; the greater, too, his own part in
the race, view^ed as a whole existent through the ages, the oftener the
infinitesimal resowing of him takes place, and the greater becomes the
certainty that every separate inhabitant of the earth is one of his de-
scendants. Furthermore, when there are fewer people, the lines of
ancestry blend oftener, so that in the same individual it is more proba-
ble that an ancestor will be represented many times by means of
different channels of descent meeting in him after proceeding from the
same source. Posterity, not very remote, will have descended from a
common ancestor through several of his children . A progenitor's
part who lived three thousand years ago is very much larger
than that of one who lived only one hundred or three hundred years
ago. He has had more to do in the shaping and molding of the
whole, just as the stem has more to do in the formation of the tree than
any particular branch proceeding from it. The root or the seed has a
still greater part, and, if it be conceded that the human race has pro-
ceeded from one common pair, it follows that of the nature of all the
individuals now living half is of the proto-father and half of the first
raothcr. To us existing at this late date, it is interesting to note how
the channels of vitality, proceeding from the original pair to us, first
diverge until they reach their numerical climax, and are coincident for
a considerable period with all the inhabitants of the world ; then con-
verge until they are found reduced to two again in the household from
which we immediately sprang.

As the people at no very distant date in the past were all our fa-
thers and mothers, and the people who will be living not very far distant
in the future will be all our sons and daughters, so the people living at the
present time are all our near relations. We may call them, with very

2^ AT URAL HEIRSHIP : OR, ALL THE WORLD AKIX. 383

little exaggeration, brothers and sisters. If we could be told, as we
meet the passers in the streets, how near their relationship to us is, we
should get a succession of surprises. We should cease to think of them
as strangers and aliens, and come to feel that they were our own kith
and kin. Every person would have an interest for us as a relative not far
removed, and the charm of social life would be wonderfully increased.

The fact of our close kinship, as a nation, and also as a race, is cal-
culated to stimulate philanthropy very powerfully. It is acknowledged
that the nearer the relationship the greater is the claim for help, if help
be needed. Even self-love comes to the aid of generosity ; it is felt
that what a man does for his own relations is in a measure done for
himself ; the disgrace of neglecting them acts as a useful spur to liber-
ality. Advocates of slavery have vindicated their obnoxious system
by maintaining the absolute inferiority of the enslaved. Caste in India
has been fortified by notions of a vast and essential difference between
the various orders. Oneness in nature appeals for respect and associ-
ation. The oneness which is proved and emphasized by near relation-
ship makes the strongest appeal to the interest of the mind and the
sympathy of the heart. Creatures of the same kind draw together.
The further a people are from us, geographically or relatively, the less
ordinarily is our regard for their welfare, our concern over their calam-
ities. The improved facilities for intercourse are destroying the effect
of geographical distance ; the realization of the fact that all the world
are near akin will help immensely to lessen the social distance.

The close kinship of mankind especially in the same nation has an
important bearing on one or two points of theology. Since mental and
physical tendencies are transmissible by hereditary descent, this kin-
ship gives to the doctrine of natural depravity an awful significance,
and shows the causes of taint to our blood to be near us in time instead of
being removed altogether away to the beginning of the world. If all
the moral weaklings of the land who lived seven hundred years ago, all
the vile and vicious, all the wild beasts in human shape, and an unknown
number of such in the ages intervening, were our direct ancestors, it
is not to be wondered at that unhappy propensities stir, and strive, and
struggle for mastery in every man's breast. It is singular that orthodox
theologians should overlook this recent pressing source of depravity to
dwell on the influence upon us of an original pair living before histori-
cal times. It is equally strange that unorthodox ones should deny the
existence of depravity communicated from that remote period on the
ground of its supposed injustice, when it is undeniable that we are
reached by ten thousand impure channels so near at hand. The ques-
tion arises. How is it that the depravity fed from so many sources has
not resulted before now in the complete corruption and disintegration
of the race ? We are able to encourage ourselves by remembering the
vast amount of excellency in recent times with which we are in direct
communication ; the heroes, saints, and martyrs, to say nothing of the

384 THE POPULAR SCIEXCE 3I0NTHLY,

hosts of good, plain, practical people of all sorts who have left us a
constitutional heritage. '\\'e have further encouragement in the law
by which successive generations tend to revert to a normal type :
peculiarities are got rid of, defects are supplemented, excesses are re-
strained ; a certain amount of refuse is wrought out and cast aside age
after age. The blind man has children with eyes. On the whole, we
can not marvel that with such a mongrel ancestry of saints and sinners
we manifest such contradictory tendencies, and are such an enigma to
ourselves, as if not two men but a thousand were contending within us
for the dominion in the changing moods that pass over us, and in the
wild, irregular thoughts that shoot through the mind, and try to find
their way to the surface to gain their own ai>propriate expression.
That blessing and cursing should proceed from the same lips, that men
should come away from prayers at church and get into very unlovely
tempers at home, is doubtless very sad, but it is just what might have
been expected from those who reckon among their progenitors the
evil and the good, the best and the worst, of a whole country.

This doctrine of the close kinship of mankind triumphantly estab-
lishes, apart from genealogical tables, the fact that Jesus Christ had
descendants from King David, but impairs the value of the fact when it
is established. David, the King of Israel, flourished above a thousand
years before Christ, and left behind him many children. The channels
of succession being so numerous, and having their fountain-head so far
back, had time before the birth of Christ to branch out in every direc-
tion, and could not have missed any genuine Jew in the land, especial-
ly if he was of the tribe of Judah. Jesus Christ, being of this tribe,
was undoubtedly in the succession, and had in him the blood of the
son of Jesse. But then was there a man of the tribe of Judah at least
who had not ? Is there a man living now who has not ? Of course
the conventional value of Christ's descent by what is termed lineal suc-
cession from David, and its value as a fulfillment of prophecy on that
ground, are independent of the generalizing proofs which would make
out all to be David's children.

The evidence seems conclusive that Mary, the mother of Jesus, had
several children after the birth of her illustrious First-born. He had
brethren and sisters, and if some of these left posterity in the earth,
as we may reasonably suppose they did, it is certain that we are the
descendants, the children, of Mary, and have a kinship with Christ,
much closer physically than we have dared to believe.

In his case the phrase " Son of man " had a unique significance, but
the doctrine which has been expounded in this paper shows that it has
a real and solemn significance to whomsoever applied. Each of us ia
" son of man " in the tremendous sense that he is descended from all
the people who have posterity remaining, who lived on earth a few cent-
uries ago. Every individual living before Christ who has descendants
at all has them in us. We are the oflFspring of the whole of humanity

NATURAL HEIRSHIP : OR, ALL THE WORLD AKIN. 385

at that time. Every slave and every lord in the days of Julius Csesar
has contributed to our being, and, looking back to those times, each one
may consider himself not the child of a thin, thread-like line of parent-
age, but child of the race, son of all mankind.

This subject has important bearings in the political realm. It in-
validates the basis of hereditary monarchy, and shows that it i-ests upon
a genealogical fiction. It is a depraved conventionalism, a custom born
of falsehood and of wrong to single out the eldest child or any other
child as the bearer of the honors and emoluments of the family to the
exclusion of the rest. All the children are equally partakers of the
parental nature. In the course of less than a thousand years the de-
scendants of an illustrious sovereign get strangely dispersed, and his
blood becomes mingled with the common reservoir of national life.
Every marriage outside his family runs off with half of what remained
of him in the succession. After being halved so often, the wearer of
his name and title, the possessor of his power, needs much faith or
much ignorance to believe that he is in any real sense the peculiar de-
scendant having a claim in nature beyond millions more. If the sov-
ereign is the descendant of William the Conqueror or of Alfred the
Great, so are the subjects. On the ground of hereditary succession
every man may claim to be king, and every woman to be queen.

Hereditary aristocratic titles have no foundation in nature. They
are based upon deception and injustice, and at best are purely arbitary.
The eldest son who takes the title is no more the child than the rest of
the children. If any title is inherited it ought to be common to them
all, and, if the titular inheritance continued, it would be common to
all the population of the land in the course of a few ages. It is re-
stricted to one channel of descent under the delusion that this is more
direct and is somehow closer to the founder of the family than other
channels. The restriction takes place by means of a wrong done to
the rest in excluding them from that which is as much theirs by right
of nature as his who actually enjoys it. There could be no hereditary
aristocracy sav by the ignorance and weakness of the community at
large, who tolerate the presence of a few among them flaunting in
their eyes and jingling on their ears the tokens of the general depriva-
tion of a natural due.

The doctrine of the close kinship of the nation practically carried
out would lead to a universal distribution of property. The verdict
of society is that a man who has property should leave it to his children
after making due provision for his wife for the remainder of her days.
This is the general rule which the common judgment of mankind pre-
scribes, leaving only a small margin for bequests outside the family
circle. Entail in its present form and primogeniture are doomed to go,
and only wait the hour and the man. Law has already relaxed the
grasp of the eldest son on pe7-sowa/ estate, and provides for its distribu-
tion. In France it compels an equal distribution of real estate among

VOL. XXVIII. — 25

386 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

all the children. Taking, then, the broad rule for granted that the pos-
sessions of the parents must pass in equal portions to the children,
there is seen to be wanted some strict guard on what a man bequeaths
so that it shall not be squandered by his heirs. We can best follow
out the result in regard to possession in land. Entail should be placed
on a natural basis and carried out on a broader scale, and it would be-
come a mighty instrument for good and for raising the general condi-
tion of the people without taking away the stimulus to labor.

There is provision in nature for the nationalization of the land.
As soon as all the direct descendants are treated as heirs, the fact that
these rapidly multiply till they are coextensive with the nation shows
that, if the property left at death by the present possessors be simi-
larly extended, all the land of the country now in so few hands must
eventually come into the possession of the whole nation, and that not
by any act of confiscation, but by simply acknowledging fact and
doing justice. It would not answer, however, to go on subdividing
property endlessly down to yards and inches. A limit would have to
be set to subdivision and to inheritance by means of it, and after a
certain generation, where the descendants had already become scores
or hundreds, or after a certain degree of tenuity in the property had
been reached, so that the forfeiture of his share would be no particu-
lar loss to the individual heir, it would be necessary to annex the
whole to the national estate, swiftly accumulating by similar processes.
If this rule were universally acted upon, though a man's descendants
would cease, say, m the fourth or fifth generation to be his heirs in
particular, the little amount they forfeited in this way would be more
than made up to them by the many other inheritances of which they
would become heirs in common with the nation. The railways could
be passed through the same process by the gradual distribution of
shares. As far as practicable other property should be dealt with on
the same principle. This would bring about a general diffusion of
wealth now congested in a few hands, and bring it about, too, grad-
ually and safely by the operation of the great natural law of heirship
through successive generations.

Already we have extensive properties that are owned by the nation
at large, such as the roads and canals, the post-offices and telegraphs,
the board-schools and the Established Churches, the parks, free libra-
ries, and Government buildings. The principle is in operation, and, if
it had the wider sphere that heirship demands, there would be an im-
mense lightening of the burdens which are pressing upon the people.
Each individual would commence life at an advantage, a few steps up
the ladder instead of being down quite in the ditch, as are the majority
— poor and penniless, dependent for everything on the exertions of
the present hour. The rent of the national property might, as has
been recently advocated, go to the payment of the taxes imperial and
local. It might answer for the necessary work of government, for the

NATURAL HEIRSHIP : OR, ALL THE WORLD AKIN. 387

expenses of army and navy, for the payment of interest on the na-
tional debt and its gradual liquidation, for the elementary education
of the children, and for the maintenance of the aged. Though I have
not read Mr. George's book, I understand that this is something like
his proposal. If the yearly return of the national estate were ever
found to far exceed the above requirements, it could be readily and
safely disposed of by a yearly dividend, which would reverse the old
tormenting order, and make the people the receivers instead of payers
of taxes. It is hard to see how this moderate diffusion of property
could be injurious to them. If the smaller equal inheritance would
degrade them, the present holders of large estates must be in a very
bad way.

That which a man has accumulated by his own exertions he has
a sort of right to disperse and to squander if he choose ; but that
which the dead have left behind them should, as far as possible, have
permanence stamped upon it, and be guarded by the state, so that it
may be enjoyed by all the heirs in their turn. The savings of the
present generation should enable the whole community in the next
age to start from a higher level of power and comfort. The law of
labor can never be abrogated, though its incidence might be very
wisely extended. The inequality between the possessions of men can
never be totally destroyed, but with immense advantage to the nation
it might be decidedly lessened. The progress that has thus far taken
place in the condition of the people has been the laying of successive
strata of comforts and resources between them and the utter poverty
in which their forefathers dwelt. The increase of wages, the lessen-
ing of the hours of labor, the manifold fruits of modern inventions,
the accumulated treasures of knowledge which all may take without
diminishing the store — such instances as these show a gradual enrich-
ment of the people to the general advantage. Who shall say that the
process has gone as far as it ought to go ? What harm could ensue
if the present burdens of taxation were done away, and if even every
man were the recipient of a yearly income of a few pounds which no
act of his could ever alienate ?

The landless people of the present generation are undoubtedly pro-
portionate heirs to all the landowners of the country living not many
ages ago, if heirship be founded in nature. That all should have gone
into so few hands, and the vast majority of the heirs have deen de-
prived, is a great and grievous wrong. Those who wish to continue
the present arrangements, and would bitterly oppose their modification
in the way here proposed as an injustice to the few who in future
would otherwise come into possession, are willing to inflict injustice
upon the many of the future who ought to come into possession.

The great possessions now enjoyed by particular individuals, and
that have come down from distant times, are due to accumulated
wrongs. One heir in the succession has been advantaged to the ex-

388 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

clusiou of scores, and eventually of thousands and millions. That
which in nature was as much theirs as his is now his alone. That
which should have flowed in many channels, shallow, but suflicient to
fertilize, has been carried in a single stream, deep and full, but com-
paratively useless — mostly wasted. Much of the waste is seen clearly
and painfully enough in the profuse and extravagant style of living,
where one consumes what would decently maintain a thousand.
When the properties of the country are thus piled up on a foundation
of gigantic wrong, it would be unreasonable to expect a full measure
of national health and prosperity, or that it should be really well with
the people. — Nineteenth Century.

SCIENCE m ITS USEFUL APPLICATIONS.

By Dr. WILLIAM ODLING, F. E. S.

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS BEFORE THE INSTITUTE OF CHEM-
ISTRY. *

BY the attainment of our incorporation by royal charter, in lieu of
the articles of association by which we have, until now, been
banded together, we become for the first time an ofiicially recognized
professional body, known ofiicially to Government, and both to mu-
nicipal and to other professional bodies. Further than this, we have
had formal acknowledgment made of our fitness to be charged with
certain public duties and responsibilities, and have established our
claim to be intrusted with correlative rights and privileges. Our pro-
fession, the public utility and importance of which have, in this way,
received at length so formal a recognition, is one that we may all of
us feel a just pride in belonging to. It is not, indeed, with bated
breath that we need speak of ourselves as professional chemists.
Chemistry, indeed, as a branch of knowledge, pertains not alone to the
student, but exists also for the practitioner, and still more for the pub-
lic. Of exceptional interest as a subject of study, it is of scarcely
less interest from its manifold practical applications, and as a contrib-
utor to the daily wants and enjoyments of the community, a commu-
nity in which all are bound up with another, and are under obligation
to render services to one another. Nowadays, the ever-extending and
increasingly complex wants of the community create a greater and
greater demand for what are known as professional services, and for

* The original Institute of Chemistry was organized in England in 1877, under the
presidency of Dr. Frankland, its second president being Sir Frederick Abel. It was reor-
ganized in 1885, and incorporated under the title of the " Institute of Chemistry of Great
Britain and Ireland." The present president is Dr. Odling, who gave his inaugural ad-
dress before the new organization November Gth, and which is here given, with omission
of the preliminary part, which is chiefly of local English interest.

SCIENCE IN ITS USEFUL APPLICATIONS. 389

professional services of a kind and extent that can not be rendered by
the parson, or the doctor, or the lawyer ; or yet by the amateur engi-
neer, or the amateur electrician, or the amateur chemist. It is the
competent services of professional men, specially trained in their sev-
eral departments, that are alone adequate, and are alone accordingly in
request. To the trained professional chemist, as to other professional
men, interests of occasionally enormous value are committed ; and
some notion of the consideration in which his work is held may be
gathered from the extensive resort had everywhere to his services,
even by the great departments of state and by the most renowned and
important of municipal and other corporations.

Among Government Departments, the War Office, the Home
Office, the Board of Trade, the Local Government Board, and the
Board of Inland Revenue, have each their respective permanently at-
tached staffs of professional chemists, with whom from time to time,
in relation to special subjects of inquiry, other chemists of distinction
are associated. Among corporations and public institutions of all
sorts, the City of London, the Metropolitan Board of Works, most of
the great provincial Corporations and Local Boards, the Royal Mint,
the Houses of Parliament, the Elder Brethren of the Trinity House,
the Thames Conservancy, the Royal Agricultural Society, the great
Gas and Water Companies, the different Metropolitan Vestries and
Local Boards, and many more such bodies, have recourse alike to the
regular services of their permanently attached professional chemists,
and to the supplementary services of various others among us whom
they find it necessary to call into consultation from time to time.
And of yet greater extent as a whole is the habitual resort that is had
to the services of the professional chemists by mercantile and manu-
facturing firms and associations, engaged in almost every variety of
commerce, manufacture, and industrial enterprise. Alike, then, by
the great departments of state, and by commercial firms of world-
wide renown, and by traders and producers occupying a less distin-
guished position, the multifarious services of the chemist are ever in
request. And in respect to ourselves, by whom these services are
rendered, from those of us occupying the leading positions in the
profession, to the most humble individuals practicing in our ranks,
we are all associated in a common work, and have all a common credit
to maintain, and are all under mutual obligation to co-operate Avith
and advance the interests of one another.

It would seem, however, from observations not unfrequently haz-
arded by some very superior persons, whose happy mission it is to put
the rest of the world to rights, that there is something derogatory to
the man of science in making his science subservient in any way to the
requirements of his fellows, and thereby contributory to his own means
for the support of himself and of those depending upon him. Now,
on this not uncommon cant of the day, a little plain speaking would

390 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

seem to be very much wanted. While the investigation of nature and
the interpretation of natural law are admittedly among the highest, as
they are among the most delightful of human occupations, the right
application of natural law to effect desirable objects is in itself a
scarcely less worthy occupation ; many of these objects being of para-
mount importance, and attainable only by the exercise of high scien-
tific sagacity and skill, aided by a fertility of resource and a persistent
elasticity of spirit, ready ever to cope with the successive novel diffi-
culties found to be continually opposing themselves.

In this matter, as in so many others, the sense of proportion is but
too often lost sight of. Because the investigations of a Newton, a
Darwin, a Dalton, a Joule, and a Faraday have an importance of
which few among us can adequately conceive even the measurement ;
because among the scientific men now or but lately living in our midst
are to be found those whose investigations in pure science have not
only won for them a high renown, but have earned for them the grati-
tude, and should have obtained for them the substantial acknowledg-
ments of their country and the world ; and because even the minor
investigations and discoveries that are ever being made in pure sci-
ence have all of them their merit and their value, it does not follow
that the mere accomplishment, it may be in an abundant leisure, of
two or three minor investigations, however creditably conducted, are
to lift their authors into a scientific position, altogether above that of
men whose laborious lives have been spent in rendering their great
scientific attainments directly serviceable to the needs of the state and
of the community. The accomplishment of such like investigations
does not entitle their authors to claim exemption from the duty of
earning their own livelihoods, or give them a claim to be endowed by
the contributions of others with the means to jog leisurely along,
w^ithout responsibilities and without anxieties, the far from thorny
paths of their own predilection. However heterodox it may be thought
by some, the best of all endowments for research is unquestionably
that with which the searcher, relying on his own energies, succeeds in
endowing himself. The work to which our natures are repugnant,
not less than the work which entrances us and hardly makes itself felt
as a work at all, has to be done. In some degree or other, we have
most of us to obtain our own livelihood ; and harsh as may seem the
requirement, it will, I suppose, be conceded that the necessity put upon
the mass of mankind, of having to earn their daily bread, is an ar-
rangement of Providence which has, on the whole, worked fairly well ;
and further, that the various arrangements hitherto tried for exempt-
ing certain classes of men from the necessity of having to earn their
daily bread, in order that they might give themselves up to the higher
spiritual or intellectual life, have scarcely, to say the least of them,
worked quite so satisfactorily as they were intended to. All of us
are, without doubt, qualified for higher things than the mere earning

SCIENCE IN ITS USEFUL APPLICATIONS. 391

of om* daily bread ; but the discipline of having to earn our daily
bread is, in more ways than one, a very wholesome discipline for the
mass of us, and even for the best of us. It may here and there press
hardly on particular natures, but it is rarely an impediment to the
achievement of the highest things by those having the moral qualities,
the judgment, the determination, and the self-denial necessary above
everything else for their achievement. Not a few of us may consider
ourselves fitted for higher work than the gods provide for us, and
fondly imagine what great things we should effect if we could only
have our daily bread supplied to us by the exertions and endowments
of other less gifted mortals. But experience is not on the whole fa-
vorable to the view that, the conditions being provided, the expecta-
tion would be realized. Experience, indeed, rather favors the notion
that it is primarily the necessity for work, and association with those
under a necessity to work — those in whom a professional spirit has
been aroused, and by whom work is held in honor — that creates and
keeps up the taste and the habit of work, whereby the vague ambition
to achieve is turned to some productive account. Take, say, a thou-
sand of the most eminent men the world has produced, and, making no
allowance for the large influence of descent or training, or of associa-
tion with those to whom work is a necessity, or, having been a necessi-
ty, has become a habit, consider what proportion of these men have, by
their means and position in early life, been free from any stimulus or
obligation to exert and cultivate their powers ; and consider, on the
other hand, what proportion of them have been stimulated to exertion
and success by the stern necessity of having either to achieve their
own careers, or to drop into insignificance, if not indeed into actual
-or comparative degradation and poverty. We ought, indeed, all of us
to be students, and to be above all things students ; but the most of
us can not be, nor is it desirable, save in the case of a special few, that
we should be only students. We have all our duties to fulfill in this
world, and it is not the least of these duties to render ourselves inde-
pendent of support from others, and able ourselves to afford support
to those depending upon us. Fortunate are we in being able to find
our means of support in the demand that exists for the applications of
a science which has for its cultivators so great a charm. To judge,
however, not indeed by their coyness when exposed to the occasional
temptation of professional work, but rather by their observations on
the career of others, the most sought after and highest in professional
repute, the pursuit of professional chemistry is, in the opinion of some
among us, a vocation open to the gravest of censure. It is praise-
worthy, indeed, for the man of science to contribute to his means of
livelihood by the dreary Avork of conducting examinations in element-
ary science for all sorts of exaniining-boards, and by teaching ele-
mentary science at schools and colleges, and by giving popular ex-
positions of science at public institutions, and by exchanging a minor

392 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

professorial appointment, affording abundant opportunities for original
work, in favor of a more lucrative and exacting appointment involving
duties which, if rightly fuliillcd, must seriously curtail these same op-
portunities. It is praiseworthy of him to add to his means by com-
piling manuals of elementary science, and by writing attractive works
on science for the delectation of general readers ; but it is forsooth
derogatory to him, if not indeed a downright prostitution of his sci-
ence, that he should contribute to his means of livelihood by making
his knowledge subservient to the wants of departments, corporations,
and individuals, alike of great and small distinction, standing seriously
in need of the special scientific services that he is able to render
them.

A glance back suffices to show how foreign to the ideas of the
great men who preceded us is this modern notion of any reprehensi-
bility attaching to applied or professional science. In his earlier days,
Professor Faraday wasi largely employed in connection with all sorts
of practical questions, and until almost the close of his life continued to
act as scientific adviser to the Trinity House. No man was more con-
stantly occupied in advising with regard to manufacturing and metal-
lurgic and fiscal questions than Professor Graham, who ended his days
holding the official position of Master of the Mint ; a position in which
he succeeded another eminent man of science, less known, however, as
a chemist than as an astronomer, Sir John Herschel. As in these
typical instances, so also in very many others ; and, if I may be allowed
to draw at all on my own personal experiences, I would say that some
of the most pleasant remembrances of my past life relate to the occa-
sions on which I had the good fortune, early in my careei', to be
brought into association, as a junior professional colleague, with some
among the then most eminent of scientific men. It did not indeed
happen to me to be associated in this particular manner with Faraday,
or Graham, or Daniel, or yet with their frequent colleague, Richard
Phillips, one of the early Presidents of the Chemical Society, for many
years the able and omniscient editor of the "Philosophical Magazine,"
and the leading professional chemist of his day. But among those
who have passed away from us altogether, or have for some cause or
another quitted our ranks, my recollection goes back to professional
association with a host of distinguished men of science, whose mem-
bership would, of itself, suffice to insure an honorable estimation for
any profession to which they belonged. On different occasions it has
been my lot to be engaged in advising on various questions in con-
junction with Arthur Aikin, a personal friend of Priestley, writer of a
still valuable dictionary of chemistry, the first Treasurer of the Chemi-
cal Society, and for many years the leading authority in regard to
chemical metallurgy ; with Dr. Thomas Anderson, of Glasgow, an
assiduous and successful worker in the then unfamiliar field of organic
chemistry, and for many years consulting chemist to the Highland

SCIENCE IN ITS USEFUL APPLICATIONS. 393

Society ; with Professor Braiide, the pupil and successor of Davy, at
the Royal Institution, long time one of the Secretaries of the Royal
Society, an early President of the Chemical Society, and, in his pro-
fessional capacity. Director of the Die Department at the Royal Mint ;
with Sir Robert Christison, of Edinburgh, one of the most scientific of
British toxicologists and pharmacologists, an original worker in many
fields of inquiry, President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and a
selected, though not an actual. President of the British Association ;
with Dr. Warren de la Rue, the friend of us all, more than once Presi-
dent of the Chemical Society, and a Vice-President, Medalist, and
Bakerian Lecturer of the Royal Society ; with Dr. Hofraann, the first
Professor at the College of Chemistry, and Assayer for many years to
the Mint, one who can claim so many of us as his pupils, and who, as
a professional chemist, no less than as an investigator and teacher, ever
set an example of energy and vivacity to all his associates, working
on one occasion the long night through in order to extract from paraf-
tine-oil a specimen of benzene, ready for exhibition in court on the fol-
lowing morning, an instance of professional devotion which, as the
presence of my immediate predecessor. Sir Frederick Abel, reminds
me, is not wholly without a parallel. Proceeding in my enumeration, I
may mention Sir Robert Kane, then of Cork, a teacher and worker of
originality and wide erudition, to whom chemists are indebted for
their now familiar conception of amidogen ; also Dr. Allen Miller,
Professor at King's College, London, and Assayer to the Mint, a Presi-
dent of the Chemical Society, and for many years Treasurer of the
Royal Society ; also Sir Lyon Playfair, then Professor of Chemistry
at the University of Edinburgh, now a member of her Majesty's Privy
Council and President of the British Association, one to whom we are
indebted for his hearty sympathy with the objects of the Institute,
and for the unsparing exercise of his efforts and influence on our
behalf ; also my relative by marriage, Alfred Smee, a pioneer in elec-
tro-metallurgy, and inventor of the galvanic battery by which for the
third of a century the greater part of the galvano-plastic work of this
country has been effected ; and lastly, Robert Warington, chemist for
many years to the Society of Apothecaries, the founder and first Secre-
tary of the Chemical Society, and a frequent contributor thereto of
his characteristically ingenious observations. And not only with the
above-named eminent men of science, but with many others also, has
it been my fortune to be professionally associated, including, I regret-
fully have to add among those who have passed away from us, some
of the most distinguished original members and warmest friends of
the Institute, as Dr. Stenhouse, Sir William Siemens, Professor Way,
Dr. Angus Smith, Dr. Voelcker, and Mr. Walter Weldon. Moreover,
among the leading men of science of the present day. Sir Frederick
Abel, Mr. Crookes, Professor Dewar, Professor Frankland, Mr. Vernon
Harcourt, Dr. Tyndall, and Dr. Williamson, are either the holders of

394

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

definite professional appointments or are otherwise more or less actively
engaged in the work of the professional chemist. A profession surely
stands in need of no apology which includes and has included in its
ranks, within such a limited period, such a host of distinguished mem-
bers.

So far, moreover, from his professional eminence and usefulness
being made a matter of reproach to the scientific man, it should con-
stitute rightly a claim to his higher consideration ; and, far from being
accounted a disparagement, should be held as an addition to his scien-
tific standing. In the professions most allied to our own on the one
side and on the other, this is well recognized. The physician and the
engineer are not merely students of pathology and of mechanics, how-
ever important may have been their contributions to pathology and
mechanics respectively, but they are the distinguished craftsmen in
their respective arts. And, whether or not they may have made im-
portant contributions to pure science, their rank as eminent scientific
men is everywhere and rightly conceded to them. A lucky chance
happening to any professional man may indeed bring him to the front,
but no succession of lucky chances can ever happen that will of them-
selves prove adequate to keeping him there. Great qualities are ever
necessary to sustain great professional positions ; and to be for years
one of the foremost in a scientific profession is of itself at least as sub-
stantial an evidence of scientific attainment as is the publication of a
memoir on some minute point, say of anatomy, or chemistry, or hydro-
dynamics, for example. And it is so recognized, and very properly
recognized, even in quarters where pure science admittedly reigns
supreme. Leading engineers and leading physicians and surgeons are
every year admitted into the Royal Society, not on account of the
importance attaching to any special contributions they may have made
to mechanical or pathological science, but mainly because of their emi-
nence in their several professions, in which to be eminent is of itself
an evidence of scientific character and of extensive scientific knowl-
edge. It may indeed be taken as beyond question that, to obtain and
retain a leading position in a scientific profession needs, among other
things, the possession of high scientific attainments. I say among other
things, for without moral qualities in a notable degree, sympathy, en-
durance, courage, judgment, and good faith, no such professional suc-
cess is conceivable. Professional eminence is the expression necessarily
of scientific ability, but not of scientific ability alone. The self-en-
grossing science of the student has to be humanized by its association
with the cares and wants, and the disappointments and successes, of
an outside world. — Chemical News.

THE PHYSIOLOGY OF THE FEET. 395

THE PHYSIOLOGY OF THE FEET.

By T. S. ELLIS, M. E. C. S.

DISREGARDING the action of those parts not affecting the feet,
the act of walking may, as I think, be thus described : The foot
put forward should reach the ground when nearly flat ; the toes, the
organs of feeling, should be the first to reach it, not the heel, which
could not be without some concussion, however slight. The heads of
the metatarsal bones and the toes are then pressed firmly against the
surface. The great-toe, having only two phalanges, is held down in
its whole length, the flexor tendon being attached to the final pha-
lanx close to the joint between them. The little toes touch at their
tips only ; their flexor tendons being also attached to the final phalanx
of each, traction on them causes a rising at the joint between the two
proximal phalanges as the tips of the toes are drawn backward. By
this arrangement, in the one case a firm, solid base is formed from
which the body can be propelled onward; in the other an additional
hold on the surface, by a ruditoentary action or grasping, is afforded.
As the body is moved onward, the extensors of the great and of the
little toes, without lifting them from the ground, where they are held
by the flexors, draw the leg forward, while the anterior tibial, in assist-
ing this movement, serves another purpose. It is attached to the crown
of the arch, and in action tends to prevent any sinking there as the
weight of the body comes upon that structure. This purpose is much
more effectually served in another way : the muscles of the calf allow
the heel with firmness and precision, but withal gently, to touch the
ground, and the step is completed.

The heel is then raised, but the weight of the body is not borne, as
commonly stated, by the muscles acting on the heel and by them only :
the deeper muscles, the posterior tibial with the long flexors and the
long peroneal, acting round the inner and outer side of the ankle
respectively, all of them assist in raising the body and at the same
time have a most important influence in maintaining the arch. The
tibialis posticus, attached by its expanded tendon to the tarsus on the
under surface beyond the astragalus, the bone on which the weight of
the body rests, materially assists in supporting the arch from below.
The long flexors passing beneath the arch from one abutment to the
other are, in relation to it, as bowstrings to a bow, or rather, as the
two tendons cross each other, they may better be compared to the tie-
rods of a roof.

This arrangement of the two tendons crossing each other is very
curious : that going to the great-toe is lowest in passing round the
ankle, in order to be, as nearly as possible, at the extremity of the

396 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

arch or bow at that end, as it is at the opposite one ; if, however, it
passed directly across the sole from end to end there would be little
if any free space beneath, but, being crossed by the flexor longus digi-
torum, which comes round the ankle at a higher level, it is so drawn up
that a hollow beneath the arch is formed ; the flexor accessorius, by
drawing back the tendon of the flexor longus poUicis, compels it to
cross the other nearer to the heel, and so increases this effect. Thus
the flexor longus poUicis, regarded as the chord of the arc, becomes
itself an arc.

The tendency to inversion which all these muscles, acting from the
inner side of the ankle, might occasion is corrected by the long pero-
neal on the outer side ; it also, acting on the base of the first meta-
tarsal bone, a point considerably beyond the center of gravity, has a
bracing action on the arch, as the weight of the body falls upon it.
In this, too, no doubt the small muscles of the sole assist those of the
calf, but I can not accept the converse statement that it is the " mus-
cles of the sole assisted by the tibial muscles " which " are the active
agents." The deep muscles of the calf have much the more potent
influence. Thus it is that by the action of muscles the whole of the
strain which the weight of the body in walking would otherwise throw
on the ligaments binding the arch together is removed, and any tend-
ency to flattening of it prevented.

This, which has been called my " bowstring theory," is the view I
put forward in a little monograph, " On the Arch of the Foot," written
and printed in 1877. For reasons therein given I could not accept the
view that the arch is maintained by ligaments, or believe in the car-
riage-spring movement of those ligaments, yielding, to the weight of
the body, as the explanation of a springy gait. It is really due to the
heel being gently lowered and firmly raised. Upon this the grace of
walking depends. On the same grounds I hold that in proper walking
the foot does not lengthen. Camper, whose treatise is regarded as
classical, but which, as I think, contains many important errors of fact
and of induction, said that his knowledge of anatomy taught him that
it did so. On the contrary, I believe that as the tightening of a bow-
string approximates the ends of the bow, so the bowstring r.ction of
the flexor muscles on the arch of the foot tends to shorten it. If walk-
ing were a succession of standings, flat-footed alternately on either
foot, no doubt there would be lengthening, as the ligaments of the
arch yielded. Such a mode of progression is, we know, possible ; and,
indeed, we sometimes see something like it, hardly, however, to be
called walking. I would ask those who believe that the foot in walk-
ing lengthens "one tenth of its length, or about an inch" (a statement
on high authority made during the past year), to consider this : What,
then, would be the condition of the sole, after a long walk, from fric-
tion caused by the necessary sliding with the weight of a man borne
upon it ? As in every mile of the ordinary march of soldiers more

THE PHYSIOLOGY OF THE FEET. 397

than a thousand steps are taken on each foot, the result would not be
pleasant even to imagine.

The position of the foot is important. To turn out the toes seems
to me to be not only untrue to nature, but objectionable as well as
inelegant. Camper regarded it as incontestably the proper position.
For the following reasons I believe that the toes should be directed
forward, the inner margins of the feet parallel : It is desirable that the
propulsion of the body onward from, and consequent thrust backward
on, the foot, and especially on the great-toe, should be in the direction
of its length rather than obliquely across it, not only as giving a firmer
bearing from which to propel the body onward, but as diminishing the
friction on the sole and consequent tendency to foot-sore. This applies
also to the smaller toes in a less degree. The long axes of all the toes
continued backward seem to converge on the heel. By standing with
the bare foot and springing forward it can readily be seen how much
more tendency there is to slide on the sole when the foot is turned out
than when it is directed forward. In the latter position, too, the arch
is much more firmly braced up — a fact recognized by surgeons who
advise, in cases of flat-foot, that the toes should be directed inward
rather than outward. In standing, the everted position is not more
stable. Vf hen a body stands on four points I know of no reason why
it should stand more firmly if those points be unequally disposed. The
tendency to fall forward would seem to be even increased by widening
the distance between the points in front, and it is in this direction that
falls most commonly occur.

Those who look on the human foot as fully partaking of the beauty
of which artists in every age have regarded the human body to be the
highest expression, ought not readily to admit that the boot which
best conforms to its outline, reveals its features, and expresses its lead-
ing characteristics, will require an apology for want of elegance. I,
at any rate, can not admit anything of the kind. The human foot is,
moreover, an object of far more than the ordinary interest belonging
to every part of the human structure. In the monograph already
mentioned I ventured to suggest that, anatomically, there is no more
marked distinction between man and the lower animals than is to be
found in the special development of the foot.

However much we may regard it as in itself calling for admiration
on account of its fitness for the purposes it has to fulfill and for others
it may on occasion serve, the human foot is far more remarkable as an
adaptation of the mammalian type, modified to suit a purpose kindred
to but differing from that which the corresponding member supplies in
other animals. The heel has its special form and significance in that
man only has one adapted for crushing an offensive object beneath it.
The large size and important function of the great-toe is also a spe-
cially human feature. In the mammalian typical limbs the bones of
the hand and foot (or rather, to avoid confusion, in four-handed or four-

398 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

footed animals, manus and ^:)es) are arranged on a uniform plan : to
each five digits, the first having two phalanges and the others three.
The first digit is generally attenuated, often suppressed, but whenever
it exists it has two phalanges only.

This curious difference is nowhere, so far as I know, explained. I
can not discover that any animal (below man), recent or fossil, exists
or has existed from the times of the Trias formations till now in which
this arrangement has appeared to be essential. It may be of some
advantage in the quadrumana, and doubtless the human hand is thus
better fitted for its functions, but it seems to me to be much more diffi-
cult to imagine it possible for any other arrangement to exist in the
foot unless the whole scheme of it, so to speak, were changed. It is
essential that the only joint in the great-toe should be drawn to the
ground by the strong flexor tendon attached to the final phalanx close
to it ; if another joint existed it must rise up, as occurs in the other
toes, and the solid bearing would be lost. Apart from this, it must
be admitted that it is mainly due to the special development of the
great-toe in a line with the long axis of the foot that man is enabled
to exercise the attribute, in all ages regarded as a noble one, of stand-
ing erect. Yet this special feature is the one which the conventional
boot does most to conceal, and in direct proportion as it is successfully
concealed the wearer is supposed to be dressed in good taste. It would
seem to be regarded as necessary to reduce the foot to even-sided sym-
metry ; but there is no law of beauty vi^hich requires this. Mr. Rus-
kin assuredly would not say that it is in any of " the eternal canons of
loveliness " decreed that an object to be beautiful must be symmetri-
cal. An architect required to provide more space on one than on the
other side of a building would not seek to conceal or even to minimize
the difference ; he would seek rather to accentuate it, and give the
two sides of the structure distinctive features. To me it appears that
it is on this principle only that a boot, to be at once useful, graceful,
and appropriate, can be designed.

Moreover, the sense of symmetry, natural and reasonable where
the same function has to be performed, is, or ought to be, satisfied by
the exact correspondence of the two feet, which, taken jointly, may be
described as the two halves of an unequally expanded dome, irregu-
larly extended at the base, the greatest extension being in the line of
the greatest expansion of the dome, through which line the division
runs. The dividing-line thus makes the margin of the two feet paral-
lel to each other. It may be that the inner margin of the great-toe,
if produced backward, would fall a little distance from the inner side
of the heel. A perfect adult foot, in which the great-toe is not and
never has been diverted outward, and in which there has been no con-
sequent thickening of the large joint, is not easy to find. In children
the inner line is often visibly concave. It may be remarked that in
rest the great-toe is everted as well as drawn upward, in which posi-

THE PHYSIOLOGY OF THE FEET. 399

tion the toes are usually packed in a tight, medium-pointed boot ; it is
only therefore in action as the toes are pressed against the ground that
the full extent of the approximation to a straight inner line is seen.

In the boot it is of first importance that the sole (technically, the
part in front of the hollow or " waist ") should allow the great-toe to
occupy its natural position ; it must, therefore, be straight, or nearly
so, on the inner margin ; but it is of little use to provide the room
thus given unless it be occupied ; the foot must be invited to occupy
it by giving plenty of room in the upper leather on this side. It is
obvious that where a flexible material is fixed on both sides and left
loose between, it can be drawn farthest from the surface to which it
is attached, in a line midway between the fixed parts. For this
reason the highest part of the foot, which is on the inner side, will, in
any case, have some tendency to go to the middle line of the boot
where most room can be made ; this tendency is largely and need-
lessly aggravated by the high ridge of the last being along the mid-
dle line instead of being on the inner margin. But not only ought
the room there given to be much more according as the foot projects
the more upward ; it ought to be proportionally more. I have in-
sisted that the foot does not lengthen in walking, but rather shortens.
This shortening, due to the powerful action of the long flexors, causes
the foot to rise across the middle, the rising being almost entirely on
the inner side. Here, therefore, over (not by the side of) the ball of
the great-toe is special room required. The lateral thrust, too, already
spoken of as consequent on turning out the toes, tends much to dis-
place the foot and to throw it against the outside of the boot. Toe-
caps also are objectionable, as giving the most room in the middle line
and inviting the great-toe to occupy that position.

No useful or ornamental purpose is served by leaving space unoc-
cupied round the outer margin of the sole opposite the little toes, as if
it were necessary to make the two sides of the boot to match. No
angle existing in nature, none should be represented ; the outline of
the sole of the boot should conform to that of the foot.

If it be true, as already stated, that grace in walking, as well as
free propulsion of the body onward, and maintenance of the arch in
walking, are all due to the free action of the flexor muscles, letting
the heel down with gentleness and precision, and raising it with firm-
ness and vigor, it follows that none of these can be if the boot prevent
the heel from going down, a necessary antecedent to springing up. A
low heel, therefore, if any, is imperative. The perfect boot should
have none. Nor can the free action of the flexor muscles have full
effect, so as to draw the toes to the ground, if the sole be turned up at
the toes, especially if it be a stiff one. Some turning up will come
from walking, however good, but there is no reason why it should be
aggravated by having the boot-last so. In it the sole should be flat
to the end.

400 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Objection is made that boots with a straight, or nearly straight, in-
side line give the feet a pigeon-toed or inverted appearance, which is
unnatural. This is not altogether due to the eye being accustomed to
a more conventional pattern. It is, I am sure, mainly due to a re-
movable cause. Any conspicuous line, that of the laces or a seam, is
always carried from the front of the leg to a central point on the
upper surface of the foot. The eye, falling on this line, in imagina-
tion continues or produces it, and so divides the front part diagonally
into two very unequal portions, the larger on the inner side. I have
found that if the line of the laces or seam be kept parallel throughout
to the line of the long extensor tendon — in other words, along the
crest of the ridge, thus marking out a distinctive feature — the un-
pleasant effect is removed.

In proper walking, which can not be done in an improper boot,
friction of the foot on the sole and of the latter on the ground is re-
duced to a minimum, the sole being pressed against, not rubbed along,
the surface. This is shown by the very little wearing of the leather ;
when at last it does give way, it should be at an oval spot a little dis-
tance from the margin of the sole, under the middle joint of the great-
toe. This is the last point to leave the ground in walking ; here,
therefore, is the greatest tendency to slide on the surface and conse-
quent friction.

The great-toe, in any but the most perfect feet now to be found,
is so easily diverted outward that socks and stockings with a straight
inner line are very desirable ; indeed, no others can be said to really fit
the feet. When any considerable distortion exists, a separate stall for
the great-toe is necessary.

For the reasons given, a last should have the inner margin nearly
in a line with the inner side of the heel, and joining in front by a
rounded angle a long curve on the outer margin, where no angle
should be shown. The sole should be flat, touching the base-line in
front. The thickest part (highest vertically) should throughout be
on the inner margin, especially above the ball of the great-toe. The
boots should have low heels — to be perfect, none. The line of laces or
of any conspicuous seam down the front should be in a line correspond-
ing with the inner margin of the foot along the highest part. The
boot should, if possible, be left on the last for a considerable time, to
overcome the tendency of the leather to recoil after the forcible
stretching to which it has been subjected, and so to fix it in its proper
shape. — Lancet.

i

SKETCH OF FRANK BUCKLAND. 401

SKETCH OF FRANK BUCKLAXD.

FRANCIS TREVELYAN BUCKLAND, who was almost univer-
sally known as Frank Buckland, was the eldest son of Canon Will-
iam Buckland, of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, afterward Dean
of Westminster, and author of the " Buckland Bridgewater Treatise,"
and was born in Oxford, December 17, 1826. He attended school at
Cotterstock, in Northamptonshire, and spent two years with his uncle,
the Rev. John Buckland, at Laleham School, near Chertsey ; attended
Winchester College, where Dr. Moberley, afterward Bishop of Salis-
bury, was head-master, from 1839 to 1844 ; and in the latter year en-
tered Christ Church College, Oxford, where he took his bachelor's
degree in 1848. He then entered upon the study of surgery at St.
George's Hospital ; passed the College of Surgeons in 1851 ; and be-
came house-surgeon at that institution in May, 1852, In 1854 he was
gazetted assistant-surgeon to the Second Life-Guards. In 1860 he ap-
plied for promotion to a full surgeoncy ; but a rule was adopted, dif-
ferent from the old tradition of the Guards, that medical officers should
be promoted as vacancies occurred in the same regiment, by which pro-
motion was made to go by seniority in the brigade or at the discretion
of the colonel ; and the preference was given to an assistant-surgeon of
older standing from another regiment. Disappointed by this action,
and encouraged by the growing success of his literary and scientific
career, Buckland resigned his commission in 1863, and devoted himself
with ardor to what was to be his life-work in natural history and litera-
ture. " Fish-culture was henceforward his chief pursuit, and his life
became one of incessant activity, bodily and mental"; but every fact
connected with nature was interesting to him, and was held worthy to
be communicated to others. He had begun to write in 1852, for peri-
odicals, those articles which were afterward published collectively in his
" Curiosities of Natural History." In 1866 a third series of this work
M'as published, and Buckland, associated with some friends, started the
periodical " Land and Water," of which he was the inspiring genius
till the time of his death. In 1867 he was appointed one of the two
Inspectors of Fisheries for England and Wales, succeeding Mr. Freder-
ick Eden, one of the inspectors originally appointed under the Salmon-
Fisheries Act of 1861. This position he held and worked in for the
remainder of his life He shunned no exposure in the execution of
his favorite pursuits, but rather courted it, and professed to enjoy get-
ting wet, whether by being rained upon, or by wading up to his neck
in water while searching for eggs. Too many of these exposures, and
carelessness in indulging in them, brought on the illness which proved
fatal to him. He died, of disease which had begun with an inflamma-
tion of the lungs nearly two years before, on the 19th of December,
1880.

TOL. XXTIII. 25

402 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Such is a skeleton clironology of a life than -which none more
active, varied, and useful, is recorded in scientific biography. For the
story of the lives of many men of science we have to be satisfied with
a skeleton almost as meager as this ; but happily that is not the case
with Frank Buckland. He has, in the papers constituting his " Cu-
riosities," and in " Land and Water," so revealed himself in his inner
life, with his thoughts, feelings, and purposes, and his friends and the
brother-in-law who has prepared his biography have given such vivid
descriptions of him as they saw him, that the man is made to stand
out before us almost as in his very life and personality.

From these sources we learn that, when weighed shortly after his
birth, the infant Frank was found to be heavier than the leg of mutton
provided for the family dinner of that day ; and that a birch-tree was
planted in honor of his arrival, the taste of the twigs of which he
learned to know well. His early years, as described in his mother's
journal, reflected in miniature his character in maturer life. For facts,
especially of natural history, he had from childhood a most tenacious
memory. At four years of age he began collecting specimens, and at
seven he commenced a journal. Earlier than this, at two and a half
years of age, " he would have gone through all the natural history
books in the Radclifife Library without making an error in miscalling
a parrot, a duck, a kingfisher, an owl, or a vulture." When he was
four years old a clergyman brought to Dr. Buckland, from a consid-
erable distance, some " very curious fossils." They were shown to
the child, who, not yet able to speak plainly, said, " They are the verte-
brae of an ichthyosaurus." At three years of age his mother could
get him to learn nothing by rote. His mind was always at work on
what he saw, and he was very impatient of doing that which was not
manifest to his senses, yet he was not considered premature. He ex-
celled in apparently strong reasoning powers, and a most tenacious
memory as to facts. He was always asking questions, and never for-
got the answers he received, if they were such as he could compre-
hend. And he was always wanting to see everything done, or to
know how it was done ; and was never happy unless he could see the
relation between cause and effect.

It was not surprising, as Buckland's biographer remarks, that his
love of nature should grow with his growth, for it was inherited from
both parents, and was encouraged by every association of his youth.
"In his early home at Christ Church, besides the stuffed creatures
which shared the hall with the rocking-horse, there were cages full of
snakes, and of green frogs, in the dining-room, where the sideboard
groaned under successive layers of fossils, and the candles stood on
ichthyosauri's vertebrae. Guinea-pigs were often running over the
table. In the stable-yard and large wood-house were the fox, rabbits,
Guinea-pigs, and ferrets, hawks, and owls, the magpie, and the jack-
daw, besides dogs, cats, and poultry, and in the garden were the tortoise

SKETCH OF FRANK BUCKLAND. 403

(on whose back the children would stand to try its strength), and toads
immured in various pots, to test the truth of their supposed life in
rock-cells." Then there were the visits to the museum, and the after-
noon drives, with which the bunt for some natural object was usually-
associated.

At Winchester, he was known as "a boy utterly indifferent to per-
sonal appearance, but good-tempered and eccentric, with a small mu-
seum in his sleeve or cupboard," an expert hand in skinning badgers,
rats, etc., "and also setting wires at Blue Gate, for cats." A school-
fellow who slept in the next bed to him used to observe him " to get up
in the middle of the night, and designedly in half-darkness carefully
bind two fagot sticks together, for the purpose, as he said, of accus-
toming himself to be called up as a surgeon, half asleep, to do some
professional duty under adverse circumstances." So we may follow
him during his four years at this school, extracting the poison-fangs
from adders, dissecting cats, and even successfully attempting the eye
of the warden's dead mastiff. With his good-humor and spirits and
his uniform amiability and obligingness, he became the most popular
boy in the school. " Fond of school- work he was not, but he did his
duty fairly, got through his 'construes' somehow, and ground the
regulation grist of dreary Greek and Latin verse. Neither did he care
for games." Toward the end of his school-days his anatomical stud-
ies enlarged their scope, and he undertook fragments of humanity,
which he obtained secretly from the hospital and secretly dissected.

Of his life at Oxford, Dr. Liddon observes that there hung an odor
of physical science about his rooms, " which increased as you got
nearer. If you passed through the outer room into the study, you
found the occupant surrounded by friends and playmates, irrational
or human, and deep in scientiffc investigation after his own fashion,
which, be it observed, was as industrious as it was irregular." His
fellows did not then appreciate the reality or value of the work he was
engaged in, " or that he was in fact educating himself much better
than most of us were doing." Here we find a friend visiting him at
his rooms having to tuck up his legs on the sofa to keep the jackal,
which is prowling about the room, from biting them, while the jackal
feasts himself upon the Guinea-pigs under the sofa ; and we are intro-
duced to Tiglath-pileser, or Tig, the pet bear, who attracted the notice
of the British Association in 1846 as a guest in cap and gown at the
garden-party, where he was introduced to Sir Charles Lyell, Prince
Canino, Milne-Edwards, and Sir T. Acland, and was mesmerized by
Lord Houghton.

Buckland's first article was published in 1852, after the author had
attempted an unsuccessful pai>er on the muscles of the arm> Mr.
White Cooper, the Queen's oculist, called at the deanery, and was in-
vited down-stairs to see the pet rats. Frank took them out of the cage
one by one, and described in a most interesting way the habits and

404 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

peculiarities of each. Mr. Cooper then suggested to him to put down
on paper all that he had related, for publication. Frank demurred,
because he did not think he could write anything worth reading, but
finally produced the article, which was published in " Bentley's Miscel-
lany." This was the beginning of the series which were afterward
collected and published as " Curiosities of Natural History."

He gave his first lecture in December, 1853. It was delivered at a
working-men's coffee-house and institute, and was on the human body,
or " The House we live in." Of his qualities as a lecturer we are told
that "he inherited from his father the faculty of investing a subject,
dry in other hands, with a vivid and picturesque interest, and to this
he added a variety of subject and a fund of droll yet apt illustration
peculiarly his own. * I can't get on,' he used to say, ' until I make them
laugh ; then we are all right.' His drollery was irresistible, yet was
always informing ; while his vehement earnestness, and alternation of
the serious with the humorous, never failed to arrest attention."

Two or three years after entering the Life-Guards, it occurred to
Buckland that he was "getting too much in the natural history line,"
and must give more attention to medical subjects. He did not, how-
ever, but went deeper and deeper, and with more and more interest,
into natural history ; and his life in this period Avas full of his observa-
tions and experiments and collecting, and the writing of those charm-
ing articles for the periodicals. He began to write regularly for the
" Field " newspaper in 1856, and continued to do so till 1865, or shortly
before he started " Land and Water." He prepared a new edition of
his father's " Bridgewater Treatise," receiving valuable aid in the work
from Professor Owen and Professor Quekett, the former of whom
looked upon it as "the best elementary book that a country gentleman
or azure lady could take up " for the sciences of geology and paleon-
tology. It was framed, says Mr. Bompas, Buckland's biographer, " on
such broad lines as to be of permanent value, notwithstanding the
time which has passed since it was written, and the rapid expansion
of geological science."

The year 1859 was distinguished for Buckland by the search which
he prosecuted in person for fourteen days, in the vaults of St. Martin's-
in-the-Fields, for the body of John Hunter, the father of modern physi-
ology, which he found at last on the 22d of February. He took his
friends down to see it, including Professor Owen, who expressed him-
self much pleased. "I wish I could have made a sketch of him," he
writes, " with his hand on the cofiin, looking thoughtfully at it ; it
would have made an excellent subject," The coffin was afterward re-
interred in Westminster Abbey. In the same year, the idea, carried
out somewhat later, of forming the Acclimatization Society, was sug-
gested to him after eating a dinner of eland or African antelope.

Immediately after leaving the Life-Guards he threw all his energy
into the promotion of fish-culture ; and his diary is full of the records

I

SKETCH OF FRANK BUCKLAND. 405

of his experiments in hatching, of consultation, and of the giving of
instructions to others who had become interested in the enterprise.
He showed his apparatus and explained it at the exhibitions. He lect-
ured at the Royal Institution on the subject, and gave the grave mem-
bers of that body the novel experience of laughing at the racy humor
with which the new science was explained, "while the earnestness
with which the national importance of the subject was enforced was
none the less impressive." The substance of this lecture was after-
ward expanded into a book on " Fish-hatching." He was invited up
into Ireland to see what was the matter with some salmon-fisheries in
Galway. Seeing a very fine salmon-ladder, he climbed down into it
and imagined himself a salmon, congratulating himself on narrow es-
capes from the nets and crevices below, and thinking how very desir-
able it would be to get up to his autumn quarters in Lough Corrib.
To preserve and make j^opularly visible the results of his investiga-
tions into fish-breeding, he made the series of casts of the roe of fish
and of the forms of fish at different stages of growth, which is exhib-
ited at the South Kensington Museum. He next studied oyster-culture,
and gave lectures, scientific and populai*, on that. These occupations
prepared the way for his appointment as Fish Commissioner, and ren-
dered it the most appropriate one that the Government could make.

In studying the problem of fish-passes for salmon, to which he gave
a great deal of attention, he made it a principle to enter, so far as was
possible to man, into the feelings of a salmon, as he did at the Galway
ladder ; and so thoroughly did he carry out the principle that he be-
came " as an inspector almost amphibious, wading the pools below the
weirs, and feeling the force and direction of the current. . . . No
wonder, then, when it was publicly stated that, in his evidence before
the House of Commons, he had leaned rather to the interest of the
millers than of the salmon-fisheries, he protested that his statements
had either been misconstrued or not understood. 'Having placed my-
self as a shield over the salmon interests, I have, as is the fate of
shields, received most of the aiTOws.' " With regard to the cultivation
of the English rivers, he saw that the conflicting interests could be
reconciled without injury to any ; and he strove unceasingly, and with
no little success, to propagate the belief among all classes that they
were each and all interested in the preservation of salmon. He con-
tinually lifted up his voice against the pollution of rivers, and told the
people of Gloucester that the Chinese, who use everything in the way
of manure, call the English barbarians because they pour their sewage
into the rivers. The beginning of the illness from which Mr. Buckland
died dates from January, 1879, when he was attacked with inflamma-
tion of the lungs after having been engaged in packing eggs from
Australia in the ice-house of the steamship Durham. He was again
attacked in November of the same year, after exposure in a violent
snow-storm following the last inquiry it was his privilege to hold,

4o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

among the fishermen at Cromer. His last fishery report was presented
in March, 1880. It was a document which he endeavored to make as
far as possible an outline and guide to those who wish to open up and
improve salmon-fisheries, in whatever part of the world they may be
situated. He went for the last time to the fishery-oftice in August,
1880, and left his house for the last time, on the 2l8t of the same
month, to visit a newly ari'ived orang-outang. lie continued to write,
however, for " Land and "Water," and completed a new edition of the
" Natural History of British Fishes," and a revised edition of White's
" Natural History of Selbome " in the last month of his life. He also
arranged and revised a series of articles, which was published after
his death, as " Notes and Jottings from Animal Life."

Buckland's journals occasionally show glimpses of those thoughts
and feelings that men do not usually talk much about to others ; the
passages strikingly exhibit his simple-hearted earnestness. Thus, in
1865, he says : " I can not help thinking that the Almighty God has
given me great powers, both of thought and of expressing those
thoughts. Thanks to him, but I must cultivate my mind by diligent
study, careful reflection in private, and quick apprehension of facts
out-of-doors, combined Avith quick appreciation of ideas of others ; in
fact, strive to become a master-mind, and thus able to influence others
of weaker minds, whose shortcomings I must forgive. . . . Why should
I not imitate the example of that great and illustrious man to whom I
owe so much of my education (William of Wykcham, founder of the
Winchester School), and endeavor to do as much good as possible in
my humble way ? I will therefore begin next week, and put up a
storm barometer for the use of the fishermen at Heme Bay." And,
December 16, 1866, "Thanks be to God, I have preserved a straight
course to the best of my abilities, and, though I see others taking short
cuts, I think honest dealing and true is the safest ballast to keep the
ship in trim, through the sea of difficulties and dangers." Just after
his forty-third birthday, he Avrote, " I do not aspire to do more than
my duty in that station to which it has pleased God to call me, but I
want to do it nobly and well."

There was another, a curiosity side to Frank Buckland's character.
Nothing was without interest to him ; and he was hardly less fond of
studying the curiosities of the Barnum Museums than the objects of
natural history with which he spent most of his life. He very much
enjoyed the bearded woman, of whom he wrote quite extensively, was
on good social terms with Captain Bates the giant, and Miss Swan the
giantess, and Mademoiselle Millie-Christine, the " two headed nightin-
gale " ; knew nearly all the fat women and the other giants, and was
fond of making up parties for these people, with the Chinamen, Aztecs,
Esquimaux, Zooloos, Siamese twins, tattooed New-Zealanders, and
whatever queer specimens of mankind happened to be on exhibition
at the time, as fellow-guests.

CORRESP ONDENCE.

407

CORRESPONDENCE.

THE UNIFORMITY OF NATURE AGAIN.
Messrs. Editors :

IKEAD tlie first few pages of the Bish-
op of Carlisle's essay oa the " Uniform-
ity of Nature," in the last number of this
magazine, with a lively expectation that
some of the fog and uncertainty left hang-
ing around the question by the debaters of
the " Metaphysical Society " was to be cleared
up. But all such expectation ended be-
fore I had finished the article. The fog and
uncertainty became more bewildering than
ever. In fact, it seems to me the worthy
bishop missed the mark entirely. He set
out to tell us what was meant by the uni-
formity of Nature, and arrived at the con-
clusion that, outside of celestial mechanics,
it, in effect, meant simply unchangeableness
of the weather, uniformity in the direction
of the wind, invariableness in the form and
density of bodies, etc., and was therefore a
principle of only a very limited application.
How abiu' d, in the first place, to go back
to ciphering out by Newton and Laplace of
the problems of the laws and motions of the
heavenly bodies, for the origin of the prac-
tically universal belief in the uniformity of
Nature ! You might as well go back to them
for the origin of our practical belief in den-
sity, gravity, inertia, or in the existence of
the sun and moon themselves. The whole
course of our lives is predicated upon our
faith in the uniformity of Nature, upon the
belief that fire burns, that cold freezes, that
gravity is always operative. Would a man
ever plant seed in the ground if he did not
believe the laws which govern its growth
and development were constant ? Have the
laws (no matter how ignorant we are of
them) which govern steam, which govern
all fluids and solids and gases, which gov-
ern contraction and expansion and conden-
sation, ever been known to fail ? The mo-
ment any uncertainty is discovered here,
our whole philosophy of mechanics is in
ruins. Because the weather is changeable,
does the bishop therefore think that the
laws which govern the formation of clouds,
which determine the course of the winds,
and the precipitation of moisture in the
shape of rain and snow, are not uniform;
that, given the same conditions, the same
results will not follow ? Would he pray
for rain, or for the rain to cease ? Would
he pray for the postponement of an eclipse ?
Or would he say that, because man has
changed the face of the earth, he has not
done it under the rigid operation of natural
law? that he has reversed the law of grav-
ity, the laws of heat and cold, of wet and

dry, of the tides and the seasons? Is it
not true, rather, that he has done it by
strictly following and obeying these laws ?
A belief in the uniformity of Nature does
not mean a belief in the uniformity of ap-
pearances or of phenomena. The law is
not disproved because some of the worlds
are large and some small, some hot and some
cold, some dense and some thin ; or because
some animals have two legs and some four
or six, some feathers and some hair, or be-
cause some crows are white and some swans
black, or because some fruit has the seed
upon the outside and some on the inside.
But show us a country where the trees are
walking about, and the men are rooted to the
ground, and our belief in the uniformity of
Nature will at least receive a severe shock.
Would not the same conditions that produce
a white crow or a white negro once always
produce a white crow or a white negro?
This, then, is what we mean and must mean
by the uniformity of Nature, that, f/ivc7i (he
same conditmis, the same restdts xvill always
follow. If this truth does not hold good at
all times and in all places, then, indeed, is
" the pillared firmament based upon rotten-
ness." A breach in the uniformity of Na-
ture means a breach of this law. If ice
should fail to melt in the fire, or if water
should flow up-hill, or lead swim where a
feather would sink, then would the uni-
formity of Nature be disproved. If the
Bishop of Carlisle, or any other person, will
make an axe-head swim upon water, as Eli-
sha did, and under the same conditions that
would send the iron to the bottom at all
other times, then must we either give up
the belief in the uniformity of Nature, or
else believe in the existence of a set of laws
which may be brought to bear upon mate-
rial bodies by the human will, so as to re-
verse or annul the laws by which they are
ordinarily governed. And the existence of
such laws and of such power of the human
will is an assumption which no sane man
can accept.

If the sun should fail to" rise to-morrow,
it would be no breach of the uniformity of
Nature. If the sun failed to rise, could it be
from other than physical or natural cause ;
from the operation of laws which are uni-
form in their workings ? If we are to be-
lieve what astronomers tell us about the
disappearance of certain stars, then the sun
of some world or worlds has failed to rise
on the morrow. Have given the same con-
ditions, and would not our sun disappear
also ? No ; facts of this kind can not be
relied upon to invalidate the principle of

4o8

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the uniformity of Nature. But if the sun
stood still for a moment, and no ill-results
befell the earth or its inhabitants, that
would indeed invalidate the principle.

Pressure and cold will liquefy air, per-
haps solidify it, if enough could be brought
to bear, but solidified air would not be a
miracle, unless performed without phi/siced
means, lilce the water and wine miracle in
the New Testament ; but if the air should
fail to support combustion in any given
case, under conditions in which it ordinarily
supports it, that would be a miracle, and
would disprove the uniformity of Nature. It
is true that our belief in the uniformity of
Nature does uot rest upon the same basis as
our belief in the principles of mathematics ;
for instance, that two parallel lines can
never meet if indefinitely extended, or that
the three angles of a triangle are equal to
two right angles, but for my own part my
belief in one is just as unshakable as my
belief in the other. I do not know, from
experience, that no particle of matter can
be destroyed, and yet I believe it absolutely.
We do not, any of us, know from experi-
ence that any calamity would befall the
earth if the sun were to stand still for half
an hour, yet docs anybody doubt it ?

I notice that all the divines who have
spoken or written upon this subject with-
hold their belief in the principle of uni-
formity, in order to save that other cher-
ished belief — the belief in the Biblical mira-
cles. It is incredible what ducking and
dodging they will be guilty of, what meta-
physical fogs they will conjure up, and what
enormous assumptions they will swallow, in
order to keep their childish fables from be-
ing discredited. The Bishop of Carlisle
says the scientific man " can well afford to
be generous " and leave the theologians in
undisturbed possession of their venerable
old scarecrows ; but science knows no gen-
erosity but the generosity of truth. A mira-
cle is the suspension or annulment of natu-
ral law, and there is not the slightest proof,
physical or metaphysical, that a natural law
ever has been, or ever can be, suspended or
annulled except by some other well-known
natural law, which thus comes into play and
keeps up the continuity of Nature ; and the
belief or assumption that there has been or
can be is the worst kind of infidelity — in-
fidelity toward the works of One in whom
there is no variableness or shadow of turn-
ing. John BuRRorcns.
I Wkst Pakk, New Yokk, I^^oremher 23, 18&5.

SCIENTIFIC FREEDOM.
Messrs. Editors :

I NOTICE, in your issue for November
last, an editorial comment upon the attitude
which Mr. St. George Mivart has assumed,
in his recent article in the " Nineteenth

Century," on " Modem Catholics and Scien-
tific Freedom." Permit me to correct what
seems to me an erroneous inference on your
part in regard to this matter, to wit, that
Mr. Mivart's opinion is Catholic opinion.
So far from this being the case. Catholic
opinion holds that Mr. Mivart, in the ex-
pression of such views as he puts forth in
his late article, is treading upon rash and
dangerous ground, and that the animus of
his paper is without doubt heretical. Catho-
lics can not safely follow him into the ex-
tremes to which he goes, nor is it to be sup-
posed that Mr. Mivart's individual opinion
is either an authentic or authoritative ex-
pression of Catholic views as regards Galileo
or evolution, although it must be admitted
that the utterances of a gentleman of Mr.
Mivart's justly earned scientific and philo-
sophical reputation merit the most respect-
ful attention and careful consideration.
While it can not be said that Mr. Mivart's
paper contains any formal heresy, its tone
is certainly doubtful and inconsistent with
the spirit of the Church. He bases it upoa
a presumed mistake on the part of the
Church in the so-called condemnation of
Galileo. Mr. Mivart calmly takes this as a
matter of course, and does not pretend to
advance a single argument in favor of his
position — an easy way, indeed, of "brush-
ing aside " the objections of all opponents.
In the eyes of Catholics and all impartial
witnesses, the Church has never made any
such mistake as Mr. Mivart strangely and
surely, without due consideration of the
facts of the case, imputes to her.

In the first place, a condemnation to be
dr Jide^DUst come ex cathedra from the Pope
himself, and be promulgated in brief or bull
as sueJi. Secondly, the condemnation of no
congi-egat ion alone is binding t/e/Vc; and,
thirdly, there was not even such condemna-
tion of the heliocentric system by the Con-
gregation of the Index. Facts are facts,
and the slip-shod assumption that a thing is
such and such can not pass unchallenged,
especially when an argument or theory id
based upon a misrepresentation. A con-
gregational condemnation requires a unani-
mous vote by the members of the Congrega-
tion, and in the ease of Galileo only seven
out of ten cardinals signed the paper con-
demning his doctrine. Furthermore, the
heliocentric system was not a proved fact
in Galileo's time, but merely a scientific
probability with tremendous weight of sci-
entific authority against it, and, in the then
crude condition of physical knowledge, the
action of the seven cardinals in condemning
the new theory can be readily defended
upon grounds of prudence.

In conclusion, I would like to call your
attention to a flagrant fallacy in Mr. Mivart's
paper— a blunder, indeed, which it seems
strange that a man of his logical acumen

CORRESP OXDENCE.

409

should make : In answering a possible ob-
jection, namely, that the question in hand
is not within the province of the supreme
ecclesiastical authority's defining power—
" that is, outside the dcpoalinm Jidci " — he
savs : " What is or is not within the supreme
authority's province to decide must be
known to that authority. An infallible au-
thority must know the limits of its revealed
message. If authority can make a mistake
in determining its own limits, it may make
a mistake in a matter of faith." Xow, the
gist of the first half of Mr. Mivart's paper
is taken up by the extended assumption
that ecclesiastical authority did make a mis-
take in determining its own limits in the
case of Galileo. Therefore it must logically
follow, according to Mr. Mivart's proposi-
tion, that (supreme?) ecclesiastical authority
may make a mistake in a matter of faith.
Again he says : " Men of science may have
a truer perception of what Scripture must
be held 1 since it is inspired) to teach than
may be granted to ecclesiastical authori-
ties " ; that " God has taught us (in the in-
stance of Galileo) that it is not to ecclesias-
tical congregations, but to men of science,
that he has committed the elucidation of
scientific questions, whether such questions
are or are not treated of by Holy Scripture,
etc." ; that " it must bo admitted that men
of science so succeeded, and that ecclesias-
tical authority so failed, in interpreting the
true and inspired meaning of God's written
word." It is the duty of men of science,
therefore, to point out the limits of infal-
lible authority, is Mr. Mivart's assertion.
Certainly this is a contradiction to his for-
mer proposition, that " an infallible authority
must know the limits of its revealed mes-
sage." Moreover, in the concluding portion
of his article, Mr. Mivart coolly tells us up
to what limits ecclesiastical authority infal-
libly extends, and weighs it in the balance
against scientific probability with an im-
plied inference in favor of the latter. Mr.
Mivart never learned such logic from Catho-
lic sources. He poses in the exact attitude
of the objector he so cogently answered in
the beginning. Therefore does his own
reply rebound upon himself — an infallible
authority must certainly determine its own
limits.

While respecting Mr. Mivart's attain-
ments to the utmost. Catholics can not do
such violence to their faith and their reason
as to follow him upon the rash ground
whither, no doubt, some hasty and incon-
sid'S^-ate motive has hurried him.
Yours respectfully,

CoNDE B. Fallen.
St. Louis, October 2T, 1SS5.

THE GENESIS OF A TORNADO.
Menira. Editors :

At Orange Heights, in Central Florida,
on Sunday, October lltla, a stiff breeze was
blowing from the north, as it had blown for
some forty-eight hours previously. Masses
of clouds, with which the air was laden, were
scudding by like ships under full sail. Sev-
eral times during the day I had noted that
an upper current was bearing the higher
clouds in an exactly opposite direction.
During the afternoon the upper current
gradually settled down, until it squarely
opposed its adversary, presenting the sin-
gular spectacle of two cloud-laden currents
of air rushing rapidly together from op-
posite directions. My point of observation
being on an eminence, commanding an ex-
tensive view of the surrounding country,
I had a fine opportunity to watch the prog-
ress of events. For perhaps half an hour
these two air-currents flowed swiftly to-
gether without apparent result ; but pres-
ently there appeared in the west, scarcely a
mile distant, and just where the two cur-
rents came together, a heavy mass of clouds,
which constantly increased in density and
blackness. The south wind grew constant-
ly more persistent, and although its antag-
onist showed no signs of weakening, it was
gradually crowded out of its course toward
the west, and for a quarter of au hour the
direction of the two currents was squarely
at right angles. Then tlie great cloud-nu-
cleus, which had so far remained station-
ary, began slowly to rotate, the east wind
passing across the north side, and thence
around toward the south ; the south wind
passing up the east side, and thence around
toward the west.

As soon as the rotary motion was estab-
lished, a progressive motion began. In a
few minutes the whole mass had moved out
of sight in a northerly direction, and the
south wind had full sway. When it was
reported next day that buildings and their
occupants had been injured by a " cyclone,"
a few miles to the northward, I was per-
haps the only person to whom the news
was not unexpected. Fortunately, the aerial
monster made its first descent in the pine-
woods before attaining great velocity, and
was torn and dissipated by the forest be-
fore it could rebound.

It seems unfortunate that the terms
" tornado " and " cyclone," whose primary
meanings afford no clew by which they may
be distinguished, are popularly used in ex-
actly the opposite sense from that in which
the Signal Service and scientific writers use
them. Charles B. Palmer.

Obaxge Heights, Floeida, October 13, 1835,

410

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

THE DECLINE OF TUE GHOST.

ALONDOIST correspondent of the
"Boston Herald" makes the sig-
nificant and, from our point of view,
encouraging statement that, in all the
Christmas annuals — and their name is
legion — published this season, there is
hardly to be found a single ghost-story.
Formerly ghost-stories were of all the
most attractive ; and somehow they
were thought to be particularly suited
to Christmas-time. Nowadays the ghost
is left out in the cold. In this festive
season no one invites liim in to so much
as " warm his toes," to quote the ex-
pression of a prominent Democratic
politician. Why is this ? What has
made the change?

The change is due to several causes.
If asked to name the most general of
these, "we should say the growing intel-
ligence of the age. If people don't care
to talk or read about ghosts as they
once did, it is because they no longer
believe or even half believe in them.
The world of the living is encroaching
more and more upon the world of the
dead. In very primitive thnes men not
only believed in ghosts with all their
heart and soul, but they attributed to
them the same range of activities for
good and evil as they attributed to liv-
ing men. The powers of living men
in those days were so limited that it
was not paying the ghosts a very inor-
dinate couipliment to suppose that they
could do as much. But steadily, as the
powers of living man increased, as he
acquired a more extended control over
Nature, the prestige of the ghost, who
became more and more conspicuously
unable to imitate him, diminished. To-
day we leave the ghost out of our reck-
onings entirely; we neither ask his aid
nor strive to avert his malice. Wlien
a man is once duly certified as dead, we

do not look for any continuance of his
personal activity, however great the in-
fluence of his character may stUl be in
the world.

The ghost, we fear, has also suffered
in popular esteem through being in-
vestigated. Modern philosophers have
not been afraid of the investigation ;
they have pushed the ghost hard from
age to age, from race to race, from
country to country ; and their verdict
is that, while the ghost-idea has been
very potent in the world in past times,
and still flourishes in the dark places
of the earth, the ghost himself has no
estate or effects that it would be worth
anybody's while to try to levy upon.
The return to the warrant is the disap-
pointing one, nulla hona. The ghost, in
all his alleged travels through the cent-
uries, has left no monument. There is
not one solid piece of work anywhere
extant that can be credited to a ghostly
origin. If he ever " materialized," he
was careful to " dematerialize " again
before any one could get a sample of his
beautiful work. But, although the ghost
himself does not stand out as a vera
causa of anything, the belief in ghosts
has affected in the most important man-
ner the whole course of civilization.
This fact the philosophers have brought
very prominently forward, and in doing
so they have presented for examination
such an infinite and grotesque variety
of ghost-beliefs, and of usages and cere-
monies connected therewith, that the
very name of ghost, instead of awaken-
ing, as formerly, a host of superstitious
terrors, is, to-day, far more suggestive
of some methodical and not over-excit-
ing treatise on primitive man. In short,
the ghost nowadays is more apt to
make us yawn than to make us shud-
der. What wonder, then, that he no
longer rides as of yore in Cliristmas

EDITOR'S TABLE.

411

literature, and that his general useful-
ness for purposes of sensation is about
at an end ?

We shall, perhaps, be confronted
with the present wide-spread belief in
spiritualism. Is not the ghost active,
it will be asked, in spiritualistic circles?
"Well, spiritualism itself has, in our opin-
ion, been an agency for discrediting the
ghost, or, at least, for narrowing and
regulating his heretofore willful activi-
ties. The spiritualistic ghost, in a word,
has been tamed by the medium. He
no longer goes gliding or skulking about
upon his terrifying nocturnal errands;
on the contrary, he comes meekly at
the call of his master or mistress, and,
the conditions being favorable, utters
through the table-leg such harmless
platitudes as seem most suited to the
average intelligence of the audience.
This is a great improvement upon the
old plan, according to which every
man met his ghost in solitude at the
midnight hour, and, with his blood in
a state of distressing coagulation, was
compelled to listen to some dire predic-
tion of coming doom. All our methods
nowadays are more or less scientific,
and the comfoi'table seance may be
compared to the beneficent lightning-
rod, with its many points for draining
oS the otherwise dangerous electrical
accumulations of the atmosphere. In-
stead of meeting the ghost alone, and
encountering the full weight of his
supernatural terrors, we meet him in
pleasant company, where his force is so
dispersed that no one gets more tlian a
proper, moderate, and enjoyable share.
At the same time, the ghost that comes
and goes at the medium's call, and talks
reasonably and mildly through the ta-
ble-leg, is not, qud gliosis the equal of
his more independent and less calcu-
lable predecessor. The ghost has de-
clined, there can be no question about it.

Well, as we hinted at the outset,
we part with the ghost without reluc-
tance. We think good Christmas-sto-
ries can be written without drawing on
senseless and half-aflfected terrors for

their interest. We think that literature
in general will be the better for shak-
ing itself free from the baseless delu-
sions of by-gone times of ignorance and
savagery. The ghost has done nothing
in the world that gives him any claim
upon our respect or remembrance. He
was necessary in his day, in tlie sense
that men had no choice but to believe
in him ; but, now that we have risen to
a point of view that renders him total-
ly unnecessary either for theoretical or
for practical purposes, we shall do well
to lay him finally to rest. We want to
concentrate onr energies on this world,
to develop all that is best in human
life, to methodize our knowledge, to
strengthen our hold upon all sound
moral principles. For these purposes,
close study of facts is required. We
need to see things as they are, and to
refer them to human welfare, taken in
its broadest and highest sense, as a cen-
tral point. As long as the ghost sur-
vived, he could override, and too often
did override, our practical judgments;
and men never felt sure as to how far
they could trust the plain dictates of
common sense. But, with the decay
and disappearance of the ghost, com-
mon sense, purified by the scientific
method, assumes full control of human
life and reigns without a rival. Hence-
forth we become free and responsible
men — free to follow the dictates of rea-
son, and responsible for doing so. We
can now give to the rising generation
an integral education founded on rea-
son, and can bring home to their minds
as never before the salutary conviction
that the reign of law is universal and
unbroken — that not even a ghost can
violate it — in short, that ghosts and all
things of which independence of natu-
ral law is predicated are mere figments
of the untrained imagination. This,
we say, is henceforth possible. It re-
mains to make the possible actual, and
to impress upon education once for all
that character which no sensible man
can doubt it is destined to take in the
not distant future.

412

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

LITERARY NOTICES.

Ecclesiastical Institctions. Being Part
VI of the " Principles of Sociology." By
Herbert Si'ENCEn. Pp.193. Priee, $1.25.

The great life-work of Herbert Spencer,
the "Philosophy of Evolution," advances
toward completion, but it has moved slowly
of late. Persistent ill-health and occupation
with other subjects, and other parts of the
system than that immediately in hand, have
considerably delayed the appearance of the
present volume.

Of the general nature of Spencer's " Syn-
thetic Philosophy " little needs here to be
said. Our readers are aware that it is a
systematic attempt to explain the course of
nature, the progress of life, the origin of
man, and the institutions of human society,
by one universal law of unfolding known
as evolution. While in one aspect this sys-
tem is simply a new organization of knowl-
edge based upon the progress of science,
and more comprehensive and unified than
anything previously attained, in another as-
pect it is a new body of doctrine which dis-
credits and replaces the most wide-spread
and deeply cherished traditional beliefs of
mankind. In the volume now before us
Mr. Spencer has reached that stage in the
development of his system in which he
comes into the sharpest collision with all-
prevalent religious dogma.

No discussion of the evolution of human
society is possible which does not make
the study of primitive social conditions and
ideas prominent and fundamental. If the
higher social forms were potentially in-
volved in the lower, and had grown out of
them by the working of natural laws, then
the first and most important step of the in-
vestigation must be into the nature, capaci-
ties, and limitations of the primitive man,
and the character of the primitive elements
of society which grew out of, and were de-
termined by, the attributes of the primitive
man. Accordingl}', the first part of the
first volume of the " Principles of Sociolo-

gy

' The Data of Sociology " — Is devoted

to primitive man and that order of primary
conceptions which was embodied in the ear-
liest and rudest social institutions. These
institutions are now so highly developed that
we have got in a way of separating ourselves
from "the heathen" by a great gulf, which

makes all continuity of relations between
the lowest and the highest impossible. But,
if evolution be true, the highest is derived
from the lowest by unbroken chains of caus-
ation, and there is no other possible way of
explaining and understanding existing insti-
tutions than by tracing their derivation back
to primitive germinal conditions. This is,
at any rate, the only way open to science
which is an exposition of the natural order ;
and sociology only becomes a true science
as it is pursued by the method adopted by
Mr. Spencer of working out the laws under
which social progress has taken place. The
data of sociology in the primitive conditions
which initiated the lowest social state con-
stitute, therefore, the essential basis of the
science, and determine the whole course of
subsequent elucidation.

In Part II Mr. Spencer works out " The
Inductions of Sociology," or the nature,
structure, and functions of the organism of
society; and in Part III, "The Domestic
Relations," he treats of the maintenance of
species, the relations of the sexes in pi'iml-
tive society, and the development of the
family.

A'olume II of the " Principles of Soci-
ology" begins with Part IV, on "Ceremo-
nial Institutions," the evolution of which is
traced from early to advanced societies. Part
V takes up "Political Institutions," and
these with their development by the same
method. " Ecclesiastical Institutions " (Part
VI), now published, as the title imports,
treats of the evolution of existing religious
organizations from their lower forms in
primitive society. Its necessary implication,
of course, is, that the religious, like all other
social institutions, have a natural genesis,
and can only be explained as derivations
from pre-existing forms which carry us back-
ward and downward to the religious notions,
rites, and observances of the earliest men.
The nature of the religious idea is first un-
folded, and it is shown how religious cere-
monies were at first mixed with others, so
that medicine-man, ruler, and priest, were
combined in the same individual. The rise
of a separate priesthood and of religious
hierarchies is then traced out, and the argu-
ment is pursued till we reach the modern
forms of ecclesiastical institutions, "Church
and State," "Nonconformity," and "The
Moral Influences of Priesthoods." Two

LITERARY NOTICES.

413

other part3 remain to be written for the
completion of the second volume of " The
Principles of Sociology," viz., " Professional
Institutions " and " Industrial Institutions " ;
but there is reason to expect that these will
be completed with less delay than has oc-
curred with Part VI. We find a notice of
the present volume in the "Pall Mall Ga-
zette," which is so excellent that we make
an extract from it :

"Ecclesiastical Institutions "begins with a short
restatement and re-enforcement of the ghost-theory
of the orii^n of religion already laid down in the
first volume of the Sociology. It is interesting to
note how much new confirmatory evidence has
been rapidly accumulated during the Intervening
period; and Mr. Spencer therefore wisely chooses
most of the fresh instances by which he strength-
ens his case from works published since the ap-
pearance of his earlier volume. In one of these in
particular, the Rev. Dutf Macdonald's " Africana,"
conclusions almost identical with Mr. Spencer's
own have actually been arrived at by a Scotch mis-
sionary in the heart of Africa, in apparent total ig-
norance and independence, and without a passing
glimpse of their ulterior implications. From the
origin of the relit,ious idea itself, here assigned to
the belief in a soul, and consequent ancestor-wor-
ship, Mr. Spencer gradually passes on to the evolu-
tion of ecclesiastical or hierarchical systems. Be-
ginning with the medicine-man, as the propitiator
or averter of hostile ghosts, and the priest properly
so called, as the propitiator and attendant of friendly
ghosts — the family gods or manes — he proceeds to
trace the gradual development of the organization
which results with increasing culture from the last
of those two classes of functionary. Descendants,
he shows, are the first priests ; and more especially
male descendants, at least wherever the position of
women has become one of marked inferiority. But
the eldest male descendant in particular — in short,
the head of the family — tends to concentrate upon
himself the highest duty of the priesthood. More-
over, as the chief gods in early communities are de-
ceased rulers, the king, as their living representa-
tive, exercises the functions of priest also. In pro-
cess of time, the king frequently finds the priestly
offices clash with other duties, and then he dele-
gates them to others: they are performed by pro.'ty.
Hence in most instances the origin of a distinct
non-royal priesthood. The rise of such priesthoods
is well shown in the case of the Flamens, instituted
at Kome to replace the king during his temporary
absence. As the ghost gradually develops into the
god, polytheistic priesthoods of the advanced type
are evolved side by side with the evolving religion.
Sometimes the Pantheon has its relative ranks as-
signed by conquest and incorporation ; the gods of
the vanquished tribes take their place amicably in
the same system with the gods of the victors, but
naturally enough on a lower level. Eventually the
slow elevation of one grent god to a position of
marked superiority in the Pantheon may give rise to
a gravitation toward monotheism. Thus, to the phil-
osophic Greeks of the age of Socrates, Zeus had al-

most arrived at that point of supremacy over other
gods which lifts the " father of gods and men " into
the true monotheistic position, the other deities at
the same time sinking to the subordinate grades in
a sort of angeUc hierarchy. Mr. Spencer next goes
on to notice the value of the ecclesiastical system
as a social bond, especially in early times, the mili-
tary and civil functions of i>riests, and the question
of the relations between Church and State. A very
Spencerian chapter on Nonconformity is replete
with its authors ingrained independence and indi-
viduality of character ; for Mr. Spencer is nothing
if not individualist in fiber. The book ends with an
ecclesiastical and then a religious retrospect and
prospect where timid waverers may find much to
console and to reassure them. Mr. Spencer does
not see in the threatened changes of form any final
menace even to religious worship in its proper es-
sence, lie anticipates that there will always re-
main a necessity for qualifying the too pro.*aic and
material form of daily life by religious observances;
that a sphere will still exist for those who are able
to impress their hearers with a due sense of the
mystery which enshrouds the universe ; and that
musical expression to the sentiment accompanying
this sense will not only survive but will undergo
further development. Finally he concludes with
the reiteration of the idea already so fully insisted
upon in the "First Principles" : "One truth must
ever grow clearer — the truth that there is an
inscrutable existence everywhere manifested, to
which [man] can neither find n<'r conceive either
beginning or end. Amid the mysteries which
become the more mysterious the more they are
thought about, there will remain the one absolute
certainty, that he is ever in presence of an Infinite
and Eternal Energy from which all things proceed.'

INTEENATIONAL SCIENTIFIC SEPwIES,
NO. LI.

Physical Expression : Its Modes and Prin-
ciples. By Francis Warner, M. D.,
Lond., F. R. C. P. New York : D. Ap-
pleton & Co. Pp. 372, Price, $1.75.

This is an old subject much discussed
by artists, anatomists, alienists, and physi-
ognomists, from Leonardo da Vinci onward.
It has a copious literature, and, in the long
list of works given by Dr. Warner in his
bibliography, those of Sir CTiarles Bell, on
the " Anatomy and Physiology of Expres-
sion," and of Charles Darwin, on the " Ex-
pression of Emotion in Man and the Lower
Animals," are prominent. But so interest-
ing a subject as that of the physiological
signs of inward states could not fail to at-
tract multitudes of observers who have con-
tributed to it in many aspects. Fancy and
speculation, however, have outstripped sci-
ence with its explanations of the double
mechanism involved. There has been great
recent advance in our knowledge of the

414

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

structure and functions of the nervous sys-
tem, and in the development of psychology,
from the physiological side; while results
from both are of great value in arriving at
the principles involved in expression. Dr.
Warner takes up the subject broadly and
aims to treat it in the light of all that has
been gained in the various lines of research
that bear upon it. Premising that the work
is written with clearness and judgment, and
is fully illustrated, the reader will gain the
best idea of its contents by a statement of
the topics considered. The first five chap-
ters are devoted to an analysis of the nature
and the modes of expression. Chapter VI
treats of its physiology ; Chapter VII of its
pathology ; Chapter VIII of postures ; Chap-
ter IX of expression in the hand ; Chapter
X, expression in the head ; Chapter XI, ex-
pression in the human face ; Chapter XII,
expression in the eyes ; Chapter XIV, the
infant and adult; Chapter XVII, art criti-
cism ; and Chapter XIX, new apparatus for
observing and recording expression.

Recent Ameuican Socialism. By Richard
T. Ely. Baltimore : N. Murray. Pp. 74,

The author passes the history of the
early socialistic movements in the United
States with a rapid sketch-review, and gives
his attention principally to the consideration
of socialism as it has manifested itself since
the publication of Mr. George's "Progress
and Poverty." His object is to present the
character of the movements, not to pass
judgment on them ; and it is no compliment
to the intelligence of average readers that
he has felt it incumbent to excuse himself
for not obtruding his own views of their
merits and demerits ; as if, in recording that
some of the organizations advocated dyna-
miting, he should think it necessary to say
explicitly that he thought that very bad. In
his presentation, the author has endeavored
to let the parties concerned speak for them-
selves as far as possible, thereby securing
further accuracy and impartiality. He clas-
sifies the advanced Socialists of the present
day into the two groups of the Internation-
alists— a party of violence, believing in the
use of dynamite and like weapons of warfare
as a means of attaining their purpose — and
the Socialistic Labor party, who condemn
these tactics, and some of whom have not

renounced all hope of a peaceable revolu-
tion of society ; and calls attention to the
superior character of the men of the latter
party as compared with those of the former.
Besides these are the labor unions, not act-
ually and avowedly socialistic, but liable to
tendencies in that direction and claimed as
at least prospective allies by the socialists-
The danger from these movements is real,
though the extreme peril may not be imme-
diate ; and " of course we all hope for the
best, but in the mean time it may be safer
to fear what is worse, and it can do no harm
to be watchful." As for a remedy, " there
is no simple, easily apphed formula which
will cure social evils, and any one is a
quack who pretends to have found one. Re-
pressive legislation, in the absence of overt
acts, has failed to repress the growth of
the socialistic sentiment, and is likely to
fail. The cure is to be sought in the oppo-
site direction, of finding out what are the
real, reasonable grievances of the men among
whomUhis sentiment is cultivated, and de-
vising and applying measures to ameliorate
them. Then, with this purpose kept hon-
estly in view, " in the harmonious action of
state, church, and individual, moving in the
light of true science, will be found an escape
from present and future social dangers.
Herein is pointed out the path of safe prog-
ress ; other there is none."

Planting Trees in School-Grocnds, and
THE Celebration of Arhor-Day. Wash-
ington: Government Printiug-Office. Pp.
64.

This is a document issued by the Bureau
of Education for the purpose of cultivating
interest in the planting of trees and of turn-
ing attention in the direction in which the
work may be most profitably done. It con-
tains " lessons from history " and other
facts, to show the importance of preserving
the forests ; selections from literature and
poetry, to be used in making up the pro-
gramme for the exercises of Arbor-day ; and
a practical essay on " Planting Trees in
School-Grounds." In this paper we observe
the suggestion that, in selecting the kinds of
trees to be planted in school-grounds, regard
should be had to their liability to injury
from accident, their tendency to sprout where
not wanted, the agreeable or disagreeable
odors that they may emit, the omamfintal

I

LITERARY NOTICES.

415

character of their flowers or fruit, their lon-
gevity, rate of growth, and other circum-
stances tending to make them more or less
acceptable in the places where they are to
remain. The American elm and the soft
maples appear to be among the trees best
adapted to this purpose.

Offices of Electricity in the Earth, pp.
42 ; and Origin of Species, pp. 76. By
H. B. Philbrook. New York : " Prob-
lems of Nature," 21 Park Row.

These two pamphlets, which together
attempt a new cosmology and a theory of
development intended to take the place of
the "mistaken attempt" of Darwin, fur-
nish an example of the nonsense which a
class of visionary theorists imagine they can
pass off for science. The basis of Mr. Phil-
brook's system is that the universe and all
its parts and contents are manifestations of
electricity. When he comes to details, he
is startling as well as amusing. Thus :
" The atmosphere is only a continuation of
the condensation of the electricity of the
solar system, and each atom of gas of this
abundant element is but a slightly con-
densed globe of mica." Gold "is pro-
duced simply by a great pressure of parti-
cles of mica. Silver is constructed by the
pressure of chalk ; copper by the pressing
of the mica partly decomposed, and tlie sub-
stance is but little different from gold. Iron
is produced by pressing quartz and the un-
decomposed mica in it." Coal is formed by
the exposure of coral to great heat, and ex-
ists wherever there are mountains : in the
Orange Mountains of New Jersey, and in
Massachusetts, " sufficient coal for a whole
nation," and if bored for deep enough, will
be found there. Less heat than is required
to convert coral into coal produces trap.

Niagara Park Illustrated. Edited by
Alice Hyneman Rhine. New York :
Niagara Publishing Company. Pp. 112.
Price, 50 cents.

The author gives as a reason for having
prepared this book, " a desire to commemo-
rate the freedom of Niagara from individual
possession, and becoming in a manner the
property of the world. Surely, if anything
deserves a printed formal recognition, it is
the removal of that great indignity done to
Nature's masterpiece in the past." Her

thought was a)happy one, and her execution
is worthy of it — and as nearly worthy as a
modest human effort can presume to be, of
the subject. A better guide the visitor need
not ask for, and a more agreeable compan-
ion in a guide he is not likely to get. The
directory of points of interest on the Amer-
ican and Canadian sides forms a but rela-
tively small part of the book, but it is the
practical part, and is ample for its purpose.
The mass of the book is made up of choice
articles from travelers and poets, most of
them classics in English and American lit-
erature, describing the falls or reflecting
the emotions which they have awakened ;
in short, it is a compendium of that which
is best in the literature and romance of the
falls. These articles are accompanied by
numerous excellent illustrations.

Eistort and Management of Land Grants
FOR Education in the Northwest Ter-
ritory. By George W. Knight. New
York: G. P. Putman's Sons. Pp. 175.
Price, 50 cents.

This work is number three in the series
of papers of the American Historical Asso-
ciation. It reviews the history of all the
grants of land that have been made by
Congress in aid of education in the North-
west Territory and the States of Ohio, In-
diana, Elinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin ;
the dispositions that were made of them in
the several States ; the manner in which the
funds accruing from them have been man-
aged ; and the net results in benefit to edu-
cation that have been derived from them
The grants were variously made to the Ter
ritory as a whole, and to the States in sev
eralty; they included the "school-section'
in every township of thirty-six sections
saline lands, swamp-lands, grants for semi-
naries or universities, grants for agricultu-
ral colleges, and special grants. The grants
have in no case been as well managed as
they might have been, and have been in
some instances badly managed, with much
waste ; but, with all this, they have been
" instrumental, in a degree that can not be
estimated in mere dollars and cents, in pro-
moting the cause of education. It is doubt-
ful if with the wisest management the
school-land could have been made to main-
tain unassisted the work for which it was
set aside. Perhaps the greatest benefit ren-

4i6

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

dered by the funds has been in fostering
among the people a desire for good schools.
Without the land grants, the burden of
maintaining free schools would have seemed
oppressive to the new State, but, aided by
the income of the funds, the people have
grown into a habit of taxing themselves
heavily for the support of education. Thus
the funds have made practicable a system
of education which without them it would
have been impossible to establish."

City School Systems i\ thk United States.

By John D. Puilbkick. Washington,

D. C. : Government Printing-Ufficc. Pp.

207.

This work is Xo. 1 of the " Circulars of
Information" of the Bureau of Education
for 1885. Its author is one of the most
experienced of American city school super-
intendents, aud one who has written or said
a great deal on educational subjects ; and
in it he has presented an extensive review
of the principles and conditions of the edu-
cational organizations, generally, of all the
towns in our country having populations of
more than eight thousand or thereabout,
and particularly of the larger cities which
have the most clearly defined systems. The
points to which attention is chiefly directed
cover the administration and organization of
the schools ; the classes and kinds of schools;
the studies, supervision, programmes, and
supplementary reading provided for ; indus-
trial education ; physical and other drill ; gra-
tuitous instruction; gratuitous text -books
the tenure of office of teachers ; the sex of
teachers ; examinations, promotions, and ex-
hibitions; the question of "recess and no
recess," concerning which he speaks with
force against the abolition of recess; school
ages ; sufficiency of accommodation ; school-
houses, museums, decorations and art ; ped-
agogical libraries ; and coercive attendance.

The Boys' and Girls' Pliny. Edited, with
an Introduction, by John S. White, LL.
D. New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons.
Pp. 326, with Illustrations. Price, $3.

In this adaptation, which is the third
and last of a brief series of classical au-
thors — Plutarch, Herodotus, and Pliny —
which the editor has prepared for the read-
ing of boys and girl?, the selection is made
from the most interesting parts of Pliny's

" Xatural History." As the author's science,
however pleasant reading it may be — and in
that respect it is not excelled — would not be
good science in the present day, it calls for
frequent correction ; this is given in all cases
where Pliny's statements have been proved
erroneous, except where they are so evi-
dently preposterous as to need no comment.
For his foot-notes, the editor has had re-
course to Cuvier, Bostock, and Ajasson, de-
voted students of Pliny, he says, " whose
work can rarely be improved upon." In the
introduction are given the life of Pliny and
his nephew's account of his death by the
eruption of Vesuvius.

Twenty-five Yeaus with the Insane. By
Daniel Putnam. Detroit : John ilac-
farlane. Pp. 157. Price, 75 cents.

The author of this book was for twenty-
five years Chaplain of the Michigan Asylum
for the Insane, at Kalamazoo, and he sets
forth here the results of his experience and
observations in that capacity. After an his-
torical review of the development of the
modern methods of taking care of the in-
sane, he considers their proper care in asy-
lums, their treatment outside of asylums,
depicts the opinions and feelings of patients,
and discusses the relations of schools, relig-
ion, alcohol, tobacco, and other narcotics,
inherited tendencies, and crime, with insani-
ty. He believes that asylums and hospitals
for the insane have done much for the relief
of one of the most pitiable forms of human
suffering, and that it is possible for them
to do more and better in the future.

The Co-operative Commonwealth in its
Outlines. By Lawrence Gkonlcnd.
Boston : Lee & Shepard. New York :
Charles T. Dillingham. Pp. 278. Price,
$1.

This book presents to the reader, in a
concise, logical, and readable form, the prin-
cipal propositions of modern socialism, from
the point of view of a socialist. It has been
written, according to the professions of the
author, that it may be seen that the social
and political phenomena in all progressive
countries, and particularly m our own coun-
try and Great Britain, are, in a perfectly
natural manner, evolving a new social order,
a social-democratic order, to which the name
of the " Co-operative Commonwealth " is

LITERARY NOTICES.

417

I

given, or, that socialism is no importation,
but a home product, wherever found ; to
give good reasons for expecting that the
new social order will be a " happy issue "
to every ohc, and to justify the conviction
that the situation must come to this new
order within a comparatively short period,
or to barbarism. The author has also a
more serious purpose than the one of mere
information, which is to prepare the public
to take such an attitude as to make the rev-
olution, which he foresees as a certainty, a
bloodless and dangerless one, resulting in
the establishment of a wholesome security.

The Blood-Covesant, By H. Clay Trum-
bull, D. D. New York : Charles Scrib-
ner's Sons. Pp. 350. Price, $2.

The blood-covenant is a rite by which
two persons absorb each the other's blood,
either by drinking or by transfusion to the
veins, whereby they become bound to one
another in even a closer connection than
that of brotherhood. It prevails in many
countries — savage, barbarous, and semi-
barbarous — and may be traced back to ex-
treme antiquity. Dr. Trumbull discovers it
first in Syria ; then finds numerous accounts
of it in the journals of African travelers
and of adventurers among the North Amer-
ican Indians ; detects it in the Norse lands
of Europe and in India, and so around the
world. He might also have found it a char-
acteristic custom among the Albanians and
some of the south Slavs. Going back into
history he finds it still more prevalent in
the olden times, and, seeking to discover it
in its origins, he detects it in the rites and
literature of the ancient Egyptians, and al-
lusions upon allusions to it in the books of
the Bible. Besides description and history,
the purpose of his book is to investigate
the meaning and symbolism of the rite.
He believes that its origin, to use one of the
many statements he makes respecting it, is
m " the universally dominating primitive
convictions that the blood is the life ; that
the hcai't, as the blood-fountain, is the very
soul of every personality ; that blood-trans-
fer is soul-transfer ; that blood-sharing, hu-
man or divine-human, secures an inter-union
of natures ; and that a union of the human
nature with the divine is the highest ulti-
mate attainment reached out after by the
VOL. XXVIII. — 27

most primitive as well as by the most en-
lightened mind of humanity." With sav-
age and barbarous peoples the rite lies at
the foundation of cannibalism ; it is the mo-
tive of sacrifices, in which the animal is of-
fered to the god as a substitute for the hu-
man blood. In one form the drops of blood
were put in wine or other draughts and
drunken : then the wine was drunken without
the actual presence of the blood ; whence we
have the use of wine in pledges of friend-
ship and in marriage. Among the Jews it
is symbolized in circumcision ; and, finally,
It found its culmination in the offering of
the blood of Christ, which Christians of all
denominations again observe symbolically,
after their Master's own institution, in the
use of wine at the sacrament. These views,
which Dr. Trumbull sets forth with much
force and copious illustrations by references
and quotations, are not a theory which he
set out to prove, but are thoughts that have
grown upon him as he has advanced in his
work, and have been suggested by his re-
searches ; and the fact that they have been
hitherto overlooked furnishes, to his mind,
another illustration of the " inevitably
cramping influence of a preconceived fixed
theory — to which all the ascertained facts
must be conformed — in any attempt at thor-
ough and impartial scientific investigation."

iliND - Cure ox a Material Basis. By
Sarah Elizabeth Titcomb. Boston:
Cupples, Upham & Co. New York : Bren-
tano Brothers. Pp. 288.

The author of this work having acquired
the method of curing disease which is prac-
ticed by the mind-curers, came to the con-
clusion that the success attending that meth-
od is due to concentration of thought, and
not to the theology underlying the method.
She regards it as a well-attested fact that
disease, even inorganic, can be cured as well
as caused by the mind or the imagination.
Besides especially elaborating this theory
she reviews " The Theology of the Christian
Scientists"; discusses "The Single-Substance
Theory," or MateriaHsm, and the manifesta-
tions of " Mind in Animals and in the Lower
Places of Men"; attempts to trace "The
Origin of the Doctrine of the Immortal
Soul " ; and searches for " Bible Proofs of
the Single-Substance Theory."

4i8

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Methods of Reseakch in Microscopical
Anatomy and Embryology. By Charles
Otis Whitman. Boston : S. E. Cassino
& Co. Pp. 255. Price, $3.

The aim of this work is to supply in a
measure a need which has been created by
the rapid development of the methods of
microscopical anatomy and embryology with-
in the last few years. The contents of the
volume have been arranged in two parts,
the first embracing methods of a more gen-
eral nature, such as preservative fluids,
dyes, macerating fluids, fixatives, mounting
media, the microtome with its appurte-
nances, methods of imbedding, etc. ; and
the second including special applications
of embryological, anatomical, and histo-
logical methods. Under the head of " em-
bryological methods" are given, besides
accounts of objects of study, notes on such
points as the times, places, and best meth-
ods of collecting, breeding-habits, food, and
other items of information that may aid the
student in making a choice of material and
controlling its supply. The part on special
methods is designed to meet the wants of
the beginner as well as of the more ad-
vanced studcHt.

RErORT ON roi>ESTRT (Department of Agri-
culture). Prepared by Nathaniel IT,
Egleston. Vol. IV. 1884. Washing-
ton : Government Printing-Office. Pp.
421.

This report is compiled from the replies
to the circulars of inquiry which have been
sent out to various parts of the country,
asking for information respecting different
points in the condition of the forests and
the consumption of wood. The facts thus
gathered are arranged in the shape of spe-
cial reports by agents of the department, as
on the collection, preservation, and planting
of seeds or young trees in the prairie States;
the condition of forests, timber-culture, etc.,
in the Southern and Western States ; on the
kmds and quantity of timber used for rail-
road-ties (from facts furnished by two hun-
dred and eighty-three railroad companies) ;
on the decrease of woodlands in Oiiio ; on
the forest condition and lumber and wood
trade of certain States ; on the growth, etc.,
of trees ; on the forests of Washington Ter-
ritory ; and on the production of maple-su-
gar in the United States and Canada.

The German Verb -Drill. By Adolphe
Dreyspring. New York : D. Appleton
& Co. Pp. 276.

Professor Dreyspring is the author of
the " Cumulative Method " of teaching Ger-
man, which he illustrates by the motto —
Rcpditio mater studiorum — " repetition the
mother of studies." The purpose of this
work is to present the mechanism of the
colloquial and written languages in a series
of exercises on the verbs, always lively and
varied, yet subject to a well-ordered system.
The author selects this part of speech as
the central object of the exercises, because
he believes that the oflice of none other is
more complex, more important, and more
useful in ministering to the power and in-
telligibility of expression. It is also the
part of speech which in German as in other
languages goes through more inflections
and raises more difficulties in construction
than any other ; so that whoever masters
the verb has little difficulty with anything
else. The verb-drill takes the form of a
lively conversation between the teacher and
the class, in which a single verb being se-
lected for the day's lesson, it is passed
along in its inflections and with its combi-
nations. The plan appears to us, looking
at it from without, adapted to facilitate the
study of language and make it more inter-
esting, while it is also fundamental and
thorough.

Lectures on the Principles of Uouse-
Drainage. By J. Pickering Putnam,
Aichitect. Boston : Ticknor & Co. Pp.
125. A Guide to Sanitary House-In-
spection. By William Paul Gerhard,
C. E. New York : John Wiley & Sons.
Pp. 145. Price, $1.25.

The " Lectures " of the former volume
were delivered at the Massachusetts Insti-
tute of Technology, before the Suff"olk Dis-
trict Medical Society and the Boston Society
of Architects. Their scope is chiefly the
presentation of the principles on which the
drainage appliances of houses should be con-
structed and arranged, with criticisms of
existing appliances and arrangements. The
author has himself devised some new appli-
ances, the qualities of which he describes,
but always with an honest notice to the
reader that he is talking about his own work.
A foreign and independent judgment of the

LITERARY NOTICES.

419

value of the lectures is given in a request
which was made by the editor of the " Sani-
tary Record," London, for permission to re-
publish them.

The principal aim of Mr. Gerhard's book
is to instruct the householder respecting
the main features of a sanitary house-in-
spection, particularly in the matter of search-
ing for defects in the arrangements. First
is considered the inspection of city houses
as to their surroundings and soil, the cellar,
yard, structural details, sewerage and plumb-
ing, water-supply, method of garbage dis-
posal, arrangements for warming, gas-light-
ing, ventilation, for exclusion of bad odors,
prevention of dust, and for safety against
fire ; next, are articles on apartment-houses
and tenement -houses, on country-houses,
which, like city-houses, are treated in de-
tail, and on summer boarding-houses and
summer resorts.

Marvels of Animal Life. By Charlks
Frederick IIoLDER. New York: Charles
Scribucr's Sons. Pp. 240, with Plates.
Price, §2.

The aim of this inviting volume is to
interest youth in natural history by point-
ing out the attractive side and so presenting
its interesting features that they will go out
and become investigators for themselves. It
relates wholly to marine life. Many of the
observations chronicled in it, the author says,
" were made during a long residence upon
a coral reef or atoll, some while swimming
under water along the bristling coral banks
that formed a characteristic feature of our
tropical home, and others are the memories
of many practical collecting tours in vari-
ous localities." The author displays much
talent in presenting the brighter sides of
his pictures.

Rudder Grange. By Frank R. Stockton.
Pp. 322. Price, 81.25. The Last Meet-
ing. By Brander Matthews. Pp. 268.
New York : Charles Scribner's Sons.
" Rudder Grange " is an amusing sketch
of experiments in housekeeping, rather fan-
jciful than real, we judge, which we have
read with much pleasure, and can commend
as all healthy and good for a leisure mo-
ment. "The Last Meeting" has a more
elaborate plot and greater variety of inci-
dent, and appears to deal witli sadder scenes.

The Commonwealth op Georgia : The
Country, the People, and the Produc-
tions. Prepared under the direction of
J. T. Henderson, Commissioner of Agri-
culture. Atlanta : J. P. Harrison & Co.
Pp.379. With Fifteen Maps. Price, 81.

In this work, which is published under
the authority of the State, as a hand-book,
the attempt is made to depict, by a series
of maps, in an intelligible and acceptable
way, the geology, agriculture, temperature
and rainfall, water -powers, forestry, min-
erals, and elevations of Georgia. In the
letterpress are given, with considerable de-
tail, descriptions of the population, public
institutions, government, educational estab-
lishments, newspapers, and of the fruit,
grass, garden, and field products.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Natural Gas : Its Advantages, Use, and Econo-
mies. By George H. Thurston. 18^5. Pittsburg :
A. A. Anderson & Son, Printers. Pp. 32.

Fifth Report of the Shellfish Commissioners of
the State of Connecticut to the General Assembly,
January, 1SS6. 1SS5. Middletown : Pelton & King,
Printers. Pp. 26.

Report of the Proceedings of the Illinois State
Board of Health. Quarterly Meeting, Springfield,
October 29, 80, 1SS5.

Geometrical Form of Volcanic Cones and the
Elastic Limit of Lava. By George F. Becker. Re-
print from the " American' Journal of Science.'' Pp.
11.

A Contribution to the Vertebrate Paleontology
of Brazil, and Second Continuation of Researches
among the Batrachia of the Coal-Measures of Ohio.
By E. D. Cope. 18S5. Philadelphia : A. E. Foote.

On Poly.'synthesis and Incorporation as Charac-
teris^tics of American Languas-es. By Daniel G.
Brinton, M. I). 1S;5. Philadelphia : McCalla &
Stavely. Pp. 41.

The Physiologic.il and Pathological Effects of the
Use of Tobacco. By Hobart Amorv Hare, M. D.
lbS5. Philadelphia : P. Blakiston, Son & Co. Pp.
86. Illustrated.

Index to the Literature of Uranium, ITSO-lSSa.
By H. Carrington Bolton. Ph. D. ISS.i. Washing-
ton : Government Printing-Office. Pp. 36.

Remarks on a Supposed Fossil Fungus from
the Coal-Measuree. By Professor Joseph F. James.
Pp. 10.

S.aratoga 'Winter and Summer : An Epitome of
the Early Hii'tory. Romance. Legends, and Charac-
teristics of the Greatest of American Resorts. By
Prentiss Ingraham. New York, 1S85. Pp. 110.
Illustrated.

Forest Preservation in Can.ida. By A. T. Drtun-
mond. Montreal, IS-^. Pj) 1.

Introspective Insanity. By Allan McLaac Ham-
ilton, M. 1). Reprint from the "American Journal
of the Medical Sciences." 1SS5. Pp. S.

Free Cities in the Middle Ages. By L. E.
Klemm, Ph. D. Hamilton, Ohio. Pp. 23.

Inaugural Kxercifes of the ITenry Sbaw School
of Botanv. Washington University, St. Louis, Mo.
1665. Pp. 24.

Report of the Committee on indexing Chemieal
Literature. By H. Carrington Bolton. Pp. 5.

Cervalces Americanus. A Fossil Moose or E^k

420

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

from the Quaternary of New Jersey. By W. B.
Scott. Pp. 22. Illustrated.

Chemistry in the Service of Public Health. By
"William Kiplcy Nichols. 1S85. Salem Press : tea-
1cm, .Mass. Pp. 20.

The Fixed Idea of Astronomical Theory. By
August Tischner. Ii85. Leipsic : Gustav Fock.
Pp. tjO.

Forty-second Annual Report of the New York
Association for improvinp-the Condition of the Poor
for the Year ISSo. New York, 18so.

The Necessity for Closer lielations between the
Army and the People, and the Best Motliod to ac-
complish the Kesuic. By Captain George F. Bricrf,
U. S. A. lsS5. New York : G. P. Putnam's oons.
Pp. 80. 25 cents.

Price List of Publications of the Smithsonian In-
stitution. July, ISSJ. No. 027. Washington : Gov-
ernment Priutinj,'-Office. Pp. 2T.

Third Annual Report of the Board of Control of
the New York Agricultural Experiment Station for
the Year lib4. Albany : Weed, Parsons & Co.

I3i5.

Why Modern Cremation should replace Earth-
Burial. Is65. San Francisco : Bacon & Co.

Astronomical Papers [irepared for the Use of
the American Kphenieris and Nautical Almanac.
Vol. II, Part.-* Ill and IV ; Velocitvof Lipht in Air,
and Refracting Media. IbSo. Washington : Gov-
ernment Printing-Ofhoe.

The Physician's Visiting List for ISSG. Phila-
delphia : P. Blakiston, Son & ( o. Various sizes,
at prices from $1 to %'i.

Ventilation of Buildings. By W. F. Butler.
Ee-editedand enlarged by James L. Greenleaf, C. E.
New York: I). A'anNosirand. Pp. U7. Price, 50
cents.

Chemical An.nly?is for Schools and Science
Classes. By A. H. Scott White. New Y'ork : Scrib-
Der&Welford. Pp.130.

The Idea of God as affecfefi by Modern Knowl-
edge. By John Fiskc. Boston "and New Y'ork :
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Pp. ITS. Price, $1.

First Lessons in Philosophy. By M. 8. Hand-
ley. New Y'ork : Scribner & Welford. Pp. 59.

Bird-Ways. By r)live Thorne Miller. Boston
and New York : Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Pp. 227.
Price, $1.

Men, Women, and Gods, and other Lectures.
By Helen H. Gardener. New York : The " Truth-
Seeker" Company. Pp. 15S. Price, $1.

Railroad Transportation : Its History and its
Laws. By Arthur T. lladlev. New York: G. P.
Putnam's'Sons. Pp. 2()9. Piice. $1.50.

Afternoon Songs. By Julia C. R. Dorr. New
York : Charles Scribner's Sons. Pp. 164. Price,
$1.50.

Chemical Equilibrium the Result of the Dissipa-
tion of Energy. By G. D Liveing. New York :
Scribner & Wciford. Pp. 97, with Plates.

Darwinism and other Ess.iys. By John Fiske.
New edition, revi.sed and enlarfrr-d. 1SS5. Boston
and New York : Houirhton. Mifflin & Co. Price, $2.

Charles Dnrwin. Bv Grant Allen. 18S5. New
York : D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 206. 75 cents.

Physical Expression : Its Modes and Principles.
Rv Francis Warner. M. D., Lond., F. R. C. P. ls85.
NevT York : D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 872. Price,
$1.76.

A Political Crime. Bv A. M. Gibson. New
York : William 8. Gottsberger. Pp. 402.

Elements of ITniver.sal History. By Prof II. M.
Cottinger. Boston : Charles ll. Whiting. Pp.
886.

Social Wealth. Rv J. K. Ing.ills. Netv York :
The" Truth-Seeker" Comp»ny. Pp 820. Irice, $1.

The Pedisree of Disoa.so. By Jonathan Hutch-
inson, F. R. 8. New York: WilUam Wood & Co.
Pp. 113.

Gray's Botanical Text-Book. Vol. II. Phys-
iol'gical Botany. By George Lincoln Goodale.
New York : Ivison, Blakemau, Taylor & Co. Pp.
534.

Poems. By Jamin Willsbro. Philadelphia:
Benjamin F. Lacey. Pp. ll'J.

Italian Popular Tales. By Thomas Frederick
Crane. lio>ton and New York: Houghton, Mifflin
& Co. Pp. 3(39. Price, $2.50.

The Silent South. By George W. Calle. New
York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Pp. ISO, Price,
$1.

AMortnl Antipathy. Bj' Oliver Wendoll Holmes.
Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
Pp. 307. Price, $1.50.

Report of the Chief Signal Officer of the Army
lor 18S4. Washington : Government Printing-Of-
fice. Pp. 719, with Charts.

Manual of the Botany of the Rocky Mountain
Region. By John M. Coulter, Ph. D. Now Y'ork :
IvisoD, Blakeman, Taylor & Co. Pp. 4b0.

Psychiatry. By Theodore Meynert, M D.
Tr-mslated by B. Sachs, M. D. New York: G. P.
Putnam's Sons. Pp. 2S5. Price, $2.75.

The Prehistoric Palace of the Kings of Tiryns.
By Dr. Henry Schliemann. New Y'ork : Charles
Scribner's Sous. Pp. 3S5. with Chromo-Litho-
graphic Plates, Map, and Plans. Price, $10.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

Prehistoric Hnmaii Remains in Mexico.
— Mariano de la Barcena describes in the
" America^ Naturalist " some liuman re-
mains that have been found in the hill
Penon de los Baiios, near the city of Mexi-
co, imbedded in a hard rock of silicified
calcareous tufa. The cranium, with the up-
per and lower maxillsB and fragments of
the collar-bone, vertebrae, ribs, and bones
from the upper and lower limbs, are ex-
posed, and present a yellowish appearance
and the characteristic aspects of fossiliza-
tion. No other fossils occur in the hill,
and the age of the formation can only be
estimated. The bed has evidently suffered
upheaval since the bones were deposited in
it, and their disordered condition is ac-
counted for by this fact. Two facts seem
at once to show that, even supposing it to
be of the present age, it must be of remote
antiquity. They are, the elevation of the
ground above the actual level of Lake Tez-
cuco, and the remarkable hardness of the
rock, which is different from that of the
other calcareous rocks that contain remains
of ceramics or roots of plants clearly mod-
ern. The stratigraphical and lithologlcal
characteristics of the ground indicate that
the formation belongs to the Upper Quater-
nary, or at least to the base of the present
geological age.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

421

Forests of tie Pacific Region. — Accord-
in"- to our census report, the forests of the
Pacific region owe tlieir density and position
to the character of the rainfall, which is
heavier on the northern part of that coast
than anywhere else in the United States ;
and their general distribution and density
follow the distribution and amount of the
rainfall, diminishing as we go southward
into drier climates. The forests of this re-
gion are: the Xorthern forest, from the
seventieth to the fifty-eighth degree of lati-
tude, composed principally of white spruce
and species allied to but not identical with
the canoe-birch and balsam-fir of the At-
lantic coast ; the Coast forest, extending in
a narrow strip from the sixtieth to the fifti-
eth parallel, and thence along the summit
of the Sierra Nevada, almost to the Mexican
line, composed of a few coniferous species,
among which are the Alaska cedar, the tide-
land-spruce, the hemlock, and the red fir.
Its important feature is the red-wood belt,
whose heaviest growth is found north of the
Bay of San Francisco, and which contains
more wood than any other forest of similar
extent. The forest of the western slope of
the Sierra Nevada, extending from the base
of Mount Shasta to the thirty-fifth parallel,
is next in density, is from four thousand to
eight thousand feet above the sea, and is
characterized by the great sugar-pine. The
forest of the Valleys is composed of scat-
tered oaks; and the Interior forest, from
the Sierra to the Rocky Mountains, is of in-
ferior importance.

How Milk is tainted. — According to the
"Live-Stock Journal," milk is most liable
to be hurt by the absorption of odors when
it is colder than the surrounding air. For
when it is warmer, the air, warmed by the
contact with it, expands, with an increased
capacity for absorbing gases and moisture,
and rises, carrying such odors as it may
have collected along with it. Thus, cold
air, though it be not wholly pure, does not
contaminate milk, but tends to purify it.
Milk will not become contaminated, even in
the stable, so long as it is warmer than the
fiuri'ounding air. The question how stable-
odors get into milk is answered by the
statement that they are acquired from the
breath of the cow. The animal can not

avoid taking in these odors, and upon en-
tering the lungs they are forced at once into
the circulation. The blood becomes charged
with them, and the milk, which serves as a
means of unloading the blood of its impuri-
ties as well as of its nutriment, also becomes
loaded with them intensified.

Individnal Enterprise in Scientific Re-
search.— While different governments have
equipped large expeditions and spent con-
siderable sums of money to assist deep-sea
dredging expeditions, a similar work has
been going on in Switzerland, which has no
marine and not a very plethoric treasury,
by individual effort, in the study of life in
the depths of the lakes. The brunt of the
labor has been performed by Dr. F. A. Forcl,
of Morgues, Professor of Comparative Anat-
omy in the Academy of Lausanne, who is at
home in nearly all the sciences, a man in the
vigor of his age, very active and very enter-
prising, and acquainted with Lake Leman
to its very bottom and in all its moods. He
has published a considerable number of
memoirs respecting his explorations, and the
lessons in biology and the theory of de-
velopment which they suggest, of which he
takes the broadest views, and to which he
has given thorough examination. His prin-
cipal collaborator in the zoological field is
Dr. Du Plessis, Professor of Zoology in the
Academy, who has been for twelve years
engaged in the determination of genera
and species, and has prepared a critical
table of the species constituting the deep-
zone fauna. Dr. Forel has personally made
soundings and examinations, besides Lake
Leman, in the Lakes of Anneey, Morat,
Neufch^tel, Ziirich, and Constance. Profess-
or Pavcsi, of the University of Pavia, has
explored the lakes of the canton of Tessin
and Northern Italy. Dr. Aspcr, of the Uni-
versity of Ziirich, has dredged in the lakes
of Zurich, Wallenstadt, Egeri, Zug, the
Lake of the Four Cantons, Lugano, Como,
Klonthal, Silse, and Silvaplana. Some of
these lakes are situated high upon the Alps,
and are consequently of interest in the
study of the vertical distribution of species.
Dr. Imhof, of Zurich, has also examined
several lakes, and contemplates extending
his studies over a considerable geographical
area. August Weissman, of Fribourr^-in-

422

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Brisgau, has also published sorae works on
the inhabitants of the Lake of Constance.

Family - Schools of Donsekceping. — A

writer in the "Pall Mall Gazette" who has
herself been trained in that way proposes, as
a means of putting an end to the troubles
about poor servants and bad housekeeping,
that the German plan be adopted of send-
ing every young girl after she has finished
her school education, and before she is " out,"
to learn housekeeping. This every girl in
Germany does, be she the daughter of no-
bleman, officer, or small official. She goes
direct from school into a family correspond-
ing with her station in life. Those who are
rich go where they arc paid highly, and are
in " good family," so that they arc enabled
to live well and have good cooking and great
variety. No one is taken into one of these
establishments for less than a year, so tha*
every month a new branch is learned — one
month the preserving of fruit in season, the
next laying-in of apples and vegetables for
winter use, preserving of eggs and butter,
etc. These girls are taught everything, from
washing up dishes, sweeping and polishing
the floors, clear-starching and ironing, dust-
ing and cleaning ornaments, cooking, lay-
ing the table, waiting, polishing the silver
and glass up, to decorating the table with
flowers and fruit. Great is the ambition of
the pupil to hear that her taste and man-
agement are the best. Combined with these
duties are those of keeping the household
linen in repair and learning plain sewing.
Thus the young girl gets experience in house-
hold affairs. Though the pupils have to
learn everything, servants arc kept in these
establishments, and in their turn are taught
by the advanced pupils, who have learned
from the mother of the family. This ac-
counts for the excellent housekeeping in
Germany, where comfort is combined with
economy and the pleasure of having every-
thing precise and clean. The labors of the
day are over at midday, that being the din-
ner-time, when everybody is at liberty for
study, needlework, or amusement till time
for preparing for supper. There are many
families in England who can not afford to
keep servants enough to do well all that has
to be done. In these families they have to
train servants, not being able to afford to

keep trained ones. 'Wliynot, in these cases,
train young ladies (who would al>o be com-
panions to the daughters) ? They might
pay something for the instruction, and so
put something into the teachers' pocket,
while they would also work for her, and at
the same time reap informction, which they
could again impart, and so train good serv-
ants, who are at present so hard to get. Mis-
tresses are imable to teach, never having
been taught themselves. Thus they are de-
pendent on servants ; for when they find
fault they are unable, either in cooking or
other matters, to point out the mistake or
show the correct way. Servants, knowing this
fact, arc independent and rule the house, and
the " mistresses " must submit. The Ger-
man system of living with a family and learn-
ing by experience how to manage a house
is far better than either cooking-schools or
lectures on the subject, as a greater variety
of things are learned, and they are done in
a more refined and economical way.

" Rages " in Surgery. — A part of the
Presidential address of M. Ycrneuil at the
recent meeting of the French Association
consisted in a spirited and somewhat sar-
castic protest against the prevalence of fash-
ions, or " rages," as they arc colloquially
termed, in surgery. "When he began his
career, tenotomy was the rage, and tendons,
ligaments, and muscles were divided subcu-
taneously in all parts of the body. A little
later " resecomania" flourished, especially
in Germany and England, so that some sur-
geons reckoned their resections by the hun-
dred. Nowadays, when a specialist intro-
duces an operation all specialists follow suit,
but with a variation in the shape of the new
instrument, so that, " if a museum of operat-
ive medicine were founded, immense cases
would be necessary to exhibit all the litho-
tomes, urethrotomes,hystcrotomes,and other
' tomes,' comprising small unnamed instru-
ments, intended, I believe, to divide stric-
tures of the nasal duct — strictures which,
be it said without bitterness, hardly ever
exist, or arc in places where they have no
need of being divided when they do exist."
Gynrecology and ophthalmology compete for
honors in this department, and . the palm
must be given to the former, for, apart from
cauterizations, etc., of the cervix, it has giv-

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

423

en rise to an Emmet's operation, Battcy's
or Hegar's operation, an Alexander's opera-
tion, etc. Tlie reviews and journals speak
of them and praise them, so that a gynae-
cologist who has no " cases " to produce is
little thought of. In the same strain M.
Verneuil criticised other measures recently
in vogue, and hinted that most of them
would in process of time become as disre-
garded as the once prevailing fashion of an
iridectomy preliminary to cataract extrac-
tion. Much had been made of late years,
he said, of extirpations of the larynx, of the
pharynx, of the stomach, of the uterus, of
the kidneys, etc., and he asked, " IIow many
patients have been cured thereby ? How
many have derived any benetit whatever
from these terrible undertakings ? Barely
ten per cent. For these I admit that the
operation has been of service, but for the
ninety others can its abuse be denied ? Giv-
en a hundred cases of disease," he added, " at
a certain period one half are operated upon ;
twenty years later not more than one fourth
are submitted to operation. If the results
of the two series are equally successful, I
conclude that, of fifty of the operations in
the first scries, twenty-five at least were su-
perfluous."

Hediatval English Law. — A collection of
records of English criminal cases of a. d.
1221 has recently been published, in which
may be found numerous illustrations of the
condition and peculiarities of the law of the
period. In a case where the persons charged
with a triple murder had fled and could not
be held, it was recorded that "Englishry
was not proved, therefore there are three
fines." This refers to a rule made by the
Conqueror, for the protection of his follow-
ers, that the hundred or township in which
a foreigner was slain should be fined if the
slayer was not produced. On the strength
of this, the lawyers invented a tradition that
every one should be considered a foreigner
till it could be proved that he was an English-
man ; and they took care that this should
not be an easy thing to prove. In Glouces-
tershire, where these trials took place, three
witnesses had to be produced, two on the
father's and one on the mother's side. Xo
woman's testimony was admitted. Conse-
quently, in a great many cases, where prob-

ably there was no reason to believe the
victim to have been a foreigner, " Englishry
was not proved," and the death-fine was
exacted. Prisoners not caught in the com-
mission of the offense seem to have had
the privilege of declining to be tried, when
they enjoyed the possibility of escaping
punishment. One John de la Mare, who
had killed a miller with a stone, refused to
be tried by a jury, saying he had been in
the war with King John, and had done
harm to many people. He was not produced
when he was wanted, and his securities were
fined half a mark apiece. A father and
son, suspected of murdering a person who
had been their guest, denied the charge,
and refused to put themselves on their
country. The jury, corresponding to our
grand jury, however, declared that the son
and his mother had committed the murder,
and decided that the father should be re-
leased on bail, while the others should bo
kept in prison. The records of the trials
offer several instances of the old custom of
levying deodands. Robert Sprenghose fell
from his horse and was drowned. The val-
ue of the horse, two marks, was assessed
as deodand. One Osbert fell from his horse
and was drowned in the Severn ; the horse
had no value, and no deodand could be as-
sessed. " William Miel fell down dead as
he drove the plough of Richard Sarg, his
master, and Richard Witcpirie, who was
with him and held the plough, fled in a
fright ; but he is not suspected by twelve
jurors, who declare on their oath that this
happened by maladventure, and that the
man had the falling-sickness." The justices
decreed : " If Richard returns, he is to be
left in peace. The coroner has forty pence
of the said Richard's chattels. These are
a deodand, and arc to go to the house of
Llantony." The power of levying deodands
gave opportunities for abuse, which, with
other oi)portunities of a similar tendency,
the sheriffs were not slow of improving to
their ovra profit.

Salt Lakes of the Mnrghab Valley.—

In .the Murghab Valley, Afghanistan, are
two lakes of solid salt, which Captain Yate
has ridden over and described. One, from
which the Tekke-Turkomans of Merv get
their supplies of salt, is in a valley about

424

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

six miles square, which is surrounded by a
steep, almost precipitous descent, impassable
for baggage-animals except by a single road.
The bed of the lake, which is about four-
teen hundred and thirty feet above the sea,
is one solid mass of hard salt, perfectly level,
and covered by only an inch or two of water.
To ride over it was like riding over ice or
cement. The bottom was covered with a
slight sediment, but, when that was scraped
away, the pure white salt shone out below.
No one has ever got to the bottom of the
deposit. The second lake is the one from
which the Saryks of Penjdeh take their salt,
and is about eight hundred feet above the
sea. The salt in this lake is not so smooth
as in the other one, and does not look so
pure. It is dug out in flakes or strata,
generally of some four inches in thickness,
and is loaded into bags and carried off for
sale without further preparation.

Prodnctioa of Bcet-Sngar in GcrraanT.

— The consular reports to our Department
of State show that the beet-sugar industry
in Germany has made great progress dunng
the last twelve years. The exportation of
this sugar only began in 1860, but it has
been fostered by the Government through
the grant of drawbacks that really amount-
ed to bounties till it has undergone a
remarkable development. In Pomerania,
while in 18'71-'72, 38,000 tons of beets were
manufactured into 3,000 tons of sugar, in
18S2-'83, 7,700 tons of sugar were obtained
from 84,000 tons of beets. It is estimated
that there arc now 525,000 acres of land
under beet-cultivation in Germany ; and it
appears that there were, during the year
1882-'83, 358 factories in operation, as com-
pared with 313 in the previous year, and
that they produced 835,164 tons of raw
sugar, against 509,722 tons in 1881-82. The
taxes paid by the industry amounted to
$35,000,000 as compared with $25,085,000.
It is expected that for 1883-84 there will
be found an increase of at least fifteen new
factories over those in operation in 18S2-'83.
As compared with the year 1871-'72, in that
year 2,251,000 tons of beets were used to
produce 186,412 tons of sugar, while in
1882-'83, 8,747,000 tons of beets were
used, producing 835,164 tons of sugar.
The quantity of beet-root used to produce a

pound of sugar has diminished, under in-
creased skill in the manufacture, from about
twelve pounds to a fraction over ten pounds.

The Harmony of Colors. — M. Chevreul,
the chemist, although in his hundredth year,
is not too old to discuss the interesting ques-
tion of bonnets and millinery. A black bon-
net, he says, with white, pink, cr red feath-
ers or flowers, suits a fair complexion. A
dead white hat is only suitable for florid
complexions, whether blondes or brunettes.
Gauze crape or tulle bonnets suit all com-
plexions. A white bonnet for a blonde
should have white or pink flowers ; blue is
still better. Brunettes should avoid blue,
and rather choose red, pink, or orange.
Light blue bonnets are especially suitable
for fair persons. They may be trimmed
with white flowers, or even yellow or orange,
but not pink or violet. For dark persons
who venture to wear a blue bonnet, yellow
or orange is indispensable. A green bon-
net sets off a pale or slightly colored com-
plexion. A pink bonnet should not be too
near the face, but should be separated by
the hair, or by a white or green inside trim-
ming, the latter color especially. White
flowers, with an abundance of leaves, pro-
duce a good effect on pink. A dark-red
bonnet is only suitable for persons with a
highly colored complexion. Avoid yellow
or orange bonnets. Violet is not to be rec-
ommended unless separated from the face,
not only by the hair but by yellow acces-
sories also.

Estimating the Age of Trees, — Mr.

John T. Campbell, of Rockville, Indiana,
records in the " American Naturalist " some
of the results of his observations on the
age of forest-trees as determined by their
rings of growth. He regards the rings as
capable, when correctly interpreted, of giv-
ing the true history of the tree, and show-
ing the dates of prosperity and adversity in
its career. The amount of growth between
the rings is not determined by the character
of the particular season in which each 3'ear's
growth is made, as is generally believed, but
by other conditions, such as the provision
of top and branches and the presence or
absence of rival trees competing with it for
air, light, and moisture. He found stumps

P OP ULAR MIS CELL ANY.

425

of trees of the same species, the same size,
and presumably the same age, standing
within twenty feet of each other, on the
same kind of soil, cut down the same year,
and, so far as he could judge, subject to the
same conditions throughout, " one showing
a large ring where its neighbor would show
only an average one, and in some I'ew cases
they showed the opposite." While he can
not account for the spasmodic production
of single rings of large or small growth,
interspersed here and there among those of
average size, he has been able to trace suc-
cessions of large or small rings to some
plausible cause. In making some surveys,
he had had occasion to refer to two trees
which had been marked in the Government
surveys of fifty years before, as "witness-
trees," to aid in identifying corners. Both
were described in the field-notes of those sur-
veys as ash-trees three inches in diameter.
One had grown to be eighteen inches in
diameter ; while the other had added only a
half inch to that dimension, but the re-
quired rings of growth could be plainly seen
under the glass. The former tree had had
a good soil on level ground, while "all of its
adult rivals had been blown down by a
tornado which had passed over the spot.
The latter tree " stood in dissolved sand-
stone for soil, on the top of a narrow ridge,
between three large oaks, which robbed it
of sunlight and rain, and nearly all the soil
nourishment. It had but five or six small
branches for a top, and but few leaves to a
branch; under such conditions it did well
even to exist." Mr. Campbell read the
history of two oaks as it was revealed to
him by the rings and the configuration of
the ground. One sprouted from the seed
in 1502 ; the other, twenty feet distant from
it, in 1594, or ninety-two years afterward.
"In nsi a tornado from the northwest
blew down a still older oak, which in its
fall struck against and greatly damaged
the top of the one bom in 1502." The
two younger trees had been freshly cut
down when the author examined them.
" Their stumps were about four feet across,
and there was not over an inch difference
between their diameters, though ninety-two
years difference in their ages. The younger
had a large, healthy top, no broken or dead
limbs, and it had put on rings of growth

from the beginning of more than average
size. The older one had been injured in
its branches by the fall of the still older
tree before mentioned (in 1701), and for
fifty-seven years had put on very small
rings of growth, . . . when a new set of
branches developed to take the place of the
damaged ones, and the rings began to in-
crease in size and gradually attained to the
average. I examined their tops, which co-
incided with what has gone before. There
were the peculiar knots in the top of the
older one where dead limbs had rotted off
and were healed over. During this delay
the younger oak caught up with the older
one in size. The size of a tree is a very
uncertain indication of its age." Mr. Camp-
bell examined one tree that was six hundred
years old, and learned from it that " at the
age of about two hundred years it had
some ill fortune which caused it to form
about one hundred small rings. It then re-
gained its health and formed normal rings
for about one hundred and forty years, when
another mishap caused small rings till with-
in the last fifty years, when it was putting
on fair growths again."

Uses and Natnre of Physiological Ex-
pcrinient.— Dr. H. Xewell-Martin has replied
to an accusation made against him in the
London " Zoophilist," of practicing cruelty
in his physiological experiments on living
animals. First, he responds to the charge
that the experiments are useless, saying :
" Every one is aware that in very many
cases severe fevers result in death. It is
well known to most medical men that most
such deaths are due to failure of the heart.
This failure is caused by too rapid beat, the
organ not getting rest enough between its
strokes for nourishment and repair. This
quicker beat might be due to any of four or
five possible causes. ... To ascertain which
of them was mainly responsible for it, and
thus throw light upon the proper means to
be adopted to save life, was the object of
my research ; an object which, I am proud
to say, I in large measure attained." In re-
gard to the amount of pain inflicted in the
experiments, his first endeavor was " to put
out of action, to kill, all parts of the body
but the heart and lungs. These do not pos-
sess consciousness, and are incapable of suf-

426

THE POPULAR SCIE2^^CE MONTHLY

fering pain when the brain is dead." In
doing this " no pain whatever was inflicted,
except, in some, the slight smarting due to
hypodermic injection of morphine. Two ex-
periments were performed under curare, a
drug the power of which to destroy conscious-
ness is still in doubt. . . . The reason for
making these was that chloroform, ether,
and morphine, act themselves on the heart ;
and, finally, to clinch the question as to the
influence of hot blood on that organ, it was
necessary to experiment on a heart which
had not been exposed to possible alteration
by the action of any one of them. In these
cases pain was stopped as soon as possible
by tying the carotids, and this took three
or four minutes. . . . If," Professor Martin
adds, " the precise truth concerning every
physiological experiment made in this coun-
try be brought before the public imme-
diately after its misrepresentation in any
anti-vivisection journal, our science is safe.
Truth can not hurt it. Publicity will swell
the ranks of its students. Legislation im-
peding our work need not be feared. Hu-
man and animal disease and suffering will
be diminished, life prolonged, and the world
made better as well as happier, through our
researches. If we fail to use every effort
to protect and promote those researches,
are we not guilty toward our fellow-men
and the lower animals dependent on us ? "

Who shall try the Dynamiters ?— In an
article on " Dynamiting and Extra-Tcrrito-
rial Crime," Mr. Francis Wharton, LL. D.,
has aimed to show that the prosecution of
persons sending dynamite abroad for crimi-
nal purposes belongs to the states from whose
Boil the dynamite is sent. Authorities on the
law of nations agree in maintaining that
when, in one sovereignty, overt acts are
taken toward the commission of a crime in
a foreign land, jurisdiction exists both in the
place of preparation and in the place of exe-
cution. A similar doctrine has been repeat-
edly held in England, as growing out of the
common law ; and British courts have en-
forced the obligation to punish persons,
whether British subjects or foreigners so-
journing in the country, who prepare in
the United Kingdom attacks to be made in
other countries. The same principle has
been observed in the United States. The

particular question Mr. Wharton discusses
is, whether, in such crimes as dynamiting,
the jurisdiction should lie in the Federal
courts or in those of individual Slates. The
foreign country sees only the nation ; but,
within the nation, what entity should an-
swer the responsibility? The General Gov-
ernment has already taken cognizance of
offenses of this class where sovereigns are
concerned, as it might well do, by virtue of
its functions in maintaining diplomatic in-
tercourse with their courts. But to hold
the same attitude with respect to common
crimes against common persons, or the gen-
eral public, would be to trespass upon the
duties and prerogatives of the States. It
would, moreover, tend to give those offenses
and the measures taken against them a po-
litical aspect, and to call in all the compli-
cations of political feelings and prejudices.
The question should be made to appear as
a matter of social order, affecting the homes
and lives of the whole community from which
the jury to decide upon it is drawn. To make
it a matter of national concern would at once
divide the jury according to their national
sympathies. " It would be otherwise, how-
ever, when the question is, whether the law
permits dynamiting, or whether it will stop
dynamiting at the place where it is start-
ed, which is the only place where it can be
stopped."

Hindoo Cosmogony and Physics. — The

Rev. Sumangala, chief-priest at Adam's
Peak, in Ceylon, has recently published an
account of the opinions of Hindoo astrono-
mers on the form and attraction of the
earth. Bhaskara, who flourished in the
twelfth century, thought that the terrestrial
globe, composed of land, air, water, space,
and fire, had a spherical fonn, and, sur-
rounded by the planets and the orbits of
the stars, maintained itself in ."^pace by its
own power. This, he says, is in fact dem-
onstrated. Lands, mountains, gardens, and
houses cover the earth as jjollen covers the
flower of Kadamba, and serve as the homes
of men, Raksasas, Devas, and Asuras. lie
rejected the idea that the earth rested on
anything else, for the obvious reason that,
if another support were needed, there would
be no end to the supplementary supports.
Therefore we shall have to admit a final

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

427

equilibrium somewhere ; why not accept it
at once ? " Is not the earth one of the
forms of Siva ? As heat occurs naturally in
the sun and fire, cold in the moon, fluidity
in water, and hardness in the stone, so mo-
bility exists in the air. Every object has its
own properties, and the properties implant-
ed in some objects are wonderful." Bhas-
kara believed that the earth, possessing an
attractive force, drev.' to itself everything
heavy in the atmosphere surrounding it,
whence those bodies fall to it. " But," he
said, "how could the earth fall into the
ethereal space, since that space is equal on
all sides ? "

Opposing Views of Arctic Exploration.

— Admiral Bedford Pim, in a recent lecture
on " Arctic Exploration," related a conver-
sation he had had with Secretary of War
Lincoln, on the utility of the perilous ad-
ventures undertaken for that purpose. The
Secretary asked him, " What is the good of
the journeys to those regions, and how can
you defend the fearful loss of life, un-
necessarily, as I think, thrown away ? "
The admiral, in reply, recalled the biblical
command to replenish the earth and sub-
due it, and asked : " How can we possi-
bly do that if we are not even acquainted
with its land and water ? And then, with
respect to the loss of life, more men have
been slaughtered in one skirmish than have
been lost in the polar expeditions for four
hundred years ; in point of fact, the per-
centage of loss of Hfe in the polar regions
is less than in any other sea employment.
Then, some of the best examples of seamen,
both morally and physically, have been men
trained in all the hardships and dangers
and difficulties of the polar regions. I can
conceive of no better school. . . . The spirit
of enterprise is strongly encouraged by these
expeditions. And, depend upon it, if we
men are such arrant cowards, and so forget-
ful of our duty, as to abandon research im-
til somebody's flag is planted on the north
pole, the ladies will do it." Lieutenant
Danenhower opposes further attempts to
penetrate the polar area for the present.
While nothing useful is to be attained there
in the way of geographical discovery, it is
well to weigh the comparative importance
of investigation in that branch in other

parts of the world. British America has
not been fully explored, though it possesses
an area more than eight times that of the
central polar region. Much work needs to
be done in Central Africa, the Himalayas,
New Guinea, and other parts of the world.
For hydrographic research, it is not neces-
sary to go to these regions, but the best
field for operations lies below the eightieth
parallel. As for the interests of meteor-
ology, "there is no special reason for be-
lieving that the meteorological phenomena
of the central polar regions differ essen-
tially from those observed near the borders,
and the possible advantages to be gained
would not alone justify further exploi-ation."
Neither is any great advantage to be gained
for magnetic and auroral observations. The
magnetic poles are known, and are in or
near already explored regions, and the most
brilliant auroral phenomena are observed
near them. In short, we know nearly as
much on all these subjects, or can study
them as well in the regions we have already
opened, as we could learn by going to the
pole. But "the time may come in the
progress of civilization and advanced knowl-
edge when the exploration of all the pres-
ent unknown parts of the torrid and tem-
perate zones shall have been completed,
and it will then be the occasion to explore
the ice-locked regions of the north pole " ;
and, " after having served with one Arctic
expedition, and having devoted seven years
to the study of the subject, ... I unhesi-
tatingly record myself as opposed to further
exploration of the central polar basin, with
our present resources. Tlie gradual exten-
sion of observatory stations in the interest
of meteorology, magnetism, and other scien-
tific branches, should be made, but national
support should not be given to another polar
expedition."

Meteorology of the Congo. — Mr. A. von

Danckelmann, a German meteorologist, has
been making observations at Vivi, in the
country of the Congo, and reports some curi-
ous results. During about a year that he
stayed there the barometrical column did
not vary more than ten millimetres ; even
the passage of tornadoes seemed to produce
no greater effect upon it. The year is di-
vided into rainy and dry seasons. During

428

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the latter, from May to October, no rain
falls, but the earth is occasionally moistened
by the depositions from fogs. From Novem-
ber to April heavy showers of short duration
prevail, and the water falls, in portions,
sometimes as high as one hundred and two
millimetres — about four inches — in two
hours. Long, fine rains are unknown. The
country is visited by cyclones, but, while
storms passing to the north of the station
turned the vane in a contrary direction to
that of the hands of a watch, those passing
it to the south turned it in a direction cor-
responding with theirs. The natives burn
the tall prairie-grass in the dry seasons,
causing fires that last for a long time, and
produce considerable meteorological effects.
The air is constantly loaded with smoke,
while cumulus clouds are formed over the
fires and emit lightning with thunder. One
of the most remarkable meteorological phe-
nomena of the region is the existence of a
southwest wind, which, beginning at sunset,
blows all night till sunrise with such force
as to raise large and dangerous waves on
the river.

An Affectionate Mother-Spider. — The

Clubiorics arc minute, grayish-yellow spiders
with a dark brown stripe along their back,
which build their nests among growing oats,
generally using two or three stalks. M. Ern-
est Mcnault, a French naturalist, looked into
one of their nests and found there a great
number of little eggs in various stages of
development. The mother-spider was fright-
ened and much excited on observing his
proceedings, and endeavored vainly to col-
lect her treasures again. From another nest
M. Menault tore away the protecting web,
but the diligent mother soon set herself to
work spinning a patch to cover exactly the
breach he had made. He repeated the ex-
periment several times, and the spider as
often came to repair the mischief. Another
spider, the li/rosa, gathers her eggs, as soon
as they are laid, into a little ball, which she
then wraps with a thin but compact and
solid covering of silky tissue. This ball,
stuck to her web, she drags after her wher-
ever she goes. When pursued, she runs as
quickly as the weight of the egg-ball will let
her, but, if any attempt be made to seize
the cocoon, she stops at once and tries to

get it back, when she shows considerable
courage and fighting capacity. If the co-
coon is destroyed, the lycosa will retire into
a corner, and in a short time die. When
the eggs are hatched the mother-spider takes
her young upon her back, and has them
always with her. " It is impossible," says
M. Menault, " to behold without emotion
this little creature, naturally so quick and
jerky in all her movements, acquire a motion
so much gentler when carrying her treas-
ures. She carefully avoids all dangers, only
attacks easily won prey, and abandons all
chance of obtaining anything the capture of
which would necessitate a combat that might
cause her to drop the young ones, which
press and move by hundreds round her
body." Bonnet tells of a lycosa whose egg-
bag was captured by an ant-lion, which
nevertheless refused to leave it, preferring
to be swallowed up and share the fate of
her eggs. When taken away by force, she
persisted in returning to the scene of danger.

Race Cbaracteristics of the Jews. — Dr. A.

Neubauer read a paper recently, before the
British Anthropological Institute, on " Race
Types of the Jews," the purport of which
was to show that there had been considera-
ble intermixtures in the Hebrew race from
the time of Abraham down. Joseph mar-
ried an Egyptian and Moses a Midianite;
David was descended from a Moabitess, and
Solomon was the son of a Ilittite woman.
So we read of the non-Jewish women in
contact with the Israelites, and undoubtedly
the proselytes increased the mixture of races
by marrying Jewish women. Moreover,
some quite marked differences prevailed in
the middle ages, and still exist, between
the Jews residing in different nations, Mr.
J. Jacobs, in a paper " On the Racial Char-
acteristics of Modern Jews," took a differ-
ent view. Regarding only the Askenasian
Jews, who form more than nine tenths of
the whole number, he pointed out as among
their characteristics fertility, short stature
as compared with Europeans, and narrow
chests, brachyccphalic skulls, darker hair
and eyes than those of any nation in North-
ern Europe (though nearly one fifth of the
Jews have blue eyes, and they have nearly
twice as many red-haired individuals as the
inhabitants of the Continent), and a peculiar

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

429

cast of countenance. He pointed out that
the purity of the race depended on the
number of proselytes made by the Jews in
ancient and mediaeval times. The earlier
proselytes, before the foundation of Chris-
tianity, were mostly fellow - Semites, and
would not affect the type, while the num-
bers made afterward were too small to
modify the race. A considerable number
of Jews, the Cohens, were not allowed to
marry proselytes, and must consequently
be tolerably pure. Mr. Jacobs's general
conclusion was therefore in favor of the
purity of the Jewish race.

The Elm-Leaf Beetle— The entomologi-
cal division of the Department of Agricult-
ure has published an account, prepared by
Dr. Riley, of the elm-leaf beetle {Galeruca
xanihomelceria), which has committed serious
damage upon the elms in many States dur-
ing the past few years. It is an importation
from abroad, and fortunately gives its at-
tention mostly to foreign species of elm, the
common native species, Ulmus Americana^
being generally exempt from its ravages.
The injuries it commits are severe about
one year in three, while they are relatively
light in the intervening years. It works its
destruction from May to August, and pre-
fers the warm side of the tree. The most
effective remedies against it are the ordinary
arsenic washes and powders, and these ap-
pear to injure the tree as well as kill the in-
sect. Their effect is also worst on those
species and varieties which suffer most from
the ravages of the beetle. In administer-
ing the poison, it is well to anticipate the
appearance of the insect, so as to prevent its
getting a start.

Conditions of Snccess In Life. — The

physiological conditions of success in life,
according to Dr. James T. Searcy, of Tus-
caloosa, Alabama, m his address before the
State Medical Association, consist chiefly
in the vigorous and healthy action of the
brain and nervous system. Therefore the
structural integrity ancj functional capaci-
ty of the brain are most important mat-
ters, and how to preserve and improve them
are vital questions. Hence the author be-
lieves, " if wc can discover the ways in
which brain capacity is improved, we will

have done a great deal, and, if we can
state the ways in which it is lowered, wc
will have done a great deal." The excel-
lent man will not only show his ability to
take in, to understand, but he will also show
it in knowing what to take in, in his ability to
select for a purpose. " The successful man
possesses ability not only to learn, but to
verify his learning and to deduce his conclu-
sions correctly, and execute them tenacious-
ly. The simply erudite man is not the suc-
cessful one. He must be capable not only
in his receptive ability, but also in his ad-
justing and emissive abilities. This often
puts the man who is simply the scholar at
such disadvantage in the presence even of
the unlettered man of 'common sense.' ' Com-
mon sense' may be defined to be the in-
herent excellence of capacity in all three of
the departments of brain-action. He need
not be an ' educated ' man to show this trait,
but if he is educated his inherent ' common
sense ' tells all the better. He learns well
and properly, he reasons well and properly,
and he executes well and properly."

now Woods preserve Moisture. — M.

Woeikoff, an eminent Russian observer, as-
serts, in a recent article in Petermann's
" Mitthcilungen," that the ofBce of forests
in diminishing evaporation can not be ex-
plained by the lower temperature or the
greater humidity which are known to exist
under their shadow. The most important
factor contributing to the result is the re-
sistance opposed by woods to the winds, the
force of which being greatly reduced under
the trees, the air is changed more slowly,
and consequently the moisture is less readily
carried away. Documents which have been
collected at Nancy, in France, show that the
vicinity of a forest increases the quantity
of rain. It would seem that in Central Eu-
rope, where the difference between the tem-
perature of the ground and air within the
forest and that of the open is but little in
the winter, the forests would have slight
influence on precipitation at that season.
Nevertheless, the forests receive more water
than the open spaces in winter, because of
the lowness of the clouds combined with the
resistance that the woods offer to the moist
west winds. Rain-water is stored in the
moss and herbage of the woods, to te con-

430

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sumed by the vegetation during the dry sea-
Bon. A stiikiug illustration of this fact is
given in a forest on the western coast of
the Caspian Sea, where the vegetation is
very luxuriant, although it never rains ex-
cept in the fall and winter. M. Woeikoff has
also observed that forests depress the tem-
perature of the neighboring regions. Thus
the normal temperature ordinarily increases
as we go from the sea toward the interior
in Western Europe and Asia ; but the pres-
ence of a forest compensates for the rise
in temperature, so that there are places far
from the sea that are cooler than the shore
itself. This is the case in Bosnia, where
the summer is five or six degrees cooler than
in Herzegovina, on account of the woods.

NOTES.

AccoimiNG to " Wood and Iron," of the
four hundred and thirteen species of trees
found in the United Slates, the perfectly dry
wood of sixteen species will sink in water.
The heaviest of these is the black iron-wood
of Southern Florida, which is thirty per cent
heavier than v/ater. Others of the best-
known species are the lignum - vita;, man-
grove, and a small oak found at elevations
of from five to ten thousand feet in Western
Texas, Southern New Slexico, and Arizona.
All the species are natives of Florida or of
the dry interior Pacific region.

Artesian wells have been in operation
in the Sahara from a very remote period,
and new ones have been opened by the
French in the Alcrcrian portion of the desert
with conr^idcrable success. At the same
time a large increase has taken place in the
number of palm and other fruit trees. The
limit of the capacity of the veins to be
found at the usual depth of one hundred
metres appears, however, to have been
reached at last, for the borings made since
1881 show a diminished yield of water.
The French wells, moreover, are harder to
clean when they are stopped up by sand
than the Arabian ones, on account of their
smaller bore ; and it is believed that new
■wells will have to be made, of larger caliber.

. M. BociON, of the Cantonal Industrial
School of Lausanne, Switzerland, reports
the discovery in Lake Leman of a bright-
green moss growing in the bottom of the
lake, on the calcareous rocks, two hundred
feet below the surface. No other moss has
been found at so great a depth under water ;
and how chlorophyl could have licen so
richly developed so far from the light is a
problem.

Professor Pcrdie, having analyzed a
specimen of the nulk of the porpoise, gives
the following as its composition per hun-
dred parts: Water, 41-11; fat, 45-80; al-
buminoids, iri9; milk-sugar, 1-33 ; min-
eral salts, 0'57. The substance set down
as milk-sugar was too small in quantity for
accurate examination, and is regarded by
the analyst as very probably some albumi-
noid matter. The most remarkable point
about tliC composition of the milk is the
large percentage of fat which it contains, a
constituent of food of which the cetaceans
would naturally require a larger proportion
than ordinary mammals do. The milk was
yellow and thick, and had a fishy smell ;
and its specific gravity diflcrcd but little
from that of water.

Mr. E. T. New'ton has described the re-
mains of a gigantic bird — the Gastornis
Klaascnni — found in the Lower Eocene of
Croydon, England, which indicates a species
as large as the Dinornis of New Zealand.
The most perfect tibiotarsus, when complete,
must have had a length of at least twenty
inches, and its trochlea is three and a half
inches wide, while in another specimen the
trochlea is four inches wide. The anserine
affinities of Gastornis, as regards the tibio-
tarsus, are confirmed by the detailed com-
parison of the Croydon bones with recent
forms.

According to M. Dinnik, a Russian trav-
eler in the Caucasus, it is the custom among
the Ossetes (one of the peoples of the coun-
try) for the lucky sportsman or treasure-
finder to deposit some part of his spoil in
the sanctuary of Kckom, in the Zoa Valley,
and that temple h?ft become a kind of cu-
riosity-shop. The outside of the building
is decorated with horns, from the examina-
tion of which M. Dinnik has been able to
solve a question respecting the geographical
range of two species of goats. The funeral
mounds of Ossetia also furnish offerings to
Kckom, which are brought to it by persons
who dig in them for the gold ornaments they
may find deposited there. Armlets, rings,
knives, and lance-heads of the bronze period
arc among the curiosities of this strange
mountain museum ; but other uses than
that of consecration appear to be found for
articles of gold.

Tests made with small squares of dif-
ferent kinds of wood, buried an inch in the
ground, have shown, according to the " Gar-
den," that birch and aspen decayed in three
years; willow and horse-chestnut in four
years; maple and red beech in five years;
elm, ash, hornbeam, and Lombardy poplar
in seven years ; and oak, Scotch fir, Wey-
mouth pine, and silver fir, to a depth of
half an inch, in seven years ; while larch,
juniper, and arbor-vita; were uninjured at
the expiration of the seven years.

NOTES.

43 »

M. GtJSTAV Le Bon believes that a good
place to look for the oiigiu of cholera may
be in the volatile ptomaines, or alkaloids of
putrefaction emitted by organic substances
in the later stages of decay. The ptomaines
developed in the earlier stages of putrefac-
tion appear according to his researches to be
usually solid or liquid, and much less danger-
ous than those which escape at a later stage,
and which, being volatile, have thus far elud-
ed examination. But these last, when taken
into the system by the breath, produce deadly
effects. M. Le Bon's conclusions on this sub-
ject have been derived from observation of
the progress of cholera at Kombakonum, in
Southern India.

J. Graber has made experiments with
animals of the classes of vertebrates, articu-
lates, moUusks, and worms, from which he
has determined that the sense of color and
the power of perceiving light are more
widely distributed than has generally been
supposed. The variations in the sense of
color among animals are very great.

SuLiTJELMA, on the Norwegian frontier,
in latitude 67^°, 6,000 feet high, and Sar-
jektjakko, in Swedish Lapland, 1,000 feet
higher, have in turn been put forward as
the highest mountain in Sweden. They
both have now to give place, on the testi-
mony of Dr. Svenouius, to Kcbnekaisse, in
Lapland, which is 7,300 feet above the level
of the sea.

Professor W. Mattieu Williams indi-
cates as probable sources of nitrogen in soils,
and serving as food for plants, the dead
bodies of insects, excreta of living insectSj,
invisible spores, microbes, and particles of
organic fluff which are always floating in
the air and liable to adhere to the moistened
surface of the soil and of the leaves of the
growing plants. To prove the existence of
such deposits on leaves, moisten a white
pocket-handkerchief and gently rub it over
the surface of the leaf of any growing plant
in dry weather. No matter how far from
the smoke of towns, the soiling of the hand-
kerchief will show a deposit of solid matter,
of which a considerable proportion is or-
ganic.

Examination in the color-blind test is
now obligatory on candidates for masters'
and mates' certificates in the British mer-
cantile marine. Failure to pass the test does
not now prevent the candidate receiving his
certificate, as it did when the examinations
were first instituted, but the certificate is
given with the indorsement, ''The holder has
failed to pa-!s the examination in colors."
This examination is not yet made obligatory
on pilots and men on the " lookout," and
this ought to be regarded as a serious omis-
sion ; for collisions are certainly more apt
lo occur off the coasts, when the vessels are

under the charge of pilots, than out at sea,
where they have been given over to the mas-
ters and mates.

Dr. Hertel, of Copenhagen, has pub-
lished the results of a sanitary inspection of
the schools of that city, from which it ap-
pears that about one third of the pupils are
sickly. With respect to the girls, the fact
is brought out that " between the ages of
twelve and sixteen the number of sickly girls
increases till it exceeds that of healthy by
ten per cent, except at the age of fourteen,
when the figures are equal." Dr. Hertel also
made inquiries into the condition of some
German schools, and brought out the fact
that in a single group of them three fourths
of the pupils of the highest class have de-
fective eye-sight.

The Japanese have promulgated a pat-
ent law, which seems to be a compilation of
various provisions selected from the laws of
other countries. The term of protection is
fifteen years. Articles "that tend to dis-
turb social tranquillity, or demoralize cus-
toms and fashions, or are injurious to
health," and medicines, arc excepted from
its benefits. Among the conditions on
which patents are granted, it is prescribed
that the articles must have been publicly
applied within two years, and that the pat-
ents shall become void when the patented
inventions have been imported from abroad
and sold.

M. E. Senet claims to have employed a
process for electroplating with aluminum,
by which the deposition of that metal is
effected as easily as is that of copper or sil-
ver. He uses a saturated solution of sul-
phate of aluminum and a solution of chlo-
ride of sodium, keeping them separated by a
porous vessel. Under the action of the gal-
vanic current a double chloride of aluminum
and sodium is formed, which decomposes at
once, the aluminum being set free and de-
positing itself at the negative electrode up-
on whatever object may be placed there to
receive it.

Mr. J. D. Hyatt, in his studies of com-
pound eyes and multiple images, remarks
as a curious peculiarity of the eyes of the
horse-fly that the lenses of the upper and
anterior part are much larger than those
situated below a median line, the larger
facets having at least twice the diameter, or
four times the superficial area, of the small-
er. The larger lenses form pictures at a
plane considerably above the focal plane of
the smaller ones. Thus these insects are
furnished with eyes of two varieties, corre-
sponding to our long sight and short-sight
spectacles ; in other words, with telescopic
and microscopical eyes, the telescopic look-
ing upward and forward and the microscop-
ical downward.

432

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Professor D. P. Pexhallow, having
studied the relation of annual rings to the
age of trees, concludes that the formation
of rings of growth is chiefly determined by
whatever operates to produce alternating
periods of physiological rest and activity.
In cold climates the rings are an approxi-
mately correct, but not always certain, in-
dex of age ; but in warm climates they arc
of little or no value in this respect. The
influence of meteorological conditions in de-
termining the growth of each season is most
important, particularly with reference to
rainfall. Periodicity in rainfall corresponds
with periodicity in growth.

Some of the German journals describe a
plant which has lately been discovered to
have electrical properties. It is called the
Fhylolacca clcdvica. It gives a slight elec-
tric shock to the hand when its stalk is
broken, and alTects the magnetic needle,
disturbing it considerably if brought very
near. Its energy varies during the day, be-
ing strongest at about two o'clock in the
afternoon and falling away to nothing at
night.

M. A. DE Abdadie states that the mer-
curial bath at his observatory in France,
about a mile and a half from the Spanish
frontier, was subjected to extraordinary and
almost continuous agitations during all of
last winter, beginning with the 1st of De-
cember. The oscillations sometimes reached
30" and were on one day, the 23d of De-
cember, as frequent as four in a second.
He believes there was a connection between
the oscillations, or the cause of them, and
the earthquakes in Spain.

A LECTfRE on fish-culture, delivered re-
cently in Hull, England, by Mr. W. Oldham
Chambers, was illustrated by object-lessons
of living specimens of the white-fish and
other foreign species.

OBITUARY NOTES.

James Macfarlane, of Towanda, Penn-
sylvania, author of a valuable work on the
coal-fields of America, and of the " Geolo-
gists' Traveling Hand-book," died suddenly
on the 11th of October. He was engaged
at the time of his death in the revision for
a new edition of the " Geologists' Traveling
Hand-book," in which are given descrip-
tions of the geological formations along all
the railroad routes of the country.

Mr. Thomas Bland, an eminent conchol-
ogist, died in New York on the 20th of Au-
gust last, in the seventy-seventh year of his
age. He was born in England, and inher-
ited a taste for conchology from his mother.
He removed to Barbadoes in 1842, and
thence to Jamaica. He became superin-
tendent of a gold-mine in Now Granada in

18.50, whence he removed to New York in
1852. Here he became associated with Mr.
W. G. Binney in the study of our land-
shells andintlie publication of works which
have greatly elucidated the subject. The
catalogue of his scientific writings contains
seventy-two titles.

Edward IIexri vo.\ BAUMHAtjER, Secrc-
ry of the Dutch Scientific Society at Haar-
lem, and editor of its " Archives," died last
year, in the sixty-sixth year of his age.

Dr. J. J. Baeter, a distinguished au-
thority in geodesy, founder of tlie European
(JraJnicssxinrt, and president of the Central
Bureau of the society, and of the Royal
Prussian Geodetic Institute, died September
10th, aged ninety-one years.

W. Woodbury, the inventor of the
"Woodbury type process for multiplying pho-
tographic pictures, died in Margate, Eng-
land, September Sth, from the cflects of an
overdose of laudanum, which he was accus-
tomed to take to allay sleeplessness. He
was fifty-one years of age. Notwithstand-
ing the value of his inventions and the great
use that has been made of them, it is said
that he left his family poor.

Dr. Nicolas Joly, honorary professor in
the Faculty of Sciences and in the Medical
School of Toulouse, France, died in that city
October 17th, in the seventy-fourth year of
his age. He was best known, perhaps, by
the controversy which he, with MM. Pouchet
and JIussct, carried on with M. Pasteur in
1863, on the theory of spontaneous genera-
tion, from which M. Pasteur came off with
all the honors of victory. He was the au-
thor of numerous publications of merit in
zoology and prehistoric ethnography ; and
was one of the founders of " La Nature,"
and a frequent contributor to its pages.

Dr. TnoMAS Davidson, F. R. S., of Muir-
house, Midlothian, Scotland, the highest au-
thority on British fossil Brachiopoda, died
at West Brighton, England, October IGth,
in his sixty-ninth year. Up to 1871 he had
published forty-nine books and papers, chief-
ly devoted to his specialty in paleontology,
lie received medals from the Royal and (! co-
logical Societies, and from Sir R. Murchison,
and a testimonial from the Palcontographi-
cal Society in recognition of his labors.

Charles Robin, a French physiologist,
who introduced the study of histology into
his cotmtry, died early in October last, in his
sixty-fifth year. In announcing his death
to the French Academy of Sciences, the
president of that body remarked upon the
fact that M. Robin had not been able to ac-
cept the new facts added by his pupils to
the science to which he had given a start,
and that he had never been " converted to
the doctrines of bacteriology."

I

JAMES B. EADS.

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY.

FEBBUARY, 1886.

THE IMPKOYEMENT OF EAST EIVER ANJ) HELL

GATE.

By General JOHN NEWTON,

CHIEF OF ENGINEERS, ITNITED STATES AEltT.

THE East River is a most important factor in the commercial pros-
perity of the cities of New York and Brooklyn. Its shores form
a large portion of the water-front of both cities, and afford space for
many miles of docks. Its channel is scoured by strong tides, which
keep it permanently free from shoals of sand and mud. It connects
the waters of New York Bay with those of Long Island Sound, and is
the most important avenue of coastwise trade in the United States.
Since the partial removal of the obstructions in Hell Gate, a very
heavy foreign trade has taken this route, notably the petroleum traffic,
and, with the completion of the designed improvements, the East River
will afford a convenient access for transatlantic steamers. The value
of this entrance to New York Harbor will be still further enhanced by
the opening of the Harlem River to the Hudson, the preparations
for which are now in progress.

The unobstructed navigation of the East River would also have
an important bearing on the question of national defense in case of war
with a foreign state. It would render the blockading of the port of
New York a task of doubled difficulty, and would open the shores of
Long Island to our larger war-vessels and to ironclads.

For these reasons the problem of removing the obstructions to the
free and safe passage of vessels through the East River has engaged
an increasing degree of attention for a considerable time. These ob-
structions were all accumulated within a short distance of one another,
in the narrow strait called Hell Gate, and were occasioned by numer-

VOL. XXTIII. — 28

434 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ous reefs of rocks encroaching on the channel and the violent currenis
to which they give rise, making navigation extremely hazardous for
all kinds of vessels.

A clear idea of the nature of these obstructions and dangers in the
original condition of the strait is given in the report of Lieutenant-
Commanding Davis, who, with Lieutenant-Commanding David Por-
ter, made a survey of the place in 1848. " The strength of the cur-
rent," he says, " is such that sailing-vessels can only stem its force or
escape from it by a commanding breeze ; but, as the main course of
the flood-tide keeps the middle of the Eastern Channel, it is most
secure for vessels which are coming from the westward with the tide
to place themselves in the middle of the stream and follow its direc-
tion. This plan, however, is inadvisable for any but small vessels, on
account of the rocks, the Pot and Frying-Pan, which lie in or very
near the mid-channel, are in the way both going to the eastward and
westward, and have but little water on them at low tide. There is
also a reef called Way's Reef, which lies in the course followed by
steamboats principally when coming from the eastward against a strong
flood. It is their custom to keep close round Pot Cove, and run up
under Hallet's Point, by which they avoid the strength of the flood.
In this part they find an eddy-current in their favor. But on the ebb
the greatest danger arises from the divergence of the current, when
the ebb branches off into three directions to take the course of the
three channels — the main Ship-Channel, the Middle Channel, and the
Eastern Channel, The safe navigation depends here upon deciding
sufiiciently soon at the point of separation which channel shall be
taken ; and the neglect to do this, or a loss of control over the vessel
for any reason, frequently results in being carried on the Gridiron.
When a vessel that has attempted the Eastern Channel finds herself
carried toward the Gridiron, her only chance for safety is to run for
the Middle Channel, which is narrow and made precarious by the mid-
dle reef, the outer rock of which is the Negro Head. The Gridiron
is, owing to the strong set of the tide upon it, the most dangerous reef
in the passage. The reef known as Bread and Cheese, on the eastern
end of Blackwell's Island, is also very dangerous. Vessels are liable
to go on it in the flood, when it is covered, by getting into the eddy
near it with a light wind. The chief danger is on the ebb, and from
the same reason that makes the Gridiron dangerous — i. e., the strong
set of the tide in that direction."

The reefs (see map) known as the Gridiron, Flood Rock, Hen and
Chickens, and Negro Head, are all essentially parts of one reef, which
is designated as the Middle Reef. Between this reef and the reef
which is marked by the projections of the Great and Little Mill Rocks,
is situated the Middle Channel. The Eastern Channel is included be-
tween the Middle Reef and Hallet's Point. The South or Main Ship
Channel lies to the west of Great and Little Mill Rocks, and between

U.S. C.S. CHART

OF

HELL GATE

AND

APPKOACHES

NEW YORK HARBOR

1851 S6

EAST RIVER AND HELL GATE IMPROVEMENT. 435

them and Rhinelander's Reef. The two surveying-officers, while agree-
ing as to the desirability of removing or mitigating the obstructions,
made different recommendations respecting the manner in which they
should be dealt with.

Lieutenant-Commanding Davis recommended that Pot Rock, the
Frying-Pan, and Way's Reef be blasted and scattered, and that the
Middle Channel be improved by blasting, so as to make a clear chan-
nel of sufficient depth for common vessels and steamboats. As the
removal of the larger reefs seemed at that time impracticable, he ad-
vised that they be faced with sea-walls or piers rising four feet above
high water, and provided with spring fenders such as are used at the
ferry-docks, so adjusted as to guide vessels coming in contact with
them into the channel-ways. Lieutenant-Commanding David Porter,
not regarding the deepening of the Middle Channel as practicable,
advised that it be filled in with docks, and recommended the removal
of a part of the reef at Ilallet's Point.

No efficient method was suggested for removing the rocks it was
proposed to take away, further than to blast them and leave the frag-
ments to lie where they might fall, or to be washed away by the cur-
rents. This method would obviously make but a slight impression on
the larger reefs.

A process of surface-blasting was first applied by M. Maillefert in
185L His method consisted simply in placing upon the rock a charge
of gunpowder, usually of 125 pounds, contained in a tin canister, and
exploding it by means of the voltaic current. The weight of the
water resting upon the charge served to increase the effects of the
explosion. No means were provided for removing the broken rock
except by breaking it up by successive explosions till it was fine enough
to be carried away by the currents. M. l^Iaillefert's operations result-
ed, by the use of 620 charges containing 74,192 pounds of powder, at
a cost of $13,861, furnished through Mr. Merriam, in removing from
the rocks to which they were applied the projecting prominences of
small area, but were of little effect when, after reaching the main rock,
a considerable extent of surface had to be dealt with. The depth of
water was increased, on Pot Rock, from 8 feet to 18-3 feet; on Frying-
Pan, from 9 to 16 feet ; on Way's Reef, from 5 to 14 feet ; and on
Shell Drake, from 8 to 16 feet. Bald-Headed Billy and Hoyt's Rocks
were blown into deep water. The depth on Diamond Reef was but
slightly if at all affected, and no effect was produced on Ilallet's Point
Reef. In 1852, Congress having appropriated 820,000 for the removal
of obstructions, Major Fraser, by Maillefert's method, increased the
depth over Pot Rock to 20*6 feet, adding 2-3 feet of water to the
18-3 Maillefert had gained, with the expenditure of $6,837. The de-
crease in the ratio of returns for expenditure was occasioned by the
increased surface of the rock, due to increase of depth.

In 1856 an advisory council to a commission on the removal of

436 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

obstructions in Hell Gate recommended a plan wbich, as to its general
features, was substantially the same as that -which Lieutenant-Com-
manding Davis had proposed in 1848. Instead of Maillefert's process
of surface-blasting, they recommended that of drilling. This would
have had to be done from within a diving-bell, which was impractica-
ble because of the certain disturbance of the apparatus by currents,
and the liability to collisions from passing vessels. All of the plans
so far tried or proposed seemed to have been limited to removing the
smaller rocks lying in the channel ; the possibility of clearing away
the larger reefs was not yet conceived.

In 18G6 the department instructed me to make an examination of
Hell Gate, and to present a plan and estimate of the operations neces-
sary to improve its navigation. A report was submitted in January,
1867, with an estimate for removing the reefs by blasting, after drilling
the surface from a fixed platform above the water. In this plan, or
in whatever plan might be decided upon, it was considered essential
that the drills, which, to avoid interference from currents, were to be
worked within ii'on tubes reaching from the platform to the rock,
should be attached to a framing kept absolutely fixed while the drill-
ing was going on ; and that the divers or the machinery necessary to
handle and remove from the bottom the rock blasted should be pro-
tected from violent currents. It was proposed to accomplish the latter
object by means of a system of floats and iron curtains so arranged
as to constitute a dam protecting a space of 160 feet long and 40 feet
wide, within which the work could go on uninterrupted. Another
machine was alternatively suggested, embodying the same principle,
to consist of an iron caisson or cylinder, pointed at the ends, open at
the top and bottom, and having self-adjustable legs to accommodate
themselves to the irregularities of the rock, and to support it and keep
it level. The top of this structure was to be above the level of the
highest tide, and to be framed over so as to form a platform, on which
the machinery could be placed, and from w^hich the operations could
be conducted. It was important in constructing the machine to have
it adaptable to all the rocks on which it was intended to operate, what-
ever their size and the shape of their surface, and that it be perfectly
stable against the action of the currents without being unwieldy in
size. It was furthermore considered necessary to furnish it with a
protection against collisions which were sure to occur from the fleets
of vessels passing daily, and certain to destroy it, with a loss of life
and much property, if it were not protected.

These conditions were fulfilled in the steam-drilling cupola-scow
(Figs. 1 and 2). The scow is built very heavy and strong ; is provided
with an overhanging guard, faced with iron, surrounding it as a pro-
tection against collisions ; and has a well-hole 33 feet in diameter.
The caisson or dome is a hemisphere 30 feet in diameter, composed of
a strong iron frame covered with boiler-iron. It is open at the bottom

EAST RIVER AND HELL GATE IMPROVEMENT. 437

438

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and top, and is provided with self-adjustable legs so arranged as to be
all let go together after it is lowered. This caisson or dome is simply
a framework affording a fixed support to the drill-tubes, twenty-one in
number, through which the drills operate. It is connected with the
scow by four chains, communicating with four hoisting-engines, by

Fig. 2.— Deck PLiN.

"which it is lowered or raised. The scow, having the dome swung by
chains, is anchored over the rock to be operated upon, by as many an-
chors as are required to hold it against all the currents. The diver
then goes down to examine the bottom and see that the position is
favorable. The position of the scow is changed by lengthening and
shortening the moving chains with capstans. A\^hen all is fixed, the
dome is lowered close to the bottom and established by letting the legs
go to adjust themselves on the bottom. The chains which connect it
with the scow are unslung, and flexible connections are made between
the tops of the drill-rods and the piston-rods of the driving-engines.
These connections must be flexible, because, the dome being fixed on
the bottom, w'hile the scow holding the drill-engines is certain to swing
for short distances back and forth, the connections, if rigid, would be
broken. When the drill-holes are completed and ready to be charged,
the dome is lifted up, and the scow, carrying the suspended dome, is
swung off from the spot to a safe distance (the length of which depends
on the amount of the charge), without casting loose the moorings.
The charges of explosives, in tin cases of different lengths to suit the
varying depths of thtf drill-holes, are carried to the spot upon a small
scow, whence the diver descends to insert them into the holes ; the
cartridges are handed down to him, already attached to leading wires
by the men on the scow ; and he is guided from hole to hole by lines
connecting the stoppers or plugs inserted in the holes. The scow is
withdrawn, tlie leading wires are connected with the battery, and the
explosion is made with invariably certain effects.

To secure satisfactory results in the breaking up of the rock, the
drill-holes should be six or eight feet apart, five to six inches in diame-
ter, and should reach to about four feet below the level to w^hich it
is desired to break the rock. The broken rock is removed by means

EAST RIVER AND HELL GATE IMPROVEMENT. 439

of a steam-grapple. Provision was made for the attachment of cur-
tains, or dams, of chain-netting, rope-netting, or canvas, to the bot-
tom of the dome and to the steam-grappling apparatus, as a shield
against currents, but it was not found necessary to use anything of the
kind.

Operations with the steam-drilling scow were completed January,
1880, upon Diamond Reef. The rock was covered with a large ac-
cumulation of loose material which had first to be removed with a
dredging-machine, after which all of the ledge that was uncovered
was attacked. The holes were drilled from seven to thirteen feet
deep, four and a half inches in diameter at the top, and three and a
half inches at the bottom, and were charged with from 30 to 55
pounds each of nitro-glycerine.

Coenties Reef was worked upon in alternation with Diamond Reef
in 1871 and completed in 1875.

In 1872 work was commenced on Frying-Pan, and there is now
twenty-two feet at low water.

Work was prosecuted on Pot Rock in Hell Gate from August 5
till December 28, 1872, during which period the scow was much ex-
posed to collisions, of which sixteen took place. In one of them the
colliding vessel was drawn under the scow and carried off the dome,
which was afterward recovered, considerably damaged, in eighty feet
of water. The depth on this rock is now twenty-four feet.

Way's Reef, over which the original depth of water was five feet,
having already been cleared by the application of M. Maillefert's process
of surface-blasting in 1851 and again in 1869, to 17^ feet, was operated
upon from August 4, 1874, to January 20, 1875, and the depth of
water was increased to 26 feet at low water. The rock within the 26-
feet curve measured 235 feet in length by 115 feet of maximum width.
To accomplish the result two hundred and sixty-two holes were drilled
to an aggregate depth of 2,130*4 feet, sixty-five drill-blasts and sixteen
surface-blasts were made, and 16,792f pounds of nitro-glycerine and
38^ pounds of dynamite were consumed.

For the removal of Hallet's Point Reef it was determined to em-
ploy a process of undermining the rock by tunnels and galleries, from
which mines should be exploded to break up the whole mass of the
rock at once. Similar processes had already been suggested by Gen-
eral Alexander, United States Engineers, and A. W. von Schmidt,
C. E., for the removal of Blossom Rock, in San Francisco Harbor.
The reef in question (Fig. 3) was in the shape of a semi-ellipse, ex-
tending 720 feet in length along the shore, and to a distance of 300
feet in breadth into the channel ; and the cubic contents necessary to
be removed, in order to secure a depth of 26 feet at mean low water,
amounted to 53,971 cubic yards. The reef was dangerous, not only in
itself, but also on account of the eddies to which the tidal currents
gave rise on either side of it, according to their direction. Opera-

44°

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tions were begun here in July, 18G9, for the construction of a coffer-
dam between high and low water marks ; and in the following Octo-
ber the excavation of a shaft, conforming in shape to that of the dam,
and 32 feet in depth, was begun. Thence tunnels radiating through
the rock, with transverse galleries, 25 feet apart, to connect them,
were excavated till thirty-five tunnels and ten galleries were con-
structed, having an aggregate length of 7,426 feet. The tunnels were
from 17 to 22 feet high and from 9 to 12f feet wide at the shaft, and
tapered off in both dimensions as they went out ; and the galleries
were from 12 feet high by 9 feet wide down to smaller dimensions.

Fig. 3.— Hallet's Point.

The work of excavation was commenced in the latter part of Octo-
ber, 18G9, and terminated in June, 1875. Deducting the time lost by
suspension of work due to the exhaustion of current appropriations,
the actual period consumed in this work was four years and four
months. The appropriations were, under the law, devoted to many
reefs in the East River and Hell Gate besides the one at Ilallet's
Point ; the result being that the work was rarely prosecuted in full
force at the latter place. With a more generous grant of money the
time consumed until the explosion, which amounted in all to six years
and ten months, could have been reduced to four years.

EAST RIVER AND HELL GATE IMPROVEMENT. 441

As soon as the excavation was finished, the work of drilling holes
in the roof and piers, to be afterward charged with explosives, was
begun. At the completion, March 25, 1876, there had been drilled in
the roof 5,375 three-inch, in the piers 1,080 three-inch, and 286 two-
inch holes ; the total length of holes drilled being 56,548 feet of three-
inch and 1,897 feet of two-inch holes.

The proximity of the reef to habitations at Astoria, Ward's Island,
and Blackwell's Island, made it necessary to devise a system of explo-
sion which, effecting the work of demolition, would at the same time
do no damage to life and property. The atmosphere and the rock
being the mediums through which the shock would be transmitted, it
was essential that the waves propagated through these should be as
small as possible.

It was evident, in the first place that, if to each charge its full
capacity of useful work in breaking up the rock was assigned, regard
being likewise had to the superincumbent weight of water, no external
effect of moment would be perceived in the atmosphere. In the sec-
ond place, it was evident that the magnitude of the rock-wave would
depend greatly upon the quantity contained in individual charges, that
is, if eighty pounds were required for the individual charge, the vibra-
tion of the rock would be much greater than if these charges did not
exceed twenty pounds. It was known that eighty-pound charges of
nitro-glycerine, fired in numbers of twelve to twenty, did not cause a de-
structive wave. Again, the reef, after the excavation, being connected
with the rock only through the piers and outer edge of the roof, it was
inferred that the shock propagated in the rock would be due mainly
to the charges necessary to disrupt the piers and roof from their con-
nection with the bed-rock, and not to the charges to break up the roof
and piers. The cubic contents of the roof and piers were 63,135 cubic
yards, and the amount of explosives —

Rend-rock 9,127 pounds

Vulcan powder 11,853 "

Dynamite 28,935 "

Total 49,915

Being at the rate of 0*79 pound to each cubic yard.

The explosives were placed in tin cartridge-cases. The number
used was 13,596, 87 per cent being 22 inches and the remainder 11
inches in length. The number of holes charged was 4,427.

The system consisted of 3,680 mines and 23 batteries. Each bat-
tery assigned to 160 mines, which were divided into eight groups of
twenty each. The mines of each group were connected in continuous
series, and a lead and return wire to the battery closed the circuit.

The mines were fired at two hours fifty minutes p. m., September
24, 1876, and there were no injurious shocks in the atmosphere, in the
water or underground.

442

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

o

\i:

JilOu"

:i3

^^

EAST RIVER AND HELL GATE IMPROVEMENT. 443

i:^

I

The new facts obtained by this experience are :

1. That an unlimited amount of explosives dis-
tributed in blast-boles in moderate charges, pro-
portioned to the work to be done, thoroughly
confined in the rock, and tamped with water,
may be fired without damage to surrounding
objects.

2. That an unlimited number of mines may be
simultaneously fired by passing electric currents
through the platinum-wire bridges of detonators.

Substantially the same
methods as those which had
proved efficient upon the
Hallet's Point Reef were
applied to the larger and
more formidable Flood
Rock. Two shafts were sunk
from the ridge of the rock
(Fig. 4), whence the whole
nine acres of the reef — ex-
tending 1,200 feet in length
and 602 feet in width — was
undermined by two sets of
parallel galleries, running at
right angles to one another.
The piers of rock left be-
V '^ e o tween these galleries to sup-

port the roof of the mine
were about fifteen feet
square and twenty-five feet
7 apart from center to center.
The roof of the cross-gal-
leries, which ran at right an-
gles to the lines of stratifica-
tion, was blasted down as
thin as it would be safe to
leave it (Figs. 5 and G). Con-
siderable risk was incurred
in this part of the work,
from the danger of the rock
crumbling, and from the un-
fv /Mi'^^^^ 1 even and uncertain thickness

of the roof. The average
thickness was 18*8 thick, and
the minimum thickness ten
feet. The exact thickness could not be ascertained beforehand, for no

J

444 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

soundings could distinguish between the solid rock and a concretion of
bowlders and shells formed upon it. Had the excavations at any time
broken into a large seam, the mine would have been flooded by the in-
rush of the water, and all the work and probably many lives would
have been lost. Occasionally small seams were met and had to be
dealt with. One seam was ten inches wide and a hundred feet long ;
another one, from one to four inches wide and 400 feet long, extending
clear across the reef, carried 850 gallons of water a minute. The latter
was dealt with after protecting the completed part of the work by
building across the gallery a door capable of withstanding the pressure
of the water. The seams Avere all walled, as fast as they were opened,
with Portland cement. The total length of the galleries was 21 ,G70 feet.

The galleries were excavated to depths varying with the uneven
surface of the reef. The roof was then drilled with holes for the re-
ception of the explosive cartridges, with which the rock was to be
finally blown up. The holes were slanted upward at angles varying
from 75° to 45", and were made from eight to ten feet deep — except
where the existence of seams open to the river made it impossible to
obtain the depth wanted — and of suflScient capacity to receive a rigid
two-and-a-half-inch cartridge throughout their entire length.

The holes were charged with rack-a-rock as the principal explo-
sive— a substance formed by mixing 79 parts of finely-ground chlorate
of potash and 21 parts of di-nitrobenzole. It is one of the safest
explosives to handle, and the ingredients are absolutely inert when
kept separate, and they need not be mixed till just before loading the
cartridge ; it has lOO^V per cent the strength of No. 1 dynamite, when
fired under water, and costs but a little more than half as much. The
mixing was done in small batches on Great Mill Rock, in a lead-lined
trough, and the explosive was packed at once into cartridge-cases 2\
inches in diameter and 24 inches long, made of copper 0005 of an inch
thick. To prevent the corrosion of the copper by the chemical action
of the sulphureted water running through some of the drill-holes, the
cartridges were protected by being dipped in melted resin, beeswax,
and tallow. The cartridges, after being loaded, were soldered with a
steam-heated soldering-iron ; were removed as fast as they were filled,
and were carried to the mine in boxes containing twenty each ; so
that the amount of mixed explosive above-ground at any one time was
never enough to do more than local damage in case of an accident.
These cartridges were inserted in the drill-holes, one after the other,
till the holes were filled, the last cartridge in every case being filled
with dynamite, with its end left to project about six inches, so that it
might receive the full effect of the shock from the initial charges con-
nected with the battery. This cartridge is represented in Fig. 7, and
is 15 inches long and 2^ inches in diameter. In its forward or pro-
jecting end is inserted a small copper shell filled with fulminate of
mercury. The other cartridges, charged with rack-a-rock, repre-

EAST RIVER AND HELL GATE IMPROVEMENT. 445

sented in Fig. 8, are 24 inches long by '^\ inches in diameter, and
are provided at their forward ends with a fulminate primer which
is inserted after they are filled. This primer is shown in half size in
Fig. 9, and consists of a fulminate exploder similar to that shown in
Fig. 7, in a copper tube containing an ounce of No. 1 dynamite. The

Fig. 11. FiQ. 8. Fig. 10.
Cabtkidqes and Mine-Explodeb.

Fig. 12.

Arrangement op the Charges in the Mines.

cartridges are secured in the holes by the wire springs shown at their
lower ends; and the dynamite cartridge is also wedged in with wooden
wedges. Fig. 10 shows the mine-exploder, the position of which in
the mine is illustrated in Fig. 12. It consists of a brass cylinder, eight
inches long by two in diameter, filled with dynamite. Inclosed within
the dynamite is a fuse, shown half size in Fig. 10, the wires from which
pass through a divided cork in the mouth of the brass cylinder. It
consists of a copper tube nearly filled with 30 grains of fulminate of
mercury. Fitting in the open end of this tube is a second tube con-
taining sulphur, through which pass the two conducting-wires, they
being held firmly in place by the sulphur. The inner ends of the wires
are united by a small platinum wire. The ends of the wires arc then
surrounded with fulminate, and the two parts of the tube are put to-
gether, that containing the wires slipping within the other. The entire
fuse is then covered with gutta-percha. The passage of an electric cur-
rent through the wires heats the platinum bridge to redness, and causes
an explosion of the fulminate.

446 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The number of pounds of rack-a-rock put into drill-holes was
240,399 ; of dynamite, 42,331 ; total, 282,730 pounds. There were
11,789 drill-holes in the roof and 772 in the pillars, and their total
length was 113,102 feet, or more than twenty miles. The whole
amount of rock to be broken by the final blast was 270,717 cubic
yards, covering an area of about nine acres.

The primary charges, the office of which was by their detonation
to produce the explosion of the charges in the drill-holes, were placed
along the galleries at intervals of twenty-five feet, and arranged as shown
in Fig. 12. They were placed on timbers extending from wall to wall
in each of the galleries, and consisted of two twenty-four-inch dynamite
cartridges like those already described lashed to the timber, with one
of the "mine-exploders," also already described, bound upon them.
The entire mine was divided into twenty-four independent circuits.
Within each of twenty-one of these circuits were twenty-five fuses or
mine-exploders, while three circuits contained twenty-two fuses each.
A wire from the battery on the surface of the rock at the mouth of
the shaft led from one fuse to the next, until the twenty-five fuses
were in the same electrical circuit, and thence back to the battery.
So far as was practicable, adjacent charges were put on different cir-
cuits, so that if any circuit failed through any fault in the connections,
an explosion of its charges would still be insured through the sympa-
thetic action of the adjoining charges. The whole number of these
primary charges was 591. Some of the circuits were nearly a mile long.

The fuses prepared for this work had a resistance of 1 '73 ohms cold,
and 2-76 ohms at explosion. To fire a single fuse, 0-205 amperes were
required ; to fire a series, 0-G15 amperes. A factor of safety of two was
used, and double this current was sent through every fuse at the final
blast. The battery consisted of sixty cells, all coupled in one series,
each of which had an electro-motive force of 1*95 volts and an internal
resistance of O'Ol ohms. The plates were six inches by nine inches —
four carbon and three zinc plates in each cell, separated by a quarter of
an inch. The ordinary bichromate solution was used. The poles were
constituted of two large mercury-cups, into one of which were dipped
the twenty-four lead wires, while the twenty-four return wires ter-
minated in a third cup. Between this third cup and the remaining
pole of the battery stood the apparatus for closing the circuit. It
consisted of a stout iron cup containing mercury, in which sat a
thin glass tumbler also partly filled with mercury. Two large strips
of copper connected the mercury in the iron cup with one pole of
the battery, and that in the glass with the cup containing the re-
turn wires. To close the circuit through the fuses it was only neces-
sary to break the tumbler so as to let the mercury in it mix with that
in the iron cup. To do this at the proper moment, a one-quarter-inch
iron rod four feet long, terminating at the top in a small round disk,
stood with its point in the bottom of the glass. It was long enough

EAST RIVER AXD HELL GATE IMPROVEMENT. 447

to pass through the roof of the battery -house. A thirty-grain platinum
fuse, connected with a small battery at Astoria, was laid on the disk
and stuck on with a lump of wax. It had been previously determined
by experiment that the blow struck by this fuse on exploding, and
transmitted by the iron rod, would be so sharp as to completely pul-
verize the tumbler and yet not splash the mercury.

The mine was flooded by two siphons of twelve and sixteen inches
respectively, in fifteen hours and a half, ending at 3.30 a. m., October
10th. The explosion was set for 11 a. m., October 10th, but the inter-
ests at stake were so great, and the details to be looked after to avoid
every chance of miscarriage so numerous, that, in spite of the most en-
ergetic effort, everything could not be made ready and tested in time to
fire at the appointed moment. The explosion did not actually take
place till 11.13. This delay caused some confusion in the seismoscopic
observations.

The whole area of the reef was shattered. The plan of making
the excavations large enough to swallow all the debris of the reef and
leave a channel deep enough, without further operations, already aban-
doned at Hallet's Point as more expensive than dredging up the broken
rock, was never entertained at Flood Rock. Hence the sensational
view, which many persons expected to witness, of a sudden disappear-
ance of the rock, was not seen. Though the charges all exploded at
the same instant, the time and the appearance of the effect above the
water-surface varied according to the strength of the rock and the
depth of the water. There was no loud report and no dangerous
shock. The breaking of some panes of glass and the shaking down of
a few bricks and loose ceilings constituted all the damage that was
done.

Pending the awarding of a contract for dredging, the work of
removing the rock was begun with a scow belonging to the Govern-
ment as soon after the explosion as possible. From fifteen to thirty
tons of rock were removed daily by being hoisted out after having
been slung by divers on chains. A contract has been let for the
removal of 30,000 tons of the rock at 83.19 per ton, the contractor
to do his own surface-blasting. This is less than the price for which
rock was removed on similar terms at Hallet's Point. The contractor
has two grapples at work, and is removing an average of about 120
tons a day. As a whole, the cost of mining a cubic yard of rock has
been reduced 34f per cent from the cost of doing the same work at
Hallet's Point. The total cost of the work done on Flood Rock, in-
cluding the final blast, amounts to 82.99 per cubic yard of the whole
amount of rock broken, or 85.66 less than the cost of breaking Hal-
let's Point. A considerable part of this gain will, however, be ex-
pended on the proportionately larger amount of dredging to be done.
The net result, however, will show an improvement of not less than
30 per cent, and probably more. The total cost of the final blast at

448

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Hallet's Point was $81,092.24 ; at Flood Rock it was only 8106,509.93,
though the blast was 5*6 times as large. These results together indi-
cate that a great advance has been gained in the economy with which
the whole work was carried on ; and the progress with the dredging
gives promise that an 18-foot channel, 400 feet wide, over the worst
part of the reef, may be cleared out by spring. If the funds are sup-
plied as needed, the dredging can all be completed in three years.

The accounts of the observations of the shock of the explosion, have
been tabulated by General Abbott, as follows :

STATION.

Distance in
miles.

Interval
of transmission.

Velocity in miles
per second.

West Point, N. Y

42-34

ie-Vs

S6-65

48-52

144 89

182-G8

48

10-9
45-0
6-6
13-0
15-4
58-8
19-8
251-0

3-88

Hamilton College, N. Y

3-88

Pearsall'ti, L. I

2-54

Bay Shore, L. I ■

2-82

Patcho"ue, L. I

3 15

Goat Island, Pi. I

Harvard Observatory, Cambridge, Mass. . . .
Princeton, N. J

2-46
0-83
0-94

It seems that the speed of the oscillation-wave is the greatest
through an uninterrupted rock formation.

Fig. 13 is a bird's-eye view of the reefs of Hell Gate, taken from a
model constructed from the preceding map and from surveys of the
Engineer Department. The white margin around the shores and reefs
represents the parts between mean low water and twenty-six feet below
it, the level to which all reefs obstructing navigation are to be re-
duced.

Negro Point (1): on this reef no work has been done. It is to be
undermined and cut off on a line with the Sound - entrance wharf.
Holmes Rock (2) and Hog-Back (3) are simply to be finished with a
sea-wall. Frying-Pan (4) has been reduced to the level of twenty-four
feet below mean low water. Way's Reef (6), Shell Drake (7), fin-
ished to the full depth of twenty-six feet. Hallet's Point (8), the
rock shattered by the explosion has been entirely removed to the
depth of twenty-six feet. The projecting point has been cut off, as
shown by Fig. 3. Heel-Tap (9), broken to twenty-six feet, dredged
to twenty-two feet, to be cleaned to full depth. Great Mill Rock (10),
Little Mill Rock (11), connected by a dike ; nothing further to be done
here. The Gridiron (12), Flood Rock (13), Hen and Chickens (14),
Negro Heads (15), broken to thirty feet ; 15 is now being removed to
open the Middle Channel at once, and the balance afterward to full
depth. Rylandcr's Reef (IG) to be embanked. Bread and Cheese
(17) has already been embanked. Scaly Rock (18) has been removed.

It will be readily understood from the above description what has
been contemplated by these improvements, how far they have already
been carried out and what purpose they have served, and how adequate
will be the channel after they are completed.

Flo, 13.— Bikd's-ktk View of the River-bottom and Reeks at Heli, Gate.

THE INTERPRETERS OF GENESIS AND NATURE. 449

THE INTERPRETERS OF GENESIS AND THE INTER-
PRETERS OF NATURE.

By Peofessob T. II. HUXLEY.

OUR fabulist warns "those who in quarrels interpose" of the fate
which is probably in store for them ; and, in venturing to place
myself between so powerful a controversialist as Mr. Gladstone and
the eminent divine whom he assaults with such vigor in the last num-
ber of this review, I am fully aware that I run great danger of veri-
fying Gay's prediction. Moreover, it is quite possible that my zeal in
offering aid to a combatant so extremely well able to take care of him-
self as M. Reville may be thought to savor of indiscretion.

Two considerations, however, have led me to face the double risk.
The one is that though, in my judgment, M. Reville is wholly in the
right in that part of the controversy to which I propose to restrict my
observations, nevertheless, he, as a foreigner, has very little chance of
making the truth prevail with Englishmen against the authority and
the dialectic skill of the greatest master of persuasive rhetoric among
English-speaking men of our time. As the Queen's proctor intervenes,
in certain cases, between two litigants in the interests of justice, so it
may be permitted me to interpose as a sort of uncommissioned science
proctor. My second excuse for my meddlesomeness is, that important
questions of natural science — respecting which neither of the combat-
ants professes to speak as an expert — are involved in the controversy ;
and I think it is desirable that the public should know what it is that
natural science really has to say on these topics, to the best belief of
one who has been a diligent student of natural science for the last
forty years.

The original " Prolegom^nes de I'histoire des Religions" has not
come in my way; but I have read the translation of M. Reville's work,
published in England under the auspices of Professor Max Miiller, with
very great interest. It puts more fairly and clearly than any book
previously known to me the view which a man of strong religious feel-
ings, but at the same time possessing the information and the reason-
ing power which enable him to estimate the strength of scientific
methods of inquiry and the weight of scientific truth, may be expected
to take of the relation between science and religion.

In the chapter on " The Primitive Revelation " the scientific worth
of the account of the Creation given in the Book of Genesis is esti-
mated in terms which are as unquestionably respectful as, in my judg-
ment, they are just; and, at the end of the chapter on "Primitive
Tradition," M. Reville appraises the value of pentateuchal anthropol-
ogy in a way which I should have thought sure of enlisting the assent

VOL. XXTIII. — 29

450 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of all competent judges, even if it were extended to the whole of the
cosmogony and biology of Genesis :

As, however, the original traditions of nations sprang up in an epoch less
remote tlian our own from the primitive life, it is indispensable to consult them,
to compare them, and to associate them with other sources of information which
are available. From this point of view, the traditions recorded in Genesis pos-
sess, in addition to their own peculiar charm, a value of the highest order; but
we can not ultimately see in them more than a venerable fragment, well deserv-
ing attention, of the great genesis of mankind.

Mr. Gladstone is of a different mind. He dissents from M. Re-
ville's views respecting the proper estimation of the peutateuchal tradi-
tions no less than he does from his interpretation of those Homeric
myths which have been the object of his own special study. In the
latter case, Mr. Gladstone tells M. Reville that he is wrong on his own
authority, to which, in such a matter, all will pay due respect : in the
former, he affirms himself to be " wholly destitute of that kind of
knowledge which carries authority," and his rebuke is administered in
the name and by the authority of natural science.

An air of magisterial gravity hangs about the following passage :

But the question is not here of a lofty poem, or a skillfully constructed nar-
rative : it is whether natural science, in the patient exercise of its high calling to
examine facts, finds that the works of God cry out against what we have fondly
believed to be his word and tell another tale; or whether, in tliis nineteenth
century of Christian progress, it substantially echoes back the majestic sound,
which, before it existed as a pursuit, went forth into all lands.

First, looking largely at the latter portion of the narrative, which describes
the creation of living organisms, and waiving details, on some of which (as in
verse 24) the Septuagint seems to vary from the Hebrew, there is a grand four-
fold division, set forth in an orderly succession of times, as follows : on the fifth
day —

1. The water-population ;

2. The air-population ;
and, on the sixth day,

3. The land-population of animals ;

4. The land-population consummated in man.

Now this same fourfold order is understood to have been so affirmed in our
time by natural science, that it may be taken as a demonstrated conclusion and
established fact (p. C'J6).

"Understood" ! By whom? I can not bring myself to imagine
that Mr. Gladstone has made so solemn and authoritative a statement
on a matter of this importance without due inquiry — without being
able to found himself upon recognized scientific authority. But I
wish he had thought fit to name the source from which he has de-
rived his information, as, in that case, I could have dealt with his
authority, and I should have thereby escaped the appearance of making
an attack on Mr. Gladstone himself, which is in every way distasteful
to me.

THE INTERPRETERS OF GENESIS AND NATURE. 451

For I can meet the statement in the last paragraph of the above
citation with nothing but a direct negative. If I know anything at
all about the results attained by the natural science of our time, it is
" a demonstrated conclusion and established fact " that the " fourfold
order" given by Mr. Gladstone is not that in which the evidence at
our disposal tends to show that the water, air, and land populations of
the globe have made their appearance.

Perhaps I may be told that Mr. Gladstone does give his authority
— that he cites Cuvier, Sir John Herschel, and Dr. Whewell in support
of his case. If that has been Mr. Gladstone's intention in mentioning
these eminent names, I may remark that, on this particular question,
the only relevant authority is that of Cuvier. But, great as Cuvier
was, it is to be remembered that, as Mr. Gladstone incidentally remarks,
he can not now be called a recent authority. In fact, he has been dead
more than half a century, and the paleontology of our day is related
to that of his very much as the geography of the sixteenth century is
related to that of the fourteenth. Since 1832, when Cuvier died, not
only a new world, but new worlds, of ancient life have been discov-
ered ; and those who have most faithfully carried on the work of the
chief founder of paleontology have done most to invalidate the essen-
tially negative grounds of his speculative adherence to tradition.

If Mr. Gladstone's latest information on these matters is derived
from the famous discourse prefixed to the " Ossemens Fossiles," I can
understand the position he has taken up ; if he has ever opened a re-
spectable modern manual of paleontology or geology, I can not. For
the facts which demolish his whole argument are of the commonest
notoriety. But, before proceeding to consider the evidence for this
assertion, we must be clear about the meaning of the phraseology
employed.

I apprehend that when Mr. Gladstone uses the term " water-popu-
lation " he means those animals which, in Genesis i, 21 (revised ver-
sion), are spoken of as " the great sea-monsters and every living creat-
ure that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after
their kind." And I presume that it will be agreed that whales and
porpoises, sea-fishes, and the innumerable hosts of marine invertebrated
animals, are meant thereby. So " air-population " must be the equiva-
lent of " fowl," in verse 20, and " every winged fowl after its kind,"
verse 21. I suppose I may take it for granted that by "fowl" we
have here to understand birds — at any rate primaril)^ Secondarily, it
may be that the bats, and the extinct pterodactyls, which were flying
reptiles, come under the same head. But, whether all insects are
" creeping things " of the land-population, or whether flying insects are
to be included under the denomination of " winged fowl," is a point
for the decision of Hebrew exegetes. Lastly, I suppose I may assume
that " land-population " signifies " the cattle " and " the beast of the
earth," and " every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth," in

452

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

verses 25 and 2G ; presumably, it comprehends all kinds of terrestrial
animals, vertebrate and invertebrate, except such as may be comprised
under the head of the " air-population."

Now what I want to make clear is this : that if the terras " water-
population," "air-population," and "land-population," are understood
in the senses here defined, natural science has nothing to say in favor
of the proposition that they succeeded one another in the order given
by Mr. Gladstone ; but that, on the contrary, all the evidence we pos-
sess goes to prove that they did not. Whence it will follow that, if
Mr. Gladstone has interpreted Genesis rightly (on Mhich point I am
most anxious to be understood to offer no opinion), that interpretation
is wholly irreconcilable with the conclusions at present accepted by the
interpreters of Nature — with everything that can be called "a demon-
strated conclusion and established fact " of natural science. And be
it observed that I am not here dealing with a question of speculation,
but with a question of fact.

Either the geological record is sufficiently complete to afford us a
means of determining the order in which animals have made their ap-
pearance on the globe, or it is not. If it is, the determination of that
order is little more than a mere matter of observation ; if it is not, then
natural science neither affirms nor refutes the " fourfold order," but is
simply silent.

The series of the fossiliferous deposits, which contain the remains
of the animals which have lived on the earth in past ages of its history,
and which can alone afford the evidence required by natural science of
the order of appearance of their different species, may be grouped in
the manner shown in the left-hand column of the following table, the
oldest being at the bottom :

Fonnatlona. First known appearance of

Quaternary.
Pliocene.
Miocene.

Eocene. Vertebrate aiV-population (bats).

Cretaceous.

Jurassic Vertebrate aj>-population (birds and pterodactyls).

Triassic.

Upper Falajozoic.

Sliddlc PalaDOzoic Vertebrate /a«c?-population (amphibia, rcptilia [?]).

Lower PalKOzoic.

Silurian Vertebrate wa/er-population (fishes).

Invertebrate air- and /a?i</-population (flying insects and scorpions).
Cambrian Invertebrate ico^er-population (much earlier, if Ji'ozoon is animal).

In the right-hand column I have noted the group of strata in which,
according to our present information, the land, air, and neater popula-
tions respectively appear for the first time ; and, in consequence of the
ambiguity about the meaning of "fowl," I have separately indicated
the first appearance of bats, birds, flying reptiles, and flying insects. It

THE INTERPRETERS OF GENESIS AND NATURE. 453

will be observed that, if "fowl" means only "bird," or at most flying
vertebrate, then the first certain evidence of the latter, in the Jurassic
epoch, is posterior to the first appearance of truly terrestrial Amphibia^
and possibly of true reptiles, in the Carboniferous epoch (Middle Pale-
ozoic) by a prodigious interval of time.

The water-population of vertebrated animals first appears in the
Upper Silurian. Therefore, if we found ourselves on vertebrated ani-
mals and take "fowl" to mean birds only, or, at most, flying verte-
brates, natural science says that the order of succession was water,
land, and air population, and not — as Mr. Gladstone, founding himself
on Genesis, says — water, air, land population. If a chronicler of Greece
affirmed that the age of Alexander preceded that of Pericles and im-
mediately succeeded that of the Trojan War, Mr. Gladstone would
hardly say that this order is " understood to have been so affirmed by
historical science that it may be taken as a demonstrated conclusion
and established fact." Yet natural science "affirms" his "fourfold
order" to exactly the same extent — neither more nor less.

Suppose, however, that "fowl" is to be taken to include flying
insects. In that case, the first appearance of an air-population must
be shifted back for long ages, recent discovery having shown that they
occur in rocks of Silurian age. Hence, there might still have been
hope for the fourfold order, were it not that the Fates unkindly deter-
mined that scorpions — "creeping things that creep on the earth" par
excellence — turned up in Silurian strata, nearly at the same time. So
that, if the word in the original Hebrew translated "fowl" should
really, after all, mean "cockroach" — and I have great faith in the
elasticity of that tongue in the hands of biblical exegetes — the order
primarily suggested by the existing evidence —

2. Land and air population,

1. Water-population,
and Mr. Gladstone's order —

3. Land-population,

2. Air-population,

1. Water-population,
can by no means be made to coincide. As a matter of fact, then,
the statement so confidently put forward turns out to be devoid of
foundation and in direct contradiction of the evidence at present at our
disposal.*

* It may be objected that I have not put the case fairly, inasmuch as the solitary
insect's wiug which was discovered twelve months ago in Silurian rocks, and which is, at
present, the sole evidence of insects older than the Devonian epoch, came from strata of
Middle tellurian age, and is therefore older than the scorpions which, within the last two
years, have been found in Upper Silurian strata in Sweden, Britain, and the United States.
But no one who comprehends the nature of the evidence afforded by fossil remains would
venture to say that the non-discovery of scorpions in the Middle Silurian strata, up to thia
time, affords any more ground for supposing that they did not exist, than the non-dis-
covtry of flying insects in the Upper Silurian strata, up to this time, throws any doubt on

454

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

If, stepping beyond that which may be learned from the facts of
the successive appearance of the forms of animal life upon the surface
of the globe, in so far as they are yet made known to us by natural
science, we apply our reasoning faculties to the task of finding out
what those observed facts mean, the present conclusions of the inter-
preters of Nature appear to be no less directly in conflict with those of
the latest interpreter of Genesis.

Mr. Gladstone appears to admit that there is some truth in the
doctrine of evolution, and indeed places it under very high patronage :

I contend that evolution in its highest form has not been a thing heretofore
unknown to history, to philosophy, or to theology. I contend that it was before
the mind of Saint Paul when he taught that in tlie fullness of time God sent forth
his Son, and of Eusebius, when he wrote the "Preparation for the Gospel," and
of Augustine when he composed the " City of God " (p. 706).

Has any one ever disputed the contention thus solemnly enunciated
that the doctrine of evolution was not invented the day before yester-
day ? Has any one ever dreamed of claiming it as a modern innova-
tion ? Is there any one so ignorant of the history of philosophy as to
be unaware that it is one of the forms in which speculation embodied
itself long before the time either of the Bishop of Hippo or of the
Apostle to the Gentiles ? Is Mr. Gladstone, of all people in the world,
disposed to ignore the founders of Greek philosophy, to say nothing of
Indian sages, to whom evolution was a familiar notion ages before Paul
of Tarsus was born ? But it is ungrateful to cavil at even the most
oblique admission of the possible value of one of those afiirmations of
natural science which really may be said to be "a demonstrated con-
clusion and established fact." I note it with pleasure, if only for the
purpose of introducing the observation that, if there is any truth what-
ever in the doctrine of evolution as applied to animals, Mr. Gladstone's
gloss on Genesis in the following passage is hardly happy :

God created —

{a) The water-population ;

(J) The air-population.

And they receive his benediction (verses 20-23).

6. Pursuing tliis regular progression from the lower to the higher, from the
simple to the complex, the text now gives us tlie work of the sixth " day,'' wliich
supplies the land-population, air and water having been already supplied (pp.
095, 696).

The gloss to which I refer is the assumption that the " air-popula-
tion " forms a term in the order of progression from lower to higher,
from simple to complex — the place of which lies between the water-
population below and the land-population above — and I speak of it

the certainty that they existed, which is derived from the occurrence of the wing in the
Middle Silurian. In fact, I have stretched a point in admitting that these fossils afford a
colorable pretext for the assumption that the land and air population were of contempo-
raneous oririn.

THE INTERPRETERS OF GENESIS AND NATURE. 455

as a "gloss," because the pentateuchal writer is nowise responsible
for it.

But it is not true that the air-population, as a whole, is " lower "
or less " complex " than the land-population. On the contrary, every
beo-inner in the study of animal morphology is aware that the organi-
zation of a bat, of a bird, or of a pterodactyl, presupposes that of a
terrestrial quadruped ; and that it is intelligible only as an extreme
modification of the organization of a terrestrial mammal or reptile.
In the same way, winged insects (if they are to be counted among the
" air-population ") presuppose insects which were wingless, and there-
fore, as " creeping things," were part of the land-population. Thus
theory is as much opposed as observation to the admission that natural
science indorses the succession of animal life which Mr. Gladstone
finds in Genesis. On the contrary, a good many representatives of
natural science would be prepared to say, on theoretical grounds alone,
that it is incredible that the " air-population " should have appeared
before the " land-population " — and that, if this assertion is to be found
in Genesis, it merely demonstrates the scientific worthlessness of the
story of which it forms a part.

Indeed, we may go further. It is not even admissible to say that
the water-population, as a whole, appeared before the air and the land
populations. According to the Authorized Version, Genesis especially
mentions among the animals created on the fifth day " great whales,"
in place of which the Revised Version reads " great sea monsters." Far
be it from me to give an opinion which rendering is right, or whether
either is right. All I desire to remark is, that if whales and porpoises,
dugongs and manatees, are to be regarded as members of the water-
population (and if they are not, what animals can claim the desig-
nation?), then that much of the water-population has as certainly
originated later than the land-population as bats and birds have. For
I am not aware that any competent judge would hesitate to admit that
the organization of these animals shows the most obvious signs of their
descent from terrestrial quadrupeds.

A similar criticism applies to Mr. Gladstone's assumption that, as
the fourth act of that " orderly succession of times " enunciated in
Genesis, " the land-population consummated in man."

If this means simply that man is the final term in the evolutional
series of which he forms a part, I do not suppose that any objection
will be raised to that statement on the part of students of natural
science. But if the pentateuchal author goes further than this, and
intends to say that which is ascribed to him by Mr. Gladstone, I think
natural science will have to enter a caveat. It is not by any means
certain that man — I mean the species Homo sapiens of zoological ter-
minology— has "consummated" the land-population in the sense of
appearing at a later period of time than any other. Let me make my
meaning clear by an example. From a morphological point of view,

456 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

our beautiful and useful contemporary — I might almost call him col-
league— the Horse {Equus cahallus), is the last term of the evolutional
series to which he belongs, just as Homo scqnots is the last term of
the series of which he is a member. If I want to know whether the
species Equiis cahallus made its appearance on the surface of the globe
before or after Homo scqyiens, deduction from known laws docs not
help me. There is no reason that I know of why one should have ap-
peared sooner or later than the other. If I turn to observation, I find
abundant remains of J^quus caballus in Quaternary strata, perhaps a
little earlier. The existence of Homo sapiens in the Quaternary epoch
is also certain. Evidence has been adduced in favor of man's exist-
ence in the Pliocene or even in the Miocene epoch. It does not satisfy
me ; but I have no reason to doubt that the fact may be so, neverthe-
less. Indeed, I think it is quite possible that further research will
show that Homo sa2nens existed, not only before JEquus cahallus, but
before many other of the existing forms of animal life ; so that, if all
the species of animals have been separately created, man, in this case,
would by no means be the " consummation " of the land-population.

I am raising no objection to the position of the fourth term in Mr.
Gladstone's " order " — on the facts, as they stand, it is quite open to
any one to hold, as a pious opinion, that the fabrication of man was the
acme and final achievement of the process of peopling the globe. But
it must not be said that natural science counts this opinion among her
" demonstrated conclusions and established facts," for there would be
just as much, or as little, reason for ranging the contrary opinion
among them.

It may seem superfluous to add to the evidence that Mr. Gladstone
has been utterly misled in supposing that his interpretation of Genesis
receives any support from natural science. But it is as well to do one's
work thoroughly while one is about it ; and I think it may be advis-
able to point out that the facts, as they are at present known, not only
refute Mr. Gladstone's interpretation of Genesis in detail, but are op-
posed to the central idea on which it appears to be based.

There must be some position from which the reconcilers of science
and Genesis will not retreat, some central idea the maintenance of
which is vital and its refutation fatal. Even if they now allow that
the words " the evening and the morning " have not the least reference
to a natural day, but mean a period of any number of millions of years
that may be necessary ; even if they are driven to admit that the word
"creation," which so many millions of pious Jews and Christians have
held, and still hold, to mean a sudden act of the Deity, signifies a
process of gradual evolution of one species from another, extending
through immeasurable time ; even if they are willing to grant that the
asserted coincidence of the order of Nature with the " fourfold order "
ascriV)ed to Genesis is an obvious error instead of an established truth
— they are surely prepared to make a last stand upon the conception

THE INTERPRETERS OF GENESIS AND NATURE. 457

which underlies the whole, and which constitutes the essence of Mr.
Gladstone's "fourfold division, set forth in an orderly succession of
times." It is, that the animal species which compose the water-popu-
lation, the air-population, and the land-population respectively, origi-
nated during three distinct and successive periods of time, and only
during those periods of time.

This statement appears to me to be the interpretation of Genesis
which Mr. Gladstone supports, reduced to its simplest expression.
" Period of time " is substituted for " day " ; *• originated " is substi-
tuted for " created " ; and any order required for that adopted by Mr.
Gladstone. It is necessary to make this proviso, for if " day " may mean
a few million years, and "creation" may mean evolution, then it is ob-
vious that the order (1) water-population, (2) air-population, (3) land-
population, may also mean (1) water-population, (2) land-population, (3)
air-population ; and it would be unkind to bind down the reconcilers to
this detail when one has parted with so many others to oblige them.

But even this sublimated essence of the pentateuchal doctrine (if
it be such) remains as discordant with natural science as ever.

It is not true that the species composing anyone of the three popu-
lations originated during any one of three successive periods of time,
and not at any other of these.

Undoubtedly, it is in the highest degree probable that animal life
appeared first under aquatic conditions; that terrestrial forms appeared
later, and flying animals only after land animals ; but it is, at the same
time, testified by all the evidence we possess, that the great majority,
if not the whole, of the primordial species of each division have long
since died out, and have been replaced by a vast succession of new
forms. Hundreds of thousands of animal species, as distinct as those
which now compose our water, land, and air populations, have come
into existence and died out again, throughout the aeons of geological
time which separate us from the lower Palaeozoic epoch, when, as I
have pointed out, our present evidence of the existence of such dis-
tinct populations commences. If the species of animals have all been
separately created, then it follows that hundreds of thousands of acts
of creative energy have occurred at intervals throughout the whole
time recorded by the fossiliferous rocks ; and, during the greater part
of that time, the " creation " of the members of the water, land, and
air populations must have gone on contemporaneously.

If we represent the water, land, and air populations by a, b, and c
respectively, and take vertical succession on the page to indicate order
in time, then the following schemes will roughly shadow forth the
contrast I have been endeavoring to explain :

Genesis (as interpreted by Mr. Gladstone). Nature (as interpreted by natural science).
b b b c^ a? b""

c c c c a'^ b^

a a a 6 a' 6

458 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

So far as I can see, there is only one resource left for those modern
representatives of Sisyphus, the reconcilers of Genesis with science ;
and it has the advantage of being founded on a perfectly legitimate
appeal to our ignorance. It has been seen that, on any interpretation
of the terms water-population and land-population, it must be admit-
ted that invertebrate representatives of these populations existed dur-
ing the lower Palaozoic epoch. No evolutionist can hesitate to admit
that other land-animals (and possibly vertebrates among them) may
have existed during that time, of the history of which we know kg
little ; and, further, that scorpions are animals of such high organiza-
tion that it is highly probable their existence indicates that of a long
antecedent land-population of a similar character.

Then, since the land-population is said not to have been created
until the sixth daj', it necessarily follows that the evidence of the
order in which animals appeared must be sought in the record of those
older Palaeozoic times in which only traces of the water-population
have as yet been discovered.

Therefore, if any one chooses to say that the creative work took
place in the Cambrian or Laurentian epoch in exactly that manner
which Mr. Gladstone does and natural science does not affirm, natural
science is not in a position to disprove the accuracy of the state-
ment. Only one can not have one's cake and eat it too, and such
safety from the contradiction of Science means the forfeiture of her
support.

Whether the account of the work of the first, second, and third
days in Genesis would be confirmed by the demonstration of the truth
of the nebular hypothesis ; whether it is corroborated by what is
known of the nature and probable relative antiquity of the heavenly
bodies ; whether, if the Hebrew word translated " firmament " in the
Authorized Version really means " expanse," the assertion that the
waters are partly under this " expanse " and partly above it would be
any more confirmed by the ascertained facts of physical geograjDhy
and meteorology than it was before ; whether the creation of the
whole vegetable world, and especially of "grass, herb yielding seed
after its kind, and tree bearing fruit," before any kind of animal is
" affirmed " by the apparently plain teaching of botanical paleontology,
that grasses and fruit-trees originated long subsequently to animals —
all these are questions which, if I mistake not, would be answered de-
cisively in the negative by those who are specially conversant with the
sciences involved. And it must be recollected that the issue raised by
Mr. Gladstone is not whether, by some effort of ingenuity, the penta-
teuchal story can be shown to be not disprovable by scientific knowl-
edge, but whether it is supported thereby.

There is nothing, tlicn, in the criticisms of Dr. E6vine but Mhat rather tends
to confirm than to impair the old-fashioned belief that there is a revelation in the
Book of Genesis (p. G94).

THE INTERPRETERS OF GENESIS AND NATURE. 459

The form into which Mr. Gladstone has thought fit to throw this
opinion leaves me in doubt as to its substance. I do not understand
how a hostile criticism can, under any circumstances, tend to confirm
that Avhich it attacks. If, however, Mr. Gladstone merely means to
express his personal impression, " as one wholly destitute of that kind
of knowledge which carries authority," that he has destroyed the value
of these criticisms, I have neither the Avish nor the right to attempt to
disturb his faith. On the other hand, I may be permitted to state my
own conviction that, so far as natural science is involved, M. Reville's
observations retain the exact value they possessed before Mr. Gladstone
attacked them.

Trusting that I have now said enough to secure the author of a
wise and moderate disquisition upon a topic which seems fated to stir
unwisdom and fanaticism to their depths, a fuller measure of justice
than has hitherto been accorded to him, I retire from my self-appointed
championship, with the hope that I shall not hereafter be called upon
by M. Reville to apologize for damage done to his strong case by im-
perfect or imjjulsive advocacy. But perhaps I may be permitted to
add a word or two, on my own account, in reference to the great ques-
tion of the relations between science and religion, since it is one about
which I have thought a good deal ever since I have been able to think
at all, and about which I have ventured to express my views publicly,
more than once, in the course of the last thirty years.

The antagonism between science and religion, about which we hear
so much, appears to me to be purely factitious — fabricated, on the one
hand, by short-sighted religious people who confound a certain branch
of science, theology, with religion ; and, on the other, by equally short-
sighted scientific people who forget that science takes for its province
only that which is susceptible of clear intellectual comprehension, and
that outside the boundaries of that province they must be content with
imagination, with hope, and with ignorance.

It seems to me that the moral and intellectual life of the civilized
nations of Europe is the product of that interaction, sometimes in the
way of antagonism, sometimes in that of profitable interchange, of the
Semitic and the Aryan races, which commenced with the dawn of his-
tory, when Greek and Phoenician came in contact, and has been con-
tinued by Carthaginian and Roman, by Jew and Gentile, down to the
present day. Our art (except, perhaps, music) and our science are the
contributions of the Aryan ; but the essence of our religion is derived
from the Semite. In the eighth century b. c, in the heart of a world
of idolatrous polytheists, the Hebrew prophets put forth a conception
of religion which appears to me to be as wonderful an inspiration of
genius as the art of Pheidias or the science of Aristotle.

"And what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to
love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God ? "

460 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

If any so-called religion takes away from this great saying of Micah,
I think it wantonly mutilates, while, if it adds thereto, I think it ob-
scures, the perfect ideal of religion.

But what extent of knowledge, what acuteness of scientific criti-
cism, can touch this, if any one possessed of knowledge or acuteness
could be absurd enough to make the attempt ? AVill the progress of
research prove that justice is worthless, and mercy hateful ; will it ever
soften the bitter contrast between our actions and our aspirations ; or
show us the bounds of the universe, and bid us say, Go to, now we
comprehend the infinite ?

A faculty of wrath lay in those ancient Israelites, and surely the
prophet's staff would have made swift acquaintance with the head of
the scholar who had asked Micah whether, pcradventure, the Lord
further required of him an implicit belief in the accuracy of the cos-
mogony of Genesis !

What we are usually pleased to call religion nowadays is, for the
most part, Ilellenized Judaism ; and, not unfrequently, the Hellenic
element carries with it a mighty remnant of old-world paganism and
a great infusion of the worst and weakest products of Greek scientific
speculation ; while fragments of Persian and Babylonian, or rather
Accadian, mythology burden the Judaic contribution to the common
stock.

The antagonism of science is not to religion, but to the heathen
survivals and the bad philosophy under which religion herself is often
well-nigh crushed. And, for my part, I trust that this antagonism
will never cease ; but that, to the end of time, true Science will con-
tinue to fulfill one of her most beneficent functions, that of relieving
men from the burden of false science which is imposed upon them in
the name of religion.

This is the work that M. Reville and men such as he are doing for
us ; this is the work which his opponents are endeavoring, consciously
or unconsciously, to hinder. — Nineteenth Century.

RECENT EXPERIMENTS IN STATE TAXATION.

By henry JAMES TEN EYCK.

TO growl is the privilege of the tax-payer. To secure the entire
amount of the necessary revenue with the smallest growl is the
aim of the legislator. Probably there is no more unpopular official
than the tax-gatherer. Among persons of property the idea seems to
prevail that taxation is a kind of robbery which is to be evaded if pos-
sible. It is true that the public treasury has often been filled simply that
thieves might plunder it, or that worthless citizens might be supported

REGENT EXPERIMENTS IN STATE TAXATION. 461

at public expense, as a reward for their political work. This is the case
particularly in the administi'ation of municipal affairs. The national and
State governments have been conducted, in spite of the observance of the
odious spoils system, with an efficiency and economy unequaled by but
few great business houses. Even better service would undoubtedly be
obtained if the public had a fuller appreciation of the truth of the old
paradox that the dearest labor is the cheapest. More liberal salaries
for positions of trust and executive control would tend to elevate de-
cidedly the standard and ability of the men in the public service. But,
unfortunately, propositions of this character do not meet with general
approval. The vulnerable spot of the American is his pocket-book.
When an official lays his hands on that, the victim resents the attack
with indignation, and submits, after loud protestations and threats, to
the demand for his money, only out of respect for the superior power
of the law. The dominant party, in attempting to carry on the gov-
ernment satisfactorily, and, at the same time, not arouse the voter who
pays the taxes, has a difficult problem to solve. In the United States,
where the voter is the ruler, political managers find it essential to con-
tinued success to make the drafts on the ruler's pocket-book as light as
possible. All parties would be happy if the public treasury could be
filled by the touch of a magician's wand, so that taxes might be abol-
ished. But, as they are a necessary evil, a scheme of taxation without
lamentation is what is wanted. In the law laid down by Professor
William G. Sumner, that taxation tends to diffuse itself, but on the
line of least resistance, is found a hint for the basis of this scheme.
Turgot, the great French financier, expressed the politician's idea very
tersely when he said that the science of taxation is to pluck the goose
without making it cry. In hunting for the line of least resistance, and
the most scientific methods of plucking, several interesting experiments
have been made of late in different States, where new sources of reve-
nue have been sought from special taxes on corporations, railroads,
telegraph, telephone, and insurance companies, collateral inheritances,
and other classes of property which can be plucked without producing
a cry liable to strike a chord of sympathy in the popular heart. In
most instances these experiments have surpassed in their results the
expectations of the proposers. Large revenue has been obtained with-
out provoking even a murmur of disapproval from the voting classes.
In Vermont, for example, no direct tax was levied in 1883 and 1884,
the receipts under the corporation tax law paying the expenses of the
State government. The Comptroller of Xew York received $*9,569,-
161.35 in 1884, of which 81,603,612.75 were paid by corporations.
Last year,* although the Wisconsin Legislature authorized a levy of
$240,000, the State Treasurer was not obliged to collect any direct tax,
as the license-tax from railroads, insurance, telegraph, and telephone
companies was sufficient to meet the current expenses. The Treasurer
* 1884. Tho article was written June, 1885.

462 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of Minnesota states that " the revenue from the corporation tax is
steadily increasing, and if it should continue to increase, and the proba-
bilities are that it will, as it has done for the last four years, it bids
fair to pay all the expenses of the State government." In New Jersey
there is no regular tax, except for schools, as the new railroad and
canal tax law and the tax on miscellaneous corporations maintain the
government.

These are striking illustrations of the workings of a new system of
imposing special taxes on special classes of property, which was only
first tried about ten years ago. The idea of treating railroads and cor-
porations generally in a different manner in the tax levies from other
kinds of property was a development, perhaps, of the granger and
anti-monopoly movements. It is founded on the theory that parties
enjoying special privileges from the State should share with the State,
to some extent, the profits of their enterprises. If the Government
gives certain individuals peculiar advantages and protection in the
inauguration and prosecution of their schemes and business, it is held
that they should make a return for the favors granted, in proportion
to the success of their undertaking. In every State where the plan
has been tried it has worked admirably. After a stout resistance on
the part of the corporations, resulting in a judicial interpretation of all
the provisions of the statute, the execution of the new law goes on
smoothly in each State. The largest corporations naturally fight every
encroachment on their sources of income, but when the law is once in
full operation they submit gracefully. The various Legislatures adopt-
ing the system have endeavored not to make the tax too heavy. If
the rate is moderate it inflicts no serious burden on the corporations,
and yet brings a handsome sum into the public treasury. The benefits
of this new plan have, so far, been appreciated only in the New Eng-
land, Middle, and Northwestern States. Twelve States now impose
special taxes on railroads and other corporations. In eight more, in-
cluding three Southern States, insurance companies are subject to a
special rate. The ordinary method of levying a direct tax on real and
personal property still furnishes, in the large majority of States, almost
the entire revenue. The old poll-tax remains a favorite form of taxa-
tion in parts of New England and the South, twelve States raising most
of their school funds in that way. An examination of the tax laws of
each of the thirty-eight Commonwealths indicates, however, a steady
development of the idea of " taxation without lamentation." The at-
tack is not confined to corporations. There is a reaching out in every
direction for special subjects for taxation. If one State finds an object
that can pay special rates without suffering materially, and without
raising a popular outcry, other States follow in the line of the discov-
ery. On the other hand, a number of experiments have been aban-
doned, after a year or two of trial, because the law was unconstitutional
or unpopular. All the New England States have a tax on deposits in

RECENT EXPERIMENTS IN STATE TAXATION. 463

savings-banks. Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania tax collateral
inheritances. In New Hampshire the courts recently declared a law
of this kind unconstitutional. Kine States derive part of their revenue
from a tax on the liquor-traffic. Eight secure a considerable amount
from licenses granted to trades and occupations by the State, instead
of by the local authorities, as is the custom in most sections. A few
of the oddities of taxation by States may be referred to here. Mary-
land last year obtained $110,050 from a tax on the commissions of
executors and administrators of estates, one tenth part of the sum
allowed them by the Orphans' Court being demanded by the State.
North Carolina derived 663,000, in 1884, from a license of 8100 on
drummers. The declaration of the Ohio Supreme Court, last autumn
that the Scott liquor law was unconstitutional, has deprived the State
of an annual revenue of over $50,000, and the cities within its borders
of half a million. Pennsylvania and Virginia have income-taxes.
Georgia gets $300,000 per annum as the rental of the Atlanta and
West Point Railroad, and Illinois has seven percentum of the gross
earnings of the Illinois Central Railroad, between 8350,000 and 8-100,000
a year, as a charter tax. In South Carolina seventeen companies paid
a royalty, for the use of the phosphate-beds, of 8154,318, which is about
one quarter of the amount raised for State purposes. The occupation-
tax in Texas covers a very extensive list of trades and occupations.
The total receipts of the treasury in 1884 were 81,539,918, and of this
sum the occupation-taxes furnished 8774,756. In Massachusetts there
is a law for the taxation of corporations. The levy is made by the
State ; but the amount paid in is redistributed by the State to the
cities and towns where the stockholders reside, and only so much
thereof as is from non-residents remains in the State Treasury. Penn-
sylvania, by some strange process of reasoning, thinks that a man who
owns a watch should pay a tax for the privilege. As only 45,596
watches are reported by a population of 4,500,000, the inference is,
that the Quakers either conceal their time-pieces in an inner pocket, or
regulate their lives by the town-clock or the sun.

A glance at the laws of a few States which have secured the most
notable results in the direction of special taxation will show the scope
and bearing of the movement. Pennsylvania may, perhaps, be called
the pioneer. It has tried more experiments and probably reaches more
special classes than any other State. The tax on the capital stock of
all corporations, which yielded to the State 81,535,727.56 in 1884, is
one half mill for each one per centum of dividend declared, provided
the annual dividend amounts to six per centum or more. If the divi-
dends are less than six per centum, or if there are no dividends, the
tax is three mills upon each dollar of the appraised valuation, or mar-
ket value, of the stock. A further tax of eight tenths of one per
centum is imposed on the gross earnings of transportation and tele-
graph companies. This brought in last year 8787,929.20. Insurance

464 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

companies are assessed eight tenths of one per centum on gross premi-
ums, and bank-stocks, mortgages, and loans of different kinds pay four
per centum on every dollar of the value thereof. These special classes
paid $954,843,59 in 1884. Collateral inheritances of over 8200 are
taxed three mills on every dollar. From this source $4G1,4G5.48 were
derived. Tavern - licenses amounted to $426,429.19, and retailers'
licenses to 8o01,393.42. Nothing illustrates better how effectively
this system of special taxation can be applied than the fact that while
the total receipts of the Pennsylvania State Treasury in 1884 were
$6,226,959.38, only $502,025.43 were raised by a direct general tax.
New York State, which is first in wealth and the amount of revenue
collected, has not pushed the system to such an extent, although it is
rapidly following in the course of its neighbor. The tax on the capi-
tal stock of corporations is only one half of that levied in Pennsyl-
vania, namely, one quarter of a mill for each one per centum of divi-
dends if the dividends equal or exceed six per centum, and one and
one half mill upon each dollar of a valuation of the capital stock
when they are under six per centum or nil. The tax on the gross
earnings of transportation, navigation, telegraph, and telephone com-
panies is one half per centum. This yielded in 1884 $1,603,612.75,
insurance companies paying on their capital and premiums $241,676.15
of the amount. In Wisconsin, where special taxes have also worked
well, the plan is somewhat different. The license-tax, as it is called
there, applies to railroads, insurance, telegraph, and telephone com-
panies. Railroads are taxed from five dollars per mile of operated
road to four per centum of gross earnings, as follows : If the road
earns less than $1,500 per mile, it is taxed five dollars per mile ; on
those earning more than $1,500 and less than $3,000 per mile, the tax
is five dollars per mile, and two per centum on the excess over $1,500
per mile ; on those earning $3,000 or more per mile, the tax is four
per centum on gross earnings. Telegraph companies pay one dollar
per mile for the first wire, fifty cents per mile for the second, twenty-
five cents per mile for the thii-d, and twenty cents per mile for the
fourth and all additionah Telephone companies pay one per centum
on gross receipts, and insurance companies two per- centum on gross
earnings. This tax or license is in lieu of all other taxes, and amounted
in 1884 to : Railroads, $754,269.44 ; telegraph, $4,568.85 ; telephone,
$1,169.26 ; insurance, $64,904.75 ; or a total of $824,912.30. Vermont,
which pays nearly its entire expenses out of the special taxes, has a law
somewhat similar to that of AVisconsin. It levies two per centum on
railroads on the first $2,000 of earnings per mile. The rate increases
one per centum for each additional $1,000 per mile up to $5,000, and on
all earnings over $5,000 per mile it is five per centum. Insurance com-
panies pay two per centum on gross premiums, and life-insurance com-
panies in addition one per centum on all surplus over the necessary
reserve computed at four per centum on existing policies. Savings-

RECENT EXPERIMENTS IN STATE TAXATION. 465

banks pay one half per centum on deposits ; express, telegraph, and
telephone companies, three per centum on gross earnings, and steam-
boats two per centum. These quotations are sufficient to show the
methods of corporation taxation.

The expediency and justice of a tax on collateral inheritances is
not so readily admitted. Although it has been enforced as a war-tax,
it is somewhat of an innovation on the principles of taxation observed
in this country. There is a slight flavor of communism in the idea,
yet the proposition is not altogether objectionable, and may be sus-
tained by good arguments. A law of a similar character has been in
operation in England many years. It is held to be in the nature of a
franchise or license tax, upon the right derived from the state of trans-
mitting property, and is inflicted only when property is bequeathed
out of the immediate family. If there are no constitutional objections,
the recipients of the bequests certainly have no cause for complaint, if
the Government compels them to pay a small share of their gift for its
support. A Pennsylvania man, for instance, who receives a windfall
of 8100,000 from a distant relative or an intimate friend, will obtain
no sympathy if he growls because be is obliged to turn over $3,000
of it into the public treasury. He is better able to do so than any
other man who has acquired his property by hard toil and individual
exertion and enterprise. In Maryland the rate is two and one half per
centum on every $100 of collateral inheritances over 1500, and the tax
yielded, last year, $86,218.46. The New York Legislature last winter
passed a bill imposing a tax of five per centum on similar bequests.
Although it aroused some opposition, Governor Hill signed the meas-
ure, with a recommendation that it be amended next winter so as to
place the limit at $5,000 instead of $500, it being argued that in its
present form it might place heavy burdens on poor persons who might
receive small bequests of $1,000 or $2,000. It is estimated that the
new law will yield annually in New York between $750,000 and
81,000,000. Evidences of the spread of the idea of "taxation without
lamentation " are found in the recent proceedings of the Legislatures
of other States. In Pennsylvania a bill was introduced, in April last,
imposing a tax of five mills on the interest of deposits in savings-banks
having no capital stock. There are obvious reasons for not taxing
deposits in savings-banks, audit is to be hoped that this sort of special
taxation will not be more extensively adopted. Notwithstanding the
disastrous results, politically, in other States, of a heavy tax on the
liquor-traffic, Illinois has just placed on its statute-books a law impos-
ing a tax of 8500 per annum on the sale of liquors, and $150 per an-
num on the sale of beer. In California, at the last session, a bill was
passed to submit to the people an amendment to the Constitution pro-
viding that railroads shall pay an annual tax of two and a half per
centum on gross earnings, and also that income-taxes may be assessed
and collected from persons and corporations. The existing laws, and

VOL. XXTIII. — 30

466 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

these recent efforts to secure additional statutes for raising the State
revenues by means of special taxation, mark the development of new
methods of taxation based principally on the growth of corporate
wealth and the prosperity of certain privileged and, in some cases, like
the liquor-traffic, objectionable classes of industry and business. The
proportion of the States in which they are on trial is as yet small.
The number, however, is steadily increasing. As the advantages of
the new plan are brought more clearly before the notice of legislators,
we may expect a revolution in State taxation. So great has been the
progress in the past ten years that it would not be astonishing to see
at the end of the next decade fully one half of the States levying
merely a nominal direct tax, or none at all. Special privileged classes
will probably bear the burden of State taxation in the future. The
tariff will furnish the national revenue, and the main tax on real and
personal property will be for the necessities of county and municipal
government. The only danger lies in a tendency to overdo the mat-
ter. The special taxes must not be oppressive. The rights of the
special classes, as well as of the other tax-payers, must be protected.
If co-operation between the States could be assured, so that uniform
and equitable rates might be established, great benefit would be
derived by all property-owners.

BISHOP'S EING AEOUND THE SUN.

By WILLIAM M. DAVIS.

IF there is nothing new under the sun, there is at least something
new around it. For the last two years close observers of the sky
have noticed that the noonday sun has been surrounded by a corona
of dusky, coppery, or reddish light, as it has been variously described,
the circle of most distinct color having a radius of about fifteen de-
grees, and inclosing a brilliant, silvery or bluish glow close around the
solar disk. A similar appearance of much less intensity has been occa-
sionally noticed around the full moon on very clear winter nights.

The most experienced observers of sky-colors are agreed that this
corona was not visible before the latter months of 1883. Von Bezold,
of Munich, who was considered the most competent meteorologist to
prepare a schedule for observations on the colors of the sky for the
recent German Arctic Expedition, says that, in spite of the close atten-
tion he had previously given to the appearance of the usual whitish
glow around the sun, he had never till recently seen the dusky ring.
Thollon, of Nice, who had made a special study of the sky around the
sun for a series of years, declares confidently that a change occurred
in November, 1883. Backhouse, of Sunderland, who has a careful

BISHOP'S RING AROUND THE SUN. 467

record of parhelia for twenty-five years, confirms this opinion. "VVe
may, therefore, safely accept the conclusion that the change of color
from the blue of the open sky to the intense glare of whitish light
close around the sun, was until lately effected without the appearance
of any reddish tinge in the transitional area.

The new corona, to which the name of " Bishop's ring " has been
given after its first observer, has never been a very conspicuous affair,
and therefore has not attracted the popular attention that it deserves ;
but it could easily be seen every clear day last winter, and has repeat-
edly been noticed since then in the latter months of 1885. The hazy
days of summer are not favorable to its visibility. It is best seen
from elevated stations, which gain their sky-colors chiefly from the
finer particles floating at great altitudes, as they are above the lower
strata of the atmosphere where the relatively coarse, haze-making dust
is suspended. Forel, of Morges, one of the most acute observers of
terrestrial physics in Switzerland, reports the distinct visibility of the
ring from mountain-tops, while it is not to be seen from the valleys,
where the whitish, hazy light overpowers its delicate colors. He adds
that many of his countrymen in the higher Alps had been struck with
the appearance of the new color in the sky before they had heard men-
tion of it. For the same reason Tissandier found the distinctness of
the corona greatly increased when viewed from a balloon high above
the dusty air of Paris. At low-level stations it is best seen during the
persistence of that type of weather known as " anti-cyclonic " among
modern meteorologists. Such weather is characterized by high baro-
metric pressure, and consequently has descending currents of pure,
clean upper air. The sky is then brilliantly clear and free from haze,
and at such times last winter the ring was of remarkable distinctness.
Thin cirrus clouds generally hide it ; but the presence of scattered,
sharp-edged cumulus clouds adds to its visibility in the clear spaces
between them. Let one of them stand before the sun, so that its
heavy shadow darkens the lower air, whose reflecting particles ordi-
narily add much white light to the blue of the sky ; then, looking be-
tween the clouds in the neighborhood of the sun, a broad arc of the
ring appears with its colors blending in what may be fairly called the
most delicate intensity. Just before a moderate thunder-storm early
last June, the ring was thus presented with most beautiful effect.
It was seen in Cambridge with extraordinary distinctness on the after-
noon of November 2, 1885, when the lower clouds of a heavy rain-
storm rapidly broke away in the west, about two o'clock, leaving the
sun well hidden behind a sheet of upper cloud and a space of open sky
below it. The lower air was thus well shaded from direct sunlight,
and the strength of the colors was most remarkable. There was first
the margin of the glowing central area at the edge of the cloud, soon
turning pale brassy yellow, and then strong reddish gold at about fif-
teen to twenty degrees from the sun ; farther out yet was the delicate

468 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

rosy or purplish-pink, and at last the pure blue of the sky. The colors
were wonderfully vivid for the time of day, although, of course, not
60 brilliant as those of a well-developed sunset ; but it unfortunately
seems to have very generally passed unnoticed. Inquiry among my
neighbors failed to discover any one who had seen it.

Numerous observations in many parts of Europe and this country
leave little room for question that the corona is produced in the upper
atmosphere, and that it was continuously present above the cloudy or
dusty lower air over a large part if not over the whole of the earth
throughout 1884 and 1885.

The explanation of the optical process by which such a corona may
be produced offers no particular difficulty. It is a relatively simple
effect of diffraction, an effect of the same nature as that seen in the
colored rings surrounding a light looked at through a glass that is
faintly frosted over, as may be noticed almost any cold -winter evening
when looking out of a window. A brief statement of the process may
be made, following the explanation given by Kiessling, to whom the
author is much indebted in the preparation of this article.

Let us first consider the action of a beam of parallel rays of mono-
chromatic light — that is, of strictly one-colored light, whose waves all
agree in their period of vibration — as it passes an excessively fine
thread stretched at right angles to its path, and falls on a screen be-
yond. The waves will be turned aside from and bent around both
sides of the thread, as if diverging there from new centers of radia-
tion. This is diffraction. A gross figure of the process is here given
(Fig. 1) on a plane at right angles to the thread, T H. The point A

on the screen will be illuminated, although it is behind the thread, for
the waves that reach A from either side of the thread agree in phase.
Take a point, B or C, such that the distance B H exceeds B T by half
a wave-length. Then the diffracted waves which agreed in phase at

BISHOP'S RING AROUND THE SUN.

469

the thread will be just opposed at B, the crest of one will fall with the
trough of the other ; they are thus extinguished by interference, and
darkness will result. Take another point, D, on the screen, such that
D H differs from D T by a whole wave-length. Now the diffracted
waves will agree in phase at D, and this point will be illuminated,
like A. The screen will therefore be marked by a bright band behind
the thread, and by dark and bright bands, blending together and par-
allel to it on either side. Their breadth will vary directly as the wave-
length, and inversely as the diameter of the thread. The redder the
ray and the finer the thread, the broader the bands.

Next consider the case of a single small particle of diameter greater
than the wave-length in the path of the monochromatic beam. The
same figure now may represent a plane parallel to the rays, passing
through the particle in any direction. The parallel bands become con-
centric rings with a bright central spot behind the particle. The
diameter of the rings varies, as above stated for the bands. The bluer
the light and the larger the particle, the narrower the rings.

The next step makes an approach to the actual case by supposing
a great number of one-sized particles floating in the space traversed
by the waves, and considers their effect as perceived by an observer at
A (Fig. 2). The unaltered light is seen in the direction of the rays

FiQ. 2.

A R. Interference of the waves diffracted from B causes a dark cir-
cle on the surface V T, of diameter A H ; from C, a circle A J ; from
D, a circle A N. Hence all the particles situated on the surface of a
cone whose axis is A R, and apical angle is F A G, give no light to A,
and the luminous center R seems to be surrounded by a dark ring at
an angular distance RAF. This may be called a subjective ring in

470 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

distinction from the objective rings, AH, A J, AN. In the same
way, the particles situated on the cone PAS will contribute to the
formation of a bright subjective ring of radial angle RAP. The
center R will appear to be surrounded by dark and bright rings.

Now we must introduce the supposition of many-colored or poly-
chromatic light — the white light of many wave-lengths that comes
from the sun. Such light, passing a fine thread, forms a series of pris-
matic bands on a screen ; passing a single particle, it forms a series of
concentric prismatic rings with the blue inside ; for the first blue ring
will fall a little inside of the first yellow, and the first yellow inside of
the first red — and so on with the others, until at a distance from the
center the outer rings overlap irregularly. The subjective rings seen
when white light passes through a transparent medium containing
many one-sized particles will, for the same reason, appear many-colored,
with the blue inside and the red outside ; the central area will be white,
with a reddish margin.

Finally, the actual case is reached when the suspended particles are
of dijQFerent sizes. The colors of the central area now overlap so ir-
regularly that they unite to form a whitish or silvery disk ; but the
outer red margin of the central area formed by the smallest particles
is still uncounterbalanced. The silvery disk will be reddish about the
circumference ; and the colors thus deduced by theory are so closely
like those observed in Bishop's ring around the sun that it may be
safely considered a diffraction corona. The outer rings are too faint
to be seen in daytime.

Colored coronal rings may be seen around a light when looking at
it through a glass strewed lightly over with spores of lycopodium ;
they are so nearly of the same size that a number of concentric rings
appear. Kiessling describes some interesting experiments with thin
artificial clouds of condensed vapors, through which the sun is seen
surrounded with coronal rings. The moon is often surrounded with
similar I'ings of small diameter, formed by diffraction, probably on
small floating particles of ice, even when the sky seems clear. These
are easily distinguished from halos. The latter are of definite and
much larger diameter, and, when seen around the moon, are gen-
erally whitish ; if formed around the sun, they are visibly colored with
the red inside ; and they are due to refraction and reflection on mi-
nute ice-crystals.

All this is safe enough ; it is the origin of the diffracting particles
and the long endurance of their effect that give trouble. Indeed, the
experimental and mathematical knowledge of optics, based on the un-
dulatory theory of light, has advanced so far that the physicist is now
better able to suggest processes by which effects may be produced
than the meteorologist is able to apply them. The physicist can safely
say that a sufiicient supply of extremely fine liquid or solid dust scat-
tered through the atmosphere would produce just such a solar corona

I

BISHOP'S RING AROUND THE SUN. 471

as Bishop's ring. It is for the meteorologist to inquire whether a sup-
ply of dust sufficient in quantity and quality, appearing at the right
time and enduring long enough, can be accounted for.

Kiessling, of Hamburg, already referred to, has done the best work
on the corona as well as on the great sunsets with which it is evidently
connected. His pamphlet, entitled "Die Dammerungserscheinungen
im Jahre 1883, und ihre physikalische Erklarung " (Hamburg, 1885),
gives the most satisfactory account and explanation of the twilights
that I have seen ; and its value is largely increased by the experi-
mental illustrations that the author has devised in imitation of the
strange natural phenomena that he accounts for so well. A later
paper, " Ueber die geographische Verbreitung des Bishop'schen Son-
nenringes," in the May number of the little meteorological journal,
" Das Wetter," and a short paper by Forel on " Le Cercle de Bishop,"
in the Geneva " Archives des Sciences " for June, are the most recent
articles of consequence on the corona, and give important evidence as
to the origin of its diffraction particles by showing its relation to the
famous sunsets. The new corona was first noticed in Honolulu on the
5th of September, 1883, by the Rev. Sereno F. Bishop, who called
attention to it by descriptions published at the time, and in letters to
"Nature." Although seen so early in September in the Sandwich
Islands, it was not recognized in this country till November 24th, when
Professor Le Conte saw it at Berkeley, California ; nor in Europe till
the days directly following ; but ever since then it has been continu-
ously visible till now, in proper conditions of weather as already de-
scribed. After rarely being seen in the summer, it has reappeared in
the clearer days of the winter. Being always relatively inconspicu-
ous, the date of its first visibility can not generally be determined
with accuracy — alas for the neglect of so rare an opportunity of val-
uable observation ! — but the agreement of the growth of the area in
which it was noted and the spread of the great sunsets is placed be-
yond a doubt ; and with them its origin must be referred to the explo-
sive eruption of Krakatoa. Kiessling considers this relation of cause
and effects to be firmly established, and even quotes approvingly
the name given by Arcimis in Madrid, "corona solar krakatoense,"
although the name of "Bishop's ring" is undoubtedly the one that
will come into general use.

The evident difficulties in the way of accepting the volcanic origin
of the diffracting particles are the great quantity of material that
would seem to be needed, the excessive fineness of its texture, and
its long suspension in the thin upper air ; but I believe that these diffi-
culties are by no means fatal to the volcanic theory. The quantity
needed is not absolutely so great, after all. Tyndall suggested that
the minute, almost molecular particles, to which the blue color of the
sky is usually referred, could all be contained in a snuff-box ; and,
while this need not be taken as in any way an accurate estimate of the

472 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

mass of matter involved, it may nevertheless serve to measure the
very low order of its quantity. Many snuff-boxfuls were thrown out
of Krakatoa. Moreover, the dust-particles may be very sparsely scat-
tered ; the miles of air through which they are spread compensating
for the wide space between them. The fineness of the solid dust is a
legitimate result of what is now known of the constitution of lavas.
Microscopic examination of igneous rocks has shown lithologists how
well a volcanic explosion can produce diffracting dust ; high magnify-
ing power, applied to rocks that are presumably old buried lavas which
failed to reach the surface, reveals the presence of the minutest cavi-
ties containing liquids or gases or both, so small and so closely packed
that myriads would be contained in a cubic inch : under the decreas-
ing pressures found as lavas rise through a vent to escape at the sur-
face outlet, the occluded gases and vapors would escape, and in so
doing would shatter the lavas to the finest imaginable dust. It is
probably by this intimate process, as well as by ordinary forms of
mechanical violence, that Krakatoa was, figuratively, blown to atoms.
The greater and coarser part of the dust darkened the sky for a day
or two and soon fell on the surrounding lands and seas ; a finer rem-
nant was carried high into the air by the outrushing gases, and then
spread far and wide over the earth to produce the marvelous sunsets ;
does the finest residue still hang aloft and give us Bishop's ring ?
How can it be suspended so long ?

Kiessling's experiments have led him to believe that the coronal
diffraction does not take place immediately around the volcanic dust-
particles, but rather around the minute globules of water or ice con-
densed on these particles as nuclei. Recent researches have shown
that water-vapor may remain in the gaseous state below the tempera-
ture proper to its condensation, provided there is no solid or liquid mat-
ter present on which the condensation can begin ; the change from the
gaseous to the liquid state seems to desire the presence of some point
of beginning, such as is furnished by ordinary dust, or by the far finer,
ultra-microscopical particles always present in the air. It is in part
for this reason that great cities in damp countries must be hopelessly
foggy; however perfect the combustion in their numerous furnaces,
unburned ash in very fine division must fly up the chimneys as long as
wood and coal are used, and the finer the ash the better for the fog,
when the coolness for condensation arrives. Now, in connection with
this, there is a very peculiar point to be considered, concerning the
distribution of water-vapor in the atmosphere. Water-vapor is a light,
elastic, condensible gas, and its elastic lightness is always tending to
throw it to an altitude where the cold of its expansion would require
a part of it to condense into the liquid or solid state. It can, as yet,
hardly be said that some minute point of beginning is absolutely
necessary for all such condensation, but it may be safely asserted that
the presence of dust aids and increases the rapidity of the process ;

BISHOP'S RING AROUND THE SUN. 473

and it is this office that the finest and highest of the Krakatoa dust is
thought to have performed. And here a peculiar cycle of operations,
first suggested by Wollaston years ago, and generally neglected since
then, may be reconsidered. So long as the water-substance is in the
vaporous condition, it acts as a gas, and tends to expand upward ;
part of it would thereby be condensed, generally in the solid state, and
on losing the gaseous condition the frozen particles would at once
tend to fall toward the earth, impeded only by the presence of the thin
air ; but, after a certain length of falling, they would reach air warm
and dry enough to allow them to re-evaporate, whereupon their vapor
would again expand upward, and the cycle of operations begins anew.
Wollaston suggested that the gases of the air might be thus affected
by the extreme cold of upper space, and that a limit of the atmos-
phere might so be determined. There is, however, no experimental
evidence yet adduced to prove that oxygen and nitrogen would behave
in such a way, and the limitation of the atmosphere must be due to
other causes ; but the upward extension of water-vapor might be thus
controlled. May we not, therefore, imagine that the vapor of the
upper atmosphere, re-enforced liberally by steam from Krakatoa and
other volcanoes in eruption at the same time, found its opportunity for
condensation much improved for several months by the lava-dust from
the same sources ; and thus explain the brilliant sunsets and the
strength of color in Bishop's ring during the winter of 1883-'84 ? But
gradually the dust settles down, very slowly on account of its large
ratio of surface to weight ; and the vapor also decreases by slow down-
ward diffusion ; then the brilliancy of the display is lost, and the
moderate residual of vapor, condensing as well as it can alone, pro-
duces only a fainter-colored ring and sunset glows that are visible only
under especially favorable circumstances.

Be all this as it may, it is well to bear in mind that some such ex-
planation must be found and accepted, for the facts of diffracting
particles and their relation to Krakatoa are too well proved to be
doubted, unless evidence not yet forthcoming shall appear in great
strength.

The ring is doomed to disappear, and hence deserves a close watch-
ing. For, as Forel has pointed out, the outburst of Krakatoa must
have had its rivals in ancient if not in modern times, and rings like
Bishop's must in all probability have resulted from former dusty ex-
plosions. But these had all faded long before Bishop's ring appeared,
and we must, therefore, conclude that it will fade away also. It should
be carefully watched, especially from high-level stations, and those
who make a persevering record of it should not fail to inform Pro-
fessor Kiessling, of Hamburg, about what they see.

Cambridge, Massachusetts, December, 18S5.

474 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

THE I^^FLUE^TE OF INVEXTIOXS UPOX CIYILI-

ZATIOK

By CIIAUNCEY SMITH.

IN "Westminster Abbey, that place where England honors her great
men with burial, and records their names and achievements, there
stands a monument bearing this inscription from the pen of Lord
Brougham, who esteemed it one of the greatest honors of his life that
he was called upon to record the nation's appreciation of the man in
whose honor the monument was erected :

" Not to perpetuate a name

"Which mu^t endure wliile the peaceful arts flourish,

But to show

That mankind have learned to honor those

Who best deserve their gratitude,

The King,

His Ministers, and many of the Kobles

And Commoners of the Realm,

Raised tliis monument to

James Watt,

"Who, directing the force of an original Genius

Early exercised in Philosophic research,

To the improvement of

The steam-engine,

Enlarged the Resources of his Country,

Increased the Power of Man,

And rose to an eminent i)lace

Among the most illustrious followers of Science

And the real Benefactors of the "World."

The world has always paid homage to its distinguished warriors,
statesmen, orators, poets, philanthropists, artists, historians, travelers,
and to all who have left the impress of their works upon the history
of mankind.

It is not until recently, however, that inventors have received a
large share of these honors. As a class, they hardly had an existence
till within a hundred years. Within that time they have risen to the
highest place among those who, in the language of the eulogy I have
just quoted, best deserve the gratitude of mankind, and by their works
they have made greater changes in the face of society, and in the re-
lations of civilized man to the physical world, than all the warriors
and statesmen who have flourished since the commencement of the
Christian era.

T am not unmindful, in making this statement, of the great changes
that followed the introduction of the Christian religion, or the advent

INFLUENCE OF INVENTIONS ON CIVILIZATION. 475

of Mohammed and the rise of his religion, of the consequences which
followed the establishment of great empires like that of Charlemagne,
or of the results of geographical discovery, as in the discovery of
America or of the passage to India.

I am well aware of the difficulty of comparing the magnitude or
importance of such things, for instance, as the art of printing, the
steam-engine, or the railway or telegraph, with a new form of religion,
or the establishment or overthrow of an empire, or the introduction of
new forms of government. One man may attach much higher impor-
tance to some of these things than another would do, and a very much
higher importance to them at one period of his life than at another.

It may seem absurd to some persons to make any comparison, for
instance, between the benefits flowing from the introduction of Sabbath-
schools and those which have followed the invention of friction-matches;
between the results due to the invention of spectacles and the conse-
quences which followed the Reformation. And yet it is easy to see
that each of these things must have had an important influence upon
the physical, social, and moral condition of men, upon their habits of
thought and of living, and upon their comfort and happiness. There
is, therefore, some just relation between the value of these things to
men, and it will not be unprofitable to spend a little time in consider-
ing how much we owe to inventors for what we have and what we are.

It is my purpose this evening to briefly bring into view, if I can,
the service which inventors have rendered the world, and the part
which inventions play in the moral and social condition of man. I
shall point out in some cases the extreme simplicity of the inventions,
in others the wonderful results which have flowed from them.

I shall refer not merely to what are called great inventions, but to
some which seem to be very small. I shall very likely speak of noth-
ing with which you are not all more or less familiar, but I may possi-
bly suggest reflections which are interesting but which seldom come
to our minds, for the very reason that we are so familiar with the
things to which they relate ; and I think that I may be able to show
that there are no other men to whom the world is so much indebted
as to its inventors, no others who so well merit its honors and deserve
its gratitude.

We do not often stop to think how little man has or enjoys that
is not the fruit of invention. Things which man has long had we
have ceased to think of as inventions, and we are apt to apply that
term only to modern things— to things the origin of which we know.
Yet it will be hard for any of us to name anything which we use or
enjoy which is not an invention, or the subject of an invention, in its
adaptation to our use.

The air we breathe and the water we drink are provided by Na-
ture. But we drink but very little water except from a cup or vessel
of some kind, which is a human invention. Even if w^e drink from

476 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the shell of a gourd, we are using a thing which, in the shape we use
it, is a human contrivance, and the contrivances which man has de-
vised for obtaining water and distributing it have been among the
most wonderful and ingenious of any which have occupied the human
mind. Bountifully as Nature has provided water and placed it within
the reach of man, yet we do in fact get or use but little of it except
by the aid of inventions.

The air surrounds u*s at all times and we can not help using it if
we would ; but, if we want it either hotter or colder than we find it,
we must resort to some invention to gratify our want. If we want it
to blow upon us when it is still, we must set it in motion by some
contrivance, and fans among other things have been invented for that
purpose. A large amount of human ingenuity has been expended
upon devices for moving air when we want it moved, upon fans,
blowers, and ventilators.

How small a part of our food do we take as animals do, in the
form provided by Nature, and how very large a share in some form
contrived by man ! "We drink infusions of tea or coffee without
thinking that the compounds are human inventions. How large a
place the milk of the cow has in the food of man, but how little of it
could he have but for a multitude of contrivances ! We think of
butter as we do of milk, that it is a production of Nature ; and so
it is, but its separation from milk is an invention which has been
followed by a host of inventions to effect the separation easier or
better.

Sugar is a production of Nature, but little known a few hundred
years ago. Separated from the plants in which it is formed, it is an
invention of man. The savage who first crushed some kernels of
wheat between two stones, and separated the mealy interior from the
outer skin, invented flour, and the human mind has not yet ceased to
be exercised on the subject of its improvement.

Probably the earliest inventions of man had reference to the pro-
curing and preparing of food, and the ingenuity of man is exercised
even now upon it more eagerly than ever before, and the power of
man to produce food has been increased during the last fifty years
more than it had been for a thousand years before.

Fifty years ago, a large part of the wheat and other grain raised
in this country was cut, a handful at a time, with a sickle, and a man
could not, as a rule, reap more than a quarter of an acre a day. An
instrument called a cradle was beginning to come into use, and with
that a man could reap about two acres.

Within fifty years inventors have given the world the reaping-
machine, with which a man and two horses will cut from fifteen to
twenty acres a day.

Fifty years ago the grain was almost wholly thrashed from the
straw by pounding it upon a floor with a flail. If I remember cor-

INFLUENCE OF INVENTIONS ON CIVILIZATION. 477

rectly, a man sometimes received one bushel in ten for thrashing, and
from ten to twenty bushels must have been a day's work.

Now a machine will thrash out hundreds of bushels in a day, at an
expense of a very few cents a bushel.

Inventions have changed the meaning of words. When I was a
boy, a reaper was a man who reaped grain with a sickle, and a thrasher
was one who thrashed it with a flail. Now, reapers and thrashers are
machines driven by steam or horse-power.

For what part of our daily bread are we not indebted to inventions ?
Some of the fruits of the earth we eat as Nature gives them to us, but
how much even of them do we take directly from the tree or shrub or
plant which produced it, and eat without the aid of invention ?

All our animal food comes within our reach and is prepared for use
only by the aid of inventions.

Hooks and nets and spears give us all we have of fish. The fish-
hook is a very simple contrivance. Is it a great invention or a small
one? If the fish-hooks should all be suddenly destroyed, together
with the ability to make them, would not the loss of the invention be
a greater calamity than any which has befallen the world for a thou-
sand years? If so, were not the inventors of that instrument, and
those who have improved it, real benefactors to the world ?

Could we get along without needles ? Could we give up pins with-
out a sigh ? Are knives and forks and spoons a necessity ? They are
all among the simplest things that man makes, yet he has not obtained
them without a great deal of mental labor ; without the exercise of
powers of invention of a high order.

It is less than fifty years since the little articles called matches have
come into use. They are now so common and so cheap that we use
them almost as we do air and water, without thinking at all of their
real value. How few there are of us who do not use them every day
and many times a day, and how inconvenient it would be not to have
them ! But, when I was a boy, nobody had them ; nobody could have
them, for they did not exist. In the country-houses, at least, the great-
est care was exercised not to let the fire go out upon the hearth, be-
cause in such case it became necessary to send to a neighbor's, often
at a distance, for a fresh brand. Every night the live coals upon the
hearth were carefully buried in the ashes to preserve them alive for
the morning. In spite of this precaution, the fire was often lost. I
have been sent many a time, in such cases, to a neighbor's in a cold
morning to get a burning brand to start the fii-e at home anew. No-
body now thinks of taking any pains to preserve a fire, for it is easier
to start a new one with a match than to preserve an old one. A very
common way of lighting a candle in the house when darkness came on
was to take, with the tongs, a coal from the fire — wood-fires were then
used — and blow it, applying the wick of the candle to it at the same
time. Sometimes it could be lighted very readily, but oftentimes it

478 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

could be done only by the exercise of a good deal of skill and patience.
A great deal of vexation and trial of nerves and temper has been saved
to the world by the invention of matches, and the comforts of our homes
increased in many ways. Perhaps, therefore, the comparison I sug-
gested between friction-matches and Sunday-schools is not so incon-
gruous as it may at first seem.

There were some devices known in those days for obtaining a light
or fire artificially, but they wore inconvenient, somewhat expensive,
and not in general use. The tinder-box was one of them.

A gentleman not much older than myself told me not long since
that when he was in college one of his classmates was rich in the pos-
session of a tinder-box by means of which he could strike a light and
a fire in case of emergency, and he gave me a humorous account of the
process of striking a light, involving considerable skill, much patience,
and, as he said, some swearing.

A great many boys have been taught in Sabbath-schools not to
swear, but a great many more have doubtless, by the use of friction-
matches, escaped numerous occasions and temptations to swear, and
wives have no doubt by this invention been saved from innumerable
scoldings for not covering up the fire properly at night.

There is one curious fact about matches which I do not remember
to have seen mentioned. We speak of them as a recent invention, but
they are only an improvement upon a very old invention. Travelers
among savages have generally, if not universally, found that they
possessed the art of procuring fire when they wished, by rubbing two
pieces of wood together till the heat generated by the friction between
them caused one of them to take fire. It is described as a pretty crude
way of working, calling for considerable skill and some labor and pa-
tience. Perhaps the date of the invention may go back to the earliest
use of fire by man. Yet the invention itself is essentially that which
we practice when we strike a match. "SVe rub the match upon another
substance, and the heat generated by the friction between the two
causes the match to take fire. The improvement which the civilized
man has made upon the invention of his savage ancestor is to coat the
end of a piece of wood with a little composition of matter which takes
fire at a lower temperature than the wood itself, and burns more rap-
idly. Simple as the improvement is, it took the world a long time to
get it, and its inventor made a most important contribution to the
comforts of man.

I was forcibly impressed a few years ago with the value to the
uncivilized man of the simplest inventions of the civilized man, as I
watched an Indian at Lake Superior at work upon a birch-bark canoe.
He had for tools only a knife, a hammer, and an awl, but I suppose
he must have used a hatchet to procure the wood and bark of which
the canoe was built. It was slow work even with these tools, and it
was difficult to believe that he could have built the vessel with the

INFLUENCE OF INVENTIONS ON CIVILIZATION.

479

blunt instruments with which his ancestors had to be content before
they came into contact with the white man. What an acquisition the
white man's fish-hook must have been to the Indian !

Fifty years ago a large part of the people of this country had no
other resource for artificial light than the tallow-candle. I remember
it, and the vexations attending its use, the difficulty of lighting it by
a coal of fire, the constant snuffing it required to make its light toler-
able, and its constant tendency to melt and besmear everything in its
vicinity. I venture to say that any of you would consider it an intol-
erable hardship to be compelled to use it and nothing else. Those
who used oil-lamps got a little better light, but not much less discom-
fort. Gas was used only in the large cities. But the inventors have
been busy in providing a new material for illumination and the means
for using it and in cheapening their production ; and now in kerosene
and in kerosene-lamps, both of which have been called into existence
within thirty years, the poorest people can enjoy, at the most trifling
expense, a light better far than anything which anybody could com-
mand at any price before the invention of gas less than a hundred
years ago.

Can we estimate the comforts of the homes of the country due to
these inventions ? Can we estimate the greater value of the evening
hours for work, or study, or reading, which these inventions have
given them ?

I remember that my mother had a vial of what she called rock-oil,
which she thought very good for sprains or bruises. It was said to
have come from "Western New York. I now suppose it to have been
petroleum. Petroleum has been known to man for a long time, but it
had no value till it came under the hands of the inventor. He has
made a worthless article a blessing. Invention marks every step of its
history. Petroleum in this country lies deep in the earth. By the
aid of recent inventions man reaches it. By their aid he stores it, for
it is a dangerous and difficult article to keep and transport. By in-
vention, man has changed its character. And now, not only this
country, but the whole world, is lighted by this new material. Yet all
the invention which has been bestowed upon it would have been
wasted but for another class of inventors and another line of inven-
tions. The lamps had to be invented or improved, and hundreds of
men have been engaged on their improvement for years.

And now inventors have entered a new field and given us a light
for our homes and streets almost as brilliant as that from the sun itself,
from that agent which, since the world began, has lighted up the sky
in angry flashes only to alarm timid and superstitious man.

It is a curious and interesting exercise to take any common article
of daily use and inquire how much invention has been involved in its
production ; what inventions have preceded it ; what ones, if any, it
has supplanted, and what ones it gave birth to ; what consequences

48o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

followed its introduction, and what part it plays in the welfare
of man.

The inquiry soon becomes a bewildering one.

Take paper, for instance. I believe we are indebted to the Chinese
for its invention. Do we ever think of it as one of the great inven-
tions of man ? Why, it is nothing but rags ground up in water to a
pulp, spread out in a thin sheet, and dried. I think the art of making
paper has been known in Europe less than a thousand years. It has
taken the place of parchment for writing. It made the art of printing
possible. It made the newspaper possible, and especially the daily
paper. The multiplication of pictures by engraving could not be car-
ried on without it, nor the modern art of photography, to which I
shall refer again. We attach great value to a system of general edu-
cation as one of the most important agencies of modern civilization.
But the first requisite of such a system is cheap books, and for these
paper is the only thing we could use. Would any of you undertake
to enumerate within the next half-hour all the uses to which paper is
put ? Would you undertake to name and describe all the kinds that
are used ?

Paper is largely made of rags. Rags presuppose the existence of
cloth. Cloth is the product of two distinct inventions, spinning and
weaving. Spinning and weaving are very old inventions, but even in
their simplest form they involve the use of still older inventions. What-
ever material is used for paper, a long line of antecedent inventions is
involved in its use.

Paper must, I think, rank as one of the great inventions of man,
and, if the heathen Chinese had given the world nothing more than
this, he would have made no small contribution to the progress of civ-
ilization.

I have said that paper is made from rags, and that cloth implies
the arts of spinning and weaving. But it also implies much more.
To me, one of the greatest marvels of human industry is a yard of
cotton cloth at the price at which it is sold. The price of a yard of
cotton cloth of the kind called print-cloth, and which when printed
becomes calico, is less than four cents, and the cotton itself costs half
this sum. What inventions are involved in the raising of the cotton
and its transportation to the mill where it is to be converted into cloth !
Of course we all think of the cotton-gin, because that invention was
made with special reference to the production of cotton, and has been
much referred to as a striking example of the results which flow from
an invention.

But the gin comes into use only after the cotton is grown. Of
course the common agricultural inventions are used in raising cotton :
the plow, the hoe, the machinery by which the plow is made, the arts
of making iron and steel, including the machinery employed, the har-
ness for the horse or mule which draws the plow, and the art of tan-

INFLUENCE OF INVENTIONS ON CIVILIZATION. 481

ning the leather of which the harness is made. Recently planting or
drilling machines for planting the seed have come into use, and arti-
ficial fertilizers — the product of the chemist's art — and the mechanism
for distributing it over the ground. Even after the plant has begun
to grow and before it is ripe, invention must often be called into
play to protect it from the ravages of insects, and not a few devices,
mechanical or chemical, have been called into existence for this
purpose.

The ripe cotton-balls are still picked by hand, though inventors are
busy with the problem of picking it by machinery. It is gathered
into baskets or bags, themselves inventions, to be transported by a
cart, another invention, to the gin-house, still another invention, where
it comes under the operation of the gin to separate the cotton from
the cotton-seed.

"Would you like to know what the cotton-gin has done toward mak-
ing cotton cheap, toward enabling enough to be sold for two cents to
make a yard of cloth ? An acre of ground is expected to produce at
least one bale of cotton, which weighs four hundred pounds or over.
Before the cotton-gin was invented, a man could pick about four
pounds and a half of cotton from the seed in a day ; bo that it took a
man about ninety days to sej^arate the cotton which he could raise on
an acre from the seed.

Whitney invented the cotton-gin, and with it a man could separate
seventy pounds. In other words, he could do the work in six days
which before took him ninety days. The invention was made less
than a hundred years ago, but inventors have been busy with it ever
since, improving it year by year, and now it turns out four thousand
pounds a day ! In other words, a single machine will do the work of
about a thousand men.

As soon as the cotton is through the gin it must be pressed into
bales, for the cotton is a light, bulky article which can not be trans-
ported without confinement and a great reduction of bulk. So another
invention is required, the cotton-press. Some of these presses are
wonderfvd machines. They embrace a steam-engine, a force-pump, and
a hydraulic or hydrostatic press, and give a pressure of 4,000 pounds to
the square inch.

The cotton-bale is surrounded by a coarse cloth called gunny-cloth,
itself the product of another line of inventions, including the arts of
spinning and weaving, and made by special machinery. The bale must
also be hooped with iron hoops, involving again the inventions per-
taining to the manufacture of iron, but in addition the machinery for
rolling it into thin and narrow strips, and I think this embraces the
art of rolling iron into round bars and drawing it into wire.

These hoops must at last be fastened around the bales, and that
has called for the invention of peculiar fastenings called cotton-bale ties.

At length, through all these inventions, we have the cotton ready
Toi,. xxvni. — 31

482 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

for market and transportation to the factory, where it is to be made
into cloth.

This demands the use not only of the cart or wagon, an old but
important invention, but the railroad, the car, and the locomotive or
the steamship, or perhaps both of them. It is bewildering to think of
the inventions involved in these, and I could not even enumerate them
in the time I have, if I knew them all.

When the cotton reaches the factory, an invention stands ready to
unload it from the cars and deposit it where it is to be used. The
iron bands are removed by some instrument invented for the purpose,
and the cotton is released from its confinement. It is submitted to
machinery to free it from dirt and restore it to something of its origi-
nal light, flocculcnt character, and it then enters a machine which
spreads it out into a long sheet like cotton batting. This sheet in turn
is stretched out into a long, soft rope, called a roving. Successive
machines, four or five in number, I believe, extend the roving and
make it smaller, till it is smaller than a common pencil. It then goes
on to a spinning-frame and is twisted into a thread leady for weaving.
Our two cents' worth of cotton has been drawn out into a fine thread
more than 7,000 yards long, each inch of which has more than forty
twists in it.

Shall I stop to tell you what man has achieved in the art of spin-
ning ? The art, as you know, is a very old one. Its invention lies
back of the records of history. It was practiced a long time in its
primitive form as a mere manual operation. The wool or flax or
cotton was carried on a distaff. The thread was drawn out and
twisted by means of a spindle held in the left hand, by which it was
set to whirling while the fibers were drawn out of the mass and guided
by the fingers of the right hand. The art was practiced in this crude
way for ages, and it is so practiced now in some countries.

A book which describes this process says it was an obvious im-
provement to set the spindle in a frame and set it whirling by a band
passed round it, and around a large wheel which was in revolution.
But it was not so obvious that anybody, through long years, thought
of it till about three hundred and fifty years ago. I believe this im-
provement which constituted the common spinning-wheel was invented
in Germany. A woman could spin with it much faster than in the old
way, but she only kept one spindle employed. A little more than a
hundred years ago the spinning-frame was invented in England, in
which a number of spindles were set and kept in operation at the same
time. At first only eight spindles were used, but now several hundred
are lased in one frame.

There were three leading inventors at this early date who each
made important improvements in spinning — Ilargreaves, Arkwright,
and Crompton. With a common wheel a woman can draw out a
thread about four miles long in a day. On a modern spinning-frame

INFLUENCE OF INVENTIONS ON CIVILIZATION. 483

she can take care of 800 or more spindles and spin threads the aggre-
gate length of which would be more than 2,000 miles.

On these machines cotton yarn has been spun so fine that one
pound of cotton would make a thread 335 miles long, and as a feat
threads have been so fine that a pound of cotton would reach nearly
5,000 miles !

To go back to our two cents' worth of cotton, which has been con-
verted into yarn. It is subjected to the action of several machines
before it reaches the loom, where it is converted into cloth. Weav-
ing, like spinning, is old, and some sort of machinery has always been
employed in the process, but the power-loom of our factories is a
modern invention. I sometimes think it is the most wonderful ma-
chine used. To make one yard of cloth, a shuttle carrying the filling-
thread is thrown across the web perhaps 1,500 times, at the rate of a
hundred crossings a minute.

There are looms which weave cloth more than three yards wide.
There may be nearly 10,000 warp-threads in cloth of this width, and
5,000 filling-threads in a yard carried across the web at the rate of
nearly a hundred throws a minute.

The art of printing has always been recognized as one of the great
inventions of man. It is over four hundred years old, but after its
first introduction very little improvement was made until the pi-esent
century. Since then it has presented a rapid succession of the highest
efforts of mechanical genius. I shall not attempt to follow their his-
tory or describe their character ; but it is interesting to know that
they have been made almost wholly by English or American inventors,
and that more has been done in this country than in England. The
wonder of modern printing is that it can be done so cheaply. You
have all seen the series of publications by the Harpers called the
" Franklin Square Library." I bought a copy for ten cents, the regu-
lar price. It contained thirty-six printed pages. I had the curiosity
to estimate the number of words on a pa^e and calculated it roughly
at 2,000. That would give for the whole book 72,000 words, all for
ten cents. Can you form a conception of the number of inventions
which has made such an achievement possible ? I think a mod-
ern daily newspaper is, however, one of the greatest wonders of
the age.

I buy a morning paper, the " Boston Herald," for instance, for two
cents. I read it on my way to Boston in the horse-cars and abandon
it at the end of the trip, not because it is worthless, but because I have
obtained from it what I wanted and it will not pay to preserve it for
any other person or for future use. Now, what do I buy for my two
cents ? The physical thing that I buy is a sheet of paper and a cer-
tain amount of printers' ink impressed upon the surface of the paper
in the shapes of letters and words. It is a wonderful fact that man can
spread out the fibers of various vegetable substances into a thin, uni-

484 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

form sheet like that of paper, that he can cover si;ch slieet with signs
which can be made to express every passion or emotion of the human
heart, every conception of the mind, and every fact in nature ! Scarcely
less wonderful than the fact that he can do it at all is the fact that he
can make such a sheet of the size of the "Boston Herald" for two
cents. It would take a volume to record all the inventions which have
been made relating to the manufacture of paper alone to make such a
result possible, and another for the inventions relating to printing.
But the inventions relating to paper and printing would not of them-
selves enable " Boston Heralds " to be printed. The " Herald " is not
made and sold for the paper and ink of which it consists, but primarily
for the news it contains of what has taken place only the day before
all over the world. You will find in the " Herald," as you know, or
any other morning paper, day after day, the news of what took place
the day before, not in Boston or vicinity alone, or even in Massachu-
setts or New England, or in this country, but in Europe, Asia, and
Africa as well.

Through the potency of modern inventions you may perhaps to-
morrow morning shudder over the horrors of a railway accident tak-
ing place at this moment thousands of miles away. Not till within a
short time, and only through the works of the inventor, did a railway
accident become possible.

You may perhaps read that a palace of the Emperor of Russia has
been blown down with dynamite. Will you stop to think that dyna-
mite is a new invention, or that the telegraph which brings the news
was unknown fifty years ago ?

The paper may tell you that Mr. Edison has perfected his electric
light and is at this moment illuminating many cities, and you will
speculate upon the efPect that the announcement will have upon gas-
stocks, but will it occur to you that neither gas-stocks nor gas was
known a hundred years ago, and that till within less than half that
period man had but little more control of electricity than he has now
of earthquakes ?

Now, consider for a moment how this facility for transmitting
intelligence must affect society in one of its most important aspects.
A great calamity falls upon some distant city or community. If the
news of it reached us, as it would haA^e done a century ago, only after
the lapse of days, or weeks, or months, and if friendly help can be
given only after the lapse of a similar period, we may be touched with
pity, but there will arise but little sense of sympathy or generosity or
duty.

But when the intelligence reaches us almost at the moment of the
occurrence of the event, and we are conscious that it lies in our power
to help, the sympathies of thousands are awakened, their generous
impulses are touched, and they recognize a moral obligation to bestow
needed help, because it can be made immediately available. The duty

THE MUSKET AS A SOCIAL FORCE. 485

springs from the ability, and the ability is the fruit of invention. It
may seem a strange assertion to many persons, but I believe it can be
shown to be true, that the development of the moral nature of man has
been as directly dependent upon invention as has his physical comfort.
[ To he continued. '\

THE MUSKET AS A SOCIAL FOECE.

By JOHN McELROY.

WHAT has always greatly puzzled the historical student has been
to account for the debasement of the mass of mankind that took
place during the long night of the dark ages.

In the lustrous afternoon which preceded that going down of the sun
of civilization for a half -score of centuries the people of Europe seemed
to be enjoying a fair measure of liberty and self-respect. In decaying
Rome they were poor, for the wealth had agglutinated into the hands
of the few. In barbaric Germany they were poor, because the wealth
had not been created. But they were all free, and highest and lowest
stood on a common plane of manhood. In spite of apparent caste
distances, the substance of equality was yet a permanent and control-
ling quality. Everywhere the high and the low were but an arm's
length apart, and the arm that measured that distance was a sturdy,
manly one, usually quite ready to give and return blows. South of
the Alps the proudest noble was within reach of the torch and dagger
of the humblest plebeian. North of the great mountains no chief was
so powerful as to be beyond the spear-thrust of the meanest of his
followers. No man need be wholly abject, for he was always within
striking distance of his oppressor. The turbulent Roman proletary
resisted encroachment on his rights with riot and insurrection. The
brawny Teuton knew no master but his elected chief, whom he de-
posed with scant ceremony the moment the leader's hand or nerve
weakened.

A thousand years later, when day dawned once more, an amazing
chasm was found to have opened up between the high and the low.
The few were as gods in their power over the lives and property of
the many. The low were as abject in their degradation as the beasts
that perish.

In each community there had come to be one who lorded it like a
wolf in a village of prairie-dogs. He dwelt on a hill-top, in a castle
of massive masonry, clad himself in fine raiment, and gormandized
battened, and rioted. Where he was, there was " gude chere in knightlie
hall," there were "wassail" and "revel" and "rouse" and all the other
fine-named forms of the dull gluttony of feudal days.

486 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

In order that this one man might stale his palate with dainties,
thousands of other men — "serfs," "churls," "villeins," "hinds,"
" peasants," etc. — were deprived of all but the smallest amount of
coarse food that would enable them to live, labor, and reproduce their
kind ! In order that he might clothe himself in piled velvet, and his
lady " walk in silk attire," they and their wives were confined to a
single coarse garment. In order that he might sleep on down in mar-
ble halls, they were restricted to a couch of rushes in a fireless and
windowless hovel.

Now, how did this man on the hill-top "so get the start of the
majestic world " that all the kernels and sweetmeats in the lives of
thousands were his, while only the rinds, the husks, and the shells,
were thrown to them ?

The answer is easy : It came about through the adaptation of the
horse to warfare, and the development of defensive armor. Improve-
ments in armor made the aggressive, domineering man invulnerable to
spear and dagger in the hands of those whom he would oppress. En-
sconced in tempered steel, and moved by a horse's mighty motive
power, he was irresistible to those who could only oppose to him their
own unprotected thews and sinews.

It is significant to notice how constantly the idea of the horse is
associated with the elevation of the few and the degradation of the
many under feudalism. In all the tongues of Europe it is the "Man
on Horseback " who is the lord and despoiler of the people. The Ger-
mans called him " Der Ritter " (the rider), and cognate words desig-
nated him in all the divisions of the Teutonic speech. In French the
horse is un cheval, and the tyrant of fields and people a chevalier.
The Portuguese called him a cavalleiro, the Spaniards a cahallero, and
the Italians a cavalliere — all direct derivatives of the Greek and Latin
JmbaUas, a horse. In England, where, for reasons that shall be given
presently, the people were not crushed down to anything like the ex-
tent of their class on the Continent, the name given the Man on Horse-
back shows that he never acquired any such arrogant supremacy.
There he was merely a knight (Anglo-Saxon cnlht, a youth, an attend-
ant, a military follower).

In the far-off days, ere the centuries had entered their teens, the
gentleman who was burning with enthusiasm to earn his bread by the
sweat of some one else's brovvs proceeded differently from what he
would now. Contrasted with the neat finish of an " operation " in
stocks or produce, or the Louisiana Lottery, his methods seem crude
and clumsy. Kevertheless, like the methods of most of the processes
of primitive people, they were quite effective.

He provided himself with a stout horse and a suit of armor com-
bining all the latest improvements. He then set himself up as the
lord and " protector " of as large a collection of land-tillers as he could
cajole or force into accepting his " protection." Sydney Smith wittily

I

THE MUSKET AS A SOCIAL FORCE. 487

described a lawyer as " a gentleman who rescues your estate from your
enemy and keeps it himself." It was on this principle that these
*' protectors " acted. They took the entire product of the husband-
man's labor as a reward for their friendship and courage in protecting
him from spoliation by some one else !

The period was the Golden Age of Might. It was the day of the
absolute monarchy of Brawn, and the strong right arm was the court
of first resort and tribunal of final appeal. Centuries of Egyptian,
Greek, and Roman civilization had developed the science of jurispru-
dence into laws and customs which were fairly equitable in securing
ownership of person and property. But moral chaos came again when
the Gothic cataclysm rolled over Europe. There was no longer any
recognition of a man's right to anything to which he could not hold on
by main strength.

The gentleman whose factory-plant, oflSce-furniture, and stock in
trade consisted of a stone castle, a broad-haunched horse, a business-
suit of spring-steel, and a twenty-foot lance, held thirteen trumps in
the game as it was then played. To propitiate him — to gain even the
privilege of living in unutterable wretchedness and squalor — freemen
surrendered their lands to him, gave up all their labor's products, and
even yielded to him such of their women as his momentary cajmce
might demand.

The Men on Horseback divided all the arable lands of Europe among
them. Katurally they had hot disagreements as to who should have
the monopoly of plundering a given valley or plain, and carried on the
dispute with much clamor and fighting. In spite of the ornate descrip-
tions of romancers and ballad-singers, this latter was not of a very san-
guinary nature. So completely was armor finally made to answer its in-
tended purpose that there are records of " battles " between imposing
arrays of armored horsemen, which lasted all day, but in which not a
single life was lost. The worst likely to happen to any combatant was
that he be unhorsed, pinned to the ground by the weight of his armor,
taken captive, and forced to pay ransom. " The knights of old " were
warriors " for revenue only."

The only likelihood of any considerable slaughter was when the
wretched serfs — goaded to madness by their wrongs — revolted against
their despoilers, and strove against them with pikes, scythes, bills, and
similar ineffective weapons. Then the wolf-hounds of murder were let
loose. Cavaliers at war with one another would make a truce, to join
in slaying " rebellious hinds." The last great battle of this kind was in
the " War of the Jacquerie," in 1348, where nine thousand poor serfs
were massacred in the French town of Mcaux, and in the three weeks
that the hunt lasted more than twenty thousand were slain. So fond
were the chevaliers of this sport of hind-killing that it was not an un-
common thing for them — before or after one of the great armor-batter-
ing matches which they called battles — to turn upon and slaughter the

488 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

poor wretches whom they had mustered to attend them to the field.
King Philip of France opened the battle of Crecy, in 1314, by charg-
ing bis Genoese cross-bowmen with his chevaliers, and slaughtering
them right and left !

The only men who resisted successfully these mounted ravagers
and maintained for themselves some of the rudimentary rights of hu-
manity were the merchants and artisans in the walled cities of Italy
and Flanders ; the Swiss, in their mountain fastnesses ; and the insular
English, whose dreadful long-bows would send arrows a cloth-yard in
length through the best Milanese plate-armor. In consequence of the
excellence of the English archery the Man on Horseback throve there
BO poorly that the worst condition of the English people in the middle
ages was always better than the best condition of those on the Conti-
ent. Nor could the Man on Horseback's charge avail against the
Italian and Flemish burghers, behind their solid walls.

In 138G a horde of Austrian cavaliers, who were striving to reduce
the Swiss mountaineers to serfdom, penetrated some distance into the
Canton of Unterwalden. The ground was so rugged that they had to
dismount, and proceed on foot. They were compelled to cut off the
long toes of their shoes in order to be able to walk. They were sud-
denly confronted at Sempach by a small band of determined peasants.
Arnold Struth von Winkelried performed his immortal act of self-
sacrifice, by breaking with his naked breast the firm front of lances,
and his companions rushed in and slew the clumsy dismounted horse-
men. This and similar victories secured the freedom of the dwellers
among the Alps, and bred there a race of men who were to become
the flails to help beat feudalism to fragments.

With these exceptions the print of the war-horse's hoof was on
every fertile acre in Europe. The long lance of his rider was the
sickle which reaped the fruit of every man's labor. Greedier and
greedier every year grew the hungry horde of steel-clad riders. Less
and less of the comforts of life they left the abject peasantry. Nearer
and nearer the condition of the laboring cattle sank those who delved
and planted, and reaped and garnered.

The horsed harpies knew themselves well. They delighted in the
character of birds and beasts of prey, and were proud to make lions,
tigers, bears, eagles, and hawks, the cognizances by which they were
known.

The sole mitigation of this reign of misery for the many was that,
in spite of their armor, these rapacious harriers occasionally devoured
one another. The strongest slew the less strong ; the lions killed off
some of the hyenas and jackals ; the eagles tore to pieces the kites and
hawks. The strongest and craftiest lord of some single hill-top killed
off a number of his associates in the robbery business, or seized their
lands after they had drunk and gorged themselves into the grave, and
became lord of all the hill-tops commanding the entire plain or valley

THE MUSKET AS A SOCIAL FORCE. 489

— ^became a prince, duke, count, or margrave. The same process
welded several of these principalities, counties, dukedoms, or marquis-
ates into a kingdom. The advantage to the people of this was, that
they had fewer masters to feed and clothe, and the exactions upon
them had somewhat more system. Spain and France became the lead-
ing nations of Europe because this pi'ocess of aggregation went on more
rapidly there than in Germany, Italy, Austria, and elsewhere.

Progressive people everywhere saw clearly what an improvement
a king was upon the Man on Horseback, and became his advocates and
supporters.

If, however, there had been no brighter hope for mankind than
was contained in the evolution from a swarm of petty tyrants to a
monarch, the outlook would have been dark indeed. A millennium of
that kind of progress would scarcely have brought mankind up to the
plane occupied by the Russian serf to-day. Fortunately, another force
was born into the world. Whether "black Barthel," the German
monk, discovered gunpowder, or whether Friar Bacon preceded him, is
of little consequence. The fourteenth century was yet quite young
when somebody found out that a mixture of sulphur, niter, and char-
coal would deliver a very heavy blow, and, as it was a day when heavy
blows commanded the highest price of anything in the market, the
attention of all progressive men was quickly turned to it. If we
except the rhythmic beat of the vibrating battering-ram, the sturdiest
blow then known was that which the momentum of a galloping horse
delivered at the point of a lance. But even with the first rude tubes
of wood and leather, or hooped iron boxes, the new force struck a blow
that dismounted the doughtiest cavalier, and breached the thickest
walls.

It began its work for mankind as the slave of kingcraft. Only
kings covild afford the costly "mortars," "vases," "culverins," "per-
riers," " falcons," etc. — only monarchs could employ the skilled arti-
sans who manipulated these

"... mortal engines whose rude throats
Th' immortal Jove's dread thunders counterfeit."

It had to serve an apprenticeship to autocracy before it became
democracy's mighty minister. It prepared the way for its future mis-
sion, even then, for kings used it to dismount cavaliers, and beat down
their castle-walls. The despotism of the Man on Horseback began to
crack around the edges, and in the rifts and fissures of the iron tyr-
anny fell the mustard-seed that was to grow up into the world-shadow-
ing tree of liberty. Its development was dishearteningly slow, how-
ever. It was a day when all intellectual processes were as slow as the
pace of the overladen battle-horses, and invention crawled languidly,
instead of running and leaping, as to-day.

So it was fully a century and a half after Ferdinand IV used the
first cannon to aid in capturing Gibraltar, before we find a Man on

490 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Foot using the first crude attempt at a musket. A favorite type of
canuon were then called " bombards," and he styled this diminutive
copy a "bombardelle." Nothing could have been ruder and more
primitive in design and construction. It was merely a tube — probably
about as large as a section of two-inch gas-pipe, but not so well made
— with one end closed, and near that a small hole for a vent. It was
securely fastened to a stout stick, the end of which rested on the
ground to receive the recoil. The Man on Foot, clad in light armor,
held the bombardelle up, while a comrade touched a live coal to the
vent. Powder was as yet very weak, and it was necessary to use a
ball weighing about a pound, in order to do any execution, even at
the range of a few score paces. Nothing illustrates so well the amaz-
ing slowness of the evolutions of the heavily armored men and horses
as that this clumsy weapon, which probably never had an eifcctive
range of one hundred yards, and could not have been fired oftener
than once in five minutes, could have rendered any service whatever.
With no facilities for aiming, it was by the merest accident that it
struck the cavalier, unhorsed him, and put him at the mercy of his
enemies on the ground, but even this chance was much gained.

The power v/as now getting into the hands in which it belonged.
Invincible infantry means democracy sooner or later, just as inevitably
as the invincible Man on Horseback meant aristocracy, and artillery
autocracy. The foot-soldier, even though he be the myrmidon of a
king or the henchman of a lord, is, unconsciously perhaps, the enemy
of noble and sovereign. lie comes from the people and returns to the
people. Whatever he may do at behest of liege or lord is an object-
lesson to his fellow-commoners as to what they may do in opposition.
Every step taken by his masters to make him more formidable is
" Bloody instruction, which, being taught, returns
To plague th' inventor."

The first cavalier that was rolled in the dust by a bombard elle-ball
reopened the era of the people which had closed when Rome's match-
less infantry disappeared from the fighting world. Thenceforward the
final overthrow of feudal and kingly despotism and the triumph of the
people became merely a question of improvements in the bombardelle.
In vain the Man on Horseback strengthened his armor and thickened
his castle-Avalls. The stronger his armor, the more he was weighted
down ; the slower he moved, the longer he was within striking dis-
tance of the man with the " hand-gonne." Nor could the thickening
of his walls keep pace with the improvement in cannon-making, the
substitution of iron balls for stones, and the strengthening of gun-
powder.

In those days the Germans called cannon " boxes " (Biichse), from
the manner in which they were built up. They devised a fork or
hook (Ilaken) to support the bombardelle and afford better aim, ami
called the improved arm a " hook-box " (llaken-biichse), whence the

\

THE MUSKET AS A SOCIAL FORCE. 491

various forms of " harkebus " and " arquebuse " in the different lan-
guages. Presently the tube, growing still lighter as the improvement
in the manufacture of powder enabled the w^eight of the ball to be con-
tinually reduced, was laid in a stock similar to that of the famous
Genoese cross-bow, and a priming-pan was placed at the vent. A lit-
tle later a still more valuable improvement w^as made by attaching to
the rear end of the barrel a piece of iron shaped like the letter S, and
celled a " serpent." The upper end of this carried the tip of a lighted
rope-match into the priming-pan when the lower end was moved by
the finger. AVhen a trigger and springs were subsequently added, the
Man on Foot had the historic " matchlockj" with which he fought for
two and a half centuries.

Thenceforward the march of improvement was steady and at an
accelerating pace. The " hand-gonne " gained continual access of
power over the Man on Horseback, and as continually its use became
more familiar to the people at large. By singular concatenations,
which some people arc fond of terming " providential dispensations,"
the men advocating the best ideas got hold of the best improved guns
and had the most of them.

In 1477 the Swiss, who had grown so self-confident that they did
not hesitate to descend from their mountains to attack the Men on
Horseback on the plains, came down from the passes of the Vosges
Mountains carrying from six thousand to ten thousand of these fire-
locks, and at Granson, Morat, and Nancy, literally destroyed off the
face of the earth the arrogant Charles the Bold and his rapacious Bur-
gundian chivalry. Guns which combined the improvements of another
half-century enabled the Spanish footmen to smite the French cheva-
liers hip and thigh at Pavia in 1525, where Francis I "lost everything
but honor," and the Spanish infantry became the first in Europe, a
position it held for nearly a century, until, as the instrument of eccle-
siastical tyranny in the Netherlands, it was defeated by the superior
guns and tactics of the Dutch infantry under Maurice of Nassau.

A few decades later the use of paper cartridges by the Swedish
musketeers gave them an advantage which greatly aided Gustavus
Adolphus to widen the horizon of Liberty by his successful warfare
against the hordes of civil and religious despotism. Nearly simulta-
neously firelocks in the hands of Cromwell's superb foot-soldiery were
preaching irresistible arguments on the Rights of Man to Charles I's
cavaliers.

The mediaBval Man on Horseback may now be said to have perma-
nently disappeared from the field of battle. Granson, Morat, and Pa-
via had showed him of how little avail it was for him to cover every
inch of his own body and that of his hoi'se with the best steel, and he
began stripping it off, to gain celerity of movement under the dread-
ful fire. By the end of the seventeenth century it was all gone but
the helmet and breastplate, and these were not worn by him, but by

492 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

his mercenaries. As the musket now enabled battles to be determined
by the superior manhood of superior numbers, and there was always
a great deal of downright killing, he lost his keen interest in war as a
business, and loved best to fight by proxy. The plaint of the fop to
Harry Hotspur was an anachronism of about two hundred years for
Henry IV's reign, but it expressed pretty accurately the feelings of
the aristocracy in Shakespeare's time :

"And that it was a great pity, so it was,
This villainous saltpeter should be digged
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,
Which many a good tall fellow had destroyed
So cowardly ; and but for these vile guns
lie would hiiuscU" have been a soldier."

The Man on Horseback still continued to don his suit of " complete
steel" from time to time for nearly a century after it was last worn in
line of battle, but it was only to impress the popular imagination and
enhance his personal appearance when he took part in the pageantry
of government. The long warfare between him and the king had
ended in his entire subjugation, and he was now an obsequious attend-
ant upon " his royal master," with whom he had entered into an offen-
sive and defensive alliance against the common people.

Steady improvement of the weapon through the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, by the men who were wielding it to gain for
themselves the commonest rights of ownership in their own souls and
bodies and the fruits of their toil, had made the musket so handy that
the cumbrous fork-rest could be dispensed Avith, and had given it the
flint-lock, the bayonet, and the front-sight, which latter greatly in-
creased the accuracy of aim.

By another of those remarkable providential dispensations, grim
old Leopold of Dessau devised the iron ramrod, just at the time when
it was most needed to enable the little Prussian army to withstand the
overwhelming masses of barbaric Russia, stupid old Austria, and in-
trio-uing France. As Frederick II's men were able to fire five times to
their enemies' twice, the reactionary waves beat in vain against the
new bulwark raised up to protect the progressivism which had made
its home in Northwestern Europe.

Across the "Western seas a still greater development was taking
place. In the grasp of the men who had sought refuge from tyranny
in the wilds of America the musket was not the mysterious and awk-
wardly handled engine it was in the hands of most Europeans. To
the colonist it was the most familiar of his every-day tools. The
daily food of the family was provided M'ith it ; the fiercest wild beasts
were slain by it, and the fiercer wild Indians were conquered by it and
driven from the lands which they claimed as their birthright. Being
its owner's main dependence in his struggle for life, he naturally

THE MUSKET AS A SOCIAL FORCE. 493

strove to raise its powers to the highest mechanical limits of the day.
By rifling the inside of the barrel, and placing a sight on the rear end,
he made his aim mathematically certain. With such a weapon he
could encounter every mortal foe with entire confidence. Rattlesnake
nor panther, wild Indian nor foreign mercenary, had any terrors for him.
If his foe had brain or heart, his unerring bullet was sure to find it.

With his rifle in hand the common man reclothed himself with all
the rights that had been torn from him by a thousand years of the
despotism of the Man on Horseback. He brooked so little of tyranny
that he would not endure so much of it as was involved in the attempt
to tax him without his full consent. The assertion in the preamble to
the Declaration of Independence differed from most similar fulmina-
tions in that it was not ahead but only abreast of the popular accept-
ance of the principles which it afiirmed. Men were not only endowed
with the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi-
ness, but on this side of the ocean they exercised them to the fullest
extent.

Still moi-e : they taught the Frenchmen who had come here to
assist them in their final struggle for freedom, by precept, and those
who had stayed at home by example, that the musket was the means
by which those rights were obtained and maintained. They demon-
strated in practice the axioms to a perception of which all Europe had
been slowly rising : that before the musket's muzzle all men are equal ;
that lordly lineage, boundless wealth, nor privileged caste can hedge
a man with a divinity impervious to bullets ; but that any set of men,
who love liberty well enough to peril life for it, must be met on equal
terms, with equal hazard of life, by those who would deprive them of
it ; that the reign of the few was ending, and that of the many be-
ginning, for, with all men equally able to kill their opposers, only
those governments and systems of governments can maintain them-
selves which can rally to their supj)ort more than can be arrayed in
opposition.

In all the world's history no teaching ever had such immediate and
tremendous results. Within a quarter of a century after the close of
the American Revolution the new Evangel of Freedom had flamed
from the Seine to the Moskwa, at the muzzles of millions of muskets,
borne by men who had suddenly risen from the abasement of serfdom
to the full stature of manhood. In France, the chosen home of
chivalry, the degenerate sons of the IMen on Horseback had been
drowned in a sea of their own vicious blood. In all the fairest parts
of Continental Europe the land had been wrested from the heirs of the
banditti-lords, and restored to the ownership of those who tilled it.
The whole civilized world had begun that rapid march toward popular
government

" • • • whose coinpulsive course
Ne'er knows retiring ebb,"

49+ THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

but will "keep clue on," until emperors, kings, and potentates will be
as obsolete as the "tabards," "beevors," "brassards," and other
trumpery of the mediicval Man on Horseback.

All life is battling— all society a conflict of forces. Little worth
having is ever got without being wrung from the teeth of opposi-
tion. Particularly is this true of the ordinary possession of manhood.
Every privilege and immunity which we enjoy to-day, without more
thought than we enjoy the sunshine and the summer air, has been extort-
ed— most frequently through bloodshed — from those who would fain
withhold it. The student of history reading the Bill of Rights sees
in every clause the result of some successful war fought to wring a
concession of that particular principle from the dominant class. The
musket has steadily led the way and supported every extension of the
boundaries of freedom. Without so irresistible a weapon within reach
of every man's hand, the world would still be prostrate under the hoofs
of an equestrian aristocracy, whose despotism would only be tempered
by the tyranny of kingcraft.

Artillery is monarchic, cavalry aristocratic, and infantry demo-
cratic. Armor and the horse brought about the rule of the few over
the many ; cannon helped make one man ruler over all ; while the
musket is the agent of the popular will and the pioneer of universal
suffrage. " All free government," says an eminent philosopher, " de-
pends upon the power of the majority to whip the minority." The
fundamental principle of democracy is that the wishes of one thou-
sand men shall prevail over those of nine hundred men, and the mus-
ket gives the thousand men the physical power to enforce their will
upon the nine hundred men.

1

DISCRIMINATION IN RAILWAY RATES.

By GEREIT L. LANSING.

I.

THE term discrimination, in its application to railroad rates, seems
in the minds of some to have lost its original and true meaning —
the act of distinguishing between things which are different. In the
general affairs of life, the ability to discriminate is as commendable as
the lack of it is discreditable. There appears no reason why the
reverse of this should be true when applied to transportation. There
must always be differences which fairly affect rates, as competitive
routes and markets, the bulk and value of commodities, and the vol-
ume of the traffic. Tliese differences demand recognition and require
discrimination in fixing rates ; but there should be no discrimination
without a difference. This would afford a profit to a favored few, but
would effect an injury to the many, and is therefore unjust.

DISCRIMINATION IN RAILWAY RATES. 495

It is asserted by transportation companies that such discriminations
as they practice result from the differences which exist, and, though
they may sometimes cause an injury to a few, they effect a much
greater benefit to the many. The difficulty in the question is right
here : The decision as to what is a sufficient difference to fairly require
a discrimination in its favor must be decided by the fallible mind of
man. Differences of interest and so of opinion are therefore more fre-
quent than differences of traffic. We may readily believe their state-
ment, that the railroad managers are constantly besieged by the repre-
sentatives of various places, trades, occupations, and interests, asking
for concessions in rates that are not granted to others. Each claims
some peculiarity of situation or circumstance which justifies some con-
cession. It is natural also that most of these claims should be based
on interest rather than on principle. The railroad manager is jirone to
this view, as the interests of the property under his charge are cer-
tainly not advanced by building up the trade of one place or person by
giving lower rates than are allowed to others similarly situated. These
differences of opinion, it seems, must always continue to exist as long
as there are different interests in commerce and different circumstances
affecting production and trade. The decision as to the differences, too,
must always be made by man ; and the government official in Ger-
many, France, Italy, Spain, and other countries of Europe where there
is state ownership of railroads, has caused even more complaint by his
rulings than has the manager of the private corporation in the United
States.

That discrimination may be fairly and legally exercised has been
decided by the courts, while most of the States prohibit unjust dis-
crimination. An act of the Legislature of Illinois of July 1, 1871,
" was pronoimced unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the State,
because in its operations it was not in express terms directed against
unjust discrimination, bxit against discrimination generally." *

Such discriminations in rates as result from the operation of the
railroads under the control only of the requirements of commerce and
the interest of the corporations can not be unjust in the sense of politi-
cal economy, can not affect injuriously the interests of the community
at large, but, on tte other hand, must always work for the advance-
ment of the common good.

The causes of discrimination will be found in the principles regu-
lating rates. That there are some natural principles is shown from the
fact that in all the different parts of the world where railroads have
been built the same questions arise from the dissatisfaction of com-
munities, interests, and trades ; the same charges of unjust discrimina-
tion are made, and the same remedies have been applied of legislative
restriction and interference. To this we may add that there has been
everywhere the same failure of these remedies to effect the result de-
* "Report of Kailroad Commissioners of lUiaois," 1876, p. 17.

496 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sired. In the older localities the earlier rule of interference has been
gradually withdrawn, as the common commercial law of self-interest
has been found to produce the best results ; and as the populations of
newer communities have increased, their interests have become more
established, and their experiences enlarged, they too tend toward the
path followed by the older places. Italy, after an examination of the
subject by a special commission, which was continued several years,
decided to lease the Government railways to private corporations to
operate. Switzerland, upon reviewing the experience of the other
states of Europe, declined to exercise the right granted by the charters
of the railway companies, that after a certain time the Government
might purchase and operate the roads, deciding that it would neither
profit the state nor benefit the people.* M. Leon Say says of the Gov-
ernment operation of the railways of France, " The failure is complete
and irreparable." f And M. de la Gournerie, Inspector-General of the
French Corps of Bridges and Highways, concludes a review of the sub-
ject of railway rates as follows : " I have sought to combat the widely
spread opinion that, in the commercial operation of railroads, everything
is artificial ; that instead of observing, we must invent ; that instead
of habitually leaving the different interests to react uj)on each other
through sujDply and demand, it is necessary to be regulating continu-
ally. If vte were certain that the men who manage railroad business
would always have a perfect understanding of these questions, my
conclusion would be to leave the matter to them entirely ; but the
companies enjoy too great power for us to resign ourselves to endure
tranquilly the consequences of their errors. I think, then, that the
state should preserve its powers, watch attentively, but prescribe lit-
tle," X The other countries of Europe have in general gone through
similar experiences and arrived at the same conclusions, and, following
the enlightened lead of the Railroad Commission of Massachusetts, the
tendency in the other States of the American Union is undeniable also
in the same direction of laissezfaire.

In the transaction of trade, exchange is effected, not because one
party demands it, but because both believe it to be a benefit. Neither
can command what the other considers it his interest to refuse. Trans-
portation is limited in the same way by the same requirements. The
limit on one side is fixed by capital and is the total cost of all the serv-
ice performed. If the roads are not able to secure enough traflSc at
prices which will pay the expenses of operation and a fair rate of in-
terest on the investment, capital will no longer be invested in their
construction. If they persistently fail to earn the ordinary expenses
of operation, and so remain a constant tax upon the proprietors, they
must ultimately be abandoned. The reduction of the charges can not

* " nerapatli'3 Journal," London, April 28, 1883, p. 518.

I " Railway A^p," 1882, p. 735.

X "llcport of Commissioners of Transportation," California, IST'T-'/S, p. 73.

DISCRIMINATION IN RAILWAY RATES. 497

permanently be so low that the income is less than the expenditure.
The value of the service to the shipper fixes the opposite limit to the
reduction of charges. Here the rule applies to each shipment and at
once. The shipper knows with considerable exactness the elements
which enter into the cost of the commodity and the price it will bring
in the market. He can at once determine then whether or not its
transportation will afford him a profit. If it will, it is sent. If not, it
remains where it is. With the railroad, on the other hand, the cost of
no single shipment can be determined. It is carried on a freight-
train, which also carries many other shipments consigned to many
places. The same train often carries emigrant passengers, and is run
over a track which is also used by passenger-trains. Besides these
elements, there are large expenses incurred by the company of which
an indefinite amount is chargeable to the various classes of traffic per-
formed. It is thus a matter of impossibility to say what will be the
cost of any particular shipment, and it is even a matter of extreme un-
certainty to state the cost of the various classes of traflSc each by itself
— as passengers, freight, express, or mails. The only course then left
to the railroad is to take the freight at whatever rate the shipper can
send it with profit to himself and hope the whole of its traffic will
amount to a greater sum than the cost of the service. The railroad
may thus for years continue carrying freight at rates which do not
cover the cost of the service, while the shipper will immediately stop
his freight as soon as its transportation ceases to be remunerative to
him. The rates can in no case be more than the value of the service,
but they may be less than its cost. Between these two limits, the
former of which ultimately determines the point below which no rates
will be held, and the latter of which immediately determines the point
above which no freight will be sent, there is in practical operation a
varying scale of rates determined by competition both of parallel lines
and various commercial forces.

These different kinds of competition I have elsewhere dwelt upon ; *
it will answer the present purpose to name them. They are : compe-
tition of capital, of parallel railroads and water-routes, of markets, and
the efforts of the railroad to increase its net income by increasing its
traffic with lower rates. Wherever there is a fair discrimination exer-
cised in fixing rates, it will be found to be based on one or more of
these forms of competition. This proposition, it is intended to illus-
trate in the following pages ; and, if true, it is of the first importance,
for, as competition is generally conceded to be a more potent regulator
of prices than all other forces, if discriminations result from it, to pro-
hibit them must also interfere with competition. All forms of dis-
crimination in the rates of transportation which are fairly exercised
may be classed under three heads — namely, those which favor persons,
places, or things.

* " North American Review," May, 1884.
VOL. XXVIII. — 32

498 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

1. Persons. — ^Discriminations which are exercised in favor of per-
sons in the transportation of freight will be found to be not in favor of
the person but of the freight. In fact, personality has no part in it,
but the concession is caused by the circumstances of locality or the
kind or volume of the traffic. For instance, the farmers of the West
and Northwest are systematically and greatly favored in the shii^ment
of their products to the market. Grain and provisions are carried
from Chicago to the seaboard at a discrimination in their favor of at
least three to one as compared with the shipments by merchants,
manufacturers, and others. But as without this concession the farmer
would have no market for the greater part of his crop, and as it
cheapens the cost to consumers of the staff of life, it is, though a dis-
crimination, a subject of no complaint. The same remark applies to
dealers in coal, lumber, peti'oleum, and all other things produced and
consumed in lai'ge quantities.

But such rates should be open to all under similar circumstances ;
they can not fairly be affected by the personality. Where the cir-
cumstances of situation, kind, and quantity are the same, to give lower
rates to one person than to another is, in most States, illegal as well as
unjust. It tends, by preventing competition in trade, to maintain
prices, and so to limit consumption and restrict traffic — a result di-
rectly opposed to the chief end for which all railroad managers are
striving. I can conceive of no case in which a railroad would grant
one shipper privileges not accorded to another where the circumstances
of the traffic were the same, except it were as a gift and not in the line
of a business policy ; that is to say, the advantage given would be at
the expense of the railroad.

In the transportation of passengers, however, differential rates are
made which more nearly approach a discrimination as to persons.
Yet, in this case too we will find that the different rates are caused by
a difference in the traffic, and that, under like circumstances, rates to
all are alike. With passengers, a discrimination based on the volume
of the traffic results in the excursion rates, round-trip tickets, commu-
tation, season, and one thousand-mile tickets, and the like, familiar to
all. For instance, in California, from San Francisco to Alameda,
Oakland, or Berkeley, a distance in each case of about ten miles, the
passenger may buy a trip-ticket for fifteen cents, a round-trip ticket
for twenty-five cents, and a sixty-ride ticket for three dollars, or at I
the rate of five cents a trip. The rate per mile would be, in the sev-
eral cases, a cent and a half, a cent and a quarter, and half a cent re-
spectively. Though here is a discrimination, in the proportion of
three to one, yet its fairness is not only popularly conceded, but the
Constitution of the State especially provides that "excursion and
commutation tickets may be issued at special rates." The question,
as popularly put, here arises, " On the ground of fairness, why should
one person in the same train, between the same points, pay three times

DISCRIMINATION IN RAILWAY RATES. 499

as much fare as another ? " The highest of these fares — a cent and a
half a mile — is much lower than the average rate of fare charged in
the United States or on the remaining portions of the same road. It is
certainly not, then, unreasonably high. But the reason it is lower
than in the average of cases is that the ordinary traffic between the
points in question, excluding that at special rates, and the possibilities
of its development, are sufficient to warrant it. As to the traffic car-
ried at the special rates, it could not be obtained without the special
concessions. And, the road being built and the trains running, the
extra traffic may be carried at a fraction of the average rate of cost
for the whole. There is thus a profit under the circumstances on this
traffic at the special rates ; and, as it is developed and increased by
the concessions made in its favor, it helps to pay more and more of the
fixed expenses which were in force before its existence, and so by re-
lieving the regular traffic of a portion of its burden of expense makes
possible also a reduction in its rates. The reason for the discrimina-
tion, then, results from its necessity to secure the traffic ; the common
reason in all cases of lawful and fair discrimination. If, by an equali-
zation of these rates, their averages were established as the rate for
the whole, the daily passenger who now pays ten cents a day for his
fare from his home to his place of business in the city and return
would then be compelled to pay twenty-two cents. It is certain that
in the greater number of cases he would not do this. Now, with this
suburban traffic, as with all other traffic, the rates decrease as the vol-
ume increases — other things being equal — and, as the rate of expenses
per passenger also decreases under the same conditions, the differen-
tial rates are justified on the ground of the cost of the service, as well as
from the necessity of the traffic. The very much greater portion of the
suburban traffic is from the passengers who travel daily, a much smaller
portion from those who purchase round-trip tickets, and the remainder
from those who make an occasional single trip. The rates are thus
inversely to the volume of the traffic. The highest rate is paid by
those who pay very few fares, and the lowest by those who pay the
largest number. This is a distribution of the burden of the expense
which causes it to be felt the least ; and it results in giving the
benefit in the fares to those who by increasing the traffic cause the
reduction in the rate of expense.

That the suburban passenger traffic throughout the United States
is carried at lower rates than any other is a familiar fact, explained
by the possibility of development and justified by its much greater
volume, which is accompanied by a lower rate of cost per passenger.
Where the volume of the traffic is less, the rate and the cost per pas-
senger are alike greater. This rule holds good throughout, other
things of course being equal. In the minority report of the Railroad
Commission of California for 1883 (pp. 137-140), which is extremely
hostile to the railroads of that State, it appears that the lowest pas-

500 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

eenger rates exist where there is the greatest traffic, and that " between
all the thickly settled portions of the State " the rates are considerably
lower than prescribed by the orders of the commissioners. An ap-
pended table in the same report shows that during the year 1881 the
principal railroad company in the State had forty-six stations from
which no passengers were carried, sixty-two from which the daily
average was from one passenger each two days to one in thirty days,
and there were forty stations to which no tickets were sold. It is in
these cases, the report explains, that the highest rates prevail.

It thus appears that the discriminations which may be fairly exer-
cised as to persons are not affected by the personality, but by the
traffic. Like rates under like circumstances to all is certainly the
common rule in experience, and in nearly every State any violation
of this is properly prohibited by law. The railroad takes no cogni-
zance of the person, but exerts all its efforts toward developing the
traffic. The passenger who pays a cent and a half per mile for a
single-trip ticket may, if he chooses, buy a sixty-ride ticket at one
third that rate. The possibility of development depends upon popu-
lation ; it is greatest between great cities and their suburbs, and least
in the sparsely settled plains and mountains of the West.

The discriminations which are popularly supposed to favor persons
in the transportation of freight, it will appear, are in a similar way
caused by the traffic, and not by the person. Some of these depend
on the difference between things, the remainder upon the differences
in the situation of places.

2. Things. — There are some discriminations between things, the
justice of which will at once be recognized, as there is an obvious differ-
ence between them. Light and bulky articles occupying an unusual
amount of space should, if charged by weight, be charged at a higher
rate than more compact things ; fragile articles involve a greater loss
to the railroad from breakage, which entails a greater average cost in
their transportation ; and valuable commodities being more frequently
stolen, and as frequently lost, entail an extra rate to cover the insur-
ance while in transit which is assumed by the carrier. But, aside
from these obvious differences of bulk and value, which justify a
difference in rates, there are other discriminations between things
which will be found to be chiefly based on the volume of the traflic
and the possibility of its development.

On examination we will find that the discrimination in these cases
also is justified by a difference in the cost of the service. Large quan-
tities are moved at a lower rate of cost per ton per mile than are
smaller quantities. A car fully loaded to one consignee is carried at a
great advantage over the same car })artially loaded with small ship-
ments to various persons ; and train-loads running through with grain
or coal, it will readily be seen, may be carried and handled at a lower
rate per ton per mile than shipments aggregating an equal tonnage

DISCRIMINATION IN RAILWAY RATES. 501

switched off at various points and consigned to various parties. The
Commissioners of Railroads of Massachusetts, in considering a com-
plaint which was made on this ground of discrimination, not only jus-
tify the principle of quantity in reducing rates, but affirm that any
other rule would be unjust. " One fact exists," they say, in reviewing
a case, " which furnishes strong ground for criticism on the rates which
are the subject of complaint. The Boston and Albany does not estab-
lish a lower rate for cargoes or large quantities than those fixed for
car-loads. . . . The other great roads of the State do have one rate
for car-loads and another and lower rate for cargoes, or for some large
amount, generally fixed at one hundred tons. The principle on which
this difference rests is founded on common sense, and is well recog-
nized in railroad law ; and it is recognized by the managers of the
Boston and Albany Railroad in some other branches of traffic. Whole-
sale transactions furnish a reasonable ground for a reduction of rates ;
and, as the car-load rates of the Boston and Albany must be held as
against that company to be reasonable as car-load rates, it follows that
as cargo rates they are unreasonable." * This opinion is affirmed by
the same company in their report for the year following, when in re-
ferring to the first case they say, " The meaning of the opinion was,
that it was reasonable to fix a lower rate for large quantities than for
single car-loads." f The principle here applied to cargoes and car-
loads is generally applied to car-loads as compared to smaller quanti-
ties, and as the " car-load rate," though lower than the rate for smaller
quantities, has been generally approved, it amounts also to an approval
of the principle of lower rates for larger quantities.

The difference in rates on the same thing justified in the difference
in quantity is generally charged by those shipping in small quantities
to be a discrimination against them as individuals, and so as unjust.
But we find a denial of this in the fact that the rule affects more fre-
quently things which are shipped in large quantities than persons who
ship large quantities of the same thing. Grain, provisions, and coal
usually form the largest items of tonnage and have the lowest rates,
and it is in favor of these things that the greatest discriminations are
made. To deny the fairness of the principle would require not only
that the various quantities should all take tne same rate, but that
things themselves should take the rates charged on other similar things
which are shipped in smaller quantity. This is a result which some
newspapers and politicians imagine would be beneficial ; for instance,
I read in a daily paper that it is an " outrage " that wheat is carried
from the interior to San Francisco at a lower rate than castor-beans.
But it is a result which, in the opinion of the Railroad Commissioners
of Massachusetts, " would work mischief in some sections, would divert
business from the State, paralyze industry, drive away capital, and
injure our great interest — labor. " J

* " Report," 1881, p. 212. f " Report," 1882, p. 100. | " Report," 1883, p. 26.

502

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The eflfect of free competition in trade is to bring the greatest com-
petition to bear on those things in which there is the greatest trade.
Thus, there is the smallest margin of profit over the cost of production
on the necessaries of life, the next smallest on the common comforts,
and the largest on the luxuries. This effect is not caused by any de-
sign on the part of traders nor from any beneficent legislation on the
part of politicians. It results from the operation of natural laws of
trade. The operations of the same laws produce the same effect on
the rates of transportation. We find, as a rule, the lowest rates on
coal, wood, petroleum, iron, lumber, etc. ; the next lowest on flour,
grain, provisions, etc. ; we then have boots and shoes, cotton and
woolen goods, clothing, etc. ; and then a varying list of more costly
or perishable articles and luxuries which are consumed in decreasing
quantities. All the natural forces of competition which tend to reduce
the rates of transportation co-operate in producing this discrimination
in things which are moved in the largest quantities, and which arc, of
course, consumed in the largest amounts. The aim of the railroad
manager is to secure the traffic. To do this he must make lower rates
on cheap commodities, with those things which comprise the necessa-
ries of life. It results in distributing the charges for transportation
where they are most easily borne. Not only do the necessaries have
the lowest rates and the luxuries the highest, but the necessaries con-
sumed in the largest quantities have lower rates than those consumed
in smaller quantities. We consume more fuel than bread, and more
food than clothing, while the rates of transportation follow the oppo-
site order.

This discrimination, though in favor of the necessaries and com-
mon comforts of life, is none the less a discrimination. It actually
results in favoring classes. Those who consume but the necessaries,
the day-laborers, are the most benefited ; the artisans who consume, in
addition to the necessaries, many of the comforts, the next ; and so on
as higher wages provide more of the comforts, and these merge into
the luxuries. But the objection is frequently raised that the things
having the lower rates are favored at the ex2)e?ise of the things required
to pay the higher rates. That articles at low rates should be carried
at the expense of things charged higher rates implies of necessity that
the lower rates are below the cost, that the service is performed by the
railroad at a loss. If the low-rate traffic is not carried at a loss — if the
profit be ever so small — it can not, of course, be at the expense of the
things paying higher rates. That the railroad should knowingly per-
form any part of its service at a loss is an absurdity, unless it be a
case of nourishing an infant industry, where a temporary loss is in-
curred to secure a future gain. Those, indeed, who have been most
forward in charging upon the railroads the fault of carrying part of
their traffic at the expense of another part, would be the last to asseit
that the railroads are in the habit of doing a considerable part of their

DISCRIMINATION IN RAILWAY RATES.

503

service below cost. This charge is so frequently made, and the facts
are so commonly misunderstood, that the subject deserves to be fol-
lowed further.

We are for the present considering only the discrimination between
things as determining the rate of their transportation. Discriminations
from other causes do not change this result. Competition by other
lines between the same points, or to the same market, produces a gen-
eral reduction in rates, but there remains the same inequality in the
particular things shipped. The lowest rates will be given on the
staple products of the country which are moved in the largest quan-
tities and higher rates on merchandise shipped in smaller consignments.
For instance, the chief products of the West — grain, provisions, and
flour — are shipped to the seaboard for about one half the rate charged
on miscellaneous merchandise. And this is the same, whether the
route be by lake, canal, or any of the various lines of rail.

One of the natural principles of regulating rates which has been
mentioned is the power possessed by the railroad of increasing its net
income by increasing its traffic at lower rates. This follows from the
fact that a large portion of the expenses are fixed — are not changed by
the increase or decrease of traffic ; so that an augmented traffic adds to
but a portion of the expenses of the roads — to those not fixed. The
average rate of cost per ton per mile thus decreases, other things equal,
as the traffic increases. This result will appear more definite by the use
of figures. The census for 1880 * shows that the annual interest, main-
tenance, and operation charges paid at that time by the railroads of
the United States, amounted to about the sum of $542,000,000, classi-
fied as follows :

Amount.

Per cent

1. Interest paid on debt f

$187,250,826
59,541,684
85,722,748
54,985,340
88,230,rt21
66,219,576

34-6

2. General officers, legal expenses, taxes, etc

iro

3. Maintenance of bridges, buildings, and way

15-8

4. Maintenance of engines and cars

101

5. Conducting transportation

16-3

6. Motive power — fuel, engine-men, etc

12-2

Total charges paid

$541,950,795

100-0

It appears from these figures that the fixed expenses of the average
railroad in the United States, which are a necessary charge on what-
ever traffic is carried, are :

1. Interest 34-6 per cent.

2. General expenses, taxes, etc 11-0 " "

8. Maintenance of way 15'8 " "

4. A portion of the maintenance of rolling-stock, which, if we as-
sume to be one half, will be 5'05 " "

Making a total of 66.45 " "

* Vol. lY, " Transportation.'

\ By adding dividends paid, the item of interest would be considerably increased, giv-
ing a larger percentage to the fixed expenses and a smaller to be affected by trafiBc ; but,

504 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

On the other hand, we have the remaining items which are directly
affected by and vary with the particular kind or quantity of the traffic,
namely :

Conducting transportation 1 G3 per cent.

Motive power 12'2 " "

And say one half maintenance of rolling-stock 5 06 " "

Making a total of 33-55 " "

We may say in very general terms, but which are sufficiently ac-
curate to illustrate the principle, that 66*45, or say two thirds, of the
expenses of tlie railroad are unaffected, or affected in a slight degree,
by the quantity of the traffic. With one train or ten trains a day two
thirds of the expenses would remain without great change. By the
increase of traffic the remaining one third of the expenses would be
increased, though still not in proportion to the increase of traffic — as
it costs no more for the wages of train-men, for instance, whether the
cars are half-empty or all loaded to their full capacity.

An established traffic, then, which at the rate of one cent per ton
per mile would pay all expenses, including interest on the investment,
might be increased in volume with an increased cost of but one third
of one cent per ton per mile. All in excess of that sum would be a
profit to the company. So a lower class of freight at a rate of one
half a cent, instead of being carried at a loss, or at the expense of the
originally established traffic, would not only pay the additional ex-
pense incurred in its transportation of one third of a cent, but a profit
also of one sixth of a cent per ton per mile. This small rate of profit
multiplied by many tons may become a greater sum than the higher
rate applied to its smaller tonnage. So it comes to pay a great part of
the fixed expenses, and by relieving the higher-rate traffic of a portion of
that burden allows reductions in the rates charged on that traffic which
theretofore were not possible. The process continues indefinitely.
Traffic formerly at higher rates is then stimulated by lower rates, with
the hope of increasing its volume, and so of the net amount of profit in
its carriage. New industries become possible where the former cost of
the service on the movement of their products precluded their trans-
portation. The principle which in the commencement led to a dis-
crimination in favor of certain staple commodities, in the end results in
reducing the rates on nearly or quite all articles composing the traffic.

The proposition, therefore, that the transportation of things at
lower rates is carried at the expense of things at higher rates, though
fair in sound, is false in fact. The error is in the assumption that all
traffic is alike, that it is the same kind, quantity, and value. Remove
these elements, and the proposition becomes a truism. Remove them,
too, and the discrimination disappears. Or, if not, there being no dif-

as these figures are at best but approximate, the principle of the illustration is not af-
fected, whether any item is either more or less.

DISCRIMINATION IN RAILWAY RATES. 505

ference in the traffic, the discrimination becomes then unjust. The
fallacy of the proposition seems not to have been discovered by many
who have been prominent in discussing the question of the regulation
of railroad rates. I mean those who have taken a political rather
than an economic view of the subject. Following a similar kind of
reasoning, they have deduced the unreasonableness of higher rates
from the existence of lower rates. " As," they say, " rates on grain,
flour, or other things carried at low rates, being voluntarily fixed by
the carrier, are presumably fair, it follows that rates not so Ioav are
unfair," Here, again, the traffic is conceived of as a mental abstrac-
tion which admits of no division or degree ; it is always traffic — that
is, always the same ; while, as a matter of fact, there is a much
greater difference in the things than in the discrimination. For, prac-
tically, instead of a refined classification, taking into account all dif-
ferences of value, bulk, quantity, or destructibility, things which are
similar in these respects, though not the same, are grouped together
in a single class.

The enforcement of uniform rates on all the traffic of a railroad
(making a difference only for bulky and perishable articles) is in prac-
tice a thing of the past, though with politicians it is still pi'eached.
It has, wherever tried, been found not only wanting, but destructive.
In Belgium, as most of the railroads were owned and operated by the
state, the uniform rate theory was naturally adopted, as upon the
face it seemed to be the fairest plan. The effect was the restriction
of traffic and the oppression of commerce. After this system had
been some time tried, however, the cause of the restriction was seen to
be the lack of discrimination in things, basing the rates upon bulk,
weight, and destructibility only, and ignoring the fundamental prin-
ciple— the value of the service.

The result of this experience is thus stated by the Commissioners
of Railroads of Massachusetts :

"In 1856, in spite of a considerable increase in the miles of railroad
worked, the freight movement of the Belgian railroads was found to
have seriously decreased. Instead of making good the deficiency in
receipts by increased rates on existing business, the administration
met the emergency by accepting all traffic that offered, at greatly re-
duced special rates. This policy succeeded so well that, in 1861, the
principle was adojJted as regards minerals and raw materials of a
regular low scale of charges, with a reduction according to distance.
This resulted in the following year in an increase of 72 per cent
in the tonnage of this class of goods. In 1862 the principle was ex-
tended to goods of the next class, with similar results. In 1864
freights were reclassified and the new principle applied to all except
the first class, or small parcels which in this country are known as ex-
press matter. The result was summed up by the Minister of Public
Works as follows : * In eight years, between 1856-'64, the charges on

5o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

goods have been lowered, on an average, by 28 per cent ; the public
have sent 2,706,000 tons more goods, while they have actually saved
more than $4,000,000 on the cost of carriage, and the public treasury
has earned an increased net profit of $1,150,000.' A further reduction,
made subsequently to this statement in 1864, exceeded even these re-
sults, and under it the tonnage rose from 4,479,000 tons in 1863 to
6,533,000 tons in 1864." *

In this country, an extract from the report of the railroad com-
misioners of a single State will illustrate the common experience as to
the operation of the princijile of discrimination in things. The Com-
missioners of Railroads for Alabama tell us : "A proviso of the first
section of the act to provide for the regulation of railroad companies
and persons operating railroads in this State, approved February 26,
1881, provides : 'That nothing in this act shall be construed to pre-
vent contracts for special rates for the purpose of developing any in-
dustrial enterprises, or to prevent the execution of any such contract
now existing.' "Whether in pursuance of law, or for the development
of their own business, it is usual for such railroad companies to con-
cede such ' special rates ' to these ' industrial enterprises ' for the pur-
pose of developing and building them up, such as factories, mines, lum-
ber-mills, flouring and grist mills, gas companies, water-works, and other
'industrial enterprises.' These 'industrial enterprises,' as we have
stated, have these special rates conceded to them very generally in the
difi'erent States of the American Union. The products of the labor
and skill of these 'industrial enterprises' are in many instances trans-
ported to distant markets, and the enterprises themselves are created
for the purpose of such competition. Where this is the case, enter-
prises of this description in Alabama would not enter into this com-
petition with those of other States unless put upon an equal footing
with them as is done by these * special rates ' ; nor could they maintain
their business in competition with those of other States in the absence
of such * special rates.' And where these ' industrial enterprises ' do
not enter into the competition in other States — many of them do in
Alabama — and in the absence of such ' special rates,' they would not
be on equal footing to compete even in this State with enterprises of a
similar character in other States, but doing business in Alabama. And
in this class of these industrial enterprises where this competition does
not exist at all, yet they furnish employment to larger numbers of
persons, and confer public benefits in business upon the localities where
they exist. It will thus be seen that in the two classes of these 'in-
dustrial enterprises ' first above named, what would seem to be, to
those not familiar with the facts, a special immunity given to them in
these 'special rates,' and not accorded to the public generally, is, in
fact, nothing more than putting them on an equal footing with similar
enterprises in other States, and enabling them to fairly compete with
* "Massachusetts Report," ISTO-'Vl, pp. 52, 53.

ACCLIMATIZATION. 507

such foreign enterprises ; while, in the third class, the State and com-
munity, as a consideration for the privilege allowed, receive a benefit
which is general and permanent. Without such ' special rates,' few of
these enterprises could be made profitable, and the most of them would
have to be abandoned. We state these facts, for such they are, and
not for the purpose of entering into any argument or defense of the
system. We found such ' special rates ' existing between the railroad
companies and these 'industrial enterprises' in the State at the time
we entered upon our duties, and many have been made between them
since that time. We have examined these 'special rates' very gener-
ally and particularly. The railroad companies have furnished them to
us for this purpose. We think that in general they are such as are
well calculated to develojD and build up these ' industrial enterprises.'
We have examined them for the purpose of ascertaining whether there
was in any of them any 'unjust discrimination,' in favor of any and
against others of these ' industrial enterprises,' and thus far we have
discovered nothing that can be fairly construed to come within this
category. These ' special rates ' are, of course, as various as the differ-
ent kinds of business to which they relate. We have notified the
railroad companies that, under the statute, they have the right to
make any such 'special rates' of this character as maybe agreed upon
by them and any of these 'industrial enterprises' in favor of one and
against another, and they have all uniforroly adopted the same view
of this matter. They are matters of contract in every instance, and
therefore are not in such shape that they can be tabulated in this re-
port."* The number of these pages might be indefinitely increased
by additional quotations from the experience of Europe and America,
illustrating the beneficial operation of the principle of discrimination
between things in determining the rates of transportation. But enough
has been said to show that the principle is based upon commercial
necessity, and that under the operation of any other rule the railroad
would fall far short alike of achieving its greatest usefulness to its
patrons, and of yielding the largest profit to its proprietors.

ACCLIMATIZATIOX.f

Bt Professor EUDOLPH VIKCHOW.

IT is a well-known fact that the influence of a strange climate upon
the emigrant, however little the new medium may differ from the
mother-country in more or less essential qualities, exhibits itself at
first in a kind of recrudescence of vigor, which, however, in a very

* "Alabama Reports," 1882, p. 28.

f From an address before the Congress of German Naturalists and Physicians, at
Strasburg, September 22, 1885.

5o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

short time, sometimes after a few days, gives place to a general lan-
guor. Days, weeks, or months, according to the degree of healthf ul-
uess of the place, may pass before the organism is again in equilibrium ;
and this fact is so generally recognized that every traveler expects it
and prepares for it. A person just landed in a distant country would
be chargeable with imprudence if he neglected the precautions which
experience has prescribed for diminishing as much as possible the incon-
veniences of this critical period. What does this mean ? Simply that
the organization of the new-comer must bring itself into hannony with
the new medium. It makes no difference that he finds in the strange
climate, in the European hotels, comforts, fare, and attentions so per-
fect as almost to make him forget that he has ever left his native land ;
he has, all the same, to go through the change which the climate works
in his organism. He must adapt himself to it, become used to the new
conditions. The fact of this process going on was known a long time
before Darwin came into the world ; and there is not, so far as I know,
any doctor who has interpreted it in any other way than as a physical
modification of the organism which is not limited to some superficial
trait acquired by the transplanted person, but notably modifies the
mechanism of the vital functions.

Two kinds of effects accompany the course of acclimatization :
first, simple discomfort or climatic indisposition ; and, afterward, ill-
ness proper or climatic illness. Danger, as distinguished from sim-
ple inconvenience, is the element that characterizes climatic illness.
The invasion of the disease is real only in so far as the existence, or
the integrity at least, of the whole organism is threatened. Till this
moment, we have only indisposition to deal with ; although, to speak
accurately, illness and indisposition are not separated by clearly de-
fined limits, but are rather two degrees of intensity of the same mani-
festation, A person is ill in the evening who was only indisposed in
the morning.

If we review the vast literature that has accumulated on this sub-
ject, we shall be obliged to confess that original labors respecting
these special modifications are almost wholly wanting. On the other
hand, as soon as illness appears, the interest, which has now become im-
mediate, excites the ardor of physicians ; and they, by their numerous
researches in this branch of the subject have given us knowledge, not
only of what are generally the diseases of foreign regions, but also of
their immediate causes. And, while there are still a few points in dis-
pute, the increasing extension of wisely directed medical studies, at
home and abroad, gives a well-founded hope that they will shortly be
settled. Otherwise the condition of foreign medicine is but little dif-
ferent from that of our own ; and there is no doubt that, with the
progress of science, the clinics of tropical maladies will acquire an
equally important development.

Our knowledge of the facts relative to climatic indispositions is not

ACCLIMATIZATION. 509

what it ought to be, and yet there are some respecting which informa-
tion is particularly important to us. Inasmuch as a transformation of
the organism constitutes the principal element of a durable acclimati-
zation, it is not the individual alone who is affected by a prolonged
sojourn away from his native country, but his entire posterity as well.
We can not, therefore, deny that this side of the question is the most
important of all. There is one point of view from which the study of
the transformations acquires a general interest of really vast extent.
It is that of their relations with the history of the human race. Two
questions occur at once to all who seek to arrive at a clear idea of the
manner in which man has reached his present condition. Is it true
that the different human races and varieties are issues from a com-
mon stock ? And what are the causes of their diversity ? It is of no
use for our friends the zoologists to preach transformism to us. That
may do very well of itself when we have only an affair of building up
a system. But, unfortunately, no man has ever yet observed the trans-
formation from one race to another. No one has, for example, seen
a people of the white race become black under the tropics, or negroes
transplanted to the polar regions or to Canada metamorphosed into
whites. The question whether color is related to climate still remains
to be solved, experimentally at least ; data bearing on the subject are
still absolutely wanting. I confess that, if any one should ask me for
the slightest light respecting the origin of races, I should not be in a
condition to give a plausible argument or an experimental fact that
would be competent to justify any point of view whatever. It is nev-
ertheless true that, at the bottom of every impartial study of the phe-
nomena of acclimatization, we arrive inevitably at the old point of view
of Hippocrates, and that the existence of a relation between the so-
matic properties of man and certain geographical circumscriptions is
not doubtful. That is what my friend Bastian understands by the
term ethnological provinces. The reality of such provinces is incon-
testable ; and they have the same significance with reference to man
as zoological and botanical provinces in the geographical distribution
of plants and animals. We can not deny that we have also the right
to premise the existence of general laws of acclimatization which apply
to plants and animals as well as to man — at least so far as regards the
modifications of classes.

The prime question for us relates to the aptitude which the white
man has manifested for acclimatization through all his historical evo-
lution. To what point have we a right to conclude, from the data
furnished by history, that the white man can find, outside of the limits
of his country, conditions favorable to his existence ? To bring up
the vital point of the problem at once, the white man is not everywhere
the same. Scientific experiment is every day tending to bring into
more prominent relief the sharp differences in this matter which exist
among the different subdivisions o-f the white race which we ordi-

510 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

narily include under a common denomination. Between the Aryan
and Semitic branches, for example, the contrast is very clear. All the
statistical documents and all the observations at large {grands traits)
that have been made to this day go to confirm the greatly superior
power of acclimatization of the Semitic to the Aryan peoples. The
latter peoples may also be divided ; and it is easy to separate those
varieties with different aptitudes into geographical groups. The peo-
ples of the south, the Portuguese, the Spaniards, the Maltese, and the
Sicilians, are much superior to those of the north — so much so that
the choice of one or another of these elements might be of decisive
importance for the success of a colonizing enterprise.

In this may be found the solution of the controversy into which I
have been drawn in the course of political debates. The fact is, that
the history of the colonization of the Antilles shows us that, in the
French and English establishments, the results of colonization have
always been disastrous for immigrants from Europe, while in the
Spanish colonies the results have been relatively favorable, although
not so favorable as my adversaries have wished to make them appear.

These general observations must not, however, be accepted without
reservation. They as yet represent only the starting-point of the dis-
cussion which it remains for us to bring to bear upon two capital ques-
tions. The first of these questions is concerning the opinion, which
seems at the outset extremely plausible, that immigration into regions
near the tropics, or even under the tropics, is nearly harmless to peo-
ples who are natives of southern latitudes. Nothing is further from
being proved, as we may see by referring to the negroes, whom it is
very difficult to remove safely from one tropical country to another.
The French in Senegal have had sad experience of this fact, and have
seen death make terrible ravages among black populations which they
had transplanted from their native land.

Another consideration that it is important not to lose sight of is
that the farther south we go the more have the Aryan branches been
exposed to foreign admixtures. The Maltese race, for example, ex-
hibits a much superior resistance to the Sicilian or the southern Span-
ish race. We might be tempted to explain this by the insular situa-
tion of the former race, and by the character of the climate of its
country. In that case the Maltese, transported to the African Conti-
nent, for instance, to a considerable distance from the coast, having
come out from a climate distinctly insular, might be supposed to feel
the change more profoundly than a Spaniard coming from his more
continental climate. But nothing of the kind takes place. Algerian
statistics establish most positively that the Maltese constantly holds
his overwhelming superiority in adaptability over the Spaniard.

So the explanation of the special power of resistance shown by
this race can not be based entirely upon an agreement of the climate
of its native country with that of the place to which it emigrates.

A CCLIMA TIZA TION. 5 1 1

There must, then, enter into the account some favorable circumstances
derived from the mixture of foreign blood which it carries in its veins.
This foreign blood is chiefly Semitic. As is well known, the Phoeni-
cians, a people having more than one point of analogy with the mari-
time powers of our own days, were the first colonizers known in his-
tory. The Phoenicians were Semites ; and archaeological traces of
their establishments are still to be found in Malta. They founded
Carthage, and covered the Spanish coast with colonies, which proba-
bly extended for a considerable distance into the interior of the coun-
try. As the latest archaeological researches prove, they colonized a
good part of Greece. Their influence was so great, and their exten-
sion was so wide, that it would have been very strange if they had
not contracted in Spain and elsewhere numerous family connections,
and thus made their blood participate in the development of the races
which have survived them in those countries. In less ancient times,
most of the Iberian Peninsula was for hundreds of years in the power
of the Arabs, or rather of Moors from Africa. These conquerors, who
founded large cities and peopled entire districts, so that the Yalencian
garden and the valley of Granada still retain their Moorish aspect,
who, in short, spread themselves over the whole country, undoubtedly
left a numerous posterity behind them. And as the Spanish lan-
guage is full of Moorish reminiscences, and Arabic words still adorn
its vocabulary, how can the nation count the descendants of those
Moors who hide their Semitic origin under Spanish names ?

The race which now peoples those countries is, therefore, a mixed
one ; and there is no nation, even to us Germans, that has not fur-
nished its quota to it. The Visigoths passed through Spain. They
were dissolved there, and so completely absorbed that not a vestige of
them is left, except, perhaps, in the institutions in which the most
eminent Spaniards acknowledge, not Avithout a feeling of gratitude,
the contribution of Germanic genius to the development of their
nation. Thus, from this fusion of Iberians, Phoenicians, Moors, Ro-
mans, Celts, and Visigoths, to which may be added, perhaps, a few
other German elements, such as the Alani, has risen the modern Span-
ish people, a mixed people, in the elements of which the pure Aryan
race enters in part, but is nowise preponderant. If, now, we should
undertake to say, " Wherever a Spaniard can go I can go too, for the
same blood flows in the veins of both of us," we should be in great
error. No ; Spanish blood is not the same as flows in our veins ; no
more than is the blood of the Hindoos of to-day, with whom we have
but lately tried to make a common ancestry, but whom no one now
regards as a primitive race. We now trace our afiiliation to that
people which, coming down from the north, was crossed, higher
classes and all, with the people that occupied the peninsula long before
the arrival of the conquerors, and who were black.

There are, then, mixed races, to a certain extent more mixed than

512 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

we can observe among ourselves. It is, nevertheless, indisputable that,
compared with the races in which the Aryan element has been observed
in its purity, those races, especially those which have drawn largely
from the Semitic fountain, are incomparably more fitted to acclimatize
themselves, and propagate themselves in the midst of the new condi-
tions in which they are placed in hot countries. In order to include
under a more characteristic denomination those races which are only
slightly refractory to the morbid influences of the climate, races to
which we ourselves belong, I proposed, on a former occasion, to call
them vulnerable races. This figurative expression might serve, in the
domain of pathological ethnology, to designate the property which
those races have of going through grave alterations under the influ-
ence of relatively slight external causes ; and, considered in the nar-
rower domain of acclimatization, the facility with which, among them,
indisposition puts on the aspect of real illness. There is, however, a
very limited zone within which these vulnerable races can implant and
propagate themselves with comparative security. Korth America
holds the first place in this favorable zone. Here we see the curious
phenomenon of the French in Canada, the same northern French who
are melting like wax in the sun of Algeria, becoming, from the little
colony which they were in the beginning of the century, a vigorous
and numerous people, and lively enough to hold their own against the
rising tide of English immigration ; while tens and tens of thousands
of our countrymen, whom America receives annually at her ports, dis-
appear in a very short time. In Canada, the colonists of French
origin, animated by the most lively spirit of independence, have con-
stituted themselves a people apart, and the last conflict, which has
just closed, is a convincing proof of the tenacity of their national
feeling.

Then comes the United States, with its vigorous and constantly in-
creasing population. However much it may be mixed, it will always
be Aryan at the bottom, for all the heterogeneous elements are ab-
sorbed, almost without leaving traces of themselves, in that immense
hearth of colonization, which has no parallel in history. The Eng-
lish have been no less happy in the settlement of Australia, a coloni-
zation the energetic expansion of which has not been checked except
toward the north, where the conditions grow unfavorable as the set-
tlements approach the equator. Hence it comes that, in the northern
part of Queensland, European colonists are not in a condition to en-
dure the fatigue of agricultural labor. This fact has had much to do
with the efforts made of late years to annex New Guinea and New
Britain, whence it has been proposed to draw the manual forces re-
quired for the tillage of the soil.

In the South African colonies the Dutch have been solidly estab-
lished for some two hundred years ; and, in a few countries of South
America, colonies composed of peoples of various European origin have

A CCLIMA TIZA TION. 5 1 3

prospered, though unequally. There are also some young colonies
founded by Germans on the Rio Grande, in Brazil, which a fancy still
needing confirmation has placed iu the rank of healthful countries and
suitable for our people. Reviewing the results that have been ob-
tained in the colonies thus briefly enumerated, which embrace the sum
of the more or less fortunate enterprises of the kind, we see that their
success has been in inverse proportion to the difference in isothermic
latitude between them and the mother-country of the colonists.
But in every ease it is not probable that the organization of the colo-
nists has escaped having to pay, at the expense of profound altera-
tions, for acclimatization in foreign countries. Men of science, as well
as tourists, have been interested for many years in the study of the
Yankee type, which, according to the general opinion, is not wholly
comparable either with the English or the German, or with a cross of
the two with the Irish race. The peculiar physiology of the Yankee
is yet to be made out, and I can not insist too strongly on the great
value of the scientific results that might accrue from the study of this
delicate ethnological problem. It is averred that the transformations
of this type grow more pronounced as we go from the Northern to the
Southern States.

It sometimes occurs that a population transplanted into a distant
country remains apparently stationary. Nothing seems to distinguish
it from the compatriots which it has left in its native country. But,
on regarding it more closely, we find that there is operating within it
one of the gravest phenomena in the history of colonization — a phe-
nomenon which has been long observed in animals and plants when
transported to new climates : a decrease of fecundity and an arrest of
development, going at length to the complete elimination of posterity.
It is evident that the condition most essential to the prosperity of a
colony, the only guarantee of its longevity, resides m the number of
children in the families of the settlers ; children who, in their turn,
the source of posterity, lead, as at home, to the branching out of every
family into numerous ramifications. The further we advance into
exotic climates, the more rapidly does the diminution of the reproduc-
tive faculty of the colonist go on, the more do statistics indicate a
reduction in the number of births and an increasing sterility in suc-
cessive generations. This fact has been noticed not only by doctors,
who have called attention to it from time immemorial, but persons
also who could have no prejudice in the matter — statesmen, military
men, literary men, and men of every profession and every country,
and those who lived in times when the question had not yet begun to
be the order of the day — have observed for the most diverse countries
that families formerly fertile, but who contracted alliances exclusively
with natives of the exotic countries, lasted only a few generations.

It has never been possible, even to this day, to establish a durable
colonization in British India. It has, indeed, been said recently that

VOL. XXTIII. 33

514 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

it is possible, by means of severe hygienic processes, successfully to
bring up an English generation there ; but to do this the children
have, as soon as they are able to support the journey, say at five or six
years of age, to be taken to the mountains and left there till they are
fifteen or sixteen years old. This reminds me of the palm-trees which
we succeed in making bear fruit in our gardens. Because, by the use
of the most elaborate horticulture we can occasionally cause a plant
of the most delicate species to mature its fruit, shall we venture to
regard the palm-tree as acclimated in our country ? No more can we
assert as much of a population which has no chance of maintaining
itself except by taking all its children to the mountains and not allow-
ing them to come down thence till they are mature men. A curious
kind of family life that, and extremely costly if it were undertaken,
the results of which are limited to bringing down the young genera-
tion, which is destined to live in the country, from the north to the
south, from the mountains to the plain, like the aacient kings of Persia.
But the indefatigable perseverance which has been applied for years
in organizing this system does not in any way look to the colonization
of India. It only seeks to create a new higher class, an aristocracy,
which shall be better qualified to govern the country than annual new
arrivals from England. I will also observe that the Dutch in Java and
their other Eastern establishments have not advanced the problem a
step. Every considerable family endeavors to send its children as soon
as possible not merely to the mountains, but to Europe, more for physi-
cal conservation than for education. As a whole, these attempts at
colonization singularly remind us of the fate of the Lombards in Italy.
Those people, it is true, survived a little longer on the conquered ter-
ritory ; but very few centuries were sufficient to reduce them to the
state of hardly appreciable vestiges. And for the Goths, it did not
require a hundred years to annihilate them completely in that same
Italy. Minute statistical researches have, it is true, quite recently
brought to light here and there a few traces of the Lombards, and it
is in a similar way not improbable that there may still exist in the
country a very little of the ancient Germanic blood ; but in upper Italy
there does not remain any well-defined posterity ; and in the northern
provinces of Portugal and Spain, where the Visigoths reigned in all
their power, it would be just as useless to look for any clearly appre-
ciable posterity of the conquerors. I was recently accused of not
being willing to range Italy and Spain among the countries favorable
to the settlement of families originating in the lands of the North. I
am sorry for it, but I can not perceive any facts that make it probable
that our countrymen can settle in those states with any expectation
of leaving an enduring posterity. I am ready to bow to the proof
when it is brought forward. I would also suggest to our physicians
of the navy and the merchant marine, and to all who travel for any
purpose, that it would be a profitable task to prepare in the most sci-

A CCLIMA TIZA TION. 5 1 5

entific form, and the one most fitted to aid investigations, the exist-
ing data bearing on this point.

What, then, to be precise, is tlie evil which threatens colonial pop-
ulations, at first sight so little different from our own, and of which no
external sign is apparent to reveal very profound transformations?
The most powerful agent in producing degeneration, and to which
doctors always give the first place, is the reduction of the formation
of the blood in the organism. Is there really a retardation of this
function, or an exaggerated destruction of the blood ? I can not take
the responsibility of deciding. Whatever it may be, emigrants are
attacked with the same affection as in its phase of complete develop-
ment among us is called anaemia. The more existence is tried by
debilitating influences, the more intense becomes tropical anaemia.

But important as is its part, these debilitating influences do not
consist of malaria alone, with its accompaniments of intermittent
and other pernicious fevers, dysenteries, and liver-complaints ; for
even those whom the fever spares are not protected from tropical
anoemia. The microscope has revealed to us many other morbid
agents. Worms swarm in the tropics, particularly in the water, from
which they pass to the body of man ; and some of them abide in the
blood. All such parasites may become destructive agents to the
economy, which is subjected to a decline, the first manifestation of
which is always impoverishment of the blood. With all our knowl-
edge of the physiology of the blood, we are not yet able to explain, on
the ground of merely theoretical data, the enormous loss of that liquid.
We may admit that the preponderant part belongs to the destruction
of the blood, while the absorption of air and oxygen is not increased.

A remarkable symptom, which is very well explained by an active
destruction of the blood, is the strong predisposition to liver-disease.
The liver is an organ the relation of which with the physiology of the
blood is very intimate, and the troubles of which have the most in-
fluence upon the constitution of that liquid ; and that is the organ
which is the first object of the attacks, not only of malaria, but of the
common diseases of acclimatization.

If I linger on these examples, it is to render more moving and
more convincing the appeal which I make to doctors and naturalists to
apply themselves to this sphere of research. Neither the French nor
the English have as yet done anything important with reference to it.
It is, then, a virgin field that falls to German science. It is also a sub-
ject of the highest importance ; for we can not think of even an ap-
proximative solution of the problem till we have gained a precise idea
of the modifications of the organism, and particularly of the special
alterations of each organ, which are connected with the phenomena of
acclimatization.

The popular masses, in their carelessness, seek the acquisition of
gold. Show it to them, and they will plunge into perils without con-

5i6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

cerning themselves about the rules of acclimatization and its diseases,
any more than a starving man asks about the sanitary qualities of a
ham that is offered to him.

The question before us is not of an isolated enterprise, but of very
extensive ones, and is of interest to the empire as well as to the great
companies which are lending their aid to emigration. Great problems
must be resolved, in order that we may in the future be in a situation
to inform our colonists respecting the fate which awaits them, to found
colonies with a foresight of what the probable results will be, and to
send emigrants into distant countries under the choice of circum-
stances which will permit them to hope for an assured existence.

These are questions which no general, war minister, or statesman
has a right to evade. AVhy should it be different with those at whose
invitation battalions of emigrants leave their country ? There is New
Guinea, with its rich plains and immense forests coming down to the
river-banks. It is no longer a question of sending there only special-
ists to discover the most profitable timber-trees and then found busi-
ness establishments. Just as in the last century, when the French desired
to colonize Cayenne ; what beautiful descriptions did they give of the
fertile country, with its luxuriant flora, its wonderful forests, and its
ravishing prairies ! When the thousands and thousands of colonists
who were sent there had perished to the last man, the French settled
down to admire the photographs of those wonderful forests and stay
quietly at home, leaving to those whose ethnological province is in Cay-
enne the task of propagating themselves and attending to their affairs.
I have no doubt that we shall soon be forced to follow this example, and
I hope that the frankness with which I declare this conviction will
prompt us all to fulfill the duty which this great popular movement im-
poses upon naturalists and physicians. It is our duty to take hold of
the question and organize the study of it, and to arm ourselves with
scientific methods for the exploration of these distant countries, and
for ascertaining to what point a permanent colonization in them is pos-
sible.

We need more than isolated examples to satisfy ourselves of the
adaptability of the white race to fix itself in this or that place. A
peculiar population exists in the mountainous region of the Island of
Reunion, called "^;eZi7s blancs" or little whites, who have been ascer-
tained to be the last remains of the French colonists who established
themselves in that part of the island a great many years ago. Re-
cently a French traveler discovered in the Vindhya Mountains, in
India, some survivors of a French colony which was founded there
three centuries ago. There is nothing impossible in these facts ; but
they singularly remind us of the exotic conifers which are planted in
our experimental forests. Now and then a forester has a success with
one of them, and the little plant becomes an object of curiosity to
travelers and the people of the neighborhood. But the number of

INSTINCT AS A GUIDE TO HEALTH. 517

these plants is insignificant. They are isolated examples or rarities,
and no particular importance can be attached to them.

All these facts, I repeat, only make us feel more keenly how de-
sirable it would be to determine scientifically the conditions which
make the existence of our vulnerable race on a foreign land possi-
ble. "VYe might then direct our emigrants with the same certainty as
that with which a modern captain, who knows their wants, provides
for his troops. As I look at it, I can not regard the mission of natural-
ists and physicians toward their nation as conscientiously performed
till a satisfactory solution is given to this problem.

mSTINCT AS A GUIDE TO HEALTH.

By FELIX L. OSWALD, M. D.

SINCE the beginning of the sixteenth century, when the clouds of
the middle ages were broken by the first sun-glimpse of reawak-
ening reason, the average longevity of the North Caucasian nations
has increased nearly seven years. In Northern Europe and North
America the progress in the practice, if not the science, of healthy liv-
ing has, indeed, kept fairly step with the general advance of civiliza-
tion ; the worst heresies against the health-laws of Nature have become
errors of the past. Unventilated dwellings have become unpopular.
Phlebotomy has gone out of fashion. "We have ceased to fuddle our
children with beer-soup. Hygienic reform has everywhere modified
our habits of life.

Yet the principle of that reform has strangely failed to be recog-
nized. For one invalid who can steer a straight course to the harbor
of health, a thousand weather the breakers in a random, empiric way,
like untrained sailors, failing to comprehend the purpose of the beacon,
though using its light to avoid the nearest cliffs. Nay, if the source
of that light were indiscreetly revealed, it would frighten hundreds
back into utter darkness, to scan the firmament for a glimpse of its
vanished loadstars, rather than trust their safety to an earthly guide.
For, with the progress of a practical regeneration, a theoretical adher-
ence to the traditions of the past still goes hand in hand. Not all
civilized Buddhists have renounced the Dalai Lama ; and many of our
progress-loving contemporaries would be rather alarmed at the discov-
ery that the principle of our social, medical, and educational reforms
during the last two hundred years has been a restored trust in the com-
petence of our natural instincts. So foreign was that rule of conduct
to the moral standards of the middle ages that its importance was rec-
ognized only in its apparent exceptions, the siipposed " evil propensities
of our unregenerate nature," such as poison-habits, sloth, and sexual ex-

5i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

cesses. The real significance of such aberrations would reveal the dif-
ference between natural appetites and abnormal (artificially acquired)
appetencies, and teach us the necessity of applying the tests of that
distinction to all persuasive instincts, and occasionally to otherwise un-
explained aversions.

But even M-ithin those limits a critical study of our protective in-
tuitions would surprisingly show in how many respects the hygienic
reforms of the last two hundred years could have been anticipated by
the simple teachings of our senses. For the wards of instinct a tem-
perance sermon would be as superfluous as a lecture on the folly of
drinking boiling petroleum, for to the palate of a normal living being
— human or animal — alcohol is not only unattractive, but violently re-
pulsive, and the baneful passion to which that repugnance can be
forced to yield is so clearly abnormal that only the infatuation of the
natural depravity dogma could ever mistake it for an innate appetite.
In defense of the respiratory organs, Nature fights almost to the last.
The blinded dupe of the night-air superstition would hardly assert that
he finds the hot miasma of his unventilated bedroom more pleasant
than fresh air. He thinks it safer, in spite — or perhaps because — of
its repulsiveness. " Mistrust all pleasant things " was the watchword
of the medieval cosmogony. Long before Jahn and Pestalozzi dem-
onstrated the hygienic importance of gymnastics, children embraced
every opportunity for outdoor exercise with a zeal which only per-
sistent restraint could abate. Sexual aberrations are a consequence,
oftener than a cause, of disordered health. Instinct has always op-
posed the abuse of drugs, the delusions of asceticism, the suicidal fol-
lies of fashion. Instinct has never ceased to urge the reforms which
our times have at last reached by such circuitous roads, and the study
of its pleadings and protests might shorten those roads for the leaders
of future generations.

On the other hand, it must be admitted that perverted appetites
can become as irresistible as the most urgent natural instincts. Nor
can it be denied that in some exceptional cases Kature fails to advise
us of perils which her warning could easily avert, though we should
remember that her standards of expediency are not always our own,
and that, as a rule, instinct asserts itself at the fittest times, and with
an urgency proportionate to the importance of its mission.

The exceptions, thus far only partly explained, may be summed up
under the three following heads: 1. Perverted Instincts. — The
physiology of certain abnormal propensities is as obscure as the origin
of sin. There is no doubt that the innate aversion to any poison known
to modern chemistry can, by persistent disregard, be turned into a
morbid appetency, vehement and persistent in proportion to the viru-
lence of the poison. The most plausible hypothesis suggested in expla-
nation of that fact seems to be the conjecture that, in adapting itself
to the exigencies of abnormal circumstances, the constitution of the

INSTINCT AS A GUIDE TO HEALTH. 519

organism has to undergo certain modifications, considerable in extreme
cases, and correspondingly less easy to undo. For every " second na-
ture" is, probably, a compromise with the persistency of untoward
conditions. Iron-workers become less sensitive, and at last rather par-
tial, to the fervid temperature of their workshops. Butchers, like the
North American Indians, and other carnivora, are apt to contract a
disposition which enables them to pursue their sanguinary vocation
with callousness, or something akin to satisfaction. Slaves become
sneaks, i. e., amateur flunkeys. The love of light, too often punished
with autos-da-fe, becomes a love of dusk, if not of darkness ; the Arian
skeptic subsides into a resigned Capuchin — Nature forbears to maintain
a hopeless struggle. For similar reasons, perhaps, she yields to the
persistent infatuation of the self-poisoners, called topers and opium-
eaters. Further resistance would imply chronic sea-sickness, and,
under the circumstances, an abnormal fondness for strong drink may
appear a lesser evil. Yet the characteristics of such propensities dis-
tinguish them clearly from a natural instinct ; they have to be artifi-
cially acquired, their importunity knows no limits, and their free
indulgence is always followed by a depressing reaction. Thus, even
in yielding, Nature remains true to her preordained laws. No one can
hope to evade their self-avenging rigor, though the mode of retribution
may take the unexpected form of chaining the miscreant to his idol,

2. Abxormal Peeils. — The dangers incident to our artificial modes
of life seem now and then to deceive the foresight of instinct in a way
typified in the non-repulsiveness of certain mineral poisons. Nature
has taken ample precautions to secure her creatures against the poison-
perils of the upper world — hemlock, foxglove, and belladonna — but
failed to provide safeguards against such subterranean evils as arsenic,
or the social dangers yet slumbering in the womb of Time. Providence,
however^ may have foreseen that perils evoked by the potent hand of
Science could be avoided in the same way ; though the struggle for
existence may, in the course of time, evolve supplementary instincts.
Those fittest to survive, methinks, already begin to evince an intuitive
aversion to the sugar-coated poisons that have reduced our average
longevity to less than forty years. The world is getting prudent by
natural selection. The children of the twentieth century will not be
apt to overrate the nutritive value of fusel-oil.

3. Parasitic Disordees. — The healing instincts of Nature, which
teach the surfeited brute to abstain from food, somehow fail to take
cognizance of the disorders caused by the agency of microscopic para-
sites, entozoa, etc. It has been suggested that the development of
such organisms is as foreign to the autonomy of the human system as
the growth of the mistletoe is to that of the oak, and thus escapes the
jurisdiction of its self-regulating laws. But a still more suggestive
circumstance is the fact that disorders of the class named reveal their
origin plainly enough to permit a direct removal of the cause, which,

520 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

in other (" symptomatic ") diseases, is often aggravated by the sup-
pression of its external manifestations. In other words, Ai't is here
competent to deal with the hostile " power behind phenomena," and
Instinct resigns its mission to Reason.

It is still a mooted question if tuberculosis can be included among
the " germ-diseases " of this class ; but attention has been called to the
circumstance that a certain stage of pulmonary consumption stimulates
the sexual instinct to a degree which can hardly be supposed to benefit
the exhausted state of the organism. The study of that indubitable
fact offers a curious problem, but also a solution which considerably
modifies the apparent paradox. The truth seems to be, that the tend-
ency alluded to manifests itself only in a far advanced and practically
hopeless stage of the disease, when Nature sacrifices the interests of
the individual to those of the species. Moths, impaled in the collector's
show-case, often pay an interest on the debt of Nature by a deposit of
numerous eggs. Many plants ripen their fruit just before the end of
the season. At the brink of Styx doomed men are apt to renounce
individual cares and become eloquent for the benefit of posterity. It
is Nature's law of reversion. It is also true that far-gone consumptives
are very apt to indulge in exuberant hopes, belied by an event which
they can hardly have helped to postpone.

But it is equally certain that, in a far larger number of diseases,
instinct is the safest guide to recovery. The overloaded stomach re-
jects food ; the exhausted system at last accepts no compensation but
sleep. "Wounded animals crouch motionless in their hiding-places ;
instinct infonns them that rest increases the chances of recovery. The
unrest of asthma-patients intimates the surest remedy — change of air
and outdoor exercise. Fever-patients pant for refrigeration. Dyspep-
sia can be avoided by heeding the premonitory symptoms — the want
of appetite that accompanies the first stage of chronic indigestion. In
the incipient stages of scurvy, and many enteric disorders, the organism
demands a change of diet as urgently as the perspiring skin clamors
for a change of temperature. But when has that instinct ever clamored
for drugs ? If suppuration fails to dislodge a thorn, the skin of the
inflamed parts becomes tenuous, and at last prurient, and not only
tolerates but invites excision. We see, then, that instinct can adapt
itself to abnormal circumstances, and the question recurs : In what
state of distress does our stomach cease to protest against the com-
pounds of the drug-monger ? Or, shall we believe that our protective
instincts, at the most critical moments, become false to their mission,
and urgently warn us against the means of salvation ? Yet, against
ninety-nine of a hundred remedial drugs they protest with a persist-
ence which can be overcome only by such juggles as lozenges and
sugar-coated pills. That protest is a cliff which will ultimately wreck
all the arguments of the castor-oil school. Ilomc-sickncss, if curable
only by a counter-poison, inspires its victims to seek relief in friendship

INCREASING CURSE OF EUROPEAN MILITANCY. 521

(attachment transferred to less inaccessible objects), and sometimes in
religious fervor — yearning for a home which even an impecunious
traveler may hope to reach. Pliny marvels " how greatly disappointed
love inspires to deeds heroic " ; yet heroism, in the ancient active sense,
self-devotion to hard work and rough-and-tumble campaigns, is, in
truth, the best cure for the ailments of sentimental sorrow. The
mountain-mania of worn-out brain-workers, their passionate longing
for the occupations of their nature-abiding ancestors — hunting, camp-
ing, and horticulture — are inspired by the instinctive desire to re-estab-
lish the structure of their organism on the basis of its original founda-
tions, and recover, as an uprooted tree might revive in the mold of its
native soil.

The purpose of such intuitions has rarely been fully recognized, and
there is no doubt that the most useful contribution to the medical lit-
erature of this century would be a popular treatise on the Revelations
of Instinct. The didactic significance of those revelations may even
be destined to become the basis of a special science. That science
would help the votaries of reform to atone for the grievous heresies of
the past. It would make the healing art an ally of Nature : it would
preserve us from manifold social and educational errors, by guiding
progress along the lines of natural ordination. A science of instinct
would be the commentary of a gospel which, in the language of man,
has almost ceased to be its own interpreter.

THE INCREASING CURSE OF EUROPEAN
MILITANCY.*

Br A. E. WALLACE.

SINCE the year 1870, but more especially since 1874, the general
war expenditure of Europe has increased enormously. This is
partly a consequence of the Franco-German War which so greatly en-
hanced the military power of united Germany and led other nations
to aim at a corresponding increase in their forces, and in part to the
enormously increased cost of iron-clad ships, monster guns, torpedoes,
and all the scientific appliances of modern warfare.

Up to the year 1875 our own army and navy had increased but
little for many years, the total expenditure in 1874 being £24,664,000,
which was somewhat less than that of 1864. But since the former
date our outlay on the two services has risen greatly, and now amounts
to £28,964,000, an increase of more than four millions. The number
of men has increased from 189,000 in 1874 to 197,000 in 1884, exclusive
of the Indian army.
* Chapter V of " Bad Times," by Alfred Eussel Wallace, LL. D. Macmillan & Co., 1835.

522

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

In most of the great states of Europe the increase both of men and
of war expenditure has been far greater than ours. Austria up to 1874
spent less than seven millions on her army ; she now spends £13,433,000,
with an increase of about fifteen thousand men. France has increased
her forces by fifty thousand men in the last ten years ; while her mili-
tary and naval expenditure has nearly doubled since the war, and now
reaches the enormous sum of £35,500,000. Germany during the same
period has raised her war expenditure by more than three millions, the
present amount being £20,050,000. Italy has doubled her war ex-
penses since 1873. In that year they were a little over nine millions,
now they are £18,000,000. Russia has followed the same course, hav-
ing increased her war expenditure from less than twenty millions in
1870 to £33,000,000 in 1884.

The loss involved in these huge armaments is of three distinct
kinds : 1, by the number of men, mostly in the prime of life and of
the very best physique, who are kept idle or unproductively employed ;
2, by the burden of increased taxation which the rest of the com-
munity have to bear ; and, 3, by the actual destruction of life and
property in war, which, wherever it occurs, inevitably diminishes for
a time the productive and purchasing powers of that country. Let us
endeavor to form some conception of the amount of loss due to each of
these causes.

From information given in successive issues of the " Statesman's
Tear-Book," it appears that, since 1870, the armies and navies of Eu-
rope have been increased by about 630,000 men on the peace establish-
ments. This number of men, therefore, has been wholly withdrawn
from productive labor ; but during periods of war a much larger num-
ber is thus withdrawn, and the country is, to that extent, still further
impoverished. But the total number thus withdrawn, though very
large — the standing armies and navies of Europe being estimated at
3,683,706 men — represents only a portion, and perhaps even a small
portion, of the mischief done, since the numbers employed in the
equipment of this force and in the production of the vast and complex
war-material now used are, not improbably, very much greater, and
these are all equally lost for productive purposes. If we think of the
hundreds of huge iron-clad ships which have recently been built, and
try to form a conception of the number of men employed upon them
directly and indirectly — from those who dug out the iron-ore, and the
coal used to smelt the ore, to those who construct the huge and beau-
tifully finished marine engines — from the men who felled the trees in
Canadian and Indian forests to the skilled workmen who design and
frame and finish with elaborate care the whole of the internal fittings
— we shall be convinced that to build one of these monster vessels re-
quires from first to last a small army of men, all of whose labor, so far
as any benefit to mankind is concerned, might as well have been cm-
ployed in pumping water out of the sea and allowing it to flow back

INCREASING CURSE OF EUROPEAN MILITANCY. 523

again. Then consider the equipment, clothes, arms, and ammunition
of all these great European armies ; the manufactories of powder and
explosives, the monster guns and projectiles, the rockets and torpedoes,
the horses and horse accoutrements, and all the innumerable variety of
stores that are required to supply a modern army in the field — and
then follow back every one of these things to the raw material brought
from various parts of the world, and to the numerous processes of
manufacture through which it has to pass — and further consider the
amount of purely intellectual power required, the origination and im-
provement and detailed designs for the rifles and cannons, the pro-
jectiles and explosives, the pontoons, the fortifications, the torpedo-
boats, and the iron-clads — and we shall probably think it not an ex-
travagant estimate that for every ten thousand men in a modern army
and navy at least another ten thousand are wholly employed in making
the necessary equipment and war-material, the labor of the whole
twenty thousand being utterly wasted, inasmuch as all that they pro-
duce is consumed, not merely unproductively and uselessly, but de-
structively. We may fairly estimate, then, that the military prepared-
ness of modern Europe involves a total loss to the community of the
labor of about sevex million men, and a corresponding amount of
animal and mechanical power and of labor-saving machinery. If,
now, we consider that the weight of guns, the thickness of armor-
plating, the size and engine-power of ships, and the complex require-
ments of an army in the field, have all been rapidly increasing during
the last ten or fifteen years, we may fairly estimate that one fourth or
one fifth of this number of men have been abstracted from the pro-
ductive workers of Europe during the last ten years, the period over
which the commercial depression has extended.

Let us next consider the heavy burden of taxation upon all the
chief European peoples, the increase of which during recent years has
been almost wholly caused by increased military expenditure and the
interest on debts incurred for wars or preparations for war, for forti-
fications, or for military railways. This increase may be best esti-
mated by comparing the expenditure of 1870, the year before the
Franco-German War, with that of 1884. During this period of four-
teen years our own expenditure has increased from £75,000,000 to
£87,000,000 ; that of Austria from £55,000,000 to £94,000,000 ; that
of France from £85,000,000 to £142,500,000 ; that of Germany from
£54,000,000 to £112,500,000; that of Italy from £40,000,000 to
£61,500,000; and that of Russia from £66,000,000 to £114,500,000.
Altogether the expenditure of the six great powers of Europe has in-
creased from £345,000,000 to £612,000,000, an additional burden of
£266,500,000 a year. The population of these six states is now a little
over 269,000,000, so that they have to bear, on the average, an addition
of taxation amounting to nearly a pound a head, or about five pounds
for each family, a most oppressive amount when we consider the ex-

524 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

treme poverty of the masses in all these states, and that even before this
period of inflated war expenditure they had already to support a heavy
and often an almost unbearable load of taxation. AVe must, therefore,
admit that this great addition to their fiscal burdens in the last four-
teen years must have seriously diminished the purchasing power of
more than two hundred millions of people, and this alone is calculated
to produce, and must actually produce, a depression of trade in all the
countries which supply their wants, and therefore in none more seri-
ously than in our own.

There remains yet to be considered the injury done by the actual
destruction of life and property which occurs whenever this elaborate
and costly war-machinery is put to its destined use. Owing to the
"wide extent and endless ramifications of modern commerce, wherever
life and property are destroyed by war all nations with an extensive
foreign trade must feel some of the consequences. When villages and
towns are burned or bombarded, crops devastated, and domestic animals
taken by invading armies, troops quartered on the inhabitants and
forced contributions made, the result must be the impoverishment of
the population for several years. For a long time they have a severe
struggle even to exist. Their houses have to be rebuilt, their lands to
be again cultivated, seed and domestic animals to be procured, fresh
capital to be accumulated ; and till all this is done they have no means
of purchasing foreign goods or of indulging in anything beyond the
barest necessaries of life. And, when the war is long and destructive,
there is, in addition, the loss of human life, not merely by slaughter in
battle, but by the distress and exposui*e, the disease and famine which
are the inevitable consequences of w^ar, a loss often to be counted, not
merely by thousands and tens of thousands, but even by millions. And
all these lost lives are, from our present point of view, lost customers,
and thus still further increase the sum total of injury to commerce
which war produces.

Now, during the last twenty years there have been a continued
series of wars which have all, more or less, tended to produce these
injurious effects. Beginning with the New Zealand war in 1865, we
have in succession the Abyssinian war of 1867, the great Franco-Ger-
man war of 1871-'72, the Ashantee war in 1875, the terrible Russo-
Turkish war of 1878, the Transvaal, Zooloo, and other South African
wars of 1879-'80, the Afghan war of 1881, the Egyptian war of 1883,
and the Soudan war perhaps not yet concluded. Who can calculate
the amount of life and property destroyed, and the consequent misery
and impoverishment of large populations during these twenty years ?
Traders have, unfortunately, often considered war to be advantageous
to them, on account of the rapid and reckless expenditure of public
money on war-materials and stores, and the opportunity of making
large profits by war-contracts. But this is a very partial effect and
limited to but few departments of trade, while the depressing effect of

IXCREASING CURSE OF EUROPEAN MILITANCY. 525

war, in the increased taxation it always involves and in the impover-
ishment of our customers which it always produces, is certain, wide-
spread, and often enduring. The recent wars in Egypt and the Sou-
dan, whatever other results they may have, will assuredly have the
effect of tending still further to prolong and intensify our commercial
depression.

If our manufacturers and merchants as a body would consider this
question in all its bearings they would surely arrive at the conclusion
that all war, wherever or by whomsoever waged, is bad for trade,
since it impoverishes alike the winner and the loser, the invader and
the invaded, while it inevitably destroys a number of actual or possible
customers. The moral arguments against war would doubtless be
more generally effective if it were clearly seen that, always and every-
where, its direct and necessary effect is to produce more or less of de-
pression of trade.

But if war injures the capitalist, the manufacturer, and the trader,
still more does it injure the worker, and on this point I can not do bet-
ter than quote the forcible words of Mr. Mongredien.* After describ-
ing the various destructive agencies and methods of war, he says :
" As wealth dwindles somebody must suffer, and the suffering mainly
falls on the poor and weak. The capitalist is mulcted of part of his
wealth, but he can wait. The labor-seller is mulcted of the necessaries
of life, and he and his dear ones can not wait. The less there is to
produce the less there is to distribute. Need we say which class it
is that will run short ? It is on you, labor-sellers of the world, that
the burden chiefly falls. It is you who are the slayers and the slain.
You form the rank and file who deal the blows and on whom the
blows are dealt. To your chiefs belong the honor and the rewards.
As for you, you are under contract to suffer and to cause suffering ; to
inflict and to endure death ; to destroy instead of creating wealth ;
and to use every effort to suppress the fund out of which labor is paid.
The war-system, pernicious to every class, is a special curse to yours.
Are you content to view it as a necessity ? In this our protest against
it, we look for your special assistance by thought, word, and pen.
Public opinion is made up of assenting units." Since these words were
written the working-men of England have obtained the means not only
of verbally protesting, but of actually deciding against war, if it so
pleases them. If they will vote for no representatives but such as will
pledge themselves to oppose all but strictly defensive wars, and never
to begin a war until we are actually attacked, then war will rarely
occur, war expenditure will be reduced, and, so soon as other nations
follow our example and that of the United States, one of the chief
eauses of depression of trade will cease to exist.

* "Wealth Creation," by Augustus Mongrieden, p. 115.

526 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

MEDICAL PKACTICE IN DAMAEALAND.

By C. G. B0TTNER.

THE missionary in Damaraland has also to be a physician. The
stations in that country being cut off from regular intercourse
with European civilization, the missionary societies have been obliged
to give their agents a medical education, in order, if for no other pur-
pose, that they may be able to doctor themselves and their families.
From my own station of Otimbingue, which is M'ell situated as com-
pared with some of the others, I would have had to go at least a month's
journey to find a regularly graduated physician. Of course, the natives
are glad to avail themselves of the benefit of what medical skill we may
have, the more especially as they have learned that we will never in-
tentionally do them any harm, while they are always suspicious of
their own doctors and sorcerers. Hardly a day passed during my
residence in the country that I was not called upon by some sick per-
son ; so that I am able to speak from the results of a seven years' busy
practice. As I could converse with the natives with perfect freedom
in their own language, I had frequent opportunities to consult with
their professionals, and was able to learn more of their notions than
usuall}^ falls to the lot of the ordinary explorer ; so that, though not a
physician by profession, I believe I can make some interesting contri-
butions to medical lore.

One of the most curious results of my observations is that the cli-
mate of Damaraland possesses what we might call an antiseptic char-
acter for several months of every year. The quality is an attendant
of the long annual drought. Every living thing suffers during that
period from the excessive heat, and much comfort is impossible, even
in the shade, while, in places exposed to the warm winds, the ther-
mometer has risen to 129° ; and the sand, unmoistened for six months,
becomes so hot that I have seen eggs hardened in it. This arid heat is
opposed to the propagation of ferment, for it dries up everything that
is exposed to the wind before it has time to sour. No manifestations
of tuberculosis are known. Wounds of every kind heal remarkably
quickly and well, without enough suppuration taking place to make
the bandages stick. The manner in which large, neglected wounds
heal of themselves would form an interesting study for a professional
surgeon. I observed a case of a Ilerero whose right lower arm had
been shattered in battle by a musket-ball. The healing process had
worked itself out in such a way that the whole lower arm with all its
muscles had become withered and useless, while the upper-arm bone
was whole and covered at its lower end only with the brown skin. All
the muscles and ligaments of the elbow-joint had vanished, while the
shoulder-muscles remained, so that the unpleasant sj)ectacle was pre-

MEDICAL PRACTICE IN DAMARALAND. 527

sented of the man appearing to gesticulate with his bones. A woman
lived at our station whose feet had been barbarously cut off in some
war several years before, so that her captors might more easily get off
the iron ornament which the Herero women wear on their ankles.
Athough the woman had to lie helpless for a long time, her wounds
eventually healed up, and now she has been hopping around on her
knees for thirty years.

We soon remarked, however, when the rains fell, a genius epi-
demicus coming over the country and demanding offerings. We could
also see how those of the natives who lived on the ridges were much
less troubled by illness than those whose houses were situated on the
moister alluvial ground and in the river-bottoms. Those who have
once had fever are more readily exposed to attack than those who
have never been ill. My wife, w^ho appeared to have wholly recov-
ered from a recent illness, only required a stay of ten minutes in a
river-bottom, where I and several other persons received no injury, to
be put in bed for months. The influence of malaria is manifested in
many persons in other ways than by fever-and-ague. Thus, I never
had that disease ; but, when others of the family had fever, I had
rheumatic pains in my joints, and I knew of other persons who were
similarly affected. Occasionally a severe and almost univei'sal influ-
enza would prevail instead of the fever ; and, while few died from it,
it was very painful, and sometimes laid entire households low, so that
no one was left to attend to the daily duties.

One of the most prevalent diseases is a running inflammation of
the eyes, which few natives escape suffering from one or more times
during their lives. Europeans also are usually attacked by it, and it
was a great wonder to the natives that I and my family escaped it.
We avoided it by the observance of the most scrupulous cleanliness
and the use of prophylactics.

Venereal disorders are quite widely spread, but the Hereros have
no name of their own for them, and call them the " Hottentot dis-
ease."

A peculiar skin-disease, called otiyndimha, causes much incon-
venience. It is connected with the hot weather, and is characterized
by little sores that appear upon different parts of the body, lasting for
two or three weeks, to be succeeded by others till the cold weather.
They develop pus, in quantity which appears to be very scanty in pro-
portion to the pain they cause, and leave no scar. The only disturb-
ance they produce in the general system appears to be to make the
sufferer very uncomfortable.

Two cases of snake-bites were brought to me, one of which was
without consequences, while the other only resulted in a trifling sore.
Yet cattle are frequently killed by snakes. I had several cases of men
who had been spit in the eyes by the spitting-snake, or ongoroka.
Some persons regard this serpent as a myth ; but I have conversed.

528 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

not only witli natives, but also witli trustworthy Europeans, who have
seen it spit. The attack produces a running intiammation in the eyes,
which lasts for about a fortnight.

The various behavior of the natives toward surgical and internal
disorders is curious to the European. No one can be more indifferent
than they are to external injuries and the pains they occasion. Except
in the rarest cases, they never utter a sound or move a limb, whatever
may be done to them. A thoroughgoing surgeon could not want bet-
ter subjects ; and only when the question is directly asked them will
they admit that they suffer any pain. An illustration of this power of
endurance is given by the poorer mountain Damaras, whose clothing,
for summer and winter, is reduced to a mere loin-cloth. Their only way
of warming themselves in cold weather is to hover over the fire as
closely as possible. They thereby become blistered nearly from head
to foot, and acquire a rather mottled appearance ; yet they never
seem to mind the smart of the bums. But let them suffer from any
slight internal disorder, if it be no more than a common cold, no one
can touch them, and it is very hard to make them submit to a medi-
cal examination. It was common in our school when one asked a per-
son suffering from such a disorder, " Where do you suffer the most
pain ? " for him to return the answer, " In my arms, neck, head, back,
stomach, all over my body." These imaginary sick gave us a great
deal of trouble, and it became necessary to keep them as much out of
the way as possible. I found an effectual means to accomplish this,
and one that was characteristic of the people. I ordered calf-soup for
the sick man. To kill one of their calves was more than the Hereros
were willing to do just to make a sick man well ; and no one to whom
I made this prescription ever came to me a second time.

Massage plays an important part in native therapeutics, and is ap-
plied upon the whole of the lower part of the body and the bowels.
I can not deny that this operation is quite thoroughly and in a manner
scientifically performed. It is a circumstance favorable to this process
that the skin over the abdomens of the natives is stretched and flabby
on account of their custom — which arises from their necessities — of
overeating at times, and at other times having to endure long hunger.
The operator, first with a slow, light, but continuous movement of
his oiled finger-tip draws the bowels clear over to one side till he
can plainly feel the inner part of the hip-bone with its muscles and
vessels on the other side ; then the bowels are slowly pushed back,
with a movement so executed that every knot and every induration
is rubbed as thoroughly as possible between the fingers. A number
of the impleasant symptoms that may arise from costiveness, uterine
disorders, or the troubles of pregnancy, are removed by this operation,
and it can not be denied that the effect of the kneading on the circu-
lation is beneficial. The whole process lasts from an hour to an hour
and a half, and in serious cases is repeated every two or three days.

MEDICAL PRACTICE IN DAMARALAND. 529

The men who perform massage have by repeated practice acquired a
fair knowledge of the normal condition of the abdomen, and of the
more usual irregularities that take place there ; and they have also, by
practice in cutting up slaughtered animals, gained some knowledge of
the anatomical relations of the parts. I have satisfied myself, by close
observation of the procedure, that every part can be so fully separated
from the others as to permit the whole to be plainly felt by the
finger.

The skill attained in this art is particularly serviceable in midwifery
cases, and makes up in a great measure for the lack of instruments.
By it faults in the position of the f cetus are soon discovered, and much
skill is displayed in remedying them. Even the white women are
not afraid to call in the native midwives ; and they can really be
recommended without peril. As a rule they are women of the higher
social ranks. The art of massage is handed down from mother to
daughter, or to other relatives of the younger generation. Occasion-
ally men practice at it.

Chest-diseases and pains in the extremities are treated by cupping
and the moxa. Cupping is done with a horn. The skin having been
scratched with a knife, the larger end of the horn, which has an open-
ing at the point, is placed over the wound, and the operator sucks out
the air and as much blood as he can, making of himself a kind of an
artificial leech.

Moxas are preferred for diseases of the lungs and liver, and are
applied in the simplest imaginable manner, by burning the end of a
stick and putting the glowing coal upon the skin. Some ten or fifteen
points are thus burned in succession, the scars of which afterward look
like a kind of tattooing. When I first saw these scars on the breasts
and backs of the Hereros, I thought they had been made for decora-
tion, but was soon set right in the matter.

For internal remedies the people have a considerable number of
simples. Every one knows of a few plants that are good as laxatives,
emetics, sudorifics, or quietives. Among the heathen natives, super-
natural help appears to be regarded as more important, and to be more
approved. It is invoked, I observed, in two forms : One kind seems to
be a traditional survival of the old patriarchal sacrifice ; and the other
embraces a kind of combination of secret knowledge with jugglery.
A very obvious distinction is made between the two kinds of invoca-
tion, in the fact that some honorable member of the family is chosen to
officiate in the former, while the latter is left to some wretched charla-
tan, or juggler, who sometimes has to suffer death as a penalty for Ms
practice. In the former kind of invocation a beast is always slain,
with whose meat and fat certain ceremonies are performed and" formu-
las uttered over the patient, in a way that has been handed down by
tradition.

One of the simpler features in the practice of the juggler-doctors
VOL. XXVIII. — 34

Sso THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

consists in the practitioner sucking at the afflicted part of the patient
till he brings out the thing that has produced the sickness. So long
as these things are beans, pumpkin-seeds, and the like — and these are
what the doctor generally finds — there is nothing about the matter
that passes our comprehension. But when I saw one of these per-
formers, entirely naked except for a little skin-apron, who was closely
watched by many curious persons, at last draw out a living snake, a
foot and a half long, I was somewhat astonished. It was a real snake,
for the by-standers hastened to kill it. If the sick man failed to get
well after this kind of procedure, the burning coal was applied to
him. Hottentot quacks generally give the patient to drink of a kind
of tea which they compound from plants known to them, and which
should cause him to vomit. For the cure to succeed they must find
the object by which the man was bewitched and made sick, in the
vomited matter. These objects are things which can not usually be
found in the stomach nor come out of it. Thus my friends were shown,
among the things that had been in this way taken from patients, large
pins with glass heads, neatly tied together, crosswise, with a red
thread, a piece of wood with several twigs forking from it, and almost
as large as the hand, and other things equally curious. So far as I
could learn, this process is usually applied to a St. Vitus's dance, which
is supposed to be caused by enchantment.

I close with the relation of an incident in which I was made to play
the part of the magic doctor, because it exhibits one of the character-
istics of the people. A Hottentot came to me with a story of his
nephew being bewitched, and said that he had sought me out after
several other white men had declined to help him, because they knew
nothing about witchcraft. His nephew, he told me, had been quite
well till he had been bewitched by a rival in a love-affair, and nothing
could now be done with him, for his convulsions and running around.
As this condition had come about all of a sudden, the suggestion of
some external cause for it was obvious, and I was satisfied that it was
a case of poisoning. For the quacks are adepts in the management
of snake and plant-poisons, and produce all their enchantments, when
they amount to anything, by some means of the kind. I was glad to
have the opportunity of dealing with one of these cases by a remedy
of my own. I gave the man a bottle of camphor, with directions for
using it, and told him to come back and report the result in a fort-
night. He came three weeks afterward, with the empty bottle, and
told me joyfully that the sick man was well ; he had vomited up the
lion's hairs in which the enchantment was lodged ! — Translated for
the Popular Science Monthly from Z>as Aicsland.

THE PROBLEM OF PHOTOGRAPHY IN COLOR. 531

THE PROBLEM OF PnOTOGRAPHT IN COLOE.

By OGDEN N. rood,
pe0fes30k of physics in columbia college.

MY attention was first called to this subject in 1853. At that time
I was an assistant in the " Yale Analytical Laboratory," which
afterward developed into the present Shefiield School. The interest
of the Professor of Chemistry, John Porter, was excited by some arti-
cles on this subject which had recently appeared in France, and he
was desirous of making experiments to test an idea that had occurred
to himself. The sensitive surface was to be prepared while actually
under the influence of colored light, so that from the start the colored
rays should be able to act on it and influence the molecular condition
of the newly formed combinations. A prismatic spectrum was to be
employed, and it was hoped that the red rays would persuade the
newly born silver salts to reflect red light and only red light, while
the same salt, when generated under the influence of the green rays,
by the aid cf this early education was to be made capable hereafter of
reflecting green light, but incapable of reflecting red, yellow, or blue
light. Expressed in the language of the undulatory theory of light,
the idea would be about as follows : expose molecules in act of forma-
tion to the long waves of red light, and ever after they will be capable
of reflecting mainly the long waves of red light ; all other kinds they
will absorb and convert into heat.

This task having been assigned to me, I entered on it with zeal, and
arranged a dark room ; the solar spectrum was made to fall nicely on
the table, and many of the processes known at that time were in suc-
cession tested. The photographs of the spectrum thus obtained were
not at all uniform in color ; sometimes they would be delicately shaded
from a dull-red gray to a blue or violet-gray and often they presented
minor changes of color variously disposed. Favorable indications were
followed up as they presented themselves ; but after a time I became
convinced that the play of color in the photographs was solely due to
the greater or less energetic action of the light upon the sensitive sub-
stance, and that exactly the same results could be obtained by using
white light, more or less intense. When the work was finished, I pre-
sented my written report witb the photographs, and the professor,
after studying it, came to the same conclusion. The " nascent " idea
was not feasible.

And yet photographs in color of colored objects have been ob-
tained. Upon one occasion, about twenty-five years ago, I obtained
a very fine one. The subject was a large elm-tree and a red farm-
house, these two objects filling up almost the whole plate. The ordi-
nary wet-collodion process was employed ; the negative, after being

532 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

removed from the hypo, was washed and dried as usual ; but, when I
examined it by reflected light, it turned out that the green tree was
colored dark green just as nicely as if it had been a camera image, and
the red house was not a bit behindhand in truth and delicacy of hue.
A photograph in colors, sure enough ! But an examination with a lens,
and a little turning and twisting of the plate, caused the illusion to van-
ish : the colors were those of " thin plates," soap-bubble colors, caused
by the interference of light. "Wet collodion often shows them in patches
when it is somewhat rotten, and this sample was very rotten. The
interference effect had nothing to do with the color of the light, but
was controlled by its intensity. Once I had a chance to examine some
photographs in color of gayly dressed dolls made by Kiepce de Saint-
Victor, and it seemed to me that the pale colors they presented were
produced by a species of interference, acting by means of the presence
of more or less finely divided particles. The details of my examina-
tion I do not recollect, but merely the conclusion that the appearances
presented M'ere due to causes analogous to those that were effective in
the case of my glass negative. Photographs in color, such as they
are, can be obtained with suflicient patience ; but, in order to give this
fact the slightest value, it is necessary to prove that a corresponding
amount of patience would not be rewarded by the production of col-
ored photographs of objects which were gray, light gray, dark gray,
etc. When we think we have made a discovery, our first duty is to
destroy it mercilessly if possible, and the reproduction of the same
effects with white or gray objects is the proper mode of administering
justice in this case. It is barely possible that some one may ask why
a process that renders the colors correctly is a failure merely because
corresponding colors can be obtained when the natural objects are
tinted gray. The question answers itself ; white and gray objects
will be colored in the photograph, and, worse than that, the same color
in the natural object will vary in the photograph with its brightness
or luminosity.

Let us now examine this subject from a theoretical point of view,
and ask ourselves why we should hope that photographs in color could
ever be produced. We see the rich red rays of the spectrum falling
on the plate, and we imagine that a substance which is sensitive to
light will somehow be acted on by them, and arrange itself so that
ever afterward it will better be able to reflect red light than any other
kind of light. Why ? Why should a substance that has been acted
on by long waves be better able to reflect long waves than those that
are shorter ? Why should a sea-beach that has been acted on by long
waves be on that account better able to reflect and redirect to the
ocean long waves rather than mere ripples ? The waves of light pro-
duce in sensitive substances chemical changes ; new compounds are
formed ; why should the long waves of red light produce compounds
that are especially capable of reflecting long waves, or red light ?

THE PROBLEM OF PHOTOGRAPHY IN COLOR. 533

When we undertake to make a photograph in color, in effect we ask
one and the same chemical substance to reflect for us long, medium, or
short waves, red, green, or blue light, according as it has been acted
on by waves of greater or lesser length. The demand seems to me
preposterous.

The hope for photography in color lies in a different and less inde-
pendent direction. By the use of suitably colored plates of glass
placed before the lens of the photographic camera, it is possible to
obtain ordinary negatives of the red, yellow, and blue constituents of a
brightly colored surface — a carpet, for example. These can be made
to yield red, yellow, and blue positives by the aid of the photo-litho-
graphic process ; and when these three positive impressions are super-
imposed on the same sheet of paper, a more or less successful repro-
duction of the colored object is obtained. The selection of the three
transparent pigments used in printing is necessarily left to the taste
and judgment of the operator, or I should say artist, as without con-
siderable artistic knowledge the results are not likely to be valuable.
It will be seen, then, that in this process photography is really made
to act as an aid to chromo-lithography, and the results are really
chromo-lithographs, the work being mainly performed by the camera
and colored glasses. I do not see why it should not be possible in this
way to reproduce more or less successful colored pictures of brightly
tinted objects.

When we come to landscape the problem is more difficult, for a
large part of its color consists of delicately tinted grays, the handling
of which would be, to say the least, very troublesome, and would re-
quire far more than the superposition of the three layers of pigment
just mentioned. For progress in this direction it would be necessary
that the experimenter should, at the same time, be a skillful photog-
rapher, a good chromo-lithographer, and a landscape-painter. The
results obtained would not be exact representations of natural scenery,
but rather sketches in which the artistic taste presided over, modified,
and massed together natural tints. They would be none the worse
for that. Of course, there would still remain the difficulties connected
with an artistic disposition of light and shade, and the still more in-
superable ones of composition ; for the disposition of objects in a
landscape is rarely just what we want, or even what we are willing to
tolerate. On the other hand, there are many simpler objects where
this process * would probably succeed very well, such as colored de-
signs of all kinds of decorated objects, and all those cases where the
coloring is simple and not too evanescent. — Photographic Bulletin.

* Due originally to C. Cross and Ducos du Ilauron, and improved by Albert, of Munich,
and Bierstadt, of New York.

534 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

WOMEN" m ASTEONOMT.
Bt e. lagkange,

THERE have been women famous in all the departments of science
and art, and many have shown in astronomical studies talents
not usually made manifest in their sex. To begin with ancient times,
several women whose names have come down to- posterity made them-
selves famous in the centuries before the fall of the Western Roman
Empire. Among them, the principal one who derived her title to
glory from the study of the sciences was Ilypatia, daughter of
Theon, of the school of Alexandria, who is nevertheless better known
by her philosophical opinions than by her scientific labors. She lec-
tured for many years at Alexandria, before numerous and intelligent
audiences, on the Neoplatonic doctrines ; but she is also known as the
author of an astronomical table which has not come down to us.
Wolf relates, in his " History of Astronomy," that she studied mathe-
matics and astronomy with such success that she was given a profes-
sorial chair, whence she explained the works of Apollonius and Dio-
phantus.

Skipping the ages of darkness and the beginning of the modem
epoch, we find our attention fixed in the latter part of the seventeenth
century upon the name of the family of Kirch — a name important in
many respects. Marie Marguerite Kirch was born at Panitzch, near
Leipsic, on the 25th of February, 1670, Her maiden name was
Winckelmann, but she married the Berlin astronomer Godefroid
Kirch, and became also his scientific companion. She assisted him in
his calculations and observations, and in 1702 discovered a comet.
Even after the death of her husband in 1710 she did not cease to de-
vote herself entirely to astronomical science ; and we have a consid-
erable book which she wrote in 1712, in anticipation of the conjunc-
tion of Jupiter and Saturn that was to take place in 1713. The
conjunctions of the planets now only excite curiosity, and are of no
particular interest to astronomers. But the case was different in the
times when astronomy was mixed up with astrology, and a very
capricious, occult influence over earthly fates was attributed to such
especial positions of the stars. With the progress of theoretical
astronomy, which showed that these conjunctions were regular events,
subject to periodic laws, the ideas on this subject were modified, and
the writers upon the phenomena took the pains to notify the public,
by the titles of their works, that they had nothing in common with
the astrologers. Marguerite Kirch's book consisted wholly of astro-
nomical calculations — to the honor, says Bach, of the woman and
her age.

The daughters of Madame Kirch continued to occupy themselves

WOMEIT IN ASTRONOMY. 535

with astronomy after the death of their mother, and made the calcula-
tions, for the Academy of Sciences of Berlin, of the " Ephemeris " and
the " Almanac " which were sources of revenue to that learned body.
In the same period a number of French and Italian astronomers had
female collaborators in their own families. Celsius, the celebrated pro-
fessor at TJpsala, and a pupil of Kirch the son, was entertained, while pass-
ing through Paris to Bologna, by De I'lsle, whose sister was devoting
herself to astronomy. Reaching Italy, he found liliewise that his new
master, Manfredi, had two learned sisters, engaged, like their brother,
rn the study of the stars. This caused Celsius to say, in a letter to
Kirch : " I begin to believe that it is fated for all the astronomers whom
I have had the honor of becoming acquainted with during my journey
to have learned sisters ; I have a sister, too, but not a very learned
lady. To keep up the coincidence, we must make an astronomer
of her."

Other women, whose names are less well known, wrote on astronomy
during the seventeenth century. We may cite Maria Cunitz, daugh-
ter of a Silesian doctor, who published astronomical tables in 1650 ;
Jeanne Dume, who in 1650 wrote a book defending the Copernican
system against "scientific" attacks upon it. Of more modern date
was Madame Gabrielle Emilie de Breteuil, Marquise du Chatelet,
who was for fifteen years the constant friend of Voltaire, and in her
retreat at Cirey devoted her whole life to the sciences. She it was
who first made known to France, then devoted to scientific Cartesian-
ism and the doctrine of elementary vortices, the masterly work of
Newton. This was a title to glory which might have made the
fortune of more than one scientific man, and it fell upon a woman.
Mademoiselle de Breteuil had received a very careful education, but
her natural taste for study and serious occupations did not prevent her
from shining brilliantly in the society of the courts of the Regency
for some years after her marriage with M. du Chatelet. One of the
best evidences of her genius that we have is in the bearing toward her
of Voltaire, who had no respect for any but mental gifts. He had
returned from Great Britain full of enthusiasm for English science
and philosophy, and occupied with the dream of making Newton
known to his countrymen and dethroning Descartes at the Academy.
It may appear singular that he selected Madame du Chatelet for this
work ; but the choice was not extraordinary after all. She had already
made some progress in mathematical studies under the direction of
Maupertuis and Clairaut, and Voltaire was looking for the assistance
he needed to some one outside of the oflicial scientific circle. The
translation of Newton's " Principia " would be the best means of
making known in France the great English geometrician and the ad-
mirable simplicity which his theory of attraction lent to the study of
the movements of the stars. This work Madame du Chatelet did well.
But she did more than make a simple translation. The algebraic com-

536 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

mentary which follows the translation is in large part the work of this
lady, although it was composed under the dii'ection of Clairaut and
revised by him. *' We have witnessed two prodigies," said Voltaire
in his historical introduction to the " Principia " — " one that Newton
should have composed this work, and the other that a woman should
have translated and elucidated it." Leaving out the exaggeration
natural in such a statement, there is still a great deal of truth in it.
More than ordinary mathematical knowledge was necessary even to
make known a work like Newton's immortal treatise, and still more to
add explanatory comments to it. This, however, was not Madame du
Chatelet's first scientific work, for she had previously written for her
son "The Institutions of Physics," a book imbued with the Leibnit-
zian philosophy.

As may readily be imagined, Madame du Chatelet was likely to find
more enemies than aids among the women of the light and frivolous
society of her day. Fortunately, she was indifferent to criticism, else
she would have suffered the pain of a hundred deaths.

The most distinguished of all woman-astronomers was Caroline
Herschel, the story of whose life, already fully told in this journal (see
"Popular Science Monthly," April and May, 18TG), is familiar to our
readers, and needs not to be repeated.

Madame Riimker, wife of the former director of the observatory of
Hamburg, and his constant aid, discovered a comet on the 11th of Oc-
tober, 1847 — the first comet discovered by a woman since Caroline
Herschel had announced the last of her eight, fifty-two years before.
[M. Lagrange has curiously omitted to mention the American woman-
astronomer, Maria Mitchell, who is entitled to the place among dis-
covers of comets which he here gives to Madame Riimker. She dis-
covered a telescopic comet on the 1st day of October, 1847 — ten days
before Madame Riimker's discovery — in recognition of which she was
given a gold medal by the King of Denmark. She has also devoted
much attention to the examination of nebulas, and has been employed
in observations connected with the Coast Survey and in compiling the
" Nautical Almanac." Her work has hardly been inferior to that of
any of the women mentioned by M. Lagrange. — Ed. Popular Science
Monthly.]

Another lady, who left very distinct traces of her work in astro-
nomical science, was Madame Scarpellini, whom Italy claims as one of
the children that have done her the most honor, and to whose memory
a statue has recently been erected,

Catherine Scarpellini was born at Foligno on the 29th of October,
1808, and was a niece of the astronomer Feliciano Scarpellini, founder
of the Capitoline Observatory, restorer of the Academia dei Lynceii,
and professor in the two universities of Rome. Her attention was
directed to scientific studies by her early training, with which her
tastes fully agreed. Among her titles to fame we may recount that

WOMEN IN ASTRONOMY. 537

she organized the Meteorologico-ozonometric Station of the Capitol,
and edited its monthly bulletin ; she was one of the most active col-
laborators in the " Scientific Correspondence " of Rome ; and, like Caro-
line Herschel, Madame Riimker, and Miss Mitchell, she discovered a
comet on the night of the 1st of April, 1854. At a time when the
subject of shooting-stars was under lively discussion she prepared the
first catalogue of the meteors observed in Italy, and was the sole ob-
server at Rome of the great shower of 1866. She also left valuable
studies on the probable influence of the moon on earthquakes — a work
which brought her distinctions from the Society of Naturalists of Mos-
cow, the Geological Institute of Vienna, and other scientific bodies.
Many learned societies made her an honorary member, and the Italian
Government, in 1872, decreed to her a gold medal for her statistical
labors. With all this she was a good mother and a true woman.

We mention a few more names : Madame Hortense Lepante, wife
of the horologist of the same name, who calculated a comet with La-
lande ; Miss Ashley, of our own time, who has so intelligently studied
the surface of the moon, and whose numerous labors are registered in
the " Selenographical Journal " ; and Miss Pogson, who is directing an
observatory at Madras. Several young women are employed as calcu-
lators at the Observatory of Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massa-
chusetts.

I can not close my article without giving grateful testimony to
those women who, without having contributed directly to the advance-
ment of astronomy, have sustained their husbands or brothers during
their work with incessant devotion. This is a beautiful part reserved
for the astronomer's wife or sister, and many women have known how
to fulfill it with honor.

We recall with an emotion of gratitude the name of Mrs. Asaph
Hall, whose persevering energy supported her husband when, despair-
ing of success, he was on the point of abandoning the search for the
satellites of Mars. With her encouragement, after long and painful
watches, Mr. Hall returned once again to his investigations in a final
effort, which was crowned with a most brilliant success. I must also,
with all the friends of science, give a tribute of homage to Madame
Janssen, who has exiled herself several times to the ends of the earth,
and accepted the privations of the hardest kind of life, to follow her
husband in his numerous astronomical voyages.

Honor, then, to all these ladies and fellow-workers, who are plead-
ing or have pleaded more emphatically than the strongest speeches of
philanthropists in favor of the claims of their sex. They have proved
that when one will one can ; and that proverb is perhaps the best con-
clusion that can be drawn from our story. — Translated for the Popular
Science Monthly from Ciel et Terre.

538 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

SKETCH OF DR. W. B. CARPENTER.

THE long and busy scientific life of Dr. Carpenter, the wide extent
and multifarious character of his researches, in which he was
always a leader and always advanced knowledge, the catholicity of
his views, the active interest he exhibited in every concern of life, his
lovable personal qualities, and the painful circumstances of his death,
have all contributed to invest the history of his career with an unusual
degree of interest.

His life, as he observed to a friend less than a month before his
death, was one of hard work. He was for years actively engaged in
the drudgery of teaching ; he was always preparing and compiling
valuable manuals ; he was an energetic writer for, and editor of, peri-
odical publications ; and, we may add, he spent much time in the
direct service of the public and of public institutions. A sketch of
his life and work down to 1872 was given in the first volume of "The
Popular Science Monthly." But he has held so high a place, and has
done so much that is valuable since then, and as that biography is
probably not now accessible to a great many of our readers, no apology
need be offered for reviewing the principal features of Dr. Carpenter's
career, and adding, with the account of his later work, such new infor-
mation as is afforded by the reminiscences which are always brought
out by the death of a man who has played an important part.

W1LLIA.M Benjamin Cakpenter was born in Exeter, England, Octo-
ber 29, 1813. His father, the Rev. Dr. Lant Carpenter, was an eminent
Unitarian minister, and a writer on theological subjects, who removed
to Bristol in 1817. Hence the son's earlier life became so identified
with that city that some of his biographers have said that he was born
there. The whole family are characterized by ability. Dr. Carpenter's
sister. Miss Mary Carpenter, who died a few years ago, was an eminent
philanthropist, whose work in relation to the treatment of prisoners,
and to questions affecting the well-being of the women of India, en-
title her, as Dr. Ray Lankester happily says, to be remembered by
future generations with no less gratitude than her brother. His sous
are men of mark in the Unitarian ministry, in literature, and in science.

He received his earlier instruction in the school established by his
father at Bristol, studying the classics and the principles of physical
science, with a preference of taste for the latter class of studies. He
intended to become a civil engineer, but, no suitable opening appearing
in that profession, he entered upon the study of medicine, in 1828,
with Mr. J. B. Estlin, a brother-in-law of Dr. Pritchard, the ethnolo-
gist, in connection with which he attended the lectures at the Bristol
Medical School. In the winter of 1833 he visited the "West Indies in
company with Dr. Estlin, who went on a voyage for his health, to re-

WILLIAM BENJAMIN CARPENTER, LL. D., F. R. S.,

President of the British Association lor the Advancement of Science.

SKETCH OF W. B. CARPENTER. 539

sume his studies on his return, at Bristol, then at University College,
London, and finally in the University of Edinburgh, where he received
the degree of M. D. in 1839. His graduating thesis, which gained
for him a gold medal, was on " The Physiological Inferences to be
deduced from the Structure of the Nervous System of Invertebrated
Animals," It attracted considerable attention on account of some
peculiar special views advanced in it, and it pointed out the direction
which his future studies were destined to take. Previous to his grad-
uation he had been appointed Lecturer on Medical Jurisprudence in
the Bristol Medical School. He settled down to practice and married
in Bristol ; but, in 1844, feeling a distaste, according to Dr. Lankester,
for the profession of medicine, he removed to London in order to de-
vote himself entirely to a literary and scientific career. Here he was
appointed Fullerian Professor of Physiology in the Royal Institution,
and was made a Fellow of the Royal Society ; in the next year he
became a lecturer in the London Hospital ; in 1847 a lecturer on
geology in the British Museum, one of the examiners of the London
University, and editor of the " British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgi-
cal Review " ; in 1849, Professor of Medical Jurisprudence at Univer-
sity College ; and in 1852, Principal of University Hall.

Dr. Carpenter began the researches with which his name is associ-
ated and the publication of results upon them while still quite young.
Two books — Sir John Herschel's "Discourse on the Study of Natural
Philosophy," and Lyell's " Principles of Geology " — exerted a great
influence over his mind while he was a student, and served in a certain
sense as models in the execution of the literary part of his work. Dr.
Lankester remarks that from the fii'st his work showed the tendency
of his mind to seek for large generalizations and the development of
philosophical principles. " He was a natural philosopher in the widest
sense of the term — one who was equally familiar with the fundamental
doctrines of physics and with the. phenomena of the concrete sciences
of astronomy, geology, and biology. It was his aim, by the use of the
widest range of knowledge of the facts of nature, to arrive at a gen-
eral conception of these phenomena as the outcome of uniform and all-
pervading laws. His interest in the study of living things was not
therefore primarily that of the artist and poet so much as that of the
philosopher, and it is remarkable that this interest should have carried
him, as it did, into minute and elaborate investigations of form and
structure." Among his earliest contributions was a paper "On the
Voluntary and Instinctive Actions of Living Beings." Before he was
twenty-five years old he had published articles on "Vegetable Physi-
ology " and " The Physiology of the Spinal Marrow," and a review
of that part of Whewell's " History of the Inductive Sciences " which
relates to physiology. His first important essay in the study of the
nervous system, the special branch of the science to which he more
closely devoted his attention, was a review of Noble's " Physiology of

540 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the Brain," in which lie exposed the unscientific character of the claims
of phrenology. In this paper he also extended the idea of reflex
nervous function to the centers of sensation and ideation, and enunci-
ated the fundamental notions of " consensual " and of " ideo-motor "
action. Curiously Mr. Carpenter's arguments converted the author of
the book, Dr. Noble, who in a short time surrendered the principal
hypotheses which he had endeavored to enforce in it.

His first systematic work, produced in 1839, was the "Comparative
Physiology," or, to cite it by its full title, the "Principles of General
and Comparative Physiology, intended as an Introduction to the Study
of Human Physiology, and as a Guide to the Philosophical Pursuit of
Natural History." This work, which has passed through many edi-
tions, and is even now, though out of print, hardly behind the times,
is acknowledged to have been when it was first published the best
arranged and most clearly written work on physiology in the English
language. It was a pioneer and successful effort to deal with the phe-
nomena of animal and vegetable life as parts of a single whole in the
manner that is now almost universally done in treating of the science
of biology. While residing at University Hall, from 1851 to 1859, he
remodeled this work and divided it into two parts : the " Comparative
Physiology," comprehending the general biological portion ; and the
"Human Physiology," consisting of the part relating to the special
physiology of man and the higher animals. The " Human Physiology "
embodied the most complete and thorough exposition of the subject
that had yet been presented, and was particularly remarkable for the
manner in which the physiology of the brain and nervous system was
treated, and for the introduction of the theories of cerebral localization
which have since been elaborated with increasing exactness and re-
markable results. The part of the book relating to this branch of the
subject, developed and matured by subsequent studies, was published
separately in 1874 as the "Principles of Mental Physiology," a book
which "Nature," in its review of it, characterized as marking the
author as one of those philosophers "who refuse to treat the phe-
nomena of mind as though they were in no way connected with the
body through which they find their expression." Rejecting the method
of treating mental phenomena as abstracted from their surroundings,
Dr. Carpenter based his system on the construction and working of the
nervous system. "But while shunning the metaphysical system," the
reviewer in " Nature " continues, " he does not adopt the other extreme,
the doctrine, we mean, of the thorough materialist, who regards all
mental phenomena without exception as the outcome of previous phys-
ical causes which necessarily produce certain results. He steers a mid-
dle course, inasmuch as, while he advances the theory ' of the dependence
of the automatic activity of the mind upon conditions which bring it
within the nexus of physical causation,' he yet believes in ' an independ-
ent power controlling and directing that activity which we call will.' "

SKETCH OF W. B. CARPENTER. 541

This doctrine of the independence of the will is regarded as one of the
distinguishing characteristics of the philosophy of the treatise, running
" through the entire work as the one grand exception among a series of
physical sequences, interdependent, and standing to each other in the re-
lation of cause and effect, of antecedent and sequent." Another impor-
tant feature of the book is found in its discussions of the subjects of mes-
merism, spirit-rapping, table-turning, and the like, in which the author's
philosophical spirit is eminently displayed. He set himself soberly at
work to find out what is true in these manifestations, and to verify the
facts, and explain on rational grounds those which were susceptible of
explanation, while " he did not hesitate to denounce those he thought
were due to insincerity or fraud." He found the key to such of the
phenomena as are real in what he called ideo-motor action, which he
defined to be " the direct manifestations of ideational states, excited
to a certain measure of intensity, or, in physiological language, reflex
actions of the cerebrum." His observations on this branch of the sub-
ject were also published separately in the work " Mesmerism, Spirit-
ualism, etc., historically and scientifically considered."

Dr. Carpenter's appointment to the office of Registrar of the Uni-
versity of London, in 1856, gave him more leisure than he had pre-
viously enjoyed to pursue his studies systematically and untrammeled
by the drudgery of routine duties ; and the fruits of the employment
of this leisure are seen in the greater fullness and perfection of his
scientific work subsequent to that time. He had already, during most
of his residence in London, been occupied with the mirlute study of
the calcareous shells of the Mollusca, and this had led him to the regu-
lar use of the microscope. One of the earlier fruits of these studies
was his book on " The Microscope and its Revelations," a manual most
highly prized by all followers of the enchanting study of microscopy,
of which the sixth edition was published in 1881. Other fruits of
them are to be found in his reports on the microscopic structure of
shells, which he presented to the British Association from 1844 on-
ward. In these papers much light was thrown on the structure,
which was found to be more complex than had been supposed, and the
law of growth of shells. His studies in the Foraminifera, which were
continued through his life, furnished the occasion for several memoirs
in the "Philosophical Transactions," and for an illustrated mono-
graph, which was published by the Ray Society in 1862. One of the
most interesting of his studies in this line was that on the structure
and development of the Comatula, or feather-star, in which he pro-
posed a theory of the nervous function of the axial cords running
through the arms of the animal, differing from or contradicting the
views commonly held. A re-examination of the structure of the ani-
mal, and repetition of his experiments, made some five years ago at
the Marine Laboratory of Dr. Dohrn, at Naples, and the experiments of
other naturalists, have given confirmation to his opinion. Pertaining

542

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

to the investigation of the Foraminifcra and growing out of it, was
the part which he took in the discussions respecting the nature of
Eozoon Canadense, in which he maintained that the fossil in question
exhibits the distinctive structure of the shell-substance of the higher
Foraminiferce. He was preparing a memoir on this subject, which he
left uncompleted at the time of his death.

Dr. Carpenter, with Professor Wyville Thomson, w^as one of the
prime movers of the expeditions for deep-sea research, which have
since been so extensively carried on, and have resulted in so great and
valuable additions to our knowledge of zoology and the physics of the
globe. He took part in the earlier expeditions in 1868 and subsequent
years, but was not able to go on the Challenger Expedition. He had
an important part, however, in collating and formulating the results
of the last expedition, and in making them accessible to the understand-
ing of the public. To this series of investigations belong his theories
and publications on ocean-currents.

In 1872 Dr. Carpenter was President of the British Association, at
its Bristol meeting, and had the pleasure of announcing in his inaugu-
ral address the approaching departure of the Challenger on a circum-
navigating expedition of at least three years' duration. The subject of
his address was " Man as the Interpreter of Nature," and its purpose
was to lead the minds of his audience " to the consideration of the
mental processes by which are formed those fundamental concep-
tions of matter and force, of cause and effect, of law and order,
which furnish the basis of all scientific reasoning, and constitute
the pJiilosophia x>rima of Bacon " ; and to show " that those who set
up their own conceptions of the orderly sequence which they discern
in the phenomena of nature, as fixed and determinate laws, by which
those phenomena not only are within all human experience, but always
have been and always must be governed, are guilty of the intellectual
arrogance they condemn in the systems of the ancients, and place them-
selves in diametrical antagonism to those real philosophers, by whose
comprehensive grasp and penetrating insight that order has so far been
disclosed." At the close of his address, having shown how man had
arrived at the recognition of the unity of the power of which the phe-
nomena of nature are the diversified manifestations, and how all sci-
entific inquiry now tends toward this point, he declared that the science
of modern times had taken a more special direction : " Fixing its at-
tention exclusively on the order of nature, it has separated itself wholly
from theology, whose function it is to seek after its cause. In this,
science is fully justified, alike by the entire independence of its objects,
and by the historical fact that it has been continually hampered and
impeded, in its search for the truth as it is in nature, by the restraints
which theologians have attempted to impose upon its inquiries. But
when science, passing beyond its own limits, assumes to take the place
of theology, and sets up its own conception of the order of nature as a

SKETCH OF W. B. CARPENTER. 543

sufficient account of its cause, it is invading a province of thought to
which it has no claim, and not unreasonably provokes the hostility of
those who ought to be its best friends. For while the deep-seated in-
stincts of humanity, and the profoundest researches of philosophy, alike
point to mind as the one and only source of power, it is the high pre-
rogative of science to demonstrate the unity of the power which is
operating through the limitless extent and variety of the universe, and
to trace its continuity through the vast series of ages that have been
occupied in its evolution." In harmony with these views, he has main-
tained the genetic unity of all organic beings, and has had no difiiculty
in insisting that evolution is compatible with theism, and in fact gives
a stimulus to the religious emotions.

Dr. Carpenter retired from the registrarship of London University
in May, 1879, on a pension, and was chosen a member of the senate of
the institution. Among the most important incidents of his career as
registrar is mentioned the fact that he secured for the study of natural
science the recognition it has enjoyed at the university, and the im-
portant place it has always held in the examinations. Shortly after
his retirement a movement was instituted, with Earl Granville, Sir
John Lubbock, and Dr. "William Smith at its head, to procure a por-
trait of him to be presented to the university, as a memorial of his
labors in its behalf.

Arduously as Dr. Carpenter was engaged in scientific research, he
found time to make himself useful and appreciated in public and
social life. He took pleasure in making science intelligible to the
public, and for this purpose accepted a part in the management of the
Gilchrist trust for popular lectures, and delivered lectures in the Gil-
christ and Swiney courses. His articles on the zoetrope and other
similar toys, in the "Intellectual Observer," are commended for their
clearness, and the same quality of style contributed very largely to
make his physiological treatises popular. He took the highest interest
in social questions, and was always glad to throw the light of scientific
knowledge upon them. He was quick to perceive the evils of indul-
gence in intoxicating liquors, became an advocate of total abstinence,
and lectured on temperance, while he afterward concluded that there
was a legitimate use for wine. Upon Dr. Ray Lankester, who knew
him from his own boyhood, "he always produced the most vivid
impression of a man of indomitable energy, who had accepted as the
highest duty and keenest delight of his life the promotion, whether by
advocacy or by research, of true knowledge." " No man of science,"
Dr. Lankester says in another notice of him, " could witness without
respect and sympathy the ardent devotion of the veteran naturalist to
the cause of scientific progress, and the earnest simplicity of his char-
acter." Whatever he said when his researches were the subject of
conversation "was admirable, and his willingness to meet fairly an
antagonist was no less indicative of the true, single-hearted man of

544 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

science than the almost boyish eagerness with which he would rush
into the fray."

From a sketch by a member of his own family, published in the
Unitarian paper of London, we learn that he was well versed in litera-
ture ; that he had a keen relish for political memoirs of his own time ;
that he took a high view of a citizen's obligations ; that he was sur-
prised when in Italy by evincing to himself a susceptibility to the
enjoyment of art ; that he found unfailing recreation in music ; that
Nature was to him full of charm and delight ; that various qualities
made him a genial and ever-welcome companion, trusted for his fidel-
ity ; that the dominant conception of his life was that of duty ; and
that he was rich in family affections.

He was a member of the principal learned societies of his own and
other countries ; he received the Royal medal of the Royal Society in
1861 and the degree of LL. D. at Edinburgh in 1871, and was elected
a corresponding member of the Institute of France in 18T3. An illus-
tration of the popularizing tendency of his efforts is given in the fact
that the Society of Arts opened one of its life-memberships to him in
consideration of the valuable assistance he had afforded it when medals
were awarded by it for microscopes to be sold to the public at a cheap
rate.

Dr. Carpenter's death, which took place on the 10th of November,
1885, was in consequence of injuries received from an accident which
occurred while he was taking a vapor-bath. The lamp of the appara-
tus being out of order, he used instead a gallipot containing alcohol.
In his movements while changing position, he overturned the vessel,
and was in consequence severely burned about the body, legs, and
face, so that he died about four hours afterward.

T

SKETCH OF JAMES B. EADS.

IHE man who devised and furnished our Government with its first
-J- and most useful armored steamboats ; who built the St. Louis
Bridge ; who made one of the shallowest mouths of the Mississippi
River permanently navigable for the use of ocean-steamers, and who
entertains other practical conceptions as grand as these which, by his
logical presentation, have won the unqualified indorsement of the ablest
of his professional brethren, has a most evident title to recognition in
scientific biography.

James BrcnAXAX Eads was born in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, May
23, 1820. *' He very early," says Dr. Boynton, in the " History of the
Navy during the Rebellion," " evinced such a love of machinery as
attracted special notice." When only eight years old, he watched with
the greatest interest all the machinery to which he had access. When

SKETCH OF JAMES B. EADS. 545

nine years old the family removed to Louisville. The engine on board
the boat excited so much admiration and wonder that the engineer
was induced to explain to him the principal parts of the machine. So
well did the lad profit by this one lesson in steam-engineering that
in little more than two years after he constructed a miniature engine
which was worked by steam. When about ten years old, his father
fitted for him a small workshop, and there he constructed models of
saw-mills, fire-engines, steamboats, steam-engines, electrical and other
machines. One of the pastimes of his childhood was to take in pieces
and put together again the family clock, and at twelve years he was
able to do the same with a patent-lever watch, with no tools but his
pocket-knife. When thirteen, misfortune overtook his father, and
he had to withdraw from school and work his own way. His par-
ents went to St. Louis in 1833 and he went with them. The
steamer was burned in the night on the way there, and he landed bare-
footed and coatless, on the very spot now covered by the abutment of
the great steel bridge which he designed and built. The only open-
ing in the way of business that offered was to sell apples on the street,
and by this means, for a few months, he sustained himself and assisted
in supporting his mother and sisters. In time he obtained a situation
with a mercantile firm, where he remained for five years. One of the
heads of the house having an excellent library, gave him access to it,
and he used his opportunity well to study subjects bearing upon
mechanics, machinery, civil engineering, and physical science. In 1889
he obtained employment as a clerk or purser on a Mississippi River
steamer. He again made the best use of his opportunity to acquire
that complete knowledge of the great river which he was afterward
able to turn to such good account in the noble enterprises he so fortu-
nately carried into effect. In 1842 he constructed a diving-bell boat
to recover the cargoes of sunken steamers. This was followed with a
boat of larger tonnage, provided with machinery for pumping out
the sand and water and lifting the entire hull and cargo of the vessel.
A company was formed to operate this device, and it soon had a busi-
ness that covered the entire Mississippi River, from Balize to Galena,
and even branched into some of its tributaries. By his methods, a
great many valuable steamers were set afloat and restored to usefulness
which it would not previously have been possible to save, as they
would have been buried very soon beneath the river-sands. It was
while engaged in this business that he gained a thorough knowledge
of the laws which control the flow of silt-bearing rivers, and of the
Mississippi he was able to say years afterward that there was not a
stretch in its bed fifty miles long, between St. Louis and New Orleans,
in which he had not stood upon the bottom of the stream beneath the
shelter of the diving-bell.

In 1845 he sold out his interest in this company and established in
St. Louis the first manufactory of glass-ware west of the Ohio River.

TOL. XXTHI. — 35

546 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Two years later this enterprise culminated in financial disaster, and left
him, at the age of twenty -seven, burdened with debts to the amount
of twenty-five thousand dollars. lie then returned to the business of
raising steamers, removing obstructions from the channel, and improving
the harbor of St. Louis. By the great fire of 1849, twenty-nine steamers
were burned at the landing of that city, and most of these wrecks
had to be removed by him. The capital with which he started again
at this business was supplied by his creditors, and amounted to only
fifteen hundred dollars. Ten years later he had increased this modest
sum to nearly half a million dollars, and had long previously paid off
his creditors in full.

His first undertakings in this peculiar and instructive study of
hydraulics occurred while he was constructing the first diving-bell
boat, not then completed. A barge loaded with about a hundred tons
of pig-lead was sunk upon the rapids of the Mississippi River, near
Keokuk, in fifteen feet of water. A contract was made for the re-
covery of this lead. He had had no experience whatever with the
submarine armor, or diving apparatus of any kind ; but, engaging a
diver from the lakes who was familiar with it, with an armor, an air-
pump, and a sailor skillful in the use of rigging, he started — at that
time only twenty-two years of age — to the scene of the wreck. Ob-
taining a barge, this was promptly anchored over it, and preparations
made for the diver to go to work ; but the current was found so ex-
ceedingly raj^id that it was im2">ossible to use the armor with any
safety. A belt around the diver's waist was attached by a cord to
the bow of the boat to hold him against the current, and a ladder
procured on which the diver undertook to descend, but it was im-
possible for him to control his body in the current. Determined not
to be baflSed, Mr. Eads immediately visited the town of Keokuk and
purchased a forty-gallon whisky-barrel, with which to improvise a
diving-bell. With several pigs of lead secured around one end of the
barrel by a net-work of ropes, and with that head taken out, a block
and tackle attached to the net-work at the other end, and a temporary
derrick erected, he was soon prepared to commence the recovery of the
cargo. But the diver demurred and would not descend in this dangerous-
looking apparatus. Mr. Eads then set an example which he has followed
throughout all his varied experience as an engineer — which was, never
to ask a man in his employ to go where he was unwilling to trust his'
own life. The bell thus suspended was held against the current by a
rope which led up to the bow of the barge, and a strap across the
lower end of the barrel was used as the seat for the diver in it. He
at once got into the diving-bell and ordered his men to lower him
down. He had a trace-chain attached to a lead-line, the lower end of
the trace-chain having a ring in it, and with this he was readily en-
abled to form a loop, which was placed over one of the pigs of lead,
and at a given signal it was hoisted up. A small cord sufficed to draw

SKETCH OF JAMES B. EADS. 547

it back to him while he was still in the bell ; and in this manner a
number of the pigs, weighing seventy pounds each, were recovered
before he started to come up — the air-pump all the time supplying
him with air. But, in the mean time, having cleared the space beneath
the bell, the guy-line moved it farther and farther up-stream, in com-
pliance with his signals, and instead of the line being slacked out
again when his men commenced raising the bell, it was held so far
forward that the derrick capsized, having no guy to hold it in the
opposite direction. His assistants seized the block and tackle and
pulled the whisky-barrel up to the surface of the water by hand.
But it was so weighted with the lead around it that they could not
raise it higher. Not knowing what was the matter, he waited patient-
ly, the air-pump running with redoubled velocity, supplying him with
plenty of air. He soon saw the fingers of a man under the chime of
the barrel, and, recognizing this as an invitation, he seized the man's
hand and got out from under the barrel, much to the delight of all on
board. The derrick was then secured against any possible catastrophe
occurring again, and, after a number of successful trips to the bottom,
the diver was content to do the remainder of the work.

In 1856 Mr. Eads made a proposition to Congress to keep the
channels of the Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, and Arkansas Rivers clear
of snags, wrecks, and other obstructions for a term of years. A bill
embodying his plans was passed by the House of Representatives, but
failed in the Senate for want of action by that body.

In 1857 his health compelled him to retire from business, and four
years later he was called upon to render the most signal and brilliant
services to his country in its time of extreme need. It was on the
17th of April, 1861, three days after the surrender of Fort Sumter,
when Attorney-General Bates wrote to him from "Washington : " Be
not surprised if you are called here suddenly by telegram. If called,
come instantly. Under a certain contingency it will be necessary to
have the aid of the most thorough knowledge of our Western rivers
and the use of steam on them, and in that event I have advised that
you should be consulted."

The dispatch came shortly after the letter. Mr. Eads went imme-
diately to Washington, and, after consulting with the President and
Cabinet, prepared the plan he was requested to submit to them for
placing gunboats on the rivers, with suggestions as to the kind of boats
best fitted for the service, and in regard to the location of batteries to
be erected at several points on shore. Shortly afterward he was ap-
pointed, with Captain (afterward Rear- Admiral) John Rodgers, United
States Navy, to carry into effect the recommendations which he had
made, and at once to improvise three war-vessels for service at Cairo.
These were the Conestoga, Tyler, and Lexington, and were the first
of the large fleet that afterward covered the Mississippi River. The
Quartermaster-General issued proposals soon after for the construction

548 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of seven ironclad gunboats. These were designed by Mr. Eads, and
he undertook to build them in sixty-five days — a short enough time
under the best of circumstances ; but business was then disorganized
and all industrial enterprises in a chaotic condition. The materials
with which the work was to be done had to be manufactured. Yet
these seven heavily-plated vessels of about six hundred tons each were
all finished according to contract, and another one still larger, a snag-
boat, was by alterations and heavy plating made ready with the others
for their armament. " Thus one individual put into construction and
pushed to completion within a hundred days a powerful squadron of
eight steamers aggregating five thousand tons, capable of steaming
at nine knots per hour, large, heavily armed, fully equipped, and all
ready for their armament of one hundred and seven large guns. The
fact that such a work was done is nobler praise than any that can be
bestowed by words." *

In 18G2 Mr. Eads was commissioned to build six more armored
iron gunboats, four of which were much lai'ger than any of the eight
preceding ones. These were likewise after his own designs, four of
them having two turrets each and the smaller ones one turret each.
These turrets were a modification of the Ericsson turrets, the Gov-
ernment insisting upon these being placed upon them. He Avas, how-
ever, permitted to place one turret on each of two of these large
gunboats, after his own design, and costing about thirty-five thousand
dollars each, but on the written condition that they should be re-
placed by Ericsson turrets if they were not found satisfactory. The
guns in these two turrets were worked by steam, and this was the first
time in the history of artillery-practice when heavy guns were ma-
nipulated wholly by steam. These vessels all proved to be of lighter
draught than had been stipulated, so that it was possible to add from
half to three quarters of an inch to their armor ; and three of them
exceeded very considerably the contract speed. While these fourteen
ironclads were under way, Mr. Eads also had the construction of four
heavy mortar-boats and seven tin-clad or musket-proof boats. The
kind of ironclads that Mr. Eads designed and constructed and the
kind of work they did are recorded in the history of Grant and Ilal-
leck's campaigns, and of Farragut's capture of Mobile.

In the construction of a steel-arch bridge at St. Louis, on which he
was engaged from 1867 to 18T4, Mr. Eads had to deal with problems
which had not before confronted an engineer. The central arch of
this structure has a clear span of five hundred and twenty feet, and is
pronounced, by the "British Encyclopaedia," the finest specimen of
metal-arch construction in the world. The side arches are five hun-
dred and two feet each in span. All of the piers, in consequence of
the shifting deposits beneath the river-bed, were sunk clear through
to the bed-rock. This required them to be sunk much deeper than
* Boj-nton's " History of the Navy during the Rebellion."

SKETCH OF JAMES B. EADS. 549

any piers ever built, and through a medium of the most treacherous
character. New plans had to be devised to secure success. One pier,
weighing forty-five thousand tons, was sunk to a depth of one hundred
and thirty-six feet below high-water mark through ninety feet of sand
and gravel ; and another one, weighing forty thousand tons, to one
hundred and thirty feet through eighty feet of deposit. The loss of
life which occurred in the caisson of the east pier resulted from the
fact that the situation at such a depth, with the air-pressure it was
necessary to endure, was entirely new, and there was no recorded ex-
perience by which operations could be guided safely. The erection
of the arches developed new problems. The arches had to be de-
signed about two and a half inches longer than they are in their
present position, because of the contraction which their weight causes
throughout the arch. Each half of the arch was built out from the
pier and suspended by guys passing through heavy masts erected
on each pier, and the central tubes had to be specially fitted for in-
sertion. The suggestion was made by his chief assistant to contract
the tubes by boxing them up and covering them with iron. This
Mr. Eads disapproved of, and devised telescopic tubes for the center
of the arch which could be shortened by an internal right and left
hand screw-plug, and afterward extended by powerful levers to rotate
this plug, steel bands being also provided to cover the plug, flush
with the outside of the tube, when the tubes were properly distended.
During his absence in London, the chief assistant, confident of his
ability to close them with ice, and, having been left with full author-
ity, undertook to do so ; but the attempt proved a failure after a
trial of eight or ten days, and the telescopic tubes, which ]Mr. Eads
had prepared, were then inserted without difficulty.

In an address delivered at the opening of this bridge, July 4, 1874,
Mr. Eads revealed that confidence in his resources and investigations
which probably furnishes one of the keys to the secret of his success in
this and in his other enterprises. This secret consists in the fact that
his courage is always equal to his convictions. Everything, he said,
on this occasion, which prudence, judgment, and the present state of
science could suggest to him and his assistants had been carefully ob-
served in its design and construction ; every computation involving
its safety had been made by different individuals, thoroughly com-
petent to make them ; they had been carefully revised, time and
again, re-examined, verified, until the possibility of error nowhere
existed.

A similar confidence was displayed in his plans for deepening the
mouth of the Mississippi by jetties, in which he was opposed by nearly
all of the United States engineers, and by a commission of seven of
them. The commission in 1874 proposed to avoid the bars by build-
ing a canal from Fort St. Philip to Breton Bay. Mr. Eads's plan was
to make the river itself deepen a channel through them. Congress

550 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

naturally inclined to adopt the advice of its official experts, but Mr.
Eads bad faitb enougb in bis plan to propose to do tbe work at bis
own expense and wait for bis pay until be bad demonstrated its suc-
cess. It was bard to get permission to make even tbe experimental
application of bis views tbus so liberally proposed ; but a bill was
finally passed to allow bim to attempt tbe improvement of tbe Soutb
Pass, tbe smallest of the three, and not tbe one be bad selected, and
tbe depth on tbe bar of whicb was only eight feet. Tbe cost of tbe
work was to be five and a quarter million dollars ; only half a million
was to be paid after a channel twenty feet deep by two hundred feet
in width had been secured, anotber half million after a channel twenty-
two feet deep, and other sums on tbe obtaining of channels of twenty-
six and twenty-eight feet deptb respectively ; but, as a guarantee that
the maintenance of tbe channel sbould not cost more than one hundred
thousand dollars a year, the final million of tbe whole sum was to be
Mithbeld until a channel of thirty feet maximum deptb bad been kept
throughout during twenty years. Congress, however, deeming these
terms unnecessarily severe, Avith remarkable unanimity voted to pay
bim one and three-quarter million dollars in advance of bis contract
terms, after he had secured twenty-two feet depth.

Tbe conception of tbe plan of the jetties was based upon a knowl-
edge of tbe fact tbat tbe Mississippi River is a transporter of solid
material, almost all of whicb is beld in suspension by tbe mecbanical
effect of tbe current, and tbat tbe quantity of tbe matter whicb it is
able to carry increases with the square of the velocity. Tbe current
of the river is caused by tbe fall of tbe water from a higher to a lower
level ; tbat is, by the force of gravity. Tbe element whicb resists the
current is tbe friction of its bed ; this friction does not follow tbe law
of solids, but increases or diminishes exactly as tbe widtb of tbe bed or
wetted perimeter of its cross-section is increased or diminished : hence,
if tbe stream be contracted, where it is too wide, to one half its widtb,
one balf of tbe frictional resistance will be gone, and tbe current will
be more rapid, and therefore more able to carry a larger load of sedi-
ment. This it immediately takes up from its own bed and thus causes
a deepening. Tbe result of the application of tbe jetty system to tbe
Soutb Pass has been a triumphant justification of its author's views.

On tbe 8tb of July, four years after be commenced tbe work at
the jetties, the United States inspecting officer reported that the maxi-
mum deptb of thirty feet bad been secured throughout the jetty chan-
nel, and tbat the least widtb of the twenty-six-feet channel through
the jetties was two hundred feet. The balance due Mr. Eads upon bis
contract was then paid to bim, and tbe million tbat was to be held as
security for maintenance was considered as earned, and placed at in-
terest for his benefit. The current of the river has maintained this
deptb ever since. Tbe cost of tbe jetties was about balf of tbe esti-
mated cost of tbe proposed canal.

SKETCH OF JAMES B. EADS. 551

Mr. Eads had not commenced the jetties before he turned his atten-
tion to the improvement of eleven hundred miles of the Mississippi
throughout its alluvial basin by the jetty system. On March 15, 1874,
in a letter to the Hon. William Windom, chairman of the Senate
Committee on Transportation Routes to the Seaboard, the first outline
of this novel plan was suggested.

In his review of the United States Levee Commission, February
19, 1876, Mr. Eads said :

" By the under-charge theory of the Delta Survey Report, caving
banks are attributed to the direct action of the current against them,
by which strata of sand underlying those of clay are supposed to be
washed out. This is not correct. If the water be charged with sedi-
ment to its normal supporting capacity, it can not take up more unless
the rate of current be increased. Caving banks are caused wholly by
the alternations in the velocity of the current. Alternations are in-
separable from a curved channel, because the current in the bend is
usually more rapid than on the point ; but, if the channel be nearly
uniform in width, the caving caused by the curves will be very trifling.
And, in proof of this, many abrupt bends exist in the lower part of
the river where the whole force of the current has set for years directly
against them without any important caving of the banks. The bend
at Fort St. Philip is a notable instance, the great difference in the
width of the flood-channel constituting the real cause of the destruc-
tion and caving of the banks. This tends to great irregularities in the
slope of the flood-line, and, consequently, great changes in current
velocity by which a scouring and depositing action are alternately
brought into very active operation. The whole of the river below the
Red River proves this ; caving banks are much less frequent there
than above, because the flood width of the river is far more uniform.
A correction of the high-icater channel, by reducing it to an approxi-
mate uniformity of width, would give uniformity to its slope and cur-
rent, almost entirely preventing the caving of its banks, and through
its present shallows, which now constitute the resting-places for its
snags, there would be a navigable depth, in low water, equal to that
which now exists in its bends. By such correction the flood-slope can
be permanently lowered, and in this way the entire alluvial basin,
from Vicksburg to Cairo, can be lifted, as it were, above all overflow,
and levees in that part of the river rendered useless. There can he
no question of this fact, and it is well for those most deeply interested
to jyonder it carefully before rejecting it ,' for the increased value given
to the territory thus reclaimed can scarcely he estimated.''''

Two years later, in a review of Humphreys and Abbott's " Report
on the Physics and Hydraulics of the Mississippi River," published in
Van Nostrand's " Engineering Magazine," Mr. Eads elaborated this
plan, and combated the declaration that the bed of the river is formed
of blue clay and will not erode unless very slowly under the effect of

\

552 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the current, ami likewise exposed tbe fallacy of the declaration that
there is no relation between tbe quantity of sediment carried in the
water and the velocity of its current.

Mr. Eads thus clearly outlined, in 1874, 1876, and 1878, one of the
most magnificent plans which hydraulic engineering has ever under-
taken. It is not simply to save thirty thousand square miles of land
as rich as the Delta of Egypt from devastating inundations, but to
extend deep water from the Gulf of Mexico to the mouth of the Ohio,
into the very heart of the Mississippi Valley, while permanently locat-
ing this magnificent channel by practically putting an end to the
caving of its banks. During the period we have referred to, Mr. Eads
delivered addresses upon this subject in the chief cities of the river,
published elaborate essays in w'hich it was fully explained, and de-
fended it against all attacks, until finally, in 1879, Congress authorized
the creation of a commission to consider this plan, which is known as
the " jetty system." The " outlet system " and the " levee system " were
also examined by it, and in 1880 it reported in favor of the " jetty sys-
tem," and recommended its adoption by Congress in its report, Feb-
ruary 17, 1880. ]Mr. Eads was a member of the commission for two
or three years. During this period, several million dollars were voted
by Congress to carry out the plan, which will be found described in
the report referred to, as agreeing substantially with the quotations
we have made. Two reaches of the river, Plum Point, twenty miles
long, and Lake Providence, thirty-five miles long, were selected for
improvement ; the low-water depth in the first reach was only five
feet, the other reach (four hundred miles below) had a depth of only
six feet. The permeable contraction-works, constructed of piles and
willows, which had been first used by Mr. Eads at the South Pass sev-
eral years before, were put in position for one season in the period
between two floods, and the effect produced by the works during
the first flood that followed was simply marvelous. The depth was
increased through the upper reach to twelve feet at low water, and
through the lower reach to fifteen feet, and scores of millions of
cubic yards of sediment were deposited between them by the checking
of the current by the permeable works. Thus new shore-lines of an
approximately uniform width were developed. In some places the
deposit was thirty feet deep.

Mr. Eads was, during the time of this construction, in bad health,
and for some time absent from the United States. Owing to the
charge made by several prominent friends of the river (members of the
Senate and House), that the commission had abandoned the leading
feature of the system, the contraction-works, and had changed it to a
costly system of bank-revetments, and the public declarations of Mr.
Eads to the same effect, no further appropriations were made at the
last session of Congress to continue this magnificent work ; enough
has been done, however, to show the entire practicability of the plan.

SKETCH OF JAMES B. EADS.

553

Mr. Eads claims that this system of improvement designed by him
is, in several respects, wholly different from any ever before proposed
for the treatment of a river ; it is, however, only applicable to rivers
flowing through alluvial deposits.

The grandest work, however, contemplated by Mr. Eads, is the
ship-railway which he proposes to construct across the Isthmus of
Tehuantepec, for the transportation of large ships fully laden from
ocean to ocean. This he holds to be entirely practicable — because
the railway can be built wherever the canal can, at one half the cost
of the canal with locks, or one quarter the cost of one at tide-level ;
because it can be built in one third or one quarter of the time needed
to build a canal ; because four or five times the speed practicable
on a canal can be secured ; because more vessels can be carried in a
day over the railway than through the canal ; because the capacity
of the railway can be increased to suit increased needs without dis-
turbance ; because it will cost less to maintain and operate it than
to maintain and operate a canal ; because it can be built and operated
where the canal can not be ; because more accurate estimates can be
made of the cost and time needed for its construction ; and because
its location is the very best of all those which are proposed on the
American Isthmus. It is not generally known, but it is nevertheless
true, that the location of the ship-railway and that of the Panama
Canal are about twelve hundred statute miles apart, the whole immense
territory of Central America lying between the two. It is, therefore,
far superior in climate and in position to any other location.

Besides these works, Mr, Eads has, at the request of the Govern-
ments and individuals particularly interested, examined and reported
upon the bar at the mouth of the St, John's River, Florida, the im-
provement of the Sacramento River, the improvement of the harbor
of Toronto, the improvement of the port of Vera Cruz, the improve-
ment of the harbor of Tampico, the improvement of the harbor of
Galveston, and the estuary and port of the Mersey, England, He
was President of the St, Louis Academy of Science for two terms, and
made an inaugural address in which was embodied a review of the
recent achievements of science, and, in another, the present knowledge
of the laws of light. In 1881 he made an extemporary address be-
fore the British Association at York, upon the improvement of the
Mississippi, and also upon the Tehuantepec Ship-Canal, which were,
by unanimous vote, ordered to be embodied in its report of the pro-
ceedings ; and in June, 1881, he was awarded the Albert Medal of
the British Society of Arts, in token of its appreciation of the services
he had rendered to the science of engineering — he being the first
American upon whom this medal had been conferred. It is now his
purpose to devote the remaining energies of his life, until the scheme
is an accomplished fact, to the prosecution of the Ship-Railway,

554

THE POPULAR SCIEXCE MONTHLY.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

BE EC HERS POSITIOy ON EVOLUTIOy.

TWO great standards of truth have
prevailed in the world ; truth ac-
cording to nature and truth according
to theology. Truth according to na-
ture has been held as of little moment,
because all its consequences are tem-
poral and transitory ; but truth accord-
ing to theology has been held as of in-
finite importance, because salvation and
the interests of an immortal destiny de-
pended upon it. There was, therefore,
but little chance for getting up much
interest in the truth of things natural
so long as the theological standard of
truth was supreme. Galileo made a
book stating the evidence of the Coper-
nican system of astronomy according
to the facts of nature ; but he was sum-
moned before the inquisitorial court to
answer the charge of heresy for not
judging of the scheme of the planetary
motions by the standard of theological
authority. Truth according to nature
in those days went for very little in
comparison with truth according to the
supernatural. Theological ideas were
in the minds of everybody, were held
of transcendent importance, and every-
thing in the shape of new knowledge
was first brought to the test of agree-
ment with authorized religious doc-
trine.

Two or three centuries have made
great changes in this matter. The the-
ological standard has been lowered, and
a much higher value is set on the truth
which agrees with nature ; but multi
tudes of minds are still dominated by
theological conceptions, and when new
ideas are proposed instead of asking
whether they agree with the focts or
are true to the nature of things, the
first question is, as it was three hun-
dred years ago. How do these ideas
agree with prevailing religious opin-
ions ? The illustrations of this survival

of the theological spirit and methods
are still numerous, and a fresh example
has recently come to our attention
which will well serve to bring out the
point we have in view in the present
article. It consisted of a vigorous at-
tack on Mr. Beecher's book, "Evolution
and Religion," which appeared in the
" Commercial Advertiser " of Novem-
ber 20th. The point of view is thor-
oughly mediaeval, the writer seeming to
care but very little as to whether evolu-
tion is true or not, but to be profound-
ly concerned about theology's relation
to it. The writer condemns Mr. Beecher
for refusing to judge of the doctrine of
evolution on the basis of its agreement
or non-agreement with the old middle-
age standards of religious dogma. He
says : " Of course Mr. Beecher, like
anybody else, may put what construc-
tion he pleases on the doctrine of evo-
lution, and he may put a construction
to suit him on the doctrines of theology,
and in that way patch up a sort of rec-
onciliation : and that is precisely what
he does. ... At the same time he con-
trives a religion which is certainly not
the religion of the fathers, or of the
martyrs, or of the ancient confessors, or
of any of the accepted symbols of the
Church." From which we are to infer
that the theology of the fathers and of
the martyrs and of the ancient confess-
ors or old cast-iron middle-aged ortho-
doxy, is to be taken as the standard of
truth, and the doctrine of evolution
judged by its agreement with that stand-
ard. That the writer should argue that
the doctrine of evolution is materialistic
and atheistic is quite a matter of course ;
but what we wish to call attention to
here is, that he seems to have but little
more care as to whether this doctrine
is true to the realities of nature than
had the old inquisitors in relation to
the new astronomy. Indeed, toward

EDITOR'S TABLE.

555

the close of his article he has the fol-
lowing contemptuous reference to this
point : " We are not going to argue
here the truth or falsehood of the un-
verified and unverifiable hypothesis
which is palmed upon us in the name
of science." Still, we think that the
question of " truth or falsehood " in so
important a case is one that might well
have been settled first. If the theory
of evolution, as the writer declares, "has
been reached in utter defiance of the
canons of scientific method," it would
have been well to show this at the out-
set. Besides, if the doctrine is an im-
posture, " which is palmed upon us in
the name of science," it would be inter-
esting to have it pointed out by what
extraordinary hocus-pocus the scientific
men of the present age have been im-
posed upon in accepting it.

To us the chief interest of Mr. Beech-
er's position, assumed in his recent
books, is as a register of the rising in-
fluence and increasing power of scien-
tific ideas and the corresponding decline
of theological authority. He has passed
far beyond the stage in which he asks
first whetlier new ideas agree with old
creeds. Although a professed theolo-
gian, he has so thoroughly entered into
the spirit and method of modern science
as to recognize that the supreme ques-
tion in this case is whether the doctrine
of evolution is an expression of the
truth of nature. Mr. Beecher has by
no means repudiated theology, but he
has taken the great step of subordinat-
ing it to the standards of truth estab-
lished by investigation and the study of
the order and economy of the existing
world. The old notion of two sets
or systems of truth, one of which has
claims of a special sacredness and su-
periority, while the other is profane,
secular, and of merely human origin,
and therefore of inferior rank, we un-
derstand him to repudiate. He finds
the sacredness of authority in the truth
itself, and none the less because man
discovers and establishes it by his own
faculties. Mr. Beecher, therefore, rep-

resents in an eminent way that vast
change or revolution of modern thought
which gives a higher value and a nobler
significance to the study of nature and
the revelation of the truths of nature.
Nor in thus giving his highest allegiance
to natural truth as disclosed by the work-
ings of the human mind can he be said
to have rejected religion or left the re-
ligious sphere. Holding firmly to the-
ism, he simply maintains that the truth
and order and harmony of nature are
the highest manifestations of the attri-
butes of God.

Mr. Beecher reconstructs the old
theology, rejecting large portions of it
which have formerly been held as es-
sential, and reshaping what remains so
as to bring it into better agreement
with modern scientific ideas. As an hon-
est and conscientious man he found no
escape from entering upon this work.
Only as an indiflferentist, or a trifler, or
a theologian enslaved to his traditions,
could he recognize the great changes
wrought by modern science, without
any concern for those readjustments of
human belief which have become inev-
itable. His book is full of evidences of
that sincerity and earnestness of feeling
upon the subject which have impelled
him to undertake the task of working
out the religious bearings of the doc-
trine of evolution. He saw that it
had taken root in the best intelligence
of the civilized world. Tliere was no
blinking or evasion of the facts that
had to be met. The strong men of
all nations who give their lives to
the study of nature, the devotees of
research, and the investigators of origi-
nal truth in all departments of natu-
ral phenomena had come to agree-
ment over this great principle with a
rapidity and a unanimity such as has
never before been seen in the history
of science. There had been a vast ac-
cumulation of observations, facts, and
principles in every department of re-
search which defied explication and or-
ganization until the law of evolution
was grasped and applied to them, and,

556

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

under the light it afforded, the work
of research went on with increasing
fruitfulness and success. The doctrine
of evolution was not merely acknowl-
edged, but it became a new guide to
tlie discovery of truth, which is the
liighest possible attestation that could
be given of its verity. Nor was it by
any means a mystery of experts con-
fined to laboratories of which ordinary
people could know nothing and must
take on authority. Its illustrations and
proofs constantly multiplied in those
common spheres of thought with which
intelligent people are familiar, so that
the current literature of the time was
full of it. Mr. Beecher saw that the
doctrine was not only accredited by a
very large number of the ablest minds
of the age as an established truth, but
he had himself been a student of the
subject in his own field of labor, and
he found it of invaluable service in that
revision of beliefs and opinions which
was a part of his responsible duty as an
independent public teacher. In broadly
accepting and comprehensively applying
the new doctrine, Mr. Beecher gives a
powerful impulse to theological reform,
for, in the further winnowing of religious
opinions, only those will stand which
are found vitally rooted in the truths of
nature ; and, from this point of view,
the acceptance of the doctrine of evolu-
tion by the religious mind will be the
most important step yet taken in reno-
vating theology by ending its antago-
nism with the order of natural truth,
and by making " the solid ground of
nature" its lasting and unshakable
foundation.

LITERARY NOTICES.

Louis Agassiz : Hts Life and Corue-
SPOXDENCE. Edited by Elizabeth Cauy
Agassiz. In two volumes, pp. 794.
Boston : Houghton, MifBin & Co. Price,
$4.

Mrs. Agassiz began the preparation of
this extremely interesting biography with
the simple purpose of preserving the facts,
letters, and journals bearing upon it from

dispersion and final loss. But, as the work
grew in her hands, she says she began to
feel that an intellectual life, marked by
such unusual coherence and unity of aim,
might serve as a stimulus and an encourage-
ment to others. And, for this reason, she
at length decided to place it before the
general public. The iirst volume contains
a portrait of Agassiz at the age of nine-
teen, and several other interesting illus-
trations connected with his birthplace and
early life. The narrative in this volume
covers the European portion of Agassiz's
life, about which little is known in this
country. It is woven together from family
papers, and the contributions of fellow-
students and others who knew Agassiz in-
timately at one period or another of his
early career. A brother of Professor Agas-
siz, who survived him several years, took
the greatest interest in preserving whatever
concerned his scientific career, and this
brother furnished Mrs. Agassiz with many
papers and documents concerning his earlier
life. After the brother's death the work
was continued by a cousin, Mr. Auguste
Mayor, who also selected from the glacier
of the Aar, "at the request of Mr. Alexan-
der Agassiz, the bow^lder which now marks
his father's grave."

Louis Agassiz had no other teacher
than his parents for the first ten years of
his life. " Having lost her first four chil-
dren in infancy, his mother watched with
trembling solicitude over his early years."
She understood that his love of nature was
an intellectual tendency, and throughout her
whole life, as well in the work of his man-
hood as in the sports of his childhood, she
remained his most intimate friend. He sur-
vived her but six years. When a very little
fellow he had his collection of fishes, and
the vignette represents the stone basin be-
hind the parsonage, into which water from
a spring was always flowing, and which was
Agassiz's first aquarium. He had various
pets, whose families he reared with the
greatest care. " His pet animals," we are
told, " suggested questions to answer, which
was the task of his life." The story of his
school-life, from the age of ten to seventeen,
is briefly told, but leaves the distinct impres-
sion of a boy with a settled purpose. After
spending two years at the medical school in
Zurich, Agassiz went to the University of

LITERARY NOTICES.

557

Heidelberg in the year 1826, at the age of
nineteen. It is not easy to make citations
from a book of such uniform interest ; but
his student-life at Heidelberg, and afterward
at Munich, as gathered from various passages
in this history, has a peculiar fascination.
In one of the first acquaintances made by
him at this time, Agassiz found a life-long
friend —

and in after-years a brother. Professor Tiedemann,
by ■whom he had been so kindly received, reeotn-
mended him to seek the acquaintance of young
Alexander Braun, an ardent student and especial
lover of botany. At Tledemann's lecture, the next
day, Agassiz's attention was attracted by a young
tnan who sat next him, and who was taking very-
careful notes, and illustrating them. There was
something very winning in his calm, gentle face,
full of benevolence and intelligence. Convinced, by
his manner of listening to the lecture, that this
was the student of whom Tiedemann had spoken,
Agassiz turned to his neighbor, as they both rose
at the close of the hour, and said, "Are you Alex-
ander Braun?" "Yes. Are you Louis Agassiz?"
. . . The two young men left the lecture-room to-
gether, and from that time their studies, their ex-
cursions, their amusements, were undertaken and
pursued together. . . . Braun learned zoology from
Agassiz, and he in turn learned botany from Braun.

In a letter of young Braun to his parents,
written at this time, he says :

In my leisure hours I go to the dissecting-room,
where, in company with another young naturahst,
who has appeared hke a rare comet on the Heidel-
berg horizon, I dissect all manner of beasts, such as
dogs, cats, birds, fljhes, and even smaller fry, as
snails, butterflies, caterpillars, worms, and the hke.
... I sometimes go with this naturalist on a hunt
for animals and plants. Not only do we collect and
learn to observe all manner of things, but we ex-
change views on scientific matters in general.

And he adds, concerning Agassiz's at-
tainments at this time :

I learn a great deal from him, for he is much
more at home in zoology than I am. He is famil-
iar with almost all the known mammalia, recog-
nizes the birds from far off by their song, and can
give a name to every fish in the water. In the
morning we often stroll together through the fish-
market, where he explains to me all the different
species. He is going to teach me how to stuff
fishes ; and then we intend so make a collection of
all the native kinds. Many other useful things he
knows ; speaks German and French equally well,
English and Italian fairly, is well acquainted with
ancient languages, and studies medicine besides.
... To utilize the interval spent in the time-con-
suming and mechanical work of preparing speci-
mens, pinning insects, and the like, we have agreed
that, while one is employed, the other shall read
aloud. In this way we shall go through various
works on physiology, anatomy, and zoology.

They spent their vacations together;
" drew, studied, dissected, arranged speci-
mens, discussed theories with their young
brains teeming about the growth, struct-
ure, and relations of animals and plants."
Another young botanist, Karl Schimper,
was taken into this Heidelberg intimacy,
and the three were inseparable in their stud-
ies. At one time Agassiz was kept at home
in Switzerland by sickness, but the letters
passing between these fellow-inquirers were
remarkable. Here is a set of questions pro-
pounded by Agassiz to Braun and Schimper
at Heidelberg. He was studying the fishes
of the Swiss lakes and trying to catalogue
them, and he says :

As I am on the chapter of fishes, I wiU ask
you— 1. What are the gill-arches? 2. What the
gill-blades ? 3. What is the bladder in fishes ?

4. What is the cloaca in the egg laying animals?

5. What signify the many fins of fishes? 6. What
is the sac which surrounds the eggs in bombinator
obstetricians ? [a creatnre about which there had
been former correspondence].

Braun, on his part, writes to Agassiz :
" On my last sheet I send some nuts for
you to pick, some wholly, some half, others
not at all cracked." The following are
some of the mooted questions :

1. Where is the first diverging point of the stems
and roots In plants, that is to say, the first genicu-
lum?

2. How do you explain the origin of those leaves
on the stem which, not arising from distinct geniculi,
are placed spirally, or scattered round the stem ?

8, Why do some plants, especially trees (contra-
ry to the ordinary course of development in plants),
blossom before they have put forth leaves (elm-trees,
willow-trees, and fruit-trees)?

4. In what succession does the development of
the organs of a flower take place — and their forma-
tion in the bud ? (compare campanula, papaver).

6. What are the leaves of the spergula?

6. Wh.it are the tufted leaves of pine-trees ?

7. What is individuality in plants?

It matters not that most of these prob-
lems were solved long ago ; they no less
illustrate the action of these young minds
in carrying forward their fruitful studies.
It is to these two botanists, Braun and
Schimper, that botany owes the discovery
of the law of Phyllotaxis which is hinted
at in the first of the above questions. We
next find the three friends established at
Munich, attending the lectures of Bollin-
ger, Martius, Scholling, Oken, the latter of
whom was extremely friendly with them,
inviting them once a week to his house,

558

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

where they listened to scientific papers or
discussed scientific matters. They took tea
once a week with Professor von Martius,
while with DiJllingcr they were still more
intimate. " Not only did they go to him
daily, but he often came to see them, bring-
ing botanical specimens to Braun, or look-
ing in upon Aga.ssiz's breeding experiments,
in which he took the liveliest interest, being
always ready with advice and practical aid.
The fact that Agassiz and Braun had their
room in his house made intercourse with
him especially easy. This room became the
rendezvous of all the aspiring, active spirits
among the young naturalists at Munich,
and was known by the name of ' The Little
Academj'.' . . . The friends gave lectures
in turn on various subjects, especially on
modes of development in plants and ani-
mals. These lectures were attended not
only by students, but often by the profess-
ors." In a letter to his father, Agassiz de-
scribes his life at this period as exceedingly
pleasant. He says :

When onr lectures are over, we meet in the
evening at Braun's room or mine, with three or four
intimate acquaintances, and talk of Bcientitic mat-
ters, each one in his turn presenting a subject which
is first developed by him and then discussed by all.
These exercises are very instructive. As my share,
I have begun to give a course of natural history, or
rather of pure zoology. Braun talks to us of botany,
and another of our company, Mahir, who is an ex-
cellent fellow, teaches us mathematics and physics
in his turn. In two months Schimper will join us
and become our professor of philosophy. Thus we
instruct each other, learning what we teach more
thoroughly because obliged to demonstrate it. Each
session lasts two or throe hours, during which the
professor in charge retails his merchandise without
aid of notes or book. You can imagine how useful
this must be in preparing us to speak in public and
with coherence; the experience is the more impor-
tant, since we all desire nothing so much as sooner
or later to become professors in very truth.

Again, in writing to his father, Braun
says of these private lectures :

Sometimes Agassiz tries to beat French rules
and constructions into our brains, or we have a les-
son in anatomy, or I read general natural history
aloud to AVllliam Schimper. By-and-by I shall re-
view the natural history of grasses and ferns, two
families of which I made a special study last sum-
mer. Twice a week Karl Schimper lectures to us
on the morphology of plants. He has twelve listen-
ers. Agassiz Is also to give us lectures occasion-
ally on Sundays upon the natural history of fishes.

An artist who was already in the employ
of Agassiz, and who afterward made the illus-

trations of his works upon fossil fishes, de-
scribes Agassiz's life and surroundings at
this time as follows :

He never lost his temper, though often under
great trial. . . . His studio was a [Mjrfect German stu-
dent's room. It was large, with several wide win-
dows ; the furniture consisted of a couch and about
half a dozen chairs, besides some tables, for the use
of his artists and himself. Alexander Braun and
Dr. Schimper lodged in the same house and seemed
to me to share his studio. Being botanists, they
too brought home what they collected in their ex-
cursions, and all this found a place in the atelier, on
the couch, on the seats, on the floors. Books filled
the chairs, one alone being left for the other artists,
while I occupied a standing desk with my drawing.
No visitor could sit down, and sometimes there was
litlle room to stand or move about. The walis were
white, and diagrams were drawn upon them, to
which by-and-by we artists aaded skeletons and
caricatures. In short, it was quite original.

The second volume is devoted to Agas-
siz's life in America. The frontispiece is a
portrait taken at the age of fifty-five, and
bringing at once to mind the features so well
known to multitudes of people in all parts
of the country. Besides the vignette, show-
ing us the laboratory at Nahant, there is a
view of the cottage at Xahant, of the Muse-
um of Comparative Zoology, a portrait bust
by Powers, and a view of Penikese.

Scientific Theism. By Feancis Elling-
vfooD AnnoT, Ph. D. Boston : Little,
Brown & Co. Pp. 219. Price, $2.

This work is an attempt at developing
theism from science and the scientific meth-
od. Dr. Abbot criticises nominalism and
conceptualism, and argues for a noumenism
in which every phenomenon is, as far as it
goes, a real revelation of the noumenon.
He holds that the mind perceives true rela-
tions in nature, and that therefore to the
extent to which human knowledge has gone
it forms a part, however small, of that con-
tained in the Divine Mind. The theory of
the unknowable the author rejects, holding
that absolute knowledge of a thing would
consist in knowing the sum of it3 relations
to all other things in the universe.

Dr. Abbot argues from the intelligibili-
ty of the universe to its intelligence ; and
hence, since it is all-inclusive, to its self-
consciousness. His is no external deity re-
lated to the universe, as machinist to ma-
chine, but the immanent mind, whose organic
life and growth, manifested to us in nature,

LITERARY NOTICES.

559

ia none other than evolution, which has
dawned upon the investigators and thinkers
of to-daj.

On Poltstnthesis and Incorporation as
Characteristics of American Lan-
guages. By Daniel G. Brinton, M. D.
Philadelphia. Pp. 41.

Dr. Brintos appears to have struck upon
an undeveloped mine of linguistic research.
Philologists have told us of monosyllabic,
agglutinative, and inflectional languages,
and of analytic and synthetic languages,
and we have means in the libraries of books
they have written upon them of learning all
about them. The American languages, ac-
cording to the present author, present en-
tirely different types — those named in the
title above — which have so far been only
vaguely described, probably because they
were only vaguely understood. Polysra-
thesis, according to Dr. Brinton, is a method
of word-bui'.ding which employs juxtaposi-
tion of words with the modifications they
usually undergo when brought together, and
also words, forms of words, and significant
phonetic elements which have no existence
apart from the compounds into which they
enter. By incorporation, the nominal and
pronomial elements of the proposition are
subordinated to the verbal elements, and
either have no independent existence in the
form required by the verb, or are included
within the specific verbal signs of tense and
mood. By the use of these methods, of which
various illustrative examples are given from
several languages, the whole sentence is
woven into a single word. These peculiari-
ties constitute the American languages a
distinct and independent class.

CoNSANGCiNEors Marriages : their Effect
UPON Offspring. By Charles F. With-
isgton, M. D. Roxburv, Massachusetts.
Pp. 32.

Dr. Withington inquires into the valid-
ity of the belief that consanguinity of
parents is in and of itself detrimental to
offspring. He finds the evidence usually
presented in favor of that opinion insufii-
cicnt to demonstrate it. He presents evi-
dence collected by himself, which, while he
is far from regarding it as decisive, seems
to go a great way toward justifying a neg-
ative view of the case.

Bad Times. An Essay on the Present De-
pression of Trade, tracing it to its Sources
iu Enormous Foreign Loans, Excessive
War Expenditure, the Increase of Specu-
lation and of Millionaires, and the De-
population of the Rural Districts. With
Suggested Remedies. By Alfred Kis-
sel Wallace, LL. D. New York : Mac-
millan & Co. Pp. 118. Price, 75
cents.

A premium was offered in England,
known as the " Pears Prize," of one hun-
dred guineas for the best essay on the depres-
sion of trade. Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace,
the celebrated naturalist and philosophic
thinker, who anticipated the chief work of
Darwin, competed for it. It was, of course,
thought singular that a traveling naturalist,
a collector of butterflies, and an investigator
on the origin of species, should have the as-
surance to strike into the great field of
finance and international trade relations
with a view of determining the causes of
the present extensive hard times. But Mr.
Wallace was not unprepared for the task.
In his early life he had spent twelve years
as a land surveyor and valuer, when he had
much observation of agricultural life, and
became familiar with a wide range of facts
which had a bearing upon the land question
now so prominent, and all of which gave a
turn to his thought that well prepared him
to take up the present discussion. But Mr.
Wallace did not get the prize. His inde-
pendent handling of the general subject,
the deviation of many of his views from
orthodox lines, and the introduction of new
and more comprehensive causes of the pre-
vailing bad times, probably explained the
failure of his essay before the committee
of award.

But the book is none the less valuable
because uncrowned with a golden prize, and
he did well to have it printed. In review-
ing his previous works we have had repeated
occasion to speak of his power as a clear
thinker and lucid writer, and the present
volume illustrates these traits as signally
as anything he has previously done. He
first states the general problem, and then
considers the popular explanations for the
extensive business depression, which is fol-
lowed by the criteria indispensable to a
true explanation. In successive chapters
he takes up the baneful influence of ex-
tensive foreign loans, both upon England

560

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and the numerous countries which have re-
ceived her capital. Prominent among the
causes of business calamity he discusses the
recent increase of war expenditures, rural
depopulation, pauperism in England and
Ireland, bad agricultural policy, millionaires
as a cause of depression, speculation and
finance, adulteration and dishonesty. In
Part II several brief chapters are devoted
to the suggestion of remedies.

The view taken by Mr. Wallace is broad
and very instructive. His facts are copious
and pertinent, and the reasoning cogent
and forcible. His ideas are far more ele-
vated and philosophical than we are ac-
customed to in treating this class of ques-
tions. This well appears in his closing
paragraphs. lie says : " In conclusion, I
wish to direct my readers' attention to a
very suggestive fact elicited by our present
inquiry, and which appears to me to express
the moral teaching of the whole subject.
In every case in which we have traced out
the efficient causes of the present depres-
sion, we have found it to originate in cus-
toms, laws, or modes of action which are
ethically unsound, if not positively immoral.
Wars and excessive war armaments, loans
to despots, or for war purposes, the accu-
mulation of vast wealth by individuals, ex-
cessive speculation, adulteration of manu-
factured goods, and lastly, our bad land
system, with its insecurity of tenure, cxces-
Bivc rents, confiscation of tenants' property,
its common-inclosures, evictions, and de-
population of the rural districts — all come
under this category ; while the one apparent
exception, the bad seasons, would has'c been
comparatively harmless (as instances here
quoted have shown) under a thoroughly
good system of land-tenure.

" We thus see that the evils under which
we have suffered, and are still suffering, are
due to no recondite causes, to no laws of
inevitable fluctuation of trade, but wholly
to our own acts, and to those of other
civilized nations. Whenever we depart from
the great principles of truth and honesty,
of equal freedom and justice to all men,
whether in our relations with other states,
or in our dealings with our fellow-men, the
evil that we do surely comes back to us,
and the suffering and poverty and crime of
which we are the direct or indirect causes.

help to impoverish ourselves. It is, then,
by applying the teachings of a higher mo-
rality to our commerce and manufactures, to
our laws and customs, and to our dealings
with all other nationalities, that we shall
find the only effective and permanent rem-
edy for depression of trade."

Overpressure in Schools, pp. 11 ; Sani-
tary Science and Public Hygiene,
pp. 9. By W. S. Robertson, M. D.
Muscatine, Iowa.

The author of these papers is President
of the Iowa State Board of Health, and in
the essays discusses two very important
points in public hygiene. The former pa-
per relates to the effects of overpressure
upon the health and progress of school-chil-
dren, and the signs by which its evil work-
ings may be discovered. The second paper
relates to the importance of diffusing sound
information among the people, in order that
they may recognize the value of sanitary
science, and may learn how to participate
j in its benefits.

I AiiERiCAN Constitutions. By Horace Da-

I VIS. Baltimore: N. Murray. Pp. 70.

I Price, 50 cents.

This is one of the Johns Hopkins Uni-
versity studies in historical and political

I science. Its purpose is to follow the
changes in the relations of the three depart-
ments of government — legislative, executive*
and judicial — which have been silently go-
ing on in the United States for the past
century. In the State governments, un-
der numerous alterations in their Constitu-
tions, the powers of the Executive have been
steadily enlarged, and the functions of the
Legislature have been cramped and limited ;
in the Federal Government, Congress has
encroached upon the field of Executive pow-
er ; and everywhere, in both national and
State governments, the judiciary has gained
vastly in power and importance. The au-
thor believes that there have been three
distinct strata of government in the old
thirteen colonies. In the first or colonial
period, the Executive was too strong; in
the second, the Legislature; in the third,
the balance was restored, and our State Con-
stitutions are to-day, he believes, "as a
whole, the most perfect framework of gov-
ernment for men living in a democracy,
that human skill has ever devised."

LITERARY NOTICES.

56J

New York Agricultural Experiment Sta-
tion. Third Annual Ecport of the Board
of Control, for 1884. Albany: Weed,
Parsons & Co. Tp. 424, with Plates.

The station is reported as now better
equipped for its work than at any previous
period. Not only have the apparatus for
scientific and practical work been provided,
but information has been and is being ac-
quired regarding the condition of our soil
and climate. The work at such a station is
necessarily cumulative in its character, and
each year must mark improvement in con-
ditions whereby previous work may become
more available. Considerable space in the
report is devoted to the examination of
"duplicates," under the conviction that
where true duplicates can not be obtained,
" it is unwise to expend our energy in at-
tempting work over which we can have no
check. . . . Indeed, until agricultural sci-
ence, so called, can be subjected to the tests
that are recognized as essential to correct-
ness in other sciences, we can not hope for
that progress which we desire." The most
important feature of the present report is
the description and classification of the va-
rieties of com, which are graphically illus-
trated in the plates. The attempt at classi-
fication has been extended to the varieties
of vegetables, of which some twelve hun-
dred have been grown, "but the work is
a difficult one, and requires much careful
study." Other subjects embraced in the
report are the trial of germinations, the
rooting habits of plants, nitrogen-supply,
feeding-experiments, and experiments with
milk.

Italian Popular Tales. By Thomas Fred-
erick Crane, Professor of the Romance
Languages in Cornell University. Bos-
ton and New York : Houghton, Mifflin,
& Co. Pp. 389. Price, 82.50.

The growing interest in the popular
tales of Europe, and in the new branch of
anthropological research, folk-lore, is the
justification for the appearance of this
handsome volume. By popular tales, the
translator means the stories that are handed
down by word of mouth from one genera-
tion to another of illiterate people, serving
almost exclusively to amuse but seldom to
instruct. They may be roughly divided into
three classes: nursery tales, fairy stories,
VOL. xxvin. — 36

and jests. They were regarded with con-
tempt, by the learned till the brothers Grimm
some sixty years ago collected those of Ger-
many and introduced them to the public.
Now they are industriously sought for and
collected from all parts of the world. The
stories in the present volume arc, for the
most part, presented for the first time to
the English reader, and have been translated
from recent Italian collections, which give
them exactly as they were taken down from
the mouths of the people. The stories are
annotated for comment and illustration, and
the subject is further elucidated by a his-
tory, in the introduction, of the principal
Italian collections, and a bibliography.

Two Years in the Jungle. By William
T. HoRNADAT. New York : Charles
Scribner's Sons. Pp. 512, with Map
and Plates. Price, $4.

Mr. Hornaday is chief taxidermist in
the United States National Museum, and
was for several years collector for the nat-
ural science establishment of Professor
Henry A. Ward, of Rochester, New York.
The observations and adventures related in
this book are such as happened to him while
on a collecting tour for that gentleman, in
the course of which he spent two years
in India, Ceylon, the Malay Peninsula, and
Borneo. That which he describes in it is
offered as a faithful pen-picture " of what
may be seen and done by almost any healthy
young man in two years of ups and downs
in the East Indies." The author says that
he has labored in preparing his pages " to
avoid all forms of exaggeration, and to rep-
resent everything with photographic accu-
racy as to facts and figures. It is easy to
overestimate and color too highly, and I
have fought hard to keep out of my story
every elephant and monkey who had no
right to a place in it. I consider it the
highest duty of a traveler to avoid careless-
ness in the statement of facts. A narrative
of a journey is not a novel, in which the
writer may put down as seen anything that
might have been seen."

Journal of the American Akademe. Al-
exander Wilder, Editor. Newark, New
Jersey. Pp. 24.

The American Akademe is an associa-
tion having for its purpose to promote the

562

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

knowledge of philosophic truth, and to work
for the elevation of the mind from the
sphere of the sensuous life into that of
virtue and justice, etc. Its members, it
will be discerned, are to a large extent
students of the Platonic philosophy. The
most important paper in the pre^^ent num-
ber is by J. B. Turner, and is on " Differ-
entiation of Energy as the Basis of Philoso-
phy and Religion." Mr. D. A. Wasson dis-
cusses the possibility of teaching virtue by
verbal precept, with a decided inclination
to the negative view.

A Political Crime. By A. M. Gibson.
New York : William S. Gottsberger.
Pp. 402.

This book is further entitled " The His-
tory of the Great Fraud," by which is meant
the " counting in " of Ilaycs and Wheeler as
President and Vice-President of the United
States in 1876, when half of the American
people believed that the candidates on the
opposing ticket had been fairly elected. Its
fundamental proposition, embodied in its
opening sentence, is that Tilden and Hen-
dricks were elected, and " were deprived of
their choice by illegal methods, bolstered
by frauds, perjuries, and forgeries." The
author adds, " The surprising thing is that
within less than a decade an almost com-
plete revulsion in the opinions of the mi-
nority [the Roptiblicans] should have taken
place." Mr. Tilden's case is presented in
full. The proceedings of the Returning
Boards are narrated in detail, and con-
spiracy is freely charged against many of
the men who figured prominently in the
transactions relative to the election. As
no election is now pending, the book can
not be regarded as a campaign document ;
and the author is entitled to the presump-
tion that his purpose in preparing it is to
preserve what he regards as important facts
and materials for history.

SOMETniXG ABOUT NATURAL GaS : ItS Ad-

VAXTAGKS, Use, Supply, and Economiks.
By George H. Thurston. Pp. 32.

A PAMPHLET which applies more partic-
ularly to the natural gas of Tarentum, near
Pittsburg, and which also sets forth the
advantage of that place as a manufacturing
center.

A Mortal Antipathy : First Opening of
the New Portfolio. By Oliver Wendell
Holmes. Boston : Houghton, Milfiin &
Co. Pp. S07. Price, ill. 50.
A NEW book by Dr. Holmes, redolent of
his versatile genius and worthy of his fame.
Happy are they who survive to enjoy this
ripest product of the author's exquisite
thought, for verily, this world has pro-
duced but one Dr. Holmes, and verily, veri-
ly, there will never be another, no matter
how long it takes the solar system to run
down ! Great genius is never duplicated in
the present economy of things, and the in-
dividuality of Dr. Holmes will forever stand
alone in the history of creative literature.
So let us all thank God for our good for-
tune in getting another of his charming and
peerless books.

The contents of the new volume ap-
peared as a serial in the " Atlantic Month-
ly " last year, under the title of " The New
Portfolio." The scientific element which
has been so striking and peculiar a charac-
teristic of the former writings of Dr. Holmes
here appears in the delineation of the ca-
reer of a young man who, in infancy, had
suffered a nervous disturbance so " sudden,
overwhelming, unconquerable, appalling,"
from the carelessness of a pretty girl, that
its effect remained in the system, so that
afterward the sight of any young lady
caused a repetition of the organic shock
and deadly collapse. He was sent to a boys'
school, and grew up to manhood the victim
of this " mortal antipathy." The develop-
ment of the story brings the young man,
himself a physician of exquisite traits of
mind and character, into such relations as,
in the first place, to throw into a clear light
all the physiological and medical aspects of
the ease, and then, with the most perfect
art, the author relates the history of his
restoration. The book is of absorbing in-
terest, as well from its curious instructive-
ness as from the fascination of the story.

Milk Analysis and Infant Feeding. By
Arthur W. Meigs, M. D. Philadel-
phia : P. Blakiston, Son & Co. Pp.
102. Price, $1.

Du. Meigs publishes this little volume
in the hope of contributing something to-
ward the solution of the question of the
composition of human milk, believing that,
Lf some uniformity of opinion could be ar-

LITERARY NOTICES.

563

rived at on the subject, it would bo a great
step in advance toward the attaiunicat of
some positive conclusion in regard to the
artificial feeding of infants. After a long
and careful study of the matter, he is con-
vinced that human milk contains much less
casein than is commonly attributed to it ;
and he here puts forth his reasons, and a
detail of the methods by which his conclu-
sions have been attained.

A Text-Book of Medical Chemistry, For
Medical and Pharmaceutical Students
and Practitioners. By Elias H. Baut-
LEY, M. D. Philadelphia: P. Blakiston,
Son & Co. Pp. 376. Price, $2.50.

This book is designed especially as a
text-book for medical students during their
attendance upon lectures, and as a book of
ready reference for physicians. The au-
thor, who finds the ordinary chemical text-
books too voluminous and largely occupied
with matter irrelevant to the wants of the
medical student, has prepared in this one
such a one as his experience of twelve
years in the Long Island College Hospital,
in which he is a professor, has taught him
that his students need. In the first of the
four parts into which the work is divided,
are presented fundamental facts in chemi-
cal physics ; in the second part, the ele-
mentary theories of chemistry ; in the third
part, the natural history of the elements
and principal compounds, with their physi-
ological and toxicological bearings; in the
fourth part, those organic compounds only
which the physician will be likely to meet.
Tables and analyses are added for those
who make the work a reference-book. The
chemistry of the tissues and secretions is
omitted, because it is considered to belong
rather to physiological chemistry.

Saxe IIoLiiE Stories. First and Second

Series. Pp. about 760. Paper. Price,

50 cents each series.
A Wheel of Fire. By Kxlo Bates. Pp.

332. Price, $1. New York: Charles

Scribuer's Sons.

The " Saxe Holme Stories " attracted
much interest when they were first pub-
lished in " Scribner's Monthly," on account
of their intrinsic merit, which was regarded
as of the best, and of the mystery which
was attached to their authorship. This was
never revealed till a long time afterward.

This interest has been renewed by the re-
cent death of Mrs. " U. U." Jackson, and
the avowal in connection with it that she
was the author of the stories. They hold
the first place among works of the class to
which they belong. " A Wheel of Fire " is
a tragic story of a young woman whose
life was tormented by the apprehension of
hereditary insanity, and all of whose plans
and movements were controlled or modified
by it.

Bird-Wats. By Olive Thorne Miller.
Boston and New York : Houghton, Mif-
flin & Co. Pp. 227. Price, $1.25.

A collection of sketches of the ways of
certain birds which the author met in the
fields or had as pets in her house, and of
their moods and methods of expressing
them. With the exception of a few in-
cidents which are properly credited, every-
thing recorded in the volume came, she
says, under her own observation, and is lit-
erally and entirely true so far as the fact
is concerned, although she may have some-
times misconstrued the motives of the little
actors in the drama.

The Heart, avd how to take Care of it.
By Edwin M. Hale, M. D. New York :
A. L. Chatterton Publishing Company.
Pp. 94.

The author has been moved to present
a popular treatise on this subject by his
conviction of the importance of the heart
in the economy of the human organism,
and by a belief that the public should know
more about its functions, and the means of
preventing or at least modifying the dan-
gers to which it is exposed. His exposition
is clear, practical, and unsensational.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Eeport of the Committee on Disinfectants of the
American Public Healtli Association. Baltimore.
laSo. Pp. 13T.

Fifth Annual Report of the State Mineralogist
of California for the Year ending May 15, 1SS5. By
llenry G. Hanlcs. Sacramento. 18S5. Pp. 285.

Memorials of Henry Brace Norton. Pp. 110.

Revision of the Palapocrinoidea. By Charles
"Wachsmuth and Frank Sprinper. First Section.
Philadelphia. lSs5. Pp. 13s, with Plates.

ITand-Book to the National Museum of the
Smithsonian Institution, Washington. New York :
Brentano Brothers. 1Sp6. Pp.110. Illustrated.

Photograjjhy of the Infra-red Re^on of the Solar
Spectrum. 4 pases; and Methods of determining
the Speeds of Phjtot'raphic Exposures, etc., etc,

564

TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

14 pages, illustrated. By William H. Pickering.
From I'roceedings of tlio American Academy of
Art3 and bcieuces.

A Plan for Ocean-Siprnals, Lisrhtships, and Life-
saving Stations, adapted lor Coast and Ucep-sea
bervice. Hy V\ A. Cloudman. liondout, N. Y.
I'p. 16. Illustrated.

Digest of Laws poverning the Issue of Munici-
pal Bonds, (.'oinpiiod by C. G. Neelv. Chicago,
111.: PubUshod by cJ. A. Keun & Co., Bankers.
Pp. 91.

Telescope Search for the Trans-Neptunian Planet.
By David 1'. Todd. M. A. Lawrence Observatory,
Amherst, Mass. Pp. 10.

The Inertia of the Eye and Brain. By James
M. Cattell, London : William Clowes <t Sons,
I rinters. ISiS. Pp. 20.

Marsill's Almanac of Meteorology, for ISSG.
Eock. Island, 111. 1835. Pp. 44.

Joint l)ise.-ises : Treatment by Pest and Fi.xa-
tion, 15. pages; and Surgical Treatment of Inlants,
\i pages. By Dr. Do i'orest Willard, of the Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania.

Annual Report of the Secretary of the Treasury
for the Year 1SS5. Washington : Government
Printing-office. 1S85. Pp. 114.

Bulletins of the United States National Museum.
No. •I'.. Bibliographies of Americin NaturaUsts.
II. The Published Writings of Isaac Lea, LL. 1).
By Newton Pratt Scudder. Pp. 337. No. 28. A
Manual of American Land-Shells. By W. O. Bin-
nev. Pp. 528. Illustrated. No. 29. Results of
Ornitholosical Explorations in the Commander Isl-
ands and"^ Kamchatka. By Loonhard Stejueger.
Pp. 8S1, with Plates. Washington : Government
Printing-OtHoe. l5b.5.

On Heating and Ventilation of Dwellings and
School-rooms. By Charles O. Curtmon, M. D. ^lis-
Bouri Medic.1l College. Pp. 10.

Reception-Day. No. 4. Recitations, etc, for
Private and Public Schools. New York : E. L.
Kellogg & Co. 18^5. Pp. 156. 25 cents.

The Wherewithal, or New Discoveries in Cause
and Effect. Philadelphia : Townsend. Wherewithal
Publishing Company. 1S85.

Report of Professor Spencer F. Baird. Secretary
of the Smithsonian Institution, for Six Months
endins June 30, 1S^5. Wa.shington : Government
Printing-office. 1SS5. Pp. 46.

Notes on the Opium Habit. By A. P. Meylert.
M. D. New York : O. P. Putnam's Sons. lbS5.
Pp. 49.

The City of Washington : Its Orifrin and Ad-
ministration. By John Addison Porter. Johns
Hopkins University Studies. Baltimore. Isbo.
Pp. 66. 50 cents.

The Genesis of Inventions. By Franklin A.
Seely, A.M. Washington.' 18S5. Pp.17.

Ericsson's Destroyer and Submarine Onn. By
William II. Jaques. New York : G. P. Putnam's
Sons. 18S5. Pp. 43. 50 cents.

The Utilization of Culm in Agriculture. By J.
A. Price. Scranton, Pa. 18S.5. Pp. 5.

The System of High Licenses. How it can he
made successful. By G. Thoiiiann. New York :
The United States Brewers' Association. Isb5.
Pp. 36.

National Conference of State Boards of Health.
Pp. (A.

Report of a Special Committee of the Franklin
Institute, of Pennsylvania, on Competitive Tests of
Dvnamo-Eli'ctric Machines, and on Mechanical and
Electrical Tests of Conducting Wires. Philadel-
phia. 1S85. Pp. 65.

Gas-Engines. Report of the Examiner of Sec-
tion XII, Internal ional ICIcctrical Exhibition. Frank-
lin Institute. Philadelphia. 1S8.5. Pp. 11.

The Hpalins Art. Harvelan Oration delivered
before the Koval Colletre of Physicians. October 19.
18S5. By Richard Qnnin, M. D., F. R. S. Loudon :
Longmans, Green & t^o. Is85. Pp. 44.

A Study of the Relative Poisonous Effects of
Coal- and Water-Gas. By \V illiam T. Sedgwick and
William Ripley Nichols. Pp. 41.

Contributions to Mincralog)'. By F. A. Genth.
University of Pennsylvania. 1885. Pp. 17.

Precious Stones. By George F. Kerry. Wash-
ington : Government Printing-Ofilce. lS!-5. Pp. 62.

Diseases of the Perspiratory and Sebaceous
Glands. Bv George H. lioh6, M. D. Baltimore.
Is85. Pp. 62. 25 cents.

A Farmer's View of the 1'rotective Tariff. By
Isaac W. Griscom. Woodbury, N. J. 18s5. Pp.
63. 35 cents.

The Geological Formation of Long Island, with
a Description of its Old W ater-Courses. By John
Bryson. New Yoik. 1SS5. Pp. 17.

Mineral Waters. By A. C. Peale. Washington :
Government Printing-Office. 1S&5. Pp. 10.

The Columbia Bicycle Calendar for ISSC. Bos-
ton. Mass. : Pope Manufacturing Company.

Thermometer Exposure. By Henry A. Hazen.
Washington Signal-Office. 18s5. Pp. 32.

Bulletins of the United States Geological Sur-
vey. No. 7. A Catalogue of Geoloirical Maps rela-
tive to North and South America. No. 8. On
Secondary ICnlargemeuts of Mineral Fragments of
Certain Rocks. No. 9. A Report of Work done in
the AVashington Laboratory during the Fiscal Y'ear
lSS;l-':?4. No. 10. On the Cambrian Faunas of
North America. No. 11. On the Quaternary and
Recent Mollusca of the Great Basin, with Descrip-
tions of New Ftrms. No. 12. A Crystidlographic
Study of the Thinolite of Lake Lahontan No. 13.
Boundaries of the United States and of the Several
States and Territories. No. 14. On the Physical
Characteristics of the Iron Carburets, etc. Wash-
ington : Government I'rinting-Office. 1SS4 and
1885.

Bad Times. By Alfred Russel Wallace. Lon-
don and New Y'ork : MacuiiUau & Co. Pp. 118.
75 cents.

The Iron Crown. A T.'ile of the Great Repub-
lic. Chicago : T. S. Denison. 1?S5. Pp.560. $1.50.

Wonderful Escapes. Revised from the French
of F. Barnard ; and Original Chai>ters added by
Richard Whiteing. 1SS5. Pp. 808. Illustrated. $1.
Valentino. By William Waldorf Astor. 1S8.X $2.
The Sun. By AmadeeGuillemin. From the French
by A. L. Phipsiin. lsS.\ Pp. '^92. Illustrated. %.\.
The Greek Islands and Turkev after the War. By
Henry M. Field, D. D. 188.5. Pp. 228. Illustrated.
.$1.50. Wonders of European .Vrt. By Louis Yiar-
dot. 1885. Pp 335. Illustrated. %\. Strange Case
of Dr. JerkyU and Mr. Hvde. By Robert Louis
Stevenson. ]8sC. Pp. 138. '$1. Color Studies. By
Thomas A. Janvier. 18S5. Pp. 227. $1. New
York : Published by Charles Scribner's Sons.

The Philosophy of Education. By T. Tate,
F. R. A. S., with "an Introduction bv Edward E.
Phcib, Ph. D. New York : E. L. Kellogg & Co.
ISS,"). Pp.831.

Social Wealth. Bv J. K. Ingalls. New York :
The "Truth Seeker" Company. 185.5. Pp. 320. $1.

A Iland-Book of Whist. By Major Tenace.
ISS."). Pp.110. 75 cents. The Industrial Situation
and the Question of Wages. By J. Schoenhof.
l-sS. Pp.157. Brain- Rest. By J. Leonard Corn-
ing, M. D. 1S85. Pp. 13.^ $1. New Y'ork : G. P.
Putnam's Sons, Publisher.s.

Applied Geology. By Samuel G. Williams.
1886. Pp. 8>6. $1.4'. Ecclesiastical Institutions.
By Herbert Spencer. 1886. Pp. 1-2. $1.25. An-
thropoid Apes. By Robert Ilartmann. 1886. Pp.
326. $1.75. New York : D. Appleton & Co.,
Pubhshers.

Japanese Homes and their Surroundings. By
Edward S. Morse. With Illustrations by the Au-
thor. Boston : Ticknor k, Co. 1886. Pp. 372. $5.

Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnol-
oiry. 18Sl-'82. By J. W. Powell, Director. Wash-
iniiton : Government Printing-Office. 1634. Pp.
OOC.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

565

The Annals of the Cakchiqnels. The Oriiiinal

Text with a Translation, Notes, and Introduction.

By Daniel 6. Brintoii, A.M., Al.D. Philadelphia.
1S85. Pp. 234.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

Employes and Employers. — The Lehigh
Valley Railroad Company has established a
relief fund into which the employes put
voluntary contributions, and for every dol-
lar put in by a person in its employ the
company puts in another dollar. Thus, if
the 14,000 employes contribute a dollar
each, the company will contribute $14,000.
The management of the fund is in the
hands of President Wilbur and Paymaster
Wilhelm. In case a contributor is disabled
by accident, he is allowed three fourths as
much per day as his contribution in the
fund every working-day during his disabil-
ity, for a period of six months. In case the
accident results in the death of the con-
tributor within six months, or if he is in-
stantly killed, 850 is appropriated from the
fund for the funeral expenses. If he leaves
a widow and children under sixteen years of
age, an allowance of one half the amount
of his contribution, for every working-day,
is appropriated and paid the widow for one
year from the time of the contributor's
death, provided she remains unmanicd dur-
ing that time. If there be no widow, then
the allowance goes to the children, if any,
for the same period. In case the contribu-
tor loses a limb, he is provided with an arti-
ficial limb, and employment is given to him.
— Railuiay Review.

Vapor- and Hot-Air Baths. — The value
of hot-air and vapor baths, as well as of
other means of promoting the perspiratory
function of the skin, has been recognized
from very ancient times ; and nearly all
peoples are acquainted with some means of
producing the desired effect. The modes
of taking these baths are exceedingly va-
rious. Among them are the Turkish and
Russian baths, which are, however, usually
arranged on too large a scale to be regarded
as practicable for small households. Of
hot-air baths, the extemporized " rum-
sweat " is among the most common. The i
naked person is seated in a chair, enveloped
in blankets which, spread over the chair.

inclose him as in a kind of tent extending
from his neck to the floor. The heat is
supplied by burning spirit contained in a
small earthen vessel, which is slipped un-
derneath the chair. This method is at-
tended with considerable peril, the reality
of which has very recently been forcibly
brought to mind by the death of Dr. W. B.
Carpenter, who, taking a hot-air bath in
almost precisely this way — using a gallipot
of burning spirit instead of his bath-lamp,
which was out of order — upset the vessel
in changing position, and was so severely
burned by the ignited vapors that he died
in about four hours afterward. One of
the simplest forms of vapor-bath was the
old " hemlock-sweat," which, while it was a
rude and far from convenient application,
was efficacious, and had the character of a
medicated bath. Hemlock-boughs, with the
leaves, were broken up into a pail, and hot
water was poured upon them, with the effect
of immediately "steaming" the hemlock.
The pail was then slipped under the blankets
with which the bather was invested, while
simultaneously a red-hot brick was dropped
into it, whereby the bather was immediately
involved in a profusion of aromatic steam,
as hot as he could comfortably endure. We
remember to have seen, many years ago, a
simple, cheap, and tolerably convenient port-
able vapor-bath, in the shape of a chair
constructed especially for the purpose, with
provisions for burning alcohol with reason-
able safety and producing steam, all con-
tained within itself. The safest and most
convenient arrangement which has come un-
der our notice is the " Home Vapor-Bath,"
which was invented by Mr. William W. Ro-
senfeld, it is said, when he was only six-
teen years of age. It is compact, and can
be introduced, at small expense, into any
house having " hot-water " attachments. It
is applied to the ordinary bath-tub as it
is found in nearly every good house, and,
depending wholly upon the use of the hot-
water pipe of the tub, avoids the direct
application of fire. It can be used with
any bath-tub, in addition to the other and
usual arrangements, and without disturbing
any of them. The principle of its operation
consists in subdividing the hot water into
small jets over a large area, so as to allow
the maximum of evaporatiou. This is ac-

566

TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

complislicd by affixing to one side of the
tub a perforated shower-tube connected with
the hot and cold water supplies. The bather
sits upon a chair at the foot of the tub, en-
veloped in a curtain of rubber cloth, with
an attachment extending over the tub. He
is thus assured the full benefit of all the
evaporation from the hot water, -uiiile
his face is totally shut off from it, so
tliat he does not breathe any of it. By
means of another ecjually simple attachment,
substances with which it may be desired to
medicate the bath are brought into contact
with the water and made to mingle their
fumes with the steam. This form of bath,
which has all the advantages of the Russian
bath, and is, moreover, adapted to domestic
use, has been introduced into a great many
houses in New York and other places, as well
as into hotels and public institutions, and is
highly recommended by those who have em-
ployed it or examined it. In another form of
apparatus, sold by J. Allen & Sons, of Lon-
don, the lamp is placed outside of the cur-
tain, within which the vapor is conducted
by a pipe. The whole apparatus can be
packed into a box less than twelve inches
square. An arrangement is also furnished
by which the vapors are introduced into the
bed in which a patient may be lying; or
the lamp, if preferred, may be put directly
under the chair. This bath has received
medals and high awards at several "health "
or "sanitary" exiiibitions.

A Snn-hoatinK Apparatus for Rooms. —

Professor Edward S. Morse, of Salem, Mas-
sachusetts, has tried the experiment of call-
ing in the heat of the sun to assist in warm-
ing and ventilating his house. lie attaches
to the wall of his house a box nearly the
height of the story, about three feet wide,
and of suitable depth, and so arranged and
connected with openings in the wall as to
act as a flue. The outside of the box is
made of slate or black corrugated iron, sub-
stances wliich absorb heat, and over this is
a " window " of glass. "With this apparatus,
the air in a room measuring twenty-one by
thirteen by nine feet, could be changed
in forty-five or fifty minutes, and a very
perceptible degree of warmth was obtained.
A similar heater, forty-two feet long and
six and a half feet wide, attached to the

Boston Athenaeum, is estimated to do work
that would ordinarily require between twen-
ty-five and fifty pounds of coal a day.

Earthqnake-proofBnildlnj;s. — The com-
mittee of the British Association appointed
to investigate the earthquake phenomena of
Japan, after reporting upon their experi-
ments into the nature of the vibrations of
the ground, offer some suggestions on the
construction of earthquake-proof houses.
In a house resting at its foundations on cast-
iron balls, the measuring instrument showed
that, although considerable movement took
place at the time of an earthquake, all sud-
den motion had been destroyed ; but wind
and other causes produced movements of a
far more serious character than the earth-
quake. To give greater steadiness to the
house, eight-inch balls were tried, and then
one-inch balls. Finally the house was rest-
ed, at each of its piers, upon a handful of
cast-iron shot, each one fourth of an inch in
diameter. By this means the building has
been made astatic, and, in consequence of
the greater increase in rolling-friction, suf-
ficiently stable to resist all effects like those
of wind. The shot rest between flat iron
plates. When erecting a building in a re-
gion subject to earthquakes, it appears that
we ought first to reduce, as far as possible,
the quantity of motion w hich ordinary build-
ings receive; and, second, to construct a
building so that it will resist that portion of
the momentum which we are unable to keep
out. To reduce the momentum we may —
1. Select a site where experiment shows
that the motion is relatively small. 2. For
heavy buildings, adopt deep foundations
(perhaps with lateral freedom), or, at least,
let the building be founded on the hardest
and most solid ground. 3. For light build-
ings, put in the shot foundations. As against
the momentum which can not be cut off
from the building, it should be borne in
mind that it is chiefly stresses and strains
which are applied horizontally to a building
that have to be encountered. A vertical
line of openings, as in doors and windows
in a building, constitutes a vertical line of
weakness to horizontally applied forces.
Avoid coupling together two portions of a
building which have two vibrational peri-
ods, or which, from their position, are not

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

567

likely to synchronize in their motion. If
such parts of a building must of necessity
be joined, let them be so joined that the
connecting link will force them to vibrate
as a whole, and yet resist fracture. Brick
chimneys in contact with the framing of a
wooden roof are apt to be shorn off at the
point where they pass through the roof.
Light archways connecting heavy piers will
be cracked at the crown. To obviate de-
struction from these causes, a system of
building may be adopted which essentially
consists of tying the building together at
each floor with iron and steel tie-rods, cross-
ing each other from back to front and from
side to side. The center of inertia of a
building, and of its parts, should be kept as
low as possible. Heavy tops to chimneys,
heavy coping;?, and balustrades on walls and
towers, heavy roofs and the like, are all of
serious danger to the portion of the struct-
ure by which they are supported. TMien
the lower part of a building is moved, the
upper part, by its inertia, tends to remain
behind, and serious fractures often result.

Potelinet — The plastic substance, potc-
line, introduced by M. Potel, is formed of a
mixture of gelatine, glycerine, and tannin, to
which may be added sulphate of baryta, or
zinc-white ; and the whole may be colored,
if desired, with vegetable colors. Poteline
is molded while still hot ; and, when it has
become cool, yields itself to every kind of
manipulation. It can be turned, filed, bored,
or screwed, and it is susceptible of a very
fine polish, which may be conveyed by
pressure. This facility of working permits
it to be treated in the same way as bronze,
and makes it adaptable for all kinds of
mountings. It can also be used to seal
bottles and jars hermetically, for the fab-
rication of dolls' heads that can not be
broken, and for the composition of an arti-
ficial marble out of which ink-stands, door-
knobs, and a thousand other articles can be
made cheaply. The proportion of the dif-
ferent materials entering into the composi-
tion of this substance varies according to the
use that is to be made of it. For sealing
bottles, it should be used in a nearly liquid
condition ; for the manufacture of fancy
articles, in an opaque form ; while the ex-
act composition of the marble-poteline is a

secret known only to the inventor. M. Po-
tel has described a method by which he
uses poteline as an envelope, to stop and
prevent fermentation and insure the pres-
ervation of fruits and meats.

Oyster-CnltureiiiCoimecticat. — Accord-
ing to the last report of the Shell-fish Com-
missioners of the State of Connecticut, the
policy of farming out the oyster-grounds to
individual proprietor -cultivators has been
very successful. The number of persons
engaged in the business increased ten per
cent during the seven months covered by
the report ; and the rapid development of
the oyster industry is further shown in the
continued extension of the area of grounds
devoted to it, and in the increase in the
number of oyster-steamers. It has been
found that with reasonable care and labor
the number of star-fish may be so reduced
that those enemies shall be incapable of
doing serious damage to the oyster-beds. A
new enemy, however, threatens the beds, in
the shape of a sand-tube-building worm,
whose structures cause accumulations that
suffocate the oysters ; but the estimates are
contradictory as to the amount of the dam-
age it is likely to do. Efforts have been
made during the past year, with much suc-
cess, to redeem muddy grounds and make
them available for oyster-cultivation by cov-
ering them with shells and pebbles brought
from the Housatonic River. The demand,
both for oysters and for seed-oysters, is
constantly increasing, and it is not likely
that the supply will soon go ahead of it.

What is a Real Forest ?— In all forest-
culture, says Mr. M. C. Read, in a paper on
" The Preservation of Forests on the Head-
Watcrs of Streams," which is published by
the Department of Agriculture in "Special
Report Xo. 5," "it should be remembered
that, for climatic purposes, an orchard ol
trees is not a forest. The planting of trees
along the highways, about our homes, in
parks and groves, ought to be encouraged
for a variety of reasons, but will have little
of the climatic effect of true forests. A
dense growth of underbrush, herbaceous
plants, and mosses under the larger trees,
which will retain the fallen leaves in place,
fill the surface-soil with rootlets, checking

568

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the flow of water and facilitating its en-
trance into the earth, is an essential part of
a true forest."

Popalarizing Agricnltnral Colleges. — In

the Convention of Delegates from Agri-
cultural Colleges and Experiment Stations,
which was held at the Department of Agri-
culture in July, 1885, the question was con-
sidered how the colleges can be made more
directly useful and more in sympathy with
the people. President Fairchild, of the
Kansas State Agricultural College, said that
the Michigan College had arranged in 1875-
'76 for a series of farmers' institutes to be
held each winter in the different counties of
the State. At each institute, the college
undertook to provide only half of the pro-
gramme, and insisted that the place where
the meeting was held should provide the
other half. The expenses of the institute
were also divided equitably. Every ques-
tion brought forward was open to discus-
sion, to which close attention was given, and
which was always encouraged. From that
day to this, the institute has grown in favor»
with both the farmers and the professors
in the Agricultural College. " The same
thing," Mr. Fairchild added, " has been in
vogue with us in Kansas since I went there
in 1879. "We opened a series of institutes
in the winter of 1880-81, and have contin-
ued them from that day to this, with grow-
ing interest, and with especial favor as re-
gards the farmer. We promote discussion
upon just such questions as the farmers
wish discussed, and the professors take es-
pecial pains to meet the questions which
may be raised by the farmers themselves."
The people are thus brought into full fellow-
ship, which they demonstrate, with the col-
lege ; and in Michigan the reports of the
State Board of Agriculture, which formerly
had to be " thrown at the heads of politi-
cians," are in demand and arc read.

More abont tlie Efleets of Tobacco.—

Dr. Hobart Amory Ilarc, of the University
of Pennsylvania, after an elaborate disser-
tation on "The Physiological and Patho-
logical Properties of Tobacco," expresses the
conclusions that "tobacco does no harm
when used in moderation — to the man who,
by occupation, leads an out door life, or one

in which much physical exercise is taken,
but rather does good, by quieting any tend-
ency to continued action which may exist ;
to those who, by exceptionally long use, have
become inured to the effects of the drug,
and whose systems depend upon it ; or to
those whose temperaments are naturally
phlegmatic and easy-going. Tobacco does
harm to the young and not yet full-grown ;
to the man of sedentary habits ; to the nerv-
ous and those whose temperaments are
easily excited ; and to the sickly and those
who, by idiosyncrasy, are strongly affected
by the drug." The different methods of
using tobacco are harmful in the following
order: Chewing, cigarette smoking, cigar
smoking, pipe smoking, Turkish-pipe smok-
ing. The quality of the drug governs the
degree of its harmfulness more stringently
in some cases than in others, as do also the
character and constituents of the paper in
which cigarettes are wrapped. Finally, the
oft-repeated words " excess " and " moder-
ation" "form the key- stones of the arches
which the writers on tobacco, pro and con,
have raised."

Life in New Guinea. — The Rev. J.
Chalmers, a missionary, recently visited the
country west of Maclatchie Point, South-
eastern New Guinea. He found the people
generous and hospitable. They are certainly
cannibals, but only as concerns their ene-
mies. Sorcery and superstition have their
home among them. In a duhu, or sacred
house, which Mr. Chalmers describes as the
finest he has ever seen, two large posts,
eighty feet high, support a large peaked
portico, thirty feet wide, while the whole
building is one hundred and sixty feet long,
and tapers down in height from the front.
A large number of skulls of men, crocodiles,
cassowaries, and pigs ornament it. The
human skulls are those of victims who have
[ been killed and eaten by the tribe ; and
they speak of this kind of food as the great-
est luxury, and think those are fools who
i despise it. The whole district from Orokolo
i to Panaroa is one great swamp, and the vil-
lages are all surrounded by muddy water.
Canoes are a necessity in making morning
calls. Bridges of logs or trunks form the
streets, and the roads are more easily trav-
ersed barefoot than in boots. The houses

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

569

are really well built, and in front of many
of them are small gardens, raised ten feet
from the ground. To make these gardens,
a well-built platform is covered with soil,
in which flowers and tobacco are planted
and cultivated.

The lutprnational Geological Congress.

— The International Geological Congi-ess
held its sessions in Berlin from the 28th of
September to the 4th of October last, and
was attended by two hundred delegates of
various nationalities, among whom were
Mr. McGee, Professor Newberry, and Pro-
fessor James Hall, from the United States.
The German geologist. Von Dechen, who
is eighty-five years old, was named hon-
orary president, while Professor Beyrich
served as effective president. Among the
important matters to receive attention was
the report of progress upon the geological
map of Europe, the execution of which had
been put in charge of a special commission
by the preceding Co'ngress at Bologna. The
choice of colors made at Bologna was pro-
nounced a happy one ; and the principle of
marking the subdivisions of periods by grad-
uated tints of the same color, the darker
tints indicating the older beds, was approved.
The report on nomenclature stated that,
while the Congress of Bologna had estab-
lished the fundamental principles on the
subject, there were some important matters
which it had not settled, and upon which
the international committees had not been
able to agree. On the points considered in
this report the Congress decided that the
Triassic and Jurassic formations should be
divided into three series each, and the Cre-
taceous into two, the lower series ineludin"-
the Gault. On other points, on which dif-
ferences of opinion were more pronounced,
discussion was remanded to special publica-
tions and to future consideration. Professor
Neumayr, of Vienna, asked the sanction of
the Congress to his contemplated " Xomen-
clator Palaeontologicus," to be published in
fifteen volumes of a hundred pages each, in
which should be given the names of all
vegetable and animal fossils, with the beds
in which they occur and the works in which
they are described. It will have a French
introduction and a Latin text, as brief as
possible. The next meeting of the Congress

was appointed to be held in London in 1888,
between the 15th of August and the 15th of
September.

The New England Meteorological Soci-
ety.— At the annual meeting of the New
England Meteorological Society, held in
Boston, October 20th, Professor Davis read
a paper upon the thundcr-stoi-ms of the
summer of 1885, and Mr. Harold Whiting a
paper on the self-recording aneroid barome-
ter. A full presentation of the year's work
of the society was given in the report of the
Council. The number of members had in-
creased from nine in November, 1883, to
ninety-five ; the number of observers send-
ing reports from forty-five to one hundred
and twenty-three. Efforts had been con-
stantly made to secure increased accuracy
and greater uniformity in the observations.
The subject of accurate instruments re-
ceived early attention ; and it was decided
to manufacture a special class of rain-
gauges rather than to adopt any now in the
market, and to adopt certain makes of self-
registering thermometers. All desiring to
make observations have been encouraged to
do so, and efforts have also been made to
secure observers in special localities. In
co-operation with the United States Signal-
Service, local weather -flags are daily dis-
played in more than a hundred cities and
towns of New England. More than four
hundred observers have co-operated in the
special investigation of thunder-storms ; and
two hundred and three reports were sent in
of a single storm. The National Academy
aids these investigations with an appropria-
tion of two hundred dollars. The expenses
of the society have, by the aid of friends,
been kept witlun its income. As its finan-
cial prosperity depends on the number of
members, it is desired to include in the
membership all who are interested in mete-
orological studies in New England, whether
they make observations or not.

How to exalt the Teacher's Art. —

" Teaching as a Business " — that is, why is
it not a profession ? — is the title of a paper
which was read by C. W. Bardeen before
the National Educational Association at its
last meeting. One reason why teaching is
not a profession lies in the way school

570

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

boards are made up ; another, in the fact
that so large a proportion of incompetents
are applying for positions, not forgetting
the highest ones. It is not strange that,
with such persons obtruding themselves, the
teacher is looked upon by such boards as
wc have as "an impracticable man, useful
enough to take care of boys and girls under
rules established by lawyers, doctors, and
business-men, but unfitted for participation
in any of the serious work of the commu-
nity." Mr. Bardecn, in looking for a reme-
dy for the low state of the business, holds
that it should not be thought to depend upon
higher salaries or pensions for retired teach-
ers, or fixed tenure of office — the teacher, if
matters were in a proper condition, should
be no more anxious about his annual re-
appointment than the bank-teller or insur-
ance president, who is sure of it so long as
he is this side of the St. Lawrence ! But
teachers should discriminate among them-
selves in favor of the most competent, should
be men among men, should see to it that
the differences in the results of good teach-
ing and poor teaching are proved, and em-
phasized, and illustrated, and should labor
to have the work of superior teachers rec-
ognized and secured. The average school
board is a checker-board, where the only
important consideration is that the square
be covered, with a button, if the real piece
is not at hand ; it should be like a chess-
board, where, " when a knight falls to the
carpet, you do not replace him by a pawn,
a rook, or a bishop ; and you will make al-
most any sacrifice to retain your queen.
One of these pawns may sometimes be a
queen, but not till by long probation and
many steps of progress it has won its po-
sition in the queen's row. There should
be a queen's row in teaching."

The Value of the Conjto. — A letter from
Mr. Stanley, protesting against giving up the
control of the Congo to the Portuguese,
which was read in the Geographical Section
of the British Association, gives a magnifi-
cent idea of the value of what that river is
capable of contributing to the advance of
civilization. " Despite every prognostica-
tion to the contrary," says Mr. Stanley,
"this river will yet redeem the lost conti-
nent. By itself it forms a suflicient pros-

pect; but, when you consider its magnifi-
cent tributaries which flow on each side,
giving access to civilization to what seemed
hopelessly impenetrable a few years ago, the
reality of the general utility and benefit to
these dark tribes fills the sense with admi-
ration. Every step I take increases my en-
thusiasm for my work and confirms my first
impressions. Give 1,000 miles to the main
channel, 300 to the Kwango, 120 to Lake
Matcnba, 300 to the Mobimbu, probably 800
to the Kaissai, 300 to the Saukuru, 500 to
the Aruwimi, and 1,000 more to undiscov-
ered degrees, for there is abundant space to
concede so much, and you have 4,520 miles
of navigable water."

A New Zealand Ice-Care. — The Whau-
gachu River, of New Zealand, rises in an im-
mense, deep, perpendicular walled ravine on
the slopes of Mount Ruapehu, in which its
descent is varied by a succession of water-
falls—" Horseshoe," " Bridal-A\'il," etc., va-
rying from 150 to 400 feet in height. "At
one point, where the scene is hemmed in
with towering precipices of 1 ,000 feet high
and a glacier-slope in front, the gorge," says
Mr. Nicholls, " wound in such a way that
none of the surrounding country could be
seen, and there was nothing but the blue
heavens above to relieve the frigid glare of
the ice, the cold glitter of the snow, and the
dreary tints of the frowning, fire-scorched
rocks. Right under the snowy glacier above
us were wide-yawning apertures, arched at
the top, and framed as it were with ice in
the form of rude portals, through which the
waters of the river burst in a continuous
stream. We entered the largest of these
singular structures, and found ourselves in
a cave of some 200 feet in circumference,
whose sides of black volcanic rock were
sheeted with ice and festooned with icicles.
At the farther end was a wide cavernous
opening, so dark that the waters of the
river, as they burst out of it in a foaming,
eddying stream down the center of the cave,
looked doubly white in comparison with the
black void out of which they came. The
roof of the cave was formed of a mass of
frozen snow, fashioned into oval-shaped de-
pressions, all of one uniform size, and so
beautifully and mathematically precise in
outline as to resemble the quaint designs of

I

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

571

a Moorish temple ; while, from the central
points to which the edges of these singnlar
desig;ns converged, a long single icicle hung
down, several inches in diameter at its base,
perfectly round, smooth, and as clear as
crystal, tapering off toward its end with a
point as sharp as a needle." Wherever the
water poured over the rocks it left a white
deposit, which, when tasted, produced a
marked astringent feeling upon the tongue,
with a strong impression of alum, sulphur,
and iron.

Malaria-Factories la Manritins. — Refer-
ence having been made in a recent health-
lecture at the Society of Arts to an outbreak
— the first in the history of the island — of
malarial fever which occurred in Mauritius
in 1SG6, Mr. F. Guthrie, who was there at
the time, gives a statement of what he
found, upon examination, was the cause of
the outbreak. The embankments of the new
railroad had caused the accumulation of
water in ponds on either side of the track.
This became stagnant and impregnated with
the sewage that surged down from the
higher land, till it was strongly offensive to
the sight and the smell. In view of the ex-
istence of these cess-pools on a grand scale,
Mr. Guthrie does not believe that the out-
break was due to the " clearing of the for-
ests " or to the " upturning of the virgin
soil," but simply "to the infatuation of
those who did not know, and who, even
when it was pointed out to them, could not
see that, when lagocms of sewage and salt-
water are reeking beneath a semi-tropical
sun, fever is the rule rather than the excep-
tion."

Dancing as Physical Training.— Dr.

Crichton Browne has had a good word to
say for dancing. In a recent lecture before
the Birmingham (England) Teachers' Asso-
ciation, he insisted on the importance of a
timely training and discipline of all motor
centers, so that advantage may be taken of
the superior plasticity that characterizes
them during their period of growth. He
spoke of the value of the educational train-
ing in this way of the hand-centers of to-be
artisans, of the different kinds of muscle-
work, and in regard to dancing said that,
if taught at the proper time — that is,

very early in life — it " may discipline large
groups of centers into harmonious action,
enlarge the dominion of the will, abolish
unseemly muscular tricks and antics, develop
the sense of equilibrium, and impart grace
and self-confidence. Every day," he con-
tinued, " we may detect in the conversation
or carriage of persons we meet painful evi-
dences of the neglect of dancing and deport-
ment in the rearing of the young."

Mechanical Repetition and Intellcctnal
Knowledge. — It has sometimes been ob-
served that, when children of savages are
put to school, they exhibit great readiness,
and sometimes precocity, in learning the
elementary branches till they reach a cer-
tain age, when they all at once fall off.
Professor W. Mattieu Williams regards
this as a sign of their intellectual inferior-
ity, and a consequence of it. The earher
instruction of these children " mainly con-
sists in ' learning lessons,' mechanical prac-
tice in writing, and mechanical use of the
rote-leamed addition and multiplication ta-
bles. So far, mere verbal memory, finger-
moving, and repetition-gabble of numbers,
does all the work. The higher intelligence
of the child contributes little or no aid in
the performance of such tasks ; it rather
stands in the way by inducing thought, i. e.,
distracting the child's attention from the
mechanical drudgery demanded. When
work demanding thought is required, wheth-
er it be higher school-work or the business
of practical life, the difference between the
Caucasian and the lower races comes out ;
not because there is an arrest of develop-
ment in the lower, but because the higher
demand displays the working of the higher
faculties. A glib aptitude for learning for-
eign languages is, generally speaking, an
indication of intellectual inferiority, a sim-
ple result of the lower intellectual faculties
being concentrated upon such mechanical
effort whhout the distracting influence of
the higher reasoning powers."

M. de Mortillct on Tertiary Man.— M.

G. de Mortillet read a paper before the An-
thropological Section of the French Associa-
tion on Tertiary "man," in which he said the
question was not one of knowing whether
man existed in the Tertiary epoch as he ex-

572

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ists to-day. Animals have varied from one
geological stratum to another, and the high-
er the animals, the greater has been the
variation. It is to be inferred, therefore,
that man has varied more than the other
mammals. The problem is to discover in the
Tertiary period an ancestral form of man, a
predecessor of the man of historical times.
There are In the Tertiary strata objects which
imply the existence in that age of an intel-
ligent being ; and such objects have been
found in two different stages of the epoch
— in the Lower Tertiary at Thcnay, and in
the Upper Tertiary at Otta, in Portugal, and
at Puy Courny, in Cantal. They prove that
at those two distant epochs there existed in
Europe animals acquainted with fire, and
able, more or less, to cut stone. During
the Tertiary period, then, there lived ani-
mals less intelligent than existing man, but
more intelligent than existing apes, although
their skeletons have not yet been discov-
ered, only their works. To these species,
the ancestral forms of historic man, M. de
Mortillet would give the name of anthropo-
pithecus, or man-ape.

TVords and Things. — A writer in the
" Journal of Science " remarks upon the in-
adequacy of language to describe motions,
as in the flight of different species of but-
terflies; colors, except a few particularly
named ones ; forms, except geometrical
ones; and tastes and odors, in which the
failure is complete. At the same time our
mental conceptions of all these things may
be of the clearest, when they have once
passed under observation. To this he ap-
pends the pertinent question: Seeing how
very impotent is language, unaided, to con-
vey precise knowledge, " Why is such ex-
clusive attention paid to words, both in
lower and higher education, to the almost
entire neglect of things ? Verbal memory
is cultivated above all other faculties of the
human mind. Much care is taken to train
up youth in the correct use of language.
But in what school is the art of observation
systematically taught ? Who heeds or asks
whether the observing faculties are strength-
ened ? Quite the contrary ; these faculties,
if perhaps not intentionally, are not the less
weakened and crowded out by dominant ver-
balism. . . . I am not seeking to undervalue

the use and study of language. It furnish-
es, at any rate, receptacles in which the rough
outlines of our knowledge may be preserved.
But it must no longer seek to maintain the
exclusive position which it has usurped. It
must be made to feel that it is the espalier
and not the vine, the purse and not the
money, the shell and not the substance."

Sands of the Taikistan Descits. — Ac-
cording to an account by M. Paul Lcssar,
of the Russian Geographical Society, the
sands of the Kara-Kum Desert of Turkistan,
represented on maps by one conventional
sign, arc in reality very varied, and are
divisible into three principal kinds. In the
country between Merv and Attok, and be-
tween Sarakhs and Chacha, the soil is
clayey, largely mixed with sand ; its sur-
face is formed into hillocks, rarely more
than seven feet high, and usually thickly
overgrown with brushwood. This kind of
desert presents no particular obstacles to
the traveler. The second kind of desert
consists of real sands — not, however, of a
drifting nature, but everywhere knit to-
gether by bushes ten or fifteen feet high.
It is only at the summits of the hillocks,
which are higher than those just described,
that there is a little drift-sand, which is
carried from place to place. In sands of
this kind, carts move with great difficulty,
while horses and camels go freely. No
storm need be dreaded in these deserts, for
the quantity of drift-sands is so small that
it can not become dangerous, though it may
cause considerable discomfort. The case
is, however, very different with the sands
of the third kind, or the so-called harkhans.
In them no tree or bush or grass-blade is to
be seen ; the sand is wholly of a drifting
nature; and the slightest puff of wind
effaces the fresh tracks of a caravan.
Wherever they meet a bush they arc de.
posited around it by the wind in hillocks
that assume a variety of shapes. When the
hillocks have covered the bushes they are
molded by the wind according to one pat-
tern, in which the side exposed to the wind
presents a gradually raised cone, and the
reverse a sharp curve, while a section might
be accurately figured by a rib. The passage
of these sands is very difficult. Horses
sink and are hardly able to extricate their

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

573

feet. It is necessary to proceed with the
utmost caution in order not to lose one's
way ; for there is nothing to serve as a
sign-post, except occasional sticks placed
by passing caravans ; and the wind blows
them down and the sand covers them. Each
successive caravan replaces them in the
most convenient spot. These sticks have
to be followed on the march, for, when the
least wind is blowing, only the most skillful
and experienced guides can trace the direc-
tion of the road. The barkhans shift from
place to place ; and plain evidence of their
drifting nature appears before the eyes of
every traveler between Merv and Bokhara.
When they move, it is usually without un-
dergoing any change of shape. Besides the
sands in the Kara-Kum, M. Lessar describes
the Icjrs, iaJcirs, and shors. The ki/rs are
firm surfaces of clay mixed with sand, only
occasionally covered with sand-hillocks, and
hardened by vegetation. They usually con-
sist of a row of valleys alternating with
eminences not exceeding from one hundred
and forty to two hundred and ten feet in
height, and are always passable. The (akir
is a very hard surface devoid of vegetation,
surrounded on all sides by sands almost
horizontal or sloping but slightly. The
clayey soil is impervious to water, but pre-
sents a very slippery surface in rainy
weather. Shors are similar in appearance
to takirs, but distinguished from them by
their soil, which is a ferruginous sand, with
gypsum protruding in many places on the
surface. They are sometimes dry and some-
times boggy ; but in any case not difficult
of passage.

Ancient Ansesthctics. — A recently dis-
covered manuscript by Abelard gives some
curious information concerning the means
employed by the surgeons of his time to
produce insensibility during their operations.
Pliny mentions a stone of Memphis which,
brayed and applied with vinegar, was put
on particular parts of the body to ana3Sthe-
tize them. He, Dioscorides, and Mattheo-
lus speak of putting patients to sleep pre-
vious to operations by causing them to take,
in bread or some other food, the juice of the
leaves or a decoction of the roots of man-
dragora, or a dose of the plant called mori-
on. Opium and ;hemp were used by the

Chinese In the poly-composite pharmacy
of the thirteenth century a preparation was
made of opium, the juices of henbane, man-
dragora, hemlock, and other plants, with
which sponges were charged. Having been
dried in the sun, the sponges were moist-
ened when it was^desired to use them, and
then applied under the noses of the patients
as chloroform sponges are now applied.

A Cliinese Dinner in High Life. — A

member of a Bremen trading-house lately
had the honor of taking dinner with a Chi-
nese magnate in Pekin, and has given an
appetizing description of the feast. The
table was set with twenty-two dishes, and
was lit with ten large lanterns, the light of
which shone clear through brightly colored
shades and ornaments. Instead of being
served in courses, the dishes were brought
in one at a time and passed to the guests
severally, beginning with the most distin-
guished or with the oldest. The merchant
has given a list of them, with his comments,
as follows : 1. Doves with mushrooms and
split bamboo-sprouts — delicious. 2. Fat-
pork fritters (or something like fritters) —
splendid. 3. Pigeon's-eggs in meat-broth,
the whites hard but transparent — very good.
4. Chinese bird's-nests with ham-chips and
bamboo-sprouts (a mucilaginous dish) — ex-
cellent. 5. Poultry, different kinds, cooked
with mushrooms and bamboo-sprouts — very
agreeable. 6. Duck, with bamboo and lotus
fruits, the fruits tasting and looking like an
acorn without its cup — tolerably good. 7.
Hog's liver fried in castor-oil — bad. 8. A
Japanese dish of mussels with malodorous
codfish and bacon — horrible. 9. Sea-crabs'
tails cooked in castor-oil, with bits of bam-
boo and ham — would have been palatable
but for the wretched oil. 10. A star made
of pieces of fowl, bacon, and dove, covered
with white of egg — very juicy. 11. Slices
of sea-fish and shark's fins, with bamboo
and mushrooms — it was hard to tell what
kind of a dish it was, but it was rather bad
than good. 12. Giblets of poultry with
morels — the morels helped the giblets
down. 13. Ham and cabbage — not particu-
larly good. 14. Hams of sucking pigs
cooked in their own juice. A pause now
ensued, during which pipes and tobacco
were brought in. The pipes held about, a

574

TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

thimbleful of tobacco — enough for two or
three whiffs — and we were kept busy fill-
ing and lighting them. 15. Land-turtles
with their eggs in castor-oil — abominable.
16. Ends of ham — good. 17. Breast of
fowl with sour cabbage — no delicacy. 18.
Stale eggs (these eggs had been kept one
month in salt and two months in moist
earth). The whites looked like burned su-
gar, and were transparent. The yolks hud
a greenish color, and the embryos appeared
dark, rolled together, and perfectly recog-
nizable— a terrible dish. Dessert : Conserve
of sitzon, a red fruit that looks like a shad-
berry, and tastes like a kind of currant —
good. Dark-green fruits, having oval seeds
like those of the plum, preserved in brandy
— good. Crabs' tails cooked in castor-oil.
A green, oval fruit with a long, hard seed,
resembling a large green olive, but sharp
and sour, and disagreeable to the European
taste. Light cakes — very fine. Nuts, al-
monds, and castor-oil seeds, roasted and
candied with sugar — good, even to the cas-
tor-oil seeds. Macaroni with sesame-seeds
and three-cornered cakes covered with cas-
tor-oil seeds — passable. Various bonbons
very moderate ; baked lichis. The lichi is
the finest of Chinese fruits, having a white
flesh with the taste of the best grapes — ex-
cellent. Shaddocks and mandarin oranges
— good. The only drinks were tea, very
weak and without sugar, and samion, a rice-
wine, which is drunk hot like tea, and is
wretched stuff.

Tompcratnre of Germination.— M. Ilell-
riegcl has undertaken, in a series of experi-
ments on eighteen species of cultivated
plants, to ascertain the lowest temperature
at which seeds are capable of germinating.
The seeds, sprinkled with distilled water,
were planted in large receptacles filled with
vegetable mold that were raised to constant
temperatures of 48°, 40°, 38°, 35°, and 32°,
and kept there from thirty-five to sixty
hours. It was found that rye and winter
wheat germinated at 32°. Barley and oats
showed their cotyledons at 32°, but did not
start till 35° were reached. Indian corn re-
quired 48°. The turnip germinated at 32°,
flax at 35°, the pea and clover at 35°, the
bean and lupin at 38°, asparagus at 35°, the
carrot at 38°, and the beet at 40°. The re-

spiratory function requires little heat, and
operates even in the entire absence of light.
Ileat and light are, however, most favorable
for the assimilation of carbonic acid and its
conversion into carbon. But little impor-
tance is attached to the color of the light.

Dnst in Rooms. — Professor W. Mattieu
Williams contends that minute particles of
dust are repelled or driven away from heated
bodies, and that the rcpuls^ion operates in
the open air and confined spaces alike.
Large bodies, he adds, are similarly re-
pelled, but as the repulsion acts only super-
ficially and the inertia of a mass of given
matter increases with the cube of its through
dimension, and its surface only with the
square of the same, the repulsion of such
masses demands special and delicate arrange-
ments to render it visible. Assuming this
view — that dust is repelled from warmer to
cooler bodies, be those bodies solid or gase-
ous— to be proved, then, " if the walls,
floor, ceiling, and furniture of a room be
warmer than the air of the room, the dust
will be repelled from the walls, etc., to the
air; while if the air be warmer than the
walls the dust will be projected from the
air to the walls." Hence those methods of
warming rooms are to be preferred which
heat the air rather than the solid objects ;
and this, in Mr. "Williams's opinion, should
exclude open fires.

NOTES.

The committee of the American Asso-
ciation on Indexing Chemical Literature, at
the last meeting of the Association reported
progress, by Professor William K. Is'icliols,
on carbon monoxides ; Professor L. P. Kcn-
nicutt, on meteorites ; and Professor C. E.
Monroe, on explosives. Dr. II. C. Bolton
has published a catalogue of chemical pe-
riodicals, and Hans Wilder, independently
of the Association, a list of nearly nine hun-
dred chemical tests known by the names
of their authors. Dr. Bolton's second in-
dex of the literature of uranium has been
accepted. Dr. F. E. Engelhardt has offered
to imdcrtake an index to the literature of
common salt. The committee's report pre-
sents a scheme for indexing scientific litera-
ture, in both author .nnd subject indexes,
prepared by Professor William Frear.

M. Demar^av, liy means of an induc-
tion-coil made of comparatively large and

NOTES.

575

short wire, obtains a spark, without having
to employ strong currents, which is of suffi-
ciently high temperature to give the spectra
of all the known elements. Atmospheric
lines of the second order are not obtained
with it, and the nebulous bands of nitrogen
and the lines of the electrodes only rarely.

Dr. Daniel G. Bkinton, of Philadel-
phia, has been announced a laureate of the
Societo Amcricaiue de France, and awarded
the medal of the society, for his works on
the " Aboriginal Tongues of America."

Professor Enrico Caporali, in a paper
on the " Pythagoric P^orraula in Cosmical Ev-
olution," published in the Italian quarterly,
" La Nuova Scicnza," holds, in general, in
opposition to Herbert Spencer's theory of
mechanical causes, that all evolution is due
more to internal energy than to outward
conditions.

The invention of binocular opera-glasses
is generally attributed to the Bohemian
Capuchin, P. Schyd. M. G. Govi, an Italian
investigator, has, however, found that the
first glasses of the kind were presented to
King Louis XIII, by an optician of Paris
named Choroz, in 1620.

LuNDSTROii has made investigations of
the adaptations with which plants are pro-
vided for making the most of the water that
comes to them in the shape of rain or dew.
He has classified them as follows : Depres-
sions in the shape of leaf-cups or of grooves
in the epidermis ; hair-formations, in tufts
or borders ; hydroscopic membranes in the
shape of larger or smaller spots or stripes
on the epidermis ; and anatomical adapta-
tions, such as water-absorbing textures and
swelling glands. It is a noteworthy fact
that all of these adaptations are wanting in
the submerged parts of plants.

M. C. Andre, who is connected with a
light-house at Pondicherry, India, tells of
a fog-cloud about six feet broad which ap-
peared at the top of the room-wall he was
facing, while simultaneously a quick, sharp,
and loud report was heard under his table.
It sounded as if the whole underside of the
table-top had been struck a hard blow,
yet the table did not appear to have been
moved, nor anything upon it. After the
report, his plate took to spinning around
on'j the table without any noise, showing
that, though it had been thrown up from
the tabic, it had not ceased to be touching
it. This account is a part of the proceed-
ings of the French Academy of Sciences of
November 5th, and is designated a " meteor-
ological phenomenon."

M. PniLipPE TnoMAS has discovered
some very extensive deposits of phosphate
of lime in the Tertiary strata of Southwest-
ern Tunis,

M. LcDovic Breto.v has propounded a
new theory of the formation of coal. He
believes it is produced by the sinking of
floating islands like those which now occur
on many lakes and rivers, and which are
conspicuous on the Upper Nile. These isl-
ands are composed chiefly of turf, which,
being swallowed up by the water, becomes
fossilized at the bottom.

M. Treve has described to the French
Academy of Sciences a phenomenon of a
beautiful green ray which he has observed
to follow the disappearance, for a quarter of
a second after sunset, of the upper limb of
the sun's disk. The flash of the ray is as
quick as that of lightning, and can be seen
only under unusual conditions of clearness
of the sky. The author explains the ap-
pearance under M. Chevreul's theory of the
simultaneous contrast of colors.

M. DE LoEioL announced to the French
Association the completion of his work in
the " Paleontologie Fran9aise," on the fossM
crinoids of France. He has described and
figured 209 species, 89 of which are new to
science. In the same work M. Cotteau has
described 525 species, belonging to 50
genera, of EcJddnce. Nearly all of these
species are characteristic of the beds in
which they are found.

M. Wroblewski has observed that at-
mospheric air in liquefying does not follow
the laws of liquefaction of a simple gas,
but behaves like a mixture the elements of
which are subject to different laws. K air
so behaves that it has been possible, on su-
perficial observation, to speak of its own
critical point, it is because the difference
in the curves of tension of the vapors of
oxygen and nitrogen is so slight as easily
to escape notice. Air may be made to give
two distinct liquids, of different appearance
and composition, one above the other, and
separated by a distinct meniscus ; the lower
liquid containing by volume about 111 per
cent of oxygen, and the upper one, 17 or
18 per cent.

A Merovingian sepulchre has been dis-
covered near Montceaux, France, which
seems to be so far unique in its way, and is
supposed to date from the fourth or fifth
century. It contained a mummified Prank-
ish warrior, with his arms and clothes. The
sarcophagus was made of a soft, calcareous
stone, and had lids of the same material.
The mummy was wrapped in a linen shirt
and a woolen robe, with a belt-buckle in
perfect preservation, and an iron sword.
The shoes were also in good condition, and
fastened with narrow straj-js of leather. At
the feet was a funereal vase. The discov-
erer had replaced the sarcophagus and cov-
ered it up, so as to have it in safe keepin[;
for future observation ; but thieves came

576

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

in the night to steal it away, and, hardly
had they touched the skeleton, when bones,
dress, and arms all fell into dust,

M. Gaston Tissandier's " La Nature,"
of Paris, has just entered upon its four-
teenth volume, and, in recording the fact,
announces that its career has been one of
growing success. It began with a circula-
tion of :2,000 copies, and now prints 15,000.
It is a beautifully printed and jirofusely il-
lustrated journal, whose aim is to direct the
studies of French youth, "now eminently
industrious and thirsting for knowledge be-
cause it has profited by the lessons of a re-
cent past," into the channels which will be
most beneficial. Besides recording clearly
and concisely what occurs in every other
field of science, it gives especial attention
to the exi>osiiion of new applications of
electricity, and of new conceptions and ex-
periments in aerial navigation.

Colonel B. E. Branfill, late of the Sur-
vey of India, renjarks as a noticeable feat-
ure in the meteorology of the southeast
coast of that country the frequent lightning-
storms, which occur daily, for weeks to-
gether, before the setting in of the south-
west monsoon, unaccompanied by rain or by
any sound of thunder. They are seen along
the coast where the land and sea breezes
alternate, and along the line of the Ghats,
where the surface-current is thrown up into
the upper and opposite current of the at-
mosphere. In this region the rare phe-
nomenon of interference fringes is very fre-
quently to be seen.

The purpose of ventilating cellars is to
make tliem cool and dry. They are often
ventilated so as to be warm and damp. This
is done when the air admitted to them fro.n
without is considerably warmer than the air
within them. Coming into the cooler cel-
lar, this air, while it raises the temperature
of the cellar-air, itself is cooled, and depos-
its its moisture, which soon becomes evi-
dent as visible or palpable dampness. There-
fore, all the ventilation of cellars in warm
weather should be done at night ; and the
cellar should be kept closed between sunrise
and sunset.

M. Trouvelot, in a paper about the late
" new star " in the nebula in Andromeda,
discusses the question whether the star has
any physical connection witli the nebula.
He believes that it has not, liocausc, in pro-
portion as the star diminished again in
brightness, the nebula acfiuircd its pristine
form. Thus the impression was given that
Hie change noticed in the appearance of the
nebula during the conspicuous visibility of
the new star was only apparent, and was
due to the superior light of the star having
overpowered for a time the surrounding
portions of the nebula.

M. Ch. Tellier, in a recent experiment,
raised twenty-five hundred quarts of water
in an hour from a depth of twenty feet,
with a power generated simply by the natu-
ral heat of the sun.

According to accounts in " Land and
Water," the gradual extinction of the buf-
falo is being followed up by an alarming
increase in the depredations of wolves upon
the sheep and cattle ranches. Both the gray
wolf and the coyote are fast becoming more
numerous. The sheep have suffered for
some time from their ravages, and now
the cattle are attacked. One pack of gray
wolves, within fifty miles of Fort McLeod,
has been known to attack and pull down
steers two years old. The coyotes follow
the fiercer animals, and are satisfied with
what they leave, or with the smaller calves.

OBITUARY NOTES.

M. Boulet, President of the French
Academy of Sciences, died November 30th,
of a disease from which he bad suffered
long and painfully. His special field of
research was in veterinary science, from
which he drew many lessons beneficial in
their application to human pathology. He
appreciated the value of M. Pasteur's labors
from a very early stage, and gave them his
earnest co-operation ; and his own researches
in hydrophobia, epizootics, and their reme-
dies and preventives, entitle him to a dis-
tinguished place in the annals of contem-
porary biology. lie was the author of books
on experimental disease and on contagion,
and his lectures at the museum have been
highly spoken of.

TnE death is reported of M. Rabuteau,
author of valuable researches in experi-
mental therapeutics and chemical physiolo-
gy. He was particularly interested in the
investigation of supposed relations between
the chemical composition and the physio-
logical action of various bodies. He was
for twenty years one of the most active
members of the French Biological Society.

Captain Mangin, the inventor of the sys-
tem of optical telegraphy which has recent-
ly been introduced for use in the French
army, has recently died of apoplexy, at the
age of forty-five years.

Dr. Thomas Andrews, F. R. S., for many
years, till 1879, Professor of Chemistry in
Queen's College, Belfast, has recently died,
in the seventy-first year of his age. lie
made early researches into the liquefaction
of the gases, presided over the British As-
sociation at the (Jlasgow meeting in 1SY6,
and in his address predicted the ultimate
solution of the question of liquefaction,
which was accomplished a year and a half
afterward.

JOHN BENNET LA WES.

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY.

MARCH. 1886.

BIOLOGICAL TEACHING IN COLLEGES.*

Br WILLIAM G. FAELOW,

PROFESSOR OF CRYPTOGAMIC BOTANT, HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

THE general use of the word biology in this country dates from a
period scarcely more remote than ten or twelve years ago, and,
even at the present day, in spite of the fact that a good many of our
schools and colleges announce courses on the subject, and even the
newspapers occasionally discuss its popular aspects, the question is not
unfrequently asked by persons generally well informed. What is bi-
ology? The question is not easily answered, for, if we say that biolo-
gy is nothing but the essence of botany and zoology — which is the
fact — then the inquirer not unreasonably asks why we now hear so
much about biology, while we formerly heard only of botany and zo-
ology, and the inference is that biology is nothing but a fine-sounding
word newly coined to take the place of what used to be called natural
history. This is in a certain sense true, but biology means rather
natural history as it is, than natural history as it used to be, studied.
It is to natural history — I use the terms as adopted in this country,
without considering what their original application may have been —
it is to natural history what reform is in politics : as reform seeks to
elevate existing parties by forcing them to correct abuses and to in-
fuse new life by discussing questions of the day rather than past is-
sues, so, under the guise of biology, the attempt has been made to in-
fuse new life into natural history by substituting for the exclusively
descriptive study of plants and animals a broader science which shall
include also histology, physiology, and the history of development.

* Read before the Society of Naturalists of the Eastern United States,
vnr.. xxviii. — 3Y

578 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

As a protest against a too narrow view of natural history, biology
attracted a large number of advocates in this country, who hoped that
the new, or, if you please, the newly named science, would not only en-
large the views of professional and amateur naturalists, but would also
furnish a valuable aid in the education of the young. It is not my
purpose to speak of the changed aspect of professional and expert
studies, viewed from a biological stand-point, but merely to consider
the effect which has been produced on elementary instruction in col-
leges and schools. Within the last ten years a large number of books
and papei's has appeared in print, intended to show teachers how to
teach and students how to study plants and animals. Some of them
are excellent, and certainly, as far as books go, they leave little to be
desired. They all start with the advice that a beginner should study
plants and animals themselves, rather than what has been written
about them. In other words, the first thing is to learn to observe.
In inculcating the importance of observation the modern biologists
are only repeating the advice of the naturalists of the old school, al-
though it must be said to the credit of the former that they have
insisted upon observation with a frequency and urgency previously
unknown. But how is one to begin ? The biological method sug-
gests a careful study of a few types which will give the beginner a
general acquaintance with the essential structure of both the animal
and vegetable kingdoms ; whereas, by the older method, it was the
fashion to study rather minutely the external characters of a con-
siderable number of species of certain groups of plants or animals, and
the general view of the two kingdoms was obtained, if obtained at
all, from lectures, and not from an actual study of specimens in the
laboratory.

As I have said, the new mode of study has been more or less in
vogue in our leading schools and colleges for about ten years, and we
ought to ask, with what success ? Has it accomplished what was ex-
pected ? Or, if not, what is the reason ? It has been my lot to teach
one branch of biology to college classes, and, as my experience seems to
me to show that, in some respects, the result is disappointing, I should
like to state some of the difficulties which have presented themselves
in my case, not that I have lost faith in the system at all, but because
my experience apparently shows that considerable improvement must
still be made before the best results can be attained.

The students who come under my charge, about thirty-five annu-
ally, are probably in intelligence and industry good representatives
of the average student as found in our colleges. They come from all
parts of the country, and while many of them have been fitted for
college at the different classical schools, where the great object is to
prepare boys to answer certain examination questions, education as
such being considered of very slight importance, others are fitted in
schools where natural science is ostensibly taught, and others still

BIOLOGICAL TEACHING IN COLLEGES. 579

come from distant colleges and technical schools. The course is
strictly an elementary one, and no previous knowledge of botany or
zoology is required. As a fact, a considerable number of the class
have studied botany before entering college, and, as others have not,
I am able to compare the results of different methods of study in the
fitting-schools.

After a few directions concerning the use of the compound micro-
scopes placed before them, some simple material is given them to ex-
amine. Considering the large number of good books which insist
upon proper training of the observing powers, and knondng how ex-
tensively they are read by teachers, I might hope that, at least, a good
share of my class would know how to set to work. But what is the
case ? The first question asked by about three fourths of any class
is sure to be, " What do you wish me to observe ? " What a question !
Is this the result of several years' training, that a young man eighteen
years of age, or older, must be told just what to observe when a
preparation is put before him ? Has it come to this, that, while a boy
eight or ten years old will examine with interest objects placed before
him, a college student will not examine a preparation until he has
been told exactly what he is to see in it? When I reply, "I wish
you to examine whatever there is to be seen in your preparation,"
there is a look of astonishment, sometimes shading off into dismay.
That an instructor should expect students to look at an object before
them and make out its structure, or attempt to make out its structure,
by themselves, seems to them something quite unheard of, and they evi-
dently feel that there is a certain meanness attaching to one who will
not tell them just what they must see. It has never entered their
heads that, while an instructor may be able to tell them what he him-
self sees in the object to be studied, he can not tell them what they
will see in it, and that it is only after they have studied the object for
themselves and attempted to form an idea of its structure that he can
explain what is obscure or correct what is eiToneous. Evidently the
greater part of the students regard the objects placed before them as
so many diagrams, and the instructor is to serve the same pui'pose as
the " explanation of figure so-and-so " in a text -book.

The question naturally arises, where were those who ask, " What
do you wish me to observe ? " fitted for college ? Do they all come from
the classical schools, where the only natural history studied is a three
weeks' cram of Gray's " How Plants Grow " ? Unfortunately, they do
not. Nothing better, perhaps, could have been expected from schools
where nearly all the instruction is confined to languages, and where
the inquiring spirit and fondness for observation natural to children,
are suppressed to a great extent. Some of the students in question
have come from schools, or worse still, from colleges, where natural
history is taught, and where use is made of some of the excellent books
to which I have already referred. It is evident that a good book is

58o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

not enough, for there can be no doubt that many teachers take the
very books ■\vhich emphatically urge the necessity of observation, and
use them just as they would a grammar, or a school history, so that the
observation, in this case, may be said to consist in observing what is
said on a certain page of a certain book, and not in watching any
plant or animal.

Supposing that I am correct in believing that about three fourths
of a class ask the question, " What do you wish me to observe ? " there
still remain one fourth who do not ask the question. Among these
are some who are by nature good observers, or who have been well
trained, but the number of these is very small. The remainder consists
of those who have already studied biology according to the very latest
method with all the modern improvements. They do not ask what I
wish them to observe, but, on the contrary, begin to lecture to me
about the object under consideration and things in general. If I give
them some yeast to examine, they tell me at once all about its his-
tory, and show me the spores which it seems necessary that the yeast
should have to make it agree with the books. It makes no difference
if I substitute a quantity of starch for the yeast. If I only call it
yeast, it will have all the book-marks of yeast. This over-educated
class of young men is very entertaining, but very hard to teach.
Everything is grist to their mill. For them the ubiquitous air-bubble
makes a simple but sufficient nucleus, if it is necessary to have a nu-
cleus, or it will serve equally well as a spore if spores are desired.
Nothing is so insignificant that they can not apply to it a big name,
and no theory is so complex that it can not be dragged in to explain
the most self-evident cases.

I have said enough to show that, unless my experience is an excep-
tional one, in spite of all the talk on the subject, boys at school are
not taught to observe as they should be, and that even those teachers
who use good text-books frequently use them as means of imparting
facts easily and quickly by the old method, rather than as an aid in the
scientific training of the faculties which must form the basis of any
serious study of biology. One fact has surprised me. Some of the
best observers among my students have been persons who fitted at
the classical schools, where the training is exclusively linguistic and
mathematical. To be sure, thoy have been considered a bad lot by
some of their instructors, and I presume that they paid little attention
to their studies at school. Perhaps it is in consequence of this very
neglect that their natural powers of observation have been less im-
paired than those of their fellows who have learned more and seen
less.

It seems a great pity that students should come to college so ill-
fitted, as are the majority, to undertake biological work. But we
must accept things as they are, and there is no use in attempting to
take the second step before the first has been taken. If the school can

BIOLOGICAL TEACHING IN COLLEGES. 581

not or will not teach observation, then it must be taught in college,
no matter if it does seem to be child's work. In colleges, however,
it is absolutely impossible to find the time or the means for training
every one to become an observer, and we are obliged to distinguish
between two different classes of persons in arranging courses in biol-
ogy. The first and much the larger class in Eastern colleges includes
all those who are preparing themselves for literary, legal, and other
similar pursuits, and who wish to know the most important facts about
animal and plant life, but who, after they have entered college, can
not afford the time to train themselves for strictlji scientific studies.
This class must of necessity be taught by lectures and, perhaps, a few
demonstrations, and, as far as the method is concerned, it is the same
as that pursued in teaching literature, history, or other subjects in
which general information is sought. Nothing further need be said
with regard to biological instruction intended for this class of students,
for in several of our colleges the instruction of this kind is distinctly
good and constantly improving.

The second class of students includes those who are intending to
become professional naturalists, teachers of natural science, or medi-
cal practi'tioners ; in short, all who need to know plants and animals
practically and the methods of biological investigation. Of course,
every naturalist and teacher of natural science should have a practi-
cal acquaintance with plants and animals. So, too, should every re-
spectable physician be trained in methods of biological study. To
him every patient should be a field of research. By his own powers
of observation he is to find out signs and symptoms of which the pa-
tient can not or will not give information. Merely listening to lect-
ures, however entertaining or full of information, is not enough for
this class of students. Woi-k in the laboratory is necessary, and^
in my opinion, that work had better precede any detailed course of
lectures.

Being myself merely a botanist, I can only speak of the way in
which plant-life may be taught, but, as far as the method of instruc-
tion is concerned, what is true of botany is, I presume, essentially true
of zoology. Considering the age of college students, and the neces-
sity of using the compound microscope, if one intends to make a prac-
tical study of biology, it seems to me best that the instructor should
begin with some simple form like yeast or a unicellular alga.

There are other reasons besides, which make it desirable to begin
with the smaller forms which can only be studied with the micro-
scope. As it is necessary, under present conditions, to begin by
teaching a student how to observe for himself, it is better to use for
this purpose small forms which he has probably never seen before, or,
if he has read books on biology, a mixture of several small forms
which he can not recognize from pictures. The plan of recommend-
ing any text-book in the beginning is very injurious. If books are

582 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

used, by far tlie greater part of any class will, from mere force of
babit, commit the contents, and then imagine tbey see everytbing
mentioned in tbe books and notbing more. After tbey bave been
trained to observe, they may be allowed to consult books, but not be-
fore. What is true of books is true of lectures on objects taught in
tbe laboratory. Tbe students always wish to bave tbe lecture first
and see the object afterward. It seems to them to lighten the work,
but tbey fail to recognize, what is evident to the instructor, that they
are not learning so much or so well.

Again, few stuflents have any proper conception of solid bodies,
and, to train them on this point, nothing is so good as some opaque
body which has to be studied by microscopic sections. For this pur-
pose I use pieces of pine-wood which are given to the class early in
the term, just as soon as they bave acquired a little facility in the use
of the microscope. A piece large enough to show the annual rings is
given to each student, who, by looking at the rings, can tell from what
part of the trunk his piece came. After some simple directions about
cutting, the student is told to make sections in three directions : at
right angles to the trunk, and in the directions of the radius and tan-
gent, and in the order named. After they have made and drawn the
first section, if asked what they think is tbe structure of the wood,
almost all of them will at once say that it is composed of square cells.
If one asks what they mean by square cells, they say cells shaped lik$
dice. In classes of from thirty to forty persons, I have never found
more than four or five students — in one class there was only one — who
knew enough to say that they could not tell what the structure of the
wood was until tbey had seen sections in other directions. The cross-
section made, they proceed to the radial section. Having already
made up their minds from the cross-section that the wood is formed
of cubical cells, the radial section, with its long tubes showing the
peculiar disk-like markings of coniferous wood on tbe walls, utterly
confounds them ; and it requires considerable time before they give
up the attempt to make what they see in the radial section agree with
the cubical cells which exist only in their own imaginations, and
realize that it is only by mentally combining the transverse and radial
sections that they can arrive at any correct conception of the structure
of the wood. Finall}^, the disk-like markings are to be explained.
After trying ineffectually to pass them off as nuclei, vacuoles, or other
structures which they have heard are to be found in vegetable cells,
they are finally induced to see whether they can not find any traces of
them in the other section, and so, slowly, they make out their real
nature.

No work which I ever have to do as an instructor is so utterly
dreary as that of forcing students to bave a correct conception of
solids. It is really a lesson in solid geometry ; a subject which, as we
all know, many persons can only learn with great difficulty. But,

BIOLOGICAL TEACHING IN COLLEGES. 583

dliScult or not, the training in this direction is so important that it
■warrants the amount of time and labor spent. As a rule, I fear,
classes do not see why I give them pine-wood to study. They dislike
the work very much, and feel that they have learned comparatively
little. If the only object were to know the structure of pine-wood, I
could tell them that in a few moments. What they have learned,
v>-ithout being aware of it at the time, is the way to examine solid,
opaque bodies, a category including by far the greater part of biologi-
cal structures. Once done with the pine-wood, progress is always
comparatively rapid, and I can only conclude that the classes are
strengthened by the work done on the wood.

I need not occupy your time with any further account of what can
best be taught in laboratories to beginners. There is nothing to be
said against the plan laid down in the manuals in common use, pro-
vided the student is not allowed to follow it mechanically, and look at
nothing which is not mentioned in the book. A good instructor is, of
coui'se, so well informed about the subject he teaches that he can turn
almost any material to account. In my own case, it would be very
inconvenient to furnish the same material year after year ; but almost
anything can be used to illustrate the typical modes of growth and
reproduction in the vegetable kingdom, which is what the beginner
needs to know.

There are, however, a few points to be considered, which bear on
the relations of the instructor to the student in college classes. It
should be borne in mind that one is not dealing with school-boys, but
with young men who, if they are as ignorant of biology as school-
boys, have, however, learned other things, and whose development,
obtained from studies at school, so far from making them better
able, has, in the majority of cases, made them only the less fit to take
up biological studies. If they have much to learn, they have also
something to unleai-n. They have been taught to rush at a fact as a
bull rushes at a red rag — for the purpose of tossing it away im-
mediately. The position of the instructor is not an easy one. He is
under constant restraint, as he must not tell the student, but must, if
possible, make the student tell him, the structure of what lies before
him. lie is in the position of a boxing-master, who might easily floor
his pupil by a single blow, but who must, by the exertion of great
prudence and skill, contrive to let the pupil hit him. By a judicious
series of questions, suggestions of possibilities or alternatives, the
student may be kept in the right track and yet do all the work of ad-
vancing toward the truth himself. Under no circumstances should an
instructor let a student, who is a beginner, discover what his own
views are about any point to be studied. Although they may be
Avretched observers of natural objects, it does not follow that students
are not good judges of human nature. "Without any instruction they
manage to become adepts in that direction. They often hope, by the

584 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

exercise of ingenuity in detecting allusions to what they are studying,
in remarks carelessly made by the instructor, to find out what his pet
ideas and theories are. And where is the instructor who is not
pleased to find his own favorite opinions ardently, and, as it seems,
independently indorsed even by a student ?

Another difficulty is the almost universal habit which students
have of using technical or semi-technical terms which, in reality, con-
vey to them no idea whatever. They think they have comprehended
the thing when they christen it with a high-sounding name, and they
do not stop to ask themselves whether they understand what the name
means. Tlie student who called a hole in a cell-wall a bioplast was
quite pleased with his achievement until he was asked what a bioplast
was. The suggestion that a hole might, without any great violence
to the English language, be called a hole, was timely if not pleasing.
Evidently, for an educated man, the art of calling a spade a spade is
difficult to acquire. Day after day, one is obliged to ask students to
translate their lingo — I don't know what else to call it — into English.
Frequently they can not. At length they begin to see that they are
only deceiving themselves by using words which they do not compre-
hend to describe structures which they do not understand. It fre-
quently happens that, after a student has described an object under
the microscope in what he considers fine scientific language, he admits
that he does not understand the structure of the object at all, but, on
making him start over again, and describe it in plain English, he finds
that it all comes out clearly enough. It is evident, for instance, that,
so long as a student thinks he must call all round bodies in cells
nuclei, he will soon have such a stock of nuclei on hand that he Avill
be hopelessly confused, and the matter is not much improved if, as a
last resort, he indiscriminately calls some of his superfluous nuclei
vacuoles and others bioplasts. The tendency to use meaningless
words is not, by any means, confined to biological students, but, in a
laboratory where one is examining something definite, the evil should
certainly be checked by frequent demands for English translations of
verbose rubbish.

In giving you a somewhat detailed account of my own experience,
gentlemen, I am probably saying nothing new to you. It is an old
story, and perhaps a monotonous one. If I have spent considerable
time in stating the difficulties in the way of college instruction, it is
because I see that we must first have a clear conception of what the
difficulties are before we can make any real progress. The most
serious obstacle, it seems to me, is not so much that boys are not
taught biology at school, as that they are not taught to observe, but
are, on the other hand, taught to memorize text-books, and to regard
education as the acquiring of facts in the most rapid and easiest way.
It is a mistake to suppose that he is the best teacher who gives the
most information in the shortest time with the smallest expenditure

BIOLOGICAL TEACHING IN COLLEGES. 585

of labor on the part of his hearers. Such a teacher fails in a most im-
portant respect. The pupil under his guidance becomes a passive
recipient of knowledge, and is not trained to rely on himself or to be-
come an active worker in any direction. Patting one on the back and
saying, " Don't you see this ? " and " Don't you see that ? " does not
tend to produce a very robust mental development. You can not
make a boy a good mountain-climber by carrying him up the Mount
Washington Railway, no matter at how rapid a rate ; and, in ordinary
life, there are many mountains to be climbed, up which there is no
railway.

As far as I can judge from the qualifications of students who come
under my instruction, the schools have within the last six or seven
years made no perceptible progress in training the observing powers.
The good advice given and the good text-books by competent author-
ities have not, as yet, produced any marked effect. As far as element-
ary training is concerned we are about where we were ten years ago.
The college-instructor must still regard the student who studies under
him as a school-boy whose capacity for observing and investigating
natural objects has been blunted by a one-sided course of instruction
at school. Hence we are still under the necessity in college courses of
beginning at the very beginning, and, if there is any mistake in our
colleges, it is that the instruction in biology is pitched in too high
a key. For those who are to study practically animal and plant life
it is better to stick to commonplace topics for a year or two, and insist
upon the careful examination of living plants and animals, befoi'e pro-
ceeding to an elaborate discussion of theories which, however great
their value to mature scientific minds, would easily lead a beginner
into mere vague speculation. The distinction between lecture courses
for the general information of those who are not intending to enter
pursuits which demand practical training in biology and courses for
those who do need such training should be carefully adhered to.
Again, an instructor should not hurry with his elementary classes.
Knowing how much there is to be learned, he naturally feels obliged
to teach as much as possible. But it is better to be slow and sure in
the beginning, and, if necessary, hurry at a later stage.

One serious difficulty under which our colleges labor in laboratory
instruction is the lack of a sufficient number of suitable assistants.
This is not usually because properly qualified assistants can not be
obtained, but because they can not be obtained for the salaries which
are usually paid. In teaching elementary classes of from twenty-five
to fifty persons in branches requiring the use of the compound micro-
scope, one assistant is not enough. To do the work properly, at least
two, and, better still, three assistants are needed, supposing, as is gen-
erally the case, that all the work is done on three days of the week.

The question arises whether we are ever to expect that the ele-
ments of biology will be properly taught in schools. At present there

586 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

are very few schools where they are well taught, and information is
lacking to show that the number is increasing. Good books exist, but
books are only of secondary importance, and certainly good teachers
are few indeed. The improvement in the quality of college graduates
who could teach biology in schools, if there was any demand for it,
gives room for hope. Under the present fashion of cramming for
college there is not much to hope for in the ordinary fitting-schools,
and it would be much better if they abandoned altogether the very
palpable sham which they now call botany. More could probably be
accomplished in the grammar and primary schools where there is more
time, and where the pupils are of an age when they naturally feel
interested in plants and animals. Of course, in such schools one
should begin with the larger flowering plants and not attempt to use
the compound microscope. Certainly, in schools in the country or in
places where the children frequently see plants growing, botany, if
well taught, would be admirably adapted for awakening and develop-
ing the spirit of obseiwation and investigation. In large cities the
case is somewhat different. There the children hardly ever see plants
growing, and the expense of providing them with the few flowers
shown at school is hardly warranted by the good derived therefrom.
As the main object is to acquire the power of observing, I am by no
means certain that, in large cities, physics, or at least mechanics, may
not prove to be better adapted to the purpose than botany or zoology.

DISCEIMINATIOK IN EAILWAY EATES.

Bt GEREIT L. LANSING.

II.

HAVING already considered those discriminations affecting per-
sons and things, there now remains the consideration of rates
affecting places.

All discriminations favoring places result from the competition
existing at the favored points. This is of several kinds : First, the
competition of parallel railroad lines or water - routes ; second, the
competition of markets ; and, third, the efforts of the railroad com-
pany to increase its profits by increasing its trafiic at lower rates.
These operate sometimes singly, sometimes by more than one, some-
times all together. They also exist in different proportions, and so the
direct effect of one or the other can not, in most cases, be measured.

I. The competition of parallel lines or water-courses includes those
cases where two or more points on a railroad are accessible also by
another railroad or water-route. The struggle for the trafiic of such
a place results in lower rates than to places less favorably situated.

DISCRIMINATION IN RAILWAY RATES. 587

If the competition is between railroads alone, the conditions of their
sei'vice being approximately equal as to cost, agreements are made to
abide by established tariffs, and such tariffs may be but little lower
than to non-competitive points. There is, then, but little discrimina-
tion. But sooner or later the struggle for the traific leads one road
to cut the tariff rates ; the other retaliates by a greater cut, and this
often ends in a reckless war of rates. After the excitement of such
a contest has somewhat passed away, the injuries inflicted become
more felt, till at length reason leads to a restoration of the tariffs.
During such a contest there is an unreasonable discrimination, as the
rates are frequently less than the cost of the service. The only solu-
tion of the problem which has yet been found is to remove the incen-
tive to cut the rates by fairly dividing the traffic betv/een the compet-
ing lines. The common method of accomplishing this is to pool the
receipts and to redistribute them on percentages based upon experi-
ence and decided by an arbitrator. This is the only instance, so far
as I am informed, in which the natural principles regulating the rates
of transportation lead to an unjust discrimination ; and in this case
the loss to the railroads, by carrying the traffic for less than cost, is
perhaps greater than the injury to the community by the disturbance
of values and oversupply which accomj^anies such contests.

So far, then, as the competition at a given place between railroads
alone is concerned, the discrimination is regulated to a great extent
by the harmonious working of the roads themselves. In competition
with water-routes, however, on account of the inequality of their cir-
cumstances as to the cost of the service and the ease of adding new
competitive boats, a discrimination must always exist. It is beyond
the power of the railroad or any person or other body to prevent it,
except by the heroic remedy of interdicting the traffic by rail. The
water-route is free to all, its highway is furnished by nature, and the
carriage is the only item of cost which must be borne by the traflSc.
The railroad companj'^, on the other hand, has two existences : it is the
owner of a public highway, and is a common carrier. The rate of
transportation is thus composed of the toll for the use of the high-
way, and the charge for the service of carriage. This is a distinction
which is not made in the popular mind, though it is always recognized
by the law, and is important to bear in mind in the present instance ;
for it affords a justification of the discrimination made in favor of
places having water competition, besides that contained in the neces-
sity of the discrimination to secure the traffic.

"We may take first the simple case of those places having no un-
usual amount of traffic, and located anywhere on the line of road,
either local stations or through points ; the only peculiarity about
them being that they are on a competitive water-route. In those
other cases where the favored places are great markets as well as
competitive points, the problem becomes more complicated and will

588 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

be considered afterward. On many large railroads there are stations
of no particular importance in size, which may also be reached by a
river or by the sea. As they are not markets for any considerable
territory, but have grown from restricted local requirements, they are
not to be compared with other important depots on the same water-
route. Such a place offers no more traffic to the railroad than many
other local stations to which the railroad is the only means of trans-
portation. The argument then, that the railroad should reduce its
rates on account of an unusually large traffic, is foreign to the fact.
The shippers simply demand that rates shall be unusually low, or the
traffic will take the route by water. The terms offered to the railroad
are, to take the traffic, say for illustration, at one half the rates which
are charged to other places on the road of equal distances, or not to
take it at all. Now, in considering the discriminations between things,
we have seen that in taking traffic thus offered as compared with not tak-
ing it, the only items of expense which would be affected are connected
with the cost of cari'iage. In either case the fixed charges must be
borne by the remaining traffic. And we have also shown, in illustra-
tion, that the fixed charges in the avei'age case may be roughly stated
at two thirds of the total cost, so the traffic offered at half rates would
afford a small profit above the cost of carriage. To the railroad, then,
the case resolves itself into the simple question whether it will take
what it can get, or go without. There is no hesitation as to the decis-
ion : the rate demanded is given from necessity.

That this is a source of no injustice to the less fortunately located
places is shown from their history. Before the construction of the
railroad the non-competitive points — or as many as existed at that
time — were supplied with transportation solely by the slow and ex-
pensive means of animals and wagons. The construction of the rail-
road reduced the time and the cost of transportation to a fraction of
the former amount. Along the line new towns sprang up, and both
the old and the new increased in population and prosperity by the im-
pulse to production and industries furnished by cheaper and quicker
transportation. By the construction of the railroad the places which
existed before increased many times in wealth and population ; while
to the same cause the numberless other places owe their existence.
These facts are among the most prominent of the unprecedented ma-
terial development of this country during the last half-century. The
railroad has been to the inland places of immeasurably more benefit
than to any others. It is, in fact, for these that it was constructed.
The places on the water-routes were already supplied with a cheap and
sufficiently rapid means of transportation ; they were but incidentally
passed by the railroad in the course of its extension. With the water-
route the highway is furnished by nature, to the inland place it is sup-
plied by man. The traffic must in each case alike pay the cost of car-
riage ; but, the water-route being free to all, no toll to points on it can be

DISCRIMINATION IN RAILWAY RATES. 589

charged on any highway. As the railroad was not built for the traffic
of such points, which were, before its construction, provided with trans-
portation facilities, but was for those places to which the highways of
nature did not extend, there seems no injustice in charging the ex-
penses of the highway to the places for which it was constructed.

It is sometimes stated that non-competitive points should have rates
as low as are made to competitive points ; and the reason is repeated
that the latter rates, which are voluntarily made by the railroad, being
presumably fair, it follows that the former rates, being higher, are un-
fair. But, if the traffic between all points paid but the cost of car-
riage, there would remain no provision for the highway and the neces-
sary fixed charges. A rigid rule, then, preventing the discrimination
between these places would leave the railroad the alternative of raising
the rates at the competitive points, thus losing that traffic altogether ;
or reducing to a little more than the cost of carriage the rates at the
non-competitive points, and so losing the greater portion of its income.

II. The competition in markets is a second cause of discrimination
between places. A market, to be such, must be accessible from sources
of supply. Its facilities for transportation must then be in proportion
to its importance. Now, the great market cities of the world were
established before the application of steam to transportation by land.
It is a familiar fact that the commercial cities of the world are either
on rivers or the sea ; so it follows that the markets come in compe-
tition with water-routes, and usually also in competition with other
railroads. But the competition is more than by parallel routes carry-
ing traffic for equal or nearly equal distances. To reach the market at
all with an article produced on the line of a railroad, it must be car-
ried at a low enough rate to enable it to be sold in competition with
the same article produced perhaps much nearer the market. Grain
carried five hundred miles can sell for no more than grain carried fifty
miles, and, if the conditions of production are the same, the carrier
must place them on an equality as to transportation. A long haul has
thus to compete with a short haul, or abandon the market. If dis-
criminations in favor of markets were not permitted, no grain could go
by rail from Chicago and the West to the Atlantic seaboard and to
Europe. But the discrimination would be made as it always has been
made by the water-routes through the lakes and the St. Lawrence or
Erie Canal, or down the Mississippi to New Orleans. The water-routes,
however, have not an equal interest in developing the country that the
railroads have ; and, without the competition introduced by the latter,
the rates by water would be greater than they are, and the countries
whose shores they wash would be comparatively undeveloped. The
railroad, in developing the resources of the country which it serves, not
only secures thereby more traffic, which at the time adds to its net in-
come ; it increases as well the value of all its property. The highway
being made by the railroad, and representing a large investment, a wise

590 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

policy leads to the establishment of such rates as will add to its perma-
nent value. A temporary rate at but the cost of carriage, if necessary
to establish or develop an infant industry which would in future fur-
nish a proiitable traffic, is thus justified by self-interest. To a steamer
or vessel on the lakes, on the other hand, the development of the sur-
rounding territories means but additional competition ; an increase of
traffic is mot by an increase of boats. Their policy is to take from the
traffic at the time all that can be secured, for to-morrow it will be car-
ried by some one else.

The new supply brought to the market from a distance reduces the
selling price of the article in the market, a result unfortunate to those
producers nearer the market, who theretofore monopolized the trade,
but fortunate for those at a greater distance who would otherwise have
no market, or a more restricted one, for their products. The more im-
portant result, howevei", is to the general public, who are benefited
through the discrimination by a reduction in the cost of the necessa-
ries and common comforts of life ; for the articles carried to the mar-
ket in the greatest quantities are those which are consumed in the
greatest quantities — they are the necessaries and common comforts ;
and, as has been already shown, it is in favor of these things particu-
larly that discriminations are made.

III. A third cause of discrimination between places is found in
the volume of the traffic. The effort of the railroad to increase its
profits, by increasing its traffic through the incentive of lower rates,
has already been dwelt upon in considering discriminations between
things. It affects places as well. It is the principle of development,
and so works upon all the traffic of a railroad and between all places.
But it affects most those things or places in which there is the possi-
bility of the greatest development. A familiar illustration of the
operation of this rule is the suburban passenger traffic which has been
already mentioned. The possibility of developing the travel between
a great city and its suburbs is practically unlimited ; accordingly every
incentive is offered as to frequent and rapid trains and low rates. But
between two small towns the same service and rates would be a mani-
fest absurdity. No possible inducement, short of a payment to the
passenger instead of a charge, could make any material increase in the
travel, except that which slowly results from the natural increase of
wealth and population. Similar causes affect the rates on freight. As
things consumed in the largest quantities, in which the traffic is most
capable of development, are the most favored as to rates, so also are
places which consume or are markets for the greatest quantities of
things. In all cases when discriminations of this nature are made in
freight rates, it is where the lower rates will afford a larger net profit
than the higher rates, by an increase of traffic in a greater ratio than
the increase of expense. Such low rates, then, can not be at the ex-
pense of higher rates to other places. Though they may be below the

DISCRIMINATION IN RAILWAY RATES. 591

average rate of cost of the entire traffic, they are never knowingly less
than the cost of carriage of the particular traffic.

These several causes requiring discrimination between places, viz.,
parallel roads or water-routes, competition of markets, and the efforts
of the railroad to increase its profit by increasing its traffic at lower
rates, are, in the popular mind, considered without distinction ; the
discrimination is as to through or local ti'affic. This distinction is in
accord with the usual result, for through points are, in nearly all cases,
the places where the most active competition of all kinds is in force.
The usual termini of railroads are large cities ; these again are usually
on water-courses, and are usually also the chief markets reached by
the road. But such is not always the case, and, when it is not, the
rates will be found to be modified in accordance with the number of
these forms of competition there in force, and the greater or less
strength with which they exist.

This general classification of the traffic into through and local
suggests a further reason w'hy the competitive rates might fairly be
expected to be lower than the local. Through points — the termini of
the road — afford the longest haul, and traffic carried a long distance
is, like that carried in large quantities, at a lower rate of cost per
mile than that carried shorter distances. The traffic between terminal
stations is usually much greater than that between any other two sta-
tions ; cars are therefore loaded to their full capacity. The load at
the end of the long haul is discharged, and with a delay of perhaps a
day may be loaded again and returned. The local traffic is in small
quantities, the car is but partly loaded, or if fully loaded the delay in
unloading is as great as though it went through to the terminal sta-
tion. The way-station, in the large majority of cases, affords no re-
turn load, so that the haul to some station where the car is needed,
as well as the delay caused thereby, must be added to the expense.
Add to these differences the difference in the volume of the traffic, and
it wdll be readily seen that the cost per mile on through can not be but
a fraction of what it is on local traffic.

Although the constant play of these competitive forces results in
reducing through rates to a very low point, it deserves to be noticed
that in local rates there is as well a constant though less rapid tendency
to reduction. Wherever no more active forces of competition are in
operation, the effort on the part of the railroad to develop the produc-
tion and resources of the country by stimulating rates, and so increas-
ing the profits and the value of the property of the company, is a
cause w^hich works constantly toward reductions. This fact is illus-
trated by the Railroad Commissioners of Iowa, who, in their report
for 1881, occupy forty-six pages with tables and statements showing
the reductions in rates in that State, and in which they particularly
call attention to the fact that " the reduction is not confined to the
through traffic ; it applies, in a somewhat smaller ratio, it is true, to

592 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the local traffic as well" (p. 7). And they conclude their remarks upon
the subject as follows : " We venture to say that this average percent-
age of reduction for the last fifteen consecutive years will be a matter
of no little surprise to everybody who does not make the study of
freight tariffs a somewhat regular habit. Although we have made no
calculation to demonstrate it, we venture to affirm that an equal aver-
age reduction in the cost of any kind of service for which the people
pay a money consideration can not be found during the past fifteen
years " (p. 35).

It will be seen from the foregoing that discriminations affecting
places are made by nature. The distribution of land and water on the
face of the earth produces a discrimination against inland places and
in favor of those located on water-courses or the sea. The accessi-
bility or inaccessibility of these places on the highway furnished by
nature is the basis of the discriminations affecting them on the high-
way supplied by man. The rapid and cheap communication afforded
by railroads has introduced a strong competitor to the water-routes,
and has to a great degree reduced the inequality established by nature.
But with the water-routes the highway is supplied without cost, its
use is free ; the carriage only is a charge upon the traffic. The cost
of transporting by water is thus cheaper than by land, and this must
always prevent the local inland rates by rail from being as low as the
rates on the free water-routes.

If rates are not to be based on the principles by which, in compli-
ance with the demands of commerce, they have heretofore been de-
termined ; if those discriminations only are to be considered fair which
are based on the bulk and destructibility of articles ; then the single
rule remaining to apply to the discrimination of rates is that of distance
— the mileage basis.

The advocates of State interference in the regulation of rates seem
to be possessed with the conviction that the true basis of charge is the
cost of the service, and they labor under the common error that the
mileage basis is a practical method of determining this. It will be
found, however, that the rates determined by the operation of com-
mercial requirements will coincide more nearly with the cost of the
service than can be the case with any artificial system which does not
recognize, as elements fairly affecting rates, the value of the service,
the volume of the traffic, and the competition of other routes. If the
railroad is not allowed to take traffic, which can net afford to pay the
standard rate, at whatever rate it can afford, if it charged more for
certain traffic than the value of the transportation to the shipper, that
traffic is lost. Now, the traffic that can afford to pay but very low
rates is composed of things that are of low price ; such, as I have
already mentioned, are the necessaries of life. These things form a
much greater portion of the company's traffic than any other equal
number of articles. Grain, for instance, from the fields of production

DISCRIMINATION IN RAILWAY RATES. 593

in the West is carried to Chicago or St. Louis entirely by car-loads, and
is forwarded thence by the train-load. Coal, petroleum, and provis-
ions in some cases afford a regular traffic by the train-load. These
articles being carried in large quantities are, as has been shown, car-
ried at a much less rate of cost than things shipped in small quantities.
The cost of the service thus bears an approximate relation to the rate
of charge. Again, the volume of the traffic is a cause of discrimina-
tion, if by reducing the rate the traffic can be sufficiently increased to
produce a greater net profit. And, again, it follows that the rate of
cost decreases with the reduced rate of citarge. In the reduction to
meet the competition of other lines to the same market, the discrimina-
tion is also made to get the traffic which could not otherwise be se-
cured. And the result, again, is a reduction in the rate of cost of the
service by the greater traffic usual to those markets or centers of indus-
try which are favored by the discriminating rate.

Indeed, it has sufficiently appeared that all discriminations are
made to increase trafiic, and those things and places are favored most
which furnish the largest traffic. Now, as a larger traffic is carried at
a less rate of cost, it follows that there is a constant and fundamental
relation between the cost of the service and the rate of charge. There
is, in fact, as close a relation as it is possible to establish between them
by any system but one which would be prohibitory to a great portion
of the traffic. The mileage basis of rates, however, has and continues
to find many advocates, yet its impracticability has been so often illus-
trated that but brief mention of it seems here to be called for. Where
all circumstances of value, cost, competition, and quantity are equal, a
mileage rate is now applied by railroads, only reducing the rate per
mile gradually as the length of haul increases, thus making the rate
conform more nearly to the cost of service than if the same rate per
mile were applied for all distances. This is as near as it is practicable
to apply the principle, and is the rule so far as my information extends
on all American roads, as it is also on European roads, operated both
by private corporations and by governments. But where the circum-
stances of cost, competition, quantity, and value are different, that is,
for the greater portion of the traffic, the principle would result in pro-
hibition. From the preceding pages this result appears to me so ap-
parent as to need no further comment. A statement before me, how-
ever, of an impartial and informed body (the select Committee of the
Parliament of Great Britain on fares and rates of 1882), is so clear
and forcible an exposition of this point, and at the same time affords
an illustration of much that has herein been said on the subject of
discrimination in general, that I am led to make from it the follow-
ing quotation : " The form which the proposal for a fixed standard of
charges has usually taken is equal mileage, i. e., a charge for each
class of goods and passengers in proportion to the distance for which
they are carried." This point was strongly urged before the Royal

VOL. XXTIII. — 38

594 'THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Commission, and is so effectually disposed of by their report that it
seems scarcely necessary to dwell upon it further. But it reappears
in the evidence of some of the witnesses before this committee, and
it may therefore be desirable to state shortly why it is imprac-
ticable :

" ' (a.) It would prevent railway companies from lowering their
fares and rates, so as to compete with traffic by sea, by canal, or by
a shorter or otherwise cheaper railway, and would thus deprive the
public of the benefit of competition, and the company of a legitimate
source of profit.

" * {b.) It would prevent railway companies from making perfectly
fair arrangements for carrying at a lower rate than usual goods brought
in larger and constant quantities, or for carrying for long distances at
a lower rate than for short distances.

" * (c.) It would compel a company to carry for the same rate over
a line which has been very expensive in construction, or which, from
gradients or otherwise, is very expensive in working, at the same rate
at which it carries over less expensive lines.

" ' In short, to impose equal mileage on the companies would be to
deprive the public of the benefit of much of the competition which
now exists, or has existed, to raise the charges on the public in many
cases where the companies now find it to their interest to lower them,
and to perpetuate monopolies in carriage, trade, and manufacture, in
favor of those rates and places which are nearest or least expensive,
"vv^here the varying charges of the companies now create competition.
And it will be found that the supporters of equal mileage, when
pressed, really mean, not that the rates they pay themselves are too
high, but that the rates that others pay are too low. Pressed by these
difiiculties the proposers of equal mileage have admitted that there
must be numerous exceptions, e. g., where there is sea competition (i. e.,
at about three fifths of the railway-stations of the United Kingdom),
where low rates for long distances will bring a profit, or where the
article carried at low rates is a necessary, such as coal. It is scarcely
necessary to observe that exceptions such as these, while .inadequate
to meet all the various cases, destroy the value of equal mileage as a
principle, or the possibility of applying it as a general rule.' " *

Tariffs of rates have, however, been established without discrimi-
nation, but their workings have shown that they were established with
as little discretion as discernment. An illustration of such a case is
afforded by the experience of Germany, the history of which is given
in the testimony before the committee on fares and rates of the Par-
liament of Great Britain above referred to. The Government, in con-
formity with its military spirit, which admits of only unquestioning
obedience to arbitrary orders, enforced on the railways a uniform and
unvarying system of charges. Uaving fixed the tariffs in its own
* Report to the Ilouse of Commons, Julj, 1882, p. ix.

DISCRIMINATION IN RAILWAY RATES. 595

country at rates which to it were satisfactory, it adopted the principle
that no through rates should be given except on the basis of these
local charges. Thus traffic, for instance, between Belgium, or Holland
and Austria, might be brought up to the German frontier at whatever
rate those states chose to fix, but, immediately upon entering on Ger-
man territory, the local tariffs should apply. As a result, the through
traffic was driven from the railroads to the rivers, and exports from
Austria found their way to the sea on the Elbe and the Rhine. After
the enforcement of the policy had " utterly destroyed " this through
traffic on the German railways, the administration decided to profit by
the experience to abandon their unnatural policy, and attempt to get
back the traffic. Accordingly, they issued a tariff, which is instructive
as showing how completely they gave up their artificial system and
recognized in railway rates the natural forces controlling commerce.
The heading of the tariff reads : " Exceptional tariff to and from
the German seaports, for goods traffic between Hamburg, Harburg,
Bremerhaven, Geestemiinde, Bremen, and Regensburg, and Passau sta-
tions. To come in force on and from March 1, 1882. This tariff will
apply only to goods traversing Germany and passing beyond Regens-
burg and Passau, and out of the district of the German customs, and
in consignments of ten tons per truck and above (wool excepted).
Smaller consignments will be charged at usual rates. Articles included
in the exceptional tariff." It then continues to enumerate articles under
seven "special tariffs." The testimony before the commission on
this subject concludes as follows : " Now that shows that the strongest
government in the world, I suppose, can not interfere with the course
of traffic except at its peril, and, if they attempt to impose upon
the commerce of the country an impossible system, they come to
grief." *

I have attempted to show that the rates on railroads are regulated
by natural principles of competition, and that it is from the operation
of these principles that discriminations are produced. This is but
saying, in other words, that discriminating rates result from competi-
tion. An examination of the cases reported by the various State Rail-
road Commissioners will show that this is true ; for it will be found
that the discriminations effect a reduction in rates, not an inci'ease.
They are concessions made to secure traffic, which at former rates
would not be carried. If this were not at least believed to be the re-
sult, there would appear no incentive for the company to make the
reduction. In brief, the cause of discrimination is competition, the
effect is reduction.

* Report to the House of Commons, July, 1882, pp. 170, 171.

596 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

A THINKING MACHINE.

By grant ALLEN.

" T I THINGS marvelous there are many," says the Attic dramatist,
-1- "but among them all naught moves more truly marvelous than
man," And, indeed, when one begins seriously to think it over, there
is no machine in all the world one-half, nay one-millionth part, so ex-
traordinary in its mode of action as the human brain. Minutely con-
structed, inscrutable in all its cranks and wheels, composed of number-
less cells and batteries, all connected together by microscopically tiny
telegraphic wires, and so designed (whether by superior intelligence or
evolutionary art) that every portion of it answers sympathetically to
some fact or energy of the external universe — the human brain defies
the clumsy analysis of our carving-knife anatomists, and remains to
this day a great unknown and almost unmapped region, the terra in-
cognita of modern physiology. If you look into any one of the ordi-
nary human machines, with its spokes and cogs, its springs and levers,
you can see at once (at least, if you have a spark of native mechanical
intelligence within you) how its various portions are meant to run to-
gether, and what is the result, the actual work, to be ultimately got
out of it. But not the profoundest microscopist, not the acutest psy-
chologist, not the most learned physiologist on earth could possibly
say, by inspecting a given little bit of the central nervous mechanism
of humanity, why the excitation of this or that fragment of gray mat-
ter should give rise to the picture of a brown umbrella or the emotion
of jealousy, why it should rather be connected with the comprehension
of a mathematical problem than with the consciousness of pain or the
memory of a gray-haired, military-looking gentleman whom we met
three years ago at an hotel at Biarritz.

Merely to state these possible alternatives of the stimulation of a
portion of the brain is sufficient to bring up vividly into view the enor-
mous and almost inconceivable complexity of that wonderful natural
mechanism. Imagine for a moment a machine so delicate that it is ca-
pable of yielding us the sensation of a strawberry-ice, the aesthetic de-
light of a beautiful picture, the intellectual perception of the equality
of the angles at the base of an isosceles triangle, the recollection of
what we all said and did the day we went for that picnic to the Dol-
gelly waterfalls, the vague and inccmsistent dissolving views of a dis-
turbed dream, the pain of toothache, and the delight at meeting once
more an old friend who has returned from India. The very mention
of such a complicated machinery, let alone the difficulty of its posses-
sion of consciousness, is enough to make the notion thus nakedly stated
seem wild and absurd. Yet there the machine actually is, to answer
bodily for its own possibility. You can not cavil at the accomplished

A THINKING MACHINE. 597

fact. It may be inconceivable, but at any rate it exists. Logic may
demolish it ; ridicule may explode it ; metaphysics may explain it
away ; but, in spite of them all, it continues still itnperturbably to be,
and to perform the thousand-and-one incredible functions which argu-
ment conclusively and triumphantly demonstrates it can never com-
pass. Call it materialism or what else you like, experimental physi-
ology has now calmly demonstrated the irrefragable fact that on the
brain, and on each of its parts, depends the whole of what we are and
what we feel, what we see and what we suffer, what we believe and
what we imagine. Everything that in our inmost souls we think of
as Us, apart from that mere external burden, our body, is summed up
in the functions and activity of a single marvelous and inscrutable
organism, our human brain.

But, though physiology can tell us very little as yet about how the
brain does its work, it can nevertheless tell us something ; and late
researches have made such a difference in our way of looking at its
mode of activity, and have so upset many current and very crudely
materialistic errors, that it may perhaps be worth while briefly to state,
in popular and comprehensible language, how the organ of thought
envisages itself in actual working process to the most advanced among
our modern physiological psychologists.

Let us begin first with the old-fashioned and, as we now believe,
essentially mistaken view — the view which found its fullest and most
grotesque outcome in the spurious science of so-called phrenology,
but which still lingers on, more or less carefully disguised, among the
" localizations" and *' specific energies " of many respectable modern
authorities.

According to this superficial view, overtly expressed or implicitly
suggested in different cases, each cell and ganglion and twist of the
brain had a special function and purpose of its own to subserve, and
answered to a single special element of sensation or perception, intel-
lect or emotion. In a certain little round mass of brain-matter, in the
part of the head devoted to language (if we push the theory to its
extreme conclusion), must have been localized the one word " dog"; in
the next little mass must have been localized " horse " ; in the next,
" camel," in the next again, "elephant," and so on ad infinitum. Here,
a particular cell and fiber were intrusted with the memory of the visi-
ble orange ; there, another similar little nervous element had to do
with the recollection of the audible note C flat in the middle octave of
a cottage piano. Thus reduced to its naked terms, of course, the the-
ory sounds almost too obviously gross and ridiculous ; but something
like it, not quite so vividly realized or pushed so far into minute de-
tail, was held not only by the old-fashioned phrenologists, but also by
many modern and far more physiological mental philosophers.

When we come to look the question in the face, however, the mere
number of cells and fibers in the human brain, immense as it undoubt-

598 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

edly is, would surely never suffice for the almost infinite variety of
perceptions and facts with which our memory alone (not to mention
any other mental faculty) is so abundantly stored. Suppose, for exam-
ple, we take merely the human beings, living or extinct, with whose
names or personalities we are more or less fully acquainted, and try
to give a cell or a fiber or a ganglion to each ; how many cells or fibers
of ganglia would be left unappropriated at the end of the enumeration
for all the rest of animate or inanimate nature, and all the other facts
or sensations with which we are perfectly familiar, to say nothing of
emotions, volitions, pleasures, pains, and all the other minor elements
of our complex being ! Let us begin, by way of experiment, with
Greek history alone, and try to distribute one separate nerve-element
apiece to Solon and Periander, to Themistocles and Aristides, to Herod-
otus and Thucydides, to Zeuxis and Pheidias, to Socrates and Plato,
to ^schylus and Soi^hocles, to Aristides and Alexander, and so on
straight through down to the very days of the Byzantine Empire.
Then let us begin afresh over again, and give a cell all round to the
noble Romans of our happy school-days, Romulus and Remus (myth
or reality matters little for our present purpose), the seven kings and
the ten decemvirs, the Curtius who leaped into the gulf and the Sca}-
vola who burned his hand off in the Etruscan fire, those terrible Scipios
and those grim Gracchi, our enemy Horace with his friend Maecenas,
and so down through all the Caesars to the second Romulus again,
pretty much where we originally started. Once more, apply the same
thing to English history, and allot a single brain-element apiece to every-
body we can remember from Cerdic of Wessex to Queen Victoria, from
Csedmon the poet, through Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, and Pope,
to Tennyson, Swinburne, and Oscar Wilde — a cell each for all the
statesmen, priests, fighters, writers, thinkers, doers, and miscellaneous
nobodies whom we can possibly recall from the limbo of f orgetf ulness,
from the days when Ilengist and Ilorsa (alas ! more myths) drove their
symmetrical three keels ashore at Ebbsfleet, to the events recorded for
our present edification in this evening's newspaper. (And observe in
passing that, out of deference to advanced Teutonic scholarship, I have
simply flung away Caractacus and Boadicea, Carausias and Allectus,
and all the other vague and vaguely-remembered personalities of the
earlier British and Romano-British history.) Why, by the time we
had got through our historic personages alone, we should have but a
very scanty remnant of places for the thousands and thousands of liv-
ing individuals with whom each one of us must have come in contact,
and each of whom seems to occupy a separate niche or distinct pigeon-
hole in the endless archives of the particular memory.

And this is only a single small department of the possibly memo-
rable, a mere specimen category out of an innumerable collection that
might equally well have been adduced in evidence. Take the animal
world, for example — the creatures themselves, and not their names —

A THINKING MACHINE. 599

and look at the diversity of cats and dogs, goats and sheep, beetles
and butterflies, soles and shrimps, that even the ordinary unlearned
man knows and recognizes, and mostly remembers. Narrow the ques-
tion down to dogs alone, and still you get the same result. Consider
the St. Bernards and the mastiffs, the pugs and the bull-dogs, the
black-and-tans and the King Charlies, the sheep-dogs and the deer-
hounds, the shivering little Italian greyhounds and the long dachs-
hunds that you buy by the yard. Every one of these and countless
others has got to have its cell all to itself in the classificatory depart-
ment of the human brain, and I sujjpose another cell for its name in
the portion specially devoted to language also. Add to these the plants,
flowers, fruits, roots, and other well-known vegetable products whose
names are familiar to almost everybody, and what a total you have
got at once ! A good botanist, to take a more specific case, knows (in
addition to a stock of general knowledge about equivalent on the
average to anybody else's) the names and natures of hundreds and
thousands of distinct plants, to say nothing about innumerable small
peculiarities of stem, and leaf, and flower, and seed in every species
and variety among them all. No, the mere bare weight of dead fact
with which everybody's memory is stored and laden defies the possi-
bility of reckoning and pigeon-holing. Make your separate dockets
ever so tiny, reduce them all to their smallest dimensions, and yet
there will not be room for all of them in the human brain. The more
we think on it, the more will the wonder grow that one small head can
carry all that the merest infant knows.

And now observe once more in turn a still greater and more fatal
diflSculty. I have spoken throughout, after the manner of men, as
though each separate object, or word, or idea had a clearly defined
and limited individuality, and that it could be distinctly located and
circumscribed by itself in a single solitary isolated cell of the nervous
mechanism. But in reality the very terms I have been obliged to use
in describing the matter have themselves contained the implicit con-
demnation of this crude, hard, and impossible materialistic conception.
For no idea and no word is, as a matter of fact, so rigidly one and
indivisible, like the French Republic. Take for example once more
our old friend " dog," and let us confine our attention just now to the
word alone, not to the ideas connoted by it. Dog is not one word : it
is a whole group and set of words. There is, first of all, the audible
sound, dog, as it falls upon our ears when spoken by another. That
is to say, there is, imprimis, dog auditory. Secondly, there is the
muscular effort, dog, as it frames itself upon our own lips and vocal
organs when we say it aloud to another person. That is to say, there
is, secundo, dog pronounceable. Thirdly, there is the written or printed
word, dog, DOG, in capitals or minuscules, script, or Roman, or italic,
as we recognize it visibly when seen with our eyes in book or letter.
That is to say, there is, tertio, dog legible. Now, it is quite clear that

6oo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

each of these three distinct dogs is made up of separate elements, and
can not possibly be regarded as being located in a single cell or fiber
alone. Dog auditory is made up of the audible consonantal sound D,
the audible vowel-sound ati or 6 (unhappily we have no universally
recognized phonetic system), and the other audible consonantal sound
G hard ; in that precise order of sequence and no other. Dog pro-
nounceable is made up of an effort of breath against tongue and teeth,
producing the soft dental sound D, followed by an unimpeded vocal-
ized breath, producing the audible vowel-sound au or o, and closed by
a stoppage of the tongue against the roof of the mouth, producing the
soft palatal G. Finally, dog legible, in print at least, is composed of
the separate symbols D and O and G, or d and o and g, or d and o and
g. Yet all these distinct and unlike dogs would be unhesitatingly
classed by most people under the head of language, and be located
by phrenologists, with their clumsy lumping glibness, in the imaginary
" bump " thereto assigned, or by more modern physiologists (whose ex-
cellent scientific work I should be the last to undervalue) in the par-
ticular convolution of the left hemisphere found to be diseased in
many cases of " atactic aphasia," or loss of speech.

How infinitely more complex and varied, then, is the idea of dog,
for which all these heard, spoken, written, or printed dogs are but so
many rough and incomplete symbols ! For the idea of dog comprises
the head thereof, and the tail, the four legs, the eyes, the mouth, the
nose, the neck, the body, the toes, the hair, the bark, the bite, the
canine teeth that inflict it, and all the other known and remembered
peculiarities of perfect doghood as ideally realizable. If we are to
assign peradventure a special tract in the brain to the concept dog, it
must be clear at once that that tract will be itself a very large and
much subdivided region. For it must include all the separate visible
attributes of the dog in general ; and also it must contain as sub-spe-
cies in subordination to it every kind of known dog, not only those
already enumerated, but also the Eskimau dog, the Pomeranian, the
French poodle, the turnspit, the Australian dingo, the Cuban blood-
hound, the Gordon setter, and so forth, through every other form of
dog the particular possessor of that individual brain has ever seen, cog-
nized, or heard of. Is it not clear that, on the hypothesis of such defi-
nite and distinct localization, dog-tract alone ought to monopolize a
region about one sixth as big every way as our whole assignable pro-
vision of brain-surface ?

Moreover, about this point we seem to be getting ourselves into a
sad muddle. For we have next to remember our own private dog,
Grip, let us call him, or if you prefer it. Prince or Ponto. Now, I
suppose, his name, viewed as a name, will be localized in the language
department of our particular brain, and will there be arranged under
the general heading of proper names, division dog-names. But there
must be some intimate cross-connection between the cell or cells rep-

A THINKING MACHINE. 60 1

resenting the audible and pronounceable name Grip, or the letters G,
R, I, P, and the cell or cells which have to do with the idea dog, and
also, I imagine, with the name dog : for both the word Grip is inti-
mately connected in my mind with the words " my dog," and the idea
Grip is intimately connected in that same humble empirical subjectiv-
ity with the idea of dog in general. In fact, I can't think of Grip
without thinking at once of his visible appearance, his personal name,
and his essential dogginess of name and nature. Grip is to me a sym-
bol, primarily, of some dog or other, and secondarily or more particu-
larly of my dog. But whether Grip and Ponto are arranged and
pigeon-holed in cells next door to one another, as being both by name
dogs ; or whether one is arranged under G, as in a dictionary, and the
other under P (just after Pontius, for example, and just before Pon-
tus Euxinus, both of which form distinct component elements of my
verbal memory), I can not imagine. At each step in the effort to
realize this wooden sort of localization, is it not clear that we are sink-
ing deeper and deeper into a bottomless slough of utter inconceiva-
bility ?

Once more (and this shall be my last attempt to point out the ab-
surdity of the extreme cell-theory), what are we to make of the case
of a man who knows more than one language ? Take for example the
word chien. Here, in one direction, all the associations and connec-
tions of idea are exactly the same as in the word dog. If I happen to
be speaking English I say, " It's a dog" ; if I happen to be speaking
French, I say, ^'Cest lai chien,''^ and in both cases with just about
the same idea in my mind. The picture called up by the one word
is exactly the same, in most respects, as the picture called up by
the other. Yet not precisely. If I write Paris, so, the notion im-
mediately aroused in the reader's mind is that of a white and glar-
ing brand-new city across the Channel where we all go to waste our
hard-earned money at periodical intervals. But if in the preceding
line I had happened to talk of Priam and Helen, the idea called up by
that self-same combination of one capital letter and four small ones
would have been a wholly different one, of an idyllic shepherd, as in
Tennyson's " Enone," or of a handsome scamp as in (Homer's) " Iliad."
If I write " baker," everybody knows I mean the man who supplies hot
rolls for breakfast ; but if I write " Baker," everybody is aware that
I allude to Sir Samuel or to his brother the Pasha. Now, this alterna-
tive possibility is even worse in the case of chien. For, if I am talking
French, the sight of a particular animal which usually calls up to my
lips the word " dog," calls up instead the totally different word chien.
And if the subject in hand is philology, while dog immediately sug-
gests to me the curious practical falling out of our language of the
primitive word hund, hound, now only applied to a special class of
dogs, and the substitution for it of a Scandinavian and Dutch root not
found in Anglo-Saxon, chien immediately suggests to me its ultimate

6o2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

derivation from its original canis, and the habitual change of c before
a into ch in the passage of words into French from Latin. By this time,
I think the reader (with his usual acuteness) will begin to perceive into
what a hopeless network of cross connections and crooked combina-
tions we have managed to get ourselves in our search after the defi-
nitely localizable.

How, then, does the mechanism of the brain really act ? I believe
the true answer to this question is the one most fully given by M. Ri-
bot and never yet completely accepted by English psychologists. It
acts, for the most part, as a whole ; or at least, even the simplest idea
or mental act of any sort is a complex of processes involving the most
enormously varied brain-elements. Instead of dog being located some-
where in one particular cell of the brain, dog is an idea, audible, visi-
ble, legible, pronounceable, requiring for different modes of its percep-
tion or production the co-ojDeration of an enormous number of separate
cells, fibers, and ganglia.

Let us take an illustration from a kindred case. How clumsy and
awkward a supposition it would be if we were to imagine there was
a muscle of dancing, and a muscle of walking, and a muscle of rowing,
and a muscle of cricketing, and a muscle for the special practice of
the noble art of lawn-tennis ! Dancing is not a single act ; it is a com-
plex series of co-ordinated movements, implying for its proper per-
formance the action of almost all the muscles of the body in different
proportions, and in relatively fixed amounts and manners. Even a
waltz is complicated enough ; but when we come to a quadrille or a
set of lancers, everybody can see at once that the figure consists of so
many steps forward and so many back ; of a bow here, and a twirl
there ; of hands now extended both together, and now held out one
at a time in rapid succession ; and so forth, throughout all the long
and complicated series. A quadrille, in short, is not a name for one
act, for a single movement of a single muscle, but for many acts of
the whole organism, all arranged in a fixed sequence.

It is just the sr.me with the simplest act of mental perception.
Orange, for example, is not the name of a single impression ; it is the
name of a vast complex of impressions, all or most of which are pres-
ent to consciousness in the actuality Avhenevcr we see an orange, and
a great many of which are present in the idea whenever we remember
or think of an orange. It is the name of a rather soft, yellow fruit,
round in shape, with a thick rind, white inside, and possessing a char-
acteristic taste and odor ; a fruit divisible into several angular, juicy
segments, with cells inside, and with pips of a recognized size and
shape — and so forth, adinfinitum. In the act of perceiving an orange
we exercise a number of separate nerves of sight, smell, taste, and
feeling, and their connected organs in the brain as well. In the act
of thinking about or remembering an orange we exercise more faintly
a considerable number of these nerves and central organs, though

A THINKING MACHINE. 603

not, of course, all distinctly, or all together ; otherwise, our mental
picture of an orange would be as vivid and all-embracing as the sight
of the actual orange itself.

Now, the name orange calls up more or less definitely the picture
of several among these separate qualities. But it doesn't call them
all up ; indeed, the word in itself may not perhaps call up any of
them. For instance, in the phrase, the Prince of Orange, where identi-
cal symbols meet the eye, I don't think of the fruit at all ; I think,
according to circumstances and context, either of "William III of
blessed memory, or of the eldest son of the present King of the Neth-
erlands, whose memory (in Paris especially) is somewhat more doubt-
ful. An Orangeman and an orange-woman are not, as one might
innocently imagine, correlative terms. Even without this accidental
ambiguity, derived from the name of the town of Orange on the
Rhone, the word orange need not necessarily connote anything more
than the color by itself ; as when we say that Miss Terry's dress was
a deep yellow or almost orange. Nay, when we actually mean the
fruit in person, not the tree, flower, or color, the picture called up will
be different according to the nature of the phrase in which the word
occurs. For, if I am talking about ordering dessert, the picture in my
mind is that of five yellow fruits, piled up pyramid - wise on a tall
center-dish ; whereas, if I am talking to a botanical friend, my impres-
sion is rather that of a cross-section through a succulent fruit (known
technically as a hesperidiicm), and displaying a certain familiar arrange-
ment of cells, dissepiments, placentas, and seeds. In short, the word
orange, instead of being a single unity, localizable in a single ganglion,
represents a vast complex, of which now these elements are upper-
most in consciousness and now those, but which seems to demand for
its full realization an immense co-operation of very diverse and numer-
ous brain-organs.

Every thought, even the simplest, involves for its production the
united or associated action of a vast mass of separate brain-cells and
separate brain-fibers. One thought differs from another dynamically
rather than statically. It differs as running diffei's from dancing —
not because different muscles are employed, but because the same mus-
cles are employed in a different manner.

Trains of thought are therefore like a quadrille. One set of
exercises is followed by another, which it at once suggests or sets in
motion.

Of course, I do not mean to deny that every cell and fiber in the
brain has its own particular use and function, any more than I would
deny that each particular muscle in the body is intended to pull a
particular bone or to move a particular definite organ. But what I
do mean is that each such separate function is really elementary or
analytical : its object is to assist in forming a conception or idea, not
to contain, as it were, a whole conception ready made. Chinese sym-

6o4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

bols stand each for an entire word, and it takes thousands of them
to make up a language ; alphabetical letters stand each, not for a
word, but for an elementary sound or component of a word, and
twenty-six of them do (very badly, it is true) for all the needs of our
mother English. Just so, each cell or fiber in the brain does not stand
for a particular word or a particular idea, but for some element of
sensation or memory or feeling that goes to make up the special word
or idea in question. Horse is made up of five letters, or of four pho-
netic sounds ; it is made up also of a certain form and size and color
and mode of motion ; and when we speak of it all these elements are
more or less vaguely present to our consciousness, coalescing into a
sort of indefinite picture, and calling up one another more or less
symbolically.

This theory at first sight seems to make the explanation of memory
far more difficult and abstruse than formerly. For on the old hypoth-
esis (never perhaps fully pushed to its extreme in realizable thought
by any sensible person) it seemed easy enough to say that every act
of perception and every fact learned was the establishment of a line
of communication between two or more distinct cells or ganglia in the
brain, and that the communication, once fairly established, persisted
pretty constantly ever afterward. I am told " Shakespeare was born at
Stratf ord-on-Avon " ; and forthwith, cell Shakespeare (or Shakspere,
or Shakspear, etc.) has a line run from it to cell birth and cell Stratf ord-
on-Avon (a pretty complex one indeed, this last), which line remains
from that day forward permeable to any similar exercise of nervous
energy. This method is undeniably simple, neat, and effective. But,
setting aside the difficulty of realizing that any one tract of the brain
can possibly hold our whole vast mental picture of Shakespeare or of
Stratford-on-Avon (especially if we have ever read the one or visited
the other), there is the grotesque difficulty of the innumerable lines and
cross-connections of association. A central telephone station would be
the merest child's-play to it. For even so simple a word and idea as
gooseberry is capable of arousing an infinite number of ideas and emo-
tions. It may lead us at once to the old garden in the home of our
childhood, or to the gooseberry-fool we ate yesterday ; it may suggest
the notion of playing gooseberry, or the big gooseberry of the news-
paper paragraph ; it may lead to etymological dissertation on its deri-
vation from gooseberry, allied to north country grosers and French
groseille, or it may summon up visions of bad champagne, incidentally
leading to *' The Vicar of Wakefield," and the famous wine manufact-
ured only by Mrs. Primrose. In fact, I have no hesitation at all in ex-
pressing my private opinion that, if the chart of the brain were at all
like what most people imagine it to be, the associations of the word
gooseberry alone would suffice to give good and solid employment to
every fiber, cell, and convolution it anywhere possesses.

On the other hand, if we regard the brain as mainly dynamical, as

A THIN KING MACHINE. 605

an organism capable of very varied combinations of action, we can
easily see, not only bow memory becomes jDOSsible, but also bow such
infinite variations of association are rendered conceivable. For if every
thought or perception is, as it were, an organized tremor in a vast group
of diverse nerve-elements, often indeed in almost all together, it is
simple enough to understand how these tremors may fall into regular
rhythms, may excite one another in regular successions, may get habit-
ual, just as the steps do in dancing, or the movements of the hand in
writing a familiar and well-remembered formula — for examjjle, in sign-
ing one's name. Here, in this immense and minutely organized work-
shop, we have a constant succession of motions in wheels and gearing,
so arranged that each motion may be communicated in a thousand di-
rections, and what is apparently a single impetus may call up the most
diverse and extraordinary results. But, in reality, the impetus is not
single : for, when we are thinking of horse in one way, we have a cer-
tain fixed form of movement called up ; while, if we are thinking of it
in another way, the form called up, though analogous in many respects,
is far indeed from being identical. When I write " nice," you think
of something or other vaguely pleasant ; but, when I write " Nice," the
very pronunciation is altered into something very like "niece," and
the picture that rises before your mind is the very definite one of the
Promenade des Anglais, with its long line of white villas and stunted
palm-trees, bounded by the blue horizon of the Mediterranean and the
beautiful slopes of the coast toward Villefranche. It is just the same
with the apples and the oranges. The elements of the picture vary in-
cessantly ; and while one combination now suggests one association,
another combination another time suggests a second. The elements
join together in an infinite variety of ways, and so a finite number of
cells and fibers enable us to build up all the wealth of thought, just as
twenty-six tiny symbols allow us to express all the wonderful concep-
tions of Milton and all the beautiful ideas of Shelley. There are only
fifty-two cards in a pack, it is true, but no two games of whist ever
yet played, in all probability, were absolutely identical.

To sum it all up : it is the brain as a whole that thinks, and feels,
and desires, and imagines, just as it is the body as a whole that walks,
and swims, and digs, and dances. To locate, say, the faculty of lan-
guage in a particular convolution of a particular hemisphere is almost
as absurd, it seems to me, as to locate, say, the faculty of writing in
the last joint of the right forefinger. Convolution and forefinger may
be absolutely essential or indispensable for the proper performance of
speech or writing ; but to say that is not to say that the function in
question is there localized. The brain as a whole is the organ of mind,
but there is no organ for the word Canonbury or for the proper per-
ception of a Mrs. Pollock geranium. — Gentleman^ s Magazine.

6o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

HEALTH AND SEX IN HIGHER EDUCATION.

By JOHN DEWEY, Ph. D.,

INSTRUCTOR IN PUILOSOPHY, MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY.

IT may not generally be known that the alumna? of the more impor-
tant centers of female higher education in this country have an or-
ganized intercollegiate association for the promotion of woman's edu-
cation and the study of questions regarding her training. This asso-
ciation has justified its existence, if justification were necessary, by the
inquiries which it has made regarding the health of those women who
have pursued college courses. The importance of the results thus
obtained has led to their incorporation in the " Current Report of the
Massachusetts Labor Bureau." For the first time the discussion is
taken from the a 23riori realm of theory on the one hand, and the
hap-hazard estimate of physician and college instructor on the other.
The returns have the value of all good statistics : they not only enable
us to come to some conclusion upon the main point discussed, but they
are so full and varied that they suggest and mark the way toward the
discussion of a large number of other hardly less important ques-
tions. The figures, in short, call up as many problems as they settle,
thus fulfilling the first requisite of fruitful research.

Pursuing this line, we shall first state the general character of the
investigation followed and conclusions reached ; and, secondly, isolate
a few special problems for more detailed though brief treatment. The
result may be summed up in the words of the report, as follows : " The
female graduates of our colleges and universities do not seem to show,
as the result of their college studies and duties, any marked difference
in general health from the average health likely to be reported by an
equal number of women engaged in other kinds of work. It is true
that there has been, and it was to be expected that there would be, a
certain deterioration in health on the part of some of the graduates.
On the other hand, an almost identical improvement in health for a
like number was reported, showing very plainly that we must look
elsewhere for the causes of the greater part of this decline in health
during college-life. If we attempt to trace the cause, we find that this
deterioration is largely due, not to the requirements of college-life
particularly, but to predisposing causes natural to the gi-aduates them-
selves, born in them, as it were, and for which college-life or study
should not be made responsible."

Through some oversight the statement is made that the returns in-
clude statistics from every higher institution in the United States open
to women ; while, as a matter of fact, it includes a not comparatively
large number. The institutions represented, however, are typical.
The data are contained in the following table :

HEALTH AND SEX IN HIGHER EDUCATION. 607

Name op College.

Sex distinction.

Date of
organiza-
tion.

Total
number of

female
graduates

to lSh2

inclusive.

Number
of returns
received.

29
36
20

3
40
39
43
17
844
71

6
51

Percent-
age of
returns
received.

Co-educational.

Co-educational.

Co-educational.

Co-educational.

Co-educatioual.

Co-educational.

Females only.

Co-educational.

Females only.

Females only.

Co-educational.

Co-educational.

1873
1868
1866
1865
1841
1833
1875
1871
1865
1875
1831
1849

47
80
36
5
87

104
90
65

540

110
15

111

61-70

Cornell University

45-00

Kansas, University of

Mass. Institute of Technology.

Michij;an, University of

Obcrlin College

55-56

60-00
52-87
37-50

Smith College

47-78

Syracuse University

2615

Vassar College

63-70

Wellesley College

64-55

Wesleyan University

Wisconsin, University of

40-00
45-95

All colleges

1,290

705

54-65

For purposes of comparison, the value of the statistics is vitiated
by the fact that the date of the admission of women is not given, and
this, in the cases of the co-educational college, does not agree with the
date of organization. Other facts, which we omit, go to show that
the average date of admission, Oberlin being excluded, may be safely
put at about 1870.

The questions involved in the inquiry were exceedingly compre-
hensive, and may conveniently be considered under three heads, of
which the first takes up the conditions of childhood, comprehending
date of birth, nationality of parents, surroundings in childhood,
amount of exercise received between the ages of eight and fourteen,
the age at which study began, the age at entering college, and the age
at graduation. The second section relates to individual health, and
comprehends physical condition ; nervousness ; the age at beginning
of the menstrual period ; the conditions attending the menstrual pe-
riods ; the number of graduates reporting disorders ; the number of
disorders ; the number reporting each disorder, and the causes of dis-
orders.

From the broad data thus obtained, the third section, a series of
comparison tables, is gathered. Of these one of the most important
compares the present health of graduates with the age at beginning
study, the age at entering college, the time entering college after
the menstrual period commenced, the amount of out-of-door exercise,
and hereditary conditions. Another compares the health during col-
lege-life with the age at entering, the amount of study performed, the
amount of worry about private and college aifairs, etc. The first set
is thus seen to be occupied with giving a picture of health through
life, while the second endeavors to ascertain the changes introduced by
college-life, and their causes.

The general features of the tables may be stated as follows :

6o8

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

AvEBAOE Age.

COLLKGES.

At begin-
ning study.

At begin-
ning ofmen-
Btrual period.

At entering
college.

At gradu-
ating from
coUege.

At present
time.

Boston.

5-25
5-31
5-25
6-00
5-38
4-95
5-64
5'69
6-91
5-51
4-50
5-49

13-89
13-94
13-65
13-67
13-49
13-58
13-48
13-76
13-01
13-06
13-60
13-67

19-61
19-43
16 32
21-00
19-26
19-69
19-19
19-65
1781
18-34
20-00
17-98

23-36
23-09
21-75
24-00
23-22
24-10
22-69
23-47
21-96
22-24
24-00
21-69

26-72

Cornell

26-66

Kansas

26-35

Mass. Inst, of Tech. . . .
Michigan

25-67
2900

Oberlin

41-74

Smith

Syracuse

25-02
2S-24

Vassar

28-95

Wellesley

24-90

Wesleyan

29-00

Wisconsin

27-24

1

All colleges

5-64

13-62 j 18-35

22-39

28-58

The influence upon health may be summed up very generally as
follows : The maximum per cent of good health, 78-1, is reported at
the time of entering college ; during college-life this falls off to 74*9
per cent, to be followed by a rise to 77"9 per cent since graduation ;
fair health shows a gain from 2 to 8 per cent during college-life, fol-
lowed by a decrease to 5 per cent since that time ; while there was an
actual decrease of 2 per cent during college-life of those having poor
health, the figures being respectively 19*8 and 17'3 per cent, no appre-
ciable change being shown for the years since graduation.

From the comparison tables it is further shown that 138, or 19-6
per cent, report a deterioration in health during college-life ; 418,
59-3 per cent, no change ; 149, 21-1 per cent, show an improvement.
This result may be compared with the returns of the inquiries insti-
tuted by the Massachusetts Board among the worting-girls of Boston, as
follows : Of the 705 female college graduates, 138, or 19-58 per cent,
show a deterioration in health during college-life, and of the 1,032
working-girls, ICO, or 10-09 per cent, show a deterioration in health,
during ■w'orking-timc, these figures indicating a greater loss of health,
of 3'49 per cent, reported by the college graduates. For the 166 -work-
ing-girls, whose health deteriorated, four had quite good herllth at the
time of the investigation, 128 Avere in fair health, and 34 in poor
health. Of the 138 college graduates whose health deteriorated, how-
ever, 42 report a decline in health from excellent to good, or a slight
change only. Making allowances for this, there is a greater loss of
health of 2-47 per cent reported by the working-girls of Boston.

Of the 705 reporting, 417, or 59 per cent, mention some disorder,
and the total number of disorders reported is 865. The returns re-
garding the causation of disease, while not technical nor detailed
enough for scientific value, are suggestive.

Of the 417 reporting disorders, 276 give the cause or causes of dis-

HEALTH AND SEX IN HIGHER EDUCATION. 609

orders, and for 141 no cause is reported. One hundred and thirty-five
consider constitutional weakness to have been the cause of disorder ;
81, bad sanitary conditions ; 81, intellectual overwork ; 73, emotional
strain ; and 47, physical accidents.

The average amount of exercise reported, considering the aversion
of American women, especially the educated, to bodily exertion, may
be considered fairly encouraging. The average distance walked per
day is given at 2*5 miles, and the time spent in other exercise as 1*2
hour. Returns regarding the amount of college-study done by col-
lege-women would gain in interest if they could be put side by side
with corresponding returns from their male companions : 4, or 0*57
per cent, studied but little while at college ; 438, or 62"13 per cent,
studied moderately ; 64, or 9*08 per cent, between moderately and
severely, and 199, or 28"22 per cent, severely.

Either the lazy students failed to report, or college-women have
much to learn from the average male undergraduate about the science
of laziness. The lonely four, who have the courage of their disposi-
tion, all come from one college, which it would be ungallant to specify.
Statistics concerning worry show that the art of taking things easy is
not yet mastered by our ambitious young women : 172, or 24*40 per
cent, worried over their studies ; 89, or 12'62 per cent, over personal
affairs ; 131, or 18'o8 per cent, won-ied over both studies and affairs ;
while 313, or 44*40 per cent, worried over neither studies nor affairs.

These returns for the most part tell their own tale and point their
own moral. They certainly bear out the conclusion drawn regarding
the uninjurious effect of collegiate study. Their great defect is in
their failure to show more definitely the conditions and surroundings
of college-life. The physical, social, and moral environment should
be carefully studied. It has long been a commonplace of vital science
that intellectual pursuits for men per se are healthy. The question
which needs solution is. What conditions prevent their being equally
healthy for women, the exact part played by each factor, and how far
it is removable ? What parents as well as professional educators and
college administrators wish to know is, what colleges have gymnasiums,
and whether the exercise is compulsory ; how many institutions have
matrons, and how far their influence extends ; how many have resident
physicians. Do the young women live herded in halls, sheltered in
cottages, or at home and at boarding-houses as convenience dictates ?
The number of hours of sleep taken should be exactly stated. The
number of hours of study should be given, instead of the vague terms
" moderate," etc. Instead of indefinite inquiries as to whether the stu-
dent went into society much or little, exact inquiries into the various
modes of spending the hours of social recreation should be made. These
and many similar points, which would suggest themselves at once, may
be considered trivial ; but, if we accept the general conclusion of the
report that the pursuit of collegiate education is not in itself harmful,
VOL. XXVIII. — 39

6io THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the importance of studying the entire environment, physical and social,
of the young student at once appears. Here, in fact, the problem of
her education centers.

Turaing from the general conclusion to the consideration of certain
specific problems, we educe the following data for discussion :

By all odds the most important fact regarding the higher education
of woman is, that we are educating wives and mothers. Few probably
will regret this, but those few must still admit the fact in a society
constituted like ours. This, then, is the heart of the situation, and, in
view of it, the following statistics are suggestive :

Omitting Oberlin College, for reasons already given, 26 per cent of
the graduates who report are married, the other 74 per cent single.
The average number of years since graduation is, however, over six,
and average age over twenty-seven. Of the married, 37 per cent are
without children, although the average number of years married is
6*2. The one hundred and nine having children report 205. Of
these, 12 per cent have died, and, of these deaths, 25 per cent are due
to causes connected with bearing. If we include all married couples,
there is but 1'2 child to every five years of married life ; and, even if
we exclude those not having borne any, there are, among the remain-
der, two children to seven years of married life. AVe leave these
figures, as the others, to speak for themselves.

That three hundred report their post-graduate occupations as
teaching, and that one hundred and sixteen are following a profes-
sional life, shows a fact too easily lost sight of. Collegiate courses for
woman have not solved the problem of her education, but, at most, of
her technical training. It can hardly be thought desirable that 60 per
cent of all the young women of our country, who ought to have col-
legiate training, should have it only as a preparation for one of the
professions or for teaching. The question of women's education, in
any worthy sense of the term education, has yet to be faced. The re-
markable fact that the courses for female education, as well in purely
female institutions as in co-educational, run parallel with and are
modeled after the curriculum of male colleges, is to be accounted for
only on the ground that upon the whole their training is designed for
those who have to compete with men in the professional walks of life.

If we confine ourselves to the health of women, we shall find that
the figures hardly justify us in assuming a purely optimistic attitude.
The following figures speak for themselves : Of those who entered
college one or two years after the commencement of the menstrual
period, 20*5 per cent had poor health during college-life ; of those
who entered three to five years after, but 17*7 per cent ; and more
than five years, 15*4 per cent. If we compare the ages at entering col-
lege with the relative improvement or deterioration in health, we reach
the same result. Of those who entered college at sixteen years or
under, 28 per cent fell oflf in health, while 17 per cent gained. The

HEALTH AND SEX IN HIGHER EDUCATION. 6ii

figures for those of twenty and over show an almost exact reversal of
these percentages, being 18 per cent loss and 28*5 per cent gain. The
problem of age is thus seen to be an exceedingly important one.

The fact that, of the disorders reported, 7 per cent are brain
troubles, 26 per cent of reproductive organs, and 33 per cent nervous-
ness (also 15 per cent of neuralgia), shows that the problem of health
has yet to find its adequate solution. The following percentages tell
the same story : During the period of development, 53 per cent were
troubled during the menstrual period (with simple irregularities, uter-
ine or reflex pain, one or all). During college-life the per cent was
66 ; since graduation, 64. If we isolate simple irregularities, the result
is more significant still ; for these show a constant decrease, while the
organic troubles show as marked an increase, the figures being, respect-
ively, for irregularities, 16 per cent, 9 per cent, 7 per cent ; for uter-
ine and reflex pain, 24 per cent, 36 per cent, 36 per cent, for the three
periods of development, college, and graduate life. Such percentages
show along what line effort should be directed.

Leaving this question, we turn to the phenomena of college-life,
so far as regards exercise, study, and worry, in their effects upon health.
The tables here cease to have reference, in their bearing, to women
alone, and point a moral for all educators to heed. The importance
of exercise is shown by the fact that those reporting over two hours
per day return 84 per cent in good or fair health, while those below
two hours can show but 75 per cent. It is hardly an exaggeration to
say that, upon the whole, the tables show that worry is the most po-
tent of all predisposing causes of disease. Those who had no worries
of account report 92 per cent in fair or good health ; those worrying
over both personal affairs and studies state that but 68 per cent of their
number were in the same condition. Worry over personal matters
seems to be more harmful to health than overstudies, 75 and 80 per
cent being the proportion of good health respectively. This showing
goes far in substantiating the opinion of those who hold that study per
se is never a cause of failure of health. However, of those who studied
severely, 21 per cent report poor health, against 15 per cent of those
studying moderately. Again, of the latter, 54 per cent report disorders
as against 70 per cent of those who studied more ; the figures for nerv-
ousness also are 15 and 26 per cent respectively. It is fair to suppose,
however, that the largest per cent of those worrying over their studies
was found among those studying severely.

In the tables, the distinction is made between those reporting
from female colleges only and those of the co-educational. It is an
easy matter, however, to separate them, which I have done, with
the following results : Of the whole number (705), 458 are from fe-
male colleges ; 247 co-educational. For graduate life, the figures for
health are exactly the same for both : 83 per cent in good health, and
17 per cent in poor. During college-life 16 per cent of the co-educa-

6i2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tionalists report poor health, as against 18 per cent of those from fe-
male colleges ; but this is more than accounted for by the fact that 2.3
per cent of the latter were in poor health before entering, showing a
real gain during college-life of 4 per cent in average health, while the
reports of co-educational colleges show a gain of but one per cent. It
must be noticed, however, that the female colleges show a falling off
of 4'8 per cent from good, to fair health, while the co-educational show
a similar loss of but 0*3 per cent. The average number of disorders
reported is much the same for each class : 1'19 for graduates of fe-
male colleges ; 1"24 for the other class. The figures as given show that
either more care is taken of personal health in the female colleges than
in the co-educational, or that more supervision is exercised ; for 55 per
cent of the former report abstinence from study and exercise during
the menstrual period, and only 25 per cent of the latter. The figures
for disorders show no corresponding gain, however, the advantage here
being on the side of the co-educational institutions, as the latter report
33 per cent of disorders of brain, nerves, and reproductive organs,
against 41 per cent in the female colleges. The figures for worry are
about the same in each class : 33 per cent report severe study in the
co-educational colleges, as against 26 per cent in the oiher ; the ad-
vantage in exercise is, however, somewhat on the side of the co-edu-
cational college. The figures in the causation of disorders show the
same percentages arising from intellectual overwork and physical acci-
dent. The female colleges, however, report proportionately over one
thii-d more breaking down from emotional strain, while the co-educa-
tional colleges balance the account with one fourth more failing in
health by reason of bad sanitary conditions.

Of the life since graduation, not much can be said : 23 per cent of
the graduates of the female colleges have married ; 28 per cent of the
co-educational, the average age of each being the same. Competition
with men seems to have led a less number of graduates of co-educa-
tional colleges to enter the professions ; at all events they report but
12 per cent in the professions, while the female colleges report 21 per
cent. A somewhat larger number follow teaching, however, the fig-
ures here being 48 per cent and 42 per cent respectively.

It would certainly be too much to say from these figures that the
personal care and advice from others given in female colleges are
greater, while the social surroundings in the co-educational colleges
are healthier, because perhaps more natural ; but they suggest the ad-
visability of questions directed to these points. The female colleges
seem to have the advantage in purely sanitary conditions (except amount
of exercise), as witnessed by the smaller percentage reporting bad sani-
tation as cause of disease ; by the advantage of more than two to one
of abstinence from study at critical periods, and in moderation of
study ; while the advantage of health remains on the side of the co-
educational during college-life. That the balance shifts after gradu-

HEALTH AND SEX IN HIGHER EDUCATION. 613

ation would point in the line of the generalization already suggested ;
as with the cessation of college-life would cease the abnormal cloister-
ing of the young women, while bad sanitary conditions would show
comparatively permanent results. That proportionately one third
more in the female colleges report emotional strain as cause of dis-
orders, other causes showing much the same average, point in the
same direction. At any rate, it is worth inquiry whether it is not
possible to unite the presumed advantage of the female colleges in wise
advice and proper attention to health with the freer and more natural
social relations of the co-educational institutions.

It is hoped that enough has been said to show the importance of
the investigations already made, and to justify the supposition that
further more detailed and extended inquiries would increase their
value. No educator at all acquainted with the present status of affairs
will carp at the results already reached, nor will he find much but cause
for thankfulness upon a survey of the field ; but his outlook must be
dii-ected toward the future, not the past. Nothing could well be more
fatal to the cause of woman's education than to suppose that the ques-
tion is already settled. The commencement has indeed been made,
but only the commencement. Mere multiplication of institutions and
influences of the existing type, however valuable, as affording oppor-
tunities to individual young women, will do little toward determining
the larger aspects of the case. Were the number of purely women's
colleges largely increased, and were all the important boys' colleges to
open their doors to girls, only the necessary basis for the solution of
the problem would be obtained.

Such inquiries as we have briefly summarized can do more than
aught else to furnish necessary data for a wise and comparatively
permanent solution. Discussion on partisan lines is absolutely value-
less, and a priori discussion will effect nothing. Tbe unbiased study
by educational experts of the fruits actually borne by experience is
invaluable, and the generalizations based upon such data will show the
lines upon which reform must work itself out. This is not the place
to formulate the exact nature of such inquiries, but they should cover
at least three heads :

I. Health. — The present report offers a valuable model to follow.
More attention should be given to the social and moral environment
of college-life, however, even in this point ; and the discussion should
more definitely concern the specifically female functions.

II. Life since Geaduatiox, — The brief notes respecting mar-
riages and occupations in the report discussed are all we have on this
head. It should be treated with a view to determining as accurately
as may be the position which the college-educated woman holds and
desires to hold in the body social and politic. "NVhen we recollect the
difliculty in adjusting young men's collegiate education to their life
after graduation, in spite of the accumulation of infinite experience, the

6i4 THE POPULAR SCIEXCE MONTHLY.

value of sucla a report in determining the lines whicli -woman's college
education should follow, in the dearth of information upon the topic, is
at once seen.

III. Specific Data for Futuke Movements. — These should be
based upon confidential revelations made by the graduates themselves,
together with the testimony of college officers and physicians. It
should not be limited narrowly. They should go far beyond the
question of bodily health. The statement of what each had found the
greatest aid and the greatest hindrance in her collegiate training would
be of much value. Experience alone can decide the exact form which
these inquiries should take, but their importance can hardly be over-
estimated in the moral and social aspects of the case.

Education must follow the example of the special sciences. It
mtcst organize. There is organization, and to spare, in the schools
themselves ; what we want is organized recognition of the problems
of education ; organized study for the discovery of methods of solu-
tion ; organized application of these methods in the details of school-
life. Co-operation in research and application is the key to the problem.

PKOEM TO GENESIS:

A REPLY TO PEOFESSOR HUXLEY.
Br WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE.

'TTOUS avez une manihre si aimahle cfannoncer les plus manvaises
nouvelles, qu^ dies perdent par Id de leurs desagremens.* So wrote,
de haul en has (from above down), the Duchess of York to Beau
Brummell, sixty or seventy years back ; f and so write I, de has en
haut (from below up), to the two very eminent champions who have
in the "Nineteenth Century" of December entered appearances on
behalf of Dr. Reville's Prolegom^nes, with a decisiveness of tone, at
all events, which admits of no mistake : Professor Huxley and Pro-
fessor Max Miillcr. My first duty is to acknowledge in both cases
the abundant courtesy and indulgence with which I am personally
treated. And ray first thought is that, where even disagreement
is made in a manner pleasant, it will be a duty to search and see if
there be any points of agreement or approximation, which will be
more pleasant still. This indulgence and courtesy deserves in the
case of Professor Huxley a special warmth of acknowledgment, be-
cause, while thus more than liberal to the individual, he has for the
class of Reconcilers, in which he places me, an unconcealed and un-

* You have 80 gentle a way of telling the worst news that it thereby loses its unpleas-
antness.

f " Life," by Jesse. ReTiscd edition, i. 260.

PROEM TO GENESIS. 615

measured scorn. These are they who impose upon man a burden of
false science in the name of religion, who dictate as a Divine com-
mand " an implicit belief in the cosmogony of Genesis ; " and who
" stir unwisdom and fanaticism to their depths." * Judgments so
severe should surely be supported by citation or other evidence, for
which I look in vain. To some they might suggest the idea that
Passion may sometimes unawares intrude even within the precincts
of the temple of Science. But I admit that a great master of his art
may well be provoked, when he finds his materials tumbled about by
incapable hands, and may mistake for irreverence what is only want
of skill.

While acknowledging the great courtesy with which Professor
Huxley treats his antagonist individually, and while simply listening
to his denunciations of the Reconcilers as one listens to distant
thunders, with a sort of sense that after all they will do no great
harm, I must presume to animadvert with considerable freedom upon
his method ; upon the sweeping character of his advocacy ; upon his
perceptible exaggeration of points in controversy ; upon his mode of
deaUng with authorities ; and upon the curious fallacy of substitution
by which he enables himself to found the widest proscriptions of the
claim of the Book of Genesis to contain a Divine record upon a
reasoned impeachment of its scientific accuracy in, as I shall show, a
single particular.

As to the first of these topics, nothing can be more equitable than
Professor Huxley's intention to intervene as a " science proctor " in
that part of the debate raised by M. Reville, " to which he proposes
to restrict his observations " (P. S. M. p. 449). This is the part on
which he proposes in his first page to report as a student — and every
reader will inwardly add, as one of the most eminent among all
students — of natural science. Now this is not the cosmogonical part
of the account in Genesis. On Genesis i. 1-19, containing the cos-
mogony, he does not report as an expert, but refers us (p. 859) to
"those who are specially conversant with the sciences involved;"
adding his opinion about their opinion. Yet in his second page, with-
out making any reference to this broad distinction, he at once forgets
the just limitation of his first, and our ''proctor for science" pro-
nounces on M. Reville's estimate, not of the fourfold succession in the
stratification of the earth, but of "the account of the Creation given
in the Book of Genesis," that its terms are as "respectful as in his
judgment they arc just" {ibid.). Thus the proctorship for science,
justly assumed for matters withm his province as a student, is rather
hastily extended to matters which he himself declares to be beyond it.
In truth it will appear, that as there are many roads to heaven with
one ending, so, provided only a man arrives at the conclusion that the
great Proem of Genesis lends no support to the argument for Revela-
* "Popular Science Monthly," February, 1S86, pp. 459, 460.

6i6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tion, it does not much matter how he gets there. For in this "just "
account of the Creation I have shown that M. Reville supports his
accusation of scientific error by three particulars {N. C. p. C89) : that
in the first he contradicts the judgment of schohars on the sense of the
original ; in the second he both misquotes (by inadvertence) the terms
of the text, and overlooks the distinction made so palpable (if not
earlier) half a century ago, by the work of Dr. Buckland, * between
bara and asa / while the third proceeds on the assumption that there
could be no light to produce vegetation, except light derived from a
visible sun. These three charges constitute the head and front of M.
Reville's indictment against the cosmogony ; and the fatal flaws in
them, without any notice or defense, are now all taken under the
mantle of our science proctor, who returns to the charge at the close
of his article (p. 459), and again dismisses with comprehensive honor
as "wise and moderate" what he had ushered in as reverent and just.
So much for the sweeping, undiscriminating character of an advocacy
which, in a scientific writer, we might perhaps have expected to be
carefully limited and defined.

I take next the exaggeration which appears to me to mark un-
happily Professor Huxley's method. Under this head I include all
needless multiplication of points of controversy, whether in the form
of overstating differences, or understating agreements, with an ad-
versary.

As I have lived for more than half a century in an atmosphere of
contention, my stock of controversial fire has perhaps become ab-
normally low ; while Professor Huxley, who has been inhabiting
the Elysian regions of science, the eclita doctrind sapientdm templa
sercna,\ may be enjoying all the freshness of an unjaded appetite.
Certainly one of the lessons life has taught me is, that where there is
known to be a common object, the pursuit of truth, there should also
be a studious desire to interpret the adversary in the best sense his
words will fairly bear ; to avoid whatever widens the breach ; and to
make the most of whatever tends to narrow it. These I hold to be
part of the laws of knightly tournament.

I do not, therefore, fully understand why Professor Huxley makes
it a matter of objection to me that, in rebuking a writer who had
treated evolution wholesale as a novelty in the world, I cited a few
old instances of moraland historical evolution only, and did not ex-
tend my front by examining Indian sages and the founders of Greek
philosophy (P. /iS'. 31. p. 454). Xor why, when I have spoken of physical
evolution as of a thing to me most acceptable, but not yet in its rigor
(to my knowledge) proved (N. C. p. 705), we have only the rather
niggardly acknowledgment that I have made " the most oblique ad-

* " Bridgewater Treatise," vol. i. pp. 19-28. Chap. i. : "Consistency of Geological
Discoveries with Sacred History."

f Lucr. ii. 8. (Serene heights raised by the learning of the wise.)

PROEM TO GENESIS. 617

missions of a possible value" (P. S. M. p. 454). Thus it is when
agreement is threatened, but far otherwise when differences are to
be blazoned. When I have spoken of the succession of orders in the
most general terms only, this is declared a sharply divided succession
in which the last species of one can not overla}) the first species of an-
other (p. 457). When I have pleaded on simple grounds of reasoning
for the supposition of a substantial correspondence between Genesis i.
and science {N. C. p. 69G), have waived all question of a verbal in-
spiration, all question whether the whole of the statements can now
be made good (i\T C. p. 694), I am treated as one of those who impose
" in the name of religion " as a divine requisition " an implicit belief
in the accuracy of the cosmogony of Genesis," and who deserve to
have their heads broken in consequence (P. S. M. p. 460).

I have urged nothing " in the name of religion." I have sought
to adduce probable evidence that a guidance more than human lies
within the great Proem of the Book of Genesis {JV. C. p. 694), just as
I might adduce probable evidence to show that Francis did or did not
write Junius, that William the Third was or was not responsible for
the massacre of Glencoe ; I have expressly excepted detail (p. 696),
and have stated (i\\ C. p. 687) that in my inquiry " the authority of
Scripture can not be alleged in proof of a jDrimitive revelation " (iV[
C p. 687). I object to all these exaggerations of charge, as savoring
of the spirit of the Inquisition, and as restraints on literary freedom.

My next observation as to the Professor's method refers to his
treatment of authorities.

In one passage (P. S. 31. p. 450) Mr. Huxley expresses his regret that
I have not named my authority for the statement made concerning
the fourfold succession, in order that he might have transferred his
attentions from myself to a new delinquent. Xow, published works
are (as I may show) a fair subject for reference. But as to pointing
out any person who might have favored me with his views in private
correspondence, I own that I should have some scruple in handing
him over to be pilloried as a Reconciler, and to be pelted with
charges of unwisdom and fanaticism, which I myself, from long use,
am perfectly content to bear.

I did refer to three great and famous names : those of Cuvier, Sir
John Herschel, and Whewell (jV[ C. p. 697). Mr. Huxley speaks of
me as having quoted them in support of my case on the fourfold suc-
cession ; and at the same time notices that I admitted Cuvier not to
be a recent authority, which in geology proper is, I believe, nearly
equivalent to saying he is, for particulars, no authority at all. This
recital is singularly inaccurate. I cited them {J\\ C. p. 697), not with
reference to the fourfold succession, but generally for " the general
accordance of the Mosaic cosmogony with the results of modern in-
quiry " {ibid.), and particularly in connection with the nebular hy-
pothesis. It is the cosmogony (Gen. i. 1-19), not the fourfold succes-

6i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sion, which was the sole object of Reville's attack, and the main
object of my defense ; and which is the largest portion of the whole
subject. Will Mr. Huxley venture to say that Cuvier is an unavail-
able authority, or that Ilerschel and Whewell are other than great
and venerable names, with reference to the cosmogony ? Yet he has
quietly set them aside without notice ; and they with many more
are inclusively bespattered with the charges, which he has launched
against the pestilent tribe of Reconcilers.

My fourth and last observation on the "method" of Professor
Huxley is that, after discussing a part, and that not the most consider-
able part, of the Proem of Genesis, he has broadly pronounced upon
the whole. This is a mode of reasoning which logic rejects, and
which I presume to savor more of license than of science. The four-
fold succession is condemned with argument ; the cosmogony is thrown
into the bargain. True, Mr. Huxley refers in a single sentence to three
detached points of it partially touched in my observations (p. 453).
But all my argument, the chief argument of my paper, leads up to the
nebular or rotatory hypothesis i^N. C 089-94 and G97-8). This hy-
pothesis, with the authorities cited — of whom one is the author of
" Vestiges of the Creation " — is inclusively condemned, and without a
word vouchsafed to it.

I shall presently express my gratitude for the scientific part of Mr.
Huxley's paper. But there are two sides to the question. The whole
matter at issue is, 1, a comparison between the probable meaning of
the Proem to Genesis and the results of cosmological and geological
science ; 2, the question whether this comparison favors or does not
favor the belief that an element of divine knowledge — knowledge
which was not accessible to the simple action of the human faculties —
is conveyed to us in this Proem. It is not enough to be accurate in
one term of a comparison, unless we are accurate in both. A master
of English may speak the vilest and most blundering French. I do
not think Mr. Huxley has even endeavored to understand what is the
idea, what is the intention, which his opponent ascribes to the Mosaic
writer ; or what is the conception which his opponent forms of the
weighty word Revelation. He holds the writer responsible for scien-
tific precision : I look for nothing of the kind, but assign to him a
statement general, which admits exceptions ; popular, Avhich aims
mainly at producing moral impressions ; summary, which can not but
be open to more or less of criticism in detail. He thinks it is a lect-
ure. I think it is a sermon. He describes living creatures by struct-
ure. The Mosaic writer describes them by habitat. Both I suppose
are right. I suppose that description by habitat would be unavailing
for the purposes of science. I feel sure that description by structure,
such as the geologists supply, would have been unavailing for the pur-
pose of summary teaching with religious aim. Of Revelation I will
speak by-and-by.

PROEM TO GENESIS. 619

In order to institute with profit the comparison, now in view, the
very first thing necessary is to determine, so far as the subject-matter
allows, what it was that the Pentateuchal or Mosaic writer designed to
convey to the minds of those for whom he wrote. The case is, in
more ways than one, I conceive, the direct reverse of that which the
Professor has alleged. It is not bringing Science to be tried at the
bar of Religion. It is bringing Religion, so far as it is represented by
this part of the Holy Scriptures, to be tried at the bar of Science.
The indictment against the Pentateuchal writer is, that he has written
what is scientifically untrue. We have to find then in the first place
•what it is that he has written, according to the text, not an inerrable
text, as it now stands before us.

First, I assume there is no dispute that in Genesis i. 20-27 he has
represented a fourfold sequence or succession of living organisms.
Aware of my own inability to define in any tolerable manner the
classes of these organisms, I resorted to the general phrases — water-
population, air-population, land-population. The immediate purpose
of these phrases was not to correspond with the classifications of Sci-
ence, but to bring together in brief and convenient form the larger and
more varied modes of expression used in verses 20, 21, 24, 25 of the
Chapter.

I think, however, I have been to blame for having brought into a
contact with science, which was not sufficiently defined, terms that
have no scientific meaning : water-population, air-population, and
(twofold) land-population. I shall now discard them and shall substi-
tute others, which have the double advantage of being used by geolo-
gists, and perhaps of expressing better than my phrases what was in
the mind of the Mosaic WTiter. These are the words — 1, fishes ; 2,
birds ; 3, mammals ; * 4, man. By all, I think, it will be felt that the
first object is to know what the Pentateuchal writer means. The rela-
tion of his meaning to science is essential, but, in orderly argumenta-
tion, subsequent. The matter now before us is a matter of reasonable
and probable interpretation. What is the proper key to this her-
meneutic work? In my opinion it is to be found in a just estimate of
the purpose with which the author wrote, and with which the Book of
Genesis was, in this part of it, either composed or compiled.

If this be the true point of departure, it opens up a question of ex-
treme interest, at which I have but faintly glanced in my paper, and
which is nowhere touched in the reply to me. What proper place has
such a composition as the first Chapter of Genesis in such a work as
the Scriptures of the Old Testament ? They are indisputably written
with a religious aim ; and their subject-matter is religious. We may
describe this aim in various ways. For the present purpose, suffice it
to say they are conversant with belief in God, with inculcation of du-

* I wish to be understood as speaking here of the higher or ordinary mammals,
which alone I assume to have been probably known to the Mosaic writer.

6zo THE POPULAR SCIEXCE MONTHLY.

ties founded on that belief, with history and prophecy obviously hav-
ing it for their central point. But this Chapter, at the least down to
verse 25, and perhaps throughout, stands on a different ground. In
concise and rapid outline, it traverses a vast region of physics. It is
easy to understand Saint Paul when he speaks of the world as bearing
witness to God.* What he said was capable of being verified or test-
ed by the common experimental knowledge, of all who heard him.
Of it, of our Saviour's mention of the lilies — and may it not be said
generally of the references in Scripture to natural knowledge ? — they
are at once accounted for by the positions in which they stand. But
this first Chapter of Genesis i^rofesses to set out in its own way a large
and comjn'ehensive scheme of physical facts : the transition from
chaos to kosmos, from the inanimate to life, from life in its lower or-
ders to man. Being knowledge of an order anterior to the creation of
Adamic man, it was beyond verification, as being beyond experience.
As a physical exposition in miniature, it stands alone in the Sacred
Record. And, as this singular composition is solitary in the Bible, so
it seems to be hardly less solitary in the sacred books of the world.
"The only important resemblance of any ancient cosmogony with the
Scriptural account, is to be found in the Persian or Zoroastrian : "
This Bishop Browne f proceeds to account for on the following among
other grounds : that Zoroaster was probably brought into contact with
the Hebrews, and even perhaps wuth the prophet Daniel ; a supposi-
tion which supplies the groundwork of a recent and remarkable ro-
mance, not i:)roceeding from a Christian school. J Again, the Proem
does not carry any Egyptian marks. In the twenty-seven thousand
lines of Homer, archaic as they are and ever turning to the past, there
is, I think, only one * which belongs to physiology. The beautiful
sketch of a cosmogony by Ovid || seems in considerable degree to fol-
low the Mosaic outline ; but it was composed at a time when the treas-
ure of the Hebrew records had been for two centuries imparted,
through the Septuagint, to the Aryan nations.

Professor Huxley, if I understand him rightly (P. S. M. pp. 451-2),
considers the Mosaic writer, not pei'haps as having intended to em-
brace the w^hole truth of science in the province of geology, but, at
least as liable to be convicted of scientific worthlessness if his lan-
guage will not stand the test of this construction. Thus the 'Svater-
population " is to include "the innumerable hosts of marine inverte-
brated animals." It seems to me that these discoveries, taken as a
whole, and also taken in all their parts and particulars, do not afford a
proper, I mean a rational, standard for the interpretation of the Mosa-
ic writer ; that the recent discovery of the Silurian scorpion, a highly
organized animal (p. 458), is of little moment either way to the ques-

* Acts xiv. 1 7 ; Romans i. 20. \ Note on Gen, L B.
X "Zoroaster." By F. M. Crawford. Macmillan, 1885.

* //. vii. 99. I Ovid, " Metam." i. 1- 38.

PROEM TO GENESIS. 621

tion now before us ;* that it is not an account of the extinct species
which we should consider the Mosaic writer as intending to convey ;
that while his words are capable of covering them, as the oilcoumenl
of the New Testament covers the red and yellow man, the rules of
rational construction recommend and require our assigning to them a
more limited meaning, which I will presently describe.

Another material point in Professor Huxley's interpretation ap-
pears to me to lie altogether beyond the natural force of the words,
and to be of an arbitrary character. He includes in it the proposition
that the production of the respective orders was effected (p. 457) dur-
ing each of "three distinct and successive periods of time ; and only
during those periods of time ; " or again, in one of these, " and not
at any other of these ; " as, in a series of games at chess, one is done be-
fore another begins ; or as in a " march-past," one regiment goes before
another comes. No doubt there may be a degree of literalism which
will even suffice to show that, as " every winged fowl " was produced
on the fourth day of the Hexaemeron, therefore the birth of new fowls
continually is a contradiction to the text of Genesis. But does not
the equity of common sense require us to understand simply that the
order of "winged fowl," whatever that may mean, took its place in
creation at a certain time, and that from that time its various compo-
nent classes were in course of production ? Is it not the fact that in
synoptical statements of successive events, distributed in time for the
sake of producing easy and clear impressions, general truth is aimed
at, and periods are allowed to overlap ? If, with such a view, we ar-
range the schools of Greek philosophy in numerical order, according
to the dates of their inception, we do not mean that one expired be-
fore another was founded. If the archaeologist describes to us as suc-
cessive in time the ages of stone, bronze, and iron,f he certainly does
not mean that no kinds of stone implement were invented after bronze
began, or no kinds of bronze after iron began. When Thucydides
said that the ancient limited monarchies were succeeded by tyrannies,
he did not mean that all the monarchs died at once, and a set of ty-
rants, like Deucalion's men, rose up and took their places. "Woe be, I
should say, to any one who tries summarily to present in series the
phases of ancient facts, if they are to be judged under the rule of
Professor Huxley.

Proceeding, on what I hold to be open ground, to state my own
idea of the true key to the meaning of the Mosaic record, I suggest that

* Because my argument in no way requires universal accordance, what bearing the
scorpion may have on any current scientific hypothesis, it is not for me to say.

■j- I use this enumeration to illustrate an argument, but I must, even in so using it, en-
ter a caveat against its particulars. I do not conceive it to be cither probable or histori-
cal that, as a general rule, mankind passed from the use of stone implements to the use
of bronze, a composite metal, without passing through some intermediate (longer or
shorter) period of copper.

622 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

it was intended to give moral, and not scientific, instruction to those
for whom it was written. That for the Adamic race, recent on the
earth, and young in faculties, the traditions here incorporated, which
were probably far older than the Book, had a natural and a highly
moral purpose in conveying to their minds a lively sense of the wise
and loving care with which the Almighty Father, who demanded
much at their hands, had beforehand given them much, in the provi-
dent adaptation of the v.orld to be their dwelling-place, and of the
created orders for their use and rule. It appears to me that, given
the very nature of the Scriptures, this is clearly the rational point of
view. If it is so, then, it follows, that just as the tradition described
earth, air, and heaven in the manner in which they superficially pre-
sented themselves to the daily experience of man — not scientifically, but

The common air, the sun, the skies —
so he spoke of fishes, of birds, of beasts, of what man was most con-
cerned with ; and, last in the series, of man himself, largely and gen-
erally, as facts of his experience ; from which great moral lessons of
wonder, gratitude, and obedience were to be deduced, to aid him in
the great work of his life-training.

If further proof be wanting, that Avhat the Mosaic writer had in
his mind were the creatures with which Adamic man was conversant,
we have it in the direct form of verse 28, which gives to man for
meat the fruit of every seed-yielding tree, and every seed-yielding
herb, and the dominion of every beast, fowl, and reptile living.
There is here a marked absence of reference to any but the then
living species.

This, then, is the key to the meaning of the Book, and of the tra-
dition, if, as I suppose, it was before the Book, which seems to me to
offer the most probable, and therefore the rational guide to its inter-
pretation. The question we shall have to face is whether this state-
ment so understood, this majestic and touching lesson of the child-
hood of Adamic man, stands in such a relation to scientific truth, as
far as it is now known, as to give warrant to the inference that the
guidance under which it was composed was more than that of faculties
merely human, at that stage of development, and likewise of informa-
tion, which belonged to the childhood of humanity.

We have, then, before us one term of the desired comiDarison.
Let us now turn to the other.

And here my first duty is to render my grateful thanks to Pro-
fessor Iluxlcy for having corrected my either erroneous or super-
annuated assumption as to the state of scientific opinion on the second
and third terms of the fourfold succession of life. As one probable
doctor sufficed to make an opinion probable, so the dissent of this
eminent man would of itself overthrow and pulverize my proposition
that there was a scientific consens^(S as to a sequence like that of
Genesis in the production of animal life, as between fishes, birds,

PROEM TO GENESIS. 623

mammals, and man. I shall compare the text of Genesis with geo-
logical statements ; but shall make no attempt, unless this be an at-
tempt, to profit by a consena^as of geologists.

I suppose it to be admitted on all hands that no perfectly compre-
hensive and complete correspondence can be established between the
terms of the Mosaic text and modem discovery. Ko one, for in-
stance, could conclude from it that which appears to be generally
recognized, that a great reptile-age would be revealed by the Mesozoic
rocks.

Yet I think readers, who have been swept away by the torrent of
Mr. Huxley's denunciations, will feel some surprise when on drawing
summarily into line the main allegations, and especially this ruling
order of the Proem, they see how small a part of them is brought into
question by IVIr. Huxley, and to how large an extent they are favored by
the tendencies, presumptions, and even conclusions of scientific inquiry.

First, as to the cosmogony, or the formation of the earth and the
heavenly bodies —

1. The first operation recorded in Genesis appears to be the forma-
tion of light. It is detached, apparently, from the waste or formless
elemental mass (verses 2-5), which is left relatively dark by its with-
drawal.

2. Next we hear of the existence of vapor, and of its condensation
into water on the surface of the earth (verses 6-10). Vegetation
subsequently begins : but this belongs rather to geology than to cos-
mogony (verses 11, 12).

3. In a new period, the heavenly bodies are declared to be fully
formed and visible, dividing the day from the night (verses 14-18).

Under the guidance particularly of Dr. Whewell, I have referred
to the nebular hypothesis as confirmatory of this account.

Mr. Huxley has not either denied the hypothesis, or argued against
it. But I turn to Phillips's "Manual of Geology," edited and adapted
by Mr. Seeley and Mr. Etheridge (1885). It has a section in vol. i.
(pp. 15-19) on "Modern Speculations concerning the Origin of the
Earth."

The first agent here noticed as contributing to the work of pro-
duction is the " gas hydrogen in a burning state," which now " forms
the enveloping portion of the sun's atmosphere ; " whence we are told
the inference arises that the earth also was once " incandescent at its
surface," and that its rocks may have been " products of combustion."
Is not this representation of light with heat for its ally, as the first
element in this Speculation, remarkably accordant with the opening of
the Proem to Genesis ?

Next it appears (^Z'^c7.) that "the product of this combustion is
vapor," which with diminished heat condenses into water, and event-
ually accumulates " in depressions on the sun's surface so as to form
oceans and seas." "It is at least probable that the earth has passed

624 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

through a phase of this kind" {ibid.). " The other planets are appar-
ently more or less like the earth in possessing atmospheres and seas."
Is there not here a remarkable concurrence with the second great act
of the cosmogony ?

Plainly, as I suppose it is agreeable to these suppositions that, as
vapor gradually passes into water, and the atmosphere is cleared, the
full adaptation of sun and moon by visibility for their functions
should come in due sequence, as it comes in Gen. i. 14-18.

Pursuing its subject, the Manual proceeds (p. 17): "This con-
sidei'ation leads up to what has been called the nebular hypothesis,"
which " supposes that, before the stars existed, the materials of which
they consist were diffused in the heavens in a state of vapor " (ibid.).
The text then proceeds to describe how local centers of condensation
might throw off rings, these rings break into planets, and the planets,
under conditions of sufficient force, repeat the process, and thus pro-
duce satellites like those of Saturn, or like the moon.

I therefore think that, so far as cosmogony is concerned, the effect
of Mr. Huxley's paper is not by any means to leave it as it was, but
to leave it materially fortified by the Manual of Geology, which I
understand to be a standard of authority at the present time.

Turning now to the region of that science, I understand the main
statements of Genesis, in successive order of time, but without any
measurement of its divisions, to be as follows :

1. A period of land, anterior to all life (verses 9, 10).

2. A period of vegetable life, anterior to animal life (verses 11, 12),

3. A period of animal life, in the order of fishes (verse 20).

4. Another stage of animal life, in the order of birds.

5. Another, in the order of beasts (verses 24, 25).

6. Last of all, man (verses 26, 27).

Here is a chain of six links, attached to a previous chain of three.
And I think it not a little remarkable that of this entire succession, the
only step directly challenged is that of numbers four and five, which
(p. 457) Mr. Huxley is inclined rather to reverse. He admits distinct-
ly the seniority of fishes. How came that seniority to be set down
here ? He admits as probable upon present knowledge, in the person
of Homo sapiens, the juniority of man (p. 455). How came this
juniority to be set down here ? He proceeds indeed to describe an
opposite opinion concerning man as holding exactly the same rank as
the one to which he had given an apparent sanction {ibid.). As I do
not precisely understand the bearing of the terms he uses, I pass them
by, and I shall take the liberty of referring presently to the latest au-
thorities, which he has himself suggested that I should consult. But
I add to the questions I have just put this other inquiry. How came
the Mosaic writer to place the fishes and the men in their true relative
positions not only to one another, and not only to the rest of the animal
succession, but in a definite and that a true relation of time to the ori-

PROEM TO GENESIS. 625

gin of the first plant-life, and to the colossal operations by which the
earth was fitted for them all ? Mr. Huxley knows very well that it
would be in the highest degree irrational to ascribe this correct distri-
bution to the doctrine of chances ; nor will the stone of Sisyphus of
itself constitute a sufficient answer to inquiries which are founded, not
upon a fanciful attempt to equate every word of the Proem with every
dictum of science, but upon those principles of probable reasoning by
which all rational lives are and must be guided.

I find the latest published authority on geology in the Second or
Mr. Etheridge's volume of the Manual * of Professor Phillips, and by
this I will now proceed to test the sixfold series which I have ventured
upon presenting.

First, however, looking back for a moment to a work, obviously of
the highest authority,! on the geology of its day, I find in it a table
of the order of appearance of animal life upon the earth, which, be-
gining with the oldest, gives us —

1. Invertebrates 4. Birds

2. Fishes 5. Mammals

3. Reptiles 6. Man.

I omit all reference to specifications, and speak only of the princi-
pal lines of division.

In the Phillips-Etheridge Manual, beginning as before with the old-
est, I find the following arrangement, given partly by statement and
partly by diagram :

1. " The Azoic or Archsean time of Dana ; " called pre-Cambrian
by other physicists (pp. 3, 5).

2. A commencement of plant-life indicated by Dana as anterior to
invertebrate animal life ; long anterior to the vertebrate forms, which
alone are mentioned in Genesis (pp. 4, 5).

3. Three periods of invertebrate life.

4. Age of fishes.

5. Age of reptiles.

6. Age of mammals, much less remote.

7. Age of man, much less remote than mammals.

As to birds, though they have not a distinct and separate age
assigned them, the Manual (vol. i. ch. xxv. pp. 511-20) supplies us
very clearly with their place in " the succession of animal life." We
are here furnished with the following series, after the fishes : 1. Fossil
reptiles (p. 512) ; 2. Ornithosauria (p. 517) ; they were "flying ani-
mals, which combined the characters of reptiles with those of birds ; "
3. The first birds of the secondary rocks with " feathers in all respects
similar to those of existing birds" (p. 518) ; 4. Mammals (p. 520).

* Phillips's "Manual of Geology" (vol. ii.) part ii., by R. Etheridge, F. R. S. New
edition, 1885.

f " Palaeontology," by Richard Owen (now Sir Richard Owen, K. C. B.). Second edi-
tion, p. 5, 1861.

VOL. xxviii. — 40

626 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

I have been permitted to see in proof another statement from an
authority still more recent, Professor Prcstwich, Avhich is now passing
through the press. In it (pp. 80, 81) I find the following seniority-
assigned to the orders which I here name :

1. Plants (cryptogamous) 4, Mammals

2. Fishes 5. Man

3. Birds

It will now, I hope, be observed that, according to the probable
intention of the Mosaic writer, these five orders enumerated by him
correspond with the state of geological knowledge, presented to us by
the most recent authorities, in this sense ; that the origins of these
orders respectively have the same succession as is assigned in Genesis
to those representatives of the orders, which alone were probably
known to the experience of Adamic man. My fourfold succession
thus grows into a fivefold one. By placing before the first plant-life
the Azoic period, it becomes sixfold. And again by placing before
this the principal stages of the cosmogony, it becomes, according as
they are stated, nine or tenfold ; every portion holding the place most
agreeable to modern hypothesis and modern science respectively.

I now notice the points in which, so far as I understand, the text
of the Proem, as it stands, is either incomplete or at variance with the
representations of science :

1. It docs not notice the great periods of invertebrate life standing
between (1) and (2) of ray last enumeration.

2. It also passes by the great age of Reptiles, with their ante-
cessors the Amphibia, which come between (2) and (3). The second-
ary or Mesozoic period, says the Manual (i. 511), "has often been
temaed the age of Reptiles."

3. It mentions plants in terms which, as I understand from Pro-
fessor Huxley and otherwise, correspond with the later, not the
earlier, forms of plant-life.

4. It mentions reptiles in the same category with its mammals.
Now, as regards the first two heads, these omissions, enormous

with reference to the scientific record, are completely in harmony
with the probable aim of the Mosaic writer, as embracing only the
formation of the objects and creatures with which early man was con-
versant. The introduction of these orders, invisible and unknown,
would have been not agreeable, but injurious, to his purpose.

As respects the third, it will strike the reader of the Proem that
plant-life (verses 11, 12) is mentioned with a particularity which is
not found in the accounts of the living orders ; nor in the second
notice of the Creation, which appears, indeed, pretty distinctly to
refer to recent plant-life (Gen. ii., 5, 8, 9). Questions have been
raised as to the translation of these passages, which I am not able to
solve. But I bear in mind the difiiculties which attend both oral
traditions and the conservation of ancient MS., and I am not in any

PROEM TO GENESIS. 627

way troubled by the discrepancy before us, if it be a discrepancy, as
it is the general structure and effect of the Mosaic statement on which
I take my stand.

With regard to reptiles, while I should also hold by my last re-
mark, the case is different. They appear to be mentioned as con-
temporary with mammals, whereas they are of prior origin. But the
relative significance of the several orders evidently affected the
method of the Mosaic writer. Agreeably to this idea, insects are not
named at all. So reptiles were a family fallen from greatness ; in-
stead of stamping on a great period of life its leading character, they
merely skulked upon the earth. They are introduced, as will appear
better from the LXX than from the A.V. or R.V., as a sort of append-
age to mammals. Lying outside both the use and the dominion of
man, and far less within his probable notice, they are not wholly
omitted like insects, but treated apparently in a loose manner as not
one of the main features of the j^icture which the writer meant to
draw. In the Song of the Three Children, where the four principal
orders are recited after the series in Genesis, reptiles are dropped
altogether, which suggests either that the present text is unsound, or,
perhaps more probably, that they were deemed a secondary and insig-
nificant part of it. But, however this case may be regarded, of course
I can not draw from it any support to my general contention.

I distinguish, then, in the broadest manner, between Professor
Huxley's exposition of certain facts of science, and his treatment of
the Book of Genesis. I accej^t the first, with the reverence due to a
great teacher from the meanest of his hearers, as a needed correction
to myself, and a valuable instruction for the world. But, subject to
that correction, I adhere to ray proposition respecting the fourfold
succession in the Proem ; which further I extend to a fivefold succes-
sion respecting life, and to the gi-eat stages of the cosmogony to boot.
The five origins, or first appearances of plants, fishes, birds, mammals
and man, are given to us in Genesis in the order of succession, in
which they are also given by the latest geological authorities.

It is, therefore, by attaching to words a sense they were never
meant to bear, and by this only, that Mr. Huxley establishes the
parallel (so to speak), from which he works his heavy artillery.
Land-population is a phrase meant by rae to describe the idea of the
Mosaic writer, which I conceive to be that of the animals familiarly
known to early man. But, by treating this as a scientific phrase, it is
made to include extinct reptiles, which I understand Mr. Huxley {P.
S. M. p. 453) to treat as being land-animals ; as, by taking birds of a
very high formation, it may be held that mammal forms existed be-
fore such birds were produced. These are artificial contradictions,
set up by altering in its essence one of the two things which it is
sought to compare.

If I am asked whether I contend for the absolute accordance of

628 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the Mosaic writer, as interpreted by me, with the facts and presump-
tions of science, as I have endeavored to extract them from the best
authorities, I answer that I have not endeavored to show either that
any accordance has been demonstrated, or that more than a substan-
tial accordance — an accordance in principal relevant particulars — is to
be accepted as shown by probable evidence.

In the cosmogony of the Proem, which stands on a distinct footing
as lying wholly beyond the experience of primitive man, I am not
aware that any serious flaw is alleged ; but the nebular hypothesis
with Avhich it is compared appears to be, perhaps from the necessity
of the case, no more than a theory ; a theory, however, long discussed,
much favored, and widely accepted in the scientific world.

In the geological part, we are liable to those modifications or dis-
placements of testimony which the future progress of the science may
produce. In this view its testimony does not in strictness pass, I sup-
pose, out of the category of probable into that of demonstrative
evidence. Yet it can hardly be supposed that careful researches, and
reasonings strictly adjusted to method, both continued through some
generations, have not in a large measure produced what has the char-
acter of real knowledge. With that real knowledge the reader will
now have seen how far I claim for the Proem to Genesis, fairly tried,
to be in real and most striking accordance.

And this brings me to the point at which I have to observe that
Mr. Huxley, I think, has not mastered, and probably has not tried to
master, the idea of his opponent as to what it is that is essentially em-
braced in the idea of a Divine revelation to man.

So far as I am aware, there is no definition, properly so called, of
revelation either contained in Scripture or established by the general
and permanent consent of Christians. In a word polemically used, of
indeterminate or variable sense, Professor Huxley has no title to im-
pute to his opponent, without inquiry, anything more than it must of
necessity convey.

But he seems to assume that revelation is to be conceived of as if
it were a lawyer's parchment, or a sum in arithmetic, wherein a flaw
discovered at a particular point is ipso facto fatal to the whole. Very
little reflection would show Professor Huxley that there may be those
who find evidences of the communication of Divine knowledge in the
Proem to Genesis as they read it in their Bibles, without approaching
to any such conception. There is the uncertainty of translation ;
translators are not inspired. There is the difficulty of transcription ;
transcribers are not inspired, and an element of error is inseparable
from the work of a series of copyists. How this works in the long
courses of time we see in the varying texts of the Old Testament,
with rival claims not easy to adjust. Thus the authors of the recent
Revision * have had to choose in the Massoretic text itself between
* Preface to the Old Testament, p. vi.

PROEM TO GENESIS. 629

different readings, and "in exceptional cases" have given a preference
to the Ancient Versions. Thus, upon practical grounds quite apart
from the higher questions concerning the original composition, we
seem at once to find a human element in the sacred text. That there
is a further and larger question, not shut out from the view even of
the most convinced and sincere believers, Mr. Huxley may perceive
by reading, for example, Coleridge's "Confessions of an Inquiring
Spirit." The question whether this Proem bears witness to a Divine
communication, to a working beyond that of merely human faculties
in the composition of the Scriptures, is essentially one for the disciples
of Bishop Butler ; a question, not of demonstrative, but of probable
evidence. I am not prepared to abandon, but rather to defend, the
following proposition. It is perfectly conceivable that a document
penned by the human hand, and transmitted by human means, may
contain matter questionable, uncertain, or even mistaken, and yet
may by its contents as a whole present such Trio-rets, such moral proofs
of truth Divinely imparted, as ought irrefragably pro tanto to com-
mand assent and govern practice. A man may possibly admit some-
thing not reconciled, and yet may be what Mr. Huxley denounces as a
Reconciler.

I do not suppose it would be feasible, even for Professor Huxley,
taking the nebular hypothesis and geological discovery for his guides,
to give, in the compass of the first twenty-seven verses of Genesis, an
account of the cosmogony, and of the succession of life in the strati-
fication of the earth, which would combine scientific precision of state-
ment with the majesty, the simplicity, the intelligibility, and the im-
pressiveness of the record before us. Let me modestly call it, for
argument's sake, an approximation to the present presumptions and
conclusions of science. Let me assume that the statement in the text
as to plants, and the statement of verses 24, 25 as to reptiles, can not
in all points be sustained ; and yet still there remain great unshaken
facts to be weighed. First, the fact that such a record should have
been made at all. Secondly, the fact that, instead of dwelling in
generalities, it has placed itself under the severe conditions of a
chronological order, reaching from the first nisus of chaotic matter to
the consummated production of a fair and goodly, a furnished and a
peopled world. Thirdly, the fact that its cosmogony seems, in the
light of the nineteenth century, to draw more and more of counte-
nance from the best natural philosophy ; and fourthly, that it has
described the successive origins of the five great categories of j^resent
life, with which human experience was and is conversant, in that
order which geological authority confirms. How came these things
to be ? How came they to be, not among Accadians, or Assyrians,
or Egyptians, who monopolized the stores of human knowledge when
this wonderful tradition was born ; but among the obscure records of
a people who, dwelling in Palestine for twelve hundred years from

630 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

their sojourn in the valley of the Nile, hardly had force to stamp even
so much as their name upon the history of the world at large, and
only then began to be admitted to the general communion of man-
kind -when their Scriptures assumed the dress which a Gentile tongue
was needed to supply ? It is more rational, I contend, to say that
these astonishing anticipations were a God -given supply, than to
suppose that a race, who fell uniformly and entirely short of the
great intellectual development * of antiquity, should here not only
have equaled and outstripped it, but have entirely transcended,
in kind even more than in degree, all known exercise of human
faculties.

Whether this was knowledge conveyed to the mind of the Mosaic
author, I do not presume to determine. There has been, in the belief
of Christians, a profound providential purpose, little or variously visi-
ble to us, which presided, from Genesis to the Apocalypse, over the
formation of the marvelous compound, which we term the Holy
Scriptures. This we wonderingly embrace without being much per-
plexed by the questions which are raised on them ; for instance, by
the question. In what exact relation the books of the Apocrypha,
sometimes termed deutero-canonical, stand to the books of the He-
brew Canon. Difficulties of detail, such as may (or ultimately may
not) be found to exist in the Proem to Genesis, have much the same
relation to the evidence of revealed knowledge in this record, as the
spots in the sun to his all-unfolding and sufficing light. But as to the
Mosaic writer himself, all I presume to accept is the fact that he put
upon undying record, in this portion of his work, a series of particu-
lars which, interpreted in the growing light of modern knowledge, re-
quire from us, on the whole, as reasonable men, the admission that we
do not see how he could have written them, and that in all likelihood
he did not write them, without aid from the guidance of a more than
human power. It is in this guidance, and not necessarily or uniformly
in the consciousness of the writer, that, according to my poor concep-
tion, the idea of Revelation mainly lies.

And now one word on the subject of Evolution. I can not follow
Mr. Huxley in his minute acquaintance with Indian sages, and I am
not aware that Evolution has a place in the greater number of the
schools of Greek philosophy. Nor can I comprehend the rapidity
with which persons of authority have come to treat the Darwinian
hypothesis as having reached the final stage of demonstration. To
the eye of a looker-on their pace and method seem rather too much
like a steeplechase. But this may very well be due to their want of
appropriate knowledge and habits of thought. For myself, in my
loose and uninformed way of looking at Evolution, I feel only too

* I write thus bearing fully in mind the unsurpassed sublimity of much that is to be
found in the Old Testament. The consideration of this subject would open a wholly new
line of argument, which the present article does not allow me to attempt.

PROEM TO GENESIS. 631

much biased in its favor, by what I conceive to be its relation to the
great argument of design.*

Not that I share the horror with which some men of science ap-
pear to contemplate a multitude of what they term " sudden" acts of
creation. All things considered, a singular expression : but one, I
suppose, meaning the act which produces, in the region of nature,
something not related by an unbroken succession of measured and
equable stages to what has gone before it. But what has equality or
brevity of stage to do with the question how far the act is creative?
I fail to see, or indeed am somewhat disposed to deny, that the short
stage is less creative than the long, the single than the manifold, the
equable than the jointed or graduated stage. Evolution is, to me,
series with development. And like series in mathematics, whether
arithmetical or geometrical, it establishes ih things an unbroken pro-
gression ; it places each thing (if only it stand the test of ability to
live) in a distinct relation to every other thing, and makes each a wit-
ness to all that have preceded it, a prophecy of all that are to follow
it. It gives to the argument of design, now called the teleological
argument, at once a wider expansion, and an augmented tenacity and
solidity of tissue. But I must proceed.

I find Mr. Huxley asserting that the things of science, with which
he is so splendidly conversant, are "susceptible of clear intellectual
comprehension " [P. S. M. p. 459), Is this rhetoric, or is it a formula of
philosophy ? If the latter, Avill it bear examination ? He pre-eminent-
ly understands the relations between those things which Nature offers
to his view ; but does he understand each thing in itself, or hoio the
last term but one in an evolutional series passes into and becomes the
last ? The seed may produce the tree, the tree the branch, the branch
the twig, the twig the leaf or flower ; but can we understand the
slightest mutation or growth of Nature in itself ? can we tell how
the twig passes into leaf or flower, one jot more than if the flower or
leaf, instead of coming from the twig, came directly from the tree or
from the seed ?

I can not but trace some signs of haste in Professor Huxley's asser-
tion that, outside the province of science {ibid.), we have only imagi-
nation, hope, and ignorance. Not, as we shall presently see, that he Ls
one of those who rob mankind of the best and highest of their inherit-
ance, by denj-ing the reality of all but material objects. But the
statement is surely open to objection, as omitting or seeming to omit
from view the vast fields of knowledge only probable, which are not
of mere hope, nor of mere imagination, nor of mere ignorance ;

* "Views like these, when formulated by religions instead of scientific thought, make
more of Divine Providence and fore-ordination, than of Divine intervention ; but perhaps
they are not the less theistical on that account." (From the very remarkable Lectures
of Professor Asa Gray on Natural Science and Religion, p. 77. Scribner, New York,
1880.)

632 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

which include alike the inward and the outward life of man ; within
which lie the real instruments of his training, and where he is to learn
how to think, to act, to be.

I will now proceed to notice briefly the last page of Professor
Huxley's paper, in which he drops the scientist and becomes simply
the man. I read it with deep interest, and with no small sympathy.
In touching upon it, I shall make no reference (let him forgive me the
expression) to his " damnatory clauses," or to his harmless menace, so
deftly conveyed through the prophet Micah, to the public peace.

The exaltation of Religion as against Theology is at the present
day not only so fashionable, but usually so domineering and contempt-
uous, that I am grateful to Professor Huxley for his frank statement
(p. 459) that Theology is a branch of science ; nor do I in the smallest
degree quarrel with his corttention that Religion and Theology ought
not to be confounded. We may have a great deal of Religion with
very little Theology ; and a great deal of Theology with very little
Religion. I feel sure that Professor Huxley must observe with
pleasure how strongly practical, ethical, and social is the general
tenor of the three synoptic Gospels ; and how the appearance in the
world of the great doctrinal Gospel was reserved to a later stage, as if
to meet a later need, when men had been toned anew by the morality
and, above all, by the life of our Lord.

I am not, therefore, writing against him, when I remark upon the
habit of treating Theology with an affectation of contempt. It is
nothing better, I believe, than a mere fashion ; having no more refer-
ence to permanent principle than the mass of ephemeral fashions that
come from Paris have with the immovable types of Beauty. Those
who take for the burden of their song " Respect Religion, but despise
Theology," seem to me just as rational as if a person were to say
" Admire the trees, the plants, the flowers, the sun, moon, or stars,
but despise Botany, and despise Astronomy." Theology is ordered
knowledge ; representing in the region of the intellect what religion
represents in the heart and life of man. And this religion, Mr.
Huxley says a little further on, is summed up in the terms of the
prophet Micah (vi. 8) : " Do justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly
with thy God." I forbear to inquire whether every addition to this —
such, for instance, as the Beatitudes — is {N. C. p. 460) to be pro-
scribed. But I will not dispute that in these words is conveyed the
true ideal of religious discipline and attainment. They really import
that identification of the will which is set out with such wonderful
force in the very simple words of the " Paradiso " —

In la sua volontade 6 nostra pace,
and which no one has more beautifully described than (I think) Charles
Lamb : " lie gave his heart to the Purifier, his will to the Will that
governs the universe." It may be we shall find that Christianity itself
is in som^ sort a scafilolding, and that the final building is a pure and

PROEM TO GENESIS. 633

perfect theism : when * the kingdom shall be " delivered up to God,"
" that God may be all in all." Still, I can not help being struck with
an impression that Mr. Huxley appears to cite these terms of Micah,
as if they reduced the work of religion from a difficult to a very easy
performance. But look at them again. Examine them well. They
are, in truth, in Cowper's words —

Higher than the heights above,
Deeper than the depths beneath.

Do justly, that is to say, extinguish self ; love mercy, cut utterly
away all the pride and wrath, and all the cupidity, that make this fair
world a wilderness ; walk humbly with thy God, take His will and
set it in the place where thine own was used to rule. " Ring out the
old, ring in the new." Pluck down the tyrant from his place ; set up
the true Master on His lawful throne.

There are certainly human beings, of happy composition, who
mount these airy heights with elastic step, and with unbated breath.
Sponte su^, sine lege, fidem rectum que colebat.t

This comparative refinement of nature in some may even lead them
to undervalue the stores of that rich armory, which Christianity has
provided to equip us for our great life-battle. The text of the
prophet Micah, developed into all the breadth of St. Paul and St.
Augustine, is not too much — is it not often all too little? — for the
needs of ordinary men.

I must now turn, by way of epilogue, to Professor Max Mtiller ;
and I hope to show him that on the questions which he raises we are
not very far apart. One grievous wrong, indeed, he does me in
(apparently) ascribing to me the execrable word " theanthromorphic "
{jST. C. p. 920), of which I wholly disclaim the paternity, and deny
the use. Then he says, I warn him not to trust too much to ety-
mology (p. 921). Not so. But only not to trust to it for the wrong
purpose, in the wrong place : just as I should not preach on the
virtue and value of liberty to a man requiring handcuffs. I happen
to bear a name known, in its genuine form, to mean stones or rocks
frequented by the gled ; and probably taken from the habitat of its
first bearer. Now, if any human being should ever hereafter make
any inquiry about me, trace my name to its origin, and therefore de-
scribe the situation of my dwelling, he would not use etymology too
much, but would use it ill. What I protest against is a practice, not
without example, of taking the etymology of mythologic names in
Homer, and thereupon supposing that in all cases we have thus
obtained a guide to their Homeric sense. The place of Nereus in the
mind of the poet is indisputable ; and here etymology helps us. But
when a light-etymology is found for Hera, and it is therefore asserted

* 1 Cor. XV. 24, 28. f Ovid, " Metam." i. 90.

634 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

that in Homer she is a light-goddess, or when, because no one denies
that Phoibos is a light-name, therefore the Apollo of Homer was the
Sun, then indeed, not etymology, but the misuse of etymology,
hinders and misleads us. In a question of etymology, however, I
shall no more measure swords with Mr. Max Miiller than with Mr.
Huxley in a matter of natui-al science, and this for the simple reason
that my sword is but a lath. I therefore surrender to the mercy of
this great philologist the derivation of dine and diner from dejeuner ;
which may have been suggested by the use of the word dine in our
Bible (as John xxi. 12) for breakfasting ; a sense expressed by La
Bruyere (xi.) in the words, Cliton ii'a jamais eii, toute sa vie, que deux
affaires, qui sont de diner le matin, et de soufper le soir.

But, Mr. Max Miiller says, I have offended against the fundamental
principles of comparative mythology {N. C. p. 919). How, where,
and why, have I thus tumbled into mortal sin ? By attacking solar-
ism. But what have I attacked, and what has he defended ? I have
attacked nothing but the exclusive use of the solar theory to solve all
the problems of the Aryan religions ; and it is to this monopolizing
pretension that I seek to ajiply the name of solarism, while admitting
that " the solar theory has a most important place " in solving such
problems {N. C. p. 704). But my vis-d-vis, whom I really can not call
my opponent, declares {N, C. p. 919) that the solarism I denounce is
not his solarism at all ; and he only seeks to prove that " certain por-
tions of ancient mythology have a directly solar origin." So it
proves that I attack only what he repudiates, and I defend what he de-
fends. That is, I humbly subscribe to a doctrine, which he has made
famous throughout the civilized world.

It is only when a yoke is put upon Homer's neck, that I presume
to cry "hands off." The Olympian system, of which Homer is the
great architect, is a marvelous and splendid structure. Following the
guidance of ethnological affinities and memories, it incorporates in it-
self the most diversified traditions, and binds them into an unity by
the plastic power of an unsurpassed creative imagination. Its domi-
nating spirit is intensely human. It is therefore of necessity thorough-
ly anti-elemental. Yet, when the stones of this magnificent fabric are
singly eyed by the observer, they bear obvious marks of having been
appropriated from elsewhere by the sovereign prerogative of genius ; of
having had an anterior place in other systems ; of having belonged to
Nature-worship, and in some cases to Sun-worship ; of having been
drawn from many quarters, and among them from those which Mr.
Max Mullcr excludes (p. 921) : from Egypt, and either from Palestine,
or from the same traditional source, to which Palestine itself was in-
debted. But this is not the present question. As to the solar theory,
I hope I have shown either that our positions are now identical, or that,
if there be a rift between them, it is so narrow tliat we may conveni-
ently shake hands across it. — Nineteenth Centura/.

ANIMAL WEATHER-LORE. 635

ANIMAL WEATHER-LOEE.

Br CHARLES C. ABBOTT, M. D.

HAPPILY there still remain a few of those great, cavernous, open
fireplaces, flanked by high-backed settles, ^'hereon the young
people love to lounge, while their elders, resting from the day's labors,
talk drowsily of old times, recount the adventures of their youth, and
repeat the tales of their grandfathers. As one of such young people,
I have passed many long winter evenings, listening eagerly to what
the septuagenarians might relate, and occasionally venturing a ques-
tion or two, that more light might be thrown upon obscure portions
of remarks made at the time. Then, particularly, are we likely to
hear much of that very curious animal weather-lore that, for the past
two centuries, has been handed clown from father to son. Time and
again, as the weather chanced to be discussed, I have heard some un-
couth rhyme repeated, usually prefaced with the remark, "You know
the old saying."

That all animals are more or less affected by coming atmospheric
changes is unquestionable. This simple fact has been recognized the
world over, but, unlike many other simple facts, has not resulted in
leading to any important discoveries. It has, however, given rise to
the innumerable sayings to which I have referred.

Inasmuch as the animal weather-lore current in England and
Sweden dates far prior to the settlement of this country by the
Swedes and English, it would seem probable that such sayings as now
are or recently were current in South and Central New Jersey are
merely adaptations of English and Swedish weather-lore to our fauna,
just as the European names of the commoner birds found there were
applied to those American species most closely resembling them ; and
so, any rhyme or brief saying referring to them would be applied to
the analogous bird found here. This is eminently reasonable, for, if
the given habit, voice, or other peculiarity of a European bird did, or
was supposed to, indicate a given meteorological condition, the same
rule should hold good in America. As a matter of fact, however, I
can find no similarity between the English and Swedish and the
American weather-lore, except such as applies to domestic animals ;
nor do I find any common English sayings in use.

That which I have heard, and have recorded from time to time, ap-
pears to have originated where now, or where it lately was, in use.
To a great extent, I believe it to be original with the descendants of
the immigrants that settled Central Xew Jersey and the country gen-
erally about Philadelphia ; but a portion of it, very possibly, was de-
rived from the Indians.

At present, a portion of this weather-lore is repeated as nursery

636 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

rhymes, and it is due to this that it has been preserved to the present
time ; and, so far as I have been able to determine, not one of the
rhymes or sayings has ever been published. That among the earliest
papers and almanacs of the country there may be found some of
them, or slightly different versions of the same, is probable, but my
searchings therefor, in the larger libraries, have not resulted in any
such discoveries.

The main interest, however, in connection with weather-lore, is to
determine whether they do or do not correctly represent the relation-
ship of the animals mentioned to the given condition of the weather.
In other words, is the zoology of the weather-lore misrepresented or
not ? I am forced to declare that, as a rule, those who by virtue of
their ingenuity framed these rhymes and brief sayings did not cor-
rectly interpret Nature.

Very many of the early English settlers were, no doubt, excellent
observers ; but they appear, at times, to have more desired to be
looked upon as weather-prophets than as naturalists, and strove to
have glib nonsense-sayings pass current as evidence of their wisdom,
instead of taking pains to correctly interpret the course of Nature and
determine the relation of animal life to its environment.

Often, during my rambles in the neighborhood, I have questioned
the few remaining descendants of the original settlers concerning the
local weather-proverbs, and I find the impression is still prevalent that
the purport of all these sayings is substantially correct, and therefore,
to a great degree, that my neighbors are laboring under erroneous im-
pressions. *' Is there not wisdom in a multitude of counselors ? " they
ask ; and I, standing alone, am voted the fool, while they pose as
sages.

Let us consider this weather-lore, bit by bit, as I have gathered it
from time to time, and discuss its merits, if it possesses any, and also
its absurdities.

Of such sayings as refer to our domestic animals, the following
are the most noteworthy. Of the cow, I have heard it said :

" When a cow tries to scratch its ear,

It means a shower is very near " ;
and again —

" When it thumps its ribs with its tail,

Look out for thunder, lightning, hail."

As is now pretty well known, a short time before a shower in
summer, there is often a highly electrical condition of the atmosphere,
which makes all animals more or less uneasy. Therefore, the lashing
of the tail, if not merely to brush away flies, may refer to this uneasi-
ness, and so, too, the ears may be more sensitive than the general sur-
face of the body. This is a probable explanation, but, after all, it is
not proved that the cow at such a time suffers as much from it as is
supposed ; nor is it easy to see how the flagellation of a very insignifi-

ANIMAL WEATHER-LORE. 6z7

cant part of the body can ease a painful sensation common to the en-
tire surface. On the other hand, it is certain that flies and other
troublesome insects are sensitive to atmospheric changes, even a slight
lowering of the temperature, such as no mammal would appreciate ;
and for an hour or two before a shower, for this reason, they congre-
gate in extraordinary numbers about animals — horses and cows par-
ticularly. I have thought that they seek the cows for warmth when
the air suddenly cools ; and is it not more than probable that the
nervousness on the part of the animal, shown by frantic efforts to
scratch its ears with its hind-feet and the lashing of its tail, has to do
with the excess of irritation caused by innumerable flies, and not with
any unusual electrical titillation ? If so, the cow's action is still in-
dicative of an approaching change in the .weather, and so far may be
claimed as a sign of such change, but the connection of the two facts
is not such a one as is usually given. It is an indirect, not direct, in-
dication of the prophesied rain-storm. But bearing heavily on the
subject is the unquestionable fact that an unusual number of flies
often suddenly make their appearance, and torment cattle almost be-
yond endurance, during the four or six weeks of drought which in
summer, early or late, we are so sure to have. In such cases the signs
fail. I have asked many a farmer how this could be, and the one re-
ply that I have received in every case is that " there was a shower in
the neighborhood." It usually happened, however, that the neighbor-
hood was as parched as we were, and, seeing the signs fail with them,
they were covetous of the shower they supposed that we had had.
Perhaps it is with such indications of changes in the weather as it
has been said of autumnal proofs of the character of the approaching
winter. Miles Overfield once remarked, " When the signs get to
failin* 'long in the fall, there'll be no tellin' about the winter."
Of pigs, I have heard it said, very frequently —

""When swine carry sticks,
The clouds will play tricks'^;
but that —

"When they lie in the mad,
Fo fears of a flood."

The first of these couplets is of twofold interest. I have watched
them for years, to see what purport this carrying of sticks and bunches
of grass might have, and have only learned that it has nothing what-
ever to do with the weather, or at least with coming rain-storms.
The drought of summer is so far a convenience as to throw light upon
this habit, as it did upon the uneasy cows. Pigs carry sticks as fre-
quently then as during wet weather, or just preceding a shower.
Furthermore, these gathered twigs are not brought together as though
to make a nest, but are scattered about in a perfectly aimless manner.
For some cause, the animal is uneasy, and takes this curious method
of relieving itself. The probabilities are that it is a survival of some

638 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

habit common to swine in their feral condition, just as we see a dog
turn about half a dozen times before lying down.

In an interesting paper on local w'eather-lore, read by Mr. Amos
"W. Butler before the American Association for the Advancement of
Science, during the Philadelphia meeting of 1884, the author has an-
other version of this saying : " When hogs gather up sticks and carry
them about, expect cold weather." This is wholly at variance with
what I have observed, for my memoranda record this habit almost
■wholly during the hot w^eather, and this must necessarily be the rule
with New Jersey swine, or the local weather-prophets would not have
coined the verse as I have given it.

As to the other couplet, it is about as near meaningless as any say-
ing can well be. Some rustic rhymer, a century ago, may have added
it as a piece of fun, but it "has stuck most persistently. As it stands
now, it has stood for quite one hundred years.

In reference to the dog, I have heai'd the following more preten-
tious stanza, which has now taken its place among our nursery
rhymes, where, indeed, it is best fitted to remain :

" "When drowsy dogs start from their sleep,
And bark at empty space,
'Tis not a dream that prompts them to,
But showers come on apace."

Ilere we have essentially the same inference as in that of the rhyme
about cows, but it is not to be explained away so readily. Such acts,
as described, can not be attributed to annoyance by flies, for they too
often emerge from dark quarters, where they have been unmolested ;
but the all-important fact must not be overlooked that such acts are
not confined to summer. If they were, the electrical theory might be
advanced with some confidence. From what I have noticed in such
dogs as I have owmed, the habit of dreaming, which in the rhyme is
denied to be the exjolanation, is probably the key to the mystery.
Again, statistics show^ that the correspondence between such habits
and sudden showers is only what w^e should expect in the way of
coincidences. Dogs certainly are not to be considered as reliable
barometers.

The same may be said of the domestic cat. Its movements have
all been carefully noted, and the yawning, stretching, scratching, and
waving of the tail appear to have been accredited with some special
meteorological significance. Careful observation has not confirmed
any of these impressions. Table-legs are scratched time and again by
Tom or Tabby, and no rain falls for twenty-four or forty-eight hours.
They stretch themselves after a nap, lick their sides and wash their
faces with the same regularity in midwinter as in midsummer, yet it
is only showers, and not snow-storms, which these actions are supj^osed
to predict.

When in summer the signs fail, my country friends conveniently

ANIMAL WEATHER-LORE. 639

forget the remark they have made ; but, if the day does prove show-
ery, my non-combative neighbors take much delight in repeating over
and over again, " I told thee so," with a suggestive emphasis, showing
how much, like other jjeople, they love to gain a victory, if open war-
fare can be avoided.

The only weather-rhyme referring to a cat that I have heard, and
which is essentially the same as that about dogs, runs thus :

" When Tabby claws the table-legs,
She for a summer shower begs."

That is, begs it will hurry ; with no doubt in her mind of its possibly
disappointing her.

The weather-lore of the commoner wild animals is of much more
general interest. Weather-sayings referring to animals do not appear
to have been so numerous as are those referring to birds. I have
been able to learn of but three examples. In reference to minks and
weasels, I have heard it said — and possibly others may be familiar
with this mystic rhyme —

*' When storm-winds blow and night is black,
The farmer may a pullet lack ;
But, if the moon is shining clear,
No mink or weasel dares come near."

This involves an interesting phase of the life-history of these animals ;
for while they probably can see a little when it is quite dark, and are
safely guided by the sense of smell, nevertheless, the experience of
trappers about home proves that they do wander about during moon-
light nights. Indeed, on careful inquiry, it seems that the trapper
generally anticipates better success during the moonlit nights than
when it is very dark. I strongly suspect that the truth lies in the fact
that, when it is dark and stormy, the watchful house-dog is not on the
alert, and thus the cunning weasel or mink is free to raid upon the
poultry-house and feast upon the pullet that it seizes. How my neigh-
bors will take to this explanation I can only surmise. Like other peo-
ple, they fight vigorously for the opinions they have cherished through
life. The musk-rat and gray squirrels have given rise to many trite
sayings, and have long been looked upon as weather-prophets, but
that they are nothing of the sort I have elsewhere * endeavored to
show.

The following may or may not be a local saying :

" When flying-squirrels run on ground,
The clouds'U pass you by, be bound."

What this may mean has been a question with me for a long time.
It is a common remark, either in this or a simpler form, and many,
who have little faith in pigs or dogs as weather-prophets, build largely

* " Eambles about Home," p. 73, D. Appleton & Co., New York, 1884.

640 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

upon the habits of the flying-squirrel. The saying itself implies that
a drought exists at the time that these animals frequent the ground
rather than the trees, coming, of course, thereto, in order to find
food. If the saying be true, the summer food of the flying-squirrel
must be more plentiful on the ground than in the tops of the tallest
trees. What that food is exactly, I am not aware ; nor have I had
any opportunity to verify the statement that flying-squirrels frequent
the ground during " dry spells." Those that I have seen, near home,
are so strictly crepuscular that only the initial movements of their
nocturnal journeys are readily traced ; but, whenever I have seen
them sally from their retreats, it was to take a tree-top route for sev-
eral rods and then to be lost to sight. Take the year through, it is
probable that they seldom come to the ground to forage. When they
do so, is it an evidence of continued dry weather ? I can neither con-
tradict nor affirm ; but are not the probabilities against such being
the case ?

Speaking of the opossum, it is said that, if found in autumn in hol-
low trees, the winter will be milder than if occupying a burrow in
the ground.

This seems to be very reasonable, and would pass admirably as a
weather-sign, but for one unfortunate circumstance. While you may
find one or more in a tree, your neighbor may find as many in the
ground. I have known this to be the case more than once. Under
these circumstances, meet your neighbor at the line-fence and compare
notes. What about the winter ?

From their greater abundance and never-failing presence, it might
be thought that the weather-lore of birds would be much more elabo-
rate than that referring to other classes of animals ; but my observations
do not confirm this. There are simply a greater number of sayings
current, and fully one half are too trivial to repeat. It would seem as
if a weather-lore possibly of Indian origin and referring to birds then
abundant, but now wholly wanting, was current more than a century
ago. These sayings were subsequently applied to other species, nearly
or more remotely allied, and whatever meaning they may originally
have had has been lost ; but the apparent absurdity of such " prov-
erbs," as now used, seems never to have occurred to those who re-
peat them.

That the dusting of chickens, cackling of geese, and the " pot-
racking " of Guinea-hens have not given rise to an elaborate series of
weather-proverbs is, I think, surprising. The only familiar reference
to the chicken heard about home is that the rooster, crowing at night,
says, " Christmas — coming— on ! " It does appear that the midnight
crowing of cocks is more frequently heard in December than in June ;
but, so far as the meaning is concerned, it unfortunately happens that
the nocturnal crowing is as often heard in January as in December.
Calling attention to this, I was once gravely assured that the cocks

ANIMAL WEATHER-LORE. 641

crew differently then, and said, " Christmas — come — and — gone ! "
I accepted the explanation. This is not a weather matter, but is not
irrelevant, as it shows how very common it once was to couple any
unusual occurrence with something sooner or later to happen, and
therefore, in the matter of weather especially, to claim it as prophetic
of that event.

Of the examples of weather-lore of birds, the following are not
uncommonly heard in Central New Jersey. Of the cardinal-grossbeak,
or winter redbird, it is said :

" The redbird lies, without regret :
However dry, it whistles ' wet! ' "

That is, the bird is credited with knowing it will not rain, and
teases the farmer by singing "wet " in his ears all day. Others put
another meaning on the redbird's note, and claim it to be a sure sign
of rain. This is more like the ordinary sayings commonly heard, and
let us give it a moment's consideration. At present, the time of year
when the cardinal-birds sing least is during the hot summer months.
Not that they are absolutely mute for even a few days at a time, but
relatively so as compared with their joyous strains through autumn
and winter ; and again, early in summer, when tbey are nesting, these
birds, like robins, are more apt to sing directly after a shower than at
any other time.

So much for the gay cardinal as a weather-prophet. The rare
summer redbird — a tanager — which also utters a whistling note, well
described by the syllable " wet," shortly and sharply expressed, is like-
wise said to prophesy rain. The probabilities are that the note of the
redbird, cardinal and summer, suggesting the word " wet," has given
rise to the belief that their utterance was a sign of a coming shower
or storm. It is often by such illogical methods that these sayings
have become established. After a few repetitions they become fixed
in the mind and their origin forgotten ; they are invested with an
importance not their due, and not attributed to them by their origi-
nators. Ultimately tbey are incorporated in the weather-lore of the
country.

Of the innumerable swallows, it is said, with as little show of reason :

" No rain e'er poured upon the earth,
That damped the twittering swallow's mirth."

No ? Well, of late, the whole host takes refuge from storms — the
barn-swallows in the hay-mow, the cliff-swallows under the eaves, the
sand-martins in their burrows, and the chimney-swifts in their sooty
homes in the chimneys. Why this change of habit ? For a wonder-
ful change must have taken place, if the couplet quoted was ever true.
I do admit that swallows and swifts appear to be noisier before and
during a shower ; but does not this arise from the fact that at such
a time they collect in great numbers near their nests, to take refuge,

VOL. XXVIII. — 41

642 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

if the storm should increase in violence ? And again, the silence of
other birds makes the twittering swallow a more prominent bird than
under other circumstances ; but nothing of this warrants the extrava-
gant assertion that no storm ever put a quietus upon them.

The larger hawks, too, are supposed to give warning of a coming
shower when they utter their peculiar cat-like scream. Among our
old people the following may sometimes be heard repeated :

"The hen-hawk's scream, at hot, high noon,
Foretells a coming shower soon."

This couplet is of some interest, as, at present, it is not applicable
to our larger hawks and buzzards. Indeed, the only one of them that
is prone to cry out while circling overhead is the red-tailed buzzard
or hen-hawk, and this bird is very seldom seen in midsummer, and
now certainly is only heard in autumn, winter, or early spring. The
saying implies that formerly these birds were abundant at all times of
the year, and during the summer would cry out in their peculiar fash-
ion. The settlement of the country and general deforesting of such a
large portion of it have driven these hawks to more retired parts dur-
ing the nesting-season, and there, throughout summer, their cry may
indicate that it will soon rain ; but, if so, why does not the same cry
in autumn have some reference to the weather ?

It is scarcely necessary to continue the list. Other birds than
those mentioned — reptiles, batrachians, and fishes — have all given rise
to certain current sayings, but of no more value than those I have
given, and all, I think, based upon illogical inferences. Snakes are
claimed as excellent barometers ; but the habits upon which the belief
rests are those that characterize every day of the creature's life.
Toads and frogs are largely depended upon, but a careful record for
a single season will show how little they are to be trusted ; and even
the fishes can not disport themselves in summer, but straightway the
clouds must open upon us, a tornado visit us, or premature frosts
balk the calculations of the farmer.

Curiously enough, I do not find that insect-life has entered to any
important extent into the weather-lore of this neighborhood. Contra-
dictory remarks are often made as to ant-hills : thus, when they are
very high, it will be a dry day ; others insist that it is evidence that
it will soon rain. Spiders' webs, also, are variously held as of baro-
metric value ; but a careful record of several summers contradicts this
emphatically. The positions of the paper-hornets' nests, which in
autumn are often prominent objects in the country, after the foliage
drops, are variously asserted to be indicative of a "hard" or "open"
winter, as they chance to be placed in the upper or lower branches of
a tree. My skepticism as to the value of this sign arises from the fact
that there is, as might be expected, no uniformity in the positions of
any half-dozen such nests.

JAPANESE HOUSE-BUILDING. 643

It may be rash to say that meteorological science can gain nothing
from scientific observation of animal life ; but the character of the
weather-lore that has been handed down from father to son for the
past two centuries plainly indicates that the observations which gave
rise to them were anything but scientific in character. Mankind now,
as formerly, may be close observers of Nature, but this does not imply
that they are accurate observers. They assume as correct the ap-
pearance, but it is no unusual circumstance for an animal to be doing
the very opposite of what might naturally be supposed was the case.
The simple and sad fact derived from a study of local animal weather-
lore is that, in the days of our grandfathers, painstaking naturalists
were few and far between.

JAPANESE HOUSE-BUILDING.*

By Professor EDWAED S. MOESE.

THE first sight of a Japanese house — that is, a house of the people —
is certainly disappointing. From the infinite variety and charm-
ing character of their various works of art, as we had seen them at
home, we were anticipating new delights and surprises in the charac-
ter of the house ; nor were we on more intimate acquaintance to be
disappointed. As an American, familiar with houses of certain types,
with conditions among them signifying poverty and shiftlessness, and
other conditions signifying refinement and wealth, we were not compe-
tent to judge the relative merits of a Japanese house.

The first sight, then, of a Japanese house is disappointing ; it is
unsubstantial in appearance, and there is a meagerness of color. Being
unpainted, it suggests poverty ; and this absence of paint, with the
gray and often rain-stained color of the boards, leads one to compare
it with similar unpainted buildings at home — and these are usually
barns and sheds in the country, and the houses of the poorer people
in the city. With one's eye accustomed to the bright contrasts of
American houses, with their white, or light, painted surfaces ; rec-
tangular windows, black from the shadows within, with glints of light
reflected from the glass ; front door with its pretentious steps and
portico ; warm red chimneys surmounting all, and a general trimness
of appearance outside, which is by no means always correlated with
like conditions within — one is too apt at the outset to form a low esti-
mate of a Japanese house. An American finds it difiicult indeed to

* From " Japanese Homcg and their Surroundings." By Edward S. Morse, Director
of the Peabody Academy of Science ; late Professor of Zoology, University of Tokio
Japan ; Member of the National Academy of Science ; Fellow of the American Academy
of Arts and Sciences, etc. With Illustrations by the Author. Boston : Ticknor & Co.
1886.

644 ^^^ POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

consider such a structure as a dwelling, when so many features are
absent that go to make up a dwelling at home — no doors or windows
such as he had been familiar with ; no attic or cellar ; no chimneys,
and within no fireplace, and of course no customary mantel ; no per-
manently inclosed rooms ; and, as for furniture, no beds or tables,
chairs or similar articles — at least, so it appears at first sight.

One of the chief points of difference in a Japanese house, as com-
pared with ours, lies in the treatment of partitions and outside walls.
In our houses these are solid and permanent, and, when the frame is
built, the partitions form part of the framework. In the Japanese
house, on the contrary, there are two or more sides that have no per-
manent walls. Within, also, there are but few partitions which have
similar stability ; in their stead are slight sliding-screens, which run in
appropriate grooves in the floor and overhead. These grooves mark
the limit of each room. The screens may be opened by sliding them
back, or they may be entirely removed, thus throwing a number of
rooms into one great apartment. In the same way the whole side of
a house may be flung open to sunlight and air. For communication
between the rooms, therefore, swinging-doors are not necessary. As
a substitute for windows, the outside screens, or shoji, are covered with
white paper, allowing the light to be diffused through the house.

Where external walls appear they are of wood unpainted, or painted
black, and, if of plaster, white or dark slate-colored. In certain classes
of building the outside wall, to a height of several feet from the
ground, and sometimes even the entire wall, may be tiled, the inter-
spaces being pointed with white plaster. The roof may be either
lightly shingled, heavily tiled, or thickly thatched. It has a moderate
pitch, and, as a general thing, the slope is not so steep as in our roofs.
Nearly all the houses have a veranda, which is protected by the widely
overhanging eaves of the roof, or by a light supplementary roof pro-
jecting from beneath the eaves.

While most houses of the better class have a definite porch and
vestibule, or genha, in houses of the poorer class this entrance is not
separate from the living-room ; and, since the interior of the house is
accessible from two or three sides, one may enter it from any point.
The floor is raised a foot and a half or more from the ground, and is
covered with thick straw mats, rectangular in shape, of uniform size,
with sharp, square edges, and so closely fitted that the floor upon
which they rest is completely hidden. The rooms ate either square
or rectangular, and are made with absolute reference to the number of
mats they, are to contain. With the exception of the guest-room, few
rooms have projections or bays. In the guest-room there is at one
side a more or less deep recess divided into two bays by a slight par-
tition ; the one nearest the veranda is called the toJconoma. In this
place hang one or more pictures, and upon its floor, which is slightly
raised above the mats, rests a flower-vase, incense-burner, or some

JAPANESE HOUSE-BUILDING.

645

other object. The companion bay has shelves and a low closet. Other
rooms also may have recesses to accommodate a case of drawers or
shelves. Where closets and cupboards occur, they are finished with
sliding screens instead of swinging-doors. In tea-houses of two stories
the stairs, which often ascend from the vicinity of the kitchen, have
beneath them a closet, and this is usually closed by a swinging-door.

In city houses the kitchen is at one side or corner of the house,
generally in an L, covered with a pent-roof. This apartment is often
toward the street, its yard separated from other areas by a high fence.
In the country the kitchen is nearly always under the main roof. In
the city few out-buildings, such as sheds and barns, are seen. Accom-

FlG. 1.— SlDE-FBAMINa.

panying the houses of the better class are solid, thick-walled, one or
two storied, fii'e-proof buildings called kura, in which the goods and
chattels are stored away at the time of a conflagration. These build-
ings, which are known to the foreigners as " godowns," have one or
two small windows and one door, closed by thick and ponderous shut-
ters. Such a building usually stands isolated from the dwelling,
though often in juxtaposition ; and sometimes, though rarely, it is
used as a domicile.

In the gardens of the better classes summer-houses and shelters of
rustic appearance and diminutive proportions are often seen. Rustic
arbors are also to be seen in the larger gardens. Specially constructed
houses of quaint design and small size are not uncommon ; in these

646

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the ceremonial tea-parties take place. High fences, either of board
or bamboo, or solid walls of mud or tile with stone foundations, sur-
round the house or inclose it from the street. Low rustic fences bor-
der the gardens in the suburbs. Gateways of various styles, some of
imposing design, form the entrances ; as a general thing they are
either rustic and light, or formal and massive.

Whatever is commonplace in the appearance of the house is toward
the street, while the artistic and picturesque face is turned toward the
garden, which may be at one side or in the i-ear of the house — usually
in the rear. Within these plain and unpretentious houses there are
often to be seen marvels of exquisite carving and the perfection of
cabinet work ; and surprise follows surprise as one becomes more
fully acquainted with the interior finish of these curious and remark-
able dwellings.

The framework of an ordinary Japanese dwelling is simple and
primitive in structure ; it consists of a number of upright beams which
run from the ground to the transverse beams and inclines of the roof
above. The vertical framing is held together either by short strips,
which are let into appropriate notches in the uprights to which the
bamboo lathing is fixed, or by longer strips of wood, which pass

Fio. 2.— PoDNDrNO DOWN Focxdation-Stoneb.

through mortises in the uprights, and are firmly keyed or pinned into
place (Fig. 1). In larger houses these uprights are held in position by
a framework near the ground. There is no cellar or excavation be-
neath the house, nor is there a continuous stone foundation as with us.
The uprights rest directly, and without attachment, upon single uncut

JAPANESE HOUSE-BUILDING.

647

or rough-hewed stones, these in turn resting upon others, which have
been solidly pounded into the earth by means of a huge wooden maul
worked by a number of men (Fig. 2). In this way the house is perched
upon these stones, with the floor elevated at least a foot and a half or
two feet above the ground. In some cases the space between the up-
rights is boarded up ; this is generally seen in Kioto houses. In others
the wind has free play beneath ; and, while this exposed condition
renders the house much colder and more uncomfortable in winter, the
inmates are never troubled by the noisome air of the cellar, which
too often infects our houses at home. Closed wooden fences of a
more solid character are elevated in this way ; that is, the lower
rail or sill of the fence rests directly upon stones placed at intervals
apart of six or eight feet. The ravages of numerous ground-insects,
as well as larvae, and the excessive dampness of the ground at certain
seasons of the year, render this method of building a necessity.

The accurate way in which the base of the uprights is wrought to
fit the inequalities of the stones upon which they rest is worthy of
notice. In the emperor's garden we saw a two-storied house finished
in the most simple and exquisite manner. It was, indeed, like a beau-
tiful cabinet, though disfigured by a
bright-colored foreign carpet upon
its lower floor. The uprights of
this structure rested on large, oval,
beach -worn stones buried end-
wise in the ground ; and, upon the
smooth rounded portions of the
stones, which projected above the
level of the ground to a height of
ten inches or more, the uprights had
been most accurately fitted (Fig. 3).
The effect was extremely light and
buoyant, though apparently inse-
cure to the last degree ; yet this
building had not only withstood a
number of earthquake-shocks, but
also the strain of severe typhoons,
which during the summer months
sweep over Japan with such vio-
lence. If the building be very small,
then the frame consists of four corner-posts running to the roof. In
dwellings having a frontage of two or more rooms, other uprights occur
between the corner-posts. As the rooms increase in number through
the house, uprights come in the corners of the rooms, against which
the sliding-screens, or fusuma, abut. The passage of these uprights
through the room to the roof above gives a solid constructive appear-
ance to the house. When a house has a veranda — and nearly every

Fig. 3.— Foundation-Stonb.

648

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

house possesses this feature on one or more of its sides — another row
of uprights starts in a line with the outer edge of the veranda. Unless
the veranda be very long, an upright at each end is sufficient to sup-
port the supplementary roof which shelters it. These uprights support
a cross-beam, upon which the slight rafters of the supplementary roof
rest. This cross-beam is often a straight unhewed stick of timber,
from which the bark has been removed. Indeed, most of the hori-
zontal framing-timbers, as well as the rafters, are usually unhewed —
the rafters often having the bark on, or perhaps being accurately
squared sticks ; but, in either case, they are always visible as they pro-
ject from the sides of the house, and run out to support the overhang-
ing eaves. The larger beams and girders are but slightly hewed ; and
it is not unusual to see irregular-shaped beams woi'ked into the con-
struction of a frame, often for their quaint effects (Fig. 4), and in
many cases as a matter of economy.

For a narrow house, if the roof be a gable, a central upright at
each end of the building gives support to the ridge-pole from which

Fio. 4.— Section or Framing.

the rafters run to the eaves. If the building be wide, a transverse
beam traverses the end of the building on a level with the eaves,
supported at intervals by uprights from the ground ; and upon this
short uprights rest, supporting another transverse beam above, and
often three or more tiers are carried nearly to the ridge. Upon these
supports rest the horizontal beams which run parallel with the ridge-
pole, and which are intended to give support to the rafters (Fig. 5).

In the case of a wide gable-roof there are many ways to support
the frame, one of which is illustrated in the following outline (Fig. 6).
Here a stout stick of timber runs from one end of the house to the
other on a vertical line with the ridge-pole, and on a level with the
eaves. This stick is always crowning, in order to give additional
strength. A few thick uprights start from this to support the ridge-
pole above ; from these uprights beams run to the eaves ; these are
mortised into the uprights, but at different levels on either side, in

JAPANESE HOUSE-BUILDING.

649

order not to weaken the uprights by the mortises. From these beams
run short supports to the horizontal rafters above.

The roof, if it be of tile or thatch, represents a massive weight —
the tiles being thick and quite heavy, and always bedded in a thick

Fia. 5.— End-Framing op Large Building.

layer of mud. The thatch, though not so heavy, often becomes so
after a long rain. The roof-framing, consequently, has oftentimes to
support a great weight ; and, though in its structure looking weak, or
at least primitive in design, yet experience must have taught the Jap-

Fig. 6.— Roof-Fraitk of Large BuiLDiNa.

anese carpenters that their methods were not only the simplest and
most economical, but that they answered all requirements. One is
amazed to see how many firemen can gather upon such a roof without
its yielding. I have seen massive house-roofs over two hundred years

650

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

old, and other frame structures of a larger size and of far greater age,
which presented no visible signs of weakness. Indeed, it is a very-
unusual sight to see a broken-backed roof in Japan.

Diagonal bracing in the framework of a building is never seen.
Sometimes, however, the uprights in a weak frame are supported by-
braces running from the ground at an acute angle, and held in place
by wooden pins. Outside diagonal braces are sometimes met with
as an ornamental feature. In the province of Ise one often sees a
brace or bracket made out of an unhewed piece of timber, generally
the proximal portion of some big branch. This is fastened to an up-
right, and appears to be a brace to hold up the end of a horizontal
beam that projects beyond the eaves. These braces, however, are not
even notched into the upright, but held in place by square wooden
pins, and are of little use as a support for the building, though answer-
ing well to hold fishing-rods and other long poles, which find here con-
venient lodgment (Fig. 7).

The framework of a building is often revealed in the room in a
way that would delight the heart of an Eastlake. Irregularities in the

form of a stick are not looked upon
as a hindrance in the construction
of a building. From the way such
crooked beams are brought into
use, one is led to believe that the
builder prefers them. The desire
for rustic effects leads to the selec-
tion of odd-shaped timber. Fig.
4 represents the end of a room,
wherein is seen a crooked cross-
piece passing through a central
upright, which sustains the ridge-
pole.

As the rooms are made in sizes
coiTcsponding to the number of
mats they are to contain, the beams,
uprights, rafters, flooring - boards,
boards for the ceiling, and all strips
are got out in sizes to accommodate
these various dimensions. The di-
mensions of the mats from one end
of the empire to the other are approximately three feet wide and
six feet long ; and these are fitted compactly on the floor. The archi-
tect marks on his plan the number of mats each room is to contain —
this number defining the size of the room ; hence, the lumber used
must be of definite lengths, and the carpenter is sure to find these
lengths at the lumber-yard. It follows from this that but little waste
occurs in the construction of a Japanese house.

Fio. 7.— Outside Brace.

JAPANESE HOUSE-BUILDING. 651

The permanent partitions within the house are made in various
ways. In one method bamboo strips of various lengths take the place
of laths. Small bamboos are first nailed in a vertical position to the
wooden strips, which are fastened from one upright to another ; nar-
row strips of bamboo are then secured across these bamboos by means
of coarse cords of straw, or bark-fiber (Fig. 1). This partition is not
unlike our own plaster-and-lath partition. Another kind of partition
may be of boards ; and against these small bamboo rods are nailed
quite close together, and upon this the plaster is put. Considerable
pains are taken as to the plastering. The plasterer brings to the house
samples of various-colored. sands and clays, so that one may select from
these the color of his wall. A good coat of plaster comprises three
layers. The first layer, called shita-nuri, is composed of mud, in which
chopped straw is mixed ; a second layer, called chu-nuri, of rough lime,
mixed with mud ; the third layer, called uwa-nuri, has the colored
clay or sand mixed with lime — and this last layer is always applied by
a skillful workman.

Many of the partitions between the rooms consist entirely of light
sliding-screens. Often two or more sides of the house are composed
entirely of these simple and frail devices. The outside permanent
walls of a house, if of wood, are made of thin boards nailed to the
frame horizontally — as we lay clapboards on our houses. These
may be more firmly held to the house by long strips nailed against
the boards vertically. The boards may also be secured to the house
vertically, and weather-strips nailed over the seams — as is commonly
the way with certain of our houses. In the southern provinces a
rough house-wall is made of wide slabs of bark, placed vertically, and
held, in place by thin strips of bamboo nailed crosswise. This style
is common among the poorer houses in Japan ; and, indeed, in the
better class of houses it is often used as an ornamental feature, placed
at the height of a few feet from the ground.

Outside plastered walls are also very common, though not of a
durable nature. This kind of wall is frequently seen in a dilapidated
condition. In Japanese picture-books this broken condition is often
shown, with the bamboo slats exposed, as a suggestion of poverty.

In the cities the outside walls of more durable structures, such as
warehouses, are not infrequently covered with square tiles, a board
wall being first made, to which the tiles are secured by being nailed
at their corners. These may be placed in diagonal or horizontal rows
— in either case an interspace of a quarter of an inch being left be-
tween the tiles, and the seams closed with white plaster, spreading on
each side to the width of an inch or more, and finished with a rounded
surface. This work is done in a very tasteful and artistic manner, and
the effect of the dark-gray tiles crossed by these white bars of plaster
is very striking (Fig. 8).

The Japanese dwellings are always of wood, usually of one story

6s 2

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and unpainted. Rarely does a house strike one as being specially
marked or better looking than its neighbors ; more substantial, cer-
tainly, some of them are, and yet there is a sameness about them which
becomes wearisome. Particularly is this the case with the long, un-
interesting row of houses that border a village street ; their picturesque

Fio. 8.— Arrangement of Square Tiles on Side op Housb.

roofs alone save them from becoming monotonous. A closer study,
however, reveals some marked differences between the country and
city houses, as well as between those of different provinces.

The country house, if anything more than a shelter from the ele-
ments, is larger and more substantial than the city house, and, with its
ponderous thatched roof and elaborate ridge, is always picturesque.
One sees much larger houses in the north — roofs of grand proportions
and an amplitude of space beneath, that farther south occurs only
under the roofs of temples. We speak now of the houses of the better
classes, for the poor farm-laborer and fisherman, as well as their pro-
totypes in the city, possess houses that are little better than shanties,
built, as a friend has forcibly expressed it, of "chips, paper, and straw."
But even these huts, clustered together as they oftentimes are in the

JAPANESE HO USE-B UILDING.

653

larger cities, are palatial in contrast to the shattered and filthy condition

of a like class of tenements in many of the cities of Christian countries.

In traveling through the country the absence of a middle class, as

indicated by the dwellings, is painfully apparent. It is true that you

Fig. 9.— Street in Kanda Ku, Tokio.

pass, now and then, large comfortable houses with their broad thatched
roofs, showing evidences of wealth and abundance in the numerous
hura and out-buildings surrounding them ; but, where you find one of
these, you pass hundreds which are barely more than shelters for their

Fig. 10.— Street View of Dwelling in Tokio.

inmates, and, within the few necessary articles render the evidences
of poverty all the more apparent.

Though the people that inhabit such shelters are very poor, they
appear contented and cheerful notwithstanding their poverty. Other

654

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

classes, who, though not poverty-stricken, are yet poor in every sense
of the word, occupy dwellings of the simplest character. Many of the
dwellings are often diminutive in size ; and, as one looks in at a tiny
cottage containing two or three rooms at the most, the entire house
hardly bigger than a good-sized room at home, and observes a family
of three or four persons living quietly and in a cleanly manner in this
limited space, he learns that in Japan, at least, poverty and constricted
quarters are not always correlated with coarse manners, filth, and crime.
The accompanying sketch (Fig. 9) represents a group of houses
bordering a street in Kanda Ku, Tokio. The windows are in some
cases projecting or hanging bays, and are barred with bamboo or
square bars of wood. A sliding-screen, covered with stout white
paper, takes the place of our glass-windows. Through these gratings
the inmates of the house do their bargaining with the street venders.
The entrance to these houses is usually by means of a gate common to
a number. This entrance consists of a large gate used for vehicles
and heavy loads, and by the side of this is a smaller gate used by the
people. Sometimes the big gate has a large square opening in it, closed
by a sliding-door or grating — and through this the inmates have in-
gress and egress.

Fig. n.— View of Dwelxing trom Garden, in Tokio.

The houses, if of wood, are painted black ; or else, as is more usu-
ally the case, the wood is left in its natural state, and this gradually
turns to a darker shade by exposure. When painted, a dead black is
used ; and this color is certainly agreeable to the eyes, though the
heat-rays caused by this black surface become almost unendurable on
hot days, and must add greatly to the heat and discomfort within the

JAPANESE HO USE-B UILDING.

655

house. With a plastered outside wall the surface is often left white,
while the framework of the building is painted black — and this treat-
ment gives it a decidedly funereal aspect.

The sketch shown in Fig. 10 is a city house of one of the better
classes. The house stands on a new street, and the lot on one side is
vacant ; nevertheless, the house is surrounded on all sides by a high
board-fence — since, with the open character of a Japanese house, priva-
cy, if desired, can be secured only by high fences or thick hedges. The
house is shown as it appears from the street. The front door is near
the gate, which is shown on the left of the sketch. There is here no
display of an architectural front ; indeed, there is no display anywhere.
The largest and best rooms are in the back of the house ; and what
might be called a back-yard, upon which the kitchen opens, is parallel
with the area in front of the main entrance to the house, and separated
from it by a high fence. The second story contains one room, and
this may be regarded as a guest-chamber. Access to this chamber is
by means of a steep flight of steps, made out of thick plank, and un-
guarded by hand-rail of any kind. The roof is heavily tiled, while
the walls of the house are outwardly composed of broad thin boards,
put on vertically, and having strips of wood to cover the joints. A
back view of this house is shown in Fig. 11. Here all the rooms open

^■-^e;^^

Fig. 12. — Old Farm-House in Kabutotama.

directly on the garden. Along the veranda are three rooms en suite.
The balcony of the second story is covered by a light supplementary
roof, from which hangs a bamboo screen to shade the room from the
sun's rays. Similar screens are also seen hanging below.

The veranda is quite spacious ; and in line with the division be-
tween the rooms is a groove for the adjustment of a wooden screen or

656 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

shutter when it is desired to separate the house into two portions tem-
porarily. At the end of the veranda, to the left of the sketch, is the
latrine. The house is quite open beneath, and the air has free circulation.
The country house of an independent samurai, or rich farmer, is
large, roomy, and thoroughly comfortable. I recall with the keenest
pleasure the delightful days enjoyed under the roof of one of these
typical mansions in Kabutoyaraa, in the western part of the province
of Musashi. The residence consisted of a group of buildings shut in
from the road by a high wall. Passing through a ponderous gateway,
one enters a spacious court yard, flanked on either side by long, low
buildings, used as store-houses and servants' quarters. At the farther
end of the yard, and facing the entrance, was a comfortable old farm-
house, having a projecting gable-wing to its right (Fig. 12). The roof
was a thatched one of unusual thickness. At the end of the wing was
a triangular latticed opening, from which thin blue wreaths of smoke
were curling. This building contained a few rooms, including an un-
usually spacious kitchen. The kitchen opened directly into a larger
and unfinished portion of the house, having the earth for its floor,
and used as a wood-shed. The owner informed me that the farm-
house was nearly three hundred years old. To the left of the building
was a high wooden fence, and, passing through a gateway, one came
into a smaller yard and garden. In this area was another house quite
independent of the farm-house ; this was the house for guests. Its
conspicuous feature consisted of a newly-thatched roof, surmounted by
an elaborate and picturesque ridge — its design derived from temple
architecture. Within were two large rooms opening upon a narrow
veranda. These rooms were unusually high in stud, and the mats and
all the appointments were most scrupulously clean. Communication
with the old house was by means of a covered passage. Back of
this dwelling, and some distance from it, was still another house, two
stories in height, and built in the most perfect taste ; and here lived
the grandfather of the family — a fine old gentleman, dignified and
courtly in his manners.

THE INFLUENCE OF INYENTIONS UPOK CIYILI-

ZATIOK

By CIIAUNCEY SiHTH.
[Concluded.]

THE relation between astronomical and mathematical investigations
and navigation has been long recognized, but this relation is de-
pendent upon the observation of the apparent position of heavenly bod-
ies at given times, and these observations are in turn dependent upon
telescopes and upon clocks and chronometers, both modem inventions.

INFLUENCE OF INVENTIONS ON CIVILIZATION. 657

The working of the railroads of the country is hardly less dependent
upon the time-keepers we possess than navigation is upon chronometers.
Let any one ask himself how the railroads of this country could be op-
erated if our only time-keepers were sun-dials, hour-glasses, and the
clepsydras of the ancients, and he will soon see that the construction
of the time-tables of our railroads and the operation of the roads in
conformity with them would be impossible.

Mr, Atkinson will tell us what it costs to transport a barrel of
flour upon our railroads from Minneapolis to Boston, and approxi-
mately what the saving is by the railroads over the old modes of trans-
portation, but can lie tell us what part of that saving is to be credited
to the clocks at the railroad-stations and to the watches which the
conductors carry in their pockets ?

The late Judge Curtis said to me several years ago that the
introduction of railroads had made a great change in the habits
of the people as to punctuality in keeping appointments ; that be-
fore their introduction nobody thought of being punctual to a min-
ute, or even to an hour. Nobody thought of being " on time "
till the railroads presented the alternative of being so or of "get-
ting left."

One can now easily see that before the general use of clocks and
w^atches, punctuality, as it is now understood among business-men,
could hardly have been reckoned as a duty. This is one illustration
out of many more important ones where our social or moral obliga-
tions have arisen from or have been changed by physical inventions.
By observations upon the laws or conditions of health by means of
recent inventions and only possible by their means, we have learned
how to counteract or prevent the introduction or spread of many dis-
eases, and in consequence of this, men recognize the duty to adopt and
enforce many regulations in society for which no reason could be found
a few years ago.

How could we live without glass ? It enters so largely into the
list of things we consider absolutely necessary, to say nothing of its
uses for convenience or luxury, that we should almost as soon think
of living without light or heat, without air or water, as to live with-
out this cheap substance made principally out of the sand under our
feet. Can any one tell what civilization would be without it ? It
would certainly be a very different thing from what it is.

We talk of the fireside and the influence it has upon families and
social life, but the window plays a more important part in our homes
than the fireside. The invention of glass goes back to a very early
period, but its general use for windows is comparatively recent. Ac-
customed as we are to glass windows, it is difficult for us to conceive
how a house could be lived in with comfort without it.

There is another use of glass, resting upon a very simple invention,
which plays a very important part in the comfort of man and the
VOL. xxvm. — 42

658 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

value of his labor, and which contributes "wonderfully to our knowl-
edge of nature and the universe.

Ever since man was capable of observing things around him, he
must often have seen that a straight stick thrust obliquely into the
water appeared to be bent at its surface. It was a long time be-
fore man learned the value of this fact ; but at length the lens was
discovered. The invention consisted simply in the form given to a
piece of glass ; in giving to one or both of the surfaces of a disk of
glass a curved form. This we know forms a lens, and a lens has be-
come one of the most valuable devices known to man, but it was a
long time after its invention before it became of much value.

A thousand years elapsed after the invention of the lens before it
assumed an important place among the instruments employed by man.
But man learned its value at last. Lenses may be made of other ma-
terials than glass, but for all practical purposes they are made of glass,
and no other material will supply its place.

I alluded to spectacles as a valuable invention. I have never seen
any attempt to estimate its value. I do not know that I ever heard
the inquiry made. And yet when we remember that nearly every
person above the age of forty-five, and very many below that age, use
glasses, we see that they must enter largely into the sum of our com-
forts. How many persons would be deprived of the pleasures and
benefits of reading and writing during a large portion of their lives
but for this simple invention ! How many kinds of labor would be
performed badly and with great discomfort but for these devices ! At
what disadvantage literary labor would be carried on without them !
For how many delicate handicrafts would men and women become
unfitted in their later years but for them ! At what discomfort and
inconvenience would domestic needlework be performed in their ab-
sence ! How much trial of the patience is saved by their use I I doubt
jiot our tempers are much better in old age for these helps.

But the value of the invention of the lens is not limited to its use
for spectacles. From it has grown up those wonderful modern instru-
ments, the telescope and microscope. Through the former has come
a large part of our astronomical knowledge, which has a great com-
mercial value from the security it gives to man in navigating the
oceans. It has also a high moral and mental value from the field it
opens to the exercise and training of the powers of observation and
imagination ; from the new conceptions it has given us of the immen-
sity of creation, and of the power which gave it birth. I wonder if
any man can rise from a contemplation of the facts, the mysteries, and
magnitudes of the universe, revealed to us by the telescope and spec-
troscope, without repeating to himself, with a new sense of its signifi-
cance, the question, " What is man that Thou art mindful of him, or
the son of man that Thou visitest him ? "

But, while the lens thus opens up to man in the boundless regions

INFLUENCE OF INVENTIONS ON CIVILIZATION 659

of space a universe which no stretch of the imagination could give him
a glimpse of without it, it opens up to him also a no less wonderful
universe in regions which, by reason of their littleness, lie equally
beyond his powers of observation or the powers of his imagination.

It reveals to him the presence of life in forms as wonderful for
their minuteness and activity and numbers as the sun and stars are for
the mighty spaces they occupy and traverse.

This little device, then, of a piece of glass formed wdth curved
surfaces, which a boy may fashion upon a piece of sandstone, not only
enters into the daily use of man, ministering to his comfort and pro-
longing his power to work efficiently, but in no figurative sense it
enables him to behold a new heaven and a new earth. It opens to
him the most wonderful secrets of nature, and gives him new concep-
tions of the vastness of the universe and of the magnitude of the forces
involved in its mechanism. The ancients believed that the sun was
only a few miles away, a few thousand miles at most, but the telescope
has enabled man to learn that the sun is 92,000,000 miles away from us ;
that the earth, 8,000 miles in diameter, in his yearly journey around it,
travels 600,000,000 miles, at the rate of nearly twenty miles a second.

What conception of infinite power could the imagination, unaided,
give to man, which could in the least approach that which is involved
in this movement of the earth !

But we know through the telescope, that this power, mighty as it
is, is but an infinitesimal part of that which is actually displayed in the
regions of space which only within recent years and by the aid of a
multitude of inventions have been opened to the observation of man.

Upon glass and the lens man is dependent for the use of another
recent invention, which now that we have it we would not willingly do
without.

A beautiful art has come into existence since I was a young man,
which gratifies one of the strongest desires of the heart and ministers
to the social pleasures of every family and circle of friends. I well
remember when the newspaper first announced that a Frenchman had
invented a way of taking pictures by the help of the sun. Before that
time very few people could have likenesses of their friends, living or
dead. The face of a friend could only be seen when he was present.
When absent, memory must do what it could to preserve the features.
Only the rich, and not a large proportion of them, could command
portraits of themselves or friends. Into what houses will you now go
where you do not expect to find likenesses of whole families, and
whole circles of friends? Very poor indeed are those who can not
and do not find the means of procuring and preserving pictures of
those they love. Can any one measure the amount of gratification
which the world has received from the practice of the wonderful art
of taking pictures from nature, through the agency of a few chemi-
cals spread upon a sheet of paper or of silver, and of the rays of light

66o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

concentrated by means of a lens ? There has been received from it
mental, artistic, and moral culture. The invention has opened up a
new field of investigation and research to the labor of the chemist and
to the student of nature. From the first announcement to the world,
to the present hour, a host of inventors have been engaged in perfect-
ing and improving the art, enlarging the field of its applications, and
studying the laws of nature upon which it rests. The boundaries of
human knowledge, in more than one department of physics, have been
greatly extended in these efforts. Astronomy has received important
aid from it, and by its help we get not merely jiictures of what exists
in the heavenly regions, but records of what is there talcing place.

This art has even come to play an important part in the adminis-
tration of justice and in the protection of the community against crime.
By its aid criminals are detected, watched, and convicted. Forgeries
are proved or disproved by its use. It finds an important place in the
ordinary business of commerce and the mechanic arts. By its aid,
copies or representations of all valuable works of art are placed with-
in the reach of multitudes who, otherwise, would know nothing of them
or know them only through inadequate verbal description. The im-
provement of the public taste in relation to art, by the knowledge of
works of art which has been thus diffused, has been very great.

Does any one doubt that this extension and this sj)read of knowl-
edge of the works of art must tend to the improvement of man's moral
nature ? Can it be doubted that the social affections are quickened by
the preservation of the features of friends and the interchange among
friends and families of pictures of those who make up the family cir-
cle ? Will not a boy, absent from home, feel the influence of home
more strongly when he looks upon the faces of parents or sisters, than
he would if he could not thus bring them into his presence?

But all these benefits which the world reaps from photography have
come to us from inventions. It is not the fruit so much of genius, as
of that patient labor and research which is winning from Nature, day
by day, secrets far more valuable to man than all her hidden treasures
of gold and silver.

Within the memory of men not very old, a new power has, by the
genius of inventors, been trained into the service of man. This power
is electricity. It has always, as we now know, been present in many
of the phenomena of nature, exhibiting itself most strikingly in the
lightnings of the thunder-storm, revealing, as man believed, the pres-
ence of a mysterious power which might be destructive, but which
never could be useful to man.

A trifling incident revealed to an observing man in Italy the fact
that, when two metals and the leg of a frog were made to touch, the
muscles of the leg were contracted. This was a little more than a hun-
dred years ago. This led to the invention of the galvanic battery, an
instrument by which man was enabled to generate electricity for his

INFLUENCE OF INVENTIONS ON CIVILIZATION. 661

own use. But many years were still to elapse before man could turn
the instrument to much service.

Forty years later, another observer noticed that, when a wire which
was carrying a current of electricity generated by a battery was placed
near the needle of a compass, it turned the needle one way or the other
on its pivot. A few years later, Faraday discovered that if such a
wire was wound around a piece of soft iron, it made a magnet of the
iron. Out of these simple facts have arisen the inventions of the tele-
graph, the telephone, and the electric light. The oldest of these in-
ventions, the telegraph, is only about forty-five years old, and there
are many who can easily remember the feelings of incredulity and
amazement with which the claim that the invention had been made
was received.

Can any one calculate the influence which this invention is destined
to have upon the condition of man ? We think it has spread over the
world with wonderful rapidity. And so it has. But the world has
just begun to use it. Although we see telegraph lines spread all over
this country, and we say and think that everybody uses the telegraph,
yet the number of messages sent last year did not much exceed one to
each two persons in the land, while the number of letters written, in-
cluding postal-cards, probably exceeded ten to each individual. When
messages can be sent, as they most certainly will be, to any part of the
land for ten cents or less, multitudes of people, who never think now
of using the telegraph except upon matters of pressing importance,
will use it upon the most common occasions. How many times would
the simple "all well" be exchanged daily between friends if it could
be done for five or ten cents !

A multitude of inventors have been necessary to make the tele-
graph what it is, and its improvement was never going on more rapidly
than to-day. I well remember how difficult it was for many persons
to form an idea, when the telegraph was first invented, of the way it
worked. It was not an uncommon belief that the paper on which the
message was written was in some way sent along the wire to its desti-
nation. But the idea became familiar after a little time that the elec-
tricity only traversed the line and operated a mechanism at the distant
place which recorded the message in a new language, or delivered it
directly to the ear, and people began to think that they understood
how the telegraph was worked. But when inventors began to talk
about sending two or three messages over the same wire, at the same
time, the limit of belief seemed to have been reached, and people ob-
stinately refused to believe that the thing could be done. But it has
been done in more ways than one, and now there are numerous wires
in the country over which four or even six messages are sent at the
same time. As these inventions enable one wire to do the work of
two or four or more, the wires which are wanting are called by the
telegraph people "phantom-wires." The improvement of the tele-

662 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

graph is taking other directions. On the common lines the messages
are sent by the operator at the rate of about thirty or forty words a
minute. But inventions are in progress, and are now being introduced,
which will enable a thousand words a minute to be sent. Think of
sending messages from Boston to New York over one wire, and record-
ing them there, at the rate of a thousand words a minute ! Few peo-
ple speak at the rate of two hundred words a minute.

Those of us who are in the habit of receiving messages, often get
them printed on long strips of paper. The invention used in sending
messages in that way is one which enables a man in New York, by
touching keys like those of a piano, to operate a printing-machine in
Boston or Chicago.

The highest achievements in telegraphy are undoubtedly reached
in the ocean telegraph. It demanded a whole line of inventions pecul-
iar to itself. A simple wire could not be used for a conductor. It
would give out the electricity to the water so fast that none would
reach the farther end to deliver the message, and the wire itself would
be speedily destroyed. A coating must, therefore, be found for it
which would at once protect the wire from the action of the water
and keep the electricity from going off into the water. When such a
coating had been invented, it was found necessary to strengthen the
copper wire used for the conductor by the addition of steel wires,
which must not touch the co2:)per wire, but surround it, and this too
must be protected by a coating. Then machinery had to be invented
to combine the copper and steel wires with the coating material into
a cable. Other machinery had to be invented to deliver the cable
from a ship as she sailed over the course where the cable was to be
laid. Only the steamship could be used for the purpose, and thus the
invention of the steam-engine gave to man the power to establish ocean
telegraphs. New instruments of the most wonderful sensibility had
to be invented both for sending and receiving the messages. A minute
magnet carries a tiny mirror and is suspended by a thread so as to
yield to the slightest impulse. A ray of light from a lamp falls upon
this mirror and is reflected upon a screen some feet distant. This ray
of light is the finger which the operator watches upon the screen. As
the current in the wire varies under the action of the sending instru-
ment, the magnet turns one way or the other, and the spot of light on
the screen moves one way or the other and indicates the signals of the
Morse alphabet to the operator and enables him to spell out the words.

Sometimes a fault is developed in the wire as it lies on the bottom
of the ocean, and signals can not be sent. Does it seem possible that
man can tell whereabout on three thousand miles of wire, two miles
under water, the fault is? He has invented instruments which en-
able him to do it, and to send a vessel to the very spot over the wire
where the fault is, pick up the wire and mend it, and return it to its
resting-place.

INFLUENCE OF INVENTIONS ON CIVILIZATION. 663

Some time before his death, in 1819, while resting from labor in
his old age, James Watt, when asked to allow his fellow-citizens to
honor him with a seat in Parliament, refused, saying that he had given
employment to the better part of a million of men, and had earned the
right to rest from work. To how many millions of men since then has
his invention given employment ! In a life of Watt published many
j^ears since I find a statement that the steam-power of the world was
equal to that of 400,000,000 men, and this amount has probably been
doubled since the statement was made. And yet the world has even
now but just begun to reap the fruits of this invention. Each year
witnesses the extension of its use.

About seventy years ago Robert Fulton, one of the greatest me-
chanical geniuses of this country, applied the steam-engine to a boat
and made the first trial of a ship moved by the power of heat in a trip
from New York to Albany. Now every ocean is plowed by the
steamship, and there is hardly a navigable river on the face of the
globe that has not become a highway for it. A few years later, in
1825, George Stephenson invented the locomotive and gave to man the
railroad, and now, sixty years later, we have more than 128,000 miles
of railroad m operation in this country alone.

I believe that no other Englishman has done so much for his fel-
low-men, so much to change the social and economical conditions of
society, as George Stephenson.

Would you like to know how much the steam-engine has increased
the power of man in Massachusetts ? I can tell you what the locomo-
tive has done. In 1878 the railroad companies of this State had 1,030
locomotives. The proportion due to the amount of their track in this
State was 757, and the work they did was equal to what 913,545
horses could do on good common roads, and was equivalent to the
labor of 5,481,270 laboring-men, or to that of a population of nearly
20,000,000.

Now, in 1875, Massachusetts had only about 130,000 horses, and
her population Avas a little more than a million and a half.

But this was not all that Massachusetts owed to the steam-engine.
She employs it largely in steam-vessels owned in the State or coming
from abroad. What the whole amount of work done by these vessels
was equal to I do not know, but it was large.

She also employed steam- and water-power in her manufactures
equal to that of 1,912,488 men. The work done by the steam- and
water-power was equal to what could have been done by hand-power
by a population of 7,400,000.

I think there are more than 20,000 locomotives in the United
States. There would be more than that if all the roads were as well
provided with locomotives as the roads in Massachusetts are.

Assuming that to be the number, and that they do as much work
as they do here, and the work is equal to that of 25,000,000 horses,

664 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

or to that of nearly 150,000,000 men, or to a population of nearly
500,000,000. I suppose the actual population of the United States is
nearly 60,000,000. We see by this how much in this country alone
the inventions of Watt and Stephenson have increased the powers of
man. The imagination staggers under the figures.

Of course a host of other inventors have been concerned with the
results I have given, but the results are none the less the work of in-
ventors because there are many of them.

The steam-engine has entered into many other inventions, the steam-
drill and the steam-dredge, for instance, which have given to man the
ability to execute engineering works of the most extraordinary character.

The stcam-haranier is another of the wonders of modern machin-
ery which followed the steam-engine. One of the gods of ancient
mythology was Vulcan, a blacksmith, who was supposed, I believe, to
have forged the thunderbolts of Jupiter. What conception may have
been entertained of his power or of the magnitude of thunderbolts, I
can not say, but probably he was never supposed to wield a hammer
like a modern steam-hammer, weighing thirty-five tons, through a dis-
tance of ten or twelve feet, or to have executed any work like the forg-
ing of the propeller-shaft of a modern steamship. But what ancient
gods could not do the modern inventor easily docs.

The power of the steam-engine comes from heat — from the fire in
the boiler. The fuel used is largely coal, stored ages ago in the earth.
Fire has been long known to man and has been ready to do his work,
and the iron and steel for engines had been long known. But not till
the magic of the inventor had brought these things together did man
learn what power was lying ready to his hand.

If at the time Watt made his improvement in the steam-engine
some change in the laws of Nature had come into play which had
gradually increased the physical power of man until now it had become
tenfold greater than it was, this increase would not be equal to that
which man has gained from the labors of Watt and the inventors who
have succeeded him in the development of that instrument, and in the
invention and improvement of machines to be used in connection with
it. And this increased power of man is not exerted for the rich alone,
but is shared by the great mass of men as impartially as if the power
of each individual had been increased, as I have supposed, in the same
ratio. We see this most strikingly in the ability Avhich the railroad
and the telegraph have given to the laboring-men in the mechanical
industries throughout the land to combine and organize for mutual
support, and in opposition, as it is said, to capital. It is only through
the agency of the railroad and the telegraph that a great body of la-
boring-men scattered over a wide area of territory are able to organize
and act as a unit, and thus secure the highest prices for their labor
which the nature of their work and the demands of society will per-
mit. It is only by reason of the capital of others invested in these

INFLUENCE OF INVENTIONS ON CIVILIZATION 665

recent inventions that laboring-men have acquired the power, which
may be used either wisely or unwisely, to secure and exercise the
strength which comes from union, and to deal with employers and
capitalists on an equal footing, if not with the conditions in their favor.

Take another illustration :

One of the most simple transactions of our lives is to purchase a
postal-card for one cent, write a communication on one side, and on
the opposite side a direction to a correspondent in any part of the
United States or Canada, and drop it into a box on a street corner.
We have no further control over or agency in it ; but we are per-
fectly assured that it will in no long time, within a week, even if its
destination is San Francisco, be delivered to the correspondent. And,
if we wish to write a long letter, we have only to add another cent
and purchase a postage-stamp, for which a letter weighing one ounce
may in like manner be sent and delivered. Now the ability to do
this is shared by rich and poor alike, for there is hardly any depth of
poverty which precludes any one from doing what I have described.
But there is no step in the transaction, from the purchase of the
stamp or card to the delivery to the correspondent, or in the antece-
dent conditions which make it possible, which is not an invention. I
can not attempt to enumerate the inventions directly or indirectly
involved, and I refer to the matter only as an illustration of the re-
sults which have been reached by invention in placing things highly
important or desirable to men within the reach of all. It is not
many years since the rates of postage in this country were so high,
varying from six cents to twenty-five on each sheet, that a correspond-
ence with distant friends involved an expense which could be but
sparingly indulged by laboring-men, and was felt to be a burden by
many in comfortable circumstances. The cost of sending a letter four
hundred miles was equal to the price of half a day's work at the com-
mon monthly rate of wages of agricultural laborers. Now a letter may
be sent ten times as far, at one twelfth the cost, and in less than one
tenth the time.

A few years after "Watt invented the steam-engine, and while he
was laboring to improve it and adapt it to the various wants of the
world, a wonderful military genius arose in Europe, who filled the
world with his fame and made himself as large a place in history, per-
haps, as any man ever did. He played havoc with the nations of Eu-
rope, changed the boundaries of countries and their forms of govern-
ment, and apparently raised France to the highest pitch of power. But
he lived to destroy. Measuring Bonaparte and "Watt by their works
and their works by the consequences which followed them, and which
must stand as the greater fact in the history of the world ? AVhich
controlled most potently, for his own time and for the future, the des-
tiny of nations, and which most deserves the adraii-ation and homage,
not to say gratitude, of mankind ?

666 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

I hear people not infrequently express the belief that man will soon
exhaust the field of invention. The inventions of the last century have
been so numerous and wonderful that to many minds it seems most
likely that man will soon reach the limit of his power, or that he will
exhaust the resources of Nature. But there is little reason to fear that
either condition can be reached for ages, if ever. It is as little likely
that man will ever reach the limit of invention as it is that he will be
able to fix the bounds of the universe. Man makes inventions by com-
bining the materials and forces of Nature, so as to reach new results.
Let any one consider how numerous are the materials which Nature
presents to the observation and use of man, how varied in kind and
degree are the forces w^hich are in constant operation, and how multi-
farious and intricate are the laws which govern their actions and re-
lations, and then calculate, if he can, the number of possible combi-
nations which can be made. I have seen the statement, which is no
doubt true, that the fifteen blocks in the gem-puzzle can be arranged
in more than a million different ways. If this simple toy possesses
such capabilities, what possibility is there that man can ever exhaust
the field of Nature ? Wonderful as man's inventions are in number
and character, they are at an infinite distance behind the works of
Nature. What a multitude of created things there are in Nature,
looking simply at species and varieties, and not at the individuals !
How many kinds of plants and animals are to be found ! What mul-
titudes of reptiles and insects ! No machine which man has invented
calls into play such wonderful forces or is governed by such wonder-
ful laws as the humblest plant on which he treads ! Man is far enough
yet from inventing a structure which shall build itself up from the
earth, air, and water, and scatter germs for its indefinite reduplication !
He has succeeded in copying some of the products of Nature, and he
will achieve still greater results, but in doing it he has but opened
a new field of invention, one which only a few years before seemed
utterly beyond his reach. He has enlarged the field of invention, not
exhausted it. A striking instance of what man has done in this new
direction is exhibited in the substance called alizarine. It is the sub-
stance which gives to madder its coloring quality. Not many years
ago, madder was extensively cultivated in many countries to supply
the demand for the arts. Now the article is made artificially from
coal-tar, and the fields where madder was cultivated have to be
devoted to other purposes. Invention has taught man how to make
indigo, and the artificial article is likely to supplant the natural prod-
uct. Diamonds have been produced artificially. I have full faith that
sugar will in time in like manner be produced artificially. Starch and
oil may not unlikely be })rovided in the same way. Man now culti-
vates the silk-worm which devours mulberry-leaves and converts a
large portion into a glutinous fluid which, when spun out into a fine
thread, hardens and forms our silk. Man may yet learn how to ex-

INFLUENCE OF INVENTIONS ON CIVILIZATION. 667

tract silk directly from the leaves, and perhaps even produce the sub-
stance which the worm elaborates, and spin it into silk !

Since the telephone has shown that man, through the agency of
electricity, can talk with his fellow-man hundreds of miles away, there
are men daring enough to think that through the same agency man
may yet see things at an equally great distance, so that you may not
only talk from Boston to your friend in New York, but may actually
see him as if face to face, and they claim that their attempts have
been attended with some degree of success. Would you dare to say
it is more unlikely that such a result may be achieved than that man
should be able to transmit intelligence instantly three thousand miles
through the depths of the ocean ? Through long ages man remained
unconscious of the presence and action of the forces of magnetism and
electricity, but we now know that they are constantly present every-
where, and incessantly active. "What other forces may still be hidden
from the observation of man it is impossible to know.

The present scientific belief is that the atmosphere is an aggrega-
tion of infinitely small molecules, which really fill but a small part of
the space the air seems to occupy ; that through the unoccupied space
these molecules are rushing at a high speed, hitting each other and the
solid bodies around them and rebounding, and that what we call the
pressure of the atmosphere, fifteen pounds to the inch, is really the
bombardment of these molecules upon whatever arrests their course.
The reason that all solid things are not swept away by this incessant
pounding is, that the blows are struck in every direction, and so neu-
tralize each other. But here is an ever-present and ever-active force,
and, if man should ever discover a way to make all the particles of a body
of air move in one direction, he would have at every place on the sur-
face of the earth an unlimited amount of power placed at his command.

But even if man should accomplish all this, there would still be an
infinite distance between anything which he could devise or construct
and the organic structures which grow up around him ; between the
forces which he could wield and those exhibited in the operations of
Nature ; and each step which he might take, while it would enlarge
his knowledge, would at the same time bring him into the presence of
new mysteries, and open up to him new problems for solution. Each
new invention gives birth to a host of other new ones.

The steam-engine has been the study of inventors for a hundred
years, and each year has witnessed improvements upon it, and such
improvements are going on more rapidly than ever before.

About forty years have elapsed since Howe gave the sewing-ma-
chine to the world, and thousands of inventions for its improvement
or adaptation to new uses have been made, and they are going on still.
The same is true of reaping-machines, spinning-machines, looms, the
manufacture of iron and steel, printing and telegraphy, and of almost
everything used by man.

668 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

There is no sign that the work of the inventor is near its end, and
those who believe, as I do, that he has been the chief agent in the
progress of the world, have no reason to doubt that the world will be
still more deeply indebted to him as the centuries go by.

There are now in force in this country more than two hundred and
fifty thousand patents for inventions, the fruits to a very large extent
of the mental labor of those who are called the laboring-men of the
country. Aside from the direct value of these inventions in promot-
ing the comfort and increasing the wealth of the country, there is
another factor to be considered, having the most vital relation to the
industries of the country and its powers of production. This large
number of inventions implies a high degree of intelligence and men-
tal activity in the great body of the people. It indicates trained
habits of observation and trained powers of applying the knowledge
which has been acquired. It shows an ability to turn to account the
forces of Nature and train them to the service of man, such as has been
possessed by the laborers of no other country. It suggests as perti-
nent and most important, the inquiry whether any other country is so
well equipped for competition in production as our own ; whether in
any other country the laboring-man is as efficient and his labor there-
fore as cheap as in our own ; whether he does not exhibit the seeming
paradox of receiving more for his labor than in any other country, and
at the same time doing more for what he receives — giving more for
what he receives, and receiving more for what he gives.

COLOKADO AS A WINTEK SANITAEIUM.

By SAMUEL A. FISK, M. D.

WITHIN the past year the civilized world has been shocked and
saddened by the knowledge of the great devastation wrought
by the cholera in Spain ; and every precaution, in the way of sanitary
measures and quarantine regulations, that modern science could sug-
gest, was taken to prevent its spreading into other countries. The
public scanned the columns of the daily press, eager for information
with regard to the advance of this fearful disease, and read with
bated breath as they learned that it numbered its victims by the tens
of thousands.

If it was a matter of such deep and universal concern that in Spain
101,000 souls gave up their lives to this fell destroyer, should it not
also be a matter of some interest to our own people that, within the bor-
ders of these United States, over 91,500 persons die each year of pul-
monary consumption ? * — that twelve out of every hundred deaths are
caused by a disease which, though slow in its progress, is as sure in its

results as cholera itself ?

* Census, 18S0.

COLORADO AS A WINTER SANITARIUM. 669

Should it ever transpire that some means of prevention should be
found, by means of which people would be rendered proof against the
disease, or at least could be cured when once it had set its seal upon
them, would it not be one of the greatest boons vouchsafed to man since
the introduction of vaccination ?

Inventive persons have from time to time thought that they had
secured a sure cure, if not an unfailing prophylactic ; and, at the pres-
ent time, since the discoveries of Koch, all sorts of parasiticides are
being used to kill the germ of the disease. The unfortunate bacillus
is now being hunted down with pneumatic chambers, deep inhalations,
and local applications inti'oduced by means of the hypodermic syringe,
with results that are, to say the least, uncertain.

But, after all the years of research devoted to the subject, and out
of all the methods of prevention and cure that have been suggested,
the one that has given the best results, and is now being universally
adopted, is change of climate.

Says Professor Frankland, in an article on the "Yellowstone Park
as a Winter Resort," which was published in a recent number of " The
Popular Science Monthly," * " The great importance of a winter sani-
tarium for patients suffering from or threatened with consumption and
other allied diseases has long been recognized and acted upon in Eu-
rope."

Such patients have been hurried off to Mentone and the Riviera,
or sent across the Mediterranean into Northern Africa, or they have
been told to take a trip up the Nile, and, more recently, they have
been congregated at Davos in the Engadine.

If it be true that, on the other side of the waters, they have recog-
nized the importance of a change of climate for the cure of consump-
tion, it is also true that the public and medical profession alike, in our
own country, are also awakening to a due sense of its efficacy.

We have our Florida, South Carolina, and Cumberland Mountains,
the Adirondacks, Southern Cr.lifornia, Minnesota, and Colorado, and
New Mexico, where patients are sent indiscriminately, each one of
which places has its coterie of especial admirers, and over the respect-
ive merits of which a great deal of verbal warfare has been waged.

It is not the intention of the writer to enter upon any arguments
with so-called climatologists as to what are the specific elements of a
climate adapted to consumptives, nor to give a detailed comparison of
the several resorts. Each place can undoubtedly give its instances of
remarkable cures, as can also Cape Cod and certain portions of New
Jersey ; and some rare and isolated cases could also be cited where
complete recovery has resulted even in the large cities ; but the point
is, to determine just where and under what conditions we may invaria-
bly look for the best results.

To be able to speak ex cathedra on such a matter would require an

* Julj, 1886.

6/0

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

experience such as falls to the lot of but few, and a long and careful
investigation of statistics which have not as yet been compiled.

It is therefore the intention of the present article to give testimony
only in regard to the climate of Colorado ; to point out to those seek-
ing such information what they may reasonably expect to find here ;
and to proclaim to that large invalid class in the East and South, to
which we ourselves at one time belonged, the restoration to health
which we, with thousands upon thousands of others, have found in this
glorious climate.

Comparison of Climatic Conditions with those at Davos. —
Professor Frankland, in the article quoted, sums up the climatic con-
ditions prevailing at Davos, which he establishes as a criterion, as fol-
lows, viz. : " 1. Great elevation above sea-level (5,400 feet). 2. A
continuous and, during winter, permanent covering of snow. 3. A
minimum of watery vapor in the air. 4. A clear sun. 5. A clean at-
mosphere, free from zymotic germs, dust, and fog. 6. A sheltered posi-
tion, favorable for receiving both the direct and reflected solar rays."

A comparison will show that, in all but one of these conditions,
Colorado can make a favorable showing with Davos, and that, taking
everything into consideration, she can come nearer to fulfilling the
requirements than any other portion of the United States.

As regards this single condition, that of having a perpetual cover-
ing of snow, whatever may be its effects upon the Davos climate, we
of Colorado have been wont to consider it a great point in our favor
that, throughout the winter, we are almost entirely free from snow,
and that our sandy and porous soil drinks it up rapidly when it comes.
AVe have regarded this as an advantage, because our sun-temperatures
are warm enough without the additional heat of the " reflected rays "
that come from snow ; because its presence would interfere so materi-
ally with the out-of-door life that our invalids lead ; and because ex-
perience has shown that, where there is the continuous covering of
snow as occurs in the Northwest, there comes the thaw, which is usually
synchronous with the thaw at the coast, and which brings in its train
great atmospheric moisture and chill, and that, too, at a time when
patients are seeking to avoid similar conditions at their homes.

In order that we may prove our assertion with regard to our hav-
ing so little snow, we introduce a table showing the exact amount in
inches of rain and melted snow that fell at Denver during the winter
of 1884-'85 :

TABLE OF precipitation.

1884-1886.

Sept.

Oct.

Nov.

Dec.

Jan.

Feb.

Mar.

April.

Amount in inches of rain-
fall and snow-fall

0-13

0-21

0-19

o-Te

0-41

0-76

o-g?

4-94

To return now to a consideration of the conditions prevailing at
Davos, which may, in the main, be taken as those which are most

COLORADO AS A WINTER SANITARIUM. 671

highly esteemed by the advocates of elevated and cool resorts, we find
in Colorado that, so far as elevation is concerned, the range in the
towns is from that of Denver, at 5,280 feet, to that of Leadville, which
is somewhat over 10,000 feet above sea-level. Intermediate are Colo-
rado Springs, 6,000 feet ; Manitou Springs, between 6,000 and 7,000
feet.; Caiion City, about the same ; Salida, 7,000 feet ; Poncha Springs,
Idaho Springs, Boulder, and Longmont, about 7,500 feet ; Gunnison,
Georgetown, and Alamosa, in the neighborhood of 8,000 feet, and so
on. So that all the arguments derived from elevation above sea-level
are applicable to Colorado as well as to Davos.

If at Davos it is found that there is diminished atmospheric press-
ure ; that, as a consequence, there is a slower abstraction of beat
from the body, so that low temperatures do not feel so cold as they
would in a lower and denser region ; that there is greater heating
power in the direct rays of the sun, and that there is a freedom from
germ-life (a supposition based on the experiments of Pasteur and
Tyndall), all due to simple elevation, the same has been found to be
true in Colorado.

As regards the humidity of the air, on which condition writers on
climate lay so much stress, and among them the author to whom we
have already referred, the data are full and satisfactory.

Colorado is situated in the zone of greatest atmospheric dryness,
both relative and absolute, of any inhabited portion of the United States.

A compilation of the statistics of the Signal-Service Bureau,
United States Army, shows that the mean relative humidity of Denver
for four years was only 45*8. That is, taking the saturation-point, or
the point at which the atmosi^here is holding all the moisture that it
can, as 100, then the air at Denver is only 45*8 per cent of saturation,
and it is capable of holding 54*2 per cent more moisture than it does.
The same table shows that the air of New York is 70*2 per cent of
saturation ; that of Jacksonville, Florida, 69 per cent, and that of
Los Angeles 65*8 per cent.

It must be understood, in this connection, that the saturation-point
is not at all a fixed one, nor is it a constant quantity at any given
place, as it varies both with the barometric pressure and with the tem-
perature ; so that, as a consequence of this, many writers prefer to
speak of the absolute rather than of the relative humidity, in making
comparisons of the atmospheric dryness of places.

Several years ago we had occasion to point out, in this connection,
that, while a mean for four years showed that the Denver air con-
tained only 1-81 grain of vapor (by weight) to the cubic foot, the air
of Jacksonville contains 5 '38 grains, and that of Los Angeles 3*77
grains, to the foot ; or, as we then remarked, an " amount which, as
between Denver and Jacksonville, is as 1 to 3, and, as between Denver
and Los Angeles, is as 1 to 2." *

* " Climate in the Cure of Consumption " ("Science," September 28 and October 5, 1883).

672 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Since the above was written, the subject has been very graphically
presented by means of colored maps, published in the " Keport of the
Chief Signal-Officer " for 1884, which maps were compiled at the sug-
gestion and earnest solicitation of the Colorado State Medical Society.*

They show plainly that, in the spring and autumn of 1882, the por-
tion of the United States which contained the fewest grains of vapor
to the cubic foot of air (viz., 1*5 grain) was the portion of the Rocky
Mountain range reaching from near the northern boundary of Wyo-
ming to about the center of New Mexico and Arizona ; and that, while
during the winter mouths the Northwest, owing to the extreme cold,
contained only from 0*5 to 1*0 grain of vapor, that section which we
are considering contained the same amount throughout its northern
half, while its southern half ranged from 1 to 1*5 grain. During the
same winter months the vapor along the California coast is marked as
having been 2*5 grains to the foot, and in Florida it was 4 grains in
the north and 7 grains at Key West.

We wish to emphasize this matter of extreme atmospheric dryness,
as it not only plays a most important part in a consideration of the
climatic cure of consumption, but it is also a prime factor in making,
what to an Eastern mind may appear as low temperatures, not only
bearable but even comfortable.

Says Professor Frankland, "The absence of suspended watery
particles in the air has, no doubt, very considerable influence in pre-
venting the chilling of the skin " ; and this, together with diminished
atmospheric pressure — which, the same writer says, makes the air, if
still, feel warmer at an elevated station than in lower and denser regions
of the atmosphere, " in consequence of the slower abstraction of heat
from the body " — these conditions, we say, are the reasons why low
temperatures with us do not feel so cold — and, so far as being out of
doors is concerned, really are not so cold — as the corresjionding tem-
peratures at sea-level.

The next favorable atmospheric condition mentioned as existing at
Davos is the fact that there is a " clear sun," by which, we presume,
is meant an absence of clouds and a large amount of sunshine.

In this connection we have previously called attention to the fact
that there are in this climate, on the average, three hundred and twenty
sunny days per annum, when the invalid can be out of doors. In
other words, our cloudy days, as interpreted by the Signal Service
— i. e., days when the heavens are from seven tenths to ten tenths ob-
scured by clouds at 7 a. m., 3 and 11 p. m., Washington time — our
cloudy days average only forty-six, while in New York they average
one hundred and nine, at Jacksonville eighty-seven, and at St. Paul
one hundred and four per annum.

This fact also has been graphically portrayed by another series of

* As a member of the committee from that society, intrusted with the matter, wc take
pleasure in acknowledging the courteous attention our request received.

COLORADO AS A WINTER SANITARIUM. 673

maps, furnished by the Signal-Service Bureau to the Colorado State
Medical Society, at the time that they gave the series illustrating
absolute humidity. This is a series of four maps, representing iu
color and by seasons the amount of cloudiness existing throughout the
United States. They show that Denver was iu the region of greatest
sunshine for the autumn and winter of the year 1882, while in the
spring mouths of the same year the greatest amount of sunshine was
found in lower Arizona, and the country immediately surrounding it.

This element of sunshine, as affecting the ability of an invalid to
lead an out-of-door life, can not be too highly estimated. That most
eminent authority. Dr. Austin Flint, in speaking of the good to be
derived in cases of consumption from a life out of doors, writes, *' It is
probable that to this source much of the benefit derived from change
of climate is to be referred." * Certainly the experience of every prac-
titioner of medicine, who has had much to do with treating the disease,
will bear out the assertion of the distinguished writer, and it may
safely be said that, coeteris paribus, a patient's recovery will depend
very largely upon his ability to lead an out-of-door life.

So well recognized a principle is this, that our medical journals
nowadays are teeming with instructions to patients, who, for lack of
means or other cause, are unable to take a change of climate, as to how
they can best lead out-of-door lives at home, going so far, in some
instances, as to advise them to wrap up warmly and sit in an open
window, where they can get sunshine and fresh air without a draught.

Finally, stress is laid on the fact that Davos is in a sheltered val-
ley. Without going into details, for it is not necessary to enumerate
such places, it may be stated that there are towns situated at various
elevations among our mountains and foot-hills, so sheltered as to be
very free from winds, and adapted to receiving both the direct and
reflected rays of the sun.

If it be admitted, then, that the Davos climate is the ideal one for
a consumptive — and the writer of the article referred to, together with
many European authorities, seems to regard it as such — we think that
we have clearly proved that, as regards the elements of great elevation
above sea-level, a minimum of watery vapor in the air, a clear sun,
a clean atmosphere free from zymotic germs and fog, and a sheltered
position, Colorado fills the bill as completely as does Davos itself.

Consideration of the Climatic Conditions of an Invalid's
Day. — It may not be out of place now to refer to the charges that
some writers have preferred against this climate. One throws it up
against us that we have high winds, which cause our visitors to com-
plain.f Another says, "The enormous monthly and also diurnal
range of temperature must severely try any man." \ While a third,

* Pepper's " System of Medicine," vol. iii, p. 432.
f "Boston Medical and Surgical Journal," June 12, 1884.
X "New York Herald " editorial, December 29, 1883.
VOL. XXTIII. — 43

674

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

who has published one of the fairest and most intelligent articles ever
written on our climate, criticises the statistics so far published as
inadequate, inasmuch as two of the three observations, on which they
are based, occur at 5 a. m. and 9 p. m. — hours that in no way concern
the invalid.*

With a view to answering these objections and those of other
writers, we append the following tables, compiled from the official
data on record at the Signal-station in Denver. We have taken the
months that may fairly be considered as the invalid's winter, and the
hours that constitute the invalid's day, and we have selected the win-
ter closest at hand (at the time of "writing), so that the reader may
from his recollection compare the data we present with the conditions
existing at the place where he was at that time.

We furthermore hope that these figures may be of service to those
who may be meditating coming to Colorado, as showing them what
climatic conditions they may reasonably expect to find :

<9

«^

2 .

tsfa

lS&i-'65.

9 c. .

(Ha

^ C J3

1^

September. .

67-4

r.9-6

s.

5-3

2

0

October ....

56-2

48-2

s.

1-5

7

0

November . .

41-6

45-4

s.

5-7

3

0

9'08 A. u., local time. . . -

December.,. .
January ....

256

27-0

61-6
56-2

N. &S.
S.

6-3

7-

11
5

0
0

February .. .

Sl-9

65-0

N.

8-5

9

0

March

41-3

51-5

S.

6-

4

0

April

47-7

56-6

N.

5-3

12

0

52-8

5-7

6-6

September. .

75-4

25-5

E.

7-5

0

0

October ....

61-1

32-2

N.

6-1

2

0

November . .

53-3

31-6

S.

6-7

4

0

1'08 p. M., local time. . . -

December.. .
January. . . .

32-5
35-8

54 1
48-6

N.
N. & W.

6-7
8-1

9
5

0
0

February. . .

38 0

57-4

N.E.

10-4

9

0

March

48-2

39-5

N.

9-2

5

0

April

63-9

43-1

N.

9-3

6

0

41-6

80

4-8

September. .

74-6

28-0

N.E.

8-6

3

0

October ....

(541

37-7

N.E.

7-4

6

0

November . .

49-9

37-3

N.

6-4

6

0

5'08 p. M., local time. . . ■

December. . .
January. . . .

26-8
33-3

63-4
53-1

N.
W.

6-8
8-7

9

3

0
0

February . . .

37-8

55-5

W.

11-2

6

0

March

47-7

40-9

N.E.

10-7

7

0

April

64-3

47-8

W.

91

6

0

45-6

8-6

5-6

Fogs, — A study of these tables shows that such a thing as a fog is
of very rare occurrence, there not being a single one recorded at any
of the three observations.

* Dr. Edward T. Ely, " New York Medical Journal," July, 1884.

COLORADO AS A WINTER SANITARIUM. 675

Humidity. — We next observe that, of the three observations, the
air carries the most moisture at the 9 a. m. one, an amount which is, on
the average, only slightly in excess of one half of saturation ; that the
midday air is quite dry, giving a mean for the eight months of 41-5
of saturation ; and that at 5 p. m. the average of humidity is 45*5 per
cent of saturation — all of which simply strengthens what we have pre-
viously said in regard to the dryness of the Colorado climate.

Temperature. — As regards the temperature we learn that, as we
should expect, the coldest registrations occur in the months of Decem-
ber, January, and February ; and that even in these months an invalid
can be out of doors, so far as this factor is concerned, from 9 a. m. to
5 p. M.

In considering this question several things must be borne in mind.
In the first place, these registrations are those of thermometers placed
in a " shelter-box," and consequently in the shade, with a northern ex-
posure, and ten feet above the roof of a six-story building, and so
they are not influenced by the direct solar rays, which are very pow-
erful. It must further be borne in mind that these registrations do
not " feel " so cold as similar ones would in a dense and damp air, like
that of either New York or Boston, owing to the fact that we have
mentioned, viz., that a thin, dry air does not rapidly rob the body of
its heat, and so the skin does not become chilled so rapidly as at sea-
level with the same temperature. *

As a matter of fact, the writer remembers that he went around at
midday the greater part of the winter without an overcoat. He re-
calls sitting with open windows in the very heart of January, and was
accustomed to seeing people sitting out of doors basking in the sun.

And right here he is willing to acknowledge that there is a grain
of truth in the criticisms broached with reference to our extremes of
temperature, both diurnal and monthly. They do occur, but then only
rarely (that is, such extremes as have been quoted against us), and,
when they do come, they are due to high temperatures in the day-
time and very low ones at night — conditions which can occur only in
thin, dry airs like our own.

The night temperatures are uniformly cold ; but they do not affect
the invalid, because he should at that time be housed, where he can
regulate the temperature to suit himself, and our tables show conclu-
sively that the hours of sunshine are warm and comfortable.

We regret exceedingly that we are not able to give the " sun-tem-
peratures," as they would convey a more correct impression of the
warmth of our midday, as every person knows who has tried the dif-
ference between the shady and sunny side of the street in our city.
But we know of no data on that point, and our Signal-station is not
as yet supplied with a sun-thermometer.

Winds. — As regards the winds, these tables prove that in Denver
at 9 A. M. the prevailing direction is from the south, and that at 5

676

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

p. M. it is either from the north or west. They do not, however, show
the well-recognized daily change from the south at night to the north
during the day. Furthermore, the observations have reference only to
Denver, and can not be taken as a guide for other places, where the
peculiar topography must exert a controlling influence.

Moreover, the tables teach most conclusively that the mean hourly
motion, at any one of the three observations, is mild, and probably
rather less than would prevail in New York city at the same hour of
the day. Certain it is that in 1880 the corresponding mean velocities
for the twenty-four hours were as follows, viz. :

1880.

Spring.

Summer.

Autmnn.

Winter.

Denver

156*

247

143

177

115

192

127

222

New York

"While our tables show that the average hourly movement of the
wind is moderate, it is true, as some object, that we do have occasional
squalls, when the dust is picked up by the wind and when it is disa-
greeable to be out of doors. We speak of the dust, for it must be re-
membered that snow does not lie on our ground, even in midwinter.
But such squalls are no more frequent than one will meet with in the
autumn months in Boston. In violence they bear no comparison, as
we can testify from personal experience, to many a tornado that has
occurred of late years in the valley of the Connecticut River, and
should by no means be confounded with the blizzards of the North-
west nor the cyclones of Kansas.

Sunshine. — We next learn, from a consideration of the tables, that
while there occurred days in the winter under observation when the
sun was not shining at 9 a. m. or at 1 r, m. or at 5 p. m., as the case
might be, there were only eleven days in the whole eight months
when the heavens were completely and wholly obscured at all three
observations. In other words, there were only eleven days in the win-
ter of 1884-'85 when the sun did not shine upon Denver between the
hours of 9 A. M. and 5 p. m., and they occurred as follows, viz. :

Sept.

Oct.

Nov.

Dec.

Jsn.

Feb.

MarciL

April.

Total.

Completely cloudy days,
from 9 A. M. to 5 p. M .

0

1

1

1

1

1

3

3

11

We may fairly conclude from these figures that there were only
eleven days, out of the two hundred and forty-two, when the invalid
was detained in doors all day long for want of sunshine.

* The figures in this table should read so many miles per diem. In the former tables
the velocities are given in miles per horam.

While in New York recently, we tried to obtain data of observations at 9 a. m., 1 and
6 p. M., local time, as a means of comparison, but they were not to be had at the Signal-
station.

COLORADO AS A WINTER SANITARIUM. 677

Surely this is a surprising showing, and one which, in itself, suffi-
ciently indicates the character of our climate.

Resume. — To sura up, then, the information we have gathered with
reference to the nature of the Colorado climate, between the hours of
9 A. M. and 5 p. m., the invalid's day, and during the eight months
from September to April inclusive, the invalid's winter : we have
learned that the days are very few, probably not more than two in a
month, when an invalid can not be out of doors, gaining health and
strength ; that the air is warm enough to admit of his being out the
greater part of the time from 9 a. m. to 5 p. m., and by this we mean
with comfort (certainly, even the most sensitive invalid can get sev-
eral hours out of doors at midday) ; that, while there are occasional
high winds, they are not more frequent than occur elsewhere, and the
average daily motion is mild — not more than is enjoyable and conducive
to purity ; that the air is an exceedingly dry and bracing one, and
that fogs are of very rare occurrence.

Are there not in these conditions the most desirable elements of
climate for the consumptive? Here are to be found the greatest
amount of sunshine to be had anywhere in the United States ; a dry
air, a rarefied and pure air ; absence of fog ; a dry soil free from snow
and moisture ; a temperature that admits of out-of-door life with com-
fort ; and a daily movement of the air that is mild and gentle — all of
which conditions combine to tempt the invalid to a life in the open air.

Says Professor Frankland of Davos, "In the brilliant sunshine
one feels comfortably warm sitting in front of the hotel in a light
morning coat." What would he say of a climate where the sun shines
so brightly and the air is so mild that picnics are admissible, and out-
of-door sports, such as riding, driving, tennis, quoits, etc., can be in-
dulged in the greater part of the winter ?

Before concluding the article, we wish to say a few words in regard
to what seems to us to be the weak point of Professor Frankland's
advocacy of the Yellowstone Park as a winter sanitarium ; an objec-
tion which, we think, would be sufficient to condemn any place as a
resort for consumptives, no matter how advantageous its climate. We
have reference to its distance from the settled portions of our country,
and the lack of accommodations in the park itself. These features,
which Professor Frankland recognizes and mentions, must, for the
present at least, put the Yellowstone Park entirely out of considera-
tion as a winter resort for the consumptive ; for he will not be willing
to subject himself to a journey of five or six days by rail, a stage-ride
of thirty hours, and the utter isolation of such a place, to say nothing
of its lack of accommodations, simply that he may winter in an ele-
vated region, possessing " a continuous and, during winter, permanent
covering of snow" — a covering of snow w^hich, by-the-by, is deep
enough, so I am credibly informed, to drive the big game from the
park during the winter months.

678 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Here in Colorado, however, the invalid can find comfortable and
adequate accommodations at reasonable rates. lie can enjoy the com-
forts of settled communities at the same time that he is putting him-
self under superb climatic conditions. He will have access to a market
which can amply supply his demands, even should he desire such deli-
cacies as a live lobster or oysters in the shell. He will be in direct
telegraphic and postal communication with his home, and, should oc-
casion demand, can walk the streets of Boston within three days of
leaving Denver.

These are considerations of no little weight to the invalid, for he
is a human being, sensitive like other human beings — in fact,* rather
more dependent on the comforts of life than other men — and he pro-
tests, and rightly too, that it is cruel to impose conditions on him
which would depress and render sick even a strong and able-bodied
man.

The idea which has been so prevalent, and which even now is not
entirely eradicated, that to regain health it is necessary to " rough it,"
and the greater the privations one endures, the more he roughs it, the
sooner he will get well, is an erroneous and most cruel one.

It is not necessary to pander to the consumptive so as to make him
a hypochondriac ; and yet, on the other hand, we protest against the
rough usage so often entailed upon him, which would seem to justify
the idea that the only way of curing the disease is by fairly knocking
it out of a man.

We consider the proper regulation of an invalid's life as regards
exercise, diet, hygienic conditions, accommodations for living, etc., as
of great importance — equal, it may be, to considerations of climate.

We have already * given to the public our opinion of what they
can expect to find, on such scores, in Colorado, and need not now
weary the reader with a repetition.

We at that time took occasion to mention the kind of cases that,
in our opinion, should not come to Colorado, and we will now briefly
repeat the advice. It is an excellent place for persons in whom a re-
covery can reasonably be expected, but it is not a place where con-
sumptives should be sent as a last resort.

In conclusion, we can only say that, if the figures and arguments
we have adduced are not convincing, or if the reader is skeptical about
the ranges of temperature and unbelieving in regard to the heating
effects of the direct solar rays, or the further fact that low tempera-
tures do not feel so cold in our light and dry air as at sea-level, or if
he can not reconcile the facts presented with any theory he may hold,
we can only say to such a one, " Come and see."

The theories in regard to the beneficial elements of elevated regions
may be entirely erroneous. Men's theories are constantly changing,
and it may or may not be true that elevation, dryness, and sunshine
* "Colorado for Invalids," " Topular Science Monthly," July, 1884.

DURABILITY OF RESINOUS WOODS. 679

are the sole desiderata in selecting a suitable climate ; or, on the other
hand, that equability of temperature should alone be considered.

Writers may still object that we have high winds and sand-storms,
which annoy the visitor ; or that " the enormous monthly and also
diurnal range of temperature must severely try any man " ; or raise one
objection after another on merely theoretical grounds : and yet the fact
remains — a fact that rises superior to all argument and cavil, and which
is in itself the most conclusive argument that can be advanced — that
a large percentage of our population is made up of the so-called inva-
lid class, who have obtained a restoration of health here ; that thou-
sands, upon thousands of lives have been saved to the world, not to
, drag out an invalid's existence, but rather to take a manly part in the
struggles of life, simply by coming to Colorado ; and that to-day there
are living within its borders persons, to be numbered by the tens of
thousands, who would undoubtedly be glad to attest their gratitude
to the climate by saying of it, as the writer thinks he can truthfully
say, " It saved my life."

DURABILITY OF RESIN'OUS WOODS.

Bt HEINEICH mate, Ph. D..

THERE can be no doubt that the resin in the wood derived from
the different varieties of conifers, or pine-trees, is one of the most
important factors which determine its quality, especially its durability
and resistance against the influence of weather and the different forms
of rot, all of which are now proved to be due to specific fungi. Just
at present, timber from American conifers is highly valued in Europe,
because of its richness in resin, although the amount of resin in wood
is not the sole measure of its quality.

Until now an exact valuation of the importance of pitch in wood
was impossible, because the accurate knowledge of the origin and the
distribution of the resin, as well as of the arrangement of the organs
producing it, was wanting.

At the experimental botanical station at Munich, I have made
numerous experiments during a space of many years, and, as the
results seem to contain many new points, I thought them worth pre-
senting to the readers of the " Monthly." In face of the confusion
prevailing in the nomenclature, it is necessary to state that the botani-
cal names used are those of Carri^re in his " Traite des Conif^res,"
who separates Abies and Picea as distinct genera. The distribution
of the resiniferous ducts is so characteristic within each of these gen-
era as to serve as typical marks for them.

The species of Abies commonly called firs are characterized by the
absence of resiniferous ducts within their woods ; it is only in rare

68o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

cases, as in Abies Jirma, or Japan fir, that we meet with them. Some-
times we find a cluster of parallel cells, often quite far apart from
each other, filled with resin ; these colonies of parallel cells are not to
be considered as ducts, but as malformations due to the influence of
different causes like cold and pressure ; they are found also in other
species of conifers exposed to the same causes, and occasionally attain
the size of a man's hand.

The resin is produced only by the parallel cells of the medullary
rays in the species Abies. Already in the first year's growth the cells
are found to contain small drops of resin. The size of these drops
increases with the age of the cells, the amount of amylum or starch
in them decreasing in proportion.

Resin is composed of substances volatile at 100° C, and others
which can not be distilled without decomposition ; the latter form the
solid residue, when resin or pitch is distilled with water. When the
outer or sap wood {alburniQn) becomes dry or heart wood {cluramen)y
in which form it is that which is known commercially as wood, the
cells are found to contain nothing but air with the resin coating the
inside of the cell-walls ; fresh pitch, as it oozes from the bark of the
European Abies pectinata, contains G3 per cent of solid residue, and
this is also the percentage of solid substances in the pitch of the sap-
wood of the genus Abies, but pitch from the heart, or from the dry,
inner wood of the tree contains 70 per cent of solid substances.

During the life of a fir-tree the cells contain 50 per cent water,
which, when the wood dries, disappears, and the pitch, which at first
could not enter into the cell -walls, now permeates them, taking the
place of the water.

The wood of Abies pectinata, which in Europe covers thousands of
acres in dense, well-cultivated masses, contains the least resin of any
fir cultivated, namely, only ^^ per cent of the perfectly dry sap-
wood, while the innermost layers of heart-wood contain 1^ per cent
of pitch ; it is therefore of inferior quality as far as richness in resin
is concerned ; only the very great heights and diameters which trees
of this species rapidly attain make them valuable for cultivation.

The genus Picea (spruce) has the sap-wood of the same color as
the heart-wood ; it contains numerous ducts filled with resinous sub-
stances. These ducts run in all directions, the horizontal ones being
branched off from those running perpendicularly, and communicating
with others lying closer to the bark, running vertically. The inside
of the ducts is made up of two kinds of cells, the one having thick
walls and the same functions as the parenchymatic cells of medullary
rays, the others having thin walls. The latter were formerly consid-
ered as mere cells of secretion producing resin ; but there are many
reasons which force me to consider them as merismatic cells, remain-
ing without function sometimes for several years, until the sap-wood
containing them becomes dry or heart wood, when they begin their

DURABILITY OF RESINOUS WOODS. 681

activity. They now increase in size, expanding like vesicles, and to-
tally obstructing the duct, so as to prevent the resin from entering the
heart-wood by way of the horizontal duct or sinking from a higher to
a lower part of the tree. In the amount of resin contained in the
wood, the genus Picea ranks second among conifers ; the species Picea
excelsa, common in Europe, contains 2'16 per cent in the sap-wood and
1"6 per cent in the heart-wood. The amount of pitch increases with
the age of the tree.

I have found as a result of my investigation that there exists a very
important law which will enable a microscopist to tell at a glance the
difference between heart-wood and sap-wood : only the heart-wood is
fit for building purposes and will stand the influence of weather ; the
sap-wood will decay rapidly, but is nevertheless used by unscrupulous
builders. An examination of the resiniferous ducts will show the dif-
ference at a glance. During the process of transition of the sap-wood
into heart-wood, all these resiniferous ducts become closed by the ex-
pansion of the cells surrounding them, a process which can be dis-
cerned unmistakably even in the smallest piece of any wood from a
conifer ; a similar process takes place in the growth of the bark.

Professor Hartig, of Munich, a famous botanist, proved by careful
experiments the following law: The quality of the wood of cdl trees
increases so long as the yearly growth shows a progressive course year
after year. It has been thought until now that the quality of the
wood of conifers is the better the closer the annual rings lie ; this is
but partly true. The older the tree the closer the annual rings, but
the quality of the wood increases only as long as those rings represent
an actual progress of growth ; when once the annual amount of wood
formed begins to diminish year by year, its quality becomes impaired,
notwithstanding the rings become closer and narrower.

The amount of resin in the wood of a tree follows the same law :
if we take, therefore, a splinter or a plug from any tree by means of a
hollow auger, we can, by a simple calculation, determine whether the
tree is still progressing, or already on the decline in growth, quantity
of resin, and value.

In the genus Plnus the resiniferous canals are of different con-
struction, but agree in general arrangement with those of the genus
Picea ; their size is larger and they are inclosed by only thin- walled,
mei'ismatic cells, which in the course of the transformation of the
sap-wood into heart-wood enlarge and close the canals.

The heart-wood of the trees of the genus Pinus has a light-brown
color, sometimes a little reddish, the coloring being due to a product
of the oxidation of tannin, which is found in the cells and their walls.

Among the species of this genus several deserve a more elaborate
mention :

The Scotch pine (Pinus silvestris), when growing on sandy soil,
forms only a very small amount of sap-wood, whereas on gravelly and

682 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

shallow ground it produces more but of less valuable quality. Two
needles in one sheath characterize this species. The heart-wood of
this pine contains 5*7 per cent of resin, the sap-wood proportionately
less.

The sap-wood of this tree is quickly destroyed when the tree is cut ;
it assumes a dark-blue color and rots, through the agency of the myce-
lium of a fungus called Ceratostoma piliferum.

This tree is at present the most valuable and most cultivated tim-
ber-tree of Northern Germany.

The white pine, or common American pine {Pinus strohus), is now
also extensively cultivated in Germany, where some forests can be
found of trees about a hundred years old. Its wood has the lowest
specific gravity of all coniferous wood. In spring, on account of the
thinness of its bark, the tree is quickly warmed through, and the wood-
cells, formed in the beginning of the spring, are thin-walled ; at the
close of the period of vegetation in summer, the annual rings are fin-
ished by a few thick-walled narrow cells, thus giving only little thick-
ness to the hard part of the annual layer. In amount of resin this
pine stands at the head of all conifers, containing 6*9 per cent. The
percentage increases up to the age of one hundred years, and with it
the quality of the wood. It is of little value when young and erposed
to moisture. Pinus cemhra, a native of the Alps and Siberia, forms
only small, dense rings every year during the short summers of these
regions ; the wood hence becomes heavier, and, although less resinous,
more valuable.

A very valuable tree of Europe is the larch {Larix Enropcea)^
which is native only in the colder regions of Europe and Asia ; its
wood consists of narrow annual rings, grown during the short summers
of those countries. In the percentage of resin it stands between Pinus
and Picea ; its wood is more reddish, like that of the genus PinuSy
and its resinif erous ducts are constructed like those of Picea / it con-
tains 3'9 per cent of resin.

Just now, the different German governments are experimenting
with the introduction of American trees which, it is expected, will
stand the climate and furnish better wood, or, in proportion, a larger
quantity, than the German forest-trees now cultivated. One of those
of which much is expected is the Douglas spruce {Pseudotsiiga Dou-
glasii). Mr, J. Booth, of Hamburg, has cultivated this tree for a
long time, and has already some very fine specimens in his park. I
was enabled through his kindness to examine its wood carefully ; the
specific weight is very much above that of European conifers of the
Pinus genus, but not as high as that of the larch ; its quality increases
in proportion to the width of its layers — a fact which, until a short
time ago, was considered directly contrary to what is the case with
wood from European pines.

Professor Sargeant, of Cambridge, has made the contribution to

INFANCY IN THE CITY. 683

the United States census which embraces the researches and experi-
ments with American trees. This report, one of the most valuable of
its kind from the great amount of statistical information contained in
it, has been made with specially painstaking care ; the distribution of
American trees, the determination of their specific weights, their
chemical composition in regard to mineral constituents (ashes), their
commercial value, their strength, elasticity, and resistance, form the
contents of a large volume. Compared with the figures obtained by
Professor Sargeant, the wood of European forest-trees appears to be
somewhat inferior in quality to that of American trees. The Bavarian
Government, which on its 24,000 square miles of territory has over
7,000 square miles of forests, of which over 3,000 square miles are in
solid masses, under a model administration of the Government, yielding
about four per cent net profit, is wide awake for improvements, and
has sent me to this country to investigate as fully as possible the facts
about the growth of American forest-trees, their relation to the cli-
mate, and their yield of timber in quantity and quality. With their
usual liberality and hospitality, the American authorities and learned
men have lent a helping hand, truly worthy the spirit of a great nation
not influenced by petty considerations of a possible rivalry.

INFANCY IN THE CITY.

bt grace peckham, m. d.

ACCORDING to Quetelet, " there die during the first month after
birth four times as many children as during the second month,
and almost as many as during the two years that follow the first
year, although even then the mortality is high. The tables of mor-
tality prove, in fact, that one tenth of children born die before the
first month has been completed."

The census has shown that the mortality of infants in cities is twice
as great as that in rural districts. In New York, in 1883, 28,972 chil-
dren were born, and 8,668 died in their first year, thirty-three and one
fourth per cent ; 2,660 children died in their second year, 1,221 in
their third year, 787 in their fourth year, and .525 in their fifth year,
a total of 13,865 deaths of infants, almost half of the total number
of deaths occurring during that year, which was 31,011.

The question arises. What is it in cities that is so hostile to infant
life?

The subject is a complex one, and in its analysis we must consider
the varying conditions surrounding the different classes. Distinctions
of rank are as definitely marked among infants as among adults.
There is none of the democracy which obtains in the country. We

684 ^^^ POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

have the infant of aristocracy, the infant of the middle classes, the in-
fant of the poor, the infant dependent upon charity. Each of these
inherits an environment peculiar to itself ; its house, its nursery and
sleeping-apartment, its nurses and attendants, who solve the problems
of its food and raiment. Take the matter of inheritance, not of money
or lands, but of constitution. The extreme classes found in the city
and not in the country, the very wealthy and the very poor, are likely
to bestow on their offspring a latent tendency to disease. The ultra-
fashionable mother, the self-indulgent father, hand down to their chil-
dren overwrought nervous systems and weak physical powers, which
result in early death, or more often a life of protracted feebleness.
In the lowest classes the untoward effects upon the children of pov-
erty, intemperance, and moral obliquity are incalculable.

The city infants belonging to the middle classes often suffer be-
cause of the sti'uggle of their parents to maintain a foothold in society,
and to mount the steps in social life which will bring them distinc-
tion. It would be a long discussion to enter into all the questions of
heredity which influence the fate of a child. They are vital questions,
howevei-, which require the utmost delicacy in handling, but which are
of transcending importance to the individual and to the race. Very
little of the common sense which prevails in preserving and rearing
choice stock exists in relation to the human animal. If by chance the
infant is well-bom — that is, has the germ of a constitution which will
unfold untainted by scrofula or epilepsy, or any other foul disease
which will rob it of a healthy mental and physical development as
life unrolls before it — such inheritance is unequaled. Dr. Ireland
has shown the effects of heredity as seen in tracing through three hun-
dred and fifty years the health history of the house of Spain. The
children, though born to a kingdom and a crown, were cursed with an
hereditary nervous taint which sometimes passed over a generation
only to appear again in various forms and intensities as epilepsy, hy-
pochondria, melancholia, mania, and imbecility, till at length it extin-
guished the direct royal line.

With a multitude of hereditary tendencies germinating within it,
the city infant opens its eyes upon surroundings which are to influ-
ence it scarcely less. About city homes lurk unseen perils to ba-
bies. There has been much written and said about the plumbing of
city houses and the evils which have sprung from it, so that now, when
children are afflicted with diphtheria, immediately comes the question,
Are there escaping sewer-gases in the house which they occupy ? Dr.
J. Lewis Smith remarks that diphtheria appeared in New York in
1858 after an absence of more than fifty years, the most severe cases
occurring in the upper part of the city along old water-courses, where
in consequence of street-grading, water was stagnant and impregnated
with decaying animal and vegetable matter. The infants are more
liable to succumb than those older, as the poison acts more quickly on

INFANCY IN THE CITY. 685

their susceptible systems, and, as they are shut up in the house, they
are much more exposed to it. Especially is this true in the tenement-
house, where the surroundings of the city infant are at their worst.

Lack of pure air, air untainted with human emanations and sewer-
gas, is one of the great causes of infant mortality in cities. It deterio-
rates the health of the naturally robust ; it robs the delicate of their
chances for life ; it sows the seeds of contagious diseases ; it hastens
the fatal termination of those who are sick.

Many mothers, anxious for their children, with mistaken zeal pro-
tect them from the fresh air. They are especially afraid of night air,
and shut their babies up in rooms which would make a well person
giddy and sick to enter in the morning. In the country, houses are
built less substantially and in exposed situations, and the fresh, search-
ing air will find its way in, in spite of unhygienic resistance.

The little ones are too often brought up on the hot-house plan.
Mothers, however, are awakening to the fact that babies must have
their airings, and among the better classes the nurse takes the baby
out every day when the weather will permit. One must admire the
beautiful infants in perambulators, the chubby little run-abouts that
are to be seen in the city parks and squares. Their handsome faces,
finely formed figures, and rosy cheeks, go to show that children in the
city, when properly cared for, can become the embodiment of health.
In the country the children are usually looked after by their mothers,
who have an average amount of intelligence.

Babies who are constantly held and watched and tended do not
thrive. They grow fretful, uneasy, and pale, no one knows why.
The aristocratic baby is at a disadvantage in this respect, unless money
— as it may sometimes — procures an intelligent, faithful nurse, a fos-
ter-mother.

To intrust an infant to some baby-tenders is almost as much an
act of abandonment as that of the heathen mother, who throws her
babe into the jaws of the crocodile of the sacred river. The children
who have grown uj) through a wretched childhood to a crippled and
deformed maturity caused by the carelessness of nurses, M'ho have let
them fall or otherwise injure themselves, are not a few. Neverthe-
less it must be said that when the number of nurse-girls who take
care of little ones alien to them is considered, the patient devotion
and painstaking fidelity they show to fretful children spoiled by in-
dulgent parents are marvelous.

If the rich children are spoiled by over-attention, this can not be
said of the children of the poor. The little waif bom in the tenement-
house, if it has no brothers or sisters, is often locked up by its mother
and left an hour or two by itself while she goes out to work, to gos-
sip, or to shop. If she goes out by the day, an obliging neighbor
(and the poor are wonderfully helpful to each other) will let the child
come into her apartment, where it can sit on the floor or the dirty bed

686 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and play, or cry, or sleep, as it will. The neighbor's nerves are not
weak as far as children's crying is concerned. The day-nurseries
which benevolence has established for the care of these little ones are
truly a blessing to poor mothers, who earn their living by washing and
scrubbing. The babies are well fed, amused, and generally well cared
for, far better than in their own homes ; the mothers pay from five to
ten cents a day out of their wages. But more often the poor baby
has brothers and sisters, and they take care of it almost entirely.

Many city infants perish from bad feeding. More especially is this
true of the tenement-children. The youngest member of the family
is placed at the common table at an incredibly tender age. Often in
the dispensary in response to the question, " With what are you feed-
ing your baby ? " comes the reply, " It eats what we all do." With
these people, even if they are not extremely poor, milk or anything
else purchased especially for the baby, is an item of extra expense,
and therefore it is considered easier and cheaper to feed it with the
rest of the family. The sins of feeding among the poor people are
monstrous. Coffee, tea, brandy-and-water, as well as beer, had been
fed to babies from their nursing-bottle ! With such a regime of feed-
ing for the poor and middle classes, it is no wonder that two and a half
times as many infants perish of diarrhoeal disorders as of any other
disease.

City infants of all classes are at a disadvantage in regard to their
food. Unfortunately, city mothers who nurse their own children are
fewer than those in the country. The search for a wet-nurse is one of
the most disheartening. The supply is in no way proportioned to the
demand. A woman of the poorer classes who has any home at all
must stay in it and look after it for her husband, even if she were
willing to give up her child for the sake of the money. The woman
who applies for the position as wet-nurse has either been deserted by
her husband or has had none. She must depend upon her own exer-
tions for the support of herself and her child. If she finds a place as
wet-nurse she earns from twenty to thirty dollars per month and a
good home, for it is only the well-to-do who can afford to hire her.
She usually rules the household with a rod of iron. Since, as a gen-
eral thing, she comes to take care of a puny child who can not live
without mother's milk, and recognizes that the family are dependent
upon her, she is exacting and aggravating, oftentimes almost beyond
endurance. It is only because the thralldom will not last forever that
it is tolerated. The wet-nurses obtain their positions through agencies
which exist in the large cities and through advertisements. The ne-
cessity for a thorough investigation of the health and status of the
applicant for such a position by the family physician is imperative,
and in recommending one he takes upon himself a grave responsibility.
The wet-nurse will generally try to deceive as to the age of lier baby,
that she may make her milk appear desirable. The best evidence is the

INFANCY IN THE CITY. 687

mother's own infant, which should be seen if possible. And it must
be remembered that even here another imposition may be practiced —
a neighbor's baby can be borrowed for the occasion. The flattering
testimonials of fidelity and satisfactory conduct in previous positions
are often from employers who have departed for Europe or some
other quarter of the globe, and are therefore inaccessible. When suc-
cess has rewarded the search for a wet-nurse, there is no guarantee that
her milk will remain satisfactory for any length of time. If she has
the true maternal instinct, she mourns for her own child, and it is not
long before, deprived of its proper nourishment, it sickens and, more
often than not, dies, and the grief of the mother dries up her milk.

The question of artificial feeding becomes, then, one of paramount
importance, since the largest proportion of city infants must subsist
in this way. In summer it is indeed a difficult task to raise an in-
fant in the city. New York physicians know very well that a large
proportion of artificially fed infants who enter the summer months
die before the return of cool weather, unless saved by removal to the
country.

One of the most benevolent institutions which has been devised is
the Floating Hospital of the St. John's Guild of New York, which
daily in summer takes its freight of pallid, almost dying, infants, suf-
fering from faulty nutrition, out into the fresh ocean-breezes for the
day.

Cow's milk coming from a long distance is unfitted for infant feed-
ing ; but, if it can be obtained fresh, it is the best substitute for moth-
er's milk. It must be diluted the first six weeks one half, the next six
weeks one third, and after three months a fourth, and at five or six
months it can be given pure. The feeding-bottle should be perfectly
sweet and clean. It has been found both in private practice and hos-
pital experimentation that milk which has been prepared with the ex-
tract of pancreas can be used more successfully than any other. In-
fants' foods abound in the market, whose inventors claim all sorts of
merits for them. For a while one food will prove advantageous,
when, having obtained a reputation and come into extensive use, less
care is taken in its preparation, and through the suffering of many in-
fants it is proved unworthy of longer confidence. Goat's milk is good
for city infants, because it can be obtained fresh, and the animals can
be kept by poor people at little expense.

Many an infant suffers from irregularity of feeding and overfeed-
ing. There is in the popular mind but one interpretation of a baby's
crying, " It is hungry," and immediately it is given more food to eat,
when already its tiny stomach is distended and irritated. Infants'
meals should be regulated by the clock.* This prescription, unaided

* An infant under three weeks should be fed every two hours, or twelve times in the
twenty-four, receiving one to one and a half ounce of cow's milk each time, if artificially
fed. At three months the child should be fed every three hours, or eight times in the

688 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

by anything else, has often restored a nursing baby to equanimity and
to health.

Of less vital importance to a child perhaps than its food, yet claim-
ing no little attention, is the clothing. The mothers of to-day have
learned by experience how to clothe their children better than their
mothers clothed them. It hardly seems possible that at one time the
fashion of dresses low in the neck and with short sleeves was well-nigh
universal for infants. The babies of the aristocratic and middle
classes are, as a general thing, warmly and properly clothed. Careless
attendants sometimes dress them too tightly, not allowing room for the
expansion of the chest and lungs and interfering with the stomach.
The senseless extravagance displayed in embroidered dresses for small
children is reprehensible, and too fine dressing which prevents young
children from obtaining proper exercise and trammels their freedom of
play interferes with their health and development. American mothers
are often very blameworthy in this respect.

The effects of disease on city infants are much more wide-spread
than upon those in the country, not only of disease caused by improper
feeding, to which we have already alluded, but more especially of those
of a contagious nature. All sanitarians recognize this, and bewail it
as one of the greatest evils of the present tenement system that so
many children are crowded together in such houses, which become hot-
beds of diphtheria, scarlet fever, and measles.

The terrible stories with reference to baby-farming which used to
fill the columns of the newspapers are not so often seen in these days.
Owing to the ventilation of the subject, the abuse has been very much
lessened. But the question may be asked, "Who supply the baby-
farmers? A few are those who would abandon their offspring, no
matter how, to hide their shame, but for the most part they are poor
women who are without a home, and must win a support the best way
they can for themselves and their infants. They go out as wet-nurses ;
return to the factories and shops ; or engage in general house-work.

The women who find their way, utterly destitute, to the lying-in
institutions of a great city, amount to a considerable number in a year.
Any of these coming to New York can go to Charity Hospital by ob.-
taining a permit from the Superintendent of the City Poor. They
leave the Maternity from ten days to two weeks after confinement.
If they wish they can go with their infants to Randall's Island, or
they can leave their children there while they go out to seek employ-
ment. At almost all other institutions the women are obliged to pay
at least twenty-five dollars for board and care during confinement, or
stay with their children three months. They can and often do remain
with them a year.

twenty-hour, receiving three ounces of milk at each feeding, which at six months is in-
creased to four. The times of feeding should be fixed, but of course the amount taken
will vary more or less with the individual.

ARBOR-DAY. 689

The charity infant who has opened its eyes in an institution is pe-
culiar to the city. Its chances for life are less than those of any other
class. Most of these babies if bottle-fed will die, as has been dem-
onstrated in some of our nurseries. This is not because the infants
are especially unhealthy when they come into the world. It is sur-
prising, when one considers what hardships, physical and mental, the
mothers have endured, that the children should be as robust and well-
formed as they generally are.

In view of the disastrous effects of artificial feeding, the plan now
adopted is to have a woman nurse her own baby and one other. In
this way the mortality has been greatly reduced. The public infant
is probably best cared for when sent into the country and boarded
with farmers, and this is now extensively done by some of the institu-
tions.

AKBOK-DAT.

By N. H. EGLESTON.

AMONG the agencies by which we may hope to remedy the evils
threatening us on account of the rapid wasting of our forests,
Arbor-day promises to be one of the most important. A little thing
to begin with, it is capable of such expansion as to become a wide-
spread power for good.

For the settler on the naked, wind-swept prairie, to plant trees was
one of the first necessities of life. Certainly, without the presence of
trees existence there could not be comfortable, and the tendency of
one's surroundings was to forbid any but a low type of civilization or
of domestic life. Fertile soil is not all that is needful, nor can man
live, as he was designed to live, by bread alone.

But manifest as was the need of tree-planting under the circum-
stances adverted to, it was not easy to effect the work. The very
magnitude of it was as discouraging as its necessity was imperative.
What could the planting done by a few settlers amount to on those
wide seas of verdure, treeless and shoreless ? Driven by necessity, as
we have said, they did, many of them at least, plant their little groves
of Cottonwood and other quick-growing but frail trees around their
cabins. These gave some shelter to the cabins and their inmates.
But what was to shelter the cattle and the crops ? The hap-hazard
efforts of a few, working here and there without concert, easily spent
themselves in attaining results far short of what were needed.

It was the happy fortune of one living as a pioneer in the treeless
region of the West, not only to feel with those around him the evils
of their peculiar situation, but to devise an instrumentality which
would arouse an interest in the needed work and an enthusiasm for it

VOL. XXTIII. — 44

690 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

that would convert the necessary labor, to a large extent, into pleasure
— at least take from it the character and irksomcness of a drudgery.
The plan was, to fix upon a particular day, at the season of the year
when the trees are starting into fresh life, and to invite those in the
same general region to engage together on that day in the work of
tree-planting. The designation of a particular day had the effect to
prevent the propitious season of planting from slipping by unobserved,
while it had also the advantage and stimulative effect attendant upon
co-operative endeavor. The thought of tree-planting was thus at a
certain time made as it were to pervade the atmosphere, or rather,
perhaps, to become an atmosphere.

Thus Arbor-day, or Tree-planting-day, originated, and the person
who put the question, not long since, in the columns of one of our
newspapers, " Who invented Arbor-day ? " used the right word. We
commonly apply the term invention to some machine or mechanical
contrivance. But there is no reason for thus restricting its meaning.
Arbor-day is as truly an invention as the cotton-gin or the steam-
engine, and, like those notable inventions, its importance and benefi-
cial results will be recognized in increasing measure with the lapse of
years. Governor Morton builded better than he knew when he gave
origin to this day. He was thinking chiefly of his own State, Ne-
braska, of beautiful name, but swept by the fierce blizzards of the
Northwest and the hardly less harmful sirocco-blasts from the torrid
South. He was contriving a plan to raise up against these harmful
agencies the effective barrier of the leafy trees. His plan commended
itself at once to his fellow-citizens, and in the first year of its adoption
more than ten million trees were planted. Nor was the happy inven-
tion limited in its application by the boundaries of a single State.
The people of neighboring States and Territories, with similar needs,
one after another, adopted it, until it may be said to have become a
fixed institution throughout the prairie region of the country.

But Arbor-day is not for the treeless regions of the West alone.
The principle of associated and simultaneous action which it embodies
commends it for adoption almost everywhere. States where once the
trees were so abundant as to be in the way of agricultural improve-
ment, and to call for the axe and the fire to remove them as speedily as
possible, or where their value for lumber had occasioned their rapid and
general displacement, are now welcoming Arbor-day to assist them in
regaining the condition which they lost by the inconsiderate destruc-
tion of their best friends. Thus jNIichigan, lately a wilderness of for-
est, and even yet sending to market annually more lumber than any
other State, but becoming sensible of the need of trees for other use
than to be converted into lumber, has made experiment of Arbor-day,
and in his designation of the lltli of April last, by public proclama-
tion, Governor Alger earnestly recommended that on that day "we
plant trees by the road-side, by our farm-houses, in our fields, parks,

ARBOR-DAY. 691

villages, and cities, around our school-houses, and in the cemeteries
where sleep our beloved dead. . . . We may not live," he said, "to
enjoy the full fruits of this work, but our children and our children's
children will receive the benefit of our labor."

Pennsylvania, in keeping with that wise consideration of the value
of trees which led William Penn to prescribe, among the early laws of
his colony, "that, in clearing the ground, care be taken to leave one
acre of trees for every five acres cleared," has followed Michigan in
the recent adoption of Arbor-day.

The older Northern and Eastern States have not the same interest
in forestry as the prairie States. They are comparatively well-wooded.
Yet, even among them, such have been the encroachments upon the
woodlands by the axe and by fire as seriously to affect the flow of
streams, and the manufacturing and agricultural interests dependent
upon them. In several of these States attention has been called to the
subject, and its manifest importance has led to legislative action look-
ing to the protection of what forests remain and to the planting of
new ones. Most of the New England States are now engaged in the
serious investigation of their forestral condition. The boards of agri-
culture have taken it into consideration, and some of them have urged
the adoption of Arbor-day as an instrumentality of importance to the
interests of the States.

Thus the Arbor-day idea is seen to have spread far beyond the
place of its origin. It has been formally adopted already by sev-
enteen of our States, and bids fair to be adopted soon by many
others.

A noticeable and important development of the Arbor-day move-
ment is its connection with the public schools. This may be said to
date from the memorable tree-planting by the pupils of the public
schools of Cincinnati, on the occasion of the meeting of the American
Forestry Congress in that city in the spring of 1882. No one who was
present will ever forget the scene, when, on a lovely May day, twenty
thousand school-children, marshaled by their teachers, formed a part
of the grand procession which, amid banners fluttering from every
window, and with the accompaniment of military battalions and
bands of music, went out to the beautiful and well-named Eden Park,
and there, in Authors' Grove, planted trees in memory of the most
eminent authors and statesmen of our own and other lands. It was
a lesson in practical forestry and of practical education at the same
time. It Avas a grand and impressive object-lesson of the best charac-
ter, and one that reached far beyond the circle of those immediately
engaged in it. If the children were taken out among the trees for
a holiday, the trees were thenceforth and thereby brought into the
schools of Cincinnati, and the sweet influences of Nature connected
with the school-room and its studies as never before. That holiday
was made a most impressive and valuable school-day. It was for the

692 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

time the school in the open air, face to face with Nature and her most
healthful and instructive agencies.

It was only a little while after that scene in Cincinnati that the
superintendent of the schools of West Virginia, moved alike by a de-
sire to arouse a proper sentiment in behalf of forestry and to promote
the interests of education, signalized his administration by designating
an Arbor-day and inviting its special observance by the schools of the
State. His appeal met a ready response, and the day was widely ob-
served.

And by all means should Arbor-day invite the children to engage
in its observance. It was a most happy thought to connect the schools
with it and thus enlarge its scope. It was so, whether we consider the
interests of forestry or the interests of education. The pupils in the
schools to-day will soon be the men and women, the householders and
citizens of the country, holding its character and destiny in their hands.
They will be all-powerful. It is most important, therefore, that they
should come into their influential place in society prepared to use their
influence in the best manner and for the best ends. And this is to be
secured by the best training in their school-days ; such a training as
will fit them to deal wisely with the facts and conditions of practical
life. Their education should be so conducted as to be not a drudgery
but a delight. And this it will be made, if the mind of the pupil is
engaged with objects which interest it, with objects close about it,
rather than those far away and with which it has no concern. Set
the child to study the geography of his own town, or first his own
school-house grounds, instead of that of Kamchatka, and he will be
interested. Engage him in noticing the forms of the trees that grow
about the school-place — the birds, the flowers, the rocks which he sees
every day — and his mind will become all alive with interest in them.
They are akin to his own nature. He lays hold of them as by an in-
stinct. Give him these objects of study in place of much of the cus-
tomary task-work of arithmetic and grammar, for instance, and you
inspire within him such a loving and ardent desire of knowledge, and
such an awakening of faculties, that the world around him will be his
school-room so long as he lives, in which he will be studying to the
last, and in which he will find perpetual delight. It is sad to know
that so much of our school-time has been and still is wasted, and that
the children so frequently have come out from the place of education,
as it is called, with so little knowledge of the world in which they live
and in which they are so soon to occupy positions of influence and re-
sponsibility.

There are no studies in which the young are so much interested as
those which relate to the natural world, and there are none which
better serve the purpose of disciplining the mind for the work of com-
ing life. The general adoption of Arbor-day, therefore, and its con-
nection with our schools would be a pleasant starting-point for the

ARBOR-DAY. 693

introduction into them of the natural sciences with all their healthful
and helpful influences.

And just here, also, if we mistake not, is our best guarantee for the
promotion of forestry and for the solution of a great national problem.
The children, who have been invited and assisted to plant shrub and
tree on their school-house grounds, will soon be interested in the work
of their elders, as they plant trees along the borders of the streets, and
will ask to join in it. Next, they will be ready to assist in bringing
trees, with w'hich it may be sought perhaps to give the village ceme-
tery a more pleasant look ; or they will enter wdth sympathy into the
work of converting some neglected spot of ground into a comely park,
or clearing up a rough piece of woodland so as to make it a desirable
place of resort and recreation. Thus, going on from year to year, a
new generation will soon have come to manhood and womanhood, a
generation full of the love of trees as such, and not estimating them
merely for their value as lumber or cord-wood. They will even have
a poetic sensibility in respect to the trees. Like the old Greeks, they
■will sometimes people the woods and groves with dryads, or, as our
ancestors did, with gnomes and sprites. They will have learned, also,
as their fathers have not, the important relations which the forests
sustain to climate, to the precipitation and distribution of moisture
from the sky and clouds, and its exhalation from the ground. They
will be sensible of their influence upon the hot and cold currents of
the air, and their value to agriculture by serving as effective barriers
against them. They will have learned, as their fathers have not, how
nicely adjusted to each other are the forces of the natural world, and
how hazardous it is to disturb their equilibrium, yet how easily in our
ignorance or recklessness we may do it. The fact will be familiar to
them that the woodman, by an improvident use of his axe upon the
hill-side, may let loose the torrent or the avalanche, which may hurl
ruin upon the fertile valley below. Well knowing these and many
other things respecting the trees, of which the present generation for
the most part are ignorant, or which they are slow to learn, the new
generation will recognize, as we do not, that the trees are essential to
man's highest welfare, that they are his best friends, that they are the
constituted partners of the world with him, that human life in fact
would be impossible without them. Recognizing these facts, as the
new generation come into society as its directors, we may expect that
they will be conservative of the forests, and thus conservative also of
the best interests of the country.

694 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

SKETCH OF SIR JOHN BENNET LAWES.

IN John Bennet Lawes, said " Nature," more than ten years ago
(December 9, 1875), *' we have a private individual who, unaided
by the state, or by any scientific body, has made a greater number of
useful experiments than all the experimental farms of European gov-
ernments put together." The work referred to in such terras of praise
was performed on Mr. Lawes's private estate at Rothamstead, in Hert-
fordshire, England, to which he succeeded as heir in 1822, being eight
years of age, and on which he began his famous experiments in 1834,
when he entered upon actual possession of it.

Mr. Lawes was born in 1814, and acquu-ed his school education at
Eton College and Brasenose, Oxford, where he was a student from
1832 to 1835. His favorite work during this time was in the labora-
tory ; and after leaving the university he spent some time in London,
in the study of practical chemistry. His situation and surroundings
wei"e particularly favorable to his giving his whole attention to the
pursuit to which his tastes inclined him, and for which he had quali-
fied himself by his studies. Possessed of independent means, a hand-
some property, and a beautiful old manor-house and domain of about
five hundred acres, he at once interested himself in agriculture ; and
from the year he entered upon manhood till now, or for more than fifty
years, he has been unceasingly applying his scientific knowledge to
the solution of questions affecting the practice of that art. " In the
commencement of his experiments," says his biographer in the Lon-
don " Times," " among other subjects, the effect of bones as a manure
on land occupied his attention for some time. A friend and neighbor,
the then Lord Dacre, particularly directed his notice to the fact that
bones were very variable in their effect on different soils. Several
hundred experiments were accordingly made, some upon crops in the
field and others with plants in pots, in which the constituents found in
the ashes of plants as well as others were supplied in various states of
combination. Striking results were gained from these experiments, in
which the neutral phosphate of lime in bones, bone-ash, and apatite
was rendered soluble by means of sulphuric acid, and the mixture ap-
plied for root-crops. The results obtained on a small scale in 1837-'39
were such as to lead to more extensive trials in the field in 1840-'41,
and to the final taking out of a patent early in 1842. This being
done, Mr. Lawes established large works in the neighborhood of Lon-
don, for the manufacture of superphosphate of lime, by which name
the manure is known, which has produced such a revolution in the
science of agriculture."

In 1843 Mr. Lawes associated with himself Dr. J. H. Gilbert,
whose name has since been connected with his in all the researches

SKETCH OF SIR JOHN BEN NET LAWES. 695

prosecuted at Rothamstead, as a practical chemist ; and together they
undertook a series of agricultural investigations in the field, the feed-
ing-shed, and the laboratory. The laboratory was at first located in
an old barn ; but in 1854, when the friends of Mr. Lawes proposed to
present hira a service of plate in recognition of their appreciation of
his work, he suggested that a new laboratory building would be a
more appropriate and enduring as well as useful testimonial, and the
money was applied for the purpose of erecting one.

The place, identified with Mr. Lawes's experiments, Rothamstead,
the patrimonial estate of the investigator, is situated some twenty-five
miles from London, in Herts, and is easily accessible to visitors from
the Harpenden Railway station. The manor-house is described as
being a remarkably fine specimen of Old English architecture, while
the domain surrounding it contains some magnificent timber, includ-
ing an avenue of lindens, which, for size and regularity of dimensions,
are perhaps unsurpassed in the south of England. Around the family
mansion lie the five hundred acres that form the experimental sta-
tion, which is entirely maintained by Sir John. For the benefit of the
large number of laborers whose services are required in the manage-
ment of the station, Mr. Lawes many years ago formed an allotment
club through which small gardens of about an eighth of an acre each
can be rented. For this purpose, in 1882, sixteen acres of land had
been allocated, and the whole number of allotment gardens then in
cultivation was one hundred and seventy-four. The allotment area
is furnished with a club-house.

The scientific discovery, says an English biographer, around which
all Mr. Lawes's subsequent work centered was the disprovement of Lie-
big's mineral- ash theory. It was generally supposed at the time his
experiments were begun that certain saline bodies, so-called mineral
constituents, were essential to the growth and development of the
plant, and that such substances must be furnished to it by the soil.
The necessity of a certain quantity of nitrogen was recognized ; but it
was imagined, since wild plants could thrive without any artificial sup-
ply of nitrogen, that a sufiicient amount of that element existed in the
atmosphere to render it unnecessary to take any steps for increasing
the supply. The cardinal discovery made by Mr. Lawes of the abso-
lute necessity of the presence of nitrogen in the soil in order to main-
tain its fertility was a contradiction of this view, and led to the open-
ing of a new field of agricultural investigation. In connection with
the belief in the sufficiency of the atmospheric sources of nitrogen, it
was supposed that the fertility of a soil might be maintained for an
indefinite period if the different mineral constituents carried off by
the crop were annually returned in due quantity as mineral manure
to the soil. Respecting these two points, and regarding the sources
of nitrogen, Mr. Lawes has said : " I maintain that the amount of ni-
trogen supplied to our crops from the atmosphere, whether as combined

696 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

nitrogen brought down by rain or that absorbed by the soil or the
plant, constitutes but a very small proportion of the total amount they
assimilate, and that the soil itself (or manure) is practically the main
source of their supply. Indeed, it is a question whether on arable
land as much or more may not be lost by drainage or otherwise than
is supplied by the atmosphere." The field experiments on which these
conclusions rest have formed Sir John Lawes's principal work. Fa-
vored by position and circumstances, he has been enabled to carry out on
a large scale most important operations. Ills general plan has been to
select fields in a condition of agricultural exhaustion, that is, in a state
in which a fresh supply of manure was needed to fit the soil for the
growth of another crop. Upon this exhausted soil each of the most
important crops in the rotation was grown year after year upon the
same spot, in plots without manure, and in other plots in which vari-
ous kinds of manure, but usually the same to each, were applied yearly.
Thus it became possible to determine the point of relative exhaustion
or excessive supply of any of the constituents of the manure. The
details of this method are given an exemplary explanation in Mr.
Lawes's " Report of Experiments on the Growth of Barley for Twenty
Tears on the Same Land," published in 1874, when the experiment
was still in progress. The field had been divided into plots of about
one fifth of an acre each. Some of these had never received any
manure during the twenty years ; the others received some one or
more of the food constituents which barley requires. Thus, one was
manured with phosphates, a second with alkalies, a third with am-
monia, a fourth with ammonia and phosphates, a fifth with ammonia,
phosphates, and alkalies, etc., every year in succession. At harvest the
crops were carefully weighed, and were then analyzed in the labora-
tory under the superintendence of Dr. Gilbert, when the amounts of
dry matter, ash, and nitrogen, were determined.

" The advantages of this systematic mode of experimenting," says
an English review of the report, " are very great. Carried on in the
same manner for so many years, these experiments answer questions
relating to the exhaustion of the soil, to the permanent effect of ma-
nures, to the effect of season upon the produce. With the aid of the
laboratory investigations they teach us what proportion of the various
ingredients supplied in the manure is recovered in the crop, and how
the composition of the plant is affected by the various conditions of
the soil. In conjunction with analyses of the soil and of the drainage-
water, we learn AS'hat becomes of the manures supplied, how deeply
they have penetrated into the soil, what is the loss suffered through
drainage, etc. A single field experiment, thus thoroughly and patiently
carried out, touches half the domain of agricultural chemistry, and
sup))]ies information of the most solid and valuable kind,"

Mr. Lawes addressed himself with great skill and success to the
task of perfecting the methods of analysis ; but, even after all his in-

SKETCH OF SIR JOHN BENNET LAWES. 697

vestigations, he believes that the elucidation of agricultural principles
must be looked for from a due consideration of vegetable physiology
as well as chemistry, and of the special functional peculiarities and re-
sources of different plants as well as their actual percentage composi-
tion. The explanation of the distinctive functions of crops grown in
rotation is found, in his view, in the character and length of life of
the different plants ; in the character of the roots in regard to number,
size, etc., and to their aptitude to derive more of their food and moist-
ure from the surface, or from the subsoil ; and in the greater capacity
of some for liberating and assimilating food not available for others,
or for arresting food which would otherwise be washed out of the soil.
In brief, his investigations have embraced researches into the exhaus-
tion of soils, including experiments on croj^s ; on the principles of rota-
tion and fallow ; on the mixed herbage of grass-lands ; on the progress
of vegetation generally, including researches on the action of manures ;
on the origin of nitrogen in plants ; on the feeding and fattening of
cattle, and generally on stock as meat-producing and manure-making
machines ; on rainfall and drainage ; on botanical characteristics ; and
on the chemistry of the malting process, and the comparative value of
malt and barley as food for cattle. Mr. Lawes also, in conjunction
with Professor Way, acted upon a royal commission from 1857 to
1865, in the investigation of the effect of the application of town sew-
age upon grass and other crops ; and in the institution of comparative
experiments on the feeding qualities of the differently grown crops, to
be determined by the amount of increase yielded by oxen, and the
amount and composition of the milk yielded by cows.

In 18T2 Mr. Lawes announced his intention of placing in tj-ust his
laboratory and experimental fields, with an endowment of £100,000,
the interest of which, after his death, should be applied to the con-
tinuance of the investigations carried on there. " It is seldom," " Na-
ture " remarked, in noticing the fact at the time, " that we have to
record an act of so great munificence directed in a channel calculated
to bring about such important results to the scientific departments
of agriculture."

Mr. Lawes was elected in 1854 a Fellow of the Royal Society, whose
royal medal he received conjointly with Dr. Gilbert in 1867 ; he has
also received a gold medal from the Imperial Agricultural Society of
Russia ; in June, 1881, the Emperor of Germany by imperial decree
awarded the gold medal of merit for agriculture to him and Dr. Gil-
bert jointly, in recognition of their services for the development of
scientific and practical agriculture ; and in May, 1882, Mr. Lawes was
created a baronet, and became Sir John Bennet Lawes. Pie is also a
Fellow of the Chemical Society, and an LL. D.

The results of the Rothamstead investigations of Sir John Lawes
are to be found in the journals of the Royal Agricultural Society, the
reports of the British Association, the Journal of the Chemical So-

698 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ciety of London, the Transactions of the Royal Society, the Journal
of the Society of Arts, the Journal of the Horticultural Society of
London, the " Edinburgh Veterinary Review," the reports of the
Royal Dublin Society, the "Philosophical Magazine," the "Agricult-
ural Gazette," the " Chemical News," and in official reports and scat-
tered pamphlets and newspaper letters.

Of the value of Sir John Lawes's work at Rothamstead as a whole,
we find the judgments recorded in scientific reviews of its results, that
" it is not to be equaled by that of any of the foreign stations ; in-
deed, in several departments of investigation it might safely challenge
comparison with their united efforts " ; and that " be has obtained a
larger body of facts in relation to manures and cropping, and the feed-
ing of animals, than all the agricultural societies in the empire put to-
gether."

We also find some lessons suggested by it in the same reviews, the
bearing of which seems to have escaped the notice of the reviewers
themselves, for they forthwith proceed to draw from them the oppo-
site conclusions to the true one : "The whole is the work of the man
himself. He has had no aid from the Government or any agricultural
society, and no advice from any committee or public body." " Of the
indebtedness of science to Mr. Lawes's unique and costly experiments
we need not speak, the facts are so plain that they speak for them-
selves. Kor need we state the moral. The addition to the national
wealth which has accrued from the discoveries made by Mr. Lawes is
already enormous. It must be borne in mind that this benefit has
arisen from accidental researches, for Mr. Lawes was not compelled
to take them up, nor is he bound to continue them."

The secret of this great merit is also given ; for while Mr. Lawes
has not had an unqualified success, especially in drawing inferences
from his facts, "his writings afford ample evidence of great earnest-
ness of pui-pose. His manly, outspoken language shows that he loves
truth for its own sake. He has had ample resources ; and he has had
the motive of self-interest, as well as love of knowledge, to stimulate
him in his investigations."

In this splendid example, as in so many others, we have illustrated
anew the fact that the best scientific results and the most impor-
tant advances in discovery are the fruit of earnest individual work,
prompted by love of the pursuit and carried on in a spirit of self-reli-
ance ; that investigation can and will make its own paths and find its
way to its own ends, and be more vigorous and active for the effort ;
and that the time has not yet come when, in Anglo-Saxon countries,
science has so declined that it must be coddled by oflicial patronage.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

699

EDITOR'S TABLE.

A CASE m MORAL EDUCATION.

IT is encouraging to observe, by the
recent discussions in Congress, that
there is a deepening conviction of the
need of an international copyright law
to put a stop to the scandalous robbery
of those foreign authors who are doing
80 much to sustain and elevate our intel-
lectual life. There are evinced a grow-
ing sense of reprobation of this practice,
and much greater agreement than ever
before, both as to tlie necessity of put-
ting an end to it, and the means to be
adopted for the purpose. The commit-
tee was addressed by but one down-
right opponent of international copy-
right, and he admitted that he was
. opposed to all copyright, and would
take away the legal protection of their
literary property from American au-
thors. Mr. James Russell Lowell, Presi-
dent of the Copyright League, made
an excellent address, putting the whole
question on the high moral ground of
the rights of men to property in their
brain-work, and the outrage of allow-
ing other men to appropriate it from
mercenary motives and because they
find it valuable ; and he did not hesi-
tate to say that the reasoning by which
international copyright was there op-
posed was but a virtual defense of
pocket-picking. We call attention to
this matter here simply to show that
there is an undoubted quickening of
the moral sense of the community
over this question, so that what was
long regarded witli indifference as but
a venial wrong is now reprobated as
a practice so bad that it can be no
longer tolerated.

And even while the question is being
thus debated, there comes a fresh and
flagrant instance of that spoliation of for-
eign authors which will continue to be
perpetrated until the law lays its hand

upon men destitute of any restraining
moral sense. The case is peculiarly ag-
gravated in this respect. A foreign au-
thor writes a valuable book, which is
found especially useful in this country
for cultivating the mindsof teachers; and
their sense of obligation to him for his
great service is expressed by a virtual
conspiracy among them to steal it. Mr.
James Sully, of London, is the author
of the ''Outlines of Psychology." The
work was created by his labor. It was
made at the cost of time, faculty, and
blood; he consumed his vital energy in
preparing it just as much as is done in
producing any other piece of work of
any kind that was ever constructed. If
there be such a thing as property, Mr.
Sully's book was his property by every
principle of justice and right. That was
recognized by his American publishers,
who made an arrangement with him to
pay a royalty on the sales at an equal
rate that it is customary to pay Amer-
ican authors. The arrangement was
doubly vahd in the eyes of all honor-
able men, for it was intrinsically just
and equitable and was voluntarily
made without any compulsion of law.

Mr. Sully's work was a large text-
book of general psychology, but it gave
prominence to the bearings of that sci-
ence upon theoretical and practical edu-
cation, and this was the feature that
was specially appreciated by our edu-
cators. It was an obvious suggestion
that to separate the educational part of
the book from its connections and issue
it separately in a cheaper form would
be a desirable thing. Ditferent parties,
in fact, applied to the publisiiers to get
the job of cutting the book down ; but
they answered that this was a matter
belonging entirely to the author. He
was written to, and, approving the plan,
engaged to make a compend of his work

700

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

for the use of teachers and to do it at
once; and it was widely advertised by
the American publishers that an au-
thoritative abridgment of the "Out-
lines of Psychology " by the author
timself would soon appear. It need
hardly be said tliat the author, who
knew the subject thoroughly, and had
created the work, was the most com-
petent man to prepare from it a briefer
volume, which would require much
adaptation and new statement ; because
justice to teachers and to a most impor-
tant subject could not be done by merely
ripping out mechanically a part of the
larger book and printing it separately.
But Principal Keinhart, of the Paterson
High-School, paid no attention to any
such consideration. He cut out what
he wanted from the volume, added some
notes, and applied to Messrs. Appleton
to print it, which of course they de-
clined to do ; and he then found another
publisher to carry out his very ques-
tionable project.

Now, our only concern here is with
the moral complexion of this affair, in
connection with what goes for " higher
education " in the public-school system
of this country. A great deal is said
about the low state of moral education
in our public schools; but the grave
question arises as to the competency of
the directors of even our ''high-schools "
to teach it. Moral education is a matter
of principles applied to practice ; it in-
quires into the grounds of right and
wrong in conduct, with a view of de-
termining what things are proper to do
and what are forbidden as immoral or
unjust. It aims simply to ascertain and
enforce upon the individual right rules
for the guidance of personal action in
daily and practical life. The obligations
of morality are clear enough; what is
wanted in the schools is the explanation
of their fundamental importance, their
sacredness, the sophistry by which they
are evaded, and their pointed applica-
tion to the conscience of the young.
Is the Principal of the Paterson

High-School, a fit person to give such
instruction? Could he explain to his
classes the moral difference between
stealing Mr. Sully's book and stealing
his watch ? Could he explain to his Jer-
sey students why they should not steal
the paper and binding of Bardeen's
volume as he has its contents? If he
should say to them that paper, ink,
and binding are sacred things and not
to be appropriated without [layment,
while the soul of the work, the part
sought and prized as a power in our
education, has no value which he is
bound to recognize, would they not be
justified in replying to the argument
by throwing the book at his head ? The
Principal of a high-school who, at this
time, will api)ropriate literary proper-
ty which he has no moral right to
touch, who will rob an author simply
because he is helpless and must intrust
his book to the public honor, and who
will mutilate a work which he knows
the author is himself revising and mak-
ing over for the specific objects recog-
nized— such a Principal may comply
with the State standard of competency
to control a high-school, but, in our
opinion, he is not fit to give instruc-
tions in moral education.

ThePatersonPrincipal will, of course,
have his excuses. He may say: "The
appropriation of foreign books is a com-
mon tiling; it is done, and has been
long done, by respectable people ; I am
no worse than they are." But this will
not do. "When a professional literary
freebooter says : " I care nothing for the
rights of foreign authors ; I propose to
take their works as long as I can profit
by them and keep out of jail ; ' what are
you going to do about it?'" — his case
is not a proper precedent for the prin-
cipal of a high-school charged with the
duty of forming the moral characters of
pupils committed to his charge. He is
to teach them that what is intrinsically
wrong is not made anything else be-
cause others indulge in it. Of course,
he can quote many bad examples which

EDITOR'S TABLE,

701

be has followed, but be is among those
who pre-eininently have no business to
follow bad examples, either in practice or
in precept. But the Paterson Principal
will search a long time before finding a
precedent as bad as that which he him-
self has set. He goes voluntarily into
the business of robbing foreign authors
when nearly everybody else is trying
to stop it; he cuts up his book at his
own caprice while the author is him-
self revising and condensing it; and
then he plots with other educators to
secure the adoption of the dishonest
edition, to the exclusion of the honest
and superior book. Such things might
be expected of a sordid and unprinci-
pled huckster in the publication busi-
ness, but they are to be reprobated in
the principal of a high-school. That
he is backed by other teachers does not
help the matter, but only still further
exemplifies the lax and dull state of
mind in regard to right and wrong
which they thus evince, and which
goes far to explain the backwardness
and neglect of moral education in our
schools.

STABILITY I2f SYSTEMS OF THOUGHT.

Ix the " Commercial Advertiser" of
January 14tli there is an able article,
evidently from the master-mind of that
journal, on Spencer's evolution philoso-
phy, which, from the interest of the
questions raised, as well as its very de-
cided views, deserves some critical no-
tice. After passing encomiums on Mr.
Spencer for his noble and disinterested
aims, the comprehensiveness of his
work, his immense results considered
as an intellectual achievement, his
painstaking industry, and indefatigable
persistency of purpose, the writer re-
marks that, admirable as it all is, it still
has about it "a touch of the pathetic."
Not that it may never be finished, as
many fear, but that, even if completed,
it will quickly take its place among the
systems of futile speculation with which

the human mind has teemed for these
thousands of years. After referring to
the sad experience of Buckle, the writer
says: " Mr. Spencer's case is different ;
he may be able to finish his work, but
the view of it that comes to us is, that
when it is finished it may prove, in
scope and substance, no more than a
brilliant dream. The theory of evolu-
tion, in the construction of which he
has spent so many laborious days and
nights, lavished such wonderful powers
of observation and generalization, and
exhibited such an ingenuity of fancy,
collecting such masses of knowledge
and scintillating such flashes of sugges-
tion, will, after all, share the fate of
other merely speculative fabrics, and,
like them, in spite of a certain color of
science which he has been enabled to
give it, fade away in the advancing
light of real knowledge."

We can not help thinking that this
judgment manifests an imperfect appre-
ciation of the intellectual revolution
which marks off ancient and mediaeval
from modern thought, in so far as tliis
represents a new era of science. It can
hardly be contended that science in the
present state of its development counts
for nothing in its influence upon sys-
tems of thought; nor is it difficult to
see in what way it acts and must in-
creasingly act in future to discredit or
to conserve such systems. The old
schemes of speculation and schools of
philosophy ran their transient course
under the influence of great teachers,
and then declined and gave place to
others, because they had no basis in
any real knowledge of Nature. In met-
aphysics and religion, the two great
spheres of mental activity, imagina-
tion went riot for lack of restraining
data. They had no element that could
give them permanent value; one man's
opinion was as good as another's, and
systems multiplied with the common
and inevitable character of instability.
Some were preserved by favoring acci-
dents. The system of Plato, as intrin-

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sically worthless as the rest, lived on as
a power in the world of thought because
of the ingenuity of his speculations, the
impressive beauty of their literary forms,
the vitality of classical superstition in
later ages, and because his system of
ideas has been supposed to favor the
fundamental beliefs of Christian theol-
ogy-

But modern thought made a new
starting-point when it began formally
to build on the verities of Xature. A
new element was then introduced into
philosophy which was capable of giv-
ing it permanence. The discovery of
the laws of motion, for example, was
an intellectual acquisition to stand for-
ever. "When it was proved that the
earth is not the stationary center of
the universe, but only a revolving plan-
et, there was given, not only a new fact
for all time, but a fact that shattered
whole systems of pre-existing opinion,
and became a permanent element to fix
and regulate the future thinking of
mankind. In further instance, the dis-
coveries of the circulation of the blood,
of the laws of nutrition, of the double
action and reflex functions of the nerv-
vous system, revealed facts of enduring
moment which threw new light upon
the nature of man. The establishment
of the indestructibility ol matter, and
that all mutations of material things
are governed by this law, was a new
key to the understanding of our world
which can never be lost. And when
the kindred truth of the conservation
of energy, or that in the known course
of Nature force is never created or de-
stroyed— which Faraday pronounced to
be " the highest law in physical science
that our faculties permit us to per-
ceive"- when this mighty principle
was demonstrated, whole systems of
speculation were undermined, whole
realms of previous error were destroyed,
and the philosophical interpretation of
Nature was put upon a new and inde-
structible basis. We have given a few
illustrations of that element which it

was the destiny of science to contrib-
ute, and by which it has formed a new
epoch of thought; but all the sciences
are full of this new element. It con-
sists of contributions of fact and law
standing in everlasting contrast with
the baseless and transient assumptions
of philosophers for the past two thou-
sand years. But the two thousand years
of empty philosophical speculation got
a mighty headway ; and, as our educa-
tion is still dominated by tradition, the
cultivated mind of the age, saturated
with the " history of philosophy," re-
mains blinded to the profound signifi-
cance of that revolution of ideas which
modern science has introduced. There
are i)lenty of men whose culture is so
full of the past that they are sure to go
on spinning systems fanciful and futile
as their predecessors ; but such work is
certain to become more and more anom-
alous and less and less regarded. For,
with the development of science, there
has come a new mental culture. Sci-
ence forms habits of thought. Pursued
in its true spirit it enforces a special
discipline in the study of truth. It cor-
rects credulity by a wholesome skepti-
cism; it affirms the sujjremacy of per-
sonal observation, and demands caution
in forming conclusions. All these re-
quirements are repressive of that wan-
ton exuberance of imaginative inven-
tion in which speculative genius is so
prone to indulge. The system-maker
of these times must Tcnow something,
must build upon previous acquisitions,
or he will neither be listened to by the
present nor have a hold upon the fu-
ture. The rapid growth of science in
these days proves that its education and
its disciplines have not been without
eflect, and it is not to be questioned
that its method is gradually extending
into all the spheres of mental activity.
There is here a new element of stability
in intellectual constructions of which
nothing was known in all the historic
epochs of speculation.

The writer in the " Commercial "

LITERARY NOTICES.

703

says that the theory of evohition which
Mr. Spencer has elaborated with such
ingenuity " will share the fate of other
merely speculative fabrics," and "fade
away in the advancing light of real
knowledge." The implication of course
is that Mr. Spencer's work lacks the
character of " real knowledge," and
this the writer confirms by speaking
of " a certain color of science " which
he has been enabled to give it. This is a
strange deliverance. A system born of
science, and constructed warp and woof
out of the accredited facts and truths
of the sciences, is not well described as
having imparted to it a superficial col-
oring of science. Mr. Spencer's allegi-
ance to facts, his comprehensive grasp
of the results of science, and his com-
mand of the scientific method and fidel-
ity to it, are unchallenged. His system,
given out in fragments favorable for the
most critical examination, has been un-
der fire for twenty-five years, and has
extended in influence and steadily risen
in consideration in a scientific age be-
cause it was recognized to embody more
"real knowledge" than any other such
system ever before presented. The
writer in the ".Commercial" thinks he
sees indications that it is already de-
clining ; he merely misinterprets the
subsidence of opposition.

The simple fact of the case is, that
Mr. Spencer was the first to deal with
evolution as a strictly scientific prob-
lem. He withdrew it from the field of
fanciful speculation, and subjected its
investigation to the rigorous conditions
of analytic and synthetic science. The
time had come when, by the laws of ad-
vancing intelligence, the subject had to
be taken up from this point of view.
Its fundamental datum was given by
Huxley in a few words. " It is now
established, and generally recognized,"
said he, " that this universe and all that
it contains did not come into existence
in the condition in which we now see
it, nor in anything like that condition."
It is therefore self-evident that changes

have taken place by which one condi-
tion of things has led to another and
a different condition of things. Mr,
Spencer took up the inquiry at this
point by asking, What are the laws of
these changes? It was an inquiry into
the order of the phenomenal world
and therefore strictly scientific in its
nature, as not a step could be taken
toward its solution except by the inex-
orable application of scientific methods.
Postulating those universal and funda-
mental laws of scientific inquiry, the
indestructibility of matter and force,
the changes that have taken place had
to be investigated as transformations
by which one thing is derived from an-
other, and the present evolved out of
the past under that inflexible princi-
ple of all scientific inquiry, the law of
cause and effect. Beyond doubt, one
of the great secrets of the rapid accept-
ance of the doctrine of evolution by the
best-trained minds of the age is the
thoroughly scientific character of the
exposition in Spencer's system. It has
the stability of a great law of Xature,
fortified by results from all the sciences,
and can only pass away as it is further
developed under the principle of evolu-
tion, which itself gives law to the prog-
ress of knowledge ; and the attempt
to kick it into the limbo of specula-
tive vagaries implies, as we have said,
some considerable misapprehension of
the situation.

LITERARY NOTICES.

Gray's Botanical Text-Book. Sixth edi-
tion. Vol. II. Physiological Botany.
1. Outlines of the Histology of Phanerog-
amous Plants ; 2. Vegetable Physiology.
By George Lincoln Goodale, A. M.,
M. D., Professor of Botany in Harvard
University. Xew York and Chicago :
Ivison, Blakeman, Taylor & Co. rrico.

The first edition of Gray's " Botanical
Text-Book " was published forty-three years
ago, and took the highest rank at once as
an American exposition of the science, both
for college uses and for students generally.

704

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

With the rapid development of the science
successive editions appeared, each for tlic
most part rewritten, the fifth edition com-
ing out in 1857. But botanical science at
length outgrew the possibility of dealing
with it in any adequate way iu a single vol-
ume. This led to the necessity of completer
treatment in several connected works. Pro-
fessor Gray says in his preface : " To secure
the requisite fullness of treatment of the
whole range of subjects it has been decided
to divide the work into distinct volumes,
each a treatise by itself, which may be in-
dependently used, while the whole will com-
pose a comprehensive botanical course."

The first volume of this series was writ-
ten by Professor Gray, and entitled " The
Structural and Morphological Botany of
Phanerogamous Plants." It deals chiefly
with organography, or the account of the
structures and forms of the organs of plants,
and, as the author remarks, " should thor-
oughly equip a botanist for the scientific
prosecution of systematic botany, and fur-
nish needful preparation to those who pro-
ceed to the study of vegetable physiology
and anatomy, and to the wide and varied
departments of cryptogamic botany " which
are to be dealt with in the subsequent vol-
umes of the series.

The second volume of this work upon
" Physiological Botany " (vegetable histolo-
gy and physiology), the treatise now before
us, was written by Professor Goodalc, the
colleague of Professor Gray, and Professor
of Botany in Harvard University, and is
" devoted to a consideration of the micro-
scopic structure, the development, and the
functions of flowering plants ; that is, to
their vegetable histology, organogeny, and
physiology." The volume is divided into
two parts, the first taking up and pursuing
with great thoroughness the subject of his-
tology, or the minute microscopical struct-
ure and elements of plants. An introduc-
tion is devoted to " Histological Appli-
ances," or the instruments of the botanical
investigator — such as microscopes, dissect-
ing implements, reagents, etc. Cells and
tissues, in their structures, contents, compo-
sitions, and modifications, are then taken
up in a general way, to be followed by the
minute structure and development of root,
stem, and leaf, flower, fruit, and seed. Ele-

mentary structures being mastered, the pu-
pil then proceeds, in Part II, to the investi-
gation of their functions, or physiological
botany projjcr. Physiology considers the
plant in action, the changes occurring in its
luultitudinous parts, the constituents in-
volved, the products generated, the interac-
tions of the vegetable organism with soil
and air, the movements of plants, vegetable
growth, germination, and reproduction.

"What chiefly strikes us, in looking over
this interesting volume, is the immense ad-
vance that has been made in late years in
the elucidation of the laws of the inter-
nal vegetable economy. There has been a
large increase in the resources of investi-
gation, the skillful experience with which it
is conducted, and a great amount of new
light has been thrown upon the obscure and
subtile processes of vegetable organisms.
Vegetable physiology has been brought far
more completely within the grasp of the
experimental method than would have been
thought possible thirty years ago. It has
become laboratory-work, as established and
necessary as in the case of chemistry or
physics. It follows from this that to the
thorough study of physiological botany not
only microscopical observation but manipu-
latory exercises of various kinds are quite
indispensable. It was formerly supposed
that the physiology of plants was a sub-
ject to be mainly read about, and the knowl-
edge of it derived from books, without
much possibility of a direct and real ac-
quaintance with the facts, but that view
must now be abandoned. We observe with
interest and great satisfaction that Professor
Goodalc has been fully alive to the educa-
tional implications of this circumstance, and
has made his volume a working text-book
by which the student is enabled and re-
quired to make the knowledge of the sub-
ject his own. Those who faithfully go
through the work will not only acquire a
mastery of the facts, and a thorough ac-
quaintance with what is known of the pro-
cesses of vegetal life, but they will gain a
valuable training in the conditions of sci-
entific method and the difficult and impor-
tant art of scientific investigation.

We can not close this slight and very
unsatisfactory notice of a most important
book without some cordial recognition of

LITERARY NOTICES.

705

the obligations of American scientific men
and American teachers to the life-long and
invaluable services of Professor Gray in the
elaborate revision of his text-books which
have now taken so comprehensive and com-
plete a form in this series. With the pa-
tience and perseverance of the true scien-
tific enthusiast, he has confined himself to
his own line of work, and taken authorita-
tive possession of the botanical field in this
country. By securing the co-operation of
other men whom he has assisted to qualify
for the work, Professor Gray gives to his
undertaking a solid and permanent value
which will make it influential upon the
growth of American botany for many years
to come.

French Dishes for American Tables.
By Pierre Caron (formerly chef d'en-
freniefs at Delmonico's). Translated by
Mrs. Frederic Sherman. Pp. 231. D.
Appleton & Co. Price, 81.
This may not be " the cook-book of the
future," but, what is more to the purpose,
it is a pretty good cook-book for the pres-
ent. Written by a man and translated by
a woman, it ought to be full of the duplex-
cellences implied by its double origin. At
any rate, the man understood the business
of cooking, and the woman understands the
business of translation ; and so the man's
full and accurate knowledge of culinary
operations is made as simple and clear to
the reader as plain, well-chosen language
can make it. The book contains six hun-
dred receipts, and it is said the quantities
are all calculated for tables of ei^jht per-
sons. We have heard that this book has
been tried with marked success.

Railroad Transportation : Its History
and Laws. By Arthur T. Hadlet,
Commissioner of Labor Statistics of the
State of Connecticut, Instructor in Po-
litical Science in Yale College. Pp. 269.
Xew York : G. P. Putnam's Sons. Price,
8L50.

The laying down of an iron track on
leveled ground, whereby vehicles could car-
ry heavier loads, and the attachment of
steam-machines instead of animals to draw
the vehicles were mechanical novelties in
their time which many could not fail to see
were full of new possibilities, but nobody
even suspected the tremendous implications i

VOL. XXTIII. — 45

of the steps that had been taken. He who
saw the first car moved by steam upon a
tramway, and hauling a load of stone, may
also have lived to see an express train of
palace - cars, with a meeting-house full of
people, shooting along with the proverbial
swiftness of the pigeon, " a mile a minute."
This result shows the astonishing rapidity
of the development of the art of locomo-
tion, and always impresses the observer
with wonder at the triumphs of invention,
and the new conquest over space and time
that may be shared by everybody.

And yet all this is but the superficial
aspect of the railroad dispensation upon
which we have entered. The discovery has
been gradually made that the railroad sys-
tem is a new social power, the destiny of
which is to force to such a solution as they
may be capable of receiving a large num-
ber of fundamental questions relating to
industry, commerce, the laws of competi-
tion, individual rights and corporate pre-
rogatives, the operation of natural laws in
society, and the compass and limitations of
legislative authority. These problems are
forced upon the community by the devel-
opment of railroads, as they could have
been in no other way. They must be met
and acted upon, if not with far-seeing intel-
ligence, then with short-sighted ignorance ;
and as the results of experience disclose
themselves — good or bad — we shall have a
large and instructive example of that com-
pulsory education which originates in social
conditions and the nature of things.

It is somewhat from this point of view
that the timely and admirable book of Pro-
fessor Hadley has been prepared. It is not
at all a treatise on the railroad in itself,
and is not to be ranked with books of con-
struction, improvement, and railway man-
agement that are made for the uses of rail-
road-men. It is rather a book on the rela-
tions of railroads to the community, and
therefore deals with a class of subjects in
which all citizens are interested. The writ-
er's point of view is thus briefly indicated
in his preface : " This book deals with
those questions of railroad history and man-
agement which have become matters of
public concern. It aims to do two things r
first, to present clearly the more important
facts of American raihoad business, and

7c6

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

explain the principles involved ; second, to
compare the railroad legislation of different
countries, and the results achieved. The
two things need to be viewed in connection
with one another. The attempt to manage
railroads without regard to the demands
of public policy, or to legislate concerning
railroads without regard to the necessities
of railroad business, results in disastrous
failure. This fact has been gradually rec-
ognized by thoughtful men on both sides."

To meet this view of the subject. Profess-
or Iladlcy has written his volume, which, for
popular use, is beyond comparison the most
instructive and valuable railroad-book that
we have seen. It is a work which ought to
be very generally read ; for there is a great
deal of ignorance, prejudice, and passion
among many people in regard to railroad
management, which would be dispelled if
the matter were better understood — a result
to which the perusal of this volume will
certainly lead. The author writes neither
in the blind interest of railroad corpora-
lions, nor of the people as a class victim-
ized by these corporations, but in the light
of facts and principles to which both must
bow. It may be added that the volume is
one that will be read with much pleasure,
from the freshness and variety of its infor-
mation on the latest results of railroad ex-
perience.

The Philosophy of Education: or, The
Principlks and Practice of Teaching.
By T. Tait, F. R. A. S. Pp. 331. New
York : E. Kellogg & Co. Price, $1.

This seems to be a kind of general trea-
tise on the art and mystery of school-keep-
ing, and was evidently reprinted, as the
editor intimates, because of " the grow-
ing desire for treatises on education." It
contains a great deal of information about
schools and teaching, and various parts of
it will prove suggestive and useful, but it is
a good deal behind the age. Originally pub-
lished in 1837, it represents the state of
thought in the early part of the century ;
and its psychology, the vital point in any
educational work that proposes to deal with
principles, is completely outgrown and dis-
credited, as editor Traub acknowledges.
But, after all, most teachers, notwithstand-
ing all the progressive talk about psychol-
ogy, are still deep in the old dispensation

of " mental philosophy," and will therefore
find themselves much at borne with this
volume.

Eational Communism. The Present and
Future Republic of North America. By
a CapitaUst. New York : The Social
Science Publishing Company. Pp. 498.
Price, $1.50.

The capitalist author presents in this
work a plea and a scheme for a new social
organization. Ilis ideas are said to be the
outgrowth of a vision, in which, lifted high
in the air, he saw New York, BrookljTi,
Long Island, etc., newly laid out and peo-
pled on an ideal plan adapted to promote
the equal wealth, standing, and happiness
of all. Coming back to the reality, he finds
things organized to promote inequality and
not happiness. He then proceeds to devel-
op his plan, in which he aims to avoid the
particular rocks on which all the social com-
munities hitherto projected in this country
have been severally wrecked.

The Will : A Novel. By Ernst Eckstein,
author of " Quintus Claudius," etc.
From the German by Clara Bell. Au-
thorized edition. In two volumes. New
York : Gottsberger.

The will here intended is not that men-
tal element sometimes known as volition,
but a document of an entirely material na-
ture, which meant not only fortune to the
hero of the story but name and titles as
well. Like so many other modern novels,
the tale winds in and out among socialists
and their doings and beliefs, although it
can scarcely be called a partisan book. The
attempt seems to have been expository of
the workings of that order of beliefs and
feelings, which seems to lend itself to dra-
matic treatment with as remarkable success
as the grand passion itself.

On the Heating and Ventilation of Dwell-
ings AND School-rooms. By Charles O.
Curtman, M. D., St. Louis. Pp. 10.

This is a reproduction of a paper that
was read before the American Public Health
Association. It presents a careful review,
with suitable illustrations, of the operation,
merits, and demerits of all the methods of
house-heating in current use, with especial
reference to their adaptability to school-
rooms.

I

LITERARY NOTICES.

707

Joint-Diseases: Treatment by Rest and
Fixation. Pp. 15. Surgical Treat-
ment of Infants. Pp. 1'2. By Deforest
Willard, M. D. Philadelphia.

Dr. Willard holds that rest subdues
joint-lnflamination more effectually than all
other means combined, and that the more
perfect the rest the greater will be the dimi-
nution of pressure, tension, and inflamma-
tion, and of their resultant ankylosis and
suppuration. The pamphlet contains the
arguments in support of his views and de-
scriptions of the appliances, and their appli-
cations, by which he secures the rest he pre-
scribes.

The second paper is an address which
was read in June of last year before
the Philadelphia Obstetrical Society. The
author believes that the surgery of child-
hood, as compared with that of adult life, is,
aside even from congenital defects, suffi-
ciently marked and distinctive to entitle it
to separate consideration. Even the anato-
my of the child can not be learned from the
ordinary adult dissections during a college
course, but the surgeon must make himself
specially acquainted with it. References
are made, in the course of the address, to
classes of cases in which special treatment
and applications may be called for.

The Prehistoric Palace of the Kings of
TiRTNS. By Dr. Henry Schliemann.
New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
Pp. S80, with Chromo - lithographic
Plates, Map, and Plans. Price, $10.

The citadel of Tiryns is one of the
most ancient ruins in Europe. The city
which it represents had its origin and
probably its whole existence in prehistoric
times. It is treated in Homer's " Iliad " as
a place whose greatness was of the past,
while Mycenae was still vigorous and Argos
rising. Its massive remains or " cyclopean
walls," standing some eighty feet above the
sea back of the Gulf of Nauplia, were re-
garded as a miracle in ancient days, and
have been objects of wonder to Greeks,
Romans, and moderns, for twenty -five
hundred years. Dr. Schliemann having at-
tacked, with more or less of satisfaction in
the result, Troy, Mycenae, and Orchomenos,
it was natural that the attention of the great
archaeologist should be directed to their ri-

val in antiquity and in association with the
legends of the heroic age. His work at
Tiryns has been rather more successful
than at the other places he has explored,
because he has gone at it with the benefit
of acquired experience, and has been able
to perform it more systematically and in
such a way as to insure the preservation of
everything. He has laid bare the whole
plan of the palace and fortress, with all of
its most important details, and has given
the means for forming a clear idea of how
those Herakleid or Perseid Greeks lived.
The palace was reached by a winding car-
riage-way duly guarded with gates, the
thresholds, bolt-holes, and pivotal hinge-
holes of which, and the ashes of the
wooden parts, are still visible. The plan
of the palace was elaborate, and reveals a
grouping around two centers, the hall of
the men and the hall of the women, com-
munication between which was only indi-
rect. The walls were adorned with paint-
ings in animal and geometrical designs, and
plaques of alabaster with designs in blue-
glass paste, fac-similes of which are given
in the colored plates of the book. One of
the most remarkable features of the build-
ing was the bath-room, which was floored
with a single slab of stone of eight by ten
feet, that can not weigh less than nineteen
tons. Within this room was found a frag-
ment of the terra-cotta tub in which the
heroes took their baths. The arrangements
for drainage and the whole plan of the pal-
ace show a considerable advance in civiliza-
tion, when, as we have been accustomed to
believe, civilization had hardly begim on that
spot. The excavations, to which Dr. Schlie-
mann had given his personal attention, were
continued while he was preparing his ac-
count, during 1885, by his collaborator, the
distinguished German archaeologist, Dr. Will-
iam Dorpfeld. He made a series of new dis-
coveries hardly less interesting than those
which had already been made. Among them
are the facts that the huge stones of which
the walls were built were not absolutely
rude, but were roughly hewed and shaped
for their purpose ; that the walls were built
with clay mortar, which has been washed
away in all the exposed portions ; and that
these walls, which are of great thickness,
have chambers within them to which access

7o8

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

was had by galleries, the use of which had
previously been a puzzle to the explorers.
We have also in Professor F. Adler's pref-
ace, in which the writer makes comparisons
between the ruins of Tirj-ns and other monu-
ments of prehistoric Greece, and deduces the
significance in some points of the whole, a
few suggestions which open to us new con-
ceptions of the capacity and arts of the he-
roes. Many of the blocks of the upper cita-
del must weigh from 12,000 to 15,000 kilo-
grammes— even middle-sized stones weigh
from 3,700 to 4,000 kilogrammes — and
their transport, to their exact place on a
high and rocky site, was only possible with
the aid of many technical devices and a
host of workmen. These figures prove that
the citadel can not have been built in a
hurry, in the sight of an enemy, or as the
first stronghold of an invasion based on
maritime supremacy. In fact, " the colos-
sal walls tell every one able to read the
language of stones that their erection can
only have been effected in a long period of
peace, by a ruler with unusual sources of
power, and who had trained workmen un-
der his permanent control." There are
other facts that point to these buildings
being second structures on the site; and,
reviewing all the sites, "a real primitive
architecture is nowhere to be found ; even
in Troy the first steps of development
are long past. Within certain limits, the
materials are already under control, and
worked variously, according to the avail-
able means and the ends required. A
moderate but yet very fruitful store of
detail forms is already gathered, so as to
cover the gradually elaborated shapes of
rooms with significant adornments full of
meaning. In some peculiarly favored places,
the domain of the higher monumental archi-
tecture has already been entered upon with
decisive success. In the face of such ex-
tended and yet closely connected achieve-
ments, which form a consistent whole, the
attempt to search for the roots from which
arose this early bloom of the art of build-
ing is doubly attractive." Other sugges-
tions may be found relative to the develop-
ment of forms of architecture in stone from
models afforded by the primitive wooden
structures, and to the connection of this early
European with already old Egyptian art.

Brain-Rest. By J. Lkoxard Corning, M. D.
Second edition. New York : G. P. Put-
nam's Sons.

This little book, which may be regarded
as a supplement to the same author's trea-
tise on " Brain Exhaustion," published by
D. Applcton & Co., and already noticed in
the " Monthly," deals with the important
question of the reinvigoration of the brain
after exhausting mental labor or after dis-
ease. Dr. Corning has made a special study
of the subject, and his book contains many
facts and suggestions which brain-workers
may find of service, and by the help of
which they may be able to avoid or remedy
to some extent the great danger to which
tiieir method of life exposes them.

Report of the Committee of the Citizens'

ASSOCIATION ON THE MaIN DrAINAGE AND

Water-Scpplt of Chicago. J. C. Am-
bler, Secretary : Kooms, 35 Merchants'
Building, Chicago. Pp. 32.

The report shows that the water-supply
from the lake is always liable to contamina-
tion from sewage entering the lake any-
where within the present district. Hence,
all sewage whatsoever in this district should
be diverted from the lake as its outfall. The
flood-waters of the Desplaines and the North
Branch may be diverted to the lake north of
this district, or through Lake View town-
ship, and the South Fork may be connected
with the lake by a conduit. But the main
reliance for drainage should be by convey-
ance to the Illinois River. The general plan
suggested by the committee may be carried
out step by step, to the gradual improve-
ment of the sanitary condition, and without
creating a debt or requiring an extraordi-
nary tax-levy.

National Conference of State Boarps of
Health. J. N. McCormack, of Ken-
tucky, Secretary. Pp. 63.

This pamphlet, which is a reprint from
the Report of the Illinois State Board of
Health for 1885, contains an account of the
organization of the Conference in connection
with the meeting of the American Public
Health Association at Detroit, Michigan, in
November, 1883, and the reports of its first
meeting at St. Louis, in October, and the ad-
journed meeting, at Washington, in Decem-
ber, 1881.

LITERARY NOTICES.

709

The Annals of tiie Cakchiquels. The
Original Text, with a Translation, Notes,
and Introduction. By Daniel G. Brin-
TON.M.D. Philadelphia. Pp.234, Price,
$3.

This is the sixth volume of Dr. Brinton's
" Library of Aboriginal American Literature."
In the editor's estimation, on account of
both its historical and linguistic merits, the
document which it presents is one of the
most important in the class to which it be-
longs. " Written by a native who had grown
to adult years before the whites penetrated
to his ancestral home, himself a member of
the ruling family of one of the most civil-
ized nations of tlie continent and intimately
acquainted with its traditions, the work dis-
plays the language in its pure original form,
and also preserves the tribal history and a
part of its mythology, as they were current
before they were in the least affected by
European influences." The translation is
made directly from the orignail text. The
Cakchiquels were a nation of somewhat ad-
vanced culture, who lived within the area of
the present state of Guatemala, and spoke
a language related to the Maya. They were
agriculturists and skillful builders, and had
a picture-writing. The present work takes
up the history of the tribe during the latter
part of the fourteenth century, and brings
it down to about 1559. It was introduced
to public notice by the Abbe Brasseur de
Bourbourg, and Dr. Brinton's translation is
made from his copy.

Third Annual Report of the Bureau of
Ethnology, 1881-'82. By J. W. Pow-
ell, Director. Washington: Government
Printing-office. Pp. 606, with Plates.

The plan of the work of the Bureau of
Ethnology, of which this volume covers one
year, contemplates the direct employment
of scholars and specialists to conduct inves-
tigations and prepare the results for publi-
cation ; and the stimulation and guidance
of research by collaborators who volunta-
rily contribute the results of their work for
publication or other use. Papers were pub-
lished during the year covered by the report
in Volume V, of " Contributions to North
American Ethnology," on cup-shaped and
other lapidary sculptures, " Prehistoric Tre-
panning and Cranial Amulets," and the Maya
(Yucatan) " Manuscript Troano." The field-
work of the year embraced the researches

of Mr. Gushing among the Zunis, with the
labors of other observers in that tribe and
among the Pueblos ; researches by Mr. Gat-
schet among the Katabas in South Caroli-
na, Mrs. Erminnic A. Smith among the Iro-
quois, Dr. W. J. Uoffman among the Indi-
ans at J'ort Berthold, Dakota ; and " Mound
Explorations." Subjects bearing upon lin-
guistics and related branches have been
studied and elaborated in the office of the
Bureau. In the present volume are included
as "accompanying papers," and constitute
ing the greater part of its bulk, " Notes on
Certain Maya and Mexican Manuscripts," by
Cyrus Thomas ; " Masks, Labrets, and Cer-
tain Aboriginal Customs," by William H.
Dall ; " Omaha Sociology," by J. Owen Dor-
sey ; "Navajo Weavers," by Dr. Washing-
ton Matthews ; " Prehistoric Textile Fabrics
of the United States, derived from Impres-
sions on Pottery," by W. H. Holmes ; and
catalogues of two collections — one from
mounds and one from Arizona and New
Mexico — made during 1881.

Modern Molding and Pattern-making. By
Joseph P. Mullin, M. E. New York:
D. Van Nostraud. Pp. 257.

This is designed to be a practical treatise
on pattern-shop and foundry work, and em-
braces the molding of pulleys, spur-gears,
worm-gears, balance-wheels, stationary en-
gines, and locomotive cylinders, globe-valves,
tool-work, mining machinery, screw-propel-
lers, pattern-shop machinery, and the latest
improvements in English and American cu-
polas, together with rules and tables for
every-day use. Everything is given, in all
of its details, as the result of the author's
own careful study and actual personal ex-
perience, and, he says, " I have simply nar-
rated the work of my hands."

A Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Ed-
ited by George Grove, D. C. L. Parts
XX and XXI. New York : Macmillan &
Co. Pp. 256. Price, 81.
These numbers embrace the titles from
" ' Tis the Last Rose of Summer " to " The
Water-Music." Among the longer articles
are one on " Variations," " The Violin,"
"Violin-Playing," and ample biographical
sketches, with accounts of their works, of
"\\ rdi, the Abbe Vogler, and Richard Wag-
ner.

710

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The Journal of Physiology. Edited by
Mic-hael Foster, with Co operators in
England and America. Vol. VI, Nos. 4
and 5. American Agency with Profess-
sor II. Newell Martin, Johns llopkins
University. Baltimore: Pp. 150, with
Plates. Price, $5 a volume.

The " Journal of Physiology " is the
recognized register of physiological research
by English-speaking investigators, and pre-
sents as they are accumulated the results of
the studies of those distinguished cxperi-
mentists, on either side of the ocean, whose
discoveries have been the means of con-
tributing so much to the intelligent and effi-
cient treatment of human affliction. The
present number contains papers by G. F.
Yeo and J. W. Barrett, S. Ringer, II. Sew-
all and D. W. Stciner, J. A. Mc William and
T. Wesley Mills, on various aspects of the
heart ; S. Ringer and D. W. Buxton, on con-
tractile tissue, etc. ; C. S. Sherrington on
the spinal cord of the dog ; E. F. Hcrroun
and G. F. Yeo, on " The Sound accompany-
ing the Single Contraction of Skeletal Mus-
cle " ; and transcripts from the Proceedings
of the Physiological Society, 1SS5.

Revision of the Palj^ocrinoidea. Part
III. First Section. By Charles Wachs-
MUTH and Frank Springer. Philadel-
phia : William P. Kildare, Printer. Pp.
138, with Eight Plates.

Hardly any kinds of fossils arc more
attractive to the collector than the crinoids,
with their endless variety of forms, each dis-
tinguished by its peculiar style of beauty and
grace ; and hardly any other kind offers a
richer reward to the searcher for specimens
who is so fortunate as to find a bed of them.
Since the first part of this work was pub-
lished, some five years ago, great progi'css
has been made in the study of both the re-
cent and fossil members of the order, and
many new and interesting forms have been
discovered and described. The authors of
the monograph confess that their own knowl-
edge of the subject also has grown. The
present section of the work includes a dis-
cussion of the classification and relations of
the Brachiate crinoids, with generic descrip-
tions. A second section is promised in the
" Proceedings of the Philadelphia Academy
of Natural Sciences" for 1886, to contain
the Articulata and Quadrinata.

The PunLiSHED Whitings of Isaac Lea,
LL. D. By Newton Pratt Scudder.
Washington: Government Printing-of-
fice. Pp. 278.

This is Bulletin No. 23 of the United
States National Museum, and is the second
of a series of bibliographies of American
naturalists which the Museum is publishing.
Dr. Lea is our oldest conchologist, and is
one of the most laborious and fruitful devo-
tees in that branch of research that our
country has had. He is still living, in his
ninety-fourth year, and blessed with good
health and unimpaired mental and physical
faculties. The list of his publications, as
given in this work, with full descriptions of
each, includes 279 titles. His cabinet of
Unionldce in Philadelphia displays about
ten thousand individuals, of different ages,
so arranged that each may be separately
examined, and it is unique in having many
species arranged with a sequence from the
youngest to the oldest, so that the student
may see at a glance the aspect of their
growth.

Bulletin of the Sedalia Natural History
Society. Sedalia, Mo. No. 1, August,
1885. F. A. Sampson, Corresponding
Secretary. Pp. 30.

The society was organized January 14,
1884, and has been able to report a year
and a half of successful operation. This
first number of its " Bulletin " contains its
constitution and by-laws, list of officers, and
acknowledgments of contributions ; together
with papers on the " Shells of Pettis Coun-
ty," by F. A. Sampson, and " Pettis County
Pcntremites," by Dr. G. Hambach,

Bulletin of the Minnesota Academy op
Natural Sciences. Volume II. No. 5.
C. W. Hall, Secretary, Minneapolis, Minn.
Pp. 84.

The present number of the " Bulletin "
includes papers from May, 1881, to Decem-
ber, 1882, the publication of which has be-
fore been unavoidably delayed. Among the
more important papers arc a report " On
Some Tests of Building-Stones," by J. A.
Dodge ; a report on the " Mineralogy of the
State, with Notes on the Bibliography of the
Subject," by N. H. Winchell ; and " Meteor-
ological Statistics of Minneapolis for Eight-
een Year.=," by William Cheney.

LITERARY NOTICES.

711

The System of High Licenses : How it can

BE MADE SUCCESSFUL. By G. ThOMANN.

New York : The United States Brewers'

Association. Pp. 36.

The imprint of tiiis publication indicates
the point of view from which the subject is
considered. The paper is a plea for dis-
crimination in the imposition of licenses in
favor of what arc called the lighter drinks.
The author cites, in support of his views,
from the records of licensing and liquor-
selling in Switzerland and various places in
Germany.

An Iron Crown : A Tale of the Great Re-
public. Chicago: T. S. Denison, 1885.
Pp. 560. Price, $1.50,

In the course of this story the attempt
is made to show the dangers to free govern-
ment threatened in the growing abuses of
corporate power. It deals with million-
aires, mining, railroads, etc., and takes the
side of the people against the " daring
freebooters who would seize the people's
rights."

The Fixed Idea of Astronomical Theory.
By August Tischner. Lsipsic : Gustav
Fock. Pp. 86.

We several months ago noticed the book
by this author, " The Sun changes his Posi-
tion in Space, therefore he can not be re-
garded as being in a Condition of Rest," in
which the competency of the present astro-
nomical system is attacked because it is
based on the assumption of a fixed sun.
In the present work the author postulates a
new theory which takes the motion of the
sun into account.

Free Cities in the Middle Ages. By L. R.

Klemm. Ilamilton, Ohio. Pp. 22.

This paper, which was read before a
local literary and scientific society, is after
the German of G. F. Kalb, and sketches one
of the most remarkable and interesting phe-
nomena of modern history — the develop-
ment and life of those free communities
which maintained a prosperous and in-
dependent existence amid the degradation
and conflicts of mediaeval times, holding
their own against the military barons and
princes who would have crushed them if
they could, and whose part was most im-
portant in preserving civilization and giv-
ing life to industry and art.

Bulletins of the United States National
Museum, No. 28. A Manual of Ameri-
can Land-shells. By W. G. Binney.
Pp. 528. No. 29, Results of Ornitho-
logical Explorations in the Command-
er Islands and Kamchatka. By Leon-
hard Stejneger. Pp. 382, with Eight
Plates.

The " Manual of American Land-shella "
appears as an enlarged and revised edition
of "The Land and Fresh-water Shells of
North America, Part I," which was pub-
lished by the Smithsonian Institution in 1869.
Subsequently described species are added.
Fuller attention is given in separate chapters
to the subjects of geographical distribution,
organs of generation, jaw and lingual den-
tition, and classification. In description, the
species are grouped geographically rather
than systematically. The work was pre-
pared with Mr. Thomas Bland, who died in
August, 1885, as co-author. The mono-
graph by Mr. Stejneger is the first attempt
to present a complete list of the birds known
to have been observed in Kamchatka. It is
divided into three parts, consisting of a re-
view of the species of birds collected or ob-
served by the author in the Commander Isl-
ands and at Petropaulski, a synopsis of
the birds reported to inhabit Kamchatka,
and conclusions. The second part is given
to make the account of the birds of Kam-
chatka as complete as possible.

Reception Day, No. 4. New York: E. L.
Kellogg & Co. Pp. 156. Price, 25
cents.

This is a collection of fresh and origi-
nal dialogues, recitations, declamations, and
short pieces for practical use in public and
private schools. The compiler has aimed to
have the pieces short, easy to be compre-
hended, infused with life and spirit, fitted
for average pupils in the schools, and free
from double-meanings and all that can verge
on impropriety or vulgarity.

Notes on the Opium-Habit. By Asa P.
Meylert, M. D. Fourth edition. New
York : G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 49.

Some additional data relative to the treat-
ment of the habit have been inserted in this
edition ; and the author gives the result of
his investigations on the administration of
cocaine hydrochlorate as a specific.

712

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Vol. I, No. 1. Bangor,

The Monthly Index.
Me. : Q. P. Index. P. 1. 25 cents a year.

The Relations of Mind and Matter. By Charles
Morns. Pp. luo. ' ■^uaiico

Function : Its Evolution and Influence on Or-
^iT^p"' 11 ^ *^" ^' ^'^'^^' ^- ^- '*• PJ'iladel-

Chronological List of Scientific Books and Papers
Pp. 10. Address to the Department of i'harn a.y,
Mate University of Iowa. Pp. 8. By Gustavus
Uiunchs. Iowa City, Iowa.

TrJnron°N.1.''VlrrNo''L'"pt'^.f°'^''*<='*^

Tod^i'^'i'^i^'rhVrate.'''''''^- ^>'^-f^»«<"-J.E.

&Ca"pp.f8.'''2rce?.s. ^-^^ = -^o-ph Burnett

r\^^'^%T ^[?'|;'^e of Mystic, Blackstone. and

Wri'ht ^^"p^'',,^"'!^.^- .^J»ssachusetts. Boston:

•!1"?M * ^""'^'' Printing: Company Pd 243

with Plates and Maps. P J'- rp. ^w,

Monthly Cauilo-ue. United States Government
Publications. Nos. 9 and 10. Washington, D C •
J. H. Uickey. Pp. 20 each. $2 a year.

The Bizan-e Notes and Queries, January, 1886
$1 a year ' ' "' '■ ^^ "^^ ^ ^- ^- ^''"''^- ^'P Ss!

tn .W- ?'' "^*;'^^'- PP-3T, with Maps. Letters
to the Mississippi El ver Commission, in 14 Rv
James B. Lads. New Tork. •'^

i««fl'p'''' State Board of Health, Annual Meeting,
1886, Report ot Proceedings, i^pringfield, 111. Pp
66. Decisions under Medical Practice Laws Pn
44. Conspectus of Medical Education. Pp.138.

Tliillucinations In Inebrlctv, etc. Pp. 20. States
of DcOiruim In Inebriety, i'p. 7. By T. D. Croth-
ers. Hartford, Conn.

Oxjgen : Its Place in Therapeutics. By S S
Wallian. Now York. Pp. 30. j • o.

The Truth-Seeker Annual. Now Tork : Truth-
beeker Office. Is86. Pp.106. 25 cents.

Georgia Department of Agriculture, Supple-
mental Report of 18S5. Atlanta : J. P. Uarrisoli &
M). Pp. 52. I

Directors' Report, Harvard Astronomical Ob-
servatory Pp. 13. Early E.Yperiments In Tele-
gniphing Sound. Pp. T. By Edward C. Pickering |
Cambridge, Mass. °

Transactions of the State Medical Society of
Wisconsin. 1885 Dr. J. T. Reeve, Secretary. Ad- '
pletons. Pp. ITO.

Reports on Electric Signal and Rogfstorinff Ad-
paratus. Philadelphia : Franklin Institute. Pn.
9G, with Plates. ^ I

Technical Inctrnction In Europe. By Charles O
ihompson. Washington: Government Printin?-
Othce. Pp. ,55. ^

The Western Society of Psvchical Research J
K'. >V oodhead. Secretary. Chicago. Pp. 8.

Hearing and Deafbess. By F. G. Riley, M. D
■Mewlork. Pp. 16. '

Lunar Irregularities due to the Action of Jupi-
ter Washington : Bureau of Navigation, Navv De-
partment. Pp. 20. b , ^y UK.

Quarterly Report of the Bure.iu of Statistics to
iT^h^l'^^ ^Washington: Government

Report of the Industrial Education Association
Kcw York, 21 University Place. Pp. 81.

Guide to Buyers and Sellers of Real Estate. Bv
George W. Van SIcklen. New York. Pp. 68. "

Report of the Prison Association of New York

Pp ^T'''*" ^^'^^' ^^' ^' *'• ^°'*^'^' ««c'^""-y-

fv.Ji!"'i7''o°''^*^P*''' ^'''^ ^"""-av. Bv Elmer L.
Ml; /P-.S"-„P'-o^e''dii't's of a Pdbllc Meet-
ing at St. Louis. Pp. 28. |

An InfldeVs Plea for Christianity. By C M.
Clark. Seward, Neb. I'p. 16. "7 v.. m.

Western North Carolina as a Health Resort Bv
Henry O. .Marcy. Boston. Pp. 24. '

Extracts from G. von Path's Notes on the Be-
tnent Collection of Minerals. Pp. H. Meteoric
Iron from Jenny's Creek, West Virginia. Pp. 4.
By George F. Kuijz. New York. ^

The Louisiana Purchase. By Bishop C P
Robertson. New York : G. P. Putnam's sdns Pn
42. 6o cents. *^'

The Theories of Ore Deposits. Pp. 14 Tho
Keweenaw Series, etc., of Michigan. Pp. y. Bv M
Ji. Wadsworth, ''

Transactions of the New York Academv of Sci-

?'!fnH-9^»"-i- ^,^^'>^-«' PplfeC. Vol.-V.Nos.
1 and 2. Pp. ,8. $3 a year, or 40 cents a number.

Journal of the Cincinnati Society of Natural
S'^^fwUh'piafe.'*''- ^- ^- •^''"^'-'«' «--'-^-

Transactions of the Anthropological Societv of
Washmgton. Vol. III. Sunihsoni;,. InstUaUon!

HaS; Va"" P^!'^;.= '^ ^'""-^ ^- Two Races.

Diccionario Tecnologico, English-Spanish, No.
15. ^ew \ ork : N. Ponce de Leon. Pp ne 60
cents. ^ • '"'

Cephalopoda of the Cincinnati Group By Pro-
Plate' ^' '^''™''*' ^"'<='°""". Pp. 20, with

p.5'''1"'''a °'«to™al Researches. Edited by the
Rev. A. A. Lambing. Wilkinsburg, Allegheny
County, Pa. January, 1886. Pp. 40. $1 a year^
Manual Training - School, Washington Univer-
sity, St. Louis. 18S5-'S6. Pp. 45. ^"'ver

Revista di Artiglieria e Genio (Review of Artil-
Pp 246 ^''Kineering), December, 1885. Rome.

John Cabot's Landfall in 1497, and the Site of

I ^oh. w-!^"- , ^I ^- ^' Ho'-^ford. Cambridge
John Wilson & Son, Pp. 41. ^

Evolution and Religion. By Henry Ward
lnurb'ert.^''^;,.'li0.'^|I^°'-'^= '""'^'^ "''"•''^'^'

The Spartan and Theban Supremacies. By
Charles Sankey Pp. 231. The Early Hanoverians
By tdward fc. Morris. Pp. 235. New YoT-
Charles Scribner's Sons. $1 each.

Introduction to the Study or Chemistry. Bvlra
I Eemsen. New York : Henry Holt & Co. Pp. 88™

on^^i"^^ ^"^^ests- Their Relations to Each Other
and to Government. P,y the author of "Conflict

Co prn'"*^ ^'^'" ^""^ ^'""""^ "■ ^PPi«°»°&

ToP.^'^.l'T^ Agriculture By A. N. Cole. New
lork. 1 he "American Angler." Pp 223. *2

Mechanics and Faith. By Charles Talbot Porter

New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 295 $[.6o"

Rationalism in Medical Treatment. By William

Thornton. Pp. 46. ^ "uaui

Mineral Resources in the United States Re-
ports for 1883 and 1884. By Albert Wilhams, Jr
1016 ^^ Government Printing-Offlce. Pp!

History of California. By Theodore H. Hittell
House Pp'.TOg;"'!.?.'' ''^ = Occidental Publishing

Oceana, or, England and her Colonies. By
J.ames Anthony Froude. New York: Charles
Scnbner's Sons. Pp. ;»<;. j;2.r)0. "".lea

Mechanical Integrators. By Professor Henry

oJo K,^'''"-. ^"^ ^ork: D. Van Nostrand. Pp.
212. 60 cents. ^

Household Remedle.s. By Felix L. Oswald
New York : Fowler & Wells Company. Pp. 229.

V.™ ^'T*'i° ^f^^^" J,'"P"9onment. By Silvio Pellico.
New York : Casscll & Co. Pp. 200. 10 cents.

i

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

713

Before Tilsit. By Count Leon Tolstoi. New
York : W. 8. Gottsberger. Two Vols. Pp. 322 and
357. $1.T5.

History of Alaska. By Hubert Howe Ban-
croft. (Works, Vol. XX.VIII.) 6an Francisco:
A. L. Bancrolt & Co. Pp. 775.

Marlborough. By Georpe Saintsbury. New
York : D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 219. 75 cents.

A History of German Literature. By W-
Scherer. Translated by Mrs F. C. Conybcare.
Edited by V. Max Mfiller. New York: Charles
Scribner'sSons. Two Vols. Pp. 401 and 425. $3.5U.

Easy Lessons in German. By Adolphe Drey-
spring. New York : D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 103.
70 cents.

Problems in Philosophy. By John Bascom.
New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 222.

Popular Government. By .Sir Henry Sumner
Maine. New York: Henry Holt & Co. Pp. 261.
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Delsarte Sy.stem of Dramatic Expression. By
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Pp. 271. $2.

The Determination of Eock-forming Minerals.
By Dr. Eug<m Hussak. Translated by Erastus G.
Smith. New York: John Wiley «&" Sons. Pp.
233. $3.

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Outlines of Psychology. With Special Refer-
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M. A., Examiner in the University of Cambridge,
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Principal of the Normal Training-School, P.atersori,
N. J. C. W. Bardeen : Syracuse, N. Y, Pp. 372.
$1.50.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

The Real Kature of " Prodigies." — Mr.

C. F. Cox has published, in the " Journal "
of the New York Microscopical Society, a
most interesting paper on "The So-called
Prodigies of Earlier Ages." He believes
that the stories of wonderful phenomena
and portents with which the old books
abound have a certain interest and value
to the student and philosopher of to-day,
" because they furnish landmarks in the
progress of observation, and give us clews
to that credulous state of the human mind
which seems to have necessarily preceded
the foundation of inductive reasoning."
Themcre historian of scientific discovery
will also find in them what he must be-
lieve to be truthful statements of facts,
mingled with distorted and erroneous in-
terpretations and many unintentional mis-
statements of what were thought to be
facta ; and he may employ himself with
some profit in separating the true from the
false. Mr. Cox cites from a variety of
books, particularly from Wolffhart's illus-

trated " Chronicle," a large list of wonder-
ful appearances, which he divides into thir-
teen classes, for each of which he finds a
particular way of accounting with an ap-
proach to satisfactoriness. Thus, the sweat-
ing and weeping of images, altars, etc., may
be regarded as exaggerated cases of the
condensation of vapor upon them. The
bleeding of stones, shields, etc., was most
probably the growth of the red lichen upon
them, though it may in some cases have
been rust. Showers of earth, chalk, ashes,
etc., hardly need accounting for ; and rains
of brimstone may have been clouds of pol-
len, spores, or other yellow vegetable prod-
ucts. Showers of oil were probably not
showers at all, but marks of supposed
showers in the shape of greasy spots on
the earth or stones or plants, or iridescent
films on water ; the appearance is sometimes
produced by the growth of gelatmous pro-
tophytes, like the nostocs. The flowing of
oil in brooks, etc., is also accounted for, as
it would always be now, as a case of irides-
cence. Stories of showers of milk may
have originated in the appearance of white
spots, generally caused by growths of fun-
gus, on leaves. The flowing of milk from
the earth, in streams, etc., might be in most
cases the superstitious interpretation of so
simple a fact as the mixture of calcareous
earth with ordinary running water ; or, im-
der favorable conditions, some of the lower
forms of life might multiply so enormously
as to give a milky hue to considerable bodies
of water, as they do constantly under our
own observation in a smaller way. The
spotting of bread, grain, leaves, stones,
etc., with blood, is a phenomenon easily ac-
counted for by a very slight knowledge of
the various forms and habits of the red and
orange-yellow fungi. The flowing of blood
in the ocean, rivers, springs, etc., is to be
accounted for in some instances by the
presence, in unusual quantities, of red algae.
" Showers of blood " may be referred to
similar algae ; or deposits referable to such
showers may be produced, as was known to
be the case at Aix-la-Chapelle in July, 1608,
by butterfly-chrysalides undergoing trans-
formation, when large drops of a blood-
colored liquid exude from them. Red snow
is known to be a protococcus. "Showers
of flesh " — one occurred in Kentucky in

714

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ISTS, and was so accounted for — may occur
when buzzards, having gorged themselves
with carrion, disgorge it as they fly in the
air. " Thus easily " — in the Kentucky case
it was the flesh of a horse, and the buzzards
were seen — " was a modern prodigy disposed
of ; and quite as rationally, we now see, might
we dispose of all ancient prodigies which were
not mendacious fabrications, if only we could
catechise witnesses and apply scientific meth-
ods to the examination of such facts as were
found to remain."

Stndy out of School. — On the question
of study out of school-hours, Mr. L. W. Par-
ish, of the Iowa State Teachers' Associa-
tion, maintains that education should look
to the most natural, complete development
of physical, mental, and moral qualities.
Neither side should be preferred at the ex-
pense of another, but all three should be
developed baud in hand. To secure the
proportionate and therefore most effective
training of the intellectual powers, little or
nothing is required, during the first three
or four years of school-life, which a skillful
and faithful teacher can not accomplish
without forcing book-work upon the chil-
dren during the evening hours, or during the
time that belongs of right to physical devel-
opment, or the performance of home duties.
But, that the work may be done thus, unfa-
vorable circumstances must be removed, and
both pupil and teacher must do their parts.
The pupil must be regular and industrious,
and the teacher must show herself mistress
of the best methods of presenting topics of
instruction. On account of some irregular
and unwholesome influences operating upon
8chools, more out-of-school study than is
necessary or good is demanded, but an in-
telligent co-working of teachers, parents,
physicians, and the local press ought to
cause a steady decrease of it, and an in-
crease in systematic physical and moral
training.

Tlie Soarth for the Traus-lVcptnnian
Planet.— 5Ir. David P. Todd, of the Law-
rence Observatory, Amherst, Massachusetts,
has published a memoir on his search for
the trans-Neptunian planet. He uses the
definite article — the — in speaking of this
body, hypothetical though it still may be,

because he regards the evidence of its exist-
ence as well-founded, while, during all the
time he has been engaged in the search of
it, nothing has weakened his conviction of
its existence in about that part of the sky
he has assigned to it. The independent re-
searches in cometary perturbations by Pro-
fessor Forbes have furthermore conducted
him to a result identical with Mr. Todd's —
a coincidence, it is suggested, not to be
lightly set aside as pure accident. That
five years have elapsed since this coinci-
dence was remarked, and the planet is still
unfound, docs not make it evident that the
existence of the planet is merely fanciful,
for the particular spot in which its presence
is suspected has received very little scrutiny
with telescopes competent to such a search.
The time has now come when, by the help
0^ the developments and improvements that
have been made in astronomical photog-
raphy, the search can be profitably un-
dertaken by any observer having the rare
combination of time, enthusiasm, and the
necessary appliances. In aid of any such
search, Mr. Todd has published a record
of his observations of the indicated region,
with the twenty-six-inch refractor telescope
of the Naval Observatory, accompanied by
exact transcriptions of the " finder " dia-
grams, and of diagrams showing the rela-
tive positions of objects.

Distribntion of Trees in Canada. — Mr.

A. T. Drummond, in a paper read before the
British Association last year, on " The Distri-
bution of Canadian Forest-Trees," ascribes
an important part to the existence of large
bodies of water in the eastern part of the
country, and of conditions under which a
much milder climate is given, with a higher
range of trees, on the western side of the
continent. Then, in the United States and ■
Canada the mountain-ranges are somewhat
continuous, and have a northern and south-
ern trend, affording an opportunity to the
northern trees to extend southward on their
flanks, and to the southern trees to range
northward in the valleys ; and this has given
rise to a more extended distribution than
could otherwise occur. Another important
clement in the distribution is the chain of
the lakes, which forms a barrier to the free
extension into Canada of the southern forma

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

715

common in our "lake States." Neverthe-
less, the currents of the lakes have been
the means of distributing seeds on the jut-
ting headlands of the northern coast, where
a few southern forms have been found.
On the other hand, the cooling effect of such
large bodies of water encourages the growth
of northern species, and thus around the
coasts of Lake Superior the flora includes a
few semi-Arctic plants, though inland these
all disappear, and the vegetation is of a
more northern temperate t^-pe. Only a few
trees have the faculty of making themselves
at home over as wide an extent as some
herbaceous plants ; and these are those usu-
ally which have light or winged seeds. One
reason for the different development of this
faculty in trees and herbs is probably that
the seeds of trees are of greater size and
weight, and less easily carried away from
their parent. A break in the westward ex-
tension of a considerable number of the for-
est-trees occurs beyond Lake Superior and
Red River. This is ascribed to the greater
dryness of the climate west of that lake,
the effect of which is also seen in the alleged
superior quality of the wood of the aspen
and spruce trees. Too much moisture in
the atmosphere has also its results in deter-
mining the range of trees. The same causes
which prevent the range westward beyond
Red River of many of the Eastern trees, also
prevail in restricting the eastward range of
the British Columbia trees beyond the influ-
ence of the Rocky Mountains.

Local Climates of Exposure. — Professor
W. Mattieu Williams, in the " Gentleman's
Magazine," quotes with approval Dr. Frank-
land's recommendation of elevated snow-
covered districts as winter sanitariums, and
adds some observations of his own. Perti-
nently to the subject of reflection from wa-
ters. Professor Williams notices the position
of Torbay, so celebrated for its mild win-
ter chmatc, as on the one part of the Dev-
onshire coast that has the most direct ex-
posure to the east. " It hugs the east winds
that blow directly into it from the open sea,
and has no protection whatever from them.
Paignton is the most directly exposed and
the warmest part of the bay ; the next is
Torquay, or rather the Paignton side of
Torquay." The mildness of the Torquay

climate is also promoted by favorable in-
clination to reflection of the early morning
sun-heat of the slopes, and by the tempering
to which the cast winds are subjected be-
fore reaching the land. At Broadstairs "is
a little sandy bay backed by cliffs and fac-
ing directly east. I have several times on
a sunny day in winter-time walked along the
sands from the Granville side of Ramsgate
to Broadstairs, and have been much inter-
ested in observing the sudden change of cli-
mate experienced on turning the projecting
cliff forming the south horn of the bay. La-
dies sit on the sands there with needlework
and novels in the month of December." The
sea-reflection is in many cases powerfully
supplemented by cliff- reflection. "When
the aspect is due south, as at Hastings, it
overrides it altogether. The peculiar cli-
mate of Hastings is, I think, entirely due to
this, for here we have the anomaly of sea-
cliffs that have been deserted by the sea,
which has left sufScient fore - shore for
houses to be built between it and the cliffs.
In the winter these cliffs warm these houses
by reflecting the southward mid-day sun ;
in the summer they roast them. Not only
do cliffs reflect some of the sun's rays dur-
ing the day, but they absorb the remainder
and give it out after the sun has set. . . .
Other local climatic influences may be noted ;
among them the effect of a stretch of dry
sand above high- water mark and at the foot
of cliffs."

The Qnaternary Moose of New Jerseyt —

Professor W. B. Scott has described, before
the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadel-
phia, a very large extinct moose or elk, the
almost complete fossil skeleton of which,
now in the Museum of Princeton College,
was discovered in a shell-marl deposit under
a bog at Mount Hermon, New Jersey. With
the exception of five caudal vertebrae, every
important bone of the skeleton that is miss-
ing is represented by its fellow of the oppo-
site side, so that it has been hardly possible
to go astray in making the necessary resto-
rations. The skeleton is of an adult but
not old individual, and appears to belong
to the same species with one described by
Wistar, and called by Harlan Cervus Ameri-
canUrS, which, together with some metacar-
pals described by Leidy, is preserved in the

7i6

TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadel-
phia. This species can not, however, be
included in any known genus, as these are
at present defined, and lor that reason Mr.
Scott has proposed for it the name Ccrval-
ccs Americamis. The most obvious pecul-
iarity of the skeleton is the great length of
the legs, which gives the animal a stilted
appearance, while the thorax is shallow and
the neck short. The shoulders are higher
than the hips, as in the moose, and unlike
those of the stag. The combined length of
the head and neck shows that in the ordi-
nary position of the legs the muzzle would
not reach the ground by fourteen or fifteen
inches. Measured in the same manner, the
moose's muzzle reaches to within about ten
inches from the ground, and that of Mega-
ceros to eight or nine inches. This and
some other features of the structure indi-
cate that the habits of the animal, and to
some degree its appearance, were those of
the moose. Its short neck shows that it
would have great difficulty in grazing, and
so probably lived by browsing upon shrubs
and trees. This was aided by a more or
less prehensile upper lip, which the charac-
ter of the nasal opening shows to have been
more probfiscis-like than in the deer, though
far less so than in the moose. Morpho-
logically, the fossil is of interest for the
light which it seems to throw upon the
question of the genus Alecs, and its rela-
tions to the typical deer.

Many Drnjs : Few Bemedieso — In an ad-
dress on " Many Drugs : Few Remedies," Dr.
George K. Welch, of Keyport, New Jersey,
draws a highly-colored picture of the help-
lessness of the average medical practice in
the face of disease. The schools increase
and the graduates swarm, " but how many
great physicians can you name, and which
are tlie diseases borne under the annual
spring-flood of doctors ; and yet, where is
the young doctor who does not believe in
the magic of drugs, and the old doctor, if
he be a wise man, who does not look upon
the most of them as mischievous, and the
minority as deserving of restriction ? The
pathologist is skeptical of them all. With
laborious zeal we study diseases. . . . We
anatomize and compare, and the professor
awes with learned length while he discourses

of the ills he can not cure. ... Do we, wait-
ing behind the eye of Koch, know anything
of tuberculosis, or believe that he does?
Does not the ravage go on ? And who has
won eminence in curing yellow fever ? Are
men no longer in dread of cholera ? And
the exanthemata — does not the grewsome
pendulum of disease sweep into and out of
every neighborhood about once in five years ?
Who cures rheumatism, or typhoid fever, or
chronic Bright's disease ? And where is the
stout heart that never failed before a patient
burning and broiling in the horrible slow
flame of pyaemia? And yet, who refrains
from prescribing ? The witches move one
way about the caldron, and we go the other ;
they throw in the drugs that brew the poi-
sons, and we throw in the counter-poisons.
Stille and Maisch's 'Dispensatory' has a
list of one hundred and fifty remedies for
rheumatism, a disease which is as likely to
become chronic with treatment as without it.
Everybody has a specific, from your grand-
aunt with teas, fomentations, and flannel,
to/the last German doctor with forty grains
of salycilic acid to the dose. . . . The trouble
is, medical thought moves too much toward
specifics." Improvement must come, part-
ly by enforcing the responsibility of every
physician to all, or by the establishment of
a college of experimental medicine, with a
system of registration for correcting errors
of observation ; or, in other words, by adopt-
ing for the study of disease the methods of
the experimental physiologists.

Reform of Jnries. — The causes of the
decline of juries and the remedy for it are
considered by Mr. Edwin Young, of the Al-
bany bar, in a paper on " The Jury in Mod-
ern Corporate Life." The theory of the
institution, that " twelve disinterested free-
holders of the neighborhood, of average in-
telligence and virtue, are best qualified to
determine issues of fact," ought, if carried
out, to secure an ideal tribunal. It does
not secure it, but something far different.
The reason of the deterioration that has
come over juries is easily found in the ex-
emptions allowed by law, some of them
really unnecessary and even improper when
the true view of the case is taken, which
furnish a loop-hole through which a consid-
erable body of our best citizens escape from

I

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

717

service ; in the abuse of the power and dis-
cretion of the court in granting excuses on
the ground of " business engagements," or
otlier trivial pretexts ; in the collusion of
officers to keep names off the jury-lists ;
and in public apathy and unwillingness to
serve. Hence jury-duty has to be performed
largely by persons who are not worthy of it,
and who arc often regardless of the obli-
gation of an oath. " To revive its useful-
ness," Mr. Young says, "the jury must be
purged. As an institution handed down by
our forefathers, it is amply sufHcient for the
purposes for which it was intended. It is
only in its abuse that we suffer, and that
abuse can only be remedied by a revival of
public spirit, and the realization of the fact
that private interests are best subserved by
the devotion of a part of oui' time to public
duties."

Colored Andition. — M. A. de Rochas has
published some notes on " Colored Audition,"
a faculty which some persons are alleged to
possess of perceiving sensations of color in
connection with the hearing of particular
sounds. To most of the persons who have
reported to him on the subject, acute sounds
and the vowel i (French) appear red or of
a brilliant color, but the variations in the
matter are infinite. One lady associates its
especial color with each note of the musical
scale, each vowel, and each digit ; and she
never hears any sum mentioned without the
colors of all the figures it contains passing
in succession before her eyes. Anothter lady
sees names colored — John, bright red ; Jo-
seph, very dark blue ; Louis, red ; Louisa,
blue ; and Lucy, yellow ; while all names
ending in %k are green. An engineer as-
sociates a color with the name of every day
of the week. To him, Monday is a gray day ;
Tuesday and Wednesday, white ; Thursday,
yellow ; Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, dark-
red. Most of the persons known to have
this faculty have had it from infancy.

The National 9Insenm. — By a "Hand-
book " just published by Ernest Ingersoll
and his associates, Messrs. Taylor and Ains-
worth, the National Museum at the Smith-
sonian Institution, Washington, is shown to
be a group of most interesting and varied
collections. It started with the remarkable

and heterogeneous accumulation of curiosi-
ties at the Patent-Oflicc which once foi-raed
one of the great attractions for visitors to
the national capital. The Smithsonian In-
stitution having been organized and housed,
and the Patent-OflSce having become too
full of the models and goods legitimately its
own, the curiosities were turned over to the
care of the Smithsonian agents. To these
collections have been added from time to
time — after the Centennial Exhibition, the
government exhibits of other countries ; the
zoological treasures of the Fish Commis-
sion ; specimens of natural resources from
Territorial surveys ; the mineralogical, geo-
logical, archaeological, anthropological, and
natural history treasures that have been
gathered in the course of the Government
surveys which have been systematically car-
ried on over our whole domain ; and various
articles, special collections, etc., gathered
from different quarters of the globe. The
museum is housed in dust-proof plate-glass
cases, in a building which has been con-
structed expressly for it, and which is de-
scribed as having been filled up from the
Greek cross radiating from a central rotunda
into a complete square, the exterior walls
of which are three hundred and seventy-five
feet in length. The various collections have
been scientifically and topically classified
and arranged, and are accessible in the sev-
eral departments of geology, mineralogy,
chemistry, economic geology, and metallur-
gy, as representing the inorganic world ; and
of botany, zoology, anthropology, archaeolo-
gy, ethnology, and comparative technology,
as representing the organic world ; each of
the departments being further subdivided
according to its various branches. The mu-
seum is under the care of Dr. Spencer F.
Baird as director, and G. Brown Goode as
assistant director, with twenty-four curators,
all but nine of whom serve "without expense
to it.

Poetry and Reality in Znai.— Dr. R. W.
Shufeldt, U. S. Army, in a sketch, in " For-
est and Stream," of an excursion through
Zuiii-land, speaks of his entrance into the
pueblo as like stepping from the pictures —
which we have in the descriptions of Mr.
Gushing and others — into the reality. " There
were the squarish houses all piled up on one

718

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

another, and the chimney-pots and openings
on the roof ; there bristled up in many di-
rections the tops of the ladders ; there were
the Zufiis themselves on the roofs with oth-
ers in the streets, bearing on their heads
the very jars, the like of which I had so
often seen my artist friends in the National
Museum illustrating; in short, here was
Zuni, for it has not its counterpart in all the
world. At our approach a dozen dogs raised
the alarm, and off scampered a group of
half-naked children of both sexes with their
black, negro-like heads of hair (the biggest
part of some of them) blowing in the wind.
Strange as it may seem, our first inquiry
was, how came the hill there upon which
this ancient pueblo was erected ? The plain
for miles about it is almost as level as the
surface of a lake. Imagine the impression
it made upon us when, after our examina-
tion, the undeniable fact stared us in the
face that although Zuni may have originally
been started on a slight rise in the plain,
yet its present elevation — between thirty
and forty feet above the datum plane — is
due largely in some places to the accumu-
lated excrement of the burros, and I sus-
pect, too, to some degree, the refuse from
the houses ! This condition can better be
seen at the pueblo of Las Nutrias, where
the entire lower stories of some of their
houses are covered above their roofs by a
like guano deposit, while additional stories
have been built on and above them. In
Zuni this condition is more particularly the
case on the side of the pueblo facing to-
ward the missionary-house. In this situa-
tion the side of the hill has been cut away
to make room for a garden, and its composi-
tion is easily studied. I am not aware that
this fact has been published before ; but it
seems hardly possible that a thing so evi-
dent has been overlooked. We were disap-
pointed at finding the pueblo so nearly de-
serted. Not more than one house in ten
was occupied, as every able-bodied man and
woman was at this time of the year away
planting wheat, as we saw them at Las Nu-
trias. Upon leaving home, a Zuni closes
the little low door to his house by piling a
(juantity of stones up in front of it. He
also takes the precaution to plaster up with
clay the opening upon the roof. Such fast-
ening is considered a sacred seal, and no

honest one would think of breaking it any
more than we would a seal to a letter. We
saw all the empty houses closed up in this
way, and it lent the pueblo a terribly de-
serted appearance." All of the poetry of
the scene was taken out by the remark of
one of Dr. Shufeldt's companions, an emi-
nent professor, as they turned to go away,
that " he had seen enough of that mass of
hovels on a dung-hill, inhabited by people
whose habits and customs are too frightful
to think of." In fact, every law known to
sanitary science seemed to be violated at the
pueblo.

The Fine Arts in Barmah. — Several of
the fine arts flourish to a certain degree in
Burmah, although none of them are as highly
developed as they are in India, Weaving is
very ancient and is widely diffused through-
out the country, yet the weavers of the
finest and most highly adorned fabrics are
foreigners, the descendants of slaves brought
from Manipur. In drawing, Burmans who
are trained to any art are masters of the
pencil, although they have little idea of per-
spective or of the balance of light and shade.
While the details are conventional, the gener-
al idea is the creation of the workman, and
the pictures are often full of life and humor.
Decoration of funeral-pyres with paintings,
sometimes extremely grotesque, is an im-
portant branch of this art. Brass-founders
make images of Gotama, bells of various
characters, and the flat, crescent - shaped
gongs which are used for religious purposes.
Wood-carving has a very extensive range of
variety in character. Some of the work in
foliage and figures in the Buddhist monas-
teries is remarkably beautiful, as well in the
delicacy of the curves as in the lightness
and grace of the open tracery. An Insti-
tute of Industrial Arts has been established
at Rangoon, to develop this industry. A cu-
rious and intricate effect is obtained in carv-
ing some articles in ivory, when " the outside
of the specimen is carved with foliage and
flowers, through the interstices of which the
inside is hollowed out nearly to the center,
where a figure is carved in situ. The figure
looks as if it had been carved separately
and inserted into a flowery bower, but closer
examination shows that this is not the case,
and the men may be at any time seen carv-

NOTES.

719

ing the figure through the opening of the
tracery." Every village larger than a ham-
let has its goldsmith and silversmith. In
the filigree ornaments made by goldsmiths,
the burnished gold retains its proper color,
but the other gold is dyed red with tama-
rind-juice, a barbaric custom to which the
Burmese cling tenaciously. The reason giv-
en for it is that no other metal but gold
will assume this particular ruddy color when
treated with tamarind-juice ; it may in fact
be regarded as the hall-mark of Burmese
jewelry. The silver - work of Burmah is
much esteemed by connoisseurs all over the
world ; the artists treat this metal so as to
obtain the greatest possible effect that the
nature of the material allows. The trade is
not a paying one, but the leading artists are
devoted to their art, and are quite content if
they gain enough to live on, provided that
they keep their position at the head of the
craft. Many of them are proficient in ni-
ello-work, in which the design appears as if
drawn in silver outline on a black ground.

An Earthquake Experience. — A French
gentleman residing at Mendoza, in the Ar-
gentine Eepublic, gives a graphic descrip-
tion in " La Nature " of the earthquake that
took place there on the 30th of March, 1885,
at about half-past ten in the evening. He
was reading and smoking, when one of the
sashes of his window opened all at once and
immediately closed again with noise. He
thought a dog had come in through the win-
dow, and bent over to look for the intruder
under his desk. The window opened again,
and he was obhged to hold on to his desk,
while his chair leaned over with him. He
straightened himself again, and was thrown
to the right. At the same time his jaws
came together and he bit off his pipe-stem,
while he felt a pain in the pit of his stom-
ach, like that of sea-sickness. Then the
thought occurred to him that it was an
earthquake. Six seconds afterward he
heard a noise like that of a distant loco-
motive letting off steam, followed by the
howling of dogs and the noise of the wind
through the plantain-trees. Then he saw
the angle of the wall veer slowly to the
left, then return to its place, so speedily
that he was scared and ran to the door to
get out. The door would not open. The

dogs kept on howling louder than ever.
He burst the door open, and, running out,
found all the people in the streets, mostly
in their night-dresses. Three violent shocks
were felt. The writer of the account be-
lieves that a fourth shock would have de-
stroyed the town. The sky was afterward
obscured with fog ; and, for thirty seconds
after the last shock, a subterranean noise
was heard like the rumbUng of a railroad-
train in the distance.

NOTES.

Sir W. Temple, in his " Essays of Health
and Long Life," recommends, as the strong-
est preservative against contagions, a piece
of myrrh held in the mouth. It has been
asserted that Eastern physicians invariably
adopt this protection when attending the
sick.

A MEMORIAL window to the late Sir Will-
iam Siemens, erected by his brother engi-
neers, was unveiled in Westminster Abbey,
November 26, 1885, with addresses by the
Dean and Sir F. Bramwell.

The article by Professor Rood, entitled
" The Problem of Photography in Color,"
published in the last " Monthly," and cred-
ited to the "Photographic Bulletin," should
have been credited to " Anthony's Photo-
graphic Bulletin."

M. Pages, in the course of his experi-
ments in photographing the movements of
horses, has been struck by the observation
that the foot of the animal, being half the
time at rest on the ground, must, during the
other half the time, be in much more rapid
motion than the animal itself. He estimates
that in the gallop the foot reaches a velocity
of sixty metres, or about two hundred feet,
a second.

Dr. C. V. RiLET, Entomologist of the
Department of Agriculture, and Honorary
Curator of Insects in the National Museum,
has given to that institution his extensive
private collection of North American insects,
representing the fruits of his labors in col-
lecting and study for many years.

The Mexican Government is said to be
contemplating the establishment of a mete-
orological station among the highest mount-
ains of the country, at an elevation of nearly
twenty thousand feet above the level of the
sea. Instruments for its use, as far as pos-
sible to go a year without stopping, are
being made at Ziirioh, Switzerland.

" Natcren," of Christiania, Norway, calls
attention to notices that have been given of
Scandinavian observations in the past, of

720

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

phenomena parallel with the " after-glows "
of 1883-'84. A scries of these glows, ob-
served in 1636, was ascribed at the time to
the eruption of Ilecla, which occurred in
that year. From May to September, 1783,
the heavens were illuminated by a constant
red glow, and the sun had the appearance
of a faint disk. This was attributed to a
violent eruption of the Skaptar Jokul, Ice-
land, which occurred in the spring of the
Bame. year.

A CORRESPONDKNT of " Nature," who has
tried various schemes of automatic ventila-
tion and found tliem all to fail at times,
though usually working well, announces bis
conclusion that there is no rule in the mat-
ter without exception. This n)eans that
ventilation should receive personal atten-
tion, and be always under observation.

OBITUARY NOTES.

Dr. Thomas Andrews, an Irish chemist,
died about the 1st of December, 1885, in
the seventy-second year of his age. He was
born in Belfast in 1813. In preparing him-
self for the medical profession he studied
chemistry under several eminent masters.
He took a part, as vice-president, in the
organization of the Northern College, now
Queen's College, Belfast, and was its first
Professor of Chemistry, His name is iden-
tified with many most important investiga-
tions and discoveries. Among them are the
composition of the blood of cholera-patients ;
the determination of heat evolved during
chemical action ; the true nature of ozone,
in which he established the theory now uni-
versally held ; and the continuity of the
liquid and gaseous states of matter, a series
of investigations which led directly up to
Pictet's, Caiiletet's, "Wroblewski's, and oth-
ers', successful liquefaction of all the gases.

Xavier UtLEsnERGER, a Swiss paleon-
tologist, died recently at Ueberlingen, on the
Lake of Constance, seventy-nine years old.
He was the discoverer of the lake villages
at Nussdorf, Maurach, Uhldingen, and Sip-
plingen ; and he obtained a large collection
of prehistoric objects, which is preserved
at Stuttgart.

The death is announced, at the age of
eighty years, of Professor Giuseppe Ponzi,
the Italian geologist.

Professor Charles E. Hamlin, of the
Agassiz Museum of Natural History, died at
Cambridge on the 3d of January. He was
about sixty years old.

Alfred Tribe, an English chemist, died
November 26, 1885, aged forty-six years.
He acquired his first knowledge of chem-
istry when, as a boy, waiting on the students
at the Royal College, he repeated some of

the experiments he saw performed, in the
kitchen at home. He was assistant to Dr.
J. H. Gladstone for twenty years, and head
of his laboratory. He was Demonstrator of
Chemistry at St. Thomas's Hospital, Lect-
urer on Metallurgy at the National Dental
Hospital, and Lecturer on Chemistry and
Director of Practical Chemistry in Dulwich
College. He was an assiduous investigator,
and published a large number of papers,
some under his own name, and others in
conjunction with Dr. Gladstone.

Mr. Edwin Ormond Brown, Assistant
Chemist to the British War Department,
died December 12th. He had been con-
nected with the arsenal at Woolwich for
about thirty years, and had been instru-
mental in the improvement of gun-cotton
and other explosives.

Daniel David Beth, the chief of the
Dutch African Expedition, died at Katum-
bclla, on the 19th of May, 1885. He took
part in an expedition to the interior of Su-
matra, IS?"/ to 1879, where he became in-
terested in the examination and prospective
development of the coal-fields of the island.
In 1882 he busied himself to secure a proper
representation of the colonial products at
the Amsterdam Exposition. In 1884 he
started on his African expedition, which
had especial reference to the Kunene River,
and the mountain-range lying north and
west of it.

Dr. Samuel Bir.cn, the chief of British
Egyptologists, and founder and President of
the Society of Biblical Archeology, died De-
cember 27th. He was born in 1813, and was
appointed to the Department of Antiquities
in the British Museum in 1836. He was at
first specially interested in Chinese antiqui-
ties, but, without giving up his tastes in that
direction, became pre-eminently an Egyptol-
ogist. Besides preparing numerous works
and papers of his own, he contributed a
translation of the " Book of the Dead," a
dictionary of hieroglyphics, and a grammar
to Bunsen's great work on Egypt. He was
also connected, officially and personally, with
the publication of " Records of the Past,"
twelve volumes of translations of the more
important texts from the Egyptian and As-
syrian monuments.

M. Louis Rene Tulasne, a French my-
cologist, whose fame would have been great-
er had he been less modest and enjoyed
better health, died at Hy^res on the 22d of
December, 1885. He became a member of
the French Academy in 1854, but was forced
by his delicate constitution to retire from
active life in 1864. During the twenty-five
years to which his work was limited, he
made many important investigations in the
fungi and the lichens, the science of which,
it is said, he reformed as well as augmented.

i^<ik^''[^jU

CHRISTIAN IIUTGENS.

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY.

APRIL, 1886.

AN ECOJs'OMIC STUDY OF MEXICO.

Br DAVID A. WELLS.

L

IT is proposed to here ask attention to the results of a recent inves-
tigation and study of Mexico, with the intent of exhibiting its
economic relations to the United States, and of helping to deter-
mine the desirability of the ratification on the part of the latter of
a Mexico-American commercial treaty. The basis for this investi-
gation and for such opinions as may be expressed has been : First,
a somewhat extended exploration of Mexico, undertaken during
the early months of the past year (1885), primarily with a view to
health and recreation ; and, secondly, a subsequent careful study
(prompted by interest in what had been personally seen or heard) of
the physical situation and history of the country, and its present po-
litical, industrial, and social condition. The journey, it may be fur-
ther premised, was mainly made upon a special train, over the whole
length of the Mexican Central Railroad, over most of the Yera Cruz
and City of Mexico and over a part of the Mexican iSTational Rail-
roads ; the aggregate distance traversed within the territory of the
republic being in excess of three thousand miles, the train running
upon its own time, with its own equipment for eating and sleeping, and
stopping long enough at every point of interest — city, town, hacienda,
mine, or desert — to admit of its full and satisfactory exploration. It
is safe, therefore, to say that such an opportunity for leisurely visiting
and studying so much of Mexico had rarely, if ever, before beea
granted.*

* The excursion in question was made under the auspices of the Tvaymond Excursion
Company, and was the first of its kind projected and carried out by it

VOL. XXTIII. — i6

722 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Altliougla geographically near, and having been in commercial re-
lations with the rest of the world for over three hundred and fifty
years, there is probably less known to-day about Mexico than of al-
most any other country claiming to be civilized ; certainly not as
much as concerning Egypt, Palestine, or the leading states of British
India ; and not any more than concerning the outlying provinces of
Turkey, the states of Northern Africa, or the seaport districts of China
and Japan. It is doubtful, furthermore, if as large a proportion as
one in a thousand of the fairly educated men of the United States or
of Europe could at once, and without reference to an encyclopaedia,
locate and name the twenty-seven States or political divisions into
which the Republic of Mexico is divided, or so many of its towns and
cities as have a population in excess of fifteen or twenty thousand.
The explanation of this is that, prior to the construction and opening
of the Mexican " Central " and Mexican " National " Railroads, or vir-
tually prior to the year 1883, the exploration of Mexico — owing to
the almost total absence of roads and of comfortable hospicia for man
and beast, the utter insecurity for life and property, the intervention
of vast sterile and waterless tracts, and the inhospitality and almost
savagery of no small proportion of its people — was so difficult and
dangerous that exploration has rarely been attempted ; and those who
have attempted it have greatly imperiled their lives, to say nothing
of their health and property. Mexico, furthermore, is not fully known
even to the Mexicans themselves. Thus, a large part of the country
on the Pacific coast has scarcely been penetrated outside of the roads
or " trails " which lead from the seaports to the interior. There are
hundreds of square miles in Southern Mexico, especially in the States
of Michoacan and Guerrero, and also in Sonora, that have never been
explored ; and whole tribes of Indians that have never been brought
in contact with the white man, and repel all attempts at visitation
or government supervision. During the three hundred years, also,
when Mexico was under Spanish dominion, almost access to the coun-
try Avas denied to foreigners ; the most noted exception being the case
of Humboldt, who, through the personal favor and friendship of Don
Marino Urquijo, first Spanish Secretary of State under Charles IV, re-
ceived privileges never before granted to any traveler ; and thus it is
that, although more than three quarters of a century have elapsed since
Humboldt made his journey and explorations, he is still quoted as the
best and, in many particulars, as the only, reliable authority in respect
to Mexico.

In 1850, Bayard Taylor, returning from California, visited Mexico,
landing at Mazatlan, and crossing the country by way of the city of
Mexico to Vera Cruz. His journey lasted from the 5th of January to
the 19th of February — a period of about six weeks — and the distance
traversed by him in a straight line could not have been much in ex-
cess of seven hundred miles — a rather small foundation in the way of

AN ECONOMIC STUDY OF MEXICO. 723

exploration for the construction of a standard work of travel ; yet,
whoever reads his narrative and enters into sympathy with the author
(as who in reading Bayard Taylor does not ?) is heartily glad that it is
no longer — for Mungo Park in attempting to explore the Niger, or
Bruce in seeking for the sources of the Nile, or Livingstone on the
Zambesi, never encountered greater perils or chronicled more disagree-
able experiences of travel. It was not enough to have " journeyed,"
as he expresses it, " for leagues in the burning sun, over scorched
hills, without water or refreshing verdure, suffering greatly from
thirst, until I found a little muddy water at the bottom of a hole " ;
to have lived on frijoles and tortillas (the latter so compounded
with red pepper that, it is said, neither vultures nor wolves will
ever touch a dead Mexican), and to have found an adequate supply of
even these at times very difficult to obtain ; to sleep without shelter
or upon the dirt floors of adobe huts, or upon scafi^olds of poles, and
to have even such scant luxuries impaired by the invasions of hogs,
menace of ferocious dogs, and by other enemies " without and within,"
in the shape of swarms of fleas, mosquitoes, and other A^ermin ; but,
in addition to all this, he was robbed, and left bound and helpless in a
lonely valley, if not with the expectation, at least with a feeling of
complete indifference, on the part of his ruffianly assailants, as to
whether he perished by hunger and cold, or effected a chance deliver-
ance. And if any one were to travel to-day over the same route that
Bayard Taylor followed, and under the same circumstances of per-
sonal exposure, he would undoubtedly be subject to a like experience.
In August, 1878, Hon. John W. Foster, then United States min-
ister to Mexico, writing from the city of Mexico to the Manufacturers'
Association of the Northwest, at Chicago, made the following state-
ment concerning the social condition of the country at that time :
"Not a single passenger-train leaves this city (Mexico) or Vera Cruz,
the (then) termini of the only completed railroad in the country, with-
out being escorted by a company of soldiers to protect it from assault
and robbery. The manufacturers of this city, who own factories in
the valley within sight of it, in sending out money to pay the weekly
wages of their operatives, always accompany it with an armed guard ;
and it has repeatedly occurred, during the past twelve months (1878),
that the street railway-cars from this city to the suburban villages
have been seized by bands of robbers and the money of the manufact-
urers stolen. Every raining company which sends its metal to this
city to be coined or shipped abroad always accompanies it by a strong
guard of picked men ; and the plantei'S and others who send money
or valuables out of the city do likewise. The principal highways
over which the diligence lines pass are constantly patroled by the
armed rural guard or the Federal troops ; and yet highway robbery is
so common that it is rarely even noticed in the newspapers. One of
the commercial indications of the insecurity of communication between

724 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

this capital and the other cities of the republic is found in the rate of
interior exchange," which at that time, according to the minister,
varied from ten per cent in the case of Chihuahua, distant a thousand
miles, to two and two and a half per cent for places like Toluca, not
farther removed than a hundred miles. Matters are, however, in a
much better state at present, and for reasons that will be mentioned
hereafter ; but the following item of Mexican news, telegraphed
from Saltillo (Northern Mexico), under date of February 15, 1885,
pretty clearly indicates the scope and desirability for future improve-
ment, and also the present limitation on the authority of the existing
national Government : " The commission of oflScers sent from Zaca-
tecas by the Government to treat for a surrender with the noted
bandit leader, Eraclie Bernal, has returned, having been unsuccessful
in its mission. The chief demanded the following conditions : Pardon
for himself and band, a bonus of thirty thousand dollars for himself,
to be allowed to retain an armed escort of twenty-five men, or to
be appointed to a position in the army commanding a district in
Sinaloa."

How such a statement as the foregoing carries the reader back to
the days of the " Robbers of the Rhine," or the " free lances " of the
middle ages ! With a better government and increased railroad facili-
ties, the amount of travel in Mexico has of late years greatly increased.
Before the opening of the Mexican Central, in 1883, the majority of
travelers entered the country at the port of Vera Cruz, and journeyed
by railroad (opened in 1873) to the capital (two hundred and sixty-
three miles), and returned without stopping en route in either case ; or
else made excursions of no great distance from points on our southern
frontier into the northern tier of Mexican States — Sonora, Chihuahua,
Coahuila, and Tamaulipas — such journeys being usually made on
horseback, with preparations for camping out, and also for fighting if
it became necessary. Since the opening of the Mexican Central, how-
ever, this route offers the greatest facilities for those who desire to
reach the city of Mexico, the traveler jovirneying by a fast train, day
and night, the whole route (twelve hundred and twenty-five miles)
from El Paso, in the very best of Pullman cars, over a good road,
with every accommodation save that of food, which, in spite of
the efforts of the company, is and will continue to be bad, simply
because the country furnishes few resources — milk selling at some
points as high as twenty-five cents a quart and scarce at that, while
butter as a product of the country is almost unknown. But, enter
Mexico by whatever route, the ordinary traveler has little opportunity
to see anything of the country apart from the city of Mexico, save
what is afforded by the view from the car-windows, and yet it is from
just such experiences that most of the recent books and letters about
Mexico have been written.

There is a wonderful depth of truth in a remark attributed to Era-

AN ECONOMIC STUDY OF MEXICO. 725

erson, that " the eye sees only what it brings to itself the power to
see " ; and the majority of those who in recent years have visited
Mexico would seem to have brought to their eyes the power of seeing
little else than the picturesque side of things. And of such material
there is no lack. In the first place, the country throughout is far
more foreign to an American than any country of Europe, except that
part of Europe in close proximity to its Asiatic border. Transport a
person of tolerably good geographical information, without giving hira
any intimation as to where he was going, to almost any part of the
great plateau of Mexico — outside of the larger cities — and he would at
once conclude that he was either at Timbuctoo or some part of the
" Holy Land." The majority of the houses are of adobe (mud), desti-
tute of all coloration, unless dust-gray is a color, and one storj' in
height. In Palestine, however, and also (according to report) in Tim-
buctoo, the roofs are " domed " ; in Mexico they are flat. The soil is
dry, the herbage, when there is any, coarse and somber, and the
whole country singularly lacking in trees and verdure. In the fields
of the better portions of the country, men may be seen plowing with
a crooked stick, and raising water from wells or ditches into irrigating
trenches, by exactly the same methods that are in use to-day as they
were five thousand years ago or more upon the banks of the Nile. In
the villages, women with nut-brown skins, black hair, and large black
eyes, walk round in multitudinous folds of cotton fabrics, often colored,
the face partially concealed, and gracefully bearing water-jars upon
their shoulders — the old familiar Bible picture of our childhood over
again, of Rebecca returning from the fountain.

Place a range of irregular, sharp, saw-tooth hills or mountains,
upon whose sides neither grass nor shrub has apparently ever grown,
in the distance ; a cloudless sky and a blazing sun overhead ; and in
the foreground a few olive-trees, long lines of repellent cacti defining
whatever of demarkation may be needed for fields or roadway, and a
few donkeys, the type of all that is humble and forlorn — and the pict-
ure of village life upon the " plateau " of Mexico is complete.

Would any one recall the ''^Flight of the Holy Family into
Egypt," it is not necessary to visit the galleries of Europe and study
the works of the old masters, for here on the dusty plains of Mexico
all the scenes and incidents of it are daily repeated : Mary upon a don-
key, her head gracefully hooded with a blue rebozo, and carrying a
young child enveloped on her bosom in her mantle ; while Joseph, the
husband, bearded and sun-sorched, with naked arms and legs, and san-
dals on his feet, walks ploddingly by her side, with one hand on the
bridle, and, if the other does not grasp a staff, it is because of the
scarcity of wood out of which to make one, or because the dull beast
stands in constant need of the stimulus of a thong of twisted leather,

Madame Calderon de la Barca, the Scotch wife of one of the first
Spanish ministers sent to Mexico after the achievement of her inde-

726 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

pendcnce, and who wrote a very popular book on her travels in Mexi-
co, published in 1843, also notes and thus graphically describes this
predominance of the "picturesque" in Mexico :

" One circumstance," she says, " must be observed by all who travel
in Mexican territory. There is not one human being or passing object
to be seen that is not in itself a picture, or which would not form a
good subject for the pencil. The Indian women, with their plaited
hair, and little children slung on their backs, their large straw hats,
and petticoats of two colors ; the long string of arrieros with their
loaded mules, and swarthy, wild-looking faces ; the chance horseman
who passes with his scrape of many colors, his high, ornamental saddle,
Mexican hat, silver stirrups, and leather boots — all is picturesque.
Salvator Rosa and Hogarth might have traveled here to advantage
hand-in-hand ; Salvator for the sublime, and Hogarth taking him up
where the sublime became ridiculous."

Where Indian blood greatly predominates in the women, the head,
neck, shoulders, and legs, to the knee, are generally bare, and their
garments little else than a loose-fitting white cotton tunic, and a pet-
ticoat of the same material, often of two colors.

At Aguas Calientes, within a hundred yards of the station of the
Mexican Central Railroad, men, women, and children, entirely naked,
may be seen bathing, in large numbers, at all hours of the day, in a
ditch conveying a few feet of tepid water, which flows, wnth a gen-
tle current, from certain contiguous and remarkably warm springs.

Shoes in Mexico are a foreign innovation, and properly form no
part of the national costume. The great majority of the people do
not wear shoes at all, and probably never will ; but in their place use
sandals, composed of a sole of leather, raw-hide, or platted fibers of the
maguey-plant, fastened to the foot with strings of the same material,
as the only protection for the foot needed in their warm, dry climate.
And these sandals are so easily made and repaired, that every Mexican
peasant, no matter what may be his other occupation, is always his
own shoemaker. As a general rule, also, the infantry regiments of
Mexico wear sandals in preference to shoes. Very curiously, the
pegged shoes of the United States and other countries are not made
and can not be sold in Mexico, as, owing to the extreme dryness of
the atmosphere, the wood shrinks to such a degree that the pegs
speedily become loose and fall out.

In the country, the so-called peons, or agricultural laborers, who
comprise nearly all the population, are, as a matter of fact, perma-
nently attached to the soil of the great estates, through conditions
respecting the obligation of debts that practically amount to slavery ;
and it is claimed that the keeping of the peons constantly in debt — a
matter not difficult to accomplish by reason of their ignorance and
improvidence — and so making permanent residence and the perform-
ance of labor obligatory on them — is indispensable for the regular

AN ECONOMIC STUDY OF MEXICO. ji-j

prosecution of agriculture ; inasmuch as the peon, if free, can never be
depended upon, if he gets a few dollars or shillings in his pocket, and
there is a place for him to gamble within from fifty to one hundred miles'
distance. It is to be noted, however, that, wherever Mexico comes in
contact with the outside world, the peon system tends to decay ; and
in the northern States of Mexico, where American ideas are finding
their way among the people, and the construction of railways has
increased the opportunities for employment, and raised wages, it is
already practically abandoned. On each estate, or hacienda, there
are buildings, or collections of buildings, typical of the country, bor-
rowed originally, so far as the idea was concerned, in part undoubt-
edly from Old Spain, and in part prompted by the necessities for
defense from attack under which the country has been occupied and
settled, which ai-e also called haciendas, the term being apparently
used indifferently to designate both a large landed estate, as well as
the buildings, which, like the old feudal castles, represent the owner-
ship and the center of operations on the estate. They are usually huge
rectangular structures — walls or buildings — of stone or adobe, intended
often to serve the purpose, if needs be, of actual fortresses, and com-
pletely inclosing an inner square, or court-yard, the entrance to which
is through one or more massive gates, which, when closed at night,
are rarely opened until morning. Within the court, upon one side,
built up against an exterior wall, is usually a series of adobe struct-
ures— low, windowless, single apartments — where the peons and their
families, with their dogs and pigs, live ; while upon the other sides are
larger structures for the use or residence of the owner and his family, or
the superintendent of the estate ; with generally also a chapel and ac-
commodations for the priest, places for the storage of produce, and the
keeping of animals ; and one or more apartments entirely destitute of
furniture or of any means of lighting or ventilation, save through the
entrance or doorway from the court-yard, which are devoted to the re-
ception of such travelers as may demand and receive hospitality to the
extent of shelter from the night, or protection from outside marauders.
Such places hardly deserve the name of inns, but either these poor ac-
commodations or camping out is the traveler's only alternative. They
put one in mind of the caravansaries of the East, or better of the inns
or posadas of Spain, which Don Quixote and his attendant Sancho
Panza frequented, with the court-yard then, as now, all ready for
tossing Sancho in a blanket in presence of the whole population. In
some cases the hacienda is an irregular pile of adobe buildings with-
out symmetry, order, or convenience ; and in others, where the estate
is large and the laborers numerous (as is often the case), only the most
important buildings are inclosed within the wall — the peons, whose
poverty is generally a sufficient safeguard against robbery, living out-
side and constituting a scattered village community. The owners of
the large Mexican estates rarely live upon them, but make their homes

728 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

in the city of Mexico or in Europe, and intrust the management of
their property to a superintendent, who, like the owner, considers him-
self a gentleman, and whose chief business is to keep the peons in
debt, or, what is substantially the same thing, in slavery. Whatever
work is done is performed by the peons — in whose veins Indian blood
predominates — in their own way and in their own time. They have
but few tools, and, except possibly some contrivances for raising water,
nothing worthy the name of machinery. Without being bred to any
mechanical profession, the peons make and repair nearly every imple-
ment or tool that is used upon the estate, and this too without the use
of a forge or of iron, not even of bolts and nails. The explanation of
such an apparently marvelous result is to be found in a single word,
or rather material, raw-hide, with which the peon feels himself quali-
fied to meet almost any constructive emergency, from the framing of
a house to the making of a loom, the mending of a gun, or the re-
pair of a broken leg ; and yet even under these circumstances the
great Mexican estates, owing to their exemption from taxation, and
the cheapness of labor, are said to be profitable, and, in cases where a
fair supply of water is obtainable, to even return large incomes to their
absentee owners.

In no truly Mexican house of high or low degree, from the adobe
hut of the peasant to the stone palace erected by the Emperor Itur-
bide, are there any arrangements for warming or, in the American
sense, for cooking ; and in the entire city of Mexico, with an esti-
mated population of from 225,000 to 500,000, chimneys, fireplaces, and
stoves are so rare that it is commonly said that there are none.
This latter statement is, however, not strictly correct ; yet it approxi-
mates so closely to the truth that, but for provision for warm baths,
there is probably no exception to it in any of the larger hotels of the
city where foreigners most do congregate. Apart from the capital
and some of the larger cities, Mexico is noticeably deficient in hotels
or inns for the accommodation of travelers, and in a majority of the
smaller towns there are no such places. And why should there be ?
The natives rarely go anywhere, and consequently do not expect any-
body to come to them.

Large, costly, and often elegant stone edifices — public and private
— are not wanting in the principal towns and cities of Mexico ; but all,
save those of very recent construction, have the characteristic Sara-
cenic or Moorish architecture of Southern Spain — namely, a rectangu-
lar structure with rooms opening on to interior piazzas, and a more
or less spacious court-yard, which is often fancifully paved and orna-
mented with fountains and shrubbery ; while the exterior, with its
gate-furnished archways and narrow and iron-grated windows, sug-
gests the idea of a desire for jealous seclusion on the part of the in-
mates, or fear of possible outside attack and disturbance. Wooden
buildings are almost unknown in Mexico, and in all interiors wood is

AN ECONOMIC STUDY OF MEXICO. 729

rarely used where stone, tiles, and iron are possible applications. Con-
sequently, and, in view of the scarcity of water, most fortunately, there
are few fires in Mexico ; no fire departments, and but little opportunity
for insurance companies or the business of insurance agents. As a
general rule, the buildings of Mexico, exclusive of the huts, in which
the masses of the people live, are not over one story in height, flat-
roofed, and have neither cellars nor garrets ; and in buildings of more
than one story the upper floor is always preferred as a dwelling, and
thus in the cities commands the highest rents. There do not, more-
over, seem to be any aristocratic streets or quarters in the cities of
Mexico ; but rich and poor distribute themselves indiscriminately, and
not unfrequently live under the same roof.

The popular opinion concerning Mexico is that it is a country of
marvelous and unbounded natural resources. Every geography invites
attention to the admirable location of its territory, between and in
close proximity to the two great oceans ; to the great variety, abun-
dance, and richness of its tropical products — sugar, coffee, tobacco, dye
and ornamental woods, vanilla, indigo, cacao, cochineal, fruits, fibers,
and the like ; and to the number of its mines, which for more than
two centuries have furnished the world with its chief supply of silver,
and are still productive. The result is, that with a majority of well-
informed people, and more especially with those who have read about
Mexico in those charming romances of Prescott, and who, in flying vis-
its to its capital, have found so much to interest them in the way of
the picturesque, and have brought to their eyes little capacity for see-
ing anything else, the tendency has been to confound the possible
with the actual, and to encourage the idea that Mexico is a rich prize,
unappreciated by its present possessors, and only waiting for the en-
terprising and audacious Yankees to possess and make much of, by
simply coming down and appropriating.

Now, with these current beliefs and impressions the writer has
little sympathy ; but, on the contrary, his study and observations lead
him to the conclusion that the Mexico of to-day, through conjoined
natural and artificial (or human) influences, is one of the very poorest
and most wretched of all countries ; and, while undoubtedly capable
of very great improvement over her present condition, is not speedily
or even ultimately likely, under any circumstances, to develop into a
great (in the sense of highly civilized), rich, and powerful nation. And
in warrant and vindication of opinions so antagonistic to popular senti-
ment, it is proposed to ask attention to a bi'ief review of the condi-
tion of Mexico ; first, from its geographical or natural stand-point, and
secondly, from the stand-point of its historical, social, and political ex-
perience.

Considered geographically, Mexico is, in the main, an immense
table-land or plateau, which seems to be a flattening out of the Rocky

730 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and Sierra Xevada Mountains, and which, commencing within the ter-
ritory of the United States as far north certainly as Central Colorado,
and perhaps beyond, extends as far south as the Isthmus of Tehuan-
tepec ; a north and south length, measuring from the southern fron-
tier-line of the United States, of about two thousand miles. Entering
the country by the Mexican Central Railway at El Paso, where the
plateau has already an elevation of 3,717 feet, the traveler progress-
ively and rapidly ascends, though so gradually that, except for a dk-
tour, made obligatory in the construction of the road to climb up into
the city of Zacatecas, he is hardly conscious of it until, at a point
known as Marquez, 1,148 miles from the starting-point and 76 miles
from the city of Mexico, the railroad-track attains an elevation of
8,134 feet, or 1,849 feet higher than the summit of Mount Washing-
ton. From this point the line descends 834 feet into the valley of the
city of Mexico, the bottom of which is about 7,300 feet above the sea-
level. In fact, as Humboldt as far back as 1803 pointed out, so regu-
lar is the great plateau on the line followed by the Central road, and
so gentle are its surface slopes where depressions occur, that the jour-
ney from the city of Mexico to Santa Fe, in New Mexico, might be
performed in a four-wheeled vehicle.

Starting next from the city of Mexico, and going east toward the
Atlantic, or west toward the Pacific, for a distance in either direction
of about one hundred and sixty miles, and we come to the edge or ter-
minus of this great plateau ; so well defined and so abrupt that in places
it seems as if a single vigorous jump would land the experimenter, or
all that was left of him, at from two to three thousand feet lower
level. Up the side of this almost precipice — tunneling through or
winding round a succession of mountain promontories — the Vera Cruz
and City of Mexico Railroad has been constructed ; " rising " or " fall-
ing"— according to the direction traveled — over four thousand feet,
in passing over a circuitous track of about twenty-five miles ; and of
which elevation or depression about twenty-five hundred perpendicu-
lar feet are comprised within the first thirteen miles, measured from
the point where the descent from the edge of the plateau begins. To
overcome this tremendous grade in ascending, a sort of double loco-
motive— comprising two sets of driving machinery, with the boilers
in the center, and known as the " Farlie " engine — is employed ; and
even with this most powerful tractor it is necessary, with an ordinary
train, to stop every eight or ten miles, in order to keep up a sufficient
head of steam to overcome the resistance. In descending, on the
other hand, only sufllicient steam is necessary to work the brakes and
counteract the tendency to a too rapid movement. As an achievement
in engineering the road has probably no parallel, except it may be in
some of the more recent and limited constructions among the passes
of Colorado ; and, as might be expected, the cost of transportation
over the entire distance of 263 miles, from Vera Cruz to the city of

AN ECONOMIC STUDY OF MEXICO. 731

Mexico, is very heavy, although at an enormous reduction on the cost
of all methods previously employed. When the road was first opened,
the charges for first-class freight per ton were 87G ; second class,
$65 ; and by passenger-trains, $97.77. Since the opening of, and un-
der the influence of the competition of, the Mexican Central, these rates
have been reduced to an average of about $40 to $45 per ton, and still
the business is understood to be not especially remunerative. Begun
in 1857, this road was not completed, owing mainly to the disturbed
state of the country, until 1873. It was built under English super-
vision, and with English capital, at a cost, including equipment, of
$39,000,000, and is solid and excellent throughout. During the year
1876 the road was destroyed at different points by the revolutionists,
and all traffic for a considerable time suspended.

At the station "Esperanza," one hundred and fifty miles from the
city of Mexico, on the farther side of a great sandy plain, and on the
very verge of the plateau, and where the descent may be said to
abruptly begin, the stations, engine-houses, and shops, built of dressed
stone, are as massive and elegant as any of the best suburban stations
on any of the British railways. And as illustrating how rigidly the
English engineers adhered to home rules and precedents, the con-
structions at this station include a very elegant and expensive arched
bridge of dressed stone, with easy and extended approaches, to guard
against danger in crossing the tracks ; although, apart from the per-
sons in the employ of the company, the resident population is very
inconsiderable.

Stai'ting from this point in the early morning of the 27th of
March, to make the descent to the comparatively level and low land
intervening between the base of the plateau and the ocean, the ground
at the station was white with hoar-frost, while behind it, apparently
but a mile or two distant, and of not more than fifteen hundred to
two thousand feet in elevation, rose the glistening, snow-covered cone
of Orizaba. Within the cars, and even with closed windows, overcoats
and shawls were essential. Within an hour, however, overcoats and
shawls were discarded as uncomfortable. Within another hour the
inclination was to get rid of every superfluous garment, while before
noon the thermometers in the cars ranged from 90° to 95° Fahr., and
the traveler found himself in the heart of the tropics, amid palms,
orange-trees, coffee-plantations, fields of sugar-cane and bananas, almost
naked Indians, and their picturesque though miserable huts of cane or
stakes, plastered with mud and roofed with plantain-leaves or corn-
stalks. In the descent, Orizaba (17,373 feet), which at the starting-
point, and seen from an elevation of about 8,000 feet, is not impressive
in respect to height, although beautiful, gradually rises, and finally,
when seen from the level of the low or coast lands, becomes a most
magnificent spectacle, far superior to Popocatepetl, which is higher,
or any other Mexican mountain, but, in the opinion of the writer, in-

732 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ferior in sublimity to Tacoma in Washington Territory, the entire
elevation of which last (14,300 feet) can, in some places, be taken in
at a single glance from the sea-level and a water-foreground. The
comparatively narrow and gently sloping strip of land which the
traveler thus roaches on the Atlantic side in journeying from Mexico
to Vera Cruz extends from the base of the great plateau to the ocean,
and, with its counterpart on the Pacific side, constitutes in the main
the so-called " Tierras Calientes'" (hot lands), or the tropical part of
Mexico. The average width of these coast-lands on the Atlantic is
about sixty miles, while on the Pacific it varies from forty to seventy
miles.

Considered as a whole, the geographical configuration and posi-
tion of Mexico have been compared to an immense cornucopia, with its
mouth turned toward the United States and its concave side on the
Atlantic ; having an extreme length of about 2,000 miles, and a vary-
ing width of from 1,000 to 130 miles. Its territorial area is 761,791
square miles, or a little larger than that part of the United States, east
of the Mississippi River, exclusive of the States of Wisconsin and
Mississippi ; and this cornucopia in turn, as has been before intimated,
consists of an immense table-land, nine tenths of which have an average
elevation of from 5,000 to 7,000 feet. Such an elevation in the lati-
tude of 42° (Boston or New York) would have given the country an
almost Arctic character ; but under the Tropic of Cancer, or in latitudes
18° to 25° north, the climate at these high elevations is almost that of
perpetual spring. At these high elevations of the Mexican plateau
furthermore, the atmosphere is so lacking in moisture, that meat,
bread, or cheese, never molds or putrefies, but only spoils by drying
up. Perspii-ation, even when walking briskly in the middle of the
day, does not gather or remain upon the forehead or other exposed
portions of the body ; and it is only through this peculiarity of the
atmosphere that the city of Mexico, with its large population, and its
soil recking with filth through lack of any good and sufficient drain-
age, has not long ago been desolated with pestilence. As it is, the
death-rate of the city is reported to be larger than at almost any of
the great centers of the world's population from which sanitary sci-
ence has been enabled to obtain data.

The surface of this great Mexican plateau, or table-land, although
embracing extensive areas of comparatively level surface, which are
often deserts, is nevertheless largely broken up by ranges of mountains,
or detached peaks — some of which, like Popocatepetl, Orizaba, and
Toluca, rise to great elevations — a circumstance which it is important
to remember, and will be again referred to, in considering the possible
future material development of the country.

Again, if we except certain navigable channels which make up for
short distances from the sea into the low, narrow strips of coast-lands,
there is not a navigable river in all Mexico ; or, indeed, any stream,

AN ECONOMIC STUDY OF MEXICO. 733

south of the Rio Grande, that in the United States, east of the
Mississippi, would be regarded as of any special importance. In re-
spect, therefore, to this element of commercial prosperity, Mexico has
been characterized as less favored than any considerable country ex-
cept Arabia ; the name of which last, as is well known, stands almost
as a synonym for aridity.

No one accurately knows the actual population of Mexico, as no
accurate census has ever been taken ; and there is no immediate pros-
pect that any will be : certainly not so long as a majority of the peo-
ple have a fear of giving any information in respect to their numbers,
as is represented, and a not inconsiderable part of the country, as has
already been pointed out, has never yet been brought under the rule
of civil authority. The estimate is, however, from ten to twelve
million ; and of this number, fully nine tenths are believed to be
located upon the high or table lands, and only one tenth on the low-
lands of the east and west coasts.

So much, then, for Mexico, considered geographically or in respect
to its natural conditions. Let us next, as a means of better compre-
hending its present condition, briefly consider its historical, social, and
political experiences.

The authentic history of Mexico practically commences with its
conquest and occupation by the Spaniards under Cortes in 1521. The
general idea is, that the peoj^le whom the Spaniards found in Mexico
had attained to a degree of civilization that raised them far above the
level of the average Indians of North America, more especially in all that
pertained to government, architecture, agriculture, manufactures, and
the useful arts, and the production and accumulation of property. For
all this there is certainly but very little foundation, and the fascinat-
ing narrations of Prescott, which have done so much to make what
is popularly considered "Mexican history," as well as the Spanish
chronicles from which Prescott drew his so-called historic data, are, in
the opinion of the writer, and with the exception of the military rec-
ord of the Spaniards, little other than the merest romance, not much
more worthy, in fact, of respect and credence than the equally fasci-
nating stories of " Sinbad the Sailor." And, in defense and warrant
for such an unusual and perhaps unpopular conclusion, attention is
asked to the following circumstances and reasons :

In the Museum of the city of Mexico, there is probably the best col-
lection of the remains of the so-called Aztec people that ever has, or
probably ever will be gathered. Here, ranged upon shelves and prop-
erly classified, the visitor will see a large number and variety of their
tools, weapons, and implements. Setting aside their fictile or pottery
products, they are all of stone — the same arrow-heads, the same stone
hatchets, pestles, and the like, which are still picked up on the fields and
along the water-courses of New England, the South, and the West ;
and of which there are so many public and private collections in the

734 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

United States — no better than, and in some respects inferior in artis-
tic merit and finish to, many like articles excavated from the Western
mounds, or known to have been the work of our historic Indians ; or
to the arrow-heads and lance-tips which are still fabricated by the
Shoshones and Flatheads on the Columbia and Snake Rivers. In all
this large Aztec collection there is not a single metal tool or fabrica-
tion, and in only a very few instances have any such articles of un-
questionable antique origin ever been found in Mexico. And of the
pottery and stone-work in the shape of idols, small and big, masks,
and vases, and of which there are many specimens in the museum and
throughout the country, it is sufficient to say that it is all of the rudest
kind, and derives its chief attraction and interest from its hideous-
ness and almost entire lack of anything which indicates either ar-
tistic taste or skill on the part of its fabricators. Take any fair
collection of what purports to be the products of Aztec skill and
workmanship, and place the same side by side with a similar collec-
tion made in any of the most civilized of the islands of the Pacific —
the Feejees, the Marquesas, or the Sandwich Islands, or from the
tribes that live on Vancouver's Sound, and the superiority of the lat-
ter would be at once most evident and unquestionable. In all fair-
ness, therefore, all controversy with the writer's position, if there is
any, ought to be considered as settled ; for there is no more infallible
test and criterion of the civilization and social condition of either a
man or a nation than the tools which he or it works with ; and stone
hatchets and stone arrow-heads are the accompaniments of the stone
age and all that pertains thereto, and their use is not compatible with
any high degree of civilization or social refinement. But this is not
all. It is now generally conceded that the Aztec tribes, that have
become famed in history, did not number as many as two hundred and
fifty thousand, and that the area of territory to which their rule was
mainly confined did not much exceed in area the State of Rhode Isl-
and. The first sight of a horse threw them into a panic, and they
had no cattle, sheep, swine, dogs, or other domestic animals — save the
turkey — of any account. They had no written language, unless the
term can be properly applied to rude drawings of a kind similar to
those with which the North American Indian ornaments his skin or
scratches upon the rocks. It is very doubtful if they had anything
which could be regarded as money, and in the absence of beasts
of burden, of any system of roads and of wheeled vehicles, or, in-
deed, of any methods of transportation other than through the mus-
cular power and backs of men, they could have had but little inter-
nal trade or commerce. Prcscott assigns to the Aztec city of Mexico
a population of three hundred thousand, and sixty thousand houses, and
abundant fountains and reservoirs of water ; but a very brief reflec-
tion would seem to make it evident that no such population could have
been regularly supported, mainly with bulky agricultural food trans-

AN ECONOMIC STUDY OF MEXICO. 735

ported on the backs of men, or in light canoes through canals from
the neighboring small salt lakes ; or supplied with water sufficient for
fountains, drinking, and domestic purposes, through an earthen pipe
" of the size of a man's body," brought some miles " from Chapulte-
pec ; " the water adjacent to the city being then, as now, salt and unfit
for use. What their manufactures could have been, with stone tools
and the most primitive machinery, it is not difficult to conjecture.
Probably not materially different from what the traveler may yet see
at the present day in the case of the Indian woman, who seated bv
the wayside, with a bundle of wool under her arm and a spindle con-
sisting of a stem of wood, one end resting in a cup formed from the
shell of a gourd, dexterously and rapidly draws out and spins a coarse,
but not uneven thread. What their architecture was may be inferred
from the circumstance that Cortes, with his little band of less than
five hundred Spaniards, leveled to the ground three quarters of the
city of Tenochtitlan in the seventeen days of his siege ; while of the old
city of Mexico, with its reported palaces and temples, there is absolutely
nothing left which is indicative of having formed a part of any grand
or permanent structure.

That there was, antecedent to the Aztecs, in this country of Mexi-
co and Central America, a superior race to which the name of Tol-
tecs or Mayas has been applied, who built the elaborate stone struct-
ures of Yucatan and of other portions of Central America, and who,
it would seem, must have been acquainted with the use of metals,
can not be doubted. At a town called Tula, about fifty miles from
Mexico, on the line of the Mexican Central, where the Toltecs are
reported to have first settled, the traveler will see on the plaza, the
lower half — i. e., from the feet to the waist — of two colossal and
rude, sitting figures ; also, several perfect cylindrical sections of col-
umns, which were very curiously arranged to fit into and support
each other by means of a tenon and mortise, all of stone. The ma-
terial of which these objects of unquestionably great antiquity are
composed, and which all archaeologists who have seen them agree
are not Mexican or Aztec in their origin, is a very peculiar black ba-
salt, so hard that a steel tool hardly makes an impression upon it.
When the same traveler arrives in the city of Mexico, and is shown
the three greatest archaeological treasures of American origin — namely,
the great idol, " Huitzilopochtli," the " Sacrificial Stone," and the so-
called " Calendar " stone, now built into one of the outer walls of the
cathedral — he might remark that the material of which they are all
constructed is the same hard, black stone which constitutes the relics at
Tula, and that neither in the large collections of the Museum of Mexi-
co, nor anywhere else, are there any articles, of assumed Aztec origin,
composed of like material. Hence an apparently legitimate inference
that the latter have a common origin with the constructions at Tula,
and are relics of the Toltecs or older nations, and not of the Aztecs.

736 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Again, while much speculation has been had in respect to the
origin and use of the mounds of our Western and Southwestern States,
it seems to have been overlooked that almost the exact counterparts
of these mounds exist to-day in the earth-pyramid of Cholula, near
Puebla, and the two pyramids of Teotihuacan, about fifty miles east
of the city of Mexico ; and that those structures were in use for
religious rites and purposes — i. e., " mound-worship " — at the time of
the invasion of the country by the Spaniards under Cortes. It seems
difficult, therefore, to avoid also this further inference, that there is an
intimate connection as to origin and use between all these North Ameri-
can mound-structures, and that they are all the work of substantially
one and the same people, who found their last development and, per-
haps, origin in Mexico or Central America. In calling attention to
these circumstances, and in venturing opinions concerning them, the
writer makes no pretension to archoeological knowledge, but he simply
offers what seem to him the simple, common-sense conclusions which
every observer must come to, who does not bring to his eye a ca-
pacity for seeing what has been limited by some preconceived theories.

EXTERNAL FOEM OF TIIE MAN-LIEIE APES.*

By EOBEKT IIAETMANN,
peofessob in the rniveesity of berlin.

IN the gorilla, the chimpanzee, and the orang-outang the external
form is subject to essential modifications, according to the age
and sex. The difference between the sexes is most strongly marked in
the gorilla, and these differences are least apparent in the gibbon.

When a young male gorilla is compared with an aged animal of
the same species, we are almost tempted to believe that we have to do
with two entirely different creatures. While the young male still dis-
plays an evident approximation to the human structure, and develops
in its bodily habits the same qualities which generally characterize the
short-tailed apes of the Old World, with the exception of the baboon,
the aged male is otherwise formed. In the latter case the points of
resemblance to the human type are far fewer ; the aged animal has
become a gigantic ape, retaining indeed in the structure of his hands
and feet the characteristics of the primates, while the protruding head
is something between the muzzle of the baboon, the bear, and the boar.
Simultaneously with these remarkable alterations of the external struct-
ure there occurs a modification of the skeleton. The skull of an aged
male gorilla becomes more prognathous, and the incisor teeth have

* From Anthropoid Apes. By Robert Ilartmann. With Sixty-three Ilhistrations.
No. 51, International Scientific Series. New York: D. Applcton & Co., 1886.

EXTERNAL FORM OF THE MAN-LIKE APES. 737

almost attained the length of those of lions and tigers. On the upper
part of the skull, which is rounded in youth, great bony crests are
developed on the crown of the head and on the occiput, and these are
supported by the high, spinous processes of the cervical vertebrae, and
thus supply the starting-point for the powerful muscles of the neck
and jaw. The supraorbital arches are covered with wrinkled skin,
and the already savage and indeed revolting appearance of the old
gorilla is thereby increased. A comjiarison of the two illustrations
(Figs. 1 and 3) which accompany the text will make this clear.

These distinctions are not so striking in the female as in the male
gorilla. Although there is much which is bestial in the appearance of
an aged female, yet the crests, so strongly marked in the male, the
projecting orbits, and strong muscular pads are absent in the female,
as well as the prognathous form of the skull and the length and thick-
ness of the canine teeth. The aged female gorilla is not, in her whole
structure, so far removed from the condition of the same sex in youth
as is the aged male. The structure of the female has on the whole
more in common with the human form. It has been said, and indeed
on good authority, that the female type should take the foremost place
in the study of the animal structure, since it is the more universal.
But H. von Nathusius maintains that we must take both sexes into
consideration in the study of domestic animals, since both are needed
to determine the breed.* I accept this condition in the scientific study
and description of wild animals also, of every kind and species. All
that is said of the universal type of the female animal is and must
remain in my eyes a mere phrase. Only the accurate observation of
males and females, and of young individuals of both sexes, can throw
sufficient light on the history of the race. The male animal is the
larger, and predominant with respect to the complete development of
certain peculiarities of form in the specific organism, since these are
doubtfully present in the adult female, and are either altogether absent
in the immature young, or only rudimentary.

Let us now consider, in the first place, the prototype of the species,
the aged male gorilla in the full strength of his bodily development
(Fig. 1). This animal, when standing upright, is more than six feet
in height, or two thousand millimetres. The head is three hundred
millimetres in length. The occiput appears to be broader below than
above, since the upper part slopes like a gabled roof toward the high,
longitudinal crest of the vertex. The projecting supraorbital arches
start prominently from the upper and central contour of the skull. In
this species, as in other apes, and indeed among mammals generally,
and especially in the case of the carnivora, ruminants, and multi-ungu-
lates, eyebrows are present. In the gorilla these consist of a rather
scanty growth of coal-black bristles, about forty millimetres in length.
Beneath the projecting supraorbital arches are the eyes, opening with

* " Vortriige iiber Viehzucht und Rassenkenntniss," vol. i, p. 61. Berlin, 1872.
VOL. xxviu. — 47

738 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

somewhat narrow slits, aud with lids which display many and deep
longitudinal folds. The upper lid is set with longer and thicker eye-
lashes than the lower. The dark eyes glow between the lids with a
ferocious expression.

Aged Male Gokii.i.a.

The bridge of the nose rises gradually outward, from between the
inner corners of the eyes, and is keel-shaped in the center. This part
of the head is from seventy to eighty millimetres in length, longer and
narrower in one individual, shorter and wider in another. The skin
in this region is covered with a net-work of wrinkles of varying size.
The end of the nose and the nostrils are high, conical, and very wide

EXTERNAL FORM OF THE MAN-LIKE APES. 739

at tlie base. This part of the nose, attached to the very projecting
forehead, has the effect of an altogether snout-like muzzle. It is inter-
sected by a central longitudinal furrow, which divides the whole tip
of the nose into two symmetrical halves. This furrow is more strongly
marked in the case of adult animals than in the young. The aperture
of the nostrils is large and triangular, with the cartilaginous point
turned upward, and the edges applied to the bridge of the nose and to
the cheeks have a somewhat retreating appearance. The lateral mar-
gins of this part of the nostril take an arched form, first diverging in
different directions, then gradually converging again toward the upper
lip. The lip is short, and this, combined with the large nose, gives a
certain resemblance to the mouth of an ox. This resemblance is the
more striking, as the whole of this region is covered with glandular
skin of a deep-black color, which is either glabrous or provided, with a
few scattered hairs, but furnished with small flattened warts.

Below the eyes the cheeks are broad and very round, dwindling
away and becoming depressed in the lower part of the face. They
are seamed with curved wrinkles of varying depth, which tend down-
ward in the same direction as the wrinkles on the lower eyelids. The
short upper lip is provided with oblique folds which converge outward
in the center. The points of the strong canine teeth, which in many
individuals are from thirty-eight to forty millimetres long, and twenty
millimetres wide, diverge a little from each other, and stretch the
upper lip in an oblique direction, so that this part of the face takes
the form of a triangular, beveled surface, with its prominent base-line
between the canine teeth. It may also be observed that, in many in-
dividuals of this species, the nose is not very deeply set on the upper
lip ; that in others, again, the nose is decidedly raised, and the lip only
presents a small hem below the nose. In many such cases the prog-
nathism of the face is strongly marked, so as to give a baboon-like
effect. In other specimens, again, this debased type is not allied with
strongly marked prognathism.

If we take a front view of the skull of an aged male gorilla we see
that the upper edges of the great supraorbital arches are beveled off
below and at the sides. This beveled form is repeated in the broad
cheek-bones, as we see them in front. The front view of the head,
and indeed of the whole animal, presents a strongly projecting con-
tour, an impression w^iich is strengthened by the puffed cheeks, with
their lateral pads of fat. The lower jaw, with its scarcely indicated
chin, retreats in the center and dwindles into a triangular form. This
contour is characteristic of the species. The whole skin of the face is
glossy, set with few hairs, and of a deep-black color.

The ear (Fig. 2) averages sixty millimetres in length, and from
thirty-six to forty millimetres in width. It seems to be fastened to
the head by the back and upper part, is generally of an oval shape,
and furnished with a strongly marked helix. The helix varies in

740 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

width in different individuals, and often terminates on its inner edge
in the projecting peaked excrescence described by Darwin, of which I
shall have more to say presently. The anti-helix, tragus, and anti-
tragus, and the cleft which lies between these two latter parts {mcisura

inter tragicd) are generally fully devel-
oped ; the lobule is more rarely pres-
ent. Individual variations in the special
structure of these parts may frequently
be observed.

The strong trapezoid muscles are
prominent on the neck, and when the
head is stretched they stand out like
pillars on the sides of the neck. Owing
to the great development of the spinous
processes of the cervical vertebrjE, and
of the muscles attached to them, and
to the occipital bones of the skull, the
neck is very powerful, almost like that
fig-s.-earopaMaleAdultGoriixa. ^f ^ ^^jj^ r^^^ shoulders are remark-
able for their breadth, and the pectoral muscles for their large size.

On the upper and forearms the plastic form of the strongly devel-
oped flexor and extensor muscles is very apparent, testifying to the
enormous strength of the upper extremities. The hands are large, and
very wide, with short, thick fingers. The thumb, of which the ex-
tremity takes a conical form, is short, extending little beyond the mid-
dle of the second metacarpal bone. The extremities of the otherwise
broad fingers are somewhat laterally compressed. The fore-finger is
not materially shorter than the middle finger. The third finger is
sometimes shorter than, sometimes of the same length as, the first, and
the fourth is decidedly shorter. The back of the wrist is covered with
deep oblique folds. A net-work of wrinkles, oblique or curved, also
covers the skin on the back of the fingers, on which there are callosities
up to the first joint. The gorilla closes the fingers when going on all-
fours, and turns the back of the hand on the ground, thus producing
this thickening of the upper skin on the joints. Callosities of the same
nature, although not so extensive, are not rare on the second finger-
joints. The palm of the hand is covered with a hard, horny skin,
generally beset with warts, especially at the roots of the fingers. In
spite of the blackness of the skin which covers them, these character-
istics are still apparent.

The fingers are united by a strong web, reminding us of the mem-
brane found on the otter and other web-footed animals, and reaching
nearly to the first finger-joint. A thick coat of hair extends to the
root of the fingers, although on the backs of the fingers there are only
a few isolated hairs.

The trunk of the body of a gorilla, seen from behind, somewhat

EXTERNAL FORM OF THE MAN-LIKE APES. 741

resembles a trapezium in form, of which the longer of the two parallel
sides extends between the shoulders, and the shorter between the two
halves of the pelvis. The longitudinal sides, which are not parallel,
correspond to the sides of the back. The arrangement of all the lower
part of the trunk, on which the bones of the pelvis stand out promi-
nently in an oblique direction, somewhat resembles a four-sided pyra-
mid with its apex reversed. The gluteal muscles are not strongly
developed. The tuberosity of the ischium projects in a somewhat
angular form.

The thighs are covered with strong muscles, which appear to be
smoothed off on the inner side, and somewhat arched on the outside.
The lower part of the leg is also muscular, and its section is of a long-
oval form ; the region of the calf is more strongly developed than in
other anthropoids. The bones of the foot are not at all prominent,
and the same remark applies to those of the hand. The contour of the
back of the long, broad foot is flat ; the sole is convex, covered with
strong muscles, and padded with layers of fat. When the animal puts
the sole of the foot on the ground, its muscles go back to the region
of the heel, and forward into the inner side of the foot, thus presenting
the primitive formation of a heel.

The great-toe, as in all apes, is detached like a thumb from the other
toes, and can be used as such. The metatarsus serves as a base for its
projection, in the same manner as the thumb starts from the fore part
of the contour of the wrist. The great-toe sometimes extends as far
as the joint between the first and second phalanges of the second toe,
sometimes nearly as far as the middle of the second phalanx. This
characteristic varies in different individuals. At the point of union of
the first metatarsal bone with the hinder extremity of the first phalanx
of the great-toe, there is a round projection on the inner side of the
foot. The great-toe is very broad at its root, then becomes smaller,
and widens again into a broad final phalanx. With its strong lateral
ridges of skin, which cover the sinews and cushions of fat, all this part of
the foot appears to be wide and flattened off from the back to the sole.

The second, third, fourth, and fifth toes are more slender than the
great-toe. The second toe is in most cases rather shorter than the
third. The third and fourth toes are almost of the same length, and
only a little longer than the second toe.* The fifth toe is considerably
shorter than the fourth. The last phalanges of the toes taper in front,
and are furnished on their lower surface with long, laterally com-
pressed pads. The section of such a phalanx is almost trapezoidal,
with a long upper parallel side. The upper part of the foot, although
generally flat, rises a little in the neighborhood of the first metatarsal
bone, and slopes thence to its outer edge.

The hair grows thickly on the back of the foot, as far as the ex-

* Compare Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, table v ; also Hartmann, " Der Gorilla," p.
14, Anm 4.

742

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

tremity of the metatarsal bones, more sparsely on the back of the toes.
There are sti'ongly marked oblique furrows on this part of the foot,
especially on the joints, often combined with horny callosities, since

Fig. 3.— The Young Male Gorilla, pbom the Specimen in the Berun Aquarium op 1876-'77.

the animal sometimes doubles up the toes and runs upon the back
.of them. The nails of the hands and feet are black, like the whole

of their skin-covering, dis-
tinctly grooved, very much
arched, and generally some-
what wider at the base than
in front.

On the sole of the foot
Ave find the region of the
heel, the ball of the great-
toe, in this case resembling
the ball of a thumb, the
roots and tips of the toes,
together w'ith pads consist-
ing of muscles, tendons, and
skin. The several divisions
of these padded balls are
Fia. 4. — The same Animal at a still Earlier Age. sCDarated from each Other
by furrows which are longitudinal, oblique, and transverse, and more
or less distinct from each other. The black skin which covers the sole

EXTERNAL FORM OF THE MAN-LIKE APES. 743

of the foot is thick and horny, but provided with a series of papillae.
The whole skin of an aged animal is of a deep black color, somewhat
glossy, and covered' with intersecting wrinkles.

The young male gorilla does not essentially differ from the old
male in its general and external appearance. Its skull is, however,
without the crest which characterizes the latter animal, and is still of
a rounded form in the region of the crown and occiput. At this age
the head is not so high at the back and on the top as in aged males.
The orbits are less prominent, the general aspect of the face is not so
decidedly prognathous, and the bridge of the nose is shorter. The
lines of the body in the young male are softer and less exaggerated,
and the expression of the face is less ferocious than in an aged male.
The horny callosities on the hands and feet are altogether wanting or
only faintly indicated, and the hands, fingers, and toes have not
arrived at the ]50werful development which we observe in the older
animal.

Considerable differences may be observed in the whole structure
of the adult female gorilla. The animals of this sex are smaller and
weaker than males of the same age. The skull of the female is smaller
and more rounded than that of the male, and the great bony crests are
also absent. The orbits are less prominent, and a front view of the
head gives the impression of a trapezoidal form. The coronal arch
rises above this trapezoid. In the male, on the contrary, the crown
seems to lengthen above and behind into a pyramidal form. In the
aged female the bridge of the nose is generally shorter than in the
aged male ; but even in this particular there is great variation in dif-
ferent individuals. Sometimes the bridge of the nose in a female is
much depressed, and then the interval between the orbits and the end
of the nose is shorter : I intentionally avoid the terra tip of the nose,
on account of the blunted form of this organ. Even when the bridge
of the nose is more prominent, the interval between its end and the
orbits is sometimes very short.

The aged female gorilla usually has wider cheeks, a smaller nose,
and a higher upper lip. This last peculiarity is shown in the correct
and well-stuffed specimens in the museums at Paris and Liibeck. Al-
though in the process of drying the skin of the nose may have shrunk
a little, yet there is still room for the upper lip, provided with folds
which are either vertical and parallel or diverge like a fan. Owen and
Miitzel* have given satisfactory illustrations of these parts. In the
aged female the shape of the neck is not, as in the aged male, strong
and bulging, so as to resemble a cowl. Yet it is enlarged in conform-
ity with the not inconsiderable development of the spinous processes
of the cervical vertebrae, and with that of the powerful cervical mus-
cles. Even in a young male, of the age of the specimen which was
kept in the Berlin Aquarium, between July, 1876, and November, 1877,
* Owen, " Memoir," etc., plate ii ; Brchtn, " Thierleben," vol. i, p. 56.

744 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

this enlargement of the neck was present in a marked degree. In still
younger individuals, however, under a year old, in which the spinous
processes of the vertebrae have not yet been developed, there is no such
enlargement, but, on the contrary, this region of the neck takes a con-
cave form.

In conformity with the smaller size of the body, the shoulders,
arms, and thighs of the adult female are smaller than those of the full-
grown male, but they are still very powerful. While giving suck, the
breasts of the female are swelled in the form of a half-cone, instead
of assuming the convex shape which is observed in many P^uropean
women, and still more frequently in those of the negro, Indian, and
South Sea races. The nipple is cylindrical rather than conical in shape,
and covered with finely wrinkled black skin, which is sometimes hard
and horny. When not giving suck, the breasts hang slackly down,
like short empty pouches.

In a young female the cranium is rounded, and the face is only
slightly prominent. In aged specimens, especially in those of the male
sex, there is a somewhat typical prolongation of that part of the face
which lies between the eyes and the end of the nose, and this is to a
slight extent apparent in the young female. Variations in form and
in the extent of the prolongation are, however, apparent even at this
early period. The trunk and limbs are more slenderly built than in a
male of the same age.

The hairy coat of the gorilla consists of long, thick, straight or
stiffly curved bristles, and also of shorter, thinner, and curled woolly
hair. On the crown of the head the hair is somewhat stiff, from twelve
to twenty millimetres in length, and it becomes erect under the influ-
ence of anger. While the sides and fore part of the chin are only
clothed with short, stiff hairs, they grow thickly on the back part of
the chin, like a beard or forelock. The hairs which turn outward
from the sides of the face and on the neck are thirty or more milli-
metres in length. On the shoulders the hair is from one hundred and
thirty to one hundred and fifty millimetres long, hanging down on the
upper arms and the back. In the middle of the upper arm the hair is
from fifty to seventy millimetres long, growing downward as far as
the bend of the elbow. At this point it generally begins to grow in
an upward direction. On the back of the forearm it again grows
downward. In the middle of the forearm, on its inner side, a parting
of the hairs takes place, as one portion goes in front of the radius,
while the other portion turns behind the ulna. On the back of the
wrist a tuft of cui-ved hair turns upward ; a middle tuft goes directly
back ; and the lower tuft, also curved, turns outward. On the back
of the hand the hairs turn toward the fingers. On the breast and
belly the hairs are shorter and grow more sparsely. On the breast
their direction is, as a rule, upward and outward. On the belly they
converge from the ribs toward the center and the navel. On the

EXTERNAL FORM OF THE MAN-LIKE APES. 745

thighs the hairs are about one hundred and sixty millimetres long, and
here, as on the lower part of the leg, they tend outward, while on the
back of the foot they grow toward the toes. On the back, shoulders,
and on the thigh and leg, the bristles are slightly curved. This qual-
ity increases the general impression of shagginess and fleeciness which
is produced by the hairy coat of these creatures. The woolly hair
does not grow very thick, and is not much matted.

The color of the hair not only differs on different parts of the body,
but also in different individuals. On the crown of the head it is of a
reddish-brown, or rarely of a decided brown or black. The hairs in
this region are sometimes dun-colored at the root, grayish-white in the
center, and brownish-red, shading into the dark-brown tip. The hair
on the lips is sometimes of a blackish-brown, sometimes whitish, or
both colors are found together. The hair growing at the sides of the
face is gray below, dark brown or almost black above. On the neck
and shoulders the hair is of a gray color at the root, and gradually
becomes lighter toward the tip. In the center it is brown, shading
into a lighter color at either end ; but this ringed form of color is not
universal. The tips of the hair are dark, sometimes brown or reddish.
The hair on the back, on the upper arms and thighs, is whitish or light
gray for half its length, with a blackish-brown ring toward the tip,
which is of a dark-gray color. Many of these hairs on the back have
two brown rings on them. The forearms, hands, shanks, and feet are
covered with hairs which are gray at the root, brownish gray, dark
brown, or black at the tip. Round the posteriors there is a circle of
white, gray, or brownish-yellow hairs, from ten to twenty millimetres
in length. In both sexes variations from the color of the coat here
described are not rare. It has been already observed that the brown-
ish-red color of the hair on the head is sometimes exchanged for
another shade. In many individuals the neck, shoulders, and back are
of a dark gray, brown, or even black color. In others the forearms,
hands, shanks, and feet are covered, like the rest of the body, with
gray and brown hair intermingled.

The second species of anthropoid apes is the chimpanzee. In this
case also we must consider successively the aged and young male, and
the aged and young female animals.

The full-grown chimpanzee is smaller than the adult gorilla. In
this species also the male is larger than the female. The chimpanzee
is, speaking generally, of a slighter build than the gorilla.

The head of the aged male chimpanzee fundamentally differs from
that of the aged male gorilla, since the skull of the former has a de-
pressed crown, and the transverse occipital ridge is only faintly indi-
cated. Since the orbits are also less strongly developed than in the
aged male gorilla, and the spinous processes of the cervical vertebrse
do not assume the same elevated form which is characteristic of the
latter species, the countenance of the chimpanzee is not of a square

746 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

shape, and there is not space for the strong muscular system arching
over the neck like a cowl, whicli is so characteristic of the gorilla.
The head of the chimpanzee displays, both in aged and young speci-
mens, the concave neck which is common among apes, that is to say,
a depression between the head and the throat. In an aged male the
crown of the head presents a rounded, arched contour, since, as we
have already said, the prominent bony processes are wanting. Al-
though the supraorbital arches are not so excessively prominent as in
a gorilla of the same age, they are strongly developed, covered with
wrinkled skin, and in this case also there is a species of e^^ebrow, stiff
and bristly, with shorter hairs between. The large, wrinkled lids are
furnished with thick eyelashes. The inner angle of the eye somewhat
resembles that of the gorilla.

A general physiognomical distinction between the gorilla and the
chimpanzee consists in the fact that the bridge of the nose is shorter
in the latter than in the former. In the chimpanzee this part of the
organ is depressed, yet the depression is of a conical and convex form,
and is covered with a net-work of wrinkles of varying depth. In the
chimpanzee the interval between the inner angle of the eye and the
upper lateral contour of the cartilaginous end of the nose is shorter
than in the gorilla. There is also some difference in the form of the
nose : it is on the whole flatter, the tip is less apparent, the nostrils
are not so widely opened nor so thickly padded. (Fig. 3.) In the
chimpanzee, as well as in the gorilla, a central and vertical furrow
directly divides the triangular nostrils, and these are likewise divided
from the rest of the face by the broad pear-shaped furrow which sur-
rounds them. The upper lip is generally high, sometimes as high as
thirty millimetres ; but in some individuals it is much lower. As in
the gorilla, the chin forms a triangle of equal sides, with its apex
reversed.

The external ear of the chimpanzee has on the whole less resem-
blance to the human ear, and its contour is larger than that of the
gorilla. But this organ varies so much in individuals that it is difficult
to lay down any rule for its average size. It ranges from fifty-nine to
seventy-seven millimetres in length, and from forty-two to eighty
millimetres in width. Many individuals have a distinct lobule to the
ear, others not. (Fig. 5.) In this example the helix and anti-helix are
developed, in others they are wanting. The tragus and anti-tragus
are more or less apparent in different individuals, as well as the other
modifications of the external cartilage of the ear.

An aged male chimpanzee has broad, rather rounded shoulders, a
powerful chest, long, muscular arms, I'caching to the knees, and a long
hand, which seems to be very slender in comparison with that of the
gorilla. The thumbs vary in length, for the most part reaching as far
as the metacarpal phalanges, but not in all cases. The middle finger
is longer than the other three ; the first and third fingers are shorter

EXTERNAL FORM OF THE MAN-LIKE APES. 747

Fig. 5.— Eae of Chimpanzee.

by the length of tlie last phalanx, the third is a little longer than the
first, and the fourth is again shorter. A web, which reaches to the
middle of the first row of phalanges, stretches between the bases of
the four fingers. There are horny cal-
losities on the back of the hand of the
aged male, since the chimpanzee, like
the gorilla, supports himself on the
backs of his closed fingers. The
fingers are laterally compressed, but
slightly arched on the back of the
hand, and more decidedly so on the
palm. A net-work of furrows covers
the back of the hand, and these are
more deeply impressed on its palm.
The thumb is separated from the palm
by a distinct furrow ; and from four
to six furrows of varying depth cross
the center of the palm. The finger-
nails are short, wide, and arched, very
convex at their free edges.

In the aged male the sides of the
belly are compressed, the thighs are
broad and muscular, and somewhat flattened both on the inner and
outer sides. The knees are rather prominent, the shanks are somewhat
laterally compressed, and the calf of the leg is very slightly developed.
As in the gorilla, the long, wide feet have a thumb-like formation of
the great-toes, which are of considerable size. They extend, when
drawing anything toward them, as far as the second phalanx of the
second toe. The four other toes are more slender, and only a little
longer than the great-toe. The heel is but slightly developed, and
slopes away below. The joint between the first phalanx of the gi-eat-
toe and the first metatarsal bone is marked by an angular projection
on the inner edge of the foot. The back of the foot is very slightly
convex. The last phalanx of the great-toe is very much sloped off on
its upper surface, but this is less apparent in the other parts of this
member. The last phalanges of the other laterally compressed toes
are strongly arched on the under surface. Considerable convexities
may also be observed under the metacarpo-phalangeal joint of the
great-toe, and under its last phalanx. The shape of the toe-nails re-
sembles that of the fingers. Large callosities are not unfrequently
found on the backs of the toes, since the animal sometimes supports
himself on these parts. A connective web is found between all the
toes, except the great-toe and its neighbor, but it does not extend so
far as that between the roots of the fingers.

Although the young male chimpanzee is distinguished from the
aged male of the same species by differences in the structure of many

748 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of its parts, yet these distinctions are not so characteristic as those be-
tween the young and aged male gorillas. The skull of the younger
animal, which is altogether devoid of the prominent bony crest and
ridges, is shaped almost like a truncated cone in the region of the
crown ; in some individuals of only a few years old the bony develop-
ment of the orbits has already begun, starting from the principal part
of the frontal bone, and covered with pads of wrinkled skin. The
short and depressed bridge of the nose becomes longer and higher, the
cartilaginous end of the nose becomes larger, and the prognathism of
the face increases with each successive stage of growth. The strength
of the trunk and limbs is early developed. The sexual characteristics
are gradually and plainly developed ; but the male gorilla far exceeds
the chimpanzee in demoniacal ferocity.

The adult female is smaller, and has a smaller head, with an oval
crown to the skull. The orbits are not so strongly developed as in the
aged male, the nasal parts are less prominent, and the teeth are not
nearly so strong. The body of an animal of this sex is rounder in all
its parts ; and the belly, with its wider pelvis, is more tun-shaped than
in the aged male. Neither do the limbs display the same angular for-
mation of muscles.* The hands and feet of the female are also smaller
and slenderer. In a young female the characteristics here describep
are presented in the mitigated form which corresponds with its youth-
ful condition. But the female sometimes becomes a very strong and
even violent creature. This was often proved in the Hamburg Zoo-
logical Garden, where a female specimen, in splendid condition, sur-
vived for several years under the faithful care of old Siegel.f

The skin of the chimpanzee is of a peculiar light, yet muddy flesh
color, which sometimes verges upon brown. Spots, varying in size
and depth of color, sometimes isolated, sometimes in groups, and of a
blackish-brown, sooty, or bluish-black tint, are found on different parts
of the body of many individuals, especially on the face, neck, breast,
belly, arms and hands, thighs and shanks ; more rarely on the back.
The face, which is soon after birth of a flesh color, merging into a
yellowish-brown, assumes a darker shade with the gradual develop-
ment of the body. The hairy coat is sleek, or only in rare cases
slightly curled, and the coarser and bristly hair is generally stiff and
elastic. The parting on the forehead is often so regular that it might
have been arranged by the hairdresser's art (see Fig. G). Close behind
that part of the head at which the projecting supraorbital ridges of
the gorilla generally meet, there is in the chimpanzee an altogether
bald place, or only a few scattered hairs. Round the face the growth

* Compare Ilartmann, " Der Gorilla," Fig. 8. This is undoubtedly one of the most
successful illustrations of the chimpanzee, its habits, expression, and disposition.

f Compare Ilartmann, " Der Gorilla," Fig. 27, representing the Hamburg animal in
middle age. Fig. 0 gives the wild Paulina of the Gorman Loango expedition. The in-
scription, by an error of the press, states that it is a male, not a female chimpanzee.

EXTERNAL FORM OF THE MAN-LIKE APES. 749

of hair streams downward like a beard. On the neck it is from sixty
to eighty or one hundred millimetres in length, and it falls in the same
long locks over the shoulders, back, and hips. The hair on the limbs
is not so long, and takes a downward direction on the upper arm, and
an opposite direction ou the forearm, while there is often a longitudi-
nal parting on the center of the inner surface of this part of the limb.

Fio. 6.— Young Chimpanzee.

On the back of the wrist the hair grows in a kind of whorl ; the upper
hairs turn upward and backward, the middle ones turn backward, the
lower ones backward and downward. The backs of the hands and the
roots of the fingers are hairy. On the front of the thigh the hair takes
a downward direction, while behind it grows backward. On the shank
it grows downward in the region of the tibia, and turns back on the
inside of the leg. The back of the foot and the roots of the toes are
likewise hairy. There is a shorter growth of these scattered hairs on
the face, chin, and ears. On the supraorbital arches there are from

750 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

eight to twenty, or even more, stiff, scattered hairs, after the manner
of eyebrows ; and eyelashes are likewise present.

In most cases the hair of the true chimpanzee is of a black color.
Short whitish hairs may be observed on the lower part of the face and
chin, as well as round the posteriors. Sometimes the color of the hair
is shot throughout with reddish or brownish black.

The orang-outang, the chief representative of the anthropoids in
Asia, differs from the African forms of this group, almost at the first
glance, in the height of his skull, of which the fore part is compressed
and shortened in a backward direction. In the aged male it is, how-
ever, provided with high and erect bony crests, w^hich give a prog-
nathous appearance to the countenance. We take an aged male as the
type of our description.

The forehead is high and erect, not retreating like that of the
chimpanzee ; it is open, and has moderately convex frontal eminences.
From the center of the forehead a round or bluntly oval eminence
sometimes projects. The supraorbital ridges are strongly arched, yet
not so prominent as that of the aged male chimpanzee, setting aside
that of the gorilla. The eyes are not widely opened, nor are their lids
large and furrowed, but on the lower lids there are deej) wrinkles.
The small bi-idge of the nose is generally much depressed, but some-
times assumes a slightly conical form as it issues from the central
longitudinal depression of the face. The end of the nose, farther
removed from the eyes than is generally the case in the chimpanzee,
is not so broad as it is in the latter animal and in the gorilla. The
wings of the nose are narrow and highly arched in their upper part,
divided from each other by a vertical furrow, and the nostrils are small
and oval, separated by a thin j^artition. The upper lip is high, broad,
and projecting, and seldom much w^rinkled. It is divided from the
cheeks and from the upper part of the face by a deep depression ; and
behind the cheeks two large and long-shai)ed or sometimes triangular
pads of fat often project forward and downw^ard.

The very mobile lips are furrowed, and not remarkably thick. The
chin is very retreating, but somewhat uniformly rounded in front (Fig.
7). The small ear averages fifty-five millimetres in length, and twelve
millimetres in width, and has a general resemblance in structure to the
human ear (Fig. 8). On the fore pai-t of the short, thick neck there
are irregular, and in some places very deep, circular folds of skin. The
throat-pouch distends part of this slack, wrinkled skin, which hangs
down in front like a great empty wallet (see Figs. 7 and 9).

The structure of the other parts of the body lacks even, to some
extent, the powerful and symmetrical formation which we observe in
the gorilla, and indeed in the chimpanzee. The trunk, with broad yet
rather angular and sloping shoulders, with flattened breast, rounded
back, and still more rounded belly, is tun-shaped, and gives the im-
pression of a want of proportion. In lean individuals the gluteal

EXTERNAL FORM OF THE MAN-LIKE APES. 751

region resembles the projecting rump of a fowl, and this may also be
observed in the young gorilla and chimpanzee. The long, muscular
arms reach to the ankles when the animal is in an erect position, and
are altogether out of proportion with the rest of the body. The pow-

FiG. 7.— Head and SHOtrLDEKS op an Aged Male Orang-Gutanq.

erful upper arm is shorter than the lean forearm. The hand is long
and narrow. The thumb, which reaches as far as the metacarpo-
phalangeal joint, has a displeasing and almost rudimentary effect. A
web unites the fingers, sometimes extending along a third of the first
phalanx, sometimes along half. The middle
finger is somewhat longer than the first and
third fingers, and the third is next to it in
length. The fourth finger is comparatively
long. The palm of the hand is flat, only marked
by a few deep furrows. The long, slender
fingers are laterally compressed, and the nails
on their tapering ends are arched.

The thighs, somewhat compressed on the
inner side, are, however, very muscular, but
become much smaller on their back side. The
calf of the leg is less developed than in the gorilla, or even than in
the chimpanzee. The feet are, like the hands, long and slender. The
narrow, flat heels, project very slightly behind. The great-toes are
short, with wide extremities, rounded above, and provided on the sole
with thick, fatty skin. In old age these animals not only often lose
the nails of their great-toes, but sometimes even the last phalanges
themselves. This is not merely a disease produced by confinement,
as is the case with sea-cat monkeys, hyenas, etc., wHich in this condi-

PiG. 8.— Ear of the Orang-
outang.

752 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tion lose portions of their tails or toes, but it also occurs among orang-
outangs in their wild state. The middle toe is the longest, and the
fourth toe is the shortest. Layers of fat may be observed on the under
side of all but the great-toe, where they rarely occur. The backs of
the hands and feet are covered with very ribbed and wrinkled skin,
and on the hands there are callosities.

This animal, of a quieter and more phlegmatic disposition than the
gorilla and chimpanzee, has a very strange appearance, with its pro-
jecting head and short neck ; its face widening in the middle and
tapering toward the forehead and chin ; its tun-shaped trunk, long,
thin extremities, and shaggy coat. It differs widely from the chim-
panzee and gorilla in these particulars. In the young male the com-
pression of the forehead is less marked than in aged animals, and the
bony crests which conduce to raise the coronal arch in its upper and
hinder part are also absent. The supraorbital arches are less strongly
developed, the jaws are less prominent, and the layers of fat upon the
cheeks are absent. The head is more detached from the neck, the
structure of the whole body is slenderer, the expression of the counte-
nance is milder. A small, conical nail, blunted at the end, may gen-
erally be observed on the great-toe.

In the adult female, as I have pointed out elsewhere, the physical
characteristics of the young male are repeated in an exaggerated form.
The skull, displaying only very small bony crests, is indeed high, but
more rounded than in the aged male ; the face is prominent, but the
head is more detached from the neck than in the latter case. On
account of the greater width of the pelvis, the body is still more tun-
shaped than in the aged male. When giving suck, the breasts are
distended in the form of a half cone, but when this condition ceases
they fall together and only present two short, wrinkled, slightly promi-
nent folds of skin ; the small, horny nipples are almost cylindrical ;
and the areola, of which the traces are scanty at all times, altogether
disappears. The throat-pouch is less strongly developed than in the
aged male, but the limbs are as fully developed. The head of the
young female is still more rounded, with a more flattened though still
projecting face, and the limbs are slenderer, and thus still more out of
proportion with the thick trunk than is the case with a young male.

The orang-outang's skin is of a grayish-blue color, sometimes mixed
with brown, but the grayish-blue shade is predominant. A yellowish
or brownish gray is less common. Round the eyes, nostrils, upper
lips, and chin, there is often a ring of a dirty, yellowish-brown color,
forming a strange contrast with the general bluish-gray tone of the
face. The arms, legs, hands, and feet are black or grayish-black, more
rarely brown or reddish-brown.

The hairy coat of the orang-outang consists of long, curved, waving
bristles, and some scanty downy hairs. On the back of the head, on
the shoulders, back, and hips, I have measured hairs from two hundred

EXTERNAL FORM OF THE MAN-LIKE APES. 753

and twenty to two hundred and thirty-five millimetres in length. In
other individuals they were, however, much shorter — twenty, forty, or
sixty millimetres long. There is often a natural parting of the hair of
the head, which falls asunder on either side. In some cases there is
no parting, and the hair streams wildly down ; and in others, again,
it stands upright, stiffening from the sides and top of the head in a
demoniacal manner (Figs, 7 and 9). A beard frequently encircles the

Fig. 9. — Adult MAiE Orang-Outakg.

>-V

cheeks and chin. The hair grows upward and outward on the neck
and fore part of the throat, on the shoulders, back, breast, belly, upper
arms, and thighs, while it takes the opposite direction on the forearm.
On the wrist the hair grows in the manner described in the case of the
gorilla. There is only a scanty growth of hair on the breast and belly,

VOL. XXTUI. — 48

754 THE POPULAR SCIEXCE MONTHLY.

and it is also short and weak on the face, ears, and backs of the hands
and feet. I have not observed eyebrows ou the animals I have seen,
but they may occur, and the eyelashes are fully developed.

The hair is of a reddish-brown color, something like burnt sienna,
and the hair-tips on the back parts of the body are generally brown.
In some individuals the hair is darker, of a russet or blackish brown ;
in others it is lighter, and in the latter case the breast and belly are of
a yellowish white. The beard is sometimes dark yellow. Some indi-
viduals almost devoid of hair have been observed.

THE FACTOES OF OEGAXIC EYOLUTIO:^:.

Bt HERBERT SPENCEE.

■TTTITIIIN the recollection of men now in middle life, opinion con-
V V cerning the derivation of animals and plants was in a chaotic
state. Among the unthinking there was tacit belief in creation by
miracle, which formed an essential part of the creed of Christendom ;
and among the thinking there were two parties, each of which held an
indefensible hypothesis. Immensely the larger of these parties, in-
cluding nearly all whose scientific culture gave weight to their judg-
ments, though not accepting literally the theologically-orthodox doc-
trine, made a compromise between that doctrine and the doctrines
which geologists had established ; while opposed to them were some,
mostly having no authority in science, who held a doctrine which was
heterodox both theologically and scientifically. Professor Huxley, in
his lecture on " The Coming of Age of the Origin of Species," re-
marks concerning the first of these parties as follows :

" One-and-twenty years ago, in spite of the work commenced by Ilutton and
continued with rare skill and patience by Lyell, the dominant view of the past
history of the earth was catastrophic. Great and sudden pliysical revolutions,
wholesale creations and extinctions of living beings, were tlie ordinary machin-
ery of the geological epic brought into fashion by the misapplied genius of Cu-
vier. It was gravely maintained and taught that the end of every geological
epoch was signalized by a cataclysm, by which every living being on the globe
was swept away, to be rey)laced by a brand-new creation when the world re-
turned to quiescence. A scheme of nature which appeared to be modelled on
the likeness of a succession of rubbers of wliist, at the end of each of which the
players upset the table and called for a new pack, did not soem to shock any-
body.

I may be wrong, but I doubt if, at the present time, there is a single respon-
sible representative of these opinions left. The progress of scientific geology
has elevated the fundament principle of uniformitarianism, that the ex[)lanation

THE FACTORS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 755

of the past is to be sought in the study of the present, into the position of an
axiom ; and the wild speculations of the catastrophists, to which we all listened
with respect a quarter of a century ago, would hardly find a single patient hearer
at the present day."

Of the party above referred to as not satisfied with this concep-
tion described by Professor Huxley, there were two classes. The
great majority were admirers of the Vestiges of the Natural History
of Creation — a work which, while it sought to show that organic evo-
lution has taken place, contended that the cause of organic evolution
is " an impulse " supernaturally " imparted to the forms of life, ad-
vancing them . . . through grades of organization." Being nearly
all very inadequately acquainted with the facts, those who accepted
the view set forth in the Vestiges were ridiculed by the well-instructed
for being satisfied with evidence, much of which was either invalid or
easily cancelled by counter-evidence, and at the same time they ex-
posed themselves to the ridicule of the more philosophical for being
content with a supposed explanation which was in reality no explana-
tion— the alleged " impulse " to advance giving us no more help in
understanding the facts than does Nature's alleged " abhorrence of a
vacuum" help us to understand the ascent of water in a pump. The
remnant, forming the second of these classes, was very small. While
rejecting this mere verbal solution, which both Dr. Erasmus Darwin
and Lamarck had shadowed forth in other language, there were some
few who, rejecting also the hypothesis indicated by both Dr. Darwin
and Lamarck, that the promptings of desires or wants produced
growths of the parts subserving them, accepted the single vera causa
assigned by these writers — the modification of structures resulting
from modification of functions. They recognized as the sole process
in organic development the adaptation of parts and powers consequent
on the effects of use and disuse — that continual moulding and remould-
ing of organisms to suit their circumstances, which is brought about
by direct converse with such circumstances.

But while this cause accepted by these few is a true cause, since
unquestionably during the life of the individual organism changes of
function produce changes of structure ; and while it is a tenable hy-
pothesis that changes of structure so produced are inheritable, yet it
was manifest to those not prepossessed, that this cause cannot with
reason be assigned for the greater part of the facts. Though in plants
there are some characters which may not irrationally be ascribed to
the direct effects of modified functions consequent on modified circum-
stances, yet the majority of the traits presented by plants are not to
be thus explained. It is impossible that the thorns by which a briar
is in large measure defended against browsing animals, can have been
developed and moulded by the continuous exercise of their protective
actions ; for in the first place, the great majority of the thorns are

756 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

never touched at all, and, in the second place, we have no ground
whatever for supposing that those which are touched are thereby made
to grow, and to take those shapes which render them efficient. Plants
which are rendered uneatable by the thick woolly coatings of their
leaves, cannot have had these coatings produced by any process of
reaction against the action of enemies ; for there is no imaginable
reason why, if one part of a plant is eaten, the rest should thereafter
begin to develop the hairs on its surface. By what direct effect of
function on structure can the shell of a nut have been evolved ? Or
how can those seeds which contain essential oils, rendering them un-
palatable to birds, have been made to secrete such essential oils by
these actions of birds which they restrain ? Or how can the delicate
plumes borne by some seeds, and giving the wind power to waft them
to new stations, be due to any immediate influences of surrounding
conditions ? Clearly in these and in countless other cases, change of
structure cannot have been directly caused by change of function.
So is it with animals to a large extent, if not to the same extent.
Though we have proof that by rough usage the dermal layer may be
po excited as to produce a greatly thickened epidermal layer, some-
times quite horny ; and though it is a feasible hypothesis that an
effect of this kind persistently produced may be inherited ; yet no
such cause can explain the carapace of the turtle, the armor of the
armadillo, or the imbricated covering of the manis. The skins of
these animals are no more exposed to habitnal hard usage than are
those of animals covered by hair. The strange excrescences which
distinguish the heads of the hornbills, cannot possibly have arisen
from any reaction against the action of surrounding forces ; for even
were they clearly protective, there is no reason to suppose that the
heads of these birds need protection more than the heads of other
birds. If, led by the evidence that in animals the amount of covering
is in some cases affected by the degree of exposure, it were admitted
as imaginable that the development of feathers from preceding der-
mal growths had resulted from that extra nutrition caused by extra
superficial circulation, we should still be without explanation of the
structure of a feather. Kor should we have any clue to the speciali-
ties of feathers — the crests of various birds, the tails sometimes so
enormous, the curiously placed plumes of the bird of paradise, etc.
Still more obviously impossible is it to explain as due to use or dis-
use the colors of animals. No direct adaptation to function could
have produced the blue protuberances on a mandril's face, or the
striped hide of a tiger, or the gorgeous plumage of a kingfisher, or the
oyes in a peacock's tail, or the multitudinous patterns of insects' wings.
One single case, that of a deer's horns, might alone have sufficed to
show how insufficient was the assigned cause. During their growth,
a deer's horns are not used at all ; and when, having been cleared of
the dead skin and dried-up blood-vessels covering them, they are ready

THE FACTORS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 757

for use, they are nerveless and non-vascular, and hence are incapable
of undergoing any changes of structure consequent on changes of
function.

Of these few, then, who rejected the belief described by Professor
Huxley, and who, espousing the belief in a continuous evolution, had
to account for this evolution, it must be said that though the cause
assigned was a true cause, yet, even admitting that it operated through
successive generations, it left unexplained the greater part of the
facts. Obviously the facts that were congruous with the espoused
view, monopolized consciousness, and kept out the facts that were in-
congruous with it — conspicuous though many of them were. The mis-
judgment was not unnatural. Finding it impossible to accept any
doctrine which implied a breach in the uniform course of natural cau-
sation, and, by implication, accepting as unquestionable the origin and
development of all organic forms by accumulated modifications natu-
rally caused, that which appeared to explain certain classes of these
modifications, was supposed to be capable of explaining the rest : the
tendency being to assume that these would eventually be similarly
accounted for, though it was not clear how.

Returning from this parenthetic remark, we are concerned here
chiefly to remember that, as said at the outset, there existed thirty
years ago, no tenable theory about the genesis of living things. Of
the two alternative beliefs, neither would bear critical examination.

Out of this dead lock we were released — in large measure, though
not I believe entirely — by the Origin of Species. That work brought
into view a further factor ; or, rather, such factor, recognized as in
operation by here and there an observer (as pointed out by Mr. Dar-
win in his introduction to the second edition), was by him for the first
time seen to have played so immense a part in the genesis of plants
and animals.

Though laying myself open to the charge of telling a thrice-told
tale, I feel obliged here to indicate briefly the several great classes of
facts which Mr. Darwin's hypothesis explains ; because otherwise that
which follows would scarcely be understood. And I feel the less hesi-
tation in doing this because the hypothesis which it replaced, not very
widely known at any time, has of late so completely dropped into the
background, that the majority of readers are scarcely aware of its
existence, and do not therefore understand the relation between Mr.
Darwin's successful interpretation and the preceding unsuccessful
attempt at interpretation. Of these classes of facts, four chief ones
may be here distinguished.

In the first place, such adjustments as those exemplified above are
made comprehensible. Though it is inconceivable that a structure
like that of the pitcher-plant could have been produced by accumu-
lated effects of function on structure ; yet it is conceivable that sue-

758 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

cessive selections of favorable variations might have produced it ; and
the like holds of the no less remarkable appliance of the Venus's Fly-
trap, or the still more astonishing one of that water-plant by -which
infant-fish are captured. Though it is impossible to imagine how, by
direct influence of increased use, such dermal appendages as a porcu-
pine's quills could have been developed ; yet, profiting as the mem-
bers of a species otherwise defenceless might do by the stiffness of
their hairs, rendering them unpleasant morsels to eat, it is a feasible
supposition that from successive survivals of individuals thus defended
in the greatest degrees, and the consequent growth in successive gen-
erations of hairs into bristles, bristles into spines, spines into quills
(for all these are homologous), this change could have arisen. In like
manner, the odd inflatable bag of the bladder-nosed seal, the curi-
ous fishing-rod with its worm-like appendage carried on the head of
the lophius or angler, the spurs on the wings of certain birds, the
weapons of the sword-fish and saw-fish, the wattles of fowls, and
numberless such peculiar structures, though by no possibility explica-
ble as due to effects of use or disuse, are explicable as resulting from
natural selection operating in one or other way.

In the second place, while showing us how there have arisen count-
less modifications in the forms, structures, and colors of each part, Mr.
Darwin has shown us how, by the establishment of favorable varia-
tions, there may arise new parts. Though the first step in the pro-
duction of horns on the heads of various herbivorous animals, may
have been the growth of callosities consequent on the habit of but-
ting— such callosities thus functionally initiated being afterward de-
veloped in the most advantageous ways by selection ; yet no explana-
tion can be thus given of the sudden appearance of a duplicate set of
horns, as occasionally happens in sheep : an addition which, where it
proved beneficial, might readily be made a permanent trait by natural
selection. Again, the modifications which follow use and disuse can
by no possibility account for changes in the numbers of vertebrae ;
but after recognizing spontaneous, or rather fortuitous, variation as a
factor, we can see that Avhere an additional vertebra hence resulting
(as in some pigeons) proves beneficial, survival of the fittest may make
it a constant character ; and there may, by further like additions, be
produced extremely long strings of vertebrae, such as snakes show
us. Similarly with the mammary glands. It is not an unreasonable
supposition that by the effects of greater or less function, inherited
tlirough successive generations, these may be enlarged or diminished
in size ; but it is out of the question to allege such a cause for changes
in their numbers. There is no imaginable explanation of these save
the establishment by inheritance of spontaneous variations, such as are
known to occur in the human race.

So too, in the third place, with certain alterations in the connexions
of parts. According to the greater or smaller demands made on this

THE FACTORS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 759

or that limb, the muscles moving it may be augmented or diminished
in bulk ; and, if there is inheritance of changes so wrought, the limb
may, in course of generations, be rendered larger or smaller. But
changes in the arrangements or attachments of muscles can not be
thus accounted for. It is found, especially at the extremities, that the
relations of tendons to bones and to one another are not always the
same. Variations in their modes of connexion may occasionally prove
advantageous, and may thus become established. Here again, then,
we have a class of structural changes to which Mr. Darwin's hypothe-
sis gives us the key, and to which there is no other key.

Once more there are the phenomena of mimicry. Perhaps in a
more striking way than any others, these show how traits which seem
inexplicable are explicable as due to the more frequent survival of in-
dividuals that have varied in favorable ways. We are enabled to
understand such marvellous simulations as those of the leaf-insect,
those of beetles which ''resemble glittering dew-drops upon the
leaves ; " those of caterpillars, which, when asleep, stretch themselves
out so as to look like twigs. And we are shown how there have arisen
still more astonishing imitations — those of one insect by another. As
Mr. Bates has proved, there are cases in which a species of butterfly,
rendered so unpalatable to insectivorous birds by its disagreeable taste
that they will not catch it, is simulated in its colors and markings by
a species which is structurally quite different — so simulated that even
a practised entomologist is liable to be deceived : the explanation be-
ing that an original slight resemblance, leading to occasional mistakes
on the part of birds, was increased generation after generation by the
more frequent escape of the most-like individuals, until the likeness
became thus great.

But now, recognizing in full this process brought into clear view
by Mr. Darwin, and traced out by him with so much care and skill,
can we conclude that, taken alone, it accounts for organic evolution ?
Has the natural selection of favorable variations been the sole factor ?
On critically examining the evidence, we shall find reason to think
that it by no means explains all that has to be explained. Omitting
for the present any consideration of a factor which may be distin-
guished as primordial, it may be contended that the above-named
factor alleged by Dr. Erasmus Darwin and by Lamarck, must be rec-
ognized as a co-operator. Utterly inadequate to explain the major
part of the' facts as is the hypothesis of the inheritance of functionally-
produced modifications, yet there is a minor part of the facts, very ex-
tensive though less, which must be ascribed to this cause.

When discussing the question more than twenty years ago {Princi-
2jles of Biolorjy, § 166), I instanced the decreased size of the jaws in
the civilized races of mankind, as a change not accounted for by the
natural selection of favorable variations ; since no one of the decre-

760 THE POPULAR SCIEXCE MONTHLY.

ments by which, in thousands of years, this reduction has been effect-
ed, could have given to an individual in which it occurred, such ad-
vantage as would cause his survival, either through diminished cost of
local nutrition or diminished weight to be carried. I did not then
exclude, as I might have done, two other imaginable causes. It may
be said that there is some organic correlation between increased size
of brain and decreased size of jaw : Camper's doctrine of the facial
angle being referred to in proof. But this argument may be met by
pointing to the many examples of small-jawed people who are also
small-brained, and by citing not infrequent cases of individuals re-
markable for their mental powers, and at the same time distinguished
by jaws not less than the average but greater. Again, if sexual selec-
tion be named as a possible cause, there is the reply that, even suppos-
ing such slight diminution of jaw as took place in a single generation
to have been an attraction, yet the other incentives to choice on the
part of men have been too many and great to allow this one to weigh
in an adequate degree ; while, during the greater portion of the period,
choice on the part of women has scarcely operated : in earlier times
they were stolen or bought, and in later times mostly coerced by par-
ents. Thus, reconsideration of the facts does not show me the inva-
lidity of the conclusion drawn, that this decrease in size of jaw can
have had no other cause than continued inheritance of those diminu-
tions consequent on diminutions of function, implied by the use of
selected and well-prepared food. Here, however, my chief purpose is
to add an instance showing, even more clearly, the connexion between
change of function and change of structure. This instance, allied in
nature to the other, is presented by those varieties, or rather sub-
varieties, of dogs, which, having been household pets, and habitually
fed on soft food, have not been called on to use their jaws in tearing
and crunching, and have been but rarely allowed to use them in catch-
ing prey and in fighting. No inference can be drawn from the sizes
of the jaws themselves, which, in these dogs, have probably been
shortened mainly by selection. To get direct proof of the decrease of
the muscles concerned in closing the jaws or biting, would require a
series of observations very difficult to make. But it is not difficult to
get indirect proof of this decrease by looking at the bony structures
with which these muscles are connected. Examination of the skulls of
sundry indoor dogs contained in the Museum of the College of Sur-
geons, proves the relative smallness of such parts. The only pug-
dog's skull is that of an individual not perfectly adult ; and though its
traits are quite to the point they cannot with safety be taken as evi-
dence. The skull of a toy-terrier has much restricted areas of inser-
tion for the temporal muscles ; has weak zygomatic arches ; and has
extremely small attachments for the masseter muscles. Still more
significant is the evidence furnished by the skull of a King Charles's
spaniel, which, if we allow three years to a generation, and bear in

THE FACTORS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 761

mind that the variety must have existed before Charles the Second's
reign, we may assume belongs to something approaching to the hun-
dredth generation of these household pets. The relative breadth be-
tween the outer surfaces of the zygomatic arches is conspicuously
small ; the narrowness of the temporal fossre is also striking ; the
zygomata are very slender ; the temporal muscles have left no marks
whatever, either by limiting lines or by the character of the surfaces
covered ; and the places of attachment for the masseter muscles are
very feebly developed. At the Museum of Natural History, among
skulls of dogs there is one which, though unnamed, is shown by its
small size and by its teeth, to have belonged to one variety or other of
lap-dogs, and which has the same traits in an equal degree with the
skull just described. Here, then, we have two if not three kinds of
dogs which, similarly leading protected and pampered lives, show that
in the course of generations the parts concerned in clenching the jaws
have dwindled. To what cause must this decrease be ascribed ? Cer-
tainly not to artificial selection ; for most of the modifications named
make no appreciable external signs : the width across the zygomata could
alone be perceived. Neither can natural selection have had anything
to do with it ; for even were there any struggle for existence among
such dogs, it cannot be contended that any advantage in the struggle
could be gained by an individual in which a decrease took place.
Economy of nutrition, too, is excluded. Abundantly fed as such dogs
are, the constitutional tendency is to find places where excess of ab-
sorbed nutriment may be conveniently deposited, rather than to find
places where some cutting down of the supplies is practicable. Nor
again can there be alleged a possible correlation between these diminu-
tions and that shortening of the jaws which has probably resulted
from selection ; for in the bull-dog, which has also relatively short
jaws, these structures concerned in closing them are unusually large.
Thus there remains as the only conceivable cause, the diminution of
size which results from diminished use. The dwindling of a little-
exercised part has, by inheritance, been made more and more marked
in successive generations.

Difficulties of another class may next be exemplified — those which
present themselves when we ask how there can be effected by the
selection of favorable variations, such changes of structure as adapt
an organism to some useful action in which many different parts co-
operate. None can fail to see how a simple part may, in course of
generations, be gi'eatly enlarged, if each enlargement furthers, in
some decided way, maintenance of the species. It is easy to under-
stand, too, how a complex part, as an entire limb, may be increased as
a whole by the simultaneous due increase of its co-operative parts ;
since if, while it is growing, the channels of supply bring to the limb
an unusual quantity of blood, there will naturally result a proportion-

762 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ately greater size of all its components — bones, muscles, arteries, veins,
etc. But though in cases like this, the co-operative parts forming some
large complex part may be expected to vary together, nothing implies
that they necessarily do so ; and we have proof that in various cases,
even when closely united, they do not do so. An example is furnished
by those blind crabs named in the Origin of Species which inhabit
certain dark caves of Kentucky, and which, though they have lost
their eyes, have not lost the foot-stalks which carried their eyes. In
describing the varieties which have been produced by pigeon-fanciers,
Mr. Darwin notes the fact that along with changes in length of beak
produced by selection, there have not gone proportionate changes in
length of tongue. Take again the case of teeth and jaws. In man-
kind these have not varied together. During civilization the jaws
have decreased, but the teeth have not decreased in proportion ; and
hence that prevalent crowding of them, often remedied in childhood
by extraction of some, and in other cases causing that imperfect de-
velopment which is followed by early decay. But the absence of pro-
portionate variation in co-operative parts that are close together, and
are even bound up in the same mass, is best seen in those varieties of
dogs named above as illustrating the inherited effects of disuse. We
see in them, as we see in the human race, that diminution in the jaws
has not been accompanied by corresponding diminution in the teeth.
In the catalogue of the College of Surgeons Museum, there are appended
to the entry which identifies a Blenheim Spaniel's skull, the words —
"the teeth are closely crowded together," and to the entry concerning
the skull of a King Charles's Spaniel the words — "the teeth are closely
packed, p. 3, is placed quite transversely to the axis of the skull." It
is further noteworthy that in a case where there is no diminished use
of the jaws, but where they have been shortened by selection, a like
want of concomitant variation is manifested : the case being that of
the bull-dog, in the upper jaw of which also, " the premolars . . . are
excessively crowded, and placed obliquely or even transversely to the
long axis of the skull." *

If, then, in cases where we can test it, we find no concomitant
variation in co-operative parts that are near together — if we do not
find it in parts which, though belonging to different tissues, are so
closely united as teeth and jaws — if we do not find it even when the
co-operative parts are not only closely united, but are formed out of
the same tissue, like the crab's eye and its peduncle ; what shall we
say of co-operative parts which, besides being composed of different
tissues, are remote from one another ? Not only are we forbidden to

* It is probable that this shortening has resulted not directly but indirectly, from the
selection of individuals which were noted for tenacity of hold ; for the bull-dog's pecul-
iarity in this respect seems due to relative shortness of the upper jaw, giving the under,
htmg structure which, involving retreat of the nos-trils, enables the dog to continue
breathing while holding.

THE FACTORS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 76^

assume that they vary togetlicr, but we are "warranted in asserting
that they can have no tendency to vary together. And what are the
implications in cases where increase of a structure can be of no sei^vice
unless there is concomitant increase in many distant structures, which
have to join it in performing the action for which it is useful ?

As far back as 186-4 {Principles of Biology, § 166) I named in
illustration an animal carrying heavy horns — the extinct Irish elk ;
and indicated the many changes in bones, muscles, blood-vessels,
nerves, composing the fore-part of the body, which would be required
to make an increment of size in such horns advantageous. Here let
me take another instance — that of the giraffe : an instance which I
take partly because, in the sixth edition of the Origin of Species,
issued in 1872, Mr. Darwin has referred to this animal when effectu-
ally disposing of certain arguments urged against his hypothesis. lie
there says :

" In order that an animal should acquire some structure specially and largely
developed, it is almost indispensable that several other parts should be modified
and co-adapted. Although every part of the body varies slightly, it does not
follow that the necessary parts should always vary in the right direction and to
the right degree " (p. 179).

And in the summary of the chapter, he remarks concerning the ad-
justments in the same quadruped, that " the pi-olonged use of all the
parts together with inheritance will have aided in an important man-
ner in their co-ordination" (p. 199) : a remark probably having refer-
ence chiefly to the increased massiveness of the lower part of the neck;
the increased size and strength of the thorax required to bear the ad-
ditional burden ; and the increased strength of the fore-legs required
to carry the greater weight of both. But now I think that further
consideration suggests the belief that the entailed modifications are
much more numerous and remote than at first appears ; and that the
greater part of these are such as cannot be ascribed in any degree to
the selection of favorable variations, but must be ascribed exclusively
to the inherited effects of changed functions. Whoever has seen a
giraffe gallop will long remember the sight as a ludicrous one. The
reason for the strangeness of the motions is obvious. Though the
fore-limbs and the hind-limbs differ so much in length, yet in gallop-
ing they have to keep pace — must take equal strides. The result is
that at each stride, the angle which the hind-limbs describe round
their centre of motion is much larger than the angle described by the
fore-limbs. And beyond this, as an aid in equalizing the strides, the
hind part of the back is at each stride bent very much downward and
forward. Hence the hind-quarters appear to be doing nearly all the
work. Now a moment's observation shows that the bones and muscles
composing the hind-quarters of the giraffe, perform actions differing
in one or other way and degree, from the actions performed by the
homologous bones and muscles in a mammal of ordinary proportions,

764 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and from those in the ancestral mammal which gave origin to the
giraffe. Each further stage of that growth which produced the large
fore-quarters and neck, entailed some adapted change in sundry of
the numerous parts composing the hind-quarters ; since any failure in
the adjustment of their respective strengths would entail some defect
in speed and consequent loss of life when chased. It needs but. to
remember how, when continuing to walk Avith a blistered foot, the
taking of steps in such a modified way as to diminish pressure on the
sore point, soon produces aching of muscles which are called into
unusual action, to see that over-straining of any one of the muscles of
the giraffe's hind-quarters might quickly incapacitate the animal when
putting out all its powers to escape ; and to be a few yards behind
others would cause death. Hence if we are debarred from assuming
that co-operative parts vary together even when adjacent and closely
united — if we are still more debarred from assuming that with in-
creased length of fore-legs or of neck, there will go an appropriate
change in any one muscle or bone in the hind-quarters ; how entirely
out of the question it is to assume that there will simultaneously take
place the appropriate changes in all those many components of the
hind-quarters which severally require re-adjustment. It is useless to
reply that an increment of length in the fore-legs or neck might be
retained and transmitted to posterity, waiting an appropriate varia-
tion in a particular bone or muscle in the hind-quarters, which, being
made, would allow of a further increment. For besides the fact that
until this secondary variation occurred the primary variation would
be a disadvantage often fatal ; and besides the fact that before such
an appropriate secondary variation might be expected in the course
of generations to occur, the primary variation would have died out ;
there is the fact that the appropriate variation of one bone or muscle
in the hind-quarters would be useless without appropriate variations
of all the rest — some in this way and some in that — a number of ap-
propriate variations which it is impossible to suppose.

Nor is this all. Far more nuraerous appropriate variations would
be indirectly necessitated. The immense change in the ratio of fore-
quarters to hind-quarters would make requisite a corresponding change
of ratio in the appliances carrying on the nutrition of the two. The
entire vascular system, arterial and veinous, would have to undergo
successive unbuildings and rebuildings to make its channels every-
where adequate to the local requirements ; since any want of adjust-
ment in the blood-supply in this or that set of muscles, would entail
incapacity, failure of speed, and loss of life. Moreover, tlie nerves
supplying the various sets of muscles would liave to be proportionately
changed ; as well as the central nervous tracts from which they issued.
Can we suppose that all these appropriate changes, too, would be
step by step simultaneously made by fortunate spontaneous varia-
tions, occurring along with all the other fortunate spontaneous varia-

THE FACTORS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 765

tions ? Considering how immense must be the number of these re-
quired changes, added to the changes above enumerated, the chances
against any adequate re-adjustments fortuitously arising must be in-
finity to one.

If the effects of use and disuse of parts are inheritable, then any
change in the fore parts of the giraffe which affects the action of the
hind-limbs and back, will simultaneously cause, by the greater or less
exercise of it, a re-moulding of each component in the hind-limbs and
back in a way adapted to the new demands ; and generation after
generation the entire structure of the hind-quarters will be progress-
ively fitted to the changed structure of the fore-quarters : all the
appliances for nutrition and innervation being at the same time pro-
gressively fitted to both. But in the absence of this inheritance of
functionally-produced modifications, there is no seeing how the re-
quired re-adjustments can be made.

Yet a third class of difficulties stands in the way of the belief that
the natural selection of useful variations is the sole factor of organic
evolution. This class of difficulties, already pointed out in § 166 of
the Principles of Biology, I cannot more clearly set forth than in the
words there used. Hence I may perhaps be excused for here quoting
them :

" Where the life is comparatively simple, or where surrounding circum-
stances render some one function supremely important, the survival of the fittest
may readily bring about the appropriate structural change, without any aid from
the transmission of functionally-acquired modifications. But in proportion as
the life grows complex — in proportion as a healthy existence cannot be secured
by a large endowment of some one power, but demands many powers ; in the
same proportion do there arise obstacles to the increase of any particular power,
by " the preservation of favored races in the struggle for life." As fast as the
faculties are multiplied, so fast does it become possible for the several members
of a species to have various kinds of superiorities over one another. While one
saves its life by higher speed, another does the like by clearer vision, another by
keener scent, another by quicker liearing, another by greater strength, another
by unusual power of enduring cold or hunger, another by special sagacity, an-
other by special timidity, another by special courage ; and others by other bodily
and mental attributes. Now it is unquestionably true that, other things equal,
each of these attributes, giving its possessor an extra chance of life, is likely to
be transmitted to posterity. But there seems no reason to suppose that it will
be increased in subsequent generations by natural selection. That it may be
thus increased, the individuals not possessing more than average endowments of
it, must be more frequently killed off than individuals highly endowed with it;
and this can happen only when the attribute is one of greater importance, for
the time being, than most of the other attributes. If those members of the spe-
cies which have but ordinary shares of it, nevertheless survive by virtue of other
superiorities which they severally possess ; then it is not easy to see how this
particular attribute can be developed by natural selection in subsequent genera-
tions. The probability seems rather to be, that by gamogenesis, this extra en-

766 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

dowment will, on the average, be diminished in posterity — just serving in the
long run to compensate the deficient endowments of other individuals, whose
special powers lie in other directions ; and so to keep up the normal structure of
the species. The working out of the process is here somewhat difficult to fol-
low ; but it appears to me that as fast as the number of bodily and mental facul-
ties increases, and as fast as the maintenance of life comes to depend less on the
amount of any one, and more on the combined action of all; so fast does the
production of specialities of character by natural selection alone, become diffi-
cult. Particularly does this seem to be so with a species so multitudinous in its
powers as mankind ; and above all does it seem to be so with such of the human
powers as have but minor shares in aiding the struggle for life — the ajsthetic
faculties, for example."

Dwelling for a momeat on this last illustration of the class of diflS-
culties described, let us ask how we are to interpret the development
of the musical faculty. I will not enlarge on the family antecedents
of the great composers. I will merely suggest the inquiry whether the
greater powers possessed by Beethoven and Mozart, by Weber and
Rossini, than by their fathers, were not due in larger measure to the
inherited effects of daily exercise of the musical faculty by their
fathers, than to inheritance, with increase, of spontaneous variations ;
and whether the diffused musical powers of the Bach clan, culminat-
ing in those of Johann Sebastian, did not result in part from constant
practice ; but I will raise the more general question — How came there
that endowment of musical faculty which characterizes modern Euro-
peans at large, as compared with their remote ancestors ? The monoto-
nous chants of low savages cannot be said to show any melodic inspi-
ration ; and it is not evident that an individual savage who had a little
more musical perception than the rest, would derive any such advan-
tage in the maintenance of life as would secure the spread of his supe-
riority by inheritance of the variation. And then what are we to say
of harmony ? We cannot suppose that the appreciation of this, which
is relatively modern, can have arisen by descent from the men in whom
successive variations increased the appreciation of it — the composers
and musical performers ; for on the whole, these have been men whose
worldly prosperity was not such as enabled them to rear many chil-
dren inheriting their special traits. Even if we count the illegitimate
ones, the survivors of these added to the survivors of the legitimate
ones, can hardly be held to have yielded more than average numbers
of descendants ; and those who inherited their special traits have not
often been thereby so aided in the struggle for existence as to further
the spread of such traits. Rather the tendency seems to have been
the reverse.

Since the above passage was written, I have found in the second
volume of Animals and Plants vnder Domestication, a remark made
by Mr. Darwin, practically implying that among creatures which de-
pend for their lives on the efficiency of numerous powers, the increase

THE FACTORS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 767

of any one by the natural selection of a variation is necessarily diflB-
cult. Here it is :

"Finally, as indefinite and almost illimitable variability is the usual result of
domestication and cultivation, with the same part or organ varying in different
individuals in different or even in directly opposite ways ; and as the same varia-
tion, if strongly pronounced, usually recurs only after long intervals of time,
any particular variation would generally he lost by crossing, reversion, and the
accidental destruction of the varying individuals, unless carefully preserved by
man."— Vol. ii, 292.

Remembering that mankind, subject as they are to this domesti-
cation and cultivation, are not, like domesticated animals, under an
agency which picks out and preserves particular variations ; it results
that there must usually be among them, under the influence of natural
selection alone, a continual disappearance of any useful variations of
particular faculties which may arise. Only in cases of variations
which are specially preservative, as, for example, great cunning during
a relatively barbarous state, can we expect increase from natural se-
lection alone. "VYe cannot suppose that minor traits, exemplified among
others by the sesthetic perceptions, can have been evolved by natural
selection. But if there is inheritance of functionally-produced modi-
fications of structure, evolution of such minor traits is no longer inex-
plicable.

Two remarks made by Mr. Darwin have implications from which
the same general conclusion must, I think, be drawn. Speaking of the
variability of animals and plants under domestication, he says :

"Changes of any kind in the conditions of life, even extremely slight
changes, often suffice to cause variability. . . . Animals and plants continue to
be variable for an immense period after their first domestication ; ... In the
course of time they can be habituated to certain changes, so as to become less
variable; . . . There is good evidence that the power of changed conditions
accumulates; so that two, three, or more generations must be exposed to new
conditions before any effect is visible. . . . Some variations are induced by the
direct action of the surrounding conditions on the whole organization, or on
certain parts alone, and other variations are induced indirectly through the
reproductive system being affected in the same manner as is so common with
organic beings when removed from their natural conditions." — {Animals and
Plants under Domestication, vol. ii, 270.)

There are to be recognized two modes of this effect produced by
changed conditions on the reproductive system, and consequently on
offspring. Simple arrest of development is one. But beyond the
variations of offspring arising from imperfectly-developed reproduc-
tive systems in parents — variations which must be ordinarily in the
nature of imperfections — there are others due to a changed balance of
functions caused by changed conditions. The fact noted by 'Mr. Dar-
win in the above passage, that "the power of changed conditions ac-

768 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

cumulates ; so that two, three, or more generations must be exposed
to new conditions before any effect is visible," implies that during
these generations there is going on some change of constitution con-
sequent on the changed proportions and relations of the functions. I
will not dwell on the implication, which seems tolerably clear, that
this change must consist of such modifications of organs as adapt them
to their changed functions ; and that if the influence of changed con-
ditions "accumulates," it must be through the inheritance of such
modifications. Nor will I press the question — What is the nature of
the effect registered in the reproductive elements, and which is subse-
quently manifested by variations ? — Is it an effect entirely irrelevant
to the new requirements of the variety ? — Or is it an effect which
makes the variety less fit for the new requirements ? — Or is it an effect
which makes it more fit for the new requirements ? But not pressing
these questions, it suffices to point out the necessary implication that
changed functions of organs do, in some way or other, register them-
selves in changed proclivities of the reproductive elements. In face
of these facts it cannot be denied that the modified action of a part
produces an inheritable effect — be the nature of that effect what
it may.

The second of the remarks above adverted to as made by Mr. Dar-
win, is contained in his sections dealing with correlated variations. In
the Origin of Species, p. 114, he says :

" The whole organization is so tied together during its growth and develop-
ment, that when slight variations in any one part occur, and are accumulated
through natural selection, other parts become modified."

And a parallel statement contained in Animals and Plants under Do-
mestication, vol. ii, p. 320, runs thus :

" Correlated variation is an important subject for us; for when one part is
modified through continued selection, either by man or under nature, other parts
of the organization will be unavoidably modified. From this correlation it appar-
ently follows that, with our domesticated animals and plants, varieties rarely or
never differ from each other by some single character alone."

By what process does a changed part modify other parts? By.
modifying their functions in some way or degree, seems the necessary
answer. It is indeed, imaginable, that where the part changed is some
dermal appendage which, becoming larger, has abstracted more of the
needful material from the general stock, the effect may consist simply
in diminishing the amount of this material available for other dermal
appendages, leading to diminution of some or all of them, and may
fail to affect in appreciable ways the rest of the organism : save per-
haps the blood-vessels near the enlarged appendage. But where the
part is an active one — a limb, or viscus, or any organ which constantly
demands blood, produces waste matter, secretes, or absorbs — then all
the other active organs become implicated in the change. The functions

THE FACTORS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 769

performed by them have to constitute a moving equilibrium ; and the
function of one cannot, by alteration of the structure performing it,
be modified in degree or kind, without modifying the functions of the
rest — some appreciably and others inappreciably, according to the
directness or indirectness of their relations. Of such inter-dependent
changes, the normal ones are naturally inconspicuous ; but those which
are partially or completely abnormal, sufficiently carry home the gen-
eral truth. Thus, unusual cerebral excitement affects the excretion
through the kidneys in quantity or quality or both. Strong emotions
of disagreeable kinds check or arrest the flow of bile. A considerable
obstacle to the circulation offered by some important structure in a
diseased or disordered state, throwing more strain upon the heart,
causes hypertrophy of its muscular walls ; and this change which is,
60 far as concerns the primary evil, a remedial one, often entails mis-
chiefs in other organs. "Apoplexy and palsy, in a scarcely credible
number of cases, are directly dependent on hypertropic enlargement
of the heart." And in other cases, asthma, dropsy, and epilepsy are
caused. Now if a result of this inter-dependence as seen in the indi-
vidual organism, is that a local modification of one part produces, by
changing their functions, correlative modifications of other parts, then
the question here to be put is — Are these correlative modifications,
when of a kind falling within normal limits, inheritable or not ? If
they are inheritable, then the fact stated by Mr. Darwin that " when
one part is modified through continued selection," " other parts of the
organization will be unavoidably modified " is perfectly intelligible :
these entailed secondary modifications are transmitted /^a^v'^jiassM with
the successive modifications produced by selection. But what if they
are not inheritable ? Then these secondary modifications caused in
the individual, not being transmitted to descendants, the descendants
must commence life with organizations out of balance, and with each
increment of change in the part affected by selection, their organiza-
tions must get more out of balance — must have larger and larger
amounts of re-organization to be made during their lives. Hence the
constitution of the variety must become more and more unworkable.

The only imaginable alternative is that the re-adjustments are
effected in course of time by natural selection. But, in the first place,
as we find no proof of concomitant variation among directly co-opera-
tive parts which are closely united, there cannot be assumed any con-
comitant variation among parts which are both indirectly co-operative
and far from one another. And, in the second place, before all the
many required re-adjustments could be made, the variety would die
out from defective constitution. Even were there no such difficulty,
we should still have to entertain a strange group of propositions, which
would stand as follows : 1. Change in one part entails, by reaction
on the organism, changes, in other parts, the functions of which are
necessarily changed. 2. Such changes worked in the individual, affect,
VOL. xxviii. — 49

770 THE POPULAR SCIEXCE MONTHLY.

in some way, the reproductive elements : these being found to evolve
unusual structures when the constitutional balance has been continu-
ously disturbed. 3. But the changes in the reproductive elements
thus caused, are not such as represent these functionally-produced
changes : the modifications conveyed to offspring are irrelevant to
these various modifications functionally produced in the organs of the
parents. 4. Nevertheless, while the balance of functions cannot be
re-established through inheritance of the effects of disturbed functions
on structures, wrought throughout the individual organism ; it can be
re-established by the inheritance of fortuitous variations which occur
in all the affected organs without reference to these changes of function.
Now without saying that acceptance of this group of propositions
is impossible, we may certainly say that it is not easy.

" But where are the direct proofs that inheritance of functionally-
produced modifications takes place ? " is a question which will be put
by those who have committed themselves to the current exclusive in-
terpretation. " Grant that there are difficulties ; still, before the trans-
mitted effects of use and disuse can be legitimately assigned in expla-
nation of them, we must have good evidence that the effects of use
and disuse are transmitted."

Before dealing directly with this demurrer, let me deal with it
indirectly, by pointing out that the lack of recognized evidence may
be accounted for without assuming that there is not plenty of it. In-
attention and reluctant attention lead to the ignoring of facts which
really exist in abundance ; as is well illustrated in the case of pre-his-
toric implements. Biassed by the current belief that no traces of man
were to be found on the Earth's surface, save in certain superficial
formations of very recent date, geologists and anthropologists not
only neglected to seek such traces, but for a long time continued to
pooh-pooh those who said they had found them. When M. Boucher
de Perthes at length succeeded in drawing the eyes of scientific men
to the flint implements discovered by him in the quaternary deposits
of the Somme valley ; and when geologists and anthropologists had
thus been convinced that evidences of human existence were to be
found in formations of considerable age, and thereafter began to search
for them ; they found plenty of them all over the world. Or again,
to take an instance closely germane to the matter, we may recall the
fact that the contemptuous attitude toward the hypothesis of organic
evolution which naturalists in general maintained before the publica-
tion of Mr. Darwin's Avork, prevented them from seeing the multitu-
dinous facts by which it is supported. Similarly, it is very possible
that their alienation from the belief that there is a transmission of
those changes of structure which are produced by changes of action,
makes naturalists slight the evidence which supports that belief and
refuse to occupy themselves in seeking further evidence.

THE FACTORS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 771

If it be asked bow it happens that there have been recorded multi-
tudinous instances of variations fortuitously arising and reappearing
in offspring, while there have not been recorded instances of the trans-
mission of changes functionally produced, there are three replies. The
first is that changes of the one class are many of them conspicuous,
while those of the other class are nearly all inconspicuous. If a child
is born with six fingers, the anomaly is not simply obvious but so
startling as to attract much notice ; and if this child, growing up, has
six-fingered descendants, everybody in the locality hears of it. A
pigeon with specially-colored feathers, or one distinguished by a broad-
ened and upraised tail, or by a protuberance of the neck, draws atten-
tion by its oddness ; and if in its young the trait is repeated, occa-
sionally with increase, the fact is remarked, and there follows the
thought of establishing the peculiarity by selection. A lamb disabled
from leaping by the shortness of its legs, could not fail to be observed ;
and the fact that its offspring were similarly short-legged, and had a
consequent inability to get over fences, would inevitably become
widely known. Similarly with plants. That this flower had an extra
number of petals, that that was unusually symmetrical, and that an-
other differed considerably in color from the average of its kind, would
be easily seen by an observant gardener ; and the suspicion that such
anomalies are inheritable having arisen, experiments leading to fur-
ther proofs that they are so, would frequently be made. But it is not
thus with functionally-produced modifications. The seats of these are
in nearly all cases the muscular, osseous, and nervous systems, and the
viscera — parts which are either entirely hidden or greatly obscured.
Modification in a nervous centre is inaccessible to vision ; bones may
be considerably altered in size or shape without attention being drawn
to them ; and, covered with thick coats as are most of the animals
open to continuous observation, the increases or decreases in muscles
must be great before they become externally perceptible.

A further important difference between the two inquiries is that
to ascertain whether a fortuitous variation is inheritable, needs merely
a little attention to the selection of individuals and the observation of
offspring ; while to ascertain whether there is inheritance of a func-
tionally-produced modification, it is requisite to make arrangements
which demand the greater or smaller exercise of some part or parts ;
and it is diflicult in many cases to find such arrangements, troublesome
to maintain them even for one generation, and still more through suc-
cessive generations.

Nor is this all. There exist stimuli to inquiry in the one case
which do not exist in the other. The money-interest and the interest
of the fancier, acting now separately and now together, have prompt-
ed multitudinous individuals to make experiments which have brought
out clear evidence that fortuitous variations are inherited. The cat-
tle-breeders who profit by producing certain shapes and qualities ; the

^^^ THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

keepers of pet animals who take pride in the perfections of those they
have bred ; the florists, professional and amateur, who obtain new va-
rieties and take prizes ; form a body of men who furnish naturalists
with countless of the required proofs. But there is no such body of
men, led either by pecuniary interest or the interest of a hobby, to as-
certain by experiments whether the effects of use and disuse are inher-
itable.

Thus, then, there are amply sufficient reasons why there is a great
deal of direct evidence in the one case and but little in the other— such
little being that which comes out incidentally. Let us look at what
there is of it.

Considerable weight attaches to a fact which Brown-Sequard dis-
covered, quite by accident, in the course of his researches. He found
that certain artificially-produced lesions of the nervous system, so
small even as a section of the sciatic nerve, left, after healing, an in-
creasing excitability which ended in liability to epilepsy ; and there
afterward came out the unlooked-for result that the offspring of guinea-
pigs which had thus acquired an epileptic habit such that a pinch on
the neck would produce a fit, inherited an epileptic habit of like kind.
It has, indeed, been since alleged that guinea-pigs tend to epilepsy,
and that phenomena of the kind described occur where there have
been no antecedents like those in Brown-Sequard's case. But consid-
ering the improbability that the phenomena observed by him happened
to be nothing more than phenomena Avhich occasionally arise naturally,
we may, until there is good proof to the contrary, assign some value
to his results.

Evidence not of this directly experimental kind, but nevertheless
of considerable weight, is furnished by other nervous disorders. There
is proof enough that insanity admits of being induced by circumstances
which, in one or other way, derange the nervous functions — excesses
of this or that kind ; and no one questions the accepted belief that
insanity is inheritable. Is it alleged that the insanity which is inherit-
able is that which spontaneously arises, and that the insanity which
follows some chronic perversion of functions is not inheritable ? This
does not seem a very reasonable allegation, and until some warrant
for it is forthcoming, we may fairly assume that there is here a fur-
ther support for belief in the transmission of functionally-produced
changes.

Moreover, I find among physicians the belief that nervous disor-
ders of a less severe kind are inheritable. Men who have prostrated
their nervous systems by prolonged overwork or in some other way,
have children more or less prone to nervousness. It matters not what
may be the form of inheritance — whether it be of a brain in some way
imperfect, or of a deficient blood-supply ; it is in any case the inherit-
ance of functionally-modified structures.

THE FACTORS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 773

Verification of the reasons above given for the paucity of this
direct evidence is yielded by contemplation of it, for it is observable
that the cases named are cases which, from one or other cause, have
thrust themselves on observation. They justify the suspicion that it
is not because such cases are rare that many of them cannot be cited,
but simply because they are mostly unobtrusive, and to be found only
by that deliberate search which nobody makes. I say nobody, but I
am wrong. Successful search has been made by one whose compe-
tence as an observer is beyond question, and whose testimony is less
liable than that of all others to any bias toward the conclusion that
such inheritance takes place. I refer to the author of the Origin of
Species,

Now-a-days most naturalists are more Darwinian than Mr, Darwin
himself. I do not mean that their beliefs in organic evolution are
more decided ; though I shall be supposed to mean this by the mass
of readers, who identify Mr. Darwin's great contribution to the theory
of organic evolution, with the theory of organic evolution itself, and
even with the theory of evolution at large. But I mean that the par-
ticular factor which he first recognized as having played so immense a
part in organic evolution, has come to be regarded by his followers as
the sole factor^ though it was not so regarded by him. It is true that
he apparently rejected altogether the causal agencies alleged by ear-
lier inquirers. In the Historical Sketch prefixed to the later editions
of his Origin of Species (p. xiv, note), he writes : — "It is curious how
largely my grandfather. Dr. Erasmus Darwin, anticipated the views
and erroneous grounds of opinion of Lamarck in his ' Zoonomia ' (vol.
i, pp. 500-510), published in 1794." And since, among the views thus
referred to, was the view that changes of structure in organisms arise
by the inheritance of functionally - produced changes, Mr. Darwin
seems, by the above sentence, to have implied his disbelief in such in-
heritance. But he did not mean to imply this ; for his belief in it as
a cause of evolution, if not an important cause, is proved by many
passages in his works. In the first chapter of the Origin of Species
(p. 11 of the first edition), he says respecting the inherited effects of
habit, that " with animals the increased use or disuse of parts has had a
marked influence ; " and he gives as instances the changed relative
weights of the wing bones and leg bones of the wild duck and the
domestic duck, " the great and inherited development of the udders in
cows and goats," and the drooping cars of various domestic animals.
Here are other passages taken from the latest edition of the work.

" I tliink there can be no doubt that use in our domestic animals has strength-
ened and enlarged certain parts, and disuse diminished them; and that such
modifications are inherited " (p. 108). [And on the following pages he gives five
further examples of such effects.] " Habit in producing constitutional peculiari-
ties and nse in strengthening and disuse in weakening and diminishing organs,

774 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

appear in many cases to have been potent in their effects" (p. 131). "When
discussing special cases, Mr. Mivart passes over the effects of the increased use
and disuse of parts, whicli I have always maintained to be highly important, and
have treated in my ' Variation under Domestication' at greater length than, as
I believe, any other writer" (p. 176). " Disuse, on the other hand, will account
for the less developed condition of the whole inferior half of the body, including
the lateral fins" (p. 188). "I may give another instance of a structure which
apparently owes its origin exclusively to use or habit" (p. 188). "It appears
probable that disuse has been the main agent in rendering organs rudimentary "
(pp. 400—401). " On the whole, we may conclude that habit, or use and disuse,
have, in some cases, played a considerable part in the modification of the consti-
tution and structure ; but that the effects have often been largely combined with,
and sometimes overmastered by, the natural selection of innate variations "
(p. 114).

In his subsequent work, The Variation of Animals and Plants
under Domestication, where he goes into full detail, Mr. Darwin gives
more numerous illustrations of the inherited effects of use and disuse.
The following are some of the cases, quoted from volume i of the first
edition :

Treating of domesticated rabbits, he says : — " the want of exercise has ai>par-
ently modified the proportional length of the limbs in comparison with the
body" (p. 116). "We thus see that the most important and complicated organ
[the brain] in the whole organization is subject to the law of decrease in size
from disuse" (p. 129). He remarks that in birds of the oceanic islands " not
persecuted by any enemies, the reduction of their wings has probably been
caused by gradual disuse." After comparing one of these, the Wiiter-hen of
Tristan d'Acunha, with the European water-hen, and showing that all the bones
concerned in flight are smaller, he adds — "Hence in the skeleton of this natural
species nearly the same changes have occurred, only carried a little further, as
with our domestic ducks, and in this latter case I presume no one will dispute
that they have resulted from the lessened use of the wings and the increased use
of the legs " (pp. 286-7). "As with other long-domesticated animals, the in-
stincts of the silk-moth have suffered. The caterpillars, when placed on a mul-
berry-tree, often commit the strange mistake of devouring the base of the leaf
on which they are feeding, and consequently fall down ; but they are capable,
according to M. Robinet, of again crawling up the trunk. Even this capacity
sometimes fails, for M. Martins placed some caterpillars on a tree, and those
which fell were not able to remount and perished of hunger; they were even
incapable of passing from leaf to leaf " (p. 304).

Here are some instances of like meaning from volume ii.

" In many cases there is reason to believe that the lessened use of various
organs has affected the corresponding parts in the offspring. But there is no
pood evidence that this ever follows in the course of a single generation. . . .
Our domestic fowls, ducks, and geese have almost lost, not only in the indi-
vidual but in the race, their power of flight; for we do not see a chicken, when
frightened, take flight like a young pheasant. . . . Witli domestic pigeons, the
length of the sternum, the prominence of its crest, the length of the scapulaj
and furcula, the length of the wings as measured from tip to tip of the radius,

THE FACTORS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 775

are all reduced relatively to the same parts in the wild pigeon." [After detail-
ing kindred diminutions in fowls and ducks, Mr, Darwin adds] "The decreased
weight and size of the bones, in the foregoing cases, is probably the indirect
result of the reaction of the weakened muscles on the bones" (pp. 2'J7-8).
"Nathusius has shown that, with the improved races of the pig, the shortened
legs and snout, the form of the articular condyles of the occiput, and the posi-
tion of the jaws with the upper canine teeth projecting in a most anomalous
manner in front of the lower canines, may be attributed to these parts not hav-
ing been fully exercised. . . . These modifications of structure, which are all
strictly inherited, characterize several improved breeds, so that they cannot
have been derived from any single domestic or wild stock. With respect to cat-
tle, Professor Tanner has remarked that the lungs and liver in the improved
breeds 'are found to be considerably reduced in size when compared with those
possessed by animals having perfect liberty ; ' . . . The cause of the reduced
lungs in highly-bred animals which take little exercise is obvious" (pp. 299-300).
[And on pp. 301, 302, and 303, he gives facts showing the effects of use and
disuse in changing, among domestic animals, the characters of the ears, the
lengths of the intestines, and, in various ways, the natures of the instincts.]

But Mr, Darwin's admission, or rather his assertion, that the in-
heritance of functionally-produced modifications has been a factor in
organic evolution, is made clear not by these passages alone and by
kindred ones. It is made clearer still by a passage in the preface to
the second edition of his Descent of Man. He there protests against
that current version of his views in which this factor makes no appear-
ance. The passage is as follows :

"I may take this opportunity of remarking that my critics frequently assume
that I attribute all changes of corporeal structure and mental power exclusively
to the natural selection of such variations as are often called spontaneous ;
whereas, even in the first edition of the 'Origin of Species,' I distinctly stated
that great weight must be attributed to the inherited eftects of use and disuse,
with respect both to the body and mind."

Nor is this all. There is evidence that IVTr. Darwin's belief in the effi-
ciency of this factor, became stronger as he grew older and accumu-
lated more evidence. The first of the extracts above given, taken
from the sixth edition of the Origin of Species, runs thus :

" I think there can be no doubt that use in our domestic animals has strength-
ened and enlarged certain parts, and disuse diminished them ; and that such
modifications are inherited."

Now on turning to the first edition, p. 134, it will be found that in-
stead of the words — " I think there can be no doubt," the words origi-
nally used were — "I think there can be little doubt." That this delib-
erate erasure of a qualifying word and substitution of a word implying
unqualified belief, was due to a more decided recognition of a factor
originally under-estimated, is clearly implied by the wording of the
above-quoted passage from the preface to the Descent of Man ; where
he says that " even in the first edition of the * Origin of Species,' " etc.:
the implication being that much more in subsequent editions, and sub-

776 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sequent works, had he insisted on this factor. The change thus indi-
cated is especially significant as having occurred at a time of life when
the natural tendency is toward fixity of opinion.

During that earlier period when he was discovering the multitudi-
nous cases in which his own hypothesis afforded solutions, and simul-
taneously observing how utterly futile in these multitudinous cases
was the hypothesis propounded by his grandfather and Lamarck, Mr.
Darwin was, not unnaturally, almost betrayed into the belief that the
one is all-suflicient and the other inoperative. But in the mind of one
so candid and ever open to more evidence, there naturally came a re-
action. The inheritance of functionally-produced modifications, which,
judging by the passage quoted above concerning the views of these
earlier inquirers, would seem to have been at one time denied, but
which as we have seen was always to some extent recognized, came to
be recognized more and more, and deliberately included as a factor of
importance.

Of this reaction displayed in the later writings of Mr. Darwin, let
us now ask — Has it not to be carried further ? Was the share in or-
ganic evolution which Mr. Darwin latterly assigned to the transmission
of modifications caused by use and disuse, its due share ? Considera-
tion of the groups of evidences given above, will, I think, lead us to
believe that its share has been much larger than he supposed even in
his later days.

There is first the implication yielded by extensive classes of phe-
nomena which remain inexplicable in the absence of this factor. If,
as we see, co-operative parts do not vary together, even when few and
close together, and may not therefore be assumed to do so when many
and remote, we cannot account for those innumerable changes in or-
ganization which are implied when, for advantageous use of some
modified part, many other parts which join it in action have to be
modified.

Further, as increasing complexity of structure, accompanying in-
creasing complexity of life, implies increasing number of faculties, of
which each one conduces to preservation of self or descendants ; and
as the various individuals of a species, severally requiring something
like the normal amounts of all these, may individually profit, here by
an unusual amount of one, and there by an imusual amount of another ;
it follows that as the number of faculties becomes greater, it becomes
more difficult for any one to be further developed by natural selection.
Only where increase of some one is lyredominayxtly advantageous does
the means seem adequate to the end. Especially in the case of powers
which do not subserve self-preservation in appreciable degrees, does
development by natural selection appear impracticable.

It is a fact recognized by Mr. Darwin, that where, by selection
through successive generations, a part has been increased or decreased,

THE FACTORS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. jj-j

its reaction upon other parts entails changes in them. This reaction
is effected through the changes of function involved. If the changes
of structure produced by such changes of function, are inheritable,
then the re-adjiistraent of parts throughout the organism, taking place
generation after generation, maintains an approximate balance ; but if
not, then generation after generation the organism must get more and
more out of gear, and tend to become unworkable.

Further, as it is proved that change in the balance of functions
registers its effects on the reproductive elements, we have to choose
between the alternatives that the registered effects are irrelevant to the
particular modifications which the organism has undergone, or that
they are such as tend to produce repetitions of these modifications.
The last of these alternatives makes the facts comprehensible ; but the
first of them not only leaves us with several unsolved problems, but is
incongruous with the general truth that by reproduction, ancestral
traits, down to minute details, are transmitted.

Though, in the absence of pecuniary interests and the interests in
hobbies, no such special experiments as those which have established
the inheritance or fortuitous variations have been made to ascertain
whether functionally-produced modifications are inherited ; yet certain
apparent instances of such inheritance have forced themselves on
observation without being sought for. In addition to other indications
of a less conspicuous kind, is the one I have given above — the fact
that the apparatus for tearing and mastication has decreased with de-
crease of its function, alike in civilized man and in some varieties of
dogs which lead protected and pampered lives. Of the numerous
cases named by Mr. Darwin, it is observable that they are yielded not
by one class of parts only, but by most if not all classes — by the der-
mal system, the muscular system, the osseous system, the nervous sys-
tem, the viscera ; and that among parts liable to be functionally modi-
fied, the most numerous observed cases of inheritance are furnished by
those which admit of preservation and easy comparison — the bones :
these cases, moreover, being specially significant as showing how, in
sundry unallied species, parallel changes of structure have occurred
along with parallel changes of habit.

What, then, shall we say of the general implication ? Are we to
stop short with the admission that inheritance of functionally-produced
modifications takes place only in cases in which there is evidence of
it ? May we properly assume that these many instances of changes
of structure caused by changes of function, occurring in various tis-
sues and various organs, are merely special and exceptional instances
having no general significance ? Shall we suppose that though the
evidence which already exists has come to light without aid from a
body of inquirers, there would be no great increase were due attention
devoted to the collection of evidence ? This is, I think, not a reasona-
ble supposition. To me the ensemhle of the facts suggests the belief,

778 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

scarcely to be resisted, that tlie inheritance of functionally-produced
mod iH cat ions takes place universally. Looking at physiological phe-
nomena as conforming to physical principles, it is difficult to conceive
that a changed play of organic forces which in many cases of differ-
ent kinds produces an inherited change of structure, does not do this
in all cases. The implication, very strong I think, is that the action
of every organ produces on it a reaction which, usually not altering
its rate of nutrition, sometimes leaves it Avilh diminished nutrition
consequent on diminished action, and at other times increases its nu-
trition in proportion to its increased action ; that while generating a
modified consensus of functions and of structures, the activities are
at the same time impressing this modified consensus on the sperm-cells
and germ-cells whence future individuals are to be produced ; and
that in ways mostly too small to be identified, but occasionally in more
conspicuous ways and in the course of generations, the resulting modi-
fications of one or other kind show themselves. Further, it seems to
me that as there are certain extensive classes of phenomena which are
inexplicable if we assume the inheritance of fortuitous variations to
be the sole factor, but which become at once explicable if we admit
the inheritance of fimctionally-produced changes, we are justified in
concluding that this inheritance of functionally-produced changes has
been not simply a co-operating factor in organic evolution, but has
been a co-operating factor without which organic evolution, in its
higher forms at any rate, could never have taken place.

Be this or be it not a -warrantable conclusion, there is, I think,
good reason for a provisional acceptance of the hypothesis that the
effects of use and disuse are inheritable ; and for a methodic pursuit
of inquiries with the view of cither establishing it or disproving it.
It seems scarcely reasonable to accept without clear demonstration,
the belief that while a trivial difference of structure arising sponta-
neously is transmissible, a massive difference of structure, maintained
generation after generation by change of function, leaves no trace in
posterity. Considering that unquestionably the modification of struct-
ure by function is a vera causa, in so far as concerns the individual ;
and considering the number of facts which so competent an observer
as Mr. Darwin regarded as evidence that transmission of such modifi-
cations takes place in particular cases ; the hypothesis that such trans-
mission takes place in conformity with a general law, holding of all
active structures, should, I think, be regarded as at least a good work-
ing hypothesis.

But now supposing the broad conclusion above drawn to be
granted — supposing all to agree that from the beginning, along with
inheritance of useful variations fortuitously arising, there has been
inheritance of effects produced by UvSe and disuse ; do there remain no
classes of organic phenomena unaccounted for? To this question I

BOTANY AS A RECREATION FOR INVALIDS. 779

think it must be replied that there do remain classes of organic phe-
nomena unaccounted for. It may, I believe, be shown that certain
cardinal traits of animals and plants at large are still unexplained ;
and that a further factor must be recognized. To show this, however,
will require another paper.

BOTANY AS A EECKEATION FOR INVALIDS.

By Miss E. F. ANDREWS.

IN a recent number of " The Popular Science Monthly," the writer
of an interesting article, on " Thomasville as a Winter Resort,"
mentions the want of public amusements there as a subject of regret
from a hygienic point of view. The criticism is a just one, and unfor-
tunately applies to most of our Southern health resorts — St. Augustine,
with its yacht club and sea-bathing, and Jacksonville, with a few other
cities large enough to attract theatrical companies, forming possible
exceptions.

Invalids, as a rule, have a great deal of leisure on their hands —
more of it than they like — and to fill this time pleasantly is a question
involving a good deal more than mere amusement. The importance
of mental distraction to invalids is a fact too universally recognized
to call for comment here, my object in this paper being merely to sug-
gest a mode of distraction that, in my own experience, has not only
been attended with the happiest results physically, but has proved a
source of intense and never-failing pleasure. I allude to the study of
botany — not the tiresome, profitless study of text-books, but of the
woods, and fields, and meadows.

The beauty of this pursuit is that it takes the student out-of-doors,
and throat and lung troubles, as has been truly said, are house-dis-
eases. I am speaking, of course, to those who have begun to fight the
enemy before he has captured the inner defenses, and who are sup-
posed to be strong enough to do a reasonable amount of walking, and
some solid thinking. For botany, though the simplest of the sciences,
can not be mastered without some effort. You are met right at the
threshold by that fearful, technical vocabulary which must be con-
quered before advancing a single step — a labor so formidable and re-
pellent, when undertaken according to the old school-book method,
that I do not wonder so many have shrunk away from it in disgust
or in despair.

But even this task, apparently as formidable as learning a new
tongue, can be made a pastime if rightly undertaken. Don't try to
learn definitions or commit long strings of names to memory from a
book, but get some simple work and take it out into the woods with
you. Don't worry with writing schedules or trying to draw outlines

78o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of the different kinds of leaves, but gather as many as you can ; then,
by reference to the book, describe them to yourself in botanical terms,
and keep on in this way till you can give a scientific description of
any plant you see, without the book. In a few weeks you will find
that you have mastered, almost without knowing it, the dreadful bug-
bear of botanical language, and got a good deal of solid pleasure out
of the process to boot.

You are now ready to take up the classification of plants, and to
study their habits and relationships — and this is where the real pleas-
ure begins. Don't worry about species at first, but be satisfied for a
time with referring the different plants you meet to their appropriate
orders and genera ; specific distinctions are often perplexing, and'can
be attended to later. Gray's " Manual " and Chapman's " Southern
Flora " are the only hand-books you will need — the latter for Southern
Georgia and Florida, the former for more northern latitudes. I have
seen Northern amateurs puzzling over Gray in Florida, and wondering
that they could find so few of the plants around them described there,
never seeming to realize that a manual of the flora of the Northern
States would not answer just as well for an almost tropical region,

Florida is a specially interesting region to the botanist on ac-
count of the peculiar forms of plant-life to be found there. I wish
I had time to introduce the reader to some of my friends of the forest
and jungle, though I dare say he will find it more profitable to seek
them out for himself. Botanizing in Florida, however, has this
drawback : the pine-lands are so poor that, for the most interesting
specimens, you must go to the swamps and hummocks, at the risk of
getting more malaria than plants, as I can testify to my cost. But in
Southern Georgia there is no such danger. The soil of the pine-lands
there is richer, and the whole earth becomes, in spring-time, an Eden
of beauty and fragrance. There is no need to go into malarious
places ; you can hardly set your foot down anywhere without tread-
ing on flowers. At a place near the railroad, between Albany and
Thomasville, I once stood and gathered seventeen different species
without moving out of my tracks. The Houstonias, Atamasco lilies,
and jcllow jasmines, make their appearance in February, and from
then on till June the most diligent collector will have had as much as
he can do to keep up with the rich succession of plant-life constantly
unfolding itself to view.

And, all the while that one is pursuing a delightful study, he is
getting abundant exercise in the open air, without the dreary con-
sciousness of exertion for exertion's sake. One can walk for hours on
a botanical ramble without fatigue, when twenty minutes of an aim-
less " constitutional " would send one home fagged out in body and
mind. The parlor gymnastics recommended by Mr. Youmans may
have their value in some cases, but for myself the most dismal mo-
ments I have ever spent were while laboring conscientiously with

THE FRENCH PROBLEM IN CANADA. 781

dumb-bells and Indian clubs in the name of exercise. Physical exer-
cise, for its own sake, is intense and profitless, and often, I believe,
pernicious labor. Give yourself a motive for exertion, and it then
becomes exhilarating. The study of plants supplies just such a motive
as invalids need. It is too useless (from a practical point of view)
to be suggestive of labor, and yet so exceedingly fascinating as to
make you ready to undergo any amount of labor in the prosecution of
your favorite " fad." I remember once exposing myself to a terrible
danger in endeavoring to get possession of a rare and (to me) new
plant. I scarcely thought of the risk then, though now the bare recol-
lection of it makes me shuddei*. This enthusiasm, which the science
of botany awakens in all who devote themselves to it, is not its least
valuable hygienic factor, for a little genuine enthusiasm will put more
life into a sick body than all the drugs in the dispensary.

After all, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and in conclu-
eion I can only urge fellow-sufferers, who have a moderate amount of
strength and patience, to try my simple prescription. As an old negro
nurse once said to me anent some " doctor's stuff," "If it don't do you
no good, it won't do you no harm," and will at least prove a wholesome
diversion from the imbecile fancy-work, and still more imbecile gossip,
that make so large a part of the daily routine of life at most resorts of
health and pleasure.

THE FRENCH PROBLEM IN" CANADA.

Bt GEORGE H. CLARKE.

THE rapid growth of the French population in the Canadian prov-
inces and the New England States has given rise to much specu-
lation as to the future of the race. Thoughtful men in the Dominion
see in its steady increase and aggressive character elements of danger
to the stability of the Confederation.

The last census returns show that over one third of the population
of Canada is of French origin, while in the New England States there
is a large and growing French-Canadian element, wedded to its lan-
guage, religion, and traditions, and controlled to an extraordinary
degree by its astute and admirably organized clergy. Quebec, though
a province in a British colony, is as thoroughly French as it was be-
fore the conquest. A century and a quarter of British rule has had
no effect in Anglicizing the race, or leavening it with the progressive
ideas which prevail in all English-speaking communities. As the
Canadian French were at the conquest, their descendants remain to
this day — a race isolated and apart from all others on the continent,
having little in common w^th their neighbors, or even with their kin-
dred in France. While the great tide of modern progress and civili-

782 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

zation is surging everywhere else through the continent, the Province
of Quebec is the one stagnant pool which is never rippled by a fresh-
ening current, and over which hangs the miasma of mediaeval super-
stition.

The non-progressive character of French civilization on this con-
tinent is due partly to the feudal institutions introduced by the early
settlers, but mainly to the concessions granted by the victors to the
vanquished when Canada became a British colony. By the terms of
the treaty with France, and by the Quebec Act passed by the Imperial
Parliament on the eve of the struggle with the Thirteen Colonies, the
French population of Canada were granted the fi'ee exercise of their
religion, and were allowed to retain their language, customs, and laws.
By the conquest they secured all the privileges of British citizenship,
without losing any of their cherished rights and privileges. Through
the prodigal liberality of the British Government, the Church of Rome
became the established church of Quebec, vested with all the powers
which it possessed in France in the days of the "great monarch," to
collect tithes and enforce its decrees. The clergy were not slow to
avail themselves of those enormous powers for their own aggrandize-
ment, and to strengthen their influence over the people. The policy
of the Church from the first, but more especially of late years, has
been to isolate its people from their Protestant and English-speak-
ing fellow-citizens. It controls all the public schools and most of the
higher educational institutes in the province, and from their childhood
it instructs the French Canadians to jealously guard their treaty rights
— to preserve their language, their laws, and their institutions. The
education of the people in the public schools consists mainly in memo-
rizing the doctrines and dogmas of the Church, and the time which is
devoted in the free schools of Ontario to acquiring secular knowledge
is spent by the French children in devotional exercises. The masses
of the population are kept in ignorance, while the few who can afford
to attend the colleges are trained by the Jesuits, Thus the press, the
bar, the bench, and the Legislature, are controlled by the pulpit.

Among their public men are some of splendid ability, but with
minds narrowed by provincialism and race-prejudices, and warped by
religious bigotry. Occasionally one among them ventm-es to express
independent opinions, which subject him to the censure of the bishop
of the diocese. If he repents and abandons the error of his ways, he
is received back into favor ; if he persists in his independence, he may
expect, at the very next election, to be relegated to the obscurity of
private life. Thus the control of the Church over the French popula-
tion of the Province of Quebec is complete, and is constantly exercised
to prevent their amalgamation with other races on the continent. In-
termarriage with Protestants is sternly denounced, and early marriages
are earnestly advocated from the pulpit. Their faithful obedience to
their pastors in these matters is proved by the census returns.

THE FRENCH PROBLEM IN CANADA. 783

During the one hundred and fifty years that France held posses-
sion of Canada, the population increased but slowly. In 1TG3, four
years after the conquest, it was estimated at about 65,000. Under
British rule, in one hundred and twenty-five years it has grown to
about 1,500,000 in Canada, and it is estimated that there are nearly
half a million of the race in the United States.

The increase of population in the Province of Quebec has, however,
been attended with some disadvantage as well as profit to the Church.
The system of subdividing and over-cropping farms has impoverished
the soil and led to much poverty in the older communities. Advent-
urous colonists as the early French were, their descendants manifest
little inclination to establish settlements in the wilderness. They pre-
fer, when crowded out of their old homes on the banks of the St.
Lawrence, to emigrate to the New England States, where they can
obtain in the manufacturing establishments employment better suited
to their taste and social instinct, and larger remuneration than can be
had in their own country. This exodus became so extensive during a
period of depression some seven years ago that it excited alarm in
the minds of the ecclesiastical and political leaders of the province.
The Quebec Legislature, which is practically controlled by the clergy,
and the Dominion Parliament, in which they hold the balance of
power, voted large sums to repatriate the self-exiled population, but
their efforts were attended with anything but gratifying results.

About that time the Province of Manitoba, which had been partly
colonized by the French prior to the purchase of the Hudson Bay
Territories by the Dominion, was thrown open to settlement by the
establishment of railway communication with the Red River Valley.
A determined effort was made by the French-Canadian leaders to
convert this land of promise into another Quebec, in which the French
language, French laws and customs, and the Roman Catholic religion,
should prevail. With that end in view, through the influence of Sir
George Cartier, Manitoba was originally made a small province, in
which the French half-breeds had a large majority. To wean them
from their nomadic habits, and to give them an influence altogether
disproportionate to their numbers and intelligence, they and their
children were granted extensive tracts of land in the Red River Val-
ley, and large inducements were held out to the French Canadians in
the United States to locate lands and settle in the neighborhood of
their Metis kindred. Some were persuaded to repatriate themselves
and assist in carrying out the designs of their leaders, but the vast
majority preferred to remain in the manufacturing towns of New
England.

From Ontario a steady stream of settlers flowed into Manitoba,
and, in a very short time, the hopes of Quebec were blighted. The
French element was swamped by the flood from Ontario. The con-
trol of the province passed into the hands of the Ontarians, the bounda-

784 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

rics of the province were enlarged, and Manitoba, instead of becoming
a second Quebec, promises to be a new and greater Ontario.

Balked in their design to capture the great Northwest, the French-
Canadian leaders turned their attention to the easier task of " freezing
out " the small English-speaking element in Quebec. The population
of British origin, outside of Montreal, was principally in the Eastern
Townships and in the counties north of the Ottawa River, and formed
about one sixth of the whole. The French Canadians were offered in-
ducements to settle on the wild lands in the Eastern Townships. Con-
siderable numbers were, in this Avay led to return to their native
land. Wherever an English-speaking farmer was found willing to part
with his property, a French-Canadian purchaser was always at hand to
secure it. Where English-speaking owners of unpatented lands had
failed to comply with any of the numerous conditions of settlement,
their lots were confiscated, no refund was made of the purchase-money
or compensation allowed for improvements, and they were resold to
French Canadians.

This policy, although inaugurated but three or four years before
the census of 1881 was taken, had such a marked effect that the returns
attracted attention and excited much comment throughout the Domin-
ion. While the entire population of the Province of Quebec bad in-
creased slightly, but steadily, during the decade, the English-speaking
population had remained almost stationary, and the disproportion be-
tween the two races had become more marked. And this had occurred
in face of the fact that there had been a large exodus of the French
population, not only to the New England States, but also to East On-
tario, where they filled up the gaps made by the movement of the On-
tario farmers to the Northwest. The English-speaking population are
being steadily rooted out, and their places filled by settlers of French
origin. Not content with wresting Quebec from the conqueror, the
French Canadians are spreading into New Brunswick on the east and
Ontario on the west. In the latter province they control two coun-
ties already, and will soon have majorities in two others ; and it is only
a question of time when they will have possession of the capital of the
Dominion, a consummation which the French-Canadian members of
the Dominion Cabinet are endeavoring to hasten by filling every va-
cancy in the civil service, so far as they can, with their countrymen.

The rapid increase and aggressiveness of the French-Canadian race,
coupled with their determination to hold themselves aloof from the
other sections of the population, have led thoughtful men to despair of
the future of the Dominion. The hope that the confederation of the
provinces would bring about a fusion of the races must have died out
of the breasts of the most sanguine who have watched the agitation in
Quebec over the Northwest rebellion and the execution of Rich The
French throughout the Dominion have, with few exceptions, made
the cause of the rebel half-breeds their own, and exalted their mer-

THE FRENCH PROBLEM IN CANADA. 785

cenary leader into a national hero and a martyr. Their public men,
casting aside all party ties and patriotic considerations, have formed
themselves into a provincial party whose object is to avenge the death
of the late rebel leader, and to give to Quebec, by their united action,
a predominant influence in the Parliament of the Dominion. That
their unpatriotic stand will lead to a coalition of the English-speaking
majority no one who is aware of the violence of party feeling in Canada
will expect, and the only hope, in the opinion of many, of preserving
the Dominion from the disaster of French domination lies in the suc-
cess of the Government party in the next appeal to the country, or in
annexation to the United States.

The facts which are above set forth have caused many of the lead-
ers of public opinion in Canada to take a pessimistic view of the
future of the Dominion. But there are, on the other side, indications
that a brighter destiny awaits the Confederation.

The self-exiled Quebecers in the New England States, though fol-
lowed to their new homes and carefully advised and guarded by their
clergy, come in contact with a population which, bred under repub-
lican institutions, has always manifested a manly independence in
spiritual as well as in temporal matters. The habitant never loses his
love for his native land, but residence in the Great Republic brightens
his intelligence and gives him a more exalted idea of his importance
as an individual, and a sense of independence which is wholly foreign
to the character of his countrymen at home. These men revisit their
native province from time to time, carrying with them their new and
advanced ideas, and thus they are leavening the masses in Quebec.
Railways penetrate localities which, until recently, were as isolated
from the rest of the continent as if they had been situated in the
heart of China. Visitors from the outside world, who know not the
cure and ignore the clergy generally, find their way into the most
remote hamlets, carrying with them new ideas of life. Even the
schools, though employed by the clergy more to prevent the spread
of knowledge than to impart instruction, by teaching the youth of the
country to read, enable them, when the opportunity occurs, to en-
lighten their minds by tasting the forbidden fruits of literature pro-
scribed by the Church. The growth of public intelligence is neces-
sarily slow, opposed as it is by the most powerful organization the
world has ever known, but every year some slight advance is made,
and to a corresponding extent the power of the Church is diminished.

When freed from ecclesiastical tyranny, the French race in Quebec
possess native ability and qualities which will make them a valuable
element in the population of the continent. Their industry, economy,
frugality, and docility, their power of imitation, and their disinclina-
tion to become citizens of the United States, have led their enemies to
brand them as the " Chinese of the East " ; but, with those valuable
characteristics of the Celestial, they combine others which will place

VOL. XXTIII. — 50

786 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

them, when emancipated from the thralldom of the Church, abreast of
the most enlightened and progressive nations of the world. When
that time comes, they will cease to be regarded as a burden upon the
Dominion and a barrier to its j^rogress. They will be recognized as
equals, in every sense of the word, of their brethren of British origin,
and their rapid increase will be viewed as a benefit rather than a dis-
aster to the Dominion.

It is difficult to understand why the growth of the French-Cana-
dian people should excite misgivings in the minds of the statesmen of
Canada. The French race outside of Quebec has increased but slow-
ly. It has never been successful in colonizing. In France itself the
growth of the population is exceptionally slow ; in the colonies of the
republic the progress is even less. While Canada was a colony of
France, owing to frequent wars and the exactions of the seigniors and
the Church, the population in a century and a half had reached only
65,000 ; it is only since they have been emancipated from feudal
serfdom and enjoyed the blessings of free institutions that they
have developed any marked power of reproduction. In one hun-
dred and twenty years under British rule they have increased to nearly
2,000,000, and this rapid increase has been aided little if any by im-
migration from France. It is due almost entirely to natural increase,
and to natural increase it must be restricted in the future.

The growth of the French population on this continent has been
rapid, but not phenomenal. It bears no comparison with the extraor-
dinary expansion of the Anglo-Saxon race, even in the Dominion of
Canada. Quebec had a population of 100,000, and there was a French
colony on the east side of the Detroit River before there were any
English-speaking inhabitants in Ontario, where they now number
nearly 2,000,000. With all the advantages of a start of a century
and a half, the French in Ontario do not exceed 120,000, and in the
entire Dominion not over 1,500,000, out of a total of 4,500,000. Until
the western movement of the Ontario farmers, some eight years ago,
the spread of the French race in Ontario was almost unnoticed. It
was confined almost exclusively to laborers employed by lumbering
firms in their mills and in the woods, a fluctuating population as little
disposed to remain permanently away from their native land as the
Chinese on the Pacific coast. While Ontario is rapidly colonizing
Manitoba and the vast Northwest Territories, and filling up her waste
lands at home, Quebec is making but slow progress in comparison in
its work of gallicizing Ontario, and her people prefer expatriation to
facing the hardships incidental to pioneer life in the inhospitable wil-
derness north of the St. Lawrence and the Ottawa. Of the seven prov-
inces of the Dominion, Quebec is the only one in which they possess a
controlling influence ; in the others, and in the United States, they are
merely hewers of wood and drawers of water for the more energetic
and intelligent Anglo-Saxon.

THE FRENCH PROBLEM IN CANADA. 787

While the only fecund branch of the Gallic race is that which in-
habits Eastern Canada, the British people at home and abroad have
displayed marvelous powers of expansion. Every year populous
swarms leave the parent hive, yet they are scarcely missed. Despite
the constant drain, the Island races in Europe double every fifty-six
years and in the colonies every twenty-five years, whereas the popula-
tion of France doubles only in one hundred and forty years. The
French commenced the work of colonizing America at the same time
as the British, yet the latter have expanded to 60,000,000, while the
former are represented by a total of 2,000,000. The w^onderful de-
velopment of the Island races continues to follow the British flag in
every quarter of the globe. In Australia, New Zealand, South Africa,
and other colonies, the increase has been almost as marked as on this
continent, and in strong contrast to the sterility of the French at home
and in their colonies everywhere.

The capacity of the Island races to absorb foreign elements of
population has been illustrated to an extraordinary degree in the
United States. The surplus population of every country in Europe
pours in a constant stream into the republic, bringing with it cus-
toms, languages, and ideas of government wholly different from those
which prevail in the United States. Yet, in a short time, this foreign
mass is assimilated. The aliens become naturalized citizens ; they
acquire very soon a knowledge of the prevailing language and the
form of government. In a few years they are Americanized, and the
second generation speak the language of the continent with the flu-
ency of other natives, and are as thoroughly American citizens as the
descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers. In Louisiana a population of
French origin have found it to their advantage to adopt the English
language and the customs of the people among whom their lot is cast.

There can be little doubt, therefore, that the French Canadians
would long since have blended with the dominant race, to their own
great benefit and the advantage of the continent, had it not been for
the mistaken policy of the British Government over a century ago, and
the efforts of the Church of Rome to prevent a consolidation of the
people of Canada into one national it j\

In view of these facts there is yet some hope for the future of the
Dominion. The diffusion of knowledge among the people, their con-
tact with more enterprising and advanced communities, now rendered
practicable by the development of railway communication, and the
investigating spirit of the age which priestcraft can not wholly sub-
due, must sooner or later produce changes which will make of the
Canadians a homogeneous population. This is a solution of the prob-
lem as desirable as the only other one that has been suggested — a
continental union which would crush out at once and forever the
aspirations of those who are seeking to establish a new France on
the banks of the St. Lawrence.

788 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ME. GLADSTONE AND GENESIS.

By Peofessob T. II. HUXLEY.

IN controversy, as in courtship, the good old rule to be off with the
old before one is on with the new greatly commends itself to my
sense of expediency. And, therefore, it appears to me desii'able that
I should preface such observations as I may have to offer upon the
cloud of arguments (the relevancy of which to the issue which I had
ventured to raise is not always obvious) put forth by Mr. Gladstone in
the January number of this review,* by an endeavor to make clear, to
such of our readers as have not had the advantage of a forensic educa-
tion, the present net result of the discussion.

I am quite aware that, in undertaking this task, I run all the risks
to which the man who presumes to deal judicially with his own cause
is liable. But it is exactly because I do not shun that risk, but, rather,
earnestly desire to be judged by him who coraeth after me, provided
that he has the knowledge and impartiality appropriate to a judge,
that I adopt my present course.

In the article on " The Dawn of Creation and Worship," f it will be
remembered that Mr. Gladstone unreservedly commits himself to three
propositions. The first is that, according to the writer of the Penta-
teuch, the " water-population," the " air-population," and the " land-
population " of the globe were created successively, in the order named.
In the second place, Mr. Gladstone authoritatively asserts that this (as
part of his " fourfold order ") has been " so aifirmed in our time by
natural science, that it may be taken as a demonstrated conclusion and
established fact." In the third place, Mr. Gladstone argues that the
fact of this coincidence of the Pentateuchal story with the results of
modem investigation makes it *' impossible to avoid the conclusion,
first, that either this writer was gifted with faculties passing all human
experience, or else his knowledge was divine." And, having settled
to his own satisfaction that the first " branch of the alternative is truly
nominal and unreal," Mr. Gladstone continues, " So stands the plea for
a revelation of truth from God, a plea only to be met by questioning
its possibility.

I am a simple-minded person, wholly devoid of subtlety of intel-
lect, so that I willingly admit that there may be depths of alternative
meaning in these propositions out of all soundings attainable by my
poor plummet. Still, there are a good many people who suffer under
a like intellectual limitation ; and, for once in my life, I feel that I
have the chance of attaining that position of a representative of average
opinion, which appears to be the modern ideal of a leader of men,

* " Popular Science Monthly " for March, 1886. f See supplement to preaent number.

MR. GLADSTONE AND GENESIS. 789

when I make free confession that, after turning the matter over in my
mind with all the aid derived from a careful consideration of Mr.
Gladstone's reply, I can not get away from my original conviction that,
if Mr. Gladstone's second proposition can be shown to be not merely
inaccurate, but directly contradictory of facts known to every one who
is acquainted with the elements of natural science, the third proposi-
tion collapses of itself.

And it was this conviction which led me to enter upon the present
discussion. I fancied that if my respected clients, the people of
average opinion and capacity, could once be got distinctly to conceive
that Mr. Gladstone's views as to the proper method of dealing with
grave and difficult scientific and religious problems had permitted him
to base a solemn " plea for a revelation of truth from God " upon an
error as to a matter of fact, from which the intelligent perusal of a
manual of paleontology would have saved him, I need not trouble my-
self to occupy their time and attention with further comments upon
his contribution to apologetic literature. It is for others to judge
whether I have efficiently carried out my project or not. It certainly
does not count for much that I should be unable to find any flaw in
my own case, but I think it counts for a good deal that Mr. Gladstone
appears to have been equally unable to do so. He does, indeed, make
a great parade of authorities, and I have the greatest respect for those
authorities whom Mr. Gladstone mentions. If he will get them to
sign a joint memorial to the effect that our present paleontological
evidence proves that birds appeared before the " land-population " of
terrestrial reptiles, I shall think it my duty to reconsider my position
— but not till then.

It v/ill be observed that I have cautiously used the word "ap-
pears " in referring to what seems to me to be absence of any real
answer to my criticisms in Mr. Gladstone's reply. For I must hon-
estly confess that, notwithstanding long and painful strivings after
clear insight, I am still uncertain whether Mr. Gladstone's " Defense "
means that the great "plea for a revelation from God" is to be left
to perish in the dialectic desert, or whether it is to be withdrawn
under the protection of such skirmishers as are available for covering
retreat.

In particular the remarkable disquisition which covers pages 624—
627 of Mr. Gladstone's last contribution has greatly exercised my mind.
Socrates is reported to have said of the works of Heraclitus that he
who attempted to comprehend them should be a " Delian swimmer,"
but that, for his part, what he could understand was so good that he
was disposed to believe in the excellence of that which he found unin-
telligible. In endeavoring to make myself master of Mr. Gladstone's
meaning in these pages, I have often been overcome by a feeling
analogous to that of Socrates, but not quite the same. That which I
do understand, in fact, has appeared to me so very much the reverse

79© THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of good, that I have sometimes permitted myself to doubt the value of
that which I do not understand.

In this part of Mr. Gladstone's reply, in fact, I find nothing of
which the bearing upon my arguments is clear to me, except that
which relates to the question whether reptiles, so far as they are rep-
resented by tortoises and the great majority of lizards and snakes,
which are land-animals, are creeping things in the sense of the Penta-
teuchal writer or not.

I have every respect for the singer of the Song of the Three Chil-
dren (whoever he may have been) ; I desire to cast no shadow of
doubt upon, but, on the contrary, marvel at, the exactness of Mr.
Gladstone's information as to the considerations which "affected the
method of the Mosaic writer" ; nor do I venture to doubt that the
inconvenient intrusion of these contemptible reptiles — "a family fallen
from greatness " (p. 627), a miserable decayed aristocracy reduced to
mere "skulkers about the earth" (ibid.) — in consequence apparently
of difficulties about the occupation of land arising out of the earth-
hunger of tbeir former serfs, the mammals — into an apologetic argu-
ment, which otherwise would run quite smoothly, is in every way to
be deprecated. Still, the wretched creatures stand there, importu-
nately demanding notice ; and, however different may be the practice
in that contentious atmosphere with which Mr. Gladstone expresses
and laments his familiarity, in the atmosphere of science it really is of
no avail whatever to shut one's eyes to facts, or to try to bury them
out of sight under a tumulus of rhetoric. That is my experience of
"the Elysian regions of Science," wherein it is a pleasure to me to
think that a man of Mr. Gladstone's intimate knowledge of English
life during the last quarter of a century believes ray philosophic exist-
ence to have been rounded off in unbroken equanimity.

However reprehensible, and indeed contemptible, terrestrial reptiles
may be, the only question which appears to me to be relevant to my
argument is whether these creatures are or are not comprised under
the denomination of " everything that creepeth upon the ground."

Mr. Gladstone speaks of the author of the first chapter of Genesis
as " the Mosaic writer " ; I suppose, therefore, that he will admit that
it is equally proper to speak of the author of Leviticus as the "Mosaic
writer." Whether such a phrase would be used by any one who had
an adequate conception of the assured results of modern Biblical criti-
cism is another matter ; but, at any rate, it can not be denied that
Leviticus has as much claim to Mosaic authorship as Genesis. There-
fore, if one wants to know the sense of a phrase used in Genesis, it
will be well to see what Leviticus has to say on the matter. Hence, I
commend the following extract from the eleventh chapter of Leviticus
to Mr. Gladstone's serious attention :

And these are they which are unclean unto you among the creeping things
that creep upon the earth : the weasel, and the mouse, and the great lizard after

MR. GLADSTONE AND GENESIS. 791

its kind, and the gecko, and the land-crocodile, and the sand-lizard, and the
chameleon. These are they which are unclean to you among all that creep (v.
29-31).

The merest Sunday-school exegesis therefore suffices to prove that
•when the "Mosaic writer" in Genesis i, 24, speaks of "creeping
things" he means to include lizards among them.

This being so, it is agreed on all hands that terrestrial lizards, and
other reptiles allied to lizards, occur in the Permian strata. It is fur-
ther agreed that the Triassic strata were deposited after these. More-
over, it is well known that, even if certain footprints are to be taken
as unquestionable evidence of the existence of bii'ds, they are not
known to occur in rocks earlier than the Trias, while indubitable re-
mains of birds are to be met with only much later. Hence it follows
that natural science does not " affirm " the statement that birds were
made on the fifth day, and " everything that creepeth on the ground "
on the sixth, on which Mr. Gladstone rests his order ; for, as is shown
by Leviticus, the " Mosaic writer " includes lizards among his " creep-
ing things."

Perhaps I have given myself superfluous trouble in the preceding
argument, for I find that Mr. Gladstone is willing to assume (be does
not say to admit) that the statement in the text of Genesis as to rep-
tiles can not " in all points be sustained " (p. 629). But my position is
that it can not be sustained in any point, so that, after all, it has per-
haps been as well to go over the evidence again. And then Mr. Glad-
stone proceeds, as if nothing had happened, to tell us that —

There remain great unshaken facts to be weighed. First, the fact that such a
record should have been made at all.

As most peoples have their cosmogonies, this "fact" does not
strike me as having much value.

Secondly, the fact that, instead of dwelling in generalities, it has placed itself
under the severe conditions of a chronological order reaching from the first nisus
of chaotic matter to the consummated production of a fair and goodly, a fur-
nished and a peopled world.

This " fact " can be regarded as of value only by ignoring the fact
demonstrated in my previous paper, that natural science does not con-
firm the order asserted so far as living things are concerned ; and by
upsetting a fact to be brought to light presently, to wit, that, in regard
to the rest of the Pentateuchal cosmogony, prudent science has very
little to say one way or the other.

Thirdly, the fact that its cosmogony seems, in the light of the nineteenth cen-
tury, to draw more and more of countenance from the best natural philosophy.

I have already questioned the accuracy of this statement, and I do
not observe that mere repetition adds to its value.

792 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

And, fourtlily, that it has described the successive origins of tlie five great
categories of present life with which human experience was and is conversant,
in that order which geological authority confirms.

By comparison with a sentence on page 627, in which a fivefold
order is substituted for the "fourfold order," on which the "plea for
Revelation " was originally founded, it appears that these five catego-
ries are " plants, fishes, birds, mammals, and man," which, Mr. Glad-
stone affirms, " are given to us in Genesis in the order of succession in
which they are also given by the latest geological authorities."

I must venture to demur to this statement. I showed, in my pre-
vious paper, that there is no reason to doubt that the terra "great sea
monster" (used in Genesis i, 21) includes the most conspicuous of great
sea animals — namely, whales, dolphins, porpoises, manatees, and du-
gongs ; * and, as these are indubitable mammals, it is impossible to
affirm that mammals come after birds, which are said to have been
created on the same day. Moreover, I pointed out that, as these Ceta-
cea and Sirenia are certainly modified land animals, their existence im-
plies the antecedent existence of land mammals.

Furthermore, I have to remark that the term " fishes," as used tech-
nically in zoology, by no means covers all the moving creatures that
have life, which are bidden to " fill the waters in the seas " (Genesis i,
20-22). Marine mollusks and Crustacea, echinoderms, corals, and fora-
minifera are not technically fishes. But they are abundant in the pa-
leozoic rocks, ages upon ages older than those in which the first evi-
dences of true fishes appear. And, if in a geological book Mr. Glad-
stone finds the quite true statement that plants appeared before fishes,
it is only by a complete misunderstanding that he can be led to imag-
ine it serves his purpose. As a matter of fact, at the present moment,
it is a question whether, on the bare evidence afforded by fossils, the
marine creeping thing or the marine plant has the seniority. No cau-
tious paleontologist would express a decided opinion on the matter.
But, if we are to read the Pentateuchal statement as a scientific docu-
ment (and, in spite of all protests to the contrary, those who bring it
into comparison with science do seek to make a scientific document of
it), then, as it is quite clear that only terrestrial plants of high organi-
zation are spoken of in verses 11 and 12, no paleontologist would hesi-
tate to say that, at present, the records of sea animal life are vastly
older than those of any land-plant describable as " grass, herb yielding
seed, or fruit-tree."

Thus, although, in Mr. Gladstone's " Defense," the " old order
passeth into new," his case is not improved. The fivefold order is no
more "affirmed in our time by natural science " to be " a demonstrated
conclusion and established fact " than the fourfold order was. Natural

* Both dolphins and dugonga occur in the Red Sea, porpoises and dolphins in the Med-
iterranean ; 80 that the " Mosaic writer " may well have been acquainted with them.

MR. GLADSTONE AND GENESIS. 793

science appears to me to decline to have anything to do with either ;
they are as wrong in detail as they are mistaken in principle.

There is another change of position, the value of which is not so
apparent to me as it may well seem to be to those who are unfamiliar
with the subject under discussion. Mr. Gladstone discards his three
groups of " water population," "air population," and "land popula-
tion," and substitutes for them (1) fishes, (2) birds, (3) mammals, (4)
man. Moreover, it is assumed in a note that " the higher or ordinary
mammals" alone were known to the "Mosaic writer" (p. 619). No
doubt it looks, at first, as if something were gained by this alteration ;
for, as I have just pointed out, the word " fishes " can be used in two
senses, one of which has a deceptive appearance of adjustability to the
"Mosaic" account. Then the inconvenient reptiles are banished out
of sight ; and, finally, the question of the exact meaning of "higher"
and " ordinary " in the case of mammals opens up the prospect of a
hopeful logomachy. But what is the good of it all in the face of Le-
viticus on the one hand and of paleontology on the other ?

As, in my apprehension, there is not a shadow of justification for
the suggestion that when the Pentateuchal writer says " fowl " he
excludes bats (which, as we shall see directly, are expressly included
under "fowl" in Leviticus), and as I have already shown that he de-
monstrably includes reptiles, as well as mammals, among the creeping
things of the land, I may be permitted to spare my readers further
discussion of the " fivefold order." On the whole, it is seen to be rather
more inconsistent with Genesis than its fourfold predecessor.

But I have yet a fresh order to face. Mr. Gladstone (p. 624) under-
stands " the main statements of Genesis, in successive order of time,
but without any measurement of its divisions, to be as follows :

1. A period of land, anterior to all life (v. 9 and 10).

2. A period of vegetable life, anterior to animal life (v. 11 and 12).

3. A period of animal life, in the order of fishes (v. 20).

4. Another stage of animal life, in the order of birds.

5. Another, in the order of beasts (v. 24 and 25).

6. Last of all, man (v. 26 and 27)."

Mr. Gladstone then tries to find the proof of the occurrence of a
similar succession in sundry excellent works on geology.

I am really grieved to be obliged to say that this third (or is it
fourth?) modification of the foundation of the "plea for Revelation "
originally set forth satisfies me as little as any of its predecessors.

For, in the first place, I can not accept the assertion that this order
is to be found in Genesis. With respect to No. 3, for example, I hold,
as I have already said, that " great sea monsters " includes the Ceta-
cea, in which case mammals (which is what, I suppose, Mr. Gladstone
means by " beasts ") come in under head No. 3, and not under No. 5.

Again, " fowl " are said in Genesis to be created on the same day as

794 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

fishes ; therefore I can not accept an order which makes birds succeed
fishes. Once more, as it is quite certain that the term " fowl " includes
the bats — for in Leviticus xi, 13-19, we read, " And these shall ye have
in abomination among the fowls . . . the heron after its kind, and the
hoopoe, and the bat " — it is obvious that bats are also said to have
been created at stage No. 3, And as bats are mammals, and their ex-
istence obviously presupposes that of terrestrial " beasts," it is quite
clear that the latter could not have first appeared as No. 5. I need not
repeat my reasons for doubting whether man came " last of all."

As the latter half of Mr. Gladstone's sixfold order thus shows itself
to be wholly unauthorized by, and inconsistent with, the plain language
of the Pentateuch, I might decline to discuss the admissibility of its
former half.

But I will add one or two remarks on this point also. Does Mr.
Gladstone mean to say that in any of the works he has cited, or in-
deed anywhere else, he can find scientific warranty for the assertion
that there was a period of land — by which I suppose he means dry
land (for submerged land must needs be as old as the separate exist-
ence of the sea) — " anterior to all life " ? f

It may be so, or it may not be so ; but where is the evidence
which would justify any one in making a positive assertion on the sub-
ject ? What competent paleontologist will afiirm, at this present
moment, that he knows anything about the period at which life origi-
nated, or will assert more than the extreme probability that such origin
was a long way antecedent to any traces of life at present known ?
What physical geologist will afiirm that he knows when dry land
began to exist, or will say more than that it was probably very much
earlier than any extant direct evidence of terrestrial conditions indi-
cates ?

I think I know pretty well the answers which the authorities quoted
by Mr. Gladstone would give to these questions ; but I leave it to
them to give them if they think fit.

If I ventured to speculate on the matter at all, I should say it is
by no means certain that sea is older than dry land, inasmuch as a
solid terrestrial surface may very well have existed before the earth
was cool enough to allow of the existence of fluid water. And in this
case dry land may have existed before the sea. As to the first appear-
ance of life, the whole argument of analogy, whatever it may be worth
in such a case, is in favor of the absence of living beings until long
after the hot-water seas had constituted themselves ; and of the sub-
sequent appearance of aquatic before terrestrial forms of life. But
whether these " protoplasts " would, if we could examine them, be
reckoned among the lowest microscopic algae, or fungi, or among
those doubtful organisms which lie in the debatable land between ani-
mals and plants, is, in my judgment, a question on which a prudent
biologist will reserve his opinion.

MR. GLADSTONE AND GENESIS. 795

I think that I have now disposed of those parts of Mr. Gladstone's
defense in which I seem to discover a design to rescue his solemn
" plea for Revelation." But a great deal of the " Proem to Genesis "
remains which I would gladly pass over in silence, were such a course
consistent with the respect due to so distinguished a champion of the
" reconcilers."

I hope that my clients — the people of average opinions — have by
this time some confidence in me ; for, when I tell them that, after all,
Mr. Gladstone is of opinion that the " Mosiac record " was meant to
give moral and not scientific instruction to those for whom it was
written, they may be disposed to think that I must be misleading
them. But let them listen further to what Mr. Gladstone says in a
compendious but not exactly correct statement respecting my opinions :

He holds the writer responsible for scientific precision: I look for nothing
of the kind, but assign to him a statement general, which admits exceptions;
popular, which aims mainly at producing moral impression ; summary, which
can not but be open to more or less of criticism of detail. He thinks it is a
lecture. I think it is a sermon (p. 618).

I note, incidentally, that Mr, Gladstone appears to consider that
the differentia between a lecture and a sermon is, that the former, so
far as it deals with matters of fact, may be taken seriously, as meaning
exactly what it says, while a sermon may not. 1 have quite enough
on ray hands without taking up the cudgels for the clergy, who will
probably find Mr. Gladstone's definition unflattering.

But I am diverging from my proper business, which is to say that
I have given no ground for the ascription of these opinions, and that,
as a matter of fact, I do not hold them and never have held them. It
is Mr. Gladstone, and not I, who will have it that the Pentateuchal
cosmogony is to be taken as science.

My belief, on the contrary, is, and long has been, that the Penta-
teuchal story of the creation is simply a myth. I suppose it to be an
hypothesis respecting the origin of the univei'se which some ancient
thinker found himself able to reconcile with his knowledge, or what he
thought was knowledge, of the nature of things, and therefore assumed
to be true. As such, I hold it to be not merely an interesting but a ven-
erable monument of a stage in the mental progress of mankind, and I
find it difficult to suppose that any one who is acquainted with the
cosmogonies of other nations — and especially with those of the Egyp-
tians and the Babylonians, with whom the Israelites were in such fre-
quent and intimate communication — should consider it to possess either
more or less scientific importance than may be allotted to these.

Mr. Gladstone's definition of a sermon permits me to suspect that
he may not see much difference between that form of discourse and
what I call a myth ; and I hope it may be something more than the
slowness of apprehension, to which I have confessed, which leads me

796 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

to imagine that a statement which is " general " but " admits excep-
tions," which is " popular " and " aims mainly at producing moral im-
pression," " summary " and therefore open to " criticism of detail,"
amounts to a myth, or perhaps less than a myth. Put algebraically,
it comes to this, x^a-\-b-\-C', always remembering that there is
nothing to show the exact value of either a, or b, or c. It is true that
a is commonly supposed to equal 10, but there are exceptions, and
these may reduce it to 8, or 3, or 0 ; h also popularly means 10, but,
being chiefly used by the algebraist as a " moral " value, you can not
do much with it in the addition or subtraction of mathematical values ;
c also is quite " summary," and, if you go into the details of which it
is made up, many of them may be wrong, and their sum total equal to
0, or even to a minus quantity.

Mr. Gladstone appears to wish that I should (1) enter upon a sort
of essay competition with the author of the Pentateuchal cosmogony ;
(2) that I should make a further statement about some elementary
facts in the history of Indian and Greek philosophy ; and (3) that I
should show cause for my hesitation in accepting the assertion that
Genesis is supported, at any rate to the extent of the first two verses,
by the nebular hypothesis,

A certain sense of humor prevents me from accepting the first in-
vitation. I would as soon attempt to put Hamlet's soliloquy into a
more scientific shape. But, if I suppose the " Mosaic writer " to be
inspired, as Mr. Gladstone does, it would not be consistent with my
notions of respect for the Supreme Being to imagine Him unable to
frame a form of words which should accurately, or at least not inaccu-
rately, express His own meaning. It is sometimes said that, had the
statements contained in the first chapter of Genesis been scientifically
true, they would have been unintelligible to ignorant people ; but how
is the matter mended if, being scientifically untrue, they must needs
be rejected by instructed people ?

With respect to the second suggestion, it would be presumptuous
in me to pretend to instruct Mr. Gladstone in matters which lie as
much within the province of Literature and History as in that of Sci-
ence ; but, if anyone desirous of further knowledge will be so good as
to turn to that most excellent and by no means recondite source of in-
formation, the " Encyclopaedia Britannica," he will find, under the let-
ter E, the word "Evolution," and a long article on that subject. Now,
I do not recommend him to read the first half of the article ; but the
second half, by my friend Mr. Sully, is really very good. He will there
find it said that, in some of the philosophies of ancient India, the idea
of evolution is clearly expressed : " Brahma is conceived as the eternal
self-existent being, which, on its material side, unfolds itself to the
world by gradually condensing itself to material objects through the
gradations of ether, fire, water, earth, and other elements." And
again : " In the later system of emanation of Sankhya there is a more

MR. GLADSTONE AND GENESIS. 797

marked approach to a materialistic doctrine of evolution." What lit-
tle knowledge I have of the matter — chiefly derived from that very-
instructive book " Die Religion des Buddha," by C. F. Koeppen, sup-
plemented by Hardy's interesting works — leads me to think that Mr.
Sully might have spoken much more strongly as to the evolutionary
character of Indian philosophy, and especially of that of the Buddhists.
But the question is too large to be dealt with incidentally.

And with respect to early Greek philosophy * the seeker after ad-
ditional enlightenment need go no further than the same excellent
storehouse of information :

The early Ionian physicists, including Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes
seek to explain the world as generated out of a primordial matter which is at the
same time the universal support of things. This substance is endowed with a
generative or transmutative force by virtue of which it passes into a succession
of forms. They thus resemble modern evolutionists, since they regard the world
with its infinite variety of forms, as issuing from a simple mode of matter.

Further on, Mr. Sully remarks that " Heraclitus deserves a promi-
nent place in the history of the idea of evolution," and he states, with
perfect justice, that Heraclitus has foreshadowed some of the special
peculiarities of Mr. Darwin's views. It is indeed a very strange cir-
cumstance that the philosophy of the great Ephesian more than adum-
brates the two doctrines which have played leading parts, the one in
the development of Christian dogma, the other in that of natural sci-
ence. The former is the conception of the Word (Aoyos) which took
its Jewish shape in Alexandria, and its Christian form f in that Gos-
pel which is usually referred to an Ephesian source of some five cent-
uries later date ; and the latter is that of the struggle for existence.
The saying that " strife is father and king of all " (TroAe/to? TrdvTwv fxkv
iraT-qp Icrri, ttcivtuv 8e /3acn\€v<;) , ascribed to Heraclitus, would be a not
inappropriate motto for the " Origin of Species."

I have referred only to Mr. Sully's article, because his authority is
quite sufficient for my purpose. But the consultation of any of the
more elaborate histories of Greek philosophy, such as the great work
of Zeller, for example, will only bring out the same fact into still more
striking prominence. I have professed no " minute acquaintance "
with either Indian or Greek philosophy, but I have taken a great deal
of pains to secure that such knowledge as I do possess shall be accu-
rate and trustworthy.

In the third place, Mr. Gladstone appears to wish that I should
discuss with him the question whether the nebular hypothesis is or is
not confirmatory of the Pentateuchal account of the origin of things.
Mr. Gladstone appears to be prepared to enter upon this campaign

* I said nothing about " the greater number of schools of Greek philosophy," as
Mr. Gladstone implies that I did, but expressly spoke of the " founders of Greek phi-
losophy."

f See Heinze, " Die Lehrc vom Logos," p. 9, et seg.

798 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

with a light heart. I confess I am not, and my reason for this back-
wardness Avill doubtless surprise Mr. Gladstone. It is that, rather
more than a quarter of a century ago (namely, in February, 1859),
when it was my duty, as President of the Geological Society, to de-
liver the Anniversary Address,* I chose a topic which involved a very
careful study of the remarkable cosmogonical speculation originally
promulgated by Imraanuel Kant, and subsequently by Laplace, which
is now known as the nebular hypothesis. With the help of such little
acquaintance with the principles of physics and astronomy as I had
gained, I endeavored to obtain a clear understanding of this specula-
tion in all its bearings. I am not sure that I succeeded ; but of this
I am certain, that the problems involved are very difficult, even for
those who possess the intellectual discipline requisite for dealing with
them. And it was this conviction that led me to express my desire to
leave the discussion of the question of the asserted harmony between
Genesis and the nebular hypothesis to experts in the appropriate
branches of knowledge. And I think my course was a wise one ; but,
as Mr. Gladstone evidently does not understand how there can be any
hesitation on my part, unless it arises from a conviction that he is in
the right, I may go so far as to set out my difficulties.

They are of two kinds — exegetical and scientific. It appears to me
that it is vain to discuss a supposed coincidence between Genesis and
science, unless we have first settled, on the one hand, what Genesis
says, and, on the other hand, what science says.

In the first place, I can not find any consensus among Biblical
scholars as to the meaning of the words " In the beginning God cre-
ated the heaven and the earth." Some say that the Hebrew word
bara, which is translated " create," means " made out of nothing." I
venture to object to that rendering, not on the ground of scholarship,
but of common sense. Omnipotence itself can surely no more make
something "out of" nothing than it can make a triangular circle.
What is intended by " made out of nothing " appears to be " caused
to come into existence," with the implication that nothing of the same
kind previously existed. It is further usually assumed that " the heav-
en and the earth" means the material substance of the universe.
Hence the " Mosaic writer " is taken to imply that, where nothing of
a material nature previously existed, this substance appeared. That
is perfectly conceivable, and therefore no one can deny that it may
have happened. But there are other very authoritative critics who
say that the ancient Israelite f who wrote the passage was not likely
to have been capable of such abstract thinking, and that, as a matter
of philology, bara is commonly used to signify the " fashioning," or

* Reprinted in "Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews," 1870.

\ " Ancient," doubtless, but his antiquity must not be exagi;eratcd. For example,
there is no proof that the " Mosaic " cosmogony was known to the Israelites of Solomon's
time.

MR. GLADSTONE AND GENESIS. 799

" forming," of that which already exists. Now, it appears to me that
the scientific investigator is wholly incompetent to say anything at all
about the first origin of the material universe. The whole power of
his organon vanishes when he has to step beyond the chain of natural
causes and effects. No form of the nebular hypothesis that I know of
is necessarily connected with any view of the origination of the nebu-
lar substance. Kant's form of it expressly supposes that the nebular
material from which one stellar system starts may be nothing but the
disintegrated substance of a stellar and planetary system which has
just come to an end. Therefore, so far as I can see, one who believes
that matter has existed from all eternity has just as much right to
hold the nebular hypothesis as one who believes that matter came into
existence at a specified epoch. In other words, the nebular hypothesis
and the creation hypothesis, up to this point, neither confirm nor oppose
one another.

Next, we read in the revisers' version, in which I suppose the ulti-
mate results of critical scholarship to be embodied : " And the earth
was waste [without form, in the authorized version] and void." Most
people seem to think that this phraseology intends to imply that the
matter oixt of which the world was to be formed was a veritable " chaos "
devoid of law and order. If this interpretation is correct, the nebular
hypothesis can have nothing to say to it. The scientific thinker can
not admit the absence of law and order, anywhere or any when, in
nature. Sometimes law and order are patent and visible to our lim-
ited vision ; sometimes they are hidden. But every particle of the
matter of the most fantastic-looking nebula in the heavens is a realm
of law and order in itself, and that it is so is the essential condition
of the possibility of solar and planetary evolution from the apparent
chaos.*

*' Waste " is too vague a term to be worth consideration. " With-
out form," intelligible enough as a metaphor, if taken literally, is ab-
surd ; for a material thing existing in space must have a superficies,
and if it has a superficies it has a form. The wildest streaks of raare's-
tail clouds in the sky, or the most irregular heavenly nebulae, have
surely just as much form as a geometrical tetrahedron ; and as for
" void," how can that be void which is full of matter ? As poetry,
these lines ai-e vivid and admirable ; as a scientific statement, which
they must be taken to be if any one is justified in comparing them
with another scientific statement, they fail to -convey any intelligible
conception to my mind.

The account proceeds : " And darkness was upon the face of the
deep." So be it ; but where, then, is the likeness to the celestial
nebulae, of the existence of which we should know nothing unless

* When Jeremiah (iv, 23) says, " I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was waste and void,"
he certainly does not mean to imply that the form of the earth was less definite, or its
Bubstance less solid, than before.

8oo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

they shone with a light of their own? "And the spirit of God moved
upon the face of the waters." I have met with no form of the nebular
hypothesis which involves anything analogous to this process.

I have said enough to explain some of the difficulties which arise
in my mind when I try to ascertain whether there is any foundation
for the contention that the statements contained in the first two verses
of Genesis are supported by the nebular hypothesis. The result does
not appear to me to be exactly favorable to that contention. The
nebular hypothesis assumes the existence of matter having definite
properties as its foundation. Whether such matter w^as created a
few thousand years ago, or whether it has existed through an eternal
series of metamorphoses of which our present universe is only the
last stage, are alternatives, neither of which is scientifically untenable,
and neither scientifically demonstrable. But science knows nothing
of any stage in which the universe could be said, in other than a
metaphorical and popular sense, to be formless or empty, or in any
respect less the seat of law and order than it is now. One might as
well talk of a fresh laid hen's eQg being " without form and void,"
because the chick therein is potential and not actual, as apply such
terms to the nebulous mass which contains a potential solar system.

Until some further enlightenment comes to me, then, I confess
myself wholly unable to understand the way in which the nebular
hypothesis is to be converted into an ally of the " Mosaic writer." *

But Mr. Gladstone informs us that Professor Dana and Professor
Guyot are prepared to prove that the "first or cosmogonical portion of
the Proem not only accords with but teaches the nebular hypothesis." f

* In looking through the delightful volume recently published by the Astronomer
Royal for Ireland, a day or two ago, I find the following remarks on the nebular
hypothesis, which I should have been glad to quote in my text if I had known them
sooner :

" Nor can it be ever more than a speculation ; it can not be established by observa-
tion, nor can it be proved by calculation. It is merely a conjecture, more or less plaus-
ible, but perhaps, in some degree, necessarily true, if our present laws of heat, as we
understand them, admit of the extreme application here required, and if the present order
of things has reigned for sufficient time without the intervention of any influence at pres-
ent known to us." — " The Story of the Heavens," p. 506.

Would any prudent advocate base a plea, either for or against revelation, upon the
coincidence, or want of coincidence, of the declarations of the latter with the requirements
of an hypothesis thus guardedly dealt with by an astronomical expert ?

f Postscript to article on " Proem to Genesis'''' (published in " Popular Science 3foniJi-
It/" for 3f arch, 18S6). — I learn with satisfaction that in America, where the stores of geo-
logical knowledge have been so greatly enlarged, the business of the reconciler has been
taken into the hands of scientists : Dr. Dana, Professor of Geology in Yale College,
and Dr. Arnold Guyot, Professor of Geology and Physical Geography in New Jersey Col-
lege. Both of these authorities, it appears, have adhered through a long career, and now
adhere with increased confidence, to the idea of a substantial harmony between science
and the Mosaic text. Professor Dana's latest tract has recently appeared in the " Biblio-
theca Sacra "for April, 1885. He thinks the evidence doubtful as to the priority of
birds over the low or marsupian mammals (p. 21-1) ; but strong for an abundant early

MR. GLADSTOXE AND GENESIS. 801

There is no one to whoso authority on geological questions I am more
readily disposed to bow, than that of my eminent friend Professor
Dana. But I am familiar with what he has previously said on this
topic in his well-known and standard work, into which, strangely
enough, it does not seem to have occurred to Mr. Gladstone to look
before he set out upon his present undertaking ; and unless Professor
Dana's latest contribution (which I have not yet met with) takes up
altogether new ground, I am afraid I shall not be able to extricate
myself, by its help, from my present difficulties.

It is a very long time since I began to think about the relations
between modern scientifically ascertained truths and the cosmogonical
speculations of the writer of Genesis ; and, as I think that Mr. Glad-
stone might have been able to put his case with a good deal more
force if he had thought it worth while to consult the last chapter of
Professor Dana's admirable "Manual of Geology," so I think he
might have been made aware that he was undertaking an enterprise
of which he had not counted the cost, if he had chanced upon a dis-
cussion of the subject which I published in 1877.*

Finally, I should like to draw the attention of those who take
interest in these topics to the weighty words of one of the most
learned and moderate of Biblical critics :

A propos de cette premiere page de la Bible, on a coutume de nos jours de
disserter, a perte de vue, sur I'accord du recit mosaique avec les sciences natu-
relles ; et comrae celles-ci, tout 61oign6es qu'elles sent encore de la perfection
absolue, ont rendu populaires et en quelque sorte irr^fragables un certain nombre
de faits generaux ou de theses fondaraentales de la cosmologie et de la geologie,
c'est le teste sacre qu'on s'evertue a torturer pour le faire concorder avec ces
donn^es.t

Tbans. — [Pertinently to this first page of the Bible, it has been customary in
our days to descant to an extreme on the accord of the Mosaic recital with the

plant life In the Azoic period (p. 213) : and he holds, with Professor Guvot, that the first,
or cosmogonical, portion of the "Proem " not only accords with, but teaches, the nebular
hypothesis (p. 220).

It is a relief to find that the burden of this argument is shared with witnesses, who
are competent and unsuspected on the scientific side ; and who will not be liable to a
repetition mutatis mutandis of an old objection : " This people, iv/iich knoweth not the law,
is accursed" (St. John, vii, 49).

Mr. Marsh, Professor of Palaeontology in Yale College, holds (" Omithodontes," 1880,
p. 137), on the grounds of the wide differences between the ArchcEopteryx and the other
types of early birds, that the common ancestor was remote and probably Palaeozoic. He
also adheres to the order — 1. Reptiles ; 2. Birds; 3. Mammals. (It may be well to refer
to Sir C. Lyell, "Principles of Geology," vol. iii, p. 1*75, on the reasons why bird-remains
are sometimes rare.)

In my passages referring to geological results, I would ask the reader to substitute
p'iority for succession. The latter implies a continuity of series, which is not found in the
scientific record, since it is broken by the absence of reference to the invertebrates of the
palaeozoic, and the reptiles of the mesozoic rocks. — W. E. G.

* Lectures on Evolution delivered in New York. (^Vmerican Addresses.)

f Reuss, " L'Histoire Sainte et la Loi," i, 275.

TOL. XXVIII. — 51

8o2 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MO XT ELY.

natnral sciences ; and as the latter, very far removed from absolute perfection
as they still are, Lave rendered popular, and after a manner indisputable, a cer-
tain number of general facts or fundamental theses of cosmology and geology, it
is the sacred text that they strive to torture in order to make it agree with these
data.]

In my paper on the "Interpreters of Nature and the Interpreters
of Genesis," while freely availing myself of the rights of a scientific
critic, I endeavored to keep the expression of my views well within
those bounds of courtesy which are set by self-respect and considera-
tion for others. I am therefore glad to be favored with Mr. Glad-
stone's acknowledgment of the success of my efforts. I only wish
that I could accept all the products of Mr. Gladstone's gracious appre-
ciation, but there is one about which, as a matter of honesty, I hesi-
tate. In fact, if I had expressed my meaning better than I seem to
have done, I doubt if this particular proffer of Mr. Gladstone's thanks
would have been made.

To my mind, whatever doctrine professes to be the result of the ap-
plication of the accepted rules of inductive and deductive logic to its
subject-matter, and accepts, within the limits which it sets to itself,
the supremacy of reason, is science. "Whether the subject-matter con-
sists of realities or unrealities, truths or falsehoods, is quite another
question. I conceive that ordinary geometry is science, by reason of
its method, and I also believe that its axioms, definitions, and conclu-
sions are all true. However, there is a geometry of four dimensions,
which I also believe to be science, because its method professes to be
strictly scientific. It is true that I can not conceive four dimensions
in space, and therefore, for me, the whole affair is unreal. But I have
known men of great intellectual powers who seemed to have no diffi-
culty either in conceiving them, or, at any rate, in imagining how they
could conceive them, and therefore four-dimensioned geometry comes
under my notion of science. So I think astrology is a science, in so far
as it professes to reason logically from principles established by just in-
ductive methods. To prevent misunderstanding, perhaps I had better
add that I do not believe one whit in astrology ; but no more do I be-
lieve in Ptolemaic astronomy, or in the catastrophic geology of my
youth, although these, in their day, claimed — and, to my mind, rightly
claimed — the name of science. If nothing is to be called science but
that which is exactly true from beginning to end, I am afraid there is
very little science in the world outside mathematics. Among the physi-
cal sciences I do not know that any could claim more than that each is
true within certain limits, so narrow that, for the present at any rate,
they may be neglected. If such is the case, I do not see where the
line is to be drawn between exactly true, partially true, and mainly
untrue forms of science. And what I have said about the current
theology at the end of my paper, leaves, I think, no doubt as to the
category in which I rank it. For all that, I think it would be not

COMMENTS BY PROFESSOR HEXRY DRUMMOND. 803

only unjust, but almost impertinent, to refuse the name of science to
the "Summa" of St. Thomas or to the "Institutes" of Calvin.

In conclusion, I confess that my supposed "unjaded appetite" for
the sort of controversy in which it needed not Mr. Gladstone's ex-
press declaration to tell us he is far better practiced than I am (though
probably, without another express declaration, no one would have
suspected that his controversial fires are burning low) is already
satiated.

In " Elysium " we conduct scientific discussions in a different me-
dium, and we are liable to threatenings of asphyxia in that " atmos-
phere of contention " in which Mr. Gladstone has been able to live,
alert and vigorous beyond the common race of men, as if it were
purest mountain air. I trust that he may long continue to seek truth,
under the difficult conditions he has chosen for the search, with un-
abated energy — I had almost said fire :

"May age not wither him, nor custom stale
His infinite variety."

But Elysium suits my less robust constitution better, and I beg leave
to retire thither, not sorry for my experience of the other region — no
one should regret experience — but determined not to repeat it, at any
rate, in reference to the " plea for Revelation." — Nineteenth Century.

COMMENTS BY PROFESSOR HEXRY DRUMMOXD.

SCIENCE, Religion, Philology, and History have now unsheathed
their most richly chased blades in this famous tournament. So
goodly a fight has not been seen for many a day ; and whether one
regards the dignity of the combatants, or the gravity and delicacy of
the cause, it is not possible to await the issue without the keenest in-
terest. Meanwhile, a voice may be permitted on behalf of a group
among the spectators who have not yet been heard in this controversy,
but whose modest reluctance to interfere seems only equaled by their
right. In arenas more obscure, but not less worthy, they too have
fought this fight ; and as a humble camp-follower, and from convic-
tion that the thing must now be done, rather than as one possessing
the right to do it, I would venture to state the case on their account.

Mr. Huxley interposes in this question because he is moved by
the violence being done in high places to natural science. This third
party is constrained to speak because of a similar violence done to
theological science. Were the reconcilers of Geology and Genesis
equal in insight to their last and most distinguished champion, and
did Mr. Gladstone himself realize the full meaning of his own conces-
sions, little further contribution to this controversy might perhaps be

8o4 THE POPULAR SCIEXCE MONTHLY.

called for. And, were tlie opponents of this ancient fraternity as calm
in spirit, as respectful to beliefs, and as discriminating as to the real
question at issue as Mr. Huxley, no other word need be spoken. But
with a phalanx of reconcilers on the one hand, who will continue to
shelter untenable positions under the carefully qualified argument of
Mr. Gladstone, and with quasi-scientific men on the other, who will
exaggerate and misinterpret the triumph of Mr. Huxley, a further
clearing of the ground is necessary. The breadth of view, the sagacity,
and inimitable charity of Mr. Gladstone's second article certainly go
far with many minds to remove the forebodings with which they re-
ceived the first. Nevertheless, so powerful a championship of a position
which many earnest students of modern religious questions have seen
reason wholly to abandon can not but excite misgivings of a serious
kind. And though these are now in part removed by the large con-
cessions and ampler statement of the second paper, Mr. Gladstone still
deliberately involves himself with the fortunes of the reconcilers. So
far, however, is he in advance of most of them that much that may be
reluctantly said here against the stand-point from which they work in
no sense applies to him. This much fairness not less than courtesy
makes it a pleasure to premise.

It will be recognized by every one that the true parties in this case
are, as the title of Mr. Huxley's article suggests, "The Interpreters
of Genesis and the Interpreters of Nature." Now, who are the inter-
preters of Genesis ? "VYe answer by asking. Who are the interpreters
of Nature ?

We respectfully point out to Mr. Huxley that his paper contains
no single reference to the interpreters of Genesis in the sense in which
he uses the term " the interpreters " in the case of science. Who are
" the interpreters " of Nature ? Mr. Huxley answers, and rightly,
himself. And who are " the interpreters " of Genesis ? Certainly
Mr. Gladstone would be the last to claim this for himself. Does not
the legitimate question lie between modern theology and modern sci-
ence ? And in perfect fairness should not the title of Mr. Huxley's
paper have read, " Some interpreters of Genesis, and the scientific
interpreters of Nature " ? This may be a verbal matter, and we do
not press it. But in view of the fact that many will see in Mr.
Huxley's article, and in spite of all protestation, a direct and damaging
assault upon the Biblical records, would it not have been right to
point out the real terms of the antithesis? It may be replied, and
justly, that Mr. Huxley is not responsible for the inferences of the
uneducated. And in ordinary circumstances it would be gratuitous
to define so carefully the real limitations of the question at issue.
But the circumstances here are quite exceptional. For, although the
widely general knowledge of science makes the aberrations of indi-
vidual theorists in that department harmless, it is not so in the case of
theology. Theology, in this relation, has long suffered under quite

I

COMMENTS BY PROFESSOR HENRY DRUMMOND. 805

unusual treatraont. Any visionary is taken, and that notoriously by
men of science, as the representative of the s^-stem. And it is time
for theology to be relieved of the irresponsible favors of a hundred
sciolists, whose guerrilla warfare has so long alienated thinking men in
all departments of knowledge. That there is a " science of theology "
Mr. Huxley himself admits. It has exponents in Britain and Germany
as well-equipj)ed in learning, in sobriety, in balance of mind, and in
the possession of the scientific spirit, as the best of the interpreters of
Nature. "When these men speak of science, it is with respectful reli-
ance upon the best and most recent authorities. They complain that
when science speaks of them it accepts positions and statements from
any quarter, from books which have been for years or centuries out-
grown ; or from popular teachers whom scientific theology unweariedly
repudiates. To theological science the whole underlying theory of
the reconcilers is as exploded as Bathybius. And Mr. Huxley's inter-
ference, however much they welcome it in the interest of popular
theology, is to them the amusing performance of a layman, the value
of which to scientific theology is about the same as would be a refuta-
tion of the Ptolemaic astronomy to modern physics.*

This, however, to some minds may have to be made plain, and we
may briefly devote ourselves to a statement of the case.

The progress of opinion on this whole subject is marked by three
phases : First, until the present century the first chapter of Genesis
was accepted as a veritable cosmogony. This, in the circumstances,
was inevitable. The hypothesis of Laplace was not yet in the field ;
paleontology, Fracastoro notwithstanding, had produced nothing ex-
cept what every one knew was the remains of the Noachian Deluge ;

* Of course, in commentaries written by experts for popular uses, the condemnatory
evidence from natural science is sometimes formally cited in stating the case against the
reconcilers generally. From one of the most recent, as well as most able, of these we
quote the following passage, in which Mr. Huxley is anticipated in so many words. It is
here seen, not only that theology " knew all this before," but how completely it has
abandoned the position against which Mr. Huxley's counter-statements are directed:
" This narrative is not careful to follow the actual order in which life appeared on the
globe : it affirms, e. g., that fruit-trees existed before the sun was made ; science can tell
us of no such vegetation. It tells us that the birds were created in the fifth day, the
reptiles in the sixth ; Nature herself tells a different tale, and assures us that creeping
things appeared before the flying fowl. But the most convincing proof of the regard-
lessness of scientific accuracy shown by this writer is found in the fact that in the second
chapter he gives a different account from that which he has given in the first, and an
account irreconcilable with physical facts. ... He represents the creation of man as
preceding the creation of the lower animals — an order which both the first chapter and
physical science assure us was not the actual order observed. ... It seems to me, there-
fore, a mistaken and dangerous attempt which is often made to reconcile the account of
physical facts given here with that given in Nature herself. These accounts disagree in
the date or distance from the present time to which the work of creation is assigned, in
the length of time which the preparation of the world for man is said to have occupied,
and in the order in which life is introduced into the world." — " Genesis," by Marcus
Dods, D. D. Edinburgh, T. & T. Clark, 1882.

8o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and geology, even with Buffon behind it, had so little to say for itself
that a hint from the Sorbonne was sufficient to quench what feeble
light it had. The genesis of the world, therefore, was left to Moses,
and the most mechanical theoiy of creation — a purely anthropomor-
phic thing and not really in the sacred page at all — Avas everywhere
accepted.

Presently, as the sciences gathered volume and focused their rays
on the.past, a new version of creation was spelled out from earth and
sea and stars. Accepted at first tentatively, even by men of science,
it is not to be wondered at that theologians were for a time unwilling
to give up the reading which had held the ground so long. They
therefore adopted the policy which is always followed in similar cir-
cumstances— compromise and adjustment. Thus intervened the inter-
regnum of the reconcilers, De Luc, Kurtz, Pye-Smith, Hugh Miller,
Chalmers, and a hundred others whom we need not name. The man
who speaks of the labors of these workers without respect has no
acquaintance with the methods by which truth, or error, is ascertained.
It was necessary that that mine should be worked, and worked out.
Whatever fundamental error underlay it, it was done with reverence,
with courage, often with leai*ning and with eloquence. A whole litera-
ture sprang up around the reconstruction, and one good end was at least
secured — science was ardently studied by the Church. But the failure
of the new method was a foregone conclusion, and those who sailed on
this shallow sea one by one ran aground. This was a moment of peril
— one of those moments which always come when truth is in the
making, and which, honestly accepted, lead to new departures in the
direction where the true light is ultimately found. The wise among
the harmonists accepted the situation, though some of them did not
know where next to turn. But deliverance swiftly came, and from an
unlooked-for quarter. *

For meantime in Germany and England, in a wholly different
department of theology, another science was at work. Apart from
any questions of doctrinal detail, the young science of Biblical Criti-
cism was beginning to inquire into the composition, meaning, method,
and aims of the sacred books. It dealt with these books, in the first
instance, simply as literature. Questions of age, authorship, and lit-
erary form were for the first time investigated by qualified cxj^erts.
And the result of these labors — labors in the truest sense scientific — is
that these sacred writings are now regarded by theology from a wholly
changed stand-point. Now from this stand-point the problem of the
reconciliation of Genesis with geology simply disappears. The proba-
ble scientific solution, the possibility or impossibility of a harmony —
the very statement becomes an absurdity. The question, in fact, is
as iiTclevant as that of the senior wrangler who asked what Milton's
" Paradise Lost " was meant to prove. This is of course the true meth-
od of dealing with old theories. Beaten in argument, they will surely

COMMENTS BY PROFESSOR HEXRY DRUMMOND. 807

rise again ; outgrown, they are forever dead. And this is the hall-
mark of all true science, that it destroys by fulfilling.

However it may have escaped recognition, it is certain that theol-
ogy has been at work for some time now with methods of inquiry
similar to those employed by natural science. And it has already pai'-
tially succeeded in working out a reconstruction of some important
departments from the stand-point of development. If the student of
science will now apply to theology for its Bible, two very different
books will be laid before him.

The one is the Bible as it was accepted by our forefathers ; the
other is the Bible of modern theology. The books, the chapters, the
verses, and the words are the same in each, yet in the meaning, the
interpretation, and the way in which they are looked at, they are two
entirely distinct Bibles. The distinction between them is one which
science Avill appreciate the moment it is stated. In point of fact, the
one is constructed like the world according to the old cosmogonies ;
the other is an evolution. The one represents revelation as having
been produced on the creative hypothesis, the Divine-fiat hypothesis,
the ready-made hypothesis ; the other on the slow-growth or evolution
theory. This last — the Bible of development — is the Bible of modern
scientific theology. It is not less authoritative than the first, but it is
differently authoritative ; not less inspired, it is yet differently inspired.

From its stand-point the Bible has not been made in a day, any
more than the earth ; nor have its parts been introduced mechanically
into the minds of certain men, any more than the cells of their brain.
In uttering it they have not spoken as mere automata — the men,
though inspired, were authors. This Bible has not been given inde-
pendently of time, of place, or of circumstance. It is not to be read
without the philosophic sense which distinguishes the provisional from
the eternal ; the historic sense, which separates the local from the
universal ; or the literary sense, which recognizes prose from poetry,
imagery from science. The modern Bible is a book Avhose parts,
though not of unequal value, are seen to be of different kinds of value ;
W'here the casual is distinguished from the essential, the subordinate
from the primal end. This Bible is not an oracle which has been
erected ; it has grown. Hence it is no longer a mere word-book, nor
a compendium of doctrines, but a nursery of growing truths. It is
not an even plane of proof-texts without proportion or emphasis, or
light and shade, but a revelation varied as Nature, with the divine in
its hidden parts, in its spirit, its tendencies, its obscurities, and its
omissions. Like Xature, it has successive strata, and valley and hill-
top, and mist and atmosphere, and rivers which are flowing still, and
hidden ores, and here and there a place which is desert, and fossils too,
whose crude forms are the stepping-stones to higher things. In a word,
this Bible is like the world in which it is found, natural, human, intelli-
gible in form ; mysterious, inscrutable, divine in origin and essence.

8o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

"With so living a book, theology has again become living. A whole
cloud of problems, perplexities, anomalies, and doubts fall before it.
No formal indictment is drawn against older views ; difficulties are
not examined and answered in detail. Before the new stand-point they
disappear of themselves. Men who are in revolt against many creeds
breathe again in this larger atmosphere and believe afresh, satisfying
their reason and keeping their self-respect. For scientific theology no
more pledges itself to-day to the interpretations of the Bible of a
thousand years ago than does science to the interpretations of Nature
in the time of Pythagoras. Nature is the same to-day as in the time
of Pythagoras, and the Bible is the same to-day as a thousand years
ago. But the Pythagorean interpretation of Nature is not more im-
possible to the modern mind than are many ancient interpretations —
those of Genesis among others — to the scientific theologian.

This is no forced attempt, observe, to evade a scientific difficulty
by concessions so vital as to make the loss or gain of the position of
no importance. This change is not the product of any destructive
criticism, nor is this transformed book in any sense a mutilated Bible.
It is the natural result of the application of ordinary critical methods
to documents which, sooner or later, must have submitted to the pro-
cess and from which they have never claimed exemption.

But to return to Genesis. Those modern critics, believing or un-
believing, who have studied the Biblical books as literature — studied
them, for instance, as Professor Dowden has studied Shakespeare —
concur in pronouncing the Bible absolutely free from n.atural science.
They find there history, poetry, moral philosophy, theology, lives and
letters, mystical, devotional, and didactic pieces ; but science there is
none. Natural objects are, of course, repeatedly referred to, and with
unsurpassed sympathy and accuracy of observation ; but neither in the
intention of any of the innumerable authors nor in the execution of
their work is there any direct trace of scientific teaching. Could any
one with any historic imagination for a moment expect that there
would have been ? There was no science then. Scientific questions
were not even asked then. To have given men science would not only
have been an anachronism, but a source of mystification and confusion
all along the line. The almost painful silence — indeed, the absolute
sterility — of the Bible with regard to science is so marked as to have
led men to question the very beneficence of God. Why was not the
use of the stars explained to navigators, or chloroform to surgeons?
Why is a man left to die on the hill-side when the medicinal plant
which could save him, did he but know it, lies at his feet ? What is
it to early man to know how the moon was made ? What he wants to
know is how bread is made. How fish are to be caught, fowls snared,
beasts trapped and their skins tanned — these are his problems. Doubt-
less there are valid reasons why the Bible does not contain a techno-
logical dictionary and a pharmacopoeia, or anticipate the "Encyclo-

COMMENTS BY PROFESSOR HEXRY DRUMMOXD. 809

predia Britannica." But that it does not inform us on these practical
matters is surely a valid argument why we should not expect it to
instruct the world in geology. Mr. Huxley is particular to point out
to us that the bat and the pterodactyl must be classified under the
"winged fowl" of Genesis, while at a stretch he believes the cock-
roach might also be included. But we should not wonder if the narra-
tor did not think of this.

Scientific men, apparently, need this warning, not less than those
whom they punish for neglecting it. How ignorantly, often, the
genius of the Bible is comprehended by those who are loudest in their
denunciations of its positions otherwise, is typically illustrated in the
following passage from Haeckel. Having in an earlier paragraph
shown a general harmony between the Mosaic cosmogony and his own
theory of creation, he proceeds to extract out of Genesis nothing less
than the evolution theory, and that in its last and highest develop-
ments :

Two great and fundamental ideas, common also to the non-miracnlous theory
of development, meet us in this Mosaic hypothesis of creation with surprising
clearness and simplicity — the idea of separation or differentiation, and the idea
of progressive development or perfecting. Although Moses looks upon the
results of the great laws of organic development ... as the direct actions of a
constructing Creator, yet in his theory there lies hidden the ruling idea of a pro-
gressive development and a differentiation of the originally simple matter.*

With the next breath this interpreter of Genesis exposes "two
great fundamental errors " in the same chapter of the book in which
he has just discovered the most scientific phases of the evolution hy-
pothesis, and which lead him to express for Moses "just wonder and
admiration." What can be the matter with this singular book ? Why
is it science to Haeckel one minute and error the next ? Why are
Haeckel and Mr. Huxley not agreed, if it is science? Vrhy are
Haeckel and Mr. Gladstone agreed, if it is religion ? If Mr. Huxley
does not agree with Haeckel why does he not agree with Mr. Gladstone ?

George MacDonald has an exquisite little poem called "Baby's
Catechism." It occurs among his children's pieces :

"Where did you come from, haby dear ?
Out of the everywhere into here.

Where did you get your eyes so blue?
Out of the sky as I came through.

Where did yon get that little tear?
I found it waiting when I got here.

Where did you get that pearly ear?
God spoke, and it came out to hoar.

How did they all just come to be yon?
God thought about me and so I grew.

* Haeckel, " History of Creation," vol. i, p. 38.

8io THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

For its purpose what could be a finer, or even a more true, account
of the matter than this ? Without a word of literal truth in it, it
would convey to the child's mind exactly the right impression. Now
conceive of the head nurse banishing it from the nursery as calculated
to mislead the children as to the origin of blue eyes. Or imagine the
nursery governess who has passed the South Kensington examination
in Mr. Huxley's "Physiology" informing her pupils that ears never
"came out" at all, and that hearing was really done inside, by the
fibers of Corti and the epithelial arrangements of the macula? acusticse.
Is it conceivable, on the other hand, that the parish clergyman could
defend the record on the ground that " the everywhere " was a philo-
sophical presentation of the Almighty, or that " God thought about
me" contained the Hegelian Idea? And yet this is precisely what
interpreters of Genesis and interpreters of science do with the Bible.
Genesis is a presentation of one or two great elementary truths to the
childhood of the world. It can only be read aright in the spirit in
which it was written, with its original purpose in view, and its original
audience. AVhat did it mean to them ? What would they understand
by it? What did they need to know and not to know ?

To expand the constructive answers to these questions in detail
does not fall within our province here. What we have to note is,
that a scientific theory of the universe formed no part of the original
writer's intention. Dating from the childhood of the world, written
for children, and for that child-spirit in man which remains unchanged
by time, it takes color and shape accordingly. Its object is purely re-
ligious, the point being, not how certain things were made, but that
God made them. It is not dedicated to science, but to the soul. It
is a sublime theology, given in view of ignorance or idolatry or poly-
theism, telling the worshipful youth of the world that the heavens
and the earth and every creeping and flying thing were made by God.
What w^orld-spii'it teaches men to finger its fluid numbers like a science
catalogue, and discuss its days in terms of geological formations?
What blindness pursues them, that they mark the things he made only
with their museum-labels, and think they have exhausted its contribu-
tion when they have never even been within sight of it ? This is not
even atheism. It is simple illiterateness.

The first principle which must rule our reading of this book is the
elementary canon of all literary criticism, which decides that any in-
terpretation of a part of a book or of a literature must be controlled
by the dominant purpose or motif oi the whole. And, when one in-
vestigates "that dominant purpose in the case of the Bible, he finds it
reducing itself to one thing — religion. No matter what view is taken
of the composition or authorship of the several books, this feature
secures immediate and universal recognition.

Mais s'il en est ainsi (says Lenormant), me demandera-t-on peut-fetre, Oii done
voyez-vous Tinspiration divine des ^crivains qui ont fait cette arch6ologie, le

COMMENTS BY PROFESSOR IIEXRY DRUMMOXD. 811

secours surnaturel dont, comme cbretien, vous devez les croiro guides? Oil?
Dans Tesprit ubsolument nouveau qui anime lour narration, bien que la forme en
soit restee presque de tout point la m§rao quo chez les peuples voisins.*

[Trans. — But if it is so, I may be asked, wbere, tben, do you see tbe divine
inspiration of tbe writers wbo made tbis arcbaaology, tbo supernatural aid by
■whicb you, as a Cbristiun, must believe tbey were guided? "Wbere? In tbe
absolutely new spirit tbat animates tbeir narration, altbougb the form of it may
still be in almost every point tbo same as with tbe neighboring peoples.]

A second principle is expressed with such appositeness to the pres-
ent purpose, by an English commentator, that his words may be given
at length :

There is a principle frequently insisted on, scarcely denied by any, yet recog-
nized with sufficient clearness by few of the advocates of revelation, which, if
fully and practically recognized, would have saved themselves much perplexity
and vexation, and tbe cause they have at heart the disgrace with which it has
been covered by the futile attempts that have been made, through provisional
and shifting interpretations, to reconcile the Mosaic Genesis with the rapidly
advancing strides of physical science. The principle referred to is this: matters
whicb are discoverable by human reason, and the means of investigation which
God has put within tbe reach of man's faculties, are not the proper subjects of
Divine revelation ; and matters which do not concern morals, or bear on man's
spiritual relations toward God, are not within tbe province of revealed religion.!

Here lies the whole matter. It is involved in the mere meaninsr of
revelation, and proved by its whole expression, that its subject-matter
is that which men could not find out for themselves. Men could find
out the order in which the world was made. What they could not
find out was, that God made it. To this day they have not found that
out. Even some of the wisest of our contemporaries, after trying to
find that out for half a lifetime, have been forced to give it up. Hence
the true function of revelation. Nature in Genesis has no link with
geology, seeks none and needs none : man has no link with biology, and
misses none. What he really needs and really misses — for he can get
it nowhere else — Genesis gives him ; it links Nature and man with
their Maker. And this is the one high sense in which Genesis can be
said to be scientific. The scientific man must go there to complete his
science, or it remains forever incomplete. Let him no longer resort
thither to attack what is not really there. What is really there he can
not attack, for he can not do without it. Nor let religion plant posi-
tions there which can only keep science out. Then only can the inter-
preters of Nature and the interpreters of Genesis understand each
other. — Xlneteen th Century.

* " Les Oiigines de rilistoire," Pr^f., xviii. f Quarry, " Genesis," pp. 12, 13.

Si2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

THE IIAXD-WOEK OF SCHOOL-CHILDEEX.*

By EEBECCA D. RICKOFF.

AN exhibition of children's hand-work was held last spring in one
of the public schools of Yonkers. The large assembly-room of
the school-house was filled with lines of tables, upon which were dis-
played the various articles to be exhibited. The room was handsomely
decorated, and the tables were daintily covered and adorned with
bunches of flowers. For each class-room in the house there was set
apart one or more tables upon which was placed, under the direction
of the class-teacher, the work of that class, the whole })resenting the
appearance of a very successful and pretty fair.f

"While this exhibition was given in the school-house, and under the
direction of the school superintendent and teachers, with the sanction
and encouragement of the school board, and though the work was
done by pupils of the school only, none of the things were made in
the school, excepting the colored paper busy-work of the youngest
children and, of course, the drawing. All the other things were made
at home, and expressly for this exhibition. Too much credit can not
be given to the teachers who undertook and carried forward this en-
terprise, it being entirely outside of the regular school-work. There
were many difficulties to overcome. Numbers of the children were
sure they could not make anything ; but, by conversations with them
about what they had done or seen done, and what they would like to
do, by constant encouragement to at least attempt something, and
advice as to ways and means, and especially by enlisting the pride of
the pupils in this, which was to be peculiarly their exhibition, inde-
pendent of school instruction, most of the children were induced to
undertake something.

The next difficulty was to prevail upon them to persevere and
complete the thing commenced, many of them beginning a half-dozen
things before completing one. This failing, so common to all, was
well dealt with by this exhibition, in that the necessity to have an
article ready by a given day forced the child to exercise his own
will-power in deciding upon and completing some one thing, and thus
became a good moral lesson. The greatest care was taken by the
teachers to impress upon the children the credit of honest work.
They were advised to consult with relatives and friends as to what

* A report upon the Yonkers Industrial Exhibition of Children's "Work, read before
the Committee of Industries of the Industrial Educational Association of New York.

\ The exhibition here described was given in school No. 2, of which Miss Dresser is
principal, to whom and to her assistant teachers prcat credit is due. Similar exhibitions
were given the previous year, in this school and also in school No. 6, of which Miss
Spencer is principal, and equal credit is due to her and her assistants.

THE HAXD-WORK OF SCHOOL CHILD REX. 813

to make and how to make it, but were lionor-bound to refrain fi'om
accepting any help in the work itself ; and it is believed by all in-
terested in the exhibition that the exceptions to strict honesty and
truthfulness in regard to the making of the articles were very rare.

The exhibition was open during the day and evening, and the
patrons and friends of the schools came in hundreds to see it. Your
committee were among the visitors, and were so deeply impressed with
the importance of this exhibition in relation to the work of our Asso-
ciation that we determined to make a list of tJie different kinds of things
exhibited, and the ages of the children who made them, with a view
of forming from this list some estimate of what children can make
and like to make at different stages of growth and development. It
is one of the aims of this Association to form a graded system of
manual training, and such data as can be obtained from exhibitions of
this kind would be invaluable for that purpose. Superintendent Gor-
ton having promised us ample facilities for making the list at another
visit when the rooms would not be so crowded, we gave ourselves up
to listening to the comments of the visitors ; and their lively interest
and intelligent appreciation of the exhibit convinced us that it needs
only such exhibitions to create a public sentiment in favor of a move-
ment in this direction. Many parents, desiring to give help and sym-
pathy to their children in their school-work, find themselves at a dis-
advantage. It is seldom that even a well-educated and intelligent
parent is conversant with the last new methods of the schools, and his
suggestions and help, not being in accord with them, are looked upon
by the children as incorrect or old-fashioned. Thus many fathers and
mothers are made to feel at times that they are cut off from taking
part in their children's education. But here, in this exhibition, is some-
thing that bridges the gap between home and school, something the
parent knows all about — how that bread was mixed, that garment
fashioned, that ladder whittled out, that little wagon painted. Xot
only can they understand, but they themselves were the teachers.
This can become a great power for good to the community through
the avenues both of the school and the home.

"We subjoin a list in which are noted down only those articles most
characteristic of the grade in which they were found, and in each grade
the age of the children is given. There were some remarkable and
elaborate toys and fancy-work showing skill, ability, even genius for
invention and great application and perseverance ; but these were the
efforts of children having special capacities or unusual opportunities.
It is, of course, a great gain to the community that those having par-
ticular aptitudes for industrial pursuits should be encouraged and cul-
tivated ; but this Association has, besides this practical aim, another
which is broader and more far-reaching, and that is, to find princi-
ples by which manual training may be adapted to large classes of
ordinary children. The wonderful things that remarkable children

8 14 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

can do show us where great successes lie, but what we most need at
l^resent are the common things showing us how and where the multi-
tudes of children walk, or rather stumble, along. And we would here
respectfully suggest the advisability of securing such lists from exhi-
bitions of this kind that may be held in different sections of the coun-
try, to be kept among the records of this Association for reference,
until we shall have obtained data sufficient to guide us in our work.
In such a collection there will doubtless be much worthless material
and many duplicates, but will not the suggestive facts be worth the
trouble of gathering them ? That a thing is many times duplicated
by children of the same age will indicate it as something suited to
that age ; that at certain other ages the work is below the average as
to number of articles, or unsuited to the growth of the children, will
indicate a want of proper occupation or true development of children
of that age.

Among the specimens of the work of the first year in school, by
children five or six years old, we observed, in the girls' department, a
doll's muff of white fur ; dolls' aprons, one of silk trimmed with lace ;
dressed dolls ; a doll's bonnet, creditably made up of scraps of fur,
lace, and ribbon, and a tiny feather ; a doll's apron, with high neck,
long sleeves, and a yoke ; a cushion and a lamp-mat in colors ; coarse
lace-work of different kinds ; a child's apron, and a child's petticoat.

Among the most noteworthy articles in the boys' department were
a boat hollowed out, with rudder and seats ; a bob-sled, made by con-
necting two tiny sleds by a strip of board, which w^as fastened with
two screws and nuts ; a cube of wood, with a number of squares en-
graved on each face ; bow and arrow ; a ladder of thirteen steps
evenly adjusted ; a rake, made of two pieces of other toys, with bits
of iron wire for teeth — the wood had split in the making, and was
mended with screws ; a screen window ; a chair and table, apparently
made from kindling-wood with a penknife ; a wagon, made of a rough
box, with ends of spools for wheels ; a toy pump, quite equal to those
of its kind that are sold in the shops, with spout and handle correctly
inserted.

In the second school year, the children of which were six or seven
years old, the boys exhibited a rake, more laboriously made, but show-
ing less ingenuity than the rake previously mentioned ; several lad-
ders, of different patterns, but with steps of uniform length and spac-
ing correct in all ; an invention — a gun made from two triangular
pieces of unplaned board, a piece of old bucket-hoop, and the top of
an old pepper-box, with a little stick for a projectile ; a tip-cart — a
box with two old furniture-rollers for wheels, two screws, two small
strips of wood to hold the tongue, and two bits of twine serving as
hinges to the tail-board ; a shapely keel-boat, of sharp model, with
mast, sail, and pennant, standing in two supporting blocks, and the
whole easily held in a lady's hand ; a handsome bracket, made by a

THE HAND-WORK OF SCHOOL-CHILDREN. 815

colored boy too old for his class, who was supposed to be simple-
minded. A boy who was sure he could not make anything brought a
wire hanging-basket filled with wood-moss and ferns and a blossoming
anemone.

The girls' work of this grade begins to show the effect of training
at home, and is more conventional than that of the boys. The speci-
mens included white undergarments, neatly made and trimmed ; aprons
of various styles ; knitted dolls' hoods, lace and crochet work ; baby's
clothes, crazy-work mats, dressed dolls, bean-bags, pen-wipers, and
pin-cushions.

Of the third school year, the children being seven and eight years
old, the girls' work did not differ materially from that last described.
In the boys' department, wheelbarrows appeared to be a specialty, but
we found also saw-bucks, bedsteads, boot-jacks, a gunboat, a cross of
wood mounted for wax-work, a fort, and mounted drawings ; many
houses, made of common pasteboard, with doors, bay-windows, dor-
mer-windows, and porticoes ; a boat, noticeable for its neat oars, and
its row-locks made of black dress-eyes.

In the products of the next two years, by children from eight to
ten years old, while the boys' work was still mainly confined to toys,
that of the girls appeared to be growing more practical. Pride in
execution was shown in both.

JBoys' icork : A velocipede, small but complete, with hubs, spokes,
felloes, and tires represented by lines of black ; a substantial and
neatly finished wagon ; clothes-horses, step-ladders, saw-bucks, easels,
ocean- steamers, and catamarans, seemed to be favorites ; several forts
were exhibited ; a curious vase was ingeniously made from a tomato-
can, with a large black spool serving as pedestal, the whole decorated
with gilt paper and bright-colored pictures.

Girls' icork: Sofa-cushions, pillow-shams, aprons ; a white 3Iother
Hubbard dress ; machine-work, tucking, lace, darned socks, splashers,
a quilt, crazy-work, albums of stamps, and pictures.

In the sixth and seventh years, representing children from ten to
fourteen years old, all the work was elaborate and well done, but was
participated in by a smaller proportion of the pupils. The work of
the boys was less prominent than that of the girls, but was more prac-
tical than in previous years.

The boys' work comprised chiefly cabinet-work (book-cases, easels,
checker-boards, a table), a door-mat of coffee-sacking tufted with rope-
ends.

The girls'* icork included excellent plain sewing, exemplified in
children's dresses, fine aprons, and underwear ; fancy-work (painted
cards, embroidered banner-screens, lace, a crib-quilt, an embroidered
table-scarf) ; bread, cakes, pickles, etc. There were many hundreds
of other articles in the exhibition, a large majority of them creditable
productions, and all representing earnest effort.

8i6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

One of the noticeable features of the exhibition was an apparent
decline in originality of invention and spontaneity of thought after
the first year or two at school. Pride in the execution of good work
seems to have been exhibited most prominently in the middle period.
As the girls grew older and were trained in household and needle and
fancy work at home, their products exhibited more variety, but not
more novelty, and they continued to contribute specimens till their
highest age at school. But, while some work was furnished by girls
of over fourteen, very little was exhibited by boys of corresponding
age. They found themselves too unskilled to make good specimens,
and were too proud to exhibit poor ones. Another fact deserving
notice is that, in the work of the boys during the first years of school,
there were apparent a love for color and a skill in using it for decora-
tion and design, equal to that displayed by the girls ; while in the
later years the use of color becomes exceptional with the boys, but
still continues to prevail, with evidences of increased skill, in the work
of the girls.

When a few days ago we were requested to prepare this report,
Superintendent Gorton was consulted, and from him it was learned
that this Yonkers experiment was of two years' growth, and that the
idea originated in Mount Vernon. The first exhibition of the kind was
held in the public-school house of that village nine years ago, and
with the exception of two years the exhibitions have since been regu-
larly continued. The parents and citizens have always taken great
interest in them, the children have enjoyed and felt pride in them,
and the teachers have cheerfully done the extra work. The present
principal of the school, Mr. Charles Nichols, heartily approves them as
a source of good moral influence.

As results of an investigation of this subject, your committee
would sum up as advantages accruing from the exhibition of the
home-work of children through the medium of the schools : A bring-
ing together of the home and the school, thus conducing to a better
acquaintance between the parents and the teachers ; giving to the
teacher a better knowledge of the child's home influences and sur-
roundings, thus enabling him to exercise a more intelligent care over
the development of the child's moral character ; giving to the parents
a better insight and new interest in the schools and their management,
with an overflowing of the moral influence of school training into
homes where intelligent discipline is unknown ; a greatly increased
respect in all quarters for handicrafts ; the diffusion of the principle
that in the liberal education of the individual a development of man-
ual skill, as well as a harmonious unfolding of the mental faculties,
should be looked after, and that these react favorably on each other
in various ways.

The facts were made clear that some children are especially en-
dowed with native capacity for mechanical contrivances, which needs

THE TEETH OF THE COMING MAN. 817

excitation, encouragement, and opportunity for development, in the
lack of which their usefulness •will be impaired for life ; that some
children are endowed with great capacity in this direction, while they
have but little in any other ; that the happiness of every family may
be promoted by the disposition and ability on the part of its various
members to adapt the material resources within their control to the
convenience and comfort of all ; that by the cultivation in early child-
hood of a taste for manual employment there would be found in al-
most every individual aptitudes for hand-work of one kind or another,
which would afford pleasurable pursuits in hours not occupied with
the serious affairs of life, and which would contribute to his happi-
ness as well as promote his pecuniary welfare ; that such occupations,
aside from the main pursuits of life, would aid in forming good habits
and good morals ; that the children of the poor especially need some-
thing to occupy their time and attention out of school-hours, whereby
they may be withdrawn from the demoralizing influences of the streets ;
that it will be wise for this Association to promote the home mdustries
of children by all means in their power, one of the most effective being
public exhibitions, where a comparison of the results of the industries
of the children may be made ; that by such exhibitions we shall not
only educate the child-contributors, but that they will also educate us
and the community.

THE TEETH OF THE COMmG MAN*

Br OSCAE SCHMIDT.

THE alternative as to whether man was created or developed can
no longer be raised, now that we are exercising the free use of
our reason. Man's dentition has to be judged from our experiences
made in the mammalian group. Hence, first of all, it is a reduced
dentition. True, we do not know the definite stages by which it was
attained in man, any more than we do in the case of the anthropomor-
phoids, and all the other apes of the Old World, but we shall not hesi-
tate to maintain that the ancestors of man possessed a fuller number
of teeth, as long as deductions are justified from the observation of
facts. Our teeth have decreased in number during the course of our
geologico-zoijlogical development ; we have lost on either side, above
and below, two incisors, two premolars, and one molar. By this we
transfer ourselves back to those periods from which the jaw of the
otocyon has been preserved. Baume, our eminent odontologist, in a
recent work which we have repeatedly referred to, has successfully
followed and pointed out cases of atavism or reversion in the human

* From " The Mammalia in their Relation to Primeval Times." Bj Oscar Schmidt.
Xew York: D. Appleton & Co., 1886.
TOL. XXTIII. — 52

8i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

jaw, by tracing cases of " surplus " teeth — and certain dental forma-
tions met with in the jaws in a large percentage of cases — back to
those portions of the jaw in the animal ancestors of man which have
disappeared in the course of ages.

If, in former times, more teeth were met with in the group which
was perfecting itself into man, we must be permitted to ask — nay, we
are compelled in a purely scientific spirit to ask — whether things have
come to a stand-still in this part of our organization, or whether a
further reduction is to be anticipated ? Man is certainly one of the
so-called " persistent species," but he is not unconditionally stationary.
He varies as regards dentition. Imperfect as are our statistics on this
point, this much is certain, that the cases of disappearance or loss of
teeth most frequently concern the so-called wisdom-teeth, and then the
outer incisors. We do not, of course, know how often the question
has applied to the actual and complete loss of the teeth, or only to some
interference with the teeth cutting the gum, occasioned by a limitation
of the necessary space. However, it must be remembered that the
shortening of the jaw stands in direct correlation with the reduction
of the dentition. A prediction of the man of the future is given us
by Cope : the lower races of men will retain the dentition of the pres-

2.1 2 3 .

ent day, incisors — , canines --, premolars — , molars — ; while the intel-

lectually higher races will be distinguished by the dental formulas :

..1.1 ,2.3

incisors — , canines — , premolars — , molars — ;

and incisors y> canines — , premolars — , molars — .

TVe agree with this in so far that, as a rule, the reduction of the
dentition — where the disappearance does not affect the whole set of
teeth — can be brought into connection with the idea of progress, and
many proofs of this have been given in the course of our discussion.
Still, this higher faculty of resistance and of acquiring food is not
necessarily accompanied by an increase in the power of the adapta-
bility and a perfecting of the intellectual faculties. In the cat we
have a more powerful, and hence a higher development of the nature
of the rapacious animal than in the dog, with its more old-fashioned
form of dentition. Yet who would think of placing cats as intellectu-
ally higher than dogs? It is the same with the prospects of the'
human races. Modifications in the human dentition are sure to take
place — as surely as man can not rid himself of his animal ancestors,
even though they may be felt to be inconvenient. But progress in
the intellectual and moral domain — and here our well-founded idealism
steps in — is not dependent upon the possession or the loss of our wis-
dom-teeth. The correlation is not wanting ; but it makes itself felt
in an opposite direction. The man who is engaged in making inven-
tions and in scientific pursuits, and is advancing and encouraging all

EARTHQUAKES IN CENTRAL AMERICA. 819

the nobler and more refined enjoyments of life, is not improving the
instruments for the acquisition of his food ; they deteriorate in his
hands — a condition which first began to make its appearance with the
invention of cooking. The reduction of the human dentition — which
has been of advantage to the species in its sti'uggle for existence — has
further increased and changed to a kind of atavism or reversion, since
reason, acquired with speech, has made man more and more independ-
ent of the direct effects of his natural surroundings.

Hence it is not merely from a purely zoological point of view that
an inference is formed regarding the future change of the human race.
Moreover, we cherish the hope — which is justified by scientific experi-
ences— and the belief, which rests upon the same foundation, and these
convince us of the sure advance of humanity, and of the gi-adual and
general diffusion of morality, culture, and well-being among the vari-
ous races of man.

EAKTHQUAKES IN CEKTKAL AMEEICA.

By M. de MONTESSUS,
of the meteoeolooico-seismio obsebvatoby at san 8alvad0e.

CENTRAL AMERICA is probably the region of the globe in
which the manifestations of volcanic and seismic phenomena
are most frequent and continuous. During my residence of four
years at San Salvador, 1 have been able to write the detailed history
of twenty-three hundred and thirty-two earthquakes, one hundred
and thirty-seven volcanic eruptions, twenty-seven ruins of important
towns, and the formation of three new volcanoes. Geographically,
Central America, founded on the Cordillera of the Andes, forms a
connecting link between the two great continental masses through
three successive isthmuses, those of Panama or Darien, Izabal, and
Tehuantepec. It descends to the Atlantic in two large wedges, end-
ing in Capes Gracias 4 Dios and Catocha, and rests abruptly on the
nearly rectilinear coast of the Pacific. The base of the Cordillera is
of primitive formation, and its western flank, with which we are con-
cerned, is formed of Miocene and Pliocene strata, terminating with
Quaternary and modern alluvions and more or less recent volcanic
flows.

Parallel with this axis runs the remarkable string of volcanoes
which, from Chiriqui in the State of Panama, to Soconusco in Mexico,
includes not less than one hundred and forty-three volcanic mountains
or craters, thirty of which are active, or have been within the three
hundred and sixty-three years that separate us from the Spanish Con-
quest. They do not present themselves, as is generally believed, upon
a straight line or along a volcanic fault, nor even on a line broken at

820 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

two or three points, but in a zone having borders parallel to the Pacific
coast, with an average width of about thirty miles. This formation
arises from the fact that Central America has had three successive
shores, recording as many periods of least movement in the increase
of the Cordillera, to each of which corresponds a line of contempora-
neous volcanoes. The most ancient shore was of the Miocene period,
when a system of trachytic and basaltic eruptions took place ; then in
the Pliocene rose the chain of the largest number of extinct volcanoes ;
while in the Quaternary and modern periods appeared the line of exist-
ing volcanoes and of others that have since become extinct. It is ap-
parent, then, that the volcanic force has always been near the shore of
the ocean, and has moved successively from the east to the west, so as
to be at only a short distance froni it, as the Cordilleras in theii* pro-
gressive elevation carried the shore farther in that direction. These
views, incontestable to me, are plainly read on the strata of the country.

The system of volcanoes is completed by a chain of lakes alternat-
ing with them. The principal lakes are those of Managua and of the
roads of Fonseca, the latter of which has been put in communication
with the ocean by means of some volcanic convulsion. The roads of
Nicoya and Chiriqui seem to me to be of the same origin. This part
of the system is surely one of the most remarkable aggregations of
lakes and volcanoes in the world, and strikingly reminds us, but on a
grander scale, of that of the lakes of Liraagne, Issoire, and Brassac,
with the chain of the jyuys of Auvergne, which would correspond with
the chain of the Marrabios. Starting at the roads of Fonseca, the chain
of lakes and volcanoes continues, the former diminishing in importance,
to San Salvador and Guatemala. I am not speaking of the numerous
picturesque crater-lakes which we meet everywhere in Central America,
and which I regard as an accident of no particular importance.

A phenomenon well worthy of attention may be observed at the
foot of the chain of volcanoes near Ahuachapan, in San Salvador, in
the Ausales, some three or four hundred conical tunnels scattered
over a space of about three square leagues, their diameters vary-
ing from three or four metres to thirty or thirty-five metres, from
which occur, at short intervals, eruptions of vapors, boiling water, and
argillaceous mud of many colors. They arc grouped by dozens very
close together, and poison the plain with their acid and sulphurous
emanations. The ground around them resounds under the feet of the
traveler, but only along lines which seem to be immediately over the
subterranean channels through which the hot water and gases cir-
culate.

From this multiplicity of volcanoes it results that the ground pre-
sents a complicated net-work of ancient and modern lava-flows, cross-
ing one another, volcanic alluvions, beds of cinders and tufas, " bad
lands," and an extraordinary thermal activity. There also follows a
remarkable frequency of earthquakes and subterranean noises, called

EARTHQUAKES IN CENTRAL AMERICA. 821

retumbos. I estimate the average number of shocks felt annually in
Central America at two hundred and fifty. Several conclusions may
be drawn from the study of the twenty-three hundred and thirty-two
earthquakes that have been registered since the conquest. First, con-
trary to the opinion generally prevailing from Chili to Mexico, the
tremors occur about alike through the whole year, and not principally
at the transitions between the rainy and dry seasons. But, to perceive
this clearly, it is necessary to leave out of the account some series of
earthquakes that mask the truth, such as that of December, 1879, at
San Salvador, in which more than seven hundred shocks occurred in ten
days, and which was the prelude to the appearance of a new volcano
in the center of Lake Ilopango. With this precaution, a tendency to
equality may be observed between the several months, and I am satis-
fied that a term of four years will be sufficient to make this equality
plain. The same may be said of the retumbos. The maximum of
eruptions appears to occur in July. Kluge puts it in August for the
whole globe. The coincidence which the same author has predicated
between the maxima of aurorje boreales and sun-spots and of volcanic
and seismic manifestations has not been historically verified in Central
America. The minute study of twenty years of observations at the
Institute of Guatemala and my own observations at San Salvador
have proved to me that, if the movements of the crust of the earth are
connected with those of the barometer, the law of the relation is
deeply hidden. I do not deny it, but I have observed nothing analo-
gous to what Scrope believes he has established for Stromboli, and
Waltershausen for Etna. Earthquakes and retumbos are apparently
more frequent at night than in the daytime. I say apparently, because
it may be that manifestations, quite perceptible in the stillness of the
night, pass unobserved amid the bustle of the day. From what I have
seen, I think I can affirm that the signs of terror given by domestic
animals are more marked the longer the shock lasts, and that without
reference to its intensity.

While I do not think that it is possible in the present state of
knowledge to predict earthquakes, I believe that the phenomena are
frequently connected with an indefinable aggregation of atmospheric
conditions which, subjected to many years of study, might lead to the
discovery of some law. This is so true that persons who have lived
long in the country often say when they meet, without knowing why,
" There will be an earthquake to-day " ; and they are seldom mistaken.
Towns in Central America, situated near active volcanoes, have much
less to fear than those which, being in the dangerous zone, are more
distant from them. This may be proved by the local history. Guate-
mala was destroyed seven times, between 1541 and 1773, while it was
near the extinct volcano of Agua ; but it has not suffered since 1775,
when it was removed to its present position near the active volcano of
Fuego, of -which forty-four eruptions have taken place. Izalco, built

822 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

on the flanks of Izalco, a volcano which has had since its formation in
1770 an eruption about every twenty minutes and twenty-one consid-
erable ones, has never been destroyed, nor have Santa Anna, San Mi-
guel, and Masaya, on the slopes of the volcanoes of the same names,
w^hich have had respectively seven, ten, and six great eruptions. San
Salvador, which is built on the slopes of Quetzaltepec, has been wholly
destroyed fourteen times, the last time on the 19th of March, 1873. This
volcano may be regarded as extinct, for it has had only one eruption
since the conquest, that of the 30th of September, 1659, when the cin-
ders flew as far as Comayagua, the capital of Honduras, and the lavas
formed the immense " bad land " {cheyre) of Quetzaltepec and buried
the Indian city of Nejapa. The principal of the eight craters of Quet-
zaltepec (or San Salvador as it is otherwise called) is remarkable for
its perfect regularity and its size, six hundred metres in diameter and
depth. The bottom is occupied by an almost inaccessible lake. The
appearance of the volcano of Lake Ilopango, in 1879-'80, probably
saved San Salvador from a fifteenth destruction. Omoa and Jucuapa,
built on the slopes of the extinct volcanoes of the same names, were
destroyed on the 4th of August, 1856, and the 2d of October, 1878.

In a work published by the Government of San Salvador on " Earth-
quakes and Volcanic Eruptions in Central America," in which I have
given a detailed history of the phenomena, I have been able to show,
from original documents, that the destruction of Guatemala, on the
night of the 10th and 11th of September, 1541, was due, not to an erup-
tion of mud from the extinct volcano of Agua, as some authors suppose,
but to the rupture under the weight of the water, assisted by an earth-
quake, of the walls of its crater, which had been filled by the extraor-
dinary rdins of the preceding days. The eruption of Pacaya, on the
18th of February, 1651, and the ruin of Guatemala, which it occa-
sioned, were accompanied by the spectacle of frightened wild animals
seeming to seek the protection of man, as they did also during the
eruption of Coseguina on the 20th of January, 1835. The year 1770
witnessed the rise of Izalco — " the Lighthouse of the Pacific" — a mag-
nificent volcano, whose eruptions have since followed one another un-
interruptedly about every quarter of an hour, with explosions that are
frequently heard for ten leagues around. The great eruption of Cose-
guina, on the 20th, 21st, 22d, and 23d of January, 1835, perhaps one of
the most formidable eruptions mentioned in history, the cinders from
which flew as far as to Vera Cruz, Havana, Caracas, and Bogota, was
heard over the same circle of seventeen hundred miles in diameter.
The well-proved coincidence that these eruptions began on the same
day with those of the Chilian volcanoes of Aconcagua and Corco-
vado, all three situated in the chain of the Andes, is too remarkable
not to attract attention. The environs of the active volcano of Mo-
motombo from the 1st to the 20th of April, 1850, witnessed the emer-
gence of the new volcano of Las Pilas, now extinct.

I

THE GEMS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. 823

A fact remarked by Humboldt as accompanying tbe earthquake of
the 4th of November, 1799, at Curaana, was also observed at Guate-
mala on the 8th of December, 1859. I refer to a sudden and consid-
erable deviation of the magnetic needle, which still continues. To
account for it, I propose the theory of a change by the shock in the
disposition of the neighboring strata.

A series of more than seven hundred shocks between the 20th and
31st of December, 1879, two of which were disastrous, and which
caused much alarm at San Salvador, was the prelude to the appear-
ance, in the neighboring Lake of Ilopango, of a new but ephemeral
volcano, whose mass caused the lake to overflow its banks and to pro-
duce a terrible inundation in the valley of the Rio Jiboa. The event
has been made the subject of a detailed and very interesting study by
Messrs, Goodyear and Rockstroh. I will only observe respecting it
that two hundred and thirty-seven explosions took place on the 4th of
March, 1880, between twenty-five minutes past nine and twenty min-
utes past ten in the morning, and eight hundred and ninety-seven ex-
plosions between eighteen minutes past seven in the evening of the
following day and seventeen minutes past three on the next morning.

The retumbos heard at San Salvador and in Colombia on the 27th
of August, 1883, were doubtless the echo of the eruption of Krakatoa.
I am satisfied that if such a work as I have performed for the small
fraction of Central America were done for the whole system of the
Cordilleras, from Cape Horn to Behring Strait, and if the different
governments would establish meteorologico-seismic observatories, like
the one I have directed for four years at San Salvador, it would be
possible, in this home of volcanic activity, to form some sound theory
of these interesting and terrible phenomena, and perhaps to find some
means of announcing them beforehand, as we predict storms on the
Atlantic. — Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from the Re-
vue Scientifique.

THE GEMS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM.

By GEORGE F. KUNZ.

THE collection of gems exhibited by the National Museum at the
Cincinnati and New Orleans Expositions is now on exhibition at
the rooms of the Museum in Washington. This much-needed accession,
representing a small part of the appropriation for the World's Fair,
promises to be one of the most attractive and instructive features of
the museum. The large number of visitors who examined the collec-
tion, both at the fairs and in its present location, can testify to its inter-
esting character. Although a mere beginning, it is the most complete
public collection of gems in the L'nited States. It is contained in two

824 ^^^^ POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

flat plate-glass cxbibition-cases, the gems being neatly marked with
printed labels, and arranged on velvet pads with a silk-rope border.
The diversity, brilliance, and richness of Nature's brightest colors dis-
played render the whole effect a very attractive and pleasing one.
The collection begins with a suite of glass models of the historical
diamonds, followed by a series of diamonds in their natural state,
among which is an interesting octahedron, eighteen carats in weight.*
These specimens are good illustrations of the form from South Africa,
though of little commercial value as gems. One dozen other crystals
from one quarter to one carat in weight complete a representative set
of form and occurrence in that region. Next we have a very neat set
of a dozen more crystals, small but choice, principally from India and
Brazil, and formerly belonging to the Mallet collection. One of
these is a perfect cube, a form peculiar to Brazil, while another is
twinned parallel to the octahedron. Another stone of one carat is
only half cut, and for comparison we have a stone of about the same
weight completely cut.

Among the sapphires we find a carat, oblong stone of dark-blue
color, from the Jenks mine, Macon County, North Carolina, which has
yielded a few fair sapphires, yellow, violet, and blue, and a few rubies,
some of the finest of which were in the Leidy collection ; also the first
stones found here, the dark-brown, asteriated sapphires, described
in "Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences," March,
1883, and two other cut stones weighing from four to eight carats.
These all show a slight bronze play of light on the dome of the cabo-
chon in ordinary light, but under artificial light they all show well-
defined stars, being really asterias or star-sapphires, and not cat's-eyes,
as would seem at first glance. There are also two cut stones, light
blue and light green, weighing one and two carats res2:)ectively, which,
for light-colored sapphires, are perhaps, when cut, brighter than those
from any other locality. The cutting of one of these gems has given
it a remarkable luster. They are found in the sluice-boxes at and
near Helena, Montana. Following are two broken crystals of the dark-
green sapphires from the quite recent find at the Hills of Precious
Stones in Siara, beautifully dichroitic, being green and blue when
viewed in different axes. An asteria of good blue color, measuring
nearly one inch across, a beautiful two-carat ruby-asteria, and a small
three-quarter-carat ruby, of fair color, complete the corundum gems.

* Gems arc generally bought and sold by the weight, called a carat, which is equal to
about 3"1C8 troy grains. It is usually divided, however, into four diamond or pearl
grains, each of which is •7925 of a true grain. Fractions of a carat are also known as
fourths, eighths, sixteenths, thirt_v-second3, and sixty-fourths. The weight of the carat
formerly differed slightly in different countries, and this diversity finally led a syndicate
of Parisian jewelers, goldsmiths, and gem-dealers, in 1871, to propose a standard carat.
This was subsequently confirmed by an arrangement between the diamond-merchants of
London, Paris, and Amsterdam, fixing the uniform value of the diamond (?) carat at '205
grain.

THE GEMS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. 825

The series of spinels is well chosen and varicolored : it consists of a
long two-carat stone of smoky-blue color ; an oblong almandine-colored
stone of three carats, an inky stone of one and a half carat, a half-
carat ruby spinel of fair color, a pretty rubicelle of three quarters of a
carat, and a suite of crystals of the ruby-colored spinel from Ceylon
and Burmah. We have also a cut Alexandrite (so called after the
Czar Alexander I), from the original Russian locality. This is of
fair color, but the wonderful Ceylonese gems of recent years have
really given to this phenomenal variety of chrysoberyl, which changes
from green to red under artificial light, its present high rank among
gems. There is a six-carat typical chrysoberyl, finely cut (the chryso-
lite of the jeweler), truly, as the name indicates, golden beryl, and a
dark-green one of that shade repeatedly sold as Alexandrite, though it
does not change color by artificial light. A set of seven rough frag-
ments from Brazil is instructive by comparison.

Among the beryls we have a flawed emerald of ten carats, that
well illustrates the typical color, as does a pear-shaped drop of about
the same weight and quality. There is also a crystal that has been in
the institution for many years, labeled from New Mexico. It is evi-
dently not from that locality, for no other such occurrence is on
record, and we must suspect that the label is a misnomer, since the
crystal has unmistakable signs of Muso (New Granada) origin. An
emerald crystal two inches long, one of a series of minerals brought
by Professor J. D. Dana from Peru when with the Wilkes Explor-
ing Expedition, is historically interesting. It was purchased by him
in the streets of Callao. In the same series are two good cut beryls,
one six carats in weight, of a light-green color, another one-carat
light-blue one from Royalston, Massachusetts, and perhaps the finest
specimen ever found, at the Portland (Connecticut) quarries, fifteen
carats in weight, and of such a rich, deep sea-blue color as almost to
rival in splendor the matchless three-carat Brazilian blue-stone that is
in the same case.

A fine blue crystal from Moume Mountain, Ireland, is interesting
for its locality and deep color. Stonehara, Maine, has contributed a
two-carat white cut stone and a similar fragment ; while Siberia is
represented only by a common white stone of about six carats' weight.

Next comes a series of the emerald-yellow and yellowish-green va-
rieties of spodumene (variety Hiddenite), embracing lithia emerald in
the rough, and three cut stones of the same, weighing from a quarter to
three-quarters of a carat, and varying in color from green to yellowish-
green, from Stony Point, North Carolina ; also a quarter-carat light-
yellow and a one-carat golden-yellow spodumene of the variety resem-
bling chrysoberyl, described by Pisani, of Paris, in " Comptes Rendus "
for 1877, from Brazil. The white cut phenakitc of three carats' weight,
from Russia, is of rare occurrence, but has recently been found at two
localities in Colorado.

826 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The tourmalines include a dark -red gem (rubellite) of six carats'
weight, and good color ; two light-red ones of one half carat each, and a
fine dark-blue one (indicolite) of three eighths carat ; four long bottle-
green (called Brazilian emeralds) of two carats each ; a half-carat white
achroite ; two olive-green stones of two carats each ; and two sections
of green crystals that have red centers. This difference of color be-
tween the outer and inner crystals is peculiar to tourmalines, as many
as three colors being found in one crystal. All these are from Bra-
zil. The well-known domestic localities are represented by an ob-
long, table-cut, light-green stone from Paris, Oxford County, Maine,
that once held a conspicuous place in the collection of Dr. Joseph
Leidy, which, unfortunately, had to be scattered. From Auburn,
Maine, a locality quite recently discovered, we have a one-carat blue
indicolite, two lavender-colored stones of one carat each, a light
emerald-green stone of three quarters of a carat, and as handsome as
an emerald by artificial light, and also a suite of several dozen loose
crystals of various colors. The neighboring two-carat yellow and
three-carat yellowish-brown cut stones are from Ceylon. The fine
two-inch grass-green crystal and one-inch bluish-green crystal are also
part of the treasure brought home by Professor Dana from the Wilkes
Expedition of 1838-'42.

A six-carat blue and two-carat sherry-colored topaz from Siberia
are exceedingly brilliant, but the domestic reputation is well sustained
by the cinnamon-tinted fifteen-carat cut stone from Pike's Peak,
Colorado, which is not surpassed in beauty by the brilliant white four-
carat (Minas Novas) from Minas-Geraes, in Brazil. A series of crystals
that have been "heated," follows, varying in color from dark pink fad-
ing into white according to the degree of calorification.

Among the garnets are ten flat, brilliant cut stones, four car-
buncles, and six rose-colored, from Bohemia ; six Tyrolese red gar-
nets, two essouites (usually sold as hyacinths by the jewelers), four
carats and a quarter carat from Ceylon, and a series, cut and uncut,
from New Mexico, which furnishes the finest garnets in the world in
point of color. In addition to these we notice a two-carat demantoid
(green garnet or Urnlian emerald) from Bobrowska River, Syssersk,
in the Urals, and a brownish-green one-carat stone from the same
locality.

From New Mexico we have a fine yellowish-green peridot or
olivine, called chrysolite by the mineralogist, but not by the jeweler,
and known as " Job's Tears " locally (from their pitted, tear-like ap-
pearance), while the Orient is represented by a beautiful olive-green
cut stone.

From the zircons or jargoons we may single out for remark a
number of small cut stones, yellowish-brown, pink, bluish-green, and
white, the latter color being often produced by heating. Stones of
this kind were at one time used for incrusting watches, which were

THE GEMS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. 827

then sold as diamond-incrusted. Next we observe a fine, rich, hya-
cinth-colored gem (the true hyacinth of the mineralogist), a long, two-
carat green, a yellowish-green, and a brownish-green three-carat
stone, all from Ceylon. The two carat axinite from Dauphiny is one
of the rarest of gems. A six-carat yellowish-green epidote from the
Knappenwand, the well-known locality in Tyrol, should be mentioned.

Here, too, is a one-fourth-carat idocrase from Ala, in Piedmont.
This mineral, which received the name vesuvianite, because it is found
among the formations in the lava at Vesuvius, is sold by the Neapoli-
tan jewelers, and used to make the letters I and V in the manufacture
of initial or sentimental pieces of jewelry. The same mineral is found
at Sandford, Maine, and other localities here, but rarely in gem form,

lolilite (dichroite, cordierite), or water-sapphire {saphire-d''eau\
as it is also called, is here seen in the form of a flat-cut stone, of two
carats' weight, from Ceylon, and a cube, one-fourth inch square, from
Bodenmais, Bavaria. These are not comparable with one found at
Haddam, Connecticut, that was worn as a charm by the late Dr. Tor-
rey. This stone has dichroitic properties : if viewed in one direction
it appears blue ; if in another, pure white.

The five-carat titanite, or yellow sphene, is from the Tavetchthal,
in the Tyrol. This gem shows the play of colors peculiar to the dia-
mond. Specimens have also been found at Bridgewater Station, Penn-
sylvania. There are three long, yellowish-brown andalusites, of two,
one, and three-fourths of a carat weight, at times so dichroitic that
they have been offered in London as Alexandrites. These are from
Brazil, where fine green ones are also obtained.

Next in order is a light-green diopside, from De Kalb, New York,
a locality which has yielded twenty-carat gems, of rich oily-green
color, equal to the one-carat cut stone from Ala, in Piedmont.

A small, long, one-carat cyanite, from Russia, is noteworthy, as is
also the suite of opals, consisting of two noble cut stones, from Hun-
gary, and a polished slab of the light matrix from the same place,
beautifully mottled with opalescent spots ; a set of over twenty gems,
white, yellow, and brown, from Queretaro, Mexico ; and two fair,
noble opals from Honduras, together with a one-inch, lusterless cut
stone ; three pieces of blue opal, in the impure brown iimonite, or
ironstone matrix, from the Baricoo River, Queensland, Australia,
termed opaline by the jewelers, and also a cut stone from the same
locality.

Of turquoise, we have a bluish-green piece, one inch and a half
long, cut into a flat cabochon stone, from Los Cerrillos, New Mexico,
a fine suite of the mineral in the matrix, recently brought on by Major
J. W. Powell, from New Mexico, and a set of twenty-four gems from
Persia, showing all the characteristic gradations of color between blue
and green ; a curious half-inch cabochon cut stone, and a piece one
inch long in the matrix, from Arabia, noticeable for the pleasing con-

828 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

trast of the bluish-green stone on the background of the chocolate-
colored matrix.

Hematite is exhibited, cut in the form of balls and in a cut intaglio,
and a cut, one-carat rutile, from Alexander Countj^ North Carolina ;
these so closely resemble the black diamond in color and luster as to
have been mistaken for it when first found.

A dark, almost black hypersthene, from Norway, shows a pleasing
bronze-like reflection on the dome of the cabochon. One of the most
instructiA'e of the series is a quantity of gem-gravel from Ceylon, con-
taining sapphires of various colors, chrysoberyl, zircon, quartz, and
other stones,

A series of the American stone, Thompsonite, found as pebbles in
the Lake Superior region, presents some fine cut stones, with the circles
from one fourth to three fourths of an inch across. A few large, pol-
ished pieces measure over one inch across. Some small pebbles of
Lintonite found with the Thompsonite are also polished.

The quartz array is very instructive : it begins with a two-and-a
half -inch Japanese crystal ball, and an eagle seal throe inches high,
of Russian cutting ; cut citrines, cairngorm, and the so-called smoky,
Saxon, or Spanish topaz, eleven of the dark -purple amethysts from
Siberia, often wrongly called Oriental amethysts, and a set of seven
from Brazil, show all the changes from light pink to dark purple.

Perhaps the most unique gem of the collection is a piece of ame-
thyst that was found at Webster, North Carolina, and deposited here
by Dr. II. S. Lucas. The present form is just such as would be made
by a lapidary in roughly shaping a stone, preliminary to cutting and
polishing it. It now measures seven centimetres in length, six cen-
timetres in width, four centimetres in thickness, and weighs 136*5
grammes. It was turtle-shaped when found, and this was said to have
been the work of prehistoric man. This shape was unfortunately de-
stroyed by chipping it to its present form. It is perfectly transparent,
being slightly smoky and pale at one end, and it also has a smoky streak
in the center. This coloring is peculiar to the amethyst, however.
There are also a three-quarter-inch yellowish quartz cat's-eye from
Ceylon, and a three-carat green one from Hoff, Bavaria, and a native
Indian necklace from Ceylon, composed of numerous yellowish quartz
cat's-eye beads of about three carats each.

"NVe have, then, a beautiful series of the brown-quartz cat's-eyes,
so-called crocidolite cat's-eyes (also called tiger-eyes), in fine slabs,
balls, buttons, etc., which is really a combination of crocidolite fibers
coated with quartz. This incasing renders it harder than unaltered
crocidolite, which is to be seen here together with it. All these arc
from South Africa. Superb rutilated quartz (sagenite, ^^cAe d^amour,
Venus-hair stone, or Love's arrows), in the rough and in cut form,
are from North Carolina. Rhode Island contributes black hornblende
blades in quartz, and green actinolite in the same (the Thetis-hair

THE GEMS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. 829

stone of Dr. Jackson), The actinolitc, when in straight layers in the
quartz, occasionally forms a quartz cat's-eye, if cut across the fibers.

The large pieces of black onyx, chrysoprase, carnelian, and sardo-
nyx, the series of agates, of various colors, are cut into a variety of
forms ; the fine three-inch-square slab of " gold quartz," of the jewel-
ers, is from Grass Valley, California.

Fine avanturine quartz, with spangles of mica in a rich reddish-
brown quartz, from Russia, vases of which are often worth thousands
of dollars ; and a fine green avanturine, called imperial jade by the
Chinese, and more esteemed by them than any of the true jades de-
serve attention. The series of fifteen small Indian mocha-stones is
very attractive ; the black, moss-like markings are relieved by the
red spots in the gray body of the stone, thus presenting a surface
beautifully diversified. A rich, brown, speckled jasper is worthy of
notice. The two cut moldavites (Moravian bottle-glass), about one
inch across, are of rare occurrence. They are transparent, dark-green
obsidians, from Moravia, for which worthless green bottle-glass has
sometimes been sold.

The two sun-stones from Norway — the largest one and a half inch
long, the other a three-quarter-inch cut cabochon — are indeed fine, but
a cut stone of the same material, over one inch long, from Delaware
County, Pennsylvania, is nearly equal to them. Labradorites are fully
represented, some polished pieces being over one foot across, and a
number showing the beautiful chatoyant colors to perfection.

Amber, yellow, transparent, and containing flies and other insects,
is present in the form of cut stones and beads,

A rich, dark-brown cut aragonite from California, and the beau-
tiful green, copper-colored Smithsonite (a zinc - ore), from Laurium,
Greece, demand special notice. One is a cut cabochon over one inch
high, the other an ideal piece of the natural mineral. We observe also
a fine polished malachite from Siberia, and a dish of the highly prized
dark-blue fluorite from Derbyshire, England, where it is familiai'ly
known as " blue John." Vases of this material have often been sold
for over one thousand dollars. A slab of the Persian lapis-lazuli, and
one of the white-veined variety from the Peruvian Andes, well repre-
sent this species. A jade pendant, three inches long and of good color,
is one of the sort made in Germany to sell in New Zealand as genuine
aboriginal workmanship. Also a flat vase made of a light-green Chi-
nese jade, and one of the small bracelets of the same material, which
are put on the arms of girls in early childhood, and allowed to remain
there until the natural growth of the arm fixes them so tightly that
they can not be removed over the hand. A rich yellow flower chis-
eled out of serpentine, about four inches by two, is very pretty, as is
a curious, fanciful, dragon-like, talc ornament from Southern India.
Red, white, and mottled agalmatolite (Chinese figure - stone), from
China, is interesting.

830 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

One of the finest specimens of its kind in the United States is a
magnificent six-by-four slab of luraachelle (" fire-marble ") of fossil
origin, in which the color of the original shells is so deepened and
intensified that it rivals the finest fire-opal. This comes from the old,
exhausted locality of Carinthia, Germany. Of alabaster, we have
white, yellow, and cinnamon-gray slabs ; of fossil coral, a fine slab
from Iowa City. The oolite limestone from Bristol, England, is curi-
ous ; the surface is highly polished, presenting a white field flecked
with dark-red. Beads of gypsum satin spar and a three-inch egg of
the same material are from Bideford, England.

The collection ends with an eight-by-three slab of catlinite (Indian
pipe-stone), from Coteau du Prairie, Pipestone County, Minnesota.
The head delineated on it was carved by a Washington sculptor, and
came into the museum with the Abert collection, which was given
to the museum.

To the energy of Professor F. W. Clarke is due the credit of form-
ing this most interesting series of gems.

THE WHIPPmG-POST.

By lewis HOCHHEIMER.

WHEN men, under the impetus of the indignation and horror
that are occasioned by the commission of crimes that bear the
stamp of deliberate cruelty or atrocity, undertake to apply what are
popularly deemed adequately severe remedies, their action generally
embodies results that, to the mind of those versed in matters of social
or governmental science, are as mischievous in their tendency as the
evils sought to be remedied. It not infrequently happens, in cases of
crimes of deep atrocity, that citizens resolve to avenge the wrong im-
mediately, by lynching the offender. The folly and wrong of this
method of meting out punishment in a civilized community are now
universally conceded by calm-thinking and intelligent men. Again,
it will happen that this same spirit of impatience at the slow processes
of law and of distrust in the ordinary legal methods of punishment
for crime will find its expression in an equally wrong and illogical
method, to wit, the adoption of legislation providing cruel methods
of punishment for certain crimes, in the belief that the evil of their
frequent perpetration may be remedied in that way. Upon reflection,
it will be found that both methods have their origin in the same erro-
neous conception of the scope and object oi 2mnishment for crime.

Under the designation " cruel punishments," I include all such pen-
alties for crimes as are designed to inflict direct physical suffering,
accompanied by circumstances of ignominy. The whipping-post is

THE WHIPPING-POST. 831

an example. The infliction of such penalties proceeds upon the theory
of retaliation, and, for this reason, is improper and vicious. The legiti-
mate province of all laws relating to penalties for crime is punishment
simply. Anything that is inflicted beyond this, whether against law,
as by mob violence, or by legislation, as in the case of retaliatory pun-
ishments, exceeds the legitimate scope of penalties for crime. There
may be scriptural precedent to the contrary, but we must not adopt as
a divine precedent, applicable to all nations, those rules which were
laid down for a particular people, in a remote and barbarous age.
Many things that are faithless, treacherous, unnatural and cruel, find
a seeming sanction and precedent in the Mosaic law. Punishment, in
its proper acceptation, means the protection of society, as represented
by the State, against the inroads of the individual upon its welfare,
or, as it is called in criminal-law phrase, " the peace of the State." It
is only when the encroachments of the individual upon the rights of
others amount to a public wrong that they are punishable criminally,
and then it is only the wrong to society, and not the sin, that is cogniz-
able by the tribunals.

Looking, then, at punishment in that light — viewing it as designed
merely to conserve the public welfare, "the peace, government, and
dignity of the State," as it is technically expressed in every formal
indictment for crime in Maryland — by what consideration should we
be guided in determining the true policy to be pursued in the applica-
tion of punishments ? Surely, not the narrow one of (at all hazards)
suppressing the particular crime. Crime can not be stamped out by
any heroic methods of treatment. Sin and crime are inevitable condi-
tions incident to our present state of social advancement, just as dis-
ease is a factor of our physical being. He would be deemed an un-
skillful physician who directed all his efforts toward the driving away
of a particular malady without regard to the effect of his course of
treatment upon the general system of the patient. A like want of
skill in statesmanship is exhibited when the legislator proposes such a
remedy as that enacted in Maryland for wife-beating, to wit, the
whipping-post, without weighing the effect of the introduction of that
sort of remedy upon the constitution of the body politic.

The arguments advanced in support of this legislation are as plausi-
ble and as apt to impress the popular mind as they are fallacious and
illogical. The crime of the brutal wife-beater affords an excellent
topic for declamation and invective, and people of generous, high im-
pulse are very prone to yield their cooler judgment in such matters to
specious rhetoric. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the question
from a logical stand-point, free from all declamation or sentimental-
ism, in which the discussions of such questions too frequently abound.

Xow, firstly, let it be borne in mind that, in the discussion of a
question of punishment for crime, we deal with public interests. Mere
satisfaction to the individual upon whom the crime is perpetrated is

832 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

not to be considered, nor is the matter of tbe welfare of the offender
to control our action in dealing with crime. Both interests must yield
to that of the State, which is the injured party. The errors most fre-
quently committed in forming a judgment as to the punishment due
for any crime arise, on the one hand, from an excess of hostile feeling
toward the offender, which obscures our view of the real end to be ac-
complished by his punishment, and, on the other hand, the opposite
bent of letting sympathy and excess of kindly feeling shut out from
our view the demands of public justice.

In traveling through the dark mazes of human frailty and crime,
it would be difficult to find an object more seemingly devoid of every
nobler human instinct than the cruel wife-beater, for whose offense a
recent Maryland statute has revived the lash and whipping-post ; unless,
indeed, it be that loathsome specimen from the list of criminals, in
whom humanity seems to have sunk to its lowest ebb, the cruel child-
beater. But, let us proceed to answer the real question which the
punishment of the wife-beater raises for solution. Does society, whose
laws have been broken and must be vindicated, upon the whole, gain
or does it lose by the method of punishment under discussion ?
Granted that the whipping-post will stamp out the crime of wife-
beating in our midst, does the gain justify the price ?

To illustrate my meaning clearly, I lay down the following propo-
sition, which will not be gainsaid by any one versed in matters of
social science. If, in the case of any given offense, no punishment to
be meted out to the offender could be devised that would be effective
in deterring others from committing the like offense, then the State
could not rightfully punish at all, however heinous the offense. Why ?
Because, in the language of an eminent and conservative writer upon
this subject, " the end of punishment is not by way of atonement or
expiation of the crime committed, for that must be left to the just de-
termination of a Supreme Being, but as a precaution against future
offenses." Unless the punishment can be made effective for the con-
servation of the peace of the State, we are not justified in infiicting
it. From this the further proposition follows, that the State may in-
flict no further or greater punishment than is absolutely necessary to
attain that end, the protection of society. Do these interests require
and are they advanced by the infliction of lashes upon wife-beaters ?

It may safely be stated that a husband, before he beats his wife to
the brutal extent that is contemplated by the statute authorizing
lashes, has ah-eady sufficiently shown his evil character to warn his
wife that he is no tit husband for her to dwell with and enable her to
procure the separation to which the law entitles her. If this were
done, all occasion for any such crime would be avoided, and the wife
would be protected, and society protected. But, must a wife, simply
because her husband is a brute, seek a divorce, and thus lose home
and husband, and, moreover, deprive her children of their home and

THE WHIPPING-POST. 833

their father's support ? Should the brute not rather be flogged and
made to bear the punishment which is his due, instead of punishing
his wife and children by a separation ? These questions, which I have
heard asked frequently, I shall endeavor to answer. A separation is
a hard remedy. Through no fault on their part, the man's wife and
children suffer bitterly. If the whipping-post could obviate all this,
that would be an argument strongly in its favor ; but what are the
results of lashing the man ? I will detail them. 1. You deprive him
of his citizenship ban, and banish him. He can never return to the
community in which he lived and face his former acquaintances. 2.
All his usefulness as a member of society is destroyed. All the good
that was ever in him is driven out. With every lash you sear his
soul and instill hatred and bitterness that can never be effaced. He,
thenceforth, becomes a hapless wanderer and an outcast, with no ties
or aspirations in common with his fellow-men. 3. His wife is divorced,
practically, without the benefit of a regular divorce. Why so ? Be-
cause the man, after being lashed, will never again return to her. You
may assuredly assume this. But that is not all. 4. His children, most
innocently and undeservedly of all, will suffer keenly. Not only are
they deprived of their father, who will leave home, and friends, and
usefulness behind, but they will be spoken of and treated slightingly
by their youthful companions as the children of the man who has been
flogged, and the stain will cling to them until the grave has closed over
their remains. The very things to be deprecated and avoided are thus
brought about by the whipping-post. According to a natural though
not just impulse of our human nature, the very wife whose husband
has been flogged on her account will meet with a degree of scorn,
however undeserved. The State has, in no case, the right thus prac-
tically to destroy a citizen.

Apart from all these considerations, the demoralizing effect and
brutalizing tendency of a public lashing should alone operate to con-
demn such legislation. While wife-beating may be suppressed, such
exhibitions as were witnessed in Baltimore recently sow seeds that
will crop out in other directions and produce a harvest of crime. This
is a natural law, well understood by students of penal science. No
exhibition can have a worse tendency than the public treatment of a
human being in a manner that ignores his claim to consideration as
such. The recent exhibitions, as related in the local newspapers, of a
sheriff walking through the streets of Baltimore, "jauntily dressed," in
procession with his " staff," and reported as feeling in " elegant trim "
for his job, windows being raised all along the route, women and children
rushing to pavements and casements, were a sad commentary upon our
" improved " laws. The fruits of those exhibitions will outweigh, in
their evil, all the possible " reformation " hoped for from such legislation.

Another consideration is the following : No man, by any act of
his, can forfeit or lose his human nature. AVe are all created in one

VOL. XXVIII. — 53

834 ^^^ POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

image. The strictest or most intolerant (put it as you choose) creeds
give a man until after death without repentance before consigning
him to perdition everlasting. Here, however, the State shuts out a
man from repentance, treats him as a brute who \i^% forfeited all right
to consideration as a man. For, when we inflict ignominy, we do all
this. In doing this, in disgracing a being created in the image of
God, we simply insult the great Being who has implanted his image
and spirit in all of us. However far we may stray from grace, we can
not, by our acts, divest ourselves of our human nature or forfeit our
claim to consideration as human beings.

The advocates of cruel punishments ask, How can you cope with
brutality and brutal men unless you treat such men after their own
fashion ? You must meet brutality with brutality, is their plea ; you
must adopt strong remedies for evils that will not yield to mild meas-
ures. It might be answered that such punishments do not fulfill their
end, and the history of all times and the testimony of the most en-
lightened students of such questions in all countries might be appealed
to in confirmation. When, under English law, two hundred different
actions, "many of them," according to a great writer on criminal
jurisprudence, "not deserving the name of offenses," were punishable
by death, and offenders were whipped, scourged, pilloried, hanged,
quartered and sometimes roasted alive, crime was not less frequent,
nor were the laws violated with less ado than to-day. The very cir-
cumstance that whipping and similar punishments have had their day
of trial and were abolished by a generation that witnessed the work-
ings of the system in all its full-blown beauty, demonstrates its unsat-
isfactory character to the minds of those best acquainted with it.
But I go further. Crime is inherent in our defective civilization, and
you can't hurry up the march of civilization in any such patent way
as lashing men. Criminal law is not a panacea to soften the human
heart. Civilization has reached a certain height or state of develop-
ment, and sin and crime are concomitants of that state. While crime
must be punished, it can not be wiped out. Human nature is so con-
stituted that men revolt at the deliberate infliction of pain upon a
fellow-being, more so, indeed, than at any violence or brutality com-
mitted by the offender in the heat of passion. Any punishment that
shocks the moral sense of a community, as all cruel punishments are
calculated to do, falls short of its mark and fails signally to produce
the general satisfaction always arising from the administration of wise
punishments. Wife-boating is the outcome of a state of society that
produces numerous evils of equal degree of which the general public,
not acquainted with reformatory work among criminals, are entirely
ignorant. Brutal as the offense is, brutality will not be suppressed,
civilization will not be advanced one shade nor society benefited or
protected by resort to retaliatory punishments. That kind of proceed-
ing always defeats its own object.

SKETCH OF HUYGENS. 835

SKETCH OF HUYGENS.

"VTO name in the history of science is associated with more material
-L^ advance, or with advances in more various directions, than that
of Huygens. To him we owe important improvements in the tele-
scope, which in his time was a very crude instrument ; the discovery
of the first satellite of Saturn and of the nature of his ring ; the ac-
cepted theory of the character of the surface of the moon ; the undu-
latory theory of light, which had to wait till our day to be verified or
even accepted ; the theory of the pendulum and of the properties of
the cycloidal curve ; continuous fractions ; with Newton, the deter-
mination of the shape of the earth ; the knowledge of the properties
of double refraction and polarization ; many other discoveries of prac-
tical use or theoretical value ; and a few ingenious speculations which
have been used to lend attraction to some works of popular science.

Christiai^ Huygens van Zuyliciiem was born at the Hague,
April 14, 1629, and died June 8, 1695. He was the second son of
Constantino Huygens, secretary and counselor of three successive
Princes of Orange, who was also a distinguished Dutch poet and
writer of Latin verses. His grandfather, too, was a secretary to the
great William the Silent ; and his elder brother Constantine, serving
in the corresponding capacity, accompanied Prince William Henry to
England, where he went, in 1688, to become King William IH.

His earlier instruction was attended to by his father, who, remark-
ing the signs of promise in him, taught him music, arithmetic, and
geometry, and, when thirteen years old, mechanics. At fifteen, he
was given an instructor in mathematics ; at sixteen, he was sent to
Leyden to study law under Vinnius ; and he attended the University
at Breda from 1646 to 1648. In these cities he enjoyed the instructions
of the skilled geometricians, Franpois Schooten and Jean Pell, and his
first essays in that branch of mathematics were so fortunate as to at-
tract the attention of Descartes, who wrote concerning it : "A little
while ago Professor Schooten sent me a tract by the second son of M.
de Zuylichem, touching a mathematical invention which he had sought
out ; yet he did not find in it what he was looking for (and this was
not strange, for he was seeking what no one has ever yet found) ; but
he went at it so straightway that I am sure he will become excellent
in that science, in which I hardly ever see any one who knows any-
thing." Huygens also had imbounded admiration for the great phi-
losopher, but never enjoyed the privilege of meeting him.

The prediction of Descartes was very speedily fulfilled, for, within
a few years after his graduation, having taken a short journey with
Henry, Count of Nassau, Huygens began the series of labors and pub-
lications that have made his name immortal, with his theorems, in

836 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

1651, on the quadrature of the hyperbola, ellipse, and circle, following
it with a criticism of Pere Gregory de Saint Vincent's treatise on the
same subject, and, three years afterward, with his discoveries on the
magnitude of the circle {de circuli magnitudine i/iventa nova).

In 1655 he went to France, and received a degree in law from the
Protestant Academy at Angers. Returning to Holland, he engaged
with his brother in the manufacture of large lenses. With one of
these, an objective of twelve feet focal distance, he discovered the first
satellite of Saturn (the sixth in the order of distance), and announced
the fact, after the manner of his time, in an anagram. It is said that,
in the excitement attending his achievement, he engraved his anagram
upon the glass itself by the aid of which the discovery was made. He
afterward made glasses with one hundred, one hundred and seventy,
and two hundred and ten feet of focal distance, which could not be
inclosed in a telescopic tube on account of the swagging, to which so
long an instrument would be subject, but for which he contrived a
kind of framework support, while the observer stood at the focal point,
eye-glass in hand. The necessity of using such cumbrous contriv-
ances has happily been dispensed with by the introduction of reflect-
ing telescopes.

In 1656, Huygens published, in Dutch, a memoir on the calcula-
tion of probabilities, for which Pascal and Fermat had prepared the
way, and which was translated into Latin by his preceptor, Schooten,
to be inserted as an appendix to his " Mathematical Exercises," in
illustration of the usefulness of algebi'a. In the same year he invented
the escapement of watches and clocks. Galileo had already recognized
the synchronism of the motion of pendulums, and experimenters had
begun to avail themselves of it in timing their observations ; but they
knew of no better way of using the pendulums than to employ a man
to keep them in motion and count their vibrations. Huygens con-
nected them with clock-work, very much as we now have them, and
made the whole operation automatic.

In 1659, having constructed an objective of twenty-two feet focal
distance, Huygens turned his attention to Saturn's ring, which Galileo
had perceived but dimly, discovered its true character, calculated its
elements, and predicted its temporary disappearancee in 1671 ; a pre-
diction which his fellow-astronomers saw fulfilled twelve years after it
was made, with great admiration for his genius. In his work, giving
an account of these observations, " Systema Saturninum," he also de-
scribed the nebula in Orion, and the bands of Jupiter and Mars, an-
nounced that the fixed stars had no perceptible diameter, and made
known his device for measuring the apparent diameters of the planets,
an incipient micrometer. He discovered but one of the satellites of
Saturn, and did not seem to care to look for any other ; for his enter-
prise in this direction was bound by the opinion he entertained that
there was a relation between the number of planets and of satellites ;

SKETCH OF HUYGENS. 837

and there were already six planets — Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars,
Jupiter, and Saturn ; and six satellites — one for the Earth, four for
Jupiter, and one for Saturn. This fancy did not, however, prevent
his afterward accepting Cassini's discovery of four other satellites of
Saturn, and speculating from it uj)on the possibility of there being
still others, either between some of those already discovei'ed, or be-
yond the orbits of all.

Huygens, having now attained a very high and extensive reputa-
tion, visited France and England in 1660 and 1661. He explained his
method of grinding lenses to the scientific men of England, and, find-
ing them occupied with the recently introduced air-pump, took back
with him the idea of that instrument when he returned to Holland,
after two years, to develop it and improve upon it. Remarking in
his experiments the close adherence of two plates of polished metal in
vacuo, he conceived that it was due to the same cause as that which,
operating at still closer quarters, produces cohesion. At about the
same period he developed a rule for estimating the height of a place
by the local pressure, and reciprocally, for calculating the pressure at
a given place from its elevation above the sea. He was made a mem-
ber of the Royal Society of London, and communicated to it the solu-
tion of the law of impact of bodies, at which Descartes had made an
unsuccessful attempt. His own solution involved the laws of motion,
and of action and reaction, in the main as they are now understood,
and contained the germ of the law of the conservation of forces.

In 1665 he accepted an invitation from Colbert to go to Paris and
reside in the Biblioth^que Royale. There he wrote his treatises on
dioptrics and the law of percussion, in a literary style which won from
Newton the remark that it more nearly approached the style of the
ancients than that of any other modern author. Subsequently he com-
posed the greatest of his works, the " Horologium Oscillatorium,"
which was published in 1673, and has been pronounced, with the ex-
ception of Newton's " Principia," the finest work on the exact sciences
of the seventeenth century. In the dedication of this work to King
Louis XIV, he revealed the dominant characteristic of his mind, mak-
ing it the great object of all his researches to find out useful things, to
promote the knowledge of nature, and add to the comforts of living.
"I shall not waste any time, great king," he said, "in demonstrating
to you the usefulness of these things, for my automatons (clocks)
placed in your apartments will impress you every day with the regu-
larity of their indications and the consequences they promise you in
the progress of astronomy and navigation." The first chapter of this
work was devoted to the description of pendulum-clocks ; the second
chapter embodied a study of the motion of a grave body moving
along a given curve, in which was established the tautochronism of
motion in a cycloid. In the third chapter, concerning the evolution
and dimension of linear curves, was introduced the idea from which

838 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the author deduced the theory of evolutes. In the fourth chapter he
determined the center of oscillation of a pendulum, and consequently
the length of the simple isochronous pendulum ; and in the fifth chap-
ter was estimated the measure of the centrifugal force in circular mo-
tion.

We next find ITuygens devising the application of the spiral
spring to clock-movements, and making pocket watches and sea chro-
nometers possible, and then disputing for the priority of the invention
with the Abb6 Hautef euille, " one of those schemers who begin every-
thing and finish nothing."

Huygens turned his attention to the study of the properties of
light and weight and of the magnet, and communicated his results to
the French Academy and the Royal Society. His theory of light was
the one which is now generally accepted after having slept for a hun-
dred and fifty years. Double refraction attracted his attention, and
he explained that it was occasioned by an ellipsoidal form given to the
light-waves, while in ordinary refraction the waves were spherical.
To account for gravity he accepted the Cartesian vortices, and sup-
posed that those bodies which were too unwieldy to keep up with the
motion of the outside circles were forced to fall back into the inner cir-
cles, where the motion was slower, thus approaching the center. Con-
sidering the phenomena of terrestrial gravity exhibited in the varia-
tions of the oscillations of the pendulum, he concluded that the earth
was a spheroid and not a sphere. He accounted for magnetism in a
paper which has never been published, by a theory that has not en-
dured. He left France in 1681, some say on account of the Edict of
Nantes, others because his health was bad and he needed a change.
At home in Holland he constructed an automatic planetarium to rep-
resent the motions of the solar system, and in doing it discovered the
theory of continuous fractions.

In the mean time a revolution was taking place in the world of
mathematics, through the discovery of the differential calculus by Leib-
nitz, a philosopher who has said of his intercourse with Huygens, some
ten years previous to this time (1672 and 1673), that it opened a new
world to him and made him feel like another man. The use of the
new method would have greatly facilitated the calculations Huygens
was making, but he had become skilled in the old ways, imperfect as
they were, and not always of universal application, and, being too old
to change his method readily, continued to employ them. But, after
a discussion of the merits of the new system in correspondence with
Leibnitz, he came to a full appreciation of its value, which he expressed
freely by saying that he observed "with surprise and admiration the
extent and fruitfulness of that art ; on whatever side he turned, he
discovered new uses for it ; and conceived it destined to infinite prog-
ress and speculation."

The " Cosmotheoros," or " Observer of the World," which was not

SKETCH OF BUY GENS. 839

published till after the death of Huygens, was chiefly a treatise on
the habitability of other worlds than ours, aud was marked by curious
and ingenious speculations, of a character from which his other works
were almost entirely free. In this work, after expressing his belief in
the existence upon the planets of living bodies in no way inferior to
those on the earth, he added : " What obliges me to believe also that
there is a rational animal in the planets is that, if there is not, the earth
would have too great advantages (while it is one of the smallest of the
planets) and would be too much elevated in dignity (while it is neither
the nearest to the sun nor the most distant from it) over the other
planets, if it had an animal so much superior to all that they have. . . .
Finally, is it reasonable to suppose that the heavenly bodies among
which our earth occupies so modest a rank have been created only
in order that we other little men may enjoy their light and contem-
plate their situation and motion ?" He also gave some vivid pictures
of the scenery of the heavens as observed from the different planets,
paraphrases of which had wide circulation in an English work of popu-
lar astronomy of the last generation. In observing the moon he made
a study of its mountains and plains, and, remarking that the latter
were too rough to be lakes or oceans, concluded, what is now generally
believed, that the moon has no bodies of water ; also that it has no
atmosphere — none at least that rises above the valleys.

At the beginning of the year 1695, Huygens lost his faculties —
an affliction he had suffered once before while residing in Paris, but
from which he had recovered after removal to his native land. This
time the affliction was permanent, except for a few lucid intervals
which he employed in making testamentary dispositions of his prop-
erty, and in consigning the care of his manuscripts to his friends Biir-
cher de Voider and Bernard Fullen.

Like his illustrious contemporaries Descartes, Leibnitz, and Xewton,
Huygens was never married. He is described as having had a good
figure, and been possessed of a noble and elevated character. He was
affable and frank in his disposition, and gave a warm welcome to in-
quiring young men, whom he was always ready to direct in the way
of discovery. It was thus that Leibnitz came to him and received the
inspiration of which we have quoted the acknowledgment. Though
qualified by birth and fortune to shine in society, and constrained to
figure there for a part of his life, he preferred retreat, and passed all
of his time that he could in the country, immersed in his studies and
experiments.

840

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

THE GLADSTONE-nUXLEY CONTRO-
VERSY.
"TTTE yield the considerable space
VV in our present number which is
necessary to complete the discussion
between Mr. Gladstone and Professor
Huxley as the chief parties, on the sci-
entific status of the Pentateuch, in its
claims to embody and anticipate in an
extraordinary manner the great results
of modern science. Mr. Gladstone ar-
gues that the statements made thou-
sands of years ago in the book of Gene-
sis in regard to the manner and order
in which this earth and its living tribes
were produced conform so remarkably
to the grand results of modern scien-
tific research as to form a powerful
argument in favor of the divine in-
spiration of the old Jewish chronicles.
Professor Huxley takes issue with this
conclusion, maintaining that there is
nothing like the wonderful agreement
alleged, as sufiicient to constitute a
"plea for a revelation from God," but
that, on the other hand, the disagree-
ments between the two records are so
great as to bo irreconcilable.

This is an old and hard-contested
controversy. At first, and for a long
period, the Bible, as a paramount and
infallible authority, became a powerful
instrument in the hands of bigotry and
intolerance for the repression of sci-
ence. For a long time the facts of
observation and the proofs of experi-
ment were of but little weight before
the authority of Scripture texts. But
theologians at length discovered that
this was untenable and indeed dan-
gerous ground; as, to plant the Bible
squarely in the pathway of advancing
science, would be certain to destroy its
influence. The lead at last had to be
given to the truths of observation and
experience, against which it was of no
use any longer to quote Scripture. But

then came the task of reconciling bibli-
cal statements with scientific truths, and
for a long period an immense amount of
ingenuity and learning was expended to
show that the Bible is in perfect har-
mony with science, and that all its most
striking and important results are to be
found there, expressed or implied. But
neither could this ground be maintained ;
and after generations of heated contest
the great controversy gradually settled
itself by the general acceptance of the
principle that the Bible was not given
to teach science, and is therefore not
to be judged by scientific standards.
Hence, the present discussion seems
now rather anomalous — the revival of
an antiquated subject — which derives its
chief interest from the eminent charac-
ter of the parties engaged in it. Mr.
Gladstone is, however, an old man, and,
though still in great force, ho repre-
sents ideas and phases of thought upon
this question that were far more ab-
sorbing and ascendant half a century
ago than they are now.

EDUCATION IN POLITICS.

A CORRESPONDENT of the " Ne w York
Times " sums up the functions of the Su-
perintendent of Public Instruction of
the State of New York as follows:

The duties imposed upon the oflBce re-
quire a man of education and of positive parts
to satisfactorily discharge them. The act of
1854, which created the office, defines its du-
ties at considerable leiipth. It gives this oflBi-
cer general superintendence of the public
schools of the State. It requires him to visit
them, to inquire into their management, and
advise and direct in regard to their course of
instruction and discipline, lie apportions
and distributes the public moneys appropri-
ated by the State for the support of schools,
examines the supplementary appointments
made to all the districts by the School Com-
missioners, and sees to it that each district is

EDITOR'S TABLE.

841

Bet apart its proportionate stare, and that the
same is expended by the trustees and paid
by the supervisors of the towns according to
law. lie gives advice and direction to school
officers, teachers, and inhabitants upon all
questions arising under the school laws. He
establishes rules and regulations concerning
appeals, hears and decides all appeals involv-
ing school controversies, and his decision is
final. He is charged with the general con-
trol and management of teachers' institutes
in the various counties, is authorized to em-
ploy instructors for the institutes and to pay
them, and to certify the accounts for expenses
incurred by the School Commissioners in con-
ducting the same. He is required to visit the
institutes, and advise and direct concerning
their proper management.

He makes appointments of State pupils to
the institutions for the instruction of the deaf,
dumb, and blind, and generally supervises
the management of these institutions. He
established rules and regulations concerning
district-school libraries. He apportions among
the counties the number of pupils in the
State Normal School to which each is entitled.
He has charge of the Indian Schools, employs
local agents to superintend them, and gives
directions in regard to the erection and re-
pairs of their school-houses. He is an ex-
officio member of the Board of Kegents and
chairman of the Committee on Teachers'
Classes in the Academies. He is also an ex-
officio member of the Board of Trustees of
Cornell University, of Syracuse University,
of the Idiot Asylum, and of the People's Col-
lege, and chairman of the Executive Commit-
tee of the Albany State Normal School. He
is also charged with the general supervision
of the State Normal Schools at Brockport,
Buifalo, Cortland, Fredonia, Geneseo, Oswe-
go, and Potsdam. He receives and compiles
the abstracts of the reports from all the school
districts in the State. The salary of the Su-
perintendent is five thousand dollars, and he
has. a deputy, and is allowed to employ a force
of clerks, whose aggregate salaries shall not
exceed nine thousand dollars a year.

This is a very extensive list of du-
ties and responsibilities to be intrusted
to any one functionary by the self-gov-
erning people of a great State, especially
on a subject so extensive and important,
and we may add so domestic and social,
as that of education. One would think
that an intelligent and independent
community would be somewhat scrupu-
lous about parting with the control of

its children in the matter of instruction,
and would prefer to attend to tliat mat-
ter themselves, rather than to be much
superintended hy any distant oflBce-
holder who happens to be thrust into
the position where he can regulate the
schools of the State. But the Superin-
tendent of Public Instruction is the
head engineer of that vast political ma-
chine which has come to supersede all
private agency in the formation of the
minds and characters of tlio young so
far as it is possible for schools to do it.
We say " political machine," because the
great work of carrying on primary edu-
cation in this country is being steadily
and rapidly swallowed up in the gulf
of politics. Indeed, the fundamental
reasons given for the existence of our
common-school system, and avowedly
the sole reasons for which it can he
maintained, are political. It is freely
admitted that the State has no other
warrant for taking in hand the instruc-
tion of the young than to shape them
as citizens in accordance with the po-
litical system we have adopted. As a
consequence, the business of administer-
ing education is becoming a prominent
part of politics, and appointments in all
the best-paid positions are heing more
and more determined by the common
influences of political manipulation and
intrigue. The influence of this state of
things upon teachers who are now all
government office-holders is a chapter
of the subject that can not be here dealt
with, but is full of interest. Our object
is now simply to call attention to a con-
spicuous illustration of the control of
partisan politics over our whole system
of State instruction.

No intelligent person will deny that
the general subject of education is one
of great complexity and great diffi-
culty, and that to control it wisely and
improve its practical methods is a task
requiring much ability, long and pro-
found devotion to its fundamental ques-
tions, and a wide and varied experience
in educational work. But very few men

842

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

can be found combining tho rare quali-
fications needed in a State Superintend-
ent of Education; at the very best
these qualitications can only be secured
in a partial degree, but this makes it all
tbe more necessary that no eftort shall
be spared to secure the best talent avail-
able for so responsible a trust. It is
needless to say that this desirable ob-
ject is impossible under the political
regime into which our popular educa-
tion has now passed. The superin-
tendency of schools of the State of
New York has become a foot-ball of
partisan faction among the politicians
of the New York Legislature. The
former Sui)erintendent resigned some
weeks ago, to take a more profitable
oflBce; and the temporary incumbent of
the place will vacate the office in April,
to be succeeded by whomsoever the
Legislature appoints. A crowd of ap-
plicants of all sorts are after the place,
lobbying and intriguing in Albany by
all the means that are necessary to se-
cure " success " in the scramble for a de-
sirable position. That a competent man
will be appointed under these circum-
stances is virtually impossible, for no
thoroughly competent and self-respect-
ing man would enter the lists of compe-
tition under these circumstances. The
appointee will win because he or his
friends can beat all competition in the
questionable arts by which politicians
are influenced, and the result will be le-
gitimate— a natural outcome of the sys-
tem by which the instruction of the
young lias been brought under political
and therefore, of course, under partisan
control.

Another exemplification of the influ-
ence of politics upon education is seen
in the " Blair Bill," which proposes
that Congress shall make a gift of sev-
enty-seven million dollars, to be divided
among the States of the Union to help
them maintain their schools. The suc-
cess of the bill, as we write, is said to
be uncertain ; but, whether it pass or
not, it has had so extensive a backing

as to well illustrate the sort of influence
which politicians Avould bring to bear
upon education. The tendency to make
education a charity, and to bring
school-houses into the same category
with poor-houses, is sufficiently strong;
but this measure, by an audacious
stretch of constitutional power, would
give tho stamp of nationality to the
charity policy. The scheme proceeds
upon the peculiarly American assump-
tion that anything can be done with
money, and that the Central Govern-
ment has only to scatter millions enough
and all the people will be educated.
But the assumption is false : there are
things which no amount of money can
do, while the evils of its lavish distribu-
tion are not only palpable and certain,
but may result in the absolute defeat
of the object intended. That the dis-
tribution of this seventy-seven million
largess among the States would be pro-
foundly injurious to tho interests of
popular education does not admit of
a doubt ; and the American Congress
would have to make the experiment
but once more to paralyze and destroy
the existing common-school system of
the country. For, by the results of
all experience and the very necessity
of things, those who expect to be helped
will depend upon help, and put forth
less effort to help themselves. "What-
ever lessens the interest taken by par-
ents and citizens in the working and
character of the schools, whatever tends
to diminish their direct responsibility
in regard to them, and to weaken the
sense of obligation to make sacrifices
for the instruction of the young, strikes
a demoralizing and deadly blow at the
springs and incentives of all educational
improvement. Our people have yet to
learn that one of the highest benefits
of a popular educational system is in
training parents and citizens to the efl3-
cient discharge of their social duties,
and a national policy which undermines
these obligations can not be too strong-
ly reprobated.

LITERARY NOTICES.

843

OuH readers are reminded tliat one
of the most important scientific papers
that have appeared in "The Popular
Science Monthly" since its establish-
ment is that by Herbert Spencer, in the
present number, on "The Factors of
Organic Evolution." It is a popular
paper, but it will demand close atten-
tion to appreciate its significance and
its force. The biological questions dis-
cussed are fundamental in organic evo-
lution, or the theory of descent v?ith
variations, and Mr. Spencer brings into
clearness aspects of the subject upon
which there has hitherto been much
confusion of thought. His root ques-
tion is as to the import and value of
the principle of natural selection con-
tributed by Mr. Darwin, and the decis-
ion of which must fix Mr. Darwin's
permanent place in relation to the doc-
trine of evolution. The need of a thor-
ough investigation here is shown, on the
one hand, by the confessed unsettledness
in regard to the limits of the doctrine
of natural selection, and how far it is
capable of accounting for evolution phe-
nomena— an uncertainty shared promi-
neutly by Mr. Darwin himself; and, on
the other hand, by the exaggerated and
extravagant claims that have been made
for this principle as being all there is
of evolution, and that Mr. Darwin is,
of course, its founder. No man was so
capable of dealing with this subject as
Herbert Spencer, and it will be a mat-
ter of general congratulation that he
has seen fit to take it up in the inter-
ests of science and of justice. But,
quite aside from all personal bearings
of the discussion, it will be found of
the highest interest as a study in the
progress of modern biology.

Mrs. Rickoff describes in another
place in this number an exhibition of
hand-work made out of school by chil-
dren of from five and six to fourteen
years, and draws various suggestive
conclusions from the experience.

Among these is the following remark :
" One of the noticeable features of the
exhibition was an apparent decline in
originality of invention and spontaneity
of thought after the first year or two
at school." The inference, of course,
is that the school exerted an unfavora-
ble influence upon the manual practice.
This could not well be otherwise, as the
ideal of the schools is mental cultiva-
tion by books, and not by the exercise
of the active powers ; and, as the
schools are machines run by verbal
methods and backed by old bookish su-
perstitions, the child brought under
their influence wUl very naturally and
very quickly lose any interest it may
have previously acquired in manual ef-
forts. The two systems are antago-
nistic, and we do not believe it is pos-
sible to graft any thorough or valuable
plan of technical study on our public
schools as at present organized. The
technical system must be independent-
ly developed, and will force its way
through or over the narrow, unpracti-
cal system that now has the field.

LITERARY NOTICES.

An Introduction to the Study of Chem-
istry. By Ira Remsen, Professor of
Chemistry in the Johns Hopkins Univer-
Bity. American Science Series. New
York: Henry Holt & Co. Pp. 387.
Price, $1.40.

This is one of the cases in which the
bare announcement of the author's name
goes far to establish the character of his
performance. Professor Remsen could
make no other than an excellent book on
the subject of chemistry. He is a master
of the subject, thoroughly familiar with its
latest developments, a clear thinker, and a
lucid writer, and he has besides had much
practical experience as a teacher of the sci-
ence.

The method of Professor Rcmsen's work
is thus distinctly presented by the author.
He begins his preface by remarking: "In
preparing this book I have endeavored to
keep in mind the fact that it is intended for
those who are beginning the study of chem-

84+

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

istry. Instead of presenting a large number
of facts, and thus overburdening the stu-
dent's mind, I have presented a smaller
number than is usual in elementary courses
in chemistry ; but I have been careful to
select for treatment such substances and
such phenomena as seemed to me best suited
to give an insight into the nature of chemi-
cal action. Usually the mind is not allowed
to dwell for any length of time upon any
one thing, and thus to become really ac-
quainted with it, but is hurried on and is
soon bewildered in the effort to comprehend
what is presented. I can not but believe
that it is much better to dwell longer on a
few subjects, provided these subjects are
properly selected.

" The charge is frequently made that
our elementary text-books on chemistry are
not scieniijic, that is to say, that not enough
stress is laid upon the relations which exist
between the phenomena considered — the
treatment is not systematic. The student
is taught a little about oxygen, a little about
hydrogen, a little about nitrogen, etc. ; and
then a little about potassium, a little about
C'llcium, etc., and he is left simply to won-
der whether there is any connection between
the numerous facts offered for study. It
must be acknowledged that there are serious
dilRcuIties in the way of a purely scientific
treatment of chemistry, but I think that it
is quite possible to treat the subject more
scientifically than is customary, and thus to
make it easier of comprehension to the stu-
dent. I have made an cfTort in this direc-
tion in the book here offered to the public."

Professor llemsen's remark about the
difiiculty in the way of a purely scientific
treatment of chemistry here applies, as we
suppose, to the difficulty of presenting it to
beginners in the study, and is, of course,
true; but we have considerable doubt
whether the difficulty is to be met by any
attempt to make the work of the beginner
more scientific. From the quality of his
book we must infer that Professor Remsen's
" beginner " is a pupil advanced to consid-
erable maturity of mind, sufficient to deal
with conceptions of some complexity and
comprehensiveness. It is assumed that he
enters the laboratory, goes to work himself,
and has such strength of thought that a few
examples would be sufl[icicnt to familiarize

him with the established interpretations and
principles of the science. But the real
" difficulty " in the case, we think, is, that a
stage of mental growth has been jumped
when more elementary conceptions of the
subject could have been assimilated, and
some preparation afforded for that scientific
treatment upon which the professor pro-
poses to enter. The child is, in reality,
already familiar with many chemical phe-
nomena, as facts of observation and experi-
ence, although he does not know that they
are chemistry. The more rational method
seems to us to begin considerally further
back, and occupy the pupil at first with a
range of simpler observations and experi-
ments that shall acquaint him to a certain
degree with the properties of substances
and their simpler reactions, without attempt-
ing to grasp principles that can be better
handled at a later stage. This would imply,
of course, a grading of the subject, and an
introduction to it as a part of primary edu-
cation.

Class-Interests: Their Relations to Each
Other and to Government. A Study of
Wrongs and Remedies to ascertain what
the People should do for Themselves.
By the author of " Conflict in Nature
and Life " and " Reforms : their Difficul-
ties and Possibilities." New York : D.
Appleton & Co. Pp. 172. Price, $1.

However we may regard the conclusions
of the anonymous author of the present
book, one thing is to be said in his favor —
his views have only been reached by deliber-
ate and comprehensive study. His volume
is, at any rate, not to be classed with those
products of hasty speculation on social sub-
jects which are now so abundant. He be-
gan well at the beginning of philosophical
inquiry, by writing an original volume on
those necessary conflicts and antagonisms
in nature and life which put limits to what
can be accomplished in the various spheres
of action in which men are engaged. It
was a most wholesome and needed investi-
gation, and that it excited so little atten-
tion and interest is painful evidence of that
shallowness of thought and foolish extrava-
gance of expectation with which political
and social subjects are treated in Legisla-
tures and by the press. The author's book
on " Reforms : their DilBcultics and Possi-

LITERARY NOTICES.

845

bilities," was an extension and application
of the principles of the first treatise to
immediate practical questions and measures
which are occupying the general attention
of the public. That discussion led to the
present book on " Class-Interests," which,
indeed, was originally intended to be pub-
lished as a part of the volume on " Re-
forms," as a final application of his system-
atic views.

Nevertheless, the author's original stud-
ies in the antagonisms of things, and the
limits to accomplishment which these an-
tagonisms imply, seem to have been wholly
insufficient to neutralize the bias of tem-
perament or the power of preconceived
convictions. lie avows that the results of
his studies bring him into " accord with
wide-spread movements of thought and ac-
tion in this country and in Europe " ; and
of these he refers, first and in particular,
to " the amplification of government func-
tions"— that is, he joins the swelling crowd
of those who are looking for salvation from
social evils to the politicians. For, say what
we will, the fact remains that what we have
actually to deal with as government is sim-
ply the men who have possession of politi-
cal power, and, under our representative
system, they are the selected and successful
demagogues of the community. Our legisla-
tors, as a mass, who constitute the working
power of government, are neither the wise
men nor the good men of society, but men
who are incompetent for their task — men
without knowledge of the subjects upon
which they are required to act, sordid and
ambitious self-seekers, in short, office-hold-
ers and politicians who have beat all rivals.
The "amplification of government func-
tions " means, therefore, simply committing
more and more the great interests of socie-
ty to incompetent and untrustworthy hands.
Our author condemns laissczfaire, and makes
the serious mistake, usual with the party of
interference, of affirming that it is a " do-
nothing " policy ; whereas that is the only
school we now have which aims to hold
government to its supreme work of admin-
istering justice in society. But that great
object is now so overlaid with added " func-
tions" as to be buried out of sight and for-
gotten, so that those who demand that, first
of all, government shall enforce it among

citizens, are charged with being in favor of
"doing nothing."

The present volume is profoundly sym-
pathetic with the needs of the masses of
the people, and it closes with a very valua-
ble essay on moral education in our primary
schools, which ought to be extensively read.

Problems in Philosophy. Ey John Bas-
COM, author of " Science of Mind " :
" Growth and Grades of Intelligence."
New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp.
222. Price, $1.50.

The more obscure and refractory prob-
lems in philosophy are here dealt with in
a series of essays, each of quite moderate
length. To the presumption, nowadays so
strong, that such collections of articles are
apt to originate in the idea of "gathering
up everything, that nothing be lost," the
author replies that in this case the work
is essentially new, as but one essay, that on
" Liberty," has appeared elsewhere, while
that has been somewhat modified. The
discussions have been kept within marked
limits of brevity, the writer assures us, with
the view of securing an explicit statement
of a few fundamental principles, and to
avoid the evils of excessive elaboration
which are so incident to systematic treatises
on philosophy.

Dr. Bascom has here reviewed a con-
siderable number of the most knotty ques-
tions that have been held as at the foun-
dation of philosophy, and that have for
many ages exercised the ingenuity of specu-
lative inquirers. Among the problems con-
sidered will be found "The Relativity of
Knowledge," " Spontaneity and Causation,"
"Freedom of Will," "Consciousness and
Space," " Universality of Law," " Being,"
and " Final Causes." The author seems to
have but little sympathy with those who
hold that the human mind is shut out froiii
any final solution of these problems. He
belongs to the intuitionalist school of meta-
physics, which resists the efforts of the em-
pirical or scientific party to set limits to
knowledge and to the powers of the mind.
In his essay on " The Relativity of Knowl-
edge," while not at all denying the prin-
ciple, he condemns the sweeping conclusions
that many have been disposed to draw from
it, saying, " Relativity as a self-evident and

846

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

harmless assertion is made to stand for
relativity as an extreme and destructive
theory."

The character of the volume is thus in-
timated by the author: " While the discus-
sions now offered touch very closely the
points at issue between the empirical and
the intuitive tendencies in philosophy, they
are not conducted with any express con-
formity to either mode of inquiry. There
is, in the consideration of these fundament-
al questions, a distinct recognition of the
fact that the jjhcnomena of mind can not
find a rational substratum of thought with-
in themselves as phenomena merely, and
also a recognition of the fact that it is
these very phenomena, and these only, that
call for explanation. The effort has been,
therefore, to bring appropriate ideas to the
interpretation of mental facts, as broadly
and fully contained in human experience."

Japanese Homes and their Scrroundings.
By Edward S. Morse. Boston: Tick-
nor & Co. Pp. 372, with Plates. Price,
$5.

Professor Morse has achieved a just
distinction as an accurate observer in vari-
ous fields of natural history, whose precision
and facility in relation commend the pub-
lished results of his labors alike to the sci-
entific constituency and to the general read-
ing public. The former class have shown
their esteem for him by choosing him to
preside at the next meeting of the Ameri-
can Association. lie has been for many
years Director of the Pcabody Academy of
Sciences, at Salem, Massachusetts. He vis-
ited Japan in ISTY to study the marine
fauna of the coast, and, removing there in
1878 with his family, remained nearly two
years as Professor of Zoology in the Impe-
rial University of Tokio. During this resi-
dence he varied his labors with studying
the traces of primitive man on the islands
and making notes of ethnological and gen-
eral interest. He afterward made a third
visit to the country for the sole purpose of
qualifying himself for the preparation of
this and other works upon it. Many books
have been written about Japan ; but few of
them have been the result of such patient,
careful observation as this. For it the au-
thor made several explorations from Yezo

to Satsuma, bringing himself into personal
communication with the people of all classes,
making thorough examinations of their
houses, and keeping a daily illustrated
journal of all that he saw and all that hap-
pened to him. The illustrations in this
volume are yac simile reproductions of the
pen-and-ink drawings he then made. Of
the usefulness of such work as he has done
here, he expresses a view with which all
students of anthropology and of history will
concur, when he says he feels that it " has
not been altogether in vain, as it may result
in preserving many details of the Japanese
house — some of them trivial, perhaps —
which in a few decades of years may be
difficult if not impossible to obtain. . . .
Nothing can be of greater importance than
the study of those nations and peoples who
are passing through profound changes and
readjustments as a result of their compul-
sory contact with the vigorous, selfish, and
mercantile nations of the West." The
same principle is applicable to all peoples
not yet spoiled, and can not be applied too
quickly. "If investigators and students
would bear in mind the precept of Miyada "
— who held it to be a solemn duty to learn
any art or accomplishment that might be
going out of the world, and then describe it
so fully that it might be preserved to pos-
terity— " and seize upon those features in
social life — forms of etiquette, games, cere-
monies, and other manners and customs —
which are the first to change in any contact
with alien races, a very important work
would be accomplished for the future soci-
ologist." There is much of a practical
bearing to be learned from Japanese archi-
tecture and decoration ; we have in fact ac-
knowledged it by so readily adopting their
styles, or awkwardly trying to imitate them.
We may criticise the things we do not like
in Japan, or any other country not our own,
but we should bear in mind that there may
be things among ourselves equally objec-
tionable and liable to criticism. But, " in
the study of another people one should if
possible look through colorless glasses;
though, if one is to err in this respect, it
were better that his spectacles should be
rose-colored than grimed with the smoke of
prejudice. The student of ethnology as a
matter of policy, if he can put himself in no

LITERARY NOTICES.

847

more generous attitude, had better err in
looking kindly and favorably at a people
whose habits and customs he is about to
study. It is human nature the world over
to resist adverse criticism ; and, where one
is prowling about with his eyes darkened
by the opaquest of uncorrected provincial
glasses, he is repelled on all sides ; nothing
is accessible to him ; he can rarely get more
than a superficial glance at matters, where-
as, if he tries honestly to seek out the
better attributes of a people, he is not only
welcome to proceed with any investigation
he wishes to make ; even customs and
ways that appear offensive are fully re-
vealed to him, knowing that he will not
willfully distort and render more painful
what is at the outset admitted on all hands
to be bad." In this spirit, which should be
applied to other studies as well as those of
social customs, the author has endeavored
to give an account of Japanese homes and
their surroundings. He might have taken
the huts of the poorest people or the
houses of the wealthy, as his types, but
has preferred to make his general descrip-
tions relate to the homes of the middle
classes, with occasional references to those
of the higher and lower orders. We have
already drawn upon the matter of the book
for an article in our March number. Fur-
ther than to refer to that article as a gen-
eral indication of the way in which the
subject is treated, we will say that in the
book the various items of household man-
agement, rooms, furniture, utensils, tools,
gateways, objects of art, etc., are treated in
detail in sections, which are monographs in
themselves, and adorned with real illustra-
tions ; and that we find here and there
hints relative to comparative economy, aes-
thetics, and morals, that point the way to
instructive thought.

The Xew Agricclture ; or. The Waters
LED Captive. By A. N. Cole. New
York : Anglers' Publishing Company,
252 Broadway. Pp. 224.

Mr. Cole describes in this volume a
system of drainage and self-irrigation which
he has devised and uses at his hill-side
home in Allegany County, New York, from
which he claims to have obtained aston-
ishing results in an improved condition

of the soil, independence of spring frosts
and summer drought, and greatly increased
yield and quality of crops. The system
consists in constructing along the hill-side
a series of parallel drains of considerable
size, and of depth reaching to below the
frost-line. The drains are filled with stones
loosely thrown in, and covered with flat
stones having above them material for sift-
ing the solid matters from the water. Over-
flow drains are provided at suitable points
for conveying any excess of water to the
next lower drain in the series. These
drains collect all the water from rain, snow,
and dew deposited upon the land above
them, and act as reservoirs to hold it till
it is drawn out by the needs of the soil in
the dry season. From the operation of his
system Mr. Cole claims to have realized a
fourfold increase of cereal crops, with cor-
responding improvement in size, flavor, and
production of fruits and vegetables ; abso-
lute freedom from disease, especially from
fungoid affections ; security against spring
and autumn frosts, with considerable pro-
longation of the season ; the conversion
of hard - pan into good soil ; prevention
of soil-washing; effectual security against
drought; and the formation of springs.
The plan as described is particularly appli-
cable to hill-side land.

Price-List of Publications of the Smith-
sonian Institution, July, 1885. Wash-
ington: Government Printing-Ofiice. Pp.

27.

This list includes only the publications
of the Institution (1847 to 1885) which can
be furnished at the prices named. The pub-
lications not mentioned are out of print.
The titles are given as they occur in the
order in which the works were originally
published, classified according to their sub-
jects, by authors, and according to the par-
ticular series to which they belong. We are
informed that all gratuitous distribution to
individuals has been discontinued ; but the
"Smithsonian Contributions" and "Miscel-
laneous Collections " are presented to pub-
lic libraries containing 25,000 volumes,
learned societies of the first class, and small
public libraries, properly recommended,
where a large district would be otherwise
unsupplicd.

848

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC SERIES.

VOL. LIU.

The Mammalia in their Relation to

Primeval Times. By Oscar Schmidt.

New York : D. Appleton & Co. Pp.

308, with Fifty-one Woodcuts. Price,

$1.50.

This is the last work of the venerable
Professor of Zoology in the University of
Strasburg, the news of his death having ar-
rived since its publication. That there has
been a great advance in recent years of our
knowledge of the mammalia, especially in
relation to primeval conditions, is ■well
known, and Dr. Schmidt in this volume has
very ably summarized the most important
results of recent research in this field. He
published, some years ago, a volume in this
series entitled "Doctrine of Descent and
Darwinism," which has met with much favor
as a contribution to modern philosophical
biology. The present book is on the same
line of exposition, and is offered by the
author as a supplement, rounding up the
discussion, while, at the same time, it has
the character of a separate treatise. The
author says : " It will be found to contain
proofs of the necessity, the truth, and the
value of Darwinism as the foundation for
the theory of descent within a limited field,
and is brought down to the most recent
times. "Within these limits the work is
complete in itself ; for, although the student
of natural history may have become ac-
quainted with interesting fragments of the
actual science, still the subject has not be-
fore been presented in so comprehensive a
manner or in so convenient a form."

Protection versiin Free-Trade. The Sci-
entific Validity and Economic Operation
of Defensive Duties in the United States.
I3y Henry M. IIoyt. New York : D. Ap-
pleton & Co. Pp. 435. Price, $2.

The late official head of the Common-
wealth of Pennsylvania, Governor Hoyt, has
here elaborated a pretty solid book on the
general subject of freedom and restriction
in commerce. The author is a protection-
ist, and has written his volume in the inter-
est of that party. Its tone is controversial
and lively, whatever may be said of its ar-
guments, and the adherents of the " Penn-
sylvania System " will be sure to get great
comfort out of its peru-^al. Governor IIoyt
is an antagonist of free trade, and, as free

trade is grounded in the principles of po-
litical economy. Governor lloyt is also the
antagonist of political economy ; that is, a
large portion of his book is devoted to dis-
crediting the " so-called science" of wealth.
As we understand the Governor, he seems
to think that, so far as men's exchanges of
property are concerned, this world was made
much too big. It should have been limited,
if not to the boundaries of Pennsylvania,
then certainly to the boundaries of the
United States ; and he thinks, too, our pol-
icy should be to correct this blunder in
world-making by ignoring anything outside
these national limits. His idea appears to
be that foreign trade is not profitable, and
that we can make more money by being
shut in among ourselves and ignoring all
other nations. The key to the philosophy
of his book is found in its concluding
words, which are these, given with the em-
phasis of italics : " The nearer toe come to
orffanizinff our competing industries as if we
were the- onhj nation on the planet, the more
we shall make and the more ive shall have to
divide among the makers." The reason why
it is necessary to break down "political
economy " and get it out of the way is thus
sufficiently apparent.

The Raising and Management of Poultrt.
Boston : Cupples, Upham & Co. Pp. 125.

This volume contains a phonographic
report of the addresses and discussions that
were had at two meetings of poultry ex-
perts, in connection with the series of Sat-
urday Farmers Meetings, which were held
in Boston May 7 and 14, 1S85. The sub-
jects specially considered pertain to the es-
tablishment of the best breeds ; the quali-
ties of each breed, as an egg and flesh pro-
ducer ; the care and profit of the stock ;
and the great and increasing value of the
poultry interest to farmers and the country.

Scarlet Fever, and Certain Sugge.stions
FOR ITS Treatment. By T. Griswold
Comstock, M. D., of St. Louis. Pp. 19.

The author in this paper calls attention
to certain therapeutical measures for the
treatment of the disease, " which, if not en-
tirely new to some of the profession, are
but little used by many, and nevertheless
are of great value."

LITERARY NOTICES.

849

Catholic Histouical Researches. Quar-
terly. Edited by Rev. A. A. Lamuing.
January, 1880. Pittsburg. Pp. 40.
Price, 25 cents a number, $1 a year.

Tnis is a new naming, appropriate to the
enlarged scope of the " Historical Re-
searches in Western Pennsylvania, Princi-
pally Catholic," which the editor began in
July, 1884. The publication is intended to
contain matters relating to the past history
of the Roman Catholic Church in this coun-
try ; to chronicle the progress of Catholic
historical inquiry, giving proceedings and
papers of societies ; to reproduce original
historical documents, registers, letters, etc. ;
and to contain departments for brief histori-
cal notes, inquiries, and replies, ■with book
reviews.

EvoLCTioN AND Religiox. By ITexry
Ward Beecher. Now York : Fords,
Howard, and Hulbert. Part I. Pp.
145. Price, 50 cents. Part II. Pp.
295. Price, $1.

"The universal physical fact of evolu-
tion, postulated as a theory of the divine
method of creation," says Mr. Beecher, " is
one which so naturally and simply fits many
a puzzling lock, that it is gratefully seized
by many who seem to themselves to have
been shut out from hope and from the
truth. For myself, while finding no need
of changing my idea of the divine person-
ality because of new light upon his mode
of working, I have hailed the evolutionary
philosophy with joy. Some of the applica-
tions of its principles to the line of develop-
ment I have to reject ; others, though not
proved — and in the present state of scien-
tific knowledge perhaps not even provable
— I accept as probable ; but the underlying
truth, as a law of Nature (that is, a regular
method of the divine action), I accept and
use, and thank God for it." Mr. Beecher
has learned that he has in fact been for fifty
years, without knowing it, preaching a doc-
trine of evolution in its application to a
spiritual growth, and now fervently believes
that that doctrine is bringing "to the aid
of religious truth, as set forth in the life and
teachings of Jesus Christ, a new and pow-
erful aid, fully in line with other marked
developments of God's providence in his
Word." For two years he has preached
with specific application of this principle to

VOL. XXVIII. — 54

practical aspects of Christian life. These
discourses are incorporated in these two
parts of a single work. In the first part
are placed eight sermons, discussing the
bearings of the evolutionary philosophy on
some of the fundamental doctrines of the
Christian faith — the divine nature, the ques-
tion of human sinfulness, the inspiration of
the Bible, the divine providence, and cor-
related subjects. The second part contains
eighteen sermons, pointing out the specific
application of those general principles, and
showing the main lines along which Mr.
Beecher believes "the main course of the
old ship will largely be laid."

Introspective Insanity. By Allan McLane
Hamilton, of New York. Pp. 8.

In this paper is given a study of a re-
markable phase of morbid affections, known
to the French as folic du doute and to the
Germans as Grubelsuch/, which varies in in-
tensity from mere morbid nervousness or
eccentricity to positive insanity. It is de-
scribed as a condition of mind which is
manifested by a morbid feeling of doubt
and consequent indecision under the most
ordinary circumstances, when both the doubt
and indecision are unreasonable in the ex-
treme, but the individual, under the man-
date of an imperative conception, yields
more or less to his disordered emotions. It
appears under numerous aspects, some of
which arc illustrated by the relation of
cases.

On the Development of Crystallization
IN THE Igneous Rocks of Washoe, Ne-
vada. By Arnold Hague and Joseph
P. Iddings. Washington : Government
Printing-OfBce. Pp. 44,

In studying the lavas from the Pacific
coast volcanoes, the authors were struck
with insensible gradations in the micro-
structure in the ground-mass of rocks of
the same mineral composition from a pure-
ly glassy form to one wholly crystalline,
and corresponding to a fine-grained granite-
porphyry. They were convinced by the
chain of microscopical evidence that the
glassy and crystalline rocks were simply
the extreme forms of the same magma. This
pamphlet gives the account of the experi-
ments and investigations.

850

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Ericsson's Destroyer and Schmarine Gun.
l>y William II. Jaques, Lieutenant U.
S. Navy. Xcw York : G. P. Putnam's
Sons. Pp. 48. Price, 50 cents.

In his paper on " the Monitors," pub-
lished in a recent number of " The Cent-
ury," Captain Ericsson made a reference to
his application of submarine artillery to the
Destroyer, a vessel of war partially armored
to attack bows on at short range. In the
present work an examination is made of the
submarine gun and projectile to the carry-
ing of which Captain Ericsson adapts the
plan of his vessel ; and the conclusion is
reached that the inventor " is able to pre-
sent to-day, as the product of his study, ap-
plication, and mechanical skill, a type of
weapon for submarine warfare well to the
front in torpedo experiments."

The Evolution of Revelation. By James
Morris Whiton, Ph. D. New York:
G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 34. Price,
25 cents.

This essay is declared in its subtitle to
be a critique of conflicting opinions con-
cerning the Old Testament. As against the
popular conception of that revelation which
God is conceived as having made in the
Bible, that it is something directly " handed
down " from a Divine Author, and therefore
superior to the pretensions of criticism, the
author maintains a conception which, while
it regards revelation as divine, " views it as
a growth within the world, an evolution, no
less than humanity itself, and no less than
man himself a work of God, while also a
phenomenon of the orderly development of
the world, and, as such, a legitimate object
of scientific criticism."

Syllabus of Instruction in Biology, with
References to Sources of Information.
By Delos Fall, Albion College, Michi-
gan. Pp. 24.

The Syllabus is intended to furnish a
brief skeleton or abstract of all that is com-
prehended, in the catalogue of 1885, under
the terms Biology, Systematic Zoology, and
Physiological Botany — except that the bo-
tanical part is to be given in a supplement-
ary pyllabiis. The work will consist of the
examination of sixteen type-forms of ani-
mals, and a less number of plants, in the
philosophical order of complexity of devel-

opment. Tlie student is expected to col-
lect his own material where it is accessible,
to study and observe the object itself, make
notes of all he observes, make suitable draw-
ings, and embody the knowledge thus ob-
tained, and no other, in a written essay or
statement.

MARLBORouGn. By George Paintsburt.
New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp.
218. Price, T5 cents.

" Marlborough " is a volume of the
scries of " English Worthies," edited by
Andrew Lang, of which the Messrs. Apple-
ton are the American publishers. The se-
ries will consist of short lives of Englishmen
of influence and distinction, past and pres-
ent, in various walks of life. Each biogra-
phy will be intrusted to a writer specially
acquainted with the historical period in
which his hero lived, and endowed with a
sympathy with his subject. Of the present
volume it is sufficient to say that it is a life
of one of the most distinguished English
soldiers, by a writer who is well known
in the field of literary and biographical
sketches.

IIousehold Remedies for the Prevalent
Disorders of the Human Organism.
By Felix L. Oswald, M. D. New York :
Fowler & Wells Co. Pp. 229.

Dr. Oswald is no stranger to the readers
of the " Monthly " ; he is rather as a famil-
iar friend to them. And the doctrines which
he lays down in " Household Remedies "
are the same which he has enforced with so
much vigor and point, and with such charm-
ing grace of style, in the health papers he
has from time to time contributed to our
pages. In fact, if we read right, some of
these health papers — those which come
under the head of " Remedies of Nature "
— are the basis from which this book of
" Household Remedies " has been con-
structed.

Fifth Annual Report of the State Min-
eralogist OF California, for the Year
ending May 15, 1885. Sacramento:
State Office. Pp. 235, with Plans.

The report is mostly taken up with the
account of the State minerological repre-
sentation at the New Orleans Exhibition, to
which the plans refer.

LITERARY NOTICES.

851

War and Peace. An Ilistorical Novel. By

Count Legs Tolstoi. New York : W. S.

Gottsbergcr. Two volumes. Pp. 322

and 357.

This work will command attention on
account of the fame of the author, who,
after having for a considerable time held
an important official position under the Em-
peror of Russia, retired from public life
and turned his attention to literature. He
is now one of the most prominent Russian
writers. The story relates to that period
of the Napoleonic wars, from 1805 to 1807,
which preceded the Peace of Tilsit, and in-
troduces as actors several of the prominent
characters of the time. The present edi-
tion is a double translation, the story hav-
ing been first translated from Russian into
French by a Russian lady, and then into
English by Clara Bell.

Manual of the Botany of the Rocky
Mountain Region. By John M. Coul-
ter. New York: Ivison, Blakeman,
Taylor & Co. Pp. 480,

" West of the Mississippi Valley prairie
region," says the author of this " Manual,"
" there are three well-defined floras : One is
that of the Pacific slope ; another is Mexican
in character, extending from the Great Basin
to Arizona, New Mexico, Western Texas,
and southward into Mexico; the third is the
Rocky Mountain region, extending eastward
across the plains to the prairies." The
first floral region is descriptively provided
for in two volumes on the " Botany of Cali-
fornia " ; the botany of the Great Basin is
described in works by Sereno Watson and
Dr. Rothrock. The third region was im-
perfectly described in Professor Porter's
" Synopsis of the Flora of Colorado," a first
attempt, published about ten years ago.
The present volume is an attempt to furnish
a more adequate presentation of the subject
than could be given at that time, and to
provoke still further advance and improve-
ment. The range it is intended to cover
includes Colorado, Wyoming, Montana,
Western Dakota, Western Nebraska, and
Western Kansas. In it are also included
the larger part of the contiguous flora, run-
ning into the western part of the Indian
Territory, Northwestern Texas, Northern
New Mexico and Arizona, and Eastern Utah
and Idaho, for all except their own peculiar

plants. In Utah the range is carried west-
ward by the Uintah and Wahsatch Mount-
ains, whose plants are intended to be in-
cluded. This edition only claims to be a
compilation, and an orderly arrangement
and sifting of scattered material — an ar-
rangement and sifting that were greatly
needed, for much of the material was prac-
tically inaccessible.

Studies from the Biological Laboratory
OF Johns Hopkins University. Balti-
more: Newell Martin, M. D., F. R. S.,
and W. K. Brooss, editors. Vol. iii,
Nos. 1 to 4. Pp. 216, with Twelve
Plates. Price per volume, $5. The
price of single numbers varies with the
size.

These studies, issued from time to time,
contain the majority of the original scien-
tific papers published by members of the Bi-
ological Department of the University. They
will be grouped into volumes of about five
hundred pages each. The numbers before
us contain eleven papers, giving accounts of
special researches into various facts of spe-
cial structure and function. Among the
papers of most general interest are those
of Mr. W. H. Howell, on " The Origin of
the Fibrin formed in the Coagulation of
Blood," and of Mr. H. G. Beyer, " On the
Action of Carbolic Acid, Atropia, and Con-
vallaria on the Heart, with some Observa-
tions on the Influence of Oxygenated and
Non-oxygenated Blood, and of Blood in
Various Degrees of Dilution," both of which
are in No. 2.

The Louisiana Purchase in its Influ-
ence upon the American System. By
the Right Reverend C. F. Robertson,
D. D. New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons.
Pp. 42. Price, 50 cents.

This paper, by the Protestant Episcopal
Bishop of Missouri, belongs to the scries of
the American Historical Association. The
subject, as the author reviews it briefly, be-
comes a very broad one — much larger, prob-
ably, than most readers are at the begin-
ning ready to suppose it to be. In the first
place, the purchase was acknowledged to
be extra-constitutional, but then no one, in
Congress or out of it, could say anything
about that matter while it was under settle-
ment, for fear of giving France a pretext
for withdrawing from the bargain. The

8^2

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

acquisition of so large a territory in the
Southwest disturbed the balance of the
country, caused discontent in New England,
and developed a spirit of secession. A con-
nection is traced between some of the re-
sults of the purchase and the British block-
ade acts and our embargo laws. A great
impetus was given to the movement of
population westward. Miranda's scheme
for overthrowing Spanish power in South
America and Burr's conspiracy were fed by
it. The Texan revolution followed in due
time, leading to the consequences of an-
nexation, the Mexican War, and the acqui-
sition of California. From this came a vast
accession of ■wealth, the beginning of the
era of large fortunes, and an entire change
in American ideas of life, with a vast in-
crease in the sweep and scope of American
policy. Parallel with the earlier stages of
these events was the taking shape of the
Monroe doctrine, involving, among its con-
sequences, the Clavton-Bulwer Treaty, the
nullification of the French schemes against
Mexico, and the unsolved problems of the
future respecting interoceanic transporta-
tion over the Isthmus. Other consequences
which have resulted or are emerging, made
possible by the acquisition of Louisiana, are
hinted at, but not considered in detail; but
enough is brought forward to show that the
theme is one on which much might be written.

A History of German Literature. By

W. ScHERER. Translated by Mrs. F. C.

Conybcare, and edited by F. Max Miiller.

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

Two volumes. Pp. 401 and 425. Price,

83.50.

The author of this important history is
recognized as an accomplished philologist
and a competent literary critic, and as pos-
sessing at the same time the gift of attract-
ive popular exposition, thus having the
three most desiraJjle qualities for his under-
taking. The period embraced in its review
begins with the earliest writings, and ex-
tends to the death of Goethe. The first
chapter traces the roots of German nation-
ality back to the period preceding the Aryan
separation, and presents a picture of its
intellectual condition at the time it became
known to the Romans. The second chapter
treats of the rise and development of the
German hero-legends in the epoch of the

migrations, and during the Merovingian
period ; the third chapter of the Mediajval
Renaissance, the so-called Old High-German
period of the Carlovingians and the Ottos.
The succeeding four chapters arc devoted
to the classical period of the Middle High-
German lyric and epic poetry, extending
from about the eleventh to the middle of
the fourteenth century. The next two chap-
ters include the next three centuries, the
period of transition from Middle High-Ger-
man to New High-German, to which Luther's
translation of the Bible belongs. The re-
maining four chapters are devoted to the
period in which we live, beginning with the
close of the Thirty Years' war, and give
especial attention to the development of
lyric and epic poetry, from Paul Gerhard to
Goethe. The whole is supplemented by a
full chronological table of authors and lit-
erary works and events, a bibliographical
appendix, and an excellent index.

Men, "Women, and Gods, and other Lect-
ures. By Helen H. Gardener. With
an Introduction by Colonel R. G. Inger-
SOLL. New York : The Truth-Seeker
Company, Pp. 158.

Besides a characteristic introduction by
Colonel Ingersoll, this book contains three
lectures. The first gives the title to the
volume ; the second is on " Vicarious
Atonement " ; the third is on " Historical
Facts and Theological Fictions." The au-
thor speaks from the point of one who re-
gards the teachings of the Bible and the
doctrines and practices of the Church re-
garding women as all wrong, and as lying
at the bottom of all the disabilities which
she believes woman has suffered in Chris-
tian lands. The third lecture embodies re-
plies to certain specific claims that have
been made that the Church h:is contributed
to the elevation of woman's life and status.

MEcnANios AND Faith. A Study of Spirit-
ual Truth in Nature. By Charles Tal-
bot Porter. New York: G. P. Put-
nam's Sons. Pp. 295. Price, $1.50.

The author, as the basis of his theory,
regards matter to be force, manifested in
endless diversity of application to our na-
ture and wants. "Force, truth, beauty, and
love," he say-s, " are the four spiritual reali-
ties which in their unity interpenetrate, if

LITERARY NOTICES.

853

indeed tbey do not constitute, all material
forms of being. These spiritual realities
are revealed directly to the spirit of man,
while the forms within which they are
contained arc made known to him through
his physical organs of perception." It is
through the recognition of these and corre-
lated truths " that the mind becomes able
to perceive the harmony that exists between
reason and faith." The author has endeav-
ored to reach these truths and to show this
harmony by the aid, primarily, of mechani-
cal science and the analogies which it af-
fords.

FoDRTH Annual Report of the United
States Geological Sprvey. 1882-'83.
By J. W. FowELL, Director. Washing-
ton: Government Printing-Office. Pp.
473, with Plates.

The operations of the survey have been
extended over the eastern part of the United
States, under the authority of a provision
in the appropriation act of 1882-'83, re-
quiring it to make a geological map of the
United States. The general map is to be
made on a scale of 2 sikTooi or four miles to
the square inch. Besides the general re-
port of the progress of the work of the
survey and the administrative reports of
the heads of divisions (embracing geologic,
paleontologic, and chemic work), the pres-
ent volume contains papers on " Hawaiian
Volcanoes," by Clarence Edward Button ;
" The Mining Geology of the Eureka Dis-
trict, Nevada," by J. S. Curtis ; " Popular
Fallacies regarding the Precious Metal Ore
Deposits," by Albert Williams, Jr. ; " The
Fossil OstreidcB of North America," by Dr.
Charles A. White ; and " A Geological
Reconnaissance in Southern Oregon," by
Israel C. Russell.

SoCTAL Wealth. The Sole Factors and
Exact Ratios in its Acquirement and
Apportionment. By J. K. Ingalls.
New York : The Truth-Seeker Company.
Pp. 320. Price, §1.
The professed purpose of this book is
to direct inquiry to questions intimately
related to all human life and employment.
The author assumes that "we are living
under a system of capitalistic aggrandize-
ment or commercial raonarchism," and that
" our political savants offer us nothing but
what is most delusive and contradictory,

while servilely bowing to the demands of a
dominant plutocracy." On the other hand,
we have the ideas of the European radicals
etc., " with suggestions of revolution and of
measures of reform ranging from anarch-
ism to the control of social industry by the
state." He thinks there must be some
natural relation between the worker and the
soil, some principle of law which will give
an equitable share of the products of indus-
try to each who shares the labor, and a just
principle of agreement and consent in re-
gard to such production and division; and
endeavors to discover these principles.

Mineral Resources of the United States,
Calendar Years 1S83 and 1884. By
Albert Williams, Jr. Washington:
Government Printing-OfBce. Pp. 1016.
Price, 60 cents.

This volume is the second of the series.
While it bears the same title, with the ex-
ception of the date, as the former volume
which covered the calendar year 1882, it
is not a reprint, or second edition of that
report. The tables of production are re-
given ; but it has been the endeavor to avoid
as far as possible a reproduction of the de-
scriptive matter. While some of the main
topics discussed in the former volume, con-
cerning which nothing new has been brought
out, are omitted, other subjects, which were
not adequately discussed before, are now
dealt with at considerable length. A con-
siderable number of the articles appear as
special contributions, with the authors'
names attached.

The Greek Islands and Turkey after the
War. By Henry M. Field, D. D. New
York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Pp.
228. Price, $1.50.

The region of which this book gives the
author's views of travel is not only one of
the finest of the earth in its scenery, but is
also predominantly rich in associations of
profane and sacred history and literature
and art, which are regarded by the majority
of reading people with the warmest inter-
est. It is also becoming the scene of stir-
ring movements of progress and political
reconstruction, and thereby a center of great
contemporary interest. In describing it as
a whole and in its different parts, Dr.
Field has an eye to all these points of inter-

854

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

est, and gives to each its due place. The
book contains chapters on the Island of
Cyprus ; the shores of Asia Minor ; the
Archipelago ; Smyrna ; Mitylene and Troy ;
Constantinople and the American missions
and schools ; and the affairs and prosjjccts
of Turkey and the new states, with histories
of the recent events tliat have led up to
independence or autonomy of the latter.

Wonderful Escapes. From the French
of F. Bernard, with Original Chapters
added by Richard Whiting. New
York : Charles Scribner's Sons. Pp.
306, with full-page Illustrations. Price,

This is a volume of the " Illustrated
Library of Wonders," of which the pub-
lishers are issuing a new and cheap edition.
It relates, each story being complete in
itself, a number of the most marvelous
escapes of persons from extreme danger, of
which history is full, beginning with the
story of Aristomenes the Messenian, 684 n.
c, as related by Pausanias, and closing with
the escapes of Louis Napoleon from Uam,
and James Stephens, the Fenian, from
Richmond Prison. In it we find the narra-
tive of the delivery of the twelve priests by
Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire.

The Spartan and Theban Scpp-emaciks.
By Charles Sankey. Pp. 231, with
Maps. The Early Hanoverians. By
Edward E. Morris. Pp. 235, with
Maps and Plans. New York : Charles
Scribner's Sons. Price, $1 each.

These volumes belong to the series of
" Epochs of History," a series the purpose
of which is to select and present in a sepa-
rate volume, complete in itself, a group of
events of such importance as to entitle it to
be regarded as an epoch. In the selection
of authors for the several volumes, regard
has been had to the special qualifications of
the writer for the portrayal of the particu-
lar period assigned to him. The former
volume embraces that period — while the
history of Greece was still substantially the
history of the world — when Athens had
failed to weld her discordant neighbor cities
into something like national unity, and the
experiment was about to be taken up by
the ruder states of Sparta and Thebes in
succession, to end in a common downfall
under the heels of the Macedonian con-

queror. Greece had still great men — the sol-
diers of Sparta and Thebes, and Socrates —
but her time of usefulness was substan-
tially over. This volume shows the prog-
ress and the speed of the decline.

The second volume is a logical continua-
tion of the same author's " Age of Anne,"
and relates to a period which was lively in
British politics, and was not without brill-
iant deeds in the wars of other countries.
While the name of the epoch is taken
from English history, some of the subjects —
the Turkish wars, the War of the Polish
Succession, Anson's voyage, and many minor
matters — are not usually treated in our
school-histories. One of the most accept-
able features consists in the literary biog-
raphies, among the subjects of which are
Lcilinitz, Newton, the poets and novelists
of the period, Dr. Johnson, Rousseau, and
Voltaire. Biographies of the political char-
acters are also given, and the account of the
rising known as " the 'Forty-five " has been
made very full.

Bulletins of the United States Geologi-
cal Survey. Nos. 7 to 14, constituting
Vol. II. Washington : Government Print-
ing Office. Pp. 830, with Plates.

No. 7 is a catalogue of geological maps
of America, North and South, from 1752 to
1881, containing 924 titles arranged in geo-
graphical and chronological order, by Jules
Marcou and John Belknap Marcou ; No. 8
is a paper " On Secondary Enlargements of
Mineral Fragments in Certain Rocks," by R.
D. Irving and C. R. Van Ilise, in which
something like a crystalline growth of min-
erals is indicated ; No. 9 is " A Report of
Work done in the Washington Laboratory
during the Fiscal Year 1883, 1884," by F. W.
Clarke and T. M. Chatard ; No. 10 is " On the
Cambrian Faunas of North America," re-
lating particularly to the St. John forma-
tion. New Brunswick, and the Braintree
Argillites, by C. D. Walcott ; No. 11 is " On
the Quaternary and Recent Mollusea of the
Great Basin, with Descriptions of New
Forms," by R. Ellsworth Call and C. K.
Gilbert ; No. 12 is "a Crystallographic
Study of the Thinolite of Lake Lahontan,"
by Edward S. Dana; No. 13 is a sketch of
the boimdaries of the L'nited States and of
the several States and Territories, with au

LITERARY NOTICES.

855

historical account of the territorial changes,
by Ueury (iannctt ; and No. 14 is a paper
on the " Physical Characteristics of the
Iron-carburets," etc., by Carl Barus and
Vincent Stronhal. Except wliere special
provision has been made, the United States
Geological Survey has no copies of its pub-
lications for gratuitous distribution ; but
copies of most of its works are on sale at
fair prices, the moneys resulting from which
are, in accordance with an act of Congress,
covered into the Treasury of the United
States.

PUBLICATIONS KECEITED.

A New Logical Machine. By Allan Marquand,
Ph. D., Princeton, N. J. Pp. 5, with 1 late.

International Cop^Tight. By an American.
London : Ballantyne, Hanson & Co. Pp. 30.

Did Eeis invent a 8peakin!f Telephone? Opin-
ons of S :ientific Men. Pp. IS. On Telephone Sy.-;-
tenis. By Professor Amos E. Dolbear, Tufts Col-
lege, Mass. Pp. '2S.

Bulletin of the Buffalo Society of Natural Sci-
ences, \V. C. Barrett, M. D., Corresponding !?ecre-
tary. Vol. V, No. 1. Pp. 40.

The Study of the Nahuatl Language. Pp. 7.
Notes on the Mangue (extinct Itinguage). Pp. 22.
By Daniel G. Brinton, M. D., Philadelphia.

Notes on the t lora of Eastern Tirginia. By Les-
ter F. Ward. Pp. 7.

Convention of the Provincial Educational Asso-
ciation of Nova Scotia. Minutes. A. McKay, llaU-
fax. Secretary. Pp. 70.

The Scholar's Portfolio. Monthly. J. F. Sharp,
Editor and Proprietor, Williamsport, Pa. Pp. 6.
$1 a year.

Silver and Gold (Papers on Bimetallism). By
F. J. Scott, Toledo, O. Pp. 2S.

Bulletin of the Chemical Society of "Washington.
No. 1. A. C. Peale, Secretary. Pp. 28.

Veterinary Bulletin, Agricultural College of
Michigan. Pp. 4.

A Few Suggestions for the Prevention of Fires.
New York : Home Insurance Company. Pp. b.

The Selborne Society for the Preservation of
Birds. Plants, and Pleasant Places. London : G. A.
Musgrave. Pp. II.

Patriotism and National Defense. By Charles
H. Hall, D. D. New York: Society for Poliucal
Education. Pp. 43. 2.5 cents.

Modern Armor for National Defense. By Will-
iam H. .Jaques, U. S. ISavy. New Y'ork : G. P.
Putnam's Sons. Pp. 41. 5it cents.

The Post-mortem Imbibition of Poisons. By
George B.Miller, M.D. Pp. S. The Exhalation
of Ozone bv Odorous Plants. By Drs. J M. An-
ders and G." B. M. MiUer. Pp. 8.

Kiver and Harbor Improvement Convention at
Tusc.iloosa, Ala.. November 17, 1S?5. Proceedings.
W. C. Jemison, Tuscaloosa. Pp. CS.

The Lepers of Molokai. By Charles Warren
Stoddard. Notre Dame, Ind.: " Ave Maria " Press.
Pp. 80. 10 cents.

Letters from a Chimney Corner. Chicago : Fer-
gus Printing Company. Pp. .50.

Education in Japan. Washington : Bureau of
EduKition. Pp. 56.

A Theorem of Maximum Dissipati^ity ; end A
New Law of Thermo-C'uemistry. By George F.
Becker. Pp. 11.

Report of the Connecticut Agricultural Experi-
ment Station for lSS5. New Haven. Pp. 1311.

Precious Stones. By George F. Kunz. Wash-
ington : Government Printing-Office. Pp. CO.

Bement Collection of Minerals, from Notes by
Professor Gerhard von Kath. By George F. Kunz.
New York. ]'p. 11.

lieport of the International Electrical Exhibition
on Steam-Engincs. Pp. 27, with I'lates.

Iteport of the Pathological Dei)artment of Nor-
ristown Hospital for the Insane, Pennsylvania.
1 p. 30. '

Report of New York State Reformatory, EI-
mira. Pp. 46, with Plates.

On the Movement-Cure in China. By D. J.
MacGowan, M. D. Pp. 12.

Report of New York Agricultural Experiment
Station. Pp. 343.

Bulletin of the United States Geological Survey.
Nos. 15 to 23, constituting Yol. III. Washington:
Government Printing-Office. Pp. 4'J7.

Evolution : A Scotch Yerdict. Bv Charles F.
Deems, LL. D. New Y'ork : John W. Lovell Com-
pany. Pp. 108. 20 cents.

Easy Lessons in Sanitary Science. By .Joseph
Wilson, M. D. Philadelphia : P. Blakiston, Son, &
Co. Pp. 74. $1.

Our Own Set, a Novel. By Ossip Schubin.
New York: William S. Gottsberger. Pp. 2s0.

Food Materials and their Adulterations. By
Ellen H. Richards. Boston : Estes & Lauriat. Pp.
183. ^

The Chaldean M.',gician. By Ernst Eckstein.
New York : WilUam S. Gottsberger. Pp. 112.

Ilobbes. By George Croom Robertson. Edin-
burgh and London : William Blackwood & Sons.
Pp. 240.

Hospital Sisters and their Duties. By Eva C.
E. Luckes. Philadelphia: P. Blakiston, Son. & Co.
Pp. 104. $1.

Romish Teachings in the Protestant Churches.
New York : N. Tibbals & Sons. Pp. 100. yj cents.

The School- Room Chorus. Compiled by E. V.
De Graff. 7(ith edition. Syracuse, N. Y.: C. W.
Bardeen. Pp. 147. 35 cents.

The Adirondacks as a Health Resort. Edited
by Joseph W. Stickler. New York: G. P. Put-
nam's Sons. Pp. 19S. $1.

The Life and Genius of Goethe. Edited by P.
B. Sanborn. Boston : Ticknor & Co. Pp. 454.

Evolution versus Involution. By Arze Z. Rred.
New Y'ork : James Pott & Co. Pp 275. $2.50.

What Does History Teach? By John Stuart
Bl.ickie. New York : Charles Scribtier's Sons. Pp.
123. 75 cents.

Where are We, and whither Tending? By the
Rev. .M. Harvey. Boston : Doyle & Whittle. ' Pp.
134 75 cents.

Poetry as a Representative Art. Bv George
Lansing Ravmond. New York: G. P. Putnam's
Sons. Pp.346. $1.75.

An Apache Campaign in the Sierra Madre. By
John G. Bourke. New York: Charles Scribner's
Sons. Pp. 112. $1.

The Butterflies of the Ea.stern Tnited States.
By G. H. French. Philadelphia : J. B. Lippincott
Co. Pp. 402. $2.

A Text-Book of Inorganic Chemistry. By Pro-
fessor Yictor von Richter. Translated by Edgar F.
Smith. Philadelphia : P. Blakiston, Son,' A: Co. Pd.
482. $2. . . F

Report of the Commi.«sioner of Education, 1SS.3-
84. Washington : Government Printing - Office.
Pp. 943.

Cassell's Nation.il Librarv. No. 1. My Ten
Years' Imprisonment. Bv Sifvio Pellico. Pp. 2ii .
No. 2, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. By Lord By-
ron. Pp. 192. No. 3, Autobiography of Benjamin

856

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Franklin. Pp. 192. No. 4. The Complete Anpler.
By Izaak Walton. Pp. VH. No. 5, Tlie Mun of
Feeling. By Henry Maekenzie. Pp. 191. New
York : Cassl'll As Co. 10 cents each.

Three Years of .:\jctic Service. By Adolphus
W. Greely. New York : Charles Scribner's Sons.
2 vols. Pp. 428 and 444, with Maps and Plates.
Sold by subscription.

The Fisheries and Fi.shery Industries of the
United States. By Georso Brown Goode. Wa.sh-
in<jton : Government I'rinting-Ollicu. 'i vols. Pp.
XX and 895, with 277 Plates.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

The Study of American Lani^nagies. —

Dr. D. G. Brinton has published an addrc-ss,
which he recently delivered before the Penn-
sylvania Historical Society, on the impor-
tance of studying American languages. Re-
ferring to the prominent place which is given
to language in the study of ethnology, he
shows that its study is particularly essential
in the ethnology of America, for " language
is almost our only clew to discover the
kinship of those countless scattered hordes
who roamed the forests of this broad con-
tinent." Through the aid of this study
alone, Dr. Erinton says, we have already
reached the positive knowledge that most
of the area of South America, including the
whole of the West Indies, was occupied by
three great families of nations, not one of
which had formed any important settlement
on the northern continent. By similar evi-
dence we know that the tribe which greeted
Bonn when he landed on the site of Phila-
dcli)hia was a member of one vast family —
the Algonquin stock — whose various clans
extended from Carolina to Labrador, and
from the easternmost cape of Newfound-
land to the peaks of the Rocky Mountains,
over 20° of latitude and 50° of longitude.
We also know that the general trend of
migration in the northern continent has
been from north to south, and that this is
true of the more nearly civilized as well as
of the more savage tribes. But such exter-
nal information is only a part of what these
languages are capable of disclosing, for
when rightly used they may reveal the inner
life of the aborigine and the origin of his
customs, laws, superstitions, and religions.
Yet the number of those who are giving at-
tention to the study of them is small. In
Germany there are Von Tschudi, who has
published a volume on the"Qquichua of
Peru"; Dr. Stoll, who makes a specialty of

the languages of Guatemala; Mr. Julius
Platzmann; and Professor Friedrich Miil-
ler ; in France, the Count de Charency, M.
Lucien Adam, and a few other students ;
while Maisonncuve has published a com-
mendable series of American grammars.
In the United States we have the investiga-
tions of the Bureau of Ethnology ; Dr. John
Gilmary Shea, who began a " Library of
American Linguistics " ; Mr. Horatio Hale ;
Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull; Dr. Washing-
ton Matthews ; the Abb6 Cuoq, and others ;
all of whom have worked without reward
or the hope of reward, without external
stimulus, and almost without recognition.
Dr. Brinton thinks that some of our col-
leges, learned societies, or patrons of sci-
ence should offer inducements for this study,
and asks the pertinent question, "Shall
we have fellowships and professorships in
abundance for the teaching of the dead lan-
guages and dead religions of another hemi-
sphere, and not one for instruction in those
tongues of our own land which live in a
thousand proper names around us, whose
words we repeat daily, and whose structure
is as important to the philosophic study of
speech as any of the dialects of Greece or
India ? "

The Southern Limits of Glacial Action.

— Since Mr. H. Carvill Lewis described
his tracing of the terminal glacial moraine
across Pennsylvania, attention has been
called by different observers to what ap-
peared to them local evidences of glacial
action in the region south of the line fixed
by him. Eleven such spots have been par-
ticularly mentioned, one of which is as
far south as West Philadelphia. Mr. Lewis
has made personal examinations of all
these places for the purpose of ascertain-
ing whether the supposed evidences were
real, and states, in the paper which he has
published on the subject, as the result of
his investigations, that he has found no rea-
son to change his definition of the terminal
line. In every instance he has found posi-
tive evidence of glacial action wanting, and
that the marks relied upon bytho.se who
have supposed such action, in support of
their views, can be amply accounted for as
effects of water, or of atmospheric or other
agencies than that of glacial ice. The

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

H7

gravel deposit at West Philadelphia, which
Mr. C. E. Hall has regarded as a glacial
moraine, " is identical with that whicli oc-
curs all along the Delaware from Trenton
to Wilmington." Even at the Wind Gap,
only a short distance south of his moraine
line, Mr. Lewis did not see a single scratched
or transported bowlder, nor any striai or
other signs of glaciation, although these
were abundant three miles away, where
they suddenly stopped

Bacteria and Snrgical Lesions. — The

positive demonstration of the important
factorage of bacterial growths in surgical
lesions, says Dr. H. 0. Marcy, of Boston,
in an address before a section of the Amer-
ican Medical Association, would seem no
longer wanting. Its recognition in the evo-
lution of the systems of modern wound-
treatment is apparent, yet Dr. Marcy is
ready to admit that "many questions of
great magnitude remain unsettled, that many
subjects connected therewith are shrouded
in doubt and obscurity, and that many fields
of great promise remain yet for explora-
tion. While this may temper our zeal, and
cause us to examine with double caution
our premises and conclusions, it can not the
less stimulate every thoughtful student to
better endeavor and renewed effort." The
too commonly held ideas of antiseptic sur-
gery, as consisting of carbolic acid applied
as spray, or in dressing, are believed to be
" not only superficial and misleading, but
distinctly incorrect and injurious." Such
imperfect knowledge of any scientific truths
must have its fruitage only in evil, leading
to a distrust in methods, at the best only
half understood, and the results obtained,
where protection in wounds has not been
secured, are falsely reported in proof that
antiseptic surgery is only the fashion of the
hour."

Depth of Frozen Arctic Soil.— General
Sir J. H. Lefroy communicated to the Brit-
ish Association at its last meeting the re-
sults, so far, of researches to ascertain the
depth of the permanently frozen soil in the
Arctic regions of Siberia and British North
America. The depth of the "perpetual
ground-ice," as it is called, has been found
to be, near Yakutsk, Siberia, three hundred

and eighty-two feet. But few actual meas-
urements have been recorded in North
America, for the people who possess a per-
petually frozen soil do not like to speak of
it, for fear that it may be regarded as a stig-
ma against their climate. The greatest
thickness of " ground - ice " yet actually
measured in America is forty-five feet, a3
measured by Sir John Riciiardson in lati-
tude 64° 20' and longitude 121° 15' west.
There is good reason to believe, however,
that within the Arctic Circle in America a
thickness of ground-ice is attained much ex-
ceeding that at Yakutsk. Lieutenant P. II.
Ray, U. S. A., sank a pit near Point Bar-
row, in 1883, to a depth of thirty-eight feet.
At twenty-eight feet from the surface the
temperature of the soil was 12° Fahr. ; and
it was the same at thirty-eight feet. Tak-
ing the unit of increase of temperature per
unit of depth under-ground as 1° Fahr. for
sixty-four feet. Lieutenant Ray provisional-
ly computed the total thickness of the ice at
about thirteen hundred, feet. The depth to
which the summer thaw reaches and its rate
of progress are more variable, for they are
more dependent on the season and the ex-
posure than the depth of tlie frozen soil.
They must greatly influence the agricultural
capabilities of the place. In some respects
the existence of a frozen stratum under-
ground may be regarded as rather an ad-
vantage than otherwise. The cooling of the
surface soil which it effects appears to be a
provision to counteract the intense heating
power of the sun in the summer months,
and to secure a supply of moisture to the
roots of cereals when they most require it ;
so much so that General Lefroy believes
that agricultural experience in the North-
west would be in favor of retaining it, even
if it were possible to get rid of it.

The Travels of a Storm. — At the meet-
ing of the Royal Meteorological Society
held November 18th, Mr. Henry Harries
read a paper on " The Typhoon Origin of the
Weather over the British Isles during the
Second Half of October, 1885," which em-
bodied the first daily tracing which has been
made of a storm from the Pacific Ocean to
Europe. The author showed by means of
daily charts that a typhoon which originated
near the Philippine Islands on September

858

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

27tb passed over Japan and the Aleutian
Archipelago, and entered the United States
October luth. Crossing the Rocky Mountain
range, it proceeded through the Northern
States and Canada to Labrador and Davis
Strait. In the Atlantic it was joined on the
1 Sth by another disturbance which had come
up from the Atlantic tropics, the junction
of the two being followed by a cessation of
progressive movement from the lOth to the
25th. During this period a severe gale
which passed along the southern counties
of England on the morning of the 24th — a
storm the forecasting of which was shown
to be impossible — was formed. Following
in the wake of this storm the parent cyclone
reached the French coast on the 27th, its
advent being marked by violent gales and
extensive floods over the whole of Western
and Central Europe and Algeria. Passing
through France and the Netherlands, the
disturbance showed signs of exhaustion, and
on November 1st, in the Baltic, it quietly
dispersed, after accomplishing a journey of
more than sixteen thousand miles in thirty-
six days.

Principles of Holiday Rest. — Writing
about "The Misuse of Holidays," Dr. An-
drew Wilson remarks that there is a w-iso
method of spending our leisure time, as
there is a foolish and body-wearing fashion
of dealing with it. Rest, in the holiday
sense, does not mean absolute inertness,
but repose of the faculties, powers, and en-
ergies which are ordinarily exerted in our
daily associations. It includes and makes
allowance for the bringing into play of
fresh muscles, new thoughts, and novel ex-
periences of men, cities, sports, and sur-
roundings at large. To the bringing into
play of these new faculties, little used in
our usual employments, is added the stimu-
lus of the pure air and fresh scenery among
which they are exerted. Hence we under-
stand that holiday rest implies healthy ac-
tivity of powers which, but for the oppor-
tunity it affords, would be apt to lie dor-
mant and unused. In this view of the ob-
ject of rest it would be a thorough mistake
for a busy man not an invalid to bury him-
self in some dull resort where he will sim-
ply languish, without the slightest spark of
interest being evoked by his surroundings.

Equally erroneous is the ordinary hurried
" tour," in which we go with a rush from
place to place, gulping down novelties as
we would bolt a ten-minute railroad-station
dinner, without giving ourselves time ade-
quately to digest anything and really enjoy
it. Young people are apt to abuse their
holidays by over-exerling themselves at
some particular sport or exercise. " It is
difficult to overdo exercise in the case of
young and healthy peojjle, but the walking
tour may nevertheless be overdone, the cy-
cling excursion may be of too extended a
nature, and the yachting or boating may be
fraught with just a little too much exposure
to wind and weather." It is important that
the place chosen for spending the holiday
be suitable to personal wants and constitu-
tion. On these subjects every one has his
own taste and his physical and psychical
idiosyncrasies, and they should be regarded.

Symbolism of Arcbitectnral Ornament
and Daneing-Girls. — M. Edmond Fuchs haa
remarked a connection between the pecul-
iarities in the ornamentation of the ancient
Cambodian architecture and the mythology
of the builders. While the Egyptians and
Greeks looked for their types of beauty in
geometrical relations and numeiical harmo-
nies, the Indians sought them in the repio-
duction of living forms. In a balustrade
they would represent a serpent stretching
itself along perhaps hundreds of yards, with
a row of broad-shouldered giants standing
at intervals to support it. The form of the
same serpent may be found carved on the
pediment, its head jutting out at repeated
intervals to mark the cornice. The walls of
the monuments are covered with bas-reliefs
representing theocratic svinbols and inci-
dents in the national history ; and they are
often pregnant with religious admonitions
in the shape of representations of the pun-
ishments of hell. In the sacred inclosure
of the Angkhor Wat, the Kmer sculptor
has employed all his skill in depicting the
refinements of the tortures to which guilty
souls are condemned. A symbol occurring
profusely, and which was imposed on the
artists by the essential conditions of Ori-
ental life, is that of the dancing-girl, a kind
of hieratic character in Indo-China, whose
function it was to perpetuate and interpret

P OP ULAR MIS CELL ANY.

859

by her poses and mimicry the symbols and
sacred legends of the ancient literature, the
original myths which, having undergone a
series of transformations, have gained a
foothold in the popular conception and be-
come fairy stories. The myths, the primi-
tive forms of which are fixed by the dancing-
girls in the Angkhor bas-reliefs, are the
same as are represented in legendary form
in the royal festivals, and as may be wit-
nessed by any visitor at the palace of King
Norodom I of Cambodia. While a choir of
women chant the legends from the ancient
sacred poems, other actors silently feign, in
postures religiously prescribed by tradition,
the emotions they are supposed to feel and
the different phases of the drama repre-
sented. Thus, they interpret, by the same
attitudes as were engraved upon the stone
two thousand years ago, the myths and
primitive beliefs that were vital in the imagi-
nation of the Aryans when they first entered
the peninsula.

Effects of Cold on Microbes.— Mr. J. J.

Coleman and Professor J. G. McKendrick
have been making experiments on the effects
of cold upon microphytes. With a mechan-
ical freezer they produced a cold of 80° be-
low zero, and lower, to which they exposed
putrescible substances for various lengths
of time ; then the same substances were ex-
posed to the conditions of temperature, etc.,
under which putrefaction is developed, and
the results were observed. The experiments
■were made with meats, fresh and canned,
wine, milk, beer, ale, meat-juice, neutral-
ized vegetable infusions, putrefying fluids,
gelatinous infusions of meat with grape-su-
gar, etc., in exposure to cold of from 80" to
120° below zero, for from a few hours to a
hundred hours or more. The results were
in every case substantially the same. The
putrefactive process was checked and made
slower for a time, but in no case were the mi-
cro-organisms so thoroughly destroyed but
that putrefaction set in again after a greater
or less length of exposure to a temperature
favorable to it. The conclusion of the ex-
perimenters was that the degree of cold they
employed may perhaps be competent to de-
stroy living, developed organisms, but not
to kill the germs. A cold-blooded animal
— a frog — was frozen solid bv a half-hour's

exposure to a temperature of from —20° to
—30', but recovered on being thawed out,
while after twenty minutes' exposure to
— 100° it failed to recover. A warm-blooded
animal — a rabbit — was not frozen by an
hour's exposure to —100°, but its bodily tem-
perature became reduced from 99° to 43°.

Democracy In the Bigh-Scbool. — In a

report on city schools, the late Mr. John D.
Philbrick accounts for the rapid growth of
public sentiment in favor of the high-school,
which has not been confined to any one sec-
tion of the country, by observing that these
schools naturally find favor in a democratic
community, because they are the most truly
democratic of all our institutions. "Noth-
ing is more common than to see pupils, rep-
resenting the extremes in the social scale,
sitting side by side in the high-school class-
es. I have seen the son of the cultured and
wealthy merchant and the son of a very
poor immigrant going together from the
same class in the grammar-school to the
same class in the high-school, the former
spending his pocket-money to buy the requi-
site outfit of clothes and books for the lat-
ter. I have seen young ladies coming from
families of the first rank, not only in re-
spect to culture and wealth, but also in re-
spect to ancestral pretensions, passing the
three-years course in the girls' high-school
side by side with the daughter of the laborer
and the washer-woman. In a suburban town
I have seen the daughter of a wealthy manu-
facturer procuring by subscription the funds
to enable a classmate, the worthy son of a
poor Irish farmer, to obtain the clothing
needful to make it practicable for him to
perform the part assigned him on graduat-
ing-day. At this same school on graduating-
day I have heard the salutatory address by
the daughter of an English immigrant la-
borer, who can neither read nor write, and
the valedictory by the daughter of the
wealthiest capitalist in town, while the most
meritorious performance on the occasion
was by a sister of the young man referred
to. This young man, it may be added, who
has been during the five or six years since
his graduation most industriously at work
on his father's little farm, is an ardent
friend of the high-school, and he regards
the ' idea that education unfits a man for

86o

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

manual labor as simply nonsensical.' The
next neighbor to this 30ung man's father is
a man of the same nationality and in simi-
lar circumstances, who showed me with no
little pride two silver medals which a son
and a daughter, now working together in the
same shoe-factory, obtained at the high-
school. ' But,' said I, ' I have just been
reading the writing of a man of learning
and influence condemning the free high-
school, and arguing that it should be abol-
ished.' 'That man,' he replied, 'I consider
an enemy to his country.' "

Two Xew Zealand Monntalns. — Mr. J. II.

Kerry Nicholls, while exploring the " King
Country " of Xcw Zealand, succeeded in as-
cending the tabooed volcano of Tongariso,
which the Maoris consider it sacrilege to
approach. The cluster of cones that marks
it forms collectively an almost complete cir-
cle, rising from a level plateau about 3,000
feet above the sea ; while the burning mount-
ain itself, of wonderfully symmetrical pro-
portions, rises from the bottom of an ex-
tensive basin-like depression in the very
center of this great circle of cones and ex-
tinct craters. At 7,000 feet above the sea
the traveler was able to look over the hot,
quaking edge of the crater, which is circu-
lar, nearly a mile in circumference, and 400
feet deep. Within it was a smaller or inner
crater, funnel-shaped, and separated from
the larger one only by a narrow slip or ridge.
At the bottom of the crater were scattered
about huge rocky ridges, from the large
fissures of which jets of steam burst forth
with a roaring, screeching noise that echoed
from the depths below with a wailing sound.
" Hot springs sent up streams of boiling
water, which, running over the rocks and
losing themselves in the hot soil, were sent
high into the air again in the form of coil-
ing jets of vapor. Miniature cones of
dark, smoking mud rose up in every direc-
tion, while around all was a seething fused
mass of almost molten soil. In every di-
rection were large deposits of pure yellow
sulphur, some of which assumed a rock-like
formation. At other places it formed a
crust over the steaming earth, and when
the thermal action was less intense the glit-
tering yellow crystals covered the ground
like a thick frost." From the top of the

neighboring great mountain of Ruapehu,
9,250 feet above the sea, "a glorious sight
burst upon the view. Peak rose above
peak from the dazzling expanse of snow,
each towering mass of rock, tinted of a red-
dish hue, standing out clearly defined against
the light-blue sky. Immediately beneath
where we stood was a steep precipice which
fell perpendicularly for hundreds of feet
below, and beneath this again was an enor-
mous circle of jagged rocks marking the
outline of a gigantic crater, filled to its brim
with snow, which was furrowed into chasms
of great depth." i\djoining this great
mountain is the Onetapu Desert, or " desert
of sacred sand," forming one of the most
curious features of the region, which covers
a large area of country. " In summer it is
parched and dried, and gives life only to a
few stunted Alpine plants ; and, in the winter
months, when the snows cover it, it is both
difficult and dangerous to traverse. The
desert at the surface is composed entirely
of a deposit of scoria, with rounded stones
and trachytic bowlders above, while in some
places rise enormous lava-ridges. By its
formations it would appear as if Ruapehu,
when in a state of activity, had distributed
its shower of ashes and lava over this wide
region ; and it would also appear that, at
the period at which this extensive deposition
of scoria occurred, there must have been
growing upon this very spot an extensive
forest ; for as we rode over the dreary ex-
panse we found the remains of enormous
trees, which had been converted into char-
coal, as it were, at the time when the fiery
ashes swept over them."

Protectioa against Malaria. — We have
already noticed the discovery, by Profess-
ors Klebs and Tommasi-Crudelli, of the
bacterial germ of malaria in the soil of
the Roman Campagna. This discovery dis-
poses of the chemical theories of the ori-
gin of malaria, and redeems marshes from
the stigma of being its direct producers.
There are, in fact, marshes where there is
no malarial disease, and, on the other hand,
disease rages where there are no marshes.
The malarial germ, however, requires a cer-
tain degree of moisture for its development,
and, as the marshes afford it, when marsh
and bacteria arc brought together, there is

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

861

likely to bo ague. The ancient inhabitants
of the Campagna cleared it of disease by
draining it so dry that the bacteria could
not thrive in it. This is considered imprac-
ticable at present, and our Koman investi-
gators have turned their attention to the
best prophylactics against malarial poison.
The universal quinine is good, but there are
objections to its constant use, and arsenic,
cautiously administered, is suggested as
preferable. Professor Tommasi - Crudelli
recommends, as an alternative prophylactic,
decoction of lemon. The plantation of the
eucalyptus appears to have failed. Near
Rome, at the " Tre Fontane," where euca-
lyptus-trees have been grown with a special
view to settling the question of their virtue,
both the monks who inhabit the monastery
and the workmen whom they employ have
suffered as much as others. In one sum-
mer, when the Campagna was comparatively
free from malaria, the inhabitants and ser-
vants of the " Tre Fontane " suffered more
than the rest. Year before last. Professor
Tommasi-Crudelli advised the Italian Gov-
ernment to drain and cover with turf the
grounds of the Palazzo Salviati on the Lun-
gara, where the new military college has
been built. This was done. The result
was that no cases of malarial fever oc-
curred, while on the other side of the road
there were several that ended fatally.

Inertia of the Eye and the Brain. — In a

paper on the " Inertia of the Eye and the
Brain," Mr. James McKeen Cattell, of the
University of Leipsic, discusses, in view of
the results of experiments which he has
made, that part of the process of sensation
which concerns the time a light must work
on the retina in order that a sensation may
be excited. The time is to a considerable
extent dependent on the nature of the ob-
ject and the intensity of the light. It va-
ries with the several colors. Orange gives
the quickest impression, and yellow is hardly
behind it ; next come blue, red, and green ;
while the retina is least sensitive to violet
light, the time for which is from two to
three times as long as for orange. When
lamp-light is substituted for daylight, the
time required for perceiving the colors be-
comes longer, and the order is changed to
orange, red, yellow, violet, and blue. When

the intensity of colored light varies, the
time increases in arithmetical progression as
the intensity decreases in geometrical pro-
gression. Applied to the distinction of
words and letters, the experiments showed
that Roman letters are more quickly per-
ceived than German letters, and that the
time is slightly shorter for words than for
letters, but longer for long or rare words,
and for words in a foreign language. The
simplest geometrical forms of the letters
seem the easiest to see ; all ornaments on the
letters hinder ; and it is doubtful whether it
is advantageous to use the thin lines or two
varieties of letters in printing. Our punctua-
tion-marks are hard to see, and Mr. Cattell,
believing them to be useless, suggests that
they might be replaced by spaces between
the words proportionate to the importance
of the pause. Some of the letters, as S and
C, are hard to recognize in themselves ; oth-
ers, as 0, Q, G, and C, are liable to confu-
sion by their similarity of form ; while E is
" needlessly illegible." The order of dis-
tinctness for the small letters is d, k, m, g,
h, b, p, w, u, 1, j, t, v, z, r, o, f, n, a, x, y, e,
i, g, c, 8. The letters are slightly more
difBcult to grasp than the numbers, for
every combination of numbers makes a
number that gives " sense." Not as many
words as letters can be grasped at one time,
but three times as many letters, when they
make words, and twice as many words when
they make a sentence, as when they have
no connection. The sentence is taken up
as a whole ; if it is not grasped, hardly any
of the words are read ; if it is grasped, the
words appear very distinct ; and this is also
the case when the observer constructs an
imaginary sentence from the traces he has
taken up. The personal equations were
important factors in all the experiments,
but they did not materially affect the re-
sults as wholes.

The Problem of London Sewage.— Tlie
disposition of the sewage of London has
been made the subject of the report of a
royal commission, but still remains nearly
as dark as ever. The one point on which
all are agreed is that the present method of
turning the sewage and rainfall of the streets
into the river near the city is reprehensible
from every point of view, but it is almost

862

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

impossible to determine upon a method to
be substituted for it. The commission have
decided that the sewage had best be got rid
of at the smallest cost compatible with effi-
ciency. Tiie suspended solid matters are
the chief causes of nuisance : they may be
almost entirely removed, and the tendency
to the accumulation of deposits largely
lessened, by precipitation ; but the result
of discharging an effluent alkalized by lime
into the river at the present outfalls is
problematical. Precipitation alone would
not finally purify the river, but nuisances
would still occur in dry weather, and the
danger to fish and injury to wells would re-
main. The precipitation works themselves
might be carried on without sensible nui-
sance at a cost of $1,000,000, or a shilling a
head of the population per year, but practi-
cally a large part of the value of the sewage
for manure would be lost. From two to six
thousand acres of land would be required
for the further purification of the sewage by
being passed through it, after having been
clarified with lime. The conclusion of the
whole matter is, that while profit must not
be expected from the utilization of sew-
age, yet precipitation and utilization are
eminently fitted, when properly applied, to
produce a purified eSluent ; and therefore,
that, were certain conditions of population
and of sewage always observed, each dis-
trict could be made self-contained in re-
spect of its sewage, just as it can be in
respect of its cemetery. The condition as
to population is that the district be limited
in numbers and in the area occupied. The
conditions as to the sewage are, the extent
to which it can be separated from the rain-
fall, and the degree of freshness in which
it is received at the place where it is treated.

A Forinosan Slfftfh. — Mr. E. Colborae
Baker, in the Royal Geographical Society,
compared the shape of the Island of For-
mosa to that of a fish. If he likened it to
a whale, he said, although he must confess
it was not very like a whale, he might be
asked to account for the blow-holes of the
creature. Those blow-holes actually exist
in the north part of the island, in the shape
of sulphur pits and caverns, from which a
irreat stream of sulphurous vapor is con-
tinually spouting in many parts. Her Bri-

tannic Majesty's consul at Tamsui resided
within an easy morning's walk of an inac-
tive volcano. The summit was a cradle four
hundred yards in diameter, and ten miles off
was a spot which was very much favored
by the European inhabitants. There was a
river of hot water, and not many yards off
a cold waterfall. The river was fifteen yards
broad and five or six feet deep, while the cold
waterfall was fifty or sixty feet in height.
The surrounding tract was of course burned
ground, where no vegetation could exist ;
but a quarter of a mile away the flora was
luxuriant, and the best pineapples in For-
mosa, which arc the best in the world, were
cultivated on the very margin of Avernus.

Monntaln-Farming in Norway. — Farm-
ing in the mountain-regions of Norway is
carried on under difficulties that would dis-
courage an agriculturist bred on our prairies.
The steep hills and rocks leave no broad
spaces for fields, and the mountaineer, to
winter his stock, has to make hay out of
the grass that grows on the narrow ledges
and in the crevices. If he manages to get
a considerable crop off a hill, he will store
it in sheds till winter, when he will send
it down into the valley in bundles along a
strong wire which he has stretched from the
foot of the mountain to the top. To dry
the hay, poles are planted near the patches,
between which ropes or long sticks are laid
till a sort of six-barred railing is formed.
On these bars the hay is laid, and dried in
a most effective manner. Corn is tied in
small bundles and impaled on poles placed
at intervals in the field. The potato-crop is
farmed on a like small scale. The seeds
arc dropped here and there wherever there
is a possibility of their taking root. At one
place potatoes were noticed growing on a
bowlder, where a soil about eighteen inches
deep had gathered or been placed, the whole
field being a triangle the sides of which were
each about twelve feet in length. Small
patches from twenty feet to as many yards
square are common ; while not unf rcquently
the corn-fields are but a name, for they me-
ander like a stream in all directions among
the huge bowlders and bare rocky hillocks
which compose so great a part of the sur-
face of a farm-land. The lands arc usually
very light. Manuring is not resorted to as

NOTES,

863

a regular part of the routine. The fields
are left from time to time for three or four
years, by rotation, in grass. In the summer
months, female servants, or the daughters
of the farmer, tend the cattle high up in the
fjdd, living in scetcrs or cabins, where they
prepare cheese and butter. But this isola-
tion of the young women is sometimes at-
tended with serious moral disadvantages.

The Coral-Harvest. — The most produc-
tive coral-beds, which also yield the best
and handsomest corals, are on the Algerian
coast, and have been fished upon since the
middle of the sixteenth century. Other
beds are on the coasts of Sicily, Sardinia,
Corsica, Spain, the Balearic Islands, and
Provence. More than five hundred Italian
vessels, with 4,200 men, are engaged in the
coral-fishery, and- collect annually 56,000
kilogrammes of coral, the value of which is
calculated at 4,200,000 lire ($840,000). Be-
sides these, 22,000 kilogrammes, worth 150,-
000 lire ($30,000), are collected in French,
Spanish, and other boats, making the
whole annual product 78,000 kilogrammes,
and its value 5,750,000 lire ($1,150,000).
The taxes which the Government exacts for
the privilege of fishing on the African coast
amount to 1,160 lire a boat in the summer
and half as much in the winter, and this,
taking into consideration the toil and dan-
ger of the fishery, reduces the profits to a
quite modest rate. Estimating the gross
returns per boat at 8,000 lire, and the cost
at 6,033 lire, we have a net profit of 1,967
lire ($393.40). There are some sixty estab-
lishments in Italy where coral is worked up,
forty of which are in Torre del Greco, and
at which 9,200 hands, chiefly women and
children, are employed. The principal mar-
kets for the coral are Germany, England,
Russia, Austria, Hungary, and Poland ; and
considerable quantities are sent to Madras
and Calcutta.

Advantages of Low Ceilings. — Rooms
with low ceilings, or with ceilings even with
the window-tops, are more readily and com-
pletely ventilated than those with high ceil-
ings. The leakage of air which is always
going on keeps all parts of the air in motion
in such rooms, whereas if the ceiling is
higher, only the lower part of the air is

moved, and an inverted lake of foul and
hot air is left floating in the space above the
window-tops. To have the currents of fresh
air circulating only in the lower parts of the
room, while the upper portion of the air is
left unaffected, is really the worst way of
ventilating; for the stagnant atmospheric
lake under the ceiling, although motionless,
keeps actively at work under the law of the
diffusion of gases, fouling the fresh cur-
rents circulating beneath it. With low ceil-
ings and high windows no such accumula-
tion of air is possible ; for the whole height
of the room is swept by the currents as the
dust of the floor is swept with a broom.
Low ceilings have also the advantage of en-
abling the room to be warmed with less ex-
penditure of heat and less cost for fuel.

NOTES.

A MiJp; of mercury — consisting of the
sulphuret and chloride, with drops of metal-
lic mercury, in a gangue of quartz — which
appears to have been worked in ancient
times, has been rediscovered at Schuppias-
tena, near Belgrade, in Servia.

Additional interest will be given to the
coming meeting of the British Association
at Birmingham, to be opened September
1st, by the exhibition of local manufact-
ures which is to be held in connection with
it. Similar exhibitions have been held on
each of the three previous occasions when
the Association met in Birmingham, in 1838,
1849, and 1865 ; and it is said that all of
the international and other exhibitions which
have since been held had their origin and
prime model in the first of these ; and that
the Great International Exhibition of 1851
was suggested to Prince Albert by his visit
to Birmingham in 1849. The coming exhi-
bition will be more extensive and varied
than any of the previous ones.

M. E. Riviere has discovered a new sta-
tion or workshop of the neolithic age in the
wood of Clamart, near the gates of Paris.
He has recovered from it nearly nine hun-
dred flints (from nodules in chalk), cut or
broken by the hand, all of which lay on or
near the surface of the ground. Among
them are pieces of polished hatchets, scrap-
ers (some very handsome ones), blades,
points, and two or three little polishers.

Artificial lithographic stones are man-
ufactured in Frankfort by M. Rosenthal
from cement, whicli is put for the purpose
through a course of very careful manipula-
tions.

864

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The Art Schools of the Metropolitan
Museum are now established under the im-
mediate supervision of Mr. John Ward Stim-
8on, of the Paris School of Fine Arts, at 214
East Thirty-fourth Street. Eight courses in
the fine arts, decorative work, and mechan-
ical drawing are taught by as many in-
structors, at prices for tuition ranging from
§10 to $15 per term (October 5, 1885, to
May 1, 1886).

The Director of the Observatory of Har-
vard College, besides recording in his annual
report the progress of the regular work of
the observatory, describes the observations
of Professor W. M. Davis and Mr. A. Mc-
Adie on the height and velocity of clouds.
The observers, stationing themselves at dif-
ferent spots, and communicating by tele-
phone, undertook to make simultaneous azi-
muth observations upon identical points in
the clouds. About three hundred pairs of
measures were made in the spring of 1885,
with generally satisfactory results. The al-
titudes determined varied from 2,000 to
25,000 feet; for altitudes less than 8,000
feet the variation between the measures was
generally within five per cent of the height.
In one instance, cumulative observations of
a single cumulus-cloud showed its base to
be 4,500 feet high; its summit rose from
the height of 0,750 to that of 7,300 feet at
the rate of 200 feet a minute, while the
cloud drifted to south 43° east at the rate of
twenty-seven and a half miles an hour.

" BowLDKR Mosaics " is what Professor
J. E. To(h] calls certain figures formed by
piling bowlders which he has observed
on some ridges in Dakota. One is a gi-
gantic figure of a turtle about fifteen feet
long. Another specimen is a figure of a
snake, one hundred and twenty paces long,
composed like the former of bowlders from
four to six inches in diameter. " The eyes
are much more expressive than it would at
first seem possible to make them with such
material. They have literally a ' stony '
stare." Few similar figures have been seen
elsewhere than at these two spots, but two
cases are cited of structures showing geo-
metrical designs. Rude sketches of animals
on a smaller scale are also found near Pipe-
stone, Minnesota, chipped or pecked on the
smooth surface of the red quartzite. In
these the turtle is a favorite figure. Simi-
larly made figures, but quite imperfect, were
noticed on Wolf Creek, southwest of Bridge-
water, Dakota.

A SPECIAL committee of the Prison As-
sociation of New York, appointed to exam-
ine the question of the best mode of em-
ploying convict-labor, has formulated its
conclusions in resolutions which set forth
that the highest tost of excellence in any
system of convict-labor is to be found in the

adaptability of that system to promote the
end of the convicts' reformation ; that the
contract system, in principle and in practical
methods, is inconsistent with those forms of
discipline and treatment that are most con-
ducive to that object, and should therefore
be condemned ; that the best and most nat-
ural method is in the manufacture of sup-
plies for use in insiitutions supported by the
State, and in such other public work for use
of the State as can be carried on in confine-
ment ; and that State prisoners should be
employed on work of that kind, or, if it could
not be provided for all, upon the piece-price
plan.

In regard to the length of the range of
vision, Mr. A. Shaw Page relates two in-
stances in which he saw the Moume Mount-
ains of Ireland — which are 2,798 feet high
— from Blackpool, England, one hundred and
twenty-five miles away.

OBITUARY NOTES.

Mr. James Feugcsson, an eminent Eng-
lish writer on historical and prehistorical
architecture, died, January 9th, in his sev-
enty-eighth year. He was a native of Ayr,
in Scotland. He was best known by his
" History of Architecture," which has gone
through many editions, and is accepted as
standard. Ue is remembered in archaeology
for the help he offered, in suggestions, etc.,
in the study of the rock-cut temples of In-
dia, and in explaining the meaning of Mr.
Layard's discoveries at Nineveh, Schlie-
mann's at Troy, Mycena?, and Tiryns, and
in the ideal restorations of the temples at
Jerusalem and Ephesus, as well as by his
books on " Rude Stone Monuments " and
" Tree and Serpent Worship." He served
his Government in 1857 as a member of the
Royal Commission to inquire into the de-
fenses of the United Kingdom ; and in sci-
ence he contributed a paper on "The Delta
of the Ganges and the Natural Laws regu-
lating the Course of Great Rivers."

M. DE Paint-Yenant, the " Dean " of
the Mechanical Section of the French Acad-
emy of Sciences, died at Yendome, on the
6th of January, in the ninetieth year of his
age. He preserved his bodily vigor and
working capacity till very near the time of
his death.

The death is reported of Dr. Oscar
Schmidt, Professor of Zoology in the Uni-
versity of Strasburg, and formerly occupant
of the same chair at Cracow and Gratz, at
the age of sixty-two. He was the author of
the treatise on " The Doctrine of Descent
and Darwinism," and of the recently pub-
lished " The Mammalia in their Relation to
Primeval Times," in the " International Sci-
entific Series."

SUPPLEMENT.

DAWN OF CREATION AND OF WOESHIP.

REPLY TO DR. RtVILLE.
By WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE.

AMONG recent works on the origin and
history of religions by distinguished
authors, a somewhat conspicuous place may
be awarded to the " Prolegom^nes de I'llis-
toire des Religions," by Dr. Reville, Pro-
fessor in the College of France, and Hibbert
Lecturer in 1884. The volume has been
translated into English by Mr. Squire, and
the translation* comes forth with all the
advantage, and it is great, which can be
conferred by an introduction from the pen
of Professor Max Miiller. It appears, if I
may presume to speak of it, to be charac-
terized, among other merits, by marked in-
genuity and acuteness, breadth of field,
great felicity of phrase, evident candor of
intention, and abundant courtesy.

Whether its contents are properly
placed as prolegomena may at once be ques-
tioned ; for surely the proper office of pro-
legomena is to present preliminaries, and
not results. Such is not, however, the aim
of this work. It starts from assuming the
subjective origin of all religions, which are
viewed as so many answers to the call of a
strong human appetite for that kind of food,
and are examined as the several varieties of
one and the same species. The conclusions
of opposing inquirers, however, are not left
to be confuted by a collection of facts and
testimonies drawn from historical investiga-
tion, but are thrust out of the way before-
hand in the preface (for, after all, prole-
gomena can be nothing but a less homely
phrase for a preface). These inquirers are
so many pretenders, who have obstructed
the passage of the rightful heir to his throne,
and they are to be put summarily out of the
way, as disturbers of the public peace. The
method pursued appears to be not to allow
the facts and arguments to dispose of them,

♦ In his " Prolegomena to the History of Relig-
ions." My references throughout are to the trans-
lation by Mr. Squire (Williams & Norgate, 18*1).
VOL. XXVin. — 55

but to condemn them before the cause is
heard. I do not know how to reconcile
this method with Dr. R6ville's declaration
that he aims (p. vi) at proceeding in a
" strictly scientific spirit." It might be
held that such a spirit required the regular
presentation of the evidence before the de-
livery of the verdict upon it. In any case I
venture to observe that these are not truly
prolegomena, but epilegomena to a History
of Religions not yet placed before us.

The first enemy whom Dr. Reville dis-
patches is M. de Bonald, as the champion
of the doctrine that " in the very beginning
of the human race the creative power re-
vealed to the first men by supernatural
means the essential principles of religious
truth," together with " language and even
the art of writing " (pp. 35, 36).

In passing. Dr. Reville observes that
" the religious schools, which maintain the
truth of a primitive revelation, are guided
by a very evident theological interest "
(ibid.) : the Protestant, to fortify the au-
thority of the Bible ; and the Roman Cath-
olic, to prop the infallibility of the Church.

It is doubtless true that the doctrine of
a primitive revelation tends to fortify the
authority of religion. But is it not equally
true, and equally obvious, that the denial
of a primitive revelation tends to undermine
it? and, if so, might it not be retorted
upon the school of Dr. Reville that the
schools which deny a primitive revelation
are guided by a very evident anti-theological
interest ?

Against this antagonist Dr. Reville ob-
serves, inter alia (p. 37), that an appeal to
the supernatural is per se inadmissible;
that a divine revelation, containing the
sublime doctrines of the purest inspiration,
given to man at an age indefinitely remote,
and in a state of " absolute ignorance," is
" infinitely hard " to imagine ; that it is not

866

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

favored by analogy ; and that it contra-
dicts all that we know of prehistoric man
(p. 40). Thus far it might perhaps be con-
tended in reply, (1) that the preliminary
objection to the supernatural is a pure
pditlo principii, and wholly repugnant to
"scientific method"; (2) that it is not in-
conceivable that revelation might be indefi-
nitely graduated, as well as human knowl-
edge and condition ; (3) that it is in no way
repugnant to analogy, if the greatest mas-
ter of analogy. Bishop Butler,* may be
heard upon the subject; and (1) that our
earliest information about the races from
which wc arc least remote, Aryan, Semitic,
Accadian, or Egyptian, oifers no contradic-
tion and no obstacle to the idea of their
having received, or inherited, portions of
some knowledge divinely revealed.

But I do not now enter upon these top-
ics, as I have a more immediate and defined
concern with the work of Dr. Reville.

It only came within the last few months
to my knowledge that, at a period when ray
cares and labors of a distinct order were
much too absorbing to allow of any atten-
tion to arcliKological history. Dr. Roville had
done me the honor to select me as the rep-
resentative of those writers who find war-
rant for the assertion of a primitive revela-
tion in the testimouy of the Iloly Script-
ures.

This is a distinction which I do not at
all deserve : first, because Dr. Reville might
have placed in the field champions much
more competent and learned f than myself ;
secondly, because I have never attempted
to give the proof of such a warrant. I
have never written ex professo on the sub-
ject of it ; but it is true that in a work pub-
lished nearly thirty years ago, when de-
structive criticism was less advanced than
it now is, I assumed it as a thing generally
received, at least in this country. Upon
some of the points, which group themselves
round that assumption, my vic'ws, like those
of many other inquirers, have been stated
more crudely at an early, and more mature-
ly at more than one later period. I admit
that variation or development imposes a

* " Analogy," part 11, chap, ii, § 2.
+ I will only name one of the most rocont, Br.
Keusch, the author of " Blbel und Katur " (Bonn,

hardship upon critics, notwithstanding all
their desire to be just; especially, may I
say, upon such critics as, traversing ground
of almost boimdless extent, can hardly, ex-
cept in the rarest cases, be minutely and
closely acquainted with every portion of it.

I also admit to Di\ Reville, and indeed
I contend by his side, that in an historical
inquiry the authority of Scripture can not
be alleged in proof of the e.Kistcnce of a
primitive revelation. So to allege it is a
preliminary assumption of the supernatural,
and is in my view a manifest departure
from the laws of "scientific" procedure:
as palpable a departure, may I venture to
say ? as that preliminary exclusion of the
supernatural which I have already pre-
sumed to notice. My own offense, if it be
one, was of another character ; and was
committed in the early days of Homeric
study, when my eyes perhaps were dazzled
with the amazing richness and variety of
the results which reward all close investi-
gation of the text of Homer, so that objects
were blurred for a time in my view, which
soon came to stand more clear before me.

I had better perhaps state at once what
my contention really is. It is, first, that
many important pictures drawn, and indi-
cations given, in the Homeric poems supply
evidence that can not be confuted not only
of an ideal but of an historical relationship
to the Hebrew traditions, (1) and mainly, as
they are recorded in the Book of Genesis ;
(2) as less authentically to be gathered
from the later Hebrew learning ; and (3) as
illustrated from extraneous sources. Sec-
ondly, any attempt to expound the Olympian
mythology of Homer by simple reference
to a solar theory, or even to Nature-worship
in a larger sense, is simply a plea for a
verdict against the evidence. It is also
true that I have an unshaken belief in a
Divine Revelation, not resting on a.ssump-
tion, but made obligatory upon me by rea-
son. But I hold the last of these convic-
tions entirely apart from the others, and I
derived the first and second not from pre-
conception, of which I had not a grain, but
from the poems themselves, as purely as I
derived my knowledge of the Peloponnesian
War from Thucydides or his interpreters.

T])e great importance of this contention
I do not deny. I have produced in its favor

DAWN OF CREATION AND OF WORSHIP.

867

a great mass of evidence, which, as far as I
have seen, there has been no serious en-
deavor, if indeed any endeavor, to repel.
Dr. Keville observes that my views have
been subjected to "very profound criti-
cism " by Sir G. Cox in his learned work on
Aryan mythology (p. 41). That is indeed
a very able criticism ; but it is addressed
entirely to the statements of my earliest
Ilomeric work.* Now, apart from the ques-
tion whether those statements have been
rightly understood (which I can not admit),
that which he attacks is beyond and out-
side of the proposition which I have given
above. Sir G. Cox has not attempted to
decide the question whether there was a
primitive revelation, or whether it may be
traced in Homer. And I may say that I am
myself so little satisfied with the precise
form in which my general conclusions were
originally clothed that I have not reprinted
and shall not reprint the work, which has
become very rare, only appearing now and
then in some catalogue, and at a high price.
When there are representatives living and
awake, why disturb the ashes of the dead ?
In later works, reaching from 1865 to
18Y5, f I have confessed to the modification
of my results, and have stated the case in
terms which appear to me, using the com-
mon phrase, to be those yielded by the
legitimate study of comparative religion.
But why should those, who think it a sound
method of comparative religion to match
together the Yedas, the Norse legends, and
the Egyptian remains, think it to be no
process of comparative religion to bring
together, not vaguely and loosely, but in
searching detail, certain traditions of the
Book of Genesis and those recorded in the
Homeric poems, and to argue that their
resemblances may afford proof of a common
origin, without any anticipatory assumption
as to what that origin may be ?

It will hardly excite surprise, after what
has now been written, when I say I am
unable to accept as mine any one of the
propositions which Dr. Reville (pp. 41, 42)

♦ "Studies on Homer and the Ilomeric Arc," 8
vols. Oxford, ISoS.

t" Address to the University of Kdinburph"
(Murray, 1S65) ; "Juventus Mundi " (Macmillan,
186S) ; " Primer of Homer (Macmillan, 1S7S) ; espe-
cially see Preface to "Juventus Mundi," p. 1.

affiliates to me. (1) I do not hold that there
was a " systematic " or willful corruption of
a primitive religion. (2) I do not hold that
all the mythologies are due to any such
corruption systematic or otherwise. (3) I
do not hold that no part of them sprang
out of the deification of natural facts. (4)
I do not hold that the ideas conveyed in the
Book of Genesis, or in any Hebrew tradi-
tion, were developed in the form of dogma,
as is said by Sir G. Cox,* or in " six great
doctrines " as is conceived by Dr. Reville ;
and (5) I am so far from ever having held
that there was a " primitive orthodoxy "
revealed to the first men (p. 43) that I have
carefully from the first referred not to de-
veloped doctrine, but to rudimentary indi-
cations of what are now developed and
established truths. So that, although Dr.
Reville asks me for proof, I decline to sup-
ply proofs of what I disbelieve. What I
have supplied proofs of is the appearance
in the Poems of a number of traits, incon-
gruous in various degrees with their im-
mediate environment, but having such
marked and characteristic resemblances to
the Hebrew tradition as to require of us,
in the character of rational inquirers, the
admission of a common oi-igin, just as the
markings, which we sometimes notice upon
the coats of horses and donkeys, are held
to require the admission of their relation-
ship to the zebra.

It thus appears that Dr. Reville has dis-
charged his pistol in the air, for my Homeric
propositions involve no assumption as to a
revelation contained in the Book of Genesis,
while he has not ex professo contested my
statements of an historical relationship be-
tween some traditions of that book and
those of the Homeric poems. But I will
now briefly examine (1) the manner in which
Dr. Reville handles the Book of Genesis,
and (2) the manner in which he undertakes,
by way of specimen, to construe the my-
thology of Homer, and enlist it, by compari-
son, in the support of his system of inter-
pretation. And first with the first-named
of these two subjects.

Entering a protest against assigning to
the Book " a dictatorial authority," that is,
I presume, against its containing a Divine

* " Aryan Mythology," vol. i, p. 15.

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

revelation to anybody, he passes on to ex-
amine its contents. It contains, he says,
scientific errors, of which (p. 4*2, 71.) he
specifics three. His charges are that (1) it
speaks of the heaven as a solid vault; (2)
it places the creation of the stars after that
of the earth, and so places them solely for
its use ; (3) it introduces the vegetable king-
dom before that kingdom could be subjected
to the action of solar light. All these con-
demnations are quietly enunciated in a note,
as if they were subject to no dispute. Let
us see.

As to the first : if our scholars are right
in their judgment, just made known to the
world by the recent revision of the Old
Testament, the " firmament " is, in the He-
brew original,* not a solid vault, but an ex-
panse. As to the secend (a), it is not said
in the sacred text that the stars were made
solely for the use of the earth ; {b) it is true
that no other use is mentioned. But we
must here inquire what was the purpose of
the narrative ? Not to rear cosmic philoso-
phers, but to furnish ordinary men with
some idea of what the Creator had done in
the way of providing for them a home and
giving them a place in nature. The advan-
tage afforded by the stars to them is named
alone, they having no interest in any other
purpose for which the stars may exist.

The assertion that the stars are stated
to have been " created " after the earth is
more serious. But here it becomes neces-
sary first of all to notice the recital in this
part of the indictment. In the language of
Dr. Reville, the Book speaks of the creation
of the stars after the formation of the earth.
Now, curiously enough, the Book says noth-
ing cither of the " formation " of the earth,
or of the " creation " of the stars. It says
in its first line that " in the beginning God
created the heaven and the earth." It says
further on,f " He made the stars also." Can
it be urged that this is a fanciful distinction
between creating on the one hand and mak-
ing, forming, or fashioning on the other?
Dante did not think so, for, speaking of the
Divine Will, he says :

" CI6 ch' Ella cria, e cho Natnra fece." }

• The trTtpiiaiJ.a. of the Septuaglnt is construed
In coDformlty with the Hebrew.
+ Oen. 1, 16.
X " Paradlso," lil, 87.

I Luther did not think so, for he uses schuf
I in the first verse, and machte in the six-
teenth. The English translators and their
revisers did not think so, for they use the
words " created " and " made " in the two
passages respectively. The main question,
however, is, What did the author of the
Book think, and what did he intend to con-
vey ? The LXX drew no distinction, prob-
ably for the simple reason that, as the idea
of creation proper was not familiar to the
Greeks, their language conveyed no word
better iha.npoiein to express it, which is also
the proper word for fashioning or making.
But the Hebrew, it seems, had the distinc-
tion, and by the writer of Genesis i it has
been strictly, to Dr. R6ville I might also say
scientifically, followed. He uses the word
"created" on the three grand occasions (1)
of the beginning of the mighty work (v. 1);
(2) of the beginning of animal life (v. 21),
"And God created great wh'ales," and every
living creature that peoples the waters ; (3)
of the yet more important beginning of ra-
tional and spiritual life ; " so God created
man in his own image" (v. 27). In every
other instance, the simple command is re-
cited, or a word implying less than creation
is employed.

From this very marked mode of use, it
is surely plain that a marked distinction of
sense was intended by the sacred writer. I
will not attempt a definition of the distinc-
tion further than this, that the one phrase
points more to calling into a separate or in-
dividual existence, the other more to shaping
and fashioning the conditions of that exist-
ence ; the one to quid, the other to quale.
Our Earth, created in v. 1, undergoes struct-
ural change, different arrangement of ma-
terial, in V. 9. After this, and in the fourth
day, comes not the original creation, but the
location in the firmament, of the sun and
the moon. Of their "creation" nothing
particular has been said ; for no use, palpa-
ble to man, was associated with it before
their perfect equipment. Docs it not seem
allowable to suppose that in the " heavens " *

♦ In our translation, and in the recent revision,
the sinjjular is used. But wo are assured that the
Hebrew word is plural (Bishop of Winchester on
Genesis 1, 1, in the Speaker's Hlblc). If so taken,
we have the creation, visible to us, treated conjointly
in versos 1-5, distributively in verses 6-19 ; surely
a most orderly arrangement.

DAWN OF CREATION AND OF WORSHIP.

869

(v. 1), of which after the first outset we
hear no more, were included the heavenly
bodies ? In any case what is afterward con-
veyed is not the calling into existence of the
sun and moon, but the assignment to them
of a certain place and orbit respectively,
with a light-giving power. Is there the
smallest inconsistency in a statement which
places the emergence of our land, and its
separation from the sea, and the commence-
ment of vegetable life, before the final and
full concentration of light upon the sun, and
its reflection on the moon and the planets ?
In the gradual severance of other elements,
would not the severance of the luminous
body, or force, be gradual also ? And why,
let me ask of Dr. Reville, as there would
plainly be light diffused before there was
light concentrated, why may not that light
diffused have been sufficient for the purposes
of vegetation? There was soil, there was
atmosphere, there was moisture, there was
light. What more could be required ? Need
we go beyond our constant experience to be
aware that the process of vegetation, though
it may be suspended, is not arrested, when,
through the presence of cloud and vapor,
the sun's globe becomes to us invisible?
The same observations apply to the light of
the planets ; while, as to the other stars,
such as were then perceptible to the human
eye, we know nothing. The planets, being
luminous bodies only through the action of
the sun, could not be luminous until such a
degree of light, or of light-force, was ac-
cumulated upon or in the sun as to make
them luminous, instead of being
" Silent as the moon,
"When she deserts the night
Hid in her vacant interlunar cave." *

Is it not, then, the fact, thus far, that the im-
peachment of the Book has fallen to the
ground ? There remains to add only one
remark, the propriety of which is, I think,
indisputable. Easy comprehension and im-
pressive force are the objects to be aimed at in
a composition at once popular and summary ;
but these can not always be had without
some departure from accurate classification
and the order of minute detail. It seems
much more easy to justify the language of
the opening verses of Genesis than, for ex-
ample, the convenient usage by which we

* ■' Samson Agonistes."

affirm that the sun rises, or mounts above
the horizon, and sets, or descends below it,
when we know perfectly well that he does
neither the one nor the other. As to the
third charge of scientific error, that the
vegetable kingdom appeared before it could
be subjected to the action of solar light, it
has been virtually disposed of. If the light
now appropriated to the sun alone was
gradually gathering toward and round him,
why may it not have performed its proper
office in contributing to vegetation when
once the necessary degree of severance be-
tween solid and fluid, between wet and
dry, had been effected ? And this is just
what had been described in the formation
of the firmament, and the separation of land
from sea.

More singular still seems to be the next
observation offered by Dr. Reville in his
compound labor to satisfy his readers, first,
that there is no revelation in Genesis, and
secondly that, if there be, it is one which
has no serious or relevant meaning. lie
comes to the remarkable expression in v.
26, " Let lis make man in our own image."
There has, it appears, been much difference
of opinion even among the Jews on the
meaning of this verse. The Almighty ad-
dresses, as some think. His own powers ; as
others think, the angels ; others, the earth ;
other writers, especially, as it appears, Ger-
mans, have understood this to be a plural
of dignity, after the manner of kings. Oth-
ers, of the rationalizing school, conceive
the word Elohim to be a relic of polytheism.
The ancient Christian interpreters,* from
the Apostle Barnabas onward, find in these
words an indication of a plurality in the
Divine Unity. Dr. Reville (p. 43) holds
that this is " simply the royal plural used in
Hebrew as in many other languages," or
else, and more probably, that it is an appeal
to the Bene Elohim or angels. But is not
this latter meaning a direct assault upon the
supreme truth of the Unity of God ? If
he chooses the former, from whence does he
derive his knowledge that this " royal plu-
ral " was used in Hebrew ? Will the royal
plural account for (Gen. iii, 22) "when the
man is become as one of us " ? and would

♦ On this expression, I refer again to the com-
mentary of Bishop Harold Browne. Bishop Mant
supplies an interesting list of testimonies.

870

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

George the Second, if saying of Charles Ed-
ward " the man is become as one of us,"
have intended to convey a singular or a plu-
ral meaning ? Can we disprove the asser-
tion of Bishop Harold Browne, that this
plurality of dignity is unknown to the lan-
guage of Scripture ? And further, if we
make the violent assumption that the Chris-
tian Church with its one voice is wrong and
Dr. Beville right, and that the words Avere
not meant to convey the idea of plurality,
yet, if they have been such as to lead all
Christendom to see in them this idea through
1800 years, how can he be sure that they
did not convey a like signification to the
earliest hearers or readers of the Book of
Genesis ?

The rest of Dr. Reville's criticism is di-
rected rather to the signiticance or propri-
ety, than to the truth, of the record. It is
not necessary to follow his remarks in de-
tail, but it will help the reader to judge how
far even a perfectly upright member of the
scientific and comparative school can in-
dulge an unconscious bias, if notice be taken
in a single instance of his method of com-
paring. He compares together the two parts
of the prediction that the seed of the woman
shall bruise the head of the serpent, and
that the serpent shall bruise the heel of the
seed of the woman (iii, 15) ; and he con-
ceives the head and the heel to be so much
upon a par in their relation to the faculties
and the vitality of a man that he can find
here nothing to indicate which shall get the
better, or, in his own words, "on which
side shall be the final victory " (p. 45). St.
Paul seems to have taken a different view
when he wrote, " the God of peace shall
bruise Satan under your feet shortly " (Rom.
xvi., 20).

Moreover, " our author " (in Dr. Re-
ville's phrase) is censured because he " takes
special care to point out" (p. 44) "that the
first pair are as yet strangers to the most
elementary notions of morality," inasmuch
as they are unclothed, yet without shame ;
nay, even, as he feelingly says, " without the
least shame." In what the morality of the
first pair consisted, this is hardly the place
to discuss. But let us suppose for a mo-
ment that their morality was simply the
morality of a little child, the undeveloped
morality of obedience, without distinctly

formed conceptions of an ethical or abstract
standard. Is it not plain that their feelings
would have been exactly what the Book
describes (Gen. ii, 25), and yet that in their
loving obedience to their Father and Creator
they would certainly have had a germ, let
me say an opening bud, of morality ? But
this proposition, taken alone, by no means
does justice to the case. Dr. Reville would
probably put aside with indifference or con-
tempt all that depends upon the dogma of
the Fall. And yet there can be no more
rational idea, no idea more palpably sus-
tained, whether by philosophy or by experi-
ence. Namely, this idea : that the commis-
sion of sin, that is, the act of deliberately
breaking a known law of duty, injures the
nature and composition of the being who
commits it. It injures that nature in de-
ranging it, in altering the proportion of its
parts and powers, in introducing an inward
disorder and rebellion of the lower against
the higher, too mournfully corresponding
with that disorder and rebellion produced
without, as toward God, of which the first
sin was the fountain head. Such is, I be-
lieve, the language of Christian theology
and in particular of St. Augustine, one of its
prime masters. On this matter I apprehend
that Dr. Reville, when judging the author
of Genesis, judges him without regard to his
fundamental ideas and aims, one of which
was to convey that before sinning man was
a being morally and physically balanced,
and nobly pure in every faculty ; and that,
by and from his sinning, the sense of shame
found a proper and necessary place in a na-
ture which before was only open to the sense
of duty and of reverence.

One further observation only. Dr. Re-
ville seems to " score one " when he finds
(Gen. iv, 26) that Seth had a son, and that
" then began men to call on the name of the
Lord " ; " but not," he adds, " as the result
of a recorded revelation." Here at last he
has found, or seemed to find, the beginning
of religion, and that beginning subjective,
not revealed. So hastily, from the first as-
pect of the text, does he gather a verbal ad-
vantage, which, upon the slightest inquiry,
would have disappeared like dew in the
morning sun. He assumes the rendering
of a text which has been the subject of
every kind of question and dispute, the only

DAWN OF CREATION AND OF WORSHIP.

871

thing apparently agreed on being that his
interpretation is wholly excluded. Upon a
disputed original, and a disputed interpreta-
tion of the disputed original, he founds a
signification in flat contradiction to the
whole of the former narrative, to Elohist
and Jehovist alike; which narrative, if it
represents anything, represents a continuity
of active reciprocal relation between God
and man both before and after the trans-
gression. Not to mention differences of
translation, which essentially change the
meaning of the words, the text itself is
given by the double authority of the Samari-
tan Pentateuch * and of the Septungint in
the singular number, which of itself wholly
destroys the construction of Dr. Reville. I
do not enter upon the difficult question of
conflicting authorities, but I urge that it is
imsafe to build an important conclusion upon
a seriously controverted reading.f

There is nothing, then, in the criticisms
of Dr. Reville but what rather tends to con-
firm than to impair the old-fashioned belief
that there is a revelation in the Book of
Genesis. With his argument outside this
proposition I have not dealt. I make no
assumption as to what is termed a verbal
inspiration, and, of course, in admitting the
variety, I give up the absolute integrity of
the text. Upon the presumable age of the
book and its compilation I do not enter —
not even to contest the opinion which brings
it down below the age of Solomon — beyond
observing that in every page it appears from
internal evidence to belong to a remote an-
tiquity. There is here no question of the
chronology or of the date of man, or of
knowledge or ignorance in the primitive
man; or whether the element of parable
enters into any portion of the narrative ; or
whether every statement of fact contained
in the text of the Book can now be made
good. It is enough for my present purpose
to point to the cosmogony, and the fourfold
succession of the living organisms, as en-
tirely harmonizing, according to present

* See Bishop of Winchester's "Commentary."
+ This perplexed ijuostion is discussed, in a sense
adverse to the Septuafjint, by the critic of the re-
cent revision, in the "'Quarterly Eevicw" for Oc-
tober, No. 323. The revisers of the Old Testament
state (Preface, p. vi) th.at in a few cases of extreme
difficulty they have set aside the Masoretic text in
favor of a reading from one of the ancient versions.

knowledge, with belief in a revelation, and
as presenting to the rejector of that belief
a problem, which demands solution at his
hands, and which he has not yet been able
to solve. Whether this revelation was con-
veyed to the ancestors of the whole human
race who have at the time or since existed,
I do not know, and the Scriptures do not
appear to make the affirmation, even if they
do not convey certain indications which
favor a contrary opinion. Again, whether
it contains the whole of the knowledge
specially vouchsafed to the parents of the
Noacbian races, may be very doubtful ;
though of course great caution must be ex-
ercised in regard to the particulars of any
primeval tradition not derived from the
text of the earliest among the sacred books.
I have thus far confined myself to rebutting
objections. But I will now add some posi-
tive considerations which appear to me to
sustain the ancient and, as I am persuaded,
impregnable belief of Christians and of
Jews concerning the inspiration of the Book.
I offer them as one wholly destitute of that
kind of knowledge which carries authority,
and who speaks derivatively as best he can,
after listening to teachers of repute and
such as practice rational methods.

I UTiderstand the stages of the majestic
process described in the Book of Genesis to
be in general outline as follows :

1. The point of departure is the formless
mass, created by God, out of which the
earth was shaped and constituted a thing of
individual existence (verses 1, 2).

2. The detachment and collection of
light, leaving in darkness as it proceeded
the still chaotic mass from which it was de-
tached (verses 3-5). The narrative assign-
ing a space of time to each process appears
to show that each was gradual, not instan-
taneous.

S. The detachment of light from dark-
ness is followed by the detachment of wet
from dry, and of solid from liquid, in the
firmament, and on the face of the earth.
Each of these operations occupies a " day " ;
and the conditions of vegetable life, as
known to us by experience, being now pro-
vided, the order of the vegetable kingdom
had begun (verses 6-13).

4. Next comes the presentation to us of
the heavenly bodies, sun, moon, and stars,

872

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

in their final forms, when the completion of
the process of light-collection and concen-
tration in the sun, and the due clearing
of the intervening spaces, had enabled the
central orb to illuminate us both with direct
and with reflected Hght (verses 14-19).

6. So far, we have been busy only with
the adjustment of material agencies. We
now arrive at the dawn of animated being ;
and a great transition seems to be marked
as a kind of recommencement of the work,
for the name of creation is again introduced.
God created —

(a) The water-population ;

(6) The air-population.
And they receive His benediction (verses
20-23).

6. Pursuing this regular progression
from the lower to the higher, from the
simple to the complex, the text now gives
us the work of the sixth " day," which sup-
plies the land-population, air and water
having already been supplied. But in it
there is a subdivision, and the transition
from (c) animal to {d) man, like the transi-
tion from inanimate to animate, is again
marked as a great occasion, a kind of re-
commencement. For this purpose the word
" create " is a third time employed. " God
created man in His own image," and once
more He gave benediction to this the final
work of His hands, and endowed our race
with its high dominion over what lived and
what did not live (verses 24-31).

I do not dwell on the cessation of the
Almighty from the creating and (ii, 1) "fin-
ishing " work, which is the " rest " and
marks the seventh " day," because it in-
troduces another order of considerations.
But, glancing back at the narrative which
now forms the first chapter, I offer perhaps
a prejudiced, and in any case no more than
a passing, remark. If we view it as popu-
lar narrative, it is singularly vivid, for-
cible, and effective ; if we take it as a poem,
it is indeed sublime. No wonder if it be-
came classical and reappeared in the glori-
ous devotions of the Hebrew people,* pur-
suing, in a great degree, the same order of
topics as in the Book of Genesis.

But the question is not here of a lofty

• Ps. civ. a-20, cxxxvl, 6-9, and the Song of the
Three Children in verses 57-fiO.

poem, or a skillfully constructed narrative :
it is whether natural science, in the patient
exercise of its high calling to examine facts,
finds that the works of God cry out against
what we have fondly believed to be His
Word, and tell another tale ; or whether, in
this nineteenth century of Christian progress,
it substantially echoes back the majestic
sound which, before it existed as a pursuit,
went forth into all lands.

First, looking largely at the latter por-
tion of the narrative, which describes the
creation of living organisms, and waiving
details, on some of which (as in verse 24)
the Scptuagint seems to vary from the
Hebrew, there is a grand fourfold division,
set forth in an orderly succession of times
as follows : on the fifth day —

1. The water-population ;

2. The air-population ;
and, on the sixth day,

3. The land-population of animals ;

4. The land-population consummated in
man.

Now this same fourfold order is under-
stood to have been so affirmed in our time
by natural science, that it may be taken as
a demonstrated conclusion and established
fact. Then, I ask, how came Moses, or,
not to cavil on the word, how came the au-
thor of the first chapter of Genesis, to
know that order, to possess knowledge
which natural science has only within the
present century for the first time dug out
of the bowels of the earth ? It is surely
impossible to avoid the conclusion, first,
that either this writer was gifted with facul-
ties passing all human experience, or else
his knowledge was divine. The first branch
of the alternative is truly nominal and un-
real. We know the sphere within which
human inquiry toils. We know the heights
to which the intuitions of genius may soar.
We know that in certain cases genius an-
ticipates science ; as Homer, for example,
in his account of the conflict of the four
winds in sea-storms. But even in these
anticipations, marvelous, and, so to speak,
imperial as they are, genius can not escape
from one inexorable law. It must have
materials of sense or experience to work
with, and a irov crw from whence to take
its flight; and genius can no more tell,
apart from some at least of the results at-

DAW^V OF CREATION AND OF WORSHIF.

^7i

tained by inquiry, what arc the contents of
the crust of the earth, than it could square
the circle, or annihilate a fact.*

So stands the plea for a revelation of
truth from God, a plea only to be met by
questioning its possibility ; that is, as Dr.
Salmon f has observed with great force in a
recent work, by suggesting that a Being,
able to make man, is unable to communi-
cate with the creature lie has made. If, on
the other hand, the objector confine himself
to a merely negative position, and cast the
burden of proof on those who believe in
revelation, it is obvious to reply by a ref-
erence to the actual constitution of things.
Had that constitution been normal or mor-
ally undisturbed, it might have been held
that revelation as an adminiculum, an addi-
tion to our natural faculties, would itself
have been a disturbance. But the disturb-
ance has in truth been created in the other
scale of the balance by departure from the
Supreme Will, by the introduction of sin :
and revelation, as a special remedy for a
special evil, is a contribution toward sym-
metry, and toward restoration of the origi-
nal equilibrium.

Thus far only the fourfold succession of
living orders has been noticed. But among
the persons of very high authority in nat-
ural science quoted by Dr. Reusch,:}: who
held the general accordance of the Mosaic
cosmogony with the results of modern
inquiry, are Cuvier and Sir John Herschel.
The words of Cuvier show he conceived
that " every day " fresh confirmation from
the purely human source accrued to the
credit of Scripture. And since his day, for
he can not now be called a recent authority,
this opinion appears to have received some
remarkable illustrations.

Half a century ago. Dr. Whewell § dis-

* In conversation with Miss Burney (" Diary," i,
5T6), Johnson, using language which sounds more
disparaging than it really is, declares that " Genius
is nothing more than knowing the use of tools ; but
then there must be tools for it to use."

t " Introduction to the New Testament," p. is.
Murray, 13S5.

♦ •• Bibel und Natur," pp. 2, 63. The words of
Cuvier are : " Moyses hat uns eine Kosmogonie
hinterlassen, dercn Genauigkeit mit jedem Tage in
einer bewunderungswurdigern Weise bestiitigt ist."
The declaration of Sir John Herschel was in 1864.

§ Whewell's •'Astronomy and General Physics,"
1S34, p. ISl seqq.

cussed, under the name of the nebular hy-
pothesis, that theory of rotation which had
been indicated by Herschel, and more
largely taught by Laplace, as the probable
method through which the solar system has
taken its form. Carefully abstaining, at
that early date, from a formal judgment on
the hypothesis, he appears to discuss it
with favor ; and he shows that this hy-
pothesis, which assumes " a beginning of
the present state of things,"* is in no way
adverse to the Mosaic cosmogony. The
theory has received marked support from
opposite quarters. In the " Vestiges of
Creation " it is frankly adopted ; the very
curious experiment of Professor Plateau is
detailed at length on its behalf ; f and the
author considers, with Laplace, that the
zodiacal light, on which Humboldt in his
" Kosmos " has dwelt at large, may be
a remnant of the luminous atmosphere
originally diffused around the sun. Dr.
McCaul, in his very able argument on the
Mosaic record, quotes % Humboldt, Pfaff,
and Madler — a famous German astronomer
— as adhering to it. It appears on the
whole to be in possession of the field ; and
McCaul observes § that, " had it been de-
vised for the express purpose of removing
the supposed difficulties of the Mosaic rec-
ord, it could hardly have been more to the
purpose." Even if we conceive, with Dr.
Reville, that the " creation," the first gift
of separate existences to the planets, is
declared to have been subsequent to that of
the earth, there seems to be no known law
which excludes such a supposition, espe-
cially with respect to the larger and more
distant of their number. These, it is to be
noticed, are of great rarity as compared
with the earth. Why should it be declared
impossible that they should have taken a
longer time in condensation, like in this
point to the comets, which still continue in
a state of excessive rarity ? Want of space
forbids me to enter into further explana-
tion ; but it requires much more serious
efforts and objections than those of Dr.
Reville to confute the statement that the
extension of knowledge and of inquiry has
confirmed the Mosaic record.

* WbewelL op. eit., p. 206.
t "Vestiges," etc., pp. 11-15.
t " Aids to Faith," p. 210.

§ Ibid.

874

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

One word, however, upon the " days "
of Genesis. We do not hear the authority
of Scripture impeached on the ground that
it assigns to tlie Almighty eyes and ears,
hands, arms, and feet ; nay, even the emo-
tions of the human being. This being so,
I am unable to understand why any dis-
paragement to the credit of the sacred
books should ensue because, to describe
the order and successive stages of the Di-
vine working, these have been distributed
into "days." What was the thing required
in order to make this great procession of
acts intelligible and impressive ? Surely it
was to distribute the parts each into some
integral division of time, having the char-
acter of something complete in itself, of a
revolution, or outset and return. There
are but three such divisions familiarly
known to man. Of these the day was the
most familiar to human perceptions ; and
probably on this account its figurative use
is admitted to be found in prophetic texts,
as, indeed, it largely pervades ancient and
modern speech. Given the object in view,
which indeed can hardly be questioned,
docs it not appear that the " day," more
definitely- separated than either month or
year from what precedes and what follows,
was appropriately chosen for the purpose of
conveying the idea of development by grada-
tion in the process which the book .«ets forth ?

I now come to the last portion of my
task, which is to follow Dr. Reville into his
exposition of the Olympian mythology. Not,
indeed, the Homeric or Greek religion alone,
for he has considered the case of all relig-
ions, and disposes of them with equal facil-
ity. Of any other system than the Olympi-
an, it would be presumption in me to speak,
as I have, beyond this limit, none but the
most vague and superficial knowledge. But
on the Olympian system in its earliest and
least adulterated, namely, its Ilomci-ic, de-
velopment, whether with success or not, I
have freely employed a large shiire of such
leisure as more than thirty years of my Par-
liamentary life, passed in freedom from the
calls of office, have supplied. I hope that
there. is not in Dr. Reville's treatment of
other systems that slightness of texture and
that facility and rapidity of conclusion
which seem to me to mark his performances
in the Olympian field.

In the main he follows what is called
the solar theory. In his widest view he
embraces no more than "the religion of
nature " (pp. 94, lUO), and he holds that all
religion has sprung from the worship of
objects visible and sent^ible.

His first essay is upon Ileracles, whom I
have found to be one of the most difficult
and, so to speak, irreducible characters in
the Olympian mythology. In the Tyrian
system Ileracles, as Melkart, says Dr. Re-
ville in p. 95, is " a brazen god, the devourer
of children, the terror of men " ; but, with-
out any loss of identity, he becomes in the
Greek system " the great lawgiver, the tamer
of monsters, the peacemaker, the liberator."
I am deeply impressed with the danger that
lurks in these summary and easy solutions ;
and I will offer a few words first on the
Greek Heracles generally, next on the Ho-
meric presentation of the character.

Dr. L. Schmidt has contributed to Smith's
great Dictionary a large and careful article
on Heracles — an article which may almost
be called a treatise. Unlike Dr. Reville, to
whom the matter is so clear, he finds him-
self out of his depth in attempting to deal
with this highly incongruous character,
which meets us at so many points, as a
whole. But he perceives in the Heracles of
Greece a mixture of fabulous and historic
elements ; and the mythical basis is not,
according to him, a transplanted Melkart,
but is essentially Greek.* He refers to
Buttmann's " Mythologus " and MUller's
" Dorians " as the best treatises on the
subject, " both of which regard the hero as
a purely Greek character." Thus Dr. R6-
ville appears to be in conflict with the lead-
ing authorities, whom he does not confute,
but simply ignores.

Homer himself may have felt the diffi-
culty, which Dr. Reville does not feel, for
he presents to us, in one and the same pas-
sage, a divided Heracles. Whatever of him
is not cidoIon,\ dwells among the Olympian
gods. This eidolon, however, is no mere
shade, but something that sees and speaks,
that mourns and threatens ; no " lawgiver,"
or " peacemaker," or " liberator," but one
from whom the other shades fly in terror,
set in the place and company of sinners suf-

* Smith's " Dictionary," ii, 400.
t "Od.," xi, 001-4.

BAW^Y OF CREATION AND OF WORSHIP.

^75

fering for their sins, and presumably him-
self in the same predicament, as the sense
of grief is assigned to him : it is in wailing
that he addresses Odysseus.* Accordingly,
while on earth, he is thrasumcmnon,\ hu-
perthumos^X a doer of mcrjala crc/a,^ which
with Homer commonly are crimes. He is
profane, for he wounded Here, the specially
Achaian goddess ; || and he is treacherous,
for he killed Iphitos, his host, in order to
carry off his horses.\ A mixed character,
no doubt, or he would not have had Heb5
for a partner ; but those which I have stated
are some of the difficulties which Dr. Re-
ville quietly rides over to describe him as
lawgiver, peacemaker, and liberator. But I
proceed.

\early everything, with Dr. Reville, and,
indeed, with his school, has to be pressed
into the service of the solar theory ; and, if
the evidence will not bear it, so much the
worse for the evidence. Thus Ixion, tor-
tured in the later Greek system on a wheel,
which is sometimes represented as a burn-
ing wheel, is made (p. 105) to be the sun;
the luminary whose splendor and beneficence
had rendered him, according to the theory,
the center of all Aryan worship. A sorry
use to put him to ; but let that pass. Now
the occasion that supplies an Ixion and a
burning wheel available for solarism — a
system which prides itself above all things
on its exhibiting the primitive state of
things — is that Ixion had loved unlawfully
the wife of Zeus. And first as to the wheel :
We hear of it in Pindar ; ** but as a winged
not a burning wheel. This " solar " feature
appears, I believe, nowhere but in the latest
and most defaced and adulterated mythology.
Next as to the punishment. It is of a more
respectable antiquity. But some heed should
surely be taken of the fact that the oldest
authority upon Ixion is Homer; and that
Homer affords no plea for a burning or any
other wheel, for, according to hira,f f instead
of Ixion's loving the wife of Zeus, it was
Zeus who loved the wife of Ixion.

Errors, conveyed without testimony in a
sentence, commonly require many sentences
to confute them. I will not dwell on minor

*"Od.,"xi, 605-16.
t "II.," xiv, 250.
C "II.," V, 392.
♦* " Pyth.," ii, 89.

t " Od.," xi, 26T.
§"Od.,"xxi, 26.
1 " Od.," xxi. 26-30.
+t " II.," xiv, 317.

cases, or those purely fanciful ; for mere
fancies, which may be admired or the re-
verse, arc impalpable to the clutch of argu-
ment, and thus are hardly subjects for con-
futation. Paulo niajora canarmis. I con-
tinue to tread the field of Greek mythology,
because it is the favorite sporting-ground of
the cxclusivists of the solar theory.

We are told (p, 80) that because waves
with rounded backs may have the appear-
ance (but query) of horses or sheep throw-
ing themselves tumultuously upon one an-
other, therefore " in maritime regions, the
god of the liquid element, Poseidon or Nep-
tune, is the breeder, protector, and trainer
of horses." Then why is he not also the
breeder, protector, and trainer of sheep ?
They have quite as good a maritime title ;
according to the fine line of Ariosto :

"Muggeudo van per mare i gran montoni."

I am altogether skeptical about these
rounded backs of horses, which, more, it
seems, than other backs, become conspicu-
ous like a wave. The resemblance, I be-
lieve, has commonly been drawn between the
horse, as regards his mane, and the foam-
tipped waves, which are still sometimes
called white horses. But we have here, at
best, a case of a great superstructure built
upon a slight foundation; when it is at-
tempted, on the groundwork of a mere
simile, having reference to a state of sea
which in the Mediterranean is not the rule
but the rare exception, to frame an expla-
nation of the close, pervading, and almost
profound relation of the Homeric Poseidon
to the horse. Long and careful investiga-
tion has shown me that this is an ethnical
relation, and a key to important parts of
the ethnography of Homer. But the proof
of this proposition would require an essay
of itself. I will, therefore, only refer to
the reason which leads Dr. Reville to con-
struct this (let me say) castle in the air. It
is because he thinks he is accounting here-
by for a fact, which would indeed, if estab-
lished, be a startling one, that the god of
the liquid element should also be the god
of the horse. We are dealing now espe-
cially with the Homeric Poseidon, for it is
in Homer that the relation to the horse is
developed ; and the way to a true explana-
tion is opened when we observe that the

876

THE POPULAR SCIEXCE MONTHLY.

Homeric Poseidon ia not the god of the
liquid element at all.

The truth is that the Olympian and
ruling gods of Ilomer are not elemental.
Some few of them bear the marks of having
been elemental in other systems ; but, on
admission into the Achaian heaven, they
are divested of their elemental features.
In the case of Poseidon, there is no sign
that he ever had these elemental features.
The signs are unequivocal that he had been
worshiped as supreme, as the Zeus-Poseidon,
by certain races and in certain, viz., in far
Boutheni, countries. Certainly he has a
special relation to the sea. Once, and once
only, do we hear of his having a habitation
under water.* It is in "II.," xiii, where he
fetches his hortes from it, to repair to the
Trojan plain. He seems to have been an
habitual absentee ; the prototype, he might
be called, of that ill-starred, ill-favored
class. "We hear of him in Samothrace, on
the Solyman fountains, as visiting the
Ethiopians f who worshiped him, and the
reek of whose offerings he preferred at
such times to the society of the Olympian
gods debating on Hellenic affairs ; though,
when we are in the zone of the Outer
Geography, we find him actually presiding
in an Olympian assembly marked with for-
eign associations.^ Now compare with this
great mundane figure the true elemental
gods of Ilomer: first Okeanos, a vener-
able figure, who dwells appropriately by
the farthest § bound of earth, the bank
of the Ocean-river, and who is not sum-
moned I even to the great Olympian as-
sembly of the Twentieth Book ; and sec-
ondly, the graybeard of the sea, whom only
from the patronymic of his Nereid daugh-
ters we know to have been called Nereus,
and who, when reference is made to him
and to his train, is on each occasion ^ to be
found in one and the same place, the deep
recesses of the Mediterranean waters. If
Dr. R6villc still doubts who was for Ilomer
the elemental god of water, let him note
the fact that while ncros is old Greek for
wf/, ncro is, down to -this very day, the peo-
ple's word for water. But, conclusive as
are these considerations, their force will be

• " II.," xill, 17-81. t "Od.," I, 26, 26.
X " 0(1.," Tlii, 321-CC. § " II.," xiv, 201.
I " II.," XX, 7. 1 " IIV i, 853 ; xviii, 3C.

most fully appreciated only by those who
have closely observed that Homer's entire
theurgic system is resolutely exclusive of
Nature-worship, except in its lowest and
most colorless orders, and that where he
has to deal with a Nature-power of serious
pretensions, such as the Water-god would
be, he is apt to pursue a method of quiet
suppression, by local banishment or other-
wise, that space may be left him to play out
upon his board the gorgeous and imposing
figures of his thcanthropic system.

As a surgeon performs the most terri-
ble operation in a few seconds, and with
unbroken calm, so does the school of Dr.
Reville, at least within the Homeric pre-
cinct, marshal, label, and transmute the
personages that arc found there. In touch-
ing on the " log," by which Dr. R6ville
says Hera was represented for ages, she is
quietly described as the " Queen of the
shining Heaven" (p. 79). For this assump-
tion, so naively made, I am aware of no
authority whatever among the Greeks — a
somewhat formidable dilficulty for others
than solarists, as we are dealing with an
eminently Greek conception. Euripides, a
rather late authority, says,* she dwells
among the stars, as all deities might be
said, ex officio, to do ; but gives no indica-
tion either of identity or of quecnship. Ety-
mology, stoutly disputed, may afford a ref-
uge. Schmidt \ refers the name to the
Latin hera ; Curtius \ and Preller § to the
Sanskrit svar, meaning the heaven ; and
Welcker, || with others, to what appears the
more obvious form of tpa, the earth. Dr.
Reville, I presume, makes choice of the
Sanskrit svar. Such etymologies, however,
are, though greatly in favor with the solar-
ists, most uncertain guides to Greek inter-
pretation. The effect of trusting to them is
that, if a deity has in some foreign or an-
terior system had a certain place or office,
and if this place or office has been altered
to suit the exigencies of a composite my-
thology, the Greek idea is totally miscon-
ceived. If we take the pre-name of the
Homeric Apollo, we may with some plausi-

* Eurip., "Helena," 109.

t Smith's " Diet." art. " Ilera."

X " Griech. Etytnol.," p. 119.

§ Preller, "(iriech. Mytliol.," i, 121.

[ " Griech. Gotterlchre," i, 862-8.

DAWI^ OF CREATION AND OF WORSHIP.

^77

bility say the Phoihos of tbe poet is the
Sun ; but we are landed at once in the ab-
surd consequence that we have got a Sun
ah-eady,* and that the two are joint actors
in a scene of the eighth Odyssey.\ Strange,
indeed, will be the effect of such a system
if applied to our own case at some date in
the far-off future ; for it will be shown,
inter alia, that there were no priests, but
only presbyters, in any portion of Western
Christendom ; that our dukes were simply
generals leading us in war ; that we broke
our fast at eight in the evening {tor diner is
but a compression of dejeuner) ; and even,
possibly, that one of the noblest and most
famous of English houses pursued habitu-
ally the humble occupation of a pig-driver.
The character of Uera, or Here, has
received from Homer a full and elaborate
development. There is in it absolutely no
trace whatever of "the queen of the shin-
ing heaven." In the action of the " Odys-
sey " she has no share at all — a fact abso-
lutely unaccountable if her function was
one for which the voyages of that poem give
much more scope than is supplied by the
" Iliad." The fact is, that there is no queen
of heaven in the Achaian system ; nor
could there be without altering its whole
genius. It is a curious incidental fact that,
although Homer recognizes to some extent
humanity in the stars (I refer to Orion and
Leucothee, both of them foreign person-
ages of the Outer Geography), he never
even approximates to a personification of
the real queen of heaven, namely, the
moon. There happens to be one marked
incident of the action of Hera, which
stands in rather ludicrous contrast with
this lucent queenship. On one of the
occasions when, in virtue of her birth and
station, she exercises some supreme pre-
rogative, she directs the sun (surely not so
to her lord and master) to set, and he re-
luctantly obeys. I Her character has not
any pronounced moral elements ; it exhibits
pride and passion ; it is pervaded intensely
with policy and nationalism ; she is beyond
all others the Achaian goddess, and it is
sarcastically imputed to her by Zeus that
she would cut the Trojans if she could, and
eat them without requiring in the first in-

* Bee " Infra." t " Od.," vlii, 302, 334.

J"Il.,"xriii,239, 240.

Stance any culinary process.* I humbly
protest against mauling and disfiguring this
work ; against what great Walter Scott
would, I think, have called " raashackering
and misguggling " it, after the manner of
Xicol Muschat, when he put an end to his
wife Ailie f at the spot afterward marked
by his name. Why blur the picture so
charged alike with imaginative power and
historic meaning, by the violent obtrusion
of ideas, which, whatever force they may
have had among other peoples or in other
systems, it was one of the main purposes
of Homer, in his marvelous theurgic work,
to expel from all high place in the order of
ideas, and from every corner, every loft and
every cellar, so to speak, of his Olympian
palaces ?

If the Hera of Homer is to own a rela-
tionship outside the Achaian system, like
that of Apollo to the sun, it is undoubtedly
with Gaia, the earth, that "it can be most
easily established. The all-producing func-
tion of Gaia in the Theogony of Hesiod \
and her mapriage with Ouranos, the heav-
en, who has a partial relation to Zeus, points
to Hera as the majestic successor who in
the Olympian scheme, as the great mother
and guardian of maternity, bore an analogi-
cal resemblance to the female head of one
or more of the Pelasgian or archaic theogo-
nies that it had deposed.

I have now done with the treatment of
details, and I must not quit them without
saying that th6re are some of the chapters,
and many of the sentences, of Dr. Reville
which appear to me to deserve our thanks.
And, much as I differ from him concerning
an essential part of the historic basis of
religion, I trust that nothing which I have
said can appear to impute to him any hos-
tility or indifference to the substance of
religion itself.

I make, indeed, no question that the
solar theory has a most important place in
solving the problems presented by many or
some of the Aryan religions ; but whether
it explains their first inception is a totally
different matter. 'WTien it is ruthlessly ap-
plied, in the teeth of evidence, to them
all, in the last resort it stifles facts, and re-
duces observation and reasoning to a mock-

* " II.," iv, 35. + " Heart of Midlothian."

% " Theog.," 116-136.

THE POPULAR SCIEXCE MONTHLY.

ery. Sir George Cox, its able advocate,
fastens upon the admission that some one
particuhir method is not available for all
the phenomena, and asks, Why not adopt
for the Greek system, for the Aryan sys-
tems at lartre, perhaps for a still wider
range, "a clear and simple explanation,"
namely, the solar theory ? * The plain
answer to the question is, that this must
not be done, because, if it is done, we do
not follow the facts, nor are led by them ;
but, to use the remarkable phrase of ^-Eschy-
lus,f we ride them down, we trample them
under foot. Mankind has long been too
familiar with a race of practitioners, whom
courtesy forbids to name, and whose single
medicine is alike available to deal with
every one of the thousand figures of disease.
There are surely many sources to which the
old religions are referable. We have solar
worship, earth worship, astronomic wor-
ship, the worship of animals, the worship
of evil powers, the worship of abstractions,
the worship of the dead, the foul and pol-
luting worship of bodily organs, so wide-
spread in the world, and especially in the
East ; last, but not least, I will name termi-
nal worship, the remarkable and most im-
portant scheme which grew up, perhaps
first on the Nile, in connection with the
stones used for marking boundaries, which
finds its principal representative in the god
Hermes, and which is very largely traced
and exhibited in the first volume of the
work of M. Dulaure \ on ancient religions.

But none of these circumstances dis-
credit or impair the proof that in the Book,
of which Genesis is the opening section,
there is conveyed special knowledge to meet
the special need everywhere so palpable in
the state and history of our race. Far in-
deed am I from asserting that this precious
gift, or that any process known to me, dis-
poses of all the problems, either insoluble
or unsolved, by which we are surrounded ; of

" thfi hurden .ind the mystery
Of all this unintellit'ible world."

But I own my surprise not only at the fact,
but at the manner in which in this day,

* " Mythology of Aryan Nations," 1, 18.

t Ka.6i.Trna(e<T9(ii : a remarkable word, as applied
to moral subjects, found in the '• Kuinonidos "' only.

J"ni»tolro abres6e do differcns Cultes." So-
conde 6dltion. Paris, 1825.

writers, whose name is Legion, unimpeached
in character and abounding in talent, not
only put away from them, cast into shadow
or into the very gulf of negation itself,
the conception of a Deity, an acting and a
ruling Deity. Of this belief, which has sat-
isfied the doubts, and wiped away the tears,
and found guidance for the footsteps of so
many a weary wanderer on earth, which
among the best and greatest of our race has
been so^cherished by those who had it, and so
longed and sought for by those who had it
not, we might suppose that if at length we
had discovered that it was in the light of
truth untenable, that the accumulated testi-
mony of man was worthless, and that his
wisdom was but folly, yet at least the de-
cencies of mourning would be vouchsafed
to this irreparable loss. Instead of this, it
is with a joy and exultation that might al-
most recall the frantic orgies of the Com-
mune, that this, at least at first sight, terrific
and overwhelming calamity is accepted, and
recorded as a gain. One recent, and, in
many ways, respected writer — a woman long
wont to unship creed as sailors discharge
excess of cargo in a storm, and passing at
length into formal atheism — rejoices to find
herself on the open, free, and " breezy com-
mon of humanity." Another, also woman,
and dealing only with the workings and
manifestations of God, finds * in the theory
of a physical evolution as recently developed
by Mr. Darwin, and received with extensive
favor, both an emancipation from error and
a novelty in kind. She rejoices to think
that now at last Darwin " shows life as an
harmonious whole, and makes the future
stride possible by the past advance." Evo-
lution, that is physical evolution, which
alone is in view, may be true (like the solar
theory), may be delightful and wonderful,
in its right place ; but are we really to un-
derstand that varieties of animals brought
about through domestication, the wasting of
organs (for instance, the tails of men) by
disuse, that natural selection and the sur-
vival of the fittest, all in the physical order,
exhibit to us the great arcamim of creation,
the sum and center of life, so that mind and
spirit are dethroned from their old suprem-
acy, and no longer sovereign by right, but

* I do not quote names, but I refer to a very re-
cent article In one of our monthly periodicals.

BAWy OF C RE ATI ox AND OF WORSHIP.

879

may find somewhere by charity a place as-
signed them, as appendage.^, perhaps only
as excrescences, of the material creation?
I contend that Evolution in its highest form
has not been a thing heretofore unknown
to history, to philosophy, or to theology. I
contend that it was before the mind of Saint
Paul when he taught that in the fullness of
time God sent forth His Son, and of Eusc-
blus, when he wrote the " Preparation for
the Gospel," and of Augustine when he
composed the " City of God " ; and, beauti-
ful and splendid as are the lessons taught
by natural objects, they are, for Christen-
dom at least, infinitely beneath the sublime
unfolding of the great drama of human
action, in which, through long ages, Greece
was making ready a language and an intel-
lectual type, and Rome a framework of
order and an idea of law, such that in them
were to be shaped and fashioned the des-
tinies of a regenerated world. For those
who believe that the old foundations are
unshaken still, and that the fabric built
upon them will look down for ages on the
floating wreck of many a modern and boast-
ful theory, it is difiicult to see anything but
infatuation in the destructive temperament
which leads to the notion that to substitute
a blind mechanism for the hand of God in
the affairs of life is to enlarge the scope of
remedial agency ; that to dismiss the high-

est of all inspirations is to elevate the strain
of human thought and life ; and that each
of us is to rejoice that our several units are
to be disintegrated at death into " countless
millions of organisms " ; for such, it seems,
is the latest " revelation " delivered from
the fragile tripod of a modern Delphi. As-
suredly on the minds of those who believe,
or else on the minds of those who after this
fashion disbelieve, there lies some deep ju-
dicial darkness, a darkness that may be felt.
While disbelief in the eyes of faith is a sore
calamity, this kind of disbelief, which re-
nounces and repudiates with more than sat-
isfaction what is brightest and best in the
inheritance of man, is astounding, and
might be deemed incredible. Nay, some
will say, rather than accept the flimsy and
hollow consolations which it makes bold to
offer, might we not go back to solar ado-
ration, or, with Goethe, to the hollows of
Olympus ?

" Wenn die Funke spruht,
Wenn die Asche gUiht,
Eilen wir den alten GOltern zu." •

Tbanslation.

" When the sparks glitter,
When the ashes glow.
We speed us to the old gods."

Xineteenih Century.

* " Braut von Corinth."

INDEX TO VOLUME XXVIH.

VOL. XXTUI. — 00

Ili^ D EX.

PAGE

Abbott, Charles C, M. D 635

Acclimatization 507

Agatized "Wood of Arizona 362

Agricultural Colleges, Popularizing 568

Alaska, The Native Tribes of 286

Allen, Grant 73, 334, 596

All the Worid Akin 377

American History, A New Field of 371

Anaesthesia, Local, Prolongation of 283

Anaesthetics. Ancient 573

Analogy, A Significant 268

Andrews, Miss E. F 779

Apes, the Man-like, External Form of 736

Arbor-Day 689

Arctic Exploration, Opposing Views of 427

Arctic Soil, Frozen, Depth of 857

Art, the Teacher's, How to Exalt 569

Association, the American, Chemistry at 136

Association, the American, Physics at 138

Association, the American, Mechanical Science at 140

Association, the American, Geology at 284

Association, the British 141

Astronomy, "Women in 534

Audition, Colored 717

Bacteria and Surgical Lesions 857

Baths, Vapor- and Plot-Air 565

Beecher's Position on Evolution 554

Beet-Sugar, Production of, in Germany 424

Biological Teaching in Colleges 577

Birds, Arctic, The Social Life of 209

Bishop's Ring around the Sun 466

Blind Men's Dreams 139

Blunders, Catholic, A Catholic on 123

Books noticed :

" Modern Science and Modern Thought " (Laing) 125

" Prehistoric Fishing " (Pwau) 126

" Town Geology " (Heilprin) 127

" Proceedings and Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada ". . . . 128

" The Copper-bearing Rocks of Lake Superior " (Irving) 128

882 INDEX.

Books noticed : paok

" Older Mesozoic Flora of Virginia " (Fontaine) 129

" The Q. P. Index " for 1884: 129

" Commercial Organic Analysis " (Allen) 129

" Insomnia " (Lyman) 129

" List of Tests " (Wilder) 129

'• Descriptive America " (Brockett) 130

" Symbolic Algebra " (Cain) 130

" Testing-Machines " (Abbott) 130

" Recent Progress in Dynamo-Electric Machines " (Thompson) 130

" Stadia-Surveying " (Winslow) 130

" The Steam-Engine Indicator " (Le Van) 130

" The Figure of the Earth " (Roberts) 130

" Healthy Foundations for Houses " (Brown) 130

" Maps of the Dominion of Canada " (Langevin) 130

" Notes from the Physiological Laboratory of the University of Penn-
sylvania " (Randolph and Dixon) 130

" American Newspaper Annual " (Aycr «& Son) 131

" IIow to drain a House " (Waring) 131

«' Ballooning " (May) 131

" The Lock-Jaw of Infants " (Hartigan) 131

♦' Malthus and his Work '' (Bonar) 132

" Report of Smithsonian Institution, 1883 " 132

'• Cholera " (Stille) 182

" Silver-Lead Deposits of Eureka, Nevada " (Curtis) 182

" Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences " 133

" Dinocerata " (Marsh) 133

" Paleontology of the Eureka District " (Walcott) 134

" Manual of Phonography " (Pitman and Howard) 134

" Chemical Problems " (Stammer) 134

" Exercises for translating into German " (Loderaau) 134

" A Text-Book on Nursing " (Weeks) 272

" The Study of Political Economy " (Laughlin) 272

" Philosophic Series " (McCush) 273

" Report on the Illuminating Quality of Oils " (Castle) 273

" The Azoic System " (Whitney and Wadsworth) . . 274

" The Grimke Sisters " (Birney) 274

" Report of Massachusetts Agricultural Experiment Station " (Goess-

mann) 275

" Placer-Mines and Mining-Ditches " (Williams) 275

" Influence of the Proprietors in founding the State of New Jersey "

(Scott) 275

"Natural Co-ordination as evinced in Organic Evolution " (Fraser). . . 276

" Population by Ages " (Landsberg) 277

" The Minting of Gold and Silver " (Williams) 277

•' The Modification of Plants by Climate " (Crozier) 277

" Report of New York Bureau of Statistics of Labor for 1884 " (Peck) 278
"Phonetic Text-Books" (March, Vickroy, Burnz, Leigh, Longley, and

Pitman) 278

" Zoologic Whist and Zoonomia " (Kirk) 279

" The Tehuantepec Ship-Railway " (Corthell) 279

INDEX. 883

Books noticed :

" Papers of the American Historical Association," Nos. 1 and 2 279

'• Studies in General History, etc." (White) 279

" Efficiency and Duration of Incandescent Electric Lamps " 279

" Transactions of the Academy of Scieuce, Kansas City, Missouri "... 279

" The Hoosier Naturalist " (Jones and Trouslot) 280

" Aims and Methods of the TeacLing of Physics " (Wead) 280

" Ecclesiastical Institutions " (Spencer) 412

" Physical Expression " (Warner) 413

" Recent American Socialism " (Ely) 414

" Planting Trees in School-Grounds," etc 414

" Offices of Electricity in the Earth " (Philbrook) 415

" Origin of Species " (Philbrook) 415

" Niagara Park Illustrated " (Rhine) 415

" History and Management of Land Grants for Education " (Knight). 415

" City School Systems in the United States " (Philbrick) 416

"The Boys' and Girls' Pliny" (White) 416

" Twenty-five Years with the Insane " (Putnam) 416

" The Co-operative Commonwealth " (Groulund) 416

" The Blood-Covenant " (Trumbull) 417

" Mind-Cure on a Material Basis " (Titcomb) 417

" Methods of Research in Microscopioftl Anatomy and Embryology "

(Whitman) 418

" Report on Forestry " (Egleston) 418

" The German Verb-Drill " (Dreyspring) 418

" Lectures on House-Drainage " (Putnam) 418

" Guide to Sanitary House Inspection " (Gerhard). 418

" Marvels of Animal Life " (Holder) 419

" Rudder Grange " (Stockton) 419

" The Last Meeting " (Matthews) 419

" The Commonwealth of Georgia " (Henderson) 419

" Life and Correspondence of Louis Agassiz " (xYgassiz) 556

" Scientific Theism " (Abbot) 558

" Polysynthesis and Incorporation in American Languages " (Brinton) 559

" Consanguineous Marriages " (Withington) 559

" Bad Times " (Wallace) 559

" Overpressure in Schools " (Robertson) 5G0

" Sanitary Science and Public Hygiene " (Robertson) .... 560

" American Constitutions " (Davis) 560

"Report of New York Agricultural Experiment Station " 501

" Italian Popular Tales " (Crane) 561

" Two Years in the Jungle " (Hornaday) 561

" Journal of the American Akad^me " (Wilder) 561

" A Political Crime " (Gibson) 562

" Something about Natural Gas " (Thurston) 562

" A Mortal Antipathy " (Holmes) 562

" Milk Analysis and Infant Feeding " (Meigs) 562

•' A Text-Book of Medical Chemistry " (Bartley) 563

" Saxe Holme Stories " 563

" A Wheel of Fire " (Bates) 563

" Bird-Ways " (Miller) 563

884 INDEX.

Books noticed : paob

" The Heart, and how to Take Care of it " (Hale) 663

" Gray's Botanical Text-Book, Vol. II " 703

" French Dishes for American Tables " (Caron) 705

" Railroad Transportation " (Iladley) 705

" The rhilosophy of Education " (Tait) 706

*' Rational Communism " 706

" The Will " (Eckstein) 706

" Heating and Ventilation " (Curtman) 706

" Joint-Diseases " (Willard) 707

" Surgical Treatment of Infants " (Willard) 707

" The Prehistoric Palace of the Kings of Tiryns " (Schliemann) 707

" Brain-Rest " (Corning) 708

" Report of Drainage and Water-Supply of Cliicago " 708

" National Conference of State Boards of Health " 708

" The Annals of the Cakchiqnels " (Brinton) 709

" Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1881-'82 " (Powell) 709

" Modern Molding and Pattern-Making " (Mullin) 709

" Dictionary of Music and Musicians " (Grove) 709

" The Journal of Physiology " (Foster) 710

*' Revision of the Palaeocrinoidia " (Wachsmuth and Springer) 710

" Writings of Isaac Lea, LL. D." (Scudder) 710

" Bulletin of the Sedalia Natural History Society " 710

" Bulletin of the Minnesota Academy of Natural Sciences " 710

" The System of High Licenses " (Thomann) 711

"An Iron Crown" 711

" The Fixed Idea of Astronomical Theory " (Tischner) 711

" Free Cities in the Middle Ages " (Klemm) 711

" Manual of American Land-Shells " (Binney) 711

" Results of Ornithological Explorations " (Stcjneger) 711

" Reception-Day," No. 4 711

" Notes on the Opium-Habit " (Meylert) 711

" Introduction to the Study of Chemistry " (Remsen) 843

" Class Interests " 844

" Problems in Philosophy " (Bascom) 845

" Japanese Homes and their Surroundings " (Morse) 846

" The New Agriculture " (Cole) 847

" Price-List of Smithsonian Publications " 847

•' The Mammalia " (Schmidt) 848

" Protection versus Free Trade " (Hoyt) 848

" The Raising and Management of Poultry " 848

" Scarlet Fever " (Comstock) " 848 ,

" Catholic Historical Researches " (Lambing) 849

" Evolution and Religion " (Beecher) 849

" Introspective Insanity " (Hamilton) 849

" Crystallization in Washoe Rocks " (Hague and Iddings) 849

" Ericsson's Destroyer and Submarine Gun " (Jaques) 850

" The Evolution of Revelation " ( Whiton) 850

" Syllabus of Instinction in Biology " (Fall) 850

" M;irlborough " (Saintsbury) 850

" Household Remedies " (Oswald) 850

INDEX. 885

Books noticed : page

" State Mineralogist of California, Report " 860

" War and Peace " (Tolstoi) 851

" Botany of the Rocky Mountain Region " (Coulter) 851

"Biological Studies, Johns Ilopkins University" (Martin and Brooks) 851

" The Louisiana Purchase " (Rohertson) 851

" History of German Literature " (Scherer) 852

" Men, Women, and Gods " (Gardener) 852

" Mechanics and Faith " (Porter) 852

" Report of the United States Geological Survey " (Powell) 853

" Social Wealth " (Ingalls) 853

" Mineral Resources of the United States " (Williams) 853

" The Greek Islands " (Field) 853

" Wonderful Escapes " (Bernard and Whiting) 854

" The Spartan and Theban Supremacies " (Sankey) 854

" The Early Hanoverians " (Morris) 854

" Balletins of the United States Geological Survey " 854

Botany as a Recreation for Invalids 779

Brehm, Dr. Alfred E 209

Bridges, Iron, Limits of Stress on 142

Buckland, Frank, Sketch of 401

Burmah, The Fine Arts in 718

Burroughs, John 407

Btittner, C. G 526

Canada, The French Problem in 781

Carlisle, The Bishop of 248

Carlyle, Masson's Interpretation of 224

Carpenter, Dr. W. B., Sketch of. 538

Cashmere, Metal-working Art in 139

Catholic, A, on Catholic Blunders 123

Ceilings, Advantages of Low 863

Chemistry at the American Association 136

Chemistry, New Problems in 141

Civilization, The Influence of Inventions upon 474, 656

Clarke, George H 781

Climates, Local, of Exposure 715

Clover, Concerning 73

Cold, Effects of, on Microbes 859

Colleges, Biological Teaching in 577

Color in Animals, Origin of 94

Colorado as a Winter Sanitarium 668

Colors, The Harmony of 424

Common Schools, Science in 140

Communal Societies 325

Congo, the, Meteorology of. 427

Congo, The Value of the 570

Connecticut, Oyster- Culture in 667

Controversy, The Gladstone-Huxley 840

Coral-Harvest, The 863

Corporations and their Employes 268

886 INDEX.

PAOE

Correspondence 2G8, 407

Cosmogony and Physics, Hindoo 420

Creation and of Worship, Dawn of 865

Culture, Mental Progress and 122

D'Alviella, The Count 145

Dauiaraland, Medical Practice in 526

Dancing as Physical Training 571

Davis, W. M 466

Dawn of Creation and of Worship 865

Democracy in the High-School 859

De Montessus, M 819

De Varigny, Henry 56

Dewey, John, Ph. D 606

Dinner, A Chinese, in High Life 573

Discrimination in Railway Rates 49-I-, 586

Dreams, Blind Men's 139

Druramond, Professor Henry, Comments by 803

Dust in Room" 574

Dynamiters ? the, Who shall try 426

Eads, James B., Sketch of. 544

Eartliquake, An, Experience 719

Earthquake-proof Buildings 566

Earthquakes in Central America 819

East River and Hell Gate, The Improvement of 433

Eddy, William A 307

Editor's Table 122, 269, 410, 554, 699, 840

Education, Higher, Health and Sex in 606

Education, Higher, The Problem of 84

Education in Politics 840

Education, Moral, A Case in 699

Education, Negro, Twenty Years of . . 24

Eggert, Professor C. A 84

Egleston, N. H 689

Ellis, T. S., M. R. C. S 395

Elm-leaf, The, Ik^etle 429

Einjdoyes and Employers 565

Encrinites, Living 28i

Enterprise, Individual, in Scientific Research 421

Evolution, Beecher's Position on 554

Evolution, Organic, The Factors of. 754, 843

Farlow. Professor W. 0 577

Feet, The Physiology of tlie 395

Fish out of Water 334

Fisk, Dr. Samuel A 668

Flower, Tlie, or the Leaf 342

Flower, W. IL, F. R. S 315

Flying-Fish, The " Fliglit "of 287

INDEX. 887

TAOK

Flying-Machines 1

Forest? What is a Real 567

Forestry Congress, The American 281

Forests in the Pacific Region 421

Formosan Slietch, A 862

Freedom, Scientific 408

French, The, Problem in Canada 781

Game, a, The History of. 282

Gems, The, of the National Museum 823

Genesis, Mr. Gladstone and 788

Genesis, Proem to 614

Genesi?, The Interpreters of, and the Interpreters of Nature 449

Geological Congress, The International 569

Geology at the American Association 284

Germination, Temperature of 574

Ghost, The Decline of the 410

Glacial Action, The Southern Limits of 856

Gladstone-Huxley, The, Controversy 840

Gladstone, Mr., and Genesis 788

Gladstone, William E 614, 865

Hale, Horatio 296

Hand-Work, The, of School-Children 812, 843

Ilartmaun, Robert 736

Health, Instinct as a Guide to 517

Hell Gate, The Improvement of East River and 433

Heredity, Some Aspects of 142

Hewitt,"G. C 268

High-School, The, Democracy in 859

Hindoo Cosmogony and Physics 426

Hochheimer, Lewis 830

Honey-Bee, Vision of the 143

Horsley, V., F. R. C. S 100

House-Building, Japanese 643

Housekeeping, Family Schools of 422

Howard, Charles P 169

Human Remains, Prehistoric, in Mexico 420

Hume, John F 69

Huxley, Professor T. H 419, 788

Huygens, Sketch of. 835

Hyatt, Professor Alpheus, Sketch of. 261

Hydrophobia, Inoculation against 289

Ice-Cave, A New Zealand 570

Indians, The, of Mount Rorairaa 282

Inertia of the Eye and the Brain 861

Infancy in the City 683

Inoculation against Hydrophobia 289

Insect Habits 283

888 INDEX.

PAGE

Insects, Neuter 217

Instinct as a Guide to Health 517

Instruments, Two Wonderful 51

Interpreters, The, of Genesis and the Interpreters of Nature 449

Invalids, Botany as a Recreation for 779

Inventions, The Influence of, upon Civilization 474, 656

Investing, The Art of 69

Jacobi, Dr. Mary Putnam- 342

Japanese IIouse-Building 643

Jews, the, Race Characteristics of 428

Juries, Reform of 716

Keating, J. M 24

Kendail, Rev. Henry 377

King, D. B 160

Knowledge, Intellectual, Mechanical Repetition and 571

Kiinz, George F 362, 823

Lagrange, E 534

Laing, S., M. P 18

Languages, American, The Study of 856

Lansing, Gerrit L 494, 586

Law, Mediaeval English 423

Lawes, Sir John Bennet, Sketch of 694

Leaf, The Flower or the 342

Leffingwell, Dr. A 51

Lepper, Charles II 112

Lesley, Professor J. P 192

Literary Notices 125, 272, 412, 550, 703, 843

Lunatics, A Free Colony of 56

Machine, A Thinking 596

Malaria-Factories in Mauritius 571

Malaria, Protection against 860

Man, Tertiary, M. de Mortillet on 571

Man-like Apes, the, External Form of 736

Many Drugs, Few Remedies 716

^larchal, M. Paul 94

Mather, T. W 1

Mauritius, Malaria-Factories in 571

Mayr, Heinrich, Ph. D 679

McEIroy, Jolm 485

Mechanical Science at the American Association 140

Mediajval English Law 423

Medical Practice in Damaraland 526

Mental Progress and Culture 122

Meteorological Society, The New England 569

Mexico, An Economic Study of 721

Mexico, Prehistoric Human Remains in 420

INDEX. 889

PACE

Microbes, Effects of Cold on 859

Militancy, European, The Increasing Curse of 521

Milk, How, is tainted 421

Modern Science and Modern TLought 18

Moisture, How Woods preserve 429

Montreal, The Epidemic at 270

Moose, The Quaternary, of New Jersey 715

Morris, Charles 217, 325

Morse, Professor E. S 643

Motor Centers, The, and the "Will 100

Mountain-Farming in Norway 862

Mountains, Two New Zealand 860

Murghab Valley, the. Salt Lakes of 423

Museum, The National 717

Museum, the National, Gems of. 823

Museums, Educational 285

Musket, The, as a Social Force 485

Natural Heirship 377

Nature, The Uniformity of 248

Nature, The Uniformity of, asain 407

New Guinea, Life in 568

Newton, General John 433

Nonconformity 367

Norway, Mountain-Farming in 862

Notes 143, 287, 430, 574, 719, 863

Odling, Dr. W., F. R. S 388

Organic Evolution, The Factors of 754

Ornament, Architectural, and Dancing-Girls, Symbolism of. 858

Oswald, Felix L., M. D 517

Oyster-Culture in Connecticut 567

Fallen, Cond6 B 408

Palmer, Charles B 409

Party Government 271

Pasteur, M. Louis 289

Peckham, Grace, M. D 683

Photography in Color, The Problem of 531

Physics at the American Association 138

Physiological Experiment, Uses and Nature of 425

Physiology, The, of the Feet 895

Planet, the Trans-Neptunian, The Search for 714

Plants growing at Strange Heights 138

Playfair, Dr., on State Science 125

Playfair, Sir Lyon 37, 236

Playfair, Sir Lyon, Sketch of 117

Politics, Education in 840

Popular Miscellany 135, 281, 420, 565, 713, 856

Popularizing Agricultural Colleges 568

890 INDEX,

PAQB

Postal Savings Banks 160

Poteline 567

Presideut Lesley's Address 269

Primitive Money, The Origia of 296

" Prodigies," The Real Nature of. 713

Proem to Genesis 614

Putnam- Jacobi, Dr. Mary 342

Railway Ratos, Discrimination in 494, 586

Relations of Things, The Study of the 353

Religion, The Scientific Study of 145

Repetition, Mechanical, and Intellectual Knowledge 571

Resinous Woods, Durability of. 679

Rest, Holiday, Principles of 858

Rickoff, Rebecca D 812

Ring, Bishop's, around the Sun 466

Rood, Professor O. N 531

Roraima, Mount, Tlie Indians of 282

Salt Lakes of the Murghab Valley 423

Science in Common Schools 140

Schmidt, Oscar 817

School-Children, The Hand-work of 812, 843

Science in its Useful Applications 388

Science, Modern, and Modern Thought 18

Science, Relations of, to the Public Weal 37, 236

Scientific Research, Individual Enterprise in 421

Scientific Study, The Spirit and Method of. 192

Sewage, London, The Problem of 801

Silk, Shall we raise, at a Loss ? 136

Sketch, A Formosan 862

Smith, Chauncey 474 656

Society, The New England Meteorological 569

Soil, Arctic, Frozen, Depth of 857

Spencer, Herbert 367 754

Spider, An Affectionate Mother- 428

Stability in Systems of Thought 701

Star, The New 185

Storm, a, The Travels of 857

Stress, Limits of, on Iron Bridges 142

Study out of School 714

Success in Life, Conditions of. 429

Sun-heating Apparatus, A, for Rooms 566

Surgery, "Rages "in 422

Tarr, Ralph S 261

Taxation, State, Recent Experiments in 460

Teacher's Art, the, llow to exalt 569

Teeth, The. of the Coming Man 817

Telescope, Tiie Refracting 169

INDEX. 891

PAGE

Temperature of Germination 574

Ten Eyck, II. J 4C0

Thibetans, the, Home- Life of 112

Thomasvillo as a Winter Resort 188

Thought, Systems of, Stability in 701

Tobacco, More about the Effects of 5G8

Tornado-Prediction, Progress in 307

Tornado, The Genesis of a 409

Trees, Distribution of, in Canada 714

Trees, Estimating the Age of 424

Turkistan Deserts, the. Sands of 572

Uniformity, The, of Nature, again 407

Varieties, The, of the Human Species 315

Virchow, Professor Rudolph 607

Wallace, Alfred Russel 521

Weather- Lore, Animal 635

Wells, David A 721

Whale, the, Origin of 283

Whipping-Post, The 830

Will, The Motor Centers and the 100

Women in Astronomy 534

Wood, Agatized, of Arizona 362

Woods, how they preserve Moisture 429

Words and Things 573

Workmen's, A, Scientific Class 140

Youmans, E. L 188

Youmans, Eliza A 353

Zuni, Poetry and Reality in 717

END OF VOL. XXVIII.

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